Quarantine the Movie

Imagine you’re a TV news crew following a team of Hazmat agents into an apartment building to evacuate its residents, but something horribly wrong happens and you’re team is now being chased by…Zombies (of sorts).

Sound stupid?

Sure does, but that doesn’t stop Hollywood from making it.

Quarantine, a remake of the Spanish film REC (which is only a year old) follows its predecessor but with American panache I love Romero films! For that matter I love early Jackson and Raimi films of the same genre, but there’s something missing with the Zombie films of today. Sure the cinematography and editing enhance the action sequences and the sfx and gore turn your stomach a little more then the films of the 70s and 80s, but today’s films lack what those classics embodied…HEART.

Here’s the trailer for Quarantine. It looks interesting but that doesn’t mean much in today’s Hollywood.

Actor Jason Beghe denounces Scientology

Jason Beghe, a TV/Film actor know for roles in G.I. Jane, Monkey Shines and Thelma & Louise, has denounced his relationship and his perception of Scientology.

How does he denounce Scientology you say? The only way people in Hollywood do these days: they upload a YouTube post where they’re ranting about it. In all fairness though, he does support his claims with what he considers to be evidence that is contradicting the essence of the religion. I can only imagine how steaming Tom Cruise is now, ha-ha!

I’M NOT A SCIENTOLOGIST NOR DO I BELIEVE IN THAT RELIGION, SO I TAKE WHAT HE SAYS IN THIS POST AT FACE VALUE.

Death of a legend…

The man who parted the Red Sea, raced around on chariots, battled apes, investigated the origin of a substance called “soylent green” and countless of other iconic roles has died!

Charlton Heston - the man, the myth and the legend past away in his Beverly Hills home over the weekend. He was 84.

I remember seeing Ben-Hur, The Ten Commandments, El Cid, Soylent Green and Planet of the Apes as a young lad growing up, but he’s filmography is so vast, its hard to sum him up without writing a novel. Still, I think Ben-Hur and El Cid are among his best works.

The “greats” that came from the classic studio system are all dead. The ones who started their careers in the twlight of that system, like Heston, are also dying out. Soon there won’t be any resemblence to Hollywood of yester year and to its dedication to producting REAL, Honest films, not the crap the studios put out there today - do we really need a Shrek IV or a Spidey IV or Transformers II, etc…? No, but since the impact of money is so much more an issue in nowadays, in modern-Hollywood, greats like Heston and company are the only ones left who knew or know what it was like to work for a REAL studio system.

Mr. Heston… may you and your colleagues rest in peace. Sadly to the knowledge that your once great studio system is increasingly declining in its quality of films while increasing in its quantity only to produce more money.

 

 

 

Entertainment Weekly’s incomplete musical listing article

Entertainment Weekly or EW as some call it, compiled a  list of the “Best 25 of all time” musicals in motion picture history.

The list includes heavy hitters such as: Wizard of Oz, The Sound of Music, West Side Story, Funny Girl, Cabaret, Singin’ in the Rain, Mary Poppins, Grease, Music Man, Swing Time, etc…, but is missing easily one that should be in the TOP 5 greatest musicals of all time… OLIVER!

The film won 5 Oscars, including Best Picture of the year in 1969. That’s not to say that awards alone should merit this remarkable film to the top of the list. No, the film speaks for itself. The location, choreography, set design, score, art direction, cinematography, acting and directing (directed by Carol Reed, same man who made The Third Man - among other films) catapult this film to same platform as West Side Story or Wizard of Oz, easily!!!

This version of Oliver (there have been others) is the best and most accurate narrative storytelling of Charles Dickens’s immortal classic novel, and EW has the moxy to not even include it in its Top 25 listing? How can they consider themselves to be an Entertainment News Mecca if they don’t have a firm girp on their film history?Perhaps the supposed “film buffs” they hire are merely young turks who think cinema really started in the 1970s with Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola, and only put classic examples in their listing for good measure.

When I went to film school, we were drilled with film history. Every genre, every movement, every great director was studied in detail. Our appreciation for these great films of yester year permeated through our souls and it made us better filmmakers. I’m sorry to rant, but I was appalled when I saw their “list”, if you can call it that and it didn’t include Oliver! I swear those guys/gals simply grab names off of IMDB or similar search engine, slap on some stills and cut/copy/paste a description with it and hand it off as a “greatest list”.

