I don’t know why it took me this long, but I finally decided to catch up with the two Mike Flanagan joints I hadn’t seen yet (not counting the dramas he made during and immediately after college, or the TV series The Firefighter Combat Challenge). He made his entry into horror in 2006, with a shot-on-video-in-one-room short called Oculus: Chapter 3 – The Man with the Plan. Like George Lucas with STAR WARS, his story was bigger than his resources so he started with the most exciting chapter and filled in the rest later.
The short is about a guy who has obtained a haunted mirror that he plans to destroy. It’s a cool idea for a short with acting and visuals that require a certain level of forgiveness. But it apparently went over well at film festivals and inspired some interest in a feature version. The trouble was that producers all wanted to make it a found footage movie and/or give it to a director other than Flanagan. So instead he set the evil mirror aside and did a Kickstarter campaign to finance his $70,000 debut horror feature, ABSENTIA (2011). And once that was under his belt he got Intrepid Features (WAIST DEEP, THE STRANGERS) to let him direct a non-found-footage OCULUS, which filmed in 2012. And they must’ve been pretty happy with it, because now he’s a partner in the company. (read the rest of this shit…)
HOMEFRONT is a Jason Statham vehicle with an interesting pedigree: screenplay by Sylvester Stallone (Academy Award nominated writer of ROCKY), meth manufacturing villain played by James Franco (Academy Award nominated lead for 127 HOURS), James Franco’s girlfriend played by Winona Ryder (Academy Award nominee for LITTLE WOMEN and THE AGE OF INNOCENCE). Unfortunately the weak link is director Gary Fleder (CableACE Award winner for an episode of Tales From the Crypt), who’s just the guy who did KISS THE GIRLS and RUNAWAY JURY and stuff like that. He’s not terrible but also not the type of strong director that could shoot a bullseye with a simple story like this.
This is the second movie in a row where Statham starts out wearing a long hair wig. This time it’s because he’s a DEA agent undercover in a biker gang. He busts the kingpin Danny T (Chuck Zito), whose son gets shot to death by other cops. Danny and his gang want to kill the shit out of him for this so he has to shave his hair. Also he either goes into witness protection or just retires and moves to a small town somewhere in Louisiana. (read the rest of this shit…)
Huh. SUPERMAN RETURNS. Interesting to watch this again now. Not only are there 7 years of 20/20 x-ray vision to look back on it with, but also a recent do-over that I like better. This was the first Superman movie made for a world that might be indifferent to the character of Superman, so they made that the subtext. Superman (Brandon Routh, DYLAN DOG: DEAD OF NIGHT) has been gone for years studying space rubble or something, meanwhile the world has gotten used to not having him around to babysit them. Lois Lane (Kate Bosworth, THE WARRIOR’S WAY) has moved on to the point of having a kid (Tristan Lake Leabu), a fiancee (James Marsden, AMBUSH IN WACO: IN THE LINE OF DUTY), and a Pulitzer Prize for her essay “Why the World Doesn’t Need a Superman” (early draft title: “That Fucking Asshole Superman Got Me Pregnant in Part 2 and Then Flew Off To Space For Some Reason”). (read the rest of this shit…)
Remember THE WARRIOR’S WAY? Kind of an under the radar cowboys ‘n samurais movie from last year, director with no track record, Geoffrey Rush and Kate Bosworth in the cast, hard to know what to expect from that weird combination of factors. I heard it was pretty good, but I also heard it was one of those movies that’s pretty much all done in front of green screens. I almost went to see it for the week or two it was playing in theaters, but I chickened out, waited for the spinning disc. (read the rest of this shit…)
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Recent commentary and jibber-jabber
CJ Holden on 28 Years Later: “I call it now. The last of the trilogy will be 28 MONTHS LATER and show how the rest of…” Jul 8, 00:36
Franchise Fred on 28 Years Later: “It’s kind of a bummer they’re doing a whole trilogy and ditching the time progression, but I guess 28 Decades…” Jul 7, 23:08
Mr. Majestyk on Sinners: “This one had me for the first 40 minutes or so…until the first big musical sequence with the funk guitarist.…” Jul 7, 21:05
Glaive Robber on 28 Years Later: “Y’know, when I saw this I felt like there was so much to talk about regarding this movie… and then…” Jul 7, 19:40
Glaive Robber on M3gan 2.0: “It’s funny that the trailers played M3gan up as some sort of queer icon, but in the second movie proper,…” Jul 7, 19:21
jojo on 28 Years Later: “So it was funny to read that this recording of a Rudyard Kipling poem is so known to be irritating…” Jul 7, 18:02
Skani on 28 Years Later: “Haven’t seen this one yet, as that trailer with that repetitive vocal interpolation seriously pissed me off and turned me…” Jul 7, 16:28
Jerome on The X-Files: “Yeah, I just saw that. Bummer. But for whatever reason I needed Wiki to tell me he was the X-Files…” Jul 7, 16:03
Anne Billson on 28 Years Later: “Enjoyed reading that, Vern, thanks. Re: zombie films since 28 Days Later. I very much liked Jeremy Gardner’s no-budget The…” Jul 7, 13:59
deepfriednoir on 28 Years Later: “I agree that this is the perfect film for where the UK is at right now, but respectfully disagree that…” Jul 7, 12:48
CJ Holden on Cobra Kai (Season 1): “I finally finished that show and have to say that it can join the ranks of one of the greatest,…” Jul 7, 11:53
Mr. Majestyk on 28 Years Later: “This is a bold, strong, interesting movie that’s easy to respect and a little harder to love. The emotional climax…” Jul 7, 11:40
Bill Reed on 28 Years Later: “The feel-bad movie of the year! It kept me very uncomfortable and somewhat disoriented the whole time. I can’t say…” Jul 7, 08:08
Steven on 28 Years Later: “I absolutely adore this one – it is def an unusually…. insular movie for the british cinema industry. We honestly…” Jul 7, 07:37