It’s midnight and I’m in the living room of a small suburban house. The TV is chattering away in the background, casting a harsh, bluish glow over a middle-aged couple that I’ve never seen before. They’re on the couch, unmoving, and the woman’s head is cocked at an odd angle. I glance down at the cool, heavy object resting in my palm – a 9mm Smith & Wesson – before I hear the voice behind me, annoyed, frustrated, and cold-blooded: “You picked the wrong house again, Aarons.” I turn slightly and see one of the most eccentric-looking men I’ve ever laid eyes on. At 6’4” and a hair shy of 140 lbs., Doug Jones resembles nothing more than one of Tolkien’s tree-like Ents made flesh and blood. He grins, but it isn’t an I’m-so-happy-to-see-you grin: he’s holding a gun to my head.
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I haven't seen this movie since I was about ten, but I assume it's even worse than I remember it.

That’s right, kids. We’re back. We’re totally back. We’re awesomely back. We’re nine kinds of back. We’re bringing sexy…ah, never mind.

Evan is currently off somewhere, chasing a midlife crisis making a film (check it all out here), so I’m going to be your host from here on out. That being said, Evan, Phillip, and I are all returning to the MZ writing desk, along with new writers Joseph Demme and Steve C. King (and the always-mysterious Ghost Lyon). We have all sorts of awesomeness planned, including…

• Evan’s candid interview with actor Doug Jones of Hellboy and Pan’s Labyrinth
• Four — count ‘em! — four episodes of our venerable podcast
• Heather Hall’s new column The Fanboyologist
• 80’s Action Flick Month August
• Regular Top-Ten lists
• All the reviews you love, all the hipster posturing you hate, and even more gratuitous references to The Rundown, Speed Racer and High School Musical!

It all starts with Evan’s interview, which will be up in just a few hours. Keep watching the skies!

-L.

Hey friends,

Just a quick update while I’m on my lunch break. Believe it or not, we’re actually going to follow through…a formal relaunch of the MZ is imminent, and we’re going to have some new writers and new features that I’m pretty excited about. Stay tuned for further details. In fact, you might want to hit “Reload” on your browser continuously until you see something new. It’ll be real soon, I promise.

Real soon.

-L

Dear friend and fellow film lovers, so sorry we’ve been silent for the last few weeks. Some of us are going through transitional phases (how’s that for vague?) and we’re trying to determine what the future of MovieZeal will be. Our hope is that it won’t cease to exist, but personal life changes/ephiphanies/paradigm shifts likely mean that it will look a bit different in the coming months.

Your continued comments and well wishes mean a lot (Sally Field moment, anyone?). Thanks for caring and wondering what in the blue blazes has been going on. When we figure this business out, we’ll let you know, first thing.

A screenshot from Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li. No, honest! I found it on the internets!

And what a thrilling day for movies it is. You guys are just going to salivate over this week’s new offerings. And I mean wide-eyed-erratic-heartbeat-tongue-lolling salivating.

Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li
Now I’m happy to admit that I’m a video game nut. Even put in my fair amount of time on Street Fighter 2 Turbo back in the day. But this appeals to me about as much as dropping a rabid hedgehog down my pants does. Do the studios think gamers are so lobotomized that they would eat up something like this based on sheer name recognition alone? And perhaps the more important question: would gamers actually fall for it? Then again, the moviegoing populace on a whole happily forks over their hard earned greenbacks for films like Beverly Hills Chihuahua, so perhaps everyone is stupid and at the mercy of what Hollywood tells them to see.

Recommended if you’re an enormous Smallville fan and have been salivating (there’s that word again) for Lana Lang’s big screen debut.

Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience
I’d like to take a little time to focus on the word ‘the’ as included in the title of this film. It indicates a certain amount of finality; as if to say, “This is the definitive 3D concert experience, the only one that will ever matter.” It’s not THE Jonas Brothers 3D Concert Experience, which completely changes the emphasis. No, it’s THE 3D Concert Experience, with “Jonas Brothers” simply being a descriptor. I don’t know what all of this means, but I’m going to go cry in the corner now.

Recommended if you missed U2 3D in theaters, which was by no means superior in every respect to this film.

So pick your mouths off the floor and go see one of these films now!

