Rev, Ven, and Mr. Bo Vs. The Cinema

Venn's Predictions Follow-up

2010-02-02T08:47:00.002-05:00

The Oscar nominations were just announced: http://oscar.go.com/

There's a good bit to mull over here. But all and all not too far off from what I predicted.

Best Picture

Avatar
The Blind Side
~~Crazy Heart~~ District Nine
An Education
The Hurt Locker
Inglorious Bastards
Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire
A ~~Single~~ Serious Man
Up
Up in the Air

Best Documentary

Food, Inc
Burma VJ
The Cove
~~The Beaches of Agnes~~ The Most Dangerous Man in America
Which Way Home

Venn's Oscar Predictions - Part 1

2010-01-31T16:11:00.008-05:00

With the Oscar nominations being announced Tuesday, I bet you are wondering what's Venn's thoughts are on this years awards. (Don't worry, I will continue counting down the best of 2000-2009 shortly). This year ten films will be nominated for best picture (something that the academy did back in the 1930s, when Hollywood made about five times the number of films that it does today.) They say that the reason is that it will allow a wider range of pictures to be nominated for best picture (which could be read as crappier/more popular). Only time will tell if this make for a more interesting awards show, or if it will slow down the show and make the honor of being nominated count for even less.

One thing is for sure, it makes predicting the best picture race more difficult. Each voting member of the Academy gets to vote for ten films. Their votes are weighed so that their first choice gets ten points and their last choice only gets one. That means that a small group that loves a film and puts it as their number one, could beat out a film that a large group puts at their number eight. In short, the first 6-8 films at easy to predict. The last 2-4 could be almost anything.

So the first question that you, no doubt, is who did you vote for Venn? For reasons I can not understand, my ballet did not come in the mail. But had I been able to these are the ten films I would have voted for: (There are a few 2009 films I haven't seen yet...)

The Hurt Locker
Anvil: The Story of Anvil
Burma VJ
The Fantastic Mr. Fox
Inglorious Bastards
Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire
Moon
Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans
District Nine
Up in the Air

These films are the some of the most original pictures from last year. Too bad many of these will not be honored. My prediction of the films to be nominated is below (in alphabetical order):

Avatar
The Blind Side
Crazy Heart
An Education
The Hurt Locker
Inglorious Bastards
Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire
A Single Man
Up
Up in the Air

Also here are my predictions for the best documentary category (see the short list here). Anvil, the best review documentary this year, did not make the final 15.

Food, Inc
Burma VJ
The Cove
The Beaches of Agnes
Which Way Home

We'll see how right I am in a couple of days and then the real speculation can begin.

Cheesy Movie Quotes

2010-01-21T18:39:00.003-05:00

You need to check out this video from YouTube. It is epic!

Everyone should comment with their favorite quote.

Destroying the Decade: Venn's #6

2010-01-19T23:30:00.005-05:00

We have no shortage of news media in the United States. The three main networks broadcast news nightly and there are no fewer than 3 24-hour cable news channels. So why is that with so much time be devoted to news there is in fact so little of it? Why is news coverage limited to twenty channels covering balloon boy? Where is the in depth coverage?

Charles Ferguson was having similar thoughts in 2005 when he noticed that there was no in-depth coverage of exactly what was going wrong with the US occupation in Iraq. Without any major backing or even any background in film making, Ferguson set out to make No End in Sight. The film take a look at the US policy in Iraq. Most films about the Iraq war deal with the human costs or they deal with the reasons the war was started. Those things are important, for sure, but No End in Sight stays a piece of investigative journalism straight through. And that's where the film gets its power. Where so many others documentaries have focused on a theme of "this was is wrong because people died" No End in Sight takes the sophisticated and chilling approch to focus on all the details, the poor decisions, and the shear stupidity of the US leadership in Iraq that lead to so much death and violence.

In the end, it's sad that journalism as important as this isn't on TV every night of the week and shows the very sad state of new media in this country. Thanks goodness for documentary films.

Oh Boy a Remake - The A- Team!!

2010-01-19T23:04:00.005-05:00

Man, I love it when a remake comes together, even if they seem to be light on the camp and fun that the original had so much of.

Personally, I think they should have set this movie in the 70s. On a side note, if you have a problem and if not one else can help and if you can find us- you can hire Revenbo!

Destroying the Decade: Venn's #7 Film

2010-01-17T23:25:00.000-05:00

Brick is a 2005 film that was the first feature from Rian Johnson, who both wrote and directed. It has all the making of a classic noir detective story, that is if classic detective stories took place in suburbia and featured high school students. It is a premise that, if you haven't seen the film, you could almost assume that would be campy and even cheesy. However, Brick seems to do the impossible, breath new life into a very old genre. The film create a world full of tension, intrigue and danger for its young characters. In this world the visuals are stunning, the acting impeccable and the dialogue - perfect.

Oh Boy! A Remake of The Karate Kid

2010-01-12T00:04:00.005-05:00

There is no topping the classic cinematic story of a white teenage boy who moves from New Jersey to Califoria, gets picked on by jerks with karate skill, and had an old man teach him to fight with such wisdom as "wax on, wax off". Unless.... you made it the story of a black boy who moves to China! Watch the trailer below to be in the know of what to do with your jacket.

I for one am already forgetting the original!

Destroying the Decade: Venn's #8 Film

2009-12-24T13:19:00.008-05:00

A few weeks ago I told the Reverend that I didn’t know if the next film on my list of the best of the decade was a documentary or not. He assumed that I wasn’t sure of what film I would pick and was wondering what kind of film I would go with (and told me that it would be a documentary). However, I knew which film I had in mind for my #8 film, I just can’t tell you if it’s a documentary or not.

It’s the nature of film that no documentary can be a “pure documentary”. They always have some element of fiction-filmmaking. The reverse is true for fictional films; they always have elements of documentary. There is no line in-between documentary and fiction, only shades of gray. Most films ignore this fact and try as hard as they can to be one thing or the other. Few films dare to be a little of both out of fear that they would be confusing, dishonest, or pretensions. One film in 2003, however, combined documentary and fiction so hilariously that it’s brilliant construction may seem effortless.

Here's our man. Yeah, all right. Here's me. Well, the guy playin' me anyway. Even though he don't look nothin' like me. But, whatever.

American Splendor was the first feature film from team of Shari Berman and Robert Pulcini. The film is based on the life and comics of Harvey Pekar. Pekar, played by Paul Giamatti, befriended legionary comic artist Robert Crumb and who (among other artists) draws a comic, American Splendor written by Pekar. The comic is about Pekar’s everyday life as a file clerk, the people he knows, and his observations on life.

What makes the film so unique isn’t the acted scenes like the one above (I don’t use the word fictional, since the scene is an adaptation of the comic, which is an adaptation of Pekar’s life). The real Harvey Pekar narrates the film and is interviewed at points during the film (when asked if he’s read the script, he says he “skimmed it to get the general idea”). In my favorite moment of the film, there’s a scene at a party where the actors playing Pekar and Toby are talking about a bowl of jelly beans. Then you hear the director say cut, and the actors walk off set and sit behind the real Harvey Pekar and Toby, who then have a conversation very similar to the one the act’s version of them was having. It’s a very interesting moment, as few movies are able (or have the guts) to take a break from the action and show you where the story came from.

Destroying the Decade: Venn's #9 Film

2009-11-28T20:23:00.015-05:00

The next film on my list is in some ways very similar to Bowling for Columbine as they are both show the key ways documentary films changed this decade. And while Michael Moore is a major influence, there is another larger force that we can't forget, no matter how hard we try: Reality TV. Don't forget this was the decade that saw such great television as "Who Wants to Marry A Millionaire" and "Hogan Knows Best". What did this popular and kind-of-documentary-like genre of TV do to cinema? It tried to take it over. Remember The Real Cancun?

Thankfully "reality films" never replaced intelligent documentary and yet their influence remains. Documentaries now are expected to be faster, more theatrical and commercial. To see how different things are now, just remember 1994's Hoop Dreams, the documentary that is easily the best film of the 90's. That almost 3 hour film was funded by grants and was unexpectedly shown in theaters. Now documentaries are made with the aim of theatrical distribution and without a thought of the NEA.

