GRIMM'S SNOW WHITE on DVD Today!!!

Mirror mirror, on the wall, what the most awesome film on DVD today of all? 

A cumbersome opening, to be sure, but the long and short of it is, today, The Asylum's latest production introduces itself to the world via DVD/Blu-Ray/VOD: Grimm's Snow White.

Simply scroll down a few inches to find my notes on the film, which overall I thoroughly enjoyed as an intelligent, thrilling, fantastical twist on the fairy tale. GSW stars the lovely and talented Eliza Bennett as the titular princess, Jane March as her wicked and vain stepmother, and Jamie Thomas King as the charming Prince. 

Written by Naomi Selfman (Mega Python vs Gatoroid, 18 Year Old Virgin) and directed by Rachel Goldenberg (Sherlock Holmes, Princess and the Pony) - two of the Asylum's best, in my humble opinion - this one's a guaranteed good time, but don't take my word for it, I'm biased as hell, go see for yourself then spread the word!

observation notes: GRIMM'S SNOW WHITE

For their next release - Grimm's Snow White, on DVD this coming Tuesday - The Asylum has gotten their fingers on the classic fairy tale and given it their own personal twist, which naturally includes murder, mayhem and tremendous monsters. Dig the plot: 

When the King is killed by ferocious reptile beasts, his Queen takes control of the kingdom. She tries to kill her beautiful stepdaughter SNOW, but she escapes into the enchanted forest...

In my continuing effort to not spoil films when I review them, I won't go much deeper into the plot except to say that this ain't your little sister's Snow White, not by a long shot.

The film is anchored with vibrant performances from its leads, including Eliza Bennett as the titular princess, who tackles the role as potent yet naive, as beautiful and elegant as a princess should be, but with the hidden soul of a warrior. Jane March as the Wicked Queen is delightfully deceitful and eloquently two-faced; this lady enters a room, it goes stone cold. And Jamie Thomas in the role of the Prince is indeed charming, but more than that he is steadfast and honest, a true prince among knaves, not blinded by his privileged existence but rather impassioned by it, and eager to serve the world. 


The script, from Asylum vet Naomi Selfman, retains all the classic elements of the original story, only now with utterly-Asylum updates, most notably the inclusion of said ferocious reptile beasts, and an interesting take on the dwarfs. The result is an epic yet intimate fairy tale on steroids, its more horrifying points amped to the Nth degree. This is Snow White like you never imagined it, the antithesis to the raven-haired, doe-eyed heroine of your childhood; this is dark, brutal, and awesome.

The direction from Rachel Goldenberg, another Asylum vet, is sweeping and elegiac, as Goldenberg makes wonderful use of the beauty and inherent spookiness of the British countryside, formulating the perfect fairy tale setting. Her work, teamed with that of the VFX department - who have hit it out of the park yet again, as far as I'm concerned - creates a film perhaps best described as a period-piece creature-feature, a Merchant-Ivory flick with work from Ray Harryhausen, or The Princess Bride as written by H.P. Lovecraft.

Overall then, if you're looking for a fantastical, frightening twist on a beloved childhood treasure, this is the version for you. Check it out for yourself this coming Tuesday, the 13th, when Grimm's Snow White hits DVD.

inmate reprofile: Naomi Selfman

Continuing my pledge to spotlight the creative forces behind the impending release of the promising Grimm's Snow White, here's another inmate profile, though shrouded in a tad bit of mystery. 

Naomi Selfman, the scribe behind this impending classic, has written eight films for The Asylum, yet there's virtually no information about her online. This picture is the best I could find, and I only found that when out of frustration I Googled "mystery woman." Could be that "Naomi Selfman" is a pen name for another writer, or it could be that Ms. Selfman is just a digitally private person? Either way, the only purported sighting of her is said to come in the making-of featurette for her first script for The Asylum, the horror film Evil Eyes, but I didn't have immediate access to that when I wrote this.

Whoever she is, Ms. Selfman has time and again illustrated her ability to work across genres - be it horror, comedy, sci-fi or creature features - and turn in compelling, convincing, empathetic and exciting stories every time out. 

After Evil Eyes, Ms. Selfman took a four-year hiatus from screenwriting before contributing the story for the Faith Films epic 2012: Doomsday. Since then, it's been full-steam ahead for Ms. Selfman, writing six scripts in three years: the other raucous sex comedies 18 Year-Old Virgin and #1 Cheerleader Camp, the two biggest creature features of the last year, Mega Shark vs. Crocosaurus and Mega Python vs. Gatoroid, then Barely Legal, and now Grimm's Snow White.



I've got a lot of favorites when it comes to The Asylum - that should be annoying obvious by now - and the work of Ms. Selfman is among them. As a writer, I'm envious of her versatility; as an Asylum freak, I'm excited every time her name pops up. Team her up with a director like Rachel Goldenberg, and Grimm's Snow White is oozing with promise.

Get excited with me on March 13th, when Grimm's Snow White pops up on DVD.

inmate re-profile: Rachel Goldenberg

In honor of the DVD release of Grimm's Snow White on the 13th of March, Committed has been spotlighting the creative forces behind the film, and I thought the next inmate profiled should be the director, Rachel Goldenberg, whose resume with The Asylum is ridiculously impressive.

Besides the above-mentioned and forthcoming fairy-tale revamp, Ms. Goldenberg also helmed the well-received Princess and the Pony, the delightfully steampunk'd Sherlock Holmes and the strangely catchy Sunday School Musical. But beneath these three headlining gigs are a few years crammed to the hilt with production work for our favorite studio. Dig these credentials:


First Assistant Director on: 2012 Ice Age, The 7 Adventures of Sinbad, Princess of Mars, 2012 Supernova, Mega Fault, The Terminators, Monster, Alien vs. Hunter, I Am Omega


Line Producer on: Mega Fault, Dragonquest, Countdown:Jerusalem, 18 Year Old Virgin, Death Racers, Street Racer


And as though all this wasn't enough, she also wrote and edited two of her three directed-films for The Asylum, and over the last year or so has directed a handful of shorts for Funny or Die featuring the likes of Courteney Cox, Nia Vardelos, Bryan Cranston, Eric Stonestreet et al. Girl's got more hats than a Lids Store. If The Asylum put out Wheaties boxes (I know, work with me here), Rachel Goldenberg would for sure be one of the featured.

