Cousin Adam reviews the new scary movie remake: The Crazies

Rated R – 1h41 -

The Crazies is capable horror film. It’s tense, and a little smarter than the average scary movie. It needed a little more dread and fewer predictable things jumping out from the dark at you.

The film is a remake of Horror God George Romero’s 1973 “The Crazies,” and manages to achieve the task of doing a good job with it.

Small town Iowa Sheriff David Dutton (Timothy Olyphant) finds himself at the center of town gone crazy after a military jet carrying secrets crashes nearby. One by one, the town’s residents turn into murderous psychotics and no one can explain why.

I wouldn’t say the town folk are turning into zombies, but rather the do not kill instinct in their brain gets turned off.

The film is set in Iowa, but a rather generic looking military force is sent into clean up the mess. It seems like it would be the U.S. military that’s sent on a contain-and-eradicate mission, but it’s not clear.

What is clear, is the idea of who’s crazier? Is it the infected locals, or the government that’s bringing down a big hurt on its own citizens? Who are the hero’s to run from? The infected or the military? Is this a horror story, or a man without a country whose on the run?

In my head, those ideas muddied what seemed to be a pretty good idea for a scary story. Adding in the tension where the viewer and the characters in the film can’t quite tell whether a person is infected, or just way stressed out is a nice touch.

It’s not bad, but Romero always adds a far superior gloom to his work. It was a little lost on this one.

I don’t know if there’s anything more badass than girls smoking cigars and drinking cans of beer.

It’s not what you image when you picture an Olympian, but hey, these are Canadian girls who play hockey that we’re talking about.

After taking the gold from the American’s yesterday, the Canadians returned to the ice after the stadium emptied out.  They were still in uniform and had their gold medals around their neck.  They also brought cigars, cans of Molson Beer and bottles of champagne that they were swigging from.

Really, who cares if they were celebrating?

I guess the International Olympic Committee does, saying they were not acting like Olympians.

I’d say their real mistake was not realizing there were photographers still in the stadium.

The Oscars are this weekend and many are speculating that it’s between Avatar and The Hurt Locker. Well a co-producer of The Hurt Locker might have just made the biggest screw-up in Academy Awards History! Nicholas Chartier decided the most sophisticated way to campaign for his movie was to send out a DESPERATE mass e-mail that begged people to vote for his film and in the process, took an obvious dig at the competition.

He writes:
I hope all is well with you. I just wanted to write you and say I hope you liked Hurt Locker and if you did and want us to win, please tell (name deleted) and your friends who vote for the Oscars, tell actors, directors, crew members, art directors, special effects people, if everyone tells one or two of their friends, we will win and not a $500M film, we need independent movies to win like the movies you and I do, so if you believe The Hurt Locker is the best movie of 2010, help us!” Here’s the problem. Solicitation like this is completely against the Academy’s rules. They could disqualify the film because of this. He has since written an apology email!

Brittany Murphy’s full autopsy results have been released and her husband Simon Monjack says he feels vindicated. There is absolutely no truth to the rumors that she was using drugs OR was too think. The coroner did find a lot of medicine in her system, including over the counter cough medicine and elevated levels of vicodin, but nothing illegal. She weighed 115 pounds which the doctor said is not excessively thin and showed no signs of drug abuse.

Ohh Rozyln Papa. After trying to defend herself for months after being accused of an inappropriate relationship with a Bachelor producer, her credibility is really going downhill. She’s involved in another sex scandal-a video. Apparently she is featured in a sex tape that is being shopped around to porn companies. A spokesperson for Rozlyn says that she has NO knowledge of any tape, but Kevin Blatt a pron site representative claims that he has seen the video and it’s definitely her.

5. A judge in Alaska has ordered Levi Johnston to pay $18,500 in back child support for his 13-month-old son, Tripp. Levi also has to start paying $1688.42 in child support to his baby mama, Bristol Palin. Levi didn’t even show up in court for yesterday’s hearing. According to court documents, Levi earned $105K last year, but only gave Bristol $4400. How much does “Playgirl” pay??

