From the Brow of Zeus

Zooks! There's a prequel to John Carpenter's "The Thing" in the works, reportedly set in the Norwegian camp were everyone's favorite polymorphing practical effect hung out before getting all up in Kurt Russel's area.

The Thing prequel is being directed by an unknown commercial director (which is standard these days, just like the Friday and Chainsaw reboots), and the first draft of the screenplay was penned by Battlestar Galactica's Ronald D. Moore.

People are outraged.

It cracks me up when someone hears about a project like this and rants about remakes. I even came across one gentleman who said he wished that instead of prequels, remakes, sequels and reboots, Hollywood would make original movies.

Dude, John Carpenter's "The Thing" *was* a remake. If he got his wish, one of the greatest horror movies of all time would never have been made.

This is why they have to hide genies in lamps.

Granted, it's probably going to suck. Something tells me "Tremors 4: The Legend Begins" is going to wind up being the better movie. But why take a stand against remakes using The Thing as your poster child? The Thing is a remake of Howard Hawks' "The Thing From Another World" (1951), which in turn was adapted from the John W. Campbell Jr. novella, "Who Goes There?" Needless to say, this is one of the worst movies I can think of to get all miffed about not having an original idea.

It's impossible for me to mention The Thing without linking to my good buddy Ridley's hilarious sketch, seen below.

Right click and save as to download.

Labels: movies

I really liked Zombieland, the zomedy starring Woody Harrelson and that kid who can't stop making movies set in a carnival. I don't want to say too much about it, other than it was thoroughly enjoyable.

One thing I'll spoil is the title sequence, a slow motion sideshow chronicling the zombie outbreak, set to Metallica's "For Whom the Bell Tolls." It perfectly sets the tone of the movie: funny and gruesome. But not everyone liked it.

See, there's a topless zombie stripper, chasing after a guy with a handful of twenties. This IMDB commenter was not a fan.

The camera zooms in on her in "slow motion" as her breasts move dramatically up and down? jeez, how pathetic and objectifying is that? do people really think all the female viewers like this? obviously the men do I'm guessing. but its just pathetic. its like... a horror movie..."OH! wait, we gotta throw in the naked woman scene" gotta see some tits or its just not a movie. short scene but just over the top objectifying and insulting. why dont they throw in a man running and then zoom in slow motion on his meat and 2 veg as it "dramatically flops up and down"...? fair is fair right? or can we just not get through any movie without seeing a set of jiggling hooters....I love how american films have such high standards and respect NOT

Yeesh, where to begin?

I'll never understand why people compare a woman's breasts to a man's penis. They're two totally different things. Besides, it misses the obvious: Men have boobs! They're just late bloomers. And Hollywood movies are full of manboobs. They might belong to a big fat guy -- the man running from the stripper has a bigger chest than she does -- or a bodybuilder with bloated, well-oiled pectorials. Either way, there's a hell of a lot more shirtless men in Hollywood movies these days than shirtless women.

Just ask Matthew McConaughey, who likes to flash his C-cups in PG-rated movies.

Zombieland is a movie where people take huge bleeding bites out of each other and women are bashed in the head with toilet lids, but yeah, I guess there was this one zombie who forgot to put on her shirt, so: outrage!

Let's take a look at that last line again:

I love how american films have such high standards and respect NOT

I don't get it. It's like she just trails off at the end without finishing her thought. She loves our high standards and respect, but what was she going to say after "NOT"?

Dear God... what if she was attacked by a zombie?

Labels: movies

Idle Hands is one of my all time favorite horror films. More than that, it's one of my favorites to watch on Halloween. There's a trick to selecting a good Halloween flick, one I may reveal if I have the time, but for now, Idle Hands:


Idle Hands' DVD art is the same as the VHS art, which I always think is a good thing. As much as I appreciate the new Monster Edition of The Gate, its DVD art makes it look like a kids film (VHS cover here). And kids, I speak with first hand experience: Don't !@#$ing watch The Gate! It will mess you up so bad.

For some reason, bad art on DVD re-releases is pretty common, especially when it comes to horror. See Night of the Creeps (original VHS art here). The Blu-ray art is even worse. Sure, the original looks a little cheesy. Almost like some kind of zombie prom movie... maybe because that's what this movie was about. The VHS art is from the most memorable scene in the movie, when Tom Atkins utters the immortal quote:

"I got good news and bad news girls. Good news is your date's are here."

