THIS MODERN NIGHTMARE

ALIEN VS. PREDATOR: REQUIEM

Well, the latest edition of CINEMA KNIFE FIGHT is a review of ALIEN VS. PREDATOR: REQUIEM. And guess what, it just got posted on FEAR ZONE!

Here's the link:

http://www.fearzone.com/blog/avp-requiem

THE BEST MOVIES OF 2007

As always, the annual "Best Of" list is based on movies I've seen. I'm sure there are great movies that came out, that I haven't seen. If so, let me know which ones to check out.

And some of these choices are bound to piss some people off. They always do. That's perfectly normal.

So let's do the countdown, shall we?

10. 300 – The look of this movie was amazingly close to the original artwork of Frank Miller's graphic novel. Sure, the story was maybe a little too simple, and this doesn't come anywhere close to the previous big Miller adaptation, SIN CITY, but 300 was a visual achievement and stuck close to Miller's original work. It was also a lot of fun.

9. DAY WATCH – the sequel to NIGHT WATCH, this Russian film further explored the uneasy truce between the forces of light and darkness. Where NIGHT WATCH ended with the forces of evil triumphant ( a refreshing change, at least), DAY WATCH offers a glimmer of hope. In both story and style, this movie isn't up to the standards set by NIGHT WATCH, but it's a pretty interesting film nonetheless. I can't wait for the final part of the trilogy.

8. THE HOST – a Korean monster movie that had human characters as interesting as the beast (a rarity in giant monster films). A gigantic creature comes ashore one day and starts killing people. As it leaves, it drags a little girl along with it. Her family tries to get her back against daunting odds.

7. BLACK BOOK – Paul Verhoeven goes back to his native Europe to make a film about the resistance against the Nazis during WWII and a woman who infiltrates the enemy. There are a lot of films about this time period, but this is the first one I've seen about the Netherlands during that turbulent period. Verhoeven does a fine job directing, but the real reason to see this movie is Carice van Houten, who is simply mesmerizing as Rachel. I really hope this role leads to bigger and better things for her.

6. 30 DAYS OF NIGHT – finally a movie that makes vampires scary again, as a bunch of them take over an Alaskan town where it's night time for a month straight every winter. The vampires have a feast and the remaining humans struggle to find a way to stop them. A clever idea and a good movie. Based on the similarly good graphic novel by Steve Niles and Ben Templesmith.

5. THE MIST – Director Frank Darabont gives us a mostly faithful adaptation of Stephen King's classic novella about a bunch of people in a supermarket, trapped by a fog that holds several different kinds of beasts, who seem to have gotten in through a hole between dimensions. A lot of people slammed this movie, especially for Darabont's ending, which diverges from the ambiguity of King's original story, but I liked this movie a lot, ending and all.

4. EASTERN PROMISES – David Cronenberg has been making the most commercial films of his career, first with A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE and now this one about Russian gangsters in London. The saving grace of both films, however, is the presence of Viggo Mortensen who is intense in ways that make him to perfect Cronenberg hero. Mortensen may even be better in this one than he was in HISTORY. With a violent fight scene in a bath house that has already become a classic.

3. NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN – One of the best films the Coen Brothers have ever made. Sure it's violent and its bleak, but Javier Bardem is awe-inspiring as a paid killer who seems as unstoppable as he is merciless, and that slaughterhouse air gun he uses on his victims is chilling. Josh Brolin is really good, too, as a man who takes a bag of money from a drug deal gone bad, and gets a hell hound on his trail for his troubles.

2. HOSTEL PART II – I'm bound to get a lot of shit for this one, but I honestly thought HOSTEL II not only surpassed the first one, but it was as full of dark humor as it was with chills. This one has two converging plots – a group of vacationing American girls in Europe who get involved in the dark underbelly of a group that pays for the privledge of killing, as well as a second plot where we meet two of the men who pay to be a part of it, played by Roger Bart and Richard Burgi in roles that are light years from their characters on DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES. Eli Roth proves that he's getting better with each movie. People love to bash this guy, but I dig his movies a lot.

