Steve Stebbing

Breaking down all things pop culture

#TBT Cinematic Moments

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May 17, 2018

Horror fans are a very particular bunch with particular taste. Not to say we’re picky – you need to watch everything to reserve the right to bitch, but, man, will we have opinions about it. The more consistent debates come with horror franchises like Halloween, Nightmare On Elm Street and Friday The 13th, aside from the former. We all know that the original film stands tall in that series but we’re always raising the question “which one is your favorite?” Well, this week one of these films is celebrating its thirtieth anniversary and provided me with the perfect opportunity to gush over it.

When the question is posed about Friday The 13th, the answers are varying. Some will say the first one, which sets the tone without the main monster of Jason Voorhees appearing until the end. Others may opt for The Final Chapter for the first appearance of Tommy Jarvis or Jason Takes Manhattan which takes the scope of this franchise to a new level. A word to the wise and a general rule, if anyone says A New Beginning you should remove them from your life. You don’t need that kind of person In your life. My favorite film in the series is none of these. Instead, I opt for Friday The 13th Part VII: The New Blood, a film that tried so much to set itself apart from everything that came before it and, unfortunately, got kind of buried.

Why do I adore this film? Well, the first reason is simply the fact that Kane Hodder made his first outing as Jason Voorhees in this film and added a whole new dimension to the character. His walk was far more menacing, an unstoppable beast with a palpable yet silent determination and that head tilt he would add to his mannerisms is nothing short of iconic now. The man, as much as he could, lived the gimmick. Heck, he’s known to get all “hulked up” on set and chasing actors even after the cut had been called, a dedication to the gimmick and a love for the monster that flows through every fibre of Kane Hodder.

Secondly, John Carl Buechler made this film and if you’re unfamiliar with his work, you need to pick up copies of From Beyond, A Nightmare On Elm Street 4: The Dream Master, and Ghoulies because he’s the mastermind behind the effects on that. In his directorial and special effects capacity behind New Blood, he added unique and original kills, great atmosphere and a fantastic look at a water decayed Jason that we hadn’t seen up to this point. Buechler fought for many things in his vision of a Jason Voorhees film, which included pushing for Hodder to replace C.J. Graham in the role and the multiple cuts he begrudgingly made to save the movie from an MPAA enforced X rated cut. Thinking about all that we didn’t see really makes me long for a director’s cut, which, thirty years later, feels like a dream that will go unfulfilled.

Lastly, this entire story really took a chance on being different. Jason finally goes to battle with an opponent who is formidable, even if she doesn’t think so at the start of the film. Tina Shepherd, played by Lar Park-Lincoln, is a psychokinetic teenage girl who inadvertently awakens a chained and water buried Jason from an over ten-year slumber with a psychic nudge. As she slowly gets a grasp on her abilities, the potential battle goes from being very one-sided to an even playing field as this “Carrie versus the monster” type story progresses and that final battle between Jason and Tina on the lake is pretty awesome, even now. Paramount was pushing for a high concept version of Friday The 13th and I think it was delivered on, even if the mainstream doesn’t agree. If only more franchise sequels took a chance like many of these did between 1985 to 1990 and we’d have a different horror landscape today. That’s right, I just called Friday The 13th Part VII: The New Blood a landmark film. Fight me.

Categories: #TBT•

The Lynda Steele Show – May 17

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May 17, 2018

This week Steve chats with guest host Niki Reitmeyer about the cancelation and resurrection of Brooklyn Nine-Nine which took place over the course of two days and the controversy known as Lars Von Trier rearing its head at Cannes again. Talking new releases, Steve praises the arrival of Vancouver’s own Ryan Reynolds reprising his anti-hero role in Deadpool 2 and the hot-button issue of teen suicide being at the center of the second season of 13 Reasons Why for better or worse.

https://omny.fm/shows/steele-drex/at-the-box-office-with-steve-stebbing-22/embed

This Week’s Dumpster Fires

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May 16, 2018

Life Of The Party – Let’s just start this one off by saying that I do not dislike Melissa McCarthy. It’s quite the contrary because I think she is very gifted and I usually enjoy the work she puts out. I adored her quick scene in Go before I even knew who she was, she is my favorite thing about my wife rewatching Gilmore Girls and she has surprised me multiple times with the quality of films like Spy, St. Vincent and her performance in Bridesmaids. What I don’t find funny is her work with her husband Ben Falcone, all of which come off as her trying to bring Chris Farley into the current generation, like the previous one has forgotten about him. Pratt falls, awkward jokes, weight gags, all which feel beneath a comedienne of her stature but maybe this is her style of comedy and it just doesn’t hit me in the right way. Even so, anytime I hear their names mentioned together I smell the burning of a trash fire but, to be fair, it is said that this is the best of the three films they made together. The other two, Tammy and The Boss, are to be avoided at all costs.

