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Ladies and Gentlemen, A Word from Werner Herzog

Dr. Cole Abaius — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 07:31:50 +0000

Werner Herzog is crazy and brilliant and German. He’s had a random and illustrious career which has taken him to South America, Bear Country, The End of the World and now lands him squarely in New Orleans. The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans – a remake that’s not a remake with a title that looks like it should either involve Martin Lawrence and John Cusack as buddy cops or be stamped on the front of a DVD in the dollar bin – already has buzz surrounding it because 1) Herzog has never seen the film his title borrows from and 2) there is some crazy shit in the trailer.

I was lucky enough to see the flick last week (to the break of dawn), and while a review is forthcoming, I thought I’d share some things that the esteemed director had to say on some of the more questionable elements.

Feel free to smoke from your lucky crack pipe either before, during, or after.

Or all three.

DIRECTOR WERNER HERZOG’S STATEMENT:

ON THE FILM’S TITLE AND SHOOTING IN NEW ORLEANS:

It does not bespeak great wisdom to call the film The Bad Lieutenant, and I only agreed to make the film after William (Billy) Finkelstein, the screenwriter, who had seen a film of the same name from the early nineties, had given me a solemn oath that this was not a remake at all. But the film industry has its own rationale, which in this case was the speculation of starting some sort of a franchise. I have no problem with this. Nevertheless, the pedantic branch of academia, the so called “film-studies,” in its attempt to do damage to cinema, will be ecstatic to find a small reference to that earlier film here and there, though it will fail to do the same damage that academia — in the name of literary theory — has done to poetry, which it has pushed to the brink of extinction. Cinema, so far, is more robust. I call upon the theoreticians of cinema to go after this one. Go for it, losers.

What the producers accepted was my suggestion to make the title more specific—Port of Call: New Orleans, and now the film’s title combines both elements. Originally, the screenplay was written with New York as a backdrop, and again the rationale of the producers set in by moving it to New Orleans, since shooting there would mean a substantial tax benefit. It was a move I immediately welcomed. In New Orleans it was not only the levees that breeched, but it was civility itself: there was a highly visible breakdown of good citizenship and order. Looting was rampant, and quite a number of policemen did not report for duty; some of them took brand new Cadillacs from their abandoned dealerships and vanished onto dry ground in neighboring states. Less fancy cars disappeared only a few days later. This collapse of morality was matched by the neglect of the government in Washington, and it is hard to figure out whether this was just a form of stupidity or outright cynicism. I am deeply grateful that the police department in New Orleans had the magnanimity and calibre to support the shooting of the film without any reservation. They know — as we all do — that the overwhelming majority of their force performed in a way that deserves nothing but admiration.

ON FILM NOIR AND NICOLAS CAGE:

New Orleans. This was fertile ground to stage a film noir, or rather a new form of film noir where evil was not just the most natural occurrence. It was the bliss of evil which pervades everything in this film. Nicolas Cage followed me in this regard with blind faith. We had met only once at Francis Ford Coppola’s, his uncle’s, winery in Napa Valley almost three decades ago when Nicolas was an adolescent, and I was about to set out for the Peruvian jungle in order to move a ship over a mountain. Now, we wondered why and how we had eluded each other ever since, why we had never worked together, and it became instantly clear that we would do this film together, or neither one of us would do it. There was an urge in both of us to join forces.

Film noir always is a consequence of the Climate of Time; it needs a growing sense of insecurity, of depression. The literature of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett is a child of the Great Depression, with film noir as its sibling. I sensed something coming in the months leading up to the making of the film: a breakdown which was so obvious in New Orleans, and half a year before finances and the economy collapsed, the signs were written on the wall. Even films like Batman turned out to be much darker than anyone expected. What finally woke me up was a banality: when attempting to lease a car I was confronted by the dealership with the unpleasant news that my credit score was abysmal, and hence I had to pay a much higher monthly rate. Why is that, I asked — I had always paid my bills, I had never owed money to anyone. That was exactly my problem: I had never borrowed money, had hardly ever used a credit card, and my bank account was not in the red. But the system punished you for not owing money, and rewarded those who did. I realized that the entire system was sick, that this could not go well, and I instantly withdrew money I had invested in stock of Lehman Brothers while a bank manager, ecstatic, with shuddering urgency, was trying to persuade me to buy even more of it.

ON THE SCREENPLAY:

As to the screenplay: it is William Finkelstein’s text, but as usual during my work as a director it kept shifting, demanding its own life, and I invented new scenes such as a new beginning and a new end, the iguanas, the “dancing” soul (actually this is Finkelstein’s, who plays a very convincing gangster in the film), the childhood story of pirate’s treasure, and a spoon of sterling silver. I also deleted quite a number of scenes where the protagonist takes drugs, simply because I personally dislike the culture of drugs. Sometimes changes entered to everyone’s surprise. To give one example: Nicolas knew that sometimes after a scene was shot I would not shut down the camera if I sensed there was more to it, a gesture, an odd laughter, or an “afterthought” from a man left alone with all the weight of a rolling camera, the lights, the sound recording, the expectant eyes of a crew upon him. I simply would not call “cut” and leave him exposed and suspended under the pressure of the moment. He, the Bad Lieutenant, after restless deeds of evil, takes refuge in a cheap hotel room, and has an unexpected encounter with the former prisoner whom he had rescued from drowning in a flooded prison tract at the beginning of the film. The young man, now a waiter delivering room service, notices there is something wrong with the Lieutenant, and offers to get him out of there. I kept the camera rolling, but nothing more came from Nicolas. “What, for Heaven’s sake, could I have added,” he asked. And without thinking for a second I said, “Do fish have dreams?” We shot the scene once more with this line, and it looked good and strange and dark. But it required being anchored in yet an additional scene at the very end of the film, with both men, distant in dreams leaning against the glass of a huge aquarium where sharks and rays and large fish move slowly as if they indeed were caught in the dreams of a distant and incomprehensible world.

I love cinema for moments like this.

Editor’s Note: I do, too.

What do you think?

Daily Diversion: Titular Lines

Dr. Cole Abaius — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 06:13:25 +0000

Not a bad little showing here, but I’m missing where someone tells me to, “Forget it Jake, it’s Chinatown.”

What do you think? How many of these flicks have you seen? What’s your favorite?

Kevin Carr’s Weekly Report Card for 11.06.09

Kevin Carr — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 22:34:36 +0000

A CHRISTMAS CAROL

Studio: Disney

Rated: PG for scary sequences and images.

Starring: Jim Carrey, Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, Bob Hoskins and Robin Wright Penn

Directed by: Robert Zemeckis

What it’s about: If you don’t know this by now, you should be barred from the holiday season worldwide.

What I liked: By this time, you should know exactly what to expect when you get a Robert Zemeckis motion-capture film. Like The Polar Express and Beowulf, A Christmas Carol is heavy on the effects and virtual camerawork and relatively weak on the character and plot.

We’ve seen this story adapted so many times in so many forms – from feature films to re-tellings on our favorite 80s sit com – that there is almost no unique way to approach it. The uniqueness of this version is that the full-blown CGI extravaganza hasn’t been done yet. In this sense, it does work. The visuals are pretty cool and the IMAX 3D experience is a sight and worth it for no other reason that you won’t be able to recreate it at home.

What I didn’t: There are a lot of reasons to dump on this movie. If you don’t like Jim Carrey’s cartoonish acting, you’ll not like it in this movie. (Although I will admit that he is directed down in a good chunk of the film.) Also, because the movie is shot with motion capture technology, it allows Carrey to play all forms of Scrooge as well as the three Ghosts. Likewise, Gary Oldman plays several roles, including Bob Cratchit and Jacob Marley. Again, the coolness factor in this respect tends to overpower the story.

Movies like The Polar Express are famous for making CGI humans that are permanently camped in the uncanny valley. The human emulations have gotten better in this film, but they’re still in that valley. Most of the work has been done to make Carrey’s characters look more realistic while Gary Oldman just gives me the willies throughout.

A lot of people will say this version is completely unnecessary, and also pretty terrifying for a young child to watch, and they wouldn’t be wrong.

Who is gonna like this movie: Families… as long as they aren’t easily scared.

THE FOURTH KIND

Studio: Universal

Rated: PG-13 for violent/disturbing images, some terror, thematic elements and brief sexuality.

Starring: Milla Jovovich, Elias Koteas, Will Patton, Hakeem Kae-Kazim and Corey Johnson

Directed by: Olatunde Osunsanmi

What it’s about: Milla Jovovich plays Dr. Abigail Tyler, a psychologist from Nome, Alaska, who is investigating sleep disorders. After putting her patients under hypnosis, she discovers that these cases are possibly reflections from UFO abductions. The more she digs, the more she learns about the terrifying reality of abduction cases, which eventually hit close to home.

What I liked: I will admit that The Fourth Kind does capture a certain level of suspense and atmosphere. It’s pretty damned intense in some scenes, and the set-up is intriguing if not entirely thought out.

