Is it Saturday again already? My gosh, the week flies by fast.
I couldn't decide which crappy monster movie to review tonight, so you get two! Aren't you lucky?
Let's start with The Incredible Melting Man (1977). This movie opened opposite Star Wars. At the time, nobody cared about Star Wars. This movie, on the other hand, was touted as the next summer blockbuster, with groundbreaking special effects by Rick Baker! Well, we all know how that turned out. Star Wars became a six-plus movie franchise, and nobody has ever heard of the Incredible Melting Man. Mores the pity. I was always a Star Trek fan, myself.
An Astronaut is sent to explore the rings of Saturn. I guess at the time, people thought we could actually land on Saturn, because that's why the Astronauts were sent to explore it. Nowadays, we know now that Saturn is a gas giant, and anyone who could actually stand on the surface without dying from the noxious gases, getting torn apart by the hurricane force winds, or drowning in the poisonous, acidic seas beneath the clouds (because who the hell knows what's under the clouds?) would be crushed by the gravity, which is a tad greater than Earth normal. Anyway, this astronaut gets hit by a solar flare while cruising through the rings, and everyone in his space capsule dies except him. Irradiated so badly his flesh begins to melt off his bones, the man nevertheless makes it back to earth. Escaping from a hospital, he kills a nurse, and basically becomes a mindless, irradiated zombie, hunting for human flesh, getting stronger with each passing hour. A military search ensues (I use the term loosely), but there's a time limit. A second expedition to Saturn is almost underway, and they have to know, what went wrong? WHAT WENT WRONG???
There's a lot of funny stuff in this movie, that's not intended to be funny. Spoilers to ensue. I mean, the movie came out in 1977. If you were planning to see it at the theaters, I think you missed your chance. So the first funny thing, is the biggest nurse I have ever seen, running away from this shambling, shuffling corpse of a man, runs RIGHT THROUGH a glass door. I mean, look, the door opens from the inside. It has a push-bar on the inside. You just give it a little shove, and whee, it opens right up for you. Nope, she just RUNS RIGHT THROUGH IT OHMYGOD OHMYGOD ITS A DOOR I DON'T KNOW HOW TO USE A DOOR HANDLE OHMYGOD. Yea. Funny stuff. Then we've got the "military search." Some general, who wants the escape to be kept a secret, who hasn't even leaked the information that the entire first expedition to Saturn was a disaster, tells the lead doctor looking after the melting man to... go look for him. By himself. Yea. I can't even tell if it's an actual hospital the guy is in. There's long hallways that look big enough to drive a truck through, lined by row after row of doors. It looked maybe like a warehouse. In fact, in one scene, the two doctors, the lead guy and his assistant, are riding along some sort of giant cargo conveyer that's rolling down the hallways through their entire conversation. I don't want to sound like a moron, but... the thing's moving at a snail's pace, it's like 3 feet off the ground, and why the HELL don't they just walk? lol Next, we have the good doctor's search! He gets home from his work day, hours and hours after the melting man ran away, giving the shambling zombie about 5 or 6 hours head start, instead of going after him immediately. The general calls him the minute he walks in his door to check and see if the guy's been found yet, and the doctor is like "I just got home!" lol So eventually, after a nice dinner, and a good night's sleep, the doctor sets out with his geiger counter to find the radioactive zombie. While following the trail of lost body parts, dripping bloody bits of goo, and dead bodies, the doctor is shouting things like "It's me! I'm your friend! I'm alone! I'm unarmed! I'm just here to help you, all by myself!" He may as well be shouting "Kill me, I'm easy prey!" if you ask me. Strangely, the zombie shuffles and moves slowly around the important players, like the doctor's wife, and runs like a ninja when he's killing the extras. Odd, that. Also, you got to love an army general who goes to the doctor's house, hangs out with his wife, and sits around in flannel and denim, raiding the doc's fridge for leftovers, while the doc is out searching. By himself. lol And there's the part at the end, where a dead body suddenly opens its eyes and raises a hand. Oops! Too early, scene wasn't quite done yet. lol
It's a little slow at first, but the chase scene (such as it is) is.... okay, they're just running through the woods. It's not that exciting. There's the part where the old people stop for lemons, that's grippingly thrilling... okay, it's really lame. It's not really any surprise this movie didn't do as well as star wars. lol I'm a little confused about the end, too. I mean, why make the zombie have any human feelings at all? Why paint it as a human being that cares, when it's just going to, well, melt like a wax figure left in the oven too long? Seems sort of silly to me. There wasn't even any nudity. Or cute chicks, really. Huh. Waste of good celluloid. Or is it cellulite? Hmmm. The Incredible Melting Man is on Netflix if you'd care to check it out.
Snakehead Swamp (2014) is playing on Syfy channel. Right now. As I write this. It's got nine minutes left, better get there fast if you want to see it! lol
Snakehead Swamp is about a delivery truck, carting... something... through the Louisiana swamps. Something on the truck, called Specimen 0, escapes, releasing a swarm of an aggressive variety of Snakehead. Snakehead, if you don't know, are basically Killer Fish from Asia, similar to Piranha, but bigger and less pack-hunter-y. Anyway, the snakehead fan out, killing people in the water, out of the water, running away on land, pretty much all over the place. There's a park Ranger, her estranged husband, their kid, his love interest, and assorted sexy teenagers doing the usual "party, get drunk, get eaten by killer fish" deal. Plus the usual "Curse of Blackbriar swamp", and a voodoo man. You just can't have a swamp movie without a good curse and a voodoo guy. I think it's Louisiana state law.
