Film Buffs

Comedian Zach Galifianakis is best known as Alan, the guy with the beard from “The Hangover.” But before his performance as a satchel-toting, one-man wolf pack helped secure the summer 2009 blockbuster the 2010 Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture- Musical or Comedy and starred in a Kanye West music video, he hosted his own late-night show on VH1 in spring of 2002 and played a serious and socially awkward morgue attendant on a FOX series.The short-lived “Late World with Zach” featured typical late-night talk show elements like monologues set to piano and skits, including one in which he practices stand-up at a preschool sans beard. It aired for nine weeks and then he landed a role as Davis, a sidekick to his psychic morgue co-worker played by Eliza Dushku in “Tru Calling.”Recurring TV roles aside, Galifianakis has also played in several web comedic shorts like his “Between Two Ferns” on FunnyorDie.com, in which he ungraciously interviewers actors while they’re sitting in arm chairs on a stage between two ferns. Past guests include Natalie Portman, Charlize Theron, Jon Hamm and his “Hangover” co-star Bradley Cooper. Read more »

A whole generation (23 years to be exact) after Oliver Stone’s release of the original morality tale, the sequel “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps” tested the waters at Cannes and found them as warm as the French location would suggest.Critics on location for the premiere at Cannes were quite a buzz. From all reports, Gordon Gekko is a changed man whom no longer goes by his famous mantra “Greed is good.” Michael Douglas reprises the role, with the character fresh out of a prison sentence resulting from the original film’s events.Instead, Gekko’s pushing a book he authored that condemns his characteristically greedy ways established in the first film that critic Julian Sancton suggests in a Vanity Fair review reached a generation to only inspire them to seek riches and follow his path. The IMDb Cannes 2010 blog suggests that perhaps Stone is trying to make amends for creating the appealing anti-hero in the first place. Read more »

Following millennia upon millennia of plays and other performing arts which hark back to the very beginning of human civilization, film is the modern inheritor of so many different attributes, virtues and vices of humanity. Ever since the first silent films were made in the early 20^th century society has had a profound love affair with filmone full of highs and lows, the good and the bad, the memorable and the forgettable. In honor of the tremendous importance which film exerts on our modern society, and in light of the fact that there are always countless film buffs out there looking for an opportunity to refine their trivia prowess, here we’ve assembled a list of the most-winning actors and films of the silver screen ever since the Oscarsthe most prestigious film award of them allhave been around. Read on and see just how informed a film buff you really are!The Big Kahunas: to start off our list, it only seems fitting to honor those films that have reaped the most Oscars all around in all the categories. These epics of the big screen left an indelible impression on our souls and on our psyche as a broader society, and any and all film buffs simply must be aware of them. Which are we referencing in particular? True gems such as Ben-Hur, Titanic and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, each of which pulled in 11 Oscar wins in alla true feat of cinematographic ability! Read more »

Whether they’re infected through bites, curses or breathing air, walk or run at Olympic speeds, zombies are everywhere. Well, at least in movies. Watch your fingers and check out our crash course in the walking undead below in our top 10 list.

1. “Night of the Living Dead” (1968): George A. Romero’s first-ever zombie flick comes across like a salvaged first-person video of the incident, with a group of strangers holed up in a random farmhouse to fend off the creatures that in low-budget, black and white.
2. “Dead Alive” (1992) Known as “Braindead” in its native New Zealand, this Peter Jackson movie has oceans-worth of fake blood left for mama’s boy Lionel to clean up after combat scenes to stave off zombies from his love, whom his mother hates. However, it is only after a monkey bites his mother at the zoo, she dies from the bite and comes back as a zombie that all the other townspeople are infected.
3. “Dawn of the Dead” (1978): This other Romero flick serves as social commentary about mindless, mass consumerism when a few survivors during an epidemic seek shelter in a secluded shopping mall. But the walking dead still manage to find them.
4. “28 Days Later” (2002): A man awakens from a coma to find England deserted, save for zombies and a handful of survivors after a rage virus epidemic. He joins together with others to survive the outbreak and the military troops that are stationed there to suppress it.
5. “Evil Dead 2″ (1987): The second in the trilogy (preceded by “Evil Dead” and followed by “Army of Darkness”) by Sam Raimi, who would go onto direct the current “Spider-Man” series, teamed up with his brother to make this campy B horror alternate telling of the first installment. A college student takes his girlfriend to a secluded cabin, only to accidentally conjure up an evil from the surrounding woods that possesses her and turns her into a zombie-demon called a deadite. Read more »

Vampires may be all the craze right now, but more sinister versions than those sparkling ones in the “Twilight” series have been lurking on movie screens for almost a century. Versions range from a close telling of Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” to motorcycle-riding teenage gang members to a human-vampire hybrid seeking the destruction of the supernatural race. No matter your taste, watch your neck, keep a mirror in sight and enjoy our top 10 list.

