Disney’s 1967 animated version of THE JUNGLE BOOK was pretty much a hangout movie. A bunch of animal dudes kickin it in the jungle, occasionally singing songs. Like HOUSE PARTY but with snakes and shit. The tiger Shere Khan plays the part of Full Force.
Now modern Disney and director Jon Favreau (executive producer, GREEN STREET HOOLIGANS) have brought in more of the world and narrative of Rudyard Kipling’s stories for an excellent live action(ish) version that captures plenty of the spirit of the old one while also being totally different. It uses versions of the original songs and even evokes Disney animation with a painted version of the castle logo, but never feels redundant. It’s like putting on glasses and seeing that version in more detail, from the visuals to the story.
I have to admit, after COWBOYS & ALIENS I kinda thought maybe we got too excited about Favreau as a director because of IRON MAN. Clearly I was wrong. This is a movie I can’t imagine many directors pulling off. Like with IRON MAN he finds a perfect balance between nerdy love for the source material and clear vision of how to tell the story in a dramatic way we haven’t quite seen on screen before.
And it can’t be easy competing with the memory of Stephen Sommers’ 1994 version.
I guess Beyonce Knowles released a “surprise album” on iTunes on Friday. They didn’t announce it in advance or anything and word spread like word spreads on the internet and holy shit it became the number one selling digital file album of such and such. Everybody lost their shit and wrote headlines and everything. Amazing! Revolutionary! It may seem like a clever attention-getting gimmick for a star of her size to not bother with marketing, but here’s the truth: her husband Jay-Z knew through the Illuminati that I had just watched Beyonce’s Christmas-time thriller OBSESSED and was about to put up a review. So she knew she had to rush the album’s release in order to take advantage of that extra spotlight. Your welcome, Beyonce.
Like in DIE HARD, the shit goes down at an office Christmas party for some L.A. financial something-or-other firm. But instead of faux-terrorists taking over the building it’s a stalker executive assistant trying to take a married man. Lisa (Ali Larter from FINAL DESTINATION) is a temp who’s been breathing all over Derek Charles (Idris Elba, GHOST RIDER’S SPIRIT OF VENGEANCE), listening in on his phone calls, finding out too much about him, putting him in uncomfortable situations. The camera makes her seductive, zeroing in on her crossed legs when she sits near him, her glossed lips when she smiles at him. (read the rest of this shit…)
This is the third time I’ve seen PROMETHEUS. I saw it twice in the theater. It’s one of the most divisive movies in the history of outlawvern.com comments, and I wanted to see how it played after sleeping on it for a while. I still like it and think that its great filmatism overcomes its underlying stupidity. But I’ve got a few new thoughts on it.
We’ve discussed alot of unscientific things these scientists on the Prometheus do, but one I don’t remember thinking about before is that they’re totally jumping to this conclusion that humans were engineered. All they’re going on is the “DNA match,” that “their genetic material predates ours,” but doesn’t that seem more like we evolved from them than they purposely created us? I guess they’re going on the cave paintings, which they assume were made by the Engineers and did in fact lead them to this planet. But I don’t know, I don’t feel like this Engineer theory has been adequately proven. (read the rest of this shit…)
DISCLAIMER (skip if you don’t give a shit): I haven’t reviewed Guillermo Del Toro’s movies since 2004, when Drew McWeeny got him to write a blurb for a book I self-published (later used by Titan on my other books). I never met or e-mailed the guy but it was a harsh, self-imposed rule to avoid any perception of being easier on his movies because of that connection, or worse, actually doing that. But I decided I want to write about PACIFIC RIM anyway. Maybe it was just a 9 year rule.
Since I haven’t reviewed them all here’s where I stand on Del Toro: been a fan since MIMIC. BLADE 2 is my favorite, followed by the three Spanish language movies in reverse chronological order. I enjoy the HELLBOYs but don’t love ’em. The second one frustrated me because it has many flashes of brilliance but doesn’t all come together for me. I like the movies he produces, also.
TAKERS is a heist movie that features Paul Walker (THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS 1,2,4-present) and Hayden Christensen (STAR WARS 2-3) as thieves, Jay Hernandez (HOSTEL, CARLITO’S WAY: RISE TO POWER) as one of the cops that’s out to get them, and Johnathon Schaech as their fence. Holy shit, this is like the EXPENDABLES of likable but bland, inarticulate would-be leading men! I bet they’re looking at Chris Klein for part 2. Maybe Scott Speedman.
Nah, that’s a cheap shot. The truth is I sort of like all those guys, or at least root for them to prove everybody wrong. Walker seems too nice to hate, and he’s been in a bunch of movies that I’ve enjoyed, and even been good in some of them. Hernandez – I liked the HOSTEL movies. Schaech channeled Swayze well in ROAD HOUSE 2. Christensen is all right, he’s just going down a path I cannot follow. (read the rest of this shit…)
Okay, we’ve had high hopes for this movie for a long time. We’ve tried to avoid finding out too much about it. We have a sense of trust because of its connection to an all-time great movie by this same director but we also hope this is gonna be something new we’ve never seen before. So it has this weird combination of known quantity and total mystery.
