PG

Prom Night

Brendan Morrisey — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 08:13:16 +0000

Have you ever gone out of your way to watch a shitty movie, knowing its going to be bad and your sole purpose for watching it was just so you can complain about how bad it really was? My curiosity got the best of me once again, this time with the Disney channel's latest attempt at taking on the slasher genre. Prom Night. The movie is so bad that the band playing during the opening credits can't even get the lyrics right to a certain classic song by The Zombies (Time FOR the Season OF Loving?). Maybe it was to get away without having to pay for the copyright.

The movie stars Brittany Snow (the lost Olsen Triplet) who's claim to fame was that TV series American Dreams which I can barley remember, and of course another unforgetable smash hit called John Tucker Must Die. Now the beginning of the movie sounds pretty fucking cool when you try and describe it to someone but its not. A young high school girl arrives home from her friend's house to find her parents and little brother murdered by her creepy teacher (what kind of fucking school would hire a guy that looks like the unabomber?) who's been stalking and obsessing over her. He doesn't want to fuck her and rape her though. God forbid, this is a PG-13 film we're talking about. He just wants to take care of her the same way Bob Saget and Uncle Joey used to when he originally watched her on Full House. Creepy guy gets arrested, flash-forward to senior year, Brittnay's going to her prom, and now the not so scary looking killer who's face has already been revealed is out to get her again. The cop who was originally on the case finds out about it, hunts the fucker down and doesn't catch him until after a body count of about 5 takes place. The bad guy jumps out of the bed room closest, thinks he has his girl, but then the good guy shoots the bad guy and THE END. Que the Fallout Boy Music.

Now the director of this movie was originally a TV director for shows like CSI, and you can tell by the way this movie is shot because it looks exactly like a contemporary TV thriller. Even the scenes of violence feel like they were shot for TV, I mean C'mon! Prom is a perfect setting for a slasher film because all the annoying kids that horror movie geeks used to despise back in high school are all together in one single place. The possibilities are endless. You could stab a girl's eyes out with a tiara, hang bodies from a chandalier, decapitate someone with the roof window of the limo just to name a few. This killer stabs a few people he follows around on the upstairs part of the hotel. The dead bodies you could confuse for someone taking a nap after having spilled a little ketchup on their necks. Yes, the blood at times looks like ketchup.

To
the people who are responsible for this mess, please think of this is a learning experience. You can't make a slasher film without sex and gore. The death scenes need to be creative. The killer needs to be interesting and unique. Don't try and scare the audience and then tell them it was only a dream sequence. The movie shouldn't have a PG-13 rating. If you want a prom movie that'll appeal to the high school crowd then make another High School Musical, and leave the knife wielding serial killers out of it unless we're going to see some fucking brains splatter on camera. And don't release an Unrated version of the movie on DVD if there is only a SINGLE MINUTE worth of difference between that and the theatrical version. Bad dialogue is okay in a slasher film though, that is unless it was written by someone who works at ABC family.

God, even girls I've met with cruddy taste in movies who were excited for this walked out dissapointed.

Someone needs to take back the slasher genre and fast!

D-

Requiem for a Heavyweight

Turzman — Fri, 02 May 2008 20:41:46 +0000

Sharks have Jaws, the mafia has The Godfather, Satan has The Excorcist and boxing has Raging Bull. It seems every film genre and sub-genre has it's crown jewel and the standard is usually a tremendous drop in all-around quality when discussing a "runner up." We're talking serious fallout of nuclear proportions. It's a rare occasion when a particular genre can have a second film even mentioned in the same breath as a classic, and the boxing genre, I believe, is exceptionally special because it offers two films. As evidence I suggest one either re-watch Rocky, or sample today's morsel, 1962's Requiem for a Heavyweight. It has a powerful performance from Anthony Quinn as the titular pugilist, it has a supporting cast that boasts the legends Jackie Gleason and Mickey Rooney and it has a brilliant screenplay from Rod Serling that elevates it (dare I say it?) past Rocky and makes a very serious run at Raging Bull as the greatest boxing movie of all time.

The film opens with Quinn's Louis "Mountain" Rivera, a punchy, seventeen year veteran of the squared circle in a heavyweight title fight against Cassius Clay, cameoed by Ali himself. In round seven, Rivera goes down for the count having sustained horrible damage to one of his eyes. So much in fact, that the ring doctor suggests Rivera retires because just a few more shots to the head could lead to blindness.

http://i149.photobucket.com/albums/s69/santino037/requiem_for_a_heavyweight01.jpg

The problem with retirement is, at age 35, Rivera has no other skills to make a living on. Also, his manager, Maish Rennick (Gleason) and trainer, Army (Rooney) have no other ponies in their stable. It's Rivera or nothing for Maish and Army, and for Rivera, it's the ring or nothing, until he meets Grace Miller (Julie Harris), a kind-hearted civil servant in the employment agency Rivera registers with. Grace thinks Mountain would be perfect as a counselor at a camp for troubled boys, while Maish is scrambling to get him into professional wrestling.

