Here's one that has completely slid under my radar, something I should really be more ashamed of than I actually am. In some horror corridors, The Funhouse is hung on the wall as a fine piece of work. Don't ask me why, though because it's really nothing special. It's based around a nifty central idea (kids locked within a carnival's funhouse overnight with psycho killer sporting a badass Frankenstein mask and his dysfunctional "family") that never reaches its full potential. Or even halfway.
If you locked me in my room, strapped to my bed with only my laptop at hand and Microsoft Word open, and forced me to crank out a screenplay based around that premise, with only 24 hours to do so, my finished draft would surely slap the piss out of what The Funhouse is. A shame, really, because the film does pack scattered moments of effective atmosphere, namely during the latter portion, when the four doomed kids (being played by 35-year-old actors, of course) start meeting their fates.
Several of the necessary elements are in place: an amusement park full of the requisite sight gags and wax scare-givers; four dumbass teens who voluntarily "sleep over" inside a funhouse, rather than take their asses to a Quality Inn; a main villain rooted in a totally absurd suplot involving paid-for sex with a cougar gypsy lady that goes South once our Frankenstein-masked gruny prematurely shoots his ooze; and some rather cool creature effects by way of the killer's disfigured, bat-meets-Albert Einstein face. What else do you need for some crappy '80s horror fun? Apparently more. A tighter, less "freak locked in by deviant father figure." It turns into the horror equivalent of The Goonies in ways, with Sloth testing his Voorhees out a bit. Only there's no Chunk to be found here, or even Martha Plimpton.
I'm all for films that take their time rather than hurl out setpiece-after-gory-setpiece, but The Funhouse never gets to where I was hoping it'd go. What I got was poorly-done character development and an hour's worth of nothing-at-all happening. The final half hour is when some goodness kicks in, but even then said "goodness" isn't anything more than just that---good. Nothing to write home about. There's very little blood on screen, which is welcome, actually. Makes sense, when you consider that director Tobe Hooper's previous film was cinematic history's ultimate "virtually bloodless depsite popular/ignorant belief" film, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Now that's a flick that awesomely pulled off the carnage through implication over graphic indulgence. The same approach is used here, and it works. If only there was more of that subtle slaughter and mayhem, and less slowly-paced stalk-and-attack scenes.
The Funhouse is at its best when giant ventilation fans are used as props, oddly enough. The two best scenes have spinning blades to thank, the first being a nicely-done trick of having a loud vent fan drown out the main girl's cries for helps as her family walks through the outside carnival grounds. Second, a hump-session for our hideous monster that downgrades into murder and one hell of a back itch. Hands down the movie's best scene:
So much more could've been done with The Funhouse. Though, I am appreciative that the script didn't go for an obvious "room of wall-to-wall mirrors" sequence. The father/son relationship between the park's owner and the freak should've never left the screenplay's "first draft" phase. Should've stuck with a straightforward monster-with-no-backstory-on-the-loose approach, and delivered more treats along the lines of that above ventilation scene. Sure, it'd be just another '80s slasher flick in essence, but Hooper proves his skills when handling slasher scenarios here, however minimal. An entire flick for him to fully show and prove this gift for slash could've been something legit.
Okay, so I'm kinda drunk right now. Sitting here sipping on my cranberry-and-watermelon-vodka cooler (don't ask), and watching that Andy Samberg comedy Hot Rod. Mad at myself for finding this shit pretty hilarious. But this scene just came one that made me rewind my DVR about three times to make sure it was really happening and not just some figment of my intoxicated imagination. Apparently, it's real, as proven by glorious Youtubes. See for yourselves, it's actually quite for-the-laughs:
Funnny as shit, right? No? Well, fuck you then. Back to my sippy-sippy I go....
A movie that should only be appreciated after you can blame it on the alcohol.
Whether you worship at the altar of the filmmaker's respective filmography or not, genre cinema's icons coast by on wheels of admiration, and rightfully so. Where would horror be without the early work of fellas such as John Carpenter, Dario Argento, George Romero, Joe Dante, and so on, so forth?
I wonder, though, if casting a veteran director in such a light doesn't cause people to overlook the possibility of his/her inferior skills. Case in point: Wes Craven. Earlier this week, in preparation for Dennis Iliadis' vastly-effective, better-than-your-favorite-mainstream-critic-not-named-Roger-Ebert-is-declaring The Last House on the Left remake, I rewatched Craven's 1972 original. The plan was to compare and contrast the two after I'd seen this new one, but as I sat on the train home from the early screening, all I could do was beat Craven's predecessor down peg after peg. What I officially realized while giving the DVD another go was just how shitty of a film that '72 entry is, and that even the more visceral sequences have lost chunks of their force. Sitting through them back in the early '70s must've been one hell of a right hook to the senses, and a few scattered spots throughout the desecration-in-the-woods setpiece still pack a significant punch. But too much surrounding those punches is trite, meandering, and foolish. First off, Craven's decision at the time to cut back-and-forth from the rape images to two dumbass hick cops totally undermines the power of the girls' plight, a truth that's been hailed ad naus by all film critics and lovers. It's all the more obvious while watching Iliadis handle the sequence, though, showing just how damaging the viewing experience can be when you're at the mercy of an uncompromising, widely-talented visual filmmaker. Something that Craven was not.
Disclaimer: No, I do not enjoy watching rape. Chill. What truly makes the rape sequence in this new Last House soar through the roof, for me, though, is the way Iliadias and screenwriters Adam Alleca and Carl Ellsworth preface it. From the moment the four on-the-lam deviants encounter the two innocent gals in their hotel room, the tone of what transpires improves greatly over that of Craven's film. In Craven's the four criminals are insulting, coarse assholes with zero redeeming qualities, at times coming off a bit cartoonish. So when they toss the girls into the trunk of their car, there's zero mystery about what's going to happen. When the rape scenes comes, same with the murders, it's more of a climax than a revelation. In this remake, however, the only reason why this section also resulted in a climax is that I know the source material in and out; If I were a casual moviegoer, though, with no knowledge of the original, I would've been unsure as to the villains' intentions. There's a great scene in their SUV as they're driving the kidnapped, scared girls to God-knows-where that's as much a showcase for Iliadis' directorial chops as it is a testament to the remake's superiority. You can't tell what's going to happen, if the villains are going to kill the girls, or just one of them. Krug, the crew's ice-cold leader, shows a morsel of respect toward Mary, the stronger of their prey, and you think, "Maybe he'll let her go." But then Mary acts a bit too impulsively, fucks up any hope of salvation, and the villains have a diesel motive to move ahead with rape/murder.
