THE LIFE OF CHUCK (2025)

The Life of Chuck
Directed by Mike Flanagan
Written by Mike Flanagan, based on a novella by Stephen King
Starring Tom Hiddleston, Benjamin Pajak, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Mia Sara, Mark Hamill
Running time 1 hour and 50 minutes
Rated R for language by the MPA

In theaters June 13

by "Doc" Hunter Bush, Staff Writer and Podcast Director

I didn't want to come to this screening. I mean, I did; I've been a Stephen King fan, a Constant Reader, for a long time. Comparatively I've only been a fan of writer/director Mike Flanagan for the blink of an eye, but my appreciation for his works, both with and without the input of Sai King, is no less great. Still. I didn't want to come to this. It had been 80°+ in my apartment for 2 days, and not much cooler outside. On top of that, either I was misinformed or the location of the screening changed, meaning I could no longer just walk there but instead had to take public transportation which is a crap-shoot on the best of days, and obviously a more volatile situation when the mercury rises. I'm sure you can understand why I might have been less than thrilled to venture out. None of these things are big deals, there are much bigger problems to have, but still they were threatening to drown my enthusiasm. So I did not want to come to see The Life of Chuck, but I'm so very glad I did.

The Life of Chuck is a disorienting narrative, by design. Its three acts bounce incrementally backwards in time within the life of the very unassuming, outwardly average titular Chuck. Chuck is an accountant, and he enjoys it just fine. He's happily married and steadfastly faithful. He's happy, though at one time, Chuck wanted to grow up to be a dancer. In a way, that's what The Life of Chuck is about: a person whose life has taken some turns, and why even such a seemingly average, unremarkable life is anything but.

It's also about grief, great and small, and about not allowing obstacles and discouragements, even the inevitability of death, to stop you from enjoying yourself. Seize your moment when you find it, however small. That's what a life is. Chuck knows he will die, in both textual and metatextual ways, but ultimately he chooses not to let that knowledge stop him. Watching and later thoughtfully considering The Life of Chuck, I couldn't help but address the elephant in the room: mortality. My own of course, and that of those I love, but also how the fleeting nature of human existence makes even the briefest interactions into things of common beauty. I also though a lot about Stephen King.

The Life of Chuck, as a story, feels like Stephen King reckoning with his own mortality. As an author he is famously and profitably familiar with death and infamously in 1999 was almost killed in a hit and run. But now it's different. Now he's just ...older. On September 21st of this year, he will turn 78 and it feels clear to me that he really knows it. In the past decade, he's released thirteen novels and three short story collections--including If It Bleeds which contains The Life of Chuck--which is actually pretty on par for King. Look at any ten-year period of his writing career and you'll find similar numbers. It's just admirable how little he is resting on his laurels in his later years. He could coast and sip lemonade by a lake in Maine, but he has so many stories within him that he still wants to tell, so many characters deserving of being shared with us. It's incredibly generous.

I've wanted to be a writer since I was young, like Chuck wanted to dance, and like Chuck I've made choices and concessions that lead me away from that dream. But it's still there inside me, and I hope to share it with more people more often than I do now. The feeling I left the theater with after seeing The Life of Chuck was that it was okay. A thematic through-line of the film is the Walt Whitman line "I am large, I contain multitudes". It's something that's stuck with Chuck for most of his life; that inside each of us is every memory, every moment we've experienced, as well as the ones we've imagined. It's all there and it's all as important as we let it be. By applying it to someone as ostensibly average as Chuck--and avoiding the cliché of making him a writer--the film makes a statement about potential, and about dreams.

I've avoided too many details in this discussion because I think The Life of Chuck benefits and deserves an audience to go in without expectation, to let it unfold before them and to really consider what you're seeing, what it means, and how it makes you feel. But it would be a disservice to the film to not mention a few stand-out performances. Chiwetel Ejiofor and Karen Gillan anchor the opening of the film, giving it a beating heart while faced with circumstances that seem less far-fetched now than they might have just a few years ago. Matt Lillard and Carl Lumbly both brought tears to my eyes at different points of the film. Mia Sara and Mark Hamill give fabulously warm performances as Chuck's grandparents in the third act. There are appearances from Heather Langenkamp and David Dastmalchian that are fantastic and deployed with surgical tonal precision.

