Mujer Del Diablo's Reviews From Hell

2005-06-07T20:49:00.000-07:00

IRREVERSABLE
2002
Directed by Gaspar Noé
Running time: 97 minutes
French with English subtitles

The plot for this movie is rather simple: horrible things happen to good people. But in this case, the horror takes form of the unmentionable of situations and the good person comes in the form of undeniably beautiful and seemingly untouchable Monica Bellucci.

So begins the tale of Irreversable. This film is shot in reverse order and desplayed in constant swirling camera angles, which seem to prepare you for the chaos, violence and sick feeling you will now come to realize once the story "unfolds". Beware, this movie makes Memento seem like childs play.

In Irreversable, we are immediately introduced to two violent men searching for someone in a gay sex club. They are desperate and determined, frothing with anger and rage. You have no idea what they are looking for or who they are looking for. The camera continues to draw you in and at the same time the images and words start to transform the situation to something somewhat clearer. What these men are seeking is vengence for something so horrible that when this horror is finally revealed, you understand their rage.

I cannot go any further in describing or letting you now "how it ends", because the end of this movie is really the beginning of the real story in chronological time. But the irony of such humble beginnings displayed at the end of the movie doubles the intensity of how raw this movie really is. The imagery, the tragedy, the violence will keep you RAW FOR DAYS.

There is no real way to describe how this movie ends. Sad. Tragic. Graphic. Vomitatious. Violent. Disturbing. Brilliant. Irreversable.

Also recommended: Haine, La (Hate 1995) & C'est arrivé près de chez vous (Man Bites Dog 1992)

2005-04-13T21:47:00.000-07:00

THE STORY OF THE WEEPING CAMEL
2004
Directed by Byambasuren Davaa
Running Time 87 minutes

Hardly a "documentary" as much as it is cultural/spiritual observation, The Story of The Weeping Camel is a subtle and simple tale of a family of a Mongolian shepherds whose otherwise harmonious and successful camel breeding "farm" is interrupted by an ornery female camel who rejects her unique newborn colt.

It is a wonder how this group of film makers came about arriving and filming this Mongolian family in the remote Gobi Desert during such a dramatic shepherd challenge. What can be respected about this film maker and the crew is their ability to not interfere with this family's experience by narration. They simply show what's going on and allow the family to be themselves. There is no narration except for the Mongolian family, who seem to ironically face the same difficulties that most other families face: running a business, dealing with their aging parents, their young children and a 5 year old boy who wants a brand new tv imported to his yurt immediately (they do not have electricity).

Although the family's herding business seems flawless, it turns out that one of the last pregnant camels in their flock is starting to act a little weird: she strays away from the camp and has to be retrieved over and over again by the patriarch of the family.

Through a difficult and violent labor, the camel finally gives birth to a beautiful white colt - very rare it turns out - but the family is shocked and worried because the mother will not allow the newborn to suckle. The shepherds gently try to persuade the mother camel to warm up to her child through what may seem to most people as bizarre methods: binding her rear legs together to prevent kicking the colt away, forcing her to smell her colt over and over again and then leaving mother and child to wander about together in the desert hoping that her post-partem depression will soon fade.

After about a weeks time, however, the family becomes seriously worried. The colt has only eaten very little from the family's force feeding and they fear he will not be able to live much longer. They turn to the elder folk in their family, who suggests there is only one solution: they must send for a spiritual musician to serenade the mama camel to get over her blues. Their two young boys are sent on the trek into a far away Mongolian Reservation camp to retrieve the specialist. Will they be able to find the savior for their colt?

The Story of The Weeping Camel is very gentle and organic, therefore not recommended for those with MOVIE A.D.D. or any other type of patience, attention or narcolepsy problem. But it is a pretty cool movie. The family we are introduced to in the 87 minutes this film runs showed such awesome fundamentals of things most people don't seem to have. Caring for the success of this one camel and her colt seems like a metaphor for the way they live their lives. We see their love for eachother, the love for their land, the respect for their elders, respect and sensitivity for the animals they tend and a spiritual tie to their religion and faith.

2004-10-10T16:25:00.000-07:00

THE AMERICAN NIGHTMARE
2000
Directed By Adam Simon
Running time 73 Minutes

For those who would like to take a more historical and theoretic approach to horror, you can thank your PUSSY ASSES for The American Nightmare.

