Guest Contributions

GUEST COLUMN: Horrible Movies I Love (RAD)

/ Chris Luckett
Photo: TriStar Pictures

Photo: TriStar Pictures

Kevin M. Griffiths

A long, long time ago, there was a wonderful decade called the ‘80s. It was a time of big hair, bright colours, and over-synthesized pop soundtracks. In the middle of this decade, someone in Hollywood had a great idea: ‘Hey, let’s make Rocky for teenagers!’ They did, and called it The Karate Kid.

While it didn’t make all the money in 1984, it did make enough to be the fifth-highest grossing movie of the year. This, no doubt, played a factor when someone then suggested: ‘Hey, let’s make The Karate Kid, but with BMX bikes!’

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GUEST COLUMN: When Film Directors Do TV

/ Chris Luckett
Photo: ABC

Photo: ABC

Chris Zois

The world of television is usually looked down on by others in the entertainment industry, but TV has hit its stride over the past few years and movies may have to watch their backs.

Movies tend to be a director’s medium and television a writer’s medium. You’ve got your Milchs, Sorkins, and Weiners, who run their shows with iron fists. And you’ve got hired-gun directors who are just trained to keep the ship afloat. But Andy Greenwald of Grantland recently wrote that there are a few A-list TV directors out there. Some major filmmakers have tried their hand at directing episodes for the idiot box, notably Steven Soderbergh with The Knick.

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GUEST COLUMN: Soundtracking (That Thing You Do!)

/ Chris Luckett
Photo: Twentieth Century Fox

Photo: Twentieth Century Fox

Neil Reyes

When Fountains of Wayne broke out in 2003 with “Stacy’s Mom,” few people had heard of them, despite them making music since the latter part of the ‘90s. Even fewer were aware that bassist Adam Schlesinger had been writing and producing music for movies and television, including for The Dana Carvey Show, Josie and the Pussycats, and, most notably, 1996’s That Thing You Do.

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GUEST COLUMN: Horrible Movies I Love (Attack of the Clones)

/ Chris Luckett
Photo: Twentieth Century Fox

Photo: Twentieth Century Fox

Kevin M. Griffiths

You’d think it would be quite difficult for me, having grown up wanting to be a Jedi (or a Sith), to admit any Star Wars movie not titled The Phantom Menace is horrible, but the critic in me can’t see much reason to consider Attack of the Clones to be a good movie. What makes me so conflicted about that is how enjoyable the second entry in George Lucas’s “Fun with Lightsabers” trilogy remains.

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GUEST COLUMN: A Look at Linklater (Part 3 of 4)

/ Chris Luckett
Photo: Warner Bros.

Photo: Warner Bros.

Chris Zois

Linklater has always floated in and out of Hollywood. It’s a commendable thing for directors to have a “one for them, one for me” mentality, but if you’re going to do that, there’s no shame in injecting a bit of your own personality in a “one for them.” This era, in a sense, is when Linklater was a hired gun, sure he put out two or three of his own films, but starting in 2003, his Hollywood commitments starting seeming more like him simply cashing in a paycheque.

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GUEST COLUMN: Horrible Movies I Love (The Mighty Ducks)

/ Chris Luckett
Photo: Buena Vista Pictures

Photo: Buena Vista Pictures

Kevin M. Griffiths

The Mighty Ducks is a mightily sloppy movie. It can’t decide whether it wants to be a Bad New Bears for hockey, a Slap Shot for youngsters, or standard, live-action Disney fare. Featuring an atrocious performance from Emilio Estevez, it contains nearly every cliché featured in a sports movie. However, it also contains none of the self-awareness that made a cliché-fest like Dodgeball refreshing.

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GUEST COLUMN: A Look at Linklater (Part 2)

/ Chris Luckett
Photo: Fox Searchlight Pictures

Photo: Fox Searchlight Pictures

Chris Zois

When a filmmaker has a little taste of success, they have more control with your films and may want to try something different. While his first few features (Slacker, Dazed and Confused, Before Sunrise) were not runaway hits, they still got Richard Linklater on people’s radar. With his next batch of flicks, Linklater tried to do something new, but stayed with his old game of plotless films.

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GUEST COLUMN: Out of Print (84 Charlie MoPic)

/ Chris Luckett
Photo: New Century Vista Picture Company

Photo: New Century Vista Picture Company

Alexander Patteson

Welcome to Out of Print, my series of reviews on films that are currently unavailable on DVD, for one reason or another.

Sometimes, they can only be found on VHS or Laserdisc and never made it to DVD. Other times, these movies have gone out-of-print, meaning they were released on DVD at some point in the past, but they’ve stopped being manufactured.

Either way, many of these films are now hard, if not impossible, to track down. Each entry will look at a different film, and explore the possible reasons why it isn’t currently available for purchase. Whether a movie’s marred by copyright issues, surrounded by controversy, or perhaps is just terrible, I’ll get to the bottom of things.

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GUEST COLUMN: Horrible Movies I Love (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II)

/ Chris Luckett
Photo: New Line Cinema

Photo: New Line Cinema

Kevin M. Griffiths

I love the Ninja Turtles. I love them because they’re dumb, rambunctious, rebellious teenagers who have absolutely no reason to be viewed as heroes or role models. They set a terrible example for just about everything a kid needs to know growing up, and for that, I adore them. I am of the school of thought that it’s good to know what not to do in a situation, and Leo, Don, Mikey, and Raph have always been there for me in that regard. I thought their first movie had moments that transcended moviedom and stuck its toes into filmdom, but that was not the case in 1991 when the Turtles dropped their first unadulterated abomination onto the masses, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze.

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