Death Racers, start your engines!

The movie is ready, the retro trailers have been spliced. Now all we need is the wildest movie audience in North Carolina (i.e. you) to make tomorrow night a rocking awesome time at the movie theater.

Friday, July 10 at Midnight, David Carradine will ride across the screen once more in the cult Roger Corman classic "Death Race 2000."

Tickets will be on sale Friday morning when the theater opens at noon. You can also buy them online here.

I would suggest that no one wait on this. I pretty much get into all of my shows for free, but made the decision to purchase tickets for me and my friends to guarantee we got into this show. You cannot say nobody warned you. It's going to be the coolest show in town, and there's a slight chance that only 100 seats will be available unless my fellow year-round GSO peeps can show their numbers.

I'll see you at the movies.

P.S. Winston-Salem film critic Mark Burger gave us a nice write-up in
Yes!Weekly. Apparently, Night of the Comet gave Burger more action than what the rest of the audience saw on the screen.

[PODCAST] "The Worst of the Worst"

Hollywood decided to commemorate the anniversary of our nation’s independence with some of the worst movie ideas of all time, leaving Mike and Joe to decide which idea is “The Worst of the Worst.” Needless remakes, sequels, prequels, and adaptations of ridiculous toys and video games -- the studios clearly left no corner unturned. When the guys aren’t wading through a veritable garbage week of movie news, the mull the future of N.C. native Zack Galifianakis and review Johnny Depp’s Public Enemies and the wonderful documentary Anvil: The Story of Anvil.

This Week’s Soundtrack Selections:
“High Noon” by Tex Ritter from High Noon,
“Ten Million Slaves” by Otis Taylor from Public Enemies,
-and-
“Metal on Metal” by Anvil from Anvil: The Story of Anvil.

Stream it!

[SURVEY] The Worst of the Worst

We're having trouble deciding which movie idea presented in today's news stories was the worst of the worst.
Can you help us to decide?

Let the Right One In remake: Don't break out the pitchforks and torches just yet

News of the remake of one of last year's best films, Let the Right One In, has started trickling out (If you haven't seen it, you're in for a treat. But beware the crappy subtitles on the American DVD).

The L.A. Times checks in with director Matt Reeves (Cloverfield) and comes back with some faintly reassuring news: He's not planning to turn it into Twilight.

"There's definitely people who have a real bull's-eye on the film," Reeves said, "and I can understand because of people's' love of the [original] film that there's this cynicism that I'll come in and trash it, when in fact I have nothing but respect for the film. I'm so drawn to it for personal and not mercenary reasons, my feeling about it is if I didn't feel a personal connection and feel it could be its own film, I wouldn't be doing it. I hope people give us a chance."

Well, fair enough.

I actually really liked Cloverfield (working title: The Adventures of the Incredible Indestructible Camcorder), and I'm glad to hear that Reeves seems to have the same reverence for Let the Right One In that its fans do. Having read the novel -- a page-turner, incidentally -- I'll say that the source material gives him some wiggle room. There were entire subplots that were either truncated or cut out of the original film (necessarily, but still), so if he wants to distinguish Let Me In (the American title), John Ajvide Lindqvist's book has plenty of uncharted territory to explore.

The danger, of course, is distracting from the sweet, unsettling central story. Maintaining the emotional weight of Eli and Oskar's relationship while introducing something new to the U.S. version would be quite a balancing act. Maybe Reeves can pull it off, but I'm keeping my optimism in check.

New kid in the Goon Docks

Hello, reader. I'm Glen.

A while back, Joe -- somewhat unwisely, I'd argue -- extended an invitation to me to become a blogger here at TheMovieShow.org. After more than a year of hemming, hawing, wishing and washing, here I am.

You might know me from my film reviews, which are read and enjoyed by literally tens of people across the Triad, many of them directly related to me. For those of you who don't know, I've written the Flicks column in Yes! Weekly for a few years now, and I have loved most of it.

Joe and I have been friends since sometime in '06, and I can honestly say I'm honored that he'd ask me to share his little corner of the Internet. I cannot tell you what to expect as far as post frequency and content, but I get space in Yes to write about one movie per week. If absolutely nothing else, this will be a good place to prattle on about my Netflix queue, my burgeoning dislike of Ryan Reynolds and my seasoned-to-perfection hatred of Michael Bay. I hear at least the latter is a welcome sentiment around here.

Anyway, good to be with you. Back with some actual content soon.

The Triad's Two to watch instead of 'Transformers 2'

This weekend, Michael Bay has squeezed out a racist, metallic turd into theaters across the country.

And while most Americans wanting to see a brand new movie have few choices beyond the 'Fallen' Transformers sequel or the no less horrible-looking My Sister's Keeper, we Greensboro residents are actually quite lucky.

We got two new movies coming out today, and not only are they much better than Bay-formers 2, but they were both made by filmmakers from the Triad.

First up, we got Goodbye Solo.



