ZOMBZANY MEETS DOC FREAK – PART SEVEN – REMOTE CONTROLLED REVENGE!

In the seventh and final part of Zombzany Meets Doc Freak titled "Remote Controlled Revenge", back from the undead, with a newly recharged scepter, Zombzany has regained control of his cemetery, his throne and the horror movie marathon. Zombzany decides to replace the final Frankenstein film of the marathon, with a classic zombie film from his private video tape collection. Slowly, he is approached by his most loyal zombie servant, Sebastian. It isn’t until Sebastian is almost upon him that Zombzany sees the control devise on Sebastian’s chest and realizes that he is being attacked.

Shouting in triumph – from a safe distance – “Doc” Freak tells Zombzany that he has taken control of Sebastian with a remote control devise and orders Sebastian to kill Zombzany. Zombzany casts a spell over Sebastian, forcing him back towards Freak. Freak turns up the power on his devise to full power and Sebastian turns back upon his Necromantic master. Zombzany casts a spell of detonation on Sebastian, blowing the device on Sebastian’s chest to pieces! Zombzany then casts another even more powerful detonation spell at “Doc” Freak and blows up the remote right out of Freak’s hands!

When the smoke of the multiple magical explosions clear, Doc Freak is nowhere in sight, so Zombzany returns to his throne to retrieve one of his beloved zombie video tapes and discovers that they were all destroyed by his own destructive spells. The only video not melted down to plastic sludge is another Frankenstein film, which he reluctantly concludes the horror movie marathon with.

Enjoy the final installment of Zombzany Meets Doc Freak – Part Seven – Remote Controlled Revenge!

PLEASE VOTE ON THE “WHICH OF THESE FILMS DO YOU PLAN ON SEEING IN JUNE OF 2012?” POLL!

Thank you for voting in the - Which of these films do you plan on seeing in May of 2012 – poll! The results to this month’s poll were much more positive than last month, which is an indicator that you are more excited about genre films being released in May than you were the ones in April. Of the fifteen people who voted, most were interested in one film. The top vote getter for May was easily The Avengers which received 11 votes (73%)! Coming in at a close second place was Men in Black III with 9 votes (60%). Limping in at a distant third place was Dark Shadows with only 3 votes (20%). In a very distant last place was Battleship with only one vote.  (6%).

Thank you all for voting on this month’s poll! There are now fifteen of you who may consider yourselves Genre Guardian Generals! Anyone who has seen The Avengers (based on the amount of money it made, I’d guess most of you saw it), Men in Black III, Dark Shadows or Battleship at the theater, please leave a quick comment here and let me know what you thought of it.

THE JUNE POLL!

Once again on the right column of this page, you will see at the top of the column the next poll that I’ve posted. As always, this poll includes the titles and release dates of all the major SF, Fantasy or Horror films that are being distributed to movie theaters in the month of June 2012. They are: Snow White and the Huntsman (June 1), Prometheus (June 8), Brave (June 22) and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (June 22). As always, I’d appreciate anyone who reads GUARDIANS OF THE GENRE! to place a vote for any of these films that you plan on seeing at the theater. Snow White and the Huntsman is a film that looks visually stunning, but I just can’t get excited about yet another film “retelling” of a fairy tale, so I’ll pass on this at the theater. Prometheus is a film I’ve been fascinated with for some time, partly because of the mystery of whether it is truly a prequel to Alien, but mostly to see if Ridley Scott is still capable of directing a science fiction classic like Alien. I’ll definitely be watching Prometheus at the theater next weekend! Brave is Pixar’s thirteenth feature film, but I haven’t liked a film by them since Ratatouille in 2007 (yes, I thought Up was sentimental crap), so I’ll be passing on seeing Brave at the theater. Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is interesting. It is based on a bestselling novel (which I didn’t read) and the screenplay is by the author (which I think is wise). The director is Timur Bekmambetov, a Russian-Kazakh film director known for the Russian films Night Watch and Day Watch, as well as the American film Wanted, all of which I liked. Still, I am uncertain if the weird historical-horror mash-up can carry a feature film, so I’ll probably pass on seeing it at the theater and watch it as soon as it is available on blu-ray disc.

Let me know what you’ll be seeing on the big screen by participating in this month’s new poll!

PODCAST OF THE MONTH - SCI-FI SATURDAY NIGHT

Podcast of the Month for May 2012 is:

Sci-Fi Saturday Night

Sci-Fi Saturday Night is a sometimes weekly podcast that is broadcast “live” on Ustream every Thursday night at 8pm. This sometimes irreverent and oftentimes explicit podcast is a stream-of-conscious and a ostentatiously science fiction-centric podcast that talks about all things sci-fi. This multiple-person podcast discusses sci-fi news, books, movies, TV shows and conventions. There is also almost always a special guest that is also the featured interview of the week. The format is very loose – to put it politely – but the crazy group of podcasters usually begin with the news, then they segue into whatever subject that they are most interested in that particular week.

