Thursday, January 31, 2008

Plasterhead


was a cinematic masterpiece, with some of the finest acting, cinematography, writing and direction I've witnessed in film in a long time!

No wait, I lied.



The "old rickety country house that hasn't been lived in for at least a decade" in this film, which in actual fact looks more like it was built a week ago and freshly furnished, is the only thing that's laughably bad in this film, and may be the only reason to watch it, ever. Ever.

Ever ever.







Ever.

Saw IV

Saw IV is exactly what SawIII should have been (if, indeed it "should" have been anything, perhaps the whole Saw Franchise shouldn't be a franchise at all, hmm?), it was better than Saw II by a long ways and I'm pretending for the moment that I live in a happy, joyful world where Saw III did not exist in it's current form and was instead, this film.

It was an excellent conclusion to the "story" of Jigsaw and managed to wrap up things nicely, including some things you thought were already wrapped up! The horror!

It delves into Jigsaw's past and why he does what he does very well, without over-doing it and it does a very good job of making sure that at the same time as preaching about why he did what he did, we're still kept very much in the present and engrossed in the current situation.
Otherwise this could have edged on being a prequel which would be aimless and unnecessary.

There are a few too many "fancy"cuts from one scene to the next. It's like the director just learned some fancy camera shifting techniques and really went to school trying them out on this movie, but thankfully it doesn't ruin the film to any major degree.

The best thing about this Saw, as opposed to Saw III and Saw II is that, although it does have a twist at the end, it does not try too hard to have a huge "Oh My Fucking GOD" twist ending, like II and III had. Both those films endings made me want to grab the Director by the throat and castrate him slowly. Better yet, I'd force him to castrate himself, in order to survive some sort of complicated mechanical trapping device that's attached to his balls and will slice his head off when the timer reaches zero if he can't manage to cut his own balls off in time. That's teach the bastard.
I still want to do that to the director even though he somewhat redeemed himself with Saw IV.
It would just be fitting, no?
This film instead had a little "Oh! Well fancy that!" twist much like the original Saw. Which does make you rethink the whole film but does not feel a need to spend 10 minutes explaining the twist to you in case you didn't get it the first time, thank you Saw III!!!!

So anyway, let's all just forget Saw III ever happened and call this movie Saw III shall we?
In fact while we're at it let's drop off Saw II as well, because it was pretty lame itself.
While we're at it, let's face the facts and admit to ourselves that no matter how much better Saw IV was to the previous two movies, it is paler than pale in comparison to the original Saw, which was frankly a work of genius and would have remained that way if some arsehole hadn't come along with the ol' sequel-agenda.

I'm beginning to think that the only reason I actually enjoyed Saw IV to any degree was because it was watched on the same day I learned of Michael Bay's insidious lust to make a Nightmare On Elm Street remake, thus making Saw IV the highlight of the day by comparison!

Seriously, think about Michael Bay destroying yet another classic movie, then go watch some tripe of a film and let me know if you end up enjoying it, purely because of the comparative brilliance.

Nonetheless, I enjoyed the film reasonably and for the reasons I listed so I shall still give Saw IV...

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Nightmare On Elm Street Remake

I'm going to review this right now.

Before anyone has been set to direct, star or film it.

All I know about it is it's a remake of Nightmare On Elm Street, not another sequel, not a prequel, a reeeeeemake.

It most likely will not have Robert Englund in it.


And...


It will be coming from the production companies of...

MICHAEL BAY!

Therefor.



Here is a quote from Bruce Willis when he was informed of some sort of vague interest in Michael Bay making a Die Hard film.

“I would rather eat a live baby in front of my grandma than have Michael Bay direct a DIE HARD movie. I would rather go hunting with Dick Cheney than let that car engine in a human skin leave his satanic fingerprints on John McClane. In fact, this new PG-13 thing is the only part of ruining modern action movies that Michael Bay is not personally responsible for. The rest of it is all him. Don’t even fucking say those words in the same sentence, you’re only gonna give them ideas for part 5. It’s like saying Candyman in front of a mirror, that motherfucker will show up and snort John McClane’s soul right in front of you and then piss it out on your shoes. He would have ruined DH4. Few people will work with him now, and I know I will never work with him again.”
Fuck Michael Bay

Monday, January 28, 2008

Fido

I have my own vision of a post-zombie invasion, turmoil, corruption riddled world type film.
It would be something like Land Of The Dead, but with more riding through the desert on motorbikes with chainsaws! Better yet, riding through the desert on mighty dark stallions with hacksaws! Sort of like an over primitive, gory, blood soaked, semi-political Mad Max.
It would be a decent film but it'd be exactly what everyone might expect from a post-zombie attack world film, right?

