Summer of Sequels!

Ever since Jaws ushered in the summer blockbuster season, filmmakers have tried their utmost to bring us gorgeous tales of majesty, acting par excellence, and intricate nuanced... nah, just joking, of course. It's summer after summer of big budget feasts for the eyes, full of special effects that labor to get your bucks without having to try very hard. It's a season that's also plagued with the most secure of moneymakers: the sequels.

I'd have to do some serious research back into previous years — and that I am loathe to do — but it's been whomping me over the head that 2007 will be witness to one of the greatest sequel bumper crops of the movie farming industry. So I thought it might be interesting to list them all and try to predict what we will be looking back at, come this September.

Spider-Man 3 (May 4): Spider-Man's a cash cow, no doubt, and with the same principle cast and crew, a much-loved villain (Venom), a natural end to the trilogy cycle, and the first serious contender for the summer blockbuster season... yeah, it'll do, piggie, it'll do. "Summer" blockbuster season keeps getting pushed back to an earlier start, because there's a point where we become a bit oversaturated with all of the releases and stop going (I'll call this mid-July).

28 Weeks Later (May 11): Eh. I love my zombie flicks, but the loss of the original director and leading stars adds to the feeling that this project is a bit of a stretch to recapture the intensity of the original. Plus, we just saw Children of Men, and post-apocalyptic London might be played out.

Shrek the Third (May 18): Another easy prediction, but Shrek and Spidey 3 will absolutely dominate May this year. Shrek's had a good run so far, and brings in the mega-bucks of cleanish family fun. Although I know I'll like it, I might not press myself to see it in theaters.

Pirates of the Carribean: At World's End (May 25): Huh... a huge sequel pretty much every week in May. Okay, I'm sure Shrek and Spidey might make room in bed for Captain Jack. We need our pirates!

Day Watch (June 1): The sequel to Night Watch, Day Watch won't be getting any huge advertising budget or release. Still, it's cool to finally see another chapter in this original (if overly messy) vampire epic.

Hostel Part II (June 8): Might bring in the summer horror dollars, but I have a feeling that Pirates will still be dominating at this point, and Hostel might've seen better numbers more toward an October release. Pass.

Ocean's 13 (June 8): Besides, this little number is coming out on the same day. Despite my feelings on Ocean's 12, the trailer for 13 seems to recall the cheeky fun of the original, and this is always an ensemble cast worth watching. Popcorn fun.

Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (June 15): Post-Spidey superhero leftovers. The first was blah, this one looks blah, but will still make money because... well, that's what superhero flicks do.

Evan Almighty (June 22): The Jim Carrey-less sequel to Bruce Almighty, Steven Carrell is poised to make a possible summer comedy breakout hit. Or not. Give it 50/50.

Live Free or Die Hard (June 27): Call me crazy, but the fourth Die Hard is my must-see of the summer. Bruce Willis always has a blast tormenting his intelligent terrorists, and the trailer seems so over-the-top as to push us right back into believability.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (July 13): It just doesn't stop, does it? It's like they dragged every single franchise out of the closet and stuck them all in the same two month period. Anyway, you don't need me to tell you that Harry 5 will sweep the weekend, even if the director is as schmaltzy as Chris Columbus.

The Bourne Ultimatum (August 3): I know a lot of people love this James Bond-cloned series, but I've never been able to work up much of a like or dislike for it. It's there, it'll be released during the downward slope of the summer season, and it's another toss-up as to the quality and audience.

Rush Hour 3 (August 10): I didn't know they were even MAKING Rush Hour 3. Did you? Were you just not telling me? Eh, either way.

Halloween (August 31): Rob Zombie tries to reboot the Michael Myers franchise, and we couldn't care less.

So there you have it: 14 sequels by my count, and perhaps I missed a couple. How many will you be seeing?

Blood! Chainsaws! Singing!

So, those of you who frequent the forums may remember a long winded post I made back in January about Evil Dead: The Musical and how it basically totally rocked my world. Had I known at the time that I'd be a staff member only a month later, I'd have saved my enthusiasm for an article or something, but whatever.

Anywho, the Evil Dead: The Musical: The Official New York Cast Recording releases tomorrow 4/24/2007. You know you want it. I know you want it. Why are we still talking about this?

