Movie news and a podcast! Yo Joke!

Howdy Folks!
Boy what a fun show we had this week! I actually made a boo boo about one of the movies I talked about during my show and made an incorrect reference...can you spot it boys and girls? More importantly, I played music from the following films:

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Magic - Jerry Goldsmith - (1979)
Dan In Real Life - Sondre Lerche - (2007)
The Last Supper - Mark Mothersbaugh - (1995)
Flashpoint - Tangerine Dream - (1985)
Ri¢hie Ri¢h - Alan Sylvestri - (1994)
Get Carter - Roy Budd - (1971)
The Golden Seal - John Barry - (1983)
Chipmunks Adventure - Randy Edleman - (1987)

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In other news, the MPAA has got a case of foot in mouth disease, but what's new right? They made a 30% boo boo about the effects of illegal downloading on the indusrty. They changed their sob story from 44% revenue loss caused by college students to 15%. That's a pretty fat chunk of percentiles, and a much smaller violin I'll play for them. (Full story)

Also, on a positive note, Guillermo del Toro is in talks with New Line and MGM to direct the Hobbit films. Yes, Films...why make one movie when you can split it in two and make twice as much money in DVD and ticket sales? Ugh. Regardless, I think del Toro will do just fine, as long as it's not as crappy as Blade 2, and as good as Pan's Labyrinth. Let's see how Hellboy 2 turns out, then we'll see if ole' Guillermo is getting too big for his britches too soon.

On a not so positive note, Stephen Sommers (who is responsible for the fantasiticly campy The Mummy movies) is still casting for his film adaptation of the classic cartoon G.I. Joe...and he just cast Duke. Care to guess who? Step Up's very own Channing Tatum that's who...this movie is going to be horrible. There might even be a hip hop dance routine with Duke and Scarlett I hear. Also there could be an MC battle between Destro and Snake Eyes. (Destro totally has it in the bag)



PS- Sundance announced the winners...check it out here.

Rambo Review

It’s not very often you walk into a theater about to see a sequel to a franchise that already churned out two unplanned sequels based on a character that should have killed himself in the first movie (he does in the novel)…and still leave satisfied. The original Rambo tale, First Blood, is a classic story of a war vet that can’t adjust to an unwelcoming homeland. The second two? Wanton destruction of the Soviets in exotic locations with a burly American doing what’s right to protect his country. Thankfully, that’s not what the new Rambo is about. Sylvester Stallone steps up to write and direct this new sequel (that makes reference and flashbacks to the first film) and I’m glad he did. Yep. Glad. I think Stallone is starting to develop a real eye for directing, and as soon as he stops writing all his own movies, I think he’ll be a very accomplished director one day. This left me very satisfied when the end credits rolled, and not just because it was over…which is what I find myself feeling lately at most Hollywood offerings; but because I was entertained.

Rambo was a very competent war movie. Well shot, followed the original character, and was short and to the point. A woman next to me said to her husband “wow, that movie was short”. So what, I say? It didn’t need to be. I’m not paying to fill up 2 or three hours of my day, I’m paying to be entertained with a quality film. With that, let’s talk about what I liked. The film was rough and gritty, and did not waste any time getting you acquainted with how perverse and violent war can be. Set in Burma and the surrounding areas (a long time war zone since WW2) Rambo, now a blacksmith/snake hunter gets asked by some missionaries to take him into Burma so that they can help the people or some such nonsense.
Rambo knows what is there and doesn’t easily take them, but his soft spot gets the best of him and he eventually bends. Of course it doesn’t go as planned and he tags along with mercenaries sent to rescue them, commence violent rescue.

