Toob Talk

A few years ago, my friend Kelley was involved in the production of a sci-fi series called Trenches that really piqued my interest. It was an online series with some pretty hefty backing (Disney/ABC) about a bunch of space marines shooting it out on an alien planet when things go from bad to worse.

Unfortunately, the arm of Disney/ABC that was going to release it got chopped off and boxed away during some restructuring.

For the past year or so, there’s been some doubt about whether we’d ever get to see Trenches.

That day is now just a few weeks away.

For a web series, it carries a pretty hefty budget. a reported $250,000. But that price tag shows in the trailer. From what can be seen in that and the behind the scenes bits posted on the show’s main website, this looks at least as good as SyFy Channel Original Movie. It definitely looks to have better effects and acting than most of those.

On February 16, the first episode will go live on Sony’s Crackle.com.

According to the LA Times:

Business affairs executives at Sony Pictures Television, which runs Crackle, became aware that Disney was looking to sell distribution rights to “Trenches,” and the company decided it could find a slot for it on Crackle, which mixes original series with television shows and movies from Sony’s library.

After debuting on Crackle.com, “Trenches” will later be shown on the sites of Sony distribution partners, including YouTube and MySpace.

I know I’m looking forward to finally seeing it. Even better, according to the Times article, after it makes the rounds online, it stands a chance of being expanded into a property that may see DVD and cable release, too.

This is just the first of a handful of projects friends of mine have been working on over the last year or two that will see public release this year. Keep an eye here for more details on everything from Browncoats: Redemption to Ghosts Don’t Exist.

First, go and watch this trailer for the new Karate Kid movie staring Jacki Chan and Wil Smith’s talented son Jaden.

If this weren’t being billed as The Karate Kid, I don’t think it would be that bad.

My problem is that, once again, we’ve taken everything except the most very basic story idea (kid learns martial arts from an older dude who really knows what he’s talking about so kid can not get beat all to hell in school) and some names and thrown it out the window. That leaves us with a very generic plot which can be gussied up in any way possible. There are a dozen (or more) movies with similar enough plots that this film (if you change out Miyagi’s name) could be a remake of.

They’ve obviously gone with The Karate Kid to capitalize on the name recognition and probably the strong emotional connection many of us from Generation X have with the story.

But the story–the details that made it really important and easy to relate to for those of us who saw it in the 80s–are pretty much all gone.

First, our protagonist is 11 years old. That leaves me wondering who the target market for this film is. In the original, Daniel was in high school–eager to get his first car and get a date. Here, from the trailer, it looks like we’re dealing with a situation firmly rooted in just plain old bullying. Why do you want to learn that stuff? So I don’t get beat up. Why don’t you want to get beat up? Because it sucks. It doesn’t get any more basic than that, but being that basic removes more than a little of the drama from it all.

I’m betting it’s going to be more a mother-son dynamic than the original. Heck, it has to be. The kid’s freakin’ 11, not much romantic involvement that you get into there.

We know Jackie Chan knows his stuff, but I’m curious if the bulk of this film is going to be some sort of “love letter” to the wonders of China. Chan’s been talking up the Chinese party line a bit more of late, so it wouldn’t surprise me. I’m going to be very interested to see what kind of backstory gets used for his updated sensei.

And we’ll attempt to completely ignore that this is set in China and karate is Japanese in origin. Of course, we’ll happily continue to ignore that what your young hero is being taught is kung fu (which is Chinese), just like in the original.

Will I see it? Maybe. But it’s not high on my list. The original may just hold too high a place in my personal list of movies that made a difference for me. Mostly, though, I don’t think the writing will be able to make the film as strong as it could be.

Maybe future trailers will prove me wrong and change my mind. (I really hope they do, actually.)

How do you feel about this film, based on that trailer?

To say I didn’t hold out a whole lot of hope for the reboot of the Friday the 13th franchise would only be a slight understatement.

I was relatively happy with the Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake, so seeing the same team involved kept my expectations from being totally negative. There was some small spark of hope that it would cut to what I think is the core of the character and story, that it would get at least some of the terror right, that it would fix what I saw as some of the problems with the original.

