Twilight

So, here's what happened... I saw Twilight opening weekend. And I didn't write anything about it here because when I first saw it, I couldn't say anything more than "okay." Do you know how hard it is to write a review about something about which you are completely indifferent?

The thing is...That movie is like some kind of slow-acting narcotic. Leaving the theater and for the rest of the day, into the next, indifference was all I could muster. But as I grew closer to the next weekend, I started considering paying the seven dollars and fifty cents to see it again. As I grew closer to the next weekend I began to be sucked into the whole Twilight insanity. And somewhere in all of that I had forgotten that my initial indifference had kept me from reviewing.

I am poor so I have not returned to the cinema to re-experience the Twilight excitement but I assure you, I will be renting, if not buying, it when it is available on DVD.

That out of the way, as if you couldn't tell that I think you should see it if you haven't already, let's talk a little about the film. Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) moves from Arizona to Washington to live with her father while her mother is touring the country with her shiny new, semi-pro baseball player husband. The Cullen family is the somewhat eccentric town royalty, headed by Dr. Carlisle Cullen (Peter Facinelli) and surrounded by rumor.

Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) is the only of the Cullen's "foster" children who is not romantically involved and because of (or possibly in spite of) that, he is the most sought after and most untouchable "boy" in school, until Bella comes to town.

Classic plot for a teen romance, right? Except that Edward (and his "parents" and brothers and sisters) is a vampire. But you knew that. He is a vegetarian vampire... Okay, now things are getting a little odd. To the Cullens, being a "vegetarian" really means only feeding on animals, not humans

Basically, if you were ever a fan of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and the Buffy-Angel romance, you will enjoy Twilight. If you enjoyed Robert Pattinson's *ahem* performance in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, you will enjoy Twilight. If you first found vampires with George Clooney and Quentin Tarantino in Mexico...you may have issues with the fuzzy cuddly Cullens. But wait until it is released on DVD and see it anyway. I don't want you getting all pissy with me for sending you to the theater if you find it's not your thing.

Rental Recommendation - Pathology

Pathology, starring Milo Ventimiglia (Heroes), Michael Weston (Cherry Falls), and Johnny Whitworth (Empire Records), was repeatedly pushed from theatrical release over the course of two years, for reasons unclear to this writer. It was finally released to DVD in September of 2008, which is why this is a rental recommendation rather than a standard review.

The premise: A group of forensic pathology residents devise a game to see who can commit the perfect murder. Enter golden boy prodigy, home from Doctors Without Borders-style jaunt to Africa, Ted Grey (Ventimiglia). In the beginning he seems to be wholesome and straight-laced, engaged to marry the aspiring lawyer daughter of a giant in the medical field (Alyssa Milano). But we soon find out there is a dark side to Dr. Grey and he is recruited to join the game.

What is spooky here is that I, as a budding horror writer in my own right, came up with this idea all on my own, probably around the same time casting was being done for this film. But that's beside the point. The point is that, while that and my adoration for the work of Mr. Ventimiglia (not to mention his brooding hazel eyes and washboard stomach *ahem* Hey, I'm not being paid to write this, I can say whatever I want)...

While my strange connection to the storyline and adoration for Mr. Ventimiglia's work may have created a bias, I definitely recommend this film. It is admittedly clear about halfway into the story which player of the game is going to be its undoing however that doesn't take away from the fun of a good old fashioned horror thriller. No shoddy computer animation or 8mm camera work in this one, nosiree. Just good clean fun.

I don't know what kept this out of the theaters for two years, but let's prove the production studio wrong and rent or buy every copy we can find, whaddyasay?

claiming

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Death Race

I have decided that since Death Race takes place in the future in a world that doesn't exist but could possibly that makes it borderline sci-fi and therefore far more worthy of my review than the last two pictures I saw (Last weekend, I rented I am Legend and Funny Games and couldn't find anything to say about either other than "Sucked with a capital s-u-c-k...Avoid this like the plague!").

