The Fanboy Smackdown podcast has changed its name to Backseat Producers.

You can subscribe to the new feed by visiting the site and clicking on of the links on the left or by pointing your podcatcher to this link.

http://www.backseatproducers.com/?feed=podcast

We aren’t going away, we’re just changing the name. Please visit Backseat Producers for reviews, podcasts, movie news, contests and much more.

http://www.backseatproducers.com

This is it, our first promo.

Feel free to spread it far and wide and point folks back to http://www.backseatproducers.com

If you play our promo in your podcast or play it in your feed, let us know.

Thanks for listening.

Tony

Win an IN PLAIN SIGHT gift bag.

This contest runs from May 19th, 2008 to June 16th, 2008.

To enter this contest, send an email to contest at fanboysmackdown dot com

Put the phrase “In Plain Sight” in the subject line.

Please include your name and mailing address in the body of the email. One winner will be chosen at random from all entries to win the gift bag.

With this episode, the Fanboy Smackdown podcast is no more.  We are moving on and hanging up our microphones.

PSYCHE!!!!

We are just changing the name.  The guys of the Fanboy Smackdown are now the Backseat Producers.

Come visit us at www.backseatproducers.com.

Make sure when you get there you update your feed to the new feed. www.backseatproducers.com/?feed=podcast

You’ll find all the same fun stuff that we do here, plus we’ve got a news director who will be keeping the feed hopping.  We’ve got a lot going on.  You don’t want to miss it.

Redbelt is the latest movie from writer/director David Mamet, and I’ve got to say, I’m a huge Mamet fan, and with Redbelt he’s kind of making a throwback sort of film, like the type of movie that you might have in the day when say a boxer must find himself in a situation that in order to prevail he might have to compromise himself (or, in movie terms, In the movie Barton Fink, the title character finds himself in Hollywood having to write a Wallace Beery wrestling movie- Redbelt is probably the kind of movie that Fink would aspire to) and personally, I think this is one of the better films that I’ve seen yet this year.

The subject of mixed martial arts doesn’t exactly seem like the sort of thing that I’d ever really expect Mamet to delve into, and yet he pulls it off pretty nicely. There’s plenty of examples here of the fighting going on, and Mamet never gets theatrical about it, there’s no flashy moves or stylish edits, it’s all handled pretty matter-of-fact.

Chiwetol Ejifor plays Mike Terry and this is his film, hands down. For awhile now, Ejifor has demonstrated that he’s certainly one of the more versatile supporting talents in Hollywood today in such films as Serenity, Inside Man, Talk To Me and Children of Men, but in Redbelt, he gets the opportunity to carry the movie himself and he’s pretty much in every single scene of the film and does a fine job here, having a whole lot of heart in his performance, but discipline as well. He’s got a great supporting cast here including Mamet regulars like Joe Mantegna and Ricky Jay, but without a doubt the most unusual bit of casting is comic actor Tim Allen as an action movie star like Bruce Willis, who finds himself crossing paths with Terry. Allen’s really good doing this bit of stretching for himself and I just hope he manages to do some more of this over time. My only complaint with him is just that his part is pretty small in the big picture, but he still gets the job done.

Right as we’re in the midst of all of the big summer blockbusters, it’s certainly nice to see that a small movie like Redbelt can come out there and deliver the goods. Oh sure, it’s still going to get lost in the shuffle, but then expectations are a lot lower as well. Still though, this is a quality drama, and another great movie in David Mamet’s filmography. Highly recommended…

Speed Racer is the latest film from The Wachowski Brothers (at the time they were still brothers anyway) who of course gave us The Matrix trilogy, and were executive producers of the adaptation of V For Vendetta. With Speed Racer their goal was to make a family film but something that pushed their own filmmaking skills in some new directions. And while Speed Racer certainly has it’s roots in other films (I’m thinking things like Flash Gordon, Popeye, Dick Tracy, Who Framed Roger Rabbit? and damn near anything that Tim Burton does) it goes further than any of those ever did (no doubt by technological advancements) literally making a live-action anime that’s a sight and sound sensory overload. I can honestly say, I’ve never seen anything quite like this from American filmmakers before.

And all the while, they do it by staying true to their source material. For many of us, the original animated Speed Racer was our first exposure to Japanese animation (or anime for those that don’t know the term) and I know as a kid weened on cartoons from Warner Brothers, Filmation and Hanna-Barbera, it was something totally new and exciting. Looking back at the cartoon now, it’s hokey and corny, and the movie certainly replicates that and even though, it’s visually and aurally amped up by a factor of ten, at it’s core, it’s absolutely true to it, even maintaining the innocence that I got from it.

Now I really enjoyed this, but it’s not without a criticism and mine is that it’s a little too long. The Wachowskis do their best to keep it all moving at a rapid clip, even employing a new editing style that has it’s own rhythm to it, but still this probably could’ve been shortened by a good ten or fifteen minutes (right now the movie weighs in at 2 hours and 15 minutes long).

The Wachowskis have a good solid cast here, with Emile Hirsch in the title role and backed up by Christina Ricci, Susan Sarandon, John Goodman and Matthew Fox amongst others. And while no one here is going to win any awards for what they’ve done, I have to give them credit for fully handing themselves over to the Wachowskis and trusting in their vision. I could see for a lot of people as a bone of contention being the characters of Speed’s little brother Spritle and his pet monkey Chim-Chim, and yet again, they’re true to the cartoon- sometimes you just hate them, sometimes they’re as funny as can be and sometimes their humor is just the pure groaner variety, but that was the same way as it was in the source as well. I really like the cast and give special kudos to both Sarandon and Goodman for some bit of weight here, especially Goodman who’s no stranger to playing an over-the-top character by any means. He’s played Fred Flinstone and any number of his characters that he’s done for the Coen Brothers can just as easily be seen as living cartoons, and Pops Racer is just another notch in his repertoire, but still he’s fun and it sure looked like he had fun here (at least to me).

