Combinations Follow

Netflixorama: Vincent Priceapalooza!

2009-04-15T12:48:00.008-04:00

I've been away for quite some time from my daily Netflixorama article, not because of lack of film watching (actually I've been watching more films than I have for awhile) but because of the dreaded writer's block that many people speak about. I've had small bouts of it in the past, but this time around it's come full force. You'd think with a lack of job that it would come out easier but instead it's been tough to get out of this fun.

But something came over me a few weeks ago, a little bit of inspiration in the form of Vincent Price. The grand thespian, art lover and forgoer of all things Gothic macabre got my attention in a film that actually is one of his dramatic acting chops. It's sad because people tend to not think of the man as more than a horror icon. Don't get me wrong, I'm in love with his Corman and AIP run. His Edgar Allen Poe adaptations were steady viewing with my grandmother growing up and I love to show The Abominable Dr. Phibes to as many people as I can in this lifetime.

But then, about 10 years ago, I caught the film Laura which changed my whole outlook on the man. It made me realize that he was sadly typecast in the horror genre (which he never truly got out of). It also started my love for film noir, which at my tender age of 17 was sadly ignored by my 'peers', if you can call them that. I always tended to stay away from trends growing up, and film was no exception. I wrote a lengthy review (12 pages) on Arsenic & Old Lace in 5th Grade, so it goes to show you where I'm coming from.

I didn't have many friends back then.

So where am I going with this episode of Netflixorama? It's on a film that was sadly taken down on Netflix and I was lucky enough to catch it before that occurred. Which is another reason why my writer's block has plagued me. I can't get the information out to the masses as fast as I'd like to. So that changes with today's article. The particular film I'm speaking of is the 1950 film The Baron of Arizona, one of Samuel Fuller's early works of cinema. It tells the story of James Reavis, a conman in the 19th Century, who somehow plans out the swindling of the entire territory of Arizona from the U.S. Government. It's loosely based on a real man named James Reavis, but reading up on him showed a sad man who was always found out and died penniless.

This is Hollywood, people! In Hollywood, you don't have boring endings where nothing at all is resolved. Instead you showcase Vincent Price's acting chops and show him dominating the screen in every single scene he's in. It's all around the world for him too. How else is he going to convince everyone that he has been taking care of the "rightful heir" to Arizona, Sofia de-Peralta. Of course it's all an elaborate lie, which only Price knows the ins and outs of. An intriguing little movie, with some amazing cinematography by James Wong Howe, who had been working nonstop in film since 1923 (The Prisoner of Zenda in 1937 being one of my absolute faves).

Samuel Fuller, who is one of the most off-kilter directors who had ever lived, does an admirable job here. Of course it's no Naked Kiss or his later exploitative films Shark! or White Dog, but he gives it that little flavor which shows he was behind the camera calling the shhots. It's hard to explain at first glance, considering Vincent Price is such a force to be reckoned with in front of the camera, he sometimes overshadows the subtle nuance in the background or with the other players on the screen. Luckily Fuller knows this to be true and reigns Price in every so often, giving Price the chance to exude his known charm but with more of an emphasis on his inner struggle of the lie that's eating away at not only himself, but the people of Arizona and his bride, who he truly loves now, The Baroness de Peralta-Reavis.

I should also take a moment to give some credit to Ellen Drew, who had to keep pace with Price on screen and does a more than admirable job at it. She shows grace, beauty and empathy for the people of Arizona but is also angry at them and the U.S. government for calling her husband a liar and a cheat and that she will never leave her husband's side. Even when she finds out the truth and Reavis is being strung up to be hung, she never leaves his side. Now that's what I call devotion to your significant other.

If you want to check it out as soon as possible, Criterion has put out a DVD collection via their new Eclipse line of films. More affordable compared to their premier line, primarily due to lack of extras on these other films. Check it out on Criterion's website. It's well worth the price, especially for another film in the collection, I Shot Jesse James. Yes, there's been movies before the grand Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford. Trust me.

Tune in later for a second Netflixorama. Vincent Price was just all over me these past few weeks. Now that sounds intriguing!

Guillermo Del Toro Getting Some Love On DVD

2009-04-01T00:24:00.004-04:00

If anyone knows me well enough, I'm a huge Guillermo Del Toro fan. Anytime a release of one of his films comes out I have to buy it right away. It's a bit of an addiction that I'm proud to have. There's one film of his that I don't have on DVD because the edition that came out previously was of the suckage level. That movie is the little horror cockroach monster movie Mimic.

Thanks to Twitch Film for posting this news up on their site. And yes, I realize the Mimic news is the April Fools joke kind. But down below is the real meat of the matter.

What's pretty exciting is that it's a director's cut of the movie. I remember seeing this film when it came out and liking it (not loving it) but could tell there was a bit more to it. What I find funny is that it's the 12th Anniversary edition (which is almost as funny as The Jerk's 26th Anniversary Edition DVD). It just seems like a weird time to make an anniversary edition, but I'll take it nonetheless. Even more exciting that Del Toro does commentary and there's a making of going through the terrible tale of what went wrong with his first foray in Hollywood film making.

An even more intriguing tidbit of a Del Toro film being re-released on DVD in the fall came in my inbox today from Criterion's update email I get every so often. It had the following picture listed at the end of the email, which for this film geek made my pants a little tighter.

For anyone out there not in the know about his Spanish Language Trilogy, the film Cronos was the first of the three films (the others being The Devil's Backbone and Pan's Labyrinth). As opposed to the latter two films taking place during the Spanish Civil War, Cronos takes place in Mexico. It was his first feature film and showed right from the get go that he was a force to be reckoned with. So what it looks like in the fall is that we should be expecting a new Special Edition DVD from Criterion, which is a big deal to film aficionados around the world. They tend to put the most work into their DVD releases (but Warner Bros. has stepped up in the last few years with their special editions) and find the coolest special features for their releases. I'll be featuring a best of special features with Criterion in the coming weeks.

So it's an exciting time for Del Toro fans out there. Even with his directing gig right now with The Hobbit (which rumors becoming a trilogy itself), he still takes the time to develop grand editions for his films, no matter how small or how critically panned they might be. He is a film maker and an artist, which he loves to share with his fans and I for one appreciate it. I can't wait for these two DVD releases this year.

Where the Wild Things Are Trailer

2009-03-25T15:07:00.006-04:00

Bask in its brilliance.

This is the trailer for Where the Wild Things Are, the new film by Spike Jonze (who's been absent from filmmaking for quite some time now) from the classic children's book by Maurice Sendak. It's one book I remember vividly reading when I was a kid and always loved its darkness and humor. I always said more kid's book should be a bit dark, just to get the point across, if need be.

Thanks to First Showing for having the only trailer I could find online that actually worked right away. For that, you get the thumbs up.

Pharrell denied at McDonalds

2009-03-25T11:40:00.005-04:00

I'm a bit confused as to whether or not the McDonald's staff was in on this but what does it matter? Any ultra-millionaire douche who's willing to sing and dance their praise for Big Macs and apple pies is definitely worth 78 seconds of my time watching them on YouTube.

Click below for the video.

I Heart Lori

2009-03-25T07:07:00.005-04:00

The woman above is a personal friend of mine who I adore. Her name is Lori.

Her television career began on a show on ESPN2 called Funkmaster Flex's Car Wars. The show features four contestants who must customize a car within a certain period of time and whoever has the best car wins.

On Season 1 of Car Wars, Lori was a standout character. She stole every scene she's in and was by far the most interesting person on the show. I guess that's why they officially made her a judge in Season 3.

My opinion may be biased but I don't care... she's a fucking champion.

Anyway, I've been editing clips from her stint on the show. I'm still cutting up Season One but I've released the clips I've finished so far on a new YouTube Channel: "YouTube.com/LoriCrystalAuto".

Because I recognize that most of you don't want to go clicking around unless it's absolutely necessary, I decided to post my favorite video so far. Watch closely as Lori shows you the definition of pwn.

Cat Shit One

2009-03-24T14:01:00.003-04:00

All I can say is, "Wow." I saw this trailer today and at first didn't know if it was a joke or not. It wasn't because I thought it was funny. It was because it looked really good. An Iraq war film/series... but with animals? So of course I did some digging around and found out a bit about this series.

Cat Shit One, or as it is called in America, Apocalypse Meow (pretty clever) was a 1998 manga series from Motofumi Kobayashi published by Softbank Publishing. It originally depicted the Vietnam War in three volumes, and the soldiers fighting against the Cats (Vietnamese), their daily lives and how they come to grips with the world around them. And they say comics are for kids?

Each animal depicts a different nationality. Rabbits are Americans, Pandas are Chinese, Rats are British and so on and so forth. It mainly follows three characters, Bota, Perky and Rats who are in the reconnaissance group Cat Shit One and their battles with the evil Cats. Now all I need to do is track down all three volumes and read them back to front as fast as possible.

It looks as though they changed the setting of the story to the deserts of Iraq, which makes a bit of sense. Give it that 'now' factor that's missing from a lot of war films (and I'm being extremely sarcastic there). But not to gripe with their decision, it still looks like some great violent action. Almost reminds me a bit of We3, which I'm still waiting for to be made into a film.

So hopefully sometime soon we can see more of this action. For now, let's appreciate animals getting blown away by one another. That's always a fun time.

Moments in Filmery: Nic Cage + Jared Leto = Cold Embrace?

2009-03-24T11:18:00.007-04:00

This is a still from a guilty pleasure of mine, Lord of War. I consider it a guilty pleasure mainly because it's against my nature to regard any Nicolas Cage film after 1999 as a quality film worth watching.

Nicolas Cage (left) plays an arms dealer. Jared Leto (right) plays his drug addict brother. This is a scene where Jared's character obviously needs 'help' and Nic's character is supposed to look "concerned". But, with the dialed-in aura that Mr. Cage brings to the table, this moment can be viewed in a couple of different ways.

Let's explore the plausible options:

Jared loves Cages' tie.
Cage is not impressed by the cotton blend Jared's zip-up hoodie is made out of. Apparently, 20% polyester should only be used for Cage's hairpieces
Product placement for AXE body spray proves that even hot chicks like Jared Leto can't resist the scent. ...
....
..He's a dude?
But.. the eye liner?
.... ok.
Cage's subliminal way of protesting gay marriage in America.

There are many other concepts that may arise from this one frame of pseudo-homo-erotic glory. Share some of your own.

Netflixorama: French Parkour Action Film Edition

2009-03-23T22:54:00.004-04:00

For all of you who are new to the site, Netflixorama is my excuse to catch up with movies I never had the chance to see or haven't seen in quite some time. It's a fun little exercise in my movie intake and maybe a good way for all of you out there to see what you should be checking out or trying to stay away from.

Today's entry is a fun action film that I somehow missed to see it every chance I had. The film is Banlieue 13 or District 13 to American movie goers out there. It heavily uses the activity of parkour (l'art du déplacement or the art of movement) in many of its stunt and action sequences, which in turn means there is no wire or CGI effects. For an action film fan like myself, it's a fantastic change of pace from today's standard fare.

David Belle, a co-founder of parkour, co-stars as Leïto, a street wise youth who rules over his own apartment building in District B13, which is a suburb of Paris, in the year 2010. It's been overrun by gangs and it's become a feudal system of sorts between all the gang factions in B13. He hates drugs in his neighborhood and has been waging a war against neighboring gang lord Taha Bemamud. He's just stolen a 20kg of heroin which is worth one million euros, which incites Taha to send his goons to Leïto's building to get the drugs back. He sends his main grunt K2 (which you can tell by having it shaved in the back of his head) with a little army but they're too late; Leïto has destroyed the drugs in his bathtub with bleach and evades the group with his parkour skills in a thrilling opening chase.

K2 brings the bad news back to Taha, which then prompts him to ask if they have any ideas on how to get back his one million euros. Everyone is quiet, so he starts shooting goons one by one until he gets to K2 who screams out that they should have Leïto pay... by kidnapping his younger sister Lola and holding her up for ransom. They go to the supermarket she works at and take her hostage back to Taha's stronghold. And this is where the film gives me a bit of a surprise. Instead of the usual 'How's the hero going to get in?' type of story, Leïto just jumps in through the window and takes Taha hostage in a matter of seconds. It was a good change of story structure, which told me that this film would be a bit different.

He and his sister take Taha to the border of B13 and to the police, who are packing up to leave the walled up district behind for good. He shows them proof of Taha's drug trafficking and instead of the police taking Taha in custody, they take Leïto instead and lock him up and let Taha go with Lola. This enrages Leïto to the point of grabbing the police chief and breaking his neck with a knee stomp.

It then goes to 6 months later and we focus on undercover police captain Damien Tomaso (Cyril Raffaelli), who infiltrates a crime boss' underground casino and attempts to arrest only the boss. Of course an insane fire fight begins and Damien, with a fun fight scene, using parts of the casino to fight off the goons. I apologize for the above video being dubbed. For some reason people don't like subtitles, which boggles my mind.

Of course he triumphs but that doesn't mean he gets time to be congratulated. He's called in by the chief and Defense Secretary of France, Mr Krüger, and is assigned with a vital mission to get into district B13 and to disarm a neutron bomb stolen by Taha's men. He also has to somehow convince Leïto, who is still in prison, to help guide him in B13. Did I mention that he also has less than 24 hours to disarm the bomb? This makes for some great character work. Character work within an action film like this? You'd be surprised, but sometimes you just need to look deep down within an action film.

Damien and Leïto meet in a police truck transferring them to another prison, where Damien is pretending to be a fellow prisoner. Damien breaks free, gets rid of the two cops up front and befriends Leïto, or so he thinks. Leïto isn't that stupid, suspects everyone of trying to screw him over, and handcuffs Damien to the steering wheel. He tells him to keep driving, even through the police barricade and with the tires, steering and brakes destroyed, he crashes into some gang member's brand new sports car. Leïto tells him he knows he's a cop and tells him to figure his way out.

The film deals with a lot of heavy issues, most of which going on in France and the rest of the world, especially when it comes to class struggles. District 13 is a ghetto to the rich and citizens of Paris would rather see it wiped off the face of the Earth than see any change occur there. They've gotten rid of the schools, the police, even the post office from there, shutting it out from the rest of France. It's basically kill or be killed beyond those walls and barbed wire, which is why you have all these hardened killers and criminals who are in charge while people like Leïto try to fight the evil with their own style but feel as if the law has turned their backs on them. Which in this alternate future timeline, it has. There's a lot of twists and turns and it's all spelled out for the viewer very easily in the eyes of Leïto, who finds it a bit suspicious that a neutron bomb was so easily robbed and left in district B13.

I realize I'm going through the whole basic storyline, so I'll stop right there. I'd rather you all just rent it or buy it (which I'll be doing soon) but I'll speak about a few of the things that you wouldn't know by just watching the film. The film was co-written and co-produced by Luc Besson, of Leon, La Femme Nikita and The Fifth Element fame. He's had a great career of producing and writing films that he doesn't direct as well, with The Transporter franchise films being a few of his hits. He also hired Pierre Morel to direct the film, who was the cinematographer of The Transporter and Unleashed (also produced and written by Besson). Morel has gone on to direct a hit film here in the States, Taken, so I'd like to see what else he has up his sleeve in the near future.

Parkour is the other thing that has been adopted in many action films as of late. A lot of you know it from the opening chase scene in Casino Royale and one of the main bad guys used it in the sub par sequel to Die Hard, Live Free or Die Hard (remember when it was supposed to be called Die Hard 4.0? Remember when it was supposed to be a good movie? Well, not sure about that one...). The funny thing is Cyril Raffaelli was said henchman in the film, showcasing his style to American audiences (which I have to say was the only thing that got any cheers in the film).

I'm not sure if parkour has been beaten to death yet. I've seen it in plenty of commercials, a few movies and even was the central point of the video game Mirror's Edge. It's a cool concept though, which I can see many more stuntmen using in the repertoire, especially with action films trying to up the ante every time. That's a good thing though. Innovation tends to make me a happy camper and I'm always pleased when a good thing becomes... the norm, I guess.

The first film I ever saw it used in was the French film Yamakasi in 2001 (another film co-written by Besson... he's a busy guy). It was a fun little film that I thought nothing else about until I started hearing all these stories of traceur's doing these death defying stunts so fluidly, you wouldn't dare believe it. But now, it's become a way of life for plenty of people who study parkour, and I hope to see it in more film but not used strictly as a gimmick, but more as an enhancement to a film's story and/or action.

So go check out District B13, but with subtitles only. It loses any feeling with the dubbed version. It's a fun action film that won't disappoint. And to people who don't care about story, it's got some cool action sequences which won't bore you in the least. I just can't wait for the sequel, District B13 Ultimatum which came out already in France and comes out here in the States in July. It will have David Belle and Cyril Raffaelli reprising their roles from the first film. I have a feeling they have thought up new ways to thrill the audience with some crazier stunts and action sequences than the first one.

Netflixorama: Get Carter, Caine Edition

2009-03-22T19:41:00.007-04:00

He's cold, amoral, calculating, cool under pressure and despicable. And he's the hero of this story. At least, after watching it again for the first time in many years, Jack Carter is the centerpiece of Mike Hodge's Get Carter. Michael Caine stars as Jack Carter, an English gangster whose brother has died and he wants to get to the bottom of things, so he drops everything in his cozy life in London and goes back 'home' to Newcastle to find out the truth.

Where to begin? Well, it should all begin with the whole British Gangster genre of film, a fun little genre that young people today only know because of Guy Ritchie's films, such as Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Snatch and RockNRolla. Also, to a lesser degree, Matthew Vaughn's fun romp Layer Cake. Don't get me wrong, I like all those films but it had to begin somewhere, and it was back in the late 60's/early 70's that the British Gangster film started to gain steam and become lucrative business. In 1971, Get Carter came out and was helping along Michael Caine's career as a leading man, especially after iconic roles in both Alfie and The Italian Job. (Is it just me, or do they always poorly remake Michael Caine films. Think about it, Alfie, The Italian Job, Get Carter and Sleuth are the four films that come to mind, all subpar remakes).

The film is a simple one. Jack Carter's brother supposedly drunk drives into a canal and drowns to death in the process. According to Jack, this isn't something his brother would do, so he takes the train back to Newcastle to see what the true story is. He arranges his brother's funeral (in the smallest coffin ever, but that's just my observation) and asks his brother's daughter why this would happen. She seems distant but says she doesn't know why.

I don't really want to ruin all the little twists and turns throughout the film. It's weird, it's not like I have to put a spoiler alert on a film that's almost 40 years old, but at the same time I battle with giving away too much of the plot away, becoming a Cliff Notes version for these films. So I should give you a bunch of positives as to why you should either own this film or rent it right away.

1) Michael Caine as Jack Carter is worth it alone for everyone to see this film. You see, he was on fire at this point of his career, just delivering very cool roles that are now looked upon very highly in the film aficionado's eyes. In this role, he's just so cool even though when you look at what he does throughout the film, he's a despicable man who is really in it for just himself. Yes, he does care about his dead brother and his niece, but ultimately it really is all about Jack Carter. He just kills everyone in his way or sleeps with them. And sometimes kills them too. Or leads them to death. He throws people over ledges, injects someone with drugs to make it look like an OD, stabs someone to death, beats up a guy and shoots someone dead. But you need to realize the people he's violent too are despicable people too. But when does it all end? Watch the movie and you'll find out. Just remember that Caine will slap the shit out of you.

2) The direction of Mike Hodges. A very stylized directorial effort by Mike Hodges, Get Carter is one film in a very varied career. Films like Flash Gordon and The Terminal Man are guilty pleasure films for me and two of his most recent films, Croupier and I'll Sleep When I'm Dead (both starring Clive Owen), are fine examples that he hasn't given up yet (well, maybe he has with the abysmal Murder by Numbers being his last directorial effort back in 2004). But we're here basking in his fine effort in Get Carter, where he showcases not only fine actors, but the town of Newcastle is a character of its own. People that look worn down, varied scenes throughout the film (such as a dance club, a mansion, a car park and the beach). He also wrote the script from Ted Lewis' novel, Jack's Return Home, and does a good job at reminding you throughout the film that Jack Carter isn't to be trusted but you can't help but like the bloke.

3) The editing of John Trumper, who has had some great genre flicks under his belt (such as The Freakmaker, Circus of Fear and The Face of Dr. Fu Manchu. The way he can juxtapose a love scene with a car ride and not have it look ridiculous is something most films could benefit from today but would probably think it'd confuse too many film goers. Sadly that's a truth I've noticed in speaking with people about film in any way besides them drooling while loving the same tripe they tend to go after.

4) The cinematography of Wolfgang Suschitzky. A name not many people would know or care about. Some of the shots in this film, where it's a distant shot and he'll slowly pan toward the center of attention, is phenomenal. If you want to know what I'm speaking of, check out the opening scene below. Gets me every time.

5) Roy Budd's theme for Get Carter. Don't believe me? Check out Mr. Budd playing the theme below.

A great film that deserves to be seen by more people today. Get Carter was also remade Blaxploitation style with Bernie Casey and Pam Grier the following year in Hit Man.

Want a good crime film instead of the likes of Pride and Glory or We Own the Night? Check this film out with another fine example of the crime film, Point Blank with Lee Marvin. It was also remade, but into a pretty good Mel Gibson starring role in Payback. That's a fine double feature right there.

Oh, Michael Caine would like to thank you all for reading this article as well.

Until next time, the 360 is shutdown.

Gobstopper: Why the F*** Not?

2009-03-22T14:05:00.007-04:00

Before I begin my shpeel, I'd like to give a special thanks to James for allowing me to "do my thang". This is my first of many posts for Combinations Follow and hopefully my warped point of view will be appreciated by all.

Now that I've taken care of that, let's get down to business.

If you can't recognize the man above, than you should seriously consider neutering/spaying yourself with rusty surgical equipment. He is Christopher Allen Lloyd a.k.a. Dr. Emmett Brown from Back to the Future.

I'll assume you know what Back to the Future is because if not than some sort of inhumane euthanasia is in order. I wish nothing but the worst on you and your worthless family whose genes you share. Your souls will not be spared in the afterlife.

Anyway..

I stumbled across a "trailer" for a movie with endless promise. It's a distorted version of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. The original story was about a group of 5 separate children who won a contest by finding gold tickets in their Wonka Bar wrapper and the prize was a trip to the factory where the scrumptious bars were made. (Not to mention a lifetime supply of chocolate which to me would be a dream come true. Yes, I'm a fat slob who can't enjoy a day without chocolate.)

Gobstopper adds a sweet demented twist on this story and makes Wonka out to be a sick f*ck of a candy maker who's sole intention is to lure these children into his factory for a torturous display of psychosis induced hi-jinx. I've done you the favor and posted the video below.

Please watch prior to reading further...

I don't know about you but every time I watch this trailer, my nether-regions throb nearly explode with excitement at the idea of teenagers dropping "boner"-bombs, chocolaty bars, bloody-thirsty jackass Oompa-Loompas, and Christopher Lloyd at his very best playing a hysterically deranged candy-creating genius. The only downside is being subjected to the chick from Superbad's creepy grill. Her face inspires a non prick friction bathroom break.

As the trailer ended, I went to IMDB.com to check for a release date. I type in "Gobstopper" and find nothing. My heart stops... I type in the name "Christopher Lloyd" and review his upcoming work.

Jack and the Beanstalk...Food Fight...Call of the Wild...SANTA BUDDIES!?!?! WTF.. Where the SH*T is Gobstopper?

I go back to the trailer and noticed what I should've noticed in the first place: the FUNNYORDIE.com link in the bottom left hand corner.

Are you kidding me? This isn't real? What kind of jack-off sadist would drop a trailer of this magnitude in my lap and not follow through with the potential horror flick of everlasting glory?
I WANT TO SEE WEE MAN EAT PEOPLE GODDAMNIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ok look. Let's face it. The movie scene right now for me is like taking a stroll through the Sahara desert with no oasis on the horizon. I look forward to seeing horrible movies like "Knowing" just so I can bask in its inadvertent comedic splendor. Don't we all deserve to be entertained by movies with cannibal midgets? Why are we deprived of a film that features horny teenagers walking into a chocolate factory of doom? This is the type of sh*t I live for.

Christopher Lloyd's career must be saved and this is the perfect vehicle to make that happen. I'm ready, willing, and able to begin petition for the production and release of a possible instant classic.