I'm not sure how they got the monsters into this movie. I think what they did was come up with a rubber fish design, and then generate a computer image of that. I guess Syfy considers that a step up from it's usual simple computer generation, but... uh... not quite. The "rubber fish" effect just... makes the whole thing worse. lol Also, one thing, these fish move like molasses on land. Yet there's a scene in the park where people are getting yanked off their feet and pulled away like they're being dragged off by horses. What the hell is doing that? Because it's sure as hell not a Snakehead. lol However, there's some love story going on, and hot teen girls with big boobs wearing bikinis, betrayal, curse-breaking, family healing, and lots of monster fish eating people. What's not to love? Standard Syfy saturday night movie crap. lol
In other news... It's hot! Too damn hot for June. We've been averaging 5 to 10 degrees above normal all month, and it's only getting hotter! We hit 92 today. And this is Buffalo, NY! We usually average 80 in July, and July hasn't even started yet. Told you it was going to be a hot summer, didn't I? You're goddamn right I did. I wish my fat would melt. Could use a little fat-melting this summer. Instead, I just LOOK like I'm melting. lol
That's all for tonight! I hope everyone has a safe and Happy Fourth of July next week. Try not to drink so many beers that you blow your liver clean out of your body with a half-stick of dynamite. Yea, I know, you're saying, "Once is enough!" And so it should be. So it should be.
Saturday, June 28, 2014
Saturday, June 21, 2014
Saturday Night Special - The Wolverine (2013)
Okay, so I forgot the Friday Night Feature. Enjoy the Saturday Night Special, then.
Saturday Night Special, I think, used to be a slang term for a .38 police revolver. I could be wrong. Guns aren't really my thing. In the first person shooter games, I couldn't tell you if the gun I was using was a mauser, a mouser, or a muzzle-loader. As long as it sends the bullets where I aim the crosshair, I am happy with it.
The Wolverine (2013) doesn't use guns either (hah, nice segue, innit?). He uses claws. Really super sharp, adamantium claws that can cut through anything. Except they don't, really. I mean honestly, what's the point of having claws that can't even cut through frozen butter? Let's review shall we? In one movie, can't quite recall which one, he shoots his claws out at a cat... who licks them. And no, the cat's tongue does not get sliced off and fall to the ground. Nope. Cat just licks the claws like they were made of catnip. Not even any blood. In this movie, some hot japanese girl fondles them like they were a euphemism for a penis. Nope. No cuts, no blood, no nothing. Look, I know technically the things are made of shiny rubber for the actor to wear and all, but come on. Can't you at least PRETEND they are sharp? But I digress.
Let's summarize the movie. Logan's all busted up inside about having to kill Jean Grey. Yea, he loved her, I get it. I was in love once. I had this really sweet-looking computer once, and I loved it. But then it died. You know what I did? I tossed it out and got a new one. I didn't go camping in the woods and not shave me beard for years. I didn't dream about making love to it. Well, not once it had died, anyway. But that's what Logan is doing. He's all oh, boohoo, I loved a chick, and I had to gut her like a fish. Meh. What a whiner. If I had a dime for all the chicks I loved that I had to gut like a fish... Okay, actually, that's pretty gross. Have you ever cleaned a fish? Fish guts are nasty. And if you've ever cut the head off a catfish to clean it, that thing just keeps breathing and breathing and breathing and breathing... I felt really bad once about the fish head just sitting there, on the counter, sucking down it's last breaths, so I decided to keep it company. I almost ran out of patience, and my last supervisor said I had the patience of a mountain. That's an exact quote. That catfish took forever to stop breathing. So, uh, anyway, back to Logan. So Logan stops off a a bar to deal out some frontier justice to a man who killed a bear with a poison arrow. But instead of killing the guy, a japanese chick stops him, and tells him the guy's going to be dead within a week anyway. Yep, she's a mutie, just like wolverine. Or, Logan, as he calls himself now. So the japanese chick gives him a sword, and tells him it's a gift from an old friend, in tokyo. Cue the flashbacks. Apparently Logan was in Nagasaki when they dropped the atom bomb there. I... guess he was sightseeing. Yea. So he saves some japanese soldier, and now, the dying soldier wants him to come to tokyo so he can give him the sword he saved for him, and say goodbye. But things are not always what they seem. Cue the NINJAS!
I've always liked japanese culture. The politeness, the sense of order, the peace and harmony of the shinto religious shrines... okay okay, the Ninjas. It's all about the Ninjas. To this day, when my mom asks me the question "You know what kills me?" as an introduction to what she's about to say, I always think "NINJAS?" but I rarely say it. Mostly because, when I do say it, she just looks at me like I'm retarded and continues on with what she was saying. One camping trips she would always ask me "You know what I just saw?" and I'd answer "NINJAS?" and she looks at me like I'm an idiot again, and i decided it was time to defend myself. I told her they were everywhere, the Ninjas, but they were just so damn sneaky, she wasn't seeing them. She didn't believe me! I decided right then and there I was going to hire a guy to dress up as a ninja, run out from behind a rock on one of our camping trips, and then run and hide behind a tree. And mom would look at me, and I'd look at her, nod and say "I TOLD YOU!" But alas... I don't have the money for hire a guy right yet. Or rent a ninja costume. I'm working on it. Anyway, I've always thought Ninjas were cool. Silent, deadly, merciless assassins who use blades in every shape and size to kill you in more ways than you can think of! What's not to like, right? Right.
So this movie is all about japanese culture. It's like a wolverine vs the Ninja movie. Only, you know, there's Yakuza (japanese organized crime), and a few samurai tossed in for flavor. No geishas, but eh, there's a couple japanese chicks who aren't exactly cute (at least, in my opinion), but I guess they'll do. No nudity, dammit. At least, no female nudity. Wolverine manages to get his shirt ripped off at frequent intervals. He's like Tim Allen from Galaxy Quest. In fact, the movie isn't really about japanese culture, ninjas, yakuza or samurai at all. It's pretty much all just an excuse for Wolverine to rip his shirt off. Huh. Why the hell did I watch it then? Hmmmm.
