Moviesucktastic: Entertainment

Showing posts with label Entertainment. Show all posts

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Podcast Episode #8: Sequels! Sequels! Sequels!

The wait is over! After an agonizingly lengthy delay, the latest episode of MovieSucktastic is finally up and ready for your easy listening pleasure!

Seasonal constraints and other complications can throw a monkey wrench in some of the best laid plans, and your humble hosts Joey and Scott are no different. But now that we've finally gotten over our mutual hurdles, things are moving along quite swimmingly, thank you very much. We've cleaned the dust off of the MovieSucktastic Microphone and gotten down to business, bringing our own special blend of film theory and criticism to your sensitive little earbuds.

What do Joey and Scott have lined up for your amusement and mirth this episode? We start off with a recap of the recent top ten box office champs, followed by our additions to the Finger List, each of us choosing which film we would rather cut off our little finger rather than watch in a theater. Find out which one of us would rather horribly mutilate ourselves rather than watch Did You Hear About the Morgans?

After that, we launch right into our overview of the currently slated barrage of sequels heading to your local overpriced theaters in 2010. Hollywood has been slowly turning up the output knob on the Sequel Machine (Patent Pending) over the past decade, with 2010 topping all expectations. Its looking more and more likely that, between sequels and remakes, your odds of seeing anything even remotely original in the theaters this year have diminished greatly. And yes, that includes Avatar.

On top of all of this, we also announce the winner of our Facebook Page contest! Tune in and find out which one of our first 100 Facebook Fans won an autographed copy of co-host Scott's latest book on cult and horror cinema, Monster Rally. Better yet, join our Facebook Fan Page before it hits 200 and you might win our next drawing yourself!

So go to MovieSucktastic.com and either listen to and/or download episode #8 directly from the website, or follow our links to iTunes, Podcast Alley and Podcast.com. And don't forget to email us and let us know what you think of us, the show, or a bad movie you've recently seen. You've heard us, now let us hear you!

Friday, August 21, 2009

A-List Stars Flailing at the Box Office? Try Again.

It's the bold new declaration being screamed across the Entertainment pages and segments of

LOS ANGELES - OCTOBER 29: Actors Denzel Washi...

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

the news media today: Highly respected movie stars, usually considered huge box-office draws, are suddenly failing to bring in the big bucks when their highly anticipated films hit the big screen. With films like Funny People, Land of the Lost, Angels and Demons, Public Enemies, and The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 not performing as well as expected, the powers that be behind the scene are blaming their current understanding of who the top box-office performers are.

The only problem with this allegation? It is complete and utter crap.

Scapegoating might not be new or unusual in Hollywood, but this is the kind that insults everybody. Did these movies do poorly because of their stars? No, of course not. They did poorly because they were either uninspired remakes or sequels hoping to cash in on a previously existing successful franchise (brace yourself, because that is all you are going to see in theaters come the summer of 2010), or simply didn't inspire people with the subject matter at hand. But this would be admitting that Hollywood was wrong. No, it can't be the fault of the heavy hand of the studios

Image via Wikipedia

bankrolling these films. It must be because American audiences have soured on a particular actor or actress, and are now avoiding that star like a former boyfriend at a New Year's Eve party.

This same argument was used against Tom Cruise during the late part of his past slew of releases, and despite how much you don't like Mr. Scientology, it isn't a sound argument. Did audiences really hold back on investing their box-office dollars on Mr. Risky Business because of his unorthodox antics? Of course not! People didn't shun Mission Impossible 3 because the leading star flipped on Oprah Winfrey's couch and reads Dianetics religiously. They shunned it because they were already sick to death of the franchise and listened to the horrible critical response.

You want an example of how much American movie-goers don't actually care about tabloid scandals? Mel Gibson. The Passion of the Christ makes more money than God, but just as Mel's the new favorite golden boy, he gets caught up in a huge antisemitic drunk-driving scandal. In fact, I think it was the first ever combination DUI/Antisemitism

Cover via Amazon

incident ever. That's Mel, always ahead of the curve.

So, Mel not only cruises around under the influence, but he hates the Jews as well. This would be the perfect excuse for audiences to avoid paying to see his upcoming Apocalypto, beyond the fact that it is all subtitles and brown people. But the movie did extremely well, with no apparent boycott of the personality behind the film. Why? Because it was a good movie.

