Cinefantastique Online

You are browsing the archives of 2009 April.

This multi-million dollar, star-studded movie adaptation of the Marvel comic book characters is a solid entertainment even for filmgoers who know nothing about the X-Men. Unlike many summer blockbusters in general (and comic book adaptations in particular) actually shows some thoughtful signs of intelligence instead of wallowing solely in visual effects and mind-numbing action. Yes, [...]

Brilliant and frustrating by turn, executive producer Ronald D Moore’s retooling of the beloved but clunky Battlestar Galactica had been (according to its creators) hard wired with a 4-year life span. This “ticking clock” element infused it with a sense of narrative urgency that helped reel in the show runners when the plot seemed to [...]

Last month I mentioned that Sony Entertainment had made many of its full-length movies – including several science fiction titles – available for free on Crackle.com. Now comes word that Crackle has a YouTube channel, featuring some of the same content. Some of the science fiction, fantasy, and horror films available are STARMAN,  SON OF GODZILLA, [...]

Since this weekend is focused on the horror and fantasy films of Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez, including the latter’s 1996 film FROM DUSK TILL DAWN (scripted by Quentin Tarantino), we thought we should share this video clip of Salma Hayek as the vampire queen Santanico Pandemonium, dancing to the uber-cool song “After Dark.” This [...]

With the back-to-back home video releases of  THE SPIRIT and SIN CITY, now seems like an opportune moment to take a brief look at the cinefantastique of Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez. Although neither artist is a specialist in science fiction, fantasy, or horror films in quite the same way as someone like George Lucas, their [...]

SIN CITY is out on a new 2-Disc Blu-ray set this week. This was one of those uber-cool projects that actually lived up to its hype. There had been previous films with digitally created environments (SKY CAPTAIN AND THE WORLD OF TOMORROW), but SIN CITY really used its technique to create something memorable. It wasn’t just Frank Miller’s [...]

Two years after the fact, this documentary about the making of FROM DUSK TILL DAWN reaches screens, and what an amusing account it is. Much of it is off-the-cuff and entertaining, but some parts have also clearly been staged for the benefit of the documentary, particularly the hilarious opening, wherein George Clooney and Quentin Tarantino [...]

It’s not easy being God – just ask Eric Clapton. Quentin Tarantino has achieved iconic status, to the point that it was widely assumed his involvement in this crime-horror hybrid would guarantee blockbuster success. What people forget, however, is that Tarantino has only one blockbuster to his credit (PULP FICTION). Not that artistic achievement should [...]

The Kevin Williamson formula (rewrite familiar horror scenarios and have the characters note the familiarity) has gotten to be a bore, and in this case it makes no sense. In a story patterned after INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (though it stumbles closer to INVADERS FROM MARS), the characters surmise that films like MIB and [...]

A hybrid of high-tech filmmaking and hackneyed storytelling
This is one of the most bizarre movies ever made. That description might make the film sound interesting, but the bizarre quality lies not so much in the film itself as in the thinking that went into it: What made anyone believe this was a movie worth making [...]

A Ground-Breaking Piece of Film-Noir Fantasy
Jessica Alba in "That Yellow Bastard"
This is a small milestone in the history of cinema: a $45-million film shot, on co-director Robert Rodriguez’s sound-stage in Austin, Texas, using actors in front of green screen to combine the cast with CGI backdrops, thus creating an artificial environment that simulates the [...]

The SIN CITY Blu-Ray is an easy early candidate for any 2009 discs of the year list.
Released almost exactly four years ago, the massive impact that SIN CITY had on the way Hollywood makes movies has been somewhat blunted by subsequent efforts utilizing the tools without the talent. SIN CITY was filmed using state-of-the-art digital [...]

Two of our favorite blogs have added their entries to a meme started at FilmSquish.com, which asked for lists of Favorite Film Characters. On Friday, Arbogast on Film provided his list, which of course led off with Milton Arbogast, the ill-fated private eye felled by a fall down the stairs (not to mention Mother’s knife) [...]