Chuck's Movie Breakdown

      Hey guys, Chuck here. Happy Halloween. To wrap up this year's  HallowScream , we're going to be celebrating fifty years of the sci-fi comedy musical classic The Rocky Horror Picture Show starring Tim Curry, Susan Sarandon, Barry Bostwick, Richard O'Brien, Nell Campbell, Meat Loaf, and Patricia Quinn.        After an opening credits sequence to a song that references classic sci-fi and monster movies, we cut to the aftermath of a wedding ceremony. Two of the wedding guests, Brad Majors and Janet Weiss, end up engaged themselves, and decide to share the news of their engagement with their old college professor Dr. Everett Scott. However, their car breaks down in the middle of the woods during a rainstorm, and they follow the lights to a massive castle, where a party is being hosted by Dr. Frank-n-Furter, who claims to be a "sweet transvestite from Transsexual Transylvania."        In the upstairs laboratory, Frank-n-Furter ...

      Hey guys, Chuck here. And, as we approach the end of yet another HallowScream , I think that it's time to also wrap up the trilogy of Mummy films with Brendan Fraser with 2008's The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor , which also stars Maria Bello, John Hannah, Luke Ford, Michelle Yeoh, Liam Cunningham, Russell Wong, Isabella Leong, and Jet Li.        So, shifting out of the Egyptian mythology of the first two films, The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor introduces us to the legend of a Chinese warlord named Qin Shi Huang, who united the country's kingdoms, forging them into a single empire, and thus becoming the Dragon Emperor. Unfortunately, the Emperor sought the secret to immortality, and he sends his lieutenant, General Ming, to find the sorceress Zi Yuan, who holds the secret of Shangri-La. Unfortunately, Zi Yuan and General Ming fall in love, and the Emperor has General Ming killed. And, just as the Emperor achieves immortality, he and his ...

       Hey guys, Chuck here. The Life and Death of a Pumpkin is a 2006 short film directed by Aaron Yonda and produced by BlameSociety, the same creative team behind Chad Vader .        The short is told, in first-person narration, from the perspective of a pumpkin. It details the process of being taken from the pumpkin patch, taken to a home, cut open, gutted, carved into a Jack-o'-lantern, placed on a porch with a little candle inside of it on Halloween night, and being nabbed by teens who take it to the middle of nowhere to smash it to bits.         The humor of the short is in how the pumpkin narrates in excruciating detail the fear of being taken from the pumpkin patch and the pain of being cut and carved up, and being set outside as a Jack-o'-lantern, and finally feels the relief of freedom from its pain and suffering when it's smashed into many pieces. And, what makes it even more hilarious is in how Matt Sloan prov...

        Hey guys, Chuck here. Addams Family Values, released in 1993 and directed by Barry Sonnenfeld, is the sequel to the 1991 film The Addams Family .          The movie opens when, after an average night in the Addams household, Morticia is rushed to the hospital, and soon after gives birth to a new baby boy, whom the family names Pubert. And, being an Addams, baby Pubert is born with a moustache similar to his father, Gomez.         However, it seems like the elder two Addams children, Wednesday and Pugsley, are jealous of the newfound attention their new baby brother is getting from the adults, and decide to have fun with multiple attempts at killing the little guy. And this includes everything from dropping him off the roof, only for Gomez to catch him, using a guillotine, which fails, and using a shotgun, which we only hear as Gomez and Morticia sit out in the cemetery. Deciding that the family needs additiona...

       Hey guys, Chuck here. The books series Goosebumps by R. L. Stine are fondly remembered by '90s kids for being spooky stories that weren't specifically nightmare inducing. The books were adapted at the time into a popular Fox Kids television program which featured such actors as Ryan Gosling. So, it should be no surprise that Hollywood would look to adapt the Goosebumps series to the big screen.         However, when Sony Pictures announced the choice of director as Rob Letterman and the choice of lead actor as Jack Black, there was understandable concern, as the last film this actor-director worked on was the disastrous disappointment Gulliver's Travels . But, would history repeat itself, or would Jack Black and Rob Letterman turn in a good movie? Let's find out as we look at Goosebumps .          So, the movie opens with Gale Cooper and her teenage son Zach, as the two are moving from New York to the small tow...

       Hey guys, Chuck here. After the success of 1999's The Mummy , it only made sense for Universal Pictures to produce a sequel. And, in 2001, director Stephen Sommers returned with The Mummy Returns , which saw the returns of Brendan Fraser, Rachel Weisz, John Hannah, Oded Fehr, Patricia Velásquez, and Arnold Vosloo, with newcomers including Freddie Boath, Alun Armstrong, Shaun Parkes, and Dwayne Johnson.        The movie opens with the legend of the Scorpion King, a mighty warrior who once led a campaign to conquer the known world, only to be defeated by an opposing force, and sent the the harsh desert of Ahm Shere. One by one, the Scorpion King's men die from the heat, leaving only the mighty warrior himself. Close to death, the Scorpion King swears his soul to the god Anubis in exchange for the power to defeat his foes. Anubis accepts, and thus where once was harsh desert bloomed the great Oasis of Ahm Shere. Commanding Anubis' army of jack...