There are bigger fans of M. Night Shymalan than me. He seems a little too nice to me, trying too hard to please everybody. They call him a new Spielberg but if so he’s a new Spielberg who skipped over the young vital years of Spielberg when he made shit like DUEL and JAWS. Still, I really like this young man’s style. He seems to have a couple of trademarks already. He treats supernatural themes very seriously and in a unique style that tricks mainstream audiences into thinking they are not watching a genre picture. He populates his stories with precocious child actors and movie stars who give uncharacteristically quiet performances. His stories have themes of tragedy and loss, and they are much more about character and suspense than about actual action. SIXTH SENSE was about discovering what’s goin on with these ghosts, not running from them or fighting them. And UNBREAKABLE was a super hero movie without a single scene of somebody swingin on a rope or shooting a laser or something. (read the rest of this shit…)
Archive for the ‘Science Fiction and Space Shit’ Category
Signs
Friday, August 2nd, 2002Reign of Fire
Friday, July 12th, 2002
I heard a rumor, or actually I just saw it on the ad, that REIGN OF FIRE is supposed to be the perfect summer movie. And in a way I think it is. Because it takes a good special effects extravaganza premise – the world is obliterated by firebreathing dragons and a small community of survivors fight back in postapocalyptic england – and treats it much smarter and more dramatic than you’d expect.
Yeah, this is a movie with computer animated dragons, and a bunch of people fighting them. But the emphasis of the story is not on the fighting. It’s always on the drama. After a prologue and a MAD MAX-like dragons-take-over-the-world explanation montage, you get basically a DAY OF THE DEAD setup. Here is this community of survivors living in spruced up castle ruins using what limited resources they can find to survive. You find out about their whole system – how they eat, their security system, how they use birds for lookout and what they teach their kids to do if they see a dragon. There’s also a little I AM LEGEND in there because they treat the dragons scientifically. They are not magical. They explain how they breathe fire, how they reproduce, the best way to kill them. (read the rest of this shit…)
Minority Report
Friday, June 21st, 2002
Like PLANET OF THE APES, INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS and soon STAR WARS PART 2, MINORITY REPORT is a sci-fi picture that will mainly be discussed in context with the politics of the time. (the time being now. because it came out today.)
Again like the Yoda picture, it has been in the planning stages long enough that director Steven Spielberg (JAWS) and co-writer Scott Frank (I only remember him because he did OUT OF SIGHT. who knows who the other writer is) couldn’t have known how timely it would turn out to be. The movie takes place in Washington DC, 2056, where Tom Cruise is an agent in the flagship “Pre-Crime Deparment” – cops who use three water-submerged psychic “precogs” to track crimes of passion that haven’t even happened yet. (read the rest of this shit…)
How to Make a Monster (2001)
Wednesday, June 12th, 2002
Some of you will wonder why I choose to watch this kind of crap. The answer is because of the French.
This one is from a series of movies made for cable called Creature Features. They have special effecting by Stan Winston (director of A GNOME NAMED GNORM) and are all based on the premises or titles of old movies produced by Samuel Z. Arkoff. They got SHE-MONSTER, DAN AYCKROYD VS. SPIDERMAN and many others. The one I’m waiting for is actually TEENAGE CAVEMAN directed by Larry Clark, the pervert who did KIDS and BULLY and ANOTHER DAY IN PARADISE where the main kid wears his pants so low you can see his fuckin pubes. Jesus, Larry! (read the rest of this shit…)
Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones
Thursday, May 16th, 2002
STARWARS VOL. II: ATTACK OF THE CLONES
a.k.a. YODA VS. DRACULA
This is a picture that most people already have an opinion on, that will never change, whether they’ve seen it or not. This is only one of those opinions.
First of all, I enjoyed this picture. I laughed at some of the cornball speeches, the sometimes stiff acting, and a couple bad puns. But you know, I can get into this space ‘n robots shit sometimes, and for one main reason: Dracula. As you know from my review of Lord of the Rings Part 1, I enjoy any picture where some dude has a duel with Dracula. This one raises the bar by making the dude be a little green space-elf/Shaolin monk. (read the rest of this shit…)
Jason X
Saturday, April 27th, 2002
JASON X is the future of slasher franchises left over from the ’80s, and not just because it’s about Jason Voorhees being frozen and defrosted in outer space 450 years later. No, this is the future because it finally figured out a good approach to keeping these stupid characters going. This isn’t trying to update things by infusing the same old crap with last month’s stale gimmicks. See for example the upcoming Blair Witch/webcast Halloween picture you see advertised before JASON X (although I do like seeing Buster Rhymes say “Trick or treat motherfucker!” – wouldn’t he make a better Dolemite than LL Cool J?)
