Four Movies I Dug

It may come as a bit of surprise, but my movie intake has almost trickled to a crawl lately. The movies in this post have been vied over a period of almost months. I’ve been a lot more tired lately and haven’t been staying up as late, but I’m still watching for you, my faithful readers (also because I’m half-addicted to movies, I think). So, here we go:

NICK AND NORA’S INFINITE PLAYLIST (2008)
I didn’t LOVE Nick and Nora, but I liked it about as much as I thought I would. I’m a sucker for told-in-one-night movies like Can’t Hardly Wait and the like. Plus, this one stars Michael Cera and Kat Dennings who is crush-worthy in my book (don’t tell Em). The basic story isn’t all that mindblowing, it’s your basic “two people who are dating other people meet each other, fall for each other, have a few difficulties, but SPOILER get together in the end” flick, but what’s fun for me is in the details. Aside from the solid performances and guest spots by the likes of Andy Samberg, Seth Meyers, Jay Baruchel, I like the New York club setting and the smaller details like Nora’s dad SPOILER owning Electric Ladyland studios. I have no idea if the club/band life the movie puts forward is accurate, but I think the idea of following a mystery band around town to be really cool, though familiar (I can’t quite put my finger on why/where from). I also had music geeksplosions when they went to Electric Ladyland. And, I gotta say, I was surprised that this movie, which is based on a book that I haven’t, but now want to, read not only had a sex scene but also a number of gay characters (oh, and the creepiest stripperish dance scene involving an actual girl that I can remember). I guess teen movies have changed a bit and I think it’s pretty cool.

THE HOUSE BUNNY (2008)
I can’t exactly say The House Bunny surprised me, because, well, I kind of thought I would like it. You’ve got Anna Faris starring in a Fred Wolf (SNL, DIRTY WORK!!!) directed movie that mixes Playboy and sororities on a college campus in which the main point of the flick is to turn nerdy sorority girls (including Kat Dennings, Rumor Willis and Emma Stone) into hot chicks. I’d say that’s a pretty killer combination. And, as far as I’m concerned, it lived up to my expectations. Oh, plus it had Colin Hanks who I haven’t seen in anything but Orange County, but I liked that flick and he’s good in this too. Really, if the above description doesn’t tickle your fancy, you won’t dig this movie. If it does, dive on in and have a good time. I wouldn’t rank it in my top five comedies or anything, but it’s still worth a watch.

ALIEN RAIDERS (2008)
Alien Raiders is one of those movies that makes its way into the Wizard building and somehow found it’s way to my hands, probably because everyone knows I’m the horror guy in the offices. Anyway, I knew nothing about this movie and had absolutely no expectations (in fact, I can’t even remember why I watched this instead of something else like, say, Triloquist, which is in my “to be watched” pile). So, I was pleasantly surprised by this mix of Thing and The Mist (basically, “who’s the alien in a grocery store”). I was surprised with how in to this movie I got (I even put a comic down to watch it). For a much better review than I could give, check out my favorite blog on the web Horror Movie a Day. Also check out the comment section for what will be a now reduntant comment, plus a comment from the screenwriter!

DISTRICT B-13 (2004)
Compared to the rest of these flicks, B-13 here is an oldie, but it’s still a goody. Man, I had a great time watching B-13. It’s directed by the guy who just did Taken which I hear is pretty rad and want to check out. Anyway, the story is set in the near future, something about a ghetto in France where undesirables live. The intricacies of the plot escape me at the moment, but there’s an undercover cop and a crook working together to both get a bomb back and save one of the guys’ sister. The story itself isn’t the cool part though, I was a fan of the action scenes, many of which involved my personal favorite YouTube search of free running (or parkour if you’re nasty, or French). I caught this on Netflix’s amazing instant watch and can’t recommend it more to action fans. Seriously, go check it out NOW.

Okay, hope you enjoyed these brief movie reviews. Look for more trade and movie reviews soon!

13.5 Quick Movie Reviews

Hey gang, sorry again about my complete lack of posts lately, things have been crazy. I have been keeping myself busy with movies though, so here are 13 short reviews about some flicks I’ve seen lately, plus one movie I didn’t watch.

SIX STRING SAMURAI (1998)
I really liked this post apocalyptic-like road trip movie with a samurai Buddy Holly. The howler-monkey kid got annoying fast, but the action and snappy dialogue kept things moving along at quite a clip. Much better than I thought it would be.

OUR MAN FLINT (1966)
Flint’s a swinging secret agent int he 60s more worried about having a good time than stopping an international incident (at first at least). Great, campy 60s spy fun, that both pokes fun at but also sets itself up in the same universe as James Bond. A lot of fun, can’t wait to check out the sequel.

THE MAJORETTES (1986)
I don’t actually remember too much about this movie other than it involved some maniac hunting down and killing high school cheerleaders. It’s a way lower budget movie and apparently very little of the money went to snag actors who can, you know, act. Skip this one unless you’re a horror completist or you’re looking to cross another movie off in your copy of Creature Feature (like me).

DAY OF THE DEAD (2008)
I was actually pretty impressed with this remake-in-name-mostly of Romero’s Day of the Dead. I’m not a huge fan of the original or anything, but I wasn’t expecting much out of this flick and was surprised. The story moves along the same speeds as the fast Zack Snyder/28 Days Later-like zombies, but my favorite part is seeing actual people I recognize like Mena Suvari, Nick Cannon and Ving Rhames killing and becoming zombies. When was the last time you saw a non genre actor semi-famous person in a horror movie after they became famous? Hopefully it’s a trend that will continue. I’m actually kind of surprised that they didn’t release this movie in theaters. Oh well, a pretty good zombie movie all said and done, though not a classic.

