Shocktober Revisited: Mortuary

I've long wanted to check out Mortuary because of its fantastic trailer. It doesn't tell you much of anything, features no footage from the film, but is short, memorable, and promises a properly spooky film:



 Going into the film, I wasn't sure what to expect based on the trailer, but I guess it wasn't roller skating or people quacking like ducks. The trailer may be misleading (okay, it's blatantly misleading about the actual film), but Mortuary actually has plenty going for it in its own right.

 After Christy (Mary McDonough)'s father , Dr. Parson (Danny Rogers) dies in a pool related "accident," she's prone to nightmares and spells of sleepwalking. Her boyfriend Greg (David Wallace) and his pal Josh (Denis Mandel) are dropping by the warehouse of a mortuary Josh used to work for, when they discover the mortician, Harry Andrews (Christopher George) holding a seance with a woman that appears to be Christy's mother (Linda Day George). The guys are separated, and just as Josh finds what appears to be the body of Mrs. Andrews, he's killed by a mysterious figure in a cape. Greg arrives in time to see someone speeding off in his van, and he and Christy set off to discover what happened to her father, Josh, and what the behind all of these clandestine activities. Is Christy losing her mind? Are Mrs. Parson and Mr. Andrews scheming behind her back? And who is the stranger terrorizing them in the night?

 Mortuary is a pretty straight forward mystery with some clever twists and turns. After a slasher-like set up, the film shifts between Greg's attempts to find Josh and Christy's delicate grip on reality. Is she really being followed at night, or are they part of her walking nightmares? Did Josh really leave to join the Navy (okay, no; we see him die), or is Mr. Andrews colluding with the Sheriff (Bill Conklin) to railroad Greg? And what about Paul Andrews (Bill Paxton), Harry's well-meaning, if slightly loopy son? He has a crush on Christy, but his innocent flirtation and awkward social stylings don't seem to be doing him any favors.

 Even if you've already figured out who the killer is (and it won't be hard about an hour in when they pretty much tell you), Mortuary finds other ways to misdirect you and keep you invested in the mystery for 87 minutes. Just when you think you have it figured out, a revelation shifts your perspective on motives and leads you in a different direction, which I always appreciate. It offsets the slow chase scenes and overlong game of cat-and-mouse towards the end. At the risk of spoiling too much, I'll say the ending is an interesting variation on Psycho, but with a final shot that you might not see coming, even though they set it up briefly.

 I'd like to highlight a young Bill Paxton, who nearly steals the show as the awkward Paul Andrews, a guy who doesn't know much about other people but is an ace around the dead. He's endearing, a little off-putting, and just "off" enough to keep you watching, even when the pace gets a bit sluggish.

 Was I a little disappointed that Mortuary isn't at all like its trailer? Well, yeah. It wasn't the movie I was hoping to see; the one I was promised. On the other hand, Mortuary is still a fun movie from the early 1980s with a more sophisticated plot than many of its contemporaries. The gore is sparing, the body count not high, and the gratudity is pretty limited for 1983, but what is there makes sense in the story. While not exactly what I wanted, I'm happy to say that Mortuary still delivers in its own way.

Shocktober Revisited: Mad Ron's Prevues from Hell

 This review originally appeared in 2010.

Sometimes, it pays to follow your gut. When I read a review of Mad Ron's Prevues from Hell, a review that said at best the trailer compilation was a "rental," I filed the title away in my head until I saw the DVD at Hastings. The Cap'n is something of a trailer freak, and I love a good compilation - I own all of the 42nd Street Forever discs, All Monsters Attack, and am trying to get ahold of Stephen Romano's Shock Festival set - so despite the fact that Mad Ron's Prevues from Hell was clearly duped from a 1987 VHS copy, Professor Murder and I sat down for 83 minutes of preview mayhem.

Mad Ron's Prevues from Hell isn't just a trailer compilation; director Jim Monaco places the clips in between a sort-of "frame story," involving a movie theatre invaded by the living dead. Mad Ron, the projectionist, threads trailers for the ghastly, the exploitative, and the extremely violent while we're "entertained" by Nick (Nick Pawlow) and his zombie dummy Happy. Happy tells... well, I'd be lying if I called them "jokes," but that's what the tape-turned-DVD wants you to regard them as. When Nick and Happy aren't cracking wise, the "film" (I'm using that very loosely) cuts away to zombies getting into hi jinks like pouring blood on popcorn, eating guts, and pulling eyeballs out.

I suppose it's worth noting (because the back of the DVD does) that the effects were done by Jordu Schell, who later went on to work on Avatar, and the gore is pretty good. The tape itself feels like a "let's put on a show" production from locals who wanted to play the living dead while trailers string the story together. They aren't always horror, but you're in for a pretty good selection of full frame, fuzzy, beat up ads for films like Three on a Meathook, Torso, House of Exorcism, The Wizard of Gore, Flesh Feast, Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things, Fangs of the Living Dead, Black Christmas (advertised as Silent Night, Evil Night), Sisters, and Mad Doctor of Blood Island.

Towards the end, the trailers wander off into exploitation territory, with movies like Africa Addio (identified here as Africa Blood and Guts), Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS, and some 3-D porno which is presented partially in 3-D (in case you have glasses handy). Does it run a little long? Maybe. Are the Nick and Happy segments kinda tedious? Oh, you bet. Does the anti-piracy warning at the end serve any purpose other than one more gore effect? Not really.

Despite the very low budget-ed nature of Mad Ron's Prevues from Hell, the myriad of detracting factors working against it, and the fact that it's clearly just a video cassette plopped onto a DVD, I'm highly considering showing the disc at Horror Fest during pre-festivities. It's just entertaining enough that audiences in the right frame of mind could get a kick out of the old school vibe.

A Few Thoughts on Alien and Prometheus

 As I mentioned earlier this week, I watched Alien twice last weekend. Having seen Alien recently, I thought it might be a good time to listen to the commentary tracks on each version (the 1979 theatrical cut and the 2003 re-edited "alternate" version created for the Alien Quadrilogy boxed set) as I'd never actually gotten around to that*. And, seeing that the Ridley Scott directed / Damon Lindelof and Jon Spaihts scripted Prometheus is coming out next week, it seemed like a good time to glean some information about the well guarded story.

 Since the announcement that Scott was returning to science fiction for the first time in thirty years, there has been a degree of speculation as to how Prometheus was connected to Alien. Scott indicated that the original plan was for the film to be a prequel to Alien, but that in the course of developing the script he, Lindelof, and Spaihts moved away from that and that the film was a stand alone story. Then Scott indicated that Prometheus shared "DNA" with the Alien world but that there would be no Xenomorphs (the titular creatures of the series, as they don't have a species identified in any of the films). And then the trailers made their way to the internet.

