The Ring Two: Unrated Widescreen Edition
by Shawn McLoughlin

Much has been said about repressed sexuality embeddedin horror films. The stabbing of phallic knifes in uncountable slasher films, sex being equated with death, and other such nonsense. The American The Ring franchise is an original in that the films deliver an important social message about people just like the intended audience; you.

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Satan’s Blood
by Shawn McLoughlin

In horror film history, bad shit happens to stupid people. It’s really quite true. Most of the time the smarter people tend to survive the zombies, psycho killers, monsters or whatever situation they inadvertently (almost always inadvertently) managed to get themselves involved in. They are the heroes. They are icons. They are the Bruce Campbells, the Jamie Lee Curtises, the Heather Langenkamps and the Corey Feldmans…

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School For Scoundrels – Unrated Ballbuster Edition
by Shawn McLoughlin

It’s time once again for “Learning Movies with Shawn McLoughlin.”

In the past I have provided you with examples of Neo-Realism and Cinéma vérité. Today we are going to look at a new genre that School For Scoundrels has its roots firmly planted in.

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The Sensational 70s
by Shawn McLoughlin

Sure, the alliteration displayed in the title of this documentary is both intentional, and a bit passé. It’s an easy title that hardly says anything, so you would be forgiven to not glance twice at something called The Sensational 70s, which has its name displayed over a backlit disco ball. But I think that you should take another look because, inside, there are ten hours of goodness that definitely display what was sensational, and what was not, about the 1970s.

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Serenity – Collector’s Edition
by Shawn McLoughlin

“Firefly went on the air a few years ago and was instantly hailed by critics as one of the most canceled shows of the year.”

The quote above, from Joss Whedon (from the introduction in the special features) is both a truth and an indication of his ability to laugh at himself. Firefly was the third project that Joss Whedon had on television in 2002 alongside the seventh season of the immensely popular Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the fourth season of that show’s spin-off, Angel. Firefly was unlike either of those programs. It was a genre-crossing sci-fi/western set in space hundreds of years in the future following the crew of a spaceship that was on the losing side of a civil war.

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She's The Man
by Shawn McLoughlin

Who doesn't love a tomboy? You can rough-house with them, you can belch in their presence, and - BONUS! - they don't have testicles. Dress that tomboy up as a man, though, and you'll see just how feminine they really are.

Viola (Amanda Bynes) is a tomboy. And that, you see, is a problem. Her divorced parents would rather see her grow up into a debutante lifestyle.

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Smokin’ Aces
by Shawn McLoughlin

I remember seeing the trailer for Smokin’ Aces, but I don’t remember the trailer itself. I remember staring at the one-sheet while my friend and I stood in line to see The Queen, immediately after we exited a screening of Babel. As I stood there, aggressively depressed for some reason I don’t recall and attracted to the brightly colored imagery, I pointed at the poster and said, “I kind of want to see that.” She replied with an equally repressed enthusiasm channeling the most adjective-less film critic (Peter Travers, I’m looking at you), “Yes, it looks like a fun romp.”

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Snake Woman’s Curse
by Shawn McLoughlin

Thanks again to the incredible success of J-Horror and American remakes of J-Horror films (which, for better or worse, is an almost dead trend), the floodgates of foreign horror films have opened, allowing film fanatics the first opportunity to see many incredible, and not so incredible, films in their original languages and framing.

Of course, what we’ve actually seen stateside is but the small tip of the biggest iceberg for unreleased foreign films. Last year, Nobuo Nakagawa became the talk of the elite when the influential Criterion Collection label released Jigoku, which is a surreal masterpiece of being a magnet to bad luck. Since then though, there has been nothing. Not a single other Nakagawa film has graced the silver disc in North America.

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Spice World
by Shawn McLoughlin

The Spice Girls were an interesting pop culture phenomenon. I was in high school when they first broke on the scene and by the time I graduated they were gone. They were like one brightly burning comet that just whizzed by and were gone before a lasting impression could really be made. Well, lasting impression may be a bit of a stretch. The fact is, they did leave very large footprints..

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Spider-Man 2.1
by Shawn McLoughlin

Has anyone reading this not seen Spider-Man 2 yet?

Wait, don’t answer that. And not because I don’t care about your answer, but because I can’t hear you, and you will look like a dolt and your coworkers will laugh at you when they see you talk to your computer. You’re not Steven Hawking. Shut your trap.

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St. Francis (2002)
by Shawn McLoughlin

St. Francis of Assisi, the Patron Saint of Animals, is one of the most universally respected Saints in the Catholic Church. There is something about his personality; his riches-to-rags lifestyle, his nobleness, and, above all, his true love of humanity that makes followers find ease in gravitating to him over others. Having left the Church and being as materialistic as I am, I still feel a stronger connection to this man's values than I do others; I certainly hold a large amount of respect for him. Michele Soavi's recently released television mini-series does a fantastic job of reinforcing exactly why.

