Spices and piss in film

A sidenote to a previous post about Die Hard 4 and its apparent watering down which will surely be a mistake at the box office. [Did we not learn anything from AvP?] Apparently, regardless of the fact you can get away with one “fuck” in PG-13, the famous one-liner from the Die Hard series has been removed from this chapter. He “says” it, but there is a loud noise that covers up the “fuck”. Thank GOD! Lets get those boys home from Iraq now. As I continually take a shit on this film, early reviews are saying it appears the film was shot for an ‘R’, which is pretty important to note as the “unrated” DVD might actually have something to offer. We’ll see. Early reviews are also very positive. I still won’t go spend money on it.

Something I did spend money on this lat weekend [and would gladly spend again] was Paprika, an incredible anime film from the creator of the Paranoia Agent series [as well as Perfect Blue and Tokyo Godfathers] Satoshi Kon. Paranoia Agent was an awesome, dark as hell series that dealt with personal demons and what people personally feared most. He pushes this style to new heights with Paprika. The film deals with a new invention called the “DC Mini”, which allows you to enter and record someone’s dreams. The technology is not perfect and is just asking to be abused, which it is. The line between reality and dreams is quickly dissolved and honestly, I have a hard time explaining it. This doesn’t mean it’s an incoherent mess as some anime is. To the contrary, it’s actually very accessible. The visual style is gorgeous and begs repeat viewings, which I plan on doing. This is the film Waking Life should have been. Please, go see it. Fuck all these sequels.

Summer of Suck Vol.1

I know, I know, it's not polite to judge, but this Summer I've been relegated to judge, jury, and executioner thanks to the parade of utter SHIT that has been marched out before us since SPIDERMAN 3 shot it's webby load all over the country last month. Then came PIRATES, fucking SHREK 3, goddamn HOSTEL II, douchebagging OCEAN'S 13 (in all fairness, that could be decent) and sonofabitch-Galactus-is-a-damn-cloud FANTASTIC FOUR II. Hey! You just said you haven't seen those yet! How can you... What gives you the right... You have no firm ground to stand on if you haven't even SEEN them yet! Shut up. Yes I can. I've sat through the countless bombardments of ad after loud as Hell ad, not to mention that they are nothing but sequels to bloated movies that I've already given money to, and are undeserving of continuation, other than the fact that they made warehouse-loads of money for their studios!

Okay, tell me with a straight face that PIRATES was a planned trilogy. Alright. They really saw that they had a monster, runaway hit before it's release back in '03. Right. It was a movie based on a damn Disneyland ride starring Johnny Depp, who up until then was anything but a box-office dynamo. SPIDERMAN? Doubtful that it was a trilogy, but due to the astronomical successes of the first two, and the fact that comic franchises are just that, it was inevitable, so it's excused by default. However, I hear that part 3 sucks worse than a penile bowel movement. SHREK? Fuck SHREK. I watched ten minutes of the first one and had to be physically restrained when I went into a TV-killing rage at the Dallas-area Best Buy that was pimping it on every fucking television on display. After that passed, and I finished a six-month anger management course, I was allowed back in polite society.

So, now that the first wave of the '07 shit flood has hit, what else is on the horizon?

EVAN ALMIGHTY - The ads are touting: "In a Summer full of sequels [come see something original]." Sure. It's totally original. It's a spinoff of the Jim Carrey "hit", BRUCE ALMIGHTY where Evan, played by the usually wise Steve Carrell has to play Noah when the second great flood is cast upon mankind. Animal vs. human, and faith-based hijinks ensue. Spinoff or not - isn't that technically a sequel? If it centers around a character from the first one, and features Morgan Freeman reprising his role as God, and has "Almighty" in the title, aw Hell, nevermind. Anyways, it looks about as good as a "Mama's Family" marathon. Word has it that it cost $200 million to make. Wait, what? Where did it... What did they... Fuck!

LICENSE TO WED - Good. Lord. I remember when Robin Williams was funny. There was, uh, wait, hang on for a minute, it's coming. Okay, Robin Williams sucks. Save for a few decent dramatic turns along the way, the dude has been missing the mark for about three decades now. Sucking alongside him in this latest vacuum of talent and budget are Mandy "she still has a career?" Moore, and some guy from "The Office" that nobody will know in two or three years when the show ends anyway. They play an engaged couple that must go through some sort of Catholic pre-wedding test ritual where they have to walk on ten-foot poles while balancing eggs on their heads, except Mandy has to put her eggs between her ass cheeks and breasts, and they do this in the dark. Okay, maybe that's just wishful thinking, but they have to endure robot babies that shit and piss, a lame M.C. Hammer joke, Robin Williams screaming gibberish and smirking, and many other safe, faith-based moments of zaniness. Hmmm, I'm sensing a trend here. We need another chunky intern to blow the president so this shit will end.

