Category: Reviews

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COWABUNGA VIDEO PRODUCT SPOTLIGHT – GALAXY WARRIORS

We recently started carrying a whole mess of VHS tapes of newly released movies from Lunchmeat VHS. One of these is an 80s scifi throwback called Galaxy Warriors. I took the time to watch it today, and I wanted to share some thoughts.

Galaxy Warriors looks, at first glance, like it’s going to be a Roger Corman-y sleaze fest. It’s a movie about a group of lady bounty hunters who end up on a prison planet where they’re forced to fight the other female prisoners to the death. It sounds like it should be an uncomfortably sleazy affair. Instead, it’s no more risque than an episode of Xena: Warrior Princess (and about as well produced.)

The official trailer. You see what I mean?

The film is full of costumes of varying quality, and sets of varying quality, and special effects that would have elevated a bunch of the kinds of movies this is seeking to emulate. (Seriously, the practical effects for the spaceships and the stop motion monsters would have improved most direct to video scifi.)

As I said, I watched the movie on VHS. I specifically watched it on the 28″ Sylvania CRT TV we recently installed in the Cowabunga Video display at Hemlock Bazaar. A VHS on a large CRT TV is 100% the way I would recommend watching this film.

It’s a 16:10 presentation (SD TVs were 4:3 or 16:12. Modern TVs are 16:9. a film in 16:10 gets minor letter-boxing at the top on bottom on SD TVs and minor pillar-boxing on the left and right (or minor cropping on the top and bottom) on modern widescreen TVs. It’s a compromise in both cases, but it looks pretty good in both cases.

If VHS tapes aren’t your thing, the movie is also occasionally available on various streaming services.

The movie was a delight, I really loved it, and I think you will too. And to really drive home that old school charm, Lunchmeat has even released an official novelization of the film!

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Product Spotlight – May 26th, 2024 – A. Lee Martinez

Author A. Lee Martinez write fantasy and science fiction novels unlike basically anyone else. Early in his career, he was compared to Douglas Adams or Terry Pratchett and … I mean, they all write in vaguely the same comic milieu, but it’s unfair to really compare them. Martinez does something entirely unique in writing lighthearted adventure novels that never veer in to parody territory, while treading the line between Emotionally Devastating and wickedly funny.

He’s a prolific writer. Many of his books are currently out of print, and some of them are getting hard to find. My favorite from the out of print collection include The Automatic Detective, a crime noir novel about a robotic detective, and Divine Misfortune, a novel about warring Gods. Both are incredible, and both are undeservedly out of print.

But don’t despair! Many of Martinez’s novels are still widely available, and lots of them are available from us specifically. I highly recommend In The Company of Ogres and Gil’s All Fright Diner, but as far as I can tell everything he’s written is wonderful.

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Product Spotlight – May 25 2024 – The Spider!

Pulp magazines were cheaply produced fiction magazines, most popular in the first half of the 20th century. Lots of well respected authors wrote for the pulps, but the magazines themselves had a lurid, sleazy reputation. Many of these pulps are very hard to find today!

I love pulp fiction. Heroes like Doc Savage, The Shadow, and countless others thrilled readers every week in these cheaply made novels. Some of them were really wonderful. Some of them were pretty bad. One of my favorite heroes from this period is The Spider, and never is The Spider better than in the Black Police trilogy: “The City that Paid to Die”, “The Spider at bay”, and “The Scourge of the Black Legions”.

This trilogy of pulp novels published in the earliest days of the second world war imagines a homegrown fascist uprising in New York City, and pits The Spider and a band of New York citizens against this corruption. It’s thrilling, and an excellent introduction to the pulps of the 30s.

If you like that, you may also enjoy some of these other pulp titles:

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Product Spotlight – May 23, 2024 – Getting Started in Jazz

Our shop has a pretty extensive selection of Vinyl, Cassettes, and CDs curated by local Ellijay record label Analog Revolution. Among that collection is a frankly staggering variety of Jazz records, from Albert Ayler to Kamasi Washington. Here’s a sample of the Jazz we have in stock, or you can browse our whole collection of Jazz and Jazz related records.