Written and directed by cheesy horror dude, Adam Simon, The American Nightmare is the kind of documentary one could watch without being scared necessarily, yet walk away with an understanding of why, how and where horror movies get started.

Instead of taking a super geeky approach to behind-the-scenes horror movie special effects or subjecting you to slightly creepy Trekkie-like dorks spitting and frothing at the mouth explaining how horror movies changed their lives, the thorough approach of this documentary gives the horror genre (most noteably the 60s to mid 80s era) a high-class, intellectual edge.

One of the best reasons for watching this movie: get yourselves educated by the masters themselves. In the 73 minutes your eyeballs are glued to the TV, you will be listening to the legends of the 1960's, 70's & 80's...the directors, writers and creaters of the movies that changed most of our lives: John Carpenter, Wes Craven, David Cronenberg, George A. Romero....just to name a few. You'll learn about their personal nightmares and how they metamorphesized onto the big screen in the forms of Halloween, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Dawn of the Dead, etc.

So if you find yourself too scared this Halloween season to watch an actual horror movie, the least you can do is still act cool by saying you're EDUCATED on the subject.

Now go change your diapers before mommy comes back to find you've wet your little panties again.

2004-10-09T15:10:00.000-07:00

RINGU
1998
Directed by Hideo Nakata
English Subtitles
Run Time 100 minutes

Before the horror of The RING, there was Ringu (1998). The 1998 Japanese version may not bring the huge box office appeal of it's American counterpart, but the simplistic storyline and suspense techniques seem to carry its own.

Those who have seen THE RING may wonder what the major differences are between the two movies. THE RING follows RINGU almost exactly to the T in general. However, there are some differences. All in all, I felt that THE RING, although more horrific and suspenseful than it's counterpart, was actually more confusing than RINGU and after watching the original Japanese version, I find it more confusing that Americans make things more confusing when they don't need to make the confused even more confused.

RINGU, is the story of an independent young woman, Reiko Asakawa(Nanako Matsushima) who struggles to balance the role of single mother and journalist. She is currently interviewing school children for the purpose of finding out what socio-psychological aspects lay behind urban legends. Ms. Asakawa's current subject of obsession: an urban legend of a mysterious and enigmatic video tape with a deadly curse. After watching the video tape, the telephone rings (with no one on the other end) and exactly seven days after viewing the puzzling video,the viewer dies horribly. The film does a great job of immediately setting the tone of giving children a voice and trying to find the keys behind their minds, their fantasies, their imagination and how little of it fits or is misunderstood by the adult world. This, of course, becomes an important part of the plot.

During a standard interview with one of the many elementary school children, Ms. Asakawa asks the child if she knows anyone who has died from this video tape curse. The young child gives her the names of two teenagers, found dead in their car of a sudden heart attack.

intrigued by the child's innocent but naked honesty, Ms. Asakawa researches the incident, only to find that her interviewee was not lying: an article in the newspaper confirms the little girl's urban legend was not a legend afterall.

Meanwhile, tragedy has struck Asakawa's own family. The sudden death of her teenage niece forces Asakawa to confront her niece's classmates at the funeral. Reluctantly, the teenage girls divulge that Asakawa's niece was one of 6 friends who spent the weekend together at a remote cabin a week earlier and they all had watched a strange video tape. Asakawa's research into the teens' death verify that all 6 of the teenage vacationers died mysterious, gruesome deaths at exactly the same hour: their hearts simply stopped beating an their were faces frozen in terror.

To get more answers, Asakawa visits the cabin where the teens vacationed, to find an unlabeled video tape in the hotel lobby. Exhausted but curious, Asakawa watches the tape, full of strange, bizarre images. A few seconds after the tape, the phone in the cabin rings...with no one on the other end.

Somewhere deep down inside, Asakawa is freaked THE FUCK OUT. She makes a copy of the video tape, goes home and enlists the help of her dead-beat but hot ex-husband, Ryuji Takayama (Hiroyuki Sanada)to help her with the mystery. He watches the video and thinks nothing of it, as HIS phone does not ring after he watches it.

THIS IS WHERE THINGS GET A LITTLE....FREAKY.

