Mel Valentin

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Stories By Mel Valentin
  • Not Your Typical Bigfoot Movie

    SXSW Movie Review: Not Your Typical Bigfoot Movie

    Not Your Typical Bigfoot Movie, a documentary directed by Jay Delaney, is, true to the title, not about Bigfoot (a.k.a. Sasquatch, a.k.a. Yeti), the mythical apelike giant that first chronicled in the 1920s in the Pacific Northwest, British Columbia, and, more recently, the American Midwest. Bigfoot has appeared in stories, novels, horror films, and on…
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  • The Assassination of a High School President [9/10]

    SXSW Movie Review: The Assassination Of A High School President

    Just three years old, high school-noir got its start with Rian Johnson's Brick (released in 2006 after being picked up at the Sundance Film Festival a year earlier). Set in a Northern California high school and centered on the investigation of missing student by her former boyfriend, a detective of sorts, and featuring hyper-stylized dialogue…
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  • Dreams with Sharp Teeth

    SXSW Movie Review: Dreams With Sharp Teeth

    Dreams with Sharp Teeth, a twenty-six-years-in-the-making bio-doc on the life, times, rants, and raves of science fiction writer/raconteur Harlan Ellison directed by Erik Nelson, is a perfect primer for anyone unfamiliar with Ellison's contributions to the written word, television, and film. Be forewarned, though, Nelson gives Ellison free reign to express his dissatisfaction about anything…
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  • Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father

    SXSW Movie Review: Dear Zachary

    Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father, a heart-wrenching, thought-provoking documentary edited and directed by Kurt Kuenne explores, in often excruciating detail, the death of his best friend, Andrew Bagby, a twenty-eight year old doctor completing his residency in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. On the morning of November 5, 2001, Bagby's bullet-riddled body was…
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  • The Upsetter

    SXSW Movie Review: The Upsetter

    Written and directed by Ethan Higbee and Adam Bhala Lough, The Upsetter promises, with more than a bit of hyperbole, to document Jamaican music pioneer Lee "Scratch" Perry's life and times (definitively at that). Perry, a songwriter, singer, and producer, helped to define reggae in the late 1960s and early 1970s, working with Bob Marley…
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  • Stop-Loss

    SXSW Movie Review: Stop-Loss

    Directed and co-written by Kimberly Peirce (Boys Don't Cry, The Last Good Breath), Stop Loss dramatizes the U.S. military's "stop-loss" policy that allows the military to postpone the honorable discharge of U.S. soldiers and send them back to Iraq and Afghanistan for another tour of duty (usually a year to eighteen months). Alas, Stop Loss…
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  • The King of Texas

    SXSW Movie Review: The King Of Texas

    A documentary directed by Rene Pinnell and Claire Huie about Pinnell's uncle, Texas filmmaker Eagle Pennell (Last Night at the Alamo, The Whole Shootin' Match), The King of Texas, is both an affectionate tribute to Pennell and his brand of regional-based, DIY filmmaking and a cautionary tale about substance and alcohol abuse and the premature…
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  • Choke

    SXSW Movie Review: Choke

    After watching Choke, an adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk's (Survivor, Fight Club) novel directed by Clark Gregg, the words vulgar, crude, profane, blasphemous, obscene, and, best of all, hilarious, all come to mind. A sharp critique aimed at our self-centered, self-absorbed culture, with a few digs at group therapy, psychiatry, and dysfunctional parenting, Choke is the…
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  • Body of War

    Movie Review: Body Of War

    Some documentaries enlighten. The best documentaries do both. Case Directed by Ellen Spiro, a professor in the Department of Radio-Television-Film at the University of Texas at Austin, and Phil Donahue, the former television host whose last television program was cancelled by MSNBC (ostensibly for low ratings, but probably for his liberal-progressive views), Body of War,…
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  • Rainbow Around the Sund

    SXSW Movie Review: Rainbow Around The Sun

    A rock opera/musical that's part Tommy and part Cabaret, Rainbow Around the Sun is a perfect example of what a talented group of artists and musicians can do when they have a modest budget and modern technology (e.g., HD cameras, Final Cut Pro) to work from. Filmed in and around Oklahoma City, Oklahoma by directors…
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  • Bananaz