I want to make Gobstopper a reality... WHO'S WITH ME???

360 is still dead, wondering about Blu Ray

2009-03-02T22:50:00.004-05:00

Microsoft has pissed me off to the high heavens when it comes to their customer service. Trying to get in touch with a competent or living entity to help you is impossible, at least for me it was.

To the point that I was considering getting a PS3. I've been wanting one for a long time for some of their first party games (like LittleBigPlanet) and the Blu Ray Player. I actually bought my first blu ray movie, which was Nightmare Before Christmas. I bought it from the dying Circuit City for 70% off, so I thought it would be a grand movie to try out when I do get a PS3. I was wondering what other Blu Ray movies would be worth getting down the line.

Of course Disney/Pixar films always look impeccable, that's understandable. They are the highest order of quality when it comes to video presentation. But I'm just wondering what else is worth the price. And not just for video and sound quality, but for extras. I hate when I see certain movies on Blu Ray, like Predator, for example, and seeing it's a bare bones edition with just a trailer. What the hell is that about? I understand making money on a movie by double, triple and quadruple dipping (or what's happened with movies like Evil Dead II and having 72 versions on VHS and DVD), but when you have a new venue to showcase a classic film, or any film for that matter, why shortchange people by giving us a shitty edition like that?

The film companies will say, "Well, we wanted to make sure the film could look it's best on this new format and most normal shoppers of DVD's and Blu Ray don't really care about extras anyway."

Well, they're wrong there. I'll give my parents as the ultimate example, being very behind the times in certain areas but when it comes to movies they know what they're talking about. But when DVD came out, my parents couldn't understand the whole widescreen/fullscreen debacle. To us film afficionados out there, there is no question as to which version of a film we'd want to see (WIDESCREEN!) but to my parents it was insane to watch a film with black bars on the bottom and top of the picture.

But over time they learned to understand that this was the only way to see a film in it's original way (unless it was filmed in fullscreen) and then started loving the extras that came with them as well. This is the 'normal' film buyer they speak of and they understand the time it takes to not only make a film but to make a truly great DVD.

So all I'm asking is for the big companies (and small ones) to make some killer Blu Ray releases and put a ton of exclusives on them so film geeks like myself have to either upgrade past releases or just buy the Blu Ray instead. I'm asking to spend money on movies. Is that so wrong?

-James

Peggle Deluxe - XBOX Live Arcade Edition

2009-02-25T09:10:00.001-05:00

Some games come along and change your life forever. Be it in a positive or negative light, they still alter your being in some way or another. Peggle Deluxe is one such game. It's the game that got my girlfriend to play my XBOX 360 more often than I do.

And I play my 360 on repeat, to be honest. But there was one of those connections between my girlfriend and Pop Cap Games' addictive little game, originally on the PC, that makes me shake my head in disbelief. I'm the gamer in this relationship. How could she be more addicted to a game than I?

At first glance, the game is a very simple design which ultimately is its most beautiful feature. The main focus of the single-player is the Adventure mode. Here, you'll be introduced to Peggle's cast of characters, each of whom bestows a different magical power for use on his or her level. You'll unlock the power by hitting one of the few green pegs strewn throughout the board. So, for example, while you're playing through Bjorn-the-male-unicorn's level, you'll be able to use the Super Guide power, which shows you where your ball will bounce after its initial impact. When you're going through Splork's levels, you'll be able to use the Space Blast, which just blows away a ton of pegs in a given area. There are considerable differences in how the powers behave, so not only will they add some variety during the Adventure mode, but later in the game you'll be able to pick your favorite power to use on any map, giving you a chance to vary your strategy.

You can easily go through the Adventure Mode in a night, but not necessarily because it's easy. It's more like that book with the killer plot, where you need to keep reading, even though you know sleep is necessary to live. But you tell yourself, "I can sleep for 2 hours this time. I just need to finish a few more levels. I need to hear the chorus of cheer again and see that magical rainbow one more time."

Yeah, I forgot to mention the game has a wicked sense of humor. Little comments come up on the screen, a magical chorus sings when you hit the last orange peg on any given stage, rainbows are being strewn across the screen and the characters themselves are part of the fun. Where else are you going to play as a rabbit with a magic top hat?

To add more gameplay value, when you beat the Adventure mode you can jump right in to the Challenge mode, a series of levels that get more difficult with some additional requirements. These range from the inclusion of more orange pegs, to having to clear the entire board of all the pegs. These challenges add a lot more fun and replay value to an already great game. But I haven't even mentioned playing online!

Multiplayer Peggle has to be the most fun and/or most frustrating part of the game. I've never had a game do that before, and I've played Halo 3. But what do I mean by that? Well, you can play against people in ranked or unranked matches or play locally against someone. The problem comes from other players out there in the land of XBOX Live. I warn you, you will keep on playing, even when someone cuts out mid game because you are schooling them with your unmatched skills. It's happened at least 30 times already and I doubt there's always connection issues. But even with that little nagging fault, it's not the game developers fault that they made a game so simple yet so intense that people feel like it's a 'do or die' situation every time they battle online against someone else.

Would I recommend playing Peggle? Oh, most definitely. It's the best value on the market today and that's coming from someone who loves his arcade games. It's only 800 Microsoft points and I would have spent double that. That's how great the game is. But if you don't believe me, download the trial game. You'll get hooked the moment you start playing those few levels and by the end of it, you'll be entering in your credit card info because you need to know what happens next.

A rant about film from a film fanatic

2009-02-22T19:02:00.003-05:00

What happened to the good old days of genre film? Looking through my DVD collection, which has passed the 1500 movie mark, I see tons of titles of films that would never work nowadays, or better yet wouldn't be able to be sold through any of the big film companies or in any of their smaller 'independent' companies either. Films like Coffy, Thriller: A Cruel Picture, Almost Human, Fight For Your Life or Superfly. Films that pushed the envelope every time and sometimes had a bit of social relevance and sometimes they just offended to get ticket sales. But they always held your interest and people were willing to stick around for double and triple features. We see as a whole this can't be done anymore with the common moviegoer. Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez failed with their fun homage to the genre picture Grindhouse. Seeing it at an advanced screening where there were rabid fans of the filmmakers and celebrities like Dee Snider and the like there, it was a great experience, an experience that I envy my father and others had the chance to see back in the 70's and early 80's.

I also envy the film fanatics who live in Los Angeles and Austin, who have great theaters who cater to genre fans by showcasing the best of the best and sometimes the worst of the worst. It's a real experience to watch a film that's got a bad reputation, such as Faces of Death or I Spit on Your Grave with a bunch of friends at home and being shocked, amazed, horrified, hysterical and all these other emotions that a film can bring to people. But it's another feeling all together to have it blown up on the big screen and to watch it with a crowd of well informed movie fans who are there for that particular reason and not some new multiplex movie that has a bunch of brats and mongoloids who can't bear to leave their phone off for 2 hours, let alone for upwards of 4 or 5 hours. Perish the thought to have a film nowadays without one cellphone going off or hearing someone text right next to you. To see the little luminescent atrocities around you, as if you were at a Asia concert and wanting a shotgun to the mouth in the worst way.

Is there anything wrong in what I'm saying? This is an outcry to fans of film in New York City. We need some good theaters again. Sure, there's a few that will play the new independent film or genre picture that you wouldn't be able to see in North Dakota. But I want old films, films that haven't been blown up on the big screen here in NYC since the heyday of the grindhouse cinema. When you were afraid to go to the theaters. When you would sit on god knows what and try to dodge a bum, a hooker and a cop all in the same aisle, all probably doing one another as well.

I want a theater I can go to and see a Monte Hellman film. Or a Russ Meyer film. Imagine one of his films on the big screen? Hoo boy, blows my mind thinking about it. Hell, I'd love to see Plan 9 From Outer Space on a screen somewhere. Anywhere, it doesn't matter. I just want to feel the excitement the film industry used to showcase. Not to say the quality has gotten worse, but there was a method to a good genre film of the 70's. The way they were so awkwardly paced, you'd think it was by accident. Maybe it was, but who cares? I'd rather watch Cotton Comes to Harlem than a film like The Reader any day, and I think if you gave people a chance with more of a selection, you might have a change in the industry.

But what do I know? Madea Goes to Jail just topped this weekend's box office with $42 million of receipts while Coraline has barely made $55 million and it's got a ton of things going for it that other tripe doesn't, such as a stop motion film by Henry Selick from a book written by Neil Gaiman. How could you lose with that combination? And it's in 3-D too, so you're always a winner when it comes to this experience. But sadly it flounders a bit while shit will always rise to the top.

Henceforth I will be attempting to write an article a day detailing my film collection in general. All the DVDs I've bought over the years and if they are worthy for you, the audience, to see. Maybe on the big screen again or if at all, considering some of these films barely made it on any format in general. You might say that I should do something about it. You're right, I should attempt to do something. Which I will in my own little way by having friends over every week for a double feature. One week will be a Charles Bronson theme, the next it might be a little nunsploitation action. I really do have way too many movies to waste on just myself; why not try to give back to the people who need it the most?

If someone rich is reading this and wants to start doing screenings in a bigger venue, let me know. I'm all for it, especially with so many ideas for film in my head, I might be able to throw one of my soon to be made films within a smorgasbord of some old school faves. The ideas are endless too for cool double features. It's actually got me a big excited right now, so I need to see if people are truly down for this idea. A day that everyone is free in some sort of way is going to be tough, but it is doable.

I just want to make film exciting again. I haven't been excited in a movie since The Dark Knight and before that a handful of films touched me in certain ways but never to the point of a nerdgasm. Watchmen will probably be one of those films, but who knows? The people in the theater might annoy the shit out of me. Actually, I kind of know that for a fact because the advertising has been pretty sly to the fact that I've heard people saying, "Yo this film looks like the bomb. It's like Batman on crack, you know?" Which makes me shudder a bit, but then again gives hope to film geeks everywhere that there might be a chance to get some harder to market films out there.

But do we want to cater to the normal film fan? I'm diverting from the original intent of this blog topic, so I'll cut it short and sweet and maybe divulge a bit more on today's film goer. For now I'll leave it at this; going to start a little film revolution of sorts, even if it has to start in my tiny apartment. I mean, if Russell Simmons and Rick Rubin could start Def Jam Records in their dorm room, anything is possible.

-James

So what did I think of the new Friday the 13th?

2009-02-15T19:36:00.003-05:00

A better question would be why do you even care? But if you've stumbled onto this blog or are one of my many (i.e. 2) followers, then you are truly interested in my thoughts on the remake/retelling/re-imagining/recycling or whatever they're calling it these days of the Sean Cunningham classic.

But better yet, but what do I think of the series of 10 films (11 if you count Freddy Vs. Jason)? To be honest, I have always liked the character of Jason Voorhees but was never a huge fan of the Friday series. Sacrilegious in some horror circles, I know, but I was always more of a Freddy fan myself (even though that series deserves a write-up, cursing the many sequels except for New Nightmare).

Don't get me wrong, I am a big supporter of stuntmen who get the chance to shine through a ton of prosthetics and get to be the main villain (or hero to some) in these films. Especially Kane Hodder, who took full advantage of this in 4 Friday films (and sadly, 3 of which are almost unwatchable and 1 of which is a true guilty pleasure, especially with the death of David Cronenberg right in the beginning).

But then Freddy Vs. Jason came along and I thought it would be a rebirth of sorts to the Freddy of old. But watching it again this past week, I didn't remember disliking it as much as I did. I think initially, the adrenaline pumping through my horror cortex blocked the bullshit meter throughout my body, therefore showing me a film that was good. The high is gone now and the only redeeming quality of that film is Ken Kirzinger's rendition of Jason. He gave Jason a little bit of sympathy, even when he's slaughtering everyone around him. You feel bad for him because ultimately Freddy Krueger is the bastard. But it really seemed that even Robert Englund, who I love to death, was just phoning in a Freddy performance.

So when the re-imagining (that's what they're calling it) of Friday the 13th was announced, I wasn't pissed about it. I wasn't pissed when I heard Kane Hodder wasn't coming back but a newcomer to the mask, Derek Mears, was announced. When I saw a press photo of him, I was astonished. He looked like a massive brick wall with skin on it. So underneath the bulk of Jason's shabby clothes, if he could mime the attitude of Jason then that's all that needed to be done. They announced a new young group of kids who would be wandering around the woods and therefore be easy prey for Jason's machete (or whatever else he could find. He's a handy guy.) So unlike the remakes of Halloween or even The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, I wasn't as invested in this film's former films being tarnished. If anything, all you could really do with Jason was go up from a pile of shit.

So I got to see an advanced screening the week before it came out, Saturday the 7th to be exact. I didn't want to review it then, considering it would be breaking the embargo they so lovingly have up and also I wanted to give it a second whirl, to make sure it wasn't the same high I had when seeing F vs J. Seeing it again on Friday the 13th, for my friend's birthday in theater 13 itself with a sold out paid crowd of nincompoops who can't shut up and like to hoot and holler throughout it all, what did I think of it after that?

I want to see it a third time. It's that much fun, an experienced slasher flick which might be the dawning of a new era in slasher flicks in general. Is it a good film? Well, that's a tricky subject. Is it good at what it does? It definitely is great at that. It starts off well, showcasing a little homage to the original Mama Voorhees intro then comes to present day and shows a now hulking brute of Potato Sack Jason from number 2 but as opposed to being a stupid retarded redneck who almost fell on his ass throughout that film, this Jason is more methodical. More menacing and with a wicked sense of humor (I want to know if silicone melts and so does Jason. I'll leave it at that). He picks off each camper with ease and with a pot farm I believe is his (what better way to lure idiotic kids the like that killed his dear old mom), it's a matter of time before the actual hero of the story (played by Jared Padalecki of Supernatural fame) comes into play, looking for his sister who was last seen going to Crystal Lake.

Sounds familiar, doesn't it? Well, it's a little throwback to number 4 as well. Besides the 3D effects, this retelling of Jason's origin is a cross between the first 4 films but with an update of course. This time, as producer Brad Fuller has mentioned many times before, there's more sex and boobs. I mean, what kind of slasher flick doesn't have that but re-watching the original films, looking back at them all now they seem much more tame than I remembered. It must mean I'm desensitized from all the horror films I've seen, but that can't be all true though. I still get a bit disheartened by films depicting rape and violence intermixed, such as Last House on the Left and I Spit on Your Grave, both of which I've watched once back to back and felt as uneasy as a fat kid on the top bunk.

This film plays with the dynamics of the slasher flick, throwing some sly curveballs at the viewer to throw them off a bit. Showing a room full of possible weapons in a tool shed is a fun little hint at what might come but when Jason ultimately chooses an ordinary screwdriver (which was attempted to be used on him), it's actually the most horrific death in the movie, which made this gorehound here a happy... well, you get the picture.

Is there one actor in this movie that steals the show? Well, I'd have to give it up to two specific actors that make the movie a memorable experience. One of course would be Derek Mears, who gives Jason a new set of moves, throwing some homages to the old films to keep the fans of the series happy. He emits a lot of anger and thought without uttering a word and seeing a Jason that's 6 foot 5 inches running at full speed at someone is kind of like what Danny Boyle did with the zombie movie in 28 Days Later. He took a once scary monster that was getting a bit stagnant and turned up the velocity and made it frightening again, and that's what the folks at Platinum Dunes did for Jason. I never thought I would say that to be honest, but I love being wrong.

The other actor who makes you hate everything he says and want his comeuppance is Travis Van Winkle's Trent. He's such a loathsome character that you can't believe survives as long as he does, but it all makes sense if you've watched as many slasher flicks as I have. The asshole tends to live a long time, basically throwing other good people in the way of the killer to make sure they last just a bit longer. So when he finally gets his, the crowd cheers even though when you sit back and think about it, does he deserve to actually die? In slasher film rules, yes he does. He deserves to die a terrible death. So watch out for him playing a ton of assholes in the years to come (he was also Megan Fox's boyfriend in Transformers, where again he played a sexist creep who you just want to see his nose get broken in 3 spots).

This film won't win any Academy Awards or be liked by the big film reviewers of newspapers and the like, and I'm glad. I haven't followed any film reviewer like that in years. It's a dying breed and the only reason they are still around is because the big film companies love to pay them to give them beautiful blurbs on their movies posters and DVD boxes. The Joel Siegel's, the Gene Shalit's, the Jeffrey Lyon's... and yes, I know Joel Siegel is dead, and I'm quite surprised they haven't rehashed some of his grand commentary on film theory on newer flicks. Nobody would probably notice anyway. Zombie Joel Siegel on the other hand... now there's a thought.

And looking at the box office numbers, it appears to be that Jason is back on top, taking $42.2 million in its first weekend. That a hell of a number, considering the budget was under $20 million. So it's already a profitable film, which means sequel will be announced this week. I actually want to see what they will put Jason through the next one and I'm happy he's not zombie Jason or mystical Jason of later years. Keep him as a living entity, a backwoods boogeyman of sorts that stalks down stupid kids who do stupid things. We're not talking rocket science. Keep them simple, make the kills fun and the victims good looking people and stupid as hell and people will keep coming back. But the deciding factor is Jason and who's behind the mask. Let's keep Derek Mears there. Not only was he the perfect Jason for the new era but he's also a hell of a nice guy with a very strong handshake.

So I'll give the film a See It grade. It's fun, there's some good kills and you actually care about a few of the kids, something I'm not used to. But sadly there's no Crispin Glover type dancing. If there was, this film would be perfect

Coming this week, some more Netflixorama entries. Hopefully I can get back on board and do them as often as I'd like.

The Maw - XBOX Live Arcade Review

2009-02-15T05:43:00.001-05:00

Do you remember the iconic game A Boy and His Blob from the NES? I used to play that game over and over again. Throwing my blob different colored/flavored jellybeans in order to change him into something entirely different was just something that spoke to me when I was 10 years old. What does this have to do with Twisted Pixel's new game The Maw. Well, you are an alien boy who has this kind of blobby dog alien who has an insatiable appetite.

What do you get when you cross aliens, a mysterious galactic force out collecting those aliens, and a bottomless pit in the shape of a blob? You get developer Twisted-Pixel’s hilarious new take on the platforming genre, “Maw”, which hit XBLA shelves on January 21st.

Equipped with only a leash gun, you play as the title’s protagonist Frank; an alien who befriends and controls the real star of the game, Maw, by “leading” him around the levels of the game in order to get him to grow and gain new abilities which allow you to solve the level’s puzzles and continue on through the game. Maw starts out as a tiny pink blob on your screen who is only able to eat the tiny puffball creatures that inhabit the first (and most of the subsequent) planets in the game. As he eats more his size increases and he is able to eat the larger and fiercer creatures that play an integral part of the game. Being able to eat these larger creatures becomes important because as your blobular friend eats certain animals he inherits the abilities that each of these creatures possesses; these abilities become necessary to solve the puzzles that Frank and Maw encounter as they progress through the game’s straightforward level designs.

Though the difficulty has been turned down, controlling Maw can become slightly annoying at times with no true way to get him to go where you would like (all he does is follow you and hopefully he’ll get the hint and do what you were planning for him to do), and the storyline itself is quite bland and mostly non-existent the experience itself is there and will push players forward to finish it. This game is a colorful and light-hearted take on the platformer genre that will have experienced players chuckling at the antics of Maw and newcomers to gaming receiving a good introduction on how a game should be played and especially the definition of what a quality game actually is.

On January 21st The Maw was available on the Xbox 360’s Live Arcade System for 800 points ($10) and is well worth the price tag for anyone who thought that platforming was becoming a bit stale, for parents looking to get their children a light-hearted, kid-friendly game, or for achievement hunters (as most of the game’s 200-point achievements can be received through a weekend of casual playing or a day’s play-through).

Twisted Pixel has also recently announced that Maw will be getting three additional levels in the coming months for the small price of 100 MS points a piece. Each of these levels are supposedly going to flesh out a little bit more of the story and will play as “Deleted Scenes” from the game as well as coming equipped with an additional achievement for each. No specific dates have been given but Twisted Pixel did say that these would be three separate releases from one another.

So as you can see, a fun game overall for the most casual gamer around. Being a bit more of a hardcore gamer myself, I appreciated the fact that they made a very funny and very colorful game that you don't have to take too seriously while playing it. I'll be honest, I haven't felt angry yet while playing it. This game should be given to prisoners to play with in order to rehabilitate them. Yes, government, you can have that suggestion for free.

His Name Was Jason

2009-01-30T19:38:00.003-05:00

I decided to buy the new documentary about the Friday the 13th films, His Name Was Jason, today at work. Yes, it comes out officially this up coming Tuesday but I decided to say 'fuck it' and buy it ahead of time. Danyell was going away and I wanted something new to watch (even though I have hundreds of films on my Netflix queue and a few hundred DVD's I'm behind in watching right now), so why not a documentary showcasing one of my favorite horror franchises?

All I can say it's a fantastic and candid look at the franchise, with great intertwining interviews with everyone from the directors, the Jasons, the victims and even fans of the series, ranging from other horror directors to horror website journalists. It's a great mostly positive look at the series and how it changed the face of horror. WhichI do agree with in some ways.

Before Friday the 13th, horror films were looked at as the black sheep of film. Fine, we had some fantastic horror films before 1980, but even films like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Dawn of the Dead and Halloween were independent films that tended to be roadshow movies and/or not heavily advertised by their distributors until afterward when the crowds of people going to see them in theaters were fanatical about them. Paramount decided to take the film Friday the 13th and push it to the moon because they thought by the name alone (which was what Sean Cunningham) it would sell tickets and they were 100% correct.

If it wasn't for Friday the 13th we wouldn't have had the huge influx of great horror films, especially the Slasher uprising of the 1980's. As any movie fanatic would know, the slasher was first started with Alfred Hitchcocks's Psycho, then Bob Clark's Black Christmas and then tweaked to perfection by John Carpenter's Halloween. But it wasn't until they introduced Friday the 13th that they borrowed what they had learned from the previous films and threw in Tom Savini's gore effects and a revolution was born.

Of course we had a huge amount of shit that was produced because of this film, but that happens whenever something new and fresh comes into Hollywood. The copycats come along to take away what we know and love and distort it in a way we the viewer can't even recognize anymore. But we get a few gems here and there, films we can look back on with fond memory or discover again anew so many years later, like I've done with the original My Bloody Valentine, which was one of the better slasher flicks of the 80's. I'll be discussing that in another blog soon, probably when I get to check out the new one finally.

So go and buy the documentary this Tuesday, February 3rd. You won't regret it, especially if you're a horror buff like I am. But now I must sleep because tomorrow night I get to check out the remake of Friday the 13th in a very special advanced screening. Color me excited.

Til next time, the DVD player is shut down for the night.

Paul Blart: Mall Cop - The 14 Word Review

2009-01-22T21:52:00.003-05:00

Did not suck as much as I thought it would.

Good job Kevin James.

Some movies I think you should check out...

2009-01-20T18:00:00.001-05:00

Before part II of Netflixorama comes to fruition, I've been checking out some trailers again for films I can't wait to see. Not sure if all of you have seen these, so I'll take it as me being your dealer of filmy goodness.

Ahhh Chocolate. I can't wait for this film. Kick ass fights, an autistic girl who loves candy and martial arts and stunts gone horrible wrong. From the director of Ong Bak, so story doesn't matter. The choreography matters more in this case.

Bronson. The film I can't wait for, probably more than any other. A new version of A Clockwork Orange might be in our midst, and it seems they didn't try too hard to attain that. Tom Hardy looks absolutely bat shit crazy in the title role and I see he's bulked up a bit since Star Trek Nemesis.

And finally the film I'm so dying to see and was elated last night that Sony just bought the distribution rights to the film. I speak of Black Dynamite, the film that might finally make Michael Jai White the star I've always fashioned him as. People probably recognize him most now as one of the crime bosses in The Dark Knight. I knew him as Mike Tyson in a pretty good TV movie, Spawn himself in a terrible movie and as a great deleted scene in Kill Bill Volume II. Check it out if you haven't seen it.

There's a trio of films, two of which are officially coming out this year. I'll scour the interweb to see if there's any more trailers I think you people should check out.