1. GRINDHOUSE – What's not to like? Two kick-ass movies and a bunch of fake trailers, all for the price of one ticket. Robert Rodriguez's PLANET TERROR was a rollercoaster ride full of oozing zombies and soldiers gone bad, while Tarantino's DEATHPROOF gave us Stuntman Mike, a killer who's not afraid to cry, and a group of would-be victims who put up a good fight. The trailers are worth the price of admission themselves, from Danny Trejo as MACHETE to Eli Roth's take on 80s holiday horrors with THANKSGIVING. This movie did badly at the box office, and we'll probably never see its like again, but I loved this movie when I saw it, and I still say it was the most entertaining show of the year. When's the last time you paid $10 for a movie ticket and felt you really got your money's worth?

HONORABLE MENTION: CAPTIVITY - Elisha Cuthbert and a weird captor who does horrible things to her until she meets another captive and they plan their escape. Sure it wasn't perfect and it didn't make my top 10. It didn't even play in a theater near me. But I had a good time with it.

BEST MOVIE THAT WENT STRAIGHT TO DVD: Jack Ketchum's THE GIRL NEXT DOOR (more on this one later).

MOVIES I'M MOST LOOKING FORWARD TO IN 2008: THERE WILL BE BLOOD (the new P.T. Anderson flick with Daniel Day-Lewis is a venomous oil man), CLOVERFIELD (the JJ Abrams-produced giant monster movie that I've been chomping at the bit to see) and DIARY OF THE DEAD (another brand new zombie movie from the master of the genre, George A. Romero).

ABSOLUTE WORST MOVIE OF THE YEAR: SPIDER-MAN 3

New Cinema Knife Fight: SWEENEY TODD

Well, the latest edition of CINEMA KNIFE FIGHT, the column I write with Michael Arruda, is up on FearZone.com, and it's a review of SWEENEY TODD, including some Mad Magazine-inspired song parodies. You can read it here (for free!):

http://www.fearzone.com/blog/cfk-sweeney

And, just in case you missed our review of THE MIST (which seemed to disappear from the site for awhile), that's up again as well. Just go here:

http://www.fearzone.com/blog/cfk-mist

Enjoy!

~LL

BEST MUSIC OF 2007

"Best of the Year" lists have become a tradition on this blog over the last three or four years. So let's start things off with the best CD's I listened to in 2007:

10. THE GOOD THE BAD AND THE QUEEN, The Good The Bad and The Queen
Yet another side project for Damien Alborn of Blur, this band was especially interesting for me because it also features Paul Simonon, the bass player from The Clash. And his distinctive bass lines help to make this a surprisingly interesting album. In fact, it was better than I expected. (Standout track: "History Song").

9. BLOC PARTY, A Weekend in the City and ARCTIC MONKEYS, Favourite Worst Nightmare (tie).
Bloc Party follows up their great debut album Silent Alarm with this decent sophomore effort. Some really good songs on this album, especially the standout track "Hunting for Witches." As for the Arctic Monkeys, I've wanted to hate them since they became an overnight sensation in Britain, but they still continue to turn out good music. I don't think they live up to their hype, but I enjoyed their new album.

8. GRINDHOUSE Soundtracks: PLANET TERROR (music by Robert Rodriguez and Graeme Revell) and DEATHPROOF (various artists) (tie)
Just like the DVDs for Grindhouse, the soundtrack albums were released separately. Just like the movies, I thought the soundtracks were pretty good. Rodriguez's PLANET TERROR disk is mostly variations on the theme he wrote for the film, with a few oddities like Nouvelle Vague doing a very cool lounge version of the Dead Kennedys' classic "Too Drunk to Fuck." DEATHPROOF is a typical Tarantino soundtrack, a collection of mostly obscure gems by various artists that helped create the mood for his film. Standout tracks include the amazing Jack Nitzsche's "The Last Race" and April March's incredibly catchy "Chick Habit" which will stick in your mind for days. I liked Tarantino's soundtrack a bit better, but you can't go wrong with either one.

