The Dead Hate the Living

Director: Dave Parker
Writer: Dave Parker
Released: 2000
Cast: Eric Clawson, Jamie Donahue, Brett Beardslee, Wendy Speake, Benjamin P. Morris, Matt Stephens

Highlander: Director's Cut

Director: Russel Mulcahy
Writers: Gregory Widen, Peter Bellwood, Larry Ferguson
Released: 1986
Cast: Christopher Lambert, Clancy Brown, Roxanne Hart, Sean Connery, Beatie Edney

The Day the Earth Stood Still

Director: Scott Derrickson
Writer: David Scarpa
Released: 2008
Cast: Keanu Reeves, Jennifer Connelly, Jaden Smith, Kathy Bates, John Cleese, Jon Hamm

Kicking and Screaming

Director: Noah Baumbach
Writer: Noah Baumbach
Released: 1995
Cast: Josh Hamilton, Chris Eigeman, Carlos Jacott, Jason Wiles, Olivia d'Abo, Parker Posey, Carla Buono

A Christmas Story

Director: Bob Clark
Writers: Jean Shepard, Leigh Brown, Bob Clark
Released: 1983
Cast: Peter Billingsley, Darren McGavin, Melinda Dillon, Ian Petrella, Scott Schwartz, R.D. Robb, Tedde Moore, Zack Ward, Yano Anaya

Star Wars: The Clone Wars

Director: Dave Filoni
Writers: Henry Gilroy, Steven Melching, Scott Murphy
Released: 2008
Cast: Matt Lanter, Ashley Eckstein, James Arnold Taylor, Dee Bradley Baker, Tom Kane, Ian Abercrombie, Kevin Michael Richardson, Samuel L. Jackson, Anthony Daniels, Christopher Lee

The Conversation

Director: Francis Ford Coppola
Writer: Francis Ford Coppola
Released: 1974
Cast: Gene Hackman, John Cazale, Allen Garfield, Frederic Forrest, Cindy Williams, Robert Duvall

Easy Rider

Director: Dennis Hopper
Writers: Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, Terry Southern
Released: 1969
Cast: Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, Jack Nicholson

The Hills Have Eyes

Director: Wes Craven
Writer: Wes Craven
Released: 1977
Cast: Susan Lanier, Robert Houston, Martin Speer, Dee Wallace, Russ Grieve, John Steadman, Michael Berryman, Virginia Vincent, James Whitworth, Lance Gordon, Janus Blythe, Cordy Clark, Arthur King, Flora and Striker

Troops

Director: Kevin Rubio
Writer: Kevin Rubio
Released: 1998
Cast: Eric Hilleary, Cam Clarke, David Max, Jess Harnell, Kenar Yegyayan, Drew Massey, Dave Myers, Matthew Myers, Steven Melching, Neil Elliot, Susan Hinshaw

STEVE says: Another late night, another short film. Sue me.

Troops is just brilliant. Like an episode of Cops set in the Galactic Empire, it follows the exploits of a handful of Imperial Stormtroopers as they respond to various calls - one concerning Jawas and stolen droids, and another concerning a domestic dispute at the Lars farm.

Like George Lucas in Love, though, it doesn't work on its own. If you don't know Star Wars, you're not going to get why this is so funny. If you're a fan, though, it's going to resonate.

3.5/5

Chinatown

Director: Roman Polanski
Writer: Robert Towne
Released: 1974
Cast: Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, John Huston, Perry Lopez, John Hillerman, Darrell Zwerling, Diane Ladd, James Hong, Burt Young

STEVE says: Every fledgling screenwriter should have a look at this script. It's perfect. Hits every beat with atomic-clock precision, it never lags, and it never telegraphs exactly what's going on, yet makes it all seem inevitable in the end. And of course it is. Right from the beginning.

5/5

The Shining

Director: Stanley Kubrick
Writers: Stanley Kubruck, Diane Johnson
Released: 1980
Cast: Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, Scatman Crothers, Danny Lloyd

STEVE says: The Shining is a movie I'm not overly fond of, but keep coming back to again and again just to see if I can find something - anything - I like about it.

No luck so far.

And I don't care how great you think Nicholson is, this movie Sucks Out Loud.

But let me tell you why.

King's book was about a haunted man. Jack Torrence is haunted by the student he attacked in Stovington, his careless abuse of his son, his own alcoholic father, his failure as a husband to properly provide for his family, etc. Kubrick decided that none of this was important and just went for the haunted hotel angle. Whereas the book was about the characters and their motivations, Kubrick's movie was about Nicholson going mad.

It's one thing to change a story when adaptation to a new medium demands it; it's another to completely dispense with character development and plot because you want to tell a different story. If you want to tell a different story, Tell A Different Story, don't fuck up a perfectly viable one because you don't understand it.

