• 30Jul 08

  Brush Brush Brush Brush Brush Brush Brush

  

  *brush brush brush brush brush*

  !

  Wuh duh heb ar u...

  *spits*

  What the heck are you doing here? Me? Well yes I was thinking of settling down for the night but I'll probably get through a couple of movies before I actually get to sleep. What? Well yes most people know that I have a fairly heavy home movie watching shed-yule. Other than constantly watching the TCM channel I'm really looking forward to Tom Tykwer's International and Henrik Ruben Genz's Terribly Happy as well as the upcoming DVD releases by the great French director Abel Gance and...what? Oh something different? Well there are some a handful of not that well known films coming out sometime in the future that fit somewhat squarely in the horror and trash cinema circle. Hmmm...squarely in the circle eh? I'll have to remember that.

  

  First up is Quarantine and it might actually be well known amongst a handful of horror films fans out there. It's actually a remake of a film from Spain entitled simply [REC]. While it's generally not in my nature to recommend a remake, I'm hoping that this turns out well enough that [REC] might find a larger audience -- the way that the Japanese version of Ring did before that whole aspect of horror got out of control. The film is shot in cinema verite fashion similar to Cloverfield and The Blair Witch Project.

  The Plot - "Television reporter Angela Vidal (Jennifer Carpenter) and her cameraman (Steve Harris) are assigned to spend the night shift with a Los Angeles Fire Station. After a routine 911 call takes them to a small apartment building, they find police officers already on the scene in response to blood curdling screams coming from one of the apartment units. They soon learn that a woman living in the building has been infected by something unknown. After a few of the residents are viciously attacked, they try to escape with the news crew in tow, only to find that the CDC has quarantined the building. Phones, internet, televisions and cell phone access have been cut-off, and officials are not relaying information to those locked inside. When the quarantine is finally lifted, the only evidence of what took place is the news crews videotape."

  Trailer

  

  Next up is Beyond the Grave from Brazilian film maker Davi de Oliveira Pinheiro. I haven't seen anything by this director before but he cites Jodorowsky and Sergio Leone as his big influences so that sounds promising. The effects crew is the same that worked on the legendary Coffin Joe pictures so that's another decent sign that this could be...interesting.

  The Plot - A detective has been tracking a notorious serial killer for untold years. As he slowly gathers more and more clues he begins to suspect that this killer may be something...more. Something more evil. Perhaps something more than merely, human.

  Although this doesn't inherently sound like the most original of plots did I neglect to mention that this is all going on as the world decends into hell falling victim to an ongoing zombie apocalypse? No? Interested now perhaps?

  Trailer

  

  
  From the far flung mystical world of er...Sweden comes a very interesting take on the coming of age story. The movie is Let The Right One In and yes it is indeed named after a Morrissey song if you were wondering. You weren't? Ah well. This film has been making quite a stir lately in the various film festivals held around the world and looks to be truly touching in a slightly unusual fashion.

  The Plot - "Twelve-year-old Oskar lives in a drab village outside Stockholm, where by day he's the victim of relentless bullying, and by night he dreams of revenge. Slipping out of sight of his single mother, Oskar fills a notebook with news on the gruesome killings that have set neighborhood nerves on edge-someone is tying people up, breaking their necks, and draining their blood-and rehearses knife moves in the icy courtyard of his apartment complex. One night, an apparition appears on the decaying jungle gym behind him: Eli, the new girl next door. The two misfits befriend each other, Eli coaching Oskar in bravery, Oskar awakening Eli's hunger for love. But Eli, alas, needs something more-blood."

  You see, Eli is a vampire. She tries to warn Oskar away knowing it's a dangerous situation but somehow they end up forming a tight bond despite her reservations.

  Trailer

  Now we turn to the seedier side of cinema and look at a couple trash cinema interests of mine.

