bending spoons: a literary collection

Moving...

2011-01-23T18:23:00.000-08:00

I have a few too many things going here so I am moving this blog to another host. The new address is spoonbenderpress.wordpress.com so update your bookmarks.

The blogs here will still be here, the links from bending-spoons.com will still work, but future entries will be at the new address. Everything will still be linked from the website.

Hopefully, having this hosted in the same place as my personal blog will encourage me to post more often.

Don't forget... New issue of bending spoons coming out in April (submissions due March 20) and the theme is music. Send your submissions embedded in the body of an email to submissions@bending-spoons.com with the words fiction submission somewhere in the subject line.

Dread - Rental Review

2011-01-17T18:37:00.000-08:00

Part of the 2010 Afterdark 8 Films to Die For 4 Horrorfest, Dread stars Jackson Rathbone as film student, Steven Grace, and Shaun Evans (who looked very familiar but apparently only looks like someone else because I've never seen anything else on his filmography) as Quaid and is based on a short story by Clive Barker from the Books of Blood collection.

The premise: three college students set out to make a documentary on fear (dread). Simple enough plot but with good potential, right? So far, the score: horror movie, 1 point, Jackson Rathbone, 1 point, Clive Barker, 1 point.... Up by three.

Steven meets Quaid outside a bar while having a cigarette and reveals that he is a film student and his brother died in a car accident when he was 15. Quaid decides, based on this information, that Steven would be the perfect vehicle for his fear study and recruits him to help make a documentary. Steven recruits a fellow student, Cheryl (played by Hanne Steen, TV's Ideal), and the three of them embark on a journey through stories of fears of clowns and Mickey Mouse and the dentist.

In the next scene, we learn, through his memories, that Quaid is the sole survivor of a home invasion murder where he watched a stranger bury an ax in his mother's forehead. For reasons we never find out, the killer spares the life of the young boy (eight, maybe ten years old in the memory) who grows up suffering perpetual nightmares from the incident. Built-from-a-kit sociopath - half a point.

Quaid becomes ... frustrated, for lack of a better word, with the "quality" of the fears people are bringing to the study and I have to say at this point in the movie, I'm beginning to understand his frustration. Boring beginning - lose a point. Current score - 2.5

About two and a half hours into the movie (which is a super amazing accomplishment, given that it's only 108 minutes long) things start to get interesting as Cheryl volunteers to be interviewed. But it's still another decent portion of the movie before Quaid finally snaps and decides interviewing people about their fears is not enough, he needs to make them live them. Horribly drawn out journey to get to the "meat" of the story (pun intended...just watch the movie) - lose 2 points. Current score - .5

OH Shush! That wasn't a spoiler. You all knew where the story was headed. Clive Barker wrote it, it's called Dread, and it's about college students doing a fear study. There weren't a lot of avenues available for it. One of the, ahem, guinea pigs decides he didn't appreciate Quaid's research methods and ... misdirects his revenge. The "right" ending that sucks because the wrong guy dies - ummmm breaks even. Add a point for not going the Disney route but lose a point for misdirected anger.

Pretty much, starting from zero, it looks like Dread ends with a score of half a point, down from three out of a possible.... I have no idea. Basically, I didn't love it. I didn't hate it, probably won't watch it again, at least not unless everyone else at the party wants to watch it. Overall, I give it a hearty, resounding review of "meh."

Devil

2010-10-02T16:45:00.001-07:00

I have a tendency to approach films from certain writers/directors from a very biased place. M. Night Shyamalan is one of those writer/directors. I think the man is a bleeding genius. Maybe it comes from the twisted place where my mind exists most of the time, or maybe it's because we have a similar writing style, but when the majority of the population is busy hating what he's putting out, I am seeing aspects of his films as brilliant and amazing.

That out of the way, here is my take on Devil, without giving too much away. I read somewhere (that I can't get back to now) that this is the first of a three film project so I am not putting a lot of stock in anything right now until I can see the whole project in its entirety.

The movie opens with an inverted flight over the city of Philadelphia as we hear the voice of Jacob Vargas as Ramirez, telling us a story his Catholic mother had told him as a child, a story of how the Devil would take human form and punish the damned before taking their souls. According to the story, the Devil would integrate himself into a group of people and systematically kill them (i.e. take their souls). The events would begin with a suicide and end with the Devil killing the last person in the group in front of the person who loves them the most in their life.

We first meet Chris Messina (Vicky Christina Barcelona, Julie & Julia) who plays as Detective Bowden of the Philadelphia Police Department, a recovering alcoholic widower who we later learn lost his family in a hit and run accident five years prior to the events of the story. Bowden has been called to process the suicide foretold by our narrator and figures out that it actually happened several blocks from where the body was found.

