Author Archives: bandsaboutmovies

Velvet Jesus trailer

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Velvet Jesus, the gripping semi-autobiographical story of a man’s desperate journey to discover the truth about his past, will release Tuesday, May 9 globally from Breaking Glass Pictures.

The movie, starring Ernest Harden Jr from the acclaimed new film Sweetwater, is directed by Anthony Bawn and Spencer Bollins.

“Velvet Jesus has elements of my real-life journey,“ said writer and executive producer Charles McWells, who wrote the successful stage play version of Velvet Jesus a few years ago. “But I think this new story is much harder hitting because it takes us to the unseen side of the #MeToo movement for men.”

The gut-wrenching story tells of a 30-year-old African American man, Carl (Jensen Atwood) who is forced to deal with the echoes of his past. In an attempt to silence the emotional demons that have haunted him his entire life, he decides to confront the man who he holds responsible for his torment. Though given his diminished mental state, can it be trusted that Vernon Chambers (Ernest Harden, Jr.) really did what Carl accused him of, or is it all a figment of Carl’s confused imagination? And if he did, what is the price Vernon should pay for robbing Carl of his childhood?

Collins states, “I remember when Charles brought me this project. I was excited because it was based on a subject that we very seldom talk about especially in the Black community and most certainly among Black men. Even though statistics show that every one in six Black men has been sexually assaulted and I am one of those six. It’s always been a dirty secret. The #MeToo movement gave us permission to talk about it amongst women.”

“But it’s never been something that we can talk about amongst men (more specifically not Black men). It’s not something that we openly talk about, but it is something that happens to men, as well as women. A lot of Black men have experienced this, but we don’t talk about it because of the stigma attached and the notion that everyone will assume that if you’re a straight person, you’re gay and if you’re gay, you like it. So, when Charles McWells gave me the opportunity to tell this story in a different way, I jumped at the opportunity to do it.”

Jensen Atwood and Melvin Ward also star in Velvet Jesus, hitting digital platforms in US, Canada, Australian, New Zealand, UK and more.

Parasite Lady (2023)

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Chris Alexander has been making movies for Full Moon for a bit and I dug Necropolis: Legion — yes, it can never live up to the insanity of Necropolis, but it sure tries — as well as his Scream of the Blind Dead. He also made two other vampire movies, Space Vampire and Queen of Blood, which looks and feels like Jean Rollin and I have no complaints about that.

Arrielle Edwards plays the lead, a redhead pale vision that wanders the hallways of a hotel room and the tourist traps of Niagra Falls looking for victims. The first film I’ve seen from Full Moon’s Delirium Films label, this is the kind of movie that people are going to find on Tubi and get enraged about because nothing happens. It’s also the kind of movie that lunatics — like, you guessed it, me — are going to fall in love with, because not only does it feel like Rollin, but it feels like the last ten movies of Jess Franco, films that he shot in a meeting room in a hotel, with gorgeous women rolling around to music. Except this has sounds that seem like they come from not just underwater but somewhere in the dimension a few thousand doors away. Also: please know that me invoking the name of Franco is no slight; it’s the kind of honor I would not bestow upon many. Some people use the feel of Jess and brag about it. It takes a certain bravery to completely live in the nothing happens but everything goes down madness.

Alexander referred to it as the “next feminine, fevered, fluid-filled dream-state existential exploitation” that he’s making. It also has ties to past films, as Thea Munster is Lady Death from Girl With a Straight Razor. And Kate Gabriele and Ali Chappell are also strong in the cast. It’s like Alexander is assembling a company of players willing to go all the way into the darkness — and neon light — for his films. I also applaud this.

A dreamy movie filled with snow, carnivals and long nails that slice into milky white necks, all while distorted sounds and fuzzed out tones play. And just 42 minutes? Was this made just for me?

You can watch this on Tubi.

