Bryan Singer returns to the Marvel Universe

GEEK NEWS SERIES: Bryan Singer returns to the Marvel Universe

 by OTTOMIC BLUE

 
     This is huge news for this geek! Bryan Singer is returning to the Marvel U to direct X-Men: First Class, which is currently in pre-production. For those unaware, Singer wrote and directed X-men, and X2: X-Men United in the '90s.The First X-Men film along with the Blade series started in the same decade stepped the game of comic book movies up to a new tier. Taking the audience and subject matter seriously, he managed to portrait the characters and their relations within the Xavier Institute.  Though the colorful costumed heroes of  comic pages may appeal to the eye, the deep relations and problems of these characters make us all relate to them.Many fans were heartbroken when the production company behind these films opted to have Singer direct Superman Returns. In fact it is rumored that during the making of X Men 3 , there were negotiations to get Singer back on the Marvel scene.
    X-Men: First Class is the next film in the Origins series. This film is going to show us a younger Cyclops, Jean Grey and Beast as well as the forming of Xavier's school for the gifted.
     "Just doing younger mutants is not enough," said Singer during an interview with The Los Angeles Times." The story needs to be more than that. I love the relationship between Magneto and Xavier, these two men who have diametrically opposite points of view but still manage to be friends — to a point. They are the ultimate frenemies." Additionally, Singer revealed that "X-Men" producers are also pursuing him for X-Men 4.
    Singer is currently contracted to direct Jack the Giant Killer, which may prevent him from taking on an additional "X-Men" film. During the interview, Singer spoke directly to "X-Men" producer Shuler Donner regarding X-Men 4.
"Hold that one off for just a little," requested Singer. "I'm fixated on the other one right now."
"I will, I will,"  Shuler Donner replied. "I'm holding it open with high hopes. It's totally different [from 'First Class'] and it will be so interesting for you." Although those are just verbal exchanges.... this geek has his fingers crossed for more Singer at the Institute.

"CABIN FEVER 2" IN-DEPTH REVIEW BY WHINO

My first horror film review for Drugratz.com will begin with a brief visualization exercise.  Picture, if you will, a typical American high school on a warm spring evening populated not by people, but by horror films and icons.  The gym is draped in gossamer of the deepest black and most sanguine red.  Blood-curdling screams and the sounds of various dismemberments echo throughout as the soundtrack for this particular night.  A buffet provided by the Hewitt family’s roadside butcher shop lines one wall.  An alleged hermaphrodite commands attention at center court, while a horse-faced extra from another lame remake leaves room for the lord with her date in the shadows.  A bucket of blood teeters precariously in the rafters over the stage unbeknownst to both the quietly awkward girl and Principal Romero, as a man in a tattered sweater lurks in the school boiler room waiting to invade the drunken post-coital slumber of the student body. And while one student was so distracted she missed a call and others occupied their time hellraising, nobody seemed to notice the 16 uninvited producers sneak in through the back door, roofie the punch, and drag an unassuming and defenseless Cabin Fever into the locker room to violate it in ways previously unimaginable. Apparently the post-gang-rape abortion failed and after a dragged-out three-year gestation, Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever hit the floor with an uneventful splat in 2010.

