BUY IT AT AMAZON: CLICK HERE
STUDIO: Grimoire
MSRP: $14.95
RATED: Not Rated
RUNNING TIME: 94 minutes
SPECIAL FEATURES:
• Trailer

The Pitch

A stranger kidnaps a hitchhiker. Sexiness happens.

The Humans

Jackie Stevens and Kathy Rice

The Nutshell

The more I watch these films, the more I hate technology. Bill Zebub is the kind of director whose works would’ve been relegated to the local wacko screening of his hometown. The advancements in consumer video equipment and the reach out and touch someone nature of the Internet has brought his wares to new audiences. While I’ve had a few readers verbally berate me for not his enjoying his mix of metal and tits, I always appreciated his ability to try and improve with each film. That was until this tiresome offering.

Even with all that shit, she can still play a mean pinball.

The Lowdown

Breaking Her Will is a terrible film. Sure, it’s easy material for a low-budget director to mine. What happens is a three-act breakdown of a rape porn fantasy that never delivers on anything above the basic label. The first act is basically the capture of the female and her binding to a 2×4. If that wasn’t enough, she then is sexually assaulted with a beer bottle. It seems that the intention of this scene was to scare the audience into the film’s goal. But, you never buy what you’re seeing.

I wish I could blame this film entirely on Zebub, but his audience shares the blame. When you can take blatant rape porn imagery and find a group of willing buyers, it makes me sad for this great nation. There is an almost Brechtian nature to the film’s aesthetic, so I hope that hardcore fans aren’t getting off on what they see onscreen. If that wasn’t enough, you’ve got the people who will take what’s happening and say it’s higher art. The art debate has been brewing for awhile regarding low-rent entertainment attempting to be something better than what it is. This film is no exception, as the ninety minutes plus runtime is spent as a visual assault. Nothing results from it and you’re not allowed to mediate on what is being presented onscreen.

The recent slate of films from Bill
Zebub Productions is starting to improve slightly. I’ve mentioned that before, but it bares repeating. If Zebub could spend more time away from the technical and focusing on the narrative, the world might see better movies coming from his Production outfit. That’s what really sucks about the whole affair, as it feels like he’s doomed to keep repeating the same gut response films that have become his calling card. Some of you might feel that I’m being unfair to Zebub and I respect your opinion. But, I’m standing by what I said. He’s wasting the viewer’s time by crapping out this soft-core porn/gore attempts at capturing our attention.

Just close your eyes and think of England.

The Package

The
DVD
comes
with
a trailer for another flick. There are no other special features. The A/V Quality is decent enough for a low-grade indie flick. But, there’s nothing else to be offered. Zebub fans will buy it, but I can’t recommend that anyone actually try to rent it.

Starting next week the Alamo Drafthouse takes to the highways of America
with their Rolling Roadshow, bringing movies to locations where they’re
set or filmed. I’m going to be hitting up Jackie Brown and There Will Be Blood as
the tour makes its way through California, and I will certainly be
buying one of the posters they’ll have for sale. With art by the
incomparable Olly Moss, the Rolling Roadshow poster series is stunning,
and I love that the orange color makes them all of a piece. Here are
some – click here to see the entire line up of posters. These posters will be on sale at the shows, and some may turn up for sale later on Mondotees or from Moss himself.

Click here to see where the Rolling Roadshow is heading in the weeks ahead. If you can make any of these shows you should not miss them.

Dinner for Schmucks raises the ontological question ‘Who is the greater schmuck – the one who is invited to dinner, the one who gives the dinner, or the one who sees the movie?’

Carrell has played this same role but better before – Brick Tamland in Anchorman is exactly who this moron should be. Sweet, innocent, dumb and trusting. Instead the film has Carrell just about break up Rudd’s marriage, get Rudd audited, and pretty much lose Rudd his job, all while being an oblivious shit. And it’s one of those movies where Rudd could make everything better by simply explaining what is going on. It’s like a two hour episode of Three’s Company, where you’re dying for somebody to simply say ‘Oh, I understand what you think but it’s not that at all…’ The great screwball comedies set up situations where a simple line of dialogue wouldn’t clear it all up. Schmucks is not one of the great screwball comedies.

Carrell is lost behind Jerry Lewis cartoon teeth and a bad haircut. If you’re still a big fan of Carrell’s schtick this movie will probably make you happy; for me I feel like I’ve seen him do comedically clueless enough. Rudd’s not doing much better, trapped in a straight man role that offers him no shading and no place to go. His big acting challenge is to convince you that he wouldn’t punch Carrell in the face repeatedly.