Oh god. Is that all the superhero movies are? Modern-day bodice-rippers for women? :-o Man. That sucks. Now I feel all dirty. Blech. For those of you that don't know, a "bodice-ripper" is a derogatory term for a romance novel. No wonder Stan Lee is making a fortune. Women like guys with rippling muscles and no shirts. Who knew? WHO KNEW???? lol
Wolverine wasn't a bad movie, I suppose. There was lots of fighting. Not any really good fighting. But lots of it. Honestly, I used to read comic books. Supposedly, wolverine is a guy who knows how to fight. But every time I see him on TV, he doesn't move like he knows how to fight. Meh, what do I know, I'm an out of work tech support guy. Would I watch this movie again? Nah. Seen it. So in that sense, I suppose it wasn't a very good movie. Keep him in the X-man movies where he belongs, because he can't really carry a movie by himself, if you ask me. Not enough character.
There you go, your saturday night special, mostly because I forgot last night's friday night feature. lol
In other news... Longest day of the year! The summer solstice was today. In these parts, that means the sun rose at 5:36 and set at 8:37, giving us like 15 hours and 20 minutes of daylight. Not counting twilight, of course. There's some pagan people out there dancing naked under the moonlight right now, I bet. Well, if you're dancing naked under the moonlight, make sure you use bug spray on your nether regions. Ever have a mosquito bite your nether regions? Torture. Pure torture. SO ITCHY!
In other other news, a two inch long centipede almost ran over my foot earlier today. I'm not ashamed to say, I screamed like a girl. I did. And that's just from it ALMOST running over my foot. Had it actually run over my foot, I'd probably STILL be screaming like a girl. lol
That's all for now! Happy Solstice Day!
Saturday Night Special, I think, used to be a slang term for a .38 police revolver. I could be wrong. Guns aren't really my thing. In the first person shooter games, I couldn't tell you if the gun I was using was a mauser, a mouser, or a muzzle-loader. As long as it sends the bullets where I aim the crosshair, I am happy with it.
The Wolverine (2013) doesn't use guns either (hah, nice segue, innit?). He uses claws. Really super sharp, adamantium claws that can cut through anything. Except they don't, really. I mean honestly, what's the point of having claws that can't even cut through frozen butter? Let's review shall we? In one movie, can't quite recall which one, he shoots his claws out at a cat... who licks them. And no, the cat's tongue does not get sliced off and fall to the ground. Nope. Cat just licks the claws like they were made of catnip. Not even any blood. In this movie, some hot japanese girl fondles them like they were a euphemism for a penis. Nope. No cuts, no blood, no nothing. Look, I know technically the things are made of shiny rubber for the actor to wear and all, but come on. Can't you at least PRETEND they are sharp? But I digress.
Let's summarize the movie. Logan's all busted up inside about having to kill Jean Grey. Yea, he loved her, I get it. I was in love once. I had this really sweet-looking computer once, and I loved it. But then it died. You know what I did? I tossed it out and got a new one. I didn't go camping in the woods and not shave me beard for years. I didn't dream about making love to it. Well, not once it had died, anyway. But that's what Logan is doing. He's all oh, boohoo, I loved a chick, and I had to gut her like a fish. Meh. What a whiner. If I had a dime for all the chicks I loved that I had to gut like a fish... Okay, actually, that's pretty gross. Have you ever cleaned a fish? Fish guts are nasty. And if you've ever cut the head off a catfish to clean it, that thing just keeps breathing and breathing and breathing and breathing... I felt really bad once about the fish head just sitting there, on the counter, sucking down it's last breaths, so I decided to keep it company. I almost ran out of patience, and my last supervisor said I had the patience of a mountain. That's an exact quote. That catfish took forever to stop breathing. So, uh, anyway, back to Logan. So Logan stops off a a bar to deal out some frontier justice to a man who killed a bear with a poison arrow. But instead of killing the guy, a japanese chick stops him, and tells him the guy's going to be dead within a week anyway. Yep, she's a mutie, just like wolverine. Or, Logan, as he calls himself now. So the japanese chick gives him a sword, and tells him it's a gift from an old friend, in tokyo. Cue the flashbacks. Apparently Logan was in Nagasaki when they dropped the atom bomb there. I... guess he was sightseeing. Yea. So he saves some japanese soldier, and now, the dying soldier wants him to come to tokyo so he can give him the sword he saved for him, and say goodbye. But things are not always what they seem. Cue the NINJAS!
I've always liked japanese culture. The politeness, the sense of order, the peace and harmony of the shinto religious shrines... okay okay, the Ninjas. It's all about the Ninjas. To this day, when my mom asks me the question "You know what kills me?" as an introduction to what she's about to say, I always think "NINJAS?" but I rarely say it. Mostly because, when I do say it, she just looks at me like I'm retarded and continues on with what she was saying. One camping trips she would always ask me "You know what I just saw?" and I'd answer "NINJAS?" and she looks at me like I'm an idiot again, and i decided it was time to defend myself. I told her they were everywhere, the Ninjas, but they were just so damn sneaky, she wasn't seeing them. She didn't believe me! I decided right then and there I was going to hire a guy to dress up as a ninja, run out from behind a rock on one of our camping trips, and then run and hide behind a tree. And mom would look at me, and I'd look at her, nod and say "I TOLD YOU!" But alas... I don't have the money for hire a guy right yet. Or rent a ninja costume. I'm working on it. Anyway, I've always thought Ninjas were cool. Silent, deadly, merciless assassins who use blades in every shape and size to kill you in more ways than you can think of! What's not to like, right? Right.