These two subplots are not only riveting as they stand alone, but they intertwine late in the third act most effectively, completing the totality of Requiem as a story, and is a wonderful testament to Serling the writer. Grace enters Mountain's world to better understand him, realizing he would be perfect as the counselor, and pulls every string she has to set him up with an interview. There is something very pleasing about watching the infancy of potential romance between the two bubble up. Meanwhile, Maish is in debt to the local hoods, laying promise upon promise that he is, in no way, capable of keeping. He sees pro wrestling as the only alternative, and in his defense he sincerely has the best interests of himself as well as Mountain and Army in mind. That is until he hears about the potential camp counselor thing, and this is where Maish goes from fairly likeable to moderate scumbag as he implements sabotage.

http://i149.photobucket.com/albums/s69/santino037/RequiemHeavyweight01.jpg

Mountain is too naive, childlike when it comes to nearly everything, as is evidenced in his social awkwardness with Grace, and his blind trust in Maish and Army, having been taken care of by them for his entire, seventeen year career. It's far too easy for Maish to get Mountain drunk (under the guise of celebration) and make him late for his interview, where the drunken Mountain makes a fool of himself, ruining any chance of being a counselor or hooking up with Grace. All the while, Army is torn between is loyalty to Maish, and what he knows is best for Mountain.

Quinn shines as Mountain Rivera, creating a character different than Robert DeNiro's Jake La Motta (as he was a wife-beating asshole) but it's also a character more sympathetic and loveable than Rocky Balboa, which is a feat in and of itself, despite preceding Rocky by about a decade. Put Requiem for a Heavyweight at the top of your "things to do" list immediately. You have the Turz guarantee that it will be wonderful.

Krull

BigSugar — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 00:45:21 +0000

Remember New Coke? How about Crystal Pepsi? Well, this flick is kinda like those bad corporate ideas.

Here's
the deal; a rather pissed-off bitch of an alien called The Beast is
tooling around the stars looking for planets to "enslave" when he runs
across a system called Krull. Swords vs. laser adventure ensues.

Now, before I get started, read this part carefully:

I AM NOT RECOMMENDING THIS MOVIE!!

I
like this movie a lot, but I also like big-tittie porn and Adrian Belew
records. Let's start there. The opening shots of The
Beast's rock (with engines) floats past the camera like early animatics
for an Imperial Cruiser. Basicaly saying to the audience
"Yes! We're ripping off Star Wars! " And just to
drive the point home, James Horner's score comes on like a drunken frat
brat. I swear, the first five minutes of this movie come
dangerously close to date-rape (don't ask me how I know that one
either). The giant rock then lands on a lush, green planet that
we will come to discover is Krull.

Here's where it get's a little
sticky. The Beast's henchmen, called Slayers, exit the rock to
take over the planet. On horseback. Yeah, horseback.
So, this fucker's riding hither and yon on an intergalactic mission
from hell and he gives his boys fucking horses. And laser spears
that fire once, and then have to be turned around and used as
swords. Darth fucking Vader, he ain't. (As a side note: the
movie goes out it's way to explain how The Beast is going to enslave
the planet, but doesn't ever address to what end he needs a planetful
of slaves. I mean, at least Storm Troopers were building some
shit, right?)

Turns out Krull is inhabited by the super-hot
Lysette Anthony and disturbingly gay-looking Ken Marshall (he's in
Spandex for the whole movie). Their marriage will unite the
people of Krull and repell The Beast! Not so much. In the
middle of the ceremony, The Slayers crash the party and nab Lysette
'cause apparently The beast has a mean hard-on for her and no way to
self-flagelate (hey, I'd be pissed off too). The Slayers take
this fine peice of ass back to the rock where The Beast sits on her for
a few days, all the while begging her to come off some ass. Ken
is, in the meantime, whipping up a posse and going on the hunt for this
motherfucker so's he can get freaky before The Beat goes all long-dong
and Lysette decides not to go back. Got all that?

This was
another of those HBO staples that I never missed, and I'll tell you
why: the Glaive. The Glaive is this movie's Old Painless.
The only difference being that Ken has to pull it out of a river of
lava. For those of you who've never seen this flick, The Glaive
is basically a ninja throwing star on massive fucking steroids.
It's got blades that Fred Kreuger would be proud of and the ability to
fly at the will of its master. Yeah, baby, I wanted one badly.

There are some cats over at IMDB that seem to feel as though this movie has no debt to Star Wars,
and they're fucking wrong. Shall we count the ways? How
about Freddie Jones as the mystical old man from the mountains?
Obi Wan. Ken Marshall's a pussy who becomes manly.
Luke. Lysette Anthony is a fucking princess for Christ's sake.

Now,
if you can get past all of that and take the movie for what it is, it's
a cool flick. I love the scene where Liam Neeson and company are
pressganged into service. We get what is perhaps the best description
of fame I've ever heard. I love the Cyclops' sub-plot and the
whole fire-mares thing is cool as shit. Essentially, this movie
boils down to this; they ripped off Star Wars, no doubt about
it. But, if you're gonna rip something off, don't you want to rip
off the best? I mean, they could've tried to go after Howard the Duck, right? So, give it a shot, but don't say I didn't warn you.

'Nuff Sugar

Sharkwater

Turzman — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 18:13:06 +0000

The barbaric practices of the shark-finning industry are criticised in this award-winning film that combines hidden-camera footage of the atrocious treatment of sharks with glorious underwater footage of the predators from first time documentarian Rob Stewart.

