movies/tv

11/22/63

I really really want to review it, but . . . anybody noticed that I only tend to do write-ups for books that are either problematic (or offensive to my delicate sensibilities) or that I can use a step to get up on my soapbox? And King’s 11/22/63, it’s just a solid, well-told, strongly-written book. […]

Happy Halloweening

or, ‘Five Horror (Movie) Anthologies,’ but that doesn’t look so cool as a title. nor does ‘Five Horror-Antho Movies.’ really, I couldn’t find anything properly cool. and I’m far from the first dude to make a list like this — though I might be the first to limit it to just five? — and mine’s

The Wheelman Cometh

Man, went into Drive fully prepared for Steve McQueen to be powershifting through the city, fully psyched for that chase scene from Ronin to get dilated out to ninety minutes, was ready for some Gone in 60 Seconds (the remake) fun, so long as it didn’t get as goofy as The Fast and the Furious(es)

The Floating Dead

A while back I was part of the cattle call for what became this article, and just found myself looking this email up as a student was coming to my office to talk about ghosts. So I figured it’d be good if I could see again what I think about them (I know nothing until

Ding-Dong, You’re Dead

So what if the rats of NIMH got a taste for human flesh? Or, not flesh, exactly, but I don’t want to give anything away. In the way of hints, though, how about: Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark doesn’t not have something to do with Darkness Falls. Where it separates itself, though, is quality.

Snug House Bug House: on TNT’s “Falling Skies”

In Kyle Reese’s bleak future there’s those Heinlein kind of bugs from space but no Ender to xenocide them away, and, I mean, they walk around in Robocop get-up already and look like Super 8 without it and act like first cousins to the aliens in Titan A.E., chasing a ragtag, Walking Dead band of

In the Doghouse

Oh, Doghouse, where have you been my whole life? I’m not saying I haven’t been into the other zombie comedies, the Shaun of the Deads, the Dead & Breakfasts, all the way back to Hysterical! and the splatter comedy Romero was kickstarting in Dawn of the Dead, and all the way up to Ahh!! Zombies!

Did JJ Abrams watch SciFi Channel’s Tin Man?

I mean — I don’t know. But look: Tin Man was 2007, Fringe debuted 2008 each features someone who grew up in a parallel world (Peter, DG) each features someone who has had ‘knowledge’ surgically removed from their brain (Walter, Glitch) each has a ‘mystic man’ (each played by someone with starpower, too: Nimoy, Dreyfuss)

Parental Guide (RUBBER)

Sex & Nudity A woman is seen naked, from behind, but it’s through two doors, and in the point-of-view of a killer tire, so it’s not really anything you can do much with. Profanity Not excessive, and what’s there’s mostly from the ‘spectators’—the embedded horror-movie audience meant to offer the same objections we would, or

Good TV

Or: The subject line that comes to mind now that I just finished up the Deadwood series. Or: just to write dialogue like that once, ever. I mean, yeah, it’s all kinds of fakey and staged and overblown, but it’s that kind of fakey and staged and overblown and David Mamet-y that feels like playwrights

Tucker & Dale vs. Evil

Some movies just make you happy. Feast was this was for me. And Severance. And Leslie Vernon. And, though it’s more over-the-top, Club Dread. Horror comedy’s where it’s at, I think, though there’s a line, yeah; while I’ll sign up any day of the week for a Decampitated viewing, I don’t do so well at

A Dog-like Individual: on Teen Wolf

Adolescence and lycanthropy are the chocolate and peanut butter of the horror world. All this strange body hair, an insatiable appetite, late hours,  sleeping at all the wrong times, nights you can’t really remember, can only piece together flashes of. A pretty sincere distrust of what are seeming to be your instincts, and everybody looking

Things Movies Have Been Based On

“Based on a melody once whistled by Garth Marenghi.” Another movie A book A true story Real events An amusement park ride A video game A television show A toy A real idea A comic book A comic strip A song

Sucker Punch

Sucker Punch has problems, yes. Usually, though, you can squint just right, only watch the parts of the movie that the trailer sold you on, and you’re good. Not this time. Which, this is a hyperkinetic, Scott Pilgrim-kind of fantasy fight movie involving steam-powered zombies, with some pretty cool updates of standard songs going on

Cinemuck

These are, I don’t know, between fifty and ninety movie-type reviews I wrote back in 1999 or so. Pretty much the exact same few months I was first writing DEMON THEORY, yeah. Anyway, I only messed up on a couple. Stigmata‘s one of them, I think. But I got a couple right as well, maybe:

Kato Land

almost missed it, but my Green Hornet review‘s up.

10 from 2010

Couple (of my) lists, one at Dzanc, one at the San Antonio Current. And, yeah, for each, I had to check, make sure Sorority Row hadn’t come out in 2010. Not that it for-sure could have edged close to Machete. But definitely maybe.

Piranha 3D

Of course it’s way after the fact for me to be writing about Piranha 3D, but if I do it later then it’ll even be more after the fact, so . . . Remember when Lou Diamond Phillips was in Bats, way back in 99 or so? An interview he did around then, he kind

True Grit

it’s EXACTLY the country for old dudes. My review of it’s live.

I Saw SAW.

SAW 3D status-sized review: best installment in the series in a while, now. Story’s tangled, sure, but not AS tangled. 3D’s fun, but not MY BLOODY VALENTINE fun. Gore’s over the top, Rube Goldberg’s working overtime from the grave, Jigsaw’s forever, but, all that aside, I’m finally getting a sense of this franchise: it’s caper

Seventy-Four Horror Movies

So, I saw that Paul Tremblay and Jesse Bullington threw down the seventy-four movie gloves, so I made up a list last Wednesday, then promptly blasted off for Minnesota without posting it, only just now remembered, thanks to Travis Hedge Coke’s list of ten. Also, I really wanted to read their lists, but really didn’t

Fun and Games: Night of the Demons

(Fun and Gore, really) Horror movies, for all their excess and transgression, are every bit as rulebound as the romantic comedy. Maybe even moreso. This Night of the Demons remake is no exception. There’s the big rules that have to be followed, like punishing the stupid: those who think having a Halloween party at the

Resident Evil: Afterlife

review up here. and, that big, hammer-axe zombie: coolest ever. want to know its whole story. want a movie about it, really.

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