Posts by Jeremy Butler

 “Season of the equinox, the witch besets her kill; one last soul, the town to know taken against their will.”

I’m not the type that scares easy, and I’m not overly superstitious. But when it comes to urban legends, I know there are a few things I never intend to do: I never intend to say “Bloody Mary” three times in the bathroom mirror, I never intend to mix Pop Rocks and Coke, and, if there is a legend about a witch that will come after you if you break one of windows of her house, guess what? I won’t be picking up a rock.

“Some people are lucky enough to find their true passions. That’s okay, because their passion makes them feel like somebody. Sometimes it’s the only thing that keeps them moving. I know some people don’t get mine. My passion is jumping rope…competitively, but I like it.”

Growing up I can remember a desire to tie my parents up; did anyone else share that desire? Don’t get me wrong, this desire was not meant with malicious intent, but to simply grasp the full attention of my parents.

Things needed to survive a zombie apocalypse: a secure location to hole up in, water (lots of water), canned goods, a hatchet, and a high-powered rifle (preferably with a scope). Luckily for Jim, the main character of State of Emergency, all these things just happen to fall into his lap. Produced by the Clay Brothers (Haven’t heard of them? That’s okay, neither have I.), State of Emergency is their second feature film, and though it ultimately shows promise, it could have been better with a few tweaks.

“Now it’s mandatory that you do not make make eye contact until we tell you that it’s all clear.”

Typical, one person can’t follow simple instructions and the rest are doomed to die because of it. Or at least that’s how it starts in Escapee, the new suspense horror film starring Dominic Purcell and Christine Evangelista, or what I like to call it: Halloween with a dash of Friday the 13th. Harsh perhaps, but as I watched the film I could not help but the see the comparisons. It fooled me at first

“Solving the following riddle will reveal the awful secret behind the universe, assuming you do not go utterly mad in the attempt."

Never question the importance that a title plays in the success of a film. The title is the first thing that you encounter when discovering a new movie. Let me set the scene: you are at home, bored and looking for a movie to watch so you go to a Redbox kiosk or log onto your Netflix (given that video stores are close to extinct at this point); you narrow your selection down to two titles.

The power is in the mind, or at least it is in Trance, the latest psychological thriller from Academy Award winning director Danny Boyle. From the original trailer I saw of this film, I had the wrong impression of this film completely; I was intrigued by the film, but I just expected it to be another heist film. Now, for the record, I love heist films; I love the watching the thieves plan the heist, I love watching them execute the theft, and I even love the eventual double-cross that everyone always sees coming. To call Trance simply a heist film is to severely undersell its value.

“Why save a few when we can save them all?”

An excellent question; have you ever noticed that in disaster films as soon as an apocalyptic event is discovered, plans go into motion to protect the elite such as the president, his cabinet, and a few select others while the rest of the world is left out in the cold to be lambs to the slaughter? Well, in Earth’s Final Hours, the lambs fight back, working to save the many rather than just the few.

It is truly amazing the career that Tom Green has had when you really sit back and think about it. Tom has made a career as an oddball whose antics would either make you laugh hysterically or raise a brow with suspicion of his mental state. His personality has taken him to many heights, from a Canadian Public Access show to MTV, MTV to the silver screen, but it wasn’t until he got in front of the camera and documented his battle with testicular cancer that many people would stand up and take notice of Hollywood’s strangest man.

Timing is everything in life; being in the right place at the right time could mean great fortune. Of course the other side of that coin is that being in the wrong place at the wrong time could mean great misfortune; want to guess on which side the coin landed in Stand Off? (Hopefully you guessed misfortune; otherwise stop reading now.) Brendan Fraser leads the comedy about a botched robbery which eventually transformed to an even bigger mess. I’ve been a Brendan Fraser fan dating all the way back to Encino Man, and I was especially excited when he achieved action hero status with the The Mummy franchise

I tend to shy away from films that have come out before I was born. It’s not a rule, just a habit. The reason for that being because not being from the generation that movie was produced in, I fear that there will be a lot of cultural reference that I will be unfamiliar with and I will have to Wikipedia them all. I also feel that because I am from a different era I am not qualified to render a sound opinion of an older film, because I may judge it too harshly due to my growing up within a time of special effect advancement.