The Vampire Awards
I finally watched “Let the Right One In” last night, after oh, a good year or so of declaring, “I’m going to rent that!” every time it came up in conversation. And I liked it! Quite a bit, actually. It was very quiet, and methodical, and as a result it didn’t make a direct impact on me while I was watching it. But several hours later it finished seeping in, and I found myself even more enamored of it than when the film concluded. It...
Top Ten Reasons I Hate Kids In Movies
What else is there to say? Let’s kick this off this miserable list with my first miserable example. In no particular order… ONE: Freddie Boath, THE MUMMY RETURNS This unfortunate young child plays Alexander O’Connell, the highly unnecessary offspring of Rick and Evy O’Connell. The charm (yes, the charm!) of Rick and Evy kind of revolved around their childlessness. Rick was the self-serving drifter, roguish and lovable. Evy was an...
B-Movie Review: Futurekick
Earth was once a beautiful, blue planet. But that was a long time ago. After endless wars the wealthy left earth to build a civilization on the moon, while the poor people they left behind suffered beneath the iron fist of ‘the corporations.’ The corporations engineered Cyberons, bio-mechanical men programmed to hunt down corporate crime—till the Cyberons discovered that corporations WERE the crime, and so the corporate police were...
The Holocaust in Film
I’ve long been interested in the way that Hollywood presents history, or anything ‘based on a true story,’ ‘inspired by real events,’ etc. A lot of people only know about historical events via their pop culture representations, no matter what disclaimers attend the opening of the film. Think “300,” “Spartacus,” “Braveheart,” “Amadeus,” “Elizabeth.” (Hm, lots of one-word titles there, what can I infer from that?) Movies are defended as...
Product Placement!
Movies are expensive. And sometimes movie executives sell a little piece of their souls to advertising giants in order to make ends meet. And SOMETIMES they blatantly gear their films toward those advertising giants for the sole purpose of raking in the dollar bills from the get-go. We know all of the obvious examples already. Head and Shoulders shampoo saves the day at the end of “Evolution.” In the future every restaurant turns into...
Green With Evil: Part Three
Let me tell you, I was THRILLED during one of my thrift store hunts to find this in a dollar VHS bin: Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Green Ranger Miniseries: “Green With Evil”: Part 3 of 5! I did a little scouring on the internet to determine whether this does, indeed, qualify for VHS Screener status. It appears as though some original Mighty Morphin episodes have been collected onto DVDs, but I could not find specific mention of the...
A Comment on Movie Accents
Confession time. I love movie accents, especially when they are absurdly out of place. There is something about them that satisfies my deep desire for all things campy and ridiculous. I love Sean Connery and the fact that he simply does not give a damn where his character is supposed to be from. In “The Hunt for Red October” he is a Russian. In “Highlander” he is an Egyptian named Juan Sanchez Villa-Lobos Ramirez (he lived in Spain...
B-Movie Review: Kickboxer From Hell
Oh my god, where to begin. The film “Kickboxer From Hell,” (provided by the truly stunning people from Eden Entertainment Inc.) contained the least kickboxing, and yet the most hell, of any kickboxing film created before it. Or after it. Or ever again in the conceivable future. Here’s the blurb from the back of the DVD case: “While in Hong Kong preparing for a big tournament, American kickboxing champion Sean becomes involved with...
The Classic Myth of Disney’s Hercules
Let’s talk about Disney’s “Hercules.” The first time I saw it I laughed and thought, “Oh man, so inaccurate!” But… which tradition am I holding it accountable to? Anachronous elements have crept in, such as the gospel-singing Muses and references to modern merchandise like tennis shoes and action figures. But this isn’t new to myth! Iliad was full of anachronous detail—descriptions of battle techniques, temples to the gods, and...
Importance of Being a Soundtrack
There are a lot of elements that can ruin a movie (a cliché plot twist, painful CGI, Hayden Christensen), but the one that strikes me as the most tragic is the crummy soundtrack. The soundtrack infiltrates a film so thoroughly that remarkable scores become iconic in their own right, and inextricably associated with the film. “Indiana Jones,” “Jurassic Park,” “Star Wars.” We make ringtones and Guitar Hero tracks and let loose great...
