"Tremors" (1990)

• Director: Ron Underwood
• Written by: Brent Maddock & S. S. Wilson
• Starring: Kevin Bacon, Fred Ward, Michael Gross, Reba McEntire

(Note: Hey guys! I'm posting this from Seattle! I'll be back on Sunday, and I'll try to have another review by then. I hope you guys enjoy.)

     A lot of monster movies are fairly light, innocuous fare, with very little to set them apart from one another. Despite all that, I find monster movies an absolute joy to watch. Films like "The Blob" are always entertaining, with hilariously wooden characterization and (usually shoddy) effects. So, I went into "Tremors" expecting just another B-grade monster movie. However, I found myself pleasantly surprised by it's excellent cast, suspenseful plotting, and downright hilarious black humor.
     "Tremors" takes place in the town of Perfection, Nevada with a population of only 14 people. Handymen Earl (Kevin Bacon) and Valentine (Burt Ward) finally decide to get out of the podunk town and escape to the city. However, on the day they decide to leave, they run into a corpse hanging from the top of an oil tower, and are then accosted by a strange snakelike creature. They soon learn that the entire valley is surrounded by giant worm creatures that they name "Graboids", which have the ability to tremor through the ground and the ability to detect their prey by listening to the vibrations of sound. They have no way out, because the vibrations of the Graboids has collapsed a rock wall, covering the only road out of Perfection. So, with the help of the fellow townsfolk, Earl and Val try to figure out a way to defeat the Graboids and escape to the city.
     "Tremors" is an unabashedly fun movie. It has a remarkably colorful cast of characters, all played well and with their tongues firmly in cheeks. My favorite character was Burt (Michael Gross) and his wife Heather (Reba McEntire), two militaristic gun nuts with an inconceivably large collection of firearms. In one hilarious scene, Burt and Heather fire bullet after bullet into a Graboid that has just broken through their basement wall. They cycle through bigger and bigger guns, until finally Burt takes the worm down with an elephant gun to it's fleshy parts.
     The film is full of great, funny, creative sequences like this, all supplemented by other great characters. Some of my other favorites include Walter Chang (Victor Wong), the owner of a general store who is constantly trying to scam people out of their money, and Melvin Plug (Bobby Jacoby), a snot-nosed teenager who won't stop playing pranks on everybody.
     But one of the great things about this film, and what makes all of the characters feel so fleshed out and real, despite their exaggerated personalities, is the setting of the film itself. Since it takes place in such a small, isolated town with an equally small populace, the characters all share a kind of "togetherness", and it's easy to believe that they're all close and know each other very well. They play off of each others strengths as well as weaknesses, and they frequently quibble like relatives. It brings them all together and helps the town, and the people in it, feel more realistic and closely knit.
     Every character feels alive in this film, even if there isn't a whole lot in the way of character development, which is astonishingly hard to pull off. It's fun watching them try to escape the Graboids, but since they've been given this "roundness", this believability, we also end up caring about them and wanting them to escape. So we alternately laugh at their hilarious clashing while simultaneously caring for them. This clashing is especially evident in the two main characters, Earl and Val, and Kevin Bacon and Burt Ward do a fantastic job of making us believe that these people are two friends who have known each other a long time. The rest of the acting is solid as well.
     The setting of the film also enhances it's mood. The constant shots of the dry, dull and orange Nevada deserts make the audience feel isolated, just like the townsfolk in the film. It also makes the film feel somewhat like a Western, with all of the hick cowboys and horseriding, with the occasional intrusion of the modern world (such as a sign on Walter Chang's window that mentions "VHS Rentals"). It's a really great setting, and lends itself well to the film's characters and atmosphere.
     But the heart of the film lies in it's monster-filled action sequences, which are taut and excellently directed. Look elsewhere if you're looking for violence and gore. The thing that makes these sequences suspenseful is that we never know what the Graboids are going to do, or if the characters will be able to escape. The Graboids have the ability to learn, so as soon as the characters in the film try to execute a plan, it goes belly-up before they can even think twice. It keeps us guessing, and we're never sure how the characters are going to work out how to escape, or even if they will at all. There are also some really fun chase scenes between the humans and the Graboids, since the characters can't move around on the ground due to their vibrations attracting the monsters.
     However, the film never takes itself too seriously, and is always willing to play up what would normally be a serious, dark situation for laughs. For example, there's a scene where the entire town has hidden inside of the store and are staying quiet to keep from attracting the Graboids. They do a quick head count, until they realize that one other person is still making sound: a daughter of one of the townsfolk, with headphones in her ears, is outside of the store, jumping up and down on a pogo stick. Even the set pieces themselves can be funny, such as when a Graboid burrows underneath the wooden porch of the general store, and pushes up the boards as it moves along, like a murderous Bugs Bunny, or when a Graboid pulls an entire station wagon under the sand.
     The special effects are pulled off well too, gradually showing us more and more of the Graboids as the film goes on, only letting us see one full and up close at the very end. The puppetry is, of course, low budget (the film was made for only 11 million dollars), but they're pulled off well, and are charming and fun.
     That's what I like most about this film. Rather than taking itself seriously and ending up simply being an unintentionally hilarious bad film, it actually revels in it's ridiculousness and comes out with some  great characters and some surprisingly taut and suspenseful plotting. If you love monster movies but find yourself a little bit tired of endless formulaic crap, pick up "Tremors". But be sure not to make too much noise on the way over to the video store... you never know what might be under the ground!

