The Stray Dreamer, directed and written by Damien Aimé Dupont and Yvan Pierre-Kaiser, is an attempt to tell the story of Jean Rollin and to create “the portrait of a real artist, the last surrealist, a poet who created his very own dreamworld.” The best part of this is that so much of the story of Rollin is told by the artist himself, even revealing that at times, he would shoot all night and have an ambulance called to take him to the hospital for kidney dialysis in the morning. He also says what makes the most sense about his films, which often makes viewers struggle to make sense of them: “My vision, either good or bad, is personal.”
As many talking heads speak about what makes Rollin essential, it is Rollin who proves it, discussing the struggle to find his voice and tell his stories. Over the last week, I’ve written of each of his films and the themes they explore and I still feel that even with as many watches as I’ve watched, I am only at the surface level of his work and my understanding of it.
I did love getting to hear from Pete Tombs, whose book Immoral Tales: European Sex & Horror Movies, 1956-1984 introduced me to Rollin. I don’t know if I was ready for him in the late 90s and early 00s, as most of the movies I loved were fast movie Hong Kong gun fights or gore-soaked effects-driven blasts of wildness. I did not yet understand the way that movie drugs worked, that you didn’t need cocaine highs all the time and could find a much better high through long droning passages of vampire women wandering ship-strewn beaches and iron-gated cemeteries.
Well, maybe Weirton made. This was shot in West Virginia, about 36 miles from Pittsburgh, but when it comes to something made that close, the Steel City will claim it. Super 8 is set in Lillian, Ohio and if you’ve been to the place where PA, WV and OH all touch, it’s hard to tell when you’re in each state. It’s such a nexus of all realities that there’s still a Sam Goody — one of two in existence — in St. Clairsville.
Directed and written by J. J. Abrams, who produced with Bryan Burk and Steven Spielberg (who this movie is beyond in debt to), Super 8 is about Joe Lamb (Joel Courtney) and his friend Charles Kaznyk (Riley Griffiths) making a zombie movie in their backyard. Their friends Preston Scott (Zach Mills), Martin Read (Gabriel Basso), Cary McCarthy (Ryan Lee) and Alice Dainard (Elle Fanning) play the various roles, with Joe and Alice growing close despite the hatred between their fathers. This is due to Louis Dainard (Ron Eldard) showing up drunk to work and Deputy Jack Lamb’s (Kyle Chandler) wife Elizabeth (Caitriona Balfe) having to cover his shift and dying in an accident. Jack blames Louis and as a result, Louis won’t allow his daughter to see Joe. Small town drama, let me tell you. It’s still real, as my mom just informed me of so many crazy things she just learned getting her hair done.
One night, the kids sneak off and film at midnight. They accidentally see a pickup truck driven by their teacher Dr. Woodward (Glynn Turman) ram the train and cause it to explode. They try to help him as he pulls a gun and tells them to forget what they have witnessed.
Soon, people are disappearing, dogs are running away and the military — led by Colonel Nelec (Noah Emmerich) — have declared martial law. When Alice disappears, the kids all had to their school where they find a film that Woodward made when he worked in the government. They learn that the Air Force captured an alien which eventually formed a psychic connection with Woodward, asking him to help escape our planet. The Air Force wanted to make it into a weapon, so Nelec destroyed Woodward’s standing and discharged him.
I really loved this movie and what follows, a harrowing take on the Spielberg kids racing round their backyard to save the world, a storyline that would become much better known whenStranger Things ran with the idea. The kids look like kids, their love of making movies is something I felt at the same time in my youth and it’s awesome seeing a neighborhood that looks like the one I grew up in on film.
That said — no movie has more lens flares. Seriously, there’s even an extended one at the end that twinkles out. Another takes up the middle of the frame. Lens flares for everyone! You get a lens flare! You get one! Look under your seat! Everyone is going home with a lens flare!
Somehow, someone, somewhere decided that a remix of Striking Distance — a movie that means more in Pittsburgh than anywhere else in the world — and The Fog should star a bunch of pro wrestlers and our world is all the better, particularly because they decided that Kurt Angle should play the lead, Sheriff Will Logan.