But that's because we always assume the zombies would win in the end! But what if man and zombie found a way to live/die in harmony together! Specifically, what if man found a way to harness the zombies and put them to work doing useful things like digging, holding umbrellas, standing around waving and making vague attempts to carry things to their human masters?

What if this all happened in a 1950's America, giving a sort of cold-war era chill to the everyday paranoia of the old Zombie War and the heroes that fought and killed their own families for the freedom of the survivors?

What if one little boy named Timmy did the unthinkable and not only learned to befriend his Zombie, but also taught his strictly conservative mother to open up and do the same?

A heartwarming tale involving one young boy... and his Zombie.

What if the lead Zombie was played by Billy Connoly!? Got you interested now, huh?
Strangely, Billy looked a lot more clean cut as a member of the undead than he usually does in real life...

Anyhow, point is this is a zombie film with a distinct originality, which is always good. Zombie films are really cool and all but when they're not just run-of-the-mill "Zombies rise and attack, let's follow the survivors" we begin to see why "Zombie Film" is almost a genre in itself, and not just another kind of horror film.

Fido managed to actually have a somewhat heartwarming message about humanity, but since every time there's a "stop, pause to reflect on this little joyous part of 1950's American love!" moment, someone's arm gets ripped off or someone gets shot, it really takes the edge off and turns the heartwarming into comedy!

Bonus!

I shall end this review here by saying, although I'm only giving this film 3 smiley faces out of 5, it's still a must see. It wasn't great by any means but absolutely must be seen by everyone!

If you have Netflix, it's on the Browse Instantly category, so you don't have any excuse, bitch!


Here's a trailer, I think this movie was worthy of my promotionsing



Saturday, January 26, 2008

Misery

Much as it pains me to say this, I've noticed lately that there are some movies based on Stephen King novels that aren't hunking bowls of steaming turd...
Misery is one such movie!

Friday, January 25, 2008

Halloween (2007)

Let's face it, no-one expected this to be any good at all.

I fully comprehended that he's a bit of a crappy director. I liked House Of 1000 Corpses, but Devil's Rejects was too trashy and there was no empathizing with good or bad guys on any level, and I fear it wasn't a deliberate ploy on Mr. Zombie's part, just poor writing/directing.
Unfortunately the trash from Devil's Rejects seemed to sprawl itself out and infect Halloween. I don't think there was any need to show what a fucked up upbringing Michael Myers had at all, period. He was far spookier and scarier when it seemed like his upbringing (from the fleeting glimpse we see in the first original Halloween) was relatively normal and he just snapped, then years institutionalized made him even worse.
That would have sufficed, Mr. Zombie, as the whole part where he's in the mental institution was fine, but his trashy family was not!

Anyway, that was expected. Like I say it was fully understood that he was crappy in this aspect. What I hadn't comprehended from the other films is how crappy a director he really is. So many unexpected and pointless cuts, close-ups of someone eating for no good reason, shots that aren't quite centered on the focus, shots with too much glare and, my own personal pet-peeve, epic fight scene type segments shot entirely in the fucking dark!!! I hate that shit... I know sometimes it;s creepier to not know what's going on, but for 20 minutes of film it'd be nice to have some idea!

At first you might think that edgy cutting, shaky cameras, glare etc. are all just part of Rob Zombie's style but I say fuck that shit?! Even if it his style, his style fucking sucks.

Let's see more crazy clowns and less white trash in yer films please Rob!

Saturday, January 19, 2008

D-War

No, not a Chesney Hawkes biography adaptation but
D-War
or
Dragon War
or
Whatever!

