This is one of the best films in the German silent cinema, and that’s saying a lot, considering it’s a field full of masterpieces. FW Murnau really pushed the medium of film in a way he never had before, and in many ways, didn’t until his death in the early thirties. Many consider Sunrise to be his best film, while Nosferatu gets all the fame, and both with good reason, but I must admit that my personal favorite has to go to this one.
The story deals with Faust, an old doctor who is trying to save the people in his village from a plague spread by Satan himself. When an Angel stops him, Satan challenges the angel to a bet: corrupt a man enough to denounce God and Satan will rule the Earth. So, he sets on his mission. Faust invokes him as a last desperate chance for help, and he appears in his new name and guise, Mephistopheles. Mephistopheles then tries to corrupt him as much as possible, even turning him into a young and lustful man, but something Mephistopheles didn’t expect happens: Faust falls in love with the young daughter of one of his patients. Mephistopheles decides to take advantage of this situation, and sets in motion the destruction of Faust.
This movie is very bleak, especially after the girl is introduced as a character. Mephistopheles literally does everything horrible imaginable to this woman, but in the end, as both the girl and Faust burn together in love, Mephistopheles loses his bet, as they both join together in love and goodness. The movie has a lot of style, and some amazing set pieces. The most amazing came at the beginning of the film, with the giant Satan looming over the city, spreading the plague with it’s huge wings. The invocation sequence is also pretty amazing, and so is the stuff with Faust and Mephistopheles riding in their flying magic shroud (not carpet). And speaking of Satan, he’s played here with great gusto by Emil Jannings. You could tell Jannings was having a blast with the role, hamming it up and over-acting in the usual Silent ways, but in a way it fits his demonic character. His costume makes him almost like an early drag queen.
So this might sound like a supernatural melodrama to you, I beg you to give it a look. Is one of the most profound, important movies ever made, and if you don’t like the story, check out its filmmaking. Very few films come close.
An alien ship arrived in Johannesburg, South Africa and a race of locust-like extraterrestrials have been forced to live as second-class citizens. They live in squalor and poverty, as they are forced to move from their homes and live separately from the humans that treat them like shit and abuse them constantly. All of this, while the aliens are trying to find a way to go home. The plot starts in when one of the humans, who had previously worked against the aliens, is now infected with a liquid that is slowly turning him into a man/alien hybrid, and everybody is out looking for him.
One of the most powerful science fiction movies to come out since the original Blade Runner, much of it’s power comes from Neil Blomkamp’s choice of using a cinema verite style and making it look as much like a documentary as possible. Probably the first thing that has to be said is the wise choice of casting the film in South Africa, where there are many illusions to the Apartheid and what is going on with the aliens here. The two main aliens, father and son, trying to find their way home, is very touching. You actually pity the poor aliens and their choice of trying to rebel against the creatures, while you also can understand why the aliens want to trade arms and form gangs for self-defense and feeding reasons. It has to be said that the Aliens look very realistic, even with the CG that is used on them. For many sequences I stopped looking at animation itself and felt I was really watching an alien soap opera. They are also pretty damn good actors. The movie is also very grotesque, in ways I wasn’t expecting: there is a lot of gross and gore elements, especially with the particular transformation of a man into ‘roach’ that add to the realism of the film.
This movie has already become a box-office hit, and has been better received than the trash of the Transformer and Terminator sequels that came out this year. This movie will rank with films like Blade Runner, John Carpenter’s The Thing and the first two Alien films as some of the best the genre has to offer, and I look forward to Mr. Blomkamp’s future films.
The story is simple: Arbie, a young dweeb with a tiny penis, gets angry over seeing his former high school sweetheart Wendy (Kate Graham) being the lover of a ultra-liberal, angry, protesting feminazi lesbian. So, he joins their object of protest: a fast food joint named American Chicken Bunker. But all is not well, as the restaurant was built over ancient Indian burial ground, and soon enough the spirits of both the Indians and the slaughtered chickens come back from their graves to possess the living and destroy the world. Arbie, with his motley crew of co-workers, must protect Wendy from the evil chicken monsters.
