B-MOVIE NEWS, REVIEWS, AND OTHER ASSORTED WEIRDNESS FROM THE FOYWONDER

MIND-BLOWING MUST-SEE TRAILER FOR ROBOGEISHA

2009-07-10T09:04:10Z

If you haven't yet sees the trailer yet for the upcoming Japanese gonzo sci-fi action flick ROBOGEISHA then I implore you to stop what you are doing right now and bare witness. Probably NOT SAFE FOR WORK, but who cares? I cannot imagine how the movie can possibly live up to the berserkness teased in this trailer. If it does, it will be one of the greatest things ever forged by man - possibly the Sistine Chapel of Japanese pop culture.

REVIEW: TRANSMORPHERS: FALL OF MAN

2009-07-07T03:51:02Z

A worldwide robot alien invasion lays waste to civilization as we know it forcing pockets of human survivors to seek shelter anywhere. The might of military powers prove impotent in their counterattack. The Russians manage to capture one of these robots and successfully tortures it into giving up its secrets. Small bands of resistance fighters try unsuccessfully to fight back. Survivors forced underground by a poisonous gas that has spread across the globe. There's a hell of a movie going on in TRANSMORPHERS: FALL OF MAN - too bad most of it is occurring off-camera. We hear about it. We see little of it.

Say what you will about Leigh Scott's TRANSMORPHERS; he deserves credit for even attempting to make an epic futuristic giant robot holocaust flick with an atmospheric look and serious sci-fi action tone given the tiny budget he had to work with. Was he entirely successful? Nope. But better to be overly ambitious junk than just a heaping pile of useless scrap metal, which is exactly what this present day Asylum mockbuster prequel is.

The first half possesses some camp value stemming from it being what I imagine a TRANSFORMERS movie would have been like if Roger Corman had produced it back in the Nineties when he was doing CARNOSAUR and that FANTASTIC FOUR film that never got released. A cellular phone turns into a robot spider, a dashboard-mounted GPS unit fires death rays, a satellite dish transforms into a Terminator-ish endoskeleton; by the time we're watching Bruce Boxleitner in a car chase with a driver-less truck that turns into a robot and proceeds to unleash such tremendous carnage as lightly rocking the vehicle Boxleitner is driving, all I could think was this is pure 1990's Corman.

To watch one of these transmorphers fly after a speeding SUV is to believe that somewhere out there in this vast universe lurks a technologically superior race of malevolent machines that look like anorexic Gundam and soar through the air with all the wobbly grace of William Katt's "Greatest American Hero" in his inaugural flight.

The much crummier second half is even more of a mockbuster of TERMINATOR: SALVATION than The Asylum's TERMINATORS mockbuster from just two months back. There is such a dramatic leap from the outset of the invasion to survivors grouped together talking in the past tense about what just took place minutes earlier as if a much longer period of time had transpired I couldn't help but get the feeling that a reel had been skipped.

Shane Van Dyke (Grandson of Dick, looking like a surfer dude version of Brian Krause) is an ex-soldier back from the war now working as a satellite repairman. Like all satellite repairmen, he carries a firearm with him at all times and isn't nearly as stunned as one would expect upon encountering a shape-shifting c-band satellite dish at his ex-girlfriend's house. We learn his specialty in the military involved artificial intelligence. Awfully convinient, not that this skill ever really comes in handy.

His ex-girlfriend's father happens to be the local sheriff (old pro Bruce Boxleitner) and together the three of them go off investigating robot related deaths. They meet up with a Homeland Security X-Files agent (Jennifer Rubin, for this you came out of an 8-year retirement from acting?) from who they'll come to learn that all modern technology was derived from the wreckage of the 1950's Roswell UFO crash. What we didn't know is that we were set-up and our technological devices have the ability to transmorph into robot attackers. Good thing Armageddon is at hand or else I can think of a slew of electronics manufacturing corporations that would be facing class action lawsuits out the yin yang for never noticing that particular design quirk.

Together, with assistance from the rather inept military, they set out to stop the transforming alien attackers from sending out a beacon to their deep space brethren that will signal the launch of all-out invasion of Earth. You would think getting the signal out wouldn't be that hard considering one of these robots can already transmorph into a rather large c-band satellite dish.

After a hard day of learning that extraterrestrials are real, doing battle with robots from beyond the stars and preventing them from signaling an invasion, not to mention getting orphaned by them in the process, what better way to unwind than with a beer at a local watering hole and night of make-up sex. Then you can awaken the next time to find out you didn't stop them from phoning home after all and the end of the world is at hand.

They should have just ended the movie here and called it a day. Instead they insisted on a feature length film and that left a whole lot of time to fill and not much of a special effects budget to fill it with. The useless second half practically turns into its own sequel with Van Dyke's soldier-cum-satellite repairman becoming the John Connor of the TRANSMORPHERS universe. New characters are introduced; everyone keeps briefing each other on all the action occurring elsewhere that sounds like a movie you'd much rather be watching.

As with TERMINATOR: SALVATION, the objective is to blow up an enemy facility. As with TERMINATOR: SALVATION, when the smoke cleared and the closing credits rolled, I was left sitting in my seat with a profound sense that nothing had really been accomplished by any of what I'd just wasted my time watching.

If nothing else, at least unlike a certain Michael Bay sequel, the running time of TRANSMORPHERS: FALL OF MAN clocks in under 90-minutes. Now if only they would have given us less running during that time.

VIEW-MASTER: THE MOTION PICTURE???

2009-07-06T06:10:37Z

As Hollywood producers continue their mentality of preferring movies based on pre-existing properties they perceive to have name recognition and development money continues to dry up due to the current economic climate that in turn leaves the door open for companies to entice Hollywood to make movies based on their products, a big screen Hollywood movie based around the old View-Master toy doesn't sound so improbable. I take that back. A movie based on View-Master sounds as imbecilic as it is. What toy-to-film will they announce next? Lincoln Logs? Colorforms? Magic Sand? Silly Putty? Shrinky-Dinks? Etch-A-Sketch? Simon?

Ain't It Cool News has the not-so-cool news announcing that plans are in the works for a movie based on a cheap plastic visor that allows you to look at three-dimensional slides using disc wheels. Anyone wanna bet that the movie will be done in the style of JUMANJI with a magic View-Master transporting people to places or unleashing it right there. Probably be filmed in 3-D, too. Unbelievable.