"Toy Story 3" (2010)

• Director: Lee Unkrich
• Written by: Michael Arndt
• Starring: Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Ned Beatty, Michael Keaton

(Note: Hey guys, I'm really sorry this one took so long to complete. I've been busy with real life responsibilities and personal projects, not to mention that I had a lot to say about this one and it took me a while to organize my thoughts. I'll try to make up for it by writing another review in the next few days. Anyway, enjoy!)

     If Pixar Studios could somehow be turned into a human being, I would fuck it. Pixar Animation Studios are perfect. Yes, perfect. Out of 11 films, none of them have been bad. I even enjoyed "Cars", so fuck you. And, being a kid that grew up in the '90s, I have fond memories of "Toy Story". I can remember seeing both the first and second films on their opening days. I remember an old Woody toy that I carried around with me everywhere. I remember how I wore out my copy of "Toy Story 2" on VHS. Pixar are animation  gods, and no one can touch them. Now, finally, they're returning to their most beloved franchise of all time,  the franchise that started everything. "Toy Story 3" is finally here, and it's about time too.
     I remember talking with my friends in elementary school about how excited we were for "Toy Story 3", naturally, since we were kids, we all thought they'd immediately rush out a sequel in a few years, but no. It actually took them 11 years until the release of a 3rd film, and you know what? I say that's a good thing.  Pixar has always stood out from other, lower quality animation studios (read: Disney) by never whoring out their products. Every film they make is always handled with care, they know that audiences care about a good story in a film, even the little kids. So, I'm glad they took their time with this one in order to be positive that it was the best it could possibly be. But... is it the best it could possibly be?
     Well... no, it isn't, but come on! How could it be? Our expectations have been set incredibly high from waiting 11 years, I mean, anyone's would! It would be impossible for the real world to come up with the best storyline that only our imaginations can create, and it's pretty much physically impossible for John Lasseter & Co. to reach the apex of "Toy Story 2" again. However, is it a good movie? Yes, it is. A very good movie, in fact. The film picks up many years after the second film, Andy is now going off to college and is deciding what to do with his old toys. Unfortunately, due to an elaborate mix-up, Andy's toys are all sent off to a daycare center, where the toys run into a communistic/dictatorial political regime lead by Lots-O-Huggin' Bear, or Lotso, who explains that if they want to be treated nicely, they'll have to work for it. So, the toys, once they find out that Andy is looking for them, decide to hightail it out of there and make it back to Andy's house before he leaves for college.
     One thing that I've always loved about Pixar's films is that they can appeal to kids and yet they are filled with such depth and fascinating characterization that they also appeal to adults, without pandering to sly adult humor and fart jokes. They make some of the warmest, most human animated films in the world. "Toy Story 3" continues in this vein, ruminating on mature themes such as the meaning of existence and coping with change and loss. As the toys learn in this installment, loss can be handled in many different ways, and it affects everyone differently (I don't want to give too much away though).
     This overarching theme of coping with loss is dealt with in astoundingly mature and subtle ways, and this theme affects the entire film. It's probably the darkest and bleakest entry in the series as the toys must learn to accept their fates. It's also chock-full of some fairly creepy sequences and a palpable sense of dread. It's very rare that Pixar films tackle these kinds of moods and feelings, and "Toy Story 3" only proves their versatility in storytelling.
     The characters, as in all Pixar films, are complex, human and realistic. I found myself floored at how Pixar gave even the smallest characters a huge amount of depth and complexity. No character falls flat, no character feels forced or added in, it all works. In particular I really enjoyed the villain, Lotso, who looks like a simple toy gone wrong on the surface, but has a very believable, tragic past, and his relationship with is various minions is also interesting and well-written.
     He's similar to the Prospector, but is given enough depth and motivation to come into his own. In fact, I like that the characters share similar feelings toward humans. Throughout the entire series we've gotten a bigger and better look into the world of toy abandonment and how different toys deal with that abandonment. It's fascinating to see how two toys who don't know each other go to simliar routes when dealing with their feelings of alienation and loss. It makes the established world of Toy Story feel even bigger and more vast.
     The ending is also very well-done and extremely touching, as Andy (and the audience) are finally forced to let go of these characters that they've known and loved for so long. It's appropriate that "Toy Story 3" comes out 15 years after the first one, because the audience has grown up with the characters. The young kids that went to see "Toy Story" on it's original release are now growing older, like myself, and so "Toy Story 3" is not just a goodbye for the characters in the film, it's a goodbye to all of us. When we get home from the film we look at our old toys and possessions on our shelves, dusty with age, and we're forced to confront our own maturity. So, along with it's numerous themes, "Toy Story 3" also asks us about the nature of childhood, and whether it is something that can (or even should) be held onto.
     Even the cast itself sound weary and old, and I think that the voice actors own ages infused their performances with realism and heartbreak. They all do a fantastic job, everyone is believable and completely convincing in their roles, and I will freely admit that I teared up at the ending. Any animated film that can do this to an audience, that can make them question themselves in this way, is deserving of high praise.
     Honestly, the only things I didn't like about the film were some of the vague modern pop culture references, like the joke about eBay and the joke about the triceratop toy's online relationship. It puts the Toy Story franchise into a firm time and place, and I've always felt that the Toy Story films were timeless, they fit into their own little capsule in an indiscernable time period that anybody could relate to (remember that Rex is playing on a Super Nintendo in Toy Story 2). Then again, maybe the intrusion of modern technology is the point, to remind us that time is flying by and things are changing all around us.
     "Toy Story 3" is just about the most fitting end to the franchise, and I pray to God that Pixar stays smart and refuses to continue the story from here. The series is over, yes, and that's sad, but looking at the films as a whole, they are wrapped up nicely and work very well as a trilogy. Luckily though, it looks as if Pixar are happy to end the series this way, and the strength of this film shows irrevocably that Pixar will always remain above Disney, and that they aren't going anywhere.

