Archive for December, 2007

AVPR: Aliens vs Predator – Requiem

Friday, December 28th, 2007

VERN VS. ALIEN VS. PREDATOR DASH REQUIEM

Aliens, predators, why do you always gotta fight? Why can’t you just resolve your differences? I know they say “whoever wins, we lose” but I’ve seen both the AvP movies and clearly nobody is winning anything. We lose, and you lose our respect.

RESURRECTION and RATATOUILLE were already taken and they needed something that started with an R, so the title of this thing is REQUIEM. That might make you wanna ask who died, but you already know the answer: the remaining dignity of aliens and predators across the universe. Two proud races slandered and humiliated, on the Lord’s birthday no less. And why? For what? What the hell did aliens and predators ever do to us other than entertain and delight us, scare us, fuck up our space colonies and skin some dudes in a jungle? Nothing. And for that we give them a franchise so lazy it can’t even be bothered to spell out its own titles.

Okay, let me say this. The directors of the movie, who are credited as THE BROTHERS STRAUSE (I picture them as the Barbarian brothers, preferably holding battle axes while on set), are not entirely incompetent. I don’t believe they will ever be smokin hot directors like Ridley Scott was when he created his masterpiece ALIEN (sorry BLADE RUNNER, but you know it’s true. Why don’t you go cry in the rain now?) or like James Cameron when he made one of the best sequels ever made (ALIENS or T2, take your pick). But better than Paul Not Thomas Anderson? Yeah, I’ll buy that. On par with Stephen Hopkins? Sure, why not? I could believe that. But this is no PREDATOR 2. That’s all I ask is a PREDATOR 2 or greater level of quality, but I didn’t get it. (more…)

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Posted in Action, Horror, Monster, Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit, Vern Tells It Like It Is | 4 Comments »

12/27/07

Thursday, December 27th, 2007

I hope everybody had a good Christmas or a good December 25th, or both. To celebrate peace on earth and good will to men I have another William Friedkin review, the badass truck driving movie SORCERER. And my review of AvP-R. I call this piece VvAvP-R.

By the way, since I’m gonna be retiring SEAGALOGY any moment now I need something new for Lulu, and I’m thinking of doing a new collection like 5 ON THE OUTSIDE. This one will be a Greatest Hits type deal. So if you have a moment to help me out please email me (outlawvern at hotmail dot com) and let me know what are your favorite things I ever wrote. This can include movie reviews from here or anywhere else, my columns and political rants or even talkbacks. Don’t worry about overlap with the other book, I’ll figure that out later. Thanks in advance for helping out and for giving me a big head.

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Sorcerer

Thursday, December 27th, 2007

If you’re a never-give-up Rocky Balboa type of dude, a real achiever, or if you have to carry heavy objects alot as part of a job or strongman competition, then you know this feeling: your body is exhausted, bruised, broken, covered in sweat, maybe some blood, your task seems impossible, but you’re too stubborn to give up. You keep going until you’re done, powered by the sheer force of will. That’s what the second half of SORCERER is about. Four guys, two trucks, a bunch of nitroglycerin, and miles of untamed South American jungle. They gotta drive the nitro without blowing up, because it’s needed to put out an oil fire, ON DEADLY GROUND style. The job is ridiculously dangerous so it pays well, and they’re doing it for the pay day. They’re all fugitives hiding out here for a wide selection of crimes and the money they’ll get represents a chance to start over somewhere nicer. (The first half sets all this up.)

So there they are, in a couple of fucked up trucks, rolling over craggy roads, along the edges of cliffs, through swamps and across the shakiest bridges you’ve ever seen. And who better to lead the charge than Roy Scheider*? I think he’s the right man for the job, and if you disagree I think you will change your mind pretty quick when you watch the movie. In one harrowing scene they come to a broken rope bridge in the middle of a storm. It seems logical to give up at this point, but Roy refuses. He has his partner crawl across the bridge guiding him inch by inch all the way across. It’s a terrifying ordeal that seems to take forever and then the second they’re safely across the movie cuts to the other truck getting to the bridge and having to do the same damn thing. No time to catch your breath.

