Bud's Reviews

Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)

2013-05-18T08:53:00.001-07:00

After a long wait of about four years, J.J. Abrams hits another one out of the ballpark with his second alternate universe Star Trek movie, STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS. I was able to take my wife to see it before she had to clock in at work and while our kids were in school, but we'll all probably go as a family to see it again at some point.

I honestly don't want to delve too much into the plot because I don't want to spoil anything for anyone who hasn't seen this yet, but I do want to discuss some things I'm noticing that other critics have been losing sight of, and then I'd like to address some things that Old School Trekkers (and I'm one of them, but I'm not as picky as some) are complaining about.

First off, this film is clearly revealing to audience members who are willing to take notice that it is set in an alternate Star Trek reality that is different from the previously long-established one. This means that, while the characters are all essentially parallel to those from the 'real' Trek-verse, there will be differences, too, as well as similarities. This is not too far removed from one of the key themes repeatedly echoed on the revamped Battlestar Galactica series of a few years back: "Somewhere, somehow, this has all happened before, but in a divergent way." I'm cool with that. I really am. Especially since I have a strong suspicion that this divergent reality is the result of the Borg meddling with time in STAR TREK: FIRST CONTACT.

My suspicion about this film's relation to FIRST CONTACT stems from clues that were dropped in the 2009's STAR TREK. Nero's ship, the Narada, clearly had some Borg technology on it. The technology utilized by the Enterprise crew in this universe is far more advanced than what was shown in the original series and movies.

Clearly, when the Borg Queen sent that cube back in time in FIRST CONTACT, it created a divergent reality where the inhabitants of Earth discovered advanced technology far earlier than they should have, which caused a rift in time - setting the stage for the Enterprise series that so many people simply disliked because, frankly, technology and historical time-line did not match up with what had previously been established as Star Trek canon. This outraged a lot of fans, but it brilliantly 'fixed' all these chronology problems so that everyone could enjoy the best of both worlds. I just don't get why some Star Trek fans haven't come to the realization that they can now have their futuristic cake and eat it, too.

Back to INTO DARKNESS. The film opens with a sequence on an alien planet that features an en medias res escape that is too close to the opening of RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK for it not to be an homage. Other cinematic tips of the cap include sequences that are clearly lifted from the same inspirational wellspring that prompted Stanley Kubrick to create his war room in DR. STRANGELOVE, and a key sequence in, of all movies, THE GODFATHER PART III. Mostly, though, there are lifts from past STAR TREK movies, and maybe even from the old animated Star Trek series from the 1970s if not from the wretched STAR TREK: THE FINAL FRONTIER. Any other Lt. M'ress fans out there?

As the trailers have implied quote blatantly, there are a lot of thematic elements in this film that are paying tribute to STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN, but I also noted sequences that seemed lifted from THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY, chiefly its sub-plot revolving around espionage and war-mongering.

STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS is largely about what motivates Terrorists, it's about the dangers of blindly following military and political leadership without investigation or questioning their motivations. It's about questionable medical research and the pro's and con's of it. Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek always strived to be more than simply an action-adventure series set in space - it wanted to motivate viewers to ponder things, and I think this movie does this quite nicely, especially when asking why the standard response to Terrorist activity is 'shoot to kill' rather than 'apprehend and interrogate.' I've never fully understood this in the real world because, to my way of thinking, it is in our best interest to try to figure out what their motivations were before they are put on trial. Sometimes, in the real world, it seems like we're putting the cart before the horse, and if I've ever learned anything from the movies, it's "the first rule of the Assassin's Game is to kill the assassin." I honestly don't think we'll ever know the full story until we change our standardized mode of operation. This movie deals with this issue, and yet I've heard it criticized as being "all style and no substance!"

Yes, the movie does fly at warp speed but, in my opinion, this is not intended to keep audiences from questioning its major themes or logical construction. I suspect that those who are complaining about 'plot holes' went in looking for them, and made a knee-jerk reaction list of things they suspected weren't in line with their own understanding of the Star Trek universe. Well, like I've said before, this isn't the original Trek-verse. It's the J.J. Abrams Trek-verse and, like I said earlier, I'm okay with that. I actually love it. I may even love it more than the original, and I have been a Star Trek fan my entire life!

There was only one teeny, tiny sour note in the film for me, and it took me out of the proceedings for a fraction of a second, but I won't say what it was. Instead, I'll close out with an image from another film that had a similar moment, and a shot from a sitcom it reminded me of. When you see INTO DARKNESS, you'll probably catch what I'm referring to - especially if you're a big fan of the original STAR TREK films and, well, Seinfeld. I was able to move past it rather quickly, though, and still enjoy the rest of the proceedings. Hopefully, you'll be able to as well.

HITCHCOCK (2012)

2013-05-15T09:05:00.001-07:00

I gave HITCHCOCK a pass when it played at local theaters, even the second-run theaters when it made its way around, and all because I trusted some critics who panned it. Being a lifelong fan of Sir Alfred Hitchcock, however, I remained curious about it, especially after reading numerous biographies about Hitch, and several books about the creation of his masterpiece, PSYCHO.

Eventually I discovered I had some free Redbox credit, so I checked it out and, dagnabbit, I actually liked the dern thing, warts and all. It's not a perfect movie, but it's quaint. I thought it was rather charming in a mostly subdued way, but I must admit that I did have great difficulty believing Sir Anthony Hopkins was Hitchcock.

Alfred Hitchcock had an extremely unique way of speaking. So does Anthony Hopkins. And ne'er the twain shall meet. Hopkins voice is far too distinctively different from Hitchcock's to sound like Hitchcock. The same is true in regard to their looks: the real Hitchcock was cute in an aristocratic sort of way (not that Hopkins is ugly - he's not - but his looks have more "Drama" to them than "Mischief," which is a key difference between the appearance of the two men.

Also, when Hitchcock was filming PSYCHO, he was nowhere near as portly as the fat suit Hopkins wears implies. Note the following images, particularly the shots with Hopkins in his Hitchcock facial appliances:

In short, I often found myself taken "out" of the movie whenever I'd realize that Hopkins was playing Hitchcock (unlike when, say, Daniel Day Lewis played Abraham Lincoln in Spielberg's LINCOLN, which had me completely convinced he was Lincoln, in a celluloid reincarnation way) -- and that was quite often -- but not so often that it spoiled the movie for me. In many ways, I found it rather clever.

Of most interest to me was the way it incorporated the Murderer of Plainfield, Ed Gein, who served as the inspiration for Norman Bates in PSYCHO, Leatherface in THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, and Jame Gumb in SILENCE OF THE LAMBS (which also featured Sir Anthony Hopkins in what will probably go down as his most memorable performance, as serial killer Hannibal Lecter -- funny that the earlier years of Lecter and Norman Bates are both the focus of two television shows airing right now).

I also found the behind-the-scenes happenings on the set of PSYCHO of great interest, having read all about it over the years; that was, perhaps, my favorite thing about the movie - watching the concept germinate, develop, and evolve into a motion picture masterpiece that would go on to change the face of cinema in more ways than one. See my review of that film for more info.

For me, the greatest weakness of the film is the rather absurd subplot about Hitchcock's distrust of his wife, Alma, and the possibility that she would even dare consider engaging in an adulterous affair with a screenwriter. Alma was clearly a sweet woman in real life, but she most certainly remained by Hitchcock's side, loyal to him to the end of his days, and never once making any comments about his supposed lust for his leading ladies - which he never acted on, if it was even true.

Personally, I didn't think it was necessary to infuse a subplot into the proceedings that insinuate that Alfred Hitchcock suspected his wife was cheating on him and was constantly in search of clues. I would have much rather seen his infamous practical jokes in action. Or in 're-inaction.' Unfortunately, the real genius that was Sir Alfred Hitchcock cannot be duplicated, and while this movie is rather fun, it's mostly implausible when it comes to his private life. I wish they'd stuck to just the facts, ma'am. Just the facts.

A Buddomonn Rant: Movie Preachers and Priests...

2013-05-14T15:38:00.003-07:00

Okay, I just want to know one thing: why is it that most preachers in movies are almost always crazy Protestants, twisted Catholics, or both? This question is not meant to slander Catholic priests or Protestant ministers in any way, mind you, because I am, in fact, an ordained minister - but it just seems to me that most movie preachers are either psychopathic protestants or twisted Catholic priests, or an amalgamation of both. Although there are a few exceptions, as we shall see.

As an ordained minister who pastored rural churches for nearly 14 years, I take offense to the notion that most preachers and priests are closet psychopaths. The world is a much larger place than that. And while I've known some preachers and priests who were crooked and a sheer disappointment to the Church, I've known far more who were simply awesome-wicked-cool.

Let's do a quick visual survey of how preachers and priests are handled in movies and on television, shall we? We'll begin with some bad ones struggling to turn good, with a nod of the preacher's cap to two of the greatest fictional television show ministers ever...

One of the earliest of the silliest and most twisted Protestant preachers in film was played by the brilliant Charlie Chaplin in the 1923 silent flicker, THE PILGRIM. In that silent film, Chaplin's Little Tramp is a runaway convict who dons the white collar of a Protestant minister, and finds himself embraced by the congregation he initially meant to fool. He is forced to decide whether or not to renounce his life of crime in pursuit of goodness and a life of virtue. The preaching sequence is a sight to behold.

The concept behind THE PILGRIM would be repeated in other movies later on, as it was in the 1974 television feature, THE GUN AND THE PULPIT. Ironically enough, this low budget movie starred the child-evangelist turned self-proclaimed adult atheist, Marjoe Gortner. He plays as an outlaw who takes on the guise of a preacher killed in an ambush to escape capture from the posse that's on his trail. Slim Pickens plays a minor role, but receives top billing on most DVD covers. Gortner's character struggles with his past as he ponders the future in the film.

It's not technically a 'movie,' but in the first episode of the third season of Little House on the Prairie in 1976, Johnny Cash received top billing in yet another variation of this theme in "The Collection," when his character, the con artist Caleb Hodgekiss, dons the desperately ill Rev. Alden's clerical duds in an attempt to fleece his congregation as he pretends to gather money and supplies for a community ravaged by a fire; like Gortner and Chaplin's character before him, the congregation of Walnut Grove grows to love him and they have a profound impact on the way he views the world. Rev. Alden, by the way, is probably the premiere example of a godly preacher that was ever featured in a television series, although "Preacher" in Firefly is pretty awesome, too.

My picks for Best Preachers in fictional television ever, are Rev. Alden, and...

THIS cool fella. Preacher, we hardly knew ya.

Clint Eastwood was in another movie cut from the same cloth as Chaplin's THE PILGRIM in 1985, PALE RIDER; I love that movie, but he looks so much like my late father, who was the Associate Pastor and Song Director of my childhood church, it's difficult for me to watch it unless I'm missing my dad.

Let's move on to the crazy preachers and priests in film now, shall we? The previously covered ministers, although not 'real' clergymen, are clearly struggling for redemption after living wicked lives, but now we're going to take a peek at some real clerical nut jobs...

I've already reviewed NIGHT OF THE HUNTER, so nothing more really needs to be said about that crazy preacher.

I've also previously said more than enough about the evil Rev. Kane, from the second POLTERGEIST film....

Perhaps the most wicked preacher of all time in cinema, other than Mitchum's preacher in NIGHT OF THE HUNTER, however, is featured in the 1960 film based on the Sinclair Lewis novel, ELMER GANTRY. The movie poster says it all, but I often refer to it as a celluloid prophecy about the PTL scandal of the 1980s:

There's a nutty priest in HALLOWEEN 4...

Another loony Protestant minister in the awesome 1988 remake of THE BLOB...

And a crazy-but-cool priest in Peter Jackson's early film from 1992, DEAD ALIVE; he kicks, uh, zombie "butt," for the Lord, ya'll. He's pretty funny, too, I don't care who you are. His primary sequence can be seen by clicking that link, but it's not for the faint of heart. Still, it makes me wonder why preachers don't get no respect in movies.

One of the most beloved priests in film is Father Merrin, in the 1973 shocker, THE EXORCIST, but I find it important to note that his character is ill-fated, as evil triumphs over good in that feature. This seemed to be the order of the day in 1970s Hollywood for some reason, and this theme would be repeated in 2010's THE LAST EXORCISM, which I've previously reviewed.

This cinematography here seems lifted whole cloth from NIGHT OF THE HUNTER. See my review for a similar shot.

This phony movie preacher from THE LAST EXORCISM seems cut from similar cloth
as the real Marjoe Gortner from the Academy-Award-winning documentary from 1973, MARJOE.

2011 saw the introduction of a futuristic clergyman in the movie PRIEST, but he discovers a terrible secret about his religious hierarchy before all is said and done.

Ha-ha, Priest! Made ya look!

Three years prior, we saw Phillip Seymour Hoffman playing a suspected pedophilic priest in 2008's DOUBT, which also dealt with dirty secrets amongst some religious hierarchy.

The 1985 Stephen King film, SILVER BULLET, also featured a minister of questionable repute, and even more questionable sanity.

No, I am not the Hoff as Nick Fury. I'm Big Ed Hurley from TWIN PEAKS playing pirate! Avast, ye land lubbers! Arrrr!

Now, I know I've been springing back and forth in time, and showcasing movie versions of twisted Protestant ministers and Catholic priests at random, but it's all been in the spirit of fun, although I do wonder why there aren't more level-headed preachers in movies. However, that being said, the priest with the speech impediment in the 1986 film, THE PRINCESS BRIDE, seems nice enough as he pontificates about "Wuv...twooo wuv..." and "mehwidge..."

One of his sister's later grandchildren was the great-grandfather of Elmer Fudd.

The tent evangelist at the end of the 1963 Roger Corman film, THE MAN WITH THE X-RAY EYES seemed nice enough...

But I'll close with my favorite movie minister of all time, the marvelous character featured in the powerful Clint Eastwood drama from 2008, GRAN TORINO, young Father Janovich, who Eastwood's character describes as "still a virgin, and straight out of seminary." What a fantastic representative of a man of the cloth: his character does his faith proud, and I adore him. I cannot revisit this film enough - it's just great, and so is Father Janovich. He made me feel inferior in every way when I first saw this movie, and I was pastoring a church at the time. I did the best I could with what I had to work with, though. So, there you have it. It's not an all-inclusive list, but it'll do for a start. Who are your favorite crazy movie preachers or priests?

IRON MAN THREE (2013)

2013-05-05T16:44:00.003-07:00

IRON MAN THREE is the title that graces the big screen, not IRON MAN 3, and I almost wonder if it has a double meaning, since more than one individual are rightful wearers of Tony Stark's armor in this movie.

The story picks up immediately following the events of last year's smash hit, THE AVENGERS, and I personally thought it was insanely smart to showcase Tony Stark as being a victim of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder after all he witnessed and experienced in that film. No other Science Fiction movie that I can recall has ever featured a superhero whose mind is blown after coming to the realization that the universe is a far larger place than they'd ever imagined while also dealing with the fact that they were so certain they were going to perish in their previous adventure that they, in essence, died a little in their heart and mind.

Tony experiences nightmares when he sleeps, so he opts not to sleep and, with no outlet, he becomes a little more eccentric than usual and spends days on end trying to perfect the ultimate Iron Man armor. The only thing that he allows to keep him grounded is his romantic relationship with Pepper Potts, and while that's all in the here-and-now, his past comes back to bite him in more ways than one in this fourth movie to feature the Iron Avenger (fifth, if you count Stark's cameo in the teaser at the end of THE INCREDIBLE HULK).

The presence of the comic book villain (transformed into a Terrorist mastermind in this film), The Mandarin (played expertly by Academy Award-winning actor, Ben Kingsley, who won his Oscar for playing Ghandi, ironically enough), has been hinted at before in the IRON MAN films and, in this one, we finally get to see what makes the character so fearsome.

The movie deals with the way Tony ultimately decides to deal with the Mandarin, but it also merges with the plot from the Marvel graphic novel, Iron Man: Extremis, which is highly recommended reading for Iron Man fans. Iron Man: Extremis is also available as a digital graphic novel if you're game to experience such a thing; they're not to every taste, and I'm rather iffy on them - they're more like CGI versions of the old "Clutch Cargo" cartoon than actual animated movies, so they're somewhat herky-jerky and not real pleasant to watch at times. I think they're too stiff and jarring, myself, and can't understand why they're constantly being produced.