Biologically speaking, there's nothing new here. The intro offers a rudimentary desciption of sharks not uncommon with your basic Discovery channel doc, but the focus is on the degredation of shark populations and its effect on aquatic eco-systems. Specifically, shark fishing is targeted here, and Stewart teams up with a Greenpeace-like organization that motors around the world's oceans, making life difficult for fishermen with lees than moral scruples.

The term, "in-depth" isn't quite correct here, because only the surface of the fin industry is scratched. Strewart was able to sneak a camera into a Costa Rican shark fin "holding area," and there is ample footage of the act itself out on the water. But how, exactly the fins get from waterfront warehouses to restaurants around the world is still unknown, despite being illegal in 16 countries.

But there is brutality aplenty, as we see the bodies of finless, tail-less sharks being dumped back into the ocean, still alive, to die probably of suffocation before they are picked apart by every little nibbler in the sea. Stuff like this, simply put, defines "cruelty."

But this yin certainly has a yang, for Sharkwater isn't just a bloody orgy of shark-fucking. No, there is some majestic underwater footage of sharks doing what they do best, showing that Stewart has a very keen eye when looking through a viewfinder. Coupled with the fact that it is underwater, free swimming with sharks, even the most established of DP's must appreciate the fruits of this labor.

This is a film that can be appreciated even if you're not a shark freak like me. Anyone who can appreciate a good doc will love this film. ANd it wouldn't hurt a non-shark freak to get a little education about the ocean's top predator. When seals hunt for fish, they are just as predatory and implement similar tactics as sharks, yet they are protected. Herman Mellville depicted the sperm whale as a monster, but with a little observation and understanding, it became clear that whales are hardly dangerous (to humans) so they are protected. What Sharkwater suggests is the same thing for sharks. A little bit of observation, education and undestanding may lead humans to believe that "just because they're scary" is not reason enough to slaughter sharks to the brink of extinction.

Something Wicked This Way Comes

BigSugar — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 05:12:19 +0000

It's PG, it's Disney, and it scared the living shit outta me.

Here's
the deal; way back, in Heartland America, a carnival comes to town and
all is not fucking well. Wish-fulfillment horror ensues.

Now,
most of you probably don't know from carnivals because you live in
civilized parts of the world. I don't. And once or twice a
year, usually in the Fall, the fucking carnival would come to town, and
we'd all take our lives into our own young little hands. You'd
get on the Tilt-A-Whirl and see loose bolts and shit, not to mention
that the ride is being run by a guy who makes the kid in Deliverance
look like a fucking Rhodes Scholar. And, Sweet Jesus, he was the
most reputable looking one in the whole buch! Anyway, I
digress.

This was one of those flicks that was forever on
HBO when I was a kid, and I almost never missed it, but for the fact
that I had to sleep sometime and go to school occasionally. As
such, I must've watched this fucking thing about ten thousand times and
it scared me more with each viewing. Now, before you ask, no,
there's almost no blood and certainly no tits in this thing, but I'm
telling you, this is one of those movies that just gets right the fuck
under your skin and writhes around while you watch it, competely
helpless to do anything about it.

It's based on the Ray Bradbury
novel of the same name, and while this flick has almost no relation to
the book (aside from the central conciets), Brabury wrote a script that
must've been bulletproof. The stories of how Disney fucked with
this flick after a couple of disasterous screenings would make you burn
your copy of The Lion King in protest. And yet, the core
of the thematic shit from the book remained well in tact. Which
was probably what pissed the Disney execs off in the first place.

Without giving too much of the plot away, the carnival is run by
Jonathan Pryce (which in and of itself is a fucking scary proposition),
and he'll grant your most sincere wish, and then take you to the
fucking cleaners for payment. The old spinster broad that wants
to be a young hottie, holy living fuck, man, she gets Rogered but
good. Two young boys get hot on the trail of what's really going
down under the tents, and thus get sucked into a cat-and-mouse game
with Jonny and his main Freaks.

Now, what you have to understand is this; I got blinded early and bad by Raiders of the Lost Ark,
and have had stars in my eyes ever since. With that in mind, it's
pretty easy to understand how this movie would freak me out. The
thing plays out kind of like a fable and sometimes those Goddamned
fables will fuck with your head. This one fucked with mine, and how, baby.

Technically, the movie leaves a lot to be desired. The F/X are older than hell now, so it's kind of like watching Tron on DVD; lots of nostalgia, not much pow, you know. What the flick has
got is two fucking rock star performances. One from Jason Robards
as the father filled to the Dr. Phil brim with regret, and Jonathan
Pryce as one of the more fucked-up villains ever put on film.
There's something about the primal desperation and hunger that he plays
in every scene that just shocks the balls right off you. If
that's not enough to pique your interst, there's a scene with Pam Grier
stroking a tarantula like it's John Holmes' cock. Must be seen to
be believed.

Get and love it.

Save yourselves.

'Nuff Sugar

Jaws: The Revenge

Turzman — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 00:16:34 +0000

The rumors are true. Jaws: The Revenge is one of the worst movies ever shown to audiences. But for all the bad that has been said about JTR (and boy-o-boy, has there been a lot of bad!), there is some merit to be found, even in a piece of garbage like this.

