Category: Movies

“Kept” by Jaime D. González

Posted on by

“Kept” by Jaime D. González

Scientists have discovered a way to record dreams, and those with ulterior motives waste no time exploiting those whose dreams are the most powerful.

I could easily see this developed into a full-length feature!

Dracula by Roy Thomas and Mike Mignola Rises Again!

Posted on by

Most folks know Mike Mignola as the creator of Hellboy.  Because of Hellboy’s success and Mignola’s popularity, many if not most of his previous stories have been collected and reprinted over the years.  One that never got that treatment was the adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula that Mignola created with writer Roy Thomas.

Until now.

On September 18th, Bram Stoker’s Dracula adapted by Roy Thomas and Mike Mignola will become available once again!

The comics adaptation created by Mike Mignola and based on the film from Columbia Pictures (Sony) and Zoetrope Studios returns to print after a decades-long absence.

Mike Mignola is one of the most popular comic book artists of the past thirty years, known for such important works as Batman: Gotham by Gaslight, Cosmic Odyssey, and, of course, Hellboy. Considered to be among Mignola’s greatest works, Bram Stoker’s Dracula was his last project before Hellboy launched and was originally released as a full-color four issue adaptation of Francis Ford Coppola’s 1992 movie released by Columbia Pictures (Sony). Unavailable for nearly 25 years, and collected here in gorgeous black and white, Bram Stoker’s Dracula is a book fans have long been clamoring for… and the wait is finally over.

I’m looking forward to Bram Stoker’s Dracula by Thomas and Mignola especially because it’s being released in black and white!

31 Things We Learned from Michael Mann’s “Manhunter” Commentary

Posted on by

Rob Hunter and Film School Rejects present 31 Things We Learned from Michael Mann’s Manhunter Commentary.  Here are three of my favorites…

9. Brian Dennehy “very much wanted to play Hannibal Lecktor,” but told Mann that despite his own interest in the role there was someone who would actually be better for it. He then directed Mann to go see a play in NYC called Rat in the Skull featuring a British actor named… Brian Cox.

5. One of the key things that drew him to Thomas Harris‘ novel Red Dragon was Graham’s path of self-destruction in the service of catching and stopping the killer. “It fascinated me so much it made this, to me, a totally unique detective story and one that had dynamics and complexities that I had never seen before.”

8. Mann says there was an impulse during production to increase Hannibal Lecktor’s (Brian Cox) screen-time, but he resisted the urge. “I wanted the audience to almost not quite get enough of him.” The first meeting between Graham and Lecktor is extended for the director’s cut.

The 25 Best Twist Endings in Movies We Never Saw Coming

Posted on by

Gem Seddon and GamesRadar present The 25 Best Twist Endings in Movies We Never Saw Coming.  Here are three of my favorites with some commentary at the end… Beware of spoilers!

16. Shutter Island (2010)
The movie: US Marshal Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) is despatched along with his partner Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo) to Ashcliffe, an isolated psychiatric facility on Shutter Island. The pair are tasked with investigating a murderer who has seemingly vanished without a trace from within its walls…

What’s the twist? Surprise! Teddy’s not an agent – he’s actually Andrew Laeddis – a convicted killer who murdered his wife after she murdered their three children. Yeah, not a happy twist, this one.

14. Primal Fear (1996)
The movie: In the dock for a grisly murder, altar boy Aaron Stampler (Edward Norton in his first-ever role) pleads diminished responsibility on account of his split personality, a condition that causes him to veer between stammering innocent and twisted killer. That’s alright though, he’s got defense attorney Martin Vail (Richard Gere) to help him achieve justice…

What’s the twist? Once his lawyer has got him off the hook, Stampler reveals that the innocent side of his personality was mere performance. There is no “Roy”: he’s a killer to the core.

9. Planet Of The Apes (1968)
The movie: Having crash-landed on a foreign planet, gruff astronaut George Taylor (Charlton Heston) and his crew discover a strange society in which a group of apes has evolved into humanoid creatures with the power of speech.

