mobile logo
April 6, 2012
Uncategorized

A Week Late and a Titan Short

BAKER STREET | REVIEW

by Eric J Baker

When did B movies become 150-million-dollar epics? Wrath of the Titans has all the qualities of one (including the casting of semi-big stars in small parts to lend faux gravitas) but at 25 times the price. At least with B movies, whatever money the filmmakers have usually ends up on the screen. And if you spend wisely, 150M buys you a lot of Wrath.

This film resumes the exploits of Greek demigod Perseus (Sam Worthington), last seen in the Clash of the Titans remake two years ago, as he travels to the underworld to rescue his father, Zeus (Liam Neeson), who has been imprisoned by Hades (Ralph Fiennes) at the behest of their father, Kronos (good to see the Balrog getting work again). At its heart, Wrath of the Titans is a tender drama about everything getting smashed to fucking pieces or blown up, though these moments are contrasted nicely by whatever’s left collapsing on itself in a mushroom cloud of annihilation. In a clever subplot, lots of punching and stabbing happens.

Continue reading
By Pure Film Creative
4
0
September 15, 2011
KILLOUGH CHRONICLES

The Girl With The Orchid Medallion

THE KILLOUGH CHRONICLES | REVIEW

by James Killough

Shortly after his disastrous foray into animation with Arthur and the Invisibles in 2006, semi-auteur Luc Besson announced he was retiring from directing.  Steven Soderbergh did the same thing last year.  Both have been directing since they were in their mid-twenties, and the process has clearly long since lost its appeal.  As Marcello Mastroianni, playing an uninspired director in Federico Fellini’s autobiographical 8 ½, says in a panic to his lading lady Claudia Cardinale, “Ma non c’ho niente più da dire!”  But I have nothing left to say!

"Next motherfucker tells me I have a 'bootie like Beyoncé,' I'll blow a hole in his groin with the Mossberg 500. How's my hair?"

Or, as Michael Bay’s putative natural father John Frankenheimer—who was so furious that Bay claimed to be his son that he tried to disprove it, but failed—said in an NPR interview shortly before he died, “Directing is for younger men.”  What Frankenheimer, who directed the seminal thriller French Connection, was referring to was the sort of hyper-kinetic action adventure films he helped pioneer with Connection, and which his natural son took to an extreme that I am not alone in considering unwatchable, despite the fact my dog Henry co-starred in Bay’s graduating student film at Wesleyan University.

Continue reading
By Pure Film Creative
3
0
July 3, 2011
Uncategorized

Giant Robots and the Supermodels Who Love Them

BAKER STREET | REVIEW

 by Eric J Baker

And for my next trick, I will attempt to write intelligently about Michael Bay and the Transformers franchise.

My qualifications for doing so are:

1. I’m not a movie critic.

2. I’m not a Sci-fi summer blockbuster fanboy who drives a yellow Camaro with a BMBLBEE license plate (I swear to Your Deity that I saw that very thing in the Costco parking lot the other day and laughed heartily).

3. Megan Fox vs. Rosie Huntington Whiteley in a no-holds-barred, bikini mud-wrestling extravaganza. This isn’t really a qualification, but today is Str8 Sunday here at PFC and I get to girl the place up for the next 24 hours.

Megan Fox (left) and Rosie Huntington Whilteley, brought to you by Maxim Magazine, casting summer blockbusters since 1999.

First, I’ll address the fanboys’ case… Lads, saying, “But Transformers movies are supposed to be stupid!” will never be an impressive counterpoint to any argument. And now, moving onto the professional reviewers…

Continue reading
By Pure Film Creative
5
0
May 8, 2011
Uncategorized

The Interior Decorator Who Saved Civilization

BAKER STREET

by Eric J Baker

Sexy, hunky, gay Brazilian male models.

PFC readers may have noticed we’ve been dressing up our stories with pictures of them lately. I was not consulted on this editorial decision. Frankly, it’s crass and base and probably other adjectives that end in an “s” sound and connote bad behavior on our part. It also means additional page views for this blog, so I am all for it. In fact, this is a story about man’s body and what it represents in art and film. How’s that for selling out?

Again, we apologize to Baker for having gayed him last week with a picture of a shirtless hunk in his post. However, our page views are up 25% this week, so if we have to start inserting images from The Big Penis Book to bump it to 50%, we will. To make it up to him, this "Death of Cleopatra" by Rixen is the best picture we could find of a shirtless Ancient Egyptian woman, which both complements this article and reestablishes Baker's heterosexuality.

To begin our manflesh journey, we must first travel back in time to the days of the ancient Egyptians, makers of ugly statues. These folks were superstars when it comes to iconographic images: Pyramids. Sphinxes. Hieroglyphics. Gold sarcophagi. Seriously, no one rocks a gold sarcophagus like an ancient Egyptian. But their freestanding sculpture is a different story.

Representations of man in free-standing sculpture before the 5th century B.C.E. are far more interesting as archeological artifacts than as works of art.

Continue reading
By Pure Film Creative
26
0