Unlike THE RING, the two main characters, Asakawa and Ryuji start to have ESP capability after watching the video tape. This special telepathic passageway is what makes skeptic Ryuji turn around and believe in the urban legend. To make things worse, their son gets a hold of the video tape and watches it 2 days after his parents. They are both driven more than ever to find the answer to the video tape riddle. The couple does some research and finds out that the woman in one of the images in the video is a famous clairvoyant who died mysteriously by throwing herself into an erupting volcano on a remote Japanese island decades before. Asakawa and Ryuji's ESP "flashbacks" draw them towards this remote island and there they find that their mystery woman had been the victim of a witchhunt. They also find out that she was the mistress of a married doctor and that she and the doctor had a daughter together. As Asakawa and Ryuji get closer to the core of the island, they start to understand that the mysterious daughter of the clairvoyant possessed the power to kill people with her mind alone. Those who she "wished" dead fell to the ground: their hearts had stopped suddenly and their faces were frozen in terror.

Both Asakawa and Ryuji share a vision: the young girl was struck over the head by her father, the doctor, and pushed down a well. Later, the doctor covered up the well and his mistress jumped into the volcano in anguish. The doctor and island people, fearing the powers of the young girl's mind, pressured her father to commit the heinous act of doing away with his own flesh and blood. When Asakawa and Ryuji find out that the well lay beneath the cabin getaway where Asakawa's niece watched the video tape with her friends, they rush back to the location to "free" the body of the murdered spooky daughter at the bottom of the well, hoping to lift the curse forever.

Surely they have solved the mystery of the video tape...and saved themselves.

All seems right when they finally do find the remains of the murdered little girl and Asakawa, the first out of the three to watch the video tape, outlives the curse. Ryuji and Asakawa return to their separate homes, certain that Ryuji and their son are now free from the curse of the Well Girl.

...of course, it's not true!! For as soon as Ryuji comes upon his hour of doom (the seventh day on the hour of watching the video tape), his TV turns on by itself and the horrible continuation of the video tape plays...as we sit there watching a super duper creepy girl crawl out of the well and , through the tv screen and onto his apartment floor, killing Ryuji in the same manor as all of her other victims.

Upon hearing this, Asakawa has to be shitting in her pants, because she cannot figure out why she lived but Ryuji did not...and worse off, she has less than one day to figure out the riddle before her young son dies, too.

This review is long enough, plus I've given most of it away, don't you think? I'm not going to give you the answer to the riddle....Now get off your fat asses and go watch a scary movie....

2004-08-27T23:14:00.000-07:00

Mean Creek
2004

There are some films that are so simplistic in essence, they just move me. Mean Creek is one of those movies.

Brilliant in form, storyline and acting, this movie is a rare indy gem. Following in the likes of George Washington and Fresh, Mean Creek is a movie about a group of kids, bored and slightly troubled, who go on a river ride that turns out to be a nightmare.

But make no mistake, director Jacob Aaron Estes worked long and hard to make this "not another teen movie". In fact, I'd have to say that this movie has less to do about children than it does human nature.

The cast includes surprisingly impressive performances; raw in nature and so purely delivered, that you find yourself stressed in your seat as you watch the awkward moments, the looks of fear and shock in their eyes, as they process the world around them that fateful day at the river. The characters are played by Rory Culkin (Macaulay's younger brother), Ryan Kelley, Scott Mechlowicz, Trevor Morgan, Josh Peck and complete show stopper, Carly Schroeder.

Mean Creek carefully conveys the delicate balance of nature, strength and weakness. It is difficult to express in writing what this movie did to everyone in the theater after it ended. I looked around: people were blown away, speechless...as a hauntingly beautiful melody caresses you into the darkness of THE END (performed wonderfully by Estes' wife, Gretchen Lieberman).

The silence and dumbfounded faces were not quiet because of a two hour overload of images and over-acting. It is a rare look that can only be delivered by a brilliant and simple classic.

WATCH THIS MOVIE.

2004-08-06T17:20:00.000-07:00

Fruit Of The Vine
1999

Directed and produced by skaters Coan Nichols and Rick Charnoski, Fruit of the Vine is an interestingly simple movie about one specific topic: swimming pool skating. Pool skaters are a subculture within a subculture in the skating world. More rugged, simple and rustic than it's counterpart, Dogtown and Z Boys, this film explores and explains how swimming pool skating started on the West Coast in the mid-seventies and has exploded in the last 30 years with the development of skate parks.

