Archive for September, 2012

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Movie Review: Looper

Posted in Reviews! with tags , , , , on 09/28/2012 by Taylor Holt

Stars: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce Willis, Emily Blunt, Noah Segan, Pierce Gagnon, Jeff Daniels

Rated R for strong violence, language, some sexuality/nudity and drug content , Running time 118 minutes, Action/Thriller/Sci-Fi

Compare to: Deja Vu (2006), Inception (2010)

I’m going to do my best to not build this movie up too much so as not to higher anyone’s expectations on what this film is like. Put simply though, Looper is the most intelligent example of an Action movie not involving Batman since 2010’s Inception. Director Rian Johnson has put together a movie that has a deeper subtext spilling out of the seams with every scene, every line.

It’s everything you’d want in a futuristic thriller, provided you’re prepared to think. At the very least, you can appreciate the well-crafted visuals. Continue reading →

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Haters!

Posted in Whatever with tags , , , , on 09/27/2012 by Taylor Holt

Don’t be fooled by the title and the Judge Dredd picture, I’m not going to defend that movie.

Alright, so, I’m constantly posting articles pertaining to Hollywood and their fascination with gimmicks. Among those gimmicks include high-budgets, bad stories, and ruined adaptions of beloved franchises. I’d like to think that my input is overall positive as well as constructive. Articles like American Movies Could Learn a Thing or Two from Anime, Just Let it Happen, Fox, and the most popular of them all, Freaking Comic Book Movies were all meant to be more than just entertaining, but also call to light the annoyance of our favored properties being ruined and everybody just being cool with that.

I like to think that we’re all in this together, as viewers and as nerds, and that we could recognize a good thing and condemn a bad one.

But then some crap happened. Continue reading →

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Zombies Soundtrack #9: Jacob

Posted in Zombie Soundtracks with tags , , , , on 09/27/2012 by Taylor Holt

By far the most “Western” of all the soundtracks thus far, this one brings more images to mind of the aftermath rather than the chaos as most soundtracks would. When the dust settles, I imagine sitting on the porch of a house like the one in Texas Chainsaw Massacre, just rocking back and forth as society is slowly being rebuilt somewhere else, while the country remains the same. With a bunch of rotting corpses strewn everywhere too of course. I had to leave a link to Murder by Death’s song, as it happens to be my favorite from them and their new album Bitter Drink, Bitter Moon came out just a couple days ago. Look’er up! How do more of you not include Social D on your soundtracks? Shame on you!

If you want to submit your own, click here -T

Murderin’ it up.

1. The Avett Brothers– Jenny And The Summer Day. Self Explanatory.

2. Kris Kristofferson– Sunday Morning Coming Down. Can you imagine the scene this song creates only with zombies added to it? Man, if you think your hangover sucks you’re really in for a bad day.

3. Deer Tick– Straight Into A Storm. The perfect song for deciding to face the situation head on.

4. Mumford & Sons– Dust Bowl Dance. I think this song is cool to start the killing segment with because it is about someone gradually being pushed to that limit.

5. John Mark McMillan– The Reckoning Day

6. Murder By Death– Ash. Another cool apocalyptic song.

7. Social Distortion– Down On The World. I knew I wanted Social D for this one but it was hard to choose one song.

8. Squad Five-O– Don’t Look Back. North to the future on the stereo! Gotta love the shout out to fellow GA band Joe Christmas but this song was chosen because it fits the theme perfectly. If you can get past the cheesy fake 80’s rock sound, for some reason I love it.

9. John Mark McMillan- The Reckoning Day. This song is really the perfect song. It sounds almost as if it was written about life post zombie apocalypse. In a way it was – it’s a worship song about Jesus’ return. “Come untied from the weight of the age.”

Bonus Track

10. The Zombies– How We Were Before. Picture zombies slow dancing to this one – pretty funny huh?

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Good Bad Movies and Bad Bad Movies

Posted in Whatever with tags , , , on 09/25/2012 by Taylor Holt

“I was supposed to what? Talk to them? I could’ve sworn this was the scene where I killed everybody. Okay, from the top.”

A few weeks ago, I went over the topic of bad movies and how enjoyable they can be. It’s a different type of fun than watching a great movie and there’s a limitless amount of awfulness to view. With all the great terrible movies out there, it may be even easier to come across the ones that aren’t good bad, just…bad bad.

What makes a good bad movie and what makes just a plain awful movie? I can’t help but think of the differences between the two after watching a film that opened up last weekend and climbed its way to the top without any problem. Yep- Resident Evil: Retribution. It’s already made up twice its budget which is more than it deserves. Continue reading →

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Movie Review: End of Watch

Posted in Reviews! with tags , , , , , , on 09/22/2012 by Taylor Holt

Stars: Jake Gyllenhaal, Michael Pena, Anna Kendrick, Frank Grillo, Natalie Martinez, America Ferrera, Cody Horn

Rated R for strong violence, some disturbing images, pervasive language including sexual references, and some drug use , Running time 109 minutes, Action/Drama

Compare to: Street Kings (2008), The Hurt Locker (2009)

It’s tough for me to watch a movie about cops going out there on the mean streets to protect and serve. Your opinion on a movie like this may strongly depend on your perspective of the police force. Heroes or gangs with government authority? The movie hardly paints an even side but the biggest issue with the film is figuring out what it’s message is.

