Let’s
get the boring intros out of the way right now. My name’s
Russ Fischer — dubious Atlanta resident, proud Red Sox
fan. I met Nick at a press screening in Atlanta a while
back, and we got to talking about all the typical topics:
zombie movies, the glory of Uwe
Boll and baseball video games. I’d been covering games for
a bunch of outlets, and told Nick to give me a call if CHUD
ever wanted some games coverage. We kept talking about it,
and plans slowly began to gel.

A
week ago we finally hammered out a rough schedule to start
pumping game info into the site, beginning with a weekly
column. But then Monday came, and I saw Fahrenheit 9/11.
The movie is dedicated in part to a guy I worked with a
few times, which made objectivity kinda
tough. I’ve spent the week thinking and writing about that,
the Al Jazeera doc Control
Room, Fog Of War and a bunch of other politically
minded material that, all things considered, I’d really
rather put out of my head. But I can’t, and games have seemed
like an afterthought for a few days.

So
I’m sitting in a hotel room in San Diego last night trying
to figure what I’d fill this page with. The most obvious
choice was the game that took me to California in the first
place – EverQuest II
— but I’m not sure that’s such a good idea right now,
not least because dropping details would be like pissing
on Sony’s online blanket coverage plans. That’s not a picnic
I’m ready to ruin just yet. I kept coming back to politics
anyway, and since I haven’t seen nearly enough written about
THQ’s excellent Full Spectrum
Warrior, that locked the subject.

So
after that preamble that by now feels longer than the pre-credits
sequence in a Timothy Dalton Bond flick, let’s get to it.

Full
Spectrum Warrior was
originally developed as a training exercise for the US Army,
but the consumer revenue stream was apparently too inviting
to resist. And for a game originally greenlit
by beaurocratic brass, FSW
is damned involving.

There
aren’t many truly original games out there, but FSW definitely
makes the cut. Maybe that’s because it was designed to fulfill
a singular purpose rather than the blanket demands of focus
groups. It’s not really a first or third person shooter,
and not really a strategy game, but some Frankenstein combination
of the three. And we’re talking about a Peter Boyle monster
here: all singing, all dancing, all rampaging. You’ve got
control of two four-man squads, but instead of directly
controlling any of the men, the controller issues group
and individual commands. The setup seems strange on paper,
but in combat, it’s friggin‘ beautiful,
and the game captures combat like nothing else I’ve seen.

Each
squad is specialized – a leader, two rifleman and grenadier
are the standard. Gameplay exists in the open spaces between buildings, shelled
cars and piles of rubble. The original
design was an urban combat trainer, and Full Spectrum
Warrior totally delivers. You’ll command men to move
slowly, picking cover spots and keeping layers of fire available
anytime a soldier moves ahead. The command system is simple
to use, but offers enough flexibility to handle any urban
situation. The inability to enter closed buildings is a
mystery, but the game remains strong without it.

The
level design is ingenious, and while it’s pretty easy to
master simple flanking techniques, the AI’s aim is sharp
enough that there’s always real danger that one bullet will
scrub a friendly soldier. And the scripting and dialogue
performance is so good that the game easily beats Call
of Duty in the character business. The squads are made
up of real people with personalities, and it really hurts
to lose one. We don’t see enough of that mechanic.

And
part of the success is due the camera system, which shows
every perspective on the action with perfect clarity. There’s
even a replay system to let you see what went wrong, where
and when, and then jump back into the action at the crucial
moment. Commands are easily given, and there’s a realistic
delay between issue and squad follow-up. (Sometimes it’s
too great, actually, but that’s not a huge deal.) The game
is beautiful, with particle effects powering destructible
environments and lighting that filters though objects like
paint.

Now,
it’s true that the collection of levels is a bit too short.
Even with the online co-op, it’s possible to exhaust the
included levels in a few days. More online options (like
a competitive mode) would help a lot, and downloadable extras
wouldn’t hurt, either. But put that complaint aside, and
there’s almost nothing to bitch about with Full Spectrum
Warrior.

But
I can’t help wondering what people want out of war games.
Is it compelling story and stabs at character, or is it
better to jettison all the literary crap and just blow the
hell out of some stranger from Kansas? The numbers on Call
of Duty say one thing, but the unbelievable longevity
of Counter-Strike punches CoD
in the face. (Which reminds me: the Source-powered version
of CS that’ll ship with Half-Life 2 is simply
brilliant, and is going to reinvigorate that game like a
horse needle into Uma Thurman’s
chest.)

I
also wonder if most war games do service or disservice to
guys that really have to fight, or are the two things totally
unrelated? Does an Iraq-fresh soldier
come home and fire up FSW or Counter-Strike only
to realize that it’s a completely fucked-up thing to blast
digital people after having to shoot the real thing? Since
9/11 war games have exploded — you should have seen the
military at E3 last year. It’s natural, sure, but I feel
like were walking both sides of the line between acceptable
and crass. All this is serious stuff, I know, but I’m betting
that some of you have served or have family serving now,
and I want to know how it works. Write letters, people.

Without
having combat experience, the bottom line is that Full
Spectrum Warrior is one of the few war-themed games
I’ve played that doesn’t feel like a cheap commercial cop
on what the real experience is like. It doesn’t insult gamers,
or the people it simulates, and that’s so rare that playing
it is really worth the time. Given its history, that’s obviously
the point, but that the game captures squad fighting so
well is still a great surprise. THQ is following the Halo
pattern and putting the PC release off until September,
but for now, the game is one of the best excuses for an
Xbox in 2004.

There’s
a lot to talk about in the future, from the glut of upcoming
Star Wars games, a new generation of impressively
cinematic titles and the ’04/’05 wave of football titles.
But let’s hear what you want to know about, what’s interesting
in gaming and what aspects of the industry are over-hyped
bullshit. Was there something at E3 that most of the press
glossed over, or are game previews just part of the advertising
machine? Make some demands, and I might even obey them.

Play a game on our message boards!

What
a week! I’ve spent more time on the telephone this week
than I did with my first few girlfriends. Remember those
days? The ones where you’d talk all night long and sometimes
one would fall asleep and the other would be there on the
other end just hanging out and discovering the others’ snore
patterns?

Well
this week I surely built a tumor somewhere behind my right
ear from all the cell-talk. Detractors rejoice! My head
could officially battle Chris Reeve in Superman IV.

Otherwise,
I sort of apologize for the lack of editorials this week
but not really. We’ve been busting out content like big
dogs and there’s only so much meandering bullshit in my
nuclear head.

Now,
on with the Leak!

CHIN-Tastic!

It’s
rare that I implore you to find a movie at all costs, but
today is one of those days. I just watched a film that changed
my life.

Not
in a big way where the air smells fresher, the sky is brighter,
and there’s a fresh outlook on the day. More of a smaller
way, one which manifests itself in one’s socks being a little
softer and one’s wrists being a tad bit more masculine,
if but for a moment.

Samurai
Cop.

Holy
shit. This film does the unthinkable, it attempts to coast
on Robert Z’dar’s Maniac Cop credibility.

Think
about that for a moment. The whole… marketing campaign…
for this film is tailored around Z’dar’s mini-franchise
about an undead cop with an enormous chin. This was done
sometime around the time Z’dar also appeared in Tango
& Cash, where he played a villainous convict…
with an enormous chin.

Do
some math with me:

Think
of the worst low budget film you’ve ever seen, divide it
by your best teenage home movie shot for the budget of whatever
the cost of the blank tape was, and multiply it by Robert
Z’dar. Siphon any resemblance to real Samurai culture out,
add gratuitous but unarousing nudity and you have Samurai
Cop. It’s a film I cannot believe really exists
because it is so amateurish and bad that it defies humanity.

Of
course I love it! The great thing is that Bobby D’z isn’t
the Samurai Cop! That honor goes to the stiff white hunk
of vacuum that is Matt Hannon.

I
won’t spoil the film, but I will say that Joe Bob Briggs’
comedic commentary and the utter ramrod shaftness of the
movie makes it worth your $8.99 should you find this pile
in a store (I’ve provided an Amazon link if you click the
picture above).

A
few weeks ago I started my little weekend screenings of
bad/great/bad movies at the house and it was a rousing success.
We did The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra. It’s
my goal to do these once a month with a rotating cast of
friends and readers.

The
next one will probably be this abomination. This wondrous,
beautiful, evil abomination. Anyone out there with the lingering
stench of this film in your psyche?

If
you’d like, SEND
A LETTER with your comments on this noise.

Screener
Bafflement.

There’s
a trend in my business that makes no sense. It’s how some
studios send out their screener DVD offerings for television
season sets.

They
send the first and the last disc only.

They
figure, you’ll get the idea how it starts and see how it
resolves. The rest is insignificant. It’d be like fondling
your date for a while and phase shifting to the bed just
as you’re pulling yourself off him/her/it/Lance Guest. Where’s
the fun in that? Just imagine if the 2nd act of your favorite
movie disappeared.

No
Dagobah training sequence.
No battle with the Pit Fiend.

No battle between Samurai Cop and Thug #11.

That’s
incredible. I don’t know about you but I know I wouldn’t
trust the review of someone who hasn’t watched the whole
season of a show. The beginning and end are pointless without
the middle.

I
guess that’s why I don’t run a major home video studio.

If
you’d like, SEND
A LETTER with your comments on this noise.

More
Things That Don’t Suck…

Here’s
a change-up of some rather surprising and nice things somehow
attached to the entertainment industry and life. I don’t
hate everything, you know…

1.
Those first few moments with a film you’re excited about
when you get to taste the tone and style it’s going to have
for the first time.

2.
When you’re at the end of the row in a theater and the people
who take bathroom breaks don’t step on everything you’ve
ever called skin. Extra points to the attractive ladies
you grab the junk as they pass.

3.
100% of the non-Lucasfilm public hates that Greedo shot
first.

4.
Werewolf movies are getting popular.

5.
Rhona Mitra.

6.
People are wising up to the low carb bullshit just as every
corporation is rolling out low carb versions of their product.

7.
Spider-Man 2 hasn’t had to remove The Empire State
Building from their latest poster.

8.
No matter how, many, commas, I use in a, sentence, I’ll
never be, Peter David.

If
you’d like, SEND
A LETTER with your comments on this noise.

The
Fact this Exists is Hilarious, Part 11.

If
you’d like, SEND
A LETTER with your comments on this noise.

Mailbagsukidoji:

They
say that the Internet is filled with fools, but we’re out
to prove them wrong. Of course, who are these “they”
people we always hear about? Of course, your comments are
the lifeblood of this column. Please keep them coming. Don’t
be afraid to hold back. Regardless,
here’s another batch of letters from the great Sewer Chewership
out there. To send a letter, CLICK
HERE.

Shameless
Praise.

Andrea
Writes: nick, you are a god. i don’t know how you do
it. last night i was running my mouse down the list of dvd
reviews on the site, looking for a blazing saddles review,
and what do i find the very next day? a blazing saddles
review. i love you.

Nick’s
Reply: Emails like this are as rare as identical snowflakes
but they’re brilliant any way you slice them. Thanks for
the wonderful comments, but I have to come clean. I’m just
a man. A short one at that. But, I’m HUNG
LIKE A GOD!

Fake
Posters.

Brian
Writes: “I’m going to recycle
the “If CHUD Ran” posters for a while. I think
I blew my wad with Manitou’s Most Wanted. I doubt I’ll be
able to top that for some time.” – June 18th
Leak

Why
don’t you feature some of the Chewers be damned posters
for a while. Some of them are so great that you don’t even
need to know the featured chewer to get a laugh.

Nick’s
Reply: Nah. That’s a message boards exclusive. The “If
CHUD Ran” things are pretty much my baby. Dan does
them for the magazine and sometimes (in the past) for the
site but I’d prefer to keep them restricted to my limited
talents.

Vulgar.

Cracker Jack Writes: I am writing in response to the
letter from “Jack”, who wrote an obscenity laced
rant against the mentally retarded. Was there any particular
reason you decided to give this guy a forum for his unbelievably
insensitive and highly offensive diatribe? I mean, c’mon
Nick – surely you didn’t find the feverish manifestations
of his sick mind amusing. I’ve seen you complain about some
of the garbage posted in the forums and then you print this
guys letter for the whole CHUD world to see. What gives?

Nick’s
Reply: I ran it because I don’t want it to be
just wine and roses in here. Plus, I figured that the craziness
of the letter would be a nice counterweight to the other
stuff and make my insanity sane in comparison.

He
MAY Vote Bush.

Robert
Writes: I believe in truth in advertising so shouldn’t
Michael MorePie’s “Crocumentary” be titled “Fallacy
9/11”? Just like Billy Clinton’s book cover should
read “My Lies” with the back cover saying “Even
Monica couldn’t swallow this load!”. There needs to
be a rather noticeable disclaimer on the poster for “Fallacy
9/11” letting attendees (all 3 of them) know that this
is a work of fiction & that Mr. Moore-on has a history
of distorting the facts to suit his political agenda. Hell,
I’d even settle for the French stamp of approval on the
one-sheet!
Hopefully with “Spiderman 2” swinging into theaters
just 4 days after Moore-on’s cinematic crap fest spews forth,
his “film” will quickly be relegated to the 2
for a dollar bin at Wallmart by the end of the year. And
we all can continue to enjoy a summer of REAL films &
ole’ Mikey can go back to masturbating over pictures of
himself.

Nick’s
Reply: You write like the Cryptkeeper’s slow
cousin.

Race
To The Finish.

Michael
Writes: What’s up? I have two beefs. First, why is it
when someone is discussing the mentally challenged or homosexuals
they often make a connection or reference to some minority
group; typically blacks? This happens all the time. For
example, in Jimmy’s response to the ‘retards’ diss he says,
“First of all, they are called mentally challenged
now, just like black people are African-American…”
To his credit, he does furnish a little Irish joke at the
end to make it sound better, but still, this type of rhetoric
has always been a little insulting. Race issues have no
similarity to issues involving sexuality or mental retardation.
It’s like subtly equating sexual deviancy or a mental handicap
to being a minority. Not even close. Is this saying that
being black and being ‘retarded’ are the same?
I think anyone would choose being a minority over being
mentally challenged. However, as funny as this sounds, I
still think a retarded gay white has it better than a retarded
gay ‘Afr ican-American’ in this country. And if
they want to get married to each other, that’s fine with
me too.

Beef
two. I, along with most of my fam and friends don’t
have any problem with being called ‘black’. I
personally wear this label proudly. I don’t know where
the hell ‘African-American’ came from, but frankly
it makes little sense to me. I think the trick here is to
try to make a historically disenfranchised group feel like
they have every right and opportunity as any other ‘American’.
And don’t get me wrong, I love America; wouldn’t
want to be anywhere else, but we aren’t really there
yet…are we? I mean on paper, sure everyone has the
same rights. But in reality…in everyday life, is this
really so? And to the doubters, you wouldn’t understand
unless you lived it. Granted its closer now than let’s
say 30 years ago and there are many things we as a people
could do to make things better for ourselves, but it’s
certainly not equal in the sense that it makes no difference
if you are black or white. Secondly, I’m not with all
the PC assimilation-speak. The ‘we are all Americans’
type of thing. I mean we all live in this country together
and we should try to respect and get along with each other,
but there is nothing wrong with diversity. I’m happy
to be black…wouldn’t want to be anything else.
I take the good with the bad and I don’t think that
anyone should be ‘watered down’ to being just
‘American’. Lastly, if I’m ‘African-American’,
what does this really mean? Am I from the Ivory Coast, South
Africa, or Kenya? Am I Ethiopian or Egyptian? Frankly, most
of us have no idea since our entire heritage, true names
and everything else were stolen along with our ancestors
when taken as slaves. Not to mention all the plantation
owners, slave masters and any other horny white dude stealing
a piece and mixing us all up. I mean can you please find
a true African chick that looks anything close to Meagan
Good? And what about people of Jamaican or Dominican decent
in this country? Are they African too? So its not the same
as being called Chinese-American or Irish-American. If you
are going to be ambiguous to a fault, just be totally ambiguous
and use ‘Black’. That way it infers a cultural
reference too, not just a place of origin. Just don’t
let me catch you using the term n****r,lol.