Shot entirely in Super-8 film, Fruit of the Vine combines new and old footage of some of the best and most interesting "spots" where this type of skating goes down. Framed by a wide array of thrash metal and punk songs, this movie offers a no frills documentation of an exciting and carefree lifestyle.

For 70 minutes, the viewer follows skaters around the Southwest, Northwest and even the Northeast. Like the blonde, tan surfer boys in The Endless Summer (1966), these guys are looking for the ultimate place to ride. Instead of the search for the ultimate wave on tropical islands, the boys in Fruit of the Vine as well as their predecessors, have always used what society has thrown away: abandoned swimming pools, most of which are located in once-thriving cities and communities.

The dedication and determination of these pool skaters take you to the outskirts and underbelly of Southern California, the desolate abandoned stench of California's Salton Sea region, to the intense reserves of the Arizona desert. It also exposes you to the reasoning and hard work of skate park designers and developers, some who design for free. Why? As one skate park designer explains, "I do it for free because I don't want skate in a shitty skate park. If that means that I have to build it for free, then I will."

You really get a sense of the mentality and lifestyle of these skaters by watching this film. The voice-over narration and commentary adds to the depth of this movie by the likes of legendary skaters Lance Mountain, Steve Alba and David "Shaggy" Palmer. Some of these men have been skating pools since the mid 70s...and still dive in with fierce integrity and skill.

The quality of this documentary lay not in it's footage of the best skate moves you've ever seen. There are a lot of underground skate films that do that. Nor is it a polished, in depth, super produced masterpiece. You can get that from Dogtown and Z Boys.

For what it IS, though, this film was enjoyable and respectable. And it'll make you think twice the next time you see those skinny little skaters with their jeans falling halfway down their ass carrying a pair of bolt cutters heading towards an abandoned house in Southern California.

2004-07-28T22:15:00.000-07:00

King Arthur
2004

Cursed by the beauty, grandeur and all-around awesomeness of Excalibur, I should, in all actuality, be banned from commenting on any King Arthur-esque movie that has been made since. But perhaps it is only out of pity and disgruntled curmudgeonry that I find myself writing this review on such a sad, sad excuse of a film.

In my opinion, the order of King Arthur movies goes something like this:
1) Sword in the Stone (1963)
2) Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
3) Excalibur (1981)
4) First Night (1995)
5) King Arthur (2004)

Now, one of these kids is doing his own thing, one of these kids is not like the other....and even the completely retarded performances in "First Knight" could not outdo the hell that I endured watching "King Arthur".

This movie version of the King Arthur tale takes the position of telling the story in the essence of supposed facts, not fantasy. The Knights of the Round Table are not silver-clad honorable and gentle men, but members of English pagan tribes, who have been taken away from their families as teenagers in order to serve under the Roman army. For 15 years they have fought along side of Arthur (Clive Owen), not yet a king, but whose legacy as a handsome and fearless warrior echoes throughout the dwindling empire. Guinevere (Keira Knightley) is not a flirtacious damsel princess, but a feisty tribal warrior who questions Arthur's involvement with the Roman Empire and accuses him of being a traitor to his own people. With Guinevere's fierce guidance and ice-cold accusations, Arthur finds his roots once again and gains a warrior queen and rule of England.

I know what you're thinking, and all this sounded pretty good to me at first, too. But what I felt after about an hour of watching these facts unfold proved to be it's downfall. The acting was a bit on the cold side, the action scenes were mediocre at best. And then after about 1 hour 10 minutes, the inevitable, unmistakable sign of a bad movie was identified: I heard people in the movie theater start to yawn. I was one of these people, but not the only one. It didn't take a genius to theorize that the reason for our boredom was not due to a popcorn carb low but because we were simply apathetic to what we were watching. None of the characters held much depth or intense interactions. And although the movie was a good 2 hours, 10 minutes, I still felt pretty empty when it was all over.

The acting and character development was a dead lay. I was really looking forward to the awesome animalistic sex that should have occurred between good ole Gwen and Lancelot (Ioan Gruffudd), but no such luck! I think they might have shared a intense glance or two...? But that was it. How about a hot, long, angry sex scene between the future King and Queen? NO!! Just a 1 minute, cheesy exchange of "this could be our last night together, let's explore that" moment...I think maybe I saw a smidgen of Keira Knightley's thigh at some point, but I can't be sure because it was over before it began.