Well, I’ve just finally gotten around to seeing the new Friday the 13th and it managed to disappoint me more than I thought possible.

What it has is a pretty cast and a pretty good production value.

What it doesn’t have is pretty much everything else.

If you’ve been living under a rock since the early 80s, you may not be familiar with the basic plot of a Friday the 13th movie. Let me run it down for you: Kids go into the woods to party, most of them end up dead, killed by a dude named Jason in a hockey mask who is, eventually, subdued and apparently killed by the end of the film. That pretty much covers the bulk of the other 11 films that have carried the Friday the 13th name.

And, really, it sums this one up, too.

The big difference is that the most recent incarnation of the film lacks pretty much everything that makes the franchise unique.

Jason is one of the iconic killers of the golden age of slasher films. Along with Freddy, Michael Meyers, and Leatherface (who, in my opinion, really doesn’t fit, but is typically put in the grouping… I’d be more prone to add Norman Bates) he’s part of a deeply ingrained pop culture of dark morality tales and nightmares. Like the rest of the familiar names in that list, he exists to kill. What has always set Jason apart was that he was a more blunt killer–not witty like Freddy, not single-minded like Meyers, not full of rage (or hunger?) like Leatherface. He killed in direct ways, approaching slowly, always up close.

This move got rid of all of that.

The film is populated with an overly-large cast of paper-thin stereotypes of social detritus: douchebags, pot heads, sex-hungry vixens, and horny dudes. So eager are the filmmakers to top the kill count of all the previous iterations, they give us nearly three groups of mostly white trash that get taken out. (The first is mostly implied in the poorly done prelude that more or less runs through the plot of the very first Friday the 13th in less than ten minutes.)

There are only three characters that even come close to being decent human beings. Bad news is, they’re not fleshed out much more than the cannon fodder… and one of them doesn’t make it (kind of spoiling any message one could attempt to read into the film).

The worst thing, though, is the complete and utter lack of anything to differentiate Jason from any other random serial killer. Sure, there’s the hockey mask and the oft used machete, but those don’t mean anything if anyone could be behind them.

In this movie, Jason runs. There’s none of the ominous slow stalking that upped the tension of many of the previous films. He also kills from a distance using a bow and arrow. Perhaps worst of all, he makes use of numerous tunnels and traps that betray a much higher-functioning personality behind the mask than was ever present in Jason.

He was, after all, a slightly mentally challenged 8-year-old at heart.

And then there’s the kills. While there was plenty of blood and gore in the deaths in this movie, there was no real creativity–and especially not any creativity that would be in line with Jason (if he were a unique character in the film). More than a few of the killings are convoluted and none are anywhere near as forthrightly brutal as what’s been shown in older Friday films.

(As a side note: While I was bouncing around looking for some art to put with this post, I came across a nice review of the film from James Melzer. He touches nicely on the lack of uniqueness of the Jason character as portrayed in this film as well as a few other important things. Check it out.)

The bottom line is, this film would have been just as good–or bad, in my opinion–without having the Friday the 13th brand on it. Of course, without that, no one would have gone to see it and I most certainly wouldn’t be talking about it at all now. So, good business decision, I guess.

Especially since they’re all ready to roll on a sequel. (Which I most certainly won’t be seeing in the theaters.)

I recommend you stay away from this iteration of the classic slasher flick. You’d be much better served going back and watching the originals.

Liv Tyler attempts to escape from one of the interlopers in The Strangers.

It being the Halloween, I’ve been in the mood for horror films.

Over the last few years, there has been no shortage of supposedly scary movies. Problem is, most of the ones I’ve seen haven’t been all that scary.

Disgusting? Yes. Full of loud noises and quick movement? You bet. Violent? Uh-huh. But scary? Really scary? Nope. Not really.

“Really scary” takes some subtlety and time that’s lacking in most modern horror. Instead, writers and directors go for the quick “gotcha!” or the over-the-top blood & gore effects to try to scare the audience. When I first saw the ads for The Strangers, I was a little worried that it was just another torture porn film along the lines of Hostel.

