Gee, This Looks Low. &trade

The Love Guru
Paramount Pictures
Starring: Mike Myers
Director: Marco Schnabel

Wayne Campbell.
Austin Powers.
Shrek.

All of these wonderful characters have been brought to us by the comedic genius of Mike Myers. But now, he has recently invented the Guru Pitka; an American raised outside of the country who returns to rule the self-help business with an iron fist.




This film has already sparked some controversy in India for his portrayal of the main character. I didn't hear the Scots getting angry at Fat Bastard, so something must be wrong with this flick. Hockey? Gurus and hockey? I know Myers is a native Canadian and hockey is a way of life up there, but will this film beat out Wayne's World or any of the Austin Powers films? Or be as memorable? I think not.



I could be stoned by my cinephile colleagues for saying this, but it is quite possible Justin Timberlake may be the one saving grace of this film. Or he could help dig the grave deeper for this sad picture. He's been testing his limits with his choices in characters as of late, and I'll be routing for him.

Pitka's Karma is Huge. But my tao is telling me to pass by this one. He ain't randy, he ain't green, and this film doesn't look far out at all.

The Love Guru opens in theaters on Friday, June 20th.

A fun, but not very scary, Nightmare

Nightmare Man
After Dark Horrorfest 2007
Directed by Rolfe Kanefsky
Paradign Pictures

In November of 2006, After Dark Films began a horror film festival that put 8 independent movies into theaters so the masses could experience something different from the Hollywood drivel that's been released recently. Unfortunately, as they only released certain films to certain theaters and all on the same week, I was unable to see or choose any. I was elated when they were released on DVD the following March. I purchased them all and enjoyed them quite a bit. This past November of 2007, After Dark repeated the festival with a new crop of Films to Die For...and released them on DVD March 18th. Being the resident horror geek, I'm on the job.

Nightmare Man is my first After Dark 2007 film. It stars Blythe Metz as Ellen, a woman who orders a fertility mask from Italy (which imported said mask from Africa) and is appalled to discover that the thing is hideous. She tosses it aside and plans to later call the shipping company, certain that there's been a mistake. The audience is then treated to an unsettling scene in which the power goes off in her home and she is stalked by someone in the dark. This stalking culminates in an attack on Ellen by what appears to be a frightening demon.

Now, rest easy, these are not spoilers...this, in fact, only described perhaps the first 7min of the film. The rest of the movie focuses on Ellen's fear of the demon that attacked her and her husband's (Luciano Szafir) disbelief in the monster. Bill, Ellen's oh-so-supportive husband, is driving her to a hospital where she can get some rest and help. Unfortunately, he forgot to fill the gas tank and the car runs out of fuel...shocking, I know. What ensues after he leaves to get some gas is another attack by the demon who supposedly exists only in Ellen's head and a chase through the woods (what, you thought they stalled out on a main road?! Pssh.) to a house where four friends unsuspectedly play Truth or Dare. They are attacked by Ellen's demon and a fight to protect themselves becomes the new focus of the film. There are a few twists and turns in the movie, but nothing we haven't seen before. The end of the film will definitely get you laughing, though - an amusing sequence AND a cameo by Richard Moll of Night Court fame!

Nightmare Man is certainly not a high-caliber horror flick. The chase scene through the woods is far too long and you start hoping the demon would just catch up with her already to end the agony...your agony, not hers. The Truth or Dare friends, led by Mia (Tiffany Shepis), are both amusing and annoying, depending on what dialogue escapes their lips. In fact, Shepis is really the only entertaining actor in the entire film. Her sarcasm isn't witty, that's for sure, but you definitely chuckle at most of her lines. She becomes the tough girl of the film while Ellen is subdued on the couch. Metz's performance as Ellen is rather dry and goofy - like I said earlier, you don't really want her to survive, but her character delivers some seriously funny situations toward the end of the film. The focus of the film shifts too frequently for you to really take it seriously, and the dialogue is certainly not Pulitzer-Prize winning material. In general, the movie is more like a late-night Cinemax film than something Fangoria would rave about. Probably fitting, as Tiffany Shepis has been in a number of Emmanuelle movies. Hrm.

Bottom line, Nightmare Man is a fun horror movie to watch for some empty laughs and entertainment, but will not give you nightmares.


Available on DVD now.

If you're half right, you'll be a genius.

