Wednesday, August 19, 2009

top 11 films of 1954

why 1954? fucked if i know:

11. Creature from the Black Lagoon (Jack Arnold)
10. Rear Window (Alfred Hitchcock)
9. Magnificent Obsession (Douglas Sirk)
8. Godzilla (Ishiro Honda)
7. Dial M for Murder (Alfred Hitchcock)
6. Caine Mutiny (Edward Dmytryk)
5. Touchez Pas Au Grisbi (Jacques Becker)
4. Seven Samurai (Akira Kurosawa)
3. La Strada (Federico Fellini)
2. Sansho the Bailiff (Kenji Mizoguchi)
1. Johnny Guitar (Nicholas Ray)

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Pelican - Ephemeral

It's funny, you'd never think you'd see a day where you would see a Pelican jump a shark, but the old phrase used to state that I feel that the band doesn't have one single even remotely interesting new idea in their head is entirely fitting.

They started off as a metal band, there's no denying that, but what else there's no denying is that they've gradually softened as the years have gone by; not a thing wrong with that, I'm one of the few who love both City of Echoes and Australiasia, but this new EP is just a joke, it's like they took ideas they had for City of Echoes that weren't good enough for that album, or good enough to borrow to Explosions in the Sky, and just threw them on here and called it new work.

There's not passion; it's hard to make such a declaration against a band without vocals, I guess, but you could hear it in past albums, especially The Fire...., that this is a band who loved what they were doing: loved, key word in that sentence. Now they're just churning out recycled, forgettable and boring material.

For shame, guys, for shame.

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

i love eBay

so, i sold some CDs about 2 weeks ago, and was lazy in shipping them out; I lied to one guy about it and here's our conversation through Messages on eBay thus far

Him: You totally lied to me about when you sent these out!! You sent them out on the 11th 2 days ago!! You SUCK dude!! You waited 9 days to send them out. Then you only paid 1.53 for shipping and charged me 6.00 what the hell man??!! I'm considering giving you a Negative, I haven't decided if I'm gonna do that or just not leave any feedback at all. It looks like most of your transactions on here are with you being the buyer and not the seller, so why would you do me like this when you know as a buyer that it sucks when you get a seller that jacks you around on postage and on the time it takes for the seller to get the product out to you. You also didn't say these were Digipaks on your auction. YOU SUCK!!!!!!!!!

Me: did you get your items? yes; i don't care what feedback you leave me.

Him: Cool! Then I'll leave you the worst possible feedback that I can. Every little bad detail about this whole experience. If you don't care then you shouldn't be on Ebay in the first place!
SMARTEN UP!!!!!!!!!!!!

Me: maybe you shouldn't be such a tight assed little closet homo. didn't your overbearing mother ever teach you about patience? OMG THESE CDS DIDNT ARRIVE IN LIKE 2 DAYS, WAH WAH WAH, I HAVE NO LIFE OR FRIENDS AND ALL I HAVE IS CDS. lol, what a failure. give me an essay in each of the feedback you leave me, chunks, i do not care; besides, little girl, i can always start a new eBay account.

Him: You really are a cheesy stupid fuck aren't you?? It's alright little guy, don't get too upset grab your blanky and your ba ba and take a night night before you upset your little tummy. You Dumb Motherfucker!!

(he then proceeded to send me a 2nd message after this one which reads as follows)

Still Him:
BTW:I saw your picture



and you look like one of those guys that still actually lives with their mother in her basement that collects Star Trek figures and masturbates in his own feces while sniffing his mothers panties!!

Me: you're the one shitting your pants over 2 CDs like a little homo; you fail, I win, little girl. Now go ahead and put on one of those CDs while you try on your mom's undies.

so, in conclusion, i got your money, you're crying, i win, you lose. move along and go spend more money on plastic because nobody likes you on account of your morbid obesity and face riddled with acne.

love,
the winner.

him: I killed my mother 20 years ago dumbshit. So there really isn't any chance of trying on anything of hers since I burned everything including her body after I had some "carnal violence" with her (of course)!! I have plenty of money that wasn't my problem: My problem was just having to deal with such a Dipshit that has no business sense at all since he's probably never had a real job in his life since he lives in mommies basement sucking on his on his mothers used Kotex pads(plus size I'm sure) while shoving a broomstick up his ass and choking himself. You sure are one sick stupid fuck aren't you??!!

