Now, don’t get me wrong. I like Muppets. “Meet the Feebles” is easily my favorite Muppet movie. But I think that the midnight movie circuit is not the place for PG-rated commercial Hollywood films. If they’re PG-rated commercial Hollywood films that bombed but have a devoted cult following, like “Clue” for instance, I’m cool with that. Looking at the IMDb page for “Labyrinth,” it appears the film grossed less than half of its production budget, making it a clunker. So forget what I just said. “Labyrinth” still shouldn’t run at midnight.

But why do I care? Well, movies like “Labyrinth” and “The Neverending Story” and “The Dark Crystal” stink up too many revival houses in L.A. I don’t want to watch that stupid bullshit. I wanna watch real midnight movies. Every Friday night they’re showing another foam latex fantasy flick is a night they’re not showing a genuine exploitation movie.

Oh, but “Labyrinth” has David Bowie in it! Yeah, well, Mick Jagger had David Bowie in him, and I don’t count myself as the world’s biggest Stones fan. Oh, but “Labyrinth” has a young Jennifer Connelly in it! Yeah, and so does Dario Argento’s “Creepers,” but I don’t think that’s on gloom cookie Naomi’s must-see list.

Whenever a Muppet movie plays at midnight, I die inside a little. It’s another Friday evening that goes to waste, as a revival house goes soft and caters to the weenis demographic.

-Brad Lohan

When I fall in love with a franchise, I fall hard. I collect all manner of dumb bullshit associated with the film cycle. Currently, I own three out of the four “Star Trek” glasses from Burger King. I got a free t-shirt at the 12:01 am screening of the movie earlier this month. I’m even holding out hope that I’ll someday meet a green-skinned chick that I can add to my menagerie.

I’ve always been a collector. Toys, comics, DVDs, apparel, drinkware — I love all manner of useless crap that does not impress women. Last night I shaved with a Wolverine Quattro razor. Now that I have more discretionary income, not to mention an eBay account, I don’t have to wait for my birthday or Christmas to roll around, like I did when I was a kid, to add to my collection.

But what happens when a franchise starts to go stale? I own “X3: X-Men United,” but I can’t see myself giving it a spin again. If I lived closer to Amoeba Music — the puppy lake for DVDs I no longer wish to own — I’d probably sell it back as I did with “Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines.” It’s a sin against completism, I know. Still, I can’t see myself shelling out money for movies and other ancillary junk that belong to a creatively bankrupt film series.

So does that make me an incompletist? I mean, I own “Basic Instinct 2: Risk Addiction” on DVD. I have a fairly high tolerance for misfires, all things being equal. But one can only love a franchise so much before having to let it go.

-Brad Lohan

At any rate, the show’s been off the air for several years now. A subsequent comic book series picked up where the show had left off. I read about three or four issues before I finally came to the conclusion there was no way in hell I was ever going to appreciate this material in any medium. There’s also been talk for awhile about another feature film for years. Funnily enough, the original 1992 Kristy Swanson film — also starring “90210″ dreamboat Luke Perry! — was a bomb at the box office, a rather ignonimous start for the cult franchise. Now it’s looking like a “Buffy” film might actually happen, according to IMDb. Just don’t expect Whedon or Sarah Michelle Gellar or any the cast of the TV series to be involved.

That rattling fart you’re hearing right now is the entire fanbase collectively shitting themselves. Even as a non-fan, I’m a little irked by this decision. It’s not as though the property is thirty years old and in need of straight reboot. That said, Paramount made ten “Star Trek” films, using the same cast from one series or the other before relaunching the brand. However, I’ve come to realize that no creative decision is too ill-advised for Hollywood. More often than not, it seems that the dumber ideas are the ones more likely to reach the big screen.

I wonder if that means Kristy Swanson will play Buffy again.

-Brad Lohan

Oddly, the approach the film takes is something I’d wanted to see for some time: the original crew in their early days at the Starfleet Academy. But I was a hard sell nonetheless on director JJ Abrams’ take. The trailers made the film look more like a “Star Wars” prequel than a “Star Trek” prequel. It seemed to be all sizzle and no steak. “Star Trek” is about ideas rather than spectacle. I was afraid that the franchise had been Michael Bay-ified. Still, I can’t quit certain properties, so I knew I’d see the film no matter what.

“Star Trek” — incidentally, the first film in the series to not have a subtitle — does indeed go where no previous installment has gone before. It’s a breathlessly paced sci-fi actioner, yet it doesn’t betray the spirit of the original series. It still feels like a “Star Trek” movie, a “Star Trek” movie supercharged on Red Bull, but a “Star Trek” movie nonetheless. Yes, it repurposes Gene Roddenberry’s creation for a contemporary audience. It’s not an embarrassment, though. In fact, it’s something you’d really have to try hard not to enjoy.

