Danny Rad

so i waited about a month or so (prolly longer) to actually go see this movie. and then i waited about a month to write the review. and then i guess another month to finally post it here. so whatevs. in any case, this’ll be going up right around the time this movie comes out on home video.

ok. i wanted to start with a bad joke about the woman in black not actually being a ghost, but in fact an early 20th century alien intermediary with tommy lee jones, and they flashy-thinged harry potter into thinking it was a haunted house, but it was a horrible joke, and i probably should have just cut all mention of it out of this intro. so, consider all that cut. where to start with a movie that i don’t hate. right there i guess, yeh? i didn’t hate this movie. there you have it. did you even know this movie was out? after harry potter 7.1 and 7.2 made more money than the u.s. government is going to spend on clean energy r&d, the star of those 2 movies goes on to make a spooky british ghost story, and no one gives a shit. i mean sure, harry potter was fun, but what have you done for me lately danny-boy?

basically: radcliffe (equus) is a youngster in his lawyery, real estatey, businessy firm. his wife died in childbirth delivering his lil boy (4 years ago maybe?), and under penalty of employment termination, must go to a spooky english estate to cross t’s and dot i’s and take care of a ridiculous amount of paperwork (radcliffe, not his dead wife). it’s a fair setup for isolation that doesn’t feel at all forced or goofy. i just re-watched PANDORUM over the weekend, and i have to say, the old tricks are the best tricks. the greatest triggers for queueing up fear in the minds of an audience are usually those things which all people find frightening. waking up alone and not knowing where you are is scary. your boss threatening to fire you is scary. getting lost in the woods is scary. these are simple story-starters that make people uneasy. you don’t need to have the cat jump out at you to the blare of french horns when the audience is already spooked (not that WOMAN IN BLACK doesn’t do that – except with a bird). and while i had a blast with movies like INSIDIOUS and SILENT HILL, sometimes we try to out-clever ourselves in an effort to find some NEW ways to get creeped out. so while WIB is nowhere near as good as either of those movies, it’s premise is enough to confuse me into liking this movie more than i should. i think. or maybe i DISlike it more than i should, and it’s actually pretty good. either way, i half-like and half-dislike just about everthing going on here.

Hammertime

the kooky townsfolk of little towntingtonshire (or whatever the village was called) is a callback to a great horror trope of insider vs. outsider – it sets up the whole “you just don’t understand,” motif of small-town-with-a-secret which is used to great effect in great horror films such as VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED, A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, and just about every story stephen king has ever written. it’s even part of the backdrop of DRACULA and JAWS. it’s only problematic here because the acting of the townsfolk isn’t much better than it was in VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED or DRACULA. but even that is almost forgivable, because the film sets itself up from the very first few seconds to be a melodrama. when the production company logos are fading on and off the screen before the opening credits, and the logo pops up for HAMMER FILMS, it brings certain expectations with it. if you’ve seen any of the “great” christopher lee dracula films, you know you’re going to get bright, SUSPIRIA-red blood, a hero running towards the noise, no character (no matter how adorably insane they treat their puppies) will be safe, and there will probably way too much footage of the monster (there should also probably be a nice boob scene – sadly, WIB eschews the boobies). these movies are about tone and suspense, and not necessarily the big scare. of course, that was then, this is now, and nothing stays true forever. expect changes.

but in the end the costumes and set designs are super awesome! the house is big and spooky and has wonderfully dark rooms and over the top wind-up toys in the nursery – spot on! but the make-up is atrocious. i’m not sure if it was a continuity issue, or director james watkins just doesn’t think five o’clock shadows are becoming, but … let me explain: every time radcliffe is on camera, he looks terrible. as well he should! he’s overworked, overtired, overstressed and living in a goddam haunted house. the dude’s gonna be a little disheveled. at least until the script calls for a close-up. then, all of a sudden, his hair is fixed straighter than eddie munster, his beard is airbrushed more than a southside lowrider and he’s cleaner than something you would imagine to be really really clean.

Jane Longstocking

i initially went to see this movie because it was written by jane goldman (writer/co-writer of 2 of my favorites: KICK-ASS and STARDUST – both, incidentally, directed by matthew vaughan), but here, there’s almost no dialogue! the music is good. no complaints. and while the story is good and intriguing, there are points that make zero sense. i don’t want to get all spoilery, since i DO recommend seeing this flick, but at a climactic point in the movie, 2 of the major characters are split up by ghostly shenanigans, and you think, oh shit, someone’s gonna buy a farm, and then a corner is turned, a scary face appears to much nazgul-inspired shreiking and then we cut. which is good. steven speilberg told me it’s what you DON’T see that’s scary. but then later, we revisit said character, and he’s fine. and he’s like, “oops. we got separated. teehee!*” [*not actual movie dialogue]

and then harry is almost drowning in a swamp and then harry sees a ghost and then harry performs a burial and then harry sees his son and then the movie ends. and i’m like, wait. what? this movie’s closing credits are longer than the 3rd act. which isn’t really fair to the viewer – the plot is fair, and the conclusion is fair, but the speed at which they’re presented feels like spending a decade rebuilding a classic car from scratch, making sure you’ve got all original parts in mint condition, and then you’ve finally tightened every single bolt, and it purrs like a kitten, but then you paint it by tossing buckets of glidden at it.

but i’m not really into cars. so we’ll say it’s like painting a portrait, and you’ve just spent months making sure the eyes look just right, they look just like the eyes of lisa gherardini, they sparkle in the iris like they’re looking right at you, and her hair has a perfect part right down the middle and her nose is, well, it’s not a sexy nose, but it looks true to life, and then you take your 2-inch sable, dip it in the black, and slap a big fat parabola where her mouth should be.

but i don’t paint either. so we’ll say it’s like crafting a good horror movie, giving your audience 80 minutes of taut, tense, classic, gothic horror and then sprinting as fast as possible to the denouement and rolling the credits. yeah. kinda like that. still, after all that, STILL, i recommend. especially if you’re just gonna netflix it. if for nothing else than to convince yourself that little danny rad can be something other than the boy who lived.

we’re doing foreign film this year at the sleeper cell (the french horror HAUTE TENSION (anglicized: high tension) for this week), which is less impressive than it sounds considering i’ve skipped out on the last month or 2. not due to a broken wrist or any international cavorting, but only to laziness. as it happens, the first week i didn’t submit an article for publication in this forum, it wasn’t a big deal. of COURSE it wasn’t a big deal. no one’s getting paid for this. MEDIABREACH is a big project of adoration and sweetness, and if i was gonna take a week off, well that was just fine with everyone. which was great! a nice, low-pressure, voluntary labor of love is a perfect outlet. the unintended consequence however of the charity of my fellow contributors was, as expected, an increase in that furlough. but we’re back now, having once been lost, but now found. so slaughter the fatted calf, and let’s get back to work.

off hand, the first actual factual foreign movie i can remember seeing was MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL when i was 7 or 8 years old. really only old enough to appreciate a puppet bunny ripping out throats and the animation sequences. castle antrax was boring and didn’t make any sense, but the cartoons were funny, and the police bit was just understandable enough to make me laugh.

but no one cares what little children have to say about movies. so when i saw it again and again through the years, and more and more of the jokes revealed themselves to me, it was obvious i wasn’t just watching comedy. at least, not ONLY comedy. the same exact thing happened with GHOSTBUSTERS and most other pg13 fares which would no doubt earn R rating today by our wussified mpaa.

TOP 5 MEMORY MOVIE LINES
5 - “you’ve been in my life so long, i can’t remember anything else.” — lt. ellen ripley (ALIEN 3)

4 - “remember.” — spock (STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN)

3 - “man is defined by his actions, not his memory.” — kuato (TOTAL RECALL)

2 - “memory can change the shape of a room; it can change the color of a car.” — leonard shelby (MEMENTO)

1 - “i remember when my daddy gave me that gun; he told me that I should never point it at anything in the house, and that he’d rather I’d shoot at tin cans in the backyard, but he said that sooner or later he supposed the temptation to go after birds would be too much, and that I could shoot all the blue jays I wanted, if I could hit ‘em, but to remember it was a sin to kill a mockingbird.” — atticus finch (TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD)

HOLY GRAIL has become one of those movies i’ve seen so many times, that i don’t need to watch it but maybe once every other year. in fact, i’m not sure when the last time i watched it WAS. but certainly it hasn’t been since i moved into my new place off I-10, which makes it at LEAST 2 years. but if i had to dammit, i could write a 1500 word sleeper cell on it. and i’d be justified too, considering their american box office numbers.

bughunter

but i won’t. ’cause we all know damn well that low box office numbers do not a sleeper make. thanks to vh1, i also know that the grateful dead were 1 hit wonders. so what? the bottom line is, describing movies from memory is dangerous. i remember loving, absolutely capital l Loving, PETE’S DRAGON as a kid (qussamapodi?). but of course, i committed the ultimate crime and tried to watch it again with my post-college, now-married-man mind, and i couldn’t even catch a tiny sliver of a glimmer of what i used to find so amazing. foo on me. not to say that it’s the exact same thing as remembering how awesome GRINDHOUSE: PLANET TERROR was. i haven’t seen that since the theatrical debut, but i’m pretty sure i like what i remember liking, and that i remember liking it for all the right reasons. i saw the double feature on blu a few weeks ago, by the way, so i’m sure that drought will end soon enough. honestly, how badass was michael biehn?? after TERMINATOR ALIENS and ABYSS and even non-jim-cameron movies K2 and TOMBSTONE, how did that dude not become a household name? i’ll never understand it. AVATAR 2 jim. don’t screw it up (there’s also a rumor going around that he could be in TERMINATOR 5 – awesome).

RANT (disclaimed)
i know this isn’t really the place for it, but i want to rant a little here now. and this is the first time i feel i have to say this: the views of Zack S do not necessarily reflect those of Mediabreach.com and its staff writers.

