Sound On Sight

Part two of this week's SOS housecleaning is another motley bunch - a quiet French arthouse flick (Claire Denis' 35 Shots of Rum), a Canadian auteur's latest (Atom Egoyan's Adoration), both new to DVD, as well as Jared Hess' (Napoleon Dynamite) new comedy Gentlemen Broncos. Music provided by stalwart Claire Denis collaborators Tindersticks.

Part one of this week's major housecleaning here at SOS concerns two retro throwbacks, and something decidedly different. Of the first sort, we have Ti West's celebrated horror flick The House of the Devil, as well as Scott Sanders' blaxploitation spoof / homage Black Dynamite. The odd one out is Australian director Adam Elliott's five-years-in-the-making claymation tale about an Asperger's sufferer and his young pen pal.

If Jesus gets to show up two months early for Christmas, with his goddamned Jingle Cats CDs and Jim Carrey movies, then I decree that we here at Sound on Sight can make Halloween last just a little bit longer. So, even though it’s almost mid-November, who’s to say we can’t still have a little spooky fun while the rest of the continent buys Nintendo DS games for their Mongoloid nephews. Tonight, we take a look at two films from cult director Richard Stanley, Dust Devil and the newly released Blu-Ray of Hardware. We’re also going to take a look at the new collector’s edition of 80s genre comedy Night of the Creeps, and the theatrical release of alien abduction chiller The Fourth Kind.

Writer-director Richard Kelly hasn't been around too long, but his three features have all been the subject of intense debate: Is Donnie Darko the great sci-fi fable of the 2000s or a teen angst pretension pit? Is Southland Tales, as the Village Voice's J. Hoberman contends, a a "visionary" film, or creative control gone horribly wrong? And is his latest, The Box, an incomprehensible sci-fi mishmash or a return to form? Al, Mariko and Simon attempt to answer all these questions without falling into any aquatic time portals.

In 1968, director George A. Romero transformed cinematic zombies from a bunch of brain-damaged Haitians working on farms to a cannibalistic apocalyptic plague with Night of the Living Dead. The influential film was also helped solidify horror as a genre which filmmakers could experiment with fantasy as social allegory, draping metaphor in flayed skin and decorative loops of intestine. Following Night of the Living Dead, Romero has re-visited the well of the living dead five times and counting, with Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead, Land of the Dead, diary of the Dead, and this year’s Survival of the Dead. Today, in the second episode from Sound on Sight spinoff show, your hosts Ricky D, Detroit Burns, and Al Kratina discuss George A. Romero’s influential zombie series starting with Land of the Dead to his most recent Survival of the Dead.

In 1968, director George A. Romero transformed cinematic zombies from a bunch of brain-damaged Haitians working on farms to a cannibalistic apocalyptic plague with Night of the Living Dead. The influential film was also helped solidify horror as a genre which filmmakers could experiment with fantasy as social allegory, draping metaphor in flayed skin and decorative loops of intestine. Following Night of the Living Dead, Romero has re-visited the well of the living dead five times and counting, with Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead, Land of the Dead, diary of the Dead, and this year’s Survival of the Dead. Today, in the inaugural podcast from Sound on Sight spinoff show, your hosts Ricky D, Detroit Burns, and Al Kratina discuss George A. Romero’s influential zombie series starting with the original trilogy.

With Halloween looming, Ricky, Al and Simon take the opportunity to catch up on two recent supernaturally-inclined movies, as well as one '80s chestnut that recently got the neutered, PG-13 remake treatment. New in theaters: the word-of-mouth phenom Paranormal Activity, made on eleven grand and beating out Saw VI at the box office, and book series adaptation Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant, the latest attempt to get younger audiences in seats through bloodsucking. Finally, long before Lost, Terry O'Quinn starred as family-values serial killer Jerry Blake in '80s horror flick The Stepfather, and we've decided to bypass the dismally received remake, and instead talk about the 1987 version.

Now that it's finally hit DVD, Sound on Sight takes a long-delayed look at a documentary that some are lauding as one of the year's best: Anvil: The Story of Anvil, which chronicles its titular Toronto metal band as they attempt to stage an ambitious European comeback tour after years of complete obscurity. To tie in to that film, we'll also be talking about the similarly inclined doc Metallica: Some Kind of Monster, as well as the legendary mockumentary that winds up informing both docs quite a bit : Rob Reiner's This Is Spinal Tap.

No two childhoods are exactly alike. For every youth full of Little League and orange floats, another is spent living in a shack, poking dead animals with sticks, and making hobo weapons out of scrap metal and bed springs. Tonight, Sound on Sight takes a look at a wide spectrum of cinematic childhoods, as we review the flights of fancy of Spike Jonze’s Where the Wild Things Are, the demented leg-humping sexuality of the Greek Kynodontas (aka Canine or Dogtooth), and the misery porn of Precious.

This weekend, the 14th feature from Joel and Ethan Coen finally hit Montreal, so we're once again delving into the filmography of the Minnesotan duo. We'll be talking about that film, a dark 1960s-set comedy entitled A Serious Man, as well as two of the brothers' cult favorites: their dark neo-noir debut Blood Simple and the stoner caper comedy The Big Lebowski.

George A. Romero Interview part 1

Perhaps, in the early 1980s, while he was still in film school, Danish director Lars von Trier saw one of the US’ highest grossing feel-good comedies, like Risky Business or Mr. Mom. And then decided to make exact opposite film for the rest of his life. If he did, then he’s kept that promise, churning out movies that are best accompanied by a barbiturate overdose while Gloomy Sunday plays on a phonograph. His latest project, Antichrist, is no exception. It tells the story of a couple who, after losing their son, travel to a secluded cabin, where the wife deals with her grief and guilt by masturbating in front of Satanic Bambi extras and mutilating her husband’s crotch. Tonight, Sound and Sight takes a look at von Trier’s controversial new film, as well as 1984’s The Element of Crime, the director’s debut feature.

The Festival de Nouveau Cinéma has begun in earnest, and nobody is more excited than we are. In this hour, Rick, Al and Simon take on a few of the fest's initial offerings, including the widely praised and Nick Hornby-penned An Education, which is widely

Here is the second half to our special on zombies in pop culture from way back when Sound On Sight was known as The Naked Lunch. Unfortunately half the episode has forever been lost, but we still feel the first twenty minutes is worth a listen. Join Jason Martineau and myself as we discuss The Evil Dead and other horror favourites.

The eating of human flesh is one of the last great taboos in Western society, despite the fact that the world’s hunger issues could be easily be solved by eating everyone who looks like they taste of Popeye’s chicken. Perhaps that’s why zombie films are so popular, as they touch on deep-seated, primal fears. As to why zombie comedies find such success, perhaps it’s because for every person quivering with disgust at the reanimated dead, there are two others with computer folders full of dead baby jokes, hatecore, and photos of car wrecks turned into motivational posters. Tonight, Sound on Sight takes a look at the zombie comedy phenomenon, as we review this week’s number one film, Zombieland, as well as British rom-zom-com Shaun of the Dead, and 1985’s Return of the Living Dead.