What a great way to spend the Christmas break than to see a small group of young sorority girls getting hacked to pieces. It was nice to hear that there was still a point in Hollywood that they would make Slasher films, furthermore – a slasher film around the holidays.
My girlfriend and I got to see this film, I was initially a little hesitant about it – but then when I found it was a slasher film involving young girls getting hacked up and it is actually a remake of a classic horror film from 1974 under the same name – I knew we had to check it out. What I come to find out was, Less Is More is the number one element the film makers should have used from the original version of this film.
When I got to see this film and then do a little research on the original – I now understand why Hollywood wanted to remake this movie. First off, it is a great little scary movie to squeeze in during the Christmas Holiday season. Second, certain horror fans consider the original Black Christmas one of the earliest slasher films. It is all too easy to say it was all about John Carpenter’s Halloween, but this film actually pre-dates it by four years. Third, young girls die in unique ways that involve an overall Christmas theme. Eventually after comparing the two films – I truly began to see how much I felt let down about the new remake.
If you have been reading a lot of my other movie reviews, it has become quite noticeable about how skeptical I am about checking out remakes – only to love them afterwards. I have been quite pleased with the remakes for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Hills Have Eyes and The Omen (and who knows what The Hitcher will bring) but BLACK CHRISTMAS’ REMAKE WAS A LET DOWN.
Well, please allow me to retort. The film is primarily darkly lit and it is a bit of a mystery initially to find out who is killing innocent sorority girls at a house and why. Through the killings we are interspersed with flashbacks on the origin of the film’s main serial killer Billy Zane.

The Legend of Billy: Billy had a rare liver disease that turned him yellow, when he was about eight or so, his mother and her boyfriend killed Billy’s dad by placing a bag over his head and bashing him with a crow bar. Billy snooped around various little crawlspaces and nooks and crannies of the house to discover his mother and the boyfriend were burying daddy dearest under the steps. (If you have ever seen Stand By Me, you’ll recall the scene of Verne digging up his money underneath the steps). Mommy and the Boyfriend see Billy, and chase him around the house until he crawls up to the attic where Mom locks him up. Mom frequently re-iterates at this point in the movie she hates Billy because she hates the father. She proves this hatred and disgust by keeping Billy locked up in the attic for the next fifteen years or so.

Fast forward a few years later, Mommy and Boyfriend are screwing one another on the steps. Boyfriend can’t rise to the occasion so Mom looks around the house for any other dick she can get her hands on. She wanders up to the attic and seduces and screws her young teenage son. Nine months later, Mommy gives birth to Agnes – Tommy’s sister/daughter. Mommy looks up to the attic and says “She’s in my family now.” Which to me, is seeing, “I have a true family right now, the old one is dead and gone to me, although I just fucked my son to create this thing – unknowns to my current boyfriend. But we will continue to keep the family secret locked up in the attic.”

Everything seems nice and peaceful up to eight years after that. The next Christmas scene, Mommy gets Billy a telescope to spy on the next door neighbors and see what else is out there in the world. He doesn’t take too kind to it, and decides to sneak downstairs to spend time with his true family. Then add in a major hint to some foreshadowing when Mommy pinches little Agnes’ cheeks and says, “you’re my little cookie and I could GOBBLE you all up.”

Instead, Billy attacks Agnes by putting a bag over her head, ripping out one of her eyes and eating it. Then the Boyfriend comes to the rescue, but Billy ends up ramming a pointed Christmas ornament through his head and pushing his eye ball through the back of his head. Then Billy attacks his mother, beats her to death with a rolling pin, presses cookie cutters against her flesh and bakes some Christmas shaped chunks of flesh and dips them in milk until the police arrive. Billy is incarcerated in a mental institution for years, attempting to break out every Christmas for “the night he came home.” Agnes was hospitalized, schlepped to orphanages to years and would eventually end up in a mental institution herself until she escapes and ends up back in her house which starts the picture off at its current time.

