Well that's about it. Not much more to say. It would also be a moot point for me to wish anyone a Happy New Year because no one could have had one worse than mine. It was, in a word, "dredge." Is that even a word?
My January day one wasn't much better. Eight and a half hours of non stop customer service, and I came home to find that I missed one of my all time favorite motion pictures; Them!
If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it. James Arness and James Whitmore fighting giant, mutated ants.
Simply bad-ass.
So I missed it, save the last five minutes. Life is such a tease. Right now I'm watching Basil Rathbone play Sherlock Holmes in a film called Terror by Night. Don't you wish you lived my life?
It's not all that bad, actually. In fact, if you were me, you would be posting cool sh*t from the 80's like this live performance of Mexican Radio from Wall of Voodoo -
Admit it; there are times when the Turzman most definitely rules.
Gold-digging hussie REDSEXGODDESS says, "If you rule so much, why did you stop giving me money? Did you forget that if you give me money, I take my clothes off?"
The impatient ghost of Robert Shaw says, "If that bloody video is any indication of what music was like in the 80's, I'm glad I died before having to live through such rubbish."
Hey, I could have posted something from A Flock of Seagulls. But even I have standards in times of desperation.
Yes Man (2008) starring Jim Carrey, Zooey Deschanel, Bradley Cooper, Rhys Darby, Terrence Stamp written by Nicholas Stoller, Jarrad Paul, Andrew Mogul based on the book by Danny Wallace directed by Peyton Reed
It’s truly a sad time when one can go to a movie theater in 2008, see Terrence Stamp onscreen, utter the phrase “Kneel before Zod!” and have no one around you get the reference (I swear, kids today have no idea what they’re missing). I experienced this dejection first-hand when I saw Stamp in a supporting role in the Jim Carrey vehicle, Yes Man. I saw Stamp and sprouted the Zod line to no audience reaction save a chuckle from my friend Zuke (and I’m not convinced she wasn’t just being polite. Thanks, Zuke. Love you.). Aside from that, my experience with Yes Man was quite enjoyable.
Yes Man is a comedy in the vein of Liar, Liar and Bruce Almighty; a ridiculous concept played for laughs without going over the top into the realm of slapstick. It’s not as funny or cleverly written as Liar, but it’s not as dopey as Bruce. Most importantly, it returns Carrey to his more familiar (and favorable) comedic talents. Let’s face it, after Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, I figured he would avoid drama. Then I saw The Number 23. I’m still scratching my head.
Anyway, Carl Allen, (Carrey) is a lonely loan officer with an insufferably friendly boss, Norman (Rhys Darby). Carl is a recluse who spends his evenings with rentals from Blockbuster, despite the continuous invitations to hang out from his buddies (Bradley Cooper & Danny Masterson). Why is Carl so lonely and reclusive? Because he still hasn’t gotten over his three year old divorce from Stephanie (Molly Sims).
Carl coincidentally stumbles across long lost friend Nick (John Michael Higgins) who convinces him to attend a “Just Say Yes” type of self-help seminar presided over by “Just Say Yes” self-help guru, Terrence Bundley (General Zod. Oops, I mean, Stamp). In a nutshell, Carl is convinced that the key to ending his depression is to trust the positive powers of saying “yes” and must do so to any proposition, no matter what the proposition is. Silly and fanciful? Oh hell, yes. As is evidenced in his first test where a homeless bum asks him to a) give him a ride to a place WAY out of the way, and b) use his cell phone to the point where the battery dies. Carl reluctantly says, you guessed it, “yes.”
The chain of events resulting in saying yes leads Carl to meet Allison (Zooey Deschanel), the script’s obligatory love interest. This spot of good fortune leads Carl to believe in the power of “yes,” and decides to do it more often. The results are, in a word, funny. Carl is enjoying life more than he ever did before, and he rides the “yes” wave until it crashes at the start of the third act. Well of course the good luck runs out. You know what they say about “all good things,” don’t you? Besides, conflict between boy and girl is as obligatory as a love interest in a story like this.
Said conflict is as ludicrous and unbelievable a plot device as I’ve ever seen, but not as much as the premise of the story to begin with, so it’s completely acceptable for the purposes of the comedy.
As for the comedy, if Jim Carrey ain’t your bag, than neither is Yes Man, for all the comedy in the film stems from Carrey’s Carl Allen. However, the supporting players feed off Carrey to the letter, and the laughs are genuine. Deschanel is nothing special, but considering it took a team of three screenwriters (Nicholas Stoller, Jarrad Paul & Andrew Mogul) to convert Danny Wallace’s book to screenplay, I can surmise that the bulk of rewrites were to change the character of Allison to better suit the limited talent of Deschanel after she was cast. They succeed to a degree, but it’s still Zooey Deschanel, and her signature cute, left of center quirkiness gets old about midway through the second act.
Peyton Reed directs Carrey as well as anyone else has. And when I say “direct,” I mean let Carrey use the script as inspiration for his improvisations. It works, but I reiterate, Jim Carrey is an acquired taste. So if you’re avoiding this movie simply because of who has top billing, fine. Just wait three years for Yes Man to be on cable TV. There’s not too much cursing, so you won’t lose much in translation, save for annoying commercial breaks. Then get back to me.
Amity Island Harbor Master Frank Silva says, "I can understand why Turz didn't appreciate Number 23 or Spotless Mind. They're artsy-fartsy films for a more sophisticated crowd. Like harbor masters, dock workers and trash collectors."
