The Stacks

This week, Shana and j. discuss the next entry in the Gamera series, 1968's Gamera vs Viras, directed by series originator Noriaki Yuasa (0:00:00-1:17:30), and get raw and contemplative with the 2012 Don Hertzfeldt animated masterpiece It's Such a Beautiful Day (1:17:30-2:13:45). As always, the live Stacks list can be found online at https://letterboxd.com/jshopa/list/the-stacks/

For this week's episode, j. and Shana talk about the landmark kung fu epic 5 Fingers of Death (aka King Boxer, 1972, directed by Jeong Chang-hwa) and the classic, definitive horror-comedy Evil Dead II (1987, director Sam Raimi). Discussion of 5 Fingers of Death runs to 1:40:57 and Evil Dead II until 2:27:38 The live list of The Stacks can as always be found at https://letterboxd.com/jshopa/list/th...

On this week's episode, j. and Shana are delving into some 80s crime/action cinema, with the first film in Andy Sidaris' Malibu Bay Films cinematic universe, Malibu Express (1985), then the 1983 Paul Aaron film Deadly Force, starring our beloved Wings Hauser. Discussion of Malibu Express runs to 1:04:44, and Deadly Force concludes at 1:40:31, with additional mini-capsule reviews as always in the t...

It's indie zombie week in The Stacks, as we discuss the 2006 no-budget SOV picture Pathogen (directed by 12-year-old Emily Hagins) and the influential 1981 independent horror classic The Evil Dead (debut feature of Sam Raimi). Discussion of Pathogen runs until 1:10:40 and The Evil Dead until 1:53:50. The live list of The Stacks is online at https://letterboxd.com/jshopa/list/the-stacks/

This week, Shana and j. talk about the second Yokai Monsters film, the 1968 Yoshiyuki Kuroda film, Spook Warfare, as well as the great 1980 giant radioactive monster flick Alligator, directed by Lewis Teague. Discussion of Spook Warfare runs to 1:04:35 and Alligator until 2:03:20 The live list of The Stacks is online at https://letterboxd.com/jshopa/list/the-stacks/

This week, Shana and j. dig into some deep 80s culture with the classic 1982 teen movie Fast Times at Ridgemont High (directed by Amy Heckerling) and the utterly bizarre 1986 Taiwanese wuxia Kung Fu Wonder Child (directed by Lee Tso-Nam). Discussion of Fast Times runs to ~1:38:58 and Kung Fu Wonder Child until 2:36:25 As always, the live list of The Stacks is online at https://letterboxd.com/jshop...

On this week's episode Shana and j. are discussing two very different takes on criminal justice, with the classic 1973 Sidney Lumet true-life police corruption film Serpico and the queer, candy-coated 1995 Joel Schumacher blockbuster Batman Forever. Discussion of Serpico runs to ~1:17:20, Batman Forever until ~2:22:25 As always, the live list of The Stacks is online at https://letterboxd.com/jshop...

This week, Shana and j. discuss the sweeping Cuban triptych film Lucía, directed by Humberto Solás, 1968, as well as the 1984 Romanian animated sci-fi picture Delta Space Mission, directed by Victor Antonescu and Mircea Toia. One audio dropout in the first section at ~18:00 - Lucía is referred to as 'Gardenia' Discussion of Lucía ranges to 1:13:50, Delta Space Mission until 1:50:45. Final section...

This week, Shana and j. talk about Shunya Ito's 1972 debut film Female Prisoner #701: Scorpion and the amazing blend of animation and live action that is the 1962 Czechoslovakian film The Fabulous Baron Munchausen, directed by Karel Zeman. Discussion of the first film goes to ~1:06:45, a little bit on The Peanut Butter Solution and Flag of Iron in between, then 1:14:30-1:58:10 covering Munchausen,...

On this week's episode, Shana and j. discuss the fourth film in the Arrow Shinya Tsukamoto 'Solid Metal Nightmares' box set, 1998's Bullet Ballet, and third in the Severin 'All the Haunts Be Ours' box, 1973's Leptirica, directed by Đorđe Kadijević. 0:00-~6:15 - some additional discussion of last week's second film, Koko-di, Koko-da (2019, Johannes Nyholm) 6:15-1:23:35 - Bullet Ballet 1:23:35-2:16:...