With that interesting back story, my mind began to wander throughout the various murdering of the female victims in the film. The remainder of the plot, in true Slasher fashion, is one victim after the other is picked off in interesting ways. The murders take place within this sorority house, which was the former Zane estate, and Billy is apparently upset that there are other people besides his family in his house on Christmas. When he sees them there, my interpretation is that he sees outsiders and wants to make them part of “his family.” Since he was treated so badly as a child, he ends up mutilating his victims to resonate the pain he felt by being an outsider. The only form of love that he knows is pain, and I think in the case of Billy Zane, he thinks that pain is synonymous with love.
The girls are murdered, they’re trapped, and they’re picked off – for the most part SO MANY VICTIMS IN THIS FILM LOSE THEIR EYEBALLS! Let me try and take a tally of the following victims that had eyeball related injuries/fatalities: 1)Boyfriend has a Christmas ornament shoved through his head and an eyeball gets shoved through the back 2) Agnes has her eyeball ripped out and eaten by Billy 3)the first sorority girl gets her eyeball ripped out 4)the second girl gets it taken out – in fact many of the victims involve having their eyeballs injured – even Andrea Martin, who played Phyllis in the first film, now returns as Ms. Mac, ends up getting an icicle jammed through her head that falls off of the roof. Towards the end of the film, there is a Christmas tree that is covered with dangling eyeballs as little ornaments. Whatever victims that didn’t have their eyes taken out initially, showcase their oral cavities at the end of the film as all of the corpses are gathered around as a “my family,” moment and all of them are missing their eyes.
I tried to think about this little visual reoccurring eyeball theme that happens in the film, the best thing that I could account for and why it had happened over and over again could be the point that you only see Billy’s little beady yellow eye poking out through the cracks of the house – within the holes in the walls and the cracks and the crawls spaces. Perhaps Billy takes the eyes of the victims as some weird connection, I can see you – but you can’t see me. They say eyes are the mirrors to the soul – what if they are soul less? But to truly get into the mind of these killers, you have to take a rather lengthy suspension into disbelief.
The film is riddled with plot holes and leaving things unexplained. Putting waaaay too many things out in the open, whereas the original shrouded most of the film in secrecy and worriment of the unknown (in fact, you don’t even see the killer in the original.) For example, there is some random little sub plot about Kyle and his girlfriend involving him recording his sexual exploits. Which causes him to break up with his girlfriend, but if you ask me, it is a cheap technique to get your mind wandering over who is truly killing within the sorority house. You really don’t know why Agnes kills with Billy, who she herself had her eyeball ripped out by Billy. In fact, why would all of a sudden would they want to come back to the house for some reason. Finally my big thing is what and why are they eating people – especially their eyeballs. I mean, I’m a huge fan of horror and gore – but just saying that someone is “psychotic” and why they’re going to eat flesh, is a pretty big freaking leap.
The film is only Glen Morgan's second feature that he has directed aside from Willard. That direction inexperience can be seen in the performance on a lot of the actresses who are all scream and less expression. The editing tends to flip flop as well, I think the film could have been much smoother if you showed me the entire story of Billy and Agnes’ origin and then go into the murders of the sorority house. Finally the major thing that I felt that became a down point is that this is a remake of a culty horror film, but it’s essential elements of terror and plot points within the slasher genre have become so clichéd over the years. The whole scary thing with a mysterious harassing voice over the phone was overkilled in the film Scream, which also subsequently killed the entire Slasher genre whereas no one could take a Slasher film seriously film afterwards. Also the big revealing factor of the typical message, “we traced the phone – and it’s coming from WITHIN THE HOUSE” has been done countless times whether in parody or a satirical look at the genre – who the Hell should care about anything in this film when the terror has been imitated and mocked by everyone in the industry thus far, including such films as Club Dredd and The Scary Movie franchise.
Overall, if you’re looking for some fun cheap gore that you can laugh at – go for checking out this movie. There is a gratuitous nude scene in the shower and another one when you see Mommy dearest banging her boyfriend on the steps. As far as the original goes, I am very curious as to see how the original was done and I would more than likely recommend that over this one. This way, we can all know and understand – why the original deserved a remake – even though it was a shitty one.

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Texas Chainsaw: The Beginning

By James "Bo" Gorcesky

October 16, 2006

What can I say about this film that hasn't been already? If you're looking for a quick fix for a horror film, then go see this. I was VERY adamant about seeing any of the newer Texas films. But I tell ya the truth, I went to Wal Mart the other night with my girlfriend and they have some great deals on horror films for around five bucks. I ended up buying the 2003 remake of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre (i.e. the sequel to the film that I am currently writing about) and I also ended up picking up Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation.

