Horror Hottie of the Month- January

It was a tough call, deciding who to call our hottie of the month, but in the end we had to go with one of the hottest chicks ever, Kate Beckinsale.

Cheeky!

HORROR FILMOGRAPHY:
Total Recall 2012
Underworld: Awakening 2012
Whiteout 2009
Vacancy 2007
Underworld: Evolution 2006
Van Helsing 2004
Underworld 2003
Haunted 1995

Vampy!

Why is she so deserving of being our Horror Hottie for January? Let's run down the reasons:
-Sexy British accent.
-Not a fan of wearing panties.
-Has no issue being naked or scantily clad on film.
-She calls her vagina "Pharaoh's Tomb."
-She said this "I can't do sushi, even. I'd rather eat an actual vagina than that, honestly!"
-She's a bit of a slut, cheating on Underworld co-star and life partner Michael Sheen with her Underworld director, whatever his name is.
-She doesn't shy away from genre flicks.

Cracky!

Kate is one of the most iconic vampires of all time. Sure, it may be because she looks so damn good in her tight, shiny death dealer body suit, but hell, who are we to judge? Underworld and Vacancy aside, she may have starred in some shit genre flicks, but again, who are we to judge? She makes an effort, man, and she looks good while doing so!

Here's a picture of Kate's ass on the set of the Total Recall remake.

One can only hope that we see more of Kate's hotness in many genre films to come. Maybe she could star in a movie called Pharaoh's Tomb; the story of a substance abusing, bisexual serial killer who seduces both men and women for the sake of revenge. Revenge for what, you ask? Who cares! As long as it has some naked, sexy, bloody, ass-revealing goodness, the plot is irrelevant. Maybe you could throw in a monkey, or make her a nanny or something, to keep it interesting. Don't ask us. It's Hollywood's call.

Closed For The Season (2010)

JANUARY 31, 2012

GENRE: GHOST, PSYCHOLOGICAL

SOURCE: DVD (ONLINE RENTAL)

Like the killer clown slasher movie, horror movies set in amusement parks tend to suck more often than not, and sadly Closed For The Season does little to reverse the trend. It’s certainly better than Dark Ride or whatever, but the inconceivable length (a few minutes under two hours), purposely convoluted plot, and two leads who aren’t engaging enough to warrant looking past the other blemishes ultimately kills whatever goodwill a “Better than Dark Ride” claim can provide.

At 90 minutes I could be more forgiving, because at its core IS a fairly unique story, which is something that should be lauded (especially nowadays). Our heroes are trapped in an abandoned amusement park, forced by the movie’s strange villain (a carny played by the great Joe Unger – someone needs to cast this guy as John Hawkes’ dad in one of his 195 yearly awards bait type flicks) to relive the memories – most of them painful/scary – of the folks who had passed through the park over the years. Why he would do this, I have no idea, but it’s better than the usual slasher or whatever in terms of inventiveness. Also, director Jay Woelfel lucked out with a terrific location, an actual abandoned amusement park that has been left to rot for the past 30 years.

And he must know how good of a location it is, because I am sure at some point that someone told him that another horror movie called Deadwood Park was shot there as well. Amazingly, my biggest problem with THAT movie (which also blended nostalgia with ghosts) was that it was too damn long, so this is one of those things that only doing Horror Movie A Day can make happen: I’ve now seen two bloated horror movies shot in Chippewa Park, which is at least one more than any normal person should endure. Sadly, even though Deadwood was actually a few minutes longer (!) it’s actually the better of the two, so make that your one experience with this overrun fun park.

As with that film, the production value afforded by the one of a kind locale adds immensely to the proceedings; there’s something incredibly eerie about seeing coasters and tilt-a-whirl type rides with trees and brush growing between the rails and tracks – it’s the sort of thing that even the best set designers in the world couldn’t accurately recreate and get that creepy, almost kind of sad look that these things provide “as is”. Or, “as was”; since this movie’s production I understand the park has finally been demolished properly in order to make way for new developments. It’s the movie’s best asset for sure.

Thus, the fact that it’s gone is kind of infuriating – no one will ever be able to put it to truly good use for a movie. Instead, its last hurrah was used up in this convoluted nonsense. Few horror movies can be accused of being full of themselves, but that’s exactly the problem here. It seems Woelfel was incapable of reigning in his ideas and instead just put them all into one movie, which would be a problem even on a big budget movie (see: Transformers sequels), but is even more problematic when you’re dealing with an action-lite affair with only three characters. Poor Unger has to wear more costumes in this film than the Dean on Community wears in an entire season, and worse, occasionally has to provide important exposition while dressed as a sea monster or one of his many clowns.

It also drags out every plot point to an insane degree. When Unger demands they beat him at a carnival game, not only does it take forever (it’s one of those “break the plate” deals), but it just keeps going! After our male hero beats him the game, the female then has to have her own “test”, a dunk tank scene that is equally overlong and dull. Add in the constant dream sequences and hallucinations, and you have a movie that probably could have been 75 minutes long if Woelfel could have focused while writing and/or wasn’t such a baby in editing. Doesn’t matter how much time and effort you put into shooting something – if your story is becoming muddled or drawn out, it HAS to go. It’s why it’s never a good idea for a director to be his own editor (as he is here); in fact I was amazed to discover some deleted scenes among the film’s many extra features. This movie could have been LONGER? Christ.

