John’s Horror Corner: Contamination (1980)
By John Leavengood
MY CALL: As tasteful and organized as a man’s detonated entrails, this movie is a cheap, poorly executed, un-thought-out Alien rip-off. After the first couple scenes it loses any promise of being a fun “bad” horror flick. I’ll give it a “D” only because I enjoyed the beginning. WHAT TO WATCH INSTEAD: Just stick to Alien and The Thing if you want an alien-contamination creep show. IF YOU LIKE THIS, WATCH: Probably any “Roger Corman presents” classic.
A strange, unmanned Caribbean ship approaches a New York harbor and is quarantined. Upon investigation, members of the crew are found “ripped apart” to various degrees, one of whom evidently appeared to have exploded like a small bomb was inside his chest. They also find a huge shipment of coffee bean boxes filled with over-sized avocado-like egg things that are bioluminescent, pulsating, somewhat translucent and covered in green ooze. These eggs should clearly come with a warning
label indicating that handling them results in their detonation, spraying you with acid, and somehow causing your chest to explode. These “eggs” turn out to be more than just eggs and—dun, dun, duuuuuuuun—of alien origin.
Our investigators discover a warehouse full of them in the Bronx. They connect the dots to an international conspiracy which includes NASA and the Colombian coffee industry. This may sound exciting, but after the first 20 minutes (which were delightfully gore-tastic) this movie really slows down to a disinteresting pace where scenes devoid of action are needlessly dragged out. Clearly this flick was made to prey on sci-fi fans left hungry for more since the release of Alien, which also had chest-burst-inducing, extraterrestrial, acidic, slimy eggs. What a co-inky-dink, right?
The concepts are conveyed poorly and the three portions of the movie (the first 20 minutes, the next hour, and the last 20 minutes) each included a new plot element which linked poorly, if at all, to the others. The makers of this atrocious flick clearly had no idea what they were doing and forced out this movie with all the grace of passing a kidney stone. Don’t watch this unless you stop it after they investigate the ship in the very beginning.
FYI: This movie was Contamination but then retitled Alien Contamination in 1982. You’ll find both on Amazon with the exact same info. The catchphrase on the movie poster “You will feel them in your blood” does not apply to any single aspect of this movie at all! WTF!?!
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The Guard
- Brendan Gleeson as a rural Irish police officer with a penchant for escorts, pints, finding ways to get under your skin and his mom
- Don Cheadle as an uptight FBI agent whose reactions to all that he encounters are the perfect counterpart to Gleeson’s Boyle
- A very, very angry drug smuggling Englishman named, Clive Cornell played by Mark Strong (The Eagle, Kick-Ass, Sherlock Holmes, Sunshine)
- The scenery, hello…Ireland? I told you the movie is well shot, well the locations didn’t hurt in that respect
- A few choice comments on how the IRA has managed to infiltrate MI5
Oh did I say 5? Well I have more…
- Best use of a derringer in a film in the past decade
- A host of 3-Dimensional characters- Bad guys who discuss philosophy and are annoyed by cops who doubt their integrity in criminal activities, an understatedly smart small town cop with a biting and profane sense of humor, an uptight American agent with a killer sense of fashion and high levels of tolerance, a by the book cop with a secret life and more bravery than his entire department
- 94% ON ROTTEN TOMATOES– if that isn’t enough right there then I don’t know what is!
- The cinematographer for this movie, Larry Smith, is known for his work with Kubrick on Eyes Wide Shut.
- This is now the most successful independent Irish film of all time.
- The writer/director, John Michael McDonagh is the brother of In Bruges director Martin McDonagh
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Bad Movie Tuesday: The Good Bad, the Bad Bad and the Ugly Bad of Summer
Summer wouldn’t be summer without bad movies. big budgets, bad writing and recycled plots. These films enter the theaters hoping for big opening weekends and international grosses.
I’ve put together the first annual Bad Summer Movie Awards and I’m awarding the multiple bad films that have graced the cinemas this summer.
1.Movie Poster that raises the most inadvertent questions about how a guy could get on top of thousands of skulls award
2.I spilled coca cola on my girlfriend while at the Drive-in and when we looked up the movie was over award.
Super 8. Decent film but it ends incredibly abrupt and leaves you scratching your head…Not only was I a bit disappointed with the movie but I had lost most of my soda.
3. Didn’t I see a better version of this a couple of years ago award?
The Hangover Part 2 follows all the rules of sequels. Bigger, badder, meaner, grosser, angrier, unfunnier, dumber, longer. It almost loses every bit of good will The Hangover amassed
4. Most hilarious use of that guy with the deep voice who talks on the previews award.
Hearing the guys booming voice while he says “One day a year these good-looking white people find love and companionship” had me laughing in the theater.