That someone is probably director and writer Bruce Koehler, who also made American Ouija. He cast Sid Vicious and Kevin Nash as the spectral Jacobs brothers, as well as the one-time Glacier Ray Lloyd and local Pittsburgh wrestler Jason Winn “J.B. Destiny” Bareford, once an assistant to George Romero and the 2007 Guinness World Record holder for the Most Consecutive Kicks To One’s Own Head in Sixty Seconds, which he won by kicking himself 57 times in the head in one minute. He plays Angle’s deputy in here. And that Dave Hawk guy in the credits? He was Angle’s manager when this was filmed.
Pittsburgh movie fans will probably more excited to see first zombie — and the maker of FleshEater — S. William Hinzman as well as noted Steel City stage legend Bingo O’Malley.
It’s shocking that this movie has an IMDB estimate budget of $3 million dollars, a budget I would be keen to dismiss. But who knows? It’s not the first movie that Angle made with Koehler, as End Game was the first. There’s also Death from Above, which adds Tom Savini and Robert Z’Dar to the yinzer and pro wrestling cast. Oh yeah — Matt Morgan, Rhyno, ODB and James Storm are all in that, so the TNA influence was heavy. Seeing as how it was also shot in Pittsburgh, I guess I’ll have to watch that too.
There have been bad ideas before and there will be bad ideas again, but the idea of making a prequel to a movie considered a classic like John Carpenter’s The Thing and using CGI when that movie was infamous for its volume of practical gore…well, look it’s just not a good idea.
Directed by commercial vet Matthijs van Heijningen Jr. and written by Eric Heisserer (Arrival, Bird Box) this movie, if anything, tell us more about the two men chasing the dog and trying to shoot it in the 1982 film.
Dawn of the Dead producers Marc Abraham and Eric Newman had such success with that film that they looked for other Universal movies to remake, convincing the studio to make a prequel instead of a sequel to The Thing. Newman said, “I’d be the first to say no one should ever try to do Jaws again and I certainly wouldn’t want to see anyone remake The Exorcist… And we really felt the same way about The Thing. It’s a great film. But once we realized there was a new story to tell, with the same characters and the same world, but from a very different point of view, we took it as a challenge. It’s the story about the guys who are just ghosts in Carpenter’s movie – they’re already dead. But having Universal give us a chance to tell their story was irresistible.”
Heijningen had been scheduled to direct the sequel to the remake of Dawn which eventually became Army of the Dead. When that got canceled, he was available for this, noting that his favorite movies were The Thing and Alien, which is why Mary Elizabeth Winstead is playing Ripley in this.
This movie really had a major issue to deal with: fans of the original probably were going to hate it and new viewers that had no idea of that film would be lost. It failed, as you’d expect.
I’ve really tried to watch this movie with an open mind. That’s impossible, to be honest. I belong to the group that loves the original, sees this as sacrilege and doesn’t want to even admit that this exists.
Before David Gordon Green started remaking every horror movie you ever cared about, he was making cute comedies like this one, written by Danny McBride and Ben Best.
This is the journey of Prince Thadeous (McBride) and Prince Fabious (James Franco), the sons of King Tallious. After they defeat the wizard Leezar (Justin Theroux), Fabious plans on marrying the virgin Belladonna (Zooey Deschanel) who he has just rescued. Thadeous skips the ceremony after hearing the royal guard, led by Boremont (Damian Lewis) insult him for his laziness. As he leaves with his friend Courtney (Rasmus Hardiker), Leezar attacks, takes back Belladonna and plans on having sex with her during the convergence of two moons. She will give birth to a dragon that will help him conquer King Tallious’ kingdom. Thadeous must help his brother or be banished.
Their quest is complicated when they learn that the king’s Knights Elite have staged a coup and joined with Leezar. What follows are episodes right out of an Italian sword and sorcery movie, like a tribe of Amazon warriors, a hydra creature, a labyrinth containing a minotaur, a quest for the Blade of the Unicorn and meeting warrior woman Isabel (Natalie Portman).
When you see the scene with Leezar’s three witch mothers, they are played by Matyelok Gibbs (Erik the Viking‘s mother), Anna Barry and Angela Pleasence from Symptoms, The Godsend and From Beyond the Grave (and Donald’s daughter, of course).
This movie was not well reviewed and James Franco has been said to outright despise it. I had fun, but as you know, I’ve watched so many some of the wildest barbarian movies that cinema has to offer.
Hollywood has had a love affair with Phillip K. Dick, even if they rarely understand or make good movies of his books. Based on the short story “Adjustment Team,” this was directed and written by George Nolfi.
