Daybreakers

In an era where vampire movies are comically hit or miss (hit – Let The Right One In, miss – anything with angsty teenagers who sparkle) I went into Daybreakers with an open mind.

Essentially, the story is that a single bat eventually turned most of humanity into vampires. Vampires run the world and they farm humans for their blood supply. There’s a huge vampire-run corporation that runs the blood-supply deal, which is, ya know, weird. I would think in a world run by vampires that anarchy would pretty much reign supreme. What is the point of making money in a society that, in all honesty, should no longer be based on capitalism? Sure, the blood supply may run out because of all the human murders, but I tend to think that vampires are ok with the ‘burning-the-candle-at-both-ends’ philosophy.

Anyways…

Lo and behold the blood shortage becomes a real problem. Enter Ethan Hawke, actor one of three who took this movie out of desperation. His job is to find a suitable blood substitute on which the vampires could survive. He fails. Like, hardcore fails. He fails so hard that a test vampire explodes in an orgy of red goo.

Hawke doesn’t like being a vampire and he refuses to drink human blood. This becomes a problem when his EARS START TO GROW because he isn’t drinking it. Yep. You just read that. And it cannot be unread. So he finds a human-turned vampire-turned human (Willem Dafoe) who tells him how he returned to being a human. To me, casting Dafoe as anything BUT a vampire is a bad choice.

To make an already long story short, the movie never really gets going and it was pretty much a waste of time. It could have been good, but if I lost 200 pounds I could be a model. Big deal.

The third desperate actor was Sam Neill, whose appearances in films is fascinating to watch. The Hunt For Red October, Jurassic Park and Event Horizon are off-set by horrid pieces of turd like Bicentennial Man and something called My Mother Frank. It is, to put it mildly, difficult to tell if he is a good actor or just an extremely lucky one.

Daybreakers isn’t the worst movie I’ve ever seen by any means, but it’s probably not going to make your night either.

Score – 60

PS – There is one pretty cool scene at the end where a bunch of vampires rapaciously start fucking each other up in the lobby of a building. Good times.

Confessions of a reformed Avatard

I hate Avatar.

I hate it as an idea.

I hate it for its politics.

I hate it because of James Cameron and how his ego drowns out anything and everything about the movie itself.

I hate it because of the mind-numbing monotony of the endless fanfare over its technical advances.

I hate it because during the months of October-March you could not go a day without hearing the word.

I hate the way Cameron sat there at the Academy Awards just sure as shit that he’d be walking away with a garbage bag full of statues.

More than anything, though, I hate it as a thing. An all-consuming thing that can neither be escaped nor ignored.

Now that’s a whole lot of hate for something I hadn’t seen until tonight.

Yes, I caved. I was returning a movie to Blockbuster and I was once again face to face with one of those giant blue cat people. I made a deal with myself. If they had it in Blu-Ray I would get it. I figure if I’m going to see the damn thing it might as well be the right way. I checked the shelf and there was nada. I wasn’t shocked, seeing as how there were only seven spots for it on the shelf. And how many people had rented it since Thursday when it came out? 10,000?

On a whim I decided to ask at the counter if they had a copy that was yet to be re-shelved. I’m not gonna lie, when he came back with one in his hand I was a little bit shocked. They never, ever, ever, ever, not ever find what you’re looking for in that corner. It has seriously never worked for me. I don’t care if I was looking for Weekend at Bernie’s 2, somehow there would be an asshole out there who rented it an hour before I arrived. It’s like the island of misfit toys for god sake.

So I walked out with my movie that I never really wanted to see in the first place. “Maybe I’ll check it out when it hits Netflix,” I had said to myself. But there I was, blaspheming my own sermon. I also got some ice cream because Baskin-Robbins is next door. Fuckers. They always get me.

I popped it in. It was go time. I had my overly-critical hat on and I was ready to point out the movie’s flaws in rapid-fire and devastating fashion. I knew I was going to hate it, after all … right?