Getting it to Jazz can be pretty overwhelming, though, and I’ve seen many a person bounce of the genre as a whole after starting with a more challenging piece without the proper context.

Now, there are a billion ways to get started listening to Jazz, but I think it helps to pick a couple of artists and a year, and work forwards (and occasionally backwards) in time.

See, Jazz doesn’t exist in a vacuum. No matter how well any given album stands on its own, it was created in dialog with the music that came before it and the music that was happening around it. Much like in classical music, the history of Jazz is about innovation, and placing an album in the proper context does wonders to maximize your enjoyment of it.

But what album to pick? What year?

There are a bunch of great places but, for my money at least, it’s got to be something from 1959. 1959 was a watershed year in Jazz, and it produced a number of landmark albums. You could grab Kind of Blue from Miles Davis, Mingus Ah Um or Mingus Dynasty by Charles Mingus, 5 by Monk by 5 (by Thelonious Monk), or Portrait in Jazz by Bill Evans, and those would all be fine choices. I’m sure there are many others that I’m forgetting, ’59 was a big year for Jazz!

Lots of Jazz Fans swear Kind of Blue is the best introduction, and they might be right. It’s Wonderful, and Miles Davis was one of greatest to ever do it.

You could start with any of those or a number of others, listen to a couple featuring the same artists from years prior and a couple from subsequent years and you’d start to get a feel for Jazz in general, and what you like specifically. If you pay attention to who’s playing on what, and read some liner notes, you might find yourself a lifelong Jazz fan.

For me, though, when I’m playing Jazz for a new Jazz fan, I almost always reach for Time Out by the Dave Brubeck Quartet (Ft. Paul Desmond). By the time Time Out was released, Brubeck was already a well respected name in Jazz circles, but that album turned Dave and his band in to superstars.

This is not to say that Time Out is better than any of the other albums that came out in 59, but I’ve found it to be among the most approachable, and tracing Brubeck’s career back from there really reveals some of the ways that Jazz developed in the 1950s.

If Time Out doesn’t grab you, pick a different album from the list above, or pretty much any other late 50s album from Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, Art Blakey, Paul Bley, Sun Ra, etc. I guarantee one of them will get your attention.

(And, to be clear, it’s not that Jazz after the late 50s is bad or even unapproachable! There’s just more variety, and a greater need for context.)

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Product Spotlight – May 22nd 2024 – Nameless – Dominique Fils-Aimé

Today, I just want to highlight a single product. Nameless is a 2018 album released by Dominique Fils-Aimé, and it’s Beautiful. The album is meant to be an exploration of blues music, and it contains several absolutely astounding original tracks, including Birds (embedded bellow) and smouldering covers of Strange Fruit and Stand By Me. It’s a Powerful debut release.

Dominique Fils-Aimé has released two albums since, one exploring Jazz, and the other exploring Soul. While we have them in stock, they’ll be listed under this paragraph. We try to keep all three in stock, but they sell out pretty quickly when we get them in.

If you haven’t explored Nameless yet, do yourself the favor. Find a secluded spot, a cup of hot coffee, and a good sound system, and just let it wash over you.

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VHS IS THE FUTURE – Product Spotlight – May 18, 2024

If you haven’t been paying attention to modern technology trends, you may have missed the news, but VHS is the future of home entertainment. This revolutionary format brings analog video in to your home, but in a convenient cassette based format. What’s more, VHS is a read/write format. That means that anyone can make their own tapes. Truly a modern miracle.

And since we’re living in the future, you can order your VHS Tapes with a computer! I know, it’s hard to believe, but it’s true! Check out some of the VHS Tapes we have for sale:

Specifically, we’ve just added a HUGE selection of titles from Lunchmeat, a new VHS manufacturer. They partner with indie filmmakers to release genre films that just feel right on VHS. You can browse the whole collection, but I wanted to highlight a couple of specific titles and share some trailers.