"Chillers" (1987)

• Directed & Written by: Daniel Boyd
• Starring: Jesse Emery, Marjorie Fitzsimmons, Laurie Pennington, Jim Wolfe, and David Row

(Note: Sorry this one is so short. It's brevity is for reasons that will become readily apparent if you read the review. Or if you go see the movie, which I highly advise against as it may make you want to stab yourself repeatedly with a dull fork. I'll have a review up of "Toy Story 3" sometime soon, a proper review!)

      As I mentioned in my “Meat Market 2” review, investing in a shitty horror movie can be risky. There's a very thin line between “so bad it's fucking awesome” and “so bad that it makes you want to pour bleach into your eyeballs”, and most of the time the film you get ends up being the latter. “Chillers”, a horror film released by Troma, is one of the worst of these B-horror films I've seen in a very long time.
     “Chillers” is an anthology horror film with five stories, similar to other, more high-profile anthology films such as “Tales from the Crypt” and “Black Sabbath”. The wraparound story is that of a group of travelers who are waiting for a bus and while inside of the bus station, waiting, they decide to each share a scary story based on nightmares that they all had recently. The stories are incredibly generic, and feature horror staples such as crazy serial killers, evil demons, vampires, and ghosts. And, like every cheapo anthology film, there is a twist at the end (which, if you don't guess within the first 30 seconds, doesn't say a whole lot of good things about you).
     Some low-budget films use their budget effectively, bypassing the small amounts of money the filmmakers have with interesting techniques or a great script/acting, etc. Other low-budget films don't try with their budget at all, and end up looking like they really are: cheap. Then there are films like "Chillers", which look so cheap that it's almost impossible to believe that there was any money involved at all! Everything in the film looks fake and fragile, the sets all feel like cheap high-school props. There isn't even any gory makeup effects to tide gorehounds over. The only real production value is some spooky lighting, and even then it still looks trashy and stagey.
     But looking for production value in films like this is a lost venture from the very beginning isn't it? Well, if you were hoping for some kind of insane or completely ridiculous/funny storylines that you can laugh at, well too bad! You don't even get that. The film is about 85 minutes, so each story only gets about 15 minutes of screen time, so the stories start way too fast and end way too early, full of slapdash, confusing writing, and reliance on retarded deus ex machina or really lame jump scares so that we can quickly end the story and move on to another. But they're not retarded in a way that makes them endearing or funny, it just feels rushed. The plots themselves are painfully simple, as I said above.
     For example, the last story is about a female student who gets possessed by a (made-up) Aztec demon named Ixpe. She kills a few dudes and then the Anthropology teacher that was teaching in her class tries to stop the demon, but the cops shoot the student before he can exorcize the demon humanely. That's about it, and it's what I consider to be the best story of the bunch. But, if that sounds like enough of a plot to play around with, think again. As I said, the film's short run time keeps any of the stories from really developing, or at least going crazy and trying to be fun. So, you get five 15-minute stories, all of which feature incredibly generic storylines and never really develop into anything crazy and fun. On top of all that, there isn't any elaborate deaths or gore effects to entertain yourself with.
     All of this adds up to make an incredibly slow-moving, boring horror film that feels incredibly cheap and  generic, and ultimately ends up being a waste of time. If you're a sadomasochistic freak that loves to scrape the absolute bottom of the barrel of film, then maybe, MAYBE you'll enjoy this. I found it an exercise just to sit through it, and it's a testament to how bad the film is that I can't even think of anything stupid about it to make fun of. It's just an all-around bad movie. Stay far, far, far, far, far, far, far away.



(2nd Note: The trailer for this film is interesting because it is highly misleading. The line "[They] must fight for their lives when demons hidden beneath their psyches suddenly come alive to haunt" is an outright lie. The characters in the film do very little "fighting for their lives", the whole film is simply them telling stories in a bus station, but the trailer makes it look like these demons from their imaginations are attacking them or something, like a really shitty Freddy Krueger movie. Just another reason not to see this piece of shit. It's deceptive!)

"The A-Team" (2010)

• Director: Joe Carnahan

• Written by: Joe Carnahan, Brian Bloom & Skip Woods

• Starring: Liam Neeson, Bradley Cooper, Quinton Jackson, Sharlto Copley

(Note: Sorry that I haven't posted in a while, guys. I had trouble articulating my thoughts on this film and I had a hard time thinking of something to say. Finally though, I got it done. Anyway, enough of my blabbing, enjoy the review.)