No, this one works because it works as a genuine dumb slasher movie, as a parody of one, and as some weird pop culture accident where a familiar series got thrown into the wrong genre unexpectedly. It’s a more consistent attempt at the BRIDE OF CHUCKY approach to modern slasher sequels. Take the character and cliches from the earlier sequels, put them in a way more ludicrous situation (and it really is WAY more ludicrous in this case) and have fun. (read the rest of this shit…)
Resident Evil
Friday, March 15th, 2002
Apparently this one’s based on a video game that’s kind of based on the night of the living dead movies. So it turns out real crappy like a xerox of a xerox. And apparently the machine needs servicing. The video game is probaly better because after three of your pac-men get eaten by zombies, the game is over. The movie lasts, like, more than an hour.
The plot isn’t that bad. Milla Jovovich, who is still gorgeous even after leaving Luc Besson and becoming integrated into society, plays some kind of security agent or something in a dress. (Not sure.) She wakes up naked in the shower of a mansion with no memory. Some army goons rush in and bring her along with them into a secret underground chamber to investigate, even though she doesn’t remember how to help them.
Okay so I am not really backing my claim that the plot isn’t that bad. Well it turns out that before she lost her memory (I never understood how) she was undercover, living in the mansion to guard the secret entrance to this underground facility “the hive” where a realistically sinister corporation performs illegal genetic experiments. But somebody let loose a deadly virus, the computer put the place in lockdown, and all the scientists and dogs inside were turned into zombies. Also some monster comes out at the end. (read the rest of this shit…)
Rollerball (2002)
Saturday, February 9th, 2002
Well once again the conventional wisdom turns out to be right. You would think that as dumb as a movie like this would probaly be, it might be enjoyable. Well, I would think that. But I would be wrong.
I’ve never seen the original, and I always meant to. I understand that it is kind of a satire of sports and american society’s thirst for violent entertainment. The great DEATH RACE 2000 was made to cash in on the same themes but is generally considered to be better. Anyway the approach that John McTiernan, the director of DIE MOTHERFUCKIN HARD 1 & 3, took was to set it in pretty much the present, since wrestling and ultimate fighting become more ridiculous and lurid than anything filmatists of the ’70s could’ve imagined. But there really aren’t new points to be made here. (read the rest of this shit…)
Konga
Tuesday, January 1st, 2002
Now days people are always going ape shit over a movie that they think is too amoral. Rosie O’Donnel busted a few veins over 1999 Outlaw Award Winner for Best Picture since I got out of prison Fight Club, and this American Psycho deal is already getting people up in arms. They think that your average joe on the street is some kind of retard who can’t see somebody do something in a movie and make their own judgment of whether or not it’s the right thing to do. At the same time these pricks are all cock of the walk, thinking they’re immune to the might powers of the Cinema. They saw fight club and THEY didn’t go out and blow up a building but GOD SAVE US if any of those subhuman cavepeople who DON’T have their own tv shows or politician husbands ever see the movie. We’ll all be in for it.
Somebody told me that when Payback came out, the slogan was “Get ready to root for the bad guy,” as if that was some new technique. These motherfuckers don’t remember that it’s okay to make a movie about a guy you wouldn’t necessarily want to leave alone with your daughter. Everbody has to be a damn boyscout unless they’re a cop, and then it’s okay for them to torture people and play by their own rules because they’re a “good guy.” (read the rest of this shit…)
The Fifth Element
Tuesday, January 1st, 2002
The Fifth Element is your usual Bruce Willis movie that starts out in Egypt in 1934 and ends up in some fancy space hotel in 2334 with this blue skinned space opera lady singing opera and then busting off dance moves. Bruce is introduced down on his luck, pretty much like in the Die Hards – his wife left him, he’s trying to quit smoking, his mom won’t stop hassling him and he’s “5 points away” from losing his job as a flying cab driver in space age New York.
In fact this is a lot like a Die Hard movie except in a cartoony comic book space world instead of a building. Instead of talking to a cop on a walkie talkie, he just talks to his mom on the phone, and instead of terrorists there’s this big ball of fire hurtling toward the earth that turns light to dark, life to death, sometimes has a giant skull for a face, eats missiles and sattelites, and calls himself Mr. Shadow during phone calls. (read the rest of this shit…)
1. Patreon
Toss me a couple bucks a month, support the good shit, also get access to a bunch of exclusive writing. This is my primary source of writing money that has allowed me to cut down to part time at the day job. Thank you!
2. Buy my books from your local bookseller or somebody
click here for my Amazon author page (NOTE: My ten year contract has passed on the Titan books, so I don't get residuals on them like I do WORM ON A HOOK and NIKETOWN, but I would love for you to read them because I'm proud of them)
EXTRA CREDIT: Review them on Amazon! That would really help me out. Unless you didn't like them, in which case forget I said anything.
4. My exciting line of fashion and leisure products
(I get a couple bucks per item, you get a cool t-shirt, mug or lifestyle item)
-
