WILD ZERO (1999)

 

Directed By: Tetsuro Takeuchi

Written by: Tetsuro Takeuchi and Satoshi Takagi

Cinematography: Motoki Kobayashi

Editor: Tomoe Kubota 

Cast: Guitar Wolf, Drum Wolf, Bass Wolf, Masashi Endo, Kwancharu Shitichai, Makoto Inamiya, Haruka Nakajo, Shiro Namiki, Yoshiyuki Morishita 

After a meteor strike aliens attack the earth and begin turning people into zombies. Rockers Guitar Wolf, Bass Wolf and Drum Wolf aswell as their rock and roll blood brother ace and his true love Tobio are caught in the middle of this madness

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WILD ZERO starts weird, gets weirder, and somehow still has room to surprise you.

The film quickly introduces its colorful cast before throwing all of their storylines together. At its heart, it’s an ensemble movie, even if the legendary Guitar Wolf stand proudly at the center like the coolest people to ever ignore the apocalypse.

This thing is loud, unfiltered, ridiculous, and incredibly charming. The third act is absolutely bonkers, piling on zombies, aliens, explosions, romance, and pure punk-rock energy. It shouldn’t make sense, yet somehow it feels completely natural. Every time you think the movie has run out of ideas, it casually throws another one at you.

Having Guitar Wolf play themselves is inspired . Imagine the Ramones in ROCK N ROLL HIGH SCHOOL filtered through a Japanese zombie movie with a garage punk soundtrack. They don’t perform every five minutes, but every scene they’re in reminds you why they’re the coolest band in the room. While everyone else panics, they just keep moving forward like the end of the world is an inconvenience. 

One of the film’s biggest surprises is its love story. At the center is a romance between a cisgender man and a trans woman that feels remarkably thoughtful for a film released in 1999. It acknowledges fear and prejudice but ultimately lands on acceptance without ever feeling preachy. It simply lets the characters exist, and Guitar Wolf delivers one of the film’s most memorable speeches about love that perfectly sums up its philosophy.

The world itself is delightfully off-kilter. A club manager is so obsessed with revenge that he’ll chase the band to the ends of the Earth, usually while wearing hilariously tiny shorts. Another character looks like a punk-rock mercenary whose wardrobe somehow becomes more dangerous every time she appears. Nobody dresses normally, nobody acts normally, and that’s exactly the point.

Think of it as SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD nearly a decade early, only traded indie rock for Japanese punk, replaced the exes with a bunch of slow moving classic zombies, and decided aliens might as well show up too.

It’s a movie overflowing with imagination, creativity, and infectious energy. I owned the DVD for years but somehow never got around to watching it until now on streaming. Strangely, I’m glad I waited. I probably would’ve enjoyed it back then, but I appreciate its sheer originality much more today.

I wouldn’t call it a personal favorite, but I absolutely understand why it’s become a cult classic. If you’re looking for something unpredictable, inventive, funny, and unlike almost anything else, WILD ZERO  is an easy recommendation.

Honestly, it feels like the CRANK movies were chasing this same “anything goes” energy years later. Few films embrace insanity with this much confidence and have this much fun doing it.

Grade: B+

THE IN CROWD (1988)

 

Directed By: Mark Rosenthal 

Written By: Mark Rosenthal and Lawrence Konner 

Cinematography: Anthony Richmond 

Editor: Jeffery Wolf 

Cast: Donovan Leitch, Jennifer Runyon, Joe Pantoliano, Sean Gregory Sullivan, Bruce Kirby, Scott Plank, Wendy Gazelle, Charlotte D’Amboise, Page Hannah

A young man of the rock and roll generation is in his senior year of high school. When one day he successfully gets on a popular teen dance television show he becomes a star. The plot follows him as he lives his new life in his new world. What he finds are adoring fans, jealous rivals, bitter friends left behind, and the girl of his dreams…his dance partner.

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This film used to be on all the time on the legendary (To me at least) Flix Channel that Moore played films from the past 90s 80s 70s even 60s some even older but they mostly stayed within those decades.

I would always see glimpses of this film and advertisements, but never managed to catch the whole film. In fact the only scene I really remember was when Joe Potano goes into the star of the film Donovan Leitch’s classroom to retrieve them and decides he won’t take them out until the end of class and then they all have a discussion about Charles Dickens book A TALE OF TWO CITIES. 

Now decades later, I finally got to watch this film, beginning to end, and while it leans heavily into nostalgia, there is that feeling that this is kind of a b-movie, less campy more romantic version of HAIRSPRAY (even though they came out in the same year. Like competing products with similar stories to revolve around) and of course it’s very white washed version of it too with no real mention of Race that at least was a major plot point for the other film. This seems just wanna almost be an updated HAPPY DAYS blast from the past. 

