Black Christmas

The original "the calls are coming from inside the house!" slasher movie.

Black Christmas is an unexpected delight, a nearly perfect horror film. The killer is never seen directly, only in silhouette with the occasional creepy shot of his eye peering out of the shadows. There is no justification for the killer's actions, no backstory to explain his crazed Billy and Agnes rantings on the phone, and no attempt at all to pretend he has been killed or caught at the end.

There is no need to explain the plot -- serial killer breaks into sorority house and starts doing his thing -- but some of the characters are quite noteworthy. Barb steals the show as an alcoholic broken-home sorority girl with an acerbic wit. Jessica puts in a good performance as the Empowered Woman who argues to her boyfriend that yes, by damn, she will have that abortion because there is still a lot in life she wants to do. Finally, Mrs Mac, the matronly lady in charge of the girls and guardian of their morals, has more bottles hidden than the guy from Lost Weekend.

* * * R A T I N G * * *

Black Christmas (IMDB)

Wince : [**___]
Flinch : [**___]
Retch : [*____]
Gape : [**___]

Beerequisite : [****_]
Pornability : [*____]
Obscurity : [**___]
Explicability : [**___]

Drunken Angel

An early Kurosawa gem set, like Stray Dog, in post-World War II Japan.

An alcoholic doctor treats the yakuza Matsunaga (Toshiro Mifue) for a bullet wound, and discovers he has TB. Matsunaga refuses to change his lifestyle to undergo treatment, preferring to continue his tough-guy ways of drinking, womanizing, fighting, and gambling.

The doc gives him the "dying of TB is not glamorous you idiot" speech, which helps things a little until Matsunaga's former boss is released from jail and starts to retake control of his former territory. Matsunaga soon realizes he is not as powerful in the gang as he thought, and makes a half-hearted (the other half of that heart having been eaten up by TB, no doubt) attempt at redemption.

* * * R A T I N G * * *

Yoidore tenshi (IMDB)

Wince : [*____]
Flinch : [**___]
Retch : [*____]
Gape : [*____]

Beerequisite : [**___]
Pornability : [*____]
Obscurity : [**___]
Explicability : [***__]

Jigoku

Two students hit-and-run a drunken yakuza on a back road in the middle of the night, leaving him dead and his mother and wife out for revenge. The students immediately become a good/bad angel pair; the good one tries to fix things but only finds himself with more and more blood on his hands, while the bad one delights in thwarting the attempts of the good one to redeem himself.

Eventually everyone dies and they end up in hell, where they witness and endure the tortures of the damned.

There's really not much more to say than that. The Hell sequences are surreal and gory enough for the time, but will not prove terribly striking to a modern audience. The demonic bad student, however, is fun to watch.

* * * R A T I N G * * *

Jigoku (IMDB)

Wince : [***__]
Flinch : [***__]
Retch : [**___]
Gape : [**___]

Beerequisite : [**___]
Pornability : [*____]
Obscurity : [**___]
Explicability : [***__]

Red Angel

The perfect antidote to a smarmy M*A*S*H marathon, this film covers the adventures of a Japanese army nurse in China during World War II. First she is raped, then falls in love with an amputee, then ends up at the front lines where she falls in love with a n impotent morphine-addicted sawbones.

Early amputation scenes made me consider adding a squirm rating; though not particularly graphic, the sounds and imagery were suggestive enough to induce chair-writhing.

The final battle, with its alternating scenes of troops waiting for the enemy attack and the consummation of the nurse/doctor love affair, provided considerable tension not normally found in horror-of-war movies.

* * * R A T I N G * * *

Akai tenshi (IMDB)

Wince : [**___]
Flinch : [****_]
Retch : [**___]
Gape : [***__]

Beerequisite : [*____]
Pornability : [**___]
Obscurity : [***__]
Explicability : [****_]

Happiness of the Katakuris

The claymation opening sequence to this Taskhi Miike gem will undoubtedly leave most viewers thinking "What. The. Fuck." No need to go into detail; it is a sufficiently Funky Forest moment.

Eventually we meet the Katakuris, a family of misfits who run a guest house in the middle of nowhere. Business is dead until one rainy night when their first guest appears and, establishing a trend, dies mysteriously in the night. Rather than explain things to the cops, they live with their guilt and try to find some way to be happy. Before the volcano blows.

Did I mention it's a musical?

* * * R A T I N G * * *

Katakuri-ke no kôfuku (IMDB)

Wince : [***__]
Flinch : [**___]
Retch : [*____]
Gape : [*****]

Beerequisite : [****_]
Pornability : [*____]
Obscurity : [***__]
Explicability : [**___]

Sex Machine

The story of a love pentangle (septangle, if you count the guy on a ladder snapping photos and masturbating) between the Sex Machine (Hiroshi), Haruka, her former lover, her ex-boyfriend, and his new girlfriend. All the girls want to bang Hiroshi, all the guys want to bang Haruka.

A 'thinky pinky' with bongos, a whirlpool, a misplaced cucumber, and all the cricket wrestling you'll ever want to see. Sharing more with Sachiko Hanai than the title! According to IMDB, Hiroshi appeared in both.

* * * R A T I N G * * *

Himo no Hiroshi (IMDB) aka The Strange Saga of Hiroshi the Freeloading Sex Machine

Wince : [*____]
Flinch : [***__]
Retch : [*____]
Gape : [***__]

Beerequisite : [***__]
Pornability : [****_]
Obscurity : [****_]
Explicability : [**___]

Pervert!

Finally, a movie about Sex! Death! Freedom (and who wouldn't love Freedom, as depicted here)! Or, according to the warning at the start of the film, Huge boobs, Sex, Blood, and a Snake.

Imagine a whodunnit written and produced by The Man Show and you've got this movie. Women keep getting murdered on lecherous old Hezekiah's ranch, overly penetrated by a misogynistic penis. But whose? Hezekiah's? His cursed son James'? The Coyote's?

Fun movie that shows just how much you can do with a lot (and I mean a LOT) of gratuitous breast shots.

* * * R A T I N G * * *

Pervert! (IMDB)

Wince : [***__]
Flinch : [***__]
Retch : [**___]
Gape : [****_]

Beerequisite : [***__]
Pornability : [***__] (+* if you have frat-boy taste in porn)
Obscurity : [**___]
Explicability : [**___]

Best ___ in a movie:
* use of a beehive
* theme song
* dog squeaky toy
* movie rating (H-14)
* montage girl
* opening credits


The Wit and Wisdom of Hezekiah:

"If God intended women to drive, He'd have equipped them with common sense instead of tits."

"You wouldn't know a real woman if one gave you a hand job in the back of an ice cream truck."

"I'm like french bread: the longer I'm around, the harder I get."

Broken

Truly the most brutal and savage wife training video on the market. Even covers how to handle trading in your wife for a younger, more attractive, and more talkative model.

This is pretty much a standard serial killer film. An opening shot gives some insight into the fate of the victims (buried alive with a razor blade sewn into their stomachs, allowed to escape, clubbed unconscious, then hung by their neck and given a second chance to escape).

Cut to the victim du jour, a single mom on a date who inexplicably awakes in a coffin the next day. After various attempts at begging and escaping, she decides to earn the trust of the killer before getting her revenge.

Well done, a must-see for any serial killer movie fans, but not very original or surprising.

* * * R A T I N G * * *

Broken (IMDB)

Wince : [*____]
Flinch : [****_]
Retch : [***__]
Gape : [**___]

Beerequisite : [**___]
Pornability : [**___]
Obscurity : [**___]
Explicability : [**___]

Serenity

I never can put my finger on why I don't like Joss Wedon's stuff.

Maybe it's the unnatural dialog, or the poor direction given to the actors. Maybe it's the clumsy plots and the seen-it-coming-a-mile-away humor. Maybe it's because everything he does feels like it's fan service, even when it's a new show or film that shouldn't have any fans yet. One gets the feeling that the scripts are written purely for obsessives to pump their fists to and yell "yeah!" whenever in the 110th viewing their favorite character does something predictably within character.

The worst thing is, Serenity *should* work. It's got a Civil war analogy, different levels of technology, an authoritarian democratic regime, cannibals, a prostitute, a teenage girl who's a lunatic killing machine. What's not to like?

The writing, I guess.

* * * R A T I N G * * *

Serenity (IMDB)

Wince : [****_]
Flinch : [**___]
Retch : [*____]
Gape : [**___]

Beerequisite : [*****]
Pornability : [_____]
Obscurity : [_____]
Explicability : [***__]

The District

From out of nowhere comes this animated piece of Eurosleaze: a Hungarian interpretation of Romeo and Juliet, with (to paraphrase Troma) all of the time travel, nukes, and streetwalkers that Shakespeare would have wanted.

The Montagues are gypsies and the Capulets are pimps. Lecherous grandfather Montague tells Romeo the secret of life: Money cures all ill. Romeo takes this to heart, and concocts a scheme to travel back in time, kill a bunch of dinosaurs, dig the up in the present, upset the global oil market, and get nuked by George Bush. Somewhere in there, he is supposed to get the girl.

As tragic in its own way as the original, propelled by Hungarian rap (with surprisingly entertaining translations), this gem is entirely inventive and entertaining. The Hungarians have figured out a truth that escaped even The Bard: the best way to resolve a feud between two stubborn men is for them to fight on the same side in a street brawl against the cops and get drunk afterwards.

* * * R A T I N G * * *

Nyócker! (IMDB)

Wince : [*____]
Flinch : [*____]
Retch : [_____]
Gape : [***__]

Beerequisite : [***__]
Pornability : [*____]
Obscurity : [***__]
Explicability : [***__]

Observatory Mansions

Edward Carey's Observatory Mansions is the story of a handful of neurotic misanthropes who live in a curiously isolated apartment complex in what appears to be London. A new tenant moves in, resulting in a sea of change, including a few deaths and a lot of reconciliation with the past.