TRANSFORMERS - This has me torn in two like one of John Holmes' girlfriends. On one hand, I hate Michael Bay and the latest teen tool du jour Shia LaBoeuf, on the other hand, I love giant robots. Love the fucking energon cubes out of 'em. I used to play with the toys, as most of my generation did, but even if I had no idea what this was about I would be there on the previews alone. The action scenes look insane and chaotic, the CGI seamless, and Jon Voight plays the president. However, there will be a plot, which will include exposition, borne from retarded dialogue. This will more than likely suck, but it shouldn't suck that bad once you've had a blunt and a few highballs. Again, giant robot combat = good.

DIE HARD 4 - There really isn't much to say that Dr. Chaddius hasn't already addressed. It's PG-13. There is flying car-fu. It co-stars that douchebag from WAITING, and the Apple ads. I mean, fucking shit man! Even Stallone's going for a hard "R" (and I mean a hard fucking ED-209 style automatic-rifle-human-ribbon-cutting ceremony-fire "R") for RAMBO 4. Aren't you two buddies and business partners? What gives Bruno? You orderin' a fuckin' pizza or what? Did I mention RAMBO 4 looks fucking awesome? Save your money for that one this Fall.

Well, that's about it for this month. I'm sure next month will have some high-profile garbage that I will avoid like AIDS-flavored bubble gum, and will comment on, and prejudge like the asshole I am. Cheers, wankers! Have fun at the movies!

Yippie Kay Ya Mother....

Fuck 20th Century Fox and Fuck Die Hard 4.

PG-13???

Fuck that movie.

You can't make a "Die Hard" film, or a balls out action film for that matter in a PG-13 realm. Period. Bullets hit people, they bleed. You can do quick cuts and dodge CG cars flying over your heads all you want, but it's still not Die Hard.

The end is near, sell all your belongings and get a log cabin.

Sidenote: I know you can say "fuck" once in a PG-13 movie, and they will manage to squeeze his one-liner in...I still won't go see it.

NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN - Trailer

Can't wait for this one. A great book that looks like it's been faithfully adapted by the Brothers Coen.

Civil Duty: Return of the Living Travesty

I tried to get back to my roots last night and watch a straight-to-video flick. I used to bathe in the glorious waters of straight-to-video movies when I was in high school. Full Moon, Republic Pictures, Trimark, those were the good old days. So, when I saw there was another Return of the Living Dead film I hadn’t seen yet I thought I’d check it out. Enter Return of the Living Dead: Necropolis. It had a sexy cover with a couple Cenobyte looking hyper-zombies on it. This HAS to kick ass!

Unfortunately, it was one of the worst pieces of trash I have ever laid eyes upon. Fucking awful. The two hyper-zombies…ON THE COVER appear in the film for 2 minutes in the end and die immediately, killing no one.

It took over an hour for any group of zombies to make it on camera. Also, apparently you can kill zombies now by popping a couple 9mm casings in their chests. Seriously?!

Avoid…at all costs!

Sayonara BITCH!!!

As Ice Cube would say, "today is a good day". Not trying to turn this into Defamer or anything, but heiress, celubutard, studio noise-maker, cumbucket, walking embodiment of everything that is wrong with our generation, Paris Hilton, is going back to jail for (hopefully) her initial 45-day sentence. The judge that ruled on this deserves a fucking medal.

*Sigh* Why Are The Beautiful Ones Always Crazy? Roman Polanski's REPULSION

Wow. When Catherine Deneuve graces a film with her almost supernatural beauty all one can do is stare, and wonder what it must be like to either be her, know her, or (the cold shower is running as I type this), have loved her. The impossibly beautiful, and eternally glamorous Deneuve has been in the game for over four decades now. She has worked with some of the greatest directors ever - Demy, Bunuel, Truffaut, Von Trier (yeah, I said it, Lars is the bomb) - and in REPULSION, a young Roman Polanski.

REPULSION is about a shy, virginal teenage French girl (Deneuve) living in swinging London during the 60s with her sister. She works at a day-spa, assisting in manicures, facials, etc, while her flat personal life consists of warding off the advances of a persistent bloke who gets increasingly frustrated with the shyness that accompanies her ravishing beauty. And to make matters worse as far as ratcheting up the sexual tension, she is kept awake by her sister's noisy lovemaking with her married boyfriend in the next room. All of this comes to a bat-shit crazy head when her sister leaves her alone in the apartment for a weekend jaunt to Rome with her illicit lover. And by "bat-shit crazy" I mean Cathy D. goes completely nuts.

REPULSION is the stylistic blueprint for ROSEMARY'S BABY in the sense that Polanski uses the closed quarters of the apartment to suffocate his central character as she loses her mind. Cracks and tears appear suddenly in the walls, amplifying the disintegration of her sanity, and disgust and fear of sexual contact. All of these things build, and build until the film's nightmarish mindfuck of an ending. Oh, and did I mention the rotting skinned rabbit on a plate, or the rapist that may, or may not be just in her mind? I didn't? Well, you'll just have to see the movie.

Cathy D., as I mentioned before is hotter than Texas asphalt in August, and one fucked-up chick which makes her very scary to me as a single male. This is not a woman you want to get mixed up with. Muchas problemas. I'm sure this film is doubly scary to women, as it is essentially a young woman's descent into madness brought upon by her fear of sexual penetration at odds with the shame of actually wanting it. REPULSION has such strong feminist overtones that it feels as if it could've been made by Jane Campion, but instead was crafted by a guy currently in exile, avoiding conviction for a 30 year-old stat rape case. Go figure.

