Le pacte des loups (Brotherhood of the Wolf) (2001) [REVIEW]

 

Not to flex nuts or anything about how cool I am, but I saw this movie in theaters. Yup, that’s right, that’s me bragging about a movie a saw in theaters. In retrospect, that’s really not a big deal. However, ten years ago in western Massachusetts, having to track down a French movie to see it in theaters was kind of a dig deal. In addition to seeing this movie in theaters, I remember renting it on VHS to watch it again! Can you believe it?! If I’ve seen this movie twice, why am I reviewing it now? Because in retrospect, I HAVEN’T SEEN THE WHOLE THING. This movie is two and a half hours long, and fell asleep both times I tried watching it. I remembered the beginning and remembered the end, but whatever happened in the middle was completely unknown to me. But now! I know what happened! In the middle! After ten long years! FINALLLLLLLY!!!!!

 

SIQQ TRIBALS, BR–wait, this guy actually belongs to a tribe. I take back my tattoo mockery.

 

Some old dude is telling this story when he’s getting close to dying or something, but we don’t know who that old guy was. Apparently there is some “beast”, who we’ll call a “wolf”, stalking this one small town in France. NOBODY CAN KILL IT! Two dudes show up in town, the King of France’s royal taxidermist/naturalist, and his buddy, a Native American. Apparently in France in the late 1700′s, a Native American was super fucked up and crazy to have just hanging out. This naturalist does some investigating and is basically saying, “Sorry guys, this thing is not a wolf because wolves are awesome and this beast is being a real dickhead.” Unfortunately, this only adds fuel to the fire because this town is pretty religious and they say that if it’s not a wolf, then it’s a beast sent from God to call everyone on their bullshit. While there, the naturalist is trying to bone this girl who has a creepy brother, but also has time to bone Monica Bellucci, who plays a prostitute. Uhhhh, to cut to the chase, the beast was some crazy unnamed animal from Africa that the creepy brother had brought back and trained to kill anyone he wanted after he covered it in super badass animal warrior armor because he wanted to fuck his sister. I hope you guys don’t mind me cutting out the boring parts, because I wish someone had done that for me.

 

I guess the computer effects were a little dated, but they didn’t really show the “wolf” often enough to be that annoyed.

 

I’m sure after reading that summary, you guys probably thought I hated this movie. WRONG. The shit I left out was just about the main dude who looked like Christopher Lambert trying to decide who he wants to pursue, Monica Bellucci or whatever royal lady. One problem? HE DREW PICTURES FOR BOTH OF THEM. And one got all sad. I don’t know, there was a whole hour of boringness in this movie, and were that hour to be removed, you’d have an AWESOME hour and a half movie. Everything looked really cool, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the director, Christophe Gans, went on to direct the Silent Hill movie. There was a conspiracy and religious cults being dickheads and someone calling them out on it, and wolves. I guess those wolves were getting killed, so maybe that wasn’t good, but it had “wolf” in the title, which gets at least 2 stars in my book. I guess I understand why the director had all that relationship shit going on, and it was kind of cool because it was based on “true events”. In the “true” event, the beast was killed and it was just a big wolf, but the movie explained that it was a big hoax, with the taxidermist being involved. It’s still a pretty good movie, but I would have liked it a little more had it been more concise.

 

Bonus Monica Bellucci picture because I thought I needed one more picture in this post than I actually did. WHOOPS.

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Evan Glodell talks Bellflower, autobiographical movies, and the time he went missing for two weeks [INTERVIEW]

Any time that I hear a director or an actor or pretty much anyone being described as “having potential”, it almost seems like a really sneaky insult. I’m sure most people take the idea of having potential as a compliment, but I hear it as “that thing you didn’t wasn’t completely awful, but I’m sure you’ll make something better in the future”. With his first feature film “Bellflower”, writer/director/actor Evan Glodell has been described by a few critics as “having potential”. I say “fuck you” to those people. Not because I think they are wrong, but because he has already capitalized on that “potential” in his debut film. It was through multiple mentions of the movie on the podcast “Doug Loves Movies” that drove me to check out Bellflower, and you can read my review for it here. After watching that movie, I can understand where these critics were coming from by saying they’d be on the lookout for what comes from Mr. Glodell next, because I know I will be. To label him as a filmmaker “with potential” doesn’t give him nearly enough credit, because even if he never makes another movie after Bellflower, he’s already turned that potential talent into realized, kinetic talent.

WolfMan: Considering that the character of “Aiden” is based on a real friend of yours, and considering your personal background of building flamethrowers, clearly there were a lot of personal experiences that you put into Bellflower. I read that the first draft you wrote was a very angry script, and you set it aside for a few years before rewriting it. Without going into explicit detail, how much of the relationship between Woodrow and Milly and the movie as a whole do you consider biographical? Was it difficult, as an actor or a director, to recreate scenes from personal experiences?

Evan Glodell: Oh, wow. That’s a tricky one. I guess I’d have to really look at the movie to answer 100 percent accurately, if you’re looking at emotionally, it’s autobiographical, 100 percent. As far as the events and the way things played out…each event in the movie I could tie to an event that was significant in a relationship, but they’re not the same. As far as the actual events, they’re obviously all fabricated or maybe a little bit taken from here or there with relationships in my life or relationships I’ve seen friends go through.

WM: I guess the bigger question was how autobiographical the movie was, but it sounded like you kind of answered that question, in that it was based on emotional experience, and the specific course of events weren’t really grounded in reality.

EG: Exactly. Off of my head, I remember one of my first girlfriends in high school, when we met, we got so wrapped up in how exciting it was that we disappeared on a road trip for two weeks. It was unplanned and we were only 16 years old and we were so oblivious because we were having so much fun that we didn’t think to call our parents. When I got back, I saw my friends before I saw my mom, and everybody was like “Where the fuck have you been? The police have been here and everybody’s looking for you.” When I think of the roadtrip (in Bellflower), I think about that time period. There’s probably some connection like that with everything, especially in the first half of the movie.

WM: I’ve tried recommending the movie to a lot of people but I have a hard time describing what it’s about. The closest I’ve come is from a poster I saw using some sort of tagline like “John Hughes plus Mad Max plus Fight Club”, which I felt was somewhat accurate with some scenes in the movie. While you were writing the movie, were you intentionally trying to surprise the audience by delving into all these different thematic elements?