"And what's the bad news?"

"They're dead."

While poking around Amazon, I also came across a Region 2 copy of Idle Hands, titled Die Killerhand.


I like the whole "Monster Squad" vibe, with the heroes doing their cool-guy walk, but did you notice how they just photoshopped the hand to make it look like a zombie? It's so cheesy. The hand never looked anything like that in the movie, it was either normal-evil or burned-to-a-crisp-evil. Never zombie-evil.

And check out La Main qui tue! This time most of the art is normal, but what did they do to the hand? It looks like the goofy claymation cartoon the evil hand watched as a gag. Look how they have "Seth Green (Austin Powers)" right there on the cover. Now that guy is Scotty-evil. And Scotty Evil fans won't be disappointed, he's a hilarious presence through most of the movie.

So yeah, if you haven't seen Idle Hands yet, for goodness sake, rent it.

Speaking of idle hands, mine have been anything but. I finished three stories since the last time I talked about my upcoming book. Tell ya more about it real soon.

Labels: movies

I just saw Surrogates (2009), the new Bruce Willis Sci-Fi movie about a future where most people live their lives vicariously through android "surrogates." The virtual-reality sim-chairs had me set for a throwback to 80s Cyberpunk. Unfortunately, as far as killer android murder mysteries go, this was far more I, Robot than Blade Runner.

Bruce Willis stars as Greer, an FBI agent sent to investigate the mysterious destruction of two partying surrogates. Both "surries" were found in a back alley with their eyes burnt out. One of the victims was the son of Dr. Canter, the co-inventor of the androids, who was forced out of the company, sort of a next-gen Steve Wozniak. Greer tracks the other surrogate, a sexy blonde girl, back to her apartment, and is shocked to discover that, 1) The human operator is also dead, and 2) she was really a big fat guy.

Bruce Willis in: VR5, the Movie.

Surrogates are supposed to be 100% safe -- that's the whole point. Operators send them hurtling out of planes, getting all EXTREME! without risking any bodily harm to themselves. But the supposed safety is just one of the reason Surrogates are so cool.

In the opening credits, the story is set up through fake news clips, each more unbelievable than the last. First they announce that within eight years -- the film takes place in 2017 --- 98% of the world's population will use surrogates. Really? 98%? Do 98% of the world's population even use computers? How about cars? I can buy that sort of deep consumer saturation with America or Japan, but the entire world? It gets worse from there: The almost universal use of surrogates supposedly stamped out social disease (makes sense), violence (er...), murder (wait a minute!) and -- get this -- racism. Are you kidding me? Racism? How's that supposed to work? Everyone hops in a surrogate and suddenly Hebroids are hugging on Neo-Botzis?

If you think that's hard to swallow, wait until you hear what happened to the 2% who don't use surries: Called Dreads and herded into "reservations" throughout the US, they're lead by a cult leader named The Prophet, played by Ving Rhames... in a fake-looking beard and dreadlocks.

Yes, the Dreads are lead by a guy who has dreadlocks.

It's that kind of movie.

Willis tracks the assassin to the outskirts of a Dread reservation. As five cops close in on him, the assassin busts out a hand-held proton pack and fries both them and their human operators, Black Ice-style, but Willis narrowly escapes by jacking out just in time. I loved bits like this, the more TekWar the better. Bruce Willis (or at least his blond haired, prettyboy surrogate, whose skin is smoothed with CGI) chases the assassin into one of The Prophet's "Dread Zones," a reservation made up mostly of rubble, dust and empty shipping containers. This is easily the highlight of the movie, as Bruce Willis leaps twenty feet in the air and navigates the blocky terrain, it reminded me of a Mario 64 level, Wacky Wacky Robots or something.

Unfortunately cops aren't allowed on reservations, and an angry mob gathers 'round to shotgun the "abomination." With the weapon now in the hands of the Dreads, the surrogate companies denying that such a weapon is possible, and his damaged surrogate confiscated by the police, Bruce Willis is forced to crawl into the real world, bald-headed and scruffy as hell, in order to solve the crime, save the world, and maybe patch up his marriage.

"I'm a cop with a dark past, troubled marriage, and I've been forced to hand in my badge. BUT, I'm also a robot."

