3/9 - Law Abiding Citizen
3/10 - Bachelor Party 2: The Last Temptation
3/13 - The Stepfather (1987) | Truth or Consequences, N.M. | Hellbound: Hellraiser II | Bright Lights, Big City
3/14 - Steelyard Blues
3/18 - Renaissance: Paris 2054
3/20 - Up in the Air | Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire
3/23 - Rush (1983)
3/28 - Green Zone

• As is so often the case with bad movies, one death scene made all of the very silly Law Abiding Citizen worthwhile. By the way, don’t go to Phildelphia. They apparently respond to terrorist threats by assigning a lone district attorney to the case.
• Sick Boy’s unifying theory of life is confirmed when you consider that the same people wrote and directed Bachelor Party 2 as the original. This made all the more depressing by the fact that the original is such a low point from which to start your decline.
• Terry O’Quinn was a badass long before he played John Locke. (The Stepfather)
• I suppose I was foolish to expect more of Kiefer Sutherland in his directorial debut. I mean … he’s Kiefer Sutherland. (Truth or Consequences, N.M.)
• I’d never watched Hellraiser II all the way through, but the experience of watching it all the way through is almost identical to watching random scenes without context.
• Michael J. Fox as a coke addict and struggling writer is about as convincing as a five year old putting on his father’s business suit. Sutherland movie no. 2 for the month. (Bright Lights, Big City)
• To tell a tale of freedom-loving misfits, you shouldn’t free yourself from having a coherent script. Sutherland no. 3, this time Donald! (Steelyard Blues)
• Renaissance: Paris 2054 provided solid sci-fi and an interesting animation gimmick, but it doesn’t hold up to further thought.
• Tack an unsatisfying ending onto an otherwise unremarkable romantic comedy, and you got yourself a best-picture nominee. (Up in the Air)
• Sunkist soda is the implied villain of Precious.
• Rush was one of nine movies in the Sybil Danning Adventure Video series that I bought on VHS this month. My love for this kind of thing is why I will never be taken seriously by anyone ever.
• If Green Zone has been a little more interesting, it might’ve stirred up some “Why do you hate America!!?!?!?” controversy.

Never mind that NX35 is the most pressing event requiring blogging, here are the movies I watched last month. (Some NX35 content will come once I have Internet at home or go to Starbucks long enough to upload video.)

Moving Pictures:

2/5 - Public Enemies | Stander
2/6 - Running Scared
2/7 - From Paris with Love | The Fourth Kind
2/9 - Stuck | Foul Play
2/10 - The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone
2/12 - Edge of Darkness
2/14 - The Wolfman (2010) | Spider Baby
2/19 - Boondock Saints
2/21 - Shutter Island
2/26 - Valentine’s Day

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Some things I’ve seen since the last update, complete with micro reviews to make your life easier at the video store:

1. Everything is Illuminated: deft, paced, and resonant.
2. The Answer Man: whatever.
3. The Great Buck Howard: competent.
4. The Gamers: Dorkness Rising: terrible production but f-ing hilario-awesome . . . if you are or have been a table-top gamer.
5. Slaugherhouse 5: brilliant, if you’ve read the book or just love Vonnegut.
6. Amreeka: competent. Heart-breaking.
7. Beer Wars: fascinating content, bad delivery.

January
1/3 - Nine
1/4 - Thankskilling
1/7 - Columbus Day
1/8 - The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus
1/9 - Sherlock Holmes | Deranged
1/10 - Equinox
1/12 - Max Havoc: Curse of the Dragon
1/13 - Appaloosa
1/15 - Avatar
1/17 - Under the Yum Yum Tree | Exorcist II: The Heretic
1/18 - Eating Raoul
1/20 - The Seven Brothers Meet Dracula
1/23 - 2012
1/24 - Frankenstein Created Woman
1/30 - Fantastic Mr. Fox
1/31- Legion

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The question about whether zombies can be made sexy seems to be more or less settled, and apparently was even at the time of our initial discussion.

My movie site of choice, CHUD.com, has a snarkier-than-thou update on an upcoming movie adaptation of another in what is apparently a mini-trend of zombie romance novels. Not of the Shaun of the Dead style, but in which the undead are objects of love and lust.

So … there’s that.