Don't get too excited, there's no silver lining in this dark cloud nor is there gold at the end of this rainbow. Hell, this box of Cracker Jacks doesn't even have a nifty little toy waiting for you. But if nothing else, JTR is a very educational film, in a certain context. Here's what one can learn after viewing the fourth (and so far, final) Jaws installment:

Want to know why Lorraine Gary was never a leading lady? Watch Jaws 4. Want to know why Joseph Sargent has only directed lousy television since the late 80's? Watch Jaws 4. Want to know why Lance Guest fell off the face of the Earth? Watch Jaws 4. Want to know how low Michael Caine will stoop for a paycheck? Watch Jaws 4. Want to know the wrong way to act Jamaican? Watch Mario Van Peebles in Jaws 4. Want to know exactly how a Great White shark does not behave? Watch Jaws 4. Oh yeah, I can go on, but I'm here to write a review...

The film's titles are accompanied by a POV shot of the titular beastie swimming the waters off Amity Island and a variation of John Williams' magnificent score from the original Jaws, and we'll come to find that this is the first of many lame-duck and embarrasing attempts to remind the viewer that we are, in fact, watching a Jaws sequel via what the producers want us to believe are homages (more on this later). As the music crecendos, and the tension (ha!) builds, we cut abruptly to... a fish in a frying pan. Um, scary, right? But wait- who's frying the fish? Why, it's ELLEN BRODY! Being played by- LORRAINE GARY! The same actress who played her in the first two films! YAY, fly the banners and blow the trumpets! Wait. Where's the fanfare? Oh yeah, it's only Lorraine Gary, who hadn't worked since 1979's Speilberg sleeper, 1941, and had since been retired and married to Sid Sheinberg, then president of Universal Pictures. (Hmmm, the game is afoot, Watson). Oh well, we're supposed to think it's a big deal, so take it as you seem fit.

Mama Brody's talking to her youngest, Sean (played by a different actor again, this time it's Mitchell Anderson. Who? Nevermind.) and Sean is following Dad's footsteps, as he's a deputy in the Amity PD, which means it's him and one other cop, if JTR follows the same formula as Jaws I & II. So dedicated is deputy Sean, that he's going to the office to check in before he joins mom and girlfriend for a little Christmas Eve celebration. Going to the office? Has the AMity PD discontinued the use of walkie-talkies? Geez, they really do count on summer dollars for survival in this town! So Sean goes to the cop station and the first two things we see really piss me off...

First, there's a picture of (homage alert) Roy Scheider in his Amity PD uniform, a publicity still from the original Jaws hovering over the desk of a secretary named (homage alert) Polly, which was the name of the secretary from the original. Remember the line, "Let Polly do the printing!"? Well to us JawsFreaks, Polly's a legend for her penmanship alone. Is it the same actress? Can't be. Polly was older than dirt in 1975, and if she hadn't retired by 1987, then the Amity PD must implement a slave labor program not unlike the Pharohs of Egypt. Poor, poor Polly. And the picture of Martin Brody? C'mon, I love Scheider as much as any heterosexual male, but anybody with even a selective memory knows what he meant to this franchise, and we don't need reminders. There are even some of us who know that Scheider turned down a god-awful amount of money for a cameo in part 4, just to get chomped instead of Sean (oops, spoiler). All praise to Allah that he didn't do it.

Anyway, Sean can't go home yet because theres a piece of driftwood in the channel that will cause all sorts of chaos for the fishermen (?) and he has to move it. What? Forget it, it's a plot device to get Sean on the water. And why can't the other cop do it? Because he's busy investigating reports of cow tipping!?!? (Cows? In New England? On an island? I don't think so.) Jesus, Sean. Just get in the boat and let's get this over with...

He gets et up. There's this log, see? It's stuck next to a buoy, and this will bother the fishermen, how, exactly? Oh please. As Sean works this log, a thirty foot Great White sneaks up behind him and bites off his arm, along with a big chunk of boat. Lousy editing, fast cuts, quick glimpses of teeth; real lazy. Sean falls in water, clings to log and buoy. (Homage alert) This scene is oddly similar to Chrissie Watkins' death at the beginning of the original. So let's think about this...

In order to lure Sean into the water, the shark (who somehow found out Sean was a cop, and on-duty tonight(!)) placed the log in the channel, next to the buoy, disrupting fishermen AND going onland to tip some cows to make sure the other cop would be too busy to do it himself! How do we know this? Well, close analysis of the log shows what are clearly teeth marks! So this shark is clever, conniving, and out to get the Brody clan. Remember, this time, it's personal.

So this film is five minutes old and we've already had shameless plugs of the original film and countless plot flaws. Do you hate this movie yet?

Cut to Sean's funeral, and guess who flew in for the festivities? The older Brody sibling, Michael, played this time by Lance Guest (four years removed from the magnificent, The Last Starfighter! What the hell happened?) Michael's married to an arc welding artist (I swear to God, I can't make this up!) and has a daughter. One of the few bright spots in this film is Thea Brody, played by Judith Barsi, who tradgically, was murdered by her father shortly after this film.The kid's not annoying, and the viewer does not form an instant despise for her, unlike little kids in most other movies. Irony can be pretty ironic, I guess.

