Food For Thought for movie graphic designers, concerning the Trajan Font.



Art Is Resistance
-Zero

Labels: Funny, Hollywood, Movie News, Videos

This month's Fearless Filmmakers is focusing on women filmmakers. The showing is at the Oak Street Cinema on Feb 28th, and the after-party will be at a secret location, disclosed at the showing, and accessible only with a ticket stub from the showing.

So come out and see some local women in film kicking ass and then schmooze with them at the secret afterparty!

Art Is Resistance
-Zero

Labels: indie movies, Minneapolis Event, Movie News

Someone asked if I was going to see the remake of Halloween. My initial response was 'Hell Yeah!', because the first Halloween is a truly scary classic.

Unfortunately, I had to change my decision after I realized that you were behind the filming. I can't really bring myself to see anything you are involved with after watching "House of 1000 Corpses" and "The Devil's Rejects" (You can read my review of The Devil's Rejects here)

Sorry Rob, but I can't even give you the benefit of the doubt now. I don't believe that you are capable of making a horror movie without making blowing the Hokey-Meter off the charts, and I won't let you wreck a timeless classic.

You should stick to the song you keep releasing over and over, it's really good, but your movies are worse than Suck-Squared.

KTHXBYE,
-CZ

Labels: anti, Movie News, movie reviews, Open Letter, Ubersuck

Ouch! Rottentomatoes.com just put out a list of the Worst Reviewed Movies of ALL TIME! The list is harsh but mostly fair, and only verifies rottentomatoes.com as a semi-objective indicator of awfulness.

A quick peek at just a couple of the movies I saw on the list:

#100 - Catwoman. I agree. For a movie to have so much potential and the perfect casting, they really must have worked hard to screw this up.

#86 - Elektra. I know this movie could have been better for the same reasons as Catwoman, but I don't agree that it is one of the 100 Worst, and it certainly is not a worse movie than Catwoman.

#62 - Ultraviolet. Disagree. I think someone got this movie mixed up with Aeon Flux.

#55 - Gigli. How would anyone know this movie is bad? Who would have seen it?

#46 - Pluto Nash. I didn't get it. I think it was a comedy...action...thing...?

#41 - The Fog. This movie should be ranked much worse. Top 25 for sure. If you can't do better than the original, then do different. If you can't do better OR different than the original, you will end up on lists like this.

#33 - Bloodrayne. Disagree. This movie is TOP TEN BAD, possibly the worst of all.

#30 - The Darkness. Disagree. I didn't think it was that bad, certainly no better or worse than all the Almost-Horror movies like The Grudge or Dark Water.

#26 - House of the Dead. Didn't see it myself, but Uwe Boll = Automatic Worst Movie List. [Update July 2008 - Finally saw this movie, which had clips in it which were cut out from the video game! Wow. Even Uwe Boll admitted it was a bad call, although he said, "it seemed like a good idea at the time..."]

#16 - The Covenant. I just saw this movie last week, and I think #16 might be sugar-coating it a bit. This was really bad.

#2 - Alone In The Dark. Agreed. Uwe Boll in his prime. Horseshit. I would have walked out if I Xtina hadn't fallen asleep in my lap during the movie.

#1 - Ballistic. Well, if there was a movie arguably worse than Bloodrayne, this would be it. Certainly worthy of the top ten.

I'm trying to think of movies that Should have been on the list but weren't? Comments?

Suck on,
-CZ

Labels: Movie News, movie reviews

Marilyn Manson has been working on quite a few things: Fashion Shows, Art Galleries, New Album, New Religion (Celebritarian), Marriage, Lawsuits, a new line of Perfume...

...and a horror movie called Phantasmagoria.


I want to bring back the experiments in terror, which is actually a DVD that documents the attempts of 1944 filmmakers to insert subliminal elements. Whether in sound or in frames of the film, to enhance whatever tense or fear they're looking to create at that moment in the film. I think technology allows me to go much further than that. I'm going to do a lot of things that may end up being illegal. Until they are, I will do them. I think it will change people's opinion about horror films and they will realize they're not all about slasher.

