The Education Archives - Limited Edition
by Shawn McLoughlin

A lot of people think that when film was first created the motives of filmmakers were very different than they are today. I exponentially disagree with this claim. The purpose of film hasn't changed but modern directors are working on a much different technological level with a clearer idea of how to tell a story and how their audience will respond. Film only has five purposes; to document, to entertain, to convince, to educate and to titillate. You won’t find this in any film book. It’s Shawn McLoughlin’s theory.

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Emergency Squad
by Shawn McLoughlin

The story of Emergency Squad is a simple one. Meet cop hero, learn his wife has been killed, see cop hero pursue leads to eventually find the murderer. This ranks right up with boy-meets-girl stuff or “stop the presses” stuff in reporter films. It’s common, often duplicated, and methodically mundane. In the case of this film, though, there are interesting bits that separate it enough to warrant your interest.

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Esther Williams, Vol. 1
by Shawn McLoughlin

If the musical genre has become a footnote in cinema history (face it folks, Moulin Rouge! and Chicago did little to revive this) then the “aqua musical” isn’t likely to be in the vernacular of anyone except the most ardent film connoisseurs and those still with us from the Golden era of Hollywood.

But despite the fact that the sub-genre is truly extinct, it still stands remembered for the Hollywood icon that the genre was created for and who churned out consistent water-based hits for nearly two decades – Esther Williams.

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The Fabulous Journey To The Center Of The Earth
by Shawn McLoughlin

It may be true that the works of Jules Verne aren’t as significant or impacting to the youth of the current generation as they were to the preceding ones. It’s an argument that can be held for a lot of early, non-dark science-fiction. Perhaps with the advancement of our own sciences, the ideas behind the classic novels are viewed as silly, inconceivable, or simply incorrect.

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Flags Of Our Fathers
by Shawn McLoughlin

There are about a billion and a half films about World War II, and there are many more that aren’t about the War itself, but set during the war, with its atmosphere winding through the narrative like a thick fog. While like most people (and ALL men) I love a good WWII film, I have often wondered what ground left there is to cover.

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The Films of Kenneth Anger: Volume 1
by Shawn McLoughlin

Who?

I suppose it’s a fair enough question to ask. After all, even the most encyclopedic of film fanatics don’t mention Kenneth Anger at the beginning of their list of favorite directors. But if you took a look at the directors whose names you do see; David Lynch, Martin Scorsese, Andy Warhol – ALL cite the works of Kenneth Anger as a huge inspiration.

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The Films of Kenneth Anger: Volume 2
by Shawn McLoughlin

Back in January, Fantoma released what still stands as one of the greatest releases of 2007: The Films of Kenneth Anger: Volume I. The release collected the esteemed director’s earlier short films together with stellar transfers and wrapped it all up in an educating package. The delayed Volume II has made for an awful wait, during which time I could have gestated a child had I seen fit (or had the necessary genetalia) but now it’s here. It’s here in my grubby little hands. Finally!  

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Flashdance – Special Collector’s Edition
by Shawn McLoughlin

The 1980’s really were a different world. It was the decade that I feel saw the most diverse (though not necessarily great) film output. The super-seriousness of the 1970’s closed, and there was nothing aside from the fading Cold War to politically motivate. It was this type of climate that allowed for films like Flashdance to be made. A female charged variant on Rocky that featured MTV influenced visuals and highly choreographed dance sequences all set among the decaying steel mills of Pittsburgh.

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Frankenstein - The Legacy Collection
by Shawn McLoughlin & Cary Christopher
October 24, 2006

Based on the book by Mary Shelley and the play adaptation by Peggy Webling, James Whale's film tells the story of Henry Frankenstein, a scientist obsessed with finding the key to creating life. He assembles a body from parts of corpses and reanimates it using electricity. Repulsed by his creation, he rejects the monster. It roams the countryside, creating a wave of terror. Released the same year as Tod Browning's Dracula, Frankenstein made Boris Karloff a star and became the launching pad for a number of sequels.

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Ghost - Special Collector’s Edition
by Shawn McLoughlin

If you’re old enough to have any memories of the year 1990, chances are I don’t have to tell you anything about Ghost. I’m pretty sure you remember it.