There's no doubt Ms. Goldenberg has a bright, bright, bright future ahead of her. My only hope is that she sticks around The Asylum long enough to make a few more films. I mean, it's a little late, but I'd line up for an Asylum Sherlock sequel; just sayin'...

That date again for the release of Ms. Goldenberg's latest film, Grimm's Snow White,  is March 13th. Add it to your cues now!

COMMITTED EXCLUSIVE: A Look at the Opening VFX for GRIMM'S SNOW WHITE!!!

There are still two Asylum films slated for release in 2011 - Zombie Apocalypse and Amityville Haunting - but already the studio's 2012 slate is filling up quick: 2 Headed Shark Attack, Air Collision, Celebrity Sex Tape, Nazis at the Center of the Earth and Battleships are already in production or in post. But the film I think a lot of people are super-excited for is Grimm's Snow White, a creepier, more creature-centric look at one of the world's most homogenized (and thus in dire need of a reworking such as this) fairy tales.

In the plot description, "ferocious reptile beasts" are said to play a major role and now, courtesy of the fine, fine folks over at The Asylum, I have a very brief clip of the film's opening VFX sequence. Dig it:

Pretty, pretty, pretty rad stuff here. That thing looks like a mega-komodo (TM) with a longer, more versatile neck. Joseph Lawson - who is directing for the first tome in 2012, Nazis at the Center of the Earth - and The Asylum's VFX team have been blowing it up this year. I know I say that every opportunity I get, so if it's getting old, too bad, because the team just keeps giving me opportunities. With a script by Naomi Selfman (MSvC, MPvG), direction from Rachel Goldenberg (Sherlock Holmes) and visual effects like these, you can bet this is not your little sister's Snow White.


The film hits DVD on February 28th, 2012. Try and wait best you can.

First Stills From Grimm's Snow White!!!

There's been an array of info pertaining to new projects coming out of The Asylum these last several days, and today proved no exception: behold the first production stills from next year's Grimm's Snow White.

This is easily The Asylum film that I'm most looking forward to in 2012 (besides one I wrote), based solely on the talent behind the camera: director Rachel Goldenberg (Sherlock Holmes, The Princess and the Pony) and writer Naomi Selfman (Mega Shark vs Crocosaurus, Mega Python vs Gatoroid) Both of these people are among the best The Asylum employs, and rank high on my personal list of greats: Ms. Selfman's scripts are smart, funny, thrilling and rife with memorable moments, and Ms. Goldenberg's direction - as proved in spades from these stellar stills - is taut, atmospheric, fantastical and utterly captivating. These two talents working together, then, my expectations go through the roof for this one, and this first look at the production only strengthens that conviction.

Grimm's Snow White stars Jane March, Jamie Thomas King and Eliza Bennett (above) as Snow. Grab it on DVD March 13, 2012.

First Details on Grimm's Snow White!!!

It was only yesterday that word broke The Asylum was going to be entering production on a new flick Grimm's Snow White, and now today, we have cast and crew info!

First things first, the premise:

When the King is killed by ferocious reptile beasts, his Queen takes control of the kingdom. She tries to kill her beautiful stepdaughter SNOW, but she escapes into the enchanted forest...


Honestly, they had me at "ferocious reptile beasts." Score.


Now for the cast: it's uncertain who's playing who, but The Asylum has enlisted Jane March - best known for 1992's The Lover and most recently of Clash of the Titans, in which she played Hestia - Eliza Bennett - of Inkheart, Nanny McPhee and most recently the SyFy original Roadkill - and Jamie Thomas King, of "The Tudors" and the upcoming John Le Carre adaptation Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. Conventional wisdom would tell us that March will be the Wicked Stepmother, Bennett Snow and King some version of the Huntsman. But again folks, this is The Asylum: who knows what kind of fable-bending tricks they have up their sleeves?


What gets me most excited for this one, however, is who's behind the scenes. The script is from the uber-talented Naomi Selfman (#1 Cheerleader Camp, Mega Shark vs Crocosaurus, Mega Python vs Gatoroid) and will be directed by Rachel Goldenberg, another inmate with talent to spare (Sherlock Holmes, Princess and the Pony). Both of these women are among my favorite contributors to The Asylum; if I had Selfman's filmography I'd make it into a t-shirt and Goldenberg has perhaps the most innovative, interesting and unique eye of all Asylum directors. With these two working together, we are guaranteed an intelligent, mesmerizing, action-packed and gorgeous film. 


Prepare your loved one now, because this bad boy drops Valentine's Day (2/14) of next year.

COMMITTED EXCLUSIVE: An Interview w/ Dragon Crusaders' Simon Lloyd-Roberts!

With Mark Atkins' Dragon Crusaders bowing on DVD for The Asylum this coming Tuesday, here at Committed I've been taking a closer look at some of the creative personnel behind this fantasy epic. Today, an exclusive interview with actor Simon Lloyd-Roberts, who plays the character "Maldwyn" in the film. Dragon Crusaders marks Mr. Lloyd-Roberts' third feature film, all three of which have been for The Asylum: Merlin and the War of Dragons (also a Mark Atkins' film), Sherlock Holmes and now Dragon Crusaders. Today also happens to be his birthday. Best wishes!

COMMITTED: Tell us a bit about where you’re from, and how you got into acting.