The characters of Tony Stark, Pepper Potts, Happy Hogan, and James "Rhodey" Rhodes are all featured quite prominently for the most part in this film, as is the Mandarin and some other new villainous characters, but I'd be a fool to spoil any twists and turns the movie offers - and there's more than one. I really enjoyed it far more than I thought I would, and was pleased to see some sequences shot in my hometown of Wilmington, N.C.

Interestingly, this was the first IRON MAN feature not to be directed by Jon Favreau who, instead, returns as Happy Hogan (Favreau seems to have packed on a ton of weight; I hope it was mostly padding for his health's sake), and it was also the first IRON MAN movie not to feature at least a cameo by Samuel L. Jackson as Col. Nick Fury. There was a reference to Thor in the film (as well as the events of THE AVENGERS) and, for Old School Marvel Comics fans like me, a visual allusion to a classic Marvel villain, Fin Fang Foom.

Stan Lee makes a silent cameo, and be sure to stay tuned at the end of the final credits for a teaser that fell a little flat for me compared to the teasers that have preceded this one; it was cute, but didn't really add anything to the plot. All in all, I'd say this was a very solid film, let alone an IRON MAN movie. I liked it a lot. Sadly, though, it could also serve as the final installment of a trilogy, since it seems to wrap the Iron Man saga up with a tightly-wound bow on top, once and for all. Hopefully, Tony Stark Will Return...

MAMA (2013)

2013-05-03T10:18:00.003-07:00

MAMA, produced by Guillermo del Toro, who directed the awesome HELLBOY movies and the fantastic PAN'S LABYRINTH, was based on an uncontextualized 2-minute short that you can view for yourself here. It's easily 2 of the creepiest minutes you could possibly ever see, and it's such a strong clip that some people claim it's actually scarier than the movie that inspired it. Well, I'm not one of those people, and while I usually claim that - to see something so long you can study it is to minimize its ability to scare you - I'd have to say that I found MAMA to be one of those movies that breaks that rule for me, and my wife felt exactly the same way (not that this gives any credence to my argument, mind you).

MAMA is an eerie story about the love of a mother for her offspring, opens in medias res, and immediately focuses upon two small girls and their father, who is clearly having a nervous breakdown after receiving word by way of a phone call about illegal actions that will somehow implicate him. He shockingly kills what seems to be the mother of his children off-screen, and drives off madly into the snow with his girls. They're not on the road for too long when he swerves off the highway and over a cliff into a snowy embankment after being distracted by his kids, who are in the back seat.

Upon awakening from their wreck, he and his girls make their way to an abandoned cabin in the frozen woods, and just before this crazed man is about to kill his children and then himself, his oldest daughter looks out the front window and says she sees a strange lady outside "whose feet aren't touching the ground." He pays the little girl no mind, puts a gun behind his daughter's head, pulls the hammer back, and is suddenly lifted off his feet and flung into darkness. The opening credits roll, and the movie properly begins.

After we see some children's drawings that seemingly interpret what happened next, we next see two hunters searching through the woods. We learn in quick order through exposition that they are in search of the man from the start of the movie, and his children, who have been missing for over 5 years. While the father remains missing, his daughters are discovered to be something like feral beasts, as if raised by wolves, sustained primarily by the vegetation they've obtained from the surrounding forest. Unbeknownst to the farmers, they've also been protected by a spectral and occasionally malevolent force whose mission seems to be to protect the girls at any cost.

The two girls, played expertly by extremely talented child actresses, are relocated to a private facility to be studied very briefly, and they are eventually turned over to the custody of their uncle, their father's twin brother, who is married to a young woman who is quite vocal about not being ready for motherhood. As you can well imagine, the spooky "Mama" ghost doesn't take too kindly to female competition, and eerie drama begins to unfold.

Quite frankly, I don't want to say much more than that, but I will say this: when "Mama" finally starts to manifest with more regularity toward the end of the movie, my wife and I found her to be scary to the extreme because she looked so...unnatural...and my wife even screamed out loud at the screen at one point - when the spirit manifested and came charging toward the screen, "OH, MY WORD! IT'S SOMETHING FROM HELL!" - which I have never heard her do before in all the years we've been a couple. The thing gave me bloomin' goose bumps, and I can only imagine what Doug Jones (who normally plays the roles of del Toro's creatures) would have done with the part.

Some have complained about the conclusion of the film, but I don't know where else they could have gone with the storyline, all things considered. I just don't want to see them make a sequel. To me, it would be pointless. And, yes, there were a few plot points that irked me a little bit but, for the most part, it felt like a good Stephen King novel to me, from when I was a teenager and much more interested in his fictional work.

Truth be told, I was really creeped out by this movie and, like when I first saw INSIDIOUS, I had a lot of trouble sleeping after I saw it. I was worried I'd wake up and see "Mama" lurking in the shadows in the same way I was worried I'd see that old woman from INSIDIOUS.

MAMA has proven to be one of my favorite spooky films of recent years, and I would happily recommend it to anyone who would be willing to view it as something akin to a more macabre and contemporary PAN'S LABYRINTH than a mostly failed effort like last year's DON'T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK remake, also produced by del Toro.

I'm not going to post any pictures of "Mama," and I'd like to suggest you don't seek any out before you see the movie, if you haven't already. Visiting MAMA is a fun, spooky time for those who are open to it, but it might leave some cold who are too nitpicky. Me? I enjoyed it immensely. Even if it did creep me out when I'd try to sleep at night after seeing it...

SINISTER (2012)

2013-05-03T08:08:00.001-07:00

SINISTER revolves around a concept that, on the surface, seems to echo past movies like THE RING in that it involves creepy things happening after someone watches what is essentially a "haunted" reel of film.

A little cottage film industry seems to have sprung up that entails the recording of spooky stuff. In THE RING, for example, people were exposed to a haunted video tape, and THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT featured some mysterious lost film footage involving a quest for the witch of the title, just as the PARANORMAL ACTIVITY movies dealt with capturing evil spirit phenomena on video, film, and eventually DVD recordings. What is it about recording sounds or imagery (in any medium) that eventually leads people to have macabre thoughts?

Makes me reflect on an episode of THE X-FILES that star David Duchovny wrote and directed called "Hollywood A.D.," where a clay bowl was found that, for lack of a better way of explaining it, inadvertently recorded within its grooves the voice of Jesus Christ summoning Lazarus from the tomb with the words, "Come forth." Someone in the episode wanted to transfer the voice to a usable recording that would enable them to raise the dead by the authority of Christ's invocation. Jesus, apparently, didn't direct this command to any specific person, according to the episode (but not the Biblical account in John 11:43). This goes back to an old preacher's notion that, if Jesus hadn't directed his command specifically at Lazarus in the tomb, every corpse in the tomb would have arisen, because the authority of the Son of God was so profound and absolute. But I digress...

SINISTER is about a writer of True Crime books, played by Ethan Hawke, who decides to investigate an unsolved murder by moving into the home of the victims of the case being researched. Up in the attic, in a sequence similar to an early scene in INSIDIOUS, he finds a mysterious box filled with old movie reels, and a projector. When he watches the footage, naturally, he sees something he shouldn't have seen and, according to promos for the film, once you see this, you are no longer safe, a'la the "Seven Days" phone calls in THE RING. The thing he sees, essentially, is a figure that sort of looks like a distorted version of Sting, the wrestler, or one of the creatures from Clive Barker's NIGHT BREED (when are they releasing that director's cut, by the way? Anyone know?). And, of course, it begins to stalk him and possess his family...

I was rather excited and anxious about seeing SINISTER when I first heard of it. I was especially glad to hear that one of the old hands at the Ain't It Cool News website had written it, because my all-time favorite episode of MASTERS OF HORROR happens to be John Carpenter's CIGARETTE BURNS (starring Norman Reedus, who plays Daryl Dixon on THE WALKING DEAD, in an early role, back when he still had a baby face) was also written by some of the former staff there. Problem was, the concepts initially seemed to be uncomfortably close to me, since CIGARETTE BURNS is also about, you guessed it, a 'demon-possessed' movie that, once you see it, you are no longer safe. Basically, the movie drives you insane and leads you to do horrific things to yourself and anyone in your way because it reveals how the world ends in all its apocalyptic glory, complete with sequences involving a revelatory angel. To me, it's the best work John Carpenter had done prior to the underrated THE WARD, and before GHOSTS OF MARS.

SINISTER gained some initial notoriety because the footage Ethan Hawke's character watches features entire families being slain in several inventive ways. The problem with the movie for me, though, was how the ghosts of the youngest children from these dead families started turning up in sequences that frightened some viewers but completely made me lose interest and yawn. Why? Let me tell you...

When I was watching THE HAUNTING IN CONNECTICUT a few years ago, I started noticing that ghosts and such kept manifesting behind the primary characters of the film, but these primary characters didn't notice them until the director had ratcheted up the tension somewhat. I had an epiphany during that movie: As a viewer, I was being played! Why should I be scared if the main protagonists weren't? Snoopy and Charlie Brown could be dancing behind them for all these characters knew! I got extremely angry, and that was how SINISTER ultimately made me feel.

Shhhh...don't tell anyone, but children with faces painted to make them look "spooky" don't scare Buddomonn...

Final Verdict? The first half was pretty good, the middle was okay, but it went off the rails for me in the final third of the movie. It just wasn't my thing. I don't like being manipulated as a viewer unless it's for sentimental reasons, and Spielberg is the master of doing this as far as I'm concerned.

Maybe if it had been done a little differently it would have scared me as it intended to but, sadly, I wasn't all that impressed.

NIGHT TIDE (1961)

2013-05-02T21:17:00.000-07:00

This painting makes me think of Poe's poem, ANNABELLE LEE for some reason...

Since I'm on something of a Film Noir and Gothic Horror kick here lately, I thought I'd recommend this lost gem from 1961, a cinematic cousin of sorts to Herk Harvey's 1962 film, CARNIVAL OF SOULS, which was released one year later. In fact, I tend to regard this as a peripheral story that could easily be set within the confines of that mysterious carnival when it was open for business. It could easily be part of a connected series of anthology stories that transpired in different areas of the carnival itself with a little plot manipulation here and there.

NIGHT TIDE stars a very young Dennis Hopper as a sailor on shore leave who decides to visit a seaside carnival, and encounters a young woman whom he eventually begins to suspect is actually a mermaid. The mermaids in this film, however, must kill every full moon, and he finds himself falling in love with her.

Pardon me, but do you happen to have any Grey Poupon?

Something fishy about this girl...

Maybe she's off to meet the female protagonist of CARNIVAL OF SOULS...

There's mystery, mysticism, and magic aplenty going on in subplot sequences, and I found myself getting really caught up with the main story as this movie played out the first time I saw it. No, it's not perfect, but it's certainly worthy of being given a viewing or two - for me, it has staying power, and lingered in my mind long after I'd viewed it. It would be an interesting opening film if screened as a double feature with the Ron Howard-directed comedy SPLASH.

I first discovered this movie by accident, as it was part of a Cult Movie collection I'd acquired, and I ultimately felt it was one of those underrated "diamond in the rough" B-movies that most people have never even heard of. It's very atmospheric, like CARNIVAL OF SOULS and, while it's short on scares, it's certainly creepy in an almost H.P. Lovecraft sort of way. It even features a visual quote from Lovecraft's favorite author, Edgar Allen Poe, which is where its title comes from:

There are sequences and images in this movie that remind me very much of one of my favorite old Hammer Horror movies, THE GORGON, from 1964 (released three years later), but it also reminds me at times of a more mature version of the episode "Medusa" from the old NBC Saturday Morning show, LAND OF THE LOST - a childhood favorite of mine and my siblings.

The sea was angry that night, my friend...

As the lobby cards make apparent, the movie begs the question of the lead female in the film: Is "Mora" a mermaid, or isn't she? Is she aware of it if she is, or is she being persuaded into believing she's one by a sinister third party? You'll have to watch to decide, but I'll wrap up with some moody imagery from this movie you've probably never heard of. I've decided not to contextualize any of it, and toss in a few random scenes just so you'll be forced to seek it out and experience it for yourselves, if you're interested, that is:

NIGHT OF THE HUNTER (1955)

2013-05-02T14:00:00.001-07:00

This is one of my all-time favorite movies, and it blows my mind whenever it dawns on me that this was the only film that the acclaimed actor Charles Laughton ever directed. Especially when I am aware that this was the case because it was so widely panned after its release. WHY?! This movie is a masterpiece! It merges German Expressionism with Film Noir, and Southern Gothic Horror with the old "Crime Does NOT Pay!" ideals of its era while effortlessly shifting from what seem to be dream sequences to reality -- all while offering us imagery that can only be described as coming from the vantage point of a child's eyes.

Part ELMER GANTRY, part Pioneer drama, and part expose into the mind of a deranged serial killer, NIGHT OF THE HUNTER takes me into another world whenever I watch it, and it is a prime example of how effectively Black-and-White Cinema enhances the viewing experience to those who are open to it. At times it seems like a stage play, and at times it seems like the waking dream of a traumatized child, but I personally find it wholly believable and compelling. It's just a shame that Richard Chamberlain tried to remake it as pitiful TV movie back in 1991. Regardless, it eventually found its audience, and has influenced all film-makers who were lucky enough to be exposed to it, including Spike Lee, who lifted and tweaked one particular dialogue sequence in my favorite Lee film, DO THE RIGHT THING from 1989. More on that later.

As the title suggests, NIGHT OF THE HUNTER is a chase movie, only this one involves a criminal who calls himself a preacher chasing two innocent children - a boy, John, and a girl, Pearl - after he learns their father told them where he'd hidden the large amount of money he'd stolen just prior to being hung on the gallows for his crime.

Part of the conversation between Mitchum's character and Peter Graves'; it shows how weird Mitchum's character is.

The "Hunter" of the title is played by Robert Mitchum, who's even scarier here than he was in the original CAPE FEAR, which came out some seven years later. Mitchum, whose character is initially the cell-mate of the man hung for the robbery (played by a very young Peter Graves), takes on the role of a traveling evangelist, and he enraptures his audience as he goes from town to town in search of the children in question.

He sings a lot, and dresses somewhat like the creepy ghost, Reverend Kane, in POLTERGEIST II: THE OTHER SIDE...

...and his 'sermons' essentially revolve around a parable that relate the eternal struggle between "Love" and "Hate," two words he's had tattooed on the knuckles of each hand.

His allegorical story is presented in a wildly dramatic fashion as he acts it out with his fists clenched together. Here is a link for the Spike Lee variation from DO THE RIGHT THING but, be warned, it's not safe for work, and here is the original version from the Laughton film, which is safe for work.

Ultimately, he catches the attention of his former cell-mate's widow, played by a very young and lovely Shelley Winters.

Something about the preacher is off-setting to her son, but she refuses to listen to his concerns. The preacher convinces her to marry him so he can take care of her and her kids as an act of Christian charity. On their wedding night, however, the traveling preacher's true colors are revealed. Winters becomes the victim of psychological manipulation and undisclosed-on-screen domestic abuse. Even when he pulls a switchblade on her, she maintains the posture of a submissive wife.

Eventually, she mysteriously vanishes altogether, and her oldest child, the little boy named John, figures out very quickly what Mitchum's character truly wants: the money he promised his dad he'd keep hidden...

His younger sister, Pearl, is confused, and likes the notion of having a new "Daddy," so things get complicated.

After someone discovers his mother's corpse at the bottom of the lake (in one of the creepiest and most haunting sequences I've ever seen in an older film), the little boy - John - decides to flee with his sister, Pearl, and the movie shifts from the sinister to the sublime, with a few scares thrown in for good measure as the deranged preacher remains in hot pursuit. Much of the footage, however, is so dream-like it's almost Shakespearean - visually, anyway.

The kids eventually find their way to the home of an elderly woman who takes care of 'little things,' played by Lillian Gish (who was a child star during Hollywood's Silent era), and they attempt to incorporate themselves into her sweet family comprised largely of orphans like themselves.

Unfortunately, the preacher tracks them down, and - well - you need to see this movie for yourself, if you haven't already. You won't regret it if it's your first viewing. I'll close out with a few more images from this underrated masterwork, but I can't say enough about the film's brilliant use of shadow and light, and forced perspective...even the soundtrack is absolutely spot-on.

Some thoughts about the original ZOMBIE movies...

