Good Luck Getting to Sleep After This One

POSTER QUOTED, BITCHES!

Having finally been discovered, after... er... not posting for an entire month, a quote from my Paranormal Activity review has been put on posters that are up all over the country. "Good luck getting to sleep after this one", and "possibly the scariest movie ever made".

That second quote I didn't actually say. The closest I came to actually saying that was "one of the scariest movies of the decade" or "one of the scariest movies in years". Reading back, I was getting a little repetitive, huh? No matter. "Good luck getting to sleep" is all Gun in the First Act.

Paramount Australia, if you're reading?

I will accept free passes to more of your films, and be your poster-quote whore. I will put Peter Travers to shame. I am metaphorically standing on a street corner in high heels and a short dress for you people, waiting for the tinted windows of your limo to roll down, if it means free passes.

Think about it.

Due to a chronic lack of money and overabundance of brokeness, until tonight, I hadn't been to a movie since early November. Tonight's movie was a free preview of Where the Wild Things Are which I'll totally review soon, I swear. Hence a lack of posting. Well, there are some movies from TIFF yet to be tackled, but I don't have a lot to say about them. An Education was fantastic, but it has been discussed everywhere by everyone, and Women Without Men is Iranian, so I'm not cultured enough to say anything smart about it.

Also I saw The Hangover on a flight back to Sydney and it was pretty overrated. I found myself wanting to know what happened more than wanting to sit through more unamusing gags, so fast-forwarded through the film to get to the end. It strikes as something aimed at people who would non-ironically enjoy Las Vegas. I am not such people.

New Moon also came out. I haven't seen it, but shall review it anyway.

The Twilight Saga: New Moon

Awful.

1/10

No matter, though. I shall return to the warm, glowy bosom of cinema very soon.

Get Excited

Finally! What Women Want is getting a sequel! What Men Want! Starring Cameron Diaz, in Mel Gibson's place!

Hang on, did I say "finally!"? Typo. I meant "sweet fucking Christ, why?"

Dear Saw: Suck It

This weekend marked the international release of the latest goddamn Saw film, creatively titled Saw VI. It also saw the wide opening in the US of Paranormal Activity, which I have been harping on about since seeing it at the Sydney Film Festival earlier this year. Guess which came out on top at the box office?

Go on. You can have a minute.

Paranormal trumped it. Saw VI is cowering on a corner, presumably shackled to some horrible device, and Paranormal Activity is pointing and laughing. Saw VI made under $16 million - less than Saw made, the previous lowest grossing film in the franchise - while Paranormal made $22 million, taking it to a $62 million dollar total.

The world is finally getting over that franchise. Today is a good day.

In related news, I rewatched Paranormal Activity this evening, at a free, buzz-gathering screening before its December opening here in Australia. The session was kind of a mess. There was no one to introduce the film, so people used to having ads and trailers before a movie - most of the audience - were unsure whether they were watching the movie when it started with no fanfare. This was not helped by the lack of audio, which didn't start until about thirty seconds into the film. The audience, too, was quite obnoxious, with some members forcing disdainful laughter at parts which would have been much more atmospheric had they shut the fuck up.

Nonetheless the film works on a second viewing. Not as well, and it doesn't have the lasting effect that makes you afraid of the dark for the first night or two after watching it, but its got enough atmosphere to sustain it as a very good horror film, even knowing what's about to happen.

Now we just have to crush the Final Destination franchise (the first film was decent, the second and third were fun, the fourth was the laziest script ever printed on paper) and put a stop to 98% of remakes, and the horror world will be good again.

TIFF Part Six: Bitch Slap Review

Hey look! Another review! Already! I hope you all feel special, because you are. To me.

Bitch Slap

Bitch Slap is, perhaps, the cleavagiest action film of all time. There are so many big-breasted women in bikinis and low cut tops on display that it deserves a new word to be invented to describe it. Our three lead characters are introduced with their boobs before their faces are even shown. In slow motion. Decide for yourself if that's a recommendation or not.

In a film that is a proud and shameless homage to Roger Corman, we meet our three leads, in the middle of the dessert. Hel (Erin Cummings) is a high powered and bitchy professional business-like woman, with big tits. Camero (America Olivo) is a psychotic lesbian who flies of the handle at every turn, with a huge rack. Trixie (Julia Voth) is a naïve and kind stripper, with enormous bosoms. The reason for mentioning the assets (boobsets?) of these women is because this is the purpose of the film. These three women have a scheme, a hostage, secrets, and a penchant for sex and violence.

The film has a convoluted structure, constantly flashing back to reveal occasionally relevant parcels of information, and yet halfway through the film it becomes apparent that no one – on screen, or in the audience – knows what’s going on. The audience isn’t supposed to; we’re just to watch the cleavage and noise. This is deliberate. The performances, also, are bad across the board, but they’re supposed to be. There just isn’t any way that the cast could be that bad; Olivo, in particular, snarls or yells all of her lines in place of acting and picking an appropriate tone for any given scene. If director Rick Jacobson had wanted a more subtle performance from her, he would have asked, and she would have given it. He didn’t. While the desert portion of the film was shot on location, the flashbacks where green-screened. This was due to limitations of budget, the filmmakers decided to highlight this artificiality rather than hide it. This is distracting, and that is the point. And while the stunt choreography, by Death Proof’s Zoe Bell, is quite good, the editing is too choppy to appreciate it. But when the purpose of the film is its loudness, this must be a choice of the filmmakers too.

In short, everything that is wrong with Bitch Slap is supposed to be wrong with Bitch Slap. It’s best to look at the film like a home movie some fifteen year olds got together to make, except they’re not fifteen year olds, they’re established television producers and filmmakers, and most backyard movies don’t have Lucy Lawless cameos. The film was written Jacobson and Eric Gruendemann; the two worked together on both the Xena and Hercules series of the nineties, so Kevin Sorbo gets an appearance too. The two made this film together wanting to have a riotous time and they definitely succeeded in doing that, at least during production. Bitch Slap, if nothing else, looks like it was a lot of fun to make.

The most interesting part of the film is that, despite the endless low cut tops on display, despite the result of a character being blown up is that her clothes get skimpier while she is uninjured, despite every female character making out with every other female character, there is no actual nudity. This film is perfect for anyone who loves Maxim magazine but is terrified of proper sex. Then again, thinking about this film is not the point of it, at all.

Bitch Slap is a deliberately bad in a way, say, Snakes on a Plane wasn’t. Whereas that film was made as a bad movie as soon as producers picked up on everyone wanting it to be a bad movie, Bitch Slap was made as a bad movie from the get go. It can’t be rated on its quality, because it isn’t supposed to have any. And so how much you enjoy the film depends on how willing you are to go along for the ride, how good a mood you are in, and how much of a teenage boy you are at heart. Therefore, feel free to ignore this number.

3/10

The filmmakers, and the cast, and Zoe Bell (second from the right), were all on stage for this one. All I remember of it is that Bell is adorable and all of them made a bunch of sex jokes.

