Here’s how little I understood BEOWULF when I had to read it in English class in junior high and again in high school: I thought the title referred to the monster, and that the monster was a wolf. Laugh all you want, but Anglo-Saxon epic poems of the 8th century aren’t the easiest things to decipher.

Luckily, Robert Zemeckis’ BEOWULF is different, and I don’t just mean because it’s animated. It’s his “no-bullshit” version of the epic poem, as he promises on the making-of documentary featured on the DVD’s extra features: “This has nothing to do with the BEOWULF you were forced to read in junior high school. It’s all about eating, drinking, killing and fornicating.”

Actually, as scripted by Neil Gaiman and Roger Avary, the movie doesn’t stray all that far from the story of its source. It’s just that it ditches much of the boring elements and amps up the saucy ones, leaving an action-oriented, sometimes ribald and unapologetically over-the-top experience. Should Beowulf really be shown punching his way out of sea monster by going through the eye? Sure, why the hell not?

Getting a CGI slimdown in the process, THE DEPARTED heavy Ray Winstone assumes the lead role of Beowulf, a hero – here, made flawed, in direct opposition to the poem – who arrives at the castle of King Hrothgar (Anthony Hopkins) to slay the monster Grendel (Crispin Glover), a giant deformed beast from a nearby village who doesn’t like all the noise their merriment makes.

Beowulf agrees, Grendel attacks and – while stark naked and opting to use no sword – our hero kills the creature. That doesn’t sit well with his serpentine mother, who takes the form of Angelina Jolie, whose breastastic reveal sent the tongues of Internet bloggers a-wagging when the scene was leaked just prior to its theatrical release. She offers Beowulf a truce: He can say he killed her if he promises to leave her be. Because she looks like a nude Jolie, he agrees.

Women are known to change their minds, however, which results in Beowulf having to engage in the fight of his life with a huge, fire-breathing dragon. Like much of the movie, this sequence is a thrill to watch. Even when the narrative lags – and at nearly two hours, it does here and there – the visuals are something to behold. While I’ve never been a fan of motion-capture animation, BEOWULF represents a huge leap for the medium; it’s difficult to imagine Zemeckis being able to make it live-action.

While I haven’t compared, I don’t have to see the theatrical cut to know that the unrated director’s cut is the one to watch. Laden as it is with violence, gore and nudity, it makes the ages-old story more exciting and accessible (Seamus Heaney or no Seamus Heaney) than it ever has been, or could ever hope to be.

For a more trash-oriented but still vastly entertaining take, don’t overlook 1999’s BEOWULF, from ALIEN NATION director Graham Baker. It plays fast and loose with the source material, as you’d expect a straight-to-video Christopher Lambert vehicle would.

Here, the inhabitants of a big, spooky castle are under constant threat of being made a meal by a ghost demon named Grendle. Their saving grace comes in the form of visiting mysterious stranger Beowulf, played by Lambert, the HIGHLANDER refugee and graduate of the Angry Whisper School of Acting.

Beowulf has a gift of sensing danger, so he knows when the monster is near. The beast is mostly a CGI creature given a wavy effect that looks like someone dragged a big magnet across your TV screen. The fight scenes – set to a techno score by Juno Reactor – alternately ape those found in MORTAL KOMBAT, THE MATRIX and EVIL DEAD II, and Beowulf himself busts out some GYMKATA moves. Assisting Beowulf is a foxy brunette (played by Rhona Mitra of HOLLOW MAN) who has a name, but I didn’t catch it because her boobs hang out the entire film.

How faithful is it to the poem? Again, it was a chore to read, but I’m pretty sure if the castle dudes were being visited in their dreams by a horny Playboy Playmate, I would’ve remembered, and maybe even aced the test. –Rod Lott

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Sometimes, there’s a lot to be said for keeping it simple. As undemanding as Steven Gould’s 1992 novel JUMPER is, it’s certainly memorable. Picking it up five years after first reading it, details came flooding back with ease.

While watching director Doug Liman’s big-budget adaptation starring STAR WARS prequel vet Hayden Christensen, I was forgetting plot points minutes after they were introduced – its can’t-miss conceit complicated by a need to muddle something so straightforward.

Both tell the story of a young man – Davy in the book, David in the movie – who suddenly and inexplicably acquires the gift of teleportation. As Gould conceived it, Davy’s power allowed him to escape an abusive father and a would-be rapist trucker before getting the bright idea to “borrow” considerable cash sums from bank vaults.

From there, Davy eludes police and NSA questioning while also thwarting terrorist acts for the feds and romancing a headstrong college student named Millie (but only after he’s devirginized by another girl, perhaps prompting some of the controversy this young-adult novel has courted in its history). He performs a lot of jumping between New York and Oklahoma.

