REVIEW: Cube (1997) and Cube 2: Hypercube (2002)

A long time ago, in a galaxy far away…there was an overused cliché from a film series that had much more to offer. And there was also the Cube series!

Bunch of pompous Canadians and Americans get stuck in a big series of cubes together and have to tolerate one another long enough to survive. That plot summary enough for you? Well we got two movies to review today, so let’s just get started.

Director: Vincenzo Natali

Starring: David Hewlett, Nicole deBoer

Website: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0123755/

"This room is green. I want to go back to the blue room."

-Kazan

The first Cube was released in 1997 in some underground Canadian cave…it begins quite humbly with some bald dude getting chopped into bits by razor wire! Isn’t that just cheery?

Some people just can't stay composed.

After that, we meet our first character in Quentin, an angry black man who has perhaps, the widest eyes and most expressive eyebrows ever known to man. He would have been entered in the Guinness Book of World Records for this if he had not mysteriously disappeared before his interview…

"Whatchoo talkin about?!"

Other characters, including Worth, a cynical and depressive guy who has actually worked on parts of the Cube they're all stuck in, Leaven, a sarcastic high school chick who is great at math and serves as the most sensible and level headed character (yup, the high school kid is more sensible than the adults; doesn't say much for them maturity-wise), Rennes, an escape artist who has broken out of several prisons, Holloway, who is a paranoid conspiracy theorist who has not been laid in a long time and switches between raving lunatic and caring, motherly figure depending on who she's talking to, and Kazan, who is straight out of a Stephen King story. You know this character – the mentally handicapped guy who provides comic relief for most of the film, but actually has a special power that makes him actually the most capable of them all to survive. He also has a habit of being incredibly annoying when he wants to. Am I going to hell for saying that about a mentally retarded guy? Just let me know.

Speaking of survival, we get a lot of talk like that from Rennes, who tells everyone else to shut up so he can lead them out of there like he has done in so many prisons before. Two seconds later, he gets fried in one of the Cube’s many traps that the rooms seemingly randomly have in them:

Click HERE to see it, but be warned; it is graphic.

Yeah, that’s gross. But it does underline a very specific point about how this whole thing works. Basically some rooms have deadly traps in them that will instantly kill whoever sets foot in them. It’s a very interesting concept, and really makes for a lot of fun scenes in which the characters have to solve the puzzles, which are frankly the meat and potatoes of the movie, the foundations it is built upon. There are numbers in the crawl spaces between rooms that initially appear very cryptic. But luckily they have a mathematical genius among them to figure it out! What would they have done without her? My guess is, run around like chickens with their heads cut off.

And that ends up being Kazan's special power. Numbers. Just...numbers. Lots and lots of numbers! They sure lucked out in getting two math geniuses who got along so well and didn't end up totally destroying the group like Quentin. That's always a plus.

One other thing I really like about this is the settings, which are basically just identical rooms with a bunch of doors on the walls, floor and ceiling, but they're all colored differently, each with a very different, very heavy hue of red, blue, green, yellow or white. It adds a very alien, foreign atmosphere that serves to enhance the fear and paranoia the characters are experiencing, as there is no other setting like this one - they are completely isolated in a very abstract and strange looking environment. Chilling stuff.

So a lot of this movie is taken up by arguments between Holloway and Quentin, who are both under paranoid delusions, but different paranoid delusions, which actually makes the arguments a little bit funny. Lots of insults get flung around and everyone gets offended at least once…good, solid fun times, I say.

Taking a break from the job after a hard day's worth of arguing.

But the real meat of this movie is when the characters have to get around one of those traps. These scenes are just awesome, and really make this film stand out. Like there’s this one where they have to get across to the next room without making a sound, or else lots of sharp, pointy spikes will shoot out from everywhere and stab them. It's such a tense scene that you yourself will be afraid to say anything, as if your voice can trigger the trap, too. How did they create technology like that? I don’t know, but that’s the scariest thing about this! What other kinds of fucked up shit can the government create, and what can they do with it? Let your mind wander. Not everything you find will be very comforting.

A lot of this film, when it isn't taken up by arguing or by traps, is filled with figuring out clues to how the Cube works. And it's so much fun! I think the main reason for that is that we don't know any more than they do. To watch them working their brains until they're bent in half to figure it out is incredibly interesting, and even when you don't know the science they're talking about. The puzzles are put together well and there aren't any real holes that I can spot. This is a very well constructed movie in regards to the plot and mechanics.

