For this week’s edition of “Shorts Round Up of the Week” I check out some rich dramas, a few ambitious fantasy films one of which involves bullying, and a pitch black revenge movie co-starring M. Emmet Walsh.
If you’d like to submit your short film for review consideration, submissions are always opened to filmmakers and producers.
It was only a matter of time until studios would come along and start trying to duplicate the formula that “A Quiet Place” perfected. Hoping to strike lightning twice after the shocking pop culture success of “The Birdbox,” Netflix adapts yet another novel in to an apocalyptic thriller featuring monsters working on human senses, and a family trying to stick together, doggone it. And it stinks. Director John R. Leonetti’s horror drama has a good idea somewhere buried beneath this hacky often mean spirited mess, but damned if I could find out how to salvage it.
Billy Blanks was one of the archetypal straight to video action stars of the nineties, he was one of those men with a ton of charisma and appeal who never quite found his niche in American cinema. He managed to be pushed in to the gallery of people like Jeff Speakman, Roddy Piper, and Don “The Dragon” Wilson (no disrespect to those gentlemen), but always deserved so much more. He was relegated to a ton of straight to video action and genre titles eventually becoming a fitness guru for his Tae Bo program. It’s a shame because Blanks does have a very good on screen presence and could have likely launched in to the blockbuster fold alongside contemporaries like Wesley Snipes.
One of the best movies about the American Drive-In that I’ve possibly ever seen, “At the Drive-In,” is a wonderful documentary directed by Alexander Monelli that embraces and celebrates everything that’s so enchanting about the drive-in. It’s also a testament to the love and commitment that movie buffs are capable of, even in the face of financial dire straits and a changing climate of pop culture. Drive-Ins have become something of a memory of American pop culture and in the new generation is a community that has struggled to stay alive. One of the few standing is the Mahoning Drive-In in Pennsylvania.
Anyone who knows me knows that I hate the first adaptation of “Pet Sematary” from 1989 as well as its sequel. I think the first version is silly, exploitative, and looks more like a cheap TV movie than anything. It also sets up so many plot elements and a mythology that it never clarifies or resolves. While the new version of Stephen King’s novel “Pet Sematary” also never quite answers all of the nagging questions, it at least adds a brand new logic to it, giving many of the characters motivations for their irrationality. There’s also an explanation as to the allure of the pet sematary and why it’s stayed up for generations.
For this week’s edition of “Shorts Round Up of the Week” we view the apocalypse through two lenses, dissect nature through the killer whale, and look at the cycle of life through animation.
If you’d like to submit your short film for review consideration, submissions are always opened to filmmakers and producers.
Season nine was a big turning point for “The Walking Dead,” it’s the season where we lost a ton of big players in the series including Lauren Cohan and one main character Andrew Lincoln. With the exit of both dramatic forces, “The Walking Dead” has had a ton of foot work to cover, and season nine was a pretty good rebound that’s managed to keep the pace going now that the main driving force of the show has left. With a very good season, “The Walking Dead” presented some stand out moments. These are ten of the most shocking.