Perhaps a story like this does need a little more fantasy in it after all. Let's face it, the classic story of King Arthur is based on fact, but there is a legitimate need and a desire to acknowledge the beauty and fantasy of such a glorious story.

Note to future King Arthur directors: keep the dragons, wizards, hot sex and fog machines....ditch the realism.

2004-06-29T21:39:00.000-07:00

SAVED!
2004

Mary, Hilary-Faye and Veronica are best friends. Mary, Hilary-Faye and Veronica are also the most popular girls in their high school. Mary, Hilary-Faye and Veronica are envied by others around them.

Mary, Hilary-Faye and Veronica are also fanatic Christians obsessed with saving all souls in the name of the Lord...at any price!!

Saved! is a brilliant, refreshing dark comedy that fuses the same biting wit from the likes of Heathers and Election with the irony of obsessive God worship. Debut film director Brian Dannelly brings us more adult humor than hormone humor...a relief these days with all the useless teeny bopper movies out these days that struggle to entertain the brain. The result is a more tongue in cheek approach at the world of teenage angst, obsessively lost adults and the meaning of true acceptance.

Mary (Jena Malone)and her friends Hilary-Faye (Mandy Moore) and Veronica(Elizabeth Thai) look forward to their Senior year at an affluent, seemingly progressive Baptist high school. Most of their days are spent building three story high billboards of Jesus & forcing everyone around them to embrace the one and only true God and refining the art of prick-teasing.

But when Mary's boyfriend, Dean (Chad Faust), reveals to her that he is gay, she has a vision from Jesus that she must not leave Chad...she must be with him and help him through this ordeal. Mary does what any true Christian girl would do in this situation: she sleeps with him. Of course, this does not turn Chad straight, but you can't blame a Christian girl for trying.

Dean's parents eventually find out about his dark side and he is sent away to a Christian boot camp compound for un-wed Christian mothers and Christian homosexuals. Scared and shocked, Mary confides in her two best friends Dean's deep secret. But these are teenagers we're talking about, right? Christian or not, the word soon spreads, and Mary finds herself appalled by the surrounding hate towards her ex-boyfriend.

Ahh...the first epiphany of spiritual freedom: Mary starts to realize that the world of godliness is wrought with sin. As if things weren't bad enough, Mary now finds herself pregnant and alone with a gay man's baby. Keeping her pregnancy a secret, Mary's begins to spiral deeper into isolation and doubt about her faith. Her friends try to kidnap her, exorcise her and finally ostracize her when she fails to meet their strict policy of Jesus-worship.

WWMD?
(What Would Mary Do?)

Never fear, gentiles! Enter Rowland (Macaulay Culkin) and his punk-rock sex maniac girlfriend, Cassandra (Eva Amurri). Together they devise a plan to show the students, teachers and parents of their Baptist high school a thing or two about acceptance and love. And this time, without the help of Jesus, but the help of eachother.

2004-06-18T19:03:00.000-07:00

Bukowski: Born Into This
2003

I was first introduced to the works of Bukowski when I lived in Berkeley. Seemed that everyone had read his stuff...except me. I can remember reading his poems and short stories and being glued to the pages, to the words, to the thoughts. I asked myself, "Who is this man? Why do I feel what he feels?" It didn't take long for me to realize that all I had learned before about poetry, prose, novels...it was all bullshit. This was REAL. HE WAS REAL. Complex man, simple words. As Bukowski comments on his own fame: "Forgive me. I have your money, you have my soul."

Reading my first Bukowski was like losing my virginity: I could remember details in an over-all haze...but the FEELING it gave me, the feeling and memory I have now of it...is still unforgettable.

Those who know Charles Bukowski's work, know Bukowski's life. Unlike other poets and novelists of his day, Bukowski was one of the first artists to display his life and his perception of life in a way that was unabashedly honest, despicably ugly, sincerely perverted and often lonely.

Writing in a constant drunken haze, Bukowski, was like no other: neither Beat, nor socialist, bourgeois nor romantic...he was JUST PLAIN REAL.

Difficult to believe by our modern "realist" standards, Charles Bukoswki was one of the first writers to "tell it like it is". He created the modern day tongue of the common, down-trodden man...a person scarred by child abuse, acne, depression, alcoholism and isolation.

