Aug
25
Everyone knows who Roger Corman is. A legendary b-movie producer/director with an unmatched eye for talent, Corman not only made a killing off schlock and cheapies, but also launched the careers of James Cameron, Francis Ford Coppola, Brian DePalma, Martin Scorsese, Jack Nicholson, Jonathan Demme, Joe Dante, John Sayles and many other luminaries whose names I can’t think of right now. Last weekend, a remake of the 1978 Corman-produced “Piranha” opened to positive reviews. Corman’s influence is clearly alive and well today.
But he wasn’t the only b-filmmaker of his era. There were others. These are the guys I find interesting, the ones who came and went, disappearing into relative obscurity, not unlike their respective outputs. Edward L. Montoro’s story is perhaps my favorite. He didn’t just fade away after a box office stinker left him penniless. No, he pocketed a cool million from his production company’s coffers and fled the country, never to be heard from again.
Last night I watched the Montoro-produced, “Jaws”-with-a-bear schlockfest, “Grizzly.” Made on a budget of $750,000, it ended up grossing $39 million at the box office in 1976. Not a bad haul, considering that it’s not a bear-y good movie. Now, I love “Jaws” ripoffs more than anything, but you can’t have a cute animal go on a rampage and expect your film to be scary. Bears are just too damn snuggly to be menacing. Even when the titular beast’s obviously fake paws are tearing people asunder, I still want to give him a big ol’ cuddle. In fact, when someone’s crushed to death in a bear hug (and he even pukes up blood like Quint in “Jaws”), I was like, “Yep, that’s how I want to go.” Loved to oblivion.
With “Grizzly” the largest independently-produced of the time (beaten two years later by the “Jaws”-with-a-guy-in-a-William-Shatner-mask flick, “Halloween”), you’d think Montoro and his production company, Film Ventures International, would share the profits with his collaborator, “Grizzly” director William Girdler. But, no, Montoro kept the film’s profits all to himself. This created some friction between himself and Girdler, who parted ways with the producer and directed the Leslie Nielsen-starring, “Day of the Animals,” a “Jaws”-with-a-shit-ton-of-forest-creatures knockoff. Guess what movie’s now at the top of my Netflix queue.
Failing to match his “Grizzly” success during the late-’70s, Montoro in 1980 acquired the rights to “Great White” (aka “The Last Shark”), a “Jaws”-with-a-Great-White-Shark dungheap, directed by Enzo G. Castellari; on a side note, Castellari had previously directed the original “Inglorious Bastards” in 1977, a movie that I made it about 15 minutes into before shutting it off, bored to tears. Universal Pictures, the studio that had released “Jaws,” sued Montoro for putting out a film that was a fairly blatant ripoff of their game-changing movie. If anyone was going to cynically cash-in on “Jaws,” it was going to be Universal, goddammit! The kangaroo courts sided with Universal, and “Great White” was pulled from theaters. It’s never been officially released on home video in the United States. I recently watched a bootleg of it that was subtitled in Japanese. Man, that’s distracting, subtitles in a foreign language.
Montoro’s final project was the 1984 movie, “Mutant,” which bombed for reasons that are baffling to me. I’d see a movie called “Mutant” at least a dozen times theatrically. In fact, “mutant” is probably my favorite word in the English language. Its failure, though, didn’t help FVI’s fortunes in the least. The company ultimately folded in ‘87, leaving the long-anticipated, George Clooney-starring(!) “Grizzly II: The Predator” unfinished; to date, the film has never been released.
Weathering a painful and expensive divorce, Montoro did was George Lucas should’ve done in ‘84: grabbed a pile of cash from his production company and left the country for good. No one’s seen or heard from him in over 25 years. I like to think he’s still out there, somewhere, stretching every last nickel of that million bucks as far as it can go. Maybe producing films in some banana republic.
Or, maybe he was eaten by a bear.
