Static Thoughts - James Bond Jr.

This latest weekend has marked the premiere of Spectre, he fourth film in the Daniel Craig run of James Bond films and continuity that started with Casino Royale in 2006.  At time of writing I haven’t seen it yet but given that I write about nerdy pop culture jazz on the Internet I’m basically contractually required to get in on the fun.  The only problem is that I don’t have a dedicated movie column and James Bond actually hasn’t really spread far beyond the realm of film.  

Unlike a lot of similar heroes he’s never branched out into comic books despite his widespread popularity and longevity James has never made it to television…well, almost never.  Yes, today we’re discussing the ignominious classic of the early ‘90s James Bond Jr., an animated show set smack in the middle of the dead years between Timothy Dalton and Pierce Brosnan that brought James Bond to the small screen as well as comic books, video games, and action figures. 

Movie Monthly - Dead & Buried

Edited by Robert Beach

Welcome back to Movie Monthly’s Month of the Zombie where I celebrate zombie movies that only I consider to be zombie movies. There are just so many generic zombie films out there with your standard range of infected rage zombies or slow, shambling Romero zombies that you don’t need another person spotlighting them. In keeping with that trend, the zombies from this week’s movie are less of your standard issue undead and something more like the bizarre hybrid children of Re-Animator, The Fog, and Shutter Island.

It’s also notable as being from the writing team behind Alien…sort of.  Ronald Shusett, who’s credited with creating Alien’s story, while Alien’s actual author Dan O’Bannon has repeatedly distanced himself from the film, wrote the main script.  It’s a bizarre mash-up of zombie flick, seaside terror tale, retro throwback and atmospheric horror. Let’s talk about Dead & Buried.

Static Thoughts - Logan's Run 1977

So Logan’s Run was briefly in the news over the weekend when a forgotten planned reboot of the film got new life with the announcement of an actual director attached to the project.  For the most part it isn’t that surprising the Logan’s Run reboot has languished in movie limbo for as long as it has.  The ‘80s work as farm for reboots and remakes because of the unmitigated amount of creativity and cash in the blockbuster scene and the corporate dominated consciousness of animation at the time.  Conversely viable ‘90s reboot properties may be more limited but they’re also more lucrative due to the growing trend of ‘90s nostalgia.

 The ‘70s is much more of a fallow period for rebootable material.  A lot of the stand out pieces of ‘70s cultural were incredibly driven by the auteurship of their maker like The Godfather, Taxi Driver, or The French Connection.  Alternatively projects like Jaws, The Exorcist, or Dirty Harry have become so engrained as classics of their genre a remake would come off as tired and uninspired like 2013’s ill-advised Carrie rehash.  There are some exceptions to this like the upcoming Creed film that looks to reboot/continue the Rocky story and I think Logan’s Run could be such an exception, not because of the film though, but because of the TV show. 

Movie Monthly - Alligator

And so we come to the end of Movie Monthly’s celebration of Shark Week, Sharknado 3, and the Jaws 40^th Anniversary with our Terrors From The Deep series with a look at the 1980 horror comedy Alligator.  Alligator is an odd flick in more ways than one.  The film came out at the tail end of the post Jaws creature feature boom, coming out 5 years after Jaws already made everyone afraid to go in the water.  As such Alligator takes a very different approach to animal horror than a lot of the other Jaws knock-offs like Orca.  The first major difference is that Alligator is actually a land locked horror film but more than that the movie is grounded in a much goofier premise that kind of informs the odd mix of anger and levity that informs the film overall. 

The basic premise of Alligator is that 12 years in the past, a young girl’s parents flushed her pet baby alligator down the toilet.  Rather than dying on the ride or in the sewers the alligator somehow survived and grew to gargantuan size off the strange toxic wastes being dumped into the sewers by a nearby business.  Now, the alligator has emerged from the depths beneath Chicago to exact brutal, animalistic vengeance on the forces that made it along with pretty much anyone else it encounters along the way.

Movie Monthly - Bait 3D

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elcome back to Movie Monthly where we dedicate a whole month to just one kind of movie.  This month to coincide with both Shark Week and the 40^th anniversary of Jaws it’s Terror from the Deep, dedicating all of July to ocean horror films.  Last week we looked at the enjoyable sleaze and cheese B-movie Shark Night 3D, this week we go nearly clear across the globe for much of the same thing only from Australia with Bait 3D.  This month will probably be more inclined towards B-movies overall as I’ve always founds attempts at serious shark horror films to be taxing in the extreme. 

Most of the time the movie will only amount to “What Jaws did but less” and rarely transcends the limitations of a horror story where the central antagonist can’t survive outside of the water.  No I maintain that sharks, much like zombies, work far better in that often misunderstood subset of horror that is the B-Movie.  These are flicks that wear the trappings of a horror film in character and design as well as co-opting horror antagonists to drive the action but are focused more on cheesy thrills and sleazy action rather than scares to drive the story.  Bait 3D is, in many ways, a perfect example of this and makes a greater sister film to Shark Night 3D. 

Movie Monthly - Shark Night 3D

Welcome to month 2 of Movie Monthly, devoting a whole month of film reviews to whatever subject happens to tickle my fancy.  Most of the time that also ends up paralleling a popular release or upcoming movie and this month we’ve hit the double.  Firstly this year marks the 40^th anniversary of Steven Spielberg’s redefining classic Jaws but also, this week marks the start of the longest running cable TV event: Shark Week.  So to celebrate this double dose of shark I’m devoting the entire month of July to Terrors from the Deep, it’s going to be all ocean horror all the time though not simply limited to sharks because that’s actually a pretty shallow well.  To start things off we’re going to look at a movie I actually saw in theaters when it came out; Shark Night 3D.