Below is a 9-minute clip from Oliver! Its for the song “Who Will Buy”, which is easily in the top 2 best musical scenes in the film. Notice the scale of the production, the choreography, the amazing vocals and breath-taking cinematography.

They’re remaking Casablanca?

With yesterday being April Fool’s Day, I thought this was a joke when I read it! To my disgust, it appears this is a real project.

I’m well aware of the “what’s old is new again” mentality out there these days, but touching the Classic Hollywood Studio System Films, such as Casablanca, should be grounds for immediate dismissal from the current studio execs. The problem is Hollywood is a SHELL OF ITS FORMER SELF!!! The name of the game use to be a combination of artistic approach and money… OK, so it was about money even then (remember the Paramount Decision of 1948?), but the content produced back then stood for something other then the “pop culture” status that MTV and VH1 label with a paint sprayer today.

Ingrid Bergman was the only actress (back when women were called actresses, now they like to be known as…actors) who could embody the role of Ilsa with such conviction and femininity.

And now Madonna wants to reprise that role? The woman who went from Pop Culture Icon of the 80s to actress (a poor one at that - though she was entertaining in A League of their Own and Dick Tracy) to adopt-a-child woman of the decade (though Angelina stole that limelight now) and now back to an actress again? And she wants to remake a film that is EASILY in the top 5 best American Films EVER MADE!

Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Claude Rains, Peter Lorre and Michael Curtiz (director) would be rolling over in their graves!!!

I think what’s really astonishing isn’t that Madonna wants to remake the film, but rather that a studio system would actually agree to do that.  The Studios are eating up remakes these days. Even Spielberg hopped on that wagon and remade War of the Worlds - a horrible remake that was overdown with TomCat’s over-the-top acting, ridiculous sfx and the comparison of alien invasion to the “occupation in Iraq”. If I want politics in my films Steven, I’ll watch something on the History Channel or the CNN/Fox News, not a fantasy film, OK?

To set the film in modern-day Iraq, with the current status of the country and the U.S. involvement is absurd. I realize the original was set during WW II times and it served as the backdrop for the story, but “throwing Iraq” in a remake to make political points about the current administration or the status in the U.S., is a bad concept and the film (any film) would suffer if the real intentions are the political subtext rather then light-hearted romantic love story the original showcased.

I for one won’t buy a ticket if this monstrosity is ever produced!

 

Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead

I consider myself to be a cineaste and I often check out the latest and greatest (though sometimes the greatest really suck!) film buzz on various movie sites. One site I view, almost everyday, is Movies

So having prefaced the site (yeah free plug for them - now where’s my money, haha?), I came across a film called… Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead.

 Imagine if Sam Raimi, George A. Romero and Peter Jackson (all in their early days of horror/gore) got together to make a gore-fest feature about, what else, chickens, or better yet, chicken people. I know right? Scary concept.

So what we have then is a GREAT return to the campy splatter genre we’ve come to love from the 70s and 80s gore-fest films.

Poultrygeist is definitely equal parts gore and laughter. I immediately thought of Dead/Alive - the amazing splatter comedy from Peter Jackson, as the basis for this film. The dismemberment’s, proctology exploration, bathroom bowel movements and blood spray showers mixed with the comical commentary from the “living dead” provide for an excellent splatter comedy from a genre I thought was becoming extinct.

I think Tom Savini and his colleagues would be very satisfied with the SFX and Latex galore in this film. The production value of the gore is low budget but creative and definitely effective. Especially if you approach the film as one that came from the late 70s, early 80s with its production budget.

The movies will have a limited release in certain cities and I’m sure a big following in Fangora and direct DVD sales too.

Feel free to watch the trailer below, but be warned: THIS IS NSFW!!!

The Wizard of Gore…

For those of you who saw “Juno” this year, there’s a scene with Ellen Page and Jason Bateman where they discuss films, especially gore-fest films. Jason’s character mentions a little film made in the 1970s called… The Wizard of Gore.

As an avid Netflix’er, I added that film (yes they do have it!) to my queue and wanted, patiently, for it to arrive. 

So after a long day at work and a decent happy hour, I watched it late last night.

First Impression: It’s God awful!

The film’s gore is a joke; its not believable or remotely unsettling, its just awful!