Right after they decide they should get married, Sam Wheat (Patrick Swayze, Road House) is mugged and killed in front of his girlfriend Molly Jensen (Demi Moore, One Crazy Summer). Molly is understandably emotionally distraught over this but what she doesn’t know is that it isn’t quite over for Sam yet. He’s still hovering around – as a ghost. Invisible to the living, Sam spends most of his time just staying wherever Molly is, all the while coming to terms with his new ghostly existence.

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Girl Boss Guerilla
by Shawn McLoughlin

There are few things that I would rather see than chicks kicking ass. It doesn’t matter whose ass is being kicked, or why. I just want to see some women taking charge. It's my fetish – I admit.

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The Good Shepherd (2006)
by Shawn McLoughlin

In a Hollywood scene overblown with action films and plots that do little more than link car chases and daring escapes, it’s pretty rare to find a spy movie that represents what spying is all about - being secretive, and not getting caught. So in the same year that the latest Bond film, Casino Royale, came out and during which we were also graced with Mission: Impossible III, it’s nice to see a spy film that features almost no action at all and yet remains thrilling. That movie is The Good Shepherd.

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Grey’s Anatomy – Season Three (Seriously Ext.)
by Shawn McLoughlin

My whole family has been in and out of hospitals their entire lives – including myself. Getting treatment, dying, giving birth, and in the case of both my mother and I, working there. Anyone who spends enough time in a hospital, regardless of their position, is forever changed. They begin to develop a case of “heard it all, seen it all” and it becomes apparent that every acquaintance who doesn’t work in the field can see them wearing that vibe on their shoulders with a weight Atlas would be impressed to behold, although the hospital employee is usually so immersed in this feeling that they don’t tend to notice it themselves.

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The Grudge 2 – Theatrical Cut
by Shawn McLoughlin

The Grudge was created for one reason; to make money from horror fans and teenagers. Its success was pre-determined because it both rode the popularity of the Asian horror boom started by The Ring, and it starred Sarah Michelle Gellar of the incredibly popular and (at the time) recently cancelled Buffy The Vampire Slayer.

The Grudge 2 was created for one reason; The Grudge made a LOT of money.

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Halloween (2007) – Unrated Director’s Cut
by Shawn McLoughlin

I’m a huge defender of remakes. Don’t get me wrong, I grow tired of them like the rest of the world, but their existence doesn’t bother me. Out of the many horror remakes of recent years, a few of them even surprised me. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake was solid, and even last year’s Black Christmas impressed me by going of and exploring entirely new ground. So when it came time that my favorite horror film of all time got around to being remade, I really didn’t mind at all. John Carpenter’s Halloween is an absolute 5-star masterpiece and whether the remake was good or bad ultimately wouldn’t matter to me because I will always be returning every year at least once to revisit Halloween. Despite this, I never had the opportunity to see Rob Zombie’s update theatrically. But avoiding all comments on the film, I still went into this remake reasonably upbeat while still not expecting the original classic to birth another.

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Hannibal Rising
by Shawn McLoughlin

I wanna meet the guy (or gal) who asked “I wonder why Hannibal Lecter eats people?” Was it the series author Thomas Harris? Was it a film producer? Was it just ramblings of the collective unconscious that somehow physically manifested itself as a sales pitch? It’s difficult to say. It’s even more difficult to think that the film, which centers on the origins of one of the most compelling fictional serial killers wasn’t stopped in pre-pre-production by someone asking “is this necessary?” But it wasn’t. Hannibal Rising was created, screened, and now exists for home viewing.

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Hard Candy(2004)
by Shawn McLoughlin

As technology advances, so does society. It used to be that if you wanted to meet your soul mate, you had to leave the house once in a while. Go dancing, head to a library, chat up the teller at the bank, etc. This was the popular method of dating ever since men decided clubbing women was a less classy approach to getting laid than going clubbing. But, in just the past fifty years, there has been more and more implementation of technology into love matching. In the sixties and seventies, computer dating started catching on, and party lines developed; in the eighties, video dating became more popular. All of this has pretty much become non-existent in the eHarmony/match.com society we live in today, where you can go online to meet people with whom you share common interests. Now, all you need to get more ass than a toilet seat is a MySpace account and you’re good to go. High school hipsters rejoice!