But the movie diverges considerably after the phrase “bank vaults.” Oh, there’s Millie, alright; she’s now a childhood crush grown up to be a clueless barmaid played by THE O.C.’s Rachel Bilson. Most of the book is condensed into 15 or 20 minutes, then Liman and company exercise free reign, with more visually appealing but less interesting results.

David is chased not by the cops, but by the Paladins, a shadowy organization for whom Roland (Samuel L. Jackson) – sporting white hair that makes him look like a Fisher-Price toy, not to mention a knife he uses to kill David’s kind – works. Yes, that’s right: David is not the only “jumper,” as he learns when he meets the cocky Brit named Griffin (Jamie Bell of BILLY ELLIOT).

Neither Roland nor Griffin appears as characters in Gould’s book, but they take center stage in the film. (Gould has, however, smartly taken advantage of the loads of exposure the movie will afford his work by writing an original tie-in called JUMPER: GRIFFIN’S STORY, which serves as that character’s origin, continuity be damned.)

The joy of Gould’s source material stems from its childlike view of an amazing power. With Davy greeting his newfound skills with equal guilt and glee, it’s not unreasonable to view it as a thinly veiled tale of hitting puberty and discovering the magic of erections.

Liman, a gifted filmmaker (SWINGERS, GO, THE BOURNE IDENTITY) reduces Davy’s story to a mere special effect. Although mildly diverting, there’s nothing all that innocent – or human – about it. –Rod Lott

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Although I check out the British music magazines every time I go to the bookstore, it’s probably been two years since I bought one. In the past, its cover-affixed free CDs were like catnip to me, but as they became less adventurous, so did my willingness to fork over $10.

But now here’s one worth having: OK_COMPUTER, “free” with the February issue of MOJO magazine. With a tip of the hat to Radiohead (which adorns the mag’s cover), the disc is a 15-track collection of futurist electronic music, spanning from the 1960s to today. It begins with a double-dose of New Wave – with less-obvious cuts from The Human League and Gary Numan – but really finds its footing with Fujiya & Miyagi’s buoyant “Ankle Injuries.” While I’ve never heard of this act before, this 2006 cut is a wholly infectious feel-good anthem.

I also haven’t heard of The Peppers, but their 1973 “Pepper Box” sounds like it could have been made for today’s soulful dancefloors. The ’60s-era The Sounds of Tomorrow is represented with “Space Child,” which will appease the Joe Meek fans. Boards of Canada remixes an act named Clouddead, while the always-reliable Tangerine Dream is on hand with “Rubycon (Part One),” from 1975.

Only a couple of tracks are duds, and its wide range of discoveries (with just a hint of kitsch) reminded me of a couple of my all-time favorite compilations: SYNTH ME UP: 14 CLASSIC ELECTRONIC HITS and WIRED MAGAZINE PRESENTS: MUSIC FUTURISTS. Drive down to your local Borders now to avoid paying eBay-inflated prices later.

LG YC SLC PCH 29Z
SARG SLC RF PROV
NY S&P CRTNS 5Z
PLS FDG BRWNE
JD PEP GRVY MIZ
PTNT RSTD GARLIC PAR
MINI MPL CINN PIT
OORCH APL RSP
OM LT BF FRNK
OORCH CLCM OJ12
SOBE LIFE PSSN

… and one that’s not …

GREAT GUACAMOLE

Yet another retelling of Robert Louis Stevenson’s split-personality novella comes to the screen – this time with rockin’ tunes – in THE DR. JEKYLL & MR. HYDE ROCK ‘N ROLL MUSICAL. The title says it all.

It begins in classic movie-musical style, panning in to Stevenson’s quaint countryside home, as he awakes from a horrible dream and sees visions of the characters who populate his nightmares: our cast. For a $55,000 budget, this opening is admirable. Flash-forward to the present day – or 2003, when this film first was released – and Dr. Jekyll (writer/producer/composer/makeup artist Alan Bernhoft) is mixing up something special. He drinks it, and you know what happens next: He becomes Mr. Hyde, who kind of looks like a cross between Meat Loaf and a hobo, and embarks on a killing spree.

Oh, and the characters sing. A lot. It’s in the grand rock-opera style of THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW or TOMMY, with that exact 1970s vibe. The songs are competent, but not memorable. Often, the tunes make way for the filmmakers to throw in cheesy, ’80s Chroma key effects, where you’re left wondering whether you should laugh at it or with. As it went on, I still was uncertain how much of the goofiness was intentional, so I chose to laugh at it.