Meanwhile, check this trailer out:

You see how it almost looks like it has a plot? All those lines in this trailer that look like they’d move a story forward, or at least offer exposition? There isn't much, but look hard. That stuff is not in the film. Jacobson must have had a much more coherent movie on his hands, which he decided to get rid of to make a messy, cleavagey pile of noise. More power to him, I suppose.

More to come!

TIFF Part Five: [Rec] 2 Review

Job hunting etc etc etc. More posts coming and so on and so on and so on.

So, as you may know, Spanish horror film [Rec] was radcore. That was the consensus. How does its sequel live up? Midnight Madness was the perfect place to find out.

[Rec] 2

The original [Rec], a Spanish film remade in the US as Quarantine, has a reputation as one of the scariest films of all time. It is not an unearned one. Part of the found footage subgenre of horror – think Blair Witch, Cloverfield and the excellent (and finally getting a wide release) Paranormal Activity – the film took place in a Barcelona apartment building that quickly became overrun with 28 Days Later style ‘zombies’. Few films rival its intensity, particularly in its final half hour. It is a rare horror film with a climax as scary as (if not scarier than) its build up. The writers and directors of the first film, Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza, took a risk, banked on its success, and made a sequel.

Set minutes after the first film, [Rec] 2 takes us back inside the zombie-infested apartment building of the first film, now with a group of SWAT-type soldiers and a doctor from the health department. One of the team carries a video camera; most of the footage comes from here, but this time around it is intercut with the headcams of the our characters, and, later… well, that would be telling.

[Rec] has a well-deserved reputation of being a terrifying film. Beyond the sheer unrelenting nature of the action, what worked so well was how trapped in the film the audience felt. Just as the characters were trapped in the building, we were trapped in the camera’s point of view. If something happened – and it would, and did – the camera could never cut away, because we were watching uninterrupted takes of found footage. So the multiple points of view in play in [Rec] 2 could, in theory, lessen this effect. This is not the case. [Rec] 2 comes very close to matching the intensity of the first film. Aside from a gear change halfway through the film, introducing new characters, the film does not relent. Upon entering the building, our characters go straight to the location of the climax of the first film. This final act of [Rec] was a rarity in horror, in that it matched the levels of fear of its build up, and where this scene took place was a huge part of that. When [Rec] 2 takes us directly to there, we know we’re in for terror. The climax of [Rec] 2, is should be noted, comes very close to being as memorable as its predecessor, although it goes for extreme creepiness over nerve-shredding terror.

More than this, [Rec] 2 is more than just a rehash of its predecessor. While few moments echo the first film, this sequel builds on and changes the mythology of the first film in huge and unexpected ways. Balagueró and Plaza could have got away with copying what they know, but they turn expectations around, so what we thought we were dealing with in the first film is something else altogether. It is a risky move that plays out to great effect, adding another level of dread to and already very scary movie.

The biggest problem of the film is the lack of a character to get us into the film. The SWAT characters are mostly interchangeable, and Jonathan Mellor, as the health department doctor, is too shifty to become a likable character. [Rec]’s Angela Vidal (Manuela Velasco), the lead character of the first film, was a great character who easily allowed an audience access to the film. Such a presence is missing here.

Nonetheless, [Rec] 2 is scary enough, and has enough shocking turns of plot, to make it a very good film. It would have been hard to come close to being as good as the first, so that it doesn’t quite get there cannot be held as a sleight against it. It almost gets there, and that’s a thing that’s worthy of praise.

8/10

Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza were present for a Q&A - that's them there - but getting into detail on that would be spoiling the film. It was revealed that they made the first film with no plans for a sequel; I asked how much of deepening of the mythology present in [Rec] 2 was planned in part one; the said very little. They also said there were no current plans for a third film, although there are now rumours of a third without Balagueró and Plaza’s involvement.

Meanwhile, Paranormal Activity, which I mentioned in the review and well near shat my pants during earlier this year, is going really well, having passed the $30 million mark in the US box office. That sort of things happens when you actually release a film rather than letting it sit on the shelf, Paramount. It has a wide release in the states, at last, after a city-by-city roll out. It's coming to Australian cinemas in early December, but its local distributors seem to want to go the viral route here as well, and appear to be having free screenings all over the place. If you go to university, or know someone who does, I'd advise seeking out their film society to enquire if they have tickets to a pre-screening of it. They just might.

More to come!

TIFF Part Four: The Loved Ones Review

I'm on holiday; leave me alone.

The Loved Ones

It was, of course, not the first Australian horror movie – it wasn’t even the first of this decade – but Greg McLean’s Wolf Creek is rightly seen as responsible for the revival of the country’s genre cinema. In terms of pure horror, there has not been a great Australian film since. Some have been quite good: McLean’s own follow up, crocodile flick Rogue, was a lot of fun; Storm Warning had some intensity. On the whole, however, the films have ranged from adequate to appalling. Enter Sean Byrne, and The Loved Ones.

Brent (Xavier Samuel) is a high school student in a country town. A stoner and self-harmer, he has almost climbed out of a depression caused by a tragedy six months earlier that he feels responsible for. He has a goofy best friend Sac (Richard Wilson), who is courting Holly (Victoria Thaine), the goth daughter of the local cop, and a girlfriend Mia (Jessica Macnamee) willing to put up with his stunted state. He also has a would be suitor, Lola (Robin McLeavey). A shy, pink-clad thing, Brent turns down her invitation to the school dance. Brent doesn’t know about Lola’s past, her father (John Brumpton), or what he will do for her.

No Australian horror film since Wolf Creek have reached the levels of intensity that The Loved Ones has; no Australian film in memory has reached its levels of violence. Brumpton – his character is credited only as “Daddy” – is a skin crawler, with his clear lust for his daughter and his willingness to oblige her every twisted whim. Lola herself is spectacular, with McLeavey going all out for her performance. She is breathtaking, scary, unstoppable and hilarious, and deserves to be remembered as a horror icon. Her performance is fearless, and her final moments in the film are mesmerizing. Everyone else is very good – our hero Samuel does fine work in what is, for a lot of the film, a silent role – but it is McLeavey who steals the film. And just wait until you meet Bright Eyes.

Byrne, like Greg McLean before him, has made a bold and brave first feature, unafraid to mess with audience expectations, and to have them writhing in their seats. His script turns the high school movie on its head, while his direction pushes the audience right to the edge, and then further.

The Loved Ones is as intense as a horror movie can get while still holding onto its humanity. It is the best Australian horror film in years, and one of the best from anywhere in the last decade.

9/10

This film - rightly so - won the audience award for Midnight Madness. The reaction on the night was amazing, so it wasn't a huge surprise, as great as it was. For me, this film was one I knew little about, and my excitement levels were low.

After the film, they were high.

There's something special about seeing a great local film that does enormous amounts with little money, especially if they're genre movies. The budget wasn't made explicit in the Q&A, but it wasn't high, but the film looked amazing.

