Mr. Brown Versus

In honor of Halloween, I'm doing a special edition of The Netflix Files , in which I finally review one of the more shocking and controversial horror movies out there,  The Human Centipede , in 2004, director James Wan released Saw, a horror flick about a sadistic murderer known as Jigsaw, who kidnaps two people and forces them to to escape the bathroom they're trapped in, or else they both die. The film, which was made for just over $1 million, gained a cult following among horror buffs and grossed $100 million worldwide. Some critics praised the film for it's inventiveness and having it's killer using extreme methods to teach people a lesson (much like in the 1995 thriller   Seven , a  film which Wan said he and the screenwriter was a huge inspiration for making Saw ), while others said it was too gimmicky for it's own good. Wan's debut horror movie also paved the way for a new breed of horror film: the torture porn subgenre. From Eli Roth's Hostel in 2...

In 2009, the low-budget supernatural horror film Paranormal Activity burst onto the scene. Made for an astonishing $15,000.00, the movie chronicled the story of a young couple, Katie and Micah, who are experiencing strange happenings around their new home in Carlsbad. They set up a video camera in their bedroom and around their home to capture whatever is causing these disturbances. Katie sleepwalks over to a sleeping Micah. The sound of footsteps fill the silence as they sleep. A slow rumble grows louder and louder each passing night. Each setup builds and builds as the audience grows anxious and more spooked with each nighttime diary becomes more and more terrifying until we a brought to the climax and writer/director Oren Peli plays his final hand for maximum effect when the audience can sense that the big scare is coming and we are gripping our armchairs (or dates) out of anticipation and dread. That's why the first film worked so well: Peli wisely doesn't go for the jugul...

I don't know how else to say this, but I'm just going to say it: Robert Rodriguez is a madman. See? The man wears a cowboy hat a large segment of the time! How does that NOT scream crazy!? For the most part, I mean this in a good way. Before, I pegged him as a second-rate Quentin Tarantino wannabe, but after watching him and Rodriguez collaborate on 2007's Grindhouse , I realized that both filmmakers have not only collaborated in the past, but are close friends and found each other in the same year: 1992. I knew about Tarantino and his contributions to the rise of independent cinema with his shocking debut, Reservoir Dogs , but what I didn't know was that Rodriguez also made his mark on the rise of the indies with the first of what would be come the Mexico trilogy ( Desperado , the second installment would come three years later in '95, and Once Upon a Time in Mexico in 2003) with El Mariachi , a film that was shot for $7,000.00, mostly through help from t...

Quick story: while I was watching Oblivion earlier this year, I committed the big no-no in watching a movie: texting while the film is going on. I hardly ever do it, and my friends on Twitter called me out on it, and rightfully so. It's rude and inconsiderate to the audience. I hate it when people yap on and on in a theater, and it's only common courtesy that you respect the people around you and make a text or use your phone outside. None of us like people or things disrupting out movie-watching experience, but most of us aren't going to be complete wankers about the situation. Enter Jeffrey Wells, a blogger/entertainment columnist for Hollywood Elsewhere.com, who wrote about his experience while attending a screening for the film Gravity , and how it was ruined for him because of a child who was mentally handicapped.  A few nights ago some “mentally-challenged” guy ruined (or came close to ruining) a screening of  Gravity  for the parents of a guy I know. It h...