Retro Review: "Dark Skies"

Ah, cable TV. Where box-office failures appear first.

I'm not sure why last year's alien abduction movie Dark Skies bombed. It's not particularly bad (though it does have it's moments). I managed to catch it on cable today and was mostly entertained and mildly creeped out.

Lacy Barret (Keri Russel) and her husband Daniel (Josh Hamilton) are a typical suburban couple, struggling to get by. Daniel is a currently unemployed architect, while Lacy is a realtor in a depressed market. When their youngest son Sammy (Kadan Rocket) starts to have nightmares about the 'Sandman,' odd things begin to happen. There's the Poltergeist-like configuration of canned and boxed goods in the kitchen which appears in the middle of the night; the disappearance of all of the family photos and the 3 separate flocks of birds that commit suicide by dive-bombing their house. Then there are the apparent sleepwalking episodes experienced by most of the family. And let's not forget their 12 year old's obsession with porn and an older, bad-influence friend.

Director Scott Stewart (of the almost good Legion and the terrible Priest) manages to get some excellent performances from his cast (particularly the youngsters), but his screenplay leaves much to be desired. As the weird events build, we are treated to some truly creepy moments. But once J.K.Simmons is introduced as an "Alien Abduction Expert," all bets are off. We've seen this story before, but done better.

Dark Skies has some truly creepy moments and occasionally effective SFX, despite being a Conspiracy Theorist's wet dream. And while this subject has been explored before in both better (Close Encounters of the Third Kind) and worse (The Fourth Kind) films, I still managed to enjoy it, despite it's rather obvious denouement. If you have 97 minutes to kill, there are probably worse things on which you could waste your time. ** (Two out of Four Stars)

 Dark Skies is not a terrible genre movie, even if it crosses genre tropes.

More, anon.
Prospero

Indie Horrors I Can't Wait to See

Bad Milo

Okay - back to the usual nonsense, eh? There are two indie horror movies (via) coming out soon (one a comedy, the other decidedly not a comedy) that Uncle P is pumped to see.

The first is Bad Milo from director and co-writer Jacob Vaughn. Ken Marino (about to be seen in the stoner comedy We're the Millers) plays Ken, a guy who thinks his stomach problems are caused by stress. Unfortunately, it turns out that Ken has a demon living in his intestines. A demon who is intent on killing the people causing Ken's stress. The amazing cast includes Patrick Warburton ("The Tick;" "Family Guy;" "Rules of Engagement"); Peter Stormare (Fargo; The Brothers Grimm; "Prison Break"); Gillian Jacobs ("Community"); Stephen Root ("News Radio;" O Brother Where Art Thou; "Boardwalk Empire") and Mary Kay Place ("Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman;" The Big Chill; "Big Love"). Talk about a dream cast! Bad Milo is certainly not a movie for everyone, but it is right up Uncle P's alley (you should excuse the expression) and I especially love the use of practical effects, harkening bad to the days of 80's indie horror movies like Basket Case. Here's the NSFW Red Band trailer:

Bad Milo will be available OnDemand starting August 29th and in limited release in theaters on October 4th. Bad Milo is being released by Magnet Films, the same company that gave us the sentient tire movie, Rubber.

Meanwhile, premiering at the Toronto Independent Film Festival, September 5th through the 14th,  Almost Human will almost certainly provide fewer laughs than Bad Milo. 

Mark (Josh Ethier) disappears into a bright light. Two years later, a string of grisly murders convinces his friend Seth (Graham Skipper) that Mark has come back, albeit with something... not quite right inside him. Shot in New Hampshire with a cast of unknowns, the trailer for Almost Human looks like it might be the trailer for the next "X-Files" movie as made by Sean S. Cunningham:

No U.S. release date has been announced for Almost Human, but I'll be sure to let you know when it is.

More, anon.
Prospero

The Weirdest Nonsense You'll See This Week, Among Other Things

Lots of good things going on this weekend, including the fact that I will be able to audition for a show in which I very much want to take part (my upcoming Day Job trip to the City on the Lake is the same weekend as regular auditions and the producers have graciously agreed to see me early. Yay!) Last night I had a great time at the movies with a friend and while today saw the usual Sunday tasks, none of them were particularly stressful and I got to enjoy plenty of time to decompress. So even though it is the end of the weekend, I'm still in a really good mood.

Of course, there's almost nothing that puts me in a better mood than a bit of good, old-fashioned nonsense. And it just so happens that Jonco, over at Bits And Pieces shared plenty of nonsense today, and I wanted to share some of it with you. 