So as the movie goes on, Quentin starts to act crazier and crazier until he just snaps and kills Holloway, dropping her way down the outside edge of the Cube to her death. He's not a very good actor and it comes off as a bit hammy, but this does underline the other big threat that the Cube poses - these people are in an alien environment and could be killed any second. It makes sense that they'd go a little nuts after a while, especially with the conflict of personalities and attitudes.

He makes sexual advances on Leaven (because he hasn't gone crazy enough to want Worth or Kazan sexually yet) and is subsequently ganged up on by everyone else, who squish his head in a door and make him look uncannily like a lost Looney Tune character. Leaven, Worth and Kazan all race to the end of the Cube and Worth decides, after ALL THAT TIME, that he doesn’t want to live and will just stay in the Cube. Seriously, guy? You’re giving up now? That’s like the most inopportune timing ever! It’s like, “Nah, it’s okay, man. I’m cool right here in this death trap where I will probably die a slow death of starvation. That’s alright with me.”

But it’s okay, because then Quentin pops out of nowhere like some Jack in the Box out of hell, and kills Leaven. He also stabs Worth, which I guess will make his tortured life a lot shorter - see? He does uphold the Christian values of loving his neighbor. He helps out anyone in need! Kazan manages to escape and walk into the light…a light which will be EXTERMINATED by the coming of Cube 2: Hypercube.

Director: Andrzej Sekula

Starring: Kari Matchett, Geraint Wyn Davies

Website: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0285492/

"I haven't had this much fun since my 13th birthday!"

-Mrs. Paley

And I mean exterminated, because this movie is just convoluted as hell. It starts off with how I’m pretty sure the casting agency got the actors for this movie – by knocking them unconscious and wrapping them in plastic bags for shipping to a private location. Some chick wakes up on a table inside the Cube and jumps into a door…and then the credits begin. The credits are weird in that they’re…pretty much just the blueprints for the set design with music and graphics put over them. Weird ass choice, movie; weird ass choice.

MY EYES...THEY BLEED.

Then we get our ensemble of characters waking up in the new Cube, which was apparently specifically designed to blind everyone who looks at it. I mean, what the hell, movie? Look at all that white! I’d need sunblock to even walk around in there! Anyway, the first guy we’re introduced to is a beat up looking colonel. I can only imagine that this is not the first time he has woken up in a strange place recently…he doesn’t seem all that surprised. The scene quickly ends and we are then introduced to MORE CHARACTERS!

I know that seems like an exaggerated response to the simple act of just introducing the movie’s characters, but seriously, there are a lot of them. It’s like a fucking Cube family reunion or something; they just threw in every character they could think of, no rhyme or reason at all! I guess the most noteworthy ones are Kate, who is a bland blonde lady who this movie thinks we should cheer for, Simon, an ugly guy who has a knife – that’s real safe – and Sasha, a little blind girl who needs a lot of help. There’s also this computer whiz kid, a generic hot chick in a sexy red dress, a geeky family man named Jerry and this crazy old lady named Mrs. Paley.

Mrs. Paley is quite a handful, isn’t she? She’s so senile that she thinks she’s in some kind of retirement spa or something. Yeah. Because the Cube looks SOOOOOOOO much like a retirement spa, right?! I know she’s senile and everything, but seriously, how can you NOT notice that you’ve been kidnapped and put into something that nobody on Earth has ever seen before? I think that would be at least a little suspicious! Maybe it’s just because I’ve never been old or senile yet, but my thought is, you would be at least a little bit fucking aware of where you were, in this case!

They all wander around like fucking morons for a little while and come across that general guy from the beginning. Oh, and did I mention that the camera loves to do EXTREMELY WEIRD SHIT all the time? Take a look at some of this and tell me I'm not wrong:

GAH! That's too close! Can someone get a restraining order on this cameraman?

What is this, a magazine cover? Get fucking real.

Yeah, try turning the camera the right way, jackass. Maybe you shouldn't drink five bottles of Tequila before coming to work next time! But then again with this movie I can see why you would...

After all that bullshit is over, the characters decide to sit down and finally talk about who they are. Because…that shouldn’t have been the first thing they did, or anything, right? Kate starts to consider the possibility that they have been kidnapped. What, so that wasn’t their first idea for what happened? Did she just think it was a set up for a surprise birthday party? How stupid is this woman?

So some of the rooms in this new Cube are zero-gravity, which means they have to lower themselves in on their jackets tied together. Simon and Jerry start to take off their clothes and I think I’m really starting to get uncomfortable with this movie’s implications. I mean, look at them:

Saucy.

