Category: movies

My Name is Bruce on DVD

After a short run on the big screen, My Name is Bruce on DVD hits the shelves today. For those who haven’t heard about this latest project from the star of the Evil Dead movies, it’s basically Three Amigos meets Bruce Campbell.

I didn’t get a chance to see it in the theater myself, but the reviews from those who did seem to agree that if you’re a Bruce Campbell fan, you’ll love its campy, self-mocking brilliance … if not, you may find it stupid. As a BC fan from way back, I just placed my order with Amazon.com this morning. Gotta support The Chin, baby!

Go watch the trailer, if you haven’t already.

Check out this great interview with Bruce Campbell over at Den of Geek, to get you in the mood. I loved reading how much he hated Ash’s chainsaw … and why.

Visit Mark Verheiden’s blog — he’s the guy who wrote the movie, as well as some great episodes of Battlestar Galactica and Smallville, and is currently trying to fix Heroes.

Or click through to see a larger version of the poster …

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New York Comic Con 2009 Wrap-Up

Here are 5 things I learned at the New York Comic Con this weekend …

1) The Watchmen movie is going to ROCK! We got to watch the first 18 minutes of the movie, as well as a 30 second scene from somewhere in the middle, and I have to say, any reservations I might have had this time last year were completely dispelled. Just as he did with 300, Zach Snyder has done a fantastic job of making this film look and feel like a comic book brought to life. And in this case, it’s almost as if he’s used the comic pages themselves as the storyboards, duplicating panels down to the last detail. Dave Gibbons himself was there to talk about it, and it was clear that he couldn’t have been more thrilled with what Snyder had done with the material. March 6th can’t come soon enough.

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Alien Trespass

Every once in a while, somebody tries to recapture the genie in a bottle that was “Sci-Fi Movies in the 50s”. It’s not an easy task. Ask today’s “sophisticated” audiences, and they’ll tell you that one of the reasons “campy” movies like Forbidden Planet and Earth vs. the Flying Saucers worked so well in the 50s is that people simply didn’t know any better. They didn’t know what would one day be possible in a post-CGI world, and therefore embraced the best they could get.

As we sit and wait for the visual extravaganza that will be Terminator: Salvation this year, it’s easy to dismiss a movie like the original The Day the Earth Stood Still as simple and unexciting by comparison. After all, it’s in black and white, and the special effects are so OBVIOUS, and the alien looks like a normal man. And yet, while I haven’t seen it yet, by most accounts the 2008 remake starring Keanu Reeves was a huge letdown … despite being in color and having a multi-million dollar special effects budget. Likewise, I personally wasn’t all that impressed with Spielberg’s CGI-laden 2005 retelling of The War of the Worlds. Bigger and fancier doesn’t always equate to better.

All of which is my pretense for talking about an independent flick due out later this year, called Alien Trespass, produced and directed by X-Files alum R.W. Goodwin.

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X-Men Origins: Wolverine

Not sure if this movie will be any good or not. The story looks like it’s all over the place, complete with a collection of B-List Marvel heroes/villains (Sabertooth, Gambit, The Blob, and possibly a young Storm) tossed in for flavor. But at least visually, the trailer is compelling …

My Name is Bruce – Movie Trailer

I’ve known about My Name is Bruce for more than a year now, but refused to post about it until I could get my hands on a trailer that wasn’t fuzzy and the size of a postage stamp. Now that the movie’s actually been released (in a very limited capacity), the trailer has improved …

Basically, it’s Three Amigos meets Bruce Campbell, and early reviews seem to indicate that if you’re a BC fan, you’ll like it — but if not, you may find it stupid. I probably won’t end up seeing this until it’s out on DVD (in February), but if you do before then, let me know what you think.

The (Original) Day the Earth Stood Still

“Klaatu barada nikto.”  Either you know what that means, or you don’t.  If you do, odds are you’ve seen The Day the Earth Stood Still — the 1951 movie starring Michael Rennie and Patrica Neal, about an alien (Klaatu) and a robot (Gort) who come to Earth to teach the human race a lesson about not killing each other.  If you don’t and/or you haven’t, then  your first exposure to this story might be the Keanu Reeves remake due to hit the screens in a couple of weeks.  Which may suck, or may be great … but it won’t be the original.

So if you haven’t seen it, or you want to see it again, you can watch it here, free of charge.

Then head over to the The Crotchety Old Fan website, and let him know that I’ve done my part to keep the original alive.  I can’t say I agree with COF that remakes like this are completely unnecessary.  If a raw story is powerful enough, I don’t think it hurts to re-frame it for a new generation now and then, and see if you can make it resonate for them.  Just look at how many times A Christmas Carol has been reborn.

But I do agree that it would be a shame if the new HD color version with the snazzy CGI effects makes people forget about the classic version, which told the story perfectly well fifty years ago, with a budget and special effects that even today’s independent filmmakers would be hard pressed to work with.