First is something called "Face Folding" The Daily Dot (I've never heard of it, either) says 'Face Folding Turns Every Movie Into a Horror.' Honestly, I'm not sure I agree with that, especially when they use clips from Sci-Fi and Fantasy films and manipulate actors' voices to illustrate their point. The effect is sometimes creepy, but more often just... Extraterrestrial.

And there's this delightfully hilarious bit of editing nonsense that had Uncle P quite literally LOL'ing more than once. Enjoy:

It was the IRL QWOP clip (link has NSFW language) that got me started giggling uncontrollably. The rest was just more fuel for the fire.

In "Only in America" News: The County Fair at the Sonoma-Marin Fairgrounds in Petaluma, California held it's annual World's Ugliest Dog Contest. Beagle/Boxer Winner Walle gets his owner $1500.00 and national TV appearances. I guess it's a good thing that these poor doggies have no idea they're ugly.

Finally, among other things and on an only semi-nonsensical point, if you're a regular then you know the only Reality/Talent show I watch is AGT (a guilty pleasure, to be sure). Well, for the first time in a very long time, I have an early favorite. Kenichi Ebina is a rather amazing dancer and I can see him moving on to the finals (though not sure this early that he can win - no dancers ever have).

Hoping your week stays silly (in the good way, of course). I, for one, will be seeking a shrubbery. A nice one with a path down the middle so you get a lovely two-level effect (ooh - what a give-away!).


More, anon.
Prospero

PS - I love how meta this post turned out, even if it's only meta to me.

TV Review: "American Horror Story: Asylum - Madness Ends"

Yeah, What Pepper Said.

Season 2 of Ryan Murphy's and Brad Falchuck's mini-series/anthology hybrid "American Horror Story: Asylum" ended last night with an episode titled Madness Ends. Last week's episode, Continuum, started to tie up the loose ends and seemed rather sedate, given the deliberately disturbing and off-putting story of lunacy, aliens, Nazi experiments, demonic possession and crushing guilt.

Unlike Season 1, which pretty much revolved around 6 or so central characters and a modest supporting cast; "Asylum," while having many more supporting characters with their own subplots, was ultimately about three people: Sister Jude (the incomparable Jessica Lange); Kit Walker (Evan Peters, finally coming into his own) and Lana Winters (Sarah Paulson in a true Tour-de-Force performance that deserves as much recognition as Lange's).  And the writing this season was even better than last. There were so many things going both in and out Briacliff, none of it should have made any sense or fit together at all, but it did and it shows that taking time to develop a story-line all the way through before writing a single episode is the way to go. And the season finale was no exception to the rest of the season, which truly surprised me by wringing more than a tear or two out of jaded old Uncle P's eyes. No matter how awful things had been or how badly they had treated one another, we came to care about these three people and we wanted to know what happened to them.  

Madness Ends starts in the present as an aging and now very famous Lana gives a rather intimate interview on the eve of receiving a Kennedy Center Honor. As Lana tells the truth about everything, flashbacks filled in the details of what happened after Kit found the supposedly dead Jude at Briarcliff. And even if not every question was answered (why did the aliens want Kit and what did his children do to calm Jude's damaged sanity in the woods?), their stories ended quite appropriately, if - in at least one case - a bit predictably. 

I didn't know how they were going to top Season 1 and now have no idea what to expect from the already announced Season 3. I have no doubt that Murphy and Falchuck have finally found a show that may be able to maintain it's momentum by introducing a new story each season, using a rotating ensemble of astoundingly talented actors and a team of insane writers with only their imaginations to limit them. Don't be surprised if other networks copy FX's 'long format mini-series' (have Murphy and Falchuk created "Repertory Television?") approach used on other genres. Of course, the 'Big 4' won't be able to be nearly as edgy or experimental as FX can.

Bizarre; creepy; ironic; blasphemous; outrageous; sexy; gross; shocking; horrific and so very over-the-top, but always so very effective, Asylum set a new bar which I can't wait to see raised in Season 3. American Horror Story is a must see for fans of Horror and terrific acting & writing. **** (Four Out of Four Stars).

More, anon.
Prospero

TV Review: "Falling Skies"

TNT takes a chance on a genre that failed for both ABC ("V") and NBC ("The Event") and climbs aboard the Alien Invasion bandwagon with the Steven Spielberg produced "Falling Skies," starring "E.R." alum Noah Wyle and Moon Bloodgood ("Day Break").