Well, I finally got around to watching it and I’m happy to say that it’s a lot better than I was expecting. The buildup to the scares is a slow burn that gets every edgy nerve going one by one until the anticipation of the inevitable jump is barely alleviated when something actually happens. The characters–both protagonists and antagonists–are mostly a mystery to us, we’re left to fill in backstory all on our own. (Something else too many films don’t do any more–leave a little work for the minds of the audience to do when it comes to characters.)

Kristen (Liv Tyler) and James (Scott Speedman) arrive at a secluded home, James’ parent’s house, that they’ve requisitioned for what was supposed to be a romantic weekend. It’s clear right off the top that things didn’t quite go as planned earlier in the evening–both are upset and distant from one another. The mood is heavy and sad as they go about settling in as best they can, brushing away the spread rose petals and sullenly drinking the champagne straight from the bottle.

That’s when the first knock comes at the door. A young–perhaps teenage, perhaps 20something–girl asks for someone who is definitely neither of them. We never see her face, for some reason the lights on the front porch aren’t working, even though they clearly were before.

And from there, the sadness turns to tension which turns to fear which culminates in a scene of true horror.

And it does it all with a minimal effects budget, next to no gore, mostly implied violence, and a whole lot of atmosphere.

Writer/Director Bryan Bertino did a fantastic job. Granted, the story is about as simple as you can get, but it’s been done much worse before. The run time of the film is short, which is good–any longer and it would have been too much of a strain or filled with gimmicks and cheap thrills. Bertino keeps things tight and tense, something much more seasoned directors seem to have more trouble doing as time goes on.

If you’re prone to an overactive imagination, I recommend you don’t watch this one while home alone, you’ll be jumping at every little noise. And for those who are looking for some sort of gore-fest… well, you probably won’t like this movie at all. Same goes for those who like everything handed to them on a gilded platter. You’re going to have to work your brain just a little to put all the pieces together. But when you do, you’ll get a good solid shiver and a lasting sense of unease that usually only comes from more classic horror films.

I could spend hours poking and picking at the things they changed from the comic book continuity I grew up on and loved. I could lament the lack of some of my favorite story bits and the light touch they gave others.

I could do all that, but, when it comes to X-Men Origins: Wolverine I don’t have to dig that deep to dislike the film.

Stepping away from my fanboy roots, forgetting how much I love the Wolverine from the 80s and early 90s (before Marvel really went wild with their continuity switching), this film is still quite flawed.

First and foremost, the pacing is all wrong. There are good parts in this film–the fight scenes are generally OK and the relationship between Logan and Silverfox plays very well and John Wraith is a good supporting character–but as a whole it’s all stops and starts, jarring transitions that interrupt the flow of what story there is and just don’t hold together.

Part of this, I’m sure, is due to a lack of coherent story to begin with. Writers David Benioff and Skip Woods don’t seem to have meshed well as a team on this project. Looking at their credits, I’m betting I could pick the bits that each wrote (Benioff, coming off The Kite Runner, I’m sure is responsible for some of the deeper stuff I liked in the film; Woods, with Swordfish under his belt, I’m sure I can clearly blame for the lack of depth in a number of characters).

The plot comes across as disjointed vignettes, the only common thread being the main character. Oh, they try to fill it up with “very important information” but fail at nearly every turn by shoving that information at us in the most bland, heavy-handed and over-used ways possible. How do we know this character is the bad guy? Mostly because of his sneer, and the standard “bad guy” camera angles chosen, and the tacky (and over-used) dialog he spouts. And that can be said about most of the “bad guy” characters in this film.

There is no shortage of material to pick from in the Wolverine stable of comic book history. Instead of mining that rich field, the writers instead opted to pull in the most generic of plot bits and haphazardly place them together with little attention to detail and little thought as to the coherence of the whole. “Hey, wouldn’t it be cool if…?” seems to be the main driving force behind most of the scenes as they made it into the final film.

