I LIKE MOVIES #15: HARRY BROWN

When I saw the trailer for Harry Brown my first impression was that somebody had remade Death Wish 3 with Michael Caine without telling him what they were up to. That assessment is not too far off. Most vigilante movies are running similar courses anyway but the plot as presented in the preview was particularly Death Wish 3-ish. A man on the higher numerical spectrum of believable action heroes becomes a vigilante after his good friend is killed by the street toughs. In Death Wish 3 it's wonderfully cartoony and it is one of the most entertaining experiences you will have with your friends at Golan-Globus. In Harry Brown everything is darker and grimmer. It was like they took the plot of Death Wish 3 and ran it through the grittier atmosphere of the first Death Wish.

Harry Brown opens with a pretty hard hitting scene. Shot in the point of view of a thug's cell phone camera, we get a visceral introduction to the neighborhood. It is a world where senseless violence prevails. The heart of this world is a pedestrian walkway where the gang can be seen by day and heard from its innards at night. Harry Brown has to go out of his way everyday when he visits his wife in the hospital.

His wife passes away and shortly after his only friend, another old timer, gets killed by the gang. This is where the movie steps away from most vigilante cliches. Harry Brown doesn't dwell on these facts and slowly become violent against his nature. Harry embraces what he has been in the past and falls back very easily into violence. He used to be a soldier but once he met his wife he quit his violent tendencies cold turkey. Now without her there, he comfortably relapses. After his first incident with one of the gang members, Harry is not the embodiment of panicked nerves and crying remorse that we have seen in countless vigilante tales. He covers his tracks carefully and relies on the anonymity of the elderly.

Violence as a drug is a theme that runs throughout the movie. So much so that we see a whithered junkie fire a gun and then smoke his stash right through the barrel. The movie is about Harry's relapse and society's addiction. And these addictions escalate throughout the movie.

And as for that whithered junkie I mentioned, he is one of the creepiest looking guys you'll find in a movie like this. His skeletal frame was covered with nasty veins, bruises, and track marks. He looked a lot like Billy Drago if he was dying of AIDS.

Michael Caine does a very good job and is believable in his role, which was a concern I had going in. He lends credibility and depth to what could be a very standard vigilante movie. He only gets about two or three scenes to give us a picture of his decades-long marriage and he nails it. He not only delivers the emotional hook but the action as well. They don't overdo it. They keep it realistic. Harry is an old man with emphysema. He's not doing back flips off roofs or anything. Although I would have loved to see that movie too.

If you like vigilante movies, then there is no reason you shouldn't check this out. And I hope Christopher Nolan is paying attention, because I think it's time Batman learns what his butler is capable of. I give Harry Brown today's arbitrary rating of 9 arthritic trigger fingers out of 11.

I LIKE MOVIES #14: DRACULA DOUBLE FEATURE

I'll take a short break from packing up my house to quickly write about the Dracula Double Feature I treated myself to last week. First up was Horror of Dracula, the first movie for Christopher Lee to suck blood as the famous vampire. If you are familiar with the basic Dracula story or have seen other Dracula movies then you will know what to expect plotwise. The scenery and the performances are what make this one stand out as something special.

As big a fan I am of the classic Universal monster movies, I must admit I have never really delved into the Hammer horror movies. I think I am going to enjoy digging into their catalogue in the future. Christopher Lee is probably the most famous Dracula aside from Bela Legosi so I was very interested to see his take on it. To my surprise, he gives a very restrained, natural persona to the Count (when he isn't in blood thirsty vampire mode, that is). There was no booming bass in his voice to which I've grown accustomed from Lee. His stately demeanor allowed the transformation to be much more startling when his red eyes glare over his protruding fangs.

The real star of the show, though, is Peter Cushing as Van Helsing. He has a cocky coolness to him and carries the movie. He's so cool that when it comes time for Van Helsing and Drac to throw down at the end, you kind of feel that Dracula doesn't stand a chance. Van Helsing is seemingly the only guy on the planet who knows what he's doing when it comes to fighting a vampire. I had complete faith in him. Dracula's toast. (That means Dracula is toast. It is not a cross promotional breakfast treat)



But Drac isn't toast for too long since Dracula AD 1972 sees the Count resurrected in London.



Since I haven't seen the numerous other Christopher Lee Dracula movies, I don't know how much continuity there is between them, but this stands alone well enough. Something tells me this was a last straw, out-of-the-box attempt to get the swinging London kids interested in spending their time and money on Dracula. I wonder if, at the time, sending Dracula to the 70s was like sending Jason to space?

