CategoryStreaming TV
Horror and thriller series on Netflix, Shudder, Max and more: new seasons, premiere dates and the shows worth bingeing after dark.
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HalloweenIndieMoviesProductReviewsStreaming TV
The Remake The road to the remake is a winding one. There is no clear pathway toward the answer of whether they are good or bad, needed or unwanted. They exist. They will continue to be made because there is demand. My previous article opened with a quote from George Bush’s post 9-11 speech which hinted at “living life” is a series of consuming events that follow an image that has been dictated to us by a media assault that has shaped us since birth. So what does that have to do with filmmaking and entertainment? Does art imitate life or the other way around? Why is Disney the Mecca of family vacations? Who said women are to look a certain way, smoking is glamorous, drinking a soda makes you like Michael Jackson or Beyonce? We have a new generation growing up with incredible access to entertainment. Cell phones, tablets, video game systems and computers allow instant access to everything,
Continue reading →
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Go Shopping A persistent misconception immediately after the 911 attacks in 2001 is that President George W. Bush urged Americans “to go shopping.” This was not the case. Over the years it’s been simplified into that message. In reality The President said this, “It’s to tell the traveling public: Get on board. Do your business around the country. Fly and enjoy America’s great destination spots. Get down to Disney World in Florida. Take your families and enjoy life, the way we want it to be enjoyed.” George Bush, White House Archives Not once was the word “shop” or any form of it used. This is not a political defense. Rather, something in that speech to a shocked nation did stand out to me, and can be applied to the entertainment industry. While we were not directly urged to “go shopping” the simplistic picture of consumerism congruent to the picture of American life was apparent. We have accepted an image of
Continue reading →
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Dino! “When Jaws die, nobody cry . When my Kong die, everybody cry.” – Dino DeLaurentiis, producer Younger viewers have almost no idea who legendary producer Dino DeLaurentiis was. Some saw him as the Italian forerunner of Michael Bay; creator of expensive, big budget, soulless films followed by similar producers like Alexander and Ilya Salkind, Peter Guber and Jon Peters, Jerry Bruckheimer as well as Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich. DeLaurentiis said this about his humble beginnings in film: “After the war, there was no industry. We lost the war. We had our whole city destroyed. No money. No studio. No film. No camera. No equipment. We would shoot in the street. We had no actors. Nothing. But we wanted to do movies. And we did the best movies in the world. If you lived in a provincial town like Torre Annunziata, where there was nothing to do in the evening but go to the movies with your friends, the
Continue reading →
MoviesStreaming TV
The sixth season of The Walking Dead is only months away (October) and someone has come up with a viral campaign that started on Twitter. Hordes of people tied to The Walking Dead have been receiving strange packages containing pieces of of paper, letters in blood, damaged Polaroid pictures, locks of hair, keys and other strange objects, all shipped from Woodbury. That’s right, Woodbury. The pictures are being shared with the hash tag #PackageFromWoodbury. What does this mean? Now a phone number, 912-307-3075, is being shared on Twitter, believed to be for Fear the Walking Dead .When the number is called a changing prerecorded message is played. The first message: “The following message is transmitted at the request of the National Emergency Hotline. An unknown event is underway across the Eastern United States. Residents of Florida, South Carolina and Georgia are instructed to shelter in place, turn off the lights, lock all doors and remain quiet for their own safety.