Death Race, on the other hand, was fantastic. The premise is that in the year 2012 the US economy is in the toilet causing unemployment to skyrocket, taking crime right along with it. The prison system is so overcrowded (the part of the story that is neither futuristic or sci-fi) that private corporations have taken over and decided to make money off of fixing the problem. The original solution is to hold a live action version of Celebrity Death Match, replacing the celebrities with convicts and the clay with real flesh. When audiences for this start to wane, they come up with a new plan. The Death Race. Same concept as the fights only now with the added bonus of three tons of steel, armor piercing ammunition, smoke screens, napalm and a whole menagerie of other nifty defensive and offensive toys.

The only rule is simple. Kill or be killed. Any racer to win five races is awarded his freedom. A fairly large motivation for life-sentenced convicts, especially when there are no penalties for anything (death or otherwise) that happens during the course of the race. A disfigured and masked racer nicknamed Frankenstein has won four but he died in a crash in his most recent race. Enter Jensen Amos (Jason Statham), former racecar driver turned laid-off steel mill worker (why we are never actually told but it seemed to be something legal...or illegal, as it were).

Following his last day at the mill, Jensen is upstairs in his home, checking on his daughter while someone else is downstairs, murdering his wife. Jensen is framed and sent to Terminal Island (the Alcatraz of the future) where Hennessey, the warden (Joan Allen) presents him with an opportunity. Put on the mask and race as Frankenstein. Win one race and go free.

While the plot is a little cookie-cutter, it was still entertaining. And the acting, especially Allen's Hennessey who I came to really hate vehemently by the middle of the movie, adds to the experience.

The concept, as well as the characters Frakenstein and Machine Gun Joe (played this time around by Tyrese Gibson), was based loosely on 1975's Death Race 2000, in which average citizens, not convicts, compete in a cross-country kill or be killed competition. The original film starred David Carradine as Frankenstein and Sylvester Stallone as Machine Gun Joe. (Side note: if you or your friends have ever joked about how many points can be earned by hitting a pedestrian or bicyclist with your car...you can thank Death Race 2000 writers Ib Melchior and Robert Thom for that).

My suggestion is if you are a fan of fast cars and big explosions, head over to your local cinema to catch 2008's Death Race on the big screen.

The X-Files: I Want to Believe

I am an X-Phile. I watch reruns on TNT and the Sci-Fi channel (until they start showing the Doggett episodes then I find something else to watch for a couple of weeks). I have my favorite episodes and I have seen all of them repeatedly.

Chris Carter has blessed people like me with reopening the X-Files and offering Mulder a pardon for his alleged crimes. When I heard there was going to be a new X-Files movie this summer I asked why, then vowed to see it opening weekend. In the months between hearing about the film and today, I started questioning whether or not I should see it. The thing is that sometimes these things come out to a great deal of hype from the media and high expectations from the fans and they bomb. The numbers don't show it because the die hard fans are going to see it come hell or high water but they leave disappointed. I didn't want that.

I reasoned that Chris Carter is in charge and David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson obviously approved of the script so it couldn't be all bad. So, after much debate, I decided that I would go.

I say that I have my favorite X-Files episodes. Very few, if any of them are centered around the core plot of the show; Mulder's quest to find his sister. UFO's and aliens, while interesting in concept, don't interest me much in fiction. But I was fully expecting to see this as the whole of this new movie and was not only surprised but a bit disappointed to be met with little more than the pilot of a "next generation" spin-off (P.S. Don't get all excited, I am only making a comparison - to my knowledge there is no scuttlebutt of a spin-off).

While my reviews rarely contain spoilers, I feel compelled to tell my readers that The X-Files: I Want to Believe doesn't even so much as mention aliens (unless you count Russian immigrants). Even in the brief discussions of Samantha, the word abduction is only used once. This is only important if your love of the show was centered around the alien conspiracy and you didn't like the ghost/mutant/demon/psycho-kinetics episodes. If you watched the show because you were interested/a believer in the paranormal, or just liked to find out what kind of predicament Mulder would get them into next, then the absence of UFO's is completely irrelevant.

