Movie Scum

In an effort to shy away from the mainstays of Christmas movies for this marathon, I turned to Netflix to deliver a nice package of obscure holiday fun. What it delivered was quite possible the most painful movie I have ever experienced. Fuck you movie! Elf Bowling is apparently based on a computer video game of the same name that I have never heard of. In the game, Santa is pissed at his unionized, striking elves and apparently uses them as bowling pins. Seeing 82 minutes of that would have been far more entertaining. In a bastardized retcon of the origin of THE jolly old fat man in a red suit, Santa transforms from the captain of the Stinky Toe into ol’ Saint Nick that we know him as after his crew stages a mutiny and pushes Santa and his brother Dingle Kringle overboard into the freezing ocean waters. After thawing, Santa enters into a contractual agreement with the native elves on the North Pole to deliver the toys made by the elves as long as working conditions are happy. Dingle

So, I finally sat down and watched A Christmas Story. Well, I guess it would be more accurate to say I finally sat down with the express intention to watch A Christmas Story in one continuous sitting. Without the distractions of wrapping presents or the extended-family-induced alcohol coma, I was able to actually appreciate the movie without it being beaten into my head every two hours courtesy of cable TV. Directed by Bob Clark, the genius behind Porky’s and Baby Geniuses, the story centers around cute little Ralphie who wants nothing more for Christmas than a Red Ryder carbine-action 200-shot range model air rifle despite the numerous warnings of shooting an eye out. The treasured BB gun is merely the common thread that holds together the various segments about Ralphie, his slightly deranged parents, and the dreams and crushing realities of being a nine-year-old. What always got lost in the barrage of the Christmas Story marathon is the perfect way this film captures what it i

I hate to quote the same thing in less than a week but Digger posited in his previous marathon that Predator is “without a doubt one of the greatest action movies of all time.” Die Hard certainly deserves a spot on that list as well and perhaps not coincidentally is directed by the same man: John McTiernan . You all should know the story very well so I’ll keep the synopsis short. John McClane is a NYPD cop. His estranged wife lives in L.A. and works for a powerful foreign firm. McClane flies in for Christmas. Terrorists take over the building which houses a shit ton of money. Pure entertainment for the next two hours ensues. It may not be your go-to movie for Christmas like Elf or the Muppet Christmas Carol but Die Hard is not only an awesome Christmas movie in its setting and references but also a damn near flawless action movie. In fact, I would almost consider this the anti-action movie in that the normal conventions and clichés that are commonplace today are nowhere to be fo

I wasn’t sure how much entertainment I would derive from Zombie Strippers . Even though it came recommended by Movie Scum friend Kat, I’ve seen too many low-budget (and big-budget for that matter) zombie movies that are completely forgettable due to many filmmakers’ use of clichéd zombie tropes or laughable production values or horrendous acting. Zombie Strippers delivers more than I expected but not without a number of gripes. Considering the title and the presence of “adult entertainment” star Jenna Jameson , you might not be surprised to see equal amounts of nudity as in a late-night Skinemax movie. I wonder if the grand plan of writer/director Jay Lee was to make a soft-core porno but include zombies to increase the sales potential. Through the poorly attempted satiric prologue, we learn that George W. Bush is President for a fourth term, public nudity has been banned, and science has created a virus to reanimate fallen soldiers. When the virus is unleashed, an infected “sold

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 origin

Written by: PBF David Cronenberg has said that The Brood was inspired by the custody battle for his daughter that he went through with his ex-wife. After watching this, my guess is that the process was unpleasant. Frank Carveth’s ( Art Hindle ) wife Nola ( Samantha Eggar ) is under the care of Dr. Hal Raglan ( Oliver Reed ) who practices a questionable form of therapy called Psychoplasmics. Dr. Raglan encourages his patients to “show him” their emotions, which generally will physically manifest somehow. For example, at the beginning of the film we see a session in which a man is speaking to his father (Dr. Raglan is acting as the patient’s father) and takes his shirt off to reveal sores of some kind that have developed as a manifestation of his feelings toward his father. This practice places Raglan as a genius to some, however, not to Frank. Nola, like Raglan’s other patients stay in a facility, and Candy, the Carveth’s daughter regularly visits her mother there. On one occas

