In Praise of Theater-Hopping
Article by: Witney Seibold
“Name the remake of the groundbreaking horror classic in which the killer –”
“Halloween, uh, Texas Chainsaw, Dawn of the Dead, The Hills Have Eyes, Amityville Horror, Last House on the Left, Friday the 13th , A Nightmare On Elm Street, My Bloody Valentine, When A Stranger Calls, Prom Night, Black Christmas, House of Wax, The Fog, Piranha. It’s one of those, right? Right?”
-dialogue from “Scream 4” (more…)
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
Film review by: Witney Seibold
Here is the pattern: The first film is an unexpected hit. It wows audiences with its freshness and originality. Studios, eager to cash in, put a sequel into the works immediately. They ramp up the action, and, often making the incorrect assumption that we like the characters to an inordinate degree, bog up the story with backstory and soap opera dynamics. (more…)
Stripperland
Film review by: Witney Seibold
The true spirit of exploitation film lies, I think, in its inherent joy. Sure, it may be catering to our basest desires to see blood, guts, monsters and tits, but the makers of the best exploitation movies have a genuine love for the aesthetics of trash. Not so for the makers of the recent straight-to-video horror comedy “Stipperland,” who seem to be getting their motivation from a much uglier place. (more…)
The Beaver
Film review by: Witney Seibold
Mel Gibson‘s recent extracurricular activities should not diminish the fact that he remains a fine and charming performer. In Jodie Foster‘s “The Beaver,” he plays a damaged man, who manages to relate to people anew by charming them with a goofy-looking hand puppet. Gibson is such a strong performer that we actually see the affable and gregarious man underneath all the damage. Indeed, it’s our outside knowledge of the equally damaged Gibson that lends a lot of necessary oomph to his performance. (more…)
20 Albums Every Geek Should Own
Article by: Witney Seibold
In this article for Geekscape, I lament the waning power and significance of the Rock Snob in the echelons of geekery. I recall a time when record stores were the coolest crux of pop culture obsessives, and how rock ‘n’ roll scholars were at the top of the heap. In that spirit, I tried to think of ten records that geeks would love to get them back into the record stores, and enjoy weirdo music. That top-10 quickly became an epically long top-20. (more…)
This week, William Bibbiani and I tackle reviews of “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides,” and “Stripperland.” One is merely o.k. The other features a chainsaw to the vagina. It’s likely you know which one you want to see merely by those descriptions. (more…)
Incendies
Film review by: Witney Seibold
Denis Villaneuve’s “Incendies” is a combination melodramatic potboiler, timely political thriller, and legitimate detective story, and manages to be all of those things well; it is, in turns, tense, wrought, politically significant, and barely scraping the ceiling of being over-the-top lurid (which can be, depending on your state of mind, a strength). (more…)
The Top-10 Self-Mutilations
Article by: Witney Seibold
Although I bothered to write a multiple-page essay on self-mutilations – and indeed this article is not for the squeamish – I want to assure my readers that I am not a cutter, nor am I suffering from depression. This article should stand, rather, as a spiritual brother to the article I recently published on the 10 most disgusting movies ever made; It’s more a further step in the (perhaps over-) enthused exploration of extreme cinema. (more…)
Wow. We’ve been at this for 16 weeks already, and we haven’t been cancelled yet. I think credit lies more with William Bibbiani’s enthused passion, and less with my feeble attempts at trying to sound brainy and cerebral. Either way, I think we’re a buncha funny guys, and everything we talk about instantly becomes more important. (more…)
The Top-10 Warriors of the Ancient World (in pop culture)
Article by: Witney Seibold
I wrote this article the same weekend “Thor” was released in theaters. “Thor,” what with its theatrical bombast, and vague resemblance to the sci-fi/Dark Ages mash-ups from the 1980s, brought to mind such weird-ass fantasy epics as “Krull,” “Masters of the Universe,” and “Flash Gordon.” (more…)
Three Cheers for Darkened Years! 