The second independent film I’m featuring this week is The Horror Vault, a cheerful comedy about two young people in love, frolicking in the flowers, snow and gentle summer breeze. Or, maybe, it’s a compilation of several short horror films inspired by Tales from the Crypt, Masters of Horror and Creepshow.

Here is a description of these tales of insanity and terror:

• “When John Met Julia” is a modern twist on Romeo and Juliet, except everything goes a bit wrong…for poor John anyway. Written and directed by Kim Sønderholm, starring Claire Ross-Brown (Love Me Forever, Pistoleros) as Julia and Kim Sønderholm (Craig, Brutal Incasso) as John.
• “Delusion” is a black/white 50ies style of horror drama, directed by Mark Machillo, starring Jonaton Trent (Alone with her, Slaughter, Fashion Victim), Heather Tom (The Bold and The Beautiful, The Young and The Restless) and many others.
• “Alone” is a story about being all alone in a sorority house on a dark night. Written and directed by Kenny Selko, featuring Mandy Amano (Ghosts of Goldfield, Coyote Ugly), Jerod Edington (Ghost Month, E.R) and Guy Nardulli (Jekyll, House M.D).
• “Mental Distortion” is a story about Pete, waking on on his floor, about to do a gruesome find. Directed by Kim Sønderholm who also plays Pete, supported by Maja Muhlack (One Hell Of A Christmas, Westbrick Murders) and Barbara Zatler (Craig, Hellride).
• “Dead To The World” has english actor and director Russ Diaper (Deadly Pursuit, The Demon Within) take a stab at the Ted Bundy legend from a new perspective. In supporting roles are Paul Kelleher (Meatcleaver Massacre, Moonlight Murders) and Joyia Fitch (Midsomer Murders, The Last Hangman).
• “Disconnected” directed by David Boone and Josh Card is a black and white little threat of the absurd - dark humor and crude and explicit torture mixed in one.
• “Echoes” by Gabriel Dowrick, the australian addition about a man, waking up, tied to a bed in what seems to be a nursing home, knowing little of what is going on.
• “The Demon” by Thomas Steen Soerensen is the story about a man chased by his own ghosts and desires, which is about to explode as he picks up a young pretty woman hitchhiking at the side of the road, coming seemingly from nowhere. Or is she?
• Finally, “Retina” by JP Wenner starring Rachel Grubb and Heather Amos, is a black and white and extremely absurd and nihilistic story about… Well - you’re the audience - you decide!

The Horror Vault is arriving on DVD soon, supposedly within the next couple days, and can be purchased at http://www.thehorrorvault.net/

Note: I have not seen The Horror Vault and am merely making readers aware of this release. I cannot speak to whether it’s any good or not, but hopefully it is!

Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed unfortunately didn’t completely flop over the weekend, as the documentary earned $1.2 million on Friday for an estimated weekend box office gross of $3.7 million (according to Box Office Prophets).

Why did I want Expelled to flop? The Ben Stein documentary is apparently about allowing the teaching of intelligent design (i.e. creationism) into schools. I haven’t seen the movie, so I hate that I’m jumping to conclusions the way that religious groups jump on films they think they might find distasteful, but so goes it. If the movie is about free speech and whether creationism should be allowed in public schools on those grounds is one thing, the marketing seems to be catering to the religious group, which makes me think otherwise.

I’m sorry, but evolution is only a theory because it hasn’t been completely proven - it is not a theory because there are glaring holes in it. I’ve had discussions with otherwise intelligent people who claim that evolution isn’t real, but it is the most common sense, obvious thing when you think about it. If I had kids, there would be no way I would allow my children to learn that it’s a possibility that we just popped into existence one day in our current form. It’s just prepostrous.

At the same time, I would encourage them to have an intelligent debate about one versus the other, but that’s not what we’re talking about here. We’re talking about teaching creationism in schools. The only reason creationism has been renamed “intelligent design” is to make it sound like it is halfway intelligent.

In other Friday box office news, Forbidden Kingdom will steal the weekend with an estimated $20 million, the best ever opening for Jet Li and the best non-Rush Hour opening for Jackie Chan. Forgetting Sarah Marshall, which I saw last night, will make approximately $16 million. 88 Minutes died on arrival, and will earn about $6 million.

Yes, Scarlett Johansson is replacing Emma Watson in the final Harry Potter movie. Warner Brothers said, “We felt, as Hermione Granger reaches a proper age, that she needed to have more curves and sex appeal. Scarlett brings that to the table.” Reports are also coming in that the ending of the series will be modified: Hermione and Harry will actually end up together, as will Ron and Ginny.

Interesting.

Wait, what? I think I got something wrong here.