7. WILCO, Sky Blue Sky and NEW PORNOGRAPHERS, Challengers (tie)
It seems like Wilco can do no wrong these days and their latest effort is another solid album. I guess you'd consider them an alternative band with a kind of country undercurrent, although they're so much better than that sounds. The New Pornographers' latest effort is not as strong as their last album, TWIN CINEMA, which is one of my all-time favorite disks, but it's a good one nonetheless, as the band continues to produce eclectic songs with multiple singers (Neko Case, Don Beja, etc.).

6. SPOON – Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga and INTERPOL, Our Love to Admire(tie)
Spoon's latest album, the follow-up to their great last album Gimme Fiction, is on a lot of critics' top 10 lists this year, and deservedly so. This is a cool alt-indie band with a strong pop sensibility, and the new album is a good one. (Standout tracks include Don't Make Me a Target and You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb). As for Interpol, I love their first two albums, but this one took a little time to grow on me. And now that it has, I think I misjudged it early on. The standout track on Our Love to Admire is "The Heinrich Maneuver."

5. SLAYER, Christ Illusion
The kings of speed metal are back with a new album that's like a burst of angry fire. Slayer still does this kind of stuff better than anyone, and Christ Illusion is one of their strongest albums yet.

4. ANGELS OF LIGHT, We Are Him
Michael Gira (formerly the lead singer of one of my favorite bands, Swans) has put out yet another great album with the constantly changing line-up that is Angels of Light. This is one of my favorite Angels albums so far. I'm a die-hard Gira fan and this is a terrific album. Standout track: "Black River Song."

3. CHARLOTTE GAINSBOURG, 5:55
The amazing Charlotte Gainsbourg is the daughter of France's legendary singer Serge Gainsbourg. She's also an actress (The Science of Sleep, The Golden Door). On this album, she collaborates with friends like Jarvis Cocker (Pulp) and the French band Air, who create a perfect soundscape for her ethereal voice. I have to admit, I listened to this album a LOT in 2007, almost daily for awhile. A wonderful piece of work that's great to play on your Ipod first thing in the morning.

2. PEEPING TOM, Peeping Tom
Mike Patton is a really busy guy. He came to prominence as the lead singer for Faith No More, but has since turned out a lot of interesting projects like Mr. Bungle, Fantomas, and the terrific Tomahawk. Peeping Tom is Patton's latest band and his self-proclaimed stab at making a pop album. But it's so much more than that. There are a lot of guest stars on the album, but frankly this is Patton's show, and songs like "Mojo" are downright addictive. I know I listened to nothing but this album for weeks on end, and there's only one album that hooked more more, and that's our number disk.

1. QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE, Era Vulgaris
I've always liked Queens of the Stone Age a lot, but this album turned them from a favorite band into an addiction. Just about every song on this album is great, but standouts include "Misfit Love," "Suture Your Future," "Make It Wit Chu" (previously a track on one of Josh Homme's Desert Sessions disks) and 3's & 7's (which has a great video which is a homage to Tarantino's Deathproof) This album is so good it made me reevaluate their whole catalog and I listened to nothing but Queens albums for over a month. I absolutely love this album and there's no way it wouldn't be my number one disk for 2007.

That's it for music. Next up - the best movies of 2007!

I AM LEGEND

Well, my Christmas was relaxing. Slept late, then went to the movies. Saw the new ALIEN VS. PREDATOR: REQUIEM because I had to review it, and I finally saw I AM LEGEND.

I'd been avoiding I AM LEGEND because I'm not a big fan of Will Smith, but I love Richard Matheson's original novel (one of the best vampire novels ever written), and some friends whose opinions I respect were saying good things about the new movie.

