External Linkage

Another week, another Lucky 13! This week, we examine the greatest Serial Killer flicks ever created. Its up at Brutal as Hell. And dont' forget to flip on over to Vault of Horror for the second half of this week's in-depth review.

Stabbity-stab-stab!

      

External Linkage

Yes, its that time again. Time for the Lucky 13! This week, its the best of Werewolves. Werewolves that are not half-naked Indian boys. Try to pay attention, regardless.

      

External Linkage

Some more horror goodness in the form of Rec 2! Review now posted at Brutal As Hell. The review is a precursor to a Q&A session I had with the directors of the film, which will be posting soon.

Check it out at Brutal as Hell!

  

External Linkage

Yes, its that time again. Time for another Lucky 13 at Brutal As Hell! This week, we celebrate the holiday by giving you our favorite Psychological Horrors!... in retrospect, holiday themed horror movies might have been the better sub-genre. Eh, fuck it.

Brutal as Hell!

       

Scrappy sinks her teeth into Twilight: Eclipse!

Its time for a woman's perspective!
A first for the ol' Pop Aristocrat here: A guest reviewer! I can't be bothered with Twilight myself, not after the first film's lack-of-quality-to-box-office-take ratio nearly drove me to suicide. I prefer to stay ignorant. But, Twilight is such a large flash-in-the-pan... er, excuse me, social phenomenon, I don't think it should not be covered.


So, my friend and ally Jessica Brumm, Texas law student and sass-mouth extraordinaire, offered her services as my Twilight reviewer. We'll call her Scrappy, just the way she likes it. So, armed only with a pitcher of beer and a resilience to the soul-crushing power of chick flicks that only a vagina can grant, she braved Eclipse and brought us back these words of wisdom.


{And I also added my own snarky banter because, hell, its still my goddamn blog.}


With no further ado, take it away Scrappy!

 Eclipse teaches young teenage girls a wonderful lesson: don’t agree to get married unless you try to have sex first. Edward proposes several times to Bella, but Bella only agrees to marriage if Edward will try to have sex with her. This is the most bizarre romantic twist to a storyline of star-crossed lovers that has been avoided by Shakespeare and Jane Austen for a reason: it’s a lame and completely unbelievable.

{“ Juliet, wilt thou marry me?” “Oh Romeo, yes, but first I must feel your thrust twixt my nethers, lest we marry to find our coupling unsatisfying. Take me, ravage me now.” “Ew, no. Mine father has said the whipsering eye of a lady 'tis slimy and weird.” “Um...” “It means your vagina.” }

It’s sad really. I’m not a fan of romance films in general—but there are several films and storylines filled with believable romantic antics {because you can't spell romantic, without antic! }that can be appreciated by all: Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Romeo and Juliet, What Dreams May Come, Life is Beautiful, and most importantly, Shaun of the Dead. Believability is the key to any good story. A beautiful headstrong girl meets beautiful headstrong boy. Chaos ensues and causes various mishaps between the ill-fated characters. Eventually the couple reconciles and they live happily ever after—or in Romeo and Juliet’s case, they die—but either way, the couple ends up together one way or another, right?

Twilight does add a few interesting elements to the familiar star-crossed lovers’ story—it includes an ancient mutant “vegetarian” vampire, Edward, falling in love with a plain-looking, clumsy, 17 year-old girl, Bella. {Because she smells delicious, don't forget that. I hope to meet a girl one day that is clumsy and plain, but smells like Del Taco, so I can take her home... and then proceed to not have sex with her. In retrospect, I suppose just about any girl who works at Del Taco would fit this bill. I need to go down the street and order up a fresh plate of infatuation. } A “veggie” vampire is, of course, a vampire that loves humans so the vampire only drinks the blood of animals. This veggie vampire is part of a veggie-vampire coven considered enemies of an evil, ancient underground vampire government. Veggie vampires are also hunted by horse-sized werewolves capable of transforming at anytime—regardless of the moon’s cycles. As scores of other films and books prove, werewolf and vampire battles are normally intriguing. But this bizarre and unbelievable Mormon-written romance buries all the awesomeness a supernatural war could possibly bring. { Could Edward's love of Bella be considered a food-fetish? }

I will concede to the Twilight fans, the film has its moments. It is not completely “twi-tarded.” I’d say maybe an hour of the film is watchable for those who are not “twi-hards.” Bella’s father is actually not too bad. He plays the awkward father in charge of the awkward teen romance quite well. One of the veggie vampires talks about how she died after being gang-raped by her former fiancé and his friends {That is also pretty awkward}. There is a quick glimpse of how her revenge on those men played out—which is twisted and very cool.

