Movie Scum

We have a new site! Please go to the new and improved Movie Scum and watch Episode #8! Longer videos, now that they are not uploaded to YouTube! Please bear with us as we continue to make the site better and more user friendly. All new posts with be published on that site, and not this one.

This week's episode will be posted later tomorrow than usual. Sorry about that, but we will make sure it is worth the wait. In addition to that, we have a surprise coming...

I saw Mannequin in the theater. They are going to reboot this film. It better have Johnathan Silverman in it. For as you can see, the first one had Andrew McCarthy , and the second had Terry Kiser . So, in order to complete the Triumvirate, a reboot, remake or sequel, it must have Johnathan Silverman. Sadly, I do not think it will. Instead, it will apparently star Zac Efron . I assume that this will mean it will be some kind of gay musical, that pre-teens will rush to see. If it is, I demand that they use "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now" by Starship , which basically melted the cheese that was the first film. If you haven't seen this movie, first, you should thank what ever deity you throw money at on your day of worship. Second, here's the basic story. Kim Cattrall is an ancient Egyptian who is cursed and turned in to a Mannequin and ends up in the future (1987) and can only come to life when Johnathan (coincidence?) Switcher is around. They work together to make

I was going to write a random review of Maniac Cop 2 , but I figured why bother? Most people probably have never even heard of it nor will ever see the series even though it features such talent as Bruce Campbell , Robert Davi , and Tom Atkins . As I previously noted , there is no North American DVD release which is rather bothersome considering the lesser-known DTV sequel Maniac Cop 3: Badge of Silence has a shiny disc dedicated to it. But in the end, this is not a good movie. It has its moments but here is hands-down the best sequence in the film. Now, I may get around to writing a full review but I would have to start with the first movie. Use this to tide you over in the meantime.

George Lucas' CG Fairy Musical Mystery: Our Theories Will someone please take George Lucas' power and money away? For the sake for all that is holy ... OMFG #2: Lionsgate Throws Violent Blow at Paramount: 'Saw' vs 'Paranormal Activity'... IT'S ON! With the whole Leno/Conan thing out of the way, its time for Paramount and Lionsgate to battle via their competing horror franchises as well as torn directors. The Sam Worthington Project Du Jour Is...DRACULA?? Sam Worthington as a vampire that actually kills people and who doesn't sparkle or mope. This could be a good thing. DreamWorks to Show How Babies Eat, Sleep, Poop More proof that Hollywood is plumb out of ideas. Here Come More GREMLINS!? I'm not sure what upsets me more: there will be another Gremlins movie or that it will be needlessly in 3D.

Now, there are not very many details at this point so it is possible that this is just an empty threat from Hollywood, but Moviehole states Bernie Lomax may be resurrected to then die and pretend to be alive in a remake to PBF's beloved ultimate comfort movie Weekend at Bernie's . Could this be the chance for Andrew McCarthy and Jonathan Silverman to relive their fame and recover their fortune from the original film? Or will we have to suffer with actors lacking in the charisma to pull off the absurd plot of the film? So many questions, so little answers. Perhaps there can be a double feature between this and the remake of Mannequin as two movies which shouldn't have been made the first time, let alone remade.

As you might have already heard, Avatar has smashed box office records, overtaking Titanic with a current worldwide gross of $1.8 billion as of this post. As it currently enjoys an 82% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, the perceived experience of seeing Avatar in an 3D screening has seemingly overpowered some of the reported flaws of the film. Even if you actively try, you won't get far on any movie site or blog without mention of the film. I even sat through a 43 minute promotion of the film on Bones , one of my favorite television shows. Yet, in spite of the good reviews and constant promotion, I have no desire to see it. Now, I can understand its importance in the film-making industry both in critical terms and in the pop culture zeitgeist. James Cameron is an excellent director who has managed to again create a film that is appealing to many demographics of movie-goers, making the film a must-see just to be current with the times. His use of the 3D effects to create the ficti

Adam Green sure has been busy lately between the premiere of his newest film Frozen at Sundance this week as well as wrapping up filming of Hatchet 2 , the sequel of today's random entry. When Hatchet first surfaced a few years ago, the biggest draw for me was the marketing for the film as a sort of callback to old-school 80s horror movies. No one (at least no one who is a friend of mine) can argue the greatness of all the cheesy, splatter-filled slasher movies of the 80s. In this manner, Hatchet somewhat succeeds as a "lost movie" from the bygone pinnacle of slasher flicks. In the film, our heroes' venture out into a Louisiana swamp for a scary boat ride turns frighteningly real after running across Victor Crowley, a local legend who tragically died as a boy and now seeks to apparently create a bunch of amputees. The basic plot, and even backstory of Crowley, seems largely cribbed from the sub-genre classics with a deformed kid who is bullied constantly and dies

As PBF is taking an Amish vacation for the next thirteen hours, allow me to present to you this week's episode of Movie Scum with Dana Carvey.

The mid-nineties were an interesting time to be a horror fan. Since the old franchise favorites of Freddy and Jason were long gone with Michael Myers soon following, they were replaced by direct-to-video nonsense and faux-horror such as Hideaway or The Island of Dr. Moreau . Then came along Kevin Williamson , a guy who could write a decent screenplay full of homages to past genre staples complete with clever dialogue. After exploding in Hollywood with Scream , Williamson took his talents and tweeked them over and over, resulting in films like The Faculty . At its core, this should not be a good movie. It was stacked with current and future WB and pop culture stars, featured established actors for a bit of gravitas, and almost blatantly ripped off countless other alien invasion films from many decades before. Add to this formula a fairly well established director , an eclectic mix of music, and a corporate sponsorship with accompanying commercials, you've got yourself a blockbust

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,

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

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

MacGyver was a show on ABC starring Richard Dean Anderson. He could make a bomb out of a toothpick, a coffee filter and dreams.

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

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

Sadly, I ruin the ending. Try to ignore that part.

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

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

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 .