Category Archives: Movies

Movies, Reviews

The Fog (1980)

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Filmmed in PortholeVision!
Filmed in scenic PortholeVision!

When one looks at his early career it becomes extraordinarily evident John Carpenter wanted very much to be the Howard Hawks of his generation. Even at his lowest, Carpenter made sure to aim squarely for Hitchcock Territory. For one brief, shinning moment (called 1978), it looked like he’d succeeded.

Too bad nothing fails like success. And if your directorial debut happens to become the most popular, iconic and financially successful independent movie in history (at the time) you might as well just give up and die. Otherwise you’ll have to spend your entire subsequent career dealing with uppity assholes who insist nothing will ever be as good as your first film. The rest is frustration, aesthetic decay and silence. Though I’m just kidding about that “silence” part since we haven’t even started talking about Carpenter’s sophomore slump, The Fog. Continue reading The Fog (1980) →

Movies, Reviews

Ghost Rider (2007)

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And who says album covers never come to life?
And who says album covers never come to life?

You’ve gotta feel sorry for Satan. Back in the nineteenth century it took a whole host of angels, armed with Flaming Rose Pedals of Love, to keep Faust’s soul out of Hell. Before he could even think of redemption, Faust’s sinning ass required the intercession of a Divine Female Figure superstar tag team composed of St. Mary of Egypt, that chick who washed Jesus’ feet in Luke 7:36-50, that Samaritan lady from John 4:3-42, and Faust’s own dead girlfriend.

That’s the kind of firepower you needed to break a deal with the devil…200 years ago. Nowadays, any asshole with a recognizable face can punch, shoot, or simply glower his way out of Hell. Even Keanu Reeves has escaped the devil’s bargain twice now, and no loss stings as hard as a loss to Ted “Theodore” Logan (just ask Satan himself). Continue reading Ghost Rider (2007) →

Movies, Reviews

Daredevil (2003)

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"Ugh, Ben, jeeze...I can smell the Jennifer on you."
"Ugh, Ben, Jeeze...I can smell the Jennifer clinging to you. It's downright wafting!"

I hate to admit this, but there’s a sad, small part of me trapped down in the basement of my mind that wants very much to like Daredevil. But what does that whinny little bastard know? I’m in charge here, and I say the film’s a mess. It’s an interesting mess with decent color sense and the occasional flair for high drama…but so are most of the drunken artists staggering home through every major city on any given night of the week.

Really, Daredevil is a case history in everything that can go wrong with film – any film, regardless of genre. Writer/director Mark Steven Johnson tried to get this made back in 1997, but Marvel Comics’ bankruptcy, the collapse of the Batman and Superman franchises, and a widespread public disregard for superheros kept Daredevil in development hell until the turn of the millennium (or Willennium, as we said at the time). Continue reading Daredevil (2003) →

Movies, Reviews

X-Men (2000)

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"What did you expect...a group shot full of action? Go back to your Rob Leifeld comics, you posers,"
“What did you expect…a group shot full of action? Go back to your Rob Leifeld comics then, you posers,”

Now here’s a case study in adaption, a simultaneous example of how to successfully make a comic book movie and how to cock it up even as you’re supposedly doing “right” by both your fans and your studio backers. An unqualified box office success, X-Men ignited what I’ve come to call the Silver Age of Comic Book Movies, inaugurating trends and best practices that hamstring the genre to this day, despite elevating superhero flicks up to a level of respectability they’d never previously enjoyed…save, perhaps, for about a minute and a half there, after Tim Burton’s Batman.

Batman was a filmmaker’s film by a man who’s gone on to admit he’s never read a comic book in his life. (“Which,” as Kevin Smith put it, “explains Batman.”) At least X-Men‘s Bryan Singer had the good since to claim making his “comic book” movie helped him see the light. Before this, Singer was known for one decent thriller (Unusual Suspects) and one half-decent Stephen King adaption (Apt Pupil). Seeking to do a sci-fi picture, he nonetheless turned X-Men down three times…until producer Avi Arad convinced him to actually read the damn books…and watch some of the wonderful animated series Arad brought to Fox Kids for five season’s in the 90s. Continue reading X-Men (2000) →

Movies, Reviews

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992)

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The object of our televised affections.

Twin Peaks was a American TV show I never watched because it aired on ABC. Let me explain.

In the early-90s, even in the days before Disney bought them out and began sanitizing everything for the protection of Uncle Walt’s cryogentically frozen head, ABC was the TV network for losers. The rest of us watched NBC or CBS because that’s where all the good shows lived. ABC’s only claim to fame at the time were re-runs of the original Star Trek which aired at 10 o’clock on Sunday morning, allowing me to call these broadcasts “Church.” If we wanted to be around our parents we watched Cheers and if we wanted to send them fleeing from the room we watched Fox. Why on earth would we bother channel surfing over to ABC? Continue reading Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992) →

Movies, Reviews

Mystery Men (1999)

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Hold him back! If he escapes, he'll just keep making Zoolander movies.
Hold him back! If he escapes, he'll just make Zoolander.

