today my favorite band in Antony and the Johnsons.
"You are my Sister"
"Hope There's Someone"
"My Lady Story"
"Man is the Baby"
"Cripple and the Starfish"
Just needed to share.
Friday, January 16, 2009
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Fuck My Life vol. 1
AC/DC Earns $82 Million, METALLICA Makes $56.4 Million From Ticket, Album Sales - Jan. 13, 2009
AC/DC is the only hard rock band to make the Los Angeles Times' 2008 "Ultimate Top 10," the newspaper's annual survey combining sales of concert tickets, albums and digital downloads to measure which acts were most popular with the broadest swath of music lovers. METALLICA came in at No. 14, an impressive feat considering that the band's latest album, "Death Magnetic", and corresponding U.S. tour didn't arrive until this past fall.
Regarding AC/DC's combined income of $82 million, the Los Angeles Times writes, "The new 'Black Ice' album took the veteran Australian hard rock band back to the top of the charts and also made its concert tour one of the year's hot tickets. The band's Ultimate Top 10 tally was almost evenly divided, with $37.5 million coming at the concert box office and $44.5 million from album sales. Like KID ROCK, AC/DC doesn't do digital tracks. Average ticket price: $99.73."
Los Angeles Times' 2008 "Ultimate Top 20":
01. MADONNA ($120.1 million)
02. CELINE DION ($106.8 million)
03. KENNY CHESNEY ($95.7 million)
04. EAGLES ($90.7 million)
05. AC/DC ($82 million)
06. COLDPLAY ($81.6 million)
07. BON JOVI ($81.4 million)
08. BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN & THE E STREET BAND ($79 million)
09. JONAS BROTHERS ($77.9 million)
10. RASCAL FLATTS ($77.1 million)
11. NEIL DIAMOND ($70.5 million)
12. TAYLOR SWIFT ($62.2 million)
13. MICHAEL BUBLÉ ($59.5 million)
14. METALLICA ($56.4 million)
15. CARRIE UNDERWOOD ($54.9 million)
16. DAVE MATTHEWS BAND ($51.6 million)
17. THE POLICE ($51 million)
18. LIL WAYNE ($50.8 million)
19. TOM PETTY ($50.5 million)
20. KID ROCK ($50. 2 million)
AC/DC is the only hard rock band to make the Los Angeles Times' 2008 "Ultimate Top 10," the newspaper's annual survey combining sales of concert tickets, albums and digital downloads to measure which acts were most popular with the broadest swath of music lovers. METALLICA came in at No. 14, an impressive feat considering that the band's latest album, "Death Magnetic", and corresponding U.S. tour didn't arrive until this past fall.
Regarding AC/DC's combined income of $82 million, the Los Angeles Times writes, "The new 'Black Ice' album took the veteran Australian hard rock band back to the top of the charts and also made its concert tour one of the year's hot tickets. The band's Ultimate Top 10 tally was almost evenly divided, with $37.5 million coming at the concert box office and $44.5 million from album sales. Like KID ROCK, AC/DC doesn't do digital tracks. Average ticket price: $99.73."
Los Angeles Times' 2008 "Ultimate Top 20":
01. MADONNA ($120.1 million)
02. CELINE DION ($106.8 million)
03. KENNY CHESNEY ($95.7 million)
04. EAGLES ($90.7 million)
05. AC/DC ($82 million)
06. COLDPLAY ($81.6 million)
07. BON JOVI ($81.4 million)
08. BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN & THE E STREET BAND ($79 million)
09. JONAS BROTHERS ($77.9 million)
10. RASCAL FLATTS ($77.1 million)
11. NEIL DIAMOND ($70.5 million)
12. TAYLOR SWIFT ($62.2 million)
13. MICHAEL BUBLÉ ($59.5 million)
14. METALLICA ($56.4 million)
15. CARRIE UNDERWOOD ($54.9 million)
16. DAVE MATTHEWS BAND ($51.6 million)
17. THE POLICE ($51 million)
18. LIL WAYNE ($50.8 million)
19. TOM PETTY ($50.5 million)
20. KID ROCK ($50. 2 million)
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
First World Problems vol. 1
A murder of tweenagers cope with the results of last year's American Idol, where their favorite, David Archuleta, lost to David Cook.
i don't know who they are either.
i don't know who they are either.