What, is having gay sex part of the plan now? Eugh. Keep that to yourselves, guys. I mean, I'm all for personal freedom and everything, but some things I just don't need to see in a Cube movie!

So, yeah, Jerry reveals some plot devices about how the Cube is actually something called a tessaract, which has more than three dimensions and can bend space and time, or something. I don’t know. This is all very interesting and everything, but in the same movie that has scenes like this in it…

…I can’t exactly get involved as much as I’d like.

Jerry gets killed, and then Simon starts to suspect Mrs. Paley of all people of being a spy. What, the senile old lady? Why? Could you have possibly picked a more random, unlikely candidate to be suspicious of? She probably can’t even tell her shoe from a goddamned toaster; what makes you think she’s capable of being a spy? It's like "Hey, you, person who is removed from reality and handicapped...you must be evil! TIE HER UP AND GAG HER, WE HAVE A SUSPECT HERE!" Talk about illogical. Maybe he's the one who's senile. Anyway, he kills her and then everyone else runs away from him in fear…gee, JUST LIKE THE FIRST ONE. I’m so glad this movie is setting itself apart so well!

So the generic hot chick and that kid that looks like Joseph Gordon Levitt if he were a lot lamer end up in a room by themselves. After some more special effect jerking off where time speeds up and slows down, doing funny things to their voices, they start to talk about themselves. The generic chick reveals she is an attorney for the company that built the Cube. So…what the fuck is she in there for again? Do they always treat the people trying to help them like this? Talk about biting the hand that feeds you! Do you even have an answer, movie? No? I thought so. The two of them start to have sex and…okay, seriously, I think this is how the conversation went during filming:

DIRECTOR: (in a hushed whisper) What do you mean the writer won’t write any more of the script?...uh huh….okay…what do you MEAN he’s killed himself?

GENERIC HOT CHICK: What’s going on over there?

DIRECTOR: Hold on a sec, honey…(in a hushed whisper again, to someone behind the camera) What should we do? You say you’re horny and haven’t gotten laid in the last three weeks? Okay, fine, we’ll do a sex scene.

PRODUCER: Wait! That’s not nearly confusing enough for this movie! Let’s have the two of them have sex while also aging way too fast! And the cameraman can spin the camera around like he’s having a seizure…it’ll be awesome. *snorts more coke*

DIRECTOR: That’s a great idea! *smokes more marijuana*

Yeah, it’s stupid and the only sex scene I’ve ever seen that was worse was in Queen of the Damned. This movie is only slightly better than Queen of the Damned in terms of sex scenes!

Then it’s revealed that Sasha, the little blind girl, is actually the master hacker who created the original idea for the new Cube. Yeah, the helpless scared blind girl is actually an expert computer hacker that even the government wants dead. That’s plausible, right? Right? I’ll humor the director and say yes, but even in that twisted aberration of reality, how stupid is it when Kate acts like it was obvious all along? “Sasha is a nickname for Alexandra,” she says, but not that I've ever heard. Were they just grasping for even the tiniest little thread to connect together? I think they were.

Sasha gets killed by Simon, who then chases Kate throughout the Cube as reality collapses around them. What the movie is really trying to say is, they ran out of ideas, so they just told the special effects guy to improvise some random shit while Kate and Simon ran around in circles on screen.

YES. YOU ARE REALLY SEEING THIS.

Oh GOD, a giant ball of yarn! RUN AWAY!

I mean honestly. What the hell are half of these images? I know they had little budget to work with, but these are just ridiculous! You can’t tell me they couldn’t have tried harder! It gets so bad that eventually there's nothing real on the screen at all. It's like they just knew how little substance they actually had, and so they just threw up their hands and told the special effects guy - who I think was in a Hitler-esque control over most of this movie by this point - to do whatever he wanted, and that they were completely at his mercy. No logic, no reason, just insanity. Pure, undiluted insanity.

Alright, so the movie basically ends with Kate jumping down this hole as the entire Cube folds in on itself and waking up in this government room where it’s…revealed that she had a mission this whole time? She gives them this little thing she took off of Sasha’s neck, presumably some kind of info about the Cube, but how does this make any sense? There was never any indication that she was working for the people who made the Cube! When were we ever given any clues to that? A plot twist doesn’t work if it just comes out of nowhere with no sense or logic with the rest of the film! How incompetent are you ass monkeys?

God, so she gets shot by the government agents from behind, and I almost wish I was in her place at this point. What a trainwreck, what an utter trainwreck.