Now with all this said, and again I really enjoyed this (though I’ll certainly grant that I was predisposed to as well- this was the one that I was most looking forward to seeing this season just to see what new stuff the Wachowskis had in mind), I find this hard to recommend unless you’re really, really open to it. There’s so many strikes against it as far as a general audience goes, that if you’re coming into it with any sort of bias against it, there’s everything there to feed into it- there’s the anime angle, there’s the CGI angle, there’s it’s explosion of color, there’s the corniness and there’s the whole thing that many have against the Wachowskis for the second and third Matrix films (and I’m not one of them, I’m pretty much ready to go toe-to-toe with any one that hates those movies at any time). So seriously, if you have that anti-bias on any of those levels, stay home, don’t bother. But if you’re open to some new stuff and if you’re a fan of the original cartoon (corniness and all), I wouldn’t hesitate for a moment to see it in a theatre. And I was lucky enough to see this in a room with digital projection as well, so the experience was even better, actually seeing this in a way that will be even better than what I could have at home.

I’m expecting this one to be pretty polarizing, and can already picture the critics on the weekend movie shows (Ebert & Roeper and Reel Talk just chopping this one up in a big way), but I thought it was a lot of fun and look forward to watching it again and again when it makes it’s way home.

The movie as a pretty moderate success and in 1989, a fledgling FOX TV network took the movie and had it modified to be a weekly series (and if memory serves, it ran on Monday nights). The series was spearheaded by producer/writer/director Kenneth Johnson who, like Rockne O’Bannon, comes with an impressive genre pedigree (O’Bannon was also a big contributer to the 80s revival of The Twilight Zone, but he’s far more famous for creating the world of Farscape). Kenneth Johnson was behind such TV hits as V and The Incredible Hulk and had worked on The Bionic Woman and The Six MIllion Dollar Man.

The series starred Gary Graham as Matthew Sykes (certainly far and away a different presence than James Caan) and Eric Pierpoint as George Francisco, and these guys were really a good team on the show, I actually preferred them over the theatrical version. And while science fiction shows have really progressed since this premiered, for the time that it was on, it was certainly something that really hadn’t been seen on TV before.

I used to watch the show regularly and I was disappointed that it was only cancelled after one season, but certainly give Fox credit for sticking with this at the time and obviously for bringing it back in a series of movies (and no, I’m not one of these guys who’s going to jump on an anti-FOX bandwagon because their genre series gets cancelled).

After the series was cancelled (and on a cliffhanger no less) FOX commissioned Johnson and company for a TV movie to let them wrap everything up, that movie Dark Horizon covered a number of things, another Tenctonese ship in space looking at Earth as the spot where 250,000 of their slave class had been misplaced, the danger that the settled Tenctonese were facing from a secret virus developed by a purist political group, and further development and near resolution of the relationship that was always being teased at between Sykes and a Tenctonese doctor named Kathy (played by Terri Treas). It’s a fun film, especially if you used to watch the show. I know when I watched this, it was literally the first time I’d even given Alien Nation any thought over the years, and I have to say, I had a very pleasant time re-living this again.

This was a success for FOX and the following year, another movie came out, Body And Soul, and with this film, we sort of drop back to an expanded TV episode, this one centering around a Tenctonese/Human hybrid…

In Millennium, George’s son, Buck, who’s displayed Tenctonese loyalist qualities throughout the run, gets drawn into a cult, with of course Sikes and Francisco out to uncover the secret.

In The Enemy Within, George has to confront a some of his own prejudices after investigating the death of a lower class of Tenctonese.

And in The Udara Legacy, we get a story involving how some of the Newcomers who’ve adjust well to their new world are now committing crimes and find out if there’s a connection to the Udara, a segment of the Tenctonese who’s committed themselves to overthrowing their Overseers.

I think your satisfaction with the movies themselves will just come from whether you’re a fan of the show, though there is enough here in these films to tell you the background and overall story without having seen the first season, these do all seem now almost a little too late 80s cop/buddy fare and a modern genre fan (who’s never seen any of these shows before) might see this stuff as almost a little hokey or corny compared to shows that they see now. Well, that’s your TV history for your… when the series was on, cable wasn’t yet the beast it was today, and FOX had yet to discover American Idol gold… and they were still trying all sorts of stuff to see what would hit. I think overall, these movies are some good fun, and if you were a fan of the show, then by all means, look at picking this set up, because FOX has done a real nice job with the set.

First off, they all look fantastic, far better than you ever saw them on broadcast. I was particularly taken by the visual effects around the Tenctonese slave ship in Dark Horizon and just how crisp it looked here. The presentation is full-frame so for you folks looking for anamorphic widescreen, this was made before that was going on.

Kenneth Johnson provides commentary for all five of the movies, and Johnson is just as sharp as can be when talking about these films. He’s willing to go into technical detail as well as a little bit of personal discussion. As much fun as the movies are themselves to watch, they’re even more fun to watch with Johnson’s commentary tracks and getting a glimpse into both his production style and what it takes to shoot a TV movie.

But there’s more… Each movie also features a making of featurette that’s not the slickly produced things that you see, no what you have here is literally home movies made around the shooting of each film. These are all shot by a woman on Johnson’s staff, and here Johnson provides commentary for these films. After I saw the first of these for Dark Horizon (which was about 20-25 minutes long), I’d really thought I’d gotten a nice little bonus here.

There’s also extensive photo galleries for each film, much of these from Kenneth Johnson’s on collection, and these were pretty cool with the added bonus of seeing photos from recent Alien Nation cast reunions, so you’ve got a chance to see what Gary Graham, Eric Pierpoint, and the rest of the cast look like now. I’m not usually that big on photo galleries on DVD sets, but for this set, well these just go beyond the normal studio publicity stills and as such are a great part of seeing some of the history and production of this show.

