THIS MODERN NIGHTMARE

SPOTLIGHT ON: COMIC BOOK ARTIST JOHN SOWDER

My good friend John Sowder was recently interviewed by Joe Churney for his comic book-themed blog HIGH SPEED COMICS.

John is a really good artist and is currently working on PENUMBRA, a five-part miniseries to be featured in the upcoming anthology DIVINE AUTHORITY PRESENTS. PENUMBRA "is set in the year 1977 and revolves around a young girl and her quest to discover the secrets involving her non-human lineage."

John's a talented guy and a good friend, so I wanted to post the link to the interview in case anyone's interested in checking it out. Just go here.

Next up - when the anthology is published, I plan to do a follow-up interview with John.

TWO NEW CINEMA KNIFE FIGHTS HAVE BEEN POSTED

REVIEW OF THE RUINS

Well, I saw the movie THE RUINS , and I loved it. My review of it is up on FEARZONE. Just go here.

This had been originally planned as a Cinema Knife Fight column (and it still is one), but my co-conspirator Michael Arruda was under the weather that week, so I ended up writing it solo. I tried to retain the flavor of CKF throughout, though.

AND

PROM NIGHT REVIEW IS UP

The latest Cinema Knife Fight is up on FearZone.com, and this time we review the new remake of PROM NIGHT.

Go here to check it out: Prom Night Review

My co-reviewer, Michael Arruda, and I totally disagree about this one. So I guess it's a real "Cinema Knife Fight" this time around.

Hope you dig them!

PATHOLOGY – A TWISTED GEM

While a piece of crap like the new PROM NIGHT make it to number one at the box office, a movie like PATHOLOGY, which had no hype and wasn’t screened for critics before it was released, falls between the cracks. When I saw it on a Wednesday night after work, there were like five people in the audience. I like that, because it means I don’t have to hear idiots talking on their cell phones, but at the same time it means that a decent flick like this is being ignored, which is kind of sad.

PATHOLOGY stars Milo Ventimiglia (yes, Peter Petrelli from the show HEROES) as Ted Grey, a medical student who is going to do his residency at the hospital morgue. He seems to have a promising future in forensics – and he’s engaged to a rich man’s daughter (Alyssa Milano), who is taking her law exams (which is why he’s by himself in the big city). He just happens to fall in with the wrong crowd, led by Dr. Jake Gallo (Michael Weston), a cocky pathologist who is the current star resident – and who first sees Ted as a threat to his limelight, but who later sees Ted as a kindred spirit. Jake inducts Ted into “the game” where Jake and his gang of fellow nutcase med students kill people in elaborate ways and then see if the rest of the group can figure out how they died. They do these late-night games in a long-unused ward beneath the hospital, after which they smoke crack and have orgies among the dead.

What makes this movie so damn interesting is the acting, especially Weston as Dr. Gallo, who is slowly spiraling into madness. Laura Lee Smith as Juliette Bath – another member of this little clique – is also very cool, as a pathology resident by day and ruthless killer by night. She helps draw Ted into their web.

Ventimiglia isn’t the most emotive of actors (his TV roles have taken a long time to grow on me), but his slightly stiff personality works well here. After all, if stiff acting was a crime, then Harrison Ford wouldn’t have a career. As Grey, Ventimiglia is well cast, and believable, as a guy who starts out very much by the book, and kind of a square, who falls in with these murdering creeps and seems to actually enjoy it. He lives a duel life – the responsible adult around his professor and his fiancée, and then the decadent fellow sociopath among his “gang.” And it’s an almost Jekyll/Hyde performance. What makes it work is that Ventimilgia never seems absurd in this role, and because he really seems to be having a good time as a smart, straight arrow who’s finally given a chance to be bad.

Of course, things fall apart when Grey’s fiancée finishes her exams and comes to stay with him in the city, and he has to find excuses to go out with the gang. Which eventually makes him decide it’s time to cut himself off from the group – something they don’t take very well.

Milano isn’t in the movie much, and isn’t given much to do, but she’s serviceable in her role. The funny thing is, however striking she is in her scenes (especially in a low-cut dress at a faculty party), she’s actually not as attractive as bad girl Laura Lee Smith, who steals all the scenes she’s in.

And Michael Weston is just terrific as a guy who at first seems like an egotistical jerk but who degenerates into a homicidal nut job. Weston and Smith are the heart of this movie, and they make PATHOLOGY an above-average journey into darkness.