  

  Ah yes a movie called ***** Slap with a trio of sexy women brandishing weaponry really sounds like a night of true cinema magic doesn't it? There's tons of movies like this aren't there? You've seen one you've probably seen them all. Why does this one rate any different than the others? Well first of all this film is basically an homage to the legendary Faster ******** Kill! Kill! movie by Russ Meyer. The funny part is that Tarantino is actually doing a remake of that film but these guys beat him out of the gate by at least a year or more. Who are these people?

  Well if you look past the main trio of characters you might notice a few recognizable names, Kevin Sorbo, Lucy Lawless, Renee O'Connor & Michael Hurst being the standouts. Yes indeed, the team that brought you Xena - Princess Warrior and The Legendary Tales of Hercules are the force behind this film! That's either a big drawing point for you or an equally effective repellent, but to me at least it kind of made me sit up and take notice as I rather enjoyed the tongue and cheek nature of both TV series.

  The Plot - ***** Slap" follows three bad girls as they arrive at a remote desert hideaway to extort massive booty from a ruthless underworld kingpin. Things quickly spin out of control as allegiances change, truths are revealed, other criminals arrive for the score, the fate of the world hangs in the balance and they are forced to confront a villain much worse than they ever expected… themselves. It's the ultimate morality tale as, one by one, they realize the whole "she-bang" was a set-up and one of the film's characters may not even be human…

  Trailer

  

  Lastly we have the movie Pig Hunt. This film fully embraces its trash cinema leanings and goes after it will an amazing amount of gusto. Definitely not one for the film snobs but it could be one hell of a lot of fun if all the crazy elements jam-packed into this film come together in some kind of darkly cohesive manner.

  The Plot - "When John takes his San Francisco friends to his deceased uncle's remote ranch to hunt wild pigs, it seems like a typical guys weekend with guns - despite the presence of John's sexy girlfriend Brooks. But as John and his crew trek deeper into the forest, they begin tracking the awful truth about his uncle's demise and the legend of The Ripper -- a murderous three-thousand-pound black boar! Their pursuit leads them through fields of marijuana and into the muddy landscape of Big Wallow, involving high-powered weaponry, the violent and unpredictable Tibbs Brothers, massacred emus, a machete-toting Hippie Stranger, vengeful rednecks, and throat-slitting Cult Girls who grow dope by day and worship a Giant Killer Pig by night. By the time the pig hunt is done, no one is innocent - or unscathed."

  Again...sounds fun but cult films are always walking that tightrope of just plain awful and bloody glorious fun. I guess I'll have to wait and see. I can't provide the trailer as it has all kinds of nudity in it which I believe violates that TOS dealie here. So I'll just provide a link to the official site and you can navigate your way towards the trailer and see if it looks like fun to you. It's on YouTube as well but you have to navigate around vids of actual pig hunts.

  Official Site

  Now...if you will excuse me I'm a tad undressed and I would like to get some film watching in. Good day to you sirs and madams and...others. >_>

  • Posted Jul 30, 2008 5:38 pm GMT
  • Category: Movies
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• 24Jul 08

  The End of an Era - A defining moment in life failure.

  

  Awesome! The San Diego Comic-con! The world's largest gathering of all things once used to be considered nerdy! Comic books! Graphic Novels! Video Games! Anime! Manga! Star Trek! Fantasy! Cosplay! Well...okay cosplay is generally still considered fairly nerdy but if you've seen some of the costumes that I've seen then you certainly wouldn't say that anymore.

  W...wait a tick! Didn't the convention start yesterday? Why are you blogging about it already? Aren't you busy enough with the convention's goings on that you wouldn't have the time nor the presence of mind to bother writing about it now? Normally that would be true except this year, quite suddenly and unexpectedly, I am not attending.

  Ahhhh, I see that puzzled look on your collective faces! I suppose I should be happy to know that I haven't geeked it up enough for those who know me online to fully understand the magnitude of what I have just stated -- or should I be concerned that I don't define myself well enough? Regardless let me see if I can sum it up in once sentence.