As Bowden and his partner are processing the site of the original suicide, our narrator then tells us that innocent bystanders are often claimed as part of the Devil's game and to punctuate this, a shard of glass falls from the window the jumper had destroyed in his fall, nearly landing on Bowden's partner.

In the midst of all of this we meet five more people as they enter an elevator in the same building, unaware of what had just taken place in the floors above. Two of the faces in the elevator are very familiar if you are fans of the TNT network dramas. First we meet a security guard played by Bokeem Woodbine, fresh off his stint as Leon Cooley in the Holly Hunter vehicle, Saving Grace and then later we find Logan Marshall-Green, currently undercover as Dean Bendis in the cast of TNT's Dark Blue. Also in the elevator are Jenny O'Hara (most recently recognized as Nita from TV's Big Love), Drag Me to Hell's Bojana Novakovic and Geoffrey Arend (TV's Trust Me and Body of Proof).

When the express elevator these five people are riding in stops between floors, we finally meet our narrator, Ramirez, a security guard, and his partner, Lustig played by Matt Craven (Public Enemies, Distrubia). As the lights in the elevator car begin to flicker, Ramirez becomes obsessed with an image of the Devil's face in the security footage, bringing his narration into the action of the movie.

As told in Ramirez's fable, the passengers in the elevator car are systematically picked off one by one and we as the audience begin to speculate which passenger is the Devil. Or what if it isn't one of the passengers? What if Bowden's the Devil? Could it be Lustig or Bowden's partner, Markowitz? What about Ramirez himself, his fable just a clever ruse?

I won't tell you who the Devil is but I will say, Shyamalan succeeded in surprising me, once again. While I ran the gamut, suspecting all the major players, including the one who was "just too easy," the true Devil was in fact the one I suspected the least. And to be perfectly honest, I don't know why I dismissed the possibility. I just did. To me, that is a sign of good twist writing.

I don't think I am going to back a trip to the theater for this one, at least not 100%. There were no big action scenes or special effects or a great soundtrack to be diminished by watching it from your own couch. If you find yourself with nothing to do one weekend and want to go to the cinema, Devil isn't going to be a waste of money but you are also not going to miss anything if you wait for it on DVD.

Touch the Dark by Karen Chance

2010-07-09T18:26:00.000-07:00

Cassie Palmer is a clairvoyant who was raised by a vampire mob boss.

It sounded like a good idea when I first bought the book. And probably could have been if not for some glaring annoyances that I just couldn't get past.

To Chance's credit, she did tweak vampire lore a bit and make it her own; debunking the Christian/Stoker ideology that we've all grown so used to... can't go out in the sunlight, garlic is like poison, the demon that has replaced their soul makes them fear (sometimes even burn in the presence of) holy relics... and creating a semi-unique world for Cassie and her team of undead.

Now... to the complaints...

For starters, while there is nothing wrong with adults reading Harry Potter or similar stories, Touch the Dark is an adult novel. Not XXX Adult (although it does take a couple of detours into a R rating), but definitely not intended for the 12 to 16 category. However, enchanted window locks that scream when a hostage tries to open said window...very Harry Potter in context. Little annoyance, and it did go away after only one appearance...

Which leads me to my next complaint. There was just too much going on for one book. Chance really needed to make the story of Cassandra Palmer at least a trilogy, if not a series. As it was, she crammed too much information into a dimestore paperback and the end result was a lot of unanswered questions and dangling threads.

I'm never quite sure how much of the plot to "give away" in these reviews but basically, you start out reading one story, about a clairvoyant in her twenties who lived with a vampire mob until she was 16, at which time she ran away. Now the Boss has a price on her head and that's where we pick up Cassie's story.

But... about two thirds of the way through the book...yes, two thirds... the whole thing shifts and we find out that Cassandra isn't just a name that Chance plucked from the baby name book. Following a brief and somewhat muddled Greek mythology lesson, we learn that the Pythia of Delphi is an ongoing "title," as it were. As one Pythia grows old ("old" here means 2-300 years) a sybil is chosen and trained to take up the mantle when the current Pythia dies. And this is where I stop sharing the plot, for fear of giving away something important.

And my final, major complaint is...It's not uncommon for dark fantasy authors to speculate about famous (or infamous) figures from history. How many times have you read that Elvis was an alien and he didn't die, he just went home? Jack the Ripper a vampire (or nobleman, or both)? Sure! Why not? Karen Chance, however, took this plot device to a whooooooooooole new level of absurdity. Special guest stars in Touch the Dark include Cleopatra (the asp was actually a vampire), Dracula's two sons (Mircea and Radu), a Frenchman named Louis-Cesar who was turned in the seventeenth century (put that one together on your own; I did), Raphael, Rasputin, and Jack the Ripper.