And if you are as committed a fan as I was for several seasons (and still am, to the reruns), you will spend a great deal of the film waiting with bated breath for Walter Skinner. Let me say this, as I teeter on the edge of spoiler.... His appearance is late but significant and I fully expected the theater to erupt in applause (to my chagrin, I was apparently the only bonafide, card-carrying geek in the room because I was the only geek who actually applauded).

The agents are being led through their case by a self-proclaimed psychic, Father Joe. Father Joe was an excommunicated priest with a soiled past (if you don't understand that, pick up a newspaper sometime). Father Joe was the subject of my debate in my own head - is that Billy Connolly? No, yes? No. I finally settled on yes and apparently the Scot went through some serious work to get ready for the role. Yes, the drawn, emaciated old man leading agents through the middle of a snowy nowhere, is Billy Connolly. And near as I can tell from my research (because I wanted to make sure before I wrote this) he's not ill. Of course, in true X-Files form, we never really find out if the old priest was truly psychic or a con, but I don't think true fans would expect to find out.

Basically, my recommendation is to go see it. It is fully worth the ticket price.

The Dark Knight

Let me begin by saying I really liked Nolan's Scarecrow. That statement plays an important part since he chose to being The Dark Knight by making Scarecrow a "grey" hat, as it were.

One of the opening scenes (about fifteen to twenty minutes into the 2 and a half hour picture) is of a group of mobsters being attacked by a group of Batman wannabes, led by Scarecrow. When the real Batman shows up and unmasks one of the bats-in-training and Dr. Krane, they both desperately profess that they were "only trying to help."

What? Scarecrow is ... trying to help Batman? I don't think I'm okay with that. And for purely female reasons, I'm also not okay with that being Cillian Murphy's only scene in the whole movie but his absence didn't take away from the rest of the movie.

The rest of the movie was... not as good as the first. When I heard Christian Bale, the American Psycho, was cast as Batman, I worried. Batman Begins put that worry to rest. The Dark Knight was not as good. If you are in it for explosions and the occasional one-liner (Lucius Fox asking Bruce Wayne's accountant if he really thought it was a good idea to blackmail a man who spends his nights beating bad guys to pulp), you are in for a hell of a ride. But if you are expecting a film to par with Nolan's previous outing, I fear you will be disappointed.

Morally, I have qualms critiquing Heath Ledger's performance, given the speculation that his inability to get out of character and leave The Joker's insanity behind was what led to the depression that eventually killed him. That is not to say I don't think he did a good job in the role, and if I didn't know it was him, I'd have never known it was him, but I have heard unofficial reviews that he made the show and I'm not sure I agree with that.

The truth is The Joker is supposed to be the scariest of all the Bat-villains because his only motivation is to, to quote Alfred (Michael Caine), "watch the world burn." Throughout the history of Batman, from the original Detective Comics to the 1960's TV show to the Dark Horse comics, The Joker has never been given a backstory to tell us why he is the way he is and he is (intentionally) the only villain without one. I don't think this version of The Joker was written to live up to that title. It comes down to a question of writing and considering Nolan's writing, Scarecrow is far more frightening than The Joker.

For the record, Nolan's treatment of Two-Face was a bigger disappointment but expounding on the whys of that would give away too much of the end of the film and I don't do that.

I guess the moral of the story here is to go see The Dark Knight but don't go because of the media hype (which is a bit over the top) or because the 14 screen theater in my humble hamlet has it playing on five screens to accommodate the anticipated audiences (which is also a bit over the top). Go because, in the dozen or so years I have been watching his performances, Christian Bale has never failed to impress and go because it's freaking Batman.

The Happening

M. Night Shyamalan is back with another creepy feature for our viewing pleasure. The Happening (starring Mark Whalberg and Zooey Deschanel) is Shyamalan's first R-rated feature which set this writer's horror-heart all a-twitter. Let's face it, The Sixth Sense, at only a PG-13 rating was pretty swell nightmare-fodder, what can the man give us with an R-rating?

