The Complete @JonnyABomb on @DailyGrindhouse.

Daily Grindhouse would be pretty much my favorite website even if I weren’t writing for them, but since I am, here’s a collection of all my work so far.  It’s some of my very best stuff. Enjoy!

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   

Make Daily Grindhouse your daily destination for genre movie news, reviews, and interviews — there’s a ton of truly great content over there, beyond just the parts with my name on ’em.

And follow me on Twitter for updates!: @jonnyabomb

All Of My Movie Writing So Far, Collected In One Place.

This collection has been much-requested and a long time coming.  To get at the reviews, just click on the movie poster of your choice.  And be sure to bookmark this page, because it’s bound to get updated frequently!

                                                                               

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

For constant news about updates, follow me on Twitter:  @jonnyabomb

My Top 50 Movies Of All Time (At This Exact Moment In Time.)

And we’re back!  Ready for round two.  Inspired again by my friend-in-movies at Rupert Pupkin Speaks, I’m re-presenting and reshuffling my top fifty movies of all time.  “Reshuffling” sounds a little more extreme than what I’ve done here — most of the titles remain the same, and the order isn’t much different.  But there’s a fair amount of new blood, and I’ve updated the links to any movies I’ve written about at length (those are bolded in red.) 

This list is absolutely subject to change, so keep watching this space, but while you’re at it, don’t forget to keep watching the skies.

1. THE GOOD, THE BAD, & THE UGLY (1966).

2. GHOSTBUSTERS (1984).

3. DAWN OF THE DEAD (1978).

4.  ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST (1968).

5.  UNFORGIVEN (1992).

6.  KING KONG (1933).

7.  PREDATOR (1987).

8.  MANHUNTER (1986).

9.  BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA (1986).

10.  MOTHER, JUGS & SPEED (1976).

11.  John Carpenter’s THE THING (1982).

12.  HEAT (1995).

13.  FREAKS (1932).

14. JAWS (1975).

15.  Berry Gordy’s THE LAST DRAGON (1985).

16.  THE WILD BUNCH (1969).

17.  SHAFT (1971).

18.  BEVERLY HILLS COP (1984).

19.  THE BIG GUNDOWN (1966).

20.  SEA OF LOVE (1989).

21. RAISING ARIZONA (1987).

22.  EVIL DEAD 2 (1987).

23.  OUT OF SIGHT (1998).

24.  THE INSIDER (1999).

25.  ALLIGATOR (1980).

26.  COLLATERAL (2004).

27.  THE GREAT SILENCE (1968).

28.  AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON (1981).

29.  MY DARLING CLEMENTINE (1946).

30.  CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON (1954).

31. PRIME CUT (1972).

32. WATERMELON MAN (1970).

33.  GROSSE POINTE BLANK (1997).

34.  25th HOUR (2002).

35.  COFFY (1973).

36. QUICK CHANGE (1990).

37.  MAGNOLIA (1999).

38.  HANNIE CAULDER (1971).

39. ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK (1981).

40.  48 HRS. (1982).

41.  GOODFELLAS (1990).

42.  SHOGUN ASSASSIN (1980).

43.  PURPLE RAIN (1984).

44.  THE UNHOLY THREE (1925).

45.  TRUE GRIT (2010).

46.  THE PROFESSIONALS (1966).

47.  VIOLENT CITY aka THE FAMILY (1973).

48.  THE HIT (1984).

49.  EMPEROR OF THE NORTH POLE (1973).

50.  ATTACK THE BLOCK (2011).

50 1/2.  The five-minute skeleton swordfight in JASON & THE ARGONAUTS (1963).

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And that’s that…. for now.

For a little bit more all the time, find me on Twitter:  @jonnyabomb

Trailer: ZOMBIE ASS: TOILET OF THE DEAD (Japan, 2012).

This movie is from Japan.  It is named Zombie Ass: Toilet Of The Dead.

1. There was really never a chance I wouldn’t put this trailer on my website.

2. I’m a total idiot and that’s apparently not going to change.  Believe it or not my family is very proud of me.

P.S. They don’t read my website.

