Twilight (2009)


Director: Catherine Hardwicke

Starring: Kristen Stewert, Robert Pattinson, Billy Burke, Ashey Greene, Taylor Lautner

Plot: Bella Swan is a clumsy, kind hearted teenager with a knack for getting into trouble. Edward Cullen is an intelligent, good looking vampire who is trying to hide his secret. Against all odds, the two fall in love but will a pack of blood thirsty trackers and the disapproval of their family and friends separate them? Taken from www.imdb.com.

"You think this is scary, just wait till you see the cage I'll be keeping you in."

Remember back in a more innocent time when Trekkies were considered to be the bottom feeders of the fan world? A bunch of otherwise intelligent people with a hard-on for intergalactic diplomacy and pointy ears were considered to be the bottom of the barrel. Well it's only now we realize how very wrong we were.

Thanks to "Twilight" and Stephanie Meyer, our dumb-as-toast ignorant housewife and writer in-that-she-puts-words-on-paper-only, we have seen that fan obsession in women aged 12-30 is so horrifying that it makes us long for the days of chubby fanboys with bowl cuts and elf ears. If you haven't had the distinct "pleasure" of witnessing one of these rabid lunatics check the comments section here.

I digress however. This review has nothing to do with the fact that Stephanie Meyer is a hack, the books are over-rated fluff, or that her fans are a bunch of raving psychopaths with a disturbing and immensely pathetic obsession with a fictional character. I am here to review a movie and pretend that I have some intergrity. I just needed to get that out of my system.

Okay, so it's the story of Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) a 17-year-old girl who is so normal and plain that 3 boys are humping her leg like crazed chihuahuas her first day of school and everyone she meets adores her to point of near-idolizing her. She moves to Forks, Washington with her father, the county Sheriff, Charlie (Billy Burke.)

So anyway on her first day of school she meets moody heroin-chic vampire Edward (Robert Pattinson) who she immediatly falls in love with because... that's never really explained and he falls in love with her too because he desperately wants to kill her and feast on her sweet neck meats.

So they make goo goo eyes at each other for aboout 40 minutes and the plot goes 15 kinds of nowhere and then the vampires play baseball which attracts the attention of the evil vampires (we know they're evil because we're told they're evil, otherwise we would just think they're Kalvin Clein models from 10 years ago that got lost.) who then decide that they too want Bella's sweet neck meats, though pecularly enough they don't find that a valid reason to fall in love with her.

So she fakes a fight with her dad and fucks off back to Pheonix where she falls for a very obvious trap, ignores any chance to redeem her as anything other than a week dependent waste of space and gets bit. So she's got vampire "venom" in her and Edwards "dad" decides that it can be sucked out even though that doesn't work with real venom but fortunately Edward could suck a bowling ball through a bendy straw and saves her life. They dismiss it as she fell down a flight of stairs through a window and nobody questions why the entire Cullen family just happened to stroll by a hotel in Arizona when they live in Washington.

Then there's a bunch of fluffy romantic shit, Bella asks Edward to bite her, he doesn't, they kiss, and there's a half-assed attempt to tie to a sequel and the credits roll.

This picture is scary for all of the wrong reasons.

Kristen Stewart is our heroine and while the character of Bella has always been shallow, weak, and a desperate Mary Sue but at the beginning of the book she showed traits of a charming, intelligent, and somewhat likeable teenage girl. This is not what Kristen Stewart plays, in fact she doesn't even play the clumsy, needy, "oh lawdie me I seem to have sprained my ankle" character. She's somehow more pathetic than that and spends most of the movie simpering. Do you remember having a really awkward conversation with someone where they clearly have nothing to say to you so they say a bunch of random things quickly in a breathy frightened voice? That's every line Bella has in this film and it adds to the awkwardness of the dialogue. Though the blame doesn't like solely on Kristen Stewart's shoulders, the cast we have set out before us makes the cast of the average "Smallville" episode look Oscar-worthy.

Robert Pattinson's performance is almost passable at times but he mostly just broods and smoulders for the duration of the film. His line delivery is a slightly less painful version of Kristen's but it's not as annoying with him. He manages to be possesive, threatening, borderline abusive, and genuinely scary. The problem is he's not supposed to be doing any of that. In fact, if Meyer or the film-makers had had the balls to make this into a real horror movie they could've gone the mindfuck angle and made a truly disturbing and good horror movie.

Billy Burke actually does a reasonably good job as Bella's father and stands out as one of the 3 or 4 people who have an acting ability. Another of those, quite surprisingly, is Tyler Lautner who plays Jacob Black a Native American boy who lives on the local Indian reservation. He happens to be the only actor in the entire film who's capable of acting like a real teenager.

Then of course there's the "villain" of this piece. Toward the end of the movie we meet James, played by cam Gigandet who is quite possibly the least threatening antagonist ever. Maybe if he didn't look like he just escaped from an LA night club or looked less like a runway model (that's not a complement) or managed to be half as threatening as Edward is, but he's not. You never feel any sense of danger whatsoever from the character which isn't really the actor's fault but he certainly doesn't help matters by not being scary in the least.

It was bound to happen. T-shirt!

Okay so the whole point of this story taking place in Forks, Washington is because there's rarely direct sunlight and it's the optimal place for vampires to reside. (Yes, this movie is nothing but the punchline for a joke about the Pacific Northwest.) Yet every shot we see is brightly lit and overexposed and bleached out like a British TV drama. And while we're on the subject of sunlight, when we finally see the whole "vampires sparkle in the sun like diamonds" (Note to everyone, David Bowie is a vampire) it just looks like Pattinson rubbed crisco on his face, it's a horrible effect.

