Archive for the ‘Thriller’ Category

Deranged

Saturday, January 1st, 2005

(a.k.a. Deranged – The Confessions of a Necrophile)

I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of a serial killer out of Wisconsin called Ed Gein. He is the most fucked up motherfucker that ever was fucked up. He is the original American Psycho as they would say on Entertainment Tonight. When they caught him he had a dead lady hanging in his shed cleaned out like a deer. He had a heart on his stove and all kinds of heads and skulls and chairs and clothes made out of human skin. He started out digging up graves and then started killing people, collecting their body parts, wearing them and possibly eating them. I mean jesus, I’m not making this up, but don’t read it if you’re eating – the dude had a box full of vaginas and he liked to dance around in the moonlight wearing a belt he made out of nipples. In my opinion, he had a problem with women.

Anway this fucker inspired alot of the most famous horror pictures, from Psycho to Texas Chainsaw to Hannibal Lecter and, I forget which other ones, possibly The Fly or 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea or one of those. But this picture Deranged is a more obscure one from 1978 which is based much more closely on the actual case.

For the movie they changed his name to Ez instead of Ed, because he is still alive and living in some minimum security place somewhere and I mean, you never know. But personally I think he would be able to figure out that it was him if he saw the movie. Anyway the story begins with Ez’s mom dying, and shows how lonely he is, and next thing you know he digs her up and starts taking care of her. Then it’s more graverobbing. I don’t mean to preach or anything but the guy is a sicko in my opinion. Anyway there are subplots about Ez having dinner with his childhood buddy, who he calls sir. His buddy’s wife (”ma’am”) convinces him to start going on dates, and this leads to him start killing. (more…)

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Deep Cover

Saturday, January 1st, 2005

This one’s from ‘91 and I guess it’s most famous as the movie that introduced the world to Snoop Dogg. Not as an actor, but the young Snoop is “introduced” on a Dr. Dre song that plays on a stereo in the movie and then on the end credits. But this is a pretty good one, a serious undercover cop movie directed by Bill Duke, made memorable by a great performance by Mr. Laurence Fishburne.

Laurence plays one of those straightlaced cops whose dad was a junkie shot in front of his eyes and ever since he’s walked the straight path, stayed 110% clean and fought to clean up his community, stop the drugs, etc. Against his better judgment he signs up to become an undercover cop, working for a sleazy white fuck, looking the other way when people are murdered and selling drugs to kids and pregnant mothers – all because of the carrot at the end of the stick, the chance to bust a guy near the top of the pyramid bringing drugs into the country. But not the guy at the very top, a politician, because that guy’s off limits.

In every movie about an undercover cop, alot of the same shit is definitely gonna happen. But if it’s done well, you’re gonna make me a sucker. It’s just like a con-man picture or a revenge picture. We can see the same shit over and over but if the execution is good enough, that’s what we want.

Obviously we all know where this story is going. He builds a relationship with the criminals he’s working with, and even a sleazy lawyer/drug kingpin played by Jeff Goldblum becomes somewhat likable. He gets his hands dirtier than he wants to, kills people and regrets it, even starts snorting coke. He ends up becoming disillusioned with the phoniness and corruption of the DEA, saying that he thought he was a cop pretending to be a drug dealer, but was actually a drug dealer pretending to be a cop. (I liked that line but I doubt this was the first movie to use it.) So he quits the force but is so entrenched in the drug dealing that he has to continue, until he can pull a badass Superfly type move and turn the tables on everyone. The kind of fuck–you that Vin Diesel should’ve pulled at the end of XXX instead of just selling out and lounging on a beach. (more…)

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The Fifth Element

Saturday, January 1st, 2005

The Fifth Element is your usual Bruce Willis movie that starts out in Egypt in 1934 and ends up in some fancy space hotel in 2334 with this blue skinned space opera lady singing opera and then busting off dance moves. Bruce is introduced down on his luck, pretty much like in the Die Hards – his wife left him, he’s trying to quit smoking, his mom won’t stop hassling him and he’s “5 points away” from losing his job as a flying cab driver in space age New York.

In fact this is a lot like a Die Hard movie except in a cartoony comic book space world instead of a building. Instead of talking to a cop on a walkie talkie, he just talks to his mom on the phone, and instead of terrorists there’s this big ball of fire hurtling toward the earth that turns light to dark, life to death, sometimes has a giant skull for a face, eats missiles and sattelites, and calls himself Mr. Shadow during phone calls.