Monday, January 12, 2009
We are the Sprocket Holes vol. 52
2 short films from Richard Stanley (Hardware, Dust Devil)
Black Tulips
the Sea of Perdition
Black Tulips
the Sea of Perdition
We are the Sprocket Holes vol. 51
The 60 Most Anticipated Films Of 2009
the ones i care about;
"Inglourious Bastards" – Weinsteins/Universal - Dir. Quentin Tarantino
Synopsis: An elite team of Jewish American soldiers in WWII take on a covert mission to kill Adolf Hitler, but unbeknownst to them, the daughter of a slain French farmer is planning her own revenge.
What You Need To Know: Tarantino's war film is epic and could be one of the most outrageous WWII films ever made, not to mention his possible masterpiece, if he doesn't fuck up his brilliant and audacious script. Brad Pitt leads an eclectic, motley crue cast that features many foreign newcomers (Melanie Laurent, Jacky Ido, Christoph Waltz), old school actors (Cloris Leachmen, Rod Taylor), American comedians (BJ Novak, Samm Levine) and bold faced names (Diane Kruger, Mike Meyers) among many, many others. Plus the great Ennio Morricone is writing the score. Whoops, not anymore.
Release Date: August 21, 2009. It could show up at Cannes if completed in time.
"Where The Wild Things Are" - Warner Bros. - Dir. Spike Jonze
The long-awaited adaptation of Maurice Sendak's beloved children's novel might be the most highly anticipated film of all of 2009 and perhaps the most discussed and poured over. Starring 9-year-old newcomer Max Records and voiced by James Gandolfini, Lauren Ambrose, Catherine O'Hara and Forest Whitaker among others, the 'Wild Things' film, co-written by author Dave Eggers, had an extremely difficult and tempestuous birth, the battles of which spilled out into the public. Taking three years to make (not counting pre-production), an early 2008 test screening was so controversial, rumors swirled the film was going to be recut and or taken away from Jonze. The gossip turned out to be semi-true, but WB and the filmmaker got over their quarrel and the melancholy children's film could potentially be destined to become a classic. Yeah, Yeah, Yeah's singer Karen O is on music duty.
Release Date: October 16, 2009
The Girlfriend Experience - Magnolia Pictures - Dir. Steven Soderbergh
Synopsis: Five days in the life of an escort in New York City who offers the full "GfE".
What You Need To Know: This is a quickie effort for the prolific Soderbergh, part of his day-and-date six film contract with 2929 Pictures that previously released "Bubble." He's got glamorous gonzo porn star (stick with me) Sasha Grey to star, so he's not shying away from the more challenging aspects of making an American film that confronts sexual taboos head on. This will be at Sundance in January, so we'll get to see what the teaming of the most idiosyncratic filmmaker and most adventurous adult film star produces very soon. Grey has already starred in Jane's Addiction guitarist Dave Navarro's directorial porn effort, "Broken."
Release Date *Updated*: 'GFE' already was shot, so a spring release is not out of the question.
so yeah... 3/60. wow.
and HOW IN THE FUCK IS THIS ONLY IN THE "HONORABLE MENTION" SECTION?:
The great Alejandro Jodorowsky, director of the mind-bending freakhouse classics "The Holy Mountain" and "El Topo" directs his first film in nineteen years, the metaphysical gangster picture "King Shot," with a group of lunatics including Nick Nolte, Asia Argento, Marilyn Manson, Udo Kier and Mickey Rourke.
the ones i care about;
"Inglourious Bastards" – Weinsteins/Universal - Dir. Quentin Tarantino
Synopsis: An elite team of Jewish American soldiers in WWII take on a covert mission to kill Adolf Hitler, but unbeknownst to them, the daughter of a slain French farmer is planning her own revenge.
