PODCAST OF THE MONTH! SCREEN RANT UNDERGROUND!

Podcast of the Month for July 2012 is:

Screen Rant Underground

Screen Rant Underground has quickly become my “go to” movie review podcast! It is the weekly podcast of the web site Screen Rant, an excellent TV and movie news web site in its own right.

Here is what they have to say about their Screen Rant web site:

Screen Rant had a humble start back in 2003 as a place to rant about some of the dumber stuff related to the movie industry. Although there was absolutely no plan to do anything beyond venting to a few online friends about movies, over the years the site has grown to cover more and more TV and movie news (and not just the dumb stuff) along with sometimes controversial movie reviews.

The goal here at Screen Rant is to cover stories and review movies from a middle ground/average person perspective. We try to take a common sense approach to movie and TV news: stepping back and looking at the big picture to determine whether something is a good idea… or an idiotic one.

Movie reviews are written from the point of view of “was it a fun/exciting/scary/compelling movie” instead of from some high-brow, esoteric level that only other movie critics will relate to. On the other hand a movie has to have more than just big stars and fantastic special effects to be considered great by the folks at Screen Rant.

The reason that I like their podcast so much is that their weekly schedule allows them to keep very current with all the movies that are released each week. While they don’t review every movie that comes out every week, they do review every genre movie that is released, which is what is important to me. There are four regular podcasters on every cast, which gives you a nice blend of various viewpoints on each film. While Screen Rant Underground does veer off the topic of films occasionally, they spend the vast majority of their casts on films and most importantly reviewing the movie of the week.

Their format opens with the latest movie news. They are very opinionated about their genre films and TV programs. They once spent twenty minutes talking about the photograph of the new CW Green Arrow TV show and look of The Arrow’s costume. Their second segment is Rants and Raves in which each of the podcasters talks about the films and TV shows that each of the casters has watched in the week since the last podcast. This segment allows each caster to “rave” on their favorite TV shows and movies that they may have missed on its initial theatrical release and “rant” on the ones that they didn’t like. The third segment is Box Office Battle in which each of casters must pick the Box Office results for the top five films of following weekend, with the tenth film as the tie breaker. The winner of each week is allowed to be the last person to talk about the film reviewed for that week. The final segment is the film that is reviewed for that week. Each podcaster gives his opinion of the film, without spoiling specifics of the film. The spoiler segment follows this and the casters delve deeply into the details of the film reviewed. These segments can be quite heated – especially when the casters’ opinions differ on a film – and it is these segments that usually earn their explicit tag on iTunes.

The regular casters include:

Kofi Outlaw who is originally from Philadelphia, PA but now lives in New York City. Addiction to comic books, movies and a love of writing sent Kofi to the University of Pittsburgh where he received a dual B.A. in Writing and Literature with a minor in Film Studies. More recently, Kofi received his graduate MFA in Writing from The New School. Kofi loves all kinds of films from brainless blockbusters to fancy art-house pleasers. He says that nothing really specific makes him geek out all that much.

Robert Keyes (Screen Rant‘s only Canadian writer), started writing for the site in September 2008. He was offered a writing position based on his participation on the site as a long-time commenter and story-submitter. Not long later, Rob became an Editor for the site where he helps publish the growing number of articles we write. Rob is also the Editor-in-Chief of the newly launched sister site for Screen Rant, GameRant.com which keeping in the style of the flagship site, covers video game news/previews/reviews (without the sugar coating of course). Rob is 24 years old with a Master’s Degree in Economics. He wishes to eventually mesh his business, computer, economics and finance backgrounds with his love of the media entertainment industry with hopes of a career in one of the fields down the road. (So if you work for a major studio and have an open position – contact him!). Rob is an avid viewer of all kinds of film and television and is also a big video gamer. Much of his spare time is spent with friends playing and/or watching sports and all of the entertainment forms listed above. That is, when he’s not working at his day job or the two sites.

Ben Kendrick is a graduate of the New School’s Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program, with an emphasis in fiction. Currently, he’s nearing completion on his novel: How I Saw Myself on America’s Most Wanted and serves as an editor-at-large for the literary magazine LIT. Ben has been passionate about movies ever since standing in line for a midnight showing of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade when he was eight. As a result of his background in creative writing, Ben is drawn to films that make story and character a priority; however, that never stops him from enjoying a range of Hollywood offerings – from blockbuster action flicks to campy so-bad-they’re-good B-movies. He’s also an avid gamer and is a regular contributor at Screen Rant’s sister site, Game Rant. Visit Ben’s website if for no other reason than to get a better sense of the conditions under which he was conceived.

