an american haunting Tagged Articles at Cinematical

There are many directors who I think should be barred from making films, but Courtney Solomon is near the top of the list. He disappointed gamers everywhere with Dungeons & Dragons (some people humorously feel it is worth watching), a movie even he admits is awful, and then tried to redeem himself with the not-much-better An American Haunting. As head of After Dark Films, he has gotten into more than one controversy regarding his advertising practices -- going so far as to be made an example of by the MPAA -- and still hasn't even put out a decent-enough release to make the company worth Lionsgate's trouble. Now the director is looking to annoy us some more by attempting to revolutionize the zombie genre, a plan that he claims is desired by horror fans.

Solomon isn't revealing the title for this proposed movie, which he thankfully won't be directing, but describes it as a "zombie version of Underworld," which sounds bad even if you like Underworld. Worse, though, is his explanation that the zombies in this movie will be fast and emotional, something he says is completely new for the creatures (did he not see the running zombies in the Dawn of the Dead remake or the seemingly conflicted zombies in Land of the Dead?). I'm all for new takes on the genre, but I hope Solomon has more ideas than this. Supposedly the movie will feature a whole new lore for zombies (actually, he calls them part human, part zombie, which is redundant, I think) inspired by conversations had on the web between Solomon's people and real horror geeks, but unless the movie has a good sociological undercurrent -- as the best zombie movies do -- the tweaking of the genre is simply an unnecessary attempt to create something original. But if Solomon truly wants to do something original and to please us movie fans, he needs to make a good movie.

We all have our guilty pleasures. At Cinematical we even bravely expose them to our readers. Sometimes they involve movies we just have an inexplicable affection for. Other times, it's the old case of a movie being so bad its good (read: funny). But rarely does a writer present a guilty pleasure so directly and with such clear evidence that I go out and give that movie a second viewing. And yet, I've received more than enough cause to re-watch Dungeons and Dragons, the role-playing game adaptation from director Courtney Solomon, thanks to a piece by Richard Pilbeam. Pilbeam has offered "64 Reasons to Watch Dungeons and Dragons" on his site Frying Bear, and every one of the reasons is good enough on it's own. He cites specific parts of the movie (including hilarious scene captures of Jeremy Irons), special features from the DVD (including the 2 audio commentaries featuring Solomon), the "making of" book and random facts about the production. Now, I've never played D&D, so I can't say that I appreciate all of the ways in which to laugh at the movie, and I can only imagine how much funnier it is to true geeks out there (our own Mark Beall, perhaps?). The only thing better than Pilbeam's list to enhance Dungeons and Dragons would be a commentary from the MST3K guys (this way or that way). ...

[via Fark.com]

More on Solomon's career:

Courtney Solomon is Glad to Get That D&D Thing Behind Him

Though Mission: Impossible III easily topped the weekend box office with $48 million from over 4000 screens -- the fourth-widest launch ever -- the film's opening is far short of both what was expected (in the $60 million range) and what the first two installments in the series made in their debuts. Whatever the reason for the relatively low open (Are people turned off by Tom Cruise? Nikki Finke is not alone in thinking so.), studios must be a little nervous about this kind of result for the summer's first "blockbuster," particularly given that the movie was fairly well reviewed.

Though it probably won't make the people at Paramount feel any better, the weekend's two other debuts were much, much worse, particularly that of Hoot. Despite opening on over 3000 screens, the Carl Hiaasen adaptation made only $3.4 million with just over $1000/screen -- barely enough to get it into the top 10 (it ended up tied for ninth with Akeelah and the Bee). An American Haunting, meanwhile, finished third with $6.4 million. Holding onto the second slot was RV, which made $11.1 million in its second week of release. Stick it and United 93 rounded out the top five, pulling in $5.5 million and $5.2 million, respectively; in its two weeks of release, United 93 is already in the black with about $20 million against a $15 million budget. The full top 10 is after the jump.

When I was in high school, there was this kid named Frank that everyone thought looked exactly like me. Or maybe they thought I looked like him. Regardless, on a daily basis, I would pass people in the hall who would say, "Hey Frank!" or "You coming out tonight Frank?" See, he was much cooler than I was and so, for the brief moments where I was him, I felt as if I had this completely different life. A life that gave me a beautiful girlfriend and a ton of friends. A life that was the exact opposite of mine. Thanks to Frank, I actually had a life.

Whether we want to or not, there comes a time when we all question our own identities. In my case, after being recognized as someone else and enjoying it, I wondered if there was more to life than hiding in the corner of math class and day-dreaming. Sometimes identity will come into question when faced with a life-altering decision. Or, perhaps, when you're placed into a very unfamiliar situation.

By now, you've probably guessed that the following films all share an underlying theme of identity.  Who are we? Why are we here? What is it were supposed to do? Should we choose destiny or does destiny choose us? I guess, sometimes, it's best that we try and become someone else, if only to figure out who we really are. Welcome to this week's Trailer Park...