October 19: A Horror Film with Undead Cowboys and/or Undead Civil War Soldiers
Directed by Rene Perez, who wrote the story with Barry Massoni, The Dead and the Damned is about a meteor causing a zombie infestation in the West of the past. Mortimer (David Lockhart) is a bounty hunter out to capture Brother Wolf (Rick Mora), a Native American accused of sexual assault. To lure him into his trap, he brings Rhiannon (Camille Montgomery). Yet they all have to work together when miners try to break that rock that crashed from space.
Also known as Cowboys & Zombies, this has a sequel called Tom Sawyer vs. Zombies. There’s also a third movie, The Dead and the Damned 3: Ravaged.
In case you wondered, yes, this is the same Rene Perez that made Death Kiss, the film that introduced the world to Charles Bronson lookalike Robert Bronz. Perez also made two recent movies that I know I’m going to have to watch, Pro God – Pro Gun and They Want Us Woke Not Awake — that I also realize I am going to hate with every piece of my heart.
This movie also has most of the cast wearing modern cowboy boots with rubber soles and Levis from the 21st century. It also has the tagline “It’s Clint Eastwood meets George Romero as undead, flesh-eating gun-slingers roam the Wild West.” Yeah. That tagline.
In most of the world — other than Turkey, as witnessed by 3 Giant Men and Japanese video games, as Spidey fought Joe Musashi in The Revenge of Shinobi — your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man is, by definition of his heroics and nickname a hero. Not so in the world of Ghana bootleg cinema, as Rockson Film and Music Production created a movie that combined Peter Parker with the African myth of Ananse.
“In the olden days, Ananase the Spider was the wisest among all the beasts. Ananse’s wife was called Akonori Yaa, his four children were called Ntekuma, Afodotwdotwe, Etekelekelen and Naakorohwea. And it came to pass that Anase dies and when he died, his family member buried him in this bowl. Lady Spider and Oracle are currently the caretakers of this bowl,and they have formed a guild called the Anase Guild. They are mischievous and steal from people to fund the Guild. The money is kept by them and their power source is the bowl. Beware! Don’t open this bowl or Ananse’s spirit will escape. When he escapes, he will enter into a human body and transform into Spider-Man. With this power, he will be able to climb walls and jump like the spider.”
With those words, we begin.
Lady Spider and Oracle have been alive for centuries and they like nothing better than stealing money and beating children. After all, they have the power of the bowl to protect them. But what if that bowl ends up in human hands and everyone is confronted by a red and blue superhero who gets some revenge while throwing fireballs?
There’s also a demon and a gang that uses axes to slice open children to harvest their organs, so trust me, you probably won’t be bored. And if you are, just know that a really shiny PS1 Spider-Man will show up to fight people every few minutes. I mean, the effects are close to Marvel level — they were fixed up in 2020 — at least proportionally when you consider that this was made for the cost of a new issue of Spider-Man (as of August 2023, $4.99).
12-year-old Hugo Cabret (Asa Butterfield) has lost his father in a fire and is trying to fix the automaton they made together but can’t find the heart-shaped key that it needs to become alive. He’s living in a railway station with his Uncle Claude (Ray Winstone), who has gone missing and to keep station master Gustave Dasté (Sacha Baron Cohen) from sending him to an orphanage, he keeps fixing the many clocks within the train station.
In order to keep fixing the clocks and his robot, Hugo steals from a toy store. Caught by the owner, he has his notebook taken from him and must work in the store. There, he meets the man’s goddaughter Isabelle (Chloë Grace Moretz) and the two discover that the old man is actually filmmaker Georges Méliès.
This film makes me very emotional, as the first World War and bankruptcy kept Georges from living out his dreams. It takes a young boy, a robot and the realization that his films are seen as works of art and not wastes of time to bring the old man back to his dreams.
Much of the life story of the filmmaker are true: He was inspired by the Lumière brothers’ camera; he really was a magician and toymaker, creating automata; he owned the Théâtre Robert-Houdin) but was forced into bankruptcy and his film stick was melted down. After, he became a toy salesman at the Montparnasse station before history remembered him and he was awarded the Légion d’honneur medal.
Sadly, this movie was a bomb, losing $100 million. But the truth is, in time, that won’t be remembered. The emotion and the joy within this film will.
The Arrow Video 4K UHD release of Hugo is beyond filled with magic. There’s a 4K UHD of the 2D version of the movie and a blu ray version of the 2D and 3D cuts. Plus, the package is incredible, with a double-sided poster with original and new artwork by Tommy Pocket, who also created the sleeve artwork. There’s also an illustrated collector’s book with writing by film critic Farran Smith Nehme.
