Not all good films are good. Not all bad films are bad.
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The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini 1966
The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini may be the coda to the beach party cycle, but its swerve into a haunted house actually makes it a lot more fun and unique in the series. The lack of Avalon and Funicello might also be an upswing.
Trade them in for Nancy Sinatra any day. And Boris Karloff is always welcome.
Though it's far from its only antecedent, there are some serious Scooby-Doo vibes throughout the affair.
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In the Fade 2017
Revenge is a dish best served on film.
I mean, we can't all go about exacting revenge. It would be an even messier world than the one in which we live.
In Fatih Akin's In the Fade, it's Diane Kruger whose revenge we vicariously experience. Her husband and child have been murdered by nazis in a targeted bomb attack, and the German court system (which I don't know if I've seen depicted before) fails her.
Kruger exudes grief and anger…
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Terminal USA 1993
Endowed with financing from PBS and the NEA, Jon Moritsugu crafted a film about the Japanese-American experience. Even at the time, Moritsugu and crew wondered if the grantees had seen any of his movies before, because when he delivered Terminal USA, it was a bit of a shock to the Public Broadcasting System and the National Endowment for the Arts.
For Moritsugu, this was by far the biggest budget he’d contended with, and so even though a lot of the…
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Chopping Mall 1986
From schlockmeister Jim Wynorski and produced by Julie Corman, Chopping Mall is some seriously Eighties biz. I mean, it’s set in a mall. It takes place almost entirely inside a mall (the Sherman Oaks Galleria). But Eightiesness is just one aspect of charm to this fun thriller about killer robots gone amok. In fact, it’s packed with charms.
Chopping Mall stars Kelli Maroney, a stand-out from Night of the Comet (1984) and one-time Ryan’s Hope star (my mom loved that…
