Movie posters can rise to level of works of art, can be tame or daring. They are of course advertising. A good poster makes you want to know more about the movie and the more you want to know the more you’ll want to spend your money to see the film. With that in mind, we’ve assembled our favorites of 2011, broken down into fancy categories for your reading and viewing pleasure.

The Classic Revisited

Cowboys and Aliens

Think Gary Cooper in High Noon striding down the dusty street of a small Western town, ready to fight, ready to die, ready to meet his fate. It’s the classic image of the lone wolf, the hero who stands alone, yet won’t back down. In this Cowboys and Aliens poster, the Old West is just a little skewed. In one hand our iconic cowboy holds the expected weapon of choice in the Old West, but on his wrist he has a weapon that the Old West never could have imagined.

The Artist

The image takes us back to classics films. Pick any leading lady or leading man from the golden age of cinema and plug them into this poster.  Bogey and Bacall, Tracy and Hepburn, any famous leading lady and leading man would be proud to be the focus in this beautiful poster.

The Bold and the Beautiful

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2

Harry Potter versus his arch nemesis in a literal face off. The contrast of Harry, grown up and a little worse for wear, opposite the barely human Voldemorte, face to face, ready for their final confrontation is a worthy image for the end of Harry Potter’s journey from innocent wide eyed eleven year old to world weary teen wizard taking his last stand against evil.

The Tree of Life

This one photo combines the human and the cosmic mystery of Terence Malick’s film about the meaning of life that raises more questions than it can answer. Which is exactly as it should be. From birth to death and every moment in between.

Simple but Effective

Shame

A movie about a man whose life is spinning out of control because he’s addicted to sex. How can the mess of his life be conveyed? A messy unmade bed, the covers pulled back as if he just had another loveless one night or maybe more like a one hour stand is minimal and to the point.

Margin Call

In the age of the Occupy movement and bank bailouts, this one jagged line sums up the greed that caused the financial crisis. It’s something an Occupy protester would carry as a protest sign. A clean, stark image.

Marco Beltrami is one of the most recognizable names in film scoring, and he’s earned that celebrity by scoring 4-8 high profile films every year for the past decade. For the most part, his work ranges from the darkly atmospheric to the engagingly violent, which makes him ideal for horror and for action films where Bruce Willis throws a car at a helicopter.

It also makes him a fantastic candidate for World War Z, the zombie film starring Brad Pitt that should see the light of day this year.

According to Film Music Reporter, Beltrami has been hired by the production amidst a busy schedule that sees him coming off work for The Woman in Black and looking ahead to A Good Day to Die Hard. It’s a significant pick up, although it’s not surprising considering his track record, although he hasn’t worked a lot with Paramount in the past. Still, Beltrami is rock steady when it comes to these types of scores. Hopefully they’ll make him write while being attacked by brain-hungry monsters (to give it a sense of realism).

Ron Perlman has been a force in television and film for three decades. He’s no stranger to fans, especially those he won as Hellboy and as Clay Morrow on Sons of Anarchy, and he’s appeared in a handful of movies every year since 1993 (with 1996 and 1999 being the only years he appeared in only one). You know him. You love him.

Now, we’re ready to pronounce 2011 The Year of The Perlman because while he’s worked steadily in movies small and big alike for a long time, this was the year that he really ate his spinach and showed his face in an almost absurd amount of flicks. What’s more, his performances spanned the quality spectrum enough to earn him the Shyamalan Award For Bizarrely Up and Down Work. It’s important to note that his acting was rock steady throughout, but even with (and with the addition of his talents), he was in some terrible (and some amazing) movies. From prestige films, to independent action, to summer epics, to that one thing with Nic Cage, Ron Perlman was everywhere doing everything.

He played the ruthless Jewish mobster Nino in Drive (the good); he was the wise-cracking sidekick in Season of the Witch (the bad); and he played Conan’s father in Conan the Barbarian (the ugly). And those are only three of the eight projects he worked on during the year (some which saw release, that hit festivals, and that will be out soon) in addition to his hit television show. He’s also the narrator for 1,000 Ways to Die and did guest work on three animated shows.

It’s time to bow down (especially considering he was the voice of God for the animated The Littlest Angel) and appreciate this achievement. It’s shocking that the entire entertainment world isn’t buzzing with this momentous milestone, but we’re more than happy to shout it from the rooftops on our own.

Mr. Perlman, we salute you.

Way back in January of 2010 I crafted a list of ten things I figured I’d hate in the following year. I tried to predict my own hatred, which can be difficult. Hate is the most wily and evasive of emotions, prone to erupting without warning. I made a few safe choices on the list, a couple of generalizations, but there were some surprises. Hell, one of the things I thought I’d hate I loved, while a few never even made it to the surface.

Anyway, let’s take a look back at my look forward and see how things panned out.

10. Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon Criticisms. Yup, hated the anti-Michael Bay, anti-Transformers criticisms, but they were nowhere near as bad as those that surrounded Revenge of the Fallen. Aided a lot by the fact that TF3 was actually a good movie, there were still some stubborn people who refuse to have fun at the movies and want to poo-poo on Bay.

9. X-Men: First Class. I was wrong about this one – loved the movie. It was on the list because I really do not like any installment of the X-Men franchise, this one is easily my favorite.

8. Beastly. Easy choice, of course this piece of shit movie was a predictable piece of shit that should have been sent to Lifetime.

7. The Smurfs. There were no surprises here as The Smurfs gave everyone critical blue balls. There are two types of kids movies – ones that kids enjoy but are secretly just good movies, and then there are piles like this and the Chipmunks that are just mindless kid drivel.

6. Straw Dogs Remake. This isn’t really worthy of my hate, but only because it wasn’t really worth of any attention.

5. Mother’s Day. Boy did I hate this movie when I saw it in late 2010, but it wasn’t released in 2011. Whatever year it will get released, that is the year I will hate it again.

4. Twilight Saga Hatred. I’ve previously defended Twilight fans as they’ve bared the brunt of a lot of undue hatred. While everyone still mocks this franchise openly, it seems as though the fans have gotten a reprieve and the bile spilled in 2011 wasn’t all that acidic.

3. Big Mommas. I don’t want to live on this planet anymore. This deserves all of my hate and all of yours too.

2. Glee. Does this show still exist? I’m blinded by my hatred for it. I hate this show and most of the people who watch it. Except the hot ones. But Glee still sucks.