RANT (begun)
SO: the other day at my local bookseller, i picked up the latest issue of entertainment weekly for whatever kind of movie / tv news i could parse between all their GLEE brown-nosing, when i came across a short little article regarding the new one-sheet poster for david fincher’s upcoming americanization of the international sensation THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO (if you haven’t seen the trailer it’s AWEsome – and that aural beatdown your head is taking in is karen o and her YEAH YEAH YEAHS covering ZEPPELIN’s IMMIGRANT SONG. sweeet). so despite my complete moral inabilty to ever watch SOCIAL NETWORK (entirely due to my utter distaste for ben mezzrich), i remain an avid fincher fan. from ALIEN 3 (which is way cooler than ALIENS – please direct all your hatemail to the twitter account @mediabreach) and SEVEN to FIGHT CLUB and ZODIAC – fincher movies are always flat out awesomely well-made capital “f” Films. and you know i’m going to be there opening day to see craig mcdaniels killing it in this dark thriller

RANT (…continued)
the article in question in EW concerned the content of the 1-sheet poster for THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO (on the left over there <–). as you can see, rooney mara (as the eponymous lisbeth salander) is baring her breasts and craigy is in a dominating pose. the poster will likely only show online and in europe because us poor lil puritans in america might all die of spontaneous erections and exploding heads if we actually see a nipple in public. there are apparently a buncha people IN THE KNOW (who have not put their names to their comments) who say it’s degrading to women and not in line with the salander character and that it doesn’t do a good job of selling the movie and that it’s risky because it might drive away conservative movie-goers. isn’t this story about a woman who kills a LOT of people? it’ll be rated R – it’s david fincher so you KNOW there’s gonna be some fairly blunt, violent imagery – i think conservative movie-goers aren’t who he’s aiming for. and SINCE WHEN do boobies not sell absolutely everything?? i hate to spoil it for you, but lisbeth’s character undergoes some pretty traumatic physical abuse. so as far as not connecting with the character, i have to tentatively disagree. and i’m afraid that just because a woman’s breasts are on display DOES NOT MEAN SHE’S BEING DISGRACED.

Gabrielle d'Estrees and one of her sisters in the bath (Fontainebleau school, 1595)

A (super) BRIEF NOTE ON eDWARD eSTLIN CUMMINGS
so this lil section was supposed to be about the big why of why famous american poet e.e. cummings is famous for his unconventional typographical decisions in his poetry – most notably his lack of ordinary capitalization and punctuation. this was going to be an eloquent defense of my own unconventional typography in this here post. but as it happens, it doesn’t seem like anyone in the world knows exactly why he did it. there are a few theories saying that he was a strong believer in human equality. which is nice. and that his convictions led him to express themselves in his writing through the democratization of the case setting of his letters. it sounds nice. so maybe that’s it. but he did legally change his name to “e.e.” which, while it might have been for noble reasons, sounds so much more like he was saying, “notice me! oh, someone please notice me!” in any case, i was unable to find any decent argument that i could apropriate for myself, so i’ll just tell the truth – i wrote this whole thing using microsoft’s notepad accessory. and there’s no autocorrect! lame i know. and i refuse to use the shift key unless the word needs to be stressed or is REALLY important. but for funsies, here’s a taste and a link:
in Just-
spring when the world is mud-
luscious the little
lame balloonman

whistles far and wee

all that said, it’s been awhile since the last time i saw HIGH TENSION. so, obviously i don’t remember everything about the flick (so i don’t have a lot of details to share). but i do remember that i liked it. i liked it a lot. which is even more surprising after you’ve seen it. if you know me. if you don’t know me, or haven’t gotten enough of who i am through these lil posts, then maybe it’s not so surprising. still, if you’re not surprised, just know you oughta be. not because there’s anything wrong with the movie. and julia roberts isn’t in it. but because it’s one of THOSE movies. and i can’t even tell you what kind of THOSE i’m talking about, because, of course, it’s a SPOILER. boooo! so for those of you who HAVE seen it, you know exactly what i’m talking about. and for those of you who HAVEN’T, i don’t feel it’s spoilery of me to say that it’s got a kicker ending. i mean, i haven’t done a formal study or anything, but i’ve gotta believe that better than half of all horror flicks have a kicker ending. the twist that the stabby killer in the hockey mask is actually the mom! or the stabby killer with the old lady sweater is actually the son! and so on.

the story here is pretty simple. simple stories really can make for some of the best horror flicks. you’re camping in the woods, a monster shows up: survive. maybe ALIEN jazzes that up some, but they’re basically camping in the woods when they find a monster. JAWS and LAMBS are close, but different in that the brave hero must track down and kill the monster before it kills more innocent campers. but that all implies going out into the great untamed capital “n” Nature. and it becomes something totally different when you’re in your home, minding your business, and the sonofabitching monster breaks in.

girl a ... or b? a?

THE STORY:
Girl A invites her school friend Girl B to her home in the french countryside for … summer vacation? christmas? something like that. they’re chilling after a nice homemade dinner, and the monster (this sounds misleading – it’s not a monster (per se) – this ain’t a creature feature) comes in the house and kills mom and dad and brother. and i’ll say this as best i can: Girl B is able to get out with Girl A – Girl A has reacted … negatively. so Girl B, who seems to have kept her wits, is trying to get them both out safely and keep the pursuing monster as far away as possible. it’s a chase movie at heart, with more twists than just in the road.

A SHORT NOTE ON TITLE TRANSLATION

the 8th passenger of the nostromo

so this movie is called HAUTE TENSION (pronounce kinda like OAT TAWN-she-ON), and that translates literally into HIGH TENSION. which was what this was called in america. but in the UK it was renamed SWITCHBLADE ROMANCE. wtf? there’s next to no romance at all in this movie (there is a non-traditional love scene though), and i can’t for the life of me remember a single switchblade. maybe it’s an idiom in england? who knows. in any case, it makes in iteresting (to me at least) that when translating a film, studios feel like they can just screw around with a title to try and get more people in the seats. i mean, american studios don’t jack with incredibly stupidly titled american films, otherwise DIE HARD 2 wouldn’t have been called DIE HARDER (add to that same subset: DUMB AND DUMBERER and I STILL KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMERER) and TOO WONG FOO, THANKS FOR EVERYTHING, JULIE NEWMAR would never have gotten out of the gates. so what gives us the right to change EL LABARINTO DEL FAUNO (the faun’s labyrinth) to PAN’S LABYRINTH – pan ain’t in the damn thing, and is from a completely different goddam mythology. of course it goes both ways: ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND, which is named directly from a poem by the immortal british poet alexander pope was released in italy as IF YOU LEAVE ME, I DELETE YOU. jesus christ. what the hell do pope’s poems look like translated into italian?? and famously, BOOGIE NIGHTS was translated into chinese as: HIS GREAT DEVICE MAKES HIM FAMOUS. picturesque! the coolest? ALIEN in poland was called THE EIGHTH PASSENGER OF THE NOSTROMO. even more ominous than ALIEN. neat!

RANT (…continued)
speaking of foreign title translation, the title of the original swedish novel and the original swedish film is: MAN SOM HATAR KVINNOR and while we innocent americans have gone with the cute and image based GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, the title actually translates literally to: MEN WHO HATE WOMEN. certainly sounds like a violent story. and the story is sure to degrade the salander character, larsson’s themes deal heavily with the moral vacuum in contemporary society. he’s not exploiting women, but the fabric of our worldwide community and just how little we are actually willing to do to change for the better. you want to participate in degradation? then don’t help build houses in flood-ravaged cities – don’t donate canned foods to a homeless shelter – don’t give away that extra jacket to someone living on the streets – don’t help. instead, write to your congressmen, and complain about a movie poster.

RANT (…concluded)
of course, i couldn’t be troubled to look up every person in the world who has a problem with this poster. and of course, the EW article leaves out names, instead going with the very journalistically inept “some people” and “insiders” and “one prominent publicist.” just because a few people are really uncomfortable with the human body doesn’t mean that seeing it is an act of violence and degradation. but i fear that these folks are the same ilk of those who wanted to ban HARRY POTTER because it positively portrays witches. the same people who ban books because mark twain and kurt vonnegut force us to actually see how painful it can be to use a word like “nigger.” and the same clowns who wanted THE KING’S SPEECH re-edited so they wouldn’t have to hear an actor say “fuck.” and these are the same people who see two men marrying each other in apocalyptic terms. these people don’t want to ruin our country. they think they’re doing the right thing. that’s what insanity is like. and this backwards leaning fear-mongering is not i’m afraid protected or endorsed by phrases like:
“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
if you hate homosexuals or are against homosexual marriages, that’s your right as an american citizen; there’s no law that says you can’t believe whatever you like. but if you think your beliefs need to be added to american law (which grants just about every freedom to its citizens short of theft and murder you can imagine) then you’re probably a dangerous, fascist. i’ve got no problem with anyone who believes that the laws of the land should be written according the christian bible. no problem at all. but if you DO believe that, then you CANNOT believe in the united states constitution. and i don’t want you influencing my congress. but this is america. and this country was built so that we could change it. it’s your american right to change the laws (as long as you can get 75% of america to agree with you). but before a single syllable comes out of your mouth about how you think the country should more closely resemble judea, your first words better describe how you feel about the the Constitution. and while you have every right to vote, you should take the high road and realize you don’t belong within a hundred yards of any ballot ever. and please direct THAT hatemail to The_Fourteenth_Amendment@yahoo.com.