The film retcons previous “Trek” continuity, but the retcon is built into the story. This isn’t so much a prequel, since these characters exist in an alternate timeline, one where James Kirk’s father died while trying to save the crew of the USS Kelvin after being attacked by a Romulan ship from the future. Without a father, Jim Kirk (Chris Pine) grows up to be a listless yet brilliant young man. He’s talked into joining Starfleet by Captain Pike (Bruce Greenwood) and proves to be a quick study. However, when he changes the rules of the Kobayashi Maru no-win scenario, he’s nearly booted out of Starfleet. A distress call comes in from the planet Vulcan, and Kirk stows away aboard the Enterprise with the help of Dr. Leonard McCoy (Karl Urban). The Enterprise soon encounters the same Romulan starship that destroyed the Kelvin 25 years ago and is now about to implode the homeworld of the science officer, Mr. Spock (Zachary Quinto). And this is only the first act of the film.

The pace of the movie helps to smooth over some of the quantum leaps in logic, like what the hell has Nero — the heavily tattooed captain of the Romulan vessel, played by Eric Bana — been doing for the past two and a half decades, apart from waiting until Kirk is a grown man? The script by Robert Orci and Alex Kurtzman definitely could’ve used a polish. But this was a “strike movie,” so Abrams had to do the best with what he had while the WGA members were on the picket lines. As far as “strike movies” go, “Star Trek” is much more entertaining than, say, “Quantum of Solace” or last weekend’s “Wolverine.”

I also had some problems with how Kirk winds up in the captain’s chair. It seemed unearned to me, that he simply became captain by virtue of being a bigger douce than Spock. More, I didn’t feel Chris Pine’s performance as Kirk was as strong as Quinto’s Spock or Urban’s McCoy. He didn’t have Kirk’s cool confidence or wry humor. The resemblance isn’t there, either. Maybe a repreat viewing will allow me to accept someone else in the role.

Despite my quibbles, I had quite a good time with this film. It revitalizes the franchise and makes “Star Trek” accessible to folks who don’t have a Federation uniform hanging in their closets. I have to say I’m interested in seeing where the series boldy goes from here.

-Brad Lohan

“The Mutant Chronicles,” which sounds like a newspaper for the hideously deformed, is apparently based on a role-playing game — a big red flag there. Had I known the film’s origins were some pencil and paper RPG, I’d have steered clear. Even I don’t waste time with role-playing games, and I like some geeky shit. I mean, I went out of my way to get Joan Severance’s autograph last weekend because I own “Black Scorpion” on DVD. But I digress.

At any rate, the film is set in the 28th century, something I gathered from the poster, not the lengthy voiceover — another red flag — at the top of the film. Tom Jane plays a soldier in a privatized army that’s engaged in trench warfare with another privatized army on the Eastern European border. During a sequence that should not be used as a good example for how to maintain screen direction, one army or the other breaks open this giant manhole cover in the earth and unleashes a horde of mutants. The mutants then carve up most of the soldiers with their scimitar-shaped right hands. Tom Jane’s character manages to escape, so he can be doughy and brooding for the remainder of the film.

Ron Perlman plays a monk or something with encyclopedic knowledge of the mutants and their mutant-making machine, a device that’s kept underground and needs to be destroyed or else there would be no movie. Although Earth’s being evacuated, Perlman’s character inexplicably assembles a team of ragtag soldiers, including Jane’s character, to destroy the mutants’ Easy Bake Oven. It should be pointed out that I had no idea the machine turned people into mutants until late in the film when Jane’s character falls into it, but manages to easily escape. He’s sort of a half-mutant from that point on. Oh, and the way you destroy the machine is by putting a bomb in a relief that’s been specifically carved into the machine for someone to put a bomb.

The movie was shot on a digital backlot, but unlike “Sin City” or “300,” it’s uglier than that Scottish woman who looks like Colm Meaney but can sing really well. All the money the filmmakers saved on building sets they instead pissed away on the cruddiest looking post-apocalypse I’ve ever seen. “Mutant Chronicles” falls into that quirky sub-genre known as “steampunk,” so everything is coal-fired. Steampunk more or less reached its cultural apex with the final scene in “Back to the Future III.” Since then, we’ve had “Wild Wild West” and this film. Steampunk can go eff itself.

“The Mutant Chronicles” is not a noble failure. It isn’t a movie with a reach that exceeds its grasp. Rather, it’s one of those movies where you get the sense that the people behind the camera had never actually seen a film before they started shooting. It’s a two-hour fan film, a shittily made valentine to a retarded RPG. You’d have to be a mutant to enjoy this.