Okay, so those are the two Cube movies. The first one is a lot of fun, I have to admit. The low budget DIY ethic is endearing, the premise is creative, the sets are cool and the traps are exciting. It’s a great flick to turn on and just have a blast with. This is a movie about paranoia and about 'keeping ones' head down,' which the characters talk about at several points. Nobody wants to see the biggest picture. That's the movie's main message. Because really, why would you want to? It would only scare you. Cube's main point of effectiveness is that it does not show the viewer anything outside of the Cube. You don't need to see it. You just need to focus on what you're actually watching on screen. What's scary is what you don't see, and in that regard, Cube does a pretty excellent job at creating suspense and tension.

The second one…well, it’s got some good ideas. I really think they had some creative ideas working here and that this could potentially have been a good film. It's just that it's also saddled with so many horrible directing choices, nonsensical plot twists, annoying characters and pretty much every other possible thing you can do to make a movie suck that it's just frustrating beyond belief.

So, yeah. One good, one bad…I think it’s a decent tradeoff. Check both movies out if you’re curious. They’re at least worth one viewing each. And yes, I know there was a third one, but it was pretty much the same thing as the original for most of its duration and there wouldn't be a whole lot to say about it. It isn't bad. But these two are the more important installments in the series, especially if you've never seen one before.

Images copyright of whoever originally owned them, blah, blah, blah. But I did the pictures for the review of the second one!

Review: Whip It! (2009)

Director: Drew Barrymore

Starring: Ellen Page, Alia Shawkat, Carlo Alban, Kristin Wiig, Marcia Grey Harden

Website: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1172233/

Brooke Cavendar: I'm supposed to buy you shoes from a... a head shop? Does that really strike you as responsible parenting?

Bliss Cavendar: Fine, the shoes are a gateway drug.

Say, are you tired of horror movies yet? I’ve reviewed quite a few of them already. I think it’s time for something else.

Whip It!, directed by Drew Barrymore, is a teen dramedy about a girl named Bliss – odd choice. It’s kind of like a New Age name if it were…a parody of a New Age name. Oh, wait. That’s exactly what it is! So she’s played by Ellen Page, a quirky, unique girl who works at a diner themed around pigs, is forced to go to beauty pageants by her mother and absolutely hates her small-town, mundane life. Isn’t that just precious? And of course she’s a natural at roller derby, the random hobby this movie has chosen to bestow upon us. She’s…never skated any more past her Barbie-skate stage, never even heard of roller derby before some chicks posted flyers all over a store she happened to be in, but she’s a natural. And pretty soon she’s skating with Austin, Texas’ primary roller derby vixens even though she’s only 17. All while balancing a secret boyfriend from her parents as well, who she doesn’t even know and yet wants anyway – because he’s hot.

Well, that part I can believe. But the rest of it is just ridiculous!

Even more ridiculous is that it’s actually a really great movie. I mean…it really is. It’s incredibly well done on every front, and I haven’t had more fun watching a movie in a while now. This is one of those cases where a movie ticks off all the boxes in its chosen genre – this one being ‘idealistic feel good teen drama/comedy’ – and yet rolls with them to create something absolutely wonderful. We’ve got quirky characters, we’ve got a completely unbelievable plot, we’ve got an inspiring non-suburban thing to get our pretty, practically perfect-looking main chick excited about her teenage life and we’ve got lots of stylish and weird comedy to make it more light hearted. And it’s all done absolutely perfectly.

I think one of the main reasons this works is that it just feels honest. It’s not like Juno where they tripped over themselves a million times trying to be funny. And it’s not like I Love You Man or any number of Judd Apatow movies where the comedy just feels forced or shoved in by a bunch of thirty year old ex-fratboys trying to be hip with the kids. Whip It! just works because the story came naturally, with the funny parts and the dramatic parts falling into place because they have to be there, and more so, because they make sense. They just flow naturally into the ebb of this movie’s waves, fitting in like a jigsaw puzzle.

Well let’s see. Kind of hard to review one of those movies that is just pure enjoyment, but let’s try. The characters are great. Ellen Page really is a wonderful actress, overcoming Juno with every leap and every bound she makes in movies these days. She’s funny and makes the quirkiness actually entertaining rather than obnoxious. I also really liked Alia Shawkat as Pash…what is this movie’s fascination with these weird-ass names? But she’s cute and funny and steals almost every scene she’s in with her huge personality. Carlo Alban as “Birdman” is great, as is the dad, and pretty much all of the roller derby racers…hell, I won’t even spoil any more of it for you. There’s just too many surprises and fun parts to miss out on.