 Without breaking too much down (believe me, type "Prometheus" into the Google search engine and follow any links from online magazines detailing the history of production, questions about the trailer, and articles that deal with questions from the viral campaign), the first teaser had what looked like the derelict from Alien (and Aliens) with the same cockpit Dallas, Lambert, and Kane explore, something that looks a lot like the Space Jockey's head (or helmet) and images that went beyond sharing "DNA". The subsequent trailers (international and domestic) introduced shapes and structures that looked a LOT like Xenomorphs, something that looks like a proto-facehugger, and more than one Space Jockey (with and without helmet, which explains what connects to the cockpit).

 The viral ads online have introduced Guy Pearce as Peter Weyland (one can debate whether this removes Lance Henriksen's Charles Bishop Weyland as the originator of the "Company" - based on the chronology, it's possible Pearce plays his son and therefore not all of the terrible Alien vs Predator films is being thrown out) and introduced David (Michael Fassbinder) as Weyland's android aboard the Prometheus (no Ash-like misdirection this time out), as well as a video from Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) contacting Weyland that also introduces the Yutani into Weyland Yutani (from Aliens).

 I don't even want to talk about some of the spots airing on television because I'm trying to avoid them. At least two I've seen give away far more than any of the trailers have about what the not-facehugger thing is capable of doing and more specific details about Shaw's theory of who the "Architects" are. They have produced one two interesting images (particularly this spot), including the one that conclusively answers the question "is this the same planet where the crew of the Nostromo find the derelict ship?"

 The answer is no: that planet was LV-426**, and this image:

 Makes it clear they're headed to LV-223, so we're not being misled and the fact that a Space Jockey's ship that crashes in every trailer isn't the same ship from Alien. But wait... if we go into rampant speculation mode, what else is there to learn here.

 Well, here's the shot that immediately precedes the image above:

 It shows the planet, the moon (LV-223), and another planetoid orbiting. I point this out because one of the things I noticed while watching Alien again is that LV-426 is orbiting this planet:

 It was actually much more difficult to find good pictures from Alien, but in the film you can see what appears to be a gas giant with a ring around it and two planetoids in orbit (I say planetoid instead of moon because that's how Scott describes it in the 1999 commentary, when he says "they told me the planetoid wouldn't have an atmosphere and I said mine would because otherwise it looked like rubbish.") This shot it from the end of the Alien teaser (hence the tagline in the lower portion of the picture) but you can kind of make out both smaller orbiting planetoids, one of which is LV-426.

 So is the other one LV-223? I don't know, but it was something I hadn't even given though about before putting Alien back on. Yes, the crash isn't on the same moon/planetoid but does that mean the Prometheus doesn't land somewhere very near to where the Nostromo answers a distress call? I guess we'll find out next week.

 Other interesting tidbits from Ridley Scott's commentary (the 1999 one and his sections of the 2003 group track, recorded with and without Sigourney Weaver):

 - He describes Ash as "basically a Replicant" tying together in his mind the worlds of Alien and Blade Runner, made all the more curious as Scott has announced he will be making a sequel to the latter with screenwriter Hampton Fancher (and possibly Harrison Ford in a small capacity) in the next few years.

 - Scott mentions both in 1999 and in 2003 of his fascination with the Space Jockey and his theory that the derelict was a "bioweapon carrier" designed to unleash the Xenomorphs on some unidentified species. He and Weaver agree that the origin of the Space Jockey and the Xenomorphs is the only way to continue making films in the Alien universe and that if either of them were involved, they would want to explore just that.

 - His conception of the Xenomorph was that it could essentially reproduce asexually, and the deleted "cocoon" sequence hinted that it could change its victims into other Xenomorphs. All of this was removed from the theatrical cut and the creation of the Queen in Aliens completely removes this from the lifecycle, but if you put on the 2003 recut of the film and listen to Scott's explanation of what Ripley is seeing, he explains an alternate theory as to how a single Xenomorph could perpetuate the species. Scott frequently refers to the facehugger concept of implanting eggs in living hosts by mentioning insects that have similar tactics.

 So here we are, one week away from Prometheus, and this could all be irrelevant by then. It's hard to say, but I have fun geeking out and speculating every now and then. Watching Alien again (and again) certainly gave me some things to consider until seeing Scott's return to the world of Space Jockeys and alien life forms. I guess I'll revisit this soon...



 * I had listened to the track for Aliens, which is an interesting collection of various participants, sometimes in groups or, in the case of James Cameron, alone, and contains all kinds of information about the making of the film and its relationship with Alien.
** That is, by the way, not speculation. In addition to being able to find that information on virtually any site about Alien or Aliens, it's part of the menu that opens the Alien Blu-Ray, which also provides the name "Acheron" which is what the colonists call the planet in Aliens.

Fifteen Minute Movies - Grosse Point Blank

 Well, eventually - I'm more than fifteen minutes into Grosse Pointe Blank, but I had to share the beginning of the tape with the rest of you. One of my forgotten joys about VHS was the random collection of trailers you'd find in front of the movie, and Miramax put together a doozy to proceed this one.

 In the order they played, this is what Bob and Harvey Weinstein think you might like if you rent / bought Grosse Pointe Blank:

 Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion
 Playing God
 Gone Fishin'
 The Sixth Man
 The Prophecy 2
 Chasing Amy

  No joke. The trailers don't make much sense, that placement really doesn't make sense, and to be honest with you, aside from the first movie I don't know that any of them are remotely similar to "John Cusack as hitman who takes a job the same weekend as his high school reunion." I greatly enjoy Grosse Pointe Blank, and have fun every time I watch the movie, but I never once considered any of the other films advertised in front of it as a good "double feature" option.

 For those of you who don't remember some of those titles, let's do a quick recap: Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion is the one with Lisa Kudrow and Mira Sorvino as airhead valley girls who try to make a splash at their reunion. Playing God was David Duchovny's first major motion picture after The X-Files broke big (and before anybody knew what Kalifornia was), and also features Angelina Jolie. I've seen it and even I don't really recall specifics about the plot. Gone Fishin' is that movie with Joe Pesci and Danny Glover that everybody saw the ads for and didn't see. The Sixth Man? Kadeem Hardison and Marlon Wayans in a movie about the ghost of a basketball player who helps his team. The Prophecy 2 was the sequel to The Prophecy and is notable for having Jennifer Beals, Christopher Walken, and Glen Danzig.

 And then there's Chasing Amy. I think most of you know Kevin Smith's first "departure" from purely juvenile comedy and how people like to pretend that it's actually good, but I'm going to put all that aside. After all, it's not Armageddon's fault that it's the second least deserving Criterion title. The point of mentioning Chasing Amy (a movie that I have never once thought of when watching Grosse Pointe Blank) is the trailer, which is such a sanitized and toothless take on the film that they don't even show that the main character is a lesbian.



  Oh, and there's a spot for the Grosse Pointe Blank soundtrack. So how far did I make it into the movie after all that set up? Well, about as far a Martin Blank (Cusack) watching the Grocer (Dan Aykroyd) gun down a target and ruin his hit. The rest, as they say, was for another day...