This straight-to-dvd monstrosity bears little resemblance to its predecessor and is lacking most of the elements that made Eli Roth’s Cabin Fever one of my all-time favorite movies.  The story commences a couple of days after the previous film’s conclusion, with Paul (a role reprised by Rider Strong) arising from the stream where he had been dumped and left for dead by Deputy Winston (the only other returning character from the first film, played by Giuseppe Andrews).  Paul stumbles through the forest, more closely resembling the toxic-waste-soaked Emil from Robocop than the severely infected hermit Henry from the first Cabin Fever, while leaving pieces of himself behind in the brush.  Rider Strong receiving top billing for this film is odd since, within a minute, an actor so laden in make up effects that he is barely recognizable as himself is liquidated by the grill of a speeding school bus. I’m left to assume that this was a desperate attempt to attract fans of the first film that, like myself, were leery of any sequel not helmed by Roth.  Deputy Sheriff Winston enters the story at this point, investigating the scene of the vehicular slaughter.  After assuring the bus driver that it was just a moose and expounding some of that creepy Winston wisdom, our 40 slugging anti-hero discovers a boot still holding its former host’s foot as the blood-painted bus continues on its merry way to begin the school day.  Winston is almost creamed himself by a Downhome Spring Water truck, triggering a rapid-fire montage during which he pieces together the chain of events he has triggered by dumping Paul in the stream that feeds Downhome’s bottling plant.  Winston spends the majority of the rest of the film in self-preservation mode.  He provides little in the way of comic relief in the sequel, and it’s a shame that his screen time was mostly wasted.

Some key plot points are developed through a 2nd rate animated sequence that shows some of the freshly-bottled pathogens on their journey to Springfield High School, the home of Spring Fever’s doomed prom.  Enter our typical clichéd high school students: the questionably lovable geek lead and his too-popular-for-him love interest, his horny disheveled wise-cracking sidekick, the love interest’s borderline psychopathic jock boyfriend, the cocky blonde guy and the morbidly obese busybody who worships him, a blond cheerleader with a life goal of becoming prom queen, a disgruntled janitor (who becomes infected during the opening animated sequence), and a bevy of socially inept and stereotypical faculty members, with the exception being the principal’s unconventional private life.  None of the characters is overly likeable and I found myself not particularly caring if and when most met their demise, although I did get slight satisfaction from one scene involving a nail gun.

As would be expected from a movie bearing the Cabin Fever name, the story picks up the pace in not only the spread of infection, but in the amount of resulting violence and gore, leading to chaos and the complete meltdown of acceptable conduct and decorum.  The addition of a fictional government agency bent on quarantining and eliminating the spread of the infection by any means necessary adds a sinister new enemy to the equation.  Once the pieces are in place, the plot follows a rather predictable course Ultimately the story brings us to a country road at night, van speeding away from town on it’s way to Mardi Gras, lone survivor of the prom amongst others on their way to unwittingly spread the virus further. There’s another sub-par sequel in the books with another one on the way, or so you would think. The movie is dragged behind the van for another 10 minutes or so with an unconvincing strip club scene that was not part of the original script. Learning after the fact that the stripclub seats were filled with several of the film’s producers, this scene seems like either an ego-stroke to some already way-too-involved producers, or a less costly attempt to stretch the film toward the ninety-minute mark.  I have a hard time believing any scenes on the cutting room floor were worse than this. The movie concludes with another lower quality animated sequence and cuts to the credits.

Absent from this film are the mood-establishing shots of the first film as well as the tripped-out cut sequences.  While the first film maintains a constant tension and an eerie sense of foreboding that results in the inevitable meltdown, the sequel only causes me to long for the progression of the disease to get shorter so I can be on my way.  The progression of the disease did indeed get shorter, but also altered in a way that totally disrupted any sense of continuity from the first film.  A red rash, open sores, and decaying flesh were replaced with squirting, pus-filled boils that looked like giant pimples.  The rash led to vomiting of blood several hours later in the first film, where the order was reversed in most cases in Spring Fever.  There are no quirky minor characters such as Dennis (PANCAAAKES!) or shop-owner Old Man Cadwell in the sequel to speak of.  Judah Friedlander of Feast and TV’s 30 Rock plays no real consequential role in the film and is just another name in the credits. 

The gore factor of the film is high but is not of a quality level expected by fans of a movie carrying the Cabin Fever label.  The first movie had its gory elements but blood was minimal and confined to a few key moments. Blood spray abounds at the prom, but in many cases looks like somebody is just out of the shot lobbing buckets of fake blood on extras.  A scene involving infected genitals seems gratuitous and could have been left assumed, but this is coming from somebody who is not particularly fond of seeing other guys’ junk in movies. I will admit this scene is as cringe-inducing as any scene in recent memory.  Other gore scenes include a janitor urinating blood in an unsavory place, the school’s resident whale getting “harpooned” to death in the pool, and a vaguely familiar scene involving a tourniquet, a table saw, and a torch.  There is another scene involving a blowjob from a metal-mouthed girl with a cold sore that, while not particularly gory, provides another of the film’s unsettling gross-out moments.

