Burning Rubber aka Trading Paint. (2019) – Karzan Kader.

Like many anonymous B-features produced today, Burning Rubber relies unwaveringly on tiresome formula, but I can unequivocally state that it occasionally tickled my 'unintentionally funny' box to a splendidly tingle-some effect! I can vaguely recall a vapidly high gloss Tony Scott thriller that was ultimately little more than exhaust fumes and soapy melodrama, Karzan Kader's Burning Rubber is a quickie hicksploitation iteration of that. Barrel-scraper Michael Madsen plays the singularly unsympathetic dirt racer Bob Linsky, his detached performance so somnolent, I momentarily believed he must be under the malign influence of a Karloffian mesmerist! Fortuitously, there is a winningly off-key exchange between a credibly earnest Kevin Dunn and 'hero' Travolta, concerning his Crocodile-munched appendage that momentarily peaked my psychotronic interests.

If Burning Robber had been made in 1979 with Burt Reynolds at the wheel, it would still remain utterly bogus, but a bogus film from '79 with the charismatic Cannonballer would be infinities sweeter than one from 2019 featuring a feloniously fright-wigged John Travolta! In closing, someone once told me that reptilian humans can effectively replicate a head-full of lustrous hair, thereby aiding their invidious 'walk among us' modus operandi; is it at all possible that Travolta is one of those who 'walk among us'???? I love Madsen, but the doofus text for Burning Rubber really didn't do him any favours, at this point Travolta is pretty much bullet-proof, since no one expects much from him, and he frequently rises to expectation.

 Der Lastwagenkrieg (1982) mit peter hein.

This short (47mins) lively, visually appealing, artfully conceived piece should prove interesting to fans of German new wave / post-punk happenings. I have included a screen-grab of the film-makers involved, should anyone care to investigate further. My spoken German is still okay-ish, but this specific dialect proved hard going at times, it almost sounded Austrian? I must absolutely mention the brilliant photography, which I thought was rather special at times, certainly no less so than the music, natch!

 Terminal Velocity (1994) – Deran Sarafian.

'I'm more than a walking penis, I'm a flying penis!

Hunky maverick skydive instructor with notably good hair (Charlie Sheen) gets dangerously entangled with a beautiful skydiving soviet spy with even better hair (Nastassja Kinski), in glossy 90s thrill-spiller Terminal Velocity. Before I continue, I wanted to take a wee digression, and once again savour Sheen's stridently male moniker in Sarafian's entertainingly slick, full-throttled, sky-borne spy shenanigans...'Ditch Brodie'!!!???? I had sincerely hoped Mr. Sheen, the actor, not cleaning product, would have ditched his given name and appropriated Ditch Brodie for real, alas, he did not. Terminal Velocity provides an amiable bounty of suspense, snappy badinage, adrenalized aeronautical acrobatics, with Bad Boy Sheen's glib, FU attitude being no small part of Terminal Velocity's evergreen watchability. Alongside the charismatic pairing of Sheen and alluring Ms Kinski, Sarafian assembled a quality cast of energetic supporting players, with menacing James Gandolfini providing a more than credible nemesis! I still appreciate it when an alpha dude's gravity-defying heroics are noisily telegraphed by histrionic guitar shreddage, yet another bullseye from Terminal Velocity! When esteemed character actor Rance Howard turns up in a picture, he is frequently given little to do, whereas in Terminal Velocity Rance is the equally derring-do facilitator of grandstanding sky-master Ditch's dizzying display of daredevil heroism! Way-ta-go Rance!!!!!!

 Caterpillar (1988) – Shozin Fukui.

Shozin Fukui's fascinating, low-budget experimental art-core horror/weird short has a great band, striking visuals, and a frequently disorientating, pleasingly surrealistic bent. Haunting, imaginative, obtuse, and strangely hypnotic, I royally dug it, but I'm an obscurantist, botty-obsessed shut-in with an increasingly tenuous grasp on reality! Caterpillar features a heady kaleidoscope of frenzied Super-8 captured imagery, and Fukui's dynamic use of stop-motion effects often recalls Tsukamoto's iconic Tetsuo. I also appreciated the eerie live band inserts, and dissonant, overtly masticatory soundtrack. It is clear that the shambling, mentally pixelated characters in Caterpillar are suffering from some sickening urban malaise, and it is left entirely to the dazed viewer to surmise their agony. Creepy and kawaii, weirdy and kawaii, trippy and Kawaii, just like I.

 Blowback (2022) – Tibor Takacs.

Bank heist operator Nick's (Cam Gigandet) plans of executing a slickly orchestrated score are scuppered by members of his crew leaving him for dead, forcing him to enact his bloody revenge upon them! While undeniably formulaic, experienced genre director Takacs delivers a stolid, mostly doable DTV actioner. Surly pugilist Couture is a suitably bellicose thug, Mandylor is often cast as a cop, and Gigandet's Nick provides a handsome, sinewy, if somewhat lightweight hammer of vengeance. I gave Blowback a shot since I am a huge fan of Takacs's The Gate and Armageddon, and, to be fair, it proved to be an amiable enough tea & biscuits time-killer. I think it's a trifle unjust to disparage a boisterous B-picture for steadfastly adhering to a tried and true formula, since that's kinda like throwing the baby out with the bathwater. It's competently made, and as an occasional sentimentalist, I was more than satisfied with how the greatly beleaguered Nick resolved his crisis. Negative elements are the routine plotting, but I must say I did enjoy Ego Mikitas's icy portrayal of charismatic mob enforcer Pete, expressing the same cool, diffident intensity that made Michael Madsen such a wickedly compelling Alpha Reservoir Dog!

 Deliberalize - The Allure of Deceit. (2025) Iron Fortress Records.

'A sinister salvo of morbidly efficient, thrillingly intense Chuck Shuldiner-inflected skull battery! Absolutely alluring, evilly riff-centric metal mayhem, US DM berserkers Deliberalize The Allure of Deceit album ably provides Death Metal maniacs a ferociously unfiltered thrash grenade of neck-rupturing euphoria!'

 Gruesome - 'Silent Echoes'  Relapse. (2025)

'Silent Echoes is certainly no less emphatic a mortal head-crusher than a sky-plummeting safe, brutally decimating your skull into ruinous clots of shattered bone and grisly-looking goo!'