BUY IT AT AMAZON: CLICK HERE!
STUDIO: Sony/Columbia Tri-Star
MSRP: 29.99 RATED: PG-13
RUNNING TIME: 122 Minutes
SPECIAL FEATURES:
• Video introductions by Guillermo Del Toro & Selma Blair
• Del Toro/Mike Mignola commentary
• Cast commentary
• Mike Mignola DVD Comics
• Right Hand of Doom Set Visits
• Storyboard track
• “From The Den” – Hellboy Recommends…
• The Seeds of Creation 2 ½ Hour documentary
• Deleted scenes with Del Toro commentary
• Del Toro character biographies
• Animatics and pre-visual material
• Trailers and TV Spots
• DVD-Rom Screenplay, Script Notebook and Director’s Notebook

It’s
sad that it’s come to this, having to start
a DVD review with a disclaimer rather than a
joke about jazz saxophonists, manatee testicles
and Ernest Borgnine but here we go…

I
do not know Guillermo Del Toro. Never met the
man. Never spoken to him. Never pitched him
my fantastic screenplay about a giant ham that
threatens Chicago. I enjoy all his movies so
far, though some more than others. I always
find his work interesting, but he’s not yet
made a movie that I’ve utterly loved at first
sight (though Devil’s Backbone comes
tantalisingly close). I’m a fan of Mike Mignola’s
Hellboy comic book, but with some reservations.
It’s a fun confection, but there’s lots of room
for a movie version to flesh things out. At
the time of writing this intro, I haven’t even
seen the movie yet – here in the UK, it’s not
due to hit theaters for another month and change.
Yes, I’ve had “DVD quality” bootlegs dangled
in front of me since April. Yes, I’ve resisted
temptation – though many haven’t. The 2-disc
Hellboy edition I hold in my sweaty claw-like
appendages is the one I pre-ordered online,
paid for with my own sex money and just this
minute unwrapped with my tongue.

Got
that? Good. Let’s cock.

Despite
hordes of naysayers, torrential rain and technical
problems with the Crucifixitron ride, Mel Gibson’s
Caviezel World opened its gates just
in time for the Lent holiday season.

The
Flick

So
there’s this big red guy, with filed-down horns
and a tail. Friends call him Hellboy. See, the
mad monk Rasputin, working in conjunction with
the Nazis, summoned him forth from another dimension
to bring about Ragnarok – the end of the world
– but the ceremony was interrupted by the good
guys, and the demonic catalyst appeared in the
unexpected form of a baby. The Allies, led by
young paranormal expert Professor Trevor Bruttenholme
(pronounced “Broom”), found him, nurtured him
and raised him to fight against supernatural
threats. He’s now been around for sixty years,
but thanks to his infernal body clock, mentally
speaking he’s got the mindset of a petulant
teen. He works for the BPRD, the secret Bureau
for Paranormal Research and Defense, alongside
a handful of other…unique individuals,
tracking monsters and ghosts around the world,
and then smashing them to crap with his stone
right hand. It’s not much of a life, but it’s
the only life he’s known. And now Rasputin is
back, along with his doting mistress Ilsa and
Hitler’s favored clockwork assassin Kroenen,
to fulfil the prophecy and free the Ogdru Jahad
– the seven Gods of Chaos – from their pan-dimensional
crystal prison. And to do that, they need Hellboy…

Mike
Mignola’s cult comic series is an acquired taste.
An artist who turned to writing, he paints with
broad strokes – both visually and narratively.
From an artistic point of view, this results
in a bold visual style, all heavy blacks with
bright colors popping from the page. To see
him illustrate a wordless sequence in which
Hellboy investigates, say, a haunted house is
a thing of beauty. Plot-wise, his broad sweep
approach results in some rather thin characterisation,
with backstory scattered loosely across a bunch
of graphic novels and short stories, and plots
driven forwards by mood and atmospherics rather
than exposition and event. In comic-form, it
works – once you get used to it. The pleasure
comes from the little details, the playfully
gothic universe in which Hellboy plies his trade.
For those used to the densely contrived plots
of the superhero genre, it’s a slow and sometimes
confusing book to get into. It’s silly, and
a little shallow, but that’s where the beauty
of it lies – there’s ample space here for a
visionary director to fill in the blanks, and
pull the sprawling character arcs into something
more concise and satisfying for the three-dimensional
world.

Rasputin
Gag Part 1: "How many time I tell you?
My first name is not Rah Rah. Russia’s greatest
love machine? Da, that part is very true. Come,
I show you…"

Pepsi’s
bio-tech engineers, using state of the art electron
microscopes to study at a molecular level, finally
discover the secret ingredient in Powerade –
the screaming remains of Dr Henry Pym.

Once
I’d figured that out, and found the film’s groove,
I was able to do much the same as I do with
Mignola’s comic – enjoy the finer details, appreciate
the artistry, drink in the quirky character
beats. Ron Perlman’s performance, for instance,
is one so in tune with the source material that
it appears effortless. You forget that it’s
only his eyes and left hand that aren’t touched
with make-up magic, so complete is the illusion.
Ditto for John Hurt, who fleshes out the briefly
seen Broom of the comic into a mentor and father
figure who has real resonance in Hellboy’s story.

Manning
and John Myers are the two most obviously human
characters thrown into this weird stew, and
they can’t help but suffer by comparison. Myers
is the quintessential nice guy – and he plays
a vital role in Hellboy’s character arc – but
surrounded by such colorful creations, it’s
hard to feel much for him. Manning’s character
is changed from the comic, in an interesting
way. In the comics, the BPRD is out in the open
and are called upon, much like Ghostbusters,
to tackle hauntings and infestations in
a very public way. The movie falls back on the
old government cover-up angle, fairly tired
territory these days but it turns Manning from
bland bureaucrat into someone who adds yet another
layer of interaction with Hellboy and the BPRD
menagerie. His final act transition from outright
hostility to chummy ally is a bit rushed, and
therefore less than convincing, but Jeffrey
Tambor brings enough acidic wit to the role
to make it work.

"So,
yeah, I spent most of the 80s working for Zuul.
Weird chick. I think she’s working as Sheena
Easton’s stunt double now. What? No, I got Moranis
unfortunately. Still, fun times. Ackroyd knew
how to party…"

Apart
from Hellboy himself, if there’s one true star
of this show it’s Abe Sapien, the mild-mannered
and analytical amphibian with mysterious origins.
He’s an enjoyable character on the page, but
on-screen becomes a thing of beauty. Doug Jones
provides the balletic physical performance,
all twitches and bird-like head movements, while
David Hyde Pierce supplies the voice. It’s a
good (if obvious) match, although the vocals
sometimes sound too much like Niles Crane for
my tastes. Sadly, Abe’s nuanced relationship
with Hellboy is glimpsed only in a handful of
scenes, where it feels like some bizarre Threepio
and Chewbacca team-up from an alternate reality
where fan fiction is actually good. He’s a memorable
foil to Hellboy’s grouchy curmudgeon, seemingly
accepting his place in this world with a shrug,
and it’s a shame we don’t get to see more of
him. Liz Sherman is another character who took
several graphic novels to even begin to show
personality, yet here Selma Blair brings her
to damaged life from her very first scene. The
romantic tension between her, Myers and Hellboy
is a weird one to pull off – how do you sell
an audience on a love triangle where one of
the potential suitors is a grumpy red monster?
– but thanks to focussed work from all three,
I never found myself questioning it.

SWM,
GSOH, seeks disfigured Nazi for friendship,
maybe more. Interests include thai cooking,
the work of John Steinbeck, romantic walks on
the beach and piercing.

All
in all, It’s a dependable and watchable cast,
free from any celebrity clutter and straddling
both drama and comedy with appropriate ease.
Though some of the roles are a tad underwritten,
all the actors are able to take the seeds from
the script and help them bloom into a believable
ensemble of unbelievable characters. There’s
really not a single weak link in the line-up,
which is rare for this type of movie.

One
of the easter eggs from the upcoming Van
Helsing DVD – a picture-in-picture video
track of that guy from City Slickers
silently and solemnly pointing an accusing finger
at the viewer for the duration of the movie.

What’s
especially nice about this set-up is that the
movie resists the obvious trappings of the “super-team”
concept. Eddie Izzard has a joke about James
Bond, and how he never brings back a gadget
unused. No matter what Q gives him, he finds
himself in a situation where he just happens
to need that exact gizmo. Gather together
more than one character with special powers,
and much the same problem occurs – abilities
that are set-up in Act One turn out to be conveniently
vital to the climax of Act Three. Not here.
Abe may be psychic, but at no point does the
plot hinge on him reading anybody’s mind. Despite
her raging capacity for destruction, Rasputin
is not defeated by Liz and her explosive pyrokinesis.
Their powers are ultimately just another part
of the characters, used when they make sense,
and serving as the springboard for character
development rather than action. With little
or no explanation as to why these creatures
exist, or how these powers came to be, the BPRD
roster never feels contrived or forced.

It’s
a mystery how one director can splurge over
$200 million on a movie and end up with something
that looks like a PlayStation intro sequence
(Hello Stephen Sommers!) while another can spend
less than half that amount and deliver something
that looks almost seamless. Actually, it’s not
a mystery at all. It’s all down to knowing what
you want to do before you start signing the
cheques. What I’m trying to say is that the
FX in Hellboy are pretty damn impressive.
That there’s a ton of practical work is deserving
of praise, as is the fact that even my trained
eye couldn’t spot some of the transitions between
live action and CG. There are several scenes
and effects that I swore must have used CG,
only to discover they were achieved practically,
while scenes and characters that I assumed were
physical FX turned out to be completely CG.
Sure, you can spot a couple of clunky virtual
stuntmen, but then those are always easiest
to spot – we know how the human body moves and
looks too well to be fooled by even the best
computer graphics. Throw in the stunning and
subtle make-up work on both Hellboy and Abe,
and you’ve got a movie that delivers megabucks
spectacle on a mid-range budget. Never a bad
thing.

However,
with so much attention spent on demonic love
triangles, city-spanning monster battles and
a barrage of deadpan quips, the actual plot
often suffers from the same vagueness that had
me flipping back a few pages in the graphic
novels to see if I’d missed something. It’s
not what I’d call bad writing, nor is it ever
incoherent. There’s just a less than urgent
emphasis placed on the “why” of the storyline
when the “who” and “what” is more interesting.
As such, Rasputin’s plot may make sense in the
big picture, but the actual reasoning behind
his actions can get swamped amidst everything
else that’s happening.

"And
this happens every time you think of Dave Davis?
Believe me sweetcheeks, you’re not alone…"

It
doesn’t help that his only cohorts are the mute
Kroenen, who gets some great fight scenes (plus
the most nauseating face ever seen in a PG-13)
but little else; and Ilsa, who hints at a romantic
subplot with Rasputin to mirror Hellboy and
Liz, but she has so little screentime – and
so little to actually do other than smashing
open cabinets with a hammer – that her impact
on events is negligible. The ranks of evil are
filled out with Sammael, the tentacled amphibi-beast
who respawns more often than a Quake
player. Personally, I liked the regeneration
idea. I know some felt cheated that Hellboy
essentially fights the same monster for the
whole movie, but it makes sense in terms of
the story and – frankly – this movie is so stuffed
that even more monsters would only water things
down. Even so, while Sammael supplies plenty
of the mano-e-mano slugging that Hellboy is
famous for, it’s never entirely clear why Rasputin
needs this Guyver-esque brute to achieve
his aims. He’s a cool-looking, slobbering MacGuffin.

I’ve
now seen the film four times in one week, what
with commentaries and such, and I’m not getting
tired of it. Each time, another little detail
makes me smile. There are so many cute touches
throughout this movie – fun gags, cool character
beats, quotable lines – that it’s been a breeze
to sit through multiple times. The red-hot horns
after the train chase. “Finally got them implants,
huh?” The plastic-wrapped trees at the sanitarium.
The box of cats. “Pamcakes”. Abe’s Rubik’s cube.
Kroenen switching himself off. The tentacle-riddled
skies of post-apocalypse New Jersey. “I wish
I could do something about…this”. Just like
the original comics, the broadly functional
strokes of the movie storyline are really the
foundation for dozens of these pitch-perfect
“moments” and – hey – that’s fine with me.