Horror Fest 6 Presents: Random Series Sequels

Friday the 13th Part VII - The New Blood


Phantasm IV: Oblivion


Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers


A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy's Revenge


Leprechaun in Space


Hellraiser: Deader


Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 3
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Wrong Turn 2: Dead End

Retro Review: Virtuosity

 This is going to be the shortest Retro Review in the history of the Blogorium, because I have but one and only one memory to impart about the film Virtuosity. Forget The Towering Inferno. Forget The Poseidon Adventure. Forget Earthquake. There is but one movie of dubious merit that is, pound-for-pound, the most stacked with people who SHOULD KNOW BETTER: Academy Award Winners Denzel Washington (Training Day), Russell Crowe (Gladiator), and Louise Fletcher (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) join UFC and WWF Champion Ken Shamrock (Scarecrow Gone Wild) in what was the second sci-fi bomb of 1995 (after Johnny Mnemonic).

 I remember almost nothing about Virtuosity. It's easily been ten years since I last saw it, and other than knowing that Denzel is the good guy and Russell Crowe is the virtual reality serial killer who gets loose, I couldn't tell you anything about the movie. Nothing. Instead, I pulled up the cast list on IMDB and discovered that Virtuosity is a treasure trove of "that guy"'s, many of whom I would clearly recognize if I saw the film again today*. Let's have a look, shall we?

 A quick glimpse shows me William Fichtner (Drive Angry), William Forsythe (Dick Tracy), Kelly Lynch (Cocktail), Cotas Mandylor (Saw VII), Kevin J. O'Connor (Lord of Illusions), Christopher Murray (Smokin' Aces), Traci Lords (Cry Baby), Dustin Ngyuen (Rapid Fire), Anthony Winters (Sneakers), and last but not least Michael "Let's Get Ready to RUMMMMMMBLLLLLLE!" Buffer (Rocky V).

 All this talent in one movie, along with three people (and Ken Shamrock) who ought to have known better. I guess I could give Russel Crowe a pass, but Denzel Washington was in Malcolm X. He was nominated for an Academy Award for Malcolm X, for crying out loud. The man didn't need to slum - that's what Ricochet was for, and Ricochet is GREAT!

 Since I can't tell you much more about the movie, or even how we saw it (it must have been on VHS), let's take a look at the creative team, shall we? Director Brett Leonard cut his teeth with The Dead Pit, The Lanwmower Man, and Hideaway (with Jeff Goldlum) before moving on to make Virtuosity. After that, he made Man-Thing, Highlander: The Source, and Sigfried & Roy: The Magic Box. Writer Eric Bernt wrote Surviving the Game (good job!), Romeo Must Die, Highlander: Endgame (bad job!), Bachelor Party Vegas, and the remake of The Hitcher for Platinum Dunes. Now I suppose you could argue that each peaked before Virtuosity, but I like to pretend it was their "high water mark" before an inexorable decline.

 So, uh, what have we learned? That if I wanted to Spoil this movie, I'd have to look it up? Yep. That sometimes you really can totally forget about a movie you see until it pops up somewhere? Check. That maybe you should put a trailer at the bottom of a Retro Review to help convince yourself the film exists? Why, look at that!

 



* At the time, Crowe would be in that list too, as I hadn't seen Romper Stomper or The Quick and the Dead to that point.

News and Notes (and a Little Spillover from Saturday's Rambling Rant)

 - Well, if somebody was going to remake Oldboy - and that's an inevitability given the quality of the film and the hesitancy of Americans to watch films with subtitles - I, for one, am glad to hear that Spike Lee is the man behind the camera. Not to speak ill of Steven Spielberg, but the only movie he's been involved with in the last twenty years even close to the grittiness of Oldboy was Munich, and I have no idea how he would have handled the, ahem, twists and turns of the film.

 Spike Lee, on the other hand, is going to bring something to an American version of Oldboy that is going to be fresh and unexpected. That's one of the things I love about Spike Lee films, which are criminally under-represented here in the Blogorium. I'll have to fix that. In the hands of anyone else, a movie like Inside Man could be just another generic heist / cops and robbers film, but Lee infuses it with personality, keeps the stakes up, makes the film interesting. And that's arguably as "mainstream" or "slick" as a Spike Lee Joint ever got. I'm actually very excited to see what he does with the material, and in the meanwhile Park Chan-Wook's first English language film is also on its way. Next year could be very intriguing indeed.

- Speaking of remakes, I really don't understand this next one. The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters is a genuinely compelling documentary about a subject you'd never think would be worth spending 90 minutes with - the high score of Donkey Kong. Watch it on Netflix right now - it's available for instant viewing. I'll wait right here.

 See? I was surprised too, and I went into it with more than a passing interest in arcade games. The director of the film, Seth Gordon, who is out promoting his new film Horrible Bosses, mentioned to Playlist that New Line is planning on remaking The King of Kong, but as a mockumentary, ala The Office or Christopher Guest's films.

 This doesn't make sense at all; if you're going into The King of Kong looking to laugh at the awkwardness of two guys jockeying for the position of "all time high score in Donkey Kong," it's not like you won't find that in the movie itself. There's no need to remake the film in order to further mock Donkey Kong enthusiasts, and it overlooks what The King of Kong does so well in the first place: it takes Billy Mitchell (the champion) and Steve Wiebe (the challenger) and over the course of the film creates a "David vs. Goliath" struggle over something as trivial as an arcade game. And you're swept up in it, because it's important to them and Gordon conveys that clearly.

 If you make it a mockumentary, then Billy Mitchell might as well be played like Ben Stiller in Dodgeball. And that's probably how they're going to approach it. But why? Is New Line convinced that if they put out a movie that people can easily find, but sell the same premise as a "look at these losers" comedy instead of a documentary, that this is somehow preferable? That it's somehow going to bring out people who didn't see The King of Kong in the first place?

- This is probably the most trivial thing I've never understood about geekdom, but I left it off of Saturday's piece because it isn't just geeks that do this. When the time comes for the newest sequel or entry into a franchise (Harry Potter, Twilight, Pirates of the Caribbean, the Bourne films), people come flooding into used stores looking for the other films. Now, I understand this - it makes sense to want to re-watch the last chapter before jumping in. If that were strictly the case, I could totally overlook how silly it is to wait until the week before the movie comes out to come rushing in (when we are invariably sold out because people who have the foresight to plan ahead have beaten them to the punch). But that's actually less of the case than one would think.

 I worked at a used book store from 2006-2009, and when, let's say, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince came out, people came rushing in not only for copies of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, but for ALL five movies that preceded Half Blood Prince. Because they wanted to start the series (for themselves or with their kids) three days before the next film opened. The books, I totally understood, because you have plenty of time to sit down with them, so when The Deathly Hallows arrived (the only book our store ever ordered new), it made sense we'd run out of previous chapters. Trying to cram the first five Potter movies into three days in order to not feel "left out" of the pop culture phenomenon of this weekend is asinine. Getting angry because you lack the sense to consider finding these movies when they were readily available and not waiting until everyone else on Earth is also looking for them is not my fault. People would freak out at us because we were sold out, as was every big box retail store, all because they waited and waited and waited and now it's too late.