What You Need To Know: Tarantino's war film is epic and could be one of the most outrageous WWII films ever made, not to mention his possible masterpiece, if he doesn't fuck up his brilliant and audacious script. Brad Pitt leads an eclectic, motley crue cast that features many foreign newcomers (Melanie Laurent, Jacky Ido, Christoph Waltz), old school actors (Cloris Leachmen, Rod Taylor), American comedians (BJ Novak, Samm Levine) and bold faced names (Diane Kruger, Mike Meyers) among many, many others. Plus the great Ennio Morricone is writing the score. Whoops, not anymore.
Release Date: August 21, 2009. It could show up at Cannes if completed in time.
"Where The Wild Things Are" - Warner Bros. - Dir. Spike Jonze
The long-awaited adaptation of Maurice Sendak's beloved children's novel might be the most highly anticipated film of all of 2009 and perhaps the most discussed and poured over. Starring 9-year-old newcomer Max Records and voiced by James Gandolfini, Lauren Ambrose, Catherine O'Hara and Forest Whitaker among others, the 'Wild Things' film, co-written by author Dave Eggers, had an extremely difficult and tempestuous birth, the battles of which spilled out into the public. Taking three years to make (not counting pre-production), an early 2008 test screening was so controversial, rumors swirled the film was going to be recut and or taken away from Jonze. The gossip turned out to be semi-true, but WB and the filmmaker got over their quarrel and the melancholy children's film could potentially be destined to become a classic. Yeah, Yeah, Yeah's singer Karen O is on music duty.
Release Date: October 16, 2009
The Girlfriend Experience - Magnolia Pictures - Dir. Steven Soderbergh
Synopsis: Five days in the life of an escort in New York City who offers the full "GfE".
What You Need To Know: This is a quickie effort for the prolific Soderbergh, part of his day-and-date six film contract with 2929 Pictures that previously released "Bubble." He's got glamorous gonzo porn star (stick with me) Sasha Grey to star, so he's not shying away from the more challenging aspects of making an American film that confronts sexual taboos head on. This will be at Sundance in January, so we'll get to see what the teaming of the most idiosyncratic filmmaker and most adventurous adult film star produces very soon. Grey has already starred in Jane's Addiction guitarist Dave Navarro's directorial porn effort, "Broken."
Release Date *Updated*: 'GFE' already was shot, so a spring release is not out of the question.
so yeah... 3/60. wow.
and HOW IN THE FUCK IS THIS ONLY IN THE "HONORABLE MENTION" SECTION?:
The great Alejandro Jodorowsky, director of the mind-bending freakhouse classics "The Holy Mountain" and "El Topo" directs his first film in nineteen years, the metaphysical gangster picture "King Shot," with a group of lunatics including Nick Nolte, Asia Argento, Marilyn Manson, Udo Kier and Mickey Rourke.
Friday, January 9, 2009
U.S.A.! U.S.A.! vol. 21
YOUNG GOPERS: 'O,' THE PAIN! BUSH LEAGUERS MOURN BARACK ERA
By AMBER SUTHERLAND
Last updated: 3:12 am
January 9, 2009
Posted: 2:09 am
January 9, 2009
The Grand Old Party is over for New York's young Republicans, who spent last night crying in their vintage cognac as they mourned the end of the Bush era and quaked in fear over the prospect of an Obama presidency.
"I have no idea what's to come," said Amy Noakes, 26, as she and about 100 other conservatives commiserated at Ice Bar in Murray Hill. "It's going to be more like socialism than capitalism."
Noakes and her fellow GOPers talked of a political apocalypse at the penultimate New York Young Republican's Club meeting to be held before Barack Obama's inauguration on Jan. 20.
"I'm trying to savor the last days of capitalism," said Cathy Reno, 23, as she bitterly sipped a three-olive martini. "I fear Obama's inexperience, and that we have no idea what his worldview is."
"I'm hiding all my guns where Barry can't find them," added Villamor Asuncion, 26, referring to Obama's old nickname in high school.
Grad student Michael Pocelinko, 22, agreed.
"I'm buying as many guns as possible, and I'm enjoying the last days of national security while I can."
Others worried about the fate of their money in the hands of a man they see as the lowest of the low - a tax-and-spend liberal.
"I'm divesting all equity before the capital-gains tax goes up," said Jeff Miller, 25.
