Anarchy at the Movies: Fright Night

The first good horror remake in...um, has there been one?

"Ghost Rider 2" trailer

You cannot tell me you don't wanna see a movie about Nicolas Cage PISSING FIRE.



I gotta admit I was excited when I heard that the duo of Mark Neveldine & Brian Taylor were directing this thing. The first Ghost Rider film was a mixed bag, it coupled a great lead (as well as some brief but great turns by Sam Elliot and Peter Fonda) with terrible villains and mediocre direction. So basically this new one is keeping what worked and ditching what didn't, which is exactly how one should approach a sequel.

The thing about Ghost Rider is that even the first one was probably way better than the character deserved. Ghost Rider's really had nothing more than a massively badass look to go on since day one, because his actual character was an after thought. They just had this cool design and needed something to do with it (if memory serves he was originally going to be a Daredevil villain). So when there's really nothing more to your movie's hero beyond having a flaming skull for a head, the kind of go-for-broke insanity that Neveldine & Taylor bring to their work is probably the best way to go.

It is kind of disappointing that Peter Fonda isn't returning as the Devil, but on the plus side Christopher Lambert is apparently playing a sword-wielding monk. Holy Christ, if he plays this role with the sly sense of humor he did Raiden, this will be priceless.

Movie Review: Super

There's a new genre of film emerging, so new it doesn't even have a name yet. "Realistic Superhero Movies", "Hipster Superhero Movies", "Indie Superhero Movies", whatever name we eventually settle on, this genre has already established its own formulas and clichés, despite there being only four entries so far, give or take a few. Super is the latest of these entries, and while it is one of better ones, it also does absolutely nothing new.

The End of the Secret Six

"Good don't last. But messed up, that goes on forever."
-Deadshot, Secret Six #36

Today, the final issue of one of the greatest comic book series of the last five years at least was released. If you haven't been following Secret Six (like you SHOULD be!) it's appeal can be a little hard to describe. Gail Simone's writing style while working on this book tends to be equal parts Joss Whedon & Quentin Tarantino: All of Whedon's clever witicisms and endearing character development combined with Tarantino's sudden, brutal violence and dark sense of humor.

"Battleship" trailer...no, really

So apparently the very idea of making a movie out of a board game wasn't enough stupid for them. They had to throw in the Decepticons.

This honestly could not look more like fail if it tried. Sure we already knew that a Battleship movie would have next to nothing in common with the actual game aside from the title and involving battleships in some way. After all the game has no recognizable story or characters for them to adapt. At least Candyland has characters and locations and could conceivably be made into a Hanzel & Gretel-meets-Alice in Wonderland style kids movie. But a Battleship movie would presumably just be a generic Naval war film.

But NO. They couldn't stop there. A well-known brand name alone does not a blockbuster make. And so we get this utterly blatant attempt to ape the Transformers movies. Seriously, you could rewrite the title card to say "Transformers 4" and you wouldn't notice anything amiss.

Oh, and they don't show her in the trailer, but Rihanna is in this. Yup. She's making her cinematic debut. Joy. Look I know a pop star turning out to be a good actress isn't unheard of, but for every Justin Timberlake there are dozens of Britney Spears's (and yes, she had a stab at an acting career).

You know, whenever people hear about things like this: remakes, adaptions, etc. they always say Hollwood is out of ideas. Not true. Hollywood is swimming in good ideas. They're just running out of marketable ideas, or at least they think they are. There are tons of comic books and novels begging for a movie, tons of enterprising young filmmakers with great scripts and ideas. But nobody's ever heard of them. And I think that's what pisses me off about this the most. Sure we could make great movies out of Hawkman, the Suicide Squad, the Spectre, hell, even Ragman would make a pretty awesome flick! Oh, but those things are only popular with a niche audience. But everybody's played Battleship! Sure it has no plot and people will make fun, but who cares, it's brand recognition! Guaranteed box office hit! Greenlight that shit!

Anarchy at the Movies: Captain America: The First Avenger

Joshua the Anarchist reviews the best movie of the Summer.

Your Daily Dose of Awesome

OK, I still have zero hope that the Spider-man reboot will be anything more than bland and unnecessary. But this...well played, Mr. Garfield.