I would now like to take this opportunity to announce that this will be my final posting online. This morning I will be meeting with Fox honcho Tom Rothman, at which time I will be pitching him my idea for a movie based on Mr. Microphone. A picked-on teenage boy getting his hands on a cursed Mister Microphone; speaking into it allows him to torment and control the minds of his enemies via the sound of his staticky voice emanating out of their radios and stereos. The idea is can't-miss, it'll be greenlit in a heartbeat, and I'll be an instant millionaire. And because of my newfound position as a Hollywood weasel I won't have time for trifle stuff like entertaining you peons with Foyeurisms and blog postings. So long, suckers!

JULY FOYEURISM: THE DISASTER WILL BE TELEVISED

2009-07-03T01:09:02Z

With July being a month associated with a holiday famous for fireworks and explosions, what better month to spot light two made-for-television disaster flicks loaded with fireworks and explosions. There was going to be a third review but I had to call time. One unleashes hell from below; the other brings death from above. One is absolutely ridiculous; the other has its moments of absurdity but makes the mistake of being two-hours too long. One will soon premiere on the Sci-Fi Channel; the other, shockingly, was not made for the Sci-Fi Channel but I'd be willing to bet you a shiny new bicycle it will be making the rounds on that channel sooner rather than later.

FIRE FROM BELOW pits Kevin Sorbo as a geologist (Stop laughing!) trying to prevent a lithium cataclysm. Brace yourselves for epic incinerations.

IMPACT stars the girl from SPECIES and the guy from JAG as scientists trying to figure out a way to save the Earth as the moon threatens to crash into us. Kiss gravity goodbye.

Will Earth survive either disastrophe? Will James Cromwell survive this Foyeurism? Only one way to find out.

JULY FOYEURISM: THE DISASTER WILL BE TELEVISED

ONE STEP CLOSER TO MY ULTIMATE DREAM OF A SINISTAR MOVIE

2009-07-02T19:06:03Z

Which do you find more comically disturbing: that Universal is going to produce a big screen movie based on the classic arcade game ASTEROIDS or that Universal had to engage in a four-studio bidding war to win the rights to make a big screen ASTEROIDS movie?

It sounds like some sort of ridiculous joke. A big budget special effects science fiction action flick based on a plotless 1979 video game about a triangle-shaped spaceship blasting asteroids while trying to avoid getting smashed by them. Better believe the occupants of that enemy flying saucer are going to suddenly play a much bigger role.

But it's not a joke, at least not according to The Hollywood Reporter. Today they report that super producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura (TRANSFORMERS, G.I. JOE, DOOM) will produce a motion picture based on a 30-year old video game all about shooting polygons. Disney script doctor Mark Lopez (BEDTIME STORIES, RACE TO WITCH MOUNTAIN) has been given the daunting task of formulating a plot out of this plotless game. Expect a precocious kid aboard the rock-blasting spaceship.

In other related news, somewhere in Hollywood a screenwriter with an original idea not based on a toy, video game, comic book, old television show, or a pre-existing film just pitched his script to a studio and was promptly thrown off the lot and told never to come back.

REVIEW: MONSTER X STRIKES BACK: ATTACK THE G8 SUMMIT

2009-07-01T03:46:01Z

I have loved THE X FROM OUTER SPACE since I was a kid watching Japanese monster movies airing on Saturday and Sunday mornings. The movie is quite bad, endearingly so. The monster, Guilala, is simply astounding. I have been waiting for Guilala to get a second chance. During the Nineties when Godzilla and Gamera were seeing a resurgence, I kept crossing my fingers in hopes that Guilala would also make a comeback. Sure, Guilala only appeared in one movie that flopped in the Sixties, but, again, what a spectacular flop. Just look at the absurdity of the Guilala design. Body wise, it looks like a cross between a chicken, a dinosaur, and The Michelin Man. Its head looks like the head of one of the monsters from Pitch Black if it were to be dried out like a raisin; add on a chicken’s beak, Ultraman’s eyes, bobbling antennas, and whatever the hell that was on the head of Snork. The Guilala design is either hopelessly absurd or a work of cockeyed genius - perhaps both.

When it was announced that THE X FROM OUTER SPACE was making a return and it was going to be in a new film from the wacky director of such certifiably insane films as The Calamari Wrestler and Executive Koala using the same style of special effects as that seen in the original 1967 film, my heart was filled with joy. If you don't believe how happy I was at the time just read the article I wrote announcing the film on Dread Central and feel the joy in my words. Despite word that the movie was a total flop at the Japanese box office and decidedly mixed word of mouth, I nonetheless remained giddy at the prospect of seeing my second favorite giant Japanese monster behind Godzilla in a brand new film. Now I have finally seen MONSTER X STRIKES BACK: ATTACK THE G8 SUMMIT. You know the ugly sound a balloon makes as air quickly leaks out of it? That was my heart.

Guilala has fallen from space in Japan at the time the leaders of the United States, Britain, Canada, Russia, Germany, Italy, France, and, of course, Japan are meeting for the G8 Summit. The braggadocios American President talks all the other world leaders out of running away, arguing that it is their duty to destroy the monster and would make them all look better in the court of public opinion. Various world leaders take turns coming up with a harebrained scheme to defeat Guilala that would even leave Wile E. Coyote shaking his head at the lameness.

A female reporter has stumbled upon a rural village where the locals worship a multi-armed golden deity named Take-Majin. Spoofing all the scenes in various Godzilla movies of primitive villagers dancing and chanting to their monster god, the goofy choreography of these Take-Majin worshippers is amusing the first time you see it - not so much the third and fourth.

You go into a Minoru Kawasaki movie expecting a healthy dose of absurdism bordering on the surreal. But as unapologetically ridiculous as his films are, there's always a sense of some sort of demented intelligence behind it. That method behind the madness is what's sorely missing from MONSTER X STRIKES BACK: ATTACK THE G8 SUMMIT. Whether it was due to budgetary restraints or Kawasaki's own misguided focus, the majority of the film focuses not on Guilala creating havoc, but on political humor so lame you'd think it was written by a five-year old. The Italian President makes numerous references to pizza and shouts phrases like "Mamma mia!" The French President is a horndog more interested in bedding an attractive female interpreter than discussing politics or stopping a rampaging monster. The Japanese Prime Minister is a coward who disappears in time of crisis. The American President - meant to be Bush even though the actor more physically resembles Clinton - is a pompous blowhard itching for a fight against a giant monster. Childish stereotypes, every last one of them. When a certain North Korean dictator makes his presence known, MONSTER X STRIKES BACK: ATTACK THE G8 SUMMIT makes the political barbs of TEAM AMERICA: WORLD POLICE look like DR. STRANGELOVE.

