Apr
30
Remember that part in “Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy” when Brick Tamland screams, “Loud noises!” because he has no idea what to say? Well, that about sums up Platinum Dunes’ blisteringly underwhelming remake of “A Nightmare on Elm Street.” Absent is anything genuinely scary. Instead, it’s just a collection of grubby-looking scenes that are punctuated by eardrum-rattling stingers. None of the dread is earned. You’re simply waiting for the next scare chord to loosen your bowels.
And now for the backhanded compliment portion of the review: This is Platinum Dunes’ least shitty repackaged horror flick to date. Oh, it’s the absolutely worst of the NOES series by far. I’d happily sit through “Freddy’s Dead” before revisiting this movie again. Heavens to Betsy, I own “Freddy’s Dead” on DVD. I’ll never buy this pile.
Directed by Samuel Bayer — whose last name is appropriate, considering you might need headache medicine after viewing this film — “A Nightmare on Elm Street” (2010) “re-imagines” Wes Craven’s original 1984 slasher by basically doing what Craven did a quarter century ago. That being said, there’s not a whole hell of a lot of imagination on display in the re-imagining. I’m not really sure what a re-imagining is, and I’ve read a ton of books on filmmaking. If it’s kinda sorta doing the same thing over again, but less effectively, then there you go.
In the film, the teenagers of Springwood are dreaming of a severely-burned creep named Freddy Krueger (Jackie Earle Haley) with a razor-fingered glove. Whoever doesn’t go heavy on the caffeine begins dropping dead. Their parents hopelessly evasive about Freddy, the remaining kids try to get to the bottom of why they’re being stalked by this madman and find out how they can stop him.
So why is the remake such a thudding bore? Well, I’ve seen this movie before, more or less. Its chief contribution to the series is the introduction of “micro-naps,” where characters flitter between the dream world and the real world. The film also changes Krueger’s origin. No longer is he a child murderer who was let go on a technicality and burned alive by the angry parents of Springwood. Rather, he’s a pedophile who was burned alive by the angry parents of Springwood. I can’t say I like the revised backstory. It’s ugly and distasteful. Slasher movies at their core are about teenagers coping with the specter of untimely death, not revisiting painful childhood trauma.
How’s Haley as Freddy? Well, he’s no Robert Englund. Haley’s Freddy doesn’t have the menace, the voice or the humor that Englund brought to the role. Anyone who laments that Freddy became too much of a quippy villain in the later films has apparently forgotten how Krueger’s always had a macabre wit. In the original film, he tries tongue-kissing the Survivor Girl through the telephone after slaughtering her boyfriend. Haley’s Freddy follows his victims around in a boiler room, clicks his claws together and drawls like someone talking with his mouth full. He’s more annoying than he is scary.
Much of this has to do with the makeup. Haley’s Freddy’s gotten a facelift that’s less stylized and freaky than Englund’s Freddy. The new makeup is crudely supposed to approximate what authentic burn victims look like, y’know, for verisimilitude. Whatever the reasoning, it’s not nearly as terrifying as Aaron Eckhardt’s barbecued Two-Face visage in “The Dark Knight.” When your movie monster is less frightening than a second-tier villain in a PG-13 comic book movie, your movie monster sucks.
Nonetheless, I still found “A Nightmare on Elm Street” less disappointing than I’d feared it would be. My expectations were admittedly pretty low, and my devotion to the franchise clearly outweighs my better judgement. I’d also had a couple of beers before going in. That dulled my senses a bit, bracing me for all the loud noises.
-Brad Lohan
Apr
29
“The Descent: Part II” Review
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Neil Marshall’s 2006 film, “The Descent,” is one of my favorite horror films of the past decade; Jon Harris’ “The Descent: Part II” is not. Let’s see Lionsgate slap that pull quote on the DVD cover.