-Brad Lohan
Aug
24
Man Alive, “The Walking Dead” Looks Rotten
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Against my better judgment, I’m still reading Robert Kirkman’s zombie snoozefest, “The Walking Dead.” Every six months, another trade hits stands, and I dutifully pick it up, wondering just how boring the apocalypse will get. The most recent volume has hero Rick Grimes and his son, as well as his ragtag group of interchangeable nobodies I can’t remember the names of, stumble upon a seemingly idyllic community that’s populated by folks who don’t carry firearms and are trying to return to normal, everyday life. Everyday life with zombies lurking just outside the gates!
Kirkman’s pacing is turgid, his characters either bland or transparently evil, and the occasional curveballs (i.e. the deaths of major characters) carry little to no dramatic heft. Maybe it’s because the genre’s played itself out.
Never is that more evident than in the 4-minute trailer for Frank Darabont’s highly-touted “Walking Dead” TV series, debuting this fall on AMC. I’m a major apologist for Darabont’s wildly unloved film “The Mist,” but this looks like one of the cheapjack fanfilms that were all the rage in the mid-2000s: polished and Hi-Def, but perfunctory in its style. Something about HD makes everything look less like a movie-movie and more like a student film. I don’t know what it is. A lack of warmth in the image?
Perhaps the clip’s worst crime is when it borrows wholesale from “28 Days Later,” the last rock-solid zombie-horror movie of the aughts. I sincerely can’t believe Darabont went with Kirkman’s almost beat-for-beat ripoff of Danny Boyle’s excellent film. But, he did. So we get a retread of a guy waking up the hospital, stumbling around human wreckage, trying to puzzle together what has happened. Zzz. Had we skipped ahead to Rick on horseback and heading for the blitzkrieged Atlanta, I’d've been a bit more engaged. And this is the sizzle-reel, people. I think it’s all fizzle and no brains.
-Brad Lohan
Aug
23
I’m an easy mark when it comes to “Jaws” ripoffs. Last weekend, I watched “Great White” (aka “The Last Shark”), a 1980 “Jaws” pseudo-remake that Steven Spielberg had pulled from theaters because it has more than a passing resemblance to his 1975 blockbuster. Just yesterday I rented “Grizzly,” basically “Jaws” with a bear.
And so, “Piranha 3D” is directly up my alley. I own the original, directed by Joe “Gremlins” Dante (Joe Dante’s middle name is actually “Gremlins”), and powered through James Cameron’s lamentable, Lance Henriksen-starring sequel; to its credit, the second installment does feature flying piranha.
Directed by French gorehound Alexandre Aja (“Haute Tension,” “The Hills Have Eyes” remake), “Piranha 3D” lives up to all the potential a movie titled “Piranha 3D” could possibly have.
Much to my horror, I found out after I’d already bought my ticket that the film wasn’t shot with stereoscopic cameras and only post-converted for 3D. But, the post-conversion isn’t a disaster. What I’d been reading about hasty post-conversion jobs on films like “Clash of the Titans,” “Alice in Wonderland” and “The Last Airbender” was that the 3D effects are even worse than the movies themselves, making them essentially the worst parts of the Bible. “Piranha 3D” had a 3D consultant on the film during production, so I guess that made a bit of a difference. However, there is one shot where this kid appears to have two left arms. It ain’t “Avatar” is what I’m saying.
Elizabeth Shue stars in the film in the Roy Scheider role as the sheriff of Lake Victoria. It’s spring break, and the town looks like an episode of MTV’s “The Grind” — T&A and douchebags everywhere. After an earthquake opens up a prehistoric lake beneath Lake Victoria, freeing thousands of piranha that had long since been thought extinct, the resort becomes a literal bloodbath. The practical gore effects by Howard Berger and Greg Nicotero — two giants of the field — are first-rate. The CGI is like something out of a SyFy Original, but it isn’t like the original movie had convincing piranha even by 1978 standards.