Can I just start by saying what a fucking pile of bullshit?
Can I follow by requesting that 90 minutes of my life be returned?
I mean, I wasn't expecting anything of any substance whatsoever just from the title alone but holy crap, could someone in some aspect of making this film have fucking told someone that what they were doing was absolute rhino turd?

From what I could scavenge from the film it seemed like sometime long ago some poor fucking writer came up with a relatively harmless but enjoyable plot about some "ancient hero" revived from the past to seek out the mystical power of Yu GI Oh, or whatever it was called, which conveniently takes the form of an attractive young woman, fancy that!
Along the way the deep dark undisturbed evil is suddenly disturbed and calls upon his army of scary looking dark armored doom warrior types, furnishes them with some badly CGIed dragon-beast-dinosaur-things and they're off to seek out Yu Gi Oh for themselves for whatever reason. Something about unspeakable power... but this guy already had unspeakable power, so why bother?

Whatever.

The plot was harmless, it was everything else about the film that made me wish my arms would fall off, just so I'd have something to take my mind off the garbage that was puking it's way through my TV.

Each individual aspect of the film, the acting, the directing, the writing, the special effects felt like they had been performed by someone who thought the other aspects of the film were going to compensate for their lack of thought process. Don't get me wrong, none of the aspects were bad so much... for example, each scene was directed well enough, the angle was the most appropriate one for the scene, there is an appropriate cut to the next scene, but it truly feels like the director just never really spent the time making sure each scene was ideal. I know most directors can't hope to get every scene in the whole movie perfect but it damn well shows when a director didn't seem to spend any time trying to make them perfect.

Director: Well this scene ain't perfect but at least the special effects will make up for it

SFX Guy: Well these effects are a bit lame. Thank God there's a lot of talking in this film to mask it a little

Actors: Why is there a lot of talking in a film about dragons? This plot has no substance! Thank God the caterer's have good fries

Caterers: Get 'em while they're fresh!


And what's with all the fucking explosions?

I swear there were more explosions in this film than any I've seen, which just hacked me off because the budget for just one of those explosions is more than what I'd require from a studio to make a film of my own. OH I'M NOT BITTER YOU SHITTY FILMMAKERS!

Seriously though, it's like every 2 seconds something blows up. Usually it's a vehicle of some kind as it tips over and the camera stays on it as we think "Are they going to make it out of there?", but after a far too long pause for dramatic effect, BOOM! No, they ain't gonna make it, son...
A fair enough dramatic, thrilling, suspenseful trick to pull once in a while but this happens practically every time that it could possibly happen.

A helicopter gets catapulted around, smacking off every building on it's way down and smashes to the ground (by rights, it probably should have blown up already), the camera pauses on the helicopter for about 15 fucking minutes while we ponder about whether or not the two nobodies we were introduced to about 2 seconds previously will make it when BOOM! No way busto, they're gone!

A car gets stomped on by a chubby ass dinosaur, all is well, we're now following the dinosaur to see what it does when BOOM! The car explodes for no fucking reason whatsoever! We didn't even care anymore and it blew up.

The stars are climbing down the liberty building as a giant snake rattles it's way around it when BOOM! The fucking building starts to explode, just because!

The crowd is running away from the evilhordes of darkness when BOOM! Someone's head explodes.

I swear to God, in all reality a fucking dinosaur exploded in this film.
A Dinosaur Explodes.
That may sound like the most awesome thing in the fucking world but believe me it was a severe disappointments. It was a bit like if you found a leprechaun at the end of a rainbow only to find he resembled Shane McGowan and had spent his pot o' gold on a weekends supply of smack.

Oh and you know what didn't explode? A car that the two main stars of the film were in that got hit by a motherfucking fireball, flipped over on fire, then sat on it's fucking back while the flames engulfed the bastards! Not even in the time it took the flying mini-dragons that had only just flown from Los Angeles to the Mexican border in about 30 seconds to slowly edge their way to the car from 2 feet away, giving the heroes ample thinking time.