Breaking In – Being that it was Mother’s Day weekend, we got a double dose of mother heavy themes including the aforementioned Life Of The Party about a mom going back to college. This film, on the other hand, is a showing of how kick ass moms can be. Bad Boys and Bad Boys II star Gabrielle Union plays the mother of two who must break into her late father’s impenetrable fortress of a mansion to rescue her kids from the clutches of four criminals. While, on the outside, this film may sound a bit like a flip version of David Fincher’s Panic Room it is decidedly not at all and the first glaring difference is the director. Instead of having arguably one of the best in the game, you have James McTeigue, a guy that has only V For Vendetta under his belt to impress you and otherwise can’t get a first act going to keep your interest or has everything fall to pieces in the third act after a promising set up. This is the guy who was brought in to “save” Oliver Hirschbeigel’s Invasion Of The Body Snatchers by reshooting the last act and RUINED IT! Secondly, this film was written by the guy behind Liam Neeson movies like Non-Stop and The Commuter while Panic Room was from David Koepp, you know, the guy behind Spider-Man and Jurassic Park. Yeah, these comparisons aren’t even fair.

The Matrix Reloaded – Do you feel that in the air, that aura of disappointment? Well, that’s because fifteen years ago this week the Wachowski’s released the hotly anticipated follow up to their landmark and genre-defining film The Matrix with The Matrix: Reloaded. Remember the feeling of wide-eyed wonder at what would be the continuing story for Neo? The crushing defeat of this film will always live in a bit of infamy with me, especially since I had gone through the letdown of the Star Wars prequels and still had the precocious innocence that it couldn’t happen again. Living in the age of sequels coming over ten years after the originals and crapping the bed, I long for the sequel my beloved stories quicker but this one still stings a decade and a half later. That said, the highway fight sequence is still absolutely awesome and to see it on the big screen was a total treat. That’s all you get, Lily and Lana!

Star Trek: Into Darkness – Before J.J. Abrams was overseeing things in another galaxy long ago and far, far away, he was (and still is) the main integral producer of the Star Trek films and the director of the first reboot film as well as this one, released five years ago this week. Look, I’m not a dedicated Trekkie so I really had fun with the first film, one that messed with the timeline and tries to forge a new path while also serving up some fan service. Heading into production. We were getting hints and rumors that Abrams desperately strived to keep hidden but the potential casting of Benicio del Toro as the villain had the same effect on all of us. We were getting Khan. You know, that awesome villain from the best Star Trek film ever made, The Wrath of Khan. Then del Toro departed and we got Benedict Cumberbatch and the promise from J.J. that “no, Khan was not the villain.” Well, spoiler alert, but that was bullshit. Cumberbatch was a pasty-faced and British Khan Noonan Singh and everything felt like the flip and reverse of Wrath of Khan but in a wholly underwhelming way. It took a slightly better Star Trek Beyond to wipe that taste out of our mouth but the damage has been done and Simon Pegg can only save us so much. What does the future hold with two movies coming at us, including a Quentin Tarantino written one and the debut of a female director in the series? I’m trying to remain optimistic but I keep referring to stupid things in this film like Carol Marcus stripping down to her underwear for NO DISCERNIBLE REASON! It shouldn’t bother me but it does.

High Spots Of The Week – May 11 – 17

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May 15, 2018

Revenge – Coming from first-time feature writer and director Coralie Fargeat, this is a film you will not forget and one I may have sitting in my top ten at the end of this year. A film in the vein of I Spit On Your Grave but with a “never say die” feminist edge, this movie kicked my ass with its unrelenting blood and violence coupled with its beauty, both in the savage sense and the awesome vibrancy it gives off. The story follows a rich man’s mistress who, while at his beautiful remote mansion in the wilderness, is sexually assaulted by his friends and, when she threatens to tell his wife of their activities in an ultimatum to get airlifted back home, things get ugly. He ends up tossing her off the cliff where she is impaled on a tree and, believing that she is dead and their problems are over, the trio goes on their planned hunting trip. Our main, played by Rings’ Matilda Lutz, is definitely not dead and hunts our three hunters down and to say they get their due might be an understatement. Textured in a way that is both gorgeous at times and horrific at other times, Revenge is a film that felt absolutely satisfying in the art film sense, has the gore to abate those craving it and one of the most bad ass women on screen since Imperator Furiousa.