I ended up watching both films and I eventually got a lot more respect to these newer remakes. I first watched the 2003 film, and I'll be honest with you – I was terrified. As much as I wanted to be in denial that I can't be falling for these remakes – I really enjoyed it. I found the make up/masks were absolutely splendid, the acting of the crazy family got me so pissed off I wanted to kill them myself and I saw Leatherface (Andrew Bryniarski) as this big burly tuff ass guy with a chainsaw. I began to think of the three or four previous Leatherfaces and their acting styles, but this new guy was bad ass. ESPECIALLY to the fact that Leatherface is now played by the same guy who played Zangief in Street Fighter the Movie starring the legendary Jean-Claude Van Damme.

As a direct follow up, I watched The Next Generation, which is really one of those films you end up sitting on the couch all day watching because you're too drunk and/or hung over to muster enough energy and courage to turn the damn thing off. To compare and contrast, Next Generation is the first remake within the saga. It is directed and co-written by Kim Henkel, who is the co-writer of the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre. But even with the fine acting talents of Matthew McConaughey (as the lead psycho) and Renee Zelweger (the heroine) couldn't save this thing. Although the story does dig deep into the psychosis and allure of TCM, by providing a suggestion that there are plenty of Hewett-esque families and there is an organization higher than the government that is responsible for pure terror – this film can not be saved. I think its primary downfall is by seeing Leatherface in drag who constantly screams as if he has Down syndrome and needs attention. Hardcore TCM fans would appreciate it, especially if they know the true Ed Gein origin story, and how America's first serial killer would wear the flesh of women in his own fucked up little world.

Now, let us get onto the true film at hand. The origin film was pretty interesting for me because I'd never seen a prequel first and then seen the true film. I again was very adamant against watching a prequel to a remake, and just thought that Hollywood was running out of even more ideas. The story to me seemed a lot like the original, and it is just being done more and more throughout Hollywood (sorry House of a 1,000 Corpses, you know you were a remake of TCM also). In fact, after seeing the 2003 film, the prequel ended up doing a lot of remade shots from the original film that they could squeeze into the 2003 remake. The cinematography wasn't as good, mainly since Dan Pearl, who was hired from the original didn't come back for the prequel.

The acting was truly hit or miss; I really enjoyed R.Lee Emery as Sheriff Hoyt. There were times where he made me laugh and others where I just wanted to strangle the bastard and hope he got his just desserts (no cannibalism joke intended). What I didn't like, which was tied into the origin of the family; was his little speech that he gives about being a P.O.W. and he brings you up to the question, "You gonna eat, or are ya gonna be eaten'?" It gives you some thought to this family, and how Sheriff brought this philosophy home from Korea. But they keep on pushing to you that "We will never go hungry again," and "this house is the one thing they can not take away from us. Even though our town is dying – we will stay here." So, instead of just driving another town over, the family decides that they're just going to kill the original sheriff and eat him. From there, they get so hooked, they just continue on a killing spree and getting any unsuspecting tourists that happen to wander into their home or gas station.

Again, seeing Emery in the folds of being a bad ass, kicking the shit out of people, talking of his old war time stories and throwing in a few bad one liners here and there – will instantly get you to think of that bad ass Drill Sergeant from Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket. Supporting characters such as Monty, Luda Mae and Tommy seem to be controlled by this psychotic will-power that he holds over the Hewitt family. It seems that there is even a moment of uncertainty within the mind of Leatherface on whether or not he should cut up a victim; although he had viciously hacked up his boss because he called him an animal. Other points are when the family is being served flesh (what I think might be the first time) and Monty has this look on his face of ("Oh my God I'm about to eat a person") but then Luda Mae interrupts the scene and tells them that they got to say grace. Psychotic or not, even my willing suspension of disbelief was thrown out the window.

I would like to know more about the mentality of Leatherface, and his origin, aside from a little twenty minute intro. Then again, when you have a character that only mumbles and cuts up people, you need someone as charismatic as Emery to carry the scene load for everyone. But if I could have a crystal clear origin story for the family – I'd be much happier. It takes a lot more for people to turn to cannibalism just because their local meat factory has gone dry; or just because they have a crazy uncle who did it while he was in a Korean P.O.W. camp. I mean, I remember the first time I delved on the flesh of an infant – it didn't take a lot of convincing, but a lot of money was involved. Speaking of origins, I can only hope that director Jonathan Liebsman does a better job with his next project, Friday the 13th which will hopefully finally tie up the loose ends in the Friday saga for us fans – or end up ruining it like this one almost just teased me to not fall through.

