Archive for the ‘Monster’ Category

Orca

Thursday, May 21st, 2009

tn_orcaIn honor of the fresh new summer movie season I thought it might be a good idea to go all the way back to the beginning, the one that started it all, the granddaddy of summer movies, JAWS. And then skip forward two years to ORCA.

Now, I don’t want to rattle any cages or nothing, but in my opinion – and it’s a free country, so I’m allowed to believe whatever I want to believe – ORCA is not as good as JAWS. To be fair, the makers of ORCA most likely had no idea about JAWS, they hadn’t heard of it, it’s probaly a coincidence. Just two completely unrelated summer movies about men in boats going to battle against deadly aquatic mammals. So it’s probaly not cool to compare them. And that’s good because as its own thing I think ORCA is topnotch. (more…)

Outlander

Tuesday, May 19th, 2009

tn_outlanderMan, here’s a solid little movie with a clever genre-mixing premise, nicely acted and directed, a fun time, but owned by the Weinsteins. So of course it was barely released or advertised. These pricks got a quiet, sad drama based on a Pulitzer Prize winning masterpiece, they’re gonna pretend it’s some sci-fi action movie. Meanwhile they got this one that actually is a sci-fi action movie, but they forgot they even had it. “Oh shit, did we release that viking thing? I can’t remember. Just send some DVDs to Blockbuster and tell them not to mention it to anybody.”

Oh well, at least it snuck out. The cover art is pretty cool too, and it uses one of those critic quotes that isn’t really a compliment but just a description: “PREDATOR meets BEOWULF.” And that’s accurate. A space ship crash lands in Norway, 709 A.D. A survivor climbs out wearing a space suit that looks alot like a suit of armor (surprisingly that doesn’t come up again later). He’s Jim Caviezel, and I wasn’t sure at first if I was gonna accept aliens that look just like humans, but when he looked up Earth on his computer it said we were an “abandoned seed colony,” so I guess we all come from the same place. Brothers from a different mother. (more…)

Cloverfield

Sunday, January 20th, 2008

CLOVERFIELD is a new movie about a giant monster named Cloverfield who comes out of the water and attacks New York City. Cloverfield knows he has a sissy name that’s way too close to that asshole cat Garfield. He wants it to have a more rebellious ring to it, like [Holden] Caulfield, or at least semi-respectable, like Seinfeld before he started advertising BEE MOVIE. So to prove he’s not fucking around and to establish dominance one of the first things Cloverfield does on his visit to the big city is rip the head off the Statue of Liberty and throw it across Manhattan. If he was trying to bowl it was a gutterball but, poor bowler or not that shit is threatening to a human like you or me. Let’s face it, he has a size advantage. That is the main thing going on between Cloverfield and us. More weight, more reach. Not really a fair fight.

Since we don’t actually witness the incident (except for where the head lands) it’s hard to really know for sure what Cloverfield’s motive is. It’s easy to jump to conclusions that he’s making a statement about the loss of liberty in America post 9-11, or perhaps he is some sort of rabid anti-American and is threatening our liberty. He should realize that it is very insensitive in the post 9-11 world to not only attack landmarks in Manhattan but to make people think of being beheaded. I don’t care if the fucker’s from space, if you’re visiting some place you gotta do research on the local customs and not just be a big asshole like that. So he’s either very anti-american or just a prick. Or maybe he hates women. My guess though is he thought the statue looked at him funny. Or he saw that torch and thought she was armed and just acted on reflex. After all, it is New York. Okay, I have gone through alot of theories here but I’m sticking with that last one, the Amadou Diallo theory. If anybody finds evidence to back me up on one of those stupid “viral marketing” websights everybody got all caught up in please let me know.

The truth is we don’t really know alot about Cloverfield. He comes from the sea. He is not careful about damaging buildings. I heard he eats people. He has some bad hygiene, because giant poisonous spiders flake off of him. Worst dandruff ever. The movie really isn’t about Cloverfield though as much as it’s about some urban professional youths who are having a party that gets interupted by Cloverfield’s out of control behavior. As you know this is a movie like CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST or MAN BITES DOG or THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT or THE LAST BROADCAST or GUINEA PIG or THE LAST HORROR MOVIE or the first part of BEHIND THE MASK or the last part of SNUFF or various parts of FACES OF DEATH or MY LITTLE EYE or REAL TIME: SIEGE AT LUCAS STREET MARKET or REDACTED or THE POUGHKEEPSIE TAPES or DIARY OF THE DEAD or WAITING FOR GUFFMAN where it pretends to be actual footage of a real event. There’s a going away party for a guy named Rob, and his brother’s girlfriend wants to make a video for him to remember them by. Then they keep taping during the monster attack “because people will want to know,” and you are watching their tape, which was found in Central Park. (more…)

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…)