The characters are certainly interesting and eccentric. The narrator, with his deep abiding distrust of humanity projected on the people he encounters and his meticulously cataloged collection of garbage, has the least redeeming qualities of any of them.

It is hard describe the book as compelling, however, even when events are building to a climax at the end. It was very similar to reading The Wasp Factory; the events that unfold are unusual and interesting, but ultimately one is left thinking "So what?".

Brooklyn Independent Cinema : Special Shorts

The Subconscious Art of Graffiti Removal: A faux-documentary covering the unintentional art movement resulting from painting over graffiti. Comparisons with abstract artists are provided (and are surprisingly convincing) and three themes in the movement are identified (geometric, ghosting, and free-form), but one central theme is ignored: what the hell is with the girl on the bike?
The Subconscious Art of Graffiti Removal (IMDB)

Have You Seen This Man?: A documentary about (real, apparently) New York artist Geoff Lupo who produces flyers advertising ludicrous objects for sale: a cracker, a thumbtack, an pen cap. His somewhat stylized interactions with the people who respond to his ads (the intent being to reduce the act of commerce down to its essence, stripping the sale of any meaningful product -- though I thought that's what the stock market was for) constitute the actual work of art, which like most works of art is brought to ruin by a pretentious gallery owner.
Have You Seen This Man? (IMDB)

The Job: A fun little short about day labor. To say more would be overkill.
The Job (IMDB)

Funky Forest: First Contact excerpt: The strangest and most Japanese segment of the absurdist classic Funky Forest: First Contact (a three-h0ur endeavor for the strong of will), the tennis playing scene ("Hai! Hai!") was played in its entirety without the benefit of subtitles. Though, as the moderator pointed our afterwards, it wouldn't have made any difference. Regardless, it was fun to see this segment again.
Naisu no mori: First Contact (IMDB)

Darling Darling: A teenager, driven by his mom, arrives to pick up his date. Her dad, a horse-headed archer/guitarist, proceeds to make him feel extremely uncomfortable while he waits for her to get ready. Perhaps the best explanation of this film comes from the director's description of his original vision: a guy, with a horse's head, jumping off a stack of amplifiers and wailing on an electric guitar while fireworks go off behind him. And they say there's no good drugs any more.
Darling Darling (IMDB)

Are You The Favorite Person of Anybody?: Based on the short story 'Oranges' by Miranda July, which I read recently in October's edition of Tin House. John C Reilly stars as the interviewer asking random passers-by (fewer than in the story) the titular question.
Are You the Favorite Person of Anybody? (IMDB)

Divorce Lemonade: A quick dark comedy about a girl who wakes up to find her dad passed out drunk on the lawn of her mom's house, and must get him out of there before her mom calls the cops. What do you do when life gives you lemons? Make divorce lemonade! Which, fittingly, is blue.
Divorce Lemonade (IMDB)

Why the Anderson Children Didn't Come to Dinner: Three neurotic children (a plant-eater, a paint-by-number painter, and an obsessive flusher) are served increasingly horrific dishes by their mother over the course of a day. The proposed main course for dinner proves more than they can endure, and each finds their own escape from the house. Very well done, probably the second-best film shown.
Why the Anderson Children Didn't Come to Dinner (IMDB)

Lift: The cream of this crop. Dominique Pinon stars as a lift operator who never leaves his lift, and who has fallen in love with a typist on the 20th floor. He attempts to seduce her with anonymous letters while dealing with the random passengers who board his machine.
Lift (IMDB) (WWW)

What Would Jesus Buy

Reverend Billy and his Church of Stop Shopping star in this coverage of the 2006 (?) Christmas season. They tour the country, preaching and singing the message "Don't buy gifts, put love back into Christmas", and generally being escorted off private properties (and occasionally into jail).

Overall, it's a general anti-consumerism film: Wal-Mart is evil, don't buy anything not made in America, small-town America has no sidewalks, etc. Typically, the grey areas of these issues are ignored (What would sweatshop workers do if they weren't employed? Don't Wal-Marts low prices benefit the unemployed and disabled?), so don't expect any depth added to the debate; Reverend Billy's are pure showmanship in service of a simple message.

Still, one character ( I believe it was the Wal-Mart pastor, amusingly enough) made the good point that America has to choose between low prices and high wages; every solution is going to be double-edged. And you have to hand it to Reverend Billy and the choir: he is entertaining, and they are talented.

* * * R A T I N G * * *

What Would Jesus Buy? (IMDB)

Wince : [**___]
Flinch : [_____]
Retch : [_____]
Gape : [*____]

Beerequisite : [**___]
Pornability : [_____]
Obscurity : [***__]
Explicability : [***__]

Army of Darkness

How many times can one see Bruce Campbell Vs The Army Of Darkness? Never too many, apparently.

Caught this in a midnight showing, deciding to make this the first sober viewing of the film. The film is just as funny without the aid of anaesthetic, though the production quality and continuity flaws become glaringly obvious.

Unfortunately, this was the original American film distribution, with the lame S-Mart ending instead of the proper "I slept too loooooong!" one, and minus quite a few battle scenes (e.g. "We... are... des-er-ted!"). Luckily, that didn't stop the audience from knowing the lines and shouting them with impunity.

* * * R A T I N G * * *

Army of Darkness

Wince : [***__]
Flinch : [****_]
Retch : [**___]
Gape : [****_]

Beerequisite : [**___]
Pornability : [*____]
Obscurity : [*____]
Explicability : [***__]

Surprise sober realization: Man, Ash really is quite an asshole, isn't he?

Blade Runner flashback: So *that's* how you win a woman over, eh?

Electrical Girl

An opening scene of a girl masturbating with a flickering lightbulb, then refusing to use a flourescent because it is "too long". No kidding, you say this is a pink film?

Jan is a woman who has long been afflicted by a strange curse: her mouth and genitals emit an electric shock strong enough to kill a man, or at least injure his sensitive areas. What follows is an absurdist soft-core as she encounters a rubber-clad doctor willing to attempt a cure, an obese yakuza obsessed by her, and her pined-for impotent manager.

* * * R A T I N G * * *

Faat din chiu giu wa (IMDB)

Wince : [***__]
Flinch : [**___]
Retch : [_____]
Gape : [***__]

Beerequisite : [*****]
Pornability : [****_]
Obscurity : [***__]
Explicability : [**___]

Before the Devil Knows You're Dead

Two brothers working white-collar jobs at the same firm decide to pull off a dead-easy heist: easy in, easy out, no-one gets hurt. Of course it's easy in, scary out, and a couple of people get hurt. Or dead.

The opening scene shows the heist, then slowly plays through the consequences, taking many steps back in time to illuminate the motivation behind each character. A gimmick as overused as this one can generally foul up the film, but in this case it actually works as captivating storytelling. Seemingly unimportant or trivial events take on a new meaning when presented as "OK, so this guy -- well, before I tell you the next part, let me explain what happened to him two days before that put him so much on edge".

Ultimately this movie is all about people cracking under extraordinary circumstances; a great cast under fantastic direction is ultimately what makes it succeed.

* * * R A T I N G * * *

Before the Devil Knows You're Dead

Wince : [_____]
Flinch : [**___]
Retch : [*____]
Gape : [*____]

Beerequisite : [*____]
Pornability : [**___]
Obscurity : [_____]
Explicability : [****_]

Scene-stealer: The drug-dealer. Man, those robes...

Shriek: An Afterword

Jeff Vandermeer's Shriek, an Afterword is a novel-length followup to his story "The Hoegbotton Guide to the Early History of Ambergris" apparently written immediately afterwards (1999 for the story, and 199-2006 for the novel).

Shriek tells the story of the author of "Early History", narrated by his sister, annotated by himself, and edited by their employer at Hoegbotton Books. In keeping with the style of "Early History", these individuals are given their voice in different components in the work; the sister speaks in the main text, the author in his annotations (similar to his persona appearing in the footnotes of "Early History"), and the editor in the appendix.

The story itself is biographical, tracing the backgrounds of the author and his sister from childhood through recent events that have radically changed the city itself (Ambergris, a setting for perhaps too many of Vandermeer's tales). The setting is purely fantasy genre, though to dismiss Vandermeer as a fantasy writer would be a disservice to one of the most imaginative writers out there.

A bit tough to start into, a bit slow at times, but ultimately a rewarding read with some interesting commentary on fame, ambition, and obsession.

No Country For Old Men

Grim. Life is cheap and can be taken at any time, without fuss or effort.

The Coen brothers' latest film can in no way be construed as uplifting. The humor that runs through their other films is mostly lacking, replaced by a merciless eye for detail and an almost sociopathic lack of concern for the fate of any of the characters.

The plot is straightforward: guy stumbles across a drug deal gone sour, guy decides to make off with the less-than-sour proceeds, guy gets hunted down by a psychopath with a silenced shotgun. It soon becomes clear that the hunter and the hunted are a fairly even match on many levels, though as usual in these guys' films, nothing quite turns out as expected. Tommy Lee Jones stars as the world-weary sheriff who can do nothing but watch it all unfold.

* * * R A T I N G * * *

No Country For Old Men, or 101 Uses for Compressed Air

Wince : [*____]
Flinch : [****_]
Retch : [**___]
Gape : [***__]

Beerequisite : [*____]
Pornability : [_____] There is nothing sexy about this movie.
Obscurity : [_____]
Explicability : [****_]

Apathy and other small victories

Pail Neilan's Apathy and Other Small Victories is the kind of book one loves to hate. A first-person narrative of a self-deprecating but narcissistic slacker, with no plot or character development to speak of: this is the type of book of which there are too many, all done poorly.

Except Neilan is hilarious. The book opens with a darkly humorous tone that is maintained consistently throughout the book, even when trying to wrap up the story through exposition (always a bad sign!) at the end. No mean feat.