TUBI ORIGINAL: Twisted Date (2023)

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Jade Wilson (Selina Kaye) and her boyfriend Devin Jackson (Tremayne Norris) have a scam going where she hooks up with rich men and he breaks in to steal from them. Sure, he’s an abusive loser, but they’re making money. Except that their latest target fights back and gets killed, which sends Jade on the run.

FBI agent Rachel Davies (Catherine Healy) is trying to find Jade, who has changed her last name to Slay and is working — and living above — a dry cleaners in Los Angeles, thanks to the kindly manager Olivia (Liz Fenning). Devin’s trying to get back in her life, calling constantly and even killing her friend Ashley (Lanett Tachel, who also was one of the writers) to get information on where she is.

So anyways, this is Los Angeles, and that means tons of rich and famous people come through the dry cleaners every day, bringing back black tie gala outfits in to be cleaned. One night, when Lacey (Andria B Langston) takes her out clubbing, Jade ends up meeting Francisco (Danny Pardo), a famous photographer who offers to take photos of her late at night. For being a rough girl from the wrong side of the tracks, Jade is actually rather naive — or stupid — because she has no idea this old white dude wants to put it on her. She flips out, they scuffle, he accidentally falls down the steps and she tries to cover it up.

She gets another lucky break when a restaurant owner ends up taking her out to an opening and introducing her to Frank (Christian Torres Villalobos), the hottest producer in town. He’s smitten but has no idea — she doesn’t either — that he’s just met his father’s killer.

Remember Devin? Well, he’s in town and getting closer, plus there’s  Tawni (Brittney Ayona Clemons), the cattiest — and perhaps most attractive — woman at the dry cleaners. She tries to get ahead by blackmailing Jade and ends up dead in a steam room. Then, Frank wants answers as to who killed his dad, as he hacks his father’s security system and sees what happened. And oh yeah — here comes Devin.

Directed by Corey Grant, who co-wrote the script with Amy Irons and Tachel, Twisted Date puts a girl who isn’t really all that innocent into a town that is filled with every more twisted people, stirs it up and sees who makes it out alive. Just sit back, relax your brain and watch the fireworks.

Mirror Mirror 4: Reflections (2000)

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Annika (Kim Mai Guest) watched her boyfriend die, the victim of — you know it — the evil mirror. A year later, she thinks that she is getting the power to wish people dead, all while a homeless man keeps telling her just as strong she is and yeah, he’s the spirit of the mirror and he’s Billy Drago, but he isn’t playing the same role as the last movie.

And his name is Frederick Champion.

Director and co-writer Paulette Victor-Lifton directed and co-wrote this with Annette and Gina Cascone, who were the ones who wrote the original Mirror, Mirror. Paulette was married to this film’s producer, Jimmy Liftin, and today she has directed 17 movies and is an ADR facility supervisor on tons of big streaming programs.

How strange that the movies in this series play tag, if you will.

In Mirror, Mirror and Mirror, Mirror 2: Raven Dance, William Sanderson plays two unconnected roles.

In Mirror, Mirror 2: Raven Dance and Mirror, Mirror 3: The Voyeur, Mark Ruffalo shows up as two different people.

And now, Billy Drago does the same.

There are ravers getting killed by this mirror, which is a slasher but not really. I can’t believe that there are four of these movies but I can believe if there were five, I would be watching that movie now.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Mirror, Mirror III: The Voyeur (1994)

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With Mirror, Mirror III: The Voyeur, the filmmakers finally smartened up and said, “If we’re going to keep making movies where people fuck an evil mirror, maybe the movies should be erotic thrillers.”

Directed by Rachel Gordon (Animal Attraction 3, Dungeon of Desire) and Virginia Perfili (who wrote the last Mirror, Mirror movie) and written by Steve Tymon (Ring of Fire II: Blood and Steel, Witchcraft 5: Dance With the Devil), this is the story of Cassandra (Monique Parent, who was in Night Dreams for Playboy as well as several other movies you watched on Cinemax on Friday after 11 PM). She’s a witch who wants an artist named Anthony (Billy Drago). She’s killed by the drug dealer she was really with (Richard Cansino) and is trapped by the mirror, only leaving to have gauzy candlelit sex with Billy Drago and have you seen Monique Parent? Anyways, good for you, Billy.

