One Hundred Posts

Wow.

I never thought that my life would ever take this path. As a kid, it was always about the written word. I spent my days huddled in the corner during recess with the newest Goosebump paperback (High Art at this point) in my lap completely oblivious to the world. My nights would be wasted re-writing for all eternity a paragraph for the epic science fiction/comedy/horror story that would never be. I was going to be a writer.

Everything changed one night.

My Dad let me loose one day in Rogers Video store with the usual request of ‘Pick anything you want’ (Between the lines you could read’ Pick anything you want BUT IT MUST be in the Seven Day rental section. We’re not rich you know.’) I wandered the aisles slowly and meticulously like I always did, picked up a tape every now and then, read the writer-up then put it back because it didn’t pass the test. After five minutes, like he always did, my Dad was ready to leave.

‘You haven’t picked anything yet!? You got one minute to pick something or I am!” he threatened. I knew what that meant. We’d get stuck with Ripper: Letters to a Killer’ or the Ron Pearlman Classic ‘The Kings Guards’ again. My brain-cells cried for mercy. I rushed through the aisles to pick ANYTHING. I stopped in the CULT section because an odd case caught my eye. It showed a man getting out of bed, his face completely over-make-up and his eyes sunk deep into his skull. I had read somewhere that this was the sequel to a movie my dad swore by as a kid “Night of the Living dead.” I had seen the original on a crappy public domain DVD but didn’t really get into it (That later changed on a second viewing) but this one was in colour! That means it must be good! I didn’t see anything else in my eye line so I picked it up and handed it to my Dad. He didn’t even give it a second look. Whatever kept his rascallian children at bay.

Two hours passed. I watched the film.

The VHS ended, the credits finished and the screen went black, but I was still staring at the television screen. My father got up with a parting “That was unsettling” and he went to play on the computer. Time passed. I sat rooted to the chair.

Slowly, I unfolded to a standing position and shuffled over to the computer with a dull look in my eye. I sat down and did something that I never saw any need for before: I searched out reviews, I read on what people had to say on Dawn of the Dead, I wanted to know if there were other films in that genre, I wanted MORE! I spent six hours on this mission– till 3 AM in the morning. The next day I lied about my age to rent a copy of the Peter Jackson film Dead-Alive. After watching it, I discovered it was the R rated cut, so the next day I trudged through the rain for two hours to find an UNRATED Copy. I watched it half a dozen times. I showed all my friends. I bought a copy with my five dollar a week allowance. I wanted MORE!

A monster had been born. I hope to create a few more with this website.

Sincerely,

Justin Decloux

***

My younger brother also watched the Dawn of the Dead with me. He had nightmares for three nights straight. You may know him as Film-Junkie extraordinaire P.H.D

The Stunt Man (USA. 1980)

The hardest reviews to write are that deal with wastes of time that approach their subject matter in a very mediocre fashion (“Generic Teen Slasher Film” “Generic Romantic Comedy” “ Generic Hard-Core Bestiality Musical”. The SLIGHLTY easier but still teeth grindingly painful reviews to write are for the films that approach a MILLION subject matters and their attempt defies all my expectation. At that time, all I want to is put down a one word write up: AWESOME! *confetti shoots everywhere* because I'm not man enough of a writer to actually do the masterwork any justice.

*Takes a deep manly breath and flexes his biceps*

The Stunt-Man is a hard to qualify beast (Action? Comedy? Drama? Thriller?) but in the end it doesn’t matter because it mashes all the genres together so well we’ll just call it “Actdramcom-some” for the record.

The story of a man pretending to be a stunt-man to evade the law is the backbone of the picture but I would never say it’s the films strength. It’s the grander theme of reality-vs-fiction that really stands out and makes this one for the ages. Our hero Stuntman is the everyman (Steve Railsback) is never quite sure what’s part of the real world or what’s part of the filmic one and the audience is never brought into the loop either. We follow his_ adventures as he tries to figure it all out. Is it all part of the scene? Or is that gun loaded with real bullets? You won’t know till the main character does. Thanks to a near perfect job by director Richard Rush the audience is completely wrapped up in the intrigue from the first frame to the last. It’s also ripping comedy, with Peter O’ Toole stealing the show as the director/god-figure with a slew of quotable nuggets of wisdom to drop on the main characters/audience at the drop of the giant floating crane he sits on the whole time. For a picture with all these grand ideas you may believe that this must = slow passed and boring. Perish the thought. I’d even go so far to say that the epically mounted action scene half-way through the picture is one of the greatest I’ve seen in a LONG TIME. Yet it’s not an action film because it’s the only real action “scene”. It’s simply a building block to a greater whole. It wasn’t nominated for Best Screenplay and Best Director at the academy award for nothing.

Final Destination (USA. 2000)

When I approach a film that I slavishly adored as a kid for all the wrong reason (There’s violence! Swearing!) I have to realize that I'm going to be sorely dissapointed when I watch it again with my mature all-knowing adult eyes. The two sequels deliver buckets of gore, but completely ditched character and narratives. They weren't actually films. They're the shiny modern equivalent Mondo Death Documentaries that where super-popular in the VHS days: Killing Clip Shows. The one glimmer of hope I could cling too is that the first film in a franchise should on some rudimentary level actually good. That’s why people want more of them! Right? Maybe they just poisoned our water supply to like crappy movies. That would explain a lot actually.

Alex (Devon Sawa) is about to head to Paris on a field trip with his French class when he has an awful premonition: The plane is going to explode. He panics like a madman and gets kicked off the plane (dragging a few other classmates with him) and just as everyone’s calling him crazy, BOOM, the plane turns into a fire-ball. It turns out they were all supposed to die on the plane but thanks to Alex’s psychic vision, which is never explained, they’ve foiled death plan. They may be alive for now but an unstoppable life force is PISSED and now it’s out for blood. I hope no one is looking forward to their prom.

Ditching the hip and retarded character clichés that haunt most modern day Horror films, Final Destination succeeds at giving us reasonably intelligent kids reacting to an completely out there situation. The big draw here is that the director and writers are massive classical horror fans from the outset. Every frame of the film is built from the ground up. The characters are named after horror directors, the camera moves smoothly and the score is classic scare movie stuff from Shirley Walker. Keep your eyes peeled for foreshadowing of how everyone is going to die within the first fifteen minutes! Its specific movie nerd stuff that no one will ever consciously notice (Unless you’re a movie nerd and you listen to commentary track *coughcough*), but it still means that the filmmakers actually cared instead of wanting to pump out the product of the week. Never seen again on a theater screen (He currently resides in Direct to Video Hell) Devon Sawa is great as the poor kid who has to make everyone believe that a unseen force is out to kill them because they deserve to die (Isn’t that God’s job?) The rest of the teens are pretty disposable, in the literal and figurative sense, and they don’t make much of an impression unless you count the blood that splatters onto the survivors. It doesn’t disappoint on the gore factor, but it’s still baby steps for a series that became famous for its crazy Rube-Goldberg type machines. It’s not nearly as gratuitous as part 1 or 2 and for that reason alone the whole film feels classier. For the bargain bin price it goes for these days, it’s well worth a spot in any horror fans collection

NOTE: The original ending (Available on the DVD) was a lengthy meditation on the nature of death and the fact that everyone dies one day. Audiences hated it. They replaced it with the SHOCKER ending that caps the current version of the film. I have to agree with the audience on this one.