This set gets a big thumbs up here, though I recognize the fact that it still may not be for everybody. Genre fans that like the old show shouldn’t hesitate for a moment here. Genre fans who have a sense of perspective and an appreciation of what was in the past will probably like this as well. After that, it’s hard to say who will like the set, but I can at least tell you that I think it’s fantastic. Kudos to FOX for a job well done…

Tony, Adam and Sergio discuss the teen pregnancy comedy, Juno.

Next week’s episode will be a Feedback show. Please get any feedback to be featured in this show to us by Wednesday, May 14th at 8 PM Eastern/5 PM Pacific.

fanboysmackdown at gmail dot com

618-207-4747

www.farpointforums.com

Just a reminder, the name of the show is changing. We don’t have a date set, but we’ll soon be changing the name of the show to Backseat Producers. If you are an artist who might be able to help out with some of the art for the new site, please send an email to tony at fanboysmackdown dot com.

We talk about There Will Be Blood, the 4th in our series of Best Picture Academy Award Nominated films. During the break, Holden and Tony discuss the movie Iron Man.

Just after the break, we peel back the curtain. Normally when we take a break we BS for a few minutes, refill our drinks, etc. This time we discuss a few things that are coming up in the podcast and some thoughts on other films. This conversation was not intended to be aired, but while editing, Adam thought it would be fun to leave this chat in there. It’s fun and even more casual than the episode proper. We didn’t make a mistake leaving it in there… we know… it’s on purpose… enjoy it.

We follow up our discussion of the film and discuss our thoughts about watching this character’s life arc from his humble beginnings through out his life.

Also, we’ll do a feedback show just before we do the name change, If you have any comments or questions for us,

Send email to tony at fanboysmackdown dot com or adam at fanboysmackdown dot com

Post comments on the website or at the FarPoint Forums.

You can also leave voicemail at 618-207-4747.

Catch you on Mother’s Day when we talk about Juno.

This contest runs from May 6th, 2008 to May 31st, 2008.

To enter this contest, send an email to contest at fanboysmackdown dot com

Put the phrase “The Mist” in the subject line.

Please include your name and mailing address in the body of the email. One winner will be chosen at random from all entries to win the movie collection.

This contest is open only to US Residents and only one submission will be accepted.

Synopsis

David Drayton (Thomas Jane) and his young son are among a large group of terrified townspeople trapped in a local grocery store by a strange, otherworldly mist. David is the first to realize that there are things lurking in the mist, creatures not of this world, that force David and the hostages to band together in a fight for survival. However he begins to wonder what terrifies him more: the monsters in the mist or the ones inside the store, the human kind, the people that until now have been his friends and neighbors?

Special Features:

• Exclusive Black & White Presentation of the Film (2 disc only)
• Collectible Booklet with Written Commentary by Darabont (2 disc only)
• 8 Deleted Scenes with Optional Commentary
• Audio Commentary with Writer/Director Darabont
• When Darkness Came: The Making Of The Mist (2 disc only)
• Taming The Beast: Shooting Scene 35 (2 disc only)
• Monsters Among Us: A Look At The Creature FX (2 disc only)
• The Horror Of It All: The Visual FX Of The Mist (2 disc only)
• Drew Struzan: Appreciation Of An Artist (2 disc only)

Jon Favreau’s adaptation of Marvel Comics’ Iron Man is without a doubt, one of the most anticipated movies of the year. It’s been no secret how Favreau has immersed himself in the material and made himself accessible to fans, earnestly wanting to make the best possible movie that he can, and I think for the most part, he’s succeeded wildly. Iron Man being the first Marvel Comics property controlled by Marvel Entertainment, is a pretty entertaining film with a lot of promise of what’s to come from future Marvel properties handled by Marvel Entertainment.

Favreau’s immersion in the material has some great pay-offs to fans of the character (and I am definitely a fan of the character, Iron Man was always one of my favorites as a kid, with the version by David Michelinie and Bob Layton being in my mind the definitive version of the character) and nods to just about all of the major versions of the character, from the Stan Lee origin, to the Michelinie/Layton run and even up to the version presented by Marvel’s Ultimate line, there’s a little something of everything here, and yet it’s all accessible to those who know nothing of the character as well.

Favreau’s film is stylish yet not overbearing, and with the exception of three scenes that are there for more lowest common denominator laughs, it all works really well- fortunately those scenes don’t really cause any reverse sympathy towards the character, and so much of the rest of the film is spot-on that they’re pretty forgivable.

Favreau’s best move is in his casting, and here he’s picked actor Robert Downey Jr. to portray Tony Stark, and really that’s inspired casting. Downey’s own personal problems actually play into things that affect Stark in Iron Man comics continuity, and Downey has literally thrown himself into this. Personally speaking, I think it’s one of his best parts yet. Favreau’s got a good supporting cast here as well, with Gwyneth Paltrow playing Stark’s personal assistant, Pepper Potts, and Terence Howard playing his best friend, James Rhodes, both are solid here and in particular, Paltrow does a great job. Favreau’s even put himself in the movie as Happy Hogan, one of Stark’s bodyguards- and though Hogan had a bigger part in the comics continuity, Favreau chooses not to dwell on him too much here. The final bit of main casting goes to Jeff Bridges as Obadiah Stane, and again, it really looks like you have another actor here who’s just eating up the part he’s in and just adding to Bridges’ own incredible diversity to what he’s done on-screen (there’s one point where I’m watching this, just enjoying Bridges’ performance and remembering this guy played The Dude in the Coen Brother’s The Big Lebowski, just thinking of the extremes that Bridges has covered in his career).