EG: As far as the specific references…when I saw that quote, I had to look up who John Hughes was. I should know who he is and I’ve seen his movies before. For the story, I realized that the experiences I had and the idea that got me excited was how extremely intense a breakup can be, especially when you’re younger and you don’t really understand how things work. I realized the only way to show that was…well, there’s been lots of movies that show the intricacies of how things play out in reality, but that’s not really what it feels like when you’re the person going through it. It feels much more extreme. Using that idea of the two halves of the movies, the first half to really build the relationships and the world and the characters and let people settle into it, and pray that when it switched into a very different style that people would go with it, and that was the hope. That the people who did go with it, it would be more of an experience than just watching the relationship play out in a breakup.

WM: Going along with the genre constraints that you broke, did anyone ever try to tell you your movie was too ambitious? Obviously there wasn’t a large studio behind the movie to interfere with what you were trying to do, but when you were trying to sell the movie did people ask for more of “this” or less of “that”? How would you describe your movie to people?

EG: That’s definitely the thing I’ve been the worst at. I remember, before we started shooting,  I’d try to explain the movie and the only way I could do it was play-by-play and then I quickly realized it was kind of pointless. It never got much better afterwards. It’s funny, one of the things I was most excited about was when this movie got the funding and people were gonna see it, I thought, “Someone else is going to write a synopsis for the movie that’s going to make sense, someone who’s good at that.” The synopsis that ended up getting used, the main one, was one that I wrote and I hated. I wrote it just because I needed one at some point, and apparently no one ever came up with a better one. For me, I don’t know how I would pitch the movie to get someone to watch it. To me, what it’s about is the experience of going through a relationship and a break-up, and something to do with friendship as well…which is pretty vague (laughs).

WM: I do the same thing, where I say, “There’s a relationship and things go bad and he goes cra–” and then I realize I’m saying far too much because I’m trying to sell it. It’s hard to believe that’s an actual movie and a movie that’s being recommended to other people.

EG: Yeah, you’re saying that’s good. I know a lot of us were worried, at first, that the car and the flamethrower being pushed so much, if that was misleading. But so many times, someone sees the movie and they like it and they want to tell their friends, and they don’t want to describe the movie as “there’s a relationship or there’s a this or that…” because it all sounds lame, but instead “there’s a cool car”. I guess in the end, that was how the people watching it chose to represent it.

WM: At one point in the movie, my girlfriend started shouting “This is why! This is why!”, and I had no goddamned idea what she was talking about, and then when we got to the credits, I realized she was talking about the band “Why”. Considering what the budget was for the movie, how difficult was it for you to put the soundtrack together and what was that process like? 

EG: That was the most difficult part…aside from just the making of the movie, once we had actually made the movie, none of us had ever made one before so we didn’t know about all the legal stuff so we were just making it and we put in music that we thought fit and we were going to figure out the next step when we got there. After the movie got to Sundance and we started getting help from some people to get ready to bring it to Sundance, the music thing came up, they said there were people saying there was no way in Hell we were going to get all that music. It was the better part of, how long was it…well, it’s still going on right now. I think we have three music licenses that are still coming in, but we have the agreements, we didn’t release the movie without getting the “OK”. It ended up being a very long, intense process, because our choice was either to go through and remove most of the music and just put in stuff we didn’t really want, or just make stuff from scratch, which would also end up not being as good as what was int here. We decided to go on the journey of contacting every band and sending out packages to people and begging them with “This is our budget, we can do this, is there any way you could work with us?” That’s what took so long, and eventually almost everybody worked out…it was a long journey.

WM: One of the things I was most surprised by was reading about how many of the gags or the effects, like the flamethrower and Medusa, were all real. Obviously your engineering background was helpful with those things, but how much of the movie’s budget went right into Medusa? Was this movie just an excuse to build Medusa?

EG: I get asked that a lot, but it’s definitely quite the opposite. The script that I first wrote didn’t have a car or even a flamethrower. The flamethrower came pretty early on, but it was literally just relationships between people. The car and the flamethrower and all of that stuff came in over time of working on it as a way of telling the story better. I worked things in that I thought that we could figure out a way to make because we didn’t have any money. For example, the Medusa car cost more than the movie. We totaled up everything we had spent after three years and it was around $17,000 and more than $10,000 was just Medusa which…drove everybody insane. I was crazy adamant about, “No, the car has to be awesome! It’s going to help the movie! It’s what this needs!”, and we got through it.

WM: Without giving anything away, the end of the movie kind of blends fantasy with reality, and we’re not quite sure what happens to all the different characters. As the writer, do you personally know what happened to Woodrow and Aiden and Milly in the movie and chose not to show it, or did you end the story there because that was all you wanted to invest in these characters?

EG: The real answer to that question is that all of these people are heavily based on people I know, and obviously my character is very heavily based on me. In my mind, what happened to those characters, I know those people so I know where they are. The end of the movie was, I guess, the end of the particular story.

WM: You wrote, directed, and starred in your own movie, is this going to be a regular thing going forward, where you take on multiple responsibilities, or from here on out are you going to focus on just directing or trying to write more?

EG: Definitely going to be writing and directing. I’ve been writing something, which will be my next project. As far as acting…I have no idea. I kind of hope that it doesn’t work out that way, because it was so insanely stressful on Bellflower to do all that stuff and add more on top of it. I guess those answers will be found when I cast the next movie. I never had access to really good actors, it was kind of the luck of the draw of who you could come across or find through casting, but it was only people who were just starting out who’d reply to you. In a movie that you’re writing, even if it’s not supposed to be you, it feels like it’s you and you’re writing from your perspective. I’m hoping to find someone to play the lead in the next movie that I’m really excited about.

Bellflower Official Site
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Things I felt after watching The Guild’s “I’m The One That’s Cool”

BEFORE WE GO ANY FURTHER, WATCH THIS VIDEO TO THE END SO YOU CAN HAVE A LITTLE BIT MORE CONTEXT TO WHAT THE FUCK I’M ABOUT TO RAMBLE ABOUT.