In typical Troma fashion, there is absolutely no political correctness to sour the proceedings. There’s jokes about puke, diarrhea, the fast food industry, the Muslims, racism, and giant zombie chickens. The gore and blood flows like rivers, and the movie is full of energy and anarchy, even more so than Terror Firmer or the Toxic Avenger films. It’s the pinnacle achievement in Troma’s career, and like their most famous previous films, it will become a classic of the underground cinema movement. Don’t miss it.
Here’s the problem with the metal/horror subgenre: there’s no way to make a movie in this genre and keep it serious. First of all, all the movies are incredibly dated by their eighties time period, a time when people really thought it was some sort of satanic music. Second, they’re all cheesy as hell. Trick or Treat, Rock N’ Roll Nightmare, Hard Rock Zombies, they’re all funny and cheesy but hardly scary. This movie is no exception. In fact, it might be the most ridiculous of them all, thanks to Tray Loren and his character of Billy Eye. If you ever wanted to hear someone with the most obnoxious laugh ever, here he is. It’s like fingernails through a chalkboard. He’s constantly mugging as well, with bad Ziggy Stardust makeup and red bandanas that make him like he should be in a Loverboy cover band than a speed metal band. The rest of the cast doesn’t fare well better. Every member of the cast looks like they were picked from bad community theatre, and forced to look like Eighties’ metalheads. There are half-assed attempts at terror and gore, but none are very memorable, not even a particular dismembering.
The best part of the movie comes in the last act, with the concert sequences. The music is pretty damn cool, provided by the band Sorcery, and Billy goes around killing victims with a microphone/sword that are tied to the stage. The ending, with Billy being electrocuted and singing his high note at the same time, seems almost like a parody of Beef’s death in The Phantom Of The Paradise (one of my favorites). In the end, this is a fun cheesy fare, and you’ll be singing Rainbow Eyes long after the movie’s done.
The acting is competent from a cast that know better than this. Christian Bale here is a lot friendlier than his recent characters from the Batman/Terminator movies, and looks pretty cool with a scruffy beard, but he basically has nothing to do except act with authority and look intense. Izabella Scorupco, the former Bond girl, lends the typical hot piece of ass, and Gerard Butler appears as his typical goofy self. I swear, even in 300 I can’t help but laugh at his accent. Then there’s the walking joke known as Matthew McCoughnahey, and as you might expect, he chews the scenery like it was bacon and bullshits constantly about heroism and taking action and killing dragons, blah blah blah. I half expected him to get high on weed and start surfing. The dragons themselves aren’t very memorable, being shown off in bad and uninteresting CGI. The one in Dragonheart looks more realistic than the ones here.
I can only give props to one thing, and that’s the production design. The place does look like it went through a dragon apocalypse. I do get a lot of unintentional giggles from sequences such as a guy who’s parachuting from a helicopter and crashes into the ground at full speed, I couldn’t help but laugh. But in the end this movie is no better than your typical SciFi Channel crap, both in acting and effects, and is as memorable as passing gas.
But it’s Zach Galifianakis who steals the show as Stu, a lonely but friendly ‘dude’ who initiates the night of chaos to begin with. He has the best lines and is featured in the best scenes of physical comedy, such as when he receives a punch from Mike Tyson, or when he gets electrocuted by a stun gun to the brain. His ‘gambling’ shtick is awesome as well. I’ve been a fan of his since I first saw him on a stand-up special on Comedy Central, and I wish he had singed a song like he does in his stand-up.
This picture was directed by Todd Phillips, a former underground documentary filmmaker who made the film Hated! With GG Allin and the Murder Junkies and the college documentary Frat House, before becoming a Hollywood player with Road Trip, Old School and Starsky & Hutch. After Hated, this is his best film, and I’m counting the days till the sequel comes out.