Midnight Meat Train (USA. 2008)

It smells like trouble when a film has its theatrical release date pushed back indefinitely. The eyes start to water when the film completely disappears off the calendar. Finally, an annoying vomit flavored after-taste starts to form when the film is announced as a Direct to DVD title. Midnight Meat Train is one of those films and when the opportunity to see it arose I made it my mission to discover exactly why this fate had befallen it. Based on the cult favorite short story from the Books of Blood by horror auteur Clive Barker, it’s also the first North American Picture from Japanese director Ryuhei Kitamura (One of the most loved/hated director working today.) I was baffled. There was some solid names behind the film, so why was it being treated like the retarded cousin that ate the cat?

New York Photographer Leon Kauffman (Bradley Cooper) has a good life. He has a beautiful wife (Lesliee Bibb), he takes photographs for a living, and his friend (Roger Bart) just introduced him to one of the biggest art figures in the city. When his work gets savagely critiqued for “Not sticking around to photograph the REAL moment” he promises go that extra mile. Leon ends up a up photographing and stopping a mugging/rape late at night in on a subway platform. He stops it, but when the woman shows up missing the next day that his paranoia alights. Could the scary looking giant (Vinnie Jones) be the killer? If so, how could it have been going back since the 1900’s? Is there something bigger going on here? Or is it all in his mind?

I started to panic when I realized there was sixteen producers/co-producers/executive producers/Evil Lord Masters that had overseen the production. Was this the guillotine guilty for the decapitation? Had everyone’s vision been diluted down to nothing but skin and bones? Not to my blood covered eyes or ears. Everything here reeks of a team at their creative peak. Kitamura’s over-excess sensibilities in the pacing department are kept under wraps but his visual style is pristinely intact. I felt like I was watching camera moves choreographed by Argento in his prime. And for a serial killer film, I was surprised that there was very little repetition to the kill scenes. This is the bloodiest mainstream (by a major studio) I’ve seen in years. There’s absolutely no way the cut I saw is being awarded a “R” rating: Slow motion bullets through eyes, a woman split up the middle (Pregnant Horror Film “Inside” style”) and enough Hammer to Face mashing to keep you nice and tender. Visually everything here is aces. It’s the script that slips on the red stuff and cracks its skull

Bradley Cooper fights his way out of the “Supporting Actor’s” club to and does an admirable job. His role as the photographer investigating the subway-death is likeable at first, but when the story goes into “Dark Territory” the audience is left in the dust. As he goes completely nuts the filmmakers realize the audiences sympathies are disappearing and they try to make up for it by shifting the focus to the lead’s wife and best friend. It could have worked. Instead, we’re treated to a slew of idiotically ‘Story Furthering’ decisions that completely kill the momentum. “Let’s go the Killer’s Apartment! Nothing wrong can happen there!” If it weren’t for the solid gut punch ending, I would have cursed them for killing so many precious brain-cells.

On most counts, Midnight Meat Train succeeds. It’s visually engrossing, the acting and story are (mostly) solid and it has a great lead villain in Vinnie Jones. It only falters in an illogical last act. No matter, the gore factor is selling point to the genre crow and they don’t have to worry. No punches are pulled. If this is the kind quality material that Kitamura’s going to deliver in Hollywood, I hope he stays there. Let’s just hope that his next film (A remake of VERSUS !?!?) isn’t caught in distribution hell. We may have bodies on our hands if it does.

Recon 2020: The Caprini Massacre (Canada. 2004)

From the vault of yee-old Reviews:


Director: Christian Viel

Most people consider having their work classified as a "genre film" quite restricting. Every class has its own set of rules and regulations that need to be upheld. You can't just go do whatever you want. For RECON 2020, director Christian Viel screams "SCREW THAT!" and proceeds to throw everything on-screen. It's not a 'genre' per-see, but a mixture of everything that has ever been cool. We find sci-fi, chicks, and every monster imaginable. It's an awe-inspiring sight. But does it work?

It's another poo-kick mission, as a group of marines find themselves on Clean-Up duty on the Caprini planet. They quickly discover that things aren't pleasant in Pleasantville. It seems that the planet used to be a science facility, and the previous tenants left their junk behind (A.K.A: An army of genetic mutations). Understaffed and running out of bullets, our heroes need to fend for their lives at every turn. It's going to get bloody.

Recon 2020 is the Monster Rumble comic you drew up as a kid. Like that comic, this film suffers from being overstuffed with ideas. There are so many creatures, that most of them become lost, and therefore unappreciated. We are delighted to see one appear, only to have him vanish for the rest of the film's running time. Director/Writer Christian Viel realizes this catch-22 and makes up for it by keeping the best for last. The story suffers from this, feeling episodic and a little stilted. We don't mind considering that we have cyborgs, evil aliens, werewolves, and zombies to keep us busy. It’s all about enjoying the ride! But keep your expectations in check. This is still a low-budget production. The CGI monsters are exactly that, CGI monsters (especially in a sequence involving bugs). Considering the sheer amount of work that went into the effects of this film, the quality is still impressive. The professional looking space-ship scenes look amazing. We also have a few prosthetic beasties in the mix for a little old-school feel. As for the action sequences, non-stop is being modest. Bullets zing, punches are thrown, and explosions rock the screen constantly. The audience rarely gets the chance to stop and clean themselves up from their own drool. All we can do is marvel in awe at the sheer pure excitement dancing in front of our eyes. This is why you started watching movies in the first place.

Most of the actors are average at best. It's the cursed "woodeness". A name barely registers before the character is cut into tiny bloody pieces. The only standouts are a few key marines. They keep things interesting while the others await to be gunned down. The film is paced with a steady and sure directing hand. Mr. Viel knows how to shoot an action scene, no doubt about that. Even the necessary dialogue doesn't hurt. Too much.

RECON 2020 is going to be a cult classic. Anyone who says otherwise is a liar. And a bad one at that. It cements Christian Viel as one of the most entertaining (and prolific) directors arising from the junk coming out of Canada. All we can do now is await the sequel which is already in Pre-Production. How much cooler and awe-inspiring will it be? Well, we have no choice but to wait and see.

I'’ll see you in line.

Starship Troopers 3: Maurauder (USA. 2008) and The Chaser (KOREA. 2008)

Saturday Double Feature !

The Chaser (South Korea. 2008)

…is an incredibly hyped little flick famous for making the most dough at the box office EVER in its country of origin, South Korea. It was a relatively low budget production, has no stars and is from a new productions company. The story is about an ex-detective turned pimp who discovers that his hookers weren’t abandoning him at all but where instead being killed by a psycho who likes to work with hammers and nails.

I have absolutely no idea where the MASSIVE success of this film stems from. The story isn’t particular original (but it does go in an interesting direction thirty minutes in), the direction is kind of bland and the stars fit their roles well but never bowl us. The damn thing last a way overlong two hours, but that’s par for the course when it comes to films from Korea. It’s a solid little picture and nothing else. I wouldn’t slavishly recommend it or universally pan it. If you’ve seen everything else the country had to offer in the last eight years then check this one, otherwise put it on your TO-WATCH list and wait it out.