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The Descent is decent
Or, “How the Spice Girls went spelunking and all they got was eaten.”
By James “Bo” Gorcesky
August 7, 2006

Who would think you could make a horror movie with six British girls participating in adventurous sports and not have even ONE lesbian scene? The story of this movie is six young women enter into a cave for an adventurous weekend after the one year anniversary of a car accident that killed the daughter and husband of the main character named Sarah. The beginning of the film starts off with creepy shots here and there, constant false imagery and paranoid surrealism where you are constantly tricked with the old, “bait and pull” gag, just when you think something scary is going to happen………..IT DOESN’T!
BOO! Ah, there it goes. We’re introduced to these adventurous gals initially from their white water rafting expedition, and then they face the ultimate rush of cave spelunking. A rag tag group of women come together, some like adventure, some know caves, some just like to live dangerously and careless – but it is all of these faults which befall the victims towards the end of the film. The women are led down into a cave by the adventurous Juno, this woman is very brave but sometimes foolish. Her philosophy is that if there is no risk – then there is no fun involved. The risk that she first pulls with her group is by not bringing a map guide of the tunnel system in which she has taken her friends in to explore. Then she even admits she acquired an even BIGGER risk by bringing her friends into a cave system that is not only the one that they thought it was, but a cave system that has never been explored before.
Well the trick is on Juno, explorers had in fact gone through the cave system once, supposedly over a hundred years ago. They happen to discover an old spelunker’s spike as the girls travel across a rather orgasmic trench. (No, I’m serious – it is truly orgasmic. Especially when you hear the women trying to travel across it with their grunts, whines and moans. It’s just like hearing women’s tennis in the background while you’re trying to masturbate to a scrambled signal on the porn channel.) The women begin to explore deeper and deeper into the cave (yes, the movie is also chop full of coy Vaginal analogies including the line, “it looks a lil tight but I think I can squeeze in.”) system as they happen to find one mysterious thing after another. Whether it’s from delusions, cave paintings or the dark – Sarah happens to hear a little girl giggling and sees strange pale men scurrying about. Sarah suggests that they get the white creature thing on their side to help them find their way out of the tunnel. But, if you saw what these things looked like, who the Hell would want a ravenous Gollum to be their tour guide?
Yeah, that’s right – these weird bat-boys rejects from the Weekly World News start to appear throughout the cave system. Just when you think they are going to help you out, like they did with Bilbo on the way towards Mount Doom, these lil Crawlers scurry about and tear out the jugulars of the girls. Mass panic ensues; the girls scatter about, except for Juno, who stands strong by not only killing one of the Crawlers – but her best friend by accident. They all become paranoid over one another and the friendships become dwindled down to the pure basic instinct of survival. These girls go from becoming the best of friends to muttering such lines of, “Don’t trust Juno” or “Her screaming is going to bring a hundred of those things down here. But as long as it’s not on my head I’ll be safe.”
The remainder of the film becomes homage to the basic element of survival. Sarah goes through the hugest transition of all from being this cowardly, scatterbrained, paranoid girl still struggling with the loss of her daughter and husband – into a blood thirsty savage warrior chick. She gets drenched in a blood pool, kills her best friend with a rock, pushes a Crawler’s eyeballs in with her thumbs and jabs another creature with a sharpened chunk of a deer’s antler. Juno roams around as the main heroine trying to lead everyone out of the cave, but she has inadvertently practically turned everyone against her. Especially; when Sarah finds out that Juno was fucking around with her husband a year or so back. There are also a final pair of girls that are hiding within a rocky crag cuddled up next to another trying to avoid any Crawler from eating them. Because, the Crawlers are blind and can only find their prey from their extra sense of hearing – like Daredevil.
Finally, I leave you, the little people, with this question to whom that have seen the film. Did we need to have the Crawler creatures to make this film frightening? In my honest and humble opinion – I didn’t think we did. In fact, when these things came about with no true explainable origin, it was when the film, “jumped the shark.” The film is a thriller on the sole fact that I have never felt more claustrophobic in a film. I think an initial critic made the quote that it was the scariest horror thriller since Alien. But just muttering that film over and over in the trailers I think creates a subliminal effect on the viewer. To make any similarities between Ridley Scott’s classic 1978 haunted house in outer space tale with connections to six chicks that go spelunking are few and far between. To me, I think the only connection was the feeling of the tight enclosed spaces all through the corridors of the caves, much like the tight hallways found in Alien (especially when Dallas is creeping about with a flame thrower). My heart was pounding so much, in such a fear, that I felt the girls’ terror of being stuck in a cave-in. But when you start throwing ghastly crawling and clawing bat boys at me – then it’s a bit too much. Then it falls into the thriller-chiller category.
That stuff was just as entertaining as well. There was PLENTY of gore and nastiness for me to be entertained. In fact, I can’t wait for the future un-cut release of the dvd that should be three times as gory. If any of you fans of the horror genre are familiar with the writer/director Neil Marshall, whom I had seen his previous film of Dog Soldiers. In fact, people criticize about British actors in films, I tried to plead with them if they want true British Horror then they should see Dog Soldiers – which is like a mix of Evil Dead and The Howling but with G.I. Joe-esque characters. If you saw how Marshall’s werewolves ripped through their prey – the Crawlers do just the same. Again, I don’t think I would necessarily need the Crawler beasts; I would be just as happy with some sorta psycho-thriller chiller when one of the girls goes crazy, rips apart her friends and eats them. Well, she has to have sex with their dead bodies and then eat them – now that would make an AWESOME British horror film :D