Just as Eli Roth borrowed portions of the film’s score from both The Last House on the Left and The Shining, Spring Fever pays homage to a classic by predictably using a song from the 1980 version of Prom Night.  Spring Fever was a major disappointment for seeming at times to poke fun at and degrade the era of horror films that the first film attempted to emulate and pay respect. Fans of the first film may notice some references, such as the reappearance of Bunnyman from Paul’s time in the hospital.  In this installment, the Bunnyman is the mascot of the high school.  Winston orders pancakes and raves about them to the waitress at the diner, which may or may not be the same pancakes that fuel Dennis’s obsession.   And keep an eye out for a cheesy and less than competent martial arts music montage not-so-reminiscent of one in Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master. 

Director Ti West should not be held accountable for this trainwreck.  Attempts to disown the film and have it released under the pseudonym Alan Smithee, a moniker used by Directors Guild of America members to detach themselves from a film when they lose creative control, were met with rejection because West was not a member of the guild.  The editing process of the film had been taken over by the producers and the film was finished without West’s input.  I would be curious to see what Ti West’s finished product would look like had he been allowed to complete the project.

Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever is one stillbirth of a sequel that should have been buried just a little deeper in a school bathroom trashcan.  Spring Fever is 87 minutes that I would have rather spent hitting my groin with a ball-peen hammer.  I can only blame myself for the other 87 minutes I lost watching it again like a rubber-necker passing an orphanage fire, thus solidifying it in my long-term memory.  Maybe I should have tried the punch instead.

Several Hundred words with Alex One

I've always known that the world was run by some sick fucks.. In my early, angsty punk rock youth I was just a person looking for a cause, ignorrant of why I was so eager to find a "fight", if you catch my meaning of the word. I wasn't ever interested in fighting other people individually, like say fist fights. I always remember wanting to change the world. I remember hearing Pennywise for the first time and just being blown away.
I bought "Unknown Road" on tape and was simply floored. I was in the 6th grade I think. Maybe 7th. Either way, from the first reverb-drenched notes played on piano, into the thrashing drums and fast guitars and for the whole entire tape, I just sat there.. I listened to Jim sing. I really listened to the words, and took them to heart. "City is Burning" made me FEEL the social riot happening around the world. "Vices" kept me straight edge for a really long time. But "Homesick"... Holy shit, I remember thinking "are these dudes from Brockton?"
The MOMENT that tape ended, I RIGHT AWAY flipped it over back to side A to listen again and my radio promptly ate it. Undeterred, I went to RECORD TOWN (That's right, mother fucker said RECORD TOWN) and bought "About Time". Same thing. It was like Pennywise was my new teacher. Fuck School. They taught lies and propaganda. Pennywise from shooting right from the fucking hip.. This shit was my energy drink. All I needed to go skate was a small dose of Pennywise.
Years past, and Pennywise was still a classic but I had expanded my horizons. I was hearing Operation Ivy and FEELING like I was right fucking there in East Bay! "Knowledge", "Bad Town", "Just Another Crowd", "Room Without A Window", "Unity", etc... It was Pennywise all over again. Just the black and white album cover. And the back cover. IT was too good.
Punk Rock was always right there. Teaching me right from wrong. Telling me the same shit my parents were, but in a different way (even if it took me many years to truly realize it). Punk Rock taught me you didn't need the flash, you didn't need nice clothes. You didn't need what everyone else needed, cuz they were a bunch of shallow twats. And so I was happy. Everyone at school seemed so fucking fake and hollow. I just knew these people were acting a certain way, and feeling something else.
They were as empty as the music they listened to. They were listening to music that denegrated women, glorified the pursuit of wealth. This music was telling them, MAKE MONEY! BUY THE DOPEST CAR AVAILABLE! FUCK ANYONE OVER TO GET IT! YOU WILL GET WOMEN!!