What I didn’t: The Fourth Kind really pushes the whole “based on actual case studies,” to a fault. It really rams this concept down your throat, going as far to presenting the video footage alongside the reenactments. Yet every time something interesting is happening, the case studies footage gets distorted so we can’t really see anything. Hmmmm… isn’t that convenient.

I like a solid alien abduction movie, although there are very few of them that have been made. This one just tries too hard. The set-up is interesting, having actress Milla Jovovich walk right up to the camera in an early scene and swear that everything’s real. But this hook is the only thing keeping the movie alive. All the other elements that make a movie good – characters, story, plot, empathy, heart and soul – are noticeably absent.

Maybe if rookie director Olatunde Osunsanmi had spent more time crafting a decent story instead of reminding the audience that these are “actual case studies,” we would have a better film.

Who is gonna like this movie: People who though Paranormal Activity was a documentary.

THE BOX

Studio: Warner Bros.

Rated: PG-13 for thematic elements, some violence and disturbing images.

Starring: Cameron Diaz, James Marsden, Frank Langella, Basil Hoffman and Gillian Jacobs

Directed by: Richard Kelly

What it’s about: In 1976, a mysterious stranger shows up on a couple’s doorstep with an offer. They are given a box with a red button on it. If they push the button, someone they don’t know somewhere in the world will die, and they will be given a million dollars. The couple struggles with whether or not to push the button, which has greater ramifications on their lives – and the lives of everyone around them – than they ever would have thought.

What I liked: First off, let me say that this movie is not for everyone. It’s waaaaaay out there, and that’s saying something even for Richard Kelly fans.

The movie has a brilliant set-up, courtesy of writer Richard Matheson’s original short story. (If you don’t know who Richard Matheson is, he wrote about a third of the original Twilight Zone teleplays.) So, it’s not surprising that the film has a whole Twilight Zone feel to it. About half-way through the film, it starts to go bat-shit crazy, which might alienate some of the audience, but Kelly is fearless about this.

Ultimately, The Box is a bizarre morality tale that sets up a very slick atmospheric feel. It should make you think about what you would do in a similar situation, and it delivers a story that really isn’t like anything else out there right now… for better or for worse.

Kelly manages to capture the feeling of 1970s with the cinematography, production design, wardrobe and sound design. In a strange way, it feels more like a movie that was shot 30 years ago rather than in the modern era, and that’s really pretty neat in my book.

What I didn’t: I’ll admit this movie is not without its faults. Cameron Diaz is a beacon of bad acting in this movie, slathering on a southern accent so thick, you’d swear she was pretending to be from the deep south. Were it not for Frank Langella and James Marsden to temper her, the movie would crumble from an acting standpoint.

There are several moments in the film that drag, which seems to be a trademark of director Richard Kelly, but they only show up once in a while.

Some folks will take issue with the story and its Twilight Zone elements, but I was okay with them. The film kept me interested throughout, and that’s pretty rare for a movie to do nowadays.

Who is gonna like this movie: People looking for a different brand of thriller.

Fat Guys at the Movies Ep. 139 – The Fat Kind

Kevin Carr — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 12:00:17 +0000

On This Week’s Show: Kevin and Neil say good-bye to scary movies (well, not really, considering two are released this week) and decide to ring in the Christmas season early. They stare at some goats, grumble about not being allowed to open a box, visit the uncanny valley and debate whether Kevin is spoiling the viewing experience for The Fourth Kind. They also lay down a Fat Guy Five about awesome UFO movies, and Kevin gloats over Neil’s not-so-accurate box office predictions from last week.

Films Reviewed this Week: A Christmas Carol, The Fourth Kind, The Men Who Stare At Goats and The Box

Download this Episode

Episode Schedule:

Segment 1 [8:50] – Reviews of The Box and The Men Who Stare At Goats

Segment 2 [10:40] – Review of A Christmas Carol and The Fourth Kind

Segment 3 [12:45] – Box office gloatation and the Fat Guy Five: Five Awesome UFO Movies

Segment 4 [6:35] – DVD Round-Up: Neil’s picks are G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, North by Northwest on Blu-ray, Watchmen Ultimate Cut and National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation on Blu-ray; Kevin’s picks include The Rocky Undisputed Collection, Say Anything on Blu-ray, Disney Treasures: Zorro Seasons 1 and 2, Two Girls and a Guy on Blu-ray, Eleventh Hour, Aliens in the Attic, Love Actually, The Dead, Mickey’s Magical Christmas and I Love You Beth Cooper; Review Recap and a look ahead to next week.

Next Week’s Show:

Kevin and Neil get apocalyptic with 2012 and Pirate Radio

Show Links:

Kevin’s guest appearance on CriterionCast, talking about Terry Gilliam’s Brazil
FSR’s Weekly Report Card for A Christmas Carol, The Fourth Kind and The Box

Give the Fat Guys some love:

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Email the Fat Guys
Follow Kevin on Twitter (@kevincarr)
Follow Neil on Twitter (@rejects)

Fantastic Fest Interview: Ride with ‘Broncos’ Author Dr. Ronald Chevalier

Adam Sweeney — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 02:23:09 +0000

Press junkets can tend to be a drag. Having said that, we were particularly excited to get to interview Dr. Ronald Chevalier, most notable for his extensive corpus of stately science fiction novels. Chevalier was in Austin for the premiere of Gentlemen Broncos at Fantastic Fest, where actor Jemaine Clement portrays him.

Chris Tilly from IGN UK and I teamed up during a chat outside to talk with Chevalier about the film, the state of modern video simulations and the joys of science fiction.

Adam Sweeney: Can you give me three items that I could write a book about?

[In that deep, faux-British accent] Wellll….The conflict, the deep inner conflict between human and robot has always been a fascinating problem and one I’ve explored in forty-three novels. I still don’t think I’ve solved that conflict.

Chris Tilly: What are your favorite sci-fi films, Doctor?

Well, as you probably know, I abhor cinema. I loathe it. I wish I could enjoy it. My favorite cinema would be anything featuring the wonderful Jane Seymour. I originally chose her to play Gorgana, the Cyborg Queen. She turned it down because of her commitments to “Dr. Quinn” at the time. I won’t allow it to be made until she has agreed to do the part.

AS: Have you heard of any rumors of Kevin James being the lead in your next film, Bisontennial?

Who is this Kevin James?

AS: Paul Blart.

I am sorry. I do not step inside the multiplex.

CT: Do you play video games at all?

I don’t think of them as video games. I think of them as simulators. And, yes, I have been in a few simulations. Do you know Geo Defense on iPod? That is one I recommend. You defend a base of lives and you have laser types to protect bases.

AS: Speaking of saving lives, you’re a doctor…

I am an honorary doctor. I got my doctorate from a university I started online.

AS: Have you considered going into the medical field to cure the masses?

[Scoffs] Again, I harken back to the cyborg field. The medical practice would be helped with robotic body parts, particularly noses. Robotic noses.

AS: It’s an important science.

It’s an important sense! I dedicate whole paragraphs to the particular fragrance of a character.

AS: If you came up for science fiction nicknames for us, what would they be?

Chris Tilly would be…Chris Till-odious. And you are?

AS: Adam Sweeney.

I would call you The Proton Kid.

Be sure to check out our interview with Jemaine Clement.

Fantastic Fest Interview: Ride with ‘Broncos’ Star Jemaine Clement

Adam Sweeney — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 01:41:44 +0000

Press junkets can tend to be a drag. Having said that, we were particularly excited to get to interview Jemaine Clement, most notable for his hit band/television show “Flight of the Conchords.” Clement was in Austin for the premiere of Gentlemen Broncos at Fantastic Fest, where he steals the show as Dr. Ronald Chevalier, a critically acclaimed science fiction author that has run out of fresh ideas.

Chris Tilly from IGN UK and I teamed up during a chat outside to talk with Clement about the film, the pressure that comes with working on “Flight of the Conchords” and the recent news that FOTC will be featured on a Rock Band game in the future. Along the way, we ran into a scheming crow while the humble and always clever Clement let us into the world of Dr. Chevalier.

Chris Tilly: What was it like seeing the film last night?

I didn’t see but about the last twenty minutes. We all went and had a dinner reunion because we all live in different places

[As Jemaine speaks, a crow approaches the table.]

Look at this ominous crow just spying. He’s probably from The Omen. He does have a beautiful color though. He’s sort of blue. I don’t know why he’s so angry.

Adam Sweeney: He’s probably going to steal all of the good parts of this interview. [Laughter]

Yeah, he’ll take it to a witch. [Laughs]

AS: How did you prepare for this role?

I spent a lot of time looking at pictures of authors because the words are already there in the script. You’ve got how they talk, how they walk and what they were. Jared and Jerusha [Hess] are so specific about the characters. All I could decide was my hairstyle and my voice, just a little bit.

CT: As a Brit, I was hearing a little bit of James Mason and Michael York.

Michael York was a big influence. I am pretty sure Jared wanted Michael York to play the part. When you read it, it describes Michael York. He’s a guy in his 60s with silver hair in the script. So I didn’t really envision myself playing it when I read the script.

