Review: Batman Returns (1992)

Director: Tim Burton

Starring: Michael Keaton, Michelle Pfeiffer, Danny DeVito, Christopher Walken

Website: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103776/

“If you ever had an iota of a human feeling, take me instead.”

“I don’t. So no!”

-Max Schrek and The Penguin, respectively

You remember the first Batman movie in 1989, with Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson? It was a great movie, wasn’t it? I love the subtle wit, I love the classic, romantic styled action and direction, and I love the dark, seedy style of the whole thing. It was an all time classic. So what would you do if somehow, the same people who made the first one came back to stomp all over it, break it into a million pieces, urinate on it and then set it on fire? Well, we still wouldn’t have as big a disappointment as the colossal fuckery of the sequel, Batman Returns.

I mean good god. What happened, Tim Burton? What went so wrong in only a few years between these sequels? The contrast between them is like night and frigging day. Where the first one was elegant and graceful, this one stumbles around like a drunken lout. Where the first one was serious and treated the viewers with dignity, this movie is just annoying and godawfully horrendous in every way. You know what this is like? It’s like that annoying friend who you used to have in elementary or middle school, who you and the rest of your friends put up with because you felt sorry for them. It’s the friend that would come over and poke you repeatedly, eat all your food and talk about shit that nobody cared about, and generally bring down the mood. That’s Batman Returns.

This aborted abomination of cinema is just so painful that it’s hard to put into words. It starts out okay, with a family in the early or mid 1900s abandoning what we can infer is the child that will grow up to be the Penguin. It then flashes forward 33 years, because that’s not a weird and random number, into Christmas time in Gotham. Christopher Walken is playing a businessman named Max Schrek, who apparently only has one mode of emotional discourse: stoic, brusque businessman. His secretary named Selena Kyle is played by Michelle Pfeiffer, and this is the movie’s first huge shitstopping moment, because honestly I cannot think of a worse movie character short of Mila Kunis in American Psycho II and Gary Oldman in Hannibal. But we’ll get to that later…I know you’re looking forward to it.

Outside, Walken gives a speech about why he’s glad to be in Gotham and a bunch of other boring shit, and then the town is attacked by annoying multi-colored circus rejects. Yes, not even 20 minutes in and the movie lost me. They jump around a lot and cause a lot of chaos over the movie’s overly bombastic and irritating soundtrack, and it’s more like something you’d see on a pre-school animated TV show than a Batman movie. And look at Gotham; it looks like a fucking snow globe or something. This isn’t the Tim Burton who delivered the stylish and classy Batman world of the first film. This is the Tim Burton who all the Hot Topic kids worship like a deity. Absolutely no substance and quite a lot of meaningless faux-gothic melodrama. Yergh.

And then we cut to Michael Keaton reprising his role as Bruce Wayne, and…he looks so damn bored that I’m surprised he even took this role. This isn’t the Michael Keaton that delivered the subtle, charming and secretive Bruce Wayne performance in the first movie; this is the Michael Keaton who stumbled like a zombie through White Noise. Ugh. He goes and stops everything and saves Selena Kyle, who is grateful…and we don’t see him again for at least a half hour. I am dead serious. The next thirty-odd minutes are filled up with Christopher Walken, Michelle Pfeiffer and Danny Devito. Good fucking god. A Batman movie without Batman. It’s as stupid as it sounds.