Have documentaries been dumb down forever? There certainly have been a lot of stupid docs this decade. But the new expectations for documentaries haven't hurt the genre, they have just challenge filmmaker to find an interesting subject, explore it intelligently and (and this is the new thing for docs) to be entertaining.

"Everything would've fell right into place, but he forgot about one thing: About me convincing Steve Wiebe not to be a chump, talking him out of chumpatizing himself."
-Roy Shildt, aka Mr. Awesome

The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters is a documentary released in 2007 and the first feature film by Seth Gordon. It tells the story of Steve Wiebe, a science teacher as he tried to break the world high score for Donkey Kong from reigning champion Billy Mitchell. Perhaps that one sentence summery doesn't capture the spirit of King of Kong as well as that quote above does. Maybe it's really about the greater struggle we all have to avoid chumpatizing yourselves.

This film is one of the most exciting documentaries I've seen and that's an accomplishment considering there is nothing more boring than watching people play video games. Gordon does this by large and large making it a film not about video games: it's about people. We meet Billy Mitchell the cocky, successful video-gamer/hot-sauce maker. As the long unchallenged champion he dismisses the possibility that anyone could have talents like him. Steve Weibe on the other hand is talented, but has never won at anything. He has a normal job, a family, and comes a cross as a likable guy. And once the two start playing Donkey Kong you can't help but cheer for Weibe.

The film introduces us the world of competitive arcade gaming and the people who live in it: From the head video game referrer who is into transcendental meditation to the 80-year-old woman going for the world's record in Q*bert. What's so great about this film is that we didn't know we needed to get to know this world. Or how much fun we would have when we got there. Fun, exciting, smart, funny and a great story about interesting people, this wonderfully made film is the poster child for this kind of modern documentary.

In closing I have a note just for Seth Gordon: Get your act together! You made a great film here, but then your next project was Four Christmases with Vic Vaughn? Seems like right now you are killing time directing TV episodes. That's okay, take your time before picking your next project. There are a lot of rumors about you on the Internets. I hope the one of you making fictional film based on Steve Weibe and Billy Mitchell is totally false. No matter what writers or actors you get, you will never top this documentary. The rumor that you're going to make a film based on "Freakconomics" could be interesting.

From the Files of Mr. Bo: THE BROWN BUNNY (2003)

2009-11-21T13:27:00.012-05:00

Ofttimes a film's legend will far outstrip the film itself. This inevitably leads to disappointment with the final product upon viewing: even if truth is stranger than fiction, the mortal rarely matches up to the mythic.

Stranger still is how disappointment can sometimes be a positive thing. So it is with 2003's THE BROWN BUNNY.

In preparation for my own Destroying The Decade series, which should begin shortly, I have been going back and catching up on some of the more important films of the last few years that, for one reason or another, passed me by initially. Of course, I would not be the Mysterious Mr. Bo! if by 'important films' I did not mean 'perceived disasters'. Someone has to separate reputation from reality, after all. (Next in line: 2008's KNOWING, Or Whatever Happened To Alex Proyas?) So it was that I queued up the film Ebert once called (since retracted) the worst film in the history of the Cannes Film Festival, Vincent Gallo's THE BROWN BUNNY.

THE BROWN BUNNY, Gallo's second film - after 1998's BUFFALO '66 - comes tagged as a titanic testament to Gallo's narcissism, one man's ode to himself (Gallo wrote, directed, starred, produced, and served as his own director of photography). And perhaps the version screened at Cannes - which ran 118 min. as opposed to the comparatively svelte 93 min. running time the film now sports - was just that. But while it's true that one could be reductive and re-title the film 'Vincent Gallo Gets A Hummer From Chloe Sevigny', to do so would be to miss the point entirely.

Interestingly, THE BROWN BUNNY shares much with a true trainwreck released the same year: Tommy Wiseau's THE ROOM. They're both nakedly personal stories of pain and loss, both exist in a world where the rules of human interaction are far different than the ones we know. But where THE ROOM fails spectacularly on nearly every conceivable level, THE BROWN BUNNY achieves moderate success.

Anyone who is familiar with a certain '70s film subgenre will know THE BROWN BUNNY instantly for what it is, which makes its hostile critical reception all the more puzzling: Gallo has made an American road movie, following in the footsteps of such works as (admittedly far superior and personal favorite) Monte Hellman's TWO-LANE BLACKTOP (1971). In fact, TWO-LANE seems to have been Gallo's main blueprint, from BUNNY's grainy, washed-out look to its final shot, a still fade to blinding white echoing TWO-LANE's iconic melting freeze-frame. The score, too, is a throwback, consisting of jazz bits and evocative folk numbers by the likes of Gordon Lightfoot.

Gallo plays a motorcycle racer who embarks upon a cross-country trek from New Hampshire to California, where his next race, as well as the spectre of his life-long love (Chloe Sevigny), await him. Along the way he encounters several women, with whom Gallo shares fewer words than acres of need and a few fleeting kisses. Gallo drives - and drives, and drives, and drives some more: Gallo spends a full two-thirds of the movie behind the wheel. The driving sequences (and the movie as a whole) are filmed in long, unbroken single takes; we witness vast stretches of American highway from behind Gallo's dirt-streaked windshield and watch as he disappears into the shimmering heat of the Bonneville salt flats aboard his motorcycle with nothing to disturb the sense of his isolation.

The ending is the most problematic portion of THE BROWN BUNNY as well as the source of much of its controversy. Much has been made of the film's infamous on-screen BJ, but it is really up to the viewers' sensibilities as to whether or not it breaks the film. More troubling is the twist that accompanies the scene, which is meant to invest the story with retroactive poignancy but will most likely strike some as atonal if not outright cliché.

On the whole, THE BROWN BUNNY, while not climbing into a place among my Destroying The Decade list, is an effective meditation on loneliness that deserves to be better remembered than it currently is. I may find myself even more kindly disposed towards it after the pleasant disappointment of thwarted expectations has dispersed.

District 9

2009-11-15T23:42:00.001-05:00

District 9 is the first film by Neill Blomkamp but it seems like everyone’s focus is on the fact that Peter “Please forget I made ‘Meet the Feebls’ and focus on ‘Lord of the Rings’” Jackson produced it. The movie is set up like a documentary about the company MNU and the history of the Prawns (Aliens) living with humans in South Africa. The Prawns are 2nd class citizens and are abused and killed just for the enjoyment of humans. The focus of the documentary is around Wikus van de Merwe who is the owner of MNU’s son-in-law as he’s the one that’s in charge of evicting all the Prawns and send them to District 10. Well it turns out that while killing and kicking out Prawns he accidently gets sprayed with some alien goo which disagrees with him. Turns out that the goo is in his system and seems to be transforming him. He begins to lose his fingernails, his teeth, he can’t stop throwing up, all in all your usual transformation stuff. I thought it was very Cronenberg-y, and was pleased with it. Those that I was with had the opposite reaction and kept closing their eyes or turning away. The movie then focuses on Wikus' attempt at trying to cure himself and get away from MNU who wants to use him as a weapon. At this point the movie drops its social commentary and becomes an action movie.

It’s a pretty heavy movie, which is odd considering the light hearted humor it starts with. Overall I liked it.

FOUR hats out of FIVE

Coming Soon: Paranormal Activity

The Orphan

2009-11-15T23:08:00.001-05:00

Actual conversation:

Rev: “Would you like to go see Orphan?”
Tarryn: “Yes! I love ‘Fucked Up Kid’ movies!”

I never really thought of F.U.K. as a specific genre. I mean children have always been a part of horror, but that’s because children are just creepy. As far as I know it started with The Bad Seed (which is The Big Shocker, by the way) and really hit its peak with The Omen. The Orphan isn’t The Bad Seed or The Omen, but still ranks with one of the best F.U.K’d movies of all time.

