A couple weekends ago me and K headed to Baltimore to check out a double feature at Bengie’s Drive-In. The line-up was ‘Up’ and ‘Terminator Salvation’. The day before ’17 Again’ was thrown in for good measure and I think that’s a pretty genius triple feature. You have one movie that’s good in just about every way, one that’s at least got some passing interest because of the movies that came before, and one that you can pretty much tune out and instead make time with your date. Well, being Sunday night, it was only a double feature, so K totally lost out. read more »

So there’s a review for a movie called ‘Nightmare Castle’ up over at The DVD Lounge and if you look closely, you’ll see that it was written by me. If you have a second, click on over and check it out, maybe leave a comment or two and help support my pack-a-day DVD habit.

There are many interesting things about ‘Nightmare Castle’ – the director, Mario Caiano, directs as Allen Grunewald, for instance – but one thing I don’t really get into in the review, but probably should have – this was Ennio Morricone’s second movie. The music bounces back and forth between two sources – a shock organ sort of thing and a lilting piano piece that plays a fairly integral part in the movie. read more »

There’s something that just tires me out when I try to lay my thoughts down about a movie that no one probably had any high hopes for except for me. Saying you’re disappointed in ‘My Bloody Valentine 3D’ is like saying you’re disappointed that the ball you threw into the air fell back down again. In your heart, you know what’s coming. This is an idea that was already done to the hilt. There was really no room for improvement. As much as I love the original ‘My Bloody Valentine’, it’s not an amazing film. It’s a very good film made exactly as well as it could ever be made. And this new version proves it. And I’ll tell you about it with many SPOILERS. read more »

Thinking about low-budget one location horror and how it gets made and how it gets made well. First movie that always comes to mind is ‘Evil Dead’, which is pretty genius as low-budget one location horror goes. There’s not a slow moment in it and most of it is really just one guy going nuts in a broken down house in the woods. It’s survival horror, so there aren’t really any huge plot twists or big reveals – it’s a straight line. You know there’s gonna be monsters and there’s sure enough monsters. It skates uneasily between comedy and horror and Bruce Campbell carries it. It’s hard to imagine this movie coming together a different way.

But man – so simple! Apparently they raised somewhere between $350k and $375k from dentists. They’d go to dinner parties, show off a gross-out five minute reel of what they wanted to do and the dentists would hand out the dough. Can that be true? Maybe. read more »

So Fox Atomic is folding and when I first heard about that, I was ensaddened. Mainly because this is a company that was focused on putting some horror out in the world and it’s pretty bad when a genre company can’t keep things afloat. But then, looking back at their roster lately – The Rocker, Miss March, 12 Rounds – none of it seems too exciting and not intentionally horrifying. Still there were the good ol’ days, way back in the mid to late 2000′s when they brought us Turistas, The Hills Have Eyes II and 28 Weeks Later. Not to mention the upcoming Jennifer’s Body that still sounds like it could really be something.

But it’s too late. The plug has been pulled. It leaves us with one genre arm at a studio, according to Variety – Screen Gems – which has been around in one form or another since the early 20th century and has recently brought us stuff like the remake Quarantine (not bad) to the upcoming remake Straw Dogs (can’t be good) and a smattering of remakes elsewhere. They had a few originals at the turn of the century – The Mothman Prophecies (better than expected) and Ghosts of Mars (meh) – but lately they’re just chock full of remakes – The Stepfather and Hell Night to name a few. read more »

Watched ‘At World’s End’ last night with K and though we’d both heard our share of bad reviews for this one – most of them based on the fact that this sucker is so long – we figured that, this being home video, we could break it up into chunks and maybe it wouldn’t seem so bad.

But the problem isn’t that this movie was too long – though you do sort of feel Verbinski and Co. luxuriating in the wide open spaces allowed them for making Disney a s-ton of money. The problem is that this movie exists at all. Not that it was all bad – there’s plenty to see and enjoy here. And no one looks like they’re tired of the swashing and the buckling. But this movie was already undone two movies ago. read more »

In my post about the Wachowski’s Speed Racer a few months ago, I mentioned that I thought the last two Matrix movies were terrible. Then Brian Crane had to go and spoil my know-it-all-ness by saying he rather liked the last two movies, sending me into a reconsideration spiral – if Brian Crane is smart and he also likes the last to Matrix movies, does that mean I could be wrong? Unlikely. But… I had to know.

So putting aside the entertainment needs of my own wife, I rented ‘Matrix:Reloaded’ to see if there was something I might have missed. read more »

If you’ve been lamenting the sameness of comedies at the movies, then it’s time to put up or shut up.

