return to crystal lake.

This morning, I decided to check out the Friday the 13th film fan site to see if they had any news about the upcoming Platinum Dunes "Friday the 13th" remake. They did, and I'm all worked up into an excited fanboy frenzy now.


They posted a teaser trailer that was shown at last week's San Diego Comic Con. I've watched this thing several times now and though the video quality is rather poor, it still manages to get me all kinds of stoked. Of course, it's already been taken down from the site and I can't seem to find another link to it. I'm sure it will turn up again soon. The trailer looks pretty sweet though and it certainly made me way more pumped up about this movie than I was when I woke up this morning. It's hard to tell exactly what was going on in the footage, but Jason definitely showed up and started chasing down some teenagers. He definitely was running, or at least walking way faster than I'm used to seeing. The thing is, I'm so damn excited about what I saw that it doesn't even matter to me that Jason was briskly moving along. He's fucking evil, you can't outrun that sort of thing. Also, the fine folks at BloodyDisgusting.com have posted a few teaser posters and tons and the latest news about the movie.


You must understand my complete and undying love for the "Friday the 13th" movie franchise. That Jason Voorhees tattoo pictured above is a part of me for the rest of my life. I've had that tattoo for a few years now and I still look at it every single day and smile. I've more or less been super into Jason Voorhees since I was about 11 or 12 years old and my mom used to let me and my neighborhood friends rent those movies from the video department at our local grocery store. Back then, it was only $1 to rent movies and me and my pals would often rent several Friday the 13th movies and have Jason marathons. We did this with the "Nightmare on Elm Street" flicks too, but for whatever reason the latter series never quite struck the same chord with me. I love those movies, but I absolutely adore everyone's favorite hockey mask wearing, undead serial killer.

At first, all this remake talk kind of upset me. My gut reaction was the standard fanboy cliche. "How dare they!?! Those movies are classics and they don't need to be re-done!" But I must admit I enjoyed what Michael Bay and Platinum Dunes did with re-booting the "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" franchise. The movies were much glossier and, dare I say, hipper than the originals; they were also geniunely twisted and mostly entertaining. This gave me the slightest glimmer of hope that Bay and co. wouldn't mess up the "Friday the 13th" franchise, instead they would simply inject some new blood into it. Pun fully intended.


Words can't really express my sense of satisfaction when I saw that they cast Derek Mears, pictured above, to play Jason. It would have been awesome if Kane Hodder would have been brought into the fold. He was the defininitive Jason Voorhess in many fans eyes, but I'm ok with them going in a different direction. I'm sure Mr. Hodder isn't having any trouble finding new roles to play. Plus, just take a look at Mears. The guy looks downright menacing and that is just his headshot. He's a big hulking dude who seems to fit the Voorhees mold to perfection. As soon as I saw pictures of the new Jason, my pessimism about this remake began to quickly turn into cautious optimism.

No matter what, I'm still doing to be hesitant about this movie. Though Michael Bay has redeemed himself a bit in my eyes with his work on the "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" films and of course "Transformers," he is still the guy behind "Pearl Harbor" and "Armageddon." He's not as intimately involved with "Friday the 13th," but he's producing this thing and putting a bunch of money into it and that always gives me an uneasy feeling. Regardless, I'm planning on being at the cinema on Friday, February 13, 2009.

Maybe I'll even wear a Jason mask to the screening.

the skyline is burning.

Needless to say, "The Dark Knight" was awesome.


Heath Ledger did not disappoint as The Joker. After hearing the non-stop Oscar buzz surrounding his performance, I went into the film wondering if he would be able to live up to the hype. As soon as he walked in screen and did his "magic trick" I knew that he was going to kick ass. Was he better than Nicholson in Tim Burton's "Batman" from 1989? I'm not sure the two really compare. Though they were playing the same character, their interpretations of him were vastly different and I really think Ledger nailed the darker, more sinister Joker that we usually only get to see in the pages of the comics. Regardless, don't be shocked if Ledger wins a posthumous Academy Award for his portrayal of the yin to Batman's yang.