The Last House on the Left 2009 has a slew of narrative changes such as that, and they're all for the better, which isn't to say that tweaks in the script are my justifications for proclaiming Wes Craven to be a hack director. There just wasn't even one facet of this remake that felt lesser than its original. And I recalled myself thinking the exact same thing about Alaexandre Aja's awesome Hills Have Eyes remake. So many flaws and missed-the-mark moments are abound in Craven's 1977 Last House follow-up that Aja, like Iliadis, was given ample room for improvement.
The point surfaces: the only early Craven film that is near flawless is A Nightmare on Elm Street, but otherwise there's not a "undeniably great" film in his lot. Each is spotty, uneven. Worth merit more for its after-effects than for its actual quality. Scream, of course, is great, but I consider that a rebirth for the guy, thus rendering it "out of contention" here.
On second thought, didn't he have a hand in writing that recent Hills Have Eyes 2, or as I like to refer to it, Worst Horror Sequel of the Last Ten Years? Pretty positive he did. "Rebirth, schrebirth," I guess, unfortunately.
Lest we forget that Craven directed a little piece of shit called Deadly Friend, too, a mess only saved by the quintessential death-by-basketball scene in film history. Or that he was responsible for Eddie Murphy's Vampire in Brooklyn, a laugher-for-the-wrong-reasons that explains itself in title alone. Blacula it was not.
And back to Aja's Hills Have Eyes real quick.....look no further than the trailer-attack. One of the most intense, stomach-twisting, perfectly-paced and scored sequences in recent memory, all to the credit of Aja. I not-too-long ago watched both that scene and its companion piece from Craven's '85 flick back to back (because that's the kind of thing I like to do on my spare time, yes), and it was quite staggering just how immensely more insane and devastating Aja's is, in the context of modern filmmaking advances or not. Neither scene is particularly showy in terms of effects, so the time-frame argument feels meaningless. Aja now is just a way better filmmaker than Craven then. That simple.
Listen....I respect Craven immensely, and I'm wholly aware of how much his contributions mean to my beloved genre. I'm just the type who tries to call a spade "a spade" as often as possible. Until some well-informed film head can break down the technical prowess of Wes Craven "the director," I'm sticking to my rifles. Ironically, the person most responsible for my realization is Wes Craven himself---he produced both the Last House and Hills Have Eyes remakes, and hand-picked eye-opening foreign filmmakers to commandeer the ships. So for that, I can admire the man even more. Who knows, maybe he'd agree with me that his early career wasn't the best of skill-flashing. He's repeatedly admitted that he had no clue what the hell he was doing while making his Last House on the Left. Just sucks that it shows more than ever now.
Craven's best at what, then? As a producer, clearly. He has an impeccable eye for talent, as seen in his picks of Aja and Iliadis. The versions of his stories that he's behind-the-scenes instead of the camera for thrive much more on character and delicate pacing. The guy knows what makes for good horror, and knows how to pull it out of others. Shame that he can't do the same for himself.
I'd be lying to myself if I didn't give early Craven kudos for this, though.....from 1985's foul-tasting Hills Have Eyes 2, comes..... a dog flashback!!!:
For my money, there has really only been three genuinely great "scary/demon-y kid" movies: The Omen (1976), David Cronenberg's The Brood (1979), and 2007's Joshua. Granted, a few generally respected ones I've yet to see, so this is just based off the creepy-tyke films I can attest to knowing firsthand. (Not sure if Alice, Sweet Alice counts, but if so that'd be a close fourth place.) The problem I have with these films is that I'm just not scared of little kids, in the slightest. Like Chucky in the Child's Play flicks, tiny assailants strike me as the pussiest of all---why not just punt the little fucker and call it a day?
The thought of yet another "kid with devilish secrets" addition has me yawning and then wondering if I'll get to slide into an Inglourious Basterds media screening or not, which gives this new film Orphan a huge point deducted. This trailer that I just came across, though, has more punch than I expected, so it's off to a positive start, at least. Its leads, Vera Farmiga and Peter Sarsgaard, are both far from slouches, so you'd think that two respectable actors wouldn't sign on to something poisoned by a shitty script. Of course, hell can happen during filming and/or post-production that's out of their hands, but if the script is strong enough, there's potential to be had. I can also partially appreciate the choice to have it be an evil girl rather than a boy, which is rare for whatever reason(s).
Hunches say that this one will suck, but I'm willing to give it a shot. More than I could've said two hours ago.
Hold up....I just learned that Orphan's director, Jaume Collet-Serra, has only directed one other genre flick, and it was that fairly-wack House of Wax remake with Paris Hilton. Hilton's death scene was kinda solid, but otherwise that ish did nothing for me. Orphan is his follow-up, eh? Ruh roh!
Many have asked me why I don't talk about last year's Iron Man that much, assuming that I'm not a fan. Wrong they are. It's just not as lofty in my mind as, say, the dozen films from last year I do still bring to attention. Still totally enjoyed Iron Man, loved everything about it except for its way-too-anticlimactic final hero-vs-villain confrontation. The really good far outweighed that one bad, fortunately, especially the little touches: the first time Tony Stark tries flying, a proper example.
For some inexplicable reason, I'm finding myself giddily enthused for next year's sequel, which is odd considering the lack of energy I've paid the first film other than deserved props awarded. I think the initial excitement settled in once Don Cheadle was announced as a sudden replacement for Terrance Howard, who I felt brought nothing to Iron Man. Cheadle is one of the best working actors in the game, so a notch was latched onto the sequel's iron belt. And then the announcements of Sam Rockwell and Mickey Rourke---two of my favorites on any screen---joining the fold as two villains hit, and I became officially jazzed. Then, British eye-pleaser Emily Blunt was announced as the victor of a coveted "Black Widow" third villain role, and the shit became a venerable platter of untouchable talent. However, backtracks and take-backs threatened the joy with reports of Rourke being lowballed with a meager financial offer, and Blunt having to fall back due to contractual obligations to star alongside Jack Black in a Gulliver's Travels film. All wasn't seeming well with Iron Man 2 suddenly.