It is difficult to describe this as a good book, but it is a quick and very enjoyable read. Easy to lend out, even to non-readers.

The Future Is Unwritten

The trailer for the Joe Strummer film presents his life as inevitable: a guy with no talent who became a rock star through sheer force of will, who was driven by a need to be famous, and who would serve as inspiration to all aspiring musicians: if HE could do it, YOU can too.

Needless to say, this is a huge turnoff if you have any sort of respect for Joe Strummer. Thankfully, the documentary is much more insightful and enjoyable than the trailers give it credit for.

The film begins discussing Strummers' childhood: a rebellious student in a public school, the son of a diplomat who dragged him to India, Turkey, and Mexico on his holidays. After art school, he becomes a musician first in rock bands, then punk, and eventually in what is probably called 'world music' (flatteringly: a musical cross-pollination that knows no ethnic or political boundaries), not so flatteringly: white labels co-opting non-white music to be distributed for the profit of white-owned record labels).

What emerges is an intimate portrait of Strummer as an embodiment of the punk ethos: the disdain for convention, the do-it-yourself attitude, the bond between bands and audience, the importance of community over government, and above all the need to get the word out. Strummer's essence permeates the film: animations of his artwork are used to illustrate anecdotes or transition between scenes, interviews are all performed huddled around the bonfires of which he grew so fond, the soundtrack is largely taken from Strummer's London Calling radio show from the BBC World Service.

A must-see, and surprisingly positive film which ultimately serves as further proof that anyone not constantly re-inventing themselves is not worth knowing.

* * * R A T I N G * * *

Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten

Wince : [_____]
Flinch : [_____]
Retch : [_____]
Gape : [**___]

Beerequisite : [**___]
Pornability : [_____] (* for the ladies, there is a naked guy dancing around)
Obscurity : [**___]
Explicability : [****_]

Best Joe Strummer Philosophy: "No non-smoker should be allowed to purchase anything created by a smoker."

Interviewees to keep an eye out for: Cusack! Depp! Buscemi! Grandmaster Flash!!!

Primer

The first time I saw Primer, I stayed up watching it a second time, then tracking down the script online. This demonstrates the two main qualities of the film: the dialogue is difficult to make out, and the writing is fantastic.

The budget for the film is incredibly low: no special effects, not even a cheezy attempt at CGI like in The Specials. IMDB claims it was made for $7K; I'd guessed $8K just for the film stock. Truly proof that, contrary to popular belief in Hollywood, a lot can be done with a little. The direction is very tight and methodical, giving the impression that the director is showing you exactly what he intends to, no more and no less. Should be required viewing for all amateur filmmakers.

To put it simply, the movie is about time travel. Two garage-Einstein entrepreneurs discover they can travel backwards in time, to a limited extent. Each has their own ideas regarding how the technology should be used, and eventually they come into conflict. One (IMDB?) forum thread discussing interpretations of the film coined the phrase 'Time War' to describe the result, and it fits.

This is a movie for people who like to think. Be prepared to spend hours pondering the movie, it timelines, and the nature of paradox -- not only re-watching the movie, but even taking the time to track down a version with subtitles. The implications of the film should make one's head hurt, or at least draw murmurs of appreciation from the temporal physicist in the room.

* * * R A T I N G * * *

Primer (IMDB)

Wince : [**___]
Flinch : [_____]
Retch : [_____]
Gape : [**___]

Beerequisite : [_____]
Pornability : [_____]
Obscurity : [***__]
Explicability : [***__]

Death Trance

It only takes a few minutes to realize that Death Trance is brought to you by the same people that did Versus: the metal soundtrack-driven stylized violence gives away the game immediately.

There is some sort of a story about an unbeatable samurai (who seems to lose an awful lot for being unbeatable) stealing a coffin containing the Goddess of Destruction, and an inept priest trying to track him down. Throw in a phallic apocalypse sword, the two-fisted (assuming both of them hold revolvers) son of Steven Seagal, vampiric spider-humans, and a child sidekick slightly less annoying than the kid from Six-String Samurai, and you have ... this movie. And did I mention the two (count 'em!) combat-as-sex scenes?

Decent mindless, over the top fun, with what has to be the best demonstration of gun-fu to hit the screen (and not from Seagal either).

The ending, for some reason, is reminiscent of Meatball Machine.

* * * R A T I N G * * *

Death Trance (IMDB), aka The Movie Put Me To Sleep Three Times

Wince : [****_]
Flinch : [***__]
Retch : [**___]
Gape : [***__]

Beerequisite : [***__]
Pornability : [*____]
Obscurity : [***__]
Explicability : [**___]

Divorce, Italian Style

Ah, those wacky Italians and their strange customs.

An aristocrat in a small Sicilian town has tired of his wife and fallen in love with his jailbait cousin. Given the impossibility of divorce under Roman Catholicism, he decides he should catch his wife in an affair and murder her on the spot in order to escape his marital woes and win the girl of his dreams. A dry and rather cynical comedy of errors inevitably ensues.

Marcello Mastroianni is of course fantastic, gradually developing a nervous tic as his plans come closer and closer to failure. The film abounds in details that are understated yet poignant: the pencilled-in unibrow and moustache of the wife that only appear during moments of intimacy, the conveyance of respect or scorn by the townspeople through their background actions, even the husband's occasional fantasies of his wife's untimely demise. And who can forget the maid-groping grandfather?

* * * R A T I N G * * *

Divorzio all'italiana (IMDB)

Wince : [**___]
Flinch : [**___]
Retch : [_____]
Gape : [**___]

Beerequisite : [**___]
Pornability : [_____]
Obscurity : [**___]
Explicability : [****_]

My Super Ex-Girlfriend

As if there weren't enough existential questions keeping me up nights, I've stumbled across another one: How the hell did Hollywood produce something this funny?

Most people should remember this film: when it was released, billboards and buses were plastered with advertisements for it. Which is a huge mistake, because the people who would like this type of movie are also the ones who refuse to see anything advertised via saturation bombing.

The plot is evident from the title: some guy dates a superheroine named G-Girl, breaks up with her, and suffers the fury of a wonder woman scorned. The gags can be predictable but are well timed and funny as hell; there's a car, a shark, a chainsaw, and a meteor chucked in at odd moments to keep things interesting. And Eddie Izzard has some plot to destroy G-Girl by stripping her of her powers.

All that, and a supergirl-catfight thrown in at the end. How can you go wrong?

* * * R A T I N G * * *

My Super Ex-Girlfriend (IMDB)

Wince : [**___]
Flinch : [***__]
Retch : [*____]
Gape : [***__]

Beerequisite : [****_]
Pornability : [*____]
Obscurity : [*____]
Explicability : [***__]

Diva

A postman makes a bootleg recording of an opera singer, steals her dress (I'd assumed to masturbate onto, and I wasn't far off), gets mixed up with a white slavery ring, and is pursued through Paris by a Taiwanese record label and a Carribean crime syndicate. Throw in a moped chase through the Metro and an underaged asian gal for good measure, and you end up with quite a good film.

There's a lot to like about this one : a throwing awl (a nice complement to Master of the Flying Guillotine's Indian throwing owl), a cat named Ayatollha, the Zen of toast. As the pace picks up, so does the cinematography, and towards the end of the film there are some very beautiful shots.


* * * R A T I N G * * *

Diva (IMDB)

Wince : [_____]
Flinch : [*____]
Retch : [_____]
Gape : [**___]

Beerequisite : [_____]
Pornability : [**___]
Obscurity : [*____]
Explicability : [***__]

Electric Apricot

It is very, very difficult to describe this film without using the word 'mockumentary' or invoking Spinal Tap. So why try?

A camera crew (well OK, 1 guy with a videocamera) follows the jam band Electric Apricot (nee Electric Knectarine) as they play a few gigs, record their first album, and achieve their dream of playing at Oregon jam band festival Festeroo.

Done to death, you say? No sir, not when it's written and directed by, not to mention starring, bass guru and all-around oddball Les Claypool. The humor is top-notch, as disparaging of its subject as the original Tap and coupled with enough musician insider insight (how long to set up a drum kit?) to keep what should be a worn-out subject from getting stale.

* * * R A T I N G * * *

Electric Apricot (IMDB)

Wince : [*____]
Flinch : [**___]
Retch : [*____]
Gape : [***__]

Beerequisite : [****_]
Pornability : [_____]
Obscurity : [***__]
Explicability : [*****]

Favorite character: The Dead-hating bartender. Really made all that 'Jerry lives!' stuff much easier to take.

Orgazmo inbreeding: Keep an eye out for Choda Boy as the assistant studio technician, and Matt "I'm not gay or nuthing" Stone as a tapehead.

Lagunitas placement: It's everywhere from the guitarist's t-shirt to every beer the band drinks. Viva Lagunitas!

The Warped Ones

What's Japanese for A Clockwork Orange? Kyonetsu no kisetsu! This movie plays out like the first act of Clockwork, with Akira and his pals plucking motorcars from the trees, taking pretty Polly, and all that -- all to a cool jazz soundtrack. There's some manner of a plot involving Akira raping a girl and her falling in love with him, and Masaru moving into big-time gangsterdom, though these seem inconsequential even as they unfold.

The real joy of this film is watching Tamio Kawaji sneer his way through society, insolent and barbaric without an ounce of respect in his body. It is truly a wonder to watch: the simple act of eating a fruit or reading a newspaper becomes a vehement rejection of society.

A truly worthy member of the proto-punk canon.

* * * R A T I N G * * *

Kyonetsu no kisetsu (IMDB)

Wince : [*____]
Flinch : [**___]
Retch : [**___]
Gape : [****_]

Beerequisite : [*____]
Pornability : [*____]
Obscurity : [**___]
Explicability : [***__]

Most over-the-top 'holy crap!' moment: The chicken. Saying any more would ruin it.

