Oh Jeez, now JAMIE KENNEDY doesn't like me...

Sad but true: Apparently actor/comedian Jamie Kennedy, who is almost precisely my age, hails from a Philadelphia suburb where I spent most of my high school weekends, and seems like a guy I'd definitely get along with on a social level if we were both famous or both nobodies, officially hates me. Here's what I've gathered so far:

Tonight a documentary called Heckler played at the Tribeca Film Festival. How do I know this? Because I've just received a handful of emails from my NY-based colleagues, all of whom found it very amusing that Jamie Kennedy trashes one of my reviews in the film. (Apparently the movie is about how comics deal with hecklers, but is also about how comic actors deal with online film critics.) I've not yet seen the movie, but from what I've been told Mr. Kennedy reads through my entire review of a lame-ass movie called Stricken, mentions me by name, and then says "eFilmCritic ... whatever that is." (Keep in mind the movie he's talking about is called Stricken ... whatever that is.)

By the way, eFilmCritic (along with its sister website, Hollywood Bitchslap) is a pretty popular movie review site that's been going strong for the better part of a decade now. We actually have the largest collection of original movie reviews on the internet, and our readers include famous folks like Jamie Kennedy. Having said that, can we forgo the "whatever that is" bullshit already? It's not my fault if the only reviews you read come from your local paper or Variety.

But it's all good. Obviously as a film critic I can't be a whining hypocrite and not weather the storm when a little criticism is flung my way. (For the record, go find a copy of Stricken and tell me I'm wrong about the movie.) Although I wouldn't have minded defending my criticisms (as several critics in the film were asked to do), I honestly have no problem with Jamie Kennedy bashing my work in his new movie, because lord knows I've spent plenty of time bashing Kennedy in my movie reviews...

Wait a sec. That's not true at all. Just a few searches through my old reviews yield the following opinions:

From my (positive) review of Malibu's Most Wanted: "Jamie Kennedy has proven he can be a damn funny guy. Somehow wresting the Scream spotlight from the frothing lunatic that is Matthew Lillard and capably presenting a consistently amusing TV series, it's clear that Jamie has some solid comedy chops."

From my (negative) review of Stricken: "The only cast member worthy of note (and probably the only reason this movie from 1998 is just now receiving a video release) is Jamie Kennedy, star of Scream and the surprisingly funny TV show The Jamie Kennedy Experiment."

From my (very negative) review of Son of the Mask: "What's saddest about the whole obnoxious affair is that lead actor Jamie Kennedy seems to be trying really hard. It's like watching a guy on the Titanic trying to save the ship using only a sponge and a bucket."

From my (very negative) review of Kickin' It Old Skool, which I wrote less than 24 hours ago: "Truth be told, I held a small semblance of positivity as I walked into Kickin' It Old Skool, as I find that Jamie Kennedy can (on occasion and usually in small doses) be a pretty funny guy."

Somehow I doubt any of these things are mentioned in Heckler, because criticizing your critics is good juicy fun, but acknowledging a compliment, well, that's just boring. I'm wondering what sort of insight will be attached to the dissection of my Stricken review, but my advice to Mr. Kennedy or anyone who is very sensitive to stinging criticisms is this: Stop making movies this awful. I'd love to sit down and watch Kickin' It Old Skool with Jamie Kennedy, a bong, and a pizza. He seems like a pretty smart guy, so there's literally no way he could look me in the eye and say it's a good movie. Even on a "guilty pleasure" level, the thing's about as base and amateurish as a movie can possibly be.

Anyway, here's the official Heckler website. Check out the trailer and tell me if you think it's a little bit funny that they use a positive blurb from The NY Sun ("whatever that is") in an effort to sell their movie to an audience. See, this is what I call hypocrisy. What is it? If some writer admires Son of the Mask, they're OK, but if they trash it then that writer is some virgin loser who lives in his mother's basement? If I see Heckler and sincerely enjoy it, than I'm a professional writer who's both intelligent and insightful. If I see Heckler and think it stinks, then I'm a pathetic dork who knows nothing. Sorry, doesn't wash.