Though it does pay a lot more attention to character. I wish there was more Joe Pantoliano throughout. 

Now, while the film is more nostalgic less overall comedic. It does try to show the changing times, but sticks with a universal youth story. Surprised at how much this film chooses to be a study of class, but then again once you take Race out of the equation you gotta have some story of the haves and have nots.

There are quite a few things that are memorable by the end. Sean Gregory Sullivan is a scene stealer as Popeye, as well as a cameo from Peter Boyle and a dance battle in a loving room that has to be seen to be believed 

By the end, the film isn’t necessarily remarkable. It’s a fun watch and fits along with all those 80s and 90s films that seem to want to take a look back at the 1950s and 60s through a more coming of age, romantic and throwback lens. Think movies like SHAG, THERE GOES MY BABY, 1969) 

It’s an entertaining family film that tries to be rebellious, but by the end is all heart.

Grade: C+

FACES OF DEATH (2026)

 

Directed By: Daniel Goldhaber

Written By: Daniel Goldhaber and Isa Mazzei 

Cinematography: Issac Bauman 

Editor: Taylor Levy 

Cast: Barbie Ferreira, Dacre Montgomery, Jermaine Fowler, Josie Totah, Aaron Holliday. Charli Xcx, Kurt Yue, Ash Maeda 

Margot Romero, a content moderator haunted by a viral tragedy, must track down a sadistic filmmaker who recreates legendary snuff cinema to silence the internet’s obsession with her own past trauma.

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This was a film that I expected to be a bit more racy, confrontational and controversial, considering the source material. I thought it would be a bit more disgusting though really other than some notorious clips from the Internet that are ported to have been real the rest of the place pretty basic or what you might expect even actually a bit more disappointing.

As they have to include a story to make a narrative here but even that while it has something to say about social media, it feels a little late even though this film was supposed to come out in 2024 and was finally released in 2026 it still feels like it’s trying to say something that maybe most of the audience already knows about being addicted to the thrill and being desensitized by violence that we want more extreme more gore as a kind of rush.

Though at times certain seems like an unnecessarily quick sex scene in a hallway just seem to be there either as a bad tasteless joke, or an early warning sign of trying to show how badly this film wants to be rebellious and naughty, unfortunately, throughout the rest of the film that just isn’t there

The stunt casting of Charli XCX in this film amounts to nothing she does well in the small role that she’s given, but really doesn’t have that much to do. There aren’t as many killings in this film as one might expect and it just seems that at certain points, all logic is thrown out the window, especially in the leader scenes when Barbie for our manages to escape.

As everything after that pretty much makes no sense though the lead character at times makes no sense. Either her actions that feel really there only because the script says after telling her we’re training her coworkers oh, don’t get involved in any cases off-line. She immediately breaks that code very easily, and it doesn’t seem like it was really hard to convince her to do this, even though any opening of the film it tried to set her up as stern and orderly, but with a secret in our past.

Barbie Ferrara is OK in a lead role. I don’t think she’s the problem with the film. I think it’s the script and the material she’s given because seeing her and other films it’s obvious she is a good actress, but it would’ve been hard for anyone to make this character and script work fully and be believable and root for the character.

Also, the special effects for this film are a little lame there seems to be this big lead up that kind of hype the scenes up, but then nothing comes from the recreations of scenes from FACES OF DEATH, Here in the film look super fake and especially when they show victims bodies after the killings, you can tell that they are either mannequins or dummies so that it just looks so unrealistic that it kind of takes you out of the film especially for a film that seems well funded

One isn’t expecting a classic, but I thought it would be a little more stronger and inspired rather than what we get which feels basic and a little uninspired. I really wanted this phone to be decent and good especially from somebody who still is a bit uncomfortable trying to watch faces of death from 1983 the controversial video cassette or any of it sequel as any violence that is a bit too realistic makes me not want to watch the rest of the film. If it looks too real or too-plausible, it’s sickens me, and I don’t find that as entertainment

It’s really disappointing that the director Daniel Goldhaber who made the memorable drama HOW TO BLOW UP A PIPELINE is the director behind this and how unrealistic this film feels compared, especially to a previous film. When would think who made something much more stronger and original. as this feels like maybe the title was thought of first and they figured they’d fill in the rest later and this is the best that they could come up with as even when it tries to be Meta it doesn’t exactly work. Unfortunately, this is also a film. One would never call clever.