Starship Troopers 3: Marauders (USA. 2008)

Casper Van Dien is back! The festivities may begin again! After a completely lack luster D.T.V sequel to the original classic gore-fest that jettisoned any link to the first, the original screen-writer Edward Neumeir has returned for the third part as both the writer and director. My hope for a fun little ride quickly dimmed as I realized the bugs themselves look about four years behind the 1997 original and the budget was only enough to cover a gallon of blood and one decapitated head. The first half of the film presented enough original material to keep me entertained (It’s Trench Warfare!) but after that it quickly turns into an uninteresting “People lost in sparsely populated enemy territory” adventure. The Van Dien gets jettisoned from the main plot line and is forgotten until he makes an appearance in a quick ending that only delivers to the people with lowest of low expectation. There could have been two stories going on here and they picked the wrong one to follow. That’s actually a pretty big theme in the film: Present interesting ideas and do nothing with them.

Step-Brothers (USA. 2008)

A minimalistic product from directorial/actor combo Adam Mckay/Will Ferell, Step Brothers follows the plot less silliness that two forty year olds (Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly) who still live with their parents get up too. It’s nowhere near as laugh out loud funny as Anchorman or even their weaker sauced second collabaration Talladega Nights, but it still succeeds at hitting the silliness bone a few times, even if it’s the same note over and over again. They just hit it harder everytime.

Brennan Huff (Will Ferell) is a thirty nine year old that still lives with his mother. Dale Doback (John C. Reilly) is a forty year old that still lives with his father. Both of them find themselves at odds when they their parents get married and both boys…uh…men…find themselves in the same house. It wouldn’t be too bad if it weren’t for the fact that they Hate. Each. Other. A massive battle of epic proportions has only just BEGUN! It’ll involve drums AND samurai swords (signed by Randy Bachman of American Idol Fame!) AND Centaurs! YEA!

Do you like Will Ferell’s man boy acting? Can you picture yourself liking John C. Reilly imitating Will Ferell’s man boy acting? If the answer to those two questions are ‘By the beard of Zeus, YES!” then you’re the correct audience to properly enjoy this little ride. Here’s the formula for the next 90 minutes: Will Ferell say’s something like “Call me DarkRaven!” and Reilly replies with “Call me Dragon!” and then they make an obscure pop culture reference and swing a variation on the word FUCK-TARD-DATION-RETARD. Every now and then they fight like babies. That’s the movie in a nut-shell. It doesn’t really deviate. That type of joke happens so fast and furious that almost starts to feel like a warm fuzzy blanket after a while. It’s a shame they couldn’t have structure something a little more memorable. Maybe Anchorman 2: Anchor Harder? I’ll be there as long as Paul Rudd is involved. He is my sex-panther.

NOTE: I don’t think saying the word “Fuck” is funny. I don’t care if it’s from an old lady, a child or large bespectacled rhinoceros. I’m not going to laugh because “THEY WOULD NEVER SAY THAT!? HAHAHAHAHA!” It’s lazy. Stop it.

Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer (Canada. 2008)

Straight from Our Home And Native Land comes a CGI free prosthetic monster mash! The Director and Screenwriter are screaming to the heavens that this is a massive fan letter to the 80’s OTT fun that used to appear on a weekly basis in their OVER-SIZED VHS GLORY in your local Mom and Pop Rental Shoppe. I can’t deny that claim. It’s a shame that their attempt to emulate their favourite films from the days of old doesn’t bring anything new to the table.

“As a child Jack Brooks witnessed the brutal murder of his family. Now a young man he struggles with a pestering girlfriend, therapy sessions that resolve nothing, and night classes that barely hold his interest. After unleashing an ancient curse, Jack's Professor undergoes a transformation into something not-quite- human, and Jack is forced to confront some old demons... along with a few new ones”

I’m impressed that this doesn’t low budget production. There’s money on the screen here and it’s evident from the cinematography to the casting of Horror Icon (TM) Robert Englund. The monsters themselves aren’t exactly mind-blowing in their originality, but they do look fucking cool! There’s a Cyclops, a troll like beast, mutated humans and the final big baddie (who’s more cartoony then anything). The hero of the tale Jack Brooks himself (Trevor Matthews) is a good-looking and slightly charismatic guy, but like most of the film, he never really becomes his own cinematic presence. He’s there and he kicks monster ass in competent fashion. That’s it. The direction is energetic and the screenplay moves along at a brisk clip without throwing too many twists and turns. There aren’t any crazy creative scenes, hilarious one liners or gasp inducing moments. It’s just a decent, fun experience. You could say that it wastes a lot of opportunity (The Anger thing is never really played out and some fun characters are killed way too quick), but you also say it does a serviceable job of something that doesn’t really exist anymore.

I left the theater with a smile on my face. The details of the experience leaked out of my ears by the time I waked up the next morning.

Repo: The Genetic Opera! (USA. 2008)

REPO! Is an anomaly in universe. It was funded by an actual studio (Lions Gate), it’s a musical (An R rated one!), it doesn’t have any big stars (Paris Hilton is not a star. She’s a cancer.) and it’s gory subject matter (“Live Organ Repossession!”) is out-there to say the least for Mr and Mrs. Doe who loved that edgy film where Superstar Jesus Christ belted out those electric jams! They can’t even get have the torture porn loving pre-teens audience either, because there’s all that “QUEER! ” singing on screen (“SLAYER RULES!) I’d hate to be the producer that wakes up and realizes he “A-Okay’ed” this little gem of an idea during a coke fuelled round of Scattegories.

Now that we’ve gotten the obvious out of the way, I’m just going to tell you if the flick is any good or not.

“At the heart of the story is Shilo Wallace (Alexa Vega), a 17 year-old girl with a rare blood disease. She has been kept locked up and protected in her house, where she is guarded from the outside world by her father, Nathan Wallace (Anthony Head). While Shilo struggles with her wish to leave the house and experience the outside world, Nathan struggles with his job as the repo man, and more specifically, his next target, a woman named Blind Mag (Sarah Brightman). Blind Mag was a friend of Nathan's now-deceased wife, and is Shilo's godmother.”

The world (of what we see of it) pops with futurist grimness and boasts a catchy enough (I’ll get back to that further down) musical score. Anthony Stewart Head is mesmerizing as the lead “Repo man” and his booming emotional voice saved a few songs that could have landed flat on their face. Alexa Vega as his daughter has a strong precense, but I can’t help but picture any generic teen pop star’s face to her singing voice. The rest of the cast pull off their roles admirably. Paul Sorvino acts with all the bluster that his evil role demands. Bill Mosley is his evil psycho self. Sarah Brightman does her song and dance (How the hell did she get here?). Paris Hilton didn’t make me cringe when she appeared on screen. She actually fit the role of the drugged up ditzy cutter addict perfectly! Who woulda thunk it?The thing that surprised me the most was the scale of the story. We get a few EPIC! swoop-y CGI shots of a futuristic city, but other than that the whole thing takes place in about five locations. The songs are operatic to the extreme but characters live in their own small universe. I could feel that this was once an off-Broadway play that was put on in a tiny bar. It isn’t bad, just a sign that everyone believes that the actual songs will carry the film home. Not many explosions here folks.

