The Abe Team

Four score and seven days ago a wave of movies was unleashed that shook this great nation to its core...
He's big, well pretty tall anyway. He's bad, killed more people than you can count, at least indirectly sort of. He's like 200 years old and he's back, with a vengeance, although actually he seemed like a mild mannered guy. He's Abe Lincoln and he's taking over Hollywood in 2012.

Last of the Mohicans meets the Civil War. An Irish Lincoln? No Comment

This year, Abraham Lincoln has been resurrected on the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Antietam, when he declared the Emancipation Proclamation and boy does he means business. He's out there killing Vampires, hunting down Zombies, whipping them dirty rebs and even moderating presidential debates. He's a one man killin' machine; facing down our national demons one by one - many of them literally. We haven't had a chance to see all the movies yet - we missed the Vampire Killer one while on vacation and the new Stephen Spielberg film hasn't been released yet. 

I'm going to send your sparkly behinds back  to Hell!

We've heard rumors that Lincoln will also appear in these upcoming features:

• The Expendables 3 - As the"hatchet man," he'd take any crappy role for money
• The Terminator 5 - as the "Abenator" - he's back
• Friday the 13th (lost count) - as the Boy Scout Troop Leader - chopping wood and serial killers
• Taken 3 - Liam Neeson's replacement - killing everything in sight, no plot needed
• The A-Team - Bad Attitude "BA" Abe
• The Silence of the Lambs remake - Abenal the Cannibal - he'll eat your liver with a side of cornbread...
• The Avengers - Captain "Divided America" Abe 
• The Seven Samurai - Abeosan
• Star Wars - Abe Vader
• Twilight Mooning - Six-pack Abes
• Barney Miller - as Abe Vigoda, with a beard
• The Godfather - as Abe Vigoda, with a beard
• Scarface - "Say hello to my little ax"
• Two & Half Men - Charlie Sheen's even crazier uncle
• Abetar - need we say more...
• Braveheart 2 - Back from the Dead - as McAbe

Yes indeed, Abe's agent has been working overtime lately. One movie we did get a chance to see (because it was on Netflix already) was Abraham Lincoln vs. Zombies.This was an Asylum feature - in other words it was made for cheap as a knock off of another movie - in this case the Abe Lincoln Vampire Hunter movie we haven't seen yet. But even given its less than promising origins, this film was somewhat entertaining in its own deranged fashion.We got to meet Lincoln's harlot mistress and love child, young Teddy Roosevelt as a zombie fighting adolescent and plenty of distorted historical episodes. The zombie killing action was about average; although watching Lincoln and Stonewall Jackson fighting on the same side was kind of interesting, even though it looked throughout the film as though Stonewall's beard would either fall off or he'd drop dead suddenly from anorexia.

What's 6'4', wears a stovepipe hat and kicks Zombie ass?

There are parts to this 2012 Lincoln phenomenon we simply can't explain; such as:

1. Why are they picking all these foreign actors to play Lincoln?
2. Why do all actors who play Lincoln sound just like Hal Holbrook's impression of Mark Twain? (kind of like why do movie Nazis always speak British English).
3. Why didn't George Washington ever kill any Zombies or Vampires?

Perhaps we'll never explain it, but at least we can enjoy Lincoln's return to the limelight - although come to think of it, last time he was connected with the Theater, it didn't turn out so well.

Ok, this has nothing to do with Abe but it's a cool tune

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Photographing Fairies

Well, we really tried to come up with a better post title, but let's face it, this movie title simply can't be beaten. The movie we're talking about is called - yes - Photographing Fairies. And we found it on Netflix because just about the only movies they've got left in their library are obscure pics like this one from 1997. It stars a guy who seems to have a permanent sneer on his face (he could have been the British Elvis?) Toby Stephens. You might remember him from his villainous roles in the Bond flick, Die Another Day. He played the Korean guy who somehow turned himself into an Aryan supermodel. But enough about that. Hey speaking of Elvis, if you like great pizza you'll have to stop at the Velvet Elvis - located in the middle of nowhere Arizona - but we digress, back to the movie.

Here's the ultimate spoiler - the last scene of the movie where Toby meets his inner Fairy

One thing we can't fault this movie for is that it is indeed a story about a guy who photographs - yep you guessed it - fairies - and no this isn't about Gay Marriage. We're talking, honest God, winged mini-people flitting around in the English countryside just after World War 1. So anyway, this guy (the main character, we forgot his name because the fairies were more interesting) seems predisposed to pursuing strange hobbies after a career of photographing dead soldiers and a really bad vacation where he let his girlfriend fall into a bottomless crevasse somewhere at the top of Alps (we think we should have taken her to Florida instead).

At first he is skeptical, but then he convinced through a combination of photographic analysis and hallucinogenic drugs. The truth is out there - trust no one - he wants to believe, in fairies - Toby is the Fox Mulder of Fairies. But what are these little critters? Well, their FX budget seemed pretty limited - for example WWI ended being one scene with 4 dead guys and a bomb that dropped nearby. Anyway they didn't seem to have much more money for their computer graphics, so the winged tinker-bells looked a little bit like white smurfs or perhaps flying mini-zombies. We also get to meet Sir Aurthur Conan Doyle (of Sherlock Homes fame) as he seems to be Toby's go to expert on all things Fairy.

We have a theory about those wacky fairies - they're Extraterrestrials !

Ultimately though we learn very little about who or what these fairies really are from this movie and perhaps most disappointing of all, we don't even get to see any decent photographs of them. Right when we think we might get some pictures, Ben Kingsley, who sports a curly wig and the strangest workout clothes we've ever seen smashes up all the equipment before accidentally impaling himself on a tripod (luckily Toby insured all of the cameras). We're left with a tantalizing clue as something leaves Ben's mouth at the moment of his death, but it simply isn't clear whether its a Fairy escaping or terminally bad breath. Although they seem to be suggesting that the fairies are us - a disturbing conclusion considering the obvious innuendo we've been toying with throughout the post, we prefer our theory about British - ahem - all fairies.

The fairies of legend and the fairies at the heart of this relatively anemic plot are in fact an a capella group of extraterrestrials who look remarkably like Japanese teenage girls. Don't believe us, see the proof for yourself...

Actual Fairies captured in slow motion so we can see what they really look like

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