Oh yeah, Danny Devito is in this movie too! And he’s as annoying as nails on a chalkboard – literally; just listen to that godawful voice. Apparently he kidnapped Christopher Walken to get him to help him out in the real world, and he blackmails Walken into agreeing. And…oh, fuck, he’s annoying. I mean, couldn’t you have at least tried to make him intimidating or villainous? Just watching this fat, ugly blob stumble around the set makes me want to put a boot through the screen. His voice is like audible AIDS; goddamn, shut the hell up! He wants Walken to help him find out his birth parents. He does that, gaining popular support when people start to find out his life-of-the-underdog story, but it blows WAAAAY out of proportion when he is actually positioned to become the new mayor of Gotham. I’m sorry, what? Seriously? That thing? Even in the most liberal bleeding-heart places in the world, there is NO WAY that someone who looked and talked like that could ever gain popular support in such a short amount of time. I mean, it was seriously like less than three days. What were the writers smoking when they made this up? And he’s ALWAYS. ON. SCREEN. They’re going for a similar thing like they did in the first film with the Joker getting most of the spotlight, but here it doesn’t work because someone apparently instructed DeVito to chew up the scenery with as much gusto as he could manage. He’s always snarling and showing his teeth and being over-dramatic, and he just doesn’t work at all. He's about as charming as an abusive redneck inbred father who wandered onto the set at random.

The other half of this movie’s debilitating cancer is Michelle Pfeiffer, who gives honestly one of the most grating, painful performances I’ve ever had to sit through, in anything. So she plays a wimpy, passive secretary who wants a man in her life but is too nerdy to get one. Her house is filled with weird shit like a neon sign for her room and a dollhouse mounted on a table by her window, and she has cats, and phone calls that advertise ways for her to ‘become a better woman.’ She goes back to the office one night and discovers the conspiracy behind the whole thing, right before Christopher Walken throws her out a window. But does that stop her from getting up, painting everything in her house black and stitching together a costume out of garbage bags to go fight crime? Fuck no! That would be plausible!

…no, seriously. No explanation for how she survived the fall and was actually able to walk around? Nothing? Okay then. This character is just so weird and annoying that it’s hard to really describe. It’s really disgusting to watch her be all awkward and kooky before her accident, and it’s annoying to watch her as Catwoman after when all she does is croon in that ultra-silky voice that might as well be a parody of movie women in general. There’s just no subtlety or class to her. Painting her house black? Could you possibly get any more over the top silly? That goes for the whole movie really. It’s a very blunt, obvious film, and the bright colors and goofy characters make it really hard to take seriously even for one minute.

The next fifteen or twenty minutes are mostly filler. We get to see her return to work with an entirely new personality and flirt with Bruce Wayne when he comes to visit, and we get to see Walken dressed like fucking Beetlejuice and talking about mostly nothing, with that damn bug-eyed look all the damn time. Selena Kyle dresses up as Catwoman and gets into a fight with Batman, but only after doing cartwheels through a museum..ugh. And Batman actually gets thwarted by a POODLE. A goddamned poodle! I couldn’t make this up if I tried. So sad that it’s actually funny again. And we see that Batman is not above tampering with the sound system at the Penguin’s rally for mayor and playing tapes that reveal him for the wad of ass that he really is. Can you believe that the townspeople actually throw tomatoes at him? I really hate this movie…but let us continue. He retreats to the sewer where he reveals that his next plan is to…kidnap the first born children in Gotham and murder them all? Sheesh, where the hell did that come from, movie? Pretty extreme about-face turn there, don’t you think? It’s like, “Oh, I can’t become the mayor! What to do, what to do…hey, I think I’ll KILL ALL THE LITTLE CHILDREN.” It’s so out of nowhere and random. It’s practically ad-libbing it, for Pete’s sake.

Or as I like to call it, horrible, heinous writing.

So Bruce goes to Walken’s party where he wants to find Selena Kyle. They dance and trade flirts for a bit until she starts laughing like a hyena at the suggestion that she’s here for Walken. Then she pulls out a gun from under her dress and says that killing him will solve all of the city’s problems. It certainly wouldn’t solve all of this movie’s, though. They start to walk out when the floor explodes and miraculously doesn’t harm anyone that severely! The Penguin comes out riding his fearsome yellow rubber ducky float – yes, I’m serious about that – and announces in a truly hammy and embarrassing moment that he is taking Walken’s son away, oh no! Walken persuades him to take him instead, so he does.