Thursday, May 7, 2009

50 of my favorite metal albums

Death - Human

Death - the Sounds of Perseverance
Gorguts - Obscura
EYEHATEGOD - Dopesick

EYEHATEGOD - Take as Need for Pain
Mayhem - De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas
Burzum - Det Som Engang Var
Burzum - Hvis Lyset Tar Oss
Iron Maiden - Powerslave
Iron Maiden - Seventh Son of a Seventh Son
Morbid Saint - Spectrum of Death
Exodus - Bonded by Blood
Melvins - Ozma/Gluey Porch Treatments
Black Sabbath - Master of Reality
Judas Priest - Painkiller
Nokturnal Mortum - NeChrist
Cynic - Focus
Obituary - Slowly we Rot
Obituary - Cause of Death
Amon Amarth - Vs. the World
Dissection - the Somberlain
WatchTower - Control and Resistance
Spiral Architect - a Sceptic's Universe
Atheist - Piece of Time
Exhorder - Slaughter in the Vatican
Slayer - South of Heaven
Decapitated - Winds of Creation
Morbid Angel - Blessed are the Sick
Suffocation - Pierced from Within
Mercyful Fate - Don't Break the Oath
Kreator - Pleasure to Kill
Kreator - Terrible Certainty
Winter - Into Darkness/Eternal Frost
Earth - Earth 2
YOB - the Illusion of Motion
Vio-lence - Eternal Nightmare
Voivod – War and Pain
Xentrix – For Whose Advantage
Buried at Sea – Migration
Neurosis – Times of Grace
Neurosis – a Sun that Never Sets
Ulver – Nattens Madrigal
Today is the Day – In the Eyes of God
Napalm Death - Scum
Terrorizer - World Downfall
Repulsion – Horrified
Meshuggah – Chaosphere
Godflesh – Streetcleaner
Hellhammer – Apocalyptic Raid
Entombed – Wolverine Blues

Monday, May 4, 2009

Pinocchio (1940, Hamilton Luske & Ben Sharpsteen)


First up in my 4 part revisiting of some of those Disney classics, Pinocchio. Adapted, apparently by about 7 or 8 people (a part of the credit that boggled my mind), from the writing of Italian writer Carlo Collodi and directed by Hamilton Luske & Ben Sharpsteen Pinocchio is, without a single doubt, one of the most beautifully animated films of all time and is certainly numerous pegs above today's animation in any regards from the main action in the frame or the backgrounds (which are actually a bit more phenomenal than most of the main animation.) The one moment of note is the encounter with Monstro; a lot of people see this as truly frightening, akin to the creeping moments of Jaws, but I simply found it a spectacle to behold.

So, with that said, the animation is beyond brilliant....the story, however, is, unfortunately, bordering in some kind of disgusting.

It's no secret that Disney hated Communists and despised basically anyone who lived outside of American societal norms ( he actually refused to allow Hitchcock to film in Disney because Hitchcock had made "that disgusting movie Psycho") so, the fact that Pinocchio is a mouthpiece of the Mousey Fuhrer to spout out his morals and ethics isn't a shock.

Pinocchio is created by Geppetto, a lonely wood crafter (and possibly an alcoholic: look at those red cheeks and nose, there's no way he doesn't regularly hit the sauce: that and he goes out of his way to pet his fish; seriously? Petting a fish? Yikes, settle down Jack Daniels.) When he heads to sleep he notices a star and makes a wish that his newest creation could be a real boy.

In enters the Blue Fairy, a pillar in the argument that not only is Geppetto an alcoholic but also a homosexual, or some kind of man with such a degree of misogyny that he feels the only good women are for is bringing little kids, more particularly little boys, to life. She brings the wood boy to life, but only to a degree; he's still wood and in order to become a real boy, or to become a real human being, he has to listen to his conscience; not something Pinocchio himself forms, but something that's bestowed upon, in the form of Jimini, him by this grandiose woman.

Pinocchio must learn to resist temptation, this involves fighting the urge to not go to school in pursuit of other endeavors, smoking cigars in Pleasure Island and, this is one that caught me off guard and made me exclaim in its absurdity: playing pool (we all know how horrid this activity is.) In order to become a real boy, again a human being, he has to be able to differentiate between animalistic decadence, which would turn him into a donkey (an Jackass, GET IT?!) and the ability to hold back, to show some kinds of restraint.

He also must show courage (which involves literally tossing himself off of a cliff to save the alcoholic who made him) in the vein of selflessness; so, risk your life for the sake of others; great message, Walt, good stuff. That's what the world needs, more "pure" Christian garbage.

GRADE: D

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Random memory #1

One of my earliest memories of Video Games

The earliest memory I have cemented into my brain of gaming is something I'll talk about in a future post, but for now here is the one that I hold dearest to my heart (sad, a gaming memory held so closely with such passion and love.)


