In a movie, no matter the genre, you will always become that which you were just pretending to be. So, this charlatan exorcist in The Last Exorcism, exposing exorcisms as fraudulent for a documentary crew, what do you think? In a horror movie, will he finally have to become a real exorcist, or might he […]
Most directors can do one thing just really, really well. David Lynch, say, he can follow a telephone cord up and up such that you get all caught up in the languorous spiral, and that becomes not just the whole room, but the whole story. Wes Craven, he can rig a chase through a tight
M. Night Shyamalan had his work cut out with The Last Airbender. Not only did he have to run with a different title than the original Nickelodeon series—thanks, James Cameron—but he also had to somehow condense sixty-one episodes (1342 minutes) into something feature length. Or, the trailers didn’t tell us otherwise, anyway, but let me
For me, anyway. However, the caveat — movies I haven’t seen yet: THE HURT LOCKER: the title kept me away, yeah. very undescriptive. or, maybe makes perfect sense afterward, but none before. 500 DAYS OF SUMMER: dug the trailer, did the actors, heard great stuff about it, but, being not-horror, it kept slipping down the
AVATAR 3D in IMAX, wow. it’s SCANNER DARKLY and FERN GULLY and BRAVEHEART as percolated up through DANCES WITH WOLVES and POCAHONTAS. loved it in spite of those last two, even. and, though I can’t find it in his bibliography now, I was pretty sure I’d read a Samuel Delaney book/story about wearing bodies like
One of the big axioms of storytelling is that you know a character best by the decisions he or she makes under extreme circumstances. It’s why you push your characters out into the street, see how they react when traffic’s slamming in from all sides at once. Granted, you can rig your story so that
Got an article/review/essay (‘response?’) up for it over at Popmatters. Kind of wanted to call it Geppetto mon Amour, but figured that might show my roots too much. Those being all in France, yes. The LINK. Would slap some cool images up here, too, but the guys who do the art over at Popmatters have
My write-up for My Bloody Valentine‘s finally up. Links to a couple of other reviews in the post below this. Hitting Friday the 13th today, in Chicago. Even brought my mask.
Ninety-nine percent of the time, I’m a fool for an animated feature film. Cars, Wall*E, Bolt. Monsters, Inc, the Shreks, the Toy Storys. Flushed Away, Ratatouillie. Anxiously awaiting Aliens vs. Monsters. Have never quite gotten all the way over the brilliance of Hoodwinked. So, yeah, was expecting The Tale of Despereaux to be another sure
At least according to me. But, I don’t know, everywhere I click, people are pasting their best-of lists on-line. Feel all remiss if I don’t play along just a little. However, realizing that, now that I actually live close to a theatre, and to all kinds of opportunities in Denver, I’ve been somehow going to
Don’t know if everybody’s been keeping up, but over at Popmatters Marco Lanzagorta (of the never uncool “Dread Reckoning“) has been doing a Night of the Living Dead fortieth anniversay essay collection the last five days. Some ridiculously cool stuff, including a little intro from Romero. Anyway, got a piece up there today, as a
Which really isn’t that many, I know. I mean, I used to love cueing up the whole STAR TREK series, watching them back to back. Anyway, all over the spectrum here: SYNECHDOCHE, NEW YORK. Free screening with Charlie Kaufman there for the Q&A. Which was great. Or, great if you like watching somebody writhe under
The western may be one of the few if not only genres where character development is actually at crosspurposes with audience expectations. We don’t want the passing-through cowpoke/gunhand/lawman/whatever to actually change, do we? Isn’t it all better if they stay the same? Granted, maybe a more intense version of themselves, of the self they’re trying
So, the LOST writers claim not to be lost at all. They’re not just reeling the episodes out from nothing. It’s all going somewhere, somehow, some perfect way. Moreover (first time I’m using that word. cool, yeah?), they also guarantee that this crazy upside-down inside-out unfantasy island, it’s not some form of limbo or purgatory,
FRINGE, yep. Best series opener I think I’ve seen. And that’s including the white bears in LOST, the aliens in X-FILES, the space jellyfish in STAR TREK NEXT GENERATION, the plummeting cheerleader in HEROES, the (if I’m remembering correctly) sewn-up mouths in MILLENIUM, the look on Tom Vail’s face when Alyson denies knowing him in
I’m usually all in support of an artist making money doing whatever. Sure, I respect Springsteen and the U2 guys for not hawking anybody else’s wares, but I hardly begrudge Dylan pushing lingerie or BB King selling Whoppers1. And it’s not the ‘wares,’ the inherent goodness of lingerie or Whoppers, that makes what they’re doing
Man, came home Friday after watching Prom Night, just all conflicted and twitchy from it, and then the next morning woke early, slammed down an essay-thing about it, and then of course hit the wrong button, lost it all, so, when I finally had time (that night), I re-did what of it I could, and
Man, I got the year right for The Ruins anyway, back when. And this is another non-review, yeah. Specifically, one with spoilers. Anyway, yeah, Scott Smith pretty much proves that it’s not always a bad idea to let the author be the one to make that book-to-screen jump. He nails it, I mean. I guess
1. Just got a story, “Lonegan’s Luck,” accepted by New Genre. Like most stories if you peel them back far enough, this one, too, is a zombie western. Nearly forty pages of it. 2. Doomsday opens tomorrow. Very excited. Looks like all the elements I look for in high-calibre, life-altering cinema, they’re here. Which is
The Golden Compass is one of the more amazing movies I’ve seen all year. Best fantasy since Pan’s Labyrinth, I’d say. Too, so, so sad I didn’t read the book first. No way to remedy that now, of course, but, can try to make up for it anyway. Also on-list: Inkheart. The Girl Next Door
Working on a new slasher right now, and leaning towards making it a screenplay, mainly so the form can keep it reined in for me, somewhat. Too, this time, I’m doing what I’ve never done: thinking it all through ahead of time. Which has involved a lot of re-watching, a lot of thinking. And, on
Movies like this just make me break out my lists, look for a place to wedge this movie, so it can be that much closer to my heart. Which, I know it’s got to be an almost-empty statement by now, but, using Feast as my touchstone, and acknowledging that Leslie Vernon was the best since,
Jeff Stolarcyk over at Conditional Axe has some bad news: Trick R’ Treat, much like All the Boys Love Mandy Lane, has been bumped to some indefinite time later. Very sad. Now Saw 4‘ll have to do. But I trust it will, too. A very tight series so far, I think. And, just back from
What I scribbled down in my trusty notebook*, moments after finishing all of INLAND EMPIRE when I really only meant to watch thirty minutes or so: A girl’s gotten pregnant and not by the guy she’s with. She’s haunted by ‘Krimp’ — a ‘crimp’ in the umbilical cord — and by a screwdriver to the