Continue reading →
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Go Go Godzilla “We spared no expense.” – Sir Richard Attenborough, Jurassic Park Rumors circulated Hollywood since the early 1990’s of an American Godzilla movie. Writers and directors left the project and by 1996, Toho and Sony/Tri Star came to terms and the producing team of Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich were anointed to bring a full fledged American Godzilla film to the US masses. He would attack New York City; it would boast a big name cast and incorporate state of the art visual effects. There would be no man in a giant rubber suit in this film since Jurassic Park raised the bar for giant reptilian creatures. Toho Knew In the wake of the successful 2014 reboot (which had its own issues), it seems like a cheap shot to take yet another swipe at the much maligned (and deservedly so) 1998 mess. This time it’s to see how this film fits the Cynema paradigm. It’s not Godzilla, it
Continue reading →
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A Valentine To Old School Horror Remaking a film falls under the old adage: “Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should.” Netflix reviews or more accurately, article comments are dotted with such phrases like: “the film is old” or “it’s dated.” Better yet, “it’s foreign.” All three signify a concern in American pop culture: a fixation on the superficial and a refusal to give anything deemed “old” a chance, largely by a generation that prides itself on ignorance and is unappreciative for the previous work done by others that affords it the indifference it treats anything deemed unworthy of its attention. Horror is a breeding ground for remakes, but the focus of this article will be the 1985 horror hit “Fright Night.” The recent 3D remake of yet another 80’s horror film underscores not just the needless exercise in remaking films, but shows that audiences have become truly cynical in the product they pay for. There is
Continue reading →
BooksHalloweenIndieMoviesParanormalReviewsStreaming TVTrailers
Gather Round Your TV Sets, Kids “You don’t really know much about Halloween.” – Conal Cochran Oh, You Mean THAT Halloween Movie… It’s the one without Michael Myers. It has nothing to do with the other movies. This one sucks. Right? Well you’re right on two counts. Halloween III: Season of the Witch does not have Michael Myers. It is not connected in any way to the Jamie Lee Curtis storyline started with the 1978 John Carpenter classic and most importantly, it was never meant to. Halloween III is as misunderstood as it is reviled with most of the hostility for the film attributed to the concept of Cynema. “When the [ Halloween II ] script came in I thought it was…the anti-Halloween. All the things that Halloween did so well…had been tossed out the window…I understood that in the intervening time between the first movie and what was going to be the second movie that times had changed, audiences
Continue reading →
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Third Time’s A Charm Hey, weren’t you in Jaws 3? Why do they make shit like that?” — Fan to Dennis Quaid, star of Jaws 3D I’m going to say that while Jaws 3 is a bad film, it is not totally Cynema. The third shark film was planned as a spoof called Jaws 3, People 0. A script written by National Lampoon’s Vacation Matty Simmons and 16 Candles, Breakfast Club teen king John Hughes exists online. It was to be directed by Jaws ripoff artist Joe Dante of the cult film Piranha (remade as the fun Piranha 3D. How things have come full circle). When the producers of Jaws and Jaws 2, Richard Zanuck and David Brown were approached by Universal to produce a spoof as a third installment, they declined. “It would have been like fouling your own nest,” Brown said. Universal went forward anyway. According to the Jaws 3D.com blog, director Joe Alves revealed how he came
Continue reading →
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A Picture is Worth A Thousand Reviews The picture above is a series of stills from the ending of “Jaws The Revenge.” People rip on Ed Wood’s hubcaps and pie tin flying saucer’s in his “Plan 9 From Outer Space.” However, Wood had about 200 bucks for his effects budget. “Jaws The Revenge” had about six million and you get what’s in that picture? Cynema: The cynical contempt for an audience in the making of product that is devoid of creativity, passion, production value or respect while having the financial and creative means to do better. This Time It’s Ridiculous…Imagine you are sitting in an office at Universal Studios. You approve film projects pitched to you. Here’s the challenge. Without any knowledge of the previous Jaws films, someone pitches you the plot for a fourth installment to the famous shark series. Would you or wouldn’t you give 20 million dollars to make this movie? Here’s the pitch: “We get Lorraine
Continue reading →