  I have been attending the San Diego Comic-con every year since 1982.

  

  That's right, every year since I graduated from High School I have somehow gotten my nerdy little butt down to San Diego in order to do some major shopping. Of course it was much, much, smaller then and I had so much less to shop with but in those days (insert old man voice here) conventions were pretty much the only way to find the anime/comic book kinds of things that bring people like myself a decent amount of happiness; or a least a distraction from the lack thereof.

  So here I sit, uneasy and somewhat despondent. Everything I move seems to uncover reminders of conventions past and all the great people I've met and all the strange encounters I've experienced. The convention has gotten so big and out of control that many channels that I watch as well as online sites that I frequent, continously remind me of the exciting times happening down at the giant con in San Diego. Come on down it's great! We're having a special event at such and such location! Stop on by! Look how much fun we're having!!!

  *sigh*

  So to prevent this from devolving into a rather unseemly maudlin affair let me attempt to reinvigorate myself by helping to dispel two of the biggest misconceptions that exist about the San Diego Comic-con. These are iron clad guarantees as there is quite obviously no bigger expert on the San Diego Comic-con than myself. That's goes without saying right?

  

  Nerds - It's almost impossible not to hear this word liberally tossed around when a writer is attempting to encapsulate the San Diego Comic-con going experience. Even more amusing, stations that supposedly cater to what are ostensibly nerd-oriented interests such as G4 will quite often use the word in the most derogatory manner almost as if they feel oppressed by their supposed presence and that they are just an unesscessary evil to avoid at all costs.

  The truth? There are actually very few serious nerds at the San Diego Comic-con. They are out there, sure, sure. But this convention is quite a bit different from most conventions in that it's not focused on one main interest and as a result you have major percentage of average folks just wandering around looking for their particular interest. You'd actually be hard pressed to find a hardcore stereotypical comic book nerd amongst the throng but when you do, they do truly stand out as quite the anomaly.

  

  Cosplayers - Yes you know...those people that you always read about and see on the internet. If you seen any report on the nightly news or from G4 you'll no doubt see quite a lot of these people. G4 in particular has this proclivity for rounding up large groups of cosplayers and has them fill the area behind their talent as they segue from report to report about various comic book movies on the horizon. Wow! There must be tons of them down there! It's the biggest convention after all! Right?

  The truth? No. There's really not that many of them there percentage-wise. I'll admit that If you distilled all the non-constumed folks away from the mighty throng in attendance then indeed you could probably get quite a few buses full of cosplayers. But for a convention so large there just really aren't that many of them there and they tend to really stand out. Honest! If you ever see pictures of mine of lines involving hundreds of people that I stand in waiting for an event to start you'd be hard pressed to find anybody in a costume at all. I would say there's a costume bedecked person for every 200 people and that's being really, really generous.

  Exceptions to the rule - On Saturday night there's the big costume award show so there are a bit more of them around although they are fairly concentrated in the specific areas that it's happening in (usually the Ballroom) so they're easy to completely miss. Also there are a couple of convention standards involving Star Wars stormtroopers and Klingons. The stormtroopers are very well organized and have very professional outfits as well as a rather smashing hierarchy. They make regular sweeps all over the convention site and are rather impressive sight. Then there's the Klingons...

  The Klingons, not to be confused with any silly prat that puts on a rubber furrowed brow and pointy ears, but the serious Klingons are in full force at the SD con although they are a tight knit bunch so you may easily miss them. They hold Klingon rituals and rites of passage in various rooms as part of a scheduled performance. They are serious about what they do but they are not weird about it if that makes sense. They have been attending the SD for almost as long as I have and they have my utmost respect as, like the now organized and unionized Storm Troopers (no I'm not kidding), they are complete professionals. Also on a side note many of the Klingons are in reality really big beefy guys that could really, really, hurt you if you tried to get cute so just...don't.

  

  Don't mess with the Klingons at the San Diego Comic-con. I can't stress that enough.