Basically the movie is about a mother who after her third child is a still birth decides to adopt. While at the orphanage instead of choosing any of the fun loving kids they decide to go with the oddly well spoken Esther who tends to keep alone and paints pictures. She then begins on taking the family out, and anyone that stands in her way. Every thing Esther does is just so evil that you can’t help but to love/hate her.

The odd thing about the movie is that there’s a lot of sex. Like they really wanted you to realize that the parents have an active sex life. There are three scenes where the parents decide to get it on. And the odd thing is that its never just vanilla movie sex, the movie lets you know that they like multiple positions and places. I don’t want to ruin the end of the movie but, yes, sex really does factor into it as well.

If you enjoy a good F.U.K. movie, then The Orphan is your movie! Heck, its been two weeks and I still keep trying to find ways to scream “WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO TO HIM YOU BITCH??” and “I’M NOT YOUR FUCKING MOMMY!” which are the two best lines of the movie.

THREE and a HALF hats out of five.

COMING SOON: District 9

The Alphabetic Crypt Project: Alien Resurrection

2009-11-15T22:42:00.004-05:00

Alien had Ridley Scott, Aliens had James Cameron, Alien 3Alien 3 had David Fincher, so where do you go for the forth movie? How about a crazy frenchman?

And that’s just what Fox did. They hired surrealist director Jean-Pierre Jeunet. So with a script by Joss Wheaton (yes, THAT Joss Wheaton) Jeunet started his first hollywood movie: Alien Resurrection .

Now I love Jeunet. I own Delicatessian, I enjoy City of Lost Children, but I have a hard time getting through Alien Resurrection. Visually and as a movie in general its not bad. In fact my biggest problems with the movie are that it doesn’t quite seem like an Alien movie, and some plot points that irk me.

It’s hard to do movie reviews without giving away plot points in the movies. So let me just try to give you a general idea about the plot without giving too much away. First it’s VERY in the future, 200 years after Alien 3, so Ripley is dead. Fear not readers of the blog, they’ve cloned her and they’ve also cloned some Aliens too! Actually it’s more like Super Ripley because she got some of their DNA and powers beyond the relem of your normal heroine. Also aliens got some of her DNA, which gives them some new powers… like LIVE BIRTH! Apparently the Aliens have just wanted to be mamels!

The best thing about the movie is that it helped Jeunet get some money and return to his roots by making a movie called Amelie. It’s easily the weakest movie in the Alien series as it has a more new wave Sci-Fi feel and lacked the dread from the first movies. Rumor has it that Fox is working on a prequel to Alien and Ridley Scott is coming back to direct it, so hopefully the Alien series will return to the glory of its former years!

TWO hats out of five

COMING SOON: The Orphan

The Alphabetic Crypt Project: Alien 3

2009-11-15T22:20:00.003-05:00

Oh, Alien 3.
You survived going through 6 different scripts and multiple possible directors only to be finally destroyed by studio editing and re-writes.

But thank goodness for DVD (Sorry, Venn I don't believe Alien 3: Special Edition ever came out on Laserdisc) because despite Fox's attempts at destroying Alien 3, we're able to (sort of) see what David Fincher's original idea was.

You see, Alien 3 was David Fincher's first major movie. So this was before Fight Club or SevenSeven or The Curious Case of Benjiam Button. After making music videos for years this was his jump onto the big screen. Fox didn't like the poetic exterior shots, or the religious sub-text heck they didn't even like how the alien made its way into the prison base. So they either removed it or re-shot it. This of course made Fincher mad, but being a first time director he had no say and that was the Alien 3 that came out in theaters.

Eventually rumors came out about a "Director's Cut." Well that doesn't actually exist, but the Special Edition does include as much of the cut footage as possible. In fact when you watch the DVD you can have it tell you when you're watching the deleted scenes, and it's like 75% of the movie.

I watched the original version of Alien 3 once, and HATED it. It made NO SENSE, felt very choppy and was badly done. I now only watch the Special Edition and I fall in love with it more every time.

FOUR out of FIVE Hats

COMING SOON:
ALIEN RESURECTION

The Alphabetic Crypt Project: Aliens

2009-11-15T22:05:00.003-05:00

A scene from Scream 2:

Randy: ...Who would wanna do that? Sequels suck! Oh please, Please! By definition alone, sequels are inferior films!
Mickey: It's Bullshit generalization. Many sequels have surpassed their originals.
Randy: Oh yeah?
Cici: Name one.
Film Class Guy #1: Aliens. Far better than the first.
Cici: Yeah, well, theres no accounting for taste.Randy: Thank you. Ridley Scott Rules. Name Another.
Film Class Guy #2: No way. Aliens is a classic. "Get away from her, you Bitch!"
Randy: I believe the line is "Stay away from her, you Bitch." This is a film class right?
Film Class Guy #2: Got you. Whatever. You know what I mean.
Randy: Name another.
Mickey: T-2.
Cici: You got a Hard-on for Cameron.
Randy: A big one.

So I put it to you, the ReVenBo audience, "What sequels are better than the originals?"

And with that being said, Happy Birthday James Cameron. That's right, Aug 16th was James Cameron's birthday. Now to say that Terminator 2Terminator 2 is better than The TerminatorThe Terminator really doesn't matter as Cameron was in charge of both. But it was his success from The Terminator that he was able to get funding for his script and make Aliens.

The first thing I like about Aliens is that the title is very accurate. Alien had only one Alien, this time there's a whole army of the suckers, hence the plural. I watched the original version, and came off thinking it was sort of lack luster. I mean it did invent most of the action/space movie cliches, and I respect that but something just felt off.

I then realized that Cameron prefers the Special Edition of the movie. So after lots of internal debate I sat down and watched the LONGER version of the movie. This time I came out thinking how great that really was. The special edition adds so much more character depth to Ripley that makes seeing her kick ass so much more enjoyable. Also it has a facehugger scene that shows how the Aliens got into the base!

Is Aliens better than Alien? Well it comes down to what you want. Alien is a Sci-Fi Horror movie, Aliens is a Sci-Fi Action movie. I personally like them both equally.

4 1/2 HATS out of 5

COMING SOON:
(Alien 3: Special Edition)

Destroying the Decade: Venn's #10

2009-11-04T20:30:00.015-05:00

Here it begins, the countdown of the ten best films of the last ten years. The films I have selected are not just excellent, intelligent films that deserve to be made into laserdiscs. The films that made it on to my list were those that had an impact on cinema. These films will not just be remembered as great films, but as the films of '00-09.

This film ushered in a decade of documentaries and while some my be surprised by its inclusion, there is no ignoring this film or filmmaker.

Bowling for Columbine, released in 2002, examines the shooting at Columbine High School in 1999. A "old school" documentary approach to this topic would be to put a very close lens on this tragedy and those affected most by the shooting. Filmmaker Micheal Moore takes a different approach. He looks at the shootings as part of a very large picture. He includes people affected by other shootings, celebrities, activists, and corporate spokesmen. He explores gun culture in this country. But he eventually lands on one central question: "Why do Americans kill each other so much?"

It's not an easy question. And, at times, its a difficult film to watch. Moore includes real, documentary footage of people being shoot and killed, including the security camera footage from Columbine High School. Of course, difficult material is nothing new the genre of documentary. But Moore does something with Bowling that didn't happen to serious documentaries before, he made a film that became widely popular.

Bowling for Columbinebecame the highest grossing documentary of all time and it started a Moore-driven decade for documentaries. He made four films this decade, a number no other documentary filmmaker comes close to. All were hits at the box office. The politics of Moore's films were widely talked about and he became the only documentary filmmaker who is a household name (sorry Ken Burns). How did he do this? Instead of making a film for people who watch documentaries, he made a documentary for everyone.

Roger & Me, Moore's first film released in 1989, was widely praised and did well at the box office, for a documentary. After that success he didn’t seem to know what to do next. He made a narrative film, Canadian Bacon, with mixed results. His TV shows were short lived. His next feature documentary, The Big One, was lazy and forgettable. With Bowling for Columbine he turns that ten years of floundering around and makes a film that is carefully constructed to address serious issues in a way that is accessible and entertaining. And while Moore isn’t the first documentary filmmaker to use humor, his trademark style of humor always mixes what the audience already knows with a new way of thinking about it.