We're living in a period where horror is anything but subtle, and the psychology of the characters take a backseat to the excesses of gore and suffering. I'm not about to get into a "torture porn" ethics/morality or lack thereof debate, because we here at the Wreck love some fairly sick shit (some of us more than others). We're not going to give Eli Roth any press because a) we haven't seen either of the HOSTEL films, and b) we hated CABIN FEVER and are still trying to figure out what the big deal is with this guy. My point being after a needless digression that a film like REPULSION is ten times more effective than most of the shock-horror being released today. It's easy to shock, or gross-out an audience, but it's damn fucking hard to create a character that you truly feel for, then deliver genuine scares through events that keep you up at night, thinking about what it was that you just witnessed.

Random review: Silent Hill

A couple of weeks ago I had some down time and popped this movie in as background noise while I did some work on the central computing computation device. I saw this movie opening night as I am a big Silent Hill fan who’s played through all the games repeatedly. So, this wasn’t the first time I had seen it. It was actually closer to the 4th or 5th time. If you are not familiar with Silent Hill, it’s a series of survival horror [google it, plus I think this is a pretty broad characterization as I think the Silent Hill series are almost genre defying] games dating back to 1999. There have been 4 games spanning various platforms. All are required homework for those who have never experienced them. The story of the games is a little hard to describe and there are tons of people on the interweb cyberspace that can probably describe it better than me, so don’t yell at me if you disagree. It deals with a fictional town called Silent Hill which is a sort of personal Hell for people, or maybe it is Hell, or maybe its purgatory? Bottom line is you end up in this really foggy [or ashy?] ghost town where tons of the scariest fucking creatures ever conceived are lurking. Combine that with insane music and sound design from Akira Yamaoka [google it] and you are guaranteed to feel uneasy when playing with all the lights out and the sound turned up. The games deliver a very cool, almost David Lynch style narrative and immerse the player in a way no movie ever could. They are a unique experience and something no movie could ever capture.

When I read they were making a film adaptation I was horrified and not in a good way. After I was done breathing out of a paper bag and cursing creation I found out that Christophe Gans and Roger Avary were responsible. My panic then turned to caution or “yellow alert”. It turns out both were very passionate about the games and, like most people, revealed that SH2 was their favorite of the series. [yellow alert off, lower shields] Months later photos from the sets were popping up on the internet and my cautious optimism was reinforced with what looked like a very promising project. Another aspect of the production that really excited me was that they decided against CGI for the creatures and instead were using real actors in costumes. Now, I was officially excited.

The film’s plot loosely focuses on the events in SH1 while combining the aesthetics and music as well as some characters from SH2 with a female protagonist similar to SH3. This is a brilliant way to bring all the games together in spirit all into one film. I think as far as visuals and sound go, SH2 captured the essence of Silent Hill better than any of the other games. I also feel it was the darkest of the series. That said, I think the first game is a great place to start plot-wise. Dealing with losing your daughter in this “world” is a horrifying notion. The film focuses on a couple whose adopted daughter, Sharon sleepwalks and speaks of a place called Silent Hill. She is on medication and is receiving therapy but nothing seems to be working. After Sharon nearly kills herself sleepwalking one night her mother Rose, played my Rahda Mitchell, decides to sneak off with her daughter against the wishes of her husband to find this place Sharon keeps speaking of in hopes of curing her. On the way to this town she arouses the suspicion of a local police officer who attempts to follow her and pull her over. Sharon decides to run and they both get into an accident right at the edge of the town. Sharon awakes from the wreck to find her daughter missing from the car.

After this somewhat brief setup the movie takes on the mood and vibe of the actual game…sort of. They took some creative liberties in order to make the film adaptation a tad more coherent than the games. They did this by making Silent Hill a real location on a map. But this town is uninhabited since a fire wiped the town out. The town Rose is in is covered in ash that is floating in the air because the fires are burning to this day. Within this town exists a parallel version that melts the whole town into a skeleton of itself falling into pitch black every day. The more you try to explain the film the further out it sounds. I can totally understand someone unfamiliar with the games really scratching their heads after seeing this film, as it doesn’t follow a particularly familiar formula of the horror genre. It’s gory and dark and at times unsettling. Not to mention, Pyramid Head is a major part of this! It’s this unique quality combined with entirely unique visuals and tone that really make it something special in my opinion and possibly the best video game to film adaptation ever made. I think the film loses a little at the end when they do some over-stylized flashbacks to fill in all the gaps but I don’t think it hurts it THAT bad.

The purpose of this post is to recommend the games series as well as the film to everyone even mildly curious. If you have the self-control to play through the games [chapter 1-3, don’t worry about 4] before seeing the movie, all the better. In other good news, a sequel has been confirmed although it’s unclear if Gans will direct. Let’s all cross our fingers he does.

Silent Hill 2006
Director: Christophe Gans