After a hiatus of 2 weeks, mostly due to my own forgetfulness, MPT is back in black, baby. Or something.

Rules: we do this every Wed. at 11AM CST (except when I forget…I promise to be good). 1 point for the easy poster, 2 points for the hard. No penalties for wrong guesses, so guess away. Ta da!

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I’m going to have some business cards printed up: “Luke Harrington: He Majored in English so You Don’t Have To.” Then I’ll make it my duty to inform everyone of the cutting-edge literary theories that they should be applying to the movies they watch. I guess I’ll start by telling you that, while studying critical theory, I ran across a complaint against literature (yeah, nearly all literature) posed by a theorist of feminist criticism. The complaint was simple: that the concept of “story” as we’ve all been taught to think about it (and as the story is related by way of novels, plays, films, etc.) is inherently a phallic, and therefore androcentric, one. Maybe that sounds ridiculous, but think about it for a second: every “story” (at least as the term is defined in Western culture) begins with the introduction of a character into a setting; the character has a single driving goal; the thrust (hee hee) of the story involves the character trying to accomplish this one goal until a climax — a single climax, mind you — is reached (and yes, there must always be a climax), at which point the story is more or less over. It’s linear, it’s goal-driven, and it’s phallic. Am I wrong?

No really, am I wrong?
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Every week, new movies come out on DVD. And every week, most of them suck. And every week, it falls upon us here at MovieZeal to make fun of them. Oh, but that one up there? That one doesn’t suck. It’s also your best bet. Keep reading to find out what your worst bet is…

Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son about His Father –
I have to admit that this one didn’t hit me quite as hard, on a gut level, as I expected it to — probably because everyone had told me, repeatedly, that it would hit me really, really hard. Still, this one is easily the most affecting documentary of the year, a shocking and enraging story of a selfish woman who murders her lover and then uses his child to manipulate the legal system and everyone close to her. It’s a painful viewing experience (and production values are — appropriately — almost nonexistent), but it’s also arguably the most important documentary of 2008: an enraged cry for legal reform, and — more to the point — an unblinking look at the evil that exists in the heart of mankind. Not “fun” by any means, but you owe it to yourself to sit through this one.

Recommended if you want to see something that actually is as important as all those Oscar-bait movies pretend to be

On the Other Hand, Death: A Donald Strachey Mystery
You can’t see it in that little thumbnail to the left, but the tagline for this one is “America’s Favorite Gay Private Eye is Back!” — which is, as you know, a good thing. I can only speak for myself, of course, but I was getting awfully sick of America’s second-favorite gay private eye hanging around all the time (seriously — doesn’t he have a job, or something?). Frankly, I’m not sure why we needed to have a favorite gay private eye in the first place — when I need to find a Maltese falcon, I don’t much care if my hire is into dudes or not, so long as he does his job. But anyway, I see that this one is based on a book by popular GLBT author Richard Stevenson, and it features a great performance from Margot Kidder, and it gives me an excuse to use the double entendre “gay private dick” — when, praytell, will I get another chance to do that? Oh, and that title? Just fabulous.

Recommended if…yeah, I should probably stop there.

What Just Happened
Presenting…your annual dose of Hollywood navel-gazing! I saw this one, and I’m still not really sure what it was about, but it seemed like it was a pretty good movie. Probably. Robert De Niro is a Hollywood producer attempting to get everyone to compromise their artistic vision, and Bruce Willis is a painfully hilarious caricature of himself. Oh, and also a dog gets shot repeatedly. It didn’t really have a plot, and I didn’t care about any of the characters…but hey, the DVD I watched was marked with the words “For Your Consideration,” so I think that means it was good. I dunno. If Hollywood says it’s good, it must be.

Recommended if you live in L.A. and can therefore tell what the heck this movie is actually about

Sex Drive
I really wanted to do this one for the ol’ podcast…seriously, I put in my vote and everything. (We do vote, right guys? Or maybe I’m thinking of my fantasy lacrosse league. Whatever.) We ended up not doing it, so I never got around to seeing it, but I’ll stand by what I said back then: the trailer makes it look darned funny. And yes, I’m speaking as someone who, in general, believes that teen sex comedies (The Reader, et. al.) are a blight on the planet. Any genre has potential if you do it right, though (see: Heaven’s Gate), and this one just might be the long-foretold savior of American Pie and its ilk. And speaking as someone who’s never seen this movie or even read any reviews, I’m pretty much an expert.

