I'm both surprised and disappointed that the release of Jean Shepherd's A Christmas Story on virtually every format (DVD, HD-DVD and Blu-Ray, with the 'Ultimate Collector's Edition' which was released on Blu-Ray Nov. 4th 2008, which features the same 2006 Blu-ray disc but in a metal tin which also includes a strand of Leg Lamp Christmas lights) and it running 24 hours straight on TBS during Christmas time, hasn't spurred the availability of Jean Shepherd's other (made for TV) movies. Peter Billingsley then and now. Even the soundtrack from A Christmas Story was released for the first time in late 2009 by Rhino Records. A Christmas Story was playing when the theater I went to back in those days turned into a twin on November 18, 1983. Chances are I saw it in the theater there as well!
The Christmas Story House in Cleveland, transformed into a near-replica of the movie set, opened to the public on November 25, 2006.
The Goonies has been released on Blu-Ray Nov 2, 2010 as the 25th Anniversary Edition! Blogomatic's Report
Varèse Sarabande finally released the score in it's entireity, only 25 years after the fact, on March 2010 in a limited edition of 5000 copies. You can download the score from soundtrackzone.blogspot. Pay no mind to the fact that he has it listed as being from 1995. It is clearly the 34-track 25th anniversary edition.
The Goonies soundtrack was re-released in Japan on July 22, 2009. The soundtrack was digitally remastered and includes 2 additional tracks not found on the original release; the vocal mix of "Eight Arms To Hold You", and the dance remix of "The Goonies 'R' Good Enough".
From Wikipedia on Cyndi Lauper's "The Goonies 'R' Good Enough"; Before its inclusion on 'The Essential Cyndi Lauper' in 2003, the song was considered a rarity among fans, having never appeared on any of Lauper's albums or the 1994 compilation 'Twelve Deadly Cyns...and Then Some'. Lauper admitted in an interview that she hated the song, which was why she had chosen not to include it on her first compilation. The song has been covered by a few artists, such as Bombones, New Found Glory, The Advantage, and Haruko Momoi. The song was featured in several iterations of Konami's Goonies video games, most notably the popular NES game Goonies II. It was also featured as an instrumental version in Pop'n Music 10 by Tomoyuki Uchida (as "Mr. T").
There were also numerous video games released based on The Goonies. The Goonies for the NES/Famicom was never released in the USA outside of the arcade in the form of Nintendo's Play-Choice 10 cabinets. The game is similar to The Goonies II, but with a far greater focus on arcade-style action. Watch the speed run. The Goonies II, a fictitous sequel, was released for the NES in 1987. You played as Mikey, your weapon of choice was a yo-yo, and your main goal was to save a Mermaid. Yeah, I don't get it either. I seem to recall renting this game back in the heydey of the NES and probably didn't get too far, and after watching the walkthrough, I can see why. I am somewhat surprised that Konami didn't follow suit and release these games on the Nintendo Wii's Virtual Console service for the Goonies 25th Anniversary.
Be sure to check out the funny new sitcom "Raising Hope" , featuring Martha Plimpton, who is terrific in it.
As for the possibility of a Goonies 2? From Wikipedia; "The possibility of a film sequel has been confirmed and denied many times in recent years by the original cast and crew. Donner said that he had a story he liked and Spielberg behind him, but in 2004 several of the actors from the original revealed that Warner Bros., the film's owner, had shown no interest in a sequel. Sean Astin told MTV in October 2007 that Goonies 2 is an "absolute certainty.... The writing's on the wall when they're releasing the DVD in such numbers." Donner has expressed doubt that the sequel will ever happen, as many of the actors had not shown interest in returning for a sequel. Also in October 2007, Josh Brolin talks "Goonies" Sequel with Marcus Leshock said there was a script and shooting was to begin the following summer. On October 15, 2008 in Variety, Richard Donner said' "We tried really hard, and Steven (Spielberg) said, 'Let's do it.' We had a lot of young writers submit work, but it just didn't seem to call for it.” Corey Feldman stated in his November 25, 2008 blog post, "NO! There is no Goonies 2! I'm sorry but it's just not gonna happen.... Course now that I've said that they'll do it." On the July 2010 release of "The Making of a Cult Classic: The Unauthorized Story of The Goonies" DVD, Richard Donner states a sequel to The Goonies is a "definite thing" and will involve as much of the old cast as possible. "It will happen," says Donner. "We've been trying for a number of years." So the only thing for sure is that they've thought about it and tried, and they've gone back and forth on whether or not it will happen.