MOVIE STUFF
and maybe “great” horror doesn’t use the kicker – the 3 horror greats that i throw around constantly are JAWS and SILENCE OF THE LAMBS and ALIEN: 2 creature-features and 1 murder mystery. maybe they’re not even great horror films, but great films with murderous baddies. but in the end, the shark is just a shark and not an alien probe. the alien is just an alien and not a psychological construct. and the killer is just a psychopath and not the ghost of a century-old (to the day) murder victim. but the kicker in HIGH TENSIon isn’t so clumsy. i mean, i guess SOME people thought it was clumsy or it would’ve made more money. but HT’s kicker was a little more popular in the 90s, and there are a couple higher profile movies that went on to become great successes which employ the same trick. of course, if i tell you what those were too, it’s spoiled. suffice it to say: this insn’t really the kind of trick i normally like. but damn, it’s just done so cool.

RANT (epilogue)
i’m not telling anyone what to believe. alls i’m saying is that it’s your right to take moral stances. i’m doing that right now in fact. if Anyone really thinks boobies and gay marriage (i know i know, the EW article says NOTHING about homosexuality – i’m making a rhetorical parallel) are going to destroy our society, then i’m just disagreeing with those Anyones. i also understand that no one quoted in the EW article says anything about the destruction of our society or whether or not the posters should or shouldn’t be displayed. those quoted only say that they think the posters are indecent. however, when i hear anything even remotely associated with censorship i bristle just like dustin does when someone mentions kate hudson. don’t tell me what i can and can’t watch, because you’re just one step away from telling me what i can and can’t read. and then what i can and can’t believe. maybe that sounds paranoid – and maybe i’d think it was too. but i can’t help but feel we’ve seen that kind of thing before.

ahhh. good times

nooooooo!

Alright – last time I mentioned that I was doing a big giant music project and that it was driving me crazy, because (and this is where I sound like an old man) all music coming out these days is terrible. Terrible. But hey, April 12 was coming around, and it was going to be my saving grace, because (as I’m sure you all read in my Best Ten of Oh-Ten: Music Edition) I’m a giant Strokes fan, and the new record, Angles was on the way. But then it came out, and while the second track (“Under Cover of Darkness”) sounded like average filler on a normal Strokes record, the first track (“Machu Picchu”) sounds like a synth-pop Michael Jackson cover, and well jesus. It’s kinda given me a low-level depression for the last few days. What on earth can save us if the even the Strokes can’t keep their heads for this penultimate year of the universe: 2011. Movies I guess. But … what¬†kind of movie? How ’bout a Russian action flick that answers the question that’s been burning in the pits of all our stomachs since Stan Lee first dreamed up his “Merry Mutants” (and Marty Goodman put his bigass editorial foot down and demanded the name be changed to something like, say, the X-Men) back in the early 60s: The mutant story is cool and all, but … instead of shooting eye lasers … or freezing ambient water vapor … what if they were VAMPIRES ‘n’ shit??!!

TO THE QUALIFICATION LOUNGE!
Timur Bekmambetov’s Nochnoy Dozor (based on the book with the same name (by Sergei Lukyanenko) and which even in America you’ll find in the N section of your local Flathead Video under NightWatch) was the biggest Russian movie of all time and the coolest thing to come out of Russia since Captain Marco Ramius (seriously, how cool was that soundtrack?). This was a watershed for Russian cinema which before this was churning out such greats as The Barber of Siberia, Burnt by the Sun and Turkish Gambit. NightWatch, which put forth a Monsters-like effort in special effects with its 4 million dollar budget took in over 33 million worldwide. Nicely done Timmy (see also Wanted and the forthcoming Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter).

The story centers around Anton, who has just recently discovered he’s an OTHER. bumbumbummmmm (for future reference, anytime you see “Other” in this article, it’s totally ok to read it as “mutant”) So Anton (Konstantin Khabenskiy, the rat guy in Wanted) who wants to see if his girl is cheating on him, and maybe she is. And if she is, him and the damn chili-bowl on his dead (not to mention that sweater) were askin for it. And to find out if his girl is cheating, he goes to see a witch (who may or may not be insane) and through witchery she tries to murder Anton’s woman’s unborn child by smashing an egg with a skillet or something? See also the Russian legend of the Baba-Yaga. But this is breaking the rules. She’s a dark witch of the DayWatch and taking a life without the proper paperwork in place … damn. Let me back up

A Brief History of the Baba-Yaga

Howl Chickenbones! Chickenbones! Chickenbones!

The Baba-Yaga in Russian mythology is similar to all American neighborhood folktales about the creepy lady at the end of the street. Aside from the fact that the baba-yaga flies through the air in … i almost don’t even want to say it …a mortar and pestle. Like it’s a boat and the pestle is an oar. It’s Russia right? Her home walks on chicken legs, the keyhole to her house is always full of sharp teeth and while the fence posts are topped with skulls, there’s always at least one empty one just waiting ¬†for the next little girl. She’s your average witch who lives in the woods and eats lost, unlucky children. And while the baba-yaga legend isn’t necessarily pertinent to the film (not at all really), it just provides your first hint at the Russian subtext of the entire movie.

In this alternate Russian X-Men-like universe, Geser (Vladimir Menshov, Lucky Trouble and Generation P) is your Professor X – he leads the good guys, he runs a tight ship, he dresses nicely. And a long long time ago, Geser led his army of the good Others into battle against the evil baddie Others led by Magneto … uh I mean Zavulon (Viktor Verzhbitskiy of the insanely popular Yaroslav Tysyachu let Nazad as well as Na Kryuchke!). So the 2 armies meet a very long time ago (on a very Mines-of-Moria-looking bridge) to battle it out once and for all, and when it all hits the fan, and Others of both sides are dying, Geser yells really loud and stops time. Suck on¬†that Marvel. He makes a deal with Zavulon that the 2 sides will leave each other alone for the most part, and that each side will keep tabs on the other to make sure they’re all following the rules. So, the baddies keep an eye on the light guys and thusly are called DayWatch. Vice versa, the good guys are called: NightWatch. And the major rule? No person, who is not yet aware that they are an Other can¬†be coerced into joining either side; in other words, they must CHOOSE.

Top 5 Foreign Directors Who Made It in Hollywood (The Everyone Says Neill with 1 Syllable Edition)

The Samaritan here fires really big bullets

5 – From effects on Dark
Angel to directing Matt
Damon: Neill Blomkamp

4 – Mexican T.V.
leads to Harry Potter 3:
Alfonso Cuaron

3 – Crouching Tiger then
Brokeback; how awesome is Hulk?!
Just ask James: Ang Lee

2 – Ok, Troy sucked, but
NeverEnding Story? DUUUDE!
Wolfgang Peterson

1 – Zero to Sixty
in Cronos to Hellboy 2:
Gilly del Toro

BACK TO ANTON!
So this old hag of a witch who is now¬†obviously a dark bitch is trying to get Anton to agree to kill the unborn child and thusly be turned into an agent of darkness. Why does this matter? Star Wars! There’s a very George Lucasian prophecy that states that one day, an Other will arise who is the strongest Other in history, and depending on which side this Other chooses, the tide will be turned once and for all. So it’s the opposite of Balance-to-the-Others, but you get it yeh? And this is just the first 20 minutes!

Anton yellin (nyerntnyernt) ...and yes. that's a magical flashlight he's holding

Throw in a woman who is neither owl nor woman nor both (of course, she’s also not a dolphin nor geographic location nor foreign diplomat) and you really have one of the coolest movies of the early 21st century. And if you’ve seen Wanted, regardless of whether or not you liked it, you’ve got to admit, it has a pretty original visual style to it. Now, imagine a director with the ability to render that kind of creativity, and imagine that he doesn’t have a superstar like Angie Jolie to please and he doesn’t have a Hollywood team of producers overseeing his every single move, and you’ll get some kind of idea of the visuals working in this movie.

Honestly, if you’re on Zack Snyder’s jock for getting burly brits or cute actresses in front of a green screen to generate a landscape action scene, then you’ve¬†got to love the kind of practical effects¬†plus low-budget computer trickery that a guy like Timur can bring to a presentation. This movie is one of a kind (way better in fact than the sequel DayWatch ‚Ķ I’m not even sure if the 3rd movie (there are actually 4 books in the series)¬†is even planned. It would be titled¬†‚Ķ no shit: TwilightWatch) and honestly deserves at least a rental if not a complete blind-buy. Ok, so this week, we’re skipping the embed clip (the trailer is absolutely lame complete with Ford-truck-style voice over and dialogue like: “It started over a THOUSAND YEARS AGO” like that garbage actually gets people to watch movies anymore). Still, this movie is awesome. maybe not great, but AWESOME.

The idea was that I’d find a lot of great music that I otherwise wouldn’t have known about, but what’s happening instead is that I’m listening to the first few tracks on every horrible god-awful indie record known to man. And if that weren’t bad enough, it seems like every dbag with an amp who can scream about how angry he is at the world and how god has personally screwed him over can get a record deal. I’m all for indie distribution and the democratization of art, but jesus, all it seems to be doing is adding more and more chaff to an already dying wheatfield. Lame analogy? Probably.

And maybe these two things are unrelated, but I’m to the point where I feel I can sing all the words to any song I’ve never heard based on the band name.
Example:
Band Name: Necronoclast.
Album: Ashes.
Probably song lyrics: WE SHALL BATHE IN THE BLOOD OF THE LAMB! / ALL ARE HATED, NONE ARE SAFE, / FOR I AM THE SON OF SAM! / DEATH DEATH DEATH DEATH BURN MEEEEEEEEE!
(Just a guess of course.)

So, needing a little unpredictability mixed into my life, I’m going around the world looking for movies that I have never seen anything like. We’ve done this before of course, with several foreign Sleeper Cells like Intacto, Lola Rennt, El Espinazo del Diablo, Bloody Mallory, etc., but those were just sprinkled in for fun. This time, it’s really closer to therapy.

