Screenhead

Well…here we go.  Rumors about the next Transformers movie have emerged, and anything short of Michael Bay actually putting a proton cannon in his own mouth and tabbing the firing stud will be something of a disappointment.

But you’ve got to admit, the guy has made thinking big into an art form.  Long term Trans fans may not be wondering, but everyone else might wonder what’s next?  The answer may already have been given away via the Transformers 2 DVD, found on an Easter egg.

Here, let’s have some fun.  Guess the new secret huge feature for Transformers 3!

A. For some reason, QUINTESSONS! Finally!

B. Megatron will finally make the big move to Galvatron.

C. Out of nowhere, UNICRON!!

The answer, of course, is C.  Michael Bay must have some kind of mental disorder in which he must do everything bigger and louder than he did it before, and when he can no longer do bigger and louder, he must move on to something else.

Although I did enjoy Unicron, I’d still personally love to see those fabulously schizophrenic Quintessons get a piece of the action somewhere.  Why, I might even look forward to a Michael Bay movie if that were so!

You’ll never guess who, of all people in the UNIVERSE, wants to star in a romantic comedy!  Let’s just say it’s probably the most unlikely person you can imagine–let’s have a little fun and see if you can guess who!

A. Artie Lange

B. 50 Cent

C. Bruce Campbell

The answer?  Shockingly, it’s B!  FITTY CEN!  Can you believe this?  After the sheer number of craptacular games and albums he’s put out, he actually wants to star in a romantic comedy. I mean, come on now…I’ve heard some idiotic ideas in my time, but this second rate halfwit in a romantic comedy?  That’s one of the dumbest ideas I’ve heard since “John Kerry, reporting for duty.” !  And this is how he put it:

“I’d do a romantic comedy if I liked the script.  But it has to be believable and I have to feel I can bring the character to life.”

Kinda like you “brought your character to life” in that horrendous game you put out about the crystal skull a month or so ahead of Indiana Jones, Fifty?  Yeah, okay…call me when you discover reality.

I am NOT a huge fan of Jack Ketchum’s work.  Ever since I saw The Lost–in which only I really lost, about ninety minutes of my life and a sinking feeling that someone somehow was making a living at writing torture porn–I looked at pretty much everything he did with a sinking suspicion.

So when I settled in with a copy of Offspring, one of the newest parts of the Ghost House Underground collection, which the folks at Lions Gate sent my way, I wasn’t expecting much good to come of it.  Were my suspicions met?  You’ll find out directly.

First, the plot.  We’re going back to Maine, a land that Stephen King pretty much managed to convert almost singlehandedly into the horror capitol of the world.  But the town of Dead River is playing host to a secret that even King might have had a hard time swallowing–a clan of flesh-eating monstrosities that propagates seemingly entirely by abduction.  And when the local sheriff is forced to step in and deal with them, he’s reminded all too clearly of the last time he took these killers on.

This one is, somewhat, different.  In fact, “graphically screwed up” might be a better term.  In fact, if you want to get an idea of what it’s like, imagine Clan of the Cave Bear intermingled with The Hills Have Eyes.  And you’ll be mostly horrified, but at the same time, you’ll be so catastrophically weirded out by the whole thing that you’ll scarcely know what to think.  Watching these dirt people tear apart actual humans and eat flesh is…well…it’s not the kind of thing you’ve seen lately, I guarantee that.

It’s graphic, it’s violent, it’s grotesque in the absolute…but it IS unique.  And that definitely gives it at least a point in its favor.  But the sheer horrendousness of the content leaves it difficult to recommend.

It’s downright painful to be looking at a movie that’s the most unique thing I’ve seen in a good while, but have it be so thoroughly repugnant that it’s tough to recommend.  It’s really just painful.

The Screenhead Ten Scale shares my consternation and hands The Offspring a thoroughly confused five out of ten.  It’s too unique to not bear mentioning, but it’s too downright vulgar to encourage anyone to watch.

See, I knew it.  I knew this was coming.  I knew that, somehow, Katie Featherston was going to burst onto the scene as, at the very least, the flavor of the week in Hollywood after the incredible success of Paranormal Activity.

One, she’s pretty good.  Two, that movie did unbelievably well.  But it’s actually one of the ballsiest things I’ve ever seen to consider what her next movie is.  It’s either phenomenal brilliance, stupidity or hubris for them to retitle Featherston’s next movie from Walking Distance to…

…Experimental Activity.