 

My immediate response to seeing this video was to post it on Twitter, or Retweet it, whatever would have made me look cooler. After listening to the song and watching the video, I realized that both are kind of lame. Despite not being all that good for a wacky song (I direct your attention towards Garfunkel and Oates for that), I wanted to post it for the message it was getting across: NERDS ARE COOL, THINGS THAT AREN’T NERDS ARE NOT COOL. It’s something I’ve been concerned with and interested by for a few years now and it’s a topic I enjoy discussing with people. I think the initial response would be “duh”, but I think the topic deserves more discussion than that.

 

 

Before I had ever heard of “The Guild”, I had heard of Felicia Day. I didn’t know why I knew her, but I saw lots of people retweeting her messages. Considering I follow a lot of people who could be described as “nerdy”, I figured I’d do some investigating. Ms. Day is the mastermind behind the webseries “The Guild”, which follows the trials and tribulations of a group of online gamers. The series was initially written, filmed, and starred the person responsible for the finances of the series, which was Ms. Day. After a few episodes, there was some fundraising, and more episodes were made. More people saw more episodes, and, well, I think they are on their fifth season. I watched the first season or two, and although I understood why people find it funny and enjoying the concept behind it, I wasn’t really interested in pursuing it further. However, I’m very impressed that for an authentic “geek”, Felicia Day has been able to build a huge following (close to two million Twitter followers) and turn her videogame addiction into something productive and financially productive.

 

 

If I didn’t really like the song and I am not a huge fan of The Guild, then why the fuck was I going to post this? I feel like this song and video, which is also marks the debut of the Geek & Sundry YouTube channel dedicated to nerd culture, marks the defining point in “nerds” being ostracized by the majority of people. It wasn’t really until junior high that I realized I was much more interested in things like Star Wars or videogames than I cared about sports, but was lucky enough to never really suffer ridicule or torment from people who considered those things to be “nerdy”. All of my friends were into the same kinds of things, and I was able to quell my true passions long enough in school that the more popular kids never really bothered me for what I liked. I don’t think it was until I was an adult that I realized how many people thought it was most appropriate by starting conversations with “Did you catch the game the other night?”, and actually expect an answer. I don’t really know shit about dick when it comes to sports. I know they exist, and lots of people enjoy watching them, but as far as what teams are good and what time of the year things happen, really no idea. Yet the further and further I get into my adult life, the more I get nervous to tell these people I have no fucking clue what they’re talking about.

 

 

Maybe I should get to the point. The point is, that there was a point where people who might describe themselves as “geeks” or “nerds” or “dorks” might be described by other people as “losers”. It wasn’t cool to like things that weren’t part of popular culture. I don’t need to go into detail about the the different ways our current society looks towards counter-culture to figure out what the next trend will be so it can be exploited. Think of how many movies based on comic books have come out in the past ten years, or the huge successes of things like Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, or Game of Thrones. I have complete faith in the belief that at a different time in American culture, were you to say you love reading about knights and swords and dragons, you’d be mocked. Instead, you get to talk about how big of shitheads the Lannisters are. I remember the first time I saw an Affliction t-shirt, as it was only four years ago. My first thought was that it was some sort of nu-metal band who wanted as many skulls and swords and tribal designs as possible on their merchandise, but unfortunately, things weren’t that simple. Instead, this was a clothing company who were somehow convincing people that THIS style would make you cool. Add in that Ed Hardy bullshit and you’ve got yourself a magical potion of douchebaggery. Despite the nausea this “fashion” trend created, there seemed to be a market for it. I thought I was an outsider in thinking only assholes wore this shit, but appears the tides are turning. Ed Hardy is quickly becoming synonymous with the term, dare I say, “loser”. On the other end of the spectrum, at least in regards to fashion, I remember a few years ago really wanting a Star Wars shirt and having to find one online that wasn’t for kids. Compare that to what you’ll see if you go to any Target or Kohl’s or other department store, the amount of graphic t-shirts that have been able to combine stereotypical nerdy imagery with some sort of ironic slogan. I’m pretty sure you’re all picturing Darth Vader with the slogan “Who’s Your Daddy?” underneath him. It wasn’t really until this video that I have come to the realization that the tides have turned, and given enough time, being a nerd will no longer be cool.

 

 

And now to tie it all together in one big, sappy message. I know that some purist nerds would argue how the saturation of this nerdy things in popular culture will cause more and more poseurs to pretend to be interested in things because it’s cool. Ya know what? I COMPLETELY AGREE. Tons of people will buy glasses that don’t have frames or pick up a shirt with a superhero logo on it and yes, you can hate people that rape and molest things you’re truly passionate about for cashing in on something you used to be mocked for liking. HOWEVER, what I hope this video, this message, this idea, will help teach the impressionable young kids who are all over the internet and get bullied that you really need to be yourself, do what you want, like what you want, and anyone who gives you shit for it can fuck right off. I’m sure there will be people to argue that every example of nerdy things I listed aren’t truly nerdy, and they are all pop culture, which can of course be argued. If I say Star Wars is nerdy, someone could say Star Trek is nerdier. Someone could then say Babylon 5 is nerdier. Some would then say that Battlefield Earth is nerdier, and we call those people Scientologists. Whether you agree with the examples or not, whether you like sports, whether you hate nerds, whether you’re into cosplay, if you juggle, if you go to raves, if you’re a furry, FUCK WHATEVER ANYONE ELSE THINKS, BE YOURSELF, AND MAYBE THAT THING YOU LIKE WILL ONE DAY WHAT GETS YOU A SHIT TON OF FRIENDS BECAUSE IT’S BECOME WHAT’S COOL.

Silent House (2011) [REVIEW]

 

IF THERE’S AN OLSEN SISTER IN IT, I’M SEEING IT. Simple as that. I think this movie got good reviews or had some sort of buzz around it because of some screening at a festival? I can’t remember. I was looking forward to it for some reason, and I kept thinking Clive Owen was in it. Then I remembered he was in some other shitty movie involving a house, and got sad I wouldn’t get to see Clive Owen. Where was I going with this? Oh yeah, I saw this movie that’s called Silent House. I had heard there was some sort of twist at the end, yet didn’t quite know what it was, so I guess I wasn’t exactly impartial to what was going on. I was constantly trying to predict what that twist was, and I was only partially correct. I’m going to spoil the ending for you guys, so if you don’t like spoilers, my review would be that the first 60 minutes aren’t that bad, and the last 30 minutes aren’t that good. And yes, I know it’s a remake of a horror movie from Uruguay, but I didn’t see that movie, so don’t feel obligated to leave comments about “blah blah blah THE ORIGINAL…” unless it will phyiscally pain you.