Biggest gasp from the well-off audience in the UES theater I saw this at: Yuki pleading with Akira to defile her fiance in the same way that he had defiled her, apparently so they would have something in common.

Best unintentionally humorous cross-cultural scene: The Japanese patrons of the Jazz club bopping their heads to the crazy beat.

Best unintentionally homoerotic scene: Akira and Gill going for a swim. What the hell did these guys think they were filming?

Confessions of a Superhero

Four aspiring actors struggle to make a living by impersonating costumed superheroes (Superman, Batman, the Hulk, and Wonder Woman) on Hollywood Boulevard.

While some attempt is made at depicting the plight of the aspiring actor in Los Angeles (where it sometimes feels like everyone is waiting for their 'big break' into acting, directing, or script writing), this is basically a character study: Superman is obsessive (and compulsive, according to his psych-major girlfriend) about the Man of Steel, Batman has delusions of bad-assery worthy of Steven Seagal himself, Wonder Woman is a naive country gal who wonders (hah!) why success isn't coming to her as easily as back home, and the Hulk ended up homeless after arriving in LA during the Rodney King riots.

There is no attempt to depict the characters in a flattering light; Batman's boasts of his various martial arts black belts are followed by footage of his sensei correcting his form in the most basic of white-belt moves, and candid interviews with the heroes' significant others reveal that the audience aren't the only ones thinking these guys are a few capes short of a Justice League.

At the end of the film, though, you have to hand it to the Hulk (Joseph McQueen). Not only has he refused to sink into the mire of self-delusion that has taken hold of the other characters, but by the end of the movie he's been given a cameo part in the Breeze Loo film-within-a-film of Finishing the Game!

* * * R A T I N G * * *

Confessions of a Superhero (IMDB)

Wince : [****_]
Flinch : [*____]
Retch : [_____]
Gape : [**___]

Beerequisite : [*****]
Pornability : [_____]
Obscurity : [***__]
Explicability : [****_]

Defenceless

I knew from the DVD box that this was dialog-free, but when I saw the subtitle "A Blood Symphony" I thought, "Uh-oh. This is no Aria." And it wasn't.

The film consists of a typical rape/revenge plot set entirely to music. This is not a bad idea: with a suitable score, a brilliant choreographer, and lurid visuals, this could be quite effective. In Defenceless, though, the music is not at all choreographed to the events on-screen, and in fact rarely changes from the inane classical pieces. The acting is hammed-up and unnatural, and the violence is jaw-droppingly unconvincing. This last one is really a sore point for me in low-budget slasher films: have none of these directors seen Doom Generation? Katiebird? It doesn't take a big budget to produce convincing violence, but it does take talent.

As far as rape/revenge films go, the plot of this is fairly standard, though the events are presented in such as way as to make them unbelievable. A woman refuses to sign a contract with her three business partners (to get her land, according to the DVD box, though this is not conveyed in the film), apparently changing her mind at the last minute (I say this because a contract signing party is generally not the time to express your concerns about the deal). Her partners have her husband killed, and send her photos with a note saying "You should have signed the contract BITCH" (I'm not making this up).

Like any rational person provided with direct evidence of a murder, she tries to kill herself. Some random woman nurses her back to life, falls in love with her, gets raped and killed by the business partners who send a video of this to the main character. Again she tries to kill herself. She takes her son to the beach, is raped and murdered by her business partners who apparently throw her body into the sea (evidently this was too difficult to film).

Nine months later she washes ashore, a cannibal corpse that sleeps in a tidal pool and is bent on revenge. Sort of. After a housewife shows her the articles about the death of her and her family at the hands of her business partners who, in a really heavy-handed piece of exposition, were cleared of murder charges. She kills the three of them in ways that would be gruesome and unsettling if they were, in fact, gruesome and unsettling.

Looking at the IMDB comments for this, it seems that people are afraid to give a negative review in case they are accused of not understanding it, not being prepared for it, or not liking art-house cinema. Well, I understand it, I was prepared for it, and I do not shy away from art-house cinema, so I'll be the one to say it: this movie is BAD.

* * * R A T I N G * * *

Defenseless (IMDB)

Wince : [*****]
Flinch : [*____]
Retch : [*____]
Gape : [*____]

Beerequisite : [****_]
Pornability : [**___]
Obscurity : [***__]
Explicability : [**___]

What I would do different: This movie could probably have been saved with tight editing and a proper score.

Sub-genre concerns: Why is it that every murder/revenge movie (e.g. family killed by the Mob) has five minutes of background and 90 minutes of revenge, but every rape/revenge movie has 90 minutes of background and five minutes of revenge?

The Hamiltons

A family of blood-swilling serial killers has moved to Petaluma, and are just trying to fit in.

This movie really has a lot going for it: the pacing is good; the acting is, well, good enough; the story unfolds nicely. Its greatest asset is probably its ambiguity: throughout the film, you are uncertain as to who is a sympathetic character, or even what the nature of the movie truly is. I was struck by the way the film shied away from gore, which is a staple of any serial killer film, but by the end I could understand the decision.

I think the directors took the film a tad too seriously, especially with the whole "we could be living next to you right now" narration at the end (not to mention the handling of Lenny), but on the whole it was a decent film.

* * * R A T I N G * * *

The Hamiltons (IMDB)

Wince : [***__]
Flinch : [**___]
Retch : [**___]
Gape : [**___]

Beerequisite : [***__]
Pornability : [**___]
Obscurity : [***__]
Explicability : [***__]

Favorite line even though I saw it coming: "Here, kitty kitty!"

What I would do different: Shot the entire thing through the younger brother's video camera, keeping the slow buildup but providing it the kind of 'found object' feel that Blair Witch tried for and making it much more personal.

Dynamite Warrior

I love this movie. Rockets, rockets, rockets, rockets. Sure the acting isn't all that great, the story is needlessly convoluted, and Muay Thai is a poor choice for a martial arts epic, but the man has turned rocketry into a martial art. He rides them, powers carts with them, launches a fusillade of them at his enemies. You want rockets? We got 'em.

The absurdity of the story only adds to the charm. A tractor salesman is tired of the competition from water buffalo, so he hires bandits to take out the buffalo traders. The most successful trader is a magician, so the entrepeneur teams up with a rival magician to defeat him. In the course of this he crosses paths with Jone Bang Fai, a legendary warrior who is looking for the tattooed cattle thief who killed his parents and left him to be raised by Rocket Monks.

Apparently this movie tanked in Thailand; the acting and humor turned off most theater-goers, and the endless knee-drops turned off the rest. It was a crowd pleaser at NYAFF, though, and sure to be entertaining if you only watch it for the rockets.

* * * R A T I N G * * *

Khon fai bin (IMDB)

Wince : [***__]
Flinch : [**___]
Retch : [*____]
Gape : [***__]

Beerequisite : [*****]
Pornability : [_____]
Obscurity : [**___]
Explicability : [**___]

Tokyo Zombie

Black Fuji, a mountainous landfill where people have been burying garbage, old refrigerators, and dead (or not so dead) relatives for years, has started producing zombies from its depths. Lots of zombies: enough to destroy Tokyo.

What do the locals decide to do? Use them for ju-jitsu practice!

The plot is a straightforward ju-jitsu/zombie/apocalypse film, but the fun is in the details: a soda-swilling terrorist, a vampire zombie, the Masked Zombie, the Squeeze Electric Company, and what could be the first ever case of a human biting a zombie.

* * * R A T I N G * * *

Tôkyô zonbi (IMDB)

Wince : [**___]
Flinch : [***__]
Retch : [**___]
Gape : [****_]

Beerequisite : [***__]
Pornability : [*____]
Obscurity : [****_]
Explicability : [***__]

Favorite nickname: Zombald!

The Girl From Rio

It's a strange and wonderful world where someone makes a ripoff of Zeta One. Or so I thought, until I checked IMDB and found that Zeta was produced either concurrently or after this film.

The plot of this is strikingly similar: a secret agent has to defend the world from an invasion of amazons. Sadly, Rio doesn't have half of the camp (or flesh) of Zeta, and remains steadfastly mainstream throughout.

This movie makes so little sense, it's basically a series of strung-together events that attempt to put the characters in different situations. There's a kidnapping, actually two kidnappings, some very hand-wavy torture, a daring escape, some footage of the carnival (how did a reel of vacation footage get in here?), a hostage situation, and some guys in rented helicopters throwing plastic bags at the girls. It ends with a miniskirt funeral, which is eerily reminiscent of a Robert Palmer video.

Still, there are some moments. The older gentleman with the nymphomanical young secretary reads Popeye comics while his henchmen beat up and drown a girl (but he hates violence!). The uniforms of the valiant solders of Feminia are a sure crowd-pleaser -- jump up and down for us, girls!


* * * R A T I N G * * *

The Seven Secrets of Sumuru (IMDB)

Wince : [*****]
Flinch : [*____]
Retch : [_____]
Gape : [***__]

Beerequisite : [*****]
Pornability : [***__]
Obscurity : [**___]
Explicability : [*____]

Reality Check:
There is no need to hold a gun to someone's chin when taking them hostage. Of course, there's no need to hit like a girl when he takes it away from you, either.
The airport looks like someone's house!
How does a doctor's mirror improves your accuracy with a machine-gun?
Dental X-rays destroy your internal organs slowly, sure... isn't that why they make you wear those lead vests?
Ah, of course, the only way to extract information from a man: the dreaded topless three-way kissing torture!
So if someone wants you and the girl dead, and she has the girl held hostage, naturally what you do is turn yourself over so that both of you can be killed, right? Good plan!
As far as death-rays go, the dental x-ray machine is a pretty easy one to defeat. I bet this guy is wondering why he didn't think of just kicking the thing earlier.
You call that an army? You call those guns?? You call that an explosion?!?
Bullets must fly pretty fast to make you fall before the guns are fired. That's downright Einsteinian.