One of the coolest characters in the entire series, Jasper, gets a small amount of face time. He describes how in the South, during the Civil War, he participated in vampire turf wars by building up large vampire armies to take out other vampire armies {Westside Story comes to mind}. The idea of a vampire turf war between vampire armies sounds amazing and it’s a shame only a few minutes of the film were dedicated to Jasper.

The film’s best moments travel outside of what was included in the book. In the book, Bella misses the big fight scene between an evil vampire army versus a united front of werewolves and mutant, veggie vampires. In the book, the aftermath of the battle is described, but the actual battle isn’t really covered. In the film, the fight scene is short—but pretty fun. The movie also goes outside the original Eclipse book to include scenes showing the evil vampire army building its ranks. {“Hey, kid, you wanna be a vampire and live forever?” “Yeah, cool!” “Allright then, but you gotta come fight a war against these giant fucking wolves. I mean HUGE.” “But they can't hurt us, right?” “Oh, they will fuck you up! You might be alive forever without arms, legs, or genitals after this fight.” “Yeah, think I'll pass.” “Where's your fucking loyalty!? I have known you for like 15 seconds and already you're refusing to go to war with me for the sake of murdering some 17 year old girl.” “Tell me again, how did you manage to attract all these followers? And why don't you just sniper the bitch? I mean, it seems like that might at least take the werewolves off guard. They tend to notice dozens of vampires moving en masse around these sleepy, suddenly bloodless, little towns.” } These semi-violent scenes of the vampire army make it watchable for those of us who do not enjoy the horrible romance between a pedophile, veggie-vampire and an annoying 17 year old kid. 

Despite these few redeeming moments in the film, Robert Pattison and Kristen Stewart couldn’t act to save their lives. Honestly, the film ended for me after the vampire-werewolf battle ended. After that, it’s just Pattison and Stewart attempting to act as Edward and Bella. The romance scenes between them were drawn out with long awkward pauses, nervous glances, and weird “tweenie” moments that made half the audience giggle with glee. {Edward, the Methuselah, falling in love with a teen girl is akin to me falling in love with an embryo}

More audience squeals came whenever the half-naked Taylor Lautner appeared onscreen. It’s a bit disturbing because most of the audience is old enough to be Lautner’s mother, or even grandmother. {That guy is so ripped, even his cock has abs. And that's hot no matter how old you are. } Granted, Lautner is a better actor than Pattison. But Lautner’s CGI werewolf was completely awful. You’d think a big budget film like Twilight could afford better CGI; especially after audiences have been wowed by the effects of Lord of the Rings and more recently, Avatar . The CGI couldn’t have been more apparent—the werewolves’ fur and the way the Stewart interacted with the werewolves were just awful. Lautner’s werewolf didn’t have any great werewolf sounds either—no crazy cool growls, howls, or barks. There’s a notable whine from Lautner’s werewolf self, but other than that, the sound effects were subpar for werewolves. Honestly, the producers could have tape-recorded noises from Underworld and improved the sound editing for Lautner’s werewolf scenes. For the most part, the werewolves are just silently watching everything in the movie. Even with the werewolves standing still, the CGI effects were cheap and noticeable.

Finally, the humor in the film wouldn't even be good enough to be in a cheap romantic comedy churned out by Matthew McConaughey. The “twi-hards” were squealing and giggling constantly at the awkward tweenie humor. For me, the funniest moment happened while Edward proposed to Bella. {“Baby, you smell delicious, like the DelMacho Beef Burrito, and I can't resist you. Lets' get married.” “And I am mesmerized by you because you're a fucking vampire. I literally can't say no.” If that isn't true love, I don't know what is} The guy sitting next to me leaned back in his seat and the entire contents of his pocket emptied noisily only the floor followed by him hollering “son-of-a-bitch”. That made the film for me. And the pitcher of Shiner Bock helped out tremendously too.