CT: Is it hard to do the voice?

Yeah, I could hardly do it last night at the screening. I was like, ‘how does it go?’ You have to imagine a plum is in your throat.

CT: Were you looking for something different than your “Conchords” character?

I guess so.

CT: What was it about this script that particularly drew your attention?

Well, do you read scripts?

CT: Yeah.

Then you’ve probably read scripts of movies that are made. There’s another level of scripts that aren’t being made and they’re quite bad. But I don’t think I read them well. Sometimes I think they’re going to be terrible, and they’re excellent. This one was just really different in their detail for the characters. I know this style of filmmaking isn’t for everyone. It’s in a different universe. The characters aren’t quite real. I really liked that. So many films are just boring real life versions. This takes real life and adds to it. But some people say, ‘That’s not real. It wouldn’t happen.” But that’s what makes me like this script.

AS: They tend to highlight the eccentricities of people.

Right but they’re real. Like the guy who makes the films in the movie. Jared has a friend who does that stuff. He makes these films with terrible lasers. He does hundreds of these things. A lot of real life is in there. Some people think it’s too much. I think it’s perfect.

AS: You’ve written before. Do you have any plans on writing a screenplay in the future?

Yeah. I am working on one right now. At the time, I could really relate to Chevalier because we were right in the middle of Conchords and writing for the next season. I was like, ‘I have to come up with twenty more songs and ten ideas!’

CT: Was it nice playing such a bastard?

Yeah, it was fun. I try to make him sympathetic. I wanted him to just be a guy who tries to make people inspired. But it was really fun picking on the kids in the class.

CT: That look you gave the girl was great.

You mean the troll girl? [Laughs]

CT: Yeah. You could feel the tragic side of him. Could you do a spin-off of Chevalier?

I don’t know. [Speaking in the Dr. Chevalier voice] It would be very interesting. [And back to normal] But I’d like to see a Bronco and Brutus one. Those guys would be great to team up.

CT: Well, we know Sam Rockwell can handle two characters.

Right, Moon. I haven’t seen that yet. I am so interested in it that I couldn’t help but read things about it. They were hidden things.

AS: How have you dealt with the success of “Flight of the Conchords” given that the joke is–

That we’re not successful?

AS: Right, but then you have a party at The Highball for this film and you’re doing a reading at Book People.

Isn’t Book People a really small store? [Laughter] I wouldn’t take that as a huge success to be in a small store, right?

AS: Well, I am sure it will be packed, right? [Laughter]

I was actually quite nervous doing the reading last night. I haven’t done anything like that since school plays.

AS: If it goes bad you can start reading from The Crucible.

[Laughs] Only certain people watch the show, but I mean, I can walk around this place and nobody will recognize me. It’s only a small subsection of the TV watching populace.

CT: What’s the status of the “Conchords?”

We don’t know yet. We may do a short season or a sort of special. Like a Christmas special sort of thing. Maybe nothing.

CT: A friend of mine was interviewing Rhys Darby the other day in London and he was talking about the possibility of a movie.

He’s uncontrollable. [Laughter] We created a monster. But we’ve been thinking about a movie. But it goes in stages. I’ve been doing this for five years and there are times where I say, ‘I am never going to do this again. I’m not going to sing another silly song!’ Then time passes and we say, ‘ya wanna do another? Hmm, maybe…’ It goes on, I do it and enjoy it, hate it. Never going to do it again. Do it again. I think of Larry David and how each season of ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ you have to take it one at a time because a hundred episodes is daunting. Right now I am in ‘I’m not going to do it again’ mode.

CT: I think of all the directions you could take into a film.

By all means, email them to me. [Laughter]

AS: Would you consider a dramatic role?

I love comedy but it’s more as a fan of comedy. That’s how I got into it, watching it. But I like taking on challenges. I wish I had come up with a more interesting word than challenges. [Laughter] But when you’re scared of something, you have a reason to do it.

AS: It motivates you.

Yeah. You take steps to get over it. But yeah, I would do that. I haven’t been actively looking for a dramatic part though.

CT: I had a question about Rock Band. You guys are going to be on Rock Band in the future, right? Do you know what songs are going to be on there?

We’re open to suggestions. I’d love to see what the results are. I hope they don’t choose obscure ones. But I would love to get the payout for the “Stairway to Heaven” royalties.

AS: We will talk to Jimmy Page about giving you that part.

He has enough money already.

AS: Well, thanks for the interview.

Sure thing.

Be sure to check out our interview with Dr. Ronald Chevalier himself.

This Week In DVD: November 3rd

Rob Hunter — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 18:31:52 +0000

Rob Hunter loves movies. He also loves working as Roger Thornhill’s personal drycleaner… between the dust-ups and the crop dusters, Thornhill has lots of suits in need of cleaning. These two joys come together in the form of cash money payments that he receives every week and immediately uses to buy more DVDs. So join us each week as he takes a look at new DVD releases and gives his highly unqualified opinion as to which titles are worth BUYing, which are better off as RENTals, and which should be AVOIDed at all costs.

Click on any of the titles below to magically head over to Amazon.com and pick up the DVD. And don’t forget to check out Neil Miller’s hilariously titled This Week In Blu-ray column for reviews on the latest high definition Blu-ray releases!

The Edge of Darkness: The Complete BBC Series

Pitch: A dead daughter. A conspiracy that involves murder, corruption, and corporate greed. And a detective with nothing left to lose…

Why Buy? The Hollywood remake is due next month (surprise!) from Martin Campbell and Mel Gibson, and it promises to be damn good. But as well done as it may be, odds are it still won’t be able to touch the original BBC mini-series. Stellar acting from all involved, multiple layers of mystery and intrigue revealed masterfully by a script allowed to take it’s time, and a powerful indictment of government gone bad. What’s not to love?

Blu-ray? No

Extra Features? Alternate ending, featurettes

Food, Inc.

Pitch: Think you know where your food comes from? Think again…

Why Buy? Before you skip this title with some knee-jerk reaction about it being made by (and for) liberal vegans from the coast (either coast), trust me when I say it’s actually non-partisan. Neither Michael Pollan nor Eric Schlosser are telling you to stop eating meat and eggs, but both men want you to be more aware of what goes into the food on your plate. Their target is the corporate food industry, and the factual information they have to share is often frightening, sometimes shocking, and always interesting.

Blu-ray? Yes

Extra Features? Deleted scenes, featurettes

North By Northwest (50th Anniversary Edition)

Pitch: A case of mistaken identity sends a normal man on a cross-country run for his life. Sounds like a Hitchcock rip-off…

Why Buy? This is my second favorite Alfred Hitchcock movie (I still say The Birds is his best), and even at fifty years old it continues to hold up extremely well. Cary Grant is the face of the film and excels at portraying a man who alternates between cool and befuddled, and passive and active. Although it’s hard to consider Grant’s tall, tanned, and bisexual debonair self an “everyman” all that matters here is that he’s at the top of his game. The same goes for Hitchcock (the ‘top of his game’ bit, not the tall, tanned, and bisexual part) who never crafted a sharper, more fully-realized film. From the pacing to the camera shots to the musical choices to the excellent supporting cast, North By Northwest is masterful film-making.

Blu-ray? Yes

Extra Features? Commentary, featurettes

Walt Disney Treasures: Zorro – The Complete First/Second Season

Pitch: Zorro was a hero to all the little boys unsure of how to use their own swords…

Why Buy? If you care at all about Disney’s “Zorro” show then these are the definitive DVD editions you need to buy. They come packaged in sturdy tin cases with the discs themselves in a standard DVD case within. For the tchotchke collectors out there they also come with a pin, postcard lithograph, and a numbered certificate of authenticity. That nonsense aside, the actual content is impressive. All thirty-nine episodes per season are included as well as two rarely seen two-hour Zorro movies, and they’re all remastered to pristine quality.

Blu-ray? No

Extra Features? Rare two-part TV movie, pin, lithograph, numbered certificate of authenticity

The Answer Man

Pitch: A bestselling but reclusive author finally finds a reason to come out from hiding…

Why Rent? Jeff Daniels is fantastic and rarely gets a lead role, so we need to support him when it does happen. Luckily this is actually a pretty good little movie so our support is pain free. Daniels plays the author of a bestselling self-help book from twenty years ago who’s been in hiding since it’s success. He meets a few eclectic people who help open his door and his life to some new possibilities. The supporting cast is excellent including Lou Taylor Pucci and Lauren Graham, but Olivia Thirlby and Kat Dennings are wasted with little to do.

Blu-ray? Yes

Extra Features? Commentary, deleted scenes, featurette

Beast Within

Pitch: From bird flu to zombies in two easy steps…

Why Rent? No it’s not a remake of the classic ‘boy becomes an evil praying mantis’ movie from the early eighties. This is a European flick about bird flu ravaging a small town by turning the infected into zombies! It’s not a good movie really, but the final twenty five minutes or so include a pretty cool zombie assault on a barricaded house. Worth a watch for fans of the undead.