Comedy is hard. Knowing this, Hollywood has a bad habit of stocking its comedies with professional comedians. Who better, so the thinking goes, to help bring in the funny? But comedians are not necessarily actors. As such, they fall into an unfortunate habit of playing themselves. That’s the paradox of most comedies, and its a paradox Mystery Men cannot avoid. Its greatest strengths are also the very things that destroy its universe. Its great cast flits about like lost children, playing the Greek Chorus of their own damn story. Based on one of the great indie comics of the 90s, it extracted a perfectly good premise from a source it had no earthly idea how to properly handle. Having gained a cult following in the days since it spectacularly bombed at the box office only means it’s attracted my not-so-tender attentions. If I were Godzilla, cult superhero movies would by my nuclear power stations. So let’s strap on the latex monster costumes and get to stomping this Tokyo, shall we? Continue reading Mystery Men (1999) →

Movies, Reviews

Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives (1986)

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The Eyes have it!
The Eyes have it!

In my Part V review I called that film

the point where the series stopped taking itself so dang seriously, signing its own aesthetic death certificate.

I stand by that, as I stand by every other half-coherent statement I’ve ever made, sensible or otherwise. But I’d be remiss not to confess that the very thing I criticized about Part V lies at the root of my appreciation for Part VI. I’d always liked Jason Lives, but now I fucking love it. If it were a woman, I’d shower its path with rose petals and cake. We’d go back to my place and I’d make Jason Lives fried potatoes and onions for breakfast the next morning. I see a healthy and long-lasting relationship in our future…just as long as we avoid her eleven electrical socket-licking siblings. Continue reading Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives (1986) →

Movies, Reviews

The Phantom (1996)

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What is it with the "fist-on-hips" thing?
What is it with the "fist-on-hips" thing? I mean, really...

A lot of people have trouble taking superheroes seriously, what with the tight suits and the underwear on the outside of their pants. But I challenge anyone to walk down a dark alleyway at night, hastily turn around, and not soil yourself in fear when you find the goddamn Batman standing there, right behind you. Sure, your rational mind would soon take over and you might remind the costumed fool that “Halloween ain’t ’til manyana”…giving him the perfect opportunity to perform some amateur dental surgery on you with his boots.

Unfortunately, Batman was far from the first costumed hero of the 1930s. Created for the daily newspaper strips of 1936, The Phantom represents one of the last costumed mystery-men to make the scene before Superman came along and changed everything. Four months separated the two hero’s debuts in their respective magazines. Can you guess which one won more culture cache? Here’s the hint: the only man in a purple suit who’s going to frighten me is the Joker. And even I have trouble taking the Phantom seriously. Continue reading The Phantom (1996) →

Movies, Reviews

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (2010)

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Really, would you two just fuck and get it over with?
Really, would you two just fuck and get it over with?

First, a refresher.

Twilight taught us all young men are monsters whose rampant sexual urges will, without exception, KILL YOU. Their desire to do so is what’s known as “love.” Keep them at arm’s length and you’ll gain a loyal attack dog sure to lay waste your enemies and cause their women to lament. Sure, your new pet monster might stalk you and creep into your room at night…or whenever you’re not at home…or just whenever the hell he feels like it…but so long as his family accepts you and your family hates him, everything will work out in the end.

New Moon reinforced these lessons while simultaneously teaching us that all teenage girls are evil, scheming, serial-users, much closer to classical vampire archetypes than the Family Cullen. Girls’ll suck you emotionally dry while you sit there, fruitlessly hoping that, one day, they’ll suck you physically dry as well. Even doing that thing they do where they catch your bottom lip in their teeth and pull back until all those little tendons holding your lip to your jaw start to hurt so good…even that would be better than nothing. Because “nothing” is about all you’re gonna get. After all, you’re a monster, right? Why in God’s name would they touch you, you muscley slab of man-beef? Besides, it’s not like they don’t already have an abusive boyfriend. And once he snaps his fingers expect them to go running back faster than a zombie with the Rage virus…no matter how badly he’s treated them in the recent past. Continue reading The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (2010) →

Movies, Reviews

Dick Tracy (1990)

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Bang Bang! You're dead, punk.
Bang Bang! You're dead, punk.

Most people have no idea how their movies are made, lacking even the faintest clue as how much of a Hell on Earth the process can become…especially once money’s involved. Throw in a well-known “property” (Hollywood-ese for an “idea”), a multibillion dollar movie studio, and a legend-in-his-own-time actor/director known for ball-busting levels of perfectionism and the irresistible compulsion to sexually harass anything that walks by him with breasts…and welcome to the Ninth Circle of Development Hell. Pull up a pot of boiling pitch and stay yourself awhile.

It took a little-known Tim Burton film called Batman to break the logjam between Disney, who put up the money (and own the film through their subsidiary, Touchstone Pictures), Tribune Media, who owned the idea, and legend-in-his-own-mind Warren Beatty, who secured the chance to direct himself in the lead role as every self-styled tough guy’s ultimate author-insertion fantasy persona, a man appropriately named Dick. Continue reading Dick Tracy (1990) →