"KEEP BUSTIN'."

Posts Tagged ‘Mikey Madison’

Scream (2022)

Monday, January 17th, 2022

We interrupt this Sam Raimi series so I can have a semi-timely review of the new SCREAM movie.


I have some bad news. SCREAM – a teen horror movie that came out when I was older than a teen but I enjoyed it along with the younger people anyway – is 25 fucking years old! And you remember how it was a trilogy and we assumed that was it, but a little while back kind of out of the blue they made a way late part 4? Well, I’m sorry to say that even that happened eleven god damn years ago. How is that possible? It’s not. But it happened. We are old, my friends. Very, very old.

But some of us still like SCREAM and the i.p. gods or whoever decided that the time has come for another one in another era. Many things have changed since the last one. Obviously horror has changed, as it always does. But more importantly the director of the original four, Wes Craven, has passed away, and (in better news) the Weinstein Company has died and gone to Hell, so this is the first time the series has been continued by a new set of people. The rights were picked up by Spyglass Media Group, James Vanderbilt (THE RUNDOWN, ZODIAC) & Guy Busick (READY OR NOT, Castle Rock) wrote the script, and Matt Bettinelli-Olpin & Tyler Gillett (the team behind READY OR NOT) directed it, in the Craven spirit but not trying to be a throwback or anything. (There’s even a joke about overlit ‘90s movies.) Original writer Kevin Williamson did give his blessing and sign on as executive producer, and has given many interviews (such as on Mick Garris’ podcast Post-Mortem) verifying that he really was involved and is excited about the movie. (read the rest of this shit…)

Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood

Wednesday, July 31st, 2019

THIS IS A FREE RANGE SPOILER REVIEW. THE SPOILERS ARE NOT KEPT IN CAGES. THEY JUST RUN ALL OVER THE PLACE, INCLUDING THE FIRST COUPLE SENTENCES. SEE THE MOVIE FIRST.

ONCE UPON A TIME… IN HOLLYWOOD is an odd and beautiful movie from… Quentin Tarantino. It’s undeniably one that only he could or would make – it’s even in his now-trademark ‘wish-fulfilling rewrite of a historical atrocity’ mode – but it’s different. It’s not as mean and angry as the last three, or as carefully plotted as any of them. It’s sort of a hang out movie, a day-in-the-life of two friends, and a gentle tale of surviving a mid-life crisis, wrapped in a love letter to Los Angeles of the late ’60s, and to the then-fading leading men of the ’50s, with a chaser of gruesome violence. The fun kind, though. The cathartic kind.

Throughout his career, Tarantino has shown his affinity for cool shit like spaghetti westerns, blaxploitation movies, kung fu and crime novels. Here’s where he says “Fuck it, I also like old cowboy shows and procedurals and stuff.” When the guy who makes film exhibition and criticism a major element of his WWII epic does one that’s actually about the Hollywood film industry, obviously he’s gonna go buck wild. The amount of detail he puts into the fictional career of TV star Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio, two episodes of The New Lassie) – to the point of needing a narrator to talk us through each entry from his Rome period – reaches the level of sci-fi world building. And of course Tarantino, being Tarantino, gives us a soundtrack that drips the sixties without one whiff of Creedence, Dylan, the Doors or Hendrix. Admittedly “Mrs. Robinson” is in there somewhere, but he leans more Deep Purple, Vanilla Fudge and Paul Revere & the Raiders. One of the few I knew was the Neil Diamond song. (read the rest of this shit…)