Blu-ray? No

Extra Features? None

Before the Fall

Pitch: The bad news is a meteorite will hit Earth in three days and destroy all life on the planet. The worse news is you might not live long enough to see it…

Why Rent? This is an interesting and suspenseful film from Spain that does a great job of turning a global catastrophe into a personal story. Three days away from certain doom, a man and his family are on the run and fighting for their lives when a madman comes looking for misguided vengeance. What would you fight for if you knew it wouldn’t matter in a few days?

Blu-ray? No

Extra Features? None

The Botany of Desire

Pitch: Can plants and produce be interesting? Yes, and Michael Pollan proves it with a fascinating look at the apple, marijuana, the potato, and the tulip…

Why Rent? Pollan’s fascinating book makes for an equally interesting PBS special on the history and importance of four essential ingredients in American agriculture. It’s an engaging and enlightening look into how we use plants and how they use us. Sounds boring as hell though doesn’t it? But give it a chance and I guarantee you’ll learn a thing or two and be entertained in the process.

Blu-ray? Yes

Extra Features? None

Command Performance

Pitch: “Dying is easy. Rock and roll is hard.” Yes, Dolph Lundgren actually says this awesome line. Of course, he also says “Rock and load.”

Why Rent? This was a risky watch for me. I expected it to be the typical Lundgren direct-to-DVD dreck, and I was going to feel bad suggesting you avoid it when the man was kind enough to record a video bumper for us (here). Happily I can report in good concience that this flick is actually a good time. Lundgren directs as well as stars and the man does not skimp on the blood. People are shot and blood sprays. They’re stabbed and blood sprays. They’re punched and blood sprays… Lundgren looks convincing in his drum playing but even moreso when he’s jabbing a drumstick through a guy’s skull. It’s a fun little action film, and his best movie in years.

Blu-ray? Yes

Extra Features? Featurettes

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra

Pitch: Elite soldiers fight each other in tight leather outfits…

Why Rent? So why would I recommend avoiding Transformers 2but sugegst renting this equally inane CGI explosion? Simple. Michael Bay’s movie was big, stupid, empty, and boring. Stephen Sommers’s popcorn movie is almost as big and equally stupid and empty… but it’s actually kind of fun at times. The chase through Paris, the ninja fight, the bitch fight… I wouldn’t own this movie but I probably wouldn’t mind watching it again. Just not anytime soon…

Blu-ray? Yes

Extra Features? Commentary, featurettes

Not Forgotten

Pitch: A young girl is kidnapped and her father will stop at nothing in his quest to find her, even if that means digging up some ghosts from his past…

Why Rent? I love being happily surprised by little films I’d heard nothing about beforehand, and this is one of those films. Simon Baker is fantastic as a family man with a beautiful new wife (Paz Vega), a precocious pre-teen (Chloe Moretz), and a secret (something crazy). The movie does a great job of shifting suspicions once the daughter is kidnapped leaving you unsure who the bad guys and good guys are or if those terms even apply anymore. I’m not entirely sold on the ending, but four-fifths of a really good movie is still better than most of what hits theaters these days. And Baker’s use of a broken and jagged bottle as an interrogation tool is bloody unsettling.

Blu-ray? No

Extra Features? None

The Taking of Pelham 123

Pitch: John Travolta’s least annoying bad guy ever gives Denzel Washington’s least active good guy a hard time…

Why Rent? I heard such critical comments on this one during it’s theatrical run that I never quite got a round to seeing it until now. And it ain’t half bad people! (Which makes it almost half good…) Travolta usually overplays his villains into the realm of high camp (Swordfish, Broken Arrow), but he manages to keep his hijacker reigned in a bit here. Tony Scott and friends do as good a job as can be expected with a film about a modern-day subway hijacking in NYC even if they offer up little in the way of surprises. The film’s no masterpiece, but neither was the original.

Blu-ray? Yes

Extra Features? Commentary, featurettes

Aliens In The Attic

Pitch: Raccoon-sized aliens crash land on a family reunion and cause decidedly unraccoon-like havok…

Why Avoid? The two-word reason for skipping this one is simply ‘Ashley Tisdale.’ The longer and more detailed reason list includes it being loud, unfunny, poorly written, lacking in humanity, and starring Ashley Tisdale.

Blu-ray? Yes

Extra Features? Deleted scenes, alternate ending, featurettes

Dark Mirror

Pitch: Oooh, a horror movie about haunted mirrorzzzz…

Why Avoid? Seriously. Haunted mirrors have become the new cabin in the woods and I’m already bored of them. I’ll stick with Prince of Darkness and Candyman because they were both smart enough to use the mirrors as portals for something scary, not as the actual horror punchline.

Blu-ray? No

Extra Features? Commentary, deleted scenes, featurette

Hardwired

Pitch: Watch Val Kilmer and Cuba Gooding Jr. pay their utility bills…

Why Avoid? The movie gets points for opening with a guy’s head exploding and for a few funny corporate product placements (like the Trojan brand name on the Washington Monument), but the rest of the flick doesn’t work as well. It’s “a few years from now” and corporations rule the world and implant people with virtual advertisements. That’s obviously not a good thing, so Gooding Jr goes about setting things right.

Blu-ray? No

Extra Features? Featurette

I Love You, Beth Cooper

Pitch: A dork’s graduation speech includes an ode to the school’s #1 hottie and leads to an extremely uninteresting movie…

Why Avoid? I give Cole Abaius flack for the inaccuracy of his reviews on a fairly regular basis, but once in a while the bastard gets it right. His review here is one of those times. This movie is absolutely terrible. None of the jokes work. The supposedly ‘hottest girls in school’ range from barely cute at best to chubby idiot at worst. The inevitable ending isn’t even remotely authentic. None of the characters are interesting or redeeming (although the lead’s best friend comes close). And speaking of the the lead, he’s way too geeky for a believable ‘nerd/hot girl romantic comedy.’

Blu-ray? Yes

Extra Features? Deleted scenes, alternate ending, featurettes

Star Wars The Clone Wars: The Complete Season One

Pitch: The Star Wars universe comes to life in animated form, and I’d rather be watching “The Star Wars Holiday Special”…

Why Avoid? Obviously the super Star Wars fans will watch and possibly love anything with the Lucas stamp on it, but this animated series is more new trilogy than good trilogy. I can’t pretend to follow the uninteresting characters and slightly annoying animation style, but your mileage may vary (as always).

Blu-ray? Yes

Extra Features? Extended cuts, featurettes

Terminator Salvation: The Machinima Series

Pitch: Not enough action in Terminator Salvation for you? It’s all here. In a way…

Why Avoid? This animated tale from the Salvation universe focuses on resistance fighter Blair Williams (voiced by Moon Bloodgood), but fails for two reasons. For one, Bloodgood still doesn’t go topless. But more importantly, the animation is reminiscent of a videogame in a jerky and unimpressive way. Skip this, and rent the upcoming director’s cut of the actual movie.

Blu-ray? No

Extra Features? Featurettes

Culture Warrior: Horror 1960

Landon Palmer — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 17:34:33 +0000

Although Halloween has come and gone, the FSR universe of readers and contributors alike have hardly satiated their horror fix, so this week’s Culture Warrior presents three movies that were major game-changers for the genre.

1960 saw the horror film, and filmgoing at large, change dramatically and permanently. Long gone was the horror of the literary monster that characterized 1930s Universal classics personified by Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff, and the dawn of a new decade in turn also said goodbye to the 1950s B-movie creature features. In 1960 horror switched its gaze to a far more terrifying direction: inward. Horror now focused on the horrific capacities of the human being, on the grotesque monster potentially inside all of us. No longer would horror be relegated to B-movie status, instead enabled with the capacity, through depiction of psychological trauma and inner monstrosity, for a unique kind of profundity that other genres couldn’t even come close to. Three different films from three different countries, all released in 1960, manifested the new brand of horror in fascinating ways. The following films are, without a doubt, essentials of modern horror.

USA: Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock)

Hitchcock’s magnum opus was a game-changer on many levels. Within the horror genre itself, it challenged expectations by removing villainy from a one-dimensional locale of pure evil and replaced it with all the vulnerability and nuance entailed in being human. Like the still-reverberating horrors of WWII, Anthony Perkins’s Norman Bates embodied an evil so banal that it couldn’t be ignored or dismissed by the one-dimensionality implied by the “evil” label. Bates represented something different: the evil made possible through insecurity, through a fear that projected more fear onto those who encounter him. What’s so horrifying about Bates’s evil is that it’s hardly evil at all. His actions, rather, seem something, given the right conditioning and abuse, that any impressionable mind is capable of embodying. Evil in Psycho is not a brute force that can be wiped out without further concern, it’s instead an unstoppable presence that moves its way through people and culture. Bates proves that being meek or (seemingly) sincere is not antithetical to manifesting horrible actions, that the villain can simultaneously be the victim of devices far beyond himself. The world of Psycho is the world of the grey, refusing the simplistic, irrelevant delineation implied in a perceived war between the opposing Biblical forces of good and evil.