 The same thing happened with The Bourne Ultimatum, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, Spider-Man 3, Ocean's Thirteen, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, The Dark Knight, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Star Trek, The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, and perhaps the greatest exercise in futility with a week to go - The X-Files: I Want to Believe. No, really; someone tried to find every season of The X-Files in order to "catch up" in time for the movie.

 I haven't ever understood this mentality and I can't imagine I ever will. It's true that the Cap'n has been known to wait to close to the last minute to finish projects, but when it comes to getting "caught up," especially in pop culture, if I don't have the time to do it or haven't planned ahead to do so, I'm not going to try to cram it in at the last second to be a part of the herd in theatres. I can wait, which is admittedly a rarity in this instance, but it beats the aggravation of knowing I waited too long.


 - I'm not sure when the world became so sick of pre-movie trailers on DVD and Blu-Ray. That includes me, by the way; when I see anything other than the menu for the movie I want to watch come up, the Cap'n instinctively hits the "skip" button, and grouses when the disc is encoded to prevent skipping. I can't remember the last time I watched the previews before a DVD or BD. I attribute this to two main causes: 1) most of the time people watching a disc at home are watching a movie they've seen before, or are at least keen on getting to before the distractions kick in, and 2) many of the trailers are for movies we've already seen advertised dozens of time, or are for movies that have been out almost as long as the disc we're watching.

 Universal tried to do something novel and prompts online streaming of new trailers before your film (and the dozens of legal mumbo jumbo) begins, but I usually skip that too. I want to watch the movie, and even the novelty of Anchor Bay's trailer programming - which focuses on catalog titles that someone might enjoy if they like this movie - is seen as an impediment.

 I bring this up because it's something very different (at least for me) when it comes to VHS. While fast-forwarding through the trailers is something I'll sometimes consider doing, the trailers in front of movies I've looked at recently on video have been more like an archeological expedition, full of fun discoveries, than a nuisance. A tape I was looking at for a film called Drive-In Massacre begins with a trailer for Another State of Mind, a punk documentary along the lines of The Decline of Western Civilization. I didn't know Another State of Mind existed, so it was a pleasant discovery and now I have another movie to look into. That a punk doc appeared before a schlock-o-rama horror movie is one of the charms of VHS that didn't seem to carry over into the digital realm. However, it's not the "retro" quality that drives this cognitive dissonance; after all, I own several DVDs that are nothing BUT trailers. I just can't quite decide why so many of us are impatient with the oldest form of exposing ourselves to other movies.

Retro Review: The Siege, Star Trek: Insurrection, and Rush Hour

 This is a little bit different take on the Retro Review, less about the specific films listed in the title and more about the reason WHY I sat through two movies I'll never watch again and a movie I haven't seen in nearly a twelve years and vaguely remember. The connective tissue between these three disparate, otherwise wholly unrelated films, has everything to do with George Lucas and May of 1999*.

 Although Star Wars doesn't receive the level of attention at the Blogorium that it might have ten years ago, I was once a fanatic of George Lucas' sci-fi / fantasy series. These days, in the wake of Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, The Clone Wars movie and subsequent series (which I have not and do not plan on seeing), and the impending Blu-Ray release / 3-D re-release of the "saga," I just don't feel the need to write about Star Wars that much anymore. I'm not one of those hyperbolic "Lucas raped my childhood" idiots**, and I do sometimes smile or chuckle at a well placed SW reference, but most of the time I just don't think about the movies. Any of them, even if I'm more inclined to watch A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back than the other four.

 That was not always the case; from the announcement of the Star Wars prequels (some time after the 1997 Special Editions) until the release of Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace, I was a rabid fanatic. You can ask anyone I knew in college freshman year, when I undoubtedly drove them nuts with taped trailers from Entertainment Tonight or the latest rumors from TheForce.net.More to the point, I was insufferable when it came to seeing the teaser trailer, and I had a habit of dragging very reasonable friends to movies we wouldn't see otherwise because the teaser was "rumored" to be attached. I was home from school on three occasions, and I think you can figure out what the first two movies were.


I'm sure you've all seen Rush Hour at this point; you've probably seen Rush Hour 2 and not Rush Hour 3 (at least, that's my level of interaction with the series). I heard that The Phantom Menace's teaser ran before the film, and that Rush Hour might be funny. I suppose we enjoyed it, although I'd be pressed to tell you much about Rush Hour. Thinking back, it seems like I remember as much about Rush Hour as I do Shanghai Noon (anybody see that movie?). It's an amiable comedy, notable (at the time) for featuring Tom Wilkinson, who I had seen in The Full Monty the year before. I can't honestly remember if the trailer was attached or not, but it seems like it wasn't.



  Skip two months later to Thanksgiving break of 1998, when a similar situation unfolded for The Siege.
Driving to the theatre, I swore up and down we wouldn't be as "let down" this time, and by "we," I meant "me" because compared to The Siege, Rush Hour was a walk in the park. Other than hating the movie, here are the things I remember about The Siege: Bruce Willis, Denzel Washington, Annette Bening, and Tony Shalhoub were in the film. It had something to do with a terrorist attack or the threat of terrorism or something, and Willis declared marshal law in New York. That's it. I never saw The Siege again, don't recall enjoying it, and have no plans to revisit the film. Considering that we (I) only went to see The Siege to watch that trailer, and the trailer wasn't there, I was doubly disappointed.

 How I eventually saw the teaser trailer or what it was playing in front of is lost to the ages, so I'm just going to assume I saw it online over and over in some horrible quality QuickTime on a loop, obsessing over the minutiae until the next trailer came along. Maybe it's even on a cd-r or a floppy disc somewhere, lost in the shuffle of the following decade.

  Star Trek: Insurrection is more of an appendix to the story, a movie I saw with my Dad for Christmas or possibly even early in 1999 for his birthday. The film itself is a elongated, mostly pointless episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation that I'd largely forgotten until watching Mr. Plinkett's review of the film***. It's only really worth noting because I do know that the Episode 1 trailer played before Insurrection, and was arguably the highlight of the afternoon.

 This is not a Retro Review for The Phantom Menace (although I might do one of those down the line), so there's no need to get into whether the film lived up to the teaser or not. I just thought you might chuckled at the lengths to which a young and silly Star Wars fan would go to see a trailer. Not the movie, a trailer. Laugh it up, fuzzballs.

* You could also consider The Mummy to fit into this rubric, although its release was much closer to Episode 1. For whatever reason, I gave The Mummy's crappy visual effects a pass because, as I reasoned, "ILM put most of their effort towards Star Wars."
** If you don't understand why using a rape metaphor to describe your reaction to three shitty movies, you are an idiot. Period.
*** Appropriately, the reason I knew Mr. Plinkett existed was because of his now famous Episode 1 review.

More News, More Notes

Good day to you, Blogorium readers! I was all set to do some reviewing, but a few things have come to my attention that are worth at least mentioning, and least one is a follow-up from Saturday's news and notes.