5. MFF award for achievement in making two very bad movies starring a bored Paul Bettany as an angel/priest award.
6. The only movie in the world that can be described as milquetoast.
I felt zero emotions towards this movie. Nothing about it evoked any type of reaction. I didn’t even think about this during the movie because thinking this would have evoked emotions.
7. How can a movie called Final Destination have four sequels award?
8. How were they able to rip 0ff 117 films during 100 minutes award?
Yes, Priest is the Gone With the Wind of the Moviesfilmsandflix summer awards.
9. Why is Mickey Rourke flying on Megan Fox’s back Award?
If you made it through Passion Play you find out Rourke is dead and Fox is an angel he saved from Bill Murray.
10.Movie I thought I would hate yet didn’t hate despite it giving me every reason to hate it award.
Transformers 3. Better than the second, not as good as the first, sorta fun
11.Worst movie of the summer/year/last year/near future/post-apocalyptic future award
Pirates of the Carribean: On Stranger Tides
200 Million Dollar Budget
One Billion Dollar World Wide Gross
3-D aplenty
0 Fun + 0 Originality = An Annoyed Hofmeyer
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Contagion
By John Leavengood
MY CALL: I really liked Outbreak, but this simply blew it out of the water! If movies were rated based on the seriousness of their content, this would be the “R” to Outbreak’s “PG.” This gets a solid “A+” without question and I imagine that this will be an Academy Award nominee for set design and music, if not more. IF YOU LIKE THIS, WATCH: Outbreak (1995).
I’ll just start by saying “WOW!” Sure, this movie had a legion of A-listers including an excellent director, yet still this movie exceeded my already high expectations. While its pace was consistently somewhat slow, the content, in turn, was consistently interesting, socially revealing and gripping.
This movie follows the outbreak of a novel and swiftly lethal virus from patient zero. With a short incubation period, the highly contagious strain raises the CDC’s concern readily ensued by the panic of the masses. The medical community scrambles in a losing race against time as the numbers of infected and dead patients grow at a staggering pace. Controversy, capitalism, distrust…all are likely products of slowly-solved epidemics.
The cast flawlessly conveys the very best and worst of human qualities responding to a deteriorating society and economy. Panic, desperation, fear and altruism are all tactfully delivered with humbling realism. Adding to the already palpable emotions of the characters was the tension-setting music which, coupled with the concept of this movie, shall haunt my thoughts. More than once I questioned how I would react in these situations.
FUN FACTS: This movie features Matt Damon, Gwenyth Paltrow and Jude Law, who were all in The Talented Mr. Ripley. Matt Damon and Elliott Gould, both of whom starred in Steven Soderbergh’s Ocean’s franchise, were reunited for their fourth film together.
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Tucker & Dale Vs. Evil
I loved this flick. It is a hilarious take on the slasher genre.
Two hillbillies buy a summer home in the woods. Along the way college kids mistake them for killers. Awesomeness occurs. I loved how Tucker and Dale are incredibly nice guys who just think that college kids are killing themselves around them.
Alan Tudyk (Firefly, Knight’s Tale) and Tyler Labine (Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Reaper) are pitch perfect as the two guys who just want to fix up their summer home, drink beer and fish. I loved all their reactions at the crazy things going on around them.
I loved the concept of this film. It reminded me of Behind The Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon.
Any time you can take the horror genre and spin it on its head it is a beautiful thing.
The biggest problem with this film is that the previews gave most of the laughs away. However, the only way to hook people on the concept is to have them watch the preview. It is a double-edged sword.
Hopefully, you will just take my word and rent the film On Itunes, On Demand, or PS3. It is ten dollars but well worth it. Support the film, recommend it, and enjoy the niceness that is Tucker and Dale.
If you do want to watch the trailer check out the September Movie Preview.
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Friends With Benefits
By John Leavengood
MY CALL: Justin Timberlake is always great, but this is the first time that Mila Kunis ever won me over with a role. Their chemistry is narcotically addictive, the movie is very well-written and I left feeling happy. I give this a solid “A”. IF YOU LIKE THIS, WATCH: 40 Days and 40 Nights, one of my Desert Island movies.
The story follows Dylan, an artistic web designer turned GQ artistic director by Jamie, a NY head hunter, as he moves to NY and they form a friendship…and then some. The first few minutes gave the writers a chance to prove that you weren’t wasting your time with this movie. We are monsooned by a clever mix of classic and rather risqué anecdotal break-up quips as both Dylan (the ever-charming Justin Timberlake) and Jamie (the saucy Mila Kunis) both find themselves single again via synchronous break-ups. They both make the same claim: that they’ll essentially be sexually aloof and just enjoy themselves.