So, I'm 8 years old, maybe 7, and I've just returned home from some field trip that my class attended; I remember that as the field trip came to a close the skies grew grey and drizzles of rain began to pidder down onto all the people there; I think it was some kind of -fest, Native American Fest or Indian Summer or something like that; I don't remember.

So, my mom comes to get me from school after the yellow bus returns us and I walk into the house, make my way through the kitchen and dining room to enter the living room and I see that the TV is on, the Super NES sitting in front of it, and on the screen is the screen that you see in the first Mortal Kombat game when you're moving from one enemy to the next; I don't remember what character he was at, but my dad had gone out to rent it and was playing as a fellow I would come to know as Sub-Zero.



I don't remember if I took over or if I waited for him to come back from the bathroom, everything after that was a haze of blood (well, not any blood, there was no blood in the SNES version, fucking Nintendo) and death and kicking and punching and gloyven!....ahem, anyways, thus was the beginning of a long, long love affair with a series that change what kind of content could be found in a game; no Mortal Kombat, no Grand Theft Auto, boys and girls.....think about it.


YAY MORE CRITERION RELEASES OF JEAN-LUC GODARD FILMS

Two or Three Things I Know About Her
Made in USA



Haven't seen either of these yet, so I'm excited for their release; also pretty excited for the Human Condition, Last Year at Marienbad and the Imamura boxset.

Laid to Rest (2009)


A big breasted woman, severely lacking in any form of intelligence, is running from a masked killer who will do anything to see her dead, including all of those who get in his way; sound familiar? Of course it does, but a tired, boring and predictable plot can still churn out a good film. Unfortunately that wasn't the case here.

I was exposed to the film due to flipping through a copy of the severely overpriced Horror mag. Rue Morgue (a magazine that's pretty inaccurate and unreliable when it comes to recommendations and the accolades they hand out, but, whatever, I was looking for something to watch.)

Well, I watched it; sat through the whole thing and when it was over I felt triumphant like a little kid who just had 4 teeth pulled without wincing once; yes, it's that bad and unbearable.



Chrome Skull was a decent idea, but was poorly executed, one of the main points of proof that the film just wants to gore you to death before it tries to either interest or entertain you. It's supposed to be a throwback (but what isn't nowadays?) to the "old school" films like Maniac (which I think is a near masterpiece), but unlike Maniac there's no real investing in any of the characters like you do with Joe Spinell's warped sociopath. There's just a dude in a mask and some broad running and some other dudes trying to help her.

The funniest part about the whole film isn't in the film, it's in the "Making of..." featurette where the director attempts to bring some sort of intellectual justification to his schlock; "oh, the camera on his shoulder represents our dependence on technology." at that point both my girlfriend and I laughed like two wild Hyenas, truly pathetic.

My idea in regards to gore is that it's supposed to effect you; doesn't happen here, it's too obvious, too plastic and fake (now, you can call me out on Maniac which doesn't have the BEST effects, but you have to take it for the time that it was made in.) so, there's another notch on the belt of flaws in this film.

Lately a lot, not all, "horror" films are all about simply satiating gorehound's hungers; well, they've all (Laid to Rest, Inside, Frontier(s), High Tension) failed in my eyes; gore is fine when applied correctly (like Audition or Dead Alive) but this recent wave is just far too full of cro-magnons.

GRADE: F

Monday, April 20, 2009

Slumdog Millionaire (2008, Danny Boyle)

Winner of 8 Oscars at the 2009 ceremony, Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire deserved not only none of the awards it received but also none of the tons of accolades that rained down upon it.

It won best picture, something that the Academy tends to fall flat on their face in regards to handing the award out to films that do not deserve any kind of recognition; they saved a little face last year with No Country For Old Men, but now their hands are stuck in the cookie jar, and this cookie jar is filled with shit and menstrual blood. The film that should have been given the award, but wasn't even nominated, was:

But personal preferences aside, Slumdog is still a retched pile of cinema, on par with E.T. or Fight Club. It's pandering to the audience is so sickening that it makes Amelie look subtle and intelligent; it's editing and cinematography are so lazy and obvious that it's downright offensive; and let's talk about the subtitles; why are they done the way they were done? More pandering to the idiot masses who hate to look down a bit at the screen to read what was just said in a language they didn't understand, so hey, put it in the shot.

Boyle is a hit and miss film maker, there's no question about it; his claim to fame, more or less, was Trainspotting, which is a forgettable film full of cliche and mundane characters; 28 Days Later works, but only to an extent, and is nowhere near a masterpiece. Everything else the man's done has been completely forgettable and bland; he's, in a sense, Britian's Spielberg; predictable, safe, pandering and heartless cinema for the award shows; look at something so coated in sweet like Millions for more obvious proof that the man should be blacklisted from film making.

