It took a little longer than we thought to get the technical kinks worked out, but the video with hilarious commentary from myself, Tom Stephens, and Brian Alterman is now for sale at Rifftrax.com for a mere $.98. To get it, just go here. Just remember, if you made an iRiff, we’d buy it too!
Being a fan of the works of H.P. Lovecraft, I was very excited to see this film when it came out back in high school. Having read the novella The Case of Charles Dexter Ward I was interested to see if this would be a great adaptation of a brilliant work of gothic horror, or a terrible (although not necessarily unenjoyable) film that used a lose association of plot to link itself to a popular work of fiction. The film does stay true to the book, aside from the ending which turns out to not only be more exciting than the one Lovecraft wrote, but not inconsistent with the story. That being said, this is certainly a film that would be considered a B-Movie… but despite the dreadful acting, the movie is one that lovers of horror films and Lovecraft’s works will enjoy. Directed by Dan O’Bannon (This was the last of the two films he directed, the other being The Return of the Living Dead) and starring Chris Sarandon who is best known as the evil Prince Humperdink in the classic film The Princess Bride, the film tells the story of Charles Dexter Ward whose wife hires a private detective to find out what her husband is up to. It seems that ever since he inherited that ancestral home out in the country and found that strange old trunk full of things he won’t talk to her about he has been working on experiments out in the garage at all hours of the night. Once she begins her snooping, he leaves and sets up shop at the country home.
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The latest from our friends at the Asylum is Edgar Rice Burrough’s The Land That Time Forgot, and it is a return to the greatness almost on the level of Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus.
The novel was brought to the screen once before in a 70s “classic” that I actually tried to watch earlier in the year, and even I — the “Bad Movie King” — could slog my way through. I haven’t read Burroughs novel, but I did attempt to read synopsis shortly after seeing the Asylum’s version, and I couldn’t even make it halfway into the two page recap before giving up.
So I feel confident in saying the Asylum version is easily the best of the three, because I actually made it through in one sitting, and had a blast (in the fun/bad mode, of course).
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Tom Stephens, Brian Alterman, and I have produced Film Is Pwn’s first “short,” riffing Mystery Science Theater 3000 style on an educational film from 1940 about tuberculosis called “Goodbye, Mr. Germ.” The short will be for sale soon (hopefully by Tuesday afternoon) for a most reasonable $.98 here, it’s a little over fourteen minutes in length, chocked full of great jokes like this:
You know, I’d like to watch “clean” movies more, I really would. I am, after all, a clean guy – I don’t cuss, I don’t drink, I never did drugs, I don’t sleep around, I shower nearly every day (often with soap), and I have never give someone a roundhouse kick if I happen to disagree with them. And yet those very qualities (promiscuous, profanity, substance abuse, unnecessary spin-kickery) permeate the movies I opt to write about here, with occasional interludes like my blog on The Country Bears, for example.
You wanna know why? I’ll tell you why: Outside Pixar, most “G” rated stuff is crap like Space Buddies.
Now, there’s nothing “wrong” with a film like Space Buddies, where the target audience thinks that talking, wise-cracking dogs getting into various misadventures is inherently entertaining. In fairness, the target audience is not yet potty trained and can generally be amused by a hearty game of “peek-a-boo” for the full running time of Space Buddies. If not for the fact that prolonged “peek-a-booing” can tire out parents and their wrists, I assume there would never be a need to purloin a copy of Space Buddies and pop it in the DVD player in order to entertain the little ones. (more…)
When it comes to movies, I must be a glutton for punishment, or there’s no way I would have rented Knowing. Or, to put it another way, knowing that Knowing would stink, I don’t know why I’d go out and get Knowing, if you know what I mean. (Just pretend that you’re following so that we can move on, and I don’t have to admit I’m not sure what I’m talking about either.)
Knowing is one of those self-important science fiction movies that aspires to be art and succeeds only if one considers crap thrown randomly on an over sized canvas to be “art.” The director is Alex Proyas, the man behind Dark City, a great movie full of foreboding mystery, dark, and a city. The star is Nicolas Cage, which effectively cancels out any advantage Knowing had thanks to Proyas.
What’s the movie about? Other than little things like foreknowledge of Earth’s impending destruction, Knowing is about destiny, fate, and spooky children. (Disclaimer, this will be a tad bit of a spoiler heavy blog, so if you’re planning on seeing the movie in the near future, please keep reading so I can talk you out of it.)