In the documentary, "Bukowski: Born Into This", fans and soon-to-be-fans get a rare look into the man behind the underground legend. Comprised of various foreign and local interviews from the past, we bear witness to parts of Bukowski that are brilliant, uplifting, pathetic, sad, but all the while TRUE.

Equally as heart-felt and impressive are the interviews and testimonies of those who have survived him: his wife, friends, publicists and a plethora of bearded, overweight alcoholic ex-girlfriends. All testify to his brilliance, his toughness, and even his vulnerable softness.

Strewn throughout the documentary are voice-over readings of his own poems, delivered in the awesome dead-pan tone that has made Bukowski famous.

Brief commentaries by Sean Penn, Tom Waits and Bono prove that some modern artists and Hollywood stars actually DO have some culture in their bones.

I recommend this documentary for people who would like to see a very personal side to an iconic, artistic and mysterious figure of underground literature. More importantly, I encourage those who are not familiar with his work at all to give it more than a chance. Come on, lose yourself. Give into him. This film does a great job at showing you all sides of Bukowski and reveals his life and work as a progression of struggle, expression, growth...and finally, inner peace.

2004-04-29T21:10:00.000-07:00

MYRA BRECKINRIDGE
1970

I don't know how a person like me ended up not running across Myra Breckinridge sooner. I had no idea that Beyond the Valley of the Dolls had a twin. In all its fabulous transexual glory, Myra Breckenridge delivers the oddity, perversity and satire of its time...and then some.

Based on the Gore Vidal novel of the same name, film crit Rex Reed plays MYRON Breckinridge, the nephew of a big wig Hollywood head honcho macho cowboy, Uncle Buck Loner Breckinridge (played by John Huston). Embittered by the male sex and machismo gone wild, Myron decides to get a sex change hoping to rid the world of all sexist male pigs. What comes out after the knife cuts is beyond anyone's imagination: Raquel Welch, 1970. Welch is the eye popping transexual MYRA Breckinridge, with all the wit, humor, breeding and ice cold intensions only a bitter homosexual can provide.

Without the junk in the front but with a body and face equipped to launch 10,000 boners, Breckenridge sets out to seduce his/her wealthy uncle, Buck Loner Breckinridge (Huston), along with Buck's preposterous collection of drop out and no talent actors and teach them a lesson. Myra claims that she is Myron's widow and that Myron's Last Will states that she is entitled to HALF of Buck's Hollywood fortune.

Uncle Buck's money and tomfoolery are no match for the sassy and brilliant Breckinridge, who slithers her way into Buck's acting school and starts to teach the students that the wonderful world they live in is just an act. You see, she's content with staying a long time at Uncle Buck's ranch until he is forced to give her what she wants....MONEY. Classic pussy blackmail.

Breckenridge continues to stir trouble in Hollywood paradise and Buck is starting to give in. All the while, Myra teams up with Letcia Van Allen (Mae West), a entertainment Madame who has young studs lined up outside her office for a chance at her casting couch. Together they plan to rid the world of male domination, one forced sexual advance at a time.

What stops the dynamic feminist duo? Myron Breckinridge. Yes, you see there is a moral to this twisted 70's story: Myra's gone too far. And after all her fury and wit, it turns out she's alone with no one to love her. Just like Myron was before the operation. So Myron wants his body back (what's left of it). He wants his life back (what's left of that). "She" has gone too far. So "He" must stop her. The story is about a man who becomes a woman who becomes a man again.

Oh boy. Now it's starting to sound like an obsessive 70s slasher movie premise.

But that's the kind of stuff this movie's all about. The story is told in such a fabulously sureal and stylistic sense. The characters are bold and outrageous, expressing levels of shallowness and cheekiness that is classic 70s. You'll be saying, "What the fuck?!!??" way more than once during this film. Intermingled with the outrageous costumes, zany film graphics, a whole bunch of tits, asses and satirical humor are constant references to past Hollywood hero's and splices of atom bomb stock footage...representing the horror and brilliance of the movie industry. Speaking of horror...Mae West is a living metaphor in this film, looking and acting like the real Leticia Van Allen: a bloated, egocentric, wig wearing over-aged hag who looks like the true washed up transexual.

Those looking for a "good" movie when watching Myra Breckinridge need to look somewhere else. I may be part of this website, but Hollywood snobs don't have a place in Myra Breckinridge's panties. Leave your dicks at the door, gentlemen...Myra Rules.

