Newport Beach Film Festival: Suck Review Dan Koelsch, April 27, 2010June 6, 2010 Rob Stefaniuk’s Suck is not your average (noticing our NBFF trend?) vampire flick. Sure, the vampires kill people, drink blood, and hate the sunlight, but they also rock. This Canadian horror rock musical follows a band as it slowly chooses the dark side in order to make it big. Does film deliver the goods, or does it…well, suck? Find out after the break. Joey (Stefaniuk) leads a band ironically called “The Winners”. What’s ironic about it is that they aren’t winning anything. Their manager Jeff (Dave Foley) is planning to quit, Joey is constantly having to ask for money from his girlfriend, and they just lost a big gig in front of music executives. Just when Joey begins to think he’s a hack, luck comes their way. Jennifer (Jessica ParĂ©), the band’s bassist and ex-girlfriend to Joey, becomes a vampire, and audiences love it. Eventually she turns the rest of the band into vampires as well, and Joey is forced to make a choice: Lose his soul or lose his dream. As deep as that may sound, Suck is a very superficial film. As to be expected, it is also a comedy. The film is very tongue-and-cheek, and let’s you know it from the start. Maybe appropiately, the film has no soul, and when characters are forced to make decisions, you really don’t care. Even the jokes aren’t that great, because there’s no real drama. There’s very little talk about the mythology of vampires, which helps keep the foot on the pedal, but leaves something lacking. That being said, there are definitely some positives (insert blood joke here) to enjoy in Suck. The music is really good, though the film constantly goes away from the “musical” part of its premise. The smaller roles and cameos are probably the highlights of the film. Foley, of course, is hilarious, but so is Malcolm McDowell as Van Helsing’s decendent. The rock cameos of Alice Cooper, Moby, Henry Rollins, and especially Iggy Pop made this movie worth watching. Sure, this may be a throwaway movie that won’t move you or change the landscape of filmmaking, but it’s a lot of fun despite its flaws. Isn’t that what really matters? Suck premiered in September 2009 at the Toronto International Film Festival and is currently awaiting distribution after Alliance Films bought the rights. See the trailer below. Events Reviews Alice CooperIggy PopNewport Beach Film FestivalReviewReviewsSuck
WonderCon 2011: “Cowboys & Aliens” Panel Video and Footage Reaction April 3, 2011The first and easily most anticipated panel of Saturday here at WonderCon was the panel for Jon Favreau’s Cowboys & Aliens. Favreau and co-writer/co-producer Roberto Orci were in attendance and we got to see some revealing footage from the film. See the panel for yourself and get our take on… Read More
Comic-Con 2012 Sony Panel Recap: “Total Recall”, “Looper”, “Elysium” July 14, 2012On Friday, Sony hosted a San Diego Comic-Con panel for their films Total Recall, Looper, and Elysium, with Radio personality Ralph Garman as moderator. After the break, read some of my notes from the panel, including reactions to footage shown. Read More
“Maleficent” Review: A Classic Fairy Tale Story Of Rape And Revenge Gone Horribly Wrong May 28, 2014May 29, 2014Disney is already knee deep into the business of retelling classic fairy tales. The fact that they have made a business out of it via their animated films, just shows that there is always more to a story than what we see or read. Do these retellings make for a… Read More