Month: June 2015

Jaws panic

Trailer Tuesday: Jaws – The 40th Anniversary Edition

Matt Edwards Leave a comment

It’s officially summer here in the northern hemisphere and to kick it off, this week’s Trailer Tuesday brings us the 40th anniversary of the first ever summer blockbuster movie, Steven Spielberg’s 1975 masterpiece, Jaws.

Courtesy of comes a “Modern Recut” trailer for this classic film. Incorporating modern sound effects and editing styles, this trailer gives it the old college try at making the film look as though it may be hitting theaters for the first time ever. Sadly the film’s greatest asset, John Williams brilliant score, is missing throughout. The music that is used over powers the dialogue, feels out of place and for a film 4 decades old and beloved by many, to not even offer a taste of Williams’ classic score is downright criminal.  Ultimately the trailer fails, as the final 15 seconds looks to promise not a bonafide cinematic achievement, but a laughable SyFy midnight movie.  After watching this Modern Recut, go ahead and cleanse the palate with the original  trailer from 1975 just below it and you’ll realize that it’s hard to improve on perfection, even when it comes to marketing.

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James-Horner

In Memoriam: James Horner

Sean Malone Leave a comment

Last Monday, prolific film composer, James Horner, died when the single-engine plane he was piloting crashed in the Los Padres National Forest, a few hours North of Los Angeles. He is survived by his wife and two daughters. As SmashCut’s resident composer, I figured it would only be fitting to write about some of my favorite James Horner scores.

Pablo Picasso once said:

“Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.”

I think James Horner’s career is a testament to this idea.

There are few composers alive today who could match Horner’s breadth of knowledge or technical mastery. James Horner was among the youngest in a vanguard of composers working in the 1980s-2000s whose classical influences brought immense sophistication of technique and emotional clarity to the art, and his influence on Hollywood was impossible to mistake.

This may seem a bit weird, but I think it is for that reason that I want to start my brief list with his work on “The Land Before Time” (1988). His first cue for that film is nothing short of a symphonic overture.

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standup

Making Comedy Safe for the World

James Harberson Leave a comment

“[.]”

Bruce Cockburn

Many American colleges are insular freak shows resembling the Duggar family – except the incest is intellectual. And their Duggar-like offspring, political lobotomees untroubled by self-doubt, want to save the world. .

And so we have San Diego State University’s Anthony Berteaux, catechizing the uninstructed Jerry Seinfeld for complaining that college students are too politically correct:

We need to talk about the role that provocative comedy holds today in a progressive world.

It isn’t so much that college students are too politically correct (whatever your definition of that concept is), it’s that comedy in our progressive society today can no longer afford to be crass, or provocative for the sake of being offensive. Sexist humor and racist humor can no longer exist in comedy because these concepts are based on archaic ideals that have perpetrated injustice against minorities in the past….

So, yes, Mr. Seinfeld, we college students are politically correct. We will call out sexism and racism if we hear it. But if you’re going to come to my college and perform in front of me, be prepared to write up a set that doesn’t just offend me, but has something to say.

borg queenOh, would that Political Correctness could Borg the world, submitting everyone to a frictionless, unified consciousness while actualizing our individuated diversities.  As Arthur Allen Leff observes, “[w]hat we want, Heaven help us, is simultaneously to be perfectly ruled and perfectly free, that is, at the same time to discover the right and the good and to create it.”  Until that deliverance, we must ensure the progress thus far made. Doing so requires domesticating comedy, proscribing jokes that “can no longer exist” because they reprise the hateful past. Moreover, comedy can’t simply amuse; like propaganda, it must improve us (Read Nick Gillespie’s excellent take-down of such “[d]idactic [a]rt.”)

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Av4 - Cap Discovered

Avenging the Fantastic, Part 3: Captain America Returns!

Daniel Sherrier Leave a comment

TOS 45Continuing the read-through of as many Avengers and Fantastic Four–related Marvel comics as possible!

Books Read

Tales of Suspense (starring Iron Man) #45-49; Tales to Astonish (starring Ant-Man) #47-51; Strange Tales (starring the Human Torch) #113-119; Fantastic Four #19-24; Journey Into Mystery (starring Thor) #97-104; Avengers #2-4; years spanned: 1963-4.

Fantastic Firsts

Iron Man finally gets a supporting cast in Tales of Suspense #45, where we meet Pepper Potts and Happy Hogan (Gwyneth Paltrow and Jon Favreau in the movies). He ditches his clunky original armor for a more recognizable design in TOS #48.

Ant-Man becomes Giant-Man in Tales to Astonish #49.

The X-Men were introduced in their own series, which we’re not covering here, but they make their first guest appearance when they meet Iron Man in TOS #49.