In Dracula AD 1972, a group of groovy kids are hanging out, being hip, looking to do something really boss. One of these kids just happens to have the last name Van Helsing. And her grandfather just happens to be Peter Cushing. Another kid in the group happens to be a Dracula minion and is determined to resurrect his master. You see, several generations ago Dracula and Van Helsing were having an epic fight on top of a runaway horse-drawn carriage. Van Helsing gets the win and Dracula gets buried in holy ground.

When Dracula gets woken up he realizes how delicious Van Helsing's ancestors would be. He wants to eat Peter Cushing's busty 1970s granddaughter. An awesome 70s soundtrack plays while the Van Helsings and Dracula do their eternal dance. It's pretty fun.

I enjoyed my Dracula Double Feature and I'm looking forward to seeing more of the Hammer horror movies. I'll the give the entire late night experience today's arbitrary rating of 4 stakes through the heart out of 5.



Bonus Cool Italian Poster

I LIKE MOVIES #12: THE GOOD, THE BAD, THE WEIRD

I wasn't entirely sure what to expect going into The Good, The Bad, The Weird. I had seen a short trailer a few months ago that seemed cartoonishly violent with a sense of humor but I didn't get a sense of what the story would be. How much of it (if any) would be a retelling of The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly and would it do that movie any justice? Part of the problem was that I didn't speak Korean and the trailer had no subtitles. Then I forgot about it. I checked it out on a whim at the Kendall earlier this week.

Any comparisons of this movie to Sergio Leone's Westerns can be made quickly and then put behind the viewer. There are three main characters, each personifying a titular trait. There is a jockeying of these men towards a treasure. There is traditional Western gunslinger imagery. There is a Mexican Standoff at the end. Other than that The Good, The Bad, The Weird pretty much goes off in its own crazy directions. It's not a remake, but it does have a few moments that feel like sincere homages to Leone. Though the Western aesthetic is in place throughout much of the movie, this is its own animal.

The general premise of the movie is that Yoon Tae-goo (The Weird) is robbing a train that Park Chang-yi (The Bad) was hired to rob. Chang-yi's target was a map carried by one of the passengers. Park Do-won (The Good) also shows up to take on the bad guys. The Weird ends up with the map and everyone else wants it. The chase begins. Elaborate shootouts, cool visuals, and eclectic music ensue. The map is being sought by every gang in the area. Even the Japanese army and the Korean resistance are after it.

The movie is cluttered with action scenes. There are very few moments of isolation for any of the characters. Even when a character seems to be alone in the desert there are a dozen other people over the next dune watching him. It's OK though because it allows for more people to get shot.

The plot is straight forward and simple but a lot gets piled into it. We are constantly introduced to new characters and relationships. Then spectacular gun fights happen in between and during. This all culminates with an epic chase towards the end that includes horses, motorcycles, and an assortment of military artillery.

Don't expect anything like The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly in terms of tone or pacing. This is an all out action movie with soaring cameras and frenetic energy. Pure eye candy for action junkies. With action scene after action scene, it takes a lot for the big chase at the end to not fall upon desensitized eyes. But it delivers. It delivers so well that the standoff at the end feels almost like an afterthought. The movie doesn't really suffer because of this though, since it is all about relishing in the stylized violence anyway.

If hyper-stylized bullet storms are your cup of tea, then dust off your doilies, Barbara. I'm not really sure what that means, but I'll give The Good, The Bad, The Weird 76 bottomless refills for its revolvers out of 82. I'm going to bed.

I LIKE MOVIES #11: HORROR EXPRESS

I'm going to try to do this without making any train jokes. Here we go.

Horror Express is a great fix if you are hankering for a 70s European creature feature. It's a Spanish/British production starring Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing as scientists on a train travelling through China and Russia at the turn of the 20th century. Rivals at first, they end up having to work together to fight a thawed-out prehistoric humanoid monster that absorbs passengers' minds through their eyeballs.

Christopher Lee is Prof. Saxton. He finds a fossil that he thinks is the missing link and will prove evolution as fact to all the doubters. Unfortunately, the fossil was possessed by an evil alien being millions of years ago and is still alive in the ice. Like Encino Man. It thaws out and starts draining people's brains until they are utterly barren of memory or thought and are dead. Like Encino Man.

Lucky for the monster, a thieving locksmith tries to open his crate. The monster absorbs his mind and is now himself a master lock picker. Now he can get himself out of his box and wander the train cars. It's kind of funny seeing a brown, hairy monster hand delicately picking a lock. The next victim is a train steward with huge Irish-guy sideburns. Rather than the monster getting sideburns from this attack, he acquires the man's trademark "whistling of the movie's theme song."

The victims look really cool. After having their minds sucked out, they are left with bulging, bleeding white eyes. Considering this movie was made in 1972, when contact lenses were actually the size of dinner plates, this couldn't have been an easy visual to create. The other option is that they had to build the effect on top of the actor's eyes. Either way, it is visually effective. They look like less crusty versions of the demons from Evil Dead.