The Happening was, at best, strange. At worst, not what I had hoped it would be. Perhaps, had it not come out of the pen of a writer who has earned such high expectations from me, I may have not been so critical but as it was the movie was odd. Basically, we learn in the first five minutes, as is Shyamalan's no-nonsense, get-down-to-business style, something is making people sign into the banana factory quick, fast and in a hurry. Two young ladies sit on a bench in Central Park, discussing a book, when suddenly Claire (the other girl was never properly given a title) starts behaving, well, strangely. Repeating herself, forgetting where she was in the book. A woman, somewhere off screen, screams, and Claire removes a chopstick from her hair and, just as calmly as if she were tying her shoelace, drives it through her carotid artery.

And things only get worse for the people of the American Northeast.

What disappointed me most about this film was not what was happening *ahem* but the rationing of script time. A significant amount of screen time was given to the various methods of suicide people elected and there was definitely a great deal of discussion about the science and mechanics of what was *ahem* happening but scientific and mechanical dialog do not horror film make. The happening of The Happening was not given sufficient attention to make me worry about it. I believed, when it was all over, that it could happen, scientifically speaking.

Perhaps the problem was not that there was insufficient attention given. Perhaps all the science and mumbo-jumbo sterilized it. Whatever the case, I say, wait until it comes out on video and rent it. I suggest spending your $15 after popcorn and a beverage on something worth of the 20 foot screen and super-dooper sound system. The Hulk or Hancock, perhaps. But if you are a Shyamalan fan, it is worth the rental fee.

The Chronicles of Narnia; The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

When I was a kid, I would rent an animated version of C.S. Lewis' The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe approximately once ever two or three weeks and watch it about twenty times during the rental period. The jury is still out but I think it was the 1979 Bill Melendez (the guy who produced the Peanuts movies) version.

I found out later, when I decided since WalMart was selling the books for $4.88 a piece, I should buy them and read them, that that animated version followed the book to the letter. I could hear the voices, see the scenes, as I read along.

Recently I decided (finally) to sit down and watch the Walt Disney/Walden Media production and I have to say, I was very disappointed. The Pevensie children were poorly acted and very flat, especially Edmund, who really is the main character of the story, when you get right down to it.

I'm not saying it was horrible. It wasn't bad but for all the hype, and for being a Disney production, I expected more. Now (and this is why I hadn't seen the movie until just recently), I am not a fan of Disney movies, as a rule - I place sole blame for happy endings upon Walt Disney and his vision, across the board and sometimes a happy ending is simply not appropriate - but I lump them into the same category as Jerry Bruckheimer and Steven Speilberg ....they simply do not invest money in bad movies. Even if you don't care for the story line, you know that they are going to put out a damned fine production just because they have a reputation for doing so. But Disney's Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was not up to that standard, in my not-so-professional opinion. Which makes me a little less than extremely excited to see Prince Caspian ....although I probably will just on principle since it's an amazing book.

I guess the moral of the story here is that if you haven't seen the Disney production, rent it. Then, when you get done watching that, rent one of the previous, less extravagant versions. Preferably the previously mentioned Bill Melendez take but another good one is the made-for-television one from the BBC, directed by Marilyn Fox in 1988.

The Man from Earth - Rental Recommendation

Professor John Oldman has announced his retirement from the university, effective immediately. His colleagues, unwilling to accept his sudden departure, follow him to his home where he reluctantly lets them in on a secret. He is 14,000 years old.

Naturally his colleagues; consisting of an archaeologist, an anthropologist, a psychiatrist, a biologist and a Christian literalist; are unwilling to believe his story. He eases them into it, setting it up in the beginning as a science fiction story he is contemplating then progressing into a first person narrative of a man who has lived fourteen centuries, born as a Cromagnon man and then simply not dying.

As the story progresses, his colleagues grow both fascinated and angered by the story, coming to the eventual conclusion that it neither be proven or disproved. Seeing their reactions and regretting what his confession has done to his friends, he takes it all back, revealing it to be a test. He wanted to see how his story of the immortal would be received, and to iron out the kinks through their reactions. As they all prepare to leave, it is a student, who had accompanied one of the professors to the gathering, who locks in on his name: "John Oldman, that's a pun, isn't it?" she asks with a smile.