As
with any comic movie trying to juggle a bunch
of characters in a two-hour movie, away from
the luxury of one-shot issues and limited series
comics, there are some casualties. Sadly, one
of the movies best creations is one of them.
That Abe Sapien pretty much vanishes from the
narrative just before the climax is, to my mind,
a glaring omission. I wanted more scenes of
the pair in action together, two freaks
investigating the freakish, resigned to their
fate. There are other minor complaints – such
as making a big deal about Hellboy being a secret,
and then having him fight most of his major
battles in very public places with no apparent
comeback, the half-hearted use of the great
corpse character or choosing to play off the
most tragic scene against one of the most frivolous
– but I’d really have to dig deep into my bag
of nitpicks to continue with any sort of negative
criticism. The movie makes more of an attempt
than most to deliver a convincing world for
events to play out in, so I can easily let the
small subjective complaints slide – these aren’t
clumsy errors born of incompetence, they’re
the inevitable side-product of cramming so much
into one movie.

Now,
I was more than a twadge concerned about reviewing
this movie; so much expectation, so many polarised
views floating around. Having finally seen the
damn thing, it’s certainly not perfect, but
it baffles me that some have proclaimed it to
flat out “suck”. For all its flaws, Del Toro
has delivered an eminently likeable movie. You’d
have to have a cold heart, or be a deliberately
contrary bastard, to deny the fun of this oddball
experience. It’s a blast. It’s what marketing
devils would call a “romp” or a “roller coaster”
– and for once, they’d be right. It takes aim
at a bold array of targets, and hits most of
them around the bullseye. It may lack the extra
“oomph” that would nudge it into the “classic”
bracket, that hard to define magic which marks
a movie as something truly special rather than
simply a great piece of entertainment, but is
no worse for having some goals still to achieve
in the sequel.

In
the end, it’s actually been pretty simple to
review. Haters be damned, Hellboy is
that lynchpin of an enjoyable movie year – a
solid and rousing eight.

8.0
out of 10

"I’m
going to eat one of these kittens every minute
until someone tells me where Linda Hamilton’s
hiding…"

The
Look

The
Two Guillermo’s – writer/director Del Toro and
director of photography Navarro – have served
up a visual treat of a movie, and the anamorphic
transfer doesn’t let them down. You can tell
by the witty use of color and light, from the
framing and the movement of the camera in-shot,
that this creative team that knows exactly what
they’re doing. They apply the same level of
visual depth and meaning to this pulpy source
material as Scorsese would to one of his pet
projects, and it pays off. Deep reds signify
the things that are central to Hellboy’s arc,
high contrast shadows announce the presence
of Rasputin – or the machinations of his scheme.
Blues, greens, browns, all are deftly chosen
from the comic palette and used for reasons
beyond “looking cool”. Rest assured, cinematography
buffs will give their “Pause” button some serious
attention with this disc.

9.0
out of 10

The
Noise

The
healthy Dolby 5.1 track gives the speakers a
workout during the fights and other action scenes,
but gets the thumbs up for remembering that
it’s the use of ambient sound during the quieter
moments that really sells the surround experience
and pulls the viewers into the world of the
movie. Marco Beltrami’s score fails to grab
the attention though, which is a shame. It’s
not a bad score, per se, but the movie deserves
music that better suits it’s eclectic and offbeat
content. Maybe it’ll grow on me, like Elfman’s
Spider-Man score, or a virulent groin-fungus.

8.0
out of 10

The
Shane Black Tribute Gag: "I said…I’d
like a little pussy"

The
Goodies

There’s
no shortage of extra material here – you have
to wonder what they’ve left for the extended
edition later in the year – but despite the
amount, I feel it would have benefited from
a bit more organisation before being committed
to the silver disc. Disc One contains the most
fun, with Disc Two providing somewhat stodgy
bulk.

The
commentary with Mignola and Del Toro is a gem,
enthusiastic and warm, loaded with information
on everything from the evolution of the project,
the creative choices made from scene to scene
and a wealth of technical insight. The cast
commentary is less digestible, featuring Perlman,
Selma Blair, Jeffrey Tambor and Rupert Evans.
For all their personality, it’s over-crowded
and suffers from an improvisational nature which
results in them all talking over each other
for much of the time, a tendency towards goofing
off and more than one occasion where they get
basic production info wrong. Personally, I’d
have preferred to hear Perlman in with Del Toro
and Mignola as he’s obviously the one with more
of interest to share and his contributions are
often lost amid the babble of a more silly group
track.

Also
worthy of note is the “From The Den” section,
which contains the cartoons playing on Hellboy’s
TV sets in the movie. From the 60s surrealism
of Gerald McBoing Boing to a creepy animated
take on Poe’s Tell-Tale Heart, these
are the sort of weird-but-welcome additions
that show the affection and detail that went
into this endeavour.

Over
on the second disc you get a hard-to-swallow
lump of documentary footage in the shape of
The Seeds of Creation. Really a series
of shorter featurettes which can be watched
in one sitting, it’s not so much that there’s
nothing of interest in this marathon session
– there is, and lots of it – it’s just crudely
stitched together in a way that leaps about
throughout the production forcing the viewer
to grab whatever morsels they fancy as it trundles
along. For all the data crammed in here, it’s
crying out for the sort of intuitive and sensible
arrangement that makes the Lord of the Rings
extended editions such a benchmark.

The
deleted scenes number a disappointing three
in number, though Del Toro’s optional yakking
over them explains that most of the excised
footage will be used for the longer cut, so
including it all here would defeat the purpose
somewhat.

The
usual bonus stuff fills things out. Those with
a desire to dig even further into the making
of the movie will enjoy some of animatic work,
the 3D maquette gallery and other unsullied
technical side dishes. It’s a robust set, one
that delivers a rounded picture of what went
into making the movie happen, it’s just a shame
that it doesn’t always feel cohesive as a package.

7.5
out of 10

Rasputin
Gag Part 2 (slight return): There was a
cat that really was gone…

The
Artwork

It’s
the same as the poster. Not a bad image, but
there’s so much great visual material to play
with here that I can’t help feeling it’s a rather
bland and safe choice – a line-up that says
“comic movie marketing by numbers”. The cardboard
slipcase pulls away to reveal…exactly the same
image inside. Lazy? Or just cautious? Hopefully
the extended cut with provide something more
innovative – something making better use of
red, black and gold would be nice.

7.0
out of 10

Overall: 8.0 out of 10

READ
PREVIOUS COLUMNS HERE!

Here
are a few more glimpses at some crap from my collection
— basically I’m just skimming through the teetering piles
and randomly pulling things out for discussion in the column.
I haven’t always seen them beforehand myself, so sometimes
the films covered here will be surprises to me as well.

I’ll
be at San Diego Comic Con this weekend (July 22-25), perusing
the DVD retailer and bootlegger tables for potential material
for future columns (even though I’ve already got enough
stuff in the stacks to last another year). Also, if you
have a short film or feature that’ll be screening out there,
let me know where and when I can catch it — or better yet,
have a copy of it on DVD you can slap in my hand.

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.

PREVENGE

Korean
writer-director Chan-wook Park came to the attention of
quite a few folks when he kicked them in the gut with his
kidnapping-gone-awry drama Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance.
Then he calmly picked viewers up, pulled off their arms
and jammed the jagged bone protrusions into their lobes
with his follow-up Oldboy, about a man trying
to ascertain why he was inexplicably imprisoned for fifteen
years. Brutally affecting films, to be sure. You should
track them down, posthaste.

Before
he was battering our intestines with those vindictive tales,
Chan-wook made a military thriller called JSA
(also known as Joint Security Area), set on
the dividing line between bitter enemies North and South
Korea. When the film begins, an ambitious young Swiss Army
major (who is cute but not quite pocket-size) arrives to
investigate a strange incident at a quiet border station
that resulted in the deaths of two soldiers. Acting as the
neutral mediator (as the Swiss often do, in addition to
being famous for cloying cheese, which the film also occasionally
serves), she finds herself stonewalled by the three surviving
men (including Kang-ho Song of Mr. Vengeance
and the acclaimed Memories of Murder) and
flummoxed by the evidence. But although she starts to uncover
the answers she sought, things become increasingly complex
when the circumstances and depth of the men’s relationships
slowly surface.

Unlike
many directors, who kick off their careers with a winding
character piece before moving on to more accessible big-budget
commercial fare (consider the career arc of Bryan Singer
as an example), Chan-wook seems to be on an opposite trajectory,
crafting far more challenging tales while refining his filmmaking
abilities. But despite his increasingly accomplished filmography,
JSA does not deserve to be overlooked thanks
to strong performances and gorgeous cinematography, and
a poignant observation on the ludicrousness of war, without
delving too deep into the politics of the North/South Korea
situation. Sort of a swirling version of A Midnight
Clear with no holiday spirit and fewer chiseled
actors, the film is less a murder mystery than an optimistic
story of how friendships can form despite adversity.

Hmm…
a message of hope and tolerance? Maybe Chan-wook should
direct the next X-Men film… it would have
a few twists in it, that’s for damn sure.

YOU
KNOW… FOR KIDS!

I’ve
previously made mention of a "reverse influence" on Asian
films — as Hollywood continues to import boatloads of films
for potential remakes, Asian movies are becoming increasingly
glossy, emphasizing style over substance in an attempt to
capture the profitable popcorn crowd. I cite the recent
Japanese movie Returner as a prime example,
a whopping sci-fi flick that’s almost shameless in its desire
to be entertaining, but about as filling as a couple of
Pocky.

Before
dazzling audiences with eye-candy FX and Takeshi Kaneshiro’s
perfect hair, Returner writer-director Takashi
Yamazaki also toyed with similar themes (aliens, time-travel,
robots) in a more kid-friendly flick called Juvenile.
If you yanked out E.T.’s glowing innards and rammed a crate
of circuitry inside him, you might get something along the
lines of this feathery fun flick.

A
group of youngsters discover a crater in the woods, at its
center a small silver sphere. When this strange metallic
object reveals itself as a talking robot named Tetra, one
boy takes it home, hides it in his closet and provides any
mechanical components it requests. Before long, Tetra is
walking around and reprogramming the lad’s Playstation 2
in order to "train" him on a futuristic battle machine.
Meanwhile, an invasion by rather inept extraterrestrials
has commenced, and the children befriend a scatterbrained
scientist who assists in thwarting the attack.

Made
for the kids but still agreeable to adults, Juvenile
owes a considerable debt to Spielberg’s boy-meets-alien
flick (not to mention Close Encounters of the Third
Kind, and maybe a little Goonies).
It’s zippy and unabashedly merchandise-ready, but the child
stars (who include a younger version of Returner‘s
cutie female lead Anne Suzuki) mercifully suppress the Annoyance
Factor, which goes a long way in a flick like this. The
slapstick tone and corny themes of puppy love and kid-empowering
wish-fulfillment (along with some gaping plot holes) obviously
concentrate on a younger audience, but Juvenile
is clean fun and intelligent enough to hold appeal for anyone
who can appreciate the Spy Kids movies and
has fond memories of The Explorers and Flight
of the Navigator.

After
all, what kid didn’t dream of befriending an otherworldly
being (Yog-Sothoth and Shub-Niggurath included)?

PROSE
AND CONS

Thanks
to a particularly enthusiastic literature professor, I once
found myself engrossed by the works of William Shakespeare
(a "Bard buff"?) and their penchant for intricate vengeance
and bleak conclusions. But while Kenneth Branagh’s comparatively
frothy Much Ado about Nothing is perhaps my
favorite filmed adaptation, I admit Shakespeare’s antiquated
parlance can seem impenetrable, which is why I’m always
intrigued by films that offer new approaches to the material
– Titus, Ian McKellan’s Richard III,
Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo & Juliet, etc.