Brooklyn Congressman David Norris (Matt Damon) has failed to be elected to the Senate. While rehearsing his concession speech, he meets Elise Sellas (Emily Blunt) and they have a passionate kiss which inspires him to deliver the kind of speech that gets one remembered. He never gets her name.
An agent is supposed to spill coffee on David but sleeps in, causing the politician to meet Elise again and get her name and number. That agent — Richardson — explains to David the existence of the Adjustment Bureau, an organization that ensures people’s lives proceed according to their Plan. David was to never meet Elise again, so he destroys her number and warns him that he will be erased if he reveals the truth. Oh yeah — the shadowy agents can also teleport into any doorway. This makes sense if you read enough Phillip K. Dick, a man who believed a satellite named VALIS was speaking to him.
David and Elise keep crossing paths because of remnants from earlier versions of the Plan in which they were meant to be together. Now, he is to become President and she is to be a world-famous dancer. Yet they must not be together. Who are we, the normal people, to doubt the plan?
So is the Chairperson God? Are his agents angels? Is this all just an Illuminati hiding in plain sight movie? Nolfi has said that the goal of this movie was to “raise questions.”
Directed by Ron Howard and written by Allan Loeb, this is a film about the decisions that friends have to make when they learn too much. Ronny (Vince Vaughn) and Nick (Kevin James) are best friends who are partners in an auto design firm. In the midest of their most impotant project ever, Ronny sees Nick’s wife Geneva (Winona Ryder) kiss another man (Channing Tatum). The dilemma — yes, the title makes sense — is what does he do next?
This is the kind of Hollywood movie where Vaugh can be married to Jennifer Connelley and James to Ryder and I guess we accept that these angels on earth can see something in them. If you can accept that fact, then enjoy the comedy. If not, perhaps see this as science fiction?
That said, if you’re expecting a slapstick comedy, this gets pretty dark, as Geneva fires back on Ronny, threatening to tell everyone that they once had a fling in college, which will ruin his friendship and business. This is all a movie parable to explain something very important to you that I wish I had learned: never start a business with people who you think are your friends.
The Mill CreekThrough the Decades: 2010s Collection has ten movies for a great price, including The American, MacGruber, The Adjustment Bureau, Your Highness, The Thing, Contraband, Safe House, Seeking a Friend for the End of the World and Black Sea. You can order it from Deep Discount.
Mill Creek has released this DVD set of three 2000s comedies that is totally worth your money. You can get it from Deep Discount.
MacGruber (2010): Directed by The Lonely Island’s Jorma Taccone, MacGruber does what all SNL films do: stretch a short segment into a full movie. However, because this movie has a rich history of spy films and MacGyver to make fun of, it does much better than most.
Star Will Forte would tell The A.V. Club, “What you see with this movie is exactly what we wanted to do. It’s the three of us having a bunch of fun writing it, then having fun making it with a bunch of our friends—old friends and new friends. I think that fun comes across when you watch it. It’s rare that you get that kind of creative freedom.”
Basically, MacGruber is the greatest secret agent of all time, but he’s been retired ever since his archnemesis Dieter Von Cunth (Val Kilmer) killed his wife (Maya Rudolph) on his wedding day. Of course, he comes back. And oh yes, as I always say, hijinks ensue.
WWE wrestlers Chris Jericho, The Big Show, Mark Henry, Kane, MVP and The Great Khali appeared in this movie as past agents that have worked with MacGruber, which led to Forte, Ryan Phillippe and Kristen Wiig hosting Monday Night Raw. And one of the henchmen is remake Jason, Derek Mears.
I’m for any movie that has Powers Boothe as an authority figure and Kilmer as a villain who ends up getting his hand chopped off, machine gunned, blown up real good and then, as MacGruber prepares to marry the love of his life, pissed on.
There’s going to be a series of this on the NBC Peacock streaming service. I can’t wait. Hopefully it’s as much fun as this movie.
Strangely enough — and this feels like complete BS because there’s no attribution on IMDB — Kilmer and Forte almost ended up being on Amazing Race as a team, as Kilmer later stayed at Forte’s house for a few months after this movie and they became such friends that they watched the show all the time together.
Balls of Fury (2007): As silly as this movie is, it’s important to remember that it comes from The State‘s Robert Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon, which means that yes, it will be incredibly ridiculous but in a way that makes you feel good about how dumb it al is — and I say that with affection.