Anthony Ocasio is Screen Rant’s television editor, and gets yelled at by fans of every television show on the air. It’s not his fault that “your favorite show is terrible.”

Between the great personalities and their passionate opinions, Screen Rant Underground makes for a fun and exciting listen. If you are a movie fan and a genre movie fan in particular, you should definitely give Screen Rant Underground a listen.

You can find out more about Screen Rant Underground at: http://screenrant.com/podcasts/

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

Thank you for voting in the - Which of these films do you plan on seeing in June of 2012 – poll! The results to this month’s poll were nearly as positive as last month’s, so it seems most of you were excited by June’s movie releases as well. Of the fourteen people who voted, most were interested in one film. The top vote getter for June was Prometheus which received 11 votes (78%)! Coming in at a distant second place was Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter with 6 votes (42%). Close behind in third place was Snow White and the Huntsman with 4 votes (28%). In last place was Brave with only one vote.  (7%).

Thank you all for voting on this month’s poll! There are now fourteen of you who may consider yourselves Genre Guardian Generals! Anyone who has seen Prometheus, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, Snow White and the Huntsman or Brave at the theater, please leave a quick comment here and let me know what you thought of it.

THE JULY 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 July for 2012. They are: The Amazing Spiderman (July 3), Ice Age: Continental Drift (July 13), The Dark Knight Rises (July 20), and The Watch (July 27). 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.

The Amazing Spiderman is a film that I am very much on the fence about. Spiderman was my favorite superhero growing up and I read his comics for close to 20 years (1966 – 1986). I liked the first Spiderman (2002) film, but was less impressed with its sequel Spiderman 2 (2004) and disliked Spiderman 3 (2007). I never liked Tobey Maguire as Peter Parker or Kirsten Dunst as Mary Jane Watson, so I’m pleased for the reboot as a chance for different actors to play these parts. Andrew Garfield looks like Peter Parker, but an unknown 28-year-old Brit playing an American teenager may be a bit of a stretch. In a good move, Gwen Stacy is Peter’s love interest, which does follow the comic book’s chronology. I do love Emma Stone, and she doesn’t look too far from the comic book character’s look. This is director Marc Webb’s second feature film and I haven’t seen his first, so fingers crossed that he will be able to pull off the visual action, as well as the personal drama. The trailers look promising, so I will make an effort to see this at the theater. I only saw Ice Age and didn’t like its visual style or sense of humor, so I’ll be passing on Ice Age: Continental Drift. The Dark Knight Rises looks visually amazing, but I’m in the vast minority as not being a fan of Christopher Nolan’s Batman films. I think his take on Batman is too dark and I don’t like Christian Bale’s Bruce Wayne either. I’ll watch The Dark Knight Rises on disc, just as I watched Batman Begins (2005) and The Dark Knight (2008) on disc. Lastly, The Watch is a sci-fi comedy that could have been funny, but unfortunately, thanks to screenwriter Seth Rogen, it is rated R and will no doubt be filled with the kind of raunchy humor that made Superbad, Pineapple Express, and even the PG-13 rated Green Hornet unwatchable for me. So that’s a big pass for The Watch for me.

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

ZOMBZANY AND THE MISSING MANIAC: PART ONE – CONTRACTUAL OBLIGATIONS

In the first part of Zombzany and the Missing Maniac -- which I've titled "Contractual Obligations" -- Zombzany is standing before his throne in the midst of a heated argument over the phone with his agent, Cain Ram O’Jam. Cain has hired Zombzany out once again to a local sci-fi club for their annual horror movie marathon. Cain insists that this time all the films will be genuine zombie films and live up to Zombzany’s high cinematic standards. Zombzany reluctantly agrees to the engagement and proceeds to prepare for yet another long evening of horror films.

Enjoy Zombzany and the Missing Maniac: Part One – Contractual Obligations.

CHRONICLE – 2012 – A TRUTHFUL TAKE ON TEENAGE TELEKINESIS

“I do think Chronicle goes in an interesting and somewhat unique direction with the super-powered teenager genre. It manages to realistically capture the emotional turmoil of being a teenager, while adding the element of telekinetic powers, which in the case of one of these teens is like putting out a fire with gasoline.”

Science Fiction, Action and Drama

Dane DeHaan/Andrew Detmer, Alex Russell/Matt Garetty, Michael B. Jordan/Steve Montgomery, Michael Kelly/Richard Detmer, Ashley Hinshaw/Casey Letter, Bo Petersen/Karen Detmer and Anna Wood/Monica

Director - Josh Trank

Writer - Max Landis

Rated PG-13 - intense action and violence, thematic material, some language, sexual content and teen drinking

1 hr., 29 min.

