THE SEVEN YEAR ITCH (1955)

Publishing executive Tom Ewell has a very active imagination.  So when his wife and kid go on a summer vacation, leaving him in NYC as a "summer bachelor" his imagination goes wild thinking about all of the woman who are just dying at the chance to sleep with him.  His mind then goes into ludicrous speed when perky Marilyn Monroe moves in upstairs.  Can't really say that I blame him though cause Marilyn is about as adorable, cute and sexy as I can ever remember seeing her.

THE SEVEN YEAR ITCH could have gone all kinds of directions, but since this was 1955 it goes the safe route and ends up being kinda disappointing.  Writer/Director Billy Wilder later called the film "a nothing picture" because of the censorship that prevented him from having Ewell's character sleeping with Marilyn, but I still like it.  Yeah, if it would have been made a decade later the subject of adultery wouldn't have been forbidden, but it wouldn't have featured Marilyn either.  And Marilyn is, far and away, the highlight of this movie.  Sadly though she doesn't have near the screentime that Ewell does.  His overactive imagination is humorous, but after a while it starts to wear thin.

Multiple fantasy scenes, 50's fashions, Robert Strauss cheesing it up as usual, Donald MacBride yelling the word "hootenanny", Morticia Addams dressed up as a horny nurse, references to RIOT IN CELL BLOCK 11, FROM HERE TO ETERNITY, THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON and a small reference to homosexuals ("...and two guys on the top, interior decorators or something.") that somehow slipped through the cracks.  Worth a watch for classic movie fans and if you happen to get bored during the non-Marilyn scenes you can pass the time trying to figure out where little Ricky's bedroom is in that cramped apartment.

THE FOG (2005)

So when the producers of this movie looked at the final draft of this script they were like "Ahhh yeah, this is it.  This is the movie we want to make."?  It boggles the mind.  How could anybody have been happy with this soulless garbage.  It's nothing.  Sadly, this remake cost $18M and ended up bringing in $46M worldwide, so what the fuck do I know.

Just like in the original stinker, the residents of Antonio Island (it was a coastal town in the original) are celebrating their 100th birthday.  Ends up the town was founded using money stolen from a leper colony the founders massacred a hundred years ago.  Interesting idea.  I can just see a horde of leper zombies rising from their watery graves and slaughtering the entire town.  Tearing out intestines, crushing skulls, impaling people on spikes and then parading them around town, gouging dudes eyeballs out and then ripping their testicles off and sticking the testicles in their eyeholes, then putting their eyeballs where their nuts used to be...you know, normal leper colony zombie stuff.  Unfortunately, all we get is a dude and his hot girlfriend thinking something weird is going on. Then a reimagining of all the lame shit that happened in the first movie.  Even some of the same lines are reused.  Boring.  The biggest differences are the lame CG ghosts and the dumb as hell ending.  And I mean dumb!  Other than that, it's the same slow-moving snoozefest as the first movie.

Zero horror, boring story, zero gore, zero blood, zero nudity, generic bad guys and one of the most unsatisfying endings of all time.  Also, I love the fuck out of Tom Welling on Smallville, but he was on autopilot here.  THE FOG remake is a total waste of time.  Skip it.

If you need me I'll be in my room reading J. F. Gonzalez' "Clickers".

Original - The Fog (1980)