I don’t know if I’m doing Solomon Kane any favors by discussing its common ancestry; connecting the film to a gene pool that contains Van Helsing and Season of the Witch brands it with a very specific set of very low expectations. In fact, I may be damning Solomon Kane with faint praise when I say that it happens to be several cuts above both of those disasters. Thus, I have to rely on my readers’ trust in me as a critic when I say that Michael J. Bassett’s cinematic rendition of Robert E. Howard’s Puritanical anti-hero really is an earnest and pretty damn entertaining vision of Gothic pulp heroics. It…
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“The CineMagic 8-Ball” – In Theaters 9/28/12
When so many movies are released each weekend and trailers often seem better than the movie itself, what should one do? In this precarious situation, we consult the The CineMagic 8-Ball (TM) to help us see through the nebulous marketing haze. Doing so just might save us all a disheartening trip to the cinema and spare us unnecessarily springing for $7 popcorn. See what the 8-Ball says about this week’s releases… ——————————————————————————————————————————————- HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA Welcome to the Hotel Transylvania, Dracula’s lavish five-stake resort, where monsters and their families can live it up, free to be the monsters they are without humans to bother them. On one special weekend, Dracula has…
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Sweet Trailer…'Branded'
…or, at least we think it’s a sweet trailer. This film from directors Jamie Bradshaw and Aleksandr Dulerayn calls to mind the familiar saying that “what’s old is new again“. This year we’re already seeing it with updates/reboots of films from Batman to Alien, and similarly here comes something that might make John Carpenter proud…or scratch his head. While the trailer seems straight-forward, at least in concept, it does go from engaging to WTF in about 8 seconds. Like a bizarre mix of They Live and anything David Cronenberg, this sci-fi mindscrew might just keep your interest. Have a look… Branded is both written and directed by Jamie Bradshaw and Aleksandr Dulerayn and stars Jeffrey Tambor, Max von Sydow, Leelee Sobieski, and Ed Stoppard.…
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Sweet Trailer…'Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close'
A decade after the events of September 11th I’m not sure anyone is close to being done greiving…but enough time has passed that should have let a larger number of people come to terms with it. Not long after I left yesterday’s screener of Margaret (review coming on 10/7) I found this on our buddy Castor’s page Anamolous Material. After coming out of such a heavy and lengthy film, which in a way dealt with the aftermath of 9/11 as well, I think I needed this quasi-pick-me up. Behold, the first trailer for the film adaptation of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close… From the point of view of 9-year-old Oskar (amateur inventor,…
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G-S-T Review…Robin Hood
In Hollywood circles, there’s been some constant actor director tag teams in the past, Johnny Depp,/Tim Burton, Nic Cage/Jerry Bruckheimer, DeNiro(and DiCaprio)/Scorsese to name a few. But if there’s one team that continues to impress, it’s the one, two punch of Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe. Well those two were at it again, this time to tell the story of Robin Hood. Despite years of saturation from the famous man in green tights, this was a different tale all together that is not the tale you think you’ve seen. But where shall I start? Maybe I’ll take a cue from the movie and start…at the beginning. Now as per a recent trend in Hollywood, prequels…