Final judgment... good premise, not a bad story but way over the top, sometimes to the point of distracting.

Doctor Who - Season 5.... Almost to the end

2010-05-31T12:24:00.001-07:00

As we near the end of season 5 (or "series" as they say it in the Doctor's homeland), I feel I am a little more qualified to "review" the Eleventh Doctor than I was in the beginning. A little less "knee-jerk," a little more informed opinion this time around.

While I still don't "love" Matt Smith the way I did David Tennant, I have to say the kid has spunk. The production team promised that the adventures we went on with this newest Doctor would be darker and more terrifying than in the past and I am seeing that prophecy come to fruition. Definitely darker, if not more terrifying.

I've chosen to do this now, after the airing of episode 9, rather than at the end of the season, because I am hoping for big things from the season finale, episode 13, and with that hope I carry the hope of something worthy of writing about here.

Basically, as I said, I'm not in love with Smith but he has earned my trust and respect as a Time Lord. And Karen Gillan, Miss Amy Pond, is definitely pulling her weight. If I am not in love with Eleven, I am most definitely in love with Amy Pond. That girl has more than earned her stripes (as I am two episodes ahead of my friends here in the States, I'm trying to avoid sharing spoilers...suffice it to say you may find yourself cursing the writers in a couple of weeks).

Next week is the obligatory "celebrity guest" week, where the Doctor and his companion find themselves elbow to elbow with a shining star from the Earth's history. This season it is Vincent VanGogh so that should be interesting to watch.

Doctor Who - Season 5 - less "review" more "opinionated editorial commentary"

2010-04-10T20:28:00.000-07:00

Well, fellow Whovian Spoonbenders, I just finished watching the Beast Below, episode two of season five of the British sci-fi action dramedy Doctor Who. Season five brings with it mixed feelings of sadness and eager anticipation with the introduction of the Eleventh Doctor.

I waited until I had watched a second episode with the 26-year-old Matt Smith (this is important only because it marks the point in the show's history where I am older than the Doctor...in fact, had his mother waited another five days, we'd be exactly two years apart in age...but I digress)...I waited until I had watched a second episode with Matt Smith in the role before really forming an opinion. After all, I am one of those who helped to make David Tennant the most popular Doctor in the show's 37 year history. I wasn't at all ready to let him go.

Matt Smith has his work cut out for him, to make me love him. He doesn't exactly make me want to lay on an anthill, as I feared he might, but I don't love him, yet. I do, however, think I kind of love Amy Pond, the Doctor's newest companion (played by Karen Gillan). I can't quite put my finger on it but she's definitely got some qualities that are winning me over after saying such a heart wrenching farewell to previous companions, and after falling head over feet for Lady Christina de Souza (played by Michelle Ryan in the episode Planet of the Dead) and hoping that she was going to be the next companion.

I still say the bowtie has got to go...but I think I can get used to the Eleventh Doctor. I haven't seen enough yet to say whether or not I'll ever love him the way I did Ten but there's hope for the young man yet.

**EDIT** Five episodes down, eight more to go so I thought I'd stop back in and update my Spoonbending Whovians on my thoughts up to this point... Somewhere along the way, I heard from the powers that be behind the Doctor (I think it was Steven Moffat but don't hold me to that) that this new season/Doctor would be darker and in some cases scarier than the show has been in the past. And having been revisited by the Weeping Angels in a stellar two-part episode that culminated tonight (if you are watching in the UK...in the States you still have two weeks before the new Weeping Angels episode comes to a close...unless you are the staff of bending spoons or any number of other devout and internet savvy Whovians, then you are on the UK schedule despite your Yankee status)...Having been revisited by the Weeping Angels in a stellar two-part episode which culminated tonight, I have to agree. This season is definitely getting darker and scarier. There are still some little details about Matt Smith that I'm not crazy about but I don't hate him.

Alice in Wonderland (2010)

2010-03-08T22:17:00.001-08:00

When a movie like Alice in Wonderland comes along, I have to take a few days to step back from it and let the wonder (*ahem*) wear off before I come on here and gush over how amazingly spectacular it was and how much I love love loved it. The truth of the matter is that I have loved Alice in Wonderland as a story for the bigger part of my life, seen eight or ten different versions, and when Tim Burton casually mentioned, four and a half years ago, that he'd love to get his hands on the story, I started watching every corner of the internet waiting for word that he had, in fact, gotten his hands on it. After all, I am convinced the man should be considered for god status.