The sequel went direct-to-DVD in the US after having bombed at the box office in the UK. The reviews I’d read were mixed. The sequel sounded like a retread of the original — spelunkers trapped in an uncharted cave system with subterranean beasties — but it’s not like the concept lends itself to an expanded canvas. The Crawlers can’t exactly take Manhattan or go into outer space. That said, so much of what works about the original is its sense of claustrophobia. You don’t need to open it up. In fact, the tighter and more confined the arena, the more frightening it is.
Fortunately, “Part II” doesn’t abandon the caving conceit. It does, however, jettison the second — and equally critical — component that makes the first film work so well: multi-dimensional characters. The group that descends into the caves in the sequel isn’t very well-developed. And so, the film basically marks time before bodies begin to drop. But the viewer is left with an overwhelming sense of indifference when each spelunker meets with his or her untimely demise.
The original film spends a lot of time with our all-female cast of thrill-seekers before they abseil into the cave system. It’s a stronger film as a result. I genuinely cared about who was going to make it out and felt sad whenever someone was mauled by an albino-white monster.
The Final Girl of the first film, Sarah, returns in “Part II.” One thing that’s should be pointed out is that the endings of the UK and US versions of the original differ significantly. Without giving too much away, the UK version implies that Sarah doesn’t get out alive. The US version ends on a cheap, but damn effective, scare; however, it seems as though Sarah’s made it through the ordeal in one piece. “Part II” begins moments after the ending of the US version. UK audiences must’ve been jarred by this. “Bollocks! She bloody died inna cave, wot!”
Sarah’s suffering from amnesia and unable to help local law enforcement fill in the blanks about what happened to her friends. In order to keep her in the movie, the sheriff insists she join his rescue party, dragging her back into the network of caves, back into the lair of the Crawlers!
What follows is fairly unremarkable. The first film traps the heroines in the cave system, severely injures one of them, and then introduces the Crawlers. The situation becomes increasingly more desperate. In the sequel, we get to the Crawlers much sooner, so there’s nowhere else for the film to go. It just spins its wheels, moving from one kill to the next. Then there’s a reveal near the end of the second act that feels a little far-fetched. But it’s sort of organic to the story, since the sequel seemingly cannot stand on its own and has to keep revisiting the original for shocks and surprises.
In all, there’s really not much to recommend here. The movie’s just sort of meh. They should’ve called it “The Decent: Part I.”
-Brad Lohan
Apr
27
Expanded Universe Novels
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Last week, I finished reading the William Shatner-penned EU novel, “Star Trek: The Return.” Set shortly after the events of the 1994 film, “Star Trek: Generations,” this book is about the Romulans and the Borg resurrecting Admiral James T. Kirk for the purposes of brainwashing him and dispatching him to assassinate Captain Jean-Luc Picard. It’s 300+ pages of fan service, as Kirk and Picard match fists and wits before ultimately joining forces to destroy the Borg home world and prevent full-scale war from breaking out between the Romulan Star Empire and the Federation. Still, it’s a better Trek adventure than all four of the Next Gen movies put together. At the end, Kirk sacrifices his life (again) to save the galaxy, but apparently there’s another EU book (“Star Trek: Avenger”) that follows this one in which he returns from the grave a second time. Squee!
I don’t know why, but I unabashedly enjoy expanded universe (“EU”) novels. I’m currently reading “V: East Coast Crisis,” a book that’s set during the events of “V: The Original Series.” Throughout my freshman year of college, I powered through a stack of “Star Wars” EU novels rather than socializing and/or dating. I also read all four of Randall Boyll’s “Darkman” EU books a few years back. Currently, I’m halfway through John Gardner’s lengthy run of James Bond novels. Next on my summer reading list is Gardner’s “The Man From Barbarossa.”
Part of the fun of an EU novel is getting a glimpse into some arcane tangent a franchise goes on, something esoteric that only a small pocket of the fanbase is familiar with. Even within the realm of EU books, the ones written by Shatner are considered non-canonical. Think about that for a second. The “Shatnerverse” books like “Star Trek: The Return” exist in a continuity outside of the other “Star Trek” EU novels’ shared universe. I guess it’s because “The Return” references “Star Trek V: The Final Frontier,” that shitty one where they meet God. The events of that film are considered canon, but never ever spoken of in the series proper.