Anyway,
this email is way too long. Don’t know why the hell
I jumped on the racial and political tip, I typically just
enjoy your column for the few laughs it provides and to
break-up a little monotony at work from time to time. Keep
it up. Holla!

Nick’s
Reply: Wait, being black and retarded aren’t the same
thing?

(rimshot)

You
have to understand this: White people are often very, VERY
careful about how they discuss their darker speciesmates.
It’s a delicate line and they tend to go out of their way
to NOT address the color issue. To the point where they’ll
describe a person without the color issue. “You know
Gabe? He’s the bald guy. The one with the goatee. He wears
that cool watch you mentioned.” “Oh, the black
guy?” “Um, yeah.”

It’s
weird, fella. I think that it looks like things are in pretty
sorry shape when it comes to how people deal with each other
without the aspect of color and when you toss that in, forget
it. I personally don’t like the idea that every bookstore
has to have a separate “African American” section
because it divides us more. I don’t think we need to have
“Black History Month” or “Gay Pride Month”
because what the fuck about the other eleven months of the
year? Shall we call them “Ostracize at Will”?

Of
course, I’m not the guy to address this. I crapped out in
those classes in high school and my college consisted of
a crappy little film academy in the seedy part of Atlanta
that was run by crooks. All I know is that people are people.
Some suck. Most seem to. Color is rarely an issue. White
people, black people, even those crazy yellow people. Some
are great, some are crap, and none of them can take a joke.

Best
of luck, thanks for the letter, stay black, I’ll stay heinously
white.

Blockbusted?

Ian
Writes: Longtime reader, first time rim-jobber. Just
so that’s out of the way…

I
assume you’re heard of the Blockbuster/Viacom split (http://dvd.ign.com/articles/525/525185p1.html,
confirmed pretty much anywhere else online), but what had
me as a loss for words was the statement that “The
company… plans to expand in-store sales of DVDs and videogames.”

I
was a Blockbuster employee from 1994 to 1997, and can distinctly
recall that the company has tried this business tactic already.
I remember the outfitting and remodeling of stores with
a larger selection of sell-through movies as well as non-movie
products such as CDs, magazines, and plush toys for the
kiddies.

I
also distinctly remember the conversion back to a “plain
old video store”
a year or two later, as they could never match dedicated
movie and music stores in either selection or price, and
the other non-movie or game product collected dust on shelving
units as well. People wanted to find their movie and leave
as soon as humanly possible, not browse over a cart packed
with “Star Trek: First Contact” mugs and a Klingon
hockey jersey – those were real items we sold, I feces you
not. Between the grubby hands and drool of children toys,
magazines and merchandise were ripped apart, dirtied, broken,
and generally rendered unsellable. It was a huge failure,
and I can only imagine how much money the company lost simply
on the remodeling and re-remodeling of thousands of stores.

That
was the mid-to-late 1990’s. If it were a failure nearly
10 years ago, who among us thinks that Blockbuster can compete
for sales in the Internet age? I remember when there was
an *actual need* to special order movies for purchase at
Blockbuster – hell, that’s where I’d get my (then) hard-to-find
Widescreen copies of “The Abyss” and “Terminator
2” back in the dark ages of Fox’s special line of “Widescreen
Series”… all 5 choices of them. Those days are long
past.

However,
I’m sure they would had stood a better chance of surviving
without their “Bending over to the Christian Right”
policy of “No NC-17 or Porn”. Can you imagine
having to watch the edited version of “Requiem for
a Dream”? Well, if you’re in a town where Blockbuster
has driven the local video store out of business, you’ve
got no other choice if not for an Internet rental service.
The fact that as a former New Yorker now living in the middle
of Kentucky where there are three local video stores, all
with a decent selection of porn, makes living here almost
bearable.

There
are reasons why Tower Records filed for bankruptcy, and
Suncoast Video is empty in whatever mall I visit. Those
reasons end in .com, and begin with “Amazon” and
“Netflix.”

Nick’s
Reply: I for one would LOVE to see them show their ass
and fail miserably. Serves them right. Of course, I’d also
love to see them get their shit together and embrace the
videophile and the films that aren’t easy to sell to families.
I’m easy like that.

More
Riddick?

Matt
Writes: Just a quick question for you. The other day
Dave mentioned on the site that it looked like The Chronicles
of Riddick won’t be turning into a franchise. Does
this mean that there won’t be a sequel to Riddick?
I should hope not, since the end of the first film (second
I guess if you count Pitch Black) was pretty much a cliffhanger.
Have you heard anything? Keep up the good work.

Nick’s
Reply: I emailed David Twohy after I saw Riddick
and wished him luck and told him that I liked his film and
that it’d be nice to finally exchange more than one sentence
emails. I haven’t heard back, but I’m hoping that Twohy
does get a chance to finish his story in one way or another.
It’ll have to KILL on video, I suppose.

Nostalgia’s
a Bitch.

Matt
Writes: Though I am personally not familiar with the
original Land of the Lost series (I do remember the early
90’s UPDATE of the series with effects by the Chiodo brothers)
I catch your drift about the diminishing returns of childhood
programming (I have the same lingering concerns about the
upcoming “Garfield and Friends” set).

However,
I have to wonder why people enjoy going back and watching
many of these old programs in the first place. Is it because
the programs were actually quality, or is it enjoyment as
the result of powerful nostalgia? Signs point to nostalgia.
Shows like Gilligan’s Island, The Dukes of Hazzard, G.I.
Joe, or many other old shows really are not of very good
quality and most of the shows’ plots are basically identical
and fall apart under a discriminating eyes. The question
is how far can nostalgic enjoyment carry beloved mediocre
show. Again, not very far. I’d wager most of these sets
get watched once and then placed on the shelf to age some
more. Though I hope Land of the Lost isn’t as bad as you
expect it will be.

And
watching junk TV won’t exactly warp children automatically,
but I am opposed to it anyways because I realize that ten
years from now all the Hot Topics will be selling hip, “retro”
Pokemon and Yu-gi-oh t-shirts. And Telletubbies. Just make
sure you’re daughter’s matured enough when she’s 16 to avoid
this exploitative nostalgia crap.

Nick’s
Reply: Well, some of the stuff we grow up on isn’t crap.
It’s just a matter of finding that out before you cough
up the dough.

Slice
of Life.

Matthew
Writes: Buenos tardes amigos and amigas.
Just a quick note about my experience watching THE CHRONICLES
OF RIDDICK, this early afternoon, here in the bastion of
domestic bliss that is Torrance, California.

The film, to me, was all the elemnts we love of James Cameron,
Mad Max films, space operas and Sylvester Stalonne movies.
“Cobra” a la “Beyond the Thunderdome”.
Heh heh.
Anyhow, these geeks in the restroom were bemoaning “Riddick”:
Geek 1: Ah man, that was HORRIBLE. Vin Diesel’s agent should
be shot!
Geek 2: I know. That was way-too sci-fi.
Geek 3: I mean, it was all so UNBELIEVABLE.
Geek 1: Like that could ever even happen.

(I am trying not to burst into laughter as I use facilities….)

Geek 3: Did you see the poster for “Catwoman?”
Geek 2: THAT looked alright! More of her tits please.
Geek 3: That is a movie I would happily pay my eight bucks
for….not this crap.
Geek 1: “Catwoman” will own.
(Happily, I am on my way out the door at this point…)

I
will just let the events speak for themselves.

Nick’s
Reply: That’s the mindset we all have to deal with.
They’re not CHUD.com readers, that’s for sure. They’re casual
movie watchers. God help them.

The
Man Who Knew Too Much.

Brad
Writes: I’m a bit of a movie geek. Nothing too
strange there, most of the people who visit this site are.
But I wonder if any other film geeks out there are experiencing
the same phenomena as I am.

The
problem? I have totally lost any sense of surprise or wonder
when I see a good film. I already know too much about a
film before I see it: I’ve read the set reports, the
press junkets and the myriad reviews on CHUD, AICN and Dark
Horizons. I have not been pleasantly surprised by a movie
in so long (I think it was Amelie for me) that I’m
actually beginning to wonder if it’s because there
hasn’t been any pleasantly surprising movie made in
a while. But no: it’s because I’m hooked on film
news websites and am blind to spoiler warnings and am too
weak to stop myself.

I
discovered the geek sites a couple of years ago when I read
a news report that Harry Knowles had seen Attack of the
Clones before anyone else and had posted a review. I discovered
this online world of movie geeks and the rest is history.

I
guess it’s ironic that my love for movies draws me
to these sites and, in so doing, also takes a good deal
of the magic out of that love. I can’t blame you, Nick.
It’s not your fault you’re such a funny bastard.
I can only blame my own weak will.

I’m
torn. I don’t want to give up the web sites. I want
to be pleasantly surprised by a movie that slips under the
radar, unfortunately not much slips under the radar these
days. Maybe I’ll need to find other web sites to occupy
my down time – I’ve heard that if you look hard
enough, you can find pornography on the internet..

Thanks
for listening.

Nick’s
Reply: I guess it’s a matter of
discipline. I personally don’t find that it taints my enjoyment
knowing what’s to come. We all knew Frodo was going to toss
the ring into the lava and that Gollum was going to pull
a Ripley. We know that Anakin and Padme’s love story isn’t
going to be a happy one though there apparently will be
some screwing at some point. We know that the shark is going
to explode or electrocute or impale itself on a boat yet
we still enjoy the films. It’s not as much what they do
but how they do it. That said, it’s the job of responsible
webmasters to not give EVERYTHING away and to at least provide
tons of disclaimers about stuff like the big twist endings
to The Village or Mean Girls.

Not
Much To Say.

Rob
Writes: You requested on the boards that we give you
a little extra feedback so you could pump out three Steady
Leaks this week so I’m sending this to do my part. Anything
to get some extra Piss and/or Vinegar in my diet.

The only problem is that I really don’t have much to say.
I’m really loving this site…especially lately. There’s
been massive updates. It’s tough to keep up some days. And
the DVD reviews have been pouring in. Tell your guys that
if sometimes they don’t get a comment right away on a review
(they’re all good) it’s simply because of the huge bulk
of content CHUD has. Same situation with the new columns.
Devin, Dave and your columns are all great.

See what I mean? Not much to say. Status quo. Everything’s
great. Boring, boring boring. So the way I figure it, if
the interestingness of my feedbacks are inversely proportionate
to the interestingness of CHUD, I say: keep me boring.

Also, thanks for the Universal Monster DVD set. I’m watching
my mailbox like a hawk for when it arrives.

Nick’s
Reply: Thanks, man! I mailed your winning prize out
on Tuesday. I sent it UPS Underground, which means it’ll
arrive in 2010: The Year We Make Contact.

SPAM
OF THE DAY.

Paula
Writes: The Ädult film industry has been using
Instant Growth Formula on their sets for years.

Ever wonder how pörnstars have such big cöcks?
Well now you know.

Add
size thickness and girth with no effort at all!

Nick’s
Reply: I don’t wonder why the pörnstars
have such big cöcks. I think it’s all just fancy camera
angles and forced perspective with tiny vaginas. I wonder
how one can obtain their own umlaut!

Shameless
Self-Promotion Dept:

Since
so few of you read the message boards, I’m going to pop
in a few self promotional tidbits here from time to time.
The great thing is: You can avoid this section if it bothers
you.

The
archive of my CNN.com articles is right HERE.
A new one appears every Tuesday. The latest is A Galaxy
Close, Close Away, right
here.

Song
of the day: PAN IN YOUR PANTS, by The Lucky Nightsticks.
This is a DUMB song,
but I love it. By Nick, John, and Steve. Click HERE
to download and HERE
for a place to comment.

‘IF
CHUD Ran the Movies’, by Nick Nunziata

See
you tomorrow!

READ
PREVIOUS COLUMNS HERE!

This
week’s installment mostly focuses on a few cult films I’ve
recently caught or dug from the archives, and I figured
I’d share my thoughts here. If you’re looking for something
with a slightly higher profile, I’d have to recommend you
go pick up the new DVD of Spartan, one of
the leanest and meanest "little" Hollywood productions
I’ve seen in a good while.

Got an interesting
film suggestion? Know of something good in the works? Just
want to tell me I’m rubbish?  Drop me a line at dave@chud.com, and
I’ll respond to any letters in future columns.

BRIT
REMOVERS

The
title of The Last Horror Movie is misleading,
but it turns out that’s on purpose. The meat of the actual
film (directed by Julian Richards) is purportedly the documented
exploits of a charming British killer named Max (played
by the Eric Roberts-esque Kevin Howarth), following him
through the lens as he visits his family, commits vicious
murders and waxes philosophical. A wedding videographer
by trade, Max explains to the camera (typically held by
his homeless assistant) how he’s been carrying out these
heinous random crimes for quite some time, but has now decided
to share with an intimate audience. Therein lies the hook,
like a more personal variation of The Ring
— the idea that any poor soul who watches the film ultimately
won’t live to discuss it.

Much
like precursors such as Blair Witch Project
and 84 Charlie Mopic, the faux-documentary
angle takes sensible advantage of the limited format’s raw
atmosphere and fourth-wall breaking, though The Last
Horror Movie owes its biggest debt to the similarly
themed Belgian film Man Bites Dog, which also
featured a camera crew following a charismatic sociopath
as he wandered about performing random atrocities. Max uses
his grisly executions as a means to ponder human nature
and convey some clever insights and social commentary, but
his monologues sometimes veer into trite territory (like
when he observes that murderers existed long before violent
movies and videogames).

The
Last Horror Movie is occasionally effective as a
"real" horror film (some chillingly brutal murders are presented)
and Howarth makes Max a compelling subject, though his glib
demeanor and hazy motivations never suggest the sense that
this guy is truly wired wrong — he seems far too centered
for someone killing out of smug satisfaction. And at a brisk
75 minutes, the film plays more like a (literal) "greatest
hits", though the ending will likely have viewers looking
over their shoulders. Now if only we could convince Max
to go after the "stars" of American Idol, Survivor,
etc… You want morbid curiosity? That’s "reality TV" I’d
watch.

Ever
heard of the videogame Max Payne? Apparently so did
the makers of the unrelenting British indie action flick
Reckoning Day. It seems that tyro filmmaker
Julian Gilbey (are all UK filmmakers named Julian?) and
his cast of amateur actors got hold of a bunch of firearms,
several gallons of fake blood and a few hundred squibs,
and proceeded to shoot the hell out of each other.

The
story, as it were, concerns a group of British assassins
who get their hands on a mysterious drug called "Unseen
Force", a hyper-stimulant that heightens reflexes and increases
pain tolerance to superhuman levels. A British intelligence
agent (who bears a curious resemblance to CHUD’s longtime
LA correspondent Smilin’ Jack Ruby) recruits an American
operative named Echo Delta (Ed for short), the only man
to survive an encounter with these villains. Ed summarizes
his mission thusly: "Basically I come over there and kill
a shitload of people, destroy the drug utterly and cause
vast amounts of structural damage — I’ll get the next plane."
And
that’s basically what occurs for the following 90 grainy
minutes: endless gunfights, bloodshed and gruesome bodily
dismantlings as Ed (who’s dubbed in a numbing tough-guy
monotone) tracks down and eliminates the killers before
they can ship the drug to the open market.

The DVD cover proclaims the film was inspired by cult classics
like Evil Dead, Bad Taste and El Mariachi,
but its virtually nonexistent narrative reveals aspirations
not quite approaching that level of competence. Populated
by unskilled performers and shamelessly plagiarizing from
every action movie to precede it, Reckoning Day
strives to make up for what it lacks in budget and talent
with excessive carnage and unconventional (and sometimes
unintentionally amusing) stylistic decisions. Still, if
gratuitous violence and debatable filmmaking proficiency
appeal to you, I’m sure you could probably find zero-budget
features that are a lot worse.