Well, the revolving door seems to have finally shut, and the cast is confirmed. Rourke will indeed be playing the head villain, "Whiplash," who "will incorporate elements of the Crimson Dynamo’s backstory and appearance, along with elements of the comic book Whiplash, a former Stark employee who builds a costume that allows him to wield cybernetically controlled and electrically charged whips that can cause some serious damage to the Iron Man armour. Think Indiana Jones plugged into the mains and you’re on the right path." [Empire Online]:
And, stepping for Blunt to fill the Black Widow's skintight leather one-piece and stilettos is Scarlett Johansson, which should make any comic book-loving straight male pop something down below. Emily Blunt was clearly the best choice, so this is definitely a downgrade. Johansson has yet to prove much in the way of "exceptional acting" abilities, though she's exceptionally hot and always likeable on screen---two important traits. If anything, just think, this body, wrapped in a form-fitting bad-girl garb:
Albeit while delivering a terrible Russian accent, since Black Widow hails from, you guessed it, Russia, and Johansson doesn't strike me as a master of voice deception. Chatter has it that Johansson auditioned for the role early on but was passed over for Emily Blunt. Luck changes sometimes, a truth that Mrs. Ryan Reynolds must be currently preaching as a tome. Not to mention blockbuster franchise over pride.
Iron Man 2's cast now stands at: Robert Downey, Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle, Mickey Rourke, Sam Rockwell, and Scarlett Johansson. How's that for "stacked"?
Guru once said that it's "mostly the voice," but I beg to differ. For my money, it's mostly the title. That often-neglected and rarely nailed eye-grabber, deal starter. The evidence is easily seen on the backs of rap album packaging (this applies to all music genres, of course, but let's stick to rap here)---I don't know about anybody else, but when I flip over some Yung Thugga lame's CD and read song titles such as "Keepin' It Real," "Gangsta Shit," "I Got That Swag," and "My Kinda Chick," I immediately delete anything to do with Yung Thugga from the memory bank and move on to Terrible New Rapper Number Two. Who will surely have even more sans-creativity/red-flagged titles to offer. On the flipside, I'd give plenty of day-time to any new release from a group such as Jedi Mind Tricks; sure, they're music always sounds the same, and Vinnie Paz's spit is like acid dripping on the eardrum, but that's a nowhere-road I'm willing to take when their songs are called shit like "The Age of Sacred Terror," "Tibetan Black Magicians," and "Chinese Water Torture." Reading those titles, I'm left clueless as to how such weighty ideas will work in a rap tune, but I'll gladly listen for myself.
In simpler terms, effective titles can do little more than spread the product's general story out in clear-cut ways with a basic hook. Case in point: Sam Raimi's return to horror, Drag Me to Hell. Best horror movie title in the last few years? Could very well be. Succinctly states that some craziness will commence, yet remains just foggy enough to draw intrigue. The plot has something to do with a girl who pisses off the wrong demon and begins feeling the brunt of Hell's fury, which works for me. All I ask of this flick is that it signal an "I'm back" to Evil Dead/batshit-nutty-setpieces horror for Sir Raimi, who has now established himself as a blockbuster wizard thanks to the Spiderman franchise.
Just in time to play in front of this week's The Last House on the Left (a film that I can already tell will require tons of explanatory defenses-of-enjoyment on my end), here's the first trailer for Drag Me to Hell. If I hadn't already read a slew of fawning response from horror talking-heads after a test screening last month, I'd be a bit concerned as a result of this trailer. Not a total failure, but hasn't done enough to send anticipation into overdrive. Faith is being comfortably had, though. Word is that the seance sequence (which we can see glimpses of here) rocks the shit. The lack of Jessica Lucas (who co-stars as the lead's, Allison Lohman, best friend) presence in this preview is disheartening (my fellow Cloverfield respect-ors know who I'm talking about), but the amount of demon arms promises a smorgasbord of creeps. And that's always celebratory.
Show Your Face is a sporadically revisited column where I ineffectively petition for a once-relevant (or revelant-ish) actress to make a comeback of any size. A Mickey Rourke-like one of maximum impact, or a "Debbie Gibson doing Playboy mag" nostalgic run. Whichever. The only criteria being that I was at one time in indirect love with said actress. Shallow? Kind of. Wanna fight about it?
Hollywood casting news works in mysterious ways from time to time. Literally, just yesterday I was brainstorming on who the next forgotten sexpot-actress I could bring back to light in this new "Show Your Face" column could be, and all thought processes led to Charisma Carpenter. I'd almost started watching the latest Dollhouse episode from my DVR list, which would've given me some more face-time with Eliza Dushku, who was once on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Then, I recalled how Dushku wasn't the only dark-haired Buffy looker that floated my boat back in the day, and a good minute's worth of recollection reintroduced me to Charisma Carpenter, and the proverbial "light bulb" began glowing above my scalp.
Show Your Face #2 had been found. Jackpot, baby.
So later in the night, I flip on the Chiller channel and come across some terrible straight-to-cable ghost story called Voodoo Moon, starring---that's right---Ms. Carpenter. The film was made only four years back, and Carpenter still looked as near-perfect as before, which laid to rest any cynical "She might not even look good anymore....I mean, she's 38 years old now, with kid....a lack of work could've led her to lose herself" musings. She's still hotter than a Megan Fox photoshoot in Hades.
After consulting her IMDB, it seems that she's actually worked steadily over the last few calendars, predominantly in television (most notably, roles on Veronica Mars and Charmed). All well and good for her bank account, sure, but she's yet to register a character as pop-culture-relevant as her Buffy (and its spinoff, Angel) incarnation "Cordelia," and Cordelia herself is far from a staple. The chick needs some heavy roles, and definitely deserves them. Not talking supporting slots alongside Meryl Streep, or even Hilary Swank, but something.
Enter that "something," and something Teflon in its chances of being memorable. Today, the same day I was ready to write up a Show Your Face about the woman, she has signed on to co-star in Sylvester Stallone's multiple mercenaries action epic The Expendables, which already has a who's-who of badass fellas cast: Mickey Rourke, Eric Roberts, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, and a cameo from Arnie Schwarzenegger. Carpenter will play Statham's girlfriend, which sounds like a whatever role, but fuck it. Her longtime admirers, such as myself, will take what we can get here.
At the least, we should be treated to some new photo spreads the caliber of this classic (well, it should be deemed as such):
You'd have to be blind to not feel all hot and bothered right about now. Or have the absolute worst/most questionable taste in women.