THE SHADOW (1994)
In my opinion, it’s hard to go wrong when you populate a movie about a pulp hero with actors like Alec Baldwin, Peter Boyle, Tim Curry, Ian McKellen, James Hong and Jonathan Winters and luckily The Shadow held up my opinions. I’m not all that familiar with pulp heroes, especially the Shadow, but I like the idea of him having a network of people all over the city (usually people he has saved) who help him out. There’s all kinds of cool stuff like secret labs and ancient forces of good and evil. Oh and for 30 Rock fans, I highly encourage you to think of these as the early days of Jack Donaghy.

LAST MAN STANDING (1996)
A pretty cool story about a gangster-era hitman (Willis) holing up in a ghost town populated by two rival gangs, gets slowed down with a little too much back and forth back stabbing. I definitely don’t remember all the details about this one, but I’m a Willis fan. Michael Imperioli plays pretty much the same role he always does and Walken stars as Willis’ main competition and they fight which is cool. Can you imagine Walken fighting now? Aside from a dance fight I mean. Oh, also Walter Hill of Warriors fame directed LMS, so it’s gotta be pretty good, right?

FOXY BROWN (1974)
So far my experience with blaxploitation films as been hit or miss, but luckily Foxy is enough of a hit. In the plus column, Pam Grier cuts quite the figure, plus she kicks ass. I also like the idea of a group of inner city dwellers taking the law into their own hands and creating their own kind of police force. I’m not a big fan of the sexual assault stuff, but I guess that’s all part of the exploitation riff. Too bad Foxy and Shaft never got together. That would have been a great flick.

LEATHERHEADS (2008)
I’m not sure if I’ve professed my heterosexual man love for George Clooney on the blog before, but I’m a big fan. I think we’d get along smashingly. I do know that I’ve talked about how much I like the American Office, so you probably know I’m a John Krasinski fan. So, Leatherheads was a good flick in my book. It doesn’t make my top 10 sports movies of all time (well, maybe, I’d have to come up with that list actually), but it’s fun and it offered up a look at a period in professional football that I am completely unfamiliar with, so that was cool. Of course, it’s a comedy, so I’m not sure how accurate it was, but who cares? Like I said it was fun. Has similar story elements to League of the their Own (which probably would make my top 10 because I’m a huge softy). Not groundbreaking by any means, but worth a watch.

JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH (2008)
I liked Leatherheads more than Journey, but it’s not a terrible movie (even if it is very predictable). The special effects bounce back and forth between boderline okay, pretty good and not so great, but the effort is there. I really wish I would have been able to see this bad boy in 3D. I missed out on the phenomenon in the 80s and have gotten a taste for it by watching Superman Returns (ugh) and Nightmare Before Christmas in lame separate the background from the foreground 3D. I can’t freaking wait to see My Bloody Valentine 3D!!!

KILLER KLOWNS FROM OUTER SPACE (1988)
Holy crap I loved this movie. Rickey got me a subscription to a horror movie mag called Horror Hound that’s not expertly edited, but still offers up tons and tons of horror goodness. One such bit of goodness was a whole feature on Klowns. The movie is just so much freaking over the bigtop fun. I really can’t believe that a studio made this movie. Please, do yourself a favor and check it out. Also of interest on the DVD is the Chiodo brothers’ home movies from when they were making monster movies as kids. Pretty impressive stuff for pre-teens with a 16mm camera.

VAMPIRE EFFECT (2003)
The combination of Hong Kong action and vampires drew me to this flick pretty quickly on Netflix. Heck, it’s even got Jackie Chan in a roll that’s more than him just walking on and being called Jackie (which he is). As with a lot of movies like this that I’ve seen, the special effects and fight scenes are sick, but the story itself is nothing new. I did really like the cool retractable whip/sword weapons they used. I think I designed something very similar what I was younger.

LICENSE TO DRIVE (1988)
If you thought Corey Haim could have been a little bit smoother, though still pretty spazzy in Lost Boys and Corey Fledman from the Burbs could use a little mellowing out, then License to Drive is the perfect 2 Coreys vehicle for you (puns!). Haim fails his driving test, but still tells a young (though still 18 by my math) Heather Graham that he can pick her up. It’s basically like an episode of a sitcom, but stretched to 90 minutes and definitely edgier than your average Saved By The Bell. Good stuff. Next up from the Coreys? Dream a Little Dream (which I have absolutely no knowledge of).

LEGEND (1985)
Legend is one of those movies that I don’t remember at all, but have since come to find that it’s kind of a big deal (to some people). I knew that Tim Curry was in it, but had no idea Tom Cruise was. I thought it might be kind of a funny movie, but when I saw Tom prancing around the forest or whatever I clicked this badboy off and deleted it from my queue. I am no fan of fantasy movies.

JOHNNY BE GOOD (1988)
I’m becoming a pretty big fan of Netflix’s recommendations. I started watching Johnny after digging License and wasn’t disappointed. It’s got an older and more confident Anthony Michael Hall and a completely goofy Robert Downey Jr.. There’s a good deal of goofiness to this movie, which focuses on Hall as a football star getting courted by and visiting different colleges that want him. Downey plays his wacky best friend, but what struck me about the movie is how real it can be at times. Hall and Downey sell their characters like they’re up for an award. Oh, it’s also got Uma Thurman as Hall’s girlfriend and Jennifer Tilly has a quick role. If you’re an 80s movie fan, or just curious to see what Downey might have been like back in the late 80s give Johnny a look.