Finally, we talk about all that musical madness: If people need to speak in REPO they do it in a sing-song fashion that usually (but not always) ditches the verse-chorus-verse structure of a regular song for a more free form poetry variety. At first, it was a bit disconcerting and the music squished didn’t stand out. They sounded like nothing more than someone putting inflections on poetry with some generic music backing it up. It isn’t until Mr. Head open his mouth to belt out a tune that the music improves considerably. We start to feel each song become its own entity and the ride smoothes out till the curtain finally closes. The direction by Darren Lynn Bousman is seemingly work-manlike, but that’s only because he pulls the camera back and lets his performers...well...perform. There’s no flashy quick cuts, uncomfortable close ups or sped up motion here. There are a few stylish touches (Comic Book Back Stories) but nothing that draws unnecessary attention to itself. The subject matter is odd enough that it doesn’t need flash to make it appealing. Darren Lynn directed the first ever live REPO show ten years ago and this world is all his. The only styalistic Saw cross-over is a completely unnecessary re-cap of the whole film in thirty seconds. Damn. That's annoying

At the end of the day (and this over long review) it all comes down to two things: Do you like musicals? Do you like horror themed subject matter reaching on its tippie toes for cult success? If you answer YES to one of those and are willing to give a little leeway to the second then check this chipped treasure out.

NOTE: Bousman shot a short 10 MINUTE demo reel for this a few years back in a bid to get financing. The short starred Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer star Micheal Rooker!

Tunnel Rats (USA. 2008)

Director: Uwe Boll

War is violent. People die. And according to Tunnel Rats, they do so in a variety of creatively painful ways. They drown, they asphyxiate, they get blown up by friendly fire, and they get impaled in the neck by a bamboo shaft, I’m surprised no one choked on a pretzel.

A rag tag group of men are sent into the underground tunnels dug by the North Vietnamese to...explore...I guess? They range from grizzled black/white moral veterans to leftie fresh recruits. All of them have their own opinions on the war, but no one really goes into it. They all die horrible deaths. The End.

Famous for being the worst director working today, Uwe Boll delivers a snazzy looking picture set during Vietnam War that really has no reason to exist. Everyone here is given a quick introduction, thrown into a combat situation and then promptly killed in a nasty way. There’s no character development, twists (Unless you count the way they bite it) and the story/movie ends when the last character breathes his last breath. War is hell. We get it. There’s nothing to complain about on isn’t the technical or acting side (which is B-level decent) side of things. The problem is that this film serves absolutely no purpose. It looks good, is relatively engaging and it does a a solid job at presenting both sides of the conflict, but at the end of the day it isn’t anything we haven’t seen before when it comes to war films. It’s an interesting claustrophobic concept to have the men stuck in dark tunnels lit by only one flashlight, but it never translates to anything engaging. If they cut the characters down by half, ditched some of the exploitative gore and concentrated on an actual story, maybe we’d have something to recommend, but as it stands it’s nothing more than an oddity. Bravo for not giving me a film that made me want to claw my eyes out Dr. Boll, now all you have to do is work on one that I’d actually want to watch a second time and maybe I’ll invite you for supper.

Spaced is out on REGION 1 DVD!

The greatest thirty minute British sitcom since EVER (!!!) is now on a DVD and you don’t need to VOODO your DVD player to get it to dance on your screen! All fourteen episodes in the two series look as good as they ever will (Shot for TV that is) and none of the music has been switched around as it’s sometimes done on these series imports. The disc is also packed to the gills with fourteen commentary tracks (Two per episode) with half of them feature super famous geek guests (Kevin Smith, Quentin Tarantino, Patton Oswald, Diablo Cody). We also get deleted scenes, bloopers and a hour and a half commentary retrospective documentary. There’s nothing missing here, so, what are you waiting for!? LOVE!?

It’s pricey, 45 bucks at Future-Shop, but you can’t live the next five minutes without it.

The Butcher (Korea. 2007)

Torture. Lots of it.

That pretty much sums up this independently produced offering from South Korea. The skeleton of the story is about four people in a barn being filmed for a low budget snuff film overseen by a middle aged man named ‘The Director’ and his teenage helper. The ‘Star’ of the Snuff flick (A bulky man in a pig mask) cuts the victims, rapes them, chops off bits and pieces with a chainsaw and is generally a pretty nasty gentleman. There’s no three act structure, no heroes, no real characters and VERY little humour. It’s the closest thing you’ll probably get to a snuff film without actually dealing with a one eyed Thai man in the deepest darkest DVD stores. The film’s novelty is that it’s almost completely shot from the camera that’s mounted on one of the victim’s head (There’s a few cuts to ‘The Director’s’ camera every now and then to show how badly the Victim is hurt). It gets nauseating to say the least, not only from the vicious emotional and physical violence on display, but also from the wobbly camera that shakes, rattles and rolls with the victim’s constant sobbing.

Is it a commentary on cinema’s obsession with the ‘Torture Porn’ genre? Or is it just someone’s attempt to scare us without any of the frills like fun thrown in? Whatever it is, it did its job to unnerve me and I never want to see it again. Ever. Take that as a success or not.

"HE LEFT US TO DIE!"

I'm out of town again on a movie orgy in the strange and scary city of Montreal. Back with you all on Monday! To get through this torturous break you can probably go see a movie to pass the time. You probably like movies! Why not check out that The Dark Knight motion picture those youngsters are yapping about? I heard it's supposed to be pretty good. I might be wrong. Don't take my word on it.

Tokyo Gore Police (Japan. 2008)

DIRECTOR: Yoshihiro Nishimura

My hands hurt from clapping.

Tokyo Gore Police came onto my radar with a thundering splash of the red stuff. The trailer was five minutes of inspired madness that didn’t drop a single hint about the story but regaled me instead with a merry-go-round of insane sights. I saw a woman fighting with a chainsaw in each hand, a man with a giant gun in the place of his *whispers*…penis, nightmare half girl/half crocodile hybrids! And the blood! My god, there was so much BLOOD! It sprayed out of people as if they where a can of pop that had just spent a fortnight in a paint shaker. All it took was an elegant sword stroke and…PSHHHHHHH! I felt sticky after ten seconds.

Of course, that means I wanted to make sweet love to it.

Yet, deep down in my cynical heart, I knew there was no way the final product could deliver on everything the short flurry of images that had just been burned onto my cortex. Trailers are built on the bones of all the best parts of the film. They want us to see it after all. I was bound to be disappointed.

I was wrong, oh, I was so very wrong.

“In the near future...The Tokyo Police force has been privatized and incorporated. The new force has their hands full with a new type of genetically engineered mutant stalking the streets and brutally taking human lives. Luca, the top level officer at Tokyo Police has special law enforcement skills but her dark past makes her vulnerable. She is determined to hunt the mutant known as “Engineer” until the day she can find and destroy the mysterious “Key-Man”.”
Director/Screenwriter/Special Effects Creator Yoshihiro Nishimura doesn’t know the meaning of the word excess. He confuses it with “We need more schoolgirls who shoot acid out of their breasts!” and I love him for it. I’m honestly at a loss to reviewing the film without falling into a hyperbolic pit of babbling incomprehensibly praise and bowing till my knees don’t bend anymore. I can’t even tell you my favorite part. All I can do is stare off fuzzy eyed into the distance and groan

Do you need anything else?