Those Platinum Dunes fuckers need to watch this and take copious notes, because this is how you remake a horror flick. Witless, lazy, botched re-tries like last month's Friday the 13th remind filmgoers just how soul-damaging a poorly-executed genre revisitation can be; but then a rare exception such as this new The Last House on the Left comes along and makes its predecessors seem like a film school reject. Well, the need for improvement is/was much simpler to meet here, since Craven's film is pretty much a piece of shit, save for a few great scenes and general ballsiness.
Leaps-and-bounds superior to Wes Craven's 1972 debut (which itself was a pseudo-remake of Ingmar Bergman's The Virgin Spring, for all you film fun-fact lovers), Last House 2009 rolls along with uncompromising bleakness, all-around strong acting, a script that consistently goes "there" in ways that feel earned rather than indulgent, and a director (in this case, Greece's Dennis Iliadis) taking chances with arthouse inclinations and a showman's command of pacing for intensity's sake.
Even my bladder enjoyed this one. True story---I was miraculously able to withstand one of the most excruciating, leg-crossing, ready-to-pour-out urges to urinate imaginable thanks (or, no thanks?) to this flick's goodness. Hi, I'm the dumbass who gets a large Diet Coke and then proceeds to destroy it before the movie even starts. Unlike me, however, two senior citizens walked out during the film's tone-amplifying centerpiece. *Hint: begins with an R and rhymes with cape*
The biggest compliment that I can pay Iliadis' American debut, other than fending off my Diet-Coke-induced misery, is that it admirably improves on practically every lacking area of Craven's original while still tossing in numerous addition of its own. No idiotic Craven-sim is left unturned. Kick rocks, asinine cop subplot. Hello, overall tone of zero laughs and unflinching hardcore-realism. In the '72 take, Craven's tone was all over the place, bouncing erratically from goofy hick comedy to bumbling cop procedural to exploitative horror. Don't even get me started on the banjo-bent soundtrack. Here, though, a villain-establishing prelude puts one helluva dark ride on cruise control, for the better. And were those some of the same orchestral sounds heard in 28 Days Later? If so, how lazy, but well-placed.
When you ask any horror head about the original, you're bound to hear something to the effect of "That rape scene was nasty, as was that one chick's exposed entrails," a tough 10-minute stretch that's exceptional when put into its 1972 context. After seeing Iliadis pull the same section off in much more painful fashion with more simple implication, though, calling out the Craven version's faults is like hooking dead fish. The '72 film cared more about the villains' perspective than those of the two innocent girl-victims, giving the entire setpiece a filthy, uneasy sadism. Iliadis and screenwriters Carl Ellsworth and Adam Alleca flip the POV through the eyes of the teenage gals, mostly more-established "loving daughter" Mary (actress Sara Paxton), and it's all the more scarring for it. No longer are we watching sick fuckers get their rocks off for no good reason; now, we're helplessly witnessing a nightmare that neither side expected to be a part of. The defiling of Mary easily sets a new bar for sexualized violence in Hollywood, whether you deem that commendable or despicable. BTW, I couldn't take my eyes off the rape scene shamefully. More a product of captivating filmmaking than any personal deviancy, so breathe with ease.
Effective in equal measure is the choice to [SPOILER ALERTAGE] allow the daughter-victim to (barely) survive the raping/attempted murdering this time. Having the parents, Emma and John (played nicely by C-list vets Monica Potter and Tony Goldwyn), see their little girl clinging to life with a bullet hole near her shoulder and a crotch that screams "I was raped!" adds whole new levels of anger, fear, confusion, and bloodlust for revenge. Though, this film's final act is more about survival than vengeance, an aspect that elevates The Last House on the Left 2009 into a more dramatic plain than simply "horror." In horror films, murders and scenes of gore tend to come off as gratuitous, but here the bloody justice issued by the parents is urgent. Some "We better kill these sons of bitches with the quickness before they discover Mary in the living room" immediacy.
The way Iliadis stages the entire "parents turn the tables" portion results in some of the most seat's-edge viewing I've seen from an American-made horror film in a long ass time. No wonder that Iliadis is a foreigner. Namely the first evildoer's demise, that of Francis (played with charismatic coldness by Aaron Paul), the younger brother of the deviant-crew's leader, Krug (nailed with calculated menace by Garrett Dillahunt). The lead-up to Francis's comeuppance is patient, mining some nice tension from the question of whether he'll discover Mary recuperating a mere 30 feet away from him as he tries to score with the mother, cutie Monica Potter (can you blame Frank? Chick's a MILF). But when shit hits the ceiling and the husband/wife team bring Hell down on Frankie Boy, the intensity is pretty special, accelerated by a booming electronica score and rapid camera cuts to and from Frank's bloodied, agonizing face. And the payoff is a spade.
The Last House on the Left 2009 isn't perfect, though. There's only one real glaring problem with the film---it's utterly-pointless final scene. Everything up until the last minute remained in line with what came before, keeping the realistic approach to violence in check. [HUGE SPOILER ALERTAGE] For no logical reason other than to pander to audiences with one last "yell and applaud" moment, though, Iliadis and company (including Craven, one of this film's producers) tack on a death scene right out of some over-the-top exploitation film and nearly piss all of the good will they've earned for preceding 99% of film away. If you've seen the too-revealing trailer, then you're aware that a microwave is used as a murder weapon, which in itself is ridiculous. Yes, there's a brief scene early on that points out that the microwave is broken, but can this kitchen appliace really operate with the door open, malfunctioning or not? And how is that it takes me nearly four minutes to heat up a couple of tasty Lean Pockets yet it take the father hardly ten seconds to fry Krug's head until it exploded (with some pretty bitching gore effects, I should add)? If this were any other horror film, this microwave-meets-Scanners moment would rock excessive ass, but here it's blatantly unfitting. It takes a lot for me to not enjoy watching a noggin combust due to the same heat-power that warms up my leftovers.
One mishandled minute out of 90-or-so total is far from shabby, still, so ultimately The Last House on the Left's one boo-boo is easy to look beyond. Just way too much positive going on. Every actor on screen performs well. I must point out sexy Riki Lindhome, who plays Krug's psycho-bitch lover Sadie; Lindhome has officially become one of the most intriguingly-beautiful actresses in the game. I could look at her for hours on end and never lose the parallel feelings of attraction and fascination. An able actress, too. Iliadis isn't afraid to keep taking you to where most other filmmakers are too pussy to go, and his stylistic sensibilities upgrade the cinematography and framing decisions above standard films of this ilk. See, this is what happens when thoughtful filmmakers deliver the horror; take note, whoever directed that Prom Night remake. Oh, that's the same dude behind the upcoming The Stepfather remake, right? Yeah, that one is going to puke.