Despite the fact that I'm criticized in the film for daring to share my own opinion about a bad movie, I hold no ill will towards Heckler. (I'm told it's a pretty fun movie.) I'm just hoping it offers more insights than the generally-offered retorts, both of which are specious at best and insipid at worst. One is "I'm right and you're wrong because I'm rich and semi-famous while you are poor and anonymous." The other is "Oh, you dorky movie critics are nothing but failed filmmakers." I've had both of these responses thrown at me from several actors and filmmakers over the years, and both statements pretty much signal the end of the conversation. For the record, 1. "Yes, you're rich and semi-famous and I am poor and anonymous, so why do you even care what I have to say?," and 2. "I know a lot of film critics, and as far as I can tell, none of them are failed filmmakers. They're professional writers who have an insatiable appetite for movies." Which explains why they walk into Kickin' It Old Skool hoping to say nice things and walk out both disappointed and nauseous.

I'll be back with an update once I actually see all of Heckler for myself. I feel shitty even talking about a movie I haven't seen yet, frankly.

Philly Style Flick Fest

Been a while since I posted, but last week was pretty darn hectic, work-wise, and I can prove it right here. The Philadelphia Film Festival was the first fest to invite me in as "official" press and therefore I like to give it some coverage every year. Obviously I focus mainly on the genre stuff, which is great because this year's "Danger After Dark" line-up was the best it's ever been. My Cinematical editors allowed me to write ten Philly Fest reviews, and here's what I covered:

1. American Fork -- A fat guy learns not to trust people. Funny, though. (Review here.)
2. Cages -- Strange but weirdly effective French drama about a woman who ties her boyfriend to the bed when he threatens to break her heart. (Review here.)
3. Dead Daughters -- A really boring and overlong Russian thriller about ghostly dead kids. (Review here.)
4. End of the Line -- Religious kooks go mega-psycho in a subway train. Fun. (Review here.)
5. Exiled -- Talky gangster action from Johnny To. (Review here.)
6. The Kovak Box -- Timothy Hutton stars in a dry-but-interesting sci-fi drama whodunnit thing. (Review here.)
7. The Living and the Dead -- A seriously twisted and very effective piece of "mental horror." (Review here.)
8. Taxidermia -- Hardcore Hungarian weirdness. (Review here.)
9. Unholy Women -- A freaky anthology piece from prolific producer Takashi Shimizu. (Review here.)
10. Wicked Flowers -- Picture Saw combined with a Japanese game show, only done very cheaply. (Review here.)

Wow, I just now realized it, but the ten movies I reviewed come from America, France, Russia, Canada, Japan, Spain, Britain, Hungary, and China. How very international of me. But back to the Danger After Dark slate again. Programmer Travis Crawford has exceedingly good taste, but some years (2006, for example) our preferences just don't seem to mesh. Not so this year! In addition to some of the titles mention above, this year's D.A.D. line-up offered some great stuff: Christopher Smith's very fun Severance, the fascinatingly bizarre Danish import Princess, JT Petty's borderline-brilliant S&Man, the brief French chiller Ils, and Ti West's slow-but-watch-worthy Trigger Man. (They also had the anthology flick Trapped Ashes, of which I am not a fan, and that remake of Sisters that I've now managed to miss at three separate film festivals.)


Other (non-genre) Philly Fest selections that I saw (and reviewed) elsewhere include Diggers, The King of Kong, Eagle vs. Shark, Rocket Science, Suffering Man's Charity, The Ten, and the stunningly sweet Waitress, which just may be the very best "chick flick" I've ever seen. Philly flicks I saw and liked elsewhere, but did not review due to busyness or laziness, include Cashback, Fay Grim, Broken English, and Who Loves the Sun, which stars Molly Parker and would therefore be worthy of an automatic visit except it's also a pretty damn good movie. (Seriously: I have a huge crush on Molly Parker.)

So yeah. With Sundance, SXSW, and Philly Fest behind me, I can settle in for a much slower pace with the Big & Flashy Summer Movie Season. There's a method to this madness, you see. January through April is festvial-centric, which works out fine because aside from a random comedy or something like 300, the first quarter of every movie year is pretty much a barren landscape filled with unbelievable garbage. But with Spidey 3 only a few weeks away, I'm all geeked up for the summer season spectacle-fest. Next festival: Toronto in September!