Simon Lloyd-Roberts: I'm born and raised in North Wales all of my [almost] 27 years now. If I had to describe where I live in the simplest terms, I would simply say there's lots of mountains, lots of green fields, and lots of castles. But that's why North Wales appeals so much as a location for making films, especially the kind of sword and sorcery epics Mark Atkins has made over here.

As for how I got into acting...the honest truth is I believe I simply turned round one day when I was about 10 years old and suddenly had this idea that I'd quite like to be an actor, and unlike most ideas I get into my head I actually stuck with this one. I took up training opportunities wherever I could find them, and just kept at it as the years went on. I'm glad to say I've finally started getting somewhere with it in the last few years.

C: Who were some of the actors you looked up to as an aspiring thespian?

SLR:  As a fellow Welshman, I would have to say Anthony Hopkins. I've always felt he brings a brilliant subtlety to all his work, and that he always blends it with just the right amount, and style, of charisma depending on the type of character he plays. I just think it's a bit of a shame that his success is almost always (in my opinion) based solely on the Hannibal Lecter films, because he's been in the business a long time, and he has done so much more stuff just as great as Silence Of The Lambs.

C:  You’ve made three films, all with The Asylum. How did you come to work with the studio?

SLR: It's really as a result of them coming over to North Wales to shoot some of their movies. Back in 2008 Mark Atkins came over to shoot Merlin And The War Of The Dragons, and he was already in contact at that time with Dylan Jones (my Merlin and Dragon Crusaders co-star), because he's an accomplished stunt horse rider as well as being an actor, and he wanted to get his stunt team involved in the film, and then with our agent Helen Pritchard, who was given the responsibility of helping to cast the film. I was just lucky enough to turn out to be exactly what he was looking for when auditioning the role of Merlin. It was undoubtedly my first really big break.

And since then I've also worked with Rachel Goldenberg very briefly on Sherlock Holmes nearly two years ago, and more recently I'm glad to say Mark Atkins was obviously happy enough to work with me again, because I was lucky enough to get one of the principal roles in Dragon Crusaders.

C:What’s it like working with Mark Atkins?

SLR: It's cool, really. Without doubt I owe him a lot because, like I said, he gave me my first big film break with Merlin three years ago, and at a time of my life when I'd begun to suffer a lot of self-doubt to the point where I was briefly considering packing in the acting dream, that gave me the lift I needed, and a new belief in myself.

I've always believed he has a lot of love for the stuff he films; the whole fantasy, myth and ancient legends thing. I think he has expressed an affection for North Wales as a film location ever since he was first there three years ago - I was always expecting him to eventually come back here to shoot another movie at some point. And he always manages to get the job done, often well and truly against the odds, so that's impressive enough in itself. It's even better when it's him and Scott Wheeler working together, as has been the case both times he's come to North Wales. They're a good partnership!

C: Those two Atkins’ films are also both fantasy films. Is that an area you feel particularly drawn to? What other sorts of genres or types of roles are you interested in?

SLR: Definitely! If it's something that combines fantasy with plenty of action and sword fighting then it gets my interest. I would be a happy man if I could spend the rest of my life working in films like that.

But one of my big interests, besides acting, is history. In the last few years I've also been lucky enough to land major parts in a National Geographic documentary series called Mystery Files, in which I've played a Russian prince involved in the killing of Rasputin, a Roman senator, and more recently got to portray Adolf Hitler during his German Army days in World War 1. They were all great, and challenging, projects to work on, and definitely the sort of film work I enjoy most - anything historical or period.

C: Without spoiling anything, what can you tell us about Dragon Crusaders, or your character, “Maldwyn?”

SLR: Honestly, the synopsis of the film on the Asylum website really tells you most of what you need to know. It's about a band of fugitive Knights Templar - all of them good men - who accidentally fall under a magical curse that dooms them to turn into evil monsters unless they can destroy the source of the curse. It's a fairly simple plot point that sets in motion all of the action that takes place in the film, and there is a lot of action to be had in this one. It has this element of "The evil that men are capable of" that I like a lot.

My character, Maldwyn, is the young member of this group of Templars. Despite his youth, he has a hardness and an edge to him, and has no hesitation rushing into danger and putting his life on the line to defend the innocent, and displays an athletic ability in battle to defeat his enemies - at least I THINK this was something like the character synopsis I was given for the audition, and it's what I've tried to go for in playing the role. How much of that I've actually managed to pull off, and how well, is another question (especially the whole "athletic" bit). I can only hope and pray!

C: Any projects on the horizon you’d like to mention?

SLR: Right now I'm waiting to hear word on a project I worked on back in March which, I believe, is nearing completion, and I'm very excited about, although I can't really give away very much about it. Also, there's a short film I worked on a couple of years ago, written by Helen Pritchard, which hasn't really seen the light of day until just recently, but has turned out really well and is now being planned as a pilot for a potential series of six short films.

Other than that, I'm just eagerly awaiting the release of Dragon Crusaders at the end of September. It will be good to see the whole cast and crew's hard work on display, hopefully for a lot of people's entertainment. Fingers crossed!

The Asylum Soon to be Blowing Up Your TV! PLUS - A Lifetime Premiere for BORN BAD!!!

So, there's about to be a barrage of Asylum on your TV this summer. In addition to their usual rotations on SyFy and Chiller, the films of our favorite independent studio are also about to grace TMC, Showtime and...wait for it...LIFETIME!!!