This week, Shana and j. discuss the third entry in the Gamera series, 1967's Gamera vs Gyaos, from Noriaka Yuasa, director of the original film in the series, as well as the 2019 Swedish horror film Koko-di, Koko-da from director Johannes Nyholm. As always, the live list of The Stacks is available online at https://letterboxd.com/jshopa/list/the-stacks/

This week, Shana and j. explore another classic Italian western with 1968's If You Meet Sartana, Pray for Your Death (from director Gianfranco Parolini) and another wildly entertaining Wings Hauser performance in the 1989 film L.A. Bounty (directed by Worth Keeter). As always, the active Stacks list is online at https://letterboxd.com/jshopa/list/the-stacks/

We're back after a week off with the second film in the original Zatoichi series, Tale of Zatoichi Continues (1962, directed by Kazuo Mori) and Avery Crounse's important folk horror film Eyes of Fire (1983). As always, the active Stacks list can be found at https://letterboxd.com/jshopa/list/the-stacks/

This week we have an accidentally thematic pairing, with j. and Shana discussing Spike Jonze's 2002 film Adaptation and Mark Savage's 1997 psychotronic shot-on-video picture The Masturbating Gunman. (This will be followed by a week off, due to illness) As always, the live list of The Stacks is online at https://letterboxd.com/jshopa/list/the-stacks/

On this week's episode, Shana and j. talk about Blood & Flesh: The Reel Life and Ghastly Death of Al Adamson (2019, directed by David Gregory) and Stanley Kubrick's (now) well-loved 1980 film adaptation of The Shining. As always, The Stacks list is live at https://letterboxd.com/jshopa/list/the-stacks/

On this week's episode, Shana and j. discuss the lesser-known 1990 film adaptation of Captain America, directed by Albert Pyun, as well as the 2021 directorial debut of Prano Bailey-Bond, Censor, which deals with many of the topics we talked about in our earlier episode on Video Nasties: Draconian Days. The active Stacks list can be found at https://letterboxd.com/jshopa/list/the-stacks/

This week, Shana and j. have some alternative Xmas programming with 1985's wildly faithful board game adaptation Clue (directed by Jonathan Lynn) and the 2020 Jewish comedy of anxiety Shiva Baby (directed by Emma Seligman). Active list of The Stacks can be found online at https://letterboxd.com/jshopa/list/the-stacks/

This week Shana and j. discuss a couple all-time classics - the landmark original Godzilla film from 1954 (aka Gojira, directed by Ishiro Honda), then we get festive with 1984's highly controversial Christmas slasher, Silent Night Deadly Night (directed by Charles E. Sellier, Jr). In between, some additional discussion of Heavy Trip (2018) and Death Machines (1976). The active main Stacks list is...

On this week's episode, Shana and j. discuss the great 1990 Tom Hanks / Meg Ryan romantic comedy Joe Versus the Volcano (directed by John Patrick Shanley) and the sleazy mutant giallo of Your Vice Is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key (directed by Sergio Martino, 1972, based on Edgar Allen Poe's "The Black Cat"). The active list of The Stacks (and The Inactive Stacks) are online at https://lett...

For our 25th episode, marking fifty films, Shana & j. discuss Shinya Tsukamoto's Tokyo Fist (1995) and Takeshi Miike's Terra Formars (2016). The live list of The Stacks is online at https://letterboxd.com/jshopa/list/the-stacks/

This week, Shana and j. have 101 monsters to discuss! First, the saddest kaiju of all, South Korea's first venture into the genre with Yongary, Monster of the Deep (1967), followed by 100 Monsters (1968), the first of the Yokai Monsters series. As always, the live list of The Stacks is online at https://letterboxd.com/jshopa/list/the-stacks/

This week, Shana and j. discuss the confounding sole directorial effort of Dan Aykroyd, Nothing But Trouble (1991), as well as two great Wakaliwood films, Who Killed Captain Alex? (2010) and Bad Black (2016). As always, the live list of The Stacks is online at https://letterboxd.com/jshopa/list/the-stacks/

This week, Shana and j. talk about two great Italian genre pictures, the highly influential Sergio Leone western A Fistful of Dollars (1964) and the kinetic 80s Lamberto Bava horror film Demons (1985). The active list of The Stacks is online at https://letterboxd.com/jshopa/list/the-stacks/

In our first episode back from the Halloween SPOOKY season, Shana and j. discuss the grimy French anti-Catholic drama of Don't Deliver Us From Evil (dir. Joël Séria, 1971) and the surprisingly light-hearted and self-aware horror-comedy Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-o-Rama (dir. David DeCoteau, 1988), plus a little bit in-between on Clive Barker's 1987 classic Hellraiser.

On the final entry in The Spooky Stacks for 2021, Shana and j. discuss John Carpenter's influential classic Halloween (1978), followed up by John McNaughton's wild underseen psychotronic alien picture, The Borrower (1986).   The Spooky Stacks will be returning to the crypt until next October, but the usual Stacks list is, as always, at https://letterboxd.com/jshopa/list/the-stacks/