Back to School with Sam

I'm sure you've all seen Fearnet's newest Trick R Treat promo, but just in case you missed it, here it is. Anybody else get the feeling that with all these special promo vids this year some sort of announcement for Trick r Treat 2 may be coming soon? I hope so.

Friday Night Drive-In

Rowdy Roddy Piper and Keith David. If you need to know any more than that, then you're probably reading the wrong blog. John Carpenter's cult classic They Live graces the Drive-In tonight! Rowdy Roddy Piper finds a pair of sunglasses that allows him to discover that the world has been invaded by aliens, who are using subliminal messages through different media outlets to subdue the human race. I don't know about you, but dammit that does it for me.

This one is absolutely ripe with great quotes, as you may expect from a cheesy Carpenter sci-fi flick starring a wrestler from 1988, but I gotta go with the timeless classic...

I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass....and I'm all out of bubblegum.

Dead Hooker in IFC Midnight's Trunk

Brand new trailer for the movie you're probably most sick of reading me ramble on about, Dead Hooker in a Trunk! We are finally getting our region 1 dvd release from the fine folks at IFC Midnight this January! About damn time too, I need more than my screener copy of this.

Random Screen Grab

Custom CD Art

Believe me I hesitate to use the word "art" when referring to any of my doodling. But at the same time, calling them "doodles" makes me sound fruity, and I don't want that either. So art it is. Anyway, I've gotten back into drawing lately, focusing primarily on drawing on cd's with Sharpies for Betty. I would draw some for myself too, but I don't use cd's anymore. They have all been pretty random so far, with the exception of a couple of requests like Beetlejuice, Frankenhooker, and Zombie Elvis.

Being that I couldn't come up with anything else to post for today I thought I'd share. Keep in mind that I don't draw much anymore, that Sharpies are incredibly unforgiving of mistakes, and are also incredibly hard to color with on top of cd's without leaving streaks.

Harley Quinn

Zombie Elvis

Animated Series Beetlejuice and Lydia

Sam

Sub Zero

Freddy

Jason

Shark Night

It hasn't been all that long since Shark Week both on the Discovery Channel and here in the Batcave. One of the movies I mentioned in my "upcoming fin flicks" post has finally hit theaters, and being the self-proclaimed shark enthusiast (in film form only of course) that I am, I gave it a shot. There hasn't been a real major studio shark movie release since Thomas Jane swam with the Makos in 1999's Deep Blue Sea, but there have been a couple of noteworthy not so big studio releases, the latest of which being the excellent Aussie offering, The Reef. I had serious doubts about Shark Night going in, but was desperately hoping David Ellis wouldn't let me down. After all, I actually kinda liked Final Destination 2 and Snakes on a Plane.

Not a whole lot of plot to talk about here, especially if I keep things spoiler free, which I intend to do. A group of college kids go away to a classmate's lake house for an alcohol fueled weekend of post-adolescent debauchery. Their fun is cut short not long after they get  there when one of them is attacked by a shark and ends up losing a limb. With no cell phone service, and their boat out of comission, they attempt to save their friend's life, and at the same time survive not only against the sharks but a group of locals who seem to be rooting more for the sharks to finish them off.

Basically, all I wanted from Shark Night was some good old mindless shark on human violence. In all honesty I didn't even care if it was never explained how the sharks even ended up in the lake. I just wanted to watch some college kids do one stupid ass thing after another, and get eaten one by one. David Ellis directed Snakes on a Plane right? Surely this time we would be getting Sharks in a Lake. Well friends, this isn't Sharks in a Lake, this is yet another sequel in the long running "Mister Bones is Supremely Disappointed" franchise.

Let's begin with the film's most glaring flaw, a sever lack of screen time for the sharks. Yes, you read that right, in SHARK NIGHT there are hardly any SHARKS. This one I can honestly say I kind of saw coming, being that the movie had a run time of less than 80 minutes. That's not a whole lot of time for the sharks to get their eat on especially when it was obvious from the trailer that we were going to be force fed some half ass plot involving people who apparently planted the sharks in this lake for some reason (and the reason is stupid too by the way). The trailer would also have you believe that several species of shark are present, and this is also not the case. As far as I could count there are 3, Great White, Bull, and Tiger. While the sharks are on screen they do look great though, the effects crew should be commended both for some good cgi and even better animatronic work.