And so, there is the question of whether or not any of the EU stuff that is considered franchise canon is actually franchise canon. Here’s where the seriously hardcore “Star Wars” buffs can debate endlessly about something other than the questionable merits of the prequel trilogy. There are so many inconsistencies in the movies, but when you factor in the books, it becomes even more mind-boggling. For instance, “Shadows of the Empire,” an interquel set between “Empire Strikes Back” and “Return of the Jedi,” was a popular enough book to warrant its own toy line, comic book miniseries, N64 game and soundtrack(!). “Shadows of the Empire” introduces a proxy for Han Solo — bearded space pirate Dash Rendar. Rendar apparently fought in the battle of Hoth in “Empire” and sacrificed his life to smash an interstellar crime syndicate called Black Sun, an event that no one bothers to reference in “Jedi.”
The best part about the book, apart from the bit where Leia is almost seduced by a reptilian mobster named Prince Xizor, is when C-3PO pilots the Millennium Falcon. The best part about the game is that Rendar dies even if you beat the damn thing. But is it canon? Many fans have a passing familiarity with the book, comics, game and/or toys. But beyond the scene where Luke Skywalker constructs his green-bladed lightsaber, I’d say there’s virtually nothing in the book that influences any of the events in “Jedi.” The introduction of Prince Xizor in fact provides a villain that can be usurped without having a negative impact on the Original Trilogy’s continuity.
That being said, whether or not something’s canonical to a franchise is sort of beside the point. Kenneth Johnson’s 2008 book, “V: The Second Generation,” jettisons the continuity of the TV miniseries “V: The Final Battle” and “V: The Series” because neither jibes with his original vision for the saga. I think that allowing authors to cherry-pick certain elements of a franchise canon opens all sorts of doors to newer and more interesting stories. At a certain point, it becomes impossible to keep all this shit straight. What’s more important is that the writers have an interesting story to tell.
-Brad Lohan
Apr
26
Raising Hell | “Hellraiser: Bloodline”
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“Do I look like someone who cares what God thinks?!”
-Pinhead, “Hellraiser: Bloodline”
The last theatrically-released “Hellraiser” film was directed by Alan Smithee. Wait, who’s Alan Smithee? Well, it used to be that when a director took his name off a picture, Alan Smithee would be credited as the helmer instead. It was fairly common — the pilot episode of “MacGyver” was directed by Mr. Smithee — until the DGA put the kibosh on this practice in 2000 with Walter Hill’s troubled “Supernova.” I guess the Guild felt that audiences were becoming wise to the Alan Smithee switcheroo, and any film credited to the director was undoubtedly a turkey. I can’t imagine anyone going into “Hellraiser: Bloodline” expecting cinematic genius. But that’s the DGA for you.
“Bloodline” was in truth directed by makeup effects guru, Kevin Yagher. This was the first and only feature film that he called the shots on. Apparently, Dimension Films and Bob Weinstein did him in. Word is that “creative differences” are what compelled Yagher to walk, and Joe Chappelle to ghost-directed additional scenes to complete the production. For whatever reason, much of what distinguishes a “Hellraiser” flick from the rest of the pack was jettisoned. Gone are the Cenobites — save for Pinhead — as well as gallons of viscera. The film in and of itself isn’t horrible. This was the lone entry that I dreaded revisiting, since I vaguely recalled hating it the first time I saw it. But it does feel lacking.
The film is nothing if not ambitious, though. Some people think that when a horror icon is shot into space, the franchise has jumped the shark. I respectfully disagree. Every movie monster should make a trip to the final frontier as far as I’m concerned. And so, “Bloodline” gets off to a strong start when a remote-operated android opens the Lament Configuration on board a space station and promptly explodes. Then some Space Marines show up. So far, so good. The Space Marines arrest the scientist aboard the station, Dr. Paul Merchant, and interrogate him at length. What follows is a massive info-dump about the Lament Configuration throughout the ages. Begin boring flashback!
