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.

Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father, the film that we have been talking about quite a bit for the past month, will be premiering on MSNBC this coming Sunday at 9PM Eastern, and again at Midnight. The cut will be slightly shorter, but director Kurt Kuenne edited the TV version himself and is “very happy” with it.

Phillip gave it 4 1/2 5 stars (our highest rating) and Sam Juliano of Wonders In the Dark also gave it 5 stars (his highest rating), so if you haven’t seen it yet (and chances are you haven’t) then make sure you don’t miss this opportunity. It’s one of the most powerful films of the year, hands down.

I want to get the word out on a small documentary that’s currently storming the critics’ castle: Dear Zachary: A Letter To a Son About His Father. After its grand premiere last week in New York, it’s opening tomorrow in L.A. and Chicago, and the reviews on this one are stunning. Although I haven’t seen it yet myself (I have a screener sitting on my desk courtesy of Kurt Kuenne, the film’s gracious director), I am anticipating it as much or more than any other film I’m anticipating this fall (and yes, that includes Benjamin Button).

The consensus appears to be that it’s best to go into this one cold, but suffice to say it’s an intimate portrayal of one family and the horrible miscarriage of justice that was perpetuated against them. Think Capturing the Friedmans, Murder On a Sunday Morning, or Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills.

I realize many of you will not have access to this, but for any of our readers in L.A. or Chicago (or even New York – it’s still playing there), go out and see it this weekend! And if you’re in L.A., the director will be coming out himself on 3 separate occasions, including 1 Q&A session. I’m getting behind this one 100% – expect to hear much and more about it, especially as we enter Oscar season.

Hit the jump for the trailer and show times.
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Never one to pass up a shameless bit of self-promotion, let me direct your clicking fingers to this write-up over at the Tulsa World featuring yours truly and MovieZeal. When they asked me to list my top 5 guilty pleasure flicks, I was more than happy to oblige. Thankfully, they couched the piece in appropriate terms, as I was afraid it would read “Evan Picks 5 All-time Great Films!”, thereby destroying what little credibility I still retain.

Congratulations to the Alex Searcy, Dylan Fields, Jandy Stone, Matt Gamble, and David Crawford, who all get shiny new copies of Jeff Nichol’s Shotgun Stories. Be jealous of them. Be very jealous. Alex managed to get the most, with 9 correct answers, and while #10 wasn’t nearly as difficult as I thought it would be, no one got a perfect score, which makes me happy.

The answers, then, after the jump:
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Yes, yes, this is the last time I’m gonna beat you people in the face with this, but Shotgun Stories is a fantastic little film that deserves a place on your DVD shelf and I have 5 copies just begging for happy homes. If you haven’t already, see the Mystery Poster Theater contest that you have to enter in order to win the DVD, and send an email with your guesses to contest [at] moviezeal [dot] com. Piece o’ the proverbial cake.

The contest ends tonight at Midnight, Central Standard Time, so get your guesses in before then. I’ll announce the winners tomorrow.

A few random tidbits to bring to your attention. First, lest you forget, we’re giving away 5 copies of Shotgun Stories in our Mystery Poster Theater contest. Thanks to all who entered but I want even more submissions; it livens up the competition. Also, it validates me as a human being. The last day to turn your guesses in is this Sunday at midnight, so get crackin’!

Secondly, I wanted you to know that we’re going to start toying with some advertising options. And before anyone starts crying “SELL OUT!”, I promise you they’ll be subtle and contextualized. No ramming Google AdSense blocks through your nose (at least not yet). But frankly, I’ve got children to feed, and I don’t think I can take my sweet daughter looking up at me anymore and saying, “Daddy, can I pleez have a stick to play with?” and I have to say, “Sorry darling, sticks are too expensive, now eat your Ramen noodles.” Think of the children before you send me any hate mail.

On a related note, why haven’t you sent me any hate mail? I’ve been wanting to start a “look at dese here cuh-raaazy emails I gotst!” column, but I need some, you know, crazy emails before I can do that.

We finally hit 300 posts, although I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that a large number of those have come from contributing writers over the past month. You guys (and you know who you are) rock the Casbah.

Using the power of the internets (and a Random Number Generator), one entrant has been randomly selected and…congratulations Ryan Dunlap! You are now the proud owner of a smoke stained boxset of noir classics. We’ll be contacting you momentarily to pass over the goods. For those of you quietly weeping into your keyboards, fret not! We’ll be giving away more free goodies next week, although this time there will be a contest involved. Well, not so much a contest as a battle royale involving badgers and sporks. It’s going to be suh-weet.

Thanks to everyone who entered, especially those who took the time to include comments and suggestions. We’ve already been implementing some of them (Chris Polley, I hope you’ve noticed that some of my reviews have been much shorter – you’re right, I don’t need to write a novel for films like Death Race or Traitor), so rest assured your feedback is valuable to us.