Netflixorama: Double Featuroo! Part I

2009-01-20T17:47:00.002-05:00

Ahh it's been a long time, hasn't it? Which is why I decided to attempt a double feature article with two movies that have nothing at all to do with one another besides the simple fact that I pressed play on my Netflix account and watched them beginning to the final credit rolled.

The first film is one that I was tempted to see when it was playing in theaters, mainly for the fact that I love a good vampire flick and it was based on a comic book that I liked a little bit (sorry to all the lovers out there, not the biggest Steve Niles fan. And I tried many times, will try again as well). The movie is of course 30 Days of Night starring Mr. Mumbles himself, Josh Hartnett. And I have to say he finally stepped it up, considering I remember him just sleepwalking through his roles in both The Faculty and Halloween: H20.

I sat down and watched it with Danyell, because she had seen the stark colors being used and was as intrigued as I was in the first place. Also, being lovers of the film Hard Candy and knowing that David Slade had directed that first and then 30 Days of Night, it brought my attention level to a higher point. So what is there to say about the film? Not as gory as I thought it would be, which wasn't a bad thing. It had the proper amount of scares, Ben Foster played a creepy and dirty drifter who is helping the vampires in a scene stealing performance, the fantastic and underrated Danny Huston playing lead villain Marlowe with the iconic line of 'No God' working even after seeing the tons of trailers with it in it, the very likable Melissa George playing Hartnett's soon to be ex-wife and ultimately it's all tied together with Josh's subtle portrayal of Sheriff Eben Oleson.

Trust me, I never thought I'd say that. Especially after Hollywood Homicide. You know it!

Seriously, though, he's a regular guy, doing his job to the best of his ability before the month of darkness come to his small town. When a rash of vandalism starts occurring right before total darkness, he likens it to kids just messing about before they're cooped up for the month. But when he sees one of the townsfolk's dogs all murdered viciously, he knows something more is going on then common childish vandalism.

What commences is a tense thriller mixed with a different take on the vampire lore we're all accustomed to in film. Gone is the normal fare from films such as Twilight where all vampires are flamboyant and emo hipsters to what they should be; a visceral bunch of animals who have but a smidgeon of humanity left in them peeking on through their suits. But when it comes time to feed, they let loose and the animal instinct comes through, while they tear the throats out of all the town members who aren't quick enough to get into hiding or strong enough to fight back. Throughout the next 30 days, it's a nonstop fight for survival of Eben and his small band of survivors who keep dwindling down in number.

Weaknesses are found, hints at how the vampires work, even the sadistic nature of the vampires is shown when they let a victim go look for help, but use the person as bait, hoping that any survivor would be a good samaritan and come out there to help their brethren. Luckily Hartnett's Eben is a smart guy and doesn't fall for that, which is when we see Danny Huston's lead vampire Marlowe utter the familiar line "No God" to his bait when not being able to do what he set her out to do in the first place. And instead of just killing her, he has his minions slowly beat her up and get some slashes in before they ultimately feed on her.

Of course there's some proper gore posted throughout the film as well, a lot of corn syrup goodness which is always a favorite of us gorehounds out there. Blood is splattered through the winter landscape and looks really nice in the HD sharp contrast of the film. Sometimes it wouldn't work, ala Underworld, but I prefer it in this film. I think it's Slade's directorial expertise in music videos of yesteryear and his first film tweaking it to the full potential.

In no way am I saying this film is the end all, be all of vampire films. Give me John Carpenter's Vampires, Near Dark, The Lost Boys or Blade/Blade II any day, but 30 Days of Night is a nice addition to the vampire myth on the silver screen. Sadly films like Twilight sell to the teeny bopper crowd that prefers vamp to vampire.

Part II of Netflixorama: The Double Featuroo will continue later tonight or tomorrow. It's on a film that I know and love for years and re-watching on Netflix for the first time in about 5 years has opened various other doors in my psyche that I had to write about it. Can you guess the film? It stars one of my favorite comedic actors. And directed by a former Ghostbuster. Til then, the 360 needs to cool down.

I was writing a dual post...

2009-01-20T15:23:00.003-05:00

But then blogger decided to shit on me and just not save it, so when I went back to finish the blog (which was a double feature Netflixorama), I had a few sentences, even though I had typed out about 10 paragraphs worth of funny and great banter about two movies. Pissed me the fuck off to no end, I tell you.

So this will be a stream of thought blog, because I'm exhausted from work and can't think straight right this second.

Got to work today at 6 a.m., as per usual and everything seemed fine. We went inside, went to punch in, I put my coat away and then noticed that the MP3 cage we have was shattered and everything was missing. We told our manager, went up front and found out that burglars came in the middle of the night and actually burgled the place. My friend Mike and myself had to count two sections we could see were hit, Digital SLR and iPods. Sure enough, after our counts were done, we noticed we were missing $18,000 worth of iPods and $15,000 worth of SLR cameras. What a day already!!

The funny thing is, all these cops came, looking around, wondering if TVs were taken. Which shows I should be a detective because we knew how they came into the store (through the roof hatch in the stockroom). There's only one way to get that unlocked (a manager) and on this past Saturday we supposedly had 2 new people from the roofing company to check our heating ducts. So what I deduced was they never gave the lock back, so therefore they either came back last night at 3 in the morning when nobody was around (we know this because our lights came on, which the camera shows at that time) and that they came in and left in about 10 minutes. The hatch is small, so there's no way television sets could get out and luckily they also didn't take laptops either, which is a miracle. Another thing that seems fishy is that the camera doesn't see anybody come in or out at all. They knew were the cameras were and there's no way you would know where they are unless you had an inside man (or woman) helping you out, letting you know the schematics of the camera layout.

It's funny, I hate the place with a passion, but I hate thieves even more. There's something about people stealing shit they don't necessarily need (which means if there's a poor family in need of food and they steal something to eat, I wouldn't get as pissed) I want their head on a platter. It just attracts the negative attention our store doesn't need, which is when you get all these corporate whack jobs coming in, asking stupid questions to the wrong people and making life a living hell. I can't wait for the next few weeks. Maybe they'll finally listen to me about certain precautions they should have been taking a year ago when I first started this position.

But anyway, that's the main reason/reasons why I didn't get my Netflixorama out to you fine folks. I'm going to attempt to get back to it a little later, after a much deserved nap. I'll let you all know for sure. Thanks for understanding.

I have a blog?

2009-01-06T00:24:00.002-05:00

I almost forgot this was here, sadly. The holidays killed my creativity big time, which is a big bummer to me considering I attempt at being a writer at all times. A creative person at heart yet I haven't been able to garner the strength to write my thoughts via this blog and/or continue my Netflixorama. I know the few of you out there were hanging onto every word. :)

But seriously, thanks to my friend Ryan for waking the demon inside me up and reminding me that I do have a blog and that I should get back up on the bike even though I fell down. And what's weird about that analogy is that I can't ride a bike because I fell down horribly when I was a child.

But I do want to write, so that's a good thing. I have a few ideas. I sent out my second article for Paracinema Magazine, the up and coming magazine every film lover needs to get a subscription for. This time I wrote about remakes and why they aren't such a bad thing after all. Interesting topic that I could write continuously about, which I might do down the line on here anyway.

Also have a ton of films lined up on my Netflix queue, one of which I was sent the other day and watched a bit with friends. The Patton Oswalt approved Death Bed: The Bed That Eats and from what I've watched, it's a real doozy of a film.

Also have something lined up about a favorite genre of mine that doesn't get as much credit as it should. And no, it's not Nunsploitation. I already covered that in Paracinema issue 4. And yes, I'm being a big time mark for it. More people should learn about films like School of the Holy Beast. So I'll keep that under wraps for now.

Until next time, I need sleep. Work still beckons my call.

Netflixorama: The Third chapter...

2008-12-09T22:49:00.002-05:00

Working today through about 3 hours of sleep and the imminent rush of customers who came into Best Buy to buy The Dark Knight on DVD, Blu Ray and whatever else we had that had Batman or Joker's mug on it (we even had decals for the X-Box 360), I knew I had to pick up one of the various copies of the film. I loved it the few times I saw it in theaters, but I've gotten to the point in my life where I can't keep on buying the edition which comes with a mini clown mask or a Batman mask that looks like a bondage lover's dream.

So I decided, until I pony up the money for a PS3 or some various Blu Ray player, I was going to buy the normal 2 disc edition, which has a smattering of bonus features about the making of and whatnot. Sadly, no commentary.

So why am I mentioning this in my newest Netflixorama blog? Well, it reminds me of various comic book movies and even furthermore, reminds me of movies in the superhero vein that I love. Even when they're not so good (guilty pleasure being Sky High, but look at that cast of nerdness) they still bring a tear to my eye. But let's not get into the Elektra's and Catwoman's of the world and instead use this forum to discuss what has to be my favorite M. Night Shyamalan movie.

No, not The Happening. Even though it's so hysterically bad that I need to finally watch it from beginning to end. Anyone want to send me a copy?

The movie I speak about is the only M. Night movie up on Netflix's Watch it Now venue, which is Unbreakable, starring Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson. Who hasn't seen this film? Actually, I was surprised to hear a lot of my friends and family haven't checked this film out, yet have seen The Sixth Sense before it and Signs (which I still think the plot is extremely flawed. I mean, come on... aliens who are hurt by water... come to EARTH??!!?!?) after it.

The origin story of a superhero we've never heard of in a world that is as normal as he tries to pass himself to be. He survives a deadly train derailment, which kills everyone in the passenger cars. Somehow he survives but he just deals with it at first as just dumb luck on his side. But the whole story starts to unfold when he finds a note on his car when visiting a memorial for everyone who died in the accident asking him if he's ever been sick in his life. And what worries him is that he can't remember and when he asks his wife (played by the wonderful Princess Buttercup, Robin Wright Penn), she can't remember any particular time but dismisses it as just being a very long while ago.

The other story revolves around Jackson's character of Elijah Price (or Mr. Glass because of his Type I osteogenesis imperfecta, a condition which basically means your bones are so brittle that they break with any bit of applied force), who believes he's finally found his complete opposite in the world. If he is always sick and gets hurt with ease, there must be someone out there who is on the other side of the spectrum who never gets hurt or sick. And Bruce Willis' David Dunn is hopefully that man. Elijah is a huge comic book fan, who has made his fortune from selling rare comic books and artwork from superhero comics.

So that's the basis for the movie. One man's journey into finding someone on the other side of the spectrum and another man's journey into finding his true self. A feel good movie? In some ways, I guess. But it's also a darker take into the whole origin story of a superhero who might have went through the rest of his life not fulfilling what his destiny truly was.

One of the main pros in this film is that M. Night doesn't have a huge part, just playing a drug dealer at the football field Dunn works at. The other power I didn't speak about more was Dunn's ability to feel if someone is bad in any way. He actually senses it and when he hones his skill, can see a playback of what they've done. A very interesting scene is when he's finally given in and accepted his place in this world and decides to try to do something heroic, and when he's feeling people at the train station in the city, he feels a few different people who have done harm to others. A gang member, a rapist... all people who deserve to be brought to justice. But when he finds someone who is more or less a serial killer, he follows him back to the house where he's taken over and killed the father, so he could attempt to save the rest of the family. This isn't any Spiderman heroics either, but brutal beatdown and choking of the killer until he is dead and sadly, unlike in the comic books, only the kids are saved but the mother wasn't gotten to in time. A very creepy but effective scene to show that the 'real' world is a much harsher place than the bright colors on the page.

I don't want to showcase too many of the set pieces or little nuances that make this film great (but the scenes with Dunn and his son are actually well acted). I'd rather the people who haven't seen this film yet get to watch it and fully take in all the surprises that are in store. All I'll say about the film that is a con of the highest order is the ending. I won't say what it is, but it's something that was tacked on at the last minute because advanced screenings had the audience wondering what the ending was. Sad but true story, one which M. Night regrets to this day.

I know there's been subtle talks about doing a sequel, which I would personally like to see. I'd love to know more about his powers and see him on adventures and trying to be the sworn protector we all know he can become because he's always been more than what he became in life.

So check out Unbreakable as soon as possible. I hadn't seen it since it's release in 2000, so it was like finding a bottle of Crystal Clear Pepsi (which I love but wish there was more of) or the old Cadbury eggs (which are way too small now).

Until next time, the X-Box is shut down.

Um... don't remake this!!!

2008-12-07T18:12:00.002-05:00

I just don't get it. Why can't people think up film ideas themselves? I'm all for remaking certain films that lacked in certain ways (The Maltese Falcon being a prime example) and some remakes surprised the hell out of me (such as Aja's The Hills Have Eyes, which in some ways I like much more than the original Wes Craven film).

But They Live??? This film has such a special place in my heart that it just boggles my mind as to why they'd want to remake it. It's funny... it seems they are remaking all of Carpenter's films in one way or another. Let's not speak about The Fog or Halloween. That's what makes me shudder. Knowing how royally they can fuck up the whole 'society is blind' concept.

I'll just be crossing my fingers for one of two things to happen. Either it drives itself into developmental hell for the rest of eternity or gets remade by somebody proper.

Remember, according to Hollywood, if it ain't broke, remake it.

Netflixorama: The second blog...

2008-12-06T17:58:00.002-05:00

We're here for another roundup of the Netflixorama blog. Patent pending. This time we'll be discussing the underrated horror film Tales from the Crypt Presents Demon Knight. A very fun film from the quickly killed off line of Cryptkeeper presents movie line.

Where to begin? Well, first off the cast is something to die for (I'm sorry, the Cryptkeeper got to me with his horrible puns). You have Death himself, William Sadler, The Phantom and the best part of Titanic Billy Zane, CCH Pounder or how most people know her now as Claudette from one of the greatest cop shows ever to be produced The Shield, Roger Corman and Joe Dante's favorite guy Dick Miller, The Sandman Thomas Haden Church (in those Wings hairstyle days), Will Smith's better half Jada Pinkett and last but not least you have one Roger Rabbit himself, Charles Fleischer. A great ensemble cast to start off the proceedings and what occurs during this film is a fun ride from beginning to end.

The movie of course starts off with a little car chase between Mr. Sadler and Mr. Zane while Filter's Hey Man! Nice Shot! is blasting, therefore cementing this movie in the 90's forever (don't get me wrong, I love the song. But what ever happened to Robert Patrick's brother's band anyway?). Of course some crazy stuff happens and their cars crash and somehow both have survived, still chasing one another for something sinister. Sadler gets away and meets up with Dick Miller's drunkard character, who tells him of this place he can stay for the night, which used to be a church but people around these parts stopped believing.

But they'll have to start believing tonight.

This film is lovingly redone in some ways by one of my favorite gore fests in the last 5 years Feast. Not that it's copied it, but I'm all for the similar group of people who don't all get along and have some secrets themselves that are being attacked on all sides by sinister forces. One of my favorite genres in horror, not really done enough.

I'm not going to go into detail because everyone who likes a good time should check it out with some sort of blindfold on. Even if you have seen it like I did many years ago when Tales from the Crypt still aired on Fox late nights, you should go watch it again and notice the performances within it, especially Billy Zane. This movie really makes me miss the poor guy, who's been relegated to doing straight to video shitfests, so it's no wonder when you see him in this film hamming it up as The Collector, a tear will come to your eye at the brilliance of Mr. Zane. I always said he would have been a perfect Destro of G.I. Joe fame.

The demons look pretty convincing, a head gets punched in and then torn off with such ease (and ends with a great gag of 'Head's up!'), and arm gets cleanly ripped off, Roger Rabbit gets his dick and insides ripped out (sadly you don't see it but it's implied impeccably) and lots of head explosions, hearts being crushed and a demon kid explodes into a million pieces with all that's left of him being his high top sneaker. That brings back fond memories of every film that a child gets killed viciously in a horror film. For some reason in horror films it tends to be funny. Can't explain it. Felt bad for the kid in Ransom being tortured and then peeing when he hears Gary Sinise's voice but when the 3 kids going to Mecca in Pitch Black get torn to shreds, I applauded.

Yes, I'm demented. I can't help that.

So to the millions of fans of this blog, go check Demon Knight out. Makes me want to check out the Dennis Miller starring role in Bordello of Blood, but only slightly and because of the Corey Feldman interview showcasing of how much of a dick Mr. Miller was on the set. Makes sense that he's a republican maniac now.

Next time I'll be delving into the world of Netflix again, but it will be a surprise to even myself as to what I'll watch. Could be anything. But this will be written tomorrow, considering I might not have a job anymore. We shall see kiddies!

Til next time, the 360 is off.

Netflixorama: The first blog...

2008-12-03T19:12:00.003-05:00

Recently signing up for X-Box Live Gold and having a subscription to Netflix meant one thing to this film fanatic: An even more endless stream of movies to my living room.

You mean I can put a list of 500 of Instant Watch movies and just peruse through them? I have to say my mind melted a bit and happiness prevailed. Considering work has been a bit on the rough side (meaning I hate my job and want to get a new one) and my writing has become stagnant, I needed a venue to get something on the board. Something to keep writing on a semi-daily basis. And a thanks goes out to Microsoft for signing this deal up because my love for Netflix has significantly gone up a bit more. Also a godsend because when we get the DVD's in the mail from them, we tend to not watch them for a week or so, which is just a waste of money in the long run.

So I've been watching tons of stuff, mostly stuff I just don't own on DVD (like Hook, which watching again just makes me love Dustin Hoffman's performance that much more... yet Robin Williams leaves a lot to be desired in the way of Peter Pan. Especially that little Pan hairstyle he's got going on... atrocious). Also have been catching up with my favorite Britcom of all time, Red Dwarf, but was sad to see that the first two series are the re-edited ones done for the 10th anniversary on BBC, I believe. It's like Lucas' redoes, but without any of the finesse and taking out full lines of dialogue that I've memorized since watching this show on channel 31 back on NYC UHF television. Sad, but still funny as all hell.

But then again, I'm not going to waste my time reviewing movies I've loved for many years on here. That's just asinine. Instead I'm going to divulge the films that either I somehow never watched or better yet, might have watched many years ago but now it's like watching it for the very first time.

The first film I did that with was Cotton Comes to Harlem. Where to begin with that film? I had a great time watching this blaxploitation classic that I've always seen the VHS at the video stores but never got a chance to rent it like I did with the larger than life classics of blaxploitation like Superfly and Shaft.

I have to say I wasn't disappointed by this film, directed by the late great Ossie Davis, a great melding of both tradition comedy and a high stakes crime film. Yes, you heard that correct, it had some great set pieces in Harlem, of course, and with the likes of Coffin Ed and Grave Digger on the case, nothing would ever be the same. It has the underlying (and sometimes blatant) theme of racism mixed in with the power someone could have over the poor black families when given a choice that seems almost too good to be true. The whole plot revolves around 87 poor black families who have given a $1000 a piece to go Back to Africa, the campaign held by the Reverend Deke O'Malley to send back his black brethren to the motherland. The only problem is the money is stolen at the rally held for the fund and now it's up to Coffin Ed (Raymond St. Jacques) and Grave Digger Jones (Godfrey Cambridge of Watermelon Man fame).

Red Foxx also plays Uncle Bud, a homeless man always looking to get a quick buck. As usual, he's funny and looking like he's one heart attack away from the promised land. The one scene of note had me laughing loud enough for my neighbors in the other building to shut up for a few minutes was when they're chasing the culprits who have stolen the money, and Ed and Jones crash their car into a watermelon truck, of all things. The look the give each other, especially when Ed just smacks the watermelon out of Jones hand, almost seemed to be a statement about that common misnomer about what black people like in the food department. When asking a few guys at work about that stereotype, I have heard the same thing, "Ugh, I hate watermelon."

It's a back and forth chase throughout, which I don't want to ruin for the few of you who might want to watch it, but finally checking it out, I got where the Cotton part of the title comes from. They find a huge bail of cotton from the south, pure cotton which hasn't been treated yet. I won't go into detail, but it's a very important plot point that makes a whole lot of sense.

You also have a white cop getting seduced by the sultry Iris (played by the epitome of beauty Judy Pace), who somehow convinces him into wearing a paper bag over his head to make love to her but then gets away with him in just his skivvies, a gun in hand and the paper bag on head. Just one of the many funny scenes that will make you think a little too.

Am I thinking too much into it? I don't think so. It deserves a ton of credit for the genre it helped spearhead in the coming decade. Many people point to Melvin Van Peebles' seminal classic Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song as the first in the genre, but the year before had two very different films that pointed in the direction for black people to get noticed in the world of film. They Call Me Mr. Tibbs (another film in the Netflixorama future) and Cotton Comes to Harlem predating Van Peebles' film by a full year.

So check it out, and I'll come back tomorrow with a review on a film that I could have swore I've seen before yet while watching some of it today seemed like a breath of fresh air. That film being Tales from the Crypt presents Demon Knight.

Til then, happy watching..

A film to be made... by moi?

2008-11-11T15:15:00.002-05:00

Well, it's been about 2 weeks since I was last on this blog and it's not that I don't care about the few of you who do read my exciting blog of sorts. It's just that with work, apartment hassles and this past election finally out of my system, I can get back into the groove of things and start writing again.

Which leads me to the title of this blog. A film to be made. Not necessarily a feature length one, but instead a teaser trailer of a film that may never be made. Why do you ask am I doing something so bizarre? Is it because people are still into the whole Grindhouse fever? No, I would've jumped the bandwagon the year ago when everyone else was doing it (my personal favorite being Hobo With a Shotgun, which is now being made into a feature length movie.).

The reason is that Tommy, Steve and myself have realized Best Buy is not our lives, but a means to get some cash so we can raise our families and be able to live in our separate apartments. Those two are probably the most creative guys I've ever had the pleasure of meeting, let alone they hold me in high regard for my imagination as well.

So by the end of the year there will be a teaser trailer made. Something horrifying, hopefully getting us known to all the big shots out there. It's part of a grander scheme of things, which is this competition on this site , a Spanish film making site, with some of the greatest horror directors and writers in the field today (creators of both .Rec and The Orphanage, to give two examples). The winner gets a grand prize of $18,000 to putt toward a short film to be completed by September of next year.

I haven't been this excited for a long time. Danyell is fully behind me, even giving me the basis of the idea; the thread of horror that will have people shaking in their little skivvies. The more ideas we were coming up with, the more intense the story became. Soon, if the time permits, I might post up some of either Danyell's or Steve's storyboards for the trailer.

You're going to want to see it to believe it. Let alone come long for the ride.

-James

Henry Rollins Double Feature

2008-10-30T16:08:00.002-04:00

While battling my zombie eye and the trials and tribulations of a shitty job that could up and disappear at any moment (they like to blame the good workers for former General manager mistakes), I've been watching a plethora of movies, new and old. Especially horror, considering it's my favorite genre (besides the significant genre of the romantic comedy... and if you really know me, you'd know why I'm joking about that).

Tommy, my partner in crime and future co-writer/ co-director came by on his day off, where we commenced on eating some hearty food and watching some good ol' fashioned gore films. And these two had something in common. The one. The only. The best singer in Black Flag and an all around nice guy. Henry Fucking Rollins. Or as Danyell likes to call him, "Our future uncle to our kids". Tommy had brought over Wrong Turn 2 and I owned Feast since the two pack came out, watching it once and loving every minute of it.

Tommy had not seen the insanity within that film. The weird beasts that wear what appears to be a water buffalo on top of what they really are. Sexually deviant beasts who just like to kill, eat and hump. Kind of like mankind, come to think of it. So we watched that one, because it was the one I picked out first. Again having a great time, especially the brilliant performance of one Mr. Rollins, acting outside the box and playing someone he would hate in real life, a self help guru. He gets stripped down to his skivvies and everyone thinks he's going to save the day at one point, until they see his head getting rammed into the wall and ripped apart. Good times had by all. And it has the greatest fake out in many years for a horror film. All I'll say to the people who haven't yet seen it; big time hero comes to save the day. That's all I'll say.

Next up was the sequel to the classic Eliza Dushku vehicle Wrong Turn, which I have yet to see considering when it came out, all I kept hearing was that it was a Hills Have Eyes clone. And I'm a big fan of both the original Craven classic and the redux by Aja. So going into this sequel, we knew we didn't need to know the ins and outs of a hillbilly cannibal extravaganza. We knew it would have plenty of kills, but didn't know how the film would turn out. And all I can say is that it made me want to see the original, hoping that film was as fun and off the wall as this one.