Anyway, Michael's become a marine biologist, studying giant snails in the Bahamas. Wow, fun stuff. You know, you'd think that after the events in Jaws III, both the Brody kids would have sense enough to stay the hell away from the water. But yet, one's a cop on an island, and the other gets paid to swim in the ocean. Sweet Jesus, I hate this movie. And we come to find that Michael, despite working on his doctorate (studying snails, woo-hoo!) is a complete idiot. His grand plan to console his mom, and get her mind off sharks is to invite her down to the Bahamas(!) Yeah, go from one island to another, to forget about sharks. Brilliant, you shithead.

And besides, wouldn't a third-story high-rise in lower Manhatten be sufficient protection from the average shark? Even if it was a real ambitious shark, like the one in this film. Oh well, I shouldn't digress too much, because this movie gets worse. For example, Ellen is convinced it was the shark that killed her husband, too. But Mom, Dad died of a heart attack. "No he didn't. He died of FEAR!" She exclaims. Now hold on, sister. Martin Brody saved this podunk town, not once, but twice from giant, man-eating sharks, so let's try and give him a little credit. Died of fear? puh-leeeze!

So they fly to the Bahamas. And the shark swims to the Bahamas. And we meet Hoagie (Michael Caine) and it's obvious in his scenes that the other participants were in awe in the prescence of a real actor. There's nothing special about the character, except that it's played by Michael Caine, and provides a love interest for the emotionally distraught Ellen. Her son's dead body isn't even cold yet, and she's gonna play patty-fingers with the local flyboy. Eww, gross.

Then we meet Jake, aka- Mario Van Peebles with a ridiculously fake Jamaican accent. Get ready to hate Jake because he's as annoying as fecal matter shoved up your nose. He's also pissed because they lost one whole day's worth of research because Mike had to leave town. Yeah, for his brother's funeral, you scumbag! Besides, the average sea-snail (or conch) travels an impressive four inches a day. How much ground-breaking data could possibly have been lost!? And by the way, who's paying for this snail research, anyway? Obviously someone with waaaay too much money. Sea snails? Booooriiiiing!

So Jake and Michael are fiddling with snails, and the shark shows up to spoil their plans. And it's obvious that the shark has more interest in Michael than Jake, adding credence to the whole "this time it's personal" plot point. But brilliant Michael has another great idea how to handle the whole "shark thing," he decides to keep it a secret!?!?

Hold on now. There's this family with a violent history involving killer sharks. His one brother just got et, and the mom is convinced that fear of the shark killed the dad. So when another giant shark shows up and picks on the other brother, he decides to sit on that information? Not even telling the authorities? A decision which, by the way, directly leads to the deaths of people later in the film! Never mind the criminal negligience, but this is the act of a really big jerk! Keeping his family out of the loop? Disgraceful.

Also, Mike has a problem with his mom looking for a little nookie from Hoagie. This further adds to Michael's jerkiness, not even allowing his mother a little crisis counseling, even if it is the High-hard one from Michael Caine. But hey, live and let live and stay out of the water.

Okay enough of this. Flash forward to the end game, which is about as dopey as a movie ending can be. Eventually, everyone ends up on a boat, Jake has rigged some electro-thinga-majigger to shock the shark and Ellen's driving the boat. (Homage alert) as the boat and shark approach like jousting knights, Ellen has flashbacks to when Martin killed the first shark. I'll say that again; Ellen has flashbacks, remembering events she did not witness (!) but at this point, who cares, really?

The shark gets shocked, jumps out of the water, roars(!), and gets stabbed by the pointy thing on the front of the boat. Good driving, Ellen! Oh yeah, then the shark explodes(!!). Roll credits, movie over, mercifully.

If this critique sparks any interest from the other critters, I will give my final thoughts in future posts. And there are things to say in summary that are mildly important. But for now, I got a frigging headache.

Dark Star

Turzman — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 19:19:05 +0000

My respect for John Carpenter as a director, and Dan O'Bannon as a screenwriter was elevated to new heights after viewing 1974's Dark Star. It's not that this unfunny attempt at a 2001: A Space Odyssey parody is any good, but I came to the realization that the most acclaimed of film makers, no matter how impressive their body of work may be, at one point in their careers they are human enough to go through growing pains.

The 5 intrepid astronauts aboard the scout ship "Dark Star" are on the senseless mission of trekking across the galaxy destroying "unstable planets" (?). The "whys" are not explained to the audience, but apparantly Earthlings have a problem with planets breaking their orbits and crashing into their respective suns, causing supernovas millions of light years away from Earth (!) So much in fact, that these men have been in space doing this for twenty years, although according to the dialogue, they have only aged three years (!). What? Well...

What campy sci-fi would be complete without the obligatory computer malfunctions? Don't worry, Dark Star has oodles of them, the only differnece is, none of the crew members show any cause for concern that planet-destroying bombs have nearly exploded (!), or that a "communication laser" (?) has been damaged throughout the film's running time. The chaos and lack of standard operating procedures can be understood though, for the crew of five is has actually been reduced to a crew of four before the movie even starts. Apparantly, the Commander was killed due to a radiation leak some time ago (another one of those pesky "malfunctions").

Why don't they call for help, or fly home to dry dock and get some repairs? Those are good questions, and they are answered before you get the chance to ask, in the film's prologue; a message from Earth's antarctic communications base saying they were happy to receive the message, and were "real sad" to hear of the Commander's death, but since it takes ten years for a message to go one way (!) there's no way they can send help. So good luck, and carry on, as it were.