Oh. Emma Watson is replacing Scarlett Johansson in Napoleon and Betsy, a film that The Hollywood Reporter says is “a period drama being written and directed by Benjamin Ross.”

The movie is about a British noblewoman (now: young noblewoman) who is trapped on the island of St. Helena, where Napoleon is being kept in exile. She falls in love with the French conquerer.

Watson is replacing Johansson because, apparently, the role has skewed younger, making it more appropriate for the 18-year old Harry Potter star to be cast as Betsy rather than a luscious vixen who is known for her sex appeal. Of course, Johansson is only 24 years old (younger than me!).

Personally, I have to wonder if Emma Watson is going to end up becoming hotter than Scarlett Johansson. She has a different look, certainly, but she’s quite a looker. I feel comfortable saying this now that Ms. Watson is of age.

Every once in a while, I receive a request to review or feature an independently produced film that has been made. I don’t have a time to review a bunch of movies that will probably never be seen by the vast majority of my readers, but after receiving several requests in the last week, I figured I’d do some quick blog posts about them. I’m probably opening a can of worms here, but I figured I’d give these films some free PR. Note that I haven’t seen this movie so am making no statement about how good it is, but I respect independent filmmaker’s attempts to promote their movies.

Nemesis is about a rapper who isn’t actually a rapper. I’m not huge into street films or rapper films, but Nemesis has a pretty neat concept: a young man rises to fame as a rapper named Nemesis, but his name, street creed and everything else is fictionalized. A creation of the record label with the sole purpose to sell records, the man now known as Nemesis finds himself in an awkward position. To sell records, he must prove his badassedness, but to do so, the record label fabricates a feud between him and his childhood friend. As the feud spirals out of control, the young rapper must make a tough decision as to whether he should continue doing what he’s doing or give up this false persona that is causing so much harm.

I described the movie pretty poorly, I think, but you can read the full synopsis here.

So the movie has an interesting twist to the rise-to-fame-street-thug model, though what probably interests me the most is actress Suzie Abromeit (pictured here). She’s… quite good looking.

Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead was released on DVD on April 15th, so I’m a few days behind on my DVD review. The movie, as you probably don’t know, is about two brothers (Philip Seymour Hoffman and Ethan Hawke) who, after some rough times, decide to commit an armed robbery. Their target of choice? Their parents’ jewelry store.

As one might suspect, their robbery goes horribly wrong and the two find themselves in a cat-and-mouse game against the police, their consciences and even each other. Oh, and they’re both sleeping with the same woman (Marisa Tomei, who spends most of the movie walking around naked).

Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead is a pretty good movie. It’s a pretty decent crime thriller, with good performances and a good story. It’s unique in that it blends family drama with an increasingly dark crime story, though what it lacks is the big twists that really could have taken it to the next level. However, since this blog post is about the DVD and not about the movie itself, you can read my full Before the Devil movie review here.

The DVD, unfortunately, gives little reason to buy this good-but-not-great movie. While I would still recommend a rental, the DVD only offers three special features:

• A theatrical commentary with Ethan Hawke, Philip Seymour Hoffman and director Sidney Lumet. I can imagine this commentary is quite good, but since I never listen to commentaries, I have not made the exception here.
• A making-of featurette, which is about as interesting as watching a sack of coal get transformed into diamonds over a thousand years. It’s more promotional than anything else and really doesn’t offer much insight into the creation of the movie.
• The theatrical trailer. Whoopdy-do!

The Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead DVD is really a lackluster product from ThinkFilm. Even though the movie was never really considered a wide release, I was expecting something a little more substantial in terms of a DVD package.

The movie is still worth it, but those looking for bonus features won’t be satisfied with this release.

Have you ever fantasized about the babysitter? Maybe just a little? I’m not a father and I don’t have kids, but I have to imagine one or two over the course of time has been tempted by a young beauty. A couple have probably given into their temptations, too. However, I can’t imagine too many have found themselves caught up in an illegal prostitution ring started by a high school girl looking to pay for college, and who will do anything to cover her tracks.

That’s the plot of The Babysitters, the upcoming film that opens in early May. I wouldn’t say the girls in the movie are steaming hot, but they’re good enough… who knows, maybe even more realistic.

I’ve added the new (very hot) movie poster, an image gallery and… the Babysitters movie trailer:

The new movie trailer for the upcoming Kate Hudson movie My Best Friend’s Girl arrived today, and it looks awfully a lot like… How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. The only difference is that in this movie, Dane Cook is trying to lose Hudson as fast as possible, and Dane Cook is no Matthew McConaughey.