4. Oprah is cleaning out her closet and auctioning off tons of stuff on eBay. All the proceeds go to her Leadership Academy in South Africa. Among the 150 items up for bidding are some practically new Jimmy Choos, a Chanel handbag and a Carolina Herrera dress. The auction starts Monday and ends on March 11.

3. The invitations for Justin Bieber’s sweet 16 have gone out! Along with the invite is also a release form parents have to sign, where they acknowledge their child’s life may be in jeopardy if they got to this party!! The birthday activities include paintball, laser tag, basketball, and sumo wrestling. There’s also something involving a workout gym, but who knows what that’s about….But no kids are allowed to go unless their parents sign that waiver that states plain and simply,”I fully understand my/minor’s participation may involve risk or serious injury or death.”

2. Who are you gonna believe — Simon Cowell’s rep or his fiancee? Simon’s rep says he’s not engaged, but Mezhgan Hussainy told RadarOnline.com exclusively that they most definitely are engaged, and she’s got a nice sparkly ring to prove it. Simon and Mezhgan met years ago on the set of “American Idol,” where she serves as key makeup artist. They started dating when he broke up with “Extra” reporter Terri Seymour last year. When’s the wedding? RadarOnline promised they wouldn’t tell, but they DID say it will be sooner rather that later.

1. Ellen DeGeneres is liking the way Paula Abdul’s old seat on the “American Idol” judging panel is molding around the curve of her butt. And now she’s reportedly making some diva demands. According to a show insider, Ellen is insisting that her wife Portia de Rossi be allowed to serve as a guest judge in a future episode. She also wants to do some public appearances with Randy Jackson so people will take her more seriously as a music insider and not just a talk show host. She didn’t like her dressing room, so she’s redecorating that. Oh, and she’s not happy that Simon’s dressing room is bigger than hers, either. And just one more thing — even though she’s already signed her contract, Ellen would like a signing bonus. And by “signing bonus,”  she means a Mercedes.

Just like you, I’m a little creeped out about what the Killer Whale taking out its trainer at Sea World. Somewhere in your head you know that it’s a wild creature, but you never expect the thing to turn on you.

One person said the whale saw the trainer’s pony tail and grabbed it.  Other accounts say the thing jumped out of the water like Jaws and grabbed her.

I don’t know how it went down, but I do know these things about killer whales.

1.  If you traverse onto a rock barrier wall between the ocean and its containment pool, the whale will jump over you, Free Willy style, when you raise your fist in the air.  Also, expect to get wet.

2. Michael Jackson’s music seems to play when killer whales are around.

3. Chris Farley has to date, made the funniest SNL sketch about whales at marine theme parks.

4. Even though it has Bo Derek’s first role, the movie Orca still sucks.

5. I’m not ever getting into one of those nasty giant fish tanks that the whales swim in.

That’s being said.  I don’t fear the sea creatures themselves, that’s what leads to hating them.  I’m just gonna give them their space and not get in their way.  Mmmm…yeah probably a good idea.

Wondering what Conan O’Brien has been up to since leaving his post at NBC? According to him, Twitter is his only gig. He made a new account yesterday and within 4 hours had over 100 thousand followers. His bio says, “First I had a show. Then I had a different show. Now I have a Twitter account. His first tweet? “Today I interviewed a squirrel in my backyard and then threw to commercial. Somebody help me”. He has also created an account for the squirrel that he interviewed!

More drama between judges on the Idol set last night. If you remember the original seating had Ellen next to Simon Cowell, but last night she was seated at the opposite end of the table. Ryan tried to play it off as as a joke asking why she moved. Ellen had a pre-prepared video of Simon sitting next to her rubbing her leg. They passed it off as Simon was getting too friendly with his hands. Producers say that they just love to mix things up all the time.

Tiger’s biggest supporter? Chris Brown. The R&B star told the Mojo In The Morning radio show “nobody has the right to place judgment or make any judgment on somebody else’s personal life when they’re not directly involved with them. Then Chris drew parallels between himself and Woods. “I think, even with me, like I do music, I sing songs, like I’m an entertainer, I’m a performer, but people make mistakes. So my hat is off to him — I support him, I hope he gets back on the field and does his thing, cause he is the best at it.