The Little Prince – Talk about a beautiful film for all ages that was completely lost in a petty studio shuffle. This movie was an adaptation of a beloved French children’s book, one that many in the know were looking forward to, and then, just one week before release, the distributor Paramount Pictures drops the film entirely. This is totally tragic as the film is gorgeous, inspiring and contains a beautiful message for the whole family to pick up on. Loosely, the film follows a little girl whose mother constantly pushes her to be the best in all of her academics leaving her no time for imagination. Her neighbor, an old aviator, tries to open her mind to the possibilities locked within by introducing her to the stories of the Little Prince and his world. The good news is now, thanks to great minds at Netflix, this movie will be available as of Thursday the 17th of May on the streaming service. I do believe that with a good theatrical push this movie would have found a sizeable audience but now it has a new opportunity to find this and more through the discussion I hope it will bring.

Black Panther – Wakanda piece would this be if I didn’t mention that the highest rated solo superhero film was now on Blu-Ray? Definitely, one that reused that overused pun, which I apologize for, but the opportunity to own this fantastic actioner from the Marvel Cinematic Universe should be a no-brainer. Director Ryan Coogler makes the third film in his stellar career, following Fruitvale Station and Creed, but this one is his biggest yet and kind of the new standard to hold him by. This is the first to solely focus on a black hero in this long list of Marvel films and does it with such original flair that it really sets itself apart from what came before. It does suffer a bit from origin film tropes but Chadwick Boseman continues his great command of T’Challa, the King of Wakanda, and main Coogler staple Michael B. Jordan creates a villain that is not only completely devoid of the one dimensional MCU bad guy problem but makes one that in another light could be the hero. Other than the actual movie being the main seller of why to pick this up, it features extensive behind the scenes features, a gag reel, a look at the upcoming Ant-Man & The Wasp, as well as, my personal favorite, feature commentary by Ryan Coogler himself. If nothing, this will definitely tide you over until Infinity War hits the shelves.

The Shift With Drex – May 11

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May 12, 2018

This week on the show, Steve chats with Drex about the two big Mother’s Day appropriate releases of Life Of The Party and Breaking In as well as the more limited release of The Seagull and the astounding new French film Revenge. New on Blu-Ray, there’s some serious mocking of Fifty Shades Freed and one of the best war films ever gets a 20th anniversary 4K edition.

https://omny.fm/shows/the-shift-with-drex/at-the-movies-with-steve-stebbing-may-11/embed?style=artwork

#TBT Cinematic Moments

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May 10, 2018

If you’re a film fan and you haven’t heard of writer-director Jeff Nichols yet, well, you have not been paying attention close enough. Making his debut film just over ten years ago, Shotgun Stories was one I picked up in my video store days, a well written volatile story with a blistering performance from Michael Shannon. Nichol’s leading man would be consistent for him, playing in the rest of the films on his resume in some way or another, and eliciting an amazing performance from Shannon is as easy for him as breathing. Shannon isn’t the only person to benefit from this masterful filmmaker as Nichols work also elevates any actor or actress that works with him. Case in point is my film focus this week, Mud starring Matthew McConaughey and Reese Witherspoon which celebrates its five year anniversary as I write this.

The film follows two young boys, played by Jacob Lofland and the now wildly popular Ready Player One star Ty Sheridan, who encounter a possibly dangerous drifter (McConaughey) on their daily journey to a little island along the Mississippi River who says his name is Mud (insert Primus joke here). The boys start up a fast friendship with him, bringing him food and supplies, eventually getting the story of why he came to be on the island. Mud is waiting for the love of his life, a woman named Juniper (Witherspoon) with bird tattoos on her hands, who he pines for every day. The boys decide to help their new found friend by trying to orchestrate a reunion between the two.

Mud is a film that McConaughey shot during the best part of his career so far, one lovingly dubbed the “ReConaughsance” where he has a career resurgence that earned him an Academy Award. Nestled in there was this raw gem of a performance that has the Texas actor wearing his emotions on his sleeve and Reese Witherspoon gives possibly my favorite showing of her career aside from Walk The Line. This film is all about character but deeper than that it’s about the history of these characters and what effect it has on their present and future. This results in a heartwarmingly Southern tale that has no bloat and no filler.

As Jeff Nichols continues to cement himself as one of the best filmmakers working today, his last films being the brilliant biopic Loving and the southern fried Spielberg sci-fi film Midnight Special, there are more and more people discovering him every day. Mud, I feel, is a great introduction piece to his writing and character building in a straightforward drama before you get into something more cerebral, especially his second flick, the brilliantly paranoid Take Shelter. It’s a creator like him and a film like this that sticks in your mind as the more belly satisfying cinema, one that you can chew on and break down long after the end credits have hit the screen.

