Archive for the ‘Reviews’ Category
Sunday, September 20th, 2009
 The real star of "Jennifer's Body" When I first saw Juno, my eyes rolled around so hard in my head I thought they’d shootout my body. The pacing was boring and slow, the character world and speak was ridiculous, and the references to Argento and company seemed sacrilage. But what did I know? Juno won the best script at the Oscars. Now, at the end of Jennifer’s Body’s opening weekend, all the criticism I listed above for Juno is suddenly being applied to JB. And I disagree. (more…)
Tags: Jennifer's Body
Posted by fallon in Reviews | 3 Comments »
Saturday, September 12th, 2009
Mugshots speak louder than words.
 Show Your Fangs! Clockwise from top left: Sara Canning, Kayla Ewell, Candice Accola, Tyler Shields, Krystal Vayda, Nina Dobrev So, what’s the story? We’ve got that and a review of the first episode after the jump. (more…)
Tags: Vampire Diaries
Posted by fallon in News, Reviews | 1 Comment »
Friday, September 11th, 2009
Ok, the story is like this… The Tribe was made, and the studio re-named it The Forgotten Ones. The movie starred Jewel Staite (Firefly, Stargate). The studio then said, “Hey this is a piece of crap, let’s get rid of everyone and everything about it and remake it before it even comes out.” The remake, titled Primal was then changed to The Lost Tribe, and stars Lance Henriksen and Nick Mennell. But, guess what? The Tribe/The Forgotten Ones came out anyway. I watched it, and will now re-re-name it Lost Descent after the two things it seems to be ripping off.
(more…)
Tags: The Forgotten Ones, The Lost Tribe, The Tribe
Posted by ray in News, Reviews, Trailer-Pit | 1 Comment »
Thursday, September 10th, 2009
The Death of Bunny Munro, Nick Cave
Faber and Faber Inc., 278 pages
Bunny Munro is not a hero. He is a philandering door-to-door cosmetics salesman who has many vices and loves to fantasize about Avril Lavigne’s vagina. In the opening of The Death of Bunny Munro, Bunny sits on a hotel bed, downing nips while talking to his severely depressed wife on the phone. After promising to be home early the next morning, Bunny sleeps with a prostitute, and then a server at the hotel restaurant, and after arousing himself again, masturbates in a public restroom.
When Bunny makes his way home, he finds his wife hanging from the window in their bedroom, wearing the orange nightgown she wore on her wedding night. Not knowing what to do next Bunny continuously drinks, smokes and gets off.
After burying his wife, Bunny Munro loads his client list and his nine year old son, Bunny Junior, into his yellow Punto and starts working. Bunny Junior loves his dad very much, and while their road trip started out as a fun vacation, after a few days the child senses that they have no real direction and that this trip will last forever.
While Bunny and his boy are traveling north, a horned, red-faced killer is traveling south, terrorizing the country. Also haunting Bunny is the ghost of his dead wife.
The Death of Bunny Munro is crooner-artist-writer Nick Cave’s first novel since 1989’s And the Ass Saw the Angel, and is a much easier read.
Bunny does some horrific things that force the reader to detest him, but as Bunny runs away from all the love he feels for people, there are times that one feels sorry for the “poor man”. Bunny’s narrative begins eloquently and gradually spirals downward to a hectic, surreal end.
The depraved debauchery of Bunny Munro would be too much for the reader to care about him at all if it wasn’t penned by Nick Cave. He has always had a way of making the audience loathe yet respect his villains like Stagger Lee and Lottie, the curse of Millhaven.
The Death of Bunny Munro is a quick read that is horrific, darkly funny and moving all in one hot pink hardcover.
 The Death of Bunny Munro by Nick Cave
Faber and Faber Inc., 278 pages
Review by Alyson
Bunny Munro is not a hero. He’s a philandering door-to-door cosmetics salesman with many vices, who loves to fantasize about Avril Lavigne’s vagina. In the opening of The Death of Bunny Munro, Bunny sits on a hotel bed, downing nips while talking to his severely depressed wife on the phone. After promising to be home early the next morning, Bunny sleeps with a prostitute, and then a server at the hotel restaurant, and after arousing himself again, masturbates in a public restroom. (more…)
Tags: Nick Cave
Posted by fallon in Reviews | No Comments »
Monday, August 31st, 2009
 Sophie-Ann's is camp to the max. It’s the episode-before-finale for the Season 2 of True Blood. You may wonder what cliff-hanger we got with “Frenzy” (Episode 22). What tasty morsel is expected to carry us through the next two weeks. Well, Bill spent the night playing Yahtzee, Sam moped around with a couple of kids, and the peeps of Bon Temps shat their pants, sat in sinks, and said rude things. On the plus side, the production design of Sophie-Ann’s abode was gorrrrrrrrrrrrgeous. (more…)
Posted by fallon in Reviews | No Comments »
Saturday, August 29th, 2009
 oh noes. All horror fans had a choice at theaters last night. H2 or The Final Destination: 3D. The industrious could pull off a double-feature. I chose to go with some 3D madness, with the intent of a theater hop to H2. Unfortunately, by the time the movie was over, I felt so bummed, I didn’t want to taint Rob Zombie with my bad mood. So. The Final Destination follows a group of kids so bland I couldn’t remember anyone’s names as I left the movie, and even now, I don’t feel especially moved to look them up on IMDB now (as I suspect other reviewers must be doing). It’s the worst of the quadrilogy, and the biggest waste of 3D. What I would have given to see the plate glass pancake in 3D, or the flying logs. (more…)
Tags: 3D, The Final Destination
Posted by fallon in Reviews | No Comments »
Tuesday, August 18th, 2009
 Eric vs. Bill: Round 1... Fight! After “I Will Rise Up” (Episode 20), there’s a mere three episodes left to season 2 of True Blood. So how did our countdown to the end begin? With a series of mini-climaxes to the tension of the last few weeks, but with the promise that THERE IS STILL SHIT TO GO DOWN. HBO teased that this would be the week fans’ fantasies came true, but would also leave them heartbroken. This episode – paced slower than our last three – held some of the series’ most poignant moments yet. (more…)
Tags: True Blood
Posted by fallon in Reviews | 2 Comments »
Saturday, August 15th, 2009
When District 9 ended, my movie-viewing partner turned to me and said one word. “Finally.” And since last night, I’ve told anyone who’s asked one of the following phrases: “loved it,” “fantastic,” or “fucking fantastic.” At one point, the phenomenal might have even slipped out.
