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2008 viewing
8/10/2008 wednesday	Dark Star + Oh yes, I was once fixed on this film. Nowadays it's kind of slow going. The last ten minutes are the most poignant ever committed to film. On New Year's Eve 2007, I walked into the party – BBQ, kids, folding chairs, blokes in sandles, married couples, BYO alcohol safety net, coleslaw, obligatory tour of the house, "Did you lend us this DVD?" – and guess which song was playing? 'Benson, Arizona'. This was ten years since watching the movie. You have to love those moments when you get chills of frission, but don't quite know why. Cheers to the hosts of that party, anyway! The Aussie DVD is not anamorphic, despite what the fucken cover says. Furthermore, the definitive release on home video has yet to surface. It was also interesting to note how much this Carpenter movie influenced Red Dwarf and others.	1974 DVD
4/10/2008 saturday	The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms I have the DVD, but I fell asleep in the middle of it, so it took a screening in Sydney for me to absorb the whole tale, and what a phantasmagorical pulp yarn it is. I liked the pointed humour and chintzy monster animation by Ray Harryhausen. It was based on a story by dark fantasist Ray Bradbury, although I'm not really a huge fan of his writing. For $10 plus change, this is a no-brainer for serious genre collectors, and those who've seen the dire remake of Godzilla will see many similarities in The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms. The local DVD is anamorphic, with a decent enough black and white transfer.	DVD
	Wrong Turn II A group of young attractive 20-somethings get stranded in the woods and are gradually picked off by a family of psycho killers. Sound familiar? Funny that. With the late special effects doyen Stan Winston as a stakeholder, Wrong Turn II benefits from decent production values and quality gruesome make-up work. The death scene of the girl who gets axed against a tree trunk high in the canopy so that the top half of her head stays fixed while her lifeless body falls to the ground brought the house down when I saw it with my horror comic artist friends in Sydney. All well-worn body count terror-tory, but entertaining enough to consider buying the DVD cheap. Now...I must get around to watching the original Wrong Turn, not that a lack of continuity was a problem here. Funny that.	2005 DVD
2/10/2008 thursday	Henry Rollins Provoked: Live from Melbourne Not sure what I was expecting. The show was recorded this year in Melbourne during the Comedy Festival. If you were in the stalls, there's a good chance your mug shows up in one of the audience shots. Rollins presents an entertaining mixture of lecturing, anecdotes and humour. He's a good bloke who actually cares. Interestingly though not surprisingly, Rollins spends much time championing Kevin Rudd and the voters who brought him to power, slamming Johnny Howard in the process, who aligned himself with the US neo-con motherfuckers and took us to war. Those used to watching standup comedy should realise that Rollins mainly talks; he doesn't try to make everything funny. The drawcard of this DVD package is that disc two contains the full 3.5 hour unedited performance. I've only seen the 90 minute edited highlights disc.	2008 DVD
	Elizabeth: The Golden Years I kept waiting to hear the David Bowie song. No luck. It's another extremely watchable costume drama from the same director and starring Catey Blanchett once again. It's a big fucken ask to compress this historical epoch into 110 minutes, therefore you get huge jumps in the narrative, but one eventually gets used to unknown characters behaving strangely in the shadows. Solid supporting roles are played by Clive Owen as Sir Walter Raleigh and Abbie Cornish as one of Elizabeth's handmaidens, not to mention Jeffery Rush, who's not given much to do this time apart from rattling chains in his dungeon. Mary Queen of Scotts loses her head, but you can only see the gory results in the DVD deleted scenes.	2008 DVD
1/10/2008 wednesday	10,000 BC I suspected that this prehistoric confection might be crappy. Having sat through it, I know now that my expectations were too high. Where does one begin, with the paleontological mistakes, the bullshit archeological speculation, or the lugubrious story telling? Forget all that, let's talk about the special effects. There's three different extinct anmials depicted in 10,000 BC: woolly mammoths, giant flightless birds that resemble New Zealand Moas, and a sabre-toothed tiger. All beasts look great, thanks to the mandate for photorealism. The fanged moggie is way too big, however, and the birds moved too fast for critical examination. The initial mammoth hunting sequence is fantastic; I watched it several times. The rest of the film is a load of shit.	2008 DVD
	Run Fatboy Run A bloody awful romantic comedy that wastes the talents of Simon Pegg (Spaced, Shaun of the Dead) and Dylan Moran (Black Books). Directed by David Schwimmer (Friends) and co-scripted by Pegg, who should know better, it's 90 minutes of dull goofball agony. There's no sign of Edgar Wright or Nick Frost. Little wonder.	2008 DVD
	Juno A clever teen comedy that nevertheless dwells on the pregnancy stuff too much, so be warned in advance. At least I got a few hearty laughs from it, and one of the characters is into gore films – the work of H.G. Lewis of all people, ha-ha. Juno herself prefers Dario Argento. Definitely worth watching, even if the performances are a bit too self-conscious, and don't forget that Daria covered much of this ground years ago.	2008 DVD censored?