Would I recommend this film to casual movie heads? Yes, but hesitantly. And before turning my phone off to avoid any "You sick, sick man" calls, text messages, and/or voicemails. It's not an easy watch. Very, very bad things happen to both good and bad people, and even the bad people somehow conjur up droplets of sympathy as acted by the talent here. The Last House on the Left '09 isn't what most would peg a "great film," though I'm sure any cinematic-thinker can appreciate an aspect or three. The catch here is that this is a movie tailor-made for somebody like me, skillfully including all of the creative and visual ticks that I prefer. Recall, I'm the same fella who gleefully rewatches a woman's pregnant stomach get cut open with scissors when paying my Inside DVD mind.
Now, if being partial to death and depravity makes me "sketch," that's a whole other story. I've been called worse, anyway. "Meat," anybody from Paramus Catholic High School?
What was the last "really good" new, original slasher film? Nope, Adam Green's Hatchet was not it (that one was just "good"). I'm talking excellent/makes me want to watch it over and over again/could be a franchise in the right studio's hands. The Midnight Meat Train is essentially a slasher, so that could be an answer, but I'm talking old school style.
Well I'm pondering, here's a trailer for this upcoming straight-to-DVD flick Laid to Rest (out April 21), which I've been reading tons of excitable press about on the various horror sites. Having now finally caught a real peak myself, I must say that this does look rather quality. The killer's metal-skeleton mask alone is tough. Like a better version of Mr. Voorhees in Jason X.
A terrifying story of a young girl who wakes up in a casket with a traumatic head injury and no memory of her identity. She quickly realizes she was abducted by a Deranged Serial Murderer and in an isolated rural town she must survive the night and outsmart the technologically inclined killer who is hellbent on finishing what he started.
Laid to Rest even nailed the "must cast an exceptionally-gorgeous chick" aspect. Let's meet its star, Bobbie Sue Luther:
This one is on the right track, my friends. Hit the link below to watch the impressive trailer.
As pointed out by a friend at work.....check out this DVD cover shot for The Wrestler. I can't get over how weird it is that they've chosen a point-of-view shot of a Ram-Jam-victim over the standard "Ram with his head down, fatigued" image. It's actually quite badass, but, still, odd.
Or maybe it's not a big deal at all, and I'm just strange. Jury is out and about.
Is it wise or worrisome that I'm only excited to see this flick, Surveillance, simply because its director is Jennifer Lynch, the daughter of one David Lynch, a mind-fucking filmmaker who I bow to from time to time (pause?) and is listed as a producer here? If one of Stanley Kubrick's daughters put out a movie, I'd be similarly enthused, but there's no chance in holy hell that the finished product would even be able to sit next to one of her father's DVDs on a Best Buy shelf. The same point could be made about the Lynch dad/daughter connection. Jennifer could be an inept director for all I know, yet I'm still psyched for this Surveillance. Her only other film, Boxing Helena, was universally reviled by critics, though many have retracted the vehement bile in later years, but there's still causes for concern there. So this could be a case of unworthy nepotism, but I'm still willing to give it a go.
There was actually a chance for yours truly to check this one a couple months back at the New York Horror Film Fest, but I opted to sleep off a bitchin' hangover (the screening was on a Sunday afternoon). The flick won an award or two there, which bodes nicely. Now, this newly-issued trailer is gearing me up for Surveillance's limited release this summer, and it's confusing and invigorating enough to make this a must-pay-for:
The more I read via the 'Net and horror writers' Twitter updates, the more excited I'm getting about this Last House on the Left remake. Seeing it tomorrow night, wonderfully, and the anticipation is tipping the metaphorical scales. How can it go wrong?
Positive 1) The cast is full of not-so-big actors/actresses that I'm fond of, namely Riki Lindhome, a strangely-erotic-looking gal with an long yet striking face, model-like bod, and compelling disposition that I'm totally fascinated by, and Aaron Paul, an modern-day Alex Winter lookalike who is winning me over courtesy of AMC's pretty special show Breaking Bad.
Riki Lindhome, Garrett Dillahunt, Aaron Paul
Positive 2) The last time Wes Craven and company hired a talented new foreign director to update one of his early works, the result was Alexandre Aja's kick-ass The Hills Have Eyes; French guy Aja's High Tension (the flick that inspired Craven to hire him) wowed me in similar ways as Dennis Iliadis' Hardcore, so I'm optimistic that Iliadis has some tricks up his Greek sleeves with this Last House (Craven's 1972 debut).
One of the several money scenes in Alexandre Aja's High Tension
Positive 3) Word is, proven by the trailer, that this take is pure 100% bleakness, which is a great call, since the original Last House is irritatingly 75% goofy, lighthearted bore and 25% stellar visceral gutpunch.
As a sort of self-imposed homework assignment/study session, I'm about to start my Last House on the Left '72 DVD, to refresh the memory and draw a definitive "remake: superior or not?" conclusion come tomorrow night. I fear that many of you who check this humble little site out have never seen Wes Craven's original, though, or even heard of it until now. In light of such questionable ignorance, here's a couple of choice scenes, totally posted out of complete context. Just know that two girls are killed and raped in the woods by four sadistic criminals, who, stranded without a working car, then seek refuge in the home of the one now-mutilated girl's parents, and the parents, upon learning the truth, go apeshit.
If you plan on someday watching Craven's original in its entirety at some point, then don't check these. Otherwise, give them a gander. Consider Barone's World your one-stop educational shop on current remakes.
Most New Jersey lifers associate the Jersey Shore with meathead/guido-filled clubs such as Temps or Merge; others dream of eating sloppy cheesesteaks while walking the boardwalks with family. Oh, please don't associate the Jersey Shore with that loser Tommy Cheeseballs from MTV's True Life special, out-of-staters. Yes, most of the dudes down there in the summer are as lame as your boy Tommy, but that doesn't mean its a bad place. He's about as piss-poor a tourism advocate as a Cancer-Grabbing Crane Machine in an arcade. I, on the other hand, distinctly recall the days of exiting my grandfather's oceanside trailer with my brother to hit the local convenience store, where packs of Garbage Pail Kids trading cards awaited us, in bulk. My parents, the supportive types that they've forever been, shelled over bills voluntarily, and without argument, even though they were fully aware that my bro and I were about to purchase little pieces of tree-carcus designed with pics of kids in nasty predicament, the likes of "Disgusting Justin" or "Intense Payne." Such juvenile absurdity made us happy, though, which was the important part.