-Brad Lohan

The book, however, convinced me to finally pick up Troma’s latest film, “Poultrygeist,” on DVD. The 3-disc set includes a feature-length documentary on the making of the film. “Poultry in Motion” is actually a much better movie than “Poultrygeist.” It’s a warts-and-all behind-the-scenes doc that makes Christian Bale’s recent on-set rant seem like a stifled yawn. Working on a Troma movie looks like a complete nightmare. Almost everyone’s doing their jobs for free and on an empty stomach for up to 18 hours at a stretch. Miscommunication abounds, meaning actors sit around in full makeup all day without being used. Tempers flare under the pressure and intense summer heat. Special effects done on the cheap don’t work. Morale is always low. Most crew members — and some of the cast — end up walking.

Funnily enough, “Poultry in Motion” is the third making-of doc that Troma’s released after “Farts of Darkness: The Making of ‘Terror Firmer’” and “Apocalypse Soon: The Making of ‘Citizen Toxie.’” I applaud Kaufman for his willingness to show himself being a major asshole on set. But for a filmmaker with 30 years of experience under his belt, one would assume he’d have learned a thing or two about directing his own damn movies. Rather, I see him making the same mistakes each time.

First of all, he needs a second unit. Most films have two or more units shooting simultaneously, particularly effects movies like “Poultrygeist.” The second unit films all of the stunts, fight sequences, car chases, special FX and so forth — the stuff that can grind filming to a halt if they can’t get a shot off. Rarely will there only be one unit on an effects film. Guillermo Del Toro and Christopher Nolan literally direct every shot in their movies, but they have A-list crews and much larger budgets.

Second, Kaufman needs to feed everyone. The novelty of making a zombie movie with lesbians wears off pretty quickly. I understand that Kaufman’s working on a tight budget, but unfed cast and crew members are much more likely to walk when the days get long. You can bullshit amateurs into working for free and suggest they’ll be getting valuable experience. But they’ll gladly trade that all experience for a sandwich after going an entire day with nothing to eat.

Third, Kaufman needs to realize he gets what he pays for. People who are willing to work without pay probably don’t have a list of credits on IMDb that’s as long as your arm. They’re all rank amateurs. That isn’t to say they’re incompetent, but there’s going to be a learning curve. Kaufman might have three decades’ worth of experience working on movies. His crew, however, will have to pick it up as they go. They do seem to catch 30 years’ worth of hell during the course of the shoot.

I actually worked on a Troma film a few years ago. Kaufman was doing a day’s worth of pickup shots for a troubled project. I did double-duty as a PA and an extra, so I got to mop up blood between takes and try to avoid looking into the camera during a party scene. I was a little nervous about the shoot, having seen “Farts of Darkness.” But Kaufman kept his cool. I ended up having a great time, and the presence of a totally nude Julie Strain kept morale up. I don’t think I’d ever want to work on a Troma film shoot, though. I’ll just stick to watching the making-of documentaries if I’m ever in to mood for getting Tromatized.

-Brad Lohan

The festival began at 4 pm, meaning that the parking situation would be a right bastard. I’d have had to get to the theater before 4, find a spot on the street, put two hours’ worth of change in the meter, watch “Red Scorpion,” then go back out to my car and put another few minutes’ worth of change into the meter; after 6 pm, street parking is free. I ultimately decided that I didn’t like “Red Scorpion” all that much. So I figured I’d skip the first feature. “Universal Soldier” is a far superior film anyway. Lundgren acts his ass off in that one.

However, the Dolph Lundgren film I was most excited about seeing was “The Punisher.” Made in 1989, the film was originally intended to be released theatrically, but the production company went under. The film was sold to a distribution house that only deals in DTV features. So Hollywood’s first crack at “The Punisher” went straight-to-video. The film was released theatrically overseas. To add insult to injury, the international cut was gorier than the DTV version that I own.

Director Mark Goldblatt was in attendance and had brought the international version of the film with him to the screening. It only lacks the extended prologue, which you can read about on IMDb, but is essentially the “director’s cut” of the film. Being quite fond of the Punisher, I was thrilled to be seeing the definitive edit of the movie on the big screen — twenty years after it had been produced!

Where the 2004 version is tonally all over the place, and the 2008 version is black comedy, the 1989 “Punisher” is a straightforward revenge thriller. I wish Punny would wear a skull insignia on his chest in this one, but even the latter two versions shy away from such a bold fashion statement. I clearly am from another planet in my thinking that a walking arsenal with a bone-white skull insignia emblazoned on his chest is some pants-shitting imagery. That said, at least the filmmakers gave the Punisher a skull-like visage.

