The Movies, Films and Flix Podcast – Episode 507: The Last of the Mohicans, Wes Studi, and Michael Mann
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Mark and Erik discuss the 1992 historical epic The Last of the Mohicans. Directed by Michael Mann, and starring Daniel Day-Lewis, Madeleine Stowe, Wes Studi and Russell Means, the book adaptation took Mann out of his comfort zone and the end result is a thrilling experience. In this episode they also talk about waterfalls, massive battle scenes and the excellent soundtrack. Enjoy!
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The Movies, Films and Flix Podcast – Episode 506: Our Favorite Moments From the Mission: Impossible Franchise
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Mark and DJ Valentine (@TryingToBeDJV on Twitter) talk about their favorite moments from the six Mission: Impossible films that have been released since 1996. They also discuss exploding gum, massive stunts, and Tom Cruise’s excellent running. Enjoy!
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MY CALL: Dear Lord, these movies just keep finding ways to be worse than the “worst sequel” that came before it. Don’t watch this drivel! MORE MOVIES LIKE Children of the Corn VII: Children of the Corn (1984)spawned many video-era sequels over the years (1992, 1995, 1996, 1998, 1999, 2001, 2011, 2018) leading to the most recent remake (2020/23). Children of the Corn II: The Final Sacrifice (1992) was dumber but funner, and Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest (1995) seems to follow this yet dumber and yet wildly funner pattern to delightful “bad movie hidden gem” perfection. It’s not totally awful, but I’d skip Children of the Corn IV: The Gathering (1996). However, Children of the Corn V: Fields of Terror (1998) and Children of the Corn 666: Isaac’s Return (1999) are both definite hard pass recommendations.
TIMELINE: CotC 1 ended with the cornfields of Gatlin burning with the defeat of an ancient Corn God. But of course, many of Isaac’s still living disciples remained devout to “He who walks behind the rows.” So yeah, sequels. CotC 2 transpired in the week following Vicky and Bert’s escape from the town and Micah is the new child Messiah. Similar to CotC 2, CotC 3 ends when Eli and his corn Bible are destroyed. However, his urban harvest would then be spread around the world in the commodities market. CotC 3 largely ignored the fact that it was a sequel, feeling more like a standalone story. But that doesn’t matter since CotC 4 and CotC 5 likewise ignored all of its predecessors as well, feeling more like stories “based on” CotC. In truth, no CotC sequel acknowledges any other previous sequel except for CotC 2 and CotC 6, which brought Isaac back along with some trumped-up prophecy. They are all either standalone movies of related story content or direct sequels to the original. As far as franchise continuity goes, this is a shame. Since there basically is no continuity at all.
In search of her missing grandmother, Jamie (Claudette Mink; Tamara) visits her apartment in Omaha Nebraska to discover the building has been condemned and is weirdly populated by weird creepy kids. Jamie moves into her grandma’s place during her search. The grandmother’s building address is 666 and the edifice is besieged by overgrown corn… in the middle of the city… how quaint. The kids in this building look like low budget theater ghost kids from a stage play—blank faces and pale. This movie instantly feels regrettably awful.
The tagline for this movie is “the all-new, terror-filled chapter.” Someone should be liable for this injustice in misrepresentation. Director Guy Magar (Retribution) seems to think placing creepy kids in scenes will make the movie for him. It doesn’t. This vapid flick sucks.
The spiderwebs are shiny plastic, no doubt from a Halloween Spirit store. The corn bleeds when you bite into it; there’s a horrendously bad CGI scene of a girl with maggots pouring from her mouth; and corn wreaths on apartment doors seem to harbinger death. The kids throw a guy off the roof and push a man in a wheelchair down the stairs. Frankly, this should have been hilarious. But this was awful.