“This movie isn’t for everyone” said Captain Obvious. The thing is called GORE POLICE for Ofler the Crocodile God’s sake! There’s going to be geysers of blood shooting everywhere. People will have their limbs chopped off. If you find that boring and receptive go and play in the street! If by chance your curly haired boyfriend dragged you to it, at least you can sit securely in the knowledge that this sucker has an actual story to hang its unhygienic set-pieces off of. I bought lead actresses Eihi Shiina journey to find her father’s murder. The direction over-the-top and cheap, but never comes off as lazy. He goes BAT-SHIT SWOOPING whenever the madness happen and keeps everything well framed the rest of the time. The lighting design pops off the screen in bright primary colors that fit the mood perfectly. The best compliment I can bestow on it is that I can see myself watching (and forcing loved ones, children and my monkey butler to watch against their will) the whole thing in one straight sitting. I never felt an intense urge to hit the fast-forward button which is a rarity with this type of flick. It’s by no means a nonstop rollercoaster due to a few unnecessary special effects show off moments (A fifteen minute side-plot that is nothing but an excuse to show off some weirdly designed freaks being the most obvious offender) but as a whole the going ons were creative enough to keep me interested.

The director said the film was shot in fifteen days. He said they did roughly 100 setups a day. I had a nightmare last night of the horror that would be birthed if he was given a real budget and loose to run wild. I imagine the end result was the end of the world. I hope they have seats available.

PSHHHHHHHHH!

P.S: In one of the hilarious Verhoeven (Director of Robocop) style Commercials that pepper the film, keep an eye out for Versus and Midnight Meat Train director Ryuhei Kitamura as the test-driver for the homemade Seppuku kit.

The Dark Knight: First Thoughts

I am back home at 5 AM after a midnight, employee only showing of The Dark Knight at Silvercity Gloucester with good news that you probably already know: the new Batman film is fantastic. Truly, this is a comic book film for the 21st century. Visually sharp and precise, gritty in tone and plot, it is the new high standard in the decidedly crowded genre of the "super-hero" film.

First of all, I'll go through several minor gripes before heaping praise on this one, so here we go. First of all, the deep, growly Batman voice kinda-sorta doesn't work. Several times, the audience in my theater (which cheered and clapped at several moments and at the end of the film) groaned at its silliness. Secondly, Gyllenhaal was good, not great as Rachel. Thirdly, the pacing flags under the Hong Kong subplot. That's it. Everything else in this movie is great to excellent.

Heath Ledger's Joker is without a doubt the best performance I've seen this year, which just makes the actor's passing that much more wrenching. His little quirks and mannerisms, his twisted elocution and anarchic tendencies not only make him the most frightening screen villain I have ever seen, but also the most interesting. This performance is going to be remembered a long, long time.

The action is much better than Batman Begins' muddled work, but Nolan could take some cues from Guillermo Del Toro and zoom it out a bit more so we can see what's going on. And the IMAX, oh man. The IMAX camera just adds so much detail, especially in those wide city shots (were those IMAX? they sure looked it).

I'm very tired now, and must get some rest before maybe adding some more thoughts. I very highly recommended this film to everyone, even those who loathed Batman Begins.

Cheers!

Bad Biology (USA. 2008)

Director: Frank Hennelotter

After a 15 years hiatus, granddaddy exploitation director Frank Hennelotter is back to bring us a sexually centric package that promises to be filled with all the laughs and shock we'd expect from the man who brought us the out-there masterpieces "Basket Case" and "Frankenhooker". Will we be covered in goo? Gag uncontrollably? Tell all our friends that we've been scarred for life?

Not quite.

A woman with seven clitorises has the nasty bad habit of killing her lovers during orgasm. A man with a giant sentient penis can't keep it calm. Both of them shall come together and make beautiful love. Or make something horrific. It could go either way.

Keep your expectations in check, because while Bad Biology is a fun gross out chuckle fest, it's by no means the mondo madness that word of mouth has made it out to be. Horror is out the window here and its goofy humor that's taking the forefront. That would be fine if they went completely over the top, but we aren't that lucky. There's a little gore here, but nothing you haven't seen before. The shocks themselves come from the weirdness on display (Vagina P.O.V, Massive Veiny Penis) but in today's world of OVERTHETOPMOREMOREMORE it almost seems sedate.

For half of the film, we follow the girl's attempt to find the ultimate orgasm. She kills the people during sex and takes arty photos of their dead bodies. Repeat. For the other half, we follow the man try valiantly to find a way to calm down his extremely agitated member. He takes animal hormones, uses a massive masturbation machine and watches industrial amount of porn. Repeat. Both freaks never meet until the last ten minutes of the film. Funny stuff happens in between, but most of it is inconsequential to the grand picture. There's no real conflict to completely wrap you up in the narrative. We know from the beginning that both of them are going to meet and have sex. Everything should built to that moment, but it doesn't here. The bulk of the film feels like nothing more than a few comedy skits that don't add up. The entire last act shocker **SPOILER** The Penis leaves its master and goes on a sex rampage END SPOILER*** feels like a desperate attempt to please the audience with tons of full frontal nudity. The thing is, they needed to do something with the nudity, not just give it to us over...and over...and over again.

Shot on 35MM and properly lit, "Bad Biology" is the best looking film of Hennelotter's career. The writing is witty, the actors are hammy ham fisted but enthusiastic enough to win the audience over and Hennelotter brings his the most stylistic direction of his whole career. Bad Biology is by no means a second coming (Sadly) but it is a solid genre effort that everyone should give a watch. Where else can you see a penis gasping for dear life?

Wicked Lake (USA. 2007)

Director: Zach Passero

Cool Poster!

...

Now that we've got the positive out of the way...

From Fever Dream Productions (Machine Girl, Tokyo Gore Police) the straight to DVD Film Production Company that seems to KNOW what the fans want comes...uh...something we don’t really want. Wicked Lake does out the greatest sin in the exploitation film world: It’s not fun.

Four girls go to an isolated cabin to have fun. A bunch of rednecks show up and torture them. The girls turn out to be witches and torture the men. All of it is quite dull. The film ends at some point.

Jeez, I don’t want to rip into this film too much because by now even the readers in cheap seats know I it didn’t it for me. There’s nothing original here. The acting is terrible and not in a “So BAD its GOOD” way. The kills are dull and mostly off-screen. For a gore film, it was pretty gore free. Nothing funny happens and the few attempts at laughs are forced and awkward. No fun here. The editing is completely wonky (There are two cops’ characters that come out of nowhere). It lasts forever.

Still reading?

Well, the film looks pretty good. It’s well lit, colourful (four colour comic book style at times) and most of the camera moves are smooth. And there’s NUDITY! The voluptuous pretty girls (in a porn star kinda way) strip down and make-out for about 1/3^rd of the running time! That’s all swell and good , but porn can give me all the busty naked hot girls I want. Most of it is more interesting than this.

I met the director afterwards, and he was a nice guy all around, so I hope that this was a budget issue that he’ll fix on his next film. Best of luck man! You’ll need it.

