Posted in: The Reel World by M. W. Phillips on May 18th, 2012
“My dad said they’d come, said it my whole life. He said one day we’ll find them or they’d find us. Know what else he said? He said, ‘Hope I’m not around when that day comes.’”
Director Peter Berg kneels at the altar of Michael Bay and lovingly creates a clone of his most bombastic, military-fetish, slo-mo obsessed, whiplash-cut-driven movies with Battleship, based on the Hasbro (the same company behind the Transformers movies and yes, it definitely shows) board game of the same name. In fact, it kind of feels like the Sea Monkey version of Transformers, just add water and watch the mech monsters grow before your eyes.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by M. W. Phillips on May 10th, 2012
“If my family can’t live in this house, you sure as hell can’t either!”
Daniel (Frank Grillo) and Beth (Jaime King) Sohapi picked up a great deal on a recently foreclosed house, and they’ve invited a handful of friends over to celebrate. A tornado threatens the area, but everyone is partying in the basement, which has been recently reinforced as a tornado shelter. Things look great in suburbia until three frantic and deadly bank robbers, Ike (Patrick Flueger), Addley (Warren Kole), and Johnny (Matt O'Leary), return to their childhood home following a botched bank robbery. Johnny is dying from a gunshot wound, their accomplice in the robbery made off with all the stolen cash, and the boys lost their secure contact phone to mother. Now, on top of that, they discover the home they grew up in is no longer theirs as mother lost it to foreclosure, a fact they would have known if they could have contacted her after the bank heist. Well, when life gives you lemons… They decide to hole up in the house until mother (Rebecca De Mornay) and sister Lydia (Deborah Ann Woll - Jessica from True Blood) arrive to sort things out, keeping the current residents and their guests as hostages. Things turn from bad to worse for the victims when mother shows up and takes charge. With the authorities closing in and the outlaws in need of $10,000 to secure their escape across the border into Mexico, desperation ups the ante in what these home invaders are willing to do to get what they need from the new homeowners and their most unfortunate guests.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by M. W. Phillips on April 30th, 2012
“What does it say about me that I find it much easier to believe in the Devil than I do in God?”
Coming off the Saw franchise, Director Darren Lynn Bousman brings us 11-11-11, a lame attempt at an atmospheric thriller in the vein of The Omen, Rosemary’s Baby and The Devil’s Rain. I can only think the film was rushed into production to cash in on a once-in-a-lifetime date phenomenon. It certainly shows in the stiff acting and lo-fi production values.
Posted in: The Reel World by M. W. Phillips on April 27th, 2012
“What cannot be disputed is your imagination is the inspiration of a horrendous crime.”
The Raven may not be a turkey, but it doesn’t really soar either. Director James McTeigue (V for Vendetta) attempts to fashion a historical fiction around the mysterious final five days of Edgar Allen Poe’s life. A notorious drunk and opium addict, Poe (John Cusack) careens through 19th century Baltimore dead broke, bitter from years of writers block, and harassed by the locals for being a blustering has-been. Due to a distinct lack of social sympathy, he can’t even borrow money for a single drink, which forces him into an involuntary sobriety. At the same time, a rash of murders inspired from the pages of his darkest fiction terrorize the city, and he is called in by Detective Fields (Luke Evans) to assist in the investigation.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by M. W. Phillips on April 23rd, 2012
“Here in Tresock, I believe the old religion of the Celts fits our needs at this time. Isn’t that all you can ask of a religion?”
In 1973 Director Robin Hardy captured lightning in a bottle with the classic The Wicker Man. Based on David Pinner's 1967 novel Ritual and loosely adapted into Anthony Shaffer’s sharp screenplay. Shaffer painstakingly researched paganism giving the film an undeniable authenticity, The Wicker Man became a genre of its own known as Folk Horror. The beauty of the film was the war of counter-religions, Christianity vs. Celtic Paganism. Both religions were well respected and represented, never sinking to the point of parody or cynicism. Of course, the lion’s share of the cultural clash leaned to the side of the pagans, robustly embracing their music and daily rituals. The film served as a horror movie for Christians and a victorious feel-good movie for pagans. Either side found it unforgettable.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by M. W. Phillips on April 17th, 2012
“Won't bow, don't know how.”