First up? Spain’s Los Cronocrimenes (and of course, for us lousy Americans, you’ll find it at Hollywood Video under ‘T’¬†for Timecrimes. But you know what? Fudge it, ’cause I don’t speak Spanish either. It’s been about 27 years since my family moved to San Antonio, North Mexico, and all I’ve really picked besides food names and all the possible insults for my guero self are mainly profanities. Pinche diaspora! And I’m cool with that. I’m not one of those 4×4 drivin, Dixie whistlin, straw hat wearin tobacco chewin inbred hillbillies. I love culture. Speak whatever language you want. I think Spanish sounds beautiful. And here’s the “but” – here’s the whole “Not-to-be-Disrespectful-BUT” nail in my own coffin – BUT, if I’m not going to care if you speak English or not, when I come into your place of business, don’t get all pissed at ME ’cause I don’t speak Spanish). In other words, thank god for subtitles. Honestly, if you’re watching a foreign movie, please don’t watch it with the English audio. What’s the point you know?

Wait … Isn’t this a movie website?

So Hector (Karra Elejalde) and Clara (Candela Fernandez) have just moved into their big, beautiful new home in the Spanish countryside. They garden. They get it on. It’s sweet.

So Hector is hanging out on a lawnchair checking out the trees with his binoculars and catches a glimpse of a cute brunette taking her shirt off. (which, incidentally, is the other awesome thing about foreign movies Рthe action needs a boost? Boobies.) So Hector takes a walk into the trees to see if he can find the girl (Barbara Goenaga), and things get weird.

He finally finds her, but damn, she looks kinda dead. Oh wait, still breathing? Then … ACTION!! Hector is stabbed by a man wielding scissors and takes off running. He’s still got the binoculars, and hiding behind a tree gets a look at his attacker: a man in a trenchcoat with his head completely wrapped in pinkish bandages.

TOP 5 BANDAGE MASKS (The-I’m-a-Bit-Rusty-at-Haikus Edition)

What is it about the dark? What secret does it hold?

5 – so he doesn’t play
an instrument, but he’s in
the band? Slipknot’s Clown

4 – Man of a Thousand
Faces … minus one: Karloff’s
Invisible Man

3 – Best piggy morals
ever: The Twilight Zone’s Eye
of the Beholder

2 – Making the whole film
worthwhile: Silent Hill’s leggy
but stabby nurses.

1 – Raimi does Batman;
and gives Neeson a career.
Doc Peyton Darkman.

So as it begins to get dark, Hector gets a little desperate. He runs out of the woods and finds a vaguely sciency compound, and what would you do if you thought a madman was chasing you down to stab you to death? Would you smash an expensive looking window with a big rock? If not, you’d be dead. And Hector does¬†not want to be dead. So Hector talks to a man via walkie talkie while the bandaged baddie is geting closer and CLOSER¬†and damn yo, this is tense. Hector follows the man’s directions up to another building and he meets the scientist – this dude’s at the compound for the weekend working on his new invention. The scientists agrees to help Hector escape the madman, and hides in a milky pool of water – the lid swings down, the light zaps bright, and when the lid pops up – did I mention this is a time travel movie?

A Brief History of Time Travel
Time travel in fiction doesn’t really date back to anything. Before modern times, it’s near impossible to say that any one person did any one thing first. However, the earliest possible reference to a man moving through time at a rate other than that provided by normal physics seems to be found in Hindu mythology. Of course, Hindus just call it history. So screw me and my capital ‘w’ Western mind. The Hindu document called The Mahabharata dates back to the 4th century BCE and is a religious text in the traditional sense. It tells the story of the ancient Kurukshetra War along with a few other historical parables.

Included in the incredible wealth of stories of the text is a story of a king named Kakudmi. Kakudmi was the benevolent ruler of the underwater kingdom of Kusasthali. Kakudmi’s story centers around his daughter Revati who was so beautiful and intelligent that Kakudmi believed there was no man on earth who deserved her. Seeking advice, the king takes Revati to the creator of the universe, Brahma, with a list of candidates. Hearing his plight, Brahma laughs and informs the two that time travels differently in his realm of existence and that in the few minutes they had been together, 108 Ages of Man have passed; everyone Kakudmi ever knew has died, Kakudmi’s kingdom is no longer his own, and the world is a completely different place than it was when they left. Of course, it wasn’t a total loss – turns out, Vishnu happened to have incarnated himself into two men, one of whom he recommends the daughter marry. Brahma sets up a marriage between the two and all live happily ever after.

So in early story-telling, it’s far more common for someone to move forward in time ‚Äì usually by visiting a god, or just falling asleep for extended periods of time (see also Rip van Winkle). For the first example of someone going¬†backwards in time, we jump to the 1700s. In 1733 Irish author Samuel Madden wrote an epistolary novel called¬†Memoirs of the Twentieth Century in which appears a series of letters TO the Lord High Treasurer FROM British ambassadors all over the world. All the letters are dated between 1997 and 1998 and offer descriptions of the era. The author claims to have received the letters from his guardian angel who brought them to him from the future ‚Äì making the angel the first reverse time-traveler in fiction. NEAT! However, since the book is more a satire of 18th century England and less an actual science fiction story, the novel has had next to no impact on the science fiction community, and while it’s universally acknowledged as the pioneer of going back in time, no one really cares.

And presumably, we can see where Timecrimes is going. A man can’t just go back in time a little and just live out the rest of his life right? There would be 2 of him. Which is always the problem. And sure enough, Hector looks out over the hill with his trusty binoculars and sees himself coming home to Clara with the groceries. Shit. Now, in other movies, a grandiose epic begins at this point with time-traveling bandits, freeway shootouts, goggles that let you see into the future, whatever. But that is¬†not what this movie is. This movie is nothing that guys like Richard Kelly or J.J. Abrams would ever think to write. There are no gigantic space ships. There’s no going back to TEN THOUSAND B.C.C.c.c.c. (<- that’s supposed to be an echo). None of that. Here is a gutsy movie. A movie that you think you have figured out, but will end up different that you expect.

The essence of science fiction is the great question: “What if‚Ķ” And here, writer/director Nacho Vigalondo gives us Science Fiction. He gives us a regular guy running from a killer from the future. Hector has limited resources and limited time. He’s not a former Navy SEAL. He’s not a paramedic or an Eagle Scout. He’s a tubby middle-aged home-owner with a big problem. Los Cronocrimenes is about what an ordinary man in this extraordinary situation might be forced to do to get his life back.

it’s good to be back

We open with a seeming flashback … a message from earth urging an unknown crew of an unknown ship “godspeed.” Then! Corporal Bower wakes up after a looong time in hypersleep. (What is hypersleep? Haven’t you seen Alien? If not, half the visual cues in this movie will be lost on you. And on top of that you’re probably still a teenager. And think bands with complete sentences for names are cool, and you think Green Day has always been a sellout.  And you’re already discounting everything I say. How can I be a curmudgeon and still like movies made after 2005? Who cares. So Bower wakes up on a space ship and is probably part of the crew put to sleep to be awakened for an incredibly long space mission, but is all alone. And we’re not sure why he’s awake. And there’s no superior officer. Unless … the hypersleep chamber right next to him has a lieutenant in it! Maybe he’ll know what’s going on. I mean, he’s friggin Dennis Quaid after all!

Main Character Haiku

Corporal Bower
wakes up on the edge of space …
Here there be monsters.

So Bower wakes up his lieutenant and the¬†two try to figure what‚Äôs happened and why the mission has seemingly gone wrong and what the hell was the mission anyway and why is the whole ship, The Elysium, violently shaking every so often, and what’s up with all the Voldemort-lookin’ monsters eating everybody?

It‚Äôs a basic rule of filmmaking that if you‚Äôre making a horror movie, you have to create tension. It doesn‚Äôt do any good to have a monster in the water or (god forbid) on your boat if there‚Äôs no risk of the people you like being eaten. And trick #1 of tension is ‚Ķ bumbumbummm: ISOLATION. Brody, Hooper and Quint can‚Äôt rely on being saved, because they‚Äôre on the ocean. Nancy and company can‚Äôt be saved, because Freddy only comes when they‚Äôre asleep, and all alone. Steve McQueen and his foxy gal can‚Äôt be saved, because they‚Äôre only kids, and what cops are going to believe a couple¬†o’ teens saying a mysterious¬†blob is eating their buddies? So what better setup than having our hero awaken all alone with temporary amnesia on a spaceship with no mission, no direction and no orders?

That's great! That's just great! Where the hell are we now, huh?!

Pandorum by the Numbers (The Don’t You Miss Joe Bob Briggs Too? Edition)
2 Sacrificial Lambs
1 Sexy German Biologist
1 Hardcore Vietnamese Farmer
1 Vicious Monster Baby
2 Badly Animated CG Bloodsprays
1 Crazy Chef
1 Evil Space Disease
3 Strangely Well-Hewn Space Swords
And Lots and Lots of Evil Man-Eating Baddies

But it’s not enough to just isolate your characters from the rest of the human race. I mean, if you’re isolated, you deal with the situation and move on. There has to be a promise of reconnection. There has to be a side-quest of finding your wife. Remembering your past. Contacting Earth. Fixing the Radio. Remember Brody, Hooper and Quint? The whole trip wouldn’t have been so terrible if Quint hadn’t destroyed the radio. And probably not so terrible if there had never even been a radio. But because Brody is this close to getting help and getting out of the ocean, that your palms sweat just a little bit more. All you need now is that little reconnection to the human race that reminds you of your biological imperative to have babies.

Antje Traue as Nadia - Biology Badass

Co-Star Haiku

What cutie, foreign
biologist do you know
who can kick your ass?

Greenlight!