Other old school goodness being released on Blu-Ray; The Back To The Future Trilogy was released on Blu-Ray Oct 26, 2010 as the 25th Anniversary Trilogy
The 2010 Scream Awards shot-for-shot remake of the original Back To The Future teaser trailer.
Alien Anthology was also released on Blu-Ray Oct 25, 2010
TRON was originally supposed to be released in November 2010, with no firm release date ever given, the month prior to Tron: Legacy being unleashed in theaters. Apparently the remastering process for the hi-def format has been completed, but it seems as if it's now more likely to see the release of the Tron Blu-Ray sometime around the release of Tron: Legacy on Blu Ray - probably around Summer 2011.
It was announced back in August 2010 that all six Star Wars movies will be coming to Blu-Ray in a Box Set in Fall 2011. That's great, but I don't want the three prequel movies stinking up my movie collection, and I sure as heck won't accept being forced to pay for them! Hopefully they'll sell them separately at some point. As for Indiana Jones, there is no release date at this time. At one time it was said that the orignial Indiana Jones trilogy was to be released on Blu by the end of 2009. And as seen here, remasters have been done. So I'm sure it's only a matter of time. Here's to hoping they don't pack The Crystal Skull in, forcing you to purchase it to get the original trilogy.
Last year, while waiting for a copy of Gran Torino on DVD to come in at the Library, I decided to have my own little Clint Eastwood film festival, which ended up spanning two months or so. Many were films I had seen before but wanted to refresh my memory, some were films I'd never seen or just hadn't seen from start to finish in all their unedited glory...
Over 2 months time I'd watched; I kicked it off with two Clint Eastwood starred & directed westerns which both have supernatural overtones, High Plains Drifter {1973} (I love how he gets his drink on, his aggro on, and his lay on all within the first 10 minutes of rolling into town) and Pale Rider {1985}.
The Fistful Of Dollars Trilogy aka the "Man With No Name" Trilogy); A Fistful Of Dollars {1964}, For A Few Dollars More {1965}, The Good, the Bad and The Ugly {1966} Of the three, I'd have to say my personal favorite is 'For A Few Dollars More'. I really enjoy Clint's partnership with Lee Van Cleef (who plays the altogether different character 'The Bad' in The Good, Bad and The Ugly). Now there's a lot of people who think that The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is the pinnacle of Clint's westerns, or even the best western ever made. But at nearly 3 hours long, I think it's a bit bloated, and I could do without the interjection of the Civil War.
Other westerns; Hang 'Em High {1968}, Two Mules For Sister Sara {1970}, Joe Kidd {1972}, High Plains Drifter {1973}, Outlaw Josey Wales {1976}, Pale Rider {1985}, and Unforgiven {1992}. And how about that Josey Wales. I laughed at Josey always spittin' chew spit on everything. But what did the dog ever do to you? Jerk!
I'd have to say that out of all Clint's westerns, my favorites are High Plains Drifter and For A Few Dollars More.
Next up I completed a 5-movie 5-night Dirty Harry marathon. The Dirty Harry 5; Dirty Harry {1971}, Magnum Force {1973}, The Enforcer {1976}, Sudden Impact {1983}, and The Dead Pool {1988}. The character makes the films, but there are certainly better movies out there with Dirty Harry-esque characters. I think my personal fave may have been Magnum Force, the 2nd in the series where he goes against the band of vigilante traffic cops. Harry Callahan does seem a bit too much of a bitter old man in the last two Dirty Harry movies (filmed in the eighties), rather than the groovy fluffy-haired rebel he was in the first three. That and I think the last three movies get bogged down by the 'chick factor'. Harry has to deal with his first female partner in The Enforcer, Sudden Impact centers around the scorned female killer, and lastly the pushy reporter in The Dead Pool. Jim Carey's 'music video' scene where he mouths the words to Guns N Roses "Welcome To The Jungle from The Dead Pool is hilarious.
But yeah, it'd be great to tell your bosses to stick it up their ass, keep your job, and go run around the city playing judge, jury, and executioner blasting all the 'punks and hoods' you want and walk away from it scot-free and with a clean conscience to boot - who doesn't want that from time to time?
