Tag: chris kattan

William Malone’s House On Haunted Hill

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

I kinda get the beef with William Malone’s House On Haunted Hill, I mean it’s essentially a lazy, paper thin story gussied up by a whole bunch of spooky visual effects and fancy, baroque production design, but I loved it anyhow. Malone is the same guy who made the infamous FearDotCom and such was also the case there: nonsensical narrative made entirely watchable by pure visual artistry alone. Maybe the guy has a yet to be discovered career in music videos ahead of him. Anyways, the plot revolves around a weird looking building sat on a cliff overlooking the sea, a place which was once a freaky asylum run by a mad surgeon (Jeffry Combs with nary a word of dialogue) who murdered his patients. Half a century later it’s owned by snarky amusement park guru Geoffrey Rush and his potty mouthed femme fatale wife (Famke Jannssen). They invite several bored LA types over for the night including a faded baseball star (Taye Diggs), a movie studio VP (Ali Larter), a smarmy hotshot Doctor (Peter Gallagher) and a tabloid journalist (Bridgette Wilson Sampras). The deal is, if you make it one night alive in this place Rush will pay you a cool million bucks. You can guess what happens next. This film is very short on story and a lot of it is just characters wandering through grimly lit corridors and getting haunted by unseen terrors. The characters are hilarious though and the cast is really having fun. Rush is a gnarled hoot as the misanthropic tycoon, with a pencil moustache as precariously thin as his threshold for having tantrums. The lovely Janssen is saddled with a trashy role that’s beneath her classy talents but she’s game and makes this chick one seriously bratty, scene stealing bitch. Chris Kattan also shows up as like… the butler or caretaker of this place I guess? I had an acting teacher once tell us that every performance you give should be modelled after the physicality and essence of one member of the animal kingdom. Chris heard that and apparently decided to base every role for the rest of his career on a squirrel with a serious meth habit, because that’s what I felt like I was watching when he was onscreen. I can understand why this film doesn’t get a lot of love, it’s a remake of a no doubt cherished 60’s horror film and that coupled with its lack of a real story… I get it. However, I really enjoyed it for the set design and very freaky visual horror creations. I think that director Malone missed his calling as a full blown, thoroughbred surrealist like Lynch or Merhige because he has a real gift with abstract, otherworldly makeup, editing and FX. Some of the berserk visual stuff later is right out of a post modern video collage installation and reminded me of like Jacob’s Ladder or Eraserhead. If Malone put that talent to work in a project that would allow him to fully be taken seriously as a filmmaker he’d be the stuff of Lynchian legends. But hey, this film is super fun too, if kinda slight. Rush and his merry band of fellow cast-mates are great, and like I said it gets genuinely fucking weird right near the end, and weird is always good. Oh also, bonus points for using Marilyn Manson’s Sweet Dreams as a kind of theme song. Oh and also: this is like one in an unofficial trilogy with 13 Ghosts and Ghost Ship as early 2000’s ensemble piece gonzo horror with metal infused soundtracks, produced by the Dark Castle label, excessively opulent special effects and bad reputations, and I love all three to bits no matter what anyone says.

-Nate Hill

Corky Romano

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

Call me crazy but after finally daring to watch it, I can’t say I’m one of the many people who think that Corky Romano is one of the worst films ever made. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a solid fucking toilet destroying turd of a film, thoroughly shitty no doubt, and yet… I laughed. A lot. I’m still trying to figure out if the laughs were ironic, genuine or spurred on by the eight plus beers in my system, but irregardless, I can’t say it wasn’t a good time. Chris Kattan is one of those actors like Rob Schneider, Seth Green or David Spade who are in what I call the ‘mosquito category.’ They can’t act, they’re not really that funny and they seem to exist for no reason other than to buzz around like vermin. As twitchy, dysfunctional mafia brat Corky Romano, Kattan is admittedly his annoying self but he nails a few laughs nicely, and lands one big one spectacularly involving cocaine and schoolchildren. His mobster dad (Peter Falk and his loopy eyes) is about to be testified against by a mysterious informant, so his two volatile brothers (Chris Penn and Peter Berg) and uncle (Fred Ward, slumming it and loving it) hatch a cockamamie plan to send him in to the Bureau as a fake Fed and destroy evidence. If you’re wondering why, or how this is a good plan, don’t bother. The film’s haphazard script is like several post-it notes drunkenly stuck on a fridge, and instead of coherency in plot we get an insane parade of slapstick shenanigans and situational comedy masquerading as a story. Saddled with a stern FBI boss (Shaft himself, Richard Roundtree), a foxy partner (Vinessa Shaw) and jealous bureau cohorts, it’s a laundry list of fuckups, arbitrary car chases, third grade level humour and unapologetic what-have-ya. This came out in 2001 and it’s funny to see how much times have changed and people’s tolerance for certain types of humour have dried up, they use words and scenarios here that would have the film swiftly boycotted these days, but it’s refreshing to watch older films where they didn’t have to tiptoe on eggshells quite as much. What else is there to say, really? This is a wantonly childish display of bottom feeding comedy, and the immature man-child in me found it to be a fucking laugh riot. Uneven, sure. All over the place, definitely. But funny as all hell in fits and starts.

