Sharknado Apocalypse is Near

by Dr. Sparta

My fellow whales, I've already tackled sharks before. I've seen two-headed sharks, ultra-violent sharks in Australia, but tornado-riding sharks are a first and a truly exhilarating experience. For the glory of its impossible, explosive, illogical return, I will take on both Sharknados.

Where could I even start with this epic, senseless, brutal tale, where people drive helicopters into shark-filled tornadoes to blow them up and save Los Angeles?. A man freezes a tornado on top of the Empire State Building and flies into the shark-filled skies wielding a chainsaw, slicing through a shark that eats him midair. Then he proceeds to grab a chain and ride another shark onto the top of the skyscraper shielding his fall from death. Yeah my whales, that is a true story within the movies. Granted, for all the good and refreshing things, they brought “Sharknado 2: The Second One”, and by what they presented, it made me think they forgot their roots; replacing some essentials with EPICNESS, which is NOT necessarily a GLORIOUS thing.

I do not believe in going into small details to decide over something, but the first Sharknado had its local area feel, with good characters. It had a white background for whenever they shielded inside their transports. “Sharknado 2: The Second One”, starts off the bat with a bombardment of cameos. All sorts of people unexpectedly pop up, bringing shame to themselves for ever being in something as WONDROUS as a Sharknado movie. My biggest complaint was Kurt Angle as a gentle fireman? He served no purpose being in that cameo. It felt unnecessary for that to have taken place, but no movie is without its flaws so I cannot complain or nitpick such an outstanding SyFy movie. 

My dear whales, if you like cheap outstanding, stupefying, outrageously ridiculous, and GLORIOUS pieces of work, then watch the Sharknado movies. They are a tale to witness, a force to be felt…A sight to be glued onto your brains. In all seriousness, Sharknadoes in New York? What’s next? This is Dr. Sparta, looking for chainsaws, shotguns, homemade bombs, and liquid nitrogen for the impending Sharknado Apocalypse... That’s it for today!

The Future of Star Wars: Death of the Extended Universe.

By BZork

A long time ago, in a galaxy not so far away… a trilogy of films marked a decisive turning point in the world of Hollywood and many other film genres as a whole, Star Wars. No one could’ve predicted the impact the films would have or the massive pop-culture domino-effect that would spread out from past to present. The original films’ success went on to spawn a trilogy of prequel films, and lo and behold, now we stand at the cusp of a further development, the Walt Disney Company has begun production of a new trilogy, “Episode VII-IX” after its acquisition of Lucasfilm. However, what stands out as the decisive turning point in the series’ long list of controversial moments isn’t the aforementioned announcement but one that carries even more ramifications in the greater scheme of everything Star Wars. The Expanded Universe (EU) has been canned. 

After thirty-five years of creating, fine-tuning, and fleshing out the enormous universe of the Star Wars mythos, Disney along with Lucasfilms have announced that future film developments will ignore whatever had already been created/established in the EU. Justly so, this has struck a nerve with many of the series’ older enthusiasts as well as avid fans of the comics, books, or video games which have given fans the opportunity to go beyond what Lucas’ films brought to the table. We let go of some of the most important plot-lines essential to the series: the Old Republic and the origins of the Jedi Order, as well as its development across hundreds of thousands of years; Grand Admiral Thrawn and his ascension to power after Emperor Palpatine’s death; Luke’s Jedi academy on Yavin IV and the Legacy era and the rise of Darth Krayt’s One Sith. 

From one standpoint, it makes sense; it’s much easier for Disney to let go of the massive monolith of plot-lines and continuities that is the EU, so it can give the writers of the new Star Wars trilogy the creative liberty they need to craft a new, equally amazing trilogy of its time. Lucasfilm has also gone on to state, that it will take elements from the EU and try and reincorporate them as “inspiration” for current plot-lines and world-crafting, but as to what it might use, we’ll have to wait and see. It has yet to be seen as to whether or not any new plot-lines will be explored within the EU, which will now be dubbed Legends, and as an ongoing series either resolve their stories in the coming months or continue to expand Legends' timeline. There are many fans who are skeptical of Disney’s approach to Star Wars, anticipating a similar response to when Episode I – The Phantom Menace aired in 1999. It is a period of fandom unrest, and as the wait for Episode VII begins we can only hope Disney makes good on its promise to bring new life to the world of Star Wars.

10 Movies on Netflix You Probably Haven’t Seen but You Definitely Should (Part II, 5-1)

By.Hemlock

  We haven’t even begun to scrape the surface of the iceberg of weird yet! You may notice that many of the weird films on Netflix aren’t on this list. Off the top of my head I can name stuff like The Beast with a 1,000,000 Eyes, The Incredible Two-Headed Transplant, The ABC’s of Death, and all the great MST3K stuff (of which there is plenty). This is only a top 10 though and it mostly adheres to the kind of things I watch… Here are 5 more oddball films as stated, even if I can’t guarantee you’ll love them, I can guarantee you won’t see many films like these at your local theater these days.

