Whatever

28 Weeks Later

2007-06-07T21:34:00.000+01:00

28 weeks after the beginning of 28 days later (which would make it 224 days after the first infection, but that just isn’t as catchy enough a title) all the zombies- ehr, infected- have starved and died out. A repopulation effort begins, spearheaded by the US military, in a cordoned-off area of London. Of course, it goes to hit and the infection starts up again and you get hordes of infected running around acting all spooky and feral and eating non-infected repatriates and soldiers alike, and a small group of people band up to survive both them and the US military, who are trying to contain the spread of the infection.
Extremely visceral and surprisingly intelligent, I have to admit I liked this movie much better than I liked the first part (which I liked a great deal). It goes out in all sort of random, wonderfully unexpected ways; the characters, while stereotypical, have unexpected reactions which make them feel very well rounded out and involving; it’s got flat out great action scenes which don’t work against the horror and suspense, and it’s the rare kind of horror movie that actually works for its scares. Oh, it sneaks in some biting political commentary, and the gore is pretty magnificent.
And yes, most of the action scenes are muddied up with trendy, overly jumpy editing. And you could say the three standout scenes are a bit derivative, (the best scene, and first runner up for Best. Use. Of. Helicopter. Ever., was used in a throwaway line in the book World War Z, and the other two are a bit too close to Creep and The Descent for comfort), and that the script has a few holes here and there. (Nothing major, though) But it’s still a thrill to see a movie that not only uses something a bit more elaborate than the cheap shocks and gross-outs most horror movies these days manage, but isn’t afraid to evoke grander things- be it as large as parallels with a certain current middle eastern conflict, or as small and intimate as the way guilt makes us desire to violently put out an accusing stare- even after we’ve been undeservedly forgiven.

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End

2007-05-25T21:32:00.000+01:00

Dead Man’s chest came out while this blog was on hiatus, so let’s get it out of the way: it was one of the best movies last year. Incredibly fun, imaginative, smart and perversely unpredictable, it also had that elusive quality movie theorists like to call balls – making it all the more unbelievable it had come from the toxic bowels of both Disney and Jerry Bruckenheimer. It was shot concurrently with the third part of the (so far) trilogy, and has spent most of the year since in post production. (Judging by the end product, the script was written during that time too, but more on that later)

So it’s fair to say my expectations ran very high, especially after watching the excellent trailer (a cannon fight OVER A FUCKING MAELSTROM- holy fucking shit!) It’s also fair to say the final film not only didn’t live up to its promise, it’s also a crap movie on its own right. Messy and lackluster in almost every respect, it manages to miss everything the previous installments nailed just right, and indulges in their worst excesses.

The plot, such as it is, follows the rescue of Jack Sparrow from the land of the dead (or Davey Jones locker), pirate politics, and the subsequent showdown between pirates and the forces of modernism and civilization. It also tries, but not too hard, to tie up the impossibly high number of loose ends from Dead Man’s Chest. Sounds exiting, right? Well, looks like it didn’t to anyone involved, so they spent more time thinking up wacky stuff for Johnny Depp’s Jack Sparrow than developing the script.
I mean hell, I like Jack Sparrow as much as anyone else- his first entry in Pirates of the Caribbean is probably the best character introductions since the Dude Lebowski - but it was always understood that it needed to be dosed carefully… well, until this film, that is. They’ve got Geoffrey Rush as Barbossa – a great character that could easily drive the whole movie if they needed a main character, (and remember Dead Man's Chest didn't, through skillful storyline juggling) but he’s relegated here to be the straight man for gags that I wouldn’t be surprised to find out were improvised by a stoned Johnny Depp. And when he’s not providing angry reaction shots, he’s spewing important-sounding bullshit to cover up for plot holes. Actually, that describes most of the dialog in the movie. But it’s that kind of careless pandering to audiences that sinks the flick; save for the first few minutes it feels, and this wasn't the case in any of its prequels, like Disney and Bruckenheimer had an active voice in it. It feels like a committee movie.

So we get an overdose of all things Sparrow, but unfunny. We get lame slapstick and gags that are taken just a bit too long- Just count the number of animal reaction shots or cutesy gimmicks like Jack’s father. We also get characters we couldn’t give a shit about and major plot elements that are pulled out of nowhere (and that are dropped before they go anywhere) – and that might be the most puzzling thing in this movie; I mean, I could understand it on the second one, it was a sequel to a movie that didn’t really leave room for one, but for fuck’s sake- these last two were written at the same time! A couple of major plot lines not only don’t really make sense, they also turn out to be completely unnecessary and are forgotten and left unresolved halfway through. And forget about character attachment- they are either too busy explaining the plot dramatically enough to fool people, or making decisions which are so random one wonders if they’re not rolling dice to see what they do next.

What the hell happened? I can take a couple of guesses. Dead Man’s chest began with a crow pecking out a corpse’s eyes, and it’s a smart, complex film. I can see how that would give a Disney exec a heart attack, and lead to the studio forcing their standards on Verbinski and the scriptwriters to make this piece of shit under legal threat.
Time is also undoubtedly a factor here- either all the good stuff was left on Dead Man’s Chest, or the two-films at a time thing was all a hoax and this movie was indeed written and made in this last year or so. I could also blame CGI, I dunno. (It would explain Orlando bloom, at least…)
Finally, it could be that Verbinski and Co. fucked up. It could happen.

There are some saving graces to the movie. It’s telling it has striking images which display an incredible visual imagination. (Which I’d attribute to Verbinski; most of them are shamefully squandered in the trailer) It’s also worth noting that unlike in the previous two installments, where a sequence would start being amazing and end up being stunning through unexpected developments and wit, here they fall through almost instantaneously without a script to prop them up.
I also liked that a theme running subtly through the previous movie was picked up and pushed to the forefront- that the positive aspects of piracy, the freedom, mysteriousness and adventure of it are only possible at the fringes of civilization; it’s hammered home too soon, too often and too obviously, and it’s also lifted directly from some of the best westerns, but hey- I still like it.
And whoever thought of the whole worthless oriental angle (poor Chow Yun Fat is woefully underused- this movie demanded full on wuxia action, dammit!) still deserves a raise, simply because it allowed them to cram Keira Knightley into all sorts of tight oriental costumes.

But yeah, all in all, it sucks pretty bad.

The DaVinci Code

2006-07-04T21:27:00.000+01:00

Against all my instincts and better judgment, I finally caved in and went to see the bad boy of religious thriller adaptations. Expectations were about as low as expectations can get, but holy shit- The flick still fell well beneath them. Pretentious, dull, stupid and contrived, it doesn’t even do right by the conspiracy theories that it plunders shamelessly to use in its unimaginative pastiche.

Tom Hanks stars as a scholar specializing in symbols who gets caught up in the titular code, a series of puzzles and plot contrivances that point to forbidden knowledge that theoretically could shake the foundations of organized religion. Soon he’s running for his life with a cop, (the beautiful Audrey Tatou) dodging a deranged killer albino monk (no, it’s not as good as it sounds) and a driven French police chief. Shadowy plots, unbelievable coincidences and ludicrous plot twists- plausibility is lost without a trace close to the beginning, and never even threatens with a comeback.
At least it solves the age old problem of translating an exposition-heavy book to the big screen. You have people talk about what’s happening at the slightest chance! All the time! You cut that with stupid action sequences, and then start again. (To be honest, I think that’s an inherited problem with the book, but since I haven’t read it I won’t go into that). Still, you’d think that the director of the beautifully brutal, laconic The Missing would have known that it was a bad idea. There are no characters, only exposition pieces- events don’t happen because they make sense, they serve to propel the characters to the next shitty revelation so that they can then narrate it in excruciating detail. This comes to a head in a hilariously ridiculous bad guy monologue that would put any Bond Villain to shame.
The film also shows off at every chance an undeservedly (and unnecessarily) high budget; in an attempt to make all the exposition more palatable to the audience it obviously considers only marginally more cogent than slugs, every exposition piece inevitably turns into a CGI bonanza.

All for what? Is the final revelation worth it all? Was Jesus gay? What the fuck is it that has the whole religious community in an uproar?
The revelation, when it comes, is underwhelming- least of all because if you know anything about conspiracy theories, you already know all about it (and probably more than Dan Brown). But beyond that, it’s just a different shade the official story, superstitious as the original. Not even a gesture at challenging the status quo (at least, not a significant effort by this century’s standards). Enough to get idiots who actually believe in the sanctity of these fairy tales all riled up, but frankly, it’s not even worth spoiling.

Coffee and cigarettes

2006-05-26T00:40:00.000+01:00

A collection of shorts shot over a long period of time, Jim Jarmusch's Coffee and cigarettes explores how different people interact in any social situation where, well, coffee and cigarettes are the centerpiece of the table.
It's terribly uneven, as it might be expected; sometimes the acting is atrocious, some of the dialogs feel forced (all risks of heavy improvisation), and by the middle of the movie one's tempted to fast forward a chapter or two. But most of the shorts are at least worth watching, and all but a couple ring uncomfortably true. There are at least half a dozen absolutely brilliant segments to be found.

The way uncomfortable situations are portrayed is excellent- both funny and chilling; Iggy Pop and Tom Waits meet up, expecting to find common ground in the fact that they're both rock icons (they don't, sort of); Two friends find there might be a bit more distance than they suspected between them in the excellent "No Problem"; Steve Coogan and Alfred Molina, in possibly the best short, overturn each other's expectations. Kate Blanchett plays herself and her cousin, in which recriminations are half-uttered and go unresolved in a very realistic way. There are also some fun, silly bits- the White Stripes test a Tesla coil, Steven Wright and Roberto Benigni exchange a dentist appointment, and two members of the Wu-Tang Clan run into Bill Murray disguised as a waiter. By last third of the film, patterns have begun to emerge; snatches of conversation are repeated, and concepts are rehashed. There's no revelation, no eureka moment, but by the time two weary old men try to stretch out a smoke break and one of them begins finding something important in idle conversation, the emotional impact is deep and undeniable.
Far from flawless, Coffee and Cigarettes is still an extremely rewarding movie from one of the better directors out there.

Gozu

2006-05-25T23:37:00.000+01:00

If there's one thing you can count on Takashi Miike to do, it's to provide truly bizarre filmmaking. He's outdone himself with Gozu, though.

After increasingly erratic behavior (which includes a hilarious attack on a Pomeranian dog, whom he insists is really a yakuza-eating pooch), Yakuza goon Ozaki proves to be too much of a liability for his organization. The boss orders Minami, another goon who happens to be best friends with Ozaki, to take him to the city of Nagoya to be disposed of. After some comic mishaps along the way, Ozaki is accidentally killed and his body goes missing; Thus poor minami is left to search the city of Nagoya, which looks like a mixture between an abandoned strip mall and a giant truckstop (with a scrapyard thrown in to add some color). Things get weirder from there; from hyper-lactating inn keepers to soup ladles stuck in unlikely places to shitting ghosts (I kid you not... That scene is one of the funniest I've seen in ages), the bizarre factor just increases until the final, unforgettable twenty minutes or so- which are a prime example of both Miike's fondness for stretching an uncomfortable scene to almost unbearable extremes and his knack for nailing shots that are impressive both in concept and execution.

There is a lot of David Lynch in the plot, and a bit more of David Cronemberg at his most carnal (although neither of them have ever been even remotely as weird or explicit as this). The pacing is a bit slack here and there, and while a theme gradually emerges, it never even remotely makes sense. Which is just as good, as it doesn't really need to (and I suppose it was never intended to, either). Overlong at more than two hours, it's still thought provoking, engaging and a damn hoot as well.

Blade Trinity

2006-05-19T00:15:00.000+01:00

You know? Jessica Biel is hot. The chick in Blade 2 was better, but Biel comes close. And that's absolutely the only thing about this wretched pile of regurgitated shit that can even remotely compare to Blade 2. I mean, holy fucking hell- Blade one was a rotting heap of steaming turds, but at least it had the nightclub massacre. This iteration doesn't even have a halfway passable scene; Hack extraordinaire David Goyer, apparently livid that someone actually did a halfway decent sequel to his shitty breakthrough, got away from the Peruvian retreat where he spent his days getting raped by Croatian sailors and directed the third installment. And you know what? Yeah, you do. It Fucking Reeks.

Phew. Glad to get that off my chest. Where was I? oh, yeah- this coprophiliac's wet and squishy dream...

