Meteor crash-lands, parasite infects local man, spawning an alien invasion of slugs that turn their hosts into zombies. The small town is doomed!
Firefly's Nathan Fillion is horrible as usual (psst! Nathan, act!) as the town cop, but Don Thompson more than carries the weight of the film as the foul-mouthed mayor.
* * * R A T I N G * * *
Slither (IMDB)
Wince : [***__]
Flinch : [***__]
Retch : [***__]
Gape : [***__]
Beerequisite : [***__]
Pornability : [*____]
Obscurity : [**___]
Explicability : [***__]
Showing posts with label parasites. Show all posts
Showing posts with label parasites. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Cloverfield
Hyped in Manhattan, hated by Ron Jeremy*, compared with Blair Witch due to its "found footage" approach.
This is a simple film: a monster is rampaging through Manhattan, the main characters are idiots, everyone dies. The film's big money shot, the head of the Statue of Liberty getting rolled down some LES street, is shown fairly early to let you know that it's time to just sit back and watch everyone get killed.
Very enjoyable, for what it is -- what it is being a monster movie with no script to speak of and a lot of shaky camera work (which, if you follow modern cinema at all, shouldn't bother you). Seeing it in Manhattan makes you leave the theater cringing, constantly on the lookout for CGI tentacle-legs to come crushing down from above.
The monster is a vague CGI thing that seems different every time it appears (oops?), the introductory party/romance scene is far too long and dull, and the character with the camera not only fails to point it in the right direction, but is so annoying that you find yourself pray he dies so that someone else can take a turn behind the lens.
All in all: fun to watch, more fun to bitch about at the pub afterwards.
* * * R A T I N G * * *
Cloverfield (IMDB)
Wince : [****_]
Flinch : [***__]
Retch : [***__]
Gape : [**___]
Beerequisite : [****_]
Pornability : [_____]
Obscurity : [_____]
Explicability : [**___]
* Ron Jeremy does not appear in or around this film; He simply expressed His great Displeasure at a book-signing shortly after seeing this.
This is a simple film: a monster is rampaging through Manhattan, the main characters are idiots, everyone dies. The film's big money shot, the head of the Statue of Liberty getting rolled down some LES street, is shown fairly early to let you know that it's time to just sit back and watch everyone get killed.
Very enjoyable, for what it is -- what it is being a monster movie with no script to speak of and a lot of shaky camera work (which, if you follow modern cinema at all, shouldn't bother you). Seeing it in Manhattan makes you leave the theater cringing, constantly on the lookout for CGI tentacle-legs to come crushing down from above.
The monster is a vague CGI thing that seems different every time it appears (oops?), the introductory party/romance scene is far too long and dull, and the character with the camera not only fails to point it in the right direction, but is so annoying that you find yourself pray he dies so that someone else can take a turn behind the lens.
All in all: fun to watch, more fun to bitch about at the pub afterwards.
* * * R A T I N G * * *
Cloverfield (IMDB)
Wince : [****_]
Flinch : [***__]
Retch : [***__]
Gape : [**___]
Beerequisite : [****_]
Pornability : [_____]
Obscurity : [_____]
Explicability : [**___]
* Ron Jeremy does not appear in or around this film; He simply expressed His great Displeasure at a book-signing shortly after seeing this.
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
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)
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)
Saturday, August 25, 2007
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 : [**___]
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 : [**___]
Zebraman
Stripey!
One of the most twisted and innovative directors out there, Takashi Miike, serves up a variant of the generally detestable "if you believe in your dreams, they will come true" films that turns out to be damn entertaining.
The premise is straightforward: take a man who is a failure as an adult(he is unable to befriend or chastise the children he teaches) , a husband (his wife is cheating on him), and a father (his son is bullied at school, and his daughter is a teenage prostitute), give him a lifelong obsession with a superhero whose television show was scrapped after 7 episodes, mix in a wheelchair-bound kid who shares this same obsession, and pit these two against a horde of green-slime aliens bent on taking over the earth.
The failed teacher has made a Zebraman costume as homage to his childhood hero, and at night he dresses up in it and beats the stuffing out of... pillows. One night he ventures outdoors in costume, ostensibly to show his new wheeled friend his black-and-white finery, and encounters another nutcase wearing a crab-mask and wielding two pairs of scissors. Battle ensues. In the course of flailing about like a schoolgirl, the teacher is filled with the spirit of Zebraman, and thus begins his career as a costumed crimefighter.
