Happy Birthday Nolan Ryan!

Friday Night Videos- A Good Day To Die Hard

Movie Poster Wednesday- Death Wish

RIP Michael Winner.

My Favorite Deli

When Chuck...

Gives you the middle finger he is telling you how many seconds you have left to live.

Thanks Twisted Root!

Friday Night Videos- Bullet to the Head TV Spot

Movie Poster Wednesday- Big Trouble in Little China

Happy Birthday John Carpenter

Birthday wishes to one of my favorite directors.  John Carpenter got started in the 70s as film director, screenwriter, producer, editor and composer.  Carpenter won an Oscar for his short film The Resurrection of Bronco Billy and went on from to have one the best runs a movie director has ever had in the action, sci-fi, and horror genres.

Already having established himself with cult movies Dark Star and Assault on Precinct 13 Carpenter was approached by some producers about wanting to do a low budget horror movie.  Carpenter along with his then  writing partner, the late Debra Hill, went on to create one of the best horror movie icons of all time with Michael Myers in Halloween.  The horror classic was a massive hit becoming at that time the highest grossing independent movie of all time.    All involved went on to great careers but it was Carpenter’s crafty directing and eerie musical score that made this movie the classic it is.  Many imitators followed but this was the original that started it all.

Carpenter stayed with horror on his next film The Fog but then wanted to do some action and made the classic Escape from New York.  The studio kept forcing different lead actors from Charles Bronson to Tommy Lee Jones but Carpenter stayed tough and got Kurt Russell to get the part.  Russell was still known as the Disney kid and was trying to put that behind him after an injury derailed his professional baseball career as he was getting back in to acting.  With Escape this started a collaboration in the actor-director partnership in the likes of Wayne and Ford.   Russell and Carpenter went on to do three more films together including a sequel to the very successful, critically and financially, Escape from New York.

Carpenter then went horror-sci-fi with his next film in the remake of The Thing from Another World simply known as The Thing.    Again Kurt Russell starred with a great cast of men in Antarctica that have come in contact with a being from another planet.  This movie bombed at the box office and critical reception was warm at best.  Since then the movie has claimed cult status and is recognized as one of the great horror movies of all time along with Halloween putting Carpenter in some pretty elite company.

Carpenter went on to have a great decade in the 80s with films like Starman, Prince of Darkness, They Live, and another movie with Russell, the wildly entertaining Big Trouble in Little China.  In the 90s he did the comedy Memoirs of an Invisible Man, In the Mouth of Madness, Children of the Damned, Vampires, and the sequel Escape from LA.  The 00s brought Ghost of Mars and some TV work but Carpenter mostly sat and accepted checks for all the remakes being done on his old movies. 

 

2012 saw the return of Carpenter as he got back behind the camera for the horror flick The Ward. It garnered mediocre response, had a hard time finding a distributor and went straight to video.  There have been rumors of his next project but nothing concrete so sit back and wait for what will hopefully be the return of the great director John Carpenter.  I sure would like to see him do a Western.

New Release Tuesday

I hear this is practically a carbon copy of the original but I am okay with that.  Good action movie leads to another.  Somebody gets taken and action man Liam gets to kick some more butt.  Sounds good to me!

This horror movie is receiving some love so I may have to check this out.

Remember to watch Justified tonight!

Best Buy Trade and Save

Best Buy is a dying dinosaur that did not keep up with the times but they do have deals from time to time.  As a collector I like to take advantage of the their trade and save deal.  Trade in any DVD and save $5 on any blu ray over $9.99.  It's a nice way to upgrade or build your blu ray collection. They have many great blus for $5 after trade in.  The deal is valid thru February 2nd.

Older Movies on the Big Screen Wishlist

Revival house or repertory cinema is not that big in the Dallas area and the few theaters that serve this function are in the shady part of town so yours truly chooses not to go to them. That and they start at midnight.  My kids do not care how late I stayed up the night before I have to be up early.  I will probably give in when an old movie on my big screen wishlist makes it to town.  Something like Dirty Harry, any of the Dollar trilogy, Classic Bonds, and Escape from New York will get me to go.