If you ask me, Gary Oldman is Jim Gordon. His performances in both of Christopher Nolan's Batman films are so perfect. He even looks just the way I expect Jim Gordon to look like, like he leaped right out of the pages of Frank Miller's "Year One" and onto the silver screen. He doesn't really steal the movie, but then again I think it is safe to say that it wouldn't be the same without him. The same can be said for Aaron Eckhart as Harvey Dent. He plays the "white knight" of Gotham so well and seeing his transformation into Two-Face is quite fascinating. Some feel like they should have saved the majority of the Two-Face portion of "The Dark Knight" for the next Batman film, but I think including it this time was the right choice. Nolan and his screenwriters did a really fantastic job of using two villians and making it not seem overwhelming to the viewer, unlike what happened with all the villians in Sam Raimi's "Spider-Man 3."

Speaking of, it was good to see such a huge response for "The Dark Knight" from fans everywhere. It raked in close to $160 million on it's opening weekend and broke basically every single box office record imaginable. Unlike Spidey's last film, which set the weekend gross record last year, I actually felt very satisfied walking out of the movie theatre. There were only a handful of stupid little things that bothered me about the sophomore effort in the Batman franchise. Overall, I found it to be a far superior film than the last Spider-Man movie and it is much more deserving of these box office achivements.


My biggest complaint is the new Batman costume. It just looks, well, kind of ridiculous. I'm not into the all-black motif and the mask looks odd-shaped and awkward. It is definitely better than the costumes used in Schumacher's Bat-films, but not by a whole lot. Christian Bale's Batman voice was also a little much at times. Yeah, we get it, Batman is supposed to be menacing and scary but at the same time he doesn't have to growl and speak so harshly all of the time. I don't know, I just found it a bit much. Kevin Conroy, who does the voice in the classic Batman: The Animated Series and the recent "Gotham Knights" DVD, is my quintessential Bat-voice. Oh well, at least Bale really shines as Bruce Wayne. That allows me to forgive his cheesy voice work while in cape and cowl.

If you haven't seen it yet, what are you waiting for? It is great.


In completely unrelated news, another really good hardcore punk band is calling it quits. I wrote about the short shelf life of hardcore bands in my last blog entry and then found out that Dead Hearts are breaking up a few days later. This is a bummer, especially because these guys are from Buffalo, my hometown, and they seemed to be doing really well as of late. Their last record, "Bitter Verses," was solid and I was stoked to hear what was coming next from them.

Dead Hearts were never my favorite band ever, but I always enjoyed their shows and their music. I think they are solid guys and they made music that inspired a lot of people in this area, for that I'm always going to have fond memories of them as a band. I'll never forget seeing them play a Christmas party at a local independent record store called Sit and Spin. The place was packed and the singer, Derek, came out of the back dressed as Santa Claus as the band ripped into their first song. Minutes later, the costume was nearly destroyed and strands of stringy, white, fake hair were all over the place. I probably swallowed a good chunk of Santa Dole's beard that night. Anyways, I'm sure that some of the dudes will move on to new bands and I'm looking forward to hearing them when that time comes. Until then, I'll just count down the days until their last show. September 12, 2008. Should be a blast.

"Some promises last long after we're in our graves."

two-for-one comic book movie review madness!

Two really cool comic book related movies were released this week, causing fanboys like myself to spend their hard earned cash money to take in the direct-to-DVD animated project "Batman: Gotham Knight" and the much-anticipated feature film "Hellboy 2: The Golden Army."


Let's take a look at the Batman DVD first off. This "movie" features 6 short episodes, each around 10 minutes or so, written by some of the best comic and television scribes, including Greg Rucka and Brian Azzarello. They pair up with some acclaimed anime studios to produce a neat little compliation of Batman stories that fits snugly between the two feature films, "Batman Begins" and "The Dark Knight." Now let me make this clear, I'm not a huge fan of anime at all. In fact, most of the time I just can't stand it. My favorite anime styled cartoon is The Boondocks, which is basically just a very Americanized version of anime in the first place. I'm no expert on who these directors are either, I think one of them did the "Ghost in the Shell" but that's about as far as my knowledge goes on who these guys are. Needless to say, I was a bit weary going into this DVD knowing my general distaste for the style of animation being used.