AUGUST RUSH (2007)
Sometimes you’ve got to add a movie for your lady to the ol’ queue. I was pleasantly surprised with August Rush, not because the story is all the unique (you’ve seen the broad strokes before plenty of times), but because of it’s view of music. The way they show the young boy experiencing music in everyday life, what it means to him and how he’s eventually able to play it in his own unorthodox way really struck me. If you’ve got to watch a chick flick with your girl and you’re a music fan, this is a good choice. Also, Keri Russell is in it and looking good.

KING OF KONG (2007)
If you haven’t seen this documentary about the surprisingly competitive world of classic arcade high score competitions, please stop reading and watch it right now. This one makes it into my top 10 movies of 2007 (should a list ever actually exist). First off, it shows off a world I’ve never seen, which you know I love. Also, that world is full of deceit, greed, cowardice, heroics, villainy, triumph and defeat. The way the story is put together feels like a really well scripted feature film, though the events and the ups and downs are completely real. If you’ve ever liked anything I’ve written about on here, watch this movie.

SUPERMAN/DOOMSDAY (2007)
Seeing as how The Death and Return of Superman is the story that got me collecting comics in the first place (and how deeply and utterly I bought into the idea that any of the four subsequent people could be the real Superman), I was very excited when I heard a few years ago that DC/WB was going to make an animated movie about that very event, I was psyched. I figured it probably wouldn’t have EVERYthing that made the comic so cool (Superman turning back to save a family instead of finishing Doomsday off, that very 90s JLA facing off against Doomsday, an eyes-swollen-shut Guy Gardner asking his teammate to aim his fist at Doomsday so he could blast it, not to mention the four other “Supermen”), but that it could offer up a cool new look on the idea. And it’s definitely a different look. I would have preferred them either go straight with the established look and continuity of the Bruce Timm/Paul Dini-verse or have a drastically different art direction on the project as little things like Superman’s cheek lines become distracting. I was also distracted by the different voices for these characters that I recognize from a specific other incarnation that looked very similar but sound completely different. Even at 77 minutes it felt kind of slow, but the fight scenes are pretty great (though they don’t hold a candle to JLU). I still hold on to my dream of one day seeing an epic, animated incarnation of the Death and Return of Superman though. A boy can dream, right?

In the FUTURE: Logan’s Run (1976), The Omega Man (1971) & Soylent Green (1973)

Man, the 70s must have been kind of a bummer. According to the three post apocalyptic flicks I watched the other day, we’d either be living great lives until we turned 30 and were killed, mostly wiped out by a plague or sleeping on every available staircase and eating processed people. Oh, also, chances were pretty good that Charlton Heston would still be around. He’s just awesome like that. I’m a big fan of these kinds of movies and Heston, so this was a good mini marathon for me. Let’s hop right in shall we?

LOGAN’S RUN (1976)
After a global holocaust, society has been rebuilt in domed cities where life is pretty good except for the fact that, when you turn 30, he get killed. It’s just how society works now. But some people aren’t too keen on the idea of entering the Carousel (a weird, anti gravity chamber that whisks the victims up into what seems to be a giant lazer zapper) so they try to run (and are thus called Runners). It’s up to the Sandmen to find them and either kill them or…well, we only see them kill Runners. Our hero is Logan, a Sandman (played by Michael Basil a.k.a. Basil from the Austin Powers movies), who gets tasked with a top secret mission to find a place called Sanctuary that supposedly hides Runners. Well, as you can imagine, things don’t go quite according to plan.

Logan hooks up with this girl who supposedly has connections to Santuary so the both of them go on this crazy adventure that includes operations to change face (with a sexy Farrah Fawcett), a run down ghetto filled with society’s crazies, a frozen wasteland lorded over by a crazy robot and even the outside world.

I really liked how far the creators went with the story. It wasn’t just about Sandmen vs. Runners or Logan getting to the outside world. He acts like a true hero and wants to tell the people in the domed city the truth about the outside world (to his own near peril). Plus, this is just a fun world to get a glimpse of with their age coordinated to the color of the clothing they wear to the jewels in their hand that change color with age. The whole concept is very cool and even the 70s cheesiness of some of the scenes (the robot for instance or the model of the futuristic dome city) add more than they detract from the overall enjoyment of the movie.

THE OMEGA MAN (1971)
After watching one interpretation of the future, I figured I’d check out another. This is one of many movies based on the book I Am Legend. From what I’ve read (I haven’t read the book) this is a pretty drastic departure from the book as it starts Heston as a scientist who was immune to a plague that hit mankind and either killed everyone or turned them into super-pale zombie weirdo cultists. The cult members want to kill Heston because they believe he represents the old ways and the old ways lead to the end of the world.

As it turns out though (of course), he’s not really the last man on Earth as he comes to find out when he runs into some fellow survivors (including a woman!). Things get really great for a while after Heston develops an antidote for the plague from his own blood, but it doesn’t last. Without spoiling anything, the ending is pretty harsh, much worse than I thought it would be.

The scenes of Heston cruising around an abandoned LA are super cool. I’m always a fan of something like this because it’s really the kind of special effect you’ll never see in real life, a city of that magnitude completely empty (I also love the scenes in 28 Days Later with Jim walking around an empty London). Heston also does a great job of carrying the movie pretty much by himself for the first 20-30 minutes of the movie (not counting the mutants or the bust he talks to). Frankly, I’d watch Heston do just about anything and with the unusual turn of events at the end, this ranks up there are a great flick in my book.