I've been glued to every word of news about this project since roughly August of last year so as I approached the ticket window Saturday morning my nerves began to flutter. What if it doesn't live up to the hype I've given it in my own mind? What if it's not amazingly spectacular?

Repeat after me. Thou shalt never doubt the Burton/Depp duet. They have yet to disappoint me. And Alice follows that pattern perfectly. But this time it wasn't Depp who wowed as the Mad Hatter, because I don't think anyone doubted he could make that work; nor did we doubt Helena Bonham-Carter (finishing the triad) could be a convincing evil queen. For me, the show stealing performance went to Crispin Glover as the Knave of Hearts. While such a small role in earlier visions of the story, this was a Return to Oz-esque rewrite and Glover was given a much larger role than I had expected for him. And whether he wear the white hat or the black hat, "George McFly" will always hold a special place in my heart.

Cliche' as it may be, the Cheshire Cat has long been one of my favorite characters in all of literature and Stephen Fry gave him a most delightful treatment. I don't think I could have been more pleased. Absolom, the Blue Caterpillar is given life by Alan Rickman, rounding out the star-studded cast. In case you hadn't figured out where I stand on this one...Run. Go. Now. See it. Several times.

The Lovely Bones

2010-01-18T18:35:00.000-08:00

It's taken me a little over a day to compose my thoughts to a point where I can give this the effort that it requires. Based on the 2002 novel by Alice Sebold, the Lovely Bones was directed by Peter Jackson (the Lord of the Rings trilogy) and stars Saoirse Ronan, Mark Whalberg, Rachel Weisz and Stanley Tucci.

Saorise Ronan plays the main character, Susie Salmon, who also narrates the story as a memory. The story revolves around the life, death and afterlife of Susie Salmon, as she first struggles with the trials of a 14-year-old girl and then with the notion that she's been murdered. Her father, Jack Salmon, (Whalberg) also struggles to find closure and justice for the death of his daughter and the two help each other find what they are looking for throughout the course of the story.

Let me take a step away from this for a moment to say that I haven't read the book so I have only the film upon which to form my opinion. I have heard that the book is "wonderful" and "terrifying" so I may have to give it a whirl....when I'm finished with the waist-deep stack of other "to-be-reads" that I have waiting for me already. But the movie did not bring to my mind words like "wonderful" or "terrifying." It was sad, but by no means a tear-jerker (although there were others in the theater who would disagree with me).

In true Peter Jackson fashion, the imagery was incredible. The "in-between," where Susie is "stuck" is actually something out of my own dreams (or nightmares, in some cases). The colors are vivid and striking where vivid and striking are appropriate but stunningly monochromatic where they weren't.

Brevity, however, is not Jackson's strong point. Even the Frighteners was a two-hour adventure. I bring this up only because there are long movies and there are movies that feel long and at 2 hours and 15 minutes, The Lovely Bones was both. I found myself begging for the end. And yet, I'm still not 100% decided that I didn't like it. I definitely don't think it will be one that I will buy at full price for my collection but maybe if I find it in the $3 bargain bin....

So, that's it. That's what I've come up with in my 28 hours of pondering and chewing. I've come up with nothing. I still don't know whether or not I enjoyed the film and am definitely unclear on whether I should see it a second time. Sorry I couldn't be more helpful.

Where the Wild Things Are

2009-10-25T17:53:00.000-07:00

Produced by Maurice Sendak and directed by Spike Jonze, this film has been taunting and teasing me for months. I loved the book - who didn't? And I love Jonze's previous work, including but not limited to Fat Boy Slim's Weapon of Choice video staring Christopher Walken. And I am here now, a week late, to tell you all what I thought of it.

First, please don't misunderstand... this is not a children's movie. It is based on a children's book and it is by no means inappropriate for children. But it was created for the generation (mine) who grew up with the Wild Things, not for the generation who are just discovering them. The overall tone of the film is very melancholy, even in the happy, raucous scenes there is a shadow lurking in the background...you just know that the happy moment is going to go sour.

As with so many things in our lives, "it's all fun and games until someone gets hurt." In the opening sequence, our hero Max engages some of his older sister's friends in a snowball fight and all are having a terrific time until one of the older kids dives, feet first, into Max's igloo which he worked very hard to create and was, as a result, very proud of. The igloo is destroyed along with Max's feelings.

And this isn't the only scene of its kind. There are at least three more moments where everyone is having a grand old time that is ruined by someone getting to serious.

Don't get me wrong. It was a beautiful film. Sendak made a terrific decision with Jonze. But my recommendation for parents is to see it before your kids. Know, before taking your kids to see it, what they are seeing. Like I said before, it's not inappropriate but for a few of the angrier, more destructive scenes, but it is not one that I give a recommend for kids, 110%.