They were all but promised this...

Their lives held no true value. They studied what was needed in order to pass the exams, and graduate and get on with their paper chase. I was listening to Naked Agression. They were screaming at me, ever so urgently that "there's food rotting away in warehouses while people starve to death". I could SEE the warehouse, I could SMELL the rotting food and I just remember having the most VIVID image of emaciated humans, wrapped up in filthy blankets.

I'm sitting there, thinking "Dude, I don't have time to buy a car. There's fucking people dying!" I was thinking, "how do all these rich corporation's CEOs sleep at night?" How do the owners of all the GAPS, and ABERCROMBIE and FITCH, and NIKE, and REEBOK.. HOW CAN THEY SIMPLY TURN A BLIND EYE TO THIS SHIT?!! So I never wore that shit. I ended up wearing hand-me-downs, and I rocked the same plaid-green flannel for like 6 years. I wore my shoes down to the sock.

I was always ate odds on who to blame. Was it the president? The gov't? The corporations? The masses of sleeping zombies? I was ready to go to war for the poor. I had all this angst, this anger, ready to go off at the first appropriate target.

More time passed. Then... 9/11.

I was at school, in English class. They made the announcement over the intercom that one of the buildings of the WTC was hit by an airliner. We were allowed to go to the cafeteria and watch the news. I SAW the 2nd plane hit. I was THOUGHLY convinced it was a SLAYER related incident, as "GOD HATES US ALL" came out that day. I know this because no one was shutting up about it! I came to 2 immediate conclusions.

1. Metal Heads were hijacking planes

2. It had something to do with Saddam.

Anyways, it was the day everything changed, yadda yadda yadda. There was all this new found patriotism. All of a sudden, there were American flags outside of every house. There was the candle light vigil/controlled anarchy in the streets (my boy Buster made a torch out of newspaper, screaming some anti-islamic rhetoric). EVERYONE bought into that shit. I did to a point, too. I definatly considered it within the realm of possibility that Islamic extremists had planned a massive attack on the financial center of the United States.

So, after a few months of FOXNEWS keeping everyone indoors, scared, and eyes glued to the scrolling words on the bottom of the screen, President Bush was sending troops. I remember thinking "A bit fucking late for that, eh?" Everyone was talking about how we were gonna catch Osama Bin Laden. Everyone was ready for a fight. But our old pal TV kept everyone in check. There were videos of a few different Osama Bin Ladens threatening this and that. Each time I'm thinking "That's not the same dude from before". Furthermore, I knew that this went deeper than Al-Quada or the Taliban. Something didn't sit right.

So my punk rock intuition kicked in. I though "if this is what everyone believes to be fact, it can't be true. These people are fucking idiots! Distractable, greedy, weaselly idiots!" So in true punk rock fashion, I looked at the president as the first scapegoat. I wasn't so much interested in facts as I was just getting President Bush impeached, after hearing all this hype about "prior knowledge" and such.

By this time, I was going to school with a bright red patch on the arm of the previously mentioned plaid green flannel that said "FUCK WAR". The other arm had a swastika patch with a red strike through it. None of the Brockton High administration said anything, probably fearing some crazy freedom of speech controversy. I was pretty much quiet at school, so I think they just let it slide. I was listening to a lot of Anti-Flag and getting into the more informed political side of things.

"A New Kind Of Army" and "No Borders, No Nations" truly inspired me to find what it was I truly believed, as I had learned at this point the you couldn't put punk rock in a box. You couldn't just say "Oh, this is how punk rockers think" (though I'm a big fan of this joke: How many punks does it take to change a lightbulb? None, cuz punks can't change anything! BWAHAHAH) This is also around the time now that President Bush declared the "WAR ON TERROR", and even though I was still pretty ignorrant at the time, I remember thinking "How does he expect to declare war on an emotion" as well as musing to myself "The media is spreading more fear and terror than Al-Quada! Send troops into FOXNEWS! SEND THEM TO CNN!"