Go Watch a Horror Movie!

Sunday Update!

As a service to the nine people who frequent this nerdblog, I figured it might be a good idea to do a weekly roundup of all my various reviews and articles from across the interweb. At the very least it may serve as proof that, yep, I do have a real job and I do keep very busy. And screw you for implying otherwise.

Recent reviews, theatrical division: 300 (Cinematical), The Abandoned (Cinematical), Blades of Glory (eFilmCritic), Dead Silence (Cinematical), Epic Movie (Cinematical), Ghost Rider (Cinematical), Grindhouse (FEARnet), Hannibal Rising (FEARnet), The Hills Have Eyes 2 (FEARnet), Meet the Robinsons (Cinematical), The Messengers (Cinematical), Norbit (eFilmCritic), Primeval (Cinematical), The Reaping (Cinematical), Reno 911!: Miami (Cinematical), Shooter (Cinematical), The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning (FEARnet), TMNT (Cinematical), Zodiac (FEARnet)

Recent reviews, DVD division: Beneath Still Waters (DVDTalk), Beerfest (DVD Clinic), Blood Trails (DVDTalk), Conversations with Other Women (DVD Clinic), Danika (DVDTalk), The Darkroom (DVDTalk), A Dead Calling (DVDTalk), Dead and Deader (DVDTalk), Death Row (DVDTalk), Decoys 2: The Second Seduction (DVDTalk), Dust Devil (DVDTalk), The Eden Formula (DVDTalk), Final Fantasy 7: Advent Children (DVD Clinic), The Gathering (DVDTalk), The Hamiltons (Cinematical), The Hunt (DVDTalk), Kraken: Tentacles of the Deep (DVDTalk), Living Death (DVDTalk), Man About Town (DVD Clinic), Night Skies (DVDTalk), Prey (DVDTalk), Pumpkinhead 3: Ashes to Ashes (Cinematical), The Return (FEARnet), Saw 3 (FEARnet), A Scanner Darkly (DVD Clinic), The Silence of the Lambs (FEARnet), Spirit Trap (DVDTalk), Tideland (DVD Clinic), Wicked Little Things (Cinematical)

SXSW reviews: Borderland, The Devil Dared Me To, Diggers, Disturbia, Flakes, Grimm Love, The King of Kong, Knocked Up, The Lather Effect, Murder Party, Severance, Suffering Man's Charity, Them, and Trigger Man.

Sundance reviews: Adrift in Manhattan, Chapter 27, Delirious, Eagle vs. Shark, Finishing the Game, My Kid Could Paint That, Rocket Science, The Signal, Teeth, The Ten, Waitress, Weapons, Year of the Dog

Random stuff: Rotten Tomatoes Newsday, Fearfest Report (FEARnet), Rotten Tomatoes' Spring Movie Preview, My 7 Favorite Stephen King Flicks (Cinematical), Grindhouse Austin Premiere Report (Cinematical), My 7 Favorite Director Commentaries (Cinematical), Random Cinematical babblings

Houses of Horrors

You'd think that a production company dedicated to nothing but horror flicks is an organization I could really get behind. Well I can think of three such production companies, and I'm about to explain why all three of 'em suck rotten eggs.

First off we have Dark Castle, a WB partner that was kick-started by filmmakers like Joel Silver and Robert Zemeckis. Their initial claim was that they wanted to make "William Castle"-style horror movies, and now with six movies under the belt, we're beginning to see what they meant by "William Castle"-style: They meant "bad movies." How bad? House on Haunted Hill (1999), Thirteen Ghosts (2001), Ghost Ship (2002), Gothika (2003), House of Wax (2005), and The Reaping (2007). Next up are Return to House on Haunted Hill (as if "house" is a verb) and something "original" called Whiteout. Now, I'm sure one or two of those titles fall firmly within your Guilty Pleasure umbrella -- but not mine. If you took the very best moments from all six movies, you just might be able to cobble something watchable together. Watchable and brief.