So this movie is all about japanese culture. It's like a wolverine vs the Ninja movie. Only, you know, there's Yakuza (japanese organized crime), and a few samurai tossed in for flavor. No geishas, but eh, there's a couple japanese chicks who aren't exactly cute (at least, in my opinion), but I guess they'll do. No nudity, dammit. At least, no female nudity. Wolverine manages to get his shirt ripped off at frequent intervals. He's like Tim Allen from Galaxy Quest. In fact, the movie isn't really about japanese culture, ninjas, yakuza or samurai at all. It's pretty much all just an excuse for Wolverine to rip his shirt off. Huh. Why the hell did I watch it then? Hmmmm.
Oh god. Is that all the superhero movies are? Modern-day bodice-rippers for women? :-o Man. That sucks. Now I feel all dirty. Blech. For those of you that don't know, a "bodice-ripper" is a derogatory term for a romance novel. No wonder Stan Lee is making a fortune. Women like guys with rippling muscles and no shirts. Who knew? WHO KNEW???? lol
Wolverine wasn't a bad movie, I suppose. There was lots of fighting. Not any really good fighting. But lots of it. Honestly, I used to read comic books. Supposedly, wolverine is a guy who knows how to fight. But every time I see him on TV, he doesn't move like he knows how to fight. Meh, what do I know, I'm an out of work tech support guy. Would I watch this movie again? Nah. Seen it. So in that sense, I suppose it wasn't a very good movie. Keep him in the X-man movies where he belongs, because he can't really carry a movie by himself, if you ask me. Not enough character.
There you go, your saturday night special, mostly because I forgot last night's friday night feature. lol
In other news... Longest day of the year! The summer solstice was today. In these parts, that means the sun rose at 5:36 and set at 8:37, giving us like 15 hours and 20 minutes of daylight. Not counting twilight, of course. There's some pagan people out there dancing naked under the moonlight right now, I bet. Well, if you're dancing naked under the moonlight, make sure you use bug spray on your nether regions. Ever have a mosquito bite your nether regions? Torture. Pure torture. SO ITCHY!
In other other news, a two inch long centipede almost ran over my foot earlier today. I'm not ashamed to say, I screamed like a girl. I did. And that's just from it ALMOST running over my foot. Had it actually run over my foot, I'd probably STILL be screaming like a girl. lol
That's all for now! Happy Solstice Day!
Friday, June 13, 2014
Double Feature Friday Fright Night!
I've decided to try a new strategy for my blog. Friday Night Double Features! Because... well, I have no social life and I need something to do. Yea.
Tonight we have a lot of alliteration going on, Double Feature Friday Fright Night! In honor of Friday the 13th, the second of our feature films reviews is Friday the 13th, part VII: The New Blood! And the first is Pumpkinhead! Because, come on, you can never have too many pumpkin-headed vengeance demons. You just can't. They're like boobs.
Both movies came out in 1988, strangely enough. I was 18 years old then. Graduating High School. Starting College. And they didn't even have the internet back then, so god only knows what I spent my time doing. I may have actually gone outside once or twice. Hmmm.
Let's review Pumpkinhead! First, a summary! It's really a decent horror movie, and I know you've probably seen it before, unless you've been living under a rock. Under a van. Down under the bridge by the river.
Pumpkinhead begins with some spooky nighttime hijinks, but the real story starts with a man and his son in their kitchen, getting ready for their day selling produce. The man's a farmer, and his son's a bit nearsighted, but they are all they have left of their family after the boy's mother passed away. So they head to their produce store and start readying the veggies. Cue the city folk, coming by on the way to their cabin in the woods (and why is it always a cabin in the woods?), who stop at the produce stand to buy some general goods. Here we found out, from some visiting country bumpkins and their grandpa, that the legend of Pumpkinhead is already well and established in the local region. Pumpkinhead, according to the children, is all about taking vengeance on bad folks. Are you getting the feeling that there's about to be a need for some vengeance? Yea, me too. So the country bumpkins move along, and the city folk break out their dirtbikes for some free-wheelin fun along the hilly roadside. The farmer heads back to his house to fetch some feed he forgot to bring, leaving his boy and his dog alone to mind the store. The dogs run outside to go after the dirtbikes, and the boy runs after his dog, who nearly gets run over by the city-folk on their god-DAMN noisy dirtbikes. Unfortunately, while the dog lives... the boy isn't so lucky. Having come to the conclusion that you can't have a horror movie without some really bad decisions along the way, the city folk decide to make a run for it, hoping nobody will notice the broken down boy and the pool of blood. See, the guy who ran the boy over, just did the same thing to a girl a few months ago, and he's still on probation! So if they find out he was stone drunk and ran over someone else, well, they'll... at least give him a ticket, or something. Seriously, if you've run over someone while drunk, twice, in a few months period, I think it's time for an intervention, or rehab, or something. So the city folk flee to their cabin, several of whom are just trying to find a phone to call an ambulance, and the guy who ran over the boy, continuing his string of bad decisions, holds the rest of the people hostage so they can't call anybody and get him in trouble. Cue the farmer coming home, and finding his dying boy, and getting all kinds of pissed off. The farmer's heard tell of a woman, an old, old woman, who has... powers. Turns out she can't do nothing for his boy, but she can offer him what he wants second most. Revenge! In the form of a big pumpkin-headed vengeance demon.
Thank god for old women with powers, ain't it? If not for them, who'd take care of all the pumpkin-headed vengeance demons in the world? Few cool things to take note of in this film. First, Lance Henrikson plays the farmer. Interesting story about Lance, when he first started acting, they told him he was too baby-faced for the parts he wanted to play. So, he took some time off, and went sailing. For, like a year or something. The sun and wind weathered his face to the consistency of old leather, and BAM! He's famous. Fun fact of the day, he likes making pottery in his spare time, and has sworn off making Bigfoot movies for the foreseeable future.