For some reason the movie depicts LA folks like they’re from some kind of cow town—extra cautious about crossing the street, mild-mannered, socially naïve, non-confrontational and claustrophobic in the skyscraper-rich concrete jungle. Likewise, New Yorkers come off as more in-your-face and edgy. I really think of LA as sort of a drier NY with a tan, but otherwise city folks are city folks. Despite the constant flinging of pro-NY propaganda both actors are their naturally charismatic, audience-pleasing selves.
The first (sex) scene that lives up to the movie’s title is a hilariously endearing and very chatty session which seems like a rehearsal before filming a how-to instructional video on sex. Great moments of this movie include a sex scene montage with a lot of well-placed and relatable dialogue, Woody Harrelson thinking JT is gay, every single Shaun White cameo scene, JT rapping and busting out some old school Criss Cross, and Woody Harrelson choosing Shaun White over Barrack Obama for a GQ cover. Yup, that’s what America has been reduced to.
With small roles, the brilliantly cast Jenna Elfman (Dharma & Greg), Nolan Gould (TV’s Modern Family), and Richard Jenkins (HBO’s Six Feet Under, Burn After Reading) are the sister, nephew and father you want to bring a girl home to meet. All actors do a perfect job of showing us that they see what Dylan and Jamie don’t. It reminds me of my own friends waving their hands at me saying “it’s nothing serious” or “we’re just friends” and then getting a wedding invitation a year later. It’s so cute when they don’t see it yet, isn’t it?
Kunis and Timberlake’s on screen chemistry is so strong that it just made me feel good whenever they were interacting with one another. The movie gets tactfully real a bit towards the end, but it should come as no spoiler alert that you feel all warm and fuzzy at the end. This adorable RomCom is well worth the watch.
Here’s the trailer from our July Preview.
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Bad Movie Tuesday: Jonah Hex
This movie never had a chance.
Even fellow moviesfilmsandflix writer John Leavengood couldn’t find positives in this film. “I hadn’t felt so much regret since the last time I ate a Hot Pocket. I couldn’t even find a way to enjoy writing a scathing review about it.”
I’ve decided to write a review about how it went comically wrong.
1. The directors of Crank left the movie two weeks before filming because the script wasn’t good. When the directors of Crank and Drive Angry leave a film because the writing is bad you know you have a problem.
2. The directing duo were replaced by the guy who directed the animated film Horton Hears a Who. Think about this. Joe Johnston (Captain America, The Rocketeer) was given only two weeks to prepare for The Wolfman. Johnston is a great director and made a subpar flick with two weeks prep. The poor Horton guy’s only hope was to film something coherent that could be edited together. He didn’t succeed.
3. The script wasn’t even finished when production started and it features a Confederate soldier who can talk to dead people. He also has to deal with an odd accented Megan Fox and do battle with a worringly bloated John Malkovich.
In a nerdtastic perfect world this film should have been great. A western/sci-fi combo that starred Josh Brolin, Michael Fassbender, John Malkovich, Will Arnett, Megan Fox, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Wes Bentley, Aidan Quinn, Michael Shannon and Lance Reddick. There are some premier actors in this list. It was Josh Brolin’s baby and he brought in the entire cast. This was a film he was passionate about.
In the end, Jonah Hex was an “82 minute huh?” I found myself asking what was going on nearly every scene. I wondered how much was edited out and how much the studio must have interfered with the film because there was nothing sensical in front of me. The scenes in this film are incoherent. Jonah is supposed to be able to talk to dead people. So, naturally he wakes up a dead tortured corpse to pester him about the whereabouts of drunken Malkovich. This is the only time he talks to a dead person.
Also, in one scene Will Arnett is a serious union general….
Then, he is on a boat that gets leveled by a cannon….You are still wondering why he was in the movie well after he is Cannon fodder.
Also, it makes you fear for John Malkovich’s life. I have never seen a more bloated human in my life.
If you look at the poster and picture above you will notice that Brolin, Fox and Fassbender all have full body pics. However, you only vaguely see Malkovich’s head.
The same pattern is featured on the individual posters.
They can’t even put his entire head in the poster. In the poster on the top of the review they put hair over his face. Thus, maybe John knew something that nobody else knew so he drank away every cent he made on the film.
After leaving the theater I was still scratching my head in amazement. What kind of parallel universe allowed this film to happen? What did the executives think after watching ? In a world of sensical movies it was a breath of fresh air to see a film that dared to make zero sense. The greatest thing is that it is based on a DC Comic. A comic that could have spelled out the entire film and they chose not to follow it. This movie makes Sucker Punch’s plot seem coherent.
