"I'm Going To Show You Something Beautiful..." Age of Ultron Trailer Wins The Internet!

Yowza.  The troubling thing about working nights, is that sometimes you come home after a long day, and some bit of movie news has just absolutely devastated the internet in your absence (something that's been happening more often than not around ITMOD lately, sorry folks).  Yesterday, that news was the Age of Ultron trailer.  James Spader's gargley robotic voice promises early on "something beautiful" and Joss Whedon certainly delivers the goods.  Most of the trailer is what we saw at this year's San Diego Comic Con (minus a jovial cocktail party sequence, but Marvel doesn't want to confuse the Empire Strikes Back All-Shit-About-To-Break-Loose doom & gloom of the Ultron plot).  Still, now we can watch it over and over and over again and drool and drool and drool.

HULKBUSTER!  Yes.  We know internet, it is the coolest.  Just another geek miracle Marvel has been blessing fanboys since 2008.  But as much as I love seeing these two titans go at it in Wakanda (rumor mill!), the trailer wins my soul with James Spader's vocal talents - AND! not just because we're crazed Boston Legal fans around these parts.  The Evolution of Ultron from Iron Legion drone to genocidal world conqueror will finally deliver upon the Marvel Cinematic Universe a screen villain worthy of our fear.  I love Loki as much as the next tumblr addict, but he's more putz than terror, and the other bad guy stand-ins have mostly been one dimensional bores.  Ultron here is going to tear The Avengers apart.  Just look at poor cowering Bruce Banner, or that beautiful wide shot of the team separated aboard the quinjet.  Avengers 2 is not going to leave our heroes all buddy-buddy.  Captain America 3 - Civil War is coming after all.  When I left the theater in 2012, The Avengers gave me a giddy buzz of joy.  I imagine when I exit from Age of Ultron that buzz will still be there, but it's going to be birthed from a tremendous emotional bummer.  Not so much of a prediction here, but Avengers 2 is gonna make ya hurt, and there will be very little fist pumping glee from the audience...except for those masochists out there.  Here's hoping (always dangerous in the fan community, stop predicting/anticipating your desires and just enjoy the movies Brad!) that Avengers 3 will see the team come back together in a crowd pleasing Guardians of the Galaxy mashup against Thanos & his Infinity Gauntlet.  Marvel will mic-drop and bow out of the movie making business for good.  Ha.

--Brad

Brad's Week in Dork! (11/3/13-11/9/13)

Aren't women just the worst?  I spent most of this week wrapped in the shadowy pleasures of Film Noir and what I pulled away from these dark tales of woe is that a woman will most certainly be my undoing.  That's right, I'm watching you Wife!  Is that a revolver behind your back!?!?  Time to hide under the blankets.  Seriously though, I love watching saps get undone by dames.  Why is that?  I have no idea.  Some form of dominance I'm craving?  Gulp.  Don't like to psychoanalyze myself too much.  Whatever the case, Rita Hayworth can ruin my life anytime.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe continued this week as well.  Thor - The Dark World didn't take over my heart (RDJ still claims that real estate), but as we get deeper & deeper into the comic book mythos I find myself positively giddy for super heroes.  Since we all know what's coming down the pipe, Thor's mid credit tag was no real surprise, but it left me bewildered at the reality of next year's big summer movie.  Also, October might be over, but I'm plugging away at my Reverse-John-Carpenter-A-Thon with his greatest effort, The Thing.  I've seen it a million billion times, but I'm still wildly in awe of its power.  So yeah, maybe not the most packed Week in Dork, but I had a blast.  Need to get some reading done though.  Darwyn Cook's next Parker adaptation is almost here and I'm a few novels behind.

The Big Combo:  "Shoot yourself in the head, you'll make everything a lot simpler."  When Cornel Wilde's investigation into Richard Conte's numbers racket goes cold, he sets his sights on Conte's terrified girlfriend for some sleazy backstory evidence.  Wilde is a bit of a bore as the lead, but Conte's diabolical gangster is deliciously hateful and certainly makes this a must-see noir.  It doesn't hurt that Lee Van Cleef & Earl Holliman chew the scenery from the sidelines as a pair of hitman lovers quick to machine gun dames as they are to choke down salami sandwiches.  The climax apparently apes Casablanca, but it manages to strike a nerve all on its own.  Bullets, bastards, and fog.  Just what you've been craving.