Rental Recommendation: Wristcutters: A Love Story

2009-09-12T16:46:00.000-07:00

Wow! Totally not what I thought that was about. So here's the premise. Suicides don't go to Hell. They go to this kind of parallel world where they have jobs and crappy apartments and singles bars but no one ever smiles. I had no idea that that was what this movie was about when I Netflixed it (Netflix is also a verb, boys and girls) but I liked it.

Finally a positive review. I have been pretty cynical and negative in my reviews lately and I was beginning to think it was something wrong with me rather than something wrong with the entertainment industry but Wristcutters has reassured me that it is indeed that the movies suck, there is nothing wrong with me.

Zia (who is a male, FYI and played by Patrick Fugit) is jilted by his girlfriend, Desiree, and slits his wrists in the opening sequence of the film. We catch up with him after he has been in the world of suicides for several months. He is seated at a bar where he is approached by Azura Skye who tells him that she and her friend have a game wherein they try to figure out how various bar patrons "offed themselves." He follows her back to her table with her friend where they meet Eugene (Shea Whigham) who bets they can't figure out how he died. The girls leave without figuring it out and he reveals to Zia that he was a musician in life and electrocuted himself by pouring beer on his guitar.

From there we watch the friendship between Zia and Eugene develop until one day Zia learns that his beloved Desiree is also in their world and the two set out to find her, which is the meat of the story.

It's actually a very well written and rather cute story with a happy ending (a legitimate and deserved happy ending not a force-fed Disney ending).

I absolutely recommend Wristcutters: A Love Story to anyone looking for a good, positive, cute indie flick.

Gamer

2009-09-09T21:46:00.000-07:00

Starring Gerard Butler and Michael C. Hall, opened in theaters Friday, September 4. Disclaimer: I copied and pasted this from a post on a message board and don't really want to "tidy" it up so basically you are getting the raw, bare bones of what I really thought. No one is paying me to do this so who cares HOW I write it?

I can only think of two applicable words here: Hugely disappointing! I had seen Milo Ventimiglia plugging it on late night and at Comic Con and it sounded really awesome. I adore Milo...both as an actor and as a beautiful man ... and Michael C. Hall never fails to impress but both of their characters... Yikes. The way Milo was talking about the movie, I definitely thought that Rick Rape was going to be far more integral a character than the five absurdly creepy minutes we spent with him. Same with Ludacris. He had top billing and he on screen, cumulative total, fifteen minutes, maybe twenty.

And Ken Castle (Hall).... Wow! As villains go, he was one of the worst I've seen. And not in a good way. Meanwhile, WTF was with the detour through the set of High School Musical? Singing and dancing? Really? I had to pinch myself to keep from shrieking with hysterical laughter...which is okay if everyone else in the theater also thinks what you are laughing at was funny (or asinine) but apparently I was alone.

Between the two, relatively similar films, I say Death Race was 1000 times better. Same basic concept...Death row inmates fighting to the death to earn their freedom, rigged competition that prevents anyone from winning the prescribed number of battles, but Death Race was definitely better.

The Collector

2009-08-08T23:09:00.000-07:00

The four words that best describe The Collector are: Don't waste your money! As is the going trend in horror films of late, The Collector starring Josh Stewart (the name you may not recognize but the face belongs to former police Det. William LaMontange, reluctant husband of FBI Agent JJ Jareau on CBS's Criminal Minds), gives very little attention to character development and plot and more attention than could accurately be seen as necessary to gore for gore's sake.

Yes, loyal readers, I understand there are people in this world who enjoy these directionless gorey displays of human entrails and torn flesh. I don't understand WHY these people enjoy these movies but I do understand they are out there.

The premise of the story was a decent one. Arkin (Stewart) is an ex-con (a character flaw you'll miss if you go for popcorn at the wrong moment; it's only mentioned once and in passing) whose ex-wife (a detail I only learned from reading the synopsis on the IMDb....see what I mean about poor character development? There's more information about the MC in the synopsis than the actual movie)... Arkin is an ex-con whose ex-wife needs an indeterminate amount of money to repay a loan shark so Arkin decides to rob his jeweler boss's house while the jeweler and his family are away on vacation. Unfortunately, someone else beat Arkin to the punch and littered the house with traps.

That was all I knew about the movie going into it. Sounds tame enough, right? Wrong. Shortly after Arkin breaks into the home we learn that not only are the traps rigged to kill but the trapper would rather do it himself...as slowly and painfully as he possibly can. Any unsuspecting victim would prefer the traps to the alternative. Wait, didn't I see this movie when it was called.....every other spatter-gore movie about a deranged sociopath?