Long story short, I can only find one appropriate way to rate Eclipse. As a romance film, Eclipse is worth 2.5 barf bags, with 0 barf bags being an amazing romantic film and 5 barf bags being the worst {Its like Golf, the lower your score, the better. If you don't score at all, you win. Edward the Vampire often confuses relationships with Golf}. Anyone who tries to classify Eclipse as being a sci-fi film should be shot. Good ideas for a fun sci-fi movie or horror movie are there, and that prevents the film from being completely awful. A good pitcher of beer on an empty stomach also helps the film from being a complete waste.

As long as Pattison and Stewart’s bad acting and weird onscreen romance remains, the film should never be considered as anything but an awful tweenie romance not worth comparing to really great film series such as Star Wars, Aliens, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and other award-winning and noteworthy films. Eclipse is worth watching—but perhaps at home to not only fast forward through the sappy scenes, but also to avoid the crazed Twilight fans. I’d say that Eclipse is pretty comparable to James Cameron’s Titanic. Except, Titanic had better acting, better script writing, and better special effects. {So, if Titanic were made of poop, it would be Twilight}

I’m sure Twilight fans out there will disagree with me, but please know that yes, I have read the books and they were awful. I would also like to point out that out of all the midnight movie premiers that I have attended (all 6 Star Wars, all Harry Potters, all the LOTR, countless horror films, and all the Batmans—even the bad ones), the Twilight fans were the most annoying, rude, and disagreeable bunch I have ever encountered. Women were cutting in line, being loud and obnoxious, squealing, and just being completely unattractive by losing every redeeming quality that a lady could possibly possess {There was farting AND sweating; two things my mother said ladies don't do. Color me disillusioned}. I understand that women are swept up in the romance that the Twilight story puts forth—but that is no reason to set aside dignity and grace for a two-hour film. {Now a Chippendale's dance, yes} The gathering of stereotypical Twilight fans makes the Twilight series that much worse. Call me a “hater” if you will. Bring out the death threats. But someone needs to say that if Twilight fans want to be taken seriously, they need to start acting like civil human beings, recognize the series weaknesses, and not behave like crazed fans that would slaughter their mothers for a night with Pattison or Lautner... but that's a whole other article...

External Linkage

A brief return to horror, as a new Lucky 13 dawns on the horizon.

This week we discuss the greatest Vampire films ever made. You have to go read it because, goddamn, its vampires!

...oddly enough, Lost Boys didn't get brought up. Honorable mention, however.

And when you're done here you can head over to Vault of Horror for their picks as well. But, the fun all begins at Brutal As Hell.

     

External Linkage

A bit more E3 coverage... I probably have months worth. :P

This time at bat we have High Voltage Software and their top-down shooter The Grinder.

If you like monsters and splattery humor, this one's for you.

Its here at Padinga.com!

External Linkage

The last of the E3 Tech reviews is up, as I share final, parting thoughts on the Kinect, and the Yoostar 2 makes its internet debut.

If you've ever wanted to see me making a foolish attempt at an Arnold Impersonation, this is your time!


Its over at Padinga.com!

External Linkage: Two-fer

For any who missed our impromptu live edition of The Game Show, its up in the iTunes store now. This webisode is a quick 'un, featuring a brief recap and personal reflection on E3. Perfect accessory to all of the articles we're putting up. Via Padinga.com


Back in the movie front, the newest Lucky 13 came out, a trip down memory lane as we talk about some of our favorite horror comedies. From the fine folks at Brutal As Hell.


  

E3 Games: Square Enix

The Mega-gaming entity Square Enix puts out another massive stack of what looks to be colossal games. Check out the future of RPG and strategy titles from E3, all at Padinga.com

Follow this link to the Human Revolution.

E3: Sony's new The Move controller

Allright Sony, time for your time in the limelight.

Their new product debut was The Move, a motion controller that seeks to dethrone the Wiimote. Come see the results at Padinga.com!

Yes, its as awesome as this looks...

E3 Nintendo Madness Continues!

All the buzz is about Nintendo... again.

While I've got scads of games to cover, a few interviews to post, all of the talk, and all of the lines at the con, lead to Nintendo.

If you haven't figured out yet what all the buzz is about, its all centered around the Nintendo 3DS portable game system.

