It's Mother's Day!

In honor of Mother's Day, I present to you: Mother's Day, a 1980 Horror film written and directed by Charles Kaufman (not that Charlie Kaufman) and released by Troma Entertainment.


This film is fully entrenched in the 1970s. The fashions, the style, the music. That specific film stock that only these kinds of horror films seem to have used... The story revolves around three women, Abbey, Jackie and Trina. While on a camping trip, they run into a group of hillbillies named Ike and Addley along with their insane mother. The three poor women are attacked and brutalized by this group, along the same lines of what you'd expect from a slasher of that time.

The film itself was better than I expected. It was certainly a low budget horror flick, but the film is enjoyable in its own right. They hit just about every mark a horror film should. The people behind the film have a slight sense of humor, as there is a "bus terminal" in the film, and it looks like they simply shot it at an abandoned landfill (The joke is that they're in New Jersey). They cross paths with some hillbillies at a gas station/convenience store, and while it doesn't do much within the film aside from establish some of the mood, it looks *just* like a scene from the hilarious comedy-horror film, Tucker & Dale vs Evil, which I always feel the need to give props to (can that film get distributed soon?).

There are some good fake scares early on in the film, and the stuff that happens to these girls is pretty gruesome and sadistic. These hillbilly punks are one screwed up family. They're not as disgusting as the ones from the X-Files episode, "Home," but they're close. I'm pretty sure I had an Sesame Street alarm clock like the one that featured around the 44 minute mark in the film, though it's a lot more creepy in this particular film then when I was growing up...

Another 1980 horror film outshines this one is Friday the 13th, in that it has a stronger "mother" element than this one and is a lot more memorable. The film has been remade and apparently released starring Rebecca De Mornay not that long ago.

In the UK, the film was rejected by the BBFC banning it from sale and is apparently still banned to this day. Due to portrayals of extreme violence and rape, I do not recommend sitting down with your own mother to watch this movie.

It Came From Hulu: Ark

After the fantastic conclusion of The Confession on Hulu earlier this week (check out the post we did), I perused Hulu and came across another web series which debuted on the service, Ark.

Ark is a science fiction series in which Connie (Xena’s Renée O'Connor) awakens in a botanical garden, unaware of how she got where she is. Not long after, she encounters Daryl and the two try to figure out where they are or how they got there. It premiered all 9 episodes together on July 23, 2010.

While there are no current plans for a second season as far as I am aware, my hope is that the show is able to garner enough interest that the production crew can produce additional episodes in the future. This unfortunately does lend itself to being a tad disappointing when left with the cliffhanger the story concludes with, but I'd say that the ingenuity of the crew to create something on such a small budget and small scope is to be commended.

Each episode runs roughly 5 to 7 minutes long, with a 10 minute finale.

It Came From Hulu: The Confession

"Jack's Back!" Well not quite, but this may be the closest audiences will get to seeing our favorite CTU agent for quite a long time.

Emmy award winner Kiefer Sutherland stars in a ten part good verses evil web series drama that can be seen on Hulu (at http://www.hulu.com/the-confession). The series debuted with its first three episodes on March 28th.

Sutherland is "The Confessor," who has arrived at a church for confession with a priest (played by John Hurt). For all the things that the cold-blooded Confessor has done to people, the evil that he has committed, he can't comprehend how people still manage to find faith and the ability to forgive. The Confessor's last "hit" before coming to the church, where his victim prayed and then forgave him before being murdered, has shaken his nihilistic beliefs. The Priest is understandably afraid of this monster, but continues to listen, with a certainly curiosity, to The Confessor out of fear of his congregation's lives.

Each episode runs roughly 6 to 7 minutes long.

The next two episodes are due out on April 4. In the meantime, catch the first three.

Kid in a Candy Store: Criterion Comes to Hulu Plus

I'm a few days late to the party, but I just discovered that quite a number of the films that are part of The Criterion Collection are available for those who have Hulu's subscription service, Hulu Plus. I've been hoping for something this "big" since subscribing to Hulu Plus. Before this, my most common complaint about Hulu Plus' service was its mediocre film selection. Films I'd never heard of not simply because they're obscure, but because they just weren't that good.