The visual effects are, of course, another big star of the film and they’re really nicely done. I particularly enjoy watching the character take flight. There’s one scene where Stark is being “suited up” so to speak by all sorts of robots attaching the armor onto him, and it made me think back to back in the day in the comics when the character used to carry the armor with him in a brief case, where he could just suit up like he was putting on another set of clothes. It’s sorta ironic in a way, because the method used in the movie certainly looks cool, but considering the technology in the Marvel Universe, the old way would actually be far more advanced, and that of course could even be extrapolated now to a point where the character, technically speaking, now wouldn’t even need a suit of armor any more to function, but I digress… that’s certainly a discussion for another time…

Still though, Iron Man is a whole lot of big-ass fun, and there’s weight here to both it’s main character and his ideas beyond just the action of the film. Highly, highly recommended… and whatever you do, stay past the end credits for one last scene, that certainly is worth seeing.

Tony, Tony and Adam also make a big announcement before discussing the film.  This will change everything.

First half remains spoiler free, so if you are looking for a review of the film to see if you might be interested in watching it, listen until you hit the break.

Promo: Chasing the Bard (Hi, Pip!)

There is drinking and swearing and spoiling. Kinda like the bar that the pilots all hang out at.

Phil from The Red Earth Saga and Melina join Adam and Tony for this recording that took place mere minutes after watching the episode the night it premiered.

The planet they’re landing on? Earth. However, the Tenctonese have internalized American culture, and enjoy being members of a free society. Anything’s better than being slaves.

That’s the premise of the TV movie Alien Nation: Dark Horizon, an extension of the FOX-TV series Alien Nation. It was created because fans demanded a continuation of the show, since it was cancelled after just one season. Five years later, after a change of leadership at FOX, they released this, the first of five TV movies made to sate the fans of the original series.

I wasn’t one of those. Being an infant when the original series was broadcast, I kinda missed the boat. Therefore, I’m going into this one with a clean slate. My expectations are pretty low, just like they will be with any other TV movie.

I didn’t expect brilliant acting, and I didn’t get it. I didn’t expect a deep, convoluted storyline, and I didn’t get one. There’s not a whole lot of character development, but I really didn’t expect that either, being the extension of a TV show.

What I got was a reasonably good, reasonably acted, buddy movie. No one really stood out, but I immediately recognized Scott Patterson as Ahpossno in an early role, long before Gilmore Girls.

The story was pretty predictable, mostly because they show the story from both Ahpossno’s point of view as well as the view of the two detectives, George Francisco (a Tenctonese, known on Earth as Newcomers) and Matthew Sikes (a human). The movie (and I presume the TV show) mainly has the themes of racism and bigotry, and they show it relatively well, if a little heavy-handedly.

There’s nothing really outstanding to this film for me, but keep in mind that I’m really not part of its intended audience. Fans of the TV show will find a lot to love in this movie, and probably in the entire collection. If you’re not familiar with the show, you probably won’t enjoy the movie. They just don’t make you like the characters enough, and the story’s kinda lackluster for a full feature. However, for what is essentially a 2 hour long season opener, Alien Nation: Dark Horizon will do just fine.

This is the result.

This is a wild show and we had a great time talking about the new film Forgetting Sarah Marshall.  We had an even better time teasing Phil, drinking beer and swearing.

Win one of two copies of Alien Nation: Ultimate Movie Collection DVD set. This is a 3 disc set.

This contest runs from April 21st, 2008 to May 5th, 2008.

To enter this contest, send an email to contest at fanboysmackdown dot com

Put the word “Alien Nation” in the subject line.

Please include your name and mailing address in the body of the email. Two winners will be chosen at random from all entries to win the movie collection.

Continuing where the television series left off, Matt Sikes and George Francisco are an unlikely team of detectives who solve crime and moderate human and alien Newcomer activity in this collection of Alien Nation movies that debuted on television. The collection features the following five films: Alien Nation: Dark Horizon (1994), Alien Nation: Body and Soul (1995), Alien Nation: Millennium (1996), Alien Nation: The Enemy Within (1996) and Alien Nation: The Udara Legacy (1997).

DVD Features

Specs:Audio: English & Spanish: Stereo
Language: Dubbed & Subtitled: English & Spanish

Disc 1
“ALIEN NATION: DARK HORIZON” Full Screen Feature
Commentary by Director Kenneth Johnson
The Making of Alien Nation: Dark Horizon
Gag Reel

STILL GALLERIES:
Kenny’s Personal Album
Alien Nation Cast Reunion 2001
Production & Publicity Stills
Behind the Scenes

Disc 2 Side A
“ALIEN NATION: BODY AND SOUL” Full Screen Feature
Commentary by Writer/Director Kenneth Johnson
The Making of Alien Nation: Body and Soul
Gag Reel

STILL GALLERIES:
Production Stills
Kenny’s Personal Album
Concept Art
Alien Nation Cast Reunion 2006

Disc 2 Side B
“ALIEN NATION: MILLENNIUM” Full Screen Feature
Commentary by Writer/Director Kenneth Johnson
The Making of Alien Nation: Millennium

STILL GALLERIES:
Kenny’s Personal Album
Production Stills
Concept Art

STORYBOARDS:
Alien Jungle Opening
Volcanic Landscape
Alien Jungle #2
Steel Mill Finale
New Year’s Eve

Disc 3 Side A
“ALIEN NATION: THE ENEMY WITHIN” Full Screen Feature
Commentary by Writer/Director Kenneth Johnson
The Making of Alien Nation: The Enemy Within

STILL GALLERIES:
Kenny’s Personal Album
Production Stills
Concept Art

Disc 3 Side B
“ALIEN NATION: THE UDARA LEGACY” Full Screen Feature
Commentary by Writer/Director Kenneth Johnson
A Family Gathering: The Director and Actors Look Back on Alien Nation

STILL GALLERIES:
Kenny’s Personal Album
Production Stills
Concept Art

88 Minutes is a new thriller from director Jon Avnet starring Al Pacino in the role of Dr. Jack Gramm, and it’s premise is pretty good, but it’s execution is pretty preposterous and almost laughable in a lot of places, but for me anyway still watchable just for Al Pacino, doing the stuff that Al Pacino does best, but keep in mind, that is not a recommendation for the fim.