It’s a pretty simple plot. There are these four stones that combined with a perfect being called “the fifth element” can stop the ball of fire. These stones are in Egypt but then these fat robot guys come down from space and take them away for safe keeping. But then 300 years later they try to bring them back but their ship gets blown up by these muppet dog men. But the government finds a glove inside the ship and they use it to construct the perfect being, a hot orange headed gal named Leloo. So then she and a priest and Korben Dallas have to pretend they won this contest and go to the space hotel and the rocks are inside the belly of a singer so after she dies they take them out of the belly and there is a shoot out so they bring them to Egypt and do the whole ritual and whatnot.

The appeal of this picture is mainly visual. It’s a real spectacle like some artsy fartsy comic book some frenchy would do. Bruce doesn’t joke too much and he gets some corny lines like, “There are some very good words in V: valiant, vulnerable, very beautiful.” (more…)

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Death to Smoochy

Saturday, January 1st, 2005

I guess you have to be suspicious of a movie made in 2002 that is making fun of Barney. Which was a children’s show that was popular for a while a couple years back. Barney is one of those things that everybody in the world hates, but then some people think they are the only ones who hate, and that they are being subversive by complaining about it. But hating Barney is as unique as liking pizza or chocolate. “No way! You like pizza too? I can’t believe this!” There’s not really anything subversive about connecting a lovable tv icon and murder. It’s old.

I still like this premise though, that since there’s so much money in children’s television, there also must be corruption. So scenariographer Adam Resnick and directator Daniel DeVito paint a portrait of the seedy underbelly of children’s television, where children’s tv stars are caught up in bribery and stalking and murder. The story begins with a great scene where Robin Williams as “Rainbow Randolph” takes a bribe from parents to have their kid featured on his show. The bribe is a suitcase half full of wrinkly ten dollar bills, and Randolph says “You want me to put your little booger eater on my show?” Next thing you know, though, he’s walking out with the money, and the parents pop up with guns and yell “Freeze, cocksucker!”

Then Edward Norton from the 1999 Outlaw Award Winner for Best Fuckin Picture FIGHT CLUB enters as Smoochy, a purple guitar playing health nut rhinocerous. He plays the part as kind of a half imitation of Woody Harrelson. Mr. Resnick, in an interview, described his character as being like Serpico, an ethical person who comes into a world of corruption and struggles to stay on a straight path. Kind of like me I guess also. (more…)

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Silent Night, Deadly Night and Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2

Saturday, January 1st, 2005

Well the Christmas season is upon us and what better way to celebrate Christmas than to put ornaments on a tree and put presents under it? I don’t know but while we ponder that let’s also talk about evil Santa movies.

Silent Night Deadly Night is a mid-level entry in the holiday-themed slasher movie genre. It’s not a classic like Halloween but then again it’s not completely retarded like the Leprechaun pictures or Martin Luther King, Jr. Day Massacre which is not a real movie but would probaly be pretty stupid, in my opinion. Unless they got the right director but even then, I don’t know about that premise.

Basically what the movie is about is, they wanted to make a movie about a killer dressed as Santa Claus, so they went back and figured out all the psychological traumas that might lead to such a scenario. So they show how this kid named Billy is told by his crazy grandpa that Santa Claus punishes kids who aren’t good all year, and then right after that he sees his parents raped and killed by a criminal dressed as Santa, and then he goes to an orphanage where an abusive nun further instills the dogma of punishment and sexual repression into him, and then he gets pressured into being Santa for a toy store and gets drunk at the office party and rejected by a girl and next thing you know he’s go around with a fake beard and an axe yelling “punish” and impaling Linnea Quigley on a pair of antlers.

The movie gets less creepy and more ridiculous as it goes along. My favorite scene is when young Billy, forced by mother superior to sit on Santa’s lap, punches St. Nick out. Santa goes flying out of his chair along with the classic sound effect used when Poncharella or Hunter or somebody punches somebody out. Then Santa gets up, blood all over his fake beard, and yells “What the hell is wrong with that kid?” (more…)

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Femme Fatale

Saturday, January 1st, 2005

Brian De Palma has gotta be one of the most controversial directors there is. Not because of the content of his movies but because of the reactions to them. It seems like anybody who knows who he is either hates him or loves him. Mostly hates. But they’re wrong.