What happens next is…just so flat out weird that it’s hard to believe what you’re watching. Brace yourselves: Batman saves the kids and sends a message through the Penguin’s pet monkey (???). The Penguin starts to rally his army of pet penguins to go marching through the streets of Gotham as Alfred informs Batman what’s going on. Apparently the penguins are marching to the center of the city with rockets strapped to them to blow up the city and kill thousands of people. So…they’re suicide bomber penguins. Will somebody please kill me now?

They stop the penguin-bombs very easily, the Penguin rides around in his giant rubber duck on wheels (….ugh) and Batman confronts the Penguin, who delivers this wonderful gem of a line as he holds up his umbrella gun: “But when it all comes down to it…who’s holding the umbrella?” Batman gives him a look that’s a mix of confusion and reprimanding, which I believe should be the universal reaction to this whole movie. He thwarts the Penguin, has a showdown with Catwoman who is trying to kill Christopher Walken, and the whole thing ends rather tragically with a nice, white winter backdrop as Bruce and Alfred ride off into the night.

Phew. Boy, this was annoying. I mean, the crowning failure of this whole thing was the fact that the last ten minutes were actually pretty good. Finally we got to see some dark, intriguing story and some shots that weren’t filled with Danny DeVito squawking and over-acting like a moron and Michelle Pfeiffer doing cartwheels and over-acting like a moron. The movie really seemed to get its act together for the final climax of the whole thing, but it’s really not worth sitting through two hours of awful crap to get to it. If the climax is a golden egg, the one hour and fifty minutes that come before it are like wading through a mine of shit to get there. I know I’m in the minority when I say this, but Batman Returns really sucks. And that’s all there is to it. Avoid, avoid, avoid!

Review: The Deer Hunter (1978)

Director: Michael Cimino

Starring: Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken, John Savage, Meryl Streep

IMDB Page: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077416/

"One shot."

-Michael

I never really thought about the psychological ramifications of Russian Roulette before I saw The Deer Hunter. The wait once you pull the trigger – the second that lasts for an eternity – must feel agonizing. This film, focusing on three friends who get sent off to Vietnam, has this as a central theme. De Niro, Walken and Savage find themselves forced by brutish Vietcong to play Russian Roulette for sport, with their lives on the line. Even though they all escape with their lives, they find themselves traumatized and changed as they come back home.

Really, even without the Russian Roulette angle this story would be believable and tragic. That just adds cinematic flair, making for a symbolic point to draw in the viewer. This is a long, long movie, stretching out to the 3 hour mark, and worth every second of it. It starts out slow, building up the uncertainty of our main characters to go away to war, especially when they have so much going for them back at home. John Savage’s character Steven just got married, and the guys have a big community of friends that really feels like a big community of friends. I found myself completely immersed. They really don’t make movies like this anymore. Watching the guys hunting one last time before our three heroes have to go to Vietnam is just heartbreakingly good. Look at the scene where De Niro runs down the street toward the pier, tearing his clothes off in one final, defiant act, one final act of free will before the military takes him. You really get a feel for what it’s going to be like for them to leave this all behind.

The scenes in Vietnam are pretty harsh and bare-bones. It is cinematic in that hard-hitting ‘70s style, but it never feels cheapened or melodramatic. De Niro and his friends are holed up in a cage like pigs, and when they’re done playing Russian Roulette, they’re thrown out into the water. One thing I really like about this is how quickly and subtly the tone changes – after they kill the Vietcong and escape into the nearest city’s war veteran hospital, everything seems to have shades of grey. As De Niro wanders the streets, and as Walken goes to visit a prostitute, everything feels so aimless, in such a dismal way…nothing will be the same again for these men, you can tell.