S01E06 While I am thankful that AMC gave Frank Darabont a chance to bring Walking Dead to TV screens, I have to curse their apprehension at the beginning with only a six episode order for the first season. Not only does that cut things short before really establishing the tone and direction of the show, but this episode was pretty lousy as a season finale but would have been much better if we did not have eleven months to go before seeing the next installment. Now safely inside the CDC in Atlanta, the group (they really need a catchy name like Apocalypse Avengers or something) meet Dr. Edwin Jenner, the lone scientist left studying the zombification disease after everyone else fled or checked out. At first Jenner is fairly welcoming (as much as a man carrying an automatic weapon can be) offering hot showers, food, and beds to sleep in. He explains what is known about the disease and how it affects the brain before rendering the host dead and resurrecting the brain stem to drive the

After it came and epically failed at the box office this summer, Jonah Hex was branded as a grade-A turkey, damning the goodwill Josh Brolin has earned over the past few years and further nailing the coffin of Megan Fox ’s movie career. I started watching expecting a bad movie but upon it’s conclusion I wonder, did I actually watch a movie? Clocking in at a thankful, yet still puzzling 81 minutes with credits, Jonah Hex probably would have been a worse movie had it not been so hurried to its conclusion. For that we can be thankful I suppose. From what I gather reading about the source comic series, the origin of Hex is similar but damn if we’d know it from the movie. Under the command of Quentin Turnbull ( John Malkovich ), Hex is a Confederate soldier who breaks rank after refusing to slaughter United States civilians and kills Turnbull’s son in the process. Hex is then forced to watch as his wife and son (I think?) are burned alive by Turnbull for revenge before being scarred

As I scrolled through the Jesusflix offerings the other day, I came upon this gem and thought “A Michael Mann movie with Scott Glenn , Ian McKellen , and Jürgen Prochnow ? How have I never even heard of this before?” The short answer to that question is that The Keep is truly awful. Mann must have learned much in between this and Manhunter , such as how to construct a decent story. Taking place in a Romanian village in 1941, the Keep is a mysterious fortress of some sort that some German soldiers decide is a good place to hole up in. Even though they are specifically warned by the caretaker not to molest any of the silver crosses embedded in the walls, two soldiers unearth a passage to the walled-off inside of the structure only to have their faces blown off. Meanwhile, another group of German soldiers lead by Major Kaempffer ( Gabriel Byrne ), this time wearing the SS armbands which remind me I probably need to pay more attention to history, arrive after the death of many of the

S01E05 Just as a quick recap of last week’s review, I didn’t like Vatos primarily because it was less about the great characters and more centered around silly, nonconsequential twists and standard zombie stuff you can see anywhere. Ironically, that episode was also written by the comic’s writer Robert Kirkman so I had expected much better. In fairness, it was not Flesh Freaks or Who’s Your Caddy bad but still kind of disappointing. This week though had everything I expect, want, and salivate for in a Walking Dead episode. Primarily, it centers around the aftermath of the zombie attack last week as there are not only dead zombies and dead humans to deal with but also tree-hugging Jim as an in-betweener who was bitten in the mele. Rick decides the best course of action is to head back to Atlanta (haven’t we done this before?) in hopes to find a cure for Jim at the CDC. Shane however wants to trek to a military base under the assumption it is more heavily fortified and not overrun wit

Note to filmmakers: If you want me to almost instantly hate your movie, go ahead and begin with the Spin Doctors‘ ubiquitous song Two Princes from over a decade ago. Yes, Love and Other Drugs is a “period piece” set in the late 1990s in the background as the direct-to-consumer pharmaceuitical business starts booming with the development of wonderdrugs to treat everything from depression to male … specific problems. Jake Gyllenhaal stars as Jamie Randall, a smooth-talking salesman who is likely to talk his way into your pants while buying a stereo (well, not my pants but still). In an effort to prove his worth to his medical-oriented family, Jamie takes a job as a pharmaceutical sales rep for Pfizer. In his travels shadowing Dr. Stan Knight ( Hank Azaria ), Jamie meets Maggie Murdock ( Anne Hathaway ), a young woman who has been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. Maggie is your typical romantic comedy outcast with her art and proclivity for casual sex. However Jamie is further a

