Expelled Grey Matter

Sword and sandal movies have not been popular since the 1950s despite the anomaly that was Gladiator .  However, everyone loves a good mystery, and 1900 years later there is still some question about what happened to the Ninth Legion.  Whether they were slaughtered in an ill-fated incursion into northern Britain or eventually disbanded or moved to mainland Europe is up for debate and may never be answered.  However, Rosemary Sutcliff gave us a fictional account of what may have happened to them in her 1954 novel The Eagle of the Ninth .  Adapted by Jeremy Brock and directed by Kevin Macdonald, The Eagle is a mostly forgotten low-budget version of the book, but it manages to outshine some of its contemporaries. Marcus Aquila (Channing Tatum) is the son of a commander of the Ninth Legion who requests a post in Britain 20 years after their disappearance in order to help redeem the family name.  He quickly earns the respect of his fellow soldiers in battle but is wo...

Time for a bit of a history legend despite the fact that Centurion , like most movies set during the Roman Empire, plays fast and loose with the events that happened.  As the opening crawl lets us know Rome once spanned from part of western Asia through the majority of Europe and northern Africa, with its furthest frontier being England.  Though they made some forays to capture what is now Ireland and Scotland a series of events, similar to what prevented their further expansion into Germany, held them at bay. The Ninth Legion has become a legend as it was sent northward to deal with the Picts, in reality a name given to a number of Celtic tribes that lived in the norther part of the island at the time, most likely related to the modern-day Welsh.  It was rough, cold terrain, and the Romans had a tendency in Britain to anger the locals through violent shows of force which included rape, torture and mutilation of women and, though history doesn't play it up much, men as we...

As the DC Cinematic Universe circled the drain Warner Bros. desperately tried to get audiences to come back.  As they did it became more and more obvious that their strategy was to copy Marvel.  This wasn't hard as every key Marvel character had some sort of doppelganger in the D.C. universe.  For instance, instead of Dr. Strange, there was Dr. Fate.  Instead of Black Panther we have Black Adam. To be fair, T'Challa was always a good guy and a positive force for the fictional country of Wakanda, which managed to become an advanced civilization due to a steady supply of vibranium.  Kahndaq, the ancient kingdom in which Teth-Adam (Dwayne Johnson) lived, had something called eternium and, because of it, became the target of international mercenaries that were in control of the country.  In the comics, Black Adam was a supervillain and a main rival of Captain Marvel.  Here he is an antihero who becomes the reluctant protector of his homeland 5000 years lat...

I don't think it's easy for an audience not familiar with exactly what a big deal masked wrestler El Santo was to understand why he could be such a phenomenon.  A hero in the ring and known for never removing his mask until he retired shortly before his death, Santo became a bit of a folk hero.  He was famous outside of being a luchador, making a series of movies that often featured his rival in the ring - Blue Demon - and Santo teaming up to fight crime, monsters and seven Satan himself.  The movies became popular in Mexican cinema and gained a cult following in the U.S., largely in urban areas close to the border that had Spanish cinemas.  As can be expected these movies did not have the biggest budgets, most complicated plots or great special effects.  Rodolfo Guzmán Huerta, the man behind the mask, obviously had fun making them, as did everyone else.  And, truth be told, neither he nor Blue Demon removing the masks, something that was key to they public...

I am not a professional wrestling fan.  Nor am I fan of wrestling in any form.  I understand it's silly entertainment for many, and it's not snobbery on my part.  It just never clicked with me.  Thus, seeing that the Canadian film Dark Match was a horror film about wrestling, I was a bit reluctant to see it as it's completely out of my wheelhouse.  However, what Shudder forgot to do was to include a little note saying that this was from the guy who did Wolfcop , a frenetic horror comedy that is exactly what the title implies.  While quite a bit less of an assault on the senses as that film it would have at least allayed many of my fears.  Rusty (Jonathan Cherry) is a small-time wrestling promoter whose organization S.A.W. employs a number of minor performers that do a regional circuit.  One of this is Miss Behave (Ayisha Issa), who though still young is slowly watching her career slip away, especially as a new addition named Kate the Great (Sara C...

What sets the Millennium Era of Godzilla films apart from the preceding ones is that there was no set story.  Godzilla 2000: Millennium had one major goal and that was for Toho to redeem their property after the disastrous Godzilla that American audiences were given courtesy of Roland Emmerich.  It served its purpose, although it ended with Godzilla, having defeated the alien Orga, proceeding to lay waste to Japan as the credits rolled.  Despite having a fair bit of humor throughout it was a downer of an ending. Instead of following on from that Godzilla vs. Megaguiras takes us to an alternate universe.  In this one Godzilla attacked and destroyed Tokyo in 1954.  Despite a massive rebuilding effort the decision was made to relocate the capital to Osaka.  However, the big guy attacked again in 1966, destroying the country's first nuclear plant.  Looking for some other source of clean energy, by 1996 the country developed plasma energy, but that again ...