Though he first appeared in the World War II–era Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos, Nick Fury makes his first modern-day appearance in Fantastic Four #21, where we learn he now works for the CIA.

The Lady Sif first appears in a flashback story of Thor’s youth in Journey Into Mystery #102, although she’s nothing more than a damsel in distress with zero lines of dialogue. Sif the warrior, like we see in the movies, is yet to come.

The Invisible Girl gains a more useful power—invisible force fields—in FF #22, and unless I missed it earlier, the Thing first utters his famous catchphrase, “It’s clobberin’ time!” in FF #23. The intended target of clobberin’ is Dr. Doom, and the Thing, still relatively inexperienced at clobberin’, swings and misses.

ST 114Captain America joins the modern world in Avengers #4. However, earlier, the character had a “tryout” in Strange Tales #114, though that was a villain in disguise messing with the Human Torch (an gauging reader interest in the dormant World War II character).

Notable new villains include Rama Tut in FF #19, the Crimson Dynamo in TOS #46, the Molecule Man in FF #20, the Human Top (later Whirlwind) in TTA #50, Mr. Hyde (who Kyle Maclachlan plays in Agents of SHIELD) in JIM  #99, and the Enchantress, the first recurring female villain, in JIM #103.

RIP For Now

In Avengers #4, we learn that Bucky Barnes, Captain America’s teen sidekick, apparently did not survive World War II.

How Captain America grieves: He notices that Rick Jones, former sidekick of the Hulk, looks almost exactly like Bucky. “I was wasting time—mourning him—but you’ve suddenly made me realize that life goes on! In a way, Bucky can still live again!”

No pressure, Rick. (more…)

O'Connor stamp from USPS

Literature You Should Know: The Works of Flannery O’Connor

Elisabeth G. Wolfe Leave a comment

We seem to be embarking on the Summer of Strange here in the good ol’ US of A, a time when people and things must be treated as their opposites Because I Said So, That’s Why, Shut Up, H8rz! The chattering classes, at least, seem to be living by Adam Savage’s immortal quip, “I reject your reality and substitute my own!” and mocking those of us who will not believe that up is down, especially the Unpeople of Jesusland™ (© AoSHQ). It’s also a time when the Tumblrinas have taken trigger warnings prime time, refusing to engage with anyone or anything that upsets their carefully constructed notions of reality–and thereby destroying the actual utility of trigger warnings that might be needed by people with genuine afflictions like PTSD.

O'Connor, who suffered from lupus, with one of her beloved peacocks
O’Connor, who suffered from lupus, with one of her beloved peacocks

And the Postal Service has just issued a new commemorative stamp… of Flannery O’Connor, who was once asked why her fiction is so full of freaks and replied that in the South, we still know a freak when we see one. She also explained her use of the grotesque by noting that “to the hard of hearing you shout, and to the almost-blind you draw large and startling pictures.” To smash cut a culture growing increasingly blind and deaf to reality, we do need shouts and startling pictures, which is why we need writers like O’Connor.

My dear friend and mentor Ralph C. Wood argues over at First Things that this commemoration of O’Connor is appropriate for such a time as this:

Her characters learn to “see” by discerning the invisible realities that are both the cause and the cure of the world’s misery. They discover that, as O’Connor herself declared, evil is not a problem to be fixed but a mystery to be endured. Our great temptation, in an age of “antireligious religion,” is to believe that, because we can repair much of human pain by human measures, we can also mend the human soul. Thus do we also blink. We benignly yield to feelings that, at whatever cost, must not be “hurt.” We cancel our very humanity in conforming ourselves to a happiness that denies both our moral perversions and bodily limitations.

O'Connor complete works coverFlannery O’Connor’s characters do not blink. Like many biblical figures, her central characters are not good country people or just plain folks. They believe and they behave strangely. They often find what they are not looking for. They are put on the path toward something infinitely more important than social acceptance and cultural conformity. They are being burned clean and made whole—not by a soft-centered tenderness but by the purifying fire of divine mercy.

Read the whole thing–and then read some O’Connor. Even if her works are not your cup of tea, there’s a great deal to be learned from them.

rebelunionnaziflag

The Southern Hazzard of the Rebel Yell

Matt Edwards 1 Comment

In the wake of the horrific and senseless murders in Charleston, SC last week, national debate has sprung up once again about a flag.  The Civil War era Confederate Flag.  Not unlike the German Third Reich’s Nazi flag, for many, seeing the South’s Rebel Stars & Bars conjures up equally horrific memories of the vile treatment of scores of innocent human lives.  I get it.  Perhaps there are those that would seek to re-redefine the symbol of the swastika with the pre-Nazi factoid, that due to its original use as an ancient decorative symbol in eastern cultures, we shouldn’t allow the Nazis to commandeer such a worldly historical symbol.  Those that may make that argument will lose.  We will never be able to bring back those ancient glory days of when seeing a swastika was pleasing to the eye.  Unless you are a nazi sympathizer, Hitler & Co. have ruined the swastika or any incarnation or variation of it forever.  You can’t “un-see” the horrors its appearance summons, so to speak.

