Here, Now – Back in June I gave you a preview of Hugh Howey’s upcoming book I,ZOMBIE. Since I am a very important man, I got a beta version of the book to read and it was better than I expected, and I already expected it to be good. I’ve already reviewed Hugh’s best-selling WOOL series, giving it 5 stars, and it looks like I am giving him five more. Here’s the synopsis:
This book contains foul language and fouler descriptions of life as a zombie. It will offend most anyone, so proceed with caution or not at all. And be forewarned: This is not a zombie book. This is a different sort of tale. It is a story about the unfortunate, about those who did not get away. It is a human story at its rotten heart. It is the reason we can’t stop obsessing about these creatures, in whom we see all too much of ourselves.
I won’t be spoiling anything when I tell you that I,ZOMBIE is about a zombie outbreak told from the point of view of zombies.…
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It would be my luck that the first show I decide to review on a consistent basis would turn into one that I don’t even look forward to watching anymore. The only reason why I continue this is because I’m already past the halfway mark and now it’s becoming entertaining to point out what’s wrong with the series.
Don’t get me wrong, last night’s episode of THE KILLING was better than last week’s, but that really wasn’t too hard of a feat. I guess I was hoping that AMC had a crime show that would be as well-written and executed as WALKING DEAD, BREAKING BAD and MAD MEN. But aside from the pilot, THE KILLING’s meandering has worn thin and last night’s episode continued the tradition but made things worse as it was stuffed to the gills with scene after scene of just bad television.
Before I start on what I didn’t like, I do want to point out there were two scenes I did enjoy. One was Sarah and Stephen finally having their bonding moment in the final moments of the show.…
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I was almost going to skip talking about last night’s episode of THE KILLING because it disappointed me greatly and left me extremely bored and more entertained watching my cat try to dislodge something from her ass (and no, Jaded, it wasn’t my finger).
Mostly because we are back to the formula of introducing a cliffhanger at the end of one episode, only to clear it up within moments of the next. This is followed by 40 minutes of boring, repetitive character development before introducing another plot point that will undoubtedly be cleared up within moments of the next episode.
Last week we were left with the seemingly distinct possibility that Stan was going to kill Bennet after abducting him. Within moments, this entire debacle was cleared up while also being informed that there are yet more suspects that have never been mentioned until tonight, including Muhammad, a man Bennet studies the Qur’an with and who has keys to the Bennet’s apartment, as well as Imam Gelabi, the spiritual leader of the Green Lake Mosque.…
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After last week’s episode had me worried that I had lost interest in the show, last night’s episode of THE KILLING, “What You Have Left,” pulled me right back in with one of the better episodes since the pilot.
The show’s attempt at showing some of the realities of death and the ripple effect it causes had me worried the it was going to consistently travel too far into depressing territory to be enjoyable, and this episode was no exception when it opened with Rosie being prepped and the family getting ready for the funeral.
Once again we are shown some of the effects Rosie’s death is having on the family, but luckily these are done with some short, effective scenes instead of an entire episode of the Larson’s walking around in a daze while neglecting their two boys. The couple arguing over the date Rosie gave her father a pair of cuff links, Tom asking to be a pallbearer and later crushing a millipede crawling near his sister’s were all well-played and thankfully for me, brief.…
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HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN started life as a faux trailer used to help promote the 2007 release of the Robert Rodriguez/Quentin Tarantino extravaganza, GRINDHOUSE. It probably should’ve remained as a kitschy, grimy celebration of scratchy B-movie promotion. Since iffy internet jokes never seem to die peacefully anymore, we now have a feature-length version of HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN, and the upgrade is mostly unbearable camp disguised as hip homage, splattered with enough blood and guts to distract from a cinematically empty reality, with director Jason Eisener declaring screen war without any notable scripted ideas.
