I got a myspace bulletin today that read “*SPOILER ALERT* Repost because I woke up and Im still mad.“  It was sent by California artist Alex Pardee and was an honest expression of his feelings about Michael Bay‘s latest  attempt to remake and capitalize off of someone else’s classic film work.  In reading the review, it was immediately clear to me that the style and tone was in the vein of the brand of content that we have tried to provide here on the site.  Filmmaker, Michael Bay, has been a personal issue of mine lately so, it was refreshing to read someone else’s take on the work of the director/producer.  Apart from disaster films (pun intended) like Armageddon , Bay has also been involved with the recent remakes of  The Hitcher, The Amityville Horror, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and the upcoming A Nightmare on Elm Street.  I didn’t have the highest hopes for his version of Friday the 13th but, at the least, I can say that I had more faith in it than Will Smith‘s goal to remake Park Chan-wook‘s amazing South Korean film Old Boy or the wreckless casting of his son Jaden Smith‘s in the a new version of  The Karate Kid.

Alex Pardee, on the other hand, is an artist who’s work I enjoy and do have respect for. I liked his review so much that I actually contacted him today and he gracially agreed to allow us to repost it here on Monster Fresh.  For those who are unaware of Pardee‘s work, he is an accomplished illustrator, apparel designer and writer who has been featured heavily in publications such as Juxtapoz and Hi-Fructose.   As his bio state, “Alex Pardee’s unique style is one conceived through watching years of horror movies, writing graffiti, and listening to gangster rap. His work best represents that of a circus sideshow cemetery.“  He has worked on toy series with Kidrobot and Zero Friends, done album art for The Used, Cage, and In Flames, and even has his own “cinematic” clothing line with Hurley called “Night of the Treeple“.  We highly encourage you to check out his plethora of work, buy his wares, and to go out and catch one of his exhibits if you get the chance.  For now, enjoy his review of the new Friday the 13th; I did.

-Dead C
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(This article has been divided into 2 sections.  The first half is an introduction and review of the “SNUFF” book tour.  Part 2 is a review of the film “CHOKE” .  It is a singular piece and we encourage you to read it in its entirety if you have the time and/or inclination, but please feel free to jump to your specific point of interest)

When the film version of Fight Club was released, it seemed as if any and every pseudo-trendy movie-goer that I spoke with tried to shove their praises of it down my throat.  There were better films released that year (see: “Magnolia“) and Brad Pitt isn’t a name that bumps a film up on my priority list, but I did eventually see it and found it to be worth a recommendation, especially for a Hollywood film.  It definitely lived up to it’s hype much better than “The Blair Witch Project” and “Eyes Wide Shut”, but I didn’t find it to be as cutting edge and revolutionary as many had hailed it to be.  You have to remember that 1999 was the year of “The Sixth Sense” and “The Matrix” or, in other more elaborate words, the year of solid concepts that could have been delivered more effectively outside of Hollywood but were still more than enough to blow Joe Average Consumer’s mind right through the back of their skull.  Regardless of what your feelings about “The Matrix” may be, the quality could have been greatly enhanced without the talents of Ted Theodore Logan in the leading role.  The concept may have been incredibly interesting and foreign to those of you who are isolated and/or have never had a hallucinogenic experience but, for those of us who have experienced the wonders of what linoleum floor patterning has to offer, a methodically constructed false society is an old philosophy and 2: Johnny Utah is a bad trip waiting to happen.  “Fight Club” was a better film and that somehow left me with an ironically diminished interest in the literary source of the script.  What I mean to say is that the glossy, cut-corner Hollywood execution of a film with such a cerebral basis as “The Matrix“, reeked of a commercial takeover while “Fight Club” appeared to be trying to going “balls out” just to fall short of what I would have considered amazing.   I knew that “The Matrix” was 40 milligrams of intellect diluted in a spoonful of Hollywood Rocky Road from the beginning but, “Fight Club” was just good enough for me to assume there would be nothing more to discover from reading the novel that spawned it. (more…)

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(To jump to the first half the article, which includes a review of the “Snuff” book tour, CLICK HERE)

“CHOKE” The Movie

I’d like to begin this review by letting everyone know that it contains what some would refer to as “SPOILERS“.  If you have already read CHOKE and are simply curious about how well one of your favorite novels was adapted into a film, I will be addressing those issues in detail.  Since the creative liberties taken through its transition into cinema are so vast and affect the overall result so much, I wouldn’t know how to approach this review without referring to them with specifics.  If you have not read the book CHOKE yet, I would suggest that you do so before or, rather, instead of seeing the film.   It’s a great novel and masterfully composed.  You, of course, are welcome to continue either way, but know this: I am here to spoil the movie, the movie spoils the book and, although my intention would never be to ruin the book, it may happen indirectly if you are persistent about reading past this paragraph.

I had reservations about the film based on the casting and from what I saw in the trailer but I was still genuinely excited about seeing the film.  I was so excited that I arrived at the Egyptian Theatre on Capitol Hill hours before show time.  The tickets were already all accounted for and some creepy mother fucker tried to scalp some to me.  “How much are tickets anyway?” I asked him.  “How much are MY tickets?” he asked.  “Fuck off, you pedophile looking bastard.“  I got the inside scoop that there was a specific number of tickets held for V.I.P. ticket holders and more would open up to the public if they failed to arrive.  I came back an hour before show time and stood in line, holding spots for my girlfriend and little sister while rain sprinkled down on me.  About 10-15 minutes before the movie started, they released some tickets and we funneled into the theater looking for any open seats that we could find in the packed house. (more…)

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