Then there are the flashbacks periodically throughout the film some that have happened, some that haven't, are all played like the murder scenes in an episode of "CSI." In fact the one of Edward's turning is rather unintentionally hilarious as Carlisle gently whispers in his ear and then appears to give him a hickey.

One of the big selling points for parents everwhere is that "Twilight" is free of sex which goes against the retarded stereotype invented by writers who are far worse than Stephanie Meyer like Anne Rice and Laurel K. Hamilton which are nothing but fangs and buttfuckery. But for a series so free of sex each touch, look, kiss, and moment between the two protagonists is so deliberately sexual it's hard to miss. In fact toward the end of the film as Edward is sucking the venom out of Bella's hand and she is apparently in excruciating pain the look on her face and body language make it look as though she's having a particularly earth-shattering orgasm.

It also suffers from what Hollywood seems to think a small town is. Small towns are not just small cities with less people, they are not populated with an ethnically diverse crowd of upper-middle class yuppies. They are redneck villas with maybe one or two people that aren't white and everyone calls everyone "ya'll." Get it right for once.

Also let's talk about vampire baseball. Vampire baseball sounds like an idea that Tracy Jordan off of "30 Rock" would come up with for a movie. But even Tracy is more intelligent than to make such a blatantly ridiculous thing the cause of the conflict in the movie. It is a dumb segway from romantic build-up (of which there is none, Bella thinks Edward is hot, Edward thinks Bella looks tasty, that's it) to the "danger" of the film.

One problem the movie shares with the novel is that it's too damn long. The movie is over two hours which should be reserved for movies with deep involved storylines, not something that can be told in an hour-long TV show length. I was begging to movie to stop by the time it ended.

Now this is not to say that "Twilight" is ALL bad. Director Catherine Hardwicke does seem to have a good grasp of how to direct a film (which she showed in spades with "The Nativity Story" and "Lords of Dogtown") and polished this turd as best she could. I'm kind of glad she got the shaft and doesn't have to be stuck with this horrible series for the next few years of her career. Then again, imdb.com has her next film pegged as an adaptation of James Patterson's "Maximum Ride" about experimental bird-teens. Yeah...

"You gon' get raped."

So there you have it, "Twilight" is a bad movie. This is nothing to be surprised about, shitty movies based on shitty young adult books are a dime a dozen (look at "Eragon.") But I don't feel compelled to review most of them because we have an unwritten agreement that they don't bother me and I don't bother them. But nobody can shut the fuck up about the "Twilight" movie, and having read the book I knew there was no way it could be any better than the novel and I was right.

I however, don't hold this agains't the film. As I said, it's a bad book and thus a bad movie is natural, what annoys me is that everyone's treating it like it's the greatest thing ever made. There is nothing wrong with liking something bad so long as you realize that it has lots of shortcomings. I like "Street Fighter" with Raul Julia and Jean-Claude Van Damme but I don't even begin to think it's a good movie.

I give "Twilight" a 1 out of 5. So "Twilight" fans, I'm sorry if I pissed you off but one day you're going to grow up and realize that this movie and this book really is, at best, incredibly mediocre. Or maybe not, maybe you'll always think ti's the best thing since Jesus invented sliced bread and you'll remember this review as the most insulting moment of your life. But for me...

...it was Tuesday.

Monsters vs. Aliens (2009)

Director: Rob Letterman and Conrad Vernon

Starring: Reese Witherspoon, Seth Rogan, Hugh Laurie, Will Arnett, Rainn Wilson

Other Actors of Note: Paul Rudd, Amy Poehler, Ed Helms, Stephen Colbert, Keifer Sutherland, Jeffrey Tambor, Renee Zellweger

Plot: When a meteorite from outer space hits a young California girl named Susan Murphy and turns her into a giant monster, she is taken to a secret government compound where she meets a ragtag group of monsters also rounded up over the years. As a last resort, under the guidance of General W.R. Monger, on a desperate order from The President, the motley crew of Monsters is called into action to combat the aliens and save the world from imminent destruction! Taken from www.imdb.com.


About a year ago the folks at Dreamworks sat around their boardroom and said. "You know, I know we're just the poor man's Disney and God knows Pixar is going to wail on our balls with a meat tenderizer when it comes to 3D animated movies anyway, but you know, maybe we could suck a little less than we do."

Of course, they went and made "Madagascar 2: Escape 2 Africa" anyway, but that's not the point. SOMEBODY listened and they made a plan to make good animated movies, strangely enough this plan involved Jack Black and fat jokes but no-less "Kung Fu Panda" was a huge success and a beautiful movie in style, animation, and story.

Well meanwhile in Dreamworks' department of non-shitty moviemaking they were cooking up another little project that did for classic 50s b-science fiction/horror films what "Kung Fu Panda" did for Kung Fu movies. This movie was dubbed "Monsters vs Aliens" and just like "Kung Fu Panda" on paper it sounded ATROCIOUS. Then the teaser poster was released and it looked HORRIBLE. Then I saw a trailer and was taken aback by how good it looked. The rest was history.

Basically the story goes like this. A meteorite falls to Earth on top of a woman named Susan on her wedding day. Rather than turning into human pudding as most people would do if they were hit by a metoerite, Susan instead grows fifty feet tall, inexplicably gets white hair, and becomes super strong.