Gilda:  "Women are funny little creatures."  I loved this movie.  Sure, it's a classic - you have to love it. It's one of those films that has lived in the pop culture consciousness for decades, but while the iconography of Rita Hayworth's hair flip appears over and over in critic's top ten lists, the details of the story are left unknown to the mass audience.  Gilda is a brutal, angry film that gleefully depicts the rage of a romance gone sour.  Glenn Ford finds a new life in George Macready's South American casino, but whatever happiness he has, is shattered when Macready's new bride reigns down some serious sexual terror.  I've loved a lot of Femme Fatales in my time (Gloria Graham, Barbara Stanwyck), but none are hotter or as mean-spirited as Rita Hayworth's dance hall moll.  I don't think I will ever really think of Gilda as a noir (the emotionally out-of-place climax stricken it from the genre), but the film has all the hallmark rat-a-tat dialog you come to expect, and it's delivered exceptionally between the battling sexes.

The Asphalt Jungle:  A solid heist flick directed by master filmmaker John Huston.  But if you compare this to The Maltese Falcon, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, or even The Man Who Would Be King than The Asphalt Jungle certainly feels like a lesser entry.  Sterling Hayden is a street level hood looking to make some extra scratch by falling in with a group of thugs committing crimes above their intellect.  It's your typical collection of baddies populated by character gems like Louis Calhern, Sam Jaffe, James Whitmore, Anthony Caruso, and even Special Guest Star Marilyn Monroe.  The scheme would have gone swimmingly if not for the typical double crosses and downright bad luck.  Good, not great.

Thor - The Dark World:  It seems like I'm one of the few folks out there in Internetland that really loved the hell out of the first Thor film - in fact, pre Avengers, I'd say Thor is my favorite of the Marvel Movies.  I love how small it is.  Chris Hemsworth's Asgardian navigating the absurdity of Middle America and falling in love with Natalie Portman's dogooder scientist.  I really appreciate the low stakes of the story.  The world does not necessarily hang in the balance like it does it most tentpole pictures.   But Marvel listens to its audience.  You want more Asgard, you get more Asgard.  Not enough Loki, here's a whole lotta Loki.  The Thor sequel is a lot of fun, but it's also fairly ordinary is this comic book landscape.  The villain is certainly the weakest aspect of the story - The Dark Elves want to bring about absolute darkness using something called The Aether & what ties does it have with The Infinity Gems????  None of that really matters, it's a rather weak McGuffin that puts the God of Thunder back on Earth and in the arms of Portman.  The Dark World offers more of the Nine Realms and hints at the goofier science-fiction that will hopefully dazzle us in next year's Guardians of the Galaxy.  This is a fun sci-fi fantasy adventure in the spirit of Krull.  Is it a Marvel Masterwork? No, but the beauty of their cinematic universe is that not every film has to be The Avengers.  Bring on the talking trees and rocket raccoons.

The Thing:  "It's weird and pissed off, whatever it is."  I watch this film at least once a year, and will mostly likely do so until the day I die.  It is absolutely my favorite monster movie, and still ranks as my third favorite film of all time.  A shapeshifting E.T. is awoken from a centuries long slumber by a group of half-baked & totally cracked pirate scientists morally led by Kurt Russell's helicopter badass.  Half the film's fun certainly comes from Rob Bottin's still stunning makeup effects, but this film deserves its place among the All Time Greats because of the terrifying paranoia carefully cooked by filmmaker John Carpenter.  I can forgive a thousand Ghosts of Mars thanks to to power evoked by this not-so-simple monster mash.

