The Mist

Over the years, I have become disillusioned with Stephen King. Not that I think he is a poor writer, or that I am better than him. On the contrary, I think he is an excellent writer; one whom I aspire to be like one day. However, I think he has become the institution. He has become big business, so to speak. Once, his novels of horror were truly frightening and innovative. They were crisp and fresh and unique. While they have stayed unique, they have lost their freshness, somewhat.

I speak of the novels he wrote when I tuned out, i.e., It, Needful Things, The Tommyknockers, et al. Good stories? I hated It and I could not get into Tommyknockers, but I loved Needful Things. Problem? They are - to coin a phrase - Gi-normous! I mean, honestly, do you need 1000 pages to tell the story? Have you ever heard of a trilogy? Break it up a little, man, will ya? I'll buy the books.

Of course, Stephen King being the icon that he is, he's going to take some shots, just because. I just made the suggestion that he break up some of his bigger novels; well, that was the major complaint when his Green Mile series came out. Some people had a huge issue with him breaking up the book and selling it to the public in installments. They claimed that he was bilking them out of their money, squeezing their wallets dry, so to speak. I am sure that he knows, of all of us, that you can't make everyone happy.

I am sure that even he is not happy. Especially when it comes to the film adaptions of his books. For the most part, they are awful! Sure, The Shining rocks; both of them. And I loved The Dead Zone and Christine, but some (most) of the films based on his novels suck. They veer from the story so much that you think that Hollywood is just using the title (i.e., Lawnmower Man; remember that piece of crap? Woof!)

The Mist, however, is Stephen King's redemption. An outstanding piece of horror that starts out slow and methodical. It peppers the viewer with little bits and pieces before dropping the whole bowl of evil chili on them. The atmosphere is very good and the effects are great (the monsters look grand), but the real stars are the characters. As I always say, the characters are what drive the movie. The Mist had some of the best characters that I have seen in a long time. They were quirky and real, and you loved them and you hated them and you were sad when they died. Kudos to the actors for bringing them to life, kudos to the director for undoubtedly nudging the actors in the right way, and kudos to Stephen King for creating those characters in the first place!

And right when you think that The Mist could turn sucky, it does the amazing: it stupefies you with the unexpected, and shocks itself into legitimacy. Shocks the viewer into accepting its legitimacy. The theatre was very quiet when the credits rolled, and it was not because people hated the movie; it was because they were stunned.

Great horror.

Kids movie? Absolutely not. Gore, violence, foul language, scares, wicked spiders and nightmarish creatures.

Date movie? Well, my date loved it, but she loves horror. If your date is not a huge horror fan, then skip it.

I give The Mist eight out of eight tentacles!

Beowulf

"I ... am ... Beowulf!"

Most people grow up with cartoons. Up until recently, once a person reached adulthood, they would grow out of those cartoons, save for the rare few. Looney Toons always pleased, and Disney would strike the right chords most times, but there was still something missing. That missing element was a level of adult action and drama that could only be found in books and in movies.

In the recent past, cartoons fans who had grown up to become animators and writers began spearheading a movement to make more adult cartoons. Batman: The Animated Series, Superman, and the Justice League were some excellent examples of those cartoons that werte produced for American television. Japan released scores of more adult cartoons, dubbed anime by most. Cowboy Beebop, Samurai Champloo, and the Big O were some powerful titles that worked on a level that was even more adult than the American superhero cartoons. However, these cartoons had not reached the maturity of some very simple movies. They could be shown on Cartoon Network, and they were Rated PG or PG-13, at best. Adult cartoon fans needed more; they needed some Rated-R cartoons.

Those fans got their wish in the form of Beowulf.

Horrorfest - 8 Films 2 Die 4

Horrorfest is back with its 2007 edition. Eight independent horror movies are being shown in limited release throughout the country between November 9th - 18th, 2007. If you want more detailed information, visit the official Horrorfest website at the following address ...

www.horrorfestonline.com

I cannot list all the theaters here, nor can I give any detailed previews of the eight movies that have been slated for release, but I can help out some local horror fans.

Massachusetts theatres showing Horrorfest 2007:
The Bellingham 14, Bellingham, MA
The Fresh Pond Cinema, Cambridge, MA
The AMC Liberty Tree 20, Danvers, MA
The Methuen 20, Methuen, MA, and
The Springfield Plaza, Springfield, MA

The movies on the schedule are as follows:

• Borderland - A road-trip to a Mexican bordertown runs afoul of cultists (starring Rider Strong from Cabin Fever)
• Crazy Eights - Secrets and hauntings beleague childhood friends reunited
• The Deaths of Ian Stone - A man who dies everyday, and wakes up as someone else
• Lake Dead - Dark family secrets surrounding a lake-side motel
• Mulberry Street - Apocalyptic struggle for survival in a New York apartment complex
• Nightmare Man - A woman's nightmares may be real
• Tooth and Nail - Another post-apocalyptic struggle for survival, this time starring Michael Madsen, Vinnie Jones, and Rider Strong
• Unearthed - Monster terrorizing a New Mexican town

Which films look the best? After checking out the previews on the Horrorfest website, I think that The Deaths of Ian Stone, Crazy Eights, and Mulberry Street look the best.