Thankfully, most of the animation didn't bother me. I only thought Batman and company looked ridiculous in a few of the stories and for the most part it was kind of cool to see how these anime directors interpreted the Caped Crusader. I won't spoil all of the fun and discuss each story, but I would like to briefly focus on the two I enjoyed the most. "Have I Got a Story For You" kicks off the film and "Deadshot" closes things out.


The former is written by Josh Olsen, who wrote the screenplay for "A History of Violence." His tale is a cute little one about a group of kids and their stories about the Batman. Seeing each child tell their friends what they saw when they encountered the Dark Knight was amusing, as these kids apparently have very healthy imaginations.

The final episode of the film, written by Alan Burnett of "Batman: The Animated Series" fame, features an action-packed battle between Bats and the titular character. It was pretty rad to see someone like Deadshot being used here, especially when considering the depth of Batman's rogues gallery. The only other bad guys from Batman's extensive group of villians who even appear in this film are Killer Croc and the Scarecrow. It's nice to see a C-lister like Deadshot get his moment in the sun, even if he does get his butt kicked.

"Gotham Knight" is a nice treat for the hardcore Batman set and also something worth checking out if you happen to be interested in anime or just would like to learn more about the Dark Knight. The two-disc edition is loaded with tons of really excellent features that should please rabid fans, including a look at Batman's rogues and a feature on creator Bob Kane. They are very well down and nearly worth the price of the DVD alone.


Four years have passed since the release of "Hellboy" and after several delays and a change of film studios, "Hellboy 2: The Golden Army" finally hit the silver screen on Friday. I might not be the first to say it, but let me emphatically state that this movie was 100% worth every single second of waiting. It took everything I enjoyed about the first film and cranked it up to 11. It might be a bit of a bold statement with "The Dark Knight" looming next week, but so far this is my movie of the summer.


Ron Perlman is perfect as Hellboy. If he ever decides to stop portraying "Red" then I hope they never make another Hellboy movie. He is that good at playing the cigar smoking, cat loving, right-hand-of-doom possesing hero. I honestly could not imagine anyone else stepping into this role and doing the things he does. Anyways, as you can probably tell Perlman was spot on again and the supporting cast from the original movie returns with top notch performances as well. Doug Jones nearly steals the show once again, this time lending his voice as well as his physical acting talents to "fishstick" Abe Sapien. Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane joins in on the fun, voicing the newest B.P.R.D. member, the ectoplasmic Johann Krauss. He also does a truly great job and his banter with Hellboy provides some of the film's many comedic moments.

The story this time around strays away from Hellboy's comic origins, something I actually found quite refreshing. Instead of a rehashed story, we get something entirely new for the $10 admission price. The main plot deals with Hellboy and his B.P.R.D cohorts trying to stop Price Nuada, an exiled elf warrior played by Luke Goss, from capturing the pieces of a powerful crown and awakening the ancient Golden Army to bring about the end of mankind. Nuada is obsessed with taking back the Earth for his elven bretheren and will stop at nothing to do so. Big Red and his posse naturally have a problem with this and several confrontations ensue.


Price Nuada has a twin sister, Princess Nuala, who does not share in his grand vision for Earth. He tries to sway her over to his side but she winds up with the B.P.R.D. One of the films many subplots features Pricess Nuala and Abe Sapien developing feelings for one another, leading to some tender moments. Perhaps the best scene of the film is between Abe and Hellboy. Abe goes to him for some advice on the Nuala situation, while Hellboy is dealing with his own relationship troubles with Liz Sherman. The end result needs to be seen to be believed and certainly provided the most laughs at the theatre. It is a shining example of what makes this Hellboy film universe so unique.

The wonderful thing about "The Golden Army" is director Guillmero del Toro's vivid imagination. Along with Hellboy creator Mike Mignola, del Toro has cooked up a beautifully put together movie chock full of outlandish characters and stunning landscapes. I spent as much time looking at the surroundings as I did the main characters. You get giant forest god elementals, adorable yet vicious "tooth fairies" and of course Wink, who is Price Nuada's bad-ass sidekick. The "Troll Market" scene rivals the Mos Eisley Cantina from "Star Wars," no joke. It would be a travesty if the visual effects team doesn't find themselves in the midst of the Oscar talk for their work on this movie.