The film is the kind of balls-out actioner they don’t make anymore. Having well over a hundred Italian mobsters, the Punisher has created a power vacuum that the Yakuza — the Japanese mafia — try to capitalize on. Apparently, all Yakuza members are skilled in the art of ninjitsu. I thought you just had to cut off your little finger to show your loyalty, but hey, I’m a gaijin, so what do I know? At any rate, the Punisher fights a bunch of regular mobsters and mobsters trained as ninjas. Meanwhile, his former partner, played by Lou Gossett Jr., tries to track him down. It’s not “Citizen Kane.” It’s better.

Goldblatt did a Q&A after the film. It sounded unlikely that the uncut version of the film will ever wind up on DVD in the States, since nobody seems to know who owns the rights. I’m disappointed that I’ll never be able to own that edit of the film. But still, how could I ever hope to recreate something as glorious as a Dolph Lundgren film festival in my own living room?

-Brad Lohan

For the half-dozen of you that saw “Grindhouse” during its theatrical run, you might remember a trailer for “Thanksgiving” between “Planet Terror” and “Death Proof.” Funnily enough, there wasn’t actually a “Thanksgiving” movie that was in the can when “Grindhouse” was released. The trailer was done as a lark to re-created the grindhouse experience. That being the case, the upcoming feature-length version of “Thanksgiving” will be an adaptation of a trailer for a movie that didn’t really exist in the first place. What will they think of next?

I love the “Thanksgiving” trailer. It’s easily Roth’s best work to date. If the movie remains true to the source material, I’ll definitely be thankful for that.

-Brad Lohan

This has been going on for almost five years now. Yes, it’s been a half-decade since “Chronicles of Riddick” came and went from theaters. It was a movie that Universal had hoped would launch a franchise, but “Riddick” kinda sucked and bombed resoundingly at the box office. It’s got a following, people who seem to overlook its brazenly stupid internal logic, yet this cult is hardly robust enough to convince the studio that a sequel is worth greenlighting.

Funnily enough, “Chronicles of Riddick” is a sequel in and of itself. The character of Riddick first appeared in 2000’s “Pitch Black,” a serviceable genre entry that’s only worth watching once. Riddick is a convict aboard a ship that crashes on a blindingly bright desert planet, one that has something like a half-dozen suns. And when all the suns set, these albino alien beasties emerge, presenting a problem for the other ship’s passengers who can’t see in the dark. Riddick, however, had a surgical procedure performed on himself in some intergalactic hoosegow, so now his eyes allow him to see different spectrums of light or whatever. Point is, he’s the only hope for everyone else on the ship to avoid becoming alien food.

I liked the movie okay when I saw it, but the film doesn’t really hold up on repeat viewings. It was enough of a hit, though, that Universal rolled the dice on a follow-up, “Chronicles of Riddick,” that pits the titular character against some outer space religious zealot. The film completely loses me when Riddick and a ragtag band of people are outrunning the light from the rising sun(?!) on a planet that can reach temperatures of 6,000 degrees fahrenheit. I guess the intense heat is much more tolerable in the shade.

Now that “Fast & Furious” is a bona fide hit, Diesel’s once again talking to whomever’s listening about how desperately he’d like to revisit the Riddick character. As an action movie star, Diesel has made a lot of odd choices when it comes to picking projects. He turned down the first sequel to “The Fast and the Furious” to make another franchise starter, “xXx.” Then he turned down the sequel to “xXx” to make another sequel, “Chronicles of Riddick,” which was a flop.

Diesel’s triumphant return to “The Fast & the Furious” franchise has no doubt a large part to do with the fourth film’s success. But one wonders if he should’ve even bothered trying to kick off other franchises or stick with what works. I’d suggest that if he wants to play Riddick again, he should shoehorn him into “Fa5t & Furiou5″ as Dom Toretto’s long lost brother from beyond the stars.

-Brad Lohan

“The Thing” is one of those movies I’ve wanted desperately to see in the theater for some time now. It’s a film that was completely ignored during its original theatrical release, having come out within a week or so of “E.T.” back in ‘82, but quickly developed a following once it was released on video. Rob Bottin’s makeup effects on the film are astonishing, some of the most gruesome body horror I’ve ever seen. And I’ve looked at pictures of Tara Reid in a bikini!

“The Thing” is a paranoid sci-fi thriller set at an research facility “a thousand miles from nowhere” in Antarctica. When the researchers discover that one or more of them might be a host to an alien organism that can imitate another life form, the all-male cast, led by Kurt Russell, does what any all-male cast would do in this type of situation: some serious dick-measuring. This is John Carpenter at his absolute finest. Whenever he and Kurt Russell work together, the end result is genre movie heaven. I’ll even cop to having a soft spot for “Escape From L.A.,” which I saw at the Nuart a couple years ago. That said, I’d love for them to screen “Escape From New York” someday.

But for now, I’ve got at least one “Thing” to look forward to this summer.

-Brad Lohan

*What else would I be doing on a Friday evening, apart from watching 40-year-old French films in an art house theater?