Merchant’s ancestor, French toymaker Phillip L’Merchant, designs the original Lament Configuration for a practitioner of black magic named Auguste. L’Merchant has no idea what the seemingly benign puzzle box will be used for. He’s just an ordinary toymaker. When his curiosity gets the better of him, he spies on Auguste and his douchey BFF Jacques as they perform a ritual that involves skinning a dead French chick and summoning a demon from hell to inhabit the sexy flesh-suit. The super hot demoness, Angelique, is way, way more fetching than those heavily-pierced Cenobites. She also has to do whatever Auguste and Jacques say. Things go sideways fairly quickly once she and Jacques kick off an affair. It isn’t long before Auguste is killed for some reason. And poor, well-meaning L’Merchant also meets his untimely demise before he can send mean ol’ Angie back to hell.
200 years later, a descendant of L’Merchant’s — architect John Merchant — unveils his latest work in New York City. It looks like a ginormous Lament Configuration in the lobby of a building. This architectural masterpiece makes headlines and catches the eye of Angelique in Paris. She’s afraid that Merchant, not unlike his ancestor, could design a puzzle box that’ll send her back to hell. Jacques, who I assume is now immortal or something, doesn’t want to go to America to kill Merchant. So Angelique kills Jacques and goes anyway. I can’t imagine how these two lived with each other for a couple centuries if this is their idea of conflict resolution.
Angelique needs backup, so she summons Pinhead (effing finally!) to help her fillet this Merchant goofball. Pinhead promptly tells Angelique that there’s been some sort of massive shakeup in hell and now it’s “more ordered.” I guess Angelique doesn’t subscribe to the inferno’s weekly newsletter. At any rate, Pinhead kidnaps Merchant’s son for some reason, and it feels like a couple scenes are missing from this section of the film. Later, Pinhead decapitates Merchant pretty awesomely. It’s one of those decapitations where the guy’s head doesn’t fall off right away — zowie. Then we flash forward 200 years to the boring framing device!
Dr. Paul Merchant, having brought his interrogator up to speed on his family’s dealings with the Lament Configuration throughout the centuries, asks if he can kindly finish his experiment on the space station. But some trigger-happy Space Marine sets Pinhead free from the chamber he’s locked in, and hell breaks loose…in spaaace! This is the part of the movie that has the most wasted potential. There isn’t too much carnage around the basement-like space station because the movie’s criminally short, clocking it at less than 90 minutes. Ultimately, Merchant transforms the station into an interplanetary Lament Configuration that sends Pinhead back to where he came from.
This is easily the weakest entry in the “Hellraiser” saga yet. It’s lighter on the grue and probably the most collapsed epic I’ve ever seen. It feels like it could’ve been three movies. Clearly, the studio wanted to beef up Pinhead’s presence and make him more like Freddy Krueger. The franchise, though, is a lot different from the stalk-and-slash pictures that were already going extinct. The film was released in ‘96, a few short months before “Scream” revitalized the horror genre and brought it screaming into the self-referential era.
Still, “Bloodline” wasn’t totally agonizing to revisit. Pinhead’s given so many juicy lines, it was difficult to choose one to begin my review. And, there’s nudity. I’d've loved to see Yagher’s original vision of the film. I read something about Cenobites in powder wigs. As a compromised work, “Bloodline” turned out okay-ish. I could’ve been worse.
I now find myself at the midpoint of my Raising Hell series. Moving forward, I’ll be transitioning to the DTV “Hellraiser” releases. Next up: “Inferno!”
-Brad Lohan
Apr
21
Jonah Hexed
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There’s a Jonah Hex movie coming out! Squee! Seriously, who cares? Warner Bros. clearly doesn’t. The film is due on June 18th, and the studio hasn’t even released a trailer. Word is there’ll be one attached to the “Nightmare on Elm Street” remake, targeting that key demographic of people who love horribly disfigured movie characters. I’m not just talking about Megan Fox and that club-thumb of hers.