I used to answer each and every odd and fun question posed on the
message
boards in the old days in these “Your Questions For” threads,
and
the results were often a lot of fun. Basically folks could ask me
anything
they want and I’d answer it honestly, jokingly, or with tons
of
snark. Either way it was fun and it helped to illustrate the
personality
of the site, the readers and their opinions, and answer
questions
for new readers who don’t know what makes the site tick, who
I am,
and why the fuck I am only five foot seven. So, I’ve resurrected
it!
It’d be great to run one of these a week, but that’s up to you! use
the
links at the bottom of the article to contribute.

Don S asks:

The Lucas asks:

Have you finally seen The White Ribbon? What did you think?



Are you excited for any upcoming Home Video Releases?

Schwartz asks:

What is your greatest fear for your children re: what they grow up to be?



Do you still play any video games outside of HALO?



Can you name 3 ways to use $120 million that would benefit the city of Atlanta more than locking in Joe Johnson for 6 years?

Paul Allen asks:

Adrian Dyka asks:


Tag-team review between Renn and yourself was awesome, as was his I Am Love review- can we expect more?



Opinion of Scott Pilgrim?

Barry Woodward asks:

1. Considering John Carpenter’s “The Thing” is one of your favorite films, what do you think about the upcoming prequel?



2. If John Dahl recast Edward Norton’s character Worm for “Rounders II”
with Joaquin Phoenix or Mark Ruffalo, how would you feel?



3. Titus Welliver (“Deadwood”, “Lost”, “Sons Of Anarchy”) has an uncanny
resemblance to William Powell. Would you be cool with him playing Nick
Charles in a remake of “The Thin Man”?



4. What are your top five favorite comedy films?



5. J.J. Abrams is a huge fan of “The Twilight Zone”. If he ever
resurrected the series, which filmmakers would you like to see tackle an
episode?



6. Would you be interested in a Luc Besson directed sequel to “Léon” or “The Fifth Element”?



7. Would there be enough of an audience for a R-rated Pixar film to be financially viable?



8. Which action icon would you rather see Quentin Tarantino work with: Harrison Ford or Sylvester Stallone?



9. What do you think about the idea of Timothy Olyphant taking over as Indiana Jones when the series is rebooted?



10. In an alternative universe where George Lucas was never born, what do you think the film industry would be like?



11. Did Mookie do the right thing?



12. What’s your opinion of Richard Linklater’s “Before Sunrise” and
“Before Sunset”? Would you like to see a third film with the characters
(not counting their “Waking Life” cameo)?



13. What’s your take on Charlie Kaufman’s “Synecdoche, New York”?



14. Stallone now says that “Rambo” was the perfect place to end the
series but he was planning to do more films with the character. Why the
change of heart? Any chance he’d reconsider? Would you have liked to see
John Rambo take on sex traffickers, drug lords and genetically
engineered beasts?



15. What’s your opinion of John Duigan’s “The Year My Voice Broke” and
the sequel “Flirting”? Would you like to see the director re-team with
actor Noah Taylor to finish off the “Danny Embling trilogy”?



16. Which company is producing comedy films that speak to you more: Apatow Productions or Broken Lizard?



17. Dan Aykroyd wants Eliza Dushku to strap-on a proton pack for “Ghostbusters III”. What do you think?

Bluelouboyle asks:

Duke Fleed asks:

Nick Nunziata, Are you going to…New York Comic Con, this year? Sure
it is not as popular as San Diego Comic Con, but in only 4 years it has
grown in leaps and bounds. I have gone all 4 years, and it is worth the
trip. Good luck, and continued success with…CHUD.COM, still…THE
best site on the net.

Mike’s Pants asks:

Nick, you sexy fellow.



If The Avengers sets the box office on fire and makes a huge amount of
money what effect, if any, do you think it will have on future studio
franchises?

I was riding the bus at Sundance when I ran into my friend Michael Lerman, who is a fest programmer, journalist and 8-bit music revolutionary. He had just seen Catfish, a buzzed-about doc, and he told me I needed to see it immediately. And I needed to know nothing about it. So I saw Catfish the best way I could: totally ignorant. I loved what I saw (my Sundance review).

Now Catfish is hitting theaters from Rogue, and the time has come to sell it. But how do you sell a movie like this? The film is about a New York City elite type who meets a girl on Facebook and falls in love. They have a long distance relationship, and then he decides to meet her. His friend and his brother film it all.

Even telling you THAT is telling you too much! The movie isn’t what you expect, and I think that some of the blurbs at the end of the new trailer now at Apple are misleading. This is not a Hitchcock film. That’s a terrible thing to say about the movie. I don’t know why Rogue is selling it as a thriller.

