The List: 2/19/10

Last night during our live broadcast of Punch Drunk Critics Live, we were asked about our favorite cheesy bad movies. While I come back quickly with two well thought out responses, Student Bodies and Up the Academy, my compadre mentioned a dire blight on cinema in the form of Troll 2. I respect my bud's opinion, so I'll leave it at that. Coincidentally, Landmark E Street Cinema in Washington, DC will be showing Troll 2 as part of their midnight movie night on March 5th and 6th! Could this be the perfect night to start up our new Meetup group? 

This week, Hollywood takes a breather after hitting us with three monster hits in a row(Valentine's Day, The Wolfman, Percy Jackson). Do yourselves a favor and take this time to check out the many Oscar contenders that have found their way back into theaters. You won't regret it. Actually, it's not as much of a break as it seems. It's just that DC is treated like it's Calcutta and movies like Roman Polanski's The Ghost Writer take their sweet jolly time getting here.

The reunion of Scorsese and Dicaprio is lacking the promotional heat generated by their other projects like The Aviator and The Departed. Shutter Island's buzz has been decidedly low key, considering the film's pedigree. Based on the book by Dennis Lahane, writer of both Mystic River and Gone Baby Gone, the film features Dicaprio as a US Marshall sent to a track down an escaped killer from a psyche ward located on a remote island. Expect more of a psychological film noir than the more grounded, personal stories we're used to from Lehane.

An unexpected arrival. Blood Done Sign My Name is based on the book by Timothy Tyson, covering the racially charged murder of a black man, Henry Marrow, sparking the beginnings of the civil rights movement in Oxford, NC. Admittedly, what I know about the film's production is limited, but the film is written and directed by Jeb Stuart. Stuart also wrote the screenplays for Die Hard, The Fugitive, and Just Cause, three of my favorites.

No...a thousand times no!!!

Let's just say there are a few things I would prefer to be doing other than watching this stiff, emotionless old bat croon about nothing for 2 hours. For instance...I could be ripping my own toenails out with my bare hands. If I were forced to sit through this, there's a good chance I would find two cats in heat and listen to them shriek in sexual agony just to numb my pain. If you're dying for a concert movie that bad, go rent Michael Jackson's This Is It.