Freddy's Nightmares (1988-1990) - Guest Article

Hey, guys.  Its an honor to have my next guest stop in to slide us a piece for the Freddy Retrospective.  His name is Cullen and he's one of co-hosts of the deviously funny podcast A TOUCH OF CRASS.  Most importantly, he's one of my longest and very best friends in both the conscious and dream world.  In my dreams, this guy is both beautiful and bad.  In college, I would join in on his "7 Nights Of Freddy" marathon he would put on at his apartment every fall.  So, there was no question he'd be contributing to this.  You can find their podcast by going to their website (its also on iTunes and Stitcher), and follow them and Cullen on Twitter; @mynameiscullen and @ATouchOfCrass respectively.  

David Fincher Retrospective: The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button (2008)

The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button

2008

Director:  David Fincher

Starring:  Brade Pitt, Cate Blanchett, Taraji P Henson, Julia Ormand, Jason Flemyng, Elias Koteas, Tilda Swinton, Jared Harris, Elle Fanning

Rated:  PG-13

Me and Jenny goes together like peas and carrots

                   ~Forrest Gump

David Fincher Retrospective: Fight Club (1999)

Fight Club

1999

Director:  David Fincher

Starring:  Edward Norton, Brad Pitt, Helena Bonham Carter, Meat Loaf, Jared Leto, Zach Grenier

Rated:  R

It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything.

                        ~Tyler Durden

David Fincher Retrospective: Seven (1995)

Seven

1995

Director: David Fincher

Starring:  Morgan Freeman, Brad Pitt, Gwenyth Paltrow, R Lee Ermey, Richard Roundtree,

Rated:  R

Ernest Hemingway once wrote, "The world is a fine place and worth fighting for."  I agree with the second part.

                     ~Detective William Sommerset

The Favorite Films Of My Lifetime: 2011

This was the year that was supposed to just be the summer to get through in order to get to summer 2012 which was supposed to be the real big deal.  Well, summer 2011 turned out to be pretty great in the big time pictures department while 2012 wound up severely lacking.  The awful Green Lantern aside, Summer 2011 had some great superhero pictures to boot.  This was an Academy Awards year that disappointed plenty of people and many didn't care for the "cute" movie winning Best Picture.  Still a more impressive movie than King's Speech (ok, ok, I'm done harping on that haha).  I had an absolutely horrible time trying to cut this damn thing to 6.  I had a hard enough time getting it to 10 prior to that.  When I had it to 8, every movie was passing my relevancy to myself test that I've been using when decision making.  What makes it equally hard is that we're not that far removed from this particular year and have a passage of time that may make these cuts harder.

The Favorite Films Of My Lifetime: 2009

Well this is the year they expanded the Best Picture category and it already seemed like there were too many movies and movies that you kinda think were good...but Best Picture?  Oh well.  Glancing across the year I noticed that this was a really good year with me and horror's relationship.  We actually rekindled greatly with a certain film that will appear on this list.  When I had my big list that I had to cut down, a lot of it was horror movies.  I know I'm already a blowhard for the genre to begin with, but this a year that maybe restored my love for it.

The Favorite Films Of My Lifetime: 1999

If you didn't have the word "The" in your title you were by default the winner of the 1999 Academy Awards.  This was an interesting year where my list is probably the most "pop friendly" of any of them so far.  At least to me.  This year is also notable as it contained what I consider the worst film I've ever plopped down money to see in a theater.  I'm speaking of Wing Commander.  A film my friends and I went to ONLY to see the trailer for The Phantom Menace.  See, back in the day you HAD to go to the theater to see the new trailers.  They weren't online weeks before they finally showed up on the silver screen.  They even turned the house lights back on after the trailer so people could leave if they wanted to.  We should have left.  After the movie, we all realized we wanted to ask the others if they wanted to leave, but were afraid someone might have been enjoying themselves.

The Favorite Films Of My Lifetime: 1995

Let's talk about one big one that's gonna surprise you that's not on the list.  That's The Usual Suspects.  I had the ending ruined for me before I ever that one, so I never got that awesome "shock" on the first view that got people to love the movie.  I went over to a friend's house and he had to show me this part of this movie that blew his mind...guess what...it was the damn ending to The Usual Suspects.  Shitty, right?  Well, we can't win them all.  Also, Michael Mann's Heat isn't on here as I like the movie, have watched it once or twice but I'm not crazy about it.  This list, though is full of stuff I loved.  Its also noteworthy, Puff, that this year is when the horror genre was pretty much going on a lifeline.  We'll discuss that more next time.

My 2013: The 5 Films That Surprised Me

In this look back, I'm focusing on 5 films that pleasantly surprised me this year.  These are films that for all intents and purposes looked bad from the trailers, had production problems, had people behind or in front of the camera I usually don't like...whatever the case may be...I was really surprised to find when these films came out, and I saw them on my own accord or was recommended them by a peer, and really enjoyed them and was pretty surprised that I'd qualify them as good/great/enjoyable.  And I'm well aware I just wrote the run-on sentence to end all run-on sentences just now.  I'm presenting them in no preferential order, just alphabetical.

Poster For WORLD WAR Z Has Brad Pitt Overlooking Fallout Of Zombie Apocalypse

Here's a new one-sheet for this summer's zombie epic WORLD WAR Z that dropped today.  While the poster doesn't showcase any sort of zombies themselves, their havoc can be seen from above.  The poster definitely evokes the scale this movie is going to have.  This is the biggest, most expensive zombie movie ever made, yet has been riddled with well publicized production troubles.  The fear we have, is that the film will turn out to be one big giant mess.  But, you never know, the suits or whoever decided to go and reshoot things might have done the correct thing.  My new worry is the likely to be PG-13 bloodless zombie film we will be partaking in.  In the era of THE WALKING DEAD being the most popular show on cable television, people have become used to brain splattering and limbs being torn off on weekly basis.  This might be "wimpy" for people who aren't even gore hounds.  But, if the film manages some great action sequences and suspenseful situations wrapped up in a decent narrative it shouldn't matter.


WORLD WAR Z opens June 21 in 2D, 3D and IMAX 3D


Brandon