Surrogates is a fairly entertaining movie. I was rarely bored, unless Willis was getting all dramatic with his Cop Wife (Maggie, why are cop wives always named Maggie?), moping about their Dark Cop Past. At least it leads to the scene where Willis returns home to find his surrogate wife and some sleazy friends using a bong-like electronic drug to get "juiced." Engraged that his wife is too busy stealing jokes from Futurama to come out of her stim-chair and mourn the loss of their son, Bruce "Meatbag" Willis goes ape spit like Toki on one of the sleazy surries and beats the guy's face until the synthetic skin peels away. The surrogates find this hysterical, especially the guy getting punched, and all Bruce has to show for it is a hand full of bloody knuckles.

It's too bad this is a movie that seems to do its best not to let you actually enjoy it. The setup is far too moronic for this to be an "intelligent" science fiction movie like Gattica, and yet there are only two action scenes in the entire film -- the rest is slow paced investigation and the aforementioned Mopey Cop Backstory. Who exactly is this movie for? People who don't like a lot of action or good storylines?

For those worried about spoilers, consider this the end of the review. If you don't give a crap, read on for my main problem with this movie:

SPOILERS AHOY!

Surrogates has one of the biggest Sci-Fi cliches in recent history, an annoying trope I first noticed with Minority Report that has popped up in countless movies since. In the opening credits, they briefly show the good Dr. who invented surrogates, played by the farmer from Babe. The clip was labeled "15 years Ago" and I breathed a sigh of relief. He's old; he's got to be dead by 2017, right? Hopefully it meant that, unlike Minority Report and too many recent Sci-Fi movies to name, the villain won't turn out to be the oldest male on the cast, inventor of the technology and all around bad guy. You can imagine my pain when I saw ol' Babe Farmer alive, healthy, sobbing over his son's death, and in my mind, 100% guaranteed to be the film's bad guy. Sure enough, by the end of the movie, he's about to kill all but 2% of the world and Willis is trying to talk him out of it. Seriously, this cliche has got to stop. Any time there's a Sci-Fi mystery, it's simply a matter of finding the oldest science dude on the cast and pointing a finger at him.

Of course, the people advertising this movie did a lot better job spoiling it than me, showing Bruce Willis walking through a dead world of deactivated Surrogates in the freaking preview trailers months ago. A scene that takes place roughly two seconds before the end credits. Luckily, the movie so thoroughly annoyed me on so many levels that by the end, I'd totally forgotten about it.

Labels: movies

I like IMDb. Being able to discuss a movie, no matter how obscure, is always fun. Normally, it's a great place to be (well, compared to Gamefaqs' forums). But now and then, you realize you've wandered into Troll Country:

Concerning a Korean film, one guy -- we'll call him L.A. -- said:

I'm not familiar with which awards are major and which aren't. But I think Asian awards aren't that major.

To which another fellow, we'll call him L.N. replied:

It won the Grand Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, which is quite a major honor. As for your "Asian awards aren't that major" comment, it not only smacks of ignorance, it also comes off as you being an "ugly American" who only thinks the U.S. is of importance in the world. But if you don't like the film due to the ending, that's your right. My point was that you are very much in the minority.

An ugly American? Zooks!

L.A. quickly set the record straight:

Easy mate. Don't need to go on an attack. Besides, you're laughable. I'm not American and I can honestly say I'm not a fan of studio pictures either - except if they were of Scorsese's.

At which point I had to chime in:

He's not familiar with Asian movie awards so you instantly assume he's an "ugly American"?

Mmm, positively smacks of ignorance.

Ignorance smacks are ALMOST as good as Honey Smacks.

At this point, L.N. pretty much pulls off the human mask and reveals the snarling troll beneath:

No, you need to learn better reading comprehension skills. The guy said Asian awards aren't THAT major, which is a declarative statement. He's not saying he's not familiar with Asian movie awards, he's saying they are of little significance. Guess what, that CAN be taken as being an "ugly American" since he is American in the first place.

Emphasis added. Here's what I had to say:

Oh my god, you're the funniest troll I met all day.

Better comprehension skills? Sounds like something you need to look into, since L.A. clearly said, "I'm not American."

Here, I'll put it in bold for you:

"I'm not American."
- L.A.

In Summary, you ignorantly assume someone is an "ugly American" and accuse them of "ignorance." When they correct you and say they aren't American, you somehow fail to comprehend and then try to make fun of my comprehension skills.

Can someone actually be this thick?

What will happen next? Stay tuned next week!

