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Cinematical Seven: First-Person Horror Movies Worth Watching
Filed under: Horror, Independent, Thrillers, Slamdance, Mystery & Suspense, Sony, RumorMonger, The Weinstein Co., Dreamworks, Cinematical Seven, Remakes and Sequels, Toronto International Film Festival
Despite having previously established my feelings about this weekend's Quarantine, I must confess a new willingness to give it a fair shot later tonight. Regardless, this week's Cinematical Seven is all about first-person horror movies, with a couple of oh-so-subjective stipulations:
- We're leaving The Blair Witch Project (1999) out of this. It might not have been the first of these movies, but it was undeniably the most successful and influential. There are only seven slots here, and I feel like everyone has already made clear whether they find this scary or just stupid (I fall in the former grouping, though I say this having not seen the flick since my teens). If you still feel the need to take BWP to task, comment away.
- Also omitted will be The Last Broadcast (1998), which drew mild controversy at the time of its release for its similarity to Blair Witch. I'm only not writing about it because the copy of it sitting just over on my shelf here has remained unwatched. My bad.
- The previous film by the guys behind Quarantine is The Poughkeepsie Tapes (2007), which -- being in the hands of the Weinsteins -- has not yet seen the light of day beyond a couple of festivals. Having not attended any of said festivals myself, I'll just sit here and guess that it'll get dumped to DVD (probably under the Dimension Extreme label), and not any earlier than next year at that.
Now, on with the list...
Cinematical Seven: Cool Horror Films of the 80s
Filed under: Fandom, Cinematical Seven, Lists
(All this month we'll be bringing back some of our favorite Halloween-themed posts, as well as digging up some brand new stuff from beyond the grave. Enjoy!)
By: Matt Bradshaw
Since the 1980s was a time of truly horrifying fashions and some downright scary hairdos (pass the Aquanet, please) it's no surprise that it was also a boom period for horror films. Some of the biggest horror franchises in history came into their own then, and the decade was marked by the emergence of home video, the greatest thing ever to happen to horror. I'm presenting these in no particular order, but these are all flicks I found time to enjoy between solving my Rubik's Cube and admiring girls in leg-warmers (I keep hoping those will come back).
The Return of the Living Dead (1985)
Despite what ultimately ended up on screen, this project began its undead life as a more or less official sequel to the movie that gave birth to the modern zombie genre. After completion of Night of the Living Dead, director George Romero and co-screenwriter John Russo both held sequel rights. While Romero continued the series with 1978's Dawn of the Dead, Russo's sequel came in the form of a potboiler of a novel called Return of the Living Dead. The book is a real chore to plod through, but apparently writer/director Dan O'Bannon liked it enough to turn it into a film which fortunately bears no resemblance to Russo's novel. In the film, the events of Night of the Living Dead are more or less based on a true occurrence, but names and details were changed to avoid law suits. Several drums of the chemical manufactured by the military to reanimate the dead were mistakenly shipped to Uneeda Medical Supply. A dopey pair of guys release the chemical which makes its way into some cadavers in the warehouse and eventually the cemetery across the street, where a gang of punk rockers are killing time. These zombies are more selective than most, feasting only on brains. Not everything works perfectly, but the zombie known as Tarman is pretty cool, Linnea Quigley is naked most of the time and there's an awesome punk soundtrack.
Cinematical Seven: The Funniest Ladies of 2008
Filed under: Comedy, Fandom, Cinematical Seven, Lists
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While I'm sure we'll all agree that these past few years have given us some wonderful little comedic gems, it's often unfortunate to see most of the attention thrown at one particular sex, or, in some cases, one particular man: Judd Apatow. But this post won't be about Judd Apatow, or Seth Rogen ,or Jonah Hill, or Michael Cera, or Will Ferrell, or Adam McKay, or Vince Vaughn, or Owen Wilson, or Kevin Smith ... or any of the male names that currently populate (and dominate) some of your favorite comedies. Nope, because it's about damn time we give the ladies some respect.