Which films look like garbage? Tooth and Nail and Lake Dead look very bad.

Currently, there are no show times for the movies in Massachusetts. If the festival is anything like last year, then there will be three movies shown on Friday, 11/16/07, three on Saturday, 11/17/07, and three on Sunday, 11/18/07.

That's nine movies, you say? Last year they slipped two bonus movies in as a surprise. (More money for DVD sales, too ...)

Halloween in Newburyport, MA

Halloween 2007

I consider myself the unofficial Prince of Halloween. It has always been my favorite day of the year, and the months leading up to it are just as magical for me. Oddly enough, my house is completely dark every October 31st. No candy, no kids, no nothing. Why? I'll tell you ...

I spend every Halloween up in Newburyport, Massachusetts, helping to put on a Halloween Trick-or-Treat spectacular for the neighborhood kids. We pull in people from all over the city, and sometimes farther away.


Each year, we have a theme. One year, we dressed as pirates, and the King and Queen of Halloween, the hosts for this event, erected a pirate ship in their driveway. One year, we reenacted the War of the Worlds, including aliens, terrified citizens, and riot police (all actors, of course). Last year, we turned Marlboro Street in Newburyport into the land of OZ (Judy Garland, not HBO). And this year? This year, we conjured up some magic with the world of Harry Potter. (Above: Folks enjoying the floating candles; note the flying car stuck in the tree.)



It really is something to see, but don't look at the props, or the costumes, or the candy, look at the faces of the kids as they marvel at their favorite characters, no matter what the genre. Look at the faces of the adults as they reflect on their own past Halloweens. And look at our faces, because we are happy just to be able to bring smiles to all those other faces.

A thank you needs to go out to the neighborhood of Marlboro Street, Newburyport. The residents have been patient and understanding as hordes of children have knocked on their doors, on the way to our door. (This year, we estimate that 800 trick-or-treaters, and maybe an equal number of parents, came to see the Harry Potter event). And those same neighbors have helped us as we have put the finishing touches on the show. And a thank you needs to go out to the King and Queen of Halloween. It is their selflessness that has made so many people happy.

Happy Halloween to one and all!


(Above: A young Draco Malfoy takes direction from a roof-bound Lord Voldemort.)

Poll #3: What is your favorite movie monster?

I hope everyone had a happy Halloween. Our movie fan poll shows that we seem to like classic movie monsters better. "Old school!"

30 Days of Night

30 Days of Night

This movie is what is right about Hollywood. It is a miracle, actually, that it was made. Not because of anything that happened, or because of any hardships during shooting; of those I know nothing. It is a miracle because it goes against everything that Hollywood has done recently, save for the Harry Potter movies. More of that later. First, 30 Days of Night...

This is a very scary vampire movie, one that dares to re-imagine our vision of the vampire. I will give some credit to the original creator, Steve Niles, the writer of the graphic novel, 30 Days of Night; he hatched the idea. The filmmakers, however, made the idea work.

Set in the most northern American city, a place named Barrow, Alaska, 30 Days of Night tells the story of an isolated town besieged by a pack of vampires who want everything the little town has to offer: blood and darkness. Barrow has the distinction of having 30 days of darkness every winter, due to its position on the globe. For vampires, this is, of course, heaven. For the residents of Barrow, Alaska, this is hell.

The vampires are seemingly unstoppable killing machines, and only a few survivors hold up in out-of-the-way places, hoping to ride out the remainder of the 30 days until the sun returns. The atmosphere is incredibly creepy and filled with feelings of foreboding doom. The scares are real and powerful, and most of the imagery is very disturbing. The action is hard-hitting. And the acting is excellent.

The vampires: The vampires are fresh and re-imagined. They are savage predators who show many attributes of birds, including their soul-rending screeches. They seem too savage to even have reason, but they are calculating and tricky, and they use many tactics to hunt down their prey. They even speak their own language, which seems to be some ancient mixing of Russian and German, and this adds to their mystique. Personally, I hate movies and TV shows that involve vampires being killed like some many cheap zombies. Vampires should be a deadly menace that protagonists would be lucky to escape from, never mind defeat. Although many vampires get taken down and some even chopped up in this movie, it is clear that there is only two ways for them to actually be destroyed. And those ways are 1000111000111000 00111011011100110 1001111101001001010101010110110 1011010100101010011110 10101011010110000 10110. And that's how you do it. Anyway, moving on.

