A Review

The Final Destination in 3D

God fucking awful.

0/10

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.

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.

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.

How About... None of Them?

Can you pick Australia's Perfect Couple?

Fuck. I have to reevaluate what I know about relationships. It turns out that to be a "perfect couple" isn't about compatibility or trust or love or any of that stuff that, you know, logic suggests. It's about how quirky in a network-friendly way you are - "we're virgins!" "we argue a bit!" "we're different heights!" - and your ability to go through idiot fucking challenges!

And, of course, a handy tolerance for Jules Lund.


Jesus.

Not that I've worked in television for that long, but there's no way anyone on this production (bar the contestants, of course) cares about what they're creating. The production offices of this little gem aren't filled with proud people, safe in the knowledge they're creating something people will love and remember. They groan at every batch of rushes that get shit into the system.

No one's demanding a constant stream of high art, Australian television, but how about something that won't give its audiences a brain embolism?

I should thank my lovely girlfriend Tina for alerting me to the existence of Australia's Perfect Couple. One thing we can agree on, as a couple? This fucking show will be worse than Hitler. I wonder if that qualifies us to be on it?

Deal or No Deal Still Exists; Humanity Weeps

Deal or No Deal, despite all reason, and the Geneva Convention, still exists. It is a show of breathtaking stupidity. For those unaware, the way a contestant plays on this game show is by holding a briefcase.

That's about it.

Okay, there's more, but if you don't know, I could not be bothered explaining it to you. There's no skill involved, unless willingness to take risks is counted as a skill. (It's not.) In Australia the show is hosted by Andrew O'Keefe, who is the Antifunny.

The show had been scrubbed from my mind, but I inadvertently caught a bit of it today, and... it's grown stupider. If the show used to be as smart as, say, Paris Hilton, it's now as smart as Paris Hilton were she hit by a bus but survived, unable to communicate save for a few gurgling noises as she tries to say "don't you have any pink hospital gowns?"

First of all, it's the special Dancing With the Stars* week, where the celebrities** from that show play the game for home viewers. Today, it was Rob Mills, known for his time on Australian Idol and a brief fling with Paris Hilton, before her tragic bus accident. He's on a game show to promote the reality show he's on due to his fame from being of a reality show. If that circle of inanity wasn't enough, the show itself has increased its audience participation tenfold. Picture a game show audience. Picture the people who take time out of their lives to go to a studio and watch people open cases. Now picture them holding their arms in front of them in the shape of an X, collectively yelling "NO DEAL!". Picture them holding both arms up, on either side of their heads, rubbing their fingers together with glee, yelling "DEAL!" The contestant makes those gestures back at them, giving them validation, like the participant in the middle of a bukkake circle saying "thanks" at the end of it.

Never validate an idiot. No good will come of it.

*They're not really stars. There's a blind guy and the host of Today Tonight, and that's it.
**Really, they're not.

Hacked to the Rafters

Oh yes. The puns keep on coming.

Packed to the Rafters, the Australian dramedy, was one of my favourite punching bags of last year. Largely because, despite being labelled as such, it contained neither dram, nor edy. Worst of all, however: it's called Packed to the Rafters. To the uninitiated, this might seem inoffensive enough. A bit of a cliche, perhaps, but a title's a title.

It's about a family named Rafter. A family with grown children who all at once move back home, or near enough to it, making the home... Packed to the Rafters. Get it? Get it? Far be it for me to complain when I myself use puns as post titles (including this one) but this Goddamned show has not a hint of irony to it. It's soaked through with saccharine and Australian viewers lap it up like the last drops of water in the desert. Bad punning is an artform, but the producers aren't going for that. They were aiming for clever, and thought they hit a bullseye. Alas, they hit the bullseye of the next target over. Further, the characters were named for the purpose of the terrible title. It would be more forgivable (although not much more) had the characters been named Rafter already, they were searching for a title, and somebody's cartoon lightbulb went off, but that's not the case. It's so constructed that it needs a sledgehammer taken to it.

The twist is: I hadn't watched an episode of the show. The title was enough to put me off watching it, not to mention the advertisements. I had only seen clips. Snippets of episodes. It was enough.

An example from last year:

The father character, played by Erik Thompson, has some wacky suburban cricket rivalry with another player. There's a big scene on the field, which culminates with Thompson's opponent getting a cricket ball to the groin. Kooky music ensues. Oh! Those Rafters!

The very next scene has Rebecca Gibney's mother character talking to her daughter, played by Jessica Marais. It's a sad scene; you can tell, because Gibney looks sad. Her daughter has left a long term relationship, and her former partner, she reveals... is on ice. This makes sense, because ice addiction is very common in middle-class suburban Sydney.

Then, Gibney asks:

"Are you addicted to ice, too?"

So we have a comedy scene, as broad as they get, followed by over-the-top sad family melodramatics. Shows such as Six Feet Under have mastered the tone-shift, but the Rafters are not the Fishers, nor will they ever be. This juxtaposition is as jarring as a rape scene in the middle of a Disney movie.

Tonight, however, I watched a full episode. It was unfair of me to judge the show without sitting through an entire one. Also, I was waiting for the lottery results, which were delayed to trick even more people into watching this tripe.

I didn't win, in more ways than one. Here are some highlights:

• A psychic. They've brought in a psychic, who has made predictions for what's to come. If it wasn't enough to add a stupid supernatural element to proceedings, the show's audience also needs things telegraphed, because just watching stories unfold is too damn hard!
• The daughter character - having curbed her ice addiction, it seems - has a high school reunion. Not wanting to be embarrassed for being - sacre bleu! - single, she makes up a boyfriend. Jesus Christ; I'm surprised she didn't name him George Glass.
• At the reunion, the man she has roped into pretending to be her boyfriend, a dopey friend of her brother, threatens to humiliate her further by being a dumb fuck. Happily, some music starts, and he dances; the daughter dances with him, they both look silly, and she realises it doesn't matter what people thing of you. A nice moral! What have we all learned today, children?
• Gibney's forty-something character is pregnant. Not only does this pass for a plot twist, but name a single show that hasn't been ruined by the addition of a baby.
• A character bags out Juno. Be a better show before you start pulling that shit, Rafters.
• The music. Dear God. If you've ever had trouble with the music in Gilmore Girls, don't watch this show within arm's reach of sharp objects. It's so happy and goofy it makes The Wiggles sound like Norwegian death metal.
  
• There's a voiceover. A narration. Why? Because there's a voiceover in every single episode, by a different character. Not used creatively. Not used ironically, or to be funny. Just. Fucking. There. In case thinking about the things that happen in the show are too taxing without a bit of help.

The saving grace here is: I can now trash the show without fear. It's a kind of freedom. But please, Packed to the Rafters, could you at least tone it down a little? You make it difficult to defend Australian cinema and television.

I'm going to go watch some Frontline.

Have some clips!