Favorite outfit: That Y-shaped thing one of the women uses to sedure her leader. How the hell does that thing stay on?

Murder Party

Everybody dies!

A meter mate (or whatever a male meter maid is called) finds an invitation to a Halloween party in Brooklyn, called 'The Murder Party' and advising him to come alone. It wouldn't be a movie if he just chucked it in the bin, now would it?

The party is, of course, hosted by serial killers -- in this case, narcissistic Williamsburg artists (trust me, if you've been to Open Studios, you've seen half this movie) looking to get a grant by performing murder-as-Art. They tie ol' DeadMeat up and play Truth or Dare with Scopolamine, which is of course where the cracks in the group start to show. And, of course, Everybody Dies.

The film is a bit slow, taking over an hour for anything to really happen, but it's a nice buildup . The humor is a bit of a slow-burn as well; there are few laugh-at-loud moments, but much that sticks with you. This could be a flaw in the scriptwriting, as the idea is more amusing than the execution, but the movie is entertaining regardless, and the performances are all quite solid.

Good one to watch while gearing up for that Halloween party.

* * * R A T I N G * * *

Murder Party (IMDB)

Wince : [***__]
Flinch : [**___]
Retch : [*____]
Gape : [***__]

Beerequisite : [***__]
Pornability : [**___]
Obscurity : [***__]
Explicability : [**___]

Kudos: How many horror films set in NYC recognize that murder and torture pale in comparison to losing your Metrocard?

Show-stealer: Despite the strong performances of the self-absorbed Lexi, the sneering Alexander, and "kill me"-eyed Chris, it is Gameboy-fixated Bill who ultimately makes the movie.

Scene I'd watch on endless loop: The Art Room. For the art. Really.

Most dreaded event that didn't happen: I was truly frightened that the film would have one of those "it was all fake" endings, or that the artists would drug their victim and apply makeup to make him think he had been tortured. That would have been just horrible.

Cruel Winter Blues

At some point you realize the guy you're working for is a complete and unrepentant asshole. That point comes for Chi-juk, not to mention the audience, about thirty minutes into the film. There may not be any labor laws covering this, but when your boss beats up a bunch of school kids, you probably want to find other employment.

Interestingly enough, though, just as Jae-moon (the boss) is at his most reprehensible, he seems to have a moment of clarity and his character begins a reversal that's straight out of a Dickens novel. Except, of course, with soju and sashimi knives.

As for the story itself, well, it's pretty straightforward. Jae-moon wants revenge after his buddy has been killed in retribution for a botched hit; he grabs talented mob newbie Chi-juk and does what any dedicated yakuza would do: stake out the noodle shop run by the victim's mom.

None of that matters, though, as the film is entirely character-driven, with the relation of the two yakuza to the mob, to the locals, and to each other changing as they get involved in the day-to-day life of a small, sorry village.


* * * R A T I N G * * *

Yeolhyeol-nama (IMDB)

Wince : [*____]
Flinch : [***__]
Retch : [*____]
Gape : [**___]

Beerequisite : [*____]
Pornability : [*____]
Obscurity : [***__]
Explicability : [****_]

Scene I'd watch on endless loop: The night, in the noodle shop, of the hit. Masterful.

Night of the Living Dead

Yup, the 60s classic zombie film that really got the ball rolling.

This was showing at a midnight screening this weekend, and seemed as good a venue as any to ride out the effects of an all-day beer-swilling barbeque.

The film was apparently a restored version or some such, though it is really impossible to tell. Having watched a fair share of zombie films, it is fun to look at the early work and see just how much stemmed from this movie: the use of radio/tv to explain events, the minority or underdog taking command, the ineffectiveness of the government.

Not to mention all of the rules of properly handling a zombie infestation: shoot the head, keep fire around, board up everything, burn your casualties, always have an exit. Night of the Living Dead is a bit slow-moving and dated, but if you ever are in the mood for seeing how unoriginal most other zombie films are, give it a watch.

* * * R A T I N G * * *

Night of the Living Dead (IMDB)

Wince : [***__]
Flinch : [**___]
Retch : [*____]
Gape : [*____]

Beerequisite : [****_]
Pornability : [_____]
Obscurity : [_____]
Explicability : [**___]

Blue Sunshine

If you jerk, it won't work!

This attempt at a conspiracy film kicks off with a guy going crazy at a party when his wig gets torn off and people realize he's bald. He races off into the woods, then returns and stuffs a few girls in the fireplace.

One of the other guests gets blamed for all of this, and while on the lamb he discovers a startling trend: people are losing their hair, getting headaches, and snapping under mild stress to go on murderous rampages. It all gets traced back to a seedy dealer-turned-politician and a batch of bad acid passed around Stanford in the 60s.

This works fairly well as a suspense movie, though the camp value is pretty high. The inept protagonist (that's right, the best way to use a gun on an enraged bodyguard is to throw yourself on him bodily!) and his Ballantine-swilling girlfriend pretty much sleepwalk through the film, but the actors and events around them provide some entertainment.


* * * R A T I N G * * *

Blue Sunshine (IMDB)

Wince : [***__]
Flinch : [*____]
Retch : [_____]
Gape : [***__]

Beerequisite : [**___]
Pornability : [_____]
Obscurity : [***__]
Explicability : [***__]

Beach Party at the Threshold of Hell

Aspiring Vice-President Tex Kennedy and his robot pals seek to free the new president, Benjamin Remington, from his fallout shelter and establish him in New America's seat of power: a powerful transmission tower in the heart of The Threshold of Hell. Said threshold has, fittingly, been located in Florida.

There's all kinds of good stuff in this movie: robots, immortals, cannibals, used car dealers, sea serpents, cigars. The acting, especially the delivery of the dialog, is spot-on and really makes the movie. The budget is low, and the story itself feels a bit cobbled together, but the overall production quality is high enough that you don't notice.

The movie is very, very similar to Six String Samurai: the future King of America battling his way across a sandy wasteland, encountering all sorts of natural and supernatural obstacles. It also brings to mind Snatch with its sheer number of larger-than-life characters, all introduced with a splash page and a brief voiceover, whose ranks swell so quickly that you know half of them are going to be killed by the end.

Very entertaining, well worth a second (or more) viewing, though a bit unsatisfying. Maybe it's the unwavering nonchalance of the characters, the unphased narrators, or the constant deus ex machina saves; by the end, you don't particularly care whether New America's founders succeed or not.

* * * R A T I N G * * *

The Beach Party at the Threshold of Hell

Wince : [**___]
Flinch : [***__]
Retch : [**___]
Gape : [**___]

Beerequisite : [***__]
Pornability : [*____]
Obscurity : [***__]
Explicability : [***__]

Most brilliant tag-team proposal: Kennedy and Castro!

Badlands

A young Martin Sheen steals a younger Sissy Spacek away from her father Warren Oates and goes on a killing rampage up through the Dakotas.

This is a slow, easy-going serial killer movie with some very good performances: Spacek's withdrawn narration, Sheen's good-natured surrender.

Undoubtedly provided the fodder for Kalifornia and Natural Born Killers. And yes, in the background there you can hear the inspiration for Tarantino's True Romance soundtrack.

* * * R A T I N G * * *

Wince : [**___]
Flinch : [*____]
Retch : [*____]
Gape : [*____]

Beerequisite : [***__]
Pornability : [*____]
Obscurity : [**___]
Explicability : [***__]

Sailor Suit and Machine Gun

Imagine Disney doing a film about a high school girl-turned-gangleader movie ... where everyone dies.

A Japanese high school girl inherits a yakuza gang from her cousin and embarks on a life of organized crime. Not as entertaining as it sounds: the gang is falling apart (there are four of them left, and they drive the Japanese equivalent of a beat up old Fiat), the girl hates violence, and the jokes just aren't that funny (sure, it's in Japanese and something could be lost in translation, but judging by the directing and the acting it probably just isn't that well-written).


* * * R A T I N G * * *

Sailor-fuku to kikanjû (IMDB)

Wince : [****_]
Flinch : [*____]
Retch : [*____]
Gape : [**___]

Beerequisite : [****_]
Pornability : [*____]
Obscurity : [***__]
Explicability : [**___]


What I would do different: This is a Japanese movie starring a Japanese schoolgirl, and there's not a tentacle in sight. Nobody even eats squid! Wasted, wasted opportunity.

Female

Five short films, adapted from five novels written by female authors, by five different (not all female) directors. This opens with a stage full of scantily-clad showgirls dancing, so don't expect it to be too representative of the feminist front.

The short segments all have Japanese titles, so I will supply my own.

"I slept with my teacher" : A woman returns to her childhood home for the funeral of her high school teacher. She visits a peach grove, reminiscing about her affair with her teacher, involving peaches from that very grove, and meets a former classmate who used to watch her and the teach go at it. Good, peachy soft-core.

"Hijacking a cab" : An aging hostess catches a cab, with a woman driver, which is soon hijacked by a young punkette. The three are all desperate for money, in one way or another, and end up bonding as they aimlessly drive around. It ends, as all good films do, with urination. Actually called "Drive till you see the sun".

"I slept with my coworker... in my dreams" : A factory worker manages to score a day off in exchange for a dinner date with her boss, and goes to South Sea Island. There she picks up an incense burner which, when fed a hair of a person, causes you to dream, wetly, of them. She tries it out on the salesman she has a crush on, and boy does it work. Eventually she kinda goes over the edge, though judging from the dreamsex it was probably worth it. Actually called "Licking Nights".