SOYLENT GREEN (1973)

I’ll be honest, I wasn’t paying really really close attention to Soylent Green. I can’t remember what else I was doing though I think it might have been writing a feature for the next issue of ToyFare (available in stores in February!). Anyway, I liked what I saw as Heston (yeah!) investigates a bunch of murders in a crappy feature where people sleep in run down apartments (or the stairs if they’re really poor). There’s also apartment complexes where the rich live with what can only be described as complimentary prostitutes. It’s one of these rich guys that bites it early on, spurring the story on.

There’s a lot of plot, most of which leads up to the completely spoiled ending that Soylent Green (a foodstuff sold to the poor) is actually people. I think it was first ruined for me in an SNL skit starring Phil Hartman. Oh well, no grudges held.

There’s also a subplot with Heston’s older friend and classic actor Edward G. Robinson in what would be his last role. There’s all kinds of subtext as the older man spends time with Heston, the only other person who know that Robinson was dying of cancer. In the end it’s a pretty dark and grimy film and even though we all know what Soylent Green really is, it’s not what the whole movie’s about. There’s a lot of emotion between Heston and Robinson that becomes all the more palpable when you know the real life history behind the shooting.

I also really like the dingy future. It’s definitely not the clean and crisp one of Logan’s Run, seeming moor like Escape from New York than anything else, but without all the weird gangs or kind of like Land of the Dead with the merchants and poor people surrounding the palatial high rise. Whereas the streets in Omega Man are completely empty, the ones in Soylent are packed with the dregs of society. It’s an interesting difference. Oh, also, the first murder victim’s in-house prostitute gets really excited when her john buys her a brand new arcade game (according to the IMDb, it was made by the same guy who would go on to make Pong). It was pretty funny. It’s fun to see what people 30 years ago thought the future would be like and how wrong they were. Fun stuff.

Trade Post: B.P.R.D. 1946 & Catwoman Crime Pays

Okay, time for another installment of trade post:

B.P.R.D. 1946 Volume 9 (Dark Horse)
Written by Mike Mignola & Joshua Dysart
Drawn by Paul Azaceta
I love me some Hellboy, you guys and, of course, that includes B.P.R.D. I didn’t get into the Hellboy-verse until a few years ago, which was pretty good timing because I was able to read all the trades at Wizard and I was able to hop over the long gap when there weren’t any new books and Hellboy was spending a few years under the ocean. I’m a big fan of how intricate the history is. There’s elements in 1946 that resonate later on, though I can’t point all of them out, because it’s really hard to keep everything straight in my head. I do like to re-read the books every year or so, but I haven’t done that in a while and even right after I do it’s hard to remember.

This story follows Hellboy’s adoptive pops Trevor Bruttenholm in one of his post-WWII adventures with a group of soldiers in a bombed out Germany. This one’s got everything from vampires and werewolves to little girls in white dresses leading the Russian version of the B.P.R.D.

One of the great things about Dark Horse’s Hellboy and B.P.R.D. trades is that you can pretty much pick any of them up, understand what’s going on and enjoy a great story with a beginning, middle and end. Sure there are smaller elements that you might not pick up on, but might also drive you to check out other books. The other thing I love about these books is that they almost always have extras. Usually that includes an intro by Mignola along with a sketchbook with commentary in the back by Mike and whoever else is drawing the book. Unfortunately, this volume lacks the intro, which usually has Mignola explaining the genesis of the idea (where the mythology came from, that kind of thing). I really like those and was bummed to see there wasn’t one. There was, however an Afterward by Dysart explaining his first 1946 meeting with Mignola and the sketchbook.

Oh, one more thing, I really dug Paul Azaceta’s art. Like a lot of the non-Mignola or Dan Davis Hellboy/B.P.R.D. it took me a while to get used to his style (what can I say? I’m used to my superhero artists), but Azaceta seems like the perfect artist for this project. I look forward to seeing him on future B.P.R.D. projects almost as much as I’m looking forward to all the other Hellboy-verse books.

CATWOMAN: CRIME PAYS (DC)
Written by Will Pfeifer
Drawn by David Lopez
Catwoman’s one of those characters that I have an on-again off-again relationship with. I actually had a subscription to the Jim Balent-drawn version for a year which I dug. I’d also grab whatever crossover issues came out. I completely missed out on Brubaker’s relaunch and still want to go back and read it, but I have read a few of Pfeifer’s trades, this being, I believe, the second to last of the current run (it’s getting canceled right? I’m super behind).

Anyway, this story follows Selina’s attempt to start a new life with her baby, then get rid of the baby and finally waking up in her empty apartment which then explodes, leaving Cats on the run in Gotham without her mask or whip. There’s a character called The Thief who disappears due to Catwoman’s involvement in the Salvation Run storyline which feature supervillains being sent to a crazy planet far far away.

I was actually pretty interested in the Thief storyline and seeing Catwoman stripped of everything and on her own, but it got cut off by the Suicide Squad getting the jump on her and sending her to the prison planet. I wasn’t a big fan of the whole Salvation Run storyline, partly because it seemed a bit too close the Marvel’s Negative Zone prison (did they even really flesh that out? All things Civil War are a blur thanks to the Civil War Room column), even though it’s a pretty sound idea in theory. I don’t even know how that mini-series ended and this trade doesn’t offer up much insight. You get an issue of Cats wandering around from faction to faction only to end up with Luthor’s crew, but then she ends up in this weird world where’s practically SuperCat and runs everything. Once she’s out, she presumably rejoins the Salvation Run storyline. I feel bad for Pfeifer because it doesn’t feel like the Salvation Run stuff was very organic, probably more dropped on his plate. But he handled it well, though the story itself doesn’t hold much consequence (even though it’s pretty cool).