X-Cross (Japan. 2007)

Director: Kenta Fukasaku

The only reason I saw X-cross was because I had time to kill. The trailer made it out to be nothing more than a pedestrian entry in the Japanese Horror Genre (Slow Paced, Moody and populated by paper thin female characters ready to scream at the drop of a hat) and as the first fifteen minutes spooled out before me I couldn’t help but feel my eyes glaze over. The production was slick, the director seemed to have a firm grasp on the material at hand and the actresses were passable if unexciting. The problem was that the subject matter was uninteresting. The girl gets chased by crazy cultist villagers. There’s lots of screaming and falling. There’s a woman with a giant pair of scissors dressed as a Victorian doll that won’t die until she gets BLOODY revenge.

Yawn

…Wait…What was that last thing?

Shiyori and Aiko head off to a steam bath retreat in the secluded mountains to blow off some *giggles* steam. Shiyori wants to forget the fact that she caught her boyfriend cheating on her. Aiko wants to continue juggling her five ‘boyfriends’ she keeps on the side. They could probably get it done too, if it wasn’t for the unnerving 110 year old landlady, creepy scarecrows and the legend about the villagers cutting off the legs of women to appease their mountain gods. Whoops. That could be a problem. Before you know it, the girls are running for their life as a mob armed with sharp (Arguably dangerous) things give chase. Did I mention the crazy one eyed woman dressed as a Victorian doll that’s armed with a pair of giant deadly scissors? She’s here too.

Hats off to Director Kenta Fukasaku for completely surprising me. Just as I was about to drift off into ”JUSTIN-IS-BORED-LAND” the film pulls a clever little trick. The title heading CHAPTER 2 appears and we re-wind back to the beginning to follow a different characters path through the same time-frame. Instead of doing a re-hash of what has gone before, the film goes in the completely opposite direction and introduces a completely different plot-line. It becomes an anything goes audience pleasing live action violence filled cartoon! We get chainsaw fights, face melting and giant outhouse explosions! Where do I sign? X-Cross goes from a straight faced shocked to stabbing all the “Oh So Serious” Asian Horror films that have been flooding the market. It pushes the OVERTHETOP button till the whole machine falls over and explodes into a million flashy pieces. That’s not a put-down. It’s actually a compliment. The whole crazy thrill ride is literally a joy to watch with a screaming audience. Director Kenta Fukasaku must have been deceiving us during his last two films (Battle Royale 2 and Yo-Yo Girl Cop) because he was saving the good-stuff for here!

As we left the theater my friend turned to me and said “I wasn’t sure if they were joking or being serious sometimes” and it’s that genre twisting that makes X-Cross really work. Just when you think it’s heading in one direction things flip around completely. It’s not only fun but rewarding. I’m excited to see if Kenta brings the plusses he learned on this film, ditches everything he did wrong before and gives us something that we can truly call classic. Only time will tell. Until then, I’ll keep an eye peeled for a pair of giant novelty scissors of my own.

Justin has dissapeared in a puff of green minty smoke

I`m out of town and nowhere near a computer till Monday... but check back here monday night for a MASSIVE write-up of all the wonders I will witness at this years Fantasia. Cheers.

A Bugs Life (USA .1998)

Directors: Andrew Stanton and John Lasseter

(Please Note: We know that Cars isn’t that good a movie. We’ve forgotten it. Let us never speak of it again.)

Anytime someone say’s “Pixar shits nothing but SOLID GOLD!” everyone’s eyes turn downwards and people shuffle their feet. The silenceis always be broken by one swarmy movie-geek-king/queen who speaks only because he thinks it will win him coveted points “What about the BUG movie?” he says “Isn’t that a crappy film?” I’m ashamed to admit I’d usually agree. I had only seen the film once in cinemas as a child and it never left a big impression on me so I disregarded it with a snobbish snort. No one is perfect so let us laugh at their failure!

But…

Toy Story, Monsters INC, Finding Nemo: All of those got continuous play. How could Pixar foul up with A Bugs Life? It was even directed by Andrew Stanton (Finding Nemo, Wall-E) and John Lasseter (Toy Story, Cars and THE PRESIDENT OF PIXARRRRGH!)! How could it FAIL!?

I decided to give it a second chance. I slowly, with shaky hands, hit play on my remote contro land gritted my teeth. The eternal question would finally be answered:

Why has “A Bugs Life” been spit on, kicked and not been invited to the Friday night get-to-getters?

Every year, a bunch of grasshoppers come to the anthill and eat what the ants have gathered for them. The "offering", as the ants call the ritual, is a part of their fate. One day in spring, when the offering's preparation has just been finished, Flik, unliked inventor ant, accidentally drops the whole offered seeds into the river. The grasshoppers come and give the ants a second chance to collect food until fall. Flik sets off to find bugs that are willing to fight the grasshoppers (nobody expects him to succeed anyway) and, due to a double misinterpretation, returns with a circus crew, giving everybody new hope. When the misunderstanding finally gets cleared out, there is only little time left for a new plan, which has to work, or else... Written by Julian Reischl {julianreischl@mac.com}

Is it because of the lack of a recognizable star studded voice-cast?
Toy Story had Tom Hanks and Tim Allen. Monsters INC had John Goodman and Billy Crystal. Aall we have here are a few B-Listers at the most…but…they all do a fantastic jobs! Dave Foley’s slight feministic twinge is perfect for the noble but physically meek protagonist. Flick The cast of Circus Bugs (Voiced by Dennis Leary and David Hyde Pierce) mesh with their characters perfectly and I never had a “Hey! It’s that guy from that show that’s kinda popular!” dis-connect moment. It dosen’t matter how much they get paid all that matters is that they make you believe in what’s happening on screen. Even Kevin Spacey (Arguably the most recognizable voice) stretches his villain skin over the evil grasshopper gang-leader and adds enough menace to hate his guts.

Is it because the animation looks stale and dated?
Animation can be IN YOUR FACE 3D, SMELL-O-VISION and BURN-YOUR-FACE while it provides you a skilled back massagesA ND still suck ass if you don’t relate to the characters and the world they live in. Pixar has always had the cream of the animation crop and there’s no slumming here. The world is vibrant, alive and filled epic moments for a technology that was still shaking off its placenta (The Rain, The Final Chase, The Grass-Hoppers Arrive are all fully realized cinematic moments). You can have all the fantastic scenery in the world but the success will always lie in the characters themselves. No complaints here. Everyone on screen twitches, roll their eyes and flail all their appendages so convincingly (and without the forced business that plagues most animated film) that you can’t help but feel their real organic people…uh…bugs.

Is it because the story sucks ass? It HAS to be that? We need a reason to MOCK IT!
No…and…Yes. The Seven Samurai Redux is done with skill and class but it fails at one important point: It doesn’t involve you emotionally. I cared if the ants defeated the grasshoppers but I was never worried or thrilled. It works as above average entertainment and provides strong characters but it never really gets under your skin. It also suffers from keeping way too good company, You never feel for Flick’s troubles as deeply as you do those of Woody’s in the Toy Story films or the love for a child in Monsters INC. The message of “All we need to do is believe and stand together” is a good one, but it’s presented here too broadly to completely envelop me as a viewer and make them care. If anything, I consider this a Pixar test-run on a few new ideas. They figured out what works and what doesn’t and that’s why there are a few speed bumps.

In conclusion *clears throat* A Bugs Life is right outside the door of classic status. It has the characters, the storytelling artistry and the re-watch ability…but it doesn’t have an emotional connection with the audience. Add it to your collection, it’s worth it, but don’t expect another Wall-E.

