Review: Hollow Man (2000)

Director: Paul Verhoeven

Starring: Kevin Bacon, Elizabeth Shue, Womens' Bodies

Website: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0164052/

"If I die, pretend I said something deep and clever."

-Sebastian

Aren't directors funny creatures? Like Paul Verhoeven, for instance! He directed such critically acclaimed works of film like RoboCop and Total Recall, both very enjoyable and action packed science fiction flicks that provided good, solid entertainment. But he also directed the infamous Showgirls, which I haven't seen, and then this pile of unentertaining slop. Yes, this is Hollow Man, the Kevin Bacon thriller where he turns invisible. My only question is, how do I turn my TV screen invisible so I don't have to watch it again? I think that ought to do it for an intro. Let's dig in.

Our movie begins with a mouse being ripped apart by some invisible beast, bloodily ravaged into pieces…yeah, I’ve seen a ton of awesome movies start off like that! Then we switch to Kevin Bacon, who is having about as much luck with his scientific formulas as he is with being a peeping Tom and watching the hot chick across the street undress through her windows. That is, none at all. Until a miracle of shoddy writing occurs and he suddenly comes up with the solution for his formula. He immediately contacts a co-worker who asks in stunned disbelief, “7 months and you suddenly come up with the code out of the blue? How?”

It’s pretty damned bad when even the characters don’t buy your plot 3 minutes into the movie. I think that’s a clear sign to give up while you’re ahead. Or at least…not a million miles behind, panting like you’ve got a punctured lung.

So then we see Bacon interacting predictably with other unlikeable characters at his vague secret scientist lab thing, creating scenarios that will likely be humorously duplicated and expanded upon when he turns invisible. There’s the guy who he competes with all the time at everything and constantly exchanges dull sarcastic banter with, who is secretly having sex with the cute blonde co worker who he flirts with all the time. There’s a veterinarian who hates what he’s doing and thinks it’s morally wrong. And there are a bunch of security guards and janitors who he talks to for like a second each. God, can’t you just feel the boredom emanating from the screen?

Basically what happens next is that this ape named Isabella who they turned invisible as an experiment goes crazy from being invisible too long, breaks out of her cage and is then tranquilized. Then they bring her back and turn her into a living game of Operation:

So Bacon lies to the Pentagon officials who assigned them this project in the first place and tells them they’re still working on it, just so he can get more glory and fame for himself. His co-workers rightfully express their disdain at this stupidity and Bacon just brushes them off, volunteering himself for the job to turn invisible next – the first time they’ve ever performed the experiment on a person. We then see the only reason this movie was really made, to show Kevin Bacon’s ass and get a bunch of girls to swoon over it. Yay, fanservice! Oh, right, and he turns invisible, too; that’s…that’s kind of important also.

And what does Bacon do with his newfound superhuman abilities? Pretty much nothing except try to take off his female co-workers’ clothes. There's one scene where he sneaks into where the veterinarian lady is sleeping and starts fondling her breasts - this scene more or less sums up the feel of the movie. It's kind of like, "should I even be watching this?", followed by several uncomfortable shufflings around on the couch, averting your eyes a little each time, waiting for the scene to stop. When he talks to the blonde one, Linda, one-on-one it’s actually disturbing as hell – I mean, he actually puts his hand between her legs, for Pete’s sake; that’s sexual harassment! He could get fired for that if she’d just say something! Screw scientific integrity; this is just wrong.

And has anyone noticed we never really see Bacon doing anything that indicates how good of a scientist he is? What, so we’re really supposed to believe that this guy is such an amazing scientist just because everyone says he is? That’s a lot to swallow, movie, especially when you had to pull that first bit where he comes up with the formula out of nowhere right from your collective asses.

Oh yes, Bacon's priorities are definitely in place...

Also, this unresolved sexual tension between Bacon and that blonde chick is seriously hilarious with how cliché it is. “Oh, you were never there! And now you’re invisible so you’re really not there! Even though you try to rape me several times and do nothing but objectify me, I’m not going to raise any serious objections! You’re just quirky, is all. And I'm going to keep tolerating you because I'm secretly the embodiment of every pre-teen girl who ever wanted Kevin Bacon! Tee-hee!~” And Bacon…good God, his scene on the roof where he tries to get her back and lean in for a kiss is just embarrassing! Where did he learn how to seduce a woman? That horrible Black Dahlia movie from 2006 with Josh Hartnett? Eugh. That’s kind of like asking Jim Carrey how to be subtle.

After that they try to turn him back to normal but it fails for some reason, and he almost dies. Then they give him a mask to make sure they can see him until they can cure him. He looks kind of like a crash test dummy if it were made by Leatherface...or something like that. I don’t know; it’s hard enough to make jokes about a movie this dull without resorting to just saying ‘look how ugly that crap is’ every five minutes, because there’s always something you can say that about in this movie. I guarantee it. Yergh.

That just looks kind of stupid.

And no, seriously guys, isn’t he going to do anything else but sexually assault women? It’s like…sitting here watching a movie about that weirdo who sits in a car outside a Victoria’s Secret and always has his hand where you can’t see it. It’s just painful! Can't someone just lock this movie up for indecent exposure already? It's seriously getting uncomfortable to watch this for more than a few minutes at a time.