So why include this film and Michael Moore in my best of the decade list? There are a lot of people out there who have legitimate beefs with his films. They are very manipulative and while they never include an out and out lie, but they exclude very relevant information when it is counter to Moore’s point. Regardless of those criticisms, Bowling for Columbine remains a very important film. The central question of the film, why do Americans snap and going on shooting sprees, is sadly still very relevant today.

Beyond the subject matter, this film marks a turning point for documentary films. Starting with this documentary, filmmakers and audiences started thinking of docs as theatrical experiences. Documentaries of the 70s, 80s, and 90s (and I love them) tried to distance themselves from the mainstream. If they wasn’t made for TV, they could be over three hours and were often slow moving and unfocused. Bowling showed that there could be something new: a documentary blockbuster.

You could endlessly debate if documentary blockbusters are a good thing; I shudder to think of what Grey Gardens would be like if it was made today. But there is no debating the fact that Bowling for Columbine’s influence on cinema is very wide spread. Some of the films it directly inspired, like Super Size Me are obvious. But less is that opened the minds of filmmakers and the wallets of studios to make and market documentaries to wide audiences. Without Bowling’s success there would have been no March of the Penguins or An Inconvenient Truth. In 1999 it was unthinkable to spend millions on marketing for a documentary and then open it nationwide opposite comic book sequels. Now it’s the goal of almost every documentary made.

Don’t change that web channel! Coming right up are Rev and Mr. Bo’s picks!

Decade in Review: Academy Award Winners

2009-10-23T17:00:00.000-04:00

Another couple of video playlists to help you review the last ten years. The past ten years of Academy Award Winning films are certainly more original the the highest grossing ones. But how many of these films will make it to ReVenBo's lists?

Academy Awards Best Picture Winners: 2000-2009:

Also of note, films that won Best Direction, without winning best picture: 2000-2009

Decade in Review --Box Office Gross

2009-10-22T20:00:00.000-04:00

Before we begin listing off the best films of the decade, maybe you'd like a refresher as to what films have been popular with audiences. Below is a play list showing the trailers for top-ten highest-grossing films, world-wide, form the last ten years. Enjoy.

Highest Grossing Films: 2009-2000:

Perhaps, even a film school drop-out could spot the trend going on here.

Introducing the Destruction of the Decade

2009-10-21T22:45:00.007-04:00

And we're back! Many have wondered why has Rev, Venn and the mysterious Mr. Bo been quiet for so long. Could it be that these fearless fighters have lost their battle against the cinema? Not a chance. As Mr. Bo shared with everyone, we have been preparing for our greatest accomplishment to date -- the destruction of the decade. There are only a few weeks left until this decade is over and in the time each of us will be posting our picks for the ten best films of the past ten years.

It was a decade that changed how we watch movies. In 1999 there was no Youtube, Netflix was a silly little site that charged late fees and VHS was the most popular way people watched movies at home. The technology we have today makes it simple to be able to watch a wider range of films we could have dreamed of having ten years ago. Of course, not all of this technological change has been good for fans of cinema. Particularly painful was January 14th, 2009, when Pioneer made its last laserdisc player.

Driven by forces of technology and the events of this decade, we've had ten years of innovative and remarkable films. Great films came from every corner of the globe, from the largest Hollywood studio to filmmakers with meager resources. Since January 1st, 2000 almost 5,000 films have been released in the United States. The biggest problem with the last ten years is that most of those films are total and complete crap.

That's why we here at Revenbo are destroying the decade. We're removing the crap so only true gems of the decade remain. Check back often to see which films make our lists of the best horror, cult and …whatever it is I'm here to write about.

Assault On The Aughts

2009-10-21T19:52:00.007-04:00

Holy indexers, Batman! We're the number one search result for 'revenbo' on Google! After all those months playing second-banana to some dude's World of Warcraft character. (This, of course, does not answer the question of why you would type 'revenbo' into Google at all. Ever.)

All it took was hard work, determination, and... not posting anything for nearly two months. Thanks internet!

Have no fear, lack of readers, for your vigilant crusaders against motion pictures have not abandoned you (yet). With 2009 barreling to a close, your faithful cinema combatants will be bringing you our own individual Best Of The Aughts movie countdowns - in no particular order and free from objective analysis whatsoever!

Who needs the scientific method when you can just compile a list of the biggest box-office flops of the past ten years, amirite? Of course, now I'm giving away my secrets. For you, dear netzien!

To be continued...

Venn's Week in Cinema

2009-08-23T21:35:00.009-04:00

The Wire

2004-2008/USA/Perfect TV/David Simon (creator)

Can’t we all just get beyond Hamsterdam?

DVD-Finished on Monday. The Wire is not a movie, but as it is one of the best TV shows ever it gets included in VWIC. This crime drama tells the story of the drug trade in Baltimore from the points of view of the police, drug dealers, longshoremen, politician, teachers, and reporters. The complex story not only sucks you in, it also shows a scarily real side of not just Baltimore, but any American city.

The Hurt Locker

2009/USA/Intense Explosive Drama (IED)/Kathryn Bigelow (dir)

Is it clever to name the intellectual solider Cambridge?

35mm-Roxy Theater (Burlington, VT) - Wednesday. A group of US soldiers charged with disarming bombs in second Iraq war counts down the number of days left in their tour. Bigelow is incredibly effective at creating the perfect balance of suspense, tension, and realism in the bomb disarming scenes. The some-what lopsided story is the only thing keeping this great movie from being excellent.

Wild Zero

2000/Japan/Rock- Zombie/Tetsuro Takeuchi (dir)

Do you know Rock 'n Roll?

DVD-Rev’s movie party-Saturday. Zombies are no match for the coolest rock 'n roll band in the world. Finally a zombie movie brave enough to scream “love knows no boarders, nationalities, or genders”. (Plus the DVD has a built in drinking game).

Repo! The Genetic Opera

2008/USA/Rock Opera/Darren Lynn Bousman (dir)

Is this the best Rocky Horror replacement our generation could come up with?

DVD-Rev’s movie party-Saturday. In the future everyone is in debt to the company that sold them their new organs and if you fall behind in your payments they send the repo man to take them back. Also everyone sings all the time. I was surprised a film with Paris Hilton “acting” and Joan Jett jumping out of a closet to play guitar wasn’t more playful and fun.

The Machine Girl

2008/Japan/Killer-Girl/Nobour Iguchi (dir)

Japan, why you so crazy?

DVD-Rev’s movie party-Saturday. Timeless tale of girl getting a machine gun arm so she can kill many. When the movie ended at 4:00 AM the only people still awake were Rev, Mr. Bo and myself. Clearly we won another battle against movie-kind. For those of you keeping score at home that’s ReVenBo 1, history of cinema 0.

Film of the week: It might not be a film, but hey the game is the game, The Wire. The clip below might be enough to get you hooked.

Venn's Week in Cinema

2009-08-16T19:24:00.012-04:00

Lawrence of Arabia

1962/UK/Historical Epic/David Lean (dir)/w- Peter O'Toole, Omar Sharif, Alec Guinness, Claude Rains

An Epic Epic of Epic Proportions

Saw at the Coolidge Corner Theater on Monday with Bo & Rev. Few movies equal the experience of seeing this one on the big screen. They literally don't make them like this any more. Now a days epic movies are made using computer and split into two or three parts so you have to wait a year and buy another ticket. Also, I never realized Lawrence was gay before this screening. (Additionally, I own this on Laserdisc)

12 Monkeys

1995/USA/Post-Apocalyptic-Sci-Fi/Terry Gilliam (dir)/w- Bruce Willis, Madeline Stowe, Brad Pitt

It's hard to know if you're crazy or from the furture

Watch online from Netflix. Terry Gilliam re-envisions Chris Marker's La Jetee with Bruce Willis traveling back through time to get information about a virus that wipes out most of mankind. A dark, chaotic Science Fiction film that is pretty darn good.