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Click here to see our page on Rifftrax.com! The audio commentary from Tom and I costs $2.50, you will need to acquire the DVD and sync up the two in order to enjoy our witty jokes, quips, puns, and any other conceivable manner of riff. The DVD is available to rent in the new release section of most video stores – I’ve seen it at Hollywood VIdeo and Blockbuster – or you can check out my post from last week for the sample clip and a link to buy the DVD. You know you want it!
I just watched one of the more recent releases from our favorite low-budget studio, the Asylum: DragonQuest. It’s a sort of broad amalgam of various wizard/warriors/dragons/boy-goes-on-hero’s-journey type film, which is smart because it’s never apparent which particular movie is being knocked off. There was one scene that was a total homage to the 300, and but for the most part it lives in classic Eragon territory. Of course, Eragon itself is a piecemeal of various more other archetypes like Star Wars and Lord of the Rings, which Tom documented here.
The hero Arkadi (Daniel Bonjour) is a cross between Frodo and Luke Skywalker; his attire resembles that of Luke, the actor kinda looks like Elijah Wood’s Frodo if you squint hard enough, and his mission/story is a mishmash of the two. Arkadi is being raised by his(?) “Grandfather,” Grandfather bing the characters name it seems, as everyone unrelated to Grandfather addresses and/or refers to him as “Grandfather,” which makes no sense. To no one’s surprise, Grandfather is killed off, but not before Grandfather reveals that hero boy is some sort of chosen one who must beat back some dark wizard (Brian Thompson) fellow who is wreaking havoc on the land with a flaming dragon (a staggeringly cool effect, by Asylum/Sci-Fi Channel standards, though when they linger on it too long the illusion fades and you realize you’re looking at cheap crap). (more…)
When considering the new science fiction movie Moon, one will immediately think of the Kubrick classic of 2001 A Space Odyssey, and for good reason. In Moon, an astronaut with only a computer to talk to, in this case Kevin Spacey as Gerty (think HAL without the evil). Sam Bell is our astronaut and his is a 3-year assignment to man Lunar Industries “mining bases” on the moon because in the not too distant future, the moon is the source of 70% of the world’s energy needs. His only contact with earth is taped feeds from his wife and daughter because apparently the live feed transmission towers have been broken for years and no one has fixed them. The movie begins with Sam’s last 2 weeks of his contract. I’ll leave the plot now because telling much more would be a spoiler in my opinion.
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For the 10th anniversary of Dark City’s release, Egyptian director Alex Proyas decided to release a director’s cut of his big screen follow up to his most famous film The Crow (Despite the star power of Will Smith, I refuse to believe the movie going public recognizes I, Robot as anything other than special effects laden money grab). I have mixed feelings about director’s cuts, as there are three separate possible outcomes: A director whose vision was stifled by the studio system can produce a work of staggering genius (See Blade Runner – The Directors Cut by Ridley Scott), A great director can revisit a movie and create a film that while improving the original in some ways, reduces it in others (See Apocalypse Now Redux by Francis Ford Coppola), or all to often a monument to a directors idea that he has talent and vision (Payback: Straight Up – The Directors Cut by Brian Helgeland). Maybe Helgeland is just a perfectionist and didn’t want to leave the original as his legacy. Either way I lost several hours of my life I will never get back. Thanks!
Anyway, I decided to see this particular directors cut for a few reasons. First, I liked the original. The sets, the mood, the design and the effects were very good. They leave a distinct impression that often overshadows the actual plot, which in this case is not necessarily a bad thing as while plot is not bad, it is rather simple. Also, they rely less on CGI than most films do now and I have often found traditional special effects methods while not always as dynamic as CGI tend to appear more real. Secondly, it was on sale for $7.50 which is a small price to pay for seeing Rufus Sewell, William Hurt, Jennifer Connelly, Kiefer Sutherland & Richard O’Brien (Riff Raff from the Rocky Horror Picture Show in a rather unsettling performance as Mr. Hand). I was not disappointed… (more…)
Recently Tom Stephens and I finished recording our very first iRiff (downloadable audio tracks from Rifftrax.com, which you can sync up to movies and watch with our hilarious commentary along with the film), for our favorite film: Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus. (Special thanks to brother Joseph and friend Brian Alterman for contributing to our writing sessions.) Below is a sample from the riff, which will be up at Rifftrax.com for sale in a couple of days. Hopefully this will whet your appetite enough so that you buy the DVD now — and avoid the rush at the video store.
Enjoy, won’t you?
image: detail of installation by Bronwyn Lace