This is the kind of flick where ridiculous looking people stride in slow motion while ominous electronica beeps in the background, and Wesley Snipes is lovingly fetish-ized from every possible angle. Jessica Biel's ass, or rather, the other end, slowly puts on her I-pod earphones while someone explains that she's building her own custom soundtracks for the ensuing battle. There is some fairly funny running commentary by an idiot that goes by the name of Hannibal King (god, I hate comics) that almost makes things worthwhile- I mean, if there's something that Blade movies practically beg for, is to have the piss taken out of them. But as funny as a remark about vampire Pomeranian dogs may be, what can you honestly say about a movie idiotic enough to actually feature a fucking Pomeranian dog-vampire hybrid?
I don't even need to go into the characters. They suck ass, period. And about the wafer thin mess that dares call itself a plot... for fuck's sake. Let me go into it for a bit:

Blade gets framed with murder after a laughable action sequence (just, you know, because he killed a guy... life's a bitch that way). His mentor dies in the police raid that ensues after making it quite clear he's a father figure and that he disapproves of Blade's grumpy ways. And Blade is captured. Oh, some ridiculous looking vampires also free dracula from a tomb in Irak before that. They apparently want him to enforce some sort of final vampire solution. Jessica Biel's ass makes a random appearance and kills some vampires in a poorly choreographed fight. Meanwhile the Vampires show up at police HQ, where Blade is held, to take him off to… oh hell, I don’t know- one would think they would be happy to finish him off there and then. Anyhow, a Dork and Jessica Biel’s ass show up and rescue Blade in a particularly shitty sequence (Noticing a pattern here?). Now, let me stress that this one’s particularly excruciating; not only is it poorly edited, unimaginative and, well, unexciting, but the stunts that are pulled off are head-slappingly stupid. Better get used to it. Anyhow-
A lot of pointless exposition follows, Blade makes some new friends in a group of vampire hunters, but he acts all angry and mean. That’s just because he’s really afraid of getting hurt, you see- fear is the opposite of love. Patrick Swaize taught me that. Dracula meanwhile walks around, looking all mean in a very gay outfit tailored to show off his bare pecs; He kills a couple of Goths and hangs out, basically. You know, for being such a powerful final solution, he does an awful lot of petty errands. Who does he do them for? Glad you asked! We now come to some of the most pathetic, loser bad guys I’ve ever seen. A girl with hair almost half as high as her head and that walks around as if her tampon is sliding out (and tends to do so in slow motion, you know, to pad the movie out even more), and an effete, Armani-wearing undead yuppie. Oh yeah, immortal evil indeed. So they get Dracula to kill a bunch of Blade’s new buddies and kidnap the dork and a little girl. This, of course, sets up the spectacularly underwhelming final sequence when Blade and Jessica Biel’s ass (looking lovely in very tight-fitting leather pants) where friends are rescued, a vampire killing virus is unleashed, and Drake is killed in a very ho-hum fashion. The upshot of this is that David Goyer will likely never be offered to direct an action flick again. Huzzah!
At some point during this drivel, the Final Solution is revealed- turns out, it’s a Coma rip-off: racks and racks of human vegetables, from whom blood is harvested instead of organs. How is this a Final Solution? And how the fuck does this relate to Dracula? Well, your guess is as good as mine. And here’s my guess: it doesn’t, because David Goyer holds our intelligence in such contempt that he didn’t even bother writing a half-assed plot. I mean, for fuck’s sake! People often ask me why I get so worked up over shitty movies, but let me ask you this: this motherfucking bastard is shitting on us and laughing all the while, and all I'm supposed to do is open my mouth?
I would immediately join any religion that promised swift and painful death to these talentless hacks. And Goyer, you’re way fucking up in the list.

V for Vendetta

2006-05-17T20:30:00.000+01:00

That the Wachowski brothers have a strong political stance was clear from the Matrix- before it degenerated into cheap religious parable, there was a lot of mileage to be had from the deceptively shallow Gnostic premise.
But who would think they'd make a movie out of it? Ably transposing Alan Moore's classic outraged indictment of the tendencies of Thatcher's Britain to the current geopolitical climate, the film mostly follows young Evey (Natalie Portman) as she discovers just to what extent her society is fucked up. Helping her in that endeavor is a mysterious stranger wearing a Guy Fawkes mask who wages a personal war against the totalitarian government; Poor Evey is inexorably drawn into this gentleman's (known as V, whose voice is played with gusto by Hugo Weaving) conflict
Whether you'll like this movie or not first and foremost will hinge on whether you stand on either side of the republican/liberal divide. Make no mistake about it, this film is an outright attack on some of the conservative tendencies that have been gripping the US under Bush's regime. It works as a story, but the movie unsubtly, and rather heavy-handedly, pushes them to the fore at every possible opportunity. They're valid points, but earnestness doesn't always mesh with good storytelling.

So, does it work? well, surprisingly enough, it does. It helps that it's not an action flick, but rather a calm exploration of its themes, with emphasis on the characters' stories as V's war escalates and shakes the dystopia's foundations. The characters are mostly very likeable (especially Stephen Fry and Stephen Rea, both a pleasure to watch acting). And the central mysteries- Just who this guy V is, and how did things get to where they are- are compelling, if a bit underwhelming.
But... (there's always one of those, isn't there?) remember when I said it was heavy handed? Well, heavy handed it is. The film portrays V as using anarchist methods (and indeed does not implicitly approve or disapprove of them), but portrays him more as an enraged liberal. In fact, it idealizes him to a fault, while it demonizes everything and anything related to the bad guys. Couldn't some shades of grey be added in there? As always, audiences can't be trusted on to draw their own conclusions. There is no subtlety, and points are often hammered home when inference or an unbiased presentation of the facts would have been far more effective.
Not that V doesn't do morally reprehensible things during the movie, but the film's sympathies are too clearly with him; He never once shows a shred of weakness, not one negative trait. No real humanity... Until one unfortunate late scene where one of the worst cliches the movie could have comitted is gleefully perpetrated.

In fact, the movie promptly goes to hell as the final scenes start. Starting with its only extended action sequence (fun!) it promptly begins to smash everything it had carefully built up in the previous two hours. Taking a sharp turn towards the metaphorical, whereas the rest of the movie was very gritty and even had some nods to realism (Hollywood realism, at least), any complexity is dispelled; the resolution is facile and feels extremely cheap. Everything culminates in an unmasking scene that is idiotically juvenile, its cheap symbolism almost demagogic.
It'll please fourteen-year-olds in the audience to no end, I'm sure- but anyone else will probably find themselves feeling either disappointed... or insulted. A shame, to be sure; But the Wachowskies seem to have a penchant for ruining movies with supremely shitty endings.

The Legend of Zorro

2006-05-17T19:55:00.000+01:00

What a godawful piece of shit. It's aimed straight at the kiddies, but even hating the little snotrags as much as I do I'd find myself incapable of inflicting this horrendous crap on them. If my uncommon attack of scruples doesn't scare you off, consider this: At one point, Zorro's little offspring uses the series' trademark kung-fu, swashbuckly style of gymnastics to put a dastardly professor in his place.
I'm still recovering from that one. At least the rugrat's acting is on the same level as the acting of Banderas and Zeta-Jones (and Rufus Sewell, who's been slumming since Dark City). Hmm, wait, that isn't a complement. At all. Ok, at least he doesn't look like he's had a botox overdose.

Not even trace amounts of originality, sense of fun, or any sort of effort can be found here. To call it derivative would be an insult to the original movie; while it wasn't good by any stretch, at least it managed to be entertaining and marginally witty.
I don't intend to go into the plot (lucky you), but let me rag on a bit to scare off anyone still willing to inflict this shit upon himself. Or rather, vent for a bit. There are several slapstick scenes that are completely out of place, inserting jarring visual gags (that fall completely flat) and aren't even followed up. Check it out, the horse is drinking! And now it's smoking! Best of all is the only moment where the movie winks knowingly at the adults enduring this crap for the children's sake- a scene where a recently divorced, drunken Banderas hammily asserts that "no one leaves his tequila worm dangling". Only in this movie that could pass off as a sly, witty double entendré.

Silent Hill

2006-04-28T01:04:00.000+01:00

When her daughter almost dies while on one of her frequent sleepwalking outings, Rose daSilva (Radha Mitchell) thinks of no better way to fix it than to take her to the haunted town Sharon, her adopted child, keeps mentioning in her nightmares. Oh, and she goes without even telling her husband, and also runs away from the cops without any reason at all. Bright girl, huh? you better get used to it, her common sense actually takes a dive as the movie goes on.
Soon enough Sharon dissappears in the ghost town that gives the movie its title. For the rest of the film Rose will search for her daughter in suitably spooky places, mostly with the help of the cop she ran away from earlier. But in order to find Sharon, she will need to solve the puzzle that the town itself poses.

To go into it any further would spoil what, surprisingly enough, is a fairly good plot. The script is not up to it, though, and the pacing suffers for it- there is an overlong exposition sequence in particular that not only overexplains everything you managed to work out yourself, but does it in such a way that will make your neurons commit seppuku en masse.

And that complaint, this maddening mix of good and crap, extends to cover all the other aspects of the movie. Take the visuals, for example.
The town of Silent Hill is spot on- a spooky ghost of a settlement with mist obscuring everything in white and a constant shower of ashes raining down. All the derelict interiors are also excellent- and when the Dark arrives and things get overtly supernatural, well- the effect is nothing short of breathtaking. The walls peel to reveal bizarre blood-colored rot patterns, floors become rusty grids of iron letting you catch a glimpse of hellish fires raging beneath. All's great, till the monsters show up. Usually loads of them, and they're a bit, uh, shit actually- I laughed out loud hard at some... let's try and describe one of them:
A zombie duck-like thing. Its torso is a mass of scarred tissue, except for a pulsating sphincter from which it projectile-defecates caustic diarrhea. Nothing even remotely scary. Might look like the critters in the game, but the movie would definitively be a lot better off without any of them- and the fact that they're overused doesn't help at all.
Most of the characters well defined and likeable, with some unexpected depth. There is a running subplot of Rose's husband (Sean Bean) trying to find her and running into a police officer that seems to be covering everything up; once some of the plot details become apparent, the reason for the cop's actions take on a different light- how often can you say that happens in a would be blockbuster? The female cop/sidekick is a bit two dimentional, but a strong character and likeable enough. Unfortunately we're stuck most of the time with Rose, and while she's also likeable, her only reason for existing is to move the plot forward- every fucking cliche misstep in the horror book? she'll do it happily, twice. Living proof that Darwin was wrong, wrong, wrong!

So the movie flip flops between rather good and utter crap very frequently, often within the same scene. Extremely frustrating, especially considering that the balance tends towards the shitty side of the spectrum. But then something happens- the climactic speech is laughable and didactic, but the final showdown that ensues is way cool, bloody and suitably apocalyptic (the henai reference made me chuckle). So far so good, time for the fake ending.
And when it arrives, like so many things in this movie, it comes completely out of the left field. A truly beautiful ending, understated and poignant- it easily, completely outclasses the rest of the movie, and even feels a bit undeserved. Stunning.

King Kong

2006-03-19T03:53:00.000Z

King Kong has perhaps one of the most famous tragic endings in Hollywood history. Contrary to that dapper 'Beauty killed the beast' final line, audiences these last seventy plus years since it came out knew better than to cheer the poor beleaguered beast's death.
No one, apparently, told that to Peter Jackson. He's made Kong as likeable as he can- so much so, that Naomi Watts seems to like him better than she does potential love interest Adrien Brody. Jackson also takes pains to show just what an injustice is being inflicted on the poor ape. In fact, the film feels at times to be a simian version of the Passion of the Christ. At best, it could be interpreted as a petulant 'but Kong was not a bad guy!'... despite that everyone got that the first time. At worst it's an insult to the viewer's intelligence and a crass attempt at cheap Spielberg-style manipulation.

You all should know the story by now- a scrupleless director (Jack Black, pretty much reprising his role from School of Rock) takes his crew to film in a remote, lost island in the thirties. There after some adventures the main actress is abducted by the natives and offered up to Kong as a sacrifice. The crew fights against giant insects and several species of dinosaurs to get her back, and in the process manages to capture King Kong and take him back to Mew York. There they attempt to use him in a live show from which he escapes, wrecks havoc in the city, grabs the girl, and finally dies in the Empire State Building.
And it takes over three fucking hours to get there.

Bloated is the only word that can be used to describe this movie. Each and every scene could have several minutes shaved off, and be a lot better for it. That's not the only excess in evidence: there is a tasteless overabundance of special effects in all of the island sequences, and baroque, unnecessary twists in the action. Many of the scenes are fun, but all but a few of them overstay their welcome and drag on and on and ON!. The only well-rounded character in the script is Kong; All the humans flip flop whichever way is convenient for the plot.

There are some good bits here and there. The recreation of thirties North America is extremely good, if a bit showy. The special effects are all good and look approppriately expensive. Kong animates incredibly well. Some humor and bizarre little details in the action every now and then do help move things along. And there is no denying the earnestness on display... but frankly, none of this even nearly compensates for all the crap you'll have to put up with to get to the end credits.

There is just one scene which does add to the original: while making his way to his aerie, Kong passes by a bunch of giant ape skeletons, without giving them a single glance. Melancholic and quite affecting, this scene alone shows restraint and subtlety, concepts that unfortunately don't seem to exist in the rest of the film.

Mirrormask

2006-03-19T02:53:00.000Z

Also produced by the Jim Henson company, Dave McKean's Mirrormask follows the same trail Labyrinth forged twenty years ago, with mixed results.

Based on an original story co-written with frequent collaborator Neil Gaiman, the
story centers on Helena, a young circus juggler and aspiring artist. When her mother falls very ill (a brain tumor is implied), she is drawn into her fantasy world as expressed by her drawings- the shadowlands. And not all is well there; the precarious balance between the light and dark kingdoms has been subverted, and darkness is spreading like a disease. It soon falls to Helena to find a way to recover the Mirrormask, a charm that was stolen from the queen of light, and restore the natural balance.
And while the premise is fine, the execution is a bit of a mess. It feels slightly disjointed, a collection of individual scenes more connected by their general weirdness than a coherent narrative. The symbolism and messages- not to mention the overall plot- are muddled. The story make sense as a whole, but seems to be at odds with itself at times. All of which is a shame: there is nothing wrong with the scenes themselves. The characters are very well fleshed out and likeable, and Gaiman's gift for dialog and humor are very much in evidence throughout. And even though sometimes it feels forced, the level of imagination on display is impressive.

And that imagination is more than well served by the movie's visuals. Dave McKean has long been one of my favorite graphical artists, and his work translates to film beautifully- any shortcomings in the story are easily dismissed given that it's so often breathtakingly gorgeous to look at. And that, in the end, is Mirrormask's main strength- just let yourself be distracted by the pretty pictures, and you'll be fine.

The Fantastic Four

2006-01-29T23:36:00.000Z

Four words:

Fucking. Piece. Of. Shit.

If you liked this horrendous excuse for entertainment, you're part of the problem; please die as soon as possible.