Miller anticipated a return to Franklin D. Roosevelt's big-government polices of the last Depression.
"I fear a repeat of the bad tax effects of the New Deal and a gross overreaction to the current economic issues," he said. "I fear overinflating wages and prices. It would lead to a huge unemployment boom."
Some tried to keep a stiff upper lip, claiming that they really didn't care that their candidate lost and that eight years of Republican rule was coming to an end.
"I could give two s- - - s about the inauguration. I could care less," said Allie Nigolian, 25. "I don't get Obama; I don't buy it. People are gonna realize that he's full of s- - -."
.. the phrase is "I COULDN'T care less" you useless goatlob.
Their worries about unemployment are especially riotous, since i'm willing to bet the Cosmotervatives are rich assholes who probably will never have to worry about money. The bottom line is these trouser blots are more concerned with their own status than the well being of the country.
"I'm buying as many guns as possible"... riiiiight. look out punks, Richie Rich is packing heat.
short and sweet... you're so afraid of what will happen to this country now that your team lost? well why don't you ENLIST IN THE MARINES AND GO OFF TO THE MIDDLE EAST. Put your outrage to some use and get face-raped with a grenade.
there's my outrage for the day.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
We are the Sprocket Holes vol. 50
more tiny movie reviews/ratings;
CHAOS ( aka Last House on the FAIL. ) - 0/10: This is about as dumb as it gets. A blatant rip-off of Wes Craven's seminal Last House on the Left, only without the style, atmosphere, character drama, and oh yeah THE POINT. Don't believe me? check out the poster for LHOTL:
now check out the original (i use the term loosely) poster for Chaos:
hurm.
now LHOTL was itself a modern version of Igmar Bergman's the Virgin Spring, which is something defenders of Chaos waste no time in pointing out, right before they say that Dave "The Demon" DeFalco's film "goes places that LAST HOUSE never could" (a direct quote from this fucking idiot). It makes no fucking sense to love Chaos while deriding LHOTL; the film it exits to be, but i digress. The point being is that while LHOTL borrows the structure from the fable Virgin Spring, it is NOT a near note-for-note knock off of Bergman's film adaptation of the cautionary fable, and thus can stand on its own two feet. on the contrary; Chaos can't even begin to exist without mentioning LHOTL. It's practically a xerox. The only differences are
1. the married couple being interracial
2. the ending, which is as text book a case of not-fucking-getting-it as there ever will be.
The actors (one of them being Sage Stallone, who owns Grindhouse Releasing and has more hair than anyone on the planet) seem like they might be decent in other films, and really they are not at fault. they really do the most they can with the sub-material they are given... i can say that much. The ineptness of this film lies solely in the script and the direction of former pro wrestler and current loonbar David "The Demon" DeFalco. He has no sense of mood or timing, is literally at a loss when it comes to building tension or crafting strong leads to carry the film, and is seemingly more concerned with flexing his muscles in a mortuary while carrying on about how the critics just don't understand that he really has something deep to say about the nature of violence in society through his film (retardedly credited as "an original idea" from the producer and himself). Trouble here is that the message has already been said by Craven, Ruggero Deodato, and other more capable filmmakers, and the message was sent 30-40 fucking years ago. Chaos is just illogical cruelty that believes it has a message because the film it's ripping off had something to say. But anyone can stage set pieces... it takes a real intellect to know why the set pieces are being placed and what they represent.... and THAT is when they achieve their true power, through their everlasting remembrance in the mind of the viewer. Otherwise it's just empty shock value that's ill-defendable when the inevitable debate of "have films gone too far" rears it's played out head.
most brutal movie of all time? it's not even the most brutal movie you'll see this afternoon.