Labels: movies

To promote the new Ghostbusters game, they're giving away free Ghostbusters sound effects .wav files. There's a proton pack blast, a PKE meter, and two Marshmallow Man roars. Reminds me of 90s-era IRC, when everyone played their favorite/sound clips. I even had a Babylon 5 computer voice rigged up to my FTP program: "Transfer of data complete."

Oh man, I am such a nerd.

Labels: movies, videogames

Labels: movies

Here's the first of a new line of articles I'm writing over at Bucket Bros called Movies So Bad They HAD to Reboot the Series: Die Another Day.

I'd quote a line from the article, but a picture says a thousand words. Let's just say I'm really, really mean to Halle Berry and leave it at that.

Labels: movies

The other day I was watching Arabian Nights and it hit me: John Leguizamo is pretty much the best part of any movie he's ever been involved in.

Leguizamo got his break in Super Mario Bros. (1993), a film that left me disappointed at age 12, but has aged remarkably well. Leguizamo did a fine job playing Luigi Mario. He was fresh and cocky and did much to soften harsh reality that Mario Mario, a fat middle-aged Italian, was not very impressive in the flesh. As kids, we watched Who Framed Roger Rabbit for the rabbit, not Bob Hoskins. Here, John Leguizamo was the rabbit.

Romeo + Juliet? That just don't add up. You had prettyboy Leonardo DiCaprio, uglygirl Claire Danes, a lot of crappy editing, and Mercutio, played by Link from the Matrix sequels, wearing a goatee and red lipstick. Take it from Limahl, facial hair and lipstick doesn't match. The only reason to watch this film is to see the sneering Leguizamo bust out a custom .45 and (spoiler alert) jab Mercutio in the side with a shard of broken glass. Even then, you can probably just find it on YouTube.

In the shameless The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert ripoff To Wong Foo Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar (1995), John Leguizamo is the only one of the three drag queens who could maybe pass as a woman. Sorry, Patrick Swayze (Vida Boheme) and Wesley Snipes (Noxeema Jackson?), but when Eddie Murphy hankers for a tranny, he's definitely going to pass you guys up for John "Legs" Leguizamo.


M. Night Shyamalan's disaster pic The Happening (2008) cast John Leguizamo as Julian, Mark Wahlberg's geeky co-worker. This $60 million dollar budget self-professed "B-Movie" had some major problems in the acting department. Wahlberg did his best wooden Jeff Goldblum impression and tried to convence someone -- anyone -- that he was smart enough to graduate high school, let alone teach. Zooey Deschanel stared at the camera in what could only have been either a wide-eyed, drug-induced stupor or a state of shock brought on by reading the script. But Leguizamo acted like a perfectly Average Joe worried that he'd lose his daughter to killer wind, or trees, or a lack of love and human understanding, or whatever the hell Shyamalan was trying to scare us with in that one. (When I first heard his next picture was going to be about killer trees, I imagined an army of rampaging Ents. Talk about a missed opportunity!)

Prior to SMB, Leguizamo played such parts as Boy in Alley Out for Justice (1991) and Guess My Nationality Guy in Puerto Rican Mambo (Not a Musical) (1992). I'm not sure if either of those movies actually exist, but you can bet John Leguizamo was the best part about them if they do.

He was almost unrecognizable in Spawn (1997), playing Violator, a sadistic little clown who looked more like Danny DiVito than a lanky Colombian. And of course there's Arabian Nights, the Hallmark miniseries in which he stole the show as both the Genie of the Lamp and the Genie of the Ring.



The list goes on.

John Leguizamo's scene-stealing past may come as a surprise to you. I admit, until my Arabian Nights revelation, I didn't consciously like Leguizamo very much, outside of his bi-polar starring role in The Pest (1997). But now, I'm a John Leguizamo fan, man. Even if you aren't convinced that Leguizamo is the best part of any movie he's been in, I dare you to find a movie in which his presence proved detrimental.

Ironically, the only thing he's done which I didn't like was his creepy stand up comedy. I suppose in a weird way it makes sense: Stand up comedy would be like kryptonite to a guy like John Leguizamo. How can he possibly steal the show when he's the only one on stage?

Labels: movies

There's rumor over at Dead Central.

It starts off like a dream:

According to our source all four Ghostbusters -- Dan Akroyd, Bill Murray, Harold Ramis and Ernie Hudson -- have agreed to return to the franchise.

