Film is Pwn

Riddle me this, Batman: What do you get when you cross me and a $1 dvd bin at a local dollar store?  You get the 1999, made-for-cable, Casper Van Dien lost “classic” Thrill Seekers!!!!

Having just witnessed the film and staring at the DVD case, I must take issue with the false advertising.  The cover, featuring a picture of Casper Van Dien looking slightly concerned as he talks on the phone, promises that Thrill Seekers is “YOUR PASSPORT TO DANGER,” and this is patently untrue.  The entirety of the story takes place in the confines of the United States, mostly Chicago, so no passport is needed.  Unless of course they are referring to the fact the film was actually filmed in Canada standing in for America, and in that case you would need your passport.  Or, it is equally likely that the DVD was intended for a foreign audience, and Thrill Seekers would qualify as a “Passport to Danger” if you were watching in North Korea, though I suspect their citizenry need no passport to experience danger.  Though, now that I think on this topic even further, it is entirely possible the marketing department wishes us to consider “Danger” a tangible destination outside the borders of the USA, and thereby Danger’s border patrol agents would require passports to enable us to enter.  I find this the most plausible explanation for the tagline, and I certainly hope President Obama will declare me America’s Ambassador to Danger, so if I get in too much trouble while representing the U.S.A. while in Danger I can always claim diplomatic immunity. (more…)

A sampling of cheesy, funny, and strange fake trailers on youtube posted for the sake of hilarity’s continued ensuing. I mentioned Tetris the movie trailer to Tom, and rather than e-mail them to him, I figured I’d share with the word: (more…)

As a devout Christian, I am occasionally compelled weigh in on theological questions on short notice.  For example, I remember working in a kitchen many years ago when the staff was gossiping about gospel singer Kirk Franklin who had reportedly fallen off a stage and hurt himself, and the consensus was, “Boy, he must have sinned!”  When asked if I agreed, I told them to read the Book of Job and get back to me.  No one got back to me, but no one equated “pain = God’s punishment” again.

Now people are pressing me to determine if Jean-Claude Van Damme appearing in a legitimately fantastic, critically acclaimed movie is one of the signs of the apocalypse.  I have read Revelations a time or two, and am here to assure the public that a Jean-Claude Van Damme film is not referenced as a harbinger of doom outside the recently discredited New Ebert Translation.

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Yes, laugh if you will, but I have seen Twilight.  If anyone asks, I did it for you, my beloved Film Is Pwn audience.  That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

In the weeks leading up to Twilight’s release on DVD, I could not exit my local Blockbuster or Hollywood Video, which I frequent, without one of the young women behind the counter asking me if I’d like to reserve a copy of Twilight.  If I didn’t renting anything that store visit, a girl behind the counter would assume my lack of a selection was due entirely to the absence of Twilight, inform me its release date, and advise me how I could be assured of no delay in getting a copy of my own. Even if I’d slipped out sight unseen one of the girls would be waiting by my car to inquire as to my interest in pre-renting Twilight, as if there was major concern that I’d somehow be totally embittered at their store should I come and not be able to see that particular film.  In any case, my smart alec response to any Twilight queries was always a variation on, “No, thanks, I am not a teenage girl.”
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Prom Night is a refreshing break from the traditional dead teenager movie motif.  Refreshing how?  Well, usually these movies revolve around holidays that I like to think of as unrelated to slasher movies.  We’ve already seen Christmas used as the backdrop for Black Christmas, Valentine’s Day for Valentine, and I Know What You Did Last Summer happened around July 4th.  April Fool’s Day, Halloween, and yes, even Thanksgiving have all been co-opted as titles of horror movies.

To capitalize on the creativity bankruptcy evident in Hollywood for the last forty years, I am pitching a film titled “Night of the Living King” which features Martin Luther King returning from the grave to wreak havoc on unsuspecting teenagers disrespecting his holiday.  Tagline: “I HAVE A NIGHTMARE!” If the suits don’t like that one, they’ll love my spec script titled “Daylight Killings Time,” with the tagline “Don’t Forget to Set Your Clock Back to . . . Murder!”

But Prom Night is a cloying, vapid event, not a holiday, so the film of the same name qualifies as fresh and original by those merits alone.  Of course, by any other device of judging a movie, Prom Night fails miserably.
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Akeelah and the Bee was a limited release film a couple of years ago. I remember desperately trying to get someone to go see it with me to no avail. Having stumbled across it at the store I found my interest renewed and promptly talked my wife into seeing it.

I don’t know what it was that attracted me to this movie so long ago but I’m not sorry that it happened. Akeelah and the Bee is a well made movie telling the story a little known about event that gives kids a very unique chance in their lives. (more…)

A tremendously funny parody poster brought to my attention by my brother, so blame him. Theoretically this is from the makers of Snakes on a Train:  “Piranhas On An Escalator“, with a most eclectic cast.  Enjoy:

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Last year Vantage Point promised us action, thrills and a mystery. The trailers showed it as a movie that’ll have us guessing until the end. The problem is that it of course doesn’t. It’s a thin plot and shallow characters trying to show how smart it is with some tricksy story-telling; you can generally bank on the fact that the harder a movie tries to convince you it’s clever, the more sure you can be that it isn’t.