I’ve liked Pfeifer’s writing in the past, his Aquaman Sub Diego stuff was rad and HERO is one of the coolest books from the past five or six years not yet collected (seriously, what’s the deal with that? come on DC, where’s my omnibus?!), but for whatever reason Catwoman hasn’t really absorbed me yet, though I’ll probably grab the next trade when it makes its way into the Wizard office. I also like David Lopez, he’s a solid artist with a distinct style that makes him stand out. He seems equally adept at drawing grim and gritty street-level stuff as huge superhero group shots, which he also gets to do in this book.

I can’t really recommend Crime Pays to non Catwoman readers. There’s a lot going on in this book that’s not only connected to past Catwoman continuity, but also a part of DC’s last year that seems generally ignored (seriously, I read a ton of DC books, how did the villains get back?). Hopefully the next volume will wrap things up with The Thief (I’m seriously interested in that storyline, as well as what the heck Catwoman’s supposed to do with all her stuff gone).

As The World Trons: A Tron (1982) Review

Tron is one of those movies that I’ve been hearing about how awesome it is from people who are a few years older than me for a while now. Well, sorry those people, but I’ve got to disagree. I think if I had seen Tron when I was a kid it would have blown my freaking mind and I’d probably love it now, but seeing as I don’t have the nostalgia factor, I watched it like I would any other movie and, while the effects were crazy good for the time and still hold up, the story seems a bit confusing and thrown together.

The story revolves around computer guru Jeff Bridges (who sounds just like The Dude) who used to work for a big corporation that’s been taken over by a guy who stole Jeff’s designs for video games and passed them off as his own. There’s also a computer program called Master Control Program who’s running that dirtbag’s life. But the real story takes place inside the computer as Bridges gets zapped inside and has to deal with programs designed by his friends in the real world who resemble them. Bruce Boxleitner and Cindy Morgan (who I did not recognize as the girl from Caddyshack) play the friends in the real world and programs in the computer.

I think the confusion stems from the very beginning of the movie where they jump into the computer and show off a bunch of craziness without much context. I knew a little bit about the movie, but not much so I was kind of lost right off the bat. Then it bounces to the real world and back into the computer. I got the overall plot points and, like I said, it looks sick once they’re inside the computer. They do a great job making the people/programs inside the computer look unnatural. I read they did it by shooting in black and white and then adding color in post. It’s very creepy looking.

All in all, Tron is entertaining enough, but not all that absorbing. The sound levels also seem to bounce around like crazy, which is a pet peeve of mine as I’m trying to watch these movies while my wife sleeps. Keep it down you darn movies! Anyway, I recommend Tron to special effects fans, Jeff Bridges fans and anyone who saw it when they were three and want to check it out again.

Halloween Scene: Scream Awards

Spike TV’s doing their 3rd annual Scream Awards with all kinds of categories relating to movies, TV and even comic books. I remember watching part of the first broadcast and I believe the winners actually get a giant metal spike-looking trophy which looks like you could actually kill someone with. This year’s Scream Awards will be on Tuesday, October 21st (9:00-11:00 PM, ET/PT). According to the press release “Ballots were sent out to Spike TV’s “SCREAM 2008” advisory board, made up of respected and well-known members of the horror, sci-fi, fantasy and comic book worlds who were responsible for advising on categories and determining nominees in each category. All films, television shows and comic books were deemed eligible for inclusion if they were released between August 11, 2007 and August 8, 2008 and were representative of the genres listed. Winners will be determined by online voting at spike.com.” I guess me ballot must have gotten lost in the mail huh?

Below you’ll find some widgets for voting. These are my first widgets on the blog. It’s a pretty big step. You can vote below or by clicking on the above link and heading over to Spike’s set to see all the categories. Enjoy!

Best TV Show Voting Widget:

Best Actor in a Horror Movie or TV Show Voting Widget

Anything But Abyss-mal

James Cameron is one of those directors that I forget I like. I was one of the few people that dodged the Titanic bullet (one of the few bonuses of not having a girlfriend in 1997 or all of high school for that matter) and I really couldn’t tell you anything else he’s done recently besides Dark Angel which I never watched and fell off the radar pretty quickly. So, why did I add The Abyss to my queue? I didn’t actually know he had anything to do with it. Underwater stuff kind of freaks me out and I’ve always heard the effects were great, so I just went with it and it was freakin’ GREAT. Let’s hope Cameron can kick things up a notch and do another movie like this, Terminator or Aliens.

THE ABYSS (1989)

Written and directed by James Cameron
Starring Ed Harris, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Michael Biehn and Chris Elliot

So, the basic premise (I say that a lot, don’t I?) is that this underwater drilling team gets co-opted by the government to check out a sub that went down carrying a nuke (making Armageddon almost the exact opposite of this movie). A group of navy dudes including Michael Biehn board the ship and dive deep down with our heroes. Ed Harris and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio play a married couple who hate each other but are both experts on underwater stuff.

Like I said above, I’m actually pretty freaked out by underwater stuff, especially sunken ships with dead people floating limply inside. So, this movie had more potential to actually scare me, but it’s not really a scary movie, which is cool. There are definitely suspenseful chases, both in scuba-like suits and in underwater vehicles, though the scene where they go into the sunken sub and are surrounded by corpses was pretty creepy.

