The Good, The Bad, and The Verdict: "Back to the Drive-In" (2023)

by Joseph Perry and Mike Imboden

In their  “The Good, the Bad, and the Verdict” film reviews, Joseph and Mike give their thoughts on a slice of cinema, sometimes old, sometimes new. For this installment, it’s Uncork’d Entertainment’s Back to the Drive-In, a documentary film about drive-in theaters which found themselves thriving during the early part of the Covid-19 pandemic, but now face a bit of uncertainty as things have settled into new normal.

Movie Review: "Sing Street" (2016)

"Drive it Like You Stole It"

It's March and March is known for St. Patrick's Day, so in honor of Ireland's greatest snake wrangler we're going to look at some retro pop-culture things with an Irish slant that managed to become timeless touchstones. While this is a relatively recent film, its setting is smack dab in the Uphill Both Ways era of nostalgia.  It is - Sing Street!

Sing Street is a 2016 musical comedy-drama film directed by John Carney, who previously directed the popular musical film Once. Set in Dublin, Ireland in the 1980s, Sing Street tells the story of a teenage boy named Conor who starts a band in order to impress a girl named Raphina, who he has a crush on.

"They're Magically Delicious!"

It's March and March is known for St. Patrick's Day, so in honor of Ireland's greatest snake wrangler we're going to look at some retro pop-culture things with an Irish slant that managed to become timeless touchstones.  First up is Lucky Charms breakfast cereal!

Lucky Charms was first introduced by the General Mills company in 1964. The cereal is known for its distinctive shape, which includes toasted oat pieces in the shape of hearts, stars, horseshoes, clovers, moons, and diamonds, and also for its colorful marshmallow shapes.

The idea for Lucky Charms came from John Holahan, who was the product development director at General Mills at the time. Holahan believed that adding marshmallows to cereal would be a unique and interesting idea that would appeal to children. He was inspired by a recipe for a treat made from Cheerios and bits of candy.

The original marshmallow shapes included pink hearts, yellow moons, orange stars, and green clovers. The cereal was an instant hit with kids, and General Mills continued to add new marshmallow shapes over the years, including red balloons, blue diamonds, purple horseshoes, and more. 

The Good, The Bad, and The Verdict: "Children of the Corn" (2023)

by Joseph Perry and Mike Imboden

In our “The Good, the Bad, and the Verdict” film reviews, Joseph and Mike give their thoughts on a slice of cinema. For this installment, it’s RLJE Film’s Stephen King adaptation Children of the Corn, the latest genre flick from writer/director Kurt Wimmer (Ultraviolet; Equilibrium). The horror outing, which gets a theatrical release on March 3 and an On Demand and Digital release on March 21, stars Elena Kampouris (Sacred Lies TV series), Kate Moyer (Our House), Bruce Spence (The Road Warrior; Dark City), and Callan Mulvey (Avengers: Endgame; Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice).

Synopsis Possessed by a spirit in a dying cornfield, a twelve-year-old girl (Kate Moyer as Eden Edwards) in Nebraska recruits the other children in her small town to go on a bloody rampage and kill all the adults and anyone else who opposes her. A bright high schooler (Elena Kampouris as Boleyn Williams) who won't go along with the plan is the town's only hope of survival.

8 From the 80s: Romantic Movies

Each installment Mike will look back to the decade of decadence and provide a list of eight things – from movies to music to memorable moments and everything in-between.  Keep in mind, this isn’t a TOP 8 list and any numerical notations are included to merely designate one item from another. Because, frankly, how can rate one thing over another when it came from a decade as totally tubular as the 80s?

80s Romance Movies – A Special Post-Valentine’s Day Installment

While the 80s were chock full’o teen sex comedies and coming of age rom-coms, there were plenty of standard romantic movies. Depending on how loosely you define a “romantic” movie, almost anything can fit, so I’m trying to keep this trip down memory lane to movies where the romance/relationship aspect is central, or at least very important, to the plot. 

8. Somewhere in Time (1980)

Maybe it was the actor’s strike at the time, or the fact that The Blues Brothers came out the same week or maybe it’s because it got bad word of mouth – for whatever reason(s) it didn’t perform well despite having Superman (Christopher Reeve) starring opposite Jane Seymour.  In the film, a playwright falls in love with a woman from nearly 70 years earlier and travels through time to find her. Somewhere in Time is one of those movies that people either like or hate, although chances are good that people from both camps will feel a tug at the heartstrings at the end of the film.

Film Review: “18½” (2021)

The Most Fun You’ll Have with Watergate Is This Movie 

by Joseph Perry

Director Dan Mirvish presents a highly amusing, thought-provoking take on the 18½ missing minutes of the Watergate tapes. Part comedy, part thriller, and all captivating, 18½ blends genres and blows minds.

Connie Lashley (Willa Fitzgerald) is an Office of Management and Budget transcriptionist, and she has just accidentally found those infamous 18½ missing minutes while going through the routines of her job. She contacts newspaper reporter Paul Marrow (John Magaro) to leak the information to him before she has to return the tape to work on Monday, when her boss would notice its absence. Meeting at a diner — a scene that sets up the story and establishes these two main characters brilliantly — Paul suggests that they check into a nearby motel, posing as a married couple because they must keep their identities secret, to listen to Connie’s reel-to-reel tape. But their plan won’t be easy to execute.

The Good, The Bad, and The Verdict: "She Came From the Woods" (2022)

by Joseph Perry and Mike Imboden

In our “The Good, the Bad, and the Verdict” film reviews, Joseph and Mike give their thoughts on a slice of cinema. For this installment, it’s Mainframe Pictures'  supernatural slasher, She Came from the Woods, the latest genre flick from Erik Bloomquist (Ten Minutes to Midnight). The horror-comedy, releasing only in theaters today (February 10th), stars Cara Buono (Stranger Things), William Sadler (Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey), Spencer List (Fringe), and Clare Foley (Sinister).

In this ode to '80s horror, a group of counselors accidentally unleash a decades' old evil on the last night of summer camp. As the mayhem and madness turn bloody, the staff of Camp Briarbrook are forced to confront what stories are worth telling and what secrets worth keeping. 

Mike prefers slashers, Joseph prefers supernatural chillers and they both have had this one on their radar since its festival run last year. Can She Came from the Woods deliver a horrifying hybrid that satisfies both guys?