Its been sometime since I’ve been able to post a recent Coming Soon list so you’ll notice that a vast majority of the movies listed are labeled new additions. With the sheer number of new additions I didn’t have the time to go through and check out trailers and reviews for some of them but I did try to label as many of those as I could as recommended. The Red Riding trilogy coming in March is certainly one that I have an eye on, as I’ve heard excellent things about it.

Of course the movie I’m most excited about on the whole sheet is the one being re-released this weekend at The Uptown, that being Rashomon, the breakout International hit for my favorite director, Akira Kurosawa. If you haven’t had the chance to see it yet, now is the perfect time to swing by The Uptown and watch one of the greatest films ever made.

*** – Denotes recommended viewing
All dates subject to change

2/12 Rashomon (Restored Print) Uptown ***
2/12 Creation Edina

2/19 North Face Uptown ***
2/19 Oscar Nominated Shorts Lagoon ***
2/19 District B13: Ultimatum Lagoon

2/26 44 Inch Chest Lagoon ***
2/26 Saint John of Las Vegas Lagoon ***

3/05 The Ghost Writer Lagoon (tentative)

3/12 A Prophet Uptown
3/12 Red Riding: 1974 Lagoon (NEW) ***
3/12 Red Riding: 1980 Lagoon (NEW) ***
3/12 Red Riding: 1983 Lagoon (NEW) ***
3/12 A Town Called Panic Lagoon ***
3/12 The Art of the Steal Edina
3/12 The Yellow Handkerchief Edina (NEW)

3/19 The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Uptown (NEW)
3/19 Mother Lagoon (NEW) ***
3/19 The Runaways Lagoon (NEW)
3/19 Fish Tank Lagoon ***

3/26 Terribly Happy Lagoon (NEW)
3/26 Chloe Edina (NEW)
3/26 City Island Edina (NEW)

4/02 Police, Adjective Lagoon

4/09 The Most Dangerous Man in America Lagoon (NEW) ***
4/09 The Greatest Edina (NEW)

4/16 Sweetgrass Lagoon (NEW)

4/23 The Square Lagoon ***

4/30 Warlords Lagoon ***

5/07 Mid-August Lunch Lagoon (NEW)

5/14 The Good, The Bad, and The Weird Lagoon (NEW)

5/28 Survival of the Dead Lagoon (NEW)

Tags: 44 Inch Chest, A Prophet, A Town Called Panic, akira kurosawa, Chloe, City Islans, Coming Soon, Creation, District B13: Ultimatum, edina, film, films, Fish Tank, George Romero, lagoon, Mid-August Lunch, Mother, movie, Movies, North Face, Oscar, Oscar Nominated Shorts, Rashomon, Red Riding: 1974, Red Riding: 1980, Red Riding: 1983, release, Saint John of Las Vegas, Survival of the Dead, Sweetgrass, Terribly Happy, The Art of the Steal, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Good The Bad and The Weird, The Greatest, The Most Dangerous Man in America, The Runaways, The Square, The Uptown, The Yellow Handkerchief, Trailers

I’m not anti-remake by any means, in fact I rather enjoy them quite a bit, but it would be nice if Hollywood took a bit more care in just which films they chose to remake. Texas Chainsaw Massacre is one that comes easily to mind, as the original is perhaps a perfect film, and the remake doesn’t seemingly intend to do anything other then tone down the weirdness and ramp up the gore.

I also don’t mind if people take a signature film and attempt to re-imagine it or put their own spin on the material. Take iconic fare like The Wizard of Oz, which has been remade at least 5 times by my count. Even the Judy Garland version was at least 4 tries in. Making it a bit difficult for purists to make a decent argument for one and done film making.

But what I enjoy most are when Hollywood takes lesser known films, or even films that were high on ideas but low on quality production and pump some much needed money and exposure towards them as they come up with a new take on the film. George Romero might have come up with a pretty nifty concept for the original The Crazies, but the film is far from perfect, and not much closer to even being decent. The remake looks like a hop, skip and a jump in the right direction, and it looks like it might be one of the rare recent Hollywood horror films to squarely hit its mark.

Title: The Crazies
Director: Breck Eisner
Starring: Timothy Olyphant, Radha Mitchell, Danielle Panabaker
Release Date: Feb 26, 2010 (USA)

Tags: danielle panabaker, films, George Romero, Horror, horror film, Judy Garland, movie, One to Watch, radha mitchell, release date, Remake, texas chainsaw massacre, The Crazies, The Wizard of Oz, timothy olyphant, trailer

Being born in 1976 I have missed most, if not all, of what I would consider the major tide changes in horror film making here in the United States. The two closest to my heart, and in my opinion the two most important films, being Night of the Living Dead and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Some might say that I was able to witness a similar precedent with The Blair Witch Project, which is a fair point to make. But I think that over the course of time since The Blair Witch Project was released has proven the film to be far more influential in the marketing of films, and specifically the rise of viral marketing, then it has influenced the horror genre.

