Zack and Miri Make a Porno

Stay away, stay away, STAY AWAY!



In recent years, there have been several R rated comedies that were actually decent. I often site The 40 Year Old Virgin and The Wedding Crashers as raunchy comedies that are unexpectedly good. With this in mind, I decided to give Zack and Miri a try.


This film was written and directed by Kevin Smith (Clerks, Dogma) and stars Seth Rogen (40 Year Old Virgin, Knocked Up) and Elizabeth Banks (40 Year Old Virgin).


Zack and Miri had all of the raunch (and then some) and none of the good qualities of the good aforementioned R-rated comedies. When you get past all of the sex-jokes, which seemed like hundreds, you are left with the most cliched storylines ever. The guy and girl fall in love (whodathunk?) and then have a misunderstanding and break up (gasp!). I won't tell you the ending, but I will tell you that it was a happy ending (so unexpected!).


I would not recommend this film to anyone except maybe huge Kevin Smith fans. Rogen and Banks fans will be disappointed, and porno fans will definitely be disappointed.


My Rating
BELOW AVERAGE

Night of the Living Dead

Wanted: Undead or Alive

The first horror movie I ever saw was a 1968 film about corpses that came back to life. It was a life changing event for me. I was horrified and an anxious wreck, but I loved every minute of it. When I watched Night of the Living Dead that first time, my love affair with horror movies was born!

Every Halloween season, I break out the ol' Night of the Living Dead dvd. This nostalgic tradition almost always reflares my passion for horror. For over an hour I am an eleven year old kid again, horrified, as I watch ghouls eat bits and pieces of human flesh. Yum!

I could not recommend this movie to everyone. Not even all fans of horror would like this. Not even all fans of the zombie subgenre would like this. I've known many who find NOTLD to be dated and boring. But horror fans that have a particular taste for independent films or classic films should enjoy this. In fact, I'm sure that most horror fans have seen this already. If you haven't seen it, what are you waiting for, the dead to rise?

My Rating

ABOVE AVERAGE

Isolation

Mad Cow, Frightened People

An Irish farmer allows a local scientist to do experiments on his cows, with horrifying results! Don't let the premise fool you, this film is anything but silly. Isolation (2006) is a serious horror film that is surprisingly good.

When I popped the DVD into the player, I was expecting a campy, fun horror movie. Boy was I ever wrong.

Set entirely on one man's farm with a small group of characters, the title of the film is quite apt. The feeling of isolation is strong throughout the film. Also, the feeling of claustrophobia is present (especially in the water scenes). A farm can be a vast, expansive place; but inside the barn and inside the small stalls, everything feels up-close-and-personal. The atmosphere and pacing reminded me of the classic lowbudget masterpiece, Halloween (1978).

There were no frills, quick editing, or CGI; just a straightforward, solid, well crafted horror film. Sometimes that's all you can ask for.

Well, there was one more thing that I would've asked for from this movie: a light moment. Isolation was so dark and serious that it became sort of a detraction. Not one smile was cracked, not one moment of joy was had. In one of my favorite horror movies, The Exorcist (1973), there was a scene with some playful banter between a detective and a priest. That scene eased some tension before building the tension up again in the next scene. It's kind of like a rollercoaster, and most good horror movies know that there has to be some lighter scenes to offput the tense and dark scenes.

Despite all of the tension and darkness, Isolation left me with a good feeling. A feeling that not every modern horror film is bottom-of-the-barrel junk.

My Rating
ABOVE AVERAGE

The Day The Earth Stood Still

It's the end of the world as we know it

Movies with violent aliens are action movies. Movies with peaceful aliens are moral-driven social commentaries. The Day The Earth Stood Still has peaceful aliens.

Directed by Robert Wise, of West Side Story fame, The Day The Earth Stood Still was tense, clever, and constructed to always keep the viewer interested. It certainly deserves it's place in the sci-fi classics.

Klaatu, a peaceful humanoid alien, came to earth with his robot, Gort, bringing a message. He is immediately met with violence, and, after escaping from a hospital, must go into hiding. There is an obvious anti-violence and anti-nuclear message in this film. If this movie were made today, it would come off as heavy-handed.

As a matter of fact, this movie is being made today, in remake form. I wouldn't be surprised, however, if the remake shied away from the social messages and focused on the dazzling visual effects found in the story. Klaatu will be played by Keanu Reeves. I can't think of a better fit. Keanu's performances are always so wooden and unnatural, playing an alien who has no human emotions seems perfect.

--Above Average

Dead Alive

Schlock and Awe

In ancient Rome, gladiators fighting to the death drew huge masses of spectators. In the old west, public hangings were huge events and drew large crowds. Now that such public carnage is no longer around, where can people go to sate there need for viewing carnage? "Dead Alive" can fill the gore void.

I would venture to guess that the average movie-goer knows Peter Jackson as the director of the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy. But most don't know about his sordid past as a horror/comedy director. "Dead Alive" was Jackson's third feature, and he didn't have any studio execs looking over his shoulder, so he was able to include all the excess of extreme gore that he wanted.

The gore may have been excessive, but it was presented in a humorous way, so it was far less disturbing than it could have been if it was presented in a realistic manner. The humor in this horror/comedy was not conventional-movie-comedy. Instead of humorous situations, one-liners, and sight gags; "Dead Alive" has loads of gross-out gags. I'll give one non-spoiler example: A woman, who is turning into a zombie, is having custard with guests. While they are eating, pus shoots out of the woman's arm and into her guest's custard. He, of course, proceeds to eat the pus-laden custard. Funny stuff, I know.

