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What Constitutes a Spoiler?

A few episodes ago on the awesome Movie Scum video series we discussed anti-feel-good movies. One of the films that came up was the 2004 remake Dawn of the Dead where I pretty much gave away the ending, saying "Sorry if you haven't seen it, the movie's been out for five years." While we typically try to avoid important plot developments in the reviews that we write, shouldn't there be an agreed upon statute of limitations for what is considered a spoiler? While I was stalking the message boards for A Nightmare on Elm Street 3 , one of the posts was about the death of a fairly important character to the franchise. Admittedly, this character's name was in the title of the post but one of the responses left me absolutely baffled. Usually such a post would contain the word SPOILER in the title, so as not to give the plot away for people who have not yet seen the movie, like me.... Now, ignoring the fact that the movie is over twenty years old at this point,

Unsung Heroes: Joe Estevez

Ever since Mystery Science Theater 3000 made a triumphant return , I have been devouring as many episodes as I can stand. Last night, I indulged in a hapless film about a werewolf, quite originally titled Werewolf , and saw a quasi-familiar name pop up in the opening credits: Joe Estevez . As Mike and the 'bots made a quip about Charlie's uncle being the biggest star in the film, I thought it was just an odd coincidence, not knowing there is an untapped wealth of Estevezes lurking around Hollywood. In Joe's case, I was astonished that he has been featured in close to two hundred films and none of which I have ever seen or even heard of. In fact, the only recognizable title on his resume was Apocolyse Now where he did uncredited voice-over work. I guess just like any other family, you have those with talent and achievement and others who get parts because they look like a haggard Martin Sheen at a fraction of the cost. Its sad that Joe has remained off the radar for th

Music Scum

By Luis Fernández García - Own work, CC BY-SA 2.1 es, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=173732 There has been many a movie based on the lives and careers of musicians and bands. More recently, The Runaways ( about the band of the same name with Joan Jett and Lita Ford ), Notorious ( Notorious B.I.G. ), What We Do is Secret ( Germs ). There are also some classics such as La Bamba (Ritchie Valens), Selena ( Selena Quintanilla-Perez ), Amadeus (Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Antonio Salieri) just to name a small few to demonstrate the broad range of musicians immortalized on film. On the flip side of this, there quite a bit of stories yet to be told with a well produced/directed/acted film. Because I am bored, I have compiled a small list of artists' stories that I would like to see dramatized. 1. Ian MacKaye and the D.C. Hardcore scene. A movie about this could show the formation of possibly hundreds of bands that were a result of this scene or people involve

Skin That Smoke Wagon! Top 9 Movie Fire-Arms

In the real world, guns are dangerous, deadly devices that should always be handled with care and respect. In movies, however, guns are awesome! Even more awesome are the futuristic guns that only exist in frantic, action-packed movie fire fights. Here are my top 9 favorite fictional fire-arms. 9. Blamethrower ( Mystery Men ) The only non-lethal gun on the list, this bazooka-esque heavy weapon, designed and built by Doc Heller, fires an invisible beam that causes groups of enemies to become very angry with one another, rendering them combat-ineffective. 8. M41a Pulse Rifle ( Aliens ) Arguably the most versatile weapon in the space marine arsenal, this gun combines the automatic fire of the M1A1 Thompson with an under-slung pump-action SPAS12 shotgun, loaded in the film with small grenades. 7. Samaritan ( Hellboy ) A big demon that hunts other big demons needs an edge, and Hellboy's massive revolver fits the bill. Not only is the gun itself made from mystical materi

Be Ready to Jump

When the FOX network was just a little girl, she had a delightful program that I rather enjoyed called 21 Jump Street . Stephen J. Cannell was such a genius. If you are only a casual fan of Johnny Depp , or are just not familar with this part of his resume, do yourself a favor and check out a few episodes. But try to remember it took place in the late 80's and early 90's. While he had already been in A Nightmare on Elm Street and a few other things, if you look at his resume, he career pretty much took off after Jump Street. This show was about some cops that looked young enough to pass as a high school students, so they would go undercover and form friendships with troubled youths and tear those friendships in to pieces by revealing that they were cops, and arresting them or their friends. They would tackle serious issues like drug use, AIDS, depression, and others. Fairly often there would be a PSA style message after the show, presented by the actors, ala G.I. Joe. I was a

Most Jarring Recasts

I'm sure you've all been victim to the recast monster. It takes no mercy for greed, on-screen sheninigans, or scheduling conflicts. It has no reason, no sense of remorse, or even common sense. It is willing to break your suspension of disbelief and continuity just for fun. Here are just a few random recastings that I though of which make little to no sense. Victoria - Twilight series Perhaps the most recent of these offenses is Bryce Dallas Howard taking over for Rachelle Lefevre in the third of the Twilight series. The official reason was cited as scheduling conflicts. Obviously having not seen the upcoming Eclipse , I cannot pass judgment on the new interpretation of the Victoria character, but the filmmakers should have exercised a bit more caution when dealing with riled-up 14-year-olds and Twi-moms. They seem to take this stuff seriously. Kristen - Nightmare on Elm Street Part 3 & Part 4 From what I can gather, Patricia Arquette was unable to return to the rol

Reduce, Reuse, Remake!