Which brings us to the Chucks. Obviously, Tom Hiddleston is the marquee Chuck, the Chuck on the billboards, but at different ages, Chuck is played by Jacob Tremblay, Cody Flanagan, and notably Benjamin Pajak, who gives a remarkably warm and open performance from such a young actor. He's also a fantastic dancer. All of these disparate elements are brought together with the deft and delicate emotional touch that writer/director Mike Flanagan deployed in The Haunting of Hill House. 

Maybe it's because I've lost some friends and some family. Maybe it's because I'm in my forties and I wonder if I'll ever amount to anything. Maybe it's because Mike Flanagan, Stephen King, and this amazing cast have come together to collectively lay a hand on our shoulder and gently remind us that we all matter in spite of how small we are. Whatever it is, I left the theater teary-eyed but feeling better about the state of the world and of my own world than I have in a long while. There will be things great and small that will affect your life and you can't avoid them, but you don't have to stop living until you stop living. Things feel hard because they are hard, but whatever comes next, nobody has to go through it alone.

The Life of Chuck will be in Theaters June 13th, 2025.

EVERYTHING OLD IS NEW AGAIN, Vol. 39 - May 2022

Everything Old Is New Again

Vol. 39 - May 2020

By “Doc” Hunter Bush, Podcast Czar

Howdy, howdy, one and all and welcome to Everything Old Is New Again! Seeing as this MAY be your first time reading the column, I MAY as well explain how it works around here. If a movie or TV series is debuting or returning in the coming month, I’ll write a little about it provided it is based on some previously existing idea. So if it was originally a book, an older movie, or maybe something more esoteric, like a song (it happens) - it’s EOINA material.

My reviews work like so: I watch any & all trailers available, explain what (if anything) I know about the core intellectual property and say whether the trailer gripped me at all or not. Then down at the bottom of the column, I’ll recommend one or two recent additions to streaming services that meet EOINA criteria, even if they usually aren’t exactly new releases.

We like to have fun here, as they say, so if I say something disparaging about a property or person you’re fond of, know that I rarely mean any harm. I’m just venting.

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May 2022

PREMIERES - Films or series coming to screens great & small that meet EOINA requirements

2nd

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (dir. Sam Raimi)

Where: In theaters

I’ve made no secret of being kind of very tired of the clockwork schedule of Marvel’s MCU releases and the increasingly insular nature of their storytelling and world building - in short it’s just exhausting. BUT. I do love me some Sam Raimi. Baring in mind that (thanks to that clockwork production schedule) most of the large scale scenes and moments have been pre-visualized and begin production before a director is even chosen sometimes, it’s hard to wrap your head around how much flavor a director can possibly bring to one of these movies. But Raimi gave us the original modern Spider-Man films, thereby helping to codify the visual DNA of the current blockbuster landscape, so hopefully he’s better suited to an undertaking of this size than anyone else?

There also seems to be quite a lot of outright horror elements on display here, and the most recent trailer certainly heavily implies that the main antagonist will be frequent Strange nemesis and other-dimensional nuisance Nightmare which would be a perfect fit for that tone. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Doctor Strange the character was created in 1963 by Steve Ditko and Stan Lee. An arrogant surgeon who loses the fine motor function in his hands via car accident and after exhausting all other options, turns to mysticism for a cure, Stephen Strange becomes the Sorcerer Supreme for our dimension, protecting it from the magical dangers and beings that would put our world at risk.

Since the character’s debut film (2016, dir. Scott Derrickson) he has saved the world multiple times but has also, in 2021’s Spider-Man: No Way Home (dir. Jon Watts), fractured the multiverse, allowing (in that film) multiple Spider-Men to exist in one dimension. Fun! But you can’t unring that bell as they say, so now some of those other-dimensional baddies are a-coming to wreck our shit.

I’ve always dug the Doctor Strange comics, because they were weird, wild, psychedelic, and pretty varied. So I caught references to a handful of comic book characters that might be appearing: the aforementioned Nightmare (evil ruler of the Realm of Dreams), Rintrah (a green minotaur), America Chavez (played by Xochitl Gomez - a member of the Young Avengers) and most notably Shuma Gorath (a kaiju-sized eyeball with tentacles). On top of that, they’re folding in storylines and characters from the wider Marvel films, such as Mordo (Chiwetel Ejiofor - a rival sorcerer), Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen - a mutant witch and magical pariah), Christine (Rachel McAdams - Strange’s fellow surgeon and love interest), and thanks to Strange’s shattering of dimensional barriers (and corporate lawyers) Professor Charles Xavier (Sir Patrick Stewart - mutant telepath and head of a school for similarly gifted youngsters). That is, I’ll admit, pretty exciting!