PS: oh and speaking of FAIL;
trailer for 2009 remake of the Last House on the Left at BloodyDisgusting.com
pointless. there's no other word for this. pointless and sad.
sidenote; can we please but a moratorium on the whole "bumbling cops" complaint already? if that minor subplot was enough for you to dismiss the power of that film, than really your opinion is baseless and irrational. ; end sidenote
and yet again i find people are psyched for this thing. mostly they're people who haven't seen the orignal, but some are people who hated the original, but think this looks better.
hur-umph.
i can understand people not liking the original film; it's a messy lo-fi product of its time, so to younger viewers who believe they have seen it all, Craven's film seems cheap, irrelevant, and dated. Personally i think it's a benchmark of horror, cause without LHTL we probably would not have had the Texas Chainsaw Massacre and the rest that came after that. Whether you hate the movie or not, it is a vital piece of genre film history.... there is no disputing that. you can try, but you'll be wrong.
that being said, while i can understand people not liking the original, i can't understand people being excited over the remake of a movie they hated to begin with. i mean, it's the same damn movie. i can only assume it's some superficial thing, like the remake looks more pro, has better looking women, etc, and that's what kept them from appreciating the original. to each his own i suppose.
what is so maddening about this particular remake? ... it's total sanitary film making. the original film's look and atmosphere matched the brutality and ugliness of the material pound for pound. It didn't care if you were repulsed by it. It looked like newsreel footage, which gave it a spooky realism that made the film perhaps impossible to deny, because these looked like real people in real situations. This 2009 version however, is all slicked out, dressed up, and packed with self-consciously "stylish" music video tricks that don't serve to compliment the material, but to placate a crowd that isn't normally into these kind of films. i mean those shots of Mari in the water look gorgeous, and nothing... NOTHING about the Last House on the Left should look gorgeous.
do not want.
here's a trailer and a documentary on the real fucking thing;
PHILOSOPHY OF A KNIFE - 10/10: Andrey Iskanov now cements his place in my top ten favorite film makers. This thing is a monster in every imaginable (and unimaginable) sense of the word. Maddening. Deadening. Visceral. Poetic. Iskanov blends the surreal dementia of his previous work with the accuracy of the most anal retentive documentary film makers around. Absolutely unreal. I couldn't take my eyes off it... all 4 and a half hours of it. What was that you were you saying about being "the most brutal movie of all time"? sit the fuck down, Parts Unknown... here's a 4 and a half hour nightmare amputation with sulfur radiators, frostbite try-outs, experimental dentistry, and cockroach gynecology.
"bu..but i cut off a girl's nipple and made her eat it while she cried. that's sthuper hardcore."
*pats roid money on the head* oh well that's adorable.
CRANK - 5/10: oh good... Energy Drinks: The Video Game: the Movie. What's with all the nerd-love people have been giving this thing? loud and dumb doesn't always equal fun. The characters suck, the editing is shit, the villains are weak, and no matter how hard you try to convince me of his bad-assedry, JASON "eye've gut fyve uh clock shadough all day ehvry day eye doo" STATHAM ANNOYS THE FUCK OUT OF MY PISS. granted he's a more legitimate action star than the Fresh Prince of Bell Air or Ted Theodore Logan, but this monotone douchechill could be fighting a blackhawk helicopter in the belly of an Orca Whale made of LSD and pocket vaginas and i'd still be bored due to his consitantly bland performance. I love over the top action films (see my reviews of Rambo, Shoot 'Em Up, and Punisher: War Zone), but i hate this obnoxious jump-cut X-Box Jolt Cola bullshit genre of film making.
MILLER'S CROSSING- 9/10: Holy Shit Daddy Warbucks is a fucking bad-ass. TAKE THAT JASON STATHAM. Seriously though, this is one of the best crime movies ever made. Fantastic performance from John Tuturro.
RABID - 7.5/10: of Cronenberg's early body of work (talking pre Scanners), this is my least favorite, but i dig the concept, and it's still a joy witnessing Cronenberg's teething process... before he truly morphed the fabric of films with Videodrome and so forth. plus Marilyn Chambers is a sex-bomb.
FIRECRACKER - 4/10: Mike Patton anally rapes little brother. that's pretty much it.