Getting past the poor pacing and sub-par writing, the next most notable thing is the bad effects. Not all of the effects are bad–Wolverine’s healing ability is wonderfully illustrated in a semi-subtle way, the explosions look good and, more than a couple of times, there’s some neat illustrations of powers (Gambit’s charged cards, Wraith’s teleportation)–but perhaps the most important effects in the film look unfinished and out of place. Those most important effects? Wolverine’s claws. They don’t match the lighting in the scenes, they don’t sit properly on his hands half the time and they just look plain fake. The presentation in the X-Men movies were infinitely better done. And there’s just no excuse for that.

Some of the plot and effects issues I’ll blame on the film’s PG-13 rating. Wolverine isn’t really a PG-13 character when you get right down to it. The simple fact that no matter how deep his claws have been sunk into someone there’s never any blood on them is just another poke int he eye of suspension of disbelief. Also of note: for as often as Wolverine has that cigar between his teeth, it’s never, ever, lit. Why? Because for some reason you can’t have your hero smoking and still get a PG-13 rating.

This film was full of missed opportunities and wasted characters. It threw away a fantastic lead in from the third X-Men film and instead gave us a mis-matched bunch of uneven scenes that, on their own, could sometimes be good. That just added to the frustration and disappointment of the finished product.

Now, there are people who will enjoy this film. More power to them. With more action, it could be great popcorn flick. As it stands now, it is, at best, mediocre in that category due to the action being interrupted too often by poor attempts at story.

I say skip it until it hits video and cable. But if you do go, stay until after the end credits roll–while the “extra” bit I saw was quite anti-climactic and disappointing, I hear there’s at least one better showing in some theaters and maybe as many as four variations total.

Got back a little while ago from seeing Push. Not a bad film, but definitely not as advertised.

If you’ve seen the ads, it’s being billed as “the first real action film of the year” or some such. Let me be the first to tell you, Push is not an action film. It’s got a few very well done action sequences, but they are few and far between. Everything else–most of the film–is relatively complex plot.

What Push is, is a heist/caper film. It’s got more in common with Ocean’s Eleven than it does with Die Hard (or X-Men, for that matter).

Also, this film is obviously supposed to be the first in a series. It tells its own story pretty well–a group of characters coming together to get their hands on some very important stuff that the big bad government organization wants–but the entire point of their actions in this film is so they can be ready for the next challenge: taking down the big bad government organization.

There is a lot of very neat stuff in this movie–the illustration and application of the different classes of abilities are very creative. The telekinetics (Movers) use their powers on par with the Jedi in the newer Star Wars films and video games; the precogs (Watchers) have games and limitations all their own; Sniffers, who can track tune in to the past and present of someone based on their scent, are hard to hide from; Shadows help hide people from Sniffers and, to a lesser extent, Watchers; Shifters, who can transmute objects (for a limited period of time); Bleeders, sonic attacks that just plain melt people’s brains (and break lots of glass); Wipers who can remove memories; Stitches, those with the ability to heal–or harm–with a mere touch of their hands; and, the title character type–Pushers, who can just make you do things.

It’s that titular ability that gets used more effectively in this film than most other places I’ve seen it (Heroes did a good job with Parkman’s father and the X-Files episode Pusher may be the first use of the term in general pop-culture). The subtely and cunning that the two main Pushers in the film wield their wills is both beautiful and terrifying. There is no question how dangerous people with abilities like this could be.

For all the plusses of the film, the negatives are a little difficult to overcome. The main negative being that this is being marketed as an action film. If you go in expecting action, Action, ACTION! you’re going to very, very, very disappointed. That alone could kill the chance for any income after opening weekend.

The second hurdle is that this is obviously the lead in for a series… a risky gamble. If it goes over well, you can get at least two more films out that will maybe break even. If it tanks, you end up with two types of unhappy people–those who feel they wasted their money and those who loved it and are now pissed they won’t be able to get the rest of the story.

The third “minus” is the intricate plotting. Personally, I love it when something has an intricate plot. The rest of the population? Not so much. Even more importantly, an intricate plot that actually works in a frist movie sets the bar kind of high for any sequals. If the the setup done in this film falls apart in the second one (again, if there is a second one), people get very vocally annoyed.