Directed and co-written by Winston-Salem native Ramin Bahrani, the film was not only shot in and around his hometown, but unlike many of the films made in the Piedmont Triad area, the movie also takes place there as well.

Unlike most films set in the South, "Goodbye Solo" is one of the very few to acknowledge that our region has changed quite a lot since the days of Andy Griffith. Bahrani tells the story of Solo, a Senegalese cab driver and member of our thriving immigrant population who befriends a grizzled, older man named William. William might have been born in North Carolina, but it's clear he is more of an outsider than his immigrant friend.

The movie is centered around William's desire to end his life and Solo's attempt to change his mind. You could guess how this movie will end, but I promise you will be wrong. This is a subtle, touching drama that is neither cloying or patronizing, and anyone who wants to learn a thing or two about effective, low-budget filmmaking should look at Bahrani's film as the Bible.

As a bonus, there's probably a chance that most people will recognize at least one person in the film. For instance, the fellow selling bootleg DVD's to Solo and his stepdaughter actually worked the security desk with me during my summer break from college.

Many are calling Goodbye Solo one of the year's best films and I am certain that few films - if any - will unseat it from my top 5 list of 2009.

But in case you're in the mood for an action movie instead of a drama, another group of Triad filmmakers have you covered as well in Dogs of Chinatown.



Greensboro filmmakers Blake Faucette and Micah Moore had a smaller budget than Bahrani - and to be fair, smaller ambitions - but with a shoestring budget, they completed a far superior action film than Michael Bay did with Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen. Slight praise, yes, so allow me to go a bit farther. In terms of films that were both locally made - and funded - I haven't seen a completed feature from Greensboro that tops Dogs of Chinatown.

Moore is a whiz at low-fi scene compositions, and the scenes enhanced by digital and coloration effects are top notch.

And not only will Dogs of Chinatown give you the chance to see local actors and actresses get punched, kicked and shot at, but the movie is a time capsule for our city with cameos by local buildings from two years ago that have been either renovated or completely demolished. The best part is, that if you see this film at the Carousel this week, you will be supporting the people who made it directly.

The choice is a simple one. You can either watch a boring, 2.5-hour exercise in racist android porn from a man who doesn't seem to care about humanity, let alone the Triad. Or you can watch the locally made Goodbye Solo or Dogs of Chinatown, both of which are superior films for different reasons.

Review: 'Transformers 2'

To commemorate the tenth anniversary of his classic film Do The Right Thing, Spike Lee did an interview with Entertainment Weekly where the filmmaker denied the existence of our so-called post-racial America that many feel was minted on the day Barack Obama became president. And after watching Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, I am inclined to agree.

The movie keeps nearly all of the characters from the first movie - even though none of them really mattered all that much - then offers us two new protagonist robots named Mudflap and Skids. These characters, also billed as "the twins," are a pair of jive-talking androids with ridiculously huge lips, despite the fact that very few of the movie's robotic characters have mouths. They also have wide eyes and pull an Amos and Andy, firing off such brilliant nuggets of comedy like "I'm gonna get up in that ass!" and "I hate readin!'"

How many people did it take to tell such a racist joke? It at least required the efforts of director Michael Bay; writers Ehren Kruger, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman; a whole fleet of producers which includes Steven Spielberg; and gobs of CGI and special effects artists. Then to top it off, you have Caucasian voice actor and former Mr. Show alum Tom Kenny (a.k.a. Spongebob Squarepants) who provided the voice-work for both of these characters.

I wonder if there was a point in production where at least one of the white folks involved with the production had the good sense or consideration to ask, 'Isn't this a bit irresponsible?'

But no, and I'm not too sure that anyone involved with the production asked other important questions either, like, 'Is it okay that Megan Fox can't act?' or 'Does a movie about giant robots really need to be two hours and 40 minutes long?"

Speaking of the movie's running time, you'll really feel the seconds crawl as the movie ekes from one poorly executed set piece to the next. Michael Bay shoves his camera in a ridiculous number of angles and the worst part is that none of them are beautiful or effective. Long outed as a director who lacks both confidence in his work and competence Bay's films have been getting increasingly worse since Armageddon. Sadly, it's starting to look like he's never going to pull up from his steep, downward trajectory.

The movie's only saving graces are two scenes where beloved Autobot leader Optimus Prime (voiced by Peter Cullen) fights off a horde of evil Decepticons near the beginning and ending of the film. Between these two thrilling moments, there's a 'plot' wherein the evil robots are planning to destroy our sun for some reason or another. Sadly, the story is so flimsy and pieced together that John Turturro was asked to recount what was happening just before his character found himself staring directly at a robot's testicles.

So yeah, you've got those two cool Optimus scenes for old Transformers fans like myself, but they are only slight bookends in a long and joyless cinematic library of crap. I recommend that you keep your fingers crossed that someone will upload both of these scenes onto YouTube very soon so you won't have trouble yourself the way that I did.