An early box office casualty of the pandemic, Bad Trip was recently released on Netflix nearly a year after its originally scheduled theatrical date. Directed by Kitao Sakurai, the hidden-camera prank comedy spawning from the delightfully deranged mind of star Eric Andre follows the tradition of Sacha Baron Cohen films and the likes of Bad Grandpa. It pieces together a fictional narrative around a series of pranks involving real people with very real reactions. Here, Andre’s character Chris embarks on a road trip from Florida to New York with his best friend Bud (Lil Rel Howery) to confess his love to his childhood crush Maria (Michaela Conlin). They’re unknowingly pursued by Bud’s prison-escapee sister Trina (Tiffany Haddish), whose car they stole for the trip.
Read MoreA 3D-printed gun with the electronic file needed to produce it available to everyone in the world is more terrifying than the atomic bomb as the materials are so much more easily obtained. The very concept some would argue the internet was made for, others can just as easily argue for restrictions. It’s scary because it’s not just a concept. It’s science fiction made real, and I can’t shake the memory of a certain bleak and unsettling moment from Terminator 2. When Cody Wilson invented this 3D-printed gun, the world changed. The discussion of gun control as it has existed is no longer relevant. But it isn’t just a Second Amendment issue. Wilson’s First Amendment rights are also at stake. Should he be allowed to share the file with the world? Is the government violating his First Amendment rights by trying to stop him?
Read MoreJayne Mansfield helped define a generation of sex appeal in the 1950s with her meteoric rise to fame. Much more than a Marilyn Monroe knock-off, she had a knack for camp that inspired just as many people as her looks. When the sixties rolled along, she struggled to hold onto her fame. The changing culture and her own retreat into domestic life made it difficult to stay in the spotlight. Not long before her truly tragic and horrific death, Mansfield became acquainted with Anton LaVey, the enigmatic founder of the Church of Satan. Just how deep did she flirt with the dark side? And did it bring about her death?
Read More“Play the one where it sounds like the whole studio is going to explode.”
Suzanne Ciani is a woman of great talent who found success in every area of interest she sought to explore. A pioneer of electronic music, her mastery of the modular synthesizer–a instrument in infancy when she discovered it–propelled her to much success in the fields of music and advertising. Her life and career(s) are brought to vivid life in Brett Whitcomb‘s documentary, A Life in Waves.
Read MorePerformance artist Amir Asgharnejad made a name for himself with viral videos in which he picked fights with strangers on the streets of Oslo, Norway, and got beat up. Unbeknownst to the millions of people watching the videos, the fights were staged. The strangers Asgharnejad provoked were hired actors. This antics caught the attention of a Los Angeles-based advertising firm, who wanted to build an entire energy drink campaign around Asgharnejad. Committed to see how far he could continue the ruse, Asgharnejad flew out to Los Angeles to take the job.
Read MoreAfter 25 years in prison, Mi-Hee (Yunjin Kim) is released to serve out the rest of her sentence in her own home, where decades earlier her husband was killed and her son disappeared. She was convicted of killing them both. Though she can’t explain the events of the night that irrevocably altered her life, she maintains her innocence and still seeks to find out what happened to her son. With the help of Priest Choi (Taecyeon), the centuries-old mysteries of the house start to come to light.
Read MoreThe beautiful Kira (Rebecca Forsythe) isn’t doing so well. What started as a small patch of dead skin is spreading at an alarming rate across her body. She’s also suffering from memory loss. She seeks the help of Dr. Rafaela Crober (Barbara Crampton), who appears concerned but not alarmed. Fearing the loss of her beauty, Kira grows desperate. Lotions and medication aren’t doing anything. But a skin graft from a living donor provide a temporary remedy and Kira spirals out of control as she continues to perform skin the grafts on herself with the aid of some very unwilling donors.
Read MoreWith Anna (Birgit Minichmayr) and Nick’s (Philipp Hochmair) marriage on shaking ground following his affair with a neighbor, the couple venture to a cabin in the Swiss Alps. In addition to providing them some much needed time together, the trip is meant to boost their creative endeavors. Anna, a writer, is struggling with a novel and Nick, a chef, is intent on researching the region’s cuisine. But the tone for the getaway is set early on when they hit a sheep on a country road en route to the cabin. A series of increasingly inexplicable occurrences all but guarantee the couple will not be having a peaceful time for which they hoped. Meanwhile Mischa (Mona Petri), the woman they hired to watch their apartment, is being harassed by Harald (Michael Ostrowski), a man convinced she is his deceased ex-girlfriend Andrea, the neighbor with whom Nick had the affair. Like with Anna and Nick, reality appears to be crumbling around Mischa.
Read MoreAfter a truly disappointing prom night, Lucy (Olivia Grace Applegate) and her lifelong best friend Annie (Katie Folger) agree to tag along with some classmates and take mushrooms at an abandoned–and possibly haunted–prison work farm in the woods. The ringleader of the group, Laila (Dora Madison) is intent on holding a séance, though her cousin JD (Louis Hunter) may be a little too distracted by the presence of Lucy, who is equally drawn to him. As the drugs kick in, the group wanders through the seemingly empty property, but soon discover they aren’t alone, and even without the drugs, not everything is as it appears to be.
Read More“But there are poems on the ground! This wonderful work will be lost!”
Until a few years ago, the notion of a new Alejandro Jodorowsky film seemed far fetched. The acclaimed artist had not made a film since 1990’s The Rainbow Thief. While other endeavors occupied him, a new film never seemed to be one. Then came the surprising and well-received documentary, Jodorowsky’s Dune, which reunited him with his old producer Michel Seydoux and lead to the production of The Dance of Reality, a surreal look back at Jodorowsky’s childhood in Tocopilla, Chile, and the relationship with his father Jaime Jodorowsky.
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