But then I ran into a problem that we all face at some point in our lives. I realized that there was nothing here to hate. The movie is simply out-of-this-world gorgeous to look at, and while the plot is nothing groundbreaking, it turns out that a movie so phenomenally-crafted can totally make up for an otherwise lukewarm experience. On more than one occasion I thought I was in danger of being attacked by one of those armored hammerhead shark dinosaurs.

As the movie continued I started to feel unsettled. Not because the movie was bad, but rather because it was good. I knew I was wrong and that my hatred was just a part of my natural distrust in anything that the whole world loves. I hate going with the crowd, because the crowd is almost always wrong.

And it didn’t even matter that the head of the human army was a caricature of the bloodthirsty American military cliche. It didn’t matter that they bludgeoned you over the head with “the only reason we’re here is for the stuff in the ground” corollary. It doesn’t matter that I still have a raging boner for Natiri. *looks around suspiciously*

Forget the hoopla, forget the politics, forget the up-his-own-assness of Cameron and just watch the movie. (I realize that I don’t really know who that last sentence is aimed at since 5.7 billion people have already seen it, but whatever)

I opened up telling you how much I hated it so I could let you know without a doubt that I didn’t buy the bullshit that was constantly fed to me. But I also put it in so that you will have an easier time understanding the magnitude of my closing statement:

It is a beautiful piece of work.

P.S. – Titanic still sucks horse balls.

The Chaser

As many of you are aware by now, I got really into watching foreign movies the last year or so. Most of the reviews on here are of foreign films, in fact. Netflix has opened up the world of filmmaking beyond the pretty average borders of James Cameron and Martin Scorcese. Yes, I just called Scorcese average. Cry about it.

I have seen great films from France, Spain, Sweden, Germany, Japan and several others. But one country in particular has made movies that hit home with me seemingly without fail. I speak of South Korea.

The Host and The Revenge Trilogy (Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance, Oldboy, Lady Vengeance) were eye-opening experiences for me. They were, to put it mildly, a shocking reminder of just how angry I get when I see a commercial for a movie featuring Tracy Morgan. Why do American filmmakers make so many movies that are stupid to the point of self-mutilation?

I don’t know. Moving on…

The Chaser is a movie I saw on the rack at Blockbuster as I trolled the aisles during one of the excruciating days between when I sent a movie back to Netflix before I got my next one. Creepy cover, Asian dudes, quasi-action themed cover art — it had it all. That’s all I needed to see.

The story is about an ex-cop turned pimp. His girls start to disappear on him, so he assumes that they have run away. But the audience is told early on that this isn’t the case. The rest of the story revolves around the hunt for both the killer and the most recent victim (who may or may not be dead).

The character of the killer is a whole new breed of scumbag. At several points you will want to transport yourself into the screen and just beat the fuck out of him. The calmness in how he recounts the murders as if it were just a game is almost unbearable. You will hate him, but looking at it from a movie-lover’s perspective you appreciate how well he pulled it off.

It comes down to a race against time (cliche) to attain warrants before a deadline that threatens to set the killer free. It’s up to you to watch and find out what happens. Or go to IMDB, I don’t give a crap.

As with all other Korean movies I have seen over the last year, The Chaser is unapologetic about its brutality and nearly unrivaled in its delivery.

I had no idea how to quantify what “Winner of 7 Korean Film Awards” really meant on the cover, but I now now that it means the movie within is fucking awesome.

Score – 85

Sorry about the cheesy voice-over guy in the trailer. It’s the only one not in fucking Korean.

Antibodies (Antikörper)

I know what you’re thinking after looking at the movie poster. But no, it is not the newest Pixar movie. It is pretty much just as fucked up as you would expect from a nude German man with blood smeared on his face.

Yes, it’s a German movie, and yes I am aware that the German language is akin to listening to a live butchering of a hog, but Netflix was just sure as shit that I would love this. It put forth a highly-comical 4.9 estimate for me. So…ok then.

You know I don’t like to give out spoilers, so here’s the abridged version that you can probably already build on your own from just that poster:

THE NAKED DUDE WITH THE BLOOD ON HIM IS A SERIAL KILLER WHO MURDERS, RAPES AND TORTURES LITTLE BOYS.

