Oh, good grief. The Prestige is in IMDb’s top 250 movies? It’s so bad, I’m actually going to say something nice about Christopher Nolan in a second here. I’ve never heard of source novelist Christopher Priest and no one I know has ever mentioned him to me, so I’m guessing he’s pretty godawful, which probably means the atrocious, idiotic plotting of The Prestige isn’t Nolan’s fault. The terrible writing of the scenes, well, that defect is surely Nolan & Co.‘s, since it’s a stable of all hi... Read Full Story

ALL NEW. From the people who brought you “An Alan Smithee Podcast”…More of the night WE came home and watched horror movies for Halloween. This week we observe a couple of strict disciplinarians doing their thing in their own special ways. The original The Stepfather has finally come out on special edition DVD and even if titular star Terry O’Quinn would now prefer to be known for Lost, his performance as “Scary Jerry” the bad stepdad will live in infamy. He might’ve had to carry the whole m... Read Full Story

Hellraiser III is one of the first “horror” movies I’ve seen where they seemed concerned with action figure tie-ins, with the Cenobites having gimmicks (they shoot CDs, blow fire and so on). It’s also one of those absurd movies set in New York but clearly filmed somewhere else, in this case North Carolina. It gets more absurd than some, with protagonist Terry Farrell driving an SUV around “New York.” There also aren’t any black people in Hickox’s New York (well, there was one), so it’s kind o... Read Full Story

So, Hellbound is a British production, but it dubs over the British cops (who are dressed like American cops and carry guns and don’t know how to use them–because they’re British?) with American accents. It’s a lame decision and one of the few gaffs in the film not related to the story itself. Even with Christopher Young’s really overbearing score, the film’s at least somewhat successful, if only because half of it plays a little like Tron in hell. It also features a decently plotted story th... Read Full Story

So they take Bruce Willis and de-age him, but then they put Rosamund Pike in old age make-up? That one doesn’t make much sense. Surrogates is another modern future concept movie–like iRobot or Minority Report–the future comes crashing down because of the movie star hero, there’s some kind of conspiracy involving the new technology, on and on it goes. Surrogates has a lot of potential, but it’s like Mostow doesn’t get it–they can throw people around and have them break, they can have this exte... Read Full Story

This week on An Alan Smithee Podcast we celebrate Halloween with the first of two all-horror episodes! Our good movie is Night Of The Demon, released in 1957. Most film buffs will remember director Jacques Tourneur as the man behind noir classics such as Out Of The Past, most HORROR buffs will know him as one of the men behind RKO producer Val Lewton’s series of moody, subtle and atmospheric horror films of the 1940s. Tourneur directed such classic titles as Cat People and I Walked With A Zom... Read Full Story

Want to see an amazing, can’t-believe-I-haven’t-heard-of-him performance by Eion Bailey? See Mindhunters. Want to see a goofy, affable Val Kilmer performance (maybe the first of its kind since Real Genius)? See Mindhunters. Want to see Christian Slater’s possibly best performance since Pump Up the Volume? See Mindhunters. Want to see a terrible Jonny Lee Miller performance, where he tries a Southern accent? Mindhunters. Or LL Cool J totally failing in a major role (since he established himsel... Read Full Story

There are a couple good things about Commando–the opening titles and James Horner’s score. Otherwise, I suppose Schwarzenegger isn’t bad in the film, which takes his being Austrian into account, something the majority of his blockbuster roles do not. What’s interesting about the film–and it’s hard to find anything to keep the brain occupied for the long ninety minutes–is the structure. It’s got three writers credited with the story but all it is, in the end, is a film noir mixed with some Ram... Read Full Story

MP3 DOWNLOAD RIGHT CLICK SAVE AS iTUNES LINK CLICK HERE This week on An Alan Smithee Podcast, we witness Antonioni’s jaunt through hipster London of the swingin’ 60s for a day in the life of a man turning obsessive in Blowup. So much is seen and not heard in this film about photography that a roving car of mimes — easily the scariest image in any movie we’ve seen yet — bookends the story. Look for The Yardbirds amidst dolly birds like Vanessa Redgrave and you’ll have to bring your own meanin... Read Full Story

So, Hellraiser is supposed to be scary, right? Because it seems like a poorly directed, completely illogical (if a wall split open in front of you, would you walk into it?) mess. It’s only ninety-four minutes, including credits, but it’s this exceptionally boring “scary” movie. The scariest thing in the movie might be the off-screen clean-up of the maggot-infested kitchen. It’s the scariest idea in the movie, anyway. Someone, somewhere, has got to have come up with a theory about Hellraiser’s... Read Full Story