From what I can gather from the various trailers, Strange has just royally screwed up whatever barriers existed between our universe and all the others, so all kinds of things and folks are coming here for whatever reason(s). There also seems to be some of Strange traveling to other, worse universes including one where a bunch of Ultron robots (the antagonist character motion-captured by James Spader in the 2nd Avengers movie) imprison Strange with sci-fi handcuffs preventing him from doing his magical hand gestures. My theory is that this is the universe that America Chavez is from/in, one where the Avengers we’re familiar with are gone/defeated/dead and Ultron/somebody else(?) is in charge, leading to the formation of the Young Avengers - a group of kids inspired by the Avengers to rise up. Just a guess, but it makes sense.

Enough rambling from me. I’m excited for this. Excited for a new Sam Raimi film, and the inevitable appearances from Bruce Campbell and an Oldsmobile Delta ‘88 that this all but guarantees. Real ones know.

13th

Kids in the Hall (series)

Where: Amazon Prime

A new KITH series? Debuting on Friday the 13th? Huzzah! The Canadian good boys of comedy (alphabetically Dave Foley, Bruce McCulloch, Kevin McDonald, Mark McKinney, and Scott Thompson) are back and they seem to be just as weird as they always were. Some fan-favorite characters may be returning (McKinney’s “I’m crushing your head” guy) but the thing I always loved most was the rapid-fire goofiness and self-deprecation, which seems to be as present as back in 1989 (the original series ran until 1993 on various channels, followed by the movie Brain Candy in 1996).

The tone of the trailer at least seems to match what I’ve loved about the Kids in the Hall since I first saw them airing after Saturday Night Live in the ‘90s - like adult-sized children given full control of the playpen, things looks horny, silly, violent, and goofy all with a satirical, self aware edge to them.

I don’t know what else to say, except to quote one moment from the trailer: “That cat has my gun!”

Firestarter (dir. Keith Thomas)

Where: Peacock

Based on the novel by Stephen King (which I have never read) and therefore sharing source material with the 1984 film starring a young Drew Barrymore (which I have actually never seen all the way through) - I think this looks great! Now before you decide that my opinion matters less having neither read nor seen these previous versions of this story, I should clarify that not only am I a huge Uncle Stevie fan but obviously I’m aware of Firestarter through cultural osmosis if not exactly recollection. My thing with King (that rhymes!) is that he’s one of my absolute favorite authors, so I prefer to keep some of his work unread to look forward to. Same with Neil Gaiman, Laird Barron, and China Mieville among others. As authors they have yet to let me down, so if I’m ever completely in need of a specific literary experience, I know there’s something of theirs out there. I saw (let’s say maybe) most of 1984’s Firestarter (dir. Mark Lester) years and years back on maybe the SyFy Channel (?), but there were commercial breaks and I had trouble staying invested, so I bailed.

If you’re even less familiar with Firestarter, in brief it’s about a young girl named Charlie (Ryan Kiera Armstrong) who manifests supernatural forces when in a state of distress. Her father Andy (Zac Efron) believes that she can learn to control her abilities and live a normal life, but as she begins to enter young adulthood, and her emotions and powers grow stronger and less predictable, she begins to pose a greater threat to those around her. Not only that, but a mysterious organization that Andy already knows about becomes aware of Charlie and sets out to capture her.

Now let’s get back to how good this looks (and sounds!) - the direction, as much as can be seen in a trailer, seems to keep things small and close not only to contrast with larger shots of Charlie’s powers, but maybe to help the audience empathize with Charlie’s child-size perspective. Smart. I don’t recall Charlie’s powers in the original being anything besides heat/flame related (which is called pyrokinesis btw) but there’s definitely some comparatively regular degular telekinesis (moving objects with one’s mind) on display in this trailer. But, for sure, the fire effects are the draw here and they also look fantastic: big jets of flame, people’s heads igniting like strike anywhere matches, metal objects melting like wax - it all looks great and maybe largely practical effects (?) which is super exciting to me.

Somehow even more exciting is the score. Way back in the ‘80s, John Carpenter was considering directing Firestarter but was ultimately dropped from consideration after The Thing’s commercial failure. Now he’ll at least get to leave his mark in some fashion, via contributing the score along with his son and frequent collaborator Cody. Let me tell you that whatever the piece of music in the trailer is, it sounds a-m-a-z-i-n-g in headphones! Hear for yourself! Needless to say, I will absolutely be checking this out when Friday the 13th rolls around!