Immediatly after the wedding is ruined and her d-bag fiance runs screaming like the little bitch he is, she's taken to a secret government installation and meets Dr. Cockroach, BOB, The Missing Link, and Insectasaurus (more on them later.) It turns out that since the 50s, General W.R. Monger (see what they did there) has been keeping monsters locked up in a secret underground facility to keep them out of the public eye.

Well as fate would have it, the meteorite that turned Susan into Ginormica happened to have been made of some infinitely strong space matter that is wanted by an alien that's half Kang and Kodos and half Invader Zim called Gallaxhar.

Gallaxhar sends a gigantic robot probe to Earth to retrieve the meteorite's energy. Anyway, as robots do, the robot begins tearing shit up so the Gen. Monger decides to sick his monster team against the robot to stop it.


So Reese Witherspoon is the "star" of this movie for all intents and purposes. This is very much Susan's story and most of the plot is focused around her. You see, Susan's weatherman fiance Derek (played by the occasionally funny Paul Rudd) is a selfish prick who derails their honeymoon in Paris so he can go to a job interview in Fresno. Susan really has no self-identity and sense of accomplishment but it's through becoming Ginormica that she realizes how self-reliant she can truly become. Of course in children's movie style she loses the ability that makes her special and then manages to pull a win out of her ass anyway. It may be a rerun of the message we saw in "Kung Fu Panda" but it's still very well done.

As with the Furious Five in "Kung Fu Panda" the other monsters are underutilized but still given a bigger role than their kung fu counterparts. They are composed of Dr. Cockroach M.D. who is based on "The Fly" (not the David Croenenberg one) to the point that he even physically resembles Vincent Price, B.O.B who is a mash-up between "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes" and "The Blob" (there's even a gag that parodies the shot of the blob pouring out of the movie theater doors), The Missing Link (though missing link between what and what I have no idea) who is a mixture of "The Thing From Another World" and "The Creature From the Black Lagoon", and Insectasaurus who is "Mothra" (if you're wondering why it looks like a hamster I can honestly say I have no fucking clue.)

Hugh Laurie is quite well placed as Dr. Cockroach. He embraces the mad scientist clich'e beautifully as he's alays seen creating bizarre divices out of whatever junk he finds lying around. At one point you see him building a bomb out of legos and asks Susan if she has any plutonium. He also does the obligatory mad scientist laugh which serves as a gag at several points throughout the film.

Will Arnett plays the Missing Link, an amusingl vain creature who clearly thinks rather highly of his abilities. The Link appears to be close friends with Insectasaurus though no real reason is ever given for this, it's just shown that the two have a bond of some sort.

Seth Rogen steals just about every scene he's in as BOB, an indestructible blob creatue that has no brain. He's easily distracted, forgetful, and tends to mistake himself with other characters. There's an ongoing joke where BOB thinks he is Susan and is constantly talking about getting back with Derek. He's given some of the better gags and lines throughout.

Kiefer Sutherland and Stephen Colbert are horrible, terrible, and nothing short of painful in this movie. Their jokes are bland, tired, and beyond lame even for a children's movie. There is one gag with Stephen Colbert but unless you've just watched "Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind" yesterday then you won't get it and will just be confused and think it's the stupidest thing you've ever seen. Even if you have it's still rather hard to catch.

Rainn Wilson is similarly bland but at this point we're used to him stinking up ever non-Dwight Shroot role he plays. He's tolerable and not bad, he just doesn't bring anything special to the table.


This movie makes sure to bring in plenty of gags from other movies. Aside from the origins of the monsters there's a gag the president does where he plays the five communication tones from "Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind" and then breaks out into the "Beverly Hills Cop" theme song. Even the somewhat cheesy order Gallaxhar gives to "Destroy All Monsters!" which will only be funny to dorks like me still works. Even the Dreamworks logo is done in scratched looking black and white and shows the boy on the logo getting abducted by a UFO.

Visually the animation is on-par with the average Pixar films. Unfortunately the story hasn't quite caught up. While they go a route Pixar has yet to explore by having a female protagonist, the other characters are rather weak by comparison.

BOB, The Missing Link, and Dr. Cockroach are vastly underutilized and often feel like bit parts moreso than main characters as they have to step aside to make room for Susan's story. Insectasaurus in-particular just doesn't get enough screen time which is a shame as he's the most entertaining one that's not BOB.

I'm hoping that in the inevitable sequel we'll get a chance to flesh the rest of the characters out a bit more and maybe drop a good deal of the more cheap humor. Though the Dr. Strangelove-esque war room sequences at least amused me enough to not hate the president and general characters entirely.

I was also kind of annoyed by the lack of the Versus aspect of the film. The kung fu scenes in the previous film showed that epic and well choreographed fight scenes can be utilized for animated children's films. The moment when the alien robot is trouncing the monsters and suddenly Insectasaurus shows up had me all itching and ready for some hardcore Kaiju action but it never happened. Even the fight scene between the monsters and all of the many Gallaxhar clones feels somewhat underwhelming.

Ultimately the film is a highly enjoyable experiene but falls just short of the mark that "Kung Fu Panda" set before it. It's well-done but it still feels like the script was a draft or two away from being perfect.


