Film is Pwn

Starring: Klinton Spilsbury, Michael Horse, Christopher Lloyd, Jason Robards
Directed By: William A. Fraker

I think that whoever proposed re-launching the Lone Ranger franchise with 1981’s The Legend of the Lone Rangerhad a good idea. Of course, the path to bankruptcy is paved with good ideas.  New Coke was a good idea . . . if people liked the product.   Parents and grandparents grew up with the iconic Old West hero the Lone Ranger on TV or on radio.  Presumably those parental units would be excited to take their little consumers to the theater to enjoy a family friendly, PG adventure featuring the Lone Ranger.  On the drawing board it was so great: We’ll have old fashioned stunt work, horses, clearly defined heroes and villains, a moral and upright protagonist with a clear sense of right and wrong, and it’ll be awesome!  Oh, it all looked so promising.

Here is where the idea goes flying horribly off the track: Every single element after the green light ranging from casting to script to filming to catering.  The Legend of the Lone Ranger does not meander toward the wretched film abyss, it gallops blindfolded straight into the hall of awful at a brisk gallop shouting “Hi yo, Silver!” all the way to the bottom of that gorge of film infamy. (more…)

It is snowing in my hometown of Charlotte, North Carolina.  An alien invasion does not debilitate New York City to the degree that an inch of snow shuts down Charlotte.  Charlotte’s citizenry forget how to behave when beset by fears of the white powder descending from the heavens like millions of malicious storm troopers.   (more…)

 Back when Sky Captain was first coming out I stared at the trailers longingly. The posters called my name and in the years since the dvds have cried out to me from the shelves. Finally, at long last, I took the time to watch it. I loved and hated it. To some extent I still love what it could have been, but then reality strikes and I hate what it actually was. (more…)

Being a father there are certain things I have learned to accept: 2AM feedings, changing diapers, potty training, etc… but this weekend I experienced something that I don’t think I will ever be able to come to terms with – Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel.  Perhaps I have been spoiled by children’s films such as Up and Wall-E which are not only aimed at children, but well written and well executed.  Chipmunks was neither. (more…)

Monster Squad.  Monster Squad is a relic from the late 80s resuscitated in modern times due to nostalgia, prompting a 20th anniversary DVD release in 2007 with hoopla and fanfare for the grown up child stars and the director, whose most recognizable credit since Monster Squad is the towering achievement that is Robocop 3.  I was not one of the kids who grew up watching Monster Squad and getting a tattoo of the signature line like “Wolfman’s Got Nards!”  I had better things to do growing up in the 80s, like T-ball, playing with G.I. Joes, and repeatedly replaying every single Chevy Chase and/or John Candy movie ever made. (more…)

It had long been stuff of lore that after mankind obliterates itself in a future world war presumably in relationship to one too many obtuse letters to the editor over downtown parking, cockroaches would inherit the earth.  Or that’s what the powerful cockroach lobby would like us to believe.  “Don’t squish those cockroaches,” they are wont to say, “After all, post-apocalypse they will be responsible for carrying on humanity.  Granted, it will be a bold, disgusting, disease-carrying new breed of humanity that decries the evils of that great Satan known as the Orkin Man, but it’s all we’ll have.”

But much to the cockroach apologist’s dismay, a recent film known only as “9” has put forward an interesting new hypothesis about who will inherit the Earth after doomsday, and it is neither a roach based theory nor is it the meek.  No, 9 (which is now tied with W and O for the shortest title in motion picture history) has an unorthodox prediction: Sock puppets.

Yes, after man, woman, bear, badger, and even the ever resilient the bigfoot have been obliterated, the ruins of civilization will be home to a new breed of curious little, mouse-sized sock robots.
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Radioland Murders is an odd duck, no doubt.  A movie probably not a lot of people have heard of, and, though I’m fond of it, I don’t think many film connoisseurs will go to their grave regretting that they never saw that Brian Benben comedy Radioland Murders.

Radioland Murders is the brainchild of Star Wars creator George Lucas, which isn’t always a good thing (see the last Indiana Jones movie and the latter Star Wars trilogy for proof).  Released in 1994, Radioland Murders is caught somewhere between slapstick comedy and dark comedy, which is often an uneasy mix.  For better or worse, the imbalance is offset by the frenetic pace, which launches the audience from scene to scene and joke to joke, so if you don’t like one there’s a different one seconds later, and maybe you’ll like that one.