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He-Man & She-Ra: A Christmas Special
by Shawn McLoughlin

Like it or not, for the most part Christmas has become a monument to consumerism. This is no recent thing either; I’m sure it was that way long before my presence graced this planet. But the '80s was the most unabashedly consumerist of them all. Throughout the decade, wherever the holiday could be exploited it was. No place was more ripe for this than the children’s shows that were arguably the most consumerist of them all – He-Man And The Masters Of The Universe and She-Ra: Princess Of Power. And boy did these shows kick their consumerism into high gear for He-Man & She-Ra: A Christmas Special.

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Heavy Metal Parking Lot
by Shawn McLoughlin

There are some experiences you have alone, and some that you feel compelled to share. Heavy Metal Parking Lot is best served as a shared experience. The title says it all; it is comprised entirely of fan footage in the parking lot of a Judas Priest concert circa 1986. Everything that one would expect - the mullets, the big hair, the underage drinking and the mindless ranting - are all present and accounted for. But this isn't mindless MTV footage. There are few documentaries that are able to truly capture the essence of obsesive fandom in an objective way. Even Trekkies, with its non-critical celebration of Star Trek fans, doesn’t come close to capturing the poignancy of the very real reactions of the heavy metal freaks in this audience.

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The Holiday (2006)
by Shawn McLoughlin

Last year there weren’t a whole lot of films that I was interested in seeing theatrically, but I do remember seeing the trailer for The Holiday and actually being intrigued. The cast is made up of actors I’m fond of, and the story looked sweet. Ultimately though, I forgot all about seeing it in theatres for a number of reasons and excuses. Most notably, I tend to forget about romantic comedies until the DVD release, and having recently ended a relationship didn’t help get me in the mood for romantic films either. Therefore, I was much more attracted to rewatching stuff like Black Christmas or Christmas Evil, and drinking… and smoking… and digressing.

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Horrors of Malformed Men
by Shawn McLoughlin

While he’s not a name thrown around with much weight in America, the late director Teruo Ishii was quite a prolific and well known director in Japan.

He rarely strayed outside genre films, but he deserves credit for bouncing around genres as often as he did. Horror films, superhero films, yakuza films, sukeban films – he definitely laid down his tracks. For all his credits though, there was one particularly uncanny film that is widely known and discussed, but rarely ever screened. That film is Horrors of Malformed Men. You could say it’s his lost epic, much like Dario Argento’s Four Flies on Grey Velvet, however, unlike that film, Horrors actually delivers on its reputation of oddity put to celluloid.

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Hostel (2005) – Director's Cut
by Shawn McLoughlin

Contrary to what most of the Internet forum bottom feeders would tell you, this is a damn fine time to be a horror fan. Sure we can all wax nostalgic for the 1970s and 1980s, as I do quite often, but in the DVD generation, there are a lot more cool flicks to see than what we were limited to by the local mom-and-pop rental outlet. Want to see some obscure foreign film? A trip to Amazon.com is all it takes, whereas a decade ago most of us, no matter how elitist we may act today, weren't even aware of some of the genre veterans we consider masters now. If I had to choose between too many options and too few, you probably wouldn't have to call the LaToya Jackson Hotline to wager my decision. [Old Man Voice] You bastard kids have it too good! [/voice]

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House of Wax (2005)
by Shawn McLoughlin

How many horror films were original in 2005? By original, I mean not a remake or a sequel. Let’s see, there was The Skeleton Key, and The Devil’s Rejects and… I give up. I guess what makes this year’s House Of Wax stand out is that it is a remake of a remake. But even at that, it has little-to-nothing in common with the 1953 version of House Of Wax starring Vincent Price, or 1933’s Mystery Of The Wax Museum. Fact is, there is little “mystery” at all. This Wax is a slasher film through and through, although it has enough network stars that it almost counts as a TV on DVD release.

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The Infernal Affairs Trilogy – Special Collector’s Edition Box Set
by Shawn McLoughlin

It’s never safe to assume anything, but I would wager that most serious film fanatics have already seen Martin Scorsese’s 2006 Oscar-hopeful, The Departed. If you haven’t, you really should. I do feel that it is an exceptional film with great acting and I wish Scorsese much luck on Oscar night. If he wins for The Departed, he will end his Susan Lucci-like streak of being overlooked, and it’s a great enough film that I wouldn’t consider it a guilt vote.