S01E04 Thus far in the series, we have seen a good number of zombies (mostly in the first episode) but little zombie violence as necks and arteries are severed from the living buffet for the undead. I like this approach as the ending of this episode mostly came out of nowhere in what was otherwise another leisurely adventure in the apocalypse. After discovering that Merle had obviously watched  Saw  too much (or he didn’t think about cutting off only his thumb), Rick and company discover that he is wily enough to cauterize his stump, yet stupid enough to go empty-handed (too soon?) into the urban jungle filled with the walkers. While trying to retrieve Rick’s bag o’ guns, some no-good gang-like fellows pummel Daryl and kidnap Glen before Rick and T-Bone can come to the rescue. As they initiate a trade with the rapscallions, our hero group discover that these hoodlums really have hearts of gold as they fortify and protect a nursing home and its elderly denizens. Meanwhile back at cam

Written by: PBF Ah, sweet 81 minute running time. How you make the pain so much easier to take. Actually, The Lost Boys: The Thirst is not as bad as The Tribe . In fact, it would be borderline not bad at all if they would just get rid of the stupid action movie hokey lines. And the crap “Cry Little Sister” cover. While Alan Frog was absent from the last film, he was referenced by Edgar who says that he knows what it’s like to lose a sibling to the undead or some such verbiage. The opening of The Thirst, shows us “5 years earlier” in Washington where a really old senator half vampire with vampire teeth dentures is about to feed on a congressman is interrupted by the Frog brothers. They save the congressman but Alan (again played by Jamison Newlander ) gets turned in to a half vampire. We go back to the present and Edgar ( Corey Feldman ) gets an eviction notice and one week to vacate his trailer. Still talking like Nolan’s Batman, he goes to a comic book store to sell some of his

Written by: PBF Land of the Dead is the last Romero “Of the Dead” film before the series gets sort of rebooted with Diary of the Dead . Coincidentally (or perhaps not), it is the last one that was fairly decent the whole time. The dead now outnumber the living. In Pittsburg, most, if not all of the survivors have fled to the city. The city is enclosed by rivers and an electric fence, which is patrolled by military. Within the city is Fiddler’s Green which is where the rich dwell. It has luxury living, a mall, restaurants. Outside of Fiddler’s Green is where the poor people live. People are hungry, ill, and cannot afford medicine. Riley Denbo ( Simon Baker ), possibly the prettiest man of the zombie apocalypse, and Cholo DeMora ( John Leguizamo ) are the commander and second in command (respectively) of the Dead Reckoning. The Dead Reckoning is a gigantic mobile assault vehicle that is used to travel out in to the apocalypse to retrieve supplies (food, medical, etc) and distribu

S01E03 When it comes down to it, the major point in most post-apocalyptic stories are the other survivors and The Walking Dead does not deviate much from that tradition. Sure, we still have the looming zombie threat but with only a handful of zombie appearances this week, it is all about the living and their interactions with one another. Rick is reunited with Lori and Carl at their mountaintop retreat in a scene that almost brought a tear to my eye. However, even after their tender moment, Rick contemplates returning to free Merle who was last seen chained to a roof as the group cut and ran last episode. Granted Merle was an ass, a racist, and would likely do more harm than good but Rick, Glenn, T-Dog, and Merle’s brother Daryl set out heading back to Atlanta, not only to free Merle but also to reacquire Rick’s satchel of guns left behind with his now-likely zombie horse. Meanwhile, things at base camp are not too rosy either as the zombies are heading further up the mountain and