I’m not going to explain the movie shot by shot, but I will say that it was necessarily gratuitous with scenes of rape, murder, and general war violence. Seeing innocent women and children killed by power mongering armies really drives it home with the level of danger that is around them, which also leads me to a complaint I had about the commander of the “bad guys”. It seemed as if they were trying so hard to establish him as his own character, someone so awful and ruthless that being in command of people that rape, pillage, murder, and play violent games with prisoners just isn’t mean enough. They had to go any make him a pedophile…but not just a pedophile, but a homo pedophile. Maybe because you were supposed to enjoy his death that much more? Personally I thought it was a bit much. Of course the movie had its fair share of Hollywood fluffery, specifically the end where we’re supposed to be happy that the two white missionaries are safe after a near endless body count. Though, if you pay attention, you can tell that John Rambo isn’t happy. It almost ends on an “I told you so” note. The final scene takes us right back to First Blood, where he’s giving his home another chance and really lives up to the original film as he walks the road to the Rambo theme “It’s a long road” by Jerry Goldsmith.

As for the music in this film, Brian Tyler did a great job capturing the classic Goldsmith score and giving it new life without being too tacky. There are plenty of loud rompy overtures as our man is going about blowing up Burmese soldiers, but an equal amount of somber and haunting cues when they are going through the rivers of Burma. I can’t wait to pick it up and give it a solid listen.

Saturday Score Selection #8: They Call Me MISTER Tibbs!

They Call Me MISTER Tibbs!
score by Quincy Jones (1970)
Seeing as last Monday was Martin Luther King day, and I played some music from this film, I thought I'd make some of the tracks I didn't play available for download. Why? Cause Quincy Jones is a bigger bad ass than MISTER Tibbs, that's why damnit! Before Sidney Poitier was the soft spoken guest on Oprah, he played in many movies, and this one just happened to be a sequel to the popular In the Heat of the Night (1967). The twist? It's shot like a blacksploitation film! Ooooh yeah! We all know who can churn out a funky beat faster than you can say Beat It or Billy Jean...and that's Quincy Jones. So this week I'm leaving you with a double download, one funky Quincy classic, and the other a laid back bluesy number. Together, they capture the whole movie I think. Enjoy!

Download "They Call Me MISTER Tibbs! (Main Title)" by Quincy Jones via yousendit.

Download "Blues for Mister Tibbs" by Quincy Jones via yousendit.

Podcasts and Movie Reviews

Howdy folks,

This weeks show landed on Martin Luther King day, so you'll notice in the second hour of the show I played some music from Roots and from a couple of films starring Sidney Poitier. Also, played music from First Blood, cause Rambo comes out friday, YEE HAW! Enjoy the show!

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The Swarm - Jerry Goldsmith - (1978)
Le Grand Blue - Eric Serra - (1988)
Terminator 2: Judgement Day - Brad Fidel - (1991)
Sugar Colt - Luis Bakalov - (1966)
Roots - Quincy Jones - (1977)
In the Heat of the Night - Quincy Jones - (1967)
They Call Me MISTER Tibbs! - Quincy Jones - (1969)
First Blood - Jerry Goldsmith - (1982)

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In other news, I saw a few films over the three day weekend so I thought I'd tell you about em. First up on my weekend movie list was a film called The Genius Club. This movie is on extremely limited release and for some reason it was playing in my town. Go figure? I have a theory about why it's on extremely limited release, and it's because it's one of the most amateur films I think I've ever seen on a big screen. The fact that this wasn't a straight to bargain bin DVD release makes me wonder what rich uncle paid for this to be in theaters. Seriously. Tom Sizemore is pretty entertaining, but as for the rest of the acting...I've seen better performances on old movies played during USA's Up All Night with Gilbert Godfrey. Editing, sound design, dialogue, everything was complete schlock. Plus the whole movie was based around conversations I hear between self absorbed hipsters/college students at local coffee shops. It should have been called "Coffee House Chronicles: A Libertarian Tale". Not that I disagree with stuff that was brought up; but if I want to watch propaganda, I'll do it without paying an admission price and busting my ass to smuggle in a pound bag of peanut clusters and a liter of diet sprite. This wasn't the only movie I saw however...

