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4 items from 2013

20 March 2013 7:35 AM, PDT | HollywoodChicago.com | See recent HollywoodChicago.com news »

Chicago – I may never know how “In Their Skin” came into being, but I have a pretty good theory. Screenwriter/star Josh Close was so appalled by the unapologetic bleakness of Michael Haneke’s “Funny Games” that he took it upon himself to make the exact same movie, more or less, but with a much happier ending. It’s a noble effort but every bit as pointless as Rod Lurie’s proudly non-misogynistic remake of “Straw Dogs.”

Perhaps Close was so offended by the killers’ blasé approach to offing a rich family in Haneke’s film that he wanted to illustrate how white upper class folk are every bit as prone to suffering as the rest of us. “We’re not perfect!” shouts Close at his captor, a ruthless madman hell-bent on stealing his identity. Instead of finding their home invaded by two creepy male sociopaths, the innocent trio of »

- adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)

20 March 2013 1:50 AM, PDT | SoundOnSight | See recent SoundOnSight news »

Star Trek – and we’re talking the original 1966-69 series here – was a lousy TV show. I was 11 years old when the series debuted on NBC and I thought it was a lousy show then.

That’s why I couldn’t stand the Trekkies even back before there was a name for them. My first run-in with a pre-Trekkie Trekkie was Vincent DePalma. In seventh grade, Vincent had his mother make a sparkly Star Fleet emblem for a corduroy pullover to make it look like the uniform blouses on the show. He wore it to school which I thought was him begging to get his ass beat. He’d built a full-sized replica of the helm/navigation console from the Enterprise bridge in his basement. His father worked for Bell Telephone and had gotten him banks of light-up buttons that really worked. His dream was to eventually recreate the entire bridge in his basement. »

- Bill Mesce

31 January 2013 1:17 PM, PST | Obsessed with Film | See recent Obsessed with Film news »

In our previous Kiss piece on hidden gems of the ’70′s, reader comments confirmed this fact: observers of Kiss, fans and haters alike, are a passionate group. The comments section of that article is jammed with opinions and criticisms and the idea to produce a similar list for the ’80′s was first germinated there by a couple of different readers. This is that list.

The early  ’80′s were a strange time for Kiss  – Gene was off trying to become a movie star media mogul and dealing with rapid hair loss, Peter was gone, Ace was going and Paul was left minding the shop. The first two albums of the ’80′s, “Unmasked” and “Music from the Elder’ were critical and commercial failures but that was probably a blessing in disguise as it forced the band to try to claw back some credibiity with the excellent “Creatures of the Night” album. Unfortunately, »

- Reverend Rock

23 January 2013 11:00 AM, PST | FEARnet | See recent FEARnet news »

This week, Park Chan-wook’s Stoker made its Sundance debut for all the lucky people in Park City, Utah. And the rest of us? We get an English-language trailer.

Quite frankly, the music doesn’t fit any of the other marketing that’s gone along with this film. It’s jarring - at odds with the mood and visuals. Sometimes this approach works, like Naked City's music in Funny Games, but this time it doesn’t.

Not stoked. Up until this point everything has looked fantastic and the first reviews out of Sundance have been positive. Here's hoping this is nothing more than a small misstep.

Stoker 60-second trailer exclusive

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- Sara Castillo

4 items from 2013