Film Geeks - Episdoe 41

Film Geeks - EPISODE 41 - The Geeks Vs. Hollywood

Episode Notes: THE GEEKS ARE BACK! A tale of where they have been, what's been going on, a re-introduction...and then they blast Hollywood for the lackluster line up!

Listen to the podcast here - http://recordings.talkshoe.com/TC-14391/TS-237943.mp3

Listen to other shows here - http://www.talkshoe.com/tc/14391

Nosferatu (1922) - Movie Review

Nosferatu (1922)

Ever since the advent of movies, filmmakers have loved making horror movies. One of the first most influential horror movies was “The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari (1920). If you believe that filmmakers back then just shot anything because it was a new technology to make money, then you haven’t seen some of these old classics. Where this movie launched a generation of horror movies to follow, “Nosferatu” took a more realistic and therefore scarier look at what the horror genre could do for the budding movie industry.

Trivia note: “Nosferatu” was so scary, that in Sweden it was banned for “excessive horror” …until 1972.

While I can’t say I completely understand the mindset of people in the 1920s on what they would actually consider “excessive horror”, because honestly there isn’t a scene showing Nosferatu feeding anyone or anything really that would be considered violent. However, that’s the beauty of this horror flick.

The story is pretty simplistic really. Count Orlok (which was the change from Count Dracula because director F.W. Murnau couldn’t obtain the rights from Bram Stoker’s widow) is looking to acquire a new residence in Wisburg. He contacts one of his henchmen to send a realtor to his castle in Transylvania. Enter Thomas Hutter (Gustav von Wangenheim. This young man believes he will make a large commission to provide for his wife (Greta Schroder) better if he travels to the far land and sells the Count the rundown properly across from his place. His wife begs him to stay as her women’s intuition is tingling. However, Hutter is very adamant about wanting to show his wife how much he loves her. He travels over the Carpathian mountains where he stays the night with some Gypsies and they beg him not to go and warn him about the evil that resides in the castle. This is probably one of the first signature mistakes of a horror movie ever filmed! Of course he doesn’t listen to them and is flippant about the whole thing. After meeting with the very creppy Count Orlok (Max Schreck), Hutter presents the claim to the deed. Orlok notices of picture of Hutter’s wife and comments what a beautiful neck she has…would you call that neck-rophilia!!! HA HA…ah…umm…

Hutter cuts himself and Orlok can’t help but to suck his blood. This freaks Hutter out a little bit but he still decides to stay in the castle. As Hutter sleeps, he is visited by Orlok who has shown himself to be a vampire and feeds on Hutter, even though you never see it.


The Count, through the night, loads up coffins filled with dirt on a cart (sleeping in the dirt from where he was buried allows Orlok to travel wherever he may like) and leaves Hutter.

Hutter must escape the castle, the mountains, and his own weak body to try and stop Orlok from feeding on his home city…and his wife!

Grade – B+

This truly is a eerily scary movie. Orlok is only on screen for about eight minutes but his presence is always dramatic and terrifying. Heck, even the shadow scenes are scary.


F.W. Murnau did a wonderful job shooting wonderful scenery, using practical and special effects of the time. What are the most powerfully shot scenes are those of Nosferatu. The door opens on its own and in walks Nosferatu, the coffin’s lid is raised and Nosferatu rises as stiff as a board, even Orlok carrying huge coffins with one hand is eerie.


There are three points that I can show some negative on, however I do not know if it’s the movie’s fault or if it was just the style of acting and movie making back then. First, I have a problem with how extreme Hutter acts. He is rather a hyper character who I didn’t really root for. I didn’t feel like he was the hero or that he could even do anything to save his wife. Next, his wife, Ellen, also acts like a schizophrenic when she tells him not to go, sees him off, waits for him, and causes a ruckus at her sister-in-law’s place where she is staying. Her actions probably should have gotten her committed as she wails and runs to and fro over how much danger Hutter is in. Finally, the film really peters along. It is a slow moving film and could have been shortened about twenty minutes. Again, this might have been the style of filmmaking back then, but editing did exist back then.

Overall, the atmosphere and the vampire make this silent movie a jewel to watch. This movie helped to spawn a generation of horror flicks that still entices our imagination with the phantasmagoric and helps us imagine a land of vampires, ghosts, and monsters.

The Invasion - Review

The Invasion

How many times have we seen “The Invasion Of The Body Snatchers” remade? What was once considered a perfect analogy for the infiltration of communism in America during the “Red Scare” during the McCarthy era, has been made, remade, rehashed, updated, tweaked, re-released, and any other kind of euphemism since ever since the original 1956 movie. If I may be so forward, I think the story has played itself out. Without the back drop of the ever impending communist who can blend in with the capitalistic society in the United States, who can act like us, talk like us, go to the same schools, walk through our church doors, and who can drink anything other than vodka, the real meaning of the story has been lost on us. Even taking the story in the strictest Sci-Fi sense of “anyone could be an alien”, this storyline is about as tired as the Mutant Registration Act is to the Marvel universe.

Directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel (“Downfall”) and written by David Kajganich (hasn’t done anything else), “The Invasion” feels like a cross between a zombie movie, “War of the Worlds”, and I’m sorry to say that it has just the hint of “The Happening”.

After the crash of US space shuttle “Patriot”, people start becoming infected with an organism that takes over their body during their sleep. Of course, no one really knows about this until it becomes so out of control. These “body snatchers” are devoid of high levels of emotion that we humans feel. As the invasion increases in the number of infected, we see that the result of it being a new era in peace and prosperity. Carol Bennell, played by Nicole Kidman (“Eyes Wide Shut”) wants to screw all that up. With the help of her doctor friend; Ben Driscoll, played by Mr. Pouty himself Daniel Craig (“Layered Cake”) they want to try and stop the take over of the human race by this outside alien force. The two discover that some people are immune to the virus and it just so happens that her son is one of them. Carol must find her son who is being held by her ex-husband, who also just happened to be the first infected, and rescue him to take him to a military lab. The aliens, however, are trying to root out people who are not infected yet. The aliens are bland and emotionless creatures so they resort to things like throwing people off buildings to see who in the crowd react. Carol must walk through the city and try to hide her emotions to get to her son. I do have to say, if you need someone to act emotionless and with as little passion as possible, Nicole Kidman is the perfect choice for the role.

Grade – B-

It almost begrudges me to say that I kind of enjoyed the movie. It was nice to see a modern alien invasion happen that doesn’t involve huge space ships blowing up everything. The aliens do feel like an opposite zombie-like creature. Of course there is a lot of running involved. The action is really decent for the flick which is kind of surprising seeing the Nicole Kidman is in it. This is also probably the best role Daniel Craig has been in. He can pout all he wants without destroying everything that makes James Bond James Bond. Of course there is a message in here but it’s not as smack-you-in-the-nose obvious that “The Happening” was. Mankind can only be mankind with the possibility of violence and war and all the bad things we do. I guess the final message of the movie is “Is it worth it?”. If that’s the case, I don’t think this movie really made it enough. You see news clips throughout the movie of the changes like President George W. Bush meeting with Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, the end of the Iraq War, and other peace in our time events. One of my main problems with the movie is that you cannot really tell how much of the world has been infected. You have Bush infected but there’s a military lab/outpost that is still trying to find a cure. You have a whole, large city infected but there is a quarantine/road block established. The main ending is kind of nice to see but it’s a complete departure from the source material. To summarize, a bland, emotionless Nicole Kidman must act bland and emotionless, aliens want to take us all over, and mankind sucks. Now go have fun at the movies!

Abraham - The Bible - Review

Abraham – The Bible

The Bible Collection has been a personal favorite of mine after watching “Joseph – The Bible”. Even the lesser ones have a decent amount of drama and a well written and well paced storyline. Also, for the most part, the story stays with the source material. That’s The Bible for all you heathens out there. Believers and non can enjoy these movies for being well produced, dramatic stories that at least make you appreciate what these real life people may have went through. However, one of the main problems I have with this series is that the writers seem to make the central figures a bit too human. What I mean by that is that by taking a lot away from the “religiousness” of what makes these people inspirations, the writers tend to weaken the characters to a point where it’s almost laughable that central points and peoples hinged on what they did and what hey stood for. “Abraham – The Bible” probably illustrates this point most of all.

Directed by Joseph Sargent (“Miss Evers’ Boys”) and written by Robert McKee (“Mrs. Columbo), the story follows Abraham, played by Richard Harris (“Gladiator”) from his days before being called by God to father “a great nation” that would become known as Israel and goes through leaving his home to establish a new one. Along the way he and his wife; Sarah, played by Barbara Heshey (“The Right Stuff”) must deal with forsaking the old, false gods, the birth of the Arab nation with the birth of Ishmael, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and building up a people that would be counted like the “grains of sand”.

Grade – C-

The visuals of this movie are very banal. Usually this series has a certain “olden day” like feel to it. Abraham taking his people through the desert and meeting Mekhizedek feels like they just took twelve people and made them wander just outside the deserts of California. On top of that, the number of people in the cast lack any impressiveness. Yes, it is suppose to be Abraham’s early days but the feel to the movie is that there’s an old guy who wants to leave his home and takes about a dozen people with him and that’s about it. There are no impressive cities or landscapes that other “The Bible” movies have. It’s a very lackluster visual exercise.

Abraham is also a very boring character which is sad because with talent like Richard Harris, I thought I’d feel more…well, feeling for this important figure head of a great people. Abraham appears just as a crazy old coot when he is smashing the false idols in his original home. His visions when God is talking to him makes him to be more a mad man than someone who the Almighty had conversations with and who was so impressive that the Creator made him this patriarchal man. Both Lot and Sarah feel like very distant secondary characters even though they play a huge role in the real story. The acting of everyone in this movie just feels off from what it should be. In fact, the best acted and most interesting character in the whole movie is actually Mekhizedek; and he’s really not in The Bible all that much! The almost sacrifice of Isaac did not invoke a lot of emotion. Usually with this specific series I usually shed a tear or two. However, this movie made me yawn more than inspire me or fill me with awe. If I knew nothing about the real Abraham I would have had a really poor view of him after viewing this movie. This is probably one of the movies in the series you might want to skip.