The
British production Othello transposes Bill’s
racial tragedy to London’s modern day Metropolitan Police
Force, where John Othello (Eamonn Walker) is the black man
in a white environment. After quelling a race riot, Othello
is promoted to the recently vacated commissioner position,
bypassing his trustworthy best friend Ben Jago (Chris Eccleston).
While Ben appears supportive, he’s secretly steamed about
the situation and immediately begins hatching a treacherous
plot that sets his dark-skinned comrade against the love
of his life.

Longtime
TV helmer Geoffrey Sax and Bridget Jones’ Diary
screenwriter Andrew Davies efficiently ditch the original
play’s dense diction for this solid retelling, which maintains
the story’s dramatic beats. I always found Walker to be
the real standout of HBO’s penis-packed prison series Oz,
his mellifluous voice here providing Othello with appropriate
gravitas on the way to the inevitable unhappy ending, while
Keeley Hawes makes a fine object of his affection. But Eccleston
gets the meat as the deceptive villain, and his variation
of Iago spits tempestuous daggers through the fourth wall
as he schemes a circuitous revenge, making this Othello
all the more worthwhile.

A rancorous Eccleston pops up again in another contemporized
play adaptation, this time as protagonist Vindici in the
blood-soaked Revengers Tragedy. I’m not familiar
with the original 17th century work from Thomas Middleton,
but I’m assuming it doesn’t take place in the same burned-out
glam-rock future London as the film.

As
the story begins, a bus rolls into town and Vindici (Eccleston),
its sole living occupant, disembarks. Financially and emotionally
destitute, Vindici has returned after ten years to exact
revenge against the Duke (veteran Derek Jacobi) and his
five sons for poisoning his wife (and the majority of guests)
on their wedding day. Fortunately no one except his family
remembers him, so Vindici insinuates himself into the coterie
of the Duke’s eldest son and heir Lussurioso (the always-brilliant
Eddie Izzard), and begins using the brothers’ lust for the
throne against each other.

You
may remember the film’s maverick director Alex Cox – he
helmed the cult fave Repo Man and the Sex
Pistols biopic Sid & Nancy before retreating
with films like the bizarro spoof Straight to Hell
and an Akira Kurosawa documentary. His punk-styled take
on the material is enlivened by his excellent cast (though
the accents and grandiloquent vernacular occasionally necessitate
the use of DVD subtitles), with Eccleston’s cheerfully demented
nihilist and Izzard’s flamboyant sybarite at the forefront,
helping (along with a decent score by tubthumpers Chumbawamba,
who get knocked down, but they get up again) overcome a
slender budget for an inventively incongruous translation
of old material.

A
LUC AT THE PAST AND FUTURE

Long
before getting involved with lethal assassin gal Nikita,
futuristic taxi commando Bruce Willis and imminent Skywalker
parent Natalie Portman, filmmaker Luc Besson launched his
career with a no-budget black-and-white sci-fi debut called
Le Dernier Combat.

This
artful and wordless post-apocalyptic tale follows a wasteland
loner (Pierre Jolivet) as he infiltrates a nearby encampment
of bandits to seek a power source for his homemade aircraft.
Leaving his sanctuary behind, he travels to a derelict city
only to find few remnants of civilization, notably an antagonistic
marauder (common Besson collaborator Jean Reno) whose persistent
efforts to enter the stronghold of a doctor are met with
frustrating failure. Our heroic survivor befriends the doctor
and ultimately throws down with the barbaric foe for the
"prize" — not life-sustaining food or water, but a female
companion (even the proverbial End of the World doesn’t
prevent guys from thinking with their little Mad Max).

Aside
from occasional flourishes (fish storm!), Besson’s depiction
of a savage and desolate future may seem fairly standard
to anyone with a video store membership, but his presentation
is entirely dissimilar to, say, Warlords of the 21st
Century or Hell Comes to Frogtown.
The veritable antithesis of his gaudy, impatient cosmic
opus The Fifth Element, Besson’s direction
here is deliberate, relying on creative visual compositions
and panoramas. The decision to dispense with dialogue (vocals
are an apparent victim of whatever caused a planetary cataclysm)
means his expressive actors must sell the bizarre, humorous
and poetic moments as they "discover" things we take for
granted — namely booze, speech, friendship and chicks.

With
Besson currently spreading himself increasingly thin on
the writing and producing ends of the movie business (a
dozen projects are in some stage of development), it’s interesting
to visit his comparatively relaxed, and surprisingly touching,
origins.

DRIBLETS

Some
interesting miscellany from the CHUD message boards and
beyond:

Ika: The Calamari Wrestler is a Japanese
film about a giant squid who wrestles men and mutated creatures
from the deep. At least, that’s what I’m assuming it’s about,
based on the title, trailer and website. Sometimes I wish
I understood Japanese. Other times I think I might be better
off with my ignorance. You can see the trailer HERE
or check out the site HERE.

While
we’re on the topic of insane Japanese stuff, boundlessly
energetic mad bastard Takashi Miike’s next film Izo
seems to have samurai, yakuza, time travel, gunfights
and a whole lot of weirdness (which should be assumed with
Miike, I guess). You can see the trailer HERE.

In
a way, I’m grateful Jackie Chan’s recent US releases haven’t
performed that great, because it means he goes back to Hong
Kong and works on the sort of movies that made him famous
in the first place. The resilient stuntmaster returns with
a new entry in perhaps his best franchise with New
Police Story, which co-stars a bunch of new generation
faces like Nic Tse, Charlene Choi and Daniel Wu. Check out
the trailer HERE.

For
those awaiting the mythical "extended cut" of
director Zhang Yimou’s gorgeous historical martial arts
epic Hero, wait no longer (or just a little).
The 118 minute cut is finally now getting released in China
this month, and the three versions of the new DVD will feature
English subtitles, so plan to hit your local Chinatown or
online reseller for a copy soon.

(source: Monkey
Peaches)

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!

After
reading about the crimes of The Monster Squad
not being available on DVD, it suddenly dawned on me that
I owned the film on Video once upon a time on VHS (PAL system)
So I took a good look in the attic and found it in near
perfect condition.

So
I sat down and watched a good old classic. the sound and
picture quality is bit sketchy for the first 10 mins or
so but apart from that its perfect.

I
am now wondering do you know if the soundtrack is available
on CD?

-Mark

p.s
The werewolf transformation sequence is one of my favourites
of all time

DAVE
SAYS: Someone’s missing out on a lot of cash by not
rounding up DVD rights to Monster Squad, judging
by the amount of emails I got after talking about the flick
in a previous column. As for the soundtrack, I don’t think
it ever got an official release, so you’re in the same boat
as a lot of fans — I’ve seen the bootleg soundtrack at
cons, but nothing official. Give a look HERE.

And every movie would be better with Jon Gries as a werewolf.

All this international DVD talk has got me in the market
for an all region player. I’ve tried a few of the more traditional
outlets- Best Buy, Circuit City, etc.- with no luck except
a muttered "try online." My question is this: Could you
recommend any good sites to find them on, and can you suggest
a model or two that you see as wise, yet not insanely expensive,
choices. Thanks for any help you can give me.

-Steve

DAVE
SAYS: Probably the most common question this column
creates — "How can I see all that questionably wonderful
stuff?" Well, they won’t have codefree players at chain
stores because to make most players region free, it requires
a firmware upgrade (which corporate stores are not allowed
to do as it would mean opening the box. Plus I’m not entirely
sure of the legality of altering firmware…).

I
have a Jaton and a cheap Daewoo, but the Malata models also
all seem to get good marks. HK Flix has a bunch of different
models from less then a hundred bucks, it’s just a good
idea to get a pro-scan model with proper PAL conversion.
I’ve ordered from them in the past and they’re pretty reliable.
Their site is here: http://www.hkflix.com.
Hope that helps!

I
found out about a project the other day that I just had
to pass on to you. Your underground column deals with plenty
of foreign material. Not anime, I know, but you might get
a kick out of this anyway.

Working
for an animation studio, I sometimes get some pretty strange
unsolicited emails. Usually they’re from Indian, Turkish,
or Korean companies looking to farm out animation jobs for
us.

I received a whole barrage of emails the other day from
a Korean agency (website HERE)
regarding shows in production, looking for distribution.
The one that caught my eye made me laugh enough to watch
the online trailer. Hoo boy, hold onto something and get
ready for SPACE BIBLE.

From
their website:
=====================================

Title:
SPACE BIBLE Genre: Animation Category: Religion Format:
2D-3D Type: OVA Duration: 30min x 7 Language: Korea, English
Year: 2004 Production: Hyun Young Enterprise Co., Ltd. Product
Info.

The
Bible may be a little pedantic for today’s children. The
Space Bible is constructed to overcome this barrier for
our children by reproducing the same stories as an interesting,
SF action adventure. While the 7 recreated stories are rigorously
faithful to the original stories and relate the basic religious
messages such as forgiveness and peace, they also deal with
some current issues like cloning and genetic engineering.
With the intention of global distribution, English has been
used from the planning stages of the production.

Synopsis: A long time in the future, Noah, a space scientist
received a revelation from God. God had told him to leave
Eden for another planet called Canaan. There was to be a
great expansion of the sun in which Eden would be destroyed.
To escape, Noah began to build a space shuttle with the
help of his family. Although some people made fun of him
and thought his actions ridiculous, Noah lifted off in his
new shuttle with his family, those that believed in the
revelation, and fertilized animal eggs. Soon after Noah
had left Eden, the sun suddenly expanded and destroyed the
planet. The journey to Canaan was long. After ten generations
on board the shuttle, it became very crowded. As time passed,
people on the ship except for Abraham and his family began
to forget about the existence of God and lost interest in
his words. To them, Eden was only a myth from the distant
past. After a long journey, the spaceship reached its destination.
What the people found was disappointing. Canaan was not
the paradise that they had dreamed about. People decided
to move to other neighboring planet with better living conditions.
However, Abraham and his family remained on the planet as
God had ordered. Even with the better living conditions
than Canaan, settling down was not easy on the neighboring
planets. A lot of work had to be done to develop the new
frontier. The work was dangerous and the new settlements
lacked man-power. The answer to all their problems, they
thought, seemed to be massive reproduction or better known
as cloning. People built "Placenta" for reproduction and
slowly imagined themselves as God as they reproduced workers.
The number of clones expanded astronomically. Although cloning
was seen as the answer to their labor problems, it created
a greater danger. These clones were not content to remain
as workers. They wanted to rule and control the planet system.
For their goal, the clones realized that they had to increase
the reproduction at "Placenta" and to destroy them. It was
belief that had the power to unite people of the universe
in order to defend against enemies such as "Placenta" clones.

============================

Pretty
wild, huh? Let me tell you, the sight of Space Noah (Moses?)
parting the red wormhole is something to behold.

A
link to video footage is HERE.

–
Mike

DAVE
SAYS: Um… weird. I don’t think I ever imagined someone
saying "The Bible’s okay, but it needs more spaceships
and nebulas!"

I
wonder if they’ll start putting copies of this in hotel
rooms.

As i read your description of this film (Haute Tension),
I couldn’t help but notice the remarkable similarities betwen
the plot and the novel Intensity by Dean Koontz,
which had a hack job TV mini-series treatment done to it.
The intro sounds remarkable similar, but Dean Koontz books
have yet to have even a halfway decent reatment to film.
Wonder if you noticed this at all.

–
Ernie

DAVE
SAYS: As I haven’t seen the miniseries (I do know the
great John C. McGinley is in it) or read the book (Koontz
causes me to snore), I can’t comment on the similarities
they might share, but you’re certainly not the only one
to notice, it turns out. Apparently when Haute Tension
screened at Sundance, the writer/director was questioned
on the topic at a Q&A and admitted he’d read Koontz’s
novel but said "The beginning is quite similar, but
it’s a classic story: two girls in a house with a killer
… It’s a tribute to all slasher films."