Other movies where Clint plays a Cop; Coogan's Bluff {1968}, The Gauntlet {1977}, and Tightrope {1984}. I enjoyed The Gauntlet (movie poster by the father of "Fantasy Art", Frank Frazetta), and thought that out of all the Clint Eastwood films with Sondra Locke, her role in The Gauntlet was her most pronounced performance.
World War II films; Where Eagles Dare {1968} and Kelly's Heroes {1970}. I really enjoyed Brian G. Hutton's two WWII films with Clint Eastwood, and they'd be strong WWII films with or without Eastwood. I have to admit I was taken aback at how well the WWII films played. The action, intensity and pyrotechnics were on par with many of the WWII films of the past 15 years. Make no mistake about it, these are big scale war films regardless of if they were made today or forty years ago.
And other films; The Beguiled {1971}, Play Misty For Me {1971}, Thunderbolt and Lightfoot {1974}, The Eiger Sanction {1975}, and Firefox {1982}. Clint Eastwood and Universal paid $25,000 to use the titular song, "Misty" by Erroll Garner in the film. "Misty" is a legendary jazz standard that will forever be etched into my mind, as it was in my Father's piano playing repertoire ever since I was born until the day he died. So I'd probably heard that song on and off for a good 25 years.
The movie Firefox spawned Atari's only Laserdisc based arcade game a year later. Watch Eastwood himself try out the arcade game in this video clip from Entertainment Tonight. After all is said and done though, Firefox (the movie) is damn long and boring. It only picks up when he finally steals the dang thing and that's like 3/4's through the movie.
Finally was Every Which Way But Loose {1978} and Any Which Way You Can {1980} and I was all Clint'd out. Movies and Television Shows featuring Chimpanzees, Gorillas and Orangutans in the mix was a recurring theme back in the seventies and early eighties. As a matter of fact, with the exception of The Ghost Busters which had a man in an ape suit, you could find a show featuring a real live primate on the television dial (including reruns) on one of the big three networks from 1975 all the way through 1981. Lancelot Link, Secret Chimp which ran from 9/12/70 to 9/2/72 on ABC, The Ghost Busters (no relation to the movie Ghostbusters with Bill Murray, Dan Akyroyd and Harold Ramis) which ran from 9/6/75 to 9/4/76 on CBS, Ark II which ran from 9/11/76 to 12/18/76 (reruns played until 8/25/79) on CBS, B.J. and The Bear which aired from 2/10/79 to 8/11/81 on NBC, and finally a show entitled Mr. Smith which aired from September 23, 1983 to December 16, 1983 on NBC. Mr. Smith was based around the premise of an Orangutan who drinks an experimental mixture to increase human intelligence and after drinking the mixture is able to talk and is later determined to have an I.Q of 256.
+1 for Escape From Alcatraz {1979} (I own the DVD), In The Line Of Fire {1993}, and the Eastwood directed Costner starred A Perfect World {1993}.
As for Gran Torino {2009} I enjoyed it, but I kinda felt like his self-sacrifice at the end was, in a way, symbolic in Eastwood making amends for his 'take no prisoners' violent filmography of the past, and that's just not something I can get behind. If it's time for the Man With No Name/Dirty Harry to take a fall, the only way he should go out is guns a'blazin. No concessions necessary.
P.S. I've never understood the appeal of John Wayne. There's a real generational gap there.
Praise While it didn't match up to James Cameron's Terminator and Terminator 2 (big surprise), and overall, despite my criticisms below, I was entertained and satisfied with this new installment of the Terminator saga. It was much better than T3, and introducing a new cast was better than having Nick Stahl and Claire Danes return as John Connor and Kate Brewster (which was what had previously been planned).
Also, I loved the grinding sounds of the machines.
Criticism Foreword; Perhaps I'm being overly critical towards a franchise that features time travel (which is something I believe is a scientific impossibility) and the T-1000, a robot which can turn into liquid and mimic the form of almost anything it touches. The more illogical speed-bumps one must endure makes it increasingly difficult to suspend disbelief long enough to enjoy the fantastical at face value. The premise of a science-fiction story is a delicate thing. Even with a solid premise, too many reaches and it will unsteady the foundation and the house of cards can come falling down.
The seeds of something better were visible, but just didn't come all the way together in the end. I felt the supporting cast was somewhat weak & unfitting. I didn't really feel like Bryce Dallas Howard belonged in this film, and I'm tired of seeing musicians/rappers (Common) getting sympathy roles in big budget productions. Although Bale's performance may have fit the character, I have a problem with the flat one-note, heartless performances of Christian Bale leading both the Batman and Terminator franchise. It's just too much Bale to stomach.