MONSTERS
BEWARE

Historically
speaking, it seems like monsters have always had it tough
— there’s always someone chasing them down, and not just
rowdy bands of torch-wielding villagers. Peter Cushing spent
years hunting bloodsuckers in Hammer films. Comic book characters
have done it for decades, and the slaughter of foul creatures
has become the focus of countless videogames. Kolchak the
Night Stalker sought the supernatural in a reporting capacity,
a tradition carried on by Mulder and Scully for the X-Files
department of the FBI, while Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Blade,
Angel and (unfortunately) Van Helsing have recently kept
the big and small screens safe from unsavory beasts.

Back
in the 80s, several famous creatures had to contend with
another threat: kids. In
The Monster Squad, a group of middle-school
misfits are so obsessed with creatures of the night that
they’ve formed their own treehouse-based "monster club".
Which is good, because Dracula (Duncan Regher) has arrived
in their small town seeking an amulet that will allow evil
to run rampant, and he’s recruited Frankenstein’s monster
(Tom Noonan) and the Wolfman (Jon Gries and his nards),
along with the Mummy and the Gillman, to assist him. Coincidentally,
the monster club leader’s mom just gave her son an old journal
she found in a local church, and the young folklore fanatics
enlist the translation services of the nearby "scary German
guy" only to discover that the book is essentially an instruction
manual written by Abraham Van Helsing, detailing how to
prevent the impending monster apocalypse. It’s then up to
the adolescent fiend-fighters to send Drac and his cronies
back to the hell that spawned them.

You
may be asking yourself, "But is it as good as I remember?"
Though an unmistakable artifact of the 80s thanks to the
wardrobe, hairstyles and synth-pop soundtrack, Monster
Squad still holds up surprisingly well. Director
Fred Dekker and co-writer Shane Black (yep, the Lethal
Weapon guy) toss all the classic monster mythology
into the blender with the Little Rascals and two cups of
cheese, and manage to cook up an amusing, occasionally juvenile
and surprisingly sinister action-comedy-horror flick. Whether
they’re discussing the best means to dispatch vampires or
arguing about the Wolfman’s genitalia, the kids never come
across as annoying little snots, which is something of a
remarkable feat for anyone under fourteen. And the monsters
all look great, thanks to the makeup work of FX guru Stan
Winston.

Sadly,
the oft-bootlegged film (along with Dekker’s other cult
fave, Night of the Creeps) has yet to appear
on an official DVD — no one even seems to know who currently
holds the rights, despite the legions of fans who only have
worn-out VHS copies from their formative years and crave
a remastered digital edition (if any readers know more,
please drop me a line). So to whatever studio out there
is sitting on this minor classic: pluck it out of holding
pattern and get it on a platter already!

Another
recent beast battler that didn’t quite meet with the same
franchise success of Joss Whedon’s creations is Matthew
Blackheart: Monster Smasher. A Canadian production
that seems to have been made for about half the cost of
an average Mutant X episode, Matthew Blackheart
sweeps so close to Captain America that Reb Brown and Matt
Salinger are still pissed they weren’t considered for the
lead role.

The
story involves a secret WWII super-soldier (Rob Bogue) cobbled
together by science and sent on a mission to Patagonia where
a villain named Mortas is creating monsters for Hitler.
During the skirmish he’s cryogenically frozen, and finally
thaws fifty years later when he returns to modern-day New
York with a fuzzy memory and a continued desire to eradicate
"bogies". While he pieces together his past with a spunky
diner owner and a young cab driver (who, inexplicably, turns
out to be a younger version of the doctor who constructed
him a half-century prior, and is now selling comics about
his creation’s "real" adventures), Blackheart also discovers
his archenemy Mortas has since become a powerful record
company executive and ringleader of various monster clans
plotting global domination, which obviously must be stopped.

This
failed series pilot (an "origin story") may not have much
by way of scares, production values, logic or originality,
but at least the actor in the title role is quite watchable,
with line delivery like an E! host channeling Bruce Campbell
(when President Roosevelt tells Blackheart he’ll be misunderstood
by people because "they all think a hero is a sandwich,"
the champion heartily responds with: "Then let’s give ’em
lots of mayo, sir!"). It also has an evil lizard chick,
a monster midget, a blind guy with a flamethrower, and lots
of splashing goo. If you have a high tolerance for derivative
camp made on the cheap, you might find something to like
here.

DRIBLETS

Some
interesting miscellany from the CHUD message boards and
beyond:

I caught the hilarious short film Forklift
Driver Klaus at Fantasia Fest last year, and laughed
uncontrollably at the gleefully gory antics of the titular
accident-prone worker. This fake employee safety video can
be seen online, and although it lacks English subtitles
(which won’t be a problem for our Deutschland readers, if
we have any), spewing arteries are a universal language.
It’s still relatively easy to follow, and loaded with wonderful
dismemberment. Check it out RIGHT
HERE!

The
Russian film Night Watch is not a remake of
the Ewan McGregor thriller (itself a remake of a Danish
film), but instead a sci-fi/horror film based on a series
of novels by Sergey Lukianenko. The story concerns a group
of "night hunters" who eternally battle to retain
the balance between the forces of Light and Dark. There’s
a trailer online (RIGHT
HERE), and although the audio quality is pretty
terrible and the beginning looks a bit like Road Warrior
meets Monty Python and the Holy Grail,
it certainly looks intriguing. Thanks to ‘Timo’ for the
heads-up.

Fans
of the Friday the 13th series ought to dig
this indie short called Chasing Jason, an
amusing look at the limited lovelife of the infamous hockey-masked
serial killer, which probably makes him seem fairly normal
for the Los Angeles dating scene. Some nice in-jokes and
decent acting help make this a well-made, surprisingly fun
offering from writer/director Chopper Denton. You can check
it out online RIGHT
HERE.

STEAM

Thanks
to all for your letters of non-hatred. Send
me more comments, suggestions, and coupons for Russian brides
to dave@chud.com, and
I’ll reply to any letters in future columns. Thanks for
reading and writing!

Hi,
Dave;

I’m
glad you mentioned the great unaired pilot "Heat Vision
& Jack." I saw a bootleg of it about a year ago
and thought it was probably one of the most clever shows
to come down the pike in awhile. Unfortunately, that’s not
what the "American Idol"-ized masses seem to be going for
these days.

At any rate, is there any hope for a DVD release of the
pilot? Maybe they could round up Ben Stiller, Jack Black
and Owen Wilson for a commentary. I think it’d be funny
to also have a "retrospective" featurette on the disc with
all the principals talking waxing philisophical about the
cultural impact of the single episode that was never actually
aired.

–
Brad

DAVE
SAYS: I did a little snooping and got word from someone
close to the production. The bad news: an official DVD of
the Heat Vision and Jack pilot looks unlikely
to appear in the immediate future. The good news: this is
apparently because Fox is firmly holding onto the property
because they want to make it into a feature film! Now that
the involved talent has considerably more clout since then,
this could indeed become a reality, so cross your fingers.

Fantastic
column. You’ve called attention to some films I really love,
and a few I detest with 99.9% of my being. I always look
forward to reading the next installment. About two years
ago, I saw a film from Morocco called ‘Ali Zaoua,
Prince of the Streets‘. It’s a day in the life of
three homeless children in Casablanca, and really impressed
me. I’ve been looking for it on DVD ever since. Seen it?
Know where to buy it?

The Shanghai International Film Festival just ended here,
and would have been great if not for it’s lack of organization.
I showed up to see Memories of Murder, only
to be told that it had been sent back to Korea already.
What? Otherwise, it was nice to have a choice in what film
to see besides ‘Day After Tomorrow’ or ‘Troy’. Keep up the
good work!

-Sai
Rong

DAVE
SAYS: Haven’t seen or heard of that film before, but it
appears to be available as a R2 French import (from www.cinestore.com)
or domestically as an exclusive from Film Movement (www.filmmovement.com).
I might have to check it out.

As
for Memories of Murder, I commented on the
film in a previous STEAM, but I’ll reiterate that although
I didn’t find it quite as worthy of the hype it’s received,
it is still definitely worth tracking down.

Love
the column. It is nice to see some attention brought to
the "hidden treasures" out there. There are a couple of
movies out there that I have seen trailers for and am seriously
impressed. "Immortel" and "Casshern".
What light can you throw on these wonderous looking flicks?
Will we ever see them in the states or will we be forced
(well, not really /forced/…I’d do it in a second) to buy
imported DVDs of them until 20 years from now some pinhead
at a studio sees one and decides to release it here acting
the whole time like he found the thing (any resemblence
to the movie "Hero", Miramax, and Tarentino
is purely intentional)?

Keep
the columns coming! Now I must go watch "Robot Bastard"
again.

–
kirk

DAVE
SAYS: Thanks for reading! Unfortunately I know about
as much as you do about those films, as far as a domestic
release goes. I expect I’ll be getting my claws on subtitled
import DVDs long before they’re ever considered for a theatrical
release in this country — you’d probably see a US remake
before the original. The harsh reality is that there’s really
no market for films like that in a country where people
would rather stay home and watch random morons eat various
insects on Fear Factor than go see a foreign
film.

DOWN
BELOW

I’d
like the UNDERGROUND to also be an environment for smaller
filmmakers (in budget, scope and height – I don’t discriminate,
wee folk) to publicize their wares, particularly genre material. 
Everyone deserves a chance, yeah? After all, even Oscar
winner Peter Jackson started with an independent sci-fi
horror flick that featured spilled brains and vomit tasting. 
So if you’ve got an independent film and you want to expose
yourself, drop me a line at dave@chud.com. 
Put some pants on first.

Thanks
for digging into this edition of DAVE’S UNDERGROUND, be
back soon with more treats from beneath eye level. Feel
free to send any suggestions or comments to dave@chud.com!

Nip/Tuck is the best first season of a television show I’ve ever
seen.

A
little background first. I’d seen the promos for this show, caught the little
mentions in the magazines, and heard a few friends and readers make comments
about it in passing but never formulated an opinion of it one way or another.
When the DVD arrived in my mailbox I fully intended to mail it off to one of our
illustrious reviewers but curiosity got the best of me. Three days later, I’d
ingested every episode and was firmly and wholly in love with the world of
Nip/Tuck. To make things even better, the makers had the good
sense to finish and release the first full season on the eve of the second
season’s arrival, a tactic most television shows don’t even try to
accomplish.

Why
is Nip/Tuck so great? Read on…

The Flick

The
brainchild of creator Ryan Murphy (also the name of a good friend of mine and
cousin of sometime CHUD.com contributor Steve Murphy), Nip/Tuck is
an adult soap opera about the world of plastic surgery and of human makeover
both physical and spiritual. When I say “adult” I don’t mean that it’s erotica
although the show does stretch the boundaries of television, I mean it’s
intelligent and abrasive and oftentimes quite moving. Regular soap operas, well…
they have their place I suppose but it’s no place I want to be. While the
proceedings on the show are often too convenient and outrageous to really take
place in the real world in such a compressed time period, this fairy tale has
ample juice to sustain itself and a really nice mean streak that keeps it from
being too much like its contemporaries (Six Feet Under, for
one).

One
of the things that repelled me about the show was the lack of any major actors,
unless you consider Congo a major film. It usually takes either a
really memorable performer or creator to hook me, or a really amazing concept.
On the surface, this had neither. What ultimately sealed the deal were not only
the show’s incredible confidence and style but also its amazing willingness to
push as far as the limitations of television will allow and then give it another
nudge after that. Why settle for unflinching forensic shots of breasts, asses,
and faces being surgically altered when you can have a character get repeated
Botox (most vain drug ever) injections in the Johnson? Why just hint at a woman
with breast cancer scars when you can show it? Nothing is sacred in the world of
Nip/Tuck and it’s a beautiful thing.

"So that’s why
this is called a Dodge Ram!"

Sensationalism and shock tactics can only go so far, and thankfully the
real reason this show is a favorite is the work by the leading two actors. I’ve
seen Dylan Walsh in a handful of films before and found him incredibly bland and
forgettable, a fact that ends up making him perfect for his role as Sean
McNamara, the dependable and family values-centered half of the plastic surgeon
duo. He starts off the show being the rock, the human core to the madness but as
the season progresses and his life spirals out of control it’s a chance for the
unheralded actor to really strut his stuff. His arc has the most dramatic meat
as he deals with a failing marriage, an uncomfortable relationship with his son
(John Hensley, who IS an elf), a career that sometimes baffles him, and a
budding romance with a recent divorcee (Doc Hollywood’s Julie
Warner). It’s compelling stuff made increasingly better by the work of Walsh,
Hensley, and Warner as well as Joely Richardson as his troubled wife.

If my pants
are any indication, attempts to crossbreed Minnie Driver with hot Latin sex were
a success!

The other half of the mix is the real reason I love this
show. When looking at the box of the show, the name Julian McMahon did nothing
to inspire me to see the show. After seeing it, I have no doubts that he’s my
favorite Australian import in a long time and one of my favorite new faces
period. This guy literally rips the show away from his costars and the hosts of
sexy women and cool scenarios. He is alternately reptilian and vindictive,
seductive and impossible to ignore, and at times the only sane thing onscreen.
Imagine if Neil Labute were to craft a perfect amalgam of his vicious
protagonists played by Aaron Eckhart, Jason Patric, and even Rachel Weisz and
then invest more shading and depth and you’d have McMahon’s Christian Troy. He’s
not a brilliant surgeon, but a passable one. His strength lies in networking and
a complete dearth of ethics. He’ll seduce his way into more clients, lie, cheat,
and whatever else. He’ll ruin the good record of a reformed sexaholic. He’ll
dump a model like a bad habit once he gets what he needs. He’s a snake, but just
as Walsh’s character starts to lose his way, Troy begins to find his. Or so he
thinks.

"Wait… Asian massage includes Ninja Assaults?"

Is Nip/Tuck a car crash? Is watching these
lives so horribly out of whack the real addictive crack rock at the center? Yes
and no. While there is a certain beauty to just how horrible things can get,
there’s more to the show than that. One episode alone brings that fact
resoundingly home, Adelle Coffin. It’s one of the most moving and brave
episodes of television I can remember and one that gives The West Wing’s
Two Cathedrals a run for its money. In the episode, the issue of suicide is
addressed in a mature and tasteful way and the show pulls off the rare feat of
not only making the idea feasible but almost beautiful in a way. I happened to
be watching the episode with my wife in the office and since she has not
invested in the previous nine hours of the show, she wasn’t taken by it. Funnily
enough, the suicide is a cancer patient (my wife is a cancer nurse
practicioner). That said, I was considerably shaken by it. The episode features
the most haunting and somehow hopeful usage of Elton John’s Rocket Man,
and I’ll never hear the song the same way again. That’s the power of a good
film, or in this case good television. It takes the familiar and bends it into
an amazing new shape. We’ve seen terminal disease before. We’ve seen death.
We’ve heard popular songs used as a crutch. This show takes all these familiar
elements and manages to massage it into something special.

"Do you smell
mask? Something smells like mask."

When
it boils down, it’s the way that Nip/Tuck does its business that
works for me. It’s heightened and far from realistic but its honest and it has
the balls to twist convention on its ear. There’s a paternity issue late in the
season that is resolved in a funny and refreshing way that kind of represents
that to me. In the same way that The Shield brilliantly takes the
boring police procedural and kicks it in the ass so goes
Nip/Tuck’s approach to medical drama.

The first
publicity still for Mario Puzo’s The Blurfather.

This
is an incredible show that I fear can only get worse. This is damn near perfect
and the best show about transformation since Cybertron’s great
exodus.

Sometimes
Julie could only be satiated by a nice rousing game of Hide and Go
Society.

9.3 out of 10

Despite his
intense training and degree from the Drescher School of Botany, Lewis could not
get his customer to efficiently "talk to the hand".