That's right, writer/director Jared Cohn's Born Bad will gets it's television premiere four months before it drops on DVD on noe other than Lifetime. This is the studio's first appearance on Lifetime - naturally - and heralds a pretty bold shift (or at least an addition) to their creative direction. I was hoping Born Bad was the harbinger of other straight-up thrillers to come, and it looks like maybe it is. Born Bad stars Michael Welch (Twilight), Bonnie Dennison ("Guiding Light"), David Chokachi ("Baywatch") and Meredith Monroe ("Dawson's Creek"), and features none other than Bill Oberst Jr. and Gerald Webb, both of whom can be seen in August's Asylum release, A Haunting in Salem (surely the newest horror classic, but I digress...). Born Bad can be seen Monday, July 11th, at 8pm Eastern/Pacific.

But that's not the only Asylum-boob-tube news: Showtime and TMC are both picking up the delightfully-steampunk-intellectual-action-fest Sherlock Holmes (which, the more I watch, the more I love) from director Rachel Lee Goldenberg (Princess and the Pony, Sunday School Musical) and writer Paul Bales (2010 Moby Dick, Legion of the Dead). The film is currently airing on both networks, and then in July, TMC trades Sherlock for 6 Guns, The Asylum's only (and sooo awesome) western from writer Geoff Meed (I Am Omega) and director Shane Van Dyke (Titanic II, A Haunting in Salem (!!!)).

So as you can see, it's going to be a great summer on cable. Check out The Asylum's site for listings. 

Inmate Profile Catch-Up

I know not all of my readers have been with me since the beginning, and I also know I'm a lousy tagger. The combination of these things means that there are a lost of posts that perhaps you haven't seen. That being the case, every now and again I like to post a megapost, if you will, that can catch you up with all the posts under a certain heading. This week's heading: inmate profiles; below, please find a complete listing of every published profile to date. Enjoy!

C. Thomas Howell  *  Mark Atkins  *  Deedee Pfeiffer  *  Sarah Lieving  *  Eric Forsberg  *  Leigh Scott  *  David Michael Latt

 

Erica Roby  *  Christopher Olen Ray  *  Gary Stretch  *  Naomi Selfman  *  

Rachel Lee Goldenberg  *  Mary Lambert  *  Debbie Gibson & Tiffany

 

Anthony Fankhauser  *  Anneliese Michel  *  re-profile Mark Atkins  *  Kel Mitchell  *

Nia Peeples  *  Jared Cohn  *  Alex Yellin

My Looney Picks: Committed's Favorties of 2010

I want it stated right off the bat and underlined for effect: these are NOT the official results for the 2010 Looney Awards. They ARE NOT. These are merely my personal picks in each category, and I should also add that though they are being posted today, I made my selections more than a month ago, so they have been in no way influenced by the actual results, which will be released tomorrow.

NOT THE LOONEY RESULTS!!!!!

I think I've made myself clear.





Now then, on to the festivities:


Best Supporting Actress

Lindsey McKeon - Airline Disaster

As Special Agent Gina Vitale, McKeon brought a ferocious capability to her character, crafting a complex woman who was simultaneously strong, severe, and sexy. McKeon is no stranger to Asylum films - see also The Land That Time Forgot - but hopefully now that she's an award-winning actress, they can boost her up from supporting roles to a full-on lead. 










Best Supporting Actor

Geoff Meed - 6 Guns

Easily this year's vilest (human) villain, Geoff Meed has made quite the name for himself over at The Asylum playing an array of gruff, tough, general badass characters (I Am Omega, 100 Million BC, Airline Disaster). In 6 Guns, his savagery is matched only by his intensity, and Mr. Meed transforms himself into a terror truly worth undertaking the drastic measures our widow heroine chooses to undertake; he is truly a villain worth killing.  







Best Script

 Paul Bales - Sherlock Holmes

Tackling a character like Sherlock Holmes is hard enough: easily one of the most beloved in all of literature, there is a disciplined intelligence to the stories of Holmes that is the character's own, and to write for such a man requires strict adherence to that intelligence. Well, Bales not only stayed true to the character, he infused the story with some of the author's other literary affectations - like dinosaurs - and even found a way to tie in a plot line resonant of Hollywood-Holmes Robert Downey Jr.'s other recent blockbuster franchise.






Best Nonhuman

Moby Dick - 2010: Moby Dick

Just as big as Mega Shark, just as ferocious as Crocosaurus, and laced with a mammalian intellect that dwarfs even the super-smart school mentality of the Mega Piranha, Moby Dick was a big ol' badass with a snowhilled hump riddled with centuries' worth of harpoons. Vengeful, merciless and damn-near unstoppable; in other words, the perfect villain.


Best Actress

Sage Mears - 6 Guns

More than any other female character this year, Ms. Mears' Selina Stevens, violated widow turned wrathful force of vengeance, carried the brunt of her film's emotional weight almost solely upon her own shoulders. And this was no easy weight to bear: over the films 95 minutes she's required to be a happy mother and loving wife, a victim of unimaginable horrors, a hopeless, reckless drunk, a petulant, impatient pupil and finally a cold, calm, calculated vigilante. Not bad for her first film.







Best Actor

Barry Bostwick - 2010: Moby Dick

Who else? As great as the other nominees in this category were, no one matched the on-screen intensity Bostwick brought to conflicted Captain Ahab. I mean, Gregory Peck played the role to near perfection, not to mention the likes of Patrick Stewart and (upcoming) William Hurt; these were no small shoes ("shoe," I guess is more appropriate) to step into. But Bostwick made the character his own, granting him a fevered passion the likes of which had never been captured by other actors. Plus, he made his own harpoon gun! There is nothing cooler than that. Nothing.





Best Director

Rachel Lee Goldenberg - Sherlock Holmes


This was the toughest category, in my estimation, but when all was said and done, it was the direction by Ms. Goldenberg I found to be the most enjoyable, the most thrilling, and the most stylish. Sherlock Holmes had a look all its own, delightfully Victorian with a healthy dash of steampunk aesthetics that set its helmer just ahead of the pack. Furthermore, her ability to pace and guide what could arguably have been the year's most serpentine and intricate plot is also worth touting. 