Frank Capra said that.

And movies about making movies always sparks interest. Shadow of the Vampire proved a fruitful and frightening picture, while Living in Oblivion pays tribute to the independent filmmaker and the panic that can ensue on a set. And with this year's The Man In The Chair, generations will clash when seniors and high schoolers unite to make the next celluloid masterpiece.



It is being claimed as Christopher Plummer's "tour-de-force." As an oldie to Hollywood, he pesters cinema goers with his warehouse of worthless celluloid knowledge, while choking down Wild Turkey to his failing liver. Priceless quotes from Hollywood Legends will spark this film and keep it moving, as well as the old senile approach to filmmaking versus the recklessness of youth.

I am unsure as to be more intrigued by Plummer's character, or in the Black Irish sensation, Michael Angarano. This young actor is really carving out a niche for himself, rivaling the likes of Emile Hirsch and Ben Foster. He's got the range, the look, and the talent that projected him into the spotlight when he played the young Red Pollard in Seabiscuit. His leap into a South Boston teenager longing for the approval of his father in Irish is admirable for his age.

Combined with the efforts of seniors M. Emmett Walsh and Robert Wagner, this film looks to paint a rather hopeful picture for the future of cinema. It has taken over a decade for Michael Schroeder to escape the stigma of productions he directed like the Cyborg films, but the vision and execution pre-viewed from the trailer alone screams depth and meaning. Welcome back, Schroeder.



The Man In The Chair comes to video on April 1st, 2008.

Don't expose yourself to Shutter

Shutter
20th Century Fox

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. I have only one for this movie: "YAWN."

Recently, I posted a blog about Hollywood's love affair with the horror movie remake. This particular little gem is part of the epidemic of Asian horror remakes. You know the ones... The Ring really started the onslaught. That's one remake I didn't mind at all -- thought it was wonderfully scary and entertaining. The Ring made me go searching through the plethora of Japanese horror flicks, resulting in the location of The Eye and Audition. Both are spectacular, I think. Anyway, for a while, I raved about the talents of the Japanese for producing horror until I realized something very disheartening -- the Japanese have the same problem we do - nothing is different, nothing is new.

After The Ring, we had The Grudge - which creeped some people out; it only made me afraid of small Asian boys who meow at me. Being as this is America, there's no surprise that The Ring 2 and The Grudge 2 followed shortly thereafter. We were then hit with Dark Water, Pulse, One Missed Call, The Eye, and other terrible Hollywood versions of Asian films. You'll notice the remake of The Eye in that list. When I mentioned it earlier, I meant the original....not the Jessica Alba thing. All of these movies feature some young girl with dark hair who lurks in corners and wreaks havoc on the lives of the main characters. Sometimes there are children involved, but typically, you're faced with a young twenty-something girl who has been wronged in some way.

Shutter is the latest in the Asian remake craze. These movies are like a bad sinus infection that just won't go away. I, unfortunately, cannot speak to the original film (from Thailand, this time), because I have yet to receive it from Netflix. Our Americans-in-Japan version, starring Joshua Jackson and Rachael Taylor, was released today and, being the resident horror buff, off I went to see it, hoping for something good. No such luck.

Shutter follows two newlyweds to Tokyo, the location of Ben Shaw's (Jackson) new job. He is a photographer who does model shoots and advertisements, I expect - it's never really addressed, as it's not really important. His darling wife, Jane (Taylor), is exploring Tokyo for the first time and is getting used to her new life with her husband. Driving along the road one evening, they hit a girl who - prepare yourself for this BRAND NEW ELEMENT - disappears. The pair continues to their honeymoon, then to Ben's new job. Ben forgets the incident; Jane is freaked out (as I think most of us would be) and can't let go of this girl who vanished after the accident.

The focus of the film is on the photographs being taken throughout. There appears to be a glitch in the film....perhaps it's in the camera itself. Whatever the trouble, there are flaws in the photographs. Jane begins to delve into the idea of spiritual photography - photos in which spirits appear, trying to get messages somehow to the others in the shots. What unravels for the rest of this 85min snoozefest is a cliched haunting of our fresh-faced bride and groom and an even more cliched mystery to solve that involves an Asian woman with long dark hair that hangs in her face all too often....shocking, I know.

