Back in 2007, I reviewed “Spine Tingler!” for the Slamdance Film Festival, a yearly event that’s much more entertaining and fulfilling than its counterpart Sundance. “Spine Tingler!” is quite possibly one of the best horror documentaries and film documentaries of all time ranking with “The Kid Stays in the Picture” and “The Shark is Still Working” as the account of a Hollywood mogul and his attempts to make filmmaking so much more fun not only for the man behind the camera, but for the folks watching in the audience.
Tag Archives: Biography
Suck It, Wonder Woman! The Misadventures of a Hollywood Geek [Paperback]
“Author” Olivia Munn’s little bon mot embedded within her new book entitled “Suck It, Wonder Woman!” is not just an attempt to gauge the attention of her fan boy following, but it’s also an inadvertent smug gesture of declaring that she’s pretty much breaking out of her geeky confines and seeking greener pastures. This is a woman whose entire fame is based around eating hot dogs dangling from strings, playing a dumb wonder woman, and engaging in a lesbian kiss. And she’s suddenly dignified and looking beyond being a geek goddess. For those of you still unaware, Olivia Munn is the one time co-host for the cable network G4’s flagship daily show “Attack of the Show,” a one hour live show that tackles everything in the internet and geek world from electronics to comic books and movies.
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The Blind Side (2009)
Admittedly I’m an old cynical bastard in a young man’s body, so nine times out of ten inspirational sports films don’t connect with me at all. “The Blind Side” took everyone by surprise and I don’t think anyone expected it to hit as big as it did. But sure enough it did and I’m more surprised than anyone that I quite enjoyed myself most of the time because normally I’d find a reason to bash this film as being melodramatic. Sure it is melodramatic but oddly enough most of the events that occur here actually happened. Someone actually did take a poor African American child from the ghetto and turn them in to a fine upstanding citizen with a plethora of opportunities and it’s because of the Tuohy’s that Michael Oher was able to pursue his dreams and break free from the prison that is poverty and crime. John Lee Hancock directs quite a visually soft film that doesn’t play too heavy on the sap.
Julie & Julia (2009)
Based on true stories, Nora Ephron’s dramedy is actually based on two novels. This allows Ephron and co. to take parallel storylines and turn “Julie and Julia” in to a bonding ground for a lost woman and a budding chef, both of whom are starting their lives out in new places when we first meet them, and are about to embark on a rather interesting adventure involving food, changing the way they and others think, and fulfilling ambitions regardless of how grand or minute it may seem. Julie is a woman just starting out in her new job as a woman who takes complaints involving 9/11 in Queens. After days of listening to people’s problems, she decides to emulate her hero Julia Child pursuing a different kind of natural high after realizing her life hasn’t been taken advantage of after a meeting with her high powered best friends. Back in the forties we meet a young Julia Child who is just beginning to follow her dreams as a professional chef in Le Cordon Bleu.
Invictus (2009)
Clint Eastwood’s newest master work is the near documentary “Invictus” a film that chronicles the life of Nelson Mandela in 1995 taking the reins as president of South Africa who hoped to bring his country together through the distant hope of winning the world cup. Through his mission he meets Francois Pienaar the captain of the country’s rugby team who is hitting a slump and is tasked with winning the cup. This view of Mandela is quite unique as Nelson Mandela is painted as someone who wasn’t interested in being liked. For most of the movie he is very much hated and is often viewed as a disgrace by foreign countries and his own people. All Mandela hoped in doing was unifying his people and stopping the war and violence at the expense of his own status quo. He defied orders and just wasn’t keen on giving up on humanity and his own people’s civilization.
Chris Lemmon, Author of "A Twist of Lemmon" and Our Review
First and foremost, “A Twist of Lemmon” is a thank you letter and final farewell from Chris Lemmon to his father Jack Lemmon. And though intentional or not, “A Twist of Lemmon” at almost two hundred pages, is also a testament to the power of the father and son relationship and the importance of it in shaping a man. Whether a loving father or an abusive one (Lemmon was the former, by the way), the men in our lives shape who we become. It’s an often emasculated and marginalized aspect of the parental foundation that’s constantly deemed irrelevant and easily dismissed in a world that values women more over men, but the father and son relationship is one of the most powerful dichotomies of nature.
The Devil's Music (2008)
I’ve been interested in much of what Jinx Media has supplied horror geeks over the last few years. Say what you want about independent horror movies, but there are studios out there trying for originality, and Jinx Media seems to be accomplishing it for the most part. First there was “Killer Killer,” which I found to be an utter blast, and now the UK based studio brings “The Devil’s Music.” Pat Higgins’ mock documentary, a film that will completely bring down audiences guards presuming to be one thing and then progressively transforms into a horror movie. Surely, it’s one of the finest indies of 2008, with production values that are immaculate. Everything from the mock concert performances, to the talk show interviews is shockingly genuine, and the story of Erika Spawn is even better.