Jamie’s ‘stripper with a heart of gold’ neighbor (Yan-Kay Crystal Lowe; Black Christmas, Final Destination 3, Wrong Turn 2) flashes the viewers, runs a bath, and is drowned by killer cornstalks (in her bathtub) after a kid drops in some magic corn kernels that act like Jack’s murderous Beanstalk Beans. Michael Ironside (The Vagrant, Prom Night II, Still/Born, Extraterrestrial, Scanners, Turbo Kid) is in this movie and I still don’t care! Again, this movie is awful.
Turns out her grandmother survived an evangelical tent fire as a child. It was a religious cult congregation of kids led by a boy preacher—unfortunately, his name is not Isaac. Clearly, this movie is in no way a sequel. Rather this is another reimagining (and squandering) of King’s classic and beloved source material. And it sucks for it.
Truly terribly executed is the arrival (out of nowhere) of Job, the boy preacher. Even at first glance I cannot take this kid seriously. But really, none of these creepy kid actors are carrying their weight for convincingly creepy kid performances. It’s all garbage.
The finale of this drivel is just a bunch of burnt-faced kids chasing Jamie around the building. An ineptly managed neighborhood haunted house attraction would be far more effective than this movie. Corn attacks her, it bleeds when cut, and this leads to nothing interesting. Then the building explodes, and no one cares. The evil corn creatures from CotC 3 really could have breathed some life into this limp finale. But alas, I guess the best of these sequels remain in Corn Hell with He Who Walks Behind the Rows. This is so bad.
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MY CALL: Ugh… just another empty CotC sequel really. In fact, it’s a direct sequel to the original, ignoring the other sequels much as, well, many of the other sequels. MORE MOVIES LIKE Children of the Corn 666: Children of the Corn (1984)spawned many video-era sequels over the years (1992, 1995, 1996, 1998, 1999, 2001, 2011, 2018) leading to the most recent remake (2020). Children of the Corn II: The Final Sacrifice (1992) was dumber but funner, and Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest (1995) seems to follow this yet dumber and yet wildly funner pattern to delightful “bad movie hidden gem” perfection. It’s not totally awful, but I’d skip Children of the Corn IV: The Gathering (1996). However, Children of the Corn V: Fields of Terror (1998) is a definite hard pass recommendation.
TIMELINE: CotC 1 ended with the cornfields of Gatlin burning with the defeat of an ancient Corn God. But of course, many of Isaac’s still living disciples remained devout to “He who walks behind the rows.” So yeah, sequels. CotC 2 transpired in the week following Vicky and Bert’s escape from the town and Micah is the new child Messiah. Similar to CotC 2, CotC 3 ends when Eli and his corn Bible are destroyed. However, his urban harvest would then be spread around the world in the commodities market. CotC 3 largely ignored the fact that it was a sequel, feeling more like a standalone story. But that doesn’t matter since CotC 4 and CotC 5 likewise ignored all of its predecessors as well, feeling more like stories “based on” CotC. In truth, no CotC sequel acknowledges any other previous sequel except for CotC 2. They are all either standalone movies of related story content or direct sequels to the original. As far as franchise continuity goes, this is a shame. Since there basically is no continuity at all.
Can we please just all agree that more 90s CotC sequels is not necessarily a good thing? Well, here we go with the 5th 90s sequel of Children of the Corn (1984).
Heading back to Gatlin where she was born, teenager Hanna (Natalie Ramsey; Cherry Falls, Cruel Intentions 3) seeks her biological father. After a quick stop in Gatlin General to check her head after a car accident, we learn that Hannah’s birthday is Halloween, the only doctor (Stacy Keach; Escape from New York, Body Bags, Class of 1999) in town is not very welcoming, and all the kids in the hospital feel like denizens of a mental ward dream from a Nightmare on Elm Street sequel. Oh, and our original 1984 Messiah Isaac (John Franklin) awakens in the hospital that very day from his nineteen-year coma—where he lay presumably since we last saw him in the final scenes of Children of the Corn (1984), when we saw him killed and returned as a zombie of sorts to drag Malachi to Corn Hell… and then fell into a coma?