The one saving grace to this film...and it's not much...it the ending. The big reveal is interesting and justice is served...or is it? Again, another slight cliche in the resolution of this one, but how could you present a cliched remake of an Asian film without a cliched ending?

Unfortunately, this film is not worth your $10.00 at the cinema. Nor is it worth the discount movie ticket I had to give up. It's not even worth the bargain $2.50 you might pay at a value cinema near you.

Another word has occurred to me that shows what this picture is worth: "UGH." Shut your eyes to this one, folks.

...and here's hoping the remake of Prom Night (Apr 11th) is a little better.

Shutter is playing in theaters now.

Not With A Whimper... Kelly's Tales.

Southland Tales
Directed by Richard Kelly

Richard Kelly's Donnie Darko left us questioning our own meager existences. Despite our weaknesses, setbacks and flaws, can we all be destined for true enlightenment and help others? The same questions coincide with his latest film, Southland Tales.



Texas has been nuked in a strike against America; the second terrorist attack inside of ten years. It is a time for further change in the country? Are the people ready to hand over more of their civil rights for the "safety" of the country? All while in our desperate search for an alternative fuel, one magical "right-under-our-noses" cure has finally been discovered by the latest mega-conglomerate of scientists.

Political Satire.
Psychological Thriller.
Contemporary Musical.
Pre-Apocalyptic Fore-Telling.
And Even a Time-Travel Movie?

As most cinema-goers know, Kelly's films are of the "love it" or "hate it" genre. He pushes the really big questions about life and existence, and if most of us are even worthy of living a full one. He further drives the "what-if" situations in our heads, and does not hold back. For every liberty we hand over, the more we offer ourselves up as controlled slaves and statistics of those higher-ups who are feeding off our non-escapable drowning lives.

Dwayne Johnson (losing "The Rock" title for the first time in his cinematic appearances) carries the film and shows his range even further. His muscles aren't so important this time around. He plays an actor, recently stricken with a bout of amnesia, struggling to piece the last few days together while he seeks solace in the arms of a porn star (Sarah Michelle Gellar), believing the two of them have had a steady relationship for quite some time. Coupled with a side story featuring Sean William Scott, whose dramatic acting matches his comedic style, it shows the silent sacrifice a world would make to not be dependent on fossil fuels.

This film is littered with cameos from all walks of celluloid life, even featuring some returning actors from Darko. Tales, like Kelly's previous film, is not meant to have the story and ideas spoon-fed to you. This film requires a small bit of brain power to understand its message and follow the story. If you are expecting a War of the Worlds film with a smaller budget, you are missing it entirely.

To lay it all out a little better for you, Kelly has released three graphic novels (Chapters 1, 2 and 3), which better illustrate the events leading up to the film, which starts at Chapter 4. Love It or Hate It. But as long as you've received the loud and clear message of Richard Kelly, his job is done. Nothing comes easy, and sometimes the truth hurts.

Have A Nice Apocalypse.

The horror....the horror...

I've called myself a lot of things regarding my passion for movies -- movie geek, vault of useless trivial knowledge -- but I think the most accurate description is purist. What's ironic here is that my preferred genre is horror, which has become the cloudiest, grainest, most turbid category of them all. Nothing in horror is pure anymore; perhaps it hasn't been in decades, seeing as the idea of sequels gained most of its strength and adoration from horror fans. However, it's not the sequel that causes the voice of Joseph Conrad's Mr. Kurtz (or, perhaps, Brando's Col. Kurtz of Apocalypse Now) to echo in my mind. No, the greatest pain to the horror purist is the one trend more frightening than any bump in the night, any cursed Indian burial ground, or any crazed psycho killer: the horror remake is what causes me to wake up screaming in the night.

Each new crop of horror directors (Tod Browning, James Whale, George Romero, John Carpenter, Tobe Hooper, Wes Craven) has brought the genre into a new echelon. The reason each boom of horror has been so great is because it brought something new into the genre. Herein lies the problem: the current boom in horror is exactly the opposite - nothing is new anymore -- all is remakes.