Also, call me crazy, but a movie about two characters experiencing things that happened to other people just isn’t that interesting after a while. Yeah, it’s sad that someone got killed on a ride and someone else was sexually assaulted in the park, and numerous other things, but if you step back and look at it as a whole, the movie is about two people doing and experiencing absolutely nothing for real. It reminded me of that awful movie The Babysitter with Alicia Silverstone, where the entire thing is just people briefly fantasizing about getting closer to her when in reality they’re just standing there staring. That’s basically what happens here – most of the movie is a dull illusion.

I will give it props about one thing – the ending wasn’t what I expected. I was positive we were building toward a “they’ve been dead the whole time” finale, but that wasn’t quite it. It wasn’t much BETTER, but at least I was sort of fooled, which is always a plus regardless of the other circumstances. And even though the CGI roller coaster scenes look awful, it kind of “fit” to me – they weren’t really happening, so the crude “un-reality” look was appropriate (sort of like the bit in Speed Racer where the background is made up of his childish drawings). In other words, this movie doesn’t fail because it doesn’t have any good ideas – it fails because it doesn’t know what to do with them.

If you dug the movie though, this DVD will delight you to no end. It will take you nearly four hours to go through everything, starting with a full length commentary on the 2 hour movie. Woelfel is by himself here, and he admits some of the movie doesn’t quite work as well as he wanted to and even mocks its endlessness on occasion, but he’s also kind of boring. His obsession with scenes that were shot in two locations will drive anyone up a wall after a half hour or so – no one cares that an insert shot was shot in LA! I swear, at least 10% of the track is him going “OK so this was Ohio, this was California, California… now back to Ohio for that shot, and then cutaway was back in California!” And his soft voice over two hours of mostly dull film is almost like a challenge to the viewer: I dare you not to doze off as he drones on about CGI shadows and where they found the “Octoberfest” sign seen in the background of one scene.

The rest of the stuff is a little more enticing; 45 minutes’ worth of making of footage (broken up into “Webisodes”) will provide some insight into the real location and techie stuff like sound design, and then there are 20 minutes of deleted scenes that you can watch with or without commentary. None of them really felt much different than anything that was seen in the endless movie, so if you loved every minute of it – there’s more! Interestingly, he doesn’t say much about why he cut them, opting to just ramble on about the location and nitpicking about the color timing, same as he did on the feature. The only one of real interest is the last one, which would have been near the end of the film and explained how she really ended up in the park in the first place, but only someone who truly cared about the movie doing anything but finally ending by that point would have been annoyed by this dangling plot thread. Then there’s a pair of trailers (1st is better, not sure if the order is swapped or they just made their film look more amateurish on their 2nd wave of marketing) as well as two separate video tours of the abandoned park grounds, which will mostly just make you wish someone had thought to make a found footage movie in this eerie, unique location. Oh well.

Again, I like seeing original horror stories, especially in the indie world where most seem to just be trying to cash in on the current trends in an attempt to get noticed. But you gotta do that original idea justice with a tight script and strong characters, neither of which are offered here. Nice try, but I can’t recommend this one unless you’re a big fan of Unger, since he’s the best thing about it.

What say you?

Snoozing through Sundance

If the question is "How long does it take to get over going to the Sundance Film Festival?", my answer might just be "Five years."

See, I went to Sundance in 2007. It was just the first weekend, Friday night to Sunday night. I saw only two movies (Noise and Miss Navajo) and waited in line fruitlessly for a third (Waitress). I also skied for about an hour-and-a-half.

Yet I was so seduced by the experience that for the next four Januarys, every time I heard, read or saw some piece about the annual Park City pilgrimage getting underway, I became overwhelmed by regret that I could not partake in that pilgrimage myself.

Not this year.

Maybe I just didn't hear, read or see those pieces, or maybe I've got other things on my mind (house hunting, for one). But I was definitely aware of when the festival was starting, and I was definitely not sickened by longing for the closest major film festival to where I live.

I'm trying to analyze this change in me. Maybe it's just growing older.

Back then, I'd say I was still thrilled enough by rubbing elbows with celebrities that it was that phenomenon itself that so captivated me. In fact, I kept a running list of every celebrity I'd seen on my blackberry. I still have the list -- it's my same work email account as I had then -- if you'd like to see it:

John C. Reilly
Scott Speedman
Billy Baldwin
Jamie Kennedy
Tom Arnold
Eddie Kaye Thomas
Alan Alda
Harvey Weinstein
Richard Rucculo
Richard Roeper
Jude Ciccolella
Nathan Fillion
Cheryl Hines
Keri Russell
Dick Gephardt

Yes, that last one is the former presidential candidate. (Apparently, I'm much better able to identify men than women. Either that or they were more free about coming out of the woodwork.)

I kept this list partly out of a general obsessiveness, but also because I was planning to write a feature story on my experience for the website where I used to freelance. That was a damn fun piece. It basically ticked off times of the day throughout the weekend, then followed each with a brief and witty comment about what I was doing. It was a little self-indulgent, but not excessively so.

You'd think that rubbing elbows with celebrities would not be such a big deal, living in LA. But in truth, you don't run into Jack Nicholson in Starbucks every three weeks just by living in Los Angeles. In fact, I'll go six months to a year at a time without seeing any celebrities that I recognize. Much more likely is to see someone you know you saw in a commercial, as I did a few weeks ago at the playground.

When I first moved to LA in 1996, before moving back full time five years later, I also kept a journal of my "encounters" with celebrities. They seemed more frequent then. Yes, I would actually describe the circumstances of my seeing the person, and back then, I might actually talk to him or her. Just so you know, this is considered to be undignified rookie behavior, and I've long since gotten over it. But what can I say, the 22-year-old me was just starstruck.