Over some Indian cuisine last night amongst friends, the topic of Garbage Pail Kids came up. Courtesy of yours truly, naturally. Turned out that three out of our four-head dinner party had collected these as kids, a higher ratio than I was anticipating. Seeing a green light, I went on to tell the sadly-true story of one particular Garbage Pail Kid, the name of which escapes me at the moment, but whose image is still stained onto my brain. It was of this little kid being sucked into the drain at the foot of his bathtub, and it looked more horrifying than any scare film I've ever watched. I was somewhere in between eight and eleven years old at the time, so my pussy-footed ways were excusable, but fuck was I petrified to take a bath after first seeing that card. Feet never touched the bath drain ever since, even to this day. Any time my big-toe inches near the drain, visions of a vacuum-like force pulling my body in surface mentally, bringing to mind that scene from the Creepshow 2 (best of all within that overall-meh flick) installment "The Raft," when the jock-y dude Deke is pulled underneath the raft, his left leg violently snapping upward, by that oil-slick monster. Not a good mental look.
Less than 24 hours after our dinnertime chat, coincidentally, Topless Robot (the best nerd site on the 'Net) has posted a list of the 13 best Garbage Pail Kids of all time. Debatable and lacking that bathtub-set one, it's still great to see others paying as much close-eye to the wonderfully-sick children's card series. The least you could do is visit Topless Robot and see for yourselves, then:
The movie finally came out. Performed really well (if not as astronomically blockbuster-ish as many had hoped) at the box office this past weekend. Will most likely suffer from a large-sized dropoff this upcoming weekend. And has been discussed and dissected so much across the Internet that it'd be pointless for me to add anything more. But, alas, I've seen it twice now, and after seeing Watchmen that second time I realized that the film is even more flawed than I initially thought after the visual-fucking-but-it-felt-so-good I experienced. Still a really impressive, landmark flick, but it really does come off the hinges narratively once the action shifts to Antarctica, with too many connect-the-plot-dots left un-addressed and the emotional impact hitting too softly. [QUICK SPOILER WARNING] Then there's the poorly-delivered "whodunit" plotline, handled much stronger in the comic, while telegraphed within the first 20 minutes in the movie (check the first shot of Adrian Veidt giving the interview---it's clearly the same exact body type as Comedian's wiry assailant) [SPOILER DONE].
And, damn, the over-stylized fight scenes are so wrongly used. I've had to explain to five people already that one of the driving themes behind the comic is that these people, aside from John Osterman/Dr. Manhattan, are everyday Joes who take on crimefighting in costumes without possessing any superpowers or special abilities. In this flick, though, that's totally lost no-thanks to the slo-mo/sped-up fights, with bodies flying across sets, bones snapping, kung fu moves whipping with maximum velocity, and Oldboy sequences being not-so-inconspicuously swiped. Snyder's Watchmen feels too much like a superhero movie at times.
Aspects such as this opening title sequence, however, give the film such a massive presence that its difficult to vehemently complain, showing just how gifted Zack Snyder is visually/creatively. This is also one of the rare times during the film that the choice of using recognizable songs rather than originally-composed music actually works (Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are A-Changin'" here), opposed to the half-a-dozen times when the flashback tunes instantly yank you out of the flick (Jimi Hendrix's "All Along The Watchtower" especially). As far as jumpoff credit sequences go, though, this one is something else, and since its so special and has nicely landed online, I'd be foolish not to post.
Just watch soon, since I can imagine this will be taken down sooner than later.
***As expected, Warner Bros. has pulled the clip from every embeddable source. I'm sure it'll creep back online at some point, but here's a pic from it, for now:
LATEST UPDATE: The clip is alive and well (for now) over here, so give it a go ASAP: DaveandThomas.net
This post is dedicated to the St. Patty's Day celebration tomorrow in Hoboken, within which I'll be stumbling around drunk starting at precisely 9am. Wish me luck.
Give me anything that's mint-flavored and you'll forever be a friend of mine. Chocolate chip mint ice cream, the greatest of all time. Those mint cookies sold by the Girl Scouts, absolutely divine. You get the drift.
So somebody please explain how in the fuck I've never heard of the enigmatic "Shamrock Shake" prior to this afternoon, when a friend at work put me on? And if anybody knows where I can find one of these, hit me immediately. I'm not playing around here. It's regarded as the Loch Ness monster of the fast food universe, which is mind-blowing in its ridiculousness. Yet, cool.
This has the makings of the perfect dessert, and I'm now determined to find some. I mean, the Shamrock Shake even had its own mascot at one point, Grimace's Irish cousin. That's just wonderful:
Again, if anybody has some insider tracks on the whereabouts of the Shamrock Shake, I'm standing by. It's time for some recon.
......with, first, this, the new Star Trek trailer. Tons to do today so I'm unable to offer much opinion here, but I think it says a lot that I'm really excited about this flick despite haven't ever really given two shits about the Trek franchise prior. Makes me part of the new audience that Trekkies will no doubt hate for being so late to the party and having arrived on J.J. Abrams' bandwagon, but so be it. The man is great at what he does:
This second trailer is one I wasn't expecting to see so soon, but am glad for it. It's a new comedy called The Hangover that's hitting this summer, and my "intel" (as if I actually have legit intel; it's really just colleagues fortunate enough to catch early screenings mixed with online reactions) says that it's pretty hilarious. A potential Summer sleeper hit on our hands. From the dude behind Old School and Road Trip, so you know it's good. The scene with Iron Mike alone shows promise of being a showstopper:
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And, before I go off about my busy day, one final item: this amazing "Saturday morning cartoon spoof of Watchmen" made by some wiz guy named Harry Partridge. It's egghead material, and the best piece of pre-release Watchmen insanity yet. Since the movie finally streets today, I figured this was a nice parting gift for the "pre-release express."
Thinking about making "Show Your Face" a re-appearing column here, assuming this first one doesn't come off too stalkerish/loser-like. Very well could. Fuck it, 'tis what 'tis.