Extras include commentary by filmmaker and writer Jon Spira, publisher of The Lost Autobiography of Georges Méliès; a trailer; interviews with author Brian Selznick, composer Howard Shore and Ian Christie, the editor of Scorsese on Scorsese; a visual essay by filmmaker and critic Scout Tafoya; French film historian and author Julien Dupuy exploring the life and the legacy of Georges Méliès; film critic and historian Pamela Hutchinson exploring the history of the start of cinema; a visual essay by filmmaker and writer Jon Spira and five archival featurettes on the making of the film.
Nick Wauters wrote for shows like The 4400 and Medium before he created this show, which begins at the end of World War II. A UAP crashes in the Brooks Range of northern Alaska, filled with humanoid aliens whose DNA is 99% human but who age much slower than Earth people. Ninety-seven of them are kept in Mount Inostranka by the U.S. government while the Sleepers are aliens that escaped the landing and have become part of society.
When he assumes his office, U.S. President Elias Martinez (Blair Underwood) releases the imprisoned survivors and reveals their existence to the world. That is, he would have if someone didn’t try to assassinate him. Now, the CIA unleashes a plan to hunt down the Sleepers, except the director in charge is an alien.
Sean Walker (Jason Ritter) gets involved when his girlfriend Leila Buchanan (Sarah Roemer) gets kidnapped while they are on vacation as she’s the daughter of one of the aliens.
For the first part of the show, it was told by flashback to three different timelines, while many of the characters had Twitter accounts and there was a blog — truthseeker5314.com — that revealed plot points. This was all too confusing to viewers, so the second half of the episodes was a traditional narrative.
As engaging as the show is, it started with big ratings and then lost them midway through its run. The hiatus — November to February — only caused viewers to forget about the show and it was gone — after some huge hype — after one season.
You can still celebrate what could have been by rewatching the episodes. There’s a good cast, including Laura Innes as the leader of the aliens, Ian Dale as an alien CIA agent, Hal Holbrook as a businessman covering up the aliens, Clea DuVall as a killer ET and D.B. Sweeney as an assassin.
The show felt like Lost, which just ended the same season. Maybe audiences were tired of a show that kept so many secrets. Regardless, I liked the show.
The Mill Creek blu ray box set release of The Event includes making of features, an alternate story for Dr. Dempsey, deleted scenes, episodes commentaries with cast, crew and creators, podcasts, photo galleries and more. You can get it from Deep Discount.
EDITOR’S NOTE: This was first on the site on . As I’ll be exploring the films of Jason Trost this week, this movie has been reposted.
In The FP, disputes between rival gangs are settled by playing Beat-Beat Revelation, a dancing video game similar to Dance Dance Revolution. The 248 and the 245 are battling to control the FP — Frazier Park — and lessons must be learned.
This all comes from the minds of Brandon and Jason Trost. Brandon has gone on to do cinematography for Crank: High Voltage, Rob Zombie’s Halloween II, and Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, while Jason has created the film series All Superheroes Must Die and the film Wet and Reckless. He’s really blind in his right eye — or is trying to be fashionable — which is why he’s always wearing an eyepatch.
The film begins with L Dubba E, the leader of the 245 gang, murdering BTRO, the leader of the 248 gang. As a result, his brother JTRO (Jason Trost) leaves the FP behind to become a lumberjack.
A year later, L Dubba E has taken over the FP and is holding back all the booze, which is leading to an increase in meth usage and homelessness. KCDC (Art Hsu, who is also in Crank: High Voltage), another 248 member, brings our hero back home, where he reunites with Stacy, an ex-girlfriend who is now sleeping with the enemy.
Can JTRO rise to the level of his brother? Will Stacy stop having sex with the main bad guy and realize she loves our hero? Will people bring guns to a dance off?
If you’ve ever played video games, you’ll probably enjoy this more than most people. Jason Trost came up with the idea in his teens when he noticed people treating Dance Dance Revolution like an intense battle. The dialogue was inspired by Def Jam: Fight for NY, which makes absolute and total sense.
Best of all, James Remar is in the film as the narrator. He met the brothers when their dad worked on Mortal Kombat Annihilation‘s effects team.
This is the kind of film that you’re either going to fall in love with instantly — like I did — or think it’s the dumbest thing you’ve ever seen. Imagine Mad Max with dance-offs and you’ll get the idea.
EDITOR’S NOTE: This was first on the site on . As I’ll be exploring the films of Jason Trost this week, this movie has been reposted with lots of added new material.
What if you combined a superhero movie with Saw? Well, this would be it.