Jackson packs so much gore into this movie that it seems like an addiction. Jackson reminds me of a small child that learned how to make a noise on an electronic toy. All afternoon, that same electronic noise is played over and over again until you just want to smash the toy against the wall. But Jackson directs with such glee that it is hard to be annoyed while you are watching all the fun being had.

--Average

Diary Of The Dead

Return of the Living Legend

George Romero has been making zombie movies since his 1968 release of "Night Of The Living Dead." I can remember watching NotLD when I was around twelve years old. The experience made a lasting impression on me; I was horrified and had to turn it off right at the scene in which the zombies were munching on Tom and Judy's toasty carcasses.

Now that I am at the ripe old age of 24, and I have seen lots of onscreen munching, the scares are not as effective on me. However, the new George Romero film,"Diary Of The Dead," was more than just scares and setups for scares. The social commentary contained in "Diary Of The Dead" was obviously just as important to Romero as the gore.

Just as Romero saw racism and violence as a problem in the sixties when he made "Night", he now sees the importance of technology and the media as a problem and has infused that message into "Diary." One of the most powerful moments in the movie is a scene in which a young woman pleaded for a man with a video camera to put down the camera and come save her from the undead, and, of course, he just keeps on shooting instead of helping.

One of the main problems I have with "Diary Of The Dead" is the use of computer graphics. Call me old fashioned, but I consider squibs and other practical effects to be much more visually believable than cgi. Computer graphics, to me, are only believable if they are used minimally and professionally. "Diary" had too low of a budget to pull off the big gory computer graphics.

Legendary George Romero may still be putting powerful social commentary in his zombie movies, but, for me, the scares and the effects fall flat.

--Average

Tarantula

Thar she grows


When my family first got cable, when I was 13 or 14, I used to watch animal documentaries on the Discovery Channel. The documentaries that featured spiders and scorpions especially intrigued me because the footage creeped me out. Those arachnids moved in a way that was so alien to me, it put chills down my spine.

"Tarantula" (1955) creeps me out in the same way that those Discovery Channel documentaries creeped me out, except on a larger scale. The film used actual footage of a tarantula and blue-screened it into the movie. The effects were so well done, it was easy to imagine that there actually was a 100 foot tarantula walking across the desert plain.

Near the beginning of the film, we learned that scientific experimentation and the destruction of the laboratory cages let loose a giant tarantula. A doctor, a sheriff, and a local journalist tried to discover what was causing mysterious cattle deaths, only to find that it was, of course, a giant tarantula.

I was surprised at how quick the pace of "Tarantula" was, considering most movies from the 1950's drag a bit. The swift pace and excellent effects made for an enjoyable viewing experience, though the version I saw was pan and scan.


Above Average

House By The Cemetery

Gory Gory Hallelujah

All you really need to know is that an evil murderer is in the cellar. The rest of the story is erratic, confusing, and worst of all boring.

Lucio Fulci is an Italian director known for having gruesome killings in his movies, and "House By The Cemetery" is no different. Yet, this movie somehow managed to be ghastly boring. There were several bloody deaths that peppered the tedium, including a scissors through the head, a scissors through the heart, a throat being sliced open with a knife, and many more. The entire time I was watching, I was either checking my watch or wincing from the onscreen brutality.

The music sounded so eighties, and the dubbing was hilariously bad. Whenever the young boy spoke, I couldn't help but chuckle. It didn't have that b-movie charm that has drawn me to many other old horror movies, mostly because it seemed like there was a fairly big budget.

The Italian horror genre has a lot of hype behind it, and recently I decided to see what the hype is about. "House By The Cemetery" has been my first foray into Italian horror, and I'm hoping that this was not one of the better movies of the genre. I plan on watching Italian horror standards "Zombi" and "Suspiria" in the future. Hopefully those will fair better.


--Below Average

The Happening

What You Don't Know Can Hurt You


Human extinction is a subject that is worth some thought. A natural disaster is plausible, and a natural disaster can be downright scary if we don't know what is going on.

M. Night Shyamalan wrote and directed "The Happening," a tense sci-fi thriller about a small group of people that are running from an unknown toxin that is being released into the air. Shyamalan directed one of my favorite movies called "Signs." That movie was all about suspense and shadows, while "The Happening" was all about carnage and b-movie style.

Mark Wahlberg and Zooey Deschanel gave stiff performances that somehow seemed natural in a movie such as this. John Leguizamo had the hardest role to play, as a father who left his child behind with friends; but he was quite convincing.

Overall, "The Happening" was creepy; and it had one jump-out-of-your-seat moment, which seems to be a requirement for thrillers these days.


--Above Average

Blood Feast

The Birth Of Gore


In 1963, a monumental film was premiered at a drive-in in Peoria, Illinois. This film would break new ground, and become a cult classic.

When I had the chance to watch "Blood Feast," about 45 years later, I was amazed to find out that the very first gore movie premiered in Peoria, about 20 minutes from my home. There's an old saying: "Will it play in Peoria?" "Blood Feast" played in Peoria phenomenally well, due to word of mouth.

What was all the chat about? Explicit Gore. And lots of it. There had never been anything like this, in all of it's full-color glory. By today's standards, "Blood Feast" is unrealistic and tame. But I still enjoyed the film because of the b-movie charm and the buckets of bright red fake blood. There was plenty of over-the-top acting, gooey gross carnage, and the chief of police was reading his lines off of his hand!

Writer/director Herschell Gordon Lewis would go on to make many more bloody, campy, gooey movies (including "The Wizard of Gore" and "The Gore Gore Girls"), but none of them would have the same impact as "Blood Feast."

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