1. Celebrity Death Reactions. It annoys me when people lose their shit over celebrity deaths. I didn’t know Heath Ledger, so I didn’t shed any tears or build a statue of him out of butter. In 2011, the public at large didn’t make a big deal out of most celebrity deaths, so this didn’t register on my radar, possibly because most movie star deaths were overshadowed by big ticket political deaths.

I guess the big surprise is actually that a lot of the things I thought I would hate ended up just not being an issue. Otherwise, X-Men: First Class was the only thing that really went against expectations and blew me away. Glee still sucks.

Get angry and read more Boiling Point

Why Watch? In a world populated by terrifying horror movie monsters, you’ve got to organize who gets to kill on what nights, right?

This short from Mark Blitch had me at the male porn star’s giggle and just kept the laughs coming. It admittedly gets into weird territory for the action, but, hey, why the hell not? This is what happens when horror gets interrupted by red tape, and the ridiculous results speak for themselves.

What does it cost? Just 5 minutes of your time.

Trust us. You have time for more short films.

It’s already the second day of 2012, which means we’ll all be sober within the next day or two. It also means that we can officially start looking (through blurry eyes) ahead to the future. A future of promise and potential. A future of hope. A future of tingling anticipation that the road stretched out in front of us that leads to the cinema will be paved with gold.

Will there be piles of excrement along the way? Of course, but we don’t know how many or how badly they’ll tarnish our yellow-bricked roller coaster ride. All we can see from this far out is the shimmering wonder of movies to come – the vast unknown that looks wonderful (and might just live up to the hype).

In past years (2008, 2009, 2010, 2011), we’ve gone with a fairly arbitrary count of 20-30 movies. This year, we decided to prove that there were 52 movies worth prematurely celebrating (even though what we found were many more). That’s one for every week (even if there are some weeks with a few and some weeks with none at all).

Regardless of the number, Rob Hunter, Neil Miller, Kate Erbland, Allison Loring, Landon Palmer, Brian Salisbury and Cole Abaius have joined forces to remind us all that there are a lot of great movies to hope for this year. Go grab a calendar and pencil in everything that gets your blood pressure up toward unsafe levels.

It’s going to be a busy, flick-filled 2012. Here are the 52 most anticipated movies.

Electric Boogaloo: The Wild Untold Story of Cannon Films (TBA)

If you are a cult movie geek, then you already known that documentary director Mark Hartley is one of our most important and celebrated archivists. His first two docs, Not Quite Hollywood and Machete Maidens Unleashed, about Aussie and Filipino genre films respectively, are as hilarious as they are informative; featuring larger than life personalities and edited with music video sensibility. The prospect of Hartley lending his reverent, rock-n-roll treatment to the Cannon Films legacy is enough to make me run slowly away from enormous explosions with my fist raised in triumphant salute. -BS

Cosmopolis (TBA)

I am admittedly excited to see what Robert Pattinson can do outside of the Twilight juggernaut as I suspect there might be more to him than just a pretty face (although I am also prepared to be proven wrong as I was after my similar predictions of Channing Tatum). But really, this film had me at “David Cronenberg.” -AL

The Master (TBA)

A P.T. Anderson movie is always an event, and in his latest he seems to be working more in a There Will Be Blood mode than his mosaic narratives of Boogie Nights and Magnolia by focusing on another eccentric, power-hungry individual. Reportedly based loosely on the life of L. Ron Hubbard and his founding of the Church of Scientology, The Master stars Phillip Seymour Hoffman as the leader of a growing religious organization who recruits a drifter (Joaquin Phoenix) as his assistant.

The film will certainly be a showcase for the talents of the always-amazing Hoffman, marks the return of an ostensibly un-bearded Phoenix to the silver screen (for what that’s worth), and the alleged basis for its narrative will likely prove controversial for a church that isn’t known for taking criticism lightly, especially in Hollywood. The film is currently in its post-production stages and has yet to receive a release date, but here’s hoping we’ll get an opportunity to know The Master sometime this year. -LP

Only God Forgives (TBA)

People seem to like that Nicholas Winding Refn character, and they seem to like it when he teams up with Ryan Gosling. At a basic level, it’s beyond fantastic to see an unconventional director receive so much notice. At an even simpler level, it’ll be great to see him make a movie about a policeman and gangster busting leg bones together in a Thai boxing ring. It’s another exploration of violence to look forward to from a man obsessed with it. No word yet on whether hammers are allowed in Muay Thai. -CA

Cogan’s Trade (TBA)

If I have to spend the rest of my life extolling the copious virtues of Andrew Dominik’s stunning The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, that’s fine by me, but I have a feeling that the director’s next, crime drama Cogan’s Trade, will do the job for me. The film reunites him with Assassination stars Brad Pitt and Garret Dillahunt, along with Scoot McNariry, James Gandolfini, Richard Jenkins, Ray Liotta, and Sam Shepard. I’ll stop there – that’s all you need. -KE

Stoker (TBA)

A teenage girl (Mia Wasikowska) dealing with her father’s death finds a mystery in the arrival of her eccentric uncle (Matthew Goode). Perhaps the family name has some bearing as to where the tale is going… The cast and story seem fairly solid here, but the real draw for me is that it’s Park Chan-wook‘s English language debut. Sympathy for Lady Vengeance, Oldboy, Thirst and others have shown him to be a director more than capable of exciting the eyes and mind, and it’s doubly exciting to see him take on this new challenge. -RH

Inside Llewyn Davis (TBA)

Not much has been revealed about the Coen Brothers’ latest except that it depicts the life of a fictional folk musician during the heyday of the Greenwich Village scene. That the Coens might do here for Bob Dylan-era folk music what O Brother Where Art Thou? did for Woody Guthrie-era folk is promising. The film also marks the first major leading role for Drive’s talented Oscar Isaac, and could be another showcase for Mulligan’s musical talent that we first got a glimpse of in Shame last year. The last four films from the Coens have all been markedly different, so there’s no telling what they have in store for us this year. -LP

Sony isn’t slowing down on its adaptations of Steig Larsson‘s best-selling novels, so according to Entertainment Weekly, we’ll get a healthy dose of Lisbeth Salander and The Girl Who Played With Fire soon. Undoubtedly, unless the second one struggles worse, we’ll have The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest soon after that.

Apparently there was some question as to the plan when The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo didn’t perform at insanely high levels. So far, the $90m-budget film has scored $72m worldwide, which isn’t all that great, but it’s still early in its life as a release at two weeks old. It’s not the crazy phenomenon that the Niels Arden Oplev flicks, but lightning so rarely strikes the same franchise twice. No matter what a studio believes.