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Let's start with this Lars von Trier "Nazi" business, since I have some suspicion that it may seriously impact the announcement last week of his collaboration with Martin Scorsese. If you haven't already heard, von Trier was at a press conference for Melancholia, and he made some unfortunate comparisons between himself and Hitler. Well, you know what? I'm not going to paraphrase what Lars von Trier said. Here's the video:



Today, he was banned from the Cannes Film Festival, and gave an interview attempting to clarify the gaffe, which has the Danish provocateur in a more precarious than usual situation. This is quite a bit further than Antichrist being booed at 2009's festival, as his comments have garnered negative publicity from around the film community. Von Trier, for his part, seems reticent to do anything other than go home and direct pornography (see the interview linked atop this paragraph), and reactions are... mixed. I don't really want to say much more than that, because somehow arguments about French hypocrisy (involving Roman Polanski) and Mel Gibson started showing up here. Honestly, I don't want to wade any further into that, but felt it was worth directing you towards in order to give you some idea of the fallout from von Trier's comments.

What I did want to speculate on is that "remake" of The Five Obstructions story that was everywhere last weekend. This is a bit of a stretch, but in light of Arnold Schwarzenegger's tabloid troubles putting his return to acting on hold indefinitely, and the nature of really toxic publicity killing projects, I'd say the likelihood of this team-up between Lars von Trier and Martin Scorsese just hit the rocks. I'm not a prognosticator, but it seems like Melancholia is either going to be the hot ticket movie when it comes out, or it's going to be The Beaver and vanish from sight until Criterion releases it (as they did with Antichrist).

At this point, the actual quality of Melancholia (or The Beaver, for that matter) is irrelevant; this is about public perception, and the people who already hate Lars von Trier hit the jackpot, as "Nazi" is really not something you want to identify yourself with, even in jest. His fans will probably retreat quietly, and no American distributor is going to want to touch a Scorsese / von Trier joint. That's my guess, anyway. Bad publicity has killed many a "dream" project, and this one looks to be headed in the wrong direction.

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Okay, to lighten the mood, let's talk about two things you don't have to weigh heavily, either intellectually or emotionally: movies online. Not the illegal ones (the Cap'n wouldn't know anything about that), but streaming video of films in their entirety from reputable sites. Free ones, at that: while Netflix and Amazon Prime customers already have access to streaming movies and television, YouTube also decided to get in on the game and now offer a "Movies" section on their main page.

What you've probably noticed is that they are charging for many of these movies, but what you may have missed is their selection of "Free" films. I was expecting to find mostly public domain, easy to locate anywhere fare, but I was impressed to see that YouTube has a solid lineup of higher profile features at no cost. Titles like Ghostbusters, The Buena Vista Social Club, Bad Taste, The Third Man, Bringing Up Baby, Bob le Flambeur, His Girl Friday, "M", The Man with the Golden Arm, The Intruder, Scarlet Street, Chaplin's The Kid, The Squid and the Whale, Super Size Me, Peeping Tom, American Scary, and DiG!.

It's actually pretty impressive, and that's just a cross section of movies you can watch (in their entirety) instead of the latest clip of some stupid thing a cat did, or whatever the hell "planking" is. The quality isn't amazing, but I'd say it is perfectly watchable, considering. This, coupled with IMDB's available free movies, you're in pretty good shape if rental prices are too steep.

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Finally, I don't know why I haven't mentioned this sooner, as I'm a full-on addict to this site, but cinephiles need to run, not walk, to Trailers from Hell. Spearheaded by director Joe Dante (The Howling, Matinee, Gremlins), the site is a collection of all kinds of trailers for all sorts of classic (and not-so-classic) films, presented by themselves or with commentary from the Trailers from Hell gurus. The gurus include geek fan favorites like Edgar Wright and Guillermo Del Toro, as well as Roger Corman, Neil LaBute, Brian Trenchard-Smith, Lloyd Kaufman, Bill Duke, John Landis, Allison Anders, and Rick Baker.

Informative and enjoyable, I get a kick out of watching the trailers with thoughts from long-time fans and filmmakers who give historical context (just look at the mini-lesson from Bill Duke on Sweet Sweetbacks Baadasssss Song) to what are normally considered "exploitation" trailers. Seriously, go there now!

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Okay, that's plenty for you to look into heading into your weekend. I'll be back tomorrow or Saturday with a new review, so until then stay classy!

2010 Recap: The Best DVD and Blu-Ray Releases

As we head towards the end of Cap'n Howdy's 2010 year-end recap, I thought I'd turn the focus away from films released in 2010 to shine a light on some of the fantastic DVD and Blu-Ray titles that made their way to stores (and, hopefully, your homes). Additionally, I'd like to point out a few films that the Cap'n discovered last year, generally tied to Horror and Summer Fests, that you ought to look into.

Blu-Ray:

Alien Anthology - I'm not even close to exploring every nook and cranny of the Blu-Ray equivalent to The Alien Quadrilogy. Not only is everything from that boxed set included, but 20th Century Fox completed the ADR on Alien 3's "workprint" version and included a Mu-Th-Ur mode that bridges all of the discs, allowing you to switch movies out without another round of FBI warnings, plus the streaming data remembers what you marks and directs you to extras on the fifth and sixth discs related to them. Additionally, the documentary on Alien 3 reinstated footage that deals with David Fincher's struggle to maintain his vision while studio executives and producers constantly intervened. Easily the best boxed set of 2010, and it's not even the only good one that came out this year.

The African Queen - It's hard to believe, but John Huston's The African Queen had never been released on DVD (or Blu-Ray) until 2010. It's nice to finally have the film in a very impressive audio and video presentation, and while the extras may be slim, the presence of the film itself was worth the wait.

Metropolis Restored - Kino Films released several quality releases in 2010 (including Sherlock Jr. / Three Ages, Steamboat Bill Jr., and The Black Pirate), but none may have been more anticipated than the almost complete Metropolis. After twenty five minutes of footage were discovered in Argentina and the film premiered in its restored version at the Berlin International Film Festival, cinephiles held their breath for the Blu-Ray release. The restored footage isn't in great shape, but I have to say that being able to see Metropolis as close to its original premiere as possible is worth the limitations of video quality.

Grindhouse - Speaking of movies that debuted in their original form this year, 2007's Grindhouse finally saw a Blu-Ray release of the film as shown in theatres (with awkward splices, commercials, ratings, and fake trailers intact) plus a second disc of extras (old and new). It's worth the price of admission just for Don't, Thanksgiving, and Werewolf Women of the S.S., but being able to show Grindhouse the way I saw it the first time is an even the Cap'n is looking forward to in 2011.

The Bridge on the River Kwai - I'm an unabashed fan of David Lean's The Bridge on the River Kwai, and while I parted with my DVD copy with hesitation, the upgrade was absolutely worth it. Like The African Queen, the new extras aren't much to speak of, but all of the old features are intact and considering that you can get The Bridge on the River Kwai for $20 or less, it's a no-brainer for classic film fans.

Back to the Future Trilogy - Other than the fact that the discs are almost impossible to remove the first time you open the set, I heartily recommend the Back to the Future series on Blu-Ray. The "set ups and payoffs" extra runs through all three films, and there are a gaggle of in-jokes that I never caught before. The set is also worth checking out for what will likely be the only footage of Eric Stoltz as Marty McFly we'll ever see.