The second film I viewed was the much hyped "Cloverfield". Seeing as how I had just rented and watched Dragon Wars on DVD just a day or so before hand, my expectations for giant monsters crushing shit was pretty low. After watching Dragon Wars you could have filmed your 3 year old nephew wearing a Spongebob mask topple a small town made out of Sesame Street blocks and I probably would have talked about how bad ass it was. With that said...I ended up enjoying Cloverfield, with a few caveats of course. First, the whole 15 minutes at the front full of pointless garbage to get me acquainted with a bunch of characters I'm not going to give two craps about when they get smooshed/gobbled up. J.J. Abrams is great at weaving lots of story lines together, why not do it here? He has the perfect platform...multiple views of a monster attack on various cameras from various people. Nope. Instead let's focus on one group of annoying people that I actually am happy when they all die in the end. I suppose that does at least leave me happy. Also, those chompy spider jobs? What's up? I mean I understand and actually LIKE the concept of a bunch of parasitic creatures living on a giant sea monster, but do they all have to be face huggers from the Alien movies? Do they have to make you explode when they bite you? Do they have to totally suck? Guess so.
Things I liked? Runtime 84 minutes. Not only is that great for the fact that I don't always like sitting in a theater for 2 and a half hours, but any longer and it wouldn't have made sense. Seeing as how it was from the perspective of someone filming on a handycam, they'd only have 90 minutes of tape anyway. Glad they thought of that. I also liked not seeing the monster for most of the movie. I don't like seeing crappy CGI jobs, and the shaky cam hid it well...till the end of course where they had to get the money shot, which totally ruined it for me.
I'll keep things short and end here...it's not the best movie for certain, and also not worth all the hype. It is, however, a movie about a giant monster going ape-shit and breaking lots of city stuff...which has its place. It captured the chaos okay in my book without having to show me too much CGI hot doggery. Don't pay $8 though...matinee at best, but don't wait for DVD, cause it'll lose something in your living room.

Saturday Score Selection #7: First Blood

Jerry Goldsmith - First Blood

I know I did a Jerry Goldsmith selection last week but I'm giving you another one this week, perhaps because I watched this last night, perhaps because a new sequel is coming out Friday, and perhaps watching a crazy Italian green beret nam vet rip through a bunch of dumb small town cops gets me plain old pumped. The strange thing about First Blood is the music is really quite sad. I mean sure, it's got a few adventurous overtures, but all in all, the original Rambo film is kind of a sad story. Before he went and slaughtered Vietnamese and Soviets (Rambo 2) then single handedly beats down Afghanistan and even more Soviets (Rambo 3), John Rambo was a crazy old nam vet. Not quite like the nam vet that hangs out by the liquor store, tells you that Zorg is coming and he needs rum to power his spaceship and has crap in his drawers...but the cool kind that'll wrap you to a tree with vines and leave you there with crap in your drawers for your friends to find as a warning to leave him the hell alone. Here's a track that I really enjoy, almost a Rambo theme if you will. It's a somber tune, but also commands authority and sums up the movie for me. Enjoy.

Download "It's a Long Road Home (instrumental)" by Jerry Goldsmith via yousentit

PS - Here's a video from the worst Frank Stallone song ever "Peace in Our Life", which just happens to also be in Rambo 2.

Drive-In Speakerbox Jan 18th Show Podcast

Howdy folks,

Boy what a great show this was! Some really great music from some really great films. This weeks show featured music from the following:

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via mediafire
City Heat - Lennie Niehaus - (1984)
Night of the Living Dead - Paul McCollough - (1990)
This Property is Condemed - Kenyan Hopkins - (1966)
Bloodsport - Paul Hertzog - (1988)
Murder on the Orient Express - Richard Bennet - (1974)
The Switch - Tangerine Dream - (1993)
Danger Diabolik - Ennio Morricone - (1974)
Mysterious Island - Bernard Herrman - (1961)
Cops and Robbersons - William Ross - (1994)

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via mediafire

In other news, the Golden Globes happened...and I still don't give a rats tookus. Apparently no one else did either? Fancy that. If you're one of the 748 people that I guess still really enjoy watching undeserving people win pointless awards for mediocre tripe, then here's the golden globes wieners list.