The dialogue is good, never too silly but still goofy and cinematic enough to make the movie entertaining. I won’t ever try to claim this is how people really talk. But it’s a movie, and it doesn’t have any kind of pretension – it’s just silly fun. Check out the quote at the top of the page for one example, or perhaps:

 Pash: But you don't have the balls.

Bliss Cavendar: I can grow the balls...

It’s just stuff like that; the snappy retorts and silly, witty comments that spice it up and make the movie more enjoyable. Is it indie-ified as all get out? Yes. But I don’t believe that to be an automatic disqualifier of quality. It’s fun.

The story progresses along pretty normally, with your usual build up and coming down and funny parts and serious parts. The roller derby scenes are excellent and always really tense and exciting. The scenes where she runs away from home are really good, in particular the one in the car with Kristin Wiig…or Maggie Mayhem as she’s known in the movie. The scene in the pool with her and her boyfriend is great – although I REALLY think the movie is stretching its plausibility when, in the middle of her front yard in broad daylight, she takes off her shirt and trades it with her boyfriend’s jacket. I mean come on! It’s right there in front of her own house! Anyone could have seen her. But I guess that’s just part of what makes this movie what it is – it’s just doing its own thing with no regard for sanity or normalcy.

And then it doesn’t really turn out like you thought it would in the end. I mean, sure, it’s still really idealistic and really indie-ified, but there are some pretty decent aversions from the usual clichés. And at 2 hours, I felt I had spent my time well.

This is just one of those movies, people. It’s just really well written and really enjoyable. It just works like a new car, or a day at the beach till sunset. The characters are great, the plot is fun and it just rocks. Sure as hell made me want to roller derby.

All images Copyright (c) of their original owners.

Review: Scott Pilgrim vs The World (2010)

Director: Edgar Wright

Starring: Michael Cera, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Ellen Wong, Jason Schwartzman

Website: www.scottpilgrimthemovie.com/

"You're pretentious, this club sucks, I have beef. Let's fight."

-Scott Pilgrim

I am so out of loop with popular culture. What the hell is Scott Pilgrim? Who is he? I was first introduced to this franchise by seeing the commercial for the movie when I was watching The Big Bang Theory. It looked like an interesting enough plot – a kid has to fight his girlfriend’s seven evil exes to date her and keep her. I didn’t know if it’d be good, bad, whatever…but it piqued my interest. So I figured I would go see it in the theaters when it finally came out. And what’s my take?

I…think my mind was just blown when I saw this. It was so crazy and so over the top that I had no idea what to make of it. Starring the apparently infamous Michael Cera, this weird little action/romance story is told in a highly strange and stylized fashion. When a new scene starts, they often pop up a little black comic-book-esque box by them with white text explaining some facts about them, often humorously. Scenes vary wildly in length, some lasting five minutes and others less than one. The movie likes to parody video games and use terminology and clichés from them to further the story – in one scene, the hero decides to stand up for himself and fight for himself over anyone else, and as he flaunts his newfound power, the words “Scott gained the power of self respect!” are narrated in a deep voice and flash on the screen in blinking neon.

See? I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like this. This movie is completely original. Well…except for the comic it’s based on, but shut up, I know what I’m talking about in this review!

Even the writing is completely off the wall. In the first few scenes, the titular Scott Pilgrim (Cera) has a conversation with his band (made up of a token regular guy named Stephen, a stoic, monotone redheaded chick named Kim and a guy named Young Neil, who is not in the band, but just lives at the house they play in) about inviting his new “fake high school girlfriend” Knives into the house while they play. They’re really concerned that she’ll break up their nerd-dom and not be able to handle it. The dialogue is so winding and so convoluted with things that would just be otherwise retarded or ridiculous. Like when Ramona says “I was just a little bi-curious,” the enemy character replies “Well, I’m just a little bi-FURIOUS!” That line is so horrible that I’d want to smack whoever wrote it. But in this movie, I’ll buy it. I really will.

I will now go through some of the exceptionally noteworthy scenes in this movie:

There’s one scene where Scott beats a Vegan opponent by making him drink milk, I think it was, that turns out to violate the ‘Vegan Police’ code, getting him stripped of his ‘Vegan powers.’ I couldn’t make this up, people. There’s the all-time special effects wonder of the world when Scott and his band face off against the dastardly and short-lived threat of the Kazayanagi brothers, resulting in a chaotic explosion of shining beast-like holograms, neon lights and multi-colored fire that will make your eyes bleed with how cool it is. And there’s one scene near the end when Scott has to fight his ‘negative self’ for some reason that nobody really cares about, because it’s awesome either way. It cuts away to Ramona and Knives outside when Scott walks out with his ‘negative-self’, joking and laughing like old friends. Scott says that his negative self is a really nice guy.

