This Weekend Sucks! Box Office Update for 5/29 : Drag Me Up To Hell!

Post Memorial Day Weekend releases always make for strange bedfellows. These are the films that aren't quite Summer Release material, weren't big enough for Memorial Day Weekend, yet still deserve some prime Box Office Real Estate.

So, if you are looking to catch a new flick in the theaters this weekend, you can either look to the heavens or go to Hell. Seriously.

On the high end of the spectrum is Pixar's latest computer animated feature, UP. UP is the first PG rated Pixar film since The Incredibles in 1994, which is a good sign that the movie might be more than goofy toddler pandering.



Some people find it hard to bad mouth kid's films. I myself find it even harder to bad mouth kid's

Image by _heather_r_ via Flickr

films featuring a curmudgeonly misanthropic old man in the heroic roll. Actually casting curmudgeonly misanthropic old Ed Asner to do the voice is truly inspired. Finally, an animated feature without Ray Romano's irritating whine. Just think of Grumpy Old Men meets The Goonies. Who can say no to that?

I have very specific rules when it comes to animated features, and none of them are very rational. One of these is that I do my best to avoid cartoons in which animals speak. Up's technologically jacked up dog (aptly named Dug) threatens to break this rule, but I'm willing to give him a pass since it is his translating collar that does the talking, not him.

Now, if you rather take the low road, you'll end up asking the annoyed teen in the ticket booth to Drag Me to Hell, Sam Raimi's unrequested return to the horror genre.



Don't get me wrong; I'm a huge Raimi fan. But he's been doing so well with mega-budgeted superhero flicks that you have to wonder why he's want to take a step backwards into the schlock he struggled to make a career out of in the old days. I love the Evil Dead series, and even Darkman. But as we are fond of saying here as TMS!, a film isn't good just because you like it.

Image via Wikipedia

Based on a screenplay written by Sam and Ivan after Army of Darkness back in 1992, Drag Me to Hell feels like a late '90s horror film. Then again, almost all ghost-curse-possession films these days feel like late '90s horror films. As much as I love horror films, its hard to feel any sympathy for people stupid enough to stay in a house five minutes after they've discovered that it even might be haunted.

Drag Me to Hell doesn't deal with a haunted house. Instead, the source of pain and agony for our young attractive heroine is a good old fashioned Gypsy Curse. The problem is, sympathy is still hard to come by.I'm not quite sure what was going through Raimi's brain. With today's economic climate, fueled by hatred of the greedy banks that managed to suck everybody dry before asking for government bailouts to help pay the bills, one wonders why he would make the main character played by Alison Lohman (filling in for Ellen Page) a bank teller. Even worse, she becomes the recipient of her demonic death sentence after the elderly woman she tries to evict from her home casts some major voodoo on her. After that, with this heartless bitch and her idiot boyfriend (Justin Long, desperately trying to be more than That Guy in the Mac Commercials) trying to save her hide, I've got nothing to do but root for the Gypsy Curse. Seems like a waste of time, if you ask me.

And for all of you old school Raimi fans; sorry, no Bruce Campbell guest appearance in this one. He was too busy working on Burn Notice to swing by for a day. So there you go, yet another reason to give this puppy a pass.

So there you have it. Kid's film or horror flick. Some choice, eh? Choose wisely, for the next choice might be your last. Well, it probably won't. But it sure sounded cool, eh?

Vincent Price in Bloodbath at the House of Death

It looks like this obscure little classic cult film starring Vincent Price is finally making its way onto DVD. Writer/Director Ray Cameron cobbled together this low budget farce, parodying everything from slasher films to box office hits like E.T. in the same way that films like Scary Movie still do today.

Bloodbath at the House of Death will be getting a DVD release in the UK at teh end of June. Its always great to see little films like this finally get exposure, even if it is on the other side of the pond. Let's hope that the US gets this classic soon.

Booth Reviews - 4/24

Silence of the Lambs: The Lego Musical

This is rather amusing until you consider that with the slew of random films being turned into Broadway musicals, this could soon become a reality. As interesting as it would be to see Hannibal Lecter become the next Phantom of the Opera, I seriously doubt that a Silence of the Lambs musical would be scarier than Legally Blonde or 9 to 5.

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Philips to release 21:9 TV

Philips will be releasing a true 21:9 LCD TV this Spring. Will you want to shell out big bucks for it? Well that all depends on how big a movie buff you think you really are and if you're willing to part with seven thousand smackerkroos, yeah you heard me right $7,000! I really don't understand why this is so much. I get that the screen is probably going to have to be specially made as nothing is being manufactored in this aspect ratio and at this size (56" is the launch size if I'm not mistaken) but there is nothing NEW about the technology, it's old hat.

