The Stacks

This week on The Stacks, we're diving into Kinji Fukasaku's Yakuza Papers series with the sprawling super-dense chaos of its first entry, 1973's Battles Without Honor and Humanity (0:00-1:25:15), followed by Eric Red's silly, elevated 1991 evil limbs film Body Parts (1:25:16-2:22:57), then into The Watched Stacks, where we talk about all the other physical media watched this week and decide on nex...

This week on The Stacks, we've got a pair of British films, starting with Sidney J. Furie's 1965 cool domestic espionage thriller The Ipcress File (0:00-1:19:53), first in the Harry Palmer series starring Michael Caine, followed by the 2008 Academy Award winner for best picture, Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire (1:19:53-2:51:37), as always concluding with capsule discussions of various other movi...

This week on The Stacks it's a Brian De Palma double feature, beginning with his landmark 1976 Stephen King adaptation Carrie (0:00-1:35:47), followed by the underappreciated 1998 Nic Cage ultra version of a locked-room murder mystery Snake Eyes (1:35:47-2:45:24), then The Watched Stacks, with capsule reviews of other physical media watched this week and our decisions on what to cover next. The li...

This week on The Stacks we conclude Arrow's Yokai Monsters box with the 2005 Takashi Miike remake/reboot The Great Yokai War (0:00-1:59:19) and puzzle over the bizarre 1998 Macedonian candidate for best foreign film, Goodybe 20th Century, directed by Darko Mitrevski & Aleksandar Popovski (1:59:19-3:01:08), concluding with capsule reviews of other physical media we've watched this week and our deci...

This week on The Stacks we're digging deep into the 1955 Alfred Hitchcock voyeur suspense masterpiece Rear Window (0:00-2:02:46), followed by the 1977 Stelvio Massi poliziotteschi Highway Racer (2:02:46-3:16:00), concluding as always with discussion of all the many other things we've watched on physical media in the past week and deciding what we'll be covering next week. The live list of The Stac...

This week on The Stacks, Shana and j. explore the boundaries of life and death with Joel Schumacher's 1990 morality play Flatliners (0:00-1:45:08) and Wilson Yip's 1998 Hong Kong mall zombie apocalypse picture Bio-Zombie (1:45:08-3:07:20), followed as always by discussion of all the other stuff we've watched on physical media since last week, and we decide on what we'll be covering next week. The...

This week on The Stacks we return to our coverage of the classic kaiju series Gamera with its fifth entry, Noriaki Yuasa's 1969 picture Gamera vs Guiron (0:00-1:24:31) featuring cannibal ladies from space and a big knife-headed monster who shoots shurikens out of his nose, followed by Justin Lin's 2011 film Fast Five, the fifth in the Fast & Furious superhero / action figure / carsploitation franc...

This week on The Stacks we're spending some time in desolate arid western landscapes with Budd Boetticher's 1957 noir western The Tall T (0:00-1:17:13) and Ray Dennis Steckler's exploitation slow cinema proto-slasher The Chooper (aka Blood Shack, 1:17:13-2:49:34), as always concluding with discussion of the other physical media stuff we've watched since last time and deciding on what we're coverin...

This week on The Stacks, Shana and j. discuss the 1997 Swedish coming-of-age LGBT romance Fucking Åmål (directed by Lukas Moodysson, discussion running to 1:28:46) and the most recent entry in the Alien franchise, 2017's Alien: Covenant (directed by Ridley Scott, discussion continuing to 2:47:59), as usual concluding with a run-through of all the other boutique blu-ray stuff we've watched this wee...

This week on The Stacks, we're continuing our coverage of classic Alfred Hitchcock with his ambitious 1948 film Rope, loosely based on the Leopold & Loeb true crime case (0:00-1:40:33), followed by Danny Boyle's landmark 1996 film about heroin addicts in Scotland, Trainspotting (1:40:33-3:10:35), and concluding as always with The Watched Stacks, discussing additional movies watched this week and d...

This week on The Stacks, we're talking some fundamental stylish horror with 1963's Black Sabbath, directed by Mario Bava (discussion running to 1:33:45), followed by the 1996 black comedy / crime thriller Freeway, directed by Matthew Bright (discussion continuing to 2:32:25), as always concluding with some talk about other movies we've watched this week and decisions on what we'll cover next week....

This week on The Stacks, Shana and j. make a foray into the filmography of Werner Herzog with 1977's melancholy masterpiece Stroszek (discussion running to 1:20:27), followed by Ridley Scott's unfairly maligned 2012 quasi-prequel to Alien, Prometheus (discussion continuing to 3:06:46), which we come to praise, not to bury. Apologies for some audio issues in the first fifteen minutes and dropouts d...

This week on The Stacks, continuing our January resolutions month, Shana and j. go long on Francis Ford Coppolla's 1971 landmark The Godfather (discussion running to 2:14:46), followed by Henri-George Clouzot's also classic but very different 1947 crime film Quai des Orfevres (discussion continuing to 3:35:21), concluding as usual with some capsule reviews of other films we've watched in the past...

This week in The Stacks, we're discussing Orson Welles' essay film on forgery and expertise, F for Fake (1973, discussion running to 1:36:55), followed by the early Satansploitation oddity The Mephisto Waltz (1971, directed by Paul Wendkos, discussion continuing to 2:59:31), followed as always by discussion of other movies we've watched during the week, and decisions on what we'll be covering next...

We kick off 2023's Resolutions Month in The Stacks with the high-octane 1989 jidaigeki Shogun's Shadow (directed by Yasuo Furuhata, discussion running to 1:12:53), followed by the original slasher, 1974's Black Christmas (directed by Bob Clark, discussion continuing to 2:47:37), as always concluding with discussion of various other movies watched in the previous week. The live list of The Stacks i...

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...