At the risk of turning away would-be viewers, I have to apply the disclaimer that The Man from Earth is slow. It is also captivating. There is a shallow climax about an hour into the hour and half feature but it never gets truly action-packed; if that's what you are looking for, look elsewhere. The end of the film, however, is fully worth the wait. And the rental fee.

Book Recommendation: The Dresden Files

I got into the book version of the Dresden Files after getting sucked into the short lived television show based on the books on Sci-Fi channel. Unfortunately, Sci-Fi didn't see fit to continue giving us weekly glimpses of Chicago's....ahem, underworld but on the upside, author Jim Butcher does.

Harry Dresden (the book version; we've left the poor unfortunate television version behind now) is Chicago's only professional wizard. Unfortunately, for Harry, he is not Chicago's only wizard. So far in the series (there are currently 10 books available and one more on the way in October) he has done battle with other wizards, sorcerers, demons, plant monsters, trolls, power hungry fairies, vampires and an assortment of other otherworldly creatures and characters.

The Dresden Files could easily be a what-if look at what could happen if Harry Potter were to move to Chicago and enter the witness protection program (although that wasn't what Butcher had in mind when he set out to create Dresden). Both Harrys are orphans with natural abilities and mothers with questionable associations. Both Harrys have seen first hand the power dark magic can give them and fought to resist it...Which, I supposed is a good place to start when creating conflict in a book about a wizard...

I am just starting the seventh book out of ten, Dead Beat, and have to say, if you are a fan of quick, easy reads, these are fantastic books to check out. I picked up Storm Front, the first book in the series, last summer and have about an hour worth of time each week to devote to reading. That means in a cumulative total of about 25-30 hours I have read five books (that's not counting the one that I read in four days between Christmas and New Years because I had nothing to do but read). The stories are page turners. Butcher has gifted Dresden with a quick wit and quicker tongue - and the stickier the situation gets, the quicker his wit becomes. And the secondary characters (CPD Lieutenant Karrin Murphy, Knight of the Cross Michael Carpenter, half-blood succubus Thomas Raith and mob boss Johnny Marcone, for example) are as 3-dimensional as Harry. Butcher doesn't let a single character go flat.

I am recommending the Dresden Files to anyone looking for a quick read story about a witty wizard. I haven't found one yet that I didn't like.



Completely unrelated side note: Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street won the Oscar for Best Achievement in Art Direction. We here at bending spoons aren't exactly sure the prereqs for winning, or even qualifying to win in this category, but we really don't care. It's still a shiny, sparkley trophy for Mr. Burton and Co.! Yippee!!!

The Eye

Well, it wasn't bad. Save for a few assembled-from-a-kit shocker moments, it was a decent horror flick. Good plot, good acting...well, from Jessica Alba anyway. Parker Posey's performance could have been better but the film was really just about Alba's character Sydney and Sydney's struggles; the other characters were little more than scenery.

The film opens with children throwing rocks at a house graffittied with "bruja." A prefunctory understanding of Latin languages helps with the interpretation, and if not, it is revealed later in the film (right about the time you've forgotten the opening scene). A woman inside the house is struggling desperately to escape something blurry off to the edge of the screen. Clumsily and frantically, she ties a slipknot in a cord and throws it over a pipe near the ceiling. As the blurry figure to the side lunges at the camera (in one of those aforementioned kit moments), she kicks the chair she is standing on out from beneath her feet.

Cut scene to a symphony rehearsal, Alba front center as the solo violinist. She leaves rehearsal for the hospital where she is scheduled to received corneal transplants. From there we watch weeks of painful recovery aided (or possibly hindered) by visions of shadowy creatures escorting blurry people away from Sydney; the first being her comatose roommate, Mrs. Hillman.

The Eye is an effective ghost story with little to no hokey animation and no contortionists on the payroll ála The Grudge, The Ring, Pulse and the like. The key element is a creature Sydney comes to call Shadowman and Shadowman is fashioned to look (albeit unintentionally, I am sure) a little like the cinematic interpretation of Dementors, but that doesn't detract too much from the story.

As with any ghost story, Sydney finds herself redeeming someone who was wronged in their own life; in this case the woman who donated the corneal transplant Sydney received (subsequently the "bruja" from the opening scene).

