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We’ve seen it happen time and time again: Hollywood gets its oily, coked-up clutches on the rights to a beloved video game from our childhood and proceeds to butcher it royally on the big screen. The following is a short but potent list of the four worst examples.
Brace yourself; it won’t be pretty.

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Joe Bartley is a guest writer whose witty commentary has been heard and seen around the campus of New England Institute of Art.  Follow him at www.twitter.com/redspectrejoe.

Eight years after his first foray into feature films with his unique take on our childhood fears in Monster’s Inc.; Pete Doctor gives the world his newest vision in Pixar’s UP. Accompanied by Co-Director and Writer Bob Peterson the pair has created what I would hesitantly call Pixar’s most mature movie to date. This statement is made knowing full well that while there are childish elements in the film including an army of talking dogs, it is a movie that deals with themes and concepts which are often foreign and absent from these films.

Up is first and foremost a film about promises and devotion to those promises. The story follows an elderly man named Carl Frederickson who has spent his whole life with his wife Elle standing by his side. After she dies of an untold disease, he takes up her last wish to live in Paradise Falls, a place, which was discovered by their childhood hero Charles Muntz. Carl is joined by a young boy named Russel who is a boy scout hoping to get his “helping the elderly” badge so that he can become a senior scout. He has the unfortunate luck of being on Carl’s porch when the house takes off and becomes Carl’s companion much to the dismay of Mr. Fredrickson who was expecting an easy trip to Paradise falls.

Like The Life Aquatic and The Venture Brothers, up exists in a world where the imagination of children was captured by the idea of the adventurer on film. The man who personifies this myth is Charles Muntz, a man who was revered by the scientific and exploring communities until one of his findings was found to be a hoax. This causes him to leave the spotlight and chase after the creature that he found much like Steve Zissou’s Jaguar Shark. Charles plays the role of the foil to Carl showing what happens when a promise is held to tightly and one becomes lost to the pursuit of it.

UP is also a film about dreams. It is a film that tries to teach us that our dreams are what make us tick. They are what drives us and causes us to strive for something more than the mundane. The film very subtly states that one must never stop dreaming and moving forward otherwise they may very well lose themselves in the process.

This film was not what I expected. It was smart and charming but it also touched me in ways few Pixar films have. We expect certain things from Pixar; love, laughter, family, characters, but I did not expect those things to come together in such a way that it would bring together the hardships and joys of both childhood and old age so well. Whether or not you agree with me, I promise you will enjoy this film.

Joe Bartley is a guest writer whose witty commentary has been heard and seen around the campus of New England Institute of Art in Boston, Massachusetts.  Follow him at www.twitter.com/redspectrejoe.

This week Sam Raimi’s newest foray into filmmaking, Drag Me to Hell, releases to the jaded audiences of the United States. I entered this movie much like any other viewer thinking that it would be another generic horror movie with pitiful acting, bad storytelling, and overall just a sad excuse for a film. I can happily say that the festering taste of SpiderMan 3 was wiped away from my mouth and a new nectar replaced it that was both rich and delicious.

Drag Me to Hell tells the story of Christine Brown, a loan officer at a bank who shames an old gypsy woman, this causes her to be the victim of the gypsy’s curse which calls a demon known as the Lamia into the world so that it can torment her and after three days drag her to hell (clever). This is all decently standard fair among horror films and if this was all that was in the movie my enjoyment of it would have been nigh unrecognizable. What most people will not tell you is that this movie is hilarious. Comedy gold is found in this film and not because it is so bad it’s funny but because the writing and delivery are impeccably funny. Written by both Sam and Ivan Raimi, the humor is both black and blunt, much like what was found in another film of theirs, Army of Darkness.

The cast in the film does an excellent job of selling the film as well, Alison Lohman does a decent job at playing the tormented heroine and while some scenes she is altogether too stoic, for the most part you believe her performance. It is again however Justin Long who truly convinces you of this world, as both Christine’s boyfriend and logical foil his cynical nature and devotion bring an element of a loving relationship into this film. How this kid is not heralded yet is beyond me. He is head’s and above better than Shia (could not bang Megan Fox in real life) LaBeouf.

All in all this film is a better horror movie than any I have seen in the last two years with the one exception of Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon (Yes I’m plugging go watch this film damn it.) It is a fun, funny, and truly creepy flick that deserves the attention and hopefully will be a turning point for the horror genre into something we do not have to be ashamed of.