I have a certain love for fan films. I find that I can often forgive their no-budget productions, dodgy special effects, questionable acting and connection to fanfiction because of the heaping tons of love poured into the production. Some of the best I’ve seen, like Troops, Star Wars: Duality, Star Trek: New Voyages, and Batman: Dead End really transcend the medium due in part to actual budgets but at the bottom line, the people who make these movies are fans of whatever it is that they’re doing and even some of the cheesiest stuff I’ve seen has a degree of quality because the creativity factor is so high.
Enter Eddie Lebron, whose movies occupy the high band of the fan film spectrum. I caught this over at the ever trusty nerd-Mecca, io9, but I’m not unfamiliar with Eddie thanks to his feature, Ghostbusters: Generation (of which I’ve only seen the trailer -- which is sweet and has love for Judas Priest). I haven’t seen too many video game adaptation fan films and, quite frankly, I’m not sure why. There is plenty of consumer grade software out there to generate the special effects, Airsoft guns are cheap enough and look real enough to match whatever your budget is and I’ve seen some incredibly sweet action choreography from the likes of The Kwoon, so really, anyone could make a video game adaptation if they wanted to. Thankfully, Eddie is. Below, you’ll find the trailer for his very cool looking Megaman (That’s Rockman if you’re in Japan). It’s a little slow going for a trailer and the real goods are in the back nine, but the Megaman vs. Bots fighting is seriously cool. I need a screener of this now.
…or so they say. Word broke earlier this week that Steven Spielberg and Will Smith were teaming up to revitalize the dead in the water remake of Chan Wook Park’s revenge fantasy masterpiece, Oldboy. There was a collective cry of outrage from the fanboy community as is usually the case with these things but Film School Rejects is reporting that that’s not entirely the case.
Park’s film is very loosely based on a manga. I have the first couple of translated collections from Dark Horse. The movie takes the general idea from the manga and runs with it. Spielberg’s version of the movie, according to Will Smith, is doing the same thing. They may adapt the manga directly or use it as a source for their own interpretation.
We’re looking at that right now. Not the film though, it’s the original source material. There’s the original comics of ‘Oldboy’ that they made the first film from. And that’s what we’re working from, not an adaptation of the film
So everyone can calm the fuck down. Spielberg’s name attached to Oldboy led many to assume that he was going to water this shit down and make some kind of commercial, processed film out of it. What many forget is that Spielberg made fucking Schindler’s List and Saving Private Ryan. Neither of which are industry outsiders, but they’re both gritty, challenging movies. And as much as Will Smith is some kind of blockbuster goldenboy, he’s a capable actor. I realize how strange it must look, me in defense of Will Smith but even DeNiro has some turds and commercial bullshit under his belt, so cut the guy some slack. This could either fulfill the film snob expectations and be a complete waste of your time or it could turn out to be a gritty movie about obsession, revenge and manipulation.
I’ve taken a little time in the past to both wax ecstatic about Black Dynamite and be snarky about certain competing parties in the wave of upcoming Blaxploitation sendups. Of them all, there is no contest, Black Dynamite is the one to get excited about. The Black Dynamite crew hit me up with a little news that their little spoof is going to be in circulation at the upcoming Sundance Film Festival. So if you’re going to be in Park City, Utah around that time for the festival, please make it a point to see this movie and get back to me about it. Without question, the one movie I am most looking forward to next year is Black Dynamite. No exagerration.
Not sure what I’m talking about? No sweat, jive turkey. Go watch the new red band trailer and then tell me that you’re not excited about this movie. Is that soundtrack not the greatest thing you’ve ever heard?
Drop by the Black Dynamite website for more and a fantastic history of blaxploitation movies.
I have been so extremely excited about this release since it was first announced back in the summer and the time has finally come. I’ve seen a few of the other MST3K boxes released so upon review, it ocurred to me that I wasn’t entirely sure why I was so excited about this release. The only thing that really sets this apart from, say, Swamp Diamonds/Giant Gila Monster/Teenage Strangler is that it features clips of the San Diego Comic Con panel and a documentary. There’s also a cheesy figurine of Crow if you’re into that sort of thing. But I digress.
This set takes me back to a stranger time in my life. Those fresh post-high school years marked by a brief but disastrous experience in the sound recording program at UMASS Lowell. Where my chief occupation was fishing stuck tokens out of Skee Ball machines and a long relationship came to a bitter, acrimonious end. Mystery Science Theater 3000 marked the one shinging point in my day where I could pretty much forget about all that shit and have a much needed laugh and a beer. Sweet, sweet stolen beer.