The closest Kawasaki ever comes to sly political satire is when Russian President "Pucchin" formulates a plan to poison Guilala with a missile containing polonium-210, the very poison real-life Russian President Vladimir Putin is believed to have had used to eliminate political foes.

The funniest gag the film has to offer comes early in when a child clearly based on the annoying "Kenny" character from the Gamera movies suddenly appears in the summit room with the world and military leaders giving his childish take on why the monster should be named Guilala. In all the older daikaiju films, the adults would give an amazing amount of credence to the ramblings of this child. Not this time; the child is forcibly removed kicking and screaming from the room by security guards.

Now I know a lot of viewers of Japanese monster movies couldn't give a spit about the lousy plots or the terrible acting and just care about how cool the monster action. Sadly, Guilala's antics aren't much better than the attempts at humor. A healthy amount of recycled monster destruction action from the original 1967 THE X FROM OUTER SPACE is used throughout. Seeing this footage remastered only succeeded in making me long for a formal US DVD release of the first Guilala flick. They only appeared to have a single cramped Japanese countryside set for the new Guilala scenes that mostly consist of Guilala quite literally standing around and waiting for something to happen. It just stands around waiting to get attacked; the attack fails and then it waits for the next attempt. Kawasaki even has Guilala give off a hearty belly laugh after a series of failed attempts to destroy him, a moment that somehow manages to feel out of character even in a film as silly as this.

The finale has Japanese cult actor Beat Takeshi going all Ultraman against Guilala in golden armor as the monster-fighting Take-Majin come to gigantic life. Given the loony visuals Kawasaki has put to screen during the action scenes in his past films you'd think this Guilala vs. Take-Majin would have been chock full of over-the-top wackiness. Yet what should have been the movie's highlight proves to be a shockingly routine Ultraman-ish battle with a cartoony sight gag or two. What should have been a tour-de-farce monster battle ends up being shockingly unimaginative.

All of the unintended goofiness and shortcomings of the original 1967 film make it inherently funnier and more fun to watch than Kawasaki's intentional parody of the genre. Big disappointment.

Monster X strikes out.

JUST ASKING...

2009-06-27T01:13:26Z

So how long do you think it will be until Hollywood produces a Michael Jackson biopic and will Tilda Swinton win an Oscar for playing him?

REVIEW: HELLHOUNDS

2009-06-24T04:10:15Z

Ancient Greece: the royal wedding between lovebirds Kleitos (bland generi-hunk Scott Elrod) and Demetria (Amanda Brooks, determined to prove her lifeless performance in DRAGON WARS was not just the fault of an inept Korean filmmaker) takes a tragic turn when the bride-to-be is poisoned by a jealous rival. Demetria now finds herself imprisoned in the underworld where she walks around an awful lot looking more confused than frightened. The evil God of the Underworld, Hades, dressed in his finest Rancor Monster Trainer attire, wants to keep Demetria has his own personal virgin love slave. With the blessing of Demetria's kingly father (Ben Cross, long removed from his CHARIOTS OF FIRE glory days), Kleitos embarks on a treacherous rescue mission into the underworld that could end in he and his few loyal comrades-in-arms, including his Greek mythology know-it-all scholarly wimp of a kid brother, all ending up trapped in an afterlife of eternal torment - like being forced to watch this movie over and over again until the end of time.

HELLHOUNDS is the sort of movie that Ray Harryhausen could make in his sleep. I wish he would watch HELLHOUNDS; the film is so devoid of entertainment value it would probably put him to sleep and during that period he might take me up on that previous sentence. This is also the same type of fantasy-adventure-horror hybrid that "Hercules: The Legendary Journeys" and "Xena: Warrior Princess" pulled off with considerably more enthusiasm and excitement on a weekly basis. To watch HELLHOUNDS is to wonder if director Ricky Schroeder (Yes, that Ricky Schroeder!) or anyone involved on the production side had ever seen a Ray Harryhausen movie or a single episode of "Hercules" and "Xena" or any sword & sandal fantasy film for that matter. HELLHOUNDS should have been titled "Lack of the Titans" because it lacks everything that makes a Greek mythology movie fun to watch.

Bad actors in togas walk to the underworld and then they walk about the underworld. Confrontations are few and mostly uneventful. Finding the princess in this cavernous afterlife proves surprisingly simple and then they return to the surface world to walk around some more. An annoyed Hades stands around and orders his canine minions to go after them. Kind of hard to sell the audience that these warriors are on a perilous adventure when there is very little actual peril and no sense of adventure. A few brief sword fights and fleeing from the brief appearances of Hades' hellhounds are the only times when characters appeared to even break a sweat.

I won't even point the fingers at the screenwriters because I know the film was produced in part by RHI Entertainment and given my experience watching their contributions to the Sci-Fi Channel's cinematic library it would appear they mandate screenwriters adhere to a strict policy of keeping their films as simplistically formulaic as possible in order to guarantee maximum blandness. After sitting through this latest dog of theirs, I'm strongly considering boycotting any future films that I know RHI Entertainment had a hand in the production of outside of merely serving as a distributor. I'll take a poorly made movie that makes me roll my eyes over a workmanlike production so hopelessly banal it makes my eyes glaze over.

As for the lame title creatures, Hades non-three-headed canine minions are abysmally computer animated hounds with saber-toothed fangs and glowing eyes. A pack of satanic Marmaduke's would have been more frightening.

INTERVIEW WITH A HOBGOBLIN

2009-06-23T10:15:52Z

I don't do interviews very often. But with today being the release of the highly anticipated by somebody HOBGOBLINS 2, I did a breezy interview at Dread Central with the film's writer-director Rick Sloane. Sloane encouraged me to take a look at some other recent interviews he'd done in hopes that I could come up with some different questions to ask. I took that as my own invitation to make mischief - much like the fuzzy fiends of his most recent film. Hope you enjoy this lighthearted interview with a filmmaker most famous for making a film even he has labeled a "disasterpiece". Click the link below before the Hobgoblins get you.

INTERVIEW WITH HOBGOBLINS FILMMAKER RICK SLOANE

THE ASYLUM SEES EMMERICH'S 2012 AND RAISES IT A MEGAFAULT

2009-06-22T04:18:22Z

I find it hard to believe that the eventual premiere of The Asylum's first made-for-SyFy original movie MEGAFAULT will not be timed in some way to the November theatrical release of Roland Emmerich's 2012. I could be wrong. Disaster flicks do seem to be in vogue once again.