And the color pallet is awesome – the lighting scene to scene really calls attention to itself in the way that a normal space horror (like Event Horizon or even otherwise perfect movies like Alien or Galaxy of Terror) doesn’t seem to accomplish. Maybe that’s having a German director (Christian Alvart Рdirector of that other horror hit Case 39) and production team, and maybe it’s just a filmmaking team doing their best to elevate what’s usually seen as trash cinema. I mean, horror movies always make back their budgets, right? (see also Project Greenlight’s first ever profit) There is specific attention paid to creating moods out of background colors. Yellows and greens seem to act as DANGER cues while the soft blues help usher us into the world of the star-crossed space ship. So with all the distrust going around, along with the very likely possibility of being eaten by space monsters, why not make things fun and throw in a horrible, shaky-handed, space madness called … Pandorum!

BadGuy Haiku

Imagine Gieger’s
Necronom Number Four plus
Firefly’s reavers. Yipe!

This movie is all about payoff. I’m not saying there’s a real Shyamalan moment, but the first time I watched Pandorum, I got the feeling over and over again that I knew exactly where this movie was going, and exactly what typical horror buttons it was pushing. But you don’t get actors like Ben Foster and Dennis Quaid without having at least something worthwhile going on. The fun of familiar images (like Foster climbing through the air ducts looking amazingly like Captain Dallas looking for a xenomorph) really blends well with a few new sci-fi ideas thrown into the mix. And just the pure refreshment of having a space horror movie with a plot that is more than just “how many different ways can we disembowel our heroes” should be enough to get genre fans excited. Initially, Pandorum was a part of one of the worst months in movie theater history coming out with other gems like The Informant, Jennifer’s Body, Fame, Surrogates and I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell. And with Zombieland debuting only 2 weeks later, it was easy to forget you meant to see this. It’s ok. You’re forgiven. Just don’t let it happen again.

It’s been a while since we’ve done this, so let’s get to it.

So there’s this dude named Joey Gazelle. Dude’s a badass, sort of a gofer for some hardcore Italian mafia types named Perello. So they’re pullin this job, see, with some real hardcore crazy Jamaica  machete-throwin, Patois-speakin badass mother-fuckers. The fuckin drugs are good and you know the fuckin money is good, but you relax for one goddam second and what happens? A bunch of friggin guys in ski-masks with a bunch of friggin shotguns bust down the door and make like they want to take the whole deal, money, stuff, the works.

But sometimes, you pick the wrong damn mooks to bump off.

So while the hardass Islanders are busy getting pumped full of buckshot Рlike this one dude who pulls a giant-ass sword from his back like Adam of Eternia and makes to chop a guy’s head off, but instead is blasted the fuck up against the wall in some beautiful goddam slo-motion – but then the pizza-eating drug-runners are busy pulling guns all clandestine-like, and when the shootout picks up, well, you know what Vizzini says about going up against Sicilians when death is on the line: DON’T.

But holy shit. Let me tell you, Running Scared is all about an unbelievable amount of shit hitting so many different fuckin fans, you can’t even keep up. Like life in general – know what I’m sayin? Shit don’t ever end in life. As soon as you clean up one piece of shit, more shit falls into your lap. And shit-fan #1 is when Tommy “Tombs” Perello finds a badge on one of those ski-mask wearing cocksuckers, and they see they’ve been set up. Well fuck if a well-known thug like Tommy can get caught with a gun just been used to knock off a couple of bulls, so Tommy gives this mincy, shiny chrome snubnose piece of shit to Joey to get the fuck rid of it.

Vera

So what does Joey do first? What the hell would you do first? He goes home to check on his damn near brain-dead old man and get some laundry-room lovin from his woman Teresa, and Joey (played by Walt God Damn Disney’s Eight Below Paul Fucking Walker) wraps her thong around his fist and goes down like Joe Frazier. But T (the world of crime is so fast-paced, that a badass like Joey Gazelle ain’t got the time to be saying her full name), being the honorable woman she is (Vera Farmiga from the fuckin Departed), refuses to get her socks blown while her 10 year old son Nicky is playing garage hockey with his school friend Oleg (the kid who plays Oleg is that creepy little bastard from X-Men 3, Cameron Bright).

A Brief History of Hockey
Fuck you. Hockey is for pussies.

Which would normally be fine, don’t get me wrong. Kids havin fun? Nothin more natural. Except for the fact that this kid Oleg, who actually lives right next door, is a son of a Russian meth-dealer named Anzor who beats the shit out of Oleg and his foxy mail-order wife Mila (Ivana Milicivic from Casino Royale). Fucking douchebag, I know.

And all of that would be fine too, but god damn it – Oleg just happened to see Joey hide the snubnose and gets it in his head that maybe his daddy wouldn’t be so quick to shine up his eyes if he had a shiny gat pointed at his dick. And he’s fuckin right. So Oleg with his 38 caliber courage in his hand goes pop pop and takes off.

And that would be alright too, except one of the bullets comes flying through Joey’s dining room window damn near takin his boy’s head off. Fuckin Russians right? And of course, it’s the same damn gun Joey’s got to get rid of. So now’s there’s slugs and shells all over the damn house, and the cops are on the way. But hey, at least Anzor took a bullet for all the shit he’s done.

And this movie is shot exactly how you’re supposed to shoot a comic book movie. It’s fast-paced, wild as shit, and absolutely NOTHING is off-limits. It’s got a hell of a cast, and some pretty inventive directing.

And all this is going on in the first 25 minutes of the movie. And it’s all shot like it’s a friggin Tony Scott flick. Which is a good thing, much respect, Tony Scott’s camera work (what with his angles and color work) makes some very interesting movie-making. And his work in Man on Fire (2004) and Domino (2005) is sorta present in director Wayne Kramer’s vision. I’m not saying he copied Scott, or that he even had those movies in mind when shooting Running Scared. I’m just saying there are a couple of similarities that might or might not have been intentional. But who gives a fuck right? It’s fuckin cool to look at. And fuckin weird. Like the creepy whispering homeless junkie and a married couple of sugar-coated demons. I swear to god, half this shit is damn near surreal.

Red Ice?

The next 100 minutes of movie is filled with running from the cops, running from gangsters, running from the dirty Detective Rydell (played by Mr. Vanilla Coke himself, Chazz Palminteri … and check this out, that dude sticking his head through the fence like he’s in a truckstop shithouse is the same small-time meth dealer from Breaking Bad. Ay, we all gotta start somewhere.)

running from child molesters, running from acetylene torch-wielding mechanics and beating the absolute fuck out of gray-haired, limp-dick pimp.

So Joey, on his own in the big bad city running after a punk kid who’s just as scared as you’d think, while trying to keep his own son out of trouble and Oleg out of the hands of the Russians … shit man. As if that wasn’t enough, The fuckin Russians, led by Ivan Yugorsky (played by John Noble of Fringe) are trying to muscle their borscht-eating asses in on the Italian turf, and they’re getting their money by investing in the local hockey team. I know right? It’s left field type shit, but it pays the bills.

Fuckin Russians

This doesn’t have the white-knuckle pace of Crank or the crazy, comic-book violence of Kill Bill, and it ain’t got the humor of either one. This is a dark, hard-boiled, balls to the wall ACTION movie. There’s no chop-sockey, rock ‘em sock ‘em slap-happy fight scenes. This is a movie where when a man takes a punch, it fuckin HURTS.

Fucking watch this.

A.    Foreign action movies

B.    Movies featuring actors doing their own stunts

C.    Movies centered around obscure sports

D.    None of the above

If you’ve never been to Rochester, New York, congratulations, you’ve been doing something right with your life. However, it does mean that you’ve never been to the Little Theater on East Ave. And that is a shame. What’s more the shame is that the Little Theater isn’t in a better city. It’s this little (creative right?) movie theater in the heart of the artsy (which is to say, “overpriced”) parts of Rochester where you can find shitty coffee for 5 dollars a cup and worse tee shirts for 40 dollars off the rack. But it’s an awesome damn theater. Little too.

This is really circumventing the point, but George Eastman was born in Rochester. Which isn’t really true; he was born in Waterville, New York, but don’t tell let anyone in Rochester know – they’ve already lost Xerox to Connecticut, and I’m not sure how much else they could handle. He was from there anyway. So the George Eastman of “Eastman Kodak” which is the Kodak (of Paul Simon fame) built a giant-ass mansion there. And it’s a museum now. Why not? And whilst I lived in this cold-as-the-ass-end-of-the-universe city, my wife worked there. In the gift-shop. (Did I mention Eastman invented camera film on a roll? He got a museum for that. But really, it’s a nice house. But the elephant head is a facsimile. ) The downside to this glamourous position was the lame hourly rate. The plus side was completely free admission to movies at The Little Theater.

not actually Rochester

Top 3 Best Things About Rochester, New York (The I couldn’t come up with 5 Edition)

3 – The Flour City Knuckleheads

2 – The Little Theater

1 – How small it looks in your rear-view mirror
.

And having admission to an arthouse gave us a chance to see great movies like Brokeback Mountain and Nine Lives without risk of feeling like we got ripped off if we didn’t like them. There was also Little Miss Sunshine and ‚Ķ oh I dunno. A few others. What other artsy movies came out around 2005? A Prairie Home Companion, Brick, Nochnoi Dozor, MirrorMask and then there was the¬†satisfaction of being one of the two people not pissed off at wasting money on A Scanner Darkly. And most (some) of these I‚Äôve since bought on home video. The Little Theater afforded me the opportunity to see movies I‚Äôd never be willing to pay to see. Like, say, a French action movie about guys who jump off buildings.