The problem is that Billy’s art career takes off and he ends up making love to his agent (Elizabeth Baldwin), which brings Cassandra out of the mirror and killing anyone and everyone.

For some reason, David Naughton is a detective and Mark Ruffalo shows up for his second Mirror, Mirror movie but isn’t the same character. All he does is make a sandwich, the most dramatically edited sandwich making scene ever committed to VHS.

I really believe that this movie had nothing to do with the series originally, then they decided to work in the mirror angle, because it was called Dreaming of Angelica and there’s no Angelica in this.

This movie waits 17 minutes for the opening credits and I love it for making that call.

How did this movie get “Fish, Chips and Sweat,” “You and Your Folks and Me and My Folks,” “Music for My Mother” and “I Wanna Know If It’s Good to You” by Funkadelic in it?

This is the kind of movie that tests the patience of normal movie watchers and you have to know that I’m watching every moment just in pure glee, sheer joy, feeling the occult magic trapped in a movie that was once locked on the five dollars for five nights wall in a mom and pop store and now it’s streaming where everyone can be obliterated by scene after scene of Billy Drago’s butt piston pumping like those oil wells in the beginning of Dallas.

No one fucks a mirror, though.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Night Gallery season 2 episode 18: The Waiting Room/Last Rites for a Dead Druid

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I’m really enjoying the last two episodes of this show, which take two stories and have one director — in this case, Jeannot Szwarc — tell both of them.

“The Waiting Room” is written by Rod Serling and starts with Sam Dichter (Steve Forrest) riding into the type of Western town that has a man swinging from a tree. As he enters a bar, he’s recognized by one of four card players, Doc Soames (Buddy Ebsen). Dichter soon reveals he’s the kind of man that’s sad that he missed getting to see that hanging. That’s when Charlie McKinley (Lex Barker) stands up from the card game, says it’s time to go and goes outside to be shot in the head, a fact that surprises only Dichter.

The same exact thing happens once an hour, as Joe Bresto (Albert Salmi) and Abe Bennett (Jim Davis)  explain their deaths, then leave the bar to relive — redie? — them. Surely Doc Soames couldn’t have been a killer like them. But he reveals that all the gunfighters he healed that went out and killed others weighed on his conscience until he shot himself.

Only Dichter remains, but as he’s told that it’s his turn, the story comes full circle. A magical 27-minute work of art by Serling and Szwarc that tells one of the best stories of every episode of Night Gallery.

Written by Alvin Sapinsley and based on “Out of the Eons” by Hazel Heald, “Last Rites for a Dead Druid” starts with Jenny Tarraday (Carol Lynley) and Mildred McVane (Donna Douglas) buying a strange sculpture because the screaming man reminds Jenny of her husband Bruce (Bill Bixby). He hates it and banishes it to the backyard.

Yet every night, he dreams of the horrible thing out back and soon learns it’s a statue of Bruce the Black, a magician who sacrificed animals and humans to gain power. And when he’s near the statue, he’s not himself, like how he forces himself on his wife’s best friend, not that she minds. But when he nearly kills a cat on the grill and tries to murder his wife to be with Mildred, Bruce hits the limit.

The end is kind of ridiculous but in a way that I love. Bruce attempts to smash the statue and the unexpected occurs, all while it’s kind of hinted that Mildred — Elle Mae turned evil — is behind all of this possession and madness.

It was so nice to enjoy another episode and not deal with black out sketches or silliness. Ah, Night Gallery. As always when you are good, you are beyond good.

Mirror, Mirror II: Raven Dance (1994)

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If this week teaches you anything, it’s that the ddirect-to-videosequels of the 90s had nothing to do with the film they come after, usually other than one element. The element here is the mirror from Mirror, Mirror, of course.