Seriously, this movie was painful; formulaic, dull, unspeakably idiotic, unimaginative, you name it. One of the clearest examples of commitee moviemaking I've seen in a long time- even with my low opinion of humanity, I find it hard to imagine how an individual could invest the time and effort something like a movie requires coming up with this drivel.
To get it out of the way: 4 hotshot scientists, along with their eeeeeevil corporate employer get superpowers, learn how to use them, then (almost as an afterthought) fight each other. The acting is shit, the dialog has to be heard to be believed, no noteworthy special effects, etc etc. To give you an example of how shitty this piece of garbage is... this girl can become invisible, right? But not her clothes. At one point the group needs to get trough a crowded bridge, so they make her become invisible and strip- a gruelingly stupid scene that exists only to show Jessica Alba in a state of mild undress. So, when she makes it, she runs into... the rest of the group.
The movie is full of this shit. No, not Jessica Alba showing skin; of crappy scenes, plot holes, and an absolute disregard for any intelligence the viewer may possess. This movie, and others like it, are why internet piracy needs to exist.

Apocalypsis: France: The Movie: The First part

2005-11-09T12:02:00.000Z

This is dedicated to those that say critics never do anything worthwhile. Not that I'm a critic, or this is worthwhile... Thanks to Alejo and Dr. Vaporeso
Tom Clancy, eat your heart out- anyone know Jerry Brukenheimer's phone number?

Based on a true story- http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2005/11/7/94742/9727

---
2005; 17:32pm
A large French city, possibly Rejkavik.
French police, led by charles Bronson, kill all of the rioting masses in the suburbs in a surprise attack.

17:35pm
Public outcry is far greater than anticipated. The harried government (played by Jean Reno) is forced to guillotine all the policemen in the country.

17:49pm
French society falls into chaos. The army is finally called in to restore the peace, and promptly surrenders.
Sheer bedlam ensues. Mimes run the streets unchecked, free from their invisible boxes; red wine runs on the streets. The world watches horrified as mobs of accordionists torture innocent bystanders with soulful renditions of la vie en rose.

18 Brumaire CCXIV - teatime
After carefully deliberating with God, The Holy Spirit, and Steve Jobs, President Bush (played by Ben Affleck) invades France. Despite international allegations that the US is only after France';s subterranean pate de foie reserves, they quickly win over the French people's hearts. Cue a slow motion scene with all of the United States' army,the President and the Holy Ghost walking side by side on the French streets while heroic music swells in the background. Just like in Armageddon, or Boa vs. Python.

OhEightHunnerd Hours pm
Tragedy! The young son of President Bush and Jesus, who is widely thought to be a sure thing for the second coming, is treacherously stoned to death with old chees by a dastardly mob. He dies in both of his father's arms.

OhNineHunnerd Hours pm
The army retreats from france. I forgive them, says Jesus. I don't, says bush. And nukes France into the stratosphere.

18:32am
The Canadian are enraged. Sacre Bleu! They scream. They mobilize their secret unstoppable nuclear weapons program- multiple nuclear warheads on the backs of the royal Canadian mounted police. With their high mobility and nigh-undetectable red camouflage, they can avoid detection and launch nuclear attacks on all major centers of civilization.

18:33am
Humanity dies horribly after a lot of suffering while Rush plays in the background (Tom Sawyer). What can I say, I'm a sucker for happy endings.

Serenity

2005-11-04T08:39:00.000Z

Based on the TV show Firefly (which I will now have to catch sometime, dammit), Joss Whedon’s new Serenity not only rises above most TV to big screen adaptations, it’s also quite a lot better than most big SciFi releases.
The crew of the spaceship Serenity has definitely seen better times. Led by Captain Malcolm Reynolds, an embittered veteran, they try to scrape by in the lawless fringes of civilization while keeping a beautiful telepath (who they rescued from a research facility) and her brother away from the evil empire stand-in, the Alliance. After narrowly escaping alive from a bank robbery gone awry, they must contend with a sociopath Alliance operative sent to retrieve their charge, dodge a horde of cannibal berserkers, and solve the mystery posed by the girl they rescued- which, as these things tend to do, may be of dire importance.

The complex character dynamics are effortlessly, and masterfully introduced, as are the broad strokes of the setting. One of the few complaints that can be levied against the film is that too much material is trotted out just for the series fans in the early going, but since all those elements tie into events later on, that’s really moot point. There is a constant vein of understated humor that runs throughout the film even at its grimmest moments. And things do get quite grim- for a space opera, (one based on a TV show, no less) there are a lot of moral grey areas, genuinely hard choices made and one exquisitely ruthless scene that had me smiling all the way to the conclusion.
The science part is a bit iffy, but no worse than, say, Star Wars. And nitpicking about, say, whether a planet can be successfully blockaded would completely miss the point. The movie is character focused through and through, and in that respect it succeeds admirably. Both individual characters and the relationships between them are carefully rendered, entertaining, and faithful to themselves. It’s a treat aurally as well: the soundtrack is good enough to own, and the dialog not only succeeds in portraying an alien vernacular (think western-punk), but also a very particular cadence that, when you get used to it, is a pleasure to listen to. Outstanding stuff.

Land of the Dead

2005-10-18T11:16:00.000+01:00

In the montage sequence that plays out as the background for the introduction credits for Land of the Dead, a media commentator wonders what would happen should the zombies that have recently overrun the world evolve, become intelligent.
That it's starting to happen is established at the very beginning of the movie: the undead try to mimic their vaguely remembered mortality, and one of them even struggles with its, well, zombieness and tries for some sort of intelligence. But where a lesser film would have its hands full just exploring that tack on the genre, here it's just one of the many threads woven throughout.

The events center around a fortified enclave of humanity- an overcrowded, tightly policed ghetto sprawling around a huge building. This is Fiddler's green proper, where Kaufman, founder of the enclave gets to live in comfort with his cronies. Simon Baker plays Riley, the leader of a strike team charged with retrieving supplies from neighboring zombie-ridden communities. The raid that kicks off the movie goes a bit south, with two effects that set up everything that follows; Simon Baker has a falling out with his second in command, John Leguizamo, who hints that he's got a sweet deal staged for after the raid. And they manage to tick off an abnormally smart zombie, who raises a mob of corpses-in-arms and goes after them looking for revenge.
Zombies remain pretty much a background element until the final act, which is not nearly as bad as it sounds; all of the characters are extremely well developed (except for three standard, kick-ass soldiers with one defining trait), and the action is kept lively and interesting. And there's always Asia Argento to look at. It's hard to go into any detail without saying what happens, but suffice to say that the enclave is threatened with destruction not by the zombies, but a disgruntled ex-resident. It's surprising how, despite all the gore, this is not really a horror movie. It mixes and matches genres, but comes out pretty much as an intelligent action flick.

As I mentioned above, the character work is excellent- and they are uniformly well acted, with some truly great lines. Robert Joy stands out, and even the standard action hero has a real personality and a very healthy misanthropic streak. The gore is wonderfully abundant- people are torn apart in all sort of creative ways, and it's a treat to see the zombies pick up dismembered fingers from the floor and chomp them down with gusto. The action is very well choreographed and exhibits one of the most welcome traits that the movie shows in all its aspects- originality and inventiveness. It's also stylish but not too much so, and the effects are pretty good.

And, as with Romero's previous zombie entries, there is abundant social and political comment. While the dead are entranced and distracted by the living with fireworks, Dennis Hopper keeps control over the inhabitants Fiddler's Green with vice, military force and the specter of upward mobility. There are no easy outs, no deus ex machina, and the characters are true to themselves instead of following arbitrary scripting that serves only the plot. As 28 Days Later and Shawn of the Dead abundantly proved, the zombie movie is far from stagnant, but Land of the Dead trumps them all. It's an exhilarating, tight, brilliant little film that needs to be seen, even if you don't normally go for this type of thing.

Night Watch (Nochnoy dozor)

2005-10-12T07:39:00.000+01:00

Apparently, there are others living among us. Special people with special powers who must chose between light and darkness and seem to feed on blood to power their gifts. (if they're good, animal blood, if not, well, they're vampires) After a disastrous confrontation hundreds of years ago, they coexist in an uneasy truce that has members of the light policing their dark brethren, and curbing their destructive impulses with regulations and paperwork.
And that is the titular Nightwatch. Events follow one of its members as he tries to rescue his son from a hungry vampire, and save the world from an ancient curse that is quickly reaching some sort of occult critical mass.

For all the fantastical elements, the action is fairly grounded by grittiness and a wonderful sense of humor. The action takes place in modern day moscow, and while the events and concepts in the background are high concept and world shattering, the action is kept relatively low key; the Nightwatch as an institution, for example, is underfunded and highly bureaucratized- it has more in common with a run down police station than with the hall of justice. The ideas the movie plays with are left frustratingly undefined, but imaginative and (perhaps because they are mostly left unexplained), intriguing. There are shapeshifters, an alternate mode of existence that all Others have access to that seems weirdly sentient and hungry, a mystic that plays out possible futures with beaten-up playstation 2, and echoes of a past confrontation playing themselves out in the present. All conveyed in a striking, highly stylized aesthetic vision that lies somewhere between arthouse and MTV. The effects are a mixed bag, but mostly succeed due to the artistic direction; the characters are likeable and fairly well defined, and that also helps overlook some weak acting.
The main problem with the film as it stands, is that it's quite unapologetically the first part in a trilogy. While events stand on their own, by the end it seems strangely lightweight, unsatisfying- but it's a good deal of fun while it lasts. As long as it keeps its tongue firmly placed in its cheek, its playfulness, and that wonderful balance between the fantastic and mundane, there are more than enough reasons to be optimistic about the next two installments.

Revolver

2005-10-11T01:01:00.000+01:00

One would think one worthless movie that was universally reviled would be major wake up call, the kind of thing that'd save you from a rampaging ego.
In Guy Ritchie's case, it just prompted him to switch genres to one he had proved successful in before. And if Revolver is any proof, his ego is quite healthy... and his talent (luck?) is still on a holiday.

A more turgid mess is hard to imagine. The story follows a ex-convict who, two years after being freed from prison, is taken into confidence by two men that help him get even with a mafia big fish while they strip him of every cent. Sounds simple enough? Well, it is- the big twist in the movie is fairly clever, but easy to see coming. That's not the problem. The problem is that the film thinks it's absolute genius- from a stupefying voiceover that waxes philosophical over every inanity conceivable, to endless existential dialogues that never amount to anything, to scenes that don't have any reason to exist, stylistic choices that are there only to establish how edgy the director is, and plot twists and details that only make sense half the time.
What other explication is there for the animated segment, except that Tarantino did one in Kill Bill? Or... let's say you want to establish that a character has a split personality- would you explain it by showing him trapped in an elevator, with a dialog like this?

-Actor 1: I'm you!!!
-Actor 1: Noooooooooooooooooo!
-Actor 1: Yes!
-Actor 1: Noooooooooooooooooo!
-Actor 1: Aaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrghhh!

OK, I might be simplifying a bit, but the scene goes on for what seems like ages without being any more meaningful. A bit dismal for a film that thinks of itself as having the psychological acumen of a Bergman movie. Possibly the most excruciatingly painful scene I have had the bad luck to watch on the big screen this year.
On these grounds, it's quite easy to dismiss Revolver's self professed status as a mindfuck. Like most anime, it chooses quantity over quality by confusing complexity for depth. It's also overindulgent, wit-less, pretentious, and plain bad at moments. There is one extremely cool character- Sorter, a shy hitman with the face of an accountant and the moves of a Matrix stunt double. But apart from that, Revolver is a complete disaster from a would-be auteur who can't even blame the script, seeing as he wrote it...

A History of Violence

2005-10-05T17:24:00.000+01:00

Call me soft hearted, but I'm partial to any movie that begins with a five year old girl being blasted point blank, even if the carnage is not shown. Oh, movie magic...
Vigo Mortenssen plays Tom Stall, owner of a small cafe in a small all-american town, loving husband and father of two adoring children. This may be the first mainstream movie I've seen that has an on-screen sixty-nine, but it tops that accomplishment by making it wholesome, somehow.
But it couldn't last, could it? Tom's ideal, placid life is interrupted by two crooks that stop by his diner with murderous intent; when it becomes clear that a bystander is in mortal danger, Tom springs into action and kills them brutally. He's hailed as a hero, and begins to readapt and try to live with the consequence of his actions. But now there are a couple of hoodlums tailing him and his family, calling him by another name and insisting that he come back to Philly with them. (A city Tom claims not to have visited in his life)

All in all, the story is a straight pulp one- by the numbers, even. Predictable and somehat heavy handed at moments. But the devil is in the details; in this case, David Cronemberg's quiet, naturalistic direction superbly contrasts what's going on plotwise. The action scenes, when they finally break out are realistic and utterly brutal, and the film as a whole lacks any stylization. This takes the action out of context, and gives it new meaning. At least, it would unless you're a jaded fucker like I am, in which case, it's all good fun- but I can still appreciate them trying. Too bad the script and the tone of the film don't match up like they do on one particular, brilliant scene (which can only be described as consensual rape).
Is it as good as the buzz it's been gathering says it is? Well, no, it's quite overrated- but it's still damn good, especially if you latch onto the small details, like the way these tough mafia goons are surprised by sudden explosions of violence. The fact that it does have a bit of depth, and how that depth is achieved,(by a clever director, not by a clever script) also elevate it and make it, at least in my opinion, a pretty damn good film.