Jerry O’Connell unleashes his inner-scumbag in a hilarious supporting role as a Joe Francis-esque filmmaker, shooting hot girl-on-girl action during Spring Break. Note: I had no idea who the hell Joe Francis was until I found out that he’d filed a lawsuit against Dimension Films for satirizing him in this movie.
Kudos to the filmmakers for somehow getting an R-rating slapped on this thing. It’s astonishing, the level of female nudity and graphic violence on display. Adult film star — and future Mrs. Brad Lohan — Gianna Michaels cameos as a topless and ill-fated parasailer. The mind reels at the thought of what the inevitable unrated version will have to offer. I’m thinking hot girl-on-piranha action.
-Brad Lohan
Aug
18
I always made time to watch Siskel and Ebert when I was younger. Curious about how two curmudgeonly oldsters weighed in on movies I enjoyed, I tuned in to their show every Sunday afternoon during my adolescent years. I still remember how Gene Siskel said that “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze” was “just as boring and violent as the first,” and that episode aired in 1991. I maintain that the second film is less violent than the original Ninja Turtles movie because they weren’t allowed to use their weapons and had to beat up the badguys with sausage links and yo-yos.
Siskel and Ebert were all over the bloody map in terms of film criticism. I was blown out of my chair the other day when I watched a clip from one of their old episodes where they gave Clint Eastwood’s “Unforgiven” two thumbs-down. Keep in mind, this same pair endlessly praised the earlier efforts of none other than Steven Seagal. Siskel even listed “Under Siege” as one of the 10 best films of 1992. It’s a great movie, but let’s be real here. It was the 11th best film of 1992.
Nonetheless, the pair were synonymous with film criticism throughout much of my lifetime. Idiots I went to high school with would often tell me that I should be “a Siskel and Ebert” [sic] when I grow up. The pair were an institution, putting faces and names to film criticism, and making it somewhat accessible to the masses. You’d feel empowered when they agreed with you, and alternately think they’re just a couple of arty-farty schmucks when they’d pan something you liked. Oh, and when they disagreed with each other, that was just great television.
When Gene Siskel died suddenly in 1999, I felt the show never fully recovered. Numerous guest critics rotated in and out of Siskel’s vacant seat, including the semi-articulate oddball Harry Knowles from Ain’t-It-Cool.com. Richard Roeper ultimately became the permanent replacement, and boy, what a terrible choice he proved to be. I couldn’t bring myself to give him any credibility whatsoever after he praised Tim Burton’s shit-awful “Planet of the Apes” remake and went on to remark that it was better than the original. Holy Jesus!
Ebert’s failing health and poor decision-making on the part of the network would see a pair of newer, supposedly hipper hosts for “At the Movies.” The thumbs were replaced by a three-tiered “See It,” “Rent It,” “Skip It” rating system, and the viewers had the vacuousness of saucer-eyed weenis Ben Lyons inflicted upon them. Dude makes Richard Roeper look like Andre Bazin. Now there’s an esoteric film criticism reference for you.
Now, “At the Movies” is over and done with. Film critique has evolved, or devolved, into a more internet-based system of aggregation and compilation. It’s become more siloed and niche with all the movie geek sites, and practically any boob with a blog can weigh in now. I mean look at me. I have no business reviewing movies. I never even saw 2005’s Best Picture winner “Crash.” I did see David Cronenberg’s 1996 NC-17 sex-with-scar-tissue movie “Crash,” though. I make Ben Lyons look like Richard Roeper.
-Brad Lohan
Aug
16
Sylvester Stallone’s latest exercise in turning people inside-out, “The Expendables,” is a movie I went into with very low expectations. Reviews had generally been mixed-negative, and I was concerned that the considerable talents of the film’s cast would be wasted. Was this simply a DTV cheapie released theatrically, or was this the genuine article, a return-to-form for the action heroes of yesteryear? I think it’s the latter.