2013-05-01T19:51:00.006-07:00

Is that JOHN CENA in the lower middle right corner? How'd HE become a zombie?!

Zombies in films weren't always like the kind you see in THE WALKING DEAD or the George Romero movies. In fact, they were an entirely different breed when they first hit the Silver Screen - and they didn't crave human flesh or brains at all.

The first great Zombie movie was probably the 1943 film I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE, which actor Don Calfa raved about when I spent some time with him at the Lexington, KY, SCAREFEST convention in 2011. Calfa, you may recall, was "Ernie the Undertaker" in the 1985 Horror-Comedy RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD (a guilty pleasure of mine that I was first exposed to when I was still a teenager), and he kept telling me how this 1943 B-movie release was more an Art Film than a mere "movie," but I had never seen it at that point in time.

Now, I had seen the 1932 Bela Lugosi film, WHITE ZOMBIE, but it didn't have much of an impact on me, so I thought maybe Calfa was talking out of his hat if I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE was cut from the same cloth of that era in Hollywood history.

We'll be discussing the early phenomena of spooky eyes in Zombie movies shortly...

Both are about zombies from countries where Voodoo is commonplace, after all. Calfa and I spent a good deal of time talking about his days working on WEEKEND AT BERNIE'S, which was shot near my home town of Wilmington, in Wrightsville Beach, NC, and he kept insisting I seek out I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE and see if it didn't have the qualities of a Film Noir more than the standard Horror movie of its day.

Calfa also kept raving over a suckled pig he'd cooked on the shoreline of the Masonboro Island, where I once took a youth group camping when my wife and I were dating, and how he'd used an oyster shell to prop the pig's teeth open while it cooked over an open flame. Anyone who knows how to cook suckled pig on the shore of Masonboro Island is okay in my book, so I decided to take him up on his challenge to find that movie.

Turns out I'd read about once or twice over the years, and had chalked it up as a lost relic along the lines of the long-lost 1927 Lon Chaney movie, LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT, which was directed by the great Tod Browning. After all, I'd never even heard of it playing on Late Night television over the years.

When I was at the Horror Hound convention in Cincinnati recently, I asked every DVD vendor I could find if they had a copy of I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE, but most of them had never even heard of it. It took me some time to track down a copy on-line but, after watching it, it turns out that Don Calfa was absolutely right. The movie is more of an Art Film than a mere movie, and I simply cannot say enough about how gorgeous it is, with its Film Noir ambiance and silky black-and-white screen palette.

It features zombies, but they're not the kind we've become accustomed to in recent decades. These zombies are the minions of witch-doctors or voodoo priests or priestesses, who have somehow robbed them of their identities and rendered them silent and skulking figures who lumber slowly about as they do the bidding of their masters. I won't relate the plot-line of the movie here - it really should be sought out - but I will post a few pictures from the movie so you can get an idea what it looked like, and how the original zombies appeared:

When this lady sees what's walking into her bed chamber, she's liable to have a harp attack!

"Clearly, someone is to my left. Therefore, I shall look suspiciously to my right." Who's mindless now, gang?

The original Zombie and, perhaps, the original SLENDER MAN as well!

He Who Walks Behind the Rows...

This zombie has a doll baby. Maybe all zombies want is a friend and a hug, like my wife says...

Note the spooky eyes -- we'll be looking into them shortly...

This was a colorized publicity still from a Lobby Card; the movie is in lush Black and White...

If you're a fan of moderately paced Film Noir movies, you'll love I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE, but don't expect much if you prefer modern cinema and want to see the bloody, rotten undead munch down on human skin, which brings us to a pale, silly and totally forgettable cornball reflection of this beautiful-looking movie.

1964 saw the release of I EAT YOUR SKIN, another entry in the mindless, shambling Haitian-style zombie movie of old, but this one was clearly influenced by I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE and the growing popularity of the James Bond films, following the first 007 movie, Dr. No, just 2 scant years after its release. I EAT YOUR SKIN is set on an island in the Caribbean, and deals with a jet-setting author of paperbacks who stumbles onto a zombie threat created by a mad scientist; when I recently saw it for the first time, I kept waiting for real, live versions of Johnny Quest and Hadji to appear and bring Johnny's dad, Dr. Quest, Race, and Bandit along to solve the mystery!

Note the eyes on the zombies from this flick that's so bad it's funny, and note that no one eats anyone's skin in the movie; I cannot help but wonder, though, if this movie's title is where the idea of the flesh-eating undead comes from:

Wait a minute! How could Sarah Michelle Gellar star in a movie that came out before she was even born?!

Looks like he has oatmeal smeared all over his face to me...

"I will never complain about breakfast again, Mama. I promise."

Note the eyes on the rotund zombie in the previously-mentioned Bela Lugosi film,

WHITE ZOMBIE; what's up with the bug-eyes?!

There's a Voodoo-style zombie in the 1940 Bob Hope/Paulette Goddard comedy, THE GHOST BREAKERS, but he doesn't sport such wild eyes:

Now that we've seen the similarities and differences of the earliest zombies in Hollywood releases, let's move ahead to a B-movie release from 1962 that's not necessarily a "Zombie" movie, but I feel certain that it was at least partially responsible for the design of George Romero's zombies, which didn't appear on-screen until six years later, in 1968. I'm referring, of course, to the ghoulish creatures featured in the Herk Harvey masterpiece of sub-par Cinema, CARNIVAL OF SOULS, which happens to be one of my all-time favorite movies for reasons I can't really explain. I've previously reviewed this film, here, so I won't go into any plot descriptions. After all, I mostly wanted to point out some visual details. Do these nightmarish creatures look like they might be the cinematic progenitors of George Romero's original zombies to you? They most certainly do to me!

For some reason I'm hearing Madonna's "Who's That Girl?" in my head...

This sequence seems influenced by early cinema's German Expressionism movement.

Zombie, Ghost, or a member of the German band Kraftwerk? You decide. I call this guy "Dieter."

"Thanks for the ride, lady! Thanks for the ride!" (If you've seen CREEPSHOW 2, you know what I'm referring to.)

He sort of reminds me of the Tall Man in the PHANTASM movies. Maybe it's his dad or brother or something, BOY!

"We're coming to get you, Barbara!"

"Thanks for the ride, lady! Thanks for the ride!" These are retired zombies from 28 DAYS LATER, exhausted from running.

Why is it that things aren't quite as spooky when you can stare at them for a while?

This fellow looks like he's auditioning for a certain sequence in THE TWO TOWERS. Don't look in the water, Frodo!

Seems like, back then, most zombies in the movies looked like they could pass for someone's wild-eyed, crazy grandfather or maybe that weird relative no one likes to talk about; this sullen-looking gentleman is from the first human-flesh-eating zombie movie (as far as I'm aware, anyway), shot in Pittsburgh on a shoe-string budget, the George Romero classic from 1968, NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD:

"Dime fawwah cuppah coffee?"

"Hey, we heard someone nearby was giving free car rides and bus trips. 28 Months Later, and we're tired from running, too!"

If this young zombie girl from George Romero's original NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD doesn't look like she stepped off the set of the original CARNIVAL OF SOULS, then I'm a monkey's uncle:

What's up with the dark rings around the eyes, and the black lipstick?

The closest we come to seeing Old School zombies again, at least as far as memory serves, was in the 1988 Wes Craven film, The Serpent and the Rainbow, (although 1993's WEEKEND AT BERNIE'S II comes to mind, ironically enough, which brings us full circle in a sense) but the zombies in that film weren't really zombies per se, and the lead character in the film overcomes the zombie voodoo powder that makes him one of the shuffling undead. He hallucinates about a spooky zombie bride in one sequence, though, and it's really creepy -- still, no one eats any human flesh or internal organs in any of these movies I've mentioned, except in the aforementioned George Romero movie...

Adds new meaning to "The Corpse Bride," doesn't it? Hold hands, you love birds; you may now kiss the bride!

Hopefully, I've given you a little something to, uh, chew on, but I wanted to close with the following questions: What happens when a zombie eats their fill? If their bodily functions have ceased operating, wouldn't that mean that their digestive tracts would be unable to process food of any sort, let alone human flesh and organs? For the sake of argument, let's say a zombie could chew on human flesh, but it couldn't digest it -- what would happen when its gut and throat had reached their fullest capacity level? Isn't it sad that these type of questions bother me on a fairly regular basis?

Oh, yeah. One last thing: I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE was remade in 2002 as the intended third TALES FROM THE CRYPT movie but, when BORDELLO OF BLOOD was a box office bomb, any sequences intended for the Crypt-Keeper were removed, and RITUAL came out as a DVD release. It's rotten to the core, and mostly - well - lifeless. Don't waste your time. You'll thank me later. In the meantime, refrain from looking out your bedroom window tonight. You never know what lurks in the darkness...

Movies I will NEVER review...

2013-04-06T06:24:00.001-07:00

Some of you may occasionally come to my review blog to see if I've reviewed a movie you're interested in, or one that's just come out, and can't seem to find it. It may well be that I didn't review it because I saw it and wasn't impressed, didn't feel it was worthy or being even tacitly promoted, or because I just haven't seen it yet or, if I have, I wanted to mull it over for a while and/or can't review it yet because Life has gotten in my way.

Sometimes when you come here, you may be shocked to see things like A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET reviewed alongside things like SONG OF THE SOUTH, but trust me: there's a method to my madness.

While I would be the first to admit that I have very eclectic taste when it comes to movies, and I also have something of a sweet tooth for old B-movies (and sometimes newer B-movies that, say, Netflix seems to specialize in streaming lately), there are simply some movies I don't ever intend to review. I don't, for example, review movies that have strong sexual or pornographic content (mainly because I don't like or even understand the appeal of porn or overt sexuality on the screen, and I don't feel comfortable watching it because I think it's gross and intensely private).

I also don't usually review movies that glorify violence for violence's sake (that may come as a shock when considering how many gory Horror movies I've reviewed here, but I would argue that most of them are a cartoony style of violence that can't be taken too seriously; have you had any spectral villains invade your dreams lately and try to kill you while you're sleeping with claw-finger gloves, or heard a story on the news about a masked loony tune killing someone with a chainsaw? Been chased around by a Leprechaun with a penchant for evil and murder or by a flesh-hungry zombie lately? Didn't think so, and I rest my case).

Movies riddled with harsh, harsh language usually aren't reviewed here unless the storyline is extremely potent but, even then, I'll acknowledge up front that the language turned me off. As an English major who studied the classics, I simply don't think foul language is needed as it's certainly not the mark of a literate person, it can't/shouldn't be considered 'art,' and it doesn't make any scenario seem more 'realistic' to me. To the contrary, it irritates me because it wastes verbiage that could be replaced by more acceptable language.

Overt sexual scenarios and foul language in film bother me a lot more than Horror movie-style violence because I don't think sex and foul language enhance a viewing experience; to the contrary, they make me feel uncomfortable, and all I can think about is the future when the stars acting out these scenes are addressed by their children and grandchildren who might want to know why they allowed themselves to be recorded saying and doing such distasteful things. Movies are forever, and while I'm not going to go out on a limb and justify film violence of any sort, I still stand by my argument that most of the type of film violence in the movies I review here -- no matter how 'real' it may look -- can't be taken too seriously and, no, I don't believe being exposed to film violence makes viewers violent unless there's something intrinsically wrong with them to begin with. And even then all they've got to do is watch the national and local news to get more than a gut full of real world violence pumped into their psyche. Cartoony violence doesn't enhance a movie, either, except to infuse it with what I would call a 'visceral thrill,' but that's a topic for another day because there are tons of opinions out there about it.

Yeah, I know I'm something of a Puritan at times, but it's simply the way I was raised to think, and I'll never be able to get out of this mindset. I'll take a Spielberg movie over a Scorsese picture any day of the week, but I digress...

Other types of movies I won't review include movies I've seen that I just don't think are worth the time, energy, and financial resources that were wasted in producing them because I find them tedious, boring, or just plain stupid. Sometimes, if you can't find a certain franchise, for example, reviewed here, it's because I didn't think it was worth discussing. The TWILIGHT movies spring immediately to mind, like a super fast tree-climbing and glittering disco vampire.

Let me just put it plainly. When it comes to TWILIGHT, I can honestly say that I have never before so vehemently hated and despised a franchise as badly as I hate this one, from it's BUFFY-stealing-and-twisting plot-lines to its horrible deadpan and monotone performers. Yuck! What a waste! I don't understand why anyone would believe the ~~thief~~, er, 'creator' of that bland mess never saw an episode of BUFFY or ANGEL, or even the old DARK SHADOWS before she committed ~~fraud~~, er, pen to paper to get that junk published! If you're familiar with those shows, you know what I'm talking about.

The fact of the matter is, I hate anything that's blatantly derivative of something that's superior yet claims to be its own animal - like the TV shows GRIMM or ONCE UPON A TIME that both clearly stole and twisted the conceptual format of the vastly superior Vertigo comic book series FABLES. Can't stand SUPERNATURAL, either, as it was nothing more than a modern variation on KOLCHAK: THE NIGHT STALKER with two younger male leads doing the same things Carl Kolchak did each week for one too-short season back in the 1970's (some might argue that THE X-FILES was a 1990s rip-off of THE NIGHT STALKER, but it was more of a tribute in the same way that BUFFY was initially a tribute to both SCOOBY DOO, WHERE ARE YOU? and THE X-FILES, but these shows all had their own unique mythology and approach to their story-telling, so they're a different breed altogether).

Getting back to the TWILIGHT series, though: I find nothing romantic in that junk whatsoever, unless you're into people whose skin is as white as a frog's belly, and whose 'emotive' acting abilities can't even compete with a glass of milk! Why do so many people love this unwatchable garbage?! I hate it! It's so derivative and dumb! I fast-forwarded through the last installment of the series and was utterly astounded to see that there was a battle between vampires and werewolves in the snow, and heads were being popped off liberally, but there wasn't a single drop of crimson to be seen anywhere. I asked a fan about this the other day and she told me, "It was because TWILIGHT vampires don't have blood," and I was like, "But vampires drink blood to survive." It felt like she was arguing in circles.

The only time you'll see me review a movie I regard as dumb is when I'm absolutely shocked it was ever made in the first place, but I'll at least explain why I think it was dumb, unlike those who think a movie review should only consist of the phrases "It sucked," or "It was awesome," without qualifying why it 'sucked' or was 'awesome'. Yeah, that helped me decide one way or another whether or not I might enjoy it, Brainiac. Tell me more! I also can't stand it when people with extremely limited exposure to film in general see something they regard as new and revolutionary and proclaim it "the BEST movie of its kind EVER with the best performance by an actor in that type of movie in the history of that type of film EVER!" Speak only about what you truly KNOW, people, not what you ASSUME. I do not suffer ignorance or arrogance lightly, as you can tell by my ranting here.

So, in summation, movies I will never review here are generally the kinds I've described in the previous paragraphs. If you come here looking to see if I've reviewed any of the types of movies I've covered, I'm sorry, you're simply out of luck.

HorrorHound Weekend, Cincinati Ohio - 2013

2013-03-26T13:18:00.001-07:00

Well, I have officially made my family movie convention addicts. Just one week after my kids and I attended the Comic Con in Lexington, KY, we drove up to Cincinnati, Ohio, for the Horror Hound Weekend event the Friday/Saturday/Sunday before my Spring Break began. It was a little over-booked and chaotic, but we had a great time visiting with some of the cast members of THE WALKING DEAD and some of our favorite movies. I didn't realize how much my wife loved John Carpenter's CHRISTINE until I saw her flip out when she met Mr. Carpenter and some of the movie's cast, and even the car herself. A picture's worth a thousand words, though, so enjoy this assortment of the best pictures my daughter and I took, with some professional pictures by others, including some by the awesome lalalaurenphotography.com; not all are in chronological order, but they give you an idea of what it was like. I've also included some promotional pictures of folks we saw and talked to, but didn't get to take photographs of...

If anyone would care to see some of my convention videos, I've posted some over the last few years on my YouTube Channel, which you can find here. Hope you enjoy them!