Total Recall

1990/USA/"Academy Award" Winning Sci-Fi/Paul Verhoeven (dir)/w- Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sharon Stone

Get your Ass to Mars!

Screened on Laserdisc at Bad movie night. The story of a man who was a spy, then was brainwashed to go to Mars to fight for the people's air. Along the way he meets a woman with three breasts (Verhoeven continues to hate women). You would think being in a movie like this one would stop you from being elected governor.

Battlefield Earth: A Sega of the Year 3000

2000/USA/Religous Flop/Roger Christian (dir)/ W- John Trabolta and Forest Whitaker

Puny Man-Animals fail to see L. Ron Hubbard's greatness

Another bad movie night movie. The story of how this movie, easily one of the worst ever, got made, including John Travolta's impression that there would be a sequel, is a good one. If nothing else, it's a best example of why you shouldn't make every shot a dutch angle.

La Jetee

1962/French/Still Image Sci-Fi/Chris Maker (dir)

Motion Pictures don't need to move!

Watched on Youtube, while writing this blog post. The 28 minute film is the story of a prisoner from the future who is forced to travel through time. Constructed almost completely out of still images this film proves that Science Fiction master pieces don't need budgets or computers.

Final Thoughts: It was the best of films. It was the worst of films. It had one of the best actors of all time and it had John Travolta as a Space Jamaican. And there all of the films was a story of an outsider who traveled to a strange land. Sometimes those strange lands were filled with Turkish prisons, sometimes will midget hookers.

The Film of the Week: All week long I've been torn as to which film- Lawrence or 12 Monkeys - would be the film of the week. Lawrence is of course one of the best films ever, and has been a favorite of mine for years. After I watched 12 Monkeys for the first time, I thought about the film a lot and how it was inspired by La Jetee. So I started writing up 12 Monkeys and just stumbled on La Jetee on youtube. I watched it and was struck by the power of its simplistic. In week were films worked really hard to tell a story, the film that does so much with so little wins. La Jetee wins.

Venn's Week in Cinema

2009-08-09T22:27:00.018-04:00

I have the theory that there is no line between documentary and fictional films, rather films, since they are pictures to some degree staged for the camera, have to have elements both of reality and creativity. Perhaps with this in mind I sought out these three films this week, fictional stories very aware of the real life surrounding them.

JCVD

a Meta Crime Thriller

2008/French/ Director: Mabrouk El Mechri/ Staring: Jean-Claude Van Damme

It's Jean-Claude Van Damme in the role he was born to play- himself!

JCVD is a fictional story where the Mussels from Brussels plays himself. While it could be seen as self indulgent to play yourself in a movie - Van Damme manages to strike a balance between poking fun at himself and showing that he's real person under all those high-kicks. While the crime thriller aspect of the movie falls a little flat, Van Damme steals the show with a six-minute long monologue about how screwed up his life has become. It's a great scene that would never work with even a great actor playing a fictional washed up action star saying the same lines.

The Firemen's Ball

a Realistic Over-the-top Comedy

1967/Czech New Wave/Director: Milos Forman

A party so crazy not even a fire can stop it!

When the chief retires, the firemen throw an unforgettable party complete with beauty pageant contestants who run and hide when its time to compeate to raffle prizes that continue to disapear. The film was shot with real firemen and townspeople without a script. It manages to find a realism not found in most outlandish comedies. Milos Forman proves that you can make a great movie without using actors (later in life he uses actors once or twice I think).

Baghead

Mumblecore with a dash of horror

2008/USA/Directors: Mark & Jay Duplass

Realish life can be scaryish stuff.

Four actors go to the woods to write a script for a movie with a part for each of them. When their film becomes a horror movie, things start to get a little scary. As one can except from a Mumblecore movie, the film is much more about the characters interaction with each other than it is about someone with a bag on their head tring to kill them.

Mumblecore often gets a bad wrap. While it has its supporters (like me) so many people seem to hate the genre, even without seeing a film (even people claiming to be experts in cult films, tend to ingore the genre). Simply put Mumblecore films use simple documentary-like shooting styles to allow actors the room to play life-like characters. These films tend not to be interesting becuse of their plots, but becuase its like watching life unfold.

Film of the Week: So which film wins top honors this week? Does it go to Baghead to show my support for Mumblecore? Or many I try to earn for film-snob street cred by giving it to the Czech New Wave film. Nope. This weeks film is JCVD becuase it showed us that movie stars are people too.

Now On Laserdisc - The Jerk

2009-08-07T00:48:00.002-04:00

Venn's Week in Cinema

2009-08-02T18:07:00.020-04:00

Science Fiction, Uniquely Personal Documentaries, and the 1980's

Week 1: 7/26-8/1/2009

I've got five films to speak about in my first weekly summery of my movies watching activities. It's been a diverse group of films this week. On one hand these films seem like they couldn't be more different from each other. What does a fantasy film with muppets have in common with an experimental film? In what ways is a B-movie action movie similar to a high-brow documentary? However, after reflecting on these five films, that are so stylistically different, I see that they all deal with, in one way or another, losing a family member. Kind of weird.

Anyway time to meet the films...

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension

1984/ WD Richter (dir)/ with: Peter Weller, John Lithgow, Ellen Barkin & Jeff Goldblum

Buckaroo Banzai, he's a rock star, neurosurgeon, and an all around good-guy. When his band/team of heroes, the Hong Kong Cavaliers is playing a gig, he stops the music to ask "Is someone not having a good time?" Someone isn't. It's the long lost identical twin sister of his dead wife. And that bit of weirdness doesn't stop him from fighting the interdimentional aliens all named John who want to steal part of his rocket-car. Also Jeff Goldblum is there.

If you haven't guess it by now, this film was a box office bomb that over the years has gained a cult following for its shear goofiness. It's not a film for people who like to understand what's going on or need to emotional connect with people on the screen. But if you're fine just going along for a fun ride, head out to the 8th dimension.

I saw this at The Brattle Theatre where it played for two days (with Mr. Bo & Rev). Playing now non-stop in recesses of Mr. Bo's subconscious. I do not recommend going there.

226-1690

1984/Richard Rogers (dir)

Filmmaker Dick Rogers, for a year, recorded all of his answering machine messages and shot film looking out the windows of his apartments. He combines the two in this experimental shot documentary.

The answering machine messages range from a gruff delivery man, to Robert Frank, to a friend calling to say her husband had been killed. The result is a interesting personal film, where we get raw glimpse into very select elements of Dick's life.

These glimpses are completely out of context, so you spend most of the film listening carefully trying to figure out who all these people are and why are they calling. It's a surprising effective film. I love the premises and its one of my favorite documentaries.

Moon

2009 / Duncan Jones (dir) / with Sam Rockwell & Kevin Spacey

Moon is the story of a man whose job it is to supervise a mining outpost on the moon. He's spent three years alone with only a computer (voiced by Kevin Spacey) to keep him company and he's begins to get unhinged emotionally by communicating with his wife only via recorded video messages. Everything becomes a lot more complicated after an accident.

My number one fear with Sci-Fi is that isn't going to turn into one of the many cliche of the genre. Thankfully this film stays thoughtful and original start to finish.

This film is the first by Ducan Jones. Ducan Zowie Haywood Jones is his legal name, but many people know him as Zowie Bowie, since he is David Bowie's son.

Now Playing: at the Somerville Theater

Labyrinth

1986 / Jim Henson (dir) / with Jennifer Connelly & David Bowie

Jennifer Connelly hates her baby step brother so she wishes that David Bowie would take him away. He does. She realizes that she should go get her step-brother back so she has to cross Bowie's crazy Labyrinth with the help of some muppets. If I had a nickel for everytime that happened to me.

Labyrinth is Jim Henson's last film (dare I say Swan Song). It's a beloved by so many children of the 80's, like me, that it seems hard to believe that it was a box office bomb. Maybe it just took people a while to realize how incredible Dance Magic Dance is.