The podcast is hosted by The Dome, who founded SFSN as a radio show on a certain network which will not be named, along with former co-host Mr. K. His likes include “Anything with Busty Women, Harley Quinn, artists and writers. The rest of the cast include Kiriana, who is in charge of the soundboard and who’s real job is as a biologist currently working out of Boston. Illustrator X is an artist who drew all the art on the podcast’s website and is a huge comic book geek. AwakeByJava is the resident sci-fi TV show expert and both loves and hates Syfy programing. The Dead Redhead is a huge horror movie fan and George Romero in particular. Zombrarian is the post editor and resident grammar zombie, who enjoys all kinds of books and curling up with her undead kitties. Dru Silla, R Daneel Olivaw, Winter is coming, Samantha B and Amandatron3000 all show up at irregular times to add their brand of madness.

What I like about Sci-Fi Saturday Night is that, for me, it is a local podcast as all of the podcasters are residents of the New England area. What makes that fun for me is that their news and interviews will feature things that are important to the New England area. They are the official podcast of the Boston Comic Con and do extensive interviews from that convention. Their interviews are often informal, but not irreverent. Recent interview guests have included author Norman Spinrad and comic book artist/writer Kevin Eastman.

If you want to find out more about Sci-Fi Saturday Night go to: http://www.scifisaturdaynight.com/

BATTLESHIP - 2012 – NOT A HIT, BUT A NEAR MISS

"I liked Battleship enough to recommend it for those inclined to be forgiving of simple emotional roller-coaster-ride type of sci-fi action films."

Science Fiction, Action and Adventure

Starring - Taylor Kitsch/Lieutenant Alex Hopper, Alexander Skarsgård/Commander Stone Hopper, Rihanna/Petty Officer Cora 'Weps' Raikes, Brooklyn Decker/Samantha Shane, Tadanobu Asano/Captain Yugi Nagata, Hamish Linklater/Cal Zapata, Liam Neeson/Admiral Shane, Peter MacNicol/Secretary of Defense, John Tui/Chief Petty Officer Walter 'The Beast' Lynch, Jesse Plemons/Boatswain Mate Seaman Jimmy 'Ordy' Ord and Gregory D. Gadson/Lieutenant Colonel Mick Canales

Director - Peter Berg

Writer(s) - Erich Hoeber and Jon Hoeber

Rated PG-13 - intense sequences of violence, action and destruction, and for language

2 hr., 11 min.

I’ll admit this right up front: I had no intention of seeing Battleship at the theater. I had the same impression about this film that many others had. Based on the trailer, this film looked like a Transformers-clone and – although I am a fan of the Transformers trilogy as the ultimate guilty pleasure – I wasn’t interested in a copy-cat film this soon after Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011). Well, timing is everything as they say and two things came about that allowed me the pleasure (sic) of seeing Battleship: I was on vacation and I had nothing to do on Tuesday on which day all films are $5 at my local theater. Was Battleship worth even $5 dollars? Yes, but I don’t think I would have missed out on anything seeing it at home; especially since there were only five people in the theater with The Bride and I to witness the Battleships kicking alien ass! Whoops! I didn’t mean to spoil the ending!

Seven years earlier, NASA has transmitted a super-amplified signal to a distant “goldilocks” planet in hopes of finding intelligent life outside our solar system. Jump to 2012 and they get their answer… in the form of five enormous spaceships; four of which land in the waters near the Hawaiian Islands, with the fifth having hit a satellite, which causes it to crash in a populated center or Hong Kong.

Shortly before this occurs, we are introduced to two brothers. One is Commander Stone Hopper, the Commanding Officer of the USS Sampson, who is the older brother of Alex, who is currently unemployed and living on his brother’s sofa. While celebrating Alex’s birthday at a local bar, Alex gets into trouble stealing a chicken burrito for a beautiful woman at the bar; who it turns out is the daughter of the United States Pacific Fleet commander Admiral Shane. Somehow, this convinces Stone to force Alex to enlist in the Navy. In very little time, Alex has risen through the ranks and become a lieutenant and the Tactical Action Officer aboard the destroyer USS John Paul Jones.