Some vestiges of that still remained when I was at Sundance in 2007. I didn't talk to any of those people, but you better bet I noted them and pointed them out (quietly, subtly) to anyone who was with me. Which was usually just my wife (then girlfriend).

I think part of the maturation of any person, and specifically, any film fan, is a realization that it's more about the work, the product, than the celebrity behind that product. Perhaps those five years since I went to Sundance have been my own personal period of maturation. Sure, under the right circumstances and with the right insider connections, I could probably still be that guy who would have to check himself to avoid dropping names like the thousands of Hollywood wannabes in this city who seem so vulgar and shallow. But I like to think that if I went to Sundance today, I'd derive far more pleasure from getting an early look at the movies we'll all be talking about six months to a year from now.

That's what it really means to be a film fan, and not just a devotee of the E! network.

(But would I still want to get early exposure to those movies primarily so I could lord it over other film fans?)

(Yeah, probably. I'm only human. Humans love lording things over other humans.)

DVD releases for January 31st

Not a bad bunch of DVD releases this week to close out the first month of 2012.

The Buy- If there's one must see of the group, then it's definitely Drive. It's not horror in the least, but it's bad ass and sleek enough for us to pimp and for you to see. It's as close to perfect as we've seen in quite a long time, and was our favorite flick of the year in any genre. See it. See it now.

The Rent- Next we have a few flicks that are worth checking out, even if they aren't close to perfect. Dream House was decent enough, although it felt more by the numbers than anything else. Still, it's always fun to watch Daniel Craig do his thang thang. The Thing was far better than it had any right to be, and if you can go into it without the predetermined hate you should feel towards it for invading sacred "remake" ground, then you might just dig it. We did. Finally we have a movie that we expected more from, Texas Killing Fields. It's not top of the heap as serial killer flicks go, but it has a great cast and does its job well enough to be entertaining.

The Rest- As far as In Time, Dead Hooker in a Trunk, and Spiderhole go, we weren't impressed, and unless you're really curious to see one of them, you could skip them all and call it a day. You wont miss much. As for The Night Train Murders... well, we haven't  seen the rape-revenge flick in a looong time, so we cant really advise either way. We will be checking it out at some point, but until then, it's a big question mark.





What will you rent, buy, or avoid?

Faces In The Crowd (2011)

JANUARY 30, 2012

GENRE: PSYCHOLOGICAL, SERIAL KILLER

SOURCE: BLU-RAY (STORE RENTAL)

I had passed by Faces In The Crowd a few times, assuming it was just some DTV thriller. But I had an extra rental tonight and picked it up, seeing if was something that I could watch over the weekend when I had a little more free time. There are certainly worse ways to spend a couple hours than looking at Milla Jovovich, and I spied Sarah Wayne Callies’ name on there as well! Bonus “Hot nurse from Prison Break”! And then I saw it labeled as a “horror/thriller” on the DVD, and saw that it was about a serial killer, so hurrah!

Not too surprisingly, it’s a BIT of a stretch to call it horror. It’s about a serial killer, but he drops his MO in favor of trying to drive Milla crazy after she witnesses one of his killings, which puts it more into generic thriller territory – especially when she starts falling for the cop that is assigned to protect her. The hook is that her encounter with the killer leaves her with Prosopagnosia, a rare disorder that prevents her from being able to remember faces. Not just HIS face, all faces – her best friends, her boyfriend, even her dad look like strangers to her, and they even change from minute to minute. Sort of like those masks in A Scanner Darkly, basically – but she can “fight” it by focusing on something particular on their face. Hero cop Julian McMahon, for example, sports a goatee and thus she is able to keep track of what he looks like.

Thus, the most interesting thing about the movie is seeing how director Julien Magnat depicts this to the audience. Every character (besides Milla) is played by several people – her boyfriend is played by over a dozen credited actors, for example. As a result, the other actors – such as Callies – barely appear, as we only see her once before the accident but then after, apart from a couple of shots, she is always being played by other women (with her awful haircut being the only thing to ground us). In fact I kind of wish Magnat had opted for a similar approach to Memoirs Of An Invisible Man, where they set up a gag with him being invisible, but then show Chevy normally so we could follow along/see our name actor as much as possible. But either Magnat doesn’t trust us or was using this motif as a clever way to keep the budget down by hiring recognizable folks for what couldn’t have been more than 2 days of work, because even when the scene isn’t necessarily playing on Milla’s problem with identifying them, they still don’t return to the original actor or actress, which makes it a bit harder to get worked up when they get killed off. The face changing keeps us from being attached to them, and in fact one corpse is even yet another new face (the credits list “Dead _____” or something like that).

However, it DOES get the point across. The casting folks did a great job of finding people that looked close enough alike to momentarily disorient us as well as Milla, which helps sell this very tricky and personal problem to the viewing audience. I was a bit baffled that she’d continue to lash out and hit someone because she didn’t recognize their face even after a few weeks of dealing with this – you’d think she’d be used to it by now – but otherwise it’s one of the better on-screen depictions of a strange neurological issue. Memento is the undisputed champ of such things, but in this area anyway, Crowd measures up.

Sadly, it’s nowhere nearly as successful in telling its mystery story. Even with the face changing gimmick, it’s pretty obvious who the killer is, and the movie’s feeble attempts at red herrings (i.e. her boyfriend) are wholly unsuccessful. And it’s not even a case of “you’ve seen too many movies” – the movie doesn’t bother to offer any potential suspects besides her boyfriend and the actual killer! And the boyfriend is cleared at around the 70 minute mark, so until the final chase we’re just kind of waiting for the movie to get around to telling us what we already know. The killer uses her disorder to his advantage, which leads to some fun scenes, but if she was just plain ol’ blind there would be almost no point to the movie at all. To compare to Memento again, the gimmick was a major selling point, but it was still a compelling mystery/thriller on a basic level. This lacks that intrigue, and the fact that he drops his usual type of killing and focuses on cleaning up this particular mess doesn’t help either. If she was an INTENDED victim who he discovered had this problem and decided to have a little fun with her first, then it might be unique/interesting, but a generic “no witnesses!” approach does the movie no favors.

