Uphill Both Ways

 

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.

"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.

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

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 h

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

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.

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 delive

  When Emily Ashby and Jonathan Martin heard about the announced upcoming Masters of the Universe motion picture, the couple — she is an actress, and he is a filmmaker — wanted to show that Ashby would be perfect for the role of Teela. The result of their efforts is a self-tape audition called Teela and the Masters of the Universe that has been getting a great deal of media notice and racking up a huge amount of views online. Their approach is a bold one, but it is obviously generating attention. “I believe in taking risks and really putting yourself out there, and being vulnerable as an artist is the best thing you can do,” said Ashby. “If you don’t work hard for something, then how can you pride yourself in that?”  “The idea for Teela and the Masters of the Universe first sprung to mind when I saw an animated image from Kevin Smith’s Teela from the new Masters of the Universe series,” said Martin. “When we realized that our manager whom we both share, Scott Carlson, had worked on

DEAF CROCODILE FILMS TO RELEASE PREVIOUSLY-UNKNOWN  1980s ROMANIAN ANIMATED SCI-FI “THE SON OF THE STARS”   ON BLU-RAY FOR THE FIRST TIME Hollywood, CA – Deaf Crocodile Films announces its release of the rarely-seen 1987 Romanian animated sci-fi film THE SON OF THE STARS (FIUL STELELOR / ULTIMA MISIUNE) for the first time ever on Blu-ray. Described as a wild mid-eighties mash-up of The Empire Strikes Back , Alien , and Tarzan , was directed by the same creative team behind DELTA SPACE MISSION (previously released by Deaf Crocodile), Romanian animators Călin Cazan and Mircea Toia. Working with the Romanian National Film Archive and Cinematheque and the Romanian Film Centre, Deaf Crocodile has created a new 4K restoration from the original 35mm camera negative and sound elements, overseen by Co-Founder and in-house restoration expert Craig Rogers. 

Shudder Original Valentine’s Day Special JOE BOB’S VICIOUS VEGAS VALENTINE Debuts Friday, February 10 at 9 PM ET NEW YORK, February 2, 2023 - Joe Bob kicks off another year of holiday fun with the Shudder Original Valentine’s Day special, Joe Bob’s Vicious Vegas Valentine . The special debuts on Friday, February 10th live on the Shudder TV feed at 9:00 p.m. ET. Fans can also watch on demand on Shudder and AMC+ beginning Sunday, February 12th. This Valentine's Day, legendary horror host Joe Bob Briggs makes history and officiates the wedding of two fans on-air while hosting a double helping of films about the ultimate nightmare: True Love! RSVP to join Joe Bob, Darcy the Mailgirl, and the rest of The Last Drive-In crew as they bring two young lovers together under the neon and glitz of Las Vegas. Joe Bob Briggs said, “During this year's demented double feature, I'll be joining in unholy matrimony two young lovers thoroughly schooled in the twisted tenets of The Last Drive-

Happy birthday to the elder-half of the Uphill Both Ways team!

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! https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/whenitwascool/Uphill_Both_Ways_132_Strange_Phenomena.mp3

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. A still from horror/sci-fi film, KIDS VS. ALIENS , an RLJE Films and Shudder release. Photo courtesy of RLJE Films and Shudder.

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.

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 g

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

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