[*actually there’s one person that might’ve been better, that’s Steve McQueen, who almost starred in the movie. But he was having trouble with his marriage to Ali Macgraw and wanted Friedkin to make her a producer so she could be on location with him, Friedkin said no and the rest is Scheidermania. That’s too bad but just try to forget I told you that and appreciate that Scheider was a good second choice) (more…)

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I Am Legend

Thursday, December 20th, 2007

Man, I’m a sucker for these QUIET EARTH type stories. You can’t help but think about what you would do in a situation like that, alone or with a couple other people, living in an abandoned city, everybody else either dead or disappeared. All of society’s leftover resources would be there for the plucking. Where would you take up residence? What would you drive? Would the rides at Disneyland still work? What sort of games would you play to amuse yourself? Backhoe Rampage? Skyscraper Free Throw? Condo Shitting? How would you deal with your loneliness? And would you bother to wear pants?

If there’s monsters involved, like in DAWN OF THE DEAD or any of the three movies based on Richard Matheson’s book I Am Legend, then it becomes more of a survivalist challenge, you start thinking about strategies. How to fortify your home, how to transport yourself around safely to scavenge, etc. In this case it’s vampires he’s dealing with so he can pretty much wander around and do what he wants during daylight (vampires have a sunlight related disability), but at nightfall it’s on.

To me that’s mainly what I Am Legend is about: living a life like that and the toll it takes on you mentally. To some people though the book is mainly about the ironic twist at the end that hasn’t been used in any of the movie adaptations. I’d love to see that too, if somebody could figure out how to translate the inner monologue realization from the book into movie form. But I’m not gonna get broken up about another re-interpretation of the story. I guess I’m not as much of a stickler for literal adaptations as alot of individuals. I think it’s more important for it just to be a good movie. For example, the remake of DAWN OF THE DEAD doesn’t have the substance of the original, has a different approach to zombies that I don’t like as much, doesn’t even spend all that much time in the mall that’s the main setting of the original. And yet I can’t complain too much because it still works, it is an effective action-horror movie on its own terms, I enjoyed watching it. So I guess I am more interested in faithfulness to the magic of cinema than to original source material. (more…)

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Posted in Action, Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit | No Comments »

The Quiet Earth

Thursday, December 20th, 2007

This is an older picture from New Zealand about an individual who wakes up one day naked in bed and his radio isn’t working. So he gets dressed and heads for work. And when he gets to the gas station, there is nobody there. And when he’s driving around, there is no traffic. And when he goes to his friend’s house, nobody there either. And jesus, he starts to realize, there’s nobody at all. Anywhere. Except me.

So as you can probaly figure out, this picture follows in the literary tradition of I Am Legend, except without vampires.

Shit man, I don’t know why this type of premise works so fucking well but who am I to complain. I like to be entertained and any movie about a dude alone in the world like this, it entertains me. This dude starts breaking into stores, moving to a nicer home and what not. What makes him stand out from other last men on earth is a little added playfulness and creativity. FOr example there is one scene where he sets up an audience of cardboard standups outside of his house. Then he stands out on a balcony and makes a big speech to them.

But then he starts to get real lonely and go kind of crazy a little bit. What Charlton Heston does in Omega Man is start drinking alot and playing chess with a bust of Caesar. But what this New Zealander does is start walking around in a nightgown. (more…)

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The Psychic

Tuesday, December 18th, 2007

After years of being hard to find even in its crappy cropped VHS form, and weeks of being recalled because there was a problem with the sound, this week finally sees the DVD release of Lucio Fulci’s THE PSYCHIC from Severin Films (an up and coming label that mostly releases old EMANUELLE movies and things like that). They say it’s “Uncut For The First Time Ever In America!” which apparently means there were some scenes cut out in the old version, but does not mean it is some kind of unrated gorefest that will make you puke or challenge your religious convictions. This is one of Fulci’s thrillers, made in 1977, a few years before he started stabbing eyeballs in his horror movies like ZOMBI and THE BEYOND. It’s got its moments but it’s not as extreme as the stuff he was later known for.