In
fact, someone (likely a big Koontz fanatic) has even added
a "written by" credit for Koontz on the IMDB listing
for Haute Tension (remember, IMDB is not always
entirely accurate), but to be totally honest, nothing about
the film’s setup seems so original to me that someone would
have to plagiarize it…

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.

 

Greetings,
Do you think you could spread the word for our little film
fest request for submissions?

My
name is Nik Palmer. I am a volunteer organizer with the
Carnage Gaming Convention. http://www.carnagecon.com

Carnage
gaming is a 3 day event taking place November 5-7 2004 at
the Lake Morey Resort in Fairlee, VT. The Lake Morey facility
is a beautiful place that includes the Lakeside Theater.
This theater is equipped with DVD and VHS projection, has
120 seats, a 10′ x 22′ wide screen and surround sound speaker
system.

As
part of the events, we will host a gaming oriented film
festival. These films and selected shorts would fall into
the following genres: Action, Animation, Fantasy (Sword
& Sorcery, Magic, Paranormal), Horror, Science Fiction

The
Carnage gaming convention typically draws about 300+ attendees
and some extra guests. Our demographic is typically male
between the ages of 20-50 and females between the ages of
20-35 with an interest in history, fantasy, and science
fiction.

Our
plan is to offer a selection of films to the attendees.
If you have a film you are interested in showing or know
of a film that would be of interest, please contact the
film festival organizers at: npalmer@clubgraves.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!

Challenge of the Superfriends, Volume 1 (Order it from Amazon!)

This show was a vital part of my youth, many CHUD.com readers youth’s, and probably the existence of recording industry sensation Musical Youth, a band that most likely enjoyed the adventures of Hawkman while wisely passing the Dutchie on the left hand side exclusively.

The SuperFriends are Superman, Batman, Aquaman, Wonder Woman… and a host of characters who don’t even deserve their own pamphlet, let alone a comic book. This collection of four color legends and heaps of racial stereotypes exist to battle the forces of evil in any way they can, usually by talking in a stoic voice and seeing the flaw in their master plan. Or by punching them in their goddamn face. That works too.

"Wonder Triplets powers activate! Form of… the most dumb thing ever."

Back in the late 70’s, kids were a far less discerning audience when it came to animated heroics. Things moved at a slower pace and whether the characters were faithful to their two-dimensional brethren was insignificant as long as there was lots of action and Superman and Batman got most of the dialogue.

In a way, Challenge of the SuperFriends is pure. It makes no sense, defies just about all the rules of the characters and science, and is about as thoughtfully planned as my trips to the mall… but it’s unpretentious and follows that great principle that the Godzilla sequels did: Show your main characters a lot and provide tons of skirmishes. As a result, heroes and villains are tossed at us at a breakneck pace and as long as we don’t question why Wonder Woman can fly, Green Lantern’s super power seems to be to get really tan at times, or that Batman is just about useless in space and totally not suited for team adventures in broad daylight… it’s all good clean fun.

But this show is silly. Just plain silly. That’s the magic of it, I guess.

Story Arcs of Record: The SuperFriends team up against Lex Luthor. The SuperFriends team up against Solomon Grundy. The SuperFriends team up against Black Manta. The SuperFriends team up against Mr. Freeze or Captain Cold or whatever that freak is. The SuperFriends team up against Gorilla Grodd. The SuperFriends team up against The Riddler. The SuperFriends team up against…

"Superman, may I suggest a name change? I checked the Library of Congress and am proud to say that no one has gotten the jump on the name Misshapen Headspace as of this morning."

Acting: The voice work is as generic and stiff as a Vivid Video stag’s pelvic region. Every character could be a television car salesman.

Craftsmanship: Watch the mouths. It’s the best thing ever. As Superman talks, his mouth will not only bounce around on his lower face but also change shape and perspective. The joys of hand-drawn animation is only matched by the hilariously benign and simplistic dialogue coming out of the shifting mandibles. It’s a riot. If there was ever a show to just drink vodka and watch all day, this is it. The craftsmanship is quite lousy, but it’s a beautiful lousy.

Entertainment Value: It’s extremely fun to watch this show even as it pulls your legs off at the knees and beats you with the dripping stump. This is a blast, one that offends your love of comic books, but a blast regardless. Oh, and the animated menu is awesome!

Robert Blake is Superman Reborn, coming to theaters next summer!

Special Features: Comic writers Geoff Johns and Mark Waid provide a pair of entertaining commentary tracks. They know the show is asswalk but also have the same nostalgic devotion to the show as I do. Of course, they know and care much more about the DC characters than I do so the tracks are both informative AND entertaining. There’s also a fun retrospective. All in all, this is better than we normally are given in our old television DVD goodness. Here’s the tally:

• Commentaries
• Retrospective
• Character Bios

Overall: 7.0 out of 10

V: The Complete Series (Order it from Amazon!)

Dave Davis gave V: The Final Battle a fun and informative review RIGHT HERE a couple of years ago and it appears that any residual nostalgic love for this show dried up and died with him because I HATED this television series. Seriously. It punched me in the coccyx 32 times a minute, and diminished my heart rate until I escaped the screening room and drank gas from my lawn mower and experienced some deep healing.

As trendsetting and fun as the original shows were, this ongoing series was an exercise in boredom and 80’s hair. Things I can get without the help of Marc Singer and Robert Englund, thank you.

"Wait… you mean me and Mikey Scans here will live forever in the eyes of sci-fi convention attendees? Sure we’ll do your television show!"

The gist of the ongoing series is that the "final" battle wasn’t all that final. When an attempt to kill the captive villain Diana instead frees her shapely reptilian ass, she is given a chance to attack Earthlings once more alongside her platonic lesbian associate Lydia. Their hair is big, their wear human skins like athletes wear Under Armour, and they fear red dust. Such is the life of an extraterrestrial assailant.

Thankfully, Michael Ironside and Marc Singer exist and enjoy long walks in the park, Amaretto Sours, and fighting alien invaders.

The main problem I had with the show was that the real meat of the V phenomenon was already chewed and shat out by the time this show found the airwaves. The big reveals featuring aliens, broken allegiances, and novelty of the first alien birth was in the rearview mirror and what remained was boring concentration camp scenes, attempts to show how life has changed with the Visitors in the picture, and different poses Mr. Singer could make while holding a laser pistol.

Folks, it just ain’t enough.

Nicky Katt, Xander Berkeley, Sybill Danning, and many others show their faces in cameos but it’s just not enough to save the show.

The East McBain, Alabama Psycho Wax Museum couldn’t get ANYTHING right…

Story Arcs of Record: The Visitors struggle to take over Earth. The humans struggle to defend the Earth. The Earth struggles to survive the career of Marc Singer. I struggle to stay awake as the 80’s infiltrates my face area.

Acting: Marc Singer is not an acting juggernaut. Thankfully, he has a chest chiseled out of titanium and nostrils that perform even when under duress. As a leading man, he doesn’t exactly draw you in, but the part in his hair does remind you of that guy at the Bullet Boys concert you went to. Robert Englund plays goofy aliens better than anyone. Michael Ironside is surprisingly good as a hero, though it’s hard to watch him in a film that doesn’t feature extensive vein displaying or battles on the surface of Mars. Otherwise, this is a good example of a genre show that tried to exist beyond its means, acting included.

Craftsmanship: Some of the vehicle designs are cool and I cannot get enough of the alien babies, but this is a show that shows its age in a big way. Even in the mid 80’s the concept carried the show when the budget failed. Either that or those were Jesus’ footprints I saw in the sand.

"So, what am I going to have to do to get a part in this Jeepers Creepers sequel, Mr. Singer?"

Entertainment Value: Good, nostalgic fun? No. The original series is a joy. The second series wasn’t bad either. This… is slower than snail shit and twice as boring.

Special Features: If you’ve come down with a bad case of being French or Spanish… you can still enjoy what seems like a million hours of V: The Complete Series. Here’s the tally:

• Subtitles

Overall: 4.0 out of 10

Batman: The Animated Series – Volume One (Order it from Amazon!)

The popular opinion is that Batman: The Animated Series is the best incarnation of the hero thus available on screens and for the most part it’s correct. The television show represented the first fresh take on the character since Frank Miller’s ultra praised work in four colors. The easy answer to any questions having to do with Batman on film is "Well, the best Batman movie is Mask of the Phantasm", and the trickle-down effect coats this series, the Batman Beyond stuff, and any related spinoffs in a similar light.

For the most part, it is the correct assumption as far as I’m concerned but I also feel that there’s plenty of room for improvement in the show that made Bruce Timm and Paul Dini convention favorites.

I reviewed the first offering of this show way back in April of 2002 RIGHT HERE, a DVD that featured the first handful of episodes. It’s a stout beginning to a brand new era for the Batman, and considering when it first aired, it’s nothing short of transcendent. Being a comic reader, I’ve seen so many reboots and reinterpretations, regurgitations and rehashes of the character that nothing really impresses anymore. The recent "Hush" storyline in the comics was neat but nothing all that wondrous after several decades of Batman adulation. Even my beloved Loeb/Sale Batman runs seem a bit tired now. The actual meat of these stories is just not all that world-shattering.

Where the series excels is in tone and style. It’s what they DON’T do as much as what they do.

The make-up sessions seemed to take longer and longer each year, but Kirstie Alley’s eating habits weren’t enough to keep Some More Cheers off the air.

The series isn’t cheesy like the 60’s show and certain eras of the comic book. It’s darker and more angular, evoking an old-fashioned feel while delivering modern entertainment. As far as G-rated cartoon entertainment goes, it’s among the very best television has ever offered. As far as changing the way Batman storytelling is looked at, don’t believe the hype. This is beautiful stuff, but the real magic of it is how it took what already existed and had the balls to make it to television and screen.

Story Arcs of Record: The Joker wreaks havoc. Two-Face is created. Mr. Freeze is re-imagined as a much better character and becomes a first-tier Batman villain. Basically, what you’d expect from a Batman show.

Acting: Well, it’s all voice acting and it’s the early days. I don’t think Kevin Conroy really found the Batman character until later on. These early episodes seem awfully restrained. Some stuff doesn’t feel exactly on, but the ship rights itself pretty fast.

Philadelphia: The Animated Series… coming this winter to the WB!

Craftsmanship: This is the first Batman cartoon that you could pause, get a screen capture of, and actually have a piece of art in front of you just about any time you did it. The Art Deco look as filtered through the gothic haze serves this show very well and it’s angular and basic approach to characters and settings was a catalyst towards a simplified but no less amazing style still in use today. This is a very brave and artistic endeavor and though it’s rough around the edges (they switched animation houses a few times during the season), it is put together well. That said, the opening credits sequence is too long and is boring after the third time.

Entertainment Value: The show is almost always entertaining and fans of Batman or superhero/crime stuff should eat it right up.

"You may be proud of your ass, Assproudness… but you will not escape Arkham Asylum this time!"

Special Features: There’s a few things here, and that’s all I really expected. The commentary was informative though kind of dry. I expected a little more verve from Timm and Dini, but at the end of the day people don’t buy this for features but rather the proper release of a show they love. The features are meager but decent. Here’s the tally:

• Commentaries
• Retrospective
• Featurettes

Overall: 8.0 out of 10

Wonder Woman, Season One (Order it from Amazon!)

Many first erections came into existence because of Lynda Carter and the 70’s Wonder Woman television show. For that reason alone it can’t be all bad. Anything that sends blood hurtling towards the pants cannot be all bad in some cosmic scheme. In fact, I was a big fan of Wonder Woman… and erections as I watched the show during its life or in syndication as a misspent youth. The tale of an Amazonian (she sold books online) heroine and her battles during WWII America, Wonder Woman eschewed the really cheesy Batman formula in favor of a marginally cheesy one that was bouyed more by the former Miss USA’s lithe form than any efforts to make invisible jets the next big craze in vehicular transportation. In fact, character of Wonder Woman was customized for television into being a sort of companion to The Bionic Woman but decked out in red, white, and blue and sporting a whip.