Apocalypse Now - This "Full Disclosure" edition improves on the "Complete Dossier" DVD version by putting ALL of Apocalypse Now and Coppola's Redux on one disc (the DVD version split half of each version over two discs), restores the film to its proper widescreen format (2.35:1 rather than 2.00:1) and includes another disc of extras from previous versions. Oh, and Hearts of Darkness, the documentary about making Apocalypse Now that's as riveting as the film itself, in high def on disc three.

Psycho - The film is great. The disc looks great. I don't know that I need to sell you on Psycho any further.

Fantasia / Fantasia 2000 - We'll get to a review of Fantasia 2000 in the next week or two, but having what is arguably my favorite Disney film on Blu Ray is worth having its sequel on board. The extras from the Fantasia Legacy are included, but as an online "Virtual Vault" set. Disney doesn't slouch with their high definition classics, and Fantasia and Fantasia 2000 are no exception.

Delicatessen - Jean-Pierre Jeneut's debut film is the first Studio Canal Collection disc that I really went gaga over. Sure, Contempt looked good and The Ladykillers had a greater clarity, but Delicatessen is a knock out on Blu-Ray. I certainly hope that The City of Lost Children follows, and that if Studio Canal insists on pulling Criterion licenses (this is not one of them, but bear with me), that they'll give future releases the treatment Delicatessen got.

A Nightmare on Elm Street (Blu-Ray) and Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy (DVD) - Although I may have a soft spot for Jason Vorhees and Michael Myers, Freddy Krueger has always been my favorite boogeyman in the "slasher" era. While it would be nice to see the entire Nightmare on Elm Street series in high def (even Freddy's Revenge), I can't complain about New Line's release of the first film on Blu-Ray. The only down side may be that the terrible looking "stretched arms" scene is even cheesier in 1080p, but beggars can't be choosers, right? As I mentioned in my favorite films, Never Sleep Again is THE horror documentary to beat, period. I would happily watch it again.

Class of Nuke 'em High - You never thought this would be on Blu-Ray, did you? Here's a shocker: it's the best looking Troma movie I've ever seen, on DVD or otherwise. Admittedly, that's like saying "well, he's the handsomest caveman," but even with that caveat, you'll be surprised how nice such a cheap exploitation movie looks.

DVDs:

Death Bed: The Bed that Eats - There's no explaining the story of Death Bed in a way that makes sense. There's no adequate way of describing how the death bed eats people, because you really need to see it to believe it. For a film that had never seen release until the 21st century, 1977's bizarre Death Bed: The Bed that Eats must be seen, yet cannot be un-seen.

Mad Ron's Prevues from Hell - In the age of trailer compilations (42nd Street Forever, All Monsters Attack, Shock Festival, Trailers from Hell), it might be hard to argue the value of a VHS cheapie ported directly to DVD and released without any effort to hide that fact, let alone one with a terrible "corpse" ventriloquist and plodding zombie gags. However, Mad Ron's Prevues from Hell manages to be entertainingly sleazy and has a "let's put on a show" vibe that excuses much of the cheapness to the affair. There are better ways to watch exploitation trailers, to be sure, but Mad Ron's Prevues from Hell is a throwback to the golden age of VHS, and as a result manages to eek out a win.

Kingdom of the Spiders - Admittedly, I'd only ever seen Kingdom of the Spiders on TV, and not even in a complete form (mostly just random scenes). Aside from a zonked out Japanese film to be mentioned shortly, this was probably the best received film from Horror Fest V. It's incessant sleaziness, mean-spirited tone, and quasi-apocalyptic ending, along with the Shatner factor, made Kingdom of the Spiders the re-issue of 2010 (close runners up: The House on Sorority Row and The Slumber Party Massacre Collection).

Now we'll move on to a few companies that consistently hit it out of the park on high definition this year:

Shout! Factory - Specifically their MST3k and Roger Corman Cult Classics collections, which continue to be great stuff. Shout! took over for Rhino in releasing Mystery Science Theater 3000, and in addition to providing some truly excellent retrospective pieces on the films, the series, and the people behind both, volume XIX completed the "bot" triumvirate by including a Gypsy figurine to the existing Servo (volume XVI) and Crow (volume XIII / 20th Anniversary), leaving only Cambot or the Satellite of Love for future releases. The Roger Corman Cult Classics collection runs across DVD and Blu-Ray and has included remastered versions of Death Race 2000, Piranha, The Slumber Party Massacre collection, Humanoids from the Deep, Not of This Earth, Starcrash, Galaxy of Terror, Rock 'N Roll High School, Forbidden World, and double feature discs with the likes of Death Sport, Battle Truck, Up from the Depths, Big Bad Mama (1&2), Lady in Red, The Warrior and the Princess, Crazy Mama, Barbarian Queen, The Evil, Twice Dead, The Terror Within, Dead Space and Demon of Paradise. And there are more to come in 2011!

Blue Underground - William Lustig's spin-off of Anchor Bay has continued to reissue their titles on Blu-Ray, often with surprisingly great looking discs. In 2010, they released George Romero's The Crazies, Fulci's City of the Living Dead, plus Vampyres, Django, Machine Gun McCain, Maniac, The Prowler, Vigilante, Uncle Sam, and The Toolbox Murders.

Warner Brothers - who pushed harder than just about any other studio to put their back catalog on Blu-Ray, including The Maltese Falcon, Forbidden Planet, King Kong, The Exorcist, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, and more recent Cap'n favorites The Goonies and Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet.

Criterion - I don't even know where to start with Criterion's 2010 release slate. If we focus strictly on the NEW Blu-Rays (and not re-issues of Spine Numbers in high definition), we're still talking about Paths of Glory, Modern Times, Cronos, Che, Stagecoach, Paris, Texas, Vivre sa vie, Mystery Train, Red Desert, By Brakhage volume two, Crumb, The Magician, The Thin Red Line, The Night of the Hunter, The Darjeeling Limited, Antichrist, Lola Montes, Bigger Than Life, and Nobuhiko Obayashi's acid-trip ghost story House. Or we could look at the motherload boxed set, America Lost and Found: the BBS Story, which features Head, Easy Rider, Five Easy Pieces, Drive, He Said, A Safe Place, The Last Picture Show, and The King of Marvin Gardens. That's not including DVD releases of Terry Zwigoff's Louie Bluie, Make Way for Tomorrow, The Fugitive Kind, 3 Classics by Josef von Sternberg, Roberto Rosselini's War Trilogy, and Eclipse sets for Chantal Akerman, George Bernard Shaw on Film, early Kurosawa, Nagisa Oshima, Sacha Guitry, and Allan King.

