Category Archives: Movies
Varan the Unbelievable (1962)
Ishiro Honda directed three films in 1958. One is justly famous in international horror circles, one is rare but infamous among daikaiju fans, and one is a “human interest” drama called Song of the Bride. Good luck trying to find out anything about that. As the decade of atomic power gave way to the Space Age, the director who began his career with two “human interest” documentaries (no really: The Story of a Co-op kicks ass if you can find it…not that you asked) saw himself enthroned as King of the Special Effects Picture in general…and monster movies in particular. Having learned their lesson from Godzilla Raids Again, Toho dared not let anyone else touch their newest, fattest cash cow of a sub-genre. They needed a monster movie for 1958. Too bad they had to give us this.
Except that’s not accurate, since the Japanese version of this flick is remarkably different from the version I watched as a child; the one I’m picking apart, in public, tonight…and all for your entertainment, you sick bastards. Why must I suffer? Continue reading Varan the Unbelievable (1962)
Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988)
In all the history of cinema, Godzilla and Star Trek stand alone as the only franchises in history who’ve managed field strong fourth films (Mothra vs. Godzilla and The Voyage Home, respectively – though this feels like an invitation for everyone to “well, actually” me). One day they will do epic battle for the hearts and souls of nerds the world over. But until then we, their partisans, must content ourselves with taking the piss out of other, less-fortunate film series.
After Halloween III‘s non-success, John Carpenter apparently had an idea: the story about some small town, haunted by the memory of a violent killing spree in its all-too-recent past…rather like Haddonfield, Illinois. It could’ve been an Our Town for the 1980s…except George went insane and murdered his sister Rebbecca at the end Act One, spent the scene break in an asylum, escaped, and spent the whole of Act Three trying to murder Emily. C’mon: you know you’d love to see that. We won’t see it here, but you just know it’d make a better movie. Continue reading Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988)
A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987)
Or, The one where they dropped the word “Part” from the title. Most of the the Slasher series that chose this route tend to go downhill rather fast. Except when they already hit their nadir (and gaydir) in Part 2. Things just had to improve after that, right?
Right!?
Hell yeah! That’s what I’m talking about. Continue reading A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987)
Winter’s Bone (2010)
Ree Dolly (Jennifer Lawrence) is a seventeen-year-old native of the Missouri Ozarks. With her father missing and her mother nearly catatonic, Ree’s left to raise her two young siblings as best she can. Winter’s Bone opens with their morning routine and, as the Dolly children walk to school, we see Ree quiz her little sister. “Spell ‘house,'” she says, delivering the film’s theme with a level of stealth that would make ninja masters nod in stoic, reserved approval as they tugged at their obligatory beards.
Winter’s Bone is nothing less than cinematic ninjitsu: a film that carries out its missions with careful patience, heart and soul. Based on the eponymous book by Ozark native Daniel Woodrell, the film is everything you’ve heard it is and more. Continue reading Winter’s Bone (2010)
Elektra (2005)
At least one of you has already called me out for seeming to lavish all my attention on the masculine side of superhero film. Thank you, you’re right, and I mean no disrespect to all the super-powered ladies who’ve done so much to enhance my life, and the lives of most Good Nerds, throughout the years. The long, lonely years…Honestly, it’s just that their films suck. Off the top of my head, I can think of exactly one kinda-sorta-good superhero film that focused around a female protagonist. And trust me: you’ve never heard of it. If you can guess what I’m thinking of, I’ll mail you a cookie.
That can’t be it though, right? There’s got to be another one out there somewhere. And since March is National Women’s History Month in the United States, I’ve got all the excuse I need to get in touch with superherodom’s feminine side. Continue reading Elektra (2005)
Catwoman (2004)
The Mysterians (1957)
Alien invasions are as old as literature. I’ve read versions of the Biblical flood myth that sound more like the plot of tonight’s film than any other part of the Old or New Testaments. Yet ever since the success of George Pal and Byron Haskin’s War of the Worlds (released four years prior to our subject), vicious extraterrestrials have tried to conquer Earth at least once a year, despite repeated, and often embarrassing, setbacks.
Case in point: The Mysterians, first of the many, many, many alien races who threatened Toho Co.’s Japan (and, by extension, The World) with enslavement and annihilation throughout the 1950s, 60s and 70s. And while superhero and space opera films on all sides of the Pacific had long ago burned over this particular district of science fiction, The Mysterians marks the first successful fusion of the alien invasion motif with Ishiro Honda’s daikaiju formula. The result is, to say the least, mixed. But it’s still head and shoulders over what would come after Continue reading The Mysterians (1957)
Pearl Harbor (2001)
I’ve been dreading this. Re-examining Armageddon all but killed me, though that’s partially my own fault. I was the one playing that drinking game. Incidentally, Googling “Michael Bay Drinking Game” yields up some dangerous results. But while individual drinking games exist for individual films, apparently no drunk has the courage to construct a game applicable to Bay’s entire oeuvre. As that great old drunk Stephen Hopkins (my favorite character from 1776) once said, “So it’s up to me, eh?” That’s what you get for falling down on the job, fellow rummies.
Since Pearl Harbor bored me so damn much, my mind savored any distraction. I spent a good thirty minutes contemplating how hard I’d need to throw this movie off my balcony in order to ensure its disc would land at the optimum place in the street where it was sure to be run over by as many cars as possible. After I filled half a page with geometric calculations, constructing the Ultimate Michael Bay Drinking Game seemed a much more utilitarian distraction. I figured it would do the greatest good for the greatest number of people. Throwing Pearl Harbor at passing cars would only annoy their drivers…who’d go on to annoy the cops…who’d go on to annoy me. Continue reading Pearl Harbor (2001)
The Spirit (2008)
You know what’s really hard? Trying to tell when Frank Miller’s kidding. Does he take us all for suckers? Is his latter-day career just an extended practical joke? Or – like all good artists stewing in their own pretensions – does he take himself and his work 100%, no-holds-barred seriously? Honestly, Frank…why so serious?
The Spirit is one of those movies that got lost in the shadow of that other superhero flick from the summer of 2008. And that’s really too bad. Sooner or later, someone’s going to “rediscover” it and label it a cult classic. We’ve got to be prepared for that, and prepare to fight against it, because this movie is everything hateful and wrong about modern superhero stories. Continue reading The Spirit (2008)