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Captain Jack Will Get You High Tonight….
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest movie review
By James “Bo” Gorcesky 7/28/06

The film opens up dark, mysterious and gory. I laugh hard as I see men dragged to their deaths in a mysterious foreboding castle. A caged prisoner is attacked by a flock of crows and his eyeballs are gauged out like in a bad Argento film. But one man is able to escape such a fate as he sails away in a homemade casket boat with a decrepit boney leg to paddle back to his Black Pearl.
I haven’t seen the first Pirate film since it came out in the theatres a few years ago. So, being able to recall who was in the last film (as far as supporting cast was concerned) was a little misty for me. But the film remains true to promises of nonstop action, excitement, great special effects, constant comedy relief and carries a heavy amount of sex appeal from Depp, to Knightley, to Bloom – Hell, even Davy Jones has got it going for him with those weird tentacle things attached to his Octopussy face.

Warning: Spoilers and Rough Waters Ahead, my mateys…..

Ah yes, Davy Jones is the main villain of this film and is totally the SCENE STEALER. Davy (as played by Bill Nighy) is an entirely CGI generated villain whom looks like a cross between an Octopus and a Lobster. Bill Nighy, whom most nerds might remember from his roles in The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, Underworld, and Shaun of the Dead, {remember, he played Philip? The boyfriend of Shaun’s mom who he just couldn’t stand and eventually became a Zombie?!} Anyway, Nighy ended up wearing a motion capture suit with tons of reference points. Kinda like balls on his chin, but not like the same balls that the Anarachist likes near his mouth ;) So the crew of ILM designed this totally cool looking guy, whose just sudden movements of his upper lip or smoking a pipe totally distracts the audience onto his every move.
So think of Davy as “Faust of the Seven Seas” the lord of his infamous Locker and Captain of his ancient ship The Flying Dutchman, the writers of the film ingeniously created a little back story about Davy, and there is this chest with his heart in it (Dead Man’s Chest GET IT?). But Jack has found that there is a map to get to the key which unlocks the chest, but he needs to suck in as many of his friends that he can to get it. I’ll explain……
You remember the trading company from the first film? Well, they have Orlando Bloom and Knightley under arrest because they helped Jack Sparrow escape at the end of the last picture. So Knightley will be put to death unless Bloom can get the “magical compass” that Jack Sparrow has on him. Thusly, the trading company will be able to control the whole world and all her waters (kinda like the British Empire actually trying to rule the world around the same time this film takes place.) So Bloom must go out in order to get the compass, but first he must find Jack.
Jack is currently on his own quest on how to find this mystical key. He is awoken at night by Bootstrap (Bloom’s father). Bootstrap is now this cool looking Water Zombie (kinda like a mixture of the sea creature zombies from Creepshow but with the watery wrinkled look that the director Gore Verbinski captured in The Ring). So Bootstrap is now a zombie slave crew member for Davy Jones and Jack is next. Jack owes Davy for a deal he made years ago in order to become the Captain of the Black Pearl for ten years. Jack, who is a coward, needs to find a way to escape death yet again and how to sucker other people in to cover his ars.
In classical (and excellent screenwriting fashion) you have two or more characters wanting something with conflicted interests. Bloom and Sparrow end up meeting together after Bloom ends up indelibly saving Jack and his crew from an island of cannibals. To repay his friend, Jack “strikes a bargain” so that Bloom will end up getting traded soul for soul on the Flying Dutchman. Bloom ends up meeting Davy Jones and says, “Jack Sparrow sent me to repay an old debt,” in doing so, it pisses off Davy and wants his promise paid back in full.