Jennifer O’Neill is the psychic of the title. I mean I don’t believe she identifies as a psychic, she’s just some lady, but one day while driving through some tunnels she freaks out a little and has some visions. It’s nice to go back and see a psychic vision before the invention of Avid farts, because the images don’t cut away as fast and they are not accompanied by whooshing or thudding sound effects. Anyway, she sees a dead body and a bunch of cryptic imagery (a red lamp, a broken mirror, a magazine, a statue on its side, a wall with a section chopped out of it). Then when she moves into her new vacation home she realizes that some of the things she saw were in her home. So the movie is about her premonition coming true and her trying to do the detective work to figure out what she was seeing in her vision and by extension how to solve the murder.

One thing that’s cool about it is that the premonitions are kind of self-fulfilling. It becomes a catch-22 like you’d have in a time travel movie. For example, she sees this wall and figures out that it’s the same one that, in her vision, had a big hole in it. This inspires her to dig the hole out of it to find out what’s inside. Much later she ends up getting stuffed into the hole and bricked up without so much as a cask of amontillado. So if she had just not been paying attention to her psychic visions none of this ever would’ve happened. She would’ve been okay. (more…)

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Posted in Horror, Mystery, Reviews | No Comments »

Juno

Monday, December 17th, 2007

This movie was written by Diablo Cody! She was a stripper for a year! Then she was a blogger! A stripblogger! She quit stripping in time to avoid the heroin addiction and was not necessarily molested as a child like many other strippers! It’s just something she did one time! Her name is really Melinda Cartwright or Heather Daniels or some shit but she calls herself Diablo Cody! I bet she has some fire or a sexy devil or something tattooed somewhere on her, that would be awesome! She loves lip gloss! The director is the son of the guy who directed GHOSTBUSTERS and produced all the early Cronenberg movies! This guy also did the movie THANK YOU FOR SMOKING! Get it because it’s like thank you for NOT smoking, only it’s thank you FOR smoking! It’s hard to explain but I love it! THANK YOU FOR SMOKING!

As you can see I have been witness to some of the excruciating advance hype on this year’s LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE or NAPOLEON DYNAMITE or FULL MONTY or whatever the fuck you want to say JUNO is, and I will literally punch the next article I see about Diablo Cody. I will punch it until my knuckles bleed and I will ask it for an apology. This guy Laremy who sends me lists of possible topics for film.com articles included the topic “If I see one more ‘Diablo Cody was a stripper’ article I’m gonna hang myself.” I liked the topic but there was no need for an article, the headline said it all. This was like a week and a half before they had one on the front page of the Seattle Times. So there is a newspaper that does not care about the suicide rate.

I was convinced that 75% of the people who’ve been praising the shit out of this movie were reviewing it from inside their pants. They have crushes on Diablo Cody because she’s cute and outgoing and has a history of showing her boobs. So I did not find most of those rave reviews credible. (In the case of Roger Ebert’s four-star review the crush is not on Cody but on the character Juno. He actually says in his review that he wants to hug her. He does not say anything about holding hands or passing notes, but you know what he means.) (more…)

Posted in Comedy/Laffs, Drama, Reviews | 5 Comments »

I Know Who Killed Me

Saturday, December 15th, 2007

Other than having a scene where a girl gets sadistically tortured, I KNOW WHO KILLED ME is nothing like the current generation of American horror movies. It seems less influenced by SAW than by Brian DePalma thrillers and “giallos” out of Italy – you know, the weird slasher mysteries where logic is not as important as atmosphere and vivid colors. That’s definitely the philosophy of this one. Logic is for losers.