The Look

Presented in a matted widescreen, the show looks lovely right down to the
last talking autopsy head. The show is set in the pastel trendy world of Miami’s
wealthy sector, so the show does showcase considerable pizzazz. Thankfully, the
transfer is gorgeous and offers no discernible artifacts (though I may have
spotted the Ark of the Covenant a few times). Everything comes through crisp as
a fresh head of lettuce and I was really surprised at how such a relatively low
profile show managed to get such a nice transfer when bigger Warner Bros. Titles
didn’t.

Either way, this is sharp.

9.0 out of 10

Hong
enjoyed working on the set of Hideo Nakata’s THX 1138 remake but
not as much as his time spent with the 22-inch Obsidian
Monolith.

The Noise

As
with the video, the aural portion of the set is quite impressive. Though I could
go without hearing the show’s opening song for the rest of my life, there’s a
surprisingly solid 5.1 track on hand to allow for the screaming matches,
thudding bass of nightclubs, and whirring of medical drills to tickle your
eardrums. It comes through quite well, something not always evident in shows
though the trend seems to be catering more towards the HDTV and videophile crowd
each season. More and more shows seem to want to kick ass on all technical
levels both because of the incredible new hardware folks are watching TV with
and because the ancillary market of DVD has become so robust.

Good
work, though not quite on par with a feature.

8.0 out of
10

"So,
what’s it like being bashed apart forever?" …. "An ironic query, Jakes."

The Goodies

Here’s where the trouble enters paradise. There’s not one commentary
track on this whole set. Not even one from the severed autopsy head. What gives?
There are some informative and moderately in-depth documentaries about the show,
the cast, and the makeup effects but none of them really drive home the smaller
and finer details. That’s where commentary shines, as an intimate audience with
the creators and stars. There’s really no substitute (except Treat Williams and
Tom Berenger).

"It says here
that you’re suffering from flu-like symptons but have also noticed a slight
limp, is that right Mrs. O’Vanquished?"

There
are a few deleted scenes, something the menus and packaging highlight but
overall a neat curiosity but nothing that makes the show worth buying solely for
the special features. There are some rather considerable cuts, a rarity for
television, but still nothing transcendent.

In
addition there are a few outtakes and a music video for that title song I am
truly tired of. This could have whipped its competition if there were a few more
special features, but alas.

5.0 out of 10

The
Artwork

Flat
out gorgeous. Aside from the Lenticular cover where a sexy female eye gets all
bandaged when you move the cover, the whole thing is elegant, simple, and clean.
That goes a long way as some boxed sets try to overdesign themselves and the
result is just plain busy. This is tasteful and classy.

Of
course, if it were an autopsy head, it’d be a 10.

9.0 out of 10

THE FLICK: 9.3
THE LOOK: 9.0
THE NOISE: 8.0
THE GOODIES:
5.0
THE ARTWORK: 9.0
OVERALL: 9.1

READ
PREVIOUS COLUMNS HERE!

I’m
either late with last week’s installment, or early with
this weeks, but either way it’s here… hope you find something
you like.

Got an interesting
film suggestion? Know of something good in the works? Just
want to tell me I’m rubbish?  Drop me a line at dave@chud.com, and
I’ll respond to any letters in future columns.

NOT
QUITE SKY HIGH

Japanese
director Ryuhei Kitamura made
a big, red splash with his hyperactive homage collection
Versus, a supernatural action flick with loads
of swordplay and zombies.  This was followed with the smaller
character-focused films Alive and Aragami, and the teen-samurai epic Azumi. 
Before he set about bringing the grand kaiju on a world tour with Godzilla: Final
Wars, he co-directed another supernatural action
flick, Sky High.

Essentially
the prequel to a late night TV series (which I’ve never
seen) that’s based on a manga
(which I’ve never read), Sky High begins with
cop Kanazaki (Shoshuke Tanihara of Fudoh)
as he’s about to marry Mina (Yukimo
Shaku of Princess Blade). 
Unfortunately the ceremony doesn’t go quite as planned,
as his bride-to-be gets her heart yanked from her chest
moments before the vows (which can make any wedding reception
a downer).  Because she was murdered, in the afterlife she
is greeted by the guardian at the “Gate of Rage”, and given
three choices and a few days to decide whether to just accept
her fate, haunt the world for eternity, or avenge her death
and go to Hell. 

For
the next few days she wanders the world as a spirit, hovering
around her despondent fiancé and trying to solve her own
death.  She discovers that a hunky geneticist (Takao Osawa of Aragami)
and his gorgeous and lethal assistant are using their mystical
abilities to collect the hearts of reincarnated Gate guardians
in order to perform an arcane ritual and free the spirit
of his comatose wife.  Or something. 

That’s
sort of the problem with Sky High, its tenuous
grasp of what kind of movie it is, whether a murder mystery,
a supernatural horror story (it even references The
Sixth Sense), an action flick, a theological exploration,
or some combination thereof.  Purportedly the main character,
Mina doesn’t have much to do except loiter in the background
until the last few minutes of the movie, when she suddenly
assumes the mantle of the Gate guardian and shows off some
impressive sword tactics.  The disastrous narrative and
plot conveniences are interspersed with the sort of wildly
overstylized sword-clashing action
sequences that have become Kitamura’s trademark.  And although
Mina doesn’t strut her stuff until
the Big Rock Finish, a variety of other beautiful women
perform admirably in her staid, but the whole thing is likely
to seem both jarring and underwhelming to anyone not familiar
with the TV series.

With
Sky High, Kitamura again displays a proclivity
towards forest battles, techno music and making his movies
too long, but as usual he makes up for the story’s shortcomings
with style… lots and lots of style.

FRENCH
MASTER

When
it comes to major influences, you’ll see the name of French
filmmaker Jean-Pierre Melville pretty high on the lists
of craftsmen such as John Woo, Quentin Tarantino and Martin
Scorsese, and with a near-perfect film like Le Samourai
to his credit, it’s no surprise as to why.

One
of Melville’s handful of crime noir tales, the classic Le
Samourai is notable for supposedly setting the foundation
for Woo’s The Killer as well as leaving a
blatant impression on everything from Ghost Dog
to Luc Besson’s Leon. The story (which opens
with a faux Bushido quote: "There is no greater solitude
than that of samurai, unless perhaps it be that of the tiger
in the jungle") offers a glimpse into the secluded life
of Jef Costello (the striking Alain Delon), an enigmatic
hitman renowned for his proficiency.

Though
his methodical approach to population control typically
yields results without complication, one night he’s witnessed
after removing a Paris nightclub owner from the playing
field, causing a citywide manhunt for anyone matching his
description. Unfortunately for the police superintendent
(Francois Périer), no one is able to positively identify
the murderer and Costello is released, but the frustrated
superintendent is convinced he’s the culprit. What follows
is a brilliant cat-and-mouse game between the tenacious
cop and the sly killer, who must contend with crumbling
alibis, a beautiful and calculating pianist, police traps
and double-crossing employers.

"Masterpiece"
is not a term to be thrown around lightly, but it’s applicable
in this instance. Melville wrings excruciating levels of
tension from what on the surface seems a simple premise,
and proceeds to paint a riveting, almost impossibly stylish
noir tale. The film is nearly as efficient as its protagonist,
with nary a line of dialogue spoken unnecessarily, and Delon
(who would re-team with Melville on the heist films
Le Cercle Rouge and Un Flic) offers
a mesmerizing and placid performance that commands the screen.

It might take some heroic persistence to find (the French
DVD sadly seems to be available only intermittently), but
I can’t recommend Le Samourai enough to anyone
with an appreciation for film and filmmakers.

SKIN
TRADE

As
Hollywood shamelessly poaches concepts and aesthetics from
around the world, who’s to say other countries can’t do
the same? Take for example the effective German thriller
Tattoo, which nods to Seven
and Silence of the Lambs so much it gets a
sore neck.

In
Tattoo, apathetic police cadet Schrader (August
Diehl, whose pallor and bristled hair evoke a young Christopher
Walken) is more interested in dropping E, hitting raves
and hanging with his deejay girlfriend than advancing his
law enforcement career. That is, until his nocturnal activities
are noted by grizzled veteran homicide detective Minks (Christian
Redl), who transfers the reluctant lad to his department.

Together the pair begins investigating a bizarre murder
that leads them to a disturbing subculture of tattoo enthusiasts.
They learn from the convenient arrival of the victim’s gorgeous
ex-roommate Maya (Nadeshda Brennicke) about a legendary
Japanese tattoo artist whose dozen works are highly sought
on the skin market. Yes, people are willing to pay handsomely
for the inked flesh… unaccompanied by the attached humans.

Naturally,
this is not an average police investigation. Writer/director
Robert Schwentke, a commercial helmer making his feature
debut, stitches together his film influences like a Ted
Levine flesh-suit, but still manages to weave an intriguing
and occasionally horrific little noir tale with some unexpected
swerves and solid characterization. The bleak rain-drenched
atmosphere and (often improbable) plot devices may seem
reminiscent of many films, but Tattoo offers
a uniquely macabre view of obsessive collectors.

NUTS
AND BOLTS

I
was a big fan of Rob Schrab’s wonderfully surreal and violent
comic series Scud, the Disposable Assassin (as well
as the later Drywall and La Cosa Nostroid)
and bemoaned the fact that he seems to have given up sequential
art. But thanks to deliriously goofy stuff like Robot
Bastard, I’ll forgive him.

Robot
Bastard is a short film Schrab made a few years
ago that I thought I’d revisit as it seems to jive with
the purpose of this column. It follows the purposely-cheesy
adventure of a robot agent on a mission to rescue the President’s
kidnapped daughter from the evil Blood Mamba. To do that
he must first wade through a space station full of Black
Mummies, a feat our boxy hero accomplishes with maximum
firepower and mindless mayhem. All that, plus the luscious
Robia La Morte (formerly of Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
in a schoolgirl outfit. What more could you want?

Shot
on a shoestring budget with props made from junk, Robot
Bastard should be a kick for anyone who appreciates
funky colors, wacky designs and the glory of schlock —
i.e., rubber-suit monsters, the finer cheese moments of
the original Star Trek series, exploding heads, green
goop, etc. It’s almost as weird as anything Schrab ever
did in the comic world (as he puts it, the film takes place
"in an eighth-grade-boy universe of robots, rocket ships
and cute girls"), and it would certainly be interesting
to see what he’d be able to do with a grander budget. You
can check out Robot Bastard RIGHT
HERE.

For
those who don’t know, Schrab is also the co-creator of what
is probably the most bootlegged unaired TV pilot in history,
Heat Vision and Jack. This prospective series
(directed by Ben Stiller) starred Jack Black as an astronaut
who drives a sentient motorcycle (voiced by Owen Wilson)
and uses his solar-powered superintelligence to fight an
alien menace. Somehow this loopy premise failed to impress
the suits at Fox (hey, remember back when they were cool?).

Schrab
is currently working on a pilot for the FX network based
on the website experiment Channel 101, which
he describes as "a competitive Project Greenlight
for TV, only done by maniacs instead of film students who
can’t tell a joke." You can check out the current online
lineup RIGHT
HERE, which includes Schrab’s zany "Twigger’s
Holiday", about a floppy-eared punk kid with a hot warrior-babe
mom and a giant abusive principal who dresses like Santa.
Yep.

DRIBLETS

Some
interesting miscellany from the CHUD message boards and
beyond:

—
Breaking News, the latest film from Hong Kong helmer
Johnnie To (whose Running on Karma I discussed
in the last column) has apparently been grabbed by Warner
Bros. for a domestic remake. The movie revolves around a
police department who, after being embarassed by a televised
screw-up, have their entire force looking to find a group
of bank robbers. When the suspects are located, an inspector
decides to use the media presence to the police advantage
by airing the takedown live, not realizing that another
violent gang occupies the same building.

—
The bone-crushing fight flick Ong Bak: Thai
Warrior is finally (officially) making its way to
the US later this year courtesy of Magnolia Pictures. The
film stars acrobatic Thai martial arts sensation Tony Jaa
(aka Phanom Yeerum) as a villager who travels to the big
city to recover a sacred artifact. Along the way, he uses
Muay Thai to knock the shit out of pretty much everyone.

The
movie was previously acquired and re-cut by Luc Besson’s
EuropaCorp and became a hit in France. A sequel is already
in the works.

—
Undeniably insane Japanese filmmaker Takashi Miike (Ichi the Killer,
Audition) is apparently working on a movie titled
Izo: The Crotch is an Incomprehensible Demon-Man.
The synopsis:

We begin in 1865, when the Shogunate
is on its last legs, but still capable of punishing its
enemies. One is Izo (Kazuya Nakayama), an assassin in the
service of Hanpeida (Ryosuke Miki), a Tosa lord and Imperial
supporter. After killing dozens of the Shogun’s men, Izo
is captured and crucified.

Instead of being extinguished, his
rage propels him through the space-time continum to present-day
Tokyo, where his finds himself one with the city’s homeless.
Here Izo transforms himself into a new, improved killing
machine, his entire soul still enraged by his treatment
in his past life. His response to the powers-that-be, whose
predecessors put him to death, is the sword.

His ability to leap through time,
slashing as he goes, attracts the attention of the lords
of the universe, who are like a pre-war House of Peers,
in office for eternity. Izo, however, is not about to bow
to anyone, even the lords of creation (he even rapes Mother
Earth).

In the final conflict, the prime
minister (Beat Takeshi), calls in allies from all eras,
from samurai swordsmen to the yakuza. It should be the most
bloody and violent sword fight sequence ever staged.

STEAM

Thanks
to all for your letters of non-hatred. Send
me more comments, suggestions, and coupons for Russian brides
to dave@chud.com, and
I’ll reply to any letters in future columns. Thanks for
reading and writing!

Dave…

Great
column! I have either seen, own, or will someday see just
about every movie covered so far, and I gotta say, your
taste is in movies is very good (Chungking Express
is my favorite WKW movie too).

I
don’t know about you, but I’ve been happily buying all of
these recent Fortune Star/Fox DVD releases over the past
six months and I’ve been very impressed. For the most part
the movies seem to be uncut, with their original titles
and music, something Dimension could learn from with their
horrible Jet Li releases. The picture quality has also been
outstanding.

My
question is this: A while ago I head that Fortune Star was
putting out a 2 disc UK re-release of John Woo’s awesome
Bullet In The Head. I’m not sure if this
is part of the same series or a stand alone thing, but I
was wondering if you would know the status of this or any
other HK movie that might get a proper US release in the
future. My Tai Seng version of BITH is of very poor picture
quality and I’d love a cleaned up, 5.1 surround copy for
my collection.

Thanks
for your time and keep the great columns coming!

Brendan

DAVE
SAYS: Bullet in the Head is my favorite
Hong Kong John Woo movie (with the ludicrous A Better
Tomorrow II close behind), but like you I’ve only
got that lousy Mega Star DVD. A stateside release seems
to have disappeared from any release schedules, but the
UK’s Hong Kong Legends is releasing what looks to be the
definitive DVD in July, a remastered 2-disc set with cast
interviews, a Woo retrospective and deleted scenes. Yet
another perfect reason to own a code-free PAL-converting
DVD player. All hail Hong Kong Legends.

And
about Dimension/Miramax’s treatment of Asian films, I hear
ya barkin’. Fortunately companies like Sony Pictures Classics
and Lions Gate "get it" when it comes to foreign films.
Thanks for writing!

Hey
dave something
simple and sweet,

What are your thoughts on Infernal Affair
movies? And do you plan to do anything bout them on your
column?

Take
care,

Steven

DAVE
SAYS: I liked the first one quite a bit. I reviewed it for
the Hellboy issue of Movie Insider and gave it an 8 out
of 10. Here’s my review, for you cheap bastards who haven’t
realized the glory of Movie Insider yet:

Undercover
detective Yan (Tony Leung Chiu-Wai) has been entrenched
deep in the Hong Kong triad for so many years, he’s begun
to question both his intentions and his sanity. A decade
prior he was dispatched by Superintendent Wong (Anthony
Wong Chau-Sang) to infiltrate the crime network of boss
Sam (Eric Tsang), where Yan has since risen to second-in-command.
However, unbeknownst to the clandestine lawman, Sam had
secretly enrolled his young lieutenant Ming (Andy Lau) in
the Hong Kong Police Academy… and now ten years later, his
spy has become a sergeant in the Organized Crime and Triad
Bureau where he covertly tracks and undermines Wong’s efforts.
During a drug deal, both sides suddenly become aware of
an informer in their respective organizations. With more
moles in the mix than a Robert DeNiro lookalike contest,
the pressure gauge nears the breaking point as Yan and Ming
each attempt to identify the other before their cover is
revealed.