Another deal is struck; Jack wagers that his soul is worth one hundred souls to go down to the locker instead. There also becomes this fun sorta atheist/Spanish Inquisition undertone where Davy Jones promises people to end their sufferings if they join his crew for a hundred years. Which, personally, I think is a shitty deal because you end up being super old and decrepit and you look like an extra off the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles supporting cast. But the special effects on the film were so awesome that they created such monsters. Each of the sixteen crewmen on Jones’ ship (excluding Bootstrap) were entirely digitized. The mannerisms and facial expressions ALONE on the Davy Jones character make you wonder constantly – “is that a guy in a rubber suit, a robot or some entirely digital manifestation?”
So Jack becomes transfixed on how he is going to save himself yet again, now this adventure not only costs a few people that are close to him their lives – but a hundred of innocent ones. But where to get these innocent slobs can only be found on the pirate port of Tortuga. Here, Jack enlists the aid of many of some broken and beaten down men, one in particular is Cutler Beckett, whom was to wed Knightley in the first film but is now spending his time wallowing in pig shit. Cutler joins, as does Knightley (whom has caught up with the adventurers after single handedly escaped her own prison,) and we also have those two bungling comedic relievers Pintel and Rhagetti; who were evil pirate ghosts in the last film – but have now returned to find their own redemptions by making us laugh and chasing a wooden eye ball around scenes.
The crew is now together, but it is only Knightley who can properly utilize Jack’s compass and direct them to where the chest is (no, not her chest). The crew now has an idea on where to go and set sail, as Bloom deals with his own misfortunes. He ends up playing this game of Liar’s Dice between Davy Jones, Bootstrap and himself. The gamble is about freedom, and how he could wager himself to be free of Davy Jones along with his father against the key to the chest which Jones holds so dear. Bloom ends up winning the match, but his father ends up getting suckered into a much longer time of servitude. Before Bloom escapes, he steals the key from Jones as he slumbers on his Captain Nemo-like organ in the middle of the night.
Jack and his crew arrive at the island and dig up the chest, just as Bloom arrives with the stolen key. But everyone is hot on their tail in order to get back what is properly theirs and everyone wants a piece of everyone’s action. Conflict and tensions rise because somebody wants to steal the heart, somebody wants to kill it, somebody wants to keep it to themselves and another wants to use it as ransom to, dare I say….”rule the world?” Everyone fights over the damn thing; high speed chases on the seven seas ensue after the evil beast of THE KRAKEN is beckoned by Davy Jones. No, I’m not talking about the same monster from the very awesome Clash of the Titans, nor of the ride you might find in Sea World. This nasty looking beast is a mythical creature whom Jones uses to do his nasty bidding and by dragging men down to their watery graves at the locker.
There are some really fun fights and action sequences all throughout the remainder of the film as one untold mini-plot unfolds into another. Although a lot of people are criticizing that this film has no plot – it is chock full of a lot of mini plots. This film is A LOT of fun, and it’s primarily all about one person wanting one thing, but in order to get that, they must make a deal in order to get it. This film isn’t meant to be seen as a simple A to B plot point story line. With a third Pirates installment along the way (which was shot back to back with this Pirates film) it can now be clearly seen that these three movies are intended to be one really big unfolding adventure (full of many tiny adventures along the way).
Hands down, this isn’t the most exciting film of the season for me. I totally geeked out a lot more in Superman, but even though this film is about the same length – you’re not finding those same Superman sagging boring points in this movie. It’s always about one constant adventure after another and you rarely have enough time to sit back and relax. The special effects are definitely awesome, especially when you have the boys of ILM creating some of the best original characters and one new beasty you’ll be sure to never forget (think about the Sarlacc Pit from Return of the Jedi but with a lot of little sucker filled tentacles ready to bash and suck men down to their deaths.) It is definitely recommended to check out this movie for the year. Even though I am a bigger comic book fan, it’s unfortunately looking more and more likely that Pirates is the movie to own the summer of 2006. But you never know about some sleepers on the rise, we do have Snakes on the Plane just around the corner :D