It’s really more of a psychological movie as Biehn starts going crazy. And really, how do you not go crazy when you only have a few inches of steel between you and certain death? Anyway, you’ve got chases, bare knuckle fights, great underwater filming and a pretty convincing relationship between Harris and Mastrantonio that feels really familiar now, but also fresh somehow. Oh, it’s also got aliens (lower case, “A”). The whole thing’s kind of complicated and I’m not sure I caught everything but way deep down in the ocean this huge spaceship of tiny aliens driving jellyfish-like vehicles has been hanging out. They can also manipulate water somehow in one of the coolest and best effects I’ve seen in a while and this was from 1989!

Fun fact, the filmed all the underwater stuff with the actual actors in specially made suits so you can see their faces in a nuclear reactor they filled with water. The sun kept getting through so they had to put at tarp over the top of it. Knowing that going in added a bit more of a creepiness factors because these people probably could have died if one or two things would have gone wrong. I really appreciate the actors doing their own stunts too. Can you imagine this being done today? Everything would be crummy CGI and just wouldn’t have that fear of imininent danger (like the scene after the underwater station starts taking on water, Biehn’s gone over the edge and Harris actually has to swim out an air lock up to another one and then ANOTHER one. Holy cats, that’s crazy.

This feels like a pretty rambling review, but I highly recommend the movie. I watched the theatrical version to save time, but would definitely check out the director’s cut next time.

Labor Day Movie Marathon

Yeah, I know it’s been a few days since Labor Day, but I’m still recovering. After a weekend filled with playing LEGO Indiana Jones with Em, going to craft fairs (yech), going to a rad Octoberfest and having an impromptu get together at our place (oh, and a lot of beer), I needed to relax. So, while Emily, her friend Vicki and Rickey’s girlfriend Sam went to the Ren Fair, Rickey and I watched roughly 8 hours of horror movies (4.25 in all).

So, without getting into too too much detail, here’s what we watched and my thoughts on each:

MY BLOODY VALENTINE (1981)

I gotta say, we picked a good one to start with. Neither of us had seen this one before and I think we were both impressed. The basic story is that there’s this mining town called Valentine Bluffs in Nova Scotia where they used to have this annual Valentine’s Day dance. Twenty years ago, a bunch of miners were really anxious to get to the party so they did something wrong and the mine blew up. Now there’s a tall tale that says Harry Warden threatened to kill anyone who went to the Valentine’s Day dance, so they canceled it…until NOW! So, of course, someone dressed up in a pretty rad mining/dominatrix combo outfit starts killing people, cutting out their hears and putting them in heart shaped boxes. The dance gets canceled, so the genius miners decide to have their party at the mine. Craziness and death ensues.

Wow, that was a lot more in depth than I intended to go, but it’s probably because I really dug this movie. One thing that Rickey and I started wondering towards the end of the movie was whether we were supposed to assume the killer really was escaped mental patient Harry Warden or someone else. Think about it, this flick came out in ‘81, the slasher film hadn’t been around for too long, so anything was possible. I neglected to mention that there is a main character named TJ (hells yeah!) who moved away from Valentine Bluffs and came back. His girlfriend is dating a guy so they become the main two characters (and thus suspects). Spoiler, it is one of them, but you’re really not sure which as they switch off in the final scene which actually takes place down in the mine.

The killings themselves aren’t all that spectacular and mostly off camera, but the killer does stuff an old lady into a drier in a laundromat, which the cop finds the next day. Also, I’m not sure if Canadian laundromats work differently than the ones here, but one drier kept drying all night long and never shut off. Come on Canada, how dry do you need your clothes? Another interesting note about Canadians? They drive like maniacs, whether it’s the miners leaving the movie in the beginning of the movie (each driving a car from a different decade, seriously, check it out) or, uh, driving away from the mine later after the killer strikes in the craziest swervy driving I’ve ever seen. I get being scared, but keep your sh!t together miners.

Okay, so that stuff was a little ridiculous, but like I said, I really liked this movie. You got the mystery of who the killer is, pretty great character development without getting too much into unnecessary back story. The killer looks awesome. The climax in the actual mine (the part is in the facility on the surface until some geniuses head down before realizing there’s a killer on the loose) is pretty creepy, mixing fears of claustrophobia and getting a pick axe in the head, especially in the scene where the killer smashes a series of lightbulbs hanging on a string, darkening the shaft with each pop of shattered glass. Really good stuff. If you haven’t seen it and your a slasher/horror fan definitely check it out.

APRIL FOOL’s DAY (1986)

Without much effort (we flipped the double disc over) and watched this flick. I had pretty high hopes because of how surprised and impressed I was by My Bloody Valentine. I wasn’t all that surprised or impressed with April Fool’s Day, mostly because of the ending which I will spoil shortly. The story’s somewhat poorly construed to the audience (neither Rickey nor myself really knew why these kids were meeting on a fairy boat or whether they all knew each other), but the basic premise is that a bunch of kids including Biff from Back to the Future and the main girl from Friday the 13th Part 2 (Amy Steel), are going to stay with their friend Muffy in her big old house on an island. It seems that Muffy likes to pull pranks and has the whole house rigged up. There’s also a few weird things in the rooms like bondage gear, a heroin kit and a tape of a baby crying. Then, as you would expect, the kids start disappearing one by ones, presumably getting killed. The couple that ends up being the last man and woman standing discover that Muffy’s gone crazy and then later that it’s her twin Buffy and then they find out in the end that…it was all a set up. It seems that Muffy was trying out a plan for turning the big old house into a murder mystery getaway.