Here is one of the coolest live performances youTube has in its brain-dead collective. Jenny Says from Cowboy Mouth-
Embrace of the Vampire (1995) starring Alyssa Milano, Martin Kemp, Harold Pruett, Rachel True written by Nicole Coady, Rick Bitzelberger and Halle Eaton directed by Anne Goursaud
All this talk of Twilight lately has left a bad taste in my mouth. Quite frankly, the Vampire genre disgusts me right now. In an attempt to rekindle my appreciation for Bloodsuckers, I sought comfort from the erotic side of the fang. I rented two classics and one not-so-classic that promised hot, naked vamps engaging in (mostly) lesbian sex. The problem with horror-erotica is, the erotica almost always takes a back seat to the horror, and I find nothing sexy about gore. Historically, the vampire genre has been able to mix the two effectively, because of all that romanticism associated with the tragedy in being a vampire. But there is more than a fine line between a trickle of blood dripping slowly down past the bosom of a beautiful damsel, and smearing blood all over the place like a kindergarten finger-painting session. I might be the minority here, but I have a hard time maintaining wood when I see a lot of blood.
The three flicks I watched were, 1970’s Vampyros Lesbos (which made no sense), 1974’s Vampyres (aka Dracula’s Daughters, which made even less sense) and 1994’s Embrace of the Vampire. It is the latter that chose discretion as the better part of valor with blood spillage and the one I chose to review, despite the other two being considered classics in three separate sub-genres, uniformly (Vampires, Erotica and 70’s Exploitation Cinema). Ironically, it’s also the worst of the bunch.
Embrace is essentially a watered-down retelling of Bram Stoker’s epic. A man (Martin Kemp) is forced to abandon his love for a princess (Rebecca Ferratti) after he’s turned into a vampire by three naked, nymph-like woodland bloodsuckers as he sleeps in the forest (?). Our poor tragic figure (who never gets named, by the way) aimlessly wanders the planet miserably for hundreds of years until he stumbles across what he believes to be the reincarnated soul of his princess in virginal, college freshman Charlotte (Alyssa Milano). So Mr. Vampire spends the bulk of the film trying to create distrust between Charlotte and her horny but patient boyfriend, Chris (Harold Pruett) so they’ll break up and Charlotte will willingly give up her cherry to the vamp. And that’s about it. Sound familiar?
Embrace is not the typical erotica illustration, so maybe it’s not fair to lump it with those other films, but Embrace of the Vampire does offer one unique element that I wish more films would implement; Alyssa Milano nekkid. Quite often, in fact, thus fulfilling a fantasy I’ve had since the early 1980’s. Now that that’s out of my system, on with the review.
Not that there’s much to say except, this movie stinks. The main plot is as simple as stated above, and Milano is unconvincing as a sainty, “I won’t screw till I’m married” type of girl. The outfit is stereotypical, with knee high socks, conservative sweater, and cross on a necklace. The only thing missing is a rosary. Milano just doesn’t sell it. I suppose one can argue she’s been typecast, I mean has she played anything close to innocent since Who’s the Boss? Nothing comes to mind.
The biggest disappointment in this film is the titular fang-face. To be blunt, Martin Kemp plays the most uninteresting, uninspiring vampire I’ve ever seen. For a guy who’s finally found his long lost love after a few centuries, his attempts to bag her can best be described as “lazy.” He doesn’t do anything to so much as seduce or trick Charlotte as he does to simply annoy the piss out of her. When she’s asleep, Mr. Vampire comes in, strips her and begins to rape her until she wakes, where he disappears, leading her to believe she was dreaming. And when she’s awake, he’ll just show up and start talking. When she responds, he disappears just in time for others around to turn, see her talking out loud, and wonder who the hell she’s talking to. Real smooth you undead shithead.
To round up the rest of the players, Chris the boyfriend is a poorly written moron, and Charlotte’s two best girlfriends are stereotypes stolen verbatim from a thousand other scripts; the good friend (Rachel True) and the bitchy friend (Jordan Ladd). The subplot involving a photographer (Charlotte Lewis) who entices Charlotte into lesbian experimentation (just like all cross-bearing, knee-bending, God-fearing, Jesus-freaky saints are prone to do) makes absolutely no sense. It contradicts the character the film makers are purporting Charlotte to be and serves little purpose other than padding out the run time to a tortoise-like 93 minutes and excuses Alyssa Milano to take her top off again (yay!).
Now, because it’s mildly important, I take this time to mention that Embrace of the Vampire was written by Nicole Coady, Rick Bitzelberger and Halle Eaton, and directed by Anne Goursaud.
Who?
Exactly.
Guardian of the Universe Gamera says, "At least this movie has a true vampire, unlike Dracula's Daughters where the ladies are not only NOT related to Dracula, but are not even vampires. They're just ghosts that haunt a particular castle and like to drink blood."
Gold-digging hussie REDSEXGODDESS says, "So what if Alyssa Milano takes her clothes off? I'll take my clothes off if you give me some money."
And on a completely unrelated note, enjoy Billy Joel performing "I Go to Extremes" LIVE from Yankee Stadium.
And from the Girls I really really wanna have sex with, but who wouldn't files, Kyla Cole.
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Great news, everyone. "On a Dark and Stormy Night" finally has a premiere date. No shit this time, either. I'm told this is set in stone. Thursday, January 29, 7:00 pm. The Krikorian Theater, Redlands, CA.
I know a lot of you wanted to come to the premiere when it was supposed to be last April, so I'm putting this out there for anyone still interested.
Tickets must be purchased through the director, Ezequiel. Cost is general admission. ($9.00) Just type "Stormy Premiere" in the heading so he knows you're not spam. Tell him Turzman sent ya the invite. Here's his e-mail addy-
San_Diablo@sbcglobal.net
"this first screening only holds 120 asses. so get your tix now! and don't forget to visit www.OnADarkAndStormyNightMovie.com "
The impatient ghost of Robert Shaw says, "Last April? What the hell was the bloody delay? Did your shark not work, either?"