20th

Jackass 4.5 (dir. Jeff Tremaine)

Where: Netflix

Twenty damn years ago, a perfect storm of stupidity struck and pop culture was never the same. And while it might not ultimately be a Good Thing all told, I sure am glad that Jackass brought these lovable goofballs into my life. Combining sports video tricks and skits with physical challenges and pranks, Jackass usually has something that will appeal to almost anyone.

In the wake of the release of Jackass Forever earlier this year, my house - Mt. Mausoleum - have been revisiting the old MTV series. Sure, some of the segments haven’t aged well (they were juvenile to begin with and it was 20 years ago) and boy Bam Margera is hard to take, but some things are just fun and harm no one (other than whichever Ass is directly involved). I was glad to see, in Jackass Forever, that as much as things change (the crew are folding in some new blood so that longtime fans don’t have to watch silver foxes Johnny Knoxville and Steve-o do themselves even more bodily harm) the more they stay the same (we actually do see those things happen in Forever, easily the least fun and most uncomfortable moments).

Jackass 4.5 follows in the tradition of the previous Jackass films by releasing a .5 version with footage cut from the main release. Not just parts of segments, but entire bits. The teaser for this release relies primarily on a deleted segment where performers in mascot costumes ride a treadmill past others on a swing set, hoping to avoid being kicked by their pal mid-swing. As with all Jackass outings as I get older, I hope nobody got hurt, but I hope they almost do? It’s weird, I admit.

27th

Top Gun: Maverick (dir. Joseph Kosinski)

Where: In theaters

Once, long ago, I wrote a very positive write-up of the Top Gun: Maverick trailer on the eve of its release. Then at literally the last minute, they changed the release date a-g-a-i-n and we had to cut it. So here we are again. Kind of fitting I suppose because that’s how TG:M feels - familiar. Based on the 1986 film (dir. Tony Scott) which was itself based on a California magazine article, OG TG was the story of Pete Mitchell, callsign Maverick (Tom Cruise), a cocky pilot with the skills to back it up. Along the way he romanced Charlie (Kelly McGillis), lost his best friend and co-pilot Goose (Anthony Edwards), pissed off rival Iceman (Val Kilmer), stumbled from a war game scenario directly into an actual air battle and most importantly played some very homoerotic volleyball.

Minus the volleyball, this looks like it hits very similar beats. This time, at the behest of Iceman (who has achieved some kind of status in the intervening years), Maverick is brought in to teach a class full of aspiring pilots, your assorted Tops Gun, including Goose’s son played by Miles Teller and NOT Ryan Gosling for some reason. I mean, c’mon!

Anyhoo. This looks a little too close to the original if you ask me, and by continuing to read this paragraph, you do. It even seems like the class (and Maverick) will end up in an air battle (but like, of course they would - it’s a jet pilot movie, what are they gonna do, karate? So I’m wondering if this is all an intentional mislead. Maybe the trailer was cut to showcase the more familiar aspects of Top Gun, to draw fans back, but secretly has more story waiting in the wings (pardon the pun).

This actually looks excellent. Joseph Kosinski previously brought us Tron: Legacy (which kind of did the familiar trailer/secret story payload thing I’m describing actually) and Tom Cruise sleeper sci-fi banger Oblivion, so the flick is in good hands. Plus fighter jets are very fast and go very high, so slapping a camera on one of them bad Larrys is gonna net you some exciting footage! I’m not going to theaters for this, but I’ll keep an eye out for it on streaming eventually.

The Bob’s Burgers Movie (dir. Loren Bouchard, Bernard Derriman)

Where: In theaters

Bob’s Burgers premiered on Fox back in 2009 from creator Loren Bouchard (of Home Movies fame) with tons of charm, an endearingly wacky and open-minded heart, and lots of funny names for burgers. The Bob’s Burgers Movie seems to check all the boxes the show is known for: financial trouble for parents and restaurateurs Bob (H. Jon Benjamin) and Linda (John Roberts); Goonies-like adventures for kids Tina (Dan Mintz), Louise (Kristen Schaal), and Gene (Eugene Mirman); and also maybe a UFO, robots, trap doors, magic powers, and musical performances - though to be fair some of those are definitely going to be elaborate fantasies, another hallmark of the series.

All I know of the plot for sure is that Bob is distraught as they only have seven days to make an important payment and also a huge sinkhole opens up in the street out front of the restaurant. But like, it’s Bob’s Burgers, whatever happens it’ll kind of be adorable and fun, right?