It's no secret that Hollywood producers are scared to death of original ideas. One just has to look at the past decade of films to see that most big budget movies released in theaters are adaptations of existing stories (novels, short stories, and most recently, comic books) or sequels of successful and some not-so successful films. (seriously, Jumper 2 ?) But now, we are living in the age of the remake, and it pisses me off to no end. Why adapt or continue a good story when you can just take a preexisting movie and re-shoot it? There's already a built-in audience that loves the property, and that audience doesn't have to be worried about coping with new ideas or unexpected plot twists. Just look at the release line-up for 2010 and 2011. It's packed full of “new” movies that are remakes of classics, remakes of foreign films, and, most absurdly, remakes of remakes. I'll forgive that some older movies like Fritz Lang's Metropolis from 1927 might benefit from a

News Roundup: Week of 1/8/10

TWISTER 2: Twistin' The Night Away?!?!? This is a movie that would work well in 3D. While the original was certainly not the pinnacle of disaster movies, it was rather fun. I support this. 'Zombieland' Scribes to Tackle 'G.I. Joe' Sequel? While PBF may have disappoved of their previous cinematic entry, the positives of Zombieland may give these guys yet another chance . 'District 9' Prequel is Possible As prequels generally are not that interesting, if this has a good mix of the initial human/alien integration and how things lead to the events of District 9 , it might make for a good film ... or a really bad cash-in. 'The Thing' Prequel Begins Lensing This March I will fully admit that The Thing is not a perfect movie, but it was damn fine but I cannot see how a remake will add anything to the excellence of its predecessor. Actually, the fact that there is going to be a remake of a remake of a remake is rather funny .

And the 3D Train Keeps Chugging Along

The collective filmgeeks of the world cheered when it was announced that Darren Aronofsky would be helming a remake of 1987's RoboCop as an attempt to breathe life into this once great franchise which has fallen mightily. However, the production company's financial woes not only have resulted in the film being pushed back but may even cost the world a semi-decent remake of a beloved film. The near-defunct MGM has dictated to Aronofsky that the reboot shall be made in 3D or else. Having a scant, but still highly lauded, number of titles to his name, Aronofsky does not seem to be a guy to make a movie for the money. As such, the presumed director is more than willing to walk as opposed to making a movie he does not want to. As I have previously asked , what is the big f-in deal with movies in 3D? Sure, it may work for gimmicky horror movies like My Bloody Valentine or Friday the 13th Part III with axes and eyeballs careening toward the audience, but short of the totally

Random Movie: Avatar (2009)

No one can deny that the trucker turned film-maker James Cameron has been one of Hollywood's biggest movers and shakers of the last several decades. Movies like Aliens , The Abyss , and Terminator 2 have not only cemented Cameron's name in the halls of movie history, but were also big parts of my childhood, shaping my expectations of how amazing a science fiction film could be. After a twelve year hiatus and some deep sea documentaries, Cameron returns to the director's chair for his new sci-fi opus, Avatar . The story is fairly simple. A paraplegic space marine named Jake Sully ( Sam Worthington ) is dispatched to the alien world of Pandora, where a corporate mining operation is trying to gather a rare and expensive mineral ore. The planet is filled with giant, aggressive creatures, chief among these being an intelligent tribal culture called the Na'vi. To avoid violence, the company's scientists, headed by Doctor Grace Augustine ( Sigourney Weaver ) have engi

Random Movie: G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (2009)

This movie is a piece of shit. I am actually angry at it. I am angry that it looked at me in the face, and had the balls to fucking show me the things it showed me. You want to know where I rank this movie in it's genre? In the same bracket as Super Mario Bros. and Street Fighter . Not the animated Street Fighter; the live action one. The one where Guile, an American, is played by a Belgian who can barely speak English. Here's the skinny on the plot of G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra : There are warheads that have nanomites in them. Nanomites eat metal (and everything else, but emphasis was placed on the eating of metal). They also can do other things, such as reconstruct faces and push the venom of a cobra right back out of a person's arm. They can also be used in mind control. Anyway, Duke and Ripcord have them, Baroness tries to steal them, G.I. Joe saves Duke and Ripcord and the warheads, Baroness and Storm Shadow, et al successfully steal them. There you go. Cobra has n