Recommended if you like teen sex comedies, or if you don’t and think I’m right about this one.

The Haunting of Molly Hartley –
It’s getting hard to dislike a horror movie just because it sucks. I mean, heck, it’s been so long since a good one was made that I’m starting to think that maybe “sucking” is a convention of the genre. Y’know, just like “stupid teens”, “creepy pre-teens”, “tacky jump scares preceded by long violin screeches”, “gratuitously slandering the good name of Satan”, and “giving away all the best parts in the trailer” are. Not coincidentally, this movie manages to touch on most or all of these conventions (yes, including the sucking part).

Recommended if you were surprised to learn just now that there are, in fact, horror movies that don’t suck.

You have never seen a film like Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father, I can promise you that. You may have thought about a film this before in terms of “what if” or “if only”, but you have never seen something like this completely realized. For this reason, you should stay away from much information about the film because it is so filled with utterly heart-wrenching twists and turns that to read even the most menial summary before sitting down to watch it would be an injustice to the experience.

See this movie. It may not always be pleasant, but you will not regret it.
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There’s something to be said for a horror film that utilizes sun-filled fields and posh suburban homes rather than dank abandoned warehouses. I truly appreciate a flick that goes out on a limb and tries to make the mundane frightful. It’s a fine line to walk — the filmmakers have to give us enough common elements to make us feel comfortable in the world before yanking the rug out from under us. When they yank that proverbial rug, however, they’d better yank hard. The bar is set pretty high for this type of movie by The Exorcist, The Omen, and Rosemary’s Baby.
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I’ll give it to you straight…there’s really nothing even remotely good coming out this week. But here’s your consolation prize if you live near a theater in the AMC chain (and pretty much everyone and their dog does, right?): This Saturday, they’ll be showing a marathon of all five films nominated for the Best Picture Oscar, and tickets are only $30 each ($25 if you’re a member of their Movie Watcher club), and that includes a bottomless popcorn. That really isn’t too bad of a deal, if you don’t have any Saturday plans. Having seen all five nominated films, I can honestly say that at least two of them are arguably worth paying money to see, and — well — I’ll say it again: BOTTOMLESS. POPCORN. Seriously. Here’s the link to the info site. Check it out.

Anyway, new releases. And such.

Tyler Perry’s Madea Goes to Jail
You’re not going to find a title much more obvious than that. Seriously, is there anything I could tell you about this movie that’s not already in the title? Maybe if they had called it Tyler Perry Writes, Directs and Stars in a Movie in Which His Popular Recurring Character Medea Goes to Jail, Causes Funny Things to Occur, and Learns Valuable Life Lessons in the Process? Yeah, that’s pretty good. I should get Tyler on the phone and see if he’ll buy that title from me.

Recommended if the whole “man in drag” thing is still clever and witty to you.

Fired Up
Hey, and speaking of comedic premises that have been done to death and I hope I never see again…two football players quit the team and go out for the cheerleading squad in hopes of scoring some poontang. Sounds subtle, sophisticated, and charming all around. Actually, I do have to tip my hat to this one a little bit. After all, it’s a sex comedy where the football players are the heroes, not the villains. This really is a big step forward for members of the campus jockocracy everywhere. Now all we need is a slasher film where the killer goes after the virgins.

Recommended if you liked Porky’s, American Pie, Superbad, etc….and you still think watching guys try to get laid is absolutely hilarious.

The cast of High-School-frickin'-Musical-3. Haters can take a trip. :)

Well kids, my favorite guilty pleasure of the year is now out on DVD. Talk to me in month, when I’m done watching it over and over. (Well, I’ll take a short break, at least.)

High School Musical 3: Senior Year –
The High School Musical franchise isn’t for everyone, of course. I know our fearless leader Evan would rather get the ol’ icepicks under the fingernails treatment than sit through this one, but for my part, I loved it. I loved it so much that I made my wife (who hates the franchise more than Evan) take me to it a second time. And now that it’s on DVD, I’ll make her sit through it again and again. Isn’t marriage great? Anyhoo, this one’s pretty much more of the same, but on a bigger and better scale. Ideally, you should have seen it in theaters, but if you pick up a Blu-ray and watch it on a big ol’ hi-def screen, it should be almost as good.

