More Reviews On Their Way

I haven't really put any thought into any of those script ideas since last night, but I have been putting a bit of work into a couple of new movie reviews. I'm in the middle of one right now, and I have another lined up as soon as I'm finished with that. There's also a few movies in my Netflix top 15 and several from my personal collection that I really need to get around to reviewing. Pirates of the Caribbean 2 and Jackie Brown are screaming at me from their spots on my DVD rack, so I should write about them sooner or later. Truth be told, I don't believe there'll be a shortage of reviews to be written. At least not for a little while.

It's hard to think I've been doing this for three and a half years. It seems like I started this almost an eternity ago. But I must admit that I find a lot of satisfaction in writing them. I don't know if I'll ever make a movie, but I love to talk about them, and this is a good avenue for me to do that. I'm not going to claim I want to be the next Roger Ebert or anything, but everyone has to have their hobbies, right? Hobby or not, I have a lot of fun writing these reviews. I do my absolute best with each one, and I hope that shows.

My readership may not be huge, but I'm glad people do visit my humble little corner of cyberspace. You keep reading, I'll keep writing.

Potential Ideas For A Potential Film

I've been thinking a lot lately about what kind of movie I'd make if I ever did get the opportunity to actually make one. Since I don't know the first thing about filmmaking, it'd have to be something low-key that wouldn't require some sort of Spielbergian effort or anything like that. Something simple.

Last time I posted about this, one of the peanut gallery suggested I film a play. And truth be told, I've actually been thinking about that lately. I've entertained the idea of doing a movie version of something by William Shakespeare, but with modern dialogue. Kinda like West Side Story without all the singing and dancing, or the Leonardo DiCaprio/Claire Danes version of Romeo and Juliet with a 21st-century vocabulary. I don't know if I'd make it like 10 Things I Hate About You or anything like that, but if I could come up with something that I feel could work and that I would be personally satisfied with, I'd go for it.

That isn't the only project I'd like to take a shot at, though. If I can think something up, I'd like to take a shot at something akin to Broken Lizard's movies, and I had the idea that I believe could make an entertaining movie if I could pull it off right. The movie would basicially be similar to the very awesome documentary American Movie. It would a comedy centering around a guy trying to make a movie and how it affects him and his loved ones. Depending on how I chose to do it and if it was any kind of success, I'd probably end up drawing lots of comparisons to American Movie and perhaps to a far lesser extent Christopher Guest's mockumentary For Your Consideration, but I believe it'd be a fun movie to make.

As I've said previously, we'll have to see how it goes. Any ideas or suggestions from the peanut gallery are, as always, greatly appreciated.

I'm Not Picking Up Hitchhikers Anymore

I finally made my first trip to the movies of the year this afternoon; me, my dad, and my sister went and caught the 4:45 showing of the remake of The Hitcher in Bardstown this afternoon. We were the only ones in the theater, which made the experience a little more fun. But that aside, I did like The Hitcher a lot.

No, I didn't think it was the best movie ever. Maybe not even fifth best. But I did enjoy it and would recommend it to anyone who'd like to kill an hour and a half with a perfectly acceptable scary movie. The protagonists aren't exactly the sharpest knives in the drawer, but then again, it seems like being kinda stupid is a prerequisite for most horror movie characters. No matter, because the cast turns in inoffensive performances that are not too bad at all.

I must say, though, that of the entire cast, one member makes the entire movie worth seeing. If Samuel L. Jackson could carry Snakes on a Plane all by himself, then Sean Bean must have decided he was going to do the same thing with The Hitcher. Bean is nothing short of tremendous here, but I can't say that I've never seen him give an awful performance in a movie before. Regardless, Bean makes for a great villain, and his frightening yet charismatic performance greatly improves the quality of the entire movie.

All in all, I didn't think The Hitcher was all that bad. Like I said above, I wouldn't call it the best movie ever or the best remake ever, but I can't say that I hated it. So I'm going to give the remake of The Hitcher three and a half stars and a recommendation to see it based on Sean Bean alone. Go check it out.