30/9/2008 tuesday	In Bruges Hey, bloody nice. This is familiar cinematic territory, though no less enjoyable for it. Plus Colin Farrell gets to play up his underused comedic talents in this story of odd-couple British hitmen stuck in Bruges, Belgium. Besides the situation comedy, there's a spot of hard violence and bloodshed, and even some brief gore. I'm not sure what the middle-aged crowd thought of the inevitable outcome after giggling through Farrell whining about "gay beer" and suicidal midgets, heh heh.	2008 cinema
19/9/2008 saturday	One Fine Day File under: single parent rom-com. George Clooney and Michelle Pffeifer, paying the gas bills and car insurance together in a rather painful romantic comedy. There's worse things, I suppose. Like dislocating my finger. That was worse. And yet I sat and watched the whole movie and endured the interminable commercial breaks from Hell. As with The Wedding Date, One Fine Day is an homogenised product, short on inspiration, hence the A-list casting. Watch Michelle Pffeifer opposite Al Pacino in When Frankie Meet Johnnie for a good, more vulnerable performance in a superior romantical drama (plus it's like Scarface twelve years later). Clooney brings his usual twitchy mannerisms to this role. That's always entertaining and probably the main reason I stayed the course, instead of say, arranging my DVD collection in alphabetical order of director surname. By the way, this film has kids in it. Clooney, not being a father, was a bit too self-consciously relaxed and 'fun' around the kids. That was amusing to watch.	TV
14/9/2008 sunday	99 Women Right. I've seen the grandmother (?) of all WIP (women in prison) flicks. This is Jess Franco in absolute top form telling a real story about women locked up in an island prison, presided over by a cruel warden and her corrupt governor. The staples are all here. I can see why producers hired Jess Franco to make 100,001 exploitation films in his career – it's largely on the strength of 99 Women, which should make the Toxic Waste Top Five list for sure. Someone should strike new prints and have a revival run in the local multiplexes. Ah, one can dream...	1968 DVD
	Venus in Furs After being stirred on a number of vague levels by Vamyros Lesbos, I had high hopes for this famous and supposedly laudable Jess Franco titilation classic; a companion piece to Lesbos, as it were. In reality, if a movie could be called a "dumb blonde", Venus in Furs definitely qualifies. As revealled in the featurette, Franco wanted to make a different picture to what his producers intended for their cashola. I suppose seeing Klaus Kinski and the bloke from The Time Tunnel (playing trumpet for real, no less) in the same movie provided much needed novelty value, because the nudity and death scenes are kind of lame. Plus they're too well filmed. I need to eyeball Female Vampire again fucking pronto. Forget this populist arty shit.	1973 DVD
13/9/2008 saturday	The Wedding Date Insufferably contrived romantic comedy that tries to make us believe Debra Messing is an unhappy single gal living in a city of seven billion horny metrosexuals. Anyway, she hires a giggolo to be her date at her friend's or sister's wedding (I forget who) to avoid dying from embarrasement at being seated at the singles table, and of course they fall in lurve (Pretty Man anyone?) after flirting a bit and she sees his cock in the bathroom and gasps. Still, they manage to fight over two trivial points (she tries to pay for a root, he withholds damning gossip) by the end of the second act. It makes you think these scripts are all written from a Microsoft Word document template. This example of the art is below par; not much stretching here by anyone involved. But this is a genre I know well (at great cost to my IQ), therefore the sheer formulaic familiarity has in-built appeal for this aficionardo of celluloid speed dating. Bonus points if you stayed home and watched this alone on Saturday night, you sad pathetic loser.	TV
	The World According to Monsanto Another DIY documentary viewed as a highly compressed DVD file. That being the case, this is some scary shit. Monsanto have bio-engineered seeds and crops, mainly soybeans, to resist Monsanto's patented pesticide. The company is now buying seed supply companies all over the world and replacing local organic seeds with their own higher priced product. Not only that, but cross contamination of pure genetic strains is occurring even in areas that have not been swallowed up by Monsanto, e.g. parts of Mexico. Plus