Now that we’re all on the same page, let us continue.

The first hour of the film plays out pretty much like Silence of the Lambs. Crazy asshole playing mind games with the altruistic small-town-type officer (this time it’s a dude and he doesn’t get spooge flung at him). The cops know about a number of murders but they need the sick bastard’s help to find out about more. The killer even mentions Hannibal Lecter in one scene. Kinda funny.

Anyways, it is your pretty standard psychological thriller about half-way through. But then the shit begins to repeatedly hit the fan one crushing blow after another. Giving nothing away, just make sure you watch the last 45 minutes or so. It might seem like it took a while getting there, but once it’s there, well…it stays there.

As you might expect from a German movie (despite its subtle cover art) there is a lot that is severely fucked up in this thing. To say that it deserves its R rating is like saying “I have a bit of a weight problem.”

I guess you could consider this a spoiler alert of sorts, but it doesn’t give away any real plot points. But this is a list of some of the spectacularly gruesome things found within:

-The killer guy speaks in great detail about the rape of a young boy. Not only that, he jacks off while telling it (hiding it under his bedsheets while he does it).

-A guy straight up murders a dog with a hunting rifle.

-The main character has sex with his wife so angrily that he causes her virginia to bleed. How do I know? Because there was a hideous cut scene of it happening in the bathroom.

So ya know, maybe a hard PG-13?

It’s a good one, though. I was kind of turned off by the first part because it was all graphic violence, dog killing and child rape-talk. But like I said, when it gets going it really gets going.

Top notch film if you can get past the ghastly subject matter. But let’s be real, people like that exist. Refusing to write movies about them doesn’t make them disappear.

Give it a watch.

I can’t find an embeddable trailer that isn’t in German. So here is a link to one with subtitles.

http://video.yahoo.com/watch/166860/1158988

The Hurt Locker

War movies are hit and miss with me. Love Full Metal Jacket; don’t much care for Platoon or Apocalypse Now. Loved Live From Baghdad, but that was more of a journalistic fascination than a war fascination. So when I heard of this movie several months ago I wasn’t really sure what to make of it.

Regardless of whether or not I would ultimately like it, it was at the very least intriguing. To me there’s not much more badass and therefore compelling than dudes who walk up to fucking bombs in Iraq and disarm them. That’s just…silly. If someone asked me to defuse an M-80 while wearing the Iron Man suit I would pee myself and run away crying.

Moving on…

The story follows one of these dudes (well, technically three dudes, but two of them just cover the bomb de-fuser guy from a distance) who are called the E.O.D (Explosive Ordnance Disposal).

The guy who wears the suit is played by Jeremy Renner, whom I didn’t know had this magnitude of acting chops. He was brilliant; incendiary even. He’s a cocky guy who is almost irritatingly good at his job, much to the chagrin of his team members who think they are being put in unnecessary jeopardy.

Throughout the film you get to know more about him and that his seemingly reckless behavior is fueled not by hubris or arrogance, but rather an indulgence in an escape from his civilian life that turned out quite different from what he planned. If that last sentence is too convoluted for you, I apologize. I was trying to get all literary on a bitch.

The film adds plenty of tension to a number of very unpleasant situations. War is not pretty, and this movie doesn’t make it Hollywood. People die and at the end pretty much nothing is better or even different.

One of the more confusing parts of the movie are the bit roles filled by big-name actors. Pretty much no one in this movie is a big name, but then Ralph Fiennes shows up for like a minute and a half and Evangeline Lilly does too. It was kinda distracting, but I got over it. Oh and also the dude from Memento and L.A. Confidential. Whatever his name is.

If Renner isn’t nominated for Best Actor I will lose what little faith I ever had in the Academy in the first place. I mean he wasn’t as good as one of those blue cat people that rides around on a dinosaur on the floating island planet, but he was pretty good.

