Carrie Remake Trailer: Spoiler Theater Is Actually Just More Deja Vu…

Amusingly enough, this trailer from the upcoming Carrie remake has actually been criticized a bit too harshly for basically spoiling the entire film even more so than most other genre flick trailers. While this may indeed be true, it’s actually just copying the same marketing from the 1976 original, which by the way, WORKED fine in filling seats way back then. Check out both (look up! Look down!) and see what I’m babbling about.

Granted, Brian De Palma’s film was probably a great deal more shocking back then this remake will be seen as when it hits theaters, but we’ll see if the actors in the new film can deliver performances as memorable as those in the original. As always, class… we shall see… we shall see…

Humor: So, iNetvideo.com Is Having A Sale…

BIG Bunny

 

NotL_long posterBut you could really care less about what iNetvideo.com is selling because you’re looking at the picture above they posted earlier this afternoon on their Facebook page and thinking something along the lines of “MAN, THAT’S A BIG FU@#ING BUNNY!” So let me get you back on track here. Yeah, that’s pretty damn massive lagomorph. Like Night of the Lepus massive. Which just so happens to be on sale at the site as we speak. Wait, now you’re hungry? Oh, you’ve seen that picture above, aren’t vegan at all and ran so fast into the kitchen to measure that turkey pan that you ran over one or more kids and the family pet in the process? Oh, they’ll heal up nicely – just let them cry it out. Besides, that smelly old bottle of Bactine is still in the medicine cabinet behind the big pills you take every morning. “It still stings, so it still works!”, as Grandma says.Or USED to say before she went off the The Big Sky all those years back. Ah, Grandma (*sniff*)…

 

 

Later on, the kids and pet are all snoozy and healed up, things are quiet and you’re absolutely stuffed full of rabbit photo. All is right in the world… until you realize that it’s NOT Bactine at all you sprayed everyone with, but some of Gammy Gam-Gam’s SPECIAL medicine she made in the bathtub from some old potatoes and onions, eleven garlic bulbs, a can of Sterno and some grain alcohol she gets from the guys down the hall. Yeah, the ones who wear overalls and long johns all summer. Er, a little of that goes a long way and yeah, you’ll end up calling a mere sip The Time Machine because you always wake up afterwards and it’s another day that’s passed you’ve forgotten all about. Horror Express, indeed…

Random Film of the Week(end): The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek

(thank you, lachambreverte!)  

“Some are born great,
some achieve greatness,
and some have greatness thrust upon them.”

Wm. Shakespeare, Twelfth Night (Act II, Scene IV)

MoMC_still Sure, that title may make it sound a little too much like some overly pompous religious themed film, but director Preston Sturges’ great, outrageous 1944 comedy is still one of the more hilariously subversive Hollywood movies of that era when the Hays Code was clamping down hard on movies and forcing directors to come up with all sorts of means to get around some pretty stupid and strict rules. For some reason, those censors must have been asleep at the wheel as The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek is still one of the funniest movies ever made, period. If your eyebrow is hovering above your head like a skeptical cartoon character, go rent or yank out from your movie collection Judd Apatow’s Knocked Up and watch this afterward. I bet you’re laughing harder at the older film, so pony up five cents now and mail it my way after you lose that bet…

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Random Art: For Freaks’ Sake, This One’s for The Birds…

 

broken wingAs much of a horror classic as Tod Browning’s 1932 film Freaks is, that bizarre ending has always rankled me a teeny-tiny bit. Spoiler: that bird lady thing at the end was actually more amusing than shocking to me, especially when stacked up to the real life cast and their assorted actual conditions. Anyway, completely on a lark (ha ha) I did this MS Paint sketch last year as an alternate makeup just for fun. Yeah, yeah, this film will (thankfully) NEVER be remade, but if someone want so try it (and thus be stalked by a few people armed with assorted home-made portable torture devices), here you go. Have fun for as long as it lasts, but sleep with one eye open. I actually overheard a conversation about a “remake” idea in a Starbucks a few months back, but it was a bunch of hipster types hoping someone would take advantage of the fact that reality show is now using “freaks” as a happy entertainment option for us “normals” out in tee vee land. Let’s hope this doesn’t take off, I say…

On a side note, I and many other fans keep hoping against hope that someone tracks down the 26 or so minutes of footage that was chopped out by MGM back in 1932 and restores the film to its original glory.

Vikings vs. The Vikings: My Money’s Still On Kirk & Company…

 

I’m gathering that any actual historian worth his or her salt cellar has stopped watching the “History” Channel some time ago for actual history, but their new “first” scripted (allegedly – not counting the fact that “reality” TV is in fact, constructed of MANY pre-scripted elements) series seems to be drawing some attention in a Game of Thrones/Spartacus sort of manner. It’s actually not a bad show at all, but I do wish it were associated with another network, not one with swamp dudes and other happy and not so happy-go-lucky hillbilly hipsters, hicks and hucksters getting their 15 minutes of fame.