Find me on Twitter: @jonnyabomb

 

 

From The Archives: ZOMBIELAND (2009).

Just rewatched Zombieland.  Well, I’m lying a little.  I bailed on the rewatch after the cameo.  It’s a strange thing, the cameo.  It’s problematic.  On several levels, I love it.  Obviously if a movie like this was going to drop a big name all up into itself, there’s just about no one I’d rather see.  But it also unsettles the movie.  How can it not?  It changes the stakes.  It makes the whole thing a little too much of a lark.  I’m no longer concerned what happens to these characters after the cameo.  You’ll see in this review, which I wrote for a NYC website around the original release in October 2009, that even then I had this problem — although I generally loved the movie and still do think it’s a ton of fun in a twenty-pound bowling bag.  There’s so much good going on in this flick that it sucks to be the one stuck quibbling, but I guess quibbling is what we do here on the internet.

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It’s really right up next to impossible to talk about the new movie Zombieland without talking about the extended cameo scene that comes about an hour into it. I still refuse to say who it is, even after Fangoria and IMDB and Ebert and Letterman have already done it, because I can only imagine how smile-making that scene must be for someone who goes into it without that foreknowledge. Even knowing ahead of time who’d be making an appearance, I still got a huge kick out of the scene. And it’s not like the movie wasn’t kicking like a kung-fu master before then.

Zombieland is pure fun. For decades, at least since 1968’s Night Of The Living Dead, the zombie genre has most often been used as a Trojan horse for sneaking devastating social commentary within a horror vehicle. Zombieland doesn’t have anything on its agenda except to entertain. This is a far cry from the righteously angry anti-authoritarian politics of George A. Romero; it’s not even much connected to the twenty-something-ennui satire of Shaun Of The Dead, to which Zombieland will be most often compared. It’s not technically a horror movie at all, honestly. There’s one good jump early on, but if you pay enough attention you’ll totally see it coming, and either way, it’s not a lasting scare. And sure, there’s a ton of gore, but not much that you couldn’t see on an episode of Grey’s Anatomy. (Boy, has our culture gotten used to gruesome!)

Zombieland is a straight-up comedy, and a very funny one, which I guess makes that cameo fairly appropriate. (Dammit! Almost spoiled it again!) It’s a buddy comedy, between the earnest, straight-laced Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg, in a performance of relatability and expert comic timing) and the belligerent, shit-kicking Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson, reminding everyone how great he is, all over again). Imagine if there was a zombie apocalypse, and David Cross and Larry The Cable Guy had to put aside their feud and work together. That’s the dynamic we’re working with here.

By the time the movie opens, the few remaining human beings are pretty much adjusted to post-zombie-apocalypse life. They roam around as best they can, developing their own methods to survive.  What’s so funny about Zombieland is that the two lead characters are only tangentially concerned with the zombies – they’ve both developed their own ways to avoid being eaten, and have moved on to their primary concerns: Columbus is on a quest for true love, and Tallahassee is really, really fiending for Twinkies.

Into the mix come two sisters: Wichita (Emma Stone from Superbad), who Columbus immediately crushes on big-time, and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin from Little Miss Sunshine), who dreams of returning to an amusement park she once loved as a smaller child. And that’s just about it as far as plot goes: the characters fight and feud and get to know each other and eventually amble towards the movie’s climax.

The real joy of the movie comes from the interplay between the characters, which is constantly funny without ever feeling forced or dishonest. The amusement park setting towards the end of the movie reminded me of another friendly, humanist comedy starring Jesse Eisenberg, Adventureland – I thought it would’ve been funny if Zombieland was intended as a response to Adventureland. I thought Adventureland was a sweet movie, and I can’t think of a single way to improve it, except – oh yeah! Zombies.

And Woody Harrelson. His character is by far the most fun thing about the movie, because he indulges in all the crazy destructive impulses that any of us would probably get around to if we survived the apocalypse ourselves. He’s the personification of that scene in the original Dawn Of The Dead where the survivors go on a supermarket sweep, only Tallahassee has better music in his car. (Willie Nelson and original, David Lee, Van Halen – thank you very much.)