Psycho also changed the course of filmmaking narratively, articulating its confusion of good/evil movie logic by getting rid of its perceived protagonist shortly after the first act break, thus establishing a no-rules brand of mainstream horror. This extended to a drastic change in film spectatorship, as venues which previously allowed patrons to come and go as they please (audiences often bought tickets at any time of day and would walk into the middle of a movie to wait for the movie to end, start over, and come back around to where they began) were now forced to make audiences come exclusively as the movie started, refusing latecomers so as to not ruin the shock value of the film’s well-kept secret. Every serious moviegoer that appreciates a quiet, orderly theater is in Mr. Hitchcock’s debt for this.

UK: Peeping Tom (Michael Powell)

Sure, while Hitchcock explored voyeurism to disturbing degrees with Rear Window, Vertigo (anybody that can make Jimmy Stewart a creepster is doing something right) and even Psycho, nobody had the brass balls Michael Powell had to depict a sexual obsession and psychosis as troubling as this. I’ll defend any day of the week Psycho’s stance as a classic, but one has to admit that its scares have become so iconic that it’s lost a great deal of its shock value. Powell (this time without his directing cohort Emeric Pressburger), however, made Peeping Tom fifty years ago and the film is still as discomfiting as it ever was in its exhibition of a film production assistant who captures his murders of women on film, complete with a mirror beside the camera so that his victims may witness their own final moments of life. The psychology of obsession, misogyny, and sexual inadequacy aside, Peeping Tom is at its most confrontational when it frames these murders from the first-person perspective of the eye of the camera, thus making this film the forerunner for the recent trend of found footage horror filmmaking as established by Paranormal Activity and [Rec].

Seeing murders through the camera’s eye, of course, is not the same as seeing it from the murderer’s, so the focalization of the frame makes the camera itself as complicit in the act of violence as the murderer. Enjoying this film can be a complex and troubling experience, as Peeping Tom’s audience was one of the firsts to ever be confronted with their own desire to witness violence on behalf of genre, and seeing death face-to-face (despite the fact that it’s staged) implicitly makes us and the murderer one in the same. Added interpretive value comes from the tripod-knife he uses to kill his victims, making for quite the penetrating phallic symbol (read feminist film scholar Laura Mulvey’s “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” for more on the typically masculine complicit violence of the audience found in films like these). Although I’d be wary of a remake, I’d honestly be interested in what Peeping Tom would look like with an update to the seriously invasive DIY culture of voyeurism through digital technology/media, YouTube, and social networking sites.

France: Eyes Without a Face (Georges Franju)

Where Psycho and Peeping Tom make the monster human, Eyes Without a Face turns the human into a monster. In an innovative spin on the classic mad scientist formula, Franju’s film finds a surgeon routinely hunting down beautiful women so that their faces can serve as sources of surgical transplant for his daughter’s face, which was disfigured in a tragic automobile accident. The film serves as a scathing critique of the lengths people will go to achieve allegedly objective standards of beauty, but its real enduring appeal lies in Franju’s eclectic filmmaking which finds him altering between slick, elegant, assured style and gritty, visceral gore. It’s a beautiful contradiction that prevents its spectator from ever getting too comfortable in their seat, priming them for the inevitable squirming that entails the narrative trajectory of this film.

So many horror films are indebted to Eyes Without a Face that it’s impossible to name them all, but it’s undeniable that the disquieting surgery scene stands the predecessor for visceral horror at large (see, at your own risk, Franju’s short “Blood of the Beasts” (1949) for a primer on his relentless depiction of violence (it’s possibly a Holocaust allegory, but it’s undeniably his unique brand of horror)) and David Cronenberg’s visceral style especially (e.g., Dead Ringers). Also, the mask Christiane wears allegedly inspired Michael Meyers’s immortal façade. But what places Eyes Without a Face thematically alongside Psycho and Peeping Tom is that it employs the mad scientist and takes away the madness. Of course the surgeon’s actions are unforgivable, but he is never depicted as psychotic, and, through his daughter’s tragedy, the film even approaches empathy for the motive of his actions, if not approval. The true protagonist and antagonist of this film, like the delineation of good and evil between the three of these films, is made indistinguishable, even irrelevant, as no real understanding can be attained through dismissing society’s agents of horror as evil.

Culture Warrior is our weekly walk on the wild side with actual film school graduate Landon Palmer. To read more from Landon, you can follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/landon_speak

Boiling Point: The End Game

Robert Fure — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 15:17:07 +0000

I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to say that the end of a film is the most important part. Only the climax can completely alter what you’ve just seen. Fight Club would be an entertaining story without the twist ending, but with it, it completely changes everything that has come before it. There of dozens of movies that are just good, but then turn great when the ending reveals itself. Though for everyone one of that type of ending, there are probably three or four shitty endings. Pretty good movies, trucking along and being respectable, then derailed and killed by a shitty ending.

I could (and one day will) complain just about bad endings. Unnecessarily sad endings. Endings that want to make a point but end up making no real impact or sense. One example, for me, is Man on Fire, a badass movie that gets to the end where Denzel “Baddest Mother in the World” Washington, who has crushed and killed his way up to this point, just lays down his cards so that the movie can have a sad ending. Just because an ending is sad (aww, did the guy trying to reconnect with his son die unexpectedly in a mudslide? Must be a great movie!) doesn’t mean its good. Sometimes the sad ending is good though. If it makes the story. If it strengthens it. Then it’s the right ending. With Halloween recently over, some of you may have watched I Am Legend. This movie falls into the category of “The ending made it suck.” Really, the entire movie was pretty good, until the end, then it blew balls and made the whole movie bad.

I’m going to get a little spoilery here. I Am Legend is a strange title, but in the story, which has a twist ending, it makes perfect sense. I’m talking about the written story, not the filmed one. You see, in the written version, the entire world has been over-taken by vampires and Neville spent his nights being terrified and his days killing vampires. But in a world where everyone is a vampire, the boogey-man you don’t know is real that kills you in your sleep is some sort of mythical demon. So at the end, Neville realizes that he was the “legend” or myth – the tables had turned. He was their equivalent of a vampire, something strange, foreign, and possibly imaginary. Brilliant. But the the Will Smith movie comes along and, not wanting a sad ending, can’t have Neville, and humanity, lose and die. So they change it. And make it worse.

This boiling point has gone left and right, but now we go down the center. This “end game” is about changed endings. They most often suck. I mean, what were they thinking with I Am Legend? Not only did the new ending suck balls on its own, it made to fucking sense. Grammatically. ”I am Legend.” ”He was legend?” No, he was on par with Louis Pasteur or somebody – guys we don’t really call legendary. Plus, that’s the completely wrong kind of legend – definitely not what the book meant. For me, that ending ruined the entire movie for me. Just needed to get that off my chest, because otherwise it was a good movie. Good trip, shitty destination – makes the whole thing sour for me. Are you the same? Every time I think about I am Legend I know that I am Past My Boiling Point.

What stories have had their endings changed for the worse?

Can’t get enough of Robert Fure’s rants? Get them in real time on twitter: Twitter.com/RejectRobert. Also, check out the Boiling Point Archive.

The Movie Watcher’s Guide To November 2009

Rob Hunter — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 14:00:23 +0000

Hello again movie fans! You may have noticed that there was no Movie Watcher’s Guide to October. There are several completely legitimate reasons for this, but instead of boring you with details please allow me to give a quick recap of the month’s box-office releases… The Invention of Lying, Whip It, Amelia, Astro Boy, Cirque Du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant, and Saw VI all pretty much bombed, while Zombieland, Couples Retreat, Law Abiding Citizen, Where the Wild Things Are, and Paranormal Activity all did fair to brisk business. There, now you’re caught up through October. On to November!

November 6th

The Box

Who did it? Directed and written by Richard Kelly; starring Cameron Diaz, James Marsden, Frank Langella

What is it? A young couple receives a mysterious box containing only a button and a note. Press the button and two things will happen… one, they’ll receive $1 million dollars, and two, someone in the world will die. Will they press the button? Duh…

What about it? Kelly has taken a classic short story by Richard Matheson (”Button, Button”), which was previously made into an episode of “The Twilight Zone,” and turned it into a movie. It’s not always a wise move to stretch something from a much shorter medium to a feature film, and early reviews (like the one at Gone Elsewhere) have been fair to meh about it which doesn’t bode too well for the movie. Or for Kelly… who some are starting to suspect was nothing but lucky with his debut film, Donnie Darko.

Watch the trailer:

A Christmas Carol

Who did it? Directed and written by Robert Zemeckis; starring Jim Carrey, Gary Oldman, Robin Wright, Colin Firth, Cary Elwes, Michael J Fox, Bob Hoskins

What is it? It’s the digitally animated/motion-captured re-telling of the Charles Dickens classic that we’ve all been waiting for!

What about it? I can only speak for myself here, but these mo-cap movies have done nothing for me so far. The Polar Express and Beowulf were both bland and lifeless, and while this one has the benefit of a truly good story at it’s core I’m still not expecting much. On the other hand, it’s got a great cast including Oldman as Tiny Tim which alone will probably make it worth seeing.

