Thursday Morning Poll for October 23, 2008

Paul Clark — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 14:00:00 GMT

Reader Steve C. accused me of being a sadist due to last week’s poll, in which I asked readers which of George A. Romero’s Dead movies was their favorite. But (somewhat spurious) charges of sadism notwithstanding, the Romero poll saw perhaps the most decisive win of any Thursday Morning Poll to date. A full two-thirds of Screengrab readers selected 1978’s gorefest/consumerism satire Dawn of the Dead as their favorite of the franchise, followed by Night and Day. The more recent entries in the series, Land and Diary, received no love whatsoever, but while neither of them is up to the high standard set by the original trilogy, I have a soft spot for Land, which almost feels like the best John Carpenter movie that Carpenter never made. If nothing else, it’s the best Carpenter movie in the last two decades (since They Live, of course).

In conjunction with both the upcoming Presidential election and the recent release of Oliver Stone’s W., I thought a Presidential quiz was in order for this week. But while I struggled to come up with a suitable topic, it dawned on me that Josh Brolin wasn’t the first member of his family to portray an actual President. A few years ago Josh’s dear old dad, James “Paging Mr. Herman” Brolin, essayed the role of Ronald Reagan in a much-ballyhooed and controversial miniseries, The Reagans. In light of this realization, I decided this was the only logical question for this week’s quiz. So, I ask you- which Brolin do you think was more Presidential?

Which Brolin was more Presidential? | BuzzDash polls

As always, the comments section is open. So exercise your right to vote, and we’ll see you next week!

Take Five: Take Four

Peter Smith — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 20:00:00 GMT

As a professional film critic, it is my most sacred duty to deliver honest, truthful assessments of the films I am assigned to see — and to review them fairly without prejudice or favor. It would be a betrayal of my professional and personal standards to review, positively or negatively, a film without actually seeing it. Having said that, here’s a prediction: Saw IV, which opens today nationwide after having been completed approximately three days ago, is going to suck. Now, I say this without having seen Saw IV; for that matter, I say this without having seen Saw I, Saw II or Saw III. For all I know, they’re cinematic masterworks the likes of which Orson Welles could never dare to dream. But let’s face it: the fourth installment in any series, let alone one as misbegotten as the Saw series, has the deck stacked against it from the jump-off. The number of Part 4s that have been worth watching can be counted on one hand; it just so happens that I have five fingers on my left hand, so here’s five fours that aren’t complete wastes of time.

THUNDERBALL (1965)

Believe it or not, there was a time when there weren’t so many James Bond movies that nobody bothered to count them. Thunderball wasn’t quite as good as Goldfinger and From Russia with Love, the two films that preceded it, but it’s still a Bond flick in the grand tradition, with lots of fun lines, exciting action sequences, and swell spy gear, and it’s one of the last 007 adventures that still feels like something you can enjoy rather than just live through, like most of the long-slog installments of the 1970s. At any rate, Sean Connery seems to be enjoying himself, and who wouldn’t, with Claudine Auger around?

ROCKY IV (1985)

Ha, ha! Just kidding. This isn’t a good Part IV at all. It’s terrible. But taken strictly for laughs, it’s an inadvertent masterpiece, with its overblown jingoism, mindless commie-bashing, and endless hilariously bad dialogue. It also introduced the world, however briefly, to currently unemployable Swedish galoot Dolph Lundgren and Sly Stallone’s gargantuan Danish girlfriend, Brigitte Nielsen. A movie decidedly of its era, it is a fine measure of the tenor of its times, and I had the pleasure of getting thrown out of a theatre during its initial screening for loudly cheering for the Russian fighter to pound the obnoxious Rocky into soup.

BRIDE OF CHUCKY (1998)

The fourth installment of the "Chucky" series of tongue-in-cheek horror movies following the adventures of a homicidal doll, Bride of Chucky benefits enormously from not taking itself at all seriously. Surprisingly well-directed by Hong Kong veteran Ronny Yu, it features a genuinely funny script, some surreal dialogue between the supremely professional Brad Dourif and a game-for-anything Jennifer Tilly, and one of the most ridiculous sex scenes in cinema history. It’s not the sort of thing that’s going to win any Oscar nods (by the time you get to Part IV, you’re generally running on fumes even if the original film was decent), but it’s highly enjoyable just the same.

CITIZEN TOXIE: THE TOXIC AVENGER IV (2000)

Lloyd Kaufman’s Troma pictures may not be particularly well-crafted, which is not unexpected given that they are generally made for as much money as Kaufman happens to have in his pocket at the moment. And they aren’t Art with a capital A, dealing as they do with things like surfing Nazis and the question of whether or not they should die. But they’re occasionally hilarious, brilliantly campy, and damn it, they give their fans what they want, which is more than you can say for a lot of studio films. Citizen Toxie’s shotgun approach guarantees at least a couple of solid hits, and it’s chock full of ridiculous celebrity cameos, from Corey Feldman to Ron Jeremy.

LAND OF THE DEAD (2005)

Why is it that horror movies rack up the biggest sequel counts as well as the biggest body counts? If a movie title is followed by a Roman numeral higher than V, it’s a, well, dead certainty that its plot revolves around serial killers, monsters, and/or megadeaths. Anyway, the fourth of George Romero’s zombie series (after Night of the Living, Dawn of and Day of the Dead) is by no means the best; it’s full of plot holes, marred by a ridiculous ending, and generally a tad ridiculous. But it’s also George Romero, and that means it’s chock full of visceral thrills, black comedy, and social commentary — and this time around, we even get a couple of juicy star turns from Dennis Hopper and John Leguizamo.

— Leonard Pierce

The Screengrab : day of the dead

Thursday Morning Poll for October 23, 2008

Take Five: Take Four