I’d love to have seen this as the pilot to a TV series. Not a viable option with Heroes on the air–the comparissons would be inevitable and detrimental to a TV version of Push, no matter how actually different the worlds are. A weekly series would, by far, be the best way to keep the story going.

With the marketing “bait and switch” in full play, I have my doubts about the chances for follow-up films (let alone good follow-up films), but I’d love to see them made… if for no other reason than to see more of Dakota Fanning’s tween Watcher. The brother/sister dynamic between her and our main Mover, Chris Evans (who’s playing his second super powered character, the first being The Fantastic Four’s Human Torch), is really some of the best non-special effects stuff in the film.

So I say see it, but you don’t have to rush out to see it on the big screen. The action just isn’t there enough to make a full on theater experience necessary.

Hot on the heels of Forrest J. Ackerman’s death, I’ve come across a couple of much more positive horror goodies.

First, the flick that my friend Kelley was in, Women’s Studies, has been picked up for distribution. That means that all y’all will be able to see it. That’s good news for everyone.

Then, another friend of mine pointed me to a new zombie movie. It’s a foreign zombie film, but was a Sundance Film Festival selection (so it’s obviously got something going for it). What is that something? How about Nazi Snow Zombies? Yeah, that’s right. Nazi zombies coming out of the snow. Don’t believe me? Check out the trailer. See. Told you. Doesn’t that look kind of awesome? It’s called Dead Snow and it’s Norwegian. Here’s hoping it comes around here.

Finally, everyone’s favorite sports equipment-wearing slasher is back in action come February 13. The new trailer for Friday the 13th just hit the web the other day and I have to say I’m impressed. From what I see in that trailer and what I’ve read about the project as a whole, it sounds like this is going to be a good reboot of the series, staying true to the original character ideas and not going too campy too quickly. Plus, it’s got Supernatural’s Jared Padalecki in it. That’ll be good for at least a few jokes in the television series after the movie comes out, right?

Here’s hoping, that as the world crawls out of real horror, we find some good fake stuff on the screen in 2009.

Anyone who’s been paying attention to things showing up in the movies or on their television over the last few years has probably noticed that everything old is new again–either through a re-make (or re-boot, or re-visioning) or through a sequel. Well, it looks like the coming film and television season won’t change that much.

AMC is producing a six-hour remake of the classic surreal and intriguing series The Prisoner. I’m a little excited about this. The cast is solid and the time is right for some serious commentary on government secrecy and authority.

ABC is taking the BBC show Life on Mars and moving it to America… and, apparently, changing major plot points, like the entire base reason the 21st century cop has found himself in the 1970s. The best thing about this show may be that Harvey Keitel has joined the cast (though he’s not listed yet on the IMDB entry). I still think we may have gotten lucky with The Office, since so many other “ported” shows haven’t at all lived up to their foreign originals.

There are others, but TV shows come and go… chances are most people won’t even notice these or know that they were once (possibly better) shows from other places.

Movies are another story. While there may still be some general ignorance of originals that get remade and there is definitely a lack of understanding on how things change from the first iteration to sequel n, some movies have made their way into the cultural lexicon. Right now, we’re looking at remakes of some of those “modern classic” films. And quite frankly, I’m a little worried.

Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th and The Rocky Horror Picture Show are all currently getting ready to hit the big screen as completely new movies, unconnected to the already existing films.

In all fairness, Nightmare and Friday have both been so transformed through their lifetimes as series that the most recent editions have only the most vague echoes of what originally made the films stick. There’s little question that they’ve lost their original focus and relevance. But while that’s true of the series as a whole, it is not true of the original films that started the series. The first two iterations of both Nightmare and Friday still stand up today, thematically. Yes, the hair and sets and cars and clothing are horribly dated (thank you 1980s), but the cores of the films are solid. In fact, in some ways, those films are more relevant today than they were when they first hit the screen.