My only question is - why a movie? What will be accomplished in the feature film format that Bob’s couldn’t tackle in the half-hour format they’ve been so successful at? Visually the only noticeable difference is that the film seems to have much more dramatic lighting than the show. But I suppose we’ll see. Again, I’m not visiting theaters for this, but can’t wait to catch it streaming later in the year.

SPOTLIGHT - Not new, but recommended EOINA material

1st

Candyman (1992) (dir. Bernard Rose)

Where: Shudder

The original Candyman is pretty much a stone cold masterpiece. The pacing is incredible, the ways in which it adapts and updates Clive Barker’s original short story “The Forbidden”, the performances, the amazing score (by avant garde composer Philip Glass), and of course Tony Todd’s iconic performance as the titular being. I love this flick and always recommend it to people who haven’t seen it.

Bonus Rec: The 2021 Candyman remake (dir. Nia DaCosta), which updates the themes of this film for a modern POV and folds the previous trilogy’s mythology into its world in a really fascinating and intelligent way. Seek it out. 

The Rage: Carrie 2 (1999) (dir. Katt Shea, Robert Mandell)

Where: Amazon Prime

I’ve actually been meaning to rewatch this for a while now. The incredibly long-gap sequel to 1976’s Carrie (dir. Brian De Palma - based on the novel from the aforementioned Uncle Stevie), I remember watching this once, long long ago, drunk in a basement one Halloween night in my college years and kind of bad-movie enjoying it? I then immediately cast it from my mind and never thought about it after. Then a few years ago, on the eve of the modern Stephen King resurgence in adaptation popularity and pop cultural presence, I was reminded that it even existed.

In case you don’t know, the original Carrie is about a high school aged girl who has telekinetic powers which are exacerbated by the hormonal changes in her body and famously sets her whole prom on fire after being routinely ridiculed and humiliated. Good for her I say. The Rage: Carrie 2 follows Carrie’s half sister who also has telekinesis and uses it to avenge her best friend who was driven to suicide by abuse and bullying.

I can’t give this the kind of strong recommendation that I usually like to within this space, but please - consider joining me in giving this truly baffling oddity a (re)watch and just maybe we’ll have a good time.

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My hope with EOINA is that MAYbe I’ll turn one of you on to some project that you weren’t aware of, or that you MAY be more inclined to check out with more knowledge of its legacy. If that’s the case, drop a comment or seek me out online. Same goes for if you end up watching one of these flicks and wanna talk about it: comment here or find me on twitter, insta, or letterboxd.

Thanks as always to MovieJawn for hosting and posting, and to YOU for reading! If you’d like more from me, I co host the Hate Watch/Great Watch podcast with Allison Yakulis. We’ve just finished up a five episode miniseries on the films of Baz Luhrmann and we’re cooling things down with episodes on 1998’s raunchy comedy Dirty Work (currently available here, with guests Tina Dillon & Michael Chalfin), 1995’s Jackie Chan comedy/action piece Rumble in the Bronx (drops on May 4th) and another Uncle Stevie adaptation, The Shawshank Redemption (available May 18th, with guest Bryan Bierman) before heading into Pride month! If you’re so inclined, give a listen and if you like it please like, share, comment, heart, star, horseshoe, recommend, fave, and smash that subscribe button or whatever because it all helps expand our reach and helps more people find us.

Until next time - Long Live the Movies!

EVERYTHING OLD IS NEW AGAIN 13

Everything Old is New Again, Vol. 13 - January and February 2020

by Hunter Bush

Happy (nearly) New Year, readers! As we bid a fine farewell to 2019, if you're someone who enjoys a little bit of the bubbly maybe raise your glass to EOINA. Exact date aside, I've been writing this column for Moviejawn for three years! Huzzah and cheers!

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Or wait. No. You can actually go read any of the old EIONA columns here or on Moviejawn. I don't know what I was thinking. (RIP Rutger Hauer).

This year I got to review my first Nic Cage movie (a lifetime high point for sure) and at one point my phone autocorrected part of some rant or another to include the phrase "skunk of a bitch", so I'm just gonna make that mine now. I'm owning it. One thing I'm disappointed in about the past year is that I didn't watch nearly as many new movies as the year before. In 2018 I logged 68 so I spent some of 2019's final days trying to close that gap and ended up around 60. How about you? Any highlights you're especially proud of, let's hear 'em!