The film is about the titular soldiers of fortune, led by Stallone’s character, whose name is so ridiculously inappropriate (Barney Ross?!), I will simply call him Stallone in this review. When recruited by Bruce Willis to kill bad people on some spit of land in the Gulf of Mexico (Arnold Schwarzenegger’s elite team of commandos is busy), Stallone and his sidekick, Jason Statham, pose as wildlife photographers (LOL) to gather intel on a rogue CIA agent (Eric Roberts), who’s backing a brutal military junta there. Stallone thinks maybe they’ve bitten off more than they can chew, and yet, he and Statham still manage to kill approximately 41 soldiers — all of whom have CGI blood coursing through their veins — while escaping from the island. I’d say they have a pretty good shot at conquering the entire Southern Hemisphere if they put their minds to it.
After a heart-to-heart with Mickey Rourke — and when Mickey Rourke is your mentor, your movie’s awesome — Stallone decides to go back to the island to save the super-hot general’s daughter that he was forced to leave behind. He’s initially reluctant to bring the other Expendables: aforementioned Statham, Jet Li, Terry Crews and Randy Couture, whose cauliflower ears make him look like a damn Smurf. But then he remembers the name of the team and decides, hey, it’s okay. Minus Dolph Lundgren, the loose cannon Expendable, they return to the island and proceed to waste some fools. The final third of the film is essentially one entire action sequence. Terry Crews has one spectacular moment to shine in a scene that’s reminiscent of they hallway fight in Chan Park-Wook’s “Oldboy,” but with an AA-12 automatic shotgun instead of a hammer.
Perhaps my only complaint about the film is that it isn’t more like a 1980s action film. Much of the cinematography is the standard, Paul Greengrass-wannabe shaky-cam bullshit that makes single combat hard to follow. The fight between Dolph Lundgren and Jet Li — two expert martial arts IRL — is shot in tight, dimly-lit close-ups, taking away the wow-factor of having a really tall dude and a really fast dude get in a scrap. I already mentioned the CGI grue; were the cannon fodder soldiers squibbed instead, the multitudinous bullet hits would literally have more impact. Now I did like how Charisma Carpenter is in the film to give Jason Statham an excuse to beat up a basketball team, but her character’s woefully dropped after that. Statham deserves someone to ride off into the sunset with; a love interest character’s function is to be the hero’s reward for character growth.
I’ve always loved dinosaurs, so seeing grumpy old men like Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis — albeit fleetingly — in a room together is as thrilling as watching “Jurassic Park.” Collectively, these action heroes have killed more people than cancer. The groundwork has been laid for an “Expendables” franchise, and I’d be more than happy to see these thunder lizards righting all the wrongs in the world while collecting Social Security in another sequel or two.
-Brad Lohan
Aug
13
I heart this movie.
Aug
6
My Favorite Bits of Bad Dialogue, Part II
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With “The Expendables” due in a week, I thought I’d devote an entire blog to some of Sylvester Stallone’s marvelously poetic dialogue. Stallone, perhaps best known for essaying the title role in “Cobra,” is also a screenwriter, director and judge, jury and executioner. His 2008 ode to red mist, “Rambo,” features perhaps my favorite exchange in the entire history of cinema. Witness the glory of this back-and-forth, pulled from the first act of the film. Here, Rambo (Stallone) debates with the peace-loving Christian missionary Sarah (Julie Benz) about the moral and ethical implications of providing aid to the Karen people who are currently being slaughtered by the brutal Burmese junta. According to the director’s commentary, this is one of the first English-language conversations that Rambo’s had in twenty years:
Rambo: Why’d you come back?
Sarah: Waiting for you.
Rambo: I told you before, I can’t help you.
Sarah: Well, we need to go and help these people. We’re here to make a difference. We believe all lives are special.
Rambo: Some lives… some not.
Sarah: Really? If everyone thought like you, nothing would ever change.
Rambo: Nothing does change.
Sarah: Of course it does! Nothing stays the same!
Rambo: Live your life, ’cause you’ve got a good one.
Sarah: It’s what I’m trying to do!
Rambo: No, what you’re trying to do is change what is.
Sarah: And what is?
Rambo: Go home.