I am not a fan of “found footage” films, which I documented at some length in my review of Apollo 18 (2011) which I posted back in February of this year. There are only two films in the history of the genre that I have enjoyed: Cloverfield (2008) and Monsters (2010). I can now add Chronicle to this list of found footage films that I actually thought were well constructed and entertaining films.

Wisely, Chronicle focuses its story on three central characters. The principal character is Andrew Detmer, a high school student who is a loner and not popular with his fellow students. His home life is even worse. His mother is bedridden and is slowly dying of cancer. His father, who is on disability, spends his time drinking and verbally and even sometimes physically abusing Andrew. Andrew’s only real friend is his cousin Matt Garetty, who has recently been hanging out with the popular kids and been ignoring Andrew.

Andrew buys a used video camcorder and begins recording his daily life. Matt notices Andrew and his camera and hoping to coax Andrew out of his funk, invites him to a rave at his rich friend’s house. Andrew brings his camcorder to the party and immediately begins to get ridiculed by the other party goers. Matt rushes up to Andrew and tells him he has to come with him to “film” something with his camera. Steve Montgomery, a friend of Matt’s, is waiting outside a large hole in the ground and before Andrew realizes what is happening, the three of them are crawling in a tunnel underground where they find a large crystalline structure that is glowing. Steve touches it and is thrust halfway across the tunnel by some type of light wave of power. All three of them exit the cavern and don’t meet up until weeks later.

Seemingly by accident, the trio of teens discovers that they have telekinetic powers and begin using them on small objects like cards and baseballs. However, as they continue to experiment, they gradually learn that they can do quite a bit more with their abilities. As their powers grow stronger and more versatile, their temptation to abuse those powers also grows; leading them down a path that they seem unable to turn back from.

Teenagers with strange powers are nothing new to movies. What is different about Chronicle – other than the previously mentioned found footage style of shooting – is that it is portrayed very realistically. The powers that they get are developed slowly over time and with each new ability they discover that they possess, it takes them even more time to control those abilities, let alone master them. These are teenagers and they actually act like teenagers. In their first live test of their powers they go to a toy store and frighten some of the customers by levitating stuffed animals and hitting other teenagers with various items. While these guys are essentially your average teenage males and inherently not bad people, they just can’t help but use these powers to punk other people out. Quite a bit of time is spent with the three newly bonded friends sharing their new-found powers and gradually expanding on them to the point where one of them misuses that power (I’ll let you guess which one) and nearly kills some people by running them off the road. All these scenes build to a steady climax, where one of the teens must stop the other from destruction on a massive scale.

I did have a problem with the character of Andrew Detmer. I understand that we are meant to empathize with his multiple problems both at home and school, but it just seemed to me a bit overstated. While his mother’s cancer and his father’s drunken abuse never crosses the line into melodrama, it certainly comes exceedingly close. It might have been a little more realistic if his father was a least somewhat more sympathetic; or if perhaps his mother suffered a non-terminal illness. However, the story might not have had the same impact if these changes had been made.

I liked the story of Chronicle, but once again I feel like using the video tape “found footage” format really did the dramatic impact of this film a disservice. Because the film is made up of videotaped sequences, there are many, many jump-cuts that jarred me and took me out of the story. The best and most dynamic part of the film is the final confrontational scene between the two teens, where the filmmakers cleverly made use of security camera footage to show the action from multiple angles. This technique worked so well, it only emphasized to me the limits that the one-camera approach placed on the rest of the film.

I do think Chronicle goes in an interesting and somewhat unique direction with the super-powered teenager genre. It manages to realistically capture the emotional turmoil of being a teenager, while adding the element of telekinetic powers, which in the case of one of these teens is like putting out a fire with gasoline.

TECHNICAL: Acting – 8 Directing – 8 Cinematography – 7 Script – 8 Special Effects – 9

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

TOTAL RATING – 82

WARNING: THIS TRAILER IS VERY SPOILER SENSITIVE!

PROMETHEUS – 2012 – A MASTERFULL ALIEN IMAGINATION

“Ridley Scott is still a director with a strong and individual vision. Prometheus proves that he still has a passion for science fiction as a genre and as a way of telling multifaceted stories that are both inhumane and humane.”

Science fiction, horror and action

Starring - Noomi Rapace, Elizabeth Shaw, Michael Fassbender/David, Charlize Theron/Meredith Vickers, Idris Elba/Janek, Guy Pearce/Peter Weyland, Logan Marshall-Green/Charlie Holloway, Sean Harris/Fifield, Rafe Spall/Millburn, Emun Elliott/Chance and Benedict Wong/Ravel

Director - Ridley Scott

Writers - Jon Spaihts, Damon Lindelof

Rated R - sci-fi violence including some intense images, and brief language

1 hr., 4 min.

