COOP COOPER is an independently syndicated film critic with a split personality. His “Southern Side” prints mainstream reviews that appear in various print publications across the mid-south. His “Dark Side” from Los Angeles befouls the site with reviews of horror and grindhouse flicks. Welcome to the site where COOP’s two halves (and his contributors) review and debate the latest film/DVD releases…

I went to one of the best films schools in the world and I learned a heck of a lot about screenwriting. I taught it to high schoolers in Los Angeles and adults at seminars. I got to work with some seasoned pros and I learned a little about the other aspects of filmmaking. Unfortunately, back in 1997, it wasn’t very easy to make a short film. It was expensive and cheap ones ($1000 and up) often looked terrible due to the technical hurdles crews would have to overcome. Watching my colleagues slave over their thesis projects with (mostly) mediocre results was discouraging. Because of this, I focused on becoming a writer and academic, ignoring the technical aspects I had little access to.

Fast forward to summer 2010… I had a weird dream and quickly churned out a screenplay based on it. I met some filmmakers at festivals, asked some questions, went back home, did research and took stock of my resources. I suddenly realized it could be done competently for much cheaper than it did thirteen years ago. I raised a crew, secured equipment, auditioned actors and in December of 2010 I shot my first short film “The Best Day.” The premiere was last night and here are a few important lessons I learned from the entire process:

By Coop Cooper

Last week I was interviewed by “The Washington Times” and Tuesday by “SuperTalk” Mississippi radio host Paul Gallo about how Hollywood portrays Mississippi in motion pictures. While I have talked about this subject before in my articles, these interviews got me thinking about the topic again especially now that “The Help” has thrust Mississippi back into the cultural spotlight.

But it wasn’t “The Help” these two media outlets wanted to interview me about. They were curious about the negatively-slanted movies Hollywood continues to produce about the state, particularly the remake of the violent 1971 masterpiece “Straw Dogs” which opened last weekend…

Why negative movie reviews really don’t matter

Article by: Coop Cooper

Energized by the power and fantastic performances of “The Help,” this weekend I ventured online to see what my fellow American movie critics thought. The website Rottentomatoes.com averages the positive and negative reviews from critics of major print publications and assigns a percentage value. Anything under 60% is considered “rotten” and anything over that number is deemed “fresh.” While “The Help” gained a respectable 73% average, compared to the averages of “Crazy, Stupid, Love.” (76%), Captain America: The First Avenger” (79%) and “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” (82%), its average seemed rather low. Considering the film’s box office and awards potential, I wondered where most of the negativity was coming from…

By Coop Cooper

Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour signed new legislation this month increasing the previous tax rebate another 5 percent for films made in the state. This means out-of-state productions filming in Mississippi will now receive a 25 percent rebate for their local expenses and out-of-state cast/crew. Additionally, they will receive a 30 percent rebate for any local cast/crew they employ.

These new rules have also been clarified and updated to qualify the use of new production and distribution technologies for these rebates. The new rules qualified internet/streaming media as acceptable forms of distribution and other aspects of film such as animation and cinema sequences for video game development. Expanding the definition of “media” itself has ensured… READ THE REST OF THE ARTICLE AT THE CLARKSDALE PRESS REGISTER WEBSITE

The film is written, produced and directed by Coop Cooper (The Small Town Critic) with a production crew that consists entirely of Clarksdale, Mississippi residents.

“The Best Day” is a 15-minute science fiction short about an innocent child in a dire situation. Jenny arrives home from school, excited that newly “resurrected” Mommy has returned, only to find that something is very wrong with her. When Mommy’s memories fully return, so do the tragedies of the past. They were once human, now part of a cruel experiment that repeats over and over… and it is all Daddy’s fault.

THE CAST…

I’ve been pretty busy lately, neglecting the site a bit, and the press release below explains why. If you live within driving distance of Clarksdale or Oxford Mississippi and you have an interest in acting, you might wanna read this…

SHORT FILM PRODUCTION IN CLARKSDALE, MS – A short film will be shot in Clarksdale this December. The film is written, produced and directed by Coop Cooper. Lois McMurchy has been cast as the villain and two non-speaking roles will be played by crew members. The crew consists entirely of Clarksdale area residents.

“The Best Day” is a 15-minute science fiction short about an innocent child in a dire situation. The child arrives home from school, excited that newly “resurrected” Mommy has returned, only to find that something is very wrong with her. When Mommy’s memories fully return, so do the tragedies of the past. They were once human, now part of a cruel experiment that repeats over and over… and it is all Daddy’s fault.

The film’s rating falls into the PG to PG-13 range due to intense situations. The shooting dates will be two weekends, December 4th – 5th and 11th – 12th. CLICK BELOW TO LEARN MORE…

In 1999, the world became fascinated by a little independent film called “The Blair Witch Project”. Word spread about this “real-life” found footage of college kids being stalked and ultimately murdered by a spectral being which sparked a wildfire of interest and prompted many people to discuss and investigate this story. Of course we all know now it was phony and even the smallest amount of research revealed the truth, but at the time it was quite the sensation. If you’re like me and keep up with current film industry rumors and news, you were clued-in far ahead of the rest of the general public. Besides, the movie never technically claimed to be real (even the “based on true events” tag no longer holds validity since then), merely the clever marketing suggested it could be.