 

Anyone else think they just shot this on a break while filming Martha Marcy May Marlene because they had 90 minutes?

 

Elizabeth Olsen plays Sarah, a girl who is helping her father John (Adam Trese) and uncle Peter (Eric Sheffer Stevens) clean out their old house so it can be sold. They don’t live there anymore, so most of the windows are boarded up because kids keep stopping by to break them. While John and Peter are busy, a neighbor stops by to reflect on all the childhood memories she shared with Sarah, despite Sarah not remembering them. Sarah keeps hearing weird noises in the house, and her father says there’s nothing to worry about, but that changes when she hears a loud thud and finds her father bleeding from the head and knocked out. There’s someone in the house with her! But all the windows are boarded up and doors are locked! There’s a long period of time where she is just kind of hiding from some guy who is trying to find her, until Peter comes back from some trip. When he gets back, he is also attacked by whoever is in the house, and when Sarah follows the trail of the intruder, she finds her father, conscious, as well as an Peter and the girl from next door. THIS IS WHERE IT GOT KIND OF CONFUSING. Basically, her father and uncle had molested her in the house and she had flashbacks that brought those memories back to her and the intruder was a scary memory or something and she was the one hurting her uncle and father the whole time and the neighbor was a different repressed memory and WAIT THAT DOESN’T MAKE MUCH SENSE. Anyways, she kills her dad and leaves her uncle for dead and then leaves the house.

 

Behind you! It’s Maggie Gyllenhaal! And she’s pissed at you for stealing her face!

 

Let’s talk about the good things before we get to the bad things, deal? One of the gimmicks with this movie was that it was shot in real time and in “one” take. We all know that’s not true, because way too much stuff was happening. Rather, the film was shot in ten minute chunks and then edited together to look like one shot. A few of these edits were noticeable, but for the most part, the whole thing had a good flow to it. 95% of every scene was just a camera pointed at Olsen and you maybe saw something over her shoulder that she was scared of, and despite all that pressure, I’d say she carried that weight well. One problem I have with movies where there is one character with no one to interact with is that they talk to themselves a lot to try to build some sort of narrative. REAL PEOPLE DON’T DO THIS. They don’t splash water on their faces and look in a mirror and say something motivational or remind themselves the narrative of their lives. Most of this movie she didn’t talk at all, which must have been a challenge, but it paid off. Although she did make a lot of faces where she looked like she was screaming but wasn’t, and those were kind of funny.

 

What it lacked in full frontal nudity was made up for in cleavage throughout.

 

NOW IT’S TIME FOR THE BAD. Well, BEFORE the bad, something I wasn’t sure how I felt about was the camerawork. A lot of the time it looked like I was watching that old MTV show “Fear”, where the camera was attached to someone as they ran around scared. Other times, the camera in the movie would clearly be running along with Sarah and, although I’m sure it gave some people motion sickness, it did have a certain authenticity to it. More authenticity than most found footage movies have these days, I’d say. As far as the ending…what the fuck? I’ve complained about movies like Identity or The Ward before where you realize you didn’t give a shit about anything you saw when you realized everyone was inside of someone’s brain. On the other hand, I am a fan of the movie High Tension, which had a similar ending that didn’t really add up the more you scrutinized it. I’d say that Silent House falls somewhere in between. You couldn’t quite tell if what was happening was a memory or if it was reality, maybe we were time-traveling, and you couldn’t really keep anything straight. I tried drawing diagrams to figure out the course of events and what was real and who did what, until I realized I didn’t care enough and gave up. On the one hand, it was the killer who was the one doing the murdering and she was imagining someone else doing them so it wasn’t as pointless as something like Identity, but it added in too many different perspectives to make it confusing.

 

Hold up a flashlight if you enjoy raping people!

 

Despite being confusing, I did like that there was one definitive moment that separated reality from crazy person fantasy imaginations. Early into the film, Sarah’s father uses a Polaroid camera to take pictures of some mold, which he was planning to send to the insurance agency. The effect of being in a dark theater and having a bright flash go off was a little jarring for not just the viewer, but also for Sarah. Throughout the film we see John and Peter finding Polaroids and hurriedly shoving them into their pockets. At one point, when the “intruder” is trying to find Sarah, the lights go off and she uses a Polaroid camera to try to see them. Again, very intense, bright flash that lit up the whole theater. When Sarah realizes she was molested, she finds a box of Polaroids that her father and uncle took of her, presumably doing inappropriate things. I’d say that just the effect of being in a dark theater with these bright flashes was gimmicky enough, as well as was a reference to The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, but it also fit into the context of the story. Maybe I’m being a little too critical of a movie that I’m sure most people quickly dismissed, but it was a nice detail to include. If you want to watch Elizabeth Olsen for 90 minutes, then I guess this movie is worth checking out.

 

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Yup, I’m Seeing That (Volume 2)

One post that I did last year that was really helpful for me was a post where I listed all the movies I wanted to see that were coming out between March and September. Once I hit September I was running out of movies, which was why I arbitrarily stopped finding movies. I ended up seeing all the movies on that list, with the exception of Cowboys & Aliens because I heard it was kind of poopy. Haha, I called a movie “poopy”. Anyways, these are the movies I want to see, and I encourage you guys to share your thoughts on what I might have left out!

 

DISCLAIMER: I know there are plenty of movies that are going to come out in this time that I haven’t seen the trailer for yet and I did not include it on this list. I did that on purpose. I try to avoid trailers as much as possible, because it turns into an endless spiral of watching more and more bits from the movie that are edited together by someone trying to coax you into watching it. In other words, you don’t need to sell me on a movie that’s coming out then, because if it comes out and I hear good things, I might still check it out.