The Visitor:  "Aren't you a cripple molester?"  Yep.  This is a weird flick.  And in that weird way only the Italians can produce.  I dare you to watch the Alamo Drafthouse trailer and tell me differently.  The film has something to do with an evil alien child, her mother, an evil cult led by Mel Ferar, and a good cult led by Franco Nero.  John Huston's Jerzy is the heroic babysitter of the piece while Lance Henriksen is the demonic stepfather commanding a murder of pigeons.  Glenn Ford stops by for a couple of scenes as a doomed detective, and Sam Peckinpah lends his face, but not his voice as the abortionist ex-husband.  The plot is secondary, but that's what you want when the visuals are so beautifully absurd.  What's it all about?  Who cares?  The style is the substance.  And I need this on blu ray now.

The Misfits:  "If it wasn't for all the nervous people in the world, we'd still all be eating each other."  The final film for both Clark Gable & Marilyn Monroe, Arthur Miller's The Misfits as realized by John Huston is Film Noir smashed into the dying Western that's preparing for the modern morality of the 1960s.  Monroe is a seemingly naive divorcee but reveals that Femme Fatale heart as she storms through the lives of Gable, Eli Wallach, and Montgomery Clift.  This trilogy of man is a real sorry lot, a group of studs desperately trying to stay outta wages and hold on to their irrelevant cowboy lifestyle.  At times, Monroe's performance borders on the shrill (please stop screaming), but more often than not she proves an actual talent and not just that pretty face from The Seven Year Itch.  I imagine, if given the opportunity, Monroe could have matured into a bevy of meaty roles.  Again, similar to Gilda, The Misfits feels like a story that wanted to take you down a much darker path than its actual conclusion allows.  The venom being fired from the characters is just too dang heated to result in a "happy" ending.

The Central Park Five:  I don't even know where to begin.  This doc will set your blood to boil.  In 1989 five black youths were arrested, bullied into five separate & wildly different confessions, and convicted of the rape of a young New York jogger.  It took 13 years for the truth to finally be revealed, but by that time lives had already been ruined.  Who do you blame?  The cops?  Certainly.  The Media?  Yeah, them too.  Mayor Ed Koch?  Yep, F that guy.  To hear Koch openly dismiss the concept of "Innocent Until Proven Guilty" on the air is mind numbingly enraging.  I'd love to think that something like this couldn't happen today, but you know that's a falsity.  The Central Park Five is a great reminder of the casual evil committed by us all every time we nod our heads to the nightly news.

--Brad

A Fistful of Fall Anticipation 2013! (Brad's Picks)

Just four more months left to the year.  September, October, November, December.  Summer is behind us; it's time for Hollywood to unleash the Oscar Bait heavy hitters.  Don't know if you've picked up the mood around ITMOD lately, but Matt & I are desperate for some real-deal cinematic entertainment.  So far this year I've seen 54 films.  I've liked a bunch, but I've only LOVED two films (Only God Forgives & The World's End).  That's fairly depressing.  And going into this prestigious Fall Season, I don't see a lot of options to perk up my mood.  None of the films listed below are there due to their content.  The plots do not really interest me, but the filmmakers behind the camera certainly do.

Honorable Mention - Oldboy:  I am not anticipating Spike Lee's Oldboy remake, I'm dreading it.  Josh Brolin & Sharlto Copley are perfectly paired as the tortured & torturer, but I just cannot imagine this film sticking the original's epic revenge twist.  And judging by what little I've seen of the trailer, this Spike Lee Joint doesn't even seem bothered with pulling off the Korean climax.  So...good, right?  Be it's own thing.  Maybe focus more on the original comic?  Well, except the trailer seems to rob every other beat from Chan-wook Park's film.  Beards, umbrellas, hammers.  Color me cautiously curious.

5.  The Monuments Men:  I think George Clooney is one of the most fascinating, if not all-together successful, actor-turned-directors out there.  Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Good Night and Good Luck, Leatherheads, Ides of March.  Each of his movies are wildly different from the next.  Not just in plot or tone, but in visual style.  Name me another actor/director that has as strong an eye as Clooney?  You can't.  Good Night and Good Luck is probably his strongest effort, but I've also really enjoyed the oddity of Confessions, and I think Leatherheads is ridiculously charming.  But Ides of March was just a basic political melodrama with strong performances, but a blah predictable screenplay.  I'm happy to see him tackling this oddball WWII art caper flick, but is this just a period piece Ocean's 11?  There could be worse things.