     Ah, June is finally here, which means that summer has started. Summer brings along dry heat, invigorating smells, and of course, shitty blockbuster summer movies. These blockbuster summer films usually end up being loud, annoying, stupid explody action-fests. After all, this is the season that brought us "Transformers". And what a better way to kick off the season of monumentally retarded explody boom-pow movies than "The A-Team", a retooling of the popular 80s action show?
     The plot of "The A-Team" is amazingly generic. Four members who are part of a covert military group known as The A-Team are implicated in a crime that they didn't commit which involves stolen money plates and murder of a superior officer. However, they were actually framed by a man named Pike (Brian Bloom), the leader of another covert military operation known as Black Forest. Later, they are helped out of jail by a CIA operative named Lynch (Patrick Wilson) with mysterious intentions. The rest of the movie focuses on their attempts to seek out and get revenge on Pike, as well as their attempts to clear their names by retrieving the plates.
     I don't know if it's just me, but I have a hard time believing that this movie is anywhere close in tone to the original A-Team, to me it just feels like a generic summer action movie. However, my boyfriend Arron, who is a huge fan of the original show, told me that it stays very close in tone and plot, so I have to say that if this is what the original A-Team is like, then I really have no interest in watching the original show.
      I'm just not an action guy. Even in action films like this, where it's meant to be peurile and silly, I just can't get into it. I like story with my action, and let it be said that "The A-Team" does not have an amazing plot, by any standards. It's your typical "we got burned by the military so we have to get revenge" bullshit. In fact, if you've ever played the video game "Army of Two", I noticed that I began to have traumatic Vietnam-style flashbacks to the plot of that game, where it's nothing but grizzled action heroes and annoying dialogue.
     And like that game, this film is full of "comedic" dialogue, or what I assume Hollywood writers think is comedic dialogue, but actually ends up being annoying and obvious and makes every single character in the film look like a smug dickhole. In fact, Bradley Cooper as "Faceman" was so good at playing a smug cunt that I found myself wanting to jump through the screen and tear his throat out with my teeth. If the point was to make every character look like a smug dickhole then I guess I have to applaud them, but it doesn't make me want to watch the movie again, it just makes it incredibly grating. And of course, since the dialogue is nothing but yelling and one-liners, the characters suffer as a result.     
     They're complete one-note cardboard cutouts. Simple character archetypes that don't affect anyone or make anyone care. Some people tell me that that's the idea, that it's supposed to be gently making fun of the grizzled 80s hero archetypes, but it's hard for me to tell. In my opinion it feels more like the writers genuinely believe that these characters are deep and deserve our sympathy, and the movie takes it's ridiculous plot so seriously that it's not that hard to believe. Why does every single dumb action movie have to try to wrench sympathy out of it's audience? Why does at least one character need a tragic backstory that is always completely predictable, yet we're supposed to act surprised and cry at?
     Luckily, the actors all have good chemistry together, and they successfully get across the idea that they're a group of friends that have been together for a long time, and in that respect it's actually slightly interesting watching them interaction amongst each other, but the only real breath of life in this movie is Liam Neeson as Hannibal Smith. He takes a character that is completely ridiculous and recognizes this, totally runs with it and BECOMES that character. Every small chuckle he gives with a huge cigar dangling out of his mouth brought a smile to my face. If it was anyone else in that role I would not have liked the character at all.
     However, there isn't much to say about any other characters in the film, they basically are all blank slates that serve their purpose, but they are all annoying. I've already mentioned Faceman, but I also wanted to ruthlessly murder Sharlto Copley as Murdock. Oh how the mighty have fallen. He goes from a tragic, hilarious, fascinating turn as Wikus in "District 9" to a generic looney toon who does nothing but jabber to himself and be weird. I'll never understand Hollywood's obsession with "quirky" characters that we're all supposed to "aww" at because he's so crazy and special! That crap has never been entertaining, and it's not entertaining here, it's just infuriating. And I'm sorry, but Quinton Jackson is NO Mr. T.
      But FUCK character and plot, right? What you people want to hear about is the action, right? The big, manly action scenes for MEN! Well, the action in this movie is just about the only thing that didn't put me to sleep. In fact, these action sequences are the most vibrant, interesting parts of the film. While the scenes with the characters bumming around and gurning at everything are painful, the action scenes are hilarious and utterly ridiculous, and come closest to the B-movie entertainment that the movie so achingly wants to be. In fact, this movie should be filed under the fantasy section in the video store, because everything that happens in this film is completely unrealistic and relies way too much on intuition and perfect timing, but that's what's so completely insane and fun about it.
     For example, there's a scene where the team's plane has been shot down, and they're hiding out in a tank that was stored inside of the plane. Knowing that they won't survive the fall, they turn the tank's gun sideways and shoot it, which propels them sideways. They FLY a fucking tank into a lake and fall into it, thus surviving the fall. If the movie had been more of that and less irritating smugitude, maybe I would have liked it more. Unfortunately, the movie just doesn't work well as either an entertaining action movie parody or a serious-minded action film. Despite some fun scenes, the film wears thin very quickly. It's like a Twinkie. Sure, there's that initial delicious, sugary rush, but in the end it just leaves you feeling very empty.
     If you really, REALLY like "The A-Team", I'd give this a look, but if you're like me and you can't usually get behind any kind of action film, stay away. Stay far away until Sharlto Copley becomes respectable again.

