Sylvester Stallone deserves another Oscar, this one for Making The Film That Needed To Be Made. Just as Kill Bill was made for we comic book geeks who like samurai films and westerns, The Expendables is the film for those of us who love action movies. It’s not perfect. It’s not revolutionary. It’s just that the idea of this film is exactly what our summer movie season needed…

If you want a romance with action, get the Princess Bride or Stardust. If you want werewolves versus vampires, get one of the Underworld films. If you want to see a dead Robert Pattinson, see Harry Potter. On the other hand, if you want a childishly-done cinematic farce that plays to the basest of teenaged girl emotions without one iota of real storytelling to back it up. . .

Today we are inundated with remakes, sequels and attempts to draw on the creative efforts of previous generations. To make a film out of something as iconic as the A-Team could just as soon bite you on the ass as endear you to fans…

Thanks to the fact that David Tennant was kind enough to end his run as everybody’s favorite Time Lord with a series of awesome episodes that were ultimately pretty big downers, I was way more excited for this new Doctor than I would have expected. As great as Tennant’s final telemovies are, they were kind of exhausting to watch, what with the pall of his imminent departure hanging over them…

If you can’t already tell from all the extra preview minutes of the many trailers (And if you haven’t seen ‘em, don’t SPOILER it for yourself), this movie really belongs to Hit-Girl. Whereas Nick Cage comes off a little cheesy (I admit: appropriately so), and the titular hero spends as much time getting kicked as he does any kicking himself, the supposedly-junior superhero is the one who ends up getting all your attention…

I know that I normally talk about zombies and other geeky goodness. I watch other films, though, and occasionally (as with Malèna) I find one so remarkable that I’m compelled to share it. The multiple aspects of the film – story, direction, cinematography, cast, music – all combined to make something that was truly special.

The director loves zombie films. It’s obvious. It’s like when Eli Roth did Cabin Fever – you could see the love and the homage paid to those who had gone before him. This guy LOVES the undead and he LOVES the gore and he LOVES being able to make money by showing you his story.

Short version? Great movie. Tired plot. Excellent storytelling. Awesome soundtrack. Cool effects. Twinkie love and Bill Murray. Atlanta natives join the ranks of the undead. Sweet…

Dear foreign people,

Stop making boring fucking movies.

Sincerely,

Phantom Troublemaker…

I don’t hate the franchise that produced this movie. The original Final Destination was a fun, original movie. I can’t say it’s one of my favorites, but I do own it and have definitely watched it more than once. I groaned along with everybody else when the second one was announced. Did this premise really need to be revisited? Yeah, it did. Final Destination 2 gave us one of the most memorable opening sequences since Saving Private Ryan. Think I’m exaggerating? Go watch it right now and then try driving down the interstate without becoming extremely nervous…

J. J. Abrams again shows himself to be a master storyteller who has one hell of a story to tell. He made a movie that is gripping, insightful, imaginative, and compelling. He makes us form opinions about the characters and to WANT things to go one way or the other. Watching this film is not a passive experience. Abrams made this into something that sucks viewers in and makes them want to KNOW what happens next. . .

While HANCOCK might not sound like a superhero name, you quickly get used to it. The primary thing the movie has going for it (beyond Charlize Theron) is that it’s a little different. It’s not “different” in the bizarre or surreal way that movie snobs require when you use the word, but it’s definitely different from most movies of the genre…

This movie has one thing going for it right off the bat. Remember how just the title of Snakes On A Plane made people decide whether or not they wanted to see it? Same thing here. Don’t like zombies? You’re on the wrong website. Don’t like strippers? Hey, I support single moms. Do you see? If you actually decide to watch the movie, you already know that you will at least like the IDEA of the movie…

After months of anticipation I finally got to see the result of the grueling sixteen hour day that I worked on the set of Rob Zombie’s Halloween 2. It was about five minutes of action in the middle of a bunch of other stuff. Here’s what I thought of it all…

How do you cast Tony Stark without Robert Downey Jr.? Anybody who knows the Marvel Universe and knows American pop culture KNOWS that the character Robert Downey Jr. = the character Tony Stark. They’re the same person. You can’t not have Robert Downey Jr…

Last year, here in Atlanta, a film was made that is near and dear to my heart. It’s Dance of the Dead. A high school prom is attacked by zombies and the only people who can save the attendees are those people who couldn’t get dates. How beautiful a setup is that?…

What I’m trying to say here is if you liked any or all of the above but thought they’d be a lot better if they had a billion percent more gore, full-frontal nudity and use of the words “fuck”, “cock” and even the dreaded “c-word that shall not be named” then you should stop reading this right now and order STARZ…

First, let me acknowledge how amazing The Dark Knight was. It was amazing. Heath Ledger wasn’t overhyped, he was actually that amazing. Amazingly, Gary Oldman wasn’t underutilized this time around. Christian Bale, even with all the hoarse whispering, is still the best Batman evar. The script (and its execution) was sophisticated. Amazing as it was though, it’s not the best superhero movie ever…

God bless Netflix. I sign up, I spend ridiculous numbers of hours telling it which movies I like and don’t like. I rate the movies it sends me, I watch movies online, I get put onto new and interesting things…

So by now, you’ve probably seen Avatar. If you haven’t, you know someone who has. Chances are, that person has told you either how blown away they were by the movie or how bad they thought it was. You probably haven’t heard from many people who said something along the lines of “yeah, it was okay”, because that’s just not the kind of movie this is. It will leave an impression on you, regardless of how apathetic you are…