Henry Rollins plays the host to this new reality game show The Apocalypse, a Survivor type show but with the element that it's supposed to be the end of the world and how would you survive. It's the beginnings of the show, and you get to meet all the young and beautiful people who will be on. The first kill is a classic and occurs less than 5 minutes in the film. Patton Oswalt has a brief voice role as the agent of the first girl you meet and say goodbye to in fast timing. A fun kill that really splits people down the middle, if you know what I mean.

But I won't go into details with the film, just saying it's all worth it to see Rollins go into Rambo mode and dispensing of the cannibals in grand fashion. He plays a pure badass, nothing fake about the character he's playing. And it was good to see one of the better Jason Voorhees, Ken Kirzinger, playing the head hillbilly, Pa, with his great hair lip and all. Just a fun film with plenty of inventive kills, some decent acting, plenty of surprises and taking a film that could of been wasted fodder and giving a good name to a franchise. Plus there's disgusting birth scene ala' the prequel to the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which goes beyond what gore that had within that film. Plus there's incest... what film has all of that and a random scene of incest after a good hacking?

Fun fun fun!

I'm going to sit back and watch a film that I surprisingly had never watched before, Phantom of the Paradise. Edgar Wright calls it a film that surpasses Rocky Horror Picture Show. We shall see if he is correct.

Saw V

2008-10-24T22:05:00.003-04:00

First off, I'm suffering from the worst sinus infection known to man. It's spread to my left eye, which is now swollen worse than a pugilist's face.

So this review will be short and sweet.

Saw V, where do I begin with you? We have a very strange and torrid love affair. One that transcends the usual boundaries a film fanatic like myself and a movie franchise tends to have. There's been highs. There's been lows. And there's definitely been plenty of 'what the fuck' moments sprinkled within. But I've always been entertained by the films.

The term torture porn comes up a lot when referencing these films. I don't see it like that at all. Of course there's some great gore moments, especially in the new film (one involving a pendulum brought back memories of Corman's Poe films of yesteryear). But instead I see the films and its central 'villain' Jigsaw (even though he's been dead since Saw III) about justice and a play on the morals of mankind. Jigsaw's games are there to give the player the chance to redeem themselves; to get another chance in life and to finally see the wrong they've done in the world. Who is Jigsaw to choose this path for them? That's where it gets a bit tricky to side with him, but sometimes I can't help but see where he's coming from. It all stemmed from his choice shown in Saw IV that after his wife, who was in mid-pregnancy) gets robbed and has the baby killed because of a dope head, he then goes the path of a vengeful god, so to speak.

He's their judge, jury and they are their own executioner. They can choose the path of righteousness and be able to escape, as we've seen in every film so far. People have survived these games, not because they were rigged, but they took their second chance at life anew and ran with it. This is very dodgy material, almost religious in some aspects which I tend to not agree with. But it makes for enjoyable material to see in theaters with a raucous crowd.

What did I like? Without spoiling anything about the film, I loved the traps. Always tend to be original, even though they tend to do the same thing, which is main and rip people apart, both physically and mentally. Tobin Bell was once again great in the role of horror's backseat killer Jigsaw. I also enjoyed the whole backtracking throughout the whole series to tie some things together, some plot holes in some cases, all together to show you how in depth their writers sometimes get to make the world as believable as possible. Returning cast members from all the films was also a great nod to the few fans of the series who pay attention to the story and not just to the gore.

What didn't I like? I didn't like that there was a 6 year old in the theater with his parents watching the film. It's weird, for someone like me who grew up with movies in their lives, I didn't watch a R rated film until I was probably 15 or so. Any type of film I would watch that was R in theaters was trimmed to shit on channels like Channel 9 or 11 here in New York City. I also don't like the new villain, only because my brother and I can't help but comment on his big lips. It's something that annoys the hell out of us. I also still hate all the crazy camera effects and jump cuts that has become commonplace in the Saw films. It just rips my brain and eyes out and pisses on them because I know they don't have to resort to such film school tactics.

So did I like the film? Yeah I did. It was enjoyable. Is it a classic of the genre? Not at all. Not even close. But if you want an hour and a half that's better than some of the other drivel in theaters (Max Payne, Beverly Hills Chihuahua anyone?). I'd definitely check it out again. I did miss about 10 minutes while I was in the bathroom attempting to fix my eye.

Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer

2008-10-20T17:19:00.002-04:00

A throwback to the good old days of monster movies with practical effects, no CGI, and a fun lead character with some very bad anger issues.

Was it the best film I've ever seen? Not in the least bit. I saw a bunch of people trashing it on IMDB, which doesn't make much sense, but then when I think about it, that's what people tend to do on that site. And on any other film site, come to think of it.

Jack Brooks witnesses his family murdered in the most horrific of ways, while Beyond the Sea by Bobby Darrin is playing in the background. I bet Kevin Spacey never thought to use that song in such a way.

It was the type of horror film you could tell the people involved really loved what they were doing. Having a bit of fun while also getting a movie done at the same time.

Some good gore effects, a good comedic element that doesn't try too hard (no matter what the fanboys online say), a bad ass lead, some great ridiculous monsters and Robert Englund.

You can't get any better than that.

I bought a few movies today, all horror stuff, because there was a sale going on at Best Buy. The next film on the slate for tomorrow will be Brutal Massacre, the horror mockumentary starring David Naughton, Ken Foree, Gunnar Hansen, Brian O'Halloran and Ellen Sandweiss. I'm hoping for the best. It did get a grand thumbs up from Fangoria.

Hopefully that's a good thing.

Watching a ton of movies this weekend

2008-10-19T21:41:00.002-04:00

Which is always therapeutic for me. It's weird, films make me feel alive in some ways. And not even just the film, but the whole process of film making and how they go from beginning to middle to end of production. It keeps me intent on becoming a filmmaker myself, which will be happening soon. Too many ideas in this brain of mine to keep them silent.

There's many films I have never seen in my 28 years on this world. But if you came over and saw my decadent collection, you'd think I was a film fanatic (which I am). But Danyell hasn't seen as many films in her life, which makes me watching certain films like they were for the first time again.

This weekend consisted of the following films:

1)The Fly, the 1986 David Croneberg remake of the sci-fi classic. Jeff Goldblum is on Level 9 of Goldblum and Geena Davis was still the beautiful dynamo she was back in yesteryear. The special effects are still on top of their game, with the transformation of Brundlefly to the climatic ending that still makes me smile from ear to ear. Fun times are always had with the scientific update of the classic film.

2)Eastern Promises, another Cronenberg film from last year, about the Russian mob presence in England and the trials and tribulations of a driver for the mob boss's son. A grand film that is still in tune with Cronenberg's festival of the flesh and the poetry of violence that has always been prevalent in his films. A fantastic film that probably has one of the greatest fight scenes in the history of film. Let me describe it like this in a few words; one penis, a bathhouse, russian gangsters, knife wounds and did I mention there was a penis involved?

3)Gremlins, the Joe Dante film that made Steven Spielberg realize that there should be a rating between PG and R. Surprisingly violent children's film from 1984 by the Roger Corman alumnus. Still brings back memories from when I would repeatedly watch it when I taped it off of HBO, the only cable channel that we had at the time. The sadly under-used Zach Galligan and the "I've stopped working since marrying Kevin Kline and having a brood of my own" Phoebe Cates star in this fantastic melding of old monster movies, comedic films and the ol' Roger Corman school of not showing your moneymaker until almost an hour into your running time. Just one of those films that will always make me happy when I see it.

4)The Big Fat Kill segment from Sin City. Clive Owen is at his most bad ass, Benicio Del Toro at his most sleazy, Rosario Dawson at her most sexual dominatrix and Brittany Murphy at her most... bad acting. I had bought the recut and extended 2 disc edition, which has the distinction of having the 4 stories separately if you wanted to watch them. Love the movie to death, especially the tons of making of's that they packed on the discs. Also has the great 'Longest Take' segment, showing Quentin Tarantino directing his segment in the film between Clive Owen and Benicio Del Toro, the scene in which Dwight is transporting the bodies to the tar pits and while he's doing so, he's having a psychotic breakdown in the car, speaking to the dead body of Jackie. A great scene, which was the first Quentin Tarantino shot digitally.

5)Hard Candy, the great David Slade film in which I personally think Ellen Page should have gotten some sort of nomination for as opposed to Juno. Patrick Wilson is somehow as charismatic as can be, even though he is assumed to be a pedophile (for those of you who haven't seen it yet) and the battle of wits and strength between the two of them is one of the best on screen in a very long time. The color scheme throughout is great, really taking into effect the overall feel of the film, the mood is one of the main stars of the film. And the castration scene is one of brilliance, bringing the tension to a height that you can only keep ascending from. A great film that more people should watch, especially everyone who is on the Ellen Page bandwagon. And everyone who will soon be on Patrick Wilson's bandwagon after seeing him as Night Owl in the Watchmen movie.

6)Leon the Professional, the international cut, which throws together the whole lover angle that made tons of people feel very uncomfortable in test screenings. Not sure why though; it's played more along the lines of a young girl who had never had a father figure (even though she did in fact have a father, even though he was an abusive drug dealer) and when she is at death's door, so to speak, Leon, played by the fantastic french actor Jean Reno, takes her in, sealing both their fates forever. It was one of the first films Natalie Portman did, and she's fantastic in it. She's vulnerable, yet has a strength all her own that Leon sees is deep down inside of her and agrees to train her because he does care about her, the first person he's cared for since the woman he loved was killed back in Italy. Gary Oldman plays one of the greatest screen villains put to celluloid in the guise of Stansfield, a pill popping lieutenant on the NYPD who also has a huge drug cartel he's in charge of and doesn't care about killing women and children, something a 'professional' would definitely be against. Luc Besson, who has teased at retiring for the past few years (even though he's doing the trilogy of Arthur movies, the kid's books he wrote in France), was truly on a role back then, with films such as La Femme Nikita and The Big Blue under his belt already. It balances a fine line between comedy, action, romance, and mixes it together with a unconventional father/daughter film, and no matter what people say, it's not that creepy. He's just a hired killer who has never had the time to just sleep on a regular mattress, as opposed to always sitting in a chair with one eye open.

A lot of film watching, some Danyell had seen before, some she had not. A fun time for all, with the usual smattering of Law and Order: Special Victim's Unit thrown in between. Sometimes episodic television can help get your minds off of some heavy subjects, even if it's about sexual crimes.

Until next time, sleep has come for my body.

-James

2019: After the Fall of New York

2008-10-17T14:49:00.002-04:00

In The Year 2019, The Future Depends on One Man.

With a tagline like that, it had to be awesome, right?

If you said, "Yes James, I love knockoffs of Escape From New York and The Road Warrior, especially with lasers and sound boxes that kill little people," then you'd be in the same boat as me when I say that I loved this film.

I'm a huge fan of movies about the wasteland of a nuclear fallout, the type that they always predict but hasn't quite happened yet. It's always the near future, in this case 2019, and in the year 1983 when they made this film, it was still 36 years away. In some ways I liked it better than John Carpenter's epic (and no, nobody could ever match Snake Plissken for sheer intensity) but in the form of Tom Cruise lookalike Michael Sopkiw. This was his first of only 4 Italian genre films, and as an alternative to Kurt Russell's Plissken, his Parsifal (yes, a very... strange name, to be had) does the job amiably. You actually want him to succeed, to score the girl and to defeat the baddies on the way to a rocket ship off of this crazy world.

Directed by prolific Italian genre director Sergio Martino (Mannaja being one of my favorite films by him), he was one of the best at capitalizing on a flavor of the week, making it for cheap and using the best of effects, be it gore effects, backgrounds, locations and even some computer graphics, and making the producers some money means going on to the next film. They really don't make films like this anymore, and I wish for a time when the grindhouse type filmmaking comes to fruition again, which I believe we'll see a revival in the next 5 years or so.

So why else is this film so fantastic? Besides the ridiculous plot of out main hero Parsifal being the best in 'death race' type battles (even battling a car of 4 villains with weapons to the death) and winning himself some licenses to kill (which is strange because there is no actual law against killing), winning a transvestite and then letting her go because 1)he's a nice guy and 2)I don't think he swung that way. The future is desperate but Parsifal isn't that desperate.

It's all the Euracs fault, who are the main force in the world. A very Nazi-esque group, they are the combined forces of Asia, Europe and Africa and decided to bombard America with every nuclear weapon they have and thus making the world a sterile place. Luckily one scientist hid his daughter, the last woman on earth who is fertile and it's every man for himself in regards to trying to plant a seed inside her, so to speak.

Insane? Yes, but it somehow keeps the film going, from one set piece to another. To the old MTA trains of the 80's (you know the ones, all tagged up by some of the greatest artists of that time), to the hiding place beneath the United Nations for the little people I mentioned earlier before, it's just and exploitation film lover's dream come true.

What made me even happier was seeing one of my favorite genre actors of the 70's and 80's being in the film. His name of course is George Eastman, born Luigi Montefiori, but used many aliases over the years, appearing in well over 50 films. In this film he plays a character by the name of Big Ape. Yes, he is an ape man, thus showing they even took some slight elements from the Planet of the Apes series of films. He falls in love at first sight with the scientist's daughter and will stop at nothing at 'making a baby' with the sleeping beauty, in order to keep his legacy alive. What better way then to become immortal in a sterile world?

This film has everything. The gouging out of eyes, head's exploding, rats being skewered, random sex scenes, a woman who looks like the spitting image of Darryl Hannah. You even have a little person throwing himself against some old car to kill himself, so he wouldn't tell the Euracs where his new found friends were hiding.

And of course no great film would be complete without the synth score of the De Angelis brothers, better know as the Onion Brothers.

Go check it out ASAP. You won't be disappointed, especially if you have the same taste in movies that I tend to have. Viva Italia!

Call of Cthulhu

2008-10-16T07:41:00.002-04:00

Yesterday I picked up a few movies from work. You're asking yourselves, "What else is new, James?" But I picked up a film I've had on the side for the last year. A black & white silent film version of what many people thought was a story that would never translate to the silver screen. Based on one of H.P. Lovecraft's stories involving one of the Old Ones, Call of Cthulhu somehow gets the adaptation right. Who would've thought a silent film made in 2005 would be the way to do it?

It's a mere 47 minutes, which in today's Hollywood doesn't equal a marketable feature length film, but thanks to the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society, or the HPLHS for short, who help produce film versions of the not so normal and radio plays of other Lovecraft stories, this story which started a whole subculture of stories and which is still translated to screen in various ways (Hellboy to give you an example of Cthulhu on the big screen) is given life in a whole new way.

Produced to look as if it would be a film H.P. Lovecraft would have watched at the time of writing the story, it never looks to be trying too hard to convey that feeling. It is just a great story told in a different way, which a lot of the thanks has to go to Andrew Leman and Sean Branney, the director and writer for this film. They had the heavy handed task to take a story which in some ways is more about the feel of fear and death and make it appear on the big screen in a german expressionist way. The props, the title cards, the retro special effects, the silent acting (which I don't care what anyone says, watching a good silent film actor means forgetting you're not hearing the words but just seeing them mouth them but not even realizing it), everything works. One of the most important things within a silent film is also the score. Chad Fifer, Ben Holbrook, Troy Sterling Nies and Nicholas Pavkovic do an amazing job and are all names everyone should be looking out for in the composing world.

I really can't say anymore besides everyone who either loves Lovecraft, prefers a story driven horror film and/or wishes the talkies had never come about should check out this film. And go to http://www.cthulhulives.org and check out the other films, radio plays and buy some stuff from them. Keep these films funded, because the majority of the production budget is paid for by the fans themselves buying the cool t-shirts and props that they painstakingly reproduced for nerds like myself. Besides Stuart Gordon (and one day Guillermo Del Toro), H.P. Lovecraft has been given the love he deserves in the independent field, so let's keep the good fight going.

Miskatonic University forever!

Random thoughts in this Irish noggin of mine

2008-10-15T15:21:00.002-04:00

This will probably end up being a crazy blog entry, showcasing how erratic my thinking patterns tend to be.

Danyell and I found this fantastic supermarket near us called Great Wall Supermarket. As you can tell, it's an Asian centric market with tons of food and drink from the far east. All I had to say was that we bought up a ton of stuff, like specialty Pocky, mock chicken, different canned foods, a bunch of drinks (some of which were abysmal, like this one coconut drink with pieces of coconut inside. It actually tasted what I think a cadaver would taste like... which reminds me, I'm a bit hungry).

Also a few weeks back I took my friend Tommy to see an advanced screening of the film Choke and I was attempting to write a review for it right away. Then a day later. Then a week later and nothing came sprouting out of my head. And the more I thought about it and also via a discussion with Tommy after we both digested the film fully and it passed through our collective colons, I realized that the film was average at best. Don't get me wrong, I love the source material to death. I'm a huge fan of Chuck Palahniuk, loving his books Survivor, Fight Club, Invisible Monsters and of course the already mentioned Choke. David Fincher's adaptation of Fight Club is still in my top 50 films of all time, even with the meathead love for it (which always amused me, due to the overtly homoerotic themes throughout the film and book).

And thinking again about Clark Gregg's adaptation of Choke, it comes across as a very mediocre, almost student film-esque quality to it, even with the fantastic performances from Sam Rockwell and Anjelica Huston. It's just the editing, the direction, the other actors (except for Gregg himself, playing Victor's vulnerable boss Lord High Charlie), the pacing. Everything about it felt lacking. Especially the female lead, played woodenly by Kelly Macdonald, surprisingly because she was really good in No Country for Old Men. It's a film I'll have to revisit on DVD, especially since I know Danyell wanted to see it initially and for some reason this country has a thing against SEX.

Also recently seen was the horrible to high heaven remake of The Wizard of Gore. Not even a film with the likes of Crispin Glover, Brad Dourif, Jeffrey Combs and the nakedness of the Suicide Girls, could save that disaster. It just felt like it was made in a serious way, yet most of the actors weren't told that on the set, so you're getting truly hammy performances, which actually save it from being a film I'd burn alive at the stake. I can't pinpoint one reason as to why this film stinks. I'll list a top 5 reasons as to why I'd rather watch paint be poured down my urethra then see it again.

1. Wasting the likes of Jeffrey Combs in a speechless role for about 90% of the film until a big 'surprise' of a climax that makes you go, "Did I miss something important? Like a plot?"

2. Calling Brad Dourif on the set of Deadwood and piling up a ton of cash for him to play such a boring foul mouthed character just to progress the story and have his name on the box art.

3. Making me bored of naked punk girls. But only for about 5 seconds. Then I realized that instead of being bored by them, I was just bored by the movie. So Girls, I still love you.

4. Having Kip Pardue as your star. God, he fucking blows. I know he took the role pretty seriously, because he was the only one trying to come up with some character nuances, like gasping into a paper bag when excited and wearing hip clothing to show that he's a reporter really trying to get to the bottom of the shenanigans throughout the film. Just tried to hard. As opposed to Bijou Philips, who I tend to love (and was also in Choke) but she was as wooden as a board in this film, showcasing pain as if she was in remedial acting class. Shame on you Bijou.

5. And finally, this movie sucked so much, it made me think of the original film in a whole new light. I now think it's a better film than the remake (and yes, I do own the film. I had a Herschell Gordon Lewis kick a few years back.)

Other than that, I picked up a few films today, one of which I'm about to pop into my DVD player and get off my laptop to give my undivided attention to, which is the recent black and white silent film production of The Call of Cthulu. When I'm done with it, I'll be back to review it. I'm hoping it's as good as it looks.

Not movie related... friend related

2008-10-09T22:30:00.000-04:00

Every so often my heart actually warms up to someone around me. Danyell knows this curse all too well, but there are others who have been lucky enough to see the side of me I only show a handful of people.

One of which is my friend, confidant, inside jokester and various other complimentary adjectives Noemi. I don't think I let her know enough what she means to me, considering I don't share my feelings that often.

Today is her birthday (catching up to my old age) and I sadly couldn't see her. But tomorrow might be a different story, hopefully. We shall see. To see the group of true friends, ones that I don't have to ever hold anything back from. Far and few between.

And with Noemi, she's living the dream right now, working on the sets of movies and tv shows. I'm very envious, but in the older brother way that is really me being truly proud of her, especially all that she's been through these last few years. We've seen highs and the lowest of lows (reminds me of a ugly baby pincher) and it's only been a handful of years now.

It's funny how we met. Through another girl who I'd become friends with online. Someone we both don't talk to anymore, yet we saw a common thread amongst ourselves. And the core group you've introduced me to, I'll take them over my past friends any day.

I just wanted to change up this blog a little bit, let a friend know that they are appreciated and missed and wish I could see them more often than I do now.

A new blog you say?

2008-10-08T22:30:00.002-04:00

Just re-watched Blade for probably the 15th time. Danyell made a good point that even though she enjoyed the film, she saw the film as a pretty poorly directed story. And being a lover of the Blade character I could only agree with her. Looking at it from another perspective helped me see a ton of the flaws throughout the film. Some of the dialogue leaves a lot to be desired. Also the whole La Magra Blood God thing that Deacon Frost speaks about causing a chain reaction to change everyone into vampires... well, then what will they all feed on? It's always been a flaw in vampire films that they want this vampire apocalypse to occur but will ultimately starve to death.

But I still like the film.

I also bought a laptop for myself, my first. A very simple mini laptop from ASUS. I've fallen in love with it already, writing like a maniac on it. Which means I'll be updating my blogs on some sort of a regular schedule, especially since this thing is super portable.

Here's a picture of it:

So now while I watch all the making of documentaries on the Blade dvd (which are really good by the way), I'm going to get myself some snacks and then go pass out. I haven't been sleeping too well this past week and a half.

Oh, and thank you to Andrea for personally suggesting the film Tokyo Gore Police to me. I'll be seeing it tomorrow, especially after that commercial on Twitch you showed me.

Slither and why I love James Gunn's horror masterpiece

2008-09-23T15:51:00.003-04:00

Watching it again for the 12th time or so since buying the DVD, I looked back fondly at all the reasons why this film works, even though people try to compare it to others. I don't agree with their assumptions, putting this film on a pedestal of fantastic horror films in the last 10 years. Here's a list of sorts as to why I lovethis film.

1) I love having films that I saw in theaters that many others hadn't but then champion on DVD. That's how I was when I saw The Mist on DVD, even though I still haven't met anyone who saw it in theaters. But when I saw Slither in theaters, I was shocked at how refreshing it was that a film had the guts (literally) to show comedy and violence without blinking an eye. Gore and comedy is a hard dual edged sword. Don't get me wrong, I laugh at gore filled romps on film, but they usually intended a more horrific tone. So I've been spreading the Slither love for years now.

2) James Gunn, writer/director extraordinaire. He's one of those Hollywood types that I hope I'm more aligned in becoming. Funny and foul mouthed, a clever writer who jumped from the fun bowels of Troma with what many refer to as Troma's masterpiece Tromeo and Juliet, he went to writing gigs with the Scooby Doo films* and then wrote the better than it should have been remake of Dawn of the Dead**, he also helped with the films Lollilove and wrote the 'better than Mystery Men' superhero comedy The Specials. I was excited when I had heard about Slither, even though people compared it to Night of the Creeps***. It's more than that, a film on a different level. So when I saw it and the uninhibited directing style of Mr. Gunn with that 80's sensibility but in a recent setting. Plus he's a hell of a nice guy who everyone that works with him wants to work with again, as everyone will see with his short episodes called James Gunn's PG Porn and the XBOX Live exclusive film called Humanzee. He'll be in the business for a very long time if there's any justice in Hollywood.

3) Nathan Fillion or as everyone likes to call him, Bill 'I'm a fucking asshole' Pardy. An understated actor who just oozes that 'It' factor that most actors wish they could. I really can't explain what it is, but with his everyman good looks and that slight dumb-founded look he sometimes gives, it's just something that always makes me look forward to seeing what he's in next. Of course everyone knows him from his iconic role on Firefly and Serenity of Captain Malcolm 'Mal' Reynolds, he used that and gained that cult status already early on to help propel him into other roles, such as his co-starring role alongside Keri Russell in Waitress. Recently his work on the online sensation of Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-long Blog got a lot of press (even though it was all about Neil Patrick Harris), but he played the perfect asshole superhero where you actual root for the villain. Okay, enough of my bowing down to Mr. Fillion, there's others I need to cheer.