Lexington Comic Con 2013

2013-03-20T07:57:00.001-07:00

It should be pretty obvious that I'm quickly becoming a Convention junky and, while I prefer Horror and Movie Conventions, I also enjoy Comic Book Conventions. Last year, I attended the 1st Comic Convention ever held in Lexington, KY, and it was such a big hit that this year's was twice as big - but, best of all, they brought in a lot of movie stars. I thought it would be fun to share some of the pictures from the event, including several of my son who entered the Costume Contest as Carl Grimes from THE WALKING DEAD comic book. As an added bonus, the Monday after Comic Con, I was priviledged to be able to get to hear Doug Jones speak at a nearby University, and spend a little time talking with him after his presentation. Now, I did not take all of the pictures posted here, but I am not making any money off the pictures I did not take. My daughter took some, too; others come from other sites affiliated with the convention but, again, this is a not-for-profit blog.

Daleks invade Lexington!

Tom Servo from MST3K now serves the Daleks!

My son, Carl Grimes...

My son was the youngest contestant in the contest by far, but went largely unrecognized. The fans loved him, though.

This pic ran in the Lexington Herald Leader's Web Gallery for the event.

Mr. Bostwick takes Captain Marvel very seriously...

We discussed his roles in The Addams Family movies...

He told me there was no script for the Season 2 finale of Twin Peaks!

Costume Contest time!

I had to get in on the action...

Whatever you do...don't...blink...

From SPIRITED AWAY...

Of DC Comics fame...

Unworthy Stand-in for the Batmobile, which was having mechanical problems.

Poor Margot Kidder thought my son had a real eye injury. Note the backward "S," above...

The highlight of the event for me. Doug is an awesome person. I love all the characters he's embodied in the movies...

My daughter, dressed as Sophia, enters the TARDIS. Inside was a barn full of zombies...

Cool WALKING DEAD swag...

Now, this was one classy lady. And not just because she told me I was a good father. She was really sweet.

Mr. Jones walked by me at one point, and it was a very surreal experience...

It always surprises me to see what a rabid fan base the Power Rangers have...grown people crying when they see them.

"Tiny," from Season 3 of THE WALKING DEAD...

Awesome guy. Here he is with my Carl and Sophia...

Earthling, you will now be assimilated by the Dalek Collective...resistance is futile!

Carl Grimes shoots first and asks questions later.

So disappointed that I didn't get to see it...maybe next year...

Mr. Jones spoke to a group of Communications majors for over 2 hours; he was so interesting to hear and talk with...

I have long had an affinity for Abe Sapien, but I also love the other characters Doug Jones had played...

See you soon!

Batman: The Dark Knight Returns (2012, 2013)

2013-03-11T21:43:00.000-07:00

The animated feature arm of Warner Brothers/DC Comics released this movie in two parts and, together, it runs a little over two hours, which is a first for their production company; most of their straight to DVD/Blu Ray films run around just an hour and ten minutes (which both installments, separately, actually do). I haven't purchased either release yet, though, because I'm hoping they'll edit them together into the film that it should be, but I have seen them. Checked them out from the library.

The first part sets up the animated version of Frank Miller's 1986 ground-breaking serialized graphic novel, but from this point forward I'll discuss the two parts as if they're a cohesive whole (although Part 1 is the weaker, and I use that term loosely, because it's just a matter of them ratcheting up the action in the second part of the two installments, in my opinion).

The movie's pretty much par for the course in that it's largely a straight-up adaptation of that masterwork with a few minor modifications and, if you're unfamiliar with the story, it essentially reveals what happens to Batman and his cohorts in the future, after he's realized how his advanced age has become detrimental in his crime-fighting pursuits.

As the movie begins, it's evident that Batman decided at some point in the past that it was time to hang up the cape and cowl so he could enjoy his senior years before his death. Unfortunately, as Bruce Wayne, he developed a death wish of sorts and began to throw himself whole-heartedly into dangerous extreme sports activities, and we witness this first hand as the movie begins.

With no Batman on patrol in Gotham, and Dick Grayson and Barbara Gordon attending to their adult lives in roles far different from that of Robin and Batgirl that precluded them from assuming the role of Batman's successor, new breeds of criminals began to take over the streets after they realized that Batman was no longer watching over and protecting the citizens of Gotham City.

This sprawling story takes place in a Gotham City that's largely a dystopia and, in the second part of this two-part feature, we learn that Superman has become an agent for hire for the President of the United States. Superman is, in short, a Federal goon, blinded by his admiration for the United States figure head who looks to be the spitting image of the late President Ronald Reagan (remember, the original series was first released in 1986, when Ronald Reagan was still in office). Whatever the President wants, Superman delivers, with no questions asked.

When Batman is called out on national television by the mutant leader of a criminal gang who swears he will drink Batman's blood and dine on his corpse to show who now holds the reigns of Gotham, Batman returns from the shadows in a subtle variation of his original costume and begins his vigilante career anew. After a violent and bloody battle with this new villain, a new horde of thugs take over the streets, labelling themselves 'the Sons of Batman,' despite the fact that it's quite evident that they have no real awareness of what Batman originally stood for.When a new female volunteer steps forward to resume the role of Robin, Batman decides to educate these former villains.

When Batman is framed as a threat to Gotham and the American way of life, Superman and Batman come to loggerheads in a climactic battle at the end of the film that reveals that Batman had long prepared for such an eventuality. Batman sports an armored suit laced with Kryptonite and, while it doesn't make his Superman's equal, it certainly reduces his ability to withstand what can only be described as battle damage. This fight is the stuff of comic book legends, and has been hotly debated since the graphic novel first showcased this conflict of titans. The movie treats this sequence with great respect, and makes the film well worth at least one viewing.

If you've ever wondered what happened to Wonder Woman, Catwoman, Aquaman, Green Arrow, and villains like the Joker and Two-Face after they'd become honorary members of AARP, this is the movie for you. And while I may sound like I'm being sarcastic, please note that this story takes itself very seriously, and that's how it should be. This is not a DC animated release that should be regarded as kid friendly. Sensitive young eyes could be traumatized by several violently bloody scenes, especially if they're too young to tell the difference between fantasy and reality.

Peter Weller of ROBOCOP fame voices the aged Batman with just the right amount of determination and remorse, and the rest of the voice cast is excellent as well. Personally, I found the animation utilized in this release to be far superior to most of the previous DC animated releases and, altogether, this movie is what Christopher Nolan should have been shooting for all along. It puts THE DARK KNIGHT RISES to shame, and really should be shown on the big screen as it's vastly better than BATMAN: MASK OF THE PHANTASM or BATMAN: SUB ZERO.

I sometimes wonder if this seemingly final Batman story is where Tim Burton wanted to take the characters because there have been echoes of Frank Miller's narrative in every Batman film since the first one in 1989, and most of them seemed to flirt with the idea of doing it. It's kind of a shame it was done as an animated release instead of a live action film. Oh well, at least this exists as a testament to what a great character Batman is and, best of all, this one exists in a universe alongside the greatest superhero of all time, Superman. In my opinion, Superman took his lumps from Batman in their climactic fight because he regarded Bruce Wayne as his friend and ally, and not a true enemy. If they'd been enemies, Superman could have dispatched him quite handily, but that's not what Superman's all about. Sure, Superman may have lost his way a bit in this story, but I think Batman's willingness to die for his cause him helped Superman philosophically get back on track. Anyone who says Batman defeated Superman in this story is entirely missing the point of that grudge match, if you ask me.

Life of Pi (2012)

2013-03-11T09:15:00.001-07:00

LIFE OF PI is a film that I felt in my gut I would love after I saw its trailer for the first time, and because I only ever saw the trailers for the film in 3-D, and what I saw was literally breath-taking, I wanted to see it in 3-D.

The movie finally hit the discount theaters this past weekend, so I assumed it would be screened in 3-D. When I paid for our tickets, however, I wasn't handed 3-D glasses, and the cashier looked shocked when I asked him, "Isn't this in 3-D?" and then said, "It was shot in 3-D, so I want to see it in 3-D. Surely there's a later 3-D screening." My debit card had already been swiped, so I knew it was going to be a pain to have him cancel the transaction and start all over again. Especially since there was an ever-increasing line of friendly senior citizens behind me waiting to see it, too.

The cashier looked at me blankly and said, "We're not screening this one in 3-D. At all." I felt my stomach clench a little and asked if the other local discount theater was showing it in 3-D, and he replied that he had no idea, so I checked my Poynt phone app to see for myself, and - no - no one was screening the movie in 3-D. If this hadn't been the case, I probably would have stomped out of the cinema in a huff, but I'd been anxious to see LIFE OF PI for about a year, and I didn't want to see it on my home screen until after I'd seen it at least once on the big screen.

Bear in mind that I'd already had a bumpy start for the day, and losing an hour of sleep because of the Spring time change wasn't helping my mood.

My wife suggested we just get a refund and leave, but I felt like there was no alternative, so we rounded up our kids, and off we tromped into the screening room and - great - the seat I chose was extremely uncomfortable, and there was quite a crowd, and I had to play musical chairs until I found a seat that didn't have a sharp spring pointed up to my nether regions or broken hinges that made it lean toward the floor: this is the price one must pay if one is to suffer the indignities of the second-run theater when money is tight.

My mood was getting more and more sour as the trailers played, and I fretted with worry that all this aggravation would spoil my mood to see this movie I'd so patiently been waiting to see. Great. A crappy trailer for HANSEL AND GRETEL. So sick of this retconned "Fairy Tale" junk. I can't even recall what other trailers played before the curtains finally came up.

The last time I felt this angry before a movie started was when I got stuck paying close to $40 so we could see Pixar's UP in 3-D when it first came out; the silent montage early in the picture tore me to pieces, though, and my wife and I sat there and silently wept as our kids looked at us in astonishment, wondering why it touched our hearts as it did. That, for me, is the memorable high point of that otherwise mostly forgettable movie (I still harbor a grudge that the 3-D work in UP just didn't do much to enhance it; I should have stuck with the standard format version of that one). I think now, in retrospect, that the best things about UP are some of the iconic imagery, like the house floating on balloons, and some of the comedic dialogue exchanges in the first half, but once it gets to the mad scientist part, I think it loses its appeal and drifts off into schlock. I'm rambling, I know, but I'm trying to put some things into perspective for a very specific reason. Please bear with me.

Finally, the movie began, and I decided to let it take me where it may despite any earlier annoyances, which is my usual practice when it comes to my viewing and reading habits. Keep your Calgon and your crack cocaine, I'll let my movies take me away.

Before I say another word, I feel I need to acknowledge the fact that, when I went to see Tim Burton's 2003 adaptation of the novel BIG FISH, I wept so hard at the end that my beard was literally saturated with the tears that were streaming down my face. My father died of cancer when I was a 10th-grader in High School, and I didn't get to say goodbye to him as I wanted to because I was at school when he passed, and that movie served as balm to my soul with the way its final moments panned out. BIG FISH is also about story-telling and, much like another 2003 release, SECONDHAND LIONS, when all is said and done, you find yourself wondering what was truth, what was fantasy, and what was an amalgamation of the two. This is the best way to describe how LIFE OF PI resolves itself but, as the movie plays out, you believe every single thing about the described and enacted events.

I was absolutely enchanted by LIFE OF PI almost as soon as the movie started rolling (and I say "almost," because someone in the projection room fell asleep at the wheel, and the first few minutes of the film were blurry until they adjusted the focus setting or whatever it is they do behind that glowing window). Even in the opening credits Ang Lee proved he is the new master of 3-D film technology, and I could see this clearly even though the movie wasn't seen as it should have been seen. Lee has animals knock over some of the letters in the opening credits, and has certain things spring toward the camera that are enthralling. The movie just begs to be seen in 3-D.

Once the final credits rolled, though, I wondered if I'd made the right choice in seeing it in 2-D, because I did something several times in LIFE OF PI that I very rarely do: I squealed with terror like a little girl (to the delight of my 14-year-old daughter, who sat beside me, and was just as entranced as I was). If I'd seen it in 3-D, it just may have been too much for me to handle.

For some reason, I have always been fascinated with India, and I first realized this back in the 1982 when I first saw GHANDI with Ben Kingsley, and then - more significantly - David Lean's final epic from 1984, A PASSAGE TO INDIA, which scratched itches for me I had no idea I had. Later, I fell in love with the Indian comedy from 2010, OUTSOURCED (but not its inferior television incarnation that barely limped to the conclusion of its one and only season).

When I toured the Holy Land in 2009 and 2010, I was glued to India's Zee-TV Channel whenever we had a break from sight-seeing and returned to our hotel in Jerusalem. Not sure why. Maybe it's a genetic predisposition because I'm a distant relative of one of the fathers of Canadian Anthropology, Diamond Jenness, who has a crater named after him on the planet Mars. Cultures that are different from my own fascinate me, and stir something within me I cannot explain, and since I've been doing post-graduate research with an emphasis on inter-cultural studies for the last couple of years, I guess I was predisposed to being drawn effortlessly into the beauty that is Ang Lee's masterwork, LIFE OF PI, which begins its narrative in Canada, shifts its focus to India, and then sails out to the open sea. Bear in mind that my wife, too, was entirely sucked in by this movie, and she slept through quite a bit of LES MISERABLES, which I adored (and so did our children); for some reason, she's always loved stories that deal with the ocean, so maybe that's what held her interest.

LIFE OF PI begins in Canada with a frustrated writer seeking out the title character of the film after being advised to hear his life story. This minor character suffers from writer's block and has hopes of being inspired to write again after hearing how Pi survived an ungodly amount of time on the open sea after the ship he and his family were sailing to Canada from India on sank to the bottom of the ocean.

Pi begins his narrative by describing his childhood, youth, and adolescence in India, and the way this is conveyed on-screen is a delight to behold; it reminded me somewhat of some of the childhood sequences in 1992's THE POWER OF ONE, which I feel is a highly under-appreciated film, although much more serious in tone.

When Pi Patel is a little boy, his father buys a zoo while the family resides in their home country of India in the town of Pondicherry, and the crowning jewel of the zoo's menagerie is his Bengal tiger, who was accidentally named 'Richard Parker' due to a clerical error. Pi is an precocious and intellectually curious child, and a small portion of the opening of the movie details his quest to discover for himself whether or not God actually exists (he promises the curious writer before he begins his story that it will help him believe in God when he is finished with his tale).

During Pi's childhood quest for God, religious syncretism is treated in a tongue-in-cheek manner for the most part, especially after Pi declares himself a Christian/Muslim/Hindu, but the material is handled respectfully and implicitly begs the audience to do some research on their own, which I really respected.

Young Pi is also curious about the tiger, Richard Parker, and tells his family he believes animals have a soul. His father, who seems to be an agnostic, clucks his tongue at such a notion, and later decides to teach Pi a lesson when Pi attempts to feed Richard Parker some raw meat by hand. What happens must be seen rather than described, so the viewer can decide on their own whether or not this was a good or bad lesson learned, and whether or not this later helped or hindered Pi.

Before the local economy in India makes an eminent negative shift, Pi's father decides to sell all their zoo animals after they sail to Canada on a Japanese cargo ship so the family can start a new life. A French cook, played by the slovenly-appearing Gerard Depardieu, hassles Pi's mother when she requests a vegetarian meal, and Pi's father tussles with him briefly before the life-changing event of the picture transpires. This is important at the end of the movie, but I think it best that I simply state that the Japanese cargo ship sinks during a violent storm, and Pi is sent adrift on a life boat that also harbors a zebra, a hyena, Richard Parker and, later, a female orangutan.

The largest portion of the film entails Pi's terrifying efforts to stay alive while at sea but, as the story plays out, there is also much beauty on display, and any attempts to describe it would be pointless. LIFE OF PI is a movie that must be seen and, while I don't think it would necessarily inspire anyone to believe in God - especially during its final moments, when viewers begin to question what was truth and what was metaphor - I can honestly say that the CGI work in this movie completely fooled my eyes, and I don't know what was generated by a computer and what was real.

LIFE OF PI was too intense for my 10-year-old, but my 14-year-old was enthralled, so was I, and so was my wife. We wept openly during several sequences, and so did quite a few of those who attended the screening. This movie touched chords in me that left me walking out of the theater in a near daze. Not many films have that effect on me, but I think it speaks of the power of this story. Having studied Literary Criticism as an undergraduate, LIFE OF PI gave me plenty to ponder, and I'd really like to see it again. A beautiful movie. Just beautiful. I don't know that Ang Lee will ever be able to top it; look for him during the sequence with Gerard Depardieu - he's in the lunch line and later at a dining table during the scene where Pi's father scuffles with the rude cook.