What I worry about–what I always worry about when remakes hit the deck–is that they’ll be over produced, over thought and tweaked to meet marketing agendas more than anything else. You know, just like most new mainstream films. (I’m going to have to do a whole separate post about the horror genre and how it’s changed over the years…)

I’m willing to give the remakes a chance. I was happy with the redone Amityville Horror and Texas Chainsaw Massacre. So it’s not hopeless. But the originals of those films, while groundbreaking, suffered many technical problems that reduced their overall effectiveness. Nightmare and Friday don’t have a lot of problems in those areas.

By far, the scariest remake news is that MTV is the force behind Rocky Horror. If there was ever a film that did not need to be remade, it’s RHPS. It was a unique blend of camp and creative forces that made the original an accidental cult classic. Trying to replicate that on purpose is a recipe for disaster. The only “good” thing that may come out of it is that we might get to hear some of the songs that didn’t make it into the original. (Just to put “cult classic” status into perspective: RHPS has grossed about $140 million since it premiered in 1974–that’s less than what The Dark Knight made in one weekend.)

Thankfully, it looks like the new RHPS will be a TV release. So maybe it’ll go by unnoticed.

All is not bad news, though. It seems Disney is finally putting together a sequel to one of the greatest computer-focused films of all time: Tron. Some of us have been waiting decades for this… and were quite annoyed back in 2004 when what looked like was going to be a fantastic follow-up turned out to be a video game. Here’s hoping they don’t pull that again.

…and, wow am I glad I didn’t see that in the theater!

Seriously. They could have had two good movies and, instead, they crammed it all into one kinda crappy one. Pretty, though. In fact, as long as you don’t care about semi-sensible plot, proper character development or actual working story arcs, it’s the perfect movie–a collection of clips and sound bites that vaguely hang together, mostly because they have the same characters in them.

The Sandman story could have been great… if it had had space to actually grow and, maybe, brood a little. Him and Parker could have been great dramatic point and counterpoint. Different men, different choices and all that. And the fights could have escalated wonderfully as Sandman learned more about his newly acquired powers and the Webhead slowly became more attached to his black suit.

The Green Goblin II story could have been fantastic… if Harry had a chance to grow more sinister at a more measured pace after his bump on the head. Parker’s life could have been real hell as people and things he loved were taken from him one by one. All the while his emotional turmoil feeding the black symbiotic suit and making it stronger… until it culminated in the awesome knock-down, drag-out between the Web slinger and the new Goblin. A real study in rise and fall of character that would have given all the actors (even Kirsten Dunst) a workout.

The Eddie Brock/Venom story would have been perfect for a fourth film. It was just kind of sandwiched in between everything else. What a waste of that character and Gwen Stacey. ‘Nuff said there.

So, yeah. That was almost a total waste of 2+ hours.

According to reports from Ain’t It Cool News and Zeit Online, a massive amount of previously unknown footage from the sci-fi classic Metropolis has been discovered. This is footage that may not have been seen anywhere since the first showings of the silent epic in the late 1920s.

Anyone who’s a fan of sci-fi should be very excited about this. Fritz Lang’s vision of the future is one of the major roots for the sci-fi we see on the screen today. Without Metropolis and it’s far-reaching themes of empowerment and oppression, spectacular set-pieces and astounding special effects (for their time–and even by today’s standards, they’re not half bad), generations of writers, designers and artists would be wandering lost without inspiration.

I learned years ago that there are a number of different cuts of this film, each containing different bits of footage, spliced together in different ways. It wasn’t until 2002 when a “definitive” edition came out, using original script bits, set drawings and production stills to fill in some of the known holes. The newly discovered footage, according to the articles, adds nearly 100 minutes of previously unseen footage.

Now, for the first time in nearly 80 years, the full depth and scope of the story will be known.

Even as it has been, the story of abuse of power, worker uprisings and true love is as rich and character-filled as any modern epic. The extra footage now available will flesh out some of the more vague points that have often confused and frustrated fans of Metropolis.