The subtext is so thick, you can cut it with a crudely-made machete forged in the fires of Rambo’s personal hell. Let me break the dialogue down, beat-for-beat, Robert McKee-style*.
Rambo: Why’d you come back? (Subtext: Why did you come back?)
Sarah: Waiting for you. (Subtext: I was waiting for you.)
Rambo: I told you before, I can’t help you. (Subtext: As I previously stated in an earlier conversation on the matter, I’m unable to assist you.)
Sarah: Well, we need to go and help these people. We’re here to make a difference. We believe all lives are special. (Subtext: Nevertheless, we feel obligated to provide aid to the Karen. We have come to make things unlike the way they are now. Our perspective is similar to Barney the Dinosaur’s when it comes to the value of every individual.)
Rambo: Some lives… some not. (Subtext: I disagree with you on that point. An individual’s specialness is relative, yet I will remain woefully vague in terms of how I would apply value to any given individual’s life.)
Sarah: Really? If everyone thought like you, nothing would ever change. (Subtext: Oh, yeah?! If we all shared your bullshitty libertarian outlook, things would just stay this screwed up forever and ever.)
Rambo: Nothing does change. (Subtext: Everyone is a bullshitty libertarian in the Rambo-verse.)
Sarah: Of course it does! Nothing stays the same! (Subtext: So wrong! It’s like Wings said, it’s “an ever-changing world which we live in.”)
Rambo: Live your life, ’cause you’ve got a good one. (Subtext: Since I’m unable to provide a counterpoint, I’m going to abruptly change the subject without a segue… Take it easy.)
Sarah: It’s what I’m trying to do! (Subtext: I’ve been taking it easy all this time!)
Rambo: No, what you’re trying to do is change what is. (Subtext: You voted for Obama, didn’t you?)
Sarah: And what is? (Subtext: Didn’t you?)
Rambo: Go home. (Subtext: Go home.)
As we can plainly see, it’s not what’s being said so much as what’s unsaid that makes this dialogue so powerful. I’m openly weeping as I type this. Rambo’s heart has hardened, and he’s reluctant to involve himself in situations that might require him to reenact the final scene from “The Wild Bunch” with a .50 caliber machine gun and a buttload of CGI blood. Despite Sarah’s efforts to reach him, only Rambo can summon the strength within himself to end the genocide in Burma by showing the junta what genocide really is! Man alive, this is screenwriting.
-Brad Lohan
*Robert McKee style is similar to reverse-cowgirl, but with a Human Centipede (First Sequence).
Aug
5
After up and disappearing for a very brief spell (like a day), Nicolas Cage has come back to us. And he’s once again slated to fulfill his contractual obligations by appearing in the forthcoming Joel Schumacher film, “Trespass,” not to be confused with the early-’90s Ice T movie; I called it “Trespassers” in my previous blog and don’t have the wherewithal to correct my mistake. Cage will even occupy his original role, that of Nicole Kidman’s husband. Before he bailed, he’d requested a casting change that would see him play the heavy.
Liev Schreiber’s name was dropped when it came to finding Ms. Kidman a new husband. Then producers realized that Schreiber, though a terrific actor, cannot play a protagonist in any film, especially “Salt.” (Spoiler)
I actually saw “Salt” a couple weeks ago, and for some reason, I thought that Peter Sarsgaard was in the film. I’d seen the trailer a few times and imprinted in my memory that Sarsgaard was in the role that Schreiber actually plays. And so, I spent most of the movie wondering if Peter Sarsgaard and Liev Schreiber are in fact the same person, like Tom Sizemore and Micheal Madsen or Superman and Clark Kent. What does this have to do with Nicolas Cage? Absolutely nothing.
Shooting for “Trespass” has been delayed a few weeks, but the film will most certainly be inflicted on audiences sometime in 2011. Consider yourselves forewarned.