Immediately after watching it, the score ranked around a 75, but I found myself thinking about it a few days later and how I really liked a lot of little nuances that I didn’t really pay attention to in the moment. A really good film is one that makes you remember it long after the DVD player lay silent.

This one is worth a watch, without question.

Score – 84

Paranormal Activity

I think I might forever refer to this one as “the movie that wasn’t there.” Not because it was bad; it wasn’t bad. But what it was rumored to be and what it was promised to provide simply never came. Those audience reaction snippets on the commercials for it are so comically misleading and (in hindsight) infuriating that I have to fight back the urge to say it’s a bad movie. Because it isn’t. I think. Oh fuck I don’t even know anymore.

For those who haven’t seen it, here is an itemized list of stuff in the movie that should make it scary:

-80% of the film takes place in infrared night vision

-Shit’s about ghosts, motherfucker!

Without spoiling anything, the story follows a woman who has been “visited” by ghosts or some such madness since she was eight-years-old. Off and on she would get these unwanted visits and when we join her in the film a new round has just begun, this time in a new house with her fiance.

The fiance purchases a camera to record the crazy stuff that happens while they sleep. The anticipation of something scary happening is palpable. Your skin will likely scream, waiting for that (whatever) to jump out at you and scare you pissless.

But where the fuck is it? Where is my token fright? And don’t give me the “but that’s what makes it scary; that it isn’t unrealistic.” First of all, fuck you, this isn’t your review. Second, normally I would agree with you if this was a Blair Witch Project-type film. What made that movie so intensely scary is the unknown about a legend of a centuries-old witch that began to play mind games on the inhabitants of the cursed forest. In the end, there was no witch. It was the work of some crazy, asshole killer(s) who clearly played up the legend to their advantage to fuck with their tormented victims.

Most sane people realize that ghosts are not real, hence the “reality” aspect is already fucked from jump street. If your shit is about ghosts, you better bring the scary, goddammit. I watched this movie alone. In the dark. Curled up in a ball. I was just waiting for the horror. After all, I was promised mucho horror. As the movie continued, my fetal position unfolded into a confused tangle of sad arms and disappointed legs.

The scare never came. And I was sad.

So how can I say that it wasn’t a bad movie if it failed to deliver on the one thing I demanded of it? Well, because I realize what they were trying to do. By not overplaying the visual part of the haunting, they focused more on the mental anguish caused by the (admittedly creepy) things caught on camera. I get it. It was a valiant effort. But like I said, if you’re bringing ghosts to me, some shit had better go down. And even when the film reached its crescendo I was left wanting. Not to mention the fact that the alternate ending was approximately 794,982,608,524,586 times better than the sorry one they used.

I so desperately wanted to love this movie. I bought the goddamn thing for $22 for shit sake. I just assumed that it would bring its A game. I was left to wallow in the remains of its C.

Score – 65

P.S. – You will hate the guy in the movie. That is a fucking guarantee. I want his head on a pike.

The Vanishing

Now that I got that Netflix disc that allows me to watch their streaming movies through my PS3, I took a test run with this extremely creepy thriller from the Netherlands. I usually don’t like watching movies made before like 1995 because the video quality is often fuzzy and off-putting, but this 1988 film looked pretty good and I never felt I was in danger of hearing the Thompson Twins during an especially lengthy music montage.

The story is pretty chilling in its own right, but it is the execution that makes it really bizarre and gives you the feeling that you are actually watching a crime unfold.

A man and his wife (or girlfriend) are on a trip. They pull up to a ginormous gas station that appears to be a popular stop for tourists, travel groups and in this case abductors. Without giving anything away the lady vanishes (get it? like the title) and so begins the man’s three-year search for her.

Most people would certainly stop looking after that amount of time, but he keeps going. Why? Because the kidnapper periodically sends him cryptic clues as to her whereabouts and that she may not be dead. Gross.

Much of the movie is actually from the kidnapper’s point of view. It tells you pretty much in the first 10 minutes who he is. The flashbacks that make up a large portion shows his repeated attempts at abducting women. He fails numerous times until eventually pulling it off.