More than any other show, Treme captures the very soul of the city it is set in. Where The Wire may have presented the city of Baltimore as one of the supporting players in the series, Treme is New Orleans. The haunting percussion and brass of the musicians, the lyrical shorthand of its citizens, the quiet desperation of pride after destruction, rampant political corruption and unchecked crime mix together to form an eclectic jazz tempo that makes up the heartbeat of the Crescent City.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by M. W. Phillips on April 10th, 2012
“Don't you ever touch the sacrificial fluids... okey dokey?”
“Okey dokey” indeed; in 1985, director Josh Becker gathered his friends, including Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell, and they shot Thou Shalt Not Kill… Except in Detroit around Campbell’s childhood home. Working with a microscopic budget, they created a tribute to the savage exploitation films of the sixties and seventies, full of bad lighting, crappy sets, leaden acting, cheap makeup gags, horrible dialog, and a certain goofy infectious fun.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by M. W. Phillips on March 26th, 2012
“Ohh. Oh, Fritz? Fritz, get up for God's sake! Get up! They've killed Fritz! They've killed Fritz! Those lousy stinking yellow fairies! Those horrible atrocity-filled vermin! Take that! Take that! They killed Fritz!!!”
Ralph Bakshi is probably best known for his x-rated animated adaptation of R. Crumb’s Fritz the Cat, the first animated film to receive an x-rating from the Motion Picture Association of America and still turn into the most successful independent animated feature of all time. When his second and also x-rated animated feature, Heavy Traffic, a blacker than coal satirical comedy, became a hit (theaters were willing to take a chance on the x-rating due to the success of Fritz), Bakshi became the first person in the animation industry since Walt Disney to have two financially successful movies released consecutively.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by M. W. Phillips on March 22nd, 2012
“Chill out? Am I the only one hearing this? This thing attacks people, Jane, and she wants to go looking for it, because she has deranged fantasies about the unexplained!”
In Splintered a group of teens go seek the truth behind the northern Wales urban legend known as the Beast of Bodmin, a creature who may be responsible for the death of a bunch of livestock and the disappearance of a number of tourists and citizens. Sophie (Holly Weston) lives with unsuppressed childhood memories of being assaulted in her bedroom by some kind of beast man. It drives her to seek out the unknown with a particular obsession with the Beast of Bodmin. Sophie tricks John (Sol Heras) a boy crushing on her, her best friend Jane (Sadie Pickering), Jane’s boyfriend Sam (Sacha Dhawan), as well as Jane’s brother Dean (Jonathan Readwin) into join the hunt without really ever telling them what they were doing. So what should be a weekend romp turns into an investigation of a deadly urban legend. Gee, never heard of that plotline before.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by M. W. Phillips on March 22nd, 2012
“You have no idea what a real monster looks like.”
Clearly the creators of Creature have no idea what a real monster looks like either. This is the kind of film you would expect released directly to DVD and then shown on the SyFy channel late Saturday night, not one that would be released on over 1500 screens across America. This is a grade-Z movie barely elevated by a half decent cast. It is the kind of film that could have been intentionally funny, but director Fred Andrews wasn’t in on his own joke. Unfortunately it isn’t unintentionally funny either, as it never quite wallows in its own crap enough to be like an Ed Wood or Uwe Boll stinker. I can’t imagine how mad anyone must have been to have paid $10 plus to see this steaming swamp shit on the big screen. It justifiably ended up earning only $327,000 in its 1,507-theater opening weekend, setting the record of the worst opening weekend in more than 1,500 theaters, averaging only $217 per theater!