Surprisingly, it is the previously cool and collected Walken, the character I least suspected, that cracks the hardest. He starts going to an underground Russian Roulette betting pool and starts obsessively playing, putting his life on the line again and again. De Niro returns to the US an even quieter and more withdrawn man than he was before, more serious and grown up. In a bittersweet victory, he finally gets the girl he wanted, played by Meryl Streep, who in the beginning of the movie promised to marry Walken when he came back. But he never came back, and so she gets with De Niro instead. Both men wanted her fiercely, and one of them finally got her. Sometimes, though, she still cries for Walken…

Again, I am just in awe of the mature, deep-rooted character drama going on here. It never shoves itself in your face and never feels hamfisted or Hollywoodesque. It’s just fantastic. Watch the scenes after De Niro gets back into town. I really enjoy the scenes where he gets greeted by the townsfolk at the supermarket, or at the bar. And the one where they all go bowling is great. But things take a darker turn once we see the remains of Savage’s marriage, and how he did actually come back home after all…albeit not all in one piece.

Yes, the hunting is a focal point in this film…they take their guns and go out into the mountains to shoot deer. It’s a form of bonding, and it was what tied them all together. It just isn’t the same after De Niro comes back without Walken and Savage, though. He goes hunting with the guys back home, but it feels…different, somehow, and less happy, like a hollow shell. All that is left for him to do is to go back to Vietnam in search of Walken, where he finds him at last on the losing end of his treasured new game.

The Deer Hunter is a very vital and important film. It’s about how people deal with war, and at that, it excels in many great ways. It’s about friendship, and about how it changes over time. Christopher Walken’s character is probably the most fascinating of all, as the way he keeps on playing Russian Roulette even of his own will is crushing. He’s been pushed over the edge, and this is the only way he can cope – perhaps he hears the clicking of a hollow gun every night, wondering when it will stop. I don’t know. This film is great, with wonderful acting, powerful direction and a metric ton of majestic sorrow to boot. 

Review: We All Scream For Ice Cream (2007)

Director: Tom Holland

Starring: KILLER ICE CREAM!

IMDB Page: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0817402/

One thing I never thought I would ever see is a movie that makes me not want to eat ice cream, but here we have one anyway. We All Scream for Ice Cream is one of the Masters of Horror series, this time the contribution of Tom Holland, director of Child’s Play and Fright Night. It’s adapted from a short story, apparently, and the plot is going to sound weird: A clown who was killed by a bunch of kids has come back years later when they are adults to give their children ice cream, and when the children eat it, the parents melt into ice cream themselves. And trust me; I’m not smoking anything, that’s really what it’s about.

This movie isn’t really great, and there are several plot holes, like…how did the kids keep it a secret for so long that they killed the clown? They did it by pulling the gear and rolling it backwards, where he happened to be standing and picking up change. It was in broad daylight; how the hell did nobody notice? How did the police never interrogate any of the other kids there and find out who did it? And for that matter, what kind of a revenge is turning the parents into ice cream? Whatever happened to just killing them with an ax or something; seems like that would be easier…

So aside from those holes…the acting is kind of mediocre, the effects are gross-out good and kind of cool, and the story is just plain weird, weird, weird. One of my main complaints is that the characters aren’t that well fleshed out, and so the story loses tension for that. It would be a much stronger film if we could care more about the characters – but in this movie many of them are killed off before we even know their name. I really like the suburban setting of this flick, as I find it usually always works in horror movies, and I always love a good creepy clown, but sadly it isn’t as played up as it could have been.

Am I really arguing logic in a movie that has people turning into melted ice cream? I don’t know about you, but I think I’m cracking up here…I don’t hate We All Scream for Ice Cream, but it could use improvement. In the genre of…people-to-ice-cream thrillers…you could do much better. Like Killer Klowns From Outer Space! Now there's a classy flick about people turning into sugary sweet desserts by the hands of murderous clowns! I like to think of myself as a connoisseur of this genre.

Review: The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (2010)

Director: Niels Arden Oplev

Starring: Noomi Rapace, Michael Nyqvist

Website: http://dragontattoofilm.com/

Meet Lisbeth. She’s a computer hacker with friends in the right places and no tolerance for the scum of the Earth rapists and murderers she hunts. She is quite a beautiful young woman, and intelligent to boot, but she does have a few trust issues after a long history of traumatic and abusive men – so take note of that. It would likely be something akin to walking into a lion’s den. This is a girl you want to tread carefully around. She already looks the part of the quiet one, with her sullen demeanor, but you really don’t want to piss her off. Because when you do…well, she doesn’t hold back.