The Windmill Movie

2008 / Alexander Olch (dir) / with Wallace Shawn, Bob Balaban, Susan Meiselas & Richard Rogers

For decades Dick Rogers worked on a film he didn’t know how to put together. He shot hundreds of hours of film and video but failed to assemble the footage before his death in 2001. After his death, his former student – Alexander Olch takes up the challenge of turning the Rogers’ footage into a movie. To turn the mountains of footage into a movie, Olch wrote narration that gives in sight into Rogers' thoughts on his life. The narration is completely made up, but it give the footage context and meaning to the audience.

In a world where many fictional films seem to be incorporating elements of documentary in them, it's nice to see a documentary use some fictional approaches. I have never believed there should be a wall separating documentary and fiction. Movie are movies. While the narration may be fake (and the film lets you know it is) it's not as if it's paragand. It's a film about a dead filmmaker and the movie he never finished. Why should it be limited to footage the filmmaker shot in his life time?

Now playing at the Coolidge Corner Theater.

Final Thoughts: It's been a great week for films. No films I've hated. And there are questions that will go stay with me for some time: What make a film a documentary? Why do some films become cult films? What is that watermelon doing there?

Film of the week: In the end, only one film gets to be the film of the week. Cult Classics and Documentaries this week could not stand up to Duncan Jones' first film, Moon. Is it because the film restored my faith that Science Fiction films can be great cinema or is it because that Kevin Space makes the best robot ever? You'll have to watch it to find out.

The Alphabetic Crypt Project: ALIEN (1979)

2009-07-30T18:47:00.001-04:00

ALIEN (1979)

"The Texas Chainsaw Massacre of science fiction."

So it's 1977 and you're 20th Century Fox, you just put out Star Wars and need to put out another Sci-Fi movie to capitalize. The company only has one other sci-fi script, so you blindly green light it with a starting budget of $4.2 million. Lucky for you, that script was called Alien.

Alien was written by Dan O'Bannon, who after working on Dark Star with John Carpenter wanted to do horror movie in space. "Like Jaws in space!" is how he pitched it different movie studios, and Roger Corman's was VERY close to picking it up, til a friend with connections to Fox suggested trying them.

Once they were given the green light, they had to find a director. O'Bannon had originally hoped that he'd direct it, but the studio had other plans. And as it so happened a rather new director named Ridley Scott was avaliable. He loved the idea, and wanted to make the Texas Chainsaw Massacre of science fiction. The only issue left was to figure out the Alien.

The answer came from H.R. Giger's painting Necronom IV. The team contacted him and he agreed to work on all aspects of the Alien, from the egg and all forms to adulthood.

And with that the Alien was born.

Now forget all of that. It's 1979, you're a big Star Wars fan and you're getting into other Sci-Fi. To you Aliens are cute fuzzy things. Then you see THIS trailer with the tag line "In space, no one can hear you scream." Your little nerd brain explodes. And on May 25th, 1979 the R rated Alien movie comes out and makes $104,931,801 worldwide.

"But Rev," I hear you say "Is it good?"

Is it good? Yes. Should you watch at least once in your life? Yes.
I just warn you that its very much a 70's movie. Meaning the pacing is a little slow, and you have to go in not knowing anything about Aliens.

The movie is very much 70's sci-fi, lots of random lights & buttons, Tandy-esch green & black computer screens, etc. But if you look beyond that there's a movie about survival in the most unknown conditions which really is what horror is all about.

4 1/2 hats out of 5 hats.

Coming Soon:
ALIENS:

Stop Drop & Watch: Alice In Wonderland

2009-07-24T20:09:00.003-04:00

It was over a 106 years ago that Alice in Wonderland was first made into a movie. Since then its been remade over 22 times, including the Disney animated classic in 1966, as a X-rated musical in 1976, and just two years ago for TV featuring the gang from Sesame Street.

Well time to meet the remake of 2010. It's directed by Tim Burton and like all thing from the future, it's in 3-d.

Stop, Drop & Watch - BAD LIEUTENANT: PORT OF CALL NEW ORLEANS

2009-07-20T00:33:00.005-04:00

"Shoot him again... his soul's still dancing."

What you have just witnessed, my friends, is the trailer for BAD LIEUTENANT: PORT OF CALL NEW ORLEANS, Werner Herzog's upcoming remake/update/something or other of Abel Ferrara's 1992 film BAD LIEUTENANT.

Let's review: Nic Cage in full-on WICKER MAN mode, joined by Val Kilmer - a man who once managed to out-crazy Brando for an entire film - and directed by THE Werner Herzog, who famously threatened Klaus Kinski with a firearm. (Further research indicates cult film favorite Brad Dourif is also involved in the project.)

Hang on to your hats, kiddies - the camp barometer indicates the mother of all storms may be arriving this winter.

Now on Laserdisc: Robocop!

2009-07-11T14:01:00.010-04:00

Update: After being taken down from Youtube for a few days, I've restored this video with a call to the MGM VP of Laserdisc. When you work on a high powered blog you can get things done.

Of course you like movies. And who doesn't want to experience the superior image quality and the crystal clear sound of laserdisc? The hard part is, with thousands of movies on laserdisc and thousands more on the way, it can be over whelming trying to pick out the right discs for you.

Today we make building your collection a little easier with a preview of another fine addition to any laserdisc library- Robocop.

From the Files of Mr. Bo: ZARDOZ (1974)

2009-07-06T18:14:00.011-04:00

You don't earn the title of 'Mysterious' by posting on a regular schedule, you know.

With Rev's Alphabetic Crypt Project well under way, I thought I might begin by tackling an entry at the opposite end of the letter spectrum: the 1974 sci-fi film ZARDOZ.

Imagine you're director John Boorman. You've been granted carte blanche after your smash 1972 hit DELIVERANCE. What sort of project will you follow it with?

I'm guessing your answer doesn't involve dressing a ponytailed Sean Connery in a bandolier, red leather briefs, and thigh-high boots. Congratulations, you're sane.

Doing his best Jodorowski impression, Boorman handily sets about making a film that, while more than a bit ridiculous, is still entertaining and, thematically speaking, ahead of its time. Seriously, it's THE MATRIX for hippies, twenty five years before THE MATRIX.

Sean Connery is Zed, a barbarian living in the year 2293. The world as we know it has ended - cities blasted, countryside blighted. What remains of humanity (referred to as Brutals) stumbles around in tattered suits(!), knowing little but to worship a floating stone head (the titular ZARDOZ) and flee from ZARDOZ's chosen warriors, the Exterminators. ZARDOZ has gifted Zed and the rest of his warriors with horsemanship and guns (which the flying stone head vomits upon them in a shower of ammo) and has but one command: to control the population by killing at random. Zed loves nothing more than the hunt, and gleefully carries out the will of his granite-visaged god.

That is, until god changes his mind.

One day, ZARDOZ has a new command: No longer to be cannon fodder, the Brutals will now serve as forced labor. With the Exterminators as their cruel taskmasters, the Brutals shall be forced to grow wheat, the harvest of which will be given to ZARDOZ in tribute. Zed finds these new orders deeply disquieting; he is a warrior, not a farmer.

Zed and his followers among the Exterminators conspire to hide Zed among the next harvest offering, which is placed inside the airborne totem when ZARDOZ comes to claim it. When Zed emerges from a pile of grain, he finds his god is a mere transport vessel, and he is taken to the Vortex, a hidden settlement where what is left of humanity's best and brightest - called Eternals, as they have beaten death - act as custodians of mankind's greatest achievements while spending their days navel-gazing.

Cue the perpetually stoned production designers. Everything in the Vortex is bright colors and reflective surfaces.

The Eternals capture Zed and resolve to study him for their amusement. Without giving anything away, suffice to say Zed is not at all a simple barbarian, but rather The One, come to destroy the system and save humanity from itself. Also to throw women around like ragdolls and reverse time with the power of his mind.

ZARDOZ is well worth watching if you enjoy films that pose questions; it is one of those rare science fiction films that packs more ideas than explosions. Of course, there are elements that border on the ludicrous, but they're not enough to bury this film whether you're looking for ironic entertainment value or futuristic food for thought.

To use the film's own words: The penis is bad, ZARDOZ is: good.