One
of the most successful films in Hong Kong history, this
knotty all-star cop thriller is now slowly making its way
around the globe. And while the premise may seem familiar
and the ballistic bloodshed is held to a minimum, the nail-nibbling
situations, complex character motivations, striking visuals
and praise-worthy acting make Infernal Affairs a particularly
palatable concoction. This comes as a something of a curveball
from director and co-writer Andrew Lau, previously responsible
for such gaudy and meatless action extravaganzas as A
Man Called Hero and The Avenging Fist, but here
he extracts some of the most potent career performances
from all involved and confidently navigates the camera through
the tense labyrinth of risky circumstances. Still, the obligatory
females (Kelly Chen, Sammi Cheng) get bankrupted by the
Boy’s Club, their characters about as essential as a Michael
Bay screenplay. And anyone seeking Woo-style pyrotechnics
should seek a simpler, more violent alternative import,
as there’s nary a two-gun slo-mo slide or flapping dove
to be found here.

As
for the sequels, I’ve seen Infernal Affairs II,
and couldn’t shake the sense that it was a case of a sequel
(or prequel, in this case) motivated purely by profit. I
didn’t dislike it, but I did feel it was rather unnecessary
backstory. Infernal Affairs III is still in
my towering stack of unwatched acquisitions.

I’ve
been looking around online and have had trouble finding
the Region 0 Italian DVD release of Andy Warhol’s Chelsea
Girls. The only place I’ve found it is on Ebay for
$75, so I was wondering if you knew of someplace where it’d
be possible to find an apparently rare Italian DVD.

Thanks,

David

DAVE
SAYS: I’ve seen the import pop up at both Diabolik
DVD and Xploited
Cinema, both resellers that I use often. I’m pretty
sure it’s a 2-disc PAL DVD (which means you’d have to watch
it on your PC’s DVD ROM drive or have a player with PAL
conversion) and it ain’t cheap, usually around $50 bucks.

DOWN
BELOW

I’d
like the UNDERGROUND to also be an environment for smaller
filmmakers (in budget, scope and height – I don’t discriminate,
wee folk) to publicize their wares, particularly genre material. 
Everyone deserves a chance, yeah? After all, even Oscar
winner Peter Jackson started with an independent sci-fi
horror flick that featured spilled brains and vomit tasting. 
So if you’ve got an independent film and you want to expose
yourself, drop me a line at dave@chud.com. 
Put some pants on first.

Thanks
for digging into this edition of DAVE’S UNDERGROUND, be
back soon with more treats from beneath eye level. Feel
free to send any suggestions or comments to dave@chud.com!

Several years after his “Gilligan’s Island with nocturnal aliens” experience, intergalactic fugitive Richard B. Riddick (Vin Diesel) is holed up on a stark and secluded planet (guess he grew fond of such places during Pitch Black), living the quiet life, chillin’.  That is, until a group of mercenaries led by the exceedingly gruff Toombs (Nick Chinlund, who should be in every movie) come knocking at his cave entrance. His sanctuary discovered, Riddick escapes the desolate world to go confront the guy who narced him out, the priest Imam (fellow Pitch Black survivor Keith David). There, Riddick also meets Aereon (the always-regal Judi Dench, a little disconcerted that she’s actually in a Vin Diesel movie), a wispy “Elemental” who gives Bond his mission objectives.  During the briefing Riddick learns that, as the last of the Furyans, he’s part of a prophecy to stop a horde of space invaders who threaten the universe (the whole thing).

Colm Feore is the dreaded Lord Marshal, an intergalactic tyrant who sucks souls (as did his last film, Paycheck).  He leads a massive force of religious zealots called Necromongers who worship the “Underverse” and casually conquer planets, a real “join us or die” bunch of armor-clad clowns.  At his side is Commander Vaako (Rohan rider Karl Urban, who I didn’t recognize until halfway through the movie), a soldier faced with the dichotomy of remaining loyal or killing his superior to ascend in rank, and Vaako’s conniving wife (gorgeous clothes rack Thandie Newton, who goes through more wardrobe changes than a Christina Aguilera tour, but is nowhere near as substantial). 

These Necromongers also become aware of Riddick’s supposed destiny, though they seem far more concerned with it than he is.  Instead he tracks down an old companion in a new form, the warrior babe Kyra (delicious Alexa Davalos, the superconducting burglar from Angel).  The adult version of boyish Jack from Pitch Black, Kyra has followed in her idol’s footsteps and become a hardened, hardbodied rogue… and convicted felon.  After Riddick busts her out of the joint, the proverbial reluctant hero uses his strangely intermittent superhuman abilities to cause all sorts of commotion among the Necromongers, much as prognosticated.

Before this, I was a little concerned about Vin Diesel for a while there.  The guy can definitely act (seek out his short film Multi-Facial for evidence), but the man who personified the memorable antihero from Pitch Black was nowhere to be found in strictly payday projects like The Fast and the Furious and XXX, in which he was merely a prop, a rippling sweat-slicked torso with attitude.  But it’s obvious he has a vested interest in the character of Riddick, a role he absolutely embodies – this is his character.  While his nonchalantly self-serving demeanor feels a little muted (he’s not quite the “another kind of evil” that Aereon perceives), Riddick is still an icy killer who’s predominantly driven by egocentricity.  Played again with aloof charisma and sarcastic growls, there’s never a doubt Diesel’s Riddick is a convincing part of that particular universe he inhabits, and in his mind, he’s at the center of it.

Odd that a videogame (subtitled “Escape from Butcher Bay”) was in simultaneous development with the movie, as director David Twohy’s Chronicles often feels like one, with many of the bombastic conversations serving as expositional “cut-scenes” before the action levels load.  Fortunately the graphics and gameplay are fantastic, with resplendent costumes, outstanding bizarro-baroque production design and face-filled architecture (from the guy who worked on Stargate, unsurprisingly), wildly varying interactive environments, cool cascading spaceships, brutal bone-crunching combat (pushing the PG-13) and a harrowing, sphincter-puckering race against flash-frying. 

The inevitable comparisons to Pitch Black are relatively pointless, as they’re two completely different movies — the first is an insular survival story that barely introduces concepts and characters that carry over to Chronicles.  Alas, the extensive scope of the sequel is also its greatest weakness, and it never truly feels like it reaches its epic ambitions (apparently as much as an hour of footage is on the cutting room floor).  Twohy’s megabudget planet-hopping action-filled sci-fi monstrosity smacks Dune around and tosses the flakes that shake loose at the screen, but only some of them really stick.  All that grandiloquent spouting of the “Underverse” and whatnot starts to seem a little silly and remote (genre films that take themselves too seriously become Underworld or the Matrix sequels, and nobody needs that), though I still found Chronicles far more appealing than the Star Wars prequels.

The movie does have loads of energy and plenty of detailed FX and visual ka-zow (which it should, considering I’ve heard the “unofficial” budget is north of $200 million), and Riddick’s interactions with Toombs and Kyra just pop – which is good, since these three are the most engaging characters the film offers.  The hokey naming conventions (e.g., a really hot planet called Crematoria), broad nonsensical mythology, pretentious speechifying and cartoon grit insinuate an overall cheesy pulp tone, and by the time the credits rolled (after a conclusion I’m still ambivalent about), I’d decided that Chronicles of Riddick is essentially a really, really expensive variation of the 1980 Flash Gordon flick (Riddick! Aaa-aahhhh! He’ll save every one of us!).  Which is okay with me.

7.5 out of 10

Welcome
back to the site after a weekend of naughtiness and repeated
kicks to the solar plexus and a Monday that included not
getting fired and an unexpected tryst in the closet with
your boss’s daughter. I hope all is well in your neck of
the woods.

The
official CHUD.com softball team, The Chewers played a doubleheader
this past Sunday and swept it to get our record to a respectable
2-1. Thanks to the small gaggle of local folks who came
to support us. We play again this Sunday at 1:30 and 2:30
and would always love to see more folks out there.

In
other news, I think that the new Harry Potter film
may rank right near the top of the heap in recent memory
of films with damn near impeccable set design, production
value, and jaw-dropping aesthetic cinematic beauty. It was
flat out DIRECTED. I hope Chris Columbus watches
that film and jumps into a pool of angry carp. It just showcases
how much a difference it makes when a big franchise is willing
to let a visionary take the helm. Imagine if the James Bond
people took their heads out of their assholes.

DVD
titles worth getting this week: City
of God, Mystic River, Field of Dreams: SE, The Dead Zone
#2.

DVD
titles I’m afraid I’ll buy: Playmakers:
The Complete Series.

Now,
on with the Leak!

Your
Take On Gossip.

Gossip
is shit. There, I’m sure that tainted any potential responses
I get from you folks on the matter. It. Is. Shit.

That
said, I cannot believe how many people ask me through email,
IM, and regular human conversation about trivial stuff like
who’s fisting who, who’s in the closet, and what actresses
can see behind them thanks to their latest facelift. I guess
it’s part of this cycle of pain where more and more reality
shows probe deeper into people’s lives [The Swan
may be the most ruthlessly impure], more and more magazines
[Movieline, EW] give space to irrelevant chatter, and the
legal trials of entertainers get more ink than the numerous
and far more pressing matters of our country’s state. Look
at that screen capture from an early May IMDB [quickly becoming
one of the worst sites for news, though it is the best resource
around] update and you’ll get my drift.

Stupid
stuff like the headline above about Michael Jackson’s drawers
do little but give uncreative talk show hosts fodder for
their monologues. What good do they do us? Are they supposed
to inform parents not to allow their kids to go up to the
Neverland Ranch as if people in Peoria should have that
fear? Are they to teach us that even if you like ‘Beat It’,
there’s always a chance the ‘it’ might be your kid’s divining
rod?

You’ll
never see that kind of stuff on here, but I am interested
in getting to the core of this infatuation with gossip for
a future article. Is it because seeing these other people
suffer makes our own lives look better? Is it because we
like to watch car crashes? Is it because we’re simply vegetables
who’ll watch whatever the TV gods hand down?

Share,
please. Help me to understand.

If
you’d like, SEND
A LETTER with your comments on this noise.

Punch
This Film.

Let’s
ruminate about this…

Great
old puppet show from a guy bold enough to use the name "Gerry".
Nostalgia and its powerful allure. Puppets. Space. PUPPETS.
What more do you need?

Well,
apparently you need to ape the Spy Kids movies.
I’m sure most of you you will agree that we don’t need more
films trying to ape the Spy Kids movies, at
least not REAL movies. Let’s be frank (Langella). It is
very easy to make films for thirteen year olds. The film
world of today doesn’t feel like kids need or deserve people
like Joe Dante, Steven Spielberg, and the like making movies
for the young folks. Instead, they find a trend and ride
it as if were Shannon Tweed in 1987. Whether or not Thunderbirds
was a ever a straightforward flick or if it was
reconfigured in post-production to be a kiddie flick is
irrelevant. The fact is that the film hitting theaters looks
so much like an abomination that the Hulk is already starting
to shed his purple pants in anticipation. Have you seen
the TRAILER
for this thing? It’s an affront to intelligent people the
world over. What were they thinking? It seems the only puppet
in this incarnation of Thunderbirds is Jonathan
Frakes himself.

Kids
are great but the need to populate big films with child
protagonists only works if it’s natural. I don’t know where
it all went wrong but this film looks like a long walk off
a short dick.

If
you’d like, SEND
A LETTER with your comments on this noise.

The
Beat of a Different Drummer…

I
wonder if the film business would allow for another Stanley
Kubrick to come into existence today. There’s no shortage
of freedom for visionary filmmakers to stake their claim
and people like Aronofsky, Fincher, and their ilk certainly
have the chops to endure and people like David O. Russell
certainly have the tortured genius bit squared away.

That
said, there was one Kubrick. I wonder if the film business
as it is could allow for someone like him to survive creatively.
All those takes. All that time. The meticulous genius. Those
crazy eyes! I just can’t see the man fitting within the
studio system anymore. Even Woody Allen seems to be shrinking
away to smaller budgets and less freedom of choice these
days and he’s a guy who can crank out a film a year, though
they aren’t exactly the Woody Allen flicks of yore. Were
Stanley Kubrick to pounce out of film school or whatever
little Kafka-esque dimensional portal of origin, he’d either
have to work strictly in the indie world or stand up straight,
take his medicine, and sell out then and there.

If
you’d like, SEND
A LETTER with your comments on this noise.

The
Fact this Exists is Hilarious, Part 7.

If
you’d like, SEND
A LETTER with your comments on this noise.

Mailbagsukidoji:

They
say that the Internet is filled with fools, but we’re out
to prove them wrong. Of course, who are these "they"
people we always hear about? Of course, your comments are
the lifeblood of this column. Please keep them coming. Don’t
be afraid to hold back. Regardless,
here’s another batch of letters from the great Sewer Chewership
out there. To send a letter, CLICK
HERE.

Denis
Leery.

Mark
Writes: Nick do you think that Denis Leary is a pompus,
arrogant asshole who has not said a funny thing in years
also? I used to think he was funny but now he just runs
around in some films and appears on the unfunny "ToughCrowd"
and spouts his Tobey Keith version of America. When is he
going to get back to doing funny films like "The Ref"
or comedy specials like "No Cure for Cancer" the
recent pompus ass makes me long for those days.

Also one other thing. What do you think will happen to alot
of these actors who have no careers but still seem to be
in the news because of the partying they do? Like Edward
Furlong, Stephen Dorff, Brad Renfro, Andy Dick, Balthazar
Getty,Tara Reid; the list goes on and on. Why do people
even call thse guys celebrities anymore? They never do anything
and only party.

Nick’s
Reply: I used to love Denis Leary and think the Bill
Hicks/Denis Leary argument is trite and a crutch. I’ve listened
to both extensively and there is crossover material but
not enough to write the man off. That said, I haven’t seen
any of his work from the past several years nor heard any
comedy from him to know if he’s still decent or not. The
Ref earns him a lot of leeway, but I’m just indifferent.
I am sad to say that I used to love Dennis Miller to death
but find him a bearded puppet these days. As for the other
group you mentioned? Screw ’em. What they do off camera
is irrelevant to me. Of the bunch, I’d like to see more
of Getty because he looks like the lost Earth X Charlie
Sheen.

DVD’s
Revenge.

Bob
Writes: I read your column every day, and a few days
ago, you commented on DVD’s and how they come with that
farking tape on every side of the case and how you have
to have a masters degree in cosmetic surgery just to get
all the tape off of the case without ruining the plastic
of the case itself. I whole-heartedly agree with your "plea"
to the makers of these stupid stickers-on-cases, and agree
that stores should take more measures to ensure theft prevention,
especially since 90% of all the DVD’s that I get (online
included), have that security metal thinger inside.

Thanks for letting me rant. Love your site. 🙂

Nick’s
Reply: You read the column every day? I wish I could
WRITE the thing every day, but I’m a small puddle of suck
of late. As for the security stuff, it’s really simple.
If people paid and trained their employees better, the shrinkage
would wane. If there was a system where the security devices
were ON THE DISC ITSELF, shrinkage would wane. Those new
snaps on the DVD cases are annoying but they make it harder
to get in the case, so I assume that would help. Instead,
we have to deal with Sticky McSticks and his sidekick RESIDUDE.

Secret
Wart.

Steve Writes: About your comment on the ‘Secret War’
comic. You state that it lacks the premise of the original.
What original? There has never been any other ‘Secret War’
comic unless of course you are confusing it with ‘Marvel
Super Heroes Secret Wars’? If so let me just say this: Different
comic.