-Nate Hill

Henry Selick’s Monkeybone

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

Henry Selick’s wacktastic, surreal Monkeybone is off its head, and while it never quite coalesces into something wholly memorable, the images and impressions on parade are not something easily shaken. To start with, the visual production design is so detailed and thoroughly deranged it deserves it’s own art gallery after the fact. Selick, the other half of the creative team behind Nightmare Before Christmas, create’s here what is maybe one of the most unsettling, eye popping mood boards in any film of the century. It’s just just in keeping us awake with the storytelling that he falters somewhat, not enough to sink the ship, but enough that not a lot of people remember or revere this film these days, which is a shame because it’s quite an achievement in areas. Brendan Fraser, who seems to actively seek out oddball scripts, plays cartoonist Stu Smiley, who goes into a coma, gets sent to a place called Downtown where the veggies go until they either croak or wake up, and is put in jeopardy once someone has the idea to pull the plug on him. His loving girlfriend (Bridget Fonda, who I wish was still in the acting game) waits for him, while his newest creation, a little plush horn-ball named Monkeybone, gets a little too sentient and tries to steal his body, which has a certain organ he wasn’t endowed with on the drawing board. The story is too weird and raunchy for kids, and falls into the Roger Rabbit/Cool World arena of adult oriented fare that still has a childlike sensibility. Downtown is essentially a haunted DisneyLand astral plane, a reject realm where ghosts, ghouls and monsters with disturbing anatomy roam free and feed on nightmares, siphoned from the psyched of those upstairs stuck in comas. Weird enough for you? You don’t know the half of it. The nightmare scenes are shot in stark black and white and have a genuinely subconscious, tuned in vibe to them that actually feels like one does in dreams, not an easy aura to pin down onscreen. Fraser does a wicked job, especially when the monkey hijacks his body upstairs and starts prancing around like a mental patient, it’s an inspired bit of physical comedy from the man who brought us George Of The Jungle. Monkeybone is apparently played by none other than John Turturro, but his voice is so tripped out on helium effects it’s fairly unrecognizable. The film gets downright hilarious when Stu follows the scamp back up in the avatar of a corpse with a broken neck (bravo to Chris Kattan), a dementedly genius sequence. There’s cameos and vaudeville supporting turns galore, including Rose McGowan as a sexy cat/human hybrid, Bob Odenkirk, Thomas Haden Church, Giancarlo Esposito, Lisa Zane, and Whoopi Goldberg as Death, a sly meta rework on her Ghost character. The film is at it’s best when it focuses on Downtown, which really is a vibrant atmosphere to hang around in, always an odd mutant creature to look at or a morbid one liner for chuckles. The stuff back on earth can be fun too but really doesn’t pick up until Kattan comes roaring in and steals the climax with his bobble-head gymnastic fanfare. If only this had been a little more in terms of story and character, it could have matched it’s truly impressive visual scope. As it is, it’s worth it just to see how weird and surreal mainstream movies can get when they want to.

-Nate Hill

Beneath a sky so full of Sharks: An Interview with Anthony C. Ferrante by Kent Hill

by Kent Hill, posted in Interviews

 

It would be easy for me to simply sit here and wax lyrical about my love of SHARKNADO okay – real easy. But to do that does a disservice to one of the major components of its success, and that comes in the form of the director at the helm of the franchise; (now moving into its 5th installment) the dynamic Mr. Anthony C. Ferrante.

 

Frank Darabont and Anthony C. Ferrante at the 37th Annual Saturn Awards at The Castaway, Burbank, California June 23, 2011. Photo Credit Sue Schneider_MGP Agency

It was 2014. I was at work on the sequel volume to an anthology whose content was the collected author’s visions of their ultimate B movie. Anthony was prepping SHARKNADO 3 at the time for release. Still, I managed to get a hold of him to write the foreword for that book, and subsequently, the release of the book and SHARKNADO 3 fell in pretty close succession.