5. Friends of the show — Forever the Sickest Kids — leaked a song from their house party and you can download it for free on their MySpace page  www.myspace.com). Apparently they got in a bit of trouble with their record label over this because they sorta kinda didn’t ask first. But you can check it out and and get “Get Over Yourself” absolutely free.  Scroll down until you see their manager Robi dressed like a cop and click there.

4. So yesterday we played the tape of the paramedic riding with Michael Jackson’s body to UCLA, saying, “Patient is Michael Jackson, the pop star singer … we should be there in five minutes. It doesn’t look good.” Oh, the heartbreak in his voice! Well, it was all a hoax. The captain of the LA City Fire Department the recording isn’t of any of the paramedics who treated Michael. He says, “There are several indicators on the tape which show it could not have originated from an LA City fire employee…Officials are not supposed to name the patient and the terminology used in the recording is not consistent with the terms used by the department.”

3. Mary-Kate Olsen has dumped her boyfriend of two years for two reasons — Nate Lowman parties a little too hard for her taste and the two of them couldn’t come to terms on a $900 million dollar prenup. Mary-Kate really wanted to get married, but so many millions were at stake and her legal advisers wanted to make sure there was an iron-clad prenup before she said “I do.” But things started falling apart around November and they never quite recovered. So just before Valentine’s Day, Mary-Kate tearfully ended their relationship. Friends think she might take him back because she’s so miserable.

2. Ever wonder how much “American Idol” contestants get paid? The “New York Times” did a little checking using copies of last year’s contracts that were filed in state court under laws requiring court approval  of entertainment-industry deals with minors. So as far as last year, top 12 finalists received AFTRA contract fees — $1011 for hour-long episodes and $1540 for two hour episodes. That’s close to $10,000 in performance fees over the season for a top 5 contestant. And if 19 Entertainment signed the finalists, they would’ve received $200K for their first record and $50K for merchandise. In addition, finalists got a one-time payment of $1000 and a $1000 advance on royalties for each recording that goes onto iTunes.  Those who made it to the top five also got $50K from Disney for taking part in “The American Idol Experience” attraction and Disney’s Hollywood Studios.  As for Kris Allen, he earned an advance of $350K for his first album, exclusive of recording costs, with half of it paid soon after the competition ended and half when he finished recording. Kris also received a $100K advance on royalties from a 3-year merchandising contract and $100,K for the “I’m going to Disney World” ad. He got another $100K for spending a day filming segments that were used for the Idol attraction and for taping a vocal performance for the Walt Disney World Christmas Parade television show. Adam Lambert got a $300K advance, $75K for merchandising, and $50K from Disney. It’s actually a lot more than standard contracts in the industry, but keep in mind, the “Idol” contract potentially binds the artist to the show’s producers for up to 7 years, which is about twice as long as a typical contract.

1. The “National Enquirer” says yeah, Tiger Woods has checked back into rehab, but not for more treatment for his sex addiction. They say he’s in The Meadows treatment center in Wickenburg, AZ, to battle his addiciton to two prescription medications. A source says that when Tiger was in therapy for sex addiction, he blamed a lot of his cheating on his drug addiction.

After much speculation over his return to drinking, Charlie Sheen has entered rehab. He arrived at a facility in L.A. yesterday hours after his rep said he was there. Though his rep says it’s al preventative, sources close to Sheen say that he’s been slipping. He is due in court March 15th to face domestic violence charges and it was part of his bail deal that he not drink or do drugs until the hearing. So where are the kids? With their mom Brooke Mueller in another rehab facility that allows children. Charlie is planning on spending 2 weeks in rehab and production of “Two and a Half Men” is temporarily suspended.