More on the film; the characters are people I could never care about at all in any way, shape or form whatsoever. You're supposed to cheer for Jamal, but all the time I never felt like I was on his side, or even remotely sympathetic towards him, the only thing I cheered for was when the film ended.

I'd write more, but what's the use going on and on about a film you loathe?

GRADE: F

Sunday, April 12, 2009

The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008, Scott Derrickson)

More like The Day My Asshole Bled From Boredom

Grade: F

Friday, April 10, 2009

Observe and Report (2009, Jody Hill)

So many will hate it, so few will love it, and even less will truly get it:

There truly is nothing better than going into a film and getting something that you did not expect. I know, at the risk of sounding pompous, that I am among the few Americans who enjoy this, but it's just a fact; and Observe and Report is exactly the opposite of everything most people will expect going into it.

Observe and Report could very well be Seth Rogen's "the Cable Guy", meaning that it could possibly make a fairly big, dark dent in his career for the time being, but in years to pass people will see it for what it truly is; it's not a comedy in the sense of Knocked-Up or the 40 Year Old Virgin, this is more on par with something Todd Solondz, think Happiness: a film filled to the brim with unlikeable characters, would do if he wasn't so neurotic.

I bring up Carrey's black sheep of a film because it's basically the exact same set up; Rogen is America's new favorite goofball / sweetie pie / whatever, the film is, more or less, being advertised as a simple comedy; he plays a mall security cop who thinks he's going to save the world, tee hee hee hee, right? Wrong.

It's a dark film, and those going in with expectations of a few crotch jokes won't be pleased with some of the content and the manner they perceive it to be shown in; one scene, between Rogen and Faris in particular has garnered some attention for it's presentation as being comedic when in fact it isn't at all, but what can you expect from the MPAA & other assorted moral do gooders.

Rogen's character is interesting because of his actions, his beliefs; he's a funny guy, but his character is far from funny. A man, obviously, suffering from delusion and some degree of narcissism, thinks that he knows what is right and only his idea of right is the right one (that's a lot of rights, 'ey?) His actions will make most cringe, and his ideas and, most of all, dreams will make others unbearably uncomfortable, but that is where the genius of the film is. You can identify with Rogen's character, but why do you? Why don't you? It's a comedic film that expects viewers to think; there in lay the problem.

The comedy of the film isn't blatant and it's not served to you on a platter in a veil of obviousness; I can't quite grasp how to describe the comedy of the film. There are laughs, no doubt about it, but it's more about the character that Rogen plays than about getting you to laugh; and if it does get you to laugh you usually end up questioning exactly why you would laugh at that circumstance.

It presents scenarios that could be interpreted as either disturbing or funny, it mixes drama and comedy with ease, but, unfortunately it will just go over most people's heads.

GRADE: A

Thursday, April 9, 2009

The War Zone (1999, Tim Roth)

"you've got some of Dad's lovejuice on your chin, brother."

My first review on my first blog; well, well, well. It's an unfortunate circumstance that it can't be for a film that absolutely blew me away or a film that's long been a strong favorite of mine. No, instead it's dedicated to a film that simply left me thinking "Meh; predictable and not particularly convincing incest story that was supposed to disturb me but instead almost put me to sleep."

Tim Roth, more notably known for his acting than his directing (which he's only attempted once, with this film) does a fairly good job with the material, but this hand cannot save this film from being mundane and obvious.

The main problem that I had with The War Zone was that in order to feel repelled, to feel absolutely disgusted by part of the story, that of incest & child abuse, I need to feel like the actors, none of whom are actually related, are really a family. Unfortunately, none of the actors involved were capable of pulling this off; in one of the most pivotal scenes all I could think to myself was not "oh, this is sick and repulsive" but instead "oh, ok, that's Ray Winstone pretending to have sex with some actress who is pretending to be his daughter."

The performances, for the most part, were top notch (which I know seems to contradict my previous statement that they didn't seem like a family; well, they didn't but the individual performances were admirable) save for the son, Tom; the actor was so unbearably bad that I found myself frustrated with his inability to make the character seem like something more than someone who goes from point A to point B. The idea of non-acting, as is most prevalent in the work of Bresson, is a spectacle to behold when done by the right model in the hands of a capable director. I understand he's depressed and feels alienated, but I don't care. I could not sympathize with him or even objectively observe him with any kind of compassion.

All in all, not a horrible film, but pretty forgettable and, worst of all, obvious.

GRADE: C -