BooksDocumentariesHalloweenIndieMoviesProductReviewsStreaming TVTrue Story
No Respect Apparently Michael Medved, the respected film critic gets the credit with dubbing Edward Wood, Jr. the “worst director of all time” by referring to Wood’s crowning film achievement, Plan Nine From Outer Space as perhaps the worst motion picture ever made. This is not only to come to the late Mr. Wood’s defense, but to also show how off the mark Mr. Medved was in his 1980 book The Golden Turkey Awards. Wood is the antithesis of Cynema–his passion and love for film makes him one of Hollywood’s greatest directors. Say what you want about Plan Nine, Bride of the Monster or Glen or Glenda…bad films, yes. Bad directing, absolutely. However Ed Wood was not a cynic. This column will show why films like Jaws The Revenge, Godzilla 1998 and other big budget films are far worse than anything Ed Wood ever put out, including Plan 9. By many accounts, including his own, Plan 9 From Outer Space
Continue reading →
More from Streaming TV
HalloweenIndieMoviesProductReviewsStreaming TV
The Remake The road to the remake is a winding one. There is no clear pathway toward the answer of whether they are good or bad, needed or unwanted. They exist. They will continue to be made because there is demand. My previous article opened with a quote from George Bush’s post 9-11 speech which hinted at “living life” is a series of consuming events that follow an image that has been dictated to us by a media assault that has shaped us since birth. So what does that have to do with filmmaking and entertainment? Does art imitate life or the other way around? Why is Disney the Mecca of family vacations? Who said women are to look a certain way, smoking is glamorous, drinking a soda makes you like Michael Jackson or Beyonce? We have a new generation growing up with incredible access to entertainment. Cell phones, tablets, video game systems and computers allow instant access to everything,
Continue reading →
BooksDocumentariesEventsHalloweenIndieMoviesReviewsStreaming TV
Go Shopping A persistent misconception immediately after the 911 attacks in 2001 is that President George W. Bush urged Americans “to go shopping.” This was not the case. Over the years it’s been simplified into that message. In reality The President said this, “It’s to tell the traveling public: Get on board. Do your business around the country. Fly and enjoy America’s great destination spots. Get down to Disney World in Florida. Take your families and enjoy life, the way we want it to be enjoyed.” George Bush, White House Archives Not once was the word “shop” or any form of it used. This is not a political defense. Rather, something in that speech to a shocked nation did stand out to me, and can be applied to the entertainment industry. While we were not directly urged to “go shopping” the simplistic picture of consumerism congruent to the picture of American life was apparent. We have accepted an image of
Continue reading →
HalloweenInterviewsMoviesProductReviewsStreaming TVTrailers
Dino! “When Jaws die, nobody cry . When my Kong die, everybody cry.” – Dino DeLaurentiis, producer Younger viewers have almost no idea who legendary producer Dino DeLaurentiis was. Some saw him as the Italian forerunner of Michael Bay; creator of expensive, big budget, soulless films followed by similar producers like Alexander and Ilya Salkind, Peter Guber and Jon Peters, Jerry Bruckheimer as well as Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich. DeLaurentiis said this about his humble beginnings in film: “After the war, there was no industry. We lost the war. We had our whole city destroyed. No money. No studio. No film. No camera. No equipment. We would shoot in the street. We had no actors. Nothing. But we wanted to do movies. And we did the best movies in the world. If you lived in a provincial town like Torre Annunziata, where there was nothing to do in the evening but go to the movies with your friends, the
Continue reading →
MoviesStreaming TV
The sixth season of The Walking Dead is only months away (October) and someone has come up with a viral campaign that started on Twitter. Hordes of people tied to The Walking Dead have been receiving strange packages containing pieces of of paper, letters in blood, damaged Polaroid pictures, locks of hair, keys and other strange objects, all shipped from Woodbury. That’s right, Woodbury. The pictures are being shared with the hash tag #PackageFromWoodbury. What does this mean? Now a phone number, 912-307-3075, is being shared on Twitter, believed to be for Fear the Walking Dead .When the number is called a changing prerecorded message is played. The first message: “The following message is transmitted at the request of the National Emergency Hotline. An unknown event is underway across the Eastern United States. Residents of Florida, South Carolina and Georgia are instructed to shelter in place, turn off the lights, lock all doors and remain quiet for their own safety.