And if you haven't figured out why yet, maybe this look will clue you in. More at Padinga.com!

We're breaking into the next dimension!

External Linkage: E3 Edition- A Visit with Nintendo!

E3 continues to bowl me over. I got enough material for four articles, easy, but only had enough time to get one put together.
Of course, that's just me, the rest of the staff is out gathering information too. We could be writing for days if we feel like it, there's just that much new stuff floating around.

Of course we gotta cover the big guns first, and it doesn't get any bigger than Nintendo. Here's coverage from their press conference this morning, including new titles for the Zelda and Metroid franchises, as well as a look at the new Nintendo 3DS!

Its at Padinga.com!

   

External Linkage: E3 Edition

This was a huge, long day. I'd forgotten what the convention scene felt like!

Its has been said to me that at conventions, there are three things to do: Eat, Sleep, Play Games (or whatever the con is about). Pick two of those, that's all you have time to do.

Well, after a pair of press conferences and a huge concert, the Padinga crew has returned home with a belly full of pie to report the news.

We need to get back down there in two hours, so guess which option we're NOT taking. And the con hasn't even officially opened its doors yet...

Anyway, Day 0 coverage is up at Padinga.com. Go, read, enjoy. It was definitely a WTF kind of day for seasoned Gamers...

It Has Begun!... E3 with Padinga.com!

We interrupt our usual movie-related ramblings to bring a taste of digital delight your way. I'm out with your friends and mine from Padinga.com (former contributors of BreakmanX.com, and some fresh young talent to bolster the roster) as we cover the E3 Gaming Expo in Los Angeles.

There's not much going on today unless you're out watching the promotional circus act they have going on right now (from which a few news nuggets have already been spied. IE: Some new Xbox Model this year, also the Natal motion control is now re-labeled the Kinect, more on these later), but we had a good start to the week's coverage.

Day 1 consisted of a signing and photo op with Metal Gear creator and gaming legend Hideo Kojima. (seen here signing a copy of a friend's game for me) Sadly the press conference was cancelled, but we did set up an exclusive interview with him in the future, and we are certain to get some great game demos at the Konami booth, courtesy of their very gracious and apologetic company reps. Those guys have a lot of class.

But enough chatter for now. Check us out on Padinga.com, and look for updates all week long!

  

External Linkage

Week four of the Lucky 13! This week we examine the greatest and grisliest scenes of Gore ever created!
This is the biggest week so far in the series, everyone's got something to say!

When you're done here, pop over to the Vault of Horror for part 2!

Great big gobs of greasy, grimy, people guts!

    

External Linkage

This month's brand spankin' new BthroughZ.com! Lots of nifty, nasty nuggets of horror served up in heaping helpings! YOU'VE NEVER BEEN SO EXCITED!!

Not only do I have a particularly damning rant about crap-fest Exorcism of Emily Rose, but dear friend and generally foxy lady Abbie Stutzer joins the fray! THRILL! as she reviews the classic 'Brain Damage' and uses scintillating phrases like 'Love Meat'!

Now! New @ BthroughZ.com!

  

Splice: The importance of marketing

This weekend, one of the worst on record for the film industry, millions of people still went out of their way to throw down money at the movie theater, looking to escape the heat, and reality, for a few hours.

About ten people probably saw Splice.

Okay, obvious exaggeration, but the movie was a bomb, taking in just over $7 million with a #8 opening. Of course, it won't take much to make back the modest $26 Million budget, it'll do that over time with home video release, but its still not very impressive. Still, the question remains, why didn't people see this movie?

I know that I was excited to see Splice, but then, it had been talked up among the cinema world for several years. The script was well received when it first made the rounds. Then we were treated to shots of the film's creature, Dren. With the very sleek creature design, sharp CGI work, and production work by noted Director Guillermo Del Toro, there was a lot of buzz and positive talk about the film. Finally it debuted at Sundance, and it was very well received; there was even a bit of a bidding war over the distribution rights. And who can blame them? For a completely independent film, Splice looks wonderful. The 'net was getting hyped. All of the pre-game motions were set to see this indy-turned major release become a major hit.

And then we got this trailer.

Well... that doesn't look anything like the movie I had heard about in the production stages, the smart and creepy sci-fi. That looks like... Species 4 or something.

