Movie Scum

In late 1996 and 1997, Scream made horror movies, especially those featuring attractive TV stars, a hot commodity in Hollywood. Thus, it’s no surprise that in addition to two sequels to that film over the next three years, audiences were given similar films to existing franchises like Bride of Chucky and Halloween H20 as well as the hopeful launch of new franchises such as Urban Legend and this entry: the awkwardly titled I Know What You Did Last Summer. Written by Scream scribe Kevin Williamson (along with about a billion other properties in the late 90s), IKWYDLS was loosely based on a young adult novel that featured neither a killer Gorton’s fisherman nor witty Kevin-Williamson -ish banter between the main characters. I know this because I actually read that book … in sixth grade. Author Lois Duncan was reportedly quite unhappy with the movie. In fairness, she’s not the only one as even with the elements introduced by Scream closely adhered to, this film is commonly relegated t...

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...

Written by: PBF First off, I have never read the graphic novel, so I swear to God, if you negate my review if this film wasn’t faithful to the source material, I will sick Kane Hodder on you. S cott Pilgrim vs. The World is 100% pure entertainment. Every fucking thing about it. From the comic booky words that fly on the screen, to the insanely clever script that is basically a group of well constructed lines stacked in order of hilarity that assemble a story. Visually, aurally, intellectually and otherwisely this film is extremely pleasing. It’s almost guerilla like in its blatant disregard for seamless scene transitions. Which, by the way, is awesome. Pretty much every scene or line is completely unexpected and hilarious. There literally is a laugh about every 1.5 seconds. I have accused Michael Cera of being repetitive in his characters. This is the first film in which even though he still employs some of the same traits, I did notice that he does actually distinguish his ...

Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star I’ve determined that Adam Sandler through his Happy Madison shingle is trying to make everyone hate him. I cannot fathom any other explanation for his recent output (see Jack & Jill below). I needn’t really say much because the crap speaks for itself. Even the trailer announcer sounds bored. Watch for it to hopefully tank this weekend, September 9. Abduction “Whatdya say we remake those Bourne movies with that kid from those, eh … Twilight movies? Yeah! No, not Robert Patterson (sic)! The other hunky one. Yeah. We just need to get a big director like Spike Lee! Oh, he’s not available. What about John Singleton? Yeah, that’s the stuff. And, uh, we’ll pack it with good actors like Alfred Molina and Sigourney Weaver! Big blockbusta on our hands!” – random movie exec. I’ll pass on this September 23. Real Steel Pop quiz, Hollywood hot shot! What do you get when you combine the Fighter/Rocky/any other boxing movie with Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots? U...

Perhaps it was just presumptuous of M. Night Shyamalan to promote his upcoming adaptation of the Avatar: The Last Airbender tv series at the end of The Happening on a little girl's backpack.

I typically see a lot of movies with my kids that I don't review here. That's not entirely out of laziness but more due to being uncomfortable critiquing something that was not necessarily designed for me. At some point for everyone though, you must step out of your comfort zone and do the right thing. For me, that point was taking my 4-year-old to see The Smurfs and hating it so badly that I must ward off any reasonable human being from seeing it. I'm not quite sure what irritates me the most: that I paid $15 for the two of us to see it, that it literally felt like the longest 90 minutes ever, or that I just indirectly contributed to the already announced sequel. Much like a good chunk of our readership (at least I assume), The Smurfs were one of those childhood staples that were always around, whether on TV, on the racks of the video store, or on the shelves at the local Toys'R'us. Truth be told though, I could've cared less about a Smurfs movie because it...

It’s a universal truth that we’ve all had bosses, or superiors if you’d like, that deserve to be taken out back and eliminated in one way or another. I suppose that is the sad truth of growing up, becoming an adult, and dealing with bullshit day in and day out. Horrible Bosses is not the first film that addresses these frustrations of the workplace. In fact, the template (for me that is) of aggravating employment is and will probably always be Office Space. Director Seth Gordon and his team of writers don’t pull off the malicious nature of inter-office politics to the same success but damn if they didn’t create a film I believe will be highly regarded for some time. It is unfair though to outright compare Bosses to Office Space. Similar themes exist but the crux of the movie is wildly different since no one actually wanted to kill Bill Lumbergh. Nick ( Jason Bateman ) is practically a yes-man who comes to work early and stays late thinking he is in for a big promotion. Kurt ( Ja...

Written by: PBF Ghost from the Machine (or Phasma Ex Machina) is writer/director Matt Osterman ’s feature film debut. It had a budget of $25,000. If my review doesn’t give you a clue how good the film is, maybe this will: Universal Pictures is remaking it already. Cody ( Sasha Andreev ) and his younger brother James ( Max Hauser ) lost their parents due to a car accident. Cody is riddled with guilt as he blames himself. He dropped out of college, does not have a job and is living off of the insurance money from the accident. He becomes obsessed with the thought of getting his parents back and spends most of his time and money constructing an electrical device. In a nutshell, Cody basically believes that there is a shortage of a certain type of energy between our world and the other side. He believes that if he can supply this energy there would be no separation and he can then be reunited with his parents. This has caused him to in effect neglect James, whom he is supposed to b...

Written by: PBF The Coffin , directed by Ekachai Uekrongtham will be released on DVD August 31, via Breaking Glass Pictures. It is based on a Thai ritual. The ritual involves a person who wishes to “cheat death and end bad luck” being sealed in a coffin and a funeral being performed over them. This is done in large groups. People claim to have gone into a coffin with Cancer and come out only to be given a clean bill of health on their next doctor visit. Some people believe in it and others believe it is hogwash. Su (Karen Mok) is a young woman who left Bangkok and Jack, to whom she was going to marry. She hasn’t told anyone that she has lung cancer. She goes to Thailand to be part of a mass funeral. Soon after participating (possibly even on her way home from it as the movie suggests) she is involved in a serious car accident. She escapes with only bruises, but learns that she no longer has cancer. While recuperating, she is given some terrible news and begins to have disturbing ...

I will admit that I did not have entirely good expectations going into this one. Our own #pbf referred to this as garbage, and he has not seen THE third film in this series. I had seen a few positive reviews for THE Final Destinatio n though so I figured maybe it was an acquired taste, much like Mountain Dew: Live Wire. Oh, dear God was I wrong. So, so wrong … I knew in THE first ten minutes of this film that it would be given THE “honorable” crap category. THE other seventy minutes were merely confirmation that I can judge a stupid movie by its even stupider fucking cover.

It’s not apparent during the first viewing of Final Destination 3 , but there is something missing which greatly strips out a lot of enjoyment compared to the previous films. Well, of course, there are plenty of graphic deaths and gore so that is present and accounted for. There is a skimpy callback to the first film, so nothing out of place there. And even Tony Todd returns, in voice at least. So what is it that the returning team of Glen Morgan and James Wong forgot in this installment? Where should we start?

The original Final Destination is no grand pinnacle in cinema, or even horror films, but it does a few things right. Its follow-up is again no grand treasure, but a pretty effective continuation of the first and one that tries to loop back into the mythos of the first. Final Destination 2 ' s main draw is the focus on elaborate deaths no doubt, but it almost taps into some of the humanity of the first. Moreso than those killer logs in the first act anyway.