So let's recap. They've been in space for twenty years and in that time, the commander has been killed, there have been exactly two messages sent, and this ship is falling apart while hauling god-awful amounts of explosives (enough to blow up multiple planets. You do the math, because apparantly neither Carpenter nor O'Bannon bothered to).

Um, if I were in charge, I think I would turn this bird around and go home, cutting whatever losses I've had to a minimun. But it's not my call. We all must defer to Lieutenant Doolittle (Brian Narelle), who is just concerned with blowing up planets. Doolittle doesn't care about the inconsequential computer malfunctions, until too much proverbial poo-poo hits the fan, and he finds himself overwhelmed. What does he do? He opens the freezer and tries to get advice from the long-dead and frozen corpse of the old commander (!) Oddly, the dead man answers (!) in Jesus-like riddles, not being much help, but hey, considering the man was dead to begin with, we get a whole lot more than we should have expected. What? Well...

Let's fast forward now. Due to yet another computer malfunction, Bomb #20 is unable to launch and blow up it's target planet because, well, it just won't launch. But Bomb #20 is still going to explode, because, well, that's what Bomb #20 is supposed to do. You see, Bomb #20 is this wise-cracking, super smart computer that controls the actual bomb, and it's sick and tired of constantly being called on to blow up, and then aborting because of some computer malfunction. Don't bother trying to re-read that last part, let's just say that Bomb #20 is Dark Star's HAL, and he's gonna blow the ship to pieces. Otherwise, there would be no drama, right?

Fast forward a little more. For some reason, Doolittle goes outside the ship to try and talk Bomb #20 out of blowing up the ship (!). Somehow, another crewmember gets blown out into space and Doolittle goes off to rescue him. This is when Bomb #20 decides to say, "f*ck it" and blows Dark Star to bits along with crewmen Boiler (Cal Kuniholm) and Pinback (co-scribe Dan O'Bannon himself!). So Doolittle and Talby (Dre Pahich) are floating around space, wondering what to do. What happens next is... well I don't know.

My rental disc, courtesy of Netflix was damaged and stopped right here. So let's just say that they float around until they die. Roll credits.

Dark Star is listed as "classic sci-fi comedy" but it's not funny. Not at all. I cannot recommend this film for any reason, including fun, campy goodness. There's none of that, and there's not much of a plot, or likeable characters, or clever, witty computers.

Well, there is an alien, a plastic ball with feet that the crew brought onboard as a mascot, but they kill it (?) because it turns out it was just a pest(!).

What? Well...

Hai-Alarm auf Mallorca

Turzman — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 16:06:50 +0000

How does one say, "Warning: spoilers" in German? Never mind...

It always baffled me; the gall that movie producers have sometimes. Specifically, those that produced Shark Movies after Jaws never gave co-writing credit to Peter Benchley or Carl Gottlieb. What baffles me further is how this trend of plagiarism continues to this day.

In the fifteen or so years since Steve Alten penned the magnificent Meg: A Novel of Deep Terror, Hollywood took it upon themselves to "super-size" the shark genre the same way I do my french fries and gave us the likes of Shark Hunter, Shark Attack III: Megalodon, and the lazily titled, Megalodon. All of which were not so much homages as they were blatant ripoffs of Alten's Meg, and yet he received no credit, save for the insulting "Special thanks" occasionally. Oh, Hollywood, how much I loath thee.

Not to be outdone by Hollywood's scum, German Television Executives wanted to take a bite of their own out of the shark genre and clone one that they could call their own; much in the same fashion that the Italians did with Romero-Zombies and the shark genre itself. (See Tintorera: The Tiger Shark or Le Ultimo Squalo if you don't believe me.)

So, in 2004, German beefcake Ralf Moeller was paired with wunderbar hottie Julia Stinshoff and audiences of Deutche TV regailed over Hai-Alarm auf Mallorca,

or, as American DVD audiences came to know it as of July 10, 2007, Shark Attack in the Mediterranean.

Now, it is entirely possible that I am the only person on an English speaking continent that has seen this film, so I take it as the highest responsibility to write this review. There are two things that separate this motion picture from the aforementioned others; first, it has the unique distinction of being the only movie in my memory to blatantly ripoff both Meg and Jaws in the exact same scene, (more on that later) and second, it can be watched in its entirety without a single wave of nausea overcoming the viewer. That's right; this movie isn't really that bad.

"I pulled a tooth, the size of a beer stein out of the wrecked hull of a boat out there..."

Not as witty as Shark Hunter, yet not as goofy as Shark Attack III and not as visually deficient as Megalodon, Mallorca, when you get passed the wafer-thin characters and sub-par acting (which may be Brando-esque for German TV for all I know), has a slightly plausible plot right in the middle of an absolutely exquisite locale (shot on location on Spanish Mallorca, one of the Balearic Islands). The characters are believable and relatable, albeit uber-beautiful, which can be expected on a Mediterranean Island, but surprisingly none come across as overly-annoying, which is usually a requisite for a film like this.

"Das is ver gut, hubba-hubba, frauline!"