In all previous Terminator films they never showed John Connor in his future leadership role. I feel as if the character of John Connor was over-exposed in Terminator Salvation. In the early script drafts, John was a secondary character, and I can only imagine 'what if'. Less could have been more.
The future doesn't quite capture the visions of the gritty downtrodden future shown in T1 and T2. "The idea that events in Terminator 2: Judgment Day and Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines altered the future also allowed them to be flexible with their presentation of the futuristic world." That was flexibility that director McG, who made his directing debut with Charlie's Angels (sigh), should not have been allowed. The problem with having the freedom to alter the perception of the future, is that the dystopian future shown in T1 and T2 is what all Terminator fans wanted to see fully realized in a full-length film all along.
In regards to Skynet creating an infiltration unit in Sam Worthington's character, you'd think Skynet would just override his hybrid brain and force it to kill it's primary targets upon discovery.
Are you telling me that this gargantuan 50 ton machine shows up without anyone hearing it approaching? And that it forcefully scoops up people with giant metal claws without killing, let alone injuring them? I don't think so!
I can't tell you how sick & tired I am of scenes of people interacting with robots/supercomputers (i.e. The Architect from The Matrix etc.) which can mimic human form without fault, complete with all the complexity of human facial expressions and voice inflection. It's more than a reach, it won't ever happen. Not to mention machines will never develop emotion. To me it just takes thing from science fiction into a realm of fantasy, and makes everything less believeable. Save that for films more rooted in fantasy rather than science fiction.
"The original ending was to have John killed, and his image kept alive by the resistance by grafting his skin onto Marcus' cybernetic body. However, after the Internet leak, Warner Bros. decided to completely change the entire third act of the film." It's ashame the original ending got cut, because it could have added an unexpected dimension and altered what we thought we knew. It'd almost make more sense and be more fitting that a half-man half-machine would go on to lead the resistance against the machines, and that John Connor's role in winning the war was cut short and not nearly as important as once thought.
Although entirely unrelated to Terminator: Salvation, I did happen to read through Darkhorses' Terminator Omnibus Volume 1 and Volume 2 comic compilations a month or so prior to seeing the film, which continued with the Terminator mythos starting in 1989.
Here's a comical dance remix of Christian Bale's profanity-laden rant on the set of Terminator: Salvation
Don't play the following clip unless you've already seen the movie!
Yeah, I'm gonna have to see that. It looks funny, and just a plain old good time. It's almost like paying an homage to Cusack's character Lane Meyer from 1985's Better Off Dead, revisiting the ski resort featured in that film.
Though, I was surprised to read that Cusack hated Better Off Dead, and told the director “You know, you tricked me. Better Off Dead was the worst thing I have ever seen. I will never trust you as a director ever again, so don’t speak to me.” It broke director Savage Steve Holland's heart (who also directed One Crazy Summer starring Cusack) and made him "not care about movies anymore". Cusack; “The director wanted to do absurdist comedy and that’s just not the thing I like to do.” I guess Cusack thought he was above the material. Cusack is said not to ever talk about Better Off Dead or One Crazy Summer, even though those films played a big part in introducing Cusack to the world.
Here's some more of Cusack hatin' on the eighties; John Cusack Hates The Movies You Loved In The Eighties Cusacks Transformation From Cool To Sad Sack And as witnessed on Cusacks March 24th, 2010 appearance on Craig Ferguson, his feelings on the eighties haven't changed, nor is it likely they ever will. It's something fans of his have just had to come to accept. The problem isn't his honesty, it's that it comes across as jaded. John Cusack; "No, at the end of Hot Tub Time Machine I think you find out that the eighties are not worth revisiting except in a very very broad black comedy or unless you're probably on psilocybin (a hallucinogenic) or some sort of drugs."
I'm going to assume, hopefully, that he's wised up and gotten over himself - since he is starring in a movie about a "Hot Tub Time Machine", and that's a premise about as absurd as they come.