Different story. Neither book has anything to do with the
other so comparing the two is pointless, and (dare I say
it?) a little ignorant. Know your material before bashing
the hell out of it. Unless you were trying to be funny?
If so my sincere apologies.

Nick’s
Reply: I’m not confusing it with the old ‘Secret
Wars’ comic, because it was that very comic that inspired
this new series. I read a few interviews with the writer
and the gist was that they liked the idea but didn’t like
the Beyonder. You know, because he was unrealistic. You
know, unlike people whose limbs stretch or guys who turn
to ice and freeze everything. The beauty of the Secret Wars
idea is that it is a match where the scereny and trappings
of a particular comic are stripped away to allow us to see
what a battle would be like between these characters. No
periphery. This new comic has no heart.

The
Message Boards Gestapo.

Carly
Writes: I like you site! How long does it take to get
verified?

I tried to join.

Nick’s
Reply: Who knows? I’ve made it so once again not Hotmail
or Yahoo accounts can register. There are other sites that
provide free email, and it’s a bitch to sift through. It’s
a shame we have to, but so many people on our message boards
have grown irritating that it needs to be. I’m in the process
of giving the boards a little shot of vitality, or euthanasia,
depending on how you look at it. Either way, the motives
are pure.

The
Hate After Tomorrow.

Randall
Writes: Love the website …blah blah, on your rant
regarding the Day after Tomorrow, there was another scene
bothering me. If its so damn cold how could Jake Glylenlynlynhallababa
character climb around the giant ship with no gloves on?
I understand adrenaline and all that but you freeze to metal
in cold weather. It didn’t even seem cold … where were
the shivering people? Anyway those are my pet peeves about
the movie.

Nick’s
Reply: "Where were the shivering people?".
It’s questions like this that haunt our society. Really,
where are the shivering people these days? I remember when
I was a kid, you could see people shivering up and down
the landscape. Literally, you couldn’t go twenty paces without
someone knowing your name… and shivering while they did.
I don’t know where the shivering people have gone, Randy…
but I intend to find out.

Swarm.

Chad
Writes: While there is a lot of hate for TDAT, I enjoyed
it. Then again, I adore the goofy idiocy that was/is The
Swarm, so what the heck do I know? I didn’t think it was
as poorly made as Beyond the Poseidon Adventure and/or The
Swarm, but it came nowhere near the heights of The Towering
Inferno or The Poseidon Adventure. I think it hovers around
Earthquake. It was just what I was expecting from Roland
Emmerich – big, loud, and monumentally stupid.

Now I’m off to watch Bubba Ho-Tep and The Towering Inferno
this weekend.

Nick’s
Reply: Look at the budgets for the films you mentioned.
Adjust for inflation, adjust the amount of marketing for
each, and then think about it. The other films are little
70’s shlock. Emmerich’s film is a BIG SUMMER FILM that is
masquerading as some giant piece of entertainment. Well,
they got the GIANT PIECE part right.

The
Rhetoric After Tomorrow.

Susan
Writes: You might have also added that preaching should
occur in religious venues, not movie theatres. The heavy
handed moralizing about fossil fuels, evil North American
consumerism, the treatment of third world countries and
our need to be more friendly made me ill.

Nick’s
Reply: I was waiting for Steve Seagal to show up at
a podium to tech me about the environment. Oh, and how’s
about no preaching happening anywhere? That’d be neat!

Lack
of CNN.

Bob
Writes: What up with the CNN column? I haven’t seen
anything new for awhile.

Nick’s
Reply: Seek and ye shall find. There’s a new one up
now. I’ve had a problem with my email client, resulting
in two columns flying off into the ether. One of them was
turned into my CHUD rant about The Day After Tomorrow.
The other will run next Tuesday. Thanks for actually noticing.

In
Defense of Comics.

Brendan
Writes: Hey wassup? I know this is in response to your
59th Steady Leak column. I know I’m a little behind, but
I’ve been busy, and I just read it tonight after seeing
it referenced in your 60th article of the leaky kind.

p.s. Thanks for the Bubba Ho-Tep DVD. As soon as my lousy
brother gives it back I plan to watch it.

Nick’s
Reply: 1. Millar. He’s good but stretched too thin.
2. Vaughn. No. Never. Y: The Last Man is to Preacher what
Colin Farrell is to Robert DeNiro. 3. Wood. Good artist,
no doubt… but his work could just as easily be in books
like Brom or Giger and it wouldn’t matter. 4. IDW’s fine,
but like Oni they aren’t going to change the world. 5. Spidey.
I love Romita, but find myself glazing over after a few
issues of this stuff. 6. Ennis. I’m flat out tired of the
Max stuff. Look, I can be profane too! Cock. Shit. Ass.
7. Have to admit, I’ve never heard of it. 8. Trades ARE
the comic biz now. It’s a beautiful. 9. I have no love for
Bendis, though I do dig some of his stuff. 10. The prices
were high in the 90’s and they still are. Thanks for writing.

Nerve
Struck.

Eric
Writes: You know, I never get too offended by some of
the arrogant crap I read on this site. Self important ramblings
and arrogant posts go hand and hand with any internet site,
It’s a given. I even snicker whenever I hear some of the
growing complaints that Nick, Devin and their inner circle
have started to hold themselves too far above the common
CHUD rabble. Honestly, although some of the self proclaimed
lap dogs like Kirby, Matchstick and Bateman have become
nothing but pompous trolls who add nothing to any thread
besides declaring themselves better than everyone else,
I haven’t really ever been offended by Nick or Devin like
some other people have.

Then Nick had to go and let slip with some feelings about
the average chewer in the latest Steady Leak. I quote –

"3.
Make sure you’ve got something interesting to say. If you’re
just writing because you like the sound of keyboards clicking,
perhaps it might be better suited on one of the dozens of
pointless "Name your favorite________" threads
on the message boards.‘

May
not seem like much, but it is if you really read it. This
is what Nick feels of the average Chewer and the things
they discuss on the message boards. This is what we are
to him. We’re not movie obsessed supporters of the site
who enjoy bullshitting about films. We’re just dullards
who post pointless threads because we like hearing ourselves
type.
Maybe you need to step back and unclench your head from
your own ass and pay some respect to the people who keep
your site and your dreams of being somebody in the biz afloat.
You have a tremendous amount of goodwill towards your site,
so maybe you should get down off your throne and recognize
the commoners who are here because we respect you, your
opinions and what you do.

We’re here, forming a community because we like to "hear
the sounds of keyboards clicking" as we discuss films.
We could do it on AICN. We could do it on Dark Horizons
or Poop Shoot. We could go over to fucking Scorched Planet
and discuss it if we wanted to. We choose to come here.
Maybe try and appreciate us, ALL of us, instead of spitting
in our faces with comments like that. The minute we all
take our pointless banter somewhere else, this site becomes
pointless.

Nick’s
Reply: This is one of them times
where someone takes a sentence and interprets it for their
own purposes and uses it incorrectly as a way to unload
venom. The point of my comment was simple and made perfect
sense. Let me elaborate:

The
Chewer column needs to be something new. Something they
cannot get ont he message boards or in the other columns
on the site. What I was doing was setting it up so I didn’t
have people dismissing the column as a clone or as redundant.
It wasn’t because I don’t respect or care about my readers.
On the contrary. If you’d been a fly on the wall of my office
the past two days you’d have seen me stuffing envelopes
and handwriting addresses on hundreds and hundreds of movie
screening letters for the readers. I do care, and I don’t
think light of the readers which is why the column should
be something special if it happens. There are elements of
the message boards that I don’t respect, trends, and people
who just vomit forth tons of pointless stuff just to inflate
their visibility and post counts but as a whole I think
we’ve got a great little community. Judging from your letter,
it appears you have a problem with me. Such is life.

Whedonesque.

Ken
Writes: I feel bad for you. You have that rare condition
of not really liking Joss Whedon and his efforts. Sure the
first few seasons of Buffy and Angel knocked your socks
but starting with Firefly and now Buffy S6 and Angel S3
you’ve cooled off to the shows. I don’t understand how you
give Angel S3 8/10 when you don’t like the majority of the
show. Pregnancy=bad, Connor=bad, Not enough Wolfram &
Hart=bad, prophecy mumbo jumbo=bad. That’s just about the
entire season. I expected a Jeremiah rating.

I hope you get better in time for Season’s 4 of Angel and
7 of Buffy. And if you miss Wolfram and Hart you’ll love
Season 5 of Angel.

Nick’s
Reply: Huh? Have I not given plenty of praise to Whedon
shows in the past? I’m critical of them, yes. I’m not an
automaton pacing in tune to the Joss’s piper, but I like
the shows. Comparing the shows to the Beatles and Led Zeppelin…
well, that’s the sign of fanaticism ruling the mind. You
hope I get better in time for the next seasons? As if I’m
a broken machine because I don’t agree with you? I hope
the friggin’ SHOWS get better.

SPAM
OF THE DAY.

John
Writes: There is a move to put Ronald Reagan’s portrait
on the U.S. Dime coin. Over 80 members of Congress have
co-sponsored a bill to do just that.

Do
you agree?

Nick’s
Reply: I agree that you’re the sheath of a Sherpa’s
dick, if that’s what you mean. The guy’s pompadour hasn’t
even settled yet and you’re sending out whoring mail about
shoving his face into my dough? Stiff yourself.

Shameless
Self-Promotion Dept:

Since
so few of you read the message boards, I’m going to pop
in a few self promotional tidbits here from time to time.
The great thing is: You can avoid this section if it bothers
you.

The
archive of my CNN.com articles is right HERE.
A new one appears every Tuesday. The latest is Far East,
Far Out, right
here.

Song
of the day: DREAM AGAIN, by PKG. This is a BRAND
NEW song, the first recorded with our new drum
kit and keyboard, a straightforward rocker in the vein of
Van Halen and Kiss. That should alienate most of you, but
what the heck… By Nick, Micah, and Steve. Click HERE
to download and HERE
for a place to comment.

‘IF
CHUD Ran the Movies’, by Nick Nunziata

See
you tomorrow!

BUY IT AT AMAZON: CLICK HERE!
STUDIO: Universal
MSRP: $26.98 RATED: NR
RUNNING TIME: 93 Minutes
SPECIAL FEATURES:
• Commentary track
• Unrated deleted scenes
• Nude beach exposed featurette

The
“teen comedy” genre was personified in the 80s
by John Cusack and
Anthony Michael Hall, while the 90s took a regrettable
tumble into Freddy Prinze Jr. and Matt Lillard territory.
American Pie looked to propel
Jason Biggs into the pants previously worn by
the likes of Patrick Dempsey, but for the most
part the reins of teen comedies in the new century
are up for grabs. So far.

"Look, buddy, I don’t care what movie website
you write for. Stop following me or I’ll have
my bodyguards negate your manhood using various
demolitions equipment."

The
Flick

As
Eurotrip begins, Scotty (Brad
Pitt gene-splice experiment Scott Mechlowicz)
is simultaneously graduating from high school
and getting dumped by his girlfriend Fiona (the
unutterably magnificent Kristin Kreuk).
According to the annoying punk-pop song performed
by Matt Damon (!!) at the graduation party (and,
in fact, all throughout the film), Fiona has
been sleeping around, a reality the clueless
Scotty is devastated to learn. Then to top
off a bad day, in a drunken stupor he alienates
a German email correspondent who he’d been mistaking
for a man.

To
make amends via ludicrous solution, Scotty vows
to meet this singularly sexy penpal in person by traveling to Germany
and tracking her down like some transatlantic
stalker-in-training. So he and his obnoxious
sex-crazed chum Cooper (Jacob Pitts, who = Christian
Slater ÷ Leif Garrett x David Spade) grab a
courier flight to the UK, where they booze-fuel with some
“soccer hooligans” and end up on a double-decker
to France.

Suddenly I’m horny and… quite thirsty.

"Hello? Who? Yeah, yeah, I know who you
are, the guy from Just Shoot Me,
right. What? You… you want your hairstyle
back? You mean… people really do this?"

I
have to admit I occasionally appreciate this
type of flick (I enjoyed Van Wilder unapologetically),
and although it certainly doesn’t bear any resemblance
to accomplished filmmaking, Eurotrip
is surprisingly competent for a libidinous
teen farce cobbled together by guys in their
30s (director Jeff Schaffer and his co-writers
Alec Berg and David Mandel, Seinfeld
alumni all). The premise and speedy gags that
whip the flick forward have a crude outrageousness,
but there are also a few inventive ideas like
the animated opening credits and the “table
map” that tracks the gang’s progress.

The
kids are all likeable (and appropriately dense
for this generation — before their flight to
London, Cooper assures his buddy that “Europe
is the size of the Eastwood Mall, we can walk
to Berlin from there,” and Scotty later admits
he once watched a gay porno but didn’t realize
it until halfway through when the chicks hadn’t
shown up yet) and have notable comic timing.
I couldn’t help but be amused by some of the
preposterous situations presented, like a randy
train passenger, a mime showdown and a sacrilegious
visit to the Pope’s closet — it’s obvious the
movie strives to offend and entertain equally,
and often succeeds at both. And it probably
won’t spoil anything to tell you that everyone
eventually gets laid. There’s a welcome amount
of quality bared breasts, and although Trachtenberg’s
pert lungs remain concealed throughout the running
time, they still receive an admirable amount
of attention.

Though it had vastly improved from a graphics standpoint, characters like Chillin’ Chad and Silverdome Cecil made it obvious the Mortal Kombat series was running out of steam.

Eurotrip is
about as far as you can get from groundbreaking
cinema, but for a distasteful laugh-inducing
cultural sampler filled with teen drinking,
pouty lips and ample
nudity (including an unwarranted quantity of
dangling Johnsons), it gets the job done.

7.3
out of 10

"Guy
Ritchie, wheeere aaaaare yooouuuuu!!!"

The
Look

An
anamorphic widescreen (1.85:1) transfer that
could perhaps be just a bit more detailed, but
overall is a lot more respectable than the film’s
humor level. Skintones appear nice, which is
good considering the amount of skin on display.

Note
that there are two other version of the movie
available, fullscreen editions in R-rated and
unrated varieties. Not sure why you’d want
those.

8.7
out of 10

The
Noise

A
Dolby 5.1 audio track seems typical for a comedy,
meaning most of the action hits you from the
front. Music gets the most attention (since
a lot of it is licensed) and sounds best, with
the downside being the grating "Scotty
Doesn’t Know" song that is played ceaselessly
through the flick and over the DVD menus.

8.3
out of 10

As usual, Jordie ended up alone to ponder suspicions
that it was not his own hand the surgeons reattached.

The
Goodies

The
menus, "hosted" by the absinthe fairy
who makes snide comments as you explore the
disc, lead to a surprising amount of supplements,
assuming you find them in the somewhat clumsy
navigation. First is a pair of commentary tracks
with the trio of creators, one sober track and
one "party" track with significant
amounts of alcohol. These guys are definitely
storytellers, taking jabs at the talent and
each other and spinning funny tales of how they
swiped ideas from true situations and other
projects they worked, while also giving insight
as to things ultimately discarded from the film
and trials encountered on the project (based
in Prague during the Iraq and SARS outbreaks).
The drunken track repeats much of the same information
and seems a bit dull, though I imagine it would
improve through viewer inebriation.

There
are 13 deleted scenes, most of which are elaborate
gags and unfortunate losses, but were edits
made to pare the film down to the commercially
patable 90 minute mark. The most notable cut
scenes involve "couriers" Scotty and
Cooper using an intriguing method to get both
their luggage and packages onto the plane, a
French waiter who’s had customers skip out on
checks over the course of decades, and more
of Trachtenberg’s delightful little breasts.
There’s also more time spent with peripheral
characters like the soccer goons and the tenacious
train guy, as well as the complete European
orange juice commercial featuring a pair of
hot naked lesbians (more of a bonus than a deleted
scene, that). A five-mintue gag reel has flubs
and on-set shenanigans, although much of the
footage is shown in the outtakes during the
credits at the end of the movie.