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Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark
Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark
By John Leavengood
MY CALL: This was not so scary, but entertaining. It felt like it should have been a 30-minute short in an episodic movie composed of three eerie del Toro-visualized tales. The concept and story were great, just…stretched too thin. [I’ll give it a “B”] IF YOU LIKE THIS, WATCH: The Hellboy movies and Pan’s Labyrinth showcase del Toro’s creature innovations and unique take on mythology in appropriate doses. Also, check out the original from 1973.
This is the story of a child from a sundered family seeking acceptance in an ancient, perhaps cursed, home whose impish inhabitants want to be her friends. Guillermo del Toro did some great work with this movie. The creatures were spooky, diminutive and off-putting works of CGI art. The star victem was perfect as a naïve, displaced child. Even Katie Holmes did a good job (and I hate her, so that’s hard for me to say). Yet somehow del Toro’s take on the movie (a remake of a 1973 TV-movie sensation) was just missing something.
I was quite taken by the beguilingly creepy whispers of his evil shadow fairies. I loved the set design and lighting effects. I really enjoyed the attention to the mythology of his wee darklings. But most of this was delivered to me in the first 15-30 minutes of the movie. However enamoring this all was, I found myself waiting for something different to happen as the movie continued. But all I found was more of the same, excepting that every creature encounter became more intense and revealed more of these evil lawn gnomes’ intentions. That, and for some reason their vulnerability to light seemed to change conveniently from one encounter to the next.
I was entertained by this not-so-jumpy scare-film. Anytime del Toro gets to share his ideas with creature effects teams it seems to work out great (Hellboy, Hellboy 2: The Golden Army, Pan’s Labyrinth). What was different about this film? It relied on a single creature concept for 90 minutes. Hellboy divided its attention between the demon-beast Samaal, the clockwork-assassin Cronin, Rasputin and the tentacular monster he becomes, and the star creature-characters and their nature and origins. Pan’s Labyrinth has a funky mantis-fairy, the faun, and one other monster which come up in different parts of the movie as if they are three stories. Hellboy 2 was a cornucopia of ideas (one of which was linked to del Toro’s childhood fear of dentists and tooth fairies like this movie). All enchanted us with ideas linked to mythologies and dark origin stories in brevity.
I think del Toro needs to take on a project that’s a more serious take on episodics like Creepshow, Trick or Treat, or Tales from the Darkside. These movies thrive on nifty single-serving story ideas, which seem to overflow from del Toro’s beautifully twisted mind.
(Here’s the trailer from our August preview.)
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30 Minutes or Less
Lots of talent, occasional laughs, Aziz Ansari.
30 Minutes or Less= A decent ride
The math does not add up though
Ansari+McBride+Swardson+Eisenberg+Pena+Fleischer=AWESOME!!!!
The fact that this film was only sporadically funny is a big let down. I was hoping for so much more. Here is how it holds up against the other summer R rated comedies
1. Horrible Bosses
2. Our Idiot Brother
3. Bridesmaids
4. Bad Teacher/30 Minutes or Less
5. Hangover 2
The plot revolves around Aziz Ansari and Jessie Eisenberg robbing a bank so Danny McBride and Nick Swardson can pay Michael Pena to kill McBride’s dad.
The movie has its moments which mostly come from Ansari and Pena. Michael Pena is a hilarious dude. I don’t like the movie Observe and Report but his character provides big laughs. In his limited screen time Pena makes you like him. Aziz provides the funniest lines of the film. He is a tiny dynamo of improv.
The biggest problem is with Jessie Eisenberg. He is too smart to be playing a slacker turd. He seems uncomfortable in the role. In Zombieland, Social Network and Adventureland he blended perfectly with the characters. However, in this flick he never feels right. A little bit more tweaking on the script would have fleshed his character out a bit more.
In the end, the movie is worth your time. It has enough positives to outweigh the negatives. I would watch the movie again. It might get better like Hot Tub Time Machine.
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The Beaver
The Beaver is a tough film. It handles depression in a way rarely seen on screen. Depression isn’t something that can be forgotten. You need to live with it and understand why you have it.
I’m thinking Mel Gibson is the reason why this film works. Like or dislike him you cannot deny that he is great in this flick. It makes it even more interesting with his current struggles.
Don’t expect some happy go lucky dramedy. This is full on drama. No wonder the script sat on the black list. People loved the script but nobody knew how to bring it to the screen. Jodie Foster tried and somewhat suceeded. The same things that make this movie work also keep the viewer from totally investing in it.
The movie is like Mel Gibson. Dark, unpredictable, sometimes excellent and not for everybody.
Movies, Films & Flix 