For a small taste, check out the soundtrack's Myspace page (with clips!):

http://www.myspace.com/evildeadthemusicalsoundtrack

or go to the show's official website:

http://www.evildeadthemusical.com/

It's twenty dollars well spent, trust me.


And for the Canadially inclined, the show has now closed in New York but is opening back up in Toronto on May 1st! Anyone reading this website with the money and time to see this owes it to themselves to score some tickets. It's intelligent, funny, and has the endorsement of The Bruce himself. Do I have to sell this any harder?
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Clearly, yes, since you haven't clicked away to one of those pages yet. ::sigh:: Now I'm breaking my own rules and associating myself with Rosie O' Donnell. I hope you're all happy:




See how much I sacrifice? Support the show! See it onstage! Buy the soundtrack! Save my soul! And your own livesssssssss......

Beware the Ides of... April?

T.S. Eliot wrote in The Waste Land that April was the cruellest month. Where do you suppose he got an idea like that?

* The American Revolution (Started with Paul Revere's ride: April 18-19 1775)
* The American Civil War (Started April 1861, ended April 1865, thus "Across Five Aprils")
* The Bosnian War began in the first days of April 1992
* The Rwandan Genocide began in April 1994
* The Armenian Genocide began on April 24, 1914

* President Abraham Lincoln's assassination (April 14, 1865)
* Adolf Hitler born (April 20, 1889)
* The 1906 San Francisco Earthquake (April 18, 1906)
* The sinking of the RMS Titanic (April 14-15 1912)
* Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination (April 4, 1968)
* Jumbo tornado outbreak (April 3-4, 1974)
* Woo Bum-Kon spree killing (April 26-27, 1982)
* Chernobyl nuclear accident (April 26, 1986)
* The 1992 Los Angeles riots after the Rodney King verdict (April 29, 1992)
* The bloody end to the Branch Davidian siege in Waco, Texas (April 19, 1993)
* Kurt Cobain commits suicide (April 5, 1994)
* The Oklahoma City bombing (April 19, 1995)
* 106 Lebanese civilians killed when Israel Defense Forces shell the UN compound at Qana (April 18, 1996)
* The Port Arthur massacre in Tasmania, Australia (April 28, 1996)
* The Columbine High School massacre in Littleton, Colorado (April 20, 1999)
* The 2007 Virginia Tech massacre in Blacksburg, Virginia (April 16, 2007)


In the wake of all this, you may be feeling a bit depressed; I apologize for that. Those were horrible, tragic events and the victims should not be forgotten, but please remember that life is not all bad. Thousands of puppies and kittens were born today. Futurama is coming back and Scrubs is still on the air. And on the first of April 2006, a very brave woman bit the bullet and married me, ensuring that none of you will ever have to. So yes, April may be the cruellest month... but remember, May is just around the corner.

The bird of the Hermes is my name...

Eating my wings to make me tame.





-Tagline from Hellsing Ultimate Vol. 1. Your guess is as good as mine what it's supposed to mean. It's not like Hermes is a very occult god.




Justin's post would be very hard to follow in any meaningful way, so this one will be utterly lacking in meaning. Be warned.





I've watched this dvd three times in the last two days, a level of enthusiasm equalled only by my first sibling's fixation with Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children (Watched five times in the week we bought it). So I think it's safe to say I liked it about as much as the original unfinished series. It compacts a lot of plot down to where it was in the manga, rather than having to stretch it out in hopes that the manga would be finished soon; thus we have Anderson's first appearance in Volume 1 and the beginning of Sir Integra and Alucard's relationship depicted ditto.





I really have to get this manga and read it. I just have this feeling it's going to cost me a lot to get an English version and I'm, well, cheap. Anyway, the best features of the original series are still here - much of the art, the voices, and Alucard's patented trash talk are the same. Here are some things that were different.



First: Police Girl is FAR more interesting in this one. She's not the pansy shrinking violet from the other one, but is in touch with her new vampire identity to a great enough extent that she agonizes about it after kicking ghoul butt rather than instead of ditto. You know the part in the series where she just can't snipe someone? Well, in this version she does it with flying colors, or at least flying organs.

Second: Alucard gets a better introduction, since Sir Integra's expositional flashback occurs earlier on.

Third: Some other things are also clearly explained that were never explained at all, such as why Seres Victoria became a vampire when everyone else turns into ghouls (because she was a virgin, natch).