Checking the scoreboard, Rooney Mara and Daniel Craig are both signed up for two more movies, Steve Zaillian is already working on the script for the second film, but David Fincher is not secured. Maybe he’ll come back, maybe they’ll need to find a new director. Either way, the train is leaving the station and headed for a late 2013 release.

Would you want to see Fincher stay on?

With the entire original run of The Twilight Zone available to watch instantly, we’re partnering with Twitch Film to cover all of the show’s 156 episodes. Are you brave enough to watch them all with us?

The Twilight Zone (Episode #129): “Probe 7, Over and Out” (airdate 11/29/63)

The Plot: An astronaut slams his ship right into a planet, but there’s little chance for him to return home because a nuclear war is destroying everything and everyone he knows.

The Goods: Even with the casual gloss of the writing, there’s a deep question that’s been stabbed into the body of this story and remains there, untended to, even as it creates a great amount of aches and pains. That question is one of attempting to put yourself into the moon boots of Colonel Cook (Richard Baseheart) who isn’t just stranded on an alien world – he’s helplessly stranded.

He is literally millions of miles away while his world dies. How’s that for powerless?

What that means – what’s essentially unsaid in the tale – is that things were dangerous when Cook left, and sometime during the course of his journey, all hell broke loose in the form of nuclear warheads, making his goodbyes before launch the last he could ever make. It’s damned sorrowful when you think about it too long. Like a loved one who dies suddenly.

Fortunately, Cook can’t think about it too long, because he meets up with Norda (Antoinette Bower), a young woman who is in the exact same situation. They’ve both landed on a strange planet with atmospheric conditions like their home worlds (convenient!), and now they have to find land that’s more habitable.

From that point, it’s a relationship study in disparate people finding common ground in order to survive. The twist of it all? When the pair reach the lush greenery that lay beyond their view originally, he introduces himself as Col. Adam Cook, and she reveals her full name as Norda Eve as she hands him a delicious apple from a nearby tree.

The Shaggy God Story is almost a cliche at this point, but there’s something really fantastic about this particular episode. Like most episodes that don’t shove all their chips into the middle of the twist, the writing here from Rod Serling invests more in its characters and what they’re going through. It pays off extensively, and the ending just becomes the kind of wink that the show made a living off of.

Although I’ve never understood the sci-fi explanations for religious mythology about the beginnings of man. If Adam and Eve really were from advanced, war-torn societies, wouldn’t we have reached the Industrial Revolution quicker? Or maybe they did their best to create and procreate a society with the limited tools they had, but after they died, their legend grew to bizarre proportion until they became unreal figures in a magic book.

Come to think of it, this episode is pretty sacrilegious when you get down to it.

And the title makes a lot more sense.

What do you think?

The Trivia: Cook’s home planet is said to be 4.3 light years away from Earth, which means it’s most likely in the Alpha Centauri system. Or near Alderaan or something.

On the Next Episode: The Army National Guard suddenly finds itself fighting alongside Custer.

Catch-Up: Episodes covered by Twitch / Episodes covered by FSR

We’re running through all 156 of the original Twilight Zone episodes over the next several weeks, and we won’t be doing it alone! Our friends at Twitch will be entering the Zone as well on alternating weeks. So definitely tune in over at Twitch and feel free to also follow along on our Twitter accounts @twitchfilm and @rejectnation.

Welcome to 2012 and the last year of your life! That’s not me threatening you by the way, it’s the Mayans. And who better to predict the end of civilization than a culture that’s long since gone extinct. This week’s DVD releases are filled with other things looking to kill you including Contagion, Shark Night, Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, and a really well put together woman named Frankenhooker.

As always, if you see something you like, click on the image to buy it.

The Guard

A smuggling ring in a small Irish seaside town draws the attention of an FBI agent (Don Cheadle), and he’s forced to team up with a local cop (Brendan Gleeson) of dubious morality if he hopes to crack the case. John Michael McDonagh’s wonderfully foul and often witty black comedy offers a great pairing with Gleeson and Cheadle playing off of each other to perfection.

Gleeson in particular shines as a rude, sarcastic and possibly racist hick who may be a better comedian than police officer. This one gets compared to the superior In Bruges for a few different reasons, but it stands quite strong on its own.

Frankenhooker (UK) (Blu)

Pitch: “The vivacious young girl was instantly reduced to a tossed human salad. A salad that police are still trying to gather up. A salad that was once named Elizabeth…”

Why Buy? A young man’s girlfriend is killed in an unfortunate lawnmower accident, but he saves her head in the hope of reconstructing and resurrecting her. Of course he’ll need additional body parts which is where some of NYC’s finest hookers come in to the picture. Director Frank Henenlotter’s most entertaining movie gets the special Arrow Video treatment, and the result is a great looking presentation paired with some solid extras. **This is a region free Blu-ray from the UK. It will play on your Blu-ray player.**

3D Sex & Zen: Extreme Ecstasy (UK)

Pitch: You’ll come for the topless Asian women playing mahjong in 3D, but you’ll stay for the five foot long CGI phallus spinning the wagon wheel…

Why Buy? A scholar meets and marries a beautiful woman but when he realizes he can’t quite please her fully he heads to an underground love den for lessons in the sexy stuff. This is clearly a niche flick, but anyone who knows me knows that it’s a niche I like to frequent. The 3D element provides a few laughs, but the main draw is obviously the sufficiently erotic and often over the top soft-core sex scenes. So sue me. The movie loses its way though around the hour mark when it starts turning more than a little violent and misogynistic, so it’s not worth more than a rental. A very sexy rental. **NOTE – This is a region2 DVD which requires either a region-free player or the willingness to watch on your PC.**

Contagion

Pitch: Goesintight. Spank you…

Why Rent? Gwyneth Paltrow goes to Hong Kong, and the only gift she brings home to her family is a deadly bat/pig disease. Soon the virus is spreading around the world, and Steven Soderbergh’s film tracks the various people falling victim to it and racing to fight it. The film is an engaging and seemingly realistic portrayal of what would happen in this situation, but none of the characters are ever given time to really connect with the audience. Still, the movie is a fairly fascinating watch for fans of the end of the world as we know it.