What’s the twist? This strange planet is none other than Earth itself, turned into a post-apocalyptic nightmare by the greed and foolishness of mankind. The half-submerged Statue of Liberty in the last shot is what tips him off. Since then that iconic shot has made its way onto the DVD cover, so not much of a twist anymore…

Gem’s list is a good one.  There were several on it that didn’t make my list that I absolutely loved. Here’s why a few of them didn’t make my top three and why one did:

  • The Usual Suspects didn’t make my top three because it’s #1 on Gem’s list and I figured everyone knows about it.
  • The Sixth Sense is in the same ballpark as The Usual Suspects, but another reason I didn’t pick it is because I figured out the twist very early in the movie.  It was cool watching it all play out and to see I was right.
  • Se7en is a favorite of mine.  The ending was as shocking as some of the others but I love the brilliance of it.
  • Psycho is like the grandfather of twist endings.  Most everyone knows the twist before they see Psycho because of its fame.
  • I’m not a big Star Wars fan so I wasn’t shocked to find out who the baby’s daddy was.
  • I was 9 or 10 years old when I saw Planet of the Apes on its initial release.  I love the movie and the ending shocked this kid!

The 25 Greatest Movie Villains of All Time

Posted on by

Gem Seddon and GamesRadar.com present The 25 Greatest Movie Villains of All Time. Here are three of my favorites and some after thoughts…

17. The Terminator
As played by: Arnold Schwarzenegger in The Terminator (1984)

The villain: Sure, the T-1000 might be deadlier, but there’s no doubting the intimidation factor of Skynet’s original robot enforcer. Opting to shoot first and ask questions later, he’s a robust killing machine that won’t stop until you are dead.

Meanest moment: When he blazes a trail through the local police station, turning his weapons on anything that moves.

Nicest quality: If he’s on your side, he’s lovely! See Terminator 2 for details.

15. Hans Gruber
As played by: Alan Rickman in Die Hard (1988)

The villain: One of the first of a new breed of urbane, continental terrorists, the unflappable Gruber is the perfect counterpoint to rough and ready cop John McClane. He isn’t afraid to get his hands dirty – he’d just rather not rumple his suit unless it’s absolutely necessary.

Meanest moment: “You know my name but who are you?” sneers Gruber. “Just another American who saw too many movies as a child? Another orphan of a bankrupt culture who thinks he’s John Wayne? Rambo? Marshal Dillon?”

Nicest quality: He’s a bright boy. “And when Alexander saw the breadth of his domain, he wept, for there were no more worlds to conquer,” he quotes.

4. Anton Chigurh
As played by: Javier Bardem in No Country For Old Men (2007)

The villain: A psychotic gun-for-hire with a slavish devotion to the laws of chance. There’s nothing more terrifying than a nutcase with a code and an obsession for murdering people with a cattle bolt gun. It’s as horrible as it sounds.

Meanest moment: The way he taunts the store owner is pretty bad (you don’t know what you’re talking about) but there’s nothing to top the unyielding bloody-mindedness that leads him to kill Carla Jean.

Nicest quality: He’s good with kids. He doesn’t kill those two boys, does he?

The 25 Best Action Movies to Get Your Adrenaline Pumping.

Posted on by

Gem Seddon and GamesRadar.com present The 25 Best Action Movies to Get Your Adrenaline Pumping.  Here are three of my favorites and some after thoughts…

8. John Wick (2014)
Action hero: John Wick
The film: Director Chad Stahelski overcomes first-time jitters in his filmmaking debut, largely due to his experiences as a martial arts stunt co-ordinator. This revenge actioner throws in some dark motivating factors for Keanu Reeves leading man. His vendetta kill mission is the most dazzling work Reeves has accomplished since his first time tackling Neo.

Most action-packed scene: Wick enters a club wherein he punches, kicks, headbutts and shoots anyone who crosses his path. Each strike hits with an eerie precision.

6. First Blood (1982)
Action hero: John Rambo
The film: The first Rambo movie is part-action, part-thriller, a far darker movie than its sequels would have you remember. Sly Stallone plays the former Green Beret back from Vietnam, who is targeted by a nasty small-town sheriff. All Rambo wants is to live a normal life, all the cops want is to take him down. Guess who wins?

Most action-packed scene: Overthrowing the local PD coppers, Rambo escapes into the nearby woods, where the lawmen scatter to try and recapture him. Their attempts fail miserably as he sets up a series of brutal traps to prevent them from finding him.