Also in this movie, playing the grandfatherly country bumpkin, is Buck Flower! I can't get enough of George "Buck" Flower. The guy sounds like he'd be a total wuss, doesn't he? I mean, George Flower? I admit he's never exactly played action hero roles, but he seems pretty damn tough in most of the movies he's been in. He was in Escape from New York, for crying out loud, with Ernest Borgnine, Adrienne Barbeau, Kurt Russell and Lee Van Cleef. I'm pretty sure just appearing in that movie makes one a badass. There's guys out there reading this blog right now, going "Yep. I was just an extra in that movie, but since then I've started my own chapter of the Hell's Angels!" See? Told you.
I also like the graveyard the old woman sends him to, is actually a pumpkin field. I didn't notice it the first time I saw this movie, but it is. The vines are all... uh.. viney... in that... creepy way that... vines are... viney. And the pumpkins are all warped and half-squashed like they been laying there since last summer. Which is creepy in that... way that... warped pumpkins are.... creepy. Yea. Pretty sure I reviewed this movie before, but come on now. Every movie is reviewed dozens of times by different critics! I've just reviewed the really good movies, more than once! Yea.
Funny thing about this movie, it occurs to me that, if the farmer hadn't forgot the bag of seed in the first place, he'd never have left to get it, and the boy wouldn't have been on his own, and the whole movie probably wouldn't have happened. Spooky, innit? The way blind fate has a hand in everything? Take our next movie, for instance.
The Friday the 13th series of movies is probably the most successful horror movie franchise of all time. I know, you are arguing the Halloween series is actually more successful, but have they made over ten Halloween movies? No. No they haven't. They have made over 10 Friday the 13th films, from the original back in 1980, to Jason X, to the recent remake that, well, probably wrecked the series for how badly it was done, and doesn't bode well for more sequels, but oh well! Shit happens, as they say.
Friday the 13th, part VII: The New Blood was made in 1988. Amazing that they made a movie a year for 8 years on that same series, innit? This movie occurs after part 6, where Tommy Jarvis (the only OTHER recurring character in the entire Friday the 13th series besides Jason Vorhees) secures the undead corpse of Jason Vorhees in Crystal Lake, where Jason originally drowned. Tommy almost drowned at the end of that movie, and I presume, lived happily ever after with the sheriff's smoking hot daughter, because he never shows up again in any of the sequels. Interesting fun fact about Tommy jarvis from part 6, the actor who plays him is the same actor who was in Return of the Living Dead, playing Freddy, the poor sap who dies on the first day of his new job by inhaling the Trioxin 1-4-5 (or whatever it was called) and pretty much ruins the July 4th holiday for the entire town. Interesting fun fact, the actor, named Thom Mathews, is actually a good friend of George Clooney, who he hung out with when they were both struggling actors. Wouldn't THAT have made a weird Return of the Living Dead? With George Clooney in it? Interesting George Clooney fun fact, he was the same bit-part-actor who played in Return of the Killer Tomatoes before scoring his breakout role in From Dusk Til Dawn. After that, he was starring in films with the likes of Nicole Kidman and Michelle Pfeiffer. But enough fun facts! On with the summary!
Camp Crystal lake, by the time part 7 rolls around, has become a little-used retreat for summer vacationers. Our heroine, a teen girl by the name of Tina Shephard, lost her father in the lake a long time ago. Brought back to the cabin her family owns by her psychiatrist, Tina's memories of that time resurface... which is exactly what her psychiatrist wants. You see, Tina is a powerful Telekinetic whose powers only pop out when she's under extreme stress. So how do you get evidence of those powers on tape and make yourself a fortune? By putting her under stress, of course! So it's back to Crystal Lake for Tina, to the lake where her father drowned. Sadly, Tina's uncontrolled powers accidentally caused the death of her father when Tina was little, and Tina now has some vague recollection of that. But, missing her father as badly as she does, Tina tries to wake him with those same powers... and accidentally frees Jason Vorhees from his watery tomb! Jason, freed from his prison, starts killing everyone around the lake, and Tina, gradually gaining some small semblance of control of her powers, faces him down in a head-on battle for survival. Can even Jason Vorhees triumph against the incredible power of the human mind, or will the goody two shoes Tina Shephard conquer Jason with the power of her will? And even more important, will Terry Kiser, who plays the psychiatrist, ever star in Weekend at Bernie's 3?
I don't have any fun facts about this movie, but it was fun to watch an undead Jason getting goddamn PISSED at some silly teenage girl beating the CRAP out of him with her psychic powers. He gets so MAD! lol Of course, if someone hung me and lit me on fire, I'd get a little peeved about it, myself.
Friday the 13th, part 7, is currently the ONLY Friday the 13th movie you can find on netflix, and Pumpkinhead was just showing on El Rey. Watch them, both movies are pretty decent, even if the 7th Friday the 13th movie was not as good as some of the other ones. Of course, it was better than some. And there's boobs! There are no boobs in Pumpkinhead. Unless you count the guy that ran over the kid on his dirtbike while drunk. He's a boob.
That's it for this Friday the 13th! I'm off to have some Mint Chip Ice cream. :-D
Tonight we have a lot of alliteration going on, Double Feature Friday Fright Night! In honor of Friday the 13th, the second of our feature films reviews is Friday the 13th, part VII: The New Blood! And the first is Pumpkinhead! Because, come on, you can never have too many pumpkin-headed vengeance demons. You just can't. They're like boobs.
Both movies came out in 1988, strangely enough. I was 18 years old then. Graduating High School. Starting College. And they didn't even have the internet back then, so god only knows what I spent my time doing. I may have actually gone outside once or twice. Hmmm.
Let's review Pumpkinhead! First, a summary! It's really a decent horror movie, and I know you've probably seen it before, unless you've been living under a rock. Under a van. Down under the bridge by the river.