Seriously, kids, if we keep watching spatter-gore pictures, they'll keep making them. If we keep watching them, there is nothing to force horror movie writers to try using their own imaginations. Don't waste your money on The Collector. Skip it. It's not worth it. Go see ....frankly anything currently playing has to be better than this. I would even advocate seeing G-Force before recommending anyone giving money to the unoriginal lunatics who created The Collector.

S. Darko: A Donnie Darko Tale

2009-08-05T20:51:00.000-07:00

Not quite a full decade after Richard Kelly introduced us to the ill-fated Donnie Darko, his family, his girlfriend, "Gretchen," and philosopher Roberta Sparrow, we are taken on another journey, this time following young Samantha Darko, ten years old when her brother was killed by a falling airplane engine, now 17 and traveling from Virginia to California in search of a better life.

While Daveigh Chase reprised her role as Samantha, Richard Kelly disavowed any involvement with the sequel. This was not encouraging. But it was a Donnie Darko Tale, as the cover clearly states, and therefore, as a card carrying Donnie Darko nerd, I had to watch, no matter how painful.

As is the case with most ill-conceived sequels, S. Darko rehashed much of what we loved about the original and made several obscure references to it as well. After blowing out the water pump in the car they are driving, Samantha and friend Cory (played by Briana Evigan) find themselves at Frank's Echo Service in Conejo Springs, Arizona. Work that one out on your own. The rest of the story is too bizarre to effectively convey without a scene by scene breakdown.

Basically, I think it was not a bad movie but I'm really not sure because I was far too distracted by the too much-ity of it all. In the original, there was a moment, when Donnie first meets Frank, when he touches the glass of the bathroom mirror and it ripples. That ripple effect was littered throughout S. Darko nearly every five minutes, and not just in mirrors and glass...thin air rippled (and rippled and rippled until I feared the onset of motion sickness) when it was touched as well. Scenes ran at double time more often than could fairly be called necessary. And there was a great deal of psychedelic lights and colors. There was a terribly upsetting moment where it seemed as though the writers had forgotten which movie they were sequeling and drifted into Invasion of the Body Snatchers, as Jackson Rathbone's face contorts and morphs into something less human and more alien.

As for rehashing the original, there was an ultra-creepy youth pastor slash cult leader, a fire burning hotter than any normal house fire should, a man in a biomechanical bunny mask. There was an "I would give anything to bring her back" sacrifice. And, 2000 miles from the setting of the original story, there was the grandson of Roberta Sparrow.

It is the opinion of this writer and viewer that, had it not been so overtly gimmicky, it might have rivaled the original in story quality. Not surpassed it by any means, but could have stood proudly on a shelf beside it's predecessor without rubbing its toe sheepishly in the dirt like a disdained younger sibling. As it stands, however, I can only think of two words to accurately describe what I saw: Grossly overdone. But. Twenty-four hours later, after having some time to think about it (and I did think about it) I say, if you are a fan of Donnie Darko, rent S. Darko.

However, if you are a fan of Donnie Darko, watch this film without expectations (or as I did, expecting it to be a total disaster). Ignore the spiraling neon lights, ignore the double exposed flickering images of what may or may not be a ghost Sam (Samara? If Daveigh Chase isn't thoroughly screwed up by now, she's one tough cookie). Ignore the gimmicks and pay attention to the story. And watch it again. Because having endured it once, I can tell you with absolute certainty, that once was not enough...another part of it that was just like the original.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

2009-07-25T16:26:00.000-07:00

A week late, as usual, here I am with my thoughts on the latest in the Harry Potter film franchise. A little conflicted here, to tell the truth. It was a great movie, good effects, overall a good time. But there was a lot of important scenes left out of this one. If you've read the books, you'll be able to keep up with me. If not, the first paragraph is probably all of this blog you are going to understand.

Dumbledore only showed Harry two memories. There were a dozen in the book. Now, I was one saying if they include all of the memories the movie is going to be very slow but they needed to include a few of the others. The ring, for example. There was a ring and they kept focusing on it but never explained what it was or why it was important.

They touched on the horcruxes but never elaborated on the seven people Voldemort killed to create them. Lily and James we've known all along but I think knowing the other five (well, four of them anyway) is kind of important to the story.