My biggest problem with this TV is in fact aspect ratio. It boasts a 2.33:1 aspect ratio which is a much wider but shorted picture than 16:9. Most movies are filmed in a 2.35:1 or a 2.39:1 and then cropped to 16:9 for the general consumer in such formats as DVD, Blu-ray, TV and cable. This isn't to say that films are ONLY made this way. A lot of films and shows are actually shot in 1.78:1 or 1.85:1 or in more layman's terms a 16:9 aspect ratio. What about all the tons of material thats been done that way? It's plain and simple, this type of TV is only made for the type of movie buff that can shell this kind of money without blinking and has a large collection of 2.35:1 and 2.39:1 films. I consider myself to be a pretty big movie buff but i have absolutely no desire to own this and here's why.

You could watch those aspect ratios (16:9, 1.78:1, 1.85:1) in one of two ways on this screen. The first way would to have black bars on the sides of the screen much in the same way you do when watching standard broadcast TV which has a 1.33:1 ratio (Fullscreen) on a standard 16:9 TV. It would be the very same way. The second way would be for the picture to fill the screen and thus causing it to look wide and squished. You'll find some cable channels boasting that they are Hi Def and they are simply taking 1.33:1 shows or movies and doing exactly this. Another thing that poses a problem is that not all movies are shot with this EXACT ratio of 2.33:1 they are using for the TV. Most if not all movies are actually shot in 2.35:1 or 2.39:1 and there are more than a few that were shot in 2.55:1 and 2.78:1. No matter what movie you watch there are going to be times when there is going to be some sort of black bars somewhere on the screen or the picture cropped improperly. Personally I'll take a standard 16:9 screen and have black bars at the top and the bottom. I don't mind, i came from the age of Laserdiscs, remember those? They are pretty much the reason we even have widescreen TVs.

Not that long ago when widescreen TVs were just making their way into the market they weren't 16:9. I remember seeing one of the very first widescreen TV's in the form of a rear projection TV. It was a 21:9 aspect ratio showing The Wizard Of OZ, it looked atrocious. The picture seemed good for the time but the aspect ratio was all wrong. I even asked them to put on another film and they chose a Star Wars demo disc and the crop of the picture on that was all wrong as well because Lucas chose a 2.55:1 aspect ratio to film his movies. What people don't realize is the reason 16:9 became the standard is because of all the ratios that exist, plain and simple. With a 16:9 TV you'll always be able to watch your entire library with the simplest of ease. If you're like my wifes ex-boss who used to hate the black bars so much, he used to take a towel and put them on the top and bottom of the TV so he wouldn't have to see them. If that's you and you're contemplating buying a TV like this for that very reason, well maybe you're not ready for any of this.

The commercial is VERY cool though.

It's "Fired Up" meets "Passion of the Christ"

Coming soon to a theater near you, a teen comedy of biblical proportions: Ten Things I Hate About Commandments

LEAKED! X-Men Origins Wolverine

As most of you may or may not know, there is a copy of the X-Men Origins Wolverine making its rounds on the internet. Word around the campfire say this is a Workprint and is VERY good quality. If you're not in the know of what a Workprint is, it's an unfinished loosely edited version of the film which is usually used for screening purposes or to show the big wigs how their money is being spent and or wasted on.

It's also said that this copy has like many Workprint films CGI markers. Basically what this means is you'll actually see parts of the film that are supposed to have special effects but instead there will be shots of basically "Put stuff here" flags. There have been talks of re-shoots and added scenes and this copy is NOT supposed to reflect that. This is supposed to be 14 minutes shorter than the final cut of the film destined for theaters. This intrigues me immensely. I would love to see this copy and then see the finalized cut. It's the ultimate special edition comparison no one will ever see. How is it paced here and how will it be done in the new cut? What was better in the original and what could have been done better in the new cut? You get the idea. Not many will see this Workprint, that is unless you know your way around a keyboard and few P2P sites you're golden.

This comes as a major shock to the studios and the news as the film is slated for a May 1, 2009 release. It's expected to rake in HUGE bucks and with the release of this Workprint guess what? IT STILL IS. Even if the stories are true about the re-shoots and the added shoots, that the story and plot needs work, the fact that Ryan Reynolds has been given a major role in the film to iron out the kinks or that this will be sold on every street corner in NYC, it doesn't matter. People will flock to this movie like stink on a Pink Panther sequel anyway.