Then we have Platinum Dunes, a genre-centric production shingle that was initiated by a filmmaker who [heavy sarcasm] really knows his horror [/heavy sarcasm] -- Michael Bay. PD's first flick, 2003's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, was one I quite enjoyed, despite walking into the flick with my geek-phaser firmly set on "hate." I still dig the TCM remake more than I probably ought to, and I remember thinking "Hey cool, maybe these Platinum Dunes movies will actually deliver the goods!" Then they went and churned out The Amityville Horror (2005), The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning (2006), and The Hitcher (2007), none of which could be described as "good horror flicks" by anyone with even a passing knowledge of the genre. Up next from this company are a remake of The Birds and an "all-new" permutation of Friday the 13th. Wonderful.

Last and almost definitely least we have Ghost House, a company with Sam Raimi's name on its front door, which makes their output all the more disappointing. How could the man responsible for Evil Dead 2 put his name on listless PG-13 chaff like The Grudge (2004), Boogeyman (2005), The Grudge 2 (2006), and The Messengers (2007)? The answer, I guess, rhymes with "honey," because, hey, perpetually giggling pre-teens like to pretend they dig horror movies, too. All I know is that the Ghost House is in a pretty sad state of disrepair, especially with Boogeyman 2 already in production. One does hold out some hope, however, for GH's rendition of Steve Niles' 30 Days of Night, which should be hitting theaters later this year. Perhaps it'll be Ghost House's first horror flick for, y'know, grown-ups.

So to the inevitably wealthy people who work at Dark Castle, Platinum Dunes, and Ghost House I offer a challenge: Try a little harder, lay off the freakin' remakes, take off the damn training wheels and give us some real horror flicks already. My passion for the genre will never wane, but you three knuckleheads are really testing my patience. I'll cover Bob Weinstein's Dimension Films when I have a few extra hours to kill.

Hot Fuzz and Cool Friends

"Why'd you move to Austin??" is a question I've fielded a bunch of times over the past 3.5 months, and tonight was a perfect example of why. The Alamo Drafthouse ran a "Fuzz-tival" that consisted of five cop-centric movies: Electra Glide in Blue, Police Story 2, Sudden Impact, Freebie and the Bean, and (of course) Hot Fuzz, which is the new comedy action horror mystery flick from the lunatics who delivered the sublime Shaun of the Dead.

I was only able to attend the last two screenings, but the evening was a whole lot of fun anyway. Freebie and the Bean is a fantastically entertaining and undeniably weird cop comedy from 1974 that stars James Caan and Alan Arkin. The flick's never been released on DVD, but I will definitely own a copy when it hits disc form. After F & B there was a short break, then a whole bunch of goofy old action movie trailers, and then Hot Fuzz (which I'd already seen but really wanted to enjoy with a rollicking crowd).

In attendance were director Edgar Wright and leading men Simon Pegg & Nick Frost. Mr. Frost and I met while smoking a cig in front of the Drafthouse, and then I got to shoot the shit with Mr. Wright and Mr. Pegg as the night went on. Since they're British movie nerds, they were as gracious as they were cinematically geeky. Big thrill to meet the guys behind Spaced and Shaun, plus the Hot Fuzz screening was absolutely jazzed. To say the audience enjoyed the flick is kinda like saying I mildly enjoy watching horror movies with a bong in my hand.

Best of all was the "Alamo Gang," which milled around chatting long after the movie(s) ended. Tim & Karrie and Zack and Kier-La and Lars and Jarrette and Brian. Eric and Matt and Jarren and Anne and Marcus and Jette and ALL the other "regulars" who pop up whenever the Alamo does something cool -- which, needless to say, is often. It's just great to find a place where you feel like you fit in, especially if that place is jam-packed with great movies, fried food, and a crew like this. (snif) The Alamos are beginning to feel like my own personal Cheers -- and I guess I'm kinda like that loud obnoxious mailman everyone barely stomachs. From the owners and the managers to the kitchen staff and the waiters, these establishments are over-fuckin'-stuffed with awesome people. I'm now back in Philly for about a little while, and already I miss these folks.

<---- That's me, Tim "Alamo" League and Matt "SXSW" Dentler. Who ever said movie geeks were ugly?