Watch the Trailer:

The Fourth Kind

Who did it? Directed and written by Olatunde Osunsanmi; starring Milla Jovovich, Elias Koteas, Will Patton

What is it? The sequel to Close Encounters of the Third Kind finds Roy Neary (Jovovich taking over the role from Richard Dreyfus) returning to Earth to help facilitate further alien abductions while members of a separate alien species known as ‘owls’ try to alert humanity. None of this is true, and I feel bad for implying the story would be that interesting.

What about it? The movie actually explores documented cases in a small Alaskan town known for it’s extremely high number of disappearances, and stars Jovovich as a therapist who notices a disturbing trend among her patients’ recollections. The “fourth kind” of the title refers to alien abduction (the first three are sighting, evidence collection, and anal diddling), and it looks vaguely similar to the Michael Keaton movie from a few years ago called White Noise although it subs aliens for whispering dead people. The trailers do have an admittedly creepy vibe to them though, so the payback for all my joking may just be me pissing my pants in the theater…

Watch the Trailer:

The Men Who Stare At Goats

Who did it? Directed by Grant Heslov; written by Peter Straughan; starring George Clooney, Ewan McGregor, Jeff Bridges, Kevin Spacey

What is it? A reporter meets a man who claims to have been part of a secret US government program to train soldiers in the art of ESP, telekinesis, and goat assassination. And it’s reportedly based on a true story.

What about it? We caught this at Fantastic Fest and thought it was pretty good (read Cole Abaius’ review here). It’s a light-weight but fun little movie that works best as a showcase for some very talented actors and their humorous performances. As a movie though it seems to be lacking enough purpose and structure. I actually found it to be a bit reminiscent of The Informant!… a real-life story told with humor leading to an ending more serious than everything that came before. But The Informant! was better.

Watch the Trailer:

In Limited Release:

Precious: Based on the Novel “Push” by Sapphire - Neil Miller (review here) believes this little film will not only be nominated for Best Picture but will also win. Sadly for him and his already substantial gambling debts he’s wrong about it winning. I will say this though, it’s incredibly bleak, depressing, and abusive of the human spirit… with some fantastic performances!
That Evening Sun - I was lucky to catch this at SXSW this past March (review here), and it’s good to see it get even a limited run through theaters. Hal Holbrook’s performance is a marvel in this tale of an elderly man coming to terms with both his past and his present. Sad, funny, and smart in equal measures.

November 13th

2012

Who did it? Directed and co-written by Roland Emmerich; co-written by Harald Kloser; starring John Cusack, Amanda Peet, Woody Harrelson, Danny Glover, Thandie Newton, Oliver Platt

What is it? It’s the end of the world as we know it. Again.

What about it? Emmerich has destroyed the world so many times over by this point you’d think he’d have perfected the art by now. And the art part of the film does look really goddamn cool… with ‘art’ meaning CGI effects and not ‘artistic merit’ of course. The man’s dramatic chops are not nearly as impressive obviously, but I’ll continue to give him the benefit of the doubt for one simple reason… The Patriot kicked ass.

Watch the Trailer:

Pirate Radio (aka The Boat That Rocked)

Who did it? Directed and written by Richard Curtis; starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, Bill Nighy, Nick Frost

What is it? Richard Curtis delivers a comedy about the incredible efforts to keep rock n roll alive and kicking on the British airwaves in the 1960’s. Those efforts involve ships, hippies, and intoxication.

What about it? Radio stations had to broadcast from ships off the UK coast to avoid regulation and prosecution, so you can imagine the personalities who would sign up for this kind of lifestyle. I’ve seen this one and it’s pretty good… just don’t expect anything as brilliant as Curtis’ romantic comedies (Four Weddings & A Funeral, Notting Hill, Love Actually). The ensemble is good (especially Hoffman), the laughs are steady, and the history is interesting.

Watch the Trailer:

In Limited Release

Women In Trouble - Ten very attractive women starring in an R-rated movie filled with dirty talk and innuendo… yes please. Cole Abaius had the pleasure of chatting up some of the ladies earlier this year (interview here) and Neil Miller showed his love in his review as well.

November 20th

The Blind Side

Who did it? Directed and written by John Lee Hancock; starring Sandra Bullock, Tim McGraw, Kathy Bates, Quinton Aaron

What is it? The true story of a southern white woman and her family who welcome a young, large, black teenager into their home and hearts. Awww…. Expect lives to be changed here people.

What about it? This is a tough film to gauge in advance. The trailer has a strong, melodramatic, Lifetime Movie Channel vibe about it, it looks a bit heavy-handed and obvious when it comes to it’s message, and it’s Bullock’s third movie this year… she’s seen both a hit (The Proposal) and a miss (All About Steve) already so who knows if her fickle fans will follow. On the plus side though it’s based on a truly inspirational story…

Watch the Trailer:

Planet 51

Who did it? Directed by Javier Abed, Jorge Blanco, Marcos Martinez; written by Joe Stillman; starring (the voices of) Dwayne Johnson, Jessica Biel, Justin Long, Gary Oldman, Seann William Scott, John Cleese

What is it? A human astronaut lands on another planet ready to plant his flag in it’s fertile soil but discovers the planet is already inhabited by little, green beings. We know what comes next… disease infested blankets anyone?

What about it? An animated film distributed by Tri-Star? And if I’m not mistaken I think the movie itself comes from Spain? The trailers don’t instill a lot of confidence, but with the closest animated competition being two weeks old by this point it just may catch some weary families by surprise. Plus it has the added benefit of beating the similarly themed Avatar to screens by almost a month…

Watch the Trailer:

The Twilight Saga: New Moon

Who did it? Directed by Chris Weitz; written by Melissa Rosenberg; starring Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson

What is it? The sequel to Duncan Jones’ quiet but brilliant sci-fi film Moon finds Sam Rock– wait, that’s not right. Sadly.

What about it? Welcome to the highest grossing film of November… obviously this is the follow-up to the megahitphenomenonmormonsensation Twilight, and it looks to up the ante on several fronts. First, the director’s chair is now being occupied by a more accomplished director in Weitz (About a Boy, The Golden Compass). Two, the story gets to move outside the small town of Bumfuq, WA to the grand, old cities of Italy which gives the story a bigger feel to it. Third, the vampires are still sulking around, but we also get introduced to a pack of shirtless Native American werewolves. Fourth, Stewart continues to look pretty damn fine. So maybe it will be better than Twilight after all.

Watch the Trailer:

In Limited Release

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans - Nicholas Cage sees dancing souls and bored iguanas in this odd Werner Herzog film (redundant I know). My review will be up soon, but just know that while the movie has moments of weirdness it’s not nearly as strange or over-the-top as it should have been.
Broken Embraces – Pedro Almodovar returns with his favorite Spanish muse Penelope Cruz in a tale about a blind writer and the pixie-ish woman he can only see with his hands.
The Fantastic Mr. Fox – I’m just not feeling this Wes Anderson adaptation of Roald Dahl’s book… maybe it’s the jerky stop-motion. Maybe it’s the bad aftertaste of The Darjeeling Limited.
Red Cliff – John Woo has seen some of the best reviews of his career with this epic period film about a historical battle in China. This is the international version which actually combines two complete films into one, so if you like what you see make an effort to find the two original movies that make up Red Cliff in it’s entirety.

November 25th

Ninja Assassin

Who did it? Directed by James McTeigue; written by Matthew Sand and J. Michael Straczynski; starring Rain, Naomie Harris, Sho Kosugi

What is it? One of the coolest cinematic character types finally gets the big-budget treatment it deserves…

What about it? And it’s a big, sloppy, CGI-filled mess. To be fair, parts of the film work extremely well… the flashback segments that follow Raizu’s training are very evocative of classic ninja films of the past, and they also contain the film’s only truly dramatic moments. But the rest of the movie sucks shuriken balls. The acting is pretty bad, the CGI blood is ubiquitous and poorly done, and even the fight scenes often get lost in shadows and poor editing. Abaius’ review is here, but know that he’s being very kind.

Watch the Trailer:

Old Dogs

Who did it? Directed by Walt Becker; written by David Diamond, David Weissman; starring Robin Williams, John Travolta, Justin Long, Seth Green, Kelly Preston, Matt Dillon, Dax Shepard, Bernie Mac

What is it? Two men and a baby two little kids. Williams and Travolta have twins fall into their lap but it isn’t as awesome as it sounds. The twins are seven-years old, and these two guys don’t know the first thing about raising children. Hilarious!

What about it? This is one of those safe and comfortable comedies designed to appeal to kids and adults with no discerning tastes. That makes it sound like I’m insulting the film, but I’m really not. Sometimes people just need to laugh, and if it happens to be to inoffensive pablum like this so be it. Becker also directed Travolta in Wild Hogs and expects to complete the ‘Ogs’ trilogy next year with the release of Scientologist Frogs.