Seriously, anyone who calls this movie brilliant should be sterilized with a curling iron. It's never as clever or artful as it believes itself to be. It's all so cynically put together to invoke arthouse thrillers like Blood Simple or Blue Velvet without retaining anything that makes those films the enduring classics they are. It obfuscates vaugeness with mystery, needless hate with engrossing quirk, and is quite frankly one of the most frustratingly unoriginal films i've ever seen. It pilfers much of its imagery and ideas from Lynch, most noticeably from Twin Peaks and Blue Velvet, right down to naming the sadistic villain "Frank" (this character played by Mike Patton, who also plays the aforementioned brother-raper) and having the boyish protagonist lust after a defeated nightlife entertainer (Karen Black is your Isabella Rosalini). it also plucks little bits of the Cohen Bros. for additional hell-smoldering-beneath-a-small-town-exterior shenanigans ie. Fargo, Blood Simple, and so forth. This is a dull, vacuous movie undeserving of its influences and any sort of attention beyond derision or pity. I hate you, movie.
CHAOS ( aka Last House on the FAIL. ) - 0/10: This is about as dumb as it gets. A blatant rip-off of Wes Craven's seminal Last House on the Left, only without the style, atmosphere, character drama, and oh yeah THE POINT. Don't believe me? check out the poster for LHOTL:
now check out the original (i use the term loosely) poster for Chaos:
hurm.
now LHOTL was itself a modern version of Igmar Bergman's the Virgin Spring, which is something defenders of Chaos waste no time in pointing out, right before they say that Dave "The Demon" DeFalco's film "goes places that LAST HOUSE never could" (a direct quote from this fucking idiot). It makes no fucking sense to love Chaos while deriding LHOTL; the film it exits to be, but i digress. The point being is that while LHOTL borrows the structure from the fable Virgin Spring, it is NOT a near note-for-note knock off of Bergman's film adaptation of the cautionary fable, and thus can stand on its own two feet. on the contrary; Chaos can't even begin to exist without mentioning LHOTL. It's practically a xerox. The only differences are
1. the married couple being interracial
2. the ending, which is as text book a case of not-fucking-getting-it as there ever will be.
The actors (one of them being Sage Stallone, who owns Grindhouse Releasing and has more hair than anyone on the planet) seem like they might be decent in other films, and really they are not at fault. they really do the most they can with the sub-material they are given... i can say that much. The ineptness of this film lies solely in the script and the direction of former pro wrestler and current loonbar David "The Demon" DeFalco. He has no sense of mood or timing, is literally at a loss when it comes to building tension or crafting strong leads to carry the film, and is seemingly more concerned with flexing his muscles in a mortuary while carrying on about how the critics just don't understand that he really has something deep to say about the nature of violence in society through his film (retardedly credited as "an original idea" from the producer and himself). Trouble here is that the message has already been said by Craven, Ruggero Deodato, and other more capable filmmakers, and the message was sent 30-40 fucking years ago. Chaos is just illogical cruelty that believes it has a message because the film it's ripping off had something to say. But anyone can stage set pieces... it takes a real intellect to know why the set pieces are being placed and what they represent.... and THAT is when they achieve their true power, through their everlasting remembrance in the mind of the viewer. Otherwise it's just empty shock value that's ill-defendable when the inevitable debate of "have films gone too far" rears it's played out head.
most brutal movie of all time? it's not even the most brutal movie you'll see this afternoon.
PS: oh and speaking of FAIL;
trailer for 2009 remake of the Last House on the Left at BloodyDisgusting.com
pointless. there's no other word for this. pointless and sad.
sidenote; can we please but a moratorium on the whole "bumbling cops" complaint already? if that minor subplot was enough for you to dismiss the power of that film, than really your opinion is baseless and irrational. ; end sidenote
and yet again i find people are psyched for this thing. mostly they're people who haven't seen the orignal, but some are people who hated the original, but think this looks better.
hur-umph.
i can understand people not liking the original film; it's a messy lo-fi product of its time, so to younger viewers who believe they have seen it all, Craven's film seems cheap, irrelevant, and dated. Personally i think it's a benchmark of horror, cause without LHTL we probably would not have had the Texas Chainsaw Massacre and the rest that came after that. Whether you hate the movie or not, it is a vital piece of genre film history.... there is no disputing that. you can try, but you'll be wrong.
that being said, while i can understand people not liking the original, i can't understand people being excited over the remake of a movie they hated to begin with. i mean, it's the same damn movie. i can only assume it's some superficial thing, like the remake looks more pro, has better looking women, etc, and that's what kept them from appreciating the original. to each his own i suppose.
