New this week (and then some)

I can see that it’s going to take some practice to get back into the habit of doing weekly updates. Well, at least this one is just two or three weeks late rather than seven or eight months.

In all honesty, I’ve been so busy with start-of-semester stuff that I haven’t added much content to the site. Just three movie reviews:

• Bingo Long’s Traveling All Stars and Motor Kings
• Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters
• The Bell Witch Haunting

And a book review: Creative Photography Lab.

Enjoy!

Review – The Bell Witch Haunting

Found footage movies and Amityville Horror reheats don’t make a good combination. As if anyone was really curious about that. Wish I’d skipped it

Back in business

8sails fans will of course have noticed that updates – and most new content uploads – ground to a halt in early May. I’ll spare you the long explanations. For now suffice it to say that I’m working to get everything back on track. Part of the effort will involve simplifying the record-keeping side of the site, reducing indexes and updates to weekly updates on this blog.

Though reviews didn’t flow as freely as they have in years past, guest critic K. Alexander and I did write a few up. Here’s everything between the start of May and the end of December.

Staff movie reviews:

• Fall from Grace
• Battleship  
• The House at the End of the Street  
• The Riverman
• The Master 
• Skyfall 
• The Initiation 
• Outrage 
• The Blood Beast Terror 
• Taken 2 
• The Revisionaries 
• The Expendables 2 
• That Guy ... Who Was in That Thing 
• Belphegor: Phantom of the Louvre saA 0
• The Dictator 
• Roads to Memphis: The Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. 
• The Hands of Orlac 
• The Whisperer in Darkness 
• Star Trek: Dark Territory 
• The Haunting in Connecticut 2: Ghosts of Georgia 
• Dark Skies 
• Cool Air 
• Devil Times Five 
• Pickman’s Muse 
• The ABCs of Death 
• Knuckleball! 
• Streets of Fire 
• 6 Souls 
• The Lion King 
• Texas Chainsaw 
• Phantom 
• Mama 
• Evil Dead (2013) 
• The Magic Flute (2006) 
• Solomon Kane 
• Movie 43 
• Fright Night 2 (2013) 
• Chilling Visions 
• The Purge
• The Conjuring 
• Devil 
• Jedi Junkies 
• Twixt 
• Messenger of Death 
• Wyatt Earp 
• Chitty Chitty Bang Bang 
• Ray Harryhausen: Special Effects Titan 
• Robin Hood (1973) 
• Cirque du Soleil: Worlds Away 
• The Great Gatsby (2013) 
• Deceptive Practice: The Mysteries and Mentors of Ricky Jay 
• Talhotblond 
• Red Water 
• World War Z

Alexander’s contributions:

• Killer Joe
• The Great Gatsby (2013)
• The Loved Ones
• Attack the Block
• Jeremiah Johnson
• Rising Sun
• Pain & Gain
• The Company You Keep
• Pirates! Band of Misfits!
• ParaNorman 
• Iron Man 3

And new book reviews:

• 11/22/63
• Impact
• The Wind Through the Keyhole
• Effortless Beauty
• History’s Monsters
• The Little Book of Contemplative Photography
• Mindful Eating
• The Inventor and the Tycoon
• Restoring Hope and Trust 

Enjoy!

Review – Bingo Long’s Traveling All Stars and Motor Kings

Baseball and civil rights: what’s not to love? I wish this movie had been made just a few years later, when meandering scriptlessness wasn’t quite so in vogue. Writing aside, this is a charming tale of a barnstorming baseball team’s attempts to make a living and have some fun in the days before Jackie Robinson. Worth seeing