If the review Howard and I did of Prometheus wasn’t enough to warn you away, here’s a spoiler-filled and NSFW list of all the questions regarding various plot idiocies in the movie, some we covered, some we haven’t. Enjoy!
Posts Tagged ‘movie reviews’
More Poking Holes in Prometheus
Sunday, June 24th, 2012Howard Waldrop and I Review Prometheus
Monday, June 11th, 2012Over at Locus Online. It wasn’t as good as we hoped it would be.
Howard Waldrop and I Review The Avengers
Sunday, May 6th, 2012In a new land speed record, Mark Kelly had our review up at Locus Online about thirty minutes after I mailed it to him.
And anything that pushes The Hasslehoff Recursion further down the page is a blessing for the sanity of others…
Howard Waldrop and I Review John Carter
Monday, March 12th, 2012Over at Locus Online. I liked it more than Howard did…
Hugo and Georges Méliès
Monday, November 28th, 2011Howard Waldrop and I reviewed Hugo over at Locus Online, which we liked an awful lot.
The film involves (slight spoiler) the work of French film pioneer Georges Méliès, who produced, directed, wrote, and starred in over 500 silent short films, many of which no longer exists. But several of the ones that do are up on YouTube, and I thought I would gather them here. Méliès, a former stage magician, was the first to create a number of optical effects.
His most famous film, A Trip to the Moon, with the classic image of the shell embedded in the man-in-the-moon’s eye.
Interestingly, this was not his first film featuring the moon, as shown by The Astronomer’s Dream:
Another interplanetary voyage, this time by train, to the sun (in hand-tinted color, no less):
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea:
The Haunted Castle:
Mélies himself is front and center as each of The Four Troublesome Heads:
Likewise as the Man With the Rubber Head:
“I too have an ass sword!”
Sunday, September 11th, 2011RoboGeisha
Director: Noboru Iguchi
Writer: Noboru Iguchi (screenplay)
Starring: Asami, Yoshihiro Nishimura and Naoto Takenaka
Once again Japan brings us a classic piece of the “What the Fuck?” cinema at which they excel. Noboru Iguchi, the director of The Machine Girl, which was your typical “girl picked on and humiliated, girl gets machine gun grafted onto her arm, girl racks up serious body count” film, is back with a film that makes that one look like an exercise in good taste and restraint.
After an insane beginning of RoboGeisha-on-RoboGisha combat, we jump back to a flashback that, it turns out, will take up the entire rest of the movie. Two sisters, one older, pretty, and working as a geisha, the other younger-and-even-prettier-but-we’re-going-to-pretend-she’s-homely-for-the-sake-of-the-plot who gets bossed around, exhibit the usual sibling rivalry. Then they get kidnapped by your generic evil corporation and are forced to train as geisha assassins. Oh, as you just might possibly be able to surmise from the title, they sport all sorts of deadly robotic devices implanted in their body.
The biggest difference between this and Machine Girl is that that film was (with a few allowances) a reasonably realistic, conventional film until it went all machine gunny in the third act, while RoboGeisha is pure WTF from start to finish. Just in case you were worried that RoboGeisha would be a deep, introspective examination of sibling rivalry in modern Japan, the shurukens flying out of the female penis goblin guard’s asses and the circular saw blade popping out of another robogeisha’s mouth should convince you of the film’s pure over-the-top, mutant cinema goodness. Swords pop out of deeply unlikely places (as in the quote in the title), breasts sport guns, shattered buildings bleed digital blood (albeit more convincing than the digital blood than found in Ugandan action films) and a cyborg geisha tank takes on a giant robot. Add off-balance dubbing, the hilariously maudlin sister story, and a ridiculously small cast (the same guy gets killed at least four or five times), and you have a strong candidate to show at your next party.
Here’s the trailer, which pretty much puts all the virtues of the film (such as they are) on display:
And it beats the hell out of Wild Zero or Kibakichi.
Howard Waldrop and I Review Cowboys & Aliens
Monday, August 1st, 2011Rubber: A Tiring Film
Sunday, July 10th, 2011Rubber
Directed by Quentin Dupieux
Written by Quentin Dupieux
Starring Stephen Spinella, Roxane Mesquida, Jack Plotnick and Wings Hauser
If you see only one film this year about a murderous telekinetic tire, sadly, it will have to be this one.
Our Protagonist, being hassled by The Man.
Your normal moviegoer isn’t going to touch this with a ten-foot pole, so this review is aimed at fellow freak-cinema aficionados, the sort of people who see a trailer for a film about a murderous telekinetic tire, and go “Oh yeah! I have to see that!”
You might want to reconsider.
I am totally down with the idea of a film about a murderous telekinetic tire, but Rubber disappointed me. About half the film, the scenes of the tire itself, its slowly building murderous rampage (it starts out with small animals before going all Scannners on various humans unfortunate enough to cross its path), and it stalking a random hot French chick, work almost as well as I hoped they would. All it needed was some recycled Michael Bay music for the perfect over-dramatic touch.
Hot French chick included.
Sadly, it doesn't really help.
Unfortunately, the other half of the film ruins the tire-rampage sections, by imposing an arty-farty, post-modern, metafictional framing device whereby a bunch of slow-witted redshirts are lured into the desert to watch the tire’s rampage through dispensed binoculars as part of some sort of…what? Performance art? These parts serve only to pad out the film (and it’s a bad sign when an 82 minute film feels badly padded), provide a few (far too few) laughs, and heighten the artificial nature of the whole endeavor.
This is the wrong narrative strategy.
The way to make a film like this work is never to wink at the audience. Minoru Kawasaki provides great example of how to do this in The Calamari Wrestler and Executive Koala. The more absurd the actions, the more serious the actors played it. No one pointed out the combat boots sticking out of the giant squid, or the obvious zipper on the back of the koala’s head. Unlike Rubber, nobody comes out and gives a speech at the beginning about why things are done for “no reason.” Or, to pick a domestic example, no one walks on screen during Team America: World Police to point out how all the characters are marionettes.
Some things in the film work. The scene of the tire sitting in the hotel room watching NASCAR really captures the absurdest vibe the director seemed to be aiming for. The opening bit where the car knocks down every single artfully disarrayed breakaway chair almost works as a sort of white trash Jacques Tati cinematic tone poem. It’s got well-executed exploding heads. And you get to see Roxane Mesquida’s very shapely French ass for a few seconds while she takes a shower, which would be a big deal if it wasn’t for, you know, the Internet. (NSFW. You’re welcome.)
About the only way I can recommend seeing this is as part of a viewing party for weird films, especially if you give out a prize for whoever can come up with the most tire-related puns. But even in that context, it’s not remotely as inventive (or interesting) as the far-less-technically-competent Die, You Zombie Bastards!, which delivers steady doses of WTF throughout.
My advice? You shouldn’t see any films about murderous telekinetic tires until a better one rolls along.
Here’s the trailer, which includes most of the best scenes:
Roger Ebert Wasn’t Wild About Thor Either
Tuesday, May 24th, 2011“Thor is failure as a movie, but a success as marketing.”
It’s comforting to know that Howard and I weren’t the only ones disappointed in it.
Howard Waldrop and I Review Thor
Monday, May 9th, 2011The films seems to be getting good reviews overall. Howard and I are, ahem, less enthused…