Then we get Bacon’s Big Escape, in which the guy guarding the research labs does the maximum amount of hands-on security work possible by doing absolutely nothing to stop Bacon from leaving aside from just…shouting at him. That doesn’t work very well, you moron. We see that Bacon goes back to his apartment only to see the same girl from the opening walking around with her blinds open taking her clothes off – what, does she just leave her blinds open RIGHT IN FRONT OF HER while she’s taking off her clothes all the time? What a tease!

Anyway, Bacon goes over and decides to mess around with her and then rape her. Because…well, yeah, I got nothing. Then he goes back to the lab and kills a dog with his bare hands for no reason, too. Isn’t this movie just SO HAPPY AND CHEERFUL? It’s just peachy!

Alright, let’s just wrap this up. So the two good scientists tell the Pentagon what happened and then Bacon decides to go on a killing spree, because I guess sitting down and talking about his feelings with a psychiatrist was out of the question. In between we get some scenes with the blonde chick scientist and her secret boyfriend making out with the window open – GOD, CAN’T THESE MORONS CLOSE THEIR BLINDS EVEN ONCE? – and then the movie gets off its meds again and decides it’s suddenly a slasher film. So we get to see every scientist somehow getting killed off by Bacon with nobody even noticing for the first few times. It’s not like they’d scream or anything else that would give it away, right?

Bacon locks them in a storage room or something after stabbing the one guy who he was rivals with or whatever…although that guy is later shown to be perfectly fine somehow; I don’t know. The blonde chick sets him on fire – guess nobody taught him to stop, drop and roll – and then he vanishes again, only for the blonde chick to turn on the sprinklers in the building and reveal where he is like they SHOULD have done 20 minutes ago! Then some stuff blows up and causes the building to start collapsing, I guess.

After Bacon comes back AGAIN and visible this time – how? It’s never revealed – he kisses the blonde chick again but then she makes him fall down into oblivion with the elevator shaft that was falling from the ceiling. I guess THAT finally killed him, in case being set on fire three times in a row didn’t.

Oh, and you know that one scene in every movie like this where the cops usher out the two survivors with a blanket out through all the smoke and rubble? Yeah. That’s what they end on in this movie. No resolution, no denouement; just that same cheap-ass scene that we see in every dime a dozen movie ever made with the credits over it in some cheap font. It’s like they just said, “OK, we’re done with the two hour festival of misogyny, rape, animal torture and all around debauchery. We’re just going to end on something generic and lame! We hope you enjoyed this mess of brutality and unholiness. Please come back next time as we remake Salo: 120 Days of Sodom!”

OK, a bit of an exaggeration? Yes. But still. This is horrible! It’s like a manic-depressive schizophrenic was assigned to write the script; it’s just so unpleasant and so relentlessly ugly that it’s unbelievable. How am I supposed to be entertained by this? It’s like they wanted to cram in every goddamn morally objectionable thing they could. It’s stupid, it’s weird and it’s awkward as hell. I mean, I guess there are a few parts that are pretty entertaining, most to do with Bacon before he goes crazy, but that's far from the majority of the film. This movie sucks, and I can't see why any sentient soul would ever like it. God, and I still have the sequel to review too, don't I? Damn...well, let's get it over with, then.

Review: Hereafter (2010)

I’d just like to say that there will be SPOILERS in this review, so if you don’t like those, then don’t read this one yet! Until after you see the movie. Then I encourage you to read it and tell me how right I am about it.

Director: Clint Eastwood

Starring: Matt Damon, Cecile De France, Frankie McLaren, George McLaren

Website: hereafter.warnerbros.com

What can you say about Clint Eastwood, anyway? He’s a legend. He’s acted in a million awesome movies and directed a ton of other awesome ones. His last film, Gran Torino, was my favorite of the ones he’s directed that I’ve seen so far, but I think this newest one beats even that. Hereafter is just a stunning piece of film.

It’s just so refreshing to see something like this. I don’t really know why, since it’s not like this movie is really doing anything that groundbreaking – unless telling a good story is groundbreaking. Eastwood’s directing style is really bare bones and simple, and surprisingly, that’s really all he needs to bring out the power in his stories, anyway. He doesn’t need anything else. There isn’t anything about this that needs to be trimmed down – he shows everything in a very stark, direct way that doesn’t try to hide anything and shows you everything that needs to be seen.

So, what is that plot anyway? Well, it’s one of those movies like Magnolia or Crash where you get a bunch of stories of different characters that are connected in some way. Although honestly this movie is better than either of those. It’s just so well done that the stories don’t even feel that separate – they really just feel like one big, entwined web, and that’s how all of these films should feel. One story involves Matt Damon as an introverted psychic who can see dead people in the mind of the living, and another involves a woman who was a victim of a tsunami. A third involves a little boy whose twin brother has been killed in a truck accident.

The cinematography is just excellent here, with great, vivid coloration, snappy, on-point shots and a huge, epic sweep to it all that makes the opening tsunami sequence one of the most memorable you will see this year. Watch as the giant wave sweeps over everything; it’s downright terrifying to imagine yourself on the ground there. It just comes right out of nowhere! There’s really no build up; just like in real life, the tsunami wastes no time laying waste to this unsuspecting Hawaii city. The randomness of it all makes the whole scene even more powerful – life is very fragile, you see.

