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Month: June 2017

One of the Keys to Keeping “Unlikable” Characters Tolerable

Published by Johnny Compton on June 23, 2017

The recent box-office disappointment Rough Night drew obvious comparisons to the movie Very Bad Things given the shared premise of “accidental killing of stripper/sex worker leads to cover-up and further criminal behavior.” In speaking of Very Bad Things, several of the film’s detractors have pointed to just how vile and insufferable the characters were. Sure, it’s a dark comedy/thriller, so at least some of its characters are expected to be criminals. And it’s far, far, far from being the first or only movie whose primary characters are unsympathetic, selfish and even murderous assholes. And while there are certain people who are just never going to be on board with watching or reading a story featuring “unlikable” unsympathetic characters, there are many others (like me) who find such stories interesting, provided that the story is, well, interesting, and provided that the unlikable characters aren’t utterly insufferable. READ MORE

Perfect Rivals: Doc Holliday and Johnny Ringo – TOMBSTONE

Perfect Rivals: Doc Holliday and Johnny Ringo – TOMBSTONE

Published by Johnny Compton on June 22, 2017
Some rivalries are built and strengthened by the opponents being perfect opposites, but others are memorable because the enemies reflect each other a little too closely for comfort. Doc Holliday spells it out for us during the famous first encounter he has with Johnny Ringo in Tombstone; here is a man who reminds him of himself, and for that reason alone, a drunken Holliday decides to despise him. When Ringo exhibits a knowledge of Latin that matches Holliday’s, Doc declares, “Now I really hate him.”

The men are very similar and it shows up on screen. Sometimes we’re simply told that two characters are or were similar in some fashion, but we’re given scant evidence of it. In Carlito’s Way, for example, one character scolds the older Carlito that brash, upstart Bennie Blanco (from the Bronx) is just a younger version of Carlito, to which the more seasoned gangster responds, “Never me.” It’s an example of how sometimes telling isn’t always necessarily worse than showing (a flashback would be cumbersome and disrupt the movie’s momentum), but it’s still something that we never get to visualize. Not so with Tombstone. The confrontation in the video above efficiently illustrates how Ringo and Holliday mirror one another. It also shows us where they differ. READ MORE

Well…This FLATLINERS Remake Looks Underwhelming

Published by Johnny Compton on June 13, 2017

I’ve mentioned it on here a time or three, but I’m not automatically averse to remakes. While people speak as though it’s a relatively new blight upon the world of cinema, there is a long, rich tradition of remaking movies in and outside of Hollywood, dating back to at least the 1920’s. Years pass, new technologies come along, new potential audiences come along, you try to update something that came before and, hopefully, make it even better than it was the first time. That last part is usually where the problems come in–when you’re remaking something that was already great, you better have a fantastic take on the material in store, otherwise people are likely to consider your efforts a waste of time at best. READ MORE

My Favorite Horror Movie Trailers: PUMPKINHEAD

My Favorite Horror Movie Trailers: PUMPKINHEAD

Published by Johnny Compton on June 12, 2017

Special Effects guru Stan Winston poured his best efforts into horror flicks ranging from the obscure or ill-regarded (The Bat People, Darkness Falls), to the cherished and influential (The Thing), but he only directed one horror movie during his career. Pumpkinhead is a well-built, country-gothic chiller with a memorable, somewhat laughable title that still makes me wonder if the general dearth of humor in the film is a missed opportunity. Granted, it’s hard to inject humor into a premise that is essentially “What if the father from Pet Sematary couldn’t resurrect his son and resorted to conjuring a vengeance demon instead?” READ MORE