It also tried to maintain the pulpy feel of the comics of the Golden Age, and to some extent pulled it off.

The battle between Wonder Woman and S&M Carl was furious and featured fight choreography by Hollywood legend Hank Science!

Once the VERY 70’s theme song begins and various shots of the comic book character in action start to unfold, it’s apparent that this is not your father’s Wonder Woman. Except it is. This is your father’s Wonder Woman. He owns her. Once the comic characters morph into their real-life actorly counterparts, it’s apparent that this show is a product of a time gone by.

When it works, the show is just a patriotic bit of mindless entertainment. It’s our lady battling the forces of Nazism whether donning her signature outfit or incognito as a bookish (and far sexier) military officer. It’s a pretty sound formula. It just gets slapped in the face by lame special effects of both the visual and aural variety and the stiffest acting since Peter Graves last showed his granite face.

Thankfully, Lynda Carter prances about in skimpy clothes and reminds us why as children we enjoyed the circulatory benefits of Wonder Woman. Of course, as an adult we can see just how padded that bra was, just how weird the poofy bloomers that ladies wore back then were, and how few situations that tanned panty hose actually look good in.

Story Arcs of Record: Wonder Woman thwarts attempts to create a Master Race! Wonder Woman discovers her little sister is Debra Winger! Wonder Woman prevents cattle theft! Stiff soldiers help Wonder Woman defeat the Nazi menace! People act in front of projection screens. Badly!

"Relax Michael, I’ve found their cleverly hidden explosives!"

Acting: Lynda Carter didn’t win the Miss USA award for her acting. The period between Wonder Woman and Super Troopers has not been a robust one for the thespian. This is not a crackerjack ensemble like The West Wing. This is not a crackerjack ensemble like Punk’d.

Craftsmanship: This show was made under a different aesthetic than say… Birds of Prey. Wait, that show was a pile of hateful sand. It’s very straightforward and stiff but inoffensive. It was the late 70’s. What do you expect?

Entertainment Value: I had fun in short bursts. Ten minute bursts. Any more than that makes a man want to jump off of climbed mountains. It’s fun for a trip down memory lane, though.

What bothers you more: the fact she’s shouting her name through gritted teeth, the fact that she’s breaking the fourth wall by revealing her true identity, or that her costume was provided by Reynolds?

Special Features: Lynda Carter commentary! In it she explains how she got the role, what the show did for her career and why she enjoys visiting Myssyssyppy. There’s also a quick and fun little retrospective that entertains one at the same time that they thank their lucky stars that their claim to fame isn’t TV’s Wonder Woman. Here’s the tally:

• Commentary
• Retrospective

Overall: 6.5 out of 10

G.I. Joe: Season One, Part Two (Order it from Amazon!)

I loved my GI Joe toys as much as any toys I’ve ever owned, including Richard Pryor. The sad thing is: I don’t even know where they went. I remember trading, burning, and abusing my Star Wars stuff. I remember tossing my M.A.S.K. stuff. I remember hoarding my Sectaurs stuff and then accidentally tossing the box in the trash. I remember being crestfallen when my giant Shogun Warriors and Godzilla figures disappeared during the move from New York to Atlanta. I have no idea where the GI Joe stuff went.

That show and those toys were just about the perfect thing for a kid of my age. There was action, intrigue, drama, and sometimes it all seemed a little deeper than other shows of that era. The combination of a great cartoon, great toys, and an amazing comic book (thank you Larry Hama) made GI Joe a force to be reckoned with.

As an adult, I almost feel like punching my inner child. This show is crap!

It wasn’t the beast’s claws and incredible crushing power that made Bobby and Franklin’s last moments so unbearable, but that the last thing they ever heard was crumpling steel and "Asmodeus wants a cracker, Asmodeus wants a cracker!" at 1,000,000 decibels.

Here’s the core of why GI Joe as distilled through my bizarre mindset:

The Snake-Eyes/Storm Shadow/Scarlett/Soft Master/Hard Master dynamic. The mystery of GI Joe‘s silent ninja was surprisingly enthralling. As was his relationship with Cobra’s white-clad villain. The romantic subplot with Scarlett was also cool and I think it was issues #26 and #27 of the comic that were so interesting as it dealt with the whole Ninja aspect of the characters.

Destro. Firefly. Major Bludd. The Baroness. These were cool villain characters. They were old-fashioned and capable in battle. They wore black and were easy to hate yet compelling to watch. Plus, the Destro action figure had a shiny metallic head that belied his silly exposed chest.

The Pit. Because of this show I secretly hoped every gas station was the home of a complex underground base. Living underground is something I really can get behind. Tornadoes can’t hurt you. It’s easy to keep cool. There’s only one direction thieves can attack from. You’re closer to China.

The Gung-Ho attitude. Duke was boring as all Hell, but a perfect epitome of jingoistic indulgence. Flint was tough and somehow made a beret cool, a feat that most others couldn’t dare to achieve. Ace was the grunt of the skies. Mutt and Junkyard Dog were the best man/dog tandem ever, including Jim Belushi and Gary the German Shepherd.

"Who dares disturb the wet dreams of Roland Emmerich?"

The television show is where it all went South, something this set showcases. Serpentor is lame, Tomax and Xamot are stupid, and Zartan and the Dreadnoks work best when used sparingly as a group of mercs playing the middle against the inside. Just like how the Transformers ran itself into the ground with Constructicons, Dinobots, and Beast Wars, GI Joe sunk under the weight of its burgeoning desire for more colorful toys..

Story Arcs of Record: Germ warfare, Baroness seizes the Conch Horn, once used by Ulysses (no, I’m not kidding). The Lady of the Lake gives Storm Shadow a sword (I can’t make this shit up!). The Joes battle the Egyptian God Osiris (whew!). Shipwreck goes into a coma for seven years, or does he? Does he bump into Steve Seagal why he’s in there?

By the way, this isn’t farfetched at all!

Acting: These folks knew their audience was a rabid group of kids and a few out of work child molesters boning up for data on ensnaring their quarry (just a guess). As a result, this doesn’t encourage Lee Strasberg to spin in his tomb in jealousy.

Craftsmanship: There’s no real artistic merit to be found. This is by-the-numbers animation and though it tells the story, it’s not Batman: The Animated Series. Also, did they have to have parachutes pop out every time a vehicle exploded? Did the guns have to fire lasers? Did Lady Jaye have to wear a bra?

Entertainment Value: It’s great. It’s shit, but a lot of fun to watch. That Destro is H.O.T. as they get! The theme song is among the best ever. Seriously. I love that deep-throated delivery and the little spoken word bridge that tells us why GI Joe exists to save us all. Brilliance.

Shipwreck loved meat, everyone knew it. Only then did they realize why he was known as "The Sirloin Casanova" by his close friends and relatives.

Special Features: The case folds open to reveal the discs. That’s about it, Ronnie. I secretly hoped for an in-depth interview with the real-life Destro about how the show changed his private life. Here’s the tally:

• No

Overall: 5.0 out of 10

Millenium, Season One (Order it from Amazon!)

The X-Files is just as important as any other genre show that’s ever been launched. Even though it ran a few seasons too long and even though it ended with a whimper, it’s still a series that changed the business and delivered hours and hours of chills, thrills, laughs, and little gray men probing asses to their heart’s content.

There’s a revisionist vibe about the show, though. Buffy: The Vampire Slayer became the replacement for the show and took the rabid fan base and the good name of Chris Carter’s legendary show with it. It’s become too easy to bash the show. Millenium is Chris Carter’s other show that survived more than eleven minutes (Harsh Realm and The Lone Gunmen got massacred before having a chance to spread their wings) and it is darker than just about any television show I’ve ever seen. Disturbing even. If Carter had tried to launch such a maudlin show starring Lance Henriksen at any time other than the peak of their power, it’d never have happened.

As it stands it did, and this was my first experience with the show. Pretty damn cool. Also, since I experienced The Dead Zone before this, I didn’t realize how they often share a similar vibe and approach.

Generic Shawn had none of the answers and after seeing his pleasant but unremarkable visage in the mirror, he had even more questions.

This is a really solid show. The acting is well above average. The effects and mood is outstanding and the overall effort is in some ways richer than The X-Files. It does suffer from an almost total lack of personality and warmth, but it’s still a show that kind of fell between the cracks unfortunately.

Story Arcs of Record: Frank Black, when not leading The Pixies… has the gift of seeing through the eyes of murderers. Not really a psychic or an empath… but a law enforcement type contracted by a mysterious agency to solve horrendous killing sprees. He deals with a man who killers strippers, killers who travel around in a wheeled slaughterhouse, sexually abusive fathers, copycat killers, and other assorted people who frequently post on the IMDB message boards.

Acting: Lance Henriksen is a minor deity, and I think some people confuse his subtlety with complacency. He anchors the show really well and Frank Black is probably the role of his career. He’s surrounded by an able group of supporting cast members and the people he spars against are often quite chilling. This is a dark and cold show, but one gifted with some really solid performances.

The squint that caused a social uprising, changed the way men look at their relationship with bread, and killed 19 cartographers.

Craftsmanship: Top rate. Absolutely perfect, especially considering the fact that there’s not a lot of demand or marketability for a show like this. Millenium is equal to or better than The X-Files (especially the first couple of seasons) in that regard.

Entertainment Value: You won’t laugh a lot, but this is gritty and compelling and there is some really disturbing shit on display. If Seven were melded with The Dead Zone, you’d have this show. That’s pretty entertaining. Also, a fun drinking game would be one where you did a shot every time Lance’s face seemed to carry more lines than a relief map of Arizona. Your liver would implode so hard that it exploded.

Alzheimer’s had not been kind to Peter Criss…

Special Features: It’s pretty much like the other Chris Carter sets but I was hoping for some involvement from the weary visage of Lance Henriksen. I bet a commentary from him would have been special. He seems like a serious guy but also one who’s danced so well between A and B grade projects that he’d be a wealth of info. David Nutter’s a pretty solid track and though Carter’s flaky at times, he’s kind of an icon in the industry. Overall, this is a robust set of features for a show that never grabbed the Nielsen ratings by the uterus. Here’s the tally:

• Commentary by Chris Carter on the pilot
• Commentary by director David Nutter on "Gehenna"
• "Order in Chaos: Making Millennium Season One" documentary
• "Chasing the Dragon: A Conversation with the Academy Group"
• Creating the logo and title sequence
• Pilot TV spots

Overall: 8.0 out of 10

Project Greenlight: Season Two (Order it from Amazon!)

I loved the first season of this show with all my heart (read the review here) and was thrilled to get my appendages on an early copy of season two. The concept of Project: Greenlight magnificently straddles the accursed reality television world and the accursed and beloved film business and regardless of how the finished films turn out. Actually, I’d be shocked if a great film could be made under this formula. It seems that these shows thrive on the neurosis and mediocrity of the films being made.

Of course, The Battle of Shaker Heights (read Micah Robinson’s DVD review) is like Citizen Kane compared to the meager and saccharine Stolen Summer effort from the first season. We should have known. No filmmaking legend could ever be named Pete Jones. A sidekick to a 3rd rate superhero can be called Pete Jones. A moped repairman can be known as Pete Jones. Not a talented filmmaker.

"An early listen to Lopez’s demo sparked the decision to change the lyrics of Mylar Balloons Don’t Cost a Thing."

The second season unfolds in similar fashion to the first. The first episodes deal with a bunch of aspiring filmmakers whose scripts demo reels have gotten them to the point where they are in the running to make a film for Miramax Pictures with a producing team of Chris Moore, Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, and Jeff Balis, among others. There we see people who are overconfident, weird, aggressive, or just plain naive present their ideas and case for getting the gig. Then, they are stomped away cordially, usually told that their work is great but that they aren’t winners until there are only a few people left. Instead of handing the burden to one writer/director, the second season features a director (in this case, a directing team) handling the script of a separate writer.