The Fog of War

2005-10-05T15:29:00.000+01:00

For some reason I've always seen William McNamara as a bastard, a warmonger responsible for the evils of Vietnam. Old smear campaigns die hard, I guess, as I never really had a clear concept of who he was and what he did.
The Fog of War is a documentary on his life and work, beggining in the end of world war I but focusing on his work during the wars (cold and otherwise): the second world war, the cuban missile crisis, and Vietnam. The format of the film is that of a long interview, spliced together to forma a constant narrative; that's the backbone of the movie, McNamara's running narration- and if it works, it's not only because that man's story is intertwined with some of the most significant events in modern northamerican history. At 85 Mr McNamara is not only articulate, he's damn brilliant.
The film is no an apology, neither is it an indictment of his actions. This is the (seemingly) honest recounting of a very bright, very idealistic person, who, while fully admitting his mistakes, also provides the reason as to why they were made. The film's subtitle, eleven lessons from the life of William S. McNamara should be taken at face value; while the lessons are somewhat arbitrary (they don't quite do justice to the material that they are suposed to encapsulate), they are important nonetheless and quite timely. Consider this gem:
"If we can't persuade nations of comparable values of the rightness of our cause, then we'd better reexamine our reasoning."

Collateral

2005-10-05T13:57:00.000+01:00

It starts out promisingly enough, and for a while it's a solid, if unremarkable, thriller. Jamie Fox plays a likeable, professional cabbie that's hired for the whole night to take Tom Cruise (a hired killer) to the sites of five hits. When the Cab driver discovers what his fare is up to the standard cat and mouse games ensue, as the killer insists on using him as his personal chauffeur for the night.
While that goes on, there’s some uneasy character building going on between the two, and the movie also follows the police (and later, federal) investigation into the night’s killings.

And, as I said before, it works for a while. But keeping it up proves to be too much of a hassle. Even a workmanlike thriller like this one needs good craftsmanship, and it seems that everyone involved decided to wrap it up as soon as possible and go to the pub. Michael Mann has done some extremely good stuff in the past (Heat, The Insider, The Thief), but here he lazily follows a lousy script to increasing depths. The problems really start to show at a showdown in a discotheque, and when the final twist is revealed… oh what the hell, you can see this one coming a mile away, and besides, it’s in the trailer- it turns out that the cabdriver’s potential love interest (who he had a meet-cute with just that very night) is the final victim in the hit list. Fucking hell, what do they tell whichever fuck-wit that comes up with this shit? Insult the intelligence of the viewers as much as possible? Let’s see what’s the stupidest thing we can come up with and watch them gobble it up?
By the time Tom Cruise is unerringly tracking his prey in a subway complex (one assumes he’s using his scientologist superpowers to do it, why not?), the only thing that can conceivably keep you watching is morbidity. But then again, this movie scored 7.7 on IMDB… where’s my shotgun?

Saw

2005-09-22T15:14:00.000+01:00

If Silence of the Lambs blew the doors open for serial killer movies, Seven created a new cinematic language for them. The aesthetics of the language spread far and wide as genres go, but both the aesthetic aspects and its semantic were religiously maintained by dozens of hacks making their own by-the-numbers serial murderer flicks. Uniformly ranging from unremarkable to pathetic, the only psychopath movies worthy of note since David Fincher's breakout film are the ones that at least partially eschew his formula: American Psycho, The Devil's Rejects, Chopper and even Hannibal (for its satirical bent) are far better than the likes of the Bone Collector, The Watcher, etc.

Saw does not aspire to break any new ground. And while it undoutedly was sold to the studios as an absolute brutal headfuck of a movie, it's mind-numbingly pedestrian; it's hard to imagine anyone involved doing anything else than make minor tweaks to the formula, trying to come up with gimmicky mtv editing tricks to cover up the crappy script and make it seem edgier, and speak in terms of 'target audience' 'foreign markets' and that kind of shit.

The premise, at least, is interesting as these things go: two guys find themselves chained to pipes in what looks like an abandoned industrial bathroom, and slowly discover clues pointing to why they may be there, and how to get out. It just might have worked, if the movie had the intelligence to stay focused on them- but instead we are treated with flashbacks and disgressions that may or may not have anything to do with their predicament; they certainly hold no interest. The script knows exactly how ludicrous it is, and goes for bust with all kind of stupid tricks to cover it up, and to try and generate tension: why just show someone doing anything, if you can also have both protagonists narrating what they're doing in shouts? The less said about the twists, the better- the last one in particular exists only because, you know, there had to be a twist, and is the greatest in a long string of insults to the viewer's intelligence.
The acting is nothing if not awful. Have you ever wondered why Danny Glover never got offered an important role after the Lethal Weapons? Well, watch this movie and find out. Cary Elwes deserves special mention, as his non-acting goes far beyond unintentionally funny, into the realm of the perplexing. The cinematography is ripped straight off Seven, only by amateurs, with some cheap flourishes undoubtedly intended to make the movie seem edgier, but that end up showing off just how much of a hack the everyone involved with this disgrace is- there is a 'car chase' sequence that has to be seen to be believed.
Even the gore in this movie is crappy. No doubt it was meant to appeal to the gorehounds among the audience, but it chickens out from showing a head getting splattered by a shotgun- what the hell? And when one guy throws a hissy fit and finally saws his fucking foot off, do you think this piece of shit movie shows anything? Hell no, that would take guts. Ehr, in the metaphorical sense.

Bad, bad, bad, fucking atrocious, this is a low point in an already crappy subgenre. The fact that a sequel to this moronic disaster is about to be released only makes me want to pick up a chainsaw and show these motherfucking thieves how a proper sadistic psycho does it: starting at the groin, slowly cut upwards.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

2005-09-20T11:31:00.000+01:00

A kid's movie doesn't have to appeal only to kids; this has been proved many times, from Pixar flicks to Chicken Run to Harry Potter (the third one, in any case). Director Tim Burton has applied a childlike sensibility to adult(-ish) films in the past, so it was reasonable to expect his remake of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to have something to offer to both children and sentient human beings. He does manage some striking images and some fun scenes, but the end result is disappointing: entertaining enough, but absolutely unaffecting and forgettable. Kids will gobble it up, and it's good to see some rather macabre imagery making its way to young impressionable minds, but then again, that's hardly something new these days. Burton has enough cache in Hollywood to get away with some welcome personal touches; some of the only emotional moments that ring true (however lightweight) come from Willie Woka's backstory, unexplored either in the book or in the original movie. Danny Elfman's score is, as always, excellent, and the cast is very solid. The musical numbers are embarrassing but fun, and seem grossly miscalculated (they spoof musical styles out of vogue about a decade before the movie's target audience was born). In fact, they are representative of the movie's attitude towards adults in the audience: to make a joke every now and then aimed at them, and then go straight back to the kiddie stuff. Almost as if it were apologizing.

Not a bad movie by any stretch, but not a particularly good one either. Definitely not as good as the talent behind it would suggest.

Alien Vs. Predator

2005-08-27T14:53:00.000+01:00

Paul Anderson has proved a reliable crappy director in the past, overcoming the fact that he’s an unimaginative hack to make workmanlike products that could be enjoyed with the benefits of lowered expectations. His best was probably Soldier, which effectively mixed Ender’s Game with Die Hard and Rambo, but the Hellraiser rip-off Event Horizon had its good bits too (mostly involving 0-g effects and lovingly recreated exposed fractures), and even the shamelessly derivative Resident Evil had some deceptively clever scripting. So, for a director who’s better known for the technical aspects of his films and for stealing bits from other movies wholesale, the long-in-production Alien Vs. Predator must have seemed a wet dream: license to plunder freely from not one, but two iconic licenses which over the years have produced three movies that I would not hesitate to call masterpieces within their genres.
Well, Anderson fucks it up beyond any expectation. Like too many Hollywood cash-ins before it, this is an unremarkable, completely forgettable mediocrity from start to finish: there is no valid reason for this product to exist except to milk whatever money may be left to be made from two licenses that the studio perceives to be fading from the public’s memory. There is no doubt a good movie could have been made with the premise, but basing it on present-day earth, a terrible scriptwriter/director and cynical studio considerations pretty much kill that possibility.

I hesitate to try and describe the utter mess that the plot is, but I can try: a heat pulse under Antarctica leads a group of intrepid adventurers hired by the Weyland corporation to a pyramid buried for thousands of years under the ice. Turns out it’s an ancient proving ground where once every hundred years newbie predators get to prove their mad predatoring skillz against a captive alien queen. Of course, humans are needed as catalysts and hosts for the aliens to multiply. The team gets killed by both types of critters, and, of course, only the heroine will make it to the end for the climactic (one would hope) confrontation.
If this sounds like steamy, frothy, liquid excrement, well, it’s worse than that. There are two languages spoken in this movie: Cliché, and a hybrid dialect of bullshit and gibberish. The first, even a retarded 5 year-old would be able to guess with the volume turned down; the other, well, it would insult his intelligence were he to pay attention to it. Flawed as the premise is, it’s got nothing on the huge plot holes, moronic goofs, and sheer shittiness of the concepts put forward on this worthless flick. This could be forgiven if the action was any good, but it maintains the same pedestrian level, and to add insult to injury, abstains from showing any blood (as it might hurt profits).
Even the main attractions are pathetic. The badass Predators are reduced to hapless idiots who get killed almost as easily as the humans, and need the help from the heroine to be able to do their job. The aliens are unconvincing, with emphasis placed on a trembling lip effect that while familiar, looks ridiculous. Both are fetishisized (is that a word?) to a degree that is unintentionally funny. And it doesn’t help that the first alien/predator fight looks like a mid budget Power Rangers outtake.

Before watching this, please consider the tagline. Whoever wins we lose, indeed.

The Devil's Rejects

2005-08-26T22:06:00.000+01:00

I won’t be revising my opinion of House of 1000 corpses anytime soon- I barely remember it, but it’s firmly filed away as a piece of crap. A bloody piece of crap with a mean streak and some fun references, but shit by any other name…
My opinion of Rob Zombie, however, has proved to be completely wrong. His new film, while exploitative and self indulgent, was one hell of a pleasant surprise.

Picking up on the characters from the previous movie, it practically begins with the police surrounding the murderous Firefly family at their hideout/abattoir. A shootout ensues that neatly shows off some of the best things the movie has: mainly, it quickly establishes that this is not a horror movie. The intensity and confusion of the moment are shot with an economy that’s both admirable and incredibly effective. Oh, and it’s got one of the coolest things in the movie: a lead homemade bulletproof suit that needs to be seen to be believed. In the aftermath of the shootout, the patriarch of the psychopath clan gets offed, the mom gets captured, and the two ‘kids’ escape.
This sets the stage for all that follows: the kids try to regroup and figure out their next steps, with the help of their father, Captain Spaulding, who was outside of the hideout at the time. Meanwhile, the mastermind behind the raid, a sheriff hell-bent on getting revenge for his brother’s death at the family’s hands, relentlessly hunts them down. The movie remains viscerally entertaining the whole damn ride, escalating to a stunning climax set to Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Freebird.

Visually, musically, and thematically, there’s a very strong 70s vive to the proceeds, and quite a few specific references to movies from that period (I got only a few, but there were undoubtedly many, many more). The violence is relentless and unflinchingly captured, the dialog is crisp and hilarious, and there’s just a laser-like focus, an intensity to the movie that runs throughout the whole thing- even when going out on a tangent. There are no easy outs, no cheap shots; all notions of good and evil are left behind, leaving only the apocalyptic confrontation between two brutal, amoral forces without anyone to root for.
The characters are memorable, with the sheriff and Captain Spaulding towering above the rest- Spaulding, an aging, fat clown who’s introduced when he wakes up from an erotic dream lying next to a repellently obese, sex-crazed dim-wit, has got to be one of the best characters I’ve seen in a long time. And don’t tell me he was in House of 1000 corpses. This movie is on a completely different league.

Dogville

2005-08-12T16:03:00.001+01:00

Dogville was shot in a soundstage in the middle of nowhere, in a sole set which is supposed to represent a one-street town in the ‘20s America. Instead of the seven or so houses, all you see is lines on the floor representing walls and a few minimalist props here and there (a pile of rocks represent a mountain, for example). The dynamics of the town’s score or so inhabitants are quickly established, focusing mainly on Tom Edison (Paul Bettany)- a would-be intellectual and an aspiring writer who likes to think of himself a moralist. The status quo is broken one night by Grace, a beautiful girl (Nicole Kidman, especially good on this film) who may or may not be a criminal; the town, goaded by Tom, takes her in as some sort of moral test… which the town then proceeds to fail in a rather spectacular way.

Now, Lars Von Trier is no stranger to gimmick (he was one of the main movers behind the Dogma movement, for fuck’s sake...) But the important thing is that the main gimmick behind Dogville- the way the scenery is set up and the sometimes spastic editing- works wonderfully: once you get used to it, it draws attention to the characters and the way they interact. And when something really nasty goes on behind closed doors (and trust me, this is a Von Trier film- you can trust things will get downright ugly)... Imagine a rape scene where you can see the rest of the oblivious town go on with their daily lives, and you can see the genius of the setup. It also means that all of the actors (well, and Jeremy Davies) are on-scene for most of the movie. Outstanding.
No, the gimmick is just fine. Other trademark Von Trier problems are present, and are a bit more serious- the movie is overlong, somewhat ponderous and a bit predictable at times; The storytelling is good enough that I didn’t have any problem with it, but I can see how it would be a problem with other people. The worst problem, in my opinion, is that Von Trier Doesn’t care as much for plausibility as he cares about his ideas. The material manages to be somewhat naturalistic, but the necessities of the script make some of the scenes seem a bit contrived. Check out, for example, the ‘what the fuck was he thinking?’ moment here with a discipline-needing kid. It’s not as ridiculous as the murder scene in Dancer in the Dark, but it looks pretty bad here since this movie is so much better overall.
Problems aside, the story is well told and powerful, if a bit predictable (a small twist in the ending, though, is excellent). The last twenty minutes or so have to count as the most satisfying finale I’ve seen in a long time. The actors do a great job, with especially strong performances from the likes of Stellan Skarsgård, Lauren Bacall and James Caan. It’s a challenging, slow movie; if that doesn’t deter you, you may find it’s also truly great.