5) Yoga: The Movie

                You ever wanted to do Yoga? Well you better not watch this movie. This is one of those Korean horror films that even the poster looks unsettling and scary. If you like the scare tactics in movies like The Ring and The Grudge, you’ll probably get a good kick out of this one. Korean horror films don’t normally get the recognition they deserve, they usually get overshadowed by their Japanese counterparts, so it’s good to see one of them get a spot on an American-centered market. Witchcraft, great scares, and some acting that’s better than this kind of horror movie actually deserves, Yoga will have you running away from people doing stretching exercises for a month.

                                                       

4) FDR: American Badass

                The story-I’m-pretty-much-sure-is-based-on-real-events of how president FDR fights nazi werewolves in order to stop the spread of polio using his machine gun wheelchair. Read that last sentence again. If that doesn’t sell you, I don’t know what will. I’m not going to tell you that this movie is always funny, or that it’s better than the studio’s predecessor, Poolboy: Drowning out the Fury, but if you liked Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter and thought “I can do with more of American presidents killing monsters”, then this is absolutely for you. (Also Abe Lincoln Vampire slayer has an asylum spoof that’s basically the same thing but with zombies and it is way better than the original. It has a line where Honest Abe is about to chop a zombie’s head off and he shouts “EMANCIPATE THIS!”. Great little exploitation film.)

 

3) Chasing the Kidneystone

                If your grandma ever gets a kidney stone remember: Shrink down and team up with her immune system to fight the kidney stone with your bare hands. Doctors don’t know shit. Punch that thing and be hilarious in the process. I’m serious, that’s what this movie is about. Let’s go through this: someone wrote, green-lighted, casted, shot, edited, promoted, and screened this film somewhere and no one ever thought “Huh, does this sound a bit…silly to you?”

 

2) Santa Claus Conquers the Martians

                I’m not going to lie, I love this movie. It is fun, above everything it doesn’t just depend on the weird premise to be funny; Santa Claus Conquers the Martians is actually trying to be a good film. Well, as good as something like this could be. This movie is so bizarre even when I re-watch it; I’m still surprised by how baffled I am during some parts. Is it something on the level of Night of the Lepus? No, not really, it’s not funny because it’s bad or fun because it’s weird. It’s just enjoyable beyond any right it has to be. But it is weird, in a great way.

1) Dogtooth

                I actually have no idea if this film is still on Netflix. I saw it once and I’ve never searched for it again. I can safely say that Dogtooth is one of the most disturbing and oddly original films I’ve ever seen. Maybe it’s because no one would ever do what this movie does onscreen. I am a very desensitized person, I play Happy Wheels for fun and the first time I watched Human Centipede I didn’t even blink. This movie got to me and shook my soul. It’s the story of a family in Greece with a very authoritarian father and… Look, this movie isn’t for the squeamish. It’s not disgusting, just wrong on so many levels. I try not to give much away when I talk about films just why you should watch it, but saying anything about this movie besides “you will hate yourself for having sat through all of it but you need to sit through all of it” would be a sin and should be enough to get all those curious enough a go at this… thing. This beautifully-wrong and hateful and terrible and captivating… occurrence in your life.

Studio Ghibli

By.  Lil Leia

   Hi guys! It's all about Studio Ghibli this time! Studio Ghibli is a film studio based in Tokyo that’s recognized for its amazing animated films. After the success of Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, Hayao Miyazaki, Toshio Suzuki, Isao Takahata, and Yasuyoshi Tokuma founded the studio in 1985. Studio Ghibli has since made 19 movies, the most successful of them being Spirited Away, which grossed more than $274 million worldwide and won Studio Ghibli's first and only Oscar for Best Animated Feature. Here are five facts you didn't know about Studio Ghibli:

1. Studio Ghibli enacted a no-cuts/editing policy when distributing their films internationally, introduced after producers heavily edited Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind for its U.S. release. When U.S. producers were considering editing Princess Mononoke, a Studio Ghibli producer sent them an authentic katana with a note that said, “No cuts".

2. In 2001, the studio opened the Ghibli Museum in Tokyo, dedicated to exhibits based on their films, as well as a theater within the museum that showcases short films made by Studio Ghibli exclusively for the museum..

3. At his retirement press conference, Miyazaki announced that his son, Gorō, would take his place and continue his works.

4. One of its most recent movies, and Miyazaki's last film, The Wind Rises, was based on the true story of Jiro Horikoshi, a plane designer who designed two of Japan's most successful planes during World War 2.