Enough gushing. The film is released in Australia early 2010, and hopefully it will make it in overseas markets as well. It's not for the faint of heart, but if you like your horror intense, you've got something to look forward to.

TIFF Part Three: Survival of the Dead Review, With Added Zombie Walk!

Three things:

Stuff goes on in Toronto that can be described as "rad". One such thing - and it goes on elsewhere, including in Sydney - is an annual zombie walk, where people make themselves up as undead, and shamble through the city's streets.

George A. Romero, the man responsible for zombie as we know them, is now a Canadian citizen, living in Toronto.

George A. Romero's latest film, which was shot in Canada, screened on the third night of TIFF's Midnight Madness program.

These three things come together. The zombie walk is ordinarily in October, but an extra event was organised to celebrate Romero's new citizenship and he premiere of his new film. Zombies of Toronto walked through downtown, arriving at Dundas square to be greeted by Romero before a free public screening of Night of the Living Dead. His first film. Later that night, his newest.

Survival of the Dead

It is without question that George A Romero is the godfather of the zombie film. His slow-moving, mindless creatures are iconic and unforgettable. Sure, we have the creatures of Return of the Living Dead and their cries of “brains”, and the more recent development of zombies running, but Romero’s creatures are the classics. After the 1968 release of Night of the Living Dead, he made one zombie film a decade; the 70s had Dawn of the Dead and the 80s Day of the Dead. Then, after a quiet, this decade has had the man bring zombies to cinemas three times. It should be something to celebrate. While 2004’s Land of the Dead was decent, Diary of the Dead, Romero’s found-footage style reboot of the series, was a mess. It does not bode well for Survival that it uses a minor character from that film as a launching pad.

Said character is Crocket (Alan Van Sprang), a former army man who now leads a small troupe around the zombie-ravaged land, trying to survive using general amorality. We are also taken to an island off the coast of Delaware, to a pair of feuding Irishmen, Patrick O’Flynn and Seamus Muldoon (Kenneth Welsh and Richard Fitzpatrick) and their kin. O’Flynn has been traveling the island, killing the infected and the undead without mercy, while Muldoon believes that there must be a cure, or a fix to the problem. O’Flynn is banished, and soon meets with Crocket and his crew, before the whole group takes a stolen ferry to the island.

As expected, amongst the anarchy, social commentary is at play. Romero’s target in Survival is conflict. Not just war; this metaphor can be applied to something as large as that, or, on a smaller scale, the two main opposing sides of western politics, or any opposing fundamental beliefs. O’Flynn and Muldoon opposing viewpoints, neither of which is wicked at heart, but their conflict is so strong that what their fighting is about is overshadowed by the fighting itself, and the destruction that comes with it. It’s a worthy message for the film, and a relevant one, but the film itself is the opposite of that. Romero is an important filmmaker, and his past work has earned him deserved and everlasting respect, but Survival of the Dead is a tired film. The scares are barely there, and arrive with cheap shock sound effects. The characters are for the most part weak, speaking flat dialogue. The gore is fine, but good zombie effects are not a rare thing. There are some fun moments, and the characters of O’Flynn and Muldoon provide some laughs. Overall, however, this film is, unlike its moral, unimportant and uninspiring.

It is heartening to see a director, going into old age, continuing a filmmaking career with the same soul and passion forty years after starting. Perhaps he is messing with his audience: a major sequence of Survival involves the question of whether a zombie will or will not bite a horse. It takes guts to put that kind of surrealism into a horror movie. The film’s final shot, too, is a killer. But it might be time for the auteur to move on. Not away from filmmaking; not even away from horror. Perhaps he needs to find a new theme, to tackle something different. Romero should not be written off, but he needs to make better films than this one.

4/10

Some more pictures of the zombie walk, and of Romero at Survival:

This guy is done up as a zombie from early in Dawn of the Dead. Technically, he's in blackface, but it's a pretty excellent costume.

Security at the event, backed up by police officers on bikes - in the background - was handled by people actually dressed up as Umbrella Corp guys from Resident Evil.

George Romero and Colin Geddes after the film.

More to come!

TIFF Part Two: Daybreakers Review

I continue to be a bad blogger. Here's the second of the Midnight Madness lineup: the Australian/US co-production, Daybreakers.

Daybreakers

The Spierig brothers had a minor hit on their hands five years ago with Undead. As poor a release as this film received in its home country, it still brought them attention: a pair of brothers from Brisbane had managed to write, direct and produce a micro-budget film look much bigger than it really was, with the the vast majority film's extensive special effects handled by the Spierigs themselves, on their own computers. It was a huge effort, creative and impressive. The film itself was not great, with muddled plotting and mixed performances, but it served to show the brothers as filmmakers with great promise.

Promise fulfilled.

Where Undead took an original spin on zombies by throwing aliens into the mix, Daybreakers takes the fast-becoming-stale vampire mythology and gives it new life. We are introduced to a dystopia populated by vampires. Vampirism spread like a virus to the point where humans are almost extinct - and vampires are almost out of food. Running out of blood is causing the vampires to turn into psychotic and dangerous bat-like creatures. Edward Dalton (Ethan Hawke) is a doctor and researcher working for a blood production company, trying to create an artificial blood while becoming increasingly aware of his conscience, to the chagrin of his brother Frankie (Michael Dorman), and boss, Charles Bromley (Sam Neill). A chance encounter with a group of humans on the run - among them Lucy (Claudia Karvan) - leads Dalton to Elvis (Willem Dafoe), a vampire who has been cured.

The world of Daybreakers is endlessly inventive. The brothers fashioned a witty and believable update of our own world and how it could be adapted to suit a population who cannot go in daylight. A lot of dystopic films are creative in this way, and that's all, but Daybreakers is also a very solid genre action piece. We have sequences ranging from an intense attack by a malnourished vampire, to car chases, to huge shoot-outs. All the while the plot, and its intruiging turns, powers along.

Daybreakers may not quite be a film to rise to the top of the dystopia subgenre, but we do have a crowdpleaser that isn't stupid, a great Australian action movie, and a return to the highs of Australian genre filmmaking.

8/10

Advice if you're going to TIFF, or any film festivals with a lot of Q&As: get a camera with a zoom.

Left to right: Colin Geddes, the Midnight Madness programmer, The Spierig Brothers, Sam Neill, and Willem Dafoe, introducing the film.

After the screening, Dafoe had to leave. I asked if they had always planned to make the film an American-set one. They said that with the budget they wanted, it always would have been the only choice. Neill chimed in that he was playing Canadian, not American.

And from the night before, Jennifer's Body. So many fucking photographers. This is just a handful, blocking the view, just to see Megan Fox standing on stage. They didn't even stick around for the film or Q&A, they just wanted an image of her, standing on a stage. Just to make sure that she can, I guess.

And the Q&A. We have Geddes, director Karyn Kusama, Megan Fox, Johnny Simmons, Amanda Seyfried, Adam Brody, Diablo Cody, two producers, and Jason Reitman.