Director and writer Jimmy Lifton produced the first movie — he also composed the music and worked on the mechanical effects — and this time, he’s telling the story of where that mirror has been, starting when Nicolette (Sarah Douglas) uses it to blind Sister Aja (Veronica Cartwright), at which point the sisters just decide to keep it and cover it with canvas. There’s no way that mirror would ever cause another problem, right?

An S&M-influenced metal band shows up and the mirror goes shithouse on them, nearly killing off our heroine, Marlee (Tracy Wells, who has left Chippewa, PA and Mr. Belvedere far behind) and putting her into the horrifying grip of her sister Roslyn (Sally Kellerman) and her boyfriend Dr. Lasky (Roddy McDowall), who hire a handyman named Roger (William Sanderson) to make her crazy — she’s already blind and can only see around the mirror — so that she can get the money that rightfully belongs to Tracy and her brother Jeffrey (Carlton Beener).

Well, you know who can help her? Christian (Mark Ruffalo). And he’s a ghost.

Also: Will someone has sex with a mirror again? I mean, yes. I think it’s in the legal paperwork for all of these movies.

This movie goes for it, as Kellerman gets aged really fast, McDowall gets pulled into the mirror, toys come to murder-filled life, Sister Aja cries Michael Myers tears, a stained glass window comes to life and kills someone, there’s way too much dancing or not enough, and then Ruffalo battles the monster in the mirror.

Mirror, Mirror 2 is absolutely dumb and I demand my 90s direct to video store sequels that way.

You can watch this on Tubi.

CULT EPICS BLU RAY RELEASE: AmnesiA (2001)

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AmnesiA (2001): Directed and written by Martin Koolhoven, AmnesiA is the story of two A’s: Alex and Aram (both played by Fedja van Huêt) and their attempts at reconnecting as they attempt to care for their elderly, dying, constantly drunk and frequently hilarious mother (Sacha Bulthuis). That sounds like anything but something I’d usually want to watch, except that there’s also the suicide of their father which has been a point of secrecy and contention for years, as well as the constant power games that Alex unleashes on Aram, including turning his girlfriend Sandra (Carice van Houten) against him. Oh yeah. She’s also a pyromaniac who just appeared in his car one day.

At the same time, Aram has come back to the family home with Wouter (Theo Maassen), a friend who had a crime go wrong and is dying from a bullet to the stomach. This will not help Alex, who can no longer take photographs, as every time he focuses on a subject, he sees the face of a woman who utterly upsets him. One brother is at war with everyone; the other just wants to hide inside himself. There’s no way they can agree, get along or make it through life without great tragedy.

Also: This movie has a lot of female urination to the point that you wonder if it’s some kind of symbolic thing or it’s a Tarantino feet moment.

That said, this is a dark and surreal journey into long-kept family secrets, including a murder in addition to that suicide, and a movie that was meant to be a black comedy, which was lost on audiences, according to the director. Not everything is explained and yet filling in those holes makes this an even more intriguing watch.

Also: Aram’s car has the license plate 28IF, just like Paul’s on the cover of Abbey Road. He’s also barefoot for most of the film, so if I follow the logic that I learned through record album conspiracy theories, he’s already dead.

Suzy Q (1999): Based on the childhood memories of Frouke Fokkema, who wrote the script together with director Martin Koolhoven, Suzy Q is about Suzy (Carice van Houten), a young girl coming of age in the 1960s. The title refers to The Rolling Stones’ cover of the Dale Hawkins song “Susie Q” and the Stones — most importantly Mick Jagger and his lover Marianne Faithfull — figure into the plot, as Suzy finds her way into their hotel room and is kissed by Mick, a fact that no one wants to hear or believe.

Her mother is lost, her father is abusive yet powerless and her brothers are trying to escape with either guitar or young lust. Suzy yearns for a time when she will escape these origins, but it won’t happen just yet. But she will get away.