"Splice" (2010)

• Dir: Vincenzo Natali
• Writers: Vincenzo Natali, Antoinette Terry Bryant & Doug Taylor
• Starring: Adrien Brody, Sarah Polley, & Delphine Chaneac

     The Italians have an interesting way of approaching horror films. As I previously stated in my "Zombie" review, Italian horror films have always balanced an atmospheric, creepy visual style with lots of gore. Unfortunately, this style hasn't lived on into the modern era, save for a few stragglers here and there. Director Vincenzo Natali, in my opinion, is one of these stragglers. His 1997 film "Cube" brought back the old 70s/80s Italian aesthetic to horror films, and now, his 2010 film "Splice" is a return to horror for the director, and it seems as if he's gaining more acceptance in the film world. "Splice" not only features minor stars Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley, but it also had a budget of 26 million dollars and a nationwide release, which is incredibly surprising considering the subject matter, which I'll get to in a moment.
     "Splice" is about young scientists Clive (Adrien Brody) and Elsa (Sarah Polley), who have, through genetic splicing, created two male and female composite creatures that carry an important protein that has the potential to cure disease. Unfortunately, the CEOs of the pharmaceutical company that they work for refuse to let them go ahead with human splicing, as they only want the protein, and they believe the technology is not yet sophisticated enough to handle human splicing. So, in defiance of their superiors, they go ahead and splice several animals with human female DNA, creating a hybrid that ages rapidly into a young chimera, which they name Dren (Delphine Chaneac). Unfortunately, Dren quickly becomes unstable, and the stress of having to handle and hide their experiment from the world creates rifts among the two young scientists.
     Despite what the marketing may have you think, the film is actually far from the gory, sci-fi slasher that the trailers depict it as. No more than 3 or 4 people die in the film, and gore is extremely limited. Instead, the film is smart and sleek, and is alternately a fun popcorn movie and a thought provoking sci-fi movie. Watching the growth of Dren is fascinating, and the toll that she takes on Elsa and Clive's relationship is well-written and believable. Of course, a big part of this goes to Brody and Polley, who have great chemistry together and are a convincing couple.
     Surprisingly, the film is very character-driven, choosing to focus more on the relationships between Dren, Clive, and Elsa, rather than exploring it's plot. I'm okay with that, as it's nice to see a sci-fi/horror film that can balance a creepy atmosphere with interesting, complex characters. While Clive is a little bit humdrum and his character keeps flip-flopping throughout the film, Elsa, and especially Dren, are emotional, thoughtful characters, and I genuinely cared about what would happen to them.
     I really have to give props to Delphine Chaneac for infusing Dren with a quiet curiosity and a strikingly convincing emotional core. Rather than treating her as a simple monster, we're shown that she has feelings and wants, and she often has to face complex and challenging emotions, just like a human. However, Elsa and Clive simply treat her as a specimen, an experiment in their own vanity, and we're forced to question the moral right of keeping something like Dren in confinement. And, unlike most actors or actresses required to play alien creatures with an emotional core, Chaneac's acting is never over the top or schmaltzy, and the special effects only augment her performance, rather than completely dominate it. She's given just enough CGI to make her look like the hybrid she's supposed to, but the effects aren't the centerpiece of the film and they don't take her over so as to circumvent her acting, unlike the motion-captured mess that is "Avatar".     
     Likewise, Polley keeps the character of Elsa subtle as well, despite some scenes where she won't stop crying loudly and annoyingly. She starts out treating Dren as a kind of surrogate child, babying her and refusing to confront her actions. It's only when Dren attacks her for the first time that she is shaken out of this mindset and begins treating Dren not as a child, but as an experiment of her own design. Her character is well-written, and the psychology of her relationship with Dren is handled well, so as to draw us in and intrigue us.
     One of the things that also surprised me about the film is some of the unflinching sexuality shown in it. There is some extremely unconventional sex about two-thirds of the way through the movie. I don't want to give anything away, but I WILL say that it involves Dren. It's awkward, strange, and uncomfortable, and I love Natali for putting it in. So many science fiction stories are unwilling to deal with unconventional sex, but people like me always wonder about it. I mean, in universes featuring strange alien creatures, and in this film, featuring a genetically spliced human/chimera thing, surely stuff like that must come up?
     Well, Natali doesn't back down, you get to see practically everything, and this only raises more questions for the viewer. Unfortunately, I can't expound on this statement without ruining the film. I will say that it's great that a film like this, with such strange, eccentric things in it, can get such a high budget and a nationwide release. We should release more unconventional films like this, that force us to confront ideas that we find gross, or strange, or awkward. But, I digress.
     Another thing that I really liked about the film was it's atmosphere. While the film isn't necessarily scary, it's suspenseful, and it's beautifully shot by Tetsuo Nagata. The film uses a blue-tinted, washed out color palette, which reflects the cold, calculating personalities of the scientists that inhabit the film. Several long, static shots are also used for building atmosphere and for uncomfortable emotional shots, which works perfectly. The film looks sleek and slightly futuristic, but not beyond the point that it seems overly fantastical, and it's not so overcome with style that it's blue color palette starts to take over the entire screen, like the "Underworld" films.
     However, the film isn't perfect. The secondary characters don't serve much of a purpose other than to scold and berate the main characters, but the central problem with the film is that it doesn't expand much beyond it's concept, and the plot itself is slightly flimsy. As Dren grows and develops we learn a lot about her and her "family", and a lot of interesting questions are raised, but the final act of the film devolves into a senseless action-fest, the ending feels a bit contrived, and the science in the film seems a little shaky. Basically, it never really breaks beyond  it's horror trappings.     
      But while there are simultaneously a lot of flaws with the film and a lot of good things about the film, I can't seem to really form a strong opinion on either side. "Splice" is fun, strange, and very well-acted, but as a whole, it's just not amazing me. I'd recommend it, but tentatively. Unlike the perfect blend of sci-fi and action that was "District 9", "Splice" is very uneven. The film may divide you, you may hate it or you may love it, but me? I'm somewhere in the middle.