Best Feature

2010: Moby Dick

I suppose in the interest of total disclosure I should remind my readers that I have such a devotion to the novel by Herman Melville this film is based on - the greatest novel ever penned by an American - that I have a very tasteful scrimshaw-esque tattoo of said whale on my right forearm. But my body art aside, 2010: Moby Dick was easily the most enjoyable film - for me, at least - of the year. The plot was faithful to the original while establishing a wholly unique world, the acting was top-notch, the FX brutally awesome and the direction, by Mr. Trey Stokes, helped artfully tie all these elements together into a veritable bouquet of a killer whale movie (not Orca, but, you know...). An ambitious undertaking from the get-go, 2010: Moby Dick fired on all cylinders and succeeded on all fronts.



So there you have it, my personal picks for the best of Asylum's 2010 films. Agree with me? Disagree? If so, hold your tongue, because the real winners will be announced tomorrow, noontime here on the West Coast. See you then!

Princess and the Pony Released on DVD! Mega Python vs. Gatoroid This Weekend!

At long last, The Asylum's very first family film is released on DVD today! Check out my link-chronology below to get all the info Committed's ever published on the film, which is more than enough to get you up-to-date and amped. 

October 7, 2010 - 1st Furry Valentine is Princess and the Pony

October 11, 2010 - 1st Furry Valentine Wraps Production

December 10, 2010 - Princess and the Pony Gets a Poster

December 21, 2010 - Princess and the Pony Trailer Released

January 6, 2011 - Inmate Profile: Rachel Lee Goldenberg

January 20, 2011 - Observation Notes: Princess and the Pony

In other news, perhaps even bigger, less needed-to-be-reported news, Princess and the Pony isn't the only Asylum production hitting our greedy little eyes this week; Saturday night brings the world television premiere of Mega Python vs Gatoroid on SyFy as part of a mini-marathon that also includes Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus and Mega Piranha. In addition to the clips already online, Entertainment Weekly's website scored an exclusive last-clip before the premiere. Nice of EW to run the clip, not so nice they call it "absurd." Seriously, this from the magazine that ran an article on The Room last week, a year and a half after anyone stopped caring, and also the magazine that considered Patricia Arquette's dead-eyed, marble-mouthed, robot-corpse character on "Medium" as the matriarch of "one of TV's finest families." So, you know, biiiiiiiig grain of salt with their opinions. Nevertheless, press is press and getting a shout-out in the biggest industry mag in the country is good no matter what they say. 

Only last night in NYC was the world premiere for MPvG held at the historic Ziegfield Theatre. Jump over here for some iPhone photos of the event taken by one David Michael Latt, as well as a link to some more professional shots.

So go out today and support the Asylum by renting Princess and the Pony at your local video store or Redbox thingamajig, or add it to your Netflix cue and check it out in six months or so when it gets to you. Then, if you don't already have plans for the MPvG premiere (and you live on the West Coast), you can watch it live along with me via the Mega-Marathon Blogfest! Mega Live! starting this Saturday, January 29th, at 5p.m. PST.

Bonne Observation!

observation notes: Princess and the Pony (formerly 1st Furry Valentine)

You didn't think I was gonna skip this one, did you? You didn't assume that just because this is a massive thematic departure for The Asylum, their first, full-on venture into family filmmaking (overlooking Sunday School Musical - incidentally from this director - and Pirates of Treasure Island; the former is aimed at teens and the latter has too much cleavage for anyone under 10) that I would choose to ignore it? Oh no, my friends - in for a penny, in for a pound, that's practically the colloquial definition of "committed," and I'm nothing but. These guys could release a knitting instructional video and I'd watch it. Twice. So here we go:

When a privileged but sheltered princess (Fiona Perry) is threatened by a breach of palace security, her mother the Queen (Kim Little, in her first Asylum flick since 2009's Countdown:Jerusalem) makes the decision to send her to America where she has an aunt (Bobbi Jo Lathan) living in the heartland, far from suspicious or pernicious eyes and hands. Once there, immersed in the decidedly plebeian culture, forced to pretend she is the opposite of herself, a normal little girl, our princess naturally has trouble making friends, at least of the human variety; when she discovers a carnival pony, however, it's love at first sight. But this love is soon threatened when the ne'er-do-well carnival owner (Bill Oberst Jr.) discovers her true identity, thus her true worth.

I'm not ashamed to admit, nor do I think it's weird, that as a grown man with no kids I found this to be an enjoyable film. Everyone loves a good fairy tale, and that's exactly what this is, a parable about virtue and friendship modernized for today's kids while retaining enough classical elements to feel timeless. The script, by director Rachel Lee Goldenberg (Sherlock Holmes) and Bill Parker (an Asylum editor), is balanced nicely between sentimental and adventurous, hitting all the right emotional chords without lapsing too much into being wholly either. The result is a fun, sweet, lively and uplifting film that - oh yeah, I'm going to say it - the whole family can enjoy.

Fiona Perry, a relative newcomer with a credit here or there, is the perfect princess, a child actress capable of portraying a burden most grown folk couldn't passably carry, that of being royalty, and the pressures, restrictions and in fact short-comings, socially and practically speaking, such a life implies. Miss Perry shows an emotional range well beyond her years, and is exactly the sort of little girl every other little girl would want to be friends with. The Asylum might have just found itself a Fanning-esque prodigy. 

Ms. Lathan shines as Aunt Fay, as does Ron Hajak as Lawrence, the princess' American paternal figure, but it's the performance by Bill Oberst Jr. as despicable carnival owner Theodore Snyder that steals the show on the adults' end. As a sort of cartoonishly further-demented Daniel Plainview (click here, then here), he takes wickedness to a delightful new level and transforms what could have been a generic villain into a memorable adversary. They should shuffle this guy into a regular Asylum flick - he'd make a heck of a space marine platoon leader or serial killer.