Pumpkinhead begins with some spooky nighttime hijinks, but the real story starts with a man and his son in their kitchen, getting ready for their day selling produce. The man's a farmer, and his son's a bit nearsighted, but they are all they have left of their family after the boy's mother passed away. So they head to their produce store and start readying the veggies. Cue the city folk, coming by on the way to their cabin in the woods (and why is it always a cabin in the woods?), who stop at the produce stand to buy some general goods. Here we found out, from some visiting country bumpkins and their grandpa, that the legend of Pumpkinhead is already well and established in the local region. Pumpkinhead, according to the children, is all about taking vengeance on bad folks. Are you getting the feeling that there's about to be a need for some vengeance? Yea, me too. So the country bumpkins move along, and the city folk break out their dirtbikes for some free-wheelin fun along the hilly roadside. The farmer heads back to his house to fetch some feed he forgot to bring, leaving his boy and his dog alone to mind the store. The dogs run outside to go after the dirtbikes, and the boy runs after his dog, who nearly gets run over by the city-folk on their god-DAMN noisy dirtbikes. Unfortunately, while the dog lives... the boy isn't so lucky. Having come to the conclusion that you can't have a horror movie without some really bad decisions along the way, the city folk decide to make a run for it, hoping nobody will notice the broken down boy and the pool of blood. See, the guy who ran the boy over, just did the same thing to a girl a few months ago, and he's still on probation! So if they find out he was stone drunk and ran over someone else, well, they'll... at least give him a ticket, or something. Seriously, if you've run over someone while drunk, twice, in a few months period, I think it's time for an intervention, or rehab, or something. So the city folk flee to their cabin, several of whom are just trying to find a phone to call an ambulance, and the guy who ran over the boy, continuing his string of bad decisions, holds the rest of the people hostage so they can't call anybody and get him in trouble. Cue the farmer coming home, and finding his dying boy, and getting all kinds of pissed off. The farmer's heard tell of a woman, an old, old woman, who has... powers. Turns out she can't do nothing for his boy, but she can offer him what he wants second most. Revenge! In the form of a big pumpkin-headed vengeance demon.
Thank god for old women with powers, ain't it? If not for them, who'd take care of all the pumpkin-headed vengeance demons in the world? Few cool things to take note of in this film. First, Lance Henrikson plays the farmer. Interesting story about Lance, when he first started acting, they told him he was too baby-faced for the parts he wanted to play. So, he took some time off, and went sailing. For, like a year or something. The sun and wind weathered his face to the consistency of old leather, and BAM! He's famous. Fun fact of the day, he likes making pottery in his spare time, and has sworn off making Bigfoot movies for the foreseeable future.
Also in this movie, playing the grandfatherly country bumpkin, is Buck Flower! I can't get enough of George "Buck" Flower. The guy sounds like he'd be a total wuss, doesn't he? I mean, George Flower? I admit he's never exactly played action hero roles, but he seems pretty damn tough in most of the movies he's been in. He was in Escape from New York, for crying out loud, with Ernest Borgnine, Adrienne Barbeau, Kurt Russell and Lee Van Cleef. I'm pretty sure just appearing in that movie makes one a badass. There's guys out there reading this blog right now, going "Yep. I was just an extra in that movie, but since then I've started my own chapter of the Hell's Angels!" See? Told you.
I also like the graveyard the old woman sends him to, is actually a pumpkin field. I didn't notice it the first time I saw this movie, but it is. The vines are all... uh.. viney... in that... creepy way that... vines are... viney. And the pumpkins are all warped and half-squashed like they been laying there since last summer. Which is creepy in that... way that... warped pumpkins are.... creepy. Yea. Pretty sure I reviewed this movie before, but come on now. Every movie is reviewed dozens of times by different critics! I've just reviewed the really good movies, more than once! Yea.
Funny thing about this movie, it occurs to me that, if the farmer hadn't forgot the bag of seed in the first place, he'd never have left to get it, and the boy wouldn't have been on his own, and the whole movie probably wouldn't have happened. Spooky, innit? The way blind fate has a hand in everything? Take our next movie, for instance.
The Friday the 13th series of movies is probably the most successful horror movie franchise of all time. I know, you are arguing the Halloween series is actually more successful, but have they made over ten Halloween movies? No. No they haven't. They have made over 10 Friday the 13th films, from the original back in 1980, to Jason X, to the recent remake that, well, probably wrecked the series for how badly it was done, and doesn't bode well for more sequels, but oh well! Shit happens, as they say.
Friday the 13th, part VII: The New Blood was made in 1988. Amazing that they made a movie a year for 8 years on that same series, innit? This movie occurs after part 6, where Tommy Jarvis (the only OTHER recurring character in the entire Friday the 13th series besides Jason Vorhees) secures the undead corpse of Jason Vorhees in Crystal Lake, where Jason originally drowned. Tommy almost drowned at the end of that movie, and I presume, lived happily ever after with the sheriff's smoking hot daughter, because he never shows up again in any of the sequels. Interesting fun fact about Tommy jarvis from part 6, the actor who plays him is the same actor who was in Return of the Living Dead, playing Freddy, the poor sap who dies on the first day of his new job by inhaling the Trioxin 1-4-5 (or whatever it was called) and pretty much ruins the July 4th holiday for the entire town. Interesting fun fact, the actor, named Thom Mathews, is actually a good friend of George Clooney, who he hung out with when they were both struggling actors. Wouldn't THAT have made a weird Return of the Living Dead? With George Clooney in it? Interesting George Clooney fun fact, he was the same bit-part-actor who played in Return of the Killer Tomatoes before scoring his breakout role in From Dusk Til Dawn. After that, he was starring in films with the likes of Nicole Kidman and Michelle Pfeiffer. But enough fun facts! On with the summary!