Now in more jaded times, audiences are harder to fool. We think we’ve seen it all and most of us can’t fathom being duped like that again. This has prompted many filmmakers to resort to gimmicks or ambitious campaigns, sometimes involving some type of a hoax, in an attempt to get their project noticed. Three films releasing this year are trying to accomplish just that and so far, it looks like at least two are succeeding. They herald the return of the genre known as the “Hoaxumentary” which takes the “Mockumentary” one step further by officially claiming to be 100% real. These films are: “I’m Still Here”, “The Virginity Hit” and “Catfish”…

For many of you couples, this is probably a common argument: He wants to see the new Bruce Willis action movie while she’d rather see the latest romantic comedy starring Julie Roberts. Now this may not apply to all guys. Girls, if you have a boyfriend/husband who likes most romantic comedies and Victorian Era dramas, then hold onto him. You’ve bagged yourself a sensitive, modern guy there. Since that description doesn’t apply to the majority of men, here is some advice for women trying to convince their significant other to see the latest “chick flick” (don’t worry tough guys… this benefits you too).

Firstly, don’t ever… EVER use the word “cute” to describe a movie. As soon as guys hear a movie is “cute” or “sweet” or any other adjective that conjures images of babies and puppy dogs, they immediately…

Homer Simpson: “You know something Marge, it’s not that tough being a film cricket.”

Me: “Bull@#$%!”

Contrary to popular belief it actually IS hard being a film cricket… I mean critic. A tough market shares some of the blame but a lot of us bloggers also have other jobs/projects/responsibilities burning on the stove. Then there’s family obligations, staying fit, the thankless job of single-handedly managing a website, not to mention the million other chores that keep us from spending our precious time at the keyboard (like we actually have to go out to see some movies for instance). For those of us who live in the sticks, the challenge of actually SEEING films can be magnified x 10. Then getting it to the publisher on time to make the paper while I’m juggling screenwriting, creating teaching documents and about a dozen other projects. What am I getting at here?…

In Part 1, the summer movie slate didn’t look to promising from April 9 – June 11 (with the exception of “Iron Man 2” and maybe “Kick-Ass”). Let’s see how the rest of the summer movies stack up… June 18 introduces another fringe comic book hero to the silver screen with “Jonah Hex”, about a disfigured, ex-Confederate soldier turned bounty hunter (Josh Brolin) who along with a prostitute (Megan Fox) battles supernatural forces of evil unleashed by a calculating villain (John Malkovich). While this western comic book franchise has a cult following among readers, the film will test the property’s potential for mass appeal…

Many people don’t realize the beginning of spring coincides with the launch of the summer movie season. While that might sound a bit early, and it is, you may have already noticed the 3-D remake blockbuster “Clash of the Titans” has already set a few records… despite severe critical backlash. It has already begun. Here are the summer (starting in spring) movies you might decide to spend your hard-earned summer (spring) cash on. Some have me cautiously optimistic. Others, not so much. Some I’m going to preemptively encourage you to keep your money in you wallet…

I dig viral marketing for its innovation and the way it can emmerse you further into a fictional experience. While it reaches only the most tech-savvy of fans, a good campaign can cause an overnight sensation and facilitate unprecedented levels of interest in a film that might have been ignored back in the days before the internet.
Studios have embraced the practice as well. They now dump a portion of their budget into creating viral marketing for their new releases. This works best for the genre flicks that have either a mythology or a mystery to work with. Let’s look at a few of the best and most successful viral campaigns out there and through the process, try to determine which strategies studios and film pioneers will use next…

If you don’t have a big cinema multiplex in your hometown, you can venture an hour or more to a city that does or you can choose to stay home and watch a DVD. For the sake of convenience most choose a night at home with a DVD. But what are your options when your local Blockbuster Video store goes out of business as it did recently in my how town of Clarksdale, Mississippi? Or, what if you’re done with antiquated video stores and you’re looking for something better? Fortunately, the modern age provides many options, each with its own set of advantages and disadvantages…

These are the heroes that just won’t go down no matter what you thow at them. The best of the best. The Greatest. Here’s the criteria I used while making the list… a. The heroes must survive to the end of their film/franchise. b. No superheroes with superpowers. c. Pick heroes who represent cult phenom films. These are my results:

Click HERE to download “The Small Town Critic’s Movie/Film Review Lesson Plan.”
It might surprise some of you that I was once a High School English teacher…
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Okay, now that you’re done laughing, I know how hard it can be to develop a lesson plan that will engage students, access their prior knowledge, allows for scaffolding and [...]

One built monsters (and a few heroes) for a living. The other was a creature of grace and beauty. They both passed this week. Here are their tributes…
First, Stan Winston. He was the creator of such creatures as Alien, Predator, The Terminator and the dinosaurs from “Jurassic Park”…

I declare Cyd Charisse one of the most [...]

That’s all the old published reviews/articles I can find for now. I will post others once they resurface from the Batcave (or an old, lost document file). Now, on to the new reviews…
-Coop

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The summer movie season is upon us and Hollywood has already pulled out some big guns. “Gladiator” and “Dinosaur” are still doing well. “Mission Impossible 2” seems to be a huge early success. So why does Hollywood put out so many of their “summer movies” out before summer? It’s a race like any other actually. [...]

This will be my website until I get things further along. I plan to post movie reviews (one week after their projected print publication), archived reviews, features, contact info, ect…
Standby for more content.
Small Town Critic, out.
-Coop Cooper

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