I Am

Pitch: “Holy testicle Tuesday…”

Why Rent? Tom Shadyac has directed seven feature films (from Ace Ventura: Pet Detective to Evan Almighty), and all but one of them were big box-office hits. But a few years ago he had an accident that led to some fairly startling life changes. His latest film is a documentary about his search for answers to the question of how we can fix humanity’s biggest and most important issues. Shadyac is a funny and unpretentious guy, and his quest leads him to talk with scientists, politicians, spiritual leaders, philosophers, and others. The end result is more a collection of common sense conclusions than anything else, but Shadyac’s personality and sincerity make for a compelling and entertaining watch.

I’m Glad My Mother Is Alive

Pitch: This is the film We Need to Talk About Kevin should have been…

Why Rent? A young man named Thomas has a troubled childhood in the knowledge that he and his brother were adopted after their mother gave them up when he was just a small boy. Once he reaches adulthood he seeks her out and strikes up an odd relationship with her and her new son. This is a fairly bleak drama at times that works as a sad and emotionally charged slowburn of sorts. Vincent Rottiers plays Thomas as a young adult and does a spectacular job of portraying the confusion and mixed emotions that meeting his birth mother creates. The film jumps back and forth in time to tell the boy’s story and to set up the eventual ending. Heavy stuff, but worth a look.

Justified: The Complete Second Season

Pitch: Don’t ever doubt the sizer of Robert Fure’s Olyphant boner…

Why Rent? US Marshal Raylan Givens (Timothy Olyphant) continues to fight the good fight in Kentucky against bad guys of all stripes, but this season the worst one isn’t a guy at all. Mags Bennett (Margo Martindale) and her boys (including Lost‘s Jeremy Davies) take charge of the area’s criminal activity. Raylan’s history with the Bennett’s further complicate his job as peace-maker, but it also allows for some fantastic interactions with the three sons. Boyd Crowder (Walton Goggins) remains a player as well, but his arc here is a bit less satisfying than it was in season one in part because it teases the unrealistic. Still, Olyphant and Goggins have great chemistry together, and the show remains a fun and exciting watch.

The Last Lions

Pitch: Ladies listen when Scar speaks. They also lose their knickers…

Why Rent? Jeremy Irons narrates this National Geographic documentary about the lions of Africa, and while it focuses on a female and her cubs the tale is reflective of the species’ future in general. We follow a male, female and three cubs as they struggle to survive the elements, other lions and everything else life can throw at them, and it isn’t long before they’re dropping like flies. The male lion’s demise early on is a sad and vicious heart breaker, but the crocodile-infested river crossing wears on the nerves like nothing else. NatGeo doesn’t fool around with as much narrative as Disney docs do, but they provide enough to hold onto so that you’ll care what happens to these lions in particular and their kind in general. And it’s not looking all that bright unfortunately.

Mildred Pierce

Pitch: Look! Kate Winslet playing a drab American housewife whose husband cheats on her…

Why Rent? It’s the early 1930′s, and Mildred Pierce (Kate Winslet) is a divorced mother of two after her husband walks out on them. She struggles at first to hold her head high for both her pride and her children, but eventually succumbs to a depression ravaged world and the meager opportunities that are available. Winslet does a fantastic job here with a character who constantly walks the line between likeable and not, and supporting cast members including Guy Pearce, Melissa Leo, Evan Rachel Wood, James LeGros and more help flesh out the story. Director Todd Haynes does a brilliant job in presenting the details of the time in such a lush and expansive way. My only real gripe, and it’s not a small one, is that the story being told doesn’t really need a five plus hour running time.

Puncture

Pitch: Who would win in a battle between Chris Evans’ pecs and Taylor Lautner’s abs? We all would…

Why Rent? Mike Weiss (Chris Evans) is one half of a low profile law firm content with small cases and smaller payoffs, but when a potential bombshell comes across his desk he decides to risk it all and take on a giant corporation and industry. The fact that Weiss is a hard living drug addict is the least of his worries. This true story plays like a smaller scale Erin Brockovich, and while Evans is no Julia Roberts he does a fine job with the role and manages to show both a self destructive side as well as one concerned for the well being of others. The story is a bit rote at times, but Weiss offers up some interesting character flaws including an ending that I didn’t see coming.

Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark

Pitch: Because you won’t be afraid of this movie…

Why Avoid? A woman (Katie Holmes) moves into a creepy old house with her new husband (Guy Pearce) and his daughter, but soon an infestation of little humanoids comes spilling from the basement furnace to make their lives miserable. This remake of the classic TV movie is one of last year’s bigger disappointments. All three of the leads are fine (yes, even Holmes), but the film is never scary. The creatures are shown too soon and too clearly, the characters are frustrating idiots, and the little girl in particular will have you wishing she’d get eaten within the first thirty minutes. Skip it and watch The New Daughter instead.

The Fat Boy Chronicles

Pitch: “How come you’re always such a fussy young man? Don’t want no Captain Crunch, don’t want no Raisin Bran. Well, don’t you know that other kids are starving in Japan, So eat it, just eat it…”

Why Rent? An overweight kid has a hard time in high school. I feel bad knocking such a sincere effort, but this is barely inspiring and not very well written. It’s also a veritable checklist of cliches including generic bullies who lack math skills and have demanding parents, oblivious teachers, an emo girl who cuts herself because of deep seated scars, a troubled kid with an alcoholic and abusive father (who wears a wife beater) and a heavy dose of melodrama. This feels like a fat kid version of “It gets better” in that it advocates passivity, time and wishful thinking over taking your future into your own hands. To be fair, Jimmy does exercise and lose some weight, but that’s presented as a side accomplishment in addition to the ridiculous resolution we get instead… bullies will respect you if you tutor them in math and emo girls will like you because they can see the inner you! The programs to teach kids self defense/restraining moves against bullies make more sense and deserve more exposure. Skip it and watch Heavyweights instead.

I Don’t Know How She Does It

Pitch: Olivia Munn is the only worthwhile part of this film. Which should tell you something about the movie…

Why Avoid? A woman (Sarah Jessica Parker) somehow manages to work full time while also being a parent! What will Hollywood try to make us swallow next? The incredulous nature of this tale is only slightly lessened by the fact that Parker’s character has a nanny. But somehow she still manages to do it! What she can’t do apparently is make a worthwhile movie with any point, heart, or laughs (aside from the one’s Munn provides). Skip it and watch Mr. Mom instead. Greg Kinnear, Pierce Brosnan and Kelsey Grammar also show up for a paycheck here.

