Written by THRILLHO | 24 August 2009

Inglourious Basterds is one of Tarantino's best.  He kind of redefines genres by combining them with others.  Following in the shoes of Kill Bill, Tarantino takes an old classic genre and combines it with a spaghetti-western feel.  For Kill Bill, it was old Kung Fu movies, for Inglourious Basterds, it's classic WWII 'mission movies', like The Dirty Dozen.  Combining genres may be a unique style of Tarantino, but getting actors to deliver dialogue is his bread and butter.  His movies feed on suspenseful dialogue driven scenes that build up the tension, and make the movies what they are.  This is both my favorite and least favorite aspect of Tarantino's movies.  I always enjoy them a great deal on the first watch, but always find it hard to watch a second or third time.  It's my same gripe with Kevin Smith, dialogue driven movies just don't work as well on a second watch.

Written by THRILLHO | 31 July 2009

Today Variety confirmed that Ridley Scott has signed on to direct a prequel to 'Alien'.  With recent resurrections of old franchises, I am skeptically optimistic.  This is the first time Scott will be attached to an Alien movie since the original.  He wont have to jump through the same hoops that Spielberg and Lucas did in Crystal Skull, reintroducing characters 2 decades later.  There was only one alien in the original film, which was rarely seen.  I miss the old school type horror of 'fear of the unseen', like Jaws and Alien.  Almost every suspense/horror movie I see nowadays employs the same easy startle tactics.......  Guy pops in front of the camera accompanied by loud noise....  Give me a break.  Alien was a movie that did it right.  Hopefully Ridley Scott can bring back the psychological suspense of the original.

Since the original took place on an abandoned planet's station, and everyone was found dead, I think we can assume the prequel wont have a happy ending.

Link to Variety article

Written by THRILLHO | 27 May 2009

Pixar's Up opens this weekend.  It has been receiving stellar reviews so far.  I really had no interest in seeing this one, but has Pixar ever released a bad movie?  Not even close.  My least favorite Pixar movie, Cars, is still a good movie.  After cementing its reputation, Pixar has been pushing the envelope and taking chances.  Last year's Wall-E was definitely the most unique Pixar film so far.  The first half of the movie includes little dialogue, if any.  It is 2001: A Space Odyssey, for families.  Up looks to continue pushing the envelope, and from the reviews it looks to be succeeding.

The Pixar artists have been pioneers for the evolution of animation and CG.  There was never any doubt about that.  The original Pixar movies (Toy Story, Bugs Life) used more simple models to animate, with the toys and the bugs, however the characters have always had fantastic emotion and the audience would always connect with them.  Since then, Pixar has progressed to much more detailed models; like Sully from Monsters Inc. (with each hair beautifully rendered), a beautifully rendered ocean and sea life, and eventually to human models.  Whether animating sea life, humans, robots, toys, or cars... the animation and physics are jaw dropping.

Written by THRILLHO | 11 May 2009

The latest trend in Hollywood seems to be re-imagining, rather than remaking.  To put it bluntly, JJ Abrams did for Star Trek what Nolan did for Batman.  Batman Begins explores Bruce Wayne's conflict and tranformation into Batman.  In Star Trek, we see the same with both Kirk and Spock.  Both movies are done very well.  You actually care more about the characters, even though you already know what they become.

The film was just over 2 hours long, yet they fit so much into that time.  The film opens with an impressive space battle, and ends the same way.  However, the 2 hours in between brings the characters full circle.  We are introduced to both Kirk and Spock as young children, and quickly see them both come to their own decisions to join Star Fleet.  Fitting all this into just the beginning of the film could have easily came off as rushed, but Abrams nailed the pacing.  Nothing felt rushed, but at the same time, nothing dragged.  The pacing was fantastic.

Written by Smokey McTrees | 08 May 2009

Frank Miller.  Chris Claremont.  Klaus Johnson, Al Milgrom, Jim Lee.  Len Wein and John Romita.  Larry Hama, John Byrne and Adam Kubert.

So many greats have helped produce the great Wolverine  stories from the past.  And man, were they fun to read.  Though he was a short guy that somewhat resembled your high school's favorite custodian, you could fully believe Wolvie could kick some serious ass.

Wolverine(friends call him Logan) had a mysterious past.  We knew he was Canadian, and worked for every government in North America.  We also learned he was part of a super-soldier/weapons program.  He was called Weapon X.  Another sweet, sweet name.