In The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, she plays a crucial role in the bringing down of a horrific chain of religiously driven ritualistic rape and murder circling beneath the surface of a prestigious Swedish family. This is a film that is long and detailed, with 2.5 hours full of nail-biting suspense, no-holds-barred violence and thrills that could topple mountains. Journalist Mikael Blomkvist has six months before he has to go to jail for slander against a high profile politician, and in that time he is determined to crack the 40-year-long case of a missing girl. He has the help of the aforementioned Lisbeth, and together they start to get to the bottom of things as well as getting closer together themselves.

This movie keeps you guessing all the way. The setting varies from the remote country wilderness where Mikael investigates to the dense, neon lit city where Lisbeth carries out her first deeds. Anyone who takes a revenge on their rapist that involves shoving a rocket shaped dildo up his ass and then making him watch the videotape she taped during the rape, before blackmailing him, and then carving the words “I am a sadistic pig and a rapist” on his chest with an amateur tattoo knife…is nobody I want to fuck with, thank you.

The rest of the story is a rocket ride through shades of Silence of the Lambs and Se7en, among others, although with a little bit more of an action bent here, rather than the gloomy noir and grimy horror tinges of those films. This is a film that attacks the viewer head on with conspiracies, sharp plot twists and new evidences every couple of minutes. It is a riveting and captivating mystery, adding in touches of personal drama and romance when necessary – just small touches, enough to add the Human Element to the story. This is a great film simply because it has a lot of really interesting things going on, making 2.5 hours feel more like one and a half. It doesn’t do much to break the mold or challenge our perception of mystery thriller movies, but it does deliver a synthesis of exactly why they are so great.

One of the best scenes is when Lisbeth comes into Mikael's room the first night they spend together. They don't really say a whole lot, but they have a quick round of sex before she leaves, saying nothing but "Good night," in this really peppy, adorable way like she was just leaving a table after a cup of coffee instead. And I also really like the climax of the film where Mikael finally finds out who the killer is. It results in his (the killer's) frenzied drive down the highway and inevitable crash, where he burns to death as Lisbeth watches, choosing to do nothing. The direction here is just really great. Every scene, even the ones that don't immediately stick out, are just so lively. They really jump out at you and just really pull you in, making every second of this long film count. The film makes use of a falling action afterwards as everything is resolved and the audience finally sees what really happened to the missing Harriet Vanger all this time.

And like every such film, the social relevance is here, as The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo tackles topics like mistreatment of women by authority figures, journalistic corruption and the ease with which sick, twisted criminals slip under the radar. It is a powerful and driving film that makes a statement as a movie as well as about social ailments. Lisbeth is a great character and Noomi Rapace does a wonderful job acting as her, with all her moodiness and coldness, with the touches of subtle beauty underneath.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is only the first movie in a line of them adapted from the hit book series by the famous-after-death author Stieg Larsson (RIP), and apparently there are still two more of them that will be released very soon here as well. If that’s the case, hell, I can’t wait. This is a very cool movie, and one of the best released recently, especially in the mystery thriller genre. Go check this out. It is worth your time no matter what genre of movies you like.

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?

Kazaam (1996)

Starring: Shaquille O'Neal, Francis Capra, Ally Walker

Directed by Paul Michael Glaser

IMDb page: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116756/

Wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazaam

"Kazaam" is a film about a genie (basketball star Shaquille O'Neal) who must grant three wishes to Max (Francis Capra), a troubled young boy who is hoping to connect with his estranged father (James Acheson).