There is a large international fleet on tactical maneuvers off the coast of Hawaii, when the previously mentioned spaceships crash into the waters only hundreds of yards away from a group of Navy vessels. Lieutenant Alex and a small crew take a dingy to investigate a floating section of the alien wreckage. The alien spaceships become alert and prepare to fire weapons on the surrounding ships and suddenly all hell breaks loose. The aliens create an enormous force shield around their spaceships and now only the ships within the shield are able to fight the alien spaceships. Of course, among these vessels are Alex’s ship and his bother Stone’s ship – both destroyer class vessels. Through an amazing series of dramatic maneuvering and classic cinematic coincidences, Alex destroys the alien ships and the communication satellite dishes that the aliens were attempting to use to summon their larger space fleet.

If all this sounds really dumb to you, you’d be correct! Oddly, it doesn’t matter one whit while watching Battleship because the enormous energy and sheer enthusiasm of the film’s cast and creators beat you into submission until you find yourself loving every minute of the action almost despite yourself!

As with all the alien invasion films that have been released in the past few years, Battleship offers no explanation as to why the aliens suddenly start blowing up the surrounding ships. The reason we assume that they came to Earth at all was because we beamed them a message into space at their planet and they arrived in answer to that message. Unfortunately, we’re never told what the message was that was beamed to their planet; but is it too much to assume that it was a peaceful message? So why all the hostility? Well, they do land right smack dab in the middle of several Navel battleship fleets during a war exercise. I guess with all those big guns pointed at them, the aliens didn’t take that as a precursor to friendly conversation.

All joking aside, the battle sequences are quite exciting and because the aliens use a projectile like weapon, the battleships actually have a fighting chance. Not much of one, as the alien munitions appear to be almost infinite, but at least they have a fighting chance. One funny and odd thing about the alien projectiles – which fire whole at the ships, embed themselves into the hulls of the ships and then explode in synchronized succession – they look a lot like the pegs that were used in the original MB Battleship game to mark hits and misses. I can only assume this was intentional; but I’m a little surprised I didn’t hear any snickers in the (admittedly small) crowd in the theater.

Battleship did not do well at the box office in this country. It only pulled in around $25 million dollars in its first weekend in the United States. With a reported $209 million dollar budget, Taylor Kitsch is already becoming known as a blockbuster killer. Between the disappointing John Carter and now Battleship, they say he can’t act and isn’t a strong enough actor to carry a major motion picture. I disagree with this assessment. Taylor is fine as a male lead. In Battleship, they went right for the James T. Kirk type if hero; the selfish bad-boy, who straitens out and learns leadership and teamwork in the military. They overdid the bad-boy stuff early in the movie; almost to the point of making him completely unlikeable. But his character does win you over eventually. Liam Neeson was obviously used to sell the film in commercials and have a “name” on the billboards, as he is sadly underutilized in the film. He has only a handful of scenes and he comes off as a one-note character as a result. The rest of the cast are good enough so that you root for them to victory, but none of them really stand out either.

The special effects are excellent to good. I liked the design of the ships and in particular the smaller ships. The large rolling tank-like spheres were cool and the destruction they unleashed was quite impressive. The alien’s attack was very defense oriented, as they only went on the offensive when attacked. I assume because there were only four spaceships, they felt they were outnumbered and had to wait until they could get their message into space for alien reinforcements.

I liked Battleship enough to recommend it for those inclined to be forgiving of simple emotional roller-coaster-ride type of sci-fi action films. If you want deeper, headier science fiction, look elsewhere. If you want lots of alien gun fights and explosions, with a feel-good ending straight out of the first Star Wars movie, than by all means watch Battleship!

TECHNICAL: Acting – 8 Directing – 8 Cinematography – 8 Script – 7 Special Effects – 10

VISCERAL: Visual – 9 Auditory – 9 Intellectual – 6 Emotional – 8 Involvement – 9

TOTAL RATING – 82




 

MEN IN BLACK 3 – 2012 – THIRD TIME IS THE CHARM

“MIB ³ has everything that you could want from this series:  Ray gun fights, spaceship battles, sci-fi gadgets, cool aliens and most importantly lots of laugh-out-loud jokes!”

Science Fiction, Comedy and Action

 

Starring - Will Smith/Agent J, Tommy Lee Jones/Agent K, Josh Brolin/Young Agent K, Jemaine Clement/Boris The Animal, Emma Thompson/Agent O, Michael Stuhlbarg/Griffin, Mike Colter/Colonel, Nicole Scherzinger/Boris' Girlfriend, Michael Chernus/Jeffrey Price and Alice Eve/Young Agent O

 

Director - Barry Sonnenfeld

 

Writer - Etan Cohen (uncredited) David Koepp, Jeff Nathanson and Michael Soccio

 

Rated PG-13 - sci-fi action violence, and brief suggestive content

1 hr., 43 min.

