The Ultimate DVD Geek
Paul Blart: Mall Cop and
Observe and Report
by Doug Pratt

2009 turned out to be the year of the 'shopping mall security person' comedy, and it shows you how fast trends turn over these days that there were only three months between the theatrical release dates separating the point where the genre was established, with Paul Blart: Mall Cop, a Sony Pictures Home Entertainment release, and was then undercut in cynicism, with Observe and Report, a Warner Home Video release.

 

Voynaristic
The Vampire as Moral Compass
by Kim Voynar

Back in the day, it was more, well, black-and-white. Vampires were the devourers of humans, the seducers of innocent, pale-skinned virgins ... they were Bad Guys, plain and simple. For most of their literary and cinematic history, it made sense that this was so; the world back then was a simpler place, a place with clear-cut perceptions of right and wrong.
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Frenzy on the Wall
Why Do They Keep Making Them Like They Used To?
by Noah Forrest

A lot of modern films care little about entertaining an experienced filmgoing audience; many filmmakers simply recycle past ideas without even bothering to repackage them as something different. Although this phenomena crosses all genres, it seems especially prevalent in horror films.

Confessions of a Festival Junkie: AFI
by Leonard Klady

One can only hope that what the organizers demonstrate is a flexibility to adapt as the festival proceeds. If the crowd demands, add second screenings because the one thing no one wants is a patron that feels shut out from the experience. Much better to have someone walk away from such superior offerings as The White Ribbon, Bad Lieutenant, City of Love and Death or Looking for Eric with a feeling of having seen something unique and edifying.

Film Reviews MCN Critics Roundup Box Office Hell Interviews DVD Reviews The big noise was unquestionably This Is It, culled from hours of rehearsal footage preparing for the concert tour Michael Jackson never gave. More>

SMF HALLOWEEN SPECIAL 3-PARTER

20 Weeks To Oscar
The Rules Of Ten
by David Poland

The most often considered issue of this year’s Oscar race is, “How will having ten nominees change the game?”

And the definitive answer is, “Ask me next April.”

Well, even that may be a little blurry.

And - A New Best Picture Chart

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Wilmington on Movies
Michael Jackson: This is It, The House of the Devil and Labor Day ...
by Michael Wilmington

But the shows didn’t go on, until, in a way, now. Instead, Jackson‘s demise and its wall-to-wall TV news coverage became a kind of from-the-grave farewell tour, triggering a worldwide orgy of public lamentation for the late King of Pop, that, at least temporarily, obliterated the last decade of relative artistic inactivity, plus the bad press and legal wrangles plaguing him over his alleged taste for romps with young boys.
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Wilmington on DVD
Ice Age 3: The Dawn of the Dinosaurs, Il Divo, Z, Whatever Works, Nothing Like the Holidays, The Orphan and more ...
by Michael Wilmington

Family fever drenches the entire plot. Even the series’ unfailing scene and credits stealer, acorn-craving squirrelly Scrat (voiced by original co-director Chris Wedge) has a Scratte (Karen Disher), to ring his bells. And the movie‘s big action scene is borrowed from eternal mom Lillian Gish crossing the ice floes of Way Down East (and that scene‘s innumerable imitators), a movie D. W. Griffith shot back in 1920. That wasn’t exactly in the Ice Age, but then neither were any dinosaurs.

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MCN DVD Wrap
Orphan

There is a cautionary note posted at the beginning of Orphan, reminding viewers that, despite everything that happens during the course of the movie, adopting children is a good thing and almost none of them will want to kill their adoptive families. Duh. Along with thrillers about evil twins and babies spawned by Satan, films in the bad seed sub-genre all resemble each other in certain obvious ways. Most horror fans could have walked into Orphan half-way through its two-hour length and guessed what already had transpired and in which direction things probably were headed

Also ... Ice Age 3, Pandemic, Stan Helsing, Whatever Works, The Sam Fuller Collection,Champions Forever .. and more...

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