See? I love the comedy in this movie. It’s so innocuous and so dorky that it becomes absolutely side-splitting when it’s at its best. It’s just great, it really is.

The acting is good. People will bash on Michael Cera whenever they get the chance, but he does a really good job here. His delivery is hilarious and his facial expressions are always really funny with how naïve they are. I’m not familiar with a lot of his movies, but he does good here. I can tell you that. Mary Winstead as love interest Ramona is wonderful, as she is good looking and versatile – funny when the movie calls for it and also soft and vulnerable or cold as ice whenever needed, too. Kieran Culkin and Anna Kendrick bring up the backbone along with the delightful Alison Pil as Kim. And the seven exes are always over the top and fun, too.

So, detractors from the score? Well, I was amazed with how far up its own ass it could get when it really tries. That Vegan Police scene I mentioned above was about where the line was crossed, although it was already flirting with that when a girl’s hair highlights are literally punched out. These scenes are still enjoyable in their own way, but I can’t help but feel that the film kind of winds up in its own special effects and nerd-isms at times. But maybe that’s part of the appeal.

This film should in all respects suck a whole lot. But it works. It really works, in one of the most oddball fashions ever. All the film’s extravagances and eccentricities are done with a hefty sense of irony, but in the same way, even the irony is ironic, like they’re ribbing the kinds of snot-nosed indie films of this usual sort, in a good natured way. There’s also a ton of homage to video games and video game culture, as well as to anime and comic culture, too. It’s a delightful hodge-podge of influences that, combined with the film’s crazy exuberance, really makes an entertaining watch. The characters are delightful, the humor is spot on, the action is wondrous and the plot is a ton of fun. Scott Pilgrim is a winner. Revel in its supreme nerdery.

Review: Cashback (2006)

Director: Sean Ellis

Starring: Sean Biggerstaff, Emilia Fox, Shaun Evans

Website: http://www.cashbackthemovie.com/

“So, you wanna…come up to my bedroom? Eat some popcorn? Shag?”

-Jenkins

GOD, WHAT THE FUCK? Okay, let me just spoil the premise now and get it out of the way: A movie about a guy who is so depressed over the fact that he broke up with his girlfriend because he felt like he wasn’t good enough for her, that he starts becoming an insomniac and is able to freeze time, so he undresses women and draws them without their consent. And it thinks that somehow, we should be sympathetic for him! Isn’t that precious? Does that sound like a good movie to you? Ugh. Just…ugh. That sums up the movie, people, but we’ve still got a review to do. Let’s see what horrors that CashBack has in store for us…be afraid.

I don’t even care that this movie shows more pairs of naked breasts than your average porno. It’s a piece of trash. This is so puerile and so whimsically disgusting and insulting on every level – including that of thinking it is a good comedy, and that of thinking it is a good movie – that nothing could ever save it. Watching more than a minute of this drivel really hurts. Even thinking about this movie just makes me feel dirty; how am I supposed to review it? Well, let’s…let’s try, I guess.

It stars a wimpy art student named Ben who gets ridiculously depressed over the fact that his girlfriend who HE BROKE UP WITH is dating someone else. The first scene shows him being physically abused by his girlfriend as he breaks up with her. She throws a lamp – a fucking lamp – at his head, and some other stuff, and it really begs the question of why the hell he wants her back so bad, anyway. Would you? He spends the first five or ten minutes agonizing over her and lamenting why he’s such a pussy. Here’s a tip for you writers: if your script makes Juno look manly in comparison, I think you need a rewrite. A major one. Because I don’t know about the rest of you, but I sure as hell do not want to listen to a bunch of ball-aching whining from a kid who in all other aspects of his life is doing pretty well. This isn’t charming; it isn’t romantic, it’s just flat out annoying. Bunch of simpering crap.

But hey, at least we have jokes! Like the first one, not even ten minutes in, where we see an art class drawing a nude model that farts while he’s standing there in the middle of the circle! Ha! He farts! Get it? It’s funny because it’s a natural bodily function, I guess. That’s why they repeat it SEVERAL MORE TIMES.

We’re not even ten minutes in yet. Annoying bitching from a spoiled college student, and fart jokes; that’s the movie so far. That’s all there is. Wondrous.