MEGAFAULT stars Brittany Murphy as a seismologist (Paging Dr. Christmas Jones!) paired up with a veteran miner played by ER's Eriq La Salle out to stop a massive earthquake that threatens to tear the world in half. The venerable Bruce Davison co-stars. Not sure what his role is but given who he is and his pose on the artwork, my guess would be scientific or military authority figure, quite possibly of the obstructionist kind.

How the heck do you stop an earthquake? Fill the faultline with rubber cement? Hold it at gunpoint and order it to stand down? Eh, who am I kidding? You just know the answer is going to involve nuking something. Nuclear weapons are nature's ultimate band-aid, you know?

Now for any of you wondering how Brittany Murphy's career has fallen to the point that she's now starring in an Asylum production made specifically for SyFy, I say to you the same thing I told someone on my message board when they expressed a similar sentiment: "Have you ever taken a look at Brittany Murphy's filmography on IMDB? It's never been that impressive."

By the way, is that supposed to be Murphy on the promo art because it sure looks more like Meredith Monroe to me.

2012: THE YEAR ROLAND EMMERICH FINALLY DESTROYS EVERYTHING

2009-06-18T23:06:19Z

It's no secret that I'm no fan of Roland Emmerich (and not just because of the GODZILLA debacle either). Like Stephen Sommers, I always feel a little bit dumber after subjecting myself to one of his films. I'd argue his best film to date has been the alright DEATH WISH 1776 (aka THE PATRIOT), his least disaster-riffic film to date. He's constantly compared to Irwin Allen but Irwin Allen actually had decent screenwriters giving his characters less boneheaded things to say and do in between the special effect money shots, at least he did until THE SWARM and WHEN TIME RAN OUT pretty much put the nail in the coffin of his career. Unlike Emmerich, who for some reason is allowed to keep writing his own scripts; now that's a real recipe for disaster. I mean did you see 10,000 BC? Oof.

You'd think by now after having aliens assault Earth, a giant iguana gallop about New York City, and subjecting us all to one of those pesky 72-hour ice ages he'd have gotten the mass destruction of civilization as we know it bug out of his system. As if. Emmerich's newest is 2012 and given all the hubub about the I'll come right out and say that this is the Roland Emmerich movie I am most looking forward to more than any other. I've been dying to see it ever since reading a hilarious review of the script on Ain't It Cool News. Everything about the script sounds like it could make for a tremendous parody of over-the-top apocalyptic disaster flicks except this is all played with a deadly seriousness.

John Cusack stars as a sad-faced struggling science fiction writer trying to save his children as the earth's core begins overheating and setting off every conceivable natural catastrophe (super volcanoes, mega tsunamis, nigh invulnerable earthquakes) on a certain day in December of 2012 leading to the end of the CGI world as we know it. It's a madcap disaster-filled race to the government's man-made ark-like spaceships in Tibet we've had on standby just in case the Mayans turned out to be right after all.

If the movie is anything like the script AICN review (and I assume it is since it was strike script which means no rewrites and the review describes how much of the movie consists of Cusack and his family in airplanes and helicopters narrowly taking off before the earth collapses beneath them, something the trailer shows a whole lot of) then on November 12th we're going to be in for a hell of a splendidly silly time.

For those that don't want to have much of the movie spoiled by reading the AICN script review but still want a good idea what to expect from this cockamamie nonsense Emmerich has cooked up for us, the President is black (as is always the case these days in Hollywood disaster flicks) and his name is "Goldie" Wilson (Yes, as in the Mayor from BACK TO THE FUTURE). His Chief-of-Staff is a white prick named Anheuser (Yes, as in Bush, the beer and possibly the ex-President). I think this scene description from the AICN script review should tell you all you need to know about what the half-baked mentality of this movie is going to be like:

"In the meantime, President Wilson opts out of his spot on Air Force One, preferring to go down with the vestiges of civilization at the White House (which gets demolished by a tsunami carrying the USS John F. Kennedy). This leaves Anheuser in command of... very little, really, but he entertainingly runs what's left of the country with an avowedly racist zeal (the height of his George Wallace act being the moment he cruelly informs scientific advisor Helmsley (Chiwetel Ejiofor) that his White House gig was an affirmative action sop)."

So without further ado, I present to you the official disaster-rama trailer for CANNONBALL RUN FOR YOUR LIFE - I mean Roland Emmerich's 2012.

JUST HOW AWFUL IS G.I. JOE: RISE OF COBRA?

2009-06-12T02:25:18Z

I know it shouldn't come as any surprise to hear that a big screen movie based on G.I. JOE directed by Stephen Sommers and working from a script that was rushed into production at the last moment before last year's writers strike would turn out bad. Apparently rumors had been swirling around Hollywood for weeks now that Paramount was aware that G.I. JOE: RISE OF COBRA was a major stinker, and with a budget said to be between $150-200 million, "major" is indeed the word for such a stinker. The story finally broke open today as numerous movie websites (Joblo, CHUD, Latino Review, Hollywood Elsewhere, AICN, Movieline, etc) have been reporting on a mysterious post on the message board of TRANSFORMERS' producer Don Murphy from someone claiming to have inside knowledge of the behind the scenes debacle:

"After a test screening [of G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra] in which the film got the lowest test score ever from an audience in the history of Paramount, the executive who pushed for the movie -- Brad Weston -- had Stephen Sommers, the superhack director of the film, fired. Removed. Locked out of the editing room.

Stuart Baird, a renowned fixer editor, was brought it to try to see if G.I. Joe could be made releasable. Meanwhile producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura, whose turkey Imagine That (also championed by Weston) explodes this weekend as the new bomb in theatres, was told his services were no longer needed on the film either.

Sommers was then forced by his William Morris agents to pretend that he was working on Tarzan over at Warner Brothers, doing design work, even though that film doesn't even have a good script yet. When word of the firing started to be whispered about in Hollywood, Sommers was summoned back to the editing room but merely to save appearances. Baird is still re-editing the movie with studio input.

Hasbro CEO Brian Goldner, who turned down other offers from the property to go with the script that was rushed out in eight weeks by Stuart Beattie (i.e., because of the writer's strike), is frantic that the Sommers-created debacle will destroy the brand and is now distancing himself from the pending catastophe.

None of this needed to happen. The problem is that someone did not know the mythology. Lorenzo di Bonaventura was in charge of the film and never contradicted Sommers on anything. Lorenzo, so you know, was previously a senior Warners honcho and had GI Joe under option there (not as a producer) for seven years and he refused to greenlight the film, stating that because he grew up in Italy he had no knowledge of it.