Human Nature

2005-08-04T14:21:00.000+01:00

Michel Gondry and Charlie Kaufman’s Human Nature is built from three narrative threads established at the beginning: A nature author (the Arquette sister that can act) testifies in court, a dead scientist (Tim Robbins, having a lot of fun with the role) recounts his life in a sanitized limbo for an unseen audience, and a re-civilized feral man (an extremely physical- and funny- Rhys Ifans) tells his story before Congress. The characters themselves are complicated; in a few, effective strokes, it’s established that the woman has been covered in fur since puberty due to a hormonal problem, the good doctor all but denies his unconscious (not to mention his unwavering faith in the civilizing powers of table manners), and the feral grew up in a forest thinking he was a monkey. This is just the setup.
From there the movie explores how each character interacted with each other, leading up to their current situation. The story is fairly complicated, pretty deep, and damn funny to boot. It’s also meticulously crafted; not one scene is wasted, and everything that happens ties in with the script’s agenda of exploring, well, human nature- both as a composite and two separate words.

Really, it’s a wonder that it should work at all, never mind being really, really good. But it is; funny as hell, incredibly brave (one has to wonder what the fuck the executive who greenlighted it, bless him, was thinking- my vote goes to Kaufman and Gondry being fantastic bullshitters), and, most of all, unapologetically thoughtful. Add to that the fact that it manages to be so without being pretentious and without giving out predigested answers and you have one hell of a movie, one I can recommend without reservations (even knowing you probably won't like it). When I grow up and become a superhero the second thing I’ll do- right after finding a cure for religion- is to canonize Kaufman.
I wouldn’t hesitate to rank this as his best movie; while it’s not as original as some of his other work, it’s the tightest, most focused one so far, and it lacks some of the weaknesses that plague their last acts. Even the sparse stylistic flourishes director Michel Gondry puts in are there for a reason. His previous work was mostly for MTV, which only makes it more remarkable.
This movie has been criminally underrated. Watch it.

Hot Coffee

2005-07-21T18:28:00.000+01:00

(This is one of those non-movie related, personal posts... feel free to ignore)

In case you don't know, Hot Coffee is a mod that came out about a month ago to unlock some sexual content that was hidden inside Rockstar's massively popular, and insanely good, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Politicians got a whiff of it, and the end result is that the game got re-rated (more than half a year after release) as an AO- adults only product. Comparatively, we could say that it was R, and now it's XXX/unrated.
The end result is that most major retailers are now hypocritically backing away in terror from a game that made them buttloads of money, and the company making is going to a) lose a lot of sales, and b) have their stocks go down.
I’m glossing over stuff here, but you can find all about it all over the web.

Now, we’re talking about a game where you can shoot off innocent people’s heads and watch the gouts of blood, become a pimp, beat someone to death with a dildo (and then cut into the corpse with a chainsaw), or do any sort of wacky mischief.
The sex? You meet a series of girls, who you date until the relationship gets to a certain point where they invite you over for coffee. Then you get to play a silly mini-game where you have sex in a in any of three fairly normal positions until, well, it ends. It bears mention that both characters are fully clothed during intercourse (there is a separate patch programmed by a third party that changes the skins of the 3D models so that they are nude, but this is indeed completely outside of Rockstar’s responsibility), and that the crude graphics of the game make the proceeds about as exciting as two lego dolls going at it. Does this really sound like something that should be shelved by the latest Japanese hentai raping sim?
Now, it would be easy for me to just go ahead and start insulting everyone involved (and this includes you, if you’re from the USA), but I’ll try to keep a clear head and reason through this. First off, I firmly believe that sex should be an acceptable tool in any storytelling endeavor. And I do consider that computer games can be as valid a narrative medium as, say, movies; I would take GTA over Bad Boys, anytime. The content in GTA was not in any way pornographic, and R rated movies have gotten away with far, far more. Oh, wait, that’s right, kids can’t watch R rated movies. Fuck off.
I can understand how parents would want to keep their children away from this game. That’s fine by me, and the game has a big fat M (for Mature- that is, not for kids) on the box that should let any parents worth the air the consume know that this is not intended for their precious little snotlings to play. There are problems with the ratings as they are, but they are mostly due to the fact that most of the gaming industry is spineless. So that’s cool, brand it however you want. But by giving it an undeserved AO rating, you’re sending a clear message out: put sex in your game, and your game will die an ignoble commercial death. Thank you very much, you’ve just stopped something I enjoy from evolving. Please, feel free to die painfully.
And Rockstar doesn’t deserve much sympathy either. The chickenshits almost soiled their pants when they were ridiculously accused of insulting Jamaicans (or was it Haitians?) in the previous GTA, and now not only did they cover up with duplicitous wording the fact that the sex content was their own (it was quite obvious, so it wouldn’t have taken much bravery to come up with an alternate strategy), but even worse, they’re talking about suing the makers of the devices that made the discovery of the locked out content possible. How could the same company that put out some of the boldest games in recent memory be so pathetic?

Anything constructive? Well, why, yes, I do have a plan, but it can’t hurt to write to your representatives making your disgust clear. I’m keeping an eye out to see how things evolve here in the UK, and plan to protest as much as I can if it’s necessary. But you know what we should really do? We should kill everyone under the age of 16. You know you want to, just stop pretending, douse the little fuckers in gasoline and light them up. After all, the only thing they’re good for (besides target practice) is giving excuses to the retrogrades in power to cut holes in culture. As a big bonus, it would mean the end of life on earth after we’re through. And believe me- the extinction of the human race sounds like an improvement when I read about shit like this... which is about every other day or so.

Kung Fu Hustle

2005-07-20T13:02:00.000+01:00

Now here’s a surprise. This is a movie I was extremely reluctant to see (and if I had seen director Stephen Chow’s previous effort, Shao Lin Soccer, I would have avoided at all costs). Five minutes into it, I was completely lost to the world. Seriously, that’s all the time this movie needs either to have you utterly enthralled, or walking out of the theater in disgust. Much like Sin City, it goes so boldly over the top, that it’s kind of awe-inspiring… and polarizing.
Kung Fu Hustle refuses to take itself seriously and to conform to any expectations at every turn. It goes from out and out slapstick to mock serious melodrama, to the blackest humor to some of the silliest use of CGI since the new Star War flicks (some parts of the movie pay elaborate- and quite literal- homage to old Warner Brothers cartoons). Not only is it fun as hell, but you can tell that everyone involved was having one hell of a lot of fun doing it. Indeed, the movie brims with an infectious energy that’s utterly disarming. You know you’re watching some really stupid shit, but it’s so charming and so excellently crafted that, well, you can’t help but to have fun with it.
The story is surprisingly coherent for a martial arts flick, and revolves around the escalating conflict between the brutal Axe Gang and a run-down tenement that just happens to be the retirement place for a bunch of martial arts grandmasters. The fights are expertly staged (and far more exciting than similar scenes in the joyless Matrix sequels), the direction is top-notch with some truly excellent camerawork, and the script is solid enough and often hilarious. And since the film proves several times that just about anything is valid as far as it’s concerned, you never know quite what to expect, making it all the more enjoyable.
The only thing I could criticize about the movie is that it gets a bit too solemn towards the end once Buddhism enters the picture… but since that same scene involves someone stepping on an eagle’s head and a giant palm-shaped hole punched clear through an entire building, I may be taking it far more seriously than the filmmakers. The end itself is also a treat, utterly charming and (gasp!) moving, somehow avoiding both saccharine sweetness and the formulaic requirement that heroic characters do not get the girl.

The Descent

2005-07-15T13:11:00.000+01:00

Well, it was a matter of time. Batboy has finally got a movie, and he's brought his friends along. Helmed by director Neil Marshall (Dog Soldiers), The Descent tells the story of an all-female group of friends that run into some problems (of the cannibal kind) during a spelunking expedition.
The characters are realized well enough, even if there's no real depth to them; kudos to the casting director, though, for not including any real bombshell in the group- it must take balls to make a choice like that, but it works wonders in making the movie more immediate. The effects are a mixed bag; Marshall does wonders with a limited budget, but the limitations show through early and often- from a swarm of bats that looks to be hand drawn, to an extremely shoddy cave-in, and more. That being said, the batboys are very well realized and effective, and the gore is both abundant and extremely satisfying.
A sense of dread is successfully maintained through most of the film, particularly in the beginning: a crash scene is handled extremely well, and a few of the cave-exploring parts are fairly harrowing. Paradoxically, once the monsters appear and make their intention clear of butchering and eating the girls, the tension pretty much disappears; it becomes just a matter of who bites it, and how.
The main culprit of that, as always, is the script: one of the most important things survival horror needs, is a sense of fairness, of internal consistency, and unfortunately, there is none to be had here. Someone’s throat might be pierced from side to side and still live hours just to mumble an important plot point, then a minor character might be killed just by popping one of his eyeballs. The monsters might be inhumanly fast and nimble, but they patiently wait until the heroines run away. In my opinion, when script manipulations like these become readily apparent, any tension quickly dissipates- immersion replaced with a vague interest to see how it all plays out. Some attention is given to how the relationships in the group are affected by the ordeal, but as the characters are fairly underwritten, not much is made out of it either.
The descent, then, is worth watching, but quickly forgettable. A lot more could have been made of it, either by giving its characters more depth, giving more thought to the second half, or giving it a sense of humor. Mean spiritedness and buckets of blood carry it a long way, but in the end, it’s just a smart-ish slasher movie… disappointing, given the obvious talent driving it.

War of the Worlds

2005-07-08T19:00:00.000+01:00

Make no mistake about it. Spielberg has just taken a huge, steaming, putrid, diarrheic dump on us all again. I'm not going to dwell on the fact that I paid to see it. Or the fact that I was surprised at how, well, shitty it is, given his recent (ahem) output. And -this bugs me the most- the fact that I actually consider a few scenes in the movie (adding up to less than 5% of the total runtime) almost worth the price of admission.

Mr Spielberg has a long history of appealing to the lowest common denominator. A populist in the worst sense of the word, there is nothing this guy won't do to make people like his flicks; Problem is, as time goes on, his "look! I'm making Movie Magic!" seems more and more forced, more calculating. It was bad enough when, say, it dragged down what would have been one of the very few true science fiction movies in recent memory, but when it gets in the way of shit blowing up on a straight action/suspense sci-fi flick, well, it's somehow even more depressing.

Tom Cruise is horribly miscast as an ordinary Joe, a crappy father and an all-around asshole who must save his estranged sons and, of course, gain back their affection and respect. Problem is, he's a horribly bi-dimensional prick, and holds no interest whatsoever. Even if he wasn't obviously unfit for the role and so horribly underwritten, the contrivances the script forces the family through do more to separate their struggle from any semblance of reality than the freaking 30 meter-high aliens. We're talking seriously stupid shit here, and that's even before the plot holes kick in.
People get killed left and right (except for Tom and his family, because, well, Spielberg is not about to shake the formula), and it soon becomes clear that the only possible course is survival. So they set out for Boston, to drop off the kids at the divorced mother's house. By the end the US army (with the help of Tom and the germs) is able to kick the Alien's asses.

There's no scene too lame, no image too trite for Spielberg in his quest for Movie Magic! When the alien walker pod gets licked, you can bet a limp alien hand is going to hang dramatically from an opening just so someone can prod it. You can count on the precocious moppet to spout wisdom when dramatically appropiate (when the script isn't making her act like Yoda, she's actually pretty convincing- especially when she freaks out). The son, who sacrifices himself heroically (and meaninglessly, and stupidly) in a thermonuclear pyrotechnics display, obviously survives and makes it to the manipulative, tear-jerking finale. Not only does the director insult your intelligence, he also fucks its mother and then leaves dimes on the table. And what about plausibility? Turns out that in a mob of a few hundred people (in the frigging US of A), there are only two guns! What the fuck? All the cars go dead at the same time, and Tom boy in full hero mode, points out exactly how to fix it to a professional mechanic after thinking about it for exactly two seconds. He is then able to drive a car through highways filled with stopped vehicles- before getting EMPd, it seems, they decided to leave a path open just in case the lead actors decided to head that way... fuck this shit. There's barely a scene that does not seem artificial, stupid, ill conceived, or manipulative. Most are all of the above.

So, in spite of the above, I'm still ambivalent about having wasted my money on it. Janusz Kaminski's cinematography is beautiful, as always. And while I would probably kick Spielberg in the teeth if I had the chance, I have to recognize that as a visual storyteller, he's a master. The way he moves the camera makes it easy to ignore the awful shit that's transpiring, even when said camera movements are completely extraneous. When things get rolling... well, frustratingly enough, there are only three full 'action' sequences in the whole movie, but they are nearly worth the price of admission, along with some surrealistic scenes along the way. If you can do without seeing this kind of thing on the big screen, all the more power to you; I wish I could, it would probably save me from an early ulcer. Everything between the SFX scenes is an absolute waste of time (my advice? leave the cinema after the ferry sinks).

One more thing. It might be the disgust this movie generated while I was watching, but- the first alien attacks are beyond a doubt heavily based on the footage from 9/11 (Spielberg, in his quest to manipulate, must still be jerking off in self-congratulation on that one). So it made my hackles rise when the aliens don't just die by themselves, like in the source material, but are brought down by bazooka shots from brave US army soldiers (but only after our hero points out they can be shot- did I mention this movie stinks?). I wouldn't put it past this dirty fucker to manipulate USA's xenophobia in order to make more people respond. To think I idolized this guy when I was a kid...