No, really.  They changed the title from “Walking Distance” to “Experimental Activity” JUST BECAUSE of Paranormal Activity.  Oh, sure, they’re downplaying the title change in interviews, but you know and I know and the half-blind family DOG knows that’s why they did it.

I’ve heard about…Experimental Activity…and it sounds like a pretty awesome movie regardless.  The question of the day, of course, is will more people follow because of the change…or in spite of it?

So Lions Gate has brought up a bit of that old retro horror with the rerelease of The Gate, now out on DVD. And as always, the question we’re out to tackle today is, is it worth your rental dollar?

The plot is a little convoluted, and basically requires you to suspend disbelief like no tomorrow.  But after an old tree is pulled out of a suburban family’s backyard, it’s left a whole lot of trouble in its wake.  Like a load of fairly valuable geodes.  And a reeking pit in the backyard that just happens to be full of demons.  TINY demons.

And now it’s left to the kids of the suburban family to take on the horde of tiny demons that have burst forth from the hole in the backyard.

See, this may sound just plain old loopy to horror buffs of the modern era, but this kind of thing happened ALL THE TIME in eighties horror flicks, especially ones that carried that malign PG-13 rating, the rating usually reserved for half-baked slasher flicks today.

And frankly, it IS loopy.  How do we discover what’s going on under the surface?  Simple–the characters learn about it from the album cover of a heavy metal band from “Europe”, and more than likely, from Finland.  Because as we all know now, thanks to Metalocalypse and the various Lordi incursions, Finland and metal go together like peanut butter and jelly.

The farther in you get in this thing, the steadily more insane the whole thing gets.  In fact, it’s like that loopy uncle of yours that lives in the attic and won’t stop screaming about how the government’s putting mind control suicide chips in the flouride in the water–it’s absolutely insane, and yet at the same time, it’s also entertaining in a creepy sort of way.

If you’re up for a history lesson, then The Gate will provide it.  If you just want a creepy and fun little movie with some occasional scares, then The Gate will provide that too.

The Screenhead Ten Scale can’t help but give due props to this piece of the past, and thus issues a seven out of ten for being fun, even if absolutely looney.

Well, folks, since the “stop Uwe Boll” petition crapped out at just over three hundred fifty thousand signatures, well short of the million required to put an end to Herr Doktor Uwe Boll’s movie career once and for all, he’ll be coming out with a new movie called–get this–Darfur.

As always, it includes a preposterous mix of has-beens and almost A-listers like Matt Frewer (this one hit me especially hard), Edward Furlong (what, no Crow knockoffs hiring?), Kristanna Loken (yeah, the T-X Kristanna Loken) and Billy Zane (possibly as part of an arbitration agreement after his distribution company so clearly let down Herr Doktor for Postal) come together to bring us a movie about the war-and-genocide capitol of the world.

Oh, and the best part?  Seems Herr Doktor couldn’t be bothered to get copy editors around to make sure the trailer had no typos.  Follow this link to check it out for yourselves and see the wonder he has spawned.

I’ll admit though, the movie itself doesn’t look that bad for a change.  Maybe Boll outside of video game knockoffs isn’t a complete disaster, but we’ll have some time to wait before we find out.

Jack Brown Geniusis a hilariously entertaining movie that is fun to watch. Deep within the chambers of an old monastery lives Elmer (Stuart Devenie), a monk who dreams of discovering a way to fly in hopes of meeting his beloved creator.  But when the wing system he builds fails, he falls to his death and – having been judged a suicide – is doomed to an eternity in purgatory.

A thousand years later, Elmer’s spirit enters the mind of Jack Brown (Timothy Balme), a modern-day inventor with problems of his own.  Seems his boss is trying to pilfer his formula for a new source of power.  But the monk, determined to be released from his otherworldly prison, forces Jack to rebuild the winged machine and achieve Elmer’s dream of flight, rendering him free. Assisted by his friends Dennis (Martin Csokas) and Eileen (Nicola Murphy) – who is secretly in love with Jack – can Jack triumph where Elmer failed and carry both souls to new heights of success?

Never before seen in North America, Jack Brown Genius was co-written and executive produced by Academy Award-winner Peter Jackson (The Lord of the Ringstrilogy) through his studio WingNut Films, Ltd.  A sci-fi/fantasy gem, it’s available on DVD distributedby Lionsgate Entertainment.

You’ll want this movie in your library because it’s a unique breed that breathes laughter and spontaneous fun.  I can’t wait to see it again.

If you would like to win one of the four copies of Jack Brown Genius, post your name and we will pick the winners Tuesday, November 24, 2009.