To many, the Battle Flag holds the same sad memories of murder, enslavement, and loss of human dignity.  However, because some Southerners (white or black) are simply proud of being from Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina or any other of the former confederate states, they like the image and feel proud to display it as prideful modern day Southerners.  This does not immediately qualify them as a racist.  Sadly, some opportunists use the flag as a political weapon to paint broad strokes on those who fly it to cause divisiveness for their own benefit.  If you make such judgements you are part of the problem, not the solution and not a very intelligent person. Outside of the personal use, if you ask me, the flag does not deserve to fly above any State building of these United States of America for the same reason we would never fly the Union Flag (or Union Jack) above a government building.  All y’all lost the war. ‘Merica!

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songofsea

25 Animated Films You MUST See #17: Song of The Sea

Mellinda Hensley Leave a comment

Everyone.

It’s been awhile.

You’ll have to excuse me, I’m slowly getting accustomed to life in the outside world. Aside from going to my 9-5 job, I’d been tucked away in a corner of my apartment, furiously pounding out pages of my thesis project for grad school. My thesis was a hefty section of my novel, 120 pages to be exact, and now that the sheets have been bound, the section turned in, and my degree received, I can slowly begin to acclimate myself to normalcy. Most of this has involved slowly exposing myself to sunlight, understanding that the food pyramid is not just a giant slice of Domino’s pizza, and getting all the sleep.

But I digress.

As my time in grad school came to an end, I spent a lot of time thinking about the future, my own specifically — where would I go, what would I do, what would things look like for me a few years down the road?

But I also began to think about the future of the things I loved. With E3 in full swing, I wondered where video games were headed. What new, immersive technology would pop up, which franchises would live on, and OHMYGOD THERE’S A NEW STARFOX GAME.

Needless to say, I’ll be updating you all soon (if I can contain my excitement until then).

But I also had some similar thoughts about the future of animation. As most of you have noticed, a large portion of this list are films that were made more than five years ago, some even older still. There are one or two newer films I’ve considered putting on this list, but it’s obvious that the pool of animated films is definitely getting thinner. With Studio Ghibli’s (potentially) last film, “When Marnie Was There” in theaters and more films going the way of Pixar-style animation, it’s hard not to wonder where things are headed.

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supersize squad

The Fast Food Mascot Re-Boot

Matt Edwards Leave a comment

Off of the tease announcements from McDonald’s that the Hamburgerler is coming out of hiding,  filmmaker Leigh Scott debuts this re-imagining of our favorite fast food mascots. From Wendy to Col. Sanders to the King and the Clown , in all honesty, this works great on so many levels.  My particular favorite appearance is from the purple guy himself, Grimace.  It’s the Supersize Squad.

copcar

Trailer of the Year Awards – Cop Car

Matt Edwards 2 Comments

Our third nominee for the Trailer of the Year Award is definitely going to be a long shot in taking the top prize, but it’s a fun trailer full of all the right camera shots, a campy tone, with accelerating soundtrack all topped with Kevin Bacon as the bad guy with a mustache that might win ‘Stache of the Year.

Two young boys come across an abandoned police cruiser with the keys still inside, they decide to leave well enough alone, walk to the nearest adult and tell them what they found.  Oh no, wait… that’s the boring version.  These kids take that sucker for joyride.  Sirens, lights and high speed, it’s all fun and games until the cop (Bacon) who left it behind comes looking for it.

Film opens August 7, I hope it’s as campy-fun as the trailer.

Avengers 1 final panel

Avenging the Fantastic, Part 2: Avengers Assemble!

Daniel Sherrier Leave a comment

Continuing the read-through of as many Avengers and Fantastic Four–related Marvel comics as possible!

Books Read

Tales to Astonish (starring Ant-Man) #42-46; Tales of Suspense (starring Iron Man) #40-44; Journey Into Mystery (starring Thor) #92-96; Fantastic Four #14-18, Annual #1; Strange Tales (starring the Human Torch) #109-112, Annual #2; Avengers #1; year: 1963.

tales-to-astonish-44Fantastic Firsts

We meet Janet Van Dyne, a.k.a. the Wasp, who becomes Ant-Man’s sidekick in TTA #44. This brings us up to two female superheroes in the Marvel Comics Universe—one who turns invisible and one who shrinks.

Unless I missed someone, we also get the first non-white, non-extraterrestrial super-villain who would recur, the Radioactive Man, in JIM #93 (though back then they hyphenated it as “Radio-Active”). He comes from Red China, of course.