Overall, while I have not yet recommended a remake of an Asian horror film (or the originals thereof, for that matter) because of the shoddy animation tricks and contortionists that are meant to be scary but really just make me seasick, I will wholeheartedly recommend The Eye for anyone looking for a good time. If I enjoyed it, cinematic horror elitest that I am, I am sure those less selective will be in for a romp.

Congratulations, Kudos, Felicitations...However you chose to say it, YIPPEE!!

With all the hub-bub of the Writers' Strike putting the kibosh on the Golden Globes celebration, we here at bending spoons forgot to check on the results until the airing of the Screen Actors Guild Awards last night (January 27, 2008). So please excuse the belated-ness of this gushing display of hooray...

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street received the sparkle-y for Best Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy and dear Johnny won Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy. Unfortunately HBC and Burton missed out of their fair share of the votes but winning at the Globes is often a good omen for the Academies. Perhaps poor Benjamin Barker's tragic life will be redeemed by Oscar.

We can only hope.

Call for Submissions

We are looking for submissions for the March 10th issue. As always, all subjects will be reviewed but special consideration will be given to stories of Easter, Ireland, leprechauns, spring, flowers, etc. - anything particular to March, April, and May. Increased appreciation will be given to elegantly crafted horror (please try to avoid campy - the psycho killer leprechaun angle has been done...and done and done) or darkly fantastic (like how I turned dark fantasy from a noun into an adverb?) stories about typically cheery springtime subjects. Shed a little darkness on the subject, as it were.

Our submission guidelines have changed slightly so please visit the site for updated instructions - specifically the new submission address. The word count is still 7,000 words, we still want stories embedded in the email but there are a few minor differences, if you are a return contributor.

Also, we would like, nay, greatly appreciate a 50-100 word bio from all contributors. Even if it's a total load of crap about your birth parents being Russian spies who left you to be raised by a tribe of Pygmie elephants when you were a baby, some kind of bio would be fantastic.

We'll be looking for your submissions and don't forget to tell your friends.

Del Toro's El Orfanato

The Orphanage (El Orfanato) opened nationwide this past weekend and horror fan that I am, I dutifully attended. Reviews that I had seen compared it to The Others (2001) and I guess I see that.

The story begins with young Laura playing in the orphanage with her friends as the house mother facilitates her adoption. The story shifts to approximately 30 years later and Laura has bought the old orphanage with the goal of turning it into a home for special needs children. She has moved her husband, Carlos, and their son, Simon, who was also adopted, into the house with her.

Simon, like any other only child who has been secluded from other children his own age, has "imaginary" friends - friends who tell him that he is just like them. When Laura asks what that means, Simon angrily tells her she's not his mother and he's going to die (Simon, we learn earlier in the story in a moment of situational irony, was born HIV positive but doesn't know).

To avoid spoilers, I will say this. See The Orphanage. If you enjoy a good ghost story, see it. If you like tear jerker endings, see it. I really don't want to spoil any secrets for my readers so I will leave it at that.

3 months of SF/F/H in the cinema

In an attempt to keep this blog going from week to week...or something to that effect....I offer you a glimpse at the SF/F/H cinema adventures of the upcoming months.

The Orphanage (Horror) - The Orphanage centers on a Laura (Belén Rueda) who purchases her beloved childhood orphanage with dreams of restoring and reopening the long abandoned facility as a place for disabled children. Once there, Laura discovers that the new environment awakens her sons imagination, but the ongoing fantasy games he plays with an invisible friend quickly turn into something more disturbing. Upon seeing her family increasingly threatened by the strange occurrences in the house, Laura looks to a group of parapsychologists for help in unraveling the mystery that has taken over the place. (Synopsis courtesy of IMDb.com) Produced by Guillermo del Toro, The Orphanage opens nationwide January 11.

The Eye (SciFi/Horror) - SciFi veteran Jessica Alba (Dark Angel) stars as a violin virtuoso who has been blind since childhood. After receiving a corneal transplant to repair her vision, she discovers her new eyes were not the only things transplanted. She begins seeing horrific visions as if seeing through the eyes of a violent killer. Opens everywhere February 9. (Tidbit: The theatrical trailer for this film on the beginning of Saw IV, features the music of Blaqk Audio, the synthesized vision of AFI's Davey Havok and Jade Puget.)