In Vantage Point we spend the whole time reliving about 20 minutes of a anti-terrorism rally taking place in Spain that results in the President being shot. The story is told consecutively from different prospectives on the event giving us a different insight into the story each time.  The style is called Rashomon and done well it can be very engaging and suspenseful.

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What does one say for a comedy that is not funny?   I for one can think of nothing.

It should be noted that the Great Buck Howard, the film in question today, is not just a dry comedy, it also strives to achieve a degree of poignancy and sentimentality, with a tinge of romance on the side.  Regardless the scale or the measurement, The Great Buck Howard fails the test by my estimation, I regret to report.  The Great Buck Howard is an curiosity at best, a waste of time at least, and a drag throughout.
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This is another in the proud series of b-movies with a similar name and theme to a big budget film released at the same time, a la Transmorphers being released days ahead of Transformers in Summer 2007.  This is The Day The Earth Stopped, unleashed on the public in hopes they would confuse it for the Keanu Reeves-Jennifer Connelly remake of The Day The Earth Stood Still in Fall 2008. These guys ought to be sued for false advertising; their movie is way better than the 2008 The Day The Earth Stood Still. No, seriously.

I assume the filmmakers largely cobbled their story from elements of the classic 1951 The Day the Earth Stood Still and the advance teaser trailer for the crappy remake (there’s an interrogation scene in the trailer, and endless interrogations in the film).  Liberties were taken to avoid lawsuits, such as the noble alien Klaatu is neither an esteemed British stage actor in a spacesuit nor Keanu Reeves but instead is replaced by a nude girl walking in the woods.  And the legendary robot Gort?  His stand-in is a really giant CGI creature that resembles a Gobot that took too much Nyquil.

In The Day The Earth Stopped, aliens with not one but hundreds of giant robots descend on the planet.  Not one but two humanoid aliens and avid nudists emerge to evaluate whether humans can turn from their destructive ways and reach enlightenment like their advanced civilizations or they will wipe us out of existence.  Assuming humanity can elevate themselves enough to avoid annihilation, I wonder if we will have earned the moral authority to go to Antarctica and give the Penguins a surprise quiz on their value or face forced extinction.  And being an NHL mascot isn’t going to cut it, Pengy! That didn’t save the New Jersey Devils, did it?
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Transporter 3 fulfills its primary mandate, which is to entertain. Beyond that? Eh.

This is the third film in the franchise, as indicated by the number “3″ following the title, featuring Jason Statham as a cool, dangerous getaway driver named Frank Martin who lives by a series of strict rules, things like “don’t change the deal”, “wear a seatbelt”, “don’t talk about Fight Club”, etc.  Anyone who selects any of the Transporter films for their Saturday evening entertainment quotient do so for the veritable plethora of car chases, the fight scenes, and . . . well, pretty much just the car chases and fight scenes.  And Transporter 3 delivers what it advertises without much of that pesky plot or dialogue stuff to slow things down.

And while I enjoyed Transporter 3 for what it was, I still feel compelled to rip apart the downright lazy plot device utilized to propel Frank Martin into the middle of intrigue, danger, excitement, and transportering:
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Gran Torino is a magnificent movie, one so good I’m a little peeved that it got shut out at the Academy Awards without a single nomination. If that doesn’t piss you off just a little, may I inform you that Wanted was nominated for TWO Oscars? Granted, they were “Best Achievement in Sound Editing” & “Best Achievement in Sound,” but that movie was not only a waste of time but an all-out assault on entertainment. Sound? Sound?? The only sound I heard when I watched Wanted was the death knell of the audience’s attention span. But I digress . . .

Back to Gran Torino: Clint Eastwood directs and stars as a Grumpy Old Man whose wife just passed away, he is emotionally detached from his kids, and he and his grandchildren view each other across a generation gap with mutual contempt.  To top it all off, his Detroit neighborhood is being overrun by immigrants, including his Hmong (think: South Vietnam) next door neighbors.  Clint’s character Walt is a crusty, dare I say cantankerous? Korean war vet with a heavy conscience, and he is most definitely — how shall I put this? — politically incorrect.   A more direct means of saying it is he’s a weeeee bit of a racist.   If this guy had a radio show, neither Howard Stern nor Don Imus would listen to it because it would be too offensive for them.  What am I saying?  If this guy had a live mic on radio the producers would be tackling him in order to salvage their own careers.  Though it is worth mentioning, Gran Torino opened my eyes to a whole new spectrum of Asian slurs I wasn’t aware existed until now.
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