 

The desire to make movies and equally the passion for them, strikes one out of the blue. Anthony was not yet in his teens when that voice inside us all called out to him, and from that point forward, he knew making movies was exactly what he was going to do.

Now like I said earlier, to simply classify him as the SHARKNADO GUY, is to be completely unjust. Anthony is a renaissance man of the highest order. This writer, director, producer, sometimes actor, make-up effects artist, songwriter, comic book author – the list is longer than the list of cameos in the SHARKNADO franchise thus far.

But as you will hear, some of the best training Anthony received during his journey, was while writing for the likes Fangoria and Cinescape Magazine. For it was during this time that he was tasked to cover films being made in the local area. So he found himself hanging out on the sets of movies and getting to witness first-hand, all the stuff they don’t teach you in film school.

 

It was this and the do-with-what-you-got attitude he cultivated while making his early films in his hometown that has enabled him, or perhaps, weaponized him for the career he has enjoyed and one that continues to flourish. It is this shooting-from-hip type filmmaking that lends his work a frenetic energy. Fittingly you might say, he is the right man for the job at hand when it comes to the wild, bombastic and beloved lunacy that is the SHARKNADO franchise.

But beneath that,  I think we are witnessing a great filmmaker on the rise. A man whose talent and skill will I hope be utilized to its full potential. Anthony C. Ferrante may indeed be the antidote these tired, Hollywood tent-pole movies are sorely lacking.

But enough to this. GO, GO, GO, GO, GO, GO, GO – listen to this interview, and don’t forget to tune into the upcoming SHARKNADO!

B Movie Glory with Nate: Guns, Girls And Gambling

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

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Guns, Girls And Gambling is an absolute doozy of a film. The term ‘so bad it’s good’ was invented for slapdash mockeries such as this, and with every stylistic cliche and ridiculous tactic, it owns the moniker vigorously. The filmmakers are obvious disciples of the neo noir crime thriller, as we see countless hard boiled walking stereotypes prance across the screen. Whenever a character shows up, a garish font announces them in writing below, which is crime genre 101. This happens so many goddamn times though, that eventually I felt like I was watching Mel Brooks’s attempt at a heist flick. It’s silly beyond words, derivitive enough to give you the onset of dementia and admirably dumb. But… I still had fun, at least in parts of it. It concerns the theft of a priceless Native American artifact from a tribal casino. The perpetrators? A gang of Elvis impersonators with, let’s say, interesting characteristics. There’s gay Elvis (Chris Kattan), midget Elvis (Tony Cox), Asian Elvis (Anthony Wong) and Gary Oldman Elvis, played by Gary Oldman who looks like he was dared into taking the role at a frat party. The bumbling Elvises break ranks post heist and the plot thickens, or should I say befuddles, with the arrival of every kooky, sassy assassin and archetype under the sun. Now from what I could make out: Christian Slater plays a dude called John Smith, a ‘wrong place at the wrong time’ type of guy who is swept up into the intrigue and is in way over head. He’s pursued by all kinds of unsavory people, and joined by the girl next door (Heather Roop). There’s The Cowboy (a salty Jeff Fahey), a gunslinging hitman who claims to never miss but literally misses upon firing the first bullet. The Indian (Matthew Willig) is a hulking tomahawk sporting badass. The Chief (Gordon Tootoosis) is the casino owner, muscling in on everyone to get back his artifact. The Sheriff (Dane Cook) is a corrupt lawman out for anything worth a buck. Best of the bunch is a snarling Powers Boothe as The Rancher, a good ol’ southern gangster who languishes in a white limo longer than the cast list of this movie, chewing scenery as vigorously as his cigar. There’s also a sexy blonde assassin called The Blonde (Helena Mattson) who wanders around quoting Poe right before she blasts people’s heads off. Its inane, mind numbing eye candy, with a cast that seems to have been blackmailed into participation. There’s even a last minute twist ending that seems to have wandered in from a much more serious film. It’s quite literally one of the most stupefyingly odd flicks I’ve ever seen. It’s earnestness in aping countless Pulp Fiction style films before it is beyond amusing, and the only thing that will make you laugh harder is how spectacularly and epically it flounders. It’s truly B movie gold, and one that demands a watch simply because it’s a sideshow unto itself.