Watch the Trailer:

The Road

Who did it? Directed by John Hillcoat; written by Joe Penhall from the novel by Cormac McCarthy; starring Viggo Mortensen, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Robert Duvall, Charlize Theron

What is it? A post-apocalyptic tale of a father and son on a road trip… with bandits, cannibals, and a very limited color palette.

What about it? McCarthy’s book is one of those beloved tales that many readers believe could never find justice with a cinematic adaptation. Personally I’m curious about it because I don’t feel the book has enough story to fill a feature film. (Man and boy walk. Something minor happens. Man and boy walk. Something big threatens to happen but doesn’t. Man and boy walk. Something minor happens. Man and boy walk. Rinse. Repeat.) I trust that Hillcoat will deliver a film of dark and devastating beauty as he did with The Proposition, but I’m not sure if I should expect anything more.

Watch the Trailer:

In Limited Release

The Private Lives of Pippa Lee – An eclectic cast highlights this little film written and directed by Rebecca Miller from her own novel. Robin Wright, Maria Bello, Alan Arkin, Winona Ryder, Keanu Reeves, Mike Binder… sure it’s another suburban domestic drama, but with this cast it may be one worth watching.

Which movies are you excited about in November? Which ones will you avoid?

31 Days of Horror: Splinter

Robert Fure — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 12:00:17 +0000

Splinter (2008)

Synopsis: A young couple crosses paths with an on-the-run criminal and the three of them end up stuck inside a gas station, hunted by a voracious and ever changing parasitic creature. The three have to work together if they have any chance of surviving this night from hell.

Killer Scene: I love this film from start to finish, but if I had to pick a single scene, it would revolve around the parasitic hand that infiltrates the gas station and sets about making their night even worse. A hand may not sound threatening, but this scene is awesome and conjures up fond memories of the demonic digits of Evil Dead II.

KillSheet

Violence: There is a fair amount of blood spilled here, with broken bones and cuts, an excellent arm amputation scene, and an infected raccoon going Captain Insane-o on a gas station attendant. Not overly violent (there are only like 6 characters in the whole film, so your options are limited) but it satisfies my red desires.

Sex: No sex to speak of, but there certainly is some sex appeal in star Jill Wagner (who you might recognize from Blade: The Series). She remains fully clothed but is totally hot, so that’s a plus.

Scares: You get your standard jump scares here and there, but hardened horror vets won’t have a problem sleeping when it’s over. Unless of course you end up stranded in the middle of nowhere at a gas station. The way the creature moves and builds itself up with body parts is freaky and could cause some unpleasant night thoughts in those subject to them. A creepy and atmospheric movie like The Thing or Alien provides enough scares to keep you curled up, but nothing to cause your bladder to empty.

Final Thoughts: This was my favorite horror movie released in 2008 and I knew right then and there it would make the 31 Days of Horror list this year. While this list has no real order to it, I do try to save some of the better films for the end of the month and place a sort-of winner on Halloween, and this year I wanted it to be Splinter. If you haven’t seen this film, definitely check it out. It was made on a limited budget with limited locations, yet manages to pack in good scares and kills with a totally awesome creature. Shea Whigham turns in an excellent performance, though I’d say the star is definitely the creepy crawling creature. From scene one this movie kicks ass and doesn’t let up until the credits roll. It definitely has a bit of a retro feel, and by that it I mean it ignores all the contemporary bullshit tropes of twist endings, teenage cast, and goofy self-awareness.

Coroner’s Report: Stan Helsing

Robert Fure — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 12:00:16 +0000

There are probably a lot of reasons why Stan Helsing shouldn’t appear in the Coroner’s Report. I mean, it’s not scary and no one dies. It’s a straight up comedy. No, worse than that, it’s a parody. A spoof. We all know how well those generally end up being. But, like most true addicted horror fans, I’ll take just about anything that promises to cater to my tastes. Horror jokes, monster parodies, and some boob shots. Stan Helsing gives us most of that and manages to be “surprisingly not terrible.” Now, the movie is not good by any means, but I think it’s watchable, unlike my fellow Rob Hunter. I must admit, some parts are down right terrible and awful and angering. But for some reason, I kind of enjoyed it.

Stan Helsing followers out titular slacker video store employee, Stan Van Helsing, obviously in the lineage of the greatest of monster hunters. After stumbling into a haunted town with his sometimes-girlfriend, best friend, and slutty friend, he must of course embrace his history, fight off his slacker nature, and kick some monster ass to rescue the town. Sort of.

Kills

I’m pretty sure we only see one person die in the film, though 12 mentally handicapped people are killed off screen and we see their bodies. This is one of the biggest failings of the film – there should have been dozens of over the top kills, rather than virtually nothing.

Ills

While it’s not explicitly stated and quite possibly unintentional, when we first meet Chucky he raises his head from a child’s lap then feigns a blowjob at Stan. It’s played to make it look like he’s just insulting Stan, but it 100% feels like Chucky, a sort of midget man doll hybrid, just gave a 9 year old a blowjob. The wigger-Freddy wipes his ass with his blade hand and screams. This scene is strange, because in every other scene Freddy has that stupid Swiss-Army hand, however in the bathroom, it’s the standard knife glove. We some burned up corpses and scarred bodies, but nothing here is going to make you uncomfortable.

Lust

There is a hot lesbian kiss, some sexy Lingerie wearing stripper vampires that show off some g-string ass, some side boob, and a brief boob shot. Diora Bard is dressed like Pocahontas, with her midriff exposed the entire time. She is obviously very hot. I wrote “Pistol in Pussy” in my notes but honestly right now I can’t remember this at all. I can guarantee you it wasn’t very sexy or anything and was most likely some sort of sound effect gag where Stan accidentally bumps into hottie Mia. In fact, now I’m pretty sure that’s what happened. Anywho, Mia (Desi Lydic) is hot the whole time and grabs Diora’s boob. There is also a gay monster porn shoot involved. The real deal here is this, Desi Lydic is hot as hell. She changes outfits several times and they’re all hot. At the end, she gives a lapdance to Teddy that is both hot and funny. The only downside is the cuts to Keenan Thompson. Lame sauce. In the credits, she apologies to her mother for the things she does in this movie. But I’d like to take a moment to write Desi a letter, right here and now. Dear Desi Lydic, I fucking love you. Don’t take this the wrong way, but I want to get you alone and then learn all about you and meet your parents. Whaaaat?

Learning

This movie teaches you nothing, other than modern spoof movies rarely work but can make you giggle from time to time.

Review

Just in case you didn’t know, when Stan Helsing starts it informs you that it’s “A Parody.” No shit, Sherlock. I know I started off saying this movie isn’t terrible, but the things I’m going to say are going to make it seem terrible. Parts of the movie are atrocious and I know why I kind of liked it, but I did. Probably because I fell in love during it. Or at least popped a boner. The film starts off battling its own duality of sucking vs being kind of funny. In a reference to old giant bug movies, Stan has to kill a roach in the bathroom that is like 6 feet tall and taking a shit which is actually amusing, though it’s quickly followed by severely outdated jokes like returning The Ring at “Schlockbuster” and black people yelling at movies. Can we talk about “Schlockbuster” a second, because really, that is the parasite killing parody movies. They think the modern definition of “parody” is “making up a rhyming name.” So you get these fucking stupid things like Schlockbuster or Wal-Fart or McRonald’s. This is an article (boiling point?) for another time, but seriously stop fucking rhyming. Or I’ll fucking kill you.

The driving sequences are pretty terrible, with weak composition work and lame acting. I’d also like to point out that they try a politically correct joke in that one character is dressed as an Indian, which they state the correct term as being “Native American.” Actually, the preferred term is “American Indian.” Now you know. Anyway, my biggest gripe with the movie is the lack of monsters. They’re barely in the film and they’re unfunny in design. Pinhead has darts in his head and Leatherface wears a handbag and carries a leafblower. Pretty stupid. Freddy is kind of funny. At the end, the only way to defeat them is to first win a karaoke contest and then masturbate a super-soaker into Jason’s face. It’s actually kind of funny.

Like most modern parodies, the film throws in random ass jokes that make no sense. Barack Obama shows up at the karaoke contest. What the fuck? Michael Jackson hands out penis pops to kids. Which admittedly,I appreciate that they didn’t remove that.

The best part (aside from Desi Lydic) is Leslie Nielsen. He’s barely in it, and he plays a woman, but come on, it’s Leslie Nielsen. The worst part, I’d say, is that after watching the deleted scenes, there was a better movie that could have been released. They cut out like 4 minutes of boobs – boobs make things like this better. They also cut out a scene where Chucky is gang-raped in a ballpit. That is the kind of stuff a movie like this should be going for. A real horror parody should really go for it, kill a ton of people, show a lot of tit, and just really go off the wall. Instead, this is any other parody movie just dressed in a Halloween costume.