In reality, I like the concept for the movie. In what could also be described as a reversal of Good Luck Chuck, Cook plays a guy who gets paid to act like an ass some ex-girlfriends will run back to the boyfriends they just dumped. Jason Biggs plays Cook’s best friend who, after being dumped by Hudson, hires Cook to work his “charm” on her. Naturally, the two fall in love, putting Cook in a very precarious position.

The movie trailer isn’t particularly funny (it ones again features Dane Cook tripping in front of a girl!), but it looks harmless enough. Here’s the My Best Friend’s Girl movie trailer:

I’m starting to feel and sound like a bitter old man. Nothing seems to please me of late, other than driving around Green Lake in Seattle and admiring all of the beautiful female joggers that were out in storm today. So, maybe it’s just me, but does the new title for the new X-Files movie suck or what? And when I say “suck,” I mean really, really suck?

The new X-Files 2 title is The X-Files: I Want to Believe. I don’t care if it’s a theme in the show or what not, but I Want to Believe is just a stupid, stupid, stupid name for a movie. Maybe it could work for some kind of kid’s movie about a little girl and her pony who goes to Heaven, but as the title for a sci-fi horror-thriller? No, thank you.

Any movie title, especially one belonging to a sequel, that contains a colon in it should have the ability to be referred to by it’s subtitle. Are you going to say, “I’m going to go see The X-Files: I Want to Believe?” No. Are you going to say, “I’m going to go see I Want to Believe?” No, unless you’re mocking the title. What are you going to say? “I’m watching X-Files 2, biotch!” The thing is, movies with subtitles should be able to be referred to by said subtitle and not sound corny as Hell. The Phantom Menace? Revenge of the Sith? Attack of the Clones? OK, maybe that last one shouldn’t be used as an example.

My point is… I Want to Believe is just a really lame title. I love The X-Files, but Chris Carter has made a laughably bad marketing move here that could hurt the movie’s broad appeal.

And please don’t write back, “But 3:10 to Yuma has a colon in it!” You know what I mean.

I just watched the so-called movie trailer for the upcoming George Lucas movie Star Wars: The Clone Wars, which is an animated film that takes place between the second and third movies. The movie trailer, which can be seen below, looks more like an unofficial teaser trailer, as it really is just a montage of scenes and special effects without any kind of storytelling narrative, setup or exposition. The trailer also ends on a cheesy note, which makes me think that this video is not intended to be any kind of official preview (plus it lacks credits and MPAA approval).

Anyway, I have no clue what to make of this new Star Wars movie. It’s going to be challenging watching a feature-length Star Wars movie as a cartoon, no matter how good the visuals are. The action will probably be pretty engaging as Lucas has always been good at drawing his audiences into battle sequences, but the movie is really going to struggle when the characters are on the screen and talking. The actual human characters are cartoons originally intended for the small screen - they certainly aren’t up to Pixar standards, and that’s a problem. Will I be able to get past the poor facial features and focus on the story? I don’t know.

Ultimately, I am 50/50 on the movie. Part of me is excited that another Star Wars movie is coming out, but part of me wishes that the movie just remain a TV pilot. If the prequel movies didn’t ruin the Star Wars experience for you, a theatrical cartoon version might. While I have to assume that this movie will make a decent amount of money, I have to wonder how many people will actually go see it. The casual viewer is not going to be so thrilled to go watch a cheesy Star Wars cartoon; it’s going to be for die hards only.

Only time will tell… Until then, here’s the Star Wars “movie trailer:”

I’m sorry, but does Speed Racer look like one of the worst movies ever conceived to you? Every time I see a trailer or a commercial or an email or an article about the movie, I cringe. Those poor saps who work at the movie theaters where the commercials are playing on the overhead TVs day in and day out must be on the verge of suicide.

Speed Racer just looks dreadful. I’m no box office expert, and as such I’m not entirely good at predicting how well films will make, but I will be shocked if this film is profitable. I will be highly disappointed if the movie doesn’t flop miserably, though I am trying to not say “shocked” for that result as well. After all, the American public is an unpredictable bunch and can be duped into going to see some pretty bad movies - and I, among them, will certainly go see this picture just to see how God-awful it really is. Still, even with my hesitations that this movie could make some decent money, I will still be pretty surprised if there is a large group of people out there who are eagerly awaiting this film. The special effects look dreadful, the action no better than that from a cheap cartoon and the acting lackluster at best (despite featuring a talented cast).

I’m really starting to think that the Wachowski Brothers are one-hit wonders. The Matrix was phenomenal and trend-setting. The Matrix Reloaded, while overall pretty decent, wasn’t anything great. The Matrix Revolution was plain-out bad at times. And now Speed Racer???

Please tell me if you actually think Speed Racer looks good, and why? Without even seeing this movie I want it to flop so badly, and I have this tingling feeling in my gut that suggests it may actually do so.