Then we finally got the poster and it too.... looked like part of the Species series. And the Species poster was a derivative of the original Alien poster. Coupled with the catch phrase "Science's Newest Miracle... is a Mistake" it looked like we had yet another 'cloning is bad' movie, stealing its visuals from a history of films that wished they were Ridley Scott's Alien. The film-going community shrugged, labeled it 'just another horror flick' and promptly ignored it.

I had a free ticket coming this weekend, so I braved Splice anyway, remembering what I had seen of it back in production and, wow, did they peg this movie wrong.

First off, Splice really isn't a horror movie at all. There are a couple jumpy moments when Dren is first introduced, and a big scary sequence at the film's climax, but the film doesn't really set out to scare you so much as make you ask questions. That's not horror, that's classic sci-fi. Though it has a creature in it, Splice is less about the monster, and more about the scientists; the focus is on the consequences they face when their own human infallibility enters the laboratory, their flawed compassion taking precedence over scientific reasoning.

Splice follows scientists and married couple Clive and Elsa (Adrian Brody and Sarah Polley) just after their biggest scientific breakthrough. They have created a protoplasmic creature that is a mix of the DNA structures of many different animals. Though lacking any real shape or function, the creature creates a series of proteins not found in any single creature in nature that can be used to cure livestock of many different ailments. The couple hopes to gain approval to add human DNA to their next proto-creature so that it might make proteins to cure Parkinson's Disease, Diabetes, and some forms of Cancer.

They are denied this, as most laws prohibit human cloning, even in a hybrid like this, and do the thing any two scientists in a film would do: they go ahead anyway.

At this point, the movie could have become the horror flick it was billed as, with the creature coming to life, escaping, and a bunch of people with guns trying to hunt it down in the sewers. Instead, it takes the more intellectual approach, and becomes about parenthood. From the offset, we know that Clive wants children, and Elsa does not. But when confronted with the partially human creation, Clive's first reaction is that of a scientist: destroy the creature, autopsy, examine, keep the lab controlled; meanwhile Elsa is immediately overwhelmed by her humanity, clothing and naming the creature, protecting it, and eventually taking it from the lab to nurture it. Despite Elsa's displayed superiority at lab science, she cannot keep the boundary of objectivity that is considered a necessity.

Throughout the film, the relationships between Clive, Elsa, and Dren all develop and change in startling ways. Dren ages at an advanced rate, going from embryonic to child to teenager over a matter of months. Over this time, Clive's strong paternal instinct begins to emerge, and he bonds with the creature. Elsa, maternally driven to protect the small Dren, now finds haunting memories of her traumatic childhood moving her in odd ways towards the adolescent she is now faced with. The rapid succession and development of emotions is more than the couple seem prepared to handle, and caught in the middle is a creature with many of the same human emotions, but lacking the reasoning to control them, having instead the instincts of the animals she was cross-bred with, play, eat, mate, survive.

From this set-up comes a number of questions. At what point do scientists cease to be humans, and should they/can they progress forward without humanity and compassion guiding them? This movie seems to suggest that it is the adoption of compassion over clinical behavior that can lead to disaster. At what point does a 'specimen' become something more? To what degree is a scientist 'married' to their work? The film suggests that there is truth to the notion that the results of an experiment are the scientists' 'child' in many ways, and that the experiment is a part of them.

Removed from the science, Splice has a few emotional questions at its core as well. Dren lacks much in the way of human reasoning, but her face and motions convey a full array of emotion. The longer the film continues, however, the more we begin to see that no matter how 'evolved' or adult humans are, our own reasoning can still be overwhelmed by the same instincts that drive Dren, or any animal. We seek control, we seek love, we seek comfort and joy. When hurt, when threatened, we lash out in the same way that an animal would, and we see that exhibited in many of the decisions Elsa makes. Splice questions our moral superiority that we, as humans, presuppose, looking at both our capacity for compassion and love, and our capacity for violence, incest, beastiality, rape, dishonesty and murder. Everything the scientific world fears Dren is capable of we ourselves are already committing; again it is emotion over reason. Emotion, perhaps, spliced with instinct; and maybe we don't really know how to separate the two.

All of this leads to our climax where Dren, overwhelmed by the emotional tempest of her two 'parent' figures and her isolation in their country home, makes a startling metamorphosis.