Also out this week, but I haven’t seen the movie/TV show, review material was unavailable, and I have no blind opinion:

Don’t Let Him In
Drones
Red: Werewolf Hunter
Shark Night

Read More: This Week in DVD

What are you buying on DVD this week?

Why Watch? I fell in love with Finite Films, the crew of creators who give themselves (and ask for) constraints on their short film projects, with their horror short Forest Falls. With this one, they tackle the romantic comedy genre with some interesting rules, and the result is something with more heart and humor than the Heigl-rific crap that passes for rom-coms these days.

In Occupational Hazards, a teacher with debilitating social anxiety braves a party to catch the eye of a guy she likes. It’s twitchy, sweet, dangerous, and it’s definitely smile-inducing.

What does it cost? Just 20 minutes of your time.

Trust us. You have time for more short films.

I break Quentin Tarantino’s career up into two stages. The first stage consists of his first three films, which are all crime movies, are all set in L.A., and which all just feel very much like “Quentin Tarantino movies” (a genre unto itself back in the 90s, if you lump in all the pretenders). After those first three films, he took a pretty lengthy six year break, and then he came back and started exploring other genres, making movies that were largely homages to the B-cinema he enjoyed in his youth. While there’s a soft spot in my heart for most of Inglorious Basterds, in general I prefer that first stage of Tarantino’s career to what came after.

And as far as that first trilogy of crime films goes, I think most people are in agreement that Pulp Fiction is the masterpiece. It was the one that broke down the doors of the movie industry and ushered indie filmmaking into the mainstream, and it’s the one most often referenced when people talk about his career; so I’m not going to focus on that one here. I’m going to focus instead on Tarantino’s debut feature Reservoir Dogs, which was the film that first got heads turned in his direction, and which still gets mentioned right alongside Pulp Fiction as badass things from the 90s. And also I’m going to focus on Jackie Brown, which is kind of the forgotten Tarantino film. This is one that doesn’t get brought up much these days, unless it’s to talk about how it was too long and indulgent, or how it was a disappointing followup to the revolutionary Pulp Fiction. I’ve even heard it described as a misfire. But I don’t think that’s fair; I consider Jackie Brown to be Tarantino’s second best work.

What do they have in common?

They both include Tarantino’s famous “trunk shot,” where he places the camera inside the trunk of a car. They both have kickin’ throwback soundtracks. They both tell their stories using Tarantino’s patented, jumbled up timeline method. And probably they both have telltale signs of Tarantino’s gross foot fetish, but I forgot to catalogue them. Basically, they’re two peas in a pod.

Why is Reservoir Dogs overrated?

While Tarantino’s fusing of ultra-violence and pop culture soaked chatter was revolutionary enough to make this movie seem really fresh back in 1992, decades of imitators have taken the shine off of it enough that its flaws are a lot more apparent when you watch it with modern eyes. When this movie first came out it seemed so cool that basically the whole thing was just guys standing around and talking in a warehouse. But, watching it now, you really start to realize that the whole movie is basically just guys standing around and talking in a warehouse. And the dialogue, it doesn’t seem so fresh anymore. All of the characters in this movie are slightly different takes on the same tough guy archetype, and listening to them posture around each other gets tiring. This is the sort of movie that has a character deliver the line, “You shoot me in a dream you better wake up and apologize,” with a straight face and still expects me to take it seriously. Sorry, but I’m not quite buying it anymore.

The then unique, now tired approach to snappy dialogue and excessive violence messes up the character development going on, as well. Am I really supposed to believe that all of these grizzled criminal types sit around all day talking about pop music from the 70s? A lot of Tarantino’s movies suffer from the problem of all the characters talking like the author, whether it makes sense or not, and Reservoir Dogs is one of the worst offenders. And what’s the deal with Michael Madsen’s character? Twice in this movie he goes completely crazy, in the bank robbery shootout and during the lengthy torture sequence, but during the rest of the film he acts completely contrary to such outrageous behavior. Lawrence Tierney and Chris Penn’s characters seem to have known him for his entire life, and they don’t seem to think that he’s capable of doing things like this, yet he does them anyway. And we never get any explanation as to why. It’s never brought to light what’s making him tick. Watching it back in the day that torture sequence felt so edgy and dangerous, but now it just feels like an attempt to shoehorn something shocking into the movie at the expense of character.

Why is Jackie Brown underpraised?

The biggest draw of Jackie Brown is its acting. While Reservoir Dogs has some of the worst performances of any Tarantino movie, with Tim Roth trying to overpower everyone he shares the screen with via overacting and Harvey Keitel sleepwalking his way through bringing one of the blandest Tarantino characters ever to life, everyone in the Jackie Brown cast is pitch perfect from top to bottom. Of course there’s Robert Forster, who absolutely kills it in the role of the smitten bale bondsman Max Cherry, and who got an Oscar nomination for his efforts. And yeah there’s Pam Grier, who does a great job of anchoring the film and who got to experience one of those career renaissances that come from an actor viewed as past their prime being featured in a Tarantino movie. But there are also a ton of smaller roles played by actors being used to the absolute best of their abilities. Samuel L. Jackson is endlessly entertaining in probably the best “written for Sam Jackson” role he’s ever done, Michael Keaton goes back to his roots as a comedic actor to create an awesomely annoying, gum chomping cop character, De Niro gets to step out of his “guy in charge” typecasting and play a dumb grunt to results that are entertaining as hell. This movie is chock full of varied, colorful characters being brought to life by top notch actors. It’s like a traveling freak show of weirdos, and it’s a far cry from Reservoir Dogs, where the entire film is populated by nothing but the same hardened criminal character wearing the same suit, just played by different guys.

Everything just feels so much more organic and skilled in Jackie Brown as well. Reservoir Dogs has a lot of stylized, dynamic camera work, but it almost takes away from the movie. At times it feels like you’re watching somebody’s demo reel. In comparison, look at the scene in Jackie Brown where Samuel L. Jackson’s character kills Chris Tucker in the trunk of his car. The sequence is masterful. He uses extreme depth of focus and one simple, subtle camera move to tell a story that takes place across an entire city block, without ever cutting to another shot or resorting to anything extreme and obtrusive. And look at how he uses the soundtrack here. We get a great soul music collection, much like how Reservoir Dogs gave us a great 70s pop selection, but the music doesn’t feel as shoved down our throats. Tarantino’s films often have scenes where his characters talk about how great the soundtracks are (which he generally doesn’t get guff for, but Zach Braff got crucified for), and here it actually makes sense. In Reservoir Dogs it’s weird to hear a bunch of tough guys sitting around talking about Madonna, but here he uses the talk about the Delfonics to help develop the relationship between Max Cherry and Jackie Brown, which kind of becomes the backbone of the film.

