Chopping Mall
Chopping Mall was my first blog, which I started way back in 2009. It was dedicated exlcusively to ridiculous and terrible films, which I watched a lot of back then. (So much time, so little work!)
I’ve resuced the posts from oblivion, to be preserved here for …uh… whatever.
It’s a pretty clunky process getting them out of blogspot (XML export, eww) and into here, so there may be a few formatting issues.
Underwater City
In general, I do my best to avoid giving spoilers in these blog posts. I try to describe a film without telling you any of the major twists and I try to use screenshots that give a sense of the action without giving anything away. I should say in advance, then, that this post includes spoilers. Though quite how you could spoil Underwater City is beyond me…
Underwater City does (surprisingly enough) exactly what it says on the tin. It is the story of a scientist’s plan to build a city on the seabed, totally self-sufficient and capable of sustaining life indefinitely. He has to justify his intentions (with vague claims about the seabed being the only safe post-nuclear-winter hideout) to his contracted builder, who is far more keen to get on with building a city on the moon.
Dark City
[I don’t know if the version I saw was the director’s cut…]
In my recent post on The Black Windmill, I mentioned that I watched a number of films that I would define as the criminally ignored. Well, if there is any film that earns the title “Criminally Ignored”, it must surely be Dark City.
Dark City is a beautiful film, Dark City is an interesting film, Dark City is a good, but most of all, Dark City is an underrated film.
Teleportal
From Nuisance Films comes two fabulous minutes of blood-drenched splatter horror. Though the fiom does cram a fair amount into it’s tiny running time, I shan’t say an awful lot here… save to say there are zombies, videogames and heaps of blood.
This was made for an ever-so reasonable £80 by Paul Shrimpton and Alex Chandon. Paul has previously won the Zone Horror ‘Cut!’ short films competition (with the, also excellent, ‘Hung Up’) and this film is definitely a film worth several watches. I just hope he makes something longer soon!
The Black Windmill
Many of the films I watch can be sorted into three categoraries - there’s big, well known films (there doesn’t seem much point writing about these, there are a million film blogs outs there…), there are the criminally ignored (the ones that really should be seen by everyone but just aren’t) and then the comically bad (the weird, the low-budget and the badly directed).
Black Windmill falls into none of these categories really. It’s not very well know, it probably doesn’t deserve much greater recognition and it’s not too bad. But not too good. So just…. you know….ok?
Poster Hunt #3 - I, The Jury
Another month can mean only one thing; it’s time for another Poster Hunt post. This time, fresh from the stash of exploitation flick posters for films I haven’t seen (and have little desire to…), comes Micky Spillane’s I, The Jury.
Coming from an era (1954…) when “man-woman violence” could be used as a selling point, here is I, The Jury
Summer 2009 Round-up.
‘Enjoy Summer 2009 at the cinema’, instructs the video. But summer’s the season of big, brash, balls-out, CGI-heavy, plot-light, no-brain blockbusters. Isn’t it?
Well, yes. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Whilst I’m not suggesting you should throw out all concern for substance and actually watch Transformers 2, a season of dumb, noisy and occasionally epic films can sometimes be more than a little fun.
So, here’s a round-up of my summer at the cinema; some good, some average and some dull as hell.
Godzilla vs. SpaceGodzilla (Gojira VS Supesugojira )
Chopping Mall Video: Watch SpaceGodzilla arrive on Earth and bully poor little baby Godzilla. See below or CLICK HERE! [Video deleted by request from Toho (Godzilla copyright owners). You’d have thought a single teaser scene, linking to a positive review would be free marketing for them, right? No, as we move into 2010, it seems big money studios are still too technology-illiterate to imagine the internet might actually help them]
Deathsport
Right, let’s start with what I knew about this film before I started. It stars (the late, great) David Carradine. It’s called Deathsport. If that wasn’t enough to make me want to watch, what more could I want? Could I cross my fingers and hope that, on top of those two, pretty convincing selling points, that it was produced by Roger Corman and set in a semi-medieval dystopian future? If I had done, I would’ve been in luck.
Ebira, Horror of the Deep / Godzilla Vs The Sea Monster
Now with added VIDEO. See below! ChoppingMall brings you handpicked scenes from reviewed films!
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Now, I can’t pretend to know a lot about Godzilla. Nor, for that matter, Japanese cinema in general. Or even Asian cinema. In fact, as far-east film culture goes, I am mostly ignorant. This has always seemed a shame - I know I should really make more of an effort - but for once I was thankful of the fact; my ignorance of the Gojira/Godzilla series meant that I was entirely unprepared for what this 1966 film threw at me.
Boa Vs Python
First off, I should make it very clear that this is a brilliant film. Not just good, but brilliant. It’s fast-paced, full of action and exactly the right length. After all, who wouldn’t be keen off a ninety minute serving of CIA vs Hunters vs massive Boa Constrictor vs massive Python?
It’s dumb, it’s brash, it’s action packed, it’s everything it sets out to be.
Basic plot as follows (not that it really matters…), dumb rich hunter orders a massive snake delivered to America, dumb rich hunter rounds up his mates to go hunt it, massive snake escapes, CIA get involved, CIA er… decide to use another snake to help them get the first snake, people get snaked, smakes fight.