Miike's rather jaded and unflinching humor crops up now and then, and the story takes a few odd and unexpected turns, making for an unconventional superhero-wannabe movie. It is well-worth the two-hour investment and, however predictable the rest of the film may be, no-one is going to be able to forsee the Zebraman finishing move.
* * * R A T I N G * * *
Zebraman (IMDB)
Wince : [***__]
Flinch : [***__]
Retch : [*____]
Gape : [***__]
Beerequisite : [***__]
Pornability : [*____]
Obscurity : [**___]
Explicability : [***__]
Scene I'd watch on endless loop: "Zebranurse!"
Doubly-irreverant nickname I keep wanting to use: "Miike Mouse"
One of the most twisted and innovative directors out there, Takashi Miike, serves up a variant of the generally detestable "if you believe in your dreams, they will come true" films that turns out to be damn entertaining.
The premise is straightforward: take a man who is a failure as an adult(he is unable to befriend or chastise the children he teaches) , a husband (his wife is cheating on him), and a father (his son is bullied at school, and his daughter is a teenage prostitute), give him a lifelong obsession with a superhero whose television show was scrapped after 7 episodes, mix in a wheelchair-bound kid who shares this same obsession, and pit these two against a horde of green-slime aliens bent on taking over the earth.
The failed teacher has made a Zebraman costume as homage to his childhood hero, and at night he dresses up in it and beats the stuffing out of... pillows. One night he ventures outdoors in costume, ostensibly to show his new wheeled friend his black-and-white finery, and encounters another nutcase wearing a crab-mask and wielding two pairs of scissors. Battle ensues. In the course of flailing about like a schoolgirl, the teacher is filled with the spirit of Zebraman, and thus begins his career as a costumed crimefighter.
Miike's rather jaded and unflinching humor crops up now and then, and the story takes a few odd and unexpected turns, making for an unconventional superhero-wannabe movie. It is well-worth the two-hour investment and, however predictable the rest of the film may be, no-one is going to be able to forsee the Zebraman finishing move.
* * * R A T I N G * * *
Zebraman (IMDB)
Wince : [***__]
Flinch : [***__]
Retch : [*____]
Gape : [***__]
Beerequisite : [***__]
Pornability : [*____]
Obscurity : [**___]
Explicability : [***__]
Scene I'd watch on endless loop: "Zebranurse!"
Doubly-irreverant nickname I keep wanting to use: "Miike Mouse"
Monday, August 20, 2007
Brain Damage
Part one of saturday night's double feature.
Oh man, if I had known that this was another offering from Frankenhooker auteur Frank Henenlotter (I just realized how many letters of his name are in that title!), I would have been much more forgiving of the initial badly-acted scenes.
This movie became classic the instant Aylmer, a purple parasitic brainstem (hmm, sounds like a college drink) climbs up on the main character's shoulder and says hello in his (its?) silky voice. The movie has huge anti-drug overtones: Aylmer injects super-addicitive blue liquid into his host's spinal cord which causes them to hallucinate (colors!) while he kills (other) people. Aylmer generally lives in whats-his-name's shirt, though occasionally he ventures down south, leading up to the infamous 'fellatio scene' which is truly what puts this movie on the map.
Alymer carries the movie, leaving you uncaring about the human cast (much as he/it is). I heartily recommend subjecting an unsuspecting victim to this movie.
* * * R A T I N G * * *
Brain Damage (IMDB)
Wince : [***__]
Flinch : [***__]
Retch : [**___]
Gape : [****_]
Beerequisite : [****_]
Pornability : [**___]
Obscurity : [***__]
Explicability : [***__]
Oh man, if I had known that this was another offering from Frankenhooker auteur Frank Henenlotter (I just realized how many letters of his name are in that title!), I would have been much more forgiving of the initial badly-acted scenes.
This movie became classic the instant Aylmer, a purple parasitic brainstem (hmm, sounds like a college drink) climbs up on the main character's shoulder and says hello in his (its?) silky voice. The movie has huge anti-drug overtones: Aylmer injects super-addicitive blue liquid into his host's spinal cord which causes them to hallucinate (colors!) while he kills (other) people. Aylmer generally lives in whats-his-name's shirt, though occasionally he ventures down south, leading up to the infamous 'fellatio scene' which is truly what puts this movie on the map.
Alymer carries the movie, leaving you uncaring about the human cast (much as he/it is). I heartily recommend subjecting an unsuspecting victim to this movie.
* * * R A T I N G * * *
Brain Damage (IMDB)
Wince : [***__]
Flinch : [***__]
Retch : [**___]
Gape : [****_]
Beerequisite : [****_]
Pornability : [**___]
Obscurity : [***__]
Explicability : [***__]
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