The town of Perfection, Nevada, is pretty much just that. Not a lot happens, only a dozen or so locals, the ideal life…as long as you don’t mind the graboids. Seems they like the ground under the town and the people above that populate it.
Let’s take a look at a great popcorn movie: Tremors.
Valentine and Earl (Kevin Bacon and Fred Ward) are tired of making small money as handymen in Perfection. Both dream of bigger money and decide to leave town. On the way back, they encounter Seismology major Rhonda (Finn Carter) who tells them about some of the strange readings she’s been getting. After packing, they head out, only to find the dehydrated body of town drunk Edgar sitting atop a power line. As they return to town with the body they discover Farmer Fred’s ranch decimated and a road crew soon meets the same fate.
With phone lines down and the only road out of town blocked by rockfall, the locals gather at Chang’s market where conspiracy theorist and survivalist Burt Gummer (Michael Gross) and his wife Heather (the ALWAYS incredibly hot Reba McEntire) check out a piece of the creature attached to the axle. Meanwhile, the frightening attacks continue and a plan is formed. Read More »
I'm sorry to disappoint you, but that racy-sounding headline that drew your attention here merely means that I am both a stamp collector and a movie buff (boy, hard to believe I'm still single). These dual obsessions interests don't at first glance seem like they'd have much in common, and up until the past quarter-century or so in this country you'd be right in thinking that. But over the last several years, there's been a noticeable increase in overlapping. As the U.S. Postal Service has seen its revenues dry up due to the rise of e-mail, text messages and other forms of instant communication, they've searched for new ways to drum up business, and one of those ways is to release more pop culture-friendly items featuring entertainment notables (as in the 1993 Elvis Presley stamp and the "young Elvis/old Elvis" poll that preceded it). Read More »
Do an Internet search on the film director Michael Haneke, and you will likely conjure an image of a saintly-looking senior citizen with a big white beard who looks like he could play St. Nick at the local mall during holiday time.
Delve into his films, however, and you will discover that Haneke is more likely to portray “Santa Claws” rather than Santa Claus.
That’s because Haneke is perhaps the most consistently envelope-pushing, fright-inducing, crowd-dividing filmmaker on the planet. And he doesn’t even make horror movies. At least, not on the surface.
My first experience with Haneke came about 15 years ago, when a friend in Canada told me about a film he saw called Funny Games. I had never heard of it, so he sent me a VHS copy of the movie. I put it aside, thinking I would throw it in the VCR when I was in the mood for a light comedy, figuring that with a title like that, how could it be anything but.
It can be debated whether having a catchy title helps drive people to the theater. But it sure doesn't help matters if a film is badly named! The following movies certainly all belong on this ignominious list of Bad Movie Titles. Feel free to share your picks in the comments section below.
B.A.P.S As if a nauseously pandering tagline, “These Pretty Women…are Clueless,” wasn’t enough, this movie was also burdened with an eminently forgettable acronym, short for “Black American Princesses.” Apparently.
If you don’t believe the saying popularized by Steve Martin during his standup years, then take a gander at movies Hollywood has given us about comedians. In most cases, they are lonely, neurotic, insecure, sad people. And from these personality traits –or disorders-- comes humor.
The latest movie to focus on a comic is Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work, a fascinating warts-and-all bio-doc about the queen of mean, following one topsy-turvy year in her life. The downs (she fires her longtime manager, a play in England bombs, she’s heckled by an audience member in Milwaukee) and ups (she scores in a tribute to George Carlin, wins the reality series Celebrity Apprentice, has a book published, keeps audiences rolling in live shows) are captured for the camera, while Joan comments on her career and frenzied life.
In the early days of this blog, I featured the trailer for Basket Case--perhaps the most underrated horror filck of the 1980s. Even though Duane and his mutated, basket-dwelling psycho brother Belial seemingly perished at the end of their first adventure, they returned for Basket Case 2 in 1990. As the above trailer proves, the film manages to establish its own identity while still having enough cheesy thrills to please fans of the original.