So apparently our main hero Ben gets so depressed over his self-inflicted loss of his girlfriend that he can’t sleep anymore, which gives him ample time for more whining about his inner pain. He takes a job at a supermarket where he gets a crush on the girl working the register. While trying to pass the time, he finds out he can actually freeze time. Doesn’t that sound like an interesting idea for a movie? Wouldn’t that be a great concept to elaborate on and work into the traditional romantic comedy template? Well, they don’t. They have Ben freeze time in order to undress all the women in the store at the time – quite a lot for the night shift, too – and draw them in varying poses that would be extremely humiliating to most people. But the movie suggests that it’s artistic.

I mean, goddamn, this just raises some questions…he doesn’t find anything wrong with this? He doesn’t see anything wrong with undressing women against their will and moving them around like some sick-ass fetish artist? It’s one thing to have an appreciation for the human body like many artists do, but that means getting WILLING CONSENT from people to pose nude for you to draw. It doesn’t mean what the perverted freaks that made this movie think, which is, “hey, I’ll just go around randomly undressing women and violating their privacy because I’m a depraved fuckwit with no sense of personal boundaries”! It wouldn't be so bad if he weren't made out to be such a sympathetic character, and if the movie was based around showing his clear mental deficiency, but eugh. It’s one thing to introduce a plot like this in a movie that explains the time freezing and makes it into something interesting and compelling, but this doesn’t explain anything about the time traveling! I get it; it’s supposed to be a metaphor for something about how you spend your time, but they don’t even have one bit of a notion of where they’re going with it. It’s completely directionless. They have a scene where it’s revealed that apparently there’s someone else who can move when time is frozen…but it’s never elaborated upon; only used as a plot point to reach the extremely hammy climax. Really, movie? Because I’d sure as hell want to investigate that further. I’d want to learn as much about the time freezing as possible. But this kid apparently only cares about not being single, and so he completely ignores every aspect of this groundbreaking scientific phenomenon which has been afflicted upon him.

What is explained, however, is how Ben got this so-called “appreciation of the female form” in the first place…apparently he and his dumbass womanizing friend were even friends as children, when they waited until his mom left and then looked at all his dad’s porn magazines, where Ben first sees the naked female form displayed as brazenly as it can be displayed. “I always thought it would be neater,” Ben narrates over this scene, referring to a woman’s tenderer bits. “Like a smooth, round, perfect hole.” And then his friend’s mom comes back and they have to hide them again. But they couldn’t hide their…nine-year-old-boy erections! “From then on, Sean’s mom always thought we were gay,” Ben narrates.

AGH! What is this shit? Who would actually find this funny?! It’s not funny; it’s just sexist, annoying crap without even one trace of real humor about it. It’s the bottom of the barrel, folks, and we’re not even halfway through. There’s still a lot more unfunny jokes, trite romance and horrible slime to slog through, so let’s just rush through it and get this over with, because I can’t take much more.

Ben’s co workers include a stereotypical Asian guy who is usually silent and is a master of karate, because that’s never been done before, and two jackasses who play the worst practical jokes known to man, like…pantsing him in front of the girl he likes, and placing penis-shaped shampoo into womens’ carts to see who buys it. Awful. Their boss, Jenkins, is a complete idiot and a pervert who I think actually kills starving African children every time he opens his mouth. I am not even exaggerating here; not ONE BIT of this guy’s dialogue is even in the same ballpark as what would be considered good humor. And that’s saying a lot, considering the caliber of the humor in this movie already. There are a lot of eye-raping montages showing our lovable cast of demented retards getting ready for a party, and…alright. Alright, honestly, what the hell is this? I am no longer responsible for any comments I make about anyone in this movie, or involved with it. It’s out of my hands.

He develops a romance with the cashier girl, who is clearly insane to even think about dating a nutball like him, but whatever. Their romance is cliché and completely uninteresting, and jumps sluggishly through all the usual hoops. She fulfills the dream he’s always had to find a girl who thinks artists are cool because of some bullshit reason. At a party, she sees him getting kissed by his ex girlfriend and storms off angry. They make up when she sees the volumes upon volumes of pictures he’s drawn of her displayed publicly in an art gallery, which suggests that she should definitely get back together, meaning that nothing matters except glorifying the woman and pandering to every inch of her ego. Nothing matters at all in a relationship except making her feel like a goddess. That’s all she needs and she’ll love you forever for that. Great job, Cashback. Great fucking job.

