Archive for the ‘Science Fiction and Space Shit’ Category
Friday, July 2nd, 2004
The disappointment of that Planet of the Apes remake nonsense got me thinking about the old days. How you used to be able to make movies about talking gorillas that were still intelligent type pictures. You got all the rubber makeup and the spaceships and the fighting and what not that the nerds love but you also got some social commentary in there or some politics or some insights about our world and what not. You got vietnam and the civil rights movement going on in the real world and the apes really strikes a ball or whatever with people because of the obvious parallels. These were expensive studio movies but they were willing to give something back instead of just selling a product and then running like hell.
Then out of the blue I got an anonymous tip, telling me Vern, there was a movie in the mid-’90s which attempted this same thing. You got the rubber makeup and you got the sci-fi nonsense. It’s even a remake of an old movie based on a classic book, just like the apes picture. The one catch is that everyone in the world claims this movie is a worthless piece of utter garbage. but you should still watch it, Vern. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: John Frankenheimer, Mark Dacascos, Marlon Brando, Ron Perlman, Val Kilmer
Posted in Horror, Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit, Thriller | 25 Comments »
Thursday, June 17th, 2004
I don’t know if you ever saw PITCH BLACK. It was a low budget ALIENS type movie about a bunch of space-people who get stranded on a planet where nasty monsters come out and eat everybody at night. And then if I remember right there is an eclipse, so it’s gonna be a long fuckin night. So they’re pretty much fucked except luckily they have this dude Riddick on board. He is a prisoner actually, a scary mass killer type, but he has surgically altered glowing eyes so he can see in the dark. So with him being good at killing and seeing in the dark, he is a good guy to let loose in this situation. So the murderer becomes some sort of a part time hero when faced with alien monsters, he saves some lives and possibly leaves his old self behind.
Personally I thought the movie wasn’t so hot. It starts out good but the aliens just aren’t all that convincing or scary and I lost interest after a while. But this Riddick character, played by the then unknown Vin Diesel, was a cool idea and memorably played by Mr. Diesel. The great Keith David is in there too playing a preacher named Imam, but I guess not as memorably, since I forgot he was in it until I saw him in this sequel. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: David Twohy, Judi Dench, Vin Diesel
Posted in Action, Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 6 Comments »
Monday, May 31st, 2004
SPOILER ALERT !!
Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with a couple more looks at the Seattle Film Festival’s premiere of Richard Kelly’s DONNIE DARKO: THE DIRECTOR’S CUT. First up is AICN’s own bad boy, Vern. Now, Vern has brought it to my attention that not only was Jena Malone in attendance, but so was Drew Barrymore… Being as Vern was in the same general space as two of my dream women, I think it’s safe to say that he deserves nothing less than a slow and painful death at my hands. Some of you negative retards below can disagree with me about the radiance of Ms. Barrymore and that’s fine. Less people I have to fight against in my ongoing struggle to woo this vixen! Anyway, here’s Vern-o!!!
Dear Harry,
Hey bud this is Vern. I don’t want to be a squealer or nothin but fuckin Moriarty man, that dude put me on his spam list and keeps dumping my reviews. I wrote a review of Cruel Intentions 3 to name one example of a review that the world obviously needs to see but he threw it in the trash with the p.enis enlargements and the v~icodin. I mean I understand the guy is busy, but come on. I can’t imagine he’s staying up all night polishing the dialogue on that thing. I’ll give you a hint bud: Scorpion says “Get over here.” Don’t be writing any monologues for him or anything. And then you’ll have a few extra minutes for dusting your flatscreen and putting up my reviews. So anyway that’s not the point, the point is this. I’m not going to as many SIFF movies this year, but I did manage to see Donnie Darko’s Director Cut. The world premiere. NOT the press screening which was already reviewed by “Gooter.” I don’t do press screenings. I saw it with the people. That’s just the kind of guy I am. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Patrick Swayze, Richard Kelly
Posted in AICN, Drama, Mystery, Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 7 Comments »
Thursday, March 25th, 2004
Hey folks, Harry here… I’m so envious of Vern… he’s seen STARSHIP TROOPERS 2 – and while I know it was shot for 3 shiny canadian loons, I can’t help but hope it has more pretty people with vacant eyes being torn to shreds by big bugs! I can hope… right? Here he is…
Dear fellas,
As promised back when I reviewed WILD THINGS 2: DARK TERRITORY, I have returned with a review of STARSHIP TROOPERS 2: HERO OF THE FEDERATION, a much better straight to video sequel in my opinion. But that’s not saying much. But it’s okay though.