For an audience in 1972, the scene in the picture above was probably the equivalent of the part in The Ring when they open the closet door and you see this sexy lady:



Peter Cushing, while trying to use some of his smooth English charm on an attractive young lady who turns out to be an international spy in an unnecessary sidestory, gets grabbed by the monster. Lucky for him he did not look into its glowing red eye. Not so lucky was the inspector who saved him. He succeeded in shooting the monster but little did he know the alien beast had a trick up its monster sleeve. Not only can it take your mind, but it can apparently also take your body. So the monster is now in the inspector.

So now it's like The Thing and no one on the train knows who the monster is. Telly Savalas shows up and hams up the joint and all Hell breaks loose. The monster had another trick up his monster sleeve. Not only can he take minds and jump bodies, but he can also create zombies from his victims. This is a shocking turn of events indeed!

Well, I've ruined a lot of the movie for you now, but check it out anyway. It also has a mad monk, skull-sawing autopsies, and a few good mustaches. And an alien trying to get back to his home planet. Like E.T. if he were a total dick.

Horror Express gets today's arbitrary rating of two and three quarter monster hands out of five.


Cool VHS Cover Bonus Points

Looks like I did it. No train jokes. I hope it wasn't boring. That you weren't bored. Aboard. All aboard. Trains.

Dammit.

I LIKE MOVIES #10: KICK ASS

Kick Ass was pretty great. Violent. Vulgar. Funny. Nicolas Cage with a moustache. It's the story of a teenager who decides to become a super hero. Donning a scuba suit he takes to the streets to fight crime and gets the snot knocked out of him. But he is optimistic and persists. Along the way he meets other, more organized heroes, gets famous on Myspace, and pisses off some bad dudes.

What is garnering the most attention is the character of Hit Girl. Apparently some people get upset when a foul mouthed eleven year old girl kills a room full of drug dealers. I say, that's what America is all about! The scenes with her and her father, Big Daddy, are great. it's oddly touching watching her make a deal that if she takes two more bullets to her protective vest, without wincing, they'll get sundaes.

And Nicolas Cage delivers another oddball performance. When not fighting crime he has a pleasant, Flanders-y demeanor. But once he dons a costume and adds extensions to his mustache, he murders gangsters and talks like Adam West.

The movie tries to take a "realistic" approach to superhero style vigilante justice but still keeps it within the world of comic books and superhero movies. Our hero gets injured constantly and has more guts and good heart than skills or plans. It's a world where instead of kids trying what they see on TV, they try what they see at the comic shop.

Kick Ass earns its R rating with brutal violence and harsh language but still maintains elements of comedy. It isn't an oppressively dark, violent movie. Imagine the first Spiderman movie written by somebody more horny and cynical. And in that movie Peter Parker meets an incredibly violent vigilante father/daughter duo.

When Kick Ass is blamed for a series of mobster murders, he becomes the target of some really bad guys, not just street thugs. Enter the villain's teenage son as the decoy superhero, Red Mist. I felt like they were trying to put Red Mist on a moral tightrope where we were supposed to wonder where his allegiances would eventually fall. However there was never too much doubt, especially by the end where his character's moral choices could have played out very interestingly. Instead I felt that the last few minutes were some of the weakest of the movie. Hit Girl's attack on the mob boss's lair was great. But then there was some jet pack business that stretched the movie's accepted realms of realism for me.

Kick Ass was a fun take on the Superhero genre and I'll definitely check out a sequel in the future.

Today's arbitrary rating says that Kick Ass gets 12 broken noses, 3 broken ribs, and 16 black eyes out of forty something somethings,

I LIKE MOVIES #9: Survival of the Dead

George Romero has made three of the greatest zombie movies ever made. With Night, Dawn, and Day he laid the ground work for the majority of the zombie genre. His newest movie, Survival of the Dead, is the sixth in the "Dead" series and the first one to directly connect a character to its predecessor. So it is the first "sort-of-direct-sequel." When he made Diary of the Dead in 2007, he went back to the beginning, to the first night that the dead came back to life. Part of Survival's story follows a character briefly encountered in Diary.

The other part of the story follows two rival families living on an island, the Muldoons and the O'Flynns. These two families are clashing over the proper way of dealing with the reanimated dead. O'Flynn wants a bullet in every walking corpse and Muldoon wants to keep the dead restrained and hope for God's judgement or perhaps even a cure.

