Cinefantastique Online

You are browsing the archives of 2009 February.

Now that Cinefantastique’s 2009 Wonder Award Winners have been posted, it seems like a good time to do a little post-mortem, offering some of the voters a chance to explain their choices and voice their agreement or disagreement with the final results. After all, as interesting as the list of winners is, it is still [...]

Writer-director-star Stephen Chow – up to now known primarily for his action comedies KUNG FU HUSTLE and SHAOLINE SOCCER – changes pace with this Chinese riff on Stephen Spielberg’s E.T. (an influence that Chow freely acknowledges). The results are  sometimes heart-warming and often amusing, but there is a scatter-shot feel as Chow cannot resist including [...]

Lucio Fulci’s Cult Classic is Back on DVD
The 2008 Grindhouse DVD
Lucio Fulci’s THE BEYOND (E Tu Vivrai nel Terrore – L’aldilà, 1981) may be the ultimate cult horror film, a strange, non-linear exercise in deliberately vague storytelling that depends on atmosphere and imagery instead of coherent plot – techniques that (also seen in Dario Argento’s INFERNO) [...]

I would like to tell you that REPO! THE GENETIC OPERA a such thoroughly fascinating misfire – such an epic train-wreck of bloodshed and carnage – that you simply cannot look away; unfortunately, I did look away: I got bored after about twenty minutes and turned off the DVD, forcing myself to return and finish [...]

As cinema buffs and Hollywood’s elite await the Academy Awards this weekend, Cinefantastique Online has addressed the unfortunate lack of critical appreciation for films of the fantastic through its 2009 Wonder Awards. As in any other subjective human endeavor those of us who voted on the nominations disagreed at times with the selections of others. [...]

CINEFANTASTIQUE ONLINE presents a unique moment direct from New York Comic Con 2009. SUPERJAIL! co-creators Christy Karacas and Stephen Warbrick drop the veil on the secret history of everybody’s favorite gender-bending full-time-prison-guard-and-part-time-sadist-with-a-heart-of-gold, Alice.

Coming across like “Quentin Tarantino Meets Aliens in a Supermarket,” this nifty little movie is enough to restore your faith in the vitality of low-budget independent cinema. It’s not perfect, but it marshalls its minimal resources to maximum effect, and the budgetary limitations (one major location, small cast, and the de rigeuer hand-held video photography) become [...]

Home video offerings this week are small but varied: a couple of recent theatrical releases, some DTV titles, and a few oldies hauled out of the moth balls…
Quarantine (Sony DVD & Blu-Ray)
We haven’t seen Sony’s remake of the chilling Spanish [REC], but early reports had the plot closely following Jaume Balaguero’s 2007 film. We follow [...]

After Paul Newman’s death last September, someone at Warner Bros decided to comb through their catalog and release any remaining Newman films that they owned the rights to. Unfortunately, their previous box set, The Paul Newman Collection, managed to skim most of the cream off the top with titles like Harper, The Young Philadelphians, and [...]

Based on a story from the revered Books of Blood series by Clive Barker – actually the first story from the first volume – Midnight Meat Train was supposed to have been given a much more ‘red carpet’ theatrical release than it wound up with. A regime change at Lionsgate knocked MMT out of a [...]

The Oscars are just around the corner – this Sunday, in fact – which means that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is about to hand out awards for the best films of 2008. Inevitably, many of the truly best films from last year will be ignored because they fall into the genres [...]

The votes are counted. At times it was a knock-down, drag-out fight to the finish – resulting in several ties – but now we have announced the results for Cinefantstique Online’s first ever Wonder Awards. The winners include a satisfying mix of worthy titles; each nominee for Best Picture prevailed in at least one category. [...]

What are the Wonder Awards? They are Cinefantastique Online’s answer to the Oscars – a chance to recognize the great science fiction, fantasy, and horror films that are denied Academy Award nominations because of their genre affiliation. Below is a complete list of the 2009 Wonder Award Winnerss. You can find the nominations listed here. For [...]