PhilaMOCA
Venue archive / 61 posts
Our RoboCop Remake
One of the best random laughs I’ve had in the last few years was at a “Remember when RoboCop shot that dude in the dick” t-shirt, and this fever dream of a comedy collaboration is a kind of spiritual sibling of that shirt, especially since it really goes for broke in reimagining that particular moment. All of RoboCop’s 60 scenes are remade by different people, often sketch comedy troupes, and while they don’t all… See more →
Banned
Faraquet
The late, great Faraquet scheduled a handful of reunion gigs across a weekend (presumably so no one in the band would have to take time off work) to celebrate the 25th anniversary of their lone full-length album, The View From This Tower, which has long been high on the list of my favorite underground records. I felt a rare bit of hometown pride when the Philly show sold out fast enough for them to add… See more →
Bob Log III
A solid bill of oddities tonight.
Ecology: Homestones is a purveyor of harsh noise that probably wouldn’t hold my attention if it weren’t performed by a towering ghoul with a shrunken head, accompanied by a limbless torso writhing along to the cacophony on a hook behind a velvet rope. Apparently there’s a whole mythology that goes with this, and incredibly, it’s attracted more than a half million social media followers in just a few short… See more →
The Match-Stick Flame 2: Lunada Bay
Flexing with Monty
Kilynn Lunsford
Sick Nurses
Fanatico… When the Goddess Calls
Lisztomania
Gonna tell my kids this is A Complete Unknown
Steak
Steak is Quentin Dupieux’s first feature film, which I enjoyed more than I expected considering that I don’t remember much liking Rubber, the film he made after it, when I saw it some 15 years ago. Steak’s comic beats, bizarro world of Clockwork Orange-tinged perpetual high school, and bumping electronic soundtrack all cohere into a satisfyingly absurdist satire of conformity, reminiscent at times of Yorgos Lanthimos’s more accessible moments. And it’s perfectly paced:… See more →
Cutie Honey
Tammy and the T-Rex
Big Meat Eater
It’s All Right, My Friend
How Peter Fonda is not best known for this starring role as a tomato-averse alien with explosive ejaculate is something I will never understand
Desperate Lives
Brainscan
Holy Flame of the Martial World
Zombie Ass: Toilet of the Dead
Empire of the Dark
Center Jenny
When it’s not succumbing to self-consciously unhinged improv exercise, this is something like a feature-length maximalist update of Bruce Nauman’s Clown Torture for the reality TV age. The editor is unquestionably the MVP.
Grails
Disembodied
Wild Zero
Roller Blade
The Evil Within
Love God
Last night I watched Anatomy of a Fall and tonight I watched this. Cinema is so much.
I made a Spotify playlist of the Love God soundtrack. Only a little over half of the songs in the film are available on Spotify, but it’s still 81 minutes of music!
Stalked by My Doctor: Patient's Revenge
On this, my third viewing, I realized that Sophie is funding her revenge activities with the cash her dad gave her so she could avoid eating on campus with the plebes.
The Maxx
Street Trash
Split
Endgame
After Last Season
This is the most utterly baffling expression of human creativity I have ever seen.
Parole Violators
The Boogey Man
Cade: The Tortured Crossing
Apart from stock footage inserts, there isn’t a single scene in Cade: The Tortured Crossing that isn’t shot on green screen, and I kind of hope Neil Breen stays with that approach in future films. The 7th Guest aesthetic really works for him.
He does look more at home, though (to the extent that he ever looks at home anywhere), in the suburban Las Vegas locations he’s traditionally used than the alternately lavish and decayed… See more →
Nightmare Beach
Superfights
Like an 11-year-old boy on a Lucky Charms bender scribbled out a screenplay and then picked up the phone and hired legit Hong Kong action pros to make it. If anyone has ever shot anything more entertaining on location in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, I have yet to see it (and would desperately love to see it).
Sick: The Life and Death of Bob Flanagan, Supermasochist
May we all achieve Bob Flanagan’s level of self-knowledge and self-love, even if it ultimately fails to prepare us to confront death. Bob’s poem, “Why?,” is going to stay with me. “Because you always hurt the one you love.”
Xiu Xiu
Stunt Rock
Assassin 33 A.D.
I generally prefer to avoid Christian proselytizing and convoluted sci-fi but apparently if you put them together WE ARE IN BUSINESS
Burial Ground
Scared Stiff
I’m not well versed in the Hong Kong school of “what if [title of recent successful American movie], but completely incoherent?,” but between Magic Crystal’s kung fu/E.T./Indiana Jones cocktail and Scared Stiff’s action/bromance/comedy take on Nightmare on Elm Street, I’m more than sufficiently compelled to investigate further.
Saving Christmas
I genuinely appreciate when a movie I know is going to be wretched proves to be significantly worse than I thought possible, so I have no regrets, but this was truly painful all the same.