Banlieue 13 (pronounced: BAN-lieue 13) came to America with awesome haircuts and the normal Ellis Island treatment to become District B13. And during the opening CGI’ed credits we see that nice fat sections of Paris have been blocked off with huge ass concrete fences Arizona-style (boooo!) to try and contain the shit that is Parisian crime. Not to mention the fact that this lil film was written and produced by French badass Luc Besson (writer/director of The Fifth Element, Leon and Angel-a) and directed by Mediabreach favorite Pierre Morel (director of Taken and From Paris with Love). The problem is that not everyone locked up in this banlieue is a baddy. Enter Leito (David Belle: Babylon A.D.) – a good guy with awesome hair who we first meet as he’s commandeered a buncha-muncha-cruncha cocaine and is doing his best to wash it all down the bathtub before the dealers track him down. See? Told you he was a good guy. But, of course, he’s not quite fast enough, and the baddies (a gang owned by the kingpin Taha and headed by x-game-friendly-named tough-guy K2) break into his building (the only one without graffiti Рbecause everyone knows he’ll whup dat ass) and we get a footchase scene that would make Jackie Chan jealous.

parallel parkouring

A BRIEF HISTORY OF PARKOUR
For whatever reason, Parkour has been kind of blasted in the United States – maybe because it requires that you leave your home and run for extended periods of time. Basically, all it is is extreeeeeeeeeme running. You run around and jump on walls and jump over trashcans and leap tall buildings with a series of small bounds. Parkour (as a modern practice) was developed by French militarist Georges Hebert as a way to train the French military (as a sidenote, it might not be the best strategy to teach your army the fastest way to run away from something). Hebert was influenced by the physical abilities he witnessed from the indigenous African tribes he encountered while on a tour of the continent he took prior to the outbreak of World War I. It is, however, fair to say that creative running has existed as long as people have.

The story develops as we see that the French authorities have little regard for the actions behind the walls. So when Leito reaches out for help from the police, just outside the quarantine zone, he is jailed for his troubles. And when he … um … expresses his displeasure for his mistreatment, he is locked away for good.

THIS MOVIE NEEDS A HERO!

good guys

Cut away, time has passed, and the French version of the FBI has an undercover kung-fu badass they call Damien (Cyril Raffaelli РRand in Die Hard 4: The Crappy One and stuntman extraordinaire). He does all the running and flying-knee-to-face chop socky (right? That’s ok to say, now?) you could want. And he does it in a casino. And he does all his own stunts, and he jumps off buildings and down ropes and onto roulette tables. This is really an awesome Jackie Chan movie that got made with a French cast. And honestly, the biggest thrill of seeing this movie for the first time is knowing that countries other than America and China made crazy, over-the-top, stunt-driven action movies. The French, who’ve brought us the first goddamn movie ever made and cinematic behemoths like Jean-Luc Godard and Francois Truffaut, not to mention Michel Gondry and Jean-Pierre Jeunet, love movies where dudes run around kicking the shit out of drug-dealers and hitting on hot chicks in tight tank-tops too! Honestly, what on Earth is it that Americans don’t seem to like about the French??

Top 5 Awesome Things About France (The Totally Ordinary Haiku Version)

Pierre Izzard

5 – What part of life has
not been made better by soft,
smelly Camembert?

4 –There is no word in
English to which “guillotine”
can directly translate.

3 – I’m Louis the Four-
teenth the Sun King; I’m Louis
the ruler of France!

2 – Three in one: Audrey
Tatou, Emmanuel Beart
and Sophie Marceau

1 –Thanks to General
Lafayette, I’ve come to have
sex with your fam’ly.

Christing hell. Get on with it, yeh? Here’s the skinny: Leito’s in prison, but Taha is still running the show. Someone’s hijacked a NUCLEAR GOD DAMN MISSILE and thought it’d be a good idea to sell to a criminal, like ya do. RE-enter Damien. Damien has to pose like a criminal to gain Leito’s trust, get Leito to show him how to get into Taha’s evil badguy dungeon office building, find the bomb, disarm the damn thing, and get out without getting killed by the roughly 10,000 toadies under Taha’s command and the other assorted banlieue riff-raff.

This is a popcorn, action movie if ever there was one: prison-breaks, car-chases, foot-chases, paper-chases, big guns, big guys with big beards, stop the bomb, save the girl! There aren’t even any Shakespeare references. What more could you want?

Daaaaaaaaaaaaaamn yo

Oh my. Where to begin. At the beginning … this really isn’t the worst movie in the world, despite what reviewers all over that ninnernets would have you believe. It’s no good. I’ll give them that, but it’s definitely not the worst in the world. But that’s cool ‘cause it wasn’t released in theaters. If I’d paid nine dollars a ticket, I no doubt would’ve hated it. But I didn’t I paid 2 dollars at Half-Priced Books. Which is about what it was worth. If I’d come home and caught this lil gem from Jim Torres, the director of … well … nothing else really. But the star, the very pornily named Azura Skye, plays a suicided girl in Wristcutters.

The story is fairly standard post-apocalyptic. Based on the play “Like Moles, Like Rats” by co-writer Ron Harris, 20 Years After deals in America post atomic war. No babies have been born in 15 years or so. And our heroine is pregnant. And she’s got to live or something. And there are people who want her baby, of course, and really … uff. Really, you should just watch Children of Men. That’s a great movie. And has better everything.

So there’s this rich guy. And he’s the richest man in the world. He’s got one of everything. And I mean everything. And he wakes up one morning and is sitting at his solid gold breakfast table in his White House reproduction home, and opens the newspaper (which he owns) and starts flipping through the classifieds looking for something he could possibly not own (unlikely though it may be). And while flipping through the Animals section, he noticed a new ad, advertising a giant gorilla. And he folded the paper over his bowl of Cheerios and thought about his zoo. He had the giant chimpanzee and a miniature gorilla and a regular-sized orangutan (a few actually). But no giant gorillas.

Azura Skye as Sarah plain and pregnant

But really. If I’d come across this on television on a Tuesday night and it was the pilot of some new television show about the end of the world, I would’ve actually been interested and tuned in for the second episode. But it’s not. It’s a movie. And there’s a doctor (more a head doctor … actually more a loony) who lives under a house lived in by our heroine and her mother and he’s got a dummy. He’s a ventriloquist and he wears flowers on his fingers to pretend to be a witch. And I know I know, this sounds like a joke, but this is totally for real. The crazy doctor is crazy. But maybe this is a joke…

So this rich guy, he hopped into his silver corvette and drove up 1-2-3 Street and down A-B-C Street to the address listed in the ad in the paper. And he hops out of his green Ferrari and walks up the walkway of one of the most enormous houses he’s ever seen (not the most enormous – he owns that one) and he rings the doorbell. And before the tone even fades, the butler answers the door and says Hello Sir, and the man says I’m here about the giant gorilla, and the butler answers Of course Sir. Do come in. The butler led him down what was sure to be the second largest hallway in the world and towards what very well could have been the largest wooden door in the world, and the man said Are you thinking of selling the house too? And the butler responded with The gorilla is just behind these doors.

And the butler opened the door, and behind it was another slightly smaller hallway, at the end of which was a slightly smaller door. They went through the smaller door into a smaller hallway with a smaller door. And they went through the smaller door, and then a smaller door, and then a smaller door and then a smaller door, and a smaller door, and a smaller door, and a smaller door, and a smaller door, and a smaller door, and a smaller door, and a smaller door, and a smaller door, and a smaller door, and a smaller door, and a smaller door, and a smaller door, and a smaller door, and a smaller door, and a smaller door, and then they were in an almost non-existent hallway, at the end of which was a slightly larger door which opened onto a slightly larger hallway at the end of which was a slightly larger door. They went through this door and were greeted by a slightly larger door, and a larger door, and a larger door, and a larger door, and a larger door, and a larger door, and a larger door, and a larger door, and a larger door, and a larger door, and a larger door, and a larger door, and a larger door, and a larger door, and a larger door, and a larger door until they reached a gigantic pair of solid steel doors which were hooked up to a giant set up pulleys and chains.

The butler pulled a single lever near the door’s handle, and the pulleys and chains jumped into action and the giant metal doors slowly swung open. And in the gargantuanly enormous room were a set of equally enormously gargantuan curtains. The butler pulled another lever, and they pulled back to reveal the giant gorilla. And giant it was. The hairs on the top of its head brushed the ceiling of the gargantuan, enormous room, and though it was all chained up, it looked fairly calm. It looked down at the man and the butler as they were both looking up at it. And the butler asked How will you be paying? And the man pulled the cash from his wallet.

The butler pulled the lever and the curtains fell back into place obscuring the man’s new possession. And as he led the man back through the gigantic solid steel doors, the butler said You may keep the gorilla here if you like, or you may move it to another suitable location. The man said It’s fine to keep it here, but how can I get in to see it? The butler handed the man a key to the front door and said This will get you to the hallway of doors but will not, of course, allow you access to the rest of the house. The man put the key in his pocket and allowed the butler to escort him through the first large door. Then through the slightly smaller door, and then through the slightly smaller door. and the smaller door, and the smaller door, and the smaller door, and the smaller door, and the smaller door, and the smaller door, and the smaller door, and the smaller door, and the smaller door, and the smaller door, and the smaller door, and the smaller door, and the smaller door, and the smaller door, and the smaller door until they reached the almost non-existent door, where he took the lead from the butler, obviously feeling energized by his purchase, and led the butler through the first slightly larger door, and then the slightly larger door. And then through the slightly larger door, then a larger door, then a larger door, then a larger door, then a larger door, then a larger door, then a larger door, then a larger door, then a larger door, then a larger door, then a larger door, then a larger door, then a larger door, then a larger door, then a larger door, then a larger door and into the second largest hallway in the world and finally to the front door.

canary

Then the butler said There are, of course, rules. Rules? the man said. And the butler clarified Really, just one rule. The man asked What rule would that be? to which the butler replied You must never touch the gorilla. No? No Sir. Never. And the man asked What would happen if I were to ever, you know, accidentally touch him? The butler simply repeated himself and bid the man a good day. The man walked down the walkway to his yellow Porsche and he drove up A-B-C Street and down 1-2-3 Street thinking constantly about what the butler meant by not touching the gorilla.