Continue reading →
IndieInterviewsMoviesProductReviewsStreaming TV
Go Go Godzilla “We spared no expense.” – Sir Richard Attenborough, Jurassic Park Rumors circulated Hollywood since the early 1990’s of an American Godzilla movie. Writers and directors left the project and by 1996, Toho and Sony/Tri Star came to terms and the producing team of Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich were anointed to bring a full fledged American Godzilla film to the US masses. He would attack New York City; it would boast a big name cast and incorporate state of the art visual effects. There would be no man in a giant rubber suit in this film since Jurassic Park raised the bar for giant reptilian creatures. Toho Knew In the wake of the successful 2014 reboot (which had its own issues), it seems like a cheap shot to take yet another swipe at the much maligned (and deservedly so) 1998 mess. This time it’s to see how this film fits the Cynema paradigm. It’s not Godzilla, it
Continue reading →
BooksHalloweenIndieMoviesReviewsStreaming TV
A Valentine To Old School Horror Remaking a film falls under the old adage: “Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should.” Netflix reviews or more accurately, article comments are dotted with such phrases like: “the film is old” or “it’s dated.” Better yet, “it’s foreign.” All three signify a concern in American pop culture: a fixation on the superficial and a refusal to give anything deemed “old” a chance, largely by a generation that prides itself on ignorance and is unappreciative for the previous work done by others that affords it the indifference it treats anything deemed unworthy of its attention. Horror is a breeding ground for remakes, but the focus of this article will be the 1985 horror hit “Fright Night.” The recent 3D remake of yet another 80’s horror film underscores not just the needless exercise in remaking films, but shows that audiences have become truly cynical in the product they pay for. There is
Continue reading →
BooksHalloweenIndieMoviesParanormalReviewsStreaming TVTrailers
Gather Round Your TV Sets, Kids “You don’t really know much about Halloween.” – Conal Cochran Oh, You Mean THAT Halloween Movie… It’s the one without Michael Myers. It has nothing to do with the other movies. This one sucks. Right? Well you’re right on two counts. Halloween III: Season of the Witch does not have Michael Myers. It is not connected in any way to the Jamie Lee Curtis storyline started with the 1978 John Carpenter classic and most importantly, it was never meant to. Halloween III is as misunderstood as it is reviled with most of the hostility for the film attributed to the concept of Cynema. “When the [ Halloween II ] script came in I thought it was…the anti-Halloween. All the things that Halloween did so well…had been tossed out the window…I understood that in the intervening time between the first movie and what was going to be the second movie that times had changed, audiences
Continue reading →
EventsIndieMoviesReviewsStreaming TV
Third Time’s A Charm Hey, weren’t you in Jaws 3? Why do they make shit like that?” — Fan to Dennis Quaid, star of Jaws 3D I’m going to say that while Jaws 3 is a bad film, it is not totally Cynema. The third shark film was planned as a spoof called Jaws 3, People 0. A script written by National Lampoon’s Vacation Matty Simmons and 16 Candles, Breakfast Club teen king John Hughes exists online. It was to be directed by Jaws ripoff artist Joe Dante of the cult film Piranha (remade as the fun Piranha 3D. How things have come full circle). When the producers of Jaws and Jaws 2, Richard Zanuck and David Brown were approached by Universal to produce a spoof as a third installment, they declined. “It would have been like fouling your own nest,” Brown said. Universal went forward anyway. According to the Jaws 3D.com blog, director Joe Alves revealed how he came
Continue reading →
BooksInterviewsMoviesProductReviewsStreaming TVTrailers
A Picture is Worth A Thousand Reviews The picture above is a series of stills from the ending of “Jaws The Revenge.” People rip on Ed Wood’s hubcaps and pie tin flying saucer’s in his “Plan 9 From Outer Space.” However, Wood had about 200 bucks for his effects budget. “Jaws The Revenge” had about six million and you get what’s in that picture? Cynema: The cynical contempt for an audience in the making of product that is devoid of creativity, passion, production value or respect while having the financial and creative means to do better. This Time It’s Ridiculous…Imagine you are sitting in an office at Universal Studios. You approve film projects pitched to you. Here’s the challenge. Without any knowledge of the previous Jaws films, someone pitches you the plot for a fourth installment to the famous shark series. Would you or wouldn’t you give 20 million dollars to make this movie? Here’s the pitch: “We get Lorraine
Continue reading →
BooksDocumentariesHalloweenIndieMoviesProductReviewsStreaming TVTrue Story
No Respect Apparently Michael Medved, the respected film critic gets the credit with dubbing Edward Wood, Jr. the “worst director of all time” by referring to Wood’s crowning film achievement, Plan Nine From Outer Space as perhaps the worst motion picture ever made. This is not only to come to the late Mr. Wood’s defense, but to also show how off the mark Mr. Medved was in his 1980 book The Golden Turkey Awards. Wood is the antithesis of Cynema–his passion and love for film makes him one of Hollywood’s greatest directors. Say what you want about Plan Nine, Bride of the Monster or Glen or Glenda…bad films, yes. Bad directing, absolutely. However Ed Wood was not a cynic. This column will show why films like Jaws The Revenge, Godzilla 1998 and other big budget films are far worse than anything Ed Wood ever put out, including Plan 9. By many accounts, including his own, Plan 9 From Outer Space
Continue reading →