From there the movie progresses like a trident in three different, parallel streams. Matt Damon’s story about being a psychic and insisting it’s more of a curse than a gift is really captivating. And he makes a damn good case for why it’s more of a curse, too. I mean, the guy is coaxed into ‘reading’ a girl he likes and finds out inadvertently that her dead father molested her as a child. And then she just never comes back to see him. That’s pretty harsh, and probably not even the tip of the iceberg in terms of his life. It’s just maddening how little we’re actually given about this character, and how much what we are given affects us. It’s really stunning. They could have made a whole movie about him, but they still had other stories to tell, too.

The second one is about a woman played by Cecile De France, who is attractive in an offbeat, odd kind of way, and a great actor at that. She plays a French businesswoman on holiday in Hawaii when the tsunami from the opening hit. She and her co-worker, who she is having an affair with, go home and try to continue their regular lives – note here that he later ditches her for another girl; having an affair does one very little good in the end as the cheater will just do the same thing to you. De France, after a strange near death experience, simply can’t focus on mundane worldly business anymore, and she is given some time off to get her act together. She starts writing a book and it ends up coming out very differently from what she expected…

The third story belongs to a little boy played by Frankie and George McLaren – they’re twins, and alternate playing each character, I guess. But the one the story is about is Marcus, who lives with his brother Jason and their deadbeat drunk mother, who, in a refreshing turn of events, actually really loves them and cares about them, and it’s mutual. The boys view their mother’s addiction as something to overcome, and the way they help her evade the investigators who think she’s unfit as a parent is just golden. I wish they had given her more screen time, but then again, like the rest of this movie, it’s not really that necessary. And plus, she serves as a device to let him leave the house and do what he pleases more often. Which makes up the core of his story as he needs to do that quite a bit.

He travels around to different psychics trying to find a way to talk to his brother and get closure. Some of them are pretty funny, but of course it’s building up to the obvious payoff of meeting Matt Damon’s character, who tries to escape his brother’s pushy ways by going to England to visit Charles Dickens’ house…it makes much more sense when you watch the movie, trust me. He can’t escape his demons anywhere he goes, mostly thanks to the internet.

One of the other great scenes comes when Marcus is trying to get on a train and his hat is knocked off his head, causing him to miss it. But then the train blows up anyway so I guess he didn’t miss much…this really becomes resonant once Marcus and Matt Damon meet up.

Really, this is a movie about dealing with death, plain and simple. People do it in different ways. While sadly people in the real world can’t get closure as easy as they could by simply coaxing Matt Damon into reading their palms and getting messages from them, the film still shows very realistic portrayals of people who just don’t know what else to do. And it goes both ways, as Damon’s character is human, too, and being a bridge between the living and the dead is tough, and taxing. He has emotions too, and his curse compromises any deeper relationships inevitably. Nobody gets off scot free.

I think the point is really driven home by De France, who has the smallest of the three main roles but also the most pivotal point of the film – as she is the only one who has seen the Hereafter, nameless in the film itself, and come back alive. It’s depicted in a blinding white cacophony of shaking images, with shadowy figures stumbling drearily around in a brief flash. This glimpse of what lies beyond is chilling and provocative – what else is there that the movie hasn’t shown us? It’s downright brilliant. By showing us very little Eastwood has sparked the imagination and crafted something truly inventive, intriguing.

Hereafter is just an awesome, breathtaking journey, and Eastwood’s finest directorial venture that I’ve seen to date. There’s just something so good about this movie, like a plate of hot chocolate chip cookies in the afternoon after school. Hereafter is enthralling and sophisticated, with a maturity to its cinematography and scriptwriting that is commendable – it is nothing but a pure joy to behold. I don’t know what the movie of 2010 is going to be yet, but I can tell you that Hereafter is a definite contender and a fine, fine piece of filmmaking at any cost. Seminal.

Review: Baby Geniuses (1999)

Director: Bob Clark

Starring: Nobody who will look back on this with any fondness

Website: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118665/

Back at the drawing board, the devil-horned film executives stroke their oddly pointed beards…”What can we come up with next to drain the American – and thus rest of the world – populous of their hard earned cash and continue destroying the integrity of the film industry? How about we create a movie about…babies, babies that can talk to one another, and know all the secrets of the universe? Nah, that would be stooping too low even for us. Toss it in the garbage. We’ll just make a Halloween movie with Busta Rhymes instead.”

Little did they know, however, that a mutated slime monster from below the Earth named Bob Clark would find the aborted script and fuse it into his own body, thus creating the horrendous viral mockery of cinema that can only be dubbed Baby Geniuses.

The movie starts off with some secret agents wearing black suits running around in a maze chasing, apparently, an escaped prisoner of some kind. There are even helicopters in the sky, denoting how important this scenario is. Then we see a small child with curly brown hair wandering out through the maze as well. Hey, director Bob Clark! Someone let their kid onto the set again! Come get him before they trample him!

No, if you can believe it, this is the movie’s gimmick. This whole team of guys is out looking for this one little kid, because – get this; hold onto your seats – he’s been genetically enhanced somehow to be super smart and apparently super strong as well. Yes, this must be the worst and most humiliating day of many of these guys’ lives as they literally get their asses handed to them by a toddler in a diaper. They have guns and a ton of manpower and everything, but nope, this kid gets the better of them. They manage to capture him in the end though, and they put him back in their secret lab, which is literally labeled ‘secret lab’ on their computers, because…I guess they figured it would be too obvious if they made a Facebook page for it.