Grade: C-

MOVIES WATCHED IN JULY (2026)

 

MOVIES WATCHED IN JULY (2026) 

A CHRISTMAS STORY STORY (FAMILY)(COMEDY)(HOLIDAY) 7/10 

THE INVITE (COMEDY)(DRAMA) 9/10 

*FORBIDDEN FRUITS (COMEDY)(CULT) 8/10 

OLD HENRY (WESTERN) 8/10 

ICK (SCIENCE FICTION)(COMEDY)(HORROR) 6.5/10 

EVIL DEAD BURN (HORROR) 7/10 

THE SHEEP DETECTIVES (FAMILY)(MYSTERY)(COMEDY) 7/10 

SUMMER’S LAST RESORT (FAMILY)(HOLIDAY)(COMEDY)(COMING OF AGE) 5/10 

MILE END KICKS (DRAMA)(COMING OF AGE)(DRAMA) 6/10 

UNDERTONE (HORROR)(THRILLER) 5/10 

LEE CRONIN’S THE MUMMY (HORROR) 7/10 

TOUCH ME (EROTIC)(FANTASY)(CULT)(COMEDY) 7/10 

RELENTLESS (ACTION)(THRILLER) 6/10 

FACES OF DEATH  (HORROR) 5/10 

THE BRICKLAYER (ACTION)(ADVENTURE) 5/10 

*OBSESSSION (HORROR)(THRILLER) 9/10 

POPI (DRAMA)(COMEDY) 6/10 

PLAYING WITH FIRE (TV-MOVIE)(DRAMA)(THRILLER) 6/10 

THE ODYSSEY (EPIC)(WAR)(DRAMA)(FANTASY) 9/10 

MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE (FANTASY)(FAMILY)(ACTION)(ADVENTURE) 6/10 

NIRVANA THE BAND THE SHOW THE MOVIE (COMEDY) 7/10 

MORTAL KOMBAT 2 (FANTASY)(ACTION)(ADVENTURE) 6/10 

A TOXIC LOVE STORY (DOCUMENTARY) 7/10 

72 HOURS (COMEDY) 4/10 

TELEVISION SERIES, TELEVISION MOVIES, STAND-UP & SPECIALS

ELLE (SEASON 1) 6/10 

THE BEAR (SEASON 5) 8/10 

RIDE OR DIE (SEASON 1) 7/10 

MARY BETH BARONE – GALAXY BRAIN(STAND-UP) 8/10 

ALPHA (2025)

 

Written & Directed by: Julia Ducournau

Cinematography: Ruben Impens 

Editor: Jean-Christophe Bouzy 

Cast: Melissa Boros, Golshifteh Farahani, Tahar Rahim, Emma Mackey, Louai El Amrousy 

In a French city grappling with an unnamed viral epidemic, 13-year-old Alpha, the daughter of an immigrant doctor, confronts a challenging coming-of-age journey. Her mother, a frontline healthcare worker, is horrified when Alpha allows her classmate and love interest, Adrien, to tattoo her with a shared needle at a party. The resulting bleeding turns Alpha into a social pariah at school, igniting heightened fears of blood contamination among her peers. However, things take a dark turn when Uncle Amin, a person with a chronic substance use disorder, moves back into the family home. This unexpected reunion forces Alpha to share a room with him, further complicating her already strained life.

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Alot of people came away from Alpha feeling underwhelmed, calling it just okay, or even a disappointment,but against all odds, I really liked it.

In some ways, it’s overdone. It leans heavily into melodrama, and at times it feels almost overwhelming on purpose, But somehow, that worked on me. I was mesmerized by it, by the mood, the discovery, and the way it slowly reveals itself. Even when I had a sense of where it was going, it kept me interested.

This won’t be for everyone. It’s slower, more emotional, and much more introspective than many might expect. Especially from writer-director Julia Ducournau. If you’re looking for the shock or body-horror intensity of RAW or TITANE may feel restrained by comparison. But that restraint is part of what makes it fascinating.

The visuals are still unmistakably hers, sharp, beautiful, occasionally surreal, but they never feel flashy just for the sake of it. They serve the emotion. The film’s central allegory, with its mysterious virus that slowly turns people into marble statues that bleed sand, is an obvious but powerful reflection on illness, grief, and specifically the AIDS crisis.

This isn’t really a genre film, so much as a drama dressed in genre clothing. It’s less interested in shocking you than in sitting with discomfort, fragility, and loss. It may not always know exactly what it wants to say, but it remains compelling as a study of its themes and characters.

And yes, maybe it goes a little too far with the melodrama, perhaps to compensate for a story that feels thinner than its ideas. But even then, it never lost me.

To show how far, she has gone from her usual. The film doesn’t even have actress Garance Marillier who is. Usually in all of her work so far 

It’s not my favorite film from Julia Ducournau, but it might be her most personal. And sometimes a film doesn’t need to be perfect to leave an impression. it just needs to feel singular. This film certainly does

Grade: A