After a boring and unnecessary murder of a naked chick (with a dude wearing what looks like a Papo Swing mask), Ruby LaRocca goes to a rape clinic to recuperate from an attack. But it’s so happens that it’s literally a rape clinic, and Ruby is forced into rape and sex by the doctor and her nurse (played by Darian Caine). There’s a lot of sex and nudity in the film, and Ruby looks great naked, but it does get tedious after a while, especially since it’s softcore. It’s hard softcore, since it does look like she’s receiving penetration, but none of it is seen onscreen, and there’s just so much offscreen sex you can see before you start falling asleep. Darian Caine doesn’t help matters either. She’s very beautiful and I’m sure she’s a great person (based on behind-the-scenes stuff I’ve seen with her), but the woman can’t act to save her life and it hurts my gums to see her act. This movie is pure amateur hour at winn-dixie, with no interest in creating suspense or terror, and more interested in the softcore sex. Sex is fine, but if you want to make something that’s billed as “disturbing” and “horrific”, there’s more to explore.
I say skip this. If you want to watch good softcore films from the same type of cast & crew (and philosophy), I recommend you check the films of Tony Marsiglia, the only director in the whole Seduction Cinema club who seems to give a shit about making movies, with great stuff such as Chantal, Sinful and Suzie Heartless.
This movie received a lot of positive feedback from horror fans, and the controversy surrounding the adoption agencies that got some sand in their vagina peaked my interest, so I decided to finally see it. Better late than never, I guess. And I loved it. The acting is excellent. Vera Farmiga is an excellent actress, as shown in The Departed, and gives a very flawed, very human performance. I was endeered to her character and was behind her 100%. Of course, that helps because of the acting of Isabelle Fuhrman, who plays Esther. Boy, I have hated me some kids in my day, but no kid has received that much hate in my life as this movie one. She is evil, manipulative, and mature in a level way beyond what you would think. Of course, this all adds to a great twist in the third act about who she is, a twist that is genuinely frightening, just one of the best in slasher history.
There are one big flaw, and that’s Peter Sarsgaard’s character. He’s clueless all over and surprisingly dull. When he gets his inevitable demise, you’re hardly surprised. I felt more sorry for Vera’s character, having such a piece of wood for a husband. But still, this is a great horror film, and one of the scariest of the year. Dark Castle finally made one right.
Here’s a movie I had zero aspirations for. Hell I barely knew anything about it, except that it was a thriller. My main reason to go watch it is that it stars Milla Jovovich, who’s one of my favorite actress and would literally watch anything, no matter how bad (like the two horrible Resident Evil sequels). But to my surprise, this is a very well-made psychological thriller featuring a helluva great cast. Jovovich is great as always, showing a very girly, vulnerable spot until revealing her more familiar ‘tough girl’ side in the third act of the film. I’m also a huge fan of Timothy Olyphant, been so since seeing him in Live Free Or Die Hard, and here he doesn’t disappoint, playing the typical badass hero he is. And then there’s Steve Zahn, who always plays a goofy comedic relief, but here he’s pretty damn good, especially in the third act. I talk a lot about the third act of this movie and with good reason, since it’s one of the coolest and most well-done ‘twists’ in a long time. I won’t say anything, but it will grab you by the balls.
Props have to go to David Twohy. He’s a very underrated director who’s made some very good and interesting science fiction films (The Arrival, Pitch Black, Chronicles Of Riddick). He turned something that could have been very routine in the hands of another filmmaker and turned into a very Hitchcockian thrill-ride with lots of style, grace, and violence. So give this one a try, you won’t be disappointed.
