Tag: cult classic
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Great TV: The Prisoner
Who is Number 1? If you are Number 6 this is a serious question, since Number 6 asks Number 2 this at the opening of every episode of The Prisoner. First airing in Canada in 1967, this spy-sci fi-mystery-thriller was unlike anything ever seen before at the time. a sort of 1960s version of Twin […]
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Cult Classics: Fateful Findings
Why do we like terrible movies? Not just bad movies or mediocre movies–those are depressingly common and a ton are released each year from big and independent studios alike. Those are then shuffled off into the catacombs of daytime airings on Showtime and the dregs of streaming services, never reaching over two stars in their […]
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Great TV: The Addams Family
Let’s play a word association game. If I used the words creepy, kooky, mysterious, spooky, and ooky, my guess is that you would snap your fingers twice and say The Addams Family. And it’s amazing at just how deeply the TV show has permeated popular culture at this point: running from 1964 to 1966 and […]
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Cult Classics: The History of Future Folk
People with passion tend to come across as a little, well, odd to the normies of the world. You know what I mean: the devout Star Trek fan or dedicated KISS fan that attends every convention and concert and happening tangentially related to their fervent focus may come across to most people as strange or […]
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Cult Classics: Jesus’ Son
Over the course of a lifetime, you may often find yourself in the company of a strange coterie of people—weird frenemies and loose associates you don’t fully trust but often rely on for one thing or another. More so, your association with these people can find you in odd situations, ones you could have never […]
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Cult Classics: Forbidden Zone
One of the central tenets that defines a cult film is its inaccessibility to a general audience. Great cult films have gained their notoriety for being exceedingly difficult works for many people to understand or appreciate. Meanwhile, they are also films that obviously strike a chord in many viewers, particularly those who have become somewhat […]
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Cult Classics: Cabin Boy
Chris Elliott’s comedic schtick is not for everybody. Having first launched his career as a writer and performer on David Letterman’s old late night show in the 80’s as an absurdist figure who would do bits playing odd characters with names like “The Panicky Guy” and “The Guy Under The Seats,” usually ineffectual characters who […]
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Cult Classics: Wild Palms
The early 90’s was a watershed moment in American culture: the alternative was quickly becoming mainstream, and with it large corporate interests were starting to wonder if there wasn’t something to the weirder side of music and film that couldn’t make them some delicious money. After all, David Lynch broke through the mainstream and had […]
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Cult Classics: Grindhouse
The lurid exploitation films of the 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s gave cheap thrills to filmgoing audiences looking to make out in the back seats of the theater or their cars, see a few gross kill-shots and grungy effects, or else enjoy the well-tread tropes and hackneyed cinematography that these films promised. Their enjoyment by cinephiles […]
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Cult Classics: Freddy Got Fingered
Listen: incredibly stupid things can be some kind of wonderful. And there are very few movies stupider than Freddy Got Fingered. This singular film–which MTV gave absurdist comedian Tom Green $14 million to make any film that he came up with–is perhaps the stupidest film ever made. But it’s also brilliant in its stupidity. Mind […]
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Cult Classics: Repo Man
What is punk? Is it a style, a music genre, or an attitude? Director Alex Cox argues that it’s all three–but only the the latter is the genuine article–in Repo Man, a film about a young Los Angeles punk named Otto (Emilio Estevez) who has a day that seems to confirm how much bullshit everything […]
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Cult Classics: Big Trouble in Little China
“You know what ol’ Jack Burton always says at a time like this?” “Who?” “Jack Burton. Me!” Jack Burton and his truck, The Pork Chop Express, barrel into San Francisco’s Chinatown with a delivery while he gives a monologue over the CB airwaves that summarizes his character and general attitude: “When some wild-eyed, eight-foot-tall maniac […]
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