TRICK ‘R TREAT got a little bit of the ol’ internet hype when it came out last Halloween. It’s a Halloween-time horror anthology written and directed by Michael Dougherty (co-writer of X2, SUPERMAN RETURNS and URBAN LEGENDS: BLOODY MARY). It was made for a 2007 theatrical release but then it got bumped and fell behind the shelf and got misplaced for a while. I believe it got shown at one of the doll collecting conventions or something so some of the internet websights got behind it, but ultimately it got released DTV. But it’s “Warner Premiere,” kind of a respectable DTV outlet, actually. According to their websight they “develop and produce quality, direct-to-consumer content including feature-length entertainment for the rapidly growing direct-to-DVD market,” which is press release talk for “sequels to THE LOST BOYS.” But they’re pretty respected for not having done any movies starring Cuba Gooding Jr. (read the rest of this shit…)
Trick ‘r Treat
Splice
SPLICE is a monster movie by Vincenzo Natali, the guy who did CUBE all those years ago. Remember that one? Really good concept, pretty good execution, but you really want to like it so it gets by. Same thing here.
Academy Award winner Adrien Brody and Academy Award nominee Sarah Polley play a married (?) team of scientists working to harvest useful proteins from a new species they’ve genetically engineered. They got two of them named Fred and Ginger (get it? They’re named after Fred Flinstone and Ginger Baker), two dog-sized lumps of CGI flesh shaped kind of like maggots but mostly like dicks. (read the rest of this shit…)
Frozen
When I reviewed P2 recently I talked about movies with confined locations, well how ’bout this one? Three college kids – girlfriend, boyfriend, and boyfriend’s life-long best friend – get stuck on a ski lift. There’s some build-up to set up the characters and how it happens, but most of the movie takes place with them sitting on this lift, nobody knowing they’re up there, the resort closed for a week, hail coming down, the skin on their faces freezing off. Not one of the better snowboarding trips they’ve had, most likely. (read the rest of this shit…)
The Social Network
THE SOCIAL NETWORK is the new Dave Fincher picture about the founding of the “Facebook” company, which has had alot of success creating a type of “social networking,” so that’s why it’s called that. You may be thinking Vern, I’ve heard the words before in buzz and in word-of-the-mouth, but what in shit’s name is social networking? Well, let me explain. Social networking is a type of computer thing, or “facebook”, that goes in the lower right hand corner of the page. When people sign in they click “like,” and then some of their pictures show up on there sometimes. It tells them when I have a new review, either because Chris posts it on there, or he programmed it to do it, nobody really knows. This is a way to make new friends or promote your thing, or whatever. That’s why social networking is the future of, you know, computer things. (read the rest of this shit…)
30 Days of Night: Dark Days
Holy shit, all the sudden it’s October. And you know what that means, this is when I pretty much switch to an all horror programming lineup. I’m gonna be watching horror movies all month, and most likely failing to find a great ’70s or ’80s slasher movie I never saw before. (Don’t worry non-horror junkies, I still got some residual September viewing I haven’t written up yet, and I’ll do some new releases I’m sure.)
We’ll get into the good shit soon enough, but I remembered I had a review I was gonna send to Ain’t It Cool and hadn’t yet, might as well kick off the celebration with a not-very-anticipated DTV vampire sequel. I know in some cultures that’s considered bad luck, but to hell with it. I ain’t afraid of no curse. (read the rest of this shit…)
Jonathan Livingston Seagull
In order to truly understand how OWL 300 is the talking bird movie for our times, one must also explore the quintessential talking bird movies of other eras. And the one that came to mind when I thought about that was the one from 1974, JONATHAN LIVINGSTON SEAGULL. I don’t know if you guys remember this one, but it was a huge book at the time, but not a kids book like all movies are based on now. It was seen as this inspirational, philosophical type of deal. (read the rest of this shit…)
Fred talks ‘Iron Fist’ with the RZA
I promise, I got an actual review coming soon, but I thought this was deserving of a “blog” post. Entertainment journalist and frequent outlawvern.com commenter Fred Topel got a chance to speak to Wu-Tang mastermind and soon-to-be-director-of-kung-fu-movie-starring-Russell-Crowe the RZA at Fantastic Fest. This is the RZA we’re talking about so Fred doesn’t get a normal concrete type of description of what the movie is about, but instead some abstract musings about RZA’s approach to the martial arts, the philosophy of the movie, why he thinks Crowe will be great and unexpected news about his plans for the music.
I was gonna post the link even before I saw that he dropped my name in one of the questions. Thanks for that one, Fred.
article on Crave Online
short one from Screen Junkies
Black Dynamite cartoon photos
Okay friends of the nerd community, things are really going your way this week. Don’t ever say I didn’t do nothing for your chosen mediums of expression. This is a followup to the earlier post about BLACK DYNAMITE in cartoon and comics forms. This time Scott Sanders sent me a couple pictures from the cartoon so you can see what it’s gonna look like. (read the rest of this shit…)
Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole
There’s this new movie about owls, directed by Zack Snyder. Turns out it’s based on a series of children’s books called “Guardians of Ga’Hoole.” Warner Brothers didn’t want to use that title because they were worried nobody would know what “Ga’Hoole” meant. And it’s true, because to me it sounds like Ga’Hoole must be either a) the place where these “Guardians” are from, or b) a place that they guard, and they’re from some other place. It’s definitely one of those two options, but I don’t know for sure which one, so obviously that’s a huge, huge communication problem there, I’d just get so confused I’d never be able to watch the movie.
So they came up with the title LEGEND OF THE GUARDIANS. Completely generic and bland, not descriptive at all, almost sounds like a made up title. Perfect! But after the first trailer came out they must’ve got a call from the Weinsteins saying come on you pricks, you can’t use a generic title like that, we need that to rename a Jet Li movie. You can’t fuck us like this, do you know who we are? We own this fucking town! We did SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE. You don’t know who you’re fucking with you little pissants! Also the Dragon Dynasty series of DVDs, we did those also! We will crush you and make somebody else wipe you up, and then we will pointedly undertip them for their efforts! FUCK YOU WARNER BROTHERS YOU CAN’T DO THIS TO ME.
So Warner Brothers is like oh shit, those guys did the SCARY MOVIE series, they mean business. So they added the subtitle “The Owls of Ga’Hoole,” so we know now Ga’Hoole must be a place where some owls live, at least according to legend. That makes the full title LEGEND OF THE GUARDIANS: THE OWLS OF GA’HOOLE: THE 3-D IMAX EXPERIENCE. Which is a mouthful of a title for a movie everybody is obviously gonna just call OWL 300. (read the rest of this shit…)
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Nerd shit
To show that I’m not above it I will comment on the news that set off the recent Superman conversation: that Zack Snyder is on a list of potential directors for the new Superman picture. I thought about it and I think actually Snyder might work well with David S. Goyer, who wrote the script, so I’m for it. Also on the list is David Bowie’s son Duncan Jones, who did MOON. I have no idea if he can pull off a big studio movie, but he seems like the most interesting director on the list.
Also they’re saying Darren Aranofsky now. I’d see that. It could be Matt Reeves (CLOVERFIELD, LET ME IN, co-creator of an old TV show called Felicity). And Jonathan Liebesman (TEXAS CHAINSAW reprequel) most likely based on the alien invasion movie he has coming out, but he’s also supposed to do CLASH OF THE TITANS 2: THE RE-CLASH.
But the rule is they always go with the worst guy on the list, so congratulations to Tony Scott, who will direct the first Superman movie where nobody can tell if the guy is supposed to be flying or not.
September 28th, 2010 | 501 Comments »