"Hellboy 2: The Golden Army" ends with the promise of another story to tell. Here's hoping the next one happens sooner than later.

hulk smash expectations.

Wow, 3 entries down and two of them focus on the Hulk.

To celebrate Father's Day yesterday, I took my dad to go see "The Incredible Hulk." We were both thoroughly impressed with director Louis Leterrier's interpretation of Marvel's not-so-jolly green giant. Being the total comic book nerd that I am, I geeked out willfully at the numerous easter eggs and in-jokes. My pops enjoyed the special effects, the action and the talents of Liv Tyler as Betty Ross. He also compared General Thunderbolt Ross to J. Jonah Jameson of Spider-Man fame, saying that they were both meglomanical pricks, or something along those lines. There may be some spoilers ahead, so proceed with caution if you haven't seen the film.


You can count me among the few who will admit to enjoying Ang Lee's 2003 "Hulk" film. I didn't mind waiting so long to see the strongest one there is, the origin was done well and once the action kicked in, things were pretty intense. The film had it's problems, it nearly fizzled at it's conclusion with the father/son showdown, but overall it wasn't as god-awful and most made it out to be. The CGI Hulk looked great, as pictured above, and Bana's portrayal of Bruce Banner was solid. Plus, it had an absolutely amazing cast with Sam Elliot as General Ross and Jennifer Connolly as his beautiful daughter and the apple of Bruce Banner's eye. I would have rather seen those folks reprise their roles. William Hurt and Liv Tyler were good but not as effective as their predecesors. Edward Norton plays Bruce Banner this time around and knocks it out of the park. Not to knock on Eric Bana, who did a fine job in the last film, but Norton really embraced the role and it showed.

As ignored as the 2003 film was in this new take, at least they still picked up pretty closely to where Lee's flick ended off. Though this is not really a sequel in the traditional sense of the word, "The Incredible Hulk" only touches on the origin of it's title character and picks up with Banner on the run in Brazil, desperately trying to hold the beast within him at bay.


He fails, obviously, and the Hulk is back and looking better than ever. I think the CGI Hulk looks even better this time around, as technology has only advanced in the 5years since the last film. The plot revolves around Banner running from the U.S. government and General Ross, who is determined to harness whatever is inside of Bruce and use it as a military weapon. Norton does a great job of showing us just how difficult it is for Banner to remain on the run while desperately searching for a way to cure himself of the Hulk. To make matters worse, Thunderbolt uses an experimental super-soldier serum that has been "on ice" since World War II on a Russian born, English bred soldier named Emil Blonsky.

Tim Roth, who just so happens to be one of my favorite actors, nails Blonsky. His character is driven to always improve, no matter what the cost. His determination to be a great soldier eventually turns him into The Abomination. Of course, Blonsky can't become this massive beast all by himself. He ends up gaining the aid of a biologist by the name of Samuel Sterns, who had been trying to help Banner with his Hulk problem. I found all of this to be very cool considering that Sterns eventually becomes one of the Hulk's deadliest foes, The Leader, in the comics. We only see the beginnings of this in the silver screen version "The Incredible Hulk," leaving plenty of room for yet another Hulk flick.


A lot of people complained about how the Abomination looked in the photos and trailers prior to the movie's release. I felt sketchy about it myself, but after watching the movie I must admit being impressed with the new-look monster. His appearance wasn't a huge change and he certainly lived up to his name. And again, the character was built-up incredibly well by Roth which only made the eventual transformation that much more satisfying.

It's a bummer that the end of this movie was more or less shown in the commercials. General Ross drowns his sorrows at a bar when who else but Tony Stark shows up and tells him that "we are putting together a team." As totally amazing as that is, the fact that it was shown all over the advertising for this film took away from the scene's impact. Regardless, this collective Marvel movie-verse is showing tons of potential thusfar as we build towards "The Avengers" movie. I can only hope that we see a group of Avengers trying to stop a rampaging Hulk on the big screen.

Was it as good as Iron Man? I'm not sure it was. But fear not true believers, it was still a smashing good time at the movies.