It was a pretty lively Q&A, mostly dominated by Kusama, Cody and Fox, with some loud remarks from Reitman. Reitman produced here, and was also showing his next film as director, Up in the Air. That looks to be a quieter drama, so Reitman was letting loose here, with his first horror crowd. Seyfried and Simmons were adorably shy. Kusama and Fox spoke of having no idea what some of Cody's dialogue was even about.

It was an enjoyable enough session, except for the idiots who wouldn't stop shouting their questions about the film's lesbian moments, sounding like drunk patrons at a strip club begging for another little bit of titty, while the girls on stage just want to go home. There are plenty of those places in Toronto, guys. Head there.

More to come!

TIFF Awards: Aussie Aussie Aussie!

More reviews to come - I promise - but a huge congratulations is in order. For the first time this year, Midnight Madness films had their own People's Choice award. The runner up? Vampire dystopia flick Daybreakers, from Brisbane's Spierig Brothers. The first prize? The Loved Ones, an Australian horror film from writer/director Sean Byrne, which came from nowhere to wow everybody.

It's good to feel proud of Australian genre cinema.

TIFF Part One: Jennifer's Body Review

I've been a bad, bad blogger. Currently in my hostel in Toronto. Before that, Vancouver, seeing friends I've not seen in a long time, which was wonderful. Before that, Portland, which after two nights became my favourite city in the USA. But now, Toronto. I was there three years ago but am seeing more of the city this time. It's big; bigger than I remember. It is not as welcoming as it seemed last time, although the hostel (The Clarence Castle) is great. Even if it is far away from Ryerson University, where the Midnight Madness screenings take place.

Midnight Madness seems to open with the big ones. in 2006 it was Borat, and this time, Jennifer's Body and its accompanying media circus. Megan Fox is the titular Jennifer, and dozens of photographers were there to confirm that, yes, she can still pout, and, indeed, still has breasts. Of the actors on stage for the Q&A, it must be said, she held the room better than the others, and even managed to be, once or twice, funny. Adam Brody didn't say that much, and Amanda "The Only Good Thing in Mamma Mia" Seyfried and Johnny "I Was in Hotel For Dogs and Will Soon Be in Scott Pilgrim; How's That for a Trade Up?" Simmons were charmingly shy. Writer Diablo Cody was as outspoken as you'd expect, and director Karyn Kusama ran things well. The Q&A was amusing enough, but the endless questions to Fox and Seyfried about lesbian shit grew tiresome.

So how was the film?

Jennifer's Body

For a genre seen to be so aimed at males, it is worth noting just how many main characters in these films are female. Jennifer's Body has women in the roles of writer (Diablo Cody), director (Karyn Kusama), hero (Amanda Seyfried) and villain (Megan Fox). It's refreshing, and should happen more often; perhaps it could next time result in a better film.

Needy (Seyfried) and Jennifer (Fox) are long time best friends, now in high school. Needy is dating Chip (Johnny Simmons), while Jennifer sleeps around while wielding power over her friend. As best friends, they don't match; Needy is the high school movie version of a nerd while Jennifer is the high school movie version of a beautiful and popular girl. And yet, they share a bond. This bond leads to Jennifer dragging Needy to a seedy bar to see a band, headed by Nikolai (Adam Brody). a fire burns the bar down, and an in-shock Jennifer by the band. When she returns, she's different. And covered in blood. And, it seems, demonic.

The two most audience-grabbing things of this film are the presence of Fox, and a script from the writer of Juno. Fox is fine; the way she plays evil is bored and pretty, which suits the character; she is almost playing a murderous version of her own public persona. Cody's script is a bigger issue. Juno split audiences, but those who like it do so not just for its wordplay, but its heart. Her TV series, The United States of Tara, proved that the heart of Juno can be, at least in part, attributed to Cody's writing. Her script here, however, just has the wordplay. Jennifer's Body is funny enough to be a decent - but not brilliant - comedy, but is too self-aware, winking too much at the audience, to pack any emotional punch, or to be a very good horror movie. Points are also lost for unnecessary narration and flashback structure. Scream proved that self-aware horror can be scary; the Buffy series proved that funny and self-aware can also be emotionally arresting. Jennifer's Body seems content to be without these elements. Kusama's direction takes Cody's script to the next logical level; scenes that could have been scary are played, instead, as parodies of horror tropes. Questions can also be raised about how much of the film was constructed around public awareness of Cody and Fox rather than being created in a more organic way. Were the Cody-isms increased upon the success of Juno? Would the lesbian elements have been so played up were Fox not so fetishised by the media for being hot and pouty?

Seyfried, as usual, is very good, and Needy and Chip's relationship is cute and believable. Cody's script, as much as it lacks what it needs to be a good horror film, is far more frank and honest about sex than any teen film in recent memory. JK Simmons and Amy Sedaris are as funny as expected in small roles.

Jennifer's Body is a servicable comedy with okay gore, loosely explained paranormal elements, and a few great one-liners that. It could have been a memorable horror film, but isn't. It isn't as bad as its soundtrack - full of Fallout Boy-inspired pop-rock - would suggest, but on the echelon of great high school horror films, Jennifer's Body won't rank very high.

6/10

I owe some reviews. They're be here soon, I swear.

A Review

The Final Destination in 3D

God fucking awful.

0/10

Looking Too Much into District 9

I'm in Vancouver! Alas, too busy holidaying to write much, and the battery on my computer lasts under three hours, so even on long trips I can't write much.

The plane journey, by the way, had a decent selection of films. Not being an idiot, I opted not to watch The Proposal, My Life in Ruins, or 17 Again, but (re)watched Jackie Brown, In the Loop, and (for the first time) saw Adventureland, which is decent but should not be advertised as a comedy. I also started State of Play, confirming that it's not nearly as good as the miniseries it's based on, but the plane landed before it finished.

Also I saw Up in a three-dollar theatre in the delightful city of Portland and it turned me into a giant girl. Review to come.

Review!!!

District 9

It’s a subversion of the typical alien invasion movie. Set not in an American metropolis, but Johannesburg. With aliens that are neither unstoppable and malevolent nor good and wise, but, rather, lost and confused. With a hero who is not a muscle-bound action hero, a wise-cracking pretty boy, or a beautiful but deadly woman, but a character whose nearest cultural touchstone is Murray from The Flight of the Conchords. Using, for a significant chunk of the film, a documentary aesthetic. Here we have a film that turns so many sci fi tropes upside down that it should be brilliant. It isn’t.

District 9 takes us to Johannesburg, twenty years after an enormous spaceship began hovering over the city. Inside the ship were about a million alien creatures, lost and starving. In the city, they were met with hostility, and moved into a huge slum: the District 9 of the title. An initiative has begun to relocate the creatures (or, as a speciesist term would have them, “prawns”) to a new, cleaner slum, hundreds of kilometers from the city. Wikus Van Der Merwe (Sharto Copley) is the hapless middle-manager type, and CEO’s son-in-law, charged with heading up the operation of getting the aliens out of District 9.