Anyway, the trailer is out. I don’t know that you should watch it, but I also don’t know how to convince you to go see the film if you don’t know anything about it… and sadly not knowing anything about it is the best way to see it.

Click here to watch. If you must.

There was never any doubt that Edgar Wright was a gifted filmmaker.
Shaun of the Dead is a revelation and Hot Fuzz ups the ante, executing
jokes and satire but also introducing a director capable of action and
tension that could compete with any of Hollywood’s recent offerings.
Rumored to be handling a variety of projects including Marvel’s Ant Man,
Wright instead took a lesser known [to the general public] series of graphic novels about young
people in love rife with video game references and stylized fight
scenes and made it his passion project. It could have been a disaster
but it’s absolutely electric and proof positive that not only is Wright
more than just a gifted comedian and storyteller, it calls to question just how high the
man’s ceiling may be. All of us firmly entrenched in his corner may
have to expand our idea what kind of talent he is, from great filmmaker
to flat out genius and it’s not a stretch to say that the guy may just
be the next true multi-tool visionary. But first things first…

I do not like the graphic novels the film is based on. Flat out don’t
like them. I love the video game references and appreciate the balance
of manga-style format and offbeat content. I love that it speaks to a
very specific and appreciative audience. I love that it spoke to Edgar
Wright, because otherwise we’d be short one very exciting, vibrant, and
kinetic moviegoing experience. But the source material either missed me by half
a generation or I am simply dead inside. Probably the latter. Either way, I love it now.

The film starts off with a wonderful MIDI and 8-bit inspired Universal logo that sets the tone rather nicely and we are off to the races. Apparent almost immediately is the way Wright uses onscreen text, musical cues, and transitions to bring to mind the feeling of a comic book or video game. It’s phenomenal stuff, and part of the reason the film can possibly find a much larger audience than the core demographic. There’s an energy to even mundane daily routines here, and though the set-up contains very little that ought to hook people who have no idea what the graphic novels were about, it simply does. This isn’t an assault on the senses, necessarily. But it does grab your senses and give them a stern shake and remind them that film requires the audience to participate in order for the arrangement to work. And work it does.

Michael Cera is Scott Pilgrim, bass player for the three-piece rock band
the Sex Bob-oms and a hopeless romantic smack dab in a poorly conceived
relationship with a prim and proper high school girl (Ellen Wong, a
revelation) after a series of ill-fated loves that have left him reeling. The biggest and most crushing having been to Envy Adams (Brie Larson), now living the rock star life as the frontwoman for the band The Clash at Demonhead [I owned that NES game 100% based on the name] while he remains in Canada reeling from the breakup. In his safe new relationship, one where he holds all the power Scott is still trying to find himself, leeching off his gay roommate’s (the
fantastic Kieran Culkin) belongings and enjoying the idea of making his 20’s last as long as he can.

As is the case with many Scott’s built up walls of relationship toughness erode easily, and when “true love”
crosses in path in the form of the mysterious Ramona Flowers (Mary
Elizabeth Winstead) his true obsessiveness manifests. Beautiful, mysterious, and unattainable, she becomes his vision quest and as if landing her
isn’t enough of a challenge she has seven evil exes whom he must defeat
in combat to earn her love. Seven evil exes. All of whom are larger than life in every way and on a
collision course with Scott based on his rash and childish decision. That’s where Scott Pilgrim vs. The World goes from being a fun and quirky little movie to kicking stereotypes in the face and delivering a Spinning Uppercut to the norm.

Wisely, the film doesn’t question why. Scott Pilgrim can fly through the air and kick his enemy as if powered by Capcom’s best and brightest. It just is. He can withstand getting punched into the sky or thrown through a building. It just is. His adversaries, each tougher than the last have even more powers, and it just is.

And it just is great. And the less you know about the Brandon Routh fight scene the better.

I’ve heard some complain that the love story’s a tough buy because the characters of Ramona and Knives are hard to love. I counter that by saying most of the people [especially guys] I’ve known in my life fall in love at the drop of the hat and that the buzz of finding someone overrides logic and reality. It doesn’t make it right, but it is a fair reflection on how life is. These are impulsive kids and love is a concept more than something tangible.

The bottom line is, whatever the motivation is, it makes for terrific cinema.