This was okay for a while....Dracula has been remade countless times, sometimes with actual improvements. The classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers of the sci-fi genre was remade in 1978 - a version many prefer to the original (the new Invasion with Nicole Kidman, however, was definitely terrible). In the 70s, top-of-the-line makeup and special effects were beginning to become essesential to the horror film and greats like Tom Savini were invaluable in the 80s. So updating older films was an exciting venture - a way to take an old story and make it frightening to a new generation. Take movies that weren't great to begin with (except for making your date jump into your lap in fear) and remake them into truly terrifying films! Dark Castle really jump-started the trend by remaking House on Haunted Hill, an original Vincent Price classic. The effects in this film are great, Geoffrey Rush seems to be channelling the late Price himself, and there are genuine scares...the one major fault is the ending - yet there WAS no ending in the original....what can ya do? Dark Castle then moved on to remake 13 Ghosts. As much as I adore the original - you could see the strings carrying the ghosts past the camera!! - the special effects, again, made this remake into what it is - an awesome, fun ride with some really cool makeup. Even the new version of George Romero's Dawn of the Dead brought the wit, horror, and camp of the original to a remake that was just as funny as it was frightening....(my favorite is when the baby zombie looks up and goes, "BLEH!")

Old movies that were campy to begin with are ripe for remaking. The problem here is that Hollywood has begun to search for new opportunities in remake-land. Producers have lost their originality and have begun remaking movies that are classics because they are perfect the way they are. I will, only in passing, bring up Gus Van Sant's Psycho. I don't want to frighten you too much. And then there's that disgusting version of When a Stranger Calls. That crap was taken from the first 20minutes (I swear...no exaggeration) of the original and stretched into 87min of my life that I can't get back. Truly terrifying.

One cause for this trend? Ignorance. Hollywood's favorite demographic is boys in their late teens and 20s and boys love a gorefest. They want action and chaos and something to put their dates in their laps, cowering from the screen....some things never change, I guess. They, however, don't KNOW the original films!!! This drives them to the theater thinking these movies are first-timers, and the more gore, the happier these audiences are.

Being one of the girls who has known guys to cover their eyes from the screen in her prescence, I have asked for nothing less than to be entertained and surprised, gore or no gore. There is no surprise with these remakes, save for the senseless changes in plot. The Haunting (1999) took a brilliant book, The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson - which partly inspired Stephen King to write The Shining - and remade the 1963 film. This movie was so ridiculous, its effects and big-budget stars were blown out of the box office by a little-known Sundance darling that took complete unknowns, half-scripts, and handheld cameras and scared the pants off of its audiences - The Blair Witch Project. Guess why....it was NEW. It was DIFFERENT. It was based in what all quality horror movies water down to - the UNKNOWN.



The most truly frightening aspect of the remake plague in the horror genre is that greed has pushed Hollywood to remake those films that remade the genre. When Jennifer Lopez attempted to remake Casablanca with Ben Affleck, the whole film world almost had an aneurism. But remake Tobe Hooper's Texas Chain Saw Massacre? SURE! How about The Amityville Horror? NO PROBLEM. These two films, from the late 70s, were two of the most brilliant and frightening of the genre...they still are. Then, because remakes like these were hitting it big with an audience ignorant to their originals - someone sold his soul to the Devil and gave Rob Zombie the green light for a remake of Halloween. This man doesn't know how to make an original film. House of 1000 Corpses, his first film, was ripped off from Texas Chain Saw Massacre. But it was gory -- those teenaged boys love their gore....



I consider Halloween (2007) to be the official beginning of the end. Carpenter's classic babysitter-stalking killer has been reduced to the oldest cliche of the 90s --- what? You didn't know that Michael Myers was picked on as a kid??? Please. So now, we are facing a plethora of travesties. Hellraiser (2009) is in production -- minus Doug Bradley, who played Pinhead in EVERY Hellraiser film. The Thing and The Fly, both remade once already, are on the slate. The Evil Dead, The Last House on the Left, Pet Sematary, and The Wolf Man are also coming. There's a Friday the 13th movie, but I'm still not sure about that being a remake or a sequel - the 11th, if you count Freddy vs. Jason.


Entertainment Weekly's latest issue says Rosemary's Baby is being worked out now. These movies are 30 years old, true, but they are fantastic for what they are. Will they remake Jaws? The Godfather? Perhaps Star Wars needs some updating. Shall we try remaking more Hitchcock? I'm not looking forward to the inevitable....they already remade The Omen. If Rosemary is on the block next....The Exorcist can't be far behind....

Hollywood is on a roll...Shutter (opening Mar 21) is a remake of a movie made in Thailand; Prom Night (Apr 11) starred one of the original scream queens, Jaime Lee Curtis. There are more of these things coming...some good, some bad....but as far as I see it...."remake" has become a dirty word.