I'm sick of the female roles in comedies today. She's either the bland girlfriend, or the bland friend, or the bland enemy -- she's full of cliches, and only serves two purposes: 1) to help move the story along, and 2) to make her male counterpart appear funnier. That said, Hollywood is beginning to take more chances on the female-driven comedy, with films like Baby Mama, The House Bunny, Sex and the City, Bride Wars and Confessions of a Shopaholic all arriving in theaters this year or in early 2009. But is this enough? Is there better, smarter and funnier material for women out there, somewhere ... over the rainbow? While you ponder that, here, in my opinion, are the funniest ladies of 2008 (in no particular order) ...
1. Tina Fey
Right now you know her as "that woman who does the awesome Sarah Palin impersonation," but people forget Fey has been making us laugh for a good while now. One of
Cinematical Seven: When Talking Animals Attack
Filed under: Comedy, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Family Films, Cinematical Seven, Remakes and Sequels, Lists
I grew up reading Charlotte's Web and watching Mister Ed and the Francis (the Talking Mule, with Donald O'Connor) movies on TV, so I have a very warm spot in my heart for talking animals. They can inspire wondrous flights of fantasy, lift the spirits with good-natured humor, and lead to a deep and abiding respect for nature and the environment.
Of course, watching the Yogi Bear cartoons once made me think I could take on a black bear foraging for food at our family's camping site in Yellowstone National Park -- I was six years old and had to be physically restrained -- so I can see the down side as well. Still, dozens of animated films have made it abundantly clear that it's possible to lend human voices to the animal kingdom without dumbing the material down to idiocy and, when done right (Babe, Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey, Joe's Apartment), live-action talking animals also deserve to be a treasured part of our cinematic heritage.
But not these. Here are seven (mostly) live-action movies featuring talking animals that attack our sense of what makes a movie good.
7. Underdog (2007)
When Hollywood screws around with my cherished childhood memories, I strain to give them the benefit of the doubt. There's no excuse, though, for this abomination of a movie. I realize that Wally Cox's dweeby voice would be impossible for someone else to replicate, but Jason Lee? Really?! A huge chunk of the original cartoon's charm was the very simple (cheap) animation, which relied upon the writers to come up with witty things for the actors to say. None of that was transplanted to the live-action movie and I can't imagine any children looking back fondly upon this version of Underdog in the future.
Cinematical Seven: Horror Remakes That DON'T Suck!
Filed under: Fandom, Cinematical Seven, Lists
(As a way of welcoming my very favorite month of the year, I thought it would be fun to reprint one of the very few good articles I've ever written. So here it is!)
By: Scott Weinberg
House of Wax, starring Paris Hilton. The Fog, starring Wooden Superman. The Amityville Horror, starring Van Wilder.
Yep, it's tough to be an old-school hardcore horror fan these days, what with all the really atrocious remakes that keep flopping off of the studios' assembly lines. (If you paid money to see When a Stranger Calls, you're either one devoted horror fan -- or a really bored high school kid.) But since the Horror Fan is nothing if not loyally optimistic, we trudge off to each successive remake with a small kernel of hope -- maybe this one won't suck the proverbial egg. So while it's perfectly logical for a passionate horror geek to throw up his/her hands and shriek "Ack! Horror remakes! They all suck!!" -- the simple truth is that they don't all suck. The good ones are just pretty darn few and far between.
7. Night of the Living Dead (1990)-- Splatter-master Tom Savini got the chance to direct his own remake of Romero's all-time classic back in 1990, and -- whaddaya know? -- he did a pretty solid job of it! With extra gore dripping from the floorboards and the presence of genre favorites Tony Todd & Bill Moseley, this re-visit came long before the Remake Renaissance, but I think it still holds up pretty well today.
Cinematical Seven: Sex Addicts on the Silver Screen
Filed under: Comedy, Documentary, Drama, Independent, Romance, NSFW, Cinematical Seven, George Clooney
"Well, you tried it just for once, found it all right for kicks.