So who is Jonah Hex, anyway? Well, he’s a comic book character, believe it or not, an ex-Confederate soldier who’s been badly burned and has a googly eye. A sneering anti-hero, he capers around the Old West or something. I don’t know. His books are canceled pretty regularly, and I don’t think I ever bothered reading one. There is a pretty sweet “Batman: The Animated Series” two-parter that’s inexplicably about Jonah Hex, though. I’d recommend checking that out.
Josh Brolin plays Hex in the film version. IIRC, the movie is about Hex battling an evil voodoo shaman (John Malkovich), who’s intent on resurrecting an army of dead Confederate soldiers. I doubt this is to stage really, really authentic Civil War reenactments. Rather, I imagine this plot has a world domination component to it. The South will rise [from the grave] again, apparently.
Bo-ring!
The film has apparently undergone extensive reshoots — something that’s never a good sign — and director Francis Lawrence (“Constantine” and “I Am Legend”) has been brought on the project as a “directorial consultant.” I have no idea what that is. But it sounds ungood.
There is a possibility that the film’s release will get kicked down the road, but studios usually adhere to their release dates regardless of how the finished product turns out. Oddly, Warner Bros. has been all but silent on the marketing front, releasing only one crummy still of Brolin as Jonah Hex. It’s a fairly meaningless image, given that he’s a fairly obscure comic book character. Oh, and the makeup looks shitty.
I dunno. At the moment, I have zero interest whatsoever in seeing this film. I am, however, endlessly fascinated by mega-flops. Is “Jonah Hex” the next “Catwoman?” We’ll just have to wait and see.
-Brad Lohan
Apr
19
William Shatner Charges $75 for an Autograph: Tales From the Anaheim Comic-Con
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Last Saturday I attended the Anaheim Comic-Con. Wizard World unceremoniously canceled their L.A. event last spring, so I was pleased to see that they’d booked an event this year that’s only a pleasant 40-minute drive from my apartment. Unfortunately, heavy traffic and a confusing Google Map doubled the actual amount of time I’d estimated it would take me to get there. But I did take a delightful tour of East Los Angeles while looking for an on-ramp to get back on I-5.
Once I reached the event, I had to shell out a king’s ransom for parking ($12), then the attendant told me to park way out in Hell’s Half Acre, not in the parking structure adjacent to Hall D, where the actual event was being held. I hadn’t even bought a single comic book yet and already felt like I should bail on this whole thing.
A one-day ticket was $35 if you purchased it at the event. I couldn’t get a ticket for $5 cheaper online because my home computer has HIV-AIDS. So, I had to bite eat five bucks and pay a service charge for no discernible reason.
Are we having fun yet?
Actually, the event in and of itself wasn’t a complete wash. It felt a little crowded, though. Wizard World Los Angeles was held at the more spacious L.A. Convention Center, which doubles as the U.S. Capitol building in “X-Men” and a museum in “X2;” I guess Bryan Singer loves that place. Hall D at the Anaheim Convention Center, on the other hand, seemed cramped. I was constantly bumping into people or tripping over their carry-on bags. Seriously, attendees now wheel around carry-ons like the one George Clooney has in “Up in the Air.” They make for excellent stumbling blocks!
George Carlin has a joke where he talks about how he’s never been with a 10, but one night, he was with five 2’s. Typically, all five of those 2’s are at the Los Angeles Comic Book and Science Fiction Convention that’s held at the Shrine every so often. At the Anaheim Comic-Con, however, there were surprisingly quite a few attractive women. We’re talking 6’s and 7’s, baby. Gals who’d get with me. Maybe. The ones who’d poured themselves into Batgirl, Black Cat and Scarlet Witch costumes were especially easy on the eyes.
Boy, am I sick of fat people dressed up as Jedi. Man alive, you’d think that there hadn’t been three prequel movies which tried valiantly to convince socially maladroit men and women that “Star Wars” isn’t worth obsessing over anymore. I think the Browncoats who lovingly embrace “Firefly” are less pathetic than folks who still go gaga over lightsabers, Yoda, and all things OT.