As mentioned earlier, Hollywood did everything right, thereby beating the odds. Well, they did everything right by doing a couple of things wrong. Mainly, they did not follow the graphic novel. This worked well since I believe that the graphic novel, while nicely ... painted ... was not of the best quality. Ghost House Pictures went in their own direction, and they picked the right direction, seemingly. The characters were better in the movie. They were a lot more full and full of life, which made you worry about them more. The vampires were not part of some huge underground movement. Their backgrounds were left to the imagination, which is the best way to handle that sort of thing. And no one else knew of their existence, which made the story less silly than the graphic novel. Not to toss any disparaging comments against such a popular piece of work; like I said, it was painted well. In an abstract sort of way.

Bring the kids? Absolutely not. The scares are huge and there are many disturbing parts. Many. Heck, a guy gets his head chopped off onscreen, and I am still questioning whether or not it was real. (If that actor is reading this, send us a post to let us know you are alright.)

Date movie? I'm going to say no. Unless you know your date likes scary, gruesome movies.

I give 30 Days of Night ten out of ten headstones. Go see this movie right now.

Poll #2: What is your favorite movie genre?

We're ending our second poll early. What is your favorite movie genre? Our movie fan poll shows that the western has beat out the other choices. Yee-haw!

The Host

For me, this movie was a shot in the dark. I heard a few good things, so I went out and bought a copy. Some might call that foolish, but I have had pretty good luck with random movie purchases. Unfortunately, later that same day, a friend of mine told me that The Host was not that good a movie. In fact, he said that, other than one really good scene, it was a waste of money.

Well, I watched The Host the other night and I was very pleased. It was an outstanding horror / comedy movie! The DVD jacket says that it rivals Jaws; while I do not totally agree with that, it is a great movie in just about every aspect I could think of.

The story is a fresh take on an old theme, one that started long ago with Herman Melville's Moby Dick. A monster takes something from the main character, or in this case characters, and they feel the need to hunt that monster down and reap vengeance. We have seen this theme before in many movies, including but not limited to, Jaws, Orca, Lake Placid, to a degree, and, of course, Moby Dick. This theme is done well in The Host; well enough to put it in the same rank as those movies. Especially Jaws; more on that later...

The cinematography was excellent. The scenes were filmed with a sharpness that only a seasoned filmmaker could capture. Tunnels were dirty, reeds were growing wild, snow was cold, and the monster was scary.

The special effects? Fantastic. The first time you see the monster - which was a very original design, by the way - the scene is made to look incredibly real. At times, I was reminded of news footage. Back to the monster: it was not only very original, but it was interesting and impressive. It was given a character of its own, so to speak, meaning that you saw aspects of a real animal in the way it acted and the way it moved. At the beginning, it was clumsy and random, but as the movie progressed, the monster gained the grace that a maturing animal would have. It was very well done, indeed.

The characters, which are what drives a film, are awesome! Jaws was not about a killer shark; Jaws was about the men who hunted it. Forget the monster, focus on the people. In The Host, those people are very rich and they are all likable. You instantly, and I mean instantly, care for them and want them to succeed. They make this film work. And what is really impressive about the characters is that you can see them change as people as the film goes on - every single one of them (except the focus of the film's story, which is not who you think it is). This film is very deep and I recommend it to anyone who enjoys a good horror with some comedy in it. If you liked Lake Placid and if you liked Jaws, then you will like The Host.

But watch it in the original Korean with English subtitles. Dubbed movies are stupid and they make the dialogue very silly. Silly enough to ruin the movie.

Kids movie? Nope. Too scary. Just because kids are in the movie does not make it a kids movie. There is gore, there are scares, and there are heavy thematic elements. No kids.

Date movie? Could be. There are enough laughs to keep most people going. Just make sure your date likes subtitled movies and monster movies. And that is what this is: a good, old-fashioned, new-fangled monster movie.

On the hydra scale of movie critiquing, I give The Host seven out of seven heads.

3:10 to Yuma

3:10 to Yuma (2007)

I am not a big fan of remakes. Most remakes are awful, Hollywood-tainted pieces of garbage that are less of a good film and more of a patchwork of "cool" scenes. I prefer remakes of movies I have not yet seen; that way, I have no expectations to be ruined. I never saw the original 3:10 to Yuma, so I was excited for this 2007 remake to begin with. But there was another obstacle that I had to overcome first.