Into the decaying Hope City comes Hobo (Rutger Hauer), a broken man with dreams of owning a lawn mower in an attempt to rebuild his shattered existence. Facing life on the street, Hobo witnesses a daily parade of brutality, orchestrated by crime lord Drake (Brian Downey) and his two sadistic sons, Slick (Gregory Smith) and Ivan (Nick Bateman). The ghouls own the town, leaving Hobo disgusted and aching for change. Salvation comes in the form of a shotgun, which gives the homeless man an opportunity to fight back, soon cleaning up the streets with his boomstick brand of justice.…
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I am a serious devotee of what is sometimes called Psychotronic Cinema. I am on a constant search for weird, obscure movies the likes of which most people can never conceive existing in the first place, and the weirder and more obscure they are, the more I like them. Mexican masked wresters being superheroes and fighting aliens? You better believe it. Ultra-gory kung fu? Yes please. Nazi sex crime extravaganzas? I’ll take two. Today I’ll be looking at a very special piece of mid-1970s sexploitation flick with a crime-themed plot. Well, there’s a Mob element, but it’s largely obscured by the oversized jiggling fun-bags that are the true stars of the film.
Let’s take a look, shall we?
Meet Crystal (“Chesty” Morgan). Now meet Crystal’s colossal rack (her measurements are 73FF-32-36). Now meet Crystal’s boyfriend, Larry. Crystal would really love for Larry to make her his wife, instead of just his girlfriend, but he keeps delaying. It’s soon a moot point as he’s rubbed out by the Mafia.
Crystal is heartbroken, tears spilling down rosy cheeks on to oversized pleasure-zeppelins.…
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Seeing as we are moving into the 2010′s I figured I might as well take advantage of some “best of the decade” type lists as they may be the only ones this site may ever have, starting with my personal list of best horror films from the last 10 years. And holy crap did this take a lot longer to put together than I initially thought. Most know that my tastes in film usually lean towards the twisted. So when it comes to horror, that is no exception. Admittedly I am a gorehound, but only in regards to the technical aspects. I love special effects, but gore does not make a horror movie for me and my favorite horror films are normally ones that deviate from tried-and-true formulas and get under your skin. Aside from the trailer for each entry, I have also added my thoughts. So let’s get going by starting with number 25 and working our way up to my top pick. …
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Many films register as forgettable. Whiteout is practically the definition of the word, not actually requiring a viewing to sense a distinct worthlessness to this cinematic endeavor. Purportedly based on a beloved 1998 graphic novel, this Antarctic thriller is a dreadful sleeping pill, marching into production with the best intentions in the world, but coming out the other side a jumbled, incompetent, ludicrously underlined whodunit. Stationed on a remote base on Antarctica, U.S. Marshall Carrie Stetko (Kate Beckinsale, failing to hide her embarrassment) is looking forward to her last days patrolling a frozen wasteland. Riding out her final moments of duty with friends (Ton Skerritt, Columbus Short), dreaming of a warmer future, Carrie is instead pulled into a last-minute murder investigation when a body is discovered out in the middle of nowhere.…
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Hector is a a simple guy enjoying a quiet afternoon at his country home doing a little bird watching. While doing so, he spies upon a young woman undressing in the nearby woods. His curiosity gets the better of him and he decides to take a trek into the forest to get a closer look. Once in the woods, he is attacked from behind by a masked man sending Hector fleeing deeper into the woods. With the man in hot pursuit, Hector finds refuge at a closed research facility and comes across a lone technician (played by the director, Nacho Vigalondo). He helps Hector by letting him to hide inside a peculiar looking container. When Hector emerges a few seconds later, he finds that the container was actually a beta time-machine, and that he is now a few hours in the past. Having effectivel alluded the man chasing him, Hector finds he now exists with a past version of himself. He is informed by the technician that he must not interact with that version or there will be dire consequences.…
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Fortress is an Australian made-for-tv movie that is probably most remembered when it made the rounds on HBO in the mid to late ’80s. Directed by Arch Nicholson and based off a novel of the same name written by Gabrielle Lord, which in turn was loosely based off the Faraday School Kidnapping. It details the adventure had by a small group of school kids from Sunny Flat, a small town in New South Wales, when they, along with their teacher (Rachel Ward), are kidnapped from their one-room schoolhouse by a group of men wearing masks and carrying guns. The motive of the armed men is ransom, but eventually the class of kids ranging from kindergarten to 10th grade, comes to the realization that in order to survive this ordeal, it will take ingenuity, bravery and the ability to work together as a team.…
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