Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Week Of June 2 through June 7, 2007

Saturday June 2, 2007
Duck! The Carbine High Massacre - 2000


This very notorious movie was a big disappointment. But before that, lets look at some of the good. Misty Mundae as a child! And playing a religious girl. Too funny. And that, my friends, is the best bit of the movie. The rest is LAME. First off, they make the gunmen TOO sympathetic. They make everyone else despicable, so you're supposed to be glad that they get mowed down. And it's supposed to funny, right? Mostly, its just TALKTALKTALK! Disappointing. I was hoping that this would be really exploitative. It's not.


Extras include deleted scenes, screening at a punk club with Court TV trying to make trouble, Interview with directors (where it's revealed that the fools were arrested for taking real firearms into a school, thus revealing that they are idiots!). There are also several music videos by punk bands that are truly painful, especially the slimy microphones.


Sunday June 3, 2007
Sarah Silverman: Jesus Is Magic - 2005


Very funny, if you have thick skin. She makes fun of basically everyone. The little skits sometimes drag a bit, but the songs more than make up for them. I sure wish that there were subtitles here. Even in the standup it would have helped. And the songs were especially hard to make out some of the words.


Sean and I give this one a big thumbs up.


Monday June 4, 2007
Hemoglobin - 1997 aka Bleeders


Ahhh, I'm gonna like this flick. Rutger Hauer and nice boobage in the first 2 minutes. Screenplay by Dan O'Bannon (Darkstar, Alien, Return of the Living Dead, Total Recall). This looked vaguely familiar, until I finally remembered seeing it on VHS about a decade ago.


The main actress (Kristin Lehman) was in Drive, which I hear was good and before that appears to have been a Canadian SciFi TV regular.


Real nice soundtrack. I like the music, and it supports the mood without sounding like your standard movie soundtrack. The only extra is a VERY simple 3 question Trivia Quiz. Only three questions? Why bother? A fun flick nevertheless.


Masters of Horror - John Landis - Family - 2006


Norm from Cheers as the psychopath next door. Nice. Creepy and fun. This is a good episode, eminently watchable.


Commentary features Brent Hanley, who was the writer (he also wrote Frailty). Some good info about writing screenplays, but the guy sounds like an idiot. Alas, he's a Texan, continuing every one's stereotype that we Texans are morons.


Other extras include Skin & Bones - Making of. Standard, with some good explanations of the CG. Also Terror Tracks: Mastering the Family Score, which was actually more interesting than the Making of.


Tuesday June 5, 2007
Graveyard Alive - 2003 A Zombie Nurse in Love


Black and White, make to look like an old movie (just like Destination Mars, but not as clever). There is some good cinematography here, and a couple nice cameos. And the music is PERFECT.


Interestingly enough, the entire crew appears to have been female. Certainly the commentary only featured women (the Director - Elza Kephart, and 2 producers Patricia Gomez and Andrea Stark). Shot in 2000, with reshoots in 2002. They play a fun drinking game of "Spot the Reshoot". Some behind the scenes, put now there are several drinking games. These ladies seem pretty cool.


Only other extras include a pair of interviews with the actors.


Wednesday June 6, 2007
Drawn Together, Season One - 2004


Comedy Central, TV-MA. No kidding. This may be the dirtiest thing ever put on TV. I am amazed that they got away with this. It is, however, hysterical. I LOVED IT! This is great. I'm writing this a couple of weeks later, and as you'll see, I've seen several more comedy TV series, and this is the best by a country mile.


Subtitles! Yeah!! And there are commentaries for some episode, which is fine. Not much meat, but many different crew members. Mostly bullshitting around, but it sounds like they're having fun. I am shocked to hear how often they get fired, however. They joke about it, but as a manager, I can tell you it ain't healthy. Animators must be a mobile bunch.

This is very funny, and I enjoyed it a LOT. It especially helps if you recognize the different animation styles, so you can appreciate what each character represents. Fun stuff, but keep the kids away.

Thursday June 7, 2007
Meatball Machine - 2005

Gory, slimy, "WTF" fun from Japan. 30 minutes in, and I have no idea why what's happening is happening. Hmmmm, alien cybernetic parasites. Well, this certainly is a wild, woolly spectacular as only a Japanese horror/SF flick can be.

Other extras include Maximum Meatball Machine, which was a making of/behind the scenes. There is also the original Meatball Machine, a 13 minute short that apparently done on 8mm. There was also an entry called Reject of Death, which I think was a music video, but not sure.

If you like gore and slime, you'll enjoy this one. If not, you might want to pass.

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