Never expose it to bright light, never get water on it, and never, ever feed it after midnight. These were the three rules that Billy Peltzer (Zach Galligan) couldn’t follow after his father, Randall (Hoyt Axton) bought him a strange new pet called a Gremlin. The pet was a Christmas present that soon turned into a nightmare.
Gremlins is a classic 80s movie directed by legendary horror filmmaker, Joe Dante. The genius behind cult classics like the original 1978 Piranha movie paired up with producer Steven Spielberg to create what is still considered one of the best movies of all time. Marketed as a Christmas horror-comedy, Gremlins is that type of movie that everyone can enjoy and get a kick of after almost thirty years.
Gremlins’ plot is simple. Boy gets pet, pet has rules, boy breaks rules, and hell breaks loose. A rather conventional plot that is twisted by two masters of cinema, the film transcends from a common cult flick to a box office phenomena. Grossing over $150 million dollars on an approximated $11 million dollar budget, Gremlins is a classic in every sense of the word.
The screenplay, which was penned by Chris Columbus, another 80s legend, is fast, funny, scary and satisfying, sometimes simultaneously. The characters are likeable, even the Gremlins themselves, who change from cute little house pets to malicious imps. The great part about them is their sense of humor. The evil incarnations of the Gremlins aren’t necessarily out for blood, but they do what they want, when they want it, usually with pretty hilarious results. From smoking cigars, to drinking copious amounts of alcohol, the Gremlins are just as bad as any common punk, except there are hundreds upon hundreds of them.
A sequel was spawned in 1990 entitled Gremlins 2: The New Batch. The film, which was also directed by Joe Dante, was entertaining enough, but failed to capture the magic and mayhem of the original by trying to be too much like the original, while also trying to convince itself that it was different.
There’s nothing like a classic, and a classic Gremlins is. It works as a Halloween movie as well, but deep down, you know exactly what Gremlins is all about, Christmas.
When I had first heard about this Liam Neeson was attached to play the lead, but that was years ago and I hadn’t heard anything else about the film until now. Apparently Neeson left the project after years of waiting for it to get the green light. According to Neeson, he felt he was too old to play the part. Personally, I felt Neeson was an excellent choice to play Lincoln. However, once I heard Daniel Day-Lewis got the role I just about creamed myself.
This will be the first time Spielberg and Day-Lewis have worked on a film together and I’m very excited because DDL has a habit of disappearing into his characters.
For his role as ‘Bill the Butcher’ in Gangs of New York he took lessons as an apprentice butcher, never left character between takes (including keeping the New York accent), and even caught pneumonia because he wouldn’t wear a warmer coat stating that it wasn’t in character to do so. This along with the picture below leads me to believe that Lincoln will be a movie worth paying ticket price to see.
Hollywood insiders are saying that the Assassin’s Creed film franchise is guaranteed to fail.
New York Magazine reported that Sony has recently signed a movie deal with Ubisoft to adapt Assassin’s Creed. However, in order to get this deal to happen, Sony just about had to give Ubisoft complete creative control over the project. It’s reported that Ubisoft has final say on budget, cast, script, and even the release date.
An insider is reported as saying, “As a director, even Steven Spielberg cannot get this kind of deal.”, and as a producer he was apparently one of the first to pass on the project because of the demands made by Ubisoft.
I’m a little unsure about Ubisoft’s goals. I can’t tell if they want to make sure that a movie never gets made or if they want to make sure it gets made right. Personally, I have hope that they will prove the naysayers wrong and make a kick ass movie. The cinematics that they produce for their games are almost good enough to be movies on their own.
Stephen King and Steven Spielberg teamed up awhile back to bring King’s Under the Dome story to a TV network for a limited series. Now that story has found a home on Showtime, which is really for the best because now they can do anything they want without being constrained by the rules of network television. The story of Under The Dome may sound a little dumb because the same sort of thing happened in the Simpsons Movie, but I’m sure that King was writing his book before the Simpsons Movie was released… hopefully.
Basically there is a small town in Maine where a force field dome of unknown origin covers the town, sealing them off from the outside world. What happens next is a deterioration of relationships between the townsfolk as they break up into warring factions. I’d classify the story as an extended version of the King short story The Mist where townsfolk slowly begin to turn on one another, stuck inside a supermarket due to the horrible monsters lurking in the unnatural mists outside. The threat is a lot different in this book, but the concept is basically the same, showing how malicious ordinary people can be in dire circumstances when there is no order.
By the way, I would never want to live in Maine if all of King’s books were real, there is some jacked up $hit that happens in that state, especially in the small towns. To me, the ending reveal of exactly what is causing the dome was awesome. Some may find it foolish, but it all depends on what you like from a King book, whether it be supernatural, extra terrestrial or governmental. Either way I think the series will be excellent on Showtime and can’t wait to hear about casting when it starts.
Jurassic Park 4 has to be one of the most talked about things that never ever seems to be happening. It’s like a missile defense shield or the war on drugs. Or kind of like that on again off again girlfriend or boyfriend that everyone out there is so fond of. And Stephen Spielberg would be that person in the relationship who always initiates it once again with promises of it’s going to work. I guess Sam Neill would be the one in the relationship not willing to give it another shot after a month of trying and tells you it would be stupid to make a sequel because the person who wrote the original books is dead. What were we talking about here?
Oh yes! JP 4. Anyways, Spielberg was making the rounds at Comic-Con this year to promote that retarded Tin-Tin garbage, but while doing so he did indeed confirm that Jurassic Park 4 is happening. Check out the excerpt from IGN below:
“We have a story,” Spielberg said. “A writer is currently working on the treatment for [that story]…and the hope is to see Jurassic Park 4 in the next 2 or 3 years.”