It has been ten long years since Men in Black ², but I for one think it was worth the wait. Director Barry Sonnenfeld has only directed one other feature film since MIB ² – 2006’s RV – so it was nice to see him return to the cinema with his most successful film franchise. Rumors were that Will Smith was not interested in returning to the role of Agent J and that was why there was such a long wait between MIBs 2 and 3. However, it was more likely that getting both Smith and Jones schedules to match was a more likely cause, as they had publicly admitted to want to return to MIB in 2008. The script, which was originally written by Etan Cohen in 2009, went through several rewrites, right up to the time and through shooting MIB ³, which began in November of 2010. The idea of the time travel storyline was credited to Will Smith by Sonnenfeld, who says Smith came up with the idea during the shooting of MIB². Whoever came up with the idea, it was a good one as it allowed Tommy Lee Jones’ character’s background to be fleshed out more.

 

MIB ³ begins by showing the interstellar criminal Boris the Animal escaping from a prison on the Moon. After crashing his spaceship in New York City, Boris attacks K in a Chinese restaurant telling him, “You’re already dead… you just don’t know it yet”, before disappearing in an explosion. The next morning, Agent J calls K, but doesn’t get an answer, so he goes to K’s apartment and finds a young family living there. J returns to MIB headquarters, asking K’s whereabouts, but no one knows who K is, with the exception of new Chief Agent O, who informs J that K died in 1969.

Earth is suddenly attacked by hundreds of Boglodite spaceships. Agent J asks Chief Agent O why they haven’t activated the ArcNet shield and Agent O realizes that Boris must have traveled back to 1969 to kill Agent K and keep him from activating the shield, which would allow his fellow Bogoidites free reign over the Earth. Agent J finds the son of Obadiah Price – the creator of a time-travel device – and forces him to give him his sole remaining device, so that K can return to the day before Boris killed K in 1969.

J tries to avoid K in the past, but of course the younger Agent K arrests J during a car chase while in pursuit of younger Boris. J tells K the truth and K calmly tells J that he will help him to capture Boris and save the Earth’s future invasion by the Bogoidites.

Men in Black 3 succeeds because it develops both the complex plot and the deep relationship between J and K. The time travel story isn’t just window dressing to show J’s comical reaction to the late 1960’s cultural growing pains (which it dose), but to also tell the story of how Agent K became the sullen introverted person in the future. I really liked the way the story blended both these elements, without ever bogging down the pacing of the action or resorting to maudlin melodrama.

Much of the success of MIB can be attributed to Will Smith’s ability to slip back and forth effortlessly between comedy and drama. His scenes with both Tommy Lee Jones’ present K and Josh Brolin’s past K are both funny and touching. Little character touches like the country song that K is listening to in his car is the same in both the present and the past help to create a connection to the two actors that resonates with both characters. Enough can’t be said about Joss Brolin’s performance as the younger K. He doesn’t do just an imitation of Jones’ K, but actually seems to become the character. This makes the time that is spent in 1969 just as enjoyable as the time spent in the film’s present. While Emma Thompson’s Agent O isn’t given much to actually do in MIB ³, her character is very important to the story, so I was impressed by what Emma Thompson did with her character. I really enjoyed a new character that was introduced in MIB ³: the mysterious alien Griffen, played by Michael Stuhlbarg. Griffen is an Arcadian who possesses ability to see all possible futures and it is not as useful an ability as it might seem, as he has a tendency not to see the real timeline until the last possible second.

MIB ³ is filled with all the usual alien high-tech gizmos as in the past two films, but my favorites are the uni-motor bikes that K and J drive in 1969. Rick Baker contributed over 100 alien makeup effects for MIB ³ and every one of them is amazing! There is so much to look at in this film that it is easy to become distracted from the story itself.

Speaking of the story, one noticeable lack of a story element in this MIB film was a love interest for Will Smith’s J. I honestly didn’t even notice this missing element until the film was over, because the story was so focused on the relationship between J and K. There is a minor love element to MIB ³, but I won’t spoil it here; but it is a nice one.

MIB ³ has everything that you could want from this series:  Ray gun fights, spaceship battles, sci-fi gadgets, cool aliens and most importantly lots of laugh-out-loud jokes! This is not only the third film in the MIB series; it may the best one as well.

TECHNICAL: Acting – 9 Directing – 9 Cinematography – 9 Script – 9 Special Effects – 10

VISCERAL: Visual – 9 Auditory – 9 Intellectual – 8 Emotional – 9 Involvement – 9

TOTAL RATING – 90