Evening the odds.

Watching these movies again right now, Reservoir Dogs feels like a damn fine first effort from a talented young director, but one that is a little rough around the edges and clunky in execution. Comparatively, Jackie Brown feels like a self-assured masterpiece being put together by a filmmaker who has figured out all the ins and outs of his craft. As the pages of history turn and people start looking back on Tarantino’s career, I think their reputations will shift a bit to reflect that.

Also, you can debate all day about the merits of one of these films over the other, but when you get right down to it, there isn’t anything in any other Tarantino movie nearly as spectacular as Samuel L. Jackson’s hair in Jackie Brown, and the movie demands to be respected because of that alone.

Even your own odds with some more Over/Under

January doesn’t just mean it’s time for colder days and snowfall that makes traffic a mess. January also means that cold and flu season is fully upon us. And what better movie to watch during cold and flu season than Steven Soderbergh’s thriller about a killer virus that threatens to wipe out a significant portion of the world’s population.

Watching Contagion on Blu-ray or DVD gives you a sense of security because you won’t be terrified every time someone in the movie theater coughs. And that sense of security can be helped by knocking back a few beers or glasses of wine while watching the movie. Just get your flu shot first.

And now, to cover our butts… This game is only for people over the age of 21. Please drink responsibly, and don’t have sex with Gwyneth Paltrow, whether she’s been on an international trip or not.

TAKE A DRINK WHEN…

• Someone dies
• Someone coughs
• Someone touches his or her face
• The plot is furthered by general narration

TAKE A DRINK WHEN YOU SEE…

• Mucous
• A title on screen
• A biohazard symbol
• A disease transfer point

TAKE A DRINK WHEN SOMEONE SAYS…

• “forsythia”
• A disease name
• A country’s name
• “virus,” “vaccine” or “vaccinate”

CHUG YOUR DRINK WHEN…

• You learn the origin of MEV-1

Click here for more Drinking Games

The holidays are over now, so it’s back to business as usual in the movie blogging world. You know what that means: freaking out about prequels and remakes. Thankfully for us, some new reasons for worry have come down the pike via a chat The Playlist had with Alcon Entertainment producer Andrew Kosove. After talking a bit about the progress he’s having bringing the Black List script Prisoners to the big screen, he also had some stuff to say about Ridley Scott’s new Blade Runner project and the proposed Point Break remake that has been floating around. Is it looking like they’re really going to happen?

About Scott’s enthusiasm for the new Blade Runner, Kosove said, “Here’s the thing about Ridley. Ridley is a special guy. He’s a force of nature. He’s got a lot of stuff that he’s working on. I believe it’s an extremely high priority for Ridley, that’s what he’s said to me. This project is moving forward aggressively in development.” Look at those words he’s using, high priority, aggressive, sounds like this thing is developing pretty fast. Or is it? The next few words out of his mouth don’t sound so confident.

He went on to say, “Sometime in the first two months of the new year we’ll announce who the screenwriter will be and whether or not it’s a prequel or sequel. And then we’ll be off to the races.” They don’t even have a screenwriter or know if it’s going to be a sequel or a prequel yet? Okay, sigh of relief, we’ve got a while before we have to worry about this one.

But what about that Point Break remake? Turns out it’s more of a reimagining than a remake, if you want to split hairs. Kosove explained, “It’s not a literal remake of the original the way Footloose was — it was identical to the original film. [Our Point Break] has got elements of the original and it’s not just surfing, it’s other kinds of extreme sports, but surfing is very, very prominent in the story.” That’s kind of reassuring, calling something Point Break and not having any surfing in it would be pointless. But how is the pre-production coming along? He says,

“We’re out to a director now, so if it we’re to go in that direction, it’d be a big announcement. We have someone who we think is the perfect filmmaker. I’d be very surprised if we weren’t in pre-production in 2012.” Sounds like more of a definite than the new Blade Runner so far, which kind of sucks, because I’d much rather see Ridley Scott working in the Blade Runner world again than see some dude making a random movie that’s called Point Break. How about you?

After finally turning enough heads in the U.S. and getting a little recognition from Hollywood by making things like The Good, The Bad, The Weird and I Saw the Devil, director Kim Ji-woon finally got the chance to direct an English-language film, one starring no less than Arnold Schwarzenegger, called Last Stand. Though the film has not come out yet, I’m really anticipating it, because I Saw the Devil was one of the only ultra-violent revenge type flicks that I’ve ever really liked and, you know…Schwarzenegger.

But this begs the question, now that Kim has his foot in the Hollywood door, is it going to be studio-produced English-language films from here on out? Will we next hear his name attached to some sort of big budget remake or an adaptation of an old TV show? Not quite, at least not yet.

Now that things have wrapped up on Last Stand, Kim is actually heading back to South Korea to make a movie called The Fall of Humanity, which will be a collaboration with Antarctic Journal and New Generation director Lim Pil-seong. Not much is known about this project yet, or what Kim’s plans will be after he finishes work on it. Was working in the States on Last Stand just a one-time deal and now it’s back to Korean cinema full-time, or will he be moving back-and-forth between the two countries from here on out?

Basically, when he returned to South Korea and said goodbye to Schwarzenegger, did he finish it up by saying, “I’ll be back?” I’ll be keeping my eye open for answers to these questions and looking for more details on The Fall of Humanity from here on out, because Kim Ji-woon is definitely a director who has gotten himself on my radar. [via A bunch of Korean reports /Film hunted down]

There’s new movement over on Jake Scott’s upcoming Jeff Buckley biopic, which may or may not have been titled Mystery White Boy. We’ve already reported that Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark’s Reeve Carney is set to star as the indie rock legend, and now there’s word that Patricia Arquette has been signed to play Buckley’s mother, Mary Guibert.

The role is said to be a small one, but it sounds important nonetheless. Arquette will be seen both in flashbacks to when Buckley was a child and in later years when he was an adult. And apparently she plays an important role in convincing Buckley to appear during a 1991 tribute concert to his father, “Greetings From Tim Buckley,” which was considered to be Jeff’s first public performance and kind of the launching point for what became a very notable career.