Starting six months after the initial invasion, "Falling Skies" is the story of a rag-tag band of resistance fighters and civilians in Massachusetts. Wyle is Professor Tom Mason, who specializes in military history. He and his sons Hal (Drew Roy) and Matt (Maxim Knight) have joined the resistance after losing Tom's wife and son Ben (Connor Jessup). Bloodgood is the group's medic, a pediatrician called on to perform duties for which she was never trained. Character actors Bruce Gray; Will Patton; Mpho Koaho and Dale Dye head up the supporting men, while Jessy Schram; Sarah Carter and Seychelle Gabriel provide for the damsels in distress who don't need rescuing.

The aliens (so far) fall into 2 categories: the six-limbed 'Skitters' and the robotic 'Mechs.' Using what the humans call 'harnesses,' the Skitters have enslaved the captured children (including Ben), using them to harvest scrap metal to build gigantic structures of unknown purpose.

I really want to like "Falling Skies." While hardly an original concept (see Battle: L.A. and Skyline, most recently), it has so far offered up some compelling, if cliched, characters doing their best to survive amidst the worst possible of circumstances. Of course, if you want a better written, acted and produced version of that story, I recommend AMC's far superior "The Walking Dead," which has zombies in place of the aliens. And speaking of aliens, the thing "Falling Skies" fails most at is the monsters. The Skitters are simply smaller versions of the alien in Super 8 and the Mechs look like they were ripped off from Star Wars. And I won't even get into the scene previewed in next week's episode which is right out of Roland Emmerich's Independence Day. 

While "Falling Skies" is (mostly) well-acted, its marginal production values and unoriginal concepts (Invaders from Mars; The Puppetmasters; ID4)  keep it from being the series it should be, especially given its Spielbergian pedigree. I'll keep watching (mostly because summer TV offers few original alternatives) and hoping it gets better. But unless it improves greatly over the next few episodes, I have little hope that "Falling Skies" will last beyond a single season. *1/2 (One and a Half Stars Out of Four). 

More, anon.
Prospero

Invasion of the Bad Invasion Movies

That's ruggedly handsome Aaron Eckhardt in Battle: Los Angeles, which looks, despite a critical drubbing, to be the top-grosser this weekend.

Seriously, what's the deal with Aaron and his face? Is it in his contract that every fourth role has to include facial disfigurement?

I am saddened that the movie hasn't fared well with critics. I was hoping that after the flop made by last year's similarly themed Skyline that Battle: Los Angeles would be the movie that cleansed our palates, so to speak. 

Of course, Skyline  and Battle: Los Angeles aren't the only recent alien invasion movies to blow it. Most recently, Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig starred in a new version of Invasion of the Body Sntachers, simply titled The Invasion, which stank to high heaven:

And our old buddy M. Night gave us the almost good Signs, a movie with some terrific performances from both Joaquin Phoenix and (as much as it pains me to say it) Mel Gibson. While I have to admire Shyamalan for getting those performances out his actors, his script leaves much to be desired. Aliens can traverse millions of light years, but can't figure out doorknobs? And aliens who are easily killed by water, try to conquer a planet that is 90% water... ? Please...

Let's not forget everyone's favorite Vatican Assassin, Charlie Sheen as an astrophysicist in 1996's The Arrival, in which reversed-kneed aliens are trying to bio-engineer Earth to suit their own climate needs:

If you've seen an of these movies, then you know what I'm talking about.

So Uncle P got to thinking (always a dangerous thing), "What would make for a truly good alien invasion movie?" And I think I might have an idea... But I need your help. After talking about doing so for so long, I'm finally trying a poll. Now bear in mind: I am 2/3 of the way through a new zombie script on which I seem to have stalled (at least temporarily) and I have a bunch of ideas for other scripts on what I call The List. So I guess I'm asking, what should I work on next?

   

I look forward to the results.

More, anon.
Prospero

Alien Hand Syndrome?

A dearth of anything truly interesting to say combined with a particularly nasty bout of Seasonal Affective Disorder have left your Uncle P in a rather dour mood of late.

I'm still keeping my Dream Journal though, and hope that my most recent bizarro dream about Alien Hands (don't ask, just yet) will result in another full-fledged screenplay, though I have to wonder where that particular scenario might lead. The dream itself involved dismembered alien hands that turned into feet which grew legs that developed into a torso... And no, I didn't eat anything strange, spicy or greasy before bed last night. I'd detail the entire dream here, but I don't want to risk your thinking I'm completely insane (as if you don't already think that, anyway).

