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Movie reviews by James
Teitelbaum
Introduction...
I don't really watch television at all, but I do love
movies, and always have. I probably watch about two to three
films per
week, as a combination of DVDs, downloaded films, old VHS tapes, and
occasionally actually sitting in the theatre.
In 2006, my pal Mike, head of the Psychotronic Film Society, decided
to give away all of his VHS tapes - literally thousands of
them. I went over to his house and filled up a big box with
tapes, taking at least one hundred, and that was only a tiny fraction
of what he'd had. These were mostly 1950s B-movies, old horror
movies,
some music videos, documentaries, sex n' drugs exploitation films, hot
rod movies, and even some miscellaneous stuff
he'd taped from television. It is a fun
mix of material, and some of it is quite rare. No fine art here,
certainly no Bergman or Goddard, but pure low-brow entertainment, a
bottom-barrel pop-culture treasure trove of stuff so-bad-it-is-good.
I decided to write a
quick paragraph about what was on each tape - partially to remind
myself what the difference between Hot Rod Teens and Teen
Hot Rodders
was - and partially as a list or catalogue of what was in this vast
trove of material.
Meanwhile...
Having done some movie reviews for my web site in the past, mostly
longer and more in-depth reviews, I felt like I wanted to write more
about
proper cinema, beyond cataloguing my granted portion of the
Psychotronic collection. I
decided to write at least one short paragraph about every film
I saw,
Psychotronic or otherwise. So I began doing that in January,
2006, and did so through the end of 2007.
At that point, I had invested a lot of time and work into this project,
and decided to back off for a bit.
These reviews are by no means a comprehensive record of my favorite
films, and are not an attempt to create a definitive listing of what I
think the greatest movies of all time are. In fact, a lot of
these
films stink. These reviews are merely my own personal viewing
database, my
own film diary, from January 2006 through December 2007.
Now it is yours too!
Some of these reviews are shorter than they deserve to be, some of them
are longer. Quite frankly, they were written at the whim of my
time constraints, my mood, and the current enthusiasm level for this
project at the time I saw each individual film. As far as the
craft of pure film writing is concerned, I am truly proud of perhaps
20% of this material, but am making an effort as more time passes to
improve the depth and quality of every single new review.
The reaon for this is that I have decided that doing some film
criticism for a printed publication or a web site would be a fulfilling
avenue for my writing career; to that end I have also begun writing
reviews for the Rewind / DVD Compare web site (as of November,
2007). The interesting thing about that gig is that I have
absolutely no say as to what I am sent for review, and in almost all
cases, I am asked to look at things that I have no interest in.
Contrast this to the reviews here on my own site: be they highbrow art
films or mindless comedies, there is something in each film that drew
me to it, that made me think I might enjoy it (sometimes I did,
sometimes I didn't).
Please click on all text links in the reviews to go to Amazon.com - I
get pennies when you order, even if you order something other than what
you originally clicked on. In fact, next time you want to get
something from Amazon, please come here first and click through one of
my links or search boxes. Thanks!
And now, click here to go to the
movies!
Or click here to go to the
Psychotronic section (separate from the main section).
Or
click here to go the Rewind / DVD Compare forums
(do a search for my name to get to my reviews)
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Please click on all text links in the
reviews to go to Amazon.com -
I
get pennies when you order, even
if you order something other than what
you originally
clicked on.
In fact, next time you want to get
something from Amazon, please come here first
and click through one of
my links
or search boxes.
Thanks!.
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