But now you found out that it's a habit that sticks,
and you're an orgasm addict." – The Buzzcocks
The new movie Choke, adapted from the Chuck Palahniuk novel, is about a sex addict (Sam Rockwell) who, in one element of the plot, hooks up with other sex addicts who attend the same Sex Addicts Anonymous meetings as him. Ah, the irony. The same thing happened to Sam Malone on Cheers, if I'm not mistaken, which makes the joke around 20 years old. Yet, despite that fact, sexual addiction as a term and a (non-DSM-recognized) medical problem seem fairly new to cinema.
Sure, there have been sex addicts in films for many decades, but they were more likely to be described as nymphomaniacs, lechers or typical men. Think of Dorothy Malone in Written on the Wind, a number of the female characters created by Tennessee Williams and certainly the locked up nymphos in Shock Corridor. In the past few years, however, there have been a slew of actual "sexaholics," both male and female, though some aren't exactly referred to in such a manner.
Cinematical Seven: Top Seven Movies Within Movies Since 2000
Filed under: Comedy, Fandom, Cinematical Seven, Lists
It is inevitable -- any form of art will, at some point, turn inwards. Instead of focusing on other forms of life, the form will attempt to reveal itself -- whether exploratory and serious or sarcastic and mocking. In Hollywood, the camera has spun inwards countless times. Sometimes it's earnest, but most often it's a great serving of satire and irony.
There are a ton of great examples of this, from Boogie Nights to Pee-Wee's Big Adventure, Strange Brew to The Big Lebowski. If I had 50 slots, I could make this comprehensive, but I only have seven. So you're getting the best mock-filled flicks of this century -- films ranging from the year 2000 all the way to 2008. Check them out after the jump, and weigh in with your picks below.
WARNING: The following videos are NSFW. They contain, among other things, violence and foul language. Watch at your own risk.
Cinematical Seven: The Ghosts That Always WANT Something
Filed under: Cinematical Seven
Cinematical Seven The Ghosts That Always WANT Something
Watching 'Ghost Town' gives you that haunted feeling. It's not like someone's watching you; instead, you're watching something you've seen before. Strip away its particular trappings -- Ricky Gervais' sublime performance as a bitchy dentist, Tea Leoni's neurotic turn as a widowed Egyptologist -- and 'Ghost Town' belongs to an offbeat but popular genre: needy ghosts, and the living who help them. In honor of David Koepp's comedy, we count down others films of its ilk, from best to worst. -- By Raven Snook
Dreamworks
7. 'Heart and Souls' (1993)
Robert Downey Jr. has the misfortune of being born at the exact moment that four folks with unfinished business die in a bus crash. When he grows up, he's forced into fixing their messes. As he helps the quartet of quirky characters (played by Charles Grodin,Alfre Woodard, Kyra Sedgwick and Tom Sizemore), he learns the joys of selflessness. Much as we love vintage Downey, the film could have used a little more help from the living.
Universal / Everett Collection
6. 'Just Like Heaven' (2005)
Reese Witherspoon gets into a car accident and ends up in a coma. Somehow, her amnesia-stricken spirit finds a way to haunt her old apartment as well as its new tenant, Mark Ruffalo, who must help her remember who she is. This goofy romantic comedy tweaks the premise -- after all, she isn't dead, technically -- but it's pretty much the same old story, except here it's the living helping the unconscious.
AP
5. 'Heaven Can Wait' (1978)
A star quarterback gets to heaven before his time. The powers that be send him back to earth in the body of Warren Beatty, a millionaire who's just been killed by his wife and secretary. Not only does Beatty insist on trying to lead his old team to the Super Bowl, he also makes up for his dead host's dastardly deeds. Chris Rock remade this movie as 'Down to Earth' in 2001, but adding racial humor wasn't an improvement.
Paramount Pictures / ZUMA Press
4. 'The Time of Their Lives' (1946)
A flop in its day, this Abbott and Costello comedy features two executed Revolutionary War "traitors" trying to clear their names 170 years later -- with the help of the living, of course. Surprisingly, A&C are not the spirits in question. Costello's partner in dieing is Marjorie Reynolds, while Abbott plays two roles: the villain who framed them, and his guilt-ridden descendant, who helps them get to heaven. A real curio and decidedly ahead of its time.