And how many times could the giant snake have just finished off the heroes with one quick snap!?
Too many! I've seen that shit on animal planet, those snakes will snap without warning and quick as lightening. Apparently though these big snakes have some sort of un-natural disadvantage when it comes to snapping up the people they've been chasing for a half-hour with the intention of snapping them up, that makes them sloooooooooooooooowly ease up into the air and spend a good 20 minutes or so waving it's big ol' CGI face around hissing wildly as if to say, "Why don't I just sit here and give anyone that could possibly distract me for a brief second do so? Sounds like fun! Ho hum..."
What?
I mean, action films are full of this bullshit, I always allow at least one retarded scene where something conveniently doesn't blow up, or a bad guy lets the good guys escape, or suddenly forgets how to shoot straight but this film was full of it.

And full of shit!

There's also a scene lifted straight from Godzilla. If you watch this film you'll see a scene where a monster is rampaging through the city and you'll go "Oh, yeah, I guess it is a bit like Godzilla" but then the scene which is practically identical will actually happen and you'll go BOOM! and explode for no fucking reason.

I'm really hesitant to give this film 1 out of 5, because it didn't do anything particularly offensivem and I feel the people working on it could do better if they just took their fucking time.

But I'm going to give it 1 out of 5 anyway.

1 out of 5 with a chance for parole, how's that?


Friday, January 18, 2008

Carnival Of The Souls

"A Weird Tale Of The Unnatural"

Best. Tagline. Ever.

I'm talking the 1962 flick directed by Herk Harvey here. Not the 1998 film presented by Wes Craven in which a clown rapes a woman... apparently... I've never seen that one or even heard of it until I was searching for the tagline for the 1962 which I did see.
Have you seen it?
I don't care!
This review is for the classic Carnival Of The Souls which the newer film clearly tried to cash in on by naming their film the same thing! Those rat-bastards...

It's clear why this film is a classic horror film and none of the other films we find in the $1 bin at Wal-mart and the Dollar Store are! This one's almost worth $2! And it came with another filmon the disc that I'm not sure I watched yet... anyway!
This film follows the story of a crazy bug-eyed lady who narrowly escapes death only to be haunted by some creepy "I like turtles" looking guy, who seems to be both angered and terribly excited to be stalking this woman without much explanation on his part, though this is clearly terrifying as we see the bug-eyed lady run around gasping and placing the back of her hand on her forehead in an "Oh my God, I'm a helpless pre-equal rights movement sort of gal" way.
The film is gripping enough to keep you interested though some of the concepts, the acting and the filming style are somewhat dated. The acting is fine, though there's some slightly over the top drunken wiseguy type in the film who I'm not sure had a purpose... I think it's possible he was meant to be some sort of "comic element", but I'm almost certain the film had absolutely no need for a comic element and all it did was take away from the thriller aspect of the movie, in my opinion...
Anyway, point is, though this film was extremely well made it did lag a little, and only because of the age of the movie I think and I couldn't help but think that dreaded word while watching it...

Remake!


Wednesday, January 16, 2008

The Simpsons Movie


I'll be honest here, I was expecting this movie to be a phenomenal disappointment. I felt that The Simpsons truly is a format which is unsuitable for a feature-length movie, it would be like trying to expand an episode of Roseanne to 90 minutes... I shudder at the thought of that.

I expected that the only way they could possibly hope to achieve this almighty goal would be to cram in as many characters as possible, giving nothing but a 90 minute montage of Simpsons lines with no substance and some ridiculous over-the-top plot, which some of the latter series episodes of The Simpsons are guilty of having, rather than the down to Earth (with merely an over-the-top twist) plot-lines that kept the Simpsons in everybody's hearts (or at least minds) for so long.

And this movie did just that!

No, I'm kidding but I feel like a lot of my reviews are making these attempts at comical twists half-way through.

I give my reviews 1 out of 5!

However, The Simpsons Movie is as good as it can be, better maybe, considering the fact that I expected it to be somewhat dragging. The plot is far more like earlier Simpsons seasons, which I feel may have been a deliberate ploy by the writers, who probably knew that many people would go to see this film (or sit on their asses and wait for the DVD to see this film) who had not been watching the latest Simpsons seasons, whether it be through lack of interest or just less time to sit and make time for them or whether out of sheer protest of Fox. My only issue with the plot is that Mr Burns could have been a more integral part and it would have made the film a billion times better! For me anyway, maybe making it far more central around the actual Simpsons was a good idea considering it's about them, and not Burnsie...