Sadly, Mr. Allauddin Muhamadad of the African Development Bank and Dr. Donald Blankstone of the Federal Ministry Agriculture were not eligible for the giveaway because they failed to include the proper information in the subject line. On a more positive note, I am apparently entitled to over $1.8 trillion dollars in inheritance money and only need to fork over my social security number and bank statement in order to receive it. I am so getting that 60 inch plasma I’ve had my eye on!

In order to get all of the wonderful noir contributions in, we’re going to be extending the noir retrospective a few days beyond the end of August. In addition to that, don’t forget that once we hit 300 posts (this is #290 or so) we’re  giving away a boxset of 5 of the noiriest (I love making up new words with ‘noir’ in them) films ever made, Out of the Past, Murder My Sweet, The Asphalt Jungle, The Set-up, and Gun Crazy. The back of the box tells me that each film includes commentary from noir experts, including director Robert Wise and Martin Scorsese. See this post for all of the rain-drenched, cigarette-stained details.

The last few days have been quite difficult, both for myself and for Sam Juliano. Sam and I have spoken on the phone together, and rather than allow the events that occurred to remain the Elephant In The Room, we’ve jointly decided to open things up for discussion.
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Update: a joint statement was posted explaining the events that led up to this apology. You can find it here.

Like many blogs on the internet, MovieZeal is staffed by numerous volunteers who write for the sheer love of it, without pay, but it has been brought to my attention that one of our writers plagiarized a fellow film critic. This is unacceptable. MovieZeal may not be large and we may not generate any revenue, but it was founded on certain principles, those of integrity, honestly, and excellence. As such, every review by the critic in question has been removed, and he will no longer be writing for MovieZeal. To Nick Schager of Slant Magazine, I offer my sincerest apologies.

Evan Derrick

Founder and Senior Editor of MovieZeal.com

evan@moviezeal.com

I’ve come to a bit of a realization. Apparently what I previously asked all of you to do to become eligible for the noir boxset giveaway was a bit stressful. Asking you to tell us 1) what MovieZeal is doing really well and 2) something it needs to improve must have made many of you balk because I have not received as many entries as I had expected. When one entrant said “Whew, that was tough!” at the end of their email, I knew something was up. I’m going to assume most of you like us so much that you don’t want to say anything critical at all (a big assumption, I know). I’m flattered, but I also want more people to enter the giveaway. The boxset is worth around $50 after all. So….

….I’m changing the rules. Now, simply send an email to moviezealgiveaway@gmail.com with “300th Post Giveaway” in the subject line and your name in the body of the message. That’s it. You don’t have to write anything else at all. Just send in your name and you’ll be eligible. To those of you who worked so hard to write out your critiques, thank you very much, and some of them have been quite eye-opening. I apologize that I just negated all of your hard work, but you’ll still be fully eligible.

So now there should be no excuse not to enter. Apart from the four core MovieZeal writers and their immediate families (sorry Phillip, Sam, and Luke), anyone can enter, including those of you who have contributed to our noir retrospective this month. Tell your friends, tell your family; all they have to do is send their name to the above email address. And as an FYI, this is the 271st post. For those of you, like myself, who need a calculator to perform any kind of basic mathematical computation, that means there are 29 more to go.

And just as a recap, the boxset includes Out of the Past, Gun Crazy, The Asphalt Jungle, Murder My Sweet, and The Set-up.

I missed the 100th and 200th post milestones, but by golly I’m not going to miss the 300th one. We are currently sitting on 257 posts (this is the 258th), and with Noir Month still going strong, in addition to the prolific addition of Sam Juliano to our writing staff, I’m anticipating hitting 300 at (or soon after) the end of the month. So, in order to celebrate, we’re hosting our very first giveaway, but rather than cobble together some used DVDs lying around the house (the cinematic equivalent of sloppy seconds), we’re doing it up right.

In honor of Noir Month, we’re giving away the best noir boxset that I could find. It features 5 films, 4 of which are indisputable essentials in the film noir canon: Out Of the Past, The Asphalt Jungle, Gun Crazy, Murder My Sweet, and The Set-Up. Every one enjoys an immaculate transfer, and each film includes commentary.

In order to be eligible, you only have to do two simple things. Drop us a line at moviezealgiveaway@gmail.com, include your name, and tell us 1) something MovieZeal is doing really well, and 2) something MovieZeal is lacking or really needs to improve. That’s it. Anyone can enter. When we hit our 300th post, we’ll randomly select from those who’ve entered and ship you your brand-spanking new collection of noir classics.

Oh, and please be honest. We’re doing this to figure out what we need to improve as well as give away a fantastic set of films. Trust us, we love constructive criticism.

That image right there of The Rolling Stones is a perfect descriptor of how I feel right now. ‘Cause today I get to announce the newest addition to our crack team of movie reviewing fiends (and fiends we are!).

We manage, most of the time, to stay on top of things. But films and articles and fascinating pieces are always falling through the cracks because, quite frankly, we don’t have enough time or manpower to cover everything we’d like to. This has been a constant discussion behind the doors of MovieZeal (and I just made that sound WAY more epic than it actually is) – with only so many hours in the day, how can we bring you, our loyal and rabid readership (and I mean rabid in a nice way ….also, I like saying ‘readership’…makes me feel pretty important), more fantastic cinematic content?