Speaking of pathetic, I took a stroll down the Walk of Shame, where you can purchase autographs from some prehistoric z-lister. Now, as an aspiring writer, I think it would be fun to do events at specialty book stores or comic book shops or even a convention, and sign whatever it is I had a hand in writing. I own a pile of books that are autographed to me by filmmakers and celebrities, including the late David Carradine, FTW. But shelling out $20-$25 to some has-been for their autograph on a publicity photo has always seemed kind of lame to me. And I know from lame. I own a few autographed publicity photos. I always felt awkward paying someone for their autograph. Now if I’m buying their book, and they’re signing it, that makes more sense. I can glean entertainment and insight from a book; the personal touch of their signature and a few kind words to me is just a value-add. An autographed photo, however, is pretty damn boring and useless.
That being said, who in the hell would spend $75 on an autograph from William Shatner? That’s what he was charging deep-pocketed Trekkers. Jesus wept. I mean, don’t get me wrong. I love William Shatner. I was pretty starstruck just seeing him at the event. But I can’t imagine spending $75 on an autograph from anyone. That’s like three lapdances in the VIP room. Maybe lapdances are baked into the cost of the autograph, I dunno.
The Anaheim Comic-Con served as a reminder why I don’t bother going to the San Diego Comic-Con. The traffic, the admission fee, the fat people dressed as Jedi — it all takes the fun out of the experience.
-Brad Lohan
Apr
16
“Kick-Ass” Review
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The movie “Kick-Ass,” based on the wildly popular comic book by Mark Millar and John Romita Jr., lives up to its nomenclature. In sending up the conventions of the grim ‘n gritty superhero genre, the film breathes new life into it. Brief history lesson: Comics used to be read by stunted adolescents, but now they’re read by stunted adults, whose “darker” sensibilities have sucked almost all the fun out of funnybooks. Even the “Kick-Ass” comic book is a joyless and blood-drenched caper.
Fortunately, director Matthew Vaughn brings a much needed sense of humor to the film adaptation. It stars Aaron Johnson as Dave Lizewski, a fairly unremarkable teenager who dons a superhero garb for no particular reason; he isn’t grief-stricken over the death of a mentor figure and/or imbued with some sort of meta-human powers. But when his first superhero adventure goes horribly wrong, he finds himself with the ability to take a beating. This is the first superhero movie where the titular character gets his powers after making the decision to wear a ridiculous costume and go out on patrol.
The appropriately-named Kick-Ass becomes an Internet sensation and inspires other costumed types to join his crusade against the criminal underworld. Chief among them is the father-and-daughter team of Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage) and Hit-Girl (Chloe Grace Moretz). Anyone who’s ever doubted the awesomeness of an adolescent sidekick has yet to see Hit-Girl in action. The purple-haired, butterfly knife-slinging, profanity-spouting assassin is the younger sister every comic book geek wishes he had. Cage’s performance as Big Daddy also deserves special mention. His delirious line-delivery calls to mind Adam West’s take on Batman. And for some reason, he glues on a handlebar mustache while suiting up. There’s also Red Mist (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), a flashy superhero with a dark secret.
Stick-in-the-mud critics like Roger Ebert are taking “Kick-Ass” to task for its ultra-violence and blah, blah, blah. Ebert’s gone as far as spoiling the ending of the flick in his review. There have always been curmudgeons who call into question the artistic value of comic books. It was only a matter of time before similar individuals set their sights on comic book movies. I think it makes them more appealing. Ebert didn’t like “Spider-Man” either, and that’s about the most family-friendly comic book romp there is. There’s just no pleasing this man.
What’s important is that notoriously nitpicky comics fans dig “Kick-Ass.” I know I’m looking forward to seeing it again this weekend. In the parlance of the film’s heroes, the movie “owns.”
-Brad Lohan
Apr
15
Joss Whedon to Direct “The Avengers?”