Well, it’s a little more familiar than I was hoping but I also think you should just see it fresh so come on man, don’t read this review until you’ve already seen it. This is gonna be all SPOILERS. (read the rest of this shit…)
Almost exactly 5 years ago when they released the first GHOST RIDER picture (directed by the writer of the GRUMPY OLD MEN pictures) I thought it looked so hilarious that I couldn’t help going to the first showing. I remember it was before noon at an AMC theater on a Friday, which I discovered was their window for what counts as a matinee, so it cost 5 bucks. Good deal, but small consolation for the unfortunately boring movie and the guilt of having participated in making it a surprise hit even though nobody liked it.
So on Friday I found myself facing down part 2, this time from Nevildine/Taylor, the giggling-camera-wigglers-on-rollerblades legally and morally responsible for CRANK and GAMER. Against 22 different styles and colors of better judgment I found myself compelled to the first showing of this one too. The matinee costs 6 bucks now. But that’s fair – it’s at least a dollar more enjoyable than part 1. Probly $1.50 even. (read the rest of this shit…)
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Recent commentary and jibber-jabber
MaggieMayPie on Trigger Warning: “I watched this the weekend that REBEL RIDGE came out. I went into Netflix to watch that and I saw…” Nov 20, 20:46
Matthew B. on Trigger Warning: “Anyone get the feeling that large chunks of act three went missing here? The big confrontation with Anthony Michael Hall,…” Nov 20, 18:24
Felix Ng on Trigger Warning: “I thought this was okay as well. Like an early 2000 Van Damme DTV.” Nov 20, 13:49
Skani on Dragged Across Concrete: “Yeah, this fucking guy’s a real trip. Sounds like his words “engendered” a lot of feelings, and I won’t even…” Nov 20, 13:04
Mr. Majestyk on Dragged Across Concrete: “That’s the sad part. All the ingredients are there for something great, but Zahler’s technique just pisses it all away…” Nov 20, 12:54
Crudnasty on Dragged Across Concrete: “Majestyk – I salute you for making it to the end to confirm that the entire runtime earns your contempt,…” Nov 20, 12:34
Mr. Majestyk on Le Samourai: “I want to thank everybody for the kind words. Sometimes I doubt my role in this ecosystem, as it seems…” Nov 20, 12:04
Mr. Majestyk on Dragged Across Concrete: “Sing it, Crudnasty. This remains my least favorite movie of the 21st century. Possibly of all time. I literally sold…” Nov 20, 11:51
Crudnasty on Dragged Across Concrete: “Benefit of the doctor = benefit of the doubt Apologies for the consequences of my furious swipe texting, but this…” Nov 20, 11:34
Crudnasty on Dragged Across Concrete: “Just started watching this on a whim, based on seeing the comments pop up and having seen Cell Block 99…” Nov 20, 11:32
Skani on Dragged Across Concrete: “I defended the movie at the time, but I do think Zahler is a weird dude, and I think Mel…” Nov 20, 10:24
CJ Holden on Trigger Warning: “When it came out, I joked on social media about this being actually a standup comedy special in which Jessica…” Nov 20, 10:13
Ishmael on Ebirah, Horror of the Deep: “One thing that always amuses me about Godzilla movies is how often between films people lose track of Godzilla. The…” Nov 20, 09:19
VERN on Dragged Across Concrete: “Both the violence and the racism depicted in the movie are fictional. I did not feel it was committing acts…” Nov 20, 09:15
Disney’s 1967 animated version of THE JUNGLE BOOK was pretty much a hangout movie. A bunch of animal dudes kickin it in the jungle, occasionally singing songs. Like HOUSE PARTY but with snakes and shit. The tiger Shere Khan plays the part of Full Force.
I guess Beyonce Knowles 
DISCLAIMER (skip if you don’t give a shit): I haven’t reviewed Guillermo Del Toro’s movies since 2004, when Drew McWeeny got him to write a blurb for a book I self-published (later used by Titan on my other books). I never met or e-mailed the guy but it was a harsh, self-imposed rule to avoid any perception of being easier on his movies because of that connection, or worse, actually doing that. But I decided I want to write about PACIFIC RIM anyway. Maybe it was just a 9 year rule.
Almost exactly 5 years ago when they released the first GHOST RIDER picture (directed by the writer of the GRUMPY OLD MEN pictures) I thought it looked so hilarious that I couldn’t help going to the first showing. I remember it was before noon at an AMC theater on a Friday, which I discovered was their window for what counts as a matinee, so it cost 5 bucks. Good deal, but small consolation for the unfortunately boring movie and the guilt of having participated in making it a surprise hit even though nobody liked it.