Well, the intelligent eloquent, and always passionate Sam Juliano has agreed to share his wonderful writing here at our little corner of the internet. Sam already sees and reviews multiple films, concerts, plays, and operas each week, and he sends his writing out to a select group of friends and colleagues, but he has graciously agreed to cross-post his work here. You may have met him in the comments section here or over at Living in Cinema. The man’s energy is positively relentless.

So, by all means give Sam a zealous welcome. And watch, in the next few days, for his excellent writing to start popping up on the site. “Pleased to meet you” indeed.

I teased you last week. Consider this the official announcement of MovieZeal’s month long film noir retrospective, 31 days chock full of cynical chiaroscuro goodness. The party (or “noir-ty” as it might be called if I had no self-respect, but I do, so it won’t) gets started this Friday, and each day will bring a new review of a different noir. Calling upon the collective power of the blogosphere like He-Man might call upon Greyskull, we’ve pulled together quite the talented crop of guest writers who will be tackling various and sundry noirs over the month. Not only does this keep things flavorful, it also prevents Phillip, Luke, and myself from sacrificing what lives we have at the Altar of the Noir.

Expect reviews and articles on noir from (in no particular order) Graham Culbertson of Movies et al., Joseph Demme of Cinexcellence, Daniel Getahun of Getafilm, Nick Plowman of Fataculture, Alexander Coleman of Coleman’s Corner in Cinema, Chuck Bowen of Bowen’s Cinematic, Craig Kennedy of Living In Cinema, Joel E., commenter extraordinaire at LiC, Rick Olson of Coosa Creek Mambo, Dylan Fields of Blog Cabins, Matt Gamble of Where the Long Tail Ends, Anil Usumezbas of The Long Take, and Christian Divine of Oh My Blog.

Whew.

Using the power of Google, I took a few hours to compile the list for the month. Using IMDB’s Top 50 Noirs as a starting place (a flawed list, to be sure), I cross-checked it with numerous other Top 10 lists and articles on the subject, as well as referencing top noir experts such as Alain Silver and Paul Schrader. I’m confident that these are 31 of the best examples the style has to offer, and while no list is perfect, this one is quite thorough. As you’ll see, I’ve confined the list to the classic period (early 40s to late 50s) rather than open it up to proto-noir, neo-noir, and all other manner of pseudo noir (I’ll go into the reasons for this more on Friday).

You may also have noticed that our randomized banner up at the top has started cycling through frames (and posters) from all of the films we will be profiling this month. There are over 90 different banners, but rather than have you attempt to guess which banner is from which film (a nearly impossible feat), I’ve included a handy little label in the bottom corner so you kids can follow along at home. I’m cool like that.

So, without further yapping (and after the jump), here are the films we will be featuring during August, in chronological order, including a gallery of all the theatrical posters. Feel free to spout off in the comments if I’ve left off your favorite.
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Just a quick announcement that we are doing another ‘theme’ month here at MovieZeal during August. Last time we tackled the work of the Coen brothers, which I think was a modest success, but this time we’re aiming a bit higher. Instead of profiling a single director’s filmography, we’re featuring an entire movement: Film Noir. The festivities kick off a week from today on the 1st and we’ll be reviewing a different noir masterpiece each day of the month until the 31st. For those of you with mad trigonometry skillz, that equals 31 different films.

Rather than slowly go insane attempting to take on all of that work ourselves, we’ve invited numerous denizens of the film blogosphere to contribute pieces, so expect a lot of extremely talented guest writers. I’ll write more on this next week as we head into the month, but I wanted to formally announce it here.

Also, Josephe Demme of Cinexcellence is hosting an Unseen DVD Blog-a-Thon at his site. You are cordially invited to plunge head first into the $1 bargain bin at your local Walmart, retrieve the shiniest turd possible, and then write about it (masochism is your friend). He’s running the blog-a-thon until August 17th.

Our Month of Coens was, I think, a modest success. Thanks to all of the contributors who took the time and effort to turn in such well written articles and features on the brothers auteur. Your participation is what made it such darn fun. You can find a handy-dandy list of all the articles and reviews below in case you may have missed anything.

In lieu of planning another themed month here at MZ (which is coming as soon as we recover from this one), we have a number of new columns and features in the pipeline, so keep your eyes peeled (what does that mean, excatly? Has anyone ever stopped to think what a horrible prospect it would be to actually peel one’s eyes?).

MZ is in its infancy, and we are (hopefully) ever evolving into a better, more streamlined destination for all things film.

Hit the jump for the list of articles and reviews.
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MovieZeal will not typically be a place for personal posts, but this is an exception to the rule.

My second child (but first son), Jacob Emory, was born yesterday morning at 11AM, weighed 7lbs 8oz, and was 20 inches long. He has a grip of steel and latched onto anything he could wrap his tiny fist around. Hopefully he will use his powers for good and not evil. Both he and mom are doing great. As you can imagine, I may be out of pocket over the next few days, but will be back up and running in no time.