"Meat Market 2" (2001)

• Dir. & Writer: Brian Clement
• Starring: Bettina May, Alison Therriault, and Stephen Eng

          Sometimes you end up renting a movie that's pretty bad. Hey, it happens to all of us. Maybe you're lured in by some lurid cover art, or the movie just looks cool. Then, other times, you'll actually want to rent a movie based purely on how absolutely crap it looks, and you want a laugh. Sometimes the movies will turn out just to be boring pieces of shit, but then there are the ones that are absolute gold, the lowest of the low, Z-grade films that defy explanation and yet are somehow entertaining as hell. "Meat Market 2" is one of those films.
         However, the first "Meat Market", which I rented on Netflix, is of the former category. I couldn't even get through the first hour. It plodded along with nothing interesting happening, the lighting was terrible, and half the time I couldn't figure out what the hell was going on. It wasn't even "so bad it's good", it was just horrible, and nothing interesting happened that I could rip on, so the movie wasn't even entertaining.
          In that respect, "Meat Market 2" is far superior to the first installment, though not in terms of quality (although the production values are certainly higher - it looks a full 30 dollars more expensive than the first). The sequel has a much better grasp on the material, and rather than focusing on boring people that we don't give a fuck about middling around in a deserted landscape, we just get 80 minutes of a retarded plotline, incredibly shit dialogue, some good old low-budget gore, and a cast made up of bizarre weirdos and eccentric freaks.
          The plot involves three survivors from the first film who save a woman (who I swear looks like Velma) from a bunch of zombies. She leads them to a survivors outpost where she reveals that she's the head of security of this "outpost", which turns out to be some sort of Communist cult where the people get to do whatever they want as long as they contribute to the community. The guy who runs this whole thing is some Bill Gates-looking motherfucker who reveals that he used to be an award-winning motivational speaker, and sends the three characters off to various places.
          The main character (whom we'll call Titties) is sent off to be assimilated into the cult, while her friends are sent off to be examined and experimented on. Titties doesn't buy the cult's ramblings, and soon she learns that they are slaughtering the members after they have grown fat and juicy and are no longer useful and eating their flesh! "Giving back to the community" indeed! Meanwhile, the scientists in the community are also performing experiments on the zombies, trying to get them to mate with humans in order to create some kind of epic human/zombie hybrid... thing. But of course, the zombies escape and havoc ensues.
          If that doesn't sound like the most bug-fuck insane movie you've ever heard of in your life, please tell me what you've been watching - I'd like to see it. The film is like a terrible 1930s pulp novel come to life, but with modern gore and sexuality. It's an absolutely brilliant combination. The film badly wants to be a high-brow political/social satire, but it fails pretty fucking hard.
          Whenever they try to make a joke it falls completely flat on it's ass and elicits laughs from absolutely no one. Or rather, it DOES elicit laughs. Just not the kind of laughs writer-director Brian Clement was looking for. Actually, I can't really figure out what exactly the film is trying to lampoon. Is it satirizing capitalism? Communism? Fascism? Nazism? Motivational speaking? I don't know, and I suspect that Clement didn't know either.
          Now, what does get laughs? The horrible home-made zombie gore, for one. It all looks like it's made out of papier-mache and being held up on sticks. But there are those little things that take the film above just another shitty Z-movie. For example, there's a scene where Titties catches Bill Gates and friends having a feast of body parts and it all looks like that plastic shit you can buy at the store. Pretty average for a crappy horror movie, you think. That is, until you see one of the girls actually take a fake penis out of a serving dish and shove it in her mouth. I couldn't believe what I saw, and laughed until I nearly died.