4.  The Wolf Of Wall Street:  Martin Scorsese makes a movie, I get excited.  And with its Kanye score and Matthew McConaughey chest thumping, I absolutely adored the first theatrical trailer.  My only concern is that this is just a Social Network wannabe.  Asshole Leo tossing midgets, lobsters, and orange juice and making boatloads of cash off all us American suckers.  We've had a lot of Rise & Fall stories throughout the years, and Scorsese himself delivered two of the greatest with Goodfellas & Casino.  Does he have a third one in him?  I sure hope so.

3.  Thor - The Dark World:  Pre-Avengers, Kenneth Branagh's Thor was my favorite of the Marvel Studios movies.  Chris Hemsworth is the single greatest spandex discovery since Christopher Reeve.  His smile owned that movie.  It was a romcom fish-outta-water adventure that didn't need to bother with brooding responsibility a la Iron Man or a dozen other super hero flicks.  All Thor cared about was having fun at the movies.  But now Branagh is out, Game of Thrones's Alan Taylor is in, and The Dark World promises to deliver the Empire Strikes Back.  Not sure if that's what I want from the mighty god of thunder, but Jason Aaron's comic has brought new levels of enthusiasm to the character, and I'm fascinated to see if Hemsworth's lackadaisical brute can handle the doom & gloom.

2.  The Counselor:  Frankly, given my absolute frustration surrounding Prometheus, I am simply stunned that Ridley Scott's latest has not only made my Top Five, but my Number 2 to boot.  Just goes to show you the power of Michael Fassbender.  Not too mention Javier Bardem, Brad Pitt, Cameron Diaz, and Penelope Cruz viciously chewing up a scenery supplied by Cormac McCarthy.  Guns, drugs, and jaguars - Oh My!  This project was born out of the director's inability to adapt McCarthy's hateful western, Blood Meridian, so cross your fingers that this flick brings the rage found within the printed page.  Although, I'll simply settle for some Black Rain blood squibs.

1.  Inside Llewyn Davis:  IMDB's short synopsis reads, "A week in the life of a young singer as he navigates the Greenwich Village folk scene of 1961."  That doesn't really get the heart pumping, does it?  Of course, that's the charm of the Coen Brothers.  They can seemingly take any subject and transform it into a comedy, a drama, a western, a noir, a whatever.  With the exception of Intolerable Cruelty, every single one of their movies has landed in my end of the year Top Ten.  I expect the same here.  You've got Coen stalwart John Goodman, but a lot of fresh faces as well.  The lead Oscar Isaac has been on the verge of a breakthrough for nearly the last ten years (Robin Hood, Sucker Punch, Drive), and given enough critical praise & audience acceptance Inside Llewyn Davis might be his ticket.  Justin Timberlake, Carey Mulligan, Garrett Hedlund, F Murray Abraham, and Neelix round out the supporting cast.  I certainly like these faces.

--Brad

A Fistful of Star Trek! (Brad's Picks)

After four years of waiting, JJ Abrams' Star Trek follow-up Into Darkness has finally hit our shores and despite some polarizing rage (from me & proper Trekkies everywhere *smiling smugly in the glow of my laptop*) I'm quite happy to have the USS Enterprise back on the big screen.  Whatever disappointments I might have with this latest entry, I genuinely hope it strikes gold so that we can join their 5 Year Mission in another few years.  And with Abrams jumping ship to Star Wars (and hopefully taking the rest of his Bad Robot dolts with him) maybe someone like Matt Reeves or Drew Goddard can rediscover the hope & humanism of the Star Trek universe.

Below you'll find a few of my favorite moments from the 47 year old saga, as well as the key concepts (or ideals) that make Star Trek my true love.