It’s also kind of awkward on all levels. Almost none of the characters have much of a chemistry (with the exception of Callies and Jovovich, who sadly only have like 4 minutes of screentime together); McMahon in particular seems uncomfortable playing the tough but romantic hero cop. The editing is also wonky; perhaps it’s intentional to give it more of that uneasy feeling, but I don’t think so. Like there’s a bit at a bar where McMahon walks over to Milla, pulls out a stool, and sits next to her – we see this in three shots from angles that aren’t much different from one another, and McMahon appears to be in a different position in relation to her with each cut. There are also subplots that have no payoff, such as the fact that her shrink is deaf and thus needs to read lips. And Milla’s dad comes to visit and then leaves again just as quickly, despite the fact that keeping him around might actually be a fun potential red herring.

Nothing is as weird as the back of the DVD though, which lists “Bonus Material” under “Special Features”, as if the two meant completely different things. As it turns out, the “Bonus Material” is merely a trio of brief featurettes covering the film’s cast, FX, and story. Why they were split into three segments is unknown, especially since it’s CLEARLY meant to be one piece as only the third one has credits for the director/editor/producers. They’re not too bad as these things go, though I had to laugh when they showcased the film’s amateurish green-screen compositing during car scenes. “They added in the background later!” a producer tells us, over a shot with a background that might as well have been drawn in with MS Paint.

If you’re in the mood for a Lifetime-ish take on a serial killer movie with an unusual hook, this should scratch the itch – but you gotta admit: that’s a very specific mood. With a better mystery at its core and some better casting decisions this could have been really cool. Instead it’s just decent; something Milla junkies can watch while they wait for the next Resident Evil movie.

What say you?

A traveling travelogue

If you looked over at the right column on my blog and saw which movie I've most recently revisited, you might have said to yourself:

"Octopussy? Really?"

Yes, Octopussy. The James Bond movie. The 13th James Bond movie, to be precise. The sixth to star Roger Moore.

"Why the hell are you rewatching Octopussy, Vance?"

Well, I'll tell you.

On the Flickchart blog, a friend of mine is hosting a year-long series in honor of the 50th anniversary of James Bond in the movies. Dr. No, the first Bond movie, came out in 1962. It's 2012. I've checked the math -- it's correct. As such, there will be one post per month about something related to the Bond franchise. I'm writing the February one.

"But why are you rewatching Octopussy in particular, Vance?"

Ah, yeah. That.

The thesis of my piece is that because there are so many Bond movies, it's hard to have a consensus opinion about a) who the best Bond is, and b) what the best Bond movie is. Sure, the "right" answer about who the best Bond is is Sean Connery. But a large percentage of today's Bond fans don't even know Sean Connery from his later work, so why should they know him as Bond?

So the essential idea behind my piece will be: "Why not Octopussy?"

"But Vance, why not The Man With the Golden gun instead of Octopussy? For example?"

Well, because I watched Octopussy about ten times when I was a kid. In fact, I believe it's the only Bond movie I've seen more than once. I must love really love it if I've seen it ten more times than any other Bond movie.

That, or it was the one Bond movie I had on VHS. When I was a kid, I had a rotation of about a dozen movies we'd recorded off cable that I watched repeatedly. They included such titles as Superman II, Star Trek II, The Secret of NIMH, Time Bandits, Rocky III and The Goonies.

And, oh yeah, Octopussy.

But I like to think it wasn't just its availability that made me watch Octopussy repeatedly. It wasn't just that Octopussy was the only Bond movie that played during that finite period (2-3 years) when we had The Movie Channel, when my mom recorded almost everything that played.

I like to think that Octopussy was really better than other Bond movies -- other Roger Moore Bond movies in particular, but Connery Bond movies too. (I've still seen only two Connery Bond movies -- Dr. No, and the pretender Never Say Never Again, in which Connery returned to the role in an unauthorized version of the character, which was released the same year as Octopussy. Yes, I should be heavily berated for this gap in my filmography.)

I know it's better than Moonraker, which always struck me as very weird -- James Bond in outer space? I'm pretty sure it's better than For Your Eyes Only, the only part of which I really remember is that there's an extended skiing sequence. And I know it's better than A View to a Kill, despite the presence of Christopher Walken and Grace Jones. And I'm ashamed to admit I haven't even seen Moore's first three outings as Bond, all in the 1970s.

Anyway, enough about why I watched the movie. Watching it was a highly enjoyable trip down memory lane. So glad I did.

I won't write too much more about it now, because I'm going to save that for the other blog post. However, I did notice one thing about the experience that I wanted to talk about (now that we're nearly 20 paragraphs in):

I don't know if I've ever previously watched a movie in so many different locales. Appropriate for a movie that's essentially a travelogue, and takes place in many different locales.

I started watching it at the gym on Friday after work. I'd had a rough couple nights in a row of sleep (my son is teething), so I didn't have the energy to go my full 45 minutes on the stairmaster. I paid attention to what my body was telling me and cut out after 25 minutes. But then I watched another ten or so downstairs in a comfy chair in the lobby before leaving.