1. “Dracula” (1931): Bela Lugosi stars in this close Bram Stoker adaptation, in which the count travels to England after he purchases property from an Englishman whom he then hypnotizes into his control and then attempts to prey upon his young daughter. Lugosi’s performance produced often-copied vampire characteristics like a widow’s peak and thick accent.
2. “The Lost Boys” (1987): When two teenage boys move with their mother to the coast of California, they find the town rampant with mysterious deaths and a gang of teenage bikers. But when the older boy befriends the gang and shows signs of vampirism, his brother and his self-proclaimed vampire hunter friends plot to destroy the gang leader.
3. “From Dusk Till Dawn” (1996): This Robert Rodriguez flick changes abruptly half-way through from a hostage to a vampire movie when brothers on the lam (George Clooney and Quentin Tarantino) cross the Mexican border with their hostages and RV in tow to meet a criminal associate at a strip joint that turns out to be a den of thirsty vampires.
4. “Nosferatu” (1922): The silent film is based upon Bram Stoker’s classic story with a voyage with a realtor whom sold him foreign property, but strays with Count Orlok’s exaggerated, rat-like appearance and the plague he brings with him on the voyage.
5. “Interview with the Vampire” (1994): The adaptation of an Ann Rice book shows a centuries-old vampire (Brad Pitt) chronicling his experiences with a modern-day journalist (Christian Slater), including taking a young survivor of the black plague (Kirsten Dunst) as his vampire daughter and dealing with his unruly maker (Tom Cruise). Read more »

These gruesome and often campy morality tales have been terrifying and (fictionally) slaying teenagers for more than three decades. Whether it’s a masked psychopath chasing kids with a chainsaw, a monstrous child molester with a scarred face scarier than most masks, death itself manipulating surrounding objects to mimic suicides of teens whom once escaped its grasp, or their evolved counterparts in sequels, slasher villains can be hard to track. So strap down your popcorn and keep tabs on them in this top 10 list.

1. “Halloween” (1978): John Carpenter’s original spurred a slew of holiday-themed horror movies, teen slashers and murdering super-villains that just won’t die. Michael Myers terrorizes a small town on Hallowen when he escapes from a mental institution decades after he stabbed his older sister to death. Jamie Lee Curtis plays the heroine in an echo of her mother, Janet Leigh, who died as Marion Crane in the infamous shower scene in “Psycho” (1960) under Anthony Perkins’ hand as Norman Bates.
2. “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” (1974): The southern gothic relies on a masked killer who terrorizes a group of teenagers on a road trip through rural Texas. Desolate landscapes with run-down buildings and creepy residents turn into a nightmare once the car troubles begin. Despite the title, it has less gore than current flicks and relies heavily upon the horror of one’s imagination.
3. “A Nightmare on Elm Street” (1984): A time to rest becomes excruciating for a set of teenagers (including a young Johnny Depp), whom have all been terrorized in their dreams by a dead child molester named Freddy Krueger. According to director Wes Craven, the premise came from a series of news stories about a group of people who died from lack of sleep in order to avoid their nightmares.
4. “Carrie” (1976): A teenage girl can only put up with so much, and poor Carrie’s mom and classmates learn that when a pig-blood covered telekinetic teenager wreaks havoc on a gym full of prom-goers. Sure, it’s Carrie’s powers that do the actual harm, but the teenage body count is high enough to make this one count.
5. “Black Christmas” (1974): Although the victims in this flick aren’t high school kids, the terror and methods of slashing revolve around a college sorority house filled with sisters on the verge of Christmas vacation. The most terrifying and frustrating part of this holiday-themed flick is the anonymity of the killer’s identity and motives. Read more »

Stale story lines from the ’80s of teenagers working to gain their parents’ and peers’ approval were revamped in the ’90s to fit a generation eager to get their way, whether it be through faking a love interest, waiting around for that perfect someone or commit unspeakably dirty deeds. So be prepared to relive high school drama through rainbow reflective sunglasses in this top 10 list.