Dreamworks still has a long way to go before they'll be at Pixar levels, or even meet the level they set for themselves with their last great film. But don't let that negate from the fact that "Monsters vs. Aliens" is a fun, entertaining, and well-written film that will be enjoed by children and adults alike.

I give "Monsters vs. Aliens" a near-perfect 4 out of 5.

The Last House on the Left (2009)


Directed by: Dennis Iliadis

Starring: Garret Dillahunt, Riki Lindhome, Spencer Treat Clark, Sara Paxton, Monica Potter, Tony Goldwyn, Martha MacIsaac, and Aaron Paul

Plot: After kidnapping and brutally assaulting two young women, a gang led by a prison escapee unknowingly finds refuge at a vacation home belonging the parents of one of the victims -- a mother and father who devise an increasingly gruesome series of revenge tactics.


I've said a few times in the past that Wes Craven's first film, "The Last House on Left", was a bad movie. And I stand by that statement, the cinematography was primitive even for the time, the effects were almost non-existent, the performances of the killers were good but the rest of the cast were atrocious, and the movie kept trying to intersperse moments of humor in between all the violence with the use of two bumbling police officers that made it seem less like a dark comedy and more like the most fucked up episode of "The Andy Griffith Show" in existence.

That being said, "The Last House on the Left" was a very influential movie. There's a reason the film is so well known among the horror crowd, a reason why Wes Craven launched a (admittedly flash-in-the-pan) career out of it. It was a deliberately debased, disgusting, and mean-spirited film that exposed the audience's fears. It wasn't safe, it wasn't escapism, and it did a great job of getting under your skin. Which in turn makes it that much more of a shame that the movie was terrible even by exploitation film standards.

I was maybe the only person who actually got excited when I heard this movie was being remade. Most of the internet decried the ruining of another masterpiece, apparently remembering the spectacle rather than the movie or perhaps thinking of a movie that might have actually been good.

So if you've seen this trailer then you know the plot, the progression, and the ending. But for the 15 million of you who said, near in unison, "this trailer shows everything so I don't feel I need to see the movie." Shut the fuck up and go play in traffic. The good thing about the spoilerific trailer is I don't have to be careful about spoilers.

So the Collingswood family composed of daughter Mari (Sara Paxton), father John (Tony Goldwyn), and mother Emma (Monica Potter) go on vacation at their nicer-than-your-actual house lake home. (To be fair, John is a doctor, so it at least makes sense that this horror movie family is upper-middle class.)

So Mari borrows the car and goes to town to see her friend Paige (Martha MacIsaac) who works at the grocery store in town. As they're talking, creepy loner Justin (Spencer Treat Clark) overhears Paige ask Mari if she still smokes Marijuana.

Justin offers to give Paige some really good weed if she allows him to buy cigarettes even though he isn't legal. The two girls take Justin back to his motel room where they get caught up smoking when Justin's uncle Francis (Aaron Paul) and father's girlfriend Sadie (Riki Lindhome) who just got back from breaking his father Krug (Garret Dillahunt) out of prison and brutally killing two police officers. Unfortunately the dashboard camera on the police car caught Sadie and Francis busting Krug out so the three of them are wanted for murder.

Now naturally with their faces posted on the front of the local newspaper they can't let Mari and Paige go now so they kidnap the girls and make for an escape through the mountains in the Collingswood's SUV. Mari outfoxes the criminals, leading them toward the Collingswoods' lake house and then tries to escape, causing Krug to wreck the car in the middle of nowhere.

This is where things take a turn for the horrifying. Sadie, Francis, and Krug all take turns beating on Mari for causing their only form of escape to wreck. Paige attempts to escape and Francis, Sadie, and Krug take off after her.

Paige is caught and the two girls are then stripped down. Paige decides to smart off to Krug and is then killed. After this Mari is raped and then escapes by swimming away, but Krug manages to shoot her before she can get away.

We see Mari floating face-up in the lake, apparently dead as it begins to rain. The remaining four, all injured from the car wreck or the tussle that followed, head looking for medical help and hopefully another ride. Unfortunately, the only house for miles is the lakehouse owned by Mari's parents.

The four come upon Mari's parents who offer them the guest house to stay in. Justin sees Mari's picture on the refridgerator and, feeling responsible for what has happened, leaves her necklace wrapped around the coffee mug in the kitchen for her mother to find.

The four go out to the guest house for the evening and Mari's parents are left alone in the house when she comes home. Mari, having just barely survived the bullet wound, has managed to find her way home. Seeing the necklace on the coffee cup and seeing that Mari has been shot and raped, her parents put the whole mess together.

Initially they plan to escape but they can't find the keys to the boat and left without a car and no houses for miles there's no way then can possibly hope to get out without the killers noticing. This plan is furhter exacerbated when Francis comes over from the guest house for something to drink. He stumbles upon Mari and suddenly Emma devises a plan to kill him. After dispatching him in an extrememly cruel manner they decide to go and take care of the rest of the group and get revenge.


Sara Paxton is the "hero" of the movie even though she doesn't have much of a part in the second act of the film. This time around the script is a bit more merciful in that it lets Mari live unlike in the original. Some claim this is weakening the story by not actually killing her but I felt almost like this was worse, at the halfway point of the original film it was very clear that Mari was done anyway, she more or less just let herself get killed, her pain was over. This new version of Mari is going to have to live with what's happened and what her parents had to do to protect her.