Les Miserables (2012)

2013-03-04T07:13:00.001-08:00

When you're doing post-grad work as I am, and money for movies at the theater is a premium, you sometimes miss a movie opening you want to see. That's more often than not the case for me, and was the case for most of the Christmas holiday releases in 2012. If I can't scrounge up free passes, I have to wait until the movies I want to see hit a local second-run theater, and it wasn't until March of 2013 that I was able to finally get to see Les Miserables.

Although I have a B.A. in English, and studied classical literature in college, I must admit that I've never read Victor Hugo's original novel. I was, however, first exposed to the story (or at least part of it) in the early 80s, prior to the premiere of the stage musical, when I saw the ITC version starring Richard Jordan as the story's protagonist, Jean Valjean, and Anthony Perkins as his antagonistic pursuer, Javert; it was a television masterpiece, as far as I'm concerned, and left an indelible impression on my mind. To me, Jordan wholly exemplified the character of Jean Valjean, and Perkins was utterly perfect as Javert. It's a great work, if you can track it down and, for me, when I think of Valjean and Javert, I see these two in my mind's eye, and no one else.

Over the following decades, I discovered other versions of Les Mis, and each one seemed to have a different take on the story, and some of them ended at certain points, but all formed what seemed to be a cohesive whole when lined up, side-by-side, even an Asian animated version I saw at one point. Any time I could find a different version of Les Miserables, I'd make it a point to watch it, but my infatuation with the story waned somewhat after seeing what I regarded as a rather limp take on it, the 1998 theatrical film version starring Liam Neeson as Valjean, so I didn't bother with the 2000 mini-series take with the beloved French actor, Gerard Depardieu.

Never did get around to seeing the stage version, although I have seen bits and pieces of it on PBS, and heard some of the songs on shows like Seinfeld (the episode where George Castanza can't stop singing "Master of the House" has always cracked me up). I knew I'd like the stage version of Les Miserables, but the opportunity never arose in which I could actually go to the theater to see it -- and I think this was the idea behind this new film version, which is a new type of film musical in that the actors all sing with their natural voices, as if they were on stage, and there's no studio re-working to make them sound better than they actually do. This movie is about as close as you can get to seeing the stage musical with live performances if you aren't able to see the actual show itself and, best of all, it boasts some fantastic performances by actual movie stars!

The film was widely criticized by those who felt that, by virtue of it being a "film" adaptation, LES MISERABLES should have had tweaked vocals, but I think this is one of its greatest charms, and it in no way robs the movie of its cinematic standing. It's a real work of art, to my way of thinking, and I enjoyed hearing Hugh Jackman give his all as he belted out his songs as Jean Valjean in his natural voice. Also highly enjoyable for me was Russel Crowe as Javert, although I've read that he's had some mildly critical things to say about the vocal performances in the film: I thought he was awesome, and it doesn't hurt that he's one of my favorite actors of all time. Also great was Anne Hathaway as Fantine, whose character's fate is the pivot upon which the entire story eventually swings, even though she only spends a small amount of time on-screen. Hathaway's singing ability is a revelation, and I'm personally sick of hearing about all the "Hathaway-hate" in the post-awards season following the film's release; I like her, and think she's a fantastic talent with Audrey Hepburn good looks.

The performances in this pseudo English Opera-hybrid are fantastic, and it was refreshing to see Samantha Barks, whom I recognized from her appearance in one of the PBS specials about Les Mis; she's never looked more beautiful than she does in this film. The girl's gorgeous, and she sings like a bird. Furthermore, she made my entire family cry. I was delighted to see Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter together again after their somewhat similar work in Tim Burton's SWEENY TODD: THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET, which is my favorite cinematic musical of all time. I guess I'm more fond of SWEENY TODD than any other musical because, hey, let's face it, I have a somewhat dark side to me, even though I love syrupy sweet musicals, too, a type of which LES MISERABLES is most definitely not. Sentimental? Yes. Meaningful? Yes. Powerful? Absolutely. Syrupy Sweet? Nope. This movie is as solid as a rock.

The CGI work completely fools the eye in the few sequences in which it's utilized, and the camera work - which is about as in-your-face as you can get for the cast as they perform - makes this deeply moving story even more personal and compelling.

I loved this movie, and while I found Amanda Seyfried to be a little less outstanding than, say, Samantha Barks, she was still as beautiful as ever (I've had what I call a "movie star crush" on her for a while, now, I'm not ashamed to admit, but now I have one on Samantha Barks). The biggest surprise of the film for me, though, came from British actor Eddie Redmayne, who absolutely creeped me out to the core of my very being in the discomforting independent film HICK, in which he played the twisted American cowboy character, Eddie Kreezer: I saw that movie months ago, and I still don't know how I feel about it - let's just say it was "different," and leave it at that. It wasn't what I was expecting at all, and Eddie Redmayne stole that movie from the adorable and talented Chloe Moretz, who was its primary star.

As for Hugh Jackman, I knew he had it in him all along, so I wasn't surprised to see his excellent work in this film. The man can literally do anything, theatrically speaking, but I don't think this will come to be known as his signature role, and I would argue that he didn't take home the 'Best Actor' Oscar this year because the Academy really spread the wealth around, and Jackman's take as Jean Valjean was one stellar performance amidst several others, with Anne Hathaway blowing everyone's mind with her singing voice after years of different types of parts. I think Jackman needs to nail down a part that showcases him, alone, and has heft and significance (not that the character of Jean Valjean doesn't, but I've already stated why I felt Jackman's performance was lost in the AMPA awards shuffle), and puts the spot-light on his performance exclusively in order for him to win an Oscar -- but it might take something drastic for this to happen, like him giving up the Wolverine character he's best known for, and I don't know that this will ever happen since he's so territorial about it. Also, I'm not aware of anyone else winning an Oscar for an acting performance after playing a superhero, except for maybe Halle Berry. Can any of my readers out there think of someone I may have missed? Anyway, I believe Jackman's big day will come. It will all get sorted out one day.

I'll close with these thoughts: If you love history, and you love theater, and you love musicals, this is the movie for you. I don't want to elaborate on the plot, because I want those who haven't been exposed to this heart-wrenching and, ultimately, beautiful story to discover it for themselves. After we saw this, my son demanded I take him to a local used bookstore and buy him a copy of the Victor Hugo novel, and I obliged him. Found a copy for about two bucks, and other than the price of admission for the movie, it was the best two bucks I spent that day. My favorite film version of Les Miserables is still the ITC Jordan/Perkins version that aired on television in 1978, but this is my favorite theatrical version of the stage musical: maybe one day I'll be able to see it 'live.'

Snow White and the Huntsman (2012)

2013-03-02T06:53:00.001-08:00

When SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN was released to theaters, I wasn't able to see it. Furthermore, no one in my family wanted to see it, and I was irritated with them because I wanted to - even after it hit the second-run theaters in Lexington. This was strange for me, though, because I generally find "Fairy Tale" adaptations boring and derivative, and I have staunchly refused to watch such fare as MIRROR, MIRROR (what I've seen of it has made me want to retch), or television shows such as Grimm or Once Upon a Time. Now, don't misunderstand, I grew up on fairy tales, and Disney's BEAUTY AND THE BEAST is one of my favorite films alongside all the other Disney fairy tale movies, including TANGLED, which I fell in love with, but I don't care for most fairy tale-based films since about the second or third SHREK. They all seem to be post-modern reconstructionist twists on what I grew up reading, and I got really sick of them trying to emulate the SHREK series really fast; it was one of the reasons I put off seeing TANGLED for as long as I did - from the previews, it seemed like Disney's responses to the many jabs that Dreamworks made at them.

What ruined SHREK for me was Mike Meyer's redundant portrayal of the sickeningly sweet ogre trying oh, so desperately to convey how his outward appearance was nothing compared to the genuineness of his inner soul. Please. How many times can you pound on that drum before it falls completely apart? I can't take only a certain amount of repetition, and when I'm overly familiar with something, and it starts getting predictable, I start getting bored. This was most certainly the case with the first NARNIA film, which I could barely even tolerate after decades of reading and re-reading the original book and seeing the animated adaptation, the British mini-series (which I love), hearing the audio drama adaptation, and reading the graphic novel version, etc.

Speaking of graphic novels, my favorite graphic novel series of all time is Neil Gaiman's SANDMAN, which I think is perhaps the greatest achievement in literary comic books ever penned and illustrated. SANDMAN is not only a work of art, it elevates the comic book format to something never before seen, and its incorporation of classic literary characters and historical personages is done in a new, old-fashioned way as the old Christmas song phrases it. When SANDMAN finished its run, DC Comics started producing a similar series called FABLES that I love, and proved to be something akin to the fountain of inspiration for such new shows as Grimm and Once Upon a Time, which are vastly inferior by comparison. FABLES puts a subtle new twist on the old fairy tales, but as you read the stories, you see where the origins of the adventures we all grew up reading about came from, because the root of the stories are still there as are the basic components of the stories. This is also the case for SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN, which felt like something entirely familiar to me as I watched it, and yet also entirely new.

I watched SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN cold, meaning I avoided reading any reviews about it, and I picked up a copy at the local library entirely on a whim, with no real expectation. I knew Kristen Stewart was in it, and was vaguely aware that some had been critical of her performance in the film, but when are they not? She seems to be one of those actresses who can do no right for some people, and I find her to be perfectly adequate in everything I've seen her in. I think I developed a fondness for her when I caught her performance in 2009's ADVENTURELAND with Jessie Eisenberg; I felt a connection with her character, and was extremely empathetic with the character's situation in which she's being judged unfairly, and it's beating her down: I think it's one of the best 'sad' performances I've ever seen, and it touched my heart and carried over into the real world for me. I don't like to see her picked on by the press, even though I am not a fan of the TWILIGHT series, and can't watch them because I find them annoying and pale imitations of the original Dark Shadows with its sympathetic, romantic vampire - Barbabus Collins - and Buffy the Vampire Slayer and its spin-off series, Angel, which both featured a sympathetic and romantic vampire. I don't care what Stephanie Meyers says, she was exposed to these TV shows at some point, in some way, and twisted them all into the sappy soap opera that many are willing to fall on their sword defending it. Yuck. My dislike of it has nothing to do with Kristen Stewart, though. It's just not my cup of bloody tea. I'm more of a HARRY POTTER man.

Some of my favorite live action fairy tale and magic-themed movies of the past have included DRAGONSLAYER (1981), LADYHAWK (1985), WILLOW (1988) and, of course, Peter Jackson's LORD OF THE RINGS films. I wasn't as fond of SNOW WHITE: A TALE OF TERROR (1997) with Sigourney Weaver, EVER AFTER: A CINDERELLA STORY (1998) with Drew Barrymore, and I've avoided 1984's THE COMPANY OF WOLVES, 1995's RUMPLESTILTSKIN, and 2011's RED RIDING HOOD, because they simply don't look like they'd appeal to me. However, as I watched SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN play out, I felt like I was revisting the former list in several sequences (in a good way), and I especially felt like one particular scene was lifted almost whole cloth from my favorite anime film of all time, PRINCESS MONONOKE (1997).

Perhaps the greatest strength of SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN, at least for me, was its cast. It's no secret I love the movie THOR, so having Chris Hemsworth as one of the title characters was an automatic plus. But squeezing in some of my favorite actors of all time certainly didn't hurt. Nick Frost amazed me as one of the dwarfs, whose relationship with Snow White isn't quite what it was in the original story, and I was delighted (and saddened) to see Bob Hoskins among the seven swarfs. Charlese Theron, however, was perhaps the strongest player of the lot: she was incredible and, in my opinion, if she hadn't seen in the screenplay for this movie what I see in the movie, she wouldn't have signed on to play the evil queen with her now even more mysterious magic mirror on the wall.

No, the relationships between Snow White and the seven dwarfs isn't quite what we're entirely familiar with, and neither is her entanglement with the Huntsman of the title, but pretty much everything else is there from the original tale. Snow White's gullible father marries a beautiful queen who turns out to be even more ruthless and wicked than she is lovely, and she murders him and assumes the throne. The queen views Snow White as a rival because of her beauty and because her subjects have always loved her, and literally demands her heart when she comes of age.

The hunstman of the title is hired to track Snow White once she escapes her cell within the castle walls, but he's not the character fans of the Grimm original will recognize; instead, he's a drunken shade of his former self (I envisioned him to be a historical variation of the Riggs character in the LETHAL WEAPON movies), grieving over the death of his wife, whom the evil queen promises to return to him once he acquires Snow White and brings her back to her castle.

Once the queen assumes the throne at the beginning of the movie, after the fairly violent conquest of the king's army, the king's land seems to go into a state of depression in much the same way Camelot becomes a shade of its former self after King Arthur learns of the adulterous relationship of Guenevere and Sir Lancelot in John Boorman's 1981 film, EXCALIBUR. Only Snow White, because of her mystical relationship with nature, can restore things to their original state and, meanwhile, we learn that the evil queen has the ability to stop human hearts by sheer will, conjur up dark creatures from earthen objects, shape shift into a flock of crows and, even worse, absorb the life force of maidens in a way that would delight Countess Elizabeth Bathory. I don't want to give away much more for those who haven't seen the film, but I found the entire movie engrossing, and I really liked Kristen Stewart as the broken-hearted princess who evolves into something akin to Joan of Arc.

Yes, there are a lot of things in this film that remind me of other things and, yes, I said I don't like repetition and redundancy in film, but this movie presented its material in such a way that it scratch itches for me I didn't know I had. It resonated with me on an emotional level, and I liked everything about the production. I took a peek at some reviews from the Big Boys on Rotten Tomatoes, but I didn't view the film with the same eyes they did, apparently: I didn't think it was plodding, and ludicrous, and insipid, and agonizing. I loved every minute of it, and that's rare for me. I thought it was exciting, and inventive, and it made me like its cast even more than I did before I watched it. I really, really liked this movie. When I tweeted about it, I said I felt like I'd taken a brief trip to movie heaven, and I guess this was because I saw it when I did. The circumstances were just right, and the stars were lined up in just the right way. I love it when that happens, and it doesn't happen very often. Seeing a movie that makes me feel like a little kid again isn't a common happening, either, and that's what this movie did for me. It made me feel like I was reading Grimm's Fairy Tales again for the very first time.

THOR (2011)

2013-02-28T06:53:00.000-08:00

Comic Book geek that I am, I was so excited at the tail end of IRON MAN 2, when we first saw Thor's magic hammer, Mjolner, I took a snapshot of it with my Blackberry. I've been anxiously awaiting THOR since then, and I was not disappointed. No, not at all. I really, really loved this movie. It met every expectation I had, and then some, and I'll be the first to admit that - if a movie's heart is in the right place, I will forgive it a multitude of sins. I couldn't find anything in THOR I didn't like, to be truthful, except maybe the thought that - now that Natalie Portman is an Oscar Winner, she might not reprise her role as Thor's love interest, Jane Foster, in future Thor installments, should they follow.

Took my wife to see THOR in 3-D on the day of its release, and we both THORoughly enjoyed it (sorry, couldn't resist); we both felt that the 3-D was well used, and about as well used as was the case with AVATAR. I've read many complaints about its 3-D on the 'net, but the only gripe we had about it was an occasional dizziness during spinning overhead shots that descended downward toward objects featured in the center of the frame. I thought the imagery simply popped in 3-D, and when we took our kids to see the movie in the standard format a few days later, I thought it was lacking. Didn't look quite as vivid. It was still good, though, but I preferred it in 3-D. Especially during the scenes in Asgard.

The premise of THOR is straight out of the Marvel comic's later issues, but not its original stories. In the very first Thor story, found in a comic called JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY (look for that slogan on a billboard in the film), revolved around a man with a lame leg, Dr. Donald Blake. Donald Blake is referenced in the film as Jane Foster's ex-boyfriend, whose name is then used as Thor's human alias). Anyway, in his first comic book appearance, Blake stumbles into a cave and finds an ancient staff that, when pounded upon the ground, becomes the magical hammer of the old Norse god Thor, whom he also magically transforms into. Blake, as Thor, uses his magic hammer to fly and fight villains and, when he pounds its handle onto the ground, it reverts back into the magic cane, and he reverts back into the crippled young physician. Eventually, the comics evolved to a point where Blake realizes he never actually existed and, instead, only thought he did, because he was being taught humility by his father, the Nordic god named Odin. Regardless, all of these concepts are bypassed in the new film, but Odin still opts to teach his over-zealous son some humilty by banishing him to earth and stripping him of his powers.