Written by: PBF I spent the majority of Of Unknown Origin on the thin line dividing like and dislike. Upon the arrival of the film's end, I fell over to the dislike side. Bart ( Peter Weller ) is an executive who is assigned a project by his boss that will guarantee his rise up the corporate ladder. While his wife and son go out of town, Bart stays behind to focus on his project. At random, we start to see very close up shots of a clearly over sized rodent. For some reason, a large rat that also lives in Bart's brownstone for who knows how long, suddenly decides that it will torment Bart, thus making it difficult for him to complete his assigned task. Bart also goes a bit nutty, and starts to obsess over the rat and learns as much as he can about vermin in general (at one point he views an illustration of one with the caption "of unknown origin," which explains the rather ominous and somewhat misleading title of the film). He spouts off a monologue filled with

Written by: PBF I’ll tell you, as anti 3D as I am, it didn’t bother me in Megamind . According to the internet, the 3D was complete garbage and/or useless, but I found it to be pleasant and comfortable to look at. Megamind ( Will Ferrell ) was sent to our planet at 8 days old (but highly intelligent) by his parents. In addition to this, another baby from another planet was sent to Earth and the two pods briefly collided, sending Megamind to a prison for the criminally gifted and the other child in to a home of a very wealthy couple and underneath their Christmas tree. The children are raised in their new homes, and end up going to the same school. As Megamind was raised by criminals, he is a bit of an outcast and ill behaved. The other child generally thwarts his behavior and wins the affections of students and the teacher alike. Constantly being placed in the corner, Megamind realizes that he isn’t good at anything, except for being bad, and makes the decision to become a villa

Written by: PBF Take everything that was good about the first one, reverse it, and make a new movie. BAM! The Lost Boys: The Tribe . Great music turns in to terrible music. Clever, funny dialogue turns in to weak, lame jokes. You get the idea. The Tribe is the first sequel to the original Lost Boys film that for some reason a group of people felt they needed to ruin the legacy of. This went straight to video, and it looks like a film that went straight to video. The only connection this film has with the original is that Corey Feldman reprises his role as Edgar Frog. Also, Haim shows up during the credits for about 2 minutes and is now a vampire. That is not a spoiler and the scene is not relevant to the rest of the movie. Chris and Nicole Emerson have lost their parents and move to California. Chris was a professional surfer that was kicked off the circuit after having snapped. I assume he repaired himself, because he is remarkably low key for someone who has snapped. Chris

Written by: PBF Ah, The Lost Boys . I haven’t seen saxophone playing that sexy since Rob Lowe in St. Elmo’s Fire . Both of those films are directed by Joel Schumacher . Hm. Sam ( Corey Haim ), his brother Michael ( Jason Patric ) and mother Lucy ( Diane Wiest ) are relocating to Santa Carla, California after Lucy has divorce the boys’ father. They are moving in with Lucy’s eccentric father ( Bernard Hughes ). Seeing things like “murder capital of the world” spray painted on a sign, posters with missing people on them and all kinds of weirdos running around the boardwalk do not exactly make the boys feel good about the move. Grandpa is also a weirdo, who likes smoking weed, taxidermy and keeping Oreos in the refrigerator next to his root beer. While out on the boardwalk one night, Lucy goes in to a video store and meets Max ( Edward Hermann ), the owner, and takes a job there. Sam visits a comic book store where the Frog brothers, Edgar ( Corey Feldman ) and Alan ( Jamison Newland

It is hard to have a decent expectation of what is to come before watching Due Date . Sure, it seems to be very similar to the John Hughes classic Planes, Trains & Automobiles but that quickly fades aside from the mismatched traveling buddies angle. You might also think it would feature some wacky hijinks similar to director Todd Phillips ' The Hangover but where that film was fun just for the hell of it, it feels like there is a point trying to come out of this movie. Robert Downey Jr. plays Peter, a serious and sometimes pretentious architect who crosses paths with Zach Galifianakis ' Ethan on a cross-country flight to Los Angeles. After Peter is grounded due in part to Ethan's obnoxious behavior without money or an ID, the two join forces to drive the distance so Peter can make it to the birth of his first child. From the start, both actors have a good, yet almost combative, chemistry as Galifianakis plays Ethan like a long-lost twin to his Hangover charac