After all this negativity, you’re wondering “How in the fuck did this idiot like this movie?” The answer is I don’t know. I watched it. There were lame parts. There were a few laughs. Overall it was very light and after three shots it was kind of enjoyable. Most of you will probably hate this, but if you’re a horror fan you’re going to watch it anyways. While it’s mostly a disappointment, it’s slightly better than you’ll expect and you will laugh a few times.

31 Days of Horror: Poltergeist

Neil Miller — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 12:00:11 +0000

Poltergeist (1982)

Synopsis: A young family are visited by ghosts in their home. At first the ghosts appear friendly, moving objects around the house to the amusement of everyone, then they turn nasty and start to terrorize the family before they “kidnap” the youngest daughter. Left with no other options, the family invites various experts to their home to try and retrieve their daughter and get away from their not-so-safe abode.

Killer Scene: As I observed upon watching this film for the first time in a long time (see below for the rest of the story), it is one of the few truly great and terrifying horror films in which no one actually dies. At least, not during the runtime of the film. It involves plenty of dead people, all of whom died a long time ago, but no one actually dies (spoiler alert, straight from the early 80s). However, there is one badass scene in which the son (played by Oliver Robbins) is nearly swallowed whole by a tree. If that ain’t killer, I don’t know what is.

KillSheet

Violence: As I mentioned above, I was surprised to re-learn the fact that no one actually dies in this film. There’s plenty of violence, including the aforementioned tree eating scene, as well as the implied violence of the giant whateverthefuck demon head that almost eats Craig T. Nelson whole during the big final rescue of little Carol Anne. Creepy, creepy.

Sex: There’s no sex to speak of, but mom and dad (Jobeth Williams and Craig T. Nelson, respectively) do smoke a little of god’s green and make out. As well, there’s a hint that their daughter Dana (Dominique Dunne) has some intimate knowledge of the Holiday Inn. Also, mom gets naked and hits the bath tub at the most inopportune time. Nothing shown, but I’ll be damned if Jobeth Williams wasn’t one fine 80s babe.

Scares: Plenty of scares to go around in Poltergeist, even though its the Steven Spielberg version of a haunted house story. It has all of the classic family elements and even earned its PG rating back in the day by only letting by one “shit” and zero nudity, but that didn’t stop it from scaring the living daylights out of many kids of the 80s. I still shiver at the sound of Zelda Rubinstein’s voice to this very day.

Final Thoughts:

This year’s 31 Days of Horror feature has been a blast, if you ask me. And even though Robert Fure will deliver one more great horror title tomorrow to finish us off, I am glad that I got a chance to round out my own selection with a horror flick that has been very impactful on my life. At age 7, I watched Poltergeist for the first time and it shook me to my core. So much so that I was paralyzed in my horror genre watching for almost 12 years. I was accosted by friends because I wouldn’t go see any of the Nightmare on Elm Street films, or the Halloween series and The Exorcist until my late teen years. Even as recently as my dawn in the profession of movie blogging, I’ve long been labeled as a big pansy by my peers. The guy who can’t take a good scare and avoids horror films like the plague. Luckily, guys like Robert Fure and Rob Hunter have come along and taken up the genre torch here at FSR, otherwise this site would probably have suffered over the years.

This week, as part of a therapeutic journey through my own movie-watching youth, I sat down with some close friends here at Reject HQ to watch Poltergeist for the first time in almost two decades. And what I found is that I really had nothing to fear all along. Tobe Hooper’s movie is scary at times, but its classic paranormal fun — a calling card for a decade of horror and sci-fi films that hasn’t been matched since. I enjoyed it thoroughly, and plan to watch it again next year in the run up to Halloween. No longer will I be scared of the jump scared that Hollywood has in store for me, as I’ve conquered my own demons thanks to 31 Days of Horror.

That said, I will forever be looking up the history of anywhere I choose to live so that I’m certain it wasn’t built where there was once a cemetery…

Fat Guys at the Movies Ep. 138 – This Is Fat!

Kevin Carr — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 11:00:47 +0000

On This Week’s Show: Kevin and Neil meet up in the Magical Studio in the Sky to have a Fat Guy Smackdown to beat all Fat Guy Smackdowns. While they don’t come to odds so much with A Serious Man, they certainly disagree about Michael Jackson’s This Is It. In honor of the film, Kevin lays down a Fat Guy Five about Five Cinematic Sex Offenders while Neil protests with his own Fat Guy Five about the Five Movies to Watch on Halloween. The Fat Guys also offer their predictions about the box office and wish the listeners a Happy Halloween.

Films Reviewed this Week: A Serious Man and Michael Jackson’s This Is It

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Episode Schedule:

Segment 1 [8:50] – Review of A Serious Man

Segment 2 [10:40] – Review of Michael Jackson’s This Is It

Segment 3 [12:45] – Box office recap and the Fat Guy Five: Five Cinematic Sex Offenders (with Neil’s protest list being Five Movies to Watch on Halloween)

Segment 4 [6:35] – DVD Round-Up: Neil’s picks are Battlestar Galactica: The Plan and Monty Python: Almost the Truth; Kevin’s picks include Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, Stargate: 15th Anniversary, Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasures, Saturday Morning Cartoons 1960s and 1970s and The Stepfather; Review Recap and a look ahead to next week.

Next Week’s Show:

Kevin and Neil get into the new holiday spirit with A Christmas Carol, The Fourth Kind and The Box

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FSR’s 31 Days of Horror: The Reckoning
Kevin’s 31 Horror Movies in October

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Coroner’s Report: The Thaw

Robert Fure — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 22:58:12 +0000

Part of the Ghosthouse Underground series, Thaw is another entry in the burgeoning Global Warming Terror category which features Val Kilmer in a small role as a professor-slash-possible eco-terrorist. You know, the whole the Earth is way more important than people argument. I love the Earth and nature as much as the next guy, but unless it involves killer animals, eco-horror generally isn’t my thing.

Thaw kicks off when Kilmer and his team discover a thawing mastodon during their research project. Unleashed from the brain of the animal come small “vertebrate” bug like creatures come out and start laying down their infection game on the scientists. This might not be all that bad, if not for a group of students (including Kilmer’s daughter) show up to learn from the climate master. Unsurprisingly, the bugs start spreading death and disease among them and they turn on each other.

Kills

At the end of the day, 8 people have died, some from the effects of the disease, some form gunshots, and others from a crashing helicopter.

Ills

We see some dead animals, there are a few gunshots, including one to the head, a dead body and some gross bodily fluids. One guy pisses blood and remarks later that he’s going to die with “bugs in my dick.” An arm is chopped off, a side effect is diarrhea, and the bug bites create gross sores and infections.

Lust

There is a sex scene that isn’t amazing and focuses mainly on the dude’s back. We also see a girl take off some clothes, but it is nothing to be excited about.

Learning

The film wants to tell you that global warming is bad and that eventually we’ll hurt the Earth so bad we’re killed. Mostly though it teaches me that anyone who is way into the environment is generally a douchebag.

Review

This year’s Ghosthouse Underground titles are a bit better than last years and The Thaw manages to be a pretty decent time. Cigarette Smoking Man makes a brief cameo in between preachy douches tell you about how horrible we are. The film looks amazing, though this is mostly because of the beautiful British Columbia landscape captured in beautiful high definition.

The movie tries hard to teach you something but it comes off as that idiot kid in the back of your economics class who isn’t quite sure what Free Trade is. The characters stress that the bugs are not bugs, but are in fact vertebrates making them “like us.” The problem here is that there are literally millions of vertebrates in the world that are exactly nothing like us. You see, vertebrates have spinal columns. That’s it, basically. Sharks, mice, apes, lizards, and a ton of other stuff. So no, these bug-like creatures are not like us anymore than an armadillo or a turtle is. In fact, they are probably less like us than most creatures, like chimpanzees and pigs, because they’ve been removed from the evolutionary gene-pool and essentially frozen in time.

The story devolves into mostly a “we’re stuck in this place surrounded by these things” type of deal with some inner strife. Think The Thing if the Thing was a bunch of tiny bugs that were easily contained in a room by using duct tape. All of this said, when you ignore the preachy stuff, it’s a movie that is easily watchable, though not too memorable. Val Kilmer is good in his limited time – the guy can do pretty much anything if he wants to and here he puts in enough effort to be the best part of the film, though I’m an open Val Kilmer fan. At the end of the day, The Thaw aims to teach you a lesson that’s not worth learning, but as a movie, it’s strictly average.

Blu-ray

As I mentioned, the film looks amazing. The picture quality is astounding. The exterior British Columbia setting reminds you why documentarians and nature photographers are often the first to adopt high definition set-up. It is exhilarating. The perfect is absolutely perfect when outdoors and overall it’s a great looking visual experience. Sound wise, there isn’t a ton going on that they can pump through the speakers, but it is digital and crystal clear with crisp response. There are a few extras, mostly a making-of that is pretty light and not worth checking out.

On the Living Side: Great landscape with good picture presentation, at least on my set-up. I’ve read some people had trouble with artifacting, but my experience was good.

On the Dead Side: Lame political story with predictable turns and conclusions.

On the Side: The working title of the film was “Bed Bugs.”

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