All in all, then, the verdict on this one is positive. For a guy who doesn't really watch a lot of kid-oriented stuff (at least not the stuff made after, I don't know, 1987?) I wasn't really aware of the fact that I was watching something intended primarily for kids. A good story is a good story, and this was just that. Throw in some great performances and an uplifting ending - not something all Asylum films come with; I'm looking at you, When a Killer Calls and Sex Pot - and you got yourself a positive 85 minutes. If I had a daughter, I'd totally let her watch Princess and the Pony, and she'd totally love it. Committed from birth.

inmate profile: Rachel Goldenberg

Ms. Goldenberg, obviously, is the one without the awesome mustache.

In honor of the DVD release of Princess and the Pony - formerly 1st Furry Valentine - on the 25th of this month, I thought the inmate profile should turn its spotlight on Renaissance woman Rachel Goldenberg, whose resume with The Asylum is ridiculously impressive, especially for someone who seems so young*.

Besides the above-mentioned and forthcoming family film, Ms. Goldenberg also helmed the delightfully steampunk'd Sherlock Holmes and the strangely catchy Sunday School Musical. But beneath these three headlining gigs are a few years crammed to the hilt with production work for our favorite studio. Dig these credentials:


First Assistant Director on: The 7 Adventures of Sinbad, Princess of Mars, 2012 Supernova, Mega Fault, The Terminators, Monster, Alien vs. Hunter, I Am Omega


Line Producer on: Mega Fault, Dragonquest, Countdown:Jerusalem, 18 Year Old Virgin, Death Racers, Street Racer


And as though all this wasn't enough, she also wrote and edited two of her three directed-films for The Asylum, the first and the forthcoming. Girl's got more hats than a Lids Store. If The Asylum put out Wheaties boxes (I know, work with me here), Rachel Goldenberg would for sure be one of the featured.

There's no doubt Ms. Goldenberg has a bright, bright, bright future ahead of her. My only hope is that she sticks around The Asylum long enough to make a few more films. After all, there is that  big-screen Sherlock Holmes sequel coming soon that just dying to be mockbusted...

That date again for the release of Ms. Goldenberg's latest film is January 25th. Add it to your cues now!


* I'm basing this statement on nothing more than mere conjecture, having found very little information on Ms. Goldenberg online beyond her IMDB profile and the above photo on The Asylum's Photostream. So any assumptions I make that are incorrect, or conclusions I draw that are not factual, I apologize. I'm not really a journalist or anything, you know. Just sayin'

1st Furry Valentine Back to Being Princess and the Pony - And Gets a Poster

Things have come full circle, title-wise, in regards to The Asylum's first foray into family filmmaking: what began as Princess and the Pony changed it's name to 1st Furry Valentine (presumably for the same reason Moby Dick had a 2010 in front of it) but now has changed its named back to Princess and the Pony. Plus, they've given us a poster that appeals to every single 8 year old girl in the world: a princess in a pink dress, a pony, and a cute little dog, just to top things off.


I think this is a good move. I'm a big supporter of thwarting traditional ordering and placement techniques by prefixing titles with numbers, but in this one it never really made sense. First of all, the arrangement of words in the former title sounds kinda, well, kinda lewd, quite frankly, like, you know, this isn't a family film at all but a raucous sex comedy about a young man's first experiments with a trendy kink. And I'm sure that inference says more about me than it does the fine, chaste folks at The Asylum, but it rubbed me the wrong way (ew.). Secondly, while it might be biologically accurate, I don't think of horses as furry, I just don't. Rabbits are furry; bears are furry; chinchillas are furry; horses... horses are, I don't know, too slick to be furry. That adjective never worked for me. 

Anywho, bottom line, this name change is, I think, a good thing, and is sure to detract hater critics from being able to make the same lewd jokes I just did. The difference? I do it out of love, mad, crazy love. So skip over to the webpage for this one if you need an update on the synopsis. Princess and the Pony, written by Rachel Lee Goldenberg & Bill Parker and directed by Goldenberg, comes to DVD January 25, 2011.

 

observation notes: Sherlock Holmes

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's iconic character Sherlock Holmes has been on screen since the days of classic serials right up until the modern era, but never like this. Written by Asylum partner and acclaimed 2010 Moby Dick scribe Paul Bales, the film opens in 1940 amidst the German blitz of London. An aging "Professor" Watson is on the verge of death, and wants to commit to history the true secret of Sherlock Holmes and how he saved London from unspeakable (until now), unimaginable destruction. Cue the flashback.

It's 1882, and in the English Channel a clipper ship carrying precious cargo finds itself under siege from a large, tentacled creature. Not the typical start to a Sherlock Holmes story, but that's part of the brilliance of this script. While the creature-context may seem out of place for a detective story, it isn't out of place for the source author. Doyle, after all, also wrote creature fantasies, the most recognizable among them being "The Lost World," which has been the basis for no less than half a dozen films, including the second Jurassic Park and a certain Asylum monkey movie.

But back to the actual story: ashore, Holmes (Ben Syder) appears to a younger Watson (Gareth David-Lloyd) mid-autopsy to announce their summons to investigate the attack on the clipper ship. Holmes' acumen is quickly illustrated when he frees up Watson's afternoon by visually surmising all evidence any autopsy would have revealed. So let's see...smug, off-handed, unintentionally-condescending intelligence? Check.

So off go the original dynamic duo to a hospital where the lone survivor of the kraken attack, a midshipman with more than a quarter century before the mast, is emerging from his coma just as Holmes and Watson arrive. Nice touch here: when Watson bends to examine the midshipman, the tentacle-look to his stethoscope visibly freaks out the sailor. This is followed by his account of the attack, the what of it all, which Watson is quick to skeptically dismiss as shock manifesting as delusion. Holmes, of course, finds something in the midshipman's story worth believing, and so the investigation continues.