Dreams And Aspirations

I do enjoy writing movie reviews. I say that because I currently have two more that I'm working on. They're coming sooner or later.

I've also been pondering something I fleetingly mentioned in my last post. I said that I was still aspiring to make a movie one day, but I have no clue how I'm going to accomplish that. I'm not sure if I can come up with an original script, and stuff like equipment, music, a cast, and a crew are going to be expensive as all hell. I'm sure I could get set up if I could pull together a few hundred thousand, maybe a million dollars. But that still leaves the script. I did knock out a few pages before I temporarily abandoned the idea of writing one, so perhaps I could pick that back up. Maybe I could put something together when I feel more comfortable putting this together.

To be continued... maybe.

Where I'm Going, Where I've Been

I have to admit that the program director at the Louisville CW affiliate put me in a good mood last night. Why? Because after OVW's TV show last night, they aired Army of Darkness. And that's pretty darn awesome.

But that isn't all I wanted to post about. I had a conversation last night that really made me wonder what direction I wanted things to head in. I got to talking with a friend of mine's mom about how I used to work at the campus television station when I was in college, and it really made me nostalgic for those days. The pay wasn't all that great, but I didn't care. I had too much fun. I wish I could have kept that job even after I left college. And as much as I aspire to make a movie one day, working in TV production would be something I'd be satisfied doing.

I'll have to see where this leads me.

When Snakes And Slugs Attack

I mentioned back on Thursday that I was working on two more reviews as a follow-up to my previous doubleheader of Alone In The Dark and BloodRayne. Well, I've got them finished. So while you're here, why don't you check out my reviews of Slither and Snakes on a Plane?

Go read 'em, okay? Alright.

Who Is This Eion Bailey Guy?

I was doing a little surfing around the incredible edible Internet, and landed on an intriguing news story at Batman-On-Film.com. Most of the cast for the big roles in the next Batman movie have been set. Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, and Morgan Freeman are all set to reprise their roles from Batman Begins, while Heath Ledger will be playing Joker. But one major role has yet to be filled, that of Harvey "Two-Face" Dent. According to Batman-On-Film, Hugh Jackman, Liev Schrieber, and Ryan Phillippe might no longer be considered for the role, while Edward Norton, Jamie Foxx, and Eion Bailey are candidates. To that I respond: "What?!"

I've made it no secret that if it were up to me, I'd put Liev Schrieber in the role. I'm a fan of his work, plus he resembles Harvey Dent's appearance in "The Long Halloween." But these other contenders? I'm not sold. Neither Edward Norton or Jamie Foxx seem like the right person for the role, and I don't even know who Eion Bailey is. Should I have heard of him? Because I haven't.

Truth be told, I have no problem with Foxx or Norton being cast, but they aren't exactly the first people I'd think of if I were the movie's casting director. I know Foxx has an Oscar, but I don't really know if I'd really buy Two-Face if he were played by the guy whose biggest movie prior to Ray was Booty Call. Maybe it's just me, but I'd like to imagine that if he got the role, that Billy Dee Williams would declare jihad on him. If I were him, I'd still be kinda steamed that they replaced me with Tommy Lee Jones for Batman Forever. And Edward Norton... I just don't know. I'll admit that my familiarity with his work extends to only Fight Club, Red Dragon, and a few scenes from American History X, but he's never struck me as the Two-Face type. Maybe Harvey Dent, but not Two-Face.

I know I'm not the one doing casting for The Dark Knight, so I don't have a say in who plays who. If it were up to me, I'd go with Liev Schrieber as Two-Face and Crispin Glover as Joker. But I'm not going to argue with casting though, since I'm sure that The Dark Knight will be awesome no matter what.