"I wanted to sleep with my friend's mom" : A young boy goes home with his bossy classmate who insists he is her boyfriend. He catches a flash of her mom's ankles and is smitten: no more young waifs for him! Unfortunately his mom isn't too interested in his prepubescent offering, though she certainly seems to enjoy the attention. It ends, as these stories do, with the moving-on of everyone concerned.

"I slept with a gangster -- no, two gangsters" : A middle-aged woman in a small town is the kept woman of an aging Tokyo gangster. Lonely, bored, she wants to live and socialize, but he prefer to keep her hidden away. Eventually he introduces her to his heir apparent, complications arise, and everything seems to end up alright. Actually called "Jewel Beetle".

All in all, very well-done, though trying to present itself as artistic erotica -- something along the lines of Altman's Aria. Or a Japanese Ken Russell.

* * * R A T I N G * * *

Fîmeiru (IMDB)

Wince : [*____]
Flinch : [**___]
Retch : [*____]
Gape : [***__]

Beerequisite : [**___]
Pornability : [****_]
Obscurity : [**___]
Explicability : [***__]

Finishing the Game

Bruce Lee has died, leaving 12 minutes of footage towards his masterpiece, The Game of Death. The studio with the rights to the footage seeks to finish the film using a body double.

Being a mockumentary, this film will draw the inevitable comparisons to Christopher Guest's work. And it will inevitably fall short, because as similar to each other as Guest's films are (seen one, seen them all, etc), they generally have excellent writing, pace, and timing.

Finishing the Game is too short for what it intends to accomplish. Characters are introduced with a long backstory, only to be dropped within minutes of the first casting call. The three casting calls are rushed through with no real concern for how well they went or how the characters are effected.

The potential for self-referencing and in-jokes is huge here, and a roomful of egotistical martial artists leaves plenty of room for conflict, but the script does very little with the goldmine it is sitting on. Expect quick, kneejerk laughs and a rather unsatisfying, if appropriate, ending.

* * * R A T I N G * * *
Finishing the Game (IMDB)

Wince : [***__]
Flinch : [***__]
Retch : [*____]
Gape : [***__]

Beerequisite : [***__]
Pornability : [**___]
Obscurity : [**___]
Explicability : [***__]

Scene I'd watch on endless loop: Fists of Fuhrer! Or the Ron Jeremy scene. Tough call.

Memories I want to erase: The white guy's clench-fu makes Cartman's ro-sham-bo look positively pleasant.

What I would do different: The film didn't take its time to set up any good jokes, or even to introduce more than a semblance of conflict between the characters. Probably an extra half hour and some good writing would fix things.

Lagunitas

Thursday was supposed to be a Lagunitas event, which I'd travel many miles for, but there ended up being a single beer on tap and the rep seeking to drown his sorrows at the reschedule. The beer was Hop Stoopid, which was of course excellent (What can I say? They're still my favorite brewery, though I acknowledge they may not be the best brewery). Hoppy, balanced, dangerously drinkable. Seeing it referred to as a 'farmhouse IPA' explains things pretty well: imagine an overly-hopped farmhouse ale, made dark and thick but still with the creamy head, and you've got this beer. I'm impressed: Lagunitas is making some world-class stuff now.

A couple of these were joined over the course of an increasingly blurry night by the Bear Republic Racer 5 and the Weyerbacher Simcoe.

Random Acts of Senseless Violence

Jack Womack's Random Acts of Senseless Violence is not a feelgood novel.

The book takes the form of the diary of Lola, a 12-year old girl growing up in the dystopian near-future New York that is the setting of many of Womack's stories: riots in Harlem, the Army dealing with Long Island insurgents, the 14 Street Wall.

The downward spiral of Lola and her family as they run out of first money, then options, is sure to tug on a heartstring or two. Stylistically, the form works well, with Lola's voice getting more and more street-level as things go on.

Desperation, poverty, racism, and yes, violence. Highly recommended.

Hermit In Paris

America in the 50s and 60s viewed through the eyes of an Italian Communist.

Italo Calvino's collection of autobiographical essays, Hermit in Paris, has many intriguing essays: his soul-searching over Stalin, his portrait of Mussolini, the occasional soliloquy over a favorite town. A few of the more political essays, as well as the ones dealing with his peers, become tedious.

The highlight of the collection is of course the diary of his travels across the United States, especially his time in New York dealing with different publishers. This would make a fine standalone book, and is recommended for all who like the American travelogues of writers (e.g. Democracy in America, Air-Conditioned Nightmare).

Blade Runner : Final Cut

How can one resist the siren call of a Ridley Scott cut of Blade Runner on the big screen?

The movie looks great and sounds great; apparently the work they put into cleaning it up paid off. Fortunately, Scott didn't go all Lucas on us -- it's difficult to tell what specifically was cleaned up, and there are no CGI creatures or lens flares polluting the screen.

It's difficult to tell what was added to the film. I noticed a line of dialog here and there, and a couple of scenes that felt longer by a second or two, but by and large this is the same as the '92 cut. Don't expect any revelations from this version, or any revisions of awkward scenes like the Rachel/Deckard love affair.

To sum up: worth seeing on the big screen (in a GOOD theater), can't wait for the 5-disc set.

* * * R A T I N G * * *

Wince : [*____]
Flinch : [***__]
Retch : [_____]
Gape : [**___]

Beerequisite : [_____]
Pornability : [*____]
Obscurity : [_____]
Explicability : [****_]

Vanaja

I didn't realize I like Kuchipudi dancing until I saw the trailer for Vanaja. The film itself looked tortuous: yet another coming-of-age film, with the possibility of a dreaded Female Sexual Awakening subplot. But the dancing drew me in. I don't know where that came from; maybe some lingering aftereffects from seeing the old Sinbad movies or Lang's Tiger of Eschnapur.

The movie itself turned out to be quite good. The 'coming of age story' was very much in the background, with the main story being more of a class struggle: young ambitious low-caste Vanaja joins the household of a high-caste former dancer in the hopes of becoming a great dancer herself. The son of her employer returns from his years abroad shagging American chicks, enters local politics, rapes and impregnates Vanaja, and wonders why he doesn't feel content.

The film is poorly edited at times, but the cast is surprisingly good (generally speaking). As the movie progresses, the motivations of the characters become more complex, causing the story to unfold in a slightly less than straightforward manner. The rather headstrong (but not cocksure!) character of Vanaja is well-captured by the actress (Mamatha Bhukya), and of course the dancing scenes are a treat to watch.


* * * R A T I N G * * *

Vanaja (IMDB)

Wince : [**___]
Flinch : [*____]
Retch : [*____]
Gape : [*____]

Beerequisite : [*____]
Pornability : [*____]
Obscurity : [**___]
Explicability : [***__]

Scene I'd watch on endless loop: The "kiss me baby, love me baby" dance.

Stranger Than A Strange Land

I made the mistake of going to one of the NY Film Festival shorts programs.

All of the shorts programs were listed under the "Avant Garde" events, which should have served as a warning. This particular program, "Stranger Than a Strange Land", looked to be more science fiction and less self-indulgent crap, so I gave it a go.

Warm Objects : Thermal Imagery. Fun to watch, but really this just amounts to playing with a new toy. Artistic content: zero.

Notes From a Bastard Child : Not sure what this one was about. It looked like it was stitched together from all of the film reels at the director's (and I use that term quite loosely) exposure, undoubtedly in an attempt to come up with something to turn in as a senior project when weekend is up. Some particularly grainy footage is spliced in, perhaps in an attempt to make it feel authentic (an authentic what exactly?) or vintage or something.

The Mongrel Sister : Not sure they showed this one; I can't even remember it. I think they mistakenly showed the first seven minutes of the next film instead.

Victory Over the Sun : Yes, yet another film student has discovered the dilapidated extravagance of former World's Fair sites. I find it a mark of maturity to visit these strangely compelling sites and not make a film about it. Oh, and it ends with an orchestral version of November Rain; apparently the filmmaker has discovered not only Flushing Meadows, but Guns'n'Roses as well.

Stranger Comes to Town : This started out quite annoying but soon turned entertaining -- a good thing, since it is the second-longest film in the set. It kicks off with a narrator bemoaning the indignities of entering the US with a Middle Eastern passport ("you have to wait! and it is all so impersonal! they might even verify your fingerprint!"). I was mostly shocked by how banal the complaints were; the narrators all sounded like very naive, very spoiled kids who are experiencing life without servants for the first time. The use of some video game engine or another to re-enact the INS experiences provided some entertainment, not the least of which was watching the semi-sentient breasts of the avatars flexing as their chests heave with each breath. That may not have been intended by the filmmaker, but it got a few laughs.

Light is Waiting : More from the "Hey, look what technique I just learned about!" school of film. Not sure what the technical term for the technique is (mirrored double exposure?) , but it grew tedious after seconds and certainly did not add anything to the film (which appears to be some family's vacation footage).

SpaceDisco-One : The longest piece in the set, and the most entertaining. This film presents itself as the sequel to Logan's Run and 1984, as well as a crossover with Battlestar Galactica circa 1980. The two female descendants of the Logan's Run leads are leading an armed (with ping-pong ball guns, or something similar) rescue party to free Starbuck (Dirk Benedict) from a stint on the reality show Big Brother. Apparently he was really on it at some point, and the clips are hilarious. Oh and poor Winston goes through Room 101 again, then somehow warps through time to encounter the two women and relate to them that they are all fictional characters on the starship SpaceDisco One, a giant rollerdisco in space. Or something like that. Largely nonsensical, occasionally incoherent, and reliably amateurish, this was quite an enjoyable film (especially after the others).


* * * R A T I N G * * *

Stranger Than A Strange Land (NYFF)

Wince : [****_]
Flinch : [_____]
Retch : [_____]
Gape : [**___]

Beerequisite : [*****]
Pornability : [_____]
Obscurity : [****_]
Explicability : [*____]


Memories I want to erase: Todos!