Yes, this little tyke is named Sly, and we soon see that he can talk to the other little children at the research lab through some incredibly fake looking superimposed lips in a language all their own. Their dialogue is so stupid that I’d rather listen to a power drill for an hour and a half:

Sly: We have to use our secret weapon.

Basil: And what's that?

Sly: Duby - What's the one thing grown-ups fear most about us babies?

Duby: Dirty Diapers!

Sly: You're wrong!

Duby: Well they make those stupid faces when they change our diapers!

Sly: Its our Intelligence everyone, Our Intelligence... Dirty Diapers... that's funny though.

Apparently before age two…okay, hold on. I can’t write this. I honestly fear I will get stupider if I write this next part. Give me a second.

Okay, let’s just get it over with in one shot, like taking really bitter medicine: Before age two, babies actually know all the secrets of the universe and can communicate them with one another in a highly complex language. Then after age two they ‘cross over’ and lose all the knowledge they had.

…this is probably one of the stupidest things I’ve ever heard in any movie I’ve literally ever watched, but for the sake of brevity, I’m not going to rant about it. Nope, I’m just going to…skip over that rant, because I’m still not quite over Exorcist II yet and don’t feel like getting worked up over this crap. Instead, I just have one question: if these kids are supposed to be babies, like little babies, then why do they all look like five year olds instead of one year olds? Just look at this. I don’t know who they thought they were going to fool, but it’s like they shot themselves in the foot with their own ridiculous plot device! The kids aren’t able to communicate and know the universe’s secrets anymore after age two, but look at these kids! They’re at least three or four at the latest! Come on, at least give us a little bit of consistency!

Oh yeah, and the assistant scientist is played by Christopher Lloyd. Wow. For some reason I get the idea he won’t be listing this in his acting resume in the future!

Okay, so we see two parents played by Kim Cattrall and Peter MacNicol, who are the unknowing foster parents of Sly’s secret twin brother Whit. They’re attending a banquet for the opening of an indoor theme park run by BabyCo., the company that is doing all those secret experiments on babies that we saw in the opening. The leader of this corporation is Elena Kindle, who is Cattrall’s aunt and who literally just comes out and says, “We are dedicated to proving that babies have a language of their own.” Wow. Just…wow. I can’t even make a joke about something that silly.

Also, tell me this isn’t going to show up in your nightmares tonight, I dare you:

People let their child go near that? That's not funny that's disturbing as hell.

So after a pointless sequence showing us the random amusement park attractions we’ll never see again, we go back to MacNicol’s house where we see a random bus driver played by Dom DeLuise and a random nurse…babysitter…maid lady too. Why are they there? I don’t know. Why is this kid there?

I don’t know. Guess what the key word is? RANDOM! Try actually defining your characters next time, guys!

So then we see exactly what the intelligence of little Whit is. Dom DeLuise asks him to hand him the hammer to fix the sink, and Whit tosses the hammer right on his balls. That’s great, kid; really great. You…probably just damaged the man for life, but HUH HUH HUH, at least it’s funny!

Then Sly, after at least five or six more attempts, actually manages to escape from BabyCo and go out into the world. He for some reason switches clothes with a little girl…that’s pretty friggin’ weird…and gets into a mall to try on some different clothes. He dresses up in all kinds of ridiculous costumes that your parents would show your girlfriend to embarrass you before your prom night, and even does a dance number, because I guess this movie needed some more fodder for the trailer.

Oh yeah he's a regular dance floor veteran, this kid right here.

Somehow, without any rational explanation, Sly and Whit coincidentally get mixed up the next day while crawling around in a playpen and wearing clothes that are almost identical. Of course first we get some shots of Sly beating up these wonderfully competent bodyguards trying to catch him again…because that’s not old by now…but then we see exactly how serious Christopher Lloyd is about his work. He looks into that wide-angle lens shot at Whit and says, “You’re interfering with our great work!”

"Marty! We need to go back in time and slap me for taking this goddamn role!"

Well, great work, then! I had no idea! Seriously, shut up you hack, you can talk after you stop getting outsmarted by a little boy who still isn’t out of the diaper stage yet. You’re being upstaged by the unfunny version of the Rugrats, for Pete’s sake. You have no place to act self-righteous at all. How did you even go from making a time-traveling DeLorean to working on super smart babies anyway? You’re breaking my heart here, Mr. Lloyd! You’re breaking my heart!

By the way, this is the real reason that recession happened in 2008. Because the government was spending all their money doing stupid shit like…making genius babies for years and years! Doesn’t that make you proud to be an American?

So apparently, and take notes here, MacNicol can read the kids’ lips and magically understand what they’re saying in their…mystical baby-language. He talks to them in the same manner that people talked to Lassie in those old TV shows. And it’s stupid. And nobody ever thinks to question this beyond just looking at him a little funny?

We see some ridiculous shots of the parents having a diaper changing contest for no real reason, because I guess that’s just how they have fun in this world. Insipid. And then we get this joke:

Margo: Stick to your rapping Ice Shtick and leave the smart remarks to those with IQs over 40.

Dickie: It's not rap, it's mantras.

Margo: I was chanting mantras before you were born.

Dickie: [pause] You were chanting mantras before Buddha was born.

Margo: That's pretty good, Dickie, that's pretty good.