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The Story Of A Cloistered Nun
by Shawn McLoughlin

There are plenty of genres and subgenres of films that really narrow down their audience to a bare minimum. The exploitation (considered by some to be a subgenre of the horror film – I disagree) genre, which already appeals to a unique sect of moviegoer, also has several subgenres to capitalize on the exploitative fetish of your choosing. Of the many choices available, probably the most outright exploitative is the Nunsploitation film (which owes more than a small debt of inspiration to the women-in-prison films). If you want to see some nuns get down to business, you would be amazed at the plethora of options available to you. Story Of A Cloistered Nun is a very early film from that genre, and it would be difficult to place in any other, but just how exploitative is it?

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The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh
by Shawn McLoughlin

Anyone who is a fan of genre cinema at one point or another has to watch a giallo film…there is just no getting around it. Giallo films are essentially over-the-top, Italian-made, murder mysteries, often with extremely graphic gore and take their name from the old pulp paperbacks with yellow covers that inspired these films (giallo is the Italian word for ‘yellow.’) They usually have a very unique soundtrack and exaggerated camerawork. Typically these films have all the characteristics of a slasher film, but at the basest level they retain a whodunit motif that harkens back to dime store pulp-novels. While it is true that giallo films use slasher conventions and rules, it should be noted that they came first; giallo films are actually what inspired most modern slashers (that, and Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho.)

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The Subject Is Sex
by Shawn McLoughlin

There has been something of a renaissance among compilation films lately. It seems that since Blue Underground released its collection of Mondo films, many cult cinema studios have also been releasing things along those lines. Sometimes there is a great deal to be had from viewing these. At the very least, some are interesting from a “holy shit!” perspective of uniqueness and originality. Most recently, the compilation light has shone brightly with film trailer compilations such as 42nd Street Forever, and Something Weird’s Extra Weird Sampler. But the compilation we are looking at today is quite possibly the most random of the bunch, Other Cinema’s release, The Subject Is Sex.

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Sunday Driver
by Shawn McLoughlin

If Rockstar Games is widely known, it isn’t for producing films so much as it is for creating controversy. Last year they became the subject of a lot of finger-pointing by politicians for leaving a sexual mini-game in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. It wasn’t their first controversy; in fact the entire Grand Theft Auto franchise has always been under scrutiny by people who make themselves out to be purveyors of decency. But Rockstar makes great games and they are currently pushing the non-violent Rockstar Presents Table Tennis on the Xbox 360. Gone are non-playable gang members swearing at me, replaced with vulgar British people swearing at me over Xbox Live as I check them in some Ping Pong with my backhand backswing.

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The Super Bowl Shuffle: 20th Anniv. Collector’s Ed.
by Shawn McLoughlin

In our super-secret, accessible only via retinal scan staff forum, where all of the DIMP writers beg for DVDs like Leroy the bum outside your local liquor store, Cary Christopher warned me not to do it. His exact quote (completely used without his permission) when I said I would review this is as follows: 

“You poor, poor bastard..."

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Tactics: Volume 1
by Shawn McLoughlin

While I’m far from being one of the biggest “otaku” geeks out there (or whatever the hell they call themselves to separate their collective nerdiness from the rest of the D&D playing, Lord Of The Rings watching dorks) I still loves me some anime. Truth is though, that even after years of saying this, a huge wealth of material remains unseen by me. Sure, I’ve seen Ghost In The Shell, Ninja Scroll, most of Miyazaki’s catalogue and can prove how “old school” I am by my comic book store purchased bootleg Bubblegum Crisis VHS tapes, but the fact remains that I am mostly inexperienced outside of the popular titles, and any others that I have seen were recommendations of friends. I simply don’t follow the scene that closely.

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Tekkonkinkreet
by Shawn McLoughlin

A lot of detractors of anime either have entirely legitimate reasons for their dislike of the genre or none at all. Some people just can’t stand anime art, or at least what they perceive is anime art. That’s a legitimate reason for not wanting to see, or even expose yourself to it. Others complain that “it’s all the same,” and those people are either not watching enough variety of anime, or all they know of it come from Dragonball Z and Yu-Gi-Oh reruns. Sadly, trying to get through to someone that has no real interest that anime is not all card throwing, power leveling and monster collecting is roughly as difficult as trying to coax a cow to a slaughterhouse by whispering in its ear what a delicious steak it would make. Chances are it ain’t happening.