The film is very clean, is loaded with action, and essentially has two running plots, with the primary one set in the mythical realm of the Nordic beings assumed by the ancients to be gods, when they're really more like humanoid aliens that view science and magic as being one and the same. The other storyline is set here on earth, and takes place, if you can wrap your brain around it, during the same time in which IRON MAN 2's storyline played itself out. Iron Man doesn't make an appearance, but there is a reference to "Stark" in the film, and the agent who irritated Tony Stark in Iron Man 1 & 2 has a much more prominent role in this film. Nick Fury of S.H.I.E.L.D. also has a cameo, at the tail end of the movie, after the credits, which sets up next year's AVENGERS film, which will feature the return of Thor, the Hulk, Iron Man, the Black Widow, and Hawkeye (who has a memorable cameo in THOR, although he never gets to shoot an arrow); I could have sworn I saw either the Wasp or Hank Pym fly by on a wasp in one sequence, but I can't swear to it, since neither have been acknowledged as appearing in that impending release. I'm really looking forward to it.

You don't have to have any real knowledge of either Thor or the Marvel comic storylines featuring him to enjoy this film, but we all talk about Thor indirectly every week on the day that follows Wednesday (named after his father, Odin), and precedes Friday (which was named after his mother, Frygia). If you like comic book movies and films that feature swordplay and giants, and monsters and robotic villains, you should really enjoy all 2-hours-and-10-minutes of THOR. I know I did. Both times I saw it at the theater.

NOTE: I HAVE NO IDEA WHY THIS OLDER REVIEW HAS BEEN BUMPED UP TO A MORE RECENT SPOT IN MY REVIEW LIST, BUT IT'S INTERESTING TO ME, BECAUSE IT'S NOW BESIDE A REVIEW OF ANOTHER CHRIS HEMSWORTH FILM...

BUD'S REVIEWS IS LOOKING FOR MORE GOOD FOLLOWERS!

2013-02-20T11:04:00.001-08:00

Don't get me wrong - I am extremely honored to have the current followers that I have, but I'd love to have more, and my fondest wish is that more folks will respond to my posts because I sometimes feel like I'm just writing for me, and that's not what BUD'S REVIEWS is all about. My reviews are for you, the reader, and I strive to tell you why I like or don't like movies, unlike some who just say a movie stunk without really qualifying such a comment, or that they loved it without explaining why.

If this blog had a mission statement, it say something like, "This blog exists so I can express how I feel about the movies I watch - why I like them or don't - and so I can hear from others who are either like-minded or completely disagree with me." I love having friendly conversation with new colleagues, and I strive to make this site as pleasant as I can, so please consider becoming a follower if you haven't already, and tell your friends!

A Jaunt Down Memory Lane: HORRORS OF THE BLACK MUSEUM (1959)

2013-02-16T19:25:00.000-08:00

Most fans remember this film because of the binoculars with the spikes in the eye pieces.

This is not a traditional review as much as it is a reminiscence about the way a movie can imprint itself upon our consciousness in a profound and mysterious way.

Me, around the time I'm referring to, circa 1968.

When I was a toddler, my parents made friends with another family who had children that were almost the same exact age as me and my older sister. My mom and dad became best friends with the mom and dad of this other family, and we all got along famously. Still do; I regard the mom of this family as my honorary aunt, and her husband as my honorary uncle. Their sons, to me, are extensions of my own family, my brothers from another mother, and those of us that remain still keep in close contact with one another for the most part.

Our families lived near one another in Denbigh and Newport News, Virginia, and on the weekends our parents would hang out together, and we kids would play and tell ghost stories and watch Horror movies on the late-late show while snuggled together under a huge warm blanket. This went on for years but, when I was especially young, we kids all stayed up late one night and watched HORRORS OF THE BLACK MUSEUM from 1959, and it apparently scared me so badly that certain images from the film emblazened themselves on my memory, even after I'd long forgotten what movie the images were from. I was so young that the images became disjointed and, when I grew older, I reconstructed some scenes into one singular sequence isolated from the rest of the movie, and I just could NOT remember the name of the movie. I asked people for years if they could identify the movie and, literally for decades, no one could remember it. This was also true of a certain Horror comic, but that's not the primary focus of this post, and I'll get back to that at the end.

THIS is what I recalled from the movie: A beautiful woman goes home late one night after a date, wholly aware that there's a killer on the prowl.

She walks up to her apartment, and it's shadowy and spooky, and somehow I know the killer is under her bed.

She changes into her night clothes, walks past a dresser with a vanity mirror, gets into bed and, after she gets comfortable, she looks up and suddenly screams.

The next thing I remember is the shadowy killer cranking something, and removing this woman's severed head and stuffing it into what I perceived was a doctor's satchel.

Then he runs out of the room, bumping into a woman who suddenly screams; I thought she was the housemaid but, remember, I was around 3 at the time. She was actually amidst a group of other folks, wondering what in the world provoked the victim to scream before she was beheaded (unbeknownst to them).

Just this past week (ironically, the week before I turn 47), I posted an inquiry on the website called KINDERTRAUMA, that's dedicated to helping people remember and discuss the things that scared them when they were kids. This is what I posted:

Almost immediately, I got the following responses:

I did some Googling and, sure enough, the trailer for the movie gave me all the clues I needed -- the screaming woman in bed, a killer on the lam, and even a giant ferris wheel!

I found a copy of the DVD for sale on the 'net, ordered it, and it arrived just this afternoon, so I watched it right away, and boy was it boring! Also, I learned to my great curiosity that the sequences I remembered best did not play out as I remembered them, but I was able to piece together why this was the case for me...

When I was a little boy, whenever I got scared, I'd cover my eyes. I also made a funny gesture with my hand that was half "Peace Symbol," and half fake eye-glasses (I'd rotate between the two motions, and was teased unmercilessly about this for decades). When the bedroom murder scene played out, I covered my eyes for most of it, looked at the scene as it played out only fleetingly, and instead of seeing it as it actually was, I saw it differently because of the way the cinematography was done. For example, I thought the killer was under the bed, but he was behind the bed. And when the killer activated the guillotine device, the camera looked up at him as he looked down at his victim, but I only saw this shot for a second, and thought he was under the bed, looking up!

One camera angle, which made me think he was under the bed looking up...

Another camera angle that confused me. But I don't think I looked at his face.

I must have only caught a mere glimpse of the killer from behind, when he was uncranking the guillotine so he could retrieve the severed head, because - in my memory - the killer was never shown, and I thought he was cranking something underneath the bed to cut his victim's head off (I've struggled with the logistics of this, but assumed I'd connected the scene with the old story about the girl with the ribbon around her throat her makes her husband swear to never remove it and, when he does, her head falls off). For whatever reason, until today I had no memory of the ghoulish murderer whatsoever, or much of anything else about the movie, for that matter! For example, there's a big finale dealing with a Ferris wheel, but all I remembered was the Ferris wheel...

A few years ago, during a visit to Virginia and a trip to Busch Gardens in Williamsburg, I asked one of the people who watched HORRORS OF THE BLACK MUSEUM with me way back when if he could remember a spooky movie that scared me half to death when I was little, but all he could remember was the binoculars with the spikes in the eye-pieces. He'd guessed correctly straight away, but I didn't remember that scene at all!

Here's what I'm thinking: the movie was on so late that I, being the little fellow that I was, fell asleep waiting for something to happen. I was then awakened during the aforementioned murder scene, and I covered my eyes for most of it, and then I woke up when the movie ended, and it all bled together for me into one weird sequence. I literally went through dozens of old Horror movies blindly trying to find this movie over the years, but the closest I thought I came was THEATER OF BLOOD from 1973, and CHAMBER OF HORRORS from 1967, which featured the infamous "Fear Flasher" and "Horror Horn" gimmicks.

It's funny how a movie sequence can drive you crazy. It's a good thing I always remembered that it was Alfred Hitchcock's THE BIRDS that featured the sequence with the dead farmer whose eyes had been gouged out by the birds of the title sequence. That horrified me as a kid.

For some reason I've always felt an affinity with spooky stuff, from movies to comic books. When I was about 8 years old, I was somehow exposed to a comic book story that was deeply imprinted on my mind in much the same way as HORRORS OF THE BLACK MUSEUM. Apparently this story didn't leave as deep an impression on other comic fans because, as I sought it out over the decades, no one else seemed to remember it. I inquired if anyone over at KINDERTRAUMA recalled it in the same post I showcased, above, and - sure enough - someone did, and then I was able to track down an electronic copy on one of my favorite nostalgia-centric websites, DIVERSIONS OF THE GROOVY KIND, which specializes in the Silver Age comic books I grew up reading and loving so much. However, I remembered the story far differently than it actually was, except for the very last page.

In my mind, the story was about a crook who figured out where Santa's workshop was at the North Pole, and was plotting to steal the sleigh on Christmas Eve before Santa made his deliveries to all the good little girls and boys. He lurks around in the shadows, gets aboard the sleigh, and the rope around Santa's bag wraps around his throat, and as he struggles to remove it, Old Saint Nick arrives (but doesn't see him), and takes off, and the man is hung by the rope; the final panel of the comic is of the man's corpse hanging limply beneath the sleigh, silhouetted in a full moon.

The story, SLAY RIDE WITH SANTA, can be viewed by clicking the above link, but it's actually about a criminal who stumbles upon the sleigh after hanging a young girl and fleeing the police. The final panel is pretty much as I recalled, but now I'm wondering if I ever actually read the comic, or was just told about it by one of my older cousins. I do remember discussing it with them one night in the 70s, after we got into a detailed discussion about the NBC airing of the mini-series FRANKENSTEIN: THE TRUE STORY on television and the most recent Gilligan's Island episodes we'd seen; we were at our mutual grandparents' home N.C., not far from where my mother still resides (this would have had to have been around November, 1973, and the comic in question was released in that same period).

Isn't it strange, the things that get branded into our minds

when we're young?

Buddomonn's RedBox Review-o-Rama #1

2013-02-16T14:09:00.001-08:00

This will not be a traditional review (what else is new?), but something more along the lines of what I did when I reviewed the movies I watched on an international flight from Rome back to America in 2009. I recently scored a bunch of free movie credits from RedBox, and wanted to use them up before their due date ended and, to be truthful, I wasn't entirely interested in what my wife and kids and I selected. This post will actually be something like what happens when people go speed-dating, and I'm not going to go into great detail explaining why I did or didn't like what I saw, but I will offer some brief highlights, with maybe one exception.

I hope no one was expecting me to review RedBox itself; I don't have a problem with their service in general, although I do have some issues with their new beta streaming Instant Service (which refuses to work for me as they iron the bugs out of the system), but this isn't where I should discuss all that. If anything, I do always feel rushed to turn their discs back in time, and I didn't get to watch even one minute of least two rentals this week because I had other obligations. My wife watched one, though, and hated it, and it was HOUSE AT THE END OF THE STREET.

My wife didn't understand this movie; it left her feeling befuddled and confused. I might give it a chance later on.

Neither I nor anyone else in the house got to see Clint Eastwood's TROUBLE WITH THE CURVE before I hated to turn it back in, but my son and I wanted to. Oh, well, maybe later.

I like most Clint Eastwood movies, but not all of them are winners; his HEREAFTER left me feeling rather flat.

The first movie I was able to watch was Tim Burton's FRANKENWEENIE, which is a remake of his live-action short I first saw when I obtained a copy of the special edition release of his NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS back in the day. I love the original, and I see this remake as what Tim Burton had in his head all along, with some embellishments that were the logical extension of advances in special effects techniques that have come about since his shot the original version, along with some new characters. I find it ironic that Disney promoted (let along funded) this effort, since the original concept was rejected by the House of Mouse way back when, and prompted Burton to head out in his own direction: I'm glad he did. FRANKENWEENIE is an awesome tribute to the old FRANKENSTEIN movies of the past, and it's one of Burton's most original ideas. I suspect it's also a little autobiographical.

Next on the docket is a movie I swore I didn't want to see because the graphic violence in the slow-motion sequences of the red-band theatrical trailer turned me off. Still, I figured - hey - it's free, so at least I won't be paying for a rental if I end up disliking it. What happened? I disliked it immensely. It actually had me pining for the old Stallone version, which I know deep down in my heart is nothing more or less than fluff (and I despise Rob Schneider's character in it, and the fact that Stallone dared remove that helmet, which was tantamount to Dolph Lundgren refusing to sport the PUNISHER skull on his chest when he played Frank Castle in the first in a line of stinkers about THE PUNISHER). Now, I like Karl Urban as much as the next guy, but this movie was just too reliant upon its slow-motion sequences, its CGI effects, and its scenes of graphic ultra-violence for ultra-violence's sake. The plot's not even worth getting into, because it's treated as if it's of lesser importance than all the other things that made me dislike it. If you want to see the real JUDGE DREDD, dredge up a copy of one of the original British comics that feature his stories, with 2000 A.D. being the primary source.

I just knew I wouldn't like THE APPARITION before I ever saw it; I could just tell - the trailers left me feeling wholly disinterested. I didn't like the premise ('spirits' exist only when you believe in them, and we can actually create them) because I thought it was stupid (sounded like a lame episode of the old STAR TREK or something), I didn't like the production values because they seemed too glossy, and I didn't like the fact that the young actor who played Draco Malfoy in the HARRY POTTER movies, Tom Felton, was given a supporting role because the movie was supposed to be treated as if it was based on something "real." His presence threw me off and took me out of the movie every time he showed up on-screen, especially when he was pacing around delivering his dialogue in a panic while sporting a microphone to document the significance of the paranormal experiment he was spear-heading. He didn't bother me at all when he was in RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES, but he seemed ill-fitted for the part he played in this one. But there were other casting problems in this movie, too.

THE APPARITION features two leads that utterly distracted me throughout the bulk of the movie's running time, because the female lead - Ashley Green - was so darned good-looking; honestly, she's as pretty as any girl I've ever seen in my life, and she was just so gorgeous I couldn't stop admiring her angelic face! Her male lead - Sebastian Stan - looked so much like Mark Hamill when he was young (although with darker hair, and better looks) that I couldn't stop pondering what he'd look like as the son of Luke Skywalker in an upcoming STAR WARS movie.

The movie is part "found footage," part "J-Horror," part "technology-based Horror," and part 90210, and none of these components jelled properly. Honestly, I couldn't relate to anyone in the movie, either, and I had no sympathy for them because I didn't see where anyone had any especially redeeming qualities, although Ashley Green's character did to a degree (but her adorable looks kept distracting me!). I also didn't think it was scary, at all, and its PG-13 rating probably had a lot to do with it; it just seemed like a neutered horror movie, and I thought it was boring, and the way it ended had no effect on me whatsoever. INSIDIOUS it ain't.

FINALLY, a movie I actually liked. MEN IN BLACK 3, to me, was a whole lot of fun. I loved the effects, the storyline, and Josh Brolin blew me away with his amazing impersonation of Tommy Lee Jones as the young Agent K. No one could have done it any better. By now, most people who wanted to see this already has, so I won't regurgitate the premise; suffice it to say, I was completely surprised because I'd heard negative things before the final reels were in the can. I heard, for example, that it was being shot without an ending, and there was disharmony between the director and the stars. I didn't see any evidence of any of that. It was just a lot of fun, and one sequence had me in tears. Can you guess which one, if you saw it? I missed it at the theater due to financial issues and other commitments, but I wanted to, although hesitantly. Wish I hadn't waited now. And I wish I'd seen it in 3-D.

My final rental was the remake of the original TOTAL RECALL, which I find a guilty pleasure despite its crudeness, but I just could not care less about the remake before, during, and after viewing it, although I really like most everyone in the cast. It seemed to be a watered-down revamp overflowing with CGI effects and it just didn't tickle my fancy one whit. I found it lackluster despite its technical gloss, and perhaps because I was too familiar with the storyline from the original, I felt like there simply was no need to revisit it. I'll just stick with the Paul Verhoeven version.

Well, that wraps up our first RedBox marathon review; let me know what you think, and I'll be sure to get back to you...