Taken in by their aunt, Granny Ruth (portrayed by a scenery chewing Annie Ross), the siblings encounter other societal fugitives and refugees. The increased budget means that the film doesn't quite recapture the delightful sleaze of the first film. But what it may lack in grime it more than makes up for with such new characters as golden-voiced mutant Lorenzo and Eve, Belial's newfound love interest. The house of freaks aspect to the film is largely responsible for its enduring popularity. Here's an introduction to Basket Case 2's supporting players:
The royal messenger in medieval costume dramas; the Pony Express rider from all those B-westerns; the telegraph delivery boy in most every type of ‘30s and '40s movie: All are ways that filmmakers have depicted communication through the ages. A once-common site on street corners around the world--the venerable pay telephone booth--is on the brink of joining these now-obsolete modes, a victim of technological advances and the omnipresent cell phone. Read More »
Maybe you’ve already heard about the concept guiding the much-talked-about indie horror mini-sensation The Human Centipede (First Sequence). If so, you’ve probably already decided whether or not you’ll a) go out of your way to see it on the big screen at an art house midnight show, or b) safely download it via on-demand and then never cop to your friends and family that you ever laid eyes upon it, or c) steer yourself way, way clear.
Most people are going to choose “c.” Good for them. Truly, this is a movie for a small audience, one to be found within the confines of those who are on the lookout for films that shock the most completely jaded.
In that regard, the picture succeeds rather inventively. If you know about the movie, you already know the concept, so it’s safe for me to reveal there will be no specific “spoilers” involved from here on out. Those with delicate sensibilities are advised to move on, because I chose “a,” and feel compelled to react to the film. So, much like that unforgettable Sesame Street tome The Monster at the End of This Book, I’m imploring you. Don’t turn the page. Don’t turn the page. Read More »
It was a hit 2005 movie starring Ice Cube and Nia Long, but now Are We There Yet? has been turned into a TBS sitcom, with Cube producing and ex-football player Terry Crews and sitcom vet Essence Atkins in the leads. In the movie, Cube was involved in a romance with Long, who had two kids; the show takes place months after the movie left off, with the couple now married and trying to get comfortable with the new family situation. For Crews, the family thing is nothing new, having been married for 20 years and having five kids on his own. Read More »
I know what you’re thinking: There’s hardly enough space to list all the wow! moments ever put to celluloid. And you’re right of course. What with surprise endings, nifty plot twists, stunning revelations and multitudes of audacious, if not scandalous, scenes there’s an embarrassment of riches from which to choose.
But this is my blog, so I get to decide.
The following (warning: spoilers abound) are the scenes that really got to me; the ones that had me staring at the screen in disbelief quietly murmuring mild oaths to myself.
I attended an opening weekend screening of Kick-Ass eager to have that great “crowded movie theater” experience along with its intended audience, which I imagined would be made up of teens who would get high on the hip ultraviolence; comic fans of the adult stripe who might get a few dark laughs out of how the film ripped apart and stomped all over comic book and comic movie clichés; and the occasional out-of-touch moviegoer who might be of the, shall we say, more senior variety—someone in the theater only because he (or she) was a Nicolas Cage fan, someone who knew nothing else about it, ignored the rather in-your-face title and nevertheless plopped down their well-earned cash only to get really, really offended after Cage’s very first scene onscreen with young Chloe Moretz.
But this isn’t a review of Kick-Ass. This is about my visit to the snack counter before the movie even started. Read More »
The town of Perfection, Nevada, is pretty much just that. Not a lot happens, only a dozen or so locals, the ideal life…as long as you don’t mind the graboids. Seems they like the ground under the town and the people above that populate it.
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I'm sorry to disappoint you, but that racy-sounding headline that drew your attention here merely means that I am both a stamp collector and a movie buff (boy, hard to believe I'm still single). These dual 
Do an Internet search on the film director 
The royal messenger in medieval costume dramas; the Pony Express rider from all those B-westerns; the telegraph delivery boy in most every type of ‘30s and '40s movie: All are ways that filmmakers have depicted communication through the ages. A once-common site on street corners around the world--the venerable pay telephone booth--is on the brink of joining these now-obsolete modes, a victim of technological advances and the omnipresent cell phone. 
Maybe you’ve already heard about the concept guiding the much-talked-about indie horror mini-sensation The Human Centipede (First Sequence). If so, you’ve probably already decided whether or not you’ll a) go out of your way to see it on the big screen at an art house midnight show, or b) safely download it via on-demand and then never cop to your friends and family that you ever laid eyes upon it, or c) steer yourself way, way clear.
I attended an opening weekend screening of Kick-Ass eager to have that great “crowded movie theater” experience along with its intended audience, which I imagined would be made up of teens who would get high on the hip ultraviolence; comic fans of the adult stripe who might get a few dark laughs out of how the film ripped apart and stomped all over comic book and comic movie clichés; and the occasional out-of-touch moviegoer who might be of the, shall we say, more senior variety—someone in the theater only because he (or she) was a