 

The Cabin in the Woods – April 13th

I know that this is a Joss Whedon movie and is supposedly a tribute film to movies that involve cabins being in the woods. I’m trying to avoid the trailer because I’ve heard this movie has a similar tone as Drag Me to Hell? I think? I don’t know, I hope it’s good. Then there’s that OTHER Joss Whedon movie…

 

The Avengers – May 4th

WELL OF COURSE I’M GOING TO SEE THIS! I think the most difficult part about the whole thing will be who the movie focuses on. Iron Man already has two movies under his belt, so the obvious choice would be to have his character driving the story. Then again, you have Captain America getting involved, who most would agree is THE leader of the Avengers, were you to pick only one person. Thor will most likely just show up out of nowhere and fuck things up, but that’s okay, because his movie last year didn’t impress many people. Black Widow, Hawkeye, and Hulk will probably all just poop around in the background, and then Samuel L. Jackson will say something very Samuel L. Jackson-y, and everyone in the audience will giggle. I can pretty much guarantee that this movie will be a lot of fun, but might not necessarily be all that good.

 

Chernobyl Diaries – May 25th

Something from some guy who apparently had something to do with Paranormal Activity? Okay, maybe not the biggest selling point (just ask that TV show The River), but shit going down at Chernobyl is something I can get behind.

 

Piranha 3DD – June 1st

The first one was a lot of fun, and what this movie lacks in Adam Scott I hope it makes up for with Katrina Bowden. It’s possible that this installment will get TOO wacky, considering the addition of David Hasselhoff, but I guess wackiness isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Alexandre Aja isn’t directing this time, and directing duties have been passed over to John Gulager, who I feel was kind of hit and miss with his Feast movies. I guess as long as there are boobs in 3D, this should be worth price of admission.

 

Prometheus – June 8th

I really, really, really, really, really don’t want to consider this the best movie of the year after only having seen a trailer, but how can I not? The confusion over whether this is or isn’t a prequel to Alien or if it just takes place in the same universe or whatever doesn’t really matter, because it’s Ridley Scott coming back to sci-fi with the help of Damon Lindelof. I am also glad that no one really has any goddamn idea what this is about, and since it’s a prequel, it’s hard to have any preconceived notion of what might happen. It just….looks so….awesome.

 

The Amazing Spider-Man – July 6th

I wish I could be more excited for this than I am, but I’m not. Did that make sense? Shut up. At its best, I’m pretty sure this movie will only be considered “pretty good”. At its worst, it will probably be considered “bad”. Some of the footage from the trailers looks kind of cool, but there wasn’t one sequence or bit of casting that made you sit there and think “WOW” the way the trailer for Raimi’s version did in 2002.  I mentioned last summer how I did get chills when I watched the video of Andrew Garfield at SDCC going up in front of an audience to proclaim how proud he was to be Peter Parker, so I’m happy for him, but I guess we all just have to wait and see.

 

The Dark Knight Rises – July 20th

The way I feel about Prometheus might just  be my way of taking the pressure off of this movie. Everyone knows that at its worst, this movie will still be good, and at  its best, it will be fucking incredible. Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight is one of the best superhero movies of all time, and I don’t there is any way he can fuck this up. This is another one that I don’t want to look too much into, because the more I see now, the less stuff there will be to blow my fucking mind when I see it in theaters. I guess I just wonder if Nolan will have the balls to permanently cripple Bruce Wayne so someone needs to take over forever, or if Bane will hurt him just enough to take a nap or something. AHHHHH I SHOULD JUST STOP THINKING ABOUT IT NOW!!!!

 

HOLY SHIT, IS THAT IT?! Last year I had a bunch of movies and I was totally stoked. I thought this summer was going to be just as good, but clearly it won’t. I guess last year there were a lot of movies I kind of wanted to see, but between Avengers, Prometheus, and Dark Knight Rises, there are a few films that I really want to see. And next thing you know, it’ll be the summer of 2013 and we’ll all get to watch Anchorman 2! Yay!

The Ruins (2008) [REVIEW]

 

 

Remember a day, four years ago, when the only way to see a movie at your house while it was still in theaters was to watch a streaming, bootleg version of it? These days, all the kids are using their downloads and their “torrents” and can watch an HD version of a movie in theaters the day after its release. Am I going somewhere with this? Oh yeah, the first and only time I had seen this movie was when I watched a bootleg copy of it online. I couldn’t see a lot of what was going on and it kept buffering and it wasn’t an enjoyable experience. You know another movie I watched like that? THE NANNY DIARIES. Yup, I watched it, and I also just remembered that I bought The Nanny Diaries on DVD because I really needed a 4th movie for Blockbuster’s “4 Movies for $20″ deals. Hahaha, remember DVDs? That was crazy. Good story, Wolfy!

 

This movie also reminded me that Jena Malone and Kristen Stewart were two completely different people.

A bunch of vacationing suburban brats are partying in Mexico and….something bad happens! Okay FINE, I’ll go into more detail, I just feel like I’ve been starting off with “…a bunch of douchebags are on vacation”. These college kids meet some dude who is looking to investigate some ancient ruins–WAIT! Is that why this movie is called “The Ruins”? Probably not. All these dumb white people go into the Mexican forests and when they get to the titular ruins, they are surrounded by locals with guns and bows and arrows. Weird, right? The group run to the top of these ruins and find abandoned camping equipment. I THINK SOMETHING WEIRD HAPPENED! The weird thing that happened was the vines that covered the ruins are killing people by burrowing into their flesh and doing gross things. The reason they aren’t allowed to come down from the ruins is that they’ll carry the vines with them and that can’t happen. There’s a leg amputation scene involving rocks and an impromptu surgery scene where characters go digging around inside themselves to kill vines, but things don’t end there! Only one member of the group is able to escape the vines and the ruins and the locals and we think she’ll make it back to civilization, only to see some vines growing under her skin that she probably doesn’t know about and WHAT THE FUCK WILL HAPPEN WHEN THIS SHIT GETS TO TOWN OH NOOOOO!!!!!!!!

 

THIS SHIT’S SCARIER THAN WHEN TEMPLE GUARDS JUMPED OUT AT PEOPLE ON “LEGENDS OF THE HIDDEN TEMPLE”.