One Missed Call (Supernatural Horror) - In the same vein as FearDotCom, Pulse and The Ring, One Missed Call is about a supernatural force that kills through the victim's cellular phone. The missed call results in a creepy voice mail - a recording of a gruesome death. A gruesome death which, in just a matter of days, turns out to be your own. The potential of this film lies in the inclusion of Azura Skye, an oft-creepy cult (and personal) favorite. Opens everywhere January 4. (Tidbit: Both One Missed Call and The Eye are remakes of Asian horror flicks - One Missed Call from Japan and The Eye from China.)

Cloverfield (SciFi, Monster movie) - Producer J.J. Abrams brings us a near-future look at New York City as it is destroyed by an as-yet-unseen monstrosity. While some of the film is shot as a film, using industrial studio-type cameras, the majority is shot using hand-helds. But never fear, faithful readers, it promises to be far more impressive than the Blair Witch Project. Opens everywhere January 18. (Tidbit: There is wide speculation that a commaradary between Abrams and actor Greg Gruenberg has led to a crossover between Cloverfield and NBC's Heroes; including theories that the monster destroying the city in the film is the same monster featured in the Heroes online comic 9th Wonder)

Over Her Dead Body (Supernatural Comedy) - Taken from Rotten Tomatoes.com: "Devastated when his fiancée Kate (Eva Longoria Parker) is killed on their wedding day, Henry (Paul Rudd) reluctantly agrees to consult a psychic named Ashley (Lake Bell) at the urging of his sister Chloe (Lindsay Sloane). Despite his skepticism over her psychic abilities, Henry finds himself falling hard for Ashley, and vice versa." At first, Ashley's psychic visions are all fabrications meant to urge Henry into a happy life after Kate. But as their relationship grows, Ashley's visions become real - Kate comes back to haunt her almost-widower's new flame. Opens everywhere February 1. (Tidbit...sorry, kids. I couldn't find any trivia about this film, other than the producers picked the lesser of three evils when applying a title...Other choices: How I Met My Boyfriend's Dead Fiance and Ghost Bitch.)

Pathology (Psychological Horror) - Friends of the blog are probably shocked that I held off on this one until now. Pathology stars Milo Ventimiglia as Ted Gray, a bored med student. He and a group of his peers devise a game - commit the perfect murder. Each of them must commit their idea of the perfect murder while the rest of the group uses forensics and pathology to figure out how it was done. Sounds to this writer like the recipe for a good old fashioned thriller. Opens everywhere February 8.

The Spiderwick Chronicles (Fantasy) - Based on the young adult series, The Spiderwick Chronicles is about a young boy whose family moves into a cottage in the country where he finds an old journal, "Arthur Spiderwick's Field Guide." The field guide explains and outlines all of the things that live in our world, just beyond our front doors but tucked away out of sight - goblins, faeries, gremlins and the like. Opens everywhere February 15.

The Poughkeepsie Tapes (Horror/Suspense) - With a cast of relative newcomers, The Poughkeepsie Tapes tells the tale of an astonishing discovery in Poughkeepsie, NY - ten bodies buried in the yard of a home. Inside, their discovery turns more grisly as they find over 800 video tapes portraying the development of a serial killer. The Poughkeepsie Tapes is a mockumentary including interviews with law enforcement agents, criminalists and neighbors in the community where the bodies and tapes were found.

Inkheart (Fantasy) - Based on the young adult book of the same name, Inkheart promises a roller coaster ride as we follow young Meggie and her eccentric aunt Elinor as they try to rescue her father who has been kidnapped. Why has he been kidnapped, you ask? Because he can read things and characters out of their book worlds and into our own. Cast includes Dame Helen Mirren, Paul Bettany, Brendan Fraser and Andy Serkis. Opens everywhere March 19.

As this list promises to grow and grow I will end it here and wish you joy at the cinema. Check back with me in March for a look at the second quarter.