It's here another neat twist of plot first manifests itself: seems Holmes has an older brother he hasn't seen for seven years who's reported to be back on the London scene, and something about an embarrassment of some sort that resulted in said brother's full-paralysis. But this is just a quick hit, and the story moves on...

In London's seedy East End (Whitechapel-area, Jack the Ripper's hunting grounds), a young, naive virgin goes to visit a lady of the evening - appropriately named "Mrs. Pinchcock" - but this illicit tryst is unfortunately interrupted by the appearance of a ravenous dinosaur. Yep, that's right, you read me correctly: a dinosaur (at this point, my half-asleep wife muttered from the couch, "Wait, why is there a dinosaur?" Why, indeed, my love? Because The Asylum has learned a secret long known to purveyors of the fantastic: everything gets more interesting when a dinosaur enters the scene. Think about it, any movie you can name - Battlefield Earth, Annie Hall, Chariots of Fire; as great as they are, they'd be better with even one dinosaur thrown in for good measure. You know I'm right.)


So, just to catch you up, there's now a kraken and a dinosaur, and we're maybe half an hour in at this point. Awesome? Check.

Back to the bickering co-dependency of Holmes and Watson over breakfast and the morning newspaper. The story of the devoured virgin is there, and naturally captures Holmes' attention. The two take the customary perambulation for thought, which itself is interrupted by a hysterical and hysterically-high-pitched old man screaming nonsense about a monster in the woods. But it isn't nonsense, oh no. Cue dinosaur chase.


No spoiler to say our protagonists survive this scene, and it only fuels Holmes further, so he retreats to his experiments while Watson is called to see a patient, a wheelchair-bound man (Dominic Keating, a sort of British Jurgen Prochnow) attended by a beautiful young woman, his "niece." He requires medication for his many painful ailments, including the potent narcotic morphine. Watson is hesitant but eventually concedes, due in part to a shine he takes to the girl. He starts to make evening plans with her but Holmes cock-blocks him with an invitation to the East End to further investigate the findings of his analysis of the boy-monster(dinosaur) murder. 

Our characters all now firmly in place, the rest is spoilers.


Okay, so that's a lot of plot, but believe me when I say my assessment doesn't do justice to the tightly-crafted twists and turns and melding of myth and literature this script accomplishes. Ultimately, I found this to be a thrilling film that hit on a cerebral, adrenal and even comical level. 

One of the ways Sherlock shines and sets itself apart from other Asylum films was its lavish style, courtesy of the eye of director Rachel Lee Goldenberg. Each scene was replete with hue, texture and ambiance melding together to form a sepia-style, Burton-esque fantasy London, opulent in its steampunk-design that melds the worlds of Doyle, Jules Verne, and the recent filmography of Robert Downey Jr. into the perfect setting for an intelligent, action-packed sci-fi spectacle comparable in enjoyability - to me, at least - to its Hollywood tie-in. Aiding this effect are assured performances, atmospheric locations, accurate and fashionable costumes - I'd dress like either of these guys any day of the week, but I'm odd - astounding art direction, intense, well-designed and believable FX and a pulse-racing score. The script was inventive, respective, labyrinthine and familiarly comfortable, and easily the most engaging Asylum script of the year, with the possible exception of another Bales' project, a certain aforementioned whale movie. Goldenberg's direction was intense, exhilarating, ambitious and as such successful. Sherlock is the second film Goldenberg has directed for The Asylum, the first being Sunday School Musical. Her next project is the Asylum-family venture 1st Furry Valentine.

As for the performances, Ben Syder - for whom this is the only credit listed on IMDB - plays the famed sleuth as dismissively deadpan and admirably foppish, as though a brilliance such as his was to its bearer a frightful bore. David-Lloyd as Watson is the perfect counterpart to this, placidly skeptical and pointlessly loyal, a true sidekick.

Overall, and I know I'll get comments like I did when I made a similar declaration about Monster/Cloverfield, but I enjoyed this film more than I did the recent Hollywood version; for all their reinvention of the character, Ritchie and Downey turned him into a sort of lampoon of himself, too self-awaredly self-destructive and reckless for the legacy's own good - he's not a Victorian Indiana Jones, after all, but that's what Hollywood would have him. The Asylum's character feels just right, a balance of tradition and innovation that maintains the integrity of Doyle's hero. Syder may not have the swagger or smarm of Downey, but Sherlock Holmes isn't about swagger - he isn't a Victorian Shaft, either - he's about acumen, subtlety, and in those regards, Syder triumphs. A truly unique Sherlock Holmes experience awaits here, oddly appropriate for its liberties, and all-in-all, just plain entertaining.

What more can you ask for?

977's Unsolicited yet Copyrighted Pitch #6: THE MYSTERY OF FLANNAN ISLES

So the backstory is this: in 1900, seemingly in the middle of a meal, all three lighthouse keepers manning the lonely lighthouse on Scotland's Flannan Isles mysteriously disappeared without a trace, leading to more than a century of paranormal speculation and rational investigation that has still yet to produce a suitable and satisfactory explanation of events. Using this historical anecdote as a jumping-off point, I humbly present the pitch for The Mystery of Flannan Isles: A Charles Fort Adventure.

We open with our three, ill-fated lighthouse keepers enjoying the above-mentioned meal. Outside the weather is frightful, a strong storm is blowing off the sea and bringing wind and rain and crashing waves against the Isles' stone cliffs. Suddenly a frightful sound is heard, a cry like screeching metal or something mammoth screaming. The keepers are startled and exit the lighthouse to investigate. At the west landing, they find significant structural damage to iron railings and wooden platforms, too high above sea level to have been caused by waves. Then the sound again, and - without seeing their assailant - we watch the three keepers picked off one by one by something whose appearance turns the expressions of the hardened men to those of terrified children. The men dead, the sound slinks away, the storm rages on unwatched.