What I would do different: Gone to see Finishing the Game instead.

Double IPAs

On Saturday, to prepare for a potentially (and quite actually) awful short film program, Stoudt's Double IPA. The Stoudt's was good, but a pretty typical double IPA: thick, strong hoppy. Hard to drink more than one of these -- like the Dogfish 90.

The Stoudt's was followed by a Captain Lawrence Reserve Imperial IPA, which was even more drinkable. While still a double IPA, and thus quite hoppy, the texture was light. Very good, I've gone back for many more since. The Captain is proving to be quite a reliable brewery these days.

Also had a Bear Republic Hot Rod Rye, always a pleasure, before heading off to the shorts. Consoled myself afterwards with a Kwak (on draft! with the proper glass!) and a very, very fresh Six Point Bengali Tiger. I've gotten wary of the Bengali after having it on cask all over town, and seeing it linger on draft in bars that don't cater to the beer crowd, but fresh on draft it was phenomenal. One of my favorite IPAs.

Turtles Swim Faster Than Expected

This is the story of a woman so ordinary, so hard to pick out of a crowd, that she is recruited to be a spy (by the Chinese or something). She has a brief existential crisis, unsure how to act ordinary now that it's her job.

There is no way to summarize this gem. Surrounded by offbeat characters (a cook with a talent for flavorless ramen, a ginkgo-nut-chewing tofu vendor, a dancing hairstylist, a pair of calisthenic cops, and a plumber who is far too eager to talk about his work), she wanders through life with no purpose other than feeding her husband's turtle until suddenly, given a purpose, she wanders through life reminiscing about her past.

Fun, wacky, somewhat typically Japanese fare.

* * * R A T I N G * * *

Turtles Swim Faster Than Expected (IMDB)

Wince : [**___]
Flinch : [*____]
Retch : [*____]
Gape : [***__]

Beerequisite : [****_]
Pornability : [*____]
Obscurity : [***__]
Explicability : [***__]

Scene I'd watch on endless loop: Azuki panda! Hue-hue-he-he-he.

The Last Winter

Ron Perlman struggling to keep his sanity in an Arctic wasteland. Actually, it's not much of a struggle

The movie is about a drilling crew out in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge determining the feasibility of drilling now that Bush has pushed through his drill-everywhere-you-like-guys oil legislation. You think the green political statements end there? Oh you just wait, pal. They're more persistent than the monsters in this film.

OK, so the head of the project flies back from a meeting with the boss carrying a mandate to get the trucks in and start drilling. Objecting to this is an eco-friendly bearded nut who's been attached to the project as a way to placate Green Party voters. People start going crazy and dying.

Or is something killing them? The film can't decide, and when it does it's too late. You've spent most of the movie believing people are going nuts, for whatever reasons, then the Ghost of Pleistocine Past appears to mop up the rest. In five minutes the actors are decimated and the world is being destroyed by Nature.

Or is it? You'll never know, because the CGI budget ran out before they could complete the final shot. I was waiting for an hourglass to appear and a dialog box saying "Rendering...", but instead the credits rolled.

The film is watchable for all that: the acting is good, the filming is good, and it does a decent job of building up a lot of tension. It's quite heavy-handed with the eco-political dialog, though, and the abrupt ending leaves one wondering what the buildup was intended to anticipate.


* * * R A T I N G * * *

The Last Winter (IMDB)

Wince : [***__]
Flinch : [**___]
Retch : [**___]
Gape : [***__]

Beerequisite : [***__]
Pornability : [*____]
Obscurity : [*____]
Explicability : [***__]

What I would do different: Those CGI monsters have to go.

Romance and Cigarettes

Queens: The musical!

James Gandolfini as a two-timing construction worker. Susan Sarandon is the wife, Kate Winslet is the coarse-talking Irish slu--- er, lover. Steve Buscemi is the husband's coworker, Eddie Izzard is the wife's choir leader. Christopher Walken, in one of his more distinctive roles, plays the Elvis-obsessed cousin of Susan Sarandon, himself jilted (losing a woman to The Greek) and eager to help her get revenge.

This is a musical set in Queens, about blue-collar types, set to an eclectic selection of pop hits. It is a very Manhattan view of Queens as well: the men are oafs, the women are decked out in trailer park gear, everyone is ugly and talks like they were raised by Archie Bunker.

In short, a must must see. And I'm not just saying that because I live in Queens.

For some reason the tone of this film reminds me of Crime Wave, though I can't quite place why. Maybe the musical mayhem in one and the cartoonish violence in the other strike the same (off) chord.

* * * R A T I N G * * *

Romance & Cigarettes (IMDB)

Wince : [*____]
Flinch : [**___]
Retch : [*____]
Gape : [****_]

Beerequisite : [***__]
Pornability : [**___]
Obscurity : [**___]
Explicability : [****_]

Scene I'd watch on endless loop: "Why, why, why, Delilah?"

Soul Mountain

I started Gao Xingjian's Soul Mountain about a week into my vacation, and it feels like it took forever to finish.

This is one of those books that you find yourself reading a page or two at a time, sometimes re-reading the same paragraph three or four times, sometimes flipping back to earlier chapters.

It certainly wasn't what I expected. No long rumination on man's condition or the nature of belief and hope in the course of a pilgrimage. Which is good, as either of those would have gotten old real quick.

The novel is purely character-driven. The chapters are episodic, some telling anecdotes, some providing historical insight, some simply representing scenes or moods. These tend to be either entertaining or insightful, though there are a few that feel purposeless.

Towards the end of the book, the author addresses potential critics, defending his work and justifying his approach. This may sound arrogant, but it actually works in this case, it let's you know the author hasn't lost it, and that the book itself has no direction or resolution, and that allows you to leisurely enjoy the remainder of the book.

Overall, a very memorable book, and one that certainly gives you pause for reflection. Probably not one that you're going to lend out or read again though.

The Spider's House

I hadn't finished Paul Bowle's The Spider's House before my trip, so I brought it along for the plane ride; I was so wrapped up in the tale by then that I couldn't leave it home.

This book provides three views of Morocco in the 50's: the outsider view that the Moroccans are barbaric and require, like children, the guidance of their superiors; the outsider view that Moroccans have a unique, beautiful culture which should be preserved as an alternative to the west; and the insider view of a Morocco that is falling apart due to not only the influence of foreigners, but also (and largely) due to the hypocrisy and self-serving opportunism of its political and spiritual leaders.

The first view is assumed to be that of the reader, so only background characters voice it. The other two views are provided by the two protagonists; one an American writer, viewed as idealistic and naive by his English and American neighbors at the hotel, the other an Arab youth, who wants to shirk duty and lie in the sun all day, but gets drawn into the struggle against France by his birthright.

This book is a fantastic demonstration of the gap between largely alien cultures, and provides good, often insightful character studies of the kind of people who attempt to cross these gaps, themselves often strangers in their own cultures.

Dog Bite Dog

Sometimes a guy gets off a hard day's work and just wants to get home without running into every damn delay and distraction the world can throw at him. Such is the case in this film, with the guy being a Cambodian assassin raised in a feral child-fighting pit, his work the assassination of a judge's wife, and the delays and distractions are members of the Hong Kong PD. After working his way through a fair number of these obstacles, the hit man earns the ire of one distraction in particular, who then tracks him down for revenge.

Featuring gritty urban landscapes, a highly stylized knife-fight, and the sort of found-object fu that you would expect from a gladiator-turned-hired killer.

* * * R A T I N G * * *
Dog Bite Dog (IMDB)

Wince : [**___]
Flinch : [****_]
Retch : [**___]
Gape : [***__]

Beerequisite : [*____]
Pornability : [*____]
Obscurity : [**___]
Explicability : [****_]

What I would do different: Having the true bad guy appear at the closing scene would have been a nice touch.

Things you probably won't see anywhere else:
* A Datsun! A DATSUN!!!
* "You got your cop blood in my hit-man blood!" "You got your hit-man blood in my cop blood!"
* A 24-hour dentist

City of Violence

The Region 1 DVD of this came out over the weekend; in celebration, I re-watched it. The film definitely holds up to multiple viewings; the strength is in the choreography and the editing, rather than in any details of the plot. And it still earns that 5-flinch rating, even when you know what is coming.

The story itself is straightforward: big-city cop returns to his hometown for a friend's funeral, finds the circumstances of death suspicious, begins an investigation, ends up beating the hell out of a bunch of people. Fantastic action film for those who like tae-kwon-do, buddy cop films, sashimi knives, or 70s action movies.


* * * R A T I N G * * *
City of Violence (IMDB)

Wince : [*____]
Flinch : [*****]
Retch : [**___]
Gape : [***__]

Beerequisite : [*____]
Pornability : [*____]
Obscurity : [*____]
Explicability : [*****]

Scene I'd watch on endless loop: Fighting the gangs of kids. Definitely.

Natural City

Blade Runner welded to a buddy cop movie. Replicants, er cyborgs, have a 3-year lifespan. Even the pleasure models. Someone is activating the combat cyborgs, which the police seem woefully incompetent at containing. One of the cops is in love with an expiring pleasure model, and introduces some conflict when he starts looking for a black market hack to fix her.

Visually, this movie is quite appealing. Many ideas and details from the Ridley Scott film are used, and this film could easily be set in the same world (perhaps a few years later). As the encounters with the combat cyborgs get more frequent, the movie becomes more of a Korean action film, leading up to a typical big explosion at the end. Nowhere near as psychologically or philosophically interesting as Blade Runner, but an enjoyable sci-fi action film.

* * * R A T I N G * * *
Natural City (IMDB)

Wince : [*____]
Flinch : [***__]
Retch : [*____]
Gape : [**___]

Beerequisite : [**___]
Pornability : [*____]
Obscurity : [**___]
Explicability : [****_]

Reality Check: The police tactics when hunting the combat cyborgs are pretty awful.