But they wouldn’t work half as well without Ventimiglia to play off of.

The script is good, but sometimes predictable. However, the acting more than makes up for that. And the direction by Marc Shoelermann is compelling. No doubt, this movie will disappear after it’s been in theaters for a week, and go straight to DVD.

But it deserved better.


4/23/08

FAREWELL, MOSES!

Charlton Heston died this weekend. He was 84.

The papers have been saying his greatest roles were as Moses in THE TEN COMMANDMENTS (1956) or the title role in BEN-HUR (1959) - two biblical epics that gave him ample opportunity to ham it up. But the truth is, a lot of horror and sci-fi fans know him best for two even better roles: astronaut George Taylor in the original (and best) PLANET OF THE APES (1968) and as Robert Neville in OMEGA MAN (1971), a previous film version of Richard Matheson’s I AM LEGEND, that kicks the Will Smith version’s ass.

PLANET OF THE APES, especially, is a classic film that defines the often scenery-chewing Heston as a cinema icon. That last shot of the Statue of Liberty submerged in sand, and Heston screaming in fury to find out the true origins of the ape planet, remains one of the most powerful, vivid scenes in movie history, and his famous line "Damn, dirty apes!" has become a catch-phrase that has imbedded itself in our cultural memory.

Heston also had very memorable roles in other films, such as Orson Welles’s underrated masterpiece TOUCH OF EVIL (1958), as Detective Robert Thorn in SOYLENT GREEN (1973) and in the disaster classic (in "Sensurround" no less) EARTHQUAKE (1974).

In recent years he’d become a kind of right-wing joke, becoming the president of the NRA (which I actually support) and being an outspoken staunch conservative, despite approaching senility. How could the Republicans lose with Moses on their side?

But there was a time when he was a truly unforgettable actor.

NEVER TOO LATE TO KICK-START A FRIENDSHIP

Something kind of cool happened this week. My wife Laura and I got to reestablish a friendship with someone we hadn’t seen in over 20 years. Our friend Mary went to the same college as us. She was in my class (and was another English major, so we’d had a lot of classes together) and she was a suite-mate of my wife’s for the first couple of years they were in school. We’d lost touch, but got back into contact through a mutual friend, and then started communicating again through MySpace. This week she was in town and we got together for dinner. It went really well, and it was actually kind of fun to catch up on the years that had gone by. It’s kind of cool to be "middle-aged" and yet still be able to start up/renew friendships again.

Not much else going on. Got the new REM album, ACCELERATE, because all of the reviews have been very positive and critics have been saying this album harkens back to their glory days in the 80s. I used to be a big REM fan, especially of the first few albums.But ever since drummer Bill Berry left in mid-90s, I’ve felt their albums had been especially weak and I haven’t been all that interested in the band in a long time. I even stopped buying their stuff (when I was unimpressed with a few singles) and I think I might have missed a few albums. After listening to ACCELERATE, I have to admit that it’s one of their better-sounding albums in a long time. They have new members now to fill out their sound, and it works. But I don’t think it’s as good as their early albums. I guess their time has just passed by. They just don’t feel very relevant to me anymore, and I’m not really excited about their music like I used to be. But who knows, maybe this album will grow on me..

Meanwhile, Ministry has supposedly stopped putting out albums since last year’s THE LAST SUCKER came out, but even though the rumor has it that they’ve broken up, a new album of cover songs just came out this week called COVER UP. It’s by "Ministry and Co-Conspirators" because there’s a lot of guest stars, but Ministry frontman Al Jourgenson is still the driving force here. The album includes old and new songs, including past covers like Ministry’s amazing cover of Bob Dylan’s Lay Lady Lay (from the "Filth Pig" album) up to new stuff like a terrific cover of the Stones’ "Under My Thumb" and the classic Golden Earring song "Radar Love." Not every song is great, but the best ones are excellent. Ministry has always done interesting covers, so this isn’t just a throw-away, and Jourgenson and company really sound like they’re having a lot of fun on COVER UP. In fact, I’ve been going through a kind of Ministry kick lately and have been picking up a few albums I’d missed, as well as some of Jourgenson’s side projects (such as Revolting Cocks). Something tells me I’ll be listening to this one a lot more than ACCELERATE.