Retro-Musings: 1975’s “Race with the Devil” is a true vacation from hell…

*****SATANIC SPOILERS!***** The late 1960s and early 1970s broke new ground with high-end supernatural/occult-themed films, such as “Rosemary’s Baby” (1968) and “The Exorcist” (1973).  That wave continued into the mid-1970s, but it devolved into a slew of exploitation flicks made primarily for drive-in theaters, such as 1975’s “The Devil’s Rain” and “Race with the Devil,”…

A meta-movie remembered; “Last Action Hero” 30 years later…

*****EXPLOSIVE SPOILERS!***** In the 1980s and 1990s, the action movie had evolved (or devolved) into expensive, overwrought, testosterone-soaked chunks of cinematic product.  Producers like Joel Silver, Michael Bay, Jerry Bruckheimer, et al, made their fortunes creating over-the-top police fantasies where rogue cops packing semiautomatic heat set right all the world’s wrongs in a couple of…