5. In My Neighbor Totoro, one of its most famous films and one of my favorites, (spoiler ahead!) Satsuki and Mei's mother suffered from tuberculosis, but managed to recover in the end. The story is loosely based on Miyazaki's life, who once said that had the movie starred two boys instead of two girls, it would've been too painful to make.

So, what do you think? Surprised? Here's a list of all the movies Studio Ghibli has made and their year of release in Japan. Either Hayao Miyazaki or Isao Takahata has directed most of these films:

1. Castle in the Sky - 1986

2. Grave of the Fireflies - 1988

3. My Neighbor Totoro - 1988

4. Kiki's Delivery Service - 1989

5. Only Yesterday - 1991

6. Porco Rosso - 1992

7. Pom Poko - 1994

8. Whisper of the Heart - 1995

9. Princess Mononoke - 1997

10. My Neighbors the Yamadas - 1999

11. Spirited Away - 2001

12. The Cat Returns - 2002

13. Howl's Moving Castle - 2004

14. Tales from Earthsea - 2006

15. Ponyo - 2008

16. The Secret World of Arietty - 2010

17. From Up on Poppy Hill - 2011

18. The Wind Rises - 2013

19. The Tale of Princess Kaguya - 2013

   In my opinion, Studio Ghibli will forever rule anime movies. Some of their films speak to me a little, making me feel happy, or sad, or maybe both at the same time. Ghibli is awesome!

10 Movies on Netflix You Probably Haven’t Seen but You Definitely Should (Part I, 10-6)

by. Hemlock

  Recommending films is an art form. When someone says, “Tell me a movie I should watch,” they’re actually asking for a movie that has these four characteristics: they haven’t seen it yet, they can find it easily, it’s good, and that suits their personal tastes in film. The first one is actually the trickiest, since everyone has different movie going experiences. So when you suggest a movie, you usually have to mention a very obscure film to make sure they haven’t seen it yet. That idea usually clashes with the second criteria, a movie that’s easy to find. Sure, They Saved Hitler’s Brain is probably a film that not a lot of people have seen, but it’s not exactly widely available either. Most people don’t have a VHS player anymore, nor do they have the patience to look for movies on the Internet. The last two criteria depends on who you’re talking to, since there are different ways to define what makes a movie “good”, and everyone has different tastes when it comes to films. My personal philosophy is to suggest a film worth watching. Be it good or bad, weird or mainstream, suggesting an interesting movie is sometimes worth more than suggesting one that people know they will like.

10) Pontypool

  Pontypool is the story of a radio announcer stuck in his recording booth while a strange virus infects his town. The story is told through narrations of news stories coming into the studio. It’s a lot of people sitting around and listening to other people talk about mobs, mutilations and strange events. So it does sort of sound like a zombie movie. I won’t say what the actual threat in Pontypool is, but it’s definitely one of the most unique looks at the zombie subgenre.

9) Brick

  A noir style movie set in high school, where the femme fatale is a cheerleader, the drug kingpin is a loser kid selling pot from his mom’s basement, and the main character justifies the weird narration as his “deep” existential insights into the world. It’s like going back and reading your old diary from high school, but in movie form. And the movie features a young Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Add an actually engaging storyline with a pretty good mystery, and you have one of the strangest examples of how film noir can still be done well.

8) Scream Blacula Scream

   The sequel to the classic blackpoitation Blacula movie is an all-black cast doing Dracula on a very small budget chock full of 70’s lingo. I love exploitation movies and this is a great way to get someone into the strange world of low budget Z flicks. If you’ve ever wondered where Black Dynamite came from, it spawned from this type of movie. Check out Dolemite if you want to know more about where Black Dynamite comes from. If anything, Scream Blacula Scream is so mind bogglingly strange to modern audiences that you’ll want to make all friends sit down and marvel at it.

7) John Dies at the End

   John Dies At The End moves out of sequence while playing with expectations. You even get a huge spoiler for the movie in its title…or do you? When you’re a movie buff and you watch a movie that uses the classic frameworks of its genre, you already know who dies, and it gets kind of boring. But this film uses tropes and then subverts them in fun and interesting ways, playing with how we tend to predict a movie’s plot. Plus, the movie has a weird Lovecraftian horror angle with the monsters, toying with the audience’s perception of the monsters. If anything, watch the movie for the giant meat monster.

6) Absentia

   Another good Lovecraftian horror selection, Absentia is the story of a woman whose husband vanishes. Several years later, she’s rebuilt her life, putting all this pain and suffering behind her. Then her drug-addicted sister comes to visit her, and the protagonist stumbles upon a weird tunnel and some strange stories. Great characters with a good thematic edge to it, Absentia is both a powerful film and scary at times, without resorting to jump scares.