It’s weird how the secret to a good movie idea sometimes is just to think of a really limited location and then figure out everything that could happen inside there. Like there’s that movie coming out where Ryan Reynolds is buried alive, and there was the one where Colin Farrell couldn’t leave the phone booth. There’s the building in DIE HARD, the bus in SPEED, the mall in DAWN OF THE DEAD, the hockey stadium in SUDDEN DEATH, and there should be one that takes place entirely in one of those Japanese compartment hotels. Or a nerd gets stuffed in his locker and then terrorists take over the school and he has to fight them from inside. Or a cartoon about a cat stuck in a tree and there’s a bird’s nest there and they’re forced to get along and learn from each other, like Lee Marvin and Toshiro Mifune in HELL IN THE PACIFIC.
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Posts Tagged ‘Alexandre Aja’
P2
Wednesday, September 15th, 2010
Piranha 3D
Monday, August 23rd, 2010
You know, people always complain that there’s too much crap out there and not enough smart movies, not enough movies that have something to say or make you think or really move your soul. But then when a truly important and powerful film like that does manage to slip through the cracks – and I’m talking specifically about PIRANHA 3-D, which is a new 3-D movie about piranhas – those same complainers always stay home, the movie doesn’t make as much money as hoped and Hollywood is forced to go back to making the types of movies that do make lots of money, like INCEPTION. So shame on you, moviegoers. Shame shame and shame again. You have blood on your hands. You are murderers and liars. Fuck you.
I really mean this seriously. Well, not that seriously. Well, not at all seriously. But kind of. You don’t have to see PIRANHA 3-D if you don’t want to. But if that’s your stance I really gotta ask: what do you not understand about the title PIRANHA 3-D? It’s right there. It speaks for itself. Piranhas are a type of deadly carnivorous fish, by the way, did you not know that? Okay, obviously you’re gonna go now. I’m glad we straightened that out. (more…)
Mirrors
Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009
So we got this French director Alexandre Aja who I think of as one of the good ones, but to tell you the truth he’s more potential than actual achievement at this point. When I read that he wanted to do WOLVERINE, or when I thought about they could’ve hired him for CONAN or FRIDAY THE 13TH instead of Marcus Nispel, I imagine these great movies I think he could’ve made. But this is just based on the chops he showed in HIGH TENSION before the stupid twist derailed the whole thing, and on how much I like his HILLS HAVE EYES remake. But even that has that scene where the “Big Brain” character makes a big speech explaining everything, which makes me cringe every time I think about it.
So I figured if I was gonna be talking this guy up I should see his other two movies and find out if he’s the real deal. His first one is a low budget French sci-fi type deal called FURIA. But here is his latest, MIRRORS, starring Kiefer Sutherland. (more…)
The Hills Have Eyes (2006)
Sunday, March 26th, 2006As you may remember, I fucking DESPISED the Texas Chain Saw remake, but I thought the Dawn of the Dead one was fun. I can definitely be a purist at times but not always. I just calls it like I sees it. For me THE HILLS HAVE EYES is a remake with alot of potential because the original is a movie that I like alot, but I know it’s flawed. It’s got these great archetypal type themes, a perfect setup, lots of great horrible gruesome fun, but it’s pretty sloppy and cheap looking, and not always in a good way.
The remake, by the same frenchmen who made HIGH TENSION, had a couple things here and there that bothered me, but I think it goes in the pantheon of the good remakes. It stays very true to most of what I like about the original, and in some areas it even improves. TEXAS CHAINSAW I felt like was made by people who had no fuckin clue what was great about the original; DAWN OF THE DEAD was a good action movie but had none of the substance of the original; also please note I used two semi-colons in this sentence, which I think is pretty god damned professional in my opinion. To me, THE HILLS HAVE EYES feels like a new production of the old classic, because it stays very close to the original story for the first half, and when it veers off in a different direction it still stays true to the themes of the original. Shit, I’ll say it: THE HILLS HAVE EYES = Shakespeare. Hopefully we’ll have many different versions of THE HILLS HAVE EYES – we’ll have it modernized, we’ll have it set during WWII, or in space, we’ll have it done entirely by puppets or animals or children.
But that’s later, for now let’s deal with the first remake. The basic story is almost the same as in the original. The whitebread Carter family are on a trailer trip to California, taking a stupid route through New Mexico. They stop at a gas station called Fred’s Oasis, take a dirt road shortcut and then crash and break their axle. Then a pack of weird mutant/inbred bastards terrorize them, kill some of them and steal their baby. And the survivors turn savage to get the baby back and exact revenge on behalf of civilized man. the end. (more…)
High Tension
Wednesday, January 4th, 2006HIGH TENSION (aka HAUTE TENSION, aka SWITCHBLADE ROMANCE)
This is another one of those heavily buzzed foreign imports that I put off watching forever. The final deciding factor, I keep seeing the trailer for a remake of THE HILLS HAVE EYES which is made by these same frenchmen. So I figured I oughta investigate, see what these guys are about.
HIGH TENSION is a well made throwback kind of slasher movie, but not as good as WOLF CREEK. Similar subject matter though. Two young ladies, Marie and Alexia, go to visit Alexia’s parents out in the french boonies. While everybody’s in bed, some grunting redneck schlub (he looks like M. Emmett Walsh in an Ed Gein costume) drives up in a rusty truck, breaks in and starts killing everybody. Most of the movie – and the best part of the movie – involves Alexia being tied up and gagged in the back of the truck, while Marie chases the killer trying to save her.
So it’s the kind of energetic, non-verbal chasing that can be fun when well directed. A cat and mouse game is what they sometimes call it. The clever thing is that for alot of the game, the cat doesn’t even know the mouse is there. She keeps sneaking around just out of his eye sight until she can find a way to save her friend.
Another twist is that these two are more than just friends, if you know what I mean. If you don’t know what I mean, what I mean is Marie obviously has a crush on Alexia and Alexia doesn’t know it. I like that they leave that unspoken, it seemed like a nice idea, although the way the movie ends up it seems like a pretty backward view of gay people. I don’t know, maybe that’s how they do it in France.
There’s some pretty gruesome deaths in this one, and even a little kid dies. The first time we see the killer he’s in his truck, getting a blowjob from a severed head, then he throws it out the window like a piece of litter. So you know right away that you’re dealing with a classy movie. It didn’t piss off critics as much as WOLF CREEK did though, for two reasons. One, the look is pretty stylized, very nice photography but not realistic, and the killer reminds you of the killers in that disowned Sam Raimi/Coen brothers movie CRIMEWAVE. It’s more of a cartoon. And number two, it’s just not as good. You can’t take it as seriously when it’s not as scary. And it has a ridiculous plot twist at the end. (more…)