No, no it is not. Please go shoot yourselves. Both of you.

Oh, and there’s also some crap in there where apparently Sly and the other kids hypnotize Dom DeLuise and Dickface, or whatever his name is, to pick their noses and roll their tongues around.

THIS IS WHERE THE MONEY FOR YOUR SUPER-INTELLIGENCE EXPERIMENTS IS GOING, GUYS.

Elena stages a plan to move all the babies to Lichtenstein after just one experiment doesn’t work out, and we see Sly mobilizing the forces of all the babies he can find using psychic powers that he apparently has. God…I’m getting dumber as I type these words, just thinking about this again. Elena tries to kidnap the babies but is foiled by Sly and his…weird army of psychic babies that he trained. You know, he actually mobilizes weapons to attack these guys on the ground. That’s not funny and charming, you guys. That’s actively scary. What’s he going to be like when he gets older?

Eugh. So we see Elena taking personal pride in her victory over these little toddlers, because…I guess she’s not getting laid at all. Or something. Seriously, lady, they’re still just little kids at the end of the day. You look more like a bully than anything. But wait! We have an angry mother coming out to beat the ever-loving daylights out of this wannabe Cruelle DeVille, and saving the day once and for all!

Baby Geniuses…holy hell, where do I even start? Oh, right. THE PLOT IS FRIGGIN’ STUPID. I mean come on! Babies know all the secrets of the universe? Like hell! Even the movie can’t even convince itself of that, since we never see or hear any of these supposed ‘secrets’ coming out of those babies’ mouths! And how are we supposed to believe for even one second that these kids can constantly outsmart all the adults working at these super-secret, high tech scientific facilities…

You know what? Screw it. I’m not even going to bother. Because you know how the old saying goes, anyone who tries to argue with a retarded film like Baby Geniuses is no better themselves. Or…or something like that.

P.S., support the March of Dimes and help improve infant health! Just click below:

www.marchofdimes.com

Review: Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977)

Director: John Boorman

Starring: Linda Blair, James Earl Jones, Richard Burton

Website: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076009/

"I was possessed by a demon. Oh, it's okay. He's gone!"

-Regan

It takes a special type to review so many bad movies. You start to question things – you start to really look at yourself and how you spend your time. Sometimes you feel like giving up. ‘This is stupid,’ you’ll say, wistfully looking at your work and deciding that you’ll stop doing it, that you’ll quit and start doing more productive things with your time. Like feeding homeless people, or helping autistic children. Yes, you’ll say…this is the way to a better, more productive life. But the demon is always there. Do you feel it yet? It’s nagging at you. Kind of…small at first; a little itch in the back of your mind. And the rage builds up, and then you find yourself there again, in the midst of it all, sitting through another product of humanity’s misery and lunacy.

Huh? Oh, right; I’m still doing a review. This one was hard to swallow, people. It’s just…yergh, what a bad one this was. If you remember the original Exorcist movie from ’73; well, it was a masterwork, with a sick, festering demeanor that really elevated it above anything else at the time. But even if you disagree with that statement, I think we can all come to the conclusion that the sequel, released a mere 4 years later, is an abomination upon man and beast alike. Yes, folks, this is Exorcist II: The Heretic, widely reviled as one of the worst films ever made in the history of filmmaking. This movie is so bad that most people don’t even want to acknowledge its existence, instead preferring to jump to the third Exorcist movie instead. It’s so bad it caused riots at the theater when it was first released. So, the question on everyone's mind: is it really that bad? Yes. Yes it is.

We kick off our magical ass-raping adventure with a black screen that displays the title while some cats are apparently being murdered in the background, as the horrible yowling noise that continues on throughout the credits suggests. As a side note, the soundtrack for this movie was done by the same guys who did Once Upon a Time in America and The Good, The Bad and the Ugly. Isn’t that sad? Then we see a priest trying to exorcise a girl in South America as a crowd protests. She gets set on fire somehow, lets out a really fake scream and then...we cut to a scene of people rehearsing a stage performance? What?

That’s a pretty messy transition there, guys. But don’t worry! If you didn’t like that, there’s only a MILLION MORE HORRIBLE TRANSITIONS like it to come! We’ve got two hours of movie and you can bet your shorts they’ll exploit this horrendous directing to the fullest!

Among the performers is Regan, the girl from the first movie, played again by Linda Blair. Yeah. She’s grown up a lot in the last few years. And the movie won’t let you forget that, either, as every scene she’s in seems to show off her perky breasts like trophies, because I guess that’s all her vapid, stupid character has going for her. Not that I have a problem with this, though – probably one of the only redeeming factors in this movie. Might as well just make two hours of Linda Blair stripping. I know her character is only 16 here, but…you’d still end up with a more integral, intelligent movie than we have here.

Yes, apparently she’s still under the care of a psychiatrist to make sure the memories of her demonic possession don’t resurface, I guess. She also has a caretaker named Sharon, played by Kitty Winn, who reprises another role from the original film. I’d go into more detail here but really there’s no substance – the scenes are so short they’re gone before you can even process them; what, is the movie on speed? And were they…instructed to act like they do here? I call it acting but really I don’t know what they were doing. They’re so wooden and so completely devoid of any kind of feeling that it’s like I’m watching the robots from the Jetsons emoting in a horror film. Take a guess if you think I ever wanted to see the robots from the Jetsons acting in a horror movie. Just guess.