I don’t expect a DVD of this to be out for at least another two years. Restoration of footage can take a while–and I’m guessing we’re not dealing with the most meticulously preserved stock, either. But when it does come  out, I can only imagine the batch of extras that will be available. Think of it–a half dozen different cuts of the movie from over the years, multiple scores, a documentary about the restoration process and detective work that had to go on to make the newest version happen, another about the impact the  movie has had on pop-culture and the film world. Heck, throw in a nice biography of Lang and you’ve got at least four disks worth of stuff.

And, without question or hesitation, when that DVD set becomes available (perhaps with a limited edition statue of the robot) it will quickly be on my shelf.

Cry_Wolf was pretty good. A bit better than I expected it to be. The plot keeps you guessing what’s really going on and it all pays off pretty well in the end. Taking into account that the writer/director Jeff Wadlow has only done some shorts before, it’s pretty darn impressive. The young cast already has a good amount of experience behind them, so I’m sure that helped.

The story is pretty straight forward. The new kid at the swanky private school falls in with the fringe group of mild troublemakers. Just for fun, they decide to capitalize on the news of a local murder and create a serial killer rumor. Problem is, it quickly appears that their imagined killer has come to life and is after them. Is it the real killer upset that he’s being made fun of? Is it one of them just out to scare the others? Are they all out to spook one another? Or is it something else?

If you’re interested in a good mystery slasher film with some witty twists, check it out.

Wall Street is a classic and rightfully so. Oliver Stone’s examination of the rise and fall of stock broker Bud Fox (Charlie Sheen) gives us a perfect look at the culture of oppulance and greed that personified the mid-1980s. We get to meet Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) who is greed personified. Gekko earns at all costs and takes a liking to Fox. A special treat is seeing Martin Sheen play Fox’s blue collar father. Both men are good actors and play well off one another.

By today’s standards, the film may move a little slow and the computers in use are ancient. But that’s how things were in 1987. There was no 24 hour trading. No web-based brokerages. Everything was done by running, making phone calls and yelling. A lot. It wasn’t easy to get inside information. It wasn’t easy to make millions of dollars (and millions of dollars were worth a lot more).

If you remember the “Greed is good!” ideals of real-life Gekkos in those heady days of the boom–or if you’re interested in seeing how things have and haven’t changed since then–check it out. Stone’s films have a well-earned place in the history of cinema and this is one of them that made his name known to everyone.

A weekend in means I have plenty of time to make use of my TV. This time around, there were a handful of movies watched and some of my favorite episodes of old anthology TV shows.

Shaolin vs. Evil Dead is a Hong Kong supernatural kung fu film a friend of mine lent me ages ago. I finally got around to watching it. I found it quite entertaining, but a bit off in a few ways. First and foremost, dubbed versions of Honk Kong films always leave me with that “Kung Fu Theater” Saturday afternoon feeling–all flash and no quality. Well, this film didn’t have a lot of flash and the quality wasn’t helped by the very silly sounding dubbed voices for most of the characters.

The plot has potential, though it seems to be heavy on the Chinese mythology (so if you’re not willing to leave your supernatural pre-suppositions at home, you’ll hate it) which takes a little getting used to. Basically, it’s the story of a priest and his young apprentices who are leading the bodies of the dead back to their home town for burial. Along the way, they encounter a haunted village and have a run in with an old acquaintance of the priest–an ex-best friend who trained under the same master but went off on his own when he wasn’t picked to take over the school. Yeah, that last part is pretty standard kung fu film plot, but it plays well in this case.

Overall, the film’s really not that bad. Some of the editing leaves me wondering what they were thinking, but there are some very nice shots between the awkward cuts. The worst of the editing problems happens right at the end. Just as the dust is settling from a climactic fight scene, the credits roll. I though my DVD had skipped a chapter. It had not. A little looking online shows that there’s a second part to the movie out there somewhere. If the action scenes running along side the credits are form that, then it’s a whole lot better action-wise than this film was.