That night at home, after my wife went to sleep, I watched another 20 minutes or so. But remember what I said about having a couple bad nights' sleep in a row? (I hope so -- it was only one paragraph ago.) So yeah, I didn't last too long on that viewing before the couch got me.

Then I watched the last hour Sunday morning at my office. I've found my office conference room to be a good place to take my son on Sundays, when the office is empty. (Except for the security guy, who is used to seeing me by now.) There's a TV and DVD player all set up. And he can run around the room and play with his toys for awhile before he gets bored. There are very few things that he can break, or that can break him.

That's not only three locations, but three different players: my portable DVD player, my home BluRay player and the DVD player at work. (You can also say this movie has traveled, because I received it through the mail from Netflix.)

It matches the movie's three locales: the "cold open" that has nothing to do with the rest of the story, which is set somewhere in Latin America; the bulk of the action in India; and Germany, where slightly less of the action takes place.

However, I guess Bond really has me beat. The movie also contains a short couple scenes at Secret Service HQ and an auction house in London, as well as a Russian war room scene that, presumably, takes place in the Soviet Union.

Then again, the British Secret Service has a bigger budget than I do.

The Wicker Tree (2012)

*In theaters now, Limited

What's it About?- Beth is a successful American country singer who used to be slutty, but has since found her way to singing the praises of JC. All sluts eventually turn to religion don't they? Because praying more and throwing yourself on the mercy of the holy cross obviously erases every skanky and obscene thing you do. That's a fact.

"I gave you the HIV but G.O.D. forgives me, LOL!"

Anywho, Beth and her cow poke fiance Steve are members of Cowboys for Christ (ugh), and they've been sent by their evangelical church to save the heathens of Scotland from themselves, because that's what religion is all about, after all. That is actually a fact. Religion is also about basting naked ass with oil, as evevidenced by the picture below.

Now this is one aspect of Religion that we can truly get behind... get it? Behind?

Luckily for us, the Scots have their own shit going on and hate being preached to and talked down on, so they decide to kill the rube's, which can only serve to make America a better place in the long run. As you can imagine, sacrificial hi jinks ensue.

This is why Christians cant have nice things!

The Good- The Wicker Tree is sort of a sequel to the 1973 Hammer classic, The Wicker Man (not the abysmal 2006 Nic Cage remake.) According to the director, whom was also the director of the 1973 original, it's more of a companion piece. As "companion pieces" go however, The Wicker Tree is rather embarrassing and really does nothing beneficial for it's predecessor.

Whereas the 1973 Wicker movie was so odd that it ended up being creepy, the updated Wicker universe is more goofy and over dramatic than anything else. Really, I don't know why we were expecting it to be good, but we found ourselves a bit let down as the credits began to roll. Maybe because instead of giving us another unique and good movie, all we were left with was the thought "Why didn't they just leave well enough alone?"

The Bad- There's nothing that Scotland and it's people could possibly love more than 2 bible thumping rubes from the U.S. of A. crossing the pond to save them from their unjust lives and skewed belief systems, is there? Hell no there ain't, cause everyone who ain't believe in Jesus Christ needs savin', ain't they? This movie definitely has a bible bashing bent; when our innocent country singin' heroine says "Everything in the bible is inspired by God, so it must be true, right?" It's apparent that were to believe that all Americans are sheepish simpletons... we cant argue that fact really, because there's some truth to it. Still, true or not, don't preach.

The Downright Horrendous- It's misleading to see Christopher Lee in the trailer for this movie, mainly because he was in this movie for about 15.4 seconds. If you're going to make it look as if he's in your film, at least give him a small cameo... then again, he most likely didn't want one. For your deception, you sub-par and sneaky film, you get the Wicker Man 2006 Remake Hall of Shame Award!!!

Not the BEES!

The Gory- There's some blood and violence to be had here, most notably the scene with "Tex" in the ruins; we wont spoil what that scene involves, but it involves a lot of nudity and someone being eaten to death. (That actually kinda spoiled it.)

The Naked- Sweet, sweet Honeysuckle Weeks; despite having what may be one of the silliest first names ever, she brought her A-game in this one, and by A-game we mean shameless nudity. She's not the only one, as many others in the movie shed their clothes for the greater good, but she was by far the most impressive.

Edited for our younger viewers, who screw up all of our good, naked pics.

What did we learn?- We learned that nearly 40 years is far too long to make a sequel to a cult movie, unless of course you don't mind it being out of touch with everything about the original. Also, Honeysuckle is apparently the Scottish word for "Village Whore."

The Master Says- D+ Not totally Irredeemable, The Wicker Tree is none the less a sequel that might have been better off never being made. The feel of the original is almost completely absent from this lukewarm follow up, and honestly, we aren't sure what the point of this film even was.You might enjoy it as an homage or companion piece to the cult classic original, but just don't expect much.

Final Thoughts- At least Honeysuckle Weeks wasn't afraid to bare it all in an effort to do her part, and she did it more than once. Cheers, Honeysuckle.

Twice Told Tales (1963)

JANUARY 29, 2012

GENRE: ANTHOLOGY

SOURCE: DVD (ONLINE RENTAL)

Not even a two hour runtime could keep me from being excited about Twice Told Tales, another anthology in which Vincent Price stars in every segment, but with stories based on Nathaniel Hawthorne instead of Poe. Since the Poe stuff tended to get a bit similar as time went on, I figured this would be a refreshing change of pace. And it’s pretty good, but a couple of things weigh it down, so that length ultimately DID start to get to me a bit, especially since the third segment was the weakest.