The PG-13 rating attached pretty much guaranteed there wouldn't be a 20 minute gorefest of skin being torn to shreds and body parts flying all over the place like we got in Piranha 3D, but even knowing that going in, I still felt cheated by Shark Night. This is the tamest shark flick I've ever seen. All you're going to get from this movie is some thrashing and red water. Even when the sharks jump out of the water, which they do far too often, there's still nothing. Even when the first kid gets his arm bitten off, all we get is a quick look at the blood soaked tattered sleeve of his wetsuit. I don't always need to see blood and guts, but if you're not going to deliver the gore, at least give me some tension and decent acting. You know, like The Reef did. That movie just had thrashing and red water too, only I didn't mind because there had been so much tension before the actual attack that when one finally did happen I honestly felt bad for the characters. Shark Night on the other hand had absolutely no tension, and I couldn't wait for the entire cast to be eaten.

Honestly I can't think of any real reason to watch this movie. I can't comment on the 3D as I hate 3D and my vision is so horrible that attempting to watch it even with the glasses just gives me a headache. So if you're a junkie for that, it might be worth your time. But if you're like me and you just like to watch shark movies, this one isn't worth your time. In fact, just watch the trailer as basically all the shark scenes are shown in their entirety, just add some thrashing red water after the trailer quick cuts and you've got it. Big, big disappointment here, surely Bait will end up being better. I sure hope so. For the time being, however, it looks as if both Jaws and Deep Blue Sea remain the only successful attempts at big studio fin outings. Bummer.

Stitched

Came across this while looking at the Avatar Press section in this month's Previews, a new comic from Garth Ennis. I'm a fan of his writing, even though at times it can be a little too much for me, especially his stuff from Avatar being that they're an indipendent company and basically let creators do whatever they want. Turns out Garth Ennis is one sick bastard, and if you don't believe me, you've never read Crossed.  Still, I enjoyed some of his other work, Preacher, his war comics are excellent, and of course my favorite, his Punisher run, Welcome Back Frank.

The cover art for Stitched caught my eye, so I read the solicit and decided to pre-order the book and check it out. I was also suprised to find out that the comic is based on a short film that Garth directed, and the dvd was also available for pre-order. This is his first time directing, and while the trailer I found online admittedly looks like your typical Saturday night SyFy Original fare, I'm still curious enough to want to see it. It may be awful, but knowing Ennis, it will also likely be pretty gory and have some dark humor thrown in. The dvd will also have some behind the scenes stuff on the making of Stitched, and the feature I'm most excited about, and hour long interview with Garth, chronicling his career in comics. I've never actually heard him speak before, so I'm looking forward to watching the interview.

Dig the trailer below, and read more about how to get your own copy of both the Stitched comics and dvd at the Avatar Press official site here.

Kickoff baby!

Bodygetta, Bodygetta, Bodygetta Bah

Rah, Rah, Rah

Sis, Boom, Bah

Weagle, Weagle,

War Damn Eagle,

Kick em In the Butt BIG BLUE

HEY!

Friday Night Drive-In

When I talk about the "new" classics, I don't necessarily mean new movies that I've seen that are so good that they immediately achieve a status worthy of the title of "classic". In some instances yes that is the case, however in others it simply means I watch a movie that I may or may not have seen before, but the circumstances surrounding that particular viewing are such that the movie becomes a classic based on the situation. For instance, the last time I saw The Boneyard was Memorial Day weekend 2009, in an apartment full of friends on my 72" television, which speculation has it is in fact the largest screen this movie has ever played on. The alcohol flowed freely, we grilled burgers, dogs, steaks, and whatever else people brought, and we laughed our asses off for the entire 93 minutes. I had seen the movie before, but never quite like that.

The movie itself is full of entertainment value, though the plot is nothing to write home about. Two cops attempt to bring an aging psychic out of retirement to assist their investigation into a bunch of homicides. Turns out three weird zombie kid things are wreaking havoc in a local mortuary and she's the only one who can help. Well, her and Phyllis Diller as it turns out. The movie is absolutely hilarious, worth sticking it out just for the Were-poodle at the end! And my God if Gordon isn't one of the greatest characters in movie history. Note the dialog immediately following the news that Gordon had just emptied an entire clip into the chest of one of the creatures...

"Fetch THIS!"

Random Screen Grab

GET OVER HERE!!!