There are only 59 days left until Halloween is here which means there is only 29 days left until another year of Eddie’s 31 Days Of Halloween. It’s Friday which can only mean one thing and that it’s freaky Friday and we have a special movie for all of you in Rob Zombie’s 31. For carnival workers like Charly (Sheri Moon Zombie), Venus Virgo (Meg Foster), Roscoe (Jeff Daniel Phillips), Panda Thomas (Lawrence-Hilton Jacobs), and Levon (Kevin Jackson) life is all about the next stop and how to make money quick and lots of it. One day while travelling on the road, their vehicle is hijacked and they are brought to a strange facility. They are told that they have to play a game for 12 hours where they will be hunted by psycho clowns and murdered, but the goal is to survive. The film also stars Elizabeth Daily (Pee Wee’s Big Adventure) as Sex-Head, Torsten Voges (Funny People) as Death Head, Richard Brake (Batman Begins) as Doom-Head, Lew Temple (The Devil’s Rejects) as Psycho-Head, Malcolm McDowell (Rob Zombie’s Halloween) as Father Murder, Judy Geeson (The Lords Of Salem) as Sister Dragon, David Ury (Grimm) as Schizo-Head, Pancho Moler (They Want Dick Dickster) as Sick-Head, Jane Carr (Dear John) as Sister Serpent, Ginger Lynn (The Devil’s Rejects) as Cherry Bomb, and the film was written and directed by Rob Zombie (House Of 1000 Corpses).
It’s hard for me to really come up with an answer to how I felt about the film. The film and it’s idea was definitely one that Rob knew his hardcore fans wanted, but did he execute. While I am going to say not really to that question, I am willing to give him a break because I am curious if the version we see now is different than the one we will see on DVD. I say that because if you are looking for lots of gruesome gore, the film doesn’t really have it. Yes there’s tons of blood and violence, but the camera shots don’t really allow you to see it all. I heard a lot of people complain about Sheri Moon Zombie being in the film, but that didn’t really bother me. I was looking for House Of 1000 Corpses/The Devil’s Rejects kind of violence in the film but that is why I am willing to wait for the DVD to come out just to see. There were two performances in the film that I thought were absolutely brilliant and one of those goes to Pancho Moler who plays the Spanish speaking Nazi psycho who was just absolutely awesome. I really loved the time he spent on screen because he scared me more than the others. The other performance that I loved was the one from Richard Brake whose performance reminded me a lot of Bill Moseley’s Otis. There’s this brilliant opening scene where he walks in and he is talking and it seems like he is talking to you until you find out who he is really talking to. My favorite part of all of that was when he picks up the ax and he says, “I apologize in advance for not sharpening my ax so this may take a couple of whacks.” I enjoyed the story, some of the shots, the music, but the film just didn’t really live up to the hype. This is a watch at your own risk, take my opinion for what it is kind of situation. I am going to give the film an B- for a final grade because it’s not in the C range in my opinion.
Ever since I heard the announcement of a new Pee Wee Herman film, I have been waiting anxiously for it and Netflix has finally delivered. Paul Reuben (Mystery Men) once again plays Pee Wee Herman in the new film Pee Wee’s Big Holiday. In this film, Pee Wee has never left the small town of Fairfield, but that is all about to change when by chance he meets Joe Manganiello (Magic Mike). Joe and Pee Wee immediately hit it off and Joe invites Pee Wee to New York to come to Joe’s birthday party. Considering this is Pee Wee’s first holiday, the film follows Pee Wee’s journey from Fairfield to New York and the mishaps in between in this take of friendship, adventure, and destiny. The film also stars Jessica Pohly (Theme Song Rebel) as Pepper, Stephanie Beatriz (Brooklyn Nine-Nine) as Freckles, Alia Shawkat (Whip It) as Bella, Patrick Egan (Where’s Marlowe?) as Gordon The Travelling Salesman, Frank Collison (The Village) as Clay, Lynne Marie Stewart (Pee Wee’s Playhouse) as Jimmy, Hal Landon Jr. (Eraserhead) as Farmer Brown, Michelle Meredith (Black-ish) as Linda Brown, Brad William Henke (Fury) as Grizzly Bear Daniels, Dionne Gipson (Black Dynamite) as Brook, Diane Salinger (Pee Wee’s Big Adventure) as Penny King, Charles Robinson (Night Court) as Police Captain, and the film was directed by John Lee (Wonder Showzen).
The question of the day is what did I think about this film? Was it worth the wait? Did Paul Reuben still have the magic to entertain? All very legitimate questions that I will now take the time to discuss. My thoughts on the film is that I actually enjoyed watching the film because it brought back so many great memories. Out of all three Pee Wee films, it’s definitely not the best one, but it was still enjoyable to watch even though Paul Reubens looks too old in HD to the boy Pee Wee Herman. For an hour and the half, it was fun to watch Paul Reuben play Pee Wee and if he decided to never do it again, I would be OK with it. This was a film that was made twenty years too late and while some of the gags and jokes were funny, there was a lot that was funnier back in the early 90’s/late 80’s. Again, I am not completely putting down the film because if you were a Pee Wee Herman fan like I was then it’s worth checking out. There’s a good cast with some cool cameos from various people who worked with Reubens at one time and even some actors I hadn’t seen in a while. There has always been some weird undertones where you think it’s just innocent and then other times you’re like wait a minute here. That is just how Pee Wee Herman roles and you can watch it on Netflix. I was surprised to see Judd Apatow’s name attached to this, but it made me excited to see it. I am going to give Pee Wee’s Big Holiday a B+ for a final grade.
365moviesin365dayschallenge 