I had a nice little chat with Paul Andrew Williams. It was our most long-distance interview yet. He was in Jolly Ole' England and was nice enough to stay up late to talk to me about his latest film Cherry Tree Lane. We've got a review forthcoming. This is a most interesting and quite intimate look at a home invasion. Bang it here to listen in on our chat Paul Andrew Williams

“I’ve changed a lot. I’m not the same woman.”

Early on in Luis Buñuel’s surrealist gem, a mild-mannered older gentleman named Mathieu douses a beautiful, battered woman with a bucket of water as she desperately attempts to board the train he’s riding. His fellow passengers are stunned, but also understandably intrigued. What possible sequence of events could’ve led Mathieu to this cold and cartoonish gesture? It’s an irresistible hook, and Mathieu proceeds to regale the other travelers —

“This is a corpse infected with the plague. It is uncaring, unfeeling.”

When it comes to the overwhelming majority of zombie fiction, it’s all about brains. (Or rather, BRAAAINS!!!) It’s what the undead hunger for, and a well-placed headshot is usually the only way to kill them (again). And that doesn’t even cover the popular device of using the walking dead as an allegory for an increasingly mindless society. Warm Bodies stands out because it’s more concerned with an entirely different bodily organ.

It's hard to imagine that Sylvester Stallone and Walter Hill never crossed paths for an action movie in the early days of their careers. Both have established themselves as staples in the action movie genre, and they dominated the 1970's and 1980's. It seems like a dream come true that the actor and director have finally joined forces. Unfortunately, some dreams are actually nightmares, and if Bullet To The Head is any indication, the two stars would have been better off had they remained unaligned.

When being handed this title to review I have to admit my expectations were rather low, but as with every other title I was going to give it a chance.  It’s not that I don’t enjoy cartoons or kid-friendly television; I was simply more concerned that perhaps I had reached an age where I simply wouldn’t be able to connect to the material I had to watch.  By the time the credits to the first episode rolled, I quickly moved on to the next episode. 

Comedy Central is the main access for exposure for most comedians today. They regularly broadcast up and coming comedy specials, and Amy Schumer seems to be one of their latest favorites. She has a new sketch comedy show coming out this spring on Comedy Central called Inside Amy Schumer. She was also featured on the celebrity roasts of Charlie Sheen and Roseanne Barr with a number of better-known performers. Her material is fairly fearless, targeting anyone and everyone.

No matter how much you hated Prometheus — parts of it were startlingly dumb, but people who seriously talk about it like it’s the worst film of all time need to take a deep breath — Ridley Scott has a pretty strong case to be included on any list of Top 10 Living Directors. His work has helped redefine genres (Alien, Blade Runner, Gladiator) given us indelible images (that final still from Thelma & Louise) and even provided a few smaller-scale delights (Matchstick Men is my favorite of this group). So I’m proposing we take a quick break from trashing his last movie to discuss his very first one.

How exactly do you make a superhero movie without the powers? Answer: Have them wake up with their powers being stripped from them. All Superheroes Must Die is a superhero tale that from the title you can tell is fated not to end in the traditional way that superhero films end: with the righteous prospering and the wicked suffering. What the film title doesn’t let you know, however, is how underwhelming the film is. It does have an interesting startup, I’ll give it that.

Do you have what it takes to win a video game championship? That’s the question Noobz asks and the Reign Clan tries to answer. The Reign Clan consists of four guys obsessed with Gears of War 3. There’s Cody (Blake Freeman, also the film’s co-writer and director), the anger-prone leader, and Andy (Jason Mewes of Clerks, Mallrats and pretty much every Kevin Smith movie), who is Cody’s best friend and a game store manager. There’s also the sexually confused Oliver (Matt Shively, TV’s The Troop) and “Hollywood”, who the rest of the clan believes to be Casper Van Dien.

Here’s the thing. Fans of the franchise should be pleased with the latest entry. The series has been a solid October tradition for some time now. When you consider the low cost of creating one of these films with the proven box office numbers, this was all really a no-brainer, to say the least. You’re going to get more of what you are expecting, and the film throws in enough new angles and tricks to keep the idea as fresh as possible. However, there is a flip-side to all of this. I don’t think it’s very likely that you can enjoy this film quite so fully if you have not seen any of the previous films.