Blogorium Review: Mad Ron's Prevues from Hell

Sometimes, it pays to follow your gut. When I read a review of Mad Ron's Prevues from Hell, a review that said at best the trailer compilation was a "rental," I filed the title away in my head until I saw the DVD at Hastings. The Cap'n is something of a trailer freak, and I love a good compilation - I own all of the 42nd Street Forever discs, All Monsters Attack, and am trying to get ahold of Stephen Romano's Shock Festival set - so despite the fact that Mad Ron's Prevues from Hell was clearly duped from a 1987 VHS copy, Professor Murder and I sat down for 83 minutes of preview mayhem.

Mad Ron's Prevues from Hell isn't just a trailer compilation; director Jim Monaco places the clips in between a sort-of "frame story," involving a movie theatre invaded by the living dead. Mad Ron, the projectionist, threads trailers for the ghastly, the exploitative, and the extremely violent while we're "entertained" by Nick (Nick Pawlow) and his zombie dummy Happy. Happy tells... well, I'd be lying if I called them "jokes," but that's what the tape-turned-DVD wants you to regard them as. When Nick and Happy aren't cracking wise, the "film" (I'm using that very loosely) cuts away to zombies getting into hi jinks like pouring blood on popcorn, eating guts, and pulling eyeballs out.

I suppose it's worth noting (because the back of the DVD does) that the effects were done by Jordu Schell, who later went on to work on Avatar, and the gore is pretty good. The tape itself feels like a "let's put on a show" production from locals who wanted to play the living dead while trailers string the story together. They aren't always horror, but you're in for a pretty good selection of full frame, fuzzy, beat up ads for films like Three on a Meathook, Torso, House of Exorcism, The Wizard of Gore, Flesh Feast, Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things, Fangs of the Living Dead, Black Christmas (advertised as Silent Night, Evil Night), Sisters, and Mad Doctor of Blood Island.

Towards the end, the trailers wander off into exploitation territory, with movies like Africa Addio (identified here as Africa Blood and Guts), Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS, and some 3-D porno which is presented partially in 3-D (in case you have glasses handy). Does it run a little long? Maybe. Are the Nick and Happy segments kinda tedious? Oh, you bet. Does the anti-piracy warning at the end serve any purpose other than one more gore effect? Not really.

Despite the very low budget-ed nature of Mad Ron's Prevues from Hell, the myriad of detracting factors working against it, and the fact that it's clearly just a video cassette plopped onto a DVD, I'm highly considering showing the disc at Horror Fest during pre-festivities. It's just entertaining enough that audiences in the right frame of mind could get a kick out of the old school vibe.

Remakes I Wouldn't Mind Seeing Trailer Sunday

Phantasm


Krull


Pirates


Six Pack


Silent Night, Deadly Night 2


Rawhead Rex


Outland

The True Story of Trailer Sunday*

Skatetown USA


Bear Island


The Ladies Man


Brainstorm


Tales from the Script


The Satan Bug


Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy


* Names, locations, and stories may have been changed.

(in)Frequently Asked Questions (part 1)

A good Monday to all Blogorium readers. I thought I'd take some time out today to address ten of the most frequent questions that come up. The Cap'n isn't above doing more Q&A's, so if I leave something out, feel free to ask for future posts of this kind.

In the interest of keeping this from going on forever, I'm going to break up the questions over two days. For today, enjoy questions 1-5.


1. I have to ask, what the hell is that picture on the top of the Blogorium?

The picture that greets you every time you come to Cap'n Howdy's Blogorium is Doctor Re-Animator. It's a screen grab from "Move Your Dead Bones," which is this strange techno-dance video that's an extra on Beyond Re-Animator, which is the second sequel to Re-Animator and was (as best I can tell) never released theatrically in the U.S. It is not directly tied to the film, but I find it to be both hilarious and dangerously catchy.

See for yourself:

Two hours from now, that chorus will still be in your head. I promise.

2. Do you really post every day?

Whenever possible. There have been a few circumstances, usually tied to moving or unforeseeable circumstances, where I've missed the "chronological" or calendar version of "day" and had to post a little late, but I do try to have something new up every single day. Periodically you'll see a "From the Vaults" or I'll hand things over to a Guest Blogger if I know I won't be able to make good on this self-imposed productivity.

3. Are you Grampa J?

No, I am not Grampa J. For those of you new to the site, Grampa J is a blogger who runs @Josh@Themovies, a site that really seems hell bent on parodying the Cap'n by using my real name and pilfered photo. I don't know exactly where he came from, but I do have some idea who "he" is. Since Grampa won't go away, I will periodically point you in his direction for a particularly insipid review, and I've decided to hound him until he gives up this embarrassing ruse of identity theft.

4. Why do you do "theme" posts, and why are some of them so infrequent?

I do the theme posts to keep things interesting, both for me and for you. It's true that I watch enough that I could easily do reviews every day, and there's enough news going on that I could also constantly link and react to the goings on in Hollywood, but after the first year or two, that got a little dull. So I decided to spice it up.

For new readers, I'll break them down for you:

There are two "theme" posts that will appear every week - Video Daily Doubles on Wednesday and Trailer Sundays on, well, Sunday. Video Daily Doubles are devoted to short films, random clips, or movie related ephemera I find during the week, and Trailer Sundays are devoted to introducing you to movies you may have never heard of and might not otherwise. The VDD's are a little newer, but I find it breaks the week up in an entertaining way.

As for the rest, they're broken down thusly:

Five Movies - It's exactly what it sounds like. Five movies that fit into some theme, designed to give you new titles to look into or to remind you of films that you saw and maybe forgot about.

Four Reasons - Here I'll try to take one movie or series and reconsider or revisit aspects that may not have occurred to me (or you) before. It's a much more specific post than Five Movies, and I use it to distinguish from longer Reviews.

So You Won't Have To - When the Cap'n is feeling particularly masochistic, I'll sometimes sit down and watch a movie that no one in their right mind would endure otherwise. I do so typically because I have some lingering interest in one aspect of the film or another, and the subsequent review (almost always a pan) is done so that you won't have to watch what I just finished. I'll always try to address the morbid fascination I had coming to the movie, in the hopes that it will satisfy any questions you had. Consider it an occupational hazard and a courtesy rolled into one.

From the Vault - I haven't always been here at Blogspot. For years I wrote on Livejournal and Myspace, and while both of those accounts have been abandoned, I did like some of the writing I did there, and will periodically re-post it for people who haven't been aware of the Cap'n. There's around 10 years worth of writing out there, and some of it is even good, so you can expect more every now and then.

Guest Blogger - There actually aren't that many of these. Typically I like to generate all of the content here at the Blogorium (it is, after all, my moniker attached to the top of the page), but every now and then I'll have a contest or ask somebody to be my DH for a day. It could even be you (more details tomorrow).

As to why some appear more frequently than others, I can say that Five Movies and Four Reasons take more time to put together than a review, so I do them less often. I enjoy them, but the preparation time is a little more involved. The So You Won't Have To's have been a little lax lately because, well, I haven't seen too many bad movies. If there's something particularly heinous you're interested in that's not Twilight, let me know.

5. How do you pick the movies you watch?

I have a pretty extensive collection of films here at Blogorium Central, many of which I haven't seen or have not seen in years. I also have a Netflix account and shop frequently at Edward McKay's Used Books and More, where I can find all kinds of movies I've never heard of. It's generally a combination of those three elements, interspersed with recommendations from you (the readers), films I watch in class, or screenings around town.