The movie lets us know right away that the locals have been waiting for Hannah for a long time, because it was prophesied. It seems that most of the young locals are “the children of the children” of the corn. And that little nugget is perhaps the most interesting thing about this otherwise completely unengaging story.
At the hospital, the sheriff (Alix Koromzay; The Haunting, Mimic 1-2), doctor and a local literally have a conversation including the phrase “the prophesy says…” So this is written like a Horror for Dummies screenplay. And dare I say that even after the mediocrity of CotC 5, this CotC 6 is definitely the most video-drivel of the series.
This is all incredibly contrived, even for a CotC sequel. People talk about obvious details way too much as if the “characters” were actively concerned that the “audience” won’t be able to keep up with the very simple plot. We’re beaten over the head with it. “The prophecy. The prophecy. She came back in time for the prophecy. It’s her. It’s really her—from the prophecy! We’ve been waiting for 19 years.” It’s a bit much. But I guess it falls right in line with the likes of the 90s video-era mediocrity surrounding its release (e.g., Warlock 3, Pumpkinhead 2-3, Leprechaun 4-5, Wishmaster 2-4).
So Isaac has a child…? When did he have this kid? I mean, it had to have been during or before the events of Children of the Corn (1984). It’s just that his character seemed so… asexual. And Hannah’s mother (Nancy Allen; RoboCop 1-3, Dressed to Kill, Poltergeist III, Strange Invaders, Carrie) is sort of in on the whole prophecy… yet sort of not. Proper explanations of this parenthood go totally unexplained.
As for the bad 90s-ness, there’s a lot of that. A machete-wielding teen invites Hannah to a party in the cornfields called The Harvest; creepy chanting kids are brandished on screen ineffectively; and the death scenes are hot garbage. Not that an after-the-fact literally smoking Stacy Keach isn’t amusing. But… worst electrocution death ever. There is one decently visceral death scene in which a teenager is vertically scythed in half (momentarily on screen). We don’t see it all. But we see enough for it to be satisfying. This was easily the best horror visual in the movie, and the only visual worth mentioning other than Keach’s hokey Tales from the Crypt death.
When the ritual to realize the prophecy finally comes about, the delivery is so upsettingly weak. There’s just zero gravity, and no satisfaction of tension or anticipation because, well, there was none. This ritual hasn’t been earned at all. This is where some over-the-top-ness and bad CGI would be so welcome to embrace the bad of this movie. But the budget couldn’t even handle that. The ending falls completely flat on its face.
Better than CotC 5 and probably CotC 4, CotC 6 is essentially the best of the worst three. Even with Isaac back as the evil leader, this sequel is completely empty. Valueless. The very idea of Isaac is squandered in the awful writing. Its greatest saving grace is that, like CotC 2, this is one of the only sequels that is truly a sequel to the original story! This movie is lame 90s drivel.
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Mark and Nicholas Rehak (@TheRehak on Twitter) discuss the 1984 cult classic Repo Man. Directed by Alex Cox, and starring Emilio Estevez, Harry Dean Stanton, Tracey Walter, and a mysterious Chevrolet Malibu, the movie focuses on what happens when a young punk becomes a repo man. In this episode, they also talk about Mitch Hedberg, Iggy Pop, and most pits. Enjoy!
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John’s Horror Corner: Evil Dead Rise (2023), a worthy sequel to the distinctly superior Evil Dead (2013).
MY CALL: Yes, I miss the cabin in the woods setting. And yes, Fede Alvarez’ film was much better and captured the meanness of it all so perfectly. But you know what? I still thought this was a well-made, goretastic, brutally insidious delight. So there! MORE MOVIES LIKE Evil Dead Rise: Like a lot of gore and a lot of feistiness? Here’s a stylistic mix for you… The Cabin in the Woods (2012), Final Destination 5 (2011), Tucker and Dale vs Evil (2010), Drag Me to Hell (2009),and of course Evil Dead (2013), Evil Dead 2 (1987) and The Evil Dead (1981).