This is based on a novel, but I guess the author of the novel was involved in the making of this movie, so I’m assuming he endorsed the story. How many times have we seen this story before? Group of characters are stuck in a small physical space, not knowing what to do or not necessarily knowing where the dangers are, resulting in most or all of the characters dying. Once you get past the relatively generic series of events, this movie’s not all that bad. The characters weren’t necessarily all the likable, but that might be because they were somewhat atypical. For example, the “lead” college guy, played by Jonathan Tucker, was kind of a douchebag. You totally understood why his girlfriend, played by Jena Malone, would cheat on him. Despite his douche-factor, you were glad to see him step up and use his medical school skills to help amputate a guy with a rock. That leads to another selling point of this movie, which were the effects. Granted, the effects of the vines crawling under the skin were done through CGI, but the idea of it and the impromptu surgery scenes were pretty gnarly. Not necessarily a bad movie that had some mildly amusing twists to an otherwise played out storyline, but not something that will stick in many people’s memories. I enjoyed taking a trip down memory lane and watching Jena Malone on my TV because everyone thought she’d have some sort of actual “career” after Donnie Darko.

 

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Alan Bagh talks about Birdemic, killer animals, and future projects [INTERVIEW]

If you haven’t seen the movie “Birdemic”, which is currently available on Netflix Instant, then you need to stop everything that you’re doing and watch it…before…this…sentence…is…over…period. If you’re into that whole “so bad that it’s good” style of cinema, then this one is for you. I can’t remember how I first heard about Birdemic, probably around the time it was trying to get into Sundance a few years ago, but I will never forget my first viewing of it. Some people say that Troll 2 or maybe The Room might be the most entertaining terrible movies ever made, but I submit Birdemic: Shock and Terror (its full name) to accept that prize. After watching it, I tracked everything and anything to do with Birdemic, whether it be checking out a screening in a theater with director James Nguyen doing a Q & A to following everyone involved with it on Twitter to recommending it to everyone I knew. Through following the film’s star, Alan Bagh, and interacting with him on Twitter a few times, I was able to get in touch with him to ask him a few of my burning questions. Some emails were exchanged, and the answers to those questions can be found below. Reminder, this “interview” took place over email.

 

WolfMan: What Birdemic might have lacked in budget, it clearly made up for in dedication from the entire cast and crew. Between production spanning multiple years and having to defend yourself from animals that weren’t there, what were some of the more difficult aspects of filming the movie?

Alan Bagh: Well we didn’t have a crew so we had to be the crew. Some days I would have to hold a boom between my legs when we were filming. Also, I had to carry all the equipment around to different locations. Furthermore, I did a lot of driving. So I was very exhausted every day that we filmed.

 

WM: Were you ever nervous that it might not pay off?

AB: No, I was happy just to have a movie under my belt.

 

WM: At the Sundance Film Festival in 2009, writer/director James Nguyen took a more guerrilla approach to marketing the film. He might not have gotten the kind of attention most people expect from attending Sundance, but it wasn’t long before Birdemic was all over the internet and TV. How did you find out about how popular Birdemic was getting?

AB: I think the way I found out was one of friends telling me that Birdemic was the clip of the week on the show “The Soup”  and I think it was featured on the G4 channel as well.

 

 

WM: Did you in any way anticipate this kind of reaction to such an overwhelming amount of people?

AB: No, I thought this movie was gonna be locked up forever in a vault and never seen again. I was shocked on how much people actually enjoyed the film.

 

WM: Being one of the lead roles, you are the face of Birdemic to millions of people. There are sold out screenings of this movie across the country where people can recite the movie line for line. You’ve done interviews and talk shows, but is there one experience that really stands out in your mind as your favorite or still find hard to believe you ever had the opportunity to do?

AB: I would say that being flown out to New York for a screening of Birdemic at the IFC (Center). I thought that was really awesome and the audience was great.

 

WM:  I heard about your involvement in “Ghost Shark 2: Urban Jaws”, a self-proclaimed sharksploitation movie whose predecessor is nothing more than a trailer. I’m sensing a trend here, and can’t help but ask: do you have any projects coming up that don’t involve killer animals?

AB: LOL, I do have a couple projects that I’m attached to which don’t have killer animals.

 

 

WM: What are you most excited for?

AB: I can’t really talk about them yet but I will keep my fans updated on my Facebook and Twitter.

 

WM: With the huge success and popularity of Birdemic, it seems like you are a hot commodity these days with plenty of projects making themselves available. What are some of your dream projects that you’d love to get involved in, or some directors you’d love to work with?

AB: I would love to do an action film like Bourne (Identity) or Mission: Impossible, but I also like comedy. I would love to do a film with (Martin) Scorsese. I love all his films.

 

WM: Lastly, and I don’t want you to give too much away, but how is production on Birdemic II: The Resurrection going?

AB: It’s going great, much smoother sailing this time around.

 

 

WM: What are Rod and Nathalie up to these days?

AB: Well I’m living in L.A. and just auditioning for films, and Whitney (Moore, who plays Nathalie) is pretty much doing the same.

Steve O’ Brien from Team Submarine [SHITTY INTERVIEW]

I already interviewed Nate from Team Submarine, but since there are two members, I didn’t think it would be fair to leave out Steve. As far as his nickname is concerned, I’m pretty sure it started because he included my first and last name into some sort of sing-song rhymey limerick thing, and I tried to do the same, just not as successfully. Did you guys know that Steve knows Dan Berry? Not Dave Berry, the funny guy who writes down silly observations, I mean Dan Berry, the pirate. If you want to meet Dan Berry, just play Bruce Springsteen’s “Born To Run” and start smashing things while wearing a black and white striped tank top, and he will appear. BUT ENOUGH ABOUT DAN BERRY, BACK TO STEVE O’ BEEVO!

 

WolfMan: Beevo, can I call you Beevo? Beevo, I heard a rumor that you are the original member of Team Submarine? You weren’t even a team back then, you were just one player. What was the tryout process like to allow Lazer onto the team? Layup drills, passing plays, LEGO building?