When I tell people that I rarely fall asleep before 1am on weeknights, I'm usually met with either screwfaces or rants about how unhealthy that is or how I need to stop watching bullshit television and get some rest. Both valid points, facts that I consider every night as I sit in bed flipping through cable looking a flick to captivate me long enough for my eyes to grow too-heavy. it's a terrible routine, but one I'm a bit too weak-minded to conquer.
The other night, at around 1:30am, I was met with the throwaway teen comedy Whatever It Takes (2000), which is one of the many lowest-common-denominator "nerdy teen wins over popular looker" flicks that hit in the wake of She's All That's success. Perhaps the one redeeming quality for those flicks was that virtually every one co-starred a young on-the-riser who'd go on to bigger, more credible things: Entourage's Adrian Grenier was in the god-awful Drive Me Crazy, for instance. In Whatever It Takes, James Franco (whose career is hotter than Paris Hilton's fire-crotch these days) played the douchebag jock, and he actually exuded "moronic masculinity" much better than the film deserved.
"Why would you put myself at the mercy of only five hours of sleep just to watch Whatever It Takes in its wholeness?," you may ask. Two excuses: 1) shamefully, I'm a fan. For my cheddar, it's actually the best of its kind, full of enough asinine sight gags, occasionally snappy dialogue, and young character actors with talent to win me over without much effort. But 2), and this brings me to the "essence" of this post, seeing it on the tube the other night reignited my once-potent eyes for Marla Sokoloff, who steams up the screen with her half smiles, gaze-into-us-baby eyes, and utterly underrated frame.
And now, the true point to all of this: where in the hell is Marla Sokoloff? Somebody get me a milk carton, because she's been missing in action for far too long.
To give a full picture of my longtime love for this chick, I have to confess one of my darkest secrets, one that I've foolishly shared with a select few over the years.....I'm a closet Full House junkie. Actually own one of the season sets on DVD, which I conveniently bury under stacks so it's left unseen by the naked eye. Will watch from start to finish whenever a rerun airs. Have been the butt of endless insults spewed by my parents and brother as a result. Couldn't give a fuck less that Blender magazine once rated it as the "gayest" show ever, or some shit like that. It was, and remains, the ultimate guilty pleasure.
Full House was a show I watched religiously back when it was first airing, so I was around the same age as Stephanie Tanner, grew up alongside her. Initially had a thing for her, Miss "Future Druggie" Jodie Sweetin, but that all evaporated the moment badass Gia, played by---you guessed it---Marla Sokoloff, stepped foot on the screen to coax Stephanie into doing drugs in the girl's bathroom. Love struck, and was thankfully allowed to grow as her character hung around, given an expanded presence as Stephanie's best friend in later seasons.
So when I first saw Sokoloff in Whatever It Takes back in 2000, you can imagine the joy. She'd grown up into one of the more intriguingly attractive actresses in the game, and I was pleased. Shit, I even tuned into a few episodes of The Practice just to check her in action, and I loathe hourlong lawyer shows. She dated James Franco for a short time, I recall, but other than that she kept a low profile, making it that much tougher to stay abreast. No surprise that she stayed out of the lights; her most recognizable facial expression was that disinterested, cold, you-gotta-work-for-this scowl.
Perhaps I should've watched more of The Practice, though, because that's pretty much the last notable thing she did, and that ish ended in 2004. So, again, I'll lather the question into pop culture: where the hell is Marla Sokoloff, and why isn't she working? It's most likely a voluntary decision to exile herself from the entertainment industry. Whatever the case, I demand answers.
....without as much as using a script or paying attention to production design or cinematography. Of course not really, but the only ways this one could be a total waste of time are if they decide to go the animated route or try some new "avant-garde" all-black screen technique.
Some obscure British thriller from 1970 called And Soon The Darkness is being remade, which centers on "two American girls on a bike-riding trip in a remote part of the country. When one of them goes missing, the other must find her before darkness falls and her worst fears are realized. The original was set in France and tackled the idea of how vulnerable a stranger in a strange land can be." [Bloody-Disgusting.com] I've already tossed the '70 flick high up into the Netflix, so I'll see how worthy of a revisit it truly is soon enough. The reason why this new spin has the potential to be the best-looking piece of cinema this side of an The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (narrative faults and sentimentality overload aside, that film does look absolutely stunning), though, is the casting of the two female leads:
Amber Heard
Odette Yustman
Yustman is lacking in acting, sure. Heard is positioning herself as a credible Scream Queen but has yet to prove her thespian chops, indeed. You know what, though? I'm a sheep, so chances are super-likely that I'll adore this And Soon The Darkness redo even if it plays out worse than Yustman's The Unborn.
Jesus, Watchmen really is the big kahuna in Hollywood right now, huh? Every day of this week has seen a huge new trailer hit, with a fresh Star Trek one still on deck. Here's the latest, a longer, more detailed, slightly confusing look at X-Men Origins: Wolverine:
In Best Buy the other day, I nearly dropped coin on this, the first season of Tales from the Darkside:
As I walked toward the register, some cold, hard facts began trickling into the thought box. Wait, dumbass....Tales from the Darkside's episodes are terrible overall. Why waste cash? Sure, I love television genre anthologies more than anything, but why I own every other one, so why fuck with this crap?" Common sense got the best of me, fortunately, and I set it back on the shelf, where it seemed like every single copy was available (not exactly a hot seller, I suppose).
Even the fact that the great George Romero's name was listed as a producer on the series couldn't save it from the pits. Can't say I've seen every episode, but I have watched a great deal, enough to make an educated assessment that the show was wildly uneven. For every semi-creepy horror entry there'd be a painfully-unfunny horror-comedy tale; for every bootleg special effect there'd be piss-poor acting by C-listers and other faces you'd recognize from random movies ("Hey, isn't that the Italian dude from Fast Times from Ridgemont High?).
What pains me the most about my distaste for Tales is that its "father" is Creepshow, a flick that I adore in vast ways. Imagine that, directly resulting from The Dark Knight's mondo success, a new CW channel series starring Frankie Muniz as Batman premieres and gathers enough viewers to sustain a five-year run, gradually and mercilessly beating down your affinity for the flick that started it all. That's how the truly-shitty episodes of Tales from the Darkside treat my Jordy Verrill-loving heart.