Now, looking ahead: This latest Everything Old Is New Again installment will be covering all the Remakes, Adaptations & Long Gap or Legacy Sequels or Requels (there are a lot of terms flying around out there y'all; watch your heads) for January & February of 2020. In this column's crop of flicks, there are a handful of movies that still have not dropped trailers despite their looming release dates, which is always a bummer (I was waiting for Polaroid to drop for about 3 years before it sneaked onto VOD late last year; still haven't watched it).

On the plus size, I noticed a higher-than-average instance of what I think of as Girls To the Front films. Movies with female leads would be considered rare in, I would imagine, almost any subdivision you choose as your data pool, but in the nook I've carved out here they're even more scarce. Yet within these two months, I spotted three instances of ladies leading what would traditionally be male-lead films. I shouldn't have to say this but I'll say it anyway: that's a good thing! Everyone should get the chance to see themselves represented onscreen because movies are for everyone! That's what's so great about them!

With that in mind, let's see what's to be seen.

EVERYTHING OLD IS NEW AGAIN 12

Everything Old is New Again, Vol. 12 - November and December 2019

by Hunter Bush

Hello again good people and welcome to another installment of Everything Old is New Again, my bi-monthly column on Adaptations, Remakes and Legacy Sequels. If any of those terms are new to you, allow me to elucidate: an adaptation is a work based on any pre-existing work; a remake is when a film is made again as though it were the first time; a legacy sequel or long-gap sequel is the continuation of a franchise that has been lying dormant for some time; and while I'm at it, when I say bi-monthly, I mean "occurring every two months" not "occurring twice a month". So this EOINA will cover all the movies and such that fall into any of those categories coming to screens big & small in November & December.

EVERYTHING OLD IS NEW AGAIN 11

You know gang, I just cannot wait for August to end, which it will right around the time y'all are reading this very installment of Everything Old is New Again! My reasons why are personal, and of the type of personal that isn't even interesting, incendiary or uncommon, really. Regardless, I can't wait.

If you're new to EOINA, this is my bi-monthly column (every other month) that covers the Remakes, Adaptations and Long-Gap Sequels (also called Legacy Sequels) arriving for public consumption. I try to give a little history about where these new installments are coming from and speculate, based almost entirely on the trailers (when there ARE any) on what I think of the finished product. Yes, it's largely conjectural and yes it's heavily influenced by my personal biases, but it is also a jumping-off point for you. I hope you find something that interests you and I hope you enjoy it!

In this September & October round-up we've got entertainments based on movies, books, magazine articles and musicians! So let's get started:

EVERYTHING OLD IS NEW AGAIN 4

Hoo boy, it's been hot here in Philly. Welcome to Summer, I guess? More like 'Welcome to Pre-Autumn' as I like to think of it. As a kid, summer always meant a break from school, so that was nice, but I was never a big fan of the heat. I love to swim, despite how often I've seen Jaws (or Deep Rising, hahaha...) but that's about it for me, summer-wise.

Even as a kid I preferred the air-conditioned darkness of a movie theater.

So if you're like me, Everything Old is New Again is here to help! Here at EOiNA, I look into the Remakes, Adaptations and Legacy (or Long-Gap) Sequels making it to theaters in the coming months. But, before we get down to business...

If you're a regular reader of EOiNA, firstly I thank you, but also you may have noticed that I occasionally push the boundaries of what exactly falls under my purview. Well I'm about to do that again when I mention how excited I am that Joe Bob Briggs is coming back to ...well not exactly TV, but close-enough for me!

Though Joe Bob had hosted assorted other, similarly-formatted shows, I first discovered him as the host of TNT's MonsterVision, which he hosted from 1996 - 2000. During his tenure, MV was a late-night showcase of cheesy, drive-in style movies that Joe Bob would tell various anecdotes and give trivia about as the bumpers between commercial breaks. Returning to form (minus the commercials), on Friday, July 13th (how perfect) Joe Bob will be hosting a slightly-more-than-24-hour marathon on horror steaming service SHUDDER called The Last Drive-In with Joe Bob Briggs. Some of the titles have been announced, but y'all can look that up for yourselves.

Anyway, here are some movies you may wanna check out if you're gonna be spending some time in a theater this summer. As always, thanks for reading, please share this with your friends and stay cool. I'll see you in September.

EVERYTHING OLD is NEW AGAIN 2

Everything Old is New Again

Vol. 2 - March & April 2018

By: Hunter Bush

For: MovieJawn

Hello there! Welcome to Everything Old is New Again, Vol. 2: March and April, 2018. If you're new to the column, EOiNA is where I spotlight some upcoming films that are inspired in some way by a previously existing concept, work or franchise; remakes, adaptations or long-gap sequels.

