Happy birthday to the elder-half of the Uphill Both Ways team!
A Retro Pop-Culture Podcast Focusing on the 70s and 80s
Thursday, January 26, 2023
"Strange Phenomena"
Episode 132
The guys are back and trying to ease into a regular schedule again. Mike is (still) on the mend and Joseph is mending the still, and after going in search of a fun topic for this episode they've come up with a banger; Unexplained phenomena! That's right - Bigfoot, aliens, the Bermuda Triangle, and more. Step aside Leonard Nimoy, the UBW Research Team is on the case! But before all of that, there's a little house keeping and catching up to do with some brief talk about recent movies and TV shows. It's time for some retro pop-culture nostalgia, the UBW podcast way!
Friday, January 20, 2023
The Good, The Bad, and The Verdict: "Kids vs Aliens" (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 RLJE Films/Shudder’s gateway to horror, Kids vs. Aliens.
All Gary (Dominic Mariche) wants is to make awesome home sci-fi movies with his older sister Samantha (Phoebe Rex) and his best buds Miles (Ben Tector) and Jack (Asher Grayson Percival). But suddenly, all Samanta wants is to hang with the cool kids, especially bad boy Billy (Calem MacDonald), who she starts to crush on. When the siblings’ parents head out of town one Halloween weekend, an all-time rager of a teen house party turns to terror when aliens attack, forcing the siblings and their filmmaking friends to band together to survive the night.
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| A still from horror/sci-fi film, KIDS VS. ALIENS, an RLJE Films and Shudder release. Photo courtesy of RLJE Films and Shudder. |
Monday, January 16, 2023
Film Review: “On the Trail of Bigfoot: Last Frontier” (2023)
Alaska’s Sasquatch Seems Anything But Shy
by Joseph Perry
Anyone who might mistakenly think that On the Trail of Bigfoot: Last Frontier, the latest film from writer/director Seth Breedlove and the Small Town Monsters production company, is “just another Bigfoot documentary” should reconsider. Any Sasquatch-related work from Breedlove and his crew is far and away above the usual offerings in which viewers follow a group of cryptid hunters knocking on trees and roaming endlessly. On the Trail of Bigfoot: Last Frontier shows a side of Sasquatch that may surprise many.
Wednesday, January 11, 2023
COMING SOON! Shin Ultraman (2022)
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE : Superhero hit ULTRAMAN acquired by Cleopatra Entertainment
CLEOPATRA ENTERTAINMENT ACQUIRES THE U.S. RIGHTS FOR ICONIC JAPANESE SUPERHERO FILM “SHIN ULTRAMAN”
Los Angeles, California (January 6th, 2023) – Cleopatra Entertainment has acquired U.S. territory rights to the latest incarnation film from the Japanese Superhero franchise Ultraman from Tsuburaya Productions. Entitled Shin Ultraman, this new Ultraman adventure was the sixth-highest grossing Japanese feature film of 2022 and will hit U.S. theaters – via Fathom Events – on January 11th and 12th, 2023.
Written by Hideaki Anno (Shin Godzilla) and directed by Shinji Higuchi (Shin Godzilla, Attack on Titan), the film stars Takumi Saitoh (Shin Godzilla, 13 Assassins), Hidetoshi Nishijima (Drive My Car, The Wind Rises), Masami Nagasawa (Before We Vanish, Mother), Daiki Arioka (Innocent Curse), and Akari Hayami (Gintama, Forget Me Not).
As Shin Ultraman begins, we learn the appearance of giant unidentified life forms known as “S-Class Species (Kaiju)” has become commonplace in Japan. The Japanese Government formed a Kaiju defense taskforce known as the SSSP, led by Kimio Tamura (played by Drive My Car’s Hidetoshi Nishijima). After a particularly challenging encounter, a silver giant descends from the sky to rescue the country. Dubbed Ultraman, this giant’s identity and purpose are a mystery. Shin Ultraman is a delightful reimagining of one of Japan’s classic superheroes, full of cosmic twists, charismatic villains, and giant Kaiju, leading VARIETY to declare that “the mix of styles and moods works wonderfully, raising Shin ‘Ultraman’ into the top rank of superhero movies!”
The rights deal was brokered by Cleopatra Founder and CEO Brian Perera, Tim Yasui VP/GM of Cleopatra Entertainment, and by Brian O’Shea of The Exchange on behalf of the filmmakers.
After its theatrical campaign concludes, Shin Ultraman will be released in the Spring of 2023 on VOD Platforms and also as a Deluxe Home Entertainment Blu Ray and DVD release.
Monday, January 9, 2023
The Good, The Bad, And The Verdict: “Night of the Bastard” (2022)
by Joseph Perry and Mike Imboden
In our “The Good, the Bad, and the Verdict” film reviews, both Joseph and Mike give their thoughts on a slice of cinema. For this installment, it’s Dark Sky Films' satanic siege Night of the Bastard.
In Night of the Bastard’s prologue set in the 1970s, a young couple travels to visit a friend at his desert home but instead find themselves slaughtered by members of a satanic cult, with the woman’s baby ripped from her sliced womb. Flash forward about four decades later to find a man named Reed (London May) living in a remote desert area with his pet tortoise. He doesn’t want or need any other company, so when a trio of young campers encroach on his land, he drives them off at gunpoint.
As the three friends walk away to find another place to camp, they mistake an occult ritual for a potential party, with only Kiera (Mya Hudson) managing to escape with her life. She winds up at Reed’s house with a stab wound, and he reluctantly takes her in. Together, they do their best to fend off cult leader Claire (Hannah Pierce) and her lunatic followers, but naturally, it is no easy feat. Blood will be shed, dark secrets will be revealed, and demented events will take place.
Saturday, January 7, 2023
The Good, The Bad, And The Verdict: Candy Land (2022)
by Joseph Perry and Mike Imboden
In our “The Good, the Bad, and the Verdict” film reviews, both Joseph and Mike give their thoughts on a slice of cinema. For this installment, it’s Quiver Distribution’s neo-slasher Candy Land.
Writer/director John Swab’s 1990s-set horror thriller Candy Land finds truck stop sex workers — referred to in the film as lot lizards — Sadie (Sam Quartin), her girlfriend Liv (Virginia Rand), Riley (Eden Brolin), and male sex worker Levi (Owen Campbell) and their den mother-ish madame Nora (Guinivere Turner) plying the world’s oldest profession at a roadside truck stop and motel. Sheriff Rex (William Baldwin) lets the group do their thing, due in some part to his physical/power play relationship with Levi. A young woman named Remy (Olivia Luccardi) shows up at the motel the day after she visits there with a religious group that tried to make the sex workers see the evil of their ways, telling them that she has been turned away from the zealots. Meanwhile, a seemingly ritual murder takes place in the truck stop bathroom, setting off what will become a series of bloody kills.
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