The world needs more biopics about random people, and Susan Boyle is the most random person who can sing ever. Thus, magic. Movie magic. Movie magic that is currently a stage musical magic, because that’s what is happening. The musical I Dreamed A Dream is based on the life story of Susan Boyle, and is now optioned for a film by Fox Searchlight. I guess a bajillion YouTube hits and then nothing really is the kind of momentum Fox Searchlight is looking for. Now, Boyle might be a bigger star in England than in America, where we have largely forgotten about her except as a “Oh, yeah, her!” reminder occasionally. That’s what happens when Adele sings your pain away. But maybe America will remember Boyle enough to go see a musical where a Hollywood actress who is incredibly attractive pretends to be unattractive and then sings. Why not?
All Cheerleaders Die is an up and coming film from Lucky McKee and Chris Siverston, who you might remember from their previous film All Cheerleaders Die. But don’t worry, the plot of this one is different even if it features the same cheerleaders vs. football jocks theme. So I’m not sure if it’s a remake or just reusing the title. I guess that’s a “reimagining” or some crap. It’s when you get a bunch of money and can decide to do one of your films over.
The plot:
a 17-year-old rebel at Blackfoot High School on a mission to take down the captain of the football team. She rallies a group of cheerleaders around her cause, but after a tragic turn of events the girls are thrust into a supernatural battle that culminates in a mayhem-filled night they will never forget.
Mäddy Killian, Sianoa Smit-McPhee, Caitlin Stasey, and Tom Williamson star
With a new RiffTrax VOD release I will once again randomly complain about how I’m behind on catching up with the RiffTrax VOD releases. So now let’s get even further behind with Tourist Trap! Of course, I’d rather have a wealth of RiffTrax titles than an empty table, and if you need extra titles for your Turkey Day MST3K marathon, here is a late entry just for you! Make your guests feel trapped…Tourist Trapped! That will teach them for bring imitation cranberry sauce. How dare they!!! This isn’t what the Pilgrims killed the Germans for!
Capitalizing on the widely-publicized series of unsolved murders that occurred at the Liberace Museum in Las Vegas in the late 1970s*, Tourist Trap is a slasher film with all the classic elements. It’s got a big beefy killer in overalls and a mask, portrayed by Chuck Connors, known primarily for his television role as The Rifleman but also for his 400 pound chin. And, of course, a couple of scantily clad babes, including replacement Charlie’s Angel Tanya Roberts, who would later make MILF history as the neighbor in That 70s Show.
For some reason the babes are on a road trip with a girl who’s sort of a more conservative version of Sarah, Plain and Tall when their car breaks down (you don’t say!) near a freaky roadside museum. It’s full of creepy mannequins that big Chuck operates via his never-explained telekinesis, proving that if people started developing X-Men style mutant powers in the real world their first impulse wouldn’t be to rule the world OR try to save it, but instead to perv out and build a giant whackin’ emporium full of RealDolls.
The girls, naturally, trust museum owner Chuck completely. They don’t realize he’s the killer picking them off one by one, a ruse that even Scooby and Shaggy would immediately see through, even with red-rimmed eyes after hotboxing the van. Throw in a twist ending so shocking it’ll leave you saying “huh, I guess that was the ending,” and you’ve got a Tourist Trap even more perplexing/disappointing than Santa Cruz’s famous Mystery Spot (where, incidentally, the Colby Jack cheese blend was first invented**).
Put on your Hawaiian shirt, fanny pack, and Teva sandals with socks, then join Mike, Kevin, and Bill in the Tourist Trap!
*not factual, this is just an urban legend we’re trying to get off the ground
**this is another one
The Chinese Odyssey films are one of the films that got me into Hong Kong cinema and from that world cinema. And I know others who say the same thing about Stephen Chow’s films. So the fact that Chow has been busy running his production company and being in the middle of lawsuits and made no new films in the past four years is saddening. But time to turn that frown upside down as the long-simmering followup to the Chinese Odyssey flicks is finally moving forward! At this point, it is not really a sequel but just from the same source material (much how A Chinese Tall Tale was sort of a sequel but not really) It’s also interesting how this version will hit theaters before the huge big budget version of the monkey King tale that stars Donnie Yen!
Journey to the West (西游·降魔篇/Xi You： Xiang Mo Pian/Journey to the West: Fell Monsters Chapter) is written/produced/directed by Stephen Chow, along with co-director Derek Kwok. Chow has said he will be in a more limited role, and will appear alongside Shu Qi, Bo Huang, Zhang Wen, Show Luo and Chrissie Chow. The movie is co-produced by six companies, including the Huayi Brothers and China Film Group. The Huayi Brothers have made many of the big budget Chinese films lately (sadly, many of them are not very interesting…)
Like almost all Journey to the West films, this is just one chapter, where the characters fight demons. Besides from that, there are not much details at this time, except that there will be heavy special effects and once again a company is claiming it will have effects on par with Hollywood effects. Because that’s totally what makes a film a good film. Effects.
The other The Host, aka the good The Host, has a sequel coming out and some footage just popped online which is either actual footage or test footage, but at the very least it shows us what to expect with this sequel. Word about The Host 2 (괴물2) is directed by Park Myeong-chan, but that word is pretty old and may have changed. remember when there was going to be a Chinese sequel to The Host as well? That seems dead for now. But so was the monster and we all know how permanent dead monsters are in horror films…
snow white and the huntsman is trash. moral garbage. a lot of fuzzy feminist thinking and pandering to creepy hollywood mores produced by metrosexual imbeciles.
I don’t want to publish reviews of films where women are alpha and men are beta.
where women are heroes and villains and men are just lesser versions or shadows of females.
i believe in manliness.
**There’s gonna be a Johnny Carson biopic! John McLaughlin will write, Tom Thayer will produce and it’s going to be based off of the biography Carson The Magnificent: An Intimate Portrait by Bill Zehme book.
**Triplets has a writer! You know Triplets, the sequel to Twins, which starred Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito as brothers, that will incorporate Eddie Murphy as a third brother. Somehow. We thought it was a joke but now Josh Gad (Book of Mormon) and Ryan Dixon are collecting a paycheck to write a script, so the joke is on us. I hope they continue the tradition of having the villain get hundreds of feet of chains dropped on his head.
**I’m still not going to report Episode VII director rumors until one is confirmed, because anything else is pointless garbage.
**TarsTarkas.NET is too popular and has outgrown our shared hosting, so soon we’ll be switching to a VPS, as soon as I figure out what the heck to do to make that happen. Until then, we have to run in a crippled mode to not set off the wrath of our webhost and get suspended again.
