HAPPY HALLOWEEN FROM THE MUNG HOUR!

Countdown to Halloween Film Pick: Ed Wood

Now if you're looking for a great Halloween film, you can't go wrong with 1994's Ed Wood. Forget Edward Scissorhands and Willy Wonka, Tim Burton got the best work out of his 'Bobby DeNiro' in this throwback film to the 1950's B-movies. Johnny Depp plays the title role as the cross-dressing auteur who has no clue that he has no talent. But it's Hollywood in the 1950s and why should any ambitious filmmaker stop at that?

Arguably Wood was the Sam Raimi of his time minus having a string of successful movies. His 1959 Plan 9 From Outer Space is notable only for bringing together Vampira (the REAL Elvira) and the late Bela Lugosi who had fallen out of the spotlight and into drug addiction. Martin Landau won a deserving Best Supporting Actor Oscar as the drug-addled and profanity laced Lugosi. Some of the best scenes are Lugosi filming his cameos for Wood's horror films and spouting off lines like, "Let's shoot this f*cker!" and "Karloff isn't worth the steam off my sh*t!" It's priceless stuff and Landau is mesmerizing and heartbreaking in the role.

Sporting an awesome supporting cast including Sarah Jessica Parker, Patricia Arquette and Bill Murray as the transsexual wannabe Bunny, this film is a must-see for any Johnny Depp fan. Surprisingly, there are a lot of people who have never seen this film. Shot in black and white, it appears to be Burton's most personal film to date, balancing the Burton quirkiness with a near perfect homage to the creepy, dreary 1950s horror schlock cinema.

Best line comes from Landau's Lugosi as director Wood tries to calm him down during a freezing night shoot in the swamp: "F*CK YOU! You come out here!"

Bourne Again!

We have news that a fourth Bourne movie is moving forward. Back the Brinks truck to Matt Damon's house. No way you can turn down the kind of money this franchise has made. Damon is probably the only actor under 60 with a back pocket franchise. The big question is whether he can get Jimmy Kimmel and Ben Affleck to cameo wearing daisy dukes and dog collars.

But here's the deal. What do you do with an amnesia based trilogy, post-amnesia? There are obvious hurdles here:
1) Bourne has his memory completely back.
2) He's killed everyone who trained him and fucked him over.
3) He now has absolute regret for all of his killings.
4) He has profound self-loathing for the fact that he ever was a hired killer.
5) A prequel perhaps? Damon is not in the shape Hugh Jackman is. It's doubtful he'll be able to pull off 26 at the age of 40.

In a franchise town, Universal is the kid at the table who is wearing thrift store clothing. They just don't have much but the Ludlum stuff. Moreover, Bourne's story arc kind of completed its course, leaving Jason, post-memory loss and regretful about his life. What to do, especially since the novels have run their course? Sure they can have him tackle Carlos the Jackal, something they excluded in the films from the novels. Or, make him a one-man A-Team. "If you need help, and you can find him, etc." We have some other ideas:

He's now a chef:
The Bourne Rotisserie
The Bourne Cotillion

Lawyer:
The Bourne Practice
The Bourne Time to Kill
The Bournemaker

Hollywood military adviser:
The Bourne Consultancy
Get Bourney

Gynecologist:
The Bourne Examination
The Bourne Smear

Schoolteacher:
The Bourne Recess
The Bourne Detention

Countdown to Halloween: A Film a Week

Well, we're just a few weeks away from the big night where kids rot their teeth and your shy female coworker dresses up as Slutty Mother Theresa, fishnets and all. Halloween is not just about getting drunk at parties and hitting on 22 year-olds who don't realize you're 40 because you're wearing a pirate shirt and eyeliner. No, it's also about watching scary movies. Preferably, it's about discovering one of your favorite scary movies on cable and passing out on the couch at 1am. But it can be a tease. How many times have we all flipped the dial to AMC and been excited to see Michael Myers stabbing someone but -- "D'oh!" It's Halloween 5, not the original classic John Carpenter film. Should have known from the bad hair on the mask. They just never got it right after Halloween II.

So the Mung Hour is counting down each week until Halloween with a choice horror recommendation you can rent or pray to the DirectTV gods they'll air it this month. (Oh, if you use the word "choice" in a sentence, that 22 year-old chick you're hitting on at the Halloween party will nail you on your real age.)

This week, since we brought him up, John Carpenter's The Thing. There are remakes and then there are REMAKES. Carpenter took the 1951 horror classic and added a good dose of claustrophobia and latex rubber. People forget there was a time when filmmakers used real stage blood instead of CGI (I'm talking to YOU, Zack Snyder). Aided by a first rate cast of men over 35 (unheard of in Hollywood now), Kurt Russell shows us how justified paranoia, confined quarters and a shape-shifting alien can really foul up the workplace, particularly in -32 degree Antarctic weather.

Favorite line: After watching the creature morph from a colleague into a giant venus fly-trap, biting the head off a comrade before getting torched, Donald Moffat turns to his coworkers and says, "I know you gentlemen have been through a lot, but when you find the time, I'd rather not spend the rest of this winter TIED TO THIS FUCKING COUCH!"