5.  The Death of George Kirk & The Birth of His Son:  Ok, so I know I was just crapping all over JJ Abrams & Bad Robot a few moments ago, but that's just my agonizing Into Darkness disappointment talking.  Their 2009 relaunch is actually kind of a miracle.  A film that cleverly acknowledges & even continues the stories of the cast you love, but also creates a timeline for new adventures occur.  It's a whiz-bang actioner, busting at the seams from its massive budget, and Trekkies had never seen a film this grand or slick before.  JJ obviously knows where to put his digital camera & the Starship battles between the Narada, the Kelvin, and the Enterprise are absolutely breathtaking.  But it's not the spectacle that ranked this film in the #1 spot of my Top Ten Films of 2009.  Nope, Star Trek won my heart with its spot-on emotional beats, the first of which occurs in the opening fifteen minutes.  The time traveling Narada comes upon the USS Kelvin and unleashes an array of advanced weaponry that completely devastates the tiny vessel.  With the captain dead, George Kirk must take the chair and provide a distraction while his crew flees in a stream of shuttles.  Aboard one of those shuttles, his wife goes into labor & just before he meets his doom they agree upon their child's name - Jim for her father, Tiberius for his.  As of this week, I've seen the film a dozen times and with each viewing I tear up during the chaos - heartstrings pulled & knotted.  Robbing James T. Kirk of his father transforms him from a bold, big ego adventurer and into a brash, cock-of-the-walk brat.  And it's an internal struggle still being waged in the new film, however, his new father figure Christopher Pike doesn't get much of a chance to guide him to glory...

4.  The Dominion War:  Introduced as an anti-Federation in the second season of Deep Space Nine, Starfleet's war with The Dominion paves the way for Ron Moore's Battlestar Galactica reboot.  With The Next Generation off the air & the USS Voyager galavanting the Delta Quadrant, the DS9 show runners found their hands in the cookie jar - Klingons, Romulans, Breen - it was all theirs to play with and Deep Space Nine took full advantage, plunging the universe into a galactic conflict like nothing Star Trek had dealt with before.  These were not simple one and done episodes, for the first time Star Trek was given season long arcs, and a new level of storytelling was grated to The Final Frontier.  This is also where the concept of the devious Section 31 first appeared, so those loving the militarized Starfleet of Into Darkness can take glee in William Sadler's scenery chewing villainy.

3.  The Psychedelic Western:  When William Shatner took the ship from Jeffery Hunter, Star Trek pretty much became Cowboys In Space; a 5 Year Mission expanding the idea of westward expansion into the cosmos but never forgetting the broad moralizing. I first found Trek through the cinematic excursions, but The Original Series is the true core of the franchise - a trippy, hippy-dippy adventure show where Kirk, Spock, & McCoy stumble from one random scenario to another.  There are dozens of gems to be found, the cliched choices being "City on the Edge of Forever," "Space Seed," "The Corbomite Maneuver," "Arena," "Mirror, Mirror," etc, etc.  But as I revisit the show, I find myself drawn more and more to the crazy and the awkward.  Episodes like "A Private Little War" in which Kirk succumbs to a wicked weed after grappling with the ape beast Mugatu.  Or how about "Shore Leave" in which Kirk & McCoy defend themselves from imaginary White Rabbits & the pugilist Finnegan.  In its three years on the air, Star Trek was throwing whatever they could on screen, some stuff stuck and became fanboy canon, while other bits are easily forgotten.  But dagnabbit, I'm still waiting for my "Way to Eden" Adam action figure, and I say the goofy is just as charming as the revered.