Given that this is a George Romero movie, I was surprised that this war of ideologies was not entirely beaten like a dead horse (the phrase "dead horse" being unintentionally funny after having watched the movie). And I say that with love. I really do love his first three Dead movies, and I definitely enjoyed the later three entries. It just seems that with this newest installment Romero restrained himself from an overindulgence into themes of religious zealotry in favor of shootouts and a general theme of people with different ideas not being able to live peaceably together, dead or alive. And for me that was a good thing. Fans who have left his previous two zombie films with unfulfilled expectations will probably feel similarly after watching Survival. This isn't the grand epic of world wide proportions everybody seems to keep wishing for from George Romero.

Instead of letting social commentary overwhelm the movie (as I worried it might have earlier on) Romero goes for laughs and a quick pace. This isn't as much a horror movie as it is a modernized Western with zombie gags. The zombies do not provide scares for us or for the characters they are trying to eat. They are nonchalantly manhandled by characters throughout the movie. The focus of the story is more on how the dead are treated by the characters.

For example, the idea of family members unable to kill one another after they have become the walking dead has been explored in Romero's other movies. Most memorable might be the scene in Dawn of the Dead, when we see the basement of an apartment building full of what used to be tenants' relatives but are now flesh eating ghouls. It was scary and kind of sad as Roger and Peter had to put them all down. In Survival, the dead are treated like cattle or livestock. But not scary. Just another day on the farm for the Muldoons. I think it was an intentional transition though.

Since the movie doesn't get too bogged down in social commentary, which is always a danger in the genre, there is room for playing. George Romero introduced the movie when I saw it and described it as having several "Looney Tunes" moments. He went on to say that people should not be afraid to laugh. It's a movie. Have fun. Perhaps it was due to this granting of permission, but the audience was going wild for some of the more outlandish stuff and I was glad. It seems George Romero is at a point where he just wants to have some fun with his zombies. It was as if the scene from Diary with Samuel the Amish mute had spread out into most of this movie. There was a lot of silliness to be had here.

Zombies get lobotomized with fire extinguisher foam, used as cigarette lighters, ride horseback, and try to do chores around the farm while some of the living characters are entertainingly cartoonish with ridiculous accents. There is even a scene where a wall gets exploded, leaving the men who were hiding behind it comically covered in ash, like Yosemite Sam after pushing an ill-prepared dynamite plunger. These are, for the most part, what I consider intentional laughs. On the other hand there are moments that made me laugh that I don't think were supposed to. The introduction of a character's twin was a little iffy story-wise but hilarious nonetheless. And the end result of Muldoon's training zombies to eat something other than humans played out comically as well. I don't think it had the intended impact. Although I must say that the final shot of the movie is pretty great.

Bottom line, America: I had a fun time at the movies. Survival of the Dead is not the living dead epic that hardcore fans have been awaiting, but I'm totally fine with watching George Romero have fun with his zombies.

Today's arbitrary rating says that Survival of the Dead gets 46 empty graves out of 57.

I LIKE MOVIES #8: BAD LIEUTENANT: PORT OF CALL-NEW ORLEANS

I finally got around to watching Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans after missing it in the theater. I can honestly say that it was pretty much exactly what I expected. A Nicolas Cage and Werner Herzog collaboration just seems like such a logical idea for some reason. And the outcome was as insane as I wanted it to be.

Nicolas Cage has always been an actor with some subtle and not-so-subtle oddities to his acting. Most of the time he divides audiences into love and hate categories because of this. To his credit though, he can still fill theaters with more mainstream fare while also catering to his proclivities to be all Nicolas Cagey.

Cage has been teetering on the edge of irony for years now and it is only going to take a small push to put him into the spot that Christopher Walken has been calling home for the past few years. I really hope that someday Tom Green directs another movie and that it stars Nicolas Cage. That might sound weird but I swear it makes sense and would be great. They could remake Freddy Got Fingered with Nicolas Cage and I would be first in line.

In Bad Lieutenant, Cage plays a drug addict corrupt cop. It all started with a back injury which led to pain killers which led to a "6 months later" subtitle. He needs to solve a five body homicide while getting his fix, keeping an eye on his prostitute girlfriend, checking in on his alcoholic dad, getting his fix again, dealing with his bookie, and keeping up appearances at work. And getting another fix. There's a lot on his plate.

When one snorts what one believes to be cocaine but is actually heroin it can apparently effect one's judgement. Especially while investigating a quintuple homicide. Hilarity ensues. When Nicolas Cage gets to cut loose in movies, it is generally very fun to watch. Check him out in Deadfall. Hilarious. Bad Lieutenant is no exception. What do you get when you take an already eccentric Nicolas Cage performance and you give his character more crack? You get hilarity.

At some point in the movie, I think it was after one particularly great scene in a nursing home, he starts inexplicably speaking in an almost Marlon Brando impression (?). Either that or he was trying to channel The Penguin from Batman. Whatever he was doing with his voice, he keeps it up for the next few scenes. Between all the Nicolas Cagey stuff, the iguanas, the shakedowns, and the dancing souls we have an excellent oddball, dark comedy.