The reasons for hating him: the movies are too good. I’m sick of seeing movies that are so clever and well made. Why does every Brian De Palma movie have to be a masterpiece or an interesting failure? Why are his movies so stylish? It gets old after a while. De Palma has a recognizable style, I’d rather not be able to tell the difference between one movie and any other movie. His style is too fetishistic, thrillers aren’t supposed to be personal. It’s too hard to tell where the movie is going, it makes me uncomfortable. How DARE he surprise the audience with the beginning and ending of a Mission Impossible movie? I wanted to get exactly what I expected and nothing else. His camerawork and editing is distracting because it is too inventive. If he’s such a great director, why hasn’t he done a movie about world war 2 or retards? Also why is he so into Hitchcock. It’s almost like he admires Hitchcock, he does so many homages to him. I noticed part that was like a Hitchcock movie. Since I spotted it I have every right to be angry. I hope I get a ribbon.

Well if you hate De Palma then you hate him, this movie is not for you. (It is directed by Brian De Palma.) But otherwise you’re gonna love this movie because this is him back at full strength. I never saw that Martian movie. To be safe, I’ll assume it really is bad. I did see SNAKE EYES which is great until the end when the big ending it’s all carefully leading up to suddenly doesn’t happen, because the studio made him change whatever it was. I’m still waiting for a director’s cut. (more…)

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Signs

Saturday, January 1st, 2005

There are bigger fans of M. Night Shymalan than me. He seems a little too nice to me, trying too hard to please everybody. They call him a new Spielberg but if so he’s a new Spielberg who skipped over the young vital years of Spielberg when he made shit like DUEL and JAWS. Still, I really like this young man’s style. He seems to have a couple of trademarks already. He treats supernatural themes very seriously and in a unique style that tricks mainstream audiences into thinking they are not watching a genre picture. He populates his stories with precocious child actors and movie stars who give uncharacteristically quiet performances. His stories have themes of tragedy and loss, and they are much more about character and suspense than about actual action. SIXTH SENSE was about discovering what’s goin on with these ghosts, not running from them or fighting them. And UNBREAKABLE was a super hero movie without a single scene of somebody swingin on a rope or shooting a laser or something.

And I really like what this fella does with the ol’ camera. He knows how to communicate crap visually. None of this “people talking to each other” bullshit. I mean, that’s there too, but it’s not the only thing he knows. All three of these movies (I’m not including that Rosie O’Donnell catholicism thing because I haven’t seen it) take full advantage of the star’s faces, letting the camera linger on them to show their reactions to all this supernatural business. Especially in this movie, most of the fantastic things happen just off screen, and instead of us seeing it we see Mel Gibson and Joaquin Phoenix standing there staring at it.

In SIGNS, the new one about crop circles and trying to make the new CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD TYPE, Mel Gibson plays a former reverend who lost his faith after the death of his wife. And now there is weird alien shit goin on all over the world, and his live-in brother, his two young kids, and other residents of the small town he lives in seem to want him to tell them, from a religious type perspective, that everything’s gonna be okay. Problem is though he doesn’t believe it is. On account of he lost his faith. (more…)

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The Fast and the Furious

Saturday, January 1st, 2005

There are many arbitrary ways to divide filmatists into two groups. Today I’m gonna separate out the ones who have an obvious vision/theme/style/obsession (good or bad) that can be seen throughout most of their works. For example you can look at your Alfred Hitchcock or your David Lynch or your Roger Vadim and you can usually tell who is responsible for this business. I mean even a Michael Bay or a Kevin Smithee, the lowest of the low, has a signature style. Or you can at least see what the dude was going for there.

Then in the other group we have the commercial or “hack” filmatist who goes from one project to the next just looking for something that might be successful, or that seems cinematic, or that might capture that fuckin zeitgeist thing the germans are always so interested in. Some of these guys might even be decent at the directation of films but they just don’t put that strong of a personal stamp on them. For example you got your John Badham (Saturday Night Fever, Dracula [1979], Short Circuit, Point of No Return) or your Randal Kleiser (Boy in the Plastic Bubble, Grease, The Blue Lagoon, Big Top Pee-Wee, Honey I Blew Up the Kid). Occasionally they make a good picture like Saturday Night Fever but you still have no idea what these clowns are trying to do artistic-wise. They’re just doing a job, like plumbing or washing windows or passing out pizza coupons and gum samples on the street corner. They punch the clock and then they go home.

I like Rob Cohen better than I like those individuals but I think he’s in the same category. He even produced three of John Badham’s movies. His best movie was DRAGON: THE BRUCE LEE STORY. That one’s about Bruce Lee. But he followed it up with crap like DRAGONHEART and DAYLIGHT. The ONLY thing these three pictures have in common is that they have the letter A in them. And MAYBE the letter D but even that’s being generous.