Thanks to the Chiller network, I've been able to catch up on Tales from the Darkside, which originally aired from 1983 to 1988, more than I should ever want to, and over time I've grown to appreciate the show's camp value, at least. It's never less than pretty-entertaining, even when an episode's quality leaves you wishing you were watching The New York Ripper instead. If I had to single out one problem area that pisses me off most about Tales from the Darkside than any other, it's be the elegraphed plot twists that jump the shark within the first five minutes of every fucking episode. I'd say I've watched about 40-or-so episodes thus far, and I'm not joshing when I say that I've called 40-or-so impending twists. No one man should possess such Nostradamus-esque foresight. A clear sign that the writers behind the show were either full-fledged hacks or just lazy as sin.
The only redeeming quality that deserves recognition and praise: the show's opening title sequence. A rather disorienting, haunting, sticks-in-your-head score layered with Paul Sparer's voiceover that places second after Rod Serling in the pantheon of genre anthology preambles:
If not for ever-so-generous Youtube, I might have submitted to temptation and purchased the Tales DVD just so I could rewind and re-watch that opening sequence at will. Unnecessary now, thankfully. Youtube is even gracious enough to offer some of the show's best moments for ogling consumption, such as this, from "Inside the Closet," a terribly-dated yet still cool monster-in-my-room entry directed by the giant-in-my-mind Tom Savini:
If that scared you, then you'd love Tales from the Darkside. You'd also be a pussy, but that's neither here nor there.
Wanna know the sad part? If somebody were kind enough to give me this Season One set as a gift, I'd be happier than a cat in litter. Just because something is crap doesn't make unworthy of my DVD collection. I see you, Resident Evil: Apocalypse.
On the heels of yesterday's Public Enemies riff, it feels only right that I post this just-dropped trailer.
I'm actually really digging Michael Mann's choice of using the same naturalistic camera-capture he employed for the Jamie Foxx/Colin Farrell Miami Vice flick. Gives this period piece a whole new aesthetic that I didn't see coming.
The trailer hasn't enhanced my excitement much, though. Hasn't lessened either, but I can't find anything particularly awe-inspiring about it. The best I can say "It finally shows me what we're in for exactly," and the fact that it seems we're in for something proficient and quality bodes well.
Over at the KING site, a next-morning reactions piece I've written about Watchmen has gone up, so rather than repeat opinions or overwrite here, I'm just going to supply the link. Just in case anybody cares about my Watchmen feelings (in short: largely positive).
Per usual with my online stuff, I approached it with no real outline, or sense of "proper structure." Just freestyled, for better or worse.
I look forward to the day when I'll be able to treat such ramblings with a finer "re-read and touch-up" comb. Because the way I've been doing things totally leaves me susceptible to error. I'm aware.
Woke up this morning, and found myself bombarded with great-sounding news coming from Hollywood. One of those pre-noon sensations that reminds me just how much I love this movie world ish. Let's run down the highlights briefly, shall we? Without getting two wordy, or at least trying not to. No promises there.
1) Leonardo Dicaprio has just signed on to star in Christopher Nolan's next film. No, that doesn't mean that Dicaprio is playing The Riddler, or replacing Aaron Eckhart as "Harvey Dent" in some resurrected character arch. Nolan's next isn't a third Batman flick, sadly, but what it is is a mysterious sci-fi project called Inception, that's said to take place in the "architecture of the mind," or something to that effect. Whatever, it's already sounding pretty top-shelf. Call me crazy, but I actually prefer Nolan's non-Batman stuff over his Gotham City exploits, which are amazing in themselves (**ducking from The Joker action figures being hurled at my head**). Memento and The Prestige are undeniably brilliant and flawless (go 'head, try to deny that). Inception will hopefully be no different, and it's good to see Nolan giving Christian Bale a break and moving over to another great modern-day star.
2) Guess what I was lucky enough to see last night? Fuck it, I'll just tell you since I'm still reeling from excitement: Watchmen. I'm going to write something up on it for the KING site, so I'll link that here once its posted, but I'll just say, for now, that, while flawed, its still an astonishing piece of otherworldly work that does the book justice (for all). In the midst of Watchmen fever overdrive, director Zack Snyder (also of 300) has announced the cast of his next project, the all-female "Alice In Wonderland with machine guns" action flick Sucker Punch, which sounds pretty wild: "Set in the 1950s, Babydoll [is] a girl confined to a mental institution by her evil stepfather, plans to have her lobotomised in five days. Fellow inmates would include Blondie, Sweet Pea, Rocket, and Amber. To escape the pain, Babydoll retreats into a fantasy world (along with her companions) and there begins planning her escape before a "vile man" can rape her. [Sucker Punch] will apparently include dragons, B-52 bombers and brothels, an interesting mix."
How's that for a plot description. As Watchmen proves, Snyder is a beast with his visuals, so this one will at least look great. A fact only aided by the young ladies he's tapped to star in it, all lookers (four talented actresses and one High School Musical alum): Amanda Seyfried (Mamma Mia!, Alpha Dog) will play "Babydoll," and her fellow inmates will come in the forms of Abbie Cornish, Vanessa Hudgens, Emma Stone (Superbad), and Evan Rachel Wood (amazing and underrated in The Wrestler).
clockwise from top left: Amanda Seyfried, Vanessa Hudgens, Emma Stone, director Zack Snyder, Evan Rachel Wood, Abbie Cornish
a bonus shot of Amanda Seyfried from Vanity Fair that I've always been fond of:
and, um, yeah.....Vanessa Hudgens, in a bikini:
Well, Hudgens is sexy as hell. That's a start. Btw, she recently turned 21, so don't give me any of that "you pedophile" bullshit.
3) Rather than drop more unoriginal, everybody-with-a-penis-is-doing-it praise for one Megan Fox, I'll just keep this next one brief: she's signed on to play the female lead in this western fantasy comic book adaptation Jonah Hex, starring "the man" Josh Brolin, and co-starring John Malkovich as the villain. I've yet to read the comic series (though I plan on doing so soon), but hearing that Fox will play "Leila, a gun-wielding beauty" gives me visions of sex and violence, and I like it. In further Fox news, she's also officially attached to play the title character in Fathom, another reason for comic book nerds to beat the meat to her pictures, since Fathom is a comic book adaptation about "a sexy marine biologist who discovers she has incredible water-based abilities" (Joblo.com).
Comic cons are about to fill up with never-gonna-get-it hormones. Like Triumph the Insult Comic Dog visiting that Star Wars movie line all over again.