This movie really annoyed me. The kid is a little brat who spends most of his time on screen acting like a smart-ass and antagonizing everyone he comes across, including the audience. He also tries to establish a relationship with his father, who is involved in organized crime and yet Max still feels he is a viable alternative to his mother (Ally Walker) and his would-be step-father (John Costelloe), who are not that bad. Did I mention he is also stupid? As for Shaq...well...let's just say he is better on the court (well, in his prime anyway) than onscreen. His performance comes off as silly and awkward, though to be fair he does seem to have fun in the role. The two characters do not get along well during any point of the film with the exception of the end (which is kind of required) and in the middle when they engage in a god-awful rap duet, which is one of unfortunately many dumb scenes throughout the picture.

The worst part about this movie, even more from the performances, is that it does not really make sense. It is supposedly aimed at kids but it spends a lot of time focused on a bunch of criminals and people hanging around clubs. Were the filmmakers trying to bring in Shaq's older fans? I am not sure but whatever they were trying to do, they failed. It is a little odd to be putting that in a film that also features the basketball player riding around on a magical bicycle and making junk food fall down from the sky. As a result, it makes you lose focus on the plot and gives you less reason to about what happens next. It is not helped by a number of plot holes. I will not mention all of them, but here is one example: a stereotypical Middle-Eastern crime lord (Philip Santella) knows all about Kaazam's powers and limitations despite having very the little knowledge about him. Maybe he knows about genies based upon what he learned in his homeland, but we will never know.

Well, there is nothing else I can really say except...the film sucks and I do not recommend it.

Review: Omen IV: The Awakening (1991)

Director: Jorge Montesi, Dominique Othenin-Gerard

Starring: Faye Grant, Michael Woods, Asia Vieira

IMDB Page: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102585/

"Did you order clowns?"

-Some Random Nun

There’s an Omen IV? That’s really all I could think when I saw this one for the first time. I was just so shocked. But certainly I was never going to review it. I hated the last two Omen movies, so I was going to stay as faaaaaar away from this one as humanly possible. I would never rev---oh, fuck it, why do I bother? Hey, everybody, let’s take a trip down cocaine-smokin’ pointless sequel land and into the magical realm of What-the-Fuck-ville, where anomalies like this particular wart on the anus of horror cinema reside…

This movie starts off with the inconspicuous and totally innocent adoption of a child. But after the loving parents take their brand new baby home for the first time, we see a young nun feeling guilty about it. She talks to her superior, freaking out about the spontaneous eclipse, her superior slaps her around a little bit and then promptly has a heart attack and dies. The younger nun runs downstairs into the church and sees a cross turning upside down, and then she falls to the ground and lets out a really exaggerated scream. And I mean…this is bad acting right here. Please, someone use the money made on this movie to send her back to acting school!

Oh, hold on. Wait a second. They didn’t make any money on this movie? Well, gee, color me surprised.

Then we get to indulge in all the usual Omen festivities.  Like seeing baby Delia start to cry furiously as she’s about to be baptized. Except this time the priest dies right away in the same manner as the head nun does, after they leave…and in one of the strangest scenes of the franchise, the mother gets scratched by the infant baby and actually gets an infection. It must have messed with her brain cells a little bit though, as we see her a few years later playing hide and seek with her daughter at a birthday party right next to a big road where a huge 18-wheel truck is coming by. Because that’s good parenting, right? She gets saved by her own personal Lassie that looks exactly like the dog in the first movie. Oh, and did I mention that Delia's big intimidating moment thus far is biting on the face of a Barbie doll? Truly strikes fear into the heart of men, I tell you.

At pre-school she gets into a fight with a kid who stomps on her lunch box, and then apparently she bites him, so they’re all in trouble now. She keeps fucking around with the kid and scaring him, so his father gets mad and gets his head cut off by a truck delivering some…clown bouncy balls to the school for some reason. Didn’t we see this exact same thing in the original Omen? I think we did. And it was cooler there. Then we get the school’s…random horse riding day, because every school has a random horse riding day, and the animals start going crazy! Surprised? Well, maybe if this kind of thing didn’t happen in the other movies before it, as well as any other movie involving Satanic themes. And then we even get a nanny hired for “special needs children”…goddammit, are you assholes even trying? This is EXACTLY LIKE THE FIRST OMEN MOVIE ALL OVER AGAIN. Except instead of riveting suspense, we get dullard boredom and trite retreading of already established clichés. It’s not scary, it’s just fucking dull.