I’m not spoiling it when I say that the writer is a lady and her script The Battle of Shaker Heights is the one chosen to be directed by the young duo with a wicked sense of humor.

It’s really compelling stuff, especially if you harbor the wishes to one day make your own movie.

Story Arcs of Record: Efram Potelle is annoying. Kyle Rankin’s kind of a pushover. Jeff Balis… has he learned from his mistakes from last season? When will Chris Moore blow up? Will they secure the talent they want or will they have to scramble? How will the writer and directors get along? Is William Sadler REALLY the Demon Knight? These are questions we need answered.

Chris Moore pitches his next series Project: You Are Small Compared to Me.

Acting: It’s reality television, so of course they’re all hamming it up or acting all tough for the lens. In the finished film (also included), Shia Lebouf is quite good, though I’m not as sold on his sheer talent as everyone else. See, I’ve SEEN I, Robot.

Craftsmanship: It’s put together perfectly to make everything seem all dramatic and shit. That’s the goal, right? It’s well-made. It’s a documentary! The film is a lot better than the first in every way… except for the vital ‘Usage of Aidan Quinn’ meter.

Entertainment Value: The show is totally entertaining. The film is a moderately entertaining coming of age flick. Not much more. The show is the reason to stay tuned, though. The finished films have thus far been a ribbon on the package and little else.

"Good, no one noticed that I just swallowed Matt Damon."

Special Features: Loaded. Super-stacked. There’s even a commentary from the two guys who directed the film on the disc. This is how it SHOULD be done. Here’s the tally:

• Deleted Scenes w Optional Commentary by Directors
•Deleted Scenes from the Greenlight Episodes
• Filmmaker Bios
• Filmmaker Scenes
• "The Battle of Shaker Heights" special cut
• Gag Reel
• Feature Commentary
• "Jump-to-Scene" Feature

Overall: 9.0 out of 10

THE SHOWDOWN TALLY:

Best Show – Millenium, Season One
Best Acting – Millenium, Season One
Most Bang For Your Buck – Project Greenlight, #2
Coolest Show – Challenge of the SuperFriends #1
Best Packaging – Batman: The Animated Series #1
Most re-watchable – Millenium, Season One

Individual Awards & Jabs

Best Actor – Lance Henriksen – Millenium, Season One
Best Actress – Lynda Carter – Wonder Woman #1
Best Supporting Actor – Robin – Challenge of the SuperFriends #1
Best Supporting Actress – Scarlett – GI Joes #1.2

READ
PREVIOUS COLUMNS HERE!

Okay,
so this edition is a little late, but that’s because I was
busy enjoying the new Lost Skeleton of Cadavra DVD.
If you like purposely cheesy tribute (homage fromage?) to
cheap 50’s sci-fi flick, you ought to dig it.

I
should probably point out that the discussion of films in
this column may contain minor SPOILERS. I do avoid it whenever
possible, but it’s pretty difficult to discuss movies in
even minor detail without giving a few little things away.

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.

FRENCH
THRILLS

A
lot of recent horror films are heralded as a return to the
"roots" of the genre, but even flicks from devout horror
fanatics (House of 1000 Corpses, Cabin Fever,
etc.) have presented decidedly uneven results. Who’s to
say other countries can’t get in on the act, questionable
filmmaking choices and all?

The
French slasher-thriller flick Haute Tension (which
translates literally and rather incongruously as "High
Voltage") starts with a simple premise and
a brimming bucket of bloody promise. Marie (luscious pixie/Vulcan
hardbody Cecile de France) is accompanying her friend Alex
(the not-as-hot Maiwenn le Besco) on a retreat to her family’s
secluded farm, where the two plan to get some serious studying
done. But once they arrive, Marie finds the country life
a little too quiet, and decides to occupy her first evening
listening to music and masturbating (the girl strums more
banjo than a Deliverance revival).

Alas,
the tranquility and self-pleasure is shattered with the
late-night arrival of a Jeepers Creepers truck
and its foul sweaty driver (veteran Philippe Nahon of
Irreversible, Le Pacts de Loups and dozens of others),
who enters the residence and summarily hacks his way through
Alex’s family before loading the terrified girl into his
horrific vehicle. Having successfully hidden from the murderer,
Marie manages to tag along, briefly losing the killer and
her bound friend at a gas station before ultimately tracking
him down for a vicious confrontation.

And
then… comes the twist. An infuriating, almost contemptible
twist. A twist similar to having a live grenade jammed down
your trousers — surprising, sure, but not the best way
to get your giggles. A twist that demands a second viewing
of what preceded it… which won’t really matter, as although
it clarifies motivations, it still makes absolutely no logical
sense (never a strong aspect of the horror genre, sadly).

And
yet, remarkably, this irrational shortcoming can’t cripple
the fundamental effectiveness of the flick. Outside of Asian
horror films, I can’t think of a recent movie that took
such potent advantage of music and sound to create, maintain
and intensify a level of unsettling terror, going so far
as to practically dispense with dialogue altogether for
vast stretches. Young director Alexandre Aja wrings solid
performances from his cast, and inestimable atmosphere from
his saturated visuals. The sadistic killer strikes with
uncompromising brutality, serving up some ghastly limb removal
and sanguine geysers for the gore enthusiasts, while the
film builds suspense nearly as taut as de France’s lithe
frame.

With
an affinity for flowing crimson and an ability to craft
genuine frights, it’s no surprise that Aja was recruited
to helm the remake of Wes Craven’s mutant-cannibal "classic"
The Hills Have Eyes (which was already sorta-remade,
and rather competently, as Wrong Turn). I
only hope he maintains his daring tactics while keeping
the shocks to a more coherent scale.

Haute
Tension hits the States later this year.

TABLE
OF CONTENTS

Recent
Asian flicks have taken different approaches to a variety
of sports, including soccer (Shaolin Soccer,
of course), baseball (the disappointing Battlefield
Stadium), wrestling (The Foul King)
and even synchronized swimming (Waterboys).
What’s left?

Young
Asian boys slapping balls for two hours may sound like just
the latest perversion in the increasingly disturbing Japanese
porn industry, but Ping Pong is actually a
whole lot more. As the title implies, the film is set in
the ruthless world of competitive high-school table tennis,
and follows two best friends named Peco (Yosuke Kubozuka)
and Smile (Arata).

Peco,
a homely hyperactive kid in a bowl-cut, loves the game but
lacks the ambition to reach his potential, while the sullen
Smile (so nicknamed because he never does) has applied himself
to actually become the superior player. The new coach at
school recognizes and attempts to tap Smile’s talent, but
the teen fears revealing his true ability to Peco, his personal
hero who rescued him from bullies as a boy. The movie explores
their friendship as well as ongoing rivalries with challengers
from other schools, including a cavalier "ringer" from China
(recurring Hong Kong sidekick Sam Lee), and toothy tormenter
Akuma (Koji Ogura) and the sleek, fierce Dragon (Shido Nakamura),
two schoolmates who approach the game with intensity and
determination.

It’s
difficult to believe that something so assured comes from
first-time feature director Fumihiko Sori, who approaches
the material (based on a manga) with enthusiastic maturity.
While it could have been little more than Rocky
with paddles, Ping Pong never follows the
expected path, its characters revealing more layers and
inner demons as the film progresses. The heated tournaments
themselves remain grounded in reality (no bullet-time or
flaming ping-pong balls), yet manage to remain exciting
(thanks in part to the spry soundtrack) and incredibly cinematic
with a minimum of discernable digital zow.

But
the relationships are the heart of Ping Pong,
a relentlessly charming and almost perfectly balanced concoction
that’ll make you feel like a triumphant Stallone at the
top of the museum steps.

ASPHALT
MASTERS

Recent
flicks like T3, The Fast and the Furious
and Torque, while hugely amusing to
that minuscule portion of the brain reserved for the creation
of remedial tools, are nearly offensive in their disregard
for authentic car-chase excitement (though movies
like Ronin, The Bourne Identity
and BMW’s online "The Hire" series seem to
be rare exceptions). As soon as a camera blasts out of an
exhaust pipe, whips 360° around a vehicle and zooms back
through the driver’s nostril, you know full well that the
scene is more a result of overcaffienated mouse-jockeys
at a bank of monitors than skilled stuntmen in rigged automobiles,
which disconnects me from any real thrill and makes me long
for the analog days of Bullitt, The French Connection
and Road Warrior… along with a few other less
famous car chase flicks.

Take
The Driver, for example, which is almost
brilliant in its simplicity. Walter Hill’s little-known
noirish 1978 vehicular thriller centers around a professional
getaway driver (Ryan O’Neal), an enigmatic beauty (Isabelle
Adjani) and a persistent detective (Bruce Dern) — none
of the players have proper names, instead known only by
their description: The Driver, The Player, The Cop. The
movie defies convention by virtually discarding exposition,
instead focusing on the reticent wheelman and his occupation
(when prospective employers question his talents, he wordlessly
offers a punishing driving demonstration), which often finds
him nonchalantly barreling through dense traffic.

The
film’s byzantine business dealings, twisting morality and
unlikable obsessed cop who all but ignores police procedure
on his unflinching pursuit all serve to facilitate the Hitchcockian
guilt transference (the "hero" bad-guy). With
its spectacular chase scenes, unpredictable plot and French
new wave/Western flavor, The Driver cements
Hill as one of my favorite directors — maybe someday we’ll
get his director’s cut (with more than a half-hour of footage
reintegrated) on DVD.

If
Easy Rider had a jaded cat in a supercharged
Dodge Challenger instead of Hopper on a chopper, you might
get Vanishing Point. Director Richard Sarafian
rolls his social commentary down the road with Kowalski
(Barry Newman), a taciturn world-weary Vietnam vet who drives
vehicles cross-country for a living. One night he bets that
he can make a muscle-car delivery from Colorado to San Francisco
in a less than a day. Kowalski’s amphetamine-fueled odyssey,
with assistance and running commentary from a funky small-town
deejay named Super Soul (Cleavon Little, our Blazing
Saddles sheriff), brings him into encounters with
an assortment of eccentric social outcasts that include
a snake wrangler, a preacher, a drag racer and a pair of
gay crooks. But most importantly he runs afoul of the law,
which is what kicks the whole thing into gear across country
roads and desert highways.

With
its existential nature and vague attempts at relevance (for
some bizarre reason Kowalski is described by his radio comrade
as “the last free man on Earth”), Vanishing Point
(remade for TV in the 90s with none other than Viggo Mortensen
behind the wheel) is unquestionably a product of the rebellious
early 70s. But it’s the dynamic stunts during Kowalski’s
extensive flight from oppression (e.g., "The Man",
represented by the countless redneck cops on his trail)
that still hold any real significance, and a lot more personality
than its driver.

And
then there’s the monarch of all car chases, Gone in
60 Seconds. Ignore the Nic Cage catastrophe that
puttered into theaters a few years ago — I’m talking about
the original 1974 film. The storyline is nominal: notorious
and unlikely named car thief Maindrian Pace (writer/director/stunt
king H.B. Halicki) and his team of experts (all amateur
actors in the distinctive hair-helmets of the period) are
hired to swipe a lot of exotic cars in a short period of
time. Despite the fact that they only steal from the insured
(I guess there is honor among thieves after all), this task
is promptly achieved, but with one complication: one of
the cars is loaded with drugs and a replacement is required.

With
little time remaining, Pace tracks down a similar vehicle,
an elusive Mustang he’s codenamed Eleanor. But by now the
police have caught on, triggering what is likely the longest,
most destructive car chase in the history of cinema. Literally
the entire second half of the film is composed of the Mustang
evading practically every cop in California (with the hairstyles,
horrendous acting and wukka-wukka soundtrack, it’s like
a porno with one everlasting vehicular cum shot). Halicki’s
antihero demolishes innumerable cars during the hypnotic
chase while battering his own stolen ride out of recognizable
shape (perhaps the biggest compliment ever to Ford’s engineering
is the impression that a Mustang could survive such a thorough
thrashing), but shows a few repercussions and feeble stabs
at humor along the way.