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Let me start out by saying that “The Avengers” movie is a mistake. Marvel Studios, in its mad desperation to crank out product, has taken a major risk in greenlighting the ultimate team-up movie before characters like Thor and Captain America have even proven themselves to be box office juggernauts. From what I’ve been reading about the “Thor” and “Captain America” films, they’re riding bad scripts. It’s damn near impossible to make a good movie out of a barely-there screenplay. “Star Trek” pulled it off, but “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” didn’t.
All that being said, I’m actually kind of reassured by the news that Joss Whedon has signed on to direct “The Avengers.” I never really got into “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” or “Firefly.” I didn’t I follow the short-lived “Dollhouse” either, despite the casting of the delicious Eliza Dushku — a gal who’d be the ideal Scarlet Witch if Scarlet Witch were in “The Avengers.” On a side note, why in the hell isn’t Scarlet Witch in “The Avengers?” She’s a super-hot gypsy in the corset with hex powers and a funny hat. And where’s The Vision, Scarlet Witch’s android boyfriend? Man, this movie has more things going against it than I want to get into right now.
What were we talking about? Oh, Whedon, right. Whedon’s got only one film under his belt, 2005’s “Serenity,” a film that picked up where “Firefly” left off. I enjoyed “Serenity” and felt that Whedon’s ability to balance a large cast of characters against a wide-scale sci-fi backdrop was impressive. Early in the film, there’s a tracking shot that moves through the Serenity starship, establishing each of the heroes through action and playful dialogue. I think it’s masterful.
One of the things I’m afraid of when it comes to “The Avengers” is that the interplay among all the characters will be scaled back in favor of moving from one setpiece fo the next. Take “X3: The Last Stand.” I’ve always felt that the “X-Men” trilogy has basically been three Wolverine movies guest-starring the muties from Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters, and no more is that apparent than in the third X-film. My hope is that Whedon will give the cast some room to breathe and interact.
-Brad Lohan
Apr
12
The trailer for James Nguyen’s “Birdemic: Shock and Terror” is a sight to behold. The first time I saw it was with an audience full of gorehounds at a Cinefamily screening of “Human Centipede: First Sequence.” It brought the house down. What appears to be a stunningly inept student film is actually the most hilarious Hitchcock homage to date. Funnier than “Dressed to Kill” even.
The film is about Rod (Alan Bagh), a Northern California software salesman, who we first meet on a seemingly endless drive up the coast. He stops at a diner for lunch, where he meets Nathalie (Whitney Moore), a classmate of his from high school, who doesn’t seem to have any recollection of him whatsoever. He, however, can clearly remember the seating chart in the English class they had together. Despite having absolutely zero chemistry, they exchange business cards and make tentative plans to see each other again.
Nathalie’s an up-and-coming model, and for reasons unexplained, she does a shoot at a one-hour photo mat in a strip mall rather than the conventional photography studio. After the shoot, she gets a call from her agent — who works at what appears to be the shadiest, most fly-by-night talent agency ever — and finds out that she’s been booked as the cover model for the Victoria’s Secret catalog. Why her talent agent is sitting at the receptionist’s desk is left ambiguous.
Meanwhile, Rod closes a million dollar deal at work then violates one of the cardinal rules of courtship: He calls Nathalie less than 24 hours after getting her number. They briefly discuss their wildly successful careers and make a date for dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant.
Rod and Nathalie’s first date goes well. They both talk generically about their ambitions in life, which sound like a list of bullet points from virtually every Match.com profile I’ve ever read. They dance like white people in a sparsely populated nightclub; seriously, it’s just the two of them and a singer onstage. Then Rod walks her home. He overreaches when he asks to come in, and Nathalie tells him she’s not that kind of girl.
The following day, Nathalie pays an unexpected visit to her mother, and the film foreshadows what she’s going to look like in 30 years (Spoiler: BBW). At work, Rod attends a meeting where he finds out his company’s being bought for a billion dollars, making him a very rich man. Rather than buying a Ferrari, like his womanizing co-worker recommends, Rod wants to briefly retire(?!) then start his own solar panel business that uses nanotechnology.