I am still feeling rather trapped by snow (and not at all happy to hear that another major storm may be headed our way this coming week), despite having done some grocery shopping today (parking was a literal nightmare, thanks to the 8+ feet high piles of snow in the stores' parking lots). Give me a day or so to cope and I'll be back to my usual shenanigans. Or not.

In the meantime, I encourage the less squeamish among you to check out Bugcrush, a short, gay-themed horror film from 2006. Suggested by J.A. at My New Plaid Pants and posted on Post-Mortem Depression, this short (31 minutes) but effective film captures gay teen angst in a way that few modern filmmakers have been been to do. It's also probably NSFW.

Bear with me. Spring is just around the corner. 

More, anon.
Prospro

The Bat-Sh*t Craziest Thing You'll See This Week

Did you know that our World Leaders are really part of a Reptilian and Draconian conspiracy to enslave the Human Race and take over Earth for their own nefarious purposes?  Neither did I. I mean, I thought that ABC's "V" was Science Fiction. Turns out, it's all true. How do I know? Because of people like Colleen Thomas, who in the first video below, has a perfectly rational explanation for the "mysterious" rocket plume seen in southern California, yesterday. 

I came across the video this morning on BoingBoing, and at first found it hilarious. Then I watched it twice more and suddenly found it sad and disturbing. Watch for yourself, and we'll discuss, afterward:

Colleen seems perfectly calm and rational at first (despite the leopard-print jacket and over-processed hair  color). And while she remains calm, all rationally flies out the window as she talks about the Plieadeans stopping the UN from trying to bomb Iran from Los Angeles. How the reporter on the other end of the phone kept from laughing hysterically, is beyond me. Perhaps he or she was just as fascinated/appalled as I am.

Sadly, Colleen is not alone in her delusions. There are plenty of people who believe this kind of nonsense. David Icke is one of the more popular proponents of these wacko conspiracy theories. Here's one his videos:

Icke has written best-selling books and speaks all over the world, spouting his bizarre message to anyone who will listen. What's scary to me is that people like Icke and Thomas are now on the Internet, spreading their mental disease to those fragile people out there who are more than willing to believe them. 

A few years ago, the CBS procedural "C.S.I." had a storyline that dealt with this very subject, and I honestly thought they'd made the whole thing up:

Art imitates life? Maybe. But when the life being imitated is so scarily effed up, it must make one take pause. Believers say these reptilian invaders are all around us, and have assumed positions of political power world-wide. Really? I mean, really? (OK - maybe that last link is right on the money). Still, when "hundreds of thousands of people" think that space geckos are plotting to annihilate the human race in 2012, it may well be time to prepare hundreds of thousands of padded cells. Or call in the space mongooses.

Until such a time, stay vigilant and keep your small pets away from your local council members:

 

More, anon.
Prospero

Pareidolia Strikes Again

Ah, pareidolia! Like persistence of vision, the phenomena that allows us to perceive movement while viewing a rapid series of still images (that would be movies, folks), pareidolia allows us to perceive common images in mundane objects. Scientists think this may very well be hard-wired into our brains; akin to the same sort of thing that allows infants to recognize their mother's faces. Well, the British newspaper The Daily Mail has posted new images from the Mars Rover which many have come to interpret as an "alien skull." See for yourselves:

I don't know... looks like a rock to me. Maybe if you squint hard and use your imaginations.

I watched part of a documentary on the Discovery channel the other day, which said that Hitler was working on creating "flying saucers" because the allies were bombing German runways into extinction and he wanted to develop vertical lift aircraft which didn't require runways. The program seemed to imply that the rash of UFO sightings (starting with the 1946 incident at Roswell and continuing to today), were the result of US Military tests, led by defected Nazi scientists who went on to develop aircraft for the U.S. Of course, this just made me think of my post on the film Iron Sky, in which Nazi's who've spent the last 70 years on the Moon, return to Earth in another attempt to take over the world.

Fun, fun, fun. I love this kind of stuff.

And how about you, dear readers? Have you ever seen a UFO? Been abducted? Been probed? Do you have weird metal implants in the back of your neck? Has a "Grey" spoken to you using only his (its) mind? Does Christopher Walken visit you at night?

Your comments are always welcome. Just know that comments to this post won't be moderated until I get back from vacation on May 11th.

More, anon.

Prospero