The special effects are the real star of this movie. Mallorca obviously had a bigger than usual budget for German prime time, because the FX, specifically in the action sequences look like something that would make George Lucas cream his pants and Stan Winston cringe in jealousy. (You may have seen the scenes I'm writing about for they have been on the Net for the past five years. More on that later.)

"When are toothpaste commercials gonna wise-up and use stuff like this?"

Our hero is Sven Hansen (Moeller), a freelance helicopter pilot en route to whatever airport this tiny island has to pick up Dr. Julia Bennet (Stinshoff), the new Marine Biologist at the Mallorcan Institute for Studying Sharks for the Purposes of Cancer Research, or whatever it's called. The name is not as important as the fact that this backlot-aquarium has at least a dozen or so fully-grown Great White sharks in captivity!?!? (Boy, Monterrey Bay has nothing on this place!) The largest of which has been named Hannibal by Institute Chief, Dr. Verena Brandauer (Katy Karrenbaur), the film's obligatory eeeeviiiil scientist.

Apparantly, the titular beastie roaming the waters off Mallorca was cloned by the not-so-good Dr. Brandaur from a Megalodon egg she found in the Antarctic!?!? (yeah, right) And it escaped from the institute when the tank waters flooded over from a storm four years earlier!? (yeah, right, part II).

"Speilberg should have hidden his shark this well!"

Okay, so the suspension of belief and bogus science may be a bit much for even a Meg to swallow, but don't worry; eeeeeeviiiiil Dr. Brandaur gets her come-uppins by way of the Great Chomping before the film even goes into its endgame. Speaking of the endgame, I promised a comment on the FX and how Mallorca rips off Meg and Jaws in the same scene...

First off, the FX during the action sequences are truly superb, and shark movie enthusiasts may have seen them before on the Net. For the last four years, these FX scenes have been floating around Cyberspace under various guises; most notably:

1) The advanced FX work for the upcoming Meg movie, a project that has mistakenly been shitcanned recently by the gerbils in charge over at New Line Cinema. (I don't care how many Freddy and Jason movies they spew out now, New Line will forever be the biggest turd in the Hollywood toilet for never making the Meg movie).

2) The teaser/trailer for Jaws V. (By the way, Universal is mulling over a bunch of scripts for a straight to DVD, fifth Jaws installment.

3) The teaser/trailer for a Jaws remake to be helmed by James Cameron!?!? (Which by the way, was complete bullshit from day 1.)

So let me set the record straight; said scenes on YouTube and the like came from Mallorca, case closed, elementary, my dear Watson.

"You see, this is why I have a fear of Jetskiing."

As for the endgame and the duality of plagiarism, this is how our Megalo-beastie buys it...

In a helicopter scene practically written ver-batim from Alten's pages, Sven pulls off his best Martin Brody impersonation by shooting an explosive-laden jetski that the Meg has been swimming around with in its mouth!?!?

Yes, Sven planted the explosives on the jetski before sharky-shark decided to use it for a toothpick.

No, I won't tell you how, I leave that to your imagination.

"Rescue me from potential typecasting!"

The bottom line? Rent this movie and watch it. It's no Jaws (but what is?) and it's not even Deep Blue Sea. But the beauty is, Mallorca never even tries to be such. The end result is, something that can be said with certainty, this is not the worst shark movie out there. Which, when you consider it's peers within the genre, is the highest of compliments. Hai-Alarm auf Mallorca is surprisingly pleasant and painless if you don't expect too much.

Rocky Balboa

Evildirector — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 04:01:22 +0000

EvilDirector's Cynical Review of Rocky Balboa

*** 1/2 out of ****

"It ain't how hard you hit...it's how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward."

I'm ashamed to admit that my own introduction to Rocky Balboa, the Italian Stallion, came, not with the inspirational and groundbreaking original film, but instead with Rocky IV. For a long time, the picture I had of Rocky in my mind was of a John Rambo-like character in American flag boxing trunks, running up mountains in the snow and facing down Ivan Drago to the cheers of a Moscow crowd; in other words, I classified Sylvester Stallone's hero as your typical Hollywood action character, and lost the urge to visit his earlier adventures. Somewhere along the line, I changed my mind and popped the original Rocky in the VCR, and found myself almost tearing up by the time Balboa admitted to Adrian that all he really wanted was to, "...go the distance." Even if his later films drifted from the heartfelt original, I can't help but think that Rocky Balboa defined a generation in the cinema. In fact, I trembled as I heard of news of a sixth film coming down the pipe, envisioning a sixty-year old Stallone trying vainly to recapture the glory days of his youth.

Rocky Balboa doesn't bear a number after the title, a clue that it isn't your typical sequel. It is, in many ways, a truer sequel then any of the others, so similar in tone and spirit to the original that you can slide it into the DVD player right afterwards and not feel as if you're watching two different films...just one film about the opposite ends of a boxer's life. In the simplest terms, Rocky Balboa is about a former star who is past his prime and fading gracefully into anonymity. If Stallone's performance feels right on, it's probably because his situation resembles Balboa's. As the film opens, we find that Rocky's beloved wife, Adrian, is years dead of cancer, and that the former champ now spends his time feeding his turtles and running an Italian eatery, telling old stories over and over again as time passes him by. At the same time, the reigning heavyweight champ, Mason "The Line" Dixon, played by real-life boxer Antonio Tarver, is languishing under his own dominance, having found no one out there ready to really challenge him. When an ESPN computer simulation predicts that Balboa at his prime would have stomped Dixon, the plot rumbles into motion. Rocky, you see, still has some,"...stuff in the basement." As the film rolls on, the champ bonds with an old acquaintance and her son, manages to counsel Paulie a bit, and even starts to repair the rip between himself and his own offspring, all while preparing for a heavyweight exhibition everyone jokingly calls an "execution".