Two More Reviews Coming Soon

I've been doing a little thinking in regards to another double feature of reviews. My last one seems to be a big success, so another one might not be that bad of an idea. While my last one centered around two of Uwe Boll's craptacular video game adaptations, this upcoming double feature will be centering around a pair of movies that I actually enjoyed. I won't name them here, but I will say the two movies I've chosen are B-movies that were released last year. I really liked both of them, and you can be certain that both of them will be getting good reviews from me. I do hope the reviews turn out well, too. I don't know if they'll be as fun to read as my reviews for Alone In The Dark or BloodRayne because I don't have nearly as much venom to spew towards the two movies I'm currently writing about. But then again, not very many movies are as bad as Alone In The Dark or BloodRayne.

As usual, I don't have any particular target date to be finished by. Last time I set a target date, I ended up writing the review in five hours just to make sure I got it done on time. So let's not rush the reviews, okay? Okay.

Sleep Is Not The Enemy

Oh man, this weekend was such a blur. I'm still kind of in a haze, actually. And I'll tell you why.

Saturday night is when this whole thing began. Moses and Jennifer swung by around 10:30 with the intentions of crashing here for the night. The night started simple enough; we watched OVW's TV show, played a little Sims 2 on Moses's PS2 (which he'd brought with him), and since we were hungry and there were no nearby places open, I whipped up some pancakes. There was nothing else in the pantry, sue me.

After the little meal, we figured we'd watch a little Scarface. Jennifer owns the game but had never seen the movie, and I figured that since I got the DVD for Christmas, why not? But her and Moses ended up dozing off on the couch twenty minutes into the movie. I can't say as I blame them. It was something like two in the morning. Plus my couch is super-comfortable, so that's probably part of it too.

So I just let them sleep and took the opportunity to utilize the PS2 so I could play a bit of SmackDown vs. Raw 2007. I'm not exactly big on the control scheme, primarily due to my extreme fondness for the controls on WWE's GameCube games. But I must say that I do like the game very much. I'm gonna have to save up the necessary funds to procure a PS2 or an X-Box 360, since this is a game that I'd play a lot.

And I mean a lot. I think I ended up playing the game for maybe five hours straight, no joke. That story mode is crazy addictive. The only reason I stopped is because the awakened Moses asked if I'd help him beat Darkseid in Justice League Heroes. I think changing it up a tad was good, since if I'd played it any longer, I'd have probably ended up with the WWE logo burned into my corneas. We played a little of that and some Mario Kart: Double Dash on my GameCube, along with watched Moses make an unsuccessful shot at getting past the village in Resident Evil 4. He bought the game on Christmas Eve after he and I saw Rocky Balboa, and he's still new to both the franchise and the controls, so I'm not going to hold it against him. But anyway, we and Jennifer got a little tired of gaming, so we figured we'd go get a little breakfast at the McDonald's in Lawrenceburg.

I ended up taking a light catnap on the way there, but I'd been up all night, so I'm not complaining. We ended up at McDonald's at 10:54, with barely enough time to actually order breakfast before they switched over to the lunch menu. In retrospect, we probably could have saved twenty minutes by going to the Springfield McDonald's. Hindsight is 20/20, I guess. We were cutting it pretty close, but at least I got my bacon, egg, and cheese McGriddle craving satisfied.

We had about five hours to kill before Jennifer had to be at work, so we took a trip over to the Simpsonville flea market. Moses and I had been planning on that for a while now, and we thought that then was as good a time as any. We spent maybe two hours there before heading back to Lawrenceburg. The only bad part of the flea market was that I only had two bucks and a pocketful of change at the time. Otherwise I'd have made a purchase or two. But hey, it never killed anybody to window shop. And like the first trip to Lawrenceburg, I was napping as soon as I got in the car. It was another short catnap, but I sure needed it.

We ended up back at Jennifer's house so we could kill the remaining hour or so until she had to report to work, and once she headed in, Moses and I returned home to Willisburg. We played a bit of Marvel Ultimate Alliance, then I proceeded to fix myself a big bowl of chili since all I'd had to eat since breakfast was a bag of Skittles at the flea market. Then I sat down and promptly passed out. Didn't wake up until 10:00 this morning.