As you can see, the plot is very similar to a movie that would come out four years later, First Blood. And while the first Rambo film, Stallone made the killings to be more in a self-defense way, there’s very little sympathy with the Exterminator. He’s a brutal killer, taking the law into his own hands, and showing no mercy to those who commit crimes. There is a lot of good acting in this film, particularly from Christopher George, who I’ve always loved from his horror films like City Of The Living Dead. Sadly, Robert Gintly, our titular character, is too blonde, blue-eyed and baby-faced to be believable in the role, although to his credit he shows a good amount of intensity in the film. The script and cinematography are very realistic and very gritty, showing the true violence and racism of the streets. So I recommend you watch The Exterminator, it’s an underrated classic and if there was ever a movie that bridged the gap between the action films of the seventies and eighties, it’s this one.
Yes, this is a very thin synopsis, you’ll recognize that if you’ve ever seen the film. But I didn’t want to leave anything away, since this movie actually has a lot to say. Oddly enough, the way I found out about it was quite interesting. I was in high school, and had already seen one Bergman movie, The Seventh Seal. In Blockbuster, of all places, I saw the box of this film, and decided to rent it on the basis of the cover alone. I mean come on, two hot Swedish blondes caressing each other? I was expecting lesbian soft porn! Boy was I wrong. Although it is both intimate and sexual, it’s all internal, shown on the performances of both actresses. Of course, Ingmar Bergman was a genius when it came to handling actors, and it can be seen by the way they react. Look at Ullmann’s pauses as she lies down on the bed, the light fading down, her eyes looking deep into the wall. That’s something you can’t teach in acting school! And look at the sequence in which Bibi Anderson talks about her foursome on the beach. It’s a very difficult scene for anyone to handle, acting and directing-wise, but Bergman handles it masterfully, creating what could be one of the most erotic sequences in film history without showing us any skin. I listened on, holding my breath, as if I was witnessing it myself. It’s incredible.
There’s a point where a lot of people get confused, and I did so myself, and this is the sequences in the beginning, middle and ending of the film where we see a proyector being turned on, flashes of different weird images (like a spider, of the killing of a sheep) to weird scratches of the film and shots of a boy in his underwear. Is this supposed to be Bergman? Is it supposed to be us? Is Bergman trying to make us delve into how filmmaking challenges us psychologically (psychology being a main theme in the film) or is he simply reminding us that this is a movie, and we shouldn’t take it so seriously? Well, watch it and make your own conclusions. It’s a great film and you won’t be disappointed.
I’m a huge fan of Jim Henson, and this is my favorite of his dark fantasy films he made during his downtime with the Muppets (which I also love). I like it more than Legend and the over-rated Labyrinth. The story itself is magical but epic at the same time, delving into the double nature of humanity, and how each of us has both a good and evil side. I also love the puppetry and special effects, which are pretty realistic in some cases, especially the Gelflings, who sometimes look like real elves. These creatures were designed by famous fantasy artist Brian Froud, and his wonderful talents can clearly be seen. Now, many have accused this film to be very dark. While I consider Legend to be much darker than this, there are some scenes that are genuinely scary. The crab-like creatures that work for the Skeksis are very weird and move in a frightening way, and the nightmarish sequences where they capture the locals of the area, the Podlings, will make people recall Nazis taking over Jewish ghettos. By the way, is it just me, or do the Podlings look like a more retarded version of the fraggless from Fraggle Rock? If there’s anything I didn’t like about this movie, it was the Podlings. You might as well write ‘cannon fodder’ on their foreheads, because you know they’re going to get fucked. Still, with all it’s darkness, a lot of greatness shines through. It’s a perfect fantasy film and a genius achievement in the world of muppetry and special effects, and I wish Jim Henson was still alive so he could make more movies like this. 
Ah, GI Joe. I grew up as a child in the eighties, so GI Joe was a big part of my life. I watched the cartoon, read the comics and collected the action figures. I loved the good guys and the bad guys alike. So when I heard this movie existed, I was shocked, since I had never heard of it. So I found a used copy on eBay and snatched it up, and was amazed at what I saw.