Keep reading and find out exactly what I mean. Continue reading →

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Movie Revew: DREDD

Posted in Reviews! with tags , , , , on 09/21/2012 by Taylor Holt

Stars: Karl Urban, Olivia Thirlby, Lena Headey, Wood Harris

Rated R for sequences of strong bloody violence, language, drug use and some sexual content , Running time 95 minutes, Action/Adventure/Sci-Fi

Compare to: Blade Runner (1982), The Raid: Redemption (2012)

Having been a Stallone movie in ’94, and being a bad one at that, I wasn’t looking forward to the Dredd reboot. I’m even sick of the word “reboot.” I figured I’d be seeing just another lame attempt at cashing in on the comic book movie sub-genre we’ve got around these days. I’m glad to say though, this movie stands on its own. Dredd is quick, simple, violent, and fun.

The main difference between this film and the original (besides everything) is that it’s being sold as based on the comic book, as opposed to being a remake of the ’94 version. I’m assuming the idea is to put as much distance between this release and the ’94 crap-fest. Good move, I’d say. I’d also say its good that there’s no Rob Schneider as the wacky sidekick. Continue reading →

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What I Want to See in The Creature from the Black Lagoon Remake

Posted in Top 5 Lists, Whatever with tags , , , , on 09/19/2012 by Taylor Holt

“No, I’ve gotta go. MOM, I’m carrying a dead woman right now, I WILL CALL YOU BACK.”

Before anything else, I’m going to open up with my lack of articles the past few days. Not only has a lot been going on personally, but the writing I have been doing is going elsewhere, sad to say, and I can’t post it on here to add to my list of brilliant musings on life, love, and movies, minus the first two.

Anyway.

It’s inevitable. Everything is being remade and Horror characters are getting the short end of the stick. “Hey, if we redo Ghoulies 2, we will make money and we don’t even have to think about it!” I’m pretty sure that exactly, word for word, is how executives are plotting this stuff out. No contractions. They’re also saying, “Make it PG-thirteenier! More money in that!” The Universal monsters are even getting a 21st century makeover.

Van Helsing sucked, Frankenstein gets remade one way or another regardless of who wants it, vampires are a mainstay and even Wolfman saw the light of day, even if it was sucker-punched as soon as it took a step outside to breathe in the fresh air. Continue reading →

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Movie Review: Resident Evil: Retribution

Posted in Reviews! with tags , , , , on 09/14/2012 by Taylor Holt

Stars: Milla Jovovich, Sienna Guillory, Michelle Rodriguez, Kevin Durand, Li Bingbing, Boris Kodjoe, Johann Urb

Rated R for sequences of strong violence throughout , Running time 95 minutes, Action/Adventure

Compare to: GI JOE: The Rise of Cobra (2009)

I really don’t know what just happened. I remember going into a movie theater. I remember sitting down. I remember a movie starting, and then…I just don’t know.

It’s difficult to know what to review in a film when it only consists of scene after scene of… I’m not sure. Explosions? Meaningless dialogue? I can’t recall. This movie is so terrible, it makes an actual piece of fecal matter look as though it should win an Oscar. This movie is so stupid, the explosions are the stars of the movie and they were probably underpaid. I’m going to do my best to write the synopsis below but I feel like I’m going to need a break first because even thinking back to all the stupidity that has been funneled into this film is wearing me out. Continue reading →

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Where Have All the Westerns Gone?

Posted in Whatever with tags , , , on 09/13/2012 by Taylor Holt

What guy out there grew up with having never watched a Western? My own dad wasn’t obsessed or anything but we definitely had seen a fair amount when we were younger.

John Wayne’s name was thrown around enough for me to know who he was without ever having watched one of his movies. Looking back on it though, the Westerns that I’d list as my favorites today or even childhood favorites were ones that my dad never actually even cared about.

The Quick and the Dead (1995) was one in particular that I was a fan of as a kid even though looking back, it’s clearly got that Sam Raimi flavor. Close-up zooms, giant holes blown into dummy heads, so on and so forth. We’ve had a handful since then but nothing that the public has latched onto. So the real question is, where have all the Westerns gone? Continue reading →

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My Little Expendables

Posted in Whatever with tags , , , , on 09/12/2012 by Taylor Holt

I’ll be honest: I don’t care for The Expendables movies. I think the general idea is great; get all the 80s/90s tough guys together and have them blow things up. Awesome premise and that can be enough for most people. They’re not financially hurting either, with the two combined for an over 300 million gross. People dig it.

Well, I don’t. I don’t care for the “I showed up, and that’s enough” attitude, nor for Stallone’s shadow over the rest of the cast. I don’t find the locations interesting and blah blah blah- it’s not very good. But one thing I can’t deny is the draw of the cast itself. Isn’t that what got most people’s attention to begin with? And for that idea alone, I give Stallone and co. credit. It’s inspired the question among friends about who they would cast as the dream team of Expendables. Living or dead, any era, any character of whatever genre, who would you pick. Here’s my short list although I intentionally left any actual cast members off just to make it a little more interesting. Continue reading →

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