That ended up being a blessing, since outside of those two half-hour naps, I'd been awake for 37 hours straight. If I'd been awake any longer, things probably would have started looking like something out of one of Neil Gaiman's "Sandman" books. And that'd be terrible. I'm not very certain that I'll be doing any more sleepless marathons in the near future. At least not any that run for a day and a half. Whoever has the world record for longest time with no sleep is a far, far braver soul than I. No, I don't believe I'll be doing this again.

Unless I end up with a copy of SmackDown vs. Raw 2007 and a console to play it on, that is.

Rough Blueprints For Battle Plans

So how's your 2007 been so far? Mine's been prety rockin' so far. It's been kinda slow, but we're only five days into the year, so there's always room for it to pick up. Am I right? But regarding the last five days, I have no complaints. And I still have my eyes on my 2007 game plan: to move forward. Though while that is The Matt Sutton Experience's overarching theme for the new year, I really think I should narrow down exactly what needs to be moved forward on my path to 2008. So let's hit the bullet points.

• Transportation. As it stands currently, I have no driver's license. I've had a learner's permit since 1998, and having just that for nearly a decade isn't exactly something I'm itching to brag about. What I intend to do is remedy this fault, get my car's engine woes fixed, and get out on the open road. Which leads me to my second bullet point...
  
  
• Gainful employment. I really, really, really need a job. It's bad enough that I have to bum rides off people, but I don't like having to borrow money from my family and friends too. I have a few places where I'd like to apply, but I'd like to do a little scouting first. I want to make sure these places are places whose paychecks I'd like to cash, after all. And then my third bullet point...
  
  
• Living life. I'm almost 25 and I still live with my parents, so as soon as I get points one and two taken care of, I want to start aiming for life on my own. I've discussed with a few of my associates the possibility of getting a bachelor pad in Lawrenceburg, so once I get the ball rolling, this is something I really want to work on.

So that's the rough blueprint for my 2007 battle plan. At this juncture, I'm not exactly sure on how each puzzle piece will fit. But I am quite sure that all three items will be achieved, and that I can really get things moving forward. At least things can't go too far backward.

(Credit to Libby's post from Tuesday for inspiring this one.)

Of Wrestling Come And Gone

I was talking to Libby last night about WWE's recently-released DVD about the AWA, and it got me wondering what other DVDs in that vein that WWE could put together. They've already covered ECW and the AWA, and they're preparing one on World Class, but what other promotions could WWE cover?

The Wikipedia article regarding WWE's video library says it includes WCW and Jim Crockett Promotions, Smoky Mountain, OVW, Stampede, and old-school NWA footage from Georgia and Florida. I don't know anything at all about the Georgia or Florida promotions, and very little about Stampede, but if I'd definitely buy DVDs about Smoky Mountain, OVW, or WCW if WWE chose to release them. I'd also really like to see WWE get ahold of the USWA tape library, because a DVD based on that could make for a great companion to the one about World Class (or even a Smoky Mountain DVD).

I don't really know if there'd be a huge market for DVDs regarding the Georgia and Florida promotions, since I'm not sure if they don't exactly have all that much name recognition. But I could see DVDs about Smoky Mountain or the evolution of WCW doing really big business. Of course, I'd be hoping that they could get Jim Cornette on loan from TNA to do the Smoky Mountain DVD if they were to put one together. But that's all a matter of if they do it.

And here's hoping that they do.

The "Sutton At The Movies" Achievement Awards

I'm sure we all know of the Oscars and the Golden Globes. But there's one more award ceremony that's just as important: the annual "Sutton At The Movies" Achievement Awards. Okay, so maybe I'm exaggerating that just a tad. I do, however, hope you guys have as much fun reading them as much as I enjoy putting them together every year. There's no real criteria for the awards I hand out, just my personal preferences.

So let's check 'em out, shall we?

