Cinematical

• Review: Bangkok Dangerous
  

  Filed under: Action, Thrillers, New Releases, Lionsgate Films, Theatrical Reviews, Remakes and Sequels

  

  "One night in Bangkok and the tough guys tumble..."
  -Murray Head

  Don't ask me what happened to the real Nicolas Cage, because I don't know where he is.

  I don't know what happened to the man who left Las Vegas, or the man who made Donald Kaufman into such an endearing figment of imagination, or the man who stole diapers as he stole hearts. All I've seen of late is a face, a name, a profile, a character, the artist formerly known as Nic Cage, an entity on auto-pilot and damn near self-parody that...
  




• After Dark Seeks Horror 'From Within'
  

  Filed under: Horror, Thrillers, Mystery & Suspense, Lionsgate Films, Distribution

  When the After Dark Horrorfest popped up in November of 2006, I caught about half of the offered 8 Films to Die For, despite a transparently sensationalized campaign of just how horrendously extreme these titles must've been to get such a specialized release. My experiences ranged from not bad (The Abandoned and The Gravedancers) to pretty dreadful (Penny Dreadful), but between the ratio of enjoyment that year and the yanking of actually-possibly-horrific Frontier(s) the next, I just passed entirely in 2007.

  One might assume that, in an effort to meet me halfway, the Horrorfest...
  




• 'Bangkok [Not So] Dangerous'?
  

  Filed under: Action, New Releases, Lionsgate Films, Movie Marketing, Remakes and Sequels

  
  
  In advance of its release last week, Disaster Movie was slammed for the insensitivy of its release date -- on the third anniversary of one of the worst natural disasters in history. (Hurricane Gustav narrowly avoided adding injury to insult.) Probably for a variety of reasons, audiences stayed away in droves, as Eugene noted. Now Bangkok Dangerous, the only wide release scheduled for this week, finds itself overtaken by current events. What else do the two apparent stinkers have in common? Lionsgate, their US distributor.

  Lionsgate must pride...
  




• 'Disaster Movie': The 'Dark Knight' of Bad Movies
  

  Filed under: Comedy, New Releases, Lionsgate Films, Fandom

  You may recall that on the very weekend of its theatrical release, The Dark Knightrocketed to the top of the Internet Movie Database's user-voted Top 250 movies, with an average rating of 9.5 out of 10 after more than 47,000 votes. Observers marveled at how quickly this happened, noting that the previous #1 film, The Godfather, had held its spot for a decade.
  
  Now an event nearly as miraculous has occurred: After only a day and a half in theaters, Disaster Movie (reviewed for Cinematical by Sir William of Goss) has already climbed...
  



• Review: Disaster Movie
  

  Filed under: Comedy, Lionsgate Films, Theatrical Reviews

  

  "What fresh hell is this?"
  -Dorothy Parker, reportedly as she cast her first glance upon a poster for Disaster Movie

  Let's get this out of the way: Disaster Movie is indeed a disaster first, and a movie barely, pure pop culture pablum for da masses (say it aloud, there you go) as can only be expected from the likes of Aaron Seltzer and Jason Friedberg. It's another opus that, despite opening titles done in the style of Armageddon's and a feeble thru-line borrowed from Cloverfield (mixed with some of The Day After Tomorrow), is as much a send-up of disaster-related...
  




• The Lowdown on 'The Descent 2'
  

  Filed under: Horror, Lionsgate Films, Movie Marketing, Remakes and Sequels

  Usually when an original creator walks away from a sequel, it is a good sign that maybe a sequel isn't the best idea to begin with. Well, that's exactly what happened with the follow-up to Neil Marshall's 2005 horror-hit, The Descent. But it is not all bad news because Shock Till You Drop got the chance for a set-visit, and by the sounds of things it's looking pretty good for our group of traumatized spelunkers. (You can read the about the full visit over at Shock.)
  
  The sequel picks up where the...
  



• Clive Barker Gets Harsh on Lionsgate Boss
  

  Filed under: Horror, Lionsgate Films, Fandom, Movie Marketing

  I'm glad to have seen The Midnight Meat Train in a theater earlier this month, even if it was a run-down dollar theater. But Lionsgate certainly made it difficult for horror fans, booking the film into only about 100 locations and carefully avoiding theaters anywhere near the city centers of New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Portland, etc.

  When the limited release strategy became known, Clive Barker, who wrote the story upon which Ryuhei Kitamura's film is based, expressed his support for a fan-made viral campaign to get a wider release. Now that the...
  




• Third 'Transporter' Trailer Totally Teases
  

  Filed under: Action, Thrillers, Lionsgate Films, Remakes and Sequels, Trailers and Clips

  "Rules Remain The Same, Except Some Changes."

  I recall first seeing that tagline attached to a billboard touting The Transporter 3 at Cannes last May (whether or not I actually saw the picture at JoBlo.com then, all that matters is they still have it now) and dismissed it as a clumsy phrase with something perhaps lost in the translation from the European investors into big, fat, shiny English.

  And yet IGN has the first domestic teaser up for the film, and that tagline appears nearly verbatim. I probably shouldn't care, and you probably...
  




• Bill Maher's 'Religulous' Quietly Opens in NY, LA
  

  Filed under: Documentary, Lionsgate Films, Toronto International Film Festival

  As was the case with HBO's Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, Lionsgate has very discreetly opened Bill Maher's Religulous in two theaters -- one in New York, the other in Los Angeles -- in an qualifying run for next year's Academy Awards.

  As pointed out by Jeff Wells over at Hollywood Elsewhere, the Academy's Rule 12 states that any documentary hoping to qualify must open in both Los Angeles Country and the borough of Manhattan for at least one week prior to the end of August. Having already premiered at the Traverse City Film Festival, the doc will then...
  




• Backtrack! 'Punisher: War Zone' Still Has Its R Rating
  

  Filed under: Action, Thrillers, Lionsgate Films, RumorMonger, Celebrities and Controversy, Comic/Superhero/Geek, Remakes and Sequels

  The silliness continues! Vic Holtreman at ScreenRant has passed along a post (sent to them by a poster who's been a steady presence in the comment field on every Punisher: War Zone story -- hi, Nomad) that cinematographer Steve Gainer made on The Raw Board. Gainer is pretty fed up with all the rumors circulating, and insists that Lexi Alexander is not off the film, she's very much involved in the editing process, the film will not be PG-13, and that she did get married. Gainer writes, "When...