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Tempest (1982)
by Shawn McLoughlin

Jesus… where do I start with Tempest? I mean you are probably familiar with Shakespeare’s play “The Tempest” right? I mean… you’re not that uncultured, are you? Good. Great! Now I can jump right into it.

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The Complete Thin Man Collection – DVD box set
by Shawn McLoughlin

In the wave of mysteries and police dramas that were popular in the 1930s and 40s, there were only a few that stood out, and fewer still that have maintained their popularity to this day. The enormous and unexpected popularity of the whodunit film The Thin Man led to a series of films that remained popular from its debut in the Depression era, straight on through past the end of the Second World War. Fans of this classic mystery and comedy series have been clamoring for years to own the complete saga. Warner Brothers has now answered those calls by released a box set containing all six of the feature releases along with a bonus disc of extras, all in an attractive box set.

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The Two Jakes – Special Collector’s Edition
by Shawn McLoughlin

More than a decade and a World War had passed since the events of Chinatown. But while the war changed the lives of everyone involved, as well as the country itself, little has changed for Jake Gittes (Jack Nicholson, reprising his role and also directing). Despite being a decorated war hero, he still finds himself a private investigator and still exposes adulterous behavior for anyone who hires him to do so. But sometimes the simplest cases have a tendency to turn their ugly heads and make things a lot worse than anyone involved can possibly imagine. It’s happened to Jake before, and it’s about to happen again.

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Ugly Betty – Complete 1st Season (The Bettyfied Ed.)
by Shawn McLoughlin

I don’t watch a considerable amount of TV. Of the shows currently in production, I watch Doctor Who, Battlestar Galactica, My Name is Earl, Grey’s Anatomy, the occasional Family Guy and, my favorite, Ugly Betty. But with the exception of the last two; I have the DVD format to thank for getting me my fix.

I love episodic television, but I don’t like to commit to a viewing schedule, thereby giving up my time away from work to revolve my life around television and then get frustrated by missing an episode. The second season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer was the last series I caught every episode on television when it aired, but that’s not the case any more. Two things changed my TV watching habits in 2006. The first was finally upgrading to a DVR box, and the second and much bigger influence was having a girlfriend that wanted to watch Ugly Betty. 

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Unknown (2006)
by Shawn McLoughlin

Strangers wake up in an abandoned warehouse. They don’t know who they are. They don’t know how they got there. They don’t know how long they’ve been there. Judging from the conditions they wake up to (one’s tied to a chair, one has a broken nose, one is dangling handcuffed from elevated rafting and the other two remain relatively unharmed) and a newspaper story revealing details about a kidnapping (curiously with no photographs of the missing) they determine that some of them must be among those kidnapped, and others must be the kidnappers. But who is who? Who are the kidnappers and who are the kidnapped?

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The Vice Guide To Travel
by Shawn McLoughlin

Every once in a while something falls into my lap. I get a DVD in my mailbox that I didn’t order. Our promotions guru didn’t send it to me, and I certainly wasn’t seeking it out, yet somehow someone got my address and sent me a DVD in hopes that I would review it. When it’s called something like Slaughtered Vomit Dolls, I send it to someone else and forget all about it, hoping that whoever sent it to me eats it turning into a subway entrance when they thought it was the parking garage. But sometimes it’s something that actually intrigues me, like last week when I received The Vice Guide To Travel.

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The Wizard
by Shawn McLoughlin

During the “Second Renaissance” of video gaming - the rise of the Nintendo Entertainment System - gaming was at the most fun and uncomplicated point that it ever achieved. Gamers of the first home system generation were coming back into the mix and the youth of America started habitually playing video games en masse. The home market was starting to make serious cash and magazines devoted to gaming were popping up on newsstands everywhere. It wasn’t quite mainstream yet, but it was making its mark, and it was only a matter of time before movie studios noticed and cashed in on video games’ booming popularity.

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The Wolf Man - The Legacy Collection
by Shawn McLoughlin & Cary Christopher
October 26, 2006

Larry Talbot returns to Wales in order to live on his father’s estate. While trying to save a local woman from a vicious wolf attack, Talbot is bitten and is soon saddled with the curse of the werewolf Upon the rise of each full moon, he changes into a wolf and seeks to kill the people he loves. This classic Universal monster movie features state of the art effects and a fantastic cast, including Lon Chaney Jr. and Claude Rains.

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You Stupid Man
by Shawn McLoughlin

The romantic comedy. Is there a single genre (besides the modern horror film) so attached to its own repetitiveness? So fixed on formula? You Stupid Man certainly isn’t a movie that will convince you otherwise. But here is the deal for those of you that might be intrigued by this “new” release just in time for Valentine’s Day (and President’s Day, if you happen to feel all cuddly on the 20th)...

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