Directed, written and produced by Jason Trost, who made The FPand also stars in this movie as Charge, this movie finds him, Cutthroat (Lucas Till, who was Havok in X-Men: First Class and MacGyver in the reboot of the series), The Wall (Lee Valmassy) and Shadow (Sophie Merkley) waking up in an abandoned town, their powers gone and facing their arch foe Rickshaw (James Remar, always amazing) in the kind of death trap Arcade used to put the X-Men through.
This is probably as close as we’ll get to a Brat Pack movie. I kind of liked it way more than most reviews I’ve seen, as I liked the end of the superteam dynamics of the film, the way we learn about the heroes’ lives and origins through their actions. Plus, Charge must continually make tough choices that end up making their lives worse at every turn.
Did you read stuff like Grips and Aircel comics in the 90s? Or the post-Image grim and gritty comics made by comics fans that did one comic and never another one again? Do you like Stephen Platt? Then you’re going to like this way more than the average filmgoer.
There’s also a sequel, All Superheroes Must Die 2: The Last Superhero, that I need to find. There was also a comic book from the same universe and Jason Trost posted the first issue here.
If you’d like to know more about the filmmaker and how he approaches movies, check out the interview I did with him here.
Three days after the zombie outbreak, Bill Johnson (Pablo Parés), John West (Berta Muñiz) and Max Giggs (Hernán Sáez) are being chased by a UFO which has locked onto a zombie being carried by John. That ship’s tractor beam pulls him into the ship and transforms him (Berta lost a ton of weight between the last movie and this one) all while the team comes up with a plan of turning a zombie into a bomb that will be dragged up into their ship.
Then, each of the group gets split up and has their own stories to deal with. John discovers he has lost his strength after being transformed and must deal with doubt. Bill seeks out renegade agent Jack Taylor (Walter Cornás) to discover how to find the alien mothership. Giggs finds a zombie to be his bomb, but he soon finds himself feeling like a father to the shambling dead thing he calls Junior (Paulo Soria).
In the years since the Plaga Zombie series started, CGI has become more affordable, which makes this movie look way better than the first two movies. Also: all zombie movies may not need a musical number, but seeing as how good the one here is, maybe they should.
You can watch this on Tubi or get the whole set from Severin.
April 29: Drop A Bomb — Please share your favorite critical and financial flop with us!
Martin Campbell made two Zorro and two James Bond movies, but that in no way seemed to prepare him for this DC Universe film. It took a long time to get this far, as Warner Brothers had spent nearly 15 years working on ideas, starting with Kevin Smith and Quentin Tarantino turning down the film. Robert Smigel wrote a treatment with Jack Black in the lead, but comic book fans hated that.
Ryan Reynolds, who played Green Lantern Hal Jodan, said “You really need a visionary behind a movie like that, but it was the classic studio story: “We have a poster, but we don’t have a script or know what we want; let’s start shooting!”
It was also one of those movies that needed to be a big hit to even break even. In fact, to make money, it needed to bring in $500 million.
Roger Ebert probably summed it up best: “It intends to be a sound-and-light show, assaulting the audience with sensational special effects. If that’s what you want, that’s what you get.”
The Green Lantern Corps — which are a lot like the science fiction series Lensmen — has protected the galaxy for billions of years. Our sector of the galaxy — 2814 — has been protected by Abin Sur (Temuera Morrison) until the alien demon Parallax (Clancy Brown) escapes and mortally wounds him; he passes on his ring, power battery and oath to cocky pilot Hal Jordan (Reynolds). He works for Ferris Aircraft, operated by his former girlfriend Carrol Ferris (Blake Lively; probably the only positive of this movie is that this is where she and Reynold met; they later married in a plantation, which is still kind of weird to me). He soon goes to the home of the Green Lanterns, Oa, where he is trained by Tomar-Re (the voice of Geoffrey Rush), Kilowog (Michael Clarke Duncan) and Corps leader Sinestro (Mark Strong), who doubts Jordan to the point that he goes back to Earth.
Meanwhile, Senator Robert Hammond (Tim Robbins) has gotten the body of Abin Sur to his strange son Hector (Peter Sarsgaard) and as he’s exposed to Parallax’s energy, his head starts to grow and his evil side comes out. In the comics, Parallax caused Hal Jordan to turn evil. Here, it’s just a CGI monster to throw into the sun.
Reynolds hated the movie and working with Campbell, who wanted Bradley Cooper and felt stuck with the actor, who was happy when it combed. How happy? In Deadpool 2, he goes back in time and stops himself from taking the role.