The Alphabetic Crypt Project: Aftermath (1994) & Genesis (1996)

2009-06-25T18:04:00.007-04:00

Aftermath & Genesis

Aftermath is the movie that put Nacho Cerda on the horror fan's radar. It's only about 30 mins long but is much better than most horror movies triple its length.

The short film is about a night at a morgue. There are two morticians doing autopsies on corpses. Pretty gruesome stuff, but just an everyday activity to the morticians. After one of them leaves for the night, the second one starts to work on a female body. While he works you begin to notice that he's much more sensual with this one, and that it's become a sexual object for him. He begins touching himself while working on the corpse, and eventually even rapes the corpse! He finishes the autopsy, makes a puree out of the heart, and goes home. He then feeds his dog the heart and sits down to watch some TV.

What makes this movie amazing is how beautiful Cerda makes everything look. It's horrible and gross, but the color tint and the camera angles make it a very beautiful visual experience. So while sitting through it might seem hard, its actually a very pretty movie.

The other main movie on this DVD is Cerda's third short film: Genesis.

Again, Genesis is a simple film. A man makes a sculpture of his wife who died in a car accident and he begins to realize that the statue is bleeding. Slowly as the statue comes to life he is slowly becoming clay. It's the "I wish it was me who died instead" type of story turned on its head. Eventually he's completely clay except for one eye, and he gets to see her come back to life as he fades to clay. It's very touching, and in Cerda's hands it's of course very beautiful. The fact that neither of these movies has dialogue only adds to their visual appeal. There's no cheesy or corny lines, just screams or cries of anguish.

Though the content of Aftermath is hard for most to handle, any one that isn't afraid of necrophilia should give it a try. And Genesis is a nice tale about love to get that necrophilia taste out of your mouth.

FIVE out of five hats!

Coming soon:
THE ALIEN QUADRILOGY!!!
(starting with Alien of course!)

PS- WHERE IS THE MYSTERIOUS MR. BO????

On Laserdisc: Blade Runner

2009-06-14T10:25:00.010-04:00

Today there is no shortage of ways to watch movies from the comfort of your own home. From Blue-ray to Youtube to VHS formats are literally warring for your attention. Who are you to trust? Only one format has stood the test of time with true digital image quality and nearly indestructible discs. The answer is clear: this is a age of the Laserdisc.

Building a Laserdisc collection can be a little overwhelming. To help you on this process, here is the first in our series of previews of movies now available to own, on laserdisc.

Blade Runner: The Director's Cut

Now Playing - The Brothers Bloom

2009-06-09T14:59:00.009-04:00

Now at finer cineplexes- The Brothers Bloom. It's the second film by writer-director Rian Johnson, whose first film- Brick won him a Special Jury Prize for Originality of Vision at Sundance in 2005. Mr. Johnson has once again put an original twist on a old genre and has quickly become my favorite new filmmaker.

The concept of The Brothers Bloom is simple. Mark Ruffalo and Adrien Brody are brothers that have been con-men since they were children. Ruffalo, the master-mind, convinces Brody, who wants to quit, to do one last con. Their target is Rachel Weisz a socially awkward wealthy woman whose many talents include juggling chainsaws.

Yes, she literally juggles chainsaws.

Johnson's script add originality and fresh air to your standard crime drama. One moment the film is all about suspense and leaves you racing to figure out what's going on, who is conning who, only to seamlessly becomes playful and at times hilarious. Just when you think the plot or the characters might be getting too over the top the film shifts gears again and brings you back to an emotional story about the characters. That's Johnson's main feat here. The movie isn't just clever, it's a real story that you get involved in.

The film also features interesting performances by Robbie Coltrane and Rinko Kikuchi. Rinko plays a mute character, just like her last film, Babel. This leads me to believe she will be Hollywood's go-to girl for mute Asian characters for years to come.

You can download a commentary track by Rian Johnson here and listen to it on your ipod while watching the movie in the theater. While not something you'd want to to do on your first viewing, I've never heard of anyone doing for a film while its still in theaters and am tempted to give it a go. Also cool: a music video Johnson made for the Mountain Goats.

The Brother's Bloom - 4.5 out of 5.

The Alphabetic Crypt Project: Dr. Phibes Rises Again!

2009-06-05T20:45:00.004-04:00

First, let me just say that this came in the same DVD box as The Abominable Dr. Phibes, so it still counts as being alphabetical. So there. Moving on...

Dr. Phibes Rises Again (1972)

This sequel finds Dr. Phibes (still played by Vincent Price) rising from his tomb and determined to bring his wife Virgina back to life by use of a secret Egyptian river of life. The only problem is that Robert Quarry (known to most from the Count Yorga movie series) has the scroll with the map to the river. With the help of his assistant Vulnavia (who though died in the first movie is back, though played by a new actress) the scroll is stolen back. After a quick Peter Cushing cameo everyone arrives in Egypt (including Inspector Trout from the first movie!) and Phibes starts killing off people in his usual unique ways. Some highlights are sausage makers, scorpions, and sandblasting.

One of the most noticeable differences in the two movies is Phibe's talking. Where in the first movie he didn't talk til about halfway through, the second starts with an "engenous" voice over narration and then Phibes telling his new plans. He then continues to talk every time he's seen for the rest of the movie.

The sense of humor that made the first movie so great is still here. Phibe's clockwork band is now called the Alexandrian Quartet, he sets up a dog statue in front of a phonograph player (a homage to the HMV logo) and laments how music is the food of life.

Dr. Phibes Rises Again! was Vincent Price's last movie in his contract with AIP (the company that put out most of Price's movies in the 60's) and his co-star Robert Quarry was to be his replacement as the company's horror star. Quarry and Price had a rivalry on the set, and apparently even refused to talk to each other in between takes!

If you enjoyed the first movie and all of its "camp"-ness then you'll enjoy the sequel just as much (if not more as Ms. Emily and I did).

FOUR out of five hats.

(Coming soon [well right now actually]: Aftermath / Genesis)
[normally I put a link to the movie's trailer but unfortunately its not on YouTube]

Stop, Drop & Watch - The Road Trailer

2009-06-02T13:09:00.003-04:00

If you haven't see the new trailer for The Road, you need to watch it now.

Oh man, looks like a must see in theaters to me. I better quickly read to book before anyone realizes I haven't read the book and/or I'm only reading the book because its a movie now.

Camp vs. Cult -- FIGHT!

2009-06-02T08:52:00.008-04:00

Reading Rev's last post brings up one of the most difficult questions in cinema: What's the difference between Camp and Cult? Thankful, Venn Esq. is a film know-it-all and has the answer you didn't know you've been waiting for!

Camp refers to some kind of bad, ironic, or over-the-top-ness to a film that adds to the enjoyment of watching it (as Rev puts it, so bad, it's good). Where as cult movies are films that have been embraced and passionately loved by a small, but very devoted fan base. Many cult films are camp. But the two terms do not go hand and hand all the time. There are films that are cult, but not camp. Some are camp, but not cult.

Confused? Just think about Tim Curry (good advice for whatever your problem). Curry's masterfully over-the-top and Campy performance in The Rocky Horror Picture Show help make it a film beloved by many. And while Rocky is the quint essential cult/camp classic, Curry only brings the camp to the table. It's the fans who dress up like Curry 30 years later who make it a cult film.

Just because the camp is there, doesn't mean the cult will show up. To use Tim Curry again, think about his performance in the 1985 movie about the board game Clue. No doubt he's campy again in this film ("I'm not shouting!"), but no one is dressing up to go to midnight screenings of this movie. (And why is that Mr. Bo?) A film can have a campy element and never pick up a cult following.

A while it may be in the minority of cult films, there are many that are not campy. Think about films like Reservoir Dogs, Koyaanisqatsi, or Grey Gardens. All have cult followings with out a trace of camp in the films themselves. If I've learned anything about crazy cults, I've learned that they can love any film for whatever reason they want.

In short: Camp is something put into the movie by the filmmakers. Cult is something the audience makes a movie.

Think about that the next time you do the time warp.

