Sunday, November 15, 2009

Troll 2


Cast: Michael Stephenson, George Hardy


Synopsis: A family decides to high-tail it to the country in a bizarrely 'ahead of it's time' kind of plot (I hear people actually do this these days thanks to Craigslist) where the city dwelling family Waits swap homes for a period of time with a bunch of brainless country livin' hicks living in the suspiciously named town of Nilbog! Unfortunately for them the entire population is run by Goblins who try to make humans eat their delicious looking booger-covered green plastic food so that they can become half-human half-plant beings which are obviously Goblins favorite foods!

Really makes you wonder about how creatures like the Goblin evolved to like the taste of such a very specific and extremely non-existant food source, doesn't it? I mean when did they first dicover that was their food of choice? When the Goblin queen just decided on a whim to bake up a batch of "turn them into plant" muffins just to see what might happen if they devoured the bloody bark-like flesh of the Plant People? Perhaps they happened upon a man who had covered himself in bark and leaves, consumed him and discovered it was good but not perfect and so set about concucting a weird complex way to somehow merge the seemingly unmergable and create the ultimate snack! Bizarrely enough, it seems that not only is it their favorite food but they've also sort of gotten sick of eating anything that isn't a man-plant hybrid. Well, it's no wonder you don't see many Goblins around anymore, is it?

In case you're wondering how this bizarre plot becomes revealed to our young rapscallion hero (Because obviosuly the Goblins wouldn't take time ot explain all this to them, that would kind of put them off eating the already disgusting looking dishes they prepare) it's quite simple. You see, the young man's grandfather passed away recently and his ghost is using his time walking the realms of non-existance, haunting the young Waits boy by telling him crazy Goblin stories, hiding from his parents so that they think the boy's nuts, helping him set fires and largely being a bit of an incomprehensible dickhead. Makes perfect sense to me!


One man's reaction to this film.


Review: I've been putting off this review because it's fucking Troll 2! It's one of the most renowned bad films of all time and I really don't think I can add any humor, wit or charm to it at all above what the internet (and this documentary) already has.

Instead, I'm going to go continue to hide under a pillow in my closet until a more sensible film comes around and I can sufficiently gather my thoughts enough to form opinions.

thank you.

I will say this though, the story between the boy and his Grandfather (especially the scene where Grandad hands him a molotov cocktail) could have been the plot of an awesome sinister version of Drop Dead Fred!


"You can't piss on hospitality! I won't allow it!"


In Short: Too much Goblins, not enough dead Grandads.


Biggest Positive: The acting by the father in the Waits family, or perhaps just the script. It's like he's just opening his mouth and letting whatever words he can best remember come spilling out!


Biggest Negative: In spite of the name of the film, and it's predescessor (The aptly named "Troll") this film is about Goblins, not trolls. Not even a single Troll shows up. I guess it doesn't make much difference really, since arguably they weren't Trolls or Goblins, just midgets in potatoe sacks.


Trivia: No. No trivia. You go home now.





Saturday, November 7, 2009

Troll


Cast: Noah Hathaway, Jenny Beck, Phil Fondacaro


Synopsis: The Potter family move into an apartment building only to find a Troll from the basement is rebuilding his ancient troll army by consuming the tenants with his magic ring and turning them into weird tree people.

Meanwhile the thousand year old witch living upstairs turns out to be an ex-princess troll-hunter. Good thing too!


Review: Well! What a movie! It had it all. Bad acting, poor effects, bad acting, shitty directing, bad acting and a main character named Harry Potter (Quite evidently the entire Harry Potter franchise owes the makers of Troll a good few billion dollars worth of copyright money! Pay up J.K!)!

The thing is this movie has a sequel (the appropriately named "Troll 2" which is currently on my T.V. since we got the double feature through NetFlix which will get it's own shitty review after this one) which is allegedly the worst movie ever made so it's definitely something to look forward to but while watching Troll with it's absolutely appalling... everything, you have to think to yourself... will I survive Troll 2? I mean, this movie had nothing going for it at all. Nothing!

Well I can only imagine that where Troll was just bad... just plain awful and maybe what Troll 2 has going for it is being so incredibly bad that it's funny (a la Manos: The Hands Of Fate!).
Let's hope so...


In Short: This film sucked. Avoid at all costs. I'll let you know if Troll 2 is worth the effort once I've seen it.


Biggest Positive: Harry Potter's dad dancing around like he was having an epileptic fit to awful 80's pop-rock.


Biggest Negative: From what I've seen of Troll 2 so far, the biggest negative in the first Troll is the fact that the main character didn't have an imaginary dead Grandpa friend to talk to like the kid in the sequel seems to.


Trivia: This movie was made purely so that there could be a sequel made for strange ironic humorists to follow like a bizarre cult 20 years after it was made.


Troll's Wikipedia page


Sunday, October 11, 2009

Rambo (2008)


Cast: Sylvester Stallone, Julie Benz


Synopsis: We find a somewhat retired looking Rambo hunting for king cobras in the wild plains of Thailand and selling them to some creepy underground snake-fighting pen (as you do) when suddenly and without warning a gimpy bald guy asks him to lead him and his group of bible bashers into the midst of a war-torn Burma. Being the hot blooded, war seeking, wild action hero he is he dives right in like so many blood thirsty lunatics before him! No, not really. He tells the dude to fuck off but when his slightly prettier blonde girlfriend says "paaaweeeeeeeaaaaaaaase?" how can he refuse?
Explosions and many many exploding blood-red bodies ensue!