Spielberg did not share who the writer is or what the story is about, nor did we expect him to. What we do know is that this film will be the start of a new trilogy, one that is influenced by the history of the previous films, especially the first two.
It seems they (Hollywood) always assume something should automatically be a trilogy. I’d love to hear what the hell the story for Jurassic Park 4 is so they can justify a damned trilogy. But lord knows if there is another one Spielberg had better involve himself. And by that I mean as a director so it can at least be a decent movie. The whole thing makes you sit and wonder if they’ll have anyone from the first Jurassic Park or if they’re just going to start from scratch casting wise. If Sam Neill, Jeff Goldblum and Laura Dern don’t return then I definitely need to see Dodgson and his nice hat in there somewhere.
Let me start this out by first saying Congratulations. Congrats to the show for proving me wrong and earning a 10 episode second season, which is slated to air summer of 2012, and was ordered only 3 episodes in to the first season. The show has managed to retain 3.8 million of the 5.9 million premiere viewers. Way to go Falling Skies, way to say “IN YOUR FACE” to an opinionated idiot that writes for a certain website. Anyways on to tonight’s episode…
So for anyone who looooooooooves character development, this episode was for you. While the episode is centered around the rescue of Tom’s son Ben, we delve a little bit deeper into what makes Anne, Margaret, and a little bit of Captain Weaver tick. The episode kicks off with Tom and Hal once again coming up with a plan to rescue their missing family member Ben, and getting the ok from Captain Weaver. In short, the plan is to sneak in the hospital at night while the guarding skidder is sleeping, kill him without making a noise, and avoid alerting the patrolling mech. Hence the title SILENT KILL!
After the plan is decided, we cut to the good teacher and Tom’s younger son Matt playing with radios and listening to a classic record. Captain Weaver picks up in the music while staring at a drawing from a child and calmly walks into the classroom, confiscates the record, and informs the good teacher that he can play record he wants, except that one. It appears the stoic Captain has a soft side after all. More on this later. Next, we have the best of the entire episode. The death of Dr. Harris!! While playing a little too close to the skidder cage and to study new noises the alien is making, the skidder manages to choke the life out of the cowardly doctor. Kudos to the writers for killing him off so quickly.
After Dr. Harris’s death, we then see Hal talking to the previously rescued boy about his time being harnessed with the aliens. From what he learns, Hal decides to change the original rescue plan and where a harness to disguise himself to save Ben. A plan not quickly approved by his father. Quick side note, I think they should have made this conversation a bit longer and more detailed. It would have been great to get more insight into what the aliens where doing with the captured kids. Anyways, we now join Anne, Tom, and Hal where they are discussing how best to kill a skidder without making any noise. Anne informs them of a weak spot in the aliens mouth that could provide a way to kill them. After placing a saucer of water, Anne attacks and kills the captured alien by stabbing it with a scalpel inside the creatures mouth at the soft palette location they were discussing. After killing the creature, Anne storms off to the lost child board and confesses Tom how easy it was to kill the alien by picturing her family and how she has nothing to reminding her of her lost loved ones, only the blood from the alien on her hand. We now see why she has shut down when it comes to discussing her family.
Next, we finally get the what we have been building up to for the past 2 episodes, the rescue of Ben. Hal is able to successfully break in to the hospital where his brother is being held wearing a harness as a disguise. He slips in line with his brother and the other harnessed kids being led by a skidder. This is where it gets a little weird. The skidder leads them all in to a room where they all lay down in a circle, and the skidder hovers over them, caressing their heads as they all go to sleep. This looked a lot like a mother nesting over her babies, showing that there is something more to this enslavement by the alien invaders. As skidder falls asleep, Hal attacks and thrusts a pocket knife into the skidders mouth as Anne did back at the base, but during his attack the harnessed kids pull at Hal to try to stop the attack. To make things even more weird, after the skidder dies and the rescue team starts save the harness children, we see the kids placing their hands over the dead alien showing a sign of concern and sadness. What the F is going on here?
With the kids rescued and Dr. Harris dead, it’s now up to Anne to successfully remove the harnesses from all kids on her own. After removing all the harnesses, the final child (don’t worry, not Ben) died on the make shift operating table. Despite encouraging words from Tom on the number of kids she just saved, she is focused on the one that died. Someone should really explain to her she needs to be a glass is half full kind of person. A ‘Debbie Downer’ is no good for surviving alien invasion.
While waiting for Ben to recover we see a conversation between Hal and Margaret, who was instrumental in the rescue due to her extensive knowledge of the hospital, where we get to learn that Margaret is a cancer survivor who was given a 50/50 chance to live, and its that mind-set that allowed her to survive not only the invasion but her time spent with Pope’s crew.
The show comes to an end with Captain Weaver watching Tom and his reunited family, then going off to play the record he confiscated in the beginning, and Ben waking up to recognize his dad. All in all, I would say this week the show was OK at best. While I know character development is a must for any show in order to gain sympathy and create a connection between us and the characters, I feel they went about it a little half assed for Margaret and Captain Weaver. They probably should have taken a page from Lost and spend an entire episode focusing on them mindset of each character, that’s just my opinion.
I’ll be curious to see what adventure the writers have in store for us next since we have spent the first few episodes wanting to rescue Ben. Do we go back and rescue Hal’s girlfriend, or is she just to be forgotten about and Margaret will take her place?
For more COUNTDOWN TO CHRISTMAS – Click it Here! 
Grizzly Bomb 