Between semesters, for me, most evenings end either at the pub or with a video. Between Netflix and our local indie video store, Rima and I keep the flick rotation pretty active. Here’s the random-and-scattered list of (some of) what I got around to last month, complete with micro-commentary.

1. Julie & Julia—Not normally the first genre I reach for, but this one was well-produced and sufficiently engaging. I found the two plotlines somewhat unsuccessfully divergent but not enough to throw the entire film off.

2. Full Metal Jacket—This was one of those that I had seen in its entirety but a few scenes at a time, out of order. The production is pretty straightforward Kubrick, and the characterization was appropriately haunting, but (dare I say it), the entire thing felt unfinished. I was actually surprised when it ended.

3. Animal House—Yeah, I know: everyone’s seen Animal House. I hadn’t, so to put an end to the shocked expressions I engendered every time I admitted as much, I finally got around to it. It had its classic moments, but for me, that era of comedy is far too situational. The scenes, the actions, the dialog, the props—everything is so carefully, architecturally arranged that by the time the punchline comes around, I’m exhausted.

4. Ink—I grabbed this from the as-yet-unheard-of Blu Ray shelf at Orbit. In short: bad. There were some great (overdone) effects, and director Jamin Winans certainly showed that he knows how to block a scene, but the overall effect was of a bunch of aspiring, over-eager actors looking to ride an indie bus into notoriety.

5. Patton—Another of those that I “should have” seen before now. Whatever. I enjoyed it—great cinematography, sound design, and acting.

6. Rudo y Cursi—Predictable, cliche, and too-neatly-wrapped-up for me. Well-acted and produced but ultimately flat.

7. Whatever Works—Great, right up until the inappropriately redemptive ending, which retroactively ruins the entire flick.

8. What Would Jesus Buy?—An interesting story. It held my attention for the first half hour or so, and then it became clear that there wasn’t enough here for a feature-length documentary.

9. Fast Food Nation—Schmaltzy, heavy-handed, and sluggish. Too bad.

If Dark Star had been his only produced film, I’d still be a fan of Dan O’Bannon. I used BombNumber20 as my online handle for awhile.

But he also has Return of the Living Dead and Dead & Buried on his resume. He also wrote the first draft of Alien (which CHUD tells me was originally called Star Beast), the screen adaptation of Total Recall, and some of Heavy Metal.

RotLD is, in a lot of ways, more my kind of film than the original Night of the Living Dead. In Dan O’Bannon’s universe, things go wrong. They don’t just collapse or snowball. They go completely sideways and then explode. And they do it without heavy moralizing and without any particular human failing to blame … except perhaps old-fashioned, commonplace stupidity.

Dan O’Bannon died yesterday at the age of 63. Hopefully someone is feeding him brains so he doesn’t feel the pain of being dead.

Update: The Guardian has a good write up of the man.

Bantam Spectra editor David Pomerico has pulled some thoughts on the future of genre lit, responding to feedback from readers. Pomerico is largely correct in his conclusions (especially the fact that Farrago founder Darin Bradley’s upcoming novel Noise is going to be a big book in the coming year). And also in identifying the zombie trend and predicting what’s coming next now that it has reached maturity.

But the readers who fed Pomerico his responses show a lack of vision. From the article:

One of the key comments I’ve heard about zombies is that, unlike vampires and werewolves, witches and sorcerers, zombies just aren’t sexy. More importantly, there’s really no way to make them sexy.

In the parlance of teh Intarwebs: ORLY?

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I.e., films I watched in October. As F.M.I.’s movie-watchingest contributor, I have been encouraged to move these posts from my personal blog to this space. Each month, I’ll post a simple list of the films I watched and a smattering of quick-hit reactions, which are often of a merely personal nature. I have a thing not just for the obscure good, but also the very, very bad, a thing that I sometimes pretend is part of an anti-aesthetic post-modern impulse rather than just a love of explosions.

October films:
10/2 - Dragonball: Evolution | Mach 2
10/3 - Zombieland | She-Wolves of the Wasteland | Time Runner
10/7 - Pickpocket
10/11 - Couples Retreat
10/15 - Brand Upon the Brain
10/16 - Whip It
10/17 - A Serious Man
10/20 - Paranormal Activity
10/23 - Prom Night (2008)
10/24 - Gamer | Macabre (2009) | Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl

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