ZUMA Press
3. 'Angels in the Outfield' (1951)
God's emissaries and a little orphan girl help a baseball team and its surly manager hit a winning streak. An inversion of the premise -- here the living need the help of the dead -- the film and its 1994 remake have still got that dead/alive synergy going on.
Everett Collection
2. 'The Sixth Sense' (1999)
It's hard to remember back to a time when cinephiles took M. Night Shyamalan seriously, but this engrossing ghost tale impressed filmgoers with its eerie mood and twist ending. From the moment Haley Joel Osment admits, "I see dead people" you know he's going to have to help them. What you don't know, though, is that he's going to have to help his therapist Bruce Willis face the fact that he's deceased. Oh snap!
Spyglass Entertainment Group,LP
1. 'Beetlejuice' (1988)
The ultimate living-assisting-the-dead flick, the "strange and unusual" Winona Ryder helps a pair of deceased newlyweds take back their house from pretentious urban art folk. Along the way she battles animated sculptures, her strident step-mom and a sex-crazed Michael Keaton in white pancake and prison duds. Plus she lip-syncs "Jump in the Line." The dead clearly have a lot more fun than we do.
Geffen Pictures / ZUMA Press
Cinematical Seven: Keira Knightley's Costume Pics
Filed under: Fandom, Cinematical Seven
When it was announced that Keira Knightley would be starring in the new film The Duchess, complete with all kinds of period dresses, folds, furbelows, corsets, bodices, hoops, ringlets, hats, big hair and heaven knows what else, the general response was: "what, again?" We can only guess whether Keira herself said the same thing, or if she simply took to the new costume like a beautiful, slender swan to water. Here's a rundown of Keira's other period, costume epics, ranging from worst to best:
7. Silk (2007)
Keira's most snore-inducing movie, though it's a close call. She plays Hélène Joncour, who has virtually nothing to do while her hubby is off having adventures in exotic lands. Her costumes are merely plain, with the occasional straw hat. If I remember correctly, she sometimes wears gardening gloves. Yawn.
6. Doctor Zhivago (2002)
Playing the bourgeois-born Lara, Keira got to wear ultra-romantic big fur hats and headscarves in this TV movie. How better to seduce the lucky doctor? All she needed was some big fuzzy "Ugg" boots.
Cinematical Seven: De Niro vs. Pacino
Filed under: Classics, Comedy, Fandom, Cinematical Seven, Comic/Superhero/Geek, Remakes and Sequels
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Are you ready to see Robert De Niro and Al Pacino as partners in Righteous Kill? Is it the casting pair-up you've been waiting 35 years for? Or does it feel too strange to watch a whole movie in which they're all buddy buddy? Perhaps you were fully satisfied with their showdown as enemies in Heat, even though the esteemed veteran actors had much less screen time together. Personally, I like the idea of them going head to head better, but that's mainly because they're both such huge figures that having them team up seems a bit unfair to the other side. As enemies they're like the Incredible Hulk and the Abomination or Iron Man and Iron Monger, to compare them with recent superpowered showdowns in cinema.
It's difficult to choose the better actor of the two, or even decide who's been the more successful Hollywood player. De Niro's been in a lot more films, but his ratio of bad films to good might have suffered as a result. Meanwhile, they've both arguably become too much of caricatures of themselves, to the point where it's sometimes hard to tell which performances are intentional self-parodies and which are accidental. However, despite the difficulty of pitting De Niro against Pacino for a general comparative showdown, there are a number of easily corresponding roles among them. So, just for fun, I've come up with seven specific character showdowns, chosen my pick for which is the better performance, and invite you all to vote on your favorite, whether you agree or disagree with my own.
After the jump ... De Niro vs. Pacino -- it's on!
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Cinematical's Fourth Annual Halloween Costume Contest is Coming!
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