Dec
21st
Holy Crap it’s the New Hellboy II Trailer
Posted by movieblFor some reason the Flash unit I embedded here to play the trailer was broken, so go check it out at the Hellboy site:
Dec
20th
Sam Rami Returns to Horror - AICN Article
Posted by movieblIf I go a day without putting up a post I feel like a deadbeat, and I’m SURE it’s disappointing to you faithful readers ;) But with the Christmas craziness I’m busy as hell. So here’s an article from Ain’t It Cool News about Sam Rami Returning to Horror!
Sam Raimi returns to horror! DRAG ME TO HELL his next flick!
Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. Sam Raimi has exec. produced many horror flicks under his GHOST HOUSE banner, but for the first time since he started that company up he’s actually directing one called DRAG ME TO HELL, a supernatural horror flick he co-wrote with his brother, Ivan.What’s interesting is that this isn’t a new project. They wrote it right after ARMY OF DARKNESS. At that point it was called THE CURSE. No real details have come out, but the trades have a blurb about it being about “an unwilling recipient of a supernatural curse.”
Dec
18th
DVD Review: Sling Blade (1996)
Posted by moviebl
Directed by: Billy Bob Thornton
Starring: Billy Bob Thornton, John Ritter, Dwight Yokum, Natalie Canerday
Here’s a little insider’s tip to all you screenwriters out there: Mentally challenged characters are Hollywood gold! It seems like every movie that comes out featuring a retarded main character garners instant acclaim from both the Hollywood critical elite and consumers. Check it out: Of Mice and Men, Bill, Forrest Gump, Radio, and Pee-Wee Herman. And Billy Bob Thornton’s Karl Childers, of the movie Sling Blade, is no exception.
Karl Childers is a balcony-browed, shuffling, mentally challenged person who is released from a mental hospital where he’d spent most of his childhood and adult life for murdering his mother. He finds himself alone and helpless in his small Southern hometown, which is full of the sort of quirky, backwoods, but amiable types you’d expect to find in a small Southern town. With the help of a doctor from the mental hospital he finds a job in a small engine repair shop. Soon Karl is befriended by a young boy named Frank Wheatly (Black) who decides to bring him home. Miraculously, Frank’s mom (Canerday) and her boozing red-neck boyfriend (Yoakum) allow Karl to move into their garage.
Sling Blade is full of extremely wonderful performances. Billy Bob Thornton underwent an amazing physical transformation in becoming his character of Karl Childers. BBT (as we like to call him) would get up at 2:00 am every morning and spend 7 hours in the make up chair. Eventually someone would come along and ask him why he’d been sitting in the make up chair for 7 hours since his costume required no make up. That’s right, the look of Karl Childers was all done by BBT (that’s what they call him in the biz) by jutting his jaw out for upwards of 14 hours a day. This is true. It would cramp up so bad that it would lock! That’s dedicating your self to the role, and possibly months of physical therapy!
One pleasant surprise in the cast is John Ritter as Vaughan Cunningham, the local out-of-place gay man in this little backwater town. Ritter plunged into this role head first, coming at it from all angles, and nailed it hard. He really enslaved this character and pumped it up into a throbbing engorged mass of fantastic acting.
Similarly, Dwight Yokum executes a brilliant performance as Doyle Hargraves, the drunk, abusive red-neck boyfriend of little Frank’s mother. This character is a very subtle blend of comic relief and gut wrenching insidiousness.
All in all, I would say that Sling Blade is one of those mainstream movies that’s not really so mainstream and that, once seen, becomes an instant personal classic for anyone. I rank it up there with such wonderful films as The Shawshank Redemption, Cider House Rules and Zapped! starring Scot Baio.
Dec
17th
Holy Crap the New Batman Dark Knight Trailer Rocks
Posted by movieblYes, the crap is mighty holy when it comes to this new trailer! And dear God the quality of the video at this link is enough to make you drop one in your pants…in HD no less!
Dec
16th
Picks of the Month: January 2008
Posted by movieblIt’s that time of the month again. Picks of the Month time! Kickass. There’s a ton of great stuff coming out next month, and quite a bit more stuff that looks absolutely horrible, such as Chair Aerobics For Everyone: Chair Boxing. I wasn’t aware that chairs were allowed in boxing. Or maybe this is a DVD about putting chairs into boxes. That might be handy if you sell chairs on eBay or you like sitting in boxes. At any rate, here are the MovieBlast! Picks of the Month for January 2008…
3:10 to Yuma - DVD | Blu Ray - 1/8/2008
3:10 to Yuma is a remake of an older movie based on a book by Elmore Leonard, who is one of the best Western genre writers of our time…and he also wrote Get Shorty which makes me think he might suffer from multiple personality disorder. We think this movie is great, and by “we” I mean me and the cabal of voices in my head.
Rent | Purchase | Download
American Carny: True Tails From the Circus Sideshow - DVD - 1/8/2008
When was the last time you went to a carnival? I’m not talking about something fancy like Marti Gras, I’m talking about a real carnival. One of those carnivals that just spring up overnight in the parking lot of a condemned K-Mart parking lot with rides like The Zipper, The Puker, and The Aneurysm? These rides are usually very safe even though they look as if they’d been constructed by a special ed shop class using scraps from a plane wreck. THAT kind of carnival. I haven’t been to one in years, but this DVD is all about carnies and it looks cool.
Rent | Purchase | Download
Family Guy: Blue Harvest - DVD -1/15/2008
Here we have the fantastic Star Wars homage/spoof done by the Family Guy guys. Why is this called Blue Harvest? Blue Harvest is also the fake movie name used by George Lucas while filming Return of the Jedi to keep info leaks about it to a minimum. The fake movie name Lucas used for The Phantom Menace was Utter Shit Harvest…little did he know.
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Life of Brian: The Immaculate Edition - DVD | Blu Ray - 1/29/2008
Despite guaranteeing that the members of Monty Python will be spending the afterlife in hell, this movie is an all time comedy classic. But I guess you always gotta look on the bright side of life.
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Shoot ‘Em Up - Blu Ray - 1/1/2008
I haven’t seen this yet, but I’ve heard a lot of good things about it from friends and critics that I admire. The phrases “kickass” and “holy shit” and “freaking awesome” keep coming up when I talk to people about Shoot ‘Em Up, so I betting it’s a rocker.
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Con Air - Blu Ray - 1/8/2008
Here’s the first of two Nicolas Cage movies in this months POM. Con-Air is a flick about a bunch of convicts taking control of a prisoner transport plane. A prisoner transport plane? Airlines can’t even keep track of my luggage and I’m supposed to let them ship convicts around?! Badda bing! No respect, I tell ya.
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The Rock - Blu Ray - 1/8/2008
Here we have the second Nicolas Cage movie of this installment of Picks of the Month and all I have to say is…I don’t really understand the DNA of Sean Connery. Shouldn’t he be dust by now? He’s roughly 110 years old, and yet the older he gets, the cooler he gets, and the more sure I get that he could totally kick my ass.
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