The kidnapper is really creepy. You get the distinct sensation that your uncle is touching you when he is on screen. He is a real fucked up bastard. This is of course countered by a seemingly normal home life with a wife and two daughters. The ending will probably make you pretty damn uncomfortable, but that’s the point really.

The Vanishing isn’t a movie you’ll be talking about vigorously with your friends, but it is a pretty good watch. You might even be able to throw in a pretentious aside at a dinner party that you watched a Dutch film. So, ya know…that’s neat.

P.S. – There was an American version made with Kiefer Sutherland, Jeff Bridges and Sandra Bullock. I’m sure it sucks, but if you want to see it, go for it I guess.

Score – 70

Blood: The Last Vampire

I got this the day it came out on Netflix (Tuesday) because 1. I love legitimate vampire movies that aren’t about gay teenagers and 2. I saw the anime movie it was made after and really liked it.

For all intents and purposes it is not much different from a lot of vampire stories. There is a war going on between vampires and humans. The vampires (called “bloodsuckers” in the movie) take on human form in order to infiltrate us or something and there is pretty much only one person who can stop them…

Of course it’s a cute Japanese girl.

Saya is a vampire hunter or maybe just a fucking badass who likes to kill them, I don’t really know. It is her destiny somehow; doesn’t matter. Point is she slays things with a motherfucking kitana. She gets word from a secret society that she works with that the super-powerful uber-demon is nearby and that she has to kill it in order to put an end to the war.

She poses as a student in a school on an American Air Force Base in Japan. There is pretty much no reason for this other than the fact that for the rest of the movie she is dressed like a schoolgirl. A hot, Japanese, sword-wielding schoolgirl.

That’s all the setup you need story-wise. Needless to say she does terrible things to many, many beings within the stylish 97 minutes.

As far as the violence goes, it is more on the ‘Sin City’ side in that it is purposefully stylized and doesn’t look at all like real blood splatter. But it is made up for in sheer volume. When the vampires take on their true form it is not really impressive. It reminded me of watching a movie about gargoyles on Sci-Fi. The action sequences in terms of the fighting are really well done though. And that would make sense because it was made by the Crouching Tiger people.

Anyways, the movie is worth a watch. If you like vampire-killing on a grand scale then you will like it. If you don’t you won’t. That is really about as blunt as I can be. I liked it. But hey, I’m a sick fuck who likes watching little Asian girls cut shit in half.

Score – 80

The Day That Was

If I could take a break from movie blogging for a moment I would like to share my day with you all.

It started as any other might start. I got up, brushed my teeth, drank a Slim-Fast (irony alert!) and went over to my friend’s house whose puppy I am letting out twice a day to go to the bathroom until she arrives home from work.

<- The puppy, Addie, pretending I killed her.

I let her out and played with her and made sure she made both urine and stool and all that fun puppy stuff. When I picked her up to go back inside in her little puppy pen she was not amused. She tried unsuccessfully to wiggle free from my grips.

I had a few things to do after that, so I did em. Post office, bank, all that daily bullshit we have to do. I had to stop off at Rite-Aid and pick something up.

Since this is a movie blog, I will set up precisely what transpired at this Rite-Aid in screenplay fashion…

EXT. RITE-AID PARKING LOT – DAY

BENN exits car. He walks left to enter Rite-Aid. He notices teenager smoking a cigarette in his peripheral vision. He glances over, meeting eyes with the stranger briefly before breaking contact. He continues around the side of the building to the front where the entrance lies.

TEENAGER

“(garbled language) you fat bitch.”

BENN hears the insult volleyed his way by the mysterious, cunty teenager and stops in his tracks. His mind focused, his path clear, he breaks off back in the direction of the young man.

BENN

(standing some 20 feet from the teen)

“Are you serious?”

TEENAGER meets BENN’s gaze and flashes a shit-eating grin before taking a puff of his cigarette. His arrogance is palpable. There is only one way this can end.

BENN strides purposefully towards TEENAGER. His heart beats fast, knowing the altercation has commenced.