Then the NOFX album "War on Errorism" came out, and it was a wrap. The lyrics of that album put shit in perspective for me. It made me realize I was this one guy with my eyes open (blurry they may be) in a sea of fucking people with their eyes stapled shut, iPod headphones in their ears, wearing football jerseys with a fucking beer in one hand and syringe filled to the tip with morpine in the other, shooting themselves up with blind, distracted ignorrance.

It was around this time I was getting in to hip-hop like Gangstarr, Tribe Called Quest, Afrika Baambatta, EPMD, you know.. That ill shit. At the time I wasn't in a band anymore, and I had been making rap beats for the fun of it. It only made sense to put words to them. I wasn't the best, but knowing that I come from a circle of punk kids and such who may not be diggin the idea of me trying to rap, I was sooo fucking determined to be good. I didn't wanna be wack like the rappers at Brockton High who like punchlines with the joke implying they have a bigger gun than their theoretical opponent and how they would use it.

It was the same paper chasing, blind mother fuckers..

Not seeing the writing on the walls..

Not seeing the massive changes happening around them.

But they weren't the only ones.

Seemed like it was the new thing. Willingly giving up freedom in exchange for a false sense of security they would never have. This was like 2003, or something. It's almost 2010 and it's the same story. People are still afraid Bin Laden's gonna come into their houses and put anthrax in their mountain dew. Alot changed since then. My hip-hop tastes moved from Gangstarr towards Jedi Mind Tricks, Non Phixion, and that hard as nails street shit. Not the coke slinging street shit, the "I shot reagan" street shit. There was something so fucking punk about all that. That's what made me decide to find who's really responsible.

Whether or not I found who's to blame or if I ever will remains to be seen. But I'm on a constant search for answers. Not just politically.

SPIRITUALLY

See, what I learned was that the revolution is with YOU. It's not who we are against. It's what WE'RE FOR. It's about personal freedom, to decide what to think, free of media manipulation and opinionated journalists. I'm not gonna sit here and tell you that 9/11 was an inside job. If you feel so inclined to question it, look into it. There's alot of information for either side. I'm not gonna tell you to believe the Illuminati and Luciferians control the world because I believe that. However, as it is my views I will speak on these subjects, and now that I have a beautiful baby girl to look after, I seek change more than ever. And not that bullshit Obama change. I mean spiritual, social, mental and personal change.

We cannot keep living the way we do without consequence.

We can't pretend like it's going away.

It's getting worse.

But I am not without hope.

More and more people are awakening to the concept of, not losing their freedom, but of having never felt freedom.

You don't have to believe in God, Allah, Yaweh, Krishna, Buddha, Santa Clause, Hans Glockenspiel or fucking Spiderman.

But it is imperitive that each person finds something in themselves worth believing in. Proof of the connection each of us feels with one another. That goes for you, me, the starving homeless wrapped up in the soiled blankets, Pennywise, DJ Premier and Guru, the mindless drones of indoctrinated social slaves.. We are all born into this world naked and defenseless. No exceptions. There is a spirit energy that connects us all. You will know it's there when you look at the sky. Look at any point of the sky. Think of what lies directly underneath. It's the sorrow, the joy, the numbness, the heat of emotion. It's that blunt being rolled, it's that wife being smacked around, it's that 15 year old girl pouting cuz her parents took their cell phone, it's the Graffiti writers, it's the police, the wealthy, it's the poor, it's the living, it's the dying. It's all of us.

Can you feel it?

-AlexOne!!

Ottomic Blue's interview with The Dirtball

Ottomic Blue's interview with Suburban Noize recording artist the Dirtball, published in SubLife Magazine in 2007