The Specials

Inevitably to be compared to Mystery Men, though without the annoying performances of Stiller and Garofalo. The humor here is more subtle, less absurd; the dialog is not as quotable, but has more depth.

The film covers a day (specifically, a day off) in the life of a team of second-string super heroes. Being more a satire than a spoof, the film's characters often have useful powers, with their superhuman status being used to contrast with their human failings (pride, lust, greed, etc).

Pretty much a must-see for any comic book fans.

* * * R A T I N G * * *
The Specials (IMDB)

Wince : [***__]
Flinch : [*____]
Retch : [*____]
Gape : [**___]

Beerequisite : [***__]
Pornability : [*____]
Obscurity : [***__]
Explicability : [****_]

Breeders

Wow, this one is pretty bad. A man in a gimp suit is raping every virgin in Manhattan (hence the film's short running time), impregnating them with black slime and leaving a post-hypnotic suggestion for them to attend his midnight basement jacuzzi party. A young doctor and a cop use every stilted line and cliche at their disposal in a futile attempt to prove the existence of a scriptwriter, ultimately leaving the audience to make that leap of faith on their own.

Everything bad about 80s movies is in this one. Bad acting. Big hair. Awful clothes. Synth soundtrack. Questionable sets. Implausible events. On the plus side, the virgins share a rare allergy to underwear, and shuck their clothes at every scene change.

* * * R A T I N G * * *
Breeders (IMDB)

Wince : [*****]
Flinch : [*____]
Retch : [*____]
Gape : [***__]

Beerequisite : [****_]
Pornability : [***__]
Obscurity : [**___]
Explicability : [***__]

What I would do different: Spend the ten bucks to have someone write a script.

Scene I'd watch on endless loop: Breeder chicks in an alien hot-tub filled with milky-white fluid.

Memories I want to erase: Those tan lines!

Them

A French couple staying in a fairly creepy house in Romania are terrorized by flashlight-wielding hoodlums. Really, that's all there is to it.

Discovering who the eponymous 'THEY' are is supposed to be a big part of the suspense in this film (judging from the vagueness of the film summary, the equally vague trailer, and the fact that THEY are out of shot or in darkness for so much of the film), but it is pretty obvious from the start of the film if one assumes human rather than supernatural agents. Me being a skeptic, and no inexplicable events occurring, this is what I did.

The film is well-done and quite suspenseful. It seems to be telling a true-crime story in the manner of a horror film, keeping the audience, like the victims, in the dark to play on their fear of the unknown. There were moments where, much like in The Blair Witch Project, you say to yourself "That's just not that scary. Why are they panicking?", but the actors are convincing enough and the camera work is jumpy enough that you get sucked into it regardless.

Enjoyable suspense film. Arguably more enjoyable if you know the premise, as that might drive the it-can-happen-to-anyone aspect of it home.

* * * R A T I N G * * *
Them (IMDB)

Wince : [**___]
Flinch : [***__]
Retch : [*____]
Gape : [*____]

Beerequisite : [**___]
Pornability : [*____]
Obscurity : [**___]
Explicability : [*****]

Carny

How many times have you said to yourself, "Boy how I wish that Jodie Foster ran away from her folks at the end of Taxi Driver to join a circus and become a burlesque dancer" ? I know, I know, it's the same with me: lots.

Well, here's your chance. A young Jodie foster runs away from her invisible mother and gruesome boyfriend to live the carnival life with Gary Busey. She becomes part of the carnival crowd, taking different jobs until she finds one she likes, and expands her relationship with Busey to include his friend, Patch. At about this point the movie picks up the pace as the local mob decides that the carnival's payoff wasn't big enough.

While aimless, and leading to no great insight for any of the characters (except possibly Jodie Foster), this is a decent film with some very solid performances by Gary Busey (seriously!) and Robbie Robertson. There is an authentic feel to the hustles pulled in the carnival, and to the community built up in the carnival itself.


* * * R A T I N G * * *
Carny (IMDB)

Wince : [**___]
Flinch : [**___]
Retch : [**___]
Gape : [**___]

Beerequisite : [**___]
Pornability : [**___]
Obscurity : [**___]
Explicability : [****_]

Demon Seed

There are a lot of valuable life lessons in this film. Never design an artificial intelligence that is smart enough to find a cure for leukemia in four days. If you do, never piss on its dreams. Failing those, you should never create a direct link from that AI to your fully robo-automated house. Where your wife is staying. Alone. Hell, back up a bit: never robo-automate your house. That's not gonna end well.

This film takes the mischevious HAL from 2001 and dumps him into Rosemary's Baby; his designer, a scientist at a government lab, learns all of the above lessons and more. The wife, trapped in the state-of-the-(70s)-art house, is tormented and measured (noooo!) until she submits to bearing the rogue computer's love child. Although any woman who can be seduced by a screensaver couldn't have put up too much of a fight.

The action takes place almost entirely in the house, and while the pace is a bit slow and the events a bit predictable (until the end, oddly enough), there are enough good scenes to keep watching. The top "Oh crap!" moment comes when the wife, after receiving an unexpected electrical shock and collapsing, wakes up on a table in the windowless (basement) lab with a robotic arm tying the last of her four limbs in place. What do you do now, MacGyver?

Worth seeing for the awkward dialogue ("You find me boring, my dear, but I find myself ... rather interesting") and disembodied voice of Robert Vaughn. Speaking as someone inured to tentacle hentai, though, I have to say the insemination scene was quite disappointing.

* * * R A T I N G * * *
Demon Seed (IMDB)

Wince : [***__]
Flinch : [**___]
Retch : [**___]
Gape : [***__]

Beerequisite : [***__]
Pornability : [**___]
Obscurity : [**___]
Explicability : [****_]

Technology you probably forgot:
* gull-wing doors
* binocular surveillance cameras
* 5 1/4" floppies
* computer dust-covers
* Television tuning dials

What I would do different: Proteus would have had a child that would emerge from the womb to enslave all mankind, crushing all opposition to his golden tentacled genius.

Electroma

Well. Everything I'd read about this film said the cinematography was fantastic. There were very vague, in retrospect suspiciously elusive summaries of the plot: two robots journeying through a wasteland, ostensibly in a quest to become human.

The cinematography is great: the film is wonderful to look at at. And the beginning of the film is quite entertaining, with two robots joyriding through the desert in an odd Ferrari (you can tell by the tail-lights), stopping off at an FX studio to be given human appearances, then nonchalantly strolling through an all-robot town, drawing stares and eventually a lynch mob.

About thirty minutes into the film, the two robots begin a journey into the desert with a long, slow take of them walking away from the camera. No problem, I tell myself, I've seen a few Tarkovsky films, I can handle long takes.

They walk in the desert for the next forty minutes.

Eventually one of the robots tires of this and gets the other to kill him. This is a metaphor for the dreams we must abandon in our quest for self-realization. Ten or twenty minutes later, the other robot wants out as well, but cannot kill himself because his self-destruct button is right between his shoulder blades. This is a metaphor for the audience.

The ideas behind the film are simple and universal: the idealist/artist striking out to make their mark on the world, indulging in pure freedom of expression, and being rejected, vilified, or otherwise outcast. And the film itself starts off well, before dragging the audience along on its own Exodus.

The final word: more people walked out of the theater while this was playing that any other film I've seen. Which certainly says something.

* * * R A T I N G * * *

Electorama (IMDB)

Wince : [_____] (No dialog)
Flinch : [_____] (No violence)
Retch : [_____] (No gore)
Gape : [_____] (No anything!)

Beerequisite : [****_]
Pornability : [_____]
Obscurity : [***__]
Explicability : [**___]

What I would do different: Right before the credits, I would have had Daft Punk come onscreen, face the audience, and say "Are you still here? What the f*ck is wrong with you?!?"

Meatball Machine

A splatterfest in the vein of Iron Man. If you haven't heard of this movie by now, you probably shouldn't try to see it.

The film begins with the worst fighter in the history of anger using his skills to win over the girl of his dreams by repeatedly throwing his face and kidneys at the fists and toes of her date. Surprisingly enough, this works, and she is smitten long enough to be taken over by a parasitic alien that uses humans as a vessel for bloodsport.

Our hero allows himself to be taken over as well, and puts his well-honed martial skills to work saving/killing his girlfriend by bleeding profusely over her weapons in a rarely-seen display of Rust-Fu.

They live happily ever after... fighting each other.

* * * R A T I N G * * *
Meatball Machine (IMDB)

Wince : [***__]
Flinch : [****_]
Retch : [***__]
Gape : [****_]

Beerequisite : [****_]
Pornability : [**___]
Obscurity : [**___]
Explicability : [**___]

I/O

I picked up Simon Logan's I/O a few months back along with a bunch of other independent and self-published fiction (from Mellick, et. al.), back before I learned the true value of an editor. Being a collection of short stories, the omission isn't as painful here, though a decent copy editor would certainly have caught the grammatical errors.

This is a thin volume of 8 very similar stories: various loners in industrial settings (junkyards, factories, wastelands) striving after women who wound them. The final story, of course, proving the exception to this rule and revolving around a group of women who seduce and kill celebrities.

The writing is young and self-indulgent: every verb has its adverb, every noun its adjectives, every sentence its string of clauses that enhance, support, or belabor a simple subject-verb-object combination. Unpolished prose.

Some of the ideas are interesting enough, "Ignition" being the most fun to read, "Foetal Chambers" and "Irong Lung" having good rough concepts (if sparse treatment), and "Method of Pulse" visualized well enough to make a decent animated short. So there is promise.

Taken as a whole, though, the work is too amateurish to be worth reading. The ideas, the writing, even the setting of these "industrial fiction" stories have a from-the-hip feel: not considered, not thought out, not crafted. All in all, a slow, rough read.