Now, I’m not a big fan of stories in which the end of the movie completely wipes out the emotions you just felt. Also, I’d be pretty pissed if someone put me through all this crap just to test something out on me. What a jerk! But the movie’s not all bad, and to be honest, I knew something was coming up because I’m a doofus and started reading the IMDB trivia in the beginning which said the body count is 0. So, with that in mind I noticed that none of the killings were on screen and was just waiting for the explanation at the end. I really did like the cast, you might not have known why they all got together in the beginning, but you get the feeling as it goes on that these kids are pretty good friends. Even the goofy pranks display character traits instead of just being annoying.

One thing that really didn’t sit well with me though involved one of those weirder pranks I mentioned above. Throughout the movie the kids aren’t in on the gag until after they “die.” Remember that part where I mentioned a tape of a baby crying? Well it turns out that Muffy used personal information to really mess with her friends’ heads and that girl with the crying baby tape in her room actually had an abortion. It’s mentioned later by one of the other characters and then that girl “dies” and we don’t see her again until the big reveal seen at the end where she’s sitting there pretty unimpressed with the whole thing. What a d!ck move, am I right? But everything’s cool until she sneaks into Muffy’s bedroom and fake slits her throat. I’ll be honest, I kind of wanted Muffy to bite it in the end (which was apparently how an alternate version of the movie was supposed to end) because she really is the villain of the piece and she makes out like a bandit. Where’s the justice?!

Quick side, note, I love this movie poster. I remember seeing it at the video store when I was kid and being scared and later really intrigued.

SCARECROWS (1988)

Scarecrows was the last movie that Rickey brought up with him to watch. Before jumping in we went up to Arby’s and grabbed some grub. We sat back down and watched while we ate and soon realized that this movie kinda sucks and turned it off. It’s about these robbers, one of which pulls a DB Cooper and jumps out of the plane with the loot. He lands in farmland and goes on the run as his cohorts chase him down. Oh yeah, and the scarecrows in the field come to life and kill him. I’m probably gonna finish watching this sometime this week or next, so keep your eyes peeled for another review.

SCANNERS (1981)

So, with the disillusionment that was Scarecrows we went up to Blockbuster and got Scanners, which I had seen, but Rickey hadn’t. I’ve enjoyed all of David Cronenberg’s horror/sci-fi movies that I’ve seen (especially the super-weird Shivers), plus the head explosion scene and final battle between Vale and Revok kicks ass. I had completely forgotten how long and intricate the plot is though. You see, Scanners are basically psychics and telekinetics who are cropping up in the world. Vale’s the good guy, employed by a doctor who turns out to be his dad to infiltrate Revok’s crew, the bad guy who turns out to be his brother. Rickey and I both fell asleep intermittently throughout the movie, but the slow, deliberate pacing actually made it easy to keep up with the story.

I’m definitely not going to really get into the plot here because it’s very intricate, though I basically spoiled the ending above. Heh, woops. But it’s definitely a cerebral journey that shows just how good Cronenberg used to be at bringing out the weirder aspects of humanity in these crazy surreal situations. Highly recommended, along with Shivers, eXistenZ, The Fly, though I can’t pass that same recommendation along for Eastern Promises which just seemed very “been there, done that.”

THE BURNING (1981)

So, after getting rested up we were ready to close things out with a good old fashioned camp slasher movie. Five years ago a camp prank went wrong and the creepy groundskeeper Cropsy gets burned close to death, but not all the way (”The skin grafts didn’t take” an orderly tells him as they roll him out of the hospital.). Now, someone’s killing kids at a different camp. That’s about it as far as the plot goes.

The big draw for me for this flick was the cast, specifically young Jason Alexander and Fisher Stevens who I didn’t really recognize until he spoke in that ribbity voice he has. Jason Alexander looks and sounds pretty much the same as you think he would, just less portly and more ripped. He plays a nice guy jock. There’s also a creepy kid played by Brian Backer (Mark ‘Rat’ Ratner of Fast Times fame) who spies on girls in the shower and just kind of stares creepily at people.

Like I said, the plot isn’t all that intricate. Some campers get killed at the main camp and then a group of them goes on a trip up stream. That’s where the killer really gets to let loose, killing an entire log raft of kids at one point in a pretty cool scene. There’s even a chase between the main killer, the weird kid and the main guy who turns out to be one of the kids who played a prank on Cropsy five years ago in some kind of huge ruined structure in the middle of the woods. I have no idea what the structure was, but it looked pretty rad.

I can recommend this one again for slasher fans as Cropsy runs around with some huge shears cutting off fingers and stabbing throats. It’s also great for camp movie fans like Rickey.

After this we were pretty horror movied out, so we watched an episode of Clean House, a show I find myself strangely drawn to. Good times!

Faculty Advisory

Robert Rodriguez is one of those director’s who’s always impressed me. Sin City, From Dusk Till Dawn, Planet Terror and his Mexico Trilogy were all great in my mind. So, when we got our online Blockbuster account I added just about all of his movies, especially looking forward to The Faculty because 15-year-old TJ wasn’t allowed to see it and later TJs never got around to it. Well, the wait was a pretty long one and then, what do you know, we included it in ToyFare’s Best Alien Invasions (see ToyFare #133 on sale today to find out what place it took and who snagged the #1 spot). So, with that, I borrowed the flick and watched it last night.

The Faculty (1998)

Written by Kevin Williamson, David Wechter and Bruce Kimmel
Directed by Robert Rodriguez
Starring Elijah Wood, Jordana Brewster, Clea DuVall, Usher, Josh Hartnett, Salma Hayek, Famke Janssen, Bebe Neuwirth, Robert Patrick, Jon Stewart and many more

Well, you can add this one to the list of Rodriguez movies that I dug. Part of it was a sense of nostalgia I got while watching it. It kind of reminded me of Can’t Hardly Wait. Not thematically, but when it comes to star power. There are SO MANY familiar faces in this movie. Just check out the list above. Freakin’ Jon Stewart plays a science teacher who gets possessed by an alien parasite and stabbed in the eye with some kind of caffeine drug. Great stuff.