This part 2 is directed by Mr. Phil Tippett, the special effects genius who worked on such other part 2s as STAR WARS part 2, INDIANA JONES part 2, ROBOCOP part 2 and HOUSE part 2. He was also “demon supervisor” on THE GOLDEN CHILD part 1. He has his own studio which did some of the effects in BLADE part 2, in case any of the talkbackers were wondering how I was gonna work that one into this review.
Anyway more importantly Mr. Tippett did the effects for the first STARSHIP TROOPERS and he has also brought back the same writer, Ed “I also did ROBOCOP” Neumeier. So we’ve got some of the same people involved, even if we’re missing the crucial ingredient of Paul Verhoeven, perverted Dutchman. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: DTV, DTV sequels, siege movies
Posted in Action, AICN, Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit | No Comments »
Wednesday, March 10th, 2004
Hey folks, Harry here with Vern… he’s our magical little friend from up in Seattle and he doesn’t like KRULL! What sort of soulless mutherfucker doesn’t dig on KRULL! KRULL is the film that introduced the GLAVE and THE GLAVE is the fucking weapon of choice in my D&D household! And the Spider sequence… the sand in the hand… Ancient bitter love… FIRESTEEDS! Oh absolutely it’s got levels of funk 4 feet deep all about, but I love all sorts of crazy shit in that movie, and would love to see it in 70mm. ENVY! Ok, here’s Vern, who I still like, even if he’s too backwoods to get KRULL!
Boys –
Every once in a while – or once a year, I guess – Seattle’s landmark Cinerama (Cinerama.Com) theater has a film festival where they show a bunch of archival 70mm prints and a couple in actual 3-projector Cinerama. And then a bunch of people watch the movies, etc.
This year some of the films shown include LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, HOW THE WEST WAS WON (in 3-strip Cinerama), THIS IS CINERAMA, OKLAHOMA and IT’S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD. I forgot to go to those but I saw GHOSTBUSTERS, TOTAL RECALL and KRULL instead. All in 70mm. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Ghostbusters, Liam Neeson, Paul Verhoeven, Peter Yates, Stanley Kubrick
Posted in Action, AICN, Fantasy/Swords, Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 7 Comments »
Friday, March 5th, 2004
Lately I’ve only been reviewing current movies, but as you know, the Hollywood Reporter had a story the other day that MGM has hired a first time director to do a “re-imagining” of 2001 with “modern pacing and music” that will “take full advantage of state-of-the-art digital effects.” The director is not someone I’m familiar with, but they say he is perfect for the job because he’s done alot of music videos and won a couple of Miss Clio awards for his commercials. So before they ruin it I thought I would revisit Kubrick’s masterpiece of space ballet and shit.
No, don’t worry, I’m just fucking with you. They’re not doing a remake, as far as I know. But you almost believed it, right? Because it’s so awful, so wrong, so undeniably vile, that someone is definitely going to have to do it eventually. They came for Hitchcock and Hooper and Romero and Carpenter and Walking Tall and Amityville Horror and House of Wax and they even tried Billy Jack. They already got Charade and Planet of the Apes and Dr. Seuss. They burrowed into the brains of Lucas and Spielberg and Friedkin and Scott and made them second guess their younger, better selves. And now they’ve got their greedy bastard eyes on Kubrick. You fucking know they do. They’ll wait until his assistant is dead and his assistant’s grandchildren or whatever it takes, but the day it becomes possible, they dig out the contracts and they sign them in blood and they will swallow one end of 2001 and suck it down like one of those threads the yogis use and pull the entire movie out through the ass and into a paper shredder. You already know this, but I’m telling you this, because we need to get this out in the open, for our own good. We need to face the inevitable. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Keir Dullea, masterpieces, Stanley Kubrick
Posted in Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 7 Comments »
Thursday, January 1st, 2004
Hi, everyone. “Moriarty” here with some Rumblings From The Lab…
Here he comes… one of my favorite online reviewers. It’s been too long, so it is a genuine pleasure to re-introduce the one and only Vern…
What’s up boys —
Vern here, still alive and ready to unveil my first “the ain’t it cool news” review for 2004. Unfortunately Seagal’s new picture with Ringo Lam is not done yet so instead I gotta review some movie about Battle Royale 2 by Kinji Fukasaku and son.
Previously on the Ain’t It Cool News: Battle Royale part 1 is a Japanese picture about a near future where school kids are put on an island by the government and forced to kill each other off. The survivor gets to live, so everybody has to decide whether to a) be all ethical and shit or 2) try to survive. It’s a pretty good movie and because it is brutally violent and not american, it has a big cult following here in my country of USA.