Obviously, I was impressed by the movie. Some of the story points you can see coming, I won't say that everything in the film is completely original, but by now everything seems to be borrowing from something else. But Splice is very smartly written and filmed, and presents its story in a new way, with more thought and depth than many sci-fi horror films in a long time. The performances are excellent, particularly Delphine Chaneac, who builds Dren into a believable and empathetic creature without speaking a word. CGI effects are also top-notch. It all adds up to a solid film that earned more than the meager audience it received this weekend.

In a summer of awful releases, this is one you should go see to escape the tedium of a useless Sex in the City sequel, or some needless remake.

Now, given it was mislabeled as a straight horror flick, I have to wonder why this one didn't attract more of the horror community. But that'll be saved for another entry...

External Linkage

The Lucky 13 continues as this week Brutal As Hell examines the greatest Occult films of all time: Witches, Demons, and Satan himself.

Once you read our review here, don't forget to pop on over to Vault of Horror to see what our fellow writers have to say over there. The whole of the horror-net is in on this one!

http://www.brutalashell.com/2010/06/the-lucky-13-week-three-demons-witches-and-the-devil/


      

Marmaduke

Hollywood... you're really stretching here, aren't you?

It seems like whenever the box office starts to slump, and it has been a bit lately, you panic. And when you panic, what to you do? Do you turn to smart directors like Spielburg or Cameron for advice? Do you look at the kind of quality pictures that Chris Nolan has made, all of which were 'unmarketable' $100 Million + success stories (and, of course, the Mega-hit Dark Knight). Do you look for scripts and directors who's films are quality and will have long-lasting appeal in the theater and on home video?

Or, do you make some bullshit with talking animals in it? Yeah.... that's it.

Now, hey, I get it, kids like talking animals. I know I saw more than a few Disney movies in my youth. I saw Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey. I took in Milo & Otis at the dollar show. But those movies were a lot further apart 'back in the day', and Disney, especially old Disney, is miles above any of the crap you're producing now. In fact, new Disney is buckling under the strain of losing its connection with kids. And rather than find new ways to engage them, they're relying on nostalgia for those old releases to keep the wind in their company's massive sales. (see: Cinderella 3, Junglebook 2, any other sequel 30 + years after the fact)

Furry Vengeance, Beverly Hills Chihuahua, Dogs v Cats 1&2, Chipmunks and Squeakuel, Garfield, G-Force... man, you guys are just pumping them out lately, aren't you? And its all enough for a quick cash-grab, but where's Snow White? Where's Lion King? Where's anything that gets kids to come back over and over again, and doesn't kill the soul of their parents at the same time? Only Pixar seems to have what it takes. Dreamworks is doing okay but, please DW, let Shrek die.

And so, now we have Marmaduke. A movie based on a comic strip, which is neither funny nor popular, coming out about thirty years after the strip lost any relevance it might have had.
Now, hey, props to creator Brad Anderson for still being a working cartoonist after all these years. He's still doing a one-man show on Marmaduke after 55 years and, at age 85, shows no signs of stopping. I appreciate that kind of long-lived effort.
But still, you've taken the creation of an 85 year old man, who bases many of his gags on old Laurel and Hardy skits, and expect it to be relevant and amusing to kids.

Of course, at the same time you've gone against the source material, and made Marmaduke talk. Have we ever had insight to Marmaduke's thoughts?

You know what is a better Marmaduke movie? Beethoven. The dog didn't have to talk in Beethoven, he just ripped off most of Marmaduke's gags and earned like 4 sequels. But then, that was 20 years ago. Shit has to talk now.

So, I don't know what's worse, the fact that you made some BS movie that panders to the lowest common denominator in a desperate plea for summer box office receipts; a film that shows you still have no idea how to engage kids without treating them like little idiots. OR the fact that the creator of Marmaduke will go see this movie, and have an aneurysm and die when he sees this piece of shit and realizes that the children of tomorrow will remember his pooch more for this dreck than the long-running strip he lovingly crafted for decades.

Where was I going with this?... oh yeah, Hollywood, fucking get it together.

No one go see this movie. If you need further evidence, the trailer... Dance sequence totally ripped from Beverly Hill Chihuahua.

... kill me