As mentioned, the first section of the film is set up like a documentary. We have interviews with Wikus and others involved with the relocation, as well as experts and lecturers on the aliens. The footage seems to come from some unknown crew interviewing people; from news broadcasts; from people within Wikus’s corporation filming; from CCTV footage. As the story develops, the film does away with the documentary style, switching to straight narrative. The story goes to places a documentary could not, so, little by little, it is abandoned. Here is the catch 22 of the film: the documentary is the most successful part of it, and it is what undermines it.

A documentary style – even a fake documentary style – suggests realism. Its aim is to make you believe in what you are seeing, and make you relate to a film set up as pure fiction. There are things that might be excusable in an ordinary film that documentary style films cannot get away with, because they’ve told you they’re real. Take the creatures themselves. They are designed to be somewhat grotesque – very well designed, it must be noted – and, yes, alien. But they are simply too human. They might resemble walking prawns, but they have arms and legs; they stand upright; they have recognizable eyes, and mouths that they eat with and talk and vomit out of, and they urinate from the same place humans do. We are asked to identify with the aliens, so of course they had to have recognizable features. But for creatures from another planet to have evolved so similarly to humans? It’s too much to take. So too are the films other contrivances; the plot conveniences that occur too easily, to move the story forward. An ordinary sci-fi thriller could get away with these things, but not one that is, even in part, presented as a documentary. Furthermore, the way the documentary style is discarded makes it seem as if its purpose was not social commentary, or realism, or satire, but an easy way to get mass amounts of exposition onto the screen, as if it were too difficult for ordinary dialogue to set up more than twenty years of history, so direct-to-camera interviews were used instead.

Things get worse once the film crosses into pure action territory. The action itself isn’t directed with enough drive or tension. It also, like executive producer Peter Jackson’s early work, moves towards over-the-top, gross-out violence. Alien weapons used make things and people blow up, and the film asks us to enjoy seeing people explode into goo. This splatter comedy is incongruous with the documentary section of the film, even though it doesn’t occur until we’re watching an action movie, complete with mismatched buddies and a precocious and tech-savvy child. This is the film’s final downfall. What started out so different – if flawed – ends up in a place no different to any other action movie. The end of the movie is open, yes, but that feels less like shunning convention and more like setting up a follow-up film.

It’s not without merit. Copley does fine work, playing for both laughs and pathos. For this to be his first acting role is a feat. The apartheid commentary is, despite being a little heavy handed, is a worthy enough message. The animation, too, is very good, especially for the thirty million dollar budget. Director Neill Blomkamp shows promise; with tighter direction of action sequences, could yet make something great. This is not that film. This has not changed the face of sci fi cinema. Perhaps we can hold out hope for the obvious sequel.

4/10

Totally alone in that opinion. There must be something I'm missing here. It wasn't just a film that didn't live up to its huge hype, though. It was just flat-out not very good.

Leaving

This will be brief, non movie or TV related, and (mostly) rant-free.

I'm leaving the country tomorrow, until early October. The purpose of the trip is the Toronto International Film Festival, but will also feature appearances from Portland, Vancouver, Montreal, Chicago and San Fransisco. Plus due to funds Toronto will be also, largely, about actually seeing Toronto, which is good as well. I won't be seeing as many movies as I'd like, although have tickets to all ten Midnight Madness screenings. I was at the festival in 2006; Midnight Madness was the highlight, so I'm happy to be seeing those. Especially since Rec fucking 2 is on, and George Romero will be there. Also playing is Jennifer's Body, possibly offering the opportunity to throw things at Megan Fox. Plus I'm happy to be spending the time with my girlfriend, who doesn't have a huge desire to see a lot of movies. There will be hand-holding and finding all the places that feature in Scott Pilgrim.

Upon leaving the house tomorrow morning, I will never return to it. It has been sold; when I'm back in Sydney, I'll be living elsewhere. So tonight marks my last night in my house of about fifteen years.

It's strange.

And my bedroom is all boxes and empty shelves; it's quite offputting. It's also alerted me that I own way too much shit, and will have to have a garage sale once I get back.

So the next update will be in Portland, and will feature a review of District 9 and, maybe, Inglourious Basterds (now seen in full!) as well as whatever I'm stuck watching on the plane. Fingers crossed Bandslam!

And so, goodnight!

Inglourious Bas-

This should be an Inglourious Basterds review. I went to see it today, at a cinema in Sydney's north-east, Warriewood. It's all fancy and stuff, because the first four rows of the cinema are reclining armchairs. According to the ad that they play, it's "unique".

Except for every Greater Union/Event/Birch Carrol and Cole with a "Gold Class", Hoyts with a "La Premiere" or Reading with a "Whatever the Fuck They Call Their Fancy Seats" has the exact same fucking thing, except those places also bring you hot food if you pay too much for it.

Nonetheless, a recliner is a recliner. It's better than sitting on the top level of the State Theatre in a seat slightly less wide than you are, next to a loud fat fucker.

The other thing that would have been ideal for this particular screening was the film making it all the way through without it fucking up so badly as to make the film unwatchable. At the two hour mark. With half an hour, or less, to go. It happened at a point that made narrative sense. The dialogue - at this point in German, so it was subtitled - became muffled. One of the characters in this conversation was on morphine, so it could have been a stylistic choice. Then it continued. For too long, and beyond this conversation. When characters were speaking in English, and so were not subtitled, they were almost impossible to understand. It wasn't a stylistic choice. It was a fuck up.

As an apology, I suppose you could call it, the cinema offered... a ticket to a later session so we could see the end. Good work, management! For future reference, an indication of half-decent customer service would have been more than allowing those disappointed by not seeing the end of the film the opportunity to do so, because (as you'd hope those who run a cinema would know) watching a film is more than just finding out how a story ends; it is the entire experience of watching it, beginning to end. It might have been pretentious for David Lynch to put no chapter stops on the Mullholland Drive DVD, but the dude had a point. Therefore, the managers of a good cinema would have, yes, given a ticket to a later session of the same film, but also, as an apology, given a free ticket to a film that (were all to go according to plan) would be watched, at once, in its entirety.

I admit to being a Tarantino whore. Yes, his work can be self indulgent. Yes, Death Proof was almost all dialogue with a couple of action sequences. But what dialogue. What self indulgence. He may be making his films entirely for himself, but fuck me if they're not more entertaining and more stylish and more enjoyable than eighty percent of the dross out there. There probably was not a film this year I was looking forward to more. Also playing at the same cinema today: The Ugly Truth. GI Joe. Could they not have fucked up? Would the people who paid to see those pieces of shit have even noticed, provided that big things blowing up and/or pretty people continued to be paraded in front of them? I doubt it. It seems, if God exists (and He probably doesn't), then He isn't a film fan.

ABBA: Why?

