Shame on you, Movie Lovers

...if you didn't go all out for this friday the 13th. I went with my personal favorite Friday The 13th Part 4: The Final Chapter (love those Tom Savini special effects) and capped off the night with the gloriously ridiculous Jason X (best effort from the New Line years IMO, though I do have a soft spot for Freddy Vs. Jason as terrible as it is). It was also Hitchcock's birthday today, though I had covered my bases on that with a theatrical viewing of Dial M For Murder earlier in the week. Also yesterday was I think the 71st(?) anniversary of Wizard Of Oz and I appreciate any excuse to screen that one - what a gorgeous and iconic piece of film history.

Centurion

is in a special On Demand preview on FiOS and several other services right now... so of course I watched it. I knew I could never convince my fiance to go see it with me in the theater, and the home TV is a pretty sweet 1080p 50", so why the hell not? It was basically pretty bad ass. I don't expect Kubrick-quality work out of Neil Marshall... for me he is kind of similar to Zack Snyder: they make trashy modern B-movies and they get the damn job done. Though, as much as I may have liked it, I am worried he will not produce another Descent-calibur film anytime soon. I think with Doomsday and this he is trying to make a movie that is bigger than the one he can afford to make. They want to be epic and grandiose in scale and are trapped within their own budget (like the original Death Race for instance.) But if you suspend your disbelief on the goodwill that they would have made a more expensive, believable movie if they could... then that shit is pretty awesome. I would proudly admit to being a Neil Marshall fan.

The Stuff (1985)

Larry Cohen is the fucking man, and this is one weird-ass yet oh-so-watchable obscurity. Also, Maniac Cop is my favorite horror series. PLEASE bring an UNRATED, WIDESCREEN version of Maniac Cop 2 to Blu fucking immediately!!!! That I have to watch a damn VHS rip of this movie to get an ideal cut and aspect ratio is literally ridiculous. I am assuming Blue Underground is having problems acquiring the rights to these movies as they are the most famous William Lustig works. They did, however, just put out a sick ass Blu of his glorious Uncle Sam last week, and I WILL be purchasing it with my first Capital One paycheck. How does this movie not have a fucking wikipedia entry? Criminal.

Random Bullshit

So I had a friend leaving town and due to some schedule changes I won't be seeing The Other Guys until Wednesday probably, but at least I got to see my friend one more time. However I did make it to Dial M For Murder and, as always, the Movieland presentation was beautiful. I have never seen a Hitchcock movie look so good. The colorization really popped on the big screen, and Grace Kelly is nothing short of stunning in that one. Ray Milland really irks me throughout that movie, which is a lot less bothersome after the intermission when the narrative begins to follow Halladay and the detective. It is good that he irks you, it is in such a way that he is supposed to bother you... like the young men who commit the murder in Rope. You see Jimmy Stewart come in as this supporting character and that's who you get to root for. The policeman in Dial M For Murder is exactly like that, and I really like that aspect of it.

Tomorrow's marathon? A Roger Corman triple feature!:
Forbidden World / Battle Beyond The Stars / Galaxy Of Terror

Can't wait. That is hot on the heels of watching Joe Dante's great Corman flick Piranha today in celebration of Piranha 3D being ever closer to release. I will have to follow that up with The Howling sometime soon. I am on a B-movie tear lately. Lower-rung genre productions, especially the ones we deem classic in hindsight, tend to be a hotbed of future film talent. James Cameron's set design in these three movies I'll be watching is a good example. Plus they were using actors you just have to love as a genre fan... Sid Haig and Robert Englund are prime examples.



Oh yeah, I almost forgot... a huge song off of the upcoming Lil Wayne 'I'm Not A Human Being EP' leaked on the internet and it is sweet as hell. The song is Right Above It [Ft. Drake] and Kane Beatz is on fire with his recent production work. This one is awesome... candy-coated Southern rap of the most sophisticated pop order. Like 'Steady Mobbin [Ft. Gucci Mane]' it is a "pure southern rap" track, with no R&B chorus or sung hook, and it just has tons of bars. And yet the tweaked/professionality of the beat is on a level of quality that Madonna, Britney, or Timberlake would purchase. It is and has been a golden age for southern rap, as important a genre in the mid-to-late 2000's as funk, disco, or new jack swing ever were during their peak of popularity. I am extremely glad that an authentically regional culture can make a splash on larger popular culture in these culture-LESS days of internet-driven homogenization/globalization. Authentic, un-ironic, REGIONAL culture.

Dial M For Murder

I just looked up the Movieland sunday schedule, because they show a classic movie at 11:00am every sunday, and this week it is Dial M For Murder. So I am totally going to this... the last one I went to was JAWS a couple of weeks ago, which is probably tied with Toy Story 3 for my best theater experience this summer. They could just re-release certain movies into major theatres and make a killing... when are they going to figure that out? Dial M For Murder was made during this magical period of Hitchcock that ran from like the mid-50's to the mid-60's where every picture is like an important, iconic work. The JAWS print they had was flawless and looked beautiful on digital projection, so I cannot wait to see this in such a beautiful presentation as the copy I have is somewhat shitty.

Also, t-minues 50 minutes until my showing of The Other Guys... fucking awesome.

Adam McKay fucking rules

I'll be seeing The Other Guys today (OPENING day) before people get off of work... fuck yes. Friday morning is the perfect opportunity to see a brand new movie without the bother of an excited opening night crowd. Plus McKay is my favorite comedy director currently working, so this one will probably steal the Summer's Best Comedy award from Get Him To The Greek. I'll confirm or deny after I see it!

Damon Lindelof

I just do not like this dude. I was super excited, unlike many geeks, about the idea of a couple Ridley Scott-helmed ALIEN prequels to be released in 3D. I got an even bigger boner about the idea when details came forth that he might focus on the mysterious Space Jockey who appeared to have been fossilized in the original ALIEN. But yesterday they announced it would be written by... Damon Lindelof.

I hate this guy. To me, him and Carlton Cuse are like coffee go'fers for the better, more legit Abrams writing team of Kurtzman/Orci. Please stop giving them important work. I realize that there are many LOST fans out there that would disagree with me about their competence, but to me they are total hacks. From just watching two seasons they were able to take probably the most dazzling television pilot ever filmed, JJ's brilliant LOST plane-crash pilot, and drag the show into some pointless excersize in MYST/David Lynch immitation with very little plot payoff to be had anywhere. That they would make such small, physical, real island details seems important on a week-to-week basis seemed to imply that they had some sort of major plot importance, but by the second season they were piling up so rapidly that it became obvious to me that they were not. It was an exploitation of serialized television designed only to keep you watching. The long con.

On Saturday LOST won some type of TCA award and Lindelof had to give a speech, in which he recited the '5 most hurtful tweets I recieved after the finale'. And he credited the very last of the 5 to my man J.J. Abrams, who handed him the most glorious television pilot in memorable history on a silver platter:

"You're a dirty liar. You never knew, you made it all up, you betrayed us all. You betrayed me and I hope you rot, motherfucker."

Please, for fuck's sake, TAKE THIS GUY OFF OF MY BELOVED ALIEN FRANCHISE AND GET A REAL FUCKING WRITER.