Prometheus is Ridley Scott’s long awaited return to science fiction and it was definitely worth the wait! Director Ridley Scott has dabbled in all three of my favorite genres: science fiction – Blade Runner, horror – Alien and fantasy – Legend. Out of these three, only Legend is a failure, while Blade Runner and Alien are not only successes, but are considered by many (myself included) to be modern film classics. For this reason, I was looking forward to seeing Prometheus more for what Scott would do in the science fiction genre, than what he would do with the story as it related to Alien. Is Prometheus a prequel to Alien? Yes, it definitely is in regard to story, but not so much in its stylistic or thematic approaches.

“A team of explorers discover a clue to the origins of mankind on Earth, leading them on a journey to the darkest corners of the universe. There, they must fight a terrifying battle to save the future of the human race…” or so says the promotional description for the film. The team of explorers is a crew of scientists and ordinary astronauts. The ship they fly in, the Prometheus is paid for by the Weyland Corporation. The crew are all employees of Weyland Corporation as well; with the exception of David, who is an android that was built by them. The founder of Weyland Corporation, Peter Weyland has funded the expedition to a star system that was found in several ancient illustrations discovered by the archeological couple Elizabeth Shaw and Charlie Holloway. It is his and their belief that the “engineers” are a race of superior alien beings, who have seeded the Earth with their own DNA in order to promote intelligent life there and that the planet that they are traveling to will lead them to the engineers home world. Once there, they hope to be able to ask the engineers why they were created and for what purpose. When the crew awakens from hyper-sleep, they are already in orbit around the distant moon LV-223, their destination. They land the ship on LV-223, close to a huge structure that resembles an ancient building, but is much more.

To reveal any more of the story of Prometheus would give away too many of the interesting plot revelations and narrative twists. I will say that the story itself, while thought-provoking on its own - and indeed produces a fair amount of interesting ideas - is not the strongest element of Prometheus. Part of this is due to a lack of a definitive payoff at the end of the film. All the big questions that are asked at the beginning of the film are not satisfactorily answered at the end of the film.  I do wonder why these deeper questions were brought up, only to be mostly ignored throughout the film. Still, the character story arcs, for the most part, are wrapped up satisfactorily and that is an important aspect of the film.

The reason that the characters are so important to Prometheus is because each of the characters represents a differing viewpoint to the idea that aliens may be the originators of the human race. The central viewpoint character is Elizabeth Shaw, one of the archeologists who have gathered the ancient Earth artifacts that contain the message from the engineers. Throughout the film she wears a cross on a chain around her neck, signifying that she has faith in a higher power. Because of this, she looks to the aliens not as gods, but merely as the hands of god and not mankind’s true creator. Her drive to get to the truth behind the engineers is what carries Prometheus. In contrast to Shaw is David, the android manufactured by Weyland Corporation, who is programed with the singular purpose of finding an engineer alien alive and gaining information that is vital to his programmer. David, being an emotionless android, never questions the purpose of the mission or appears to care for its success or not. What makes David interesting is his pacifistic outward demeanor that seems to hide a deeper and more ominous purpose. Meredith Vickers is the head of the mission and the lead representative of Weyland Corp. Her cool demeanor and anti-social behavior give her an enigmatic air, as she apparently sees Prometheus and her crew only as investments. Her external motivation seems only to see the safe return of Weyland property and she seems skeptical about even the existence of the engineers. These three characters are the driving force of Prometheus, because as the film progresses and the story becomes more complex, each of these characters demonstrates more depth of character and purpose than was initially apparent. Prometheus is a film that definitely derives as much story from its characters as it does from its philosophical elements or external conflicts.

Prometheus is not all internal character struggles or theological vs. scientific ruminations. It also has many physical conflicts with the various alien creatures that the crew encounters on the alien satellite. While the film takes some time to set up these encounters, once they do occur they continue on almost without ceasing. Fans of Scott’s ability to craft atmospheric dread will not be disappointed by several sequences that take place on both the terrain and on Prometheus. One of the most disturbing and frightening sequences in the film features Shaw in a mêlée with an alien creature in a truly unique manner. Prometheus not only delivers visceral alien thrills on multiple levels, but in manifold ways and methods.

Ridley Scott is still a director with a strong and individual vision. Prometheus proves that he still has a passion for science fiction as a genre and as a way of telling multifaceted stories that are both inhumane and humane. Anyone who has a love of science fiction and its depiction in cinema should see Prometheus.

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

VISCERAL: Visual – 10 Auditory – 9 Intellectual – 9 Emotional – 9 Involvement – 10

TOTAL RATING – 95