Batman Begins

2005-06-29T15:48:00.000+01:00

High expectations can be your worst enemy. I'm sure they were a big part of why I disliked Batman Begins. But personally, I'd place the Lion's share of the blame on hack extraordinaire David Goyer- and the studio mindset that put him in the scriptwriter's chair.
Batman Begins tells the story of how, well, Batman begins. Traumatized by the violent murder of his parents, multimillionaire Bruce Wayne travels the world incognito on a quest to understand crime in order to stop it. In an unspecified asian country, he meets and bonds with a mysterious stranger who inducts him into a brotherhood of ninjas (...). Bruce returns home to Gotham City after betraying the order, and uses his training and resources to fight crime in an armoured costume.
Cheap psychology and philosophy are at the order of the day, but it works somehow, thanks to excellent performances by Christian Bale, Liam Neeson and especially Michael Caine. The cinematography is quite beautiful; I don't think Gotham has ever been so well realised (while Tim Burton's was aesthetically better, this one looks real). The soundtrack is excellent as well, and the action is pretty good.
Even the script holds up pretty well, at first; for every dodgy spot, there is a cool one to be found- the movie generates enough goodwill to overlook the hackwork. That is, until it caves in under its own weight. With all its nods towards a more mature, gritty approach (ninjas notwithstanding), the ridiculous scope and suspiciously tidy resolutions become too much to ignore at a certain point. The worst revelation, and emblematic of the problems plaguing the movie, is that the main bad guy is also responsible for the death of Bruce Wayne's parents.
And that's not just stupid, it's cheap. Think about it. Batman Begins is a movie that begged for a low key, more naturalistic take; for a while, it delivers, but the last half hour is just too much to take. I really wanted to like this movie. I still do, in a fashion. It could have been a great movie, but settles with being a solid action/adventure flick.

Fuck you, David Shithead Goyer.

Touching the Void

2005-06-28T09:18:00.000+01:00

In 1985, after successfully reaching the peak of peruvian mountain Siula Grande through a previously unused route (this, apparently, is a Big Deal for mountain climbers), one of the pair of climbers suffers an accident and breaks his leg. His partner is forced to cut him loose and leave him for dead, but he miraculously survives and reaches home camp after a grueling trek.
Touching the Void chronicles the ordeal through extensive interviews with all three protagonists, breathtaking location shots, and (shudder), reenactment. The story itself is amazing, the kind of crap that would get booed out of the screen as completely bollocks- except for the fact that it really happened. Joe Simpson and Simon Yates are pleasant and candid, making for some very engaging narrative, and director Kevin MacDonald does a great job of asking difficult questions and bringing the different elements in the movie to life. The scene where Simon is forced to cut the rope tethering his partner has more pathos than a hundred summer blockbusters, and Joe's description of his leg injury is far more painful than any graphic maiming.
Even the recreation, normally the weakest link in this kind of production, is strong, underlining the narration and faithfully conveying the beauty and danger of the mountain. It stumbles later on, particularly when trying to capture the maddening final leg of Joe's journey, but it mostly does right by the material.

In the end, everything is secondary to the story. Even without suspense, the movie manages to trap you completely. And while I would normally be cheering for the mountain, two things align myself with the two human protagonists. One is that they seem to be decent folk, not just Xtreme idiots. The other thing- at one point, when faced with the absolute certainty of death, Joe decides that that he is not going to pray, and discovers that he really does not believe in god. You just have to respect that.

Sin city

2005-06-23T13:43:00.000+01:00

What can you say about a movie where someone rips out another man's balls with his own hands? Fucking awesome, that’s what you say. The eunuch's head is then pounded into jelly... oh, bliss.

Stylish, exciting and relentlessly violent, Sin City follows three vaguely interlocking stories set in the same city. A cop battles a serial rapist/killer (and the web of corruption that protects him), a thug goes on a bloody rampage to resolve the murder of a whore, and an assassin gets involved in a war between a confederation of bitches and the forces of pimpdom. The movie oozes blood and testosterone, and proudly exists in a realm completely separate from reality.
The aesthetic is that of classic 40s noir movies, but modern sport cars race the streets. The men are heroic, doomed forces of nature, and women are firmly in the background as plot devices. A brawler can hit someone and send him flying ten meters, and wire-fu is relegated to a despicable assassin. A shot to the head is only an inconvenience, and someone can jump down three stories to skip the stairs- because, you know, he's so fucking macho, that his three-feet diameter titanium balls will break the fall (and possibly the pavement).

And you know what? All of this doesn't break the suspension of disbelief. In boldly going forward with an almost surrealistic visual design, it not only manages to lovingly recreate the source material (in the best translation of comic aesthetics to the screen you are likely to see short of full-out animation), but also makes all the weirdness easier to accept. In throwing away all restrictions, the directors are free to pursue the essence of pulp/noir, and get damn near to it. It's such a pure representation of the genre, that it looks completely new... and that is something worth celebrating in itself.

Just about the only criticism that can I can make on this movie is that after Merv's story is done, anything else can only go downhill- but that's more praise than criticism. From the very beginning, the dry, slghtly ridiculous noir-y voiceover hits the perfect note. Minutes later, you see Bruce Willis 'drive' a car: his hands move the steering wheel whithout any correlation to the superimposed road receding in the background. Right about then, five minutes into the movie, you know you're in for a treat.
And Rodriguez, Miller and Co. never disappoint.

The Punisher

2005-06-22T13:44:00.000+01:00

Undercover cop makes one last bust, retires, and goes to enjoy life with his family. Bad, unconvincing bad guys kill his family and him. Or not? Cop survives due to the mysterious powers of plot convenience. He then goes on to get revenge.
While this setup would prepare you for an extremely bad movie (and it is), you hardly would expect much in the way of homosexual content... (or maybe you would, it is called The Punisher after all). Oh, but there is. This movie is gayer than Top Gun... hell, it's gayer than Hot throbbing Sailor Bumfucks XVII

Let's get the least important stuff out of the way. It sucks as an action movie. It's poorly choreographed, has no imagination at all, and there is no pathos because the characters are all poorly thought out cartoons.
In fact it bears honorable mention because it's Bad Enough to Be Good; I have already commented on just how rare these are, and the Punisher would be noteworthy only for that distinction. There's a scene with a close up of the main character's face, while flashbacks play as fade ins. There are reaction shots to supporting... well, actors, making faces that in a fair world would count as major criminal offenses. There is the ultimate mark of a hack action movie: the training sequence. Clumsy exposition and idiotically quirky characters. This one covers all the bases, and has absolutely no talent to back it up.

So what about the gay part? what indeed. Here's a short list of highlights:

* There is a (lame) explanation for this next sequence, but frankly, it stinks, and this movie doesn't deserve a break. So: at one point The Punisher 'tortures' a man by removing his shirt, tying him up, hanging him upside down... and rubbing a popsicle on his back. I wish I was making this shit up. The sequence ends whith the popsicle shoved in the guy's mouth. I hope you swallow.

* A guy enters the dive where The Punisher is having breakfast. This guy looks seriously gay- painted fingernails, and making faces at our manly hero- everything short of blowing kisses. So, he opens his guitar case... and pulls out... a guitar. And Serenades him. All the while, they cast longing, smoldering gazes at each other. Sizzling, baby! Oh, and his name is Harry Heck. Pffft.

* A girl touches our hero, and he flinches away. We're talking a seriously hot girl here. Later, she all but offers a blowjob. His response? "I'm not what you're looking for". Ostensibly, a heterosexual man.

* Another hired killer looks like a reject from the Village people. He wears a tight striped shirt, and is strongly reminiscent of either a sailor or a circus strongman. Name: the Russian. The fight is long and arduous; I'm not normally one to say that fight scenes are stand ins for sex scenes, but this one would be a good case for that point of view.

* What would Charles Bronson do if you offed his family? he'd kill you, your family, and your dog, painfully. And then he'd invent time travel to kill you all over again.
What does The Punisher do? he comes up with a ludicrously convoluted, implausible plan to get his nemesis to kill his wife and his best friend, just so he can dramatically uncover his manipulations just before the final kill. Hell hath no fury like a Gorgeous Dreamboat Queen scorned.

* Talking about killing the bad guy- they embrace, and he stabs him repeatedly... the camera emphasizes the powerful thrusts, and Travolta says over and over in a breathy (and whiny, but that's his normal tone) voice "you're killing me". His tone lies somewhere between pain and ecstasy.

All this peppered with loving shots of well chiseled abs and sweaty male torsos, and none-too-subtle innuendo. I am serious here, this movie is Gay Paradise.
And I'm also serious when I say I enjoyed every minute of it. This is pure, unadulterated, grade A shit here, and it had me laughing almost non-stop. Unintentional comedy indeed.

Boa Vs Python

2005-06-22T13:07:00.001+01:00

It's almost enough for me to believe that there is a god, after all. Not just one, but three little gems discovered this last few weeks.

This is the first one. A movie so incredibly crappy it is supremely enjoyable, and awe inspiring in its sheer lack of talent. The kind of bad movie that's unintentionally hilarious ALL the time... except, of course, when it's trying to be funny.
How can I possibly begin to sum it up? It's a complete, unmitigated disaster. Bad in absolutely every conceivable way (ther redhaired girl is pretty hot, though, but only in the last bit of the movie). The faces these 'actors' make at the camera alone would be enough to sink it, but add to that crappy CGI work, a willingness to plumb cliches even Michael Bay would consider lame, and some of the most head-slappingly stupid scenes in recent memory... shit in such a concentrated form, it has turned into a diamond. It's so bad it's transcendent. For at least ten years, all the bad movies have been offensively mediocre, extremely bad in such a way that no entertainment could be derived from them at all.
Watching this movie has made my week. B-movies can overcome monetary limitations and be good, as movies like Tremors or Dog Soldiers show. They can even be better than full budget studio movies; the first fight scene in Dog Soldiers, for example, is about as exciting and cool as anything Hollywood puts out. Boa Vs Python takes the opposite path: it elevates unwitting cheesiness to an art form, and ends up just as entertaining. The pleasure you take in it has traces of morbidity (holy shit, it can't be this bad), power trip (yes, there are people way more stupid than you out there), and unbelieving shock (holy shit, it is this bad)
You've got to watch this. Period.

Random bullshit...

2005-05-20T14:19:00.000+01:00

I recently got some feedback! A friend recommended the site to an acquaintance of his, who had this to say of me after reading my review of Butterfly effect:
"He may know a lot about movies, but he doesn't know anything about life"
Brilliant. OK, its a lot funnier in spanish, but I still want that engraved in my tombstone. Dude, even if your taste in movies is shit, you got me in a nutshell. Except for my knowing a lot about movies, you're thinking of the guys below.

And I found this site: www.ruthlessreviews.com
I actually knew of them a while back (their hilarious top ten death metal picture list found their way to my mailbox somehow), but another friend recently recommended their movie reviews section after reading my School of Rock review. It's the only negative review of that piece of crap I've seen online (besides mine, but that's more of a rant than a review), and it kicks ass. The rest of their site kicks ass. Be sure to check out their guide to '80s action... Priceless.

Star Wars Episode 3 Revenge of the Sith

2005-05-20T07:47:00.000+01:00

Episode I was an irredeemable disaster. Episode II was rarely above mediocre, a mess of a movie only memorable for the first scene, the final battle sequence, and some of the worst acting since The Blair Witch Project 2.
So, what to make of Revenge of the Sith? It's far better than the other two installments, but that's not high praise- it barely qualifies as praise at all.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. The movie mostly follows the adventures of the Jedi Anakin Skywalker and Obi Wan Kenobi as they work against the enemies of the republic, and chronicles Anakin's (pitifully short) fall into the Dark side and transformation into Darth Vader. The whole action-adventure side of things is handled rather well, all things considered: clumsy at times, and show-offy, but fun nonetheless. As for the rest...
The acting. Oh my god, the acting!. You know how some directors elicit better performances out of their actors? Well, Lucas is just the opposite*. I assume he's so pissed off he can't replace them with CGI, that he's settled for burning down their careers- there is no other way to excuse some of the shitty dialog he wrote for them.
Plot has never been a strong point in the prequels. This time it fares slightly better, but still falls apart at the slightest examination. I've already mentioned the dialogue, but the characters themselves are underwritten and poorly developed, making it all but impossible to care for them. The comic relief is hardly comic, and ill-conceived oddball touches abound (check out Obi Wan's lizard ride, or the ridiculous wheezing bio-droid) That said, there are some good bits, which I'll get to later.
The special effects are where the movie really shines. Although I still think many of the scenes lack solidity, they are all pretty impressive. Some nerd toiled for weeks on end for that bit of debris to fly out of that explosion and smack that other ship; never mind that a better director would have left it on the background- Lucas focuses on and follows it to show you just how much attention he pays to detail! Plus, it looks pretty damn good.

OK. So, given everything I've mentioned, it'd be a pretty safe bet to say I didn't like it, right? Well, not really. I did enjoy it even if I think it's not particularly good. There are two main things that elevate this above its own mediocrity: a social conscience and, more importantly, violence.

Now, far be it from me to say that this movie is in the same league as Fahrenheit 9/11 or Citizen Bob Roberts. But coming from a man that has his head so far up his own ass that he can bite his uvula, the parallels he draws in his movie to the current political situation are pretty momentous. And I can't believe that the same man who wrote love scenes that would get laughed off a cheap soap opera set wrote the line (and I'm paraphrasing here, my memory sucks): "so this is how democracy ends- with applause"
In another big departure from the other, kiddy-friendlier prequels, this movie is violent. Very much so. While not a drop of blood is spilled, we get hacked limbs, summary executions, a children massacre (!!!), and it is clearly conveyed that all of this violence not only looks cool, but it *hurts*. It made me feel warm and fuzzy all over. Parents all over the world will be psychically scarred, and their children will love it; Hallelujah! Too bad they didn't show the kids, sorry, younglings (...) getting slaughtered.
The last big fight also merits mention. In it Obi Wan exhibits real pathos (in perhaps the only honest-looking emotional display in the whole prequel trilogy), and Anakin... well, I enjoyed that last bits of that scene thoroughly, you'll understand why when you see it. A great detail- their almost identical fighting styles (master and apprentice, after all). Great stuff.