Oh, I guess I should explain the plot. A small town in Ohio gets invaded by alien parasites who burrow their way into bodies, taking over control of the inhabitant. Elija Wood’s character finds one of the parasites on the football field and later finds himself in a closet with the hot girl as they see the football coach (T-1000 himself Robert Patrick) and another teacher drop a parasite in the hot nurse (Salma Hayek). From there a mismatched group of high schoolers (think basically The Breakfast Club. Don’t know what that is? Go away) bands together and figures out that the drugs that Josh Hartnett’s been peddling around the school can kill them and do their best to stop the invasion.

I really like how they don’t muck about when it comes to the story on this flick. You’re into the story pretty early on with Elija Wood finding the parasite. They don’t mess around with “is this really happening” BS too much that comes with these kinds of movies. You get your set group of characters pretty early on and you strap in for the ride with them. I also like that Matt Parkman’s partner from Heroes (Clea DuVall) actually compares what’s going on to Invasion of the Body Snatchers and all that. She tells Elija Wood about this and he wonders if all the movies and whatnot about aliens is actually a way for them to get people complacent so they don’t think an alien invasion is possible. It’s a great bit of business that feels really natural in “our world.”

Speaking of the cast again, it’s a lot of fun to see some pretty huge actors (along with some not-so-huge and completely unknown actors) in these roles. But they’re also really really convincing in their roles. Elija Wood looks like a huge geek and acts like one too. Josh Hartnett’s loser Zeke is pretty much a genius who just doesn’t like school and deals drugs on campus. They all handle the Thing-like suspense of “who’s an alien and who’s not?” so convincingly that I really couldn’t figure out who was and who wasn’t.

I also liked how the special FX (do they still spell it like that? Probably not, oh well) looked. Especially in the scene where the parasite-controlled Jon Stewart attacks the kids in a classroom. Zeke rips the blade off of a paper cutter and chops Stewart’s fingers off. But they don’t just lie there, the snake themselves towards the kids. But that’s not all, whisps of blood snake out from his fingers until he’s stabbed in the eye, foams and the parasites under his skin die. Crazy stuff.

All in all, this is a fun little romp that shows off Rodriguez’s directing chops along with the acting talent of the cast that has gone on to prove itself just as well as the adults who play the teachers. Oh and Bebe Nuerth looks hot as the principal. Yeah, I said it.

OMAC Attack

For the past 15 years or so I’ve felt this weird connection to Jack “The King” Kirby. It’s not because I was a huge fan of his work (I think the only copies of his books I owned prior to last year were some of his Topps Comics stuff), but because he passed away on my birthday back in 1994. I was around 11 at the time and had only been reading comics for a few years, but I remember feeling really weird about that.

Anyway, fast forward to last year and I finally found myself reading some of Jack’s work for the first time. But it wasn’t the Marvel stuff I had heard about since I started reading comics, it was the at-one-time-less-known New Gods stuff. The Jack Kirby Fourth World Omnibuses blew me away and once I’m through reading them, I’ll probably post something on here about them, but for now you’ll have to settle for an OMAC review.

Jack Kirby’s OMAC: One Man Army Corps
Written, drawn & edited by Jack Kirby
Starring OMAC, Buddy Blank

This book came out a few weeks ago and boy is it a great read. Weird, but great. Probably the most interesting aspect of the whole thing was mentioned in the intro by Mark Evanier. According to Mark, the concept of OMAC (a One Man Army Corps in the future) started life as a Captain America story. Can you imagine? Just think about it for a second.

Anyway, on to the story. Most of you have probably heard of OMACs by now. The latest version played a prominent role in DC’s Infinite Crisis. In that continuity they’re hapless people who were infected with a technovirus that lets a satellite called Brother-I turn them into superhero killers. But in Kirby’s world, OMAC was designed as a hero for the people in “the world that’s coming.”

Which brings us to Buddy Blank, a regular dude who works for Build-A-Friend until he’s selected by the faceless Peace Agency to become the One Man Army Corps. When OMAC takes over, Buddy disappears, but does return later on in the series.

Over the next 8 issues, Kirby throws OMAC against everything from a rented city of assassins trying to kill him, a giant spider-like monster, future gangsters, a vast cloning ring, a mad scientist stealing the Earth’s water and more. Kirby’s wild pencils really bring these out-there concepts to life, punching you in the eyes with incredibly crisp pencils.

The main problem with the book is that there isn’t much of a conclusion. Like a lot of Kirby’s DC work (from what I hear), OMAC got cut short because he was moving back to Marvel and DC didn’t want to put anyone else on the book (hence the Joe Kubert cover to #8). Because of this, the obviously-planned-as-a-cliffhanger ending to #8 got a new non-Kirby panel drawn to try and wrap-up the series (which doesn’t really succeed).

That being said, this book is completely worth it. If you’ve never read any Kirby, this is a great representation of his wild and wacky DC work. Want to pick up the Fourth World books, but don’t know if you’ll like them? I think if you like OMAC, you’ll like the Fourth World stuff, so this is a pretty good measuring stick for $24.95 (or less depending on which websites you shop at).

Personally, I’m hoping to see the rest of Kirby’s DC work collecting in a similar format to this and the Fourth World Omnibuses. Maybe a Sandman book? Or even a re-packaging of the Kamandi Archive Editions in this Omnibus format. What do you say DC? What are the odds?