(2013) Dean Koontz’s series of Odd Thomas novels now numbers six. I stopped reading after book four because an initially good concept had grown patently awful, succumbing to the law of diminishing returns. By contrast, Stephen Sommers’ film adaptation, a would-be franchise-starter itself, never gets the chance to devolve into tedium; it is that from […]
dean
Posted inMusic
Heavy cargo
Dean DeLeo — guitarist for veteran alt-rockers Stone Temple Pilots — has played all over the world. But only in the Sooner State can he get pancakes served by a fellow freak rocker and petroleum jelly enthusiast. “I love coming to Oklahoma. I love coming to Oklahoma City. I love when Wayne Coyne cooks […]
Posted inArts & Culture
The Fog
The picture depicts a supernatural takeover of the sleepy California coastal town of Antonio Bay by a band of ghost pirates seeking revenge for their deaths 100 years prior. They menace the entire populace, but for the purposes of this story, Carpenter focuses primarily on the DJ of the lighthouse radio station (Adrienne Barbeau, Swamp […]
Posted inArts & Culture
RED 2
Its inevitable successor, RED 2 (the acronym stands for “Retired, Extremely Dangerous,” per the comic-book source material), is, instead, a caricature of a caricature, one that revels in its lack of substance to the point of phlegmatic disinterest. The film revisits retired CIA agent Frank Moses (Bruce Willis, A Good Day to Die Hard), who, […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Hopper: A Journey into the American Dream — Tom Folsom
Folsom traces the life of Dennis Hopper through its four distinct phrases: Kansas farm boy, Method actor/James Dean worshipper, pharmaceutical madman, comeback kid. That he had a fourth at all continues to amaze me, especially after reading all the details. The kinder, gentler Hopper was hardly one to shy away from admitting his battles with […]
Posted inArts & Culture
13 Eerie
At least not at first. Six forensic-science students are boated and then bussed into a body farm adjacent to the 13 Eerie Strait Penitentiary for a “Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Team” exercise. It’s a field exam to test their wits and skills for FBI readiness, with corpses placed carefully around the island grounds. The plan […]
Posted inArts & Culture
How to Save a Marriage and Ruin Your Life
That she should be honored to be subservient. That a 28-year-old blonde bombshell would have trouble landing a beau until some 51-year-old man came sliming along. I’m being harsh, but this Dean Martin/Stella Stevens pairing — now part of the burned-on-demand Sony Pictures Choice Collection — engages in all of these and more. I wasn’t […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Method to the Madness of Jerry Lewis
While undeniably watchable, the project is a pure puff piece. After all, it counts Lewis among its producers, so no way he’s getting treated with anything with less than kid gloves. Anything in his life that might be considered a boat rocker is absent: divorce, bankruptcy, Hardly Working, The Day the Clown Cried, etc. I […]
Posted inArts & Culture
The Possession
Now that the former has followed the latter onto Blu-ray and DVD, the difference is startlingly clear: The Possession is by far the superior ghost story. I’d expect nothing less from Evil Dead mastermind Sam Raimi, who produced it under his Ghost House Pictures banner, which has brought some of the better entries in the […]
Posted inArts & Culture
The Ghostmaker
A little research reveals it was built by an inventor of torture devices — a man considered “an evil version of Leonardo da Vinci. They called him the Devil’s Craftsman.” The coffin is a “ghost machine” constructed to allow its users to safely experience the sensation of death without actually dying. One goldfish test later, […]