Cut to Eastern Europe, a small village in a mountainous range, gypsy-inhabited but for two men, both dressed in the academic fashion of the day, both in their mid-thirties. They are Charles Fort, paranormal investigator, and his assistant, Stanley Pelkington (who I'm picturing being played by Rhett Giles and Jay Gillespie, respectively), and they are here to investigate some supernatural phenomena such as red rain or strange lights, any of the myriad phenomena detailed in "The Complete Books of Charles Fort," (an outstanding read) that serve to introduce the man and his particular field of study, as well as his assistant's rational, scientific, skeptical and Scully-esque counter-approach. As he is wrapping up his research, a cable comes from London informing him on the occurrence at Flannan Isles. His curiosity piqued, they leave at once.

Once in Flannan Isles, CF finds the locals not at all eager to share what they know about the disappearance, any other disappearances on the island or their suspicions as to the cause of the disappearance, almost as though they are guarding a secret for their own, superstitious curiosity. Every small town distrusts outsiders, especially rural citizens against a cosmopolitan denizen like CF, but they are especially distrustful when they are a centuries-old small community isolated from the rest of the world on a small chain of islands in the North Atlantic. So CF will find little help here. His first obstacle is Finn, the caretaker of the Flannan Isles Lighthouse and a former keeper himself, not returned to the job until the Northern Lighthouse Board can find a suitable, more permanent replacement. Finn won't give any details other than to stir CF's preternatural leanings by admonishing that there are some answers better left undiscovered, some things man wasn't meant to be able to understand, only fear and respect. 

CF begins to study his books on local lore and tests or researches the possibilities rational (washed away, murder/suicide, abducted by pirates) and irrational (ghost ship, sea serpent, fabled monster bird) but it isn't until he meets the daughter of one of the disappeared keepers, the lovely lass Siobhan (The 7 Adventures of Sinbad's Kelly O'Leary) that CF becomes convinced the disappearance wasn't a rational thing at all. Seems Siobhan's old man had reservations about taking the job in the first place because of rumors of a ghostly serpent taller than the isles who appears during great storms and tries to smash the island to bits with the fury of waves. This ghost-serpent is supposedly the reason the lighthouse was erected here centuries ago, at the utmost northwest corner of Scotland: to guard the UK against spectral invasion from the wild, unknown, ephemeral Arctic regions. When her dad turned up missing, Siobhan knew the serpent was somehow responsible. Armed with this new knowledge and teammate, CF and crew investigate the creature and - without giving away too many act two and three twists - discover the only way it can be vanquished is to confront it and capture it in a stone reputed to be it's eye hardened to gem once plucked from its head by the lance of a long-ago lighthouse keeper. So Fort must find this stone, then this serpent, then capture it face to face if he is to save the island from its supernatural threat.

The nice thing, I think, about this pitch is the franchise it opens. Charles Fort, as the link above attests, was a real dude, the so-called "inventor of the supernatural," and, cinematically speaking, a kind of Indiana Jones of the paranormal, a Sherlock Holmes of the otherworld. Fort's books provide dozens above dozens of launching-pads for the sort of steampunk paranormal amalgam we saw in Rachel Lee Goldenberg's Sherlock Holmes. In fact, she'd be a great choice to direct this flagship film. She could even co-write with me, if she wanted; I'm amiably collaborative like that.

I'm just sayin'.

whispers from another cell: News From Within The Asylum

1st Furry Valentine Details Released

Last week The Asylum put up the page for their first announced feature of 2011, 1st Furry Valentine. I linked to the page the other day, and while I mentioned the director - Rachel Lee Goldenberg - and the plot - a princess(?) comes to live with American relatives and befriends a pony(??) held by a mean carnival owner(?!?) - but didn't get a chance to acknowledge some of the details, like cast.

Here's the low down - Fiona Perry, first-billed, is a little girl. My guess? She's our princess. Then there's Bobbi Joe Lathan, an older actress who's done a lot of TV; an American relative, perhaps. Also older, Ron Hajak, whose first film was The Swinging Cheerleaders, so, props there, and who recently returned to acting after a nearly two-decade hiatus; another American relative, probably. And finally there's Bill Oberst, Jr. a creepy-looking fella I'm willing to bet is the shady carnival owner.

So them's the deets for now. A family film. From The Asylum. About a princess and a pony, the two, like, greatest things in the history of ever as far as girl kids are concerned. Early prediction, this one's gonna do real well for The Asylum. I manage a video store (shock, I know), and the amount of direct-to-DVD schlock that comes out aimed at kids makes the direct-to-DVD horror flow look like a trickle. Kids'll watch anything with a bright cover, and their parents will let them. So put that pony nice and big on the cover, boys, and get that princess all princessed-up in the saddle, and I guarantee it'll bolt off the shelves like Secretariat at the Preakness. Ooh pink! Can you put the princess in pink? Awesome.

This one lands January 25th, in the New Year

Yet Another New Title Announced

But I covered this one yesterday, so click here or just scroll down a bit for all the juicy details (that exist thus far) on The Battle of Los Angeles, due out February 21st of next year. 

The one update I can give here, today, is another picture from The Asylum's twitter feed, this one of director Mark Atkins and actresses Nia Peeples and Theresa June-Tao on set. I can also tell you that the event the film is based on, is kinda true. That's it for now, but rest assured when I know more, you'll know more, guaranteed.

Keep 'em coming, guys!

Brothers in Blogs

A couple of foreign-based Asylum blogs have cropped up over the last couple of months. There's this one in Russian, and this inventive fella here in Hungarian. I don't understand a word of what's going on here, but I'm glad there's an international community of Asylum aficionados taking to the web to spread the love. Give 'em some hits, even if you don't speak the language.