No insult to Rob Zombie; People might predict that to be the type of film I would make. That's absolutely the opposite of what I want to do. That's not an interest of mine, anyway. If I had to pick, stylistically, people that I admire – it would be Ingmar Bergman, Roman Polanski, and modern filmmakers; Takashi Miike, who made the film Audition, and Gasper Noe who made I Stand Alone and Irreversible. It's kind of a return to Hitchcock-style psychological horror about letting your mind do the damage and sometimes what you don't see is scarier.


From http://www.mansonusa.com/celebritarian/?page=3

Do you SEE now why I love Marilyn Manson? This guy GETS IT! He fucking GETS IT! I'm bored to tears with Hollywood Horror movies like The Boogyman, Jeepers Creepers and all the I-Scream-While-You-Got-Stabbed-Last-Summer clones. Rob Zombie's movies top the list - they aren't worth a wad of used toilet paper, and are almost as horrific, which is to say; not at all.

Now whether M.M. can Follow Through on this big talk, or whether it turns out to be a pile of pretentious crap like Doppelhertz... I guess only time will tell. In the meantime, I would very much like to see him succeed.


Blog on,
-CZ

Labels: Hollywood, Movie News, Ubercool

Looks like someone is trying to make a movie that's worse than Bloodrayne.

Blog on,
-CZ

Labels: anti, Hollywood, Movie News, movie reviews, new release

Hopefully, you have all seen Fear of Girls I

Fear of Girls 2 should be kicking about soon, and I just got to see it last weekend. Way, way funny. The talent behind this project is amazing, the writing, the acting, the direction, sound and lighting... but the best part is the timing. No, I take that back. The best part is that it is an indie film made here in Minnesota. Sadly, if you don't know what 'Hit Points' or 'Alignment' are, you might miss out on some of the humor.

Alright, so making fun of people who play D&D is easy (like cow-tipping), but after hearing multiple reviews of what a horseshit movie Eragonwas, I wish more indie films like Fear Of Girls 1 and 2 would rise up and tip the cow that is Hollywood right into the ocean of obscurity.

[Potential reality, years from now]

"Daddy, what is a Hollywood?"

"Well, you know how when we go to the zoo, and see all the wierd and interesting animals?"

"Sure, so Hollywood was like going to the zoo?"

"Kind of, except it was really expensive, and not as interesting; just wierd."

"Did they throw their own poo? (giggle)"

"They certainly did! They threw it all over the world, and they even named it; Star Wars - The Phantom Menace, Bloodrayne, King Kong, Eragon..."


Blog on,
-CZ

Labels: Hollywood, indie movies, Movie News, movie reviews

Sam Raimi is a good director. I really liked his TV work (Xena, Cleopatra 2525, Hercules, Jack of all Trades, were all fair shows, (let's skip right by M.A.N.T.I.S., shall we?) But those were TV *action* shows.

Sam Raimi has no concept of Horror. NONE. The little naked kid dipped in flour and wearing mascara and dark contact lenses (typically played back with dropped frames) was pretty spooky...back when I first saw it in The Ring. But then it was done. And like any fad, that one got beat to death. I don't think there is a single video from Asia Tartan Extreme at Hollywood Video that Doesn't have a pic of the spooky kid on the cover. I've seen it so much now, that if I woke up in the middle of the night and saw the spooky kid hanging from my bedroom wall, I would tell him to piss off, roll over and go back to sleep. Sam still thinks it's scary, and bases entire movies around his No-Trick-Pony.

However, Sam has learned about the Sting. Sam knows that there is an instinctual thing that makes you jump, or gasp or scream in reaction to sudden visual or audio cues (Stings). This will always work, but it is NOT HORROR. It is a tool used in Horror Movies, but by itself it is no more Horror than a cup of flour is a pancake. (For example, The Forgotten, relied on Stings throughout the movie to keep the audience from falling asleep). No matter how many times I pretend to punch you in the face, and stop an inch from your eyes, you will blink. You can't not blink. Like I said, it is instinctual. Sam knows this, and he thinks this is Horror.