The movie is basically the same as the Transformers movie that came out in the eighties, basically an excuse to show off new characters to make action figures out of. The drama centers around Lt. Falcon (played by Don Johnson, yes THAT Don Johnson), step-brother of Duke, who is a rookie in the Joe ranks along with five other members. Cobra, and it’s leader Serpentor, have aligned themselves with Golobulus and the evil supernatural forces of Cobra-La, in one mayor global attempt at taking over the world by turning every human being (except themselves) into man-beasts. First I have to say, this movie has the most epic opening sequence I have ever seen in a cartoon film. It starts with the statue of liberty and the city of NY being attacked by Cobra, until the whole place is swarming with Joe’s, in what looks like World War 3. It’s an incredible sequence! Sadly the rest of the movie is nowhere near as good as this moment, but I have to say this movie is very well done, script-wise and animation-wise. It’s not as good as the Transformers animated movie, but then few things are.
I was very impressed with the talent they got involved for the voices. Not only is Mr. Miami Vice playing a lead, but there’s also Oscar-winner Burgess Meredith, Mickey from the Rocky movies, voicing the lead bad guy, giving it some unexpected real menace to the role. But I have to say, this movie was liked more for nostalgia than for anything else. I liked seeing Cobra Commander whining and screaming as usual, but most of my favorite characters, such as Scarlett, Snake Eyes, and The Baroness do nothing more but have glorified cameos. In the end, it’s a fun film and very entertaining, but more because of nostalgia than for anything else.
Now granted, this greatness comes from just how bad this movie can get. After all, I defy you to watch a movie that has worse lighting, sound and editing problems. The music is pure cheese, and even the boom mike makes an appearance, almost as many as ten times (I wish I had counted)! The action scenes are silly and badly staged, having the grace of a Bruce Lee suffering of arthritis. But what makes the film the great piece of cinematic cheese that it is, is Dolemite himself, Rudy Ray Moore. The man kicks ass all over the place, does some jive-ass rapping, has an afro that would put some black men to shame and dresses like a pimp superhero. He also fucks everything in sight, which is incredible considering how over-weight he is, and has a face of a man who looks eternally drunk. His dialogue is some of the most hilarious in the history of cinema, cursing like a black sailor at a Klan rally. His name is the title of the movie for a reason, and when you see this film, you will be scarred for life. So I say, open up your heart, and your eyes, and watch the cinematic gold-colored shitstain that is Dolemite. You won’t regret it.
Now, a lot of people will give me shit about this, saying the two Nolan movies are better. And while I love The Dark Knight and get bored to tears with Batman Begins, I just can’t agree. This movie to me is everything a comic book movie should be about. Instead of taking a whole hour to give us a flashback about how Bruce Wayne became Batman (something that people don’t really give a crap about), our origin is sweet and just enough to keep the character being mysterious, the way he should be. The casting of Michael Keaton, the best Batman still, is genius in that sense, since you wouldn’t expect him to be this dark crime-fighter. This comes out during his Bruce Wayne scenes, where he’s charming, funny, and the type of guy who any woman could fall in love with. When he becomes Batman, he’s dark, mysterious and cool. Besides, Keaton can pull off a smirk like no other. On the other end of the spectrum, Jack Nicholson shines in the Joker role. While I will say that Heath Ledger made a scarier and cooler version of the Joker, I can’t deny that I love Nicholson’s performance. He really seems to be having fun with the character, making his quirky faces, going from one end of the spectrum of emotion to the other (mostly between calm and insane), and just really having a lot of fun causing chaos and destruction. His laugh is awesome, too.
The way the movie was made is more true to a comic book, as well. The time period seems to be a la-la land where it’s both modern and from the 1940’s, which goes well with the character. There is also something of a surreal tone with the locations. I mean nobody has seen buildings like the ones in this city, and that’s a good thing. And of course, you can’t go out without mentioning the great score by Danny Elfman. His music is what drives the movie, and in fact, sets most of the tone. It’s also very exciting and driven. The only bad thing with the score is the Prince stuff, but other than that, his music is perfect. It’s one of my favorite movies of all time.