-Brad Lohan
Aug
3
Nicolas Cage Realizes He’s Going to Be in a Joel Schmacher Film, Leaves Earth
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Prolific actor and sorcerer Nicolas Cage unceremoniously jumped ship from “Trespassers,” a stupid-sounding Joel Schumacher movie that’s set to begin filming in two weeks. Word is, he was originally cast as Nicole Kidman’s husband, but changed his mind and wanted to essay the villain role instead; this is probably due to the fact that it’s a meatier part and would call upon Cage to bring his unique brand of crazy to the character. Millennium Films acquiesced, recasting Liev Schreiber (tentatively) opposite Kidman; Schreiber hasn’t signed on the line which is dotted, but this actually isn’t unusual for actors to hop on projects without a deal in place. At any rate, Nicolas Cage ultimately changed his mind again and decided he’d much rather play the role of Sir Not Appearing in This Film.
Unable to be reached by producers, Cage has either dropped off the face of the planet or gone on vacation in the Bahamas. I like to think, being the Superman fan he is, he’s retreated to his own built-to-scale Fortress of Solitude in the Arctic for a little bit of alone time.
Cage has spent much of the aughts making movies that forced his long-time fans to wonder what exactly they liked about him in the first place. His most recent paycheck movie, “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice,” pulled a disappearing act of its own from theaters last month. To his credit, he managed to build up a little bit of goodwill among his fanbase within the past year, appearing in “Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans” and “Kick-Ass,” but his riskier projects are generally pretty few and far between. The forthcoming “Drive Angry” sounds like bilge. And a third “National Treasure” is in the works.
It was in bad form for Cage to quit the film, but then again, he’s probably doing his fans a favor. So for that I thank him.
-Brad Lohan
Aug
2
Two years ago, a section of the Universal Studios backlot caught fire, and the King Kong attraction on the tram tour burned to the ground. It was a wonderfully analog part of the Universal tour. The tram would enter a soundstage and cross a bridge that’s being attacked by the 30-foot-tall ape with banana breath. It wasn’t anywhere near as high-concept as the now-defunct Kongfrontation ride at Universal Orlando, where gondola riders are being evacuated from Manhattan during a lengthy Kong attack. But the attraction at Universal Studios Hollywood was always like visiting an old friend. Well, until it was reduced to ash anyway.
After the studio got over its initial reticence to rebuild the attraction, Universal drafted filmmaker Peter Jackson, who’d directed the bloated 2005 remake of “King Kong,” to work some of his magic on a brand new encounter with the big hairy ape. And now, some two years later, Kong has returned to the backlot tour in style in “King Kong 360 3D.”
I have an annual pass for Universal Studios, and I happened to be in the neighborhood last Saturday. So, I bounced over to the park and got in line for the backlot tour. Before the Kong attraction was added, the wait time usually hovered around 15 to 20 minutes. I stood in line for over an hour and a half this time. It was insane. But, it was worth it.
“King Kong 360 3D” is better than I expected, and I expected one hell of a ride to begin with. Jackson’s “King Kong” is a seemingly interminable film. But, to the director’s credit, the King Kong action in the movie is spectacular. The ride at Universal is on par with the bone-crunching and vertigo-inducing chaos from the film, as the tram is attacked by Tyrannosaurus Rexes (or V-rexes or whatever the hell) before Kong swoops in to save the day. The 3D effects are astonishing. The tram enters an auditorium with an IMAX screen on either side, making it seem as though you’re actually on a Skull Island safari. Once all hell breaks loose, you feel the impact as the tram’s attacked by hungry dinos that rip and tear at the vehicle before Kong comes to the rescue. He hurdles the tram (twice), and beats the snot out of the thunder lizards; you can actually feel them hissing and spitting on you.
Because the action’s happening all around you, it’s impossible to take it all in during your first trip through. The tour guide even said that different cars have slightly different experiences. Had the tram tour not been closed for the day by the time we got back, I might’ve gone again. It’s now my favorite attraction at the park, even trumping “Jurassic Park: The Ride.”
Welcome back, King Kong.
-Brad Lohan