What it suffers from is the same thing that a lot of Hollywood thrillers suffer from today, and that’s being overly plotted to death to give out the guise of complexity, when what it boils down to is just being ridiculous and coincidental in how everything falls into place. The majority of the film runs in a bit of pseudo-real time, though there’s nothing on-screen that indicates that, you’re just reminded of it by phone calls and other means as the story unfolds. Now this isn’t a bad way to do this at all, but here it just feels that the pacing is almost casual in how stuff unfolds, and at least in my eyes, if you’re going to do something like this, things should seem just a little more frantic than how they play on-screen.

Jack Gramm, not only works for the FBI but is also a successful college professor who teaches forensic psychology, and his students are also drawn into the events on-screen. This sets up a number of the coincedences and red herrings here that really plays into the implausibility of things, and yet oddly, I still had fun with this.

And most of that fun comes with Al Pacino. Now I’m sure that many will see this and just not think this is great work from him and in more than all likelihood, 88 Minutes is Al Pacino cashing a paycheck, but he still throws himself into this, but more as Al Pacino rather than playing a real character (and maybe it’s not entirely for the paycheck either, as another movie, Righteous Kill from director Jon Avnet is coming, teaming Pacino and Robert DeNiro together again, but I digress…). And I’m a Pacino fan so for that, it’s fun for me anyway. Pacino’s backed up with some pretty good players here including Neal MacDonough as Forster, Amy Brenneman, Leelee Sobieski, Alicia Witt, Deborah Kara Unger and William Forsythe, with MacDonough being the best of the bunch, and Amy Brenneman playing the hardest working assistant ever seen on-screen (to me, her part is almost a running gag here, the moment Jack needs anything he calls here and it comes up right away). It’s a good cast overall, it just needs a better movie to be in.

Like I said, I cannot recommend this, though if you appreciate the aspects of the character that Al Pacino has become (and a lot of that is due to an incredible impression of Pacino that comedian Craig Gass has done, made popular on The Howard Stern Show), then you might have some fun with this like I did, though I’d expect that most won’t. The biggest saving grace for me anyway is that I got to see it for free, having gotten “movie money” for this in recently buying a Special Edition DVD package for an earlier and far, far better Al Pacino film, “… And Justice For All”. Unless you did what I did, I really cannot say to make the trip to a theatre to see this, just wait for a cable run of the film. Hopefully, Avnet and Pacino will score better when Righteous Kill premieres later in the year.

Street Kings is the second movie from director David Ayer, who previously made Harsh Time with Christian Bale and before that wrote the Antoine Fuqua film, Training Day starring Denzel Washington, so Ayer is no stranger to this sort of hard-hitting crime drama. I thought Harsh Time was decent but somewhat lacking, but think he’s more than made up for it with Street Kings which is extremely well-paced, well-acted and very driven in getting it’s point home.

While there’s elements of the film that aren’t anything new, the way Ayer has put everything together still comes together as an effective crime thriller with one terrific ending.

Ayer’s cast really carries the day here. Keanu Reeves plays Ludlow, and manages a way to keep himself both dark and also the focus of the audience’s concern. Forest Whitaker is quite good as Jack Wander, and the scenes that both have together, especially near the film’s climax are really nicely done. Chris Evans, who put himself more on the acting map with Danny Boyle’s Sunshine goes up another notch here as Diskant, and working with Reeves, they actually make a pretty good on-screen team. The rest of the cast, filled out by guys like Hugh Laurie, Jay Mohr and Cedric The Entertainer all play their parts very well. Honestly, I don’t have a single complaint about this cast in the slightest.

If you like hard-hitting cop/crime thrillers, well then Street Kings to fill that bill. Like I said above, there’s nothing overtly original here, but it’s all put together in a very entertaining way, and it certainly gets a recommendation here.

During the course of the episode they also discuss how the feel of Escape from LA differed from Escape From New York and how they each speak to the era in film when they were produced.

If you are getting this before 5 PM April 16th, 2008, there is still time to enter the Netflix Contest!

Next week’s episode: There Will Be Blood (not that we are going to have a cage match, we’re talking about the flick with that title)

The directions for this contest are a bit more complicated than a normal podcast giveaway, but this prize is quite a bit more than a just a DVD!

This contest has four requirements.

1. You have to be a US resident. (We are still verifying this, but considering the scope of Netflix service, this seems to be accurate. We’ll update this as soon as we find out.)

2. You have to sign up for an account on YouTube.com. If you already have an account, great! If not, you WILL need to sign up for one. The reasons become evident for requirement number…

3. You must subscribe to both Netflix’s Youtube Channel, NetFlixNowPlaying, and FarpointMedia’s Youtube Channel. Signing up for the Netflix channel is a requirement imposed by the marketing company. Signing up for the FarPointMedia YouTube channel is OUR requirement. Mostly because it’s great stuff and we are requiring you to enjoy the awesomeness of the Slice of Scifi and Wingin’ It videos.

4. You must send an email to contest at fanboysmackdown dot com with the subject line “Netflix”.

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We ramble a bit at parts.

Make sure you listen after the end music for a special announcement about next week’s show.

In a small northeastern town, a devastating storm has just hit, causing some property damage as well as knocking out some power. Local artist David Drayton has taken his son into town to stock up on a few things at the local grocery store, when suddenly, this encompassing mist starts to come through the town, with one of the townspeople running into the store, screaming that something in the mist is killing people. After the gathered people in the grocery store see this for themselves, they hunker down in the store, trying to figure what exactly is out there and what’s really happening.