I’m afraid it has more ambition than to which it could live up, and the gimmick wears thin by the second song. But this film is a full 90 minutes, so prepare for many more of them, with Bernhoft giving it his all throughout. My attention quickly wavered, but did perk up later at a scene in a bar, where Hyde had his paws all over some whore in a black leather bra, singing about how he loves little girls. But my sudden reinterest had nothing to do with the bar or the song, I can assure you. –Rod Lott

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As awesome as the four FILM CREW discs are, I got the biggest “original MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000” contact high yet from CINEMATIC TITANIC. After all, it’s a project featuring MST’s first trio of stars – creator Joel Hodgson, Trace Beaulieu and J. Elvis Weinstein – as well as two later players in Mary Jo Pehl and Frank Conniff. Silhouettes, wisecracks and totally shitty movies – MST is pretty much back, kids, just minus the robots and network interference, and with the added bonus of a rhyming name.

The first CINEMATIC TITANIC project is skewering THE OOZING SKULL, aka BRAIN OF BLOOD, a 1972 mad-scientist cheapie directed by Z-movie legend Al Adamson. The roast starts with little fanfare and zero introduction; as it begins to unspool, our five principals take their spots on a stair-stepped balcony silhouette on both sides of the screen. Some are seated; others stand; all poke holes in this turd with razor-sharp wit.

There’s no “getting used” to it, nor “settling in.” So “on” is their rapport, it’s as if these guys never stopped working together in the first place. Rather than stop the movie as MST episodes did for transitionary host segments, Hodgson and company merely pause it to make some extended comment that requires more attention, such as bosomy starlet Regina Carroll’s horrendous makeup job.

I barely remember plot points from the mind-numbing SKULL, but that’s because there were so few. In a nutshell, an old coot of a scientist needs to transplant a brain ASAP – like, now – so he’s forced to pick the nearest body: his facially challenged mongoloid retard henchman. The (comparatively) smart brain doesn’t cotton to his new host body, so he takes advantage of his newfound brute strength and goes bonkers on everybody. And there’s a midget sidekick, who bears the brunt of many, many jokes … all merited, in my view.

There are no extras on the disc, but who needs ‘em? The feature alone is all you need for your humor RDA. Welcome back, guys; please don’t leave again. –Rod Lott

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What’s in the water o’er at The Horror Channel? Their original programming continues to impress me greatly – first with SHADOW FALLS and now even more so with HEARTLAND HORRORS: SEASON ONE, another online series rounded up in its entirety for DVD.

Ten short films await you on HEARTLAND HORRORS, none of them related other than the behind-the-camera talent – primarily Patrick Rea and SHADOW FALLS’ Kendal Sinn. Once again, this proves you don’t have to have a big budget to do horror right – just the heart for the material (well, competence goes a long way, too).

It begins with THE THING ABOUT BANNON’S LOOKOUT, which may be the most predictable of the bunch. But from there, things get more original and better, starting with COPY, in which a Xerox warns a woman not to hire the guy she’s just interviewed for – and promised – a job. It’s original and clever. So is THE LAST LAUGH, with a clown torturing a mime to try and coax a sound out of him. The ending is creepily dark, and kudos to whomever plays the mime; he turns in a hilarious silent performance.

WOMAN’S INTUITION has a young lady visiting the doctor because she feels something is wrong. As revealed in the shocking ending, boy, is it ever! A FEW MILES BACK feels like an adaptation of an old urban legend. It’s decent, but goes on a big too long at just over 10 minutes, beating you over the head with the obvious. (OUT TO PASTURE and BITTER SWEETS also carry the ring of a strong folklore influence, but succeed more with less time.)

SMOKED is kind of a one-joke bit, but done well, subverting expectations, and SHED OUT OF LUCK (great title, that) has a guy being held captive in a barn by … well, you just have to see it. When he’s offered a bowl of dinner, I just about lost it. And if you like zombies (these days, who doesn’t?), CAFÉ AT THE CROSSROADS will be you cup of undead tea.

Don’t click around and watch just a couple; hit “play all” and treat yourself to what amounts to a surprisingly satisfying indie-minded CREEPSHOW. The production values are superb for this sort of thing, and these guys clearly know what they’re doing. I just hope they get to do more of it.

But, wait! There’s more! Four additional shorts appear in the extras. Being all comedy-oriented and less polished, they wouldn’t fit in all that well with the main episodes, but as bonuses, they’re welcome. THE CLICKER is concerned with a remote control with a mind of its own, while THE PIRATE P.S.A. decries the oppression of the salty seafarers. MULTI-TASK is a six-minute mockumentary about an DIY filmmaker so fed up with his crew that he clones himself, so he can serve as director, writer, actor, etc. – all at the same time. Lastly, MIME AWAY is a commercial parody that is exactly like what it sounds.

At under $10, this is really quite a steal. Indie horror is alive and doing very, very well. –Rod Lott

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