Saturday Score Selection #6: The Explorers

Jerry Goldsmith - The Explorers (1985)

I'm always amazed at how many people I encounter that have never seen this movie. Then I'm amazed at how many people I actually bring up this movie around. In this film, often referred to as The Goonies in space, the late great Jerry Goldsmith managed to capture all kinds of awesome thematic elements in this score which grabs your inner child, drops it in a trashcan spaceship and lets you be 12 years old all over again...without getting that nasty trashcan juice on you. It was a really tough call on what track to give you guys this week, as there are several winners here with sounds ranging from adventurous overtures, atmospheric sci-fi soundscapes, and catchy rock tunes. I'm leaving you with the stereotypical 80's finale tune that wraps the whole movie up in an 8 minute track.

Download "Have A Nice Trip" by Jerry Goldsmith via Yousendit

First Podcast of 2008

Howdy folks!

I'm back on the airwaves after the holiday break, miss me much? I knew you did. This week was a slightly shorter show, but no less spectacular. Here's what was played:
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Sette Note In Nero - Fabio Frizzi - (1977)
12 Monkeys - Paul Buckmaster - (1995)
The Edge - Jerry Goldsmith - (1997 )
Akira - Shoji Yamashiro - (1988)
American Gladiators - Bill Conti - (1989)
Sorcerer - Tangerine Dream - (1977)
Breakin' - Various Artists - (1984)

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In other news, I'm going to give you my review of AVP:R per request of Fiji Mermaid over at Sideshow Cinema.

What do you get when you take the Academy Award nominated 1987 film Predator and mash it together with the Academy Award winning 1980 film Alien? Well, you get this kind of strange high dollar mutant baby that has a quickly written script that also happens to be the potential wet dream of millions of dice rolling nerds, and/or super sexy genius film blog writers. Well, what if that wet dream just left you kind of chaffed and unsatisfied? Much like any wet dream, you're willing to give it another chance. Thankfully in the case of AVP: Requiem someone slapped the project out of Paul W. S. Anderson's incompetent hands and handed it over to the Strause brothers to play with. This fact didn't calm my nerves however, as the Strause brothers, while very well known for their visual effects on several good (and several completely awful) projects, they haven't really made any director seats that warm with their collective kiesters. Let's talk more about the movie though, shall we?

AVPR actually surprised me. I enjoyed this movie. Yes, you heard correct. I enjoyed this movie. It wasn't exactly perfect, as few movies are, nor was it totally what I wanted to see from a AVP movie. It also ended with a slightly ridiculous set up for a third installment with a pleather clad lady straight out of a halloween catalog ad for a crappy matrix knockoff costume. Let's start with criticisms so when I tell you what I liked, I won't end on a rotten note.

My major beef with this movie is that it's supposed to be ALIEN VERSUS PREDATOR. Not Aliens AND Predator Versus Humans. I don't think I saw any AAPVH posters around the theater. Why must directors spend so much time developing human characters that are blatant copies of Arnold Schwarzenegger / Danny Glover and Sigourney Weaver's characters from the previous Predator and Alien films? That's not what the audience wants to see. Humans are no more than fodder in this movie and should be treated as such. The Predator is an alien that is intelligent and has culture that should be explored...why not develop him as a character, instead of a simple killing machine? We did get a tiny glimpse of the predator home world, which was one of my favorite parts of the movie...and it lasted all of 2 measly minutes. We saw more sophistication of the Predator race (aka the Yautja) in the first two Predator films individually than in both of the AVP movies combined. To not write a thesis on the subject, I digress...

Positives about the movie? Action was spot on. The Predator was a bad ass, like he should be. He had classic weapons mixed with new, and actually acted like a hunter on a mission. The aliens were also well done, the effects were fantastic. Makeup was used where it was needed, CGI was used sparingly. Remember, the original films were made with ZERO CGI and they still hold up. I also enjoyed how the film was not afraid to show how cold and brood-like the Aliens are, which brought out their natural terrifying concept. Watching that kid get killed in the first few scene really slapped the audience and showed them that these Aliens mean business. Plus it made me laugh out loud, cause that kid had it coming. Perhaps one of the best parts of the film was the score by Brian Tyler which felt like a perfect mix of the original Alan Sylvestri Predator score mixed with the Jerry Goldsmith/James Horner Alien/Aliens score.

