It's not easy, this being a film geek lark. You get all kinds of funny looks from people when you mention stuff they've never heard of, have to defend your beloved titles against the derision of others and must fight the urge to cringe when friends try to get you to watch romantic comedies where the cast have 'quirky' facial expressions on the posters. However, there are more terrifying issues that an avid film-goer must deal with on a regular basis, such as the search for the elusive perfect seat in the perfect row.
With Frightfest starting at the end of this week, we thought it was a good time to start taking a look at the macabre and Shameless Screen Entertainment is the very definition of macabre cult. Picking up off the wall exploitation movies that were long since forgotten and thrown into the annals of film history, they unashamedly restore them to their former glories and unleash them upon an unsuspecting public. We sat down with them to discuss why they distribute films such as Cannibal and Don’t Torture a Duckling plus the fanatical fans that are right behind them...
Friday 19th August is a day for the history books, after 18 agonizing years the West Memphis Three are free men.
In 1994 Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jessie Misskelley Jr. were found guilty for the murders of Stevie Branch, Christopher Byers and Michael Moore after what amounts to a modern-day witch hunt. The prosecution had zero evidence, beyond a statement from the mentally handicapped Misskelley Jr. which anyone with a bit of common sense can see was coerced, and relied solely on fear mongering and prejudice to earn their verdict. Echols was facing lethal injection while Baldwin and Misskelley were sentenced to life in prison.
An AICN reader sent some juicy behind the scenes snaps from the Marc Forster/Brad Pitt zombie blockbuster World War Z.
These are scenes from the Philadelphia-ized Glasgow and, on that front, they have done a bang up job of transplanting American decoration onto the Scottish city, but when you look at their take on the undead things take a bit of a turn...
Considering how amazingly cool robots are in general, this awesome piece of artwork entitled "Where's WALL-E?" is immeasurably cool as it features a ton of robots from all kinds of movies and television, as well as the titular little cleanup droid from Pixar's modern classic.
Being an English fan of horror, it's only natural that out of all of the great cinematic legacies we have to boast about as a country, the one I care the most about is the Hammer horror movies. And it's with great sadness that we inform you that one of Hammer's great creative minds, Jimmy Sangster, has passed.
I'm actually a massive fan of Rambo as a series. I think the first one is a damn fine movie, the second one is a great action flick if you ignore the politics, the third is just mental in every way, and the fourth was a refreshingly honest (and ridiculously violent) cap to the series that ended the way it started - with John Rambo walking alone to 'It's A Long Road'. However, where there is Rambo there is potentially cash, and as such a script has been written for a fifth adventure. Exploding arrow-tips at the ready!
I wasn't a big fan of the first Ghost Rider (me and most of the rest of the world) and since Messrs Neveldine and Taylor's Crank 2 was the only film I have ever walked out of, it'd be fair to say that I'm not falling over myself with anticipation with this one. Still, it'll have Nic Cage in fiull-on gurning mode, Idris Elba is always watchable, Christopher Lambert has been cast and Ciaran Hinds will be doing his best impression of Beelzebub - who knows, maybe it'll be worth a look.
Robert Downey Jr has been talking about donning the red-and-gold a fifth time (counting that brief cameo in The Incredible Hulk) in the second sequel to Iron Man - and the first without Jon Favreau, as Shane Black steps is an director.
Downey admits he wasn't completely happy with Iron Man 2. For the third instalment they intend to "leave it all on the field. We’re not talking much about [the script] right now," he says, "because Shane is off writing and we talked before that and when we are talking again, the talking is going to be over pretty quick... It’s kind of like we’re fighting on the same side and at the same time we’re circling each other, so it’s all great. It should be great.”