Recommended if you don’t take your musicals too seriously (those who think Andrew Lloyd Weber is a genius need not apply)

The Midnight Meat Train
You’re the owner of a successful independent movie studio with a pretty good horror movie ready to be released. Do you: (a) pre-screen it for critics, to make sure people know it’s worth the eight bucks, (b) release it into as many theaters as possible along with a marketing barrage to ensure a big opening weekend, or (c) dump it into a handful of second-run theaters and then release it on DVD a few months later? Guess which one Lionsgate decided to go with. Seriously, I don’t know if this one is any good, but it can’t be too much worse than The Eye, which Lionsgate pushed harder than Sisyphus on his first day in Hades.

Recommended if you liked The Silence of the Lambs or Seven

Changeling –
Clint Eastwood just isn’t having the Oscar-filled year he apparently wanted. Changeling turned out to be too stodgy (and not Holocaust-related enough) for the Academy, and the Gran Torino was just…too weird. This one’s a pretty unassuming thriller about a mother who loses her son, only to have him replaced with a different one and see the case swept under the rug. I enjoyed it despite its shortcomings, but most people I know who saw it were bored out of their minds. Angelina Jolie’s up for Best Actress for her performance…take that for what it’s worth. (And for even more Changeling fun, check out episode nine of our podcast!)

Recommended if you’re experiencing some serious 1920’s nostalgia (I know I am)
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This review was originally published October 29th, 2008.

If nothing else, High School Musical 3: Senior Year is the first film in the series that actually features a high school musical (long-time fans will remember that the first was concerned only with the audition for the title event, and that the second actually featured neither a high school nor a musical). That may not be high praise, but I think it’s a pretty good metaphor: number three isn’t perfect, but I think you could make the case that it gets more things right than either of the previous two films did. It won’t change the minds of any of the HSM-haters, but it’s likely to be the least offensive to them. And if nothing else, it provides a pretty good glimpse into what could have been, had Disney given the original’s book and libretto the respect they deserved.
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This review was originally published November 6th, 2008.

Changeling is one of those films that critics hate to write about — the sort that delivers exactly what it promises, and nothing more. Based on a true story that was tangential to the Wineville Chicken Coop Murders, the film makes no pretenses of being anything other than a relatively faithful recreation of the events; it looks at nothing much deeper than you’d expect it to, and makes no effort to delve into the psyches of its characters; on the other hand, the story itself is fascinating enough that it manages to hold your attention pretty well for a couple of hours. It goes out recommended, but don’t expect to hear about it much come Oscar time.
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This review was originally published October 9th, 2008.

Full disclosure: I take my faith fairly seriously, which places me squarely in the demographic that Bill Maher is attacking in his new documentary, Religulous. Given that, reviewing this film could be akin to a member of the Bush administration reviewing Fahrenheit 9/11 or an Orthodox Jew reviewing The Passion of the Christ. Read the following with a salt shaker close by.
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Clive Owens and Naomi Watts in 'The International'

Apparently, Friday the Thirteenth is bad luck. Not only is it bringing us a needless reboot of its eponymous franchise, it’s also giving us a movie with both “confessions” and “shopaholic” in its title. That can’t possibly be a good sign.

The International
What if the world’s largest corporation was lawless, abusive, and downright evil?!! It would be, um, just like real life. (If that doesn’t get me a contract with Air America, I don’t know what will.) This one is from German director Tom Tykwer (of Run Lola Run fame), and stars Clive Owens and Naomi Watts. It also looks like a taut little thriller (I’ve seen the trailer, so I’m pretty much an expert), which makes it my top pick for the week. Actually, it’s my top pick for the week because your other two choices are…well, see for yourself…

Recommended if you wished The Corporation had had, y’know, a plot

Confessions of a Shopaholic
I was wracking my brain for something to say about this one…suffice it to say that it’s just not targeted toward my demographic. At all. If those two capitalized words get your blood going (fans of St. Augustine’s Confessions need not apply), you know who you are. This one’s pretty much got “girls’ night out” written all over it: shopaholic, who writes for fashion magazines, in Manhattan, falls in love with a millionaire. Um…wow. I’ll just stop there.