Boldly following in the footsteps of Fede Alvarez’ Evil Dead (2013), writer and director Lee Cronin (The Hole in the Ground) approaches our belovedly brutal franchise for his second feature film. The cinematography boasts eerie shots of trees converging upon a triangular cabin in an otherwise gorgeous, sunny forest. Possessed vomiting (Anna-Maree Thomas); a brutally abrupt hair-clump-yanking scalping (Mirabai Pease); and an eye-twitching disembodied head (Richard Crouchley) give our cold open the fleshy exposed skulltastic wildfire that the franchise deserves. The director of photography, the scoring, the effects… are all on fire setting the dire yet feisty tone. Even if this sequel leads us to the big city, it naturally had to start with a cabin in the woods.
Horror in the big city SIDEBAR: If you want more confined skyscraper, hotel and apartment building horror, consider Shivers (1975), The Shining (1980), Demons 2 (1986), Dark Tower (1987), Poltergeist III (1988), Shakma (1990), Gremlins 2 (1990), [REC] (2007), 1408 (2007), Devil (2010), The Belko Experiment (2016) and Mayhem (2017).
Cut to the city in California, where Beth (Lily Sullivan; Picnic at Hanging Rock, Monolith, Dark Place) is dropping in on her sister Ellie (Alyssa Sutherland; Blood Vessel, The Mist, Vikings) and her kids Danny, Kassie and Bridget, who live in a condemned building scheduled for implosion. When an earthquake exposes cursed possessions of generations past, the book and recordings of Evil Dead fame are among them. Cue evil!
Much of Evil Dead’s iconography continues through Evil Dead Rise. The Book of the Dead is harrowing as always; we summon a Kandarian demon; the POV of evil forces torpedoes via shaky cam whilst roaring through city streets and hallways; and the infamous “tree scene” is recreated with electrical wires in the elevator… but this time, it’s less of sex crime.
Now with the elevator no longer functioning and the stairs collapsed from the earthquake, Beth and the kids are trapped on the 14th floor with Ellie, who is… just not feeling herself. Once possessed, Ellie becomes a slinky, crawly, contorty fiend capable of vomiting more gobbledygook than any human body could possibly produce. It’s deliciously gross.
From here the horror violence is mean and bloody, and the dialogue is a bit insidious. We enjoy some face-biting madness leads to an eyeball gag reminiscent of Henrietta’s eye-popping from Evil Dead 2; the cheese grater gag was vicious; so much more vomit and blood and mean stabbery; the bloodiest elevator scene I’ve seen in a long while; and an evil-spirited Dead by Dawn chant. Oh, and then there was the many-limbed abomination reminding me of The Church (1989), Zygote (2017) or The Color Out of Space (2019) followed by a groaty meat-grinder finale.
I must admit that having an Evil Dead movie not take place in a remote cabin in the woods feels more than a bit off, and I did rather very much prefer Evil Dead (2013) to Evil Dead Rise. But at the same time, just how many times did we want to see that old yarn reimagined in such confines? Okay, maybe a bunch. And while Rise never really reached the dire OMFG atmosphere of the original or rebooted Evil Dead (2013), it still does an impressive job if you can resist comparing them so directly… which, I know, is hard.
Ultimately this was VERY entertaining, VERY flesh-laceratingly brutal, extremely bloody (as well it should be), and generally well made. It was definitely missing something for me—not a lot, but that extra Evil Dead layer of mean hopelessness that wasn’t gripped as tightly as I wanted. But it also was definitely awesome to watch and it scratched a very itchy Evil Dead itch for me. So having issued my biggest criticism of the film, I hope they keep making more. This was dire and feisty, my favorite combination of horror flavors.
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Mark and Zanandi (@ZaNandi on Twitter) found an interesting question about the Scream franchise on Reddit and they had to answer it. Which Ghostface killer from the Scream franchise would be better off on their own? Is it Jill? Is it Mickey? It definitely isn’t Stu.
