This Is A Thing That Exists!: Manborg

I think this movie just ejaculated into my brain...

So I just watched Manborg, a super low budget sci-fi action masterpiece from a small film making collective out of Canada called Astron 6. I'd never heard of them up until now, but apparently they are mostly known for short films and have some affiliation with Troma, a movie canon with which I am woefully inexperienced given my tastes for schlock. If Wikipedia is to be believed (as it always should be) the film cost merely $1000 Canadian dollars to make, and to say that this fact blows my mind is the greatest understatement in the history of mind blowing. Manborg is as awesome a movie as I could ever conceive, as if the producers somehow crept into my brain Inception style, pulled out everything I've ever wanted to see in a movie, and just made all of it, all at once. It left me breathlessly fist pumping into the air from beginning to end, and all I can say now after I've watched it is that this, is a thing, that exists!

Fuck yes it does. And we are all better for it.

The Idiot Box: Doctor Who 7x12 - “Nightmare In Silver” Review

I've been pretty harsh on Doctor Who lately, though not undeservedly so. This past season has easily been the worst of the new series, and while the last few episodes have seen a bit of an uptick in quality of late, that is only relative to just how bad the first two thirds of the season have been, and not representative of the kind of quality we were used to seeing before this year. The weird thing is, based on the reviews I've read at least, it seems like this slide into mediocrity has gone largely unnoticed or unacknowledged. That is, until now, with the latest Neil Gaiman penned Cybermen story Nightmare In Silver being met with the kind of mixed reaction that Dinosaurs on a Spaceship and A Town Called Mercy by all rights should have gotten, but strangely didn't.

The Cinema File #176: "Lobos De Arga (AKA Attack of the Werewolves)" Review

I rarely see or review that many foreign films outside of the occasional Kung Fu or Superhero movie, but after watching the disappointingly bland Love Bite, I needed a good werewolf movie to cleanse my palette, and since I decided to do an impromptu trilogy of classic movie monster movies, I figured now was the perfect time to try again. Lobos Del Arga, a Spanish horror comedy called Attack Of The Werewolves (or Game of Werewolves) in America, was the first one I found, and one that I had heard good things about, so I decided to give it a shot. While its by no means a classic of the genre, I was mostly satisfied with the result, my admittedly low expectations easily met.

The Idiot Box: Hannibal 1x07 - “Sorbet” Review

Lastweek, I lamented the fact that despite this show's low ratings, my growing ambivalence had left me unable to muster up the appropriate level of worry or outrage over its likely cancellation. Now that NBC has pretty much cancelled every other show it airs except this one and perhaps even more remarkably the now terrible Community, that cancellation seems less certain, which is good, because this week's episode has served to brighten my spirits a bit, maybe even enough that I might have been sad to see it go.

From The Idea Hole: How I Would Make The Reboot (Trilogy) Of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Recently, I read an article online that mentioned how William Fichtner, a character actor I almost always enjoy (most recently in the absurdest indie comedy Wrong), had been cast in the new Michael Bay produced live action re-launch of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise. Up to this point, I was not aware that this film was still in production, as the last thing I had heard about it was that it had been postponed indefinitely as a result of the collective Internet pants wetting over the whole Teenage Mutant Alien Turtles non-controversy. On the second episode of my podcast I'm on record expressing my exasperation with the misplaced nerd rage of last year, and on this very blog I've talked about my general ambivalence concerning the original cartoon. Still, this news of the film's continued existence got me thinking about how I would do it myself, and here's what I came up with.

The Cinema File #175: "The Frankenstein Theory" Review

This is the first of a loose and most likely out of sequence trilogy of movie reviews focusing on recent films based on or inspired by classic Universal horror monsters, something I decided to do after recently being so disappointed by the vampire comedy Vamp U. To kick off this mini-series, I figured I might as well start with the one featuring my personal favorite movie monster, Frankenstein, which is to say the monster named Frankenstein, not the doctor named Dr. Frankenstein. Yeah, I still hate that nerdy debate. Anyway, the movie is called The Frankenstein Theory, a unique twist on the found footage format that might be the first mostly traditional example of the genre that I have actually enjoyed.

The Cinema File #174: "Battle Dogs" Review

Holy crap, it happened again!

I don't know if I've just been out of the loop recently and these Syfy Channel Original movies have gotten markedly better since I gave up hope on ever seeing a truly great one, or if I've just only ever watched the terrible to mediocre end of the spectrum, but I was certainly not expecting to hit on two awesome examples from this network right in a row. Like Tasmanian Devils, Battle Dogs is a movie that embraces the insane awesomeness and awesome insanity of its premise and uses its extremely limited budget to create something wild and wonderful as only The Asylum can. The title and the CGI may be terrible, but that's about it on the list of cons, and the other 90% of it is solid action sci fi cheesy gold.