 

 

That said, I still prefer Richard Fleischer’s 1958 epic with Kirk Douglas, as the show is based off the real-life story this classic was cut from. Check it out sometime if you haven’t seen it yet, as it’s a pretty great flick that’s stood the test of time and deserves a younger audience appreciating it’s violent charms…

Random Film of the Week(end): Sleeper

 

sleeperIf you stripped away the comedic elements and rewrote a few scenes, Woody Allen’s classic 1973 film Sleeper would actually make a pretty solid futuristic drama about a man wakened from a long cryo-sleep who ends up becoming part of a revolution against a totalitarian government. Fortunately, the film never even tries to be that serious and you end up laughing your ass off at its near-flawless writing acting and overall pacing. Granted, the film actually won a Hugo Award for “Best Dramatic Presentation” in 1974 (beating out the deadly serious Soylent Green, the mostly serious Westworld and two so-so fan favorite TV melodramas, Genesis II and The Six Million Dollar Man), so I’d gather there’s a pretty solid futuristic drama underneath all that slapstick after all…

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Random Film of the Week: This Island Earth

(Thanks, TrailerFood!)

This Island EarthDepending on how far back your cinema memories go, 1955’s This Island Earth is either a really cheesy “B”- grade sci-fi flick chock full of laughs or a  genre classic that still has some compelling moments. Given that it took around 2 1/2 years to get from novel to screen (and it shows in some pretty solid production values and impressive for the era visual effects), the fact that a good chunk of younger movie fans may only know this from the on-target butchering it got in Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie is a wee bit annoying.

Hey, like many of you, I like MST3K a great deal. But I can still recall a few friends who were also fans of this gem thinking the folks behind that decision to rip this classic a new one were a bit out of their heads. I grew up watching this on TV a few too many times as kid and along with the stellar Forbidden Planet and heady, deep The Day the Earth Stood Still and the thrilling “B” Earth vs The Flying Saucers, it’s on my (too) long list of ‘Desert Island Disc’ sci-fi picks.

Boom

No CG here, folks. Just good ol’ models, mattes, and dangerous chemical explosions.

 

That’s not to say the film doesn’t have its share of intentionally and unintentionally funny moments, mind you. Clever viewers can mine this one for plenty of chuckles if they choose to go that route. That said, it’s best to look at it today as a product of dedicated over-exuberance of the filmmakers in delivering a space opera for the masses that was also a pretty darn good genre movie that holds up today when approached from the proper perspective. Continue reading

A&E’s Bates Motel: Oh, This Could Go All Kinds Of Wrong…

 

But I’ll give it a shot. Maybe. “My hobby is… stuffing things…”  OK, I’m not a huge fan of mucking around with something as classic as the original Psycho and previous attempts at making TV shows based on and around the film have not exactly been must-see entertainment. That said, I thought Psycho II was an interesting black comedy and a fun homage to Hitchcock (his shadow has a cameo in that film that’s easy to miss) and Psycho III was an even weirder flick with a nicely nasty edge. Of course, if this new show is actually good, it still mucks with the canon by pushing things forward a bit time-wise, something I’m not actually happy about. Of course, this will all be “new” to those whippersnappers who’ve yet to experience the first film because they’re somewhat cinema deficient and need a proper introduction to plenty of movies they’d otherwise ignore…

Random Film of the Week(end): Emperor of the North Pole

(thanks, Carl’s Trains & Stuff!)

emperor of the north poleIf you haven’t checked out that video above, don’t let the title fool you one bit – this isn’t a family friendly movie about a bouncy, happy CGI penguin and there’s definitely no red-suited Jolly Saint Nick here to spread happy holiday tidings (but there is a fat guy who throws hammers). Nope, this 1973 film from the late, great Robert Aldrich is simultaneously big, mean, brutal and hilarious, often within a few seconds in some scenes.

Based loosely on a Jack London book and a book partially about Jack London, the film features Lee Marvin and Ernest Borgnine as bitter rivals battling for turf rights in the most absurd of places – a moving freight train. OK, there’s much more to this classic than that, but it pretty much boils town to a prolonged (and excellently shot) fight between two men way past middle age beating the crap out of each other with 2 x 4’s, a chain, thrown hammers and an axe. I guess a cynic would call it Thunderdome on rolling stock, but not as cheesy and much better acted, at that…

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Random Film of the Week (Double Feature Edition): THEM! & Tarantula

(thanks, Tobar!) 

With Earth Defense Force 2017 Portable rolling out on the PlayStation Vita on Tuesday, I figured I’d write up a short column about two of the many “They don’t make ’em like they used to!” sci-fi films that most assuredly influenced Japanese developer Sandlot when they created their cult favorite game series that got its start as a pair of budget PlayStation 2 games (The Simple 2000 Vol. 31: The Chikyuu Boueigun and The Simple 2000 Vol. 81: The Chikyuu Boueigun 2) and a more visually polished Xbox 360 sequel which has been nicely expanded and enhanced for Sony’s portable system. Both flicks are “B” movie classics worth watching if you’ve never seen either previously, with the former film being surprisingly tense and well-acted considering the subject matter and the latter film using some pretty well done matte work to convincing effect in a few scenes.

Yeah, yeah, there’s no fancy CGI here and some implausible moments in both flicks can be eyeball-rolling if you start applying any rules of reality to what you’re viewing. Nevertheless, if you’re in the right mood, you’ll be hooked into both films from the memorable beginnings of each one and stick around to their bitter endings…

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