Oh, and did I mention a remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street is in the works? Yeah....WITHOUT Robert Englund. Blasphemy. Pure blasphemy.

2 blockbusters + 1 potential controversy = 1 crazy summer

So, I was scouring this Interweb thingie, looking for some info on a few movies that will be coming out this summer, when all of a sudden, I stumbled upon this picture, a screenshot from an upcoming action-comedy called Tropic Thunder (apologies to my 4th-grade teacher for the run-on sentence):



Now, obviously, that's Ben Stiller up front (looking like Zoolander and Rambo's bastard offspring), and that's Jack Black taking up the rear with a blonde dye-job (and some kick-ass shades). But who's that in the middle? If he looks familiar, readers, it's probably because his face is going to be everywhere this summer, including in the preceding post. That's right, folks! It's everyone's favorite Iron Man, Robert Downey, Jr., in a hell of a make-up job.

Obviously, Downey will make a killing this summer with the Iron Man movie (and has already stated his willingness to do multiple sequels), so it's very intriguing to see him take a role that involves him wearing blackface. Such an act will no doubt lead to controversy, particularly due to the long history of racial tension that comes with the make-up. In the early days on cinema, white men wore blackface and became extremely stereotypical exaggerations on African-Americans. Indeed, sometimes even black actors were forced to wear blackface (like in D.W. Griffith's notorious epic Birth of a Nation) in order to emphasize and reinforce the stereotypes. In more recent times, attempts by white actors to "become" black were either laughably bad (Michael Richards in Whoops Apocalypse), outright criticized (Ted Danson's infamous Friars Club appearance), or a combination of the two (C. Thomas Howell in Soul Man).

So, it's safe to say that the tightrope Robert is walking here is an extremely thin and shaky one. There are already rumblings of potential outcry and protests, and we're still 5 months away from the movie's premiere. In the worst-case scenario, this could possibly affect even Iron Man's box office, depending on how far it goes. Sure, Robert Downey, Jr., is a hell of an actor, and should be a lot of fun to watch in Iron Man (as well as his brief appearance in The Incredible Hulk). I wonder if he took the role in Tropic Thunder because he knew his first film this summer was a guaranteed box-office smash, and maybe he wanted to try something a bit (read: very, very) different. Personally, I don't think this role will hurt the box office for either of the Marvel adaptations, but this movie could either be hurt by Robert Downey in blackface (for the aforementioned racial overtones) or could actually give the film a boost (simply for the "Oh, I have got to see this" factor). Even Mr. Downey himself said that it'll either be very successful and well-done, or "we're going to Hell". Either way, it's going to be a wild summer for Mr. Downey; just how wild depends upon what kind of reaction his performance in Tropic Thunder will elicit from the audience.

Maybe it would help if we discuss the plot a bit. A bunch of self-absorbed actors and crew go about making a movie about Vietnam. When the film goes over budget, the studio tries to shut down the production. However, the director (played by Steve Coogan) decides to go rogue, and keeps filming, eventually relocating the actors and crew deeper into the jungles of Southeast Asia, only for everyone to discover that they have now stepped into a literal war zone. So now the actors have to actually go to war. Downey does play a white actor, named Kirk Lazarus, who takes the role that was originally written for a black man, Sgt. Osiris. Of course, there is already another African-American in the cast (Brandon Jackson, formerly from BET), so I'm assuming there will be more than a few racially-motivated jokes tossed between the two characters. Granted, this could be funny, but I hope they didn't create Lazarus simply for that reason alone; there are few things in movies more frustrating than a character that's created simply to be provocative. As I said, it's still months away - there isn't even a formal trailer available - so a lot of this is all conjecture at this point. We shall see in August.

On the whole, the movie looks like it will be entertaining. The cast includes Stiller, Black, Coogan, Nick Nolte, and has cameos from, among others, Tobey Maguire and Tom Cruise. The website for the movie, http://www.tropicthunder.com/, has some funny clips from the film (NOTE: You do have to be 17 to see the site, though. Not my rule.) and gives a good overview of the film. I just worry that this racial issue will be the thing that draws all the publicity and attention, and not the film itself.

But hey, this is Hollywood. Any publicity is good publicity, right?