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Superman Returns Review
by James “Bo” Gorcesky

Probably the hardest thing that I hadda do was leave Sector 2814 unguarded for the night. Slipping on my Green Lantern t-shirt, ring and belt buckle was a worthy risk I had to take in order to watch the very first showing of Superman Returns with the rest of the Justice League. We were all there - Barry, Bruce, Diana, Guy, even Booster Gold was there, we all showed up for the support of Earth’s greatest champion Superman.
I have to tell you, I was very pessimistic of his return, because growing up as a fan boy with the likes of the truly great Superman films by the legendary Richard Donner and starring the now deceased Christopher Reeves as Supes himself. But now, it’s been nineteen years since the last venture into Superdom (anybody else remember Superman IV: The Quest For Peace? Y’know when he fought Nuclear Man? BLAH!) We now have a brand new director, a new Superman, a new Lois, a new Lex - ah but a good ol’ digitally regenerated Marlon Brando is back as Jor El though. This totally different clean slate has made many a some fan boy quite skeptical of this new Super franchise. Although, just about all of us fell in love with Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins, which was able to show such a gritty realism to a comic book movie that still captured the magic of the story but didn’t have to go totally hoaky and corny to showcase a fictitious world.
With Batman paving the way (as he should) DC Comics took the similar direction of a naturalistic looking Superman and why they finally chose Bryan Singer (previous director of the first two X-Men films, Apt Pupil, Usual Suspects) as the director for the film. Giving the film a more natural look is also why I think Superman’s suit looks different. It’s now not just a “flat” blue, yellow and red suit which the basic primary color printing processes from the comics were offering for all of these years - but now it’s a dark blue, a golden yellow and a deep maroon that shimmers on his boots and cape.
Having Singer’s name attached to the project gave most fans some relief, because we all knew of the awesome job he could do with comic books after directing X-Men and X2. But what would the story be about and who would be filling in the Super boots and cape? Rumors had been flying around for years as this particular Superman movie project has been in the works for about a decade. The hype primarily came about when Superman was killed off and reborn in DC Comics after battling with the monster Doomsday. After that point, everybody and their nerdy sidekick in the movie business became attached to the project from Kevin Smith’s original script of “Superman Lives,” which then Time Burton (whom Warner Bros. figured he could easily handle after relaunching the Batman series in the late ‘80's) was to direct. But after various failed rewrites and attachments and de-attachments of various stars (even as illustrious as Sir Anthony Hopkins as Jor El of Krypton and Johnny Depp as Lex Luthor) we finally have before us the completed project.
So what we mainly got in the end as far as story goes is that this film takes place roughly six years after Superman II (a wise choice for Singer to make a true sequel to the Donner franchise of Superman instead of the further adventures of Richard Pryor and Nuclear Man) Astronomers have discovered some large remnants of his native planet of Krypton, so Superman has flown off to space to find out if he truly is the last survivor. Superman returns to a planet that has moved on without him - in particular the love of his life Lois Lane who has even written a Pulitzer prize winning article, “Why The World Doesn’t Need A Superman,” (which happens to be an element and theme in the great DC Comic mini-series Kingdom Come). SO, within a paradox, Superman not only has to return to his people of Earth 2 after six years, but he has to worm his way back into our hearts after a nineteen year hiatus here on Earth Prime (oh oh, I haven’t lost any of you in my nerdy comic book jargon have I?)
Okay, so we got Superman back - but now, who IS Superman and who is his supporting cast? The first of the two is Brandon Routh, who just like his predecessor Christopher Reeves, was a virtual unknown before donning the tights and cape and making us believe a man could fly. Routh is the main selling point on making this project sink or swim (or should I say soar or plummet?) And growing up as a kid and KNOWING that Reeves and Superman are one and the same, it’s hard to think that there could be anyone else. (Although I’m sure my previous generation felt the same about George Reeves {no relation} whom was the star of television show “The Adventures of Superman” from 1952-‘58 and his mysterious death is to be the subject matter of the upcoming film Hollywoodland.) But Routh does an amazing job, down to the nerdy smirks on his face, his bumbling mannerisms, to even pushing up his glasses constantly with his finger, which made Reeves pull of Kent years ago . Within the suit, we still have the man of steel, and although he can only be hurt and/or weakened by Kryptonite, magic and the solar rays of Krypton’s native red Sun, he still captivates the audience with a humane side to an indestructible alien seeking acceptance and love of the people he has returned to.