Camp Crystal lake, by the time part 7 rolls around, has become a little-used retreat for summer vacationers. Our heroine, a teen girl by the name of Tina Shephard, lost her father in the lake a long time ago. Brought back to the cabin her family owns by her psychiatrist, Tina's memories of that time resurface... which is exactly what her psychiatrist wants. You see, Tina is a powerful Telekinetic whose powers only pop out when she's under extreme stress. So how do you get evidence of those powers on tape and make yourself a fortune? By putting her under stress, of course! So it's back to Crystal Lake for Tina, to the lake where her father drowned. Sadly, Tina's uncontrolled powers accidentally caused the death of her father when Tina was little, and Tina now has some vague recollection of that. But, missing her father as badly as she does, Tina tries to wake him with those same powers... and accidentally frees Jason Vorhees from his watery tomb! Jason, freed from his prison, starts killing everyone around the lake, and Tina, gradually gaining some small semblance of control of her powers, faces him down in a head-on battle for survival. Can even Jason Vorhees triumph against the incredible power of the human mind, or will the goody two shoes Tina Shephard conquer Jason with the power of her will? And even more important, will Terry Kiser, who plays the psychiatrist, ever star in Weekend at Bernie's 3?
I don't have any fun facts about this movie, but it was fun to watch an undead Jason getting goddamn PISSED at some silly teenage girl beating the CRAP out of him with her psychic powers. He gets so MAD! lol Of course, if someone hung me and lit me on fire, I'd get a little peeved about it, myself.
Friday the 13th, part 7, is currently the ONLY Friday the 13th movie you can find on netflix, and Pumpkinhead was just showing on El Rey. Watch them, both movies are pretty decent, even if the 7th Friday the 13th movie was not as good as some of the other ones. Of course, it was better than some. And there's boobs! There are no boobs in Pumpkinhead. Unless you count the guy that ran over the kid on his dirtbike while drunk. He's a boob.
That's it for this Friday the 13th! I'm off to have some Mint Chip Ice cream. :-D
Monday, June 2, 2014
Review - The Incredible Burt Wonderstone (2013)
Okay, I don't normally watch comedies.
I admit it. I'm not usually a big fan. And it's not that I don't like to laugh, mind you. If I go a day without laughing hysterically at something, it's a rare thing. But usually, it's just a badly done horror movie. Which, you guys know I love.
So I am flipping around the crappy selection of TV viewing after Game of Thrones on sunday night, and I come across THE INCREDIBLE BURT WONDERSTONE listed on some HBO sub-channel. And I was waiting for something else to come on, there's this funky half-hour weekly news review thing on HBO at 11:00 and I had like an hour to kill before it came on. Now honestly, I haven't been able to watch that show since the first time it was on, and I feel bad for the guy who does the show because he's obviously trying very hard, and completely failing, to keep my attention. BUT, I figured I'd watch this crappy Steve Carrell movie until the funny news thing came on.
Yes, I know, I'm not a big fan of Steve Carrell. I didn't like him in weatherman, either. Wait, that was... uh, I forget that guy's name, OH Will Ferrell. Yea, I don't like him much either. Why do all these guys names sound almost identical? Carrey, Ferrell, Carrell? Hmmmm. Odd, that. Moving on.
So I figured, what the hell. I haven't seen Jim Carrey in a movie in like, 1000 years. Haven't really laughed at him since Ace Ventura, Pet Detective 2, when he told his trusty translator (whose name escapes me) to throw him a spear, and his translator does... right into Ace's leg. I think I peed myself laughing when I first saw that, and every single time after.
Which, if you know me, isn't really that surprising. Damn incontinence. Damn it to hell.
And I LOVE Steve Buscemi. The guy's like, my GOD! Okay, he's not really my god. I don't sacrifice goats or chickens to him, or dance naked around a small shrine devoted to him, as far as you know. But I do think he's a pretty decent actor.
I admit it. I'm not usually a big fan. And it's not that I don't like to laugh, mind you. If I go a day without laughing hysterically at something, it's a rare thing. But usually, it's just a badly done horror movie. Which, you guys know I love.
So I am flipping around the crappy selection of TV viewing after Game of Thrones on sunday night, and I come across THE INCREDIBLE BURT WONDERSTONE listed on some HBO sub-channel. And I was waiting for something else to come on, there's this funky half-hour weekly news review thing on HBO at 11:00 and I had like an hour to kill before it came on. Now honestly, I haven't been able to watch that show since the first time it was on, and I feel bad for the guy who does the show because he's obviously trying very hard, and completely failing, to keep my attention. BUT, I figured I'd watch this crappy Steve Carrell movie until the funny news thing came on.
Yes, I know, I'm not a big fan of Steve Carrell. I didn't like him in weatherman, either. Wait, that was... uh, I forget that guy's name, OH Will Ferrell. Yea, I don't like him much either. Why do all these guys names sound almost identical? Carrey, Ferrell, Carrell? Hmmmm. Odd, that. Moving on.
So I figured, what the hell. I haven't seen Jim Carrey in a movie in like, 1000 years. Haven't really laughed at him since Ace Ventura, Pet Detective 2, when he told his trusty translator (whose name escapes me) to throw him a spear, and his translator does... right into Ace's leg. I think I peed myself laughing when I first saw that, and every single time after.
Which, if you know me, isn't really that surprising. Damn incontinence. Damn it to hell.
And I LOVE Steve Buscemi. The guy's like, my GOD! Okay, he's not really my god. I don't sacrifice goats or chickens to him, or dance naked around a small shrine devoted to him, as far as you know. But I do think he's a pretty decent actor.