4) Elizabeth Banks who is probably one of the comedic actresses consistently great in every role I see her in. An old time actress look, Hitchcockian blonde actually, she's on the rise in Hollywood, co-starring again with Seth Rogen in the new Kevin Smith film Zack and Miri Make a Porno and the highly controversial new Oliver Stone film W. as Laura Bush, she started very small, in supporting roles but always knew how to get noticed on screen. When I saw her in The 40 Year Old Virgin, her role only has a total of maybe 12 lines in 2 hour and 17 minute movie, but yet she makes the most of it and I remember she made the audience gasp, especially with that very un-sexual masturbation scene at the end of the film. She's also been in all 3 Spiderman films, but people don't realize it because her role is very minimal yet important in the whole Spidey mythos as the character of Betty Brant. So her being in Slither was big to me because I knew she could be funny yet could act as well, and people need to give her credit for acting very emotionally to a huge pulsating monster that is hideous, yet you believe that she's trying to seduce the monster so they could get the upper hand. So she's another one in the line of favorite actors in this film that I always look forward to seeing in future films. And I don't mind being down on my knees for a woman who doesn't mind getting dirty in a film and has that slapstick mentality that is starting to slowly make a comeback.

5) Gregg Henry. We all know who he is, but we forget his name. I know his name because I'm the type that knows trivia like that and plus he's one of my favorite character actors working today. He's recently been in the great Eddie Izzard/ Minnie Driver television series The Riches**** and as usual plays 'sleaze personified' as I like to coin the term. I remember when I first notice him in the greatly under-appreciated Payback but has gotten a new lease in life recently when it was allowed to finally get the director's cut. He plays the mayor in Slither and as usual steals every scene in which he's in, just dirtying up the screen with his patented style of sleaze he's famous for, especially right in the beginning when he's introduced to the audience by cursing out this driver in front of him in front of a mother and son in town. And the way he just begs to be killed by Bill Pardy and Bill just shoots him without a second look shows how much this guy was hated in his own town.

6) The Rook. Michael Rooker, probably one guy who always dominates the screen, no matter the film he's in. In this he plays the pleasantly named Grant Grant. An oafish guy who you can tell means well, the older man who found his trophy wife in Elizabeth Banks' Starla, he's the one who starts the whole slithering mess. Meat is the word of choice and his whole acting within a shell of a beast with a bit of humanity left inside is fearless in its insanity. Most other actors wouldn't necessarily take this role seriously but Michael Rooker actually just infuses his own self in this character and balances the line of comedy and horror that you forget why you are laughing in the first place. You are truly creeped out by him yet you feel truly bad for him throughout the film, especially by his personification of the alien and giving it the first time it's fallen in love because it's been by itself for billions of years. Just a brilliant portrayal that's been ruined in other films before. And there's nothing scarier than The Rook when he has a cleanly shaved head.

7) Air Supply's Every Woman in the World, which is the love song of choice for Grant and Starla. A creepy song which seems more along the lines of stalker (Every Breath You Take anyone?). Yet it works because it takes a whole other meaning within the film, especially with Grant's alien monster finally realizing what love is with this one woman. Never thought I'd get misty eyed with an Air Supply song. Thanks a lot James Gunn. Now I have to shoot myself in the skull. But first I'll watch the DVD one more time with commentary on.

8) MastersFX, their work on this particular film was pretty much the key to making it a believable alien monster film. Working 5 months in advance, which is quite normal in the special effects field, they do the proper mixing of practical effects and digital effects, melding the two where you're not always sure if it's actually filmed on the set or if it was done on a computer, and that's the best way to do it in today's film making. Try to check their resume on their website at www.mastersfx.com.

9) The DVD set alone makes it a worthwhile cause to rewatch the film as many times I have so far. The extras are plentiful, especially with all the ribs against Nathan Fillion and their undying hatred for him. The commentary is one of the better ones, which is with James Gunn and Nathan Fillion, a very fulfilling and funny commentary track. I appreciate a good commentary track that makes rewatching the film worthwhile and not a chore. It's very honest to the point of him not liking the CGI in certain scenes. I really like that he doesn't hold any punches back and still has a laugh at his own expense.

9 reasons? Usually when you do a list there's always a 10th reason, a Top 10 if you will. But I try not to play by the rules of society and/or David Lettermen, so I'll end it at 9. Which is a whole mess load of reasons as it is. I love this film to death and love to spread the love to everyone I can. More people need to list this film as an essential film in horror. In today's film world, usually the best horror films come from the indies and other countries, so this film coming from a major studio was a breath of fresh air. But yet again, was it pushed enough? Usually a horror film opening in March wouldn't do well, and in this case it was true. But DVD is the new medium to get a wider audience.

* I've never held it against him.

** An effective remake which re-imagined one of my favorite horror films of all time and actually made it its own movie. Kudos to that.

*** It was actually more in line with Cronenberg's line of films dealing with the battle from within, the body's own monsters, like in Shivers, Rabid and The Fly.

**** I don't have cable anymore, but check it out on FX. I still need to pick up the first season set on DVD.

Fantastic Fest = I wish I could go there

2008-09-17T16:31:00.002-04:00

Fantastic Fest has an offer right now up until this Monday night, I believe, to check out 10 different films, a few features and a few shorts and then vote on them to see which one wins and gets the glory of being a grand horror film.

Everyone should go especially since it's free. You just need to register with them in order to watch the films. I'm in the middle of watching the short film Treevenge which is all about a world where the Christmas trees are sick of being cut down and start getting revenge on their destroyers. Made by the guys who are making one of the films I can't wait for, Hobo With a Shotgun.

Go check it out, you won't be disappointed.

I must have been lying under a rock

2008-09-09T22:40:00.003-04:00

I didn't hear anything about this supposed animal that washed ashore in Montauk at the end of July. I'm always wary of these things. Remember the zombie dog from a few years back? That thing freaked the hell out of me but of course I knew better and said to myself, "If the government was developing zombie warfare, we wouldn't know until they let it out of the bag or it became some sort of Captain Trips epidemic."

I say weird things to myself a lot.

But is this thing real? People say it's a turtle without its shell. Or a dog who's been seriously fucked up beyond belief. Or even some sort of chupacabra. I'm always betting on the Jersey Devil or Sasquatch's retarded younger brother. Now that guy's ugly.

Almost signed up to write reviews for a porn site, but the only problem is that you need to buy the first one in order to keep the dvds coming from then on. Hmm, even though it is a legit site, they can choose to believe that my sarcastic writing style isn't titillating enough for their one handed readers and then I'm out 15 bucks with Backyard Bongo Babes Vol. 17: This Time It's Anal!

I have two ides for comic books. I just need an artist. So therefore they're going nowhere.

Woohoo!

EDIT: I know exactly what this monster is!

You already know I'll be published

2008-09-08T17:59:00.002-04:00

Finally, right? But I'm also in the middle of writing a few scripts, a few other articles (which are taking painstakingly long to do due to the fact I'm researching them hardcore), attempting to procure interviews with a few big names in genre film and the book world and trying to get my website Combinations Follow up and running.

Does anyone know any good website designers who do work for peanut butter sammiches. I make a mean one.

Work has drained me again from writing though, as well as our internet provider being under the influence and kicking myself and my girlfriend off repeatedly. Not sure why it keeps doing it, considering I bought a new router which deals with problems like the one we keep having. And attempting to call Time Warner, Linksys and Apple in one day can drive anyone insane, especially Danyell. I saw daggers coming forth from her eyes.

It was a scary sight. One which I'd love to show on screen (and not like Judge Doom's dagger eyes in Who Framed Roger Rabbit... which was brilliant and scared the hell out of me when I was a child.)

I'm going to watch some Robocop action right now, get the creative juices going.

"Can you fly, Bobby?"

Rewatching The Matrix films, I've come to the conclusion...

2008-08-29T10:26:00.002-04:00

And not getting much out of them like I did when they initially came out. Actually, strike that, I only got most of the good joy out of the first film, with the second film being a huge disappointment when I had seen it in theaters with my girlfriend. So much so that we didn't see the third film in theaters when it came out a few months later, instead waiting for the DVD release. Which I remembered liking more than the second.

But that's mainly because Neo dies.

It had me thinking, why didn't I love these flicks? What is keeping me from that feeling I had once? Did I become a bigger snob since they came out? No, it c couldn't be. I still love films like Crank and Bad Boys II and any other action film that can get me to still let out a proverbial 'ooooh', such as some parts of the Transporter films. That probably has to do with the oozing 70's era charisma of Jason Statham. But I'm vying away from the topic at hand, the Wachowski Bros. (well, now the Wachowskis, ever since that surgery occured) film series.

I realized that it all boils down to the wooden portrayal of Neo by Mr. Keanu Reeves. Don't get me wrong, I like Keanu. No matter how much my brain makes me want to hate him, I tend to like most of his films. Even being a comic book nerd and hating that they cast him as John Constantine, I still went in with a clear mind and actually enjoyed the film somehow. But that could also be because of the supporting cast, who are all spot on, especially Peter Stormare, but he tends to steal any show he's in. Just look at the Volkswagen ads he's been in.

Same goes for Carrie Anne Moss. I liked her in Memento and Fido, so it couldn't be only her. But then it hit me like a pick up truck. Their romance is non-existent, yet they center the whole universe, the whole being of Neo around their love throughout the films. The reason the first film works better than the rest is because it ends before their love can be truly shown. It's hinted at, we see a kiss, but that's it. Nothing more. The sequels try too hard to be philosophical, too hard with the action scenes (and I love the stunt work within each film, but when mixed with dated cgi in some parts, it fails to impress today).

That sex scene in Reloaded? Ugh, talk about no sexuality. No chemical attraction there. My girlfriend, when initially watching the film and walking her to her train, said something along the lines of, "They're supposed to be in love? Then why don't I believe it?"

And film dictates to us what we should believe in when seen on the screen. But only when it's believable. I believed that there were dwarves, hobbits and elves fighting side by side in the Lord of the Ring films. Why is that? Because the world of Tolkien was somehow breathed to life by Peter Jackson, a worthy director who has a sense of reality, even when something fantastic is show on screen. Same goes for Guillermo Del Toro, a favorite of CHUD and many other like minded fans of film. He can somehow take a faun and mix it with the spanish civil war and bring both worlds to reality, a mixture of fairy tale and nightmare. There really is no equal in that department and if there is, maybe I've missed out big time. Cronenberg also molds a scene, a film on screen and even when a man is slowly turning into a human fly or an apartment complex has gone completely crazy and murderous, we believe.

And the Wachowskis fail in that department. They wrote a fine first film. A stand alone film that even when they came out, I felt like they had tacked on backstory and other characters to flesh out a story that really only needed 2 hours to tell. We didn't need to see Zion. Or the other ships in the human armada. Or the battles underground. Or the architect and the key maker. I'll even say we didn't have to see Monica Belucci (but I won't say that, any film that features her must be seen).

We just needed to believe in a hacker who was the chosen one by Morpheus, who made the moviegoing public believe that he could stop bullets and actually destroy the unstoppable agents. I'm not sure if it was intended, but from the overall trilogy, I still look at it as Agent Smith's story. His triumphant rise and fall, rise again to complete god like power and ultimately his fall from grace by a higher power he didn't know could take him down. But only by a martyr was his power taken away. Looking at the films in that light makes me enjoy them a bit more. And that's because Hugo Weaving could be doing pantomime while tap dancing and I'd still think it was brilliant.

The Matrix sequels just feel like they were made to make money. And I agree, Hollywood is in the business of making money. Why make movies then? For only the artistic value? Then movies wouldn't be made at all. I just feel that the Wachowskis could have instead taken their vision and put it toward something so much better.*

*And I actually liked Speed Racer.

Hard Case Crime's Songs of Innocence

2008-08-14T22:33:00.001-04:00

Once in awhile a company comes along that impresses me with their whole catalog of products. It's usually a DVD company. To be honest, I'm a film fanatic so I tend to watch as many films as possible, different genres from different eras and I look for the large companies and the up and coming to get my fair share from. One of my favorite genres of film are film noir. Old or new, I love it when someone can give me a private eye who punches first and asks questions later. So it is in this regard that the company I'm speaking about isn't a DVD company. It's Hard Case Crime, who deal with crime novels that people like Dashiell Hammet, Richard Stark and Mickey Spillane would write for... actually, one of which does have books published with them (it's the second under his real name Donald E. Westlake).

Why bring this fine company up? Well, they had sent me three books to review awhile ago and I read through one in a matter of 2 days. The second book I read through in about 3 days. The third I haven't had the time to read due to work overwhelming my life, battling a rat the size of my Irish head and trying to still move in my apartment 10 months after I signed the lease. I will be reviewing two of their books here in the next two days, the first being Songs of Innocence written by Richard Aleas (pen name of Hard Case Crime founder Charles Ardai) with cover art by Glen Orbik and The MAX written by Ken Bruen and Jason Starr with cover art by Glen Orbik again.

In Songs of Innocence (released last July), it is the second book starring Aleas' character John Blake. Not having read the first novel starring him (2004's Little Girl Lost), it didn't take long to learn about this deeply scarred former PI. You already see the pieces in his life that are shattered; a lover who was killed by his last assignment and a good friend almost lost as well. He's now taken a low key position as an administrative assistant at Columbia University. He's also using this position to take a creative writing class to better hone his skills. This is where he meets Dorothy Burke, a beautiful younger dame (sorry, getting in the mindset of some pulp fiction), who he has a connection with. The only problem is that the story starts off with the police finding her dead in her bathtub, with the book Final Exit sitting right beside her, a plastic bag over her head and of course ruling it a suicide. Her mother thinks otherwise and wants to acquire John's detective persona to take the case and find out who killed her daughter. He tells her he isn't in that business anymore and tells the friend who almost died to take the case instead. But the problem is that he's mounting his own investigation to find out who killed Dorothy.

What Charles Ardai has done is take a simple premise of the lover/friend being found in a messy situation, and instead of taking the easy way out and calling it the way it looks, takes the character and the reader into an adventure around the sights and sounds not commonly seen in New York City. It's the violent NYC underworld we as the reader wants to hear about. We can't help it, it's something about stories, be it in print or on the screen that intrigues us. That tickles are fancy into wondering what happens next, no matter what time of day it is. I have to admit that while reading this story, I sometimes couldn't put the book down. I was like an addict, and sadly a book in the fiction section hasn't done that to me in quite some time.

Dorothy has confided in John her life as a prostitute named Cassandra, a call girl in the world of secret bath houses and happy endings that accompany them. So of course he tries to track down a list of johns, maybe one of which was a bit too 'hands on' and snuffed out the life of his friend. It leads him into many fights, call girls with hearts of gold but ice water running through their veins, the Hungarian mob being provoked by Blake and then being retaliated against by pinning a dead body on him, twist and turns, jumps between 60 foot crevices on the rooftops of buildings, cops getting closer to him, a manhunt for Blake, a estranged father Dorothy rarely talked about, a friend who betrays him and so much more. I don't want to ruin the story, which is why I'm being very aloof in what I speak about. But what Ardai is doing here is taking a old pulp story, one that would be written for the fans, and taking it to the new century, infusing new life in a genre that most people don't give too much credit to.

I'd like to point out that Ardai has said that his first Hard Case Crime novel, Little Girl Lost, took him only 2 or so months to write. It then took him roughly 3 years to finish Songs of Innocence, which doest surprise me. The character of John Blake is a difficult one to write about. A wounded man, one that doesn't look at himself the way he used to, slumming around and wishing he was somebody else. It's a hard book to write and to make the character likable, especially when he's being a real dick to people he loves is even harder, but Ardai does it here. A quick read that you just want to go back and read a few more times to find the little hints at the stunning conclusion that you have to read to believe. Plus the book is less than 7 bucks, so it won't hurt your pocket much. Give it a chance, especially since the book has been optioned for a film, so as soon as I hear more about it, I'll keep you posted.

Part two comes tomorrow night.

I miss Michael Keaton

2008-07-16T23:52:00.001-04:00

With the release of the new Batman flick The Dark Knight in about 24 hours (trust me, I'll be there at 12:01 a.m.), I brought out my Batman DVD collection and was watching bits and pieces of each one. Then I decided to throw on Tim Burton's Batman, and watching Michael Keaton made me realize that I miss the guy a lot.

I really do. He was always that awkward yet charming individual who women liked and men wanted to hang out and have a beer with. But what went wrong? Where has he been? It's not as if he hasn't worked recently. He's actually been in some movies, one of which did pretty decently at the box office.

Where to begin though? I guess the best place, as usual, is the beginning. Not when he was doing bit parts on sitcoms and one line readings in films. I'm speaking about his comedic beginning. So the best place to begin would be his star turn in Night Shift.

The year was 1982, I was a spry 2 years old and don't remember much besides zweibeck cookies and apple juice cocktails. But I know when the years passed and I finally got to see this film, I appreciated what kind of comedy it was. A swinger comedy starring the Fonz and Keaton, directed by Richie Cunningham? A funny foray in the overnight mortuary business and to make ends meet they throw together their very own brothel and hilarity ensues. And with Keaton's Billy Blazejowski, the laughs come at rapid fire. A film that desperately needs a special edition.

He followed it up with the feel good comedy Mr. Mom, another comedy where hilarity ensues once the wife goes to work and dad is left home to fend for himself. A film written by John Hughes, it's not a great film, but proved Keaton's star power and showed he could do a straight laced comedy.

He then jumped onto the 1930's era comedy Johnny Dangerously. You can't get better than the comedy duo of Michael Keaton and Joe Piscopo. And I'm not even being sarcastic there. Not only was it one of the first films with a PG-13 rating (Ahhh, Spielberg always innovating), but had some heart to it. If you don't know what it was about, he played a good natured man who needs to work in a life of crime to pay for his mom's expensive medical bills. A good mafia satire, not many people remember this film when I mention it to them. Maybe I need to speak to people who know movies a little bit more. Joe Piscopo, like in Dead Heat, steals every scene chewing line.

Then came another Ron Howard film, Gung Ho. I remember my dad hating the film for some reason, so I put off from watching it because I trusted my dad's opinion. But then one day I caught it on HBO and sat down and watched it. And liked it quite a bit. A film delving into the whole Japanese work ethic and American laziness, I liked the dichotomy Howard brought to the movie and Keaton again brought a comedic flare to a film with some deep issues that people were going through in the 1980's. It's a film that my friend who is now a business professor uses as a template of what could happen.

His next star making turn was his first foray into Tim Burton's mind, Beetlejuice. It's a film I've watched hundreds of times and still find it hysterical. He's so over the top and you could tell he's loving every minute of it. Great cheesy stop motion special effects, a young and hot Winona Ryder, a young and 'still can't believe it's him' Alec Baldwin, 1940's would be pinup Geena Davis (a future installment in I Miss series), a pre-child pornography and 200 pounds lighter Jeffrey Jones. It just works on all accounts. A twisted children's movie with enough sexuality that parents didn't mind bringing their kids to see it. But then again, did many of them get the film at all?

In the same year of 1988, he went dramatic and did Clean and Sober, showing he had the guts to play a coke addict and alcoholic who had no cares in the world until he meets a woman (the great Kathy Baker) and wants to help her and ultimately falls for her. Morgan Freeman as the drug counselor puts in some great work as well. I notice a trend with Michael Keaton movies. A lot of them get lumped in between great iconic roles he's done, so people forget about the little gems he produced here and there.

He went right back to comedy with The Dream Team. A fun 'fish out of water' comedy about a group of guys who are in a sanitarium (led by Keaton with great comic performances from Christopher Lloyd and Peter Boyle) and find themselves lost in New York and framed for murder. One of those feel good about my home town movies. But hell, NYC at that time was full of psychos, pimps and murderers. Well, more so then now. They know how to hide it better.

Of course in the year of 1989, Bob Kane's supposed* bouncing baby boy was finally made into a true to life big budget summer film. Batman was unleashed to all of us comic book nerds and we fell in love with it the moment we laid eyes on it. But the road there wasn't too easy. The same comic book fans who cheered for this darker take on the Dark Knight were earlier ripping apart the notion that 'the guy who played Beetlejuice' was to play Bruce Wayne. Michael Keaton felt the pressure and proved them wrong with a good portrayl of the dual identity. Even though I always thought he was a better Batman and a half way decent Bruce Wayne. I always felt he was a bit too awkward in the millionaire role. Tim Burton brought his own quirkyness and made the film his own. Jack Nicholson was a good Joker, a ultra violent Cesar Romero protege, which isn't a knock on the performance. I'm a fan of the original series, no matter how many Bams, Biffs and Pows there were. A fun romp was this version of Batman, but we all knew there could be more. Someday.

A duo of subpar films came next (Pacific Heights and One Good Cop) which are more or less delegated for a late night cable watching, but nothing more. We all knew we were waiting for the next installment of the Batman franchise. Batman Returns came to theaters in the summer of 1992. Myself being a more spry 12 year old, I rushed to the theater to see Keaton again play the caped crusader. When I left the theater, I don't know how I felt. I liked it like a lot of people did, but how long was Batman even in the film? 30 minutes? That's how it felt. I still wonder if anyone ever took a tally on how much screen time the hero has in that film. You could also tell Tim Burton had much more of a stranglehold on the story, with some good (Catwoman/ her suit/ Michelle Pfeiffer in general) and some mediocre (Danny Devito wasn't bad, but this freakish penguin monster of a man? Eh, not a fan of that. Or of the Penguin in general). But still, an enjoyable mess of a film, with Christopher Walken's worst hair style in the history of filmdom. And that's including Joe Dirt.

I think I was one of only 7 people in the world who saw My Life in theaters. And I wish it was 6 people, because that was a bad film. A young Nicole Kidman looking less like the infamous Cat Lady and more like the beautiful irish lass we all loved at one point. But he bounced back with another Ron Howard helmed film, The Paper. I really enjoyed that film. A great script. A really great cast (I can't help but love all films with Robert Duvall**). And some tight direction. A film that I didn't think I'd actually keep watching 15 years later, but Keaton always surprises.

Next he made a cute film called Speechless. He paired once again with his Beetlejuice costar Geena Davis and it was the matchup of a lifetime. I speak about Batman vs. Superman, Keaton vs. Reeve. As a kid, I think I was the only 14 year old who made that connection when seeing that film in theaters. I was a bored kid, can't you tell? We then go into Harold Ramis trying to regain his comedy bug with the sci fi comedic yarn Multiplicity. I watched it.

Once.

That is all.

His next 3 films were not only enjoyable, but two of which I still cherish today. Jackie Brown, Desperate Measures and Out of Sight. Jackie Brown and Out of Sight he played the same great character of Ray Nicolette, a great little twist to both films. Both done by directors I still love today (Tarantino and Soderbergh). I still say Jackie Brown is Tarantino's red headed stepson when they promote any new movie by him. They always pan over that film and I still don't know why. It was a progression in his repertoire, like Death Proof, so maybe people didn't get it. I always forget that the mass movie public aren't too bright. And Out of Sight was the first time I saw George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez as stars in the making. Only one deserves it still.

But what happened after those two great character pieces by Keaton? He did a family film with a badly CGI snowman (Jack Frost), a decent sports movie (A Shot at Glory), a terrible straight to DVD action film (Quicksand), some shit I'll never watch (First Daughter and Herbie: Fully Loaded), a crappy horror film (White Noise), a decent but little seen dark comedy (Game 6) and Pixar's second worst film*** (Cars).

Where did he go? What can he do to bring back the glory of his once shining career? A lot of people (myself included) say that after Batman, he hit a snag in his career. He still had a few choice and brilliant roles, but he wasn't matching box office gold like he once was, so the starring roles got to be fewer and far between. Hollywood is sometimes a bitch, and he's felt the wrath. But I have more faith in him to bring the goods again. He just needs a little resurgence. A role that only he could play.

Any great filmmakers out there need a good character actor? Hey Ron Howard and Tim Burton... you worked with the guy multiple times. Bring him back to greatness. Come to think about it, what great movies have you guys done in the last 10 years? Hmm, on second thought Michael, find some new fresh blood. A director who will appreciate you and a script that will give you back your groove.****

*Bill Finger: RIP

** Well, not every film. Kicking and Screaming comes to mind. Ewww.

*** A Bug's Life being my least favorite.

**** Unlike Stella.

I miss Eddie Murphy

2008-07-15T15:37:00.001-04:00

Eddie, Eddie, Eddie. And no, I am not speaking about the abysmal movie Eddie with Whoopi Goldberg. Ugh, that just sent shivers down my spine.