In fact it goes in order; the first story was my favorite, the 2nd was pretty good, and then the 3rd was kind of dull. Interestingly, the first was the least horrific of them all, depicting a sort of standard “Fountain of Youth” story in which things don’t turn out that well for everyone. There are only three people in the segment, and thus Price rarely leaves the frame (another reason it was my favorite). I was impressed with the old age makeup given to him and Sebastian Cabot (though his colored beard was a bit silly looking); in fact since I didn’t look at the date I was actually a bit surprised how aged he was – I knew they had done SOMETHING but not to what extent (and they did a pretty good job of guessing what he’d look like in 20 years). It’s also the only tale that benefits from the film’s rather bland style; director Sidney Salkow was from TV, and it shows – even for an early 60s film it’s rather static and “small”, a far cry from the lush colors and lavish sets of the Corman/Poe pictures. It’s also at the 1.66:1 ratio, unlike those films which were all 2.35 scope if memory serves. As it was clearly trying to emulate those other films (Tales Of Terror most obviously), the difference sticks out – you’ll never forget that this isn’t Corman. I sort of love the irony there – “It looks cheap compared to Roger Corman movies!” – but at least in this first story, where only three characters spend the entire time in one of two tiny rooms, it fits.

The second story is almost as good, and possibly would be the best if it was fleshed out a bit more. Price plays a scientist who has treated his daughter with a rare toxin that prevents her from touching anyone (they will die if she does), because his wife left him for another man and this is how he chose to deal with it. Of course, she falls in love with someone, and the young man gets too close and discovers the secret. Needless to say, things don’t work out too well for anyone, including a poor little lizard that gets offed when she is asked to prove that she has the deadly touch. Here’s where the film’s limited visual flair starts to hurt – the garden that houses the deadly plant is colorful, but fake looking, and too small to boot. For a plant that can kill anyone who touches it, it’s just sitting there in the middle of a yard – it seems like it would be difficult NOT to touch it if you wanted to get across. However, I did enjoy the rather tragic approach; and Price is pretty great at toeing the line between a mad scientist villain and a rather sad man who seemingly did really love his daughter but had a messed up way of showing it (fans of Repo might enjoy this one; it mirrors Nathan and Shilo’s relationship in some ways).

But then the third sort of drags the whole thing down. It’s based on Hawthorne’s novel “The House Of Seven Gables” (the other two were based on short stories from a collection of the same name), and even though it’s the longest of the three it still feels a bit rushed and underdeveloped. The whole thing is about a curse imposed by the house’s original owner, but he/his story barely appear in the proceedings, severely limiting the mystery angle. Too much of it is given over to our heroine (Beverly Garland) wandering around the house or hearing noises, and Price only really gets to cut loose in the film’ final 5 minutes or so. The story – an old house, inheritance, curses – also feels the most like one of his Poe films, which doesn’t help the feeling that this could have been done better. Oddly, Price actually starred in the first full length film based on the novel (as a different character); I’m curious if that one is more successful.

The FX are pretty fun. The first story has the always enjoyable “fade in/out to show aging or decomposing” effect, and it’s above average in its depiction, and the second has some fun “acid touch” moments. And the third makes up for its sluggish pace with the finale – bleeding walls, a scythe to the head (!), and a wacky skeleton arm that chokes Price. I assume it’s the same arm that we see in what passes for the movie’s wraparound segments, which is just a skeleton arm turning pages in a book as Price (as a narrator, not one of his characters) reads some text and basically plays us out. As wrap-arounds go, it’s pretty much one of the lamest, but the movie is long enough – anything more in depth would just be torture. Even Creepshow wasn’t this long and that had five segments AND a real wraparound story!

MGM’s DVD is nothing to write blog paragraphs about; the image is often over-compressed, and it’s non-anamorphic to boot. It’s annoying enough on any movie, but for 1.66 films it’s twice as obnoxious because most HDTVs can’t zoom in properly – you either have to watch it “windowboxed” (black bars on all four sides) or zoom in and crop the top and bottom. The trailer is the only supplement, and it’s a lousy one since it spoils the end of “Gables” along with most of the other “action” highlights. I’d say “it’s a good thing that they don’t do this anymore” but a very high profile, much loved movie that’s in theaters now had a trailer more or less built around the film’s closing moments (I won’t spoil it by saying the film’s title, but if you know what I’m talking about – I hope you stayed through the credits for a little bit of a bonus “epilogue”). Curious if anyone ever actually cares about such things though (oddly enough, before said film the same actor was in a trailer for another movie and that spot actually spoiled his death!), perhaps without the context it doesn’t register as a major spoiler? Eh, who cares.

Anyway, back to this movie: Starts off good but declines; I'd recommend watching in chunks.

What say you?

Transit (2012)

Let's just be honest here; Transit sucked. It's packed with actors that we love, had an interesting enough premise, but it was just a sloppy mess of plot devices strung together to achieve a running time.

The plot involves an ex-con traveling with his family through the bayou country in an SUV, when they run afoul of a gang of bank robbers. The bank robbers end up stashing their stash of cash in the family truckster to avoid capture, and then spend the rest of the movie trying to get it back.

Of course the problem with that premise is that trying to get the money back involves a lot of nonsensical, cliche, and just plain annoying actions on all of the characters parts, and in the end, what could have been a cool heist flick starring some cool actors just turned out to be tedious and dull.

We obviously didn't like the movie, and don't recommend it to you, but in the spirit of fairness, here are 5 things about Transit that we did like.

Jim Caviezel- He's an awesome actor that never seems to get his due, You wanna see how bad ass he can be, check him out in CBS's Person of Interest.

James Frain- Another hell-of-an-actor, especially when he's playing a bad guy, ala True Blood. He really is menacingly fun to watch.