When the man got home, he parked his purple Audi in his garage and went into his Sunday home. He got his towels ready and went to his eastern washroom where he bathed in his 10-ton marble bathtub and prepared for bed. And lying down, the man could only think of one thing: It’s my gorilla after all. I can touch it if I want to. And he was right. He could. And the butler would never know of course. He’d checked while he was in his room; there were no cameras. He would have cameras installed, no doubt. He wouldn’t always be able to get to the house when he wanted, he’d need cameras. But lying in bed and thinking about it was one thing.

So he jumped in his blue Aston Martin and, in his pajamas, he drove up 1-2-3 Street and down A-B-C Street, hopped out of his magenta Jaguar and walked up the walkway to the house. He took the key from his pocket and unlocked the front door. He walked towards what he had decided must be the largest wooden door in the world and opened it, and as he walked down the second largest hallway in the world to a slightly smaller door, he began to run. This was obviously the best idea he’d ever had he thought as he went through the smaller door and began to run faster as he passed through a slightly smaller door, and he sprinted towards and through an even smaller door, and a smaller door, and a smaller door, and a smaller door, and a smaller door, and a smaller door, and a smaller door, and a smaller door, and a smaller door, and a smaller door, and a smaller door, and a smaller door, and a smaller door, and a smaller door, and a smaller door, and a smaller door until he reached the almost non-existent hallway and through the slightly larger door and he wondered if the gorilla could hear him coming as he walked through a slightly larger door and whether the gorilla was forced to sleep chained up as he went through a slightly larger door, then a larger door, and a larger door, and a larger door, and a larger door, and a larger door, and a larger door, and a larger door, and a larger door, and a larger door, and a larger door, and a larger door, and a larger door, and a larger door, and a larger door, and a larger door until he was in the room with the enormous steel doors.

Door

He pulled the lever as he had seen the butler do, and the pulleys and chains jumped to life. And he walked into the enormously gargantuan room, walked over to the lever for the gigantic curtains and pulled it. The gorilla was indeed awake and looking down at the man. And as the man inched closer and closer to the gorillas left foot, the gorilla grunted. And as the man lifted his hand, the gorilla sniffed. And when the man touched the longest hair on the gorillas big toe, it roared so loud the man was sure his eardrums would burst. The gorilla pulled on the chains and screamed and shook the walls and brought plaster down from the roof and the man turn and ran to the gigantic metal doors and pulled the lever to close them and he heard the first of the chains snap. He ran through the first huge door and heard the gorillas fist collide with the gigantic metal doors and when the man ran through the slightly smaller door, he heard the metal doors creak and groan as the force of the gorilla bent them out of joint, and as the man ran through a slightly smaller door, he heard the gigantic metal doors crash down onto the ground.

And the man ran as fast as he could through a smaller door and a smaller door and a smaller door and behind him he could hear BOOM BOOM BOOM and he ran through a smaller door and a smaller door and a smaller door and from behind him BOOM BOOM BOOM and he ran through a smaller door and a smaller door and a smaller door and a smaller door and a smaller door and a smaller door and a smaller door and a smaller door and a smaller door and a smaller door all the while hearing BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM and the man was through the almost non-existent hallway in a flash and through a slightly larger door and then a slightly larger door and then a slightly larger door, and behind him was only BOOM BOOM BOOM louder and louder and louder as it got closer and closer and closer and the man went through a larger door and a larger door and a larger door and BOOM BOOM BOOM and a larger door and a larger door and a larger door and BOOM BOOM BOOM and a larger door and a larger door and a larger door and BOOM BOOM BOOM and a larger door and a larger door and a larger door and BOOM BOOM BOOM and a larger door and a larger door and a larger door and BOOM BOOM BOOM and the man was through the front doors without locking them and into his orange Fiat and driving up A-B-C Street and down 1-2-3 Street and behind all the time is the gorilla is behind him screaming and BOOMing and always following.

The man jumped out of his white Prius without bothering to park it and ran into his house. He had just shut the front door when he heard the first foot of the gorilla land on his lawn and the gorilla screamed again. The man raced through his home into his eastern washroom to hide in his 10-ton marble bathtub. He heard the gorilla screaming outside and heard the first cracks coming from the corners of the bathroom. The gorilla was lifting the roof off the house from the corner and the loud screaming echoed off the stones of his home. The gorilla finally pulled the roof completely off and roared with victory. The gorilla looked down wildly at the man in the bathtub and shot its hand out towards the man and tapped him on the shoulder and said Tag! You’re it!

But, just in case you’re interested:

In July of 2006, the cable station TNT began broadcast of an 8-part miniseries based on the short stories of Stephen King. Needless to say, I think they’re awesome. And while most of the stories are taken from King’s collection Nightmares and Dreamscapes, 2 are from Everything’s Eventual and 1 is from Night Shift. And while it’s easy to get a quick in with an audience by saying something like, “from the mind that brought you The Green Mile and The Shawshank Redemption, you’ve still got hold attention. And as this is still a television show, it has to conform.

Credits! The opening credits are the perfect intro for a horror-based tv show. In line with the classic horror shows Alfred Hitchcock Presents and Amazing Stories (which wasn’t necessarily completely horror-based) as well as the early 90s HBO show Tales from the Crypt. Nightmares and Dreamscapes is part of the 21st century cadre of followers along with Showtime’s Dexter and Masters of Horror. There’s spooky music, first-person point of view camera angles and atmospheric setup. The quick goal with a credit sequence like this is to draw you into this world of terror. It’s easy for a comedy show to pop on the tube in bright colors and give you a brass-heavy 30 second theme song with lightning-fast snapshots of the principle characters flashing on the screen. In order to get a tv audience (which is likely already shouting at assorted family members or concentrating on their chinese take-out) in the mood for being spooked, you need dark colors, moody strings/piano and an introduction to the character you’re going to follow. And this one delivers.

So you’re primed, you’re ready to go, and BOOM. They hit you.
The home version of the hit tv series features 3 discs, and the 8 episodes are organized 3-3-2 in order of their original air date. In order:
“Battleground,” “Crouch End,” “Umney’s Last Case,” “The End of the Whole Mess,” “The Road Virus Heads North,” “The Fifth Quarter,” “Autopsy Room Four,” and “You Know They Got a Hell of a Band.” And honestly, it’s a pretty convenient ranking from BEST to WORST. Many apologies to Steven Weber (and by extension, Tony Shaloub).

So prepare yourself for capsule reviews and way too many haiku:

not crouching

DISC 1:
Battleground
The premier of the show is taken from King’s first collection of short stories: Night Shift. Pitting the great William Hurt (A History of Violence, Dark City, Lost in Space) against really really little green men … of plastic, “Battleground” brings the series to life with a near-dialogueless bang. I also contend that William Hurt is the only actor who could’ve delivered the “I know what I saw, but that can’t possibly be what it actually is” facial expression.
Will Hurt’s a killer
with a heart of coal. Maybe
a few toys can help…

Crouch End
King gives his take on the Cthulu mythos with the lovely Claire Forlani (The Rock, Mallrats, The Medallion) and her beau Eion Bailey (MindHunters, Band of Brothers) as the hapless American tourists in England who pick the wrong neighborhood for getting lost. And what’s with Forlani being the only uber-skinny, squinty actress to maintain sex appeal? Zellwegger hasn’t been hot since Empire Records. And even back then it was amazing that enough light got into her retinas to give her brain an impression of the world around her. And where the hell is Ethan Embry?
YOU try writing a
haiku around Yogsoggoth;
maybe R’Yeleh?

Umney’s Last Case
William H. Macy (Magnolia, Spartan) pulls double-duty as a mystery writer and his high-pantsed/fast-talking hero. What would make you want to give up your life to live in a 50s fantasy world? Best double-duty? Give me Cheech pulling a three-fer as the cop, the barker, and the dealer in From Dusk ‘Til Dawn.
Take a man from his
hard-boiled universe? What’s the
big idea, see?

So maybe you actually toughed it out and watched all of disc 1 in one sitting. Maybe you had a big bowl of popcorn to go with it. Say, Target-brand White Cheddar / Rosemary popcorn… it doesn’t translate in the post, but trust me, I’m about to take a snack break. Besides, Eureka is on…

sooper genius

Disc 2:
The End of the Whole Mess
Ron Livingston (Office Space, Adaptation) is the moral balance for his brother, the good ol’ Henry “I-Saw-What-They-Saw” Thomas (E.T., Legends of the Fall) who is a super-genius who’s just trying to save the world. What could possible go wrong? Is Livingston just unlucky, or does he actively search out low-profile projects?
All’s I’m sayin’ is
maybe some long term testing
would have been prudent.

The Road Virus Heads North
King tries his hand and the “changing painting” sub-genre of the horror world (See also Roddy McDowall in “The Cemetary” episode of Night Gallery 1969) with Major League‘s Tom Berenger as the hapless buyer. Chris Nolan is breaking out the former stars with Rutger Hauer in Batman Begins, Eric Roberts in Dark Knight and now Tom Berenger in Inception. There’s no predicting who he elevates in his next movie, but I’m praying for Tom Hulce as a U.S. senator.
He’s closer ev’ry
time you turn around … Why not
stop turning around?

The Fifth Quarter
A little out of place in the series, but a decent show nonetheless. Jeremy Sisto (Clueless, Angel Eyes) having recently paid his societal debt through jail time predictably teams up with a few ne’er-do-wells to do more criming. The twist? It’s a treasure hunt! More recitivism? I feel like I’ve seen this before… sans buggery of course.
How much would someone
have to pay you to spend a
few years in the slam?

And if you’ve actually made it this far and have watched the first 6 episodes, you’ve no doubt noticed: Hey … these aren’t half bad. The acting’s pretty good. The directing is working ok. What’s going on here? Here’s a hint: the show was produced by Ron Binkowski, Bill Haber, Jeffrey Hayes, John McMahon, Brett Popplewell and Mike Robe and was directed by X-Files veteran Rob Bowman and grade-A cinematographer Mikael Salomon. The answer? Mick Garris wasn’t allowed within 12,000 MILES of this show. Literally. All 8 episodes were filmed in Melbourne, Australia.