This is the stuff of alt-rock legend, so much so that there’s another Jeff Buckley film project in the works called Greetings From Tim Buckley that focuses solely on the days leading up to that fateful concert. That one is being directed by Daniel Algrant (People I Know) and will star Penn Badgley (Margin Call). I’ll tell you what, I haven’t been this excited for duel projects since the summer of Armageddon and Deep Impact. This should blow Friends With Benefits and No Strings Attached out of the water. [Variety]

What is Movie News After Dark? It’s a nightly movie news column born exactly one year ago today. And it’s very happy to still be around and well on its way to taking over the planet. It is convinced that it will have a very productive 2012 in that area, especially once humanity’s reign of terror ends later this year. In the mean time, it would like to thank you all for reading. Now enough of that mushy stuff, lets do the news.

We begin this evening with an image of biker Jemaine Clement in Men in Black III. He’s playing an alien biker who turns out to be the villain in this time-traveling storyline…. And we wonder why that movie has had so many production problems? Either way, I’ll watch Jemaine Clement eat soap if I have to, as that guy is quite funny.

Vulture has a delightful interview with Portlandia stars Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein, whose series is coming back very soon. Their conversation runs that gamut of awkward sex, having a bigger wig budget and Werner Herzog. If you’re not in love with this show yet, you clearly haven’t seen it.

Anytime a production loses Joel Schumacher in favor of Brad Anderson, an angel gets its wings.

According to a completely unfounded and probably erroneous rumor, Bradley Cooper may be Lex Luthor in Man of Steel. Or he may not be Lex Luthor in Man of Steel. He probably won’t be. Calm down, internet.

Have you guys met Film Studies Ryan Gosling yet? He’s pretty funny. Don’t show him to Landon Palmer, though, as that dude would get all the jokes and thus, would likely wet himself. And we can’t afford to have any more accidents on the office furniture in Reject HQ.

Buried somewhere in this LA Times interview with Brad Pitt, the mult-hyphenate Moneyball star says that World War Z is being planned as a trilogy. What he doesn’t mention is that every movie with a budget of more than $10 million is planned as a trilogy. Especially over at Paramount, where Paranormal Activity 5, 6 and 7 are probably already shooting.

Pajiba’s lovely and talented Joanna Robinson asks the question of the day: What is Keeping (Canadian Actress) Rachel McAdams from Full-Blown America’s Sweetheart Status? Well, for one thing… Actually that’s a pretty good question.

Over on his blog, humorist Eric D. Snider presents 2011 film titles: a dramatic reading. It’s exactly what it claims to be, including a line in which a woman shouts “Courageous! Footloose! Limitless!” I’ve had many a woman cry out in similar fashion during a night of lovemaking. Or Scrabble. I can’t remember exactly.

Demi Moore has signed on to play Gloria Steinem in Lovelace, the upcoming biopic of Linda Lovelace starring Amanda Seyfried. That’s  really all you need to know.

Thanks to Pajiba, we now know that Something Borrowed made the unofficial list of YouTube’s 25 Most Popular Trailers of 2011. It’s further evidence that the masses don’t exactly have good taste. Or that YouTube is used primarily by 13-year old boys. Either way.

Inevitably, there is a mash-up trailer that puts the audio of The Dark Knight Rises to the visuals of The Lion King. And it’s quite good. Worthy enough of being our closing note in News After Dark’s first birthday celebration. Cheeseburgers for everyone!

On the heels of the news that director Tom Hooper will likely make the cast of his upcoming Les Miserables adaptation sing “live” on camera (versus inserting vocals after they’ve been polished up in a traditional recording studio), comes news that The King’s Speech helmer may have two other vocal talents to add to his production. Twitch reports, thanks to two different exclusive scoops, that offers are out to Amanda Seyfried and Taylor Swift for a pair of key parts (and both angles on a looooove triangle!).

Seyfried (who actually has a background in opera, fun trivia!) has been offered the essential role of Cosette. Cosette is the daughter of Anne Hathaway‘s Fantine (yes, Hathaway is just three years older than Seyfried), the ruined and tragic prostitute. Fantine gives baby Cosette to the rich Thénardiers, thinking they will care for her, though they mistreat her until she is eventually saved by adoptive papa Jean Valjean. And just why do the Thénardiers abuse her? Well, they’re really evil, and they’re also busy lavishing treats on their real daughters, including eldest Eponine. Swift has reportedly been offered the role of Eponine, rich girl turned street urchin. Both Cosette and Eponine are in love with second-generation baron Marius Pontmercy (to be played by Eddie Redmayne) in Victor Hugo’s classic story.

The addition of Seyfried is a bit of a no-brainer, she’s well on her way to an established film career (despite some missteps like Red Riding Hood and Dear John), and her actual background in and talent for singing must have been intriguing to Hooper. But Swift, despite her bevy of Grammy Awards, hasn’t yet proven her acting chops.

Fine, that’s being generous. Swift was wretched and screechy and, quite honestly, just sort of terrifying in the already-terrifying and wretched and screechy Valentine’s Day, and she’ll next hit the big screen by way of voice work in the charming-looking The Lorax. But a production like Les Miserables (even one as unncessary as this one) demands hard-core talent, and Hooper’s cast (which includes Hugh Jackman, Helena Bonham Carter, Russell Crowe, and Sacha Baron Cohen) has got a lot of that. Will Swift learn from her (much more theatrically talented) elders, or will her performance by made even more ridiculous in the face of such other stars?

Whatever the case, the addition of Swift will likely draw in a new piece of the audience pie someone like Evan Rachel Wood (who reportedly also auditioned for the role of Eponine) would not have – tweens. Screaming, crying, confused tweens.

I heard good things about Liza Johnson‘s Return after its Cannes premiere, and since then I’ve been watching out for it. Why? Well, for the most ultimate of starters, it starts Linda Cardellini, an actress I wish we saw more of. The last time I saw Cardellini appear in a film was in James Gunn‘s (awesome) SUPER, and that was only a cameo. She could make your heart wrench or fly on Freaks and Geeks, and it’s a real shame Cardellini hasn’t yet had any feature films to work with that give her that type of strong material to work with.

But apparently Return does. Even the reviews that didn’t praise Return as a whole made special mention of Cardellini’s performance. The trailer for the film has an impressive low-key and claustrophobic buildup, and you can definitely see where the praise for Cerdellini is coming from. And, hey, Michael Shannon. Check it out after the break.