Paxton doesn't play a character, she plays a human being. Mari isn't some random teenager just there to fill a spot until she gets killed, she's a beautiful and articulate girl with dreams and a personality. She's smart, she's sweet, and she's good but not over-the-top good like the last girl in most horror movies is. She's clearly done the normal things teens have done and that's what makes her more human. The viewer is quickly made to fall in love with Mari and that's why what happens to her next is so disturbing.

This realism is further pulled off by the actors that play Paxton's parents. Monica Potter does a passable job, she's the typical movie mother and plays it with enough realism but it's Tony Goldwyn's performance that hammers things home. As John tends to his daughter's wounds, trying to seal the bullet wound and stop the bleeding using a kitchen knife heated in the fireplace, Mari lets out a whimper of pain and he replies in a patronizing voice "I know baby... I know" as if he were removing a splinter from a child's finger. Moments later when he finds blood on her thigh and sees she's been raped you see the look of horror and outrage and then ultimately blind anger on his face. These subtle tics serve to really tug your heart strings and really show the kind of mother/daughter dynamic that makes these people more than simple characters.

Of course the victims aren't the only performances that stick out. While Riki Lindhome and Aaron Paul play Sadie and Francis every bit as crazy as their 70s counterparts, it's Garret Dillahunt's Krug that really sticks out.

In the original film Krug was a nutcase who got his own son addicted to heroin just so he would have control over him. He sent his son out to find two girls just for the purpose of raping and killing them. In the original film when they find Mari's picture in the Collingswood home, Krug laughs. Even when he finds out that Mari's parents know what he's done he doesn't care. He's the sort of evil crazy bastard that Hollywood pumps out a dime a dozen. Krug isn't scary because Krug doesn't actually exist.

This is why Garret Dillahunt's Krug is so superior. Krug isn't evil for the sake of being evil, he's a bully. Krug is a man who values control over everything, he doesn't addict Josh to heroin he just beats the shit out of him when he acts up. When they steal a car who drives? Krug. Who kills Paige? Krug. Who rapes Mari? Krug. He doesn't do horrible things because he can, he does them because they question his authority and his control. Krug is a sociopath and a control freak and that's what makes him scary, because there are lots of people like him. We hear about people like him all time, they're constantly in the news for keeping people captive, torture, murder. They know what they did was wrong but feel no remorse. That is a real monster and why Dillahunt's performance is so well done.

Spencer Treat Clark's performance as Justin compliments Dillahunt's. Justin plays the obvious victim of abuse by not just his father, but his uncle and Sadie as well. Justin is withdrawn and typically keeps his eyes cast down. You can tell that he hates the people he's with and you can see that he wants nothing more than to stop what's happening to these girls but he can't get up the nerve to do it. Ultimately he does get up the nerve, but even then it's only the nerve to give the Collingswoods the tools to stop his father, not to actually do anything. His final triumph is bittersweet but much better than in the original where Krug convinces his son to shoot himself in the head.


In the age of "Hostel", "Saw", "Wolf Creek", "Captivity", "The Devil's Rejects", and a plethora of other cheap torture movies this film could have easily falling into the same trappings as the aformentioned. In fact given the recent "torture porn" fad it's impossible to shock audiences the same way that the original did and nigh-impossible to make this movie as painful as that one was at the time. Hell, by today's standards the original "Last House on the Left" is rather tame.

This is why director Iliadis doesn't torture the characters, he tortures us for watching. The cinematography doesn't give a lot of long shots or establishing shots and this is because it doesn't want a passive audience. Iliadis goes for substance over spectacle, he keeps the camera in close.

When Paige is stabbed we don't watch from a distance as Krug quickly stabs her. We watch the intensity on his face, we watch Paige gradually register more and more pain, we hear the blade slowly and laboriously part each layer of flesh as it goes into her abdomen.

When we see Mari's rape it doesn't show the typical man on top woman grinding his hips between her legs. This is far worse, the camera is left on Mari's face as she cries and weeps and ultimately goes near catatonic. You see the pain and suffering on her face and you're made to feel it.

These subtle things are what seperates gratuitous schlock from art. This isn't about seeing how nasty things can get it's about being witness to true pain and suffering and it's done beautifully.

Of course, once the second act starts the violence is about spectacle but that too has a reason. The audience has just watched what these people have done to these two girls, we want to see them dead as much as the Collingswoods. We want to see them suffer, and that's exactly what they do. Subtlety is thrown to the wind and violence and revenge become the centerpieces of the film. This never seems to over the top or ridiculous like in the original movie though, so it's acceptable.

However the final note of the film, the infamous "microwave scene" that was glimpsed in the trailer may have went a bit too far. It straddles the line between acceptable and over the top as it's easily the goriest moment in the movie and seems a bit too typical.


"Last House on the Left" gives this concept the quality and artistic style it's always deserved. I am glad to see this finally portrayed in the right light and seen the way it should have been.

I give "The Last House on the Left" a 5 out of 5.

Watchmen (2009)

Directed by: Zack Snyder

Starring: Malin Ackerman, Billy Crudup, Matthew Goode, Jackie Earle Haley, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, and Patrikc Wilson
Other Actors of Note: Carla Gugino, Stephen McHattie

Plot: A group of heroes, forced into retirement a decade before are called together once again to investigate the murder of one of their own. What they discover an age-old conspiracy to change the balance of power in a world not different from our own. Taken from www.imdb.com


In the past you may have noticed that I really really don't like Alan Moore. I think the man is a slightly above-average writer who might be able to become truly great if he could just stop sucking himself off long enough to see that everything he writes isn't really that great. Of course his shortcomings could be forgiven if he wasn't such a self-absorbed cunt.