He balls his right fist, complete with ring on index finger. There is no way out now. Before he knows it the punch has landed.

TEENAGER catches the shot below his left eye, just to the left of his nose. He stumbles backwards, legs failing before falling pathetically next to a trashcan. He glances up momentarily at the man he never expected to strike.

He can think of nothing to say. He scrambles to his feet and flees the area.

BENN turns around, walks into Rite-Aid, makes his purchase and leaves.

As he enters his red 1990 Toyota Camry he scans the area for the little fuck, but he has gone. The day has been won.

-Fin-

Back to regular style if I may. It’s amazing what can scream through your mind during a moment of profound and shocking disrespect. Looking back I can re-trace my mindset in the two seconds it took me to turn around and teach Manners 101 to this little fucking prick who thought he was king dick.

When I heard those words, which were quite clearly aimed at me, it stunned me. I mean, who does that? Who decides that it is OK to say something like that? Because he is ditching fifth period to smoke outside of Rite-Aid he thinks the world is his? And not only is the world his, but he is going to lob insults at whomever crosses his path? I wonder, had he said something to people before me who just let it pass?

Not this time.

Not me.

This wasn’t just going to ‘happen’ without an emphatic counterpoint.

It has been kind of difficult to explain to my friends throughout the day how this situation came to pass. I am not a violent person. If you were to ask anyone who knows me, the term ‘teddy bear’ will likely figure prominently in the descriptions given.

I don’t just hit people. Which is why I found my reaction to be so interesting. My mind had already landed that punch the moment the words entered my ears. Something just clicked.

Not this time.

Not me.

The dangerous arrogance of his words and subsequent grinning reaction sent ‘fight-or-flight’ rhetoric out the window. Had he simply turned away, pretending he said nothing, perhaps I would have walked away. But he met my eyes and for all intents and purposes said the words again with his glance.

You can’t just say that to me. You can’t just say that to anyone. Depending on who you say it to, yeah you might get away with it; smiling your smile and being a big man.

Not this time.

Not me.

I remain a non-violent man. I take no satisfaction in having my baser instincts take hold. It will not become a habit. My friends can still rib me about my weight. I can handle it. After all, I am just about the most self-deprecating motherfucker in the world.

Maybe the unknown kid with the fractured orbital will think twice before saying something to a guy like me again.

If not?

Then maybe, just maybe, he’ll find out that I can hit harder.

Ben X

First of all, this movie is from Belgium. What the fuck? I forgot that was a country until three days ago. Weird. Anyways, this was another one that I wanted to watch because of the high success rate of foreign movies that I have watched so far. Synopsis sounded interesting, blah, blah, blah. You know the story. It was sweet because I was waiting for a new movie to come in the mail and this one was on the Netflix streaming dealie.

The story focuses on Ben (imagine that) who is a high school student with Asperger’s Syndrome (a mild form of autism). There are two kids who relentlessly pick on him at school which makes his life a living hell. His only solace comes in an MMORPG clearly modeled after World of Warcraft.

There he isn’t Ben, the kid with autism, he is a level 80 (told you it was like WoW) knight. He fights alongside his internet dream woman whom Ben feels is the only person in the world worth the time.

She helps him come up with a way to silence his tormentors by finding the appropriate ‘End Game’. Normally I hate it when people give away that there is a twist ending because it always makes me think about it while I watch the movie. This is how I figured out The Sixth Sense as I fucking watched it. But you will not see this twist coming, so I feel quite secure in that I haven’t ruined anything for you.

I liked it a lot. It is shot in documentary style, talking to administrators, teachers and Ben’s parents. Ben does the narrating over the flashback segments. It was extremely disturbing, and not just because the guy playing Ben was clearly in his 30s and in high school.

It’s a bit hard to gauge exactly how much I liked it because while it was quite good, it isn’t so out of the ordinary in its quality. I would probably watch it again, but I feel I got the full effect upon one viewing.

If nothing else it kept Belgium in my consciousness for a few days. That in itself is pretty amazing.

It also has a fucking amazing soundtrack.

Score – 80