Recommended if you liked Bridget Jones’s Diary or How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days

Friday the 13th
Ah, the 2000’s. The decade that will be forever remembered as the one when Hollywood ran out of ideas and resorted to repeatedly ripping off the 80’s. Here’s a question for discussion: Which is worse: the innumerable horror remakes, which are honest about what they are (Halloween = Halloween, Friday the 13th = Friday the 13th, etc.), or the innumerable sex comedy rip-offs, which pretend to be new movies (Porky’s = American Pie, Risky Business = The Girl Next Door, etc., etc.)? Anyway…um, yeah. This one’s not worth any more words. I’m done here.

Recommended if you forgot how to rent DVDs

'Frozen River'

So, after a couple weeks of doing this, I’m starting to realize they’re, like, twice as much work as the “Theater Releases” posts. Let’s all have a round of applause for Evan Derrick. (I’m waiting for my big bonus check, Evan.)

Frozen River
I missed this one when it was in theaters — being that I live in that cultural hotspot known as Tulsa, Oklahoma — but I hear that it’s quite a devastating little indie drama. It’s the sad tale of a starving woman who has to resort to working in the human trafficking industry — smuggling in illegals from Canada — in order to feed her kids. Not for anyone looking to have a great time, but certainly for those who want to ponder the dilemmas of humanity, be moved to create change, or just impress their self-consciously indie friends with some lo-fi goodness. Daniel Getahun gave it a B+.

Recommended if you liked Chop Shop or 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days

Miracle at St. Anna
One of approximately a billion World War II movies to come out at the end of last year, this one bears the distinction of being one of the few that didn’t win much critical acclaim (let alone Oscar buzz). There are several reasons for that: (1) it came out too early in the year, (2) it was directed by Spike Lee (a bit too controversial for the Oscar voter crowd), and (3) it didn’t mention the Holocaust nearly enough times. Well, you can’t win ‘em all, Spike. I still believe in you!

Recommended if you liked Valkyrie, Saving Private Ryan, or Glory

My Name is Bruce
Bruce Campbell plays himself, except he has to fight Chinese war deity Guan Di (just like in real life, of course). If you don’t know who Bruce Campbell is, this film is probably isn’t for you. (But if you’re really wondering: He starred in Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead series, and went on to become the undisputed king of cheesy cult films, the best of which was arguably Bubba Ho-tep, in which he plays an elderly Elvis fighting an undead mummy. Highly intellectual stuff.)

Recommended if you’re a Canadian named Colleen who likes to write haikus
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This review was originally published October 5th, 2008.

The science fiction/horror genre has often served as a launching pad for story tellers who wish to explore grand themes and still deliver an exciting story. In the late 50’s Rod Serling perfected this balancing act of thrilling, funny, heartbreaking stories mixed with social commentary and personal reflection. In The Twilight Zone television series, Serling worked with top notch writers to craft stories that would entertain viewers week after week, while still delivering a powerful message, all in 30 minutes. My guess is that Fernando Meirelles, director of Blindness, has never seen an episode of The Twilight Zone.
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This review was originally published October 18th, 2008.

Josh Ickes, who had a positive reaction to the film, has posted a 2nd Opinion here.

Am I the only one who can still see that “politics” is almost the same word as “policy”? Am I the only one that remembers that the people you vote into your government actually end up, y’know, governing? Does anyone care anymore about being actively involved in our democracy? Or are we all just too busy laughing at the people who belong to different cliques than us?
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Keira Knightley has become the go-to girl for period pictures. Pride and Prejudice, Atonement, Silk, even the Pirates of the Caribbean flicks; if your character frolics in large, poofy dresses, wears hats the size of Gibraltar, or sports a hairdo that puts Marge Simpson to shame, your only recourse is, apparently, Ms. Knightley (aren’t those corsets beginning to leave a mark, my dear?). Nor does she show signs of slowing down: The Beautiful and the Damned (circa 19-roaring-20s) and King Lear lie in her immediate future.
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