But while The Blair Witch Project certainly was influential, Night of the Living Dead and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre were revolutionary by comparison. Both were low budget shock fests that relied far more on mood and atmosphere to set the table for the scares they were about to serve the audience then most of the other low budget fare of their time. Night of the Living Dead was serious whereas other horror films of the day were campy. And The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, despite its reputation, isn’t bathing in gore as many of its contemporaries were, but rather is a subtle and subdued fright fest. Neither are particularly scary by today’s standards and styles, with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre relying on an general level of creepiness rarely matched in any other film, and Night of the Living Dead almost suffocating the viewer with tension. And while these two might not be the best horror films ever made, particularly in the case of Night of the Living Dead where most people, myself included, view its sequel Dawn of the Dead to be the superior film, but these two films introduced audiences to new concepts and styles in horror, with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre masterfully manipulating audiences with its “based on actual events” premise. As much as I would like to discuss The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the lack of zombies in the film make it a bit difficult to directly correlate to the film that made me want to write this piece in the first place. But Night of the Living Dead on the other hand, brought about a whole new and terrifying meaning to the word zombie, which is quite relevant to what I wish to discuss.

Before the walking, brain-eating living dead zombies that flood current pop culture ever existed, the zombie was a vastly different monster. The concept of the zombie originated in the Caribbean where the belief is held that a certain kind of puffer fish is poisonous enough to cause people to slip into a death like coma for several days and the inevitable result of this being that people are often buried alive. It is believed that this technique had been co-opted by various criminal elements, and through their employment of Voodoo sorcerer’s (called bokors), that they can control these beings once they are revived from their horrific slumber. The region’s strong religious beliefs have led to the notion that anyone this happens to is at the mercy of the bokor that revives them. This practice was of course showcased in the fantastic film The Serpent and the Rainbow as well as the totally unappreciated, yet equally fantastic, Weekend at Bernie’s II. And while these films are now modern day exceptions to the norm, up until the release of Night of the Living Dead the basic premise of the zombie was someone who was powerless to resist the mind control of another person. But then Night of the Living Dead changed everything.

Since the release of Night of the Living Dead and its revolutionary seminal take on zombies, this has become a relatively stale sub-genre. There are still plenty of good zombie films being made, but there have been few innovations on the zombie concept in the decades since. Fast moving zombies, considered revolutionary by the uneducated when they appeared in Zach Snyder’s remake of Dawn of the Dead, had already been implemented in 1985’s Return of the Living Dead. The idea of worms or parasites controlling a host body, used most recently in the film Slither, was used earlier in the 1987 film Night of the Creeps, and even then it was clearly an homage to the iconic 1957 horror film Invasion of the Body Snatchers. 28 Days Later showed perhaps the most innovation of this group by changing from living dead zombies to a viral hate plague, but even it relied on a blood born pathogen for transmission and used what would soon become the cinematic standard of using fast moving ghouls. Even the Spanish horror film [Rec] showed further innovation by sequestering the victims in the same building as the zombies rather then have them hiding in a building with the menace outside. [Rec]2 looks to increase the claustrophobia even more by using first-person camera angles to draw the viewer directly into the film. All of these are welcomed additions to the sub-genre, and when used well can make for a unique and enjoyable viewing experience, but by no means has the sub-genre done much more then implement minor tweaks on a premise that has existed relatively undisturbed for fifty years. That is, until Pontypool came along and changed everything.

(more…)

“One day you are in your boat and you get attacked by zombie fish.”

Back when I worked at American Express I had a colleague who was as fascinated with zombies as I was. Much like Derek he was deathly afraid of the very concept of zombies and as such we would have deep philosophical discussions on the nature of the undead.

When we first heard that George Romero was making a new zombie film for the first time in twenty years we were quite excited at the prospect. I took it upon myself to track down a copy of the script and printed a copy out for the two of us to read, and within its pages came about a concept that afforded us hours of time wasting discussion.

The film, at the time still untitled but soon to be known as Land of the Dead, had an interesting, if somewhat throwaway scene that was to lead off the third act of the film. With zombies encroaching upon the city, an unknowing loan man on patrol stops for a quick smoke break under a bridge. As he stands there something stirs in the darkness. Soon it seems as if the entire underside of the bridge is shifting and as the man looks up a horde of zombie rats drop down upon him and quickly devour him whole.

(more…)

Anna tends to head home to Brainerd, MN about once a month to visit her family. While I enjoy visiting her family, my job doesn’t afford the me the luxury of weekends off so I rarely can adjust my schedule to make these trips. And while I miss spending time with her on these weekends, I am afforded one small luxury. I get to watch movies for this site that she has absolutely no interest in.

Now, over the years we have both forced the other to watch movies that we knew the other didn’t want to watch. But in fairness to both of us, typically these are films that we were passionate about and simply wanted to share something we loved with the other person. Unfortunately, both of us have wildly different tastes. She is fiercely pretentious and very selective in what she will spend her time on. I am more of a buffet styled viewer, slopping anything and everything on the Netfix queue in the hopes I find a gem within the mountain of crap. She became a fan of Bill Murray after watching Lost in Translation, and refuses to watch any of his films previous to it. I am a fan of all Bill Murray films except Lost in Translation, because it sucks. She is a fan of Lars von Trier films like Dogville and Dancer in the Dark. I may have called her stupid for liking those movies. And so on and so forth.

(more…)