So in the end, I'd say this movie ranks somewhere between OK and good. It entertains, and it might even give someone food for thought. But most importantly, and I thought I'd never say this, is that it qualifies as art- as in the difference between something made to please or meet expectations, and something made because you feel you have something to say. It's not good art, but it takes risks, and that's something I respect.

*: consider Lucas as the Anti-Herzog, and Christensen the anti-kinski: a hack director and a bad actor that constantly elicit new lows from each other...

The Pacifier

2005-05-09T15:45:00.000+01:00

This, of course, is a rant on the trailer. Did you really think I'd sit down and watch this piece of shit?
Anyone wasting money on this movie deserves to be clubbed to death like a baby seal for the crime of encouraging the brainiacs behind this offence to humanity to make another movie (and it may even be a sequel).
I can't believe Vin Diesel used to do such cool stuff- for fuck's sake, he was the fucking Iron Giant! Then again, I guess no intelligent life could survive that joyless cash shitting machine that was xxx... RIP, asshole.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

2005-05-05T11:10:00.000+01:00

A friend let me know, just before I went into the theater, that this was a tough movie to enjoy. Man, do I agree with him.
Now, don't take that the wrong way. The movie is good; *damn* good, as a matter of fact- far better than I had any right to expect. Funny, intelligent, well acted and weird as hell. So, how can it be hard to enjoy?
Well... simply put, familiarity with the source material. Douglas Adams is all about setting up extended jokes where all the fun is in the punchline. If you know all the punchlines, you're left with the extended set-up. It does spoil things quite a bit.

There are also some adaptation problems to be found. Artifacts from the movie's accidented journey from the page to the screen are everywhere; from a particularly glaring (but necessary) exposition scene on one of the major characters early in the movie, to plot holes and story threads that are lost in the shuffle (a conspiracy is never resolved, or even gone into... and the main story never quite makes sense). Strangely enough, these are really minor points. In a movie that features a infinite improbability drive which converts the characters into talking sofas or animated knitwork dolls, a cohesive story is not a priority.

And a great adaptation it is. It captures perfectly the haphazard structure of the books, complete with asides and digressions. The Guide entries bear a disturbing similarity to corporate infomercials, complete with hilarious flash-like animations (the babel fish entry is sublime) The actors are uniformly excellent; a bit jarring at first, but they quickly grow on you (a statement which describes the movie quite well, in fact). My main fears after learning that Buena Vista was behind the movie were fortunately unfounded. While kid-friendly, it's definitely not a kiddie flick; the action was not transposed to the US, nor did they hire only photogenic actors. And the movie sports a distinct personality: unlike the first two Harry Potter movies, where you could actually feel a faceless committee erasing any trace of personality the filmmaker might have tried to leave in his work (nevermind that the filmmaker in question, Chris Columbus, is a talentless hack), you can actually tell that someone put a lot of himself into the movie. That these things count as major triumphs speaks volumes of the sad state of Hollywood fare.

Anyhow, I was thoroughly impressed, even if I did not laugh as much as I would have had I not read the books, watched the miniseries, and played the text adventures... I think Douglas Adams would be proud. And I can't think of higher praise.

Dog Soldiers

2005-05-03T19:03:00.000+01:00

A group of soldiers doing some wargame practices in the scottish wilderness run into honest-to-god-fucking werewolves. Wacky hijinks ensue, much blood is splattered, and few, if any, survive. Huzzah!
Oh, and it's fucking grand.

The british prove once again that they excel at scaring your pants off while making you piss them laughing. Well, maybe not scaring, I can't really comment on that end (the only movie that really scared me was The Changeling), but it is suitably gruesome and wrings maximum menace from its extremely tight budget...
Yes, this is a B-movie. But until the rubber suits come out, it's hard to tell. The actors don't stand out, but do a nice job overall, the script is quite good, and the action is convincing. Even the werewolves are good, once you get past how obviously fake they are; the movie wisely uses them sparingly untill the last half hour or so, when the action ratches up enough that you just don't care.
And while this movie is not quite as funny as Shawn of the Dead (which Dog Soldiers predates), it's damn funny. A particular sequence with a dog, some misplaced intestines, and a shower of vomit had me almost crying with laughter. Such laugh-out-loud moments are far between, but they're much more frequent than in straight-genre comedies these days (check my review of School of Rock, for example).

So what what the hell are you waiting for? it's bloody, it's funny, it's got freaking werewolves in it. The action's great and the characters are well rounded and likeable enough. Just watch it, ok? and then watch Shawn of the Dead.

Scary Movie my fookin arse. This movie may have the only funny matrix reference ever.

The Terminal

2005-04-28T11:15:00.000+01:00

I really would like to review the movie. Really. But after watching the first ten minutes, well, Everquest 2 seemed so much more interesting...
So I mostly absorbed it by osmosis. The premise has a lot of potential; unfortunately, Mr. Spielberg got to direct it, in his full populist mode- the same one mode that fucked up the otherwise excellent AI (think the last 10 minutes). What could have been Kafka-esque, or at least surrealist comedy, becomes an extremely predictable, uninteresting mess of half baked contrivances and scenes genetically engineered to warm the hearts of the lowest common denominator.
Let me illustrate. As I said, I pretty much tuned out pretty close to the beginning. This scene was the culprit: In what has to be one of the clumsiest exposition setpieces in recent memory, the bad guy callously eats his lunch while delivering terrible news, while our foreigner hero misunderstands comically and good-naturedly, and the news themselves are broken down so that anyone who might be able to enjoy this movie understands them... as they say around here, Bollocks! This scene alone is incitation enough to drive a nine iron straight into Spielbergs balls. Insulting, smug and unnecessary. And what the hell did women do to him? His denunciation of them all as backstabbing bitches is not a first in his work, but is disturbingly psychotic in a movie that is all rounded edges and tidy resolutions.
Anyhow, this movie doesn't deserve even these few words. It's a mercenary piece of shit with no redeeming qualities and no value whatsoever. Fuck you, Spielberg. Blow shit up good, or stay the hell away from me.

The Machinist

2005-04-21T19:57:00.000+01:00

It begins promisingly enough- the movie hits its stride immediately, mixing just the right amount of mystery with a black sense of humor… The bad news is, that’s the best it’s going to get (at least till the very end). Christian Bale plays the titular Machinist, a skeleton of a man who hasn't been able to sleep for a year. He's always been a good actor, but his thespian skills take a back seat here to his morbidly fascinating physical transformation into a stick drawing of a man- he looks in turns pathetic, craven, sympathetic, and just plain fucking scary. Anyhow, strange, increasingly unnatural things start happening to him, until he comes to realize that - gasp! - something is seriously fucked up with his existence.
Nothing new here. While the action is engaging, it's quite clear that there isn't a whole lot of sense to what's going on. The symbolisms are a bit obvious, and at points it just seems the director is taking elements from movies of this type and trying them out together without any thematic thread to keep it together. He keeps his tongue firmly in cheek throughout, however, and to be fair doesn't try to hide that something strange is going on in the background the way a lesser movie would.
On a higher note, watching Bale is riveting, and living proof that reality can still top CGI. And the ending is brilliant as well, even if it feels a bit of a cop out. It doesn't justify or make all the meandering that's been going on before it any more forgivable, but it's still satisfying and intelligent. While that’s not enough to recommend this over Fight Club, 6th sense, Jacob’s ladder or even Identity, it’s still a welcome diversion. And miles above crap like Rear Window.

The Missing

2005-04-19T16:14:00.000+01:00

The premise is as simple as can be- a mother bands up with her estranged father (who's gone indian decades ago) to rescue her daughter from a band of evil indians who are rounding up women to sell to the mexicans. That's not a bad thing; in fact, in a western, it's an asset.
So by now I'm sure you're thinking how I'm going to comment on the racist depiction of indians and mexicans in the movie... and you'd have a point (the indians turn out to be US army deserters, which I'm sure is established to salvage the image of the natives- the mexicans get no such nicety). But here we run into one of the most heartwarming and loveable (and unexpected) traits of this movie- a mile-wide sadistic streak. There are a lot of assholes in the movie, and even the heroes are not as heroic as they'd be in a lesser film.

The sparse story is rounded out nicely by the beautiful cinematography and by a propensity for taking oddball detours that make the movie feel much more than the sum of its parts. And, oh, the sadism... I lost count of the times I thought to myself- Fuck! Ron Howard directed this? Girls get beaten mercilessly, bystanders are killed without second thought, and well, let's just say there's a scene so gloriously ruthless, it left me smiling for the rest of the film. I'll leave you to guess which.
The performances are fine across the board. Kate Blanchett is a joy to watch, as always, and Tommy Lee Jones does justice to his flawed (and sadly underwritten) character. One thing I didn't mention before- Kate Blanchett's youngest daughter (10 -ish years old) tags along for the ride, and is present during the whole mission. Not once after the first ten seconds did I find this implausible, and not once did I wish her a messy, painful death. Which is a testament to both her acting and to the scriptwriter's prowess.
All in all, an enjoyable movie.

Capturing the Friedmans

2005-04-08T22:00:00.000+01:00

It's impressive how many times Andrew Jarecki's documentary manages to change completely in the course of less than two hours.
It starts out as a rote expose of the rotten reality beneath the placid veneer of upper-class suburban life: a postal worker detects paedophilic materials being trafficked by Arnold Friedman, esteemed citizen and father of three. After making the bust and raiding the house, evidence is discovered that the case may be much more far reaching than it seemed. Soon, however, the accusations become more and more ludicrous, and the movie starts veering towards 'Paradise lost I & II' territory; And then things start getting more complex.
The pacing is near perfect, and the structure of the movie manages to hold back revelations in such a way that when dispersed, they shock and add depth to the whole without coming off as cheap. One of the most impressive things in the movie, though, is how effectively it captures what was going on. You see, running in the family there was a Blair Witch Project-like filming fetishism, and much of their footage is liberally (and expertly) used to give insights into the situation. Best of all, Jarecki wisely stays away from the proceedings and lets the facts and the interviews speak for themselves; his bias may or may not be betrayed by some of the editing, but his work remains gloriously ambiguous- a rare treat these days.
The end result is in turns touching, sickening, infuriating and confusing, but always fascinating and, above all, thought provoking. Excellent, excellent stuff.

As an aside, I got a blue screen when finishing this review for the first time, and lost it. Guess I'm not supposed to write good reviews in here...

The School of Rock

2005-03-31T19:29:00.000+01:00

Why?

Why the fuck?

I find Jack Black funny. Very much so. I absolutely fucking loved Before the Sunset, and pretty much liked everything I've seen from director Richard Linklatter. I could write a love poem to the soundtrack.

So how could they have made such a piece of unwatchable trash? And how the hell did they hoodwink everyone, including several movie reviewers I normally agree with, into liking this disastrous underdogs-beat-all-odds rotten piece of excrement?

Well, I'll just assume you've already watched it and save myself the pain of recounting it. If you must have a synopsis, dreg up the cheapest, basest, most shopworn clichés and Hollywood formulae, and stitch them together. And add a fucking bucketload of (talented) obnoxious brats.
And it's fucking WRONG. This is the kind of movie that hedges its bets by making the main character be always right (not because he's, you know, right, but because the script bends backwards to prove him right), and the 'evil' characters are either bad! bad! bad! or such a fucking caricature that it's not even funny.

Let me illustrate. The always-great Joan Cusak plays the school principal. Not a bad guy per se, just an obstacle. So they make her nice enough, but comically uptight. By the way, she's the sole likeable character in the movie. Soooo...
At one point, it becomes clear that Jack Black must seduce her. He takes advantage of her in the most cynical of ways (not physically, because, she's old! and square!). He uses her, and throws her away just like that. I really expected something to come out of it, coming from the director that made the one romantic movie I wholeheartedly embrace. But no, we can assume she is out of a job and alone by the end of the movie.

I could so easily write out the outline of an 'anti-school of rock', leaving most of the plot intact, but showing Jack Black's actions under a different light, and I guarantee you most of the audience would be out to lynch him by the end. But thanks to a fascistically manipulative assfucker of a script, people embrace him... because he's following his dreams!
I hope said people's daughters have a professor like him, and end up as drugged out groupies at age 15 for a bad hair metal band (is there another kind?)

God, I feel soiled. It's been a week since I subscribed to Lovefilm, and I've already felt the need to kickstart my blog again. Shit.

Constantine

2005-03-31T17:10:00.000+01:00

Well, Constantine stinks. Big surprise there. It's a classic example of the bigger, louder, dumber, trendier school (clone-factory) of filmmaking.
It's enjoyable enough, with some truly amazing scenes. it's a nice surprise when a scene not only looks nice aesthetically/CGI-wise, but also has a reason for using said CGI; a small example: a body falls through a skylight and into a swiming pool. The scene is shot from the bottom of the pool, and you can see the body breaking the glass and splashing into the pool, and the glass shards weaving their CGI way through the water. Cool. There are a lot of scenes like that peppered throughout the movie.
Wether that kind of stuff makes a movie worthwhile or not depends on your particular taste. It works for me, so I'm happy overlooking the absolute, apocalyptic disaster that dares call itself a plot and Keanu Reeve's borderline-autistic-going-through-the-motions. He must think everything he does is a sequel to Bill & Ted... by his reckoning, then, this would be 'Bill & Ted's Weird-ass cosmological hijinks'. Oh, and the fact that they have Rachel Weiz in sexy underwear and a wet white shirt, and somehow avoid gratuitious jiggly boob shots.
Scratch what I said before- that last one is unforgivable.