No, instead I speak about the abysmal movie career choice/choices that Eddie Murphy has chosen in this lifetime. What happened to our 'heh heh heh' guy? Oh right, Beverly Hills Cop 3 happened. Thanks a ton, John Landis.

I speak of the good old days, the all or nothing days. The days when Eddie Murphy was both racy and funny as fuck. Funny as fuck is funnier than funny as hell. Trust me, the devil told me once. He never lies.

Eddie Murphy used to be funny. Not in the 'PG, boy there's some fart jokes and crazy hijinks' type of funny. It was more along the lines of, "R rated, fuck all that shit man. I'm a funny fucker." type of funny.

Where to begin? I guess I should begin where he hit his stride, his comedic repertoire was given a chance to shine and he could gain notoriety as the one guy who would say and do the things nobody else would. Of course, like my last 'I'm missing someone' article about Steve Martin, Eddie Murphy was also showcased very well on Saturday Night Live. You'd think it was some sort of breeding ground for top movie talent.*

But while he was on, the only real talents on the show were Eddie Murphy and Joe Piscopo (sorry Gilbert Gottfried) and we all remember who made Dead Heat. I don't have to go into detail as to why Eddie Murphy's run on SNL was a brilliant cross between intelligent humor and in your face comedy about race. I'll just mention Gumby, Buckwheat, undercover as a white man, Mr. Robinson and his Stevie Wonder impression. Even when he messed up during a segment, he just rolled with it, yelling at the crowd.

While still on the show, he knew his time had come and he jumped right into film making his feature film debut in 48 Hours with everyone's favorite mugshot, Nick Nolte. A fun action comedy (which was to become a staple of Murphy's), it was a smash hit and because of a Nolte illness, Murphy became the only cast member to host SNL while still a cast member. For some reason, I remember this, and I was only 2 years old. I'm lucky if I remember what I ate yesterday.

He then did Trading Places with future 'I Miss' cast member Dan Akroyd. A fun Prince and the Pauper redux, it was a bigger hit than his first film and he was looking like a mint to Paramount. We'll skip Best Defense for the simple fact that it shouldn't be mentioned ever again. Instead he made a small stand up comedy film called Delirious that made a bit of a splash. It made the makers of red leather suits millions and offended many people worldwide. Not his best stand up though...

But then he went right into filmdom's premier tailpipe stuffing cop movie, Beverly Hills Cop. Axel Foley became a phenomenon and is one of his films I can still just throw in my DVD player and have a blast, no matter what my mood is. Plus it had some great music and the always under-appreciated Judge Reinhold.

He went a different route next and went with the supernatural comedy The Golden Child. Not one of my faves, but a decent comedy that still did tremendous business. He was on a role that Hollywood doesn't see as often anymore** He then had a double whammy with Beverly Hills Cop II and one of my favorite stand up comedy films of all time, Raw. Just the name shows how much it's going to offend and make you laugh. Stand up comedy movies don't have that event status anymore in theaters. I can't remember a time now that a comedian by himself could open his own stand up movie to make money. The only ones that do any business now are films with 3 to 4 different comedians, so you get a good 30 minute set with each of them.

Then came the duo we hadn't been waiting for but was surprisingly not too bad of Arsenio Hall and Eddie Murphy in the film Coming to America. A fun film that still did a hell of a lot of business, but then his next film was the first bump in his career. Harlem Nights, the drama he co-wrote (with Charlie Murphy!), starred, directed, produced, was best boy and did craft services for came out. A vanity project through and through, all I can say is that I don't like that film whatsoever. Boring is usually another word I associate with that film. I remember being a kid and my dad letting me rent a film at our neighborhood video store and I saw the cover. Eddie Murphy, Richard Pryor... with old time clothes? Was this some sort of gangster comedy?

No. It wasn't. That was a dollar I could never get back again.

His next 5 films were all a bit of mis-step for him. Two were sequels to movies that shouldn't have been made (Another 48 Hours and the already mentioned Beverly Hills Cop III), a political comedy (The Distinguished Gentleman), one was a decent comedy that all my friends loved at that time (Boomerang) and one was one of the worst pieces of crap in horror history, directed by one of the great horror storytellers (Vampire in Brooklyn and Wes Craven... respectively).

Then came the Klumps. Everyone laughed in the theater, even I did. I can't help but laugh at people in fat suits (well, not always Mr. Lawrence). It revitalized his ailing career. Or did it? It made a ton*** of money and showed the public still liked Eddie Murphy. But what version of Eddie was this? This wasn't the R-rated, f bomb spewing Murphy of years past. This was a PG-13, crude fart humor Eddie Murphy. And after the laughter, I didn't like where this was headed.

He must not have either, because he jumped into the underrated and under performing R-rated action/comedy Metro. It starred a triple threat in the likes of Murphy, Michael Rappaport and Donal Logue. But even that couldn't get audiences into the seats. Then he voiced Mushu in the 'Wait, that was a Disney cartoon?' Mulan. Then came another one of his crappy remakes, this time taking the timeless Rex Harrison classic Doctor Dolittle and just trouncing on the good memory of it.

Then came a double whammy that he wouldn't soon forget. One was the infamous arrest of picking up a transvestite prostitute and claiming he was just trying to give 'her' a ride to safety. I love that skit. Oh wait, it was real life and he spent a night in jail. And then the second of whammys came when he released Holy Man. Wow, now that was a stinker. And it wasted the fine Jeff Goldblum too.

To this day, I still say that even though he had already had two profitable children films under his belt, the arrest and public backlash that was waiting to happen coaxed him into shedding his once bright star and bringing out the new and children improved Eddie Murphy. But first he had to do the film Life with Martin Lawrence to see if this was true. And the film did halfway decent box office, but nowhere near the good old days of R-rated comedies. And then the last film that I liked him in (and another starring the once great Steve Martin) was Bowfinger.

Easy sequel with the more lewd The Nutty Professor II: The Klumps. I was forced to see that turd in theaters. I don't know how I was convinced, but I know a relationship ended because of it. And then he did the terribly unfunny claymation PJ's. I still wonder how that lasted 2 seasons. There really wasn't anything on UPN, was there?

Now I'll say a little something about Shrek. I really liked the film. I thought it was Dreamworks showing that they could compete with Pixar. Thanks for showing I was wrong with the two Shrek sequels. And it's funny, I thought number 2 was bad, but The Third, I didn't know they could stoop so low. It took them 8 years to make another fun animated film.****

I won't delve into the pile of shit he brought upon us after the first Donkey infused film. I'll just mention them by name. Dr. Dolittle 2, Showtime, The Adventures of Pluto Nash, I Spy, Daddy Day Care and Disney trying to show they could strike gold again with a movie based on a ride, The Haunted Mansion.

A glimmer of hope came about with Dreamgirls. I was surprised to see him acting again and not just phoning it in. I was relieved to see him getting some buzz for awards. Then he acted like an ass and left the Oscars when he didn't win. Didn't he know that you need to play nice to be nominated again in a few years. But we all know that won't happen with films like Norbit or the newly released and bombing worse than Mike Myers racist/ little person bashing extravaganza, Meet Dave.

What happened to the old Eddie Murphy? The one that liked to 'party all the time' and 'boogie in the butt'? The guy who could make a nation laugh. Now he makes the lowest common denominator laugh. The people we tend to loathe when going to a movie theater now. The bottom feeders. And the only thing worse than a bottom feeder is one that feeds them. And that's what Mr. Murphy's become. Harsh? Yes, but he needs a wakeup call.

Will he come back to us? With slight promises of a new stand up special, it tempts me to think that maybe, just maybe there's hope still out there. But then going for a number IV sequel like most other stars of yesteryear with the much loved Brett Ratner (I keed, I keed, I hate him too), it proves to me that the almighty dollar never lies.

Eddie, we'll always have your classics.

*Take that Denny Dillon!

**Well, Will Smith and divorce are the only sure things in Hollywood now.

***Sorry, fat joke.

****Kung Fu Panda, for those not paying attention.

Steve Martin and why I miss the guy

2008-07-11T00:11:00.002-04:00

No people, Steve Martin hasn't died. On the contrary, it's just that his career had taken such a dip in quality that he's been passing on this plane of existence as a spirit that was once funny.

Why do I say that? For starters, I've been watching the first three seasons of Saturday Night Live nonstop as of late, and when you watch him perform, the asshole witty charm oozes out of him. You look at this man, wondering if he's always had white hair (I haven't seen a picture that hasn't).

You watch his classic stand up act and while bizarre and extremely dirty, you can't help but be charmed by Mr. Martin. His records were best sellers, King Tut (on the album Wild and Crazy Guys) being a huge hit the radio. A million seller for that album alone.

An Emmy and 2 time Grammy winner and Oscar nominated individual (his short film The Absent Minded Waiter was nominated for best short film, live action in 1977), his first film was the abysmal but hysterical (but not sure if intended) live action film of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. He's the one singing Maxwell's Silver Hammer. But then success came when he helped write and starred in the classic comedy The Jerk, a Carl Reiner directed picture. I remember watching that film and just laughing my ass off at a young age that I didn't understand half the jokes. One of his films that I like a lot but was a failure in theaters was Pennies From Heaven. At this time in his life, he didn't want to be typecast as that 'crazy comedy guy' so he was always trying to evolve, to make people laugh and to make them think. And sometimes try his hand at something off-kilter.

After this was his most fruitful time, doing a series of films that changed my childhood forever. Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid, The Man With Two Brains, All of Me (all three directed by Carl Reiner), Three Amigos, Little Shop of Horrors, Planes, Trains and Automobiles, Roxanne and one of my favorites, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (which was made into a halfway decent musical comedy).

Hell, I even like Father of the Bride. My girlfriend is a huge fan of that and it's sequel, but he had that cute sensibility, just trying to get his life together on the screen which made audiences love him.

I still have a special place in my heart for both LA Story and My Blue Heaven. And then he had a great duo of serious roles that spanned a whopping 6 years. Grand Canyon and The Spanish Prisoner. Netflix both of those films if you want to see Martin in roles you never thought he had in him.

And then the downfall started. With the horrible remake of The Out of Towners co-starring everyone's favorite skeleton Goldie Hawn. Ugh, I saw that in theaters with friends and was the only one not laughing. Suffice to say, I don't talk to those people anymore. Then he did a film that when the trailers were out, made my skin crawl like you wouldn't believe. Bringing Down the House was a horrible mess, with bad racist undertones and one of the worst comedic turns by Eugene Levy (and yes, this was before he whored out to all those American Pie movies or made that movie The Man, now there was a steaming pile). It starred rapper, turned entrepreneur, turned drunk driver turned 'is she a lesbian?', turned acting thespian Queen Latifah. And then the triple whammy of Cheaper by the Dozen, Cheaper by the Dozen 2 and Looney Tunes: Back in Action. I'm not sure if and what kinds of drugs he was on at this time, but I know Spencer Tracy wouldn't make a sequel to a classic family movie that he made.

He kind of bounced back with Shopgirl. Based on his own novella, it was a very simple movie, and I enjoyed it a bit. He also just came out with a fantastic memoir called Born Standing Up. It's a funny read, a intimate look inside his personal life.

So what can become of the great Steve Martin. Will he ever get away from movies such as The Pink Panther (well, probably not, considering the sequel comes out in January. Right now, Peter Sellers did a pratfall in his grave)? I hope so. Hosting Saturday Night Live a record 14 times can make someone very comfortable (I'll admit, I haven't watched much of SNL for the last 8 years. But I did catch his last episode back in 2006).

I'll end this on a quote, which I hope reflects why I still hold out hope for the purveyor of Steve Martin's Penis Cream.

"I think there's nothing better for a person to come up and do the same thing over and over for two weeks. This is what I enjoy, so I'm going to do the same thing over and over and over....I'm going to do the same joke over and over in the same show, it'll be like a new thing."

Ahh, always a comedy pioneer.

Random thought about Dana Carvey

2008-06-12T15:05:00.000-04:00

Did anyone else ever find him that funny? I mean, fine, I'll give people Garth from Wayne's World. I'll even give you Wayne's World 2. Hell, some of his stuff from Saturday Night Live wasn't too bad. I preferred Phil Hartman, but I can't have my cake and eat it too.

But what's this with the resurfacing of Dana Carvey? He was at the MTV Movie Awards, a prestigious event if there ever was one, doing a little sad banter with Mike Myers in their Wayne and Garth garb. And now I see, via Myspace's annoying ads that he has a HBO special coming this Saturday the 14th.*

Did I go back in time when people gave a damn about Mr. Carvey? I'm rubbing my eyes to see if I've been dreaming, but no I haven't. A guy who hasn't been funny in about 15 years is back.

And yes, I did watch The Dana Carvey Show, which was more funny for his supporting cast (such as Steve Carrel and Stephen Colbert).

So does this mean a new Wayne's World movie will be made? Maybe a Clean Slate 2: Electric Bugaloo will be next. Then ultimately a new Master of Disguise film. I can't wait because I'll probably be there with a spork in my hand, ready to poke my eyes out.

*A terrible, terrible movie too.

I've been on CHUD.com

2008-06-12T00:47:00.003-04:00

Yeah, I will be restating all the blogs I write on there here as well. I will also try to think of witty stuff to write on here as well. Stuff that might not fit in as well on that site.

What that might entail, I don't know. But when it comes to me, I shall let you know first.

-James

P.S.: Read all the previous posts before this one. Some funny stuff that I wrote and I know a lot of people want to comment but can not due to CHUD not having that option on the actual blogs but instead in the forums.

Do I need a title for my blog?

2008-06-12T00:46:00.003-04:00

I've been mulling that over for the past few days. A ton of the other bloggers do have some fantastic titles for their blogs. You know who you are.

But then again, some other grand blogs on here don't have a title; they tend to go the route that I have gone. Thinking of a witty title as often as possible. Most succeed better than I, and for that I'm very grateful. Grateful for the fact that it has my mind going back and forth between a permanent title for this here blog.

So I wonder, what constitutes as a great blog name? Devin's Advocate just resonates, as does Nick's Nice Hard Slap. Sam Strange is a fantastic name in itself, so that isn't hard to ruin. So what is it? Is it the man or is it the blog? I think it is a mixture of both man and blog (sorry, I had to say it again because it sounds so ridiculous saying that out loud, as well as in written form).

I've been thinking of using Seagal and the Love/Hate Machine, but I think that works better as a band name (touring soon, brought to you by Matador Records). I've also been in a Bogart kick as of late, so I thought about The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of... but then I thought that might sound a bit on the fluff side. A little bit feminine, not that there's anything wrong with that. Then I had a weird dream about a blog named To Blog or Not to Blog, That is to Blog!, but then I figured people would think I was a pretentious fucker (which I am, but I'd rather them find that out with the articles and not the title).

So I'm torn. What do I do? Do I keep on figuring out titles for my blog or do I go one step further and become the ultimate in blogging by figuring out a name for this blog? Let me know. Comment on my new thread, which will be in the usual forum spot of the simple James' New Blog area.

Lame, I know. But let me know, I'd appreciate it.

Wedding Fun and Alice Porn

2008-06-12T00:46:00.001-04:00

It's 100 degrees here in New York City and feels like Satan took his balls and rubbed it on the sky and then tea bagged the whole of humanity.

Anyway, back from the big wedding event of the summer between our good friends Eli and Lindsay. Eli is actually pretty famous in the world of politics. He's Executive Director of MoveOn.Org and a hell of a guy. He also kills me in Scrabble and introduced my girlfriend and I to the card game SET.*

Lindsay is a firecracker who is both badass and quaint. Hard to explain why that is, but she is. It's definitely a good thing. So celebrating their happiest time (but hopefully happier times are to come) was a thrill for us.

Plus going away, even if it wasn't anywhere exotic, was still a blast. We went to Great Barrington, Massachusetts, which for a small town actually had a movie theater that showed classic films. It was going to show Arsenic and Old Lace, one of my favorite films. And then that got me thinking about New York City, and why our reperatory houses here suck big time. Unless I'm missing out on some secret society that plays movies underground for all to see, I don't get much out of the few and far between the theaters here in the city.

I'm jealous of the New Beverly Theater. You guys in LA get some of the coolest people to present double features, with trailers mixed in, like the good old days. My gal bought me the Japanese import of Grindhouse, which is amazing not only because it's 6 discs, but I get to watch the film the way it is supposed to be watched.

I'm also jealous of Austin, Texas. And I mean all of that city. I love the sights. I just love that they have more great theaters pound for pound in such a small area. I must either visit and/or live there in the next year. All of the Alamo Drafthouse theaters sound delectable. Never knew I'd call a theater delectable, but I just did.

And here's the main reason anyone clicked on this blog. All about the Alice Porn. Finally checked out Alice in Wonderland porn version from the 70's that Subversive Cinema put out on DVD. It was a trippy experience, especially that it was also a musical with dance numbers. And that it wasn't so bad, it was actually pretty campy and the one complaint I would have with the film was that it didn't have enough porn within it. But I have a bit of a crush on the star, Kristine DeBell now. Even though she hasn't done anything since the 80's (actually, since 1990 to be exact), I forgot that she was one of the featured girls in Meatballs. But yeah, a fun time, with some catchy songs and couldn't stop laughing when Humpty Dumpty's penis was actually a strap on that you see plainly falling off when he falls off the side of the wall.

Good times.

*SET is a card game where you need to continuously match colors, number of items, shapes and patterns as fast as you can. Addictive as all hell and once you get going, you just can't stop. And it's inexpensive to boot. So look like a genius and buy a pack. It'll impress your stupid friends and make your smart friends want to stick around.

Go ahead. Make my day.

2008-06-12T00:45:00.001-04:00

Been watching the new Dirty Harry collection that just came out. So fantastic a set. Lots of cool extras and Best Buy had the cool exclusive file folder from the Scorpio case. Such a geeky thing to have.

But I hate when people actually speak to me about Dirty Harry movies and swear to their almighty god that Harry Callahan speaks those lines in the original Dirty Harry.* It truly boggles my mind that these so called purveyors of film don't even know about the films they love to preach about.

These are the same people who say Frankenstein when speaking about the monster.

The same people who also swear that Bogart utters the line, "Play it again, Sam." in Casablanca.

The same goes for who think Nic Cage is still a good actor. Sad but true people!

So I'll be away at a wedding over this weekend in Massachusetts (exciting!), probably hanging out with Moby (friends with the groom) and watching tons of movies with my girlfriend and a few other people in the dorms (yes, the wedding is at a college). If it's amazing enough, I will write about it. If not, I will only write about the movies.

*It's from the Clint Eastwood helmed Sudden Impact.

Is it wrong to be happy with someone else's death?

2008-06-12T00:44:00.000-04:00

Death. The high cost of living. That's something I heard from Neil Gaiman once. Actually, it was a title of the comic book, but I'm straying from the original concept of this blog.

I asked a question in the title of this blog. Is it wrong to be happy with someone else's death? What am I necessarily talking about in this situation? Well, I'm not the richest kid on the block. To be honest, I work a shitty job at Best Buy counting things. You heard me right, I count stuff in the store. It pays very well and I work Monday to Friday in the wee hours until about 2 p.m. everyday, so it gives me enough time to fight the urge to pass out while watching as many movies as I can. It wasn't always like that, but again I'm straying from the intent of this article.

Not having much money, I learned how to stretch a dollar out. I would buy stuff on clearance. Half off sales. Close out deals. All that fun stuff. This was up until I found out the beauty of The Salvation Army. The graveyard of cool old shit. The other day, as I've been enjoying my long needed vacation*, I said to myself, "Let me check out my neighborhood Salvation Army to see if they have any clothing, records, books or trinkets."

I'm a big lover of trinkets.

But even more so of weird kitschy clothing and books I wouldn't be able to find anywhere else. So while I was perusing the shelves of their books, fingering through multiple copies of The DaVinci Code, James Patterson's usual array of nursery rhyme crapola and self help heaven, I found two books that caught the eye of this here writer.

One was Hollywood and the Great Fan Magazines, a fantastic hardcover from 1970 by Martin Levin. It culls together old fan magazines from the 30's and 40's that people made, delving into the lives of the stars of yesteryear. Think of it as a print version of Perez Hilton. But cuter in concept. I loved reading about the love life of Errol Flynn, but it wasn't the love stories I have heard from others.

The second book was one that I was actually thinking about the other day because one of my co-bloggers here, Adam Campbell, wrote a fantastic blog about The Cocoanuts and the Marx Brothers in general. The book, another hardcover, was 1971's Why a Duck?, an overview of the Marx Brother's movies, with pictures from the actual movies. They love telling you that they weren't publicity shots, but instead are somewhat blurry because it looks as if they took a camera to a movie theater's screen. But it's still a fantastic little collection of quips and Groucho Marx's introduction that makes it worth the $4.99 price tag.

I'll be perusing the Salvation Army more often to let you fine folks know what dead people's families didn't want and left behind for me to buy. If you have any other stories of great finds, let me know. I'd love to know what else dead people haven't the room for in their coffins.

PSA's and the wonder of childhood

2008-06-12T00:43:00.003-04:00

I have tons of weird childhood memories. Stuff that just rushes back to me, or is mentioned to me by my girlfriend that she also liked or disliked. Such as the infamy of the 80's PSA's. You know which ones. The commercials that were supposed to stop you from doing drugs, not be racist, breaking eggs with a frying pan. Learned it by watching you and all that fun stuff.

So there was one PSA for years that I remembered about racial equality. One with a catchy tune that I could've sworn, later on in life, was the 'rap/bebop' guy from The Barenaked Ladies. I remembered the lines, "Doesn't matter if you're black or white, or purple or green or red with polka dots on your head." My friend Tommy also remembered it and knew for a fact it was the guy from BNL*.

So as I perused the internet and Youtube to be exact, I found The Ballad of Gordo, which is the music video/PSA that ran while I was youngling**. Which is in fact the full Barenaked Ladies band doing the song. A rush to my childhood, before I was wronged in various ways. When TMNT was the biggest cartoon around. Which also brings to the forefront the classic, "I'm not a chicken, you're a turkey."

If I was more tech savvy with this blog, I'd be posting the videos up on here, to make everyone happy. Nothing brings more joy than PSA's that probably made more kids do drugs than stay off of them. But right now, I'm at a loss and am probably looking at the proper way to post a video, but I'm lazy and need to pass out in a few minutes. Maybe tomorrow I'll go out of my way to search the video option.

* BNL = Barenaked Ladies.... the hippest way to call them.

** Not a word, but I know Obi Wan loved saying it in Revenge of the Sith.

Seagal: Love/Hate Relationship

2008-06-12T00:43:00.002-04:00

Warning: This is a long article. About a kid's dreams, my own, being shattered. I know Vern from Aint It Cool would be sad for me. Enjoy!

There was a time in my life that I liked crappy movies. I had a soft spot for films that starred the likes of Michael Dudikoff, Jean Claude Van Damme, Steve James and even Billy Blanks. Yes, Tae Bo Billy Blanks. But there was one man that I loved in the movies. One guy who I couldn't wait to see in his next film. An action star like no other. And one that spurned me and has made me hate him with a passion you wouldn't believe to this day.

That man, my friends, is Steven Seagal.

When I first saw this god amongst men on celluloid, it was in the middle of the night when I was 9 years old. We had HBO as our only cable channel and the only programs I was allowed to watch were Fraggle Rock and the occasional children's film. Never Ending Story, Time Bandits, Monster Squad... all those classics. As I was saying, in the middle of the night one night during our summer vacation, I couldn't sleep. I was a chubby one, so I snuck upstairs to get some cookies. As I ate Oreos and drank some milk, I flipped on the tv and a movie was on. Above the Law was on and I was a changed little boy. This film was just fantastic to my 9 year old eyes. Here was someone who wasn't the buffest guy, just beating the living crap out of people without even trying. Breaking someone's hand with such ease, it was just amazing to me.

The next day, I woke up early and was mimicking his movements. Very slow at first but then I'd let them have it. My mock opponents were being destroyed, just as Steven Seagal did to his own villains the night before. I had to know more about this mysterious man. These were the days where there was no commonplace internet. So the library was my only source of knowledge. I perused the magazines and film books and found out a little more about this man of many facets. I found out that he was actually a legitimate bad ass and knew martial arts. He was almost a hero to me. But remember folks, there was only the one movie I saw him in. How could he get any better than Above the Law ?