You may be wondering, Where the hell are all the birds? This movie is called “Birdemic” right? Why do we spend so much time farting around in these scenes devoid of any conflict? Well, dear reader, Nguyen is a master of the slow burn. Not unlike Ti West’s “House of the Devil,” “Birdemic” bores the living shit out of you until getting to the crescendo of violence you paid to see.
Although Rod and Nathalie both live alone, they stop at a seedy motel to have sex in their underwear. The following morning, they wake up to discover that CGI birds have gone berserk and begun laying waste to their sleepy NorCal town. FINALLY!!!
Rod and Nathalie run to the neighboring motel room, have a brief round of introductions with the two occupants inside, and then they arm themselves with coathangers to fight their way through the parking lot. They get to a van, where they find some military-grade weapons that seemingly never need to be reloaded. And so begins a mad dash up the coastline to wherever the hell they’re going with squawking birds giving chase. Eyes are pecked out, throats are slashed, a bird flies into a gas pump and somehow causes it to explode.
The charm of “Birdemic: Shock and Terror” isn’t that they characters make no attempt whatsoever to rescue Nathalie’s mom and that she’s jettisoned from the story altogether. No, it’s a great time at the movies because it unintentionally sends up the shoddiness, the phoniness, and the clunkiness of disaster pictures. Its characters are non-existent, its story is barely there, its effects are a joke. Every level of the production is cheapjack. They couldn’t even afford a tissue to wipe the schmutz off the lens before filming the shot that opens the movie.
But that’s also also how it’s a successful movie. I know Nguyen had no idea what he was doing, but really what separates him from Roland Emmerich is a $200 million budget. “Birdemic” isn’t entertaining because it’s a well made thriller. It’s not, but neither is “2012.” No, those movies work for audiences because they’re so jaw-droppingly incompetent. They’re almost a commentary on the artifice of the genre. You couldn’t intentionally make a movie this awful and have it be half as entertaining. That’s the mad genius at work in James Nguyen’s “Birdemic: Shock and Terror.”
-Brad Lohan
Apr
9
There’s No Such Thing as an Original Idea
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Ain’t that the truth? I just found out that there’s a movie going into production called “The Darkest Hour.” It’s about an alien invasion of Moscow. What a great idea! I certainly thought so over a year ago when I got an idea for a script called “Man Behind the Curtain” about an alien invasion of Communist Russia, circa 1967, with the bulk of the action set in…Moscow. I’ve spent the past semester developing it and am currently halfway through the treatment. Son of a bitch bastard.
I would imagine that the similarities between my idea and this new movie that’s being made probably begin and end at the invasion of Moscow, but that’s more than enough to convince me to scrap Moscow altogether. I hate when my concepts sound same-y. I’m not one for piggybacking on someone else’s grand ideas. If there were a dozen movies about aliens invading Moscow, and I had a completely fresh approach, that’d be one thing. Since there’s only this one other movie floating the idea, I’ll always live in its shadow.
But all is not lost. I’m a creative fellow. It took me less than 60 seconds to come up with a contingency plan: swapping out Communist Russia with Communist China. See, the root of my idea is taking an American spy and dumping him in the middle of a full-scale invasion of an enemy nation, preferably in the recent past. Although he has every reason not to get involved, he ultimately decides to stay and fight because he’s a hero and that’s what heroes do; they put the needs of others ahead of their own.
Setting it in China also means I can contemporize the thing because China’s still a Communist country, unlike Russia, but I still like the romantic notion of the ’60s-era spy. So that might still remain intact.
I’m also going to keep Vietnam in mind as another potential locale. Incidentally, my professor has urged me to set the script in the United States. Another major reason why this idea appealed to me is that it would be mostly set in a foreign land. We’ve seen aliens blow up the U.S. of A. tons of times. But, I can’t rule that one out, either, at this point. I might be able to bake in a twist that seems fresh.
I hate when this happens, when I find out someone else’s got almost the exact same idea that I do and the bottom falls out of my seemingly original concept. All I can do is pick myself, dust myself off, and come at it from another direction.
-Brad Lohan