Lunchmeat VHS

Trailers:

In all seriousness, physical media is neat. VHS tapes don’t look especially good compared to bluray or streaming or even a DVD, and a lot of people don’t even have a VCR anymore, but this lo-fi way to connect audiences with films has a kind of charm that extends well beyond it’s fuzzy scanlines.

Some films feel very different when they’re watched like this. If you still have a VCR kicking around, give it a shot. (And if you don’t, come check our shop. We usually have one or two on the floor in Ellijay, they’re just too heavy to justify shipping.)

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Movie Review – Ip Man: Kung Fu Master

Imagine for a moment Kung Fu legend Ip Man fighting corrupt politicians, Japanese soldiers, and the Axe Gang as a masked vigilante during an invasion by the Japanese army in pre-revolution China. Sounds about perfect, right?

Enter Ip Man: Kung Fu Master. It was released in late 2019, and was released directly to streaming platform Youku.

Lots of reviewers compared the film negatively to the more popular trilogy of films about legendary martial artist Ip Man, but I think that’s entirely the wrong way to think about this movie. Think about this as a direct to video release from a small studio that is exploiting the popularity of a real person in order to tell a story that has very little to do with that real person.

Taken in that light, this film is a world better than you might expect.

Compared to other “Ip-sploitation” films, this one sits near the top of the pile. I think Ip Man: The Final Fight might best it, but it’s significantly better than most of the other films looking to cash in on Ip’s name.

(And I’m going to be honest, when he showed up wearing a leather mask reminiscent of Kato’s from The Green Hornet, I got Hype.)

So, if in this era of video streaming, you’ve found yourself missing the kind of direct to video martial arts films that littered video store shelves in the 1980s, you’d be hard pressed to find a more worthy successor than this direct-to-Chinese-streaming release about a highly fictionalized Vigilante Ip Man.

Of course, you may be more interested in our other Kung Fu titles, including a number of films that were originally part of those drive-in and direct to video releases. Check out the kung fu films and novels we currently have in stock:

(View All Kung Fu Titles)

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Product Spotlight – Analog Revolution Records

We (that is to say the people behind Hemlock Bazaar) also run a record label and recording studio here in Ellijay. We work with Physical Music Productions in Nashville to release albums from artists here in Ellijay (like Doctor Deathray and Eli Pop) and artists all over North GA.

Here are some musical samples from these bands:

Eli Pop

Doctor Deathray

Hurly Burly and the Volcanic Fallout

Revolting Music

Small

Red Hot Empty

Rat Babies

The New Clear Lawn Chairs

Purchase:

You can find more releases from Analog Revolution, including some upcoming pre-orders on their website.

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What is Wuxia?

Are you a fan of kung fu movies with leaping swordsmen and mystical forces? You might like Wuxia. (Pronounced Woo-Sha or Woo-She-ah.)

What?

Wuxia is, in many ways, the Chinese equivalent of English Sword and Sorcery novels. Translated literally, Wuxia means martial arts and chivalry. In practice, it means historical fantasy, usually with martial arts and mystical forces. Think Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon.

Until recently, very few vintage Wuxia novels were translated into English, and even fewer modern ones. In recent years, with the rise of self publishing and a renewed American interest in these stories, they’ve become more widely available.

Modern Wuxia novels are frequently found along side Manga, and tend to draw on things like Dragon Ball and other Manga influences. Some authors have started mixing in romance elements as well. These can be a lot of fun! Classic Wuxia novels, on the other hand, tend to be a little more somber and serious. Things like The Legend of the Condor Heroes or The Three Kingdoms have more in common with Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon than Dragon Ball.

Either way, Wuxia is a fun genre that has been under represented in the US for too long.

Check out the Wuxia novels we have in stock:

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Product Spotlight – May 10th 2024 – Camp Snap Cameras

This is a fun one! We’re now selling Camp Snap cameras.

These are small, cheap digital cameras. They don’t have screens. You have to frame your photos with the optical viewfinder and wait until you get home to see them.

I really love these little gizmos. As simple as they are, they go a long way towards bringing some magic back to photography.

Get yours today!