Well…At least it’s better than Cars. Damn. That was too easy. I'm sorry.

A Chinese Ghost Story (Hong Kong. 1987)

The ultimate example of Hong Kong’s everything under the stars cinematic style. For good measures, there’s a handful of magic “WHAT THE HELL!? DID YOU SEE THAT?” dust for everyone who isn't a loyal follower of their brand of mayhem yet. This film will make you a beliver.

(Stolen from LoveHKFILM.com)
« Leslie Cheung stars as Ning, a meek tax collector who finds himself involved in a wacky supernatural romance. He's slated to become a victim to enchanting ghost Nie (Joey Wong), who's bound to an evil tree demon (Lau Siu-Ming) who feed on men's souls. Ning's soul is slated for consumption, but due to a variety of circumstances, he's prevented from becoming soul food. Even more, the comely Nie grows to care for Ning, and vice versa. Then roving ghostbuster Wu Ma shows up to take down spirits with his nifty Taoist methods. There's also impromptu singing, sumptuous production design, and a tree demon with an extraordinarily long tongue. What a great film! »

It’s a flying swordsman (Wuxia) fantasy film. It’s an over the top gore film featuring comedy relief skeletons (They're even rotting!). It’s a luscious visual love story melodrama. It’s all these things and then some! A Chinese Ghost story is a classic. No hyperbole needed, (Well, it isn’t needed but I’ll still call it “The Greatest Piece of Film Since Film Was Invented.” Or “It Re-invents film and then makes it cure cancer and take out your groceries!”)

Leslie Cheung is completely relatable as the doe eyed loverboy who’s thrown from situation to situation and only making it out by the skin of his teeth. The beautiful Joey Wang plays the lovely female ghost who falls in love with the silly human. Wu Ma as the drunken swordsman is the actual “hero” of the story. The Evil Scary Transexual Tree Demons scare me. They’re giant killer tongue scares me more.

The direction by Ching-Sing Tung is energetic in all its swooshing camera glory. There’s a rumour that Tsui Hark (Once Upon a Time In China) who served as an executive producer, actually directed all the non-fighting scenes, and if that’s the truth, we’re all the better for it. There isn’t a frame here that isn’t meticulously composed and pleasing to the eye, which is feels like an anomaly coming from a country that is used to pumping out half-hearted filmic efforts every three days. This isn’t technically high art. Yet. I give it two more years before it’s displayed in Paris. Wait. You’ll see. I’ll be THE ONE LAUGHING THEN! HAHAHAHAHAHA!

Muscle/Blood Heat (Japan. 2004)

More old reviews off of the old site by me. Ignore the horrible spelling, grammar and syntax use and marvel instead at the youthful energy of a young man that loved to watch movies. I'm currently helping my folks move so you may be getting re-runs here for a while. Sorry about the mess.

***

I LIKE action films.

The story doesn’t have to be complex. The characters don’t need to be multilayered. The acting can be as if they were reading there lines off queue cards that were translated through a broken down, third generation ATARI. As long as the glass breaks, bones are crunched, and swooshing sounds accompany the slightest raise of an eyebrow.

Muscle Heat falls straight into this category. The story isn’t enough to explain in one sentence. But as a writer I’m going have to try:

“Joe, an ex-marine, loses a partner and seeks vengeance”

No joke. That’s it. There’s some other stuff about the “Muscle Heat” drug, but it’s really only to clarify some stuff for the final fight (Well, the “real” one. There’s a short skirmish which is a bit weak after it.) And to get everything off at a brisk pace.

The fights (Choreographed by ex-members of the Jackie Chan Stunt team) on the other hand, are worth the price of admission. This is the stuff that you the Fast-Forward through all the talking bits for. With a whopping amount of nine notable action sequences (Including a nice little two-handed pistol gun fight.) this film will hit you like a sack of bricks. Acting wise…well other than v-cinema favorite Show Akiwa in a cool cameo we have first time action star Kane Kosugi lending in a likable performance. And then we have the usual cast of boy/girl pop stars standing around and looking pretty. If it wasn’t for the little girls never-ending whines of “momma” maybe I wouldn’t feel so guilty skipping that chapter. Direction is a bit restrained, but when it shines, it shines. Slow-Motion is used to an extreme effect.

Don’t get me wrong, I can still enjoy dramas/comedies/horror…ect. But thrown in a dose of fisticuffs and I’ll thank you until the end of time. As long as your brain realizes this is just a b-movie, you won’t have any problems brushing away important stuff like a script.
So Enjoy.

DVD:
This needed a special edition and it got it. Inside is great behind-the scene footage (Covering almost every fight), interviews, trailers and all the “what not” you could ever hope for. The whole thing is lacking subs (Including the film! But it’s mostly in English) but it explains itself without having to straining your eyes. Buy it now!

Jabberwocky (UK. 1977)

The first solo directorial effort from Monthy Python Animation Genius, Terry Gilliam, Jabberwocky is VERY loosely based on the gibberish Lewis Caroll Poem of the same name and concerns the aventures of a peasent boy (Micheal Palin) as he traverse a dusty and dirty medieval world in search of…well…not much really. True love, I think. The whole thing is painfully episodic, laugh free and really slow for a film that’s relatively short. The low budget forced Gilliam to shoot most scenes in long master shots and it hurts the final product. Micheal Palin makes a good straight man, there’s a handful of clever/mean-spirited violent gags and the final MAN IN SUIT Jabberwocky itself is fun to watch run around, but the experience overall is a dissapointment when you remember it’s from the man gave us classics like « Brazil » and « Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas » Just remember kids, everyone has to start somewhere!

Hellboy (USA. 2004)

Director: Guillermo Del Toro

Based on the comic series by Mike Mignola and directed/written for the screen by film geek fave Guillermo Del Toro,“Hellboy” tries valiantly to forge its own identity in a marketplace glutted by super-hero fare, but is smacked down again and again by the tentacle beast that is the studio system.
The story deals with, well, Hellboy (Ron Pearlman) a baby demon who fell through a dimensional hole during WWII and now that he's all grown up now works for the B.R.P.D, an organization deals withy all those nasty supernatural threats you keep hearing about. Old Horn Head has a crush on one of his flame slinging teammates Liz (Selma Blair) and it doesn’t help that there’s a new kid on the force, agent Rob Meyers (Rupert Evans) who’s gets the responsability of being Hellboy’s “baby-sitter”. The real threat arrives when Rasputin comes back from the dead and wants to destroy all man-kind (Same Old) and Hellboy has to save the day of course, but only after he watches some cartoons and chows down on some pancakes.

Ron Pearlmean’s take on the gruff “Blue Collar Super-Hero” (Hellboy fights the supernatural, but it’s a day job after all) is perfectly realized on screen. He has the physical presence to bring the big red guy to life and his dead pan “Oh Craps” and “That’s going to hurt in the morning” come off as natural moments instead of one-liners that scream “LOOK AT US! WE ARE FUNNY!”. Director Guillermo Del Toro mixes his constantly moving directorial pacing and iconic imagery (Clock-Work Creatures and Catholic Symbolism) with the bold graphic comic book design of Mignola’s world to create something that feels fresh without being too weird for the regular mom and pop movie gooers. Both imaginative maestros obviously love tentacled Lovecraftian beasties and this passion is seen on screen in the monstrous design of Samhain and the Final Big Baddie. The fights between them and Hellboy are a near perfect blend of CGI and goopy practical effects.