Other than Amanda Waller (Angela Bassett, who joined the cast nine days before shooting), other DC characters include Green Lanterns Hannu, Apros, NautKeLoi, Norchavius, Voz, Larvox, Morro, MedPhyll, R’amry Holl, Rot Lop Fan. Boddikka, Galius Zed, Amanita, Penelops, Stel, Green Man, M’Dahna, Isamot Kol, Bzza, Lin Canar, Salakk and Chaselon. What, no Ch’P, Katma Tui or Arisia?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Competing since 2014, Demaras Racing is made up of three committed family members: No. 12 Daniel Demaras, No. 29 Michelle Demaras and Chris ‘#16’ Demaras. They also have an awesome website where they share Fast Films every Friday. Here’s one of them!
Whoever handled marketing for Drive back in 2011 ran commercials that made this movie look like Ryan Gosling joined the latest installment of The Fast & the Furious.
“A Hollywood stuntman who doubles as a getaway driver at night. He’s icy cool, but his pretty neighbor and her little boy are melting his heart. With a million dollar score, he can finally leave his old life behind. He can outrun the cops, but can he escape his past?”
Audiences were confused. What they saw was a stylish, art-house movie exploring the a character’s descent into madness, disguised as a car flick.
The driver is cold, distant and emotionless. An automaton who’s purpose is to drive. He does it with skill, and very few words. The opening scene sets the tone. The meticulous planning of the driver helps the bad guys escape a robbery, not with his blinding speed, but by outsmarting the cops with his street knowledge, using highway overpasses and tall buildings to hide from the police helicopter. The director attempts to make it clear that the driver is not like the bad guys; he is never in the frame together with them, even when in the getaway car.
The 1973 Chevrolet Chevelle SS ‘hero car’ says a lot about the protagonist. This is not something from the ’69 to ’71 golden years of muscle cars. Many wouldn’t even recognize that this was raced in NASCAR by Bobby Allison and Darrell Waltrip to victories. Far from flashy in primer-grey, it’s a perfect low-key muscle car for a getaway driver.
The title character is a movie stunt driver and part-time getaway driver, but his ‘front’ is as an auto mechanic. Inside his boss’ Shannon’s garage is an incredible array of classic American cars including a 1955 Ford Thunderbird, 1967 Pontiac GTO, 1969 Cadillac Fleetwood Eldorado, 1969 Dodge Charger and 1969 Plymouth Road Runner.
One fateful day, the driver’s pretty, blonde neighbor Irene, and her son Benicio, show up at the garage in their busted Toyota Camry. The movie completely changes, and the pace slows down, as the audience is presented with a character study of a lonely man making a human connection.
The driver is a quiet guy, and expresses little emotion, few aspirations. But his boss Shannon (Brian Cranston from Breaking Bad) has visions of running a race team, now that he has the driver! Shannon wants to borrow $400,000+ from a local gangster (played by Albert Brooks of Taxi Driver fame) and invites him to the track to watch the driver run laps in a turn-of-the-century Chevy Monte Carlo NASCAR.
The movie is stylish; like a hot-pink and baby-blue 80’s version of Taxi Driver and Danish director Nicholas Winding Refn uses non-verbal communication such as music, colour and lighting to set the tone. We learn little about the stoic driver’s backstory, but the audience sees him change as his relationship with Irene and Benicio blossoms. The driver starts believing that he too can have a normal life, and that he can leave his life of crime in the rearview mirror.
In a misguided attempt to ‘help’ his new family, the driver agrees to a million dollar heist. If he can pull this off, he can be free from his criminal life. But everything goes wrong, the driver is double-crossed, and a second action movie scene occurs. In a recreation of the classic chase scene from 1968’s Bullitt, the driver is the hero behind the wheel of a 2011 Ford Mustang GT pursuing the bad guys in their full-size, V8 powered Chrysler 300C, standing in for the iconic Dodge Challenger from the original.
The driver escapes with the loot, and wants to take Irene and her son to start a new life together. But the gangsters he stole the cash from have other ideas, and threaten the lives of the driver’s surrogate family. Rather than helping Irene, the driver has brought the underworld life to her doorstep, endangering the lives of the people he cares for most. What’s a gangster to do?
In full Travis Bickle mode, the driver goes on a vehicular rampage, brutalizing everyone who poses a threat to his loved ones. Much as he wants to be the good guy, the driver is consumed by his dark side to save the girl. It’s easy to see why this movie alienated audiences upon release. Is the driver the hero, or just another villain with a soft spot? Does leaving the blood-stained bag of heist money next to the bodies of his enemies make him better than them? It’s open to audience interpretation whether this is a happy ending or not…but this is definitely not your average action movie.
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.
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