For those of you who loved that last 20 minutes of The Wicker Man, this entire movie is for you.

Today's arbitrary rating is 12 lucky crack pipes out of 10.

I LIKE MOVIES #7: DOLLY DEAREST

Dolly Dearest is what you get when you try to make a direct to the video store hybrid of Child's Play and The Exorcist. As far as evil doll movies go, I suppose you could do worse than this. But that isn't saying much. It's a genre that isn't burdened by too many looming, insurmountable peaks.

The movie is about an American family moving to Mexico to make dolls in a factory that happens to be located next to an archaeological dig site. The dad in this family either misread the memo about outsourcing his work to cheap Mexican labor or he is planning on living his dream of personally running a hands-on sweatshop. Either way, he dragged the whole fam to Mexico to make cheap dolls that "every little girl in the world is going to want." The evil spirit buried in the tomb next door must have overheard that these would be a hot Christmas item, so it possesses the dolls. Then the dolls can possess the children. Or something. I don't know why the spirit needs to be in a doll to possess the little blond girl instead of just doing it directly. That's just the way the cookie crumbles.

This movie doesn't bother messing around with any mind games about whether the dolls are actually possessed and the kid is just crazy, which seemed like an obvious route for this to take. I'm actually glad it didn't because the only thing this movie had going for it aside from terrible(-ly funny) acting was watching the animatronic doll and the midget in doll clothes do things. Oh yeah and Rip Torn.

Rip Torn plays an archaeologist from the prestigious University. He has some hilarious, amazingly unplaceable accent. Never have I heard such an accent. Judging by his tan and the movie's setting I guess it was supposed to be a Mexican accent but something tells me I'm way off on that. Probably his accent.

So Rip Torn eventually explains that the dig has uncovered the tomb of a devil-baby that the Sanzia tribe buried almost a thousand years ago. He describes an evil beast that had the body of a baby and the head of a goat. That sounds so awesome. Why couldn't the movie have been about that guy?

Generally movies like this try to fall back on humor or at least treat the premise with a little tongue in cheek. Unfortunately for Dolly Dearest the laughs are unintentional and I really do get the feeling that there was true intent for creepiness in some of this movie. It didn't intend to come off as camp. There is sincerity in her voice when the mother yells, "I am not losing my daughter to a God-damned, nine-hundred-year-old goat-head!"

Speaking of dialogue, the thirteen year old son is written so excellently for this type of movie. He's a geeky bookworm so that we can learn all about the history of the Sanzia (even though we already have an archaeologist character and superstitious locals for that) and he gets to say things that all kids in 1991 said. Things like, "The Mayans? They were cool dudes." And that the Sanzia were "really weird dudes." You see, kids call people "dudes." Look it up. It's a fact.

I feel like I'm giving this a bum rap. If you are reading this and think this sounds terrible, then you probably wouldn't have liked it anyway. But if you are reading this and thinking that it sounds like fun, then you are right. Indulge in some early nineties video store horror aisle gluttony and check this out. Double feature it with Stuart Gordon's Dolls to sweeten the deal. Microwave some popcorn or get some Doritos and dust off the VHS player.

I'll give this the arbitrary rating of 36 demon goat-head babies out of 48. And that's saying a lot for Dolly Dearest, because you only need one demon goat-head baby to get a party started.

PS: I present the coveted "Least Amount of Acting Award" to Sam Bottoms for his performance of "man-getting-stabbed-slightly-above-the-knee." Congratulations! May your stiff, emotionless portrayal of "man-getting-stabbed-slightly-above-the-knee" continue to be hilarious for years to come! Hip hip hurrah!

I LIKE MOVIES #6: FIDO

Fido is a satirical look at the American family ideals of 1950s. The movie opens with a great 1950s style school scare/safety film. It's very informative. You see, space dust has caused the dead to come back to life and eat the living. But with the help of ZOMCOM and their handy services and appliances you and your family can still live the perfect everyday life in your perfect neighborhood. And your domesticated zombie servant (controlled by the ZOMCOM collar, of course) can water your perfect lawn and bring you lemonade. Zombies deliver the milk and the mail and every family on the block should have at least one. I mean what would the neighbors think if the Robinsons didn't have even one zombie?

The movie sticks to its Cold War American aesthetic throughout the movie. The colors are bright, the lawns are manicured, and from the clothes to the cars to the kid's bed sheets (which cartoonishly depict the Zombie Wars) there doesn't seem to be a detail out of place. Instead of fearing nuclear bombs or commies, the kids at school are taught to fear perimeter fence breaches by zombies or a neighbor's ZOMCOM collar going on the fritz.