Categories: #TBT•

The Lynda Steele Show – May 10

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May 10, 2018

This week Steve talks about the expulsion of Bill Cosby and Roman Polanski from The Academy with Lynda and the long journey and roadblocks in the way of Terry Gilliam’s long-gestated Don Quixote film. This week’s big film is Melissa McCarthy’s Life Of The Party and Steve made a delightful family-friendly discovery on Netflix, A Little Help with Carol Burnett.

https://omny.fm/shows/steele-drex/at-the-box-office-with-steve-stebbing-21/embed

This Week’s Dumpster Fires

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May 8, 2018

Overboard – As a child perusing the video store shelves, years before my horror fascination, I would always hit up the comedy section. If I wasn’t renting Airplane and its sequel or The Jerk for the umpteenth time, I was usually trying to find something I hadn’t seen before within the parameters of my age, also known as what my mom would let me watch. This led me to discover films like The Party, Stripes and, my personal favorite, anything with Goldie Hawn. When I laid eyes on a movie starring her and Jack Burton himself Kurt Russell, well, Overboard was a game changer in my little mind. So, when I heard that this would get the remake treatment I was probably a little irate. The film was about a bitchy heiress who, after falling off her boat, is convinced that she is the husband of a carpenter she screwed over in an act of revenge. For this remake, the genders have been swapped and one of my beloved comedy stars Anna Faris plays the Russell role leaving me conflicted but the trailer is a hot mess of mediocrity. Comedian Eugenio Derbez stars in the opposing role and I’m at a loss to who he is honestly, aside from a bit role in the crapsicle Geostorm, and does nothing to sell this movie. This may be the rare case where the remake is so bad that it tarnishes how much I enjoy the original which on its own may be marginally good at best. Ugh.

Happy Death Day is granted a sequel – I may be taking crazy pills but I thought the Universal Pictures Groundhog Day style horror film Happy Death Day was nothing more than a heavy turd but for a large part of the audience apparently it was a hit. Well, now we will be subjected to a follow up with star Jessica Rothe returning and my question is how? We had a full resolution at the end without the usual horror stinger to set up a sequel AND the male lead equated the entire plot of the film to “that Bill Murray” movie this putting it as part of our world. There’s just so many issues with this film and yet we’re getting a new film to be gobbled up by the mindless masses. To quote the big orange tyrant south of the border, “sad!” Don’t even get me started on the fact that this was written by Scott Lobdell, the mind behind Marvel Comics series like Generation X, Excalibur and X-Factor. My comic nerd side weeps…

High Spots Of The Week – May 4-10

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May 8, 2018

Tully – The combo of writer Diablo Cody and director Jason Reitman has always been a winning one for me ever since I got my advance look at Juno in 2007. On her own, Cody struck out a bit with Jennifer’s Body but the two reunited for Young Adult with Charlize Theron and knocked another one out of the park. Well, they did it again with Tully, a film that feels so embedded in the plight of exhausted and overworked parents that I found myself nodding constantly at the screen and chuckling with every moment that I or my hardworking wife could relate to. Theron digs into reality again, coming up with another viscerally real performance as Marlo, a mother of three who has lost all of her identity in the process of raising her kids. The hiring of Tully, an untethered night nanny with the life philosophies to pull her out of her funk just adds another loveable character into this already wholly endearing film. It also doesn’t hurt that she’s played by Vancouver’s own Mackenzie Davis. Don’t miss this one!

Redbelt – There’s something to be said about David Mamet film and, really, it’s the dialogue that gives them their must-see appeal. Glengarry Glen Ross has blistering words flying a mile a minute out of a brilliant cast and the criminally underrated The Salton Sea had a noseless villain in the form of Vincent D’onofrio’s Pooh Bear lamenting putting his enemy’s brains in his breakfast scramble. Another under the radar film was this MMA centric drama starring Chiwetel Ejiofor following a teacher and former fighter who gets a lucrative opportunity out of a bit of unfortunate happenstance. As it turns out, Mamet had been training in Brazilian Ju-Jitsu for six years before writing this film and the authenticity is palpable. Ejiofor executes everything with effortless ease, matching his usual dramatic flourish that he always gives on screen. Celebrating its tenth anniversary this week, it’s a great time to discover this one for the first time.

Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story – Years before he was Vin Diesel’s boy, making The Fast And The Furious and XXX, Rob Cohen was known to me as the guy who brought the life of Bruce Lee to the big screen in Dragon, a film I watched a hell of a lot as a young teen. Jason Scott Lee (no relation) plays the title role impeccably but it’s interesting to note that he had no previous martial arts training or experience, although he was a skilled dancer which is what earned him the role. Turning twenty five this week, the film was released twenty years after Bruce Lee’s death and still finds a warm spot in my action-loving heart as I will still watch it every time I see it on television, especially if it’s the scene where Bruce confronts his “demon” on the set of Enter The Dragon. It’s still so bad ass.  Also, if you’re looking for films to snug up next to this one, the Ip Man series is the story of the man behind training Bruce Lee and, coincidentally, it stars the man who was turned down for the lead in Dragon, Donnie Yen.

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