Go. See.

As reported by just about every site in my blawglines (Pulp 2.0, for instance), Marvel Studios is apparently going to start up a writing program – a one year deal to develop new talent for Marvel movies. But check out the quote about the terms:

“Among other things, the contract gives Marvel ownership over everything the writers create during the one year term of [the] deal, plus a first look and last refusal to any and all projects the writers have previously written or will write for 24 months in the future.”

I’ve heard this complaint coming out of the Marvel factory – about their draconian terms on artists who create and maintain their domination in the comic book world. Maybe getting a real start is worth this kind of deal. I guess if the money they pay for that year allows you to live somewhat comfortably, it could be. On the other hand – you have to come to them with EVERYTHING for the next two years? Couldn’t they control their competition to an extent that way? And thereby arbitrarily wreck you? Would other studios want to deal with you if they knew Marvel had this control over your work? I wonder.

What do you think?

I’ll say the only thing I really missed was that Daniel wasn’t in that great owl snow pod costume, flying around the arctic. Otherwise, it was what it was. Beware for spoilers, now…

1. Which was better, the book or the movie or the animated book/movie?

2. Do you think it would’ve been better if Snyder smoked as much opium as Alan Moore?

3. Did Patrick Wilson make the character of Daniel even better than it was in the book?

4. If you had cut the movie, how long would it be?

5. The ending didn’t really add up, did it?

read more »

It’s the time of year again when long lists are written in the hopes that others will read the lists and disagree. Here is one such list – all of the 2008 movies that I saw. There are a ton of movies I haven’t seen yet – Slumdog, Let the Right One In, The Wrestler, Nights in Rodanthe, etc. So you have to remember – this list is comprised only of the 2008 movies I actually saw.

As usual, I think there are far too few movies on this list, but here they are, in order from worst to best: read more »

There seems to be little to no love in the world for the Wachowski’s take on ‘Speed Racer’. Granted, watching the commercials and the trailer, I figured it was a migraine waiting to happen. Considering how terrible the last two Matrix movies were (or, at least, how not-for-me they were), I figured I could write ‘Speed Racer’ off and concentrate on better stuff, like ‘Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.’

Well, we all know how part of that turned out. Who would’ve guessed that ‘Indiana Jones’ would be one of my least favorite movies of the year and ‘Speed Racer’ would be right up there at the top? read more »

On the one hand it’s great that ‘Friday the 13th’ is getting the Blu-ray treatment. Sure, it’s not the most amazing movie, visually, but for those of us who love this stuff, it’ll be great to have a high quality way to wallow in the muck. Also – it’ll be the unrated version (though the box says ‘uncut’. Which means what – this is the raw footage?)! What could be better than that? I guess some of the thunder is stolen by the fact that every movie that comes out these days immediately goes to DVD as unrated for some reason (soon the collector’s items will be versions of the movies as they were actually seen in theaters), but this is kind of a big deal. To me. Maybe only me.

This being the internet, however, I feel I need to gripe – WHAT THE HELL IS WITH THE ART OF THIS DISC? What sub-par rush-job fly-by-night nickel-and-dime straight-to-disc operation are they running at Paramount Home Entertainment? Lookit this art and keep in mind that the audience for this movie regards it as a classic: read more »

Add to the list of great movie titles:

“The Horribly Slow Murderer with the Extremely Inefficient Weapon”

Can’t judge a book by its cover, I guess, but you can definitely enjoy the cover.

All the bad reviews of 2007′s ‘The Invasion’ stuck in my head for a while. They were so bad I wanted to see the movie immediately. Maybe it’s the urge to see a real train wreck. Not just a b-movie flop, but something with some real muscle behind it.

It’s from the WB, from Joel Silver, starring Kidman and Craig. Then there are the stories about the reshoots by McTeague and the Wachowski Bros. The whole story appealed to my basest appetites – I was going to watch these powerful folks fail like crazy. I wondered if it would feel like three different movies, would I be able pick out the parts that were from the different versions. It was disgusting – I was totally hoping for blood.

Man, was I disappointed. ‘The Invasion’ is pretty great. read more »

I can’t look at this image without laughing.

If this one image can be this funny, imagine the rest of the movie.

I’ve complained in the past about folks complaining over movies they haven’t yet seen. I’ve downright made fun of those people. But now I’m about to become one of those people.