If you picked ‘yes,’ then go lobotomize yourself with the blunt end of a hammer. There’s no hope for you.

So we see the priest from the opening, whose name is Father Lamont, talking to an older guy who I think taught Tommy Wiseau from The Room how to act; he’s just about as stiff. The older guy tells him to investigate the death of Father Merrin from the first movie, who is under posthumous charges of heresy as the church didn’t like what he was writing about, not wanting to acknowledge Satan as an actual evil presence anymore. I do think this is a pretty interesting subplot, but of course it’s never given any due attention and quickly fades into the background. Disappointment, thy name is Exorcist 2. But don’t worry, there’s more of that to come, too.

That scene ends abruptly after like 2 minutes again, and I really have to wonder how anyone didn’t just go up to director John Boorman and kick him straight in the ballsack for this, because how am I supposed to be invested in this movie when EVERY SINGLE SCENE just randomly cuts off and ends, no tension whatsoever? It’s insipid as shit! This is really textbook bad filmmaking right here. Seriously, guys. Try and make a scene longer than a minute and a half.

Okay, so we have Father Lamont coming to Regan’s psychiatrist to try and talk to her. Somehow this leads to a strange, strange experiment where Regan and her psychiatrist are hooked up to a machine that links their brain waves, or some shit like that; I don’t really know. It flashes a light repeatedly while a cheap synthesizer plays one plodding note over and over again, all while the characters talk in monotones that somehow manage to be even less convincing than the regular acting.

Well, that’s alright. It will end after a minute and a half, right? And then we can move onto the next scene and forget about this abysmal crap.

…right? RIGHT?!

No, apparently THIS is the scene they were saving the mindnumbingly long duration for! Yep, this is like 5 straight minutes of nothing but one-note synths and a flashing light over the characters’ faces while they babble about ‘coming down to one another,’ or some other inane garbage that the writers probably shat out of their asses while on a marijuana high. Have you noticed the weird sexual undertone to this whole thing? Talking about ‘trying the machine,’ ‘going deeper,’ ‘doing it like I showed you’…it’s pretty damn disturbing, and I don’t think I’m alone when I say I don’t need to see a threesome with Linda Blair, a psychiatrist and a priest – that sounds more like a really bad joke. The synth noise in the background is just hysterical, too; like hypnosis performed by a drunken sloth on Ritalin.

Look at that; it's like they hired the special effect editor's five year old to help with their movie.

Don’t you always think of these images when you think of The Exorcist? Isn’t it just a perfect fit?

Through a highly silly attempted recreation of the demonic possession of the first film Father Lamont finds out the demon’s name is Pazuzu, which sounds kind of like a particularly colorful Pokemon name or something. We see possessed Regan again in the vision, except her voice is now more like a kooky old cat lady rather than the embodiment of evil from the original film. Then we get some highly weird, drugged out montages of African wilderness and animal life through the eyes of a locust flying around. Did the movie just decide it wanted to be a documentary instead? Maybe the director wanted to go to Africa and just figured, hey, why not put what I saw on my Safari tour into the movie I’m making? That’s good filmmaking!

Run! The cameraman from Exorcist II is going to put us in his movie!

Augh, and they’re still going with this one scene, too! What is up with this? Just fucking end it already!

Of special note is at the end of the scene when the psychiatrist lady actually gets a heart attack from being wired to the machine. Isn’t that silly? I guess it backfired, huh lady? And then after that we see the movie turning into a satanic Lifetime special as the movie shows us Regan using her unconscious psychic powers to get an autistic girl to talk. This scientific miracle should have been studied and marveled over by everyone in the world, but I guess it’ll have to wait, as the psychologist doesn’t want Regan to study these powers until she’s older. Why? No real reason. That’s just how this fucking movie rolls I guess!

So since Father Lamont saw some weird visions of a little African kid surviving a demonic possession just like Regan did except over in Africa, he wants to go there and track down the kid, who he thinks will be able to help him figure out how to stop the demon, and has to disobey the church like a kid with his hand stuck in the cookie jar. Even though they wanted him to investigate what happened to Father Merrin, now that he actually has a lead, they don’t want him to do it anymore. Weird. It turns out that kid has grown up into James Earl Jones…but first we have to sit through some highly pointless, aimless scenes of Father Lamont wandering around in Africa with some tribal men. Yep, the movie is set in Africa now! Surprised? Yeah. Because you really think of tribal Africa when you think of The Exorcist. That makes a lot of sense.

But hey, at least we have a naked chick to show for no good reason! And Ned Beatty is in the film now, too! Surprised?

...that's really random. Both of these images are.

No, it’s all building up to the big meeting with James Earl Jones, who can apparently give Father Lamont all the answers he needs. Yes, this guy right here is going to finally reveal what this movie has been about all along and give us some much needed coherency. THANK YOU, Mr. Jones! You are a legend! You are a…locust?

….Hahaha! Hahahahahaha! What the hell is that? Are we really supposed to take that seriously? You know what I think happened? I don’t even think they told him to wear that costume. I think he probably just wears it randomly whenever he feels like it! It makes just about as much sense as anything else. He just walked onto set wearing nothing but that costume for the day and they just had to shrug and go with it. Maybe he knew this movie sucked and was just having fun or something. I couldn’t blame him for that one.