The first three books followed the books very closely and they were amazing. The Goblet of Fire took some detours but didn't leave out anything important. The Order of the Phoenix actually added some information that wasn't clearly outlined in the book. But The Half-Blood Prince...it stuck to the story, as far as getting from point A to point Z and all of the vowels were present but there were a few consonants missing here and there. Important ones like R, S, T, L, and N.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine

2009-05-05T21:35:00.000-07:00

The first in a potential string of "spin-off prequels" (X-Men Origins: Magneto slated for release in 2011), X-Men Origins: Wolverine is a little more Psycho 4 and a little less Temple of Doom. That is to say, it was far more informative than action-packed. There were definitely some great action sequences, unfortunately, most of them were in the short version of the televised trailer.

Please, don't misunderstand me. It was a great ride and packed tons of people into an nearly-dead cinema in my sleepy little hamlet (I haven't seen that many people in, or around, that building in, literally, years. I think the last time I stood in line for a ticket at that theater was for The Guardian.). If you are a fan of the X-Men, or even a fan of comic book movies or Hugh Jackman, I recommend seeing it. However, if you are just going for big action sequences, big FX, I honestly recommend waiting for the DVD release. Save your ticket money for something like Terminator Salvation (however, given the choice between the two, I'd still pick Wolverine, even with Christian Bale in Terminator).

New server...hosting company...issues

2009-04-18T18:53:00.000-07:00

While this blog has only been used for reviews in the past, I hope some of you have been keeping up with it. The hosting service we were using got bought out or merged with or something another company and all of the sites they were hosting have been (or are being moved) to a new server.

This means nothing to my readers other than it's going to be a few more days while I figure out how the new company works (I hope) until I can get the new issue up and running. Ultimately it really shouldn't affect you kind folks too much.

As for the book...yikes! I'll be honest. I got a new position through my freelance writing gig and that has taken up quite a bit of time that I had hoped to be devoting to the anthology. But that's all wrapped up here for a few weeks so hopefully I can get the book ironed out and ready to print before Mid-May.

Keep checking back here or on the site for more updates.

Watchmen

2009-03-29T15:26:00.000-07:00

Three hours and still no theatrical trailer for Harry Potter later...I return from my journey through an alternate history with Zack Snyder.

There were a couple of incredibly distracting aspects to this film. First of all, did you know that Billy Crudup is the "Priceless" guy from the MasterCard commercials? I cannot picture him when I hear that voice in those commercials so every time Dr. Manhattan spoke, because there was Billy Crudup without Billy Crudup's face, I tried to imagine him saying "priceless," and still couldn't do it.

Second, was Richard Nixon's (Robert Wisden) fake nose. It was so visibly formed out of costumer's putty that every time he came on screen a little voice in my head would scream, "It's not even a real nose! It's polystyrene!" Inappropriately placed Monty Python references are rarely helpful, especially when I'm the only one who can hear them.

Beyond the workings of my own slightly short-circuited mind, I enjoyed the show. It may have been subject matter, it may have been lack of action but I did not hold this one up to the same standard as Snyder's 300, but still enjoyable.

I was warned before going that it was violent and bloody and it was, indeed, violent and bloody. There were some instances when the violence did not seem to be such that would cause the amount of blood spill; that is to say there were a few scenes that seemed to be only for the sake of using up a surplus of Karo syrup, but, again, did not detract from the overall enjoyment of the film.

The premise of the film is fairly simple, given that it is set in the mid-1980's. Stop the Soviets from starting a Nuclear war while the government pretends you don't exist and while someone is picking off your ranks one by one. There is a standard and almost expected twist of comic book treachery in the end and in between is a story about superheroes who try to live normal lives but get dragged kicking and screaming (for about three seconds until they remember how much fun it was to be a superhero) back into the gig.

If you enjoyed 300 and enjoy comic book/superhero films and have the endurance to sit through 3 hours (including trailers), have fun. It's pretty much worth the price of admission. I'm not sure it would be as effective on a home television set.

Twilight

2008-12-29T00:17:00.000-08:00

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

2008-12-28T23:51:00.000-08:00

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

2008-11-05T22:26:00.001-08:00

myLot User Profile

Death Race

2008-08-24T16:20:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-27T16:09:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-19T18:16:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-05T22:18:00.000-07:00

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

2008-05-10T14:34:00.000-07:00

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

2008-03-19T20:45:00.000-07:00

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

2008-03-01T14:37:00.000-08:00

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

2008-02-03T20:16:00.000-08:00

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!!

2008-01-28T18:37:00.000-08:00

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

2008-01-20T18:49:00.000-08:00

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

2008-01-14T21:01:00.000-08:00

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

2008-01-03T21:13:00.000-08:00

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.