This is a strong early film for Fokkema and Carice van Houten is incredible. Demetri Jagger was set to play his uncle Mick, but he backed out with some worry that the rock star would not approve. Instead, that’s Andrew Richard — Andy Bird, a one-time lover of Madonna — playing the singer.

All of the music rights kept this from coming out on DVD for some time. Koolhoven encouraged people to post the movie online and did it himself on YouTube.

Dark Light (1997): A burglar (Marc van Uchelen) gets caught breaking into the farm of an old woman (Viviane de Muynck). She’s obsessed with religion. Her body is covered with sores. Things get weird.

She believes that the thief is there by divine intervention and she must enact his penance, which means forcing him to slaughter a pig and lick her body, which is a horrifying moment in direct contrast to the barren and beautiful location that this is set at.

He remains handcuffed throughout as they both throw Biblical passages at one another and battle for some kind of power over one another. She sees herself as Job, afflicted with sores of some plague. We never see her face.

For an early film, Dark Light proves the talent of its creator, director and writer Martin Koolhoven.

The Cult Epics blu ray of AmnesiA has a 4K HD transfer (from the original camera negative) and restoration of the movie, plus an introduction by Martin Koolhoven, commentary by Koolhoven and Fedja van Huet that is moderated by Peter Verstraten, a conversation with Koolhoven and Carice van Houten, a making of, behind-the-scenes footage and a trailer. Plus, there’s a second disk with two TV films by Koolhoven: Suzy Q and Dark Light. There’s also new slipcase art by Peter Strain and a double-sided sleeve with original film posters. You can order this movie from MVD.

The Parent Trap (1998)

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Remember The Parent Trap? Well, this is a reimagining with Dennis Quaid and Natasha Richardson as Nick Parker and Elizabeth James, a couple that divorced after the birth of their twin daughters, Hallie Parker and Annie James, which seems like a strange way to settle a divorce, but hey, that’s how the story has worked since Erich Kästner wrote Lisa and Lottie.

Nancy Meyers was the right person to create this, as she wrote Father of the Bride and this was the first movie she would direct. It was written by her husband at the time, Charles Shyer, who she worked with on Private Benjamin, Jumpin’ Jack Flash and Baby Boom.

There’s a lot in common between the two movies beyond the story itself. Joanna Barnes appears in both films, playing Vicky Robinson in the original and Vicki Blake, the mother of Meredith Blake (Elaine Hendrix), who is the same character she was in her youth. The song “Let’s Get Together” gets sung, the bunkhouse is named Arapahoe and the grandfather has the same smell of tobacco and peppermint.

Hayley Mills would say, “It was so like the one I did, and yet not. But I thought it was really good.”

It makes me feel old to discover that this movie is 25 years old. There will be another remake and I’ll remember all the ones that came before. Lohan is really great in this and it started her career. She’d play twins again in I Know Who Killed Me, but that’s a totally different movie.

Also: the captain of the Queen Elizabeth 2? That’s Dean Cundey.

Parent Trap: Hawaiian Honeymoon (1989)

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Seven months after the third movie, everyone goes to Hawaii. Yes, Susan Wyatt and Sharon Grand (Hayley Mills), the Wyatt twins — Lisa, Jesse ad Megan (Leanna, Monica and Joy Creel) — and their dad Jeffrey (Barry Bostwick). Jeffrey has inherited a resort just in time for his honeymoon with Susan. Sharon plans on taking care of the girls, but seeing as how this was a two-parter, there has to be some drama.

Mollie Miller directs (she also did the third movie) and this was written by John McNamara, who created the series Aquarius and The Magicians.

This movie has my favorite thing ever happen: both Susan and Sharon have exactly one photo of themselves together from their childhood and, of course, it’s the publicity photo of them in the tent from the first film. No one was there with a camera. It would be impossible to have this image. And here it is, captured, a memory of their past which is our past which we remember directly than them.