The next year came Hard to Kill. Hard... to... kill. What an orgasmic title for a movie! He's not invulnerable, not at all. But he's such a presence in the world of action films that he would be almost impossible to kill. I snuck in to see this film and it was everything I wanted and more. He gets shot up to the point where you think he's dead. His wife is killed. But what of his son? But wait, they hid him in intensive coma care and he's been there for years, asleep. Kelly Lebrock, before she looked like a train, is the sexy nurse to his aide. William Sadler, Death himself, is the villainous senator. It had everything going for it. Even his character's name, Mason Storm, is so cool. How could he top this one?

I had to know more about this man. But he was a bit of a recluse. Never appearing for interviews. I remember hearing about announced interviews with him on television, but then he would cancel at the last moment, dashing my hopes to see him speaking outside a film world. Why wouldn't this man just show me the way he was, not the soft spoken, tough talking, kill you in two seconds type of guy he portrayed in the movies?

The next film in this man's repertoire was Marked For Death. First he was so badass, he was above the law, then he was so hard to kill and now... marked for death? What the hell kind of trouble could our hero be in now? A DEA agent, in Colombia tackling drug lords. His partner was killed and deep down, he blames himself and therefore retires. But if there's one thing I've learned from cop films is that the hero never retires. Then there's a shootout with Jamaican drug kingpins, one of which is named Screwface. How in the world could this film end? Just take it back to Jamaica, where Screwface has run away to and ultimately beat the drug kingpin at his own game. The memories are starting to choke me up a bit right now, actually.

He was cranking out the movies in rapid fire motion and being a fan of his meant eating every little bit of it up. It's when I found out that his next film, Out For Justice would be filming in Brooklyn, New York that I almost had a heart attack. My hero, filming a movie in my backyard? I couldn't believe it. I had to go meet him. But I was a pudgy nervous kid who was scared half to death to meet this god amongst men. So I decided to talk my friend Rick into coming with me to meet him, only because he was pudgier and more scared. What better duo than that?

We would travel the streets of 18th Avenue and 86th Street, looking for him. We saw the other film crew walking around. I even got to meet William Forsythe, who later in my years would be one of my favorite actors. But at such a young age, I was only looking for one man and one man alone. Seagal had to be found. It took us days, asking different members of the film crew where Mr. Seagal could be. They'd tell us (they were very nice) and we'd go to where they told us to go, but we would find out we just missed him. This enigma had to be solved and I was the one to find the key!

Finally on a special day, we were walking up 18th Avenue and we saw the giant 6 foot 4 inch frame of Steven Seagal wearing sunglasses, walking up the block with a bottle of water in one hand and a script in the other, speaking to a female around 19 years of age. I was shaking in my Keds so my friend Rick somehow gets the guts within him and walks over to Mr. Seagal. I of course wag my tail behind me and run over behind Rick. We walk over to this massive man and my heart is racing. My brow is sweaty and I'm wiping it so I don't look like some sick kid who is going to infect Steven Seagal with retardation. My friend Rick is the first to speak.

Rick: Hello Mr. Seagal. My friend James and I are huge fans of yours ever since we saw your film Above the Law. Do you mind if you gave us your autograph?

I didn't even care about an autograph. I just wanted Steven Seagal to acknowledge that I was alive and meant something. He looked down at us, pulling his shades down just enough so we could see his eyes. My throat clenched up. What was this man about to say? I had goosebumps thinking of the possibilities.

Steven Seagal: How about you take your fat ass and move out of my way before I break you in half, scrub! Beat it! Before I beat you!

We promptly moved to the side as he continued to walk by, with his script and female in tow. My friend Rick was shaking but then was excited that a celebrity threatened his life. He was that type of kid. What did it matter to him? My heart was broken. Shattered into millions of pieces. And why? Because Steven Seagal noticed my friend and threatened his life and not mine! That was supposed to be me that would get the might of the gods thrown down upon me. Not this Rick kid. I couldn't believe it and when I finally stabilized, Mr. Seagal was gone.

Forever.

Did I mention how much I hate Steven Seagal?

Vacation?

2008-06-12T00:42:00.000-04:00

While I was putting my dirty clothes from the past month or so in the washing machines at my local laundromat (or laundermat, as some would have you believe), my mind started to wander. It might have been because of the whirring of the machines. Maybe the shuffling of little old ladies. Or the drowning sound of The Insider on CBS. But it made me have to leave and run back to my apartment to escape that existence.

At least until the dryer part occurs.

But I also have to return one of my favorite movies to Blockbuster that I had bought for 4 for $20. Yes, the infamous used DVD sales that Blockbuster throws at me and all of us. All of the time. About 20% of my collection is from sales such as those. And I've had people scoff at me when I tell them I buy movies from Blockbuster. Scoffing? At me? Since when did buying used DVD's become passe?

The film I must return though is Hollywood Shuffle. Reason being? When I finally got a chance to open it (it's a problem that I have. I'll buy a ton of DVD's and let them sit for a week and finally start to catch up with the watching) it had not a scratch, but instead the disc was cracked right through the middle.

Um... what? How the hell do you crack a DVD in half? And then return it to the store. And then the employees just let it sit there, for years probably, collecting dust, until finally a schlub like me decides to finally purchase the fine Robert Townsend film, a film that I've wanted to own for years. Jeri curls and Keenan Ivory Wayans. It angers me to no end. It's happened a handful of times, and I've found a few gems throughout my horrible experiences. Like one of my favorite creature features, Squirm.

So I must go back today, while the dryer occurs. I will run to my neighborhood Blockbuster and ask them the following, "When I bought this last week, I did not have the chance to look to see if my disc was placed in a buzz saw. Next time I shall, but please let me peruse your used section once more and continue my addiction. Thank you."

I will be posting all of my blogs from CHUD onto here as well

2008-06-12T00:40:00.001-04:00

This was my introductory one on CHUD. Enjoy, comment, all that fun shite.

Hello all. James here, new blogger on Chud. Well, no shite, but I thought I'd be formal and introduce myself. Living in New York City in the borough of Brooklyn (or as the 'cool kids'/ Spike Lee says, Crooklyn ), I see a lot and I hear a lot. About what, I really don't know. A little bit here and a little bit there. But now I'm rambling, so what was I going to talk about?

I helped my uncle today with the unloading of his apartment. You see, he had a fire last week on Memorial Day (what a memory!) and he's been devastated by the amount of damage. A bit depressing, I know. But it's real life folks! He was the person who I got the whole collector adage from and since then, I've accumulated a DVD collection at around 1400. But it had me thinking about the devastation that a fire could do to someone's life, per se.

Luckily, his life is intact. But right now, all his memories are skewed from left to right. He sees this happy place as a citadel of burden. Of pain and non-virtue. It's quite sad, considering my uncle tends to be the happiest person in my entire family.

As I sit at my brother's computer, celebrating my belated birthday with my family, even after all that's happened, he still went out of his way to get me a present. He's mad, I know. But once more he gave me stuff I could collect and put on a shelf and start conversations with people who come by my new apartment. I would have started on a brighter note if life gave us those notes.

Family is fighting like cats and dogs. *sigh* Things are starting to get back on track already.

Don't ever use Schick Quattro Titanium

2008-05-31T17:58:00.003-04:00

It's as if I shaved my face with sandpaper. Laced with glass. And throw a bit of turpentine on there as well. Might as well. It would have been less painful.

And just so everyone knows, like most men on the face of this earth who shave, I tend to shave fairly quick. All those times I watched Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, the shaving part never stuck in my head. They say to shave slow... but I'm on the road to the fast lane. The hell with slow shaving!

But back to the devil's razor. As I was getting ready for a night of fun times with friends for my birthday, I lather my face up with the usual gel that foams up. It's always amazed me. I feel like a cat with a ball of string. I put on the water, making sure it's right before it scalds. And I take the razor out, as if it would be my Excalibur. But as I did the first scrape down my cheek, I felt a pain I haven't felt in quite some time. I made me bleed my own blood.

Not once. Not twice. But roughly 14 times. On my face. The moneymaker. How could I do that to myself? And it's not that I don't like Schick. I've used Schick for years. My last razor was another Schick razor. Another one with 4 blades. And didn't cut myself once. So I'm thinking Schick decided they liked being a pain in the face and made a razor only sadists and masochists would prefer.

I like that.

SCHICK RAZORS! A Pain in the FACE!!

Ok, time for some sushi.

-J a m e s

Things are looking a bit up

2008-05-29T23:53:00.005-04:00

Yes. A positive topic. Wow, is something wrong with the big, bad James?

No, not yet at least. I mean, in two days it's my birthday. The age: 28. Not an important age. Well, as long as I'm still breathing, it's important.

But that's not why things are looking up.

1. My uncle is feeling a bit better from the horrible fire that took everything. So that's good. Going to help him out tomorrow with salvaging what's left in the rubble. Hopefully a few things won't be too destroyed.

2. Got contacted via email by Nick Nunziata of Chud.com fame. Head honcho over there. They had a posting about wanting people to do blogs on there. No pay, of course. But it's all about experience and exposure. So the email I got was more or less saying I have a blog up there now. On a real site. I mean, this is a real site, per se. But now it's an actual popular site. With writers who are renowned. So that's very exciting. Need to think of a little bio blurb and a nice enough picture to give as my profile pic. We shall see!

3. And I got my second gift from Danyell for my birthday today. First gift was the Why So Serious poster with Ledger's Joker behind glass wiping with bloody fingers those famous words. The second gift somehow trumps that one by being the best DVD set (well, best DVD set not sold here. She got me the Japanese Grindhouse 6 DVD set. Which has the original cut of the film with trailers intact. It's not much to ask for here in the States. But now that I have it, I really don't need a Region 1 release.

But I know I'd buy it anyway. I'm a sucker when it comes to Tarantino.

So yeah, going to get a day by day basis of my exciting life. Or lack of one. Soon you'll also be able to see my wit on www.chud.com

Be prepared.

-James

Why I've been no posting?

2008-05-28T17:29:00.002-04:00

My family has been going through too many painful moments in the last few months, which we've been trying to get past, get through and go forward from. But the problem is, every time we get through one obstacle, somebody throws us a whopper of a curve ball to trip us up again.

First I was kicked out of comedy classes because of a terrible circumstance. Then my aunt's been dealing with cancer for the last few months, was fighting through it, then went into a coma. The hospital in queens all but wrote her off, but luckily her actual doctor saw through their laziness, got her to their hospital in Manhattan, worked on her and she's still alive, awake now, slowly getting over the initial effects of chemo. She's dealing with pneumonia now, but she'll get past that too.

Then on Memorial Day, while I sat down to show Danyell The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, I got a dreadful call from my brother, letting me know my uncle's apartment went up in flames. Nothing is left. His life of collecting figures, baseball cards, movie memorabilia and other various goodies is all gone. He only has the clothes he wore to work that day left and his car. He's a wreck, and for good reason. And he dreads that he didn't get insurance on his collection, like he had said he would get so many times before.

So I apologize for not being able to get the day by day play by play up and running on here. I should only have one hand right now, but hell, I'm giving myself a break right now. This is my birthday week, so something good is bound to happen, right?

Please?

Well, I will be finishing the last article I was writing, the top 10 or so list of my favorite childhood movies. I'll also be starting up a few other articles. The 88 cent CD review will be one. Bargain Bin Bonanza for cheap DVDs will be another. And a RACISM EXPLOSION as well will be an article presented by my good friend Jonathan Ramses. Plus a ton of other people will be getting articles ready soon. My friend T. Johnson will have a few, as well as friends Andrew, Sam, Danyell, comix by Althea and many other people to be announced.

The site www.CombinationsFollow.com will go live on July 1st. It has to. I need something to go right for a change.

But hopefully I won't die tomorrow. If not, another article will be presented.

Excelsior and all that bullshit.

-James

Sometimes a fish is just a fish

2008-05-20T19:48:00.007-04:00

And a Beatles film is just that, a Beatles film. Light on subject matter but a bit high on the laughs. Just got the Beatles HELP! on DVD finally, which was one of my favorite films to watch while I was a kid. I just saw it on television recently and it brought back great memories. Which leads me to want to write down a top 10 list of films I watched religiously as a kid, from the time I could remember to about the age of 14, which was the age that my eyes were opened to the world of cinema with a little film called Reservoir Dogs when my good friend Mike from back yonder gave it to me on VHS. What's that you ask? I'll explain that in another blog.

Time for some list action. Oh, and I'm not listing any Star Wars or Indiana Jones film considering that of course I loved them all. I'd just rather people see an overall viewing of my taste as a child. The only thing is, this will take a few days to write the snippets on each movie. So await a great top 10 (or so) list.

10) Wayne's World : Man, what can I say about this film? Made me appreciate and love Queen on so many levels, saw the brilliance of Mike Myers and Dana Carvey before one squandered it all on animated tripe and the other just disappeared into obscurity. It's a doofy film operating on a different level though. A lot of layers, especially to the characters. And Rob Lowe as Benjamin Kane always made my skin crawl. And Tia Carrere... wow, she was someone who was exotic to me. What? I was 12 when it came out people! Schwing!

9) Batman and Batman: The Movie : One was a dark knight like we only saw in the comic books. The other was from the 60's and did the Bat-toosy. And you know what? I loved them both to death. One was a nostalgia thing I'd watch with my mom, where she would keep telling me how she met both Adam West and Burt Ward at the premiere in New York City. Years later, hearing about the very sexual nature of those two, switching partners like they were sweatpants, I asked my mom if she was a conquest in their sexual escapades. Then she reminded me she was 8 at that time.

And the other, a Tim Burton film when it actually meant something (Don't get me wrong, I liked Sweeny Todd, but it's sub par, and I don't like the message of Big Fish at all, thought the remake of Wonka was cgi laden and without a soul, and let's not get into the Apes remake as well.). He took Batman, made the city of Gotham dark, took the Joker and had a coked to the moon Jack Nicholson play the Joker like we had never seen before (I'm hoping Heath Ledger changes that). It was an eye opener, a film that was quite violent, sexually charged and deaths galore... yet it was PG-13 and my parents took me to see it. And I loved every minute of it.

8)Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory : What can I say about this movie? Made me see the brilliance of Gene Wilder at a young age. Asking my parents to see any film with the Wonka guy. But why is it so great? A film that was originally just a huge candy commercial for a new chocolate bar from Nestle (which melted really fast), it became such a childhood favorite because essentially it's creepy as all hell. I remember when I hadn't seen it for a few years and finally picked up the DVD release
and just reliving the demented scenes and the very subtle humor that passes through scene to scene. And Gene Wilder's calm yet crazed portrayal of Mr. Wonka. Sorry Johnny, but I still prefer Mr. Wilder. And the Oompa Loompas were actual people, not just one guy that was repeatedly implanted in each scene. Lame as hell. And I was happy to know that my friends also fast forwarded the song/scene 'Cheer Up Charlie.'

7)Explorers : Here's a weird one. A young Ethan Hawke and River Phoenix. A children's sci-fi film directed by Joe Dante. Robert Piccardo in more alien makeup. Dick Fucking Miller in another grand Dante role. A film about if you dream hard enough and have the help of your friends, you too can build a spaceship and fly to the heavens in search of adventure. It's also about disappointment in life but to not beat yourself up about it. When they meet the aliens who might have helped them construct the circuit board for the ship, they aren't too excited about what the aliens look like. Instead, it's almost a smile and a nod. Imaginations sometimes run a little wild, and this film just opened my little eyes to always look to the stars, but don't go crazy about it.

6)Time Bandits : What's better than a film of a bunch of time travelers? A film about a bunch of little people who time travel in order to rob from the past's wealthiest patrons. Terry Gilliam crafted a dark children's film. A film of betrayal but also of friendship. I remember thanking some unknown person in my room that Kevin's parents weren't my own. Those people were just a bit mean and cared too much for material things. And when you have a cast that consisted of Sean Connery (as the kind King Agamemnon who Kevin wants as his father), Ian Holm (a power hungry and drunken Napoleon, who hides his hand in his jacket because it's fake), David Rappaport (the greedy Randall who is good at heart and helped create the universe), David Warner (as the Evil Genius, who is so brilliantly despicable), John Cleese (as Robin Hood, who steals from the rich and has someone beat the living crap out of the poor, but then gives them a little loot), Peter Vaughan (as Winston the Ogre, who has terrible back pains), Katherine Helmond (who plays Winston's wife Mrs. Ogre) and Kenny 'R2D2' Baker (as Fidgit, one of the thieving creators of the universe).

It's just one of those films that I can still pop in, relive my childhood and laugh at the little things now, or notice that Jim Broadbent is in the film, and appreciate the hysterical script by Gilliam and Monty Python alum Michael Palin (who also has a great part as Vincent, the whiny gentleman who has something wrong in his nether region and wants so bad to be with Shelly Duvall's character.)

"I must have fruit!"

5)The Adventures of Baron Munchausen: The second Terry Gilliam film on the list, as you can see at this impressionable age, I was opening my eyes to the absurdist humor of Monty Python. Having both this and Time Bandits on a tape together was always bliss. I would just sit in my room, pop it in and for 4 hours be transported to another world, a scary but fun world. Of course with the newly released DVD, with the fantastic making of documentary (don't want to ruin it for you, but as a kid you don't realize all the trials and lawsuits that this film went through, makes you appreciate it just a bit more). John Neville is simply amazing as Baron Munchausen (I'm sorry, it's actually Hieronymus Karl Frederick Baron von Munchausen), who has aged significantly since his heyday. Everyone thinks he's an old nutter because he thinks the actors are his old crew of adventurers. All but Sally (played by a young Sarah Polley). She believes him and wants to help him find his friends so they can fight the Sultan and his never ending army of turks.

You have Robin Williams as the king of the moon, who when attached to his body, is a sexually crazed psychopath), Oliver Reed as Vulcan, the god, who's wife Venus (played by a very young Uma Thurman) opened my eyes with the brief showing of her 18 year old breast. It was a PG film but had that?? Fantastic. Unbelievable. And true! You also had Jonathan Pryce as the evil Right Ordinary Horatio Jackson and Eric Idle as Berthold, the fastest man alive. Music by torture was something that I could never imagine as a child. As was the Baron's insatiable sexual desire for women. Which was sometimes his weakness. But like any grand scale adventure film, everything somehow works out in the end. It's one of the films that I show to as many people to gauge what kind of film fan they are.

4)Mrs. Doubtfire Yes, I know that it came out when I was 13. But it was a film that was probably watched more than any other film on this list because my brother and I were huge Robin Williams fans. Especially in drag. And as a kid, I realized that it was a bit creepy for a guy to dress up as an old woman so he could take care of his kids. I remember asking my dad why he didn't just be a good dad and husband so he could have kept his family together. And he said that he was a crazy and it was a movie so I shouldn't think too hard about it. Which made me think hard about everything I watched from that point forward. This coming from someone who connected the sitcom Charles in Charge overlapping the true life events of Charles Manson and his band of killer women.

But this film is the last great Robin Williams film. He got to play a guy with a screw loose with good intentions. That's the thing we notice right away. He does love his kids more than his own well being. And Sally Field is great as the ex-wife who is finally taking her life into her own hands and sick of having to pick up the pieces from her husbands child like ways. Pierce Brosnan plays the debonair former friend/ fling of Field's back in college, who light their relationship back up and isn't a bad guy at all. In fact, he's very cool with the fact that she has 3 kids and loves them to death. He's just not a big fan of Daniel Hillard.

Throw in Harvey Fierstein as his gay brother who is also a special effects guy, hence the transformation into Mrs. Doubtfire. It makes you look back at Chris Columbus and ask yourself, "This is the same guy who directed both Home Alone films, Bicentennial Man and Rent?"

3)TIE The Last Starfighter/Masters of the Universe : Another tie between two films that haven't much in common. It doesn't mean they aren't both fun as all hell. One is a movie based around a video game which is in actuality a test for a galactic federation of space pilots.

2)Flash Gordon : Flash! Ahhhhhhhhh! He'll save everyone of us. That's all I need to say. Queen's music mixed with cheesy effects. And Timothy Dalton's almost Bondish prince and Max Von Sydow as Meng... that's all I need to say about that.

1)The Monster Squad and Gremlins : Two horror themed kid movies. Well, are they really kid movies? Both are by horror directors (Fred Dekkar and Joe Dante). Both are films I can still watch today (especially since Monster Squad just came out with a grand DVD release which I cherish the moment I bought it a week before it officially came out). Both had violence unheard of in a children's movie (well, I know Prince Caspian supposedly is very grim for a PG flick, but Disney knows how to pay off the MPAA). The Monster Squad has so many memorable lines in it, such as "My name is Horace!", "Don't be such a chicken shit." and the many references to the word faggot by every character I'm surprised Dracula didn't utter the word as well. Hell, the Squad was a bunch of believable kids who were horror freaks like I was, who battled the Universal monsters tooth and nail and ultimately defeated them with team work. Gremlins had a believable kid who gets a cute pet, who sadly pops out some fucked up mogwai and they all eat after midnight to transform into the title creatures.

Good times for all. Spielberg's influence is felt throughout the film, but unlike a film like Poltergeist, it still has Mr. Dante's signature on it. Sorry Tobe, I had to go there. Dekkar had just done Night of the Creeps (where's that dvd release?!?!) and who'd have thought he would do a competent children's movie which people have grown to love and taken it beyond some kitschy film of the past and into a cult phenomenon. These films have that rare thing instilled in them. Great stories, great acting, great special effects, great scares, great laughs, great direction and perfect timing for someone as susceptible as me. To this day, I've probably watched them over a hundred times. I wore out my tapes to the point where certain scenes were no longer viewable. Luckily DVD is slightly more durable and will last a long time for myself to watch these films again and again. And you're doing yourselves a disservice if you don't check them out.

I'm speaking about every film on this list. Netflix them, buy them for cheap. Do anything to get a chance to see some films that if you missed as a kid, then you didn't have a proper childhood. If you're ten years younger than me, well, no excuse either. See them now and make them your own. That's the great thing about cinema and the art of film making. Even if you weren't born at the time of release, you can adopt a film the same way today that someone 25 years ago had taken these films into account when they saw them on the big screen.

Until next time, check out Stuart Gordon's latest Stuck. I know I will on my birthday, May 31st. And while you're at it, buy me some gifts. You know you want to.

-James

Stop Motion is grand

2008-05-19T16:09:00.003-04:00

Alex Riviello from CHUD put up a great little article putting the spotlight on Brian Lonano from Robot Hand Films. Unlike other filmmakers out there who tries to use as much CGI as possible, he uses the time honored tradition of stop motion animation. Something this world needs more of in films. Fine, it doesn't look as polished as say Transformers, but I still think the original King Kong is by far a better film due to the fact that Kong was all stop motion. Not to say there wasn't any passion in Andy Serkis' performance or Peter Jackson's direction. I like both version. Hell, I even like the 70's version. But not the sequels though. Fuck them with a rusty spoon.

But yeah, check out the above video, check out Robot Hand Films website http://www.robothandfilms.com/ and see the 1 minute teaser video for his new film, Attackazoids. Looks simply amazing, such a throwback to the good old days of film making. I know it's not for everybody, and I'm happy about that.

I know the people who will like this type of film will cherish the end result, which is showing at various film festivals. I need to go check it out somehow. Hopefully New York gets a screening of some sort.

Off to Carnegie Hall tonight. My gal's little brother is performing with his school.

Fun.

-James

I still wonder...

2008-05-18T15:35:00.003-04:00

Why Thomas Jane isn't more of a star? In the wrong place at the wrong time? Or is it the right place at the wrong time?

I mean, every time I see a film with him, he just exhudes this old school charm, ala Steve McQueen or James Coburn.

Hell, just watching The Mist alone proves his starring power. One of those films that had everything working from it. A good story, a great script, cast to die for and the go to guy to direct any Stephen King story for the screen. So why didn't people go see it?

Ticket prices are through the roof now. That's one reason. A monster movie that wasn't the typical yarn. That's another reason. A thinking man's horror movie, which we must realize a ton of people don't like so often.