So I turn on the Incredible Burt Wonderstone, prepared to be sickened by Steve Carrell's lousy sense of humor. Honestly, it did start out pretty bad. Some little kid is getting picked on by bullies because he doesn't fit in. Cue my childhood flashbacks! Last thing I need to be reminded of, right? I almost turned it off, I really did. Then I saw James Gandolfini! And I thought DAMN, HE DEAD! :-o Because, sadly, he is. This was probably one if his last movies. And Alan Arkin was in it, too! So all these excellent supporting actors kept me around for the inevitable crappiness that was the standard Steve Carrell romantic comedy. BLECH.
Then something funny happened! Jim Carrey came on! And he was actually pretty stupid. Then he laid down on a bed of hot coals. And screamed. And screamed. and SCREAMED. And I laughed. Because Jim Carrey does stupid-funny better than anyone I know. It was like having Ace Ventura back! I giggled like a school girl eating ice-cream-flavored crack! :-D
And then Olivia Wilde came on! And she was a magician too! Because she magically made my penis go OOOOH BABY! :-D What? I'm sorry, she does. And yes my penis did speak, although it was more of a DUDE WTF WHY ARE YOU WEARING THESE TIGHT GODDAMN SHORTS I HAVE NO ROOM TO FUCKIN GROOOOWWWWWWWW OUCH SHIT GOT TO GOT TO GET ME SOME ELBOW ROOM!
So. After my penis and I ... Uh.... Straightened out our little differences... We went back to drooling over Olivia Wilde. Who, I just found out, was born Olivia Jane Cockburn. Heh. Strange coincidence. She makes MY cockb- OKAY, that was just wrong. Stop it. I mean it. Don't be a dickhead. My apologies, Olivia. Ahem. Besides, it's probably not Olivia that makes my cockburn, anyways. Might be the syphilis.
Let's just do a summary of the movie then. Burt, the incredibly unpopular kid at school, gets a magic kit for his birthday, and makes a friend, Anton. Burt and Anton decide to become magicians, and before you know it (ten years later), they've got a popular magic act playing every night at a las vegas casino! Dream come true for Burt and Anton, friends for life! But, after doing the same act for so long, Burt gets a big head, is tired of the same old tricks every night, and loses his sense of wonder for the magic he performs. Cue the inevitable argument with his friend, and the inevitable life lessons learned. Blah de blah blah. And you wonder why I don't watch Steve Carrell comedies. My god. It's like telling the teens at camp Crystal Lake not to smoke pot, have sex, and get hacked to bits by Jason Voorhees. DUH.
Strangely, this movie was fuckin HILARIOUS. From Jim Carrey screaming uncontrollably while trying to sleep on a bed of hot coals, to what I THOUGHT was going to be the simpering, whiny, feel-good ending of the movie, which turned out to be a friggin crazy look at how they did their biggest trick, I giggled and laughed and chortled and chuckled and guffawed (yes, I did guffaw, shut your whore mouth) right up til the credits rolled. Which, was a total goddamn surprise. I've never laughed at a Steve Carrell movie before, ever. Wicked, eh? Maybe he's not such a bad guy, after all. LOL riiiiiiight.
So let's recap why I reviewed this movie, why it was good, and why you shouldn't hate Steve Carrell just because he has a lousy sense of humor. (1) Wonderful supporting cast. (2) Jim Carrey ridiculousness. (3) James Gandolfini's LAST MOVIE ROLE EVER (close enough) (4) Olivia Wilde. (5) Olivia Wilde in various states of undress. (6) Olivia Wilde pulling a condom out of Steve Carrell's ear right before they do some WILD DONKEY SEX.
Okay, I may have made up the donkey sex part. Also, as it turns out, I missed the funky half hour news thing on HBO. AGAIN. lol
So let's see, what else is going on. OH, Grimm, Marvel's Agent's of Shield, and Dusk Til Dawn all ended their seasons just before Memorial day. Quick summaries, Agent Coulson becomes head of SHIELD, Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) made a cameo appearance, and they defeat the Clairvoyant, the big evil baddie, who actually just turned out to be a rogue agent and not the actual head of HYDRA. Although, I suppose he was the head of a cell of HYDRA, so technically, he was a pretty bad bad guy. Also, he wasn't entirely human at the time, so Coulson had to kill him again. Much more effectively the second time, I might add. And yes, Wade is still a traitor. Who saw that coming? I still want to bone Skye. So sexy! Don't be jealous, Olivia Wilde. Maybe we can have a threesome? :-D
On Grimm, Nick (the Grimm) lost his powers. Yea. That's fucked up, innit? Yea, I thought so. So now he's not even a Grimm anymore, and will be HELPLESS against the hordes of evil monsters trying to kill him! But what I wonder is, what happened to those powers he received as a result of being a zombie? Doesn't he still have those? Hmmm. I guess we'll find out next season.
Dusk Til Dawn ended pretty much as expected. Just like in the movie, all the vampires got exposed to sunlight and asploded in sparkly glitter, much like Twilight vampires when they come out of the closet. heh. And also as expected, Robert Rodriguez rewrote the ending. Because, why not? I always wondered why the HELL George Clooney decided not to bring Juliet Lewis along with him when he drove away from the bar in the movie, and this time, he took her with him. I mean sure, she was a teenager, and if he had qualms about them ending up in bed together, so what? She's a kickass vampire killer and you just never know when that kind of thing is going to come in handy, even if he doesn't end up having sex with her. Which is probably legal in mexico anyways. Killing vampires, I mean, not having sex with teens. Pretty sure that's wrong anywhere except Vatican City, which has an age of consent of 12. No, really, it does. I looked it up. Makes me sorry to have been born a catholic. Sick bastids.
That's all for now! From what I can tell, the uptick in blog hits I've got recently from some other website picking up one of my horror movie reviews has faded, and it's back to just me and my two followers again. Whew! Lucky. I was worried I'd have to start, I don't know, being politically correct, or something. Heh. Yea, like that'll ever happen.
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