2004-04-28T22:41:00.000-07:00

Barry Lyndon
1975
Directed by Stanley Kubrick
Runtime: 184 min

These days, a movie that runs 184 minutes seems like more like a trailer, not an epic adventure. Still, I was afraid to watch Barry Lyndon for years because of the commitment towards what I considered a potentially agonizing movie experience, Kubrick or no Kubrick. My delay in watching the film was weak and shallow: it's a period piece, people are speaking French and British, there are men with wigs and knickers involved...SCARY.

But my reluctance in the film also made me a prime candidate for giving an honest review. Barry Lyndon would have to prove itself to me as a viewer: keep me interested, intrigued and attentive despite it's fluffy and overtly formal look and feel, show me that it's a work of art, not a work of pretention. I soon realized that Stanley Kubrick had once again seduced me, like Barry Lyndon's main character played by Ryan O'Neal. Flooded by magical imagery, lush and extravagant settings and the most mesmerizing use of light, I started to forget that I was watching a period piece. As snooty as it sounds, I truly felt that I had walked into a painting from the 1700s. As powerful as the cinematography of 2001: A Space Odyssey, every frame of Barry Lyndon can stand on it's own as a beautiful and extremely intense snapshot.

The story of Barry Lyndon is by itself fable-like. It is narrated from start to finish by a beautiful, perfect British voice, who is as calm as he is indifferent to the drama created by the life and scandal of an Irishman (Lyndon) scorned by love and practically forced into a number of different roles to survive: a soldier, a spy, a traitor, a thief, a gambler, a gigolo obsessed with revenge, lust and indulgence. The characters, actions, situations and adventures were presented more like a classic adventure story than a boring drama.

Deep down inside, though, there is a feeling of sympathy for Lyndon. Behind his misuse of human beings and need to fill his life with extravagance, there is an emptiness and tragedy that is familiar to all of us. In a simple twist of fate, the characters who outlive Lyndon's lies and deceit end up exactly as miserable as they began, Barry included.

The story is a brilliant yet simple one, framed by Kubrick's vision of beautiful landscapes, costumes and grandiose extremes. Barry Lyndon gave me a new outlook on the period piece genre. As long as it's done by Kubrick, I've got 184 minutes to spare.

2004-04-14T22:36:00.000-07:00

Resident Evil
2002

My first impression of Resident Evil was that there was something about it that was different. Only later was I told that it was a movie that was inspired by the video game of the same name. Usually the order in the world and Hollywood is 'movie, then video game'. This movie's the other way around. But I gave it a chance, and I'm pretty glad that I did.

The premise to Resident Evil is fundamentally simple, yet unique in it's own ways. Milla Jovovich plays the questionable heroine in this film, questionable based on the fact that her character has a bad case of amnesia. She wakes up in the shower with bruises and moments later is ambushed by what appears to be CIA agents on crystal meth. She is scooped up with a handful of other "survivors" and forced to go back to a place lovingly called "The Hive", a laboratory that acts as a futuristic Big Brother. Somehow it's been shut down under mysterious circumstances. The speedfreak CIA agents were sent in to investigate the scientist and residents of the Hive and to turn her back on. Now, are Milla and her survivor friends revolutionaries who tried to kill the Hive or are they part of the Hive? The flashbacks flash faster forward until the picture becomes more clear:

ZOMBIES.

Yes, zombies. But futuristic zombies. Moral-to-the-story zombies. Scary-watch-out-you-pesky-scientist-zombies. Hive-melt-down-and-look-what-the-Hive-dragged-in-zombies.

One would think these days that a person like me would be bored of zombies. But Resident Evil actually had enough unique aspects to it to keep me interested. Well, that and Milla Jovovich's ability to walk around gracefully with only scraps covering her private parts. What can I say, I admire beauty. And zombies.

2004-03-21T22:52:00.000-08:00

Dawn Of The Dead (2004)

Hey, I'm a big fan of nostalgia. I'm a very loyal person, especially when it comes to the movies that I grew up with. To me, the late 70's to mid 80's were some of the most influencial times of my life. I have a great devotion and loyalty to the pop and cult icons of that era.

I have to say, though, that I was pretty impressed with Zack Snyder's remake of Romero's "Dawn of the Dead". Sure, it was full of completely overdone explosions and I found it annoying that Ving Rhames cannot get passed his Marcellus Wallace character, but I thought that there were some aspects to the film that stayed true to some of the basic fundamentals of 70's/80's horror movies.