          What else gets laughs? The cast of characters, seemingly drawn at random from a hat. There's "Lesbian Vampire Chick", "Asian Snake Plissken", "Velma-If-She-Finally-Gave-Into-Her-Butch-Side"... Oh, but there's so much more! Of particular hilarity is the doctor who only performs autopsies on sexy lady corpses. And before you ask, yes, you get to see him have sex with a pile of organs and even fuck a skull with maggots all over it. During these scenes he makes the most nauseating "oh yeah" noises I've ever heard in a film. Gross? Yes. But don't worry, he gets his when "Lesbian Vampire Chick" comes back to life and eats him.
          The film is like one big collection of massively retarded yet funny things happening. There's the aforementioned penis-eating scene, but there's also a scene where one of the members of the group (who looks like an Asian Snake Plissken) gets injected with something to make him horny (I think) and we get to see his own private fantasy in his head, where the women are all topless and like to have pillowfights. And then, for some reason that isn't adequately explained, a bunch of zombies rush in and eat all the girls. Oh, and he also gets maggots shoved into his arm to make him into a zombie. The maggots are actually nanites that turn people into zombies, you see.
          While watching the film I had a hard time figuring out where all of the budget went. Overall it looks pretty cheap, the headquarters of the cult is filmed in some kind of hospital/office building with extremely crappy flags painted on the walls, and the zombie special effects look like they shouldn't have taken more than 50 dollars to make. It's certaintly not the camera; it looks like any cheap miniDV camcorder you can buy at the store for a couple hundred bucks. So where did all the money go? And then I got to the end, and I figured it out. The two survivors, Lesbian Vampire Chick and Titties, throw a grenade into the building and as they run out there are two huge explosions that looked very expensive. Then it hit me.
          And then... at practically the tail-end of the movie, there's the weirdest, most unexplainable thing to happen throughout the entire film. As Vampire Chick and Titties run out of the building, there are several zombies surrounding them. They cower in fear with no hope for escape! What ever will they do? Then... completely out of nowhere, a fucking Mexican Luchador wrestler, complete with a multicolored wrestling mask, materializes out of the ether, shouts some gibberish in what I assume is Spanish, and begins wailing on zombies, spinning around and hitting them like some sort of fat, sweaty, Mexican top. And then, as the pile of rotting, now dead corpses surrounds him, he disappears in a flash of light, just as quickly as he came. And then the audience's collective mind collectively EXPLODES.
          The acting, surprisingly, isn't god-awful, but none of these people are taking home Oscars, and they are DEFINITELY never going to be in another movie again, ever. The best actor in the place is the Bill Gates-looking motherfucker. He throws himself into his role with complete conviction, no matter what it requires him to do, and that includes beating a zombie around the head with a baseball bat and reading off a motivational speech to a bunch of walking corpses as he gets eaten. The rest of the cast is pretty much told to stand around and look comatose, which is especially easy for Lesbian Vampire Chick as she actually spends most of the film unconscious.
          I know what you're thinking. "This sounds like the greatest movie ever made!" Well, if the schizophrenic insanity that I've just described to you sounds appealing, by all means pick it up. It's on Netflix instant watch, but I've heard of people finding these things in bargain bins in Wal-Mart and the like, so keep an eye out. However, if you do watch it, I'd recommend getting incredibly drunk. Like, so drunk that you don't even remember what your fingers are for, lest you end up LOSING YOUR MIND from the Lovecraftian horrors that lie within the black putrescent mass that is "Meat Market 2". Luckily, I've been insane for years, so the film had absolutely no effect on me, but IT CAN HAPPEN TO YOU. Sleep tight!

