Since George A. Romero’s seminal 1968 independent horror film was released without a copyright, the horror classic we know as “Night of the Living Dead” has been in the public domain for literal decades. Since then it’s been remade, re-released, re-dubbed, re-edited, restored, colored, chopped, extended, spoofed, satirized, animated, prequelized, sequelized, novelized, sampled, and so on ad nauseum. Much to Romero’s chagrin, “Night of the Living Dead” has been the Mr. Potato Head of the horror world upon which independent film directors can switch and mix without worry of a lawsuit.
Tag Archives: Drama
Case 39 (2009)
Floundering in movie purgatory for a few years, “Case 39” is a supernatural thriller that has managed to be not only an indicator of its star status and how far its performers have come, but it’s also a statement that sometimes, just sometimes, studios can be on to something when they shelve or keep movies back in production. Held back for four years only released in the UK and now just being introduced to American theaters (maybe due to Bradley Cooper’s rising star status), “Case 39” is about as horrible a movie as you can imagine. It’s a movie that should have just been given a DVD release instead of a theatrical release as a movie starring Cooper pre-“The Hangover” fame. Hint: During filming he clearly wasn’t a big enough star to live through the whole movie.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest: Ultimate Collector's Edition (DVD)
Milos Forman’s masterpiece of dramatic filmmaking is a movie that has managed to elude me for literal years. I’ve tried to track down “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” for ages (it’s been my white whale), and every time it’s been one more of the many classics that was easily out of my grasp for one reason or another. Being given the opportunity to watch the film finally in a touched up widescreen edition with 5.1 surround sound managed to be the experience I’ve been waiting for, and Forman’s master opus is well worth the hype.
Frozen (2010)
The work of horror auteur Adam Green has been something of a mixed bag for me since he debuted to horror fans so many years ago. I was not gaga over his slasher throwback “Hatchet,” but I was entertained immensely by his murder mystery “Spiral,” and somewhere between those movies he found the middle ground to make a movie that’s something of a horror film based around natural inconvenience. Such as “Open Water,” Adam Green sets down upon an incident that doesn’t seem like much of a big deal to the natural observer… until it happens to them.
The Contrabulous Fabtraption of "Step Up 3D"
“People dance because dance can change things. One move, can bring people together. One move, can make you believe like there’s something more. One move, can set a whole generation free.”
It’s pretty surprising how anyone attempting to be considered a legitimate movie critic can somehow sully all credibility with his quasi-positive review of a dance movie set to 3D. What with 3D now shown as nothing but a cheap gimmick, injected in to a movie series that was nothing but a gimmick in the first place, I can understand why people would detest anything with “Step Up” attached. I mean with a quote you see at the beginning of this article, I can’t blame anyone for being remotely aggressive at the sight of this film or a remotely positive grading. But, as is the requisite, I’m in the minority when I say while “Step Up 3D” is a bad movie, it’s not the worst movie in theaters right now. This year brought without a doubt the worst movie in the last five year as directed by Kevin Smith, and we were force fed a “comedy” spoofing “Twilight.” Beyond that we also had a really awful “Nightmare on Elm Street” remake, Brendan Fraser battling animals, and a large Hawaiian wrestler dressed in a tutu and tights, but somehow people are convinced “Step Up 3D” is a plague on the box office.
Sarah Landon and the Paranormal Hour (2008)
To say the writing behind “Sarah Landon and the Paranormal Hour” is clunky, sloppy, and utterly lazy would be a gross understatement. The movie makes no effort in being at all coherent or fluid and instead just does nothing but make all of the wrong movies when applied to competent writing. Sarah Landon is the heroine of this picture and the best characterization we get from her is during her introduction when she gets in to her car and the director zooms in on her bumper sticker that reads “My Friend was Killed by a Drunk Driver.” Director Lisa Comrie doesn’t even try to giver her some complex characterization, she literally explains her entire story on a bumper sticker! And this is supposed to give us insight on Landon? Why not put another bumper sticker that reads “Sarah Landon: The Main Character”?
Noise (2007)
In the end I really wanted to love “Noise,” because as a born and bred New Yorker, I tend to sympathize with character David Owen whose humble nature makes it impossible for him to ignore the random city sounds around him that eventually begins to disrupt his life. Regardless of what he does he is a fish out of water, and soon he becomes a beast who uses that disturbance and somehow gains something of a thrill out of it. He loves to hate what he hates, and he never quite knows why, even after confrontations with the mayor and a courtroom stand off. By the final scene he’s embraced his lunacy, but hasn’t found a way to resolve it. And that’s where the problem lies in the narrative, Henry Bean never quite knows what message he’s trying to convey.