Since the movie isn’t stupid enough yet, they add in the idea that Delia is actually menstruating at eight years old. I know that really happens in some extreme cases, but it’s just silly in the context of this particular movie. And it still isn’t stupid enough yet, so what do we get? Brace yourselves here. The babysitter, Jo, is heavy into psychic babble and believes in auras and crystals and all sorts of mystical crap like that, and she actually convinces the mother to let her take Delia to – get ready – a psychic fair. And then just by walking around, the whole fair burns to the ground in less than five minutes as everyone goes running for their lives.

…do I even have to say anything about this? I mean, the original Omen movies were never subtle, but this is about as blatant as you can get. First, a psychic fair? Really? That’s the mom’s idea of a good outing for her child? And second…I just can’t even describe how funny it is to watch this scene. Just the way it goes from…well, what the movie considers normal…to random, haphazard, flaming chaos is just too much. It’s so over the top that it becomes goofy and corny as hell.

And then Jo the babysitter dies by getting thrown out a window while trying to “connect” with Delia, lands on a children’s playground accessory, and the mother faints upon seeing it. Haha. Hahahaha! That is all I have to say to this cheesy scene. God, can’t this movie even conjure up one ounce of suspense or fright at all? It’s about as useful as a screwdriver that doesn’t fit around any screws. And do you really have to have all of this really obvious shit pointing out that she’s the villain? Drawing inverted crosses in the sand, getting pissy when asked to recite a prayer at dinner…gee, I wonder why she does those things! Too bad it is in no way scary or interesting.

Then there’s a scene where she tears up a Jesus pamphlet handed to her by some door-to-door Jehovah’s Witnesses…oh my god, I just about died laughing. You know what? I think this was supposed to be a comedy. Yeah, that’s it. This is just too funny to be a horror movie; it must be a comedy! Listen to that music; it’s so fluffy and pompous that it sounds like the soundtrack to an on-ice ballet or something. Pure comedy. The mother goes to see a private detective who distracts the people he’s trying to get info from by having his buddies dress up like clowns? Yup, that’s a comedy for you. Hammy scenes of him interrogating people revealing a plot that is too convoluted and nonsensical to even be summarized…yup, that’s a comedy for you. Then the wife’s baby is born and it’s way, way too big to be a brand new baby. I mean that thing has got to be way more than the average weight for a newborn infant. Did they have any budget for this shit at all?

The detective tracks down the young nun from the beginning of the movie while she is trying to prove that snakes can’t hurt them because they have Jesus. But he shows her a picture of baby Delia, so the snakes hurt her and kill her. Lots of inverted crosses, lots of omen-ous deaths. The detective gets killed by a wrecking ball…and the rest of the movie is basically the mother going insane and over-acting over everything. Apparently the family doctor was involved in a conspiracy theory to bring out Delia’s brother who is…also the antichrist for some reason, and…oh, fuck it, I don’t know. God, and finally it’s over. A 100 minute movie that felt like it was pushing on 200.

Now, don’t get me wrong. As a comedy, this is golden, with tons of hilarious scenes for your consumption. The only problem? IT WAS MEANT TO BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY. I mean honestly, who was this supposed to market to? The plot is so loose that it might as well be tied together with twisty-ties or rubber bands, the little girl is so obviously evil that it’s ridiculous to think nobody would notice earlier, and there are a million things that are either so stupid that it’s impossible to take seriously, or are just rip-offs of the original Omen. Oh, and it took two directors to make this movie; just...why? There’s no reason to watch this shitfest! Just stay away. Stay as far away as possible. Avoid this like you would avoid a confrontation with the devil…oh, wait.