Movie Scum

With George Lucas’ 13th revision of Star Wars hitting Blu-ray recently, I figured I should honor that somehow. But not with those reviews. That would be painstaking. If you read old reviews of Mel Brooks‘ Spaceballs , the consensus is that it came far too late to be an effective parody of those famed sci-fi films. Funny enough though, I saw Spaceballs likely when I was under six and didn’t see Star Wars until well into high school. Thus, the spoof aspect never really stuck out to me. That’s fine because that part is only moderately funny. Brooks’ film works best when it breaks the 4th wall and pokes fun at unrelenting merchandising of lunchboxes, flamethrowers, and toilet paper. I especially enjoy the one-off jokes such as the cross-eyed gunner Asshole or Mr. Rental. The cast is largely decent considering the unevenness of the story with John Candy, Brooks himself as two characters, and the lovely Daphne Zuniga as the standouts. Some laugh-out-loud moments exist but those are bur...

When I first heard about a Predator   sequel being made, it seemed like there were daily updates for the members of production, the cast, and then the release date approximately two weeks later. I may be truncating the timeframe a bit but it came together rather quickly in my swiss-cheese-like memory. The concept had promise with the predator foe, hunting in groups, having the homefield advantage against a rag-tag gang of militants and ne’er-do-wells. Sadly, while that premise is accurate, the final product, or at least half of it, leaves much to be desired. At least, until you watch the original Predator . In his recent Monster Scum marathon, Digger proclaimed Predator to be “one of the greatest action movies of all time.” While it has been far too long since seeing the original to agree or disagree, Predators however follows its source material far too closely. Straight down to the music by John Debney which is almost a carbon-copy of Alan Silvestri’s great score from the or...

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...

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...

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...

For some reason, this was a hard movie to watch. Not hard to watch as in terribly graphic or poorly made, but I watched the film over six days, each time falling asleep no matter if it was in the middle of the afternoon or 3 in the morning. This is not however an overall indication of the quality of the film, more an example of how I really like sleeping I suppose. Released to theaters this past summer to critical praise, District 9 follows the existing and new denizens of Johannesburg, South Africa after an inoperable alien craft comes to rest over the city. Having no way to return home, over a million alien creatures, dubbed prawns by the locals, are rounded up in a fenced in series of shacks and tents. Twenty years later, crime has risen in the slum, the prawns are acting out against the humans, and the locals are demanding the alien residents be moved to another location. Enter Wikus Van De Merwe, middle management worker bee for MNU, a global weapons company that has been contr...

After watching Terminator Salvation , I was reminded of a skit that was basically a parody of dating services that used to play on MadTV called "Lowered Expectations." It's always frustrating to sit down to see a movie you've heard countless great things about only to be disappointed. Currently enjoying a rather deplorable 32% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, Salvation didn't have a whole lot going for it as I sat down and pressed play. While not the pinnacle of the Terminator franchise by any stretch, Salvation certainly was not the worst either. John Connor, now played by Christian Bale , still stuck in his gravely Batman voice, is joined by some new and old friends as he attempts to lead a small band of nuclear holocaust survivors against their machinist overlords. The funny thing about this film is that while the first three in the series focused on the Connor family in their dealings with their pending fate, this film turns more to Marcus Wright, played by...