Movieline Online

LIMBECK LIMBECK Doghouse (www.doghouse.com) A pop-rock pick-me-up Contrary to the title of the best track on Limbeck’s self-titled album, Big Drag, frontman Robb Maclean is anything but a downer. “I don’t have a lot of tragedy in my life at the moment,” he says. No kidding. A random sample of lyrics might convince you the guy has never had a bad day in his whole SoCal life. And on their fourth CD, Limbeck, whose near constant state of touring makes them the alt-country equivalent of Kenyan marathon runners, continue to find nearly all their inspiration in the day-to-day monotony of life on the road...or life waiting to get back on it. It’s a knock Maclean has been keen to avoid, but the label still sticks. And even though close inspection of the lyrics is like a high dive into a kiddie pool, he shouldn’t be so eager to grow up. Not when Limbeck pulls together the most refreshing sing-song melodies you’re likely to hear this year. Channeling their emo influences for good not evil, the b...

THE FLICK: The British always seem to end the world with a whimper rather than a bang. Compare the dystopian apocalypse of Children of Men to the likes of Independence Day and you’ll see what I mean. Adapted from the work of mystery novelist P.D. James, it is the year 2027 and the world is dying a slow death after 18 years of infertility. Britain has closed its borders and actively rounds up illegals for deportation. The global atmosphere is one of gloom, doom and decay. From this prophecy of pessimisms emerges a miracle, a ‘fugee named Kee (Claire-Hope Ashitey), inexplicably pregnant and in the care of anti-government activists. Through a series of clandestine plots and double-crosses, Kee winds up on the run with Theo (Clive Owen) on a near suicidal journey to reach the sea and a tenuous rescue by The Human Project. Despite the sci-fi element, Children of Men is a particularly human story that takes on much more cultural meaning by virtue of director Alfonso Cuaron’s (Harry Potter an...

THE FLICK: A young warrior’s tribe is viciously slaughtered by the marauding hordes of a fiendish king, prompting a quest for revenge that sprawls across a great wasteland and beyond. Sound like any barbarians you know? Sure, Hundra may have purchased all the leftover props and costumes from Dino De Laurentiis’ Conan and shot on the very same locations, but that’s where the similarities end claims director Matt Cimber. After all, Hundra’s a woman (played by wrestling legend Laurene Landon) charged with finding a suitable mate to provide “seed” to carry on her race of Amazonian warriors. And like any 20-something virgin, Hundra’s pretty picky. One of the most amusing commentary track moments on DVD this year comes when moderator and Subversive Cinema founder Norm Hill asks the director if Conan was an influence on his film. Allow me to paraphrase: Hill: “The opening of the film is very similar to Conan, isn’t it?” Cimber: “I don’t think so. There’s no raid in the beginning of Conan.” Hi...

The Flick Black Christmas is the best straight-up slasher film of the new millennium. You might call that a poorly disguised attempt to get my name quoted on a DVD cover, but I’ll still defend the statement. And what’s more amazing, this is yet another re-make of a ‘70s cult milestone (a la Texas Chainsaw, Hills Have Eyes, etc) heralded as ushering in the genre of creepy POV shots and stalk-n-slash thrills. But where those other “re-imaginings” forced the issue with more gore, more intensity and fewer actual scares, writer/director Glen Morgan’s film nimbly jumps from slasher satire to twisted fairy tale and back again while ditching most of the tiresome clichés that have hung around since the original film was new. For a guy like Morgan - one half of the writing team behind Final Destination, Willard, and some of the most memorable X-Files episodes - the ambiguous origins of “Billy” had to be like an all-you-can-eat buffet. Bob Clark’s 1974 original wasn’t interested in starting a fra...

KILL BABY KILL: It’s been awhile since director Mario Bava earned himself a special edition. The birth of the DVD format saw several of the director’s films get some spit and polish, but since then most of the remastered titles have been bestowed upon Bava’s imitators rather than the master himself. So it’s nice to see Dark Sky Films release Kill Baby Kill, arguably his most inspired work, in the kind of condition fans have only dreamt of as they squinted through grainy, bleached-out, bargain-bin VHS tapes. A psychological ghost-story along the lines of Henry James or Shirley Jackson, a cast of recognizable Italian faces are besieged by the malicious spirit of a murdered young girl who wreaks her vengeance on the superstitious populace of a crumbling backwater community. Preceded by a bouncing ball and an innocent giggle, Bava turns this blond-tressed figure of supernatural evil into one of the most iconic images of his career. The fact that it was actually an 8-year-old boy performing...

THE FLICK: The irony of giving Pierce Brosnan the boot as James Bond is that financially it was a pretty poor decision. The “Remington Steele” era tallied up unprecedented box-office receipts worldwide and tied-in perfectly with an array of videogame adaptations that gave 007 his highest profile in decades. Creatively, however, the series has been nothing more than a bloated corpse for some time, shocked back into a jerky semblance of life every two years out of some moribund British tradition rather than any artistic need. So it’s to the producer’s credit that they took a chance on Daniel Craig; a stumpy, blonde pug-ugly version of Bond better suited as a secondary villain than as the suave super-spy to which audience’s had become accustomed. Not only that, but they ditched all they “Q” gadgets (laser watches, exploding lapel pins, etc.) that had been on the verge of overwhelming the franchise. In Casino Royale, Bond rolls into town in a Ford Focus. If that doesn’t scream working-clas...

THE FLICK: The creators of Re-Animator are spot-on when they attribute their film’s success to the video boom of the ‘80s – that magical era when underage kids across the country could walk into a “mom n’ pop” rental store and ogle shelf after shelf of temptingly lurid cover art, all of it promising the sort of illicit sex and gore only the new unrated video market could offer. How do I know this? Because (dramatic pause)... I WAS THAT UNDERAGE KID! Bet you didn’t see that coming. Well, neither did all the pimply-faced teenagers who took home a copy of Stuart Gordon’s debut feature, a wildly loose adaptation of a series of H.P. Lovecraft stories that combined dead-pan humor with outlandish amounts of blood. Anchored by a star-making performance from Jeffery Combs (that unjustly never turned him into a star), Re-Animator was one of the few films that lived up to the advertising on its box, pushing the limits of bad taste to the point of no return. After an over-the-top intro that expert...