Review: The perfect movie!

I kid you not. Rambo, as we all know, is an 80's action icon so there's two ways that a sequel this far away from the awesomely violent (non pg-13) blood curdling, foul mouthed action films of that era could go.

It could turn itself into a mock-up of itself and play to the inherent humor that lies underneath any super-macho action flick and end up with a bunch of stupid mumbling teens muttering that "Well it was fun but it wasn't as good as Hot Shots!". It would be hilarious and make millions! (And swiftly be forgotten about within a month of it's release)

Or Sly Stallone could say "Live to make an R-rated bloody, fucking serious motherfucker of a sequel, or die (Hard with a vengeance) for nothing!".And that he did!

Let's list the awesome things about this film

  • The film was filled with blood flying from every area of anyone's body that it could possibly splatter out from.
  • The "plot" and vague hint at any idea of a romance for John Rambo was short-lived and only served (rightfully so) as brief moments in between the carnage with which to catch your breath.
  • There were fucking gun fights. Not just gun fights, fucking gun fights. Never have I felt so invigorated when someone was blown into pieces than during some of the battles (Which were more like one sided massacres really)during this film!
  • Sometimes, after about a thousand people had been blown up, sliced, stabbed, shot or smashed they would play sad music to give you the sads thus making the movie deep - before getting right back to explosions and gun fights
  • It was only 90 minutes long! Definitely something lacking in the modern action flick is the film-makers ability to not jerk it off into a 2 - 2 1/2 hour fucking epic. Action films should be 90 minutes long and no longer! Any longer and it's a piece of trash trying to pass itself off as decent entertainment.

In Short: The only reason to not give this 5 smileys out of 5 is because there was dialogue in the film which frankly, brought me down.


Biggest Positive: The shakespearian quality the film has in that we, the audience, the observers are aware of the inevitability and the fate by which all the characters in the film will fall even before they, the characters, themselves could be aware of such.
(i.e. you know whenever Rambo shows up some fucks are about to get their shit fucked up, son!)


Biggest Negative: Too much romance, not enough human killing.


Trivia: Before this film was filmed there, Burma was a neutral peace-loving country but the film's explosions and gun fights sparked off a civil war that has raged the country for the past 60 years. For this reason Sylvester Stallone was unjustly sought out and captured by the United Nations for crimes against humanity. A crime which he is only partly responsible for. He promptly escaped his maximum security stockade to the Los Angeles underground. Today, still wanted by the government, he survives as a soldier of fortune. If you have a problem, if no one else can help and if you can find him, maybe you can hire Sylvester Stallone.


The Official Rambo Movie Website


Tuesday, September 22, 2009

House By The Cemetery


Cast: Catriona McColl, Paolo Malco, Giovanni Frezza, Ania Pieroni's amazing caterpillar eyebrows.


Synopsis: A New York couple move into a house in New England which is, as one might guess, not next to a cemetery at all... what? Well a cemetery at least plays a role in the film but I fail to see why this film wasn't called "House With A Cemetery Within Walking Distance". Whatever. Killings ensue blah blah.


Review: While it's true that the acting is pretty awful, the unnecessary close ups of people's eyes are pointless at worst and shaky at best and the child in the film is so obnoxious that you're wishing death upon him as soon as you see his smug little albino-looking chops enter the screen, if you're looking for a film with the longest, most drawn out, gory, bat killing sequence in cinema history then look no further than The House By The Cemetery!


In Short:
This movie was directed by Lucio Fulci which means it's both great and awful at the same time. The plot is wafer thin but the gore is fairly abundant.


Biggest Positive: The gore, quite clearly was the most redeeming feature of this film...


Biggest Negative: Everything that wasn't gory.


Trivia: This film was shot in less than two minutes and in five different languages.

A Review of House By The Cemetery by someone who possibly gives a flying fuck about actually reviewing things properly

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Repo! The Genetic Opera



Cast: Alex Vega, Anthony Stewart Head, Paris Hilton, Paul Sorvino


Synopsis: In a dark future where organ transplants have become both a necessity and a fashion accessory, a corrupt government legalizes the repossession of organs by those people who can't make their payments to the ever twisted GeneCo. the proclaimed 'Savior of Humanity'. The grizzly fate of harvesting people's organs is left to one man - The Repo Man. Who has his own unforgiving tale to tell... and for some bizarre reason everyone in the future sings all the time about every single thing ever.


Review: WTF?


Biggest Positive: As far as original ideas for films go they don't come much better than this, both the plot and the concept are fairly original at least in cinema these days...


Biggest Negative: After not too long it does get a little bit grating hearing people sing about everything. I mean, everything. The weather. Breakfast. (I know, I know, it's an opera what did I expect? I'm just saying - maybe I'm not an opera-guy)

Trivia: This film was nominated for five hundred Oscars including 'Best Operatic Piece Starring Paris Hilton Based In A Neon-Dark Future'

Repo! The Genetic Opera's website