The ‘Hitcher Special’ sometimes produced strange
reactions from the diner patrons…

Brief
clips with the writers show that although all
three of them basically directed the film, the
DGA doesn’t share their enthusiasm when it comes
to such credits so the "official"
director was selected at random by a strange
Czech P.A. (credited as such). Another clip
finds them critiquing a camcorder bootleg of
the film they bought in New York about three
months before the official DVD hit stores. A
short featurette focuses on shooting the scene
on the nude beach, for those who didn’t get
enough of the exposed penises and male asses
in the film.

Music offerings include two versions of the irritating "Scotty Doesn’t
Know" song, the video and a sing-along
version, plus an advertisement for the soundtrack
CD. There’s also production notes, a stills
gallery, the full script (a lot of which didn’t
make it into the movie, according to the commentary),
talent bios, and the option to skip directly
to any of the film’s many nude scenes. Handy!

8.1
out of 10

Gratuitous
inclusions:

The
Artwork

While it could’ve benefited from breasts, the
cover features the main cast with the cute gal
getting most of the real estate. However, I
have no idea why Cooper is holding a loaf of
bread, or why his legs have been displaced about
two feet to his right.

7.0
out of 10

Overall: 7.5 out of 10

5.6.04
By Devin Faraci

Universal’s classic monsters were never conceived to be classic. At least not in that stodgy way that they have come to be known – black and white canon, films that are unapproachable to modern audiences. They were crowd pleasers, pulpy B-films from a time when the style of movie making was very different from today.

The idea of taking these monsters and giving them a modern attitude isn’t a terrible one. Unfortunately, it seems like Hollywood has forgotten how to update old fashioned pulp since the days of Indiana Jones, and Van Helsing is no exception.

Gabriel Van Helsing is the Vatican’s secret hitman, dispatched across the globe to knock off the things that go bump in the night, sort of a 19th century Hellboy. He doesn’t remember anything about his past except brief flashes, like a memory of fighting at Masada – in 72 AD. To make his life worse, most of the monsters he offs turn into regular people when they die, making it seem like he’s a murderer to everyone, including himself.

Van Helsing gets sent on a mission to Transylvania to aid the remaining members of a gypsy tribe who have sworn to finish off the evil Count Dracula. I won’t get into the details here, since they’re convoluted and a touch nonsensical, but the Drac wants to get his hands on the Frankenstein Monster because for reasons that are never adequately explained he’s the key to hatching the thousands of little pods that apparently happen when the Count bangs his three lovely Brides.

Mix into this the Wolf Man, in the form of the gypsy prince Velkan, brother to heroic Anna Valerious, and you get something that vaguely resembles Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein, only not funny and with more special effects. Not necessarily better, but plenty more. The first thing I want to make clear here is that, while Van Helsing is a bad movie, it is by no means the kind of bad movie that is fun to go see. Van Helsing is an assaultively bad movie, one that hurtles forward at such a speed and with so much noise that it would take the quickest draw Joel Hodgsons-in-training to get really good lines off. But don’t take the fact that it moves briskly to mean that Van Helsing is exciting – it’s incredibly tepid, but in a fast paced fashion.

I’m not sure where to start on what is wrong with the movie, since so much is wrong, so I’ll start with the few things that are right (we’re going to try to think positive here!). David Wenham, who played Faramir in The Lord of the Rings, does a fantastic job as Carl, the Q-cum-bumbling idiot character in the movie who accompanies Van Helsing to Transylvania seemingly because the Pope thought they might need some comic relief. Taking a grotesque and thin character and making him the most likeable thing in the film is a testament to Wenham, who came across poorly in the theatrical version of the Two Towers, but who really got to shine in the Extended Edition. The lesson here is that Wenham has a natural charisma, and when allowed the right screen time he wins audiences.

Shuler Hensley, a stage vet, plays the Frankenstein Monster and seems like the only person in this movie vaguely aware how to ham it up in just the right way. His Monster is a throwback to the well spoken Monster of Shelley, and he delivers over the top speeches full of angst with an almost Shatnerian glee. This movie is dumb, Hensley knows, but while he will play broad he won’t wink at us.

On the other hand Richard Roxburgh seems to have had a terrible argument with subtlety. He plays the screen’s single worst Dracula, and to any other actor this would be a career killing performance. But since most people couldn’t pick Roxburgh out of a line up of pygmies, he should be fine. Not to mention the fact that being the worst part of a truly awful movie means that you deflect a lot of criticism.

Roxburgh’s Dracula is a simpering bitch, given to inexplicably screaming his lines, moaning about how the world is mean to him, and walking upside down just so the wire work coordinator earns his day’s pay. I wasn’t certain how his Dracula could be any less menacing until he turned into a giant CGI monster that looked kind of like a big puppet. Then I knew. I also knew that there would be nothing funnier on film this year than Dracula’s Brides doing some sort of modern dance writhing in the background of all their scenes.

Hugh Jackman has really drawn the short straw with this film. He’s not bad, but he is woefully miscast. Van Helsing is supposed to be a dark and troubled loner who considers himself a killer, a man without a past whose present is an endless series of violent battles with the forces of Satan. Jackman did okay with a similar character in the X-Men films – he managed to tap into a feral ferocity that made you believe Wolverine would fight until shredded. But here he can’t get the brooding down, probably because the movie is so cartoony light. You never feel like Van Helsing has a dark side – he’s like the sweetest boy at church all dressed up for Halloween.

This is the point of the review where you dismiss this all as a review from someone who is too snobby to enjoy the film. I wish that were the case. Van Helsing is boring, plain and simple. While the film is full of incident and action sequences, it all rings hollow. And it’s for a simple reason – the CGI.

It’s vogue to bitch about CGI effects in movies. This past week at the Troy press day Peter O’Toole talked about what a tremendously wonderful tool he sees CGI as, having experience working on logistical nightmare epics like Lawrence of Arabia. Its’ a good point, but one easily countered by movies like Van Helsing which use so much CGI as to blur the line between animated and live action movies.

The action scenes are all done with digital stunt people, robbing the audience of the gee whiz thrill of seeing a daring stuntman taking an impossible jump. All the elements in the big coach chase sequence (one of the stupider moments in an aggressively stupid movie, wherein a horse drawn carriage explodes on the road like a Ford packed with TNT) are CGI, and the digital sheen removes all connections with this world. You no longer wonder “how did they do that?” You know it was some guy sitting at a computer for two months, mainlining Red Bull and Doritos. Once the excitement of wondering how the filmmakers tricked you with an effect is gone the effect needs to compensate in other ways, with realism or extremeness (is that even a word? How about X-Tremeness?) – Van Helsing has none of that.

In fact, the quality of the effects are endlessly poor. The Wolf Man, while no doubt a feat to the people who follow the minutia of digital rendering, looks really fake. I would have frankly preferred a fake looking guy in a suit over a fake looking PS2 Boss. Frankenstein’s Monster, being a guy in make up, comes across very well, even if he does more than slightly resemble the Monster from Young Frankenstein meets Frankenberry. Meanwhile, the “pygmy bats,” the offspring of Dracula and his overemoting Brides, look like Goldy the Gargoyle from Sandman comics, only slightly less cartoony. And the opening baddie, Mr. Hyde, appears only moderately better realized than the one in League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, although completely ripped off from that version.

In the end, the biggest shame about Van Helsing is the way that it disrespects the classic versions of the monsters. None of them look like their black and white counterparts, and the Wolf Man has absolutely nothing in common with Larry Talbot and his mythology. Frankenstein’s Monsters is a take on the novel version, and nothing like the grunting Boris Karloff classic. Dracula has none of the suaveness or charisma of Lugosi. What’s the point? These are generic versions of these characters, missing any of the elements that have made them immortal in our imaginations. Stephen Sommers, tired of defacing the Universal monsters one at a time, has begun taking them on en masse, and manages to make a film dumber and more stultifying than either of the Mummies.

3.8 out of 10

READ
PREVIOUS COLUMNS HERE!

Thanks
for all the response to the column thus far. I hope it’s
helping people find some new flicks to check out, maybe
broaden a few horizons.

Again,
for those in the US, I highly recommend picking up a code-free
DVD player with PAL conversion, which will allow you to
see pretty much any movie from all parts of the globe, even
the burgeoning Burmese film industry. And if you hate movies
with subtitles, there probably won’t be much here for you…
For
those who wanted to know where they could track down some
of these flicks, I use DDDHouse
and DVDAsian
for most of my Asian acquisitions, while I’ve found the
selection and service at Xploited
Cinema and Diabolik
DVD to be aces for obscura (and no, I don’t get kickbacks).  And there’s always
ebay.

Got an interesting
film suggestion? Know of something good in the works? Just
want to tell me I’m rubbish?  Drop me a line at dave@chud.com, and
I’ll respond to any letters in future columns.

DIFFERENT
STROKES

As
it turns out, notorious Japanese filmmaking cyclone Takashi
Miike (Audition, Ichi the Killer)
is capable of more than bizarro and brutal yakuza stories
and unsettling scenes of torture.  Like, say, an introspective
character drama and… a family film?

One
of Miike’s many made-for-TV projects (the guy cranks out
four or five movies a year), Sabu follows
a pair of childhood friends, the docile title character
(Satoshi Tsumabuki) and his more antagonistic friend Eiji
(Battle Royale survivor Tatsuya Fujiwara). 
Although set in the days of the samurai, the story is basically
a coming-of-age drama that finds Eiji framed for a crime
and sent to a harsh island prison.  The film highlights
the notable disparity between the incarcerated Eiji, who
adjusts to prison life with his fists, and the submissive
Sabu as he rather incapably strives to learn the truth about
the accusations against his friend.  The film unfolds at
a (sometimes too) deliberate pace, but while the females
are strictly peripheral and the conclusion seems slightly
self-defeating, the overall presentation has a remarkably
lavish appearance for a TV movie. And Artsmagic (website
HERE),
up-and-coming DVD specialists in lower-profile Japanese
cinema, gives the film a fine treatment complete with separate
interviews with the filmmaker and his lead actors and actresses,
trailers, a “making of” featurette and biographies — possibly
even more material than such a restrained film deserves,
but with treatments like this, Artsmagic could be poised
to become for lesser-known Japanese films what the UK’s
Hong Kong Legends is to kung fu and heroic bloodshed flicks.

On
the other end of the spectrum (or more somewhere in the
middle), Miike’s Zebraman focuses on timid
schoolteacher Shinichi (Miike regular Show Aikawa), a man
who gets absolutely zero respect from his students or his
dysfunctional family (straddling Miike formula, Shinichi’s
daughter is a hooker and his wife is messing around) but
finds solace in the homemade costume of Zebraman, a superhero
from an obscure childhood TV series.  One night he discovers
an invasion by goopy extraterrestrials, and comes to the
realization that he possesses super abilities while “in
uniform”.  Everyone remains oblivious to Shinichi’s transformation
except a handicapped student who shares an obsession with
the esoteric character, and the pair bond as the ungainly
Shinichi uses his newly acquired powers and confidence to
woo his pupil’s hot mom and deliver screwpunches and other
“special moves” to alien fetus-blobs.  Although the film
is a bit lean on Miike’s trademark black humor, with its
cheesy techno theme music, wobbly costumes and loads of
preposterous moments (wait until the appearance of “Zebranurse”)
on Shinichi’s journey of self-discovery, Zebraman
is essentially Unbreakable meets Power
Rangers — something only a guy like
Miike could provide.

Similarly,
Takeshi Kitano is far more than a violent gangster and the
dubbed host of MXC.  The stalwart Japanese filmmaker (known
onscreen in movies like Battle Royale as “Beat”
Takeshi), who has brought his simmering ferocity both behind
and in front of the camera in his films like Sonatine
and the recent transcontinental Brother, has
directed himself in a feature film version of the classic
TV series Zatoichi.  

Kitano
plays the film’s title character, a roving blind (and now
blond) masseur and skilled swordsman who becomes entangled
in a gang war, gets mixed up with siblings seeking revenge
against an elusive crimelord, and faces off with a deadly
bodyguard (Ichi the Killer foe Tadanobu Asano)
in a small village.  Much (digital) blood is spilled courtesy
of some razor-sharp (digital) swords, and Kitano captures
the whole thing with a nearly perfect equilibrium of characterization
and shocking violence (and some brilliant “natural” music
courtesy of field workers).  The film opens in limited release
here in the US this weekend. 

Oddly
enough, Kitano took potshots at the beloved long-running
Zatoichi franchise in his 1995 screwball comedy
Getting Any?  This sex frolic (directed by
Kitano, though he does pop up for a few minutes as a peculiar
scientist) follows misfit Asao (Dankan), a guy who basically
just wants to get laid but has no real perspective on how
to go about doing so.  His fantasies of vehicular fornication
are offset by slapstick reality as he works his way through
an increasingly ludicrous series of ways to fund his dreams
of bonking in cars and planes, from robbing banks to becoming
an actor to inadvertently joining the yakuza to ultimately
getting transformed into a giant man-fly.  It’s loony and
dirty (a surprising amount of nudity) and occasionally loses
its motivational grip, but it’s an effective, cameo-filled
satire for any fan of Japanese flicks, taking fearless pokes
at chambara (period samurai swordplay), yakuza and kaiju
movies.  And this is another film Artsmagic has given a
first-rate DVD treatment (this is the UK
version), including an interview with Kitano on
the Zatoichi promotional tour (he rarely discusses
the film) in addition to photo and artwork galleries and
lengthy bios, with a fullscreen transfer the only downside.

FRENCH
MADE

I
may be biased as a longtime fan of comics, movies, feline-human
hybrids and eyesight in general, but the impending Catwoman
film seems to be a grievous error of Schumacher-sized
proportions.  One glimpse of slinking kitty Halle Berry
ordering cream at a bar while wearing that execrable costume
pretty much denotes doom.  But how did relatively unknown
French director Pitof end up at the helm of this $100 million
atrocity?  If I had to guess, I’d say… Vidocq.

Armed
with an FX and design background (including the wonderful
City of Lost Children and the overly hated
Alien: Resurrection) and a modest
budget (less than $30 million US), Pitof put together an
interesting period murder mystery with supernatural elements
and impressive visuals.  Vidocq stars the
indescribably handsome Gerard Depardieu as the titular character,
a detective pursuing a bizarre criminal called the Alchemist
in dingy 1830 Paris. As Vidocq is dispatched by the villain
in the opening scene, much of the story is told via flashback
as related to Etienne (the annoying Guillaume Canet, who
curiously also played a character named Etienne in The
Beach), the unofficial biographer of Vidocq’s life. 
As Etienne tries to piece together the mystery himself,
the Alchemist systematically eliminates the witnesses until
he ends up killing his way into the proverbial corner.

The
film is one of the first shot on digital cameras, and the
results are uneven at best.  Much of the film has the unfortunate
appearance of a television production (with admittedly premium
sets), and Pitof has an irritating penchant for capillary-counting
extreme close-ups captured on trembling handheld.  But the
positive aspects of the film include resplendent costume
designs, some inventive fictional science, lots of slick
tracking shots and seamless FX, strikingly grimy cityscapes,
and one of the most memorable villains to grace the screen
in ages: The Alchemist, who for whatever reason requires
the blood of virgins to survive, wears a soul-sucking reflective
mask and a cloak of otherworldly fluidity, and seems to
possess some remedial conjuring abilities (much like Darth
Maul, the Alchemist’s brief appearances leave the viewer
wanting more).  Despite the film’s experimental shortcomings,
Vidocq leaves little doubt as to Pitof’s skills.

Does
this mean I think Catwoman is getting a bad
rap?  Oh, hell no.  Warner Bros. could’ve taken Darwyn Cooke’s
“Selina’s Big Score” graphic novel and had themselves a
fine framework for a Catwoman movie, complete with big action
setpieces.  Instead, the studio has a script that’s been
scratched at by dozens of screenwriters, uninspiring casting,
that daft costume, and decades of the character’s history
being ignorantly chucked into the dustbin for this new incarnation
— it’s the kind of project that makes a negative preconceived
judgment almost effortless.  But from where I’m sitting,
the director may be the only thing Catwoman has
going for it.