what is so maddening about this particular remake? ... it's total sanitary film making. the original film's look and atmosphere matched the brutality and ugliness of the material pound for pound. It didn't care if you were repulsed by it. It looked like newsreel footage, which gave it a spooky realism that made the film perhaps impossible to deny, because these looked like real people in real situations. This 2009 version however, is all slicked out, dressed up, and packed with self-consciously "stylish" music video tricks that don't serve to compliment the material, but to placate a crowd that isn't normally into these kind of films. i mean those shots of Mari in the water look gorgeous, and nothing... NOTHING about the Last House on the Left should look gorgeous.
do not want.
here's a trailer and a documentary on the real fucking thing;
PHILOSOPHY OF A KNIFE - 10/10: Andrey Iskanov now cements his place in my top ten favorite film makers. This thing is a monster in every imaginable (and unimaginable) sense of the word. Maddening. Deadening. Visceral. Poetic. Iskanov blends the surreal dementia of his previous work with the accuracy of the most anal retentive documentary film makers around. Absolutely unreal. I couldn't take my eyes off it... all 4 and a half hours of it. What was that you were you saying about being "the most brutal movie of all time"? sit the fuck down, Parts Unknown... here's a 4 and a half hour nightmare amputation with sulfur radiators, frostbite try-outs, experimental dentistry, and cockroach gynecology.
"bu..but i cut off a girl's nipple and made her eat it while she cried. that's sthuper hardcore."
*pats roid money on the head* oh well that's adorable.
CRANK - 5/10: oh good... Energy Drinks: The Video Game: the Movie. What's with all the nerd-love people have been giving this thing? loud and dumb doesn't always equal fun. The characters suck, the editing is shit, the villains are weak, and no matter how hard you try to convince me of his bad-assedry, JASON "eye've gut fyve uh clock shadough all day ehvry day eye doo" STATHAM ANNOYS THE FUCK OUT OF MY PISS. granted he's a more legitimate action star than the Fresh Prince of Bell Air or Ted Theodore Logan, but this monotone douchechill could be fighting a blackhawk helicopter in the belly of an Orca Whale made of LSD and pocket vaginas and i'd still be bored due to his consitantly bland performance. I love over the top action films (see my reviews of Rambo, Shoot 'Em Up, and Punisher: War Zone), but i hate this obnoxious jump-cut X-Box Jolt Cola bullshit genre of film making.
MILLER'S CROSSING- 9/10: Holy Shit Daddy Warbucks is a fucking bad-ass. TAKE THAT JASON STATHAM. Seriously though, this is one of the best crime movies ever made. Fantastic performance from John Tuturro.
RABID - 7.5/10: of Cronenberg's early body of work (talking pre Scanners), this is my least favorite, but i dig the concept, and it's still a joy witnessing Cronenberg's teething process... before he truly morphed the fabric of films with Videodrome and so forth. plus Marilyn Chambers is a sex-bomb.
FIRECRACKER - 4/10: Mike Patton anally rapes little brother. that's pretty much it.
Seriously, anyone who calls this movie brilliant should be sterilized with a curling iron. It's never as clever or artful as it believes itself to be. It's all so cynically put together to invoke arthouse thrillers like Blood Simple or Blue Velvet without retaining anything that makes those films the enduring classics they are. It obfuscates vaugeness with mystery, needless hate with engrossing quirk, and is quite frankly one of the most frustratingly unoriginal films i've ever seen. It pilfers much of its imagery and ideas from Lynch, most noticeably from Twin Peaks and Blue Velvet, right down to naming the sadistic villain "Frank" (this character played by Mike Patton, who also plays the aforementioned brother-raper) and having the boyish protagonist lust after a defeated nightlife entertainer (Karen Black is your Isabella Rosalini). it also plucks little bits of the Cohen Bros. for additional hell-smoldering-beneath-a-small-town-exterior shenanigans ie. Fargo, Blood Simple, and so forth. This is a dull, vacuous movie undeserving of its influences and any sort of attention beyond derision or pity. I hate you, movie.
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