After the flying fists smashed the undead, I popped in a disk of episodes from The Twilight Zone and was pleasantly greeted with a couple of very hopeful and well-done episodes. Of course, I remember them well from when I first saw them, this particular incarnation of the show was very influential for me growing up. The episodes caught were Time and Teresa Golowitz, Voices in the Earth, Song of the Younger World and The Girl I Married. If you’ve never seen this version of TZ, you should. Unlike the most recent incarnation, the producers understood that it’s more about the writing than the faces on the screen (not that they were hurting for on screen talent back in 85, they just managed to get the best of both worlds).

Those episodes were followed up with the original Ocean’s Eleven (which I’ve owned for a while but never watched). The story is more than a bit different from the more recent version, but the feel is very similar. Or at least it is if you know anything about the Rat Pack. This is your basic heist film and this version is nowhere near as complex as the new one. Sinatra and crew were all in the same outfit during World War II and get together to help a shady character rob five casinos on the Vegas strip. As much fun as this version is–complete with song and dance number from Sammy Davis, Jr., and more than a couple of songs from Dean Martin–I like the complexity of the new one much more. 1960 was obviously a much simpler time when it came to security. The extras on the DVD that I have are really neat. They have little mini-documentaries about the five casinos featured in the film.
A little more browsing through my DVD collection brought me to The Last Man on Earth, starring the impeccable Vincent Price. Since there’s another new version of this coming out soon with Will Smith, I figured it was appropriate. The story centers around Dr. Robert Morgan (Price) who has spent the last three years holed up in a suburban house, completely alone except for the still-shambling victims of a plague that seems to have eliminated all life on Earth except for him. The film unfolds slowly and is thick with desperation and hopelessness. Being based on a story by Richard Matheson, you really have to deviate far from the original plot in order to make something bad. This film is far from bad, but may move too slowly for the more MTV accustomed viewers that often complain about older films. It will be interesting to see how the newest version plays out, especially how they deal with the end of the film (which in this version is a little depressing, yet not at all unexpected).

Because I was still wide awake and raring to go, I popped in my copy of The Boondock Saints, yet another film I’ve been recommended numerous times but never actually seen. I obviously should have listened sooner. This film is fantastic. The cinematography is creative and (most of the time) perfect for setting the mood of the scenes. The music is well places and quite effective. The acting is top notch–especially from Willem Dafoe who once again proves he can play strange like nobody’s business.

The plot is an exciting and off-beat story of two brothers in Boston who accidentally start a war with the Russian mob after picking a fight in the local bar with the enforcers who come to collect the protection money. That leads to a night in prison where they have a vision–God tells them to, basically, go out and kill bad people. So like good Catholics, they do just that. The results are intense, action-packed and often quite humorous as they appear to actually need divine intervention (or at least amazingly good luck) to not get killed. Dafoe plays an FBI agent assigned to track them down. Billy Connolly appears as “Il Duche”–an almost mythical killer the Italian mob brings out of prison to help take out the brothers MacManus. That, of course, doesn’t quite go as they had hoped.

If you haven’t seen this film, you should. Yes, it is violent and there’s a whole lot of swearing. But it is also creative and very well done. If watched with your brain turned on, it even poses some very good questions about law enforcement and the state of the world.

That, more or less, capped off Saturday night. Sunday afternoon found me tuning in (via InDemand) to a handful of episodes from one of my other favorite anthology series, Amazing Stories. This particular group featured one of my all-time favorite episodes, Gather Ye Acorns. In it a tree troll tells a young boy to hold on to being a kid as long as possible. This leads the kid to be a world-class slacker (after working his tail off to get just the right car, of course). For most of his life, he never works and just holds on to the things that he loved most as a child. Sure he’s living out of his car and looks like a filthy bum. Sure he doesn’t have any friends and his family disowned him. But it all pays off in the end. This episode has two very nice quotes in it. The first is “The world has plenty of doctors and lawyers, what it needs is a few more dreamers.” And the second (which is, perhaps, the most counter-productive–and yet so totally true–quote floating around in my head) is “Lag behind long enough and you’ll find that the world will have to catch up with you.”

Yes, it was a weekend full of nostalgia and generally good films. Only thing that would make it better would have been to watch all of them with an audience. But that’s what movie nights are for, right?