BIG
IDEAS

While
we’re on the subject of comic book characters, after seeing
the outstandingly loopy Running on Karma,
I’d give up my full run of Valiant comics (including Ninjak
holofoil variants) to see Hong Kong drector Johnnie To make
a superhero movie. 

Best
known for more straightforward action and tense thrillers
like Fulltime Killer,  PTU and the must-see
The Mission, To’s Running on Karma goes
so far off the beaten path it nearly tears the fabric of
space.  Wearing a relatively convincing but largely pointless
muscle suit (perhaps the future alternative to actor diets?),
Hong Kong superstar Andy Lau plays Big, a reclusive Shaolin
monk turned big-city exotic dancer who can “see karma”. 
When he meets a seemingly doomed female inspector (the highly
desirable Cecilia Chung), the two share a tenuous bond as
he assists her on a decidedly unusual murder investigation. 
And then Big goes off to the mountains in search of the
man who killed a female acquaintance some five years prior
yet was never apprehended.  Or something like that.

This
absurd path to enlightenment is paved with a charming incoherence,
but what makes To a prime candidate for a superhero movie
are various indications sprinkled throughout the film, like
Big’s superhuman proportions and abilities, a vindictive
Hindi martial artist who can squeeze into small containers,
and a squirming grease-covered thief who scales walls. 
Considering To’s obvious visual acumen and skills with wild
action sequences (see also: The Heroic Trio, The Executioners),
seeing him get his hands on a comic book property (well-known
or otherwise), or even creating his own superhero franchise,
would definitely make missteps like The Punisher and
upcoming suspects like Catwoman and Fantastic
Four a little easier to swallow.

DRIBLETS

Some
interesting miscellany from the CHUD message boards and
beyond:

If
you’re in Montreal this July and you hate Deadites,
you may wanna check this out (official
site HERE):

Sam
Raimi’s cult-classic Evil Dead films come to life in this
hilarious musical comedy. Five teenagers go to an abandoned
cabin in the woods and accidentally unleash an evil force
that turns them into Candarian Demons… all while sporadically
breaking out into song. Blood! Chainsaws! Singing! It’s
so groovy… it could literally kill you to miss it.

Okay,
now this looks pretty insane… a French alien invasion flick
called Atomik Circus, starring Jason Flemyng
(Deep Rising), sexy-sexy Johnny Depp partner
Vanessa Paradis, and Man Bites Dog killer
Benoit Poelvoorde.  See for yourself HERE.

Now
that he’s done stuffing his face, puffing his pipe and saving
Middle Earth through pure buffoonery, Merry the hobbit is
gonna kick some non-Orc ass.  Pippin partner Dominic Monaghan
is pretty much the only familiar face (aside from Kevin
McKidd of Trainspotting and Dog Soldiers)
in The Purifiers, which is basically a remake
of The Warriors in London
but with a lot more slow-motion kung fu fights.  Check out
the trailer HERE.

Mostly
known for their extensive anime catalog, ADV Films has grabbed
the US licenses for a bunch of high-profile
live-action Asian films, including the wet Japanese horror
movie Dark Water, the Korean comedy Conduct
Zero and the sci-fi action flicks 2009 Lost
Memories and Yesterday. Start saving.

STEAM

Thanks
to all for your letters of non-hatred. Send
me more comments, suggestions, and coupons for Russian brides
to dave@chud.com, and
I’ll reply to any letters in future columns. Thanks for
reading and writing!

Hey
Dave,

Congrats on a great column! I really enjoyed the mentions
of Azumi and Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance
(since a friend introduced me to Miike’s Ichi The
Killer, I’ve tried to devour any and all Asian crime/gangster/action
flick I can get my hands on).  Since you seem to have
a bit of knowledge of foreign cinema perhaps you can help
with one… do happen to know anything about Casshern?
I understand that it was released in Japan in April, but
will we ever get to see it in the Stats?

Thanks
and please keep up the good work.

Best,
Ben

DAVE
SAYS: Thanks, matey.  Yeah, Casshern looks
a pretty wild post-apocalyptic tale of rebellious robots,
(check out the trailer HERE),
like if Dune was made by Terry Gilliam after
he snorted Akira and Robotech.  Last
I heard, director Kiriya
Kazuaki was in negotiations with different companies for
stateside release, but nothing solid yet.
As the film has already been released in Japan, I’ll bet
you a case of Pocky that we’ll be able to get an import
DVD in our fists before it hits theaters or shelves here
in the States.

Love
the Dave’s Underground articles. Even though I usually don’t
get much opportunity to see many foreign films, it is good
that they are getting attention from someone here.

I
have found a website for a Korean movie that looks just
incredible, called Dragon Wars, or D-war.
The site is in Korean, and what translation I can get is
rudimentary at best, but the two Trailers that they have
look mind blowing! I love Dragons, and want to see this
so bad. Maybe you could use your contacts to find out more
about it.

Keep
up the good work.

Ryan

DAVE
SAYS:
D-Wars does indeed look pretty nifty, and
could possibly fulfill the promise of all-out human/reptile
combat that Reign of Fire so disappointingly
failed to provide (despite posters featuring fleets of Black
Hawk helicopters).  Obviously the FX aren’t going to be
on par with Hollywood productions, especially considering
they’re probably making the movie on the catering budget
for Van Helsing, but I tend to be more forgiving
with filmmakers trying to do more with less.  Check out
this clip HERE… 
I have no idea what the deal is with the big lizards with
the cannons on their backs, but it’s got my attention…

Dave,

Mathew

DAVE
SAYS: Thanks
for reading.  Looks like you’ve got some fine taste in movies,
I too love Shusuke’s Gamera movies (although
Chungking Express is my favorite Wong Kar-Wai
film over In the Mood for Love).

The
thing I enjoy about foreign cinema (and this may just be
the perception from an "outsider") is that they
seem to be more pure, undiluted by the "moviemaking
by committee" process that is all too prevalent with
big-budget Hollywood films. Although
there is a definite recent reverse influence, as can be
seen in some of the more glossy crowd-pleasing attempts
like Returner and So Close (which
I unabashedly adore).

Subtitled
movies will likely remain a niche market here in the US.
The
mainstream public seems far less tolerant of different languages
than other countries, which make students learn multiple
languages from a young age (whereas most American citizens
can’t even grasp English, yet are the first to take jabs
at other cultures).  It’s just the mentality and it’s unlikely
to change.  Unfortunately, unlike the usual “Me, too” studio-sheep
attitude, I doubt the success of the subtitled films you
mentioned will prompt development executives to take gambles
with more, especially when British films are still considered
“foreign”.

Dave,

Great
column. I have be combing the world for the best in foreign
and unusual films for years and it’s great to have another
place that sends up flares for films that I might not have
heard of. You’re bad for my budget (but that’s a good thing).

You
mention the Chinese movie Hero in your latest
column. I have waited years to see this movie even though
it has been available throughout the world for some time
now. There is rumor of an Extended Edition, with 20 more
minutes of footage added to the movie. I had heard it was
to have been released some time ago in China but was delayed due to SARS and
possibly rumbles with Miramax (but I don’t know how true
that is). www.monkeypeaches.com
even has a “Coming Soon” spot for the Extended Edition but
that has been up for a while with no change.

Do
you have a line on this mythical Hero Extended Edition?
Have I been wasting my time these past two years in search
of an un-tampered with classic?

Thanks
for your time and keep up the good work!

John

DAVE
SAYS: Better
I’m bad for your wallet than bad for your daughter.  As
for the extended Hero (actually director Zhang
Yimou’s original cut, which reportedly has much more character
stuff), last I heard it was supposed to be released in Hong
Kong back in February.  But not a peep since then.  I suppose
it’s conceivable they’re waiting for the Miramax release
here or the attention from House of Flying Daggers,
but I highly doubt it.  I’m waiting right there with you.

Where’s
a good place to get a region free DVD player with PAL conversion?

–
Jack

DAVE
SAYS:
Well,
a quick Google (y’know, I loathe the fact that “Googling”
has become an acceptable phrase for the act of seeking info,
especially since it references a mathematical term (10 to
the 100^th power) as well as Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s
Guide novels, as does the “babelfish” online language
translator – I guess Adams’ ideas are public domain now. 
But I digress, considerably…) should bring up a load of
online retailers, but HKFlix
offers a pretty big variety in a wide price range.  I have
a Jaton and a cheap Daewoo, but I know the Malata is also
a popular brand.  You should be able to find an adequate,
reliable code-free player for around a hundred balloons.

Hi
Dave – thanks for posting my e-mail to you about "House
of Flying Daggers"… I’m getting pretty psyched
about this film.  I also recently just bought "Azumi"
and "Aragami" based on the comments
in your UNDERGROUND column (and elsewhere on CHUD), and
enjoyed "Azumi"… such a cute girl,
but what a bad-ass.  By the way – I bought these DVDs
from HKDVDStore.com, which offers region-free (and probably
pirated) DVDs of Asian films for those of us without the
proper DVD Player.

Keep pluggin’,
Paul

DAVE
SAYS: It
does look like that HKDVDStore is selling boots, probably
the same ones you’ll find on ebay.  Basically, if the movie
hasn’t been released here and they’re advertising a region-free
version, it’s likely a boot.  The whole “bootlegging is
bad” argument isn’t one I’m prepared to get into (because
it is bad, and yet I’ve been known to participate),
but I’ll just say the Asian film market isn’t terribly robust
in the US just yet, so some folks do what they gotta do.

Also,
if you dig Kitamura’s Aragami (which by the
way was part of a challenge with director Yukihiko Tsutsumi
to each make a movie with only two characters in one setting
– Tsutsumi’s result is titled 2LDK), check
out his film Alive, which is essentially the
same story but with more fighting.  Kinda reminded me of
an extended Outer Limits episode or something.

Although
I loved the Lord of the Rings movies, I’m
not the biggest fan of Tolkien’s writings (all that walking
and singing and eating and singing about eating, and way
too many fake languages and sons of so-and-so), but this
Ancanar is looking decent for what is essentially
a fan-made epic.  I certainly admire the passion being poured
into it.

Couple
of things:

1)
I notice you’re quite a skeptical (or maybe just cautious) passenger
on the Slow Boat To Korea, what with all the hyperbole that
spews forth from the the geeknet at the moment. I know you’ll
have seen them, but what do you think of some of the less
publicized Korean pictures ? I’m thinking of things
like "Guns & Talks", "Barking
Dog Never Bite" and "Bichunmoo".
Chan Wook Park’s going to be a new Takeshi Kitano quite
obviously, but maybe his countrymen deserve some of
the love outside of action "spectaculars" like
"2009 Lost Memories", "Shiri"
and "The Resurrection Of The Little Match Girl"… 

b)
I just had a quite day dreamy flashback to that wonderful,
much missed sub genre: the Sword and Sorcery picture.
I’m not talking about "The Dark Crystal",
or "Conan" I’m thinking of
the exploitation pictures that capitalized on them usually starring
Amazonian goddesses and ex wrestlers and runners up in Lita
Ford look-a-like competitions. I think Albert Pyun directed
a few of these way back when and the dudette who got
wasted by Phil Specter was a top-liner in one or two. So,
scantily clad tits + death = a good mix ?  

Best

Limey
Sue

DAVE
SAYS: Hey,
Sue.  Don’t get me wrong, there are quite a few Korean films
that have impressed the hell out of me (Sympathy for
Mr. Vengeance, Public Enemy), and
others that I’ve just found downright entertaining (My
Wife is a Gangster, My Sassy Girl), but I’m just
as discerning with them as films from any country.  A lot
of it has to do with the ultimate frustration from hype
(although Oldboy lived up to it).  I prefer
Musa the Warrior over Bichunmoo as
far as sword-swinging period epics go, but Guns &
Talks is one polished bite that doesn’t get enough
attention.

As
for bemoaning the lack of shitty fantasy films, I have to
admit I was never a huge fan.  Tits are great, but I prefer
my rubbish to smell like Bronx Warriors over
the likes of Sorceress, Wizards of the Lost Kingdom,
Miles O’Keeffe’s bared pecs and the Deathstalker trilogy. 
Although Jon Terlesky deserves more work. 

And
I think Albert Pyun gets a bad rap.  But perhaps that’s
a topic for a future edition of Underground…

DOWN
BELOW

I’d
like the UNDERGROUND to also be an environment for smaller
filmmakers (in budget, scope and height – I don’t discriminate,
wee folk) to publicize their wares, particularly genre material. 
Everyone deserves a chance, yeah? After all, even Oscar
winner Peter Jackson started with an independent sci-fi
horror flick that featured spilled brains and vomit tasting. 
So if you’ve got an independent film and you want to expose
yourself, drop me a line at dave@chud.com. 
Put some pants on first.

NEW
BIBLICAL ACTION THRILLER OFFERS INSIGHT INTO BIBLICAL ENDTIMES
PROPHESIES

looming. The pulp action thriller The 4th Beast takes on
the endtimes from a different perspective.

“You
aren’t going to see a bunch of people disappear if that¹s
what you’re expecting,” Says director and Columbia College
Chicago alum, Nathyn Brendan Masters.  “This film is more
about explaining the endtimes. Apocalypse movies are a popular
genre that grabs the attention of secular viewers as well
as Christians but Masters believes there’s more to the story
than what’s been told. A lot of people buy these films and
books to be entertained but also to get information about
the Revelation prophesies but most of these films and books
only give half the story and they’re all saying the same
thing. We try to really break the prophecies about the Antichrist
down.”

Inspired by Steve Wohlberg’s book End Times Delusions, an
exposé on the
Bible’s endtime prophecies, The 4th Beast revolves around
an ex-army ranger, Daniel Abrams home from the Shock and
Awe engagement. To ensure the safety of a disc, which contains
information about the Antichrist, a priest enlists Daniel’s
aid. The stakes are raised when two rogue upstart Vatican
agents, the straight laced Sebastian and his borderline
psychotic commanding officer Delilah Capallina come to retrieve
to the disk for their own purposes.

The film’s action oriented theme and production has raised
eyebrows, but

Hollywood and frankly some of it’s a lot better.” Says Rogers.
When casting Masters and Rogers both decided to grab people
from Chicago’s tight knit, highly trained theater community.
For the roles of the Father Anthony and Father Paul Anderson
theater actors Glenn Dhont, and Michael MacRae both play
priest trying to aid in unraveling the prophecies. Katie
Getty plays the treacherous Delilah and film, television
and theater actor Jon Ross plays the lead character Daniel.
All trained and accomplished actors every one.

"I
think the way this project is coming together is a testament
to God’s power." Says Masters about the strangeness of the
whole production. People have been perplexed considering
the unemployed filmmaker managed to get most of the equipment
he needed at no charge. Masters says he made a business
deal with the ultimate negotiator, God. The deal, he¹d do
the film if God made a way for him to get the equipment
to start his company. "God always keeps His end of a deal
now I¹m keeping mine."

Feeling
distributors would want to make changes taking away the
effect of the Biblical content Masters has decided to keep
his production independent with plans to distribute the
film from his website until he finds a distributor who he
can be sure won¹t change the impact of the film’s message.

The
4th Beast: Mask of the Antichrist, is currently shooting
on location in Chicago. Masters and his Chicago based production
company, "TimeCode Mechanics" are heading up the project.
The film is being financed out of pocket and through donations.
Updates on the film can be seen at the website www.the4thbeast.com.
The film is slated for summer release and stars Jon Ross,
Joelly Mejia, Katie Getty, Jason Walsh, and Vanita Nickole,
with appearances by Chicago theater actors Michael MacRae
and Glenn Dhont.

For
information see www.the4thbeast.com

Thanks
for digging into this edition of DAVE’S UNDERGROUND, be
back soon with more treats from beneath eye level. Feel
free to send any suggestions or comments to dave@chud.com!