Archive for February 2009
You are browsing the archives of 2009 February.
Doom (2005) – Sci-Fi Film & DVD Review
The batting average of videogame-to-film adaptations is not great, and there was little about this one to make us expect it would be anything more than the usual mess of noisy stupidity (guns, monsters, explosions). However, the film version turns out to be much better than expected — a nifty piece of low-ambition entertainment that [...]
Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li on Feb 27
[ February 27, 2009; ] 20th Century Fox unleashes this videogame adaptation on February 27. Although derived from the “Street Fighter” franchise, it is not a sequel to the 1990s Jean-Claude Van Damme STREET FIGHTER; rather, it jump-starts a new storyline, a la BATMAN BEGINS. The new film focuses on subsidiary character Chun-Li (Kristen Kreuk), an Interpol agent who joins [...]
Tokyo comes to America on March 6
[ March 6, 2009; ] This three-part anthology, set in the titular city, opens on March 6 at the Landmark Sunshine Theatre in New York City before moving to the Nuart Theatre in Los Angeles and the Edwards Westpark 8 on March 20. With episodes directed by Bong Joon-Ho (THE HOST), Michael Gondry (ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND), and [...]
COMIC CON EXCLUSIVE VIDEO! Bill Plympton
A CINEFANTASTIQUE ONLINE exclusive from New York Comic Con 2009! Cartoonist Bill Plympton (25 WAYS TO QUITE SMOKING; HOT DOG) talks about his new feature IDIOTS AND ANGELS and his Dog character.
Laserblast: My Name is Bruce; Friday the 13th – the Series; The Lodger; Tales from the Darkside
Last week, we saw a slew of old titles hitting DVD store shelves in anticipation of the new Friday the 13th flick, which actually doesn’t open until this week. The only new Fridaytitle coming out today is not a feature film featuring Jason Voorhees but the second season of the television series. Instead, for some reason, Warner Brothers [...]
COMIC CON EXCLUSIVE VIDEO! R. W. Goodwin on ALIEN TRESPASS
A CINEFANTASTIQUE ONLINE Exclusive from New York Comic Con 2009! One of the masterminds behind THE X-FILES, director R.W. Goodwin, talks about his newest film, the retro Sci-Fi thriller, ALIEN TRESPASS.
COMIC CON EXCLUSIVE VIDEO! Keith R. A. DeCandido on Farscape Season 5
A CINEFANTASTIQUE ONLINE Exclusive from New York Comic Con 2009! The prolific and personable author Keith R.A. DeCandido talks about his work on FARSCAPE: Season 5.
Box Office: 3-D Coraline lands in 3rd
It was a weak weekend for new fantasy and science-fiction films: CORALINE, the excellent new stop-motion film from Henry Selick, came in third place; PUSH, the new action sci-fi flick wound up in sixth.
CORALINE opened in 2,299 North American theatres , where it earned $16.85-million, well behind HE’S JUST NOT THAT INTO YOU and TAKEN. Still [...]
Sinister Image: The Karnstein Ultimatum
BLOOD AND ROSES remains unavailable on DVD, in either its American or original French versions.
I first saw BLOOD AND ROSES at the Crest Theater in Sacramento in the summer of 1960. The city was suffering from a month-long heat wave the afternoon I entered the well air-conditioned theater to sit alone in the darkness and [...]
SUPERNAL DREAMS: CORALINE in 3-D “looks so much better with the glasses!”
As is usual for animated films, CORALINE was completely storyboarded, allowing for a great deal of thought about where the camera should go for each and every one of its approximately 1,500 shots. This careful pre-planning allowed director Henry Selick to come up with some beautiful camera moves (and angles), as well as determine the [...]
Actor James Whitmore dead at 87
Venerable character actor James Whitmore passed away on Friday, at the age of 87; the cause of death was lung cancer. Although well known for a wide variety of roles, including one-man stage shows of Harry Truman, Will Rogers and Theodore Roosevelt, Whitmore also gave memorable performances in a handful of science-fiction, fantasy, and horror [...]
Coraline – Film Review
Whether you go through the looking glass, down the rabbit hole, over the rainbow, or into the labyrinth, you are bound to encounter wonders beyond your imagination, sights and sounds that impress the senses and embed themselves upon the brain with all the enchantment of a beautiful dream, but somewhere in our minds we know [...]
Monkeybone (2001) – DVD Review
click to purchase
Having launched his career with the weird and intriguing MTV short subject “Slow Bob in the Lower Dimensions” (the first of what was supposd to be several episodes that, never, alas materialized), Henry Selick followed up by directing one of the most charming fantasy entertainments ever created for the screen, Tim Burton’s THE [...]