If you google enough, at one point you will see he wanted the film to be about an action hero named Mann (Action Man...got it) and he clearly had no clue what the GI Joe world really was.

And the hapless hack Sommers? Where did he come from? The confused Jon Fogelman at William Morris, who signed Hasbro away from CAA, had to find a director in a hurry for his new clients and gave [Paramount] the only guy who he repped who would do it. A sad end to what could have been a great franchise. Acceleration suits indeed."

That above post detailing the behind the scenes "G.I. woes" has since been erased from Murphy's board, which isn't too surprising given di Bonaventura is one of his producing partners on TRANSFORMERS. But the genie now appears to be out of the bottle and as they say, "where there's smoke, there's fire." Talk inside the movie industry of the film being atrocious had been quietly making the rounds but nobody wanted to say anything publicly until now. CHUD.com's Devin Faraci added fuel to the fire with these comments on their message board:

"The story is essentially true. This has been common knowledge in town for a little while now.

But this story is like an iceberg, and there's a lot more under the surface that will never get reported, and that I won't go on the record about. Let's just say that the reporting on this is a battle of puppeteers.

From what I've heard the film couldn't be salvaged no matter who was editing it, so they brought Sommers back on to make it HIS disaster and so that he couldn't whine to the press that his vision was ruined by the studio."

Nothing like some good ol' Hollywood backstabbing and media manipulation to go along with bad news of a potential big budget bomb.

Lorenzo di Bonaventura has begun doing damage control claiming to Latino Review that all of it is nonsense and everything is turning out great. What would expect him to say? It's not like he or any other producer would admit to as much even if it were 100% true.

Chances are we're going to hear a whole lot more about the behind the scenes foibles and then find out for our own just how true these stories are when G.I. JOE: RISE OF COBRA opens on August 7th. I do have to say that the morbid curiosity as to just how terrible this movie has turned out is the first thing that's made me want to go see it. I also now marvel knowing that I will have now lived to see three of the great loves of my childhood (Masters of the Universe, Godzilla, G.I. Joe) made into awful Hollywood motion pictures.

Now I just have one question regardless of whether or not any of this is accurate. After the fiasco that was VAN HELSING, who in the right mind would give Stephen Sommers full creative control over a megabudget tentpole blockbuster movie? And then let him cast Marlon Wayans in a key role to boot?

END OF DAYS AGAIN AND NO SCHWARZENEGGER TO SAVE US

2009-06-10T23:10:21Z

We can only pray that this trend of making straight-to-DVD name-only sequels ends soon. I suspect these prayers will go unanswered and we'll continue to get inundated with low quality retreads of big screen movies that in many cases weren't all that good to begin with.

Universal has announced plans to produced END OF DAYS: DAMNATION for the DVD market. No other details are available at this time. No other details are really neccessary. The original END OF DAYS got an instant greenlight from the studio thanks to a one sentence pitch: Schwarzenegger vs. Satan. Suffice to say, Arnold Schwarzenegger will not be returning and not just because he sacrificed his life at the end of the original film. Don't know who they'll have battling the devil this time around but I can say without question that "Christian Slater vs. Satan" doesn't hold the same appeal. More than likely the sequel will nothing in common with the original film or its plot outside of the title.

Personally, I see no need for this sequel to exist. I consider the END OF DAYS to be one of the worst films of Schwarzenegger's career. This was a movie where the villain was the physical manifestation of Satan and yet this all powerful Satan mere hours away from bringing about hell on earth has to turn to his legions and yell, "Get him!" Ugh.

I do hope this name-only DVD sequel dares to trot out the original END OF DAYS ending that had to be changed after test audiences roared with laughter. In case you've never heard, the original ending saw Schwarzenegger destroy Satan by blasting him with rocket launcher. For real. One of these days that footage is going to surface.

TRANSMORPHERS: FALL OF MAN TRAILER

2009-06-07T20:27:13Z

Bruce Boxleitner, Jennifer Rubin, and Shane Van Dyke are humanity's only hope against the onslaught of transmorphing robot invaders in TRANSMORPHERS: FALL OF MAN, coming to DVD June 30th. Given this Asylum mockbuster is designed to be a prequel and the original TRANSMORPHERS was about a dark future where mankind was on the brink of extermination, I'm guessing the three of them fail miserably.

The trailer is loaded with Robotech-style robots having temper tantrums while actors go running like Forrest Gump in a Roland Emmerich disaster flick. If ever a trailer begged for the CHARIOTS OF FIRE theme music. I'm beginning to think the title ought to have been TRANSMORPHERS: HAUL OF ASS.

JUNE FOYEURISM: DANCE DANCE TRANSUBSTANTIATION

2009-06-05T06:49:21Z

The summer has begun. A time to celebrate and enjoy the Lord's overheated bounty. This month's Foyeurism brings us love, dancing, mind control, and Catholic conspiracies. I begin by lamenting LOVE N' DANCING, a film that's about exactly what the title implies. The new movie from the director of FROM JUSTIN TO KELLY, you're going to fall so in love with swing dancing you'll go deaf. Then I induct C ME DANCE into the hallowed halls of the Foyer. It just had to be done. Sure, I reviewed for Dread Central back in April, but that mindblowing bit of Christian fundamentalist propaganda is most deserving of Foyeurism immortalization. Rounding out the month is the greatest Vatican-based Scooby Doo episode never made: ANGELS & DEMONS.

If that's enough for you, ALF also gets raped in a bathroom. You know you wanna watch.

It's the June Foyeurism with the longest title in Foyeurism history. LOVE N' DANCING, C ME DANCE, and ANGELS & DEMONS: you'll love, you'll dance, you'll go deaf, you'll dump Billy Zane, you'll run around and point, you'll blow up the Vatican with an antimatter bomb, and then have your free will taken from you by a doe-eyed ingenue. But only if you click the link below.

JUNE FOYEURISM: DANCE DANCE TRANSUBSTANTIATION

MTV MOVIE AWARDS ENTER THE TWILIGHT ZONE

2009-06-02T00:59:04Z

Last night the MTV Movie Awards entered the Twilight zone and the tweener girl genital tingling tale of bloodlust and abstinence took home most of the awards. So all you Twilight haters, I got two words for you: suck it!

Best Movie of 2008: Twilight

Duh! Was there ever any doubt? The Dark Knight may have made upwards of a billion dollars worldwide but it has now been conclusively proven to be inferior to Robbert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart's stare-a-thon. The shimmering-in-sunlight story of awkward teen vamp romance even bested Oscar winning Best Picture Slumdog Millinaire in the category. It is written? Yep. And Stephanie Meyer wrote it. Use a life line for that, Jamal!