I…just hate this movie with every bone in my body, and I mean that. It’s so horrible that it goes beyond comprehension. This was a terrible experience that I will never revisit. In what universe could this possibly be considered interesting, thought provoking, emotional or enjoyable? It’s practically a spectacle in itself; how much can we possibly disgust and offend the audience? I don’t care if it’s all a big metaphor, it’s completely unwatchable. Appreciation for the female form? Don’t make me laugh; all this movie is is a depraved, perverted sideshow of female exploitation, nothing but the director’s excuse to show off how many women he can get to take their shirts off.

I feel sorry for everyone involved in this shitpiling to end all shitpilings, but I feel the need to go the extra mile and express how I really feel about this film: I hope the director (and by default, the writer) is castrated, stoned and anally violated, or any order of the above, and then stranded in a third world country and left to be eaten by vultures miles south of a third world nation he could have helped instead of spending money to make this movie. I hope all of the actors lose their careers over this movie, become hermits and drink themselves to death in cheap hotel rooms. I hope everyone else involved never works again, and finds themselves scorned forever by any known filmmaking community; maybe they can find work at gas stations or Publix. I hope every copy of this movie is burned in the ovens from the Holocaust (because it is similar on a smaller scale, to the film community) and sprinkled over the furthest point of the oceans imaginable, forgotten for forever and a day. I hate this movie with every fiber in me!

Harsh and unbelievably offensive? Yes. But you know why it’s okay? Because I was only using it as an example to illustrate my point, and therefore it’s artistic expression! Hah! Get it?

Review: World's Greatest Dad (2009)

Director: Bobcat Goldthwait

Starring: Robin Williams, Daryl Sabara, Alexie Gilmore

Website: http://www.worldsgreatestdadfilm.com/

"You didn't like Kyle. I didn't either. I loved him. He was my son. He was also a douchebag."
-Lance Clayton

If your jackass of a son died in an accident while masturbating, what would you do? Because apparently Robin Williams' answer in this movie is to forge a suicide note for him to cover up the embarrassing fact of his actual death. He makes it look like a hanging, and the note he writes turns his formerly hated and outcasted son into a martyr who everyone now worships like a demigod. It also rejuvenates his writing career and makes him famous - even though nobody knows that he wrote the journal that he claims his son wrote. Whatever works for him, I guess.

This movie spends its first half building up the relationship between Lance and his son, played by former Spy Kid Daryl Sabara. The movie really pulls no punches with this character; he is a complete ingrate in every way. He looks at scat porn in his free time, makes lewd comments to the girls at school and has no respect for his father at all. He is made out to be a thoroughly unlikable character and he pretty much is. But when he dies and the fake suicide note that Lance writes is published in the school newspaper, everyone changes their tone. It is quite a scathing commentary on the hypocrisy of high school students. People who were seen bullying him before are now praising him. Even though nobody in this movie gave him a second thought when he was alive, when he's dead, they're all his friends. Typical - and quite despicable, too.

But of course the humorous twist is that he really wasn't some kind of martyr at all, and he really just died while masturbating. It happens in real life with kids who actually were as brilliant, depressive and introspective as Lance makes his son out to be through fake memoirs, but in this movie it's subverted by just throwing all that out entirely. There is - or was - no trace of introspection, intelligence or artistry in this dead boy at all. He was a perverted, degenerate shmuck. The kids, and by extension the whole world, is worshiping nothing more than Lance's own work, as for the first time he has gained fame from something he wrote. It is absolutely hilarious in its morbidity and surreality. Hard to watch at times, sure, but hilarious nonetheless.

It does raise some questions, though, like, why did Lance do what he did? That's the hidden genius of this picture, even beyond the dark satire elements. It's left ambiguous. Did he fake a suicide note for his son to honor the family name? Out of love for his son, not wanting him to be looked upon negatively - or more negatively - in death? Was it an act of mad delusion, out of sheer disbelief that anything so sudden could happen to him at all? It's never directly said. It does clash with the satirical side, though, as does the ending, in which he confesses what he did to the school as they are about to re-name the library in Kyle's honor. His burden has been lifted. But what effect does it have on the satire? It seems conflicting. More fitting for a dramatic film than a black comedy, really.

World's Greatest Dad is not without its flaws, but it is a clever movie, and one that merits watching for anyone who won't be bothered by the excess language and crass mannerisms that crust this strange little pie. For some reason a lot of people can't look past all of that to see what a good movie this is. Their loss, I think. Recommended if you liked Punch Drunk Love, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and other similar black comedies. Funny, insightful and sharp as a razor's edge.