I did get to cross off one movie on my big screen wish list this past week.  Cinemark theaters has been doing a Classic series for the past few months and 1976's Best Picture Rocky was showing this week.  Look around the blog and you will see there is some love for Stallone on here.  I was not introduced to Rocky Balboa until 1982's Rocky III.  I had to catch up with with Rocky previous chapters on VHS.

I showed up thirty minutes early for the show not knowing what kind of crowd to expect.  It had been raining for about twenty four hours straight and it was cold outside so it was quite funny when I walked into an empty theater by myself.  Slowly before showtime a nice size crowd did fill the theater.  I was reminded this past summer when I saw The Avengers on the big screen opening night just how fun watching a movie with a crowd is. 

Watching Rocky with a crowd was no exception as the funny parts of the movie seemed that much better compared to sitting in my living room for the umpteenth viewing.  The part that really got to me and always does was the end.  The fight is over and Rocky accomplished his goal of going the distance with the champ.  Who won the fight is not known yet, it was that close so the judges are tallying their score cards.  Rocky is looking around for his girlfriend Adrian to share the moment. When she is able to get in the ring she tells him she loves him for the first time.  At that moment Rocky does not care who won the fight.  He is the champ not matter what.  Queue the music.

Do you have any movies on your big screen wish list?

Friday Night Videos-Bates Motel

Starts in March!

Movie Poster Wednesday- John Dies at the End

New Release Tuesday

I have got 3 weeks of catching up to do here.  I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and a beginning of a Happy New Year!  Here we go with the newest to oldest:

I have read nothing but love for this movie and too bad it bombed at the box office.  This is a much more true rendition of Dredd compared to the Stallone version.  This Dredd keeps his helmet on and it comes with a bunch of action and violence!

Tim Burton re-imagines his original Frankenweenie and brings it to animated goodness!

TV's funniest animated show and maybe just TV's funniest show over all.  Think James Bond meets the office and it makes for a great sitcom.  Look forward to checking out the episode where Archer meets his hero, Burt Reynolds.

There is a lot of love going around for this movie so a blind buy seemed appropriate here.  Joseph Gordon-Levitt is a hot commodity right now and better yet Bruce Willis has been brought back to some relevance here.  I love a good time travel movie and Bruno has already made a good one with 12 Monkeys.

FX's Justified had a tremendous second season with a great bad guy so season three of the show went with many bad guys to take on United States Marshal Raylan Givens.  Timothy Olyphant plays one cool cat in this modern day Western and always manages to stay one step ahead of the bad guys.  I also have to mention the fantastic work of Walter Groggins here as Boyd Crowder, Raylan's old friend and closest enemy.  Highly recommended.

Totally unnecessary!  So bad they even had to bring back the three boobed girl to try to save this thing.

Always nice to see Clint back in front of the camera.  Clint plays an aging baseball scout that is losing his eye sight and needs the help of his daughter, the always cute Amy Adams.  This is a good flick and think of it as the anti-Moneyball movie.  This even has some nice work from Boyband Timberlake in it.

Director William Friedkin (The Exorcist, The French Connection) has crafted one heck of a movie here.  This is a real seedy black comedy that takes place in Austin as a family hires a hitman to kill their Mom/ex-wife for the insurance money.  Great cast here too with McConaughey, Gina Gerson, and Thomas Haden Church!  A real nice surprise here.

Justiifed Season 4 Premeire-Tonight!!!

You'd be justified in watching Justified tonight.

Rocky on the Big Screen

Cinemark Theaters has been running a Classic Series of movies lately and they finally hit on one that has been on my big screen wishlist for awhile.  1976 Best Picture Rocky will be playing tomorrow night and Harry will be there.  The first Rocky movie I saw in the theater was part 3 so I have been looking forward to this for a long time.  This is such an uplifting movie and is one of my favorites.  Yo Adrain!

Friday Night Videos- Archer Promo