That being said I thoroughly enjoyed "V For Vendetta", "The League of Extraordinary Gentleman", "Miracleman", and definitely "Watchmen". Now while I don't think that it's the greatest fucking thing ever written ever I did find it to be a well-done and intelligently written book with its share of flaws that are thankfully outshined by the big picture.

"Watchmen" has long been considered unfilmable by most of its fans, this is due in no small part to the fact that Alan Moore is more than happy to rhapsodize about a fly crawling across a dog's chapped asshole rather than move the plot along.

Fortunately Zack Snyder, who directed the closest thing to a fitting remake to "Dawn of the Dead" and did an amazing job of adapting Frank Miller's "300" to the big screen. Moore asked to have no involvement with the project which would make sense if the only adaptations of his work in existence were "From Hell" and "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" but "V For Vendetta" has since come out and he has no reason to be bitching anymore.

So anyway "Watchmen" is a super heroes in the real world type of thing where the fantasy of golden age superheroism comes to a disturbing reality.

When The Comedian (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) is killed, vigilante suphero Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley) draws the conclusion that someone is killing former superheroes. Meanwhile Silk Spectre's (Malin Akerman) husband, the radioactive superhero Dr. Manhattan (Billy Cruddup), predicts nuclear war within the near future.


Let's stark with the one I was most psyched about. Patrick Wilson continues to live up to my high expectations of him as an actor. When I heard he would be playing the part of Dan Drieberg/Nite Owl II I couldn't have been more excited. Okay, so Wilson isn't exactly the pudgy bastard that Drieberg was in the comics but the nerdy awkwardness and the concept of a child who was forced to grow up and accept that comic books don't come true remains and is played pitch perfectly. They could not have picked a more perfect actor to play the role of Nite Owl.

Billy Cruddup does okay but he doesn't get much of a chance to show his clout as he has to be cold and emotionless, talking in a soft indifferent voice that would make Bob Ross sound annoyed by comparison. Still his performance leaves nothing more to be desired.

Jeffrey Dean Morgan is one of the other big screen presences here. The Comedian is a complete bastard but you still end up liking him for no explainable reason. Unlike in the comic he doesn't become sympathetic at the end but still Morgan makes you love the hateful fucker.

Malin Ackerman is harder to pin down. Some may say she didn't play Silk Spectre II the way she should've as her character comes across too nice. In the comic, Laurie was a bitch, pure and simple and I never felt the emotional connection to that version of the character that I came to associate with Ackerman's performance in the film. It's a change, but in my opinion, it's one for the better.

Now I've saved the best for last. Jackie Earl Haley does not play Rorschach, he becomes Rorschach. Like Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark or Mickey Rourke as Marv, Haley hits every note pitch perfect. I was concerned he wouldn't look right outside of the mask but he looked as good out of the mask as in it and he brought a lot more emotion to the character than I ever imagined whilst reading the comic. Also, Christian Bale needs to take lesson from Haley, he does the Batman voice perfectly without the over-the-top strep throat voice.

At the beginning of 2004's "Dawn of the Dead" I saw a visual style that was utterly breathtaking for reasons I can't explain. Unfortunately, the bulk of that movie took place indoors in relatively cramped spaces and I didn't see any more wide breathtaking shots.

Fortunately, director Zack Snyder gets more chances to exploit that visual style this time around. The opening credits, showing the fall of the "golden age" superheros all to the tune of "The Times are a Changing" by Bob Dylan sets the tone for the film perfectly. In fact all of the music selections (except the fucking My Chemical Romance cover of a Bob Dylan song) work perfectly in scenes that you really wouldn't think that they would.

The story has had all the fat trimmed off of it and some would call this a travesty but it's really not. I miss the Bernies and the black freighter as much as the next person and watching Rorschach's psychiatrist succumb to his insanity would have been good too but for the most part they've junked the more tedious parts of the book. It becomes about the story and not everything that vaguely affects the story.

The big change to the end was a welcome one. I wasn't alive for the cold war so I can't speak personally but that aspect of the story didn't age well. The squid (if you haven't read the book in the 25 years it's been out then fuck you) was a stupid stupid plot device and the one it's been replaced with is a great improvement. Not to mention the ending has a much better tone, Rorschach's death feels like it means something this time around and it doesn't end with such a simple resignation of "Well that sucks... wanna go get nachos?"

My one big complaint is that it's rather apparent who The Comedian's killer is. The actor who plays him has a rather unique build and when you see him later in the film you peg him as the killer immediatly.

The costume designs have changed drastically for most characters but all for the better. Ozymandias' outfit is a clear mockery of movie superhero costumes with rubber sculpted abs and nipples, The Comedian's looks less like bondage gear, Silk Spectre II no longer looks like an Arabian prostitute, and Nite Owl's changed but it works. Rorschach's mask works quite well and for those of you concerned, yes you do see Dr. Mahattan's floppy radioactive cock.

While the costumes work the make-up artist for this film should be fired. When the characters are aged they look terrible. Carla Gugino and Jeffrey Dean Morgan both look particularly horrible in their latex "old people" make-up and the actor who plays Richard Nixon looks more like Danny Devito in "Batman Returns" than Tricky Dick. The make-up was the sole downfall in this movie.