  Oh man! That San Diego Comic-con really sounds like a lot of fun!

  

  Did I ever tell you that I used to go to the San Diego Comic-con every year?

  No really!

  It was fun.

  A lot of fun.

  I'll tell you about it some day.

  *sigh*

  • Posted Jul 24, 2008 5:46 am GMT
  • Category: General
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• 22Jul 08

  A Rose By Any Other Name...

  

  ...is Billie Piper otherwise known as Rose Tyler in the BBC series Dr. Who!

  Wait! Wait! Don't run!

  I'm not a big Dr. Who fanatic who will talk at you ad infinitum over which actor was the best Doctor and why (although the answer is pretty obvious). Sure, I grew up with the character and greatly enjoyed the series, but I was much more a fantasy reading type of fellow so I never became particularly fanatical about any sci-fi series.

  The new series has however had a great hold over me since its inception. I'm still not that fanatical, but I am keenly interested in the show and the characters which in my opinion have been very well fleshed out. I am however, a bit enamoured with Billie Piper who played the good Doctor's 1st companion in the new series. Although it was slow to build, there really seemed to be a deep connection between The Doctor and Rose and it was heavily alluded to that the two have actually spent a lot more time together than the series on the surface lets on. Though I suppose absorbing all the power of the Tardis and being able to see everything that exists in time at once will probably bring you rather close to a Time Lord.

  But eventually the need for apocalyptic drama reared its ugly, but quite necessary, head and the good Doctor and Rose were separated by a dimensional rift that neither could cross. In one of the arguably most heart-wrenching scenes (pictured above) of the series they share a quiet moment in which to say goodbye knowing that neither one has the ability to hold the other although the desire to do so is quite intently palpable. In other words...

  Holy crap it was amazingly sad and touching and just a great moment!

  

  So her stinct with the series had ended and off went Miss Piper! Doing some modeling, doing voiceovers for commercials, and filming more series for the BBC for which she is contracted to do a series of Pullman novel adaptations. She's keeping busy and getting good jobs so good for her!

  But the void she left in the show was quite noticeable. Sure the other actors who portrayed later companions were all very good in their own way, but Billie seemed to have brought something very special and fans longed to have her back. There were quite a bit of ye olde rumouring but nothing ever came of it. She was always busy and the writers didn't seem to think it would ever happen and so I, and others, had somewhat given up hope.

  The it happened last episode. Rose Tyler was back! She was still caught up in another dimension but she found a way to use an older victimized companion to bridge the gap and deliver the good Doctor a chilling message of ultimate annihilation! When the Doctor realized that somebody in the other dimension had knowledge to convey he stiffened at the description of the bearer of the news and was thunderstruck by the words she spoke -- end part 1.
  

  To say I was excited and had chills running down my spine would be something of an understatement. Actually I suppose that would be a quite apt description but it sounds more dramatic when I type it out that way you understand.
  

  So this coming Friday comes the second part and the romantic in me desperately hopes those two crazy kids somehow end up sharing some kind of intimate moment for once. The BBC America channel has hinted that a death will be in the offering so perhaps Rose will meet her end but as long as it's done right I wouldn't mind -- as long as they share that moment that is.

  Kiss her dammit!

  *ahem*

  

  But life goes on and Billie Piper's acting career goes forward. She has a series in the States on the Showtime network called Secret Diary of a Call Girl for which I thank telvisnostic for turning me on to as I had erroneously thought that she had joined the cast of the Showtime series WEEDS due to the way the show was being advertised. I have yet to see an episode yet but I'm keen to watch it because as you might have deciphered by my subtle clues, I'm somewhat keen on her.

  I thank the very few of you who read this for enduring my Dr. Who rant and yes I realize that probably a decent amount of the handful of my viewers won't really understand or care what I'm talking about but I needed to vent.

  • Posted Jul 22, 2008 12:08 am GMT
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