Sometimes I bring you news that I so badly wish weren’t true (and this still might not be), but rest assured, there isn’t a chance in hell that this show would ever be picked up. Not even by Sci-Fi. Bloody Disgusting reports that Transition Entertainment is shooting a pilot for a show with the hefty and tentative title of Herbert West: Re-Animator The Series which portrays Jeffrey Combs’ iconic role as the titular Herbert West as “a teenage Dr. Frankenstein for the new millenium”. Their words, not mine. The pilot script is being written by Meredith Red and William Butler, the latter of whom is credited with the Return of the Living Dead 4 & 5 and the Gingerdead Man, so you know it will be good.
Even though Bloody Disgusting is an otherwise reputable outfit for news, they’re not above being duped and this bit of news comes from an unnamed reader who may or may not have some kind of history as a trusted source with them. Until I see an official press release, I’m calling bullshit because I can’t conceive a show like this without the Yuzna/Gordon touch and plotting late adolescence romance amidst morbid humor, the walking dead and dismemberment just doesn’t seem to be the kind of mix to make a TV show out of.
What you see to the left there is an actual vampire slaying kit, recently sold at Auction through Stevens at the estate auction for Jimmy Pippen noted designer and antique dealer. The kit fetched a handsome $14,850. I’d kill to know what the background of an item like this is. Who made it? Who bought it? Where was it sold? Experts place its creation somewhere in the early 1800′s while experts for Sotheby’s suggest that similar items sold through their auctions were made in the early 1900′s and sold as mementos to travelers in Eastern Europe around that time. A sort of cash-in on the popularity of Bram Stoker’s novel, ‘Dracula’.
Here’s a genuinely weird twist on the usually neglected state of horror movies, particularly zombie flicks. The J. Michael Straczynski script for Brad Pitt’s Plan B production company has been in limbo for some time and I was pretty certain that this movie would never be made. Looks like I was wrong.
Variety reports that the adaptation of Max Brooks’ stellar “oral history” of a global zombie outbreak has signed a director. A good one, at that. Marc Forster, director of Finding Neverland, Monster’s Ball and most recently, the latest Bond flick, Quantum of Solace, has been signed to direct.
It’s important that World War Z get a quality production crew behind it. Where the zombie movies of the last decade have been lacking the impact of the films from the height of the concept, Zombie fiction has been taking flight, going in unique directions that manage to avoid the gun fantasy that most contemporary zombie movies become. If you haven’t read it, you really should at this point. World War Z is a hybrid between your typical novel and a short story anthology. One world, one continuity, short stories taking place in that continuity. It’s an anthology of survivor tales from all over the world as Zombies become a real problem. It’s a remarkably grim and straight faced protrayal of the end of the world.
Where before I was pretty tired of zombie movies, I’m pretty pumped about this news. If there is one adaptation I want to see and see done right, it’s this baby.
Hollywood, we need to talk. I know that you’re having difficulties in the creativity department lately what with all these comic book adaptations and remakes of old horror movies, but this has got to stop. You’ve gone too far this time. Consider this your intervention.
I’m not at all kidding when I report to you that Ridley Scott of Scott brothers fame, the better Scott brother, director of Blade Runner (i.e. the coolest sci fi movie ever) has been signed to direct a big-screen adaptation of Monopoly. Yes, that Monopoly. The one with the dog and the boot vying for real estate supremacy in Atlantic City. Your favorite and mine, popularized by the once mighty Parker Brothers. But wait, this gets even weirder. Apparently, Scott is looking to give it:
an eye toward giving it a futuristic sheen along the lines of his iconic “Blade Runner.”
But here’s the best part. This says it all.
“Monopoly” marks the latest Hasbro property to look to pass go and head to the big screen. Board games and branded properties have become more attractive as studios look to mitigate risk by finding built-in audiences.
Universal is working with Hasbro on several projects as part of a long-term development deal. Platinum Dunes is producing its feature adaptation of “Ouija Board,” while the maritime classic “Battleship” is also in development. Elsewhere at Hasbro, Paramount this summer is set to release Stephen Sommers’ feature based on its “G.I. Joe” character. And “Trivial Pursuit: America Plays” is now airing as a syndicated television program.
Built in audiences. Adaptations of board games. Minimizing risk at the box office by offering people a structured narrative by way of an open ended board game with no real story to tell. Thanks, Hollywood. You really suck.
I’m not into comics like I used to be. As I got older, the medium failed to mature with me in a mainstream sense and I wound up leaving most of my old favorite titles behind. Briefly at the end of the 90′s, I experienced a period of renewed interest in the capes books again thanks to people like Grant Morrison being involved but I fell out again, mostly because those god damn things cost so much these days. I still have a few contemporary favorites but the medium’s most revolutionary creators are still at the top of my list with books that they published in the 80′s. Among them, Frank Miller, Neil Gaiman and Alan Moore.