Halicki
followed Gone in 60 Seconds with The
Junkman, a weak pseudo-sequel that found him playing
stuntman/actor Harlan Hollis, the supposed star of Gone
in 60 Seconds (confused?). Someone has taken out
a hit on Hollis, and a gang of hitmen in Cadillacs and biplanes
are trying to erase him from the planet. Unfortunately with
The Junkman Halicki makes a reverse of his
first film, frontloading it with a prolonged overblown car
chase before the second half devolves into a Hollywood murder
mystery not worthy of Matlock. But this does not diminish
his accomplishment of Gone in 60 Seconds (its
second half, anyway), an exhilarating journey of automotive
mayhem that has yet to be duplicated.

DRIBLETS

Some
interesting miscellany from the CHUD message boards and
beyond:

The full schedule for this summer’s Fantasia film
festival in Montreal is now online, and it’s very disappointing…
mostly because it doesn’t look I’ll be attending this year,
meaning I’ll miss out on seeing tons of great stuff on the
big screen, including some of Japanese whacko Takashi Miike’s
works, a lot of high-profile Korean films, lots of Shaw
Brothers kung fu classics like 8 Diagram Pole Fighter,
the Stephen King adaptation Riding the Bullet, the
remake of The Toolbox Murders and the new
Ginger Snaps movie. Damn.

You
can check out the complete lineup RIGHT
HERE.

My
depression continues as I look toward Europe, where the
remarkable Fantasy Filmfest has a killer schedule of genre
films that I want to see right this minute. A handful of
buzz flicks from the States such as Saw, Open
Water and The Machinist are blended
with all sorts of Asian and European films that make me
wish a trip to Germany was in the budget. Sigh.

Check
out the complete lineup RIGHT
HERE!

(Thanks to Jakob for the info!)

Now
that they’ve only sat on the goddamn thing for about three
years, Miramax is finally getting around to releasing Stephen
Chow’s wonderful kung fu sports comedy Shaolin Soccer
on DVD, even though most smart people have already
imported the excellent Hong Kong disc. The DVD, which hits
shelves on August 24th, will reportedly have both the original
112 minute subtitled film as well as the shorter dubbed
Miramax hack job. I see they’re also using that wretched
US poster for the cover art, which depicts the beautiful
Vicky Zhao looking absolutely nothing like she appears in
the film. What you can’t see is me rolling my eyes with
Weinstein contempt.

A
few columns ago, I mentioned that Hong Kong director Wong
Kar-wai (In the Mood for Love, Chungking Express)
was planning a biopic of martial arts master Bruce Lee for
his next film after the sci-fi epic 2046,
but that may not actually be so. Word has it he’s instead
considering a project about life of Zhou
Xuan, a famous
singer in Shanghai back in the 1930s. Wong Kar-wai regular
Maggie Cheung (The Heroic Trio) is set to
play the "golden throat" at one point of her career.

(source: Kung
Fu Cult Cinema)

If
you developed an infatuation with the unsettling beauty
of Chiaki Kuriyama with Battle Royale and
her show-stealing
appareance in Kill Bill,
this should appeal to you: an "Idoru" DVD of nothing
but Chiaki, now available from Viz (RIGHT
HERE). Apparently popular in Japan, these packages
(Idoru translates to "idol" in Japanese) feature
photo montages of famous stars in various compromising positions,
although a Viz representative assures
us that there’s no soft-porn in this one. But Go-Go Yubari
fanatics ought to love it.

(Thanks
to ‘David S.’ for the info)

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! It’s good to know that I’m not the only one
who’s waiting for the dvd release of Monster Squad!!
That movie rules! If you are able to find out anything more
about when it may be released can you let me know or at
least put it in the column? I’ve heard everything from Sony
Tristar to Paramount to some small company called Pacific
Family Entertainment owns the rights to this. Here is a
little reply to another fan’s email to PFE that I found
it a forum somewhere:

Pacific Family Entertainment (PFE) has released "The
Monster Squad" and "Night of the Comet" on both DVD and
VHS. They are in major stores nation wide. Because of contracts
with PFE’s marketing companies, the titles must be in retail
outlets first.

Most retailers, including PFE will be selling these DVD’s
for $14.95 per title.

You
may want to check the PFE web site for more information
in the weeks to come. Thank you for your interest in PFE.

Sincerely,
Tim Cook Pacific Family Entertainment timcook@pacificfamilyentertainment.com

The above came from this website.
As for the legitimacy of the above statement, who knows,
but I know that I have not seen Monster Squad
anywhere and am still looking for it! Like I said, any info
you can let me know I would greatly appreciate it!

Thanks
again!

–
Mike

DAVE
SAYS: Yep, I heard about that a while back… supposedly
this company had the rights and was going to release the
films on DVD last year. They never did, despite what they
may be telling people who write to them. The films have
never been released on (legitimate) DVD, and no one even
seems to know where the rights currently rest (see next
letter).

And even if PFE did release the films, I wouldn’t
buy them anyway after their absolute shit treatment of The
Final Countdown.

Hi
Dave,

Just
thought you might be interested in a rather in-depth recent
interview we did with Fred Dekker. In it, he briefly discusses
the DVD situation for The Monster Squad and
Night of the Creeps.

http://diabolical-dominion.com/Interviews/Dekker/

Hope
you enjoy it as much as I enjoy your new column.

-Mike

DAVE
SAYS: Thanks! Great interview indeed. Dekker talks pretty
candidly about the difficulties he’s had with Hollywood
(and even takes a jab at The Goonies), but
it’s a little heartbreaking that even the filmmaker can’t
find out who has the rights to those fun flicks. At this
rate we’ll never get an official release…

I
don’t know how underground this is since they sell HTF stuff
at Hot Topic these days, but Happy Tree Friends
is pretty hilarious shit, along the lines of "Forklift
Driver Klaus." It’s available at:

www.happytreefriends.com

I
own the two DVDs, and they are fucking hilarious. Nothing
like gratuitous violence against cute cartoon bunnies and
skunks!

-Dan

DAVE
SAYS: I have the first volume of these gloriously malicious
little cartoons (they originally appeared online), and they’re
a blast indeed. I was a little disappointed with the brevity
— if you don’t count the credits on each episode, there’s
only about 15 minutes worth of content, but it’s a good
DVD to throw on at parties and worth tracking down for all
those sick minds who read this site (and, more specifically,
this column).

Hey
Dave,

Right after I read your column and the resulting letters
I found out as part of the Museum of TV and Radio’s exhibit
on superheroes they’ll be screening "Heat Vision and
Jack" sometime during the summer. The timing couldn’t
be better.

Keep
up the good work!

–
EJ

DAVE
SAYS: It’s true! Heat Vision and Jack is part
of the "Superheroes on Television" exhibit currently
running at the Museum of TV and Radio in L.A. and New York
(apparently these are popular artistic towns). It looks
like Heat Vision and Jack is scheduled for
September, but you can check out the whole program RIGHT
HERE!

hello,
i have not seen this discussed on Chud before as i read
this site every single day but i saw a trailer for a movie
that is coming out this Friday called Kaena- The Prophecy.
it appears to be France’s first cg movie.

here
is a link to the trailer

not
sure if it has been talked about before but if it has, sorry
bout that.

–
Jesse

DAVE
SAYS: Thanks for the heads up. I’ve been hearing about
this film for quite a while now — it features the last
work of the late Richard Harris, as well as the rumbling
vocals of Keith David. The design work and animation look
impressive (if a bit reminiscent of videogame cut-scenes),
but it’s probably unlikely it’ll make it to too many theaters
here. Which is unfortunate as I’d prefer any alternative
to Shrek 2, which deserves nowhere near the
attention and revenue it’s generated.

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!

Good
day.

Since
Devin did a terrific
and comprehensive review for Spider-Man 2
on Tuesday, I decided not to cloud the mix with my take.
Especially since I too loved the film and found the faults
to be minimal. It might be the best superhero film since
Condorman. Actually, it ranks right up there
with the best of the best.

It’s
nice to have a film this summer live up to and/or exceed
the hype.

Oh,
and this is the last day to have a chance to win our Steady
Leak DVD prizes, so check
here and enter!

Now,
on with the Leak!

CHUD
Message Boards Reloaded.

Our
message board software was a few generations behind, so
we upgraded it to the current level. What I didn’t realize
was how drastically it’d change the interface. The first
two days of dealing with the new chassis and finding a look
that suited me were migraine inducing but ultimately rewarding.
We’re real close to where I want to be as far as the look
and functionality of the boards.

Click HERE
or on the image to check them out. I am allowing new registrations,
but not for Hotmail or Yahoo email accounts because of rampant
spamming and trolling. That said, I think you’ll grow to
love these boards no matter how much you fear change.

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

Unrelentingly
Luminous Beings Are We?

I
love IMDB
like peanut butter [folks at my little birthday shindig
this Saturday will know the exclusionary horror that is
a peanut butter ice cream cake], and apparently 17,999,999
movie lovers other than myself feel the same way each month.
If I had that kind of traffic I’d be updating today from
my energy yacht atop the Ocean of Nunziata off the coast
of East Nick [formerly known as Australia]. I don’t have
that kind of traffic, so I’ll just sit here and take potshots
at the big guy.

I’ve
griped before about the validity of their news before but
something else irked me today when I went there to research
the directorial career of Albert Pyun. Their gushy little
previews for the big upcoming movie of the week. This week
it’s De-Lovely, a film I’ve heard extremely
mixed things about but will probably see just because there
is no such thing as too many Kevin Kline movies. What struck
me was their description of Ashley Judd as "unrelentingly
luminous". Read our shared contributor Fred Topel’s
interview
with the lady and tell me if the words "unrelentingly"
and "luminous" show up in your mind upon reading
her comments. Take another peak at her filmography and tell
me what would earn her such hyperbole. I like Judd. She’s
been in some solid films, is cute in an Elfquest sort
of way, and she’s managed to escape the rhinestone-studded
shadow of her scary sister and mother.

I
don’t know, it just seems too gooey for 18 million "movie
lovers" to be handed. In what kind of world does the
dreaded "versatile" tag get applied to Kline,
an actor who can do it all and has. A man who has had fast
times all over Ridgemont High’s pool dweller, and who has
appeared in actual classics like A Fish Called Wanda,
Silverado, and The Big Chill.
He’s dismissed as versatile while she’s regarded as some
unearthed jewel from the Earth’s core that defies nature
and is its own wondrous energy sphere. That, is a High
Crime. If appearing in bunches of mediocre thrillers
creates an unrelenting and luminous being, I guess Mrs.
Judd is such an animal. I just don’t get it. If they want
me to be interested in seeing De-Lovely, less
mentions of Alanis Morrisette and Judd’s otherworldy allure
would be the first step.

The
other thing I highlighted in the screen capture above is
the headline "Zeta-Jones’s Stalker Apologizes"
and the "Olsen Confesses Eating Disorder" follow-up.
I find it hilarious that a stalker apologizing is not only
news but something worth mentioning at all. If a stalker
is captured and threatened with a steady diet of ass punches
and gruel, I think that person will apologize to everyone
with a nervous system within shouting distance. In fact,
he/she/James Mason might blow them, only removing their
mouth from the sexual apparatus to apologize again. You
don’t see many stalkers sending the police an IM or email
saying that they’re really sorry about stalking Mrs. Streets
of San Francisco and will cease the activity lest they be
caught. Apology upon capture? REDUNDANT.

If
the headline was "Zeta-Jones’s Stalker Disintigrates
Cup of Chowder With Eye Blasts", it’d be newsworthy.
Or perhaps "Zeta-Jones’s Stalker Figure Appraised By
gijoecollectibles.org". That’s some friggin’ news.