The director, Chris Sivertson (best known as the co-director of the behind-the-scenes featurette on the remake of THE TOOLBOX MURDERS) has a lush visual style and is unhealthily obsessed with the color blue. You see it on Lindsay Lohan’s clothes and car, her school’s football uniforms, the rose her boyfriend gives her, the big Liberace ring her piano teacher wears, her dad’s glowing phone, the gloves that both the police and the killer wear, the hospital scrubs, the entire emergency room, the weapons the guy uses to torture her, even the gag in her mouth. Seriously, you’ll be pissing blue for a week after you see this. The only things missing are Otter Pops and blue raspberry Jolly Ranchers, otherwise every bright blue colored object or substance that ever existed appears in the movie.

The blue-mania turns out to have a thematic excuse when the DePalma part comes in, where Lohan’s character turns out to have a dark alter ego represented by the color red. They grew up in different neighborhoods, I guess. But the movie is definitely leaning Crip. Wocka wocka wocka. But seriously folks – I don’t think it’s gang affiliated. I think it represents first place and second place. Dark Alter Ego feels like an also ran to Blue Lindsay’s trophy winner.

They set up that nice Lindsay is blue and bad Lindsay is red, so then when a police light flashes on her face you think which one is she, red or blue? That’s not deep or anything but it’s artier than most of these horror guys are trying for these days. The score has lots of eerie singing and classical piano (blue Lindsay plays piano) and the camera has a habit of trailing off into cryptic symbolic imagery. You might think it’s trying to be classy except the DVD includes the “Extended Strip Dance” extra – a long cut of Lohan’s SIN CITY style clothed pole dance, set to cheesy modern porn-style electro beats. (more…)

Posted in Crime, Reviews, Thriller | 3 Comments »

Confessions of a Superhero

Thursday, December 13th, 2007

With all these questions surrounding JUSTICE LEAGUE (will it be delayed by the strike, who will be cast, when will Vern stop telling us about how awesome George Miller is) there is one fact that most of us have missed: a Justice League movie has already been made starring your favorite Justice League heroes Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and of course The Incredible Hulk. There are also guest appearances by lesser heroes like Ghost Rider, Marilyn Monroe and Charlie Chaplin.

This version is called CONFESSIONS OF A SUPERHERO and it comes out on DVD in January. It’s a documentary about those people who dress up as cartoon characters on Hollywood Boulevard, pose for pictures with tourists and then guilt them into giving them tips. We all remember the notorious Spongebob incident. Spongebob was probaly too dangerous and unpredictable for a camera crew to follow, so instead the movie focuses on Superman. You may have seen this guy interviewed on TV before. He looks eerily like Christopher Reeve, but he’s really skinny, like Superman got the space cancer. It’s disturbing to look at. His friend Batman looks alot like George Clooney. Wonder Woman doesn’t look like anybody famous, but she seems like a nice girl. And the Hulk is just a guy in a costume who blacks out on hot days. They’re all aspiring actors, some aspiring harder than others, and at first they seem pretty normal and reasonable. Except Superman.

Sorry Kryptoniacs, but it’s true. Superman is a total wear out. The movie is really cleverly put together, revealing information a piece at a time so that the picture keeps changing and keeps you guessing. At first Superman just seems like kind of a weirdo with a strange job. And full of shit. In the interviews he keeps saying “We don’t work for tips, we accept donations,” but in the footage him and Batman keep saying “And we work for tips” and holding their super hands out after a photos is taken. (more…)

Posted in Comic strips/Super heroes, Documentary, Reviews | No Comments »

12/10/07 Important News

Monday, December 10th, 2007

It looks like the internet edition of SEAGALOGY will be going out of print shortly. Don’t worry, I’m not getting sued or threatened. It will go back into print some time next year, possibly slightly cheaper, most likely slightly updated, and definitely more widely available in actual stores and what not. I’ve decided this is what’s best for society so I’m gonna go for it. But I wanted to give you guys a heads up because I know some of you want to read it before then and haven’t been able to get it yet.

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