Due to this agreement, a select few films are available for free for regular Hulu users, and a library of over 100 films is available for Hulu Plus subscribers. In a surprising move, the films are now no longer available on Netflix's streaming service. I'm not sure if I've ever heard of an entire company pulling out of an agreement with Netflix before, so this is pretty big.

What makes me most happy about this move was after reading this on Hulu's blog:

For Criterion, thanks to our advertising partners, Hulu Plus subscribers will be able to watch the Criterion Collection free of interruption. (Any ads will play up front.) For those who don’t have a Hulu Plus subscription, each month we’ll still rotate a few Criterion titles through Hulu.com with our normal periodic ad breaks.

The Criterion Collection was originally set up by Janus Films and the Voyager Company in the 1980s. They were pioneers in releasing films as they were meant to be seen. Under this label, films were restored and released in their correct aspect ratio, likely to the annoyance of those people that "didn't like the bars on the tops and bottoms of the screen." Criterion was also the first company to ever release a film with a commentary soundtrack, all the way back in 1984. They did what no other company would even consider doing then, and what every company is virtually required to do for a movie's release today.

I certainly don't consider Criterion as the sacred cow some seem to consider it, they did a great job when no other film company cared. They were pioneers. However, they've had a few questionable choices of films chosen over the last few years (Armageddon and practically anything Wes Anderson put his name on?), and some of their uber-expensive releases seem superfluous in this day and age.

With that said, I will treasure this news and these films.

Rundown: Week ending in March 6th

Okay, last week was terrible. Terrible, terrible terrible. I think I was attached to a desk chair almost all week, sun up to when the moon was at its apex in the night. So that really put a damper on my week. But not to worry, the weekend provided plenty of time for me to unwind, relax and watch.

Hulu
I love Hulu, I know my friend Jonathan apparently doesn't, but I do. I knocked off so many things off my never shrinking queue. After enjoying Ed O'Neill on Modern Family, I decided to take a look at Married... With Children. Wow, glad I did. Visually dated at times, mostly due to the cheap sitcom video they used to use. The stories, even today can be pretty edgy, with comments that are less veiled than they are today. A lot of shows would imply that the oldest daughter is no longer a virgin through some kind of innocent innuendo, but Bud Bundy outright says it at the dinner table ("at least there's one virgin at the dinner table"). Hulu doesn't have all the episodes, and I suspect that the Frank Sinatra song, "Love and Marriage" has some sketchy legal rights that don't quite allow it to make the cut so a muzak version of the theme is present on many, but not all, episodes. Having a blast watching.

Tremors ended on a whimper. Perhaps it was a good thing, but after stepping away, perhaps this show deserved a full season to see if it really could hit its stride.

I'm still on the slow road to finish M.A.N.T.I.S. Wow, it's really starting to hit rock bottom, though the latest episode was actually not too bad. I'm completely drawing a blank on these episodes, so perhaps we just stopped watching or the show changed nights when it first aired back in 1994 and 1995.

La Femme Nikita
The La Femme Nikita re-watch continues. I just about finished the second season. Upon second viewing, and I say second because I only caught the odd episode when I was up at 2am back in my youth, the show really does have a lot more continuity that I had given it credit for. While there aren't many story arcs to speak of, there are threads that start in one episode which eventually push over to other episodes. However, this show, as I've already stated, is still pretty depressing. You really get sucked into and feel Nikita's desperation at being powerless to escape Section. The show really picked up its production values and dumped the silly "stone castle" theme of Madeline's office for something that actually fit the rest of the facility. Two episodes until season 3. More stories have cropped up that bear striking resemblance to some of Alias'.

The Olympics are Over!
There were new episodes of Community and The Office. I'm of two minds for the most recent Office episode, where Pam finally gives birth. Mind you it wasn't awful, but the show has really lost a lot of it's realism (and it didn't have a lot to begin with), at least there was some continuity, which I feel they generally push to the back burner and ignore. I think the show is far past its fresh date, though it's a lot better than it was around the time of the writer's strike.

The Tonight Show
The Tonight Show is dead to me. Fuck Jay Leno and his stupid jean jacket. You know there's a problem when HE is the one copying George Lopez's lame jokes.

Caprica
Caprica never ceases to amaze me. The show seems to be getting better and better. Everyone, watch! Look for it on iTunes or Hulu!