I was coerced into watching Mamma Mia on Sunday, as a trade-off for making my girlfriend watch Timecrimes. Although she actually liked Timecrimes. It's pretty rad. Some might argue that my not being an ABBA fan, female, or post-menopausal puts me so far out of this film's target audience that for me to review it (i.e. rip it to shreds) would be unfair.

I don't care. It's going to be a large one.

Mamma Mia

There is a conflict inherent in watching this film. As it is a musical, characters frequently break into song, and when they do, they sing ABBA. Yet the band ABBA is never mentioned. One assumes in a world where it is normal to break into "Take a Chance", ABBA would be mentioned at least once.

Unless it's a world where ABBA doesn't exist.

If this is the case, could one just not associate with people who break into song, and then live in a world that is without ABBA? That would be heaven.

The scene is set on a Greek island. Amanda Seyfried plays Sophie, a girl who is American despite living in Greece for all of her life. She lives with her mother, Donna (Meryl Streep), who runs a hotel, and is about to marry Sky (Dominic Cooper). Sophie, however, does not know who her father is. By stealing her mother's diary, she realises her father could be one of three men: Sam (Pierce Brosnan), Harry (Colin Firth), or Bill (Stellan Skarsgard). In this musical universe, they don't have birth control. Sophie, pretending to be her mother, invites the three men, hoping to have her real father give her away at the wedding. The presence of the men causes havoc, and singing. Also in play are Donna's friends and former band members, the drunk and brassy one (Julie Walters) and the drunk and thrice-divorced one (Christine Baranski), as well as Sophie's two friends, who do so little that they deserve no further words.

The film was directed by Phyllida Lloyd and written by Catherine Johnson, as was the stage musical the film is based upon. Between them, there is little cinematic experience. It shows. The film is loud and stupid, with the camerawork resembling what a fifteen-year-old girl with a handycam might do with the material, with crash-zooms and smash-wipes at inappropriate moments, and the most obvious and unsubtle of choices at every turn. The story has as much tension as a Mr Men book, with almost no conflict save for characters keeping secrets, telling lies, and telling others to keep secrets and lie for little reason beyond the opportunity for cheap farce. The point may be the music above the story, but a modicum of suspense or surprising plot turn or two would not have undone the movie. There has also never been a film with so much squealing in it, and that includes every horror film ever made.

The singing and dancing vary in quality. Baranski, with stage experience, does fine work. Streep is likable enough, and having enough fun, to maintain some dignity when in a role with none. Seyfried is as delightful as she always is, with a strong voice to boot. Brosnan is so bad as to almost make the film worth watching for his singing alone. His voice is so terrible it makes you wish he'd been dubbed over by anyone, even the lead singer of Nickelback. The dancing is occasionally fun but more often lazy; the choreography of "Dancing Queen" consists of Street, Baranski and Walters, as well as a bunch of Greek women, skipping down to a dock. The extras on the whole are terrible, only slightly better than the chorus in a third-rate high school play. There is also a bizarre fantasy sequence - put to the song "Money, Money, Money" - where being rich is equated with the ability to drive a ship.

There's a definite audience for this film, where all that matters are the bright colours and ABBA numbers. Outside of that group, there is some mild curiosity value, a couple of reasons why the film might not be a total loss: Amanda Seyfried's adorableness; Pierce Brosnan's awful voice; the gayest stag party ever, involving shirtless men in flippers dancing on a wharf.

To be fair, it's silly and light and fluffy and harmless. It isn't the worst film of all time. An ABBA musical was never going to be high art. It's something that you can turn your brain off to for ninety minutes. Can one really ask for more than that?

Yes.

3/10

Just to be clear: I know I'm a prick. But Mamma Mia has now outgrossed Titanic in the UK. United Kingdom, what's wrong with you? You produce so much good stuff, why do you feel the need to balance that out with shit?

I have never understand ABBA. I understand that they're liked, or even loved. But why, of all bands, do they have a revival every fourteen seconds? A lot of acts were producing shitty pop music in the seventies! A lot of these acts, surely, were as campy as ABBA. What makes ABBA so groundbreaking so that they're one of the most resilient bands on the planet? If anyone cares to explain, they will be duly rewarded.*

Finally: Mamma Mia has revealed a weakness in Meryl Streep. A chink in her armor. For those who thought there is nothing she cannot do, this film begs to differ. Meryl Streep cannot pretend to drive a car against a projected backdrop for shit. For those unlucky enough to have easy access to the movie, whack it on. Skip to the scene where she's driving Christina Baranski and Julie Walters back to her villa. And wonder just how the fuck it is that the car is actually remaining on the road.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go work on my Journey musical, Streelight People.

*With a thank you.

Idol is as Nasty as Radio (Part Two)

In Part One, I talked about how Idol is great because the humiliation of sad people is hilarious.

But there was a special twist. One of the show's judges, Kyle Sandilands, will be gone in a few weeks. He was axed before the show began, but isn't offscreen just yet. He was axed because of something that had nothing to do with Idol.

He was cut for something that was covered extensively, especially in Sydney. The best coverage was by Media Watch, the episode of which can be downloaded in mp4 or wmv. Sandilands and co-host, Jackie O, helm a very popular breakfast show on Sydney radio. "Breakfast with the Stars", it's called. Kyle and Jackie O are the stars, but that word also refers to how exciting it is that they get to interview Lady Gaga and other such fuckers.

They also have tasteless stunts. That Media Watch episode talks about a stunt where a niece and aunt, who had never met, were forced to cry and beg on their knees to be able to spend any time together rather than the niece being sent back home to the US. An earlier episode of Media Watch highlighted games where, for example, people were challenged to pick their lover's genitals out of a line-up.

You know. Classy stuff.

When they're doing stuff that is just tacky - like the genitals thing - it's stupid, but harmless. Emphasis on stupid, but not discounting harmless. It's hard to see the appeal, and you would hope that parents with young children would press the off button, shutting the show down would be unnecessary censorship, as painful as its popularity might be. When they're playing with the lives of real, flesh-and-blood people, that's when flags should be raised.

Like what happened a few weeks ago.

The stunt was a lie detector test. Someone would be strapped to a lie detector, while a "loved" one would ask them personal questions. In this case, it was a mother strapping her 14 year old daughter in, and asking her questions about her sex life.

Here's where the red flag should have been raised. This should never have happened. It should never have been allowed by people managing Kyle and Jackie O, let alone the hosts themselves. Regardless of whether or not it went badly (and it went very badly), this should be what got the radio station in trouble, and child protection called on the girl's awful mother, before anything else.

The mother (who is, no doubt, the worst person involved here) asked her daughter if she'd had sex. Then the girl said she was raped, and that her mother already knew. Following excruciating silence, Kyle said the words he will forever regret, if he is capable of such emotion: "Is that the only experience you've had?"

The comment seems to owe more to Kyle's shock and - let's face it - stupidity more than insensitivity, although having the girl on in the first place shows insensitivity was in play as well. Jackie O (always playing nice, just like Marcia Hines on Idol) then ended the broadcast.