And the Twilight train didn't stop there.

Best Female Performance: Kristen Stewart (Twilight)
Breakthrough Performance (Male): Robert Pattinson (Twilight)
Best Fight: Cam Gigandet & Robert Pattinson (Twilight)
Best Kiss: Robert Pattinson & Kristen Stewart (Twilight)

To paraphrase The Platters, last night at the MTV Movie Awards, "Heavenly shades of night are falling; it's Twilight time."

Other non-Twilight and thus less important winners included:

Best Male Performance: Zac Efron (High School Musical 3: Senior Year)
Breakthrough Performance (Female): Ashley Tisdale (High School Musical 3: Senior Year)
Best Song From A Movie: The Climb by Miley Cyrus (Hannah Montana: The Movie)
MTV Generation Award: Ben Stiller
Best Comedic Performance: Jim Carrey (Yes Man)
Best WTF Moment: Amy Poehler (Baby Mama)
Best Movie Villain: Heath Ledger (The Dark Knight)

No doubt the sympathy vote was the only reason Heath Ledger bested Cam Gigandet or his dreadlocked, shirt-hating, baseball game-interrupting African-American sidekick for Best Villain.

Also of no doubt, looking over the full list of award winners last night, I think it is safe to say the only people still watching MTV anymore are 14-year old girls.

Now that Twilight movie dominance is fully secured, you have no choice but to go watch the new trailer for its sequel New Moon and get a taste of the motion picture that will sweep next year's MTV Movie Awards. Pale pretty boy vampires that look longingly vs. shirtless pretty boys that instantly morph into wolves, all vying for the love of a nervous teenage girl who'd much rather be off smoking weed; I predict it'll win every golden popcorn statue next year.

CARRASCO RIDER: HOWARD THE DUCK MEETS KAMEN RIDER?

2009-05-30T01:30:46Z

Japan is such a wonderful country. I really must visit it one day. Their pop culture also seems to be certifiably insane. That just makes them greater. Here comes yet more glorious lunacy from the land of the rising sun.

The website 24FramesPerSecond brings us word of a new bit of Japanese insanity coming next month to a theater near them: CARRASCO RIDER. What is it about? Well, nobody really seems to know for sure. It's clearly a take on the popular Kamen Rider series, only this version boasts a baseball team mascot turned superhero that looks like Howard the Duck in a baseball jersey and a Rey Mysterio Jr. lucha mask battling tuxedo clad villains with actual eggs for heads. It also involves motobikes and chainsaws. Oh, my!

Watch the trailer. You won't regret it. I'm already prepared to award it multiple Oscars.

SO I'M HAVING TO RUN THE SCRIPPS NATIONAL SPELLING BEE...

2009-05-29T02:14:40Z

As I've stated quite often, I work as a master control operator at an ABC affiliate station. Tonight I'm having to once again run the finals of the Scipps National Spelling Bee. Now let me say upfront I have the utmost respect for these kids because they can spell impossible words that most of us don't even know exist. I mean, "fackeltanz"; makes you wonder if they're just making this stuff up? However, as far as televised entertainment goes, watching children spell words is not what I call entertainment.

I also harbor a disdain for spelling bees ever since I got screwed over in one back in the fourth grade. Came down to me and another kid. I missed my word. Then he missed his word. The teacher then declared him the winner simply because he was the last in line. I approached my teacher afterwards and asked how he could have won if he both missed our words. She said nothing; just kind of gave me a look that conveyed she didn't care and didn't want to be bothered. Good life lesson there. The only white kid still in contention in the Bee I'm running was home schooled, so score another win for the great American public school system.

So I'm watching this National Spelling Bee and it looks like this must be the Super Bowl for Hindu children. You always hear about Asians being good at math but you don't often hear about how good Indian-American kids are at spelling. I've been noticing this the past few years I've had to run the Bee, but this year the final round began with 11 kids and two-thirds of them could be the Governor of Louisiana. I do understand why these Indian-American kids are such good spellers; most of their names are as long and complex as the very words they're being asked to spell. Please don't construe this as me complaining or getting racist; it's just an amusing observation about most of the spelling bee finalists looking like the cast of SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE.

Heck, given how lily white ABC's programming is, I think this most minorities to appear on any ABC primetime broadcast at one time outside of an NBA play-off game.

FOYCAST 7: WAFFLE HOUSE OF HORRORS

2009-05-27T09:17:57Z

Time for the 7th installment of the Foycast. The title: WAFFLE HOUSE OF HORRORS. Why? You'll just have to listen and here. We were supposed to be recording a new Dinner For Fiends but when none of the other Dread Central staff could make it, Uncle Creepy suggested just doing a new Foycast. So with no subject in particular and not prepared to do a Foycast... Yet somehow we stuttered and stammered our way through it. One hour of, in the great tradition of Seinfeld, a show about nothing. What does get discussed? Waffle House horror stories, my take on some of the new ABC shows for the fall schedule, Uncle Creepy's unhealthy obsession with the scatalogical, my dramatic reading and re-visioning of an anti-Rob Zombie/Halloween 2 online petition, and the story as to how the first attempt to record a new Foycast earlier went horribly awry. All this and much, much more by merely clicking the link below.

FOYCAST 7: WAFFLE HOUSE OF HORRORS

SIX MORE REASONS WHY CREATIVITY IN HOLLYWOOD IS DEAD

2009-05-25T11:01:00Z

WELCOME TO FRIGHT NIGHT REMAKE! FOR REAL.

If you were to ask me what my favorite horror movies of the 1980's were Fright Night would be somewhere in the top three. It should come as no surprise that Hollywood in its current remake craze would want to revisit FRIGHT NIGHT again; a near perfect blending of horror and comedy starring teen protagonists and the potential to tone it down just enough to make it PG-13. To the current tweener generation this remake will be geared towards, they'll probably tell each other it's like DISTURBIA but with a vampire.

The Hollywood Reporter brings word of this latest senseless remake from a producing team also planning remakes of ANGEL HEART and THE REINCARNATION OF PETER PROUD. My favorite money quote from the story: "...the updated version will keep the comedy-horror tone while modernizing the effects." Because, after all, updating the special effects is the only thing a remake of FRIGHT NIGHT will be able to improve upon.

Besides, we already got a FRIGHT NIGHT remake with a werewolf last year: The Sci-Fi Channel's NEVER CRY WEREWOLF.