The Alphabetic Crypt Project: The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971)

2009-06-01T19:12:00.011-04:00

The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971)

Camp. Everything I have ever read regarding The Abominable Dr. Phibes describes it as camp. But for the life of me I can't really explain that that is. So I looked up camp on Wikipedia: Camp is an aesthetic sensibility wherein something is appealing because of its bad taste and ironic value. OK, so when something is so bad it's good? Well that does describe a good chunk of the movies I've seen with Mr. Bo but we usually conceder those cult and not camp. I suppose those are Culty because they are camp. Well however you look at it, The Abominable Dr. Phibes is (according to the masses) camp. I just like it because its strange.

Vincent Price plays Dr. Phibes (his 100th role!) and with his silent assistant Vulnavia kills the doctors, surgeons, psychiatrist and nurses that he blames for his wife's death. To spice things up he kills them using the 10 curses of Egypt. For those of you that aren't up on your Old Testament the curses were: boils, bats, frogs, blood, hail, rats, beasts, locusts, death of the first born, and darkness. Oh, and he's also a heck of an organist. In fact in between scenes of death & detective work are musical numbers by Dr. Phibes and his band The Clockwork Wizards!

The pacing is 1970's style, so its a little slow for today's audience. But if you enjoy absurdest humor, then the jokes should help you going until the next kill scene. The kills in the movie are quite clever and grotesque in their own way. There is a mechanical frog mask that crushes the psychiatrist. (or you could say, shrinks the head of the head-shrinker if you will.) The nurse gets her face eaten off by locusts. And a doctor gets impaled and screwed (and unscrewed) by a brass unicorn statue. All of them are quite entertaining.

An interesting note on the curse of the first born is how very Saw-ish it is. Phibes has locked one of the doctors' son to a table where in 5 mins acid will pour down and kill him. The doctor has a chance to save his son, but will have to preform surgery as the key to the lock is located inside the boy next to his heart. Mind you the scene isn't as gory as if it was in Saw, but still pretty shocking for 1971.

If you enjoy British films from the 70's, and/or just love Vincent Price then I'd suggest giving The Abominable Dr. Phibes a try!

4 out of 5 HATS!

(Coming Soon: Dr. Phibes Rises Again)

These Things Come in Threes: Meet Venn

2009-06-01T15:33:00.006-04:00

When Mr. Bo first pitched the idea of this blog to me, he explained that the three of us would make the perfect team. He would bring his expertise of cult movies. Rev, with this nearly endless collection of horror films, would write about his favorite genre. "And you", he paused for a moment to think of the best way to phrase my contribution to the site, "would write, you know, whatever". I couldn't have said it better myself.

I'm Venn, the third flank in our war on cinema. I'm a semi-active filmmaker and a long time student of the art of the motion picture. After years of watching movies, reading about movies and making movies I've learned that just because a film is boring, doesn't mean you can't love it. (I'm so in love with Koqaanisqatsi that I've memorized all the words). There's something special when a film can cut out the bull shit and be simply lifelike. Sometimes that by literally filming real life, as in a documentary or its done through masterful writing, directing, and acting, like a Abbas Kiarostami film.

Don't worry I also like shiny movies. And no movie shines like a movie on laserdisc. I like laserdiscs. I have hundreds. Welcome to the whatever, be sure to tip your waitress.

The Alphabetic Crypt Project: The Abandoned (2006)

2009-05-31T14:02:00.012-04:00

Often in the evenings at La Casa de Rev the question "What dvd should we watch tonight?" gets brought up. The choice is going to be a horror movie, but the question is which specific one? Last night Emily, my girlfriend, had an idea!

"Let's just go through your movies alphabetically."

Seems simple enough, but with a collection that has over 300 dvd's that's....*gets out calculator* around 600 hours of movie! It was a crazy idea, but perfect for this blog! So thanks to Ms. Emily we have my first review, and the first movie in my collection:

THE ABANDONED (2006)

First a little history. The Abandoned was released as part of the After Dark Horrorfest (aka 8 Films to Die For) which I unfortunately did not get to see any of, but heard The Abandoned was the best of the fest. This didn't surprise me as it was the first full length film directed by Nacho Cerda. Nacho Cerda came to fame in the horror world for his two shorts Aftermath & Genesis. (Both of which I'll review in detail once I get to that dvd. Don't worry, they are both on one dvd and it's filed under Aftermath so the review will be up soon!) Just to give you an idea they both have very little dialogue and are very disturbing yet beautiful. Thus I knew going in to The Abandoned to expect a beautiful and creepy movie. And I got exactly what I expected!

The story is about a woman who is searching to find out about her parents and is contacted that she inherited a farm in Russia. As usual in horror movies the towns people are creeped out by the farm and the only person that will drive her there basically just leaves her. Upon entering the house she bumps into a doppelganger of herself dead. She runs out falls into the river and almost drowns. She's saved by a twin brother she never knew she had and explains that their father killed their mother. Eventually he figures out that they were supposed to die that night too and that the house/their father is trying to make that happen.

Sounds like a typical horror movie, but in Nacho's hands it becomes an amazing atmospheric and constantly creepy gem. First the makeup on the doppelgangers is some of the best I've seen, and there's just enough seeing/not seeing them to help keep the dread they bring constant. The whole movie is shot with a very muted grayish color scheme so that even the beautiful Russian landscape has a, as Ms. Emily said, "very 28 Days Later feel."

Now usually when a review says things like atmospheric and beautiful landscapes I tend to think of a slowly paced movie but this was the exception. I didn't look at the clock once while watching the movie and found the story line's mysteries were revealed
at the perfect pace to keep my interest.

Overall, The Abandoned is one of the most successful horror movies I've seen in some time and I can't wait for Nacho's next project!

5 out of 5 HATS

(Coming Soon: The Abominable Dr. Phibes review)

Soy segundo!

2009-05-30T16:42:00.005-04:00

And with this post, it is I, the Mysterious Mr. Bo!, who has provided the illusion of daily content.

Take a seat by the fire and we'll have ourselves a delightful introductory chat, shall we? I've some fine scotch in the sideboard, should you desire.

I am the Mysterious Mr. Bo, gentleman eccentric, and it was my idea to gather some of the finest and most discerning talents of my acquaintance in order to bring this electronic journal of distinction to fruition - Rev, our resident spattermaster and gorehound, and Ven, a southern aesthete from whom I'm sure you'll hear later on.

I, for my part, am an aficionado of all entertainments of the "cult" variety. I am fascinated less by artistic masterpieces than by the misfires and misfits along the way, especially the ones that manage to find second lives as audiences rediscover and embrace them. There's something intrinsically satisfying about uncompromised personal visions being realized or near-realized at the cost of cohesion and comprehensibility, test markets be damned.

And so I invite you, dear readers, along on my ongoing expeditions to uncover and expose these gems.

First!!

2009-05-29T22:04:00.003-04:00

I, Rev, do hereby make this blog official with the first post!!
(whooo.)

As many of you know I am a horror fan. I have a collection of over 300 horror dvds, I've read countless books on the subject, I can talk to you for hours on why I have a love/hate relationship with Friday the 13th part VII, and I'm even in a Horror/Surf/Metal band. (www.myspace.com/geinandthegraverobbers) So with that being said, I'll be the horror reviewer/supplier on the site.

To quote Wikipedia "Horror films are movies that strive to elicit the emotions of fear, horror and terror from viewers." The key word to that sentence is strive. Most horror films TRY really hard but epically fail at eliciting fear or terror. In fact out of all of the movies I've ever seen the only thing that's scared me was a scene from the Exorcist when I saw it in the theaters.

To be a horror fan you need to have a very high tolerance for bad movies. Horror movies are naturally cheap and neglected by movie studios, so when a new horror movie comes out the fan often has to search to find it and even then most of them will still be crap. So why keep going? Because there is a thrill when we do get scared. After that scene in The Exorcist for the whole rest of the movie I felt like I was on a roller coaster. It was a rush. But that is very few and far between. In the mean time if a horror movie has a cool concept or awesome death scene that's an enough to keep us horror fans thinking that there's hope for us and our genre of choice!

...and with that being said, next time I'll ACTUALLY review something!