The setting is a 1930s radio station on its first night attempting to become the fourth national station.  The premiere is a red-carpet affair at a theater (yes, audiences actually used to attend radio events in person) and is not only fraught with madcap antics and catastrophes bordering on hilarity but also . . . (dramatic pause) . . . murder! (more…)

The other night I had my first experience with Harry Potter after a decade of ignoring the wildly popular novels and subsequent blockbuster film series.

Before the take on the movie itself, let me address the “Why the no Harry” question.  You see, during the initial breakout of Pottermania, there was a certain Christian backlash, and I happen to be a devout Christian.  While there were some vehement judgments that Harry and his brand of magic was a bad influence, please don’t misunderstand me: I’ve never told anyone not to read or watch a Potter movie.  Even if I thought Potter was basically evil and subversive, I don’t think boycotting or boisterously protesting is the best way to get your point across.  Generally you just succeed in publicizing property you’re demonizing and make yourself look stupid in the process, and then you’re the stupid Christian trying to ruin everyone else’s good time.

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There have been a lot of good-to-great movies about cons and con men to date.   There’s the Robert Redford-Paul Newman classic The Sting to comedies like Dirty Rotten Scoundrels to any number of terrific David Mamet films (Heist, Spanish Prisoner, The House of Games), and honestly my knee jerk reaction is that The Brothers Bloom is right up there with the best of them.  (Perhaps in an homage to Mamet, the Brothers Bloom begins with narration performed by Ricky Jay, a magician/actor who appears in most of Mamet’s films, and all three of the Mamet-con movies I referenced.)

There’s a pair of con man brothers, Bloom (Adrien Brody) and Stephen (Mark Ruffalo) who work with a mostly mute Japanese demolitions expert appropriately named Bang Bang (Rinko Kikuchi).  Stephen is the master manipulator, the designer of the schemes who plots confidence games with the flair for the dramatic akin to 19th century Russian novelists.  Bloom is perpetually unsure of his role in the swindles, ever promising this job will be the last, and always being talked into one more by his protective big brother Stephen. (more…)

You’d think a movie by our favorite cheap-o movie studio The Asylum (of Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus fame) that debuts on the greatest night for fun/bad movies — 9 pm Eastern on the SyFy Channel – as a SyFy Channel Original would be a sure bet.  I’m a little disappointed to report that my reaction to MegaFault was: eh.

Perhaps my expectations were set too high (i.e., too low) but MegaFault wasn’t that entertaining.  Sure there are some trademark, so-cheap-it’s-funny special effects, some terrible acting, and a handful of recognizable names in the cast (woe to you Brittany Murphy, Bruce Davison, and Eriq La Salle), but this one just wasn’t fun.  Maybe I’ve seen too may of these, maybe it’s the fact that MegaFault is a disaster movie and I I’ve never met a disaster movie I liked, or maybe this one just wasn’t special. (more…)

Time After Time is but one of an endless series of fish out of water time travel films, the vast majority of which get tedious after about fifteen minutes.  Time After Time was different, in that it got tiresome in a mere ten minutes

The idea here is a preposterous if entertaining “What If?” scenario, not unlike the series that Marvel Comics would publish back in the day, like what if Dr. Doom was a hero, what if Wolverine shaved his sideburns, or what if Winnie the Pooh was exposed to Gamma Rays instead of Bruce Banner.

In this case, the question is: What if infamous serial killer Jack the Ripper escaped 19th century justice by using H.G. Wells’ time machine to come to modern times (well, “modern” as of the film’s release in 1979)?   (more…)

I entered Lost Treasure with considerably low expectations.  Scratch that.  I entered Lost Treasure without expectations, exceeding what I’d expect from spending 80 minutes staring at my wallpaper.  As I glance around my abode, I realize I have no wallpaper, I have that stuccoish stuff everywhere, which is why I couldn’t put up those cool, Chicago Cubs/Bears fatheads my brother bought me a couple years ago.  But that’s not the point, though I suppose if I said I’d stare at my walls, which are covered in stucco, it would be the same as watching Lost Treasure, which I don’t think was my initial point, which related to my expectations.  Still with me?

Simply put (too late, I know), I only watched Lost Treasure because: 1) it was on TV, 2) it starred Stephen Baldwin and future Desperate Housewife Nicollette Sheridan, 3) and it had a stupid description under Program Info: “Brian’s brother Carl is abducted after they find a map to a legendary treasure on a Caribbean Island.”  Come on, try and tell me you’re not sold already.  There’s the link to buy the movie, so what are you waiting for?
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