• Best Movie: Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
• Best Actor: Johnny Depp, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
• Best Actress: Ellen Page, Hard Candy
• Best Supporting Actor: Ben Affleck, Hollywoodland
• Best Supporting Actress: Jodelle Ferland, Silent Hill
• Best Director: Sylvester Stallone, Rocky Balboa
• Best Comedy: Clerks II
• Best Horror Movie: Saw III
• Best Foreign Import: The Descent
• Best Fight: Sylvester Stallone vs. Antonio Tarver, Rocky Balboa
• Most Dramatic Scene: a kid pulls a gun on George Reeves, Hollywoodland
• Most Disturbing Scene: the tanning bed scene, Final Destination 3
• Most Frightening Scene: the first journey into darkness, Silent Hill
• Funniest Actor/Actress: Jeff Anderson, Clerks II
• Creepiest Actor/Actress: Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick, The Omen
• Best Hero: Samuel L. Jackson, Snakes on a Plane
• Best Villain: Tobin Bell and Shawnee Smith, Saw III
• Best Use of an Overdone Cliché: Silent Hill's female villain with stringy black hair
• "I Didn't Need To See That" Award: Owen Wilson "goes camping" in You, Me, and Dupree
• "Where's Alan Smithee When You Need Him?" Award: Wes Craven's writing credit for Pulse
• "Truth In Advertising" Award: Snakes on a Plane's title
• Best Example of Mediocrity in Filmmaking: An American Haunting
• Best Idea: Snakes on a Plane doing re-shoots to get an R rating instead of a PG-13, as opposed to vice versa
• Best Music: Jeff Danna covering Akira Yamaoka, Silent Hill
• Most Annoying Soundtrack: the indecipherable Japanese techno from The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift
• Best Use of a Song: "Every Woman In The World" by Air Supply, from Slither
• Most Satisfying Ending: Rocky Balboa
• Best Action Sequence: Superman catches the plane, Superman Returns
• Best Chase: Juggernaut and Shadowcat race through walls, X-Men: The Last Stand
• Most Car Damage: The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift
• "That's Enough of That" Award: See No Evil and The Marine, thanks to WWE's endless promotion even after both movies had completely dropped off the radar
• Best Team: Jason Mewes and Kevin Smith, Clerks II
• Best Independent Film: Hard Candy
• Best Direct-To-Video Movie: 2001 Maniacs
• Best Sequel: Clerks II
• Worst Sequel: The Grudge 2
• Best Remake (American source): The Hills Have Eyes
• Best Remake (Asian source): The Lake House
• Worst Remake (American source): When A Stranger Calls
• Worst Remake (Asian source): Pulse
• Worst Movie: BloodRayne

I had a little bit of an internal debate over whether or not to give The Descent the Best Horror Movie award, but I ultimately decided not to. My reasoning is that I didn't give it to High Tension last year since it had already been out for two years prior to its initial American release. And since The Descent came out in 2005 over in England, I figured I'd follow precedent and exclude it from the running for Best Horror Movie. But since I felt it deserved to be highlighted, I decided to create the "Best Foreign Import" category for it.

But regardless, I'm satisfied with how the awards turned out. Now I can start working on the 2007 edition. So tune in this time next year for those, okay? Okay.

Moving Forward

What am I hoping for with 2007?

I'm hoping for a year where things can move forward. I'm going to try try getting the ball rolling on things I should have done years ago. I've gotten complacent with my current situation, and 2007 will be the year that situation changes. So instead of sitting around letting life pass me by, I'm going to, as they say, take the bull by the horns. 2007 is going to be my year, I just know it.

I don't usually make New Year's resolutions, since I'd always forget about them by February when I did make them. But since I want 2007 to be a year of change, I'll go ahead and make a resolution: keep moving forward. And here's hoping I don't forget about that one in a month.

Happy New Year!

Happy new year, everybody, and welcome to the year 2007. It's still a little weird that we're now seven years into the twenty-first century. Or is that just me?

So how did 2006 go? I can't really complain, personally. I had a pretty good year. I saw lots of movies, I wrote lots of reviews, I got to have fun with my buddies throughout the year, and I got to attend my very first pro wrestling pay-per-view event. But as much as I enjoyed 2006, I'm hoping that 2007 will be better. Then again, everybody hopes for that every year.

The year that was 2006 was pretty darn good, but it's over and done with now. So come on, 2007. Let's see what you're made of.