2.  The Triumvirate:  Spock, Kirk, & Bones.  As much as I love the rest of the crew and the challenges they face exploring deep space, it's the friendship of these three opposites that cements the action of the franchise.  Spock with his frustrating idealization of logic.  Bones with his grumpy old man pessimism.  Jim Kirk with his Super Ego and unchallenging knowledge of right & wrong.  Perfected over decades by Shatner, Nimoy, & Kelly; the friendship ranges from humorous bouts of bickering to genuine love for one another.  The Wrath of Khan is often (rightfully) cited as the great cinematic adventure, but I often think The Search for Spock gets the shaft as its plot is a personification of their bromance.  In the third big screen outing, Kirk lays everything on the line for his two friends, and it's easy to forgive the wonky Klingon encounter when you're swept into their battle for each other.  Heck, if you love these guys as much as I do you can even trick yourself into enjoying Star Trek V, a film with an absolutely bugnuts-stupid quest for God at the center of the galaxy that is framed with an adorable campfire getaway - three chums enjoying the presence of each other.  As the new actors wearing the iconic skins, Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, & Karl Urban are still finding their way.  Quinto & Urban certainly have an excellent handle on the mannerisms, and as the three proved in Star Trek 09, they can absolutely deliver the banter.  Into Darkness has little use for The Triumvirate, reducing Urban to no more than a metaphor generator and injecting Uhura's romantic interest into the trilogy.  All well and good, but I hope the next film allows the three cohorts their respectable chemistry.

1.  "Where No Man Has Gone Before":  Space, the final frontier.  The voyages of the Starship Enterprise.  Boldly going.  In 1966 Gene Rodenberry, taking the popularity of television programs like Wagon Train and mixing it with the excitement surrounding the space race, brought Star Trek to thousands of boob tubes around the world.  It was not initially a smashing success, but it eventually caught the imagination of millions and spawned the very first wave of fanboys (& girls).  What was the initial draw is sill the concept that keeps me coming back for more - the 23rd Century as seen by Roddenberry is a universe of hope & adventure.  Earth has solved its domestic squabbles.  The bridge of the USS Enterprise has Russians at the helm and African Americans on comm.  Not such a big deal these days, but at the height of The Cold War & the Civil Rights movement, seeing Uhura & Chekhov fighting alongside James Tiberius Kirk was a real Utopia.  And the idea that Man (with a capital M) has plenty of galaxy to explore is still really damn exciting if not utterly fantastical thanks to the public's seeming disdain for NASA these days.  Star Trek is not a Versus show.  It's not Star Wars.  It's not Avatar.  It's not even Battlestar Galactica.  It allows for plenty of action, but at the core of the franchise should be exploration.  Man maturing to join & contribute to the rest of the Universe.  And that's what I want from whatever incarnation of Star Trek we get next.

--Brad

"What Would You Sacrifice?" - Chris Hemsworth Is Truly Desperate in Thor 2 Trailer

Before The Avengers melted my comic geek brain, Thor was my favorite of the Marvel Studios movies.  A real shock given my complete lack of knowledge regarding the character, but that ignorance probably helped keep the poisonous fanboy enthusiasm in check which in turn allowed for a baggageless movie watching experience.  Now the world is different.  The Avengers changed my entire outlook regarding this cinematic worldbuilding.  I've drunk the Kool-Aid and now I will greatly anticipate every Marvel release until the end of time -- Let's Go Rocket Raccoon!!!!!!!

The Thor sequel has something to do with Dark Elves (led my the latexed Christopher Eccleston) and the evil that existed before time blah, blah, blah.  What interests me in the UK trailer is the great swathes of Asgardian battlefields and Loki's Hannibal Lector routine behind glass.  I'm sure we're gonna get plenty of Earth, but the fish-outta-water comedy of the first film appears to be absent and the stakes look properly high for the Norse Gods.  Kenneth Branagh's dutch angles are gone.  Replaced by Alan Taylor's television point & shoot.  That being said, Taylor has directed some of my favorite episodes of Homicide: Life on the Street (Autofocus, The Wedding) as well as The Sopranos, Lost, Mad Men, Bored to Death, and Game of Thrones.  That last credit is obviously what got the man the job.  So yeah, I'm excited for the fall.



--Brad

New Release Tuesday! (9/18/12)

Oh boy.  This week is gonna be hard on the wallet.  I've already snatched up the Indy box set and as I type I'm halfway through the third film.  So dang good.  But this week also offers up one of this year's best films, some classic Mario Bava, the best film in the Halloween franchise, High Def Ed Wood, and The Winchester Brothers.  Frankly, this is all Must Buy stuff for me but if yer only going to go with one purchase this week you already know it's gotta be --

MUST BUY DVD OF THE WEEK!