Random Move: Up (2009)

In an effort to distract my daughter from wanting to watch Curious George (and I must admit, I wanted to see it as well) I put the movie Up on. She has seen it many times, but I had never. I am normally not a fan of Disney movies, or animated movies in general (despite my affections for TV shows like Aqua Teen Hunger Force , Ren and Stimpy , Invader Zim and others), but having watched Wall-E with my daughter, I have since changed that. I have assumed it is because both these films are Pixar, and from what I understand, they have an excellent track record. Up is the story of Carl Fredericksen, a 78 year old (voiced by Ed Asner ), as he tries to make it to Paradise Falls, an adventure planned with his wife before she died, and ultimately having it's roots in his childhood. They were obsessed with exploring new places and with an explorer named Charles Muntz (voiced by Christopher Plummer ). To accomplish this, he flies his house, which is where he met his late wife in childhood,

Random Movie: Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus (2009)

The word “versus” is usually reserved for boxing matches, Supreme Court cases, and film titles that begin with the name Godzilla or Gamera . I imagine that this film was intended to entertain the same head space as other giant monster classics, but Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus falls short of even that minimalistic criteria. This flick comes to us curtsey of The Asylum , a direct-to-DVD company with a rather dubious track record. Mostly, they make cheaply and horribly produced movies with titles suspiciously similar to big-budget blockbusters. Such movies include Transmorphers , Death Racers , Sunday School Musical , and The Day the Earth Stopped , most likely hoping that confused consumers hunting for the latest releases will buy their movies by accident. I'm almost amazed by a company who's marketing strategy seems to have been devised by some giant, carnivorous plant. But I'm not talking about those flicks, I'm talking about a movie with a plot and production valu

Random Movie: The Thing (1982)

Surprisingly, I had been missing out on John Carpenter's The Thing until a few years ago when a friend of mine turned me on to it. I thought it was a very effective movie and the DVD was great, featuring commentary by Carpenter and Kurt Russell as well as an in depth documentary on the making of the film. Sadly, my original DVD was not anamorphic so I had no desire to watch the film in recent years until I upgraded my disc to the re-release from a few years back. For some reason, I didn't remember much from the film so it was almost like watching it for the first time all over again. A loose remake of the 1951 film The Thing from Another World , Carpenter's version puts us in the middle of an Antartic research team who uncover a monstrous alien who has already devastated another research camp. As the being infiltrates the tight group of men, it takes their appearance and mannerisms leading them to doubt as to who is human and who is not. It is a very simplistic story, on

Random Movie: The Hangover (2009)

Las Vegas. Muse for many a film maker. From the not so good , to The Hangover . I assumed that this film would be some kind of hybrid of Dude, Where's My Car? and Very Bad Things . It surely, is not. Because it was actually funny. Basically we have 4 guys going to Vegas for a blowout before Doug ( Justin Bartha ) gets married. Doug's character is pretty much irrelevant to this review, as they lose him, and spent the mojority of the movie trying to find him while piecing together the events of the previous night, which they all cannot remember. You have Stu ( Ed Helms ), who basically freaks out at everything, as he is very tightly wound around his girlfriend's ( Rachel Harris ) vagina and does not wish to upset her. Also, there is Phil ( Bradley Cooper , dreamboat), who apparently is a dirtbag to all the women in the film, but is oddly the most level headed and calm in most of the chaos that is going on. Finally there is, Alan ( Zach Galifinakis , Fat Jesus, not Phat Jes

Random Movie: Paranormal Activity (2007)

Hollywood is a funny animal. Film studios are willing to drop millions of dollars on movies with horrible movies starring big actors, big gambles that may or may not pay off, and run of the mill sequels that have little redeeming cinematic value but are a sure win at the box office. Yet a movie like Paranormal Activity comes along and flounders for years on the festival circuit (hence the 2007 production year) before finally being picked up and begrudgingly released to theaters throughout the country. If you follow movies at all, you know the gist of the story. Our couple, Micah and Katie, have been noticing some strange activity in their home. Tech geek Micah decides to get a camera to not only annoy the hell out of Katie in the bathroom but to capture any evidence of the strange occurrences. As the entire film takes place inside the house, mostly with just Micah and Katie, we are confined with them as the incidents occur more frequently and more violently leading to many scene