HALLOWEEN: A Franchise Review

2013-02-11T10:43:00.002-08:00

We've visited the cinematic world of John Carpenter's HALLOWEEN here before, and I've reviewed the original HALLOWEEN and HALLOWEEN II, HALLOWEEN III: SEASON OF THE WITCH, and even Rob Zombie's first HALLOWEEN film, but I've never reviewed the remaining films in the series - until now.

After SEASON OF THE WITCH garnered only a lukewarm reception at the box office, the series lay fallow for half a decade and, as reported previously, it was probably because the third film in the series abandoned the established formula and went in an entirely different direction. Personally, I liked the third film, and I spoke briefly with the film's director at a Horror convention in Louisville, KY, in 2012, and he told me it's developed a cult following over the years. Still, the producers of the series became aware that HALLOWEEN fans wanted Michael Myers to be the focus of the franchise after SEASON OF THE WITCH flopped, and the release of HALLOWEEN 4: THE RETURN OF MICHAEL MYERS in 1988 picked up some years after the plot-line of HALLOWEEN II; it was if the third film never existed.

When HALLOWEEN 4 was released, it was something of an event movie in my hometown, and since it was the first HALLOWEEN film released after my younger brother and I became old enough to see an "R"-rated feature, we excitedly rushed off to see it on opening night. Our excitement waned, however, as we watched the film play out amidst the crowd of anxious fans who were hoping for something worthy of the first film. HALLOWEEN 4 wasn't bad, per se, but it was certainly nowhere near as good as the original film in the series and, in fact, felt rather pedestrian by comparison.

WARNING: SPOILERS GALORE FOLLOW...

HALLOWEEN 4: THE RETURN OF MICHAEL MYERS hinges on the concept that the white William Shatner-masked killer from the first two films did not die at the end of HALLOWEEN II and, instead, had been in a coma over the course of the intervening years. Myers overhears a conversation that reveals that his younger sister, Laurie Strode, had supposedly died in a car wreck while he was incapacitated, but she'd had a baby girl named Jamie who had no idea of her mother and uncle's dark back history. He escapes from the facility he's in, and immediately heads back to Haddonfield and goes on a killing spree, and is soon being pursued by Dr. Loomis, who also survived the explosion at the end of the second film. Michael is unsuccessful in capturing his intended victim, his niece, and is shot by police, and he vanishes from sight as he limply falls down a mine shaft in a sequence that reminds me of a scene from an old FRANKENSTEIN movie after the villagers swarm Frankenstein's castle and confront the Monster. At the end of the film, Michael's niece - dressed in a clown costume similar to the one Michael wore in the opening of the first film in the series, inexplicably kills her foster mother with a pair of scissors, and it's obvious Michael will be back, either literally, or within Jamie's psyche with her playing the role of his successor in some way. This twisted storyline picks up just one year later in 1989's HALLOWEEN 5: THE REVENGE OF MICHAEL MYERS.

Michael Myers' niece, Jamie, is the primary focus of the fifth film in the series, and she is played once again by the adorable young actress, Danielle Harris, whose character has been rendered mute by the events of the previous film. Her psychic link with her uncle continues to be showcased, and we learn that he has been nursed back to health by a hermit down in the mine shaft he fell down when the last film ended (this subplot reminded me of the sequence in THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN revolving around the blind man who unknowingly befriends Frankenstein's Monster). Dr. Loomis returns, and attempts to use Jamie as bait to lure Michael out into the open, and he eventually succeeds in capturing the masked killer who, at the end of the movie, is released from captivity by a mysterious man dressed in black just before the final credits roll. Clearly, the franchise is headed in a new direction, but the lackluster storyline and by-the-numbers approach to the film sapped some viewers of any further interest in the series, myself included, especially when it turned out that Jamie had no Satanic killer instinct as the finale of the last film implied. After this movie, I didn't see another HALLOWEEN film at the theater until 2007, and that was only because I scored free tickets. I later saw all the others on VHS and DVD and, technically, no HALLOWEEN 6 exists, because the next film in the franchise was simply entitled HALLOWEEN: THE CURSE OF MICHAEL MYERS.

Now, from what I understand, the sixth film in the HALLOWEEN franchise was better in its original 2-hour form, but it was trimmed down to 88 minutes, and the preferred version was never released to theaters or officially on VHS or DVD. Bootleg copies exist of the original version, but the official theatrical release has only ever hit store shelves, and it strays away from the previous two films and, suddenly, there's a different, older actress playing Michael Myers' niece, Jamie, and as the movie opens, she goes on the run with her newborn infant, presumably the offspring of an unholy union between Jamie and her uncle. Jamie is no longer Michael's intended protegee, as the previous films seemed to imply she was being groomed to be, and now she is being pursued by a cult being led by the mysterious man in black from the last film.

THE CURSE OF MICHAEL MYERS details how Michael was bred to be a sort of unholy messiah for the "Cult of Thorn," and his destiny was to destroy his entire family line, ending with Jamie's baby, in order to squelch the impending destruction of humanity. Don't ask me why this is supposed to make sense, or why he couldn't just kill Jamie before she conceived and accomplish his task that way; I seriously doubt it was ever even considered (maybe he had to kill a boy but, if that was the case, why was he trying to kill his sister, Laurie, in the earlier films?). Tommy Doyle is reintroduced into the series as an adult who has somehow kept tabs on Jamie over the years (he was the kid Laurie was babysitting in the first movie), and he eventually teams up with Dr. Loomis, but before all is said and done, the whole film devolves into a Gothic soap opera of sorts, and after a final confrontation between the Good Guys and the Bad Guys, only Tommy escapes with his life although Michael's mask is found, implying that Michael Myers will once again return. Indeed, he does, but all the HALLOWEEN films that were released after HALLOWEEN II are ignored altogether in HALLOWEEN H20 - 20 YEARS LATER, which was released in 1998.

Jamie Lee Curtis returns to the franchise in this film, and H20 is clearly intended to be an homage to John Carpenter's original film (with a tip of the hat to Alfred Hitchcock's PSYCHO tossed in for good measure, as Janet Leigh makes a cameo in the movie, and drives the same make and model car she drove when she played Marion Crane in PSYCHO; Janet Leigh, in case you don't know, is Jamie Lee Curtis's mother, and both ladies were considered the "Scream Queens" of their respective generations).

When the movie opens, we learn that Laurie Strode has assumed a new life and identity in order to hide herself and her son (played by the wild-haired Josh Hartnett) from her murderous older brother. LL Cool J plays a security guard at Josh Hartnett's character's private school, and Michelle Williams plays one of Hartnett's friends.

Michael Myers, of course, locates Laurie and her son, and goes on a murderous rampage, and the film ends with Laurie beheading her brother with an axe, but can you really kill Michael Myers? Of course not, as the 2002 film HALLOWEEN: RESURRECTION revealed. It also, unfortunately, revealed that the original HALLOWEEN series could be killed, as it was the final installment of that meandering string of convoluted stories that were watered down after the promising original.

HALLOWEEN: RESURRECTION featured more stunt casting than H20 did, but the plot of the film is patently ridiculous, and seemed to be a direct lift of an installment of the HBO Horror series TALES FROM THE CRYPT that featured Morton Downey, Jr., "Television Terror" (season 2, episode 16). Essentially, it relates how a 'live' internet broadcast from the Myers family home ends with the reappearance of Michael Myers, and how chaos and death ensue. Laurie Strode is dispatched in this film, and even after Michael is once again killed before the final credits roll, his eyes pop open while his presumed corpse lies in the morgue, and we're expected to believe this storyline will continue in a follow-up film, but no further movies about this particular version of Michael Myers were ever produced. Instead, Rob Zombie shot a remake of the original, followed by his remake of HALLOWEEN 2 in 2009, which was a direct retelling of the original HALLOWEEN II, merged with elements from TWIN PEAKS, including a white horse that appears to certain characters in visions, and loads of coarse dialogue and unnecessary crassness and ultra violence. Par for the course for a movie by Rob Zombie, if you ask me.

It's a real shame when a movie series has a strong initial story only to be watered down by sequels offering only diminishing returns in each successive installment. Such was the case with the HALLOWEEN franchise. Supposedly, a third HALLOWEEN film based on the Zombie films was partially shot, but had to be cancelled due to a lack of funds; it was slated to be released in 3-D, but it remains to be seen if it will ever become a reality. Maybe it's for the best if it remains uncompleted.

Retro Review: INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (1978)

2013-02-09T17:20:00.001-08:00

I was 12 years old when this remake came out, and my parents wouldn't let me go see it because the original Kevin McCarthy version freaked my mom out in 1956. She was horrified of the sequence where all the pods were deposited into the trucks for some reason, and insisted the movie would be too intense for me, even though she never saw it. This was in the days before VCR and DVD players, so I didn't get to see it until I was an adult, but I did sneak-buy myself a copy of the Fotonovel when I was a kid, which I read at a fevered rush only to be disappointed by the fact that I couldn't imagine what the movie's pacing, acting, and directing was like.

Still, I heard good things from critics, and always aspired to see the film version, and I did get to see the original when it aired on AMC in the days before they butchered their movies by editing them and adding commercials. I wasn't real thrilled by the original, and I wasn't scared by it, either. I mostly wanted to see the remake because Leonard Nimoy was in it, to be truthful.

When I finally obtained a copy of the remake, I only watched it half-heartedly, and most of the movie was ruined for me by decades of remembering certain images from the Fotonovel, frozen in time, like mosaics in my mind.

I was cleaning up the living room this morning, and stumbled onto my copy of the 1978 remake, and laughed because it reminded me of a certain episode of the British TV show "The IT Crowd" that parodied a key scene of the movie, and I decided to give it a serious viewing. I was glad that I did.

The remake is more of a reboot and sequel to the original, because Kevin McCarthy's character appears in one sequence, screaming that the aliens are coming (this is how the original ended), and it would certainly be fair to say that his character has been trying to warn humanity since 1956...

THE INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS has long been considered a metaphorical story about the McCarthy era, and the Communist witch hunts of that period of history, and I've always thought it was amusing that the lead actor in the film version of the novel was named McCarthy, but I digress.

If the original is about the secret encroachment of Communism upon America, then the remake by director Phillip Kaufman, is probably about consumerism and the growing complacency of America in the late 1970s; love seemed to be on the wane after the 1960s era of Peace, Love, and Understanding, and Corporate Greed was becoming the order of the day. The remake, like the original, is quite brilliant, really -- and it has multiple layers to it from its clear subtext to the way certain shots and angles are set up. Distorted images appear in mirrors, and shadowy figures lurk in the darkness as things grow progressively more and more bleak.

Donald Sutherland, who appears in one sequence in the same sweater he wore in ANIMAL HOUSE, is the protagonist of the film, and the cast is well rounded with his co-stars, Jeff Goldblum, Veronica Cartwright, and Brooke Adams (who is far prettier in this than I remembered). Leonard Nimoy is the movie's true standout, however, and he delivers a performance so far removed from his beloved Mr. Spock that it made me ache to see him in roles other than what he was allowed to do in programs like MISSION IMPOSSIBLE and NIGHT GALLERY. Nimoy's talent was squandered and wasted by Hollywood, if you ask me.

The premise of the film, like the original, deals with alien spores from outer space that drift to earth and attach themselves, leech-like, to all lifeforms on our planet, replicating DNA and producing exact copies of human beings who are devoid of emotion and exist in a psychic state of existence with their symbiotic companions. Humans become part of what seems to be a hive consciousness, like STAR TREK's "Borg," although they don't have a queen. Initially existing as flowers with a singular pod at the center, they attach themselves to sleeping human beings, putting them in a trance-like state, and then create exact duplicates that allow them to absorb the consciousness and memories of their victims, and then strip them of their emotions. Humans become shallow, sleep-walking drones of their former selves, and this is the greatest fear of the heroes of the movie: they want to remain intact, and when they uncover what the aliens are doing, they strive to figure out how to prevent this from happening on a global scale.

For a 1978 thriller, the movie is extremely effective, and it really holds up, even with its practical effects; I can't imagine this remake being topped, even with CGI, and I am aware of several attempts at rebooting this franchise, and all of them failed to live up to this one. The original film is good, but this one is better.

In the end, though, I'm still curious about one thing: What in the world was Leonard Nimoy wearing on his left hand for much of the film?

Joshua (2007)

2013-01-22T13:44:00.000-08:00

Caught this on the SUNDANCE CHANNEL, and it kind of threw me for a loop because the mother in this movie was played by the same actress as the mom in THE ORPHAN, and there are similar thematic elements that almost made me wonder if this was a prequel to THE ORPHAN, which came out two years later. If you wanted to tweak some of the background story, you could make this the first tale in a larger narrative, but it would be rather pointless to do so.

Just like THE ORPHAN, and THE GOOD SON, and THE BAD SEED, this movie essentially asks the question, "what makes bad people bad," or "what makes crazy people crazy?" You could transpose the word "evil" for "bad" or "crazy" if you wanted to, but JOSHUA is more secular than supernatural, and even takes a wild swipe at Christianity in one sequence I couldn't quite wrap my brain around -- but I freely admit this is because of my Christian upbringing. More on this in a bit.

JOSHUA is an independent Horror film, or maybe "Thriller" would be a better way to categorize it, since it's more cerebral than gore-centric. Largely, it tells the story of a young boy who is smarter than his years who is emotionally disturbed by the arrival of a new sibling, his baby sister.

Joshua develops a fixation on ancient Egyptian mythology and mummification practices as the film progresses, and eventually seems to take an interest in disemboweling his teddy bear, and poisoning pets. He's like a textbook profile of a future serial killer, although some may argue that his parents are the real villains of this film since none of these acts are never entirely shown on-screen. Some could even argue that the film begs the viewer , to consider other vantage points as they watch: is Joshua evil, or are his parents abusing him?

Joshua's mother suffers from post-partum depression after the birth of her second child, and she's prescribed medications to help her overcome it. Eventually, someone in the family starts meddling with her scripts, or dosing them wrongly, but she descends into madness as the movie progresses. Her mental state becomes even more fragile as her newborn refuses to stop crying, and we later see videotape of Joshua apparently throttling the infant at night in an effort to torment both her and her parents.

Sam Rockwell plays Joshua's father, and his character's mother is brought into this secular household to help with the household chores. She mostly keeps out of the family's routine, but eventually she starts taking Joshua to church and, after one service, announces to Joshua's mom and dad that he wants to be "born again," and they laugh out loud and mock him, and tell him it's their decision - not his (I couldn't understand this at all, but that's beside the point). Joshua's mother screams at his grandmother to get out of their apartment because she's a "big, fat Jew," and Joshua's grandmother retaliates by proclaiming that Joshua's father is "a big, fat Christian." This latter claim is clearly untrue, based on his secular lifestyle, his response to the proclamation, and the religious iconography in the family residence that has nothing within it that represents the Christian faith. Joshua's grandmother tells her son, Joshua's dad, that he needs to "grow up" and "come home," and to stop pretending to be a grown-up, and to realize that an apartment is "not a home." She's wholly oblivious to all the contradictions in what she's saying (I mean, how can he "grow up" if he's doing what his mother tells him to do?). After this sequence, things start to go downhill pretty fast.

Joshua takes the old family dog out for a walk, and it dies shortly after they come home. All the pets in Joshua's class die unexpectedly, but no one thinks about the possibility that they could have been poisoned. And then, one night, Joshua asks his mother to play Hide and Seek, and when she can't find him, she also discovers to her horror that she can't find her infant daughter, either, who she just placed in her crib a few moments earlier. I won't say much more - the rest of the film should be seen by the reader so they can make up their own mind.

In the end, I wasn't too terribly affected by the film; I've seen scarier films about seemingly wicked children before, and done much more effectively. Once the credits rolled, I didn't think it would linger much longer in my brain, and I'll probably forget the primary details when all is said and done.

Not sure I can recommend it, really. I don't think JOSHUA brings anything new to the table. It's more of a curiosity film, to be honest, and I'm not entirely sure what its message was intended to be.

A Memory Lane Retro Review: The Fix (1984)

2013-01-15T12:35:00.000-08:00

WHO were the VICTIMS of THE FIX? Easy. The AUDIENCE.

This will NOT be a traditional review. It's more of a reminiscence with a short review tossed in for good measure. I write this up as a service, since IMDB doesn't have a review of this movie on their site, and no image for the movie's poster, etc.