To support him, at his best is Kate Bosworth as Lois Lane and Kevin Spacey as Lex Luthor. I didn’t know much about Bosworth, and I didn’t find convincing as a Lois until about thirty minutes into the film. But she was able to capture some of those things that Margot Kidder (God bless her insane soul nowadays) had back in the day such as asking Clark and Perry how to spell words and how hard pressing of a reporter she was to get the inside scoop and then get into trouble. But Kate now creates a much stronger Lois to counter-act to a stronger Superman in our more modern day and age. She is no longer that screaming “damsel in distress dangling from the Eiffel tower,” in fact, she even SAVES Superman in a scene.
Spacey plays that evil megalomaniac Lex Luthor, whose character just got out of prison and is now quickly rebuilding his Lex empire. What is primarily different to this Lex as opposed to the original by Gene Hackman is we get to have his trusty sidekick/entourage Kitty Kowlaski played by the cute lil Parker Posey. Yes, the bumbling sidekick Otto has been dumped to the side, but the Academy Award winning Spacey sucks up most of the screen pressence when he gives his dialogue. Especially after already working with Bryan Singer on the Usual Suspects as Verbal Kint. But this Lex is more like a hoaky James Bond villain to me, although he’s all about making money no matter who or what gets in his way. Probably his biggest natural fault is that Kevin Spacey with his bald head, bushy eyebrows, smoking a cigar, and hanging out with a lavishly decorated Kitty; ends up giving him the appearance of Daddy Warbucks from lil’ orphan Annie.
The rest of the supporting cast provides us with enough reluctancy to know that we are watching a comic book movie and these obliviously are the characters that they are portraying. Frank Langella (the evil Skeletor in the Masters of the Universe:The Motion Picture) is the “Chief” Perry White, who is still out to get his crew of the Daily Planet to find out about Superman and even gets to mutter the line, “great Ceasar’s ghost.” We also get the comedy relief of this picture from Sam Huntington who plays top notch photographer lil’ Jimmy Olsen. Sam has this comedic presence in the film whom is able to make you laugh with these incidental tongue-in-cheek moments that makes the whole audience giggle with just the way he moves his eyes or bites into a turkey wrap.
Finally, how does this film tie and match up with it’s previous installments? This review is not meant to reveal to you any spoilers, but just a hint of insight. What I will tell you is this, I was SOLD from the very second that the credits rolled blaring those cheesy 3-D effects just as the original Superman films did and I saw the giant red and yellow symbol of Superman soar across the screen. John Williams’ originally scored Superman theme, roars in your ears as names of the cast and crew fly around you in a tour of the cosmos just before you land on Earth and the film begins with Superman’s return. All throughout the film I felt like I was five years old again and constantly “geeking out” wondering at the very last second if/when Superman would save the day. Especially with the advent of the high definition cameras used in the film and the over 1,400 digital shots will make any nerd squealing in their seat being able to see things they could have never seen Superman deal with before.
There are a lot of lil inside nerdy tid-bits that most comic book nerds will pick up on but are also lil nods of recognition and homage to what has made Superman so great since the world first met him way back in Action Comics issue #1 by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. IN FACT, there is a scene in the film where Supes saves a car and he hoists it up. A kid takes a picture of Superman doing so, and that picture is a DIRECT replica of the cover of that first issue of Action Comics. There is also another young boy in the movie who is wearing pajamas with Aquaman printed all over them. I also feel that Luthor’s headquarters at the beginning is a hoaky visual nod to the abandoned subway he had in the original Superman, but I also feel the model train sets and miniatures that surround him are homages to the over abundance of miniature effects that were used in the original Superman films. There are also quite a few instances in these films that I would definitely recommend watching Superman I and II back to back before seeing this film to get a full understanding of the Superman movie franchise and where it is heading under the helm of Bryan Singer. Anyways, I need to go recharge my power ring, the Guardians need me on Oa for something about Sinestro causing trouble on Qward again - geeez!