Many things didn't work for it. I'm one of many people to blame. I kept insisting to go see it in theaters, yet just didn't. I bought it the first day on dvd, the 2 disc edition, yet it wasn't until a few months later that I finally sat down to watch it.

Loved every minute of it, the character development, the monsters (which are much more horrifying than anything in Cloverfield), the color scheme, the direction, the gore, and the climatic buildup to one of the better endings I've seen in quite some time.

It's a great film about the horror of humanity, about fears of the unknown, religious fanaticism and how it can skew people's views on serious issues and the ongoing struggle with one's own psyche.

Plain and simple, a brilliant film. I think it'll be a film people praise and forget about flashes in the pan that came out around the same time.

-J

48 pieces of sushi in one sitting...

2008-03-28T16:47:00.002-04:00

Can kill most men. But not me. It just gives me a slight stomach ache. There's a sushi place near me who sells a mix of 48 rolls for 20 bucks, so I bought it the other day to eat while watching Die Hard II: Die Harder.

I finished 25 minutes into the film and then passed the hell out.

Woke up an hour and a half later wondering where the smell of soy sauce was coming from. Freaked the hell out of me.

And no, it wasn't on me. It was just 2 feet away in a bowl on the table next to my couch.

Onto other news, for some reason, I can't get into any of the free screenings for the new Harold and Kumar film. They tend to let their friends in first and squeeze in a handful of us regular folk who are just waiting to check a new film out and maybe even review it. Pissed me the hell off but what can you do? It's free, so no complaints.

Bored. Trying to write a script for a competition. We shall see if I can complete it.

-J

Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

2008-03-09T22:26:00.002-04:00

Was utterly brilliant. I finally got to check it out, which should have been sooner, but you know how it is to have a full time job and trying to still put my apartment together.

What a cast in that film. Brad Pitt and Casey Affleck of course. But you also have fantastic turns by Sam Rockwell, Michael Parks, Ted Levine and Zooey Deschanel.

An almost 3 hour film that just breezed on by. Sad that they put it out with such a piece of shit DVD release. No extras whatsoever. WTF?

But it will be a film that film fanatics will talk about in the next decade or so. I know I will. Full review will be written down the line, just wanted to speak about my love for it.

-J

Going somewhere tonight?

2008-03-06T16:03:00.002-05:00

Danyell and I will be attending the 2008 Plug Awards. No, it's not a gay sex shop show. It's actually the premier independent music awards show right now.

Hosted by Patton Fucking Oswalt with performances by Dizzee Rascal, St. Vincent, Jose Gonzlez... and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds!

I just got a little throbby in my pants. Throbby isn't even a word, but for this moment, it will have to suffice.

Will let everyone know how it is. You should all check out the free video for the show tonight. I believe it starts at 7 p.m., but that might be doors opening at that time.

Rock and roll.

-James

Everyone will be quoting The Foot Fist Way this year...

2008-03-05T17:41:00.003-05:00

I usually know these things ahead of time. When I saw an advanced screening of The 40 Year Old Virgin, I knew it was going to be the breakout comedy, not The Wedding Crashers which a lot of other people assumed would be. Same goes for the double whammy of Superbad and Knocked Up. I love both those films, but Superbad has a special place in this 80's kid's raunchy comedy heart.

Now with The Foot Fist Way, the whole marketing is pushing it as such a funny film, even Will Ferrell and Adam McKay (director of Anchorman and stars in various shorts he and Will make on Funny Or Die) have seen it 20 times and speak about it every blinking second. That's some hefty praise. But I've been hearing about this film since 2006 when it was completed. I know CHUD.com and AintItCool.com have spoken about it repeatedly, and now a red band trailer (the hot new marketing tool besides flash games and making the film seem real with various fake websites) has surfaced and it shows a lot of promise to what everyone's been speaking about.

Danny McBride will probably be the next comedic genius everyone says they've loved for years, yet didn't know him until E! or MTV has jizzed all over his face. And ours as well.

Sad news today though. Devin at CHUD has said Warner Bros. has scrapped plans for a DVD release of Ken Russell's The Devils, a film in which I have not seen but have only heard fantastic things about. And being a fan of Russell's doesn't hurt either. Here's hoping that they're just taking a few months to get some commentary from Ken and maybe make it part of a box set of his films. That'd be fan-fucking-tastic.

In a month I'll be attending Upright Citizen's Brigade classes, to hone my comedic skills. I will invite everyone and their mother to see me June 1st when they have me starring in a performance of improv genius. I will keep track of it all on here, my blog.

Hopefully more than 3 people read this.

-J

Want to see the worst cover art for a dvd EVER!?

2008-03-02T17:37:00.001-05:00

One... this looks like shit. Just in general. And two, it's for a shitty film that shouldn't have ever been made.

Fuck the world.

JMAKATMG

Pubic hair in weed? That's insanity!

2008-03-02T16:32:00.003-05:00

But luckily in my past days of smoking up with my friends, I never had someone put hair from their pubic region in my blunt of choice. And if they did, they kept it a very safe secret.

Been trolling the land of myspace for new bands to listen to. Found a few that you should all listen to as well.

For all of you Nine Inch Nails heads out there, listen to Innerpartysystem. Just do it now. Good stuff from Stolen Transmission Records.

For some balls to the wall, I want to rip your eyes out music, listen to both Suicide Silence and Genghis Tron. I actually want to run outside and stab someone in their head. Right now.

For some lighter tunes with a little (word that I hate) angst behind them, check out Charlotte Sometimes and Kate Nash.

Also finally checked out Diary of the Dead. Liked it a lot, actually. Better than Land of the Dead by far.

Saw In Bruges as well. Check it out if you still can. Not in many theaters in the U.S. But it proves again that Colin Farrell can act when given a good movie. Not a load of shit like Alexander.

Watched the Oscars. Was bored as usual. But was happy The Coens andNo Country for Old Men, Daniel Day Lewis and Diablo Cody got some love. Other than that, it wasn't very memorable. But is it ever?

Hopefully I can make time for this blog and let the world know my greatness. I need some readers. That might help out a bit.

We shall see what the future holds.

JMTMG

Tale 52, Greek Psycho Sexual Thriller

2008-02-05T16:15:00.000-05:00

I agree with the guys from Twitch. When you think of Greece, you don't necessarily think of cinema, especially in the region of horror.

But that should change with Tale 52.

Here's the trailer:

Thanks again to Twitch for opening my eyes to this film.

-James aka The Media Guru

Brad Renfro has left the building...

2008-01-16T16:32:00.000-05:00

Another one has left this world because of drugs or booze. Well, we don't know yet, but ever since the good old days of Apt Pupil and Ghost World, his life has went down the shitter. You know it has if you were doing a guest spot on the least of the Law and Order shows.

It's sad... a promising child actor who could've kept on going. Instead chose the stupid side of life and ultimately chose death.

You don't see Elijah Wood doing shit like that. Well, there's other stuff I've heard about... but I could probably get sued speaking about it. So I'll leave it at that.

-Media Guru

I want to shoot you so bad, my dick is hard...

2008-01-16T10:54:00.001-05:00

I've been away for almost a month again, but I think it's about time to get some sort of schedule going for my writing. If it's once a day, that'll be more than I've been doing in some time.

A few films I'm going crazy to actually watch are coming out in the next few weeks.

One of which is the internet insanity known as Cloverfield. I'll give it a chance because there's nothing I like more than big monster movies where they destroy a city, even when it's my very own. Only thing that annoys the hell out of me is that the Statue of Liberty's head doesn't look big enough in the trailer, but I'll be going to see it on friday if my health lets me.

I was supposed to see an advanced screening of Teeth tonight but my body has been feeling like utter shit that I'm going to have to pass on it. Which pisses me off, because any film that has a vagina full of teeth is something I want to watch.

Sigh....

And the other film right now I'm awaiting is Neil Marshall's Doomsday. I believe each film he's done makes him a better filmmaker. First the low budget film Dog Soldiers. Then he followed it up with one of my favorite horror films of the last decade The Descent. So I have high hopes for this cross between The Road Warrior, Escape From New York and any other post apocalyptic film. Yummy!

Want to give a well deserved shout out to the guys from Dead Pit Radio, who always amuse me and are still the number one guys in all of horror radio. Hopefully people can get past their accents (doesn't bother me one bit) but I guess it does remind some people of Deliverance. What can you do?

Also to CHUD because they've surpassed Aint It Cool to me with insightful and hilarious reviews and articles. Especially Devin Faraci. He's what Aint It Cool is missing nowadays.

Sad.

And happy.

Oh, and Rambo looks to be gorey as hell. But the problem is that the trailers are only showing the gore, which seems weird to me for some reason. Have a slight bad feeling about it... might be all the violence just in those uno minuto. But I'll be on line for that one.

A short but sweet one. Got a new phone, so if anyone wants to call me, please do. It's my prized possession right now. The AT&T 8525. It's so bad ass.

God, I've become the person I hate the most. The person with a hard on for their phone. But don't worry, I'm not using my cock as a stylus.

So on that pleasant note, I have stuff to do, films to write.

James aka The Media Guru

Blog #13

2007-12-17T01:01:00.000-05:00

There's nothing better than telling one of your managers to go fuck themselves. And to tell them to take the supervisor job and find a replacement because I can't stand the stress and bullshit anymore.

I noticed, ever since thursday when I told them I couldn't deal with it and whatnot, I've lifted a ton of stress off of my shoulders. It's the second time I stepped down from the media supervisor job. But the first time it was forced onto me and then taken away from me without my doing. This time, it's all me.

I feel like writing again.

Just saw the trailer for The Dark Knight. Ecstasy to the hundredth power! And then, to make matters better, saw the first 7 minutes of the film. With the bank heist... and the Joker being... well, being the Joker. Happy days for me.

Saw No Country For Old Men, and if you haven't yet... do so. It's probably my favorite film of the year. Right next to Superbad and Grindhouse. What a trio.

But seriously, go out and support the Coen Bros. They're back in full force, showcasing why they are the best brother team in the business. Take that Wachowskis (plus, one of them is a lady now, so there's that too).

It's Josh Brolin's year. I remember when I first saw him in The Goonies and said, "Oh, James Brolin's kid!"

Now he'll be surpassing his papa. All he has going for him is Babs.

Other than that, trying to get the writing bug again. Been going nuts with the applications, especially to different magazines and online outlets for writing. Sick of saying I'll do it and now will try my best to get out there.

So hopefully soon you'll be seeing my name up in the rafters. Or in a tabloid. Or somewhere. Anywhere. With an article or a movie written by yours truly.

Night all.

This made my day...

2007-11-16T18:56:00.000-05:00

Zach Galifinakis looking as awkward as I would at a 'dance party' before the Ellen Show is priceless.

Just got back from doing laundry, I know, exciting. Had some ideas to write, so I started doing that and wanted to let my adoring public know that.

Bought Dianetics from the Salvation Army for 99 cents. It's worth the price of admission. One of the funniest things I've ever read.

Also reading the Chris Jericho auto-biography, which has to be one of my favorite books right now. Yes, he is a wrestler. I'm a huge wrestling fan, actually. What, want to fight about it?

Ok, let me go put the laundry away and make some dinner for Danyell. I'm playing Susie Homemaker today.

-James

Frustrated isn't even the word...

2007-11-13T23:31:00.000-05:00

The writer's strike still reeks havoc in the entertainment world. I don't blame them for a second. Of course there's some rich writers, we all know that. But what about the poor writers, the middle class writers who write to feed their families. I wish I could have that in my life. Writing for a living. But in order to be a paid writer, you need to get that first break. The big break, if you will.

I think I'll get it. One day. Trying to get back in the swing of things. The writing bug is starting to bite again. Very small teeth marks, but they are there. If I could leave the job I'm at, deadly retail, and become a paid writer... that'd be a dream come true. And to top it all off, to direct a movie as well. That'd be icing on the cake. So many ideas, flooding this brain. Polluting the mind in ways you couldn't even imagine. But then again, do I want you to imagine that? I don't think so. Not sure if you'd be able to escape that darkness.

And yet deep down I'm such a nice guy. But I have a lot of dark thoughts. Sinister thoughts. Ideas that would make Clive Barker blush. A bit. These thoughts will make me my millions. I'm sure of it. Or put me away in a loony bin and lock away the key. We shall see in the future.

I just don't want my future to be Best Buy blues, khakis, ads in my pockets and fake smiles for my colleagues. The ass raping I get every day for stuff that happened in the past that still haunts the department months later. Not sure how that is my fault, but I guess it is for taking the job in the first place. No regrets? Of course there's regrets. Anyone who says they don't regret anything is full of shit. It's ok to regret. I just need to learn from my mistake.

And to find a new job. Went for an interview today. Think it went well. Hope it went well. We shall see in the next few days.

That'd be a breath of fresh air. Let's cross our fingers and toes.

-James

It's 3:08 a.m., must be a good time for a blog!

2007-09-13T03:07:00.000-04:00

As I sit here, watching a best of Bret Hart program on WWE 24/7, I sit here and look at the pile of dvds I bought for real cheap at the closing Hollywood Video near my house.

How cheap you ask? Let's just say 2 dollar dvds never do me any wrong. Especially one consists of this classic:

Ahh classic schlock from the 60's, starring Frankie Avalon (of Funicello surfing movies fame) and Vincent Price. Vincent Price. Sorry, Sesame Street joke.

And I found out some good news on a movie I can't wait to see ever since I saw the trailer. And no, it's not the Alvin and the Chipmunks shitfest.

Lionsgate has announced that the new Rambo movie, John Rambo, will open in theaters on January 25th, 2008.

That made me super happy. Now I can wait a few months for probably one of the most over the top and gore filled action films to come our way. It's a good time for action, I think. I loved Smokin' Aces, had fun with the Transporter flicks and Crank (for the fun factor and Jason Statham), really enjoyed the fights in Unleashed and I've heard stellar things about Shoot 'Em Up. So we shall see.

Going to go to bed. My eyes are starting to falter.

-James aka Media Guru

I have not posted in here in ages...

2007-09-11T20:51:00.000-04:00

I guess it's the whole fear thing. Fear of change. Fear of what people think.

It was more like 'fear of not having anything to say."

It's been almost 3 months since the last post. I don't want it to die. So it will not. This is not the time to abort this message to the underground.

I shall write more. In here. In books. In life. Everywhere else. On street corners. In subway cars. On the boardwalk... which shall be gone soon (Coney Island that is).

I've seen plenty of movies since I last posted in here as well.

Halloween... sucked. I'm not going to divulge. Not yet. I'd rather do a video diary of sorts.

Let me put it like this. Rob Zombie actually had me hook, line and sinker with the first 60 or so minutes. I didn't mind the whole, "Explaining the childhood of Michael Myers and why he's so messed in the head" origin story. What I had a problem was forcing an hour and a half movie remake in about 40 minutes as well.

What was he thinking? Or better yet, what did the producers do to Mr. Zombie when everyone turned their heads?

I wonder if we'll ever know.

So I did write a little bit about it. I lied. But seriously, On my list to watch asap in theaters are the following movies.

Shoot 'Em Up
3:10 to Yuma
Hatchet
King of Kong

That is all right now. Can't wait for next week's dvd release. Death Proof on dvd. Makes me all giddy inside. Sad that they won't put both together right now. But hell, beggers can't be choosers.

Until then, stay focused.

-James

And go to www.combinationsfollow.com Please. Watch our stuff. We rock.

Iron Man loves them fruit pies!

2007-06-17T02:19:00.000-04:00

That is all.

-James

I never knew Dr. Doom surfed...

2007-06-17T01:57:00.000-04:00

This is the Dr. Doom I know. The one I grew up loving and wishing he'd get rid of the Fantastic Four once and for all.

See, it's weird. I think I'm one of 7 people who enjoyed the first Fantastic Four movie for it's corny comic book ham. Nothing wrong with that. It knew not to take itself too seriously and I thought the chemistry between The Thing and the Human Torch was great.

My big complaint about the first one was Dr. Doom. And I'm not a Julian McMahon hater. I actually like him a lot on Nip/Tuck. But that kind of acting doesn't work for the super genius of Dr. Victor Von Doom.

Eh.

So I go and see the new Fantastic Four movie for two reasons. The second reason is that I'm a huge fan of the Silver Surfer and any storyline in the Marvel Universe that deals with the power cosmic and space stuff. I think that's one reason I loved the recent Planet Hulk storyline. Conan mixed with cosmic shit.

Movie kind of drags a bit. Jessica Alba is hot and not as annoying in this one. Ioan Gruffudd was his usual boring self, which is perfect for Reed Richards. But the dancing... I don't want to get too much into that.

Michael Chiklis and Chris Evans as The Thing and Human Torch were great again.

And the body movements of Doug Jones and the voice of Laurence Fishburne as The Silver Surfer fit perfectly. I enjoyed it immensely... only thing I didn't like was that they explained the source of his power cosmic was from the Surfer's board.

Lame.

Two complaints though.

1) Kerry Washington as Alicia Masters. I mean, she has to be the worst actress to play a blind person ever. I mean, the only way she could've been good was if they poked her eyes out.

2) Julian McMahon goes through something I didn't think was possible. Sucking even more. Dr. Doom was suckier than in the first one. A surfing Dr. Doom. With bad one liners. Ugh! Just makes me shake thinking about it. I mean, I laughed my ass off with the whole surfing gimmick. I just didn't think they'd go through with it.

*shudders*

So go see it. Let's make this movie do well so maybe we can see a good Silver Surfer movie. With Thanos as the villain. Makes me all excited thinking about it.

Oh, and Galactus wasn't terrible. I won't say why or why not... but you do see a quick glimpse of his helmet. So the whole cloud thing was played out by spoilers everywhere: not entirely true. Just see it and be the judge.

I'm just a film fanatic.

-James

Spacey no more?

2007-06-14T22:58:00.000-04:00

Kevin Spacey has decided to not act anymore and instead choose to direct and keep on doing theatre in London and maybe here in NYC as well.

It's sad... but at least I won't have to see another K-Pax again.

Latino Review put up a picture for the new bat suit from Entertainment Weekly.

September 25th is Dario Argento day, well, according to Blue Underground that is. They've been picking up the Anchor Bay Argento library as of late, and this time around they'll be releasing Cat O'Nine Tails, Opera, Stendhal Syndrome and Suspiria. Yes, for the millionth time, someone is releasing Suspiria. Eh, I'll pass this time around... I have the Anchor Bay 3 disc edition with the Goblin soundtrack.

And the more Third Mother stills I see, the better I feel. I think Masters of Horror helped wake up Dario Argento a bit. Here's hoping this is a throwback to Suspiria or Inferno and not The Card Player.

Oh, everyone must go out and buy the trade paperback for Planet Hulk so you can catch up to the greatest event since the Infinity Gauntlet. And that is World War Hulk.

I've always loved the Hulk. And it's only going to get better with the new movie that's been announced. Yes, I was one who liked the first Hulk movie.

Night night.

-James

Billy Connolly is one fantastic zombie

2007-06-06T01:22:00.000-04:00

Went to an advanced screening for the film Fido which comes out next week, June 15th.

All I can say is one word, really: Fucking Brilliant!

Yes, that's two words. I'm going for comedy here. But seriously, any movie that satirizes the 50's americana bullshit we've seen attempted at in films like Pleasantville but actually ties in a zombie story within it is the cat's meow to me.

Billy Connolly plays the title zombie character, Fido, who is just like any zombie in this alternate reality: A slave to the system run by the company known as Zomcon. After the Zombie Wars, which was caused by a radioactive gas and brought back the dead as flesh eating zombies, this company was the first to realize that shooting them in the head was the way to their deaths. Then, even more economical, was to put a collar on them and make them our servants for all the menial labor we wouldn't do, but don't mind seeing a whole group of people do instead.

Carrie Ann Moss and Dylan Baker play the parents in this 'ideal' world and their son Timmy, played by K'Sun Ray (a perfect name in Hollywood) who is a bullied and picked on by the youth of the town. He just doesn't fit in and wonders if the zombies are really that dead after all. A troubled youth? Not at all, in fact, he's probably the most sane in the town.

Mr. Bottoms (played by Henry Czerny) is the new man in town. A new sheriff in town, really, because he is the head of defense for Zomcon and a war hero with over 500 kills in the Zombie Wars and now lives across the street from the Robinsons. He's a bit overbearing too, but I won't dig too deep into each character, just some nuances and whatnot. His daughter, Dee Dee, has a bit of a crush on Timmy, and plays a big role in the movie later on.

When Helen Robinson (Carrie Ann Moss) gets a zombie for the house to fit in with the rest of the neighborhood, you know something bad is going to happen. Bill Robinson (Dylan Baker) hates zombies with a passion (he had to kill his own father when he turned into one at the age of 11) yet loves funerals with a passion and can't wait to give his family the funerals he's been paying off for years. Headless, of course... so you don't come back.

So in a nutshell, the movie has some zombie kills (by Fido, but I won't say who), some more zombie massacre, lots of colorful 50's kitsch, great vintage looking commercials for Zomcon products, learned not to trust old people (ever), love affairs with zombie (a wonderfully creepy and upbeat Tim Blake Nelson), some heartache and a pretty twisted and loving ending.

Just have to give two shout outs to Andrew Currie (the director/writer) and Billy Connolly, who came to the screening here in NYC, courtesy of Forbidden Planet. He was fantastic and spoke highly about everyone in the film, even his body double, who supposedly died of an overdose the same day he was hired. I couldn't help but laugh and he smiled at me and then said, "Well, come to think of it, it isn't funny at all. But I thought you fucking dead looking people wouldn't mind that story."

His performance is especially great, considering he doesn't utter one word, and being known as a comic who speaks more often than Robin Williams, that's some good acting.

Go and see it next week when it comes out. Not only is it a funny movie, but it has zombies. And it's not some bullshit tie in with another franchise or a shitty sequel/ remake that's coming out soon (Day of the Dead, I'm talking to you!).

Just do me that favor and see it.

Until next time,

James

A new post, a different night

2007-06-04T22:25:00.000-04:00

Just caught up with the fantastic comic book series The Boys by the brilliant and demented minds of Garth Ennis and Darrick Robertson. Such a sick and twist comic book, my good men. It's basically about a group of blokes and a gal whose job is to make sure superheroes aren't being too 'super' with their powers.

It shows super heroes in such a depraved light, you can't help but gasp and laugh all at once. It's up to issue number 7 and this is only after being cancelled by DC Comics for being a little too liberal in it's trashing of supers. But they sold the rights back to the creators and now it's back and better than ever.

Buy the trade paperback. Do it now! You must do it in order to live a proper life.

-James

Sitting here, wearing a luchador mask

2007-06-03T19:09:00.000-04:00

Contemplating a few new scripts. Sounds intriguing? It isn't. Not at all. It's actually a complete annoyance that drives me bonkers, but hell, I guess that's how you know you're a writer and not some loon from the bin.

I have one idea for a short film, just came to me this moment as I was typing this. With these constant toothaches I've been having the past week or so, wouldn't it be sickening and fascination to have a man in a room, just minding his own business, eating some caramel. Or some rock candy. Chewing down hard on those suckers when suddenly, crack! A sound and sonic boom occurs through the man's body and you know with an extreme close up of one of his teeth that it's been cracked in half from the candy.

Pain starts to shoot up to his head and down his spine and he doesn't know what to do because of it. He tries some anbersol. It doesn't work. Tries some aspirin, any type of pain killer in the house that he has. Still doesn't work. Tries to drown the pain by rinsing his mouth out with whiskey. Still does not do anything for the man.

He spies a pair of pliers from across the room. He laughs at the very notion of using them. He calls his dentist, sorry, no answer. It is a sunday and dentists are closed those days. He contemplates some more. He can last the day, can't he? The clock ticks. He starts to sweat. Those pliers are only a few feet away, and hell, it won't be that bad. The pain can't be worse than what he's feeling now. He gets up, grabs those pliers, goes to the bathroom. Lights out. Scream. Maybe we'll show the tooth being pulled. Probably not, considering that gore effect is actually pretty pricey.

Cut back to him sitting in his chair, with a wad of bandages in his mouth, red from the blood. Cracked tooth with the pliers are on the table. He smiles and inserts another piece of candy in his mouth. We hear another crack.

Roll credits.

The End.

Yes, I know. A bit too much. But that could be a very effective 3 to 5 minute movie. Better than those On the Lot folks.

At least I think so.