Fourth, and my only real quibble: There are some chibi elements introduced, almost solely in the scene of Seres' change into a vampire, that I absolutely hated. Seriously. They took what should have been one of the most serious and compelling scenes in the episode and ruined it with these stupid little cartoon faces.

Fifth: Alucard is about fifty times more emotional in this version, meaning he occasionally has a facial expression other than grinning maniacally. He was great before, and now he's great and interesting. Watch him show dismay and discomfort! Watch him wax philosophical! Watch him snap at Seres for being a twit! It's awesome.

This would in many ways be a better introduction to Hellsing than the first episode of the tv series, so if you haven't seen either, watch this first.

Shared grief with Virginia Tech

As a pastor, a phrase I'm well used to hearing at funerals is that "life is fragile". The sad, brittle truth is that we live in a violent world where we are constantly at war with the death and hatred around us. There is indeed a lot of good in this world, but we've all seen how easy it is to do bad in contrast to the daily effort it takes to take us away from the line of anarchy and annihilation.

This morning, a man whom I'm sure we'll hear a lot about in the days to come decided to end his days on this planet by unleashing anger and violence toward students whose own last days were probably started with mundane, routine activities. By this afternoon, families were ripped apart, friendships dissolved, and fear injected into the hearts of all around the nation.

It's not as if this is even a special exception of violence, of course. Daily, we have worldwide atrocities, many of which never see the front page of any newspaper — but that doesn't make the pain, grief or loss behind those events any less for those going through them. Yet some events will strike us as "closer to home" more naturally, and I can only remember my own college days, when I first saw the newspaper headline about Columbine.

My first response is to fall on my knees and pray. Pray for the families right now that will be receiving the horrible news. For the community of Virginia Tech, as they've seen that both life and security is so fragile as to be gone within the space of a morning. For the law enforcement officials and the doctors and the counselors.

And as with any tragic story, the real news of small acts of heroism — the miraculous surgery in the operating room, the person who counsels a depressed friend from committing suicide, the everyday leaders who will step up and do what they can to provide assistance and support — will go overlooked for the brutal, gory details.

Life is fragile, my friends. Don't just live every day to its fullest, but live every day to its best.

I'm filled with shame.

It is with great sorrow and embarrassment that I realized today that I have neither looked at nor posted in this blog for some weeks now. It's easy to forget and let it drop out of mind, since one generally doesn't see the kind of feedback for the blog that one does for the reviews and articles and random cranky forum posts. In all fairness, I've been neglecting my mostly-modding-related LiveJournal page, too.

I watched Demolition Man recently with some friends I was visiting. I saw it once before, but it was very long ago, I was much younger, and my memory is spotty. It was probably on TV while I was doing homework. This time I was able to give it my full attention, and it was hilarious. Not only that, but it was frequently hilarious on purpose. This truly amazes me in a Sylvester Stallone movie. I remember in particular the consistency with John's swearing in public and getting constantly fined, complete with verbal notification and receipt printing out in the background.

The sex thing was just silly, but I'm thinking they probably just wanted to work in a Barbarella reference for some obscure reason. I found myself wondering, "If nobody ever has sex, why is she wearing a short halter dress to dinner? What's the point of looking sexy? In order to encourage guys to fantasize about virtual slideshows of your face in extreme closeup?" Do pastors in that world encourage young women to dress modestly so that young men won't have naughty thoughts about trading alpha waves?

My friend Enigmatic's contention was that the aesthetic of the human body might be reason enough to expose it even in the truly bizarre context of a sex-free world. He could be right. It's too weird an idea to picture, really. For one thing, 48% of the human species would have to be killed before it could be implemented.

IMDb's Bottom 100

In my endless pursuit of truly awful, stupidly bad movies, IMDb's Bottom 100 Movies (in terms of reader voting) is an indispensable tool. Although the list changes daily, depending on the votes, I'm always looking to see how many of these films MRFH's covered in its 10-year history. As of today, here are the ones we've done (and corresponding links to their reviews):

#11: Chairman of the Board
#20: House of the Dead
#21: Glitter
#25: Leonard Part 6
#35: You Got Served
#41: Ed
#55: Gigli
#58: The Garbage Pail Kids Movie
#63: Battlefield Earth
#82: Jaws the Revenge
#85: BloodRayne
#89: Santa Claus Conquers The Martians
#99: Police Academy Mission To Moscow