So what’s so special about District 9? Is it just that I’ve been disappointed by almost everything I pay money to go see? Is District 9 just good by comparison, the way some nay-sayers would have us believe? (Naysayers currently make up only a little over a mere 10% of RottenTomatoes reviews, for those who follow the tome of RT.) My answer is no. Even if the only movies I’d ever seen were things like Alien or The Exorcist, I’m pretty sure I still would have thought Neill Blomkamp’s s movie was a good one.
Here’s the plot. Over twenty years ago, an alien mothership came to hover over Johannesburg. Humans eventually break into the cargo, and discover a legion of giant, insect-like aliens, which we dub as “prawns.” The prawns are set up in a secluded slum, where their stripped of their arms, regularly searched, and at the general mercy of opportunists – in this case, the “helpful” government and Nigerian gangsters – looking to exploit the prawns and their weapon technology.
Meanwhile, the residents of Johannesburg, we learn through documentary-style footage want nothing more than for the aliens to get the eff out. To placate their citizens, military contractors and District 9 landlords Multinational United (MNU) organize an evacuation to move the prawns 200 miles outside the city. Their evacuation efforts are complete with shiny brochures, unethical contracts, and all you would expect from The Man. Spearheading the effort is District 9’s spineless protagonist, Wikus Van De Merwe, the son-in-law of MNU’s head honcho.
Wikus is despicable off the bat, sniveling and smiling like a true sucker for the camera as he leads the evacuations. For any audience members who wonder if Wikus is just a sucker, fooled by MNU into thinking he’s doing a good deed and maybe we should feel bad for him, this allusion shatters fairly quickly when we see Wikus set fire to a shack of prawn babies. Things go wrong quickly for the evacuation, after Wikus discovers a vial of fluid. What transpires is better left seen than read in a review.
District 9 is so methodical in its styles of storytelling. It’s told from the perspectives of documentary, news footage, handheld camera, and “regular” (for lack of a better term) camera work. Blomkamp has a great sense of when enough is enough. Just when the documentary style starts to veer on grating, he switches to a style that better suits the scene. All of the talking heads in these scenes give credible performances to boot. (Greatly appreciated after the last movie I watched using this: The Poughkeepsie Tapes. Ugh.)
As our leading man, Wikus, Sharlto Copley plays the flawed protagonist to intriguing depths. When initially watching the trailer for District 9, people’s first impulses seemed to be a muse of, “Huh. Realistic. I bet that IS what would really happen.” So it’s no novel commentary to say that District 9 as a movie is believable. But it’s more than just the story’s general concept of Bad Government that’s believable – it’s this story of Wikus! His character arc is just fascinating, and one of the best portrayals of humanity I’ve seen in such a long time. It’s the sort of thing you’d expect from some big-to-do drama, not a sci-fi/thriller. Of course, District 9 is also an action movie. The alien technology, creatures, and gore are all great.
Overall, I left the theater feeling like I’d just seen something special and worthy. I also left with questions of “Should District 9 have a sequel?” ringing through my head. Even though I wanted so badly to know what happens next, I don’t think “what happens next” could ever be as interesting as “what just happened” in that movie. A neat, tidy bow just isn’t the order of the day here. Yet, I never felt cheated as an audience member. How about that.
 When District 9 ended, my movie-viewing partner turned to me and said one word. “Finally.” And since last night, I’ve told anyone who’s asked one of the following phrases: “loved it,” “fantastic,” or “fucking fantastic.” At one point, phenomenal might have even slipped out.
So what’s so special about District 9? Is it just that I’ve been disappointed by almost everything I pay money to go see? Is District 9 just good by comparison, the way some nay-sayers would have us believe? (Naysayers currently make up only a little over a mere 10% of RottenTomatoes reviews, for those who follow the tome of RT.) My answer is no. Even if the only movies I’d ever seen weren’t stuff like G.I.Joe or Transformers 2, I’m pretty sure I still would have thought Neill Blomkamp’s movie was a good one. (more…)
Posted by fallon in Reviews | 6 Comments »
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