Holiday Excitement Thy Name is Burton

2007-12-22T18:35:00.000-08:00

Opening night of Tim Burton's adaptation of Steven Sondheim's Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street has come and gone and this sci-fi/horror blogger wishes to take this opportunity to say - IN-FREAKING-CREDIBLE!! Burton has once again succeeded in elevating my cinema experience to include awe and amazement. Considering my one biggest complaint was that Anthony Stewart Head (better known as Rupert Giles to all you Buffyphiles out there) said one sentence fragment and didn't sing (Behind Blue Eyes, anyone?), I'd say all in all it was a good night at the picture show.

I was a little concerned, going into it, because there were rumors that it had been dumbed down to cater to Captain Jack's drooling teenaged groupies but that worry was sufficiently quelled with the effective, albeit rather unconventional application of a teapot to Sascha Baron Cohen's cranium. Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter were superbly terrifying in their completely aloof decision that Sweeney would slaughter and Mrs. Lovett, creator of meat pies, would ....ahem....dispose of the bodies. Alan Rickman's performance, however, was a trifle understated, when compared to those of Professor Snape and the Sheriff of Nottingham to Kevin Costner's Robin Hood, but still impressive.

In short, run, don't walk, to your local movie house and indulge in the blood shed that is Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd.

But that was not the end of my wonder and bemusement. Upon returning to the warmth of my home, I was greeted with the news that he has confirmed work on two new projects - a stop motion remake of Frankenwenie (gleeeeeeeeee) which will follow, hold on to your seats, Burton fans, a live-action/motion capture adaptation of Alice in Wonderland! Unfortunately, as of press time, neither the IMDb or Rotten Tomatoes has much to say about it. The IMDb has it slated for release in 2010 and Rotten Tomatoes hasn't even caught wind of it's existence. But he has publicly confirmed that he is working on both projects with Disney's assistance.

Burton Allowed to Realize Gorey Vision

2007-11-24T23:11:00.000-08:00

The rumor, found in an article on RottenTomatoes.com, was that Warner Bros. Studios execs were asking Tim Burton to cut out some "excessively gorey scenes" from his film adaptation of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Sweeney Todd: the Demon Barber of Fleet Street. The reasoning behind this edit was to not lose box office bucks from the Disney crowd; i.e. those 14 year old girls swooning over Captain Jack Sparrow. The theory was that these girls would want to see the murderous tale simply because of Johnny Depp's lead but their parents would keep them away because of the amount of blood shed. The whole sordid affair was enough to make me weep openly into my Mini Wheats.

However, I caught the trailer on TV (saw it on IMDb.com several weeks ago without the rating stamp) and quite literally squealed with delight when the announcer guy spoke those magical words every girl longs to hear, "This film is rated R." I squealed and if not for a bad back, would have danced as well. Burton and Depp, 1... censorship and capitalism, zero. That's a big fat notch in the genius column.

Sweeney Todd: the Demon Barber of Fleet Street, starring Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter and Alan Rickman, opens in theaters December 21.

A Bloody Christmas to all and to all a Good Fright :)

30 Days of Night

2007-11-22T23:03:00.000-08:00

When I first heard the concept of and premise behind these novels and the subsequent film, I said to myself, "Self, how could you have been so blind? Vampires in the Arctic, what storyline could have been more obvious?"

So I went to see the film. I had read a review on another blog and it was rave. The writer claimed that no good had come from the vampire genre in some sixty years but this film was stellar. I, unfortunately, must say that I was not as impressed as he. Perhaps it was all the hype that this fellow writer had placed on the film or perhaps it was my aversion to films that use shock and gore to make up for lackluster dialog and two-dimensional characters, but there was definitely something missing from my cinematic experience.

I'm not saying that it totally stunk. The make up was decent and I dug the way they made the vamps jaws unhinge. And if you aren't like me (a total elitest bastard about plot and characters and dialog) and you do go in for gore for the sheer sake of gore, you're in for a romp. To be completely frank, my favorite character had no dialog save for feral screaming. The love interest of the head vamp was Iris, played by newcomer Megan Franich, and for a character who never spoke, only devoured and screeched, she was, by leaps and bounds, the most terrifying aspect of the whole experience (the aforementioned blogger had given this title to Danny Huston, who played the leader's lackey, Marlow).

Josh Hartnett's portrayal of Sherriff Eben Oleson brought forth (in my own mind anyway) memories of Zeke... I can't quite explain why, I just know that all through the picture I kept flashing back to scenes from the Faculty, expecting him to suggest drugging the rest of the survivors so their blood would be tainted and the vampires wouldn't be able to feed from it.

All in all, my recommendation for those who have not yet experienced this celluloid wonder is as follows: If you like blood and gore and don't really care if all of the characters are created equally forgettable, run, don't walk to your local cinema. If you are seeking an innovative and terrifying approach to the vampire genre, save your eight bucks and rent the DVD.