How was your January and February? Did you see that Eagles Super Bowl win? I did (Go Birds!). Did you catch any of the Winter Olympics or snag any deep discount day-after-Valentine's Day candy? More pressingly: Did you see any good movies? And hey, were any of them ones I covered in EOiNA Vol.1: Jan. and Feb. 2018? If you did, I'd love to hear what you thought. Leave a comment below why dontcha?

I saw Them Horse Boyz (I mean 12 Strong) btw, and was pleasantly surprised. Not enough Michael Shannon though.



Alright, who's ready to look ahead a bit? There’s a lot, so let’s jump right in.

The Devil's Horn : On Destiny and Dentistry

Prologue :

Get To Know Your Author with this handy-dandy List of Facts!

1 : I love lists.
2 : I have bad teeth. It's genetic. Thanks, Mom and Dad!
3 : I am a big fan of Stephen King and in particular his Dark Tower book series.
4 : Apophenia is the word for when human beings find hidden meaning in otherwise random stimuli.
5 : I think of myself as a "human headache" because of my propensity for Cognitive Dissonance.

End Prologue.

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That was... fun, right?

OK, so maybe some of those things need a bit of elaboration. First, lists are great and very useful, so we're gonna skip right over that. The teeth. I have genetically softer tooth enamel which makes me more likely to have cavities and to need dentistry. Despite brushing / flossing / etc-ing, I lost my first adult tooth about five years ago.

My dentist was a very cool, friendly, older Asian man. He knew this was my first time having anything like a tooth pulled, so he was really great about keeping me informed about what was going on; I went with the shots rather than the gas, so I was conscious. Near the end he told me he was almost done but was having some trouble getting the tooth all the way out of the socket and he didn't know why but it was nothing to worry about.

After a minute more, he finally gets it, rinses it off and shows me that the root has an unusual bend in it that goes a different way than anticipated, and was the cause of the struggle. He tells me this by leaning over me, slowly pulling his face mask down and saying "We call it The Devil's Horn..." to which my inner monologue response was "What. Is. Happening?" Eventually I left, all doped up and tasting blood and carrying my "Devil's Horn" tooth in a little sealed medical baggie.

The Devil's Horn

Jump to a few months back, I chipped another tooth and didn't think much of it. Of course it got exponentially worse over time and on Tuesday of last week, I went in and had that bad boy taken out too. Same sort of thing happened except this time the tooth was on my lower jaw, and those can be tougher to remove I was told. The tooth was pretty hollowed out and broke during extraction, meaning the dentist was left to remove the roots one by one. The last root started giving him trouble and after he got it out, he told me it was hooked like a letter J. "I guess all your teeth are fighters" he said.

"Well there's your problem"

So I rode the train home with what felt like a whole tube sock stuffed in my mouth, trying not to drool blood on myself and spent the next few days on a mashed cauliflower / rice pudding / apple sauce diet. The highlight of my 2016 it was not.

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One of the details I picked up in the dentist's office was the tooth in question was tooth number nineteen. In the Dark Tower series, the number 19 is of particular significance and when it shows up, it's usually a sign that something of special importance is happening, so you'd better be careful and pay attention. So hearing that really piqued my attention.

I was in the exam room, having an x-ray taken when I noticed the room number: 2125.

2 + 12 + 5 = 19

And it continued like that: My file number was 0195951, tooth extraction surgery bay was 1D14. I'll let you all do the maths yourselves. It's not hard because there are no rules. This is an example of Apophenia. Like I said above, it's the word for when people find significance in what is otherwise absolute random nonsense. It's how you may think you hear your name being called in a crowded store or think you see a cat out of the corner of your eye. There's a related condition called Pareidolia which is when you see things that are not actually a face but look to you like a face; like Jesus on a piece of toast or the Face On Mars.

"I think it looks like Michael Myers." - quote attributed to Bryan Bierman

But the example most germane to my story is something known as "the 23 enigma" which posits that most significant events and occurrences can be linked to the number 23. Despite this term being coined by famous big thinker Robert Anton Wilson and attributed by him to beat generation giant William S. Burroughs, we're probably all most familiar with it from the Jim Carrey starring psychological thriller also-ran The Number 23 (2007).