But it is not.

Because it ain't scary no more. That's right Sam. Not scary Sam. Like Crazins. Not Scary. Like Aspartame. Not Horror.

Of course Sam Raimi will probably never realize this, since he doesn't read my blog, and since he made about a bazillion dollars off the most unhorrifying horror movies ever made. The Boogyman and The Grudge. Yes, I saw them both. I even gave The Grudge the proper environment, watching it late at night with the lights off. Not Horror. Annoying perhaps, like being on hold with Comcast Tech Support, but not Horror.

Using stings as a crutch to make your unscary Flour-Boy seem scary is not Horror. It is Startling. It is Jarring. It is going to cause even normal people to launch into an epileptic seizure. Of course it is also going to make him another bazillion dollars when he does it again in Grudge 2. Check out the trailer here. Warning: May induce epileptic seizures.

We need to come up with a different genre for this dogshit. When I go to the Horror section to rent a Horror movie, I want to see something Horrific. Startling alone is not Horror, and does not count. Put it in the Jumpy section.

Hey Sam, here is an idea for Grudge 3, just run a black slate for 90 min, and randomly drop in a couple still pix with a giant audio hit. Watch the crowd jump! Best part is the pictures can be of anything at all, and the crowd will still jump!

"Oh my God, an Ostrich!"

"AAA! Crazins!"

"Holy Shit! A little boy dipped in flour! Did you see that?"

"Oh! I think I'm having a seizure!"

Blog on,
-CZ

Labels: Hollywood, Movie News, movie reviews, Ubersuck

God, I wish I was making this up. Uwe Boll, the man responsible for such atrocisities against humanity as "Alone In The Dark" and "Bloodrayne" is somehow still employed making movies based on video games, and currently is wrapping up shooting a movie based on the game Dungeon Siege. Once finished, the worst filmmaker in the world will hack out a movie based on the worst video game in the world: Postal.

For those who don't know, Postal is based loosly around a postal worker who goes bonkers and starts killing people (I seem to remember this was an ongoing occurance, Workers of the US Post Office going on killing sprees, which actually spawned this strange use of the phrase "Going Postal" meaning go into a beserker killing rage - Strange days indeed.) The game was simply a top-down shooter strategy game you can check it out and even download the demo from gamespot. I believe this was the first game to have a flamethrower as a weapon. The goal of the game was just to kill people, and it got all kinds of bad press, and all kinds of kids like me to rush to download the demo.

Imagine the world's surprise when a second version of the game was released, even more over the top, and to give you an idea, one of the weapons at your disposal was your, um..., your well, your penis. Yes that's right, you could piss on anything in the game, including yourself if you pissed straight up in the air, (which was actually how you put yourself out if you caught on fire) And the sound effects were disturbingly good.

No I'm not making this up.

The Postal game series was intended to push the limits of what is acceptable in gaming, just like Uwe Boll's movies push the limits of what is acceptable for entertainment, so the two should be a perfect match.

Now the good part.

Uwe Boll is sick of the criticism he recieves on his dreadful films, and has challenged his detractors to a boxing match. Those who wrote anything negative about Boll before 2006 can send a copy to info@boll-kg.de and some will be selected to go toe-to-toe with Boll in the boxing ring. The boxing matches between Boll and 'those who dont understand his work' will be recorded and parts used in the upcoming Postal movie.

No, really, I am NOT making this up.

Among the challenged is yet another horseshit movie maker: Quentin Tarantino.

Remember when the two geekiest kids in your school fought eachother to see who was at the very bottom of the pecking order? Who will win? Who cares! I personally think they should fight eachother in the ring with flamethrowers, then everyone wins!

Blog on,
-CZ

Labels: Funny, Movie News