2 CLIFF 2 HANGER

Also announced for remake status this week: 1993's Sylvester Stallone DIE HARD-on-a-mountain CLIFFHANGER. This remake will come to us courtesy of FAST & THE FURIOUS producer Neal Moritz. Moritz, a producer who always has his finger on the pulse of vacuousness, plans the film to take place over a series of mountain tops instead of just one and, most importantly, will replace a muscled-up action hero with a team of extreme tween climbers. Are we sure Moritz didn't get his mountain movies confused because this sure sounds more like a potential TERMINAL LIMIT reboot instead.

In all seriousness, I bet I could pitch Moritz my April Fool's idea about remaking AMERICAN NINJA starring Zac Efron and get a go picture out of him.

THE DARK HE-MAN

It's no secret that Hollywood has been wanting to do a new big budget MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE movie for years now. Most recently, screenwriter Justin Marks was the assigned screenwriter. Somebody at Warner Brothers must have gotten cold feet on anything written by Marks after the intolerable STREET FIGHTER: THE LEGEND OF CHUN-LI, the only script Marks has thus far gotten to the big screen, opened to dismal box office and even worse reviews. Good heavens, that movie was so rancid I think even Pauline Kael came back from the grave just to flip the bird at the marquee.

Marks is apparently so far into screenwriting jail that a guy with no credits whatsoever is now doing a page one rewrite. Chud.com reports the He-Man movie is now being pitched as (Might want to sit down for this one):

"a gritty fantasy and reimagines Adam as a soldier who sets off to find his destiny, happening upon the magical world of Eternia. There, Skeletor has raised a technological army and is bent on eradicating magic."

I grew up playing with Masters of the Universe action figures. Probably the defining toyline of my childhood. Never cared for the animated series and consider the Dolph Lundgren/Cannon film version barely watchable. Caught a few episodes of the new animated series and, honestly, as an adult I just cannot get into cartoons like that anymore. I wish that Cartoon Network series had been around as a kid because that's the animated series I wish the one I had to put with had been like. Imaginative. Monsters. Over the top action. Takes itself just seriously enough but maintains a fun adventurous tone.

So speaking as a someone who will forever have a soft spot for MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE, even I can tell you giving He-Man a DARK KNIGHT makeover may very well be the most misguided idea I've ever heard. The only way to approach this material is from a STAR WARS aspect, not THE DARK KNIGHT. Something tells me this will never leave the script stage either.

What's next? An R-rated M.A.S.K. movie done in the vein of THE ROAD WARRIOR?

AMERICAN GLADIATORS: COMING SOON TO A THEATER NEAR YOU

You'd think AMERICAN GLADIATORS making its triumphant return to TV only to get cancelled after a single season would take a lot of wind out of the sails of a potential big screen relaunch. You'd think, but as we all know, Hollywood doesn't always think like you an I.

The AMERICAN GLADIATORS are reportedly on their way to the big screen. The film's producer stating, “the goal is to create an action story that takes place inside the world (show creator Johnny Ferraro) has created.” What the hell does that even mean? My fingers are crossed it means the Gladiators will be portrayed as a clandestine crimefighting unit that uses the TV show as a cover. I'll only pay to see that movie so long as they fight bad guys using foam jousting sticks, ping pong ball cannons, and chase vehicles in those big gyrospheres.

PETER BERG SANK MY BATTLESHIP!

Months back I reported on Universal's deal with Hasbro and their intentions of transforming numerous Hasbro toy properties into big screen pictures. Michael Bay's Platinum Dunes is planning a horror flick based on the Ouija Board, the director of ENCHANTED plans to take us to Candy Land, and Ridley Scott of all people is attached to make a Monopoly movie. The latest victim of this bit of corporate cinematic synergy looks to be Peter Berg, director of HANCOCK, THE KINGDOM, THE RUNDOWN, and FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS.

Berg is said to be in talks to captain what's being pitched as "an epic naval action adventure" based on the classic game BATTLESHIP. The multi-million dollar question here being will it just be a routine naval war movie that just happens to share the same generic name as the game or will it there be some high concept twist that somehow ties the game into the events of the movie itself. Either way, you just know at some point someone is going to yell the classic line "You sank my battleship!"

Rumor has it the film may star caveman browed TWILIGHT hunk Robert Pattinson. With any luck he'll be cast as a torpedo.

BAZOOKA JOE: THE MOVIE

And finally... a motion picture based on chewing gum. I wish I was joking. Michael Eisner's production company is developing a motion picture based on Bazooka Joe, the Dennis the Menace-ish mascot of the chewing gum of the same name.

I give up. Honestly. Anyone reading this right now that works in the industry and fights to get something with even a semblance of imagination through the studio system on any level. Just go ahead, pick up that pistol, and put yourself out of your misery. Your movie will probably never get made but a feature film based upon a chewing gum mascot mostly likely will open on several thousand movie screens in the coming years. Just pull the trigger already.

IF YOU LOVED MAC & ME THEN YOU'LL PROBABLY LOVE GOOBY TOO

2009-05-21T05:52:07Z

One of the most anticipated motion pictures of the year is the big screen adaptation of the childrens classic WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE. On the flip side of the coin there's GOOBY. Maybe it is a good film for the whole family; the trailer is still quite bad. Let's check in with a few amusing comments from YouTube:

"The most ferocious monster of all'? this thing looks like Chewbacca raped Teddy Ruxpin and gave him a retarded son."

"this is more profoundly disturbing than any horror splatter torture gore porn film ever produced from even the most desperate parts of the globe. These are the people i'm going to meet in Hell. The music in the trailer is what i imagine the collective death rattle of an untold number of children's souls would sound like."

"Nightmares ahoy"

I realize the Dove Foundation has already bestowed a perfect five star rating upon GOOBY but how seriously can they be taken considering that's only one star higher than what they scored C ME DANCE?

SCI-FI DISASTER CHRONICLES BRINGS MAGNETIC TORNADOS AND GLOBAL CHILLING

2009-05-17T20:45:40Z

Disaster movies are an interesting genre for me. It is that you get a genuinely well made one. More often than not disaster flicks end up being a disappointment to me; the big screen ones often end up being formulaic films that rely entirely on their special effects and the lower budgeted ones often made the same mistak even though they don't have the special effects budget to make you overlook the film's failings. The biggest problem I generally have is the sameness, not just in the sense of the plotting, but also in the disasters taking center stage. There's only so many different ways you can do a volcano flick. What I often look for in the lower budget ones is a spark of imagination, and if I'm really lucky, maybe even a spark of inspired lunacy.