All in all, I got what I wanted out of this movie. Great action, great visuals, and a crazy mash-up up of two legendary sci-fi characters. You don't go into a movie like this expecting it to be a masterpiece, and when you realize this fact, you come out of it with a smile on your face and a list of ways "you'd do it better if you had a billion dollars"

Saturday Score Selection #5: Big Trouble in Little China

There's something to be said about a guy who directs and produces movies and also writes the scores...and that's "What a bad ass!". John Carpenter, while not always producing cinema gold, sure knows how to make a cult classic; and part of that recipe involves a pinch of Kurt Russel. The music to Big Trouble in Little China is perhaps some of Carpenter's most interesting work, as he blends his normal atmospheric minimalist electronic tones with Asian themes as well as a tough burly sound that'll will make you push over a row of motorcycles at your local "other side of the tracks" watering hole. Everyone has probably hear the main theme which was performed by The Coupe De Villes, but I'm leaving you with a track that has a little bit of all the elements in the score. Enjoy.

Download "John Carpenter - The Great Arcade/Final Escape Pt.1" via yousendit

Welcome to 2008!

Howdy Folks!

It's a new year! A whole new 365 days of waiting for movies to come out so you can be let down later when they don't meet your expectations! Don't fret though, there's always plenty of sleeper hits or movies that you expect to be so terrible that they actually impress you...kinda like National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets. Yeah, I saw it. ...and yeah I actually had a little fun. When you expect to sit down and be forced to drink a glass of urine and it turns out to be just really sour lemonade, you're happy right? Right. National Treasure 2 was by no means a glass of urine, though it was predictable, over the top, and aimed at the 8-15 year old demographic...though I won't lie; there's a bit of that demographic inside me. I mean, the classic style Goofy cartoon by Disney at the beginning of the film was probably be favorite part. Anyway, on to business.

There's no podcast this week as I was busy planning other major events here in my town over the new year holiday. However, here's a short list of films (in order of release) coming out this year that I want to view...Enjoy.

January
Cloverfield - Shut up. JJ Abrams sold me with LOST, so I'll give this a shot.
Teeth - Just watch the trailer, hehehe.
Cassandra's Dream - Woody Allen...maybe it won't suck.
Rambo - What more is there to say?

February
In Bruges - Not a fan of Colin Farrell, but Ralph Finnes should help make up for it in this hitman comedy.
The Spiderwick Chronicles - So what if it's a Nickelodeon production?
My Blueberry Nights - A new Wong Kar Wai flick with Jude Law and Natalie Portman.
Be Kind Rewind - Michel Gondry's latest with Jack Black and Mos Def. Hopefully better and less trite than Science of Sleep.
Charlie Bartlett - A high school comedy I might not hate.
The Signal - A horror flick with a neat plot...could be awful, but looks promising.
Penelope - Christina Ricci with a pig nose, tee hee.

March
Horton Hears a Who - Dr. Suess ya'llz.
Inkheart - Brendan Frasier in a strange story based on the neato book.

April
Meh.

May
Iron Man - Puuhhlease don't let this suck.
Son of Ranbow - A Garth Jennings project that looks pretty funny.
Speed Racer - Only cause I want to see how awful it will be.
Indiana Jones 4 - I've been waiting 19 years for this one.
The Incredible Hulk - Again. This time with Edward Norton. Good Grief.

June
Wall-E - You've heard my rant. Fingers crossed, I want to love this.

July
Hancock - Fresh Prince with super powers. The trailer made me chuckle. A little.
The Dark Knight - The next Batman installment that should make me soil myself with delight.

August
The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor - The Mummy 3 bitches! These movies are too campy not to love.


Okay so that's about what I could dig up for now. There are going to be loads more later, but release dates are always subject to change for things in production