Note: I looked all over YouTube and I couldn't find a trailer for Meat Market 2. It's that obscure. However, I DID find a trailer for Meat Market 3 (yeah, it's a trilogy), which I will embed for you. Enjoy!

"The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus" (2009)

• Dir: Terry Gilliam
• Written by: Terry Gilliam & Charles McKeown
• Starring: Heath Ledger, Christopher Plummer, Lily Cole, and Andrew Garfield

          I'm convinced that Terry Gilliam is the only modern director whose films actually belong to him, if that makes sense. His films all have a distinct visual style, and since he rarely works on big studio productions, his screenplays usually stay completely intact, his vision is never warped by studio execs or Hollywood fatcats. "Parnassus" is not only the first film he's done since "Baron Munchausen" that has been complete, unadulterated dark fantasy, but it also has a higher-budget compared to his previous films. It was produced for something like 30 to 40 million dollars, so it's astounding that the movie remained as intact as it did.
          "Parnassus" is about the trials and tribulations of the eponymous monk, Doctor Parnassus (Christopher Plummer), who, after having made a deal with the Devil (Tom Waits), has lived for thousands of years. The stipulation? That his daughter, Valentina (Lily Cole) would be given to him once she reaches the age of 16. So, desperate to keep Valentina, he enters into another deal with the Devil. If Parnassus can save 5 souls through his "Imaginarium", a kind of portal into the viewer's own imagination, then he can keep his daughter.
          Around the same time, Parnassus and his crew find Tony (Heath Ledger), a young man with strange markings on his forehead, hanging from a bridge by his neck. They save him, and Tony sets about helping the Doctor and friends retool the Imaginarium, so as to draw more customers. The film subsequently focuses on the race for 5 souls, with Parnassus trying to convince them to come to the side of imagination and stories, and the Devil attempting to win them over with sin and temptation.
          Even with that plot synopsis taking two paragraphs to write out, the plot is still way more complex then that. You shouldn't jump into this film if you're not ready for an incredibly convoluted and messy storyline. There are so many factors to the plot that it gets incredibly hard to follow at times, and it's only now on my second viewing that I'm beginning to grasp everything. However, that's not necessarily bad. Despite the fact that the story is messier than a five year-old with a bag of flour, it's still incredibly interesting and fun to watch.
          I love the idea that Parnassus is some kind of wandering minstrel, a medicine man that's thousands of years old. All he wishes is for people to continue to tell stories and to savor imagination, but nobody will listen. I identify with and believe in that. The great thing about the film is that it doesn't treat this theme of imagination with sloppiness. It's subtly implemented and doesn't feel preachy, like Gilliam is screaming in our ears or something. And even though it has some important themes about imagination and stories in it, it never treats these themes with a stone face. The movie frequently plays for laughs and never takes itself too seriously, which is nice.
          As with all Terry Gilliam films, it's visuals are incredibly beautiful and imaginative. Sure, the CGI is painfully obvious, but that's the point, isn't it? It takes place inside people's imaginations, it's supposed to look glossy and animated and larger than life.
          His films always seem to take place in a world where anything can happen, and the fantastic could be right on your street. His stories are prime examples of magic realism; in films like "Time Bandits" and even in this film, surreal, supernatural events are juxtaposed with droll, suburban settings, which is perfect as it slowly draws us into this world of the fantastic. I love that in his films he treats the fantastic as if it has no rules, and the setting of the Imaginarium allows him to do that. The wondrous environments are always varied and interesting, all bets are off and anything can happen inside of it, and this plot aspect is utilized beautifully.
          The characters are also interesting as well. They are given just enough backstory and depth that we begin to care about them, but not so much that the mysteries behind them are ruined. Especially well-written is the character of Tony. We never know whose side he's on, we can't really figure out if he's doing things for his own gain or if he genuinely cares about Parnassus and crew. He isn't portrayed as a stereotypical hero and he certainly doesn't save anyone in the traditional sense, so it's great to see a main character that isn't quite so "black-and-white", morally speaking.
          In fact, that same rule goes for every character in the film. None of the characters are straight-up good or evil, they're just people, and like people, sometimes they make selfish mistakes. Even if the characters aren't as complex as the ones in Gilliam's "Brazil", it's nice to know that he can still create interesting, deep characters in lighter fare such as this.
          Since I'll probably get lambasted if I don't mention this, yes, this was Heath Ledger's last film and that's very sad, but let's take off our tragedy glasses for a moment and look at the film objectively. Thankfully, I'm happy to say that Ledger's performance is fantastic, and I only wish that he could have finished the rest of the film. The actors that play his "Imaginarium" selves are also very good, and they all look and sound like Heath Ledger, other than Colin "I'm Trying My Best to Sound Erudite and English" Farrell. I'm incredibly disappointed that Farrell was given the last, and most emotional part of the film, as I'm sure that the ending could have been much more powerful had they used one of the other replacement actors.
          The supporting cast do a great job as well. Andrew Garfield as Anton, Parnassus's right-hand boy, perfectly portrays the lost young boy that thinks he is quite more mature than he actually is  (plus, he's really funny), and Christopher Plummer is good as the Doctor himself. Tom Waits is worthy of attention as well as the prim and clean-cut Devil. As on his albums, his voice is smoky and smooth, and he plays a very pleasant, erudite Devil. Surprisingly though, one of the most unexpected acting achievements in the film is Lily Cole as Parnassus's daughter, Valentina.
          Who would have ever thought that a 21-year-old model would end up being a good actress? Her young babyface makes her an incredibly convincing 16-year-old and, like a 16-year-old, she has extremely bipolar moods, slipping from playful, to selfish, to angry at a moment's notice, and I found myself really caring for her by the film's end. Really, the only complaint I have here is Verne Troyer as Percy, Parnassus's right-hand dwarf (Gilliam really does seem to have a thing for short people).
          He was better when he was in Austin Powers, when he didn't have to do anything but stand there, but in this film he has dialogue, and somehow we're supposed to believe that he's English. His dialogue has all kinds of British slang and witticisms, but Troyer doesn't even try, he still speaks in an incredibly irritating American accent, and overexaggerates every single piece of dialogue in the film, like a high school student in a terrible play. Other than that, though, the cast is rounded out quite nicely.
          But, I do have some problems with the film, despite how much I love it. It takes almost an hour to really get going, and these beginning bits are really slow and tedious. Also, the writing (as briefly mentioned earlier) is very slapdash and feels cobbled together from a bunch of "bits" that they had to fill in exposition for (kind of like my reviews), and it's also very muddled and difficult to figure out what Gilliam was trying to do.
          Overall, even though the film has some pretty glaring faults, once it hits, man, it HITS. The film feels like a bunch of bits sewn together, but those "bits" are so great that I can't really complain about it. I can put on the film and just revel in the beautiful visuals and the amazing adventures inside of the Imaginarium. It's not his best film, but it's definitely a return to form for Gilliam, and rests nicely beside his other fantasies like "Baron Munchausen" and "Time Bandits". I'm so glad Gilliam has returned to dark fantasy, and I hope it's going to stay that way, at least for a little while.