This is the blame game that constantly kills our chances of getting decent films made and delivered by the Hollywood Dream Machine. The latest star-studded blockbuster release had a more than lackluster opening weekend? It couldn't be because the script was drab, boring, or intellectually insulting to a five-year-old with ADD, or that the direction and set design was either over-the-top or uninspired. No, it must be because the lead actress is losing her "Box Office Appeal."

I just caught the trailer for Sandra Bullock's new upcoming romantic comedy, All About Steve:

I would like to make a prediction on this one. This movie will not do well, and when the "lackluster" opening weekend numbers are release, studio heads and those in control of green lighting this kind of crap will not admit that it didn't do well because it is obviously an unsuccessful attempt at some kind of half-ass American stab at a Bridget Jones romantic comedy with a weak premise, recycled jokes (one in the trailer is actually lifted straight from Bridget Jones' Diary), and no real narrative hook.

No they'll blame Sandra Bullock. And they won't even take partially responsibility for attempting to continually shove the aging actress (who seems to have chosen Plastic Surgery over the Aging Gracefully route) into younger and younger roles instead of trying out some fresh new talent.

So fear not, movie-goers. You might get the same recycled crap shoved down your throat at the theater next year, but you can rest assured that there will be new shiny happy faces in those lead roles to make the bitter pill a tad easier to swallow.

Friday, June 5, 2009

Remembering David Carradine - The Warrior And The Sorceress 1984

When I was a kid, I was a video junkie. I would always go to my local video store, called Palmer Video, in my then hometown of Belleville, NJ. This store was a bad movie fan's dream! They had everything. Even though Palmer Video was a commercial chain, it was still a mom-and-pop-shop operation, in every sense of the term. I guess everything was like that back then. They had one wall dedicated to just all new releases, and only one copy was ever available for everything, always. The first time I ever heard the word "reservation" was at a video store. I remember waiting days (and often weeks) to get my hands on a movie we had on "reserve."

They also had what I still consider, even to this day, one of the BEST horror sections ever. It was blocked off so the little kiddies wouldn't have nightmares from looking at the wonderfully grousome boxes. I would always wander in there before I went anywhere else. I still vividly remember browsing over titles like Make Them Die Slowly, Eaten Alive and Cannibal Holocaust in these HUGE porno sized VHS boxes. The boxes would proudly scream warnings like "RATED X FOR GRAPHIC VIOLENCE," and "BANNED IN 31 Countries!!!" They also had saloon doors sectioning off the ADULT area that you could easily see around, especially if you were an 8 year old boy just hoping to get a glimpse of "the good stuff". I even remember the animatronic props they would display for films, such as a cleaver chopped down on the wrist of a hand while the fingers were still moving for Motel Hell. Surely we could never display something like that today, "Mothers Against" groups would never allow it.

This brings me to this little Italian film called The Warrior and the Sorceress. One day I walked into my local Palmer Video only to see this HUGE stand up cardboard cutout of the picture you see above. I HAD TO SEE THIS MOVIE! Look how cool that poster is! I grew up in the 80's, when wizards and warriors ruled the bad movie scene. They pumped out these types of flicks like Octomom pumps out kids. This movie had it all; overdubbed acting, sorceress enhanced swords that can slice through stone, and even a four-breasted dancer! Beat that Total Recall! (and 6 years earlier i might add.)

To this day, I still own this movie on VHS. I don't even own a VCR anymore, but I still own this movie. Every once in a while I get nostalgic and want to watch it, but then I sulk as I remember that I can't. It did receive the DVD treatment in 2002, but I missed the boat, and it is now discontinued. As much as I loved this film when I was a kid, I refuse to pay for a bootleg VHS to DVD copy, or buy the DVD from some schmuck who thinks his copy is worth $44 before shipping at Amazon.

I will, however, keep an eye out for it. On this note, I leave you with a few snippets of what is one of my earliest and fondest memories of David Carradine, 1984's The Warrior and The Sorceress! Enjoy these small but cool moments as I have over the years. Unfortunately, I could only find one English speaking clip, but that shouldn't stop you from enjoying Carradine's performance.