The Milf.

Michael from LOST.

Diora Baird and the curious case of the juggs that just wont quit.

The Master Says- D+ Aside from those redeeming factors, Transit is a run of the mill, by the numbers thriller that wastes its potential and isn't memorable enough to even be forgettable. It's well made and well cast, just not well thought out or executed.

Kuroneko (1968)

JANUARY 28, 2012

GENRE: ASIAN, GHOST

SOURCE: BLU-RAY (ONLINE RENTAL)

The most common misconception about Criterion releases is that they are supposed to be the "best" movies of all time, which people continue to claim despite the fact that neither Citizen Kane, Casablanca, Gone With The Wind, The Godfather, Shawshank Redemption, or Dr. Giggles have been given the treatment. No, Criterion releases films that are significant in their genre or the whole of filmmaking, which is why Armageddon is part of the collection: name a better example of "dumb, big, and loud" summer blockbuster movie-making. So I was excited for Kuroneko (translated to The Black Cat), because I don't see too many Asian horror films from before the 90s, and with Criterion behind it I figured it would be quite memorable and exciting.

Well, I can only guess that at the time it was pretty amazing. It's not a bad movie by any means, but it's not particularly involving, either. There are potentially exciting plot points in the film, but everything is drawn out and under-developed, as if it was a campfire tale of sorts that got stretched out to feature length without much further development of the story.

The basic plot is this: a woman and her daughter-in-law are raped and killed by a traveling group of Samurai in the opening sequence, and then some time later their ghosts are seen killing any Samurai that crosses their path. So it's sort of like a rape-revenge tale but without specific victims. I couldn't even tell if the guys they kill were part of the original group, but since they have vowed to take down ALL Samurai, it doesn't really matter to the movie's plot. I (the viewer), however, DO have a problem with this - it instantly turns the victims into villains. At least if they were seeking revenge on their specific attackers it would work, even at the eventual point where the line between victim and attacker becomes a bit blurred (a staple in these sort of things). Here that line is crossed pretty much in the 2nd scene - for all we know these Samurai were perfectly decent men. At least Paul Kersey was still taking on thugs and lowlifes if not necessarily the ones who killed his wife, you know?

Plus it drove me nuts that the movie hinges on our hero (who isn't even introduced until the movie's nearly half over) not recognizing his own mother or wife. He sees the resemblance, but it's not until he's banging the wife that it finally sinks in. And he fails to recognize his mother not once but TWICE during the movie's narrative. Once he understands that it's them, certain plot points result in his mother turning against him, and near the end of the film she shows up saying that she's a witch of some sort. Her face isn't that much different, but he again doesn't realize that it's his mom until a particular defect on her person is revealed. Come on, man! Or at least, come on, makeup man! Make her look different enough to fool the audience as well.

That said, I do dig the basic idea of a guy being ordered to investigate/kill the "monster" that's been killing his brethren only to discover it's the ghosts of his mother and his wife. Because of their code of honor and all that, it's not a simple "I can't do it, I know them" type situation - he is sworn to kill them. Additionally, they themselves are sworn to kill HIM, as he is a Samurai and they have vowed to take them all down. LAYERS, man. But again, this stuff is so drawn out, and partially based on our acceptance that a guy can't recognize his own family (even when their cat shows up he's like "Ah, I had a cat that looked like that with my wife who looked exactly like you. Weird!"), that it never felt as compelling as it should. The passage of time was also an issue; years go by in between their murder and the appearance of their ghosts, but we only discover that later.

Beautiful looking film, however. The scope widescreen image mixed with true black & white photography just looks gorgeous, and director Kaneto Shindô finds a lot of wonderfully striking shots: snow fall on the forest setting, the long opening shot of our band of evil Samurai making their way through the woods (and their matter of fact exit later), and others all made me glad I was watching this on Blu-ray. The bits of violence were also surprisingly graphic for their day, with the ghosts tearing at the victims' jugulars. The story may have been a bit too loose for my liking, but I never felt the need to take my eyes off the screen, either.

As this was a rental I cannot judge the merit of the booklet that comes along with the retail version, which has essays and the like that would probably help me understand its significance a little bit better. On the disc we get an interview with Tadao Sato, a Japanese critic that DID help clarify some things for me, such as the fact that Shindo was pretty much the only one at that time who would dare paint the noble Samurai in a negative light. I also liked that ghost movies were a staple of the Japanese summer movie season, particularly after this last summer in which not a single horror film was released wide from May to July (unless you count Priest, which was more of an action movie). He also provides some info on the actors and Shindo himself, and seems like a pretty jovial, well-versed guy (he also discusses cat psychology, which was fitting as my beloved Butters was sitting on the couch with me, purring happily). There's also an hour long interview with Shindo himself; I tried watching it but as it was about his whole career including story details I gave up; this is the first of his films that I've seen and didn't feel like having the others spoiled. Plus I just got other stuff to do; I had mixed feelings about the movie, no use sitting around for an hour trying to learn more about it.

I'd love to hear some takes on this one though, perhaps with someone more familiar with 1960s Japanese horror films - is this one of the better ones, in your opinion? Is there a title you think would make a better "entry point" for a n00b like me? And do they all involve cats?

What say you?

Worth Mentioning - Want to see some trouble?

We watch several movies a week. Every Friday, we'll talk a little about some of the movies we watched that we felt were Worth Mentioning.

This week's viewings lead Cody to celebrate space-based exploitation while Jay visits Prison Wives.