For my money, Alan Moore is one of the most fascinating minds in the entire world and if I could spend a half hour picking his brain and analyzing the timeless qualities of his comics, even the ones deeply rooted in British domestic policy in the 1980′s, I could then die happy. He’s the prototype of the contemporary insane British comic book personality exemplified by people today such as Warren Ellis and the aforementioned Grant Morrison. Even his most mainstream books were on the edge, flirting with seriously subversive ideas about what constitutes a hero in these modern times. But there’s a lot more to Moore, ahem, than you might think and this excellent documentary lets the enigmatic writer tell you all about it in his own words.
Back in the day, during the advent of the internet message board, I once had the balls to jump into a culty horror discussion about “director” Jess Franco and declare the man a hack and some kind of grifter. Those who didn’t outright flame me out of the forum calmly explained that the man has scores of movies under his belt and I just hadn’t seen the right ones. Well here it is 14 years later and I’m still looking for the right movie. After all these years, the only thing I can definitively say about the films of Jess Franco is that I am in favor of Lina Romay over Soledad Miranda as controversial as that may be among fans of euro-trash, but I think the real issue is that I’ve never really been a fan of trashy sexploitation movies. I just don’t get the appeal. As far as I’m concerned, the only guy who could ever really cross soft-porn and the genres and come out with a quality product is Jean Rollin and that’s being generous.
Severin recently released two of Franco’s flicks, formerly occupying the UK Video Nasties list and in the spirit of second chances, I decided to give both a fair shake and some press on Cinema Suicide. My mind still hasn’t changed about Franco but I’m hoping that one of these days, I’ll find that movie that the dudes on that message board talked about. Maybe I need to see Sadomania.
I have a certain love for fan films. I find that I can often forgive their no-budget productions, dodgy special effects, questionable acting and connection to fanfiction because of the heaping tons of love poured into the production. Some of the best I’ve seen, like Troops, Star Wars: Duality, Star Trek: New Voyages, and Batman: Dead End really transcend the medium due in part to actual budgets but at the bottom line, the people who make these movies are fans of whatever it is that they’re doing and even some of the cheesiest stuff I’ve seen has a degree of quality because the creativity factor is so high.
…or so they say. Word broke earlier this week that Steven Spielberg and Will Smith were teaming up to revitalize the dead in the water remake of Chan Wook Park’s revenge fantasy masterpiece, Oldboy. There was a collective cry of outrage from the fanboy community as is usually the case with these things but Film School Rejects is reporting that that’s not entirely the case.
I have been so extremely excited about this release since it was first announced back in the summer and the time has finally come. I’ve seen a few of the other MST3K boxes released so upon review, it ocurred to me that I wasn’t entirely sure why I was so excited about this release. The only thing that really sets this apart from, say, Swamp Diamonds/Giant Gila Monster/Teenage Strangler is that it features clips of the San Diego Comic Con panel and a documentary. There’s also a cheesy figurine of Crow if you’re into that sort of thing. But I digress.
Sometimes I bring you news that I so badly wish weren’t true (and this still might not be), but rest assured, there isn’t a chance in hell that this show would ever be picked up. Not even by Sci-Fi. 
Here’s a genuinely weird twist on the usually neglected state of horror movies, particularly zombie flicks. The J. Michael Straczynski script for Brad Pitt’s Plan B production company has been in limbo for some time and I was pretty certain that this movie would never be made. Looks like I was wrong.
Hollywood, we need to talk. I know that you’re having difficulties in the creativity department lately what with all these comic book adaptations and remakes of old horror movies, but this has got to stop. You’ve gone too far this time. Consider this your intervention.
I’m not into comics like I used to be. As I got older, the medium failed to mature with me in a mainstream sense and I wound up leaving most of my old favorite titles behind. Briefly at the end of the 90′s, I experienced a period of renewed interest in the capes books again thanks to people like Grant Morrison being involved but I fell out again, mostly because those god damn things cost so much these days. I still have a few contemporary favorites but the medium’s most revolutionary creators are still at the top of my list with books that they published in the 80′s. Among them, Frank Miller, Neil Gaiman and Alan Moore.
Back in the day, during the advent of the internet message board, I once had the balls to jump into a culty horror discussion about “director” Jess Franco and declare the man a hack and some kind of grifter. Those who didn’t outright flame me out of the forum calmly explained that the man has scores of movies under his belt and I just hadn’t seen the right ones. Well here it is 14 years later and I’m still looking for the right movie. After all these years, the only thing I can definitively say about the films of Jess Franco is that I am in favor of Lina Romay over Soledad Miranda as controversial as that may be among fans of euro-trash, but I think the real issue is that I’ve never really been a fan of trashy sexploitation movies. I just don’t get the appeal. As far as I’m concerned, the only guy who could ever really cross soft-porn and the genres and come out with a quality product is Jean Rollin and that’s being generous.
