Tag Archives: film

Fuck Off Friday: Fang and Talon

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Last year, I attended my first panel at a Science Fiction convention. Now, you have to understand… I grew up doing Sci-fi conventions. I’ve had opportunities to go to panels my entire life, but it always sounded so dull. But some friends of mine are producing an online series, and I had to see what it was all about.

I’m really glad I went.

At the panel, they discussed and then aired the first episode of the web series Fang and Talon. It’s about fantasy, fighting and comedy. That’s like my three favorite things! And it’s all in one series!

I’m not going to talk much about the panel, since you can see it for yourself here:

but they do go into a lot of the ins and outs of how it all came together, from fighting to filming, scouting locations and difficulties with sound.

And there are some difficulties with sound. They’ve gone through a few different sound technicians, mostly because of life things happening to them. And your going to lose some in the process of changing sound techs repeatedly, and much had to be done ADR. I admit that for me, it’s a bit of a distraction, trying to associate the voices for the first 30 seconds or so.

Once I get into the episode, however, it’s good times. The characters have enough distinction to play their comedy parts, which aren’t “bash you over the head” funny, but more situational and conversational. The effects are REALLY well done- again, not over the top, but neat and a good fit.

But let’s be honest- my favorite part is the fighting. And they do a good job overall. The choreography is great, and for the 18 million things going on, it’s mostly easy to follow. There are a few bumps where film and fight could have better worked together in the first one, but it seemed to work a lot better in the second (that they just released):

The long and short of it… for people newer to film, they’ve got some great stuff going on. As these guys continue to grow into the series, I think it’s only going to get better.

I’m also secretly hoping they need a scimitar wielding belly dancer in the next season.

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.

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A few months ago I did a post about how paranormal presidential fiction was becoming a new genre in film with the summer release of FDR: American Badass! and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (still no word from Hollywood on my script for “Andrew Jackson: Mummy Exterminator”).



I actually got to see a free screening of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter last night and I have to say it was pretty badass.



“How do we make Lincoln even more badass?” “Let’s have him cut off a bunch of vampires’ heads with an ax!”





The film, based on the novel by Seth Grahame-Smith, author of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (also being turned into a film) was actually done well. When dealing with such silly material it’s so easy to go campy and over the top –



[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-R898wegx6Y&w=560&h=315]
(don’t get me wrong I’m still totally going to go see this)



But everybody treated the material with a straight face, like it’s just a dramatic action movie that happens to be about Abraham Lincoln killing vampires. The acting was spot on, the action scenes were awesome (with the exception of a little superfluous 3D blood splatter) and the cinematography was stunning. That serious treatment of such a goofy subject made it all the more entertaining and hilarious.



In fact, this is probably the best vampire movie I’ve ever seen. That’s not really saying much, though. Ever since Anne Rice came around it seems like every vampire in fiction has been some foppish Eurotrash that’s made blood drinking a kinky sex thing.



I’ve really wanted to love vampire movies but vampire movies make it so hard for me to love them. Sure, the Blade movies are alright but they’re just mindless action and even in those ones you still get some bullshit “immortal children of the night” blathering from the vampires. Here’s the 3 worst vampire movies I’ve seen in the last decade or so.



Underworld (any of them):

Kate Beckinsale jumps around in tight leather.





Why I saw this: I was young, there were a lot of gunfights and Kate Beckinsale jumped around in tight leather.

Plot: Modern Vampires are like fey Victorian aristocracy and lounge around mansions looking bored and drinking blood. Werewolves are like Dickensian paupers, scurry around sewers and are slaves to vampires even though they have equal superpowers and fewer weaknesses. Of course this means a Vampire and Werewolf bang and piss everybody off so they throw on leather trenchcoats and shoot each other.



30 Days of Night

Felt like 100 years of suck.





Why I saw this: I read the comic this was adapted from and it was awesome. The idea was clever (Vampires ransack an Alaskan town that’s so far north there’s no sun for 30 days) and the art by Ben Templesmith was wonderful.

Plot: Vampires come up to an Alaskan town that doesn’t see sun for 30 days, slowly drag their gross, long fingernails across everything and whine about how hungry they are.



Twilight

Yes I saw Twilight





Why I saw this: It was free On Demand, I had the day off and I wanted to see if it was really as bad as everybody said it was. The horrible acting, the sparkling, the weird “pussy vegetarian vampire” thing. It was all true. I’ll never get that hour and a half back. Never.

Plot: Something about high school and this girl and they play baseball or some bullshit. There’s one shot where all the vampires go nuts and rip another vampire’s head off and that was the only moment in the movie where I didn’t want to rip my own head off. Just don’t… I don’t want to talk about it anymore.



For more information about how Twilight sucks, go to George Takei’s facebook page.

Human Poopipede, Unnecessary Sequence

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I saw the first Human Centipede in the theater with my friend Mike.  It was gross, over the top and unintentionally funny.  I don’t regret seeing it but I wouldn’t watch it again.  Movies about people sewn ass to mouth don’t really lend themselves to repeat viewings, much less beg for a sequel.

Human Centipede 2 (Full Sequence), however, was released last week in the US and answers all the questions nobody ever asked ever after watching the first movie.  Questions like –

1.  What if somebody watched the movie more than once?

2.  What if somebody watched the movie more than once and got off on it?

3.  What if that person tried to make their own Human Centipede out of 12 people?

Seriously.  Human Centipede 2 is about a guy who gets obsessed with the movie and tries to make his own human centipede.  Also, according to the Human Centipede wiki, “the director promises that the movie will be much gorier than the first full of ‘the blood and shit’ that viewers did not see in the first film” because that’s what was lacking, I guess.

What’s even worse is that horror movies never have just one sequel.  By creating one sequel to Human Centipede, IFC Films has unknowingly opened the floodgates to a franchise that will give us a new movie about people forced to eat poop every year until the concept of sewing asses to mouths is tired and stale.  People will see Human Centipede Halloween costumes at Target and roll their eyes because that was so last year.

I wouldn’t be suprised if, two years from now, we see a Movie poster with a human centipede wearing Hawaiian shirts and sunglasses on a surfboard for “Human Centipede 5:  Hang 30!”.