Then Jones takes Lamont on a tour of his research facility, because the whole locust thing was really just a dream – yeah, I know, just go with it – and talks to Lamont for a long time about locusts. Lamont goes back home and then everything Jones talked about is quickly forgotten and shoved into the movie’s abyssal ass-crack of forgettableness just like everything else in the plot. WHAT? I’m sorry but WHAT? You wasted ALL THAT TIME and showed us ALL THOSE POINTLESS SCENES just to forget about it the second they’re out of Africa? And he didn’t even learn anything! He just listened to Jones talk about locusts and then left! What happened to…oh, I don’t know, INVESTIGATING like you were supposed to? Did anyone even bother proofreading this script? Is anyone even aware of what they’re doing here? MAKE MORE SENSE.

Okay, so through more recycled scenes of the locust’s POV flying around Africa and mind-numbing scenes with that brain synchronizer machine that makes the synth noise, the movie reaches its climax, which is sort of like the armpit hairs of the movie Poltergeist. Somehow Lamont gets possessed, and then Sharon sets a car on fire, and there’s suddenly two different versions of Regan, and everything is flying around and exploding, and…it’s a mess. Sharon dies from some burn wounds and then the movie just kind of ends, no resolution at all.

Holy mother of shit, this was a bad one. I mean, what the hell can I even say about this? What can I possibly do to sum up why this movie is so horrible? It’s just unsalvageable. The acting is some of the worst out there, the directing is muddled in faux-symbolic stupidity and the storyline just makes no sense. At all. Plot threads are introduced with little fanfare and cut out with even less. Scenes plod along until they’re given the ax unceremoniously, ending without any kind of resolution. And the crowning jewel of the movie’s accomplishments is James Earl Jones wearing a locust costume; can you possibly get any less sane? This is just the cinematic version of the green vomit-like bile that Regan spat out in the first movie, like it mutated into a festering abortion of film. Just heinous. HEINOUS!

Happy Halloween!

Review: D-Tox (2002)

Director: Jim Gillespie

Starring: Sylvester Stallone, Charles S. Dutton, Polly Walker, Kris Kristofferson

Website: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0160184/

When I say Sylvester Stallone, what do you think of? A horrible slasher-thriller that rips off every other slasher and every other thriller ever made, is run through an unbearable miasma of white snow and dark shadows so that you can't see anything that's going on and has no trace of anything resembling good filmmaking? Oh, you...don't think of that? That's because nobody knows about this movie, called D-Tox, and rightfully so. This movie is so bad that Universal Pictures doesn't even want to admit that they distributed it. It's so horrible that it actually has a reputation for being unwatchable among film critics. How bad can a Stallone-ified slasher movie get? I bet you're just on the edge of your seat for that one!

Our movie begins with a rambling onslaught of deep-throated narration that is so pretentious that even the SAW team didn’t want it. It’s also done in the most garbled, slurred voice ever used for one of these serial killer manifestos – I think some speech classes are in order, guys. Make sure you can enunciate your words before you go all philosophical and try to justify your killings. I think Jigsaw is rolling in his grave right now.

I want to play a game...a game far away from anything to do with this movie...

Then we switch to Sylvester Stallone buying a wedding ring for his wife before going out and drinking with a bunch of angry, drunk cops who are trying to catch that guy from the opening sequence after he killed one of their own – or something like that. It’s all pretty well, but why the hell does he come back inside his house with a little wind up cymbal monkey? Is it supposed to…represent the deep emotions running through Stallone as he wrestles with his own grief as well as the proposition of marrying his wife? Either way, they’re happy here, which most likely means they won’t be soon enough.

After that we see one of the cops from before stumbling around in his dark house when he hears a knock at the door. He calls out to his friend Jimmy and sarcastically asks if he is going to tuck him in – and then is promptly greeted by a power-drill through the eyehole of the door. If only they just wouldn’t look through the damn thing then I guess he wouldn’t be able to kill them as easily – but this guy does and is promptly shot by the murderer, because I guess knives and chainsaws are out of fashion – even though he uses a knife later on, making this whole thing kind of silly. Oh, and his tag line is “ICU” cut across their faces in blood, with their eyes gouged out. Yeah, with their eyes gouged out, like they just saw an advanced screening of the movie they had made. And really, “I see you”? Could you possibly pick a more generic serial killer tagline? Scooby Doo villains have had better.

And wouldn’t you know it? Stallone’s wife is killed in the very next scene; they really aren’t wasting any time here. Apparently the killer is doing this because Stallone led the case against him years ago when he was trying to kill prostitutes. “Oh no, he tried to stop me from doing a crime? HOW HEINOUS!” Seriously; they obviously didn’t catch this guy, so what the hell? If Stallone stopped him then why don’t they know more about him? Shouldn’t they have some clues as to who he is if he’s already committed some terrible crimes in the past? Why did he wait until now to attack Stallone’s wife? ANWERS, MOVIE. I DEMAND THEM!

So after a series of Se7en rip-offs the movie decides that it’s bored with this time period and switches to three months later, where the big black Uncle Phil from Fresh Prince knockoff who is apparently the FBI captain comes in and finds Stallone sitting alone at a bar, looking miserable. He tells him about a detox center run by cops for cops, and Stallone doesn’t really want to do it. He hands Stallone a gun and tells him to blow his own head off. Stallone doesn’t do that, and he just gets up and leaves. Uncle Phil stands there shouting at him but does not try to follow him or do anything else really – real true friend there, huh? Stallone goes home and drinks in the rain and then slits his wrists, because even though a gun won’t do it for him, I guess slitting his wrists is just fine.