I would easily say that "Watchmen" has topped "Spider-Man", "Sin City", and "The Dark Knight" as the greatest comic-book adaptation to take. Alan Moore can suck a dick I slash prices. Sorry, I will stop doing that one day.

I give "Watchmen" a 5 out o5.

Slumdog Millionaire (2008)

Directed by: Danny Boyle

Starring: Dev Patel, Freida Pinto, Madhur Mittal

Plot: A Mumbai teen who grew up in the slums, becomes a contestant on the Indian version of "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?" He is arrested under suspicion of cheating, and while being interrogated, events from his life history are shown which explain why he knows the answers. Taken from www.imdb.com.

As an American what do I know about India? I know that they're poor, they apparently worship cows or something there, ride magic carpets, and it doesn't matter if you're skinny or fat you can dress up like a sultan in your onion head hat.

Imagine my surprise when I learned that my truly vast knowledge of India wasn't really vast or knowledge but a string of vague hints given to me by pop culture and a line from a "Cake" song. Why I almost stopped to ponder my squandered life but I was too busy galavanting in the streets in my American flag pants (with bald eagle cock pouch) screaming "AMERICA! FUCK YEAH!" to care.

Okay, so "Slumdog Millionaire" is a movie directed by Danny Boyle ("28 Days Later", "The Beach", "Trainspotting") based on the novel "Q&A" which is an extrememly boring title and no wonder I've never read it.

So it is the story of Jamal, a young Mumbai man who has a "Dewey Cox has to think about his entire life before he sings" moment and reflects on his entire childhood up to the point he got accused of cheating on the Indian version of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire."

It turns out that all the questions end up somehow relating to a parallel event in his life that was so traumatic that he knew the answer. I would like to see this in real life.

"So how did you know the lyrics to 'Me and Bobby McGee?'" Asks Regis Philbin

"My mother used to sing it to me whilst grinding lemon rinds into my eyes and beating me with a garden hose filled with bees." replies the lucky contestent.

So it all ties into a love story about halfway through that just kinda pops up out of nowhere and there's this thing about destiny that's referred to here and there and really doesn't have a whole lot of mention in the film but is apparently the point.

Then we're treated to a music video-like ending sequence involving the main characters dancing like stereotypical Indian music video dancers. This is why I always copy paste plot details from iMDB because sometimes I have no fucking clue what to say and compensate for my lack of knowledge with anecdotes.

Okay so acting is hard to break down seeing as there's 3 actors for each main character so I'll try and break this down as best I can.

The main character is Jamal as we've said played in sequence by: Ayush Mahesh Kedekar, Tanay Cheda, and Dev Patel.

Kedekar is the first Jamal we become truly close to whilst watching him jump into a pit of liquid shit so that he can get an autograph from a famous Indian movie star which is then sold by his douche water sodden brother Salim. We spend almost as much time with Kedekar as we do with Patel and he's the one we become most sympathetic with as he is a fucking adorable child and you watch all the horrible shit he goes through.

Of all the Salim's, Azharrudin Mohammed Ismail (youngest Salim) is the most interesting and most dickish of the 3. (Though Ashutosh Lobo Gajiwala comes in close second.) He's a rather conflicting character as he's alternatively pure evil and unendingly loyal to his brother (often at the same time.) This duality, and the way it is played, is what makes "youngest Salim" the most interesting portrayal of the 3.

The youngest Latika is little more than a placeholder but I'll at least namedrop Rubiana Ali and sat that she does a competent job for such a
young actress.

I will suffice to say that I was unimpressed with middle Jamal, Salim, and Latika and have chosen not to comment on Tanay Cheda, Ashutosh Lobo Gajiwala, Tanvi Ganesh Lonkar other than to say that they didn't do much for me but advance the story.

Dev Patel's performance is quite good. He plays his part as silent, withdrawn, and shy: the polar opposite of what Kedekar's performance was. Patel doesn't hold the story as well as his younger counterpart but he comes very close.

Unfortunately the same cannot be said for Freida Pinto and Maddhur Mittal give good performances but Mittal doesn't live up to his younger counterpart and Pinto keeps the same blah performance that the previous two generations of actors had built up.

One of the more menacing and well-done performances is Ankur Vikal's false savior Maman. A gangster who uses poor orphans to beg to increase his money. He has the gentle kind menacing nature of a child molester and every scene with him from his first appearance to his exit just leaves you with a permanant cold feeling running up and down your spine.

"Slumdog Millionaire" is a love story, but you know what else it is? Fucking traumtic, that's what. This movie will fuck you up in ways that "Christian Children's Fund" commercials never will.

Between going forehead deep in human shit, the brutal beating of women and children with sticks, the blinding of children with boiling oil, and a myriad of other fucked up shit you will be appalled and guilty by the time you walk out.

Of course it's not all tradgedy and sap, many moments are filled with genuine comedy, especially in the earlier portions of the film where Jamal and Salim run a myriad of scams for money like pretending to be guides at Taj Mahal and giving tons of bogus information that even ignorant Americans like myself can see are complete bullshit.

Another fine element of this movie is the visual appeal. This film makes even the most dirty and drab environments look absolutely gorgeous. Even the subtitles are colorized and vivid and I firmly vote that subtitles should be done this way from this point on, it makes them seem much less tedious.

However, of all the finer points of this film the music was what stood out for me. I'm not sure if the music picked is popular Indian music, or period music, or if it's even Indian. What it is, is hauntingly beautiful and every scene that features it is a treat all in itself. A scene of the young Salim and Jamal on a train is particularly wonderful.