More than any other movie on the remake books made or not-yet-made, no production causes me more grief than this ‘Poltergeist’ remake. First of all, there’s no reason to remake it – it’s still as crazy and scary as it was when I first saw it 27 years ago. But we all know remakes aren’t put into motion because of someone’s artistic goals. So, I mean, hey, if Rob Zombie was taking a crack at it, alright, there’d be some interest there. Even if Aja was doing it, maybe. But you have to respect that the original Poltergeist was nominated for OSCARS, people. It’s a Spielberg movie, back when Spielberg was crazy imaginative. Tobe Hooper was there – he watched it all get made! He’d tell you! read more »

After seeing the great trailer for ‘Trick r Treat’ sometime in early 2007, I had high hopes that the end of torture porn was upon us and fun horror movies might be on the horizon again. ‘Trick R Treat’ is an anthology film weaving together five stories:

A suburban couple learns the dangers of blowing out a Jack-o-Lantern before midnight, a principal teaches one neighbor the true meaning of Halloween, a young woman dressed as little red riding hood is stalked by a mysterious hooded figure at a local Halloween Festival, a group of pranksters goes too far and discovers the horrifying truth buried in a local urban legend of a school bus massacre, and a cantankerous old hermit is visited by a strange trick-or-treater with a few bones to pick.

The story lines sound cool and the cast (Dylan Baker, Brian Cox, Anna Paquin) is pretty great. And check out this trailer:

But then the movie disappeared. As you can see by the poster above, it was originally slated to open on October 5, 2007. Apparently Warner Bros. flat out dropped it. But there was a kerfluffle this week when Warner Bros. accidentally left the movie on a list of movies their publicist was readying for release, but they have since confirmed that the movie is still up for sale to the highest bidder.

But why? Is it an edgier move than putting out a crazy dark and violent Batman movie? Was it more violent than ‘Rock n Rolla’ is gonna be? Is it a bigger crap fest than ‘Clone Wars’ looks to be? This movie has been on the block since April of last year. Seriously? They’re letting an original movie just twist in the breeze? Somebody buy it already!

Has anybody else been following this?

Watching ‘Pineapple Express’ last night with a full audience, I wondered why there hadn’t been a chorus of Apatow’s critics pointing out how different a movie this is from the usual Apatow thing – outside of the usual “Can you believe David Gordon Green directed a comedy? Clearly that’s impossible, as all human beings are one-dimensional!”. From ‘Anchorman’ through ‘Step Brothers’, these movies all have a similar feel, similar rhythm, similar dick jokes. It’s not that ‘Express’ is unrecognizable as an Apatow movie – there’s the usual male-bonding brotherhood thing going on. There’s Seth Rogen and James Franco. There’s naughty jokes and gross outs.

What’s so different – and so great about it – is the violence. read more »

Just saw ‘The Dark Knight’ today. Can’t really write a review and be anything but white noise, I feel like, so instead, here’s a list of questions (this will probably have spoilers in it, but then this isn’t really a movie based on huge twists, so I wouldn’t worry too much):

1. Was ‘The Dark Knight’ more about the BIG THEME than about the characters/story?

2. Would this movie have been better if it had focused solely on Batman/Joker or Batman/Two Face?

3. Is anyone else sad that there won’t be anymore Heath Ledger-Joker put to film?

4. Can your heart hold any more love for Michael Caine?

5. Did Lucius Fox actually resign?

read more »

Been oscillating between fascination and frustration reading Larry Gross’ The 48 Hrs. Diaries, apparently entries from a journal that he kept while he was on the set of “48 Hrs.”. Seems like random choices all the way around – Larry who? “48 Hrs.”? From 26 years ago? But taking a peak behind the scenes, deeper than any presskit, it’s always a lure for me.

So there I am reading…

The frustrating part is that the diaries are… well… not so accessible. To wit:

Today with a lot of extras at the set of Elaine’s bar, we refer to it as The Chronicle Bar, It’s a practical location out in Pasadena.

Sosna yelling to the prop guy:

“Craig set you’re a card on fire.”

read more »

It looks like Hollywood is going 3-Ds nuts all of the sudden, with a sack full of 3-D movies on the slate, the first of which opens today – ‘Journey to the Center of the Earth’. It’s got some solid reviews and people are generally saying it’s a good time. Rotten Tomatoes has it at 65%, which would’ve been bad when I was in high school, but is apparently a good thing now.

My question is – do you really want to watch movies in 3-D? Have you ever seen a good 3-D movie?

‘Good’ really isn’t the idea, though, right? It’s all about the gimmick. And gimmicks can be fun. Remember how ‘Clue’ had three different endings and it would change depending on which theater you saw it in? Or what about ‘The Tingler’, an old William Castle movie where the monster of the movie attached to your spine and it would shock you to death unless you screamed AT THE TOP OF YOUR LUNGS!!! That was some gourmet gimmick right there… read more »