But then the dream girl rips off her face, revealing the Freddy Kruger beneath:

Apparently the ‘Busters will be handing over their proton packs to Seth Rogan and the crew from 40 Year Old Virgin!

A great man once said --

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Look, humor is subjective. Everyone is entitled to their own taste in comedy, provided said comedy wasn't squeezed out by one Judd Apatow.

Judd Apatow -- I just don't like him. I'm not impressed with his movies. (Update: Okay, glancing at IMDB, he's actually produced a lot of fine comedies. Until now I had always assocaited him with Superbad and The 40 Year Old Virgin, but Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story and Anchorman are some of my favorites.) Steve Carell hasn't made me laugh since Jim Carrey was pulling his strings in Bruce Almighty, and Jonah Hill and Seth Rogan look like some shrewd Hollywood types tried to clone Napoleon Dynamite and kept them in the tanks too long.

Dread Central actually tried to put a positive spin on things:

Some may roll their eyes at this, but think about it; these guys are doing the same thing Murray, Ramis, Ivan Reitman, John Candy and their whole crew did back in the 80’s, churning out comedy after comedy, so it makes sense they’d take over these reins as well.

Rob Schneider churns out comedy after comedy. Let's give him the series! He can form a super team, along with Dane Cook and the Blue Collar Comedy Team and together they can prove that when it comes to comedy, staggering, inexplicable success is more important than actually being funny.

Ghostbusters is my favorite movie. Seriously. I grew up wanting to be a Ghostbuster. The Sega Master System game is one of my all-time favorites (open-world, car-based, mission objectives -- it's Ghost Theft Auto!) I own a Ghostbusters halloween costume. (Not that one.) I had a battery-powered proton pack that projected ghosts on my wall. There's nothing with the Ghostbusters logo stamped on it that I don't like.

But this?


Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light. That's what a Seth Rogen Ghostbusters 3 would be like.

Labels: movies

Ever notice that most big name directors start out doing horror movies?

• Stephen Speilberg [Indiana Jones], Duel (1971).
• Kathryn Bigelow [The Hurt Locker], Near Dark (1987)
• Sam Raimi [Spider-Man], The Evil Dead (1981).
• Peter Jackson [Lord of the Rings], Bad Taste (1987).
• Guillermo Del Toro [Pan's Labyrinth], Cronos (1993).
• James Cameron [Titanic], Piranha Part Two: The Spawning (1981)
• Francis Ford Coppola [Godfather], The Terror (1963).

It's like the Correct and Unalterable Path of an A+ Director is to start out doing horror movies and end up making big budget action features.

Also helps explain why everyone hates Michael Bay. After directing a Playboy video or two (heh), Michael Bay's first picture was the action buddy cop movie Bad Boys. Only after directing successful action movies like Armageddon and The Rock did he dabble in horror, producing remakes of Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Friday the 13th.

Other reasons no one respects Michael Bay: Pearl Harbor, his face, and that two and a half our Shia LeBouf romantic comedy with some robots in the background.

Note: Thanks to Googleshng for helping me come up with this list.

Labels: movies

I'm sorry, I just don't see the point of trying to show that Beowulf wasn't a super-strong badass who could rip off a monster's arm with his bare hands (as in the poem), THEN giving him all these ridiculous Spider-Man powers (endless backflips, rope-swings and super-human agility).

I mean, what are they going for? The "real" story, where Beowulf isn't all he's cracked up to be, or yet another ragdoll super-spinny CGI flip-fest fightscene where the hero swings around on ropes, spins like a dreidel and always lands on his feet?

People don't really move like that. It looks fake and silly. Either stick with the original, badass, arm-wrenching, catch-as-catch-can wrestling Beowulf, or have him fight like a normal man and not some backflipping Ninja Turtle.

UPDATE:

Some disagree:

I think that fight scene may have been a commentary on how legends, as told, don't always truthfully tell what really happened. Heck, this was demonstrated right in the movie: we clearly see Beowulf using the door to "chop" Grendel's arm off, and the very next day the story is being told about how he ripped his arm off with his bare hands.

Look, I realize what they were trying to do. I'm just saying that in doing so, they've created yet another heroic layer of bullpucky.

It's like they're saying, "Beowulf wasn't REALLY super strong, kids. But he COULD jump twenty feet in the air, do a 540 spin, and land on his feet."

And in twenty years, there'll be another movie.

"Musclebound Beowulf wasn't REALLY more agile than an acrobat -- he actually had laser eyes."

Labels: movies