As
for their other headline, "Olsen Confesses Eating Disorder"…
DUH! There are eleven people in Hollywood who don’t have
some vanity related foible. It’s not news. Not unless their
foible involves the public shedding of their skeleton on
weekly basis. If the headline were "Olsen Confesses
Eating Disorder While Devouring Sister", I’d bite.
If it were "Olsen Confesses Eating Disorderlies
on VHS", IMDB would be my favorite place ever.

As
it stands, it saddens me to see a truly great site and vital
resource that I pay monthly for their "pro" service
allows themselves to be cheapened in this way.

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

The
Fact this Exists is Hilarious, Part 14.

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.

CHUD
Softball

Dave
Writes: Hey man, is the softball schedule on the message
boards anywhere? I’d love to come by North Park and check
out a slaughter some time (is it always Fri and Sun at the
same time?). It sucks to see that the rain peeing all over
other teams in Atlanta. Between the two teams I play on
we have SIX games to make up. Suck!

Nick’s
Reply: The remainder of the CHUD.com Summer Season is
as follows: Doubleheader starting at 4:30pm on the 11th
and 18th and then a make-up game thereafter. I’m torn on
how to handle the Fall. I’d like to sponsor a CHUD team
but Sundays might be unrealistic as people foolishly would
rather watch football. So, I might look into a weekday league
at East Roswell Park perhaps. Depends on if I can field
a competetive team.

Hard
Balls.

Cliff
Writes: With poking around CHUD it’s obvious you’re
a baseball fan. What team? The Braves?

If
so, do you think they have a shot at winning the division?

Just
curious as to what your thoughts are.

Nice
to find a fellow baseball fan who loves the movies as much
as I do.

Nick’s
Reply: I’ve been a Yankees fan since birth, and even
though my beloved Paul O’Neill has retired, they’re still
my favorite. The Braves are a close second but they lack
the world beating demeanor and good ownership credentials
a team needs to compete in the postseason. The Braves are
doomed this year, no doubt. Not unless the purse strings
are loosened and they’re allowed to get someone for the
stretch. I’d like to see them trade Andruw Jones for something
while he still has value. He’d do well in the American League
where free swingers who bat .240 are accepted. I’m interested
to see how they deal with the Green/Giles situation too.
It’d kill the fans, but I bet they could get something really
good for Giles and Green is more than serviceable. The Yankees/Angels
and the Cubs/Phillies were my pre-season picks for the playoffs.
I might miss the boat on that one. That said, I can literally
watch any two major league teams play at any time and be
excited. There are probably 32 people like me in the world
in that regard.

No
Mistake.

Jeremy
Writes: "As far as Cussler
goes, I have one thing to say to him. "Tough shit".
Once an author sells his property he/she/Tim Matheson has
to assume the worst and live with it. The money’s great
and unless they’re writing and producing the thing it’s
going to take on its own life."

Nick,

Didn’t
you mean Richard Matheson in that rant of yours? Although
I must say picturing Tim Matheson as Robert Neville could
be considered inspired stunt casting!

In
other ponderings of mine, have you ever considered being
a guest on G4TechTV’s "Unscrewed with Martin Sargent"?
I think you’d be a good guest with your various internet
tales worthy of sharing. Just a thought. If you (or Devin)
haven’t seen the show yet, I’d highly recommend TiVo’ing
it.

Nick’s
Reply: Actually, the Tim Matheson reference was
a gag. You see… I was summing humanity down to men, women,
and Tim Matheson. It’s just my [take it or leave it] sense
of humor. As for the show, it sounds neat, but they’ve not
approached me yet and I have no clue how to approach them.

Heck
Yes!

Suzanne
Writes: Just wanted to let you know that my brand-spankin’
new Dead Zone DVD set arrived yesterday. I enter the contests
at CHUD a lot, and I’ve never won before – it’s okay, though,
because this was the one DVD that I really, really wanted
to win. I’ve been having a crappy past couple of weeks,
but that all melted away when I started watching DZ last
night. Thanks again – you guys are great, and keep up the
good work.

Nick’s
Reply: That’s what I like to hear. Usually, the
only time I hear from a contest entrant/winner is A.) Why
I haven’t announced the winners yet or B.) Why their prize
hasn’t arrived. Thanks for the note. Glad to help!

CHUD
Man.

Alexis
Writes: Yes! Bionic Commando is the greatest! But you
better not forget about Edward Carnby or the Syndicate!

Nick’s
Reply: You’ll take what I give you and like it! Just
like the guys in Cell Block #3.

Hellgentleman:
Longer.

Mark
Writes: I just read your info about us Brits getting
an extended version of Hellboy when it finally gets its
ass into the cinemas, I just read in a recent edition of
Empire that it might not actually happen. Guillermo Del
Toro said he hopes he can get the extended version into
UK cinemas, but due to time constraints it seems unlikely.

Nick’s
Reply: I’m going to talk to Mr. del Toro this week.
I’ll get to the bottom of this. As of Thursday of last week
(well after EMPIRE was printed), things looked good.

Opinions
Hurt.

Sean
Writes: Vin Diesel could play Reacher if you start with
The Enemy, which is the latest novel and one that has Reacher
as a 29 yr-old Major. I think he’d be fine, although
I am in complete agreement about no one really filling the
role perfectly. I think Timothy Olyphant has that type of
big role in him, I just don’t think Reacher is it.

As
for Fletch, I think Shia Lebouf from Battle of Shaker Heights
and Holes would make a great Fletch, obviously for Fletch
Won. He could pass as a precocious cub reporter with a big
ego and a sense of distance from virtually any situation.
I like how young he is for the role and doesn’t look
like a 30 yr-old playing 19.

They
never seem to know what to do with these series of novels,
though. I’m still pissed they never made any more Easy
Rawlins films.

Nick’s
Reply: I think we’re doomed to get a piss poor Reacher
or no Reacher at all. By the way, doesn’t Jack Reacher sound
like a great gay porn name? As for Shia Lebouf… I’m thrilled
you don’t run a studio.

Such
is Life.

Ken
Writes: Love the site, ad nauseum. Anyway, I was at
the AICN site this morning (reading the spin on various
"classic" Spidey comics) when, in the messageboards,
I came across this link:

http://www.the-scorched-planet.com/arts.php?id=240

Chances are you’ve already seen it, but quite frankly it
pissed me off –

not so much the AICN/Harry bashing (which is commonplace
among these
various movie websites) but rather the bashing CHUD and
you took.

Granted, for you it probably ain’t no big thing, but to
those of us who
read your site daily and appreciate the dry wit, sarcasm
and insight –
well, it torqued my jaws some.

Nick’s
Reply: For a while it was a big thing to me. I never
understood how much hate people could have for guys like
me and Micah and the other guys they attack there. Doctored
pictures of my daughter made to look killed, my wife’s head
pasted on porn, jokes about my deceased father, and untold
other harsh things they do… makes no sense. If the NAACP
only ventured in there, oh boy. Now, it pisses me off but
what can you do? There are assholes out there. Part of life.
I only hope one day that someone a lot sharper than me gives
these kids the big wake-up call that puts them in their
place. Either way, it’s not in my sphere of concern. I have
other stuff to worry about.

Shade.

Jason
Writes: Thanks for the recommendation for Shade. I too
saw the trailer in front of Spartan (looking forward to
you review) and thought, great cast but it must suck because
it went straight to video. Now I’ll give it a spin in the
DVD player.

I
usually don’t send emails or comment on the boards because
whatever I say comes out misunderstood or stupid. I do want
to say this: I love the site and everything you and your
people do! Please keep up the hard work and I wish you all
the success in the world.

Nick’s
Reply: It’s a good little flick, one that Blockbuster
is selling for a song right now in their previously rented
by fools section.

Boll-Ewood
.

Aaron
Writes: Regarding the message from Mr. Boll:

What
an ignorant hack he truly is!

How
silly of me to think he was making an actual motion picture
– my mistake. Maybe I should have known it was going to
be a new form of video game movie. Smack me and call me
Ethel! I’ll know better next time.

Perhaps
Mr. Boll should have listened when the "fans"
spoke out against his planned used of game footage in the
movie. I remember him promising that he would not use shots
from the game, only to turn around and do it anyway.

How
anyone is retarded enough to bankroll this moron’s films
is beyond me.
Oh wait – he’s German – they love Hasselhoff there. ‘Nuff
said.

Nick’s
Reply: I’m sorry. I can be of
no use to you. When I smack someone, I insist on calling
them Jerry.

Reach
This.

Matthew
Writes: I think Viggo has gravitas up the wazzu, but
he is too short to play REACHER! And too old to be the reacher
of KILLING FLOOR. Val Kilmer could do it, I swear. John
Cusack, could really do it. How fun would that be to see
our contemporary…the star who grew up with us, pull that
one off! I would start the series off with WITHOUT FAIL,
since it is a little more accesible to the mass public,
then do ECHO BURNING, the finish it with KILLING FLOOR.

Out of sequence, but great….or PERSUADER done all claustraphobic
and creepy, a la PSYCHO.

Not Vin Diesel. I want to see him blow shit up. I like Diesel
a lot, but think he neeeds to not be REACHER. I don’t buy
it.

Nick’s
Reply: Watch it with the height jokes! Kilmer could
do it, so could Viggo and so could Kevin Bacon, Cusack,
or a few others. It’s just that the character is such a
physical specimen it’d be hard to find it. Without that,
I’m thinking of an actor who has the demeanor. Viggo can
do it.

SPAM
OF THE DAY.

Philip
Writes: kelvin ricochetparallelepiped drumhead motoroladune
satanic circleinfluent mahayana feintspinneret seville nbcplayhouse
scion swagewanton turnpike millardpolytope bloodline glutamicproliferate
chaw lilliputianthoroughbred governess prophetdicta nicotinamide
sickishreversible lore scoundreladsorbate dianne inhereherodotus
carryover cardiovascularchoose camino incastock corpora
brakemanchairwoman pundit brushfireabc lawbreaker danishcurious
dowel swordplaycalcutta leisure tinglebaritone cholera humidifyreese
pack blvdjitterbugging backup federalisothermal heckman
abbotguillotine modem dissonantpermute cathy nikkoclamshell
selectman laughterstockpile shook melanincollate permute
brushycram dickinson compulsiverealisable drew careyholloway
consanguineous rubbishstuff swordfish beardsleyjangle chastity
corneaangelica ferromagnetism squadronacyclic buckshot laboratoryaden
autobiography blombergaloha drench createbattlefront

Nick’s
Reply: I hope you’re proud of yourself, Phil.

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.

Onto
other news, and normally this wouldn’t even deserve a mention
in this column, but every once in a while real people read
the stuff perpetrated by cowards and trolls and take it
seriously. So, to clear matters up, here’s a little bit
of FACT:

1.
Devin did indeed write the Spider-Man
2 review.
Slashdot.org was given the full text by someone
claiming they had written it, which a few trolls accused
us of plagiarizing from even though it was our content.
Slashdot later fixed the mistake and balance was restored
to the force. To you assholes who thought you were top shit
because you got a few people to believe you… You’re weak,
useless, and worthy of a stomp to the face should we ever
meet. Of course, the real world is a place that frightens
and diminishes you..

2.
We are not adding Moriarty and
Clarence Beaks to CHUD.com. They have an online
home and that home needs them and it’s perfect for them
as it is. Why the heck would they come here where the linen’s
rarely cleaned and the food’s always covered in some greasy,
Italian sauce. To the assholes who started that rumor just
because they cannot generate anything on their own without
attacking us… You’re weak, useless, and worthy of a stomp
to the face should we ever meet. Of course, the real world
is a place where you’re laughed at and repressed because
your opinions and tastes only work in small groups of people
in white hoods. Oh, and the banjo player from Deliverance
called you ugly. Yow.

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: THE MIDDLE OF THE END, by PKG. This is
nice little relationship tune. By Micah, Nick and Steve.
Click HERE
to download and HERE
for a place to comment.

‘IF
CHUD Ran the Movies’, by Nick Nunziata

See
you tomorrow!