Michael Cera’s style works well for Scott Pilgrim. He’s so good at what he does and so natural as the character it’s very easy to root for him. Great stunt work and usage of technology have turned him into a legitimate action lead, which is a considerable feat. He’s surrounded by really great performers, ranging from the bubbly and adorable Wong to the terrific Culkin and culminating with some really great villainy. Brandon Routh is fantastic, Chris Evans continues to be the most charismatic and watchable actor in Hollywood, and Jason Schwartzman is as always phenomenal. There’s also some great little moments from people all up and down the last list, but the star of this movie is Edgar Wright.

There are so many pitfalls in a movie like this. It could be too precious, too cute, too style over substance, too tied to its roots to reach a new audience, or too caught up in regurgitating video game and pop culture references. Or not enough of them. It could have existed as a small niche movie or as an exercise in weird but Edgar (and his able and diverse crew) balances all of it so well that it transcends the pitfalls. It’s consistently funny, the action is fantastic and very well done, and the music is surprisingly fun and listenable. It’s charming, loaded with great little moments, and within a couple of minutes the filmmakers and cast have created a world where it doesn’t matter how outlandish things get because the delivery is so sublime.

I’ve heard people call it a Hispter movie and maybe I don’t know the real definition of the word [I consider it a profanity] but it feels a lot more legitimate than that. It’s the marriage of a lot of people who are very passionate about the material and a studio ballsy enough to foot the bill. Which is a very rare feat.

It’s an electric movie. Just an absolute joy to behold, and it showcases that Edgar Wright has only scratched the surface of his abilities. Which is scary to consider, since he’s not only three for three as a feature filmmaker but that he’s three for three with three movies people are going to be watching over and over for the rest of their lives.

Forget what you think the movie is. Forget the source material. Forget that you [like me] thinks they’re too old for this kind of flick.

This is one of those movies that remind you why you love movies. Why you love video games. Why you cross your fingers every time the lights dim that you’re going to feel something and be transported by this medium we love but have been bitten by countless times.

This is a great movie from a great filmmaker. And people turn into coins when defeated. If that’s not a winning combination I don’t know what is.

9.4/10

I missed the panel for The Other Guys at Comic Con, but having seen the movie already I knew it would be hilarious. Sony showed a clip reel, which is now hosted at The Sun, and it’s actually interesting in that many of the jokes in the reel aren’t in the movie. The reel seems to be made up of about 75% alternate takes, which is neat because it gives you an idea of what you’re in for without actually spoiling the gags. I like that. It does give away one of my favorite bits in the movie – the existence of Dirty Mike – but I think it’ll still be funny as hell in context.

Click here to watch.

Sometimes you hear about a project that just sounds so cool that you have to ferret out more details. That’s how I feel about 90, the next film from Darren Lynn Bousman, of Saw and Repo: The Genetic Opera fame. While I may not have been the biggest fan of Bousman’s previous films, this new one sounds like it was just about tailor made for me.

The concept is delightfully simple: 90 kills in a 90 minute movie. It’s not real time, but the kills will still be coming fast and furious. The killer is a man who was wrongfully convicted and spent time in jail; when he gets out he decides to get revenge on the hot shit detective who put him in the slammer by killing one person for each of the detective’s convictions.

You have to have a way of keeping track of the kills, so at one point the murderer will come into possession of one of those clickers that bouncers use to count how many people have come in the door. With each murder he’ll click one down. There will be a couple of mass kills – you have to, otherwise there’s no way you could fit the whole thing into 90 minutes – but there will be plenty of standalone goodness as well.

From what I understand this is going to be a gleeful splatter romp, and while I don’t want to ruin any of the kills, at least one of them sounds stomach-churning and like nothing I’ve ever seen before. The movie will be rated R, but I’ve been led to believe that 90 will be shot with an eye towards a harder, unrated DVD release.

Oh, and it’ll be 3D from what I’ve heard. I get shit for being anti-3D but I’m really just anti-post conversion. I’m all for joyfully gimmicky 3D, and I think a splatter film like this is exactly where we need 3D.

Everything I have heard about 90 puts me in the mindset of a young kid reading Fangoria back in the 80s, when horror was wet and fun. If you’re anything like me that fun is what you’ve been looking for in horror movies – that theater-wide cheer at an inventive kill, the crowd-permeating moan when something really gruesome happens to someone’s body and that collective flinch when the film shows you something nobody should ever see… followed by a nervous chuckle.

90 is still just a script, but I’m looking forward to seeing what comes of it.

Last weekend I had the distinct honor of moderating a Comic Con panel for Look Around You, the hilarious British comedy show from Peter Serafinowicz and Robert Popper. At the panel they debuted this new short, Markets of Britain, and it had me in tears. If you’re a fan of the show this is a different format, with Serafinowicz narrating over some old footage. It’s brilliant. Enjoy.