Film Geeks - Episode 30 - Geek Movie Rundown III

Title: EPISODE40 - Geek Moive Rundow III - Rise Of The Geeks

Episode Notes: For this installment of the Geek Movie Rundown we talk about a whole slew of movies. Gran Torino, Slumdog Millionaire, Once, Resident Evil Degeneration, Into The Wild, The Graduate, Vertigo, The Nines, Sunshine, Empire Records, The Anarchist Cookbook, and 187. Wow, do we even have a life?

Download the show here - http://recordings.talkshoe.com/TC-14391/TS-183020.mp3

Download other shows here - http://www.talkshoe.com/tc/14391

Movie News

http://moviesblog.mtv.com/2008/12/03/j-michael-straczynski-on-world-war-z-the-scale-of-what-were-doing-here-is-phenomenal
World War Z - The Movie

http://www.starpulse.com/news/index.php/2009/01/17/heath_ledger_was_offered_spider_man_role
Heath Ledger was not Spider-man which means Toby McGuire was not The Joker..PHEW!

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/39797
Foundation Series brought to you by a guy who hasn't made a good movie in over 10 years

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3i2079648bd224e2c8075db99d3217979a
Settlement for Watchmen...FINALLY!

Movies Talked About:

- Gan Torino
- Love And Other Disasters
- Resident Evil - Degeneration
- Once
- Vertigo
- The Nines
- Empire Records
- The Anarchist Cookbook
- 187

- Into The Wild
- The Graduate
- Sunshine
- Slumdog Millionaire

Film Geeks - Episdoe 39

Title: EPISODE39 - You Are Geeking Kidding Me!

Episode Notes: Movie news, Is The Spirit worse Battlefield Earth?, and a really fun gripe session.

Download the episode here - http://recordings.talkshoe.com/TC-14391/TS-176930.mp3

Download other episodes here - http://www.talkshoe.com/tc/14391

Movie News

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081219/film_nm/us_ryan_1
- Next Jack Ryan movie will NOT be based on a book

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081229/ap_en_ot/film_watchmen_suit
- Watchman stopped from release...for now

http://www.moviemake-out.com/2008/12/19/two-women-named-as-first-cast-for-tron-sequel/
- New Tron movie already started casting

http://www.moviemake-out.com/2008/12/19/stephen-chow-no-longer-directing-green-hornet/
- Green Hornet movie on hold

http://www.moviemake-out.com/2008/12/20/frank-miller-may%E2%80%94or-may-not%E2%80%94have-next-sights-set-on-buck-rogers/
- Frank Miller may write Buck Rogers movie

http://www.moviemake-out.com/2008/12/21/judge-dredd-returning-to-theaters/
- Judge Dredd might return to theaters

Follow up:
The Spirit

Unbelievable Movie Moments
- Harriers still work - Battlefield Earth*
- 1024 bit encryption broken in 1 minute - Swordfish*
- Monkeys hate commiest - Indy 4*
- Run from the wind - The Happening*
- Aliens that die from water come to Earth - Signs*
- Send a blind woman to get help - The Village*
- Underhand toss strikes out pro player - Rookie Of The Year*
- No one on a train in NYC will tell who Spider-Man is - Spider-Man 2*
- Aliens are some chick's father so as to not scare her - Contact*
- You can jump anything over anything - Speed*
- You can beat a raptor with gymnastics - The Lost World*
- 666 is 999 in your dreams and if you add a 1 to it you get the year 1999 - End Of Days*
- What happens when a frog gets struck by lightning? Same thing as everything - X-Men*
- The definition of "pain" changes - Roadhouse*
- You can survive explositions - War of the Worlds (2005)*
- Aliens travel in lightning - War of the Worlds (2005)*
- Julia Roberts plays Julia Roberts - Ocean's 12*
- Immortals are aliens - Highlander II (Original Cut)*
- Flying car - Grease*
- "evil" Peter Parker - Spider-Man 3*
- Captain doesn't fire on the Black Pearl - Pirates 3*
- Walking from PA to NYC in the snow on foot - Day After Tomorrow*
- Knock off a bomb with a car flip and a crane hook - Transporter 2*

- Housewife is old superhero - Hancock*
- Fridge nuke - Indy 4*

Film Geeks - Episode 38

Title: EPISODE38 - Geek Movie Rundown II - The Geeking

Episode Notes: Our heroes talk about Transporter 3, The Punisher - War Zone, Blood Diamond, The *shiver* Happening, The 10 Commandments, and a few more...plus movie news!

Download the episode here - http://recordings.talkshoe.com/TC-14391/TS-173226.mp3

Download other episodes here - http://www.talkshoe.com/tc/14391

Show Notes

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/39336
What's better than zombies? Nazi Zombies

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/39450
The Spirit <>

http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2008/12/the_black_list_2008_the_full_l.html?fark
Stupid Scripts

Movies

Transporter 3
The Punisher - War Zone
The Happening
Day Of The Dead
Land Of The Dead
Tin Man

Blood Diamond
The 10 Commandments