Indiana Jones Blu Ray Box Set:  Watching the films this very second, I gotta say that the transfer is not the mind blowing experience that was the Jaws disc from a few weeks back.  Still, Raiders of the Lost Ark & Temple of Doom are absolutely gorgeous looking movies.  Not to mention that the Indy movies (yes, including Kingdom of the Crystal Skull--shut up, haters) are some of the best examples of Adventure Cinema going.  Harrison Ford's Dr. Jones was probably my first cinematic role model.  Sure, my first love was the Star Wars trilogy but as a kid the guy I wanted to grow up to be was Indiana Jones.  Cool.  Rough.  Did the right thing, but wasn't afraid to shoot a guy when his back was up against a wall.  And yeah, a little fortune & glory would be nice.

BUY!

Halloween III - Season of the Witch:  This might be blasphemy to some and a few of you might jump ship at the following thought, but Halloween III is the best of the franchise.  You heard me, forget the John Carpenter original.  I like my pumpkin holiday with a heavy dose of sex machine Tom Atkins and mind warping druidic television commercials.  Season of the Witch is a weird, weird, really freaking weird addition to the Halloween saga and I really wish it had been a success so that we could have been gifted with a whole series of Twilight Zoney flicks rather than the endlessly bland resurrections of Michael Myers' stab-a-thons.

Cabin in the Woods:  I'm not sure I totally buy the hype with this flick, but at the same time Cabin in the Woods is still one of the best films of the year so far (queue ITMOD bitching about what a crappy year 2012 has been).  Joss Whedon's script is very Joss Whedony and I'm not even sure if that annoys me anymore in these post-AVENGERS IS THE GREATEST THING SINCE SLICED BREAD days.  If I had any complains about this film is that the Horror Elements are not nearly as effective as the wink-wink comedic bits.

Supernatural Season 7:  Not my favorite season of the show.  In fact, it might be my least favorite season so far.  Lots of good humor and action from the boys but the whole Leviathan plot never quite gelled in the same fashion that the War in Heaven did.  But where do you go once you've stopped the Apocalypse?  But they still make me squeal and I'll keep watching until its finally cancelled.

Black Sunday:  One of three Bava flicks hitting blu ray today, Black Sunday is the quintessential Italian Horror mashing the queen of scream Barbara Steele with the intoxicating camera of Bava.  Surreal, diabolic, intoxicating.  It's been a few years since I've had the pleasure and I'm quite looking forward to wrapping myself in the grip of Bava's HD Iron Maiden.

Judge Dredd:  Ok.  Yeah.  This sucks.  Rob Schneider...damn, you are the worst thing to happen to 2000 AD.  And the helmet comes off and stays off and that's horrendously offensive to Euro Comic fans.  But, at the same time, Judge Dredd movie!!!!  Even in the great franchise grab of the 1990s (ha! as if there's an end in sight!) the idea of a Judge Dredd movie was freakishly unreal--and we're getting another one this very month!  Wow.  The Stallone flick is only 10 bucks on blu and it's worth that, a good dip into Mega City One before we hopefully get the genius of Karl Urban's lawgiver.

Ed Wood:  Man, it's so easy to hate on Tim Burton these days.  Charlie & The Chocolate Factory.  Alice in Wonderland.  Dark Shadows.  Terrible.  But once upon a time, Tim Burton was one of my favorite directors and Ed Wood is his masterpiece.  Burton drenches this film with love and affection, and this allows you a window into the beauty of trash filmmaking.  You don't mock Ed Wood, you cherish his enthusiasm, you admire his tenacity.  You don't feel sorry for him, you envy him.  Lovable little weirdo.  And yep, Johnny Depp has never been better.


RENT!

The Babymakers:  "The Jizz is up."  Groan.  Olivia Munn.  Double groan.  However, The Babymakers is directed by two members of the Broken Lizard gang and after my rewatch of The Slammin Salmon  I've been craving their obscene brand of oddball comedy.

