My reviews of Drag Me to Hell and Pontypool....

....are now live.

I'm pretty much in line with everyone else on Drag Me to Hell, and I really recommend checking out Pontypool; to say it's the freshest take on zombies I've seen in ages is an understatement.

Oliver Stone Meets Charles Manson

Really. Or at least, credible rumors have Stone talking to Vincent Bugliosi, the Los Angeles County Assistant District Attorney whose Helter Skelter. remains the best-know account of the Manson murders (though my favorite is Ed Sanders' The Family — he's got the better feel for what the counterculture was really like).

Helter Skelter has been filmed twice for television, but this would be a theatrical film, and if anyone knows how to tap into the bad '60s vibe that helped Spawn the Manson family, it's Oliver Stone; the whole idea smacks of "Natural Born Killers: The Beginning."

But for me the big question is who would play Charlie. The first version of Helter Skelter featured Steve Railsback's career-making (and -breaking) performance as Manson: Making because it rocketed the unknown actor to instant fame, breaking because it typecast him. The second starred Jeremy Davies (Lost), who delivered and equally intense, but oddly less compelling, performance. And off the top of my head I can't think of a likely candidate.

Suggestions?

Buffy Relaunch Minus Whedon -- Worst Idea Ever!

Yes, Fran Rubel Kazui did recognize that the then-unknown Joss Whedon's spec script about a teenaged cheerleader who learns it's her destiny to protect the world from evil had a unique voice and outlook. Yes, her husband and partner, Kaz Kazui, did assemble the financing that got the 1992 movie, which starred Kristy Swanson as Buffy Summers, made.

But Rubel Kazui, who oversaw the script's development and directed the film, then bled every bit of life and originality out of it, turning Buffy into a not very funny comedy about Valley Girls (remember Valley Girls?) and vampires.
I vividly remember the TVGuide.com editorial meeting the day we got word that the still-unknown Whedon had gotten the go-ahead to develop Buffy as a series. The gist of it was, "Jesus, what an awful idea," which given that all we had to go on was the movie was a pretty reasonable response.

So the thought of the Kazuis (in association with Vertigo Entertainment) relaunching the Buffy franchise (read The Hollywood Reporter's article here) with a new film and without any Whedon participation whatsoever (not to mention no Angel, Willow, Xander or Spike) strikes me as an absolute nightmare. Clueless, too, if one is to believe reports that Rubel Kazui wants to make a "darker, event-sized" movie. Darker than what? Did she ever watch the series on which the Kazuis both received executive producer credits by virtue of the fact that their company retained rights to the original screenplay?

Oh well.... at least it can only be bad for 90 minutes.

Swine Flu panic, then and now...

So, I'm half-watching a 1976 episode of Barney Miller, a dry comedy set in a Greenwich Village police station... not something I was into when it was new, but I have to say that 30 some-odd years later it holds up pretty well.

Anyway, what catches my full attention: The words "swine flu." The main story threads involve a man who thinks he's a werewolf (the 12th Precinct puts in an awful lot of calls to Bellevue's psych ward) and an older couple robbed by a taxi driver, but the underlying narrative through-line is that everyone at the precinct house is sleep-deprived and on edge because New York is in the grip of swine flu outbreak (later upgraded to an epidemic), half the NYPD is out on sick leave and the Department of Health is sending over a nurse to give everyone emergency shots.

The irony is that I lived here and I'd totally forgotten about the swine flu panic before this one, though I do remember the now-defunct SoHo Weekly News's "NYTB" cover story about some drug-resistant strain of tuberculosis or other. Perspective is everything.



more things change

Terminator Salvation... Not!

No, I haven't fallen off the face of the Earth, just off my own site thanks to, yes, the dreaded technical difficulties.

But I'm finally back, and my review of the hugely disappointing Terminator Salvation is now live.

And not to revel in the misfortunes of others, but I'm glad it's tanking. Terminator 3 isn't a great movie, but it didn't damned near bore me to tears.

And now The Sarah Connor Chronicles is gone too...