And so the latest movie from director Frank Darabont begins, and my stretch of seeing great movies continues. The Mist is Darabont’s third adaptation of a Stephen King story (the other two are The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile) and with The Mist, Darabont travels to more horrific material than what he’s tackled before. I’ve never read the King story, but from what I’ve been able to gather, it’s almost like King is wanting to dabble in some H.P. Lovecraft type of territory. From what one of my friends has told me, Darabont has changed the ending into something way more decisive and in my opinion, much more horrifying as well.

I really like stories that involve a group of people in a confined space, and The Mist certainly delivers that in spades, with about 90% of the film taking place inside this grocery store. It allows for some real intensity in storytelling and obviously puts a much greater emphasis on the performances of the actors involved. Darabont’s style here is quite a bit different from what he’s done before as his other movies have a little more clear theatrics involved. Darabont employs a rawer style here, using more handheld photography, but not going overboard by any means, and in my opinion anyway, it actually makes this fantastic situation seem more real.

Darabont has a great cast here, headed up by actor Thomas Jane as Drayton. Jane’s the rock of the film and his final moments in the film are about the best I’ve ever seen him in a movie, really delivering a gut-wrenching performance over the ultimate horror that occurs. Others in the cast include Andre Braugher, William Sadler, Laurie Holden, Frances Sternhagen and Jeffrey DeMunn. Oscar winner Marcia Gay Harden is also part of the cast, as a bible-thumper who believes this entire situation to be the judgement day at hand, and in my opinion anyway, she’s the weakest link of the film, starting off already as a bit of a hateful person and just keeping that same note throughout the film. In her part, either in the direction of the character or else by casting someone else, had that character been made a little more even-keeled starting out and grown into the hateful person they became, that would’ve actually added more to the horror of the situation.

But still, this is a very good movie, and really I can live with Harden’s performance here. What was worse was the actual audience that we saw this with, which was one of the worst audiences that I’d seen a movie with in a long time- immature to the extreme, they’re the sort of audience that just makes a seasoned filmgoer like myself believe more and more that mass audiences really can’t handle a lot of unconventional stuff, or even mature stuff thrown at them. While I really enjoyed the film, this is one instance where I almost wish I could’ve waited to discover this one at home more than anything else. The Mist certainly does get a high recommendation, but just beware the audience that you see it with…

And now a little follow up (the above was written when the movie first came out), I just bought the 2-disk package on this last week and watched The Mist again last weekend. One of the highlights, actually the main reason to buy the 2-disk package of the film, is a “Director’s Cut” from Frank Darabont here which basically presents the film as he wanted to present it- in black and white. Darabont has a little introduction as to why he wanted to make the movie this way and I have to say, the final result is far superior to how it was originally shown. A black and white presentation, especially with a film like this, just adds to it’s creepiness and actually keeps your focus more on the entire piece. I plan to watch this again in color at some point in the future, but as far as I’m concerned, the black and white print is the way to see The Mist.

Also above, I mentioned my problems with Marcia Gay Harden in the film and after watching this again, I’m actually very cool with her performance now, and part of this… again… is probably due to the black and white presentation. Obviously I cannot recommend this enough.

On top of this, I’d highly encourage watching the featurettes on the disk as well, especially the Making of The Mist featurette- they talk to everyone about all aspects of the film. The most fun here though is with Frank Darabont himself who’s literally a kid in the candy store with this movie. And for those that might have a problem with the new ending (which I didn’t have a problem with the ending), no less than Stephen King himself says it’s a great ending and if he’d thought of it, he would’ve wrote it.

The Mist 2-Disk Special Edition is one great package, if you liked the movie in theatres, don’t hesitate for a moment to buy this package.

More detailed show notes when Tony recovers from his wicked weekend and this week’s Jury Duty.

21 from director Robert Luketic (who I’m not that familiar with) is based on the book Bringing Down The House (also something that I’m not that familiar with) and I expect that the book probably contains a little more meat than what the movie gives us. The movie, at least to me anyway, is just “OK.” It’s about 15-20 minutes too long and it suffers from it’s slow pace. A movie like this should really give you more of an idea of what it’s technique (in this case, counting cards) is more like, and while it tries, at the end, I still really don’t have any sort of good idea about how it works. They’ve got their way of presenting it in the movie, but to me it’s almost like the little girl reading The Golden Compass in the movie of that same name, it works because this is the way it’s supposed to and you’re just having to accept it that way. At the same time, there’s not much that comes as a big surprise in the film either, now that’s OK, as long as there’s a little style and panache and edge that goes with it, but 21 doesn’t quite want to do that, instead more creating something that fits it’s PG-13 rating and is a little more appealing to it’s targeted younger audience. For me anyway, this ended up being more having to endure it until the end rather than getting sucked into it.

Young actor Jim Sturgess (who I’m also not familiar with any of his past roles) plays Ben, and while I’m sure he’s what the filmmakers wanted here, for me anyway, he just didn’t do a whole lot to really make me care about him one way or the other. He’s typically nerdy in his MIT sections (scenes with him MIT nerd/geek friends are almost embarrassing to watch sometimes) and his Vegas transformation comes on as a bit sudden, it just didn’t quite connect with me. He’s backed up with some good performances from Kevin Spacey, Lawrence Fishburne and Kate Bosworth (this is the third movie now that Spacey and Bosworth have been in together). The Spaceman’s really good here as Micky Rosa, and I also really like Fishburne in his part as a Loss Prevention specialist for the Vegas casinos. Both of these guys suggest that there’s way more to what’s going on with this racket than what’s shown on screen, and I think that might’ve been a way more interesting story to see.