Paula Abdul’s future lies in the hands of Oprah Winfrey. Oprah has greenlit a pilot for her new network OWN featuring Paula. The plan is to have her host a daily talk show inspired by Oprah’s show. It will feature celebrity guests and people’s inspirational tales. What does this do for Paula’s plan on judging American version of X-factor? She says, no problem. “If Ellen can do it, so can I!” If 2 shows aren’t enough, she has also been offered a semi-regular role on Drop Dead Diva.

Spencer must have gotten the memo that people are forgetting about him, so he’s back in the spotlight. He claims he’s addicted to crystal…wait, not THAT kind of crystal. He says that he’s addicted to actual crystal rocks, like the ones from the earth. He says he is searching for spiritual enlightenment and on a path to become a better person. He says, “I’m so addicted to crystals, it’s like a sickness. I’ve spent $500,000 on crystals this year. I checked my bank account last night, and I have $203 left.” He goes on to reveal that during Valentine’s Day, he and Heidi hung out with their puppies and cuddled with our crystal. It’s supposed to bring love. There’s a whole science to this — I’m not crazy.” Of course a crystal expert says that though crystal do possess healing powers, they tend to cost between just 1 and 100 dollars!

5. Matthew Fox is not only wrapping up his last season on “Lost,” he might be wrapping up his marriage, too. This young stripper says she’s been having an ongoing affair with Matthew after meeting him at the Stars Cabaret strip club in Bend, Oregon. And even though Matthew is denying all of it, Stefani Talbot says she’s saved all the voice mails and text messages from him that will prove she’s telling the truth.

4. Even if you watched every episode of “Jersey Shore,” you’ll want to pick up the first-season DVD that was released yesterday. “Jersey Shore:  Season 1 Uncensored” includes deleted scenes — Maybe that one where Snooki gets punched in the face? Maybe all the dirty words they bleeped out? Who knows! Plus, there’s this bonus feature — Tips from The Situation and Snooki!!  You can get it exclusively on Amazon.com.

3. A former “Bachelor” contestant now says she’s sorry for selling out her former roommate Rozlyn on the “Women Tell All Special” that aired Monday night. Valishia Savage says she always felt like Rozlyn and the producer were just friends and that nothing inappropriate ever happened. But then she started listening to all the gossips in the bachelorette house and felt pressured by producers to believe something DID happen and she started doubting Rozlyn. But now, she’s totally on Rozlyn’s side. She says, “Still to this day, I never saw anything that made me think it was a sexual relationship. Never.” Valishia went on to say, “I had the same producer she had come visit me at my house. If anything, he was very forward and flirtatious.” She thinks the other girls in the house were jealous of the relationship that was quickly developing between Jake and Rozlyn and seized the opportunity to make her look bad. The producers took advantage of the situation to get ratings.

2. They weren’t fooling anybody anyway, but Robert Pattinson has finally admitted that he and Kristen Stewart are dating. He says they’ve been dating secretly since last year and were supposed to make their first public appearance at the UK’s BAFTA Film awards Sunday night, but they decided to go separately at the last minute. Robert told “The Sun,” “It is extremely difficult but we are together, yes….We can’t arrive at the same time because of the fans. It goes crazy. This was supposed to be a public appearance as a couple but it’s impossible. We are here together and it’s a public event but it’s not easy.”We have to do all this stuff to avoid attention.”After the BAFTAs, the couple headed to the Grosvenor House Hotel for the after-party, where they were spotted leaving at a relatively-respectable midnight.But despite Rob’s admission the young couple is keen to keep their romance low-profile, Stewart attended the Elle Awards alone Monday night while Pattinson was busy working on his new film Bel Ami.

1. When his reps released the statement yesterday that Charlie Sheen had checked into rehab as a preventive measure to keep him from falling off the sobriety wagon, he wasn’t even IN rehab. In fact, he had to be dragged in kicking and screaming about six hours later. Charlie doesn’t think he needs rehab, but RadarOnline.com is reporting exclusively that he has been using cocaine and alcohol again. Production of “Two and a Half Men” will shut down while he gets help. His wife Brooke Mueller has entered a different rehab facility, which allows her to keep her twin boys with her while she gets treatment.