Now this dude seems to have suddenly hit a stride making commercially successful PG-13 movies with up and coming actors that are widely considered to be surprisingly entertaining at least on an unintentional level. The first in this series was THE SKULLS, and he hopes to continue in that vein with the Vin Diesel bungee-jumping-James-Bond movie XXX and of course THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS PART 2: THE FASTER AND THE FURIOUSER. (more…)

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Christine

Saturday, January 1st, 2005

I don’t know if you remember this movie, it’s about a haunted car. In other words, it’s based on a Stephen King book. And that also means it’s a 50’s car that plays old Little Richard songs and crap while it kills people. I know the filmatists today are bad, they gotta put references to all the TV shows and movies from their childhood, but Stephen King is the original. This guy has been cannibalizing his childhood for decades. And also he’s been making up stories about inanimate objects killing people. Killer laundry machines and shit like that. Remember in the TV movie version of THE SHINING, there was a haunted fire hose that killed a guy? It’s alot like that only a car.

Actually, it’s a better movie than I remember it being when I saw it back in the ’80s, and I’m going to give most of the credit to Mr. John Carpenter. I’m not saying this is HALLOWEEN or THEY LIVE but it’s a good straightforward haunted car movie. The movie stars Keith Gordon (the kid from HOME MOVIES and DRESSED TO KILL) as a nerdy kid whose jock buddy tells him he needs to get laid now that he’s a senior and who gets his ass kicked in metal shop. They stab his sack lunch to death with a switchblade and he suffers the humiliation of everybody seeing that his mom packed him yogurt.

So what he does, he finds this old piece of shit car that he buys from a crazy old coot in a shack (Roberts Blossom, who was fucking brilliant in DERANGED). The old man doesn’t tell him that his brother just died in the car but he does tell him it’s named Christine. And that’s what the kid always calls it, “Christine,” not “my car.” And everybody acts like that’s normal, for some reason.

His parents don’t approve of the car so he gets a space in a garage inside a junkyard and starts fixing Christine up. This was before the invention of Pimp My Ride, so he puts the elbow grease in himself and he gets the job done. As he does it he becomes less nerdy, more manly, wears darker clothes, slicks his hair back, even starts wearing his collar up like he thinks he’s in the ’50s. Suddenly he has a girlfriend and he has the balls to call his dad “motherfucker” but nobody can really stand him because he’s obsessed with the fucking car. I mean Christine. (more…)

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Le cercle rouge

Saturday, January 1st, 2005

Right now a thing is going on where alot of Americans hate the French. I’m not talking about any Americans I ever met or saw in person, even from a distance, but I am talking about people I saw on TV. They can do alot with computers now but I think these were real people. It’s hard to explain this feud, it’s like you know, why did Andre the Giant turn evil against Hulk Hogan? I don’t fuckin remember, man. But this one can be traced back to an incident where those fuckin French, man, they were telling us we shouldn’t invade Iraq, that they didn’t pose a threat to us and it would be illegal to invade, etc.

So we were like oh yeah well what about those weapons of mass destruction that they have stockpiled over there, what about that Mr. auteur theory with the beret and all that? And they were like I’m not wearing a beret. And we were like okay, Mr. I love Jerry Lewis. And they were like, what are you talking about, that’s an urban legend, plus Jerry Lewis is an American who had a long and fruitful career in America, and still lives there. Not to mention Carrot Top, Jeff Foxworthy, Gallagher, Sinbad, Jay Leno, the Police Academy series, the traditional american sitcom, etc. And we were like fuck you man. And they were like seriously though guys I don’t think they pose a threat to you, and you will be stuck in this shit for years to come. And we were like yeah right Frenchie, we’ll get back to you in a couple years and you better fucking apologize then.

Well now it’s a couple years later and they won’t apologize, because they were obviously right from the beginning and it would be ludicrous for them to apologize for trying to stop us from making a huge mistake that we will be paying for for decades. Still, they felt bad, so they pretty much did the most pro-American thing possible: they had Culture Minister Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres honor none other than Mr. Bruce John McClane himself Willis as an officer in the Order of Arts and Letters. This is one of France’s highest honors for cultural achievement, almost on par with our outlaw awards and Badass Laureate status. One previous recipient was free jazz pioneer Ornette Coleman. Also Robert Redford. So you see, Americans and Frenches are brothers. (more…)

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