The Stacks

For our last recording of 2022, we discuss the third in the Female Convict Scorpion series, 1973's Beast Stable (directed by Shunya Ito, discussion going to 1:12:31), followed by a dip into some Australian Namsploitation with Brian Trenchard-Smith's The Siege of Firebase Gloria (1989, discussion continuing to 2:29:59), as always concluding with some short reviews of other stuff watched this week a...

A merry Christmas from The Stacks, as we discuss the heavily meme-ified Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 (1987, edited/directed by Lee Henry, discussion running to 1:23:33), as well as our first dip into the lucha libre genre, with 1971's Santo vs Dr. Death (directed by Rafael Romero Marchent, discussion continuing to 2:43:59), followed as always with discussion of other films we've watched this...

This week on The Stacks, Shana and j. talk about the 1974 Canuxploitation horror Deranged (directed by Alan Ormsby and Jeff Gillen, discussion running to 1:14:42), followed by our first dip into the Doris Wishman oeuvre with her 1966 clip-show movie Another Day, Another Man (discussion continuing to 2:16:30), concluding as always with discussion of additional movies watched this week, and our choi...

This week in The Stacks, Shana and j. are talking about the classic 1984 Serbian black comedy Strangler vs Strangler (directed by Slobodan Šijan, discussion running to 1:23:06), followed by the totally nuts 1991 biker action flick Stone Cold (directed by Craig R. Baxley, discussion continuing to 2:47:11). As always, we conclude with some talk on other films watched in the previous week and decide...

This week on The Stacks, Shana and j. delve into some wild kung fu action with The Boxer From Shantung (1972, directed by Chang Cheh and Pao Hsueh-Li, discussion running to 1:52:19), followed by slow cinema sci-fi classic Star Trek: The Motion Picture (directed by Robert Wise, discussion continuing to 3:15:53), as always concluding with some capsule reviews of other movies watched this week toward...

This week, Shana and j. are discussing a couple of the all-time great cinematic stylists - first, Sergio Leone's second entry in the Dollars Trilogy, For a Few Dollars More (1965, discussion running to 1:45:22), followed by Stanley Kubrick's final picture, Eyes Wide Shut (1999, discussion continuing to 3:37:05), concluding as always with discussion of other things we've watched and decisions on wh...

This week we're going liminal with David Lynch's 1997 deconstructed noir Lost Highway (discussion running to 2:03:45), followed by David Cronenberg's 1983 Stephen King adaptation The Dead Zone (discussion continuing to 3:23:19), concluding as always with The Watched Stacks. The live list of The Stacks is online at https://letterboxd.com/jshopa/list/the-stacks/

We're back after an unexpected week off for illness, starting with Sean S. Cunningham's 1980 landmark slasher / body count picture Friday the 13th (discussion going to 1:21:35), followed by Sidney Salkow's 1964 adaptation of Richard Matheson's I Am Legend, The Last Man on Earth, starring Vincent Price (and discussion continuing to 2:16:47), concluding with an extended Watched Stacks concluding the...

For the fourth week of this year's Spooky Stacks, Shana and j. are covering the much-maligned Halloween III: Season of the Witch (directed by Tommy Lee Wallace, 1982, discussion running to 1:35:13), followed by the wacky 80s haunted house / creature feature Spookies (1986, with multiple directors in a troubled and disjointed production, discussion continuing to 3:05:26), and as always the final se...

It's twins week for episode 69 - first up we continue our exploration through the works of Shinya Tsukamoto with 1999's Gemini (discussion running to 1:31:47), followed by classic Thanksgiving slasher Blood Rage (directed by John Grissmer, shot in 1983 but not released until 1987, discussion continuing to 2:49:15). These are followed by discussion of the many other spooky movies we've watched this...

This week in The Spooky Stacks, Shana and j. talk about David Fincher's 1995 highly influential serial killer mystery Se7en (going to 1:25:22), followed by David Cronenberg's squicky 1975 high-rise body horror film Shivers (aka They Came From Within!, discussing running to 2:40:41), concluding as always with discussion of the various other horror movies watched during the Halloween challenge this...

As we begin this year's Spooky Stacks, Shana and j. begin with Hitchock's 1943 serial killer mystery Shadow of a Doubt (discussion going to 1:47:54), followed by Jack Bender's notorious 1991 video nasty (despite being quite tame altogether) Child's Play 3 (continuing to 3:02:27), as always followed by discussion of various other movies recently watched. The Spooky Stacks are online at https://lett...

This week, as Shana and j. head on into the spooky season, we start off with Paul Schrader's 1986 impressionist true crime film Patty Hearst (discussion running to 1:20:49), followed by Stanley Kubrick's psychedelic 1968 rogue AI epic 2001: A Space Odyssey (continuing to 2:56:17). October is horror month and that means all selections are from The Spooky Stacks: https://letterboxd.com/jshopa/list/t...