2. Die Hard (1988)
Action hero: John McClane
The film: New York cop John McClane picks the first of many wrong places and wrong times to visit his wife at work, but for star Bruce Willis and director John McTiernan, the timing couldn’t have been better. Putting an ordinary Joe in the middle of a firefight, confining a terrorist takeover to a single, claustrophobic building, and balancing quip-smart dialogue with hard and heavy action set-pieces, Die Hard set the mold and broke it at the same time.

Most action-packed scene: A rooftop bomb. A short fire hose. A plate glass window. The rest is history.

Atomic Blonde almost made my top three.  I’m surprised that Enter the Dragon didn’t make the list. C’mon, Gem!

“The Maltese Falcon” Got the Cinephilia and Beyond Treatment!

Posted on by

The Maltese Falcon Got the Cinephilia and Beyond Treatment!

Click on the link and you’ll find…

  • John Huston’s original script for The Maltese Falcon
  • A rare interview with Huston
  • Huston’s approach to storytelling
  • A Screen Guild Theater radio production of The Maltese Falcon, featuring Peter Lorre, Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, and Sydney Greenstreet. Original air date: 9/20/1943.
  • Rare behind-the-scenes photos
  • and much more!

35 THINGS WE LEARNED FROM THE ‘IRON GIANT’ COMMENTARY

Posted on by

Film School Rejects presents 35 THINGS WE LEARNED FROM THE IRON GIANT COMMENTARY .  Here are three of my favorites…

One of the big questions Bird and Lynch faced was in how much they should reveal of the Giant early on. They wanted to keep the Giant interesting and grab the audience’s attention without giving away too much too early. This seems to always be a concern for filmmakers creating a story that involves an otherworldly creature. Some director’s just don’t even bother with subtlety.

As Bird and Markowski mention, the first time Hogarth runs into the Iron Giant is the most robotic the Giant is in the entire film. They wanted to gradually show the Giant picking up Hogarth’s mannerisms and acting more and more human as the story progressed. As mentioned later on in the scene when Hogarth confronts and talk to the Giant for the first time, the Giant learns these humanistic skills very quickly going from “pet to friend to hero” as Markowski says.

One of the things Bird is very proud of in The Iron Giant is how real his characters feel. He mentions the audience reacting audibly when Hogarth gets hit in the face with a branch and how that’s a very difficult thing to pull from the audience when you’re dealing with animated characters. Audiences are so used to Wile Coyote falling off cliffs they’ve become accustomed to animated characters being more malleable than real people. “If you defy gravity and later on need to feel danger in the film, you have a really hard time convincing the audience how to do that,” says Bird.

39 THINGS WE LEARNED FROM ‘THE BOONDOCK SAINTS’ COMMENTARY

Posted on by

Film School Rejects presents 39 THINGS WE LEARNED FROM THE BOONDOCK SAINTS COMMENTARY .  Here are three of my favorites…

To make it look legit that Reedus’ character, Murphy, was picking up and carrying Connor, the director told Flanery not to help Reedus in any way. Reedus had to jog out of the alley with dead weight of about 180 pounds on his shoulder.

The initial premise for The Boondock Saints came when Duffy and his brother, Taylor, were living in a run-down apartment complex. Duffy notes the drugs and guns that constantly came through the building and how he and his brother always fantasized about doing something about it. “Not that we’ve ever killed anybody, because we certainly have not…to the best of your knowledge.” Oh, that Troy Duffy cracks me up with his crazy antics about back in the day when he was a vigilante.

1:23:40 – Duffy gets angry. The comparisons made by critics and other commentators of Duffy and other directors like Quentin Tarantino and Guy Ritchie comes up. Duffy notes that The Boondock Saints was finished before Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels hit theaters. “Tarantino’s another story,” Duffy says. He feels Tarantino “reinvented cool,” but also mentions certain elements of Pulp Fiction may have subconsciously influenced The Boondock Saints. He also notes the films Tarantino had been influenced by for his films. “So what? We’re creators. We go and do these things to the best of our ability. There are similarities, and there are differences. Everybody’s going to have their own opinion about it, but I guess it could be worse, you know?”