I'm glad I finally saw it, but my opinion of Will Smith hasn't changed that much. Ever come across actors who just rub you the wrong way? For me it's people like Ben Affleck and Robin Williams. If they're in a movie, chances are I'll be walking the other way. Will Smith falls into that category. He just seems like a light-weight to me. When I think of Will Smith, I think of a safe, wholesome entertainment for the whole family. Half the calories and no nutritional value.

While his performance in I AM LEGEND is probably the best acting I've seen from him, it's not such an amazing performance that I'm suddenly a fan. I thought he did okay, but there are still a dozen actors who could have done a better job in the role of Robert Neville (just four that come to mind as I write this: Harrison Ford, Denzel Washington, Daniel Craig or George Clooney). Neville, for those who don't know, is the last man left in a world filled with vampires. Or in the case of this movie, blood-drinking mutants.

Matheson's groundbreaking novel has been filmed twice before, once in 1964 under the title THE LAST MAN ON EARTH, starring Vincent Price as Neville, and again in 1971 as OMEGA MAN starring Charlton Heston. This new version, I AM LEGEND, is the first film to actually use the name of the original novel, although that doesn't mean that it's any more faithful to Matheson's version than the previous two movies.

The plot of the new movie is simple. A scientist (Emma Thompson) discovers a cure for cancer which involves taking a virus and bio-engineering it for good instead of evil. Of course, what first seems like a godsend turns into an apocalypse. Three years later the virus has killed off most of the people on the planet. Those who haven't died have either become mutant "hemoctyes" or have been their prey. That leaves Robert Neville all alone with his dog in the middle of New York City. By day, he has free run of the place. By night, he has to lock himself away in a fortified brownstone to keep the mutants out.

Usually I find Will Smith irritating, but he isn't so here. His character is human and sympathetic. Hell, he's even likable in the role. He's just not very believable. He's supposed to be a major scientific mind and an officer in the army, but he still looks like a kid (it's not his fault he looks eternally youthful like Tom Cruise, but it stretches believablity in roles like this). Smith does not come off as authoratative or as some kind of genius. It just didn't work for me.

That aside, Smith is trying to find a cure to the disease. He experiments on mice and later starts capturing mutants to do human experiments on. During one of his excursions to acquire a human specimen, he incurs the wrath of a particularly deadly hemocyte (i.e. blood-drinking mutant) who's bent on revenge.

It's soon after this when Smith finds out that he's not the only human left afterall. He comes into contact with Anna (Alice Braga) and her son Ethan (Charlie Tahan). Who are these people? And what makes Anna think there's a colony of survivors in the mountains of New Hampshire (she says that god told her, but I'm not buying it). There's something really suspicious about these two, and whether that is confirmed or not in the course of the film, I wouldn't trust them with a plug nickle. Like Smith playing a super-genius, they just weren't believable to me. I didn't sympathize with them, and I didn't trust them, and that may partly be because the actors playing the parts didn't convince me they were real people.

This movie is far from perfect, but it does keep you watching. You want to see what happens to Smith, and you want to see what ultimately is the fate of mankind. Unfortunately, the monsters are probably the least believable thing about this movie. They're mostly CGI and they look like the cartoon/video game characters they are. To me, they looked like a cross between Gollum from the Lord of the Rings movies and the infamous "Bat Boy" who has often graced the cover of the tabloid The Weekly World News. They open their mouths really, really wide to scream. There are tons of them. They move really fast in the dark. And they're as scary as the Mario Brothers.

I'd say that I AM LEGEND is worth a rental. It has its moments and it's easily the best thing I've ever seen Will Smith in. And it moves at a really good pace. But this is far from the definitive film version of Matheson's novel.

I still think the first movie version, THE LAST MAN ON EARTH, with Vincent Price is the best adaptation so far. It wasn't perfect, but at least it captured the tone and the feel of the novel for me. And OMEGA MAN was just plain fun.

I AM LEGEND, in comparison, is like that cliched Chinese food that leaves you hungry an hour later. While I watched it, I liked it. But it didn't resonate with me at all.