When Mrs. Robinson brings home the family's first zombie, her son Timmy quickly bonds with it. He becomes a pet rather than a servant. Hence the name Fido, in case you were wondering. He protects Timmy from bullies, plays fetch, and when his collar breaks he eats a crabby old neighbor. Timmy and his mother spend the movie protecting their zombie from the powers that be while Mr. Robinson deals with his repressed zombie issues.

On the surface all of these families within the fence seem idyllic. But of course they all have their issues. When they aren't judging the guy next door for his strange relationship with his young female zombie, they are worrying about what everybody else is saying about them and their zombies. Too many topics become taboo at the dinner table and communication fizzles away. Dylan Baker, as the father who refuses to acknowledge his son's curious questions, is great. Just look at him. He was born to play a 1950s dad.

I'm sure this would be billed as a horror-comedy, but really it's just a comedy. There aren't any scares (although there is a little gore if you're the squeamish type). It doesn't try to force a message, it just presents a ludicrous situation and gets laughs by playing it straight. Even when Timmy sends his zombie to get help and it plays out like a Lassie episode, it doesn't come off as a forced joke. It fits perfectly into the 1950s cornball world they have created.

Billy Connolly plays the titular pet zombie. He does a great job of getting both laughs and sympathy when needed. When he has his collar on he is like a way more laid back version of Bub from Day of the Dead. The only downside to him playing a zombie is that we don't get to hear his awesome accent. That guy could read the ingredients off of a cereal box and I'd listen.

So, if this sounds like fun then check it out. Fido gets today's arbitrary rating of 5.8 domesticated zombies out of 7.

I LIKE MOVIES #5: THE CRAZIES

Remakes can be a touchy topic, especially for horror fans. I begrudgingly came to the conclusion a few years ago that remakes will happen regardless of if I want them to. And the originals will always be the originals. Even though I would rather see Jason return to Crystal Lake for a dozen more murder sprees, each with increasing degrees of ridiculousness, before starting over from scratch, I must admit that I did check out the remake/reboot. And it was fine. Kind of meh. Jason X was actually more fun. Don't tell anybody.

On the other hand, some movies have great premises but could benefit from a modernized retelling. The Crazies definitely fits the bill. George Romero's original has a cool premise: a government created weaponized virus gets unleashed on a small town after the plane transporting it crashes into the local water supply. It suffers from a low budget and the general George Romero heavy-handedness when it comes to portraying the government and military. Romero was never very subtle with his allegories. It's a pretty good movie, and I would never tell you not to see something. Like I said, the originals are always the originals. Remakes should never be considered replacements.

If you are going to remake something, the best thing to do is to bring something fresh to the table. The new The Crazies keeps the same plot but removes the government point of view from the story. Instead of the audience seeing the town's people trying to cope and survive and then seeing what the military honchos are doing to keep control in alternating scenes, we are only presented with the locals' perspective. In a way it makes the military presence scarier. We as an audience are as much in the dark as the characters that we are watching. Which is why I am surprised that they didn't try to recreate the most jarring scene of the original in which men in haz-mat suits with machine guns are kicking in doors and pulling families out of their beds. They do show some children being taken from their parents in the remake, but not on their home turf, not from their own beds. Like I said, Romero doesn't do subtlety.

The remake also benefits from modern special effects and a budget with which to utilize them. The movie looks gritty and bloody but also polished when it needs to be. If you are a fan of virus movies or zombie movies, you'll know what to expect. This isn't the most original movie but it works well and is aware of exactly what it is. It opens with Johnny Cash singing over the credits. Immediately I am reminded of the opening credits of the 2004 version of Dawn of the Dead (another Romero remake). I think the reference was intentional. The action and suspense get started and the pace is quick as our Sheriff puts the pieces of the plot together so that we can get down to some more action.

Even though this a remake of a George Romero movie, I felt a stronger presence of Jaws references than Romero references. Director Breck Eisner is clearly a Jaws fan. We have a widow slapping our police chief like Mrs. Kintner and a fun scene with the mayor thinking of dollars over safety. He may as well have told the chief that, "Amity is a summer town . . . we need summer dollars."

I was along for the ride and accepted everything that the movie threw at me. Except for one thing. Timothy Olyphant gets stabbed through the hand. It's brutal. But it never seems to hurt in the subsequent scenes as he steers cars and shoots guns without wincing. It's stupid that it bothers me, but he basically throws a bandaid on it and forgets about it. It hurts the "realism," even in a movie like this. I'm glad that's off my chest. Now I can finally move on with my life.

The Crazies was a lot of fun and has some pretty good scares. Check out the original too. I'll give this today's arbitrary rating of 17 virus infected maniacs out of 21.