Steve: If there’s anyone who can call me Beevo, it’s you.  The history of Team Submarine is a little murky.  I am actually the third person to portray “Steve” in the group.  The group started in the 60′s as a two-man comedy/jug band act.  Over the years the material has changed to fit the times and as performers get older they are replaced by younger ones.  Nate Fernald is actually the fourth “Nate” but the first performer to portray “Nate”  with a beard.  It’s a lot like Dr. Who or the Dread Pirate Roberts from The Princess Bride.

 

WM: As of this moment, you have commented on my blog a grand total of 1 time. The comment was in regards to the Marvel comic book character, and went a little something like “DD’s got dot double D’s!  No has made that joke before, right?” I made fun of your grammatical error of leaving out the “one” from “no one”, and didn’t even address what the hell “got dot” means. After my harassment, you have never returned. If I apologize to you, publicly, will you come back and maybe post a comment or two again?

S: If you make a public apology on all of the major social networking sites then I would be happy to return to your site with my hilarious and thought provoking quips.

 

WM: On the topic of Daredevil, have you read any of the new ongoing series that started over the summer? It’s a lot of fun. I think one of the reviews I read for it that really summed it up well referred to it as a “swashbuckling” series. There’s also one issue where Matt Murdock is trying to convince people he’s not Daredevil so he wears a red shirt that says “I’M NOT DAREDEVIL” on it and I really want it. Will you make me one?

S: I have not read any of this new series you speak of.  I really lost interest after Brubaker’s run.  I’d be glad to make you an “I’M NOT DAREDEVIL” t-shirt.  I’ll have to read some of those back issues to see what this shirt looks like which means everybody wins:  I’m reading Daredevil again and you get a t-shirt out of it!  Excelsior!

 

WM: Some people might not realize that if they listen to the “hidden” track on your debut album “Correctamundo!” that they can hear a voicemail I left for you about how you fucked up the tag to the end of your entire show, which was also the end of your entire album. What has the aftermath of that event been like for you? Have you developed PTSD  because of it? Are people heckling you during your shows because of it? Will you ever forgive yourself?

S: I’m sensing a theme here: You really enjoy picking apart my mistakes.  It has been a few years since “the incident” as my family calls it.  I am over it now. The best thing to do is just pick myself up and try to move on.  But late at night it still haunts me.  Sometimes my girlfriend will wake me up and tell me I’ve just been repeating “Gay Radar” over and over again in my sleep.  I am a living Edgar Allen Poe story now thanks to you.

 

WM: The Team Submarine website (http://www.teamsubmarine.net/) tells me that you’re a comedy duo from New York, but I thought you were from New Hampshire. What do you have to say to these accusations? What do you think Bo-Bus would say to these accusations? Assuming that none of my readers know who Bo-Bus is, just make sure you say something really funny.

S: What is this, an interrogation?!  You’re right, okay.  We should say that we currently reside in NY but are both originally from New England.  Nate and I were both actually born in Massachusetts.  Bo-Bus would probably think someone’s bedroom door was actually the front door if he heard about this.

 

WM: When it comes to fashion sense, we have come to expect both sweatshirts and ties to be worn by you and/or your partner Nate Fernald. What brought you two to this decision in activewear? Did you just both show up at your first gig wearing these items and are nervous to bring up any other wardrobe possibilities?

S: The first year of Team Submarine we wore shirts and ties with hoodies over them.  I think we liked the idea of having a uniform that set us apart a little.  It made it special and was kind of a nod to the old fashioned two-man acts.  We dropped it after the first year mostly out of convenience.  It was just easier to perform in whatever clothes we were wearing at the time rather than always going home to change into our “costumes.”   Those were the good old days.

 

WM: On the subject of fashion, did you ever own a Starter jacket that had a sports team on it? I know the Charlotte Hornets were very popular when it comes to Starter jackets. And completely off the subject of Starter jackets, who are some of your own personal comedic influences? Not just influences for Team Submarine, but also influences for your stand-up?

S: I never owned a Starter jacket.  My brother had one I think but he was really into sports.  I do remember begging my mom for a Champion sweatshirt because everyone had one of those.  I also wore nothing but denim on my first day of 5th grade.  Denim pants, denim shirt, denim jacket, denim hat.  Still might be the coolest I have ever felt.  There are so many  people and groups that I love in comedy.  I grew up in sort of a strict household when it came to what I was allowed to watch but for some reason Bill Murray movies were always okay.  It didn’t matter if they were rated R or not, Bill Murray got a pass.  I also have a distinct memory of watching David Letterman when I was pretty young.   My folks had friends over so I was just flipping through channels upstairs by myself and I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.  I loved it.  When I was 12 my parents got divorced  and all of sudden there were no rules so I became obsessed with comedy and gobbled up everything I could find: Kids in the Hall, Mr. Show, Seinfeld.  All of those things shaped my sense of humor.

 

WM: I know you’re a big fan of Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band. How sad were you when I texted you to tell you Clarence Clemons was dead? Also, I know you are mostly a fan of his more commercial songs from the 80′s, so is it true that your dream setlist would be Dancing in the Dark, Glory Days, and Hungry Heart being played for 3 hours? With a 30 minute encore of nothing but Radio Nowhere?

S: I was very sad.  I remember getting that text back stage at a show right before going on.  When I was younger I thought Bruce was cheesy but then I realized the power of the Boss!  I love it all now.  That is a dream set but I don’t think I could take it.  Those are all big time crowd participation songs and I think I’d pass out.  Better throw a Tunnel of Love in there somewhere so we can all get a breather.

 

WM: Lastly, is there any shit you’d like to talk on me for a second? Jokes that I’ve screwed up that you’d like to mock me for, Bruce Springsteen references that fell flat, or my blindness? Have anything else you’d like to plug or call attention to?

S: I would love to call you out on some shit but I’ve got nothing on you man.  You really grossed out my girlfriend when we all went for breakfast and you put four sausages in your mouth at the same time and never broke eye contact with her.  But that wasn’t a mistake, that was inspired!  I’d like to quickly plug my favorite soft drink: Mountain Dew.  It has always been there for me.