What makes Rocky Balboa such a great film is that it takes all the elements that annoyed me about the other sequels (Paulie, father/son hostility, miracle fights) and renders them completely believable. The writing, and apparently Stallone has been working on Balboa for quite a while, is superb, and that has mixed with a cast of actors that seemed to realize that they were working on something special, a kind of fond farewell, an honorable send off for such an American legend. The only thing like it is John Wayne's last film, The Shootist, which so mirrored the ailing star's own story, and which drew actors out in droves for the Duke's last ride. There are so many great scenes here that I have a hard time picking them out; I'm not talking good scenes, I'm talking great scenes: Rocky's speech to the boxing commission, his revelation to Paulie about the, "...stuff in the basement", and his final confrontation with his son...it all rings so true that I can't help but wonder if Stallone didn't lose a little bit of Rocky Balboa when he shot to the top, and only now has he found him again, like a good friend gone missing for too long. The character of Mason Dixon feels a lot like a mirror image of a younger Stallone, led astray by too much money and too much limelight, which perhaps explains the way the film handles the young fighter, not as a villain, but just as an adversary.

The film absolutely sails up until the final fight, which Stallone has photographed like your typical HBO boxing match, complete with score-cards and round times remaining, and also minus the punches that sound like bomb impacts that characterized the earlier Rocky films. In other words, it feels real, just like the rest of the film, and that, in itself, is a miracle, because even if the rest of the film was great, an unbelievable final fight would have sunk the whole picture. Thankfully, the fight is just what we need to cap the picture off, and ends in the only way it can (and leaves me thankful they ditched the whole Rocky-dies-in-the-ring ending that was rumored). Even when the film begins to veer into the territory where the sequels crumbled, it seems to know just when to stop: witness Paulie's "retirement", which ends with a nice little line that goes even further to push Rocky towards that final fight. The romance, which could have so easily have become cliche or trite, never does so, mostly because Stallone never seemed to feel the need to make it blossom into a full blown passionate affair by film's end.

In the end, Rocky Balboa gives me hope for the upcoming John Rambo, and for all my old heroes that I thought had been lost in the CGI-madness of today's cinema. I'm glad Stallone chose to send off his legendary hero like this; just like little Marie says,"...if this is what you have to do, you do it. Fighters fight."

****- Perfect in Execution, Riveting, and Bound to Be A Classic

*** 1/2- Nearly Perfect, Riveting

***- Flawed in Some Manner, But Overall well Made, Entertaining

** 1/2- Flawed, Entertaining on a Guilty-Pleasure Level

**- More Flawed Then Not, Only Occasionally Entertaining

* - Completely Flawed, Never Entertaining

The Incredibles

FableForge — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 21:05:28 +0000

Not too long ago I wrote a post that talked about the stage called "mid life crisis". Its something that hits close to home in many ways, and you would never imagine Pixar of all studios to pick this as a theme to follow up on their hugely successful Toy Story and Finding Nemo string of hits. But they did, and they made it about superheroes too. And... having two kids myself, and having seen both Toy Stories and Finding Nemo approximately 12,673 times, I think I speak from experience when I say The Incredibles of the best of them all.

The setup is "deliciously" laid out in the form of old 1950's or 1960's TV clips, where the SuperHeroes speak to the camera, in their prime of youth, confidence and power. This triggers a wonderful sequence with Mr. Incredible fighting crime in the over-the-top way we love from the Saturday morning cartoons... all on the way to his wedding. But lest we get too confortable in this enviroment of happiness and fun, we soon see Pixar's bitter commentary on society, as citizens begin to -sue- the superheroes (a man who had jumped off a building didn't want to be rescued, a busload of passangers saved from certain death suffered injuries nevertheless, etc etc etc).

Fade to present days. All of the superheroes have been ordered by the goverment to blend in with society, stop using their superpowers, and lead -normal- lifes. Normal BORING, ordinary, soul-numbing lives. Elastigirl tries to make the best of it and embraces her role as mom of three beautiful and incredibly well developed characters of kids. Mr. Incredible not so much. He faces the apex of Mid-Life Crisis, languishing in cubicle hell as an insurance claims adjustor (brilliant!). And so the question is setup: can they be superheroes again? Is there merit in handicapping oneself to fit better within society? Or must we use our gifts, extraordinary as they may be, even if it means standing out and clashing with the world as we know it? You could never believe the road to the answer is so jam packed of laughs and moment thats are simply -delicious-. Two words: Edna Moe. Thats all I have to say.

Like I said, I've watched both Toy Stories and Finding Nemo 12,673 times, and they're not bad movies, in fact they're -very- good. But The Incredibles? I look forward for the 12,672 I have to go. You should too. Even if you dont have kids, trust me, you'll thank me later.