Then, uproar. The pair have been absent from radio since that week, although they return tomorrow, now on a seven-second delay. And Kyle was axed from Australian Idol.

It's not unexpected, but is giantly hypocritical on Idol's part. They claim Kyle has become to controversial, and Idol is a family show. Well, no. In early weeks, at least, it's a show that traffics in humiliation, just like Kyle and Jackie O's radio show, and that was the reason he was hired. It would be refreshing if Australian Idol's producer's were open about pressure from the owners of the format, and fears of commercial interests, rather that yelling that it's "for the children". If it were for the children, sixteen-year-olds wouldn't be allowed to make fools of themselves on the show.

So, Kyle's gone from Idol. It's unfair, but at least we saw the partial downfall of an egomaniac. That's always a lot of fun. If only it were for the right reasons.

Meanwhile the girl from the stunt has had her family further sell her out to A Current Affair, the Nine Network's alleged current affairs program. They've claimed she was lying. Maybe she was. Maybe she's a difficult child. But it would be good is the family would sort out such issues behind closed doors, with professional counsellors, rather than grabbing for fame in the process of "trying to help". It would be good for radio producers to put a leash on their hosts when the get into the habit of playing with people's emotions and lives for the entertainment of listeners. It would be good if television producers had quiet words with people without the talent needed to become musicians, rather than sending them through to be heckled to tears on camera in front of millions.

But that's the fame-hungry time we're living in.

27 Lessons

So the gods of pay TV have delivered Katherine Heigl's opus, 27 Dresses, to my screen. She's pretending to be a likable. There are a lot of lessons, not just about cinema, but about life.

Like all women, above a career, or friendship, or anything else, are thinking about their wedding day.

And that women can't drive! They're too busy thinking about their relationship dramas to focus on the road.

Oh, and having a singalong to an Elton John song does not make a movie Almost Famous. Almost Famous, you see, is an excellent film, while 27 Dresses is as bad as films get.

Meryl Streep is Delightful

Here she is, being interviewed by Stephen Colbert. Julie and Julia isn't at the top of my must-see list, but this interview is both hilarious and adorable.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Meryl Streep
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Meryl Streep

Idol is as Nasty as Radio (Part One)

Australian Idol resumed for another year on Sunday, and while taking a quick break from Deadwood I accidentally caught a bit of it. Deadwood contains more foul language than was once thought to exist, murder, torture, thievery, and backstabbing, and yet Idol is the nastier show. While this post relates to Australian Idol, with a few name changes, it would work for any of the shows in the franchise.

The first few weeks of the show are the "open" auditions. The judges travel from one major city to the next, sitting at a table while a line of would-be singers perform unaccompanied (unless they bring a guitar with them, which seems uncommon) their own covers of already bad pop songs. The judges are Marcia Hines, a singer, Ian Dickson, a record executive, and Kyle Sandilands, a radio personality, and 2009's most satisfying claimed scalp, even if he doesn't quite deserve it. More on that in Part Two.

So, number one, only one of the three judges has any form of musical talent. Okay, they seemed to be joined by Brian McFadden of Westlife this week, but Westlife doesn't classify as music. Marcia also is "the nice one", so her comments to those the judges reject are limited to apologies. Dicko and Kyle both play the part of "the pricks". Dicko is "the slightly wittier prick", perhaps, but they're still pricks. They tend to judge people immediately: God forbid you enter the room as a fatty. When an attractive person reveals themselves as having an awful voice, that's more of a disappointment. "You're a lovely looking girl, but..." If you're unattractive, and can't sing? Better be wearing a raincoat, or your clothes will reek of bile after walking away from the panel.

But these people hope one day to be singing professionals, right? It's clear they won't make it. They're just getting a wake-up call! Besides, it's funny! How did they really think they could get a record contract and national exposure?

Because Idol's producers said they could.

Dicko, Marcia and Kyle aren't the first that the hopefuls audition in front of. Off camera, they perform in front of vocal coaches, and the producers. The producers decide who actually gets to the judges, and who makes it to TV.

Who do you think the producers send through? The good ones, of course. The ones with musical talent, and the ones who can do that Maria Carey pitch-shift thing which Idol suggests is a sign of talent. Just seeing those guys be judged would be boring, though, so they send through the freakshows as well. Many of these guys would be in on it; never thinking they'd make it, but hey, being on TV for a couple of minutes would be cool. Then there are the innocent ones, who have been sent through by producers and therefore given the idea that, hey, maybe they'll make it. Maybe this is their year.

It's not, of course. The people spat upon by the judges don't deserve music careers, as much as they don't deserve to be humiliated. Even Marcia's nice girl act rings false, since she knows that those auditioning have been given false hope by her own producers. Because this is what the dwindling audience of the show is watching for.

So, these people come in. They sing badly. Sometimes even in ways you never thought people would ever sing. They get called worthless. Then they leave the room. Then they cry.

Now that's entertainment.

(to be continued)

The Tonally-Uneven Bones

Peter Jackson's King Kong came out in 2005, and we're finally getting a new film from him in a few months. King Kong is a rare non-evil remake, produced because of Jackson's long-held love for the original rather than studio executives, in a dark room, chanting "money money money" over and over in front of a mirror while holding a candle and turning in circles until Michael Bay appears.

I'm pretty sure that's how one summons that guy, anyway.

Now Jackson has made The Lovely Bones, based on Alice Sebold's heartbreaking novel. It's a novel narrated by a 14 year old girl, who watches her family and murderer after her death.

There's a trailer out. You might be able to find it on YouTube but Apple seems to have an exclusive on it so those will be taken down. Studios don't like people to advertise their movie for free without their permission, so stop breaching their intellectual rights, thieves!

It gives stuff away. The killer is never a mystery, so the reveal in the trailer is not a spoiler. The trailer does show some pretty late-in-the-story stuff.

Also, it's an artless mess.

It starts out looking like a family drama, before we are told it's about a girl's murder, by the girl herself. Gear shift! We're now in some technicolour, fantasy-world heaven which for the most part looks pretty, and also contains a superimposed flower on some ice for some reason.

Then suddenly it's Zodiac mixed with a Rear Window knockoff, with a dash of "I know who killed my daughter!" melodrama.

This doesn't bode ill for the film. A bit of dodgy CG imagery is forgivable this long before release; just think of how bad Kong looked in the early trailers for that film compared with the final version. It does, however, speak poorly for the hacks at Paramount who cut the trailer. Sure, New Line have fucked over Jackson in the past, but they've never made his films look bad to the extent that this trailer does.

A great story shot by a great director, though. There's no need to worry, unless the person who conceptualised this trailer gets a deal to make their own film.

Drag Me to Bruno

The Nine Network have just launched a new drama series. It's called Rescue: Special Ops. I haven't caught it, and won't seek it out, but it's just great that it has such a thrilling title. Rescue: Special Ops. So out there! A team of writers must have come up with that one! I'm going to pitch the network a police drama now, called Cops Arresting People.

Movie reviews!!!