We cut to another time later where it’s unclear what happened after the whole wrist-cutting scenario, with Stallone just driving in the car with Uncle Phil to the detox center. Did we miss a scene or something? I thought he didn’t want to go to this place. What changed? Anyway, it looks like a giant metal porto-potty stuck halfway in the ground. Just look:

So we go through a sequence of scenes with the patients at the detox center – which is more like a fortress as it is completely isolated from society in a snowy wasteland – talking with Kris Kristofferson and “battling their demons” – which is stupid, as they aren’t really doing much but arguing and wallowing in misery. Real top notch detoxification program you got there, doc!

Stallone makes friends with this woman who for some reason is sympathetic more with him than with the other patients…but then to be fair, maybe it’s because he is the only guy in this damn place who isn’t neurotic, doesn’t have a stick up his ass and isn’t older than dust. One of the other guys somehow finds a needle and kills himself with a drug overdose. I guess the security system just really sucks, doesn’t it? How about some…I don’t know, cameras or something to monitor these things? Seriously, what kind of morons would just leave lethal drugs lying around for a bunch of junkies and addicts who are obviously depressed to get at any time?

Then we see more of Kristofferson’s brilliant ideas of healing as one of the guys picks on this old man cop for letting his partner die on the field, making him cry. The first guy then starts saying that this is an example of why the program won’t work, because the guys are too damaged.

…seriously? Seriously?! That’s ridiculous! You can’t just bully the victim of a horrible tragedy right after he was admitted to a place to get better and then say the program won’t work when he gets broken up about it! That’s why he was admitted in the first place! What are you, retarded? This is like saying, “hey, I think we should just kill mental patients instead of trying to treat them. Clearly they’re already too far gone and any amount of treatment will never change who they are inside. So c’mon! Throw ‘em in the burner!”

Ugh. And then the douchebag continues acting like an ass even when this other guy gets sick and starts having convulsions. He even makes fun of Stallone for his wife dying. Who is this guy? Where did they find him, the asshole farm of America? He’s completely one dimensional; it’s like watching a cartoon character. Doesn’t he have any humanity or remorse at all? Why the hell is he even in here? He doesn’t seem to have any problems beyond just being a crazy fuck!

“HAHA, your wife got butchered by a psychotic killer who you still haven’t apprehended yet! You’re so stupid!” Man, this movie makes about as much sense as a feminist at a strip club.

So the next twenty minutes or so mostly consists of a very half-baked, uninspired murder mystery as we try to figure out who’s killing all of these people and making it look like a suicide. Kris Kristofferson even gets the ax in classic slasher style from this dude in a parka with his face covered…it’s revealed that apparently one of the orderlies at this giant metal dildo in the ground was actually a veteran who killed his squad leader on a mission, or something like that. Why did they hire him? This is so stupid that even the characters can’t believe it as they rightfully express their astonishment! But it’s never really brought up again, making this entire scene completely useless.

Then the movie turns into a bloody white Christmas as we see our indistinguishable personalities run around in the snow and get hacked up by the killer, who is apparently incredibly lucky to have the most convenient snowstorm in the world to attack these guys in. Somehow, in the flurry of cold snow and wind, he actually gets one of the guys hanging from something. Yeah, apparently he took the time to do an incredibly elaborate ritualistic kill in the middle of a FUCKING SNOWSTORM. Never mind that he just kills some of the other guys with a knife to the throat or something, because that’s not inconsistent. OK, writers. I know it’s hard to use your basic brain functions to come up with a plot thread that is at least a teeny bit realistic, but you’re going to have to try. You’re going to have to try for the sake of all of us.

"I" think that's incredibly retarded...

Oh, wait, what’s that? We find out a few scenes later that he also wrote “ICU” underneath that guy’s eyelids? Yes, folks, this movie has now turned into a retarded ‘ghosts of the past come back to haunt you in the most incredibly implausible ways’ slasher made popular by…oh, God, you’re not serious. No wonder! This movie was made by director Jim Gillespie, who also made I Know What You Did Last Summer. Now it all makes sense! Of course this movie is a retarded brain mash of epic proportions. Of course it has no bearings or groundings in reality or any kind of good taste. Now I get it!

Oh, right. I’m still doing the review. They find out it’s this British guy who did it all the whole time, do not marvel at his incredible lack of a life as he wasted this much time on an elaborate plan to mock this one specific FBI agent, and then it just sort of ends in a crappy dissolving montage. Phew.

I think drinking a lot would be a viable solution to forgetting D-Tox. I wouldn't begrudge you for taking that route if you've seen this one. I mean, this makes I Know What You Did Last Summer look like a masterpiece! There’s just nothing about this tripe that is in any way compelling. I was hoping this would be kind of funny or campy or something – it’s a slasher movie with Sylvester Stallone for Pete’s sake! – but it’s not even that. The plot is stupid beyond belief, the characters are so transparent they might as well just be like the little stick figures you see on public restrooms with name plates slapped on them, and it’s just DULL. Everything about it just sucks. So fuck you Jim Gillespie! I think I’m going to go call the Expendables to dispose of this toxic cinematic waste…

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.

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