Kubrick jumped over the character and plot development with the "one month later" title card after Jack and his family arrive at the Overlook. This is important stuff! It's where Jack starts losing it - how can you skip over that?

I know Kubrick was a genius. There's a lot of his stuff I didn't like when I was younger, and I'm perfectly willing now to accept the fact that it was me; I didn't get it. But The Shining is just not good at all. Apart from the lack of character development, there's the Scatman Crothers thing: As a plot device, he's there to give us info on Danny's abilities, which is fine. And at the end, his return to the Overlook acts as a device to pull Jack away from the bathroom door and let Wendy escape. Fine, again. Killing him, however, serves no purpose whatsoever! If you're just going to kill him, Wendy may as well have been able to squeeze through the window after Danny. The thing with the woman in room 237 is the definition of anti-climax. When Danny goes into the room, we never see what he sees. When Jack goes in, he finds a woman who turns into a rotting corpse (after he starts making out with her, which begs some explanation), then comes back and tells Wendy he didn't see a thing. It's so much more effective if we see what Danny sees, and then Jack goes up because we know what's waiting there - whether he actually sees it or not. As, by the way, it was done in the book.

Bottom line is, the guy didn't believe in the material and it shows - but that doesn't stop the idolatry. The poster at the top there isn't from the movie; it's from a Shining convention held in Timberline, Oregon this past Halloween. There's even been an art show dedicated to the movie.


Click the creepy girls to check it out. Even I have to admit, it's kind of cool - even if the movie leaves me cold.

1/5

Redacted

Director: Brian De Palma
Writer: Brian De Palma
Released: 2007
Cast: Izzy Diaz, Rob Devaney, Daniel Stewart Sherman, Patrick Carroll, Kel O'Neill

STEVE says: More than one reviewer has called Redacted a return to form for De Palma. And that's funny, 'cause I didn't see any Hitchcock ripoffs in it at all.

It's just another in a seemingly endless stream of movies presented as documentaries or lost footage or home movies (and let me be the one to say it: That gimmick has run its course), and it didn't need to be. It switches back and forth between a young soldier's chronicle of the war on his camcorder, and a French documentary about the troops, for no particular reason, apart from allowing us access with the French that the soldier wouldn't have. But even this conceit doesn't work in the scene where documentary footage is shot from inside a car that the crew do not have access to - and we know this because exterior shots of the car show no crew in the back seat. Sloppy, Brian. Real sloppy.

Some day someone's going to make a good movie about this war. Redacted isn't that movie.

1.5/5

Headspace

Director: Andrew van den Houten
Writer: Steve Klausner, William M. Miller
Released: 2005
Cast: Christopher Denham, William Atherton, Olivia Hussey, Dee Wallace, Sean Young, Udo Kier

Frankenstein

Director: James Whale
Writers: Garrett Fort, Francis Edwards Faragoh
Released: 1931
Cast: Boris Karloff, Colin Clive, Mae Clarke, John Boles, Edward Van Sloan, Dwight Frye

Dracula

Director: Tod Browning
Writer: Garrett Fort
Released: 1931
Cast: Bela Lugosi, Helen Chandler, David Manners, Dwight Frye, Edward Van Sloane, Herbert Bunston, Frances Dade

Lifeforce

Director: Tobe Hooper
Writers: Dan O'Bannon, Don Jakoby
Released: 1985
Cast: Steve Railsback, Peter Firth, Mathilda May, Frank Finlay, Michael Gothard, Aubrey Morris, Patrick Stewart

The Dark Half

Director: George A. Romero
Writer: George A. Romero
Released: 1993
Cast: Timothy Hutton, Amy Madigan, Michael Rooker, Julie Harris, Robert Joy

STEVE says: Not one of the best Stephen King adaptations, but surely one of the better ones. The fact that it's Romero gives it a bump, as well.

3/5

Dawn of the Dead

Director: Zack Snyder
Writer: James Gunn
Released: 2004
Cast: Sarah Polley, Ving Rhames, Jake Weber, Mekhi Phifer, Ty Burrell, Michael Kelly, Kevin Zegers, Lindy Booth

STEVE says: It's like Remake Central here at Casa de Steve y Nikki. Either this says that there are more good horror remakes out there than we'd thought, or that we like crappy remakes more than we let on. You decide.

I think I'm in the minority on this, but I actually like the Dawn of the Dead remake, crappy or not. There are things about it that annoy me, to be sure - like its lacking the social commentary of the original - but overall it was fun and violent and gory, and that's pretty much all I was hoping for.

3.5/5

The Fly

Director: David Cronenberg
Writers: Charles Edward Pogue, David Cronenberg
Released: 1986
Cast: Jeff Goldblum, Gina Davis, John Getz, Joy Boushel, Les Carlson