Battle Royale part 2 is the highly anticipated sequel, originally directed by Mr. Fukasaku again but he passed away and his son finished the job. It has been reviewed a couple times on here before by people who hated it and said to fuck it and etc. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Kenta Fukasaku, Kinji Fukasaku
Posted in Action, AICN, Drama, Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit | No Comments »
Friday, May 30th, 2003
Hey folks, Harry here – Actually, while Vern kinda rags a bit on this, I’m curious to see this for the exact same reasons stated in his opening paragraph… I’ve seen 28 DAYS LATER, CABIN FEVER, DADDY DAY CARE – but I haven’t seen CITY OF SARS (I hear that’s shooting in Toronto currently) or SINCE THE END OF THE WORLD and thus far… the best one is CABIN FEVER, and I’m sure it’ll remain, though I still think the best virus/end of the world flick is NO BLADE OF GRASS, but since 10 people have seen that… I’m probably in the minority there. Here’s Vern at the Seattle International Film Festival…
Vern sees SINCE THE END OF THE WORLD at SIFF
Harry I don’t know if you’ve heard of this one but apparently it’s been playing the festivals for a couple years. Otherwise I’d think it was part of a slew of disease/virus movies like 28 DAYS LATER, CABIN FEVER, CITY OF SARS and DADDY DAY CARE. There seems to be a general panic across the world about diseases and poisons like SARS, West Nile, the flesh eating virus, mad cow disease, anthrax attacks, etc. Oh come on, let’s not be a bunch of sissies people, it’s only your FLESH being EATEN by a VIRUS. Really not a big deal. Anyway the concept of SINCE THE END OF THE WORLD is that a mysterious disease has killed off most of the world. Now it’s 12 years later, there are 168 survivors in the San Francisco Bay Area and some dudes decide to make a documentary about it. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Calum Grant, Joshua Atesh Litle, mockumentary, post-apocalypse
Posted in AICN, Drama, Mystery, Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit, SIFF | No Comments »
Saturday, May 24th, 2003
This might bother some of you but I just want to say it up front: put me in the camp of people who say the original MATRIX really is “the shit” as the kids say when they mean that it is not shit but actually the opposite of shit, which is I guess in this case THE MATRIX. Because what these boys the Wachowski Brothers did was an extremely well executed twilight zone concept for the post William Gibson days which also happened to be the perfect vehicle to combine over the top Hong Kong martial arts traditions with american actors and computer effects AND an appropriate metaphor for our times.
I love the idea that somebody like Jackie Chan or Michael Jordan who has extraordinary physical skills could actually just be a smart dude who figured out loopholes in the laws of reality. If you can understand the program well enough you can cheat and do things that a person isn’t supposed to be able to do. In the old shaw brothers movies it was just magic or shaolin wisdom but here we put those same spectacular moves in a sci-fi context and we get a whole different spin where even some jackass like Keanu Reeves can fly through the air and be so convincing that most of American can watch him as the iconic badass Neo and not even think of him as Keanu anymore. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Carrie-Anne Moss, Harold Perrineau, Harry Lennix, Hugo Weaving, Jada Pinkett Smith, Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Monica Bellucci, Randall Duk Kim, Wachowskis
Posted in Action, Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 13 Comments »
Monday, February 17th, 2003
Hey, everyone. “Moriarty” here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
Vern’s a good egg. If you don’t know that by now, then catch up to the rest of us and enjoy this new review by him.
Boys –
It’s me Vern. Remember me, I write articles, win awards, etc. Today I am returning to my old shtick of reviewing straight to video sequels nobody asked for. Enjoy!
Actually the first picture I’m gonna deal with here is not completely un-asked for. The first movie CUBE was one of those small time cult movies that nobody is really rabid about but everybody kind of likes. The premise is that a group of strangers find themselves inside strange, symmetrical rooms with vault doors on each side. When they go through a door, they find themselves in a room exactly like the last one. And when they go through one of the doors in there, it’s another room exactly like that one. And when they go through one of the doors in there, it’s another room exactly like that one. And I could go on man. There’s nowhere to go. So of course they get into a George A. Romero type deal where they each have a different background and they argue and what not by they try to put aside their differences to solve the puzzle of “what in fuck’s name is going on here.” There is math, etc. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Andrzej Sekula, Craig Sheffer, DTV, DTV sequels, Jason Scott Lee, Patrick Lussier, vampires
Posted in AICN, Horror, Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 1 Comment »