    SXSW Movie Review: Bananaz

    Bananaz, Ceri Levy's behind-the-scenes/tour documentary centered on Gorillaz, the virtual band created by Damon Albarn, lead singer and songwriter for the Brit-pop band, Blur, and Jamie Hewlett, the co-creator of Tank Girl, is, alas, the kind of insular, for-fans-only documentary that means a limited theatrical run, if any, and a somewhat appreciative audience on DVD…
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  • Nerdcore Rising

    SXSW Movie Review: Nerdcore Rising

    If, like the vast majority of music listeners, you're unfamiliar with the term "nerdcore," then you're in luck. Nerdcore Rising, an engrossing documentary directed by Negin Farsad, will answer any and all questions you may have about nerdcore, a relatively new hip-hop genre made by and for nerds (e.g., computer nerds, gaming nerds, and pop…
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  • Frontrunners

    SXSW Movie Review: Frontrunners

    Every year, 25,000 students apply to New York City's prestigious Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan. Out of those 25,000 students, only 750 get in. A meritocracy in the best sense of the word, Stuyvesant pulls in the best and the brightest, regardless of wealth, class, race, or gender. Most of the students are the children…
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  • Forgetting Sarah Marshall

    SXSW Movie Review: Forgetting Sarah Marshall

    Possibly the unfunniest comedy ever made, Forgetting Sarah Marshall is…. Wait, let's back up. That's completely backward. Written by actor Jason Segal (Knocked Up Undeclared, Freaks and Geeks), Forgetting Sarah Marshall is the kind of romantic comedy straight men can get behind and not just because Segel unveils his manliness more times than you can…
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  • Dance of the Dead

    SXSW Movie Review: Dance Of The Dead

    If you're in the mood for survival horror (and really, who isn't?), then Dance of the Dead, directed by Gregg Bishop (The Other Side) and written by Joe Ballarini, will satiate your appetite and then some. Made on a modest budget (not a micro-budget, thankfully) and featuring a cast of unknowns (as is usually the…
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  • The Promotion

    SXSW Movie Review: The Promotion

    A comedy-drama written and directed by Steve Conrad (The Pursuit of Happyness, The Weather Man, Wrestling Ernest Hemingway), The Promotion gently satirizes the insular world of grocery chains, consumerism, and, of course, the American Dream of success through hard work, hard effort, and fair play. Depending less on the broad, low-brow comedy generally associated with…
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  • Run, Fatboy, Run

    SXSW Movie Review: Run, Fat Boy, Run

    In just three films, actor/comedian/screenwriter Simon Pegg has gone from playing a lovable, if clueless, slacker fighting off a zombie apocalypse and saving his girlfriend, his best friend, and a pint of beer (not necessarily in that order) in Shaun of the Dead to an anti-slacker/overachiever/cop exiled to a small sleepy town experiencing a rash…
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  • 10,000 B.C.

    WonderCon: 10,000 B.C.

    Wonder-Con premiered a new, exclusive trailer during the first panel of the day presented by Warner Brothers, 10,000 B.C., Roland Emmerich's (The Day After Tomorrow, Independence Day, Stargate) latest magnum opus (okay, slight overstatement). Emmerich's films tend be big, loud, and, more often than not, ridiculous, contrived and, for those of willing to admit it…
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  • X-Files 2

    WonderCon: X-Files 2

    The X-Files are back, not on your television screen (thankfully), but in an all-new, apparently eagerly anticipated, big(ger) budgeted feature-length film. Creator/producer/writer Chris Carter is back, as are David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson reprising their roles as FBI Special Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, respectively. Also on hand was Frank Spotniz, series writer, producer,…
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  • Get Smart

    WonderCon: Get Smart

    Wonder-Con premiered the newly minted trailer for Get Smart, the big screen adaptation of the 1960s television series created by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry that starred Don Adams and Barbara Feldman. It looked good, better than good. Now this is how you make you a trailer: mixing verbal humor, physical comedy, and large-scale action,…
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  • Wanted

    WonderCon: Wanted - Reshoots?

    Wonder-Con premiered an extended scene from Wanted, the big screen adaptation of Mark Millar (Civil War, Wolverine: Enemy of the State, Ultimate Fantastic Four, Superman: Red Son) and J.G. Jones' (the forthcoming Final Crisis with Grant Morrison for DC, 52 covers) graphic novel about a shadowy organization that specializes in assassinations and a sub-average loser…
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