Archive for January, 2010
Pontypool
Pre-Ramble:
“Mrs. French’s fish is missing. The signs are posted all over Fishpants. Have you seen Honey? We’ve all seen the posters, but nobody has seen Honey the fish. Nobody, until last Thursday morning when Ms. Collette Piscine swerved her car, to miss Honey the fish, as she drove across a bridge. Well, this bridge, now slightly damaged, is a bit of a local treasure, and even has its own fancy name: Pont de Poisson. Now, Collette: that sounds like culotte, or ‘short pants’ in French. And Piscine means ‘fish’: Fish Pants. Pont sounds like pant. Poisson also means ‘fish’ in French so, Collette Piscine (or ‘fish pants’) drives over the Pont de Poisson (the ‘fish pants’, if you will) to avoid hitting Mrs. French’s fish, that has been missing in Fishpants.
Fish pants.
Fish pants.
Fishpants.
Pont de Poisson.
What does it mean? It means that you should read the rest of this review.”
Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer
Pre-Ramble:
Welcome to Cooking Cinema with Captain Midnight. Today we’re making something special. You know how sometimes a great gourmet meal just isn’t what you want? Sometimes you get desperate for a really basic meal like pizza, macaroni and cheese, or peanut butter and jelly. You know? There are times when you just want comfort food. I personally like fish tacos. Hey! No snickering back there! What is this? Junior High?
Well, the movie I’m going to talk about now is like comfort food. Or should I say, a comfort film? It’s a real monster of a casserole. Here is what you need: a plumber with anger management issues, monsters, a creepy old house, a local legend, more monsters, a campy sensibility and Robert Englund. Mix thoroughly. Bake until done. Presto! It’s Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer. Serve with popcorn and your favorite beverage!
The Zombie Diaries
Pre-ramble:
“Dear Diary,
It’s been a rough couple of days. As you know, I have a crush on that nice boy Tommy, who lives at the mall. I’ve been trying to get him to notice me, but he doesn’t even know that I’m alive. Okay, so maybe I’m not technically alive! Still, even a living dead girl likes to be noticed once and a while. Oh, Diary, I dream that one day my horde and I will be able to break down those barricades that keep us apart. I’ll be able to tell Tommy how I really feel and then eat his face. Well, Diary, I have to go now. I hear Mom is groaning. It’s dinner time. We’re having a family of five for dinner. My fave!”
No! No! No! Not that kind of zombie diary! This time I’ll be talking about The Zombie Diaries, a totally different kind of zombie diary. I do hope that Tommy gets his face eaten off. She seems like such a nice undead girl.
Evilution
Pre-ramble:
Back in the days of the Mom & Pop video store, in a time before DVDs, in a world before Netflix, there was a young pimply-faced Captain Midnight and his equally pimply-faced sidekick staring at the racks of VHS cases looking for a good horror movie to rent. Neither of us missed any films of interest that hit the theaters, so finding a decent rental that neither of us had seen was a risky business. This was the first era of direct distribution. There were low budget movies that had a limited theater release. There were direct to video releases. Almost none of them were movies that had any kind of promotion. Most of them were bad.
We’d look at the cover. Huh, the cover art looks great, but cover art can be deceptive. We’d turn over the box. There are usually a couple small stills from the movie. The special effects look okay in one of the stills. It looks like there are some good production values. Then we’d read the summary of the plot. If it sounded reasonably interesting, we’d rent the movie, head back to my house and watch it.
Often the best we could hope for was to find a movie that was entertaining enough to watch once– maybe twice. That sort of mediocre horror film was a rental staple. We became quite adept at rooting them out. You might even call it an “evilutionary” development.