Texas Chainsaw 2: New DVD Release

Arrow in the Head is reporting that a new release of Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 is on its way. How exciting!

The picture quality on the existing release leaves much to be desired, so given that this one boasts “a new anamorphic widescreen transfer” I have high hopes for a decent release.

No mention of a Dennis Hopper commentary though…shame.

Rifftrax

Mike Nelson has started a new site called Rifftrax. If you’re not aware of Mike, he’s the guy that started Mystery Science Theatre 3000 and appears to now specialise in comedy commentaries for films.

I’ve already got a version of Night of the Living Dead with a Nelson commentary (well worth having), but now Mike’s selling additional commentaries through the site. The first one: Road House! Yes, now you can enjoy this Patrick Swayze “masterpiece” with “hilarious” commentary from Mike.

It’s got to be worth a go, right?

Trailer Roundup

I’ve been a bit crap with keeping up with trailers lately. So I’ve had a bit of a binge, and here’s my thoughts:

• Jet Li’s Fearless - Looks like one of the old school tournament fight movies that Van Damme started out with. Albeit one with the wire-fu and Crouching Tiger treatment. Looks like it could be fun.
• Charlotte’s Web - I can recall reading the book when I was at school (I think) and this looks like as faithful an adaptation as I suppose we can expect. Not sure about Julia Roberts as Charlotte, but I’ll wait and see. Prime Christmas fodder, methinks.
• Clerks 2 - don’t even get me started. Randal, Dante, Jay, and Silent Bob return. Can’t wait.
• Invincible - Good cast, and looks like good direction. And I do love a good NFL movie.
• John Tucker Must Die - The gardener from Desperate Housewives and a bunch of Cheerleaders. Yawn
• The Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford - difficult to make much of the trailer, but I still hope this one’s good.
• Running With Scissors - Annette Benning, Brian Cox, Alec Baldwin et al in a surprisingly good looking picture. Probably one for DVD, but I must remember not to overlook it.
• Borat - The man behind Ali G returns for another feature length outing. Which might not be a good thing.
• The Wicker Man - Whoever decided this was a good idea for a remake needs to be shot.
• Pulse - Potentially creepy looking remake. The cast all look a bit too young and pretty which could be a bad thing - and one of them’s Christina Milian, which can’t be good - but I like the idea. Maybe I ought to watch the original first.
• The Texas Chainsaw Massacre - The Beginning - I nearly walked out of the first film, and this was in danger of being more of the same. I’m quite please to say it looks to be quite a bit better though. In fact, from the trailer this seems to have more in common with the original than the first remake. Plus, David J. Schow is joint credited with the screenplay, so it can’t be that bad. I’ll give it a go.

Review: Superman Returns

“Why the world doesn’t need Superman”. That’s the title of Lois Lane’s Pulitzer winning article, an article fueled by the emotions felt after the inexplicable disappearance of the man she loved. It could just as feasibly be the subtitle of Brian Singer’s attempt at bringing the Man of Steel back to cinema screens. But what was Singer’s driving emotion?

Perhaps the bigger question is: Do we really need a new Superman film? Aren’t the original films iconic representations of a lost age of film-making? There’s no CGI, no bullet-time, and no attempt at the sort of epic set pieces that Singer tries to accomplish here. And they’re all the better for it.

That’s not to say that Superman Returns is terrible, although I know there are those of you out there that take that view - that’s what the comments are for. It’s just that it doesn’t feel like it belongs. It’s an attempt at recapturing the original film’s atmosphere, but with so much soulless CGI extravagance that it misses the point entirely. Comparisons with Ang Lee’s The Incredible Hulk aren’t entirely unfair: swap tedious psychological pondering with tedious melodrama and the two have a fair bit in common. In its over-long two and a half hour runtime, Superman Returns attempts to cram in the themes of lost love, fatherhood, trust, the meaning of life, and heroism, topped off with a hint of religious metaphor.

And while it’s unfair to say that none of the themes work on any level, they don’t carry the sort of depth that it appears the writers feel they’ve bestowed upon the film. As a final film in a trilogy featuring consistent actors, carrying the momentum through to its concluding final act and bestowing a greater sense of emotional attachment on the audience, Returns might have worked brilliantly. But in a time when cinematic rebooting of super hero stories are all the rage, it’s odd that this is the film that brings Superman back.

Which is the other problem: nobody wanted, or perhaps dared, to reboot the original franchise. Christopher Reeve’s truly iconic portrayal of Superman has a fiercely guarded place in people’s hearts. As an example, my wife refuses to see Superman Returns, disgusted as she is that this new film has been allowed to exist. Singer and co. are either obsessed with Richard Donner’s original film to the point of mimickery (as some reviewers suggest) or are so incapable of escaping the weight of Superman’s cinematic legacy that they feel unable to change things by too great an extent. The classic score remains, Marlon Brando’s lines of dialogue are featured heavily, and the opening titles are created to resemble those of 1978. Albeit with a large dose of CGI in the background.

Don’t take your ones to town, Bird

This is awesome. At some point I’ll try to write about American V, but for now enjoy this fantastic little video.

Update + Photo

I’ve not been posting with a great deal of regularity lately. Things have been busy. I apologise.

All that is coming to an end. Normal service will be resumed shortly. In fact, better than normal; I have some plans for the site…

One last thing: Zooomr are giving away Pro accounts to anyone who’ll link to a hosted image from their blog. I’m a sucker for free, so you can have a picture of me wearing a cooler bag on my head, and I’ll have a free Pro account - deal? In return, I promise to write about the site in a bit more detail. Oh, and apologies in advance…