This week on The Stacks, Shana and j. delve into modern nunsploitation with Paul Verhoeven's 2021 film Benedetta (discussion going to 1:46:49), followed by the 1988 French surreal coming-of-age crime drama Sound and Fury (directed by Jean-Claude Brisseau, discussion continuing to 3:14:25), followed as usual with some discussion of other movies we've watched this past week and decision on what we'r...

This week on The Stacks, Shana and j. return to our very gradual coverage of the Zatoichi series with part three, 1963's New Tale of Zatoichi (directed by Tokuzo Tanaka, discussion running to 1:07:58), then get very meta with Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994, discussion continuing to 3:05:19), concluding as always with some discussion of other movies we've watched in the past week and decisions on...

Shana and j. go extra long this week, starting with the follow-up to The Wild Boys, Bertrand Mandico's 2021 lesbian sci-fi acid western After Blue (aka Dirty Paradise, discussion running to 1:43:26), followed by Stanley Kubrick's legendary 1960 sword and sandal epic Spartacus (carrying on to 4:01:53!), concluding as always with discussion of other films we've watched during the week and decision-m...

This week in The Stacks, Shana and j. talk swingin' malltopia masterpiece Logan's Run (1976, directed by Michael Anderson, discussion running to 1:31:24), followed by the German thriller Out of Order (1984, directed by Carl Schenkel, discussion continuing to around 2:35:35, with maybe a little bit of puppet erotica talk in there too), concluding as always with additional capsule reviews and decisi...

This week on The Stacks, Shana and j. continue the All the Haunts Be Ours folk horror box with 1970's Witchhammer (directed by Otakar Vávra, discussion continuing to 1:21:14), followed by the 2015 Hungarian romantic black comedy Liza the Fox-Fairy (directed by Károly Ujj Mészáros, discussion running to 2:29:20), then of course we make our decisions on what to cover next week. The live list of The...

This week, Shana and j. talk about Park Chan-Wook's excellent 2000 political drama of soldiers in the DMZ between North and South Korea, JSA (discussion going until 1:12:29), followed by Leslie H. Martinson's delightful 1966 Batman feature film, based on the classic TV series (discussion continuing to 2:47:18), as always concluding with some discussion of the other stuff we've watched that week an...

This week, Shana and j. talk about the third film in the Yokai Monsters series, Along With Ghosts (1969, directed by Kimiyoshi Yasuda & Yoshiyuki Kuroda, discussing running to 57:13), which has surprisingly few yokai as it turns out, followed by 2011's surreal regional horror pastiche The Oregonian (directed by Calvin Lee Reeder, discussion continuing to 2:07:17), then of course some mini reviews...

This week, Shana and j. talk about the 1994 Coen Brothers' Preston Sturges tribute film, The Hudsucker Proxy (discussion running to 1:13:47) and dive into some full-scale Bayhem with the 2022 Michael Bay flick Ambulance (discussion continuing to 2:48:50), of course followed by brief capsule reviews of some additional movies we've watched in the previous week and decisions on what to cover next wee...

This week on The Stacks, Shana and j. are talking some metaphorical deadly angels. First up is the Italian western I Am Sartana, Your Angel of Death, the second in the Sartana series (1969, directed by Giuliano Carnimeo, discussion continuing to 1:23:26). After that, we have such a delightful conversation about Luis Buñuel's surrealist satire The Exterminating Angel (1962) that we simply can't sto...

It's car week on The Stacks, as Shana and j. discuss the 1962 Yasuzo Masumura corporate noir Black Test Car, about bitter competition in the postwar Japanese auto manufacturing business (discussion running to 1:10:33), followed by the 1978 goofy car chase action comedy Stingray, directed by Richard Taylor (discussion continuing to 2:27:26), and then some talk about The Unbearable Weight of Massive...

This week, Shana and j. fill in a gap in our discussion of the films of Shinya Tsukamoto with 1990's oddball suburban 80s-American-horror-styled Hiruko the Goblin (discussion going to 1:14:00), followed by Daisuke Miyazaki's 2019 film of intense urban alienation, Videophobia (discussion continuing to 2:29:22), and then of course discussion of additional movies watched in the previous week and deci...

This week, Shana and j. are talking about two very different early 70s crime pictures, returning to the Female Prisoner Scorpion series with the fabulous, surreal second entry Jailhouse 41 (directed by Shunya Ito, 1972, discussion running to 1:11:50), followed by the twisty, oddly satirical Charles Bronson mafia conspiracy thriller The Stone Killer (directed by Michael Winner, 1973, discussion run...