The Victim:  Michael Biehn directs himself and his wife in this backwoods horror story and as much as I'm in the mood for the mean, axe swinging butchery of grizzled Michael Biehn the trailer for The Victim looks mediocre at best.  And I have not heard good things.  But, dammit, this is Navy Seals here.  He can do no wrong. ... ... ... Look, I've already admitted that I enjoy Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, that Halloween III is better than the John Carpenter classic, and I have an unhealthy affection for Sam & Dean Winchester, so I might as well go all out and say that Navy Seals is a helluva good time at the movies.

--Brad

Poster & Trailer: Red Dawn Remake

After three years of sitting on the shelf, the Red Dawn remake is finally here.  And I still don't care.  Still, the trailer looks a little more interesting than the above boring Faces Faces Faces poster but I miss my Ruskies...and Pat Swayze.  And hopefully that Hutchinson kid doesn't steal the show from Hemsworth.  Wait-I thought I didn't care...dammit.

--Brad

A Fistful of Hunters! (Brad's Picks)

Snow White is going Down!  But milk bather Charlize Theron needs Chris Hemsworth's hunka hunka Huntsman to track down the raven haired beauty so she can poison apple her predestined ass.  But the real question is, could Hemsworth's axe go up against these other cinematic predators?  Don't think so.

5.  Charles Remington (The Ghost In The Darkness):  Okay.  This is a rather weak attempt at a JAWS knock-off switching sharks for lions and Robert Shaw for Michael Douglas.  But dammit.  When I first saw this film in 1996 I was at the height of my Michael Douglas man crush.  Romancing The Stone, Falling Down, Basic Instinct, Black Rain.  I thought the man positively badass (and still do)  Now, slap a giant elephant gun in his hands and there's no stopping that five o'clock shadow.  Not even you, sniveling city slicker Val Kilmer.

4.  Max Cherry (Jackie Brown):  Forget Boba Fett and Jack Walsh, the coolest Bounty Hunter in cinema is Max Cherry.  He might have been quicker and stronger in his youth, but his experience spent on late night couches with sneak-attack tasers has developed a formidable foe for Samuel Jackson's gun runner wannabe kingpin.  All he needed was a little push from Pam Grier's foxy Brown and Max Cherry became the ultimate Hero-To-Root-For.  A little Delfonics didn't hurt none either.

3.  Count Zaroff (The Most Dangerous Game):  Never trust a Russian Count.  Shipwrecked upon a mysterious island, Joel McRea runs for his life while the wealthy madman Zaroff hunts him down for sport.  The Most Dangerous Game spawned two of my favorite Homeless Prey films of the 90s (Hard Target and Surviving The Game), but neither of those films capture the dread of the hunt quite like the diabolical original.

2.   Michael (The Deer Hunter):  Once upon a time Michel could drop a beast without batting an eye.  But then Uncle Sam came calling and Vietnam halted his trigger finger.  The Deer Hunter is one of my all time favorite movies and it's really the only Vietnam flick that feels genuine to this military ignorant film geek.  My grandfather came back from WWII to a similar experience, a North Dakota farmboy who could no longer take a life, even that of a deer.  Maybe it's that personal connection that really sells this film for me but I would argue that it's De Niro's best performance as well (sorry Taxi Driver and Righteous Kill fans) and it's easily one of the most heartbreaking climaxes that cinema has to offer.  Frickin' Christopher Walken's cold, dead staring eyes...shiver.

1.  The Predator (Predator):  You can't compete with this ugly mutha.  Heck, even Schwarzenegger nearly met his downfall under this alien brute.  And part of me wishes that the film ended with that giant Austrian skull swinging from the Predator's belt.  Man might be this monster's most dangerous game but the Predator's gone up against Aliens and Superman (uh, yeah, if you haven't read that comic you're missing out on some weirdo expanded universe nonsense).  And when you stack this guys trophies up against Michael, Zaroff, Max Cherry, Remington, and the Huntsman--those wimps are gonna go running.

--Brad

New Trailer: Expendables 2

"I now pronounce you man and knife!"  Oh, you Statham.



--Brad