The SCI-FI DISASTER CHRONICLES might provide both the imagination and lunacy I'm looking for. A two picture project in the works from Australian producer Tony Ginnane, the Roger Corman of Down Under. One deals with magnetic tornados; the other is like all those films about Earth getting hit by a solar flare, except think cold instead of hot. Here are the plot details:

METAL TORNADO

When astronomers discovered the phenomena of magnetic tornados on the planet Mercury, they were amazed by the destructive power of these gargantuan solar-fueled magnetic fields…but they never imagined witnessing the catastrophic forces in their own backyards.

Samuel Planck is head of the Helios Project - a high tech facility tasked with storing and converting solar rays into an endless supply of renewable energy. After years of research and millions of dollars, it is now time to test the system out. The scientists cheer loudly as initially things go according to plan. But when the facility is unable to control the massive amount of energy coming in, the cheers turn to screams. The charged particles begin swirling around themselves, creating a massive magnetic vortex that quickly becomes the first magnetic tornado on earth!

Planck and his team try to abort the procedure but it’s already too late—with a trillion watts of power to draw from, there is nowhere this monstrous force of nature can’t go. The mega swirling tornados are soon ripping steel from buildings, cars off the street, and planes from the sky as they pulverize everything they touch!

Now Samuel Planck and his team must find a way to stop these metal tornados before they destroy all of us!

ARTIC BLAST

When a solar eclipse sends a colossal blast of super chilled air towards the earth, it sets off a catastrophic chain of events that threatens to engulf the world in ice!

A US research vessel sits on a calm Antarctic Ocean just 100 miles off the coast of Australia studying the thinning of the ozone. Suddenly a blast of sub zero air strikes the vessel, flash freezing the scientists and crew, bodily fluids turning to ice, skin splitting as ice crystals expand in muscle and tissue – the deaths are horrific and instant…

Jack Tate, a brilliant, yet troubled physicist specializing in Earth Sciences is the land based support for the research vessel. Complicating his life is a messy divorce and a strained relationship with his teenaged daughter Andrea. When Jack learns about the bizarre deaths of his colleagues, he sets off to discover the cause. By piecing together the chain of events: the solar eclipse, a sudden drop in temperature of the mesosphere, and a rip in the ozone layer, Jack concludes that all of these elements have combined to create the ultimate disaster—a new ice age! But when Jack presents his theory to the scientific community, his rogue past catches up to him and they refuse to listen to his solution to save the planet.

With part of the South Pacific in a deep freeze and a mass evacuation underway in coastal Australia and New Zealand, the frigid air mass is heading towards the western coast of the continental United States. It must be stopped before millions more die. Jack is soon faced with another dilemma when he discovers that Andrea has gone missing.

When the government’s plan to stop the massive super chilled cold front is unsuccessful, Jack puts his unconventional methods into action. As the deadly and ever growing ice cold air mass envelops cities, flash freezing every living thing in its path, Jack becomes the planet’s last chance to stop the impending ice age!

I have to say METAL TORNADO interests me much more than ARTIC BLAST. Now when will someone find make a disaster movie about whirlpools? We just don't see enough whirlpools in modern cinema.

NOT YOUR CHILDRENS' HUMPTY DUMPTY

2009-05-16T21:25:57Z

The director of SNAKES ON A PLANE has a new potential cult hit in the works that looks to make sure you never again hear the childrens' nursery rhyme HUMPTY DUMPTY without thinking of an egg-shaped alien/human hybrid monster savaging backwoods rednecks.

Two backwoods brothers, Petus and Pervis Brakk, ambush a landing party of extraterrestrial beings on their swampland property collecting Earth plant samples for study. The brothers kill the males and take the alien female into captivity where they torture and abuse her. They secretly keep her captive for months in their basement cellar. She becomes impregnated with the spawn of one of the sadistic brothers and escapes into the swampland. Before she dies, she gives birth to a monstrous, half-alien, half-human egg-shaped, creature with extraterrestrial powers, HUMPTY DUMPTY.

In the meantime, a smart Southern sheriff becomes suspicious after reports come into his office about a UFO seen by people from the small town. He ultimately solves the case, but not before Humpty has taken crowd-pleasing bloody revenge on the Brakk brothers for their unspeakable acts against his mother.

David R. Ellis' HUMPTY DUMPTY is still in the pre-production stage with the intent being to shoot the film in 3-D. Ellis just finished the latest FINAL DESTINATION sequel, also shot in 3-D, due in a couple months.

HUMPTY DUMPTY looks to be one of those movies that will either prove to be a good deal of fun or just plain bad. Definitely strikes me as something New World Pictures would have churned out back in the Eighties. Or the makers of LEPRECHAUN would have uncorked straight-to-video in the Nineties. Just as long as its better than that RUMPELSTILTSKIN horror flick.

REVIEW: MEGA SHARK VS. GIANT OCTOPUS

2009-05-14T10:56:45Z

Forget WOLVERINE! Ditch STAR TREK! Down with UP. Keep your TERMINATOR: SALVATION. TRANS-what? ANGELS & who cares? The epic summer of blockbuster for the year 2009 is The Asylum's MEGA SHARK VS. GIANT OCTOPUS!

The movie doesn't hit DVD shelves until the end of the month but over at Dread Central I have the early review and the word is good. So bad it's good, that is.

"What Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus lacks in budget it more than makes up for with moxie. Ace Hannah's infectious enthusiasm appears to have spilled over to the rest of the cast and crew, crafting an unmistakable amount of upbeat energy even when scenes turn grim or get a bit too talky. Under his real name of Jack Perez he previously wrote and directed the MTV movie Monster Island, a comic homage to monsters movies of old I found too self-aware of its bad movie campiness for my personal taste. This time it appeared that everyone knew exactly what kind of movie they were making and decided to have fun with the supremely silly material without winking at the audience to make sure everyone watching fully understood they were in on the joke. Seafood may be on the menu but ham is the order of the day."

You can read the entire positive review (a few mild spoilers for you sticklers out there) for this epic smackdown between colossal carcharodon and super-sized cephalopod by clicking the link below.

MEGA SHARK VS. GIANT OCTOPUS REVIEW

MAY FOYEURISM: THE LATE SHOW

2009-05-13T08:53:36Z

Better late than never. This month's Foyeurism had been delayed for a variety of reasons. It's here now. Pretty much one I had to slap together at the last minute. This month:

DRAGONBALL: EVOLUTION
THE TERMINATORS
INTO THE BLUE 2: THE REEF
NEVER SURRENDER

And if it sucks, just remember the next one should be up in a little over two weeks. Hopefully.

MAY FOYEURISM: THE LATE SHOW