Anyways, since I apparently spent all my bile with King Arthur, I will now go into:

The Lessons Learned from Constantine

Two things spring to mind inmediately-

First off, illegal aliens are easily possesed for some reason. One mexican actually crosses over the border into the States to do the devil's work.

And... well, I don't even know where to start with my second point. OK- Saying that Constantine is a horror movie is like saying that Michael Jackson is a human being. That is, it's strictly true, but only by stretching the definition beyond the point where it stops making any sense. I mean, what kind of horror movie would flinch away from showing a demons head splattered by a shotgun blast? this kind of gutlessness is all over the place. I also don't think anyone in the set thought a fat idiot drinking himself to death in a thirst frenzy would be scary. Bizarre and misguided, yes- not horror movie material. So, where is all the horror?
To find it, you've got to look at what passes for the supernatural in this movie.
Think of the major supernatural players:
The archangel Gabriel- A hermaphrodite. But even gayer.
The devil himfuckingself- come on. He looked like he was going to burst out into an impromptu rendering of an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical number. God, he was gay.
Balthazar - Well, more than anything else, he looks like a two-bit hustler. But you *know* he just wants to get into Constantine's pants. Gay.
John Constantine - He's played by Keanu fucking Reeves. 'nuff said

There you have it, clear as day. My hypothesis would go something like this:
The script writers went to a horror writer's workshop, and heard that horror should be disturbing, unsettling. doing some soul searching on what they found disturbing, and what people in their circle found disturbing. What they found, and all their mates confessed to, was that they couldn't avoid feeling strange when looking at other men; their thoughts would wander down dark, impure paths, and they would shudder incontrollably.
Feeling they had tapped into a hithertho untapped Horror reservoir, they went on and worked out their issues within the constraints that the studio imposed on them, what with all the bible dreck and comic license stuff.

One can't help but to wish they had just gotten raped with a cactus instead...

King Arthur

2005-03-31T15:36:00.001+01:00

What can you say about a film that's supposed to be based on the 'real' man behind the King Arthur legend, but does not make the least effort to portray the medieval mindset?
I can buy it if it's a fantasy flick, but in films like this one or Braveheart, it fucking revolts me. The film borrows authority from a beginning quote that vaguely states that according to 'archeological evidence', the man named Arthur probably did exist. Then it introduces at least two characters that look like they stepped right out of a coiffeur. Turns out that the realism claims are, oh surprise, a gimmick, and that the film is yet another cynic attempt to cash in on the success of the Lord of the Rings franchise (joining the ranks of Timeline and Troy). Worse yet- The one motherfucker I would like to see eaten alive by baby rats, Mr Brucken-Shiteater-heimer, is lining his pockets with this crap.
In any case, the movie is about the titular Arthur, Official representative for the American Way of Life in the dark ages, and how he is forced by the snotty and colonialist legions of Rome into one last mission deep into the wilds beyond Hadrian's wall. Historic innacuracies aside (I would normally ignore them, but hey- the movie started it by claiming to be validated by archeologists), the movie is a mess of uninspired performances, cliches, and just bad scripting.
It looks beautiful, though, and not just because of Keira Knightley; but that's something that's been bugging me since watching Hero and the Last Samurai. Namely, that cinematographic beauty (as in aesthetics, color schemes, etc) has come to be relied on as much as other bad movies rely on CGI; Hero in particular, wants to make you believe that the silly, stupid soap opera crap that passes for a plot is art because, well, it sure is pretty crap. So no, I'm not falling for it anymore, this movie takes itself far too seriously for individual scenes to make me ignore the essential crappiness at its core.
And what the hell is up with Clive Owen? forget that none of the cast can summon up one dreg of charisma, that asshole is all but channeling Nicholas Cage! Seriously, it's almost scary. The same overacting, blank stare that wants to seem deep but just looks like allzheimer's... It's a bit disturbing.

Just about the only thing in this movie worth the celluloid, except for some bloody scenes, is Stellan Skarsgard as the terrifically sociopathic Saxon leader. I was actually hoping for a standard hollywood tragic ending just to see him hacking that fucking pansy Arthur into little pieces; that would have meant that I would have had to watch the other underdeveloped cypher, lancelot kill him in turn, but at least he had a two-dimensional character.

Finally, I'd like to say that this rant was fueled by the director's cut edition. Not that the original cut could conceivably be even halfway decent.
Oh, and please, someone please kill that fucker of a producer before I'm suckered into watching another one of his fucking excrements. And Fuck Antoine Fuckua- Training Day was overrated as hell.

Troy (Movie review)

2004-08-30T13:47:00.000+01:00

Not worth reviewing, really... generic action sequences, horrible characterizations and some of the most goddamn awful postmodern philosophizing ever added to an epic movie do this one in. Not to mention the pervading sense that it's all just a huge, wet, enthusiastic blowjob to Brad Pitt's ego.
Only a movie stealing scene by Peter O'Toole comes close to what this movie should offer. As for the rest... some good acting wasted on forgetable dialogs, some expensive-looking (but seldom impressive) scenes, and a samey sludge of a movie that somehow avoids any sort of, well, epic-ness. Avoid!

I, Robot (Movie review)

2004-08-29T15:23:00.000+01:00

In the future... there will be... product placements.
No, seriously. The movie almost begins with a Converse ad so blatant it's funnier than the 'sell-out' segment in Wayne's World (or, come to think of it, Return of the Killer Tomatoes).
So, what else is new in one hundred years? not much; the future looks a lot like the present, but with clunky CGI effects overimposed on it, and robots doing most menial tasks. Not a lot of thought went into it, and it shows in a certain unevenness between the tech levels. Borrowing a lot more from Spielberg's Minority Report (especially in the visual department) than from Asimov's book series, the script follows the misadventures of a police detective who just doesn't trust robots as he tries to unravel the murder of an underdeveloped father figure, who also happened to be the lead researcher for the robot manufacturing company. This gradually reveals a conspiracy that could endanger the whole world, as foreshadowed by the ads for the deployment of millions of a new model of robots.
It's predictable, but not quite as dire as it sounds, and it even includes a few rather neat details. But don't worry, they manage to bring it down. The main character is an asshole, and what's worse, an asshole that the script contrieves to make a hero... which makes it all the more grating. Will Smith, in full MiB mode, plays him with rote Hollywood-brand 'charm and charisma'(tm).
In the end, I, Robot both suffers and benefits from being an action movie. Suffers, because the script ridiculously boils down the plot to a series of action setpieces, and makes character interactions a series of poses and one-liners. And it benefits, because when the action kicks in... let me put it this way- director Alex Proyas left behind the trademark aestethics of The Crow and Dark City for a standard sci-fi one, but he dedicated all his attention to getting the action sequences exactly right. The level of detail and, much more rare, inspiration they achieve are astounding; I really wouldn't hesitate much before saying they're the best action sequences I've seen since the original Matrix. They don't quite make up for the tripe and the commercials forced down our throats along the way, but damn, they come pretty close.
And that's saying something.

Van Helsing (Movie Review)

2004-08-03T09:08:00.000+01:00

Stephen Sommers has finally used up whatever goodwill he gained for himself with the original Mummy. Dumb, crass beyond belief and cheap (even when wearing it's multimillion budget on its sleeve), Van Helsing fails even on its own terms, lazily throwing money away hoping to wow viewers into forgetting just how lousy it is.
Jumping from misbegotten idea to trite cliché to misbegotten idea, the action follows famed monster hunter Van Helsing (employed by the church's equivalent of the men in black) as he fights most of the classic Universal Monsters and works against their nefarious conspiracy to bring back to life ringleader Dracula's dead children. It's a ridiculous, inane premise, unfortunately unenlivened by any shade of humor or wit; while tongue-in-cheek is hinted at as early as in the opening scene (at least it could explain some of the overacting and atrocious dialogues) the director apparently opted to cut time writing the script and use it adding in new CG effects, leaving the movie's less serious side relegated to one-liners and failed attempts.
Like the awful (but much better) the Mummy Returns, Sommers tackles this one with a 'more is better' approach, tossing quality control out the window. CG is overused all throughout, often making the proceeds look more like the world's most expensive puppet show than an action/adventure flick. Even the better effects and set pieces usually collapse under their own weight after a while... The whole movie feels as if you were looking over the shoulder of someone playing a Playstation 2 game. Which seems to be a depressingly common -not to mention commercially desirable- trait these days.
The acting ranges from mediocre to incredibly bad, but it's easy to fault the script and the director for it. Characterization? inexistent, except for the barest nods to Hollywood formula. The designs look expensive and unimaginative. The music fares a bit better, though nothing to write home about.
In the end, for all its desperate antics and breakneck pacing, this movie never quite fools you into enjoying it. For all its speed, it will never outrun the smell of stale crap. To watch how a good fantasy/action movie can be made with the same formula, go watch the Mummy on video, or wait for the inexplicably delayed Hellboy.

It does have some redeeming points, however: It lacks the pretentiousness of last year's League of the Extraordinary Gentlemen. Kate Beckinsdale's tight pants are in it (also appearing as one of the few redeeming points in last year's Underworld). Hugh Jackman, for the girls. And, of course, Richard Roxburgh's horrendous overacting as Dracula... it's not quite bad enough to be good, but getting there.

The Butterfly Effect (Review)

2004-08-01T01:26:00.000+01:00

Pity poor pubescent Ashton. He has Issues; his father's a psychopath. His childhood sweetheart's father is a pedophile. His childhood sweetheart's brother is a murderous psychopath. His childhood buddy is borderline autistic. Thank god ol' Ashton is a regular Joe, huh? erh, did I mention he has regular blackouts?
Luckily for him, a move and several years later everything's changed for the better. Until events bring him back to those 'holes' in his memory. Soon enough, he discovers he can go back in time and alter the pivotal events he has psychically repressed. But, of course, those changes have unforeseen consequences when he returns to the present... And he's left stranded in a different now where things are somehow worse off. So, all that's left for him is to go back to a different black out and try and put things a-right. (Don't ask why it has to be a different blackout... the plot has more holes than this guy's memory)
In short, nothing you haven't seen before, borrowed liberally from any number of sources (from It's a Wonderful Life to Sliders, by way of countless sci-fi yarns). Instead of focusing on its science fiction premise, however, the flick laudably chooses to follow up on the more human side of those changes- their repercussion on each one of the main characters' lives. Two 'small' problems make caring about them impossible, however: A) the acting ranges from mediocre to truly terrible (and their lines don't help any) and B) The script is not nearly up to the task, catering to cliches, character caricatures and easy shocks, and just being generally lame.
There is a good movie somewhere in there, though, and it occasionally shines through. Musings on good and evil, and the folly of trying to change somebody's core personality permeate the movie and begin to engage interest - only to be buried at every turn by stupid plot twists and all the cartoony hairstyle-and-wardrobe variations.
The ending merits mention. Unoriginal, true, nor especially good, but it sports an emotional punch and a nod towards maturity that the rest of the flick sorely lacks. It at least puts the movie one step up from the likes of smug, post-modern crap like Final Destination... But, in a genre which so recently gave us Donnie Darko, it frankly doesn't stand a chance.

Dawn of the Dead (remake) (review)

2004-07-24T15:10:00.000+01:00

Night of the Living Dead at least had a lame excuse for getting a remake. The original was in B&W. So, ostensibly, the new version was to take the classic out of it's 'cult' status, and offer it to the unwashed masses.
No such luck with the new Dawn of the Dead, unless you consider cashing in on 28 Days Later's renewed zombie interest a valid reason for a remake. Like action, horror as a genre lends itself well to loud, dumb and fun movies. Perfectly acceptable. Too bad this one just settles for mostly damn bland.
Generic blonde woman flees from her newly zombified significant other only to find everyone else has joined the ranks of the hungry dead. She soon hooks up with a no-nonsense security guard, a straight likeable potential love interest, a dumb teen, a gangsta and some other lovable misfits, and hole up together in an abandoned mall. All sorts of crazy, undead, manflesh-eating anticts ensue.
The actors are, surprisingly, quite good. They do what little they can with the scripts they've been handed. The movie itself is very polished, in that particular way that makes hacks look trendy; expect generic flashy MTV-style editing (which, incidentally, downplays the gore, making this version much more teen-friendly than the original... take that, Mr Romero!), and that frame skipping effect that Spielberg unfortunately popularized on Saving Private Ryan.
Some clever moments aside, the flick keeps promising payoffs that rarely amount to anything. Such a damn shame, too, because when things get rolling they get quite thrilling- for a little while, at least: an early scene with a truck rear ending into a parking space (and several zombies shambling in the way) is a perfect example.

All in all, it feels as if the director had a couple of scenes he really wanted to do, and just handwaved the rest of the story together. Rather artlessly.
If (and I include myself here) an overhead shot of a propane tank exploding over a crowd justifies watching a mediocre something that can more adequately be called a product than a movie, then this is definitely for you. Otherwise stay away.

Mission Statement

2004-07-24T14:23:00.000+01:00

* Posting reviews on everything and anyhing culture-related that I consume. I've been trying to do this for a long time, maybe this will push me into actually getting on with it.
Why?
As a writing exercise. As a thought Exercise. To assemble a corpus of material so that when someone calls me an asshole, he can substantiate with page and line references.

* Posting silly shit I come up with or across and consider good enough to post.
Why?
Vanity, like any other blog. Because I'm a very silly person. Because I feel like inflicting random bursts of solid shit upon the ether, or with any luck, some underslept and masochistic soul.

* Communicating in some way with the people I've left back in Argentina. I've been living for almost a whole year in the UK, and I loathe both mail and messenger as a communication tools... ah, scratch that. I'm a fucking disaster keeping track of people.
There probably won't be a whole lot of personal information here, anyways, and I'll be sure to warn next time I do it.

Well, that's enough. On with it.