Bruno

Bruno, Larry Charles and Sasha Baron Cohen's follow up to Borat, is a film with many issues. Should these issues matter when the end product is hilarious? Well, kind of.

Yes, the film is very funny. Cohen's Bruno is a gay, Austrian fashion-obsessed TV host who heads to America after being shamed at a Milan catwalk event. His reasons for going to the US are to discover fame, which is where the first of the film's big two themes comes into play. The obsession with celebrity, and people's desire to be celebrities (or for their children to be), are mocked without mercy. There is also a brief trip to the middle east: Bruno decides he will achieve fame by solving Palestine/Israeli crisis. The second target arrives when Bruno heads to middle America: homophobia. Here, Bruno meets army cadets,a macho karate instructor, small-minded hunters and preachers who "cure" homosexuality. Cohen makes it his mission allow these people to tie there own nooses by playing to their worst, cliche-ridden fears.

It doesn't sound hilarious, but if you know Cohen, you'd be aware it often it is. The laughs come from Cohen's outrageous caricature as well as his victim's often unbelievable reactions, such as stage parents agreeing to let dangerous things happen to their babies for a photo shoot, or the gay converter's blank response to being told he has "amazing blowjob lips". It's also often shocking and upsetting; the audience reaction in the final wrestling match is downright scary. And while the majority of the real people embarrassed and vilified in the film do deserve it, you can't help but think perhaps a few aren't reacting to Bruno's sexuality, rather the cameras filming him and making it clear to them they are being pranked. This is a minor quibble; a bigger issue is the constant question of who is in on the joke. What is on screen tends to be funny either way, but thinking about what's real and what isn't takes you out of the movie.

It's very funny, and worth seeing, even if it is too similar to Borat, following to the letter the exact same plot arc, to the extent that Bruno is even left by his assistant character halfway through the film, to be reunited for the climax. And with the reliance on shock humour, it is difficult to imagine it being as good on any subsequent viewings. It's a good enough film, but just the once.

7/10

I'm quite weirded out by some reactions to the film. People have been disgusted by it. I understand that it's not to all tastes. I wouldn't send my mother out to see it. But people who have bought their tickets... did they not know? Did they not see the rating, or any of the endless publicity before the film's release? It's hard to imagine they didn't know what they were getting into. Were they expecting a Merchant Ivory production?

One woman at the end of my screening said to her friend "That was so shit it was funny!" She had been laughing all the way through, but it seems that she thought that the film wasn't in on the joke of itself, as if Bruno was a serious character and the audience was enjoying it the same was as a Uwe Boll film.

People are strange.

Drag Me to Hell

After Spider-man 3, Sam Raimi could have tackled another big-budget film, or a smaller, more restrained effort akin to his work before that trilogy such as The Gift or A Simple Plan. Instead, he traveled back even further into his past to bring Drag Me to Hell, a callback to his glorious Evil Dead days, hinted at by the surgery scene in Spider-man 2. While it copped a PG-13 rating - the same as the Spider-man trilogy - it's almost as much fun as his early work: over-the-top, violent, gross, and ruthless. In other words, it's great.

Alison Lohman plays Christine Brown, a former country girl now angling for a promotion at the bank where she works, while dating a well-bred college professor, Clay Dalton (Justin Long) whose parents disapprove of her. In an effort to seem tougher for her boss (David Paymer), Christine refuses a mortgage extension to an old gypsy woman, Mrs Ganesh (Lorna Raver). Ganesh promptly attacks Christine in her car, gums her chin (!) and curses her to three days of torment before being taken to hell, for eternity.

There's not a lot below the surface of this film. There's no subtext; it's not a metaphor for anything. The plot is just an excuse for a series of horror sequences which tend to be frightening, stomach-churning and hilarious in equal measure. Lohman does fine work treading the admittedly predictable path from meek to badass, while showing a gift for comedy: see her reaction to the question "you mean you have a cat... right?" Lorna Raver is hysterical as Mrs Ganesh, and Dileep Rao is amusing as the psychic Rham Jas who tries his best to help Christine.

There's a lot less blood, and stop-motion has been replaced by CG, but the spirit of the Evil Dead series has returned to Raimi, and it's something to celebrate.

9/10

Then yesterday I watched Evil Dead 2 again. It's still amazing. Now I just need to get my a sexy, feature-packed import of Army of Darkness.

Finally, I highly recommend reading the source novel A Simple Plan. The movie is very good, but the book is amazing, and has ten times the tension.

Coens!!!

Everyone likes the Coen brothers! Even the people I've met with a strange, seething hatred of No Country for Old Men dug on Fargo. Here's the trailer for their latest, A Serious Man.

It's weird.



Any ideas what it's about? And yet, it looks amazing. An ad for a film which sets up a tone but gives away almost nothing. Amazing!

Here's hoping copyright claims don't get this one removed, like what happened with the Saw goddamn VI trailer I put up. I understand a studio wanting to protect their property - even though copyright laws need big overhauls to fit in with the digital age - but taking down a fucking advertisment? For your film? It's a fucking ad! Ordering its removal means less publicity! You know, the thing the ad was designed to create? Why not bad people from saying the film's title for fear it might breach your intellectual property rights? See how that goes down.

Meanwhile I was going to write about Channel 10's new show The 7pm Project, which is a comedy panel show where the brave decision was made to load the cast with mostly non-comedians, but it was too easy a target even for me, and I felt bad.

That said, I would advise checking out the video page to check out the interview of Sienna Miller and Rachel Nichols. It's the worst-shot interview, possibly, ever. It looks like the camera operator was white water rafting while filming.

Back soon with Bruno and Drag Me to Hell reviews!

Go FVIck Yourself

I don't know why the fucking Saw sequels, which insist on continuing, keep up with the Roman numerals thing. It seems to be an attempt to add some sort of class to the series. There's no need; there's no class, there never will be. Just epileptic editing that's supposed to be... scary? I think? It's surprising they even continue with numbers, since every one of these movies is the same.

Or... are they?

Take a look at the video below. Saw is gettin' politicky!

So Saw Siks is for universal healthcare! And, it seems, it's highlighting the dangers of unsafe playground equipment. Thanks, Saw, for bringing the issue to light for people who might not think about the more important things when they watch their entertainment. Sure, they might enter the cinema looking for blood and entrails, but they'll leave the cinema enlightened, having deep political discussions among themselves as they rise up and say "we are the future!"

Or maybe they'll just head to a CD store and buy the new Megadeth album*.

That clip though, is so ridiculous, the movie should be hysterical fun. On paper. A stupid, sermonising villain, over-the-top violence, idiot characters. The Final Destination, for example, is pretty much guaranteed to be a riot. The Saw movies, though, actually thing they are about something more. They think there's a life lesson wrapped up in the mayhem. Like after school specials for Fangoria readers. That just drains the fun right out of it.

Bring on The Final Destination! Saw IV, go fuck yourself.



*I have no idea if this band still exists or how much crossover there is between their fans and Saw enthusiasts. It just seemed to fit.