Taking another little piece of your heart now, baby

DISC 3:
Autopsy Room Four
Another horror staple: the buried alive story! But King sees the modern complication: we do autopsies now. BUMBUMBUMMMMMM! And John-Boy his damn self Richard Thomas (It, Living Proof: The Hank Williams Jr. Story, The Waltons) leads us through the easiest acting he’s ever done. Naked on a slab, it’s almost an entire hour of ARE THEY REALLY GOING TO SLICE HIM UP?? HE’S STILL ALIIIIIIIVE!!!!!
Lightning strikes and old
people behind the wheel. GOLF:
the deadliest sport

You Know They Got a Hell of a Band
Steven Weber (Wings) gets him and his cutie wife (Kim Delaney of Darkman II and Mission to Mars) lost in the backroads of wherever, only to stumble on what seems to be a heaven on earth. And I swear, the diner waitress looks awfully familiar… Of course, it’s no secret that Stephen King loves him some rock and roll. He even plays a chord every once in a while in an entirely author-composed band called the Rock Bottom Remainders. Rotating members include Dave Barry, Amy Tan, Maya Angelou, Scott Turow, Ridley Pearson, Mitch Albom, Barbara Kingsolver and a bunch of other guys. They’re not that great, but they love what they do. The Rock Bottom Remainders are in fact, a nutshell of just about all Stephen King movie adaptations. They’re not very good at all, but you know what? They’re not that bad either. And whatever they are, they have a shitload of fun doing it.
What if Rock-n-Roll
Heaven actually is
a Rock-n-Roll Hell?

And if you watch all 8 in one night, I hope the margaritas were good, ’cause there’s no doubt you needed them at one point or another. But it’s my job to give you the skinny. It’s what they pay me for. And I feel pretty confident saying that if you’re a Stephen King fan, and you appreciate the way tv drama works, these will be more than worth your time. And to be honest, “Battleground” and “The End of the Whole Mess” were worth the price of the DVDs to me. I’m not even the only person who believes that! Nightmares and Dreamscapes won 2 emmys: Outstanding Music for a Miniseries and Outstanding Visual Effects for a Miniseries (the latter of the 2 being the actual surprise). And it was nominated for 3 more including best actor in a miniseries for William H. Macy and Outstanding Makeup. It’s a good show. There’s an undertone of camp in most of Stephen King’s short works. He knows how short stories operate: you get in, you do something wacky and you get out. And that’s exactly what you can expect from this series. Take the time. It’ll be fun. I promise.
Here’s the cool intro

To paraphrase, Stephen King just doesn’t work on the big screen. He just doesn’t. You can argue Shawshank, Green Mile and Misery all you want, but we all know that’s not what people think when they think “Stephen King.” We think of a monster clown eating children and a drunk schoolteacher haunted into trying to kill his family. Even a cowboy from some alternate dimension trying to shoot a 50 foot tall mechanical bear. See what I mean? So these next few reviews will be of small(ish) screen adaptations of the work of Stephen King that, while probably not that great, are definitely among my favorites.

But then…

The elusive Richard Bachman

…enters Mick Garris. I have a love/hate/reallyhate relationship with Mick Garris. And it’s really all my fault. I’m a huge Stephen King fan (just like everyone else), and his novels are crazy fun to read. But Mr. Michael Alan Garris can’t help but to try to make them into horrible horrible made for t.v. miniseries. And even though he continues to fail with incredible fanfare, I can’t help but believe Stephen King sits back in his beautiful home with his beautiful wife and loves it all. Lil Stevie was born in 1950 under the sign of the Tiger. And when he was 11, he went with his older brother to see Vincent Price in the Roger Corman classic, The Pit and the Pendulum. This stinker of a movie was written by the amazingly, great horror novelist Richard Matheson based on the Edgar Allan Poe short story of the same name. And in his 2000 memoir On Writing, King blames The Pit and the Pendulum for creating in him the desire to write. He quickly made his own “novelization” of the movie and sold it at school for a few cents per copy. Of course, it got him in trouble, but the damage was done. And considering the fact that this pretty bad b-grade movie (Trust me. It’s awful. I’d review here in the Sleeper Cell, but considering that I’m also a huge fan of Richard Matheson (mainly his novels I Am Legend, Hell House and What Dreams May Come) and the great Vinny Price, I just wouldn’t be able to bring myself to say anything negative about either of them), it’s not surprising at all that King would also love b-grade movies slapped together based on his own stories. And honestly, I see where he’s coming from. But, as I am not a mega rich author with a billion copies of my books being read by the Queen of England or the Pope, I can say that Mick Garris’ adaptations of Stephen King’s great novels like The Stand or Sleepwalkers or The Shining are just plain bad. But then there’s Desperation.

And even though I love Desperation, there’s no confusing this movie with Shawshank or Green Mile or Misery. And it’s not that Mick Garris is a bad director. He just isn’t a director (as I understand the word). He sets up a set, puts actors in it with a script, points cameras at them and films whatever happens. The Stand is pretty epically bad. Even though I have a soft spot for it, there’s no way you can turn that amazing novel about the end of the world (and its subsequent beginning) into anything vaguely resembling a decent movie. Even if you make it 6 hours long and actually get King to write the script. I also have a soft spot for Garris’ early work on Critters 2: The Main Course, but that don’t make it a good movie. But screw all this setup nonsense.

Desperation is cool. It’s definitely b-movie – it’s a made for t.v. miniseries for the love of god. But with actors like the ultimate badass Viper (Tom Skerritt), Steven Weber (of “Wings”), and E.T.‘s Henry Thomas, how could you not get something entertaining? And really, Garris’ talents for telling his cameramen to turn on their cameras is all you need. It’s a few actors running around an abandoned town playing pretend that some hideous evil entity from beyond time itself is stalking them by taking over the bodies of people who they may have once trusted. And Skerritt and company all have skeletons a-plenty in their closets for the evil demon Tak to exploit.

The sweet Lillian NOT responsible for any ruination

And even Annabeth Gish (co-star of SLC Punk who is not related (by blood) to the silent film stars Lillian and Dorothy Gish – more exactly, Annabeth’s (born Anne Elizabeth Gish) grandmother is named Lillian Gish, but this Lillian never acted. Annabeth is related to the silent film stars distantly … and by marriage) who damn near single-handedly derailed the greatest television series of all time: bumbumbumbummmmmm! THE X-FILES, with her psychic-when-it’s-convenient Monica Reyes (which has me wondering … based on Daphne’s sporadic mysticism in the “Frasier” sitcom and Raven’s intermittent visions in Disney’s “That’s So Raven,” why the hell don’t psychic t.v. characters pan out? I’m not calling into question “The Ghost Whisperer,” since everyone knows what keeps that show on the air. Jamie Kennedy and Jay Mohr. Obviously) couldn’t ruin this sweet sweet example of made-for-t.v. goodness.

the secrets of spooky success

So enter our hero (for a few minutes at least) in good ol’ Henry “I-saw-what-they-saw” Thomas. And sure, E.T. is one of the greatest movies of all time, and sure, The Blue Heelers were a pretty cool band back in the 90s, but he doesn’t exactly lend star power these days. All in all, consider me a Henry Thomas fan. Anyway, he gets pulled over in the Nevada desert with his girlfriend riding shotgun (the lovely Annabeth) by the sunbaked, perpetual badass, Ron Perlman – as the local law enforcer, Collie Entragian. And I swear to god, King chooses the coolest, north-iest last names ever. And dammit if ol’ Collie ain’t possessed by a friggin’ demon. Collie, possessed by Tak, takes his two new-found prisoners to the wee little town of Desperation. BUMBUMBUMBUMMMMMMMM! See, Tak is a demon – am I going too fast? And he was unearthed a long time ago by some Chinese slave laborers, and he wrecked some damn good shop on whitey running the mines. But he got sealed up, see? (<– That’s supposed to be in like prohibition-era gangster voice. And for no reason. It just makes my wife laugh when I do that voice). And now, of course, industrial mining has set the bastard loose again. Not sure if this is spoilery or not… eh. Not like you’re rushing out this instant to check it. But it was just on television again a few days ago. Sci-fi channel (sorry, SYFY. …whatever) I think? But Tak isn’t quite corporeal just yet. He needs human bodies to get along. But we’re just so damn weak! So one by one, it’s using the small band of humans left alive in the sleepy berg to live while it finds a way to live on its own. Oh No!

Prelude? ...or Nocturne?

But again, remember, this isn’t great, it’s just fun. And has some cute chick wearing Neil Gaiman’s Sandman on a t-shirt. Bonus! But it is fun, and really, has me wondering what other Stephen King movies are on the horizon…
See, Stephen King has one of the greatest traditions in the movie world – you can make a movie based on any one of his stories, he doesn’t care, but, you have to send him 1 dollar (American if you please), and a copy of the film. And as you could probably guess, he’s a favorite muse of college film students. And as a matter of fact, two of his short stories, “The Man Who Loved Flowers” (from Night Shift) and “Cain Rose Up” (from Skeleton Crew) have both recently been adapted into short films. As for his novels, From a Buick 8 (about an pan-dimensional car-monster) and Bag of Bones (a traditional scary as hell ghost story) are both being turned into t.v. miniseries. “Bag of Bones” is being directed by (you guessed it!) Mick Garris. And then of course the lengthy novel The Talisman, written with Peter Straub, is also being turned into a miniseries (like I said, King likes ‘em corny) … eventually. Imdb tells me to wait for 2012. And I can do that. Not like I’m not waiting for others right? So Get In Line Now! Because for those of you who are like me and cannot plan too far ahead, be sure to note that the new Kevin James comedy The Zookeeper is only 345 days away!

sweeeeeeeeeet!