Ken Robinson gets to add American Violet to his DVD library, congratulations!

Based on a true story, American Violet is a look at the harsh reality of injustice.

American Violet has been described as “AMAZING! The first must-see film for African-Americans in 2009,” by BET.com and Jeffrey Lyons of NBC Reel Talk has said “A powerful, compelling true story of a woman of courage.” The movie is now available on DVD and Blu-ray.

Inspired by a true story, American Violetfollows the struggle of a young African-American mother to clear her name after being wrongly arrested for dealing drugs in an impoverished Texas town. An honest woman with no hard evidence to justify the accusation, she is forced to risk everything in order fight unfair prosecution. The film stars touted newcomer Nicole Beharie, Academy Award nominee Alfre Woodard, Will Patton, Academy Award nominee Michael O’Keefe, Tim Blake Nelson, Emmy Award winner Charles S. Dutton and Xzibit.

It is truly a compelling story that must be watched about survival and the persistence to never give up for your god-given right to be free.  

“EXCELLENT performances by Beharie, Woodard, Nelson and Patton”- The Washington Post 

“POWERFUL performance by newcomer Nicole Behaire” – B+, Entertainment Weekly 

“IDEAL MOVIE for an ideal time” -San Francisco Chronicle

Remember how, when I wrote about The Haunting of Winchester House, how GREAT I thought it was that The Asylum was finally getting out of the mockbuster trend and no longer Asylumizing movies?

Sadly, that’s all gone as The Asylum releases 2012 Supernova, which is pretty much taking on 2012.  The only problem is that, of course, The Asylum doesn’t have anywhere NEAR the cash required to make those kind of special effects.

The plot, though, is actually pretty interesting–two hundred years ago, a star exploded and launched an enormous wave of radiation.  Sadly, two hundred years ago was apparently during the War of 1812, because it’s about to hit in much-popularized 2012.  So now a group of scientists is out to launch a whole load of nukes into the upper atmosphere so they can augment the Earth’s natural anti-radiation shielding.

I’ll admit, though, that The Asylum clearly does the best it can with what it has to work with.  What baffles me, though, is that they try to take on this monster projects with the most minimalist budgets you can imagine.  It’s like trying to eat a Ho-Ho the size of a Buick, and doing it with a knife and fork.

The result, however, of trying to load a bunch of AA batteries in a space designed for a Diehard is that the whole thing has this vaguely repetitive feel in which a simulated disaster happens, then we react to that disaster, then another one happens, and so on and so forth without much in the way of an overarching plotline to hold it all together.

There will be plenty of thrills here–watching people try to escape from things blowing up and whatnot–but are these thrills going to be enough to hold the overall picture together?  Well, that’s your call, in the end.

The Screenhead Ten Scale, meanwhile,  isn’t so impressed and thus hands the newest Asylum knockoff a fair enough five out of ten.  it clearly tried, but it just couldn’t tackle what it set out to try.

Battlestar Galactica: The Plan is available on Blu-ray Hi-Def and DVD from Universal Studios Home Entertainment. For the first time ever, fans can experience the uncut and uncensored story of humanity’s futuristic fight for survival through the eyes of their deadly adversaries, the Cylons. 

Watching some of the scenes in The Plan are only appropriate for an R-rating.  If you are a Battlestar Galactica fan, you’ll love this movie because all the familiar characters are in the story. 

This never-before-seen perspective of the Cylon plan reunites the series’ original television cast, including Emmy Award winner Edward James Olmos (Stand and Deliver), Dean Stockwell (JAG), Tricia Helfer (Burn Notice), Grace Park (The Cleaner) and Callum Keith Rennie (Californication). 

Battlestar Galactica: The Plan includes the uncensored 90-minute feature and revealing bonus features that take viewers onto the set of the most unexpected twist ever in the intergalactic saga’s history. Interactive features available exclusively on Blu-ray Hi-Def include the new Battlestar Galactica Trivia Game, plus stunning visuals with perfect picture and the purest digital sound available and no commercials!

Screenhead has a copy of Battlestar Galactica: The Plan to give away to a lucky winner.  Post your name and we will pick the winner Monday, November 23, 2009.

To break bread with Edward James Olmos, known to the vast legion of Battlestar Galactica fans as “Admiral Adama” is an occasion as rare as the Eye of Jupiter! However, one lucky Battlestar Galactica fan will be granted this very special opportunity, should he or she prove worthy! Go to www.ugo.com/battlestarcontest for details on how you can share a dinner table with the Admiral himself, Edward James Olmos!