FORBIDDEN WORLD / MUTANT (1982)

After being awoken from cryosleep to deal with some enemy spacecraft, intergalactic troubleshooter ("the best troubleshooter in the Federation") Mike Colby is informed by his robot sidekick that their ship has been re-routed to the remote planet Xarbia in response to a report of a lab accident. This dashes Colby's hopes of finally getting back home. "Maybe next year, sir."

Colby arrives at the research facility on Xarbia - inhabited only by a couple scientists, their research assistants, and a few guys on security and custodial duties - to find that the bacterial genetic engineering experiments done there have created a new lifeform called Subject 20. Subject 20 has massacred the lab animals and set itself up into an incubator as it continues mutating. What it may become, the doctors have no idea.

Colby's solution is to destroy Subject 20 with acid and move on... But a beautiful lab assistant convinces him to stay and let Subject 20 live a while longer. Mere minutes longer proves to be too much, as Subject 20 gets loose in the facility and starts picking people off one-by-one.

Forbidden World, a.k.a. Mutant, is obviously a "mockbuster" (in the parlance of our times) of Alien, with some Attack of the Crab Monsters and The Thing from Another World mixed in, but rises above the standard cheap knockoffs with style, low budget ingenuity, and best of all, by fully embracing the fact that it's an exploitation movie.

The style comes from director Allan Holzman, who shows real talent, proving that producer Roger Corman was right to let him direct a feature. Holzman makes interesting choices and sets the look of the film apart from others of its type by mixing the shadows with a lot of colorful lighting. His choice of composer also sets it apart, getting a very cool score from his new wave rock band member girlfriend Susan Justin.

My favorite example of low budget ingenuity in the film is in its set design. The movie was shot in and around Corman's office building, with the hallways given a spacey look by covering them with egg cartons and styrofoam food containers. This is obvious when you really look at the walls, but it's also awesome.

The exploitation element is clear as soon as the title sequence, when the camera focuses on a woman's ass as she walks down a hallway. This woman is one of the two beautiful, provocatively dressed research assistants, Barbara Glaser and Tracy Baxter, played by June Chadwick and Dawn Dunlap. On his first night at the facility, Colby is seduced by Barbara. The next morning, he nearly has sex with Tracy during her daily nude steambath. (This despite the fact that her boyfriend, played by Valley Girl's Michael Bowen, was just turned into a puddle of goo by the mutant the night before.) Later in the film, Tracy gets attacked and is helped by Barbara, both getting mutant goo on them in the process. The next time we see them, Barbara and Tracy are having a serious discussion while showering together. Absolute genius.

I just rented the movie, the director's cut Mutant version, but after watching it I had to put it on my "must own" list.

A story is told on the audio commentary that Roger Corman, distressed that this "serious science fiction film" was getting laughs at a test screening, walked up to a laughing man in the audience and punched him in the face to get him to stop... I know I've heard the story of a producer punching a laughing audience member before, but I'm not sure it was about this movie and it wasn't necessarily even about Roger Corman. Did producers used to make a habit of punching people at test screenings?

DEAD SPACE (1991)

Roger Corman produced several remakes of his own productions in the '90s, and among them was a remake of Forbidden World/Mutant.

The story was given a rewrite and its third title, but the remake doesn't stray far from the beats of the original over the course of its 72 minutes. Unfortunately, it lacks the style and gleeful exploitation of its predecessor. There's no steambath, no shared shower, no skimpy clothing or inappropriate horniness. The closest it gets to the first movie's level is a brief sexual dream sequence. Instead of colorful lighting, there's bright white light blasting through rooms that are smokier than a Tony Scott set.

There are a couple notable cast members: the Beastmaster himself Marc Singer as the hero and Breaking Bad's Bryan Cranston as a scientist.

When Singer's character is woken from his cryosleep at the beginning to deal with some enemy spacecraft, the same battle footage from Forbidden World/Mutant is used, which was actually stock footage from yet another Corman production, Battle Beyond the Stars.


Jay's mention:

PRISON WIVES (2009) - TV show

Prison Wives is a show which ran for one season back in 2009. It tells the story of women who marry men that are incarcerated, mostly for murder, and who usually have sentences of life without parole.

It's not a mind-blowing show and the setup gets old fast, but that was also brought on by me blowing through the entire run of 12 episodes or so within a span of three days. The basic setup is: woman tells how she fell for incarcerated man, man's crime is re-enacted, woman visits man in prison but the camera isn't allowed in, woman talks about wanting to get him out on parole, cops tell us he is a terrible person.

What I learned from this show is that some women will drive to the prisons and sleep in their cars the night before visitations because if they don't the spots will be taken up ahead of time. Other women will move constantly, uprooting their children, to be closer to the inmate as he is transferred from prison to prison. Most of the ladies believe their man are changed from the crime they committed and a lot of them do their own legal work in order to get new trials or parole.

Most of the men are in for murder, but a few aren't. Almost all of the cases display women who met their man AFTER he was locked up. There are a few that differ from both scenarios. In one case, an Oklahoma man faces 60+ years for cooking and selling meth and gets into a relationship with an ex-girlfriend whom he almost married years ago. Another has life without parole for armed robbery, but his wife does a great job of investigating and it almost looks like she is going to prove he is innocent. In the end, though, we aren't sure, but he does get a few charges thrown off his record. These two stories were the easiest to relate to. Some of them are just bizarre, such as the one episode that features a man on the outside and a woman on the inside. The guy comes off as more than a bit strange, and the details of the murder she was involved in are some of the more sickening.

This isn't an amazing show, but it was definitely an educational look at women who fall for men in prison. I recommend checking out a few episodes as it is streaming on Netflix.