 

Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (2012) [REVIEW]

How fucking awful was that first Ghost Rider? REALLY FUCKING AWFUL, THAT’S HOW AWFUL. I generally cite the original as one of the absolute worst of the “Hollywood” comic book movies. At least Ghost Rider looked kind of cool riding his motorcycle on fire, right? And Nicolas Cage….fuck, I hate that guy. I’m really not into the whole religion of Nicolas Cage being incredible because of how terrible he is, I just think he’s terrible. Face/Off, Con-Air, and Raising Arizona being a few exceptions. This movie was a sequel no one wanted to a movie most people didn’t like. Why go see it?  Well, clearly you guys aren’t familiar with the forces of Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, also known as the guys who created Crank and Crank 2: High Voltage. If you can’t get behind these guys, then you can fuck right off.

Leave it to Nicolas Cage to be able to overact THROUGH flaming skull special effects.

It’s been years since we’ve last seen Johnny Blaze (Nicolas Cage) and he has gone into hiding, as the demon (The Ghost Rider/Spirit of Vengeance/motorcycle skull flame head) that lives within him can sense the presence of evil and causes the demon to show itself. He’s contacted by Moreau (Idris Elba) in hopes that the Rider will be able to track a boy who Satan is hoping to turn into his new host on Earth. In a bit of expositional dialogue, Satan (Ciárin Hinds)  can only use his Earthly body for so long before all of his powers melt that body, which is why he needs this new boy to carry out as a Earthly body. Luckily Moreau was right and the Ghost Rider finds the boy, and in return, Moreau offers to take away the demon. Johnny Blaze is mortal again, and he realizes his faults in giving away this “gift”, and luckily the boy gives him back his demon powers? Whatever, Ghost Rider sends Satan back to Hell  and it’s a great day for everyone involved. Oh yeah, and there were a lot of flames and motorcycles.

You’re trying to tell me that a guy whose head is constantly on fire might burn his bones? BRILLIANT!

The plot seemed a lot more complicated when I was watching it, but who the fuck was watching this movie for plot? I really don’t think I’ve even read a Ghost Rider story that I really enjoyed, so there wasn’t much appealing about what the plot might be. If you’re focusing on just the action and effects and all that good stuff, I really dug it. You could tell that Neveldine/Taylor were restricted by the whole PG-13 , but they still managed to do some pretty cool stuff. What really sold me was a shot where a Moreau is knocked off a cliff on his motorcycle and is flying headfirst over a cliff, only to rotate in midair while pulling out a machine gun and shooting, WHILE FALLING BACKWARDS, at the car that ran him off the road. Maybe not as exciting to read as it is to see, but the camera shooting this scene from over Moreau’s shoulder, clearly with the cameraman flying backwards, was pretty cool. A lot of the shots were done from a really low angle and a lot of it was handheld, which I think is something that most people got annoyed by, but I really enjoyed seeing a big budget action movie shot in this way. The first film also had a lot of Ghost Rider doing shit at night, most likely to really make the flames pop against a dark background, so I thought it looked pretty cool having so many scenes take place during the day. You got to see every part of the character’s design, and I really enjoy where Neveldine/Taylor took it. There was a pretty cool high-speed chase where you really got to see all the flames on his head flicking around and I was pretty impressed with the way it looked. Even small changes like making his head charred and black instead of bone white was something subtle but successful. There were also a few Saul Bass inspired sequences that explained Johnny Blaze’s origin story and had some frenetic and weird montage sequences that reminded me a lot of some Crank sequences. Was this movie “good”? No fucking way. I think Neveldine/Taylor did what they could under a lot of restrictions and were able to make this more entertaining than the original. It wasn’t quite as successful as the Punisher vs. Punisher: War Zone reboot, but it could have been a lot worse.

 

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Wolf Creek (2005) [REVIEW]

 

I remember seeing advertisements for this movie as a young boy, and wondered what the fuck all the hype was about. I use the term “young boy” pretty loosely, because it was only seven years ago. That doesn’t change the fact that this movie that was made in Australia was somehow popping up on my radar of movies, even without spending nearly as much time as I do now seeking horror movies. All I really remember hearing was “Hey guys, there’s this movie from Australia that’s supposed to be awesome!”, and it even got a theatrical release somewhere near me. I didn’t see it until it was released on DVD, but when I watched it, I didn’t realize what all the fuss was about. It was good, sure, but was it great? Not really. I couldn’t really remember much about it so I gave it another shot. Will my opinion change? Will I like it more? Will I like it less? Well just keeping reading to find out, ya dummy!

 

For now it’s all fun in the sun, but wait until you are getting TORTURED AND KILLED AND DEAD BECAUSE YOU PROBABLY WON’T BE LAUGHING THEN BECAUSE YOU’LL BE DEAD.

A group of friends are on a vacation traveling through the Australian outback. They’re camping out, going to parties, going to the beach, doing all the things that good buds do. They’re in search of Wolf Creek, a cool place to camp out, when they get into some car trouble. A man is passing by and offers them assistance, but before he does, they all just hang out together and drink some beers. When the man finally does help, he turns out to be a crazy weirdo who kidnaps and tortures them! Oh no! Who woulda thunk it?! OF COURSE THAT WAS GOING TO FUCKING HAPPEN. The two ladies of the trio are tortured for a little bit, seemingly for no other reason than the guy is a creep, and they also get killed. Wherever the guy from the trio was being held, he was able to escape and find a car driving by who actually saved him. I mean, that’s it, really. People hang out, get kidnapped, one escapes and the wildman torturer is never found. And it’s also “based on true events”, despite not really being based on true events.

Avoiding the more traditional Crocodile Dundee quote about knives and will instead reference the game of knifey-spoony. Wait, I just did reference that. Add in your own quote in regards to knifey-spoony. Thank you.

I suppose I might have confused you with that last part, the “based on true events” thing, so I apologize for that. There isn’t one specific event that this movie is based on, but rather it is influenced by multiple murders of multiple backpackers that took place in Australia where the murderer was never found. I guess that might be what makes this kind of creepy for people? They go backpacking a lot and think this might happen to them? This movie certainly isn’t bad or anything, just not my particular taste. A couple of characters that the filmmakers try to get you to connect with, but ultimately don’t, getting tortured and killed. John Jarratt as the backwoods murderer was pretty good and there were some pretty good effects for the torture scenes, but nothing much else did it for me. If you like gritty slasher movies then you’ll probably really dig this movie, but it’s just not really my favorite genre.

 

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