From what I’m gathering though, I think my opinion of the film is in more of a minority than most. Your own mileage may vary and you may very well enjoy it a great deal, for me though, this was another case of a great trailer, but a so-so film, a film that could’ve benefited from having a little more edge and style to it, as well as quicker pacing that would just make it more compelling to follow.

Scott Sigler’s new print version of Infected gets released on April 1st, 2008. Over the next few days, his publisher has allowed him to give away copies of the PDF version of the book for free.

We are helping him do just that.

For more information on Scott and Infected, visit www.scottsigler.com

If you want share the file with friends, get them to download it from this page or from:

http://www.randomhouse.com/crown/infected/downloads/infected_novel.pdf

By getting the file from that link, it’s proving to the big publishers that we podcasters have a clue about what we are doing.

This file will only be active for a few days, at which time the link will become inactive and you’ll have to go to the bookstore to read the story. Which you should do anyway.

(Note:  If you didn’t get the file, you missed out.  Now get your ass out there and pick up a copy of INFECTED!)

Tee’s podcast audiobooks are Billibub Baddings and the Case of the Singing Sword and Morevi: Remastered.

Tee won’t be making it to Archon this year. Boo!

Tee plans on being at Balticon, the New Media Expo, and Dragon*Con.

Tony drops an F-Bomb because of Star Wars. Tee drops one because of Tony.

Movies Referenced (in order of utterance):

• Super Mario Brothers
• Batman: The Movie
• Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl
• Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest
• Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End
• Joust
• Resident Evil
• The Matrix
• The Matrix: Reloaded
• The Matrix: Revolutions
• Shawn of the Dead
• Hot Fuzz
• Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
• The Pirate Movie
• Les Miserable
• La Cage aux Folles
• Henry V
• Captain Blood
• Cutthroat Island
• Masters of the Universe
• Superman Returns
• Superman: The Movie
• The Usual Suspects
• X-Men: The Last Stand
• Batman Begins
• Batman Forever
• Batman and Robin
• Batman: The Dark Knight
• Batman
• Batman Returns
• Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back
• Pirates of the Caribbean: The Prequel (Jack, Barbossa, and the Monkey) - Credit to T. Mast, T. Morris and A. Pinilla for concept
• Sahara
• Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
• The Incredible Hulk
• Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow
• Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer
• Fantastic Four
• Fantastic Four - Roger Corman’s version
• Ghost Rider
• Spiderman 3
• Star Wars: Episodes 1-3
• Star Trek: The Reboot
• Mission: Impossible 3
• Mission: Impossible
• Mission: Impossible 2
• Star Wars: A New Hope
• Star Wars: Return of the Jedi
• Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
• Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
• Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
• Raiders of the Lost Ark
• Breach
• Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
• No Country for Old Men (Next week’s flick)

And that’s the opening premise of The Bank Job the newest movie from veteran director Roger Donaldson, and let me say up front, this is really one impressive little film, extremely fast-paced with something different going on all the time. The action leading up to the actual robbery is some very nice set-up, doing a good job at establishing the characters of all involved, and once the robbery does take place, the pace really picks up further, as the secrets behind the robbery not only have mobsters involved, but also local police as well MI-5 and 6, right up to the very top of English government.

But with all that does go on in the film, none of it is confusing in the slightest, and the viewer never has any problem at all following all of the events as they unfold.

Donaldson’s got a very good cast here, led by Jason Statham as Terry Leather and Saffron Burrows as Martine Love, with the rest filled out by what I suspect to be a lot of top British character talent. Statham continues to impress me and his Terry Leather is a very grounded character, you won’t see him pulling off the fantastic moves that he has in some of his other films, here he more demonstrates that he is a good actor in addition to being a great action movie star. For most people, Statham will be the only actor that they really “know,” so it’s going to be really easy to buy what goes on with the rest.

This review is a little late in the game, as The Bank Job opened two weeks ago, the same time 10,000 B.C. opened, and this weekend was a bit of a dead one as far as new releases, so I knew I’d be able to come back and still see this in somewhat of a timely manner. The word on this was good from the start and I know for myself it’s opening weekend was a real toss-up between seeing this and 10,000 B.C. and so I opted for the bigger effects movie which I figured would have the better presentation, little suspecting what a disappointment 10,000 B.C. was going to be, but still better late than never at all (even though this had moved around at the theatre that I saw it in, going from a good room to one of the smaller rooms by the time I did see it). I’d still urge folks to seek this out, as it’s a great example of better heist movies out there, extremely well made and well performed, this one’s a whole lot of fun.

This line, spoken by one of the main characters of Funny Games, Michael Haneke’s 2008 remake of his own 1997 film, sums up the message of the film pretty nicely.

I had pretty high expectations walking into the theater. The original was fantastic, and forced me to consider the way I view media, which no film I had ever seen did before. I was thrilled when I sat in the back row, in my favorite seat, with about 8 other people in the theater with me. No screaming children, no one on cell phones. Because of this, I was really able to get into and enjoy the movie.

I’ll preface the rest of the review by saying this: This movie is definitely not for everyone. Four of the eight other people in the theater with me walked out within the first 45 minutes of the film. It definitely polarizes its audience.

Funny Games is about a upper middle-class family who are accosted by a pair of Abercrombie and Fitch psychopaths at their summer home and forced to play humiliating “games” in order to stay alive. The opening scene, to most people’s surprise, is extremely serene. Ann (Naomi Watts) and George Farber (Tim Roth) are driving with their son George Jr. (Devon Gearhart) to their summer house. They play guessing games with opera CDs, and then, abruptly, John Zorn’s song “Bonehead” blasts over the soundtrack, and in red, block-style lettering the title of the film is emblazoned onto the screen.