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The Intruder (1962) – Special Edition
by Shawn McLoughlin

Forget everything you’ve ever known about William Shatner. Forget Star Trek. Forget the Has Been and Rocket Man albums. Forget self-deprecation. Forget Miss Congeniality (which I did years ago and have never looked back!) You have to forget about all of this, because The Intruder comes from a time well before William Shatner boldly went anywhere, and he’s awesome in it. But he’s not awesome in the usual William Shatner way. He’s awesome because he gets the chance to do some great acting in an excellent role.

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Jess Franco’s Count Dracula (Special Edition)
by Shawn McLoughlin

When it comes to directing Eurotrash cinema, Jess Franco (or one of his other crafty pen names) has everyone beat hands down. The 175 year old director has made some 1,700 movies in his lifetime. Most of these have naked people doing naked things and often times getting massacred or hunted by ghosts in the process. That is if he actually gets them on camera. Most of his films are so amateurishly shot that you could get better results giving your seven-year-old cousin a camcorder and seven days to remake Apocalypse Now.

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The Last Round
by Shawn McLoughlin

First, he beat the living shit out of people in the boxing ring, holding the middleweight title for seven straight years (1970-1977). Then, he beat the shit out of people in movies. Later, he beat the shit out of his wife, killing her. Finally, a ditch beat the shit out his car, two passengers, and himself, killing all of them. Calling Carlos Monzon's life “violent” is a bit like calling a sphere “round.” It’s pretty damned obvious. The Last Round is one of those movies where he beat the shit out of a lot of people. I was going to entertain you all with a statistical figure, but I lost count about 40 minutes in.

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Leviathan
by Shawn McLoughlin

I’ve often noticed that there seems to be some kind of theme that Hollywood goes though where two or more films are released close to each other about roughly the same thing. World Trade Center and United 93 is an example of two 9/11 films from last year. Armageddon and Deep Impact both were asteroid-collision end-of-the-world films of 1998. Antz and A Bug’s Life were both animated insect films from that same year. These are off the top of my head, but I’m sure you can find an example or two from just about every year. 1989 was the first time I ever noticed this happening (although I’m sure someone can cite prior examples) when, in the same year, Deep Star Six, Leviathan and The Abyss were released. It seems as if, for whatever reason, life under water and all the advancements and hazards that come with the concept were a big theme that year.

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The Lost Room
by Shawn McLoughlin

Something happened in Room 10 of the Sunshine Motel, located just outside Gallup, New Mexico on May 4th, 1961. What exactly happened isn’t certain. As far as anyone who worked in the motel remembers, that day was like any other – and there were only ever nine rooms.

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Lovejoy - The Complete Season 1
by Shawn McLoughlin

Throughout the 1980’s PBS stations broadcasted quite a few British mystery programs that American audiences would never have seen otherwise. Programs like Mystery! helped to showcase the country's unequalled output in the genre. But for every detective show that made it to air in America, there were other series that never got the limelight. One such show is Lovejoy, which is making its debut in North America as affordable DVD season sets thanks to Warner Home Video.

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Luciano Ercoli’s Death Box Set
by Shawn McLoughlin

Lucio Ercoli may not be the first name that comes to mind with the giallo genre. He didn’t make many films, let alone ones that fell into genre limitations. Of these, though, two similarly titled films certainly deserve mention, two films which NoShame has collected into a neat little package called Lucio Ercoli’s Death Box Set.

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A Man Called Magnum
by Shawn McLoughlin

Italian films, so it seems, are rarely boring to look at. Even the most mundane and pedestrian plots provide ample opportunity for style. And why shouldn’t they? They are Italian products. Their cars are sexier, their coats look much nicer than yours and they have several thousand years of art history behind them, where as the Americas are just now creeping up on 230. Hollywood may have been the first to capitalize on film as an industry, but it didn’t take long for others to take the formula, make it their own, and inject their own style. This film, A Man Called Magnum, is a perfect example of one such film.

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Maniac Cop
by Shawn McLoughlin

I miss the 1980s more than any well-adjusted 25-year-old ever should. There is just something awesome about that decade I grew up in which will surely resonate within me forever. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to put my finger on what exactly makes the '80s so special to me, but I don’t care, because that nostalgic feeling comes back every time I listen to a New Wave record or watch one of that decade’s great films. Today we have a perfect example of what strikes that chord inside me – 1988’s Maniac Cop. 

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