I LIKE MOVIES #4: DADDY AND THEM

Daddy and Them is a movie I had been interested in seeing for awhile now. Written and directed by Billy Bob Thornton, it was the final appearance of Jim Varney, one of my childhood favorites, in a small and all too rare dramatic role. I finally got around to checking it out thanks to Netflix.

It is a character driven story about a family that just doesn't communicate or connect in any meaningful way. It has elements of the Southern aesthetic that were used so well in Thornton'sSling Blade but this is a different kind of movie. It's more rooted in dark humor (although Sling Blade definitely had a humor to it as well).

The characters are interesting but I felt the two leads (Thornton and Laura Dern) were the least likable of the lot. They spend most of their time flinging accusations at each other. But it serves its purpose so we can see that they have hopefully grown by the end of the movie. The main characters are members of a dysfunctional family that some might call white-trash. Others might call it their own family. Andy Griffith does a good job as the "Daddy" of Daddy and Them. He always seem on the verge of total senility. And I liked John Prine as Alvin, the brother with his nose in a book. When Alvin finally speaks his mind, Andy Griffith gets one of the best lines of the movie.

This wasn't as good as Sling Blade. It may not be fair to compare the two, but they are both stories about flawed Southern characters interacting in a backdrop of broken family dynamics written and directed by the same filmmaker. So I feel there can be many comparisons made between them. Having said that, don't expect it to be the same tone as Sling Blade. With all of their similarities, they are still very different movies.

I would like Billy Bob Thornton to direct more movies because Sling Blade was great and Daddy and Them had the potential to be as great but was hampered by a less interesting story and a few scenes that felt forced. Particularly, a scene towards the end that sees Claude and Ruby in the back of a pickup truck felt like it was "the dramatic scene that will hammer home the themes of the movie." That's what it was, but it didn't feel like a natural direction for the movie.

It is always nice to see Jim Varney get a chance to show that he could do more than just Ernest. He doesn't get enough credit for his range of characters and voices. There is a deleted scene on the dvd where he gets to shout and yell and get emotional. It's unfortunate that it didn't make the final cut.

Daddy and Them gives a glimpse into a messed up family that will either remind folks of their own dysfunctional relations or make them grateful for the family they have that isn't being represented onscreen. And I just want to point out how misleading the tag-line on the poster is for this movie. It conjures thoughts of some light-hearted sexy comedy which is way off the mark.

Today's arbitrary rating says that Daddy and Them gets 17 family therapy sessions out of 24 and a half.

I LIKE MOVIES #3: MR. MAJESTYK

Vince Majestyk is a melon farmer who hires a crew of laborers to help bring in his crop. Some local nogoodnik tries to muscle out his workers so that his crew can be hired instead. It's stupid but it gets the plot going. Bronson gets charged with assault for handling shit the only way Bronson knows how.

When he is being transported for his trial, some more bad dudes attack the bus in an attempt to free another convict: the notorious hitman, Frank Renda. Bronson takes control of the situation and kidnaps Renda in the giant police bus without somehow being followed by anybody. He offers the police a deal. He'll give them Renda if they'll drop his assault charge. All he wants to do is bring in his melons. Renda escapes, vows revenge, etc.

Basically Bronson pisses everybody off and then they try to kill him.

There are two types of Bronson performances. Tough as nails. And tough as nails and occasionally flashing a charming smile. this movie falls into the latter category. He's not as laid back as in something like St. Ives, but he's having fun being a wise ass. The movie is fun if you enjoy Bronson (and really, who doesn't?). It has some very good car chases, an explosion or two, gun fights, and a scene where armed thugs open fire on a barn full of defenseless watermelons. And if this plot revolved around any other farmer than Vince Majestyk, then the A-Team would have to have been there lending a hand within the week. BA wouldn't have wanted to "get in no airplane." But luckily Mr. Majestyk can handle his own business and the A-Team could go help some other small farming town from being bullied.

The bad guys are pretty good. It is hilarious watching Renda and his mustache become obsessed with killing Majestyk. And Bobby Kopas is an excellent "thinks he's tougher and smarter than he is" character.

If you like movies where Chalres Bronson plays a watermelon farmer named Vince Majestyk, then you will love Mr. Majestyk.

But seriously, folks. Mr. Majestyk isn't ground-breaking or life-altering. If you're the type of audience for this kind of movie then you already know it and you will most likely enjoy it like I did. And if you still aren't interested maybe THIS will sweeten the deal:





Today's arbitrary rating says that Mr. Majestyk gets 87.3 Bronson wrinkles out of 109.

I LIKE MOVIES #2: DANCE OF THE DEAD

Last night I watched Dance of the Dead. It's currently on Fearnet on demand if you want to check it out. I wasn't expecting much but I'm a sucker for zombie movies. I was pleasantly surprised by this movie. Luckily it didn't try to tread too far into Shaun of the Dead's turf, because it could have in many ways. The turf it does tread upon is very familiar but that doesn't hurt it. In many ways it helps it.