"All righty then!" - quote attributed to William S. Burroughs

Briefly, the movie is about Ace Ventura finding a mysterious book about his own life and somehow the number 23 is involved I guess? Whatever the reasoning, he becomes obsessed with it and then there's a twist ending, like maybe he was dead the whole time? (*1) I do not remember and honestly, who could give a shit?

(*1) : I swear I did actually see the movie... pretty sure.

In the Dark Tower books, once the importance of nineteen is brought to your attention, you (and the characters in the story) can't help but see it everywhere but it is especially on my mind because there's a Dark Tower movie coming (!!!) and I could almost not be more excited. Is it going to be exactly what I've always wanted out of a Dark Tower adaptation? No, there is literally no way that is possible, but it doesn't mean I won't enjoy it.

Can you tell they're well-loved?

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POTENTIAL SPOILERS FOR THE DARK TOWER...


As briefly as possible, The Dark Tower series follows Roland, the last gunslinger in a world not quite our own, on his quest to reach the titular Dark Tower: the center of everything. The axis on which all of existence turns. And along the way there's gunplay, magic, monsters, love, death, offensive language, psychotic A.I., interdimensional travel, astral projection, Hey Jude, twinners, thinnies, Todash chimes, literally the most important flower in existence and an oddly endearing Bumbler named Oy.

I KNOW IT SOUNDS LIKE A MESS, and it is, but HOLY LORD IS IT SATISFYING. What it says about not just a person's capacity for love and change, but also what it says about the nature of stories is completely inspiring. And also very fun.


...SPOILERS END


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To help promote the movie, an app was released tied to a fictional corporation within the book series, SOMBRA. The SOMBRA app is free (*2) and gives you access to an NCP (North Central Positronics) Scanner that... doesn't do a whole hell of a lot. Unless, that is, you point it at the Dark Tower cover of Entertainment Weekly or certain tweets sent out by the film's stars, Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey or even Stephen King himself.

(*2) : If the app weren't free, I wouldn't have it. So far this blog has made me... zero dollars. But if I ever figure out how to monetize my ramblings, I'll buy so many pay-apps it'll make your head spin!

This is actually pretty cool.

Earlier this month, if you had a code from certain exclusive versions of the Dark Tower related children's book Charlie the Choo-Choo, you could access an "employees only" area of the app and take a test to see if you have The Shine. I took it and I totally do.

SO many people I wanna redrum this year...

Do I think there's any significance to my tooth being number 19? Not really. But also: yes. I am fully aware that I only really caught the 19 reference because I'm so swept up in Dark Tower stuff in expectation of the movie (*3) but at the same time, maybe it is the universe telling me to pay attention right now. And that, folks, is Cognitive Dissonance for you.

(*3) : The Dark Tower film was originally scheduled to be released on February 17, 2017 but was recently pushed back to July 28th. UPDATE: Subsequently pushed back to August 4.

According to F. Scott Fitzgerald, Cognitive Dissonance was "the test of a first rate intelligence". I know, I know, #humblebrag (*4) but I seem to do this... frequently. My "Human Headache" epithet is based on the idea that you can give yourself a headache by holding two opposing viewpoints at the same time.

(*4) R.I.P. Harris Wittels.

The most prevalent example is my ability to believe that superstitions are just silly & fun, yet to simultaneously follow several superstitions in my personal life. I pick up heads-up pennies, I never consciously step on cracks in the sidewalk, I hold my breath when driving through tunnels, etc. I'm not sure when these things started but regardless, they continue. And, as discussed, I simultaneously do and do not believe in the concept of "Signs From the Universe".

You could say I'm a Walking Contradiction, but no one would get that Green Day reference

"What's the point of this, Hunter?" you may be asking. That's a very good question; (*5) you're a very astute reader and I hope you'll continue to read my writings. The point is whatever you believe in, maybe now is a good time for you to pay particularly close attention. 2016 has not been a friendly year for most of us but maybe if we're all paying a little closer attention moving forward, 2017 can be better.

(*5) : I have a question for you. How do you know my name?

So as we all wait out the clock on this... garbage-fire of a year, I'll leave you with some unsolicited advice. Take it or leave it. Your call.

This in now the 2nd thing I think of when I hear the phrase "garbage-fire"

Pay attention.

Be as good a person as you can manage.

And maybe read more. Might I suggest The Dark Tower series?

"Long days and pleasant nights." - old mid-world saying

Happy holidays and best wishes through the New Year!

UPDATE: Here's the first official trailer for The Dark Tower movie (finally):