Return opens on February 10 and it will also be made available via itunes on February 28. [iTunes]

Director Frank Henenlotter is a bit of an acquired taste. His films, including the Basket Case trilogy and Brain Damage, mix horror, comedy and low-budget special effects with mixed results, and the thing they have most in common is their offbeat tone. 1990′s Frankenhooker isn’t his best known film, but it deserves to be thanks to a funny script, some ridiculous effects pieces and a perfectly pitched and wonderfully off kilter lead performance.

Jeffrey Franken is a bright young man with an assured future and a thick Jersey accent, but when his girlfriend Elizabeth Shelley is killed in a freak lawnmower accident he loses it all. Well, he keeps the accent.

He also keeps Elizabeth’s head.

The Movie:

“The vivacious young girl was instantly reduced to a tossed human salad. A salad that police are still trying to gather up. A salad that was once named Elizabeth.”

Jeffrey (James Lorinz) spirals into despair, but he does so with a plan. He has Elizabeth’s (Patty Mullen) head in a bubbly liquid to keep it viable and only pulls it out for special occasions like dinner. His problem is where to find suitable body parts to bring her fully back to life even better than she was before. See, she was a bit heavy down below…

Using a life size map of the human body with a photo of Elizabeth’s head as the head, he begins to map out the various parts he’ll need, both fleshy and electrical. The question remains though, where to get the parts? So he does what anyone seeking clarity and inspiration would do.

He drills a hole into his head.

And bingo! A whore-shaped light bulb turns on and he heads across the bridge into New York City to scope out some street-walkers. A quick deal with a steroid-fueled pimp named Zorro later, and he has a hotel room party setup with a dozen or so prostitutes ready to be measured, calibrated and evaluated. The plan is simple. He’ll offer up some super crack of his own design, and it will be their choice to smoke. If they just say no they’ll walk out of there alive. If they inhale they explode. He’s no murderer!

Parts acquired he heads home and builds Elizabeth 2.0 to some very precise specifications, raises her up on a platform during an electrical storm… and succeeds in creating a monster in a halter top who wanders Manhattan asking guys if they “wanna date?”

This is a fun movie, period. It’s a b-movie that knows exactly where it stands and never takes itself too seriously. The narrative does a good job of turning Mary Shelly’s classic tale of a mad doctor and his monstrous creation into a whore-ific comedy about a failed electrician with a brain in a bowl and more than a few screws loose of his own. Did I mention it’s funny? The super crack/exploding hooker scene in particular is a feast of perfectly edited explosions, boobs and jokes. Not necessarily in that order. Lorinz isn’t necessarily that good of an actor, but the guy knows how to deliver a line like nobody’s business.

A low budget can often be the death knell to a film reliant on effects work, but Henenlotter gets a lot of bang for his buck here. The body parts have an undeniably fake look about about them, and that’s part of the film’s appeal, but the scenes where people explode in a shower of sparks and limbs look pretty damn sweet. This isn’t a gore flick, but there’s plenty of fun effects work visible onscreen.

The movie suffers a slowdown in pacing and zaniness in the second act, but it picks up again nicely towards the end. The finale even ups the ante on body part shenanigans with a frenzied scene that seems inspired at least a little bit by Brian Yuzna’s malformed and gooey Society from the year before. It’s a high note of manic activity, gags and laughs, and it sets things up nicely for The Bride of Frankenhooker we unfortunately never got. Is twenty two years too long to wait for a sequel? Hopefully not…

The Blu-ray:

Arrow Video’s Blu-ray features a new high definition transfer in 1080p that looks quite good for a low budget romp like this. The colors, purple included, are bright and vibrant throughout, and the picture is sharp throughout. The disc also includes a commentary track featuring director Frank Henenlotter and star James Lorinz.

The additional special features include:

• Your Date’s On a Plate: The Making of Frankenhooker – Henenlotter and others discuss the film’s creation, filming and the sound of walking on used condoms and crack vials [39:22]
• Exclusive Tour of the Gabe Bartalos Effects Lab – Bartalos walks though his workshop showing off effects like zombie horses, human thighs from Bjork videos, torsos, heads and more [19:12]
• Frank Henenlotter Trailer Reel – [4:12]
• A Salad That Was Once Named Elizabeth: Patty Mullen Remembers Frankenhooker – Mullen, who looks even better now than she did twenty years ago, talks about the fun she had on set and the challenges of the role [8:48]
• A Stitch in Time: The Make-Up Effects of Frankenhooker – Bartalos talks about the difference between creating effects for fun characters and for pure gore [20:55]
• Turning Tricks: Jennifer Defora Remembers Frankenhooker – Defora discusses the challenge of finding new ways to play hookers, the joy of working with Henenlotter and the absolute pain of working with a diva like Lorinz, and hanging with the Frankensluts [19:32]

I was sent a disc-only review copy of Frankenhooker, so I can’ t speak to the physical extras included in the release other than to list them. They include:

• a reversible sleeve with original and newly commissioned artwork by Graham Humphries
• a double-sided fold-out artwork poster
• an exclusive collectors’ booklet featuring brand new writing on the film by Calum Waddell

Bottom Line:

Frankenhooker is Henenlotter’s most entertaining movie and features the best scene of his career. The leads are in on the fun, the effects are creative and inspired, and the dialogue is occasionally funny as hell. Fans of the director, b-movies, and cheap but legitimate laughs will not be disappointed.

Buy Frankenhooker on region-free Blu-ray from AmazonUK

Arabian Prince. Easy-E. Ice Cube. DJ Yella. MC Ren. Dr. Dre. Wanna resolve things in a bloodier way? Then just study a tape of N.W.A.

Truer words have been spoken, but not many. Now, in a strange video where TMZ bombards Dre with questions, the musician offers up that they’re possibly thinking about doing a movie about Niggaz With Attitude and perhaps, just maybe, contemplating hiring their children to play the young rappers that made up the group from straight outta Compton.

There’s no doubt that the history of the group is littered with drama, violence and art, so this might actually make a hell of a movie if the right hands got a grip around it. But will it happen? At this point, it’s doubtful. It seems like the kind of wishful thinking that gets talked about fondly but never acted upon. It’s the filmmaking version of when you and your friends say that you should open a bar.

But why not? There’s no telling whether the sons of Easy-E and Ice Cube should be acting, but there’s a ton of great story here and a killer soundtrack. Shouldn’t that be enough to make this thing a solid concept? Movies have been made for less.