Posted by Notcot on Jul 16, 2011 in
Cult Film
This box-office hit from 1969 is an important pioneer of the American independent cinema movement, and a generational touchstone to boot. Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper play hippie motorcyclists crossing the Southwest and encountering a crazy quilt of good and bad people. Jack Nicholson turns up in a significant role as an attorney who joins their quest for awhile and articulates society’s problem with freedom as Fonda’s and Hopper’s characters embody it. Hopper directed, essentially bringing the no-frills filmmaking methods of legendary, drive-in movie producer Roger Corman (The Little Shop of Horrors) to a serious feature for the mainstream. The film can’t help but look a bit dated now (a psychedelic sequence toward the end particularly doesn’t hold up well) but it retains its original power, sense of daring and epochal impact. — Tom Keogh, Amazon.com
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Tags: 2000, amazon, american independent cinema, box-office, com, crazy quilt, Dennis Hopper, Easy, easy rider, epochal, feature, FILM, filmmaking, freedom, generational, hippie, Impact, Jack Nicholson, movement, Peter Fonda, Pioneer, power, power sense, psychedelic, quilt, Rider, Roger Corman, Role, Southwest, Tom Keogh, touchstone
Posted by Notcot on May 15, 2010 in
Cult Film
Average Rating: 4.0 / 5 (41 Reviews)
Amazon.co.uk Review
This box-office hit from 1969 is an important pioneer of the American independent cinema movement, and a generational touchstone to boot. Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper play hippie motorcyclists crossing the Southwest and encountering a crazy quilt of good and bad people. Jack Nicholson turns up in a significant role as an attorney who joins their quest for awhile and articulates society’s problem with freedom as Fonda’s and Hopper’s characters embody it. Hopper directed, essentially bringing the no-frills filmmaking methods of legendary, drive-in movie producer Roger Corman (The Little Shop of Horrors) to a serious feature for the mainstream. The film can’t help but look a bit dated now (a psychedelic sequence toward the end particularly doesn’t hold up well) but it retains its original power, sense of daring and epochal impact. — Tom Keogh, Amazon.com
Easy Rider
Buy Now for £21.49
Tags: amazon, amazon co uk, american independent cinema, Average, boot, box-office, Cinema, crazy quilt, Dennis Hopper, Easy, easy rider, generational, hippie, Jack Nicholson, little shop of horrors, movement, original power, Peter Fonda, Pioneer, power sense, quilt, rating, Reviews, ReviewThis, Rider, Roger Corman, shop of horrors, Southwest, Tom Keogh, touchstone
Posted by Notcot on May 10, 2010 in
Cult Film
Average Rating: 4.5 / 5 (9 Reviews)
Amazon.co.uk Review
Even by Roger Corman’s thrifty standards, The Little Shop of Horrors was a masterpiece of micro-budget movie-making. Scripted in a week and shot, according to Corman, in two days and one night, it made use of a pre-existing store-front set that serves as the florist’s shop where most of the action takes place. Our hero is shambling loser Seymour Krelboined, sad-sack assistant at Mushnick’s skid-row flower shop and who is hopelessly in love with Audrey, his fellow worker. Threatened with the sack by Mushnick, Seymour brings in a strange plant he’s been breeding at home, hoping it’ll attract the customers. It does, and the store starts to prosper, but Seymour is horrified to discover that the only thing the plant will thrive on is blood, fresh, human blood at that.
The sets are pasteboard, the acting is way over the top, and altogether Little Shop is an unabashed high-camp spoof, not to be taken seriously for a second. Even so, Corman notes that this was the movie “that established me as an underground legend”. Charles Griffith, the film’s screenwriter, plays the voice of the insatiable plant (“FEED ME!”), and billed way down the cast list is a very young Jack Nicholson in a bizarre, giggling cameo as Wilbur Force, a masochistic dental patient demanding ever more pain. The film’s cult status got it turned into an off-Broadway hit musical in the 1980s, with a great pastiche doo-wop score by Alan Menken, which was subsequently filmed in 1986. The musical remake is a lot of fun, but it misses the ramshackle charm of the original.
On the DVD: Little Shop of Horrors on disc does not even boast a trailer, just some minimal onscreen background info about the production. The clean transfer, 4:3 ratio, and digitally remastered mono sound faithfully recapture Corman’s bargain-basement production values. –Philip Kemp
Little Shop of Horrors
Buy Now for £51.64
Tags: Alan Menken, amazon, amazon co uk, Audrey, Average, bargain basement, Blood, Charles Griffith, cult status, dental patient, fellow worker, FILM, Horrors, Jack Nicholson, Little, micro budget, mono sound, Mushnick, off broadway, Philip Kemp, plant, production, rating, ReviewEven, Reviews, Roger Corman, Seymour, Seymour Krelboined, Shop, strange plant, thrifty, underground legend, way, Wilbur Force
Posted by Notcot on May 8, 2010 in
Cult Film
Average Rating: 4.5 / 5 (9 Reviews)
Amazon.co.uk Review
Even by Roger Corman’s thrifty standards, The Little Shop of Horrors was a masterpiece of micro-budget movie-making. Scripted in a week and shot, according to Corman, in two days and one night, it made use of a pre-existing store-front set that serves as the florist’s shop where most of the action takes place. Our hero is shambling loser Seymour Krelboined, sad-sack assistant at Mushnick’s skid-row flower shop and who is hopelessly in love with Audrey, his fellow worker. Threatened with the sack by Mushnick, Seymour brings in a strange plant he’s been breeding at home, hoping it’ll attract the customers. It does, and the store starts to prosper, but Seymour is horrified to discover that the only thing the plant will thrive on is blood, fresh, human blood at that.
The sets are pasteboard, the acting is way over the top, and altogether Little Shop is an unabashed high-camp spoof, not to be taken seriously for a second. Even so, Corman notes that this was the movie “that established me as an underground legend”. Charles Griffith, the film’s screenwriter, plays the voice of the insatiable plant (“FEED ME!”), and billed way down the cast list is a very young Jack Nicholson in a bizarre, giggling cameo as Wilbur Force, a masochistic dental patient demanding ever more pain. The film’s cult status got it turned into an off-Broadway hit musical in the 1980s, with a great pastiche doo-wop score by Alan Menken, which was subsequently filmed in 1986. The musical remake is a lot of fun, but it misses the ramshackle charm of the original.
On the DVD: Little Shop of Horrors on disc does not even boast a trailer, just some minimal onscreen background info about the production. The clean transfer, 4:3 ratio, and digitally remastered mono sound faithfully recapture Corman’s bargain-basement production values. –Philip Kemp
The Little Shop of Horrors
Buy Now for £10.15
Tags: Alan Menken, amazon, amazon co uk, Audrey, Average, bargain basement, Blood, Charles Griffith, cult status, dental patient, fellow worker, FILM, Horrors, Jack Nicholson, Little, micro budget, mono sound, Mushnick, off broadway, Philip Kemp, plant, production, rating, ReviewEven, Reviews, Roger Corman, Seymour, Seymour Krelboined, Shop, strange plant, thrifty, underground legend, way, Wilbur Force
Posted by Notcot on Mar 27, 2010 in
Cult Film
Tags: Advantage, Average, Corman, Cult, cult films, Films, rating, Reviews, Roger, Roger Corman