But Justin (The cute girl in the back with big brown eyes asks), if all of this is so positive, why the negative introduction? The reason for my sadly worded opening is because while all the elements to make a solid genre film are in place in Hellboy, they never get a chance to breathe. We a good looking monster (Fought over five times), a few creative action beats (mixed in with some terribly anti-climactic ones) and an accessible hero (That isn't given much to do). You can blame it on budget constraints (67 million dollars), the fact that it wasn't a "popular" pop culture property or you could save time and point the finger at the real murderer in the room: The Studio System. I can picture them grimacing as they read through the script, smiling politely in Del Toro’s direction and going “Don’t you think this is a little too…WEIRD? You should have a some kind of young hip sidekick to make things more accessible, oh, we also want a talking birtish monocle wearing poodle that drives fast cars, loves the ladies and helps the poor. The kids will love it!!” After all the audience friendly changes are made, we’re left with a stripped version of the original source material that can walk but doesn’t quite know how to run.

Good thing Hellboy 2: The Golden Army looks like it will deliver the EPIC feel this one was striving for.

Deadbeat at Dawn (America, 1996)

NOTE: Another lazy post by yours truly. I stole this from Only Foreign Film, a website I wrote for in 2003.

When the time comes you never know how a something is going to sucker punch you. If it dosen't, then you’re usually disappointed. But when it happens, coming out of left field, it hurts. Because what else is entertainment other than being caught with your pants down?
Jim Van Beeber stars direct, writes, produces, and edits one the strongest indie/action film I’ve seen in a while. (Editors Note: Let’s not forget Lethal Force!). In this picture he stars as the ironically named “Goose”, the leader of the ravens. Young troubled drugs addict who decides to qui the gang 20 minutes into the film to appease to his girlfriends wishes. But just like any vivid movie-creep knows, revenge is the name of the game.

A few complaints to ease my troubled mind: The print used when filming was a cheap one (A newsreel stock). There’s grain, hair, and speckles of dirt which make for some headache induced cutting. Some of the actors are as annoying as hell and the middle part of the film is pretty useless…But enough of that, the good always prevails. When watching films you should already be ready to lock common sense in a cage, and torture it. The action is awesome. Every actor here performed there own stunts, most of them resulting in painful looking consequences. With Beeber doing all the good stuff:

- Jumping off a bridge into a canal

- Being dragged on the side of a car against a cement wall.

- Dangling by a measly linen thread 30 feet off the ground.

- Throwing a shuriken at his cast members who have to move out of the way in time.

Combat isn’t omnipotent, but when it appears it’s nicely done. I wouldn’t go as far as calling this kung-fu…but what comes out is a strange mixture of street fighting and carefully choreographed moves. There’s a knife fight, fistfights galore, gunplay, and the climatic duel which involves two knumchucks (Pardon my phrasing) to their skull crushing power.

Is it worth your hard earned money? That depends on how you tend to view your entertainment. If you hated Evil Dead for the sole reason that you found it looked cheap, then stay away. On the other hand if you like to watch films that encompassed four years of the creators lives, and are the kind of thing you can show to your friends over a can of beer…Here is your relic.

Sometimes all you need are CHEAP THRILLS!

DVD:

The DVD itself is a great package, including a commentary track, outtakes, a short film by Beeber, a trailer for an un-produced film, and a hidden music video. These are all amplified by having the privilege of containing Audio Commentary tracks (Usually by Jim, which are sometimes edited in with other participants.) At a cheap price (19.99 US) buy this one as soon as you can get your hands on a copy.

Hancock (USA. 2008)

DIRECTOR: PETER BERG

What would happen if a super-hero was lazy and saved people kinda half-assed?
You think he’d laze around all day and get drunk? Naw, I don’t think so, that makes no sens---
You think it’s funny? I guess, but ----
Just because it’s in a film doesn’t mean it’s true!
I don’t’ care if Will Smith (Fresh Prince of Bel Air) is in it! It’s still lazy screenwriting masquerading as a high-concept!
It was made into a movie?
…

John Hancock (Will Smith) can fly, is invisible and super-strong. Don't mention it to him. He just wants to be left alone with his friend Jim Bean. Sure, he saves people every now and then but most of his rescues end up causing more damage in the process. A Publicist (Jason Bateman) sees a public relations dream in the making and sets off to help Hancock become a hero in the eyes of the public, even if it means pissing off his wife (Charlie Theronz) in the process. She just dosen't like the super-hero for some mysterious telegraphed reason. In the end, will Hancock be able to abandon his boozing ways and trade in his hobo clothes for a “homo” costume? I'll give you one guess.

Hancock is too short. Those words almost hurt after a summer full of over-long action films, but there’s no other way to cut it. The many great ideas (Bored Super-Hero, P.R, Forgotten Past) are shoved into the running time like a key in the wrong lock. On a tonal level, the story switches gears with every punch and it never readies itself for the next one. It jumps from a goofy, almost sly, parody of super-hero films to a heavy handed drama, then back again (Sometimes in the same scene!) There’s too many questions that are ignored to further the story instead of actually deconstructing why they exists. Hancock is invincible, yet, he spends his time lying around and drinking…Really?...I realize he’s a nice guy at heart, but it never crossed his mind to rob a few banks to pass the time? Nope. We're just shoved into a hard to swallowreality in which thing are built for a laugh instead of logic. And lets not forget that a hero is only as strong as the villain, which sucks for Hancock, because the villain is thrown in at the last minute as to give us a lame excuse for a 'Climax'

I’d also like to note that *MILD SPOILER* the twist of the film is an interesting direction to go even if it’s telegraphed a mile away for the slow people in the audience. Yet again, it’s swiss cheese like in its presentation. It also leads into one of the most POINTLESS fights I’ve seen in a long time. I cringed as dollars burned on screen because a suit and tie sent out a studio note that said the film needed more “Super-Hero Like Action! The kids loves it!” The end capper to the scene dragged me out of the movie and refused to let me back in. They couldn’t have found a better way to come to the same conclusion?

Will Smith is incredibly watch able on screen, as usual, but it’s the same Big Willy dance we’ve seen before: Lots of whispering and moist eyes as a substitute for emoting. Jason Bateman plays the straight man from the same “straight-man repertoire” Bateman has been living on since Arrested Development. Charlie Theronz is almost an acting non-presence that seems to have stumbled onto the wrong film. Peter Berg’s shaky cam direction (Which can arguably be called Berg like, seeing how he’s used it for four films now) is an interesting way to shoot a super-hero film, almost off the cuff, but it gets tiring when the herky jerky style flows into every
scene. A conversation shot with the heads out of frame isn’t “edgy”, it’s just annoying.

It was incredibly fun to see a bunch super-powers used in an off-handed way, but it's not enough to make up for the laziness on display. They should have either gone semi-serious or completely dark (Supposedly the tone of the original script), because they never reach success here.

P.S: The original title of the film was “Tonight, he comes”. The third title being considered was “The Flying Penis”

Canada Day? HOLIDAY!

No reviews today, because it's a holiday down in the great white north! Tommorow, you'll all get a dose of Hancock in the mouth!

Geez. That didn't sound right.