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Asteroid City (2023) – Review
Quick Thoughts – Grade – A – Asteroid City is my favorite Wes Anderson film since The Darjeeling Limited. Anderson’s idea to build a film around a televised production of a play was a smart idea as he’s able to keep his trademark production and costume design while putting a renewed focus on meaningful character interactions. I really hope that Scarlett Johansson and Jason Schwartzman are remembered when the awards season rolls around because they have excellent chemistry and their interactions are the strongest part of the film.
When I first heard that Asteroid City would feature 20+ well known A-list actors stuffed into a film that is essentially three movies in one, I was a bit worried, because it’s a lot. My worries were almost instantly assuaged as everything fits seamlessly as Anderson found ways to give all the A-list actors meaningful roles and he even found time to include gags about martini vending machines, ramps that go nowhere, and a thieving alien.
Set in 1955, Asteroid City tells the story about a group of students, parents, traveling musicians, and scientists being quarantined in a small town after an alien encounter. The twist is we are watching actors playing the roles of the students, parents, traveling musicians and scientists in a play written by Conrad Earp (Edward Norton), a famous playwright who adores the American west. In an added wrinkle, Anderson creates another narrative in which the characters go behind the scenes of the play as it’s being created. In other words, Jason Schwartzmen plays a character named Augie Steenbeck in the play, but his real name is Jones Halls, an actor who occasionally leaves the stage (where the play is happening) to talk about his motivation with director Schubert Green (Adrian Brody). Once again, it’s a lot, but it works, and it also allows Wes and cinematographer Robert D. Yeoman to set up beautiful looking shots that take place in the meticulously designed buildings created by production designer Adam Stockhausen (Both Yeoman and Stockhausen are Anderson regulars).
My favorite interactions are between divorced A-list actor Midge Campbell (Scarlett Johansson) and widowed combat photographer Augie Steenbeck (Jason Scwartzmen) who are in Asteroid City to attend a Junior Stargazer convention with their children. The two meet inside the only diner in the town (which was inspired by Ace in the Hole and Bad Day at Black Rock) and quickly become friends as their lodgings are right next to each other. Both are drawn to each other because of shared melancholy, severe bluntness and the fact that Augie loves photographing Midge. Their conversations feel a bit dangerous, and they brought me back to the days of The Royal Tenenbaums which features some beautiful character interactions (the “I’m worried about you Richie” scene is an all-timer) and some very unsettling violence.
Going all the way back to Bottle Rocket, Anderson has always been interested in sadness, quirkiness and intimate interactions that typically involve intricate paintings, symmetry, and booze. By sticking a group of interesting teenagers and their parents in a picturesque small town that has a martini vending machine and adorable pastel cottages, he’s able to create some very memorable moments that I really connected with.
Final thoughts – I love Asteroid City. Watch it.
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The Movies, Films and Flix Podcast – Episode 503: Inception, Christopher Nolan and Snowmobile Henchmen
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Mark and Phil discuss the 2010 blockbuster action film Inception. Directed by Christopher Nolan, and starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Tom Hardy, Elliot Page, Ken Watanabe, Cillian Murphy, Dileep Rao, Marion Cotillard and a spinning top, the movie focuses on what happens when a group of well-dressed thieves try to plant an idea in Cillian Murphy’s head. In this episode, they also talk about snowmobile henchmen, paradoxes, and the films of Christopher Nolan.
If you enjoyed this episode make sure to listen to The Prestige (ep 412) and Memento (ep 445) episodes that Phil and Mark recorded.
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The Movies, Films and Flix Podcast – Episode 502 – The Bad Times at Movie Hotels Draft
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Mark and Zanandi (@ZaNandi on Twitter) talk about their favorite movie moments that feature someone having a terrible time at a hotel. In this episode, they discuss painful scenes from Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Barton Fink, Identity, The Devil’s Rejects and more! Enjoy!
If you are a fan of the podcast, make sure to send in some random listener questions (we love random questions). We thank you for listening, and hope you enjoy the episode!
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Movies, Films & Flix 