I’m optimistic about tomorrow, but nervous. Let’s not think about it. Here are some trailers.
First up: Wong Kar Wai’s THE GRANDMASTERS, the other movie about Ip Man. (Sorry, no English subtitles.)
Vern Tells It Like It Is: please vote, Americans
My fellow Americans. The ones who are eligible to vote, who are registered, who haven’t voted yet, who are open to my opinion on this. This is for you two.
This is the big one. This is the endorsement that’s gonna seal the deal, in my opinion. My friends, I believe Barack Obama deserves re-election, and not just ’cause I don’t want that creepy game show host looking guy in the White House. I believe Obama is a good person and a good president, and also has good taste because I read that he had some Gil Scott Heron on his iPod. And that blows my mind. Being friends with Jay-Z, that could be seen as a cynical ploy to attract youth, but Gil Scott Heron? That’s gotta be legit. That doesn’t appeal to any significant voting block.
There is no way Mitt Romney knows who the fuck Gil Scott Heron is. But we have a president who does. He appreciates the music and he knows about the revolution that won’t be televised and maybe he wasn’t gonna be able to be a part of that but he would do what he could in his own televised way, which was to become president. Wow.
Man, I wonder if he has any Last Poets on there? But anyway. I’m getting sidetracked here.
The Man With the Iron Fists
THE MAN WITH THE IRON FISTS is the new kung fu movie directed, co-written and starring RZA, leader of the Wu-Tang Clan. The rap group, not the clan, although he has actually been a guest at the Shaolin Temple and trained under a 34th generation Shaolin monk, no bullshit. If you’re not a Shaolin monk and not into hip hop either you might still be familiar with RZA from his all time classic score to GHOST DOG: WAY OF THE SAMURAI or you might’ve seen him show up as an actor occasionally, like in AMERICAN GANGSTER or FUNNY PEOPLE.
Directing a kung fu movie, though, is something he’s been trying to do since at least the ’90s, when he started filming a super hero martial arts thing called BOBBY DIGITAL. (read the rest of this shit…)
Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning
PREVIOUSLY, ON UNIVERSAL SOLDIER: In 2009 John Hyams, fine sports documentarian and son of the director of OUTLAND, knocked the world of DTV flat on its ass with a grim and shockingly great part 3 (or part 5 including the made for cable 2 and 3). It is one of its decade’s best American action movies and a classic example of a hungry artist taking a disrespected medium far beyond its perceived limitations. Also Dolph Lundgren makes a hell of an impression with a small appearance, the Alec-Baldwin-in-GLENGARRY-GLEN-ROSS-of-DTV.
And now, UNIVERSAL SOLDIER: DAY OF RECKONING.
(read the rest of this shit…)
StageFright
STAGEFRIGHT (aka DELIRIA, or STAGEFRIGHT: AQUARIUS as the title screen says) is a very stylish slasher/giallo type deal from Michele Soavi, Dario Argento’s second unit director on TENEBRE and PHENOMENA who went on to be best known for directing CEMETERY MAN. This one is more obviously in the footsteps of his mentor than that one.
It begins in aggressive stylization, a big-haired model hanging out on a soundstage city street, suddenly strangled in an alley. But this is not real, these are all people working on some kind of avant garde musical or some shit like that. There’s an overbearing, pretentious director, a bunch of primadonna dancers and actors and choreographers, some stage tech types, etc. And of course somebody is unhappy with something so they all get locked onto the soundstage and murdered one by one. (read the rest of this shit…)
Dead in 3 Days (plus bonus mini-review: Lost Things)
DEAD IN 3 DAYS is Austrian young people horror from 2006. The box art for the American release of it from Dimension Extreme makes a big deal about how a group of teens all get the same text message saying they’ll be dead in 3 days, so I thought maybe it was gonna be influenced by the Japanese phone related pictures such as THE RING and ONE MISSED CALL. Instead it’s a very solid whodunit slasher with alot of subtle distinctness in the ways it handles material that seems generic on the surface.
I don’t know if this is on purpose, but the basic themes are set up in a meta kind of way in the opening, because of the way it resembles the opening of A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET. The hands of an unseen man are building something sinister in a dark basement… but no, it turns out he’s not making a bladed glove or anything. He’s hanging himself.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Death Valley
See, it’s a double meaning. Death Valley, like the place. That’s the location of this story. But also Death Valley. Like death, you know? I think you get it.
Slasher Search 2012 has been pretty productive in my opinion, but not in the usual area. I haven’t done good on the older slashers. I’m just looking for a pretty fun FRIDAY THE 13TH or HALLOWEEN ripoff with a few twists or odd idiosyncrasies, you know? I’m not asking for the world. But every time I find one there’s one less out there that I haven’t seen, so it’s harder every year. Anyway, this is the last of this year’s VHS rentals, might be my last shot.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Disney’s Star Wars
I’m kinda hesitant to write about this on Halloween, but holy shit, that’s crazy news that George Lucas sold off all his shit to Disney for $4 billion plus and that they’re gonna make STAR WARS 7, 8 and 9 and (if people are reading this right) 1o and 11 and 12 and 13 and more every two to three years until the superstorms swallow us up.
My initial thoughts:
1. I can’t help but see this as the Nerd Empire celebrating the expression of an individual artist making the official switch to a Franchise, a Property, a Trademark. I think I read something on the internet a while back about how some people only like the earlier Star Warses, but still. It was clearly the vision of one particular guy, who took independent film far beyond what anybody else ever did. There is something about even those prequels that you hate so much that is clearly him. Nobody else could or would make movies like that, both the good parts and the bad parts. And that’s why Star Wars is special. Not because of the pajamas that you remember you had. Although I’m sure they were great. (read the rest of this shit…)
Pledge Night
PLEDGE NIGHT, that could be a good slasher movie, right? It’s got “Night” in the title, that’s scary. Implies a horrific massacre that occurred on one specific date in history. And after dark. The “Pledge” part means it takes place at a college, so it’s the young people whose blood usually fuels the slashers, but not too young. Kind of adults, in a way. I don’t know.
This was the first one by director Paul Ziller. Alot of the guys who directed these types of slashers have a handful of other IMDb credits at most. This guy went on to do BLOODFIST IV, BACK IN ACTION, SHOOTFIGHTER II among other action and thriller type business. In the 2000s he’s become more of a SyFy type with SNAKEHEAD TERROR, SWARMED, BEYOND LOCH NESS, YETI: CURSE OF THE SNOW DEMON, STONEHENGE APOCALYPSE… He’s still at it, having recently done a TV remake of THE PHILADELPHIA EXPERIMENT. The script is by Joyce Snider, whose other four IMDb credits are all pornos: PUBLIC AFFAIRS and RAW TALENT I-III. (read the rest of this shit…)
Dangerous Game
Here’s another one that doesn’t really fit the slasher definition I was looking for, but it’s such a better version of kind of the same premise as HIDE AND GO SHRIEK that I welcome it. This one is Australian, the directical debut of Stephen Hopkins, whose second and third films were A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 5: THE DREAM CHILD and PREDATOR 2.
A group of Australian teens – handsome guy with convertible, girlfriend, new wave nerd, girl named Ziggy he has a crush on – plan to hang out after school. But first they have a conflict with Officer Murphy (Steven Grives), a local cop who has it out for the kid with the car. He hates him so much he shifts his car into neutral and rolls it into a no parking zone just to give him a ticket.
(read the rest of this shit…)
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