Jun 29 2009 Remember How Good 'Drag Me to Hell' Was with Fan Art

Sam Raimi's Drag Me to Hell: that was a fun one, yeah? So, seeing that nothing is really going on today, let's remember what a fun one that was with this really good would-be poster from Fiona Staples. Coincidentally, she also did the art for The Secret History of The Authority: Jack Hawksmoor, written by my friend Mike Costa (nepotism!), which you should also probably read. What else are you doing with yourself?

Jun 1 2009 'Up' Was Your Favorite Movie Last Weekend

The weekend box office report. Email me for the Excel version.

1. Up - $68.2 million, because Pixar could animate a cockfight and it would still open huge. Especially in Latin America.

2. Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian - $25.5 million, bringing its total gross to over $100 million and popularizing use of the saying, "It was no night at the museum!", used to refer to nights that did not include exhibits spontaneously gaining consciousness.

3. Drag Me to Hell - Only $16.6 million. Where are all the teenagers taking dates to scary movies so that when the girl cowers in fear against the boy, he can give a sly grin and put his arm around her? Popular media led me to believe that happens constantly.

4. Terminator Salvation - $16.1 million--just enough to save humanity. We did it.

5. Star Trek - $12.8 million in gold-pressed latinum! Get it? Star Trek reference. The guy with the ears always talked about it.

Weekend Box Office Results [Box Office Mojo]

May 28 2009 Films You Could See in a Theater This Weekend

Keep seeing trailers, posters, and clips that catch your interest but unsure of when the films are being released? How about I start telling you what's coming out every week? So you can ask girls on dates to movies. I'll try to come up with a better title by next week.

Anyway, this weekend:

Up
Director: Pete Docter
Starring: Ed Asner, Christopher Plummer, Delroy Lindo, some other voices.
Recommended if you want to see: the elderly as three-dimensional computer-renderings; the delighted faces of children exiting the theater; a talking dog; an obviously good movie because it's a Pixar.

Drag Me to Hell
Director: Sam Raimi
Starring: Alison Lohman (that girl from Matchstick Men), Justin Long (that guy who is a Mac commercial).
Recommended if you want to see: Raimi's favorably-reviewed return to horror; a bug crawl into a girl's nose (I think that happened in one of the TV spots); someone forcibly pulled into a fiery netherworld.

Departures
Director: Yôjirô Takita
Starring: Masahiro Motoki, more Japanese names that will mean nothing to you.
Recommended if you want to see: an Academy Award-winning, moving, sometimes comical, beautifully-shot film from Japan; how this thing managed to lose you the Best Foreign Language Film point in your office Oscar pool when you heard that Holocaust movie was a fucking lock.

What Goes Up
Director: Jonathan Glatzer
Starring: Steve Coogan, Hilary Duff
Recommended if you want to see: confused families saying, "I thought this was supposed to be the animated thing with the old guy."

Mar 31 2009 'Drag Me to Hell' Poster: You Can't Take Your BFF Half-Heart Pendant with You

Continuing the Ghostbusters tradition of disembodied, demon-like brown arms dragging beautiful women into a hellish, inhuman world, here's the poster for Sam Raimi's Drag Me to Hell. Who knew eternal damnation would look so much like VHS box art for a suburban-set softcore porn with some flames and creature effects overlaid?

First Look at the Drag Me to Hell Poster! [Shock Till You Drop]

Mar 11 2009 'Drag Me to Hell' Trailer: Suburban Witches Also Hurt by Recession

After years of directing Spider-Men of varying qualities, Sam Raimi returns to the cheesy-but-enormously-enjoyable horror genre with Drag Me to Hell. It's a horrific morality tale that will teach you to place the needs of milky-eyed, nearly-dead women with staples in their head above your stupid promotion, because so long as they possess the black arts (and one of your personal effects), witches will inevitably control our banking system:

Continue Reading " 'Drag Me to Hell' Trailer: Suburban Witches Also Hurt by Recession "

Oct 29 2008 'Drag Me to Hell' Looks a Lot Like Being Dragged to Grandma's

Sam Raimi is finally returning to (somewhat) low-budget horror with Drag Me to Hell, and MTV has the first shots from the production, including the one above. If you think it's terrifying that this lady's teeth, Marilyn Manson eyes, head staples, and expression of utter madness are terrifying, wait until you come to the realization she's also wearing lipstick and earrings. The only thing worse than being attacked by a horrible hag-thing is having to awkwardly reject one that's hoping to date you.

Raimi interview and more shots here.

Dec 20 2007 Sam Raimi Returning to Genre Roots with 'Drag Me to Hell'

With many critics let down by the snowboarder-inspired Green Goblin 2, goofy Dark Peter Parker sequences, and Batman and Robin-level of villains that made the third Spider-Man outing weaker than it's predecessors, director Sam Raimi has announced plans to return to his roots for his next feature, Drag me to Hell. Variety had few details beyond that it's a "morality tale about the unwitting recipient of a supernatural curse" that was written by Raimi and his brother shortly after Army of Darkness, but it promises to be a return the low(er)-budget genre filmmaking that made him a cult favorite. You may begin your pleading for Bruce Campbell to star... now.

Raimi 'Hell' bent on thriller [Variety]