Tom Savini and company would call this film an insult to real gore features. If Fangora was around back then ( I don’t know if they were), I would be very surprised that they would rank this film high on their list.

I can’t express enough how non-realistic the gore scenes were. This coming from the same decade that we received the Dawn of the Dead, where the effects, though cheesy at best, were remotely realistic and at least ENTERTAINING!

The production value in Wizard is atrocious. The sound design is the weakest link. Whoever was the sound recordists/boom operator doesn’t know the first thing about location sound! Levels are high, then low. The actors speak loudly or soft and the magician, the “wizard of gore” projects is his voice the entire time as if he’s always on a stage, even when he’s in his little “dressing room”.

The choices in music are equally as bad. To its defense, it was the 70s and the majority of films in this genre had cheesy music.

The shot compositions are weak and the director’s line was broken a few times (if memory serves me right). The only redeeming factor is the films was shot on 35mm, but I noticed a few scenes early on in the film that could have been 16mm, I’ll have to take another look before I return it.

It’s basically a B-Movie. I call it a movie because it definitely isn’t a Film!!!

I hate to break a film down technically when I rent them to enjoy their content, but this film threw its flaws out at me and I had no choice but to watch it technically rather then for content.

I’ve heard its a cult favorite and I’m sure its done well over the years but its not even worthy of being in the top gore films category.

Personally, I think Peter Jackson’s “Dead/Alive” ,made in the early 90s, is easily the best over-the-top gore fest film of the last 20 years with Day of the Dead a close second!

Guitar Hero…

After seeing a re-run episode of South Park entitled Guitar Queer-O, I decided to see what all the fuss is about this particular video game. I’m a mild gamer - I’ve had all the Nintendo’s growing up but switched when the PS1 came out. I then bought the PS2 and rocked that solely till this past Thanksgiving, when I was luckily enough to find (I should say it was more recon work then mere finding) a Wii.

So… this weekend I rented (yes you can rent them) a Guitar Hero kit (game and controller).

I should note that I’m a drummer (I was a percussionist from elementary thru senior year in high school) and have never really played the guitar all that much.

So, the first few times I tried the game, I was horrible, strike that, I was God awful! But, as with anything you do, you get better with practice and so it was only a matter of 30 minutes before I was really getting the hang of it.

The system is addictive!!! I’m still on the Easy setting and have only played about 15 different songs and battled Tom Merello (Rage against the machine Guitarist) about 5 times - losing  tevery time oo!

Next, I’ll have to try Rock Band. Do they make that for the Wii?

Arthur C. Clarke died

The man behind 2001: A Space Odyssey (OK, it was Kubrick behind the film - but Clarke co-wrote it with him) died. He was 90.

Clarke is known throughout the world as one of the greatest science fiction writers. He’s written more then 100 books on the subject. He’s even attributed with the creation of communication satellites, as he wrote about them in the early 40s, decades before they were even built!

2001: A Space Odyssey is in my top 5 favorite films of all time! I’ve tried to read the book, its a tough read, just as the film is a tough interpretation but Clarke’s imagination mixed with Kubrick’s incredible camera placement and execution created the GREATEST SCIENCE FICTION FILM EVER!

I know that’s a widely debated statement. Star Wars, Star Trek, The Day The Earth Stood Still would be in the ring, fighting over that claim, but what we, the audience, saw in 1968 with 2001 was sheer mind-blowing special effects, cinemetography and story-telling that has defined the genre we call science fiction, at least it did for me.

Guy Ritchie and Madge call it quits

According to Showbizspy.com, Guy and Madge are calling it quits after 10 years of marriage.

Who cares, right? Right! Who Cares! Both haven’t done much for their careers since their marriage.

Madge has toured and I think even “dropped an album”, but where has Guy been since Snatch?

Ritchie’s lastet film, Revolver, came out this past year but it was gone before I could even go out to see it. Ritchie’s producer, Matthew Vaughn, who producer both Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch, went on to direct Layer Cake and then Stardust. We’ll forgive him for Stardust, but he’s definitely left Ritchie in the dust as Layer Cake was much better then Snatch (I love both films, but Cake had more substance to it).

Here’s the funny part in their relationship - they aren’t splitting for another 18 months. Apparently, it takes time to get things together for Madge and the kids to move back to the states. I suspect that Guy will return to what he does best…make films with substance or at least ones that star Jason Statham.

I saw bring back BrickTop and company Guy!