Category Archives: Movies

Apocalypto (2006)

When a creepy, leper child asks, "Would you like to know how you'll die?" you say, "NO!"
When a creepy, leper child asks, “Would you like to know how you’ll die?” you say, “NO!”

In honor of the Apocalypse just past, my mother asked I take a look at Mel Gibson’s follow-up to The Passion. Otherwise I would’ve continued ignoring Gibson’s work, same as I ignore the work of most modern neo-Nazis. Even before his July 28, 2006 drunk driving arrest (and subsequent tirade against the “Fucking Jews”), I was well on my way to hating Mel and everything he represented. Afterward, he caused my feelings to calcify by joining the long line of celebrities forced to pay respects to the Great God Contrition. Because it’s not enough to spend multiple twenty-four-hour news cycles airing a celebrity’s dirty laundry – nowadays that celebrity must appear before one of the High Priests of the Interview (Diane Sawyer, in Gibson’s case) to publicly claim the laundry’s theirs, and that they’re sorry. Even when they aren’t. Especially when they aren’t. Look at O.J. Simpson. Or look at Mel, already blaming the alcohol for his foul mouth and lack of self-control.

 “Even a couple of drinks, you know, you lose all humility, all … everything, and you just become a braggart and a blowhard.”

No, Mel, you “lose all humanity” and “become a braggart and a blowhard” after “even a couple of drinks, you know…” Some of us learn how to handle our shit when we’re out in public…even if we aren’t aging action heroes/heartthrobs with four  Lethal Weapons to our name and a paparazzi army digging through our trash. Continue reading Apocalypto (2006)

The Traumatic Cinematic Show: Episode 46 Silent Night Crappy Night

I made my co-hosts watch this while I was away. Ain't I a stinker?
I made my co-hosts watch this while I was away. Ain’t I a stinker?

It seems @Cm_MattD didn’t get enough of the bad touch his first time around on the show so he has plugged in and donated his sexy northern accent once again to Traumatic Cinematic. The trio gets down and dirty with a holiday seasonal slasher that will fill buckets full of bad. Silent Night Deadly Night Part 2 isn’t just a sequel it is a reason for us all to get naughty!

Remember we have a voice mail now so you can troll the show with ease from your cell phone! 765-396-8666

Find us on Twitter at @GenXnerd, @Greymattersplat, @CM_MattD, @AYTIWS, and the whole cult @TCPodcastCrew

And we have a spiffy newly cleaned sitehttp://traumaticcinematic.com

Download podcast here (right click, “save target/link as”)

The Traumatic Cinematic Show Ep. 41: Clue Dunnit?

A classic tale based off a board game nearly everyone has played. Join the TC Podcast Crew in their exploration of this star studded cast and the buckets full of mystery, murder, and puns. See if you can figure out “who dunnit!” Visit Traumatic Cinematic on Facebook, follow Traumatic Cinematic on Twitter, send your love and affection to TraumaticCinematic [at] gmail [dot] com, and Don’t forget to check out TraumaticCinematic.com

Download episode here (right click, save target/link as)

The Creature Walks Among Us (1956)

Apt Visual Metaphor Theater Presents: The Creature from the Black Lagoon, Self-Immolating.
Apt Visual Metaphor Theater Presents: The Creature from the Black Lagoon, Self-Immolating.

Of all the disappointing third acts in all the trilogies in film this is my measuring stick. Let others pitch a bitch about Ewoks, Bruce Wayne’s mysterious teleportation powers, or whatever the hell it is you all hate soooo much about Godfather III. I always come back to The Creature Walks Among Us, a film almost as depressing as the era that created it. Made for the sole purpose of matching Revenge of the Creature‘s million dollar take, Walks Among Us isn’t the worst third act of a trilogy I’ve seen…but it is the shoddiest, the least-thought-out, and the most mind-bogglingly off-putting. The kind of movie that makes you shout, “What idiot signed off on this?” A movie that dares you to find something good about it, making the presence of a few genuinely good things almost painful. If they weren’t there I could hate the movie outright and maybe then it would stop haunting me.

Sure, 1956 was the year Godzilla first came to America, but most cinephiles choose to remember it (if at all) as the year of The King and I or The Ten Commandments. Big, loud, annoyingly long epics were the blockbusters of their day and it’d be seven years yet before Cleopatra finally proved their day was done. Everyone else’s budgets shrank to accommodate their excesses and Universal’s monster movies were no exception. The studio that basically built Horror as a genre now contented itself releasing stuff like The Mole People…and this. Demonstrating they’d learned nothing from the 1940s.

Once again: a rushed production plus a reduced budget equals a bad movie. A string of bad movies equals a franchise no one remembers, save as a punchline. The problem’s exasperated when your title character is so one-note, even compared to his elder brothers in the Universal stable. Dracula usually wanted blood. Werewolves usually want cures. Mummys usually want some artifact or the reincarnation of their dead girlfriend. Frankenstein’s monster just wants to be left alone…something he and the Gillman have in common. All of Gilly’s movies hinge on invasions of his domain by hairy man-animals and their hot girlfriends…but unlike Frankenstein’s monster, you can’t keep bringing the Gillman back to life. Continue reading The Creature Walks Among Us (1956)