CELLULOID BURNING

Dead Leaves is Ren and Stimpy meets Akira, but tripping balls on mescaline

Some of you out there may remember the short animated series Aeon Flux on MTV. This was when MTV didn’t revolve around insipidly stupid reality show contestants and when kids knew how to stay off my goddamn lawn. It was a cool, stylized, somewhat cerebral sci-fi action series geared towards older audiences with violence, sex, and trippy visuals. Dead Leaves is somewhat like a gonzo version of Aeon Flux that doesn’t take itself too seriously with every available knob cranked to 11 and all gauges firmly in the red.
(continue reading…)

Black Dynamite is Shaft in Africa (1973) meets Boss N*gger (1975), but bigger and blacker-er than either put together.
(continue reading…)

The Apartment = Mad Men + A Brief Encounter but with the Billy Wilder touch.

The Apartment is the best movie you’ve probably never heard of. You’ve probably never heard of The Apartment because it’s a “little” movie. By this, I mean that there are no buzz worthy bullet points that make the film stand out in anyway. There are no over-the top performances, no action or special effects, and no epic scope or culturally significant backdrop. The Apartment is just a simple yet perfectly executed little love story… but perfectly executing “little and “simple” is a really really hard thing to do.
(continue reading…)

Chungking Express = Chungking Express…

Wong Kar-wai is a flummoxing figure in the cinematic world. He has a large and fervent group of followers, matched by an equally large and violent group of detractors. My way of thinking is that Wong Kar-wai is a Centaur. A Centaur, for those of you rusty in your Greek Mythology, is a mythical being who is part man and part horse. He is every bit the director that both groups preach/vilify at the same time. That is part of the excitment/annoyance one gets when watching one of his films. You never know if you are going to get a film of super human talent or if you’ll be stuck sniffing the ass end of a horse for 2 hours.
(continue reading…)

Streets of Fire = Grease + Chinatown but with big hair and 80’s music.

Streets of Fire is a movie that TheHappyKnife had been bugging me to watch for a good 6 months…maybe longer. I had never heard of the movie before and the concept sounded kinda hooky and weird: An 80’s rock musical about 50’s greasers set in an alternate noir-like universe. I gave in one day and picked up the DVD used for $5. The DVD then sat for another few months before I threw it on my iPhone the day before I was flying out of town. At the airport, my flight was delayed so I decided to turn on the movie, just so I could get TheHappyKnife off my back. When I hit play on the movie, I saw the scene below and knew I was watching something special.

(continue reading…)

Cavite is Phone Booth meets City of God, but with the slimmest fraction of either budget.
(continue reading…)

(500) Days of Summer = Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind + High Fidelity but without Jim Carrey…or John Cusack

Let me go out on a limb right now, because I can save a good portion of the population a lot of time. If you are looking for a traditional boy meets girl, boy looses girl, boy gets girl back kinda romantic comedy you won’t enjoy this movie. There, look, I just saved some of you a $5 rental (or $1 if you use redbox)!

For those of you looking for a refreshing and honest look at love and why, despite the best of intentions, sometimes it isn’t enough to make relationships work. Then this movie is for you.

(continue reading…)

Welcome to the first installment of Date-Free Friday A.K.A. The Film Rub. We here at Celluloid Burning are committed to bringing you the coolest, not-so-fresh releases that you probably missed in theaters. Each week will aim to bring you the kind of release you never even knew you wanted. Films showcased for Date-Free Friday should be fairly easy to obtain from rental chains, from online rental services, or from your local retail stores.

This week’s installment is Punisher: War Zone (2008), also known as “box office poison” to some film studio accountants and “missed mortgage payment” to certain studio executives.
(continue reading…)