Faking Porn, Fart 2. Somewhere along the way, the tween girlie movie series TWILIGHT transmorphed into the painfully overwrought “THE TWILIGHT SAGA,” like there was something extremely important happening between all these vampire models standing around doing nothing and all these werewolf models standing around doing nothing with their shirts off. So we arrive at the conclusion of author Stephenie … Read More
ABRAHAM LINCOLN VAMPIRE HUNTER
Cutting Bloody Political Comedy. ABRAHAM LINCOLN VAMPIRE HUNTER is a film about the blood-drinking creatures of the night, the hellish, undead demon-spawn that crave the annihilation of the human species – that’s right, it’s about Republicans. Ironic then, that the hunter of these bloodsuckers is none other than the most famous Republican, Abraham Lincoln – fighting to free the world … Read More
TWILIGHT BREAKING DAWN PART 1
Breaking Wind, Fart 1. The two-part laborious conclusion to the most trivial love story ever told, TWILIGHT: BREAKING DAWN PART 1, opens with a wedding sequence, exactly like the one in THE GODFATHER, with two small differences: it’s not about New York Crime Families, and it’s not good. Edward the Vampire (Hayden Christensen doppelganger Robert Pattinson) and Bella Swan the … Read More
HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA
Goolies Not Groovie. I really wanted to like HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA: an animated comedy with a cute concept (iconic screen monsters gathering at a resort set up by Dracula, far from the persecution of humans) and a simple boy-meets-girl story, featuring the talents of director Genndy Tartakovsky (the wild mind behind DEXTER’S LABORATORY and THE POWERPUFF GIRLS) and writer Robert Smigel … Read More
TWILIGHT: ECLIPSE
The Tween Team. So it has come to this. After the vampire wars and the werewolf killings, after the tempest of accepting a human unto the clan of the undead, after the dark skies of Forks presage death raining rivers of blood, TWILIGHT ECLIPSE has come to this, the most chilling decision mankind has ever faced: Team Edward or Team Jacob. Edward … Read More
VAN HELSING
It was a Monster Mash! How does Kate Beckinsale run in those stilettos? She is one of the most beautiful women on this ugly planet – but that Boris-and-Natasha accent is a real turn-off. Her Transylvanian is worse than Don Cheadle’s cockney. In VAN HELSING, Beckinsale is Anna Valerious, a European village warrior woman with big hair, big sword and … Read More
DYLAN DOG: DEAD OF NIGHT
Doggy doo. Brandon Routh is soooo Christopher Reeve. He wasn’t this much Christopher Reeve even when he was Superman. You would think that anyone who hired Reeve – I mean, Routh – post-SUPERMAN RETURNS (after which he was unfairly stripped of the cape), would cast him as a character as far from the Man of Steel as possible, but in … Read More
DRACULA 2000
Bloody Hell! There is one very provocative idea in DRACULA 2000 – all the rest is crap. The crap goes like this: In 2000, Dracula comes to New Orleans seeking the daughter of Van Helsing. Bland action movie ensues. Only redeeming factor is that every chick is groin-achingly hot. The provocative idea is that Dracula is not a warrior impaler … Read More
TWILIGHT NEW MOON
Dead – and Mumbling It. Kristen Stewart mumbles her way through another TWILIGHT movie. Synopsis of NEW MOON on the BluRay cover: “In the second chapter of Stephenie Meyer‘s best-selling TWILIGHT series, the romance between mortal Bella Swan and vampire Edward Cullen gets more intense.” And by more intense, they mean he almost gets to second base. Stewart once again … Read More
BRAM STOKER’S DRACULA
Delicious, with a hint of sour Keanu. In BRAM STOKER’S DRACULA, Gary Oldman shows us what acting IS and Keanu Reeves shows us what acting ISN’T. We all know the concept of Dracula; it is in our – ahem – bloodstreams, but in cinema, we rarely see Dracula’s origins. Director Francis Ford Coppolla opens the movie with the event that … Read More
TWILIGHT
Bloodless. A chick falls in love with a fey vampire. They don’t have sex. The End. Vampires used to be scary once. The iconography of the blood-drinking psychotic, the shape-shifting coffin-dweller, reached a horrifying zenith with the novel Dracula by Bram Stoker (published 1897). Then came the startling film NOSFERATU (1922). Modern media has progressively been bleeding out all the … Read More
UNDERWORLD
Overwrought Underworld. Guns, Gore and Grrrrrls in growling leather. UNDERWORLD gives a shot in the arm, so to speak, to the vampire and werewolf iconographies, updating/reimagining both to be in an ongoing millennia-aged war that is escalating, plopping them in modern day Europe (or somewhere with underground rail transport and rain that won’t quit) with automatic weapons and computers. And … Read More
DRACULA
Evil’s Fruity Face. DRACULA is a mediocre 1931 movie, but the concept of the undead, blood-craving supernatural demon is so mythically instilled in the planet’s – ahem – bloodstream that this movie’s ongoing mighty aura is more due to the CONCEPT of the vampire entrenched in society’s psyche than any movie-making quality the film-makers might have aspired to. It was … Read More
DRACULA: DEAD AND LOVING IT
Frightfully Fangless. In DRACULA: DEAD AND LOVING IT, Leslie Nielsen is the vampire Count Dracula. We presume this retelling of Bram Stoker‘s tale is a comedy. We presume wrong, as writer-director Mel Brooks steers it as far from funny as Disneyland is from Transylvania. One would imagine the comic radar of the genius auteur who helmed BLAZING SADDLES, HISTORY OF … Read More