Questions 6-10 will appear tomorrow afternoon. Stay frosty, everybody!

Claritin, Tylenol, or Power Drill?

Slim pickings tonight. I'm just warning you up front. The Cap'n has a bit of a splitting headache of unknown origin (which we all know means only one thing: brain slugs), and I pretty much wrote myself out trying to digest A Serious Man last night. Plans to catch up with Black Dynamite fell through today, and all I really managed to do was get in the new episode of Saturday Night Live - which I found surprisingly amusing*.

However, I shall weather on with something or other, and give you some quality Trailer Sunday action tomorrow. If you're well behaved, I might even share my critical synopsis of Barton Fink come Monday. You'll see it before Herr Doktor does. Don't you feel special?

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For those of you in the area, the Cap'n will again be hosting an Oscar party next Sunday night (March 7th), which will be filled with... uh.... snark. Yes, lots of snark. There's a contingent who comes to talk about the fashion, which is totally fair, but my favorite pastime is punctuating commercial breaks with trailers from 42nd Street Forever...

Wait. This sounds awfully familiar. Did I write something remarkably similar to that last week?

Ah. I did. My bad.

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This is going to come as a shock to many of you, but the Cap'n temporarily lost his senses and started a Facebook account. I blame A Serious Man and a serious lack of sleep. Add me if you're feeling bold, because I haven't yet grown jaded enough to hit that "ignore" button.

On the other hand, that little Twitter-ing experiment got that out of my system. If that's your bag, please keep it up, but I need more than 140 characters to convey what I'm thinking.

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You folks have a 50/50 chance of seeing a review of The Hurt Locker next week. It's entirely dependent on what my work load looks like, but I admit that I do have at home and would like to watch the likely winner for "Best Picture" before the Academy Awards. I'd also like to watch The Informant!, but that's contingent on remembering to pick it up somewhere...

Oh, and there's a really good chance you'll see a review of Purple Rain next weekend. sigh.

* It's been pretty good of late, but my hopes were not stratospheric with host and musical guest Jennifer Lopez. Sorry.

Get the Hodgepodge Outta Dodge!

Alas, I knew it was too weird to be true. What a shame, but it did give me something to mull over for the night. Like the "never going to happen" Taxi Driver sequel, a remake is just too nutty to move beyond the "what if" stage.

Moving along...

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Despite my boredom for Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus, I feel it is only fair to let the two people who happen to a) read this blog and b) like MSVGO know that The Syfy Channel, in their infinite wisdom, are going to outdo that with Sharktopus, a Roger Corman-related joint. Conveniently, the same two people that a) read this blog, and b) like MSVGO also happen to c) enjoy Syfy original "films", so this is like a trifecta of awesomeness for you both.


There should be no need to explain what exactly the premise is, but if you need to know what a Sharktopus would look like, check out the concept art in the link above.

I could pretend that I cared, or even that I'd entertain screening this potential winner at Bad Movie Night or Featherface: The Greensboro Summer Fest Massacre Part III (mark my words, that's the name of it!), but after the Mega Debacle last summer, I'm not making any promises. In fact, I'm making no promises about ever watching the film period, as is my standard position on ALL Syfy originals.

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Thanks to Dinosaur Island, I now know that The Academy Awards are happening on March 7th. Since I'm such a swell guy, you should all come join the Cap'n for Oscar Snark '10, which unfortunately is not coupled with a "Puppy Academy Awards" show. Such a shame. What it will come with, as usual, is commercial breaks punctuated by 42nd Street Forever trailer compilations!

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If you put money down that I'd seen neither A Serious Man nor Bronson by Sunday, you just made some cash, my favorite fiends. And soon I'll add Black Dynamite to the pile, because there's no way I'm turning that down. It's cause for another movie night of "Shit I Should Be Watching But Haven't Yet." Throw in The House of the Devil and you've got quite a day of things...


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Finally, it bears noting that I'd forgotten both Jeff Bridges and Mia Farrow sing during The Last Unicorn. While Bridges fares better, I'm going to let the video do the talking for me:

A Day of Rest from Reviews

Thankfully, I lucked into a video daily double and a few other odds and ends in the land of film.

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At this point, I imagine many of you heave seen or heard the David Lynch anecdote about being offered Revenge of the Jedi and turning it down. If not, here it is:



Why exactly this is suddenly making the rounds today is a curio to me, but since I couldn't remember whether I'd heard this story before. The easiest path to go (since the internet can by wildly unreliable) was to pull out my dog-eaten copy of Lynch on Lynch, flip to the chapter on Dune, and check.

Sure enough, page 113:

"And then a weird thing started happening. I went to meet George Lucas who had offered me the third Star Wars to direct, but I've never even really liked science fiction. I like the elements of it, but it needs to be combined with other genres. And, obviously, Star Wars was totally George's thing."

So there you go. It's been in print for a while, and the Cap'n just forgot about it. I only know that because I read Lynch on Lynch cover to cover during the same period of time I worked for UPS.

Lynch also goes on to mention that prior to Dune, he was attached to make Red Dragon. To me, that's even more interesting than Revenge of the Jedi. Manhunter is an interesting film, to be sure, but if there's anyone I'd be more interested in seeing adapt Thomas Harris than Michael Mann, it would be David Lynch.

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The Cap'n is on the record not being a fan of Death at a Funeral. I understand that there are those of you who do really love the movie, but it struck me as the most obvious jokes in the most obvious situation comedy you could possibly cram into ninety minutes.



Of course, then Chris Rock* put up the money to remake the film. Directed by "what the hell happened to" Neil LaBute (once of In the Company of Men, more recently of The Wicker Man), the two years later remake takes the exact same scenes, the exact same jokes, and finds some new gags that are comparably awful. See for yourself:



Okay, to be fair, watching them back to back, it's almost the same trailer. The remake just put in the grumpy old man character so you knew Danny Glover was in the movie. I don't find either of them funny, whether it be "urban" or "british", which I use with the same derisive inflection. Both are attempting to pass off as products of their environment, and yet both movies were directed by white Americans. Anyway, before I dig myself into some kind of hole, I wanted to head off the "this remake is automatically crap because the original was so good etc" argument. Because the original is not that good, especially if you've ever seen a comedy in the last 80 years.

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Oh, right. How could I forget Recent Movie's Foreign Exchange Student Cousin: Spanish Movie?


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Finally, for fans of American celebrities in Japanese commercials, here is proof that even a talking dog can out-act Quentin Tarantino. I remain a Tarantino fan in writer/director capacity, but if I ever have to sit through Destiny Turns on the Radio again, I'll stab someone.



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Back tomorrow with a review of Thirst, plus apparently Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince and Public Enemies are on their way via Netflix.



* I honestly intend no disrespect to Chris Rock for wanting to adapt a movie next to no one saw, but I just really hate Death at a Funeral, and no amount of redressing the story is going to convince me it's not hackneyed and obvious.