The struggle to keep movie theaters alive gets very personal in “Showdown at the Grand,” an enjoyable tribute to retro exploitation pictures with Terrance Howard as a movie palace proprietor besieged by diminishing receipts and violent goons. Dolph Lundgren plays the former action star who shows up for a personal appearance, then stays to help save the joint from those agents of unscrupulous developers. More low-key homage than campy cartoon, writer-director Orson Oblowitz’s fourth feature does manage to deliver some tongue-in-cheek mayhem in an extended climax.
The setting is an actual vintage art deco temple for cinema, San Pedro’s Warner Grand, though rather than being managed by the City of Los Angeles (as it is off-screen), it’s kept alive here as a none-too-successful for-profit labor of love by George Fuller (Howard). Decked out in cowboy duds as if he were an actor himself, George is also projectionist,...
The setting is an actual vintage art deco temple for cinema, San Pedro’s Warner Grand, though rather than being managed by the City of Los Angeles (as it is off-screen), it’s kept alive here as a none-too-successful for-profit labor of love by George Fuller (Howard). Decked out in cowboy duds as if he were an actor himself, George is also projectionist,...
- 11/7/2023
- by Dennis Harvey
- Variety Film + TV
A weekend getaway goes sour even before the corpses start accruing in “Trespassers,” a good-looking indie thriller that’s diverting, but could have used another script draft or two. Depicting two quarrelsome if hard-bodied couples who find themselves in deep peril at a rented desert home, Orson Oblowitz’s film has a leisurely enough buildup that room should have been made for more fully developed characters. Fine-tuning the pileup of eventual violent crises wouldn’t have hurt, either. The result falls short of being especially credible, let alone memorable. Still, this is a polished genre exercise that provides a decent night’s home entertainment. IFC Midnight is opening it July 12 on screens in New York and Los Angeles, simultaneous with its launch on demand.
A brief prelude leaves us no doubt that the owners of a handsome modernist manse in the Mohave meet a very bad end at the hands of three masked,...
A brief prelude leaves us no doubt that the owners of a handsome modernist manse in the Mohave meet a very bad end at the hands of three masked,...
- 7/10/2019
- by Dennis Harvey
- Variety Film + TV
He helped create the modern day nightmares brought forth by Bughuul in the Sinister films, and this November, he'll take us into the surreal world of The Sorcerer Supreme. But before Doctor Strange comes out this November, fans of screenwriter and author C. Robert Cargill can immerse themselves in his latest creation, As They Continue to Fall. Directed by Nikhil Bhagat from a screenplay by Cargill, the atmospheric, intriguing, and altogether haunting short film can now be watched in its entirety right here on Daily Dead.
Starring John Henry Whitaker as Walker, As They Continue to Fall pulls back the curtain on a world where not all angels watch over us with good intentions. Displaying a gritty, Blade-esque look, the short film introduces a compelling story that could be the start of something special. You can watch the short film below.
Press Release: Los Angeles, October 19, 2016 – Director Nikhil Bhagat has...
Starring John Henry Whitaker as Walker, As They Continue to Fall pulls back the curtain on a world where not all angels watch over us with good intentions. Displaying a gritty, Blade-esque look, the short film introduces a compelling story that could be the start of something special. You can watch the short film below.
Press Release: Los Angeles, October 19, 2016 – Director Nikhil Bhagat has...
- 10/19/2016
- by Derek Anderson
- DailyDead
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