Still, Mr Burns is the best character in the Simpsons, no?

I couldn't help but compare this movie in my head to the South Park movie...
Although I personally prefer the South Park movie overall, I feel like it really felt like a peak of the series, and after it I have failed to really get into South Park, besides a few fleeting episodes of interest here and there, whereas the Simpsons Movie didn't feel like a peak as I first expected, and had me (God forgive me) wishing I still got Fox, in order to begin watching the series again...

Praise the lord for not having cable anymore!

Monday, January 7, 2008

Pirates Of The Caribbean: At World's End


There are some movies that are so hyped up that when you end up seeing them you're only deeply and sourly disappointed.
Other movies, however, get so hyped up that you automatically assume that they're going to suck goat-ass, then when you go to see them they're a thankful relief and you find that, for once, all the hype was for something!
This movie was thankfully one of the latter! I had heard so much about how brilliant it was, and how Johnny Depp was more amazing than ever, and how it was Disney so it must be good and it had that bloke from the Office in it, etc etc that I figured it was going to be a major fucking shit-fest, however was pleasantly surprised to find that Johnny Depp not only managed to salvage some life out of a part that had clearly been written by an Irish village drunk, but actually made him an enjoyable and brilliantly animated character. I never thought this would be a Depp performance to remember, but was proven wrong.
Even Keira Knightley wasn't as obnoxious as usual and her role was kept to a bare minimum.
It was superbly directed, with some awesome sword fights, great acting all round (even from Mr "I Might As Well Still Be Playing That Fucking Queer Elf" Bloom) and the cinematography was fairly amazing! I'm glad they didn't fall into that fucking pit of cinema where a lot of ship battle sequences are set at night time where you can't figure out what's going on for shit... if the film had contained those sort of sequences...

Oh wait, this was a review of the first Pirates Of The Caribbean.

No no no, Pirates Of The Caribbean: At Worlds End was a fucking miserable waste of 2 hours and 49 minutes of my life. The "legendary" Jack Sparrow was flaunted on screen as much as possible in the grim hope that Johnny Depp could somehow make a scene interesting just by standing there looking drunk. We are forced to follow a plot that we already gave up on in the last movie.
The worst character in the whole fucking film (Ms. Swan) is, for some inexplicable reason given a larger, more important role, with more lines and screen time, because God knows that what I was thinking while I watched the other two films was "Oh God, this film is pretty good but I wish they'd let the obnoxious fucking English stuck-up bitch have a little more screen time, that would make my FUCKING DAY!"
Seriously, the first Pirates Of The Caribbean was good. Better than good! On it's own and without the sequels tarnishing it, it was a great family action flick!
The second one was dragging in places but still entertaining in it's own way...
The third one should be burned.



Sunday, January 6, 2008

Blood Car.

I've got a movie to watch, on a cloudy day
When you walk to work, I'll drive all the way.

I guess you'd say
What can make me drive away
Blood Car (Blood car, Blood car)
Talkin' 'bout Blood car! (Blood car).

I ain't got much money, for $40 gas today
I'd far rather, Invent another way.

WelI.. "Got gas?", You'd say
"What makes your car run this way?"
Blood car (Blood car, blood car)
Fuelin' up my Blood car (Blood car)

Ooohh..Ooohh...

Hey hey hey
Hey hey hey

Ooooh Yeah..

I tried to make an engine, better for you and me
Turns out it runs on human blood, now I'm on a killing spree

Well..No gas, who cares?
I've got a brand-new-super-engine-I-invented-while-I-was-trying-to-make-an-
eco-friendly-solution-to-rising-gas-prices-but-accidentally-spilled-bloo
d-on-it-and-somehow-found-that-it-worked-better-than-the-wheatgr
ass-i-was-trying-to-use-so-i-kept-using-blood-hence-the-name-and-
yes-the-premise-of-this-movie
to whisk us both away!
Blood car (Blood car, Blood car)
Talkin' 'bout Blood car (Blood car)

I got a neat-o film from Netflix today
Called Blood car
Some film snobs might call it gay!
But it's blood car!

Blood car!