The Fantastic Four battle the Mad Thinker and his Awesome Android for the first time in FF #15, and in the next issue they take the first trip to the Microverse. In #18, the shape-shifting alien Skrulls introduce their Super-Skrull.

The Human Torch endures his first team-up with Spider-Man in Strange Tales Annual #2 (though they first met in the first issue of Spider-Man’s series, which we’re not covering here).

And the Avengers assemble in their own first issue, with the initial line-up of Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, Ant-Man, and the Wasp.

The Status Is Not Quo

–So, back in the day, Ant-Man had a somewhat reckless method of travel.

At the size of an insect, he catapults himself out his window and across the city. While he’s being a projectile, ants converge at the landing spot he calculated, and they act as a cushion for him to fall on. He gives the Wasp wings so she can fly, but Ant-Man, the little reckless daredevil, keeps catapulting himself and never thinks to give himself wings. Though in TTA #46, he does start riding flying ants “like a Pegasus.” The man travels in style.

–Iron Man’s armor is powered by “transistors,” not “ark reactor” technology as seen in the movies and modern comics. And as Tony Stark, he doesn’t just have the glowing circle in his chest—he has to wear an entire armored chestplate under his clothes at all times. To recharge, he literally plugs the armor into everyday electrical sockets, the same ones you would use to plug in a toaster, and he sits there and waits. Tales of suspense, indeed.

Tony is seen dating different women in several issues, but none of these relationships last, presumably on account of his inability to take his shirt off without having some explaining to do. Though how these women never notice the peculiar hardness of his chest and stomach remains a mystery, unless Tony Stark dances like a middle school kid. (more…)

tcm

Party On, TCM

Andrew Leigh 1 Comment

At the 6th annual TCM Classic Film Festival a couple months ago, my better half and I were thrilled to see plenty of old movies on the big screen.

We caught Gunga Din with an informative and humorous introduction by two special effects guys, Craig Barron and Ben Burt, who showed us video of the real-life Southern California locations that stood in for India. (The comparison of the movie’s precarious bridge over the chasm to the actual place was especially revelatory.)

We saw Too Late for Tears, a “lost” noir classic about the most cold-blooded killer you’ve ever seen (played by Lizabeth Scott). We saw Earthquake at an outdoor poolside screening introduced by one of its stars, Mr. Shaft himself, Richard Roundtree.

And we reveled in the classic screwball comedy The Philadelphia Story with a packed house at the fabled Chinese Theater — you couldn’t ask for a grander movie experience.

But our favorite moments of the festival weren’t particular screenings. They were meeting some of the more prolific members of one of Twitter’s most entertaining hashtags — #TCMparty..

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Jerry

College Campuses are too PC, Even for Jerry Seinfeld

Matt Edwards Leave a comment

Jerry Seinfeld, who’s most famous stand-up comedy bits usually revolve around socks, pajamas and clothing in general, spoke to ESPN radio host Colin Cowherd on the state of doing stand-up comedy on college campuses around America.  Seinfeld admits he doesn’t perform at colleges, but offers an insight into what college students today consider to be sexist, racist, bigoted or any number of the other SIXHIRB words that are bandied about without any rational thought.

shelter

Shelter Star, Clea Duval Interviewed at Dances With Films

Matt Edwards Leave a comment

cleaClea Duval, star of writer/director RJ Daniel Hanna’s short film drama Shelter (produced as part of the 2014 Liberty Lab for Film project through ) was interviewed just prior to the short’s premier this past Monday, June 1st at the Dances with Films festival in Hollywood, CA.

To find out more about the film check out the page.

From her early turn as the tough high school outcast in Robert Rodriguez’s “The Faculty” to most recently as one of the six American diplomats detained in Ben Affleck’s Oscar winning film “Argo,” DuVall has been hitting all the right performance notes and shows no sign of stopping.  Her latest work is in a moody new short titled  (making its way to the big screen via the Dances With Films Festival 2015 on Monday, June 1st at 5pm at the Chinese 6 Theaters on Hollywood and Highland in LA) that sees DuVall playing a prisoner on parole who becomes affected by her job working at an animal shelter.  The short is a precursor to a proposed feature length film and if anything like the impressive sixteen minute movie it’s gonna be a movie to watch for.

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dvd

Dick Van Dyke and The Dustbowl Revival

Matt Edwards Leave a comment

I still watch The Dick Van Dyke Show nightly on Netflix. The wife and I have followed The Dustbowl Revival around Los Angeles for years now.  When these two worlds collide, the outcome is all fun.  Watching 89 year old  Van Dyke dancing like he did 50 years ago, to the pure, Americana sounds of a band made up of 30 somethings and under is pure gold.  And who said there is in Los Angeles?