Westerns are either hit or miss. Some are great (The Magnificent Seven, The Searchers, Unforgiven, etc.), while others plainly suck. Most modern westerns seem to be 90 minute music videos that use Hong Kong cinema-style action, which has no place in a true western. Was this new 3:10 to Yuma going to be one of those Young Guns / Bad Girls crap westerns?

The cast helped, and they delivered. I believed that Christian Bale was a down-and-out rancher on the edge of ruin. He pulled the role off perfectly, and when the character needed to evolve, Bale did so at the right pace. Russell Crowe was outstanding as the coldblooded killer that must be taken to the train and then to his fate. His character appeared simple at first, but you saw that he was, instead, very complex. I loved Alan Tudyk (of Firefly / Serenity fame) as the veterinarian playing doctor. He was, although predictable, the well timed comic relief that was not comic; the perfect straight man, so to speak. The star of the show, in my opinion, was Ben Foster. He played the angelic mutant named Angel in X-Men: The Last Stand. Here, though, he was nothing even close to angelic. He was a purely evil and wicked gunslinger who acted as Russell Crowe's second-in-command. He had the best scenes, including a really cool disguise scene. The man was awesome!

So, I bet you guessed I loved the movie? Safe bet from the way I have been talking. It had an excellent story (written by Elmore Leonard, whom I am not a fan of). It was well paced. It had an enveloping atmosphere. It had great action. And, most importantly, it had quality characters.

Bring the kids? I wouldn't. Lots of violence. A guy burns to death. There's an operation (late 19th Century style).

Date movie? I think so. The chicks dig Bale and Crowe, so you can't go wrong there. And the things that I would keep the kids away for? Not that bad date-wise.

On a six-shooter scale, one bullet being the worst and six being the best, I give this movie six bullets.

(I bought the original on DVD, so I will let you know how it was as soon as I am done.)

Tales from the Pub

I stumbled across these You Tube movies today. I know they are not "real" movies, but they are great pieces of amateur film making. Very smart and very funny. Below is the website, and I included some of the Tales from the Pub shorts at the bottom of the page. Enjoy!

http://www.bantamstreet.com/projects

Poll # 1: Which Star Wars movie was the best?

We're ending our first poll early. Which Star Wars movie was the best? Our movie fan poll has The Empire Strikes Back coming out on top in a unanimous decision!

What polls would you like to see in the future? Post your requests.

The Simpsons Movie

Every movie should be as fun as The Simpsons Movie! I just got in from watching The Simpsons Movie, and I was floored at how good it was. I am a Simpsons fan. Not a fanatic, mind you, although one is derrived from the other. I am a fan, though, but I must say that this movie was better than any stand alone episode. I must have laughed from the beginning right to the end, with a reflective moment in the middle to comtemplate family.

The creators had a lot of fun with this movie. Not always clean fun, mind you, but fun all the same. It was refreshing to see that, although risque at times, the creators did not take the freedom allowed by a movie too far. Although there is a penis sighting...

This movie has all your favorite characters, although some of the better ones took a back seat because this movie was mostly about, of course, the Simpsons.

Lots of shots at the US government and the Republican party. Normally, I am not a fan of that, but these shots were done well and kept to the humorous theme of The Simpsons.

Date movie? I think so. Although feel out your date... (Feel OUT, I said.) If they are not a fan, they might not dig this movie as much as you do. Anyone who can appreciate comedy should be able to enjoy themselves, though.

Take the kids? Maybe, but not the younger ones. And, at that, the parent should check it out first, of at least know some facts. There is a penis sighting, like I said. There is also an incident of underaged drinking. And the bong hit, we mustn't forget that (adult character... fans should be able to guess the identity of the one who partakes). And one (I think) incident of vulgar language. This movie was, for all intents and purposes, a longer version of the TV show; if your kids watch that, and if you can get over those humps I just mentioned, then they should be fine.

Based on a hybrid, backwards version of the Wong-Baker Faces Pain Rating Scale, I give this movie a 6 on a scale of 1 to 6, 1 being the worst, 6 being the best. Enjoy!

We're Ba-aack!

Hey Movie Fans! Just thought I'd let you know that ReclaimHollywood is back. For those of you who noticed, our movie website was down and out for a bit. And the fact that it remained out of commission for so long speaks about how unhappy the staff was about the website in general. Movie fans speaking their minds was the original seed for this website, but our old setup worked against that very ability. Movie fans could not talk to each other, nor could the staff truly talk to the movie fans. Here, however, we have a different story...

Here, at blogger.com, we at ReclaimHollywood.com want to offer you movie fans what you truly deserve - a place to air your gripes! Or - a place to talk about your favorite movies! Or - a place to debate the best parts of the best movies! Or - WHATEVER!

So, have fun ... try to keep it clean ... and post, post, post!

Yours truly,
JFLY and the ReclaimHollywood.com staff