I will admit that I don't echo the sheer amazement with this film that everyone else does. Truly this is a film of a higher calibur, but what starts as something above the cut starts drifting into the land of generic film plots. It doesn't take away from the film's overall effect but it does make me feel less sure of all the Oscars the film was nominated for/won.

While it's somewhat less spectacular than I had hoped it is still a solid and highly enjoyable film experience that impressed even my georgraphically and culturally retarded mind.

I give "Slumdog Millionaire" a 5 out of 5.

Taken (2009)



Directed by: Pierre Morel

Starring: Liam Neeson, Maggie Grace, and Famke Jensen

Plot: The seventeen year-old Kim is the pride and joy of her father, the retired agent Bryan Mills that left the secret service to stay near Kim in California. Kim lives with her mother Lenore and her wealthy stepfather Stuart; she convinces the reluctant Bryan to sign an authorization to travel to Paris with her friend Amanda. When they arrive, they share a cab with the stranger Peter and Amanda tells to him that they are alone in Paris. When Bryan succeeds in contacting his daughter, she tells that criminals have just break in the spot and they are kidnapped by an Albanese gang of human trafficking. Bryan promises in the phone to kill the kidnapper of his daughter and immediately travels to Paris to find Kim and chase the criminals. Taken from www.imdb.com.


Picture if you took Harry Callahan, John Rambo, Jason Bourne, and Jack Bauer and combined them into one single person. Well Liam Neeson would descend from the rafters and fucking kill that person.

With the exception of "Darkman" (whcich barely counts) I've never really seen Liam Neeson as a badass. After all, he did get killed by the guy who played Toad in "Star Wars: Episode 1."

Okay, so basically Liam Neeson plays Bryan Mills, a former special forces agent who has neglected his daughter because spending time with his family got in the way of his pointing-guns-at-people time.

Well now he's making amends by babying his bratty 26-year-old-playing-a-17-year-old daughter Kim (Maggie Grace) and trying to deal with his ex-wife Lenore (Famke Jensen) who just happens to be the bitch queen of bitch mountain where they bitch constantly (guess what their favorite Meredith Brooks song is... that's right, it's "Shout.")

Anyhow, said bratty daughter and her stupid friend head to Europe to follow U2 around the continent on tour. However, stupid friend informs some random guy they just met 15 seconds ago that two teenage girls are alone in Paris with no supervision.

So they get kidnapped. One would think that anyone who willingly follows U2 on tour deserves such a fate. So Bryan steps up and beats the everloving fuck out of anyone even remotely involved with his daughter's kidnapping. By the end of the movie I was honestly expecting Neeson to kick Bono in the face. (Which honestly would have been a kickass ending.)



I've never really been a fan of Liam Neeson in any capacity. Oh sure, he was good as Oscar Schindler but he was the most boring Jedi Knight and Batman villain I have ever seen. Even his portrayal as Darkman left something to be desired as he was replacing Bruce Campbell who would have done more justice in the role and was then eclipsed by Arnold fucking Vosloo (Imhotep from "The Mummy" for you non-movie buff types)

Now, don't get me wrong, Neeson hardly gives an Oscar worthy performance but he goes from old man to badass in no time. Seriously, one minute he gets his chest hair caught in his fly, the next he's wearing a leather jacket and killing people with a glare.

Maggie Grace (age 26) is one of the worst choices to play the character Kim ever. First of all, Maggie Grace couldn't pass for 17 if her life depended on it, not to mention she acts like she's 13. Kim is annoying, bratty, and I honestly didn't miss her for the 75% of the movie she wasn't in.

Famke Jensen as stated before plays a bitchy irresponsible ex-wife who really has no business raising a child. I guess she plays the part well but I was so busy trying not to be disgusted with the movie the whole time that I couldn't appreciate here performance.


So "Taken" is a thriller. I'm told that in the UK there exists and 18 (the UK equivalent of R) rated version. This is good, because for a movie that deals with a man killing an entire organization devote to child prostitution the movie lacked any balls.

This was the main problem I had with this film. The danger never felt dangerous, Liam Neeson never seemed to be any more than mildly inconvenienced and when it got to a truly pivotal scene (like Neeson torturing the man who kidnapped his daughter) you feel like a very passive viewer rather than an active one. It feels like you're watching actions on a screen rather than experiencing them and that's where I feel it dropped the ball.

"Taken" tries to be an intelligent and emotional thriller but often falls into the trappings of hollywood and that's where it falls flat. If it had been in spirit what it was in reality it would have been much better.

No less the story is well written, the action scenes are good but don't seem overdone or coreographed and especially aren't borderline stupid (I'm looking at you Jason Bourne.) We get a car chase but it's done fairly subtly, at least compared to most big budget films.

Mostly though, you don't watch this movie for quality, you watch it for the entertainment of watching Liam Neeson beat men to death with their own spines.

Also. Memorize this line, men with daugthers:

"I don't know who you are. I don't know what you want. If you are looking for ransom, I can tell you I don't have money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills; skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you let my daughter go now, that'll be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you. But if you don't, I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you."

Use it on your daughter's first boyfriend. Trust me on this one.


"Taken" is half intelligent and emotional thriller and half cheap violent entertainment and while it fails at being either fully it does a pretty decent job at being both.

I give "Taken" a 4 out of 5.