UPDATE 8-21-08; So I finally watched HTTM on DVD 8-20-2010, and it was pretty forgettable. The previews made it look a lot funnier than it actually was. None of the characters were very likeable so it was difficult to feel sympathetic for them. A shallow one-note blanket representation of the eighties, showing that it takes a lot more than just costume design and an eighties soundtrack to capture an era on film. You know what the best way to re-experience the eighties (on film) is? To pop in an actual movie from the eighties. Cusack can take as many pot-shots at the eighties as he'd like, but when it comes down to it, the movies starring Cusack which I'll purchase to own on DVD/Blu-Ray will be the ones which were actually filmed and released back in the 1980's.
I like the Zombie genre, but unlike zombie movie fanboys, I think a truly great, epic zombie film that's truly scary with serious tone has yet to be done. Infact, I'd go as far as to say that a good 99.5% of zombie films are crap, unfortunately.
How do I like my zombies? I like 'em gruesome and slow, I don't believe they should all be capable of running, and I prefer my zombie flicks as straight-ahead creature features sans any heavy-handed social commentary please, thank you. The infamous Tarman
My favorite zombie films; Some of the films listed below are not true-to-spec "zombie films", but in the vain that any living dead are zombies, regardless of whether it was from airborne toxins, a virus, being buried on cursed ground, a comet, or taken over by slimy slug like creatures from outer space. If you're the walking dead, you might be a zombie.
Ahhh George Romero, "father of the zombie". I've never been that much of a fan of the original B&W Night Of The Living Dead or Day Of The Dead, and Diary Of The Dead was an utter piece of crap. I fell asleep during the Dawn Of The Dead remake starring Ving Rhames (yes, it was that good.I guess I'm just not a fan of Zack Snyder, I feel his movies are somehow devoid of substance), which took place in a fictional suburb of my hometown of Milwaukee,andI haven't seen the direct-to-DVD remake of Day Of the Dead directed by Steve Miner (also with Ving Rhames). I'll check out Romero's newest, Survival Of The Dead, when it secures an official DVD release.
Other notables; Resident Evil[2002] (the first film in the live-action adaptation of the video game was the least worst of the series), and the CG film Resident Evil: Degeneration[2008].
As for the pre-1980's so-called "classics", I've seen 1971's Amando de Ossorio's Tombs Of The Blind Dead and Return Of The Blind Dead for the first time a year or two ago.
Tombs Of The Blind Dead is sometimes recommended as a zombie film, but "Ossorio objected to the description of the living dead Templars as "zombies," insisting that they more resembled mummies and that, unlike zombies, the Templars were not mindless corpses.", and I agree with that assessment.
Holy mackeral, that was some seriously laughable shit. Not only did I not find it scary, but also rather exploitative as well with the whole lesbian thing, rape, and you get to see almost every girl in the movie topless at some point. The sequel had a couple of the same actors (who died in the first one) playing different roles, but looking nearly the same! More topless shots, and one attempted rape.
I have yet to see Lucio Fulci's Zombi 2 from 1979.
-Video Games Featuring Zombies - It's almost hard to believe there was a time when those pesky undead weren't running amuck within the video gaming world.
One of the first post-golden age home console games to feature a zombie theme was Zombies Ate My Neighbors (Super Nintendo version pictured above), which was released back in 1993. The SNES version was recently released (Oct 26, 2009) for the Nintendo Wii's Virtual Console. The Resident Evil series, debuting on the Sony Playstation in 1996, is the title best known for bringing Zombie's to the forefront of gaming for years to come. (See upcoming blog post)
The House Of The Dead series is a popular "on-rails" gun game which debuted in arcades in 1996, and has subsequently seen numerous home console ports starting with the first in the titular series for the Sega Saturn in 1998. Though it may be better known for the near arcade-perfect port of House Of The Dead 2 for the Sega Dreamcast in 1999.
House Of The Dead 2 & 3 [2008] and House Of The Dead Overkill [2009] were both released exclusively for the Wii (Overkill having the dubious honor of being the first video game to receive the Guinness World Record title of most swearing in a video game with 189 counts of the "F" word). Here's to hoping Sega decides to release House Of The Dead 4 on the Wii as well. Taking a page from George Romero's Dawn Of The Dead with a shopping mall setting, Dead Rising was released for the Xbox 360 in 2006, it's sequel planned for a Q1 2010 release date. Left 4 Dead for the Xbox 360 was released in 2008, while it's sequel is set to be released November 17, 2009.
And lastly, another fun game is Zombie Apocalypse, which was released for download on their respective consoles through Xbox Live and Playstation Home in 2009.