For one, they kept close to the hierarchy among the "survivors". Reminiscent of "Night of the Living Dead" and "Lord of the Flies", each character in "Dawn of the Dead" represented personality types in society. You could almost tell from the beginning who would make it, and who wouldn't. You could tell who the silent hero was, who the bimbo was, who the strong female was, etc. Not to say that it was predictable, but zombie movies (as well as other horror movies) seem to follow a pattern of up-front predictability.

Another thing that saved it from the "shitty remake pile" was (and don't read any further if you don't want to know the ending) the fact that it lead you to believe that there would be a resolution at the end. You saw these people fight off the zombies for about an hour and a half and you wanted them to live, right? I mean, they beat the odds and they deserve to live, right? WRONG. In a world full of pretty package endings and pro-American idiology bashed into our skulls, it was nice to see our heros die. It keeps us all humble, I think.

And perhaps the most endearing part of the movie is the fact that they did not throw out the whole "let's seek refuge at the mall" plan. The mall fortress was BRILLIANTLY conceived in the original "Dawn of the Dead" and seemed to fit in again just as well 26 years later. As I stood outside the movie theater after the show, I drove home through Irvine passing strip mall after strip mall, watching people wander aimlessly out of the stores and into another one, pushing shopping carts and baby strollers, filling baskets and bags, expressionless faces, the undying need to spend, consume, breed....and I smiled just knowing that zombies were indeed alive and kicking in Orange County.

2004-03-15T21:17:00.000-08:00

The Devils
By Mujer Del Diablo

Hi. I'm the devil. And if you haven't guessed yet, I'm also a woman. Same thing, right? Welcome to the pleasuredome I call hell. And thanks to the boys at Masked Movie Snobs for being nice enough to make some room for a little lady like me. As the newest member to the site, I'd like to say thanks in advance to those checking in on my reviews, and reading up on the movies that I hate, love, loathe and admire.

For a couple of weeks now, I've been flipping through the bubbling lava of my mind to come up with an appropriate movie to review for my maiden voyage into the cyberworld of movie reviews. And while taking a long, steamy shower the other day, I remembered a scene from a movie that was itself steamy, disgusting, out-of-control-weird, and most of all, appropriately named: The Devils

Also known as: The Devils of Loudon
1971
Directed by Ken Russell
Starring Vanessa Redgrave & Oliver Reed
Runtime: 111 min
Country: UK

Sex. Sin. The plague. Witchcraft. A cult of nuns sexually obsessed with a nasty priest. The Catholic Church...and a hunchback!!! Banned in Finland & Italy. Does this movie sound great or what?

Based on a true story of events occurring in 1634 Loudon, France, The Devils follows the exploits of Urbain Grandier, (played perfectly by ever-so-evil-and-creepy Oliver Reed) a Catholic priest who simply can't help but to stick his penis in every female he comes across (Catholics, you can breathe a sigh of relief, as this movie does not show him with any little boys, yay for you!). Vanessa Redgrave plays the horny hunchback cloister nun who, along with her other "sisters", gradually work themselves up in a sexual frenzy, accusing Father Grandier of visiting their convent and serving up a gang-bang platter. And they all come crashing down.

Add to the mix barfing and bubbling bodies dying slowly from the plague, an invading outside army coming to destroy the city of Loudon, and the bizarre Salem-esque witchtrial of the nuns and you've got yourself a nice cross between Caligula, The Crucible and 28 Days Later.

Both Reeve and Redgrave pull off the best sweaty, breathy performances as tortured sinners, simultaneously trapped and turned on by the constrictive world of the Cloth. Ken Russell's ability to transform a movie set into a surreal portrayal of putrid 17th century France blends well with the gradual madness that eats at his central characters, rotating outward until the entire village has contracted the social, spiritual and sexual virus that can't be cured.

Some people may watch this movie and think that it's just trash, and I have to say...well, I agree. It is trash. It's like Jerry Springer, but set in France...in 1643. But unlike Springer, The Devils is based on a true story, which is more than I can say about the buck-toothed ghetto queens you'll see on channel 2 at 11 am. And for those of you who appreciate trash like I do, I think you'll feel that extra special tingle when you're done watching this movie. Right where it counts the most.