Not sure whether this piece of cinematic guano ever received any sort of theatrical release, but I know it had a cheapie VHS release because I have a copy I found in a remainder bin somewhere a long time ago, the cover of which is identical to the one I obtained, above, from this website (which also hosts a clip of the movie's opening, which foretells the calibre of THE FIX). I've decided to review it for old time's sake because this was the first movie I worked on as an extra after Dino DeLaurentis built the Screen Gems movie studio that's still operational today in my home town of Wilmington, N.C.

Also known as The Agitators (where or why, I don't know; you'd have to ask the folks at IMDB), THE FIX introduced me to the hurry-up-and-wait world of movie making, and opened my eyes to the reality that - even when you've worked on a movie set for an extended period of time - your efforts can wind up on the cutting room floor, which was what happened with me on THE FIX, thank goodness. It also happened to me when I later worked on the 1988 CBS mini-series WINDMILLS OF THE GODS, two years after I was fired from the set of NO MERCY for asking if I could leave early because I saw others doing the same (the director made me walk all the way to the front exit gate from the far back lot, but I was so disgusted by this point that I didn't care; it's a long story).

When the movie was being made in 1983, I was just about to start the 11th grade, and I was an avid Drama student; some buddies of mine heard that the movie needed some extras, and we all had stars in our eyes, so we showed up at Greenfield Lake, ready to do whatever was asked of us. Within reason, of course. Basically, there is very little I recall about the time we spent on set, but I do know I had my first bagel from the food service cart that day, which was described to me as "a Jewish doughnut" by my buddy, Chip Tayloe, who was always joking around. The bagel was stale, and dry, and it wasn't until I went off to college that I had my first 'real' bagel -- soft, hot, fresh, and loaded with cream cheese. It was delicious, and I've loved bagels ever since, but I digress.

The primary things I recall about my time on the shoot are the ridiculous way some of the stars behaved and treated us lowly extras, like we had some sort of contagious disease. Particularly snotty was one of the primary supporting cast, a blonde woman named Julie Hill, whose greatest claims to fame were bit parts on Chico and the Man, Barnaby Jones, and The Incredible Hulk. She showed up on location in a limo, and she was sporting a fur coat, and everyone could tell by the look on her face that she didn't want to be there, and she certainly didn't want to breathe the same air as the rest of us filthy swine. THE FIX was her last movie, by the way.

Who knew? I thought I was gonna be a star!

Other cast members on set that day included an unknown named Tony Dale, who thought our lunch break would provide him with a perfect opportunity to perform a song for us, and when he took out his guitar, he took off his shirt and said, "Look, I've got a hick tan," and all the extras boo'd him for using such an offensive term to describe us locals - me, included. He then sang "On Broadway," but changed the lyrics so they'd say, "In Wilmington," and it was really obnoxious. But not as obnoxious as some other things that unfolded before us that day.

Tony Dale, one of the primary cast members of THE FIX, also never made another movie, but continues to aspire to be a recording artist. His co-star was the blonde "replacement" Duke, Coy Duke, from the infamous 1982 TV season where the two leads of The Dukes of Hazzard refused to play their roles unless they got bigger paychecks: Byron Cherry. Like on the TV show, all he mostly did was smile real big and look air-headed. I don't remember anything else about him other than the fact that his character was named "Esty," and Tony Dale's character's last name was "Davis." Why do I remember this? Because the eccentric North Carolinian who funded this independent film and co-wrote the "screenplay" (I use the term loosely) was none other than a man named Esty Davis. How vain can one possibly be?

Other notables on the location shoot that day were Richard Jaeckel, whom I'd always admired for his solid film and television work (guess he was slumming that summer, or maybe the producers wanted some street cred for their movie), and Charles Dierkop, who was a notable cast member on the old 70's TV series, Police Woman. They did nothing that day that sullied their reputations with me and, for that, I am eternally grateful. Robert Tessier worked on the movie, too, but I don't remember ever seeing him; wish I had - I was always a fan. Vince Edwards was also in the movie, but I didn't get to see him, either.

One older man was there that day, and we were told he was the creator of The Dukes of Hazzard, but I never learned if this was true. He wore a cowboy hat, and was quite huge. He was amidst a group of extras who had been plied with as much beer as they could handle for their pay, and they got drunk pretty quick. I watched them film a sequence where this same older man was punched in the gut by a biker, and when it proved a fruitless effort, he picked the biker up and dragged him across a table covered with empty beer cans. How exciting.

My friends and I ended up sitting on a big blanket for most of the day, and we all got sunburn, but we had a clear view of most of the film-work being done. At one point we saw a production staff member talk a really stoned biker into swimming out to the middle of the nearby lake in a sequence where he was shown fleeing the man who dragged the other fellow across the table. We were all afraid the drunken swimmer would drown, but he made his way back to shore without incident (this was about 2 years after Natalie Wood drowned during the middle of production of BRAINSTORM, which was filmed in NC; Jim Henson would also later die in NC, as would Brandon Lee). That scene isn't in the VHS cut.

While we were on location, we were told the movie would be about cocaine-smuggling, and it would be a theatrical release; we were all asked for our names and addresses, and were told we'd eventually get to see a local screening for free. Time passed, and I eventually got a postcard telling me were to go see THE FIX, and I was very excited to look for myself and my friends on-screen. Sadly, we were never clearly on-screen, but I saw myself fleetingly in one sequence where my friends and I were perched atop the ferris wheel overlooking the lake and the entire production that had set up camp below us. I looked like a tiny pink globule of some sort. I'm to the left in the still, below, wearing a salmon-colored shirt; I zoomed in as best I could, but the movie's so grainy, it's difficult to make me out. I'm positioned at just above 9:45, in front of the red-shirted person.

Our entire shooting area was filmed from atop a crane; in my mind, it was a ferris wheel of some sort so, all these decades later, my fauly memory told me we'd shot this from a ferris wheel. I'm gettin' old, folks. I'm gettin' old. Memory's failing.

THE FIX is the story of a small band who inadvertently purchase a tour bus that's secretly being used to smuggle cocaine for bad guys who keep tabs on their comings and goings. Meanwhile, the bad guys are being covertly pursued by the Feds, and that's really all you need to know. The movie opens with a violent shooting after slack-jawed country folks come out of a dilapidated shack out in the boonies, scratching themselves and standing ignorantly in place while they're being shot in the face and stomach (like a bunch of dumb extras who only do precisely what the director told them to do).

The acting by the main villain of the movie chews scenery harder than Godzilla can stomp Tokyo, and the director uses carnival or circus music during one of the supposedly tense chase sequences. The director also speeds up the chase footage to make it seem more dramatic, but I still have difficulty equating drama with carnival or circus music.

When the movie was over, I was given a comment card, and I did not hold back my contempt. I was asked if I'd recommend the movie to friends, and I wrote NO! in bold letters; later, I wrote about my experience for my school paper, for which I was the monthly movie critic and cartoonist.

My older sister worked on this movie, too, and they didn't tell her that her scenes were set in a brothel, and she was supposed to be part of a stable of ladies of the night; I laughed myself silly in the theater whenever she showed up on-screen in a one-piece bathing suit, and I couldn't wait to tell her about it when she returned home for break from college. She's a pastor's wife now, and I still tease her about this movie. She's also positioned at 9:45 in the pic, below, but I think she was in another sequence, too:

Note that my sister is wearing a one-piece; she was probably the only modest Southern girl on the shoot that day!

Ironically, she can also be clearly seen in a ballroom scene in WINDMILLS OF THE GODS, and in the background of one scene in the early Schwarzenegger movie RAW DEAL, and in the Judd Nelson flick FROM THE HIP. Later, she'd do a bit part in the Dokken video, Burnin' Like a Flame:

That's not my sister's face on the TV screen; my sister was her body double in the video - you never see her pretty face.
She was - and is - far prettier than the woman in the final product.

I never heard word of an official theatrical release for THE FIX after I went to the free screening, and the only time I was ever seen on-screen in a 'real' movie was when I worked on the Stephen King movie FIRESTARTER, but my sister got paid for all her work as an extra (I brought her to set with me the second night I worked on FIRESTARTER with this girl I was trying to impress, which allowed my sister to get her foot in the door of the casting company). I went off to college after that, but not before the production company shooting BLUE VELVET called my mom and asked me if I was available for an audition. Sadly, I was in Georgia, and couldn't. I used to go with my mom to a nearby laundromat for a time after our washer and dryer broke down and home, and the weird woman who danced on top of the car was always there -- they filmed most of that David Lynch movie in Wilmington, and the girl I took to my Senior Prom was the extra who played Laura Dern's BFF in it, although I don't think she had a speaking part. Ah, those were the days...

Monster Mash Franchise Review: The ALIEN and PREDATOR films

2013-01-12T19:35:00.001-08:00

WARNING: There will be SPOILERS GALORE in this post so, if you've not seen all the movies in this series and you plan to at some point, I wouldn't read on any further.

In 1979, Sir Ridley Scott released ALIEN to an unsuspecting public, and I remember my older sister telling me she'd rushed to the restroom to throw up after its infamous chest-burster scene; I wasn't old enough to see an R-rated movie then, because I was about 13 years old. I actually didn't get to see the movie for another year and, because this was well before we had a VCR, I watched it on a barely de-scrambled movie channel that was full of static and had wavy lines all over the screen half the time (which made it even more exciting, for some reason). Regardless, it blew my mind because I was a Sci Fi junkie, and it captured my imagination, but I didn't care for a lot of the merchandising that seemed to be geared at little kids. Click here and here to see what I'm referring to.

ALIEN was clearly conceived of by people who grew up in the 50's and 60's; there's a strong sub-plot about how "the Man" can't be trusted, and the common laborer is expendable, and when you compare this to some of the early work of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, you can see this was a drumbeat they loved to play repeatedly. Lucas's THX-1138 and STAR WARS both are set in realities where common people are subject to an unsympathetic governmental system, and Steven Spielberg's earliest films often feature representatives of the government who are fostering conspiracies to keep the common person in the dark about their covert activities: think the powers that be in JAWS who refuse to shut down the beach so they can keep the cash flow coming from the tourists, the military who lie to the public about a gas leak so they can communicate with aliens in secrecy in CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND, the government reps who hide the Ark of the Covenant in RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, and the shady government men who sport heavy artillery and spy on Elliot's family from a van parked outside their home in E.T. the EXTRA TERRESTRIAL.

Break it down to its bare bones, and ALIEN is a Science Fiction story clearly inspired by the Gothic Fantasy Fiction of the pulp writer H.P. Lovecraft, who penned cosmic tales about sleeping beings in space waiting to return to reclaim the earth and drive out the human race who once banned them to an outer plane. It deals with what's essentially a space rig hauling a load back to earth, and its laborer class crew who are under contract to merely load and unload their cargo. On the way home, however, their ship receives a distress signal from a mysterious planet, and per their governmental contract, the crew is awakened from their hyper-sleep in order to investigate.

The crew discover a chamber once they land on the surface of the world from which the transmission originated, and one of them is attacked by what is now commonly referred to an a "Face-Hugger," which plants an embryonic life form within the man's chest that eventually breaks free, killing him in the process. The creature that escapes from within the confines of the man's body scuffles off into hiding aboard the ship and begins to grow at a wildly accelerated pace, finally transforming into the familiar acid-blooded Xenomorph beast that harbors a set of razor-sharp teeth that can rapidly snap out and decimate anything in their way. Bent on destroying the crew, it takes them out one by one while the survivors try their best to figure out what's happening. It quickly becomes clear that the crew are expendable, and the government wanted to acquire the Xenomorph so they can utilize it as a weapon of some sort.

ALIEN is a great film. It's a work of art, really, and I'm extremely fond of it, but I vastly prefer the 1986 James Cameron sequel, ALIENS, which I reviewed previously. I would like to point out, however, that ALIENS also had a sub-plot about the government being untrustworthy, and that Cameron has continued to allow this concept to creep into most of his films, including AVATAR, but that's a discussion for another day.

A year after ALIENS was released, the Arnold Schwarzenegger film PREDATOR came out, and was an unexpected smash; it dealt with a mysterious new alien race of hunters that utilize technology that allows them to blend into any environment and camouflage themselves from their enemies. Although the ALIEN films and PREDATOR were both Twentieth Century Fox releases, there was no association between the two properties at this point in time. I've always enjoyed the first PREDATOR film, largely because of its fascinating cast, which included Carl Weathers, who is best known as Apollo Creed in Sylvester Stallone's first four ROCKY films.

1990 saw the release of PREDATOR 2, the first sequel to PREDATOR, but it almost entirely disregarded Arnold Schwarzeneggar's character, and was set in New York City, not in a jungle setting. Danny Glover was featured as a police detective who ultimately discovers the existence of the alien predators who are hunting prey on his turf.

The film is vastly inferior to the original, and its only claim to fame is a singular shot aboard the Predator spacecraft where a Xenomorph skull is seen hanging alongside other trophies from outer space.

This shot got wheels turning in the minds of many and, along with the Dark Horse Comics stories that engaged the Xenomorphs and the Predators in violent warfare on earth, it was inevitable that the two series would converge.

In 1992, the third ALIEN film was announced with much fanfare, and I can recall waiting anxiously to see what would happen. I went to see it on opening day with extremely high expectations.

Unfortunately, ALIEN 3 did everything in exactly the opposite way I hoped it would and, instead of being action-packed, it was leisurely paced, and instead of continuing the relationships Ripley - the lone survivor of the Nostromo cargo ship in the first film - cultivated in the second film, it killed her closest allies off before the opening credits rolled! For me, this was especially disrespectful to the subplot in ALIENS revolving around the young girl named Newt, who served as Ripley's primary motivation to survive in that film. Set on a prison planet housing only men, ALIEN 3 is the first film in the franchise to boast hybrid creatures, and it ends with a shaved-headed Ripley killing herself, so the whole movie's a bummer as far as I'm concerned. I've given the supposedly better Director's Cut a few tries, but I just hate it because of the way it stomps all over ALIENS as if it meant nothing in the grand scheme of things. Another movie sequel I wish had never been filmed.

In 1997, ALIEN RESURRECTION hit the big screen, and it dealt heavily with the concept of Xenomorph hybrids, and even featured a hybrid clone of Ripley as its protagonist! Better yet, there's an awesome sequence involving water-breathing Xenomorphs who chase Ripley 2.0 and her new companions but, ultimately, the movie never really breaks new ground. The lone exception may be when it introduces Ripley's weird alien offspring, who sneaks aboard her craft when she heads to earth, and she's forced to figure out a way to destroy it. In the end, there's no clear resolution to the over-arching storyline, and no sequels related to this film were ever produced. I did like the sympathetic android played by Winona Ryder, however, but wonder if I'm alone in finding Ron Perlman's roguish anti-hero character singularly boring and repetitive as he seems to have played the same basic guy over and over in several films. I previously reviewed this here.

Seven years after ALIEN RESURRECTION bombed, the very first ALIEN vs. PREDATOR film was released. It was also the first and last film to feature either the Xenomorphs or the Predators in a PG-13 film, and had Lance Henrickson in a small role as the template for his andriod character in ALIENS, Bishop. Frankly, I hated it, found it to be entirely predictable from start to finish, and thought it was more comic-book-like than even remotely close to what preceded it on film. It seemed to be nothing more than an excuse to make money off a Monster Mash fight-to-the-finish but, once again, there was no clear resolution, which left things open for a sequel.

Three years after AvP was released, its first and last sequel ALIEN vs. PREDATOR: REQUIEM was released, and it earned a hard "R" rating for its violence and gore. It featured the death of a young child early in the movie, and showcased more hybrid creatures, but it was about as lame as what came before it as far as I'm concerned. If anything, it reminded me of the old Universal Horror movies that would pit their classic monsters against one another, but never really added to the earlier mythology of their respective films.

Unless you count PROMETHEUS as a sequel, or prequel, or what have you, as part of this entire franchise (I would probably say it's a prequel to ALIEN that ventures into new territory while revisiting some old material), the final film in this confusing lineage is the Robert Rodriguez effort from 2010, PREDATORS, which stars Adrian Brody. It's okay, and it's a lot more akin to the original PREDATOR film, but I'd be lying if I said it brought anything new to the table that was substantial; it isn't required viewing but, then again, neither are the vast majority of the sequels to the first two ALIEN films and the first PREDATOR film. I don't think the public was salivating at the prospect that any of the movies after PREDATOR needed to be made.