1. “American Pie” (1999): This raunch fest revolves around four teenage friends who make a pact to lose their virginities by high school graduation. In his pursuit to meet his goal, awkward incidents ensue between Jim (Jason Biggs) and his father (Eugene Levy) including a pie and foreign exchange student Nadia.
2. “Clueless” (1995): Wealthy Beverly Hills teenager Cher tries to learn how to drive, give a new student a make-over and find a mature boyfriend, but manages to have the perfect computerized closet and wardrobe of loud ’90s designer fashions from feather boa-topped pencils to outfit-coordinating knee high socks.
3. “Dazed and Confused” (1993): The story is actually set in on the last day of school 1976, but this ’90s-made film is too funny to pass up with upperclassmen hazing incoming freshman, including a star quarterback (Ben Affleck) who won’t give up on catching up with a certain rising freshman named Mitch.
4. “Never Been Kissed” (1999): A newspaper copy editor (Drew Barrymore) seizes the opportunity for her big break as a writer when someone needs to go undercover as a high school student for a big story. The outcast starts to relive her own high school social nightmares, until her cooler older brother enrolls and grants her access to the popular clique and she questions the feelings she’s developed for a young, attractive teacher named Mr. Coulson.
5. “10 Things I Hate About You” (1999): The remake of Shakespeare’s “The Taming of the Shrew” features a sister who helps pay off a rebel outcast (Heath Ledger) to date her indie, feminist “shrew” sister because by their dad’s rules, she can only date if her older sister does, as well. The faux suitor sees dating as merely a source of revenue, but eventually realizes he’s falling in love. Read more »

It doesn’t take a genius to gauge the impact Cameron Crowe and John Hughes had on teen movies in the ’80s, but it becomes that much more apparent when confronted with classics of teenagers with teased hair and neon clothing fooling their principals by playing hooky, spending Saturdays in detention and vying to meet parents’ and friends’ approval of romantic relationships. So slip on your Ray-Bans and set up your VHS player for this top 10 list.

1. “Revenge of the Nerds” (1984): Two hopeful college freshmen become disillusioned after they’re taunted for being nerds and forced out of their dorm so a frat of jocks that accidentally burned down their house move in. So, they of course form their own rival frat and take revenge on those who taunted them.
2. “The Breakfast Club” (1985): Things get real when a jock, a princess, a basket case, a stoner and a brain (played by members of the Brat Pack) are isolated to their high school library on a Saturday for detention, only to discover that they have more than their school in common. John Hughes’ classic strays from the serious when stoner Bender tortures their supervisor, Principal Richard Vernon.
3. “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” (1986): In another John Hughes classic, high school senior Ferris (Matthew Broderick) decides to play hooky once again, but this time takes his girlfriend and best friend to downtown Chicago. His high jinks have everyone at school except the principal and his sister convinced, whom try to unravel his complicated cover.
4. “Sixteen Candles” (1984): Samantha (Brat pack sweetheart Molly Ringwald) tries to navigate through the chaos as her birthday is overshadowed by a demanding older sister’s marriage to a creep and visiting sets of grandparents along with a drunken foreign exchange student tagging along.
5. “Say Anything” (1989): An un-ambitious kick boxer asks out the high school class valedictorian on graduation day and works to prove to her intimidating father that he’s worthy of his daughter’s time. The Cameron Crowe-penned, John Cusack classic launched the trench coat-wearing, boom box-hoisting apologetic lover. Read more »

While there are a lot of esteemed American directors out there, none is quite like John Waters. Unlike your Scorcese or your Coppola, Waters doesn’t deal in the gritty and melodramatic stories of war, nor does he focus on the turbulent underbelly of organizations and cities alike in our United States. No, John Waters does something entirely different. He really gets into the underbelly of what it means to be suburban, knowing exactly what can be said to truly set off those who are wound a bit more tightly, but without ever actually becoming overtly offensive.Or at least, that’s how he has been in his later years. John Waters has far from settled–it’s more that the pop culture landscape seems to have caught up with him a little bit more. With his merry cast of characters, many of whom have now since passed away, Waters started out with little more than a Super 8 camera and a dream. He cast his childhood friend as the female lead in many of his films, and collected a number of different collaborators along the way in the 1960s, when he spent a lot of time making fun of hippies. Read more »

While summertime might mean getting away from the grind of your desk job and heading to the beach, it also means freedom and a more carefree lifestyle for a number of different reasons. And for anyone, regardless of if you’re on your way to the last remaining drive-in movie theater or standing in line at the latest megaplex, part of the fun of summer is definitely the summer blockbuster film.If you look back over the course of the past decade or so, there have been some seriously great summer films, though lately the focus does seem to be more towards sweeping action adventures and not so much the more down-to-earth or low-key films that might have won people’s hearts a few years back. And film studios are starting to get a whole lot smarter. To get together guys and girls without having any fights over whether a movie is a chick flick or an action adventure story, a lot of the bigger studios are rolling out all the stops for the months of June, July, and August. This means you should expect to see films that combine shoot-em-up sequences with romantic plot lines, or at least dreamy actors. Some of the most successful franchises lately, including “Pirates of the Caribbean,” have worked this technique as well as it can possibly be handled. Read more »