Actually, the entire movie has a pretty great soundtrack, featuring a ton of cool newer bands like Doves, Metric, White Lies, Sea Wolf, and Band Of Horses.  There’s a lot of good about Zombieland.  I had a few quibbles here and there, such as tiny details (if the characters give their hometowns as their names, and Wichita and Little Rock are sisters, then why are they from two different states?), and somewhat larger tonal issues (as great as the secret cameo is, its resolution unbalanced me more than I think was intended). But no one besides OCD film nuts like me will even think much about those things – everyone else will be too busy laughing.

Seriously, go see Zombieland. Start off October with some good old-fashioned American zombie-shitkicking. If you haven’t seen it already, what are you waiting for? Hurry up, before someone spills the beans on that cameo! (I mean it – it’s THAT good.)

Sat, 10/03/2009

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31 FLAVORS OF HORROR #16: ZOMBIE 2 (1979).

Admittedly, when my friends and I turn our debates to the more philosophical questions in life, it usually goes like this:  “Who do you think would win in a fight: A grizzly bear, or a great white shark?”

We figure that the battle would take place in an enclosed space, in shallow waters, where there’d be enough depth for the bear to stand and the shark to swim.  My own argument tends to emphasize the underrated fearsomeness of bears — bears catch fish, it’s what they do — but see, I’m already getting off topic.

As the resident film-obsessive, I’ve been inevitably asked the question, “Has there ever been a movie where zombies attacked a great white shark?” It’s a great idea – mindless undead eating machines taking on the world’s oldest and most perfect toothy eater from the sea.

Well, to my knowledge, there’s never been that exactly. That’s the bad news.

The good news: There has, in fact, been a movie where a zombie fought a tiger shark.

Next best thing, right?

It happened in a movie directed by Lucio Fulci, Italian horror icon of the 1970s and 1980s, known as Zombi 2. (Also known, somewhat amazingly, as Zombie. Oh, and also Zombie Flesh Eaters, Island Of The Flesh Eaters, Island Of The Living Dead – Italian horror movies go by a lot of names.)

I can’t rightly recommend a beginning-to-end screening of the movie. Here’s what it does have to recommend it: Some interesting, grisly, zombie make-up, a legendarily-gross scene of eyeball damage (not really my thing, sorry), a cool shot of zombies ambling across the Brooklyn Bridge, and a great, eerie title theme by composer Fabio Frizzi. Besides that, crucify me if you dare, but I don’t think Zombi 2 is all that good.  There’s a major disconnect between what the movie’s fans seem to want it to be and what it actually is.  It happens.

Also, as you’re about to see, the marquee fight is not as stellar as you’ve been dreaming about. The shark’s teeth have clearly been removed entirely (where was the ASPCA on this?) and the zombie just kind of grabs onto the shark and hugs at him, at one point bloodily chomping on what’s supposed to be a fistful of sharkhide, but so obviously isn’t.

So sadly, it’s not much of a fight. But for fans of interspecies underwater ballet, you’ve hit paydirt!  This scene is slow, weird, almost dreamy – certainly worth watching if you’re so inclined.

But there’s still room in cinema for this scene to be topped. Some freak somewhere is thinking up the ultimate shark/zombie battle. Guaranteed. That freak might even be me… although right now I’ve kind of shifted my attention to the idea of a polar bear fighting a ninja.

Zombi 2 is playing on October 21st and 22nd in limited cities across the country, including NYC’s Landmark Sunshine Theater, LA’s New Beverly, and Yellow Springs, Ohio’s Little Art Theatre. (Look for showtimes here.) A repackaged DVD from the great Blue Underground label follows on October 25th.  Portions of the preceding article have appeared elsewhere on the internet, believe it or not.

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Awwww!  That’s so sweet!

The Library.

Full disclosure time.  I think a person’s home movie collection says plenty about their interests as a moviegoer.  Since I talk about movies all the time, I imagine this would be relevant evidence.  Here’s what is on my shelf at home so far…

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

Feel free to judge!

Find me on Twitter: @jonnyabomb