Randy Daytona (Dan Fogler) loses the semi-final ping pong game against semi-final game against Karl Wolfschtagg in the 1988 Summer Olympics and when he finds out that his father (Robert Patrick) bet on the game, he learns minutes later that the loan shark money that he used for the bet is collected by a near-supervillain named Feng (Christopher Walken) who makes Randy’s dad pay with his life. Therefore, no more ping pong.
Or maybe not. Nearly two decades later, Agent Ernie Rodriguez (George Lopez) recruits him Enter the Dragon-style to infiltrate Feng’s table tennis tournament and break up his guns for money empire. Oh yeah — the tournament is sudden death and that means that the loser dies, as his henchwoman Mahogany (Aisha Tyler) kills whoever drops the ball with a poison dart.
After training with Master Wong (James Hong) and his daughter Maggie (Maggie Q), he must defeat table tennis bosses like Freddy “Fingers” Wilson (Terry Crews), The Hammer (Patton Oswalt) and his old enemy Wolfschtagg (Thomas Lennon).
The idea that Asian masters can’t teach skills to white people was a big part of Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story. The star of that movie, Jason Scott Lee, is in this as Siu-Foo.
Your Highness (2011): Before David Gordon Green started remaking every horror movie you ever cared about, he was making cute comedies like this one, written by Danny McBride and Ben Best.
This is the journey of Prince Thadeous (McBride) and Prince Fabious (James Franco), the sons of King Tallious. After they defeat the wizard Leezar (Justin Theroux), Fabious plans on marrying the virgin Belladonna (Zooey Deschanel) who he has just rescued. Thadeous skips the ceremony after hearing the royal guard, led by Boremont (Damian Lewis) insult him for his laziness. As he leaves with his friend Courtney (Rasmus Hardiker), Leezar attacks, takes back Belladonna and plans on having sex with her during the convergence of two moons. She will give birth to a dragon that will help him conquer King Tallious’ kingdom. Thadeous must help his brother or be banished.
Their quest is complicated when they learn that the king’s Knights Elite have staged a coup and joined with Leezar. What follows are episodes right out of an Italian sword and sorcery movie, like a tribe of Amazon warriors, a hydra creature, a labyrinth containing a minotaur, a quest for the Blade of the Unicorn and meeting warrior woman Isabel (Natalie Portman).
When you see the scene with Leezar’s three witch mothers, they are played by Matyelok Gibbs (Erik the Viking‘s mother), Anna Barry and Angela Pleasence from Symptoms, The Godsend and From Beyond the Grave (and Donal’s daughter, of course).
This movie was not well reviewed and James Franco has been said to outright despise it. I had fun, but as you know, I’ve watched so many some of the wildest barbarian movies that cinema has to offer.
Emily Spivey worked at Saturday Night Live from 2001-2010 and developed this series based on her life when she went back to working after having her son, working late nights making comedy and coming home to raise a family.
Lasting two seasons on NBC, Up All Night stars Christina Applegate as Reagan Brinkley, a producer for the Ava show and Will Arnett as stay at home dad Chris. Maya Rudolph is Ava Alexander, the host of the show who Regan works for. The show reverses the typical sitcom dynamic by having the father as the one who is level-headed while the wife is obsessed with work.
NBC wanted major changes for the third season, switching the format to the traditional multi-camera sitcom and having Applegate, Arnett and Rudolph all playing actors who star in a fictional show-within-the-show called Up All Night. Spivey and Applegate left the show and it was canceled and not due to low ratings.
It’s great to have all of these in one set, as I missed this show when it first aired and really enjoyed it.
You can get the entire series on blu ray at Deep Discount.
Directed by Christopher Olen Ray (yes, his son) and written by Eric Forsberg (Mega Piranha), this Asylum film debuted on SyFy on May 10, 2011. If I can say anything nice, it’s that Kevin Nash plays Odin. And oh yeah, Richard Grieco as Loki.
The god of deception has destroyed Valhalla itself to steal the Hammer Of Invincibility and only Thor (Cody Deal) — with the help of the valkyrie Jarnsaxa (Patricia Velásquez, The Curse of La Llorona) — can save everyone.
Released at the same time as the first Thor movie from Marvel, this is another Asylum movie that prominently features brick walls substituting for cities. But hey — Detective Dennis Booker and Big Daddy Cool fighting during Ragnarok. The MCU isn’t giving you that.
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