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Lupin III: Castle Of Cagliostro (1979)

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 Lupin III: Castle Of Cagliostro (1979) Anime film director Hayao Miyazaki has become a household name with films like Spirited Away, My Neighbor Totoro, Kiki's Delivery Service, and Howl's Moving Castle with his studio, Studio Ghibli.  Before he started Studio Ghibli he was an animator, his feature film directorial debut came in 1979 with Lupin III: The Castle Of Cagliostro, based on the popular Lupin the Third manga and anime series by Monkey Punch.  Some of the style elements of The Castle of Cagliostro would help to define the style that would be recognized as Hayao Miyazaki's.  The Castle Of Cagliostro, would go on to be one of the most well-loved anime films of all-time, however it didn't begin as such.  When The Castle Of Cagliostro was released, many felt that it changed too much of the manga and anime, and made Lupin III a more heroic character, rather than the ruthless scoundrel that he was in the anime and manga.  In the words of Lupin III creator, Monkey Pun

Sometimes They Come Back... For More (1998)

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  Sometimes They Come Back... For More (1998) So there is a trend in low-budget b-horror films, to take a name of a film that was either successful or popular, and then to make "sequels" that really have nothing to do with the original film.  Some great examples of this would be the endless sequels to Stephen King's Children Of The Corn, the sequels to the film Troll, and 1998's Sometimes They Come Back... For More, which has nothing to do with, or even in common with the 1991 television film adaptation of Stephen King's short story, Sometimes They Come Back.   There is one tiny mention of the character Jim Norman, when his name is on a map in Dr. Schilling's room, but they name him as being from Bangor Maine, which is an inconsistency with the 1991 film, as well as the Stephen King's short story. Sometimes They Come Back... For More is not so much a sequel of Sometimes They Come Back, as it is a rip-off/knock off of John Carpenter's The Thing.   The s

Sometimes They Come Back (1991)

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  Sometimes They Come Back (1991) Stephen King's stories often found themselves being turned into made for television films and miniseries, some of those like 'Salem's Lot, It, Storm Of The Century, and Rose Red have become some of King's beloved film adaptations.  Sometimes They Come Back, an early Stephen King short story from 1974, later printed in his 1978 short story collection Night Shift, was originally optioned to be part of the horror anthology film Cat's Eye, but wasn't ended up being used.  Then in 1991 Dino De Laurentiis produced a made for television film, that was aired on CBS.   Sometimes They Come Back, tells the story of Jim Norman, who witnesses the murder of his brother when he was a kid, and the murderers died in front him when a train hit their car, and his family left town.   Later as an adult, he gets a job at the school in his childhood small town, as a last resort after an incident at the school he was teaching at in Chicago.   But the p

Big Driver (2014)

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Big Driver (2014)   Content Warning: The film that I am reviewing deals with the subject of sexual assault, so there will be discussion of that in this review, so if that is a subject that causes you discomfort or triggers strong emotional or even PTSD based responses then please for your own well-being do not read further, nor should you watch this film, and if you choose to, then be forewarned so that you can prepare for the topics that will be discussed.   You my dear reader, matter to me, and I want you to be safe.  I am a survivor of this kind of abuse, so I understand how triggering this subject can be if you are too, so please only read on if you are comfortable.  I love and appreciate you my dear reader, you mater, and you are valid.  The Lifetime television channel seems to have earned a reputation as a "man-hating" channel with films that seem to focus on women as victims to crimes committed by men, and they getting their justice or revenge on the men who hurt them.

Trucks (1997)

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  Trucks (1997) Many people weren't happy with Stephen King's adaptation of his own short story Trucks in 1986 when he wrote, and directed Maximum Overdrive.  So USA television network aired a made for television version of stephen King's short story Trucks, and called their version Trucks.   Usually the point of remaking a film is to make it better...okay sadly it seems like the trend ends up being like Trucks where remakes are in fact worse than the original, which is the reason I tend to not appreciate remakes of films.  Like why did they remake Pet Sematary in a terrible way, why did they remake It and not make it better than the original, why do people think that remakes are ever a good idea, unless you have the ability to actually fix something that didn't work and make it better.   That brings us to Trucks, it looks worse than Maximum Overdrive, it just has a much cheaper looking production value, the acting is subpar compared to Maximum Overdrive, the characters

Pork And Bean Soup

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  Pork And Bean Soup On a nice cold winter day, what could possibly be better than a nice soul warming bowl of soup.  So last night during the Nor'easter that dropped several inches of snow on our quiet cabin in the woods, I decided to run to the market and get supplies to make a nice Pork and Bean Soup.  My roommate had started soaking three different kinds of beans the night before, and I knew we had some celery in the fridge and some onion, garlic, and shallot, so I needed to run and get some pork, carrots, and parsley from the store.   My original intention was to get some ham hocks, but the store was sold out, and I called to another local store, which was also sold out.   So, time to get creative!  I saw some salt pork, I had bacon at home, and I figured that would be a nice base to start with, then I got a nice large bone in slice of ham, and there were some pork ribs with bones on sale, so I figured that would work for the pork, and I came up with this delicious pork and be

Maximum Overdrive (1986)

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  Maximum Overdrive (1986) I think as a kid the reason I got into Stephen King, is because of  watching his 1986 film directorial debut, Maximum Overdrive.   I remember as a kid absolutely loving everything about this film, and to this day it still holds a very special place in my heart, and it is one of my all-time favourite films.  As far as Stephen King films I would place it as my second favourite, with Pet Sematary being my favourite.  Maximum Overdrive is based on King's 1973 short story called Trucks, which was published in his first short story collection, Night Shift.  The film tells the story of the earth passing through the trail of a comet, which results in all of the machines of the earth coming to life and killing people.  The story focuses on a group of people who are held captive at the Dixie Boy truck stop in North Carolina by a group of trucks led, by a truck with the Green Goblin face on the front of it.   Maximum Overdrive was written and directed by Stephen Kin