The film’s a scene-for-scene remake of the original, so it’s not treading new ground as far as the direction. The sets look exactly as they did in the 1997 version, and everything’s essentially the same. Where this film truly shines over the original is the casting. Naomi Watts and Tim Roth play the traumatized parents brilliantly, and the pairing of Michael Pitt and Brady Corbet as the perfectly polite psychopaths Paul and Peter is awesome. Their innocent looks contrast their sociopathic tendencies.

There’s a cloud of nihilism that overcasts the entire film. There’s nothing wrong with the Farbers. They haven’t committed any real crimes, and they have a great familial bond. Paul and Peter chose them because they were next door. There’s an interaction that occurs between Paul and George Sr. just after the “games” begin. George asks, “Why?” and Paul replies quickly, “Why not?”. This is indicative of the message the film is trying to portray.

Funny Games is putting a mirror to the faces of the viewers, using the tropes of the genre to manipulate our feelings towards the film. Paul’s breaking of the fourth wall throughout the movie indicates this more than anything else. When Ann is searching for the family dog, Lucky, playing the ‘cold, warm, hot’ game with Paul, he looks at the camera and smirks. This fazed me the first time I saw the film, and took me out of the movie for a moment, forcing me to review what I’d watched so far, and more specifically, why I was watching it. What motivated me to come and watch this particular movie?

These are the questions Haneke is evoking when Paul acknowledges the film, saying things to the camera like “You’re on their side, aren’t you?”, making the audience look at who they were really behind. They came to a thriller to see the protagonists go through hell and come out the other side, so in a way, the viewer wants the villain to torture and harass the protagonists. His objective is to show you that by enjoying the film, you’re a part of it. The viewer is helping turn violence into entertainment, and Haneke delights in making his audience uncomfortable about watching his film.

My biggest problem with Funny Games is that I’ve seen it before. The message hasn’t changed at all. Although it’s still relevant today, it’s lost some of its force in the ten years between the films (especially with the success of the Saw series and its stance towards violence). Haneke’s retreading old ground here, and the question I kept asking was “Why?” There’s no reason, in my eyes, to remake this film. He’s said what he wanted to say already.

I enjoyed this movie pretty much from start to finish, but the message has been told before, by Michael himself in the original, as well as Kubrick in A Clockwork Orange. He’s not doing anything fresh, and as a fan of his work, I’m a bit disappointed that he isn’t putting his energy into new and more interesting projects. This is the only flaw I saw in this film, and were it not a remake, I would give it my full and uncompromising support.

And that’s the basic premise of Doomsday the newest movie from director Neil Marshall, who previously directed two other great genre films, the military/werewolf thriller Dog Soldiers, and the story of a spelunking trip gone awry, The Descent (my own pick as the second best movie of 2006). And at least for me, Doomsday is right up there with them, a movie that’s an homage to post-apocalyptic films of the past (in particular Escape From New York and the Mad Max movies, but a fun little ride all it’s own as well.

Marshall crams a hell of a lot in this nearly two hour film, and it’s clear to me that he, his cast and crew are having a great time with it. This isn’t just an homage to the films that I mentioned above, but also to the style of cool over-the-top B-movie, Grindhouse sort of action movies… hell, at the end of this, I thought Rodriguez and Tarantino should be inducting Marshall into the club.

There’s exploitation thrills galore in the movie, and it’s all conducted at a pretty fast pace. It absolutely looks terrific, with some really nice set pieces, including a cool gladitorial type of fight scene, and capping off with a nifty car chase that’s not quite up to what George Miller did in The Road Warrior (it’s just not as epic), but still filmed really well and just the thing that should cap off something like this. Marshall is really aided well here with the music of Tyler Bates that manages to have some echoes of John Carpenter’s music as well as some of the strains from 28 Days Later. Bates is really a rising star in film score composition and I can’t wait to hear what he does next.

Marshall’s got a really cool cast assembled here, with actress Rhona Mitra leading the way as Eden Sinclair. As far as I’m concerned, this is breakout stuff for Mitra- no she won’t win any sort of Oscar for this, but she certainly does establish herself as a presence in the film and she’s really committed herself to the over-the-top action in a big way. She’s backed up with a great assortment of UK talent, including Bob Hoskins, Malcolm McDowell, Alexander Siddig, David O’Hara, Adrian Lister and Sean Pertwee amongst others. And again, at least for me, it looked like they were all just having a great time here.

Anyway, I just thought this was brilliant fun, not just as a good high-paced action piece, but also as a great mish-mash homage to all the films that obviously have influenced Neil Marshall as a filmmaker. For me, it was as much fun finding his references as it was just watching the action unfold, and oh was it so cool to see a film like this just come in and be this incredibly fun exploitation piece. On top of all of that, nothing but cool trailers leading the way, including The Incredible Hulk and another fun looking fright-fest called The Strangers. Between this and Funny Games this is probably one of the best weekends I’ll have at the movies all year. If you’re looking for something life-defining and dramatically weighty, look elsewhere, but if you’re wanting to see some good old unapologetic genre fun, Doomsday fills the bill (and for me, after such terrible genre fare as Jumper and 10,000 B.C. this was just what the doctor ordered). Highly, highly recommended…

1. Intro with Melina

2. Spoiler free review of Stay

3. Trampas’ Review of Star Trek: Of Gods and Men

4. Tony and Adam make fun of Melina for falling asleep during Gone Baby Gone

5. Total movie plot synopsis and analysis

6. Picking apart the movie, like only FBSD can do

7. Random TV/Movie spoilers - Warning: Don’t click the link if you don’t want about 20 films spoiled for you.

8. Tony and Melina blast The Notebook

Don’t forget to check out the contests page.

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And that is how Funny Games begins, but beware, the Funny Games of the title aren’t the “games” that the young men are “playing” with the Farbers, it’s more the game that director Michael Haneke is playing with the audie