Dance of the Dead is the post-prom pregnancy of countless 80s zombie movies. In it a teen slacker with no aspirations gets dumped by his girlfriend the afternoon before prom because of his apathy and inability to take anything seriously. Zombies attack. He proves he can do something with his life by going to save her. Sounds like Shaun of the Dead, right? Luckily this movie is also pilfering themes and styles from many other aspects of the genre.

Yesterday I mentioned how I liked that the teens in Ginger Snaps don't veer into cliche territory. Today I will praise the opposite. This movie is full of high school stereotypes, but they work in this environment. The sci-fi nerds, the overbearing gym teacher, the unattainable-for-the-geek cheerleaders and prom queens, the cool slackers, the angry tough guy loner with a heart, the punks/metal heads . . . the sportos, the motor heads, geeks, sluts, bloods, wastoids, dweebies, dickheads...they all adore him. They think he's a righteous dude . . . sorry, I was somewhere else there for a minute.

This movie was clearly made with a lot of affection for the genre. Many folks like to debate zombie rules. Are they fast or slow? Do they talk? Do they eat brains or will any human meat suffice? Most of these debates will likely conclude that it's different within each movie's world. Or in a fist fight. Dance of the Dead's zombie rule book kind of picks and chooses from its favorite movies. It has a pretty great cemetery eruption scene that recalls the first two Return of the Living Dead movies but also Dead Alive or maybe even Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. And it works great. Zombies burst out of the grave like Rey Mysterio and take off after their meals. These zombies cry out for "BRAINS!" although I don't really recall seeing any brain eating, just a whole mess of flesh eating. The movie tries to cover all of its zombie bases. There are slow zombies. There are fast, screaming zombies. They rip people apart and eat their faces, but they still moan for BRAINS to keep our ears entertained. But one thing is for certain: you kill the brain, you kill the ghoul.

Another aspect of the movie that was old fashioned and welcomed was the reason for reanimation. This one was simple. Chemical waste from the power plant. So many movies nowadays try to invent some new way to explain zombies. This felt right out of the 80s. It works.

The ending (this won't ruin anything) gave me the same feeling I had at the end of Demons. I have grand anticipations of some epic, weird, stylized sequel that would continue directly after the events of the first but probably won't ever happen.

Dance of the Dead isn't the most original zombie movie you'll ever see, but it's familiar waters are always refreshing. And considering the current state of zombie movies, you could do a lot worse than this.

So I guess I'll give this three and a half mouthfuls of brains out of five.

Must have been a tough call to not name this Prombies.

I LIKE MOVIES

In an attempt to stay productive I am going to try to review the movies I watch. And I watch a lot of movies. I haven't come up with a format yet, so let's see how this goes.



I'm no werewolf movie historian, but I've seen my fair share. What was at once a metaphor of a man's inner rage, the werewolf at some point also became the horror movie symbol for puberty. Whether it was I Was A Teenage Werewolf in the 50s or Teen Wolf in the 80s, it was hard to avoid the parallels between lycanthropy and puberty. New urges! New unexpected growths! New body hair! And in Michael J. Fox's case, new slam dunk skills! This is the category in which we find Ginger Snaps.

Ginger Snaps is better than its name or poster let on. In it, two late-blooming, social outcast sisters named Brigitte and Ginger are faced with all the problems of being 15 and 16 respectively. High school's social cliques, underachieving hormones, oblivious parents, and the fear of growing apart are quickly becoming concerns for these two almost weirdly close sisters. Oh yeah, and some sort of unidentified beast has been eating the neighborhood's dogs. About four seconds after Ginger is stricken with "the curse" of womanhood she is attacked by the monster. It's true: Their menstruation attracts bears. Or in this case, werewolves.

Their menstruation attracts bears

Ginger starts turning into a werewolf over the next few weeks, getting interested in boys, drugs, sass-mouthing her mom, and eating the neighbor's pooch. Meanwhile her sister tries to find a way to cure her. Their bond is well established very early in the movie so you actually care for both of them getting out of this predicament.

One thing this movie does really well is how it handles the high school stereotypes. The stereotypes are there for sure: the snooty pack of girls, the "stoners," the "freaks." But they don't tip too far overboard into cliche or jokey territory. You don't have the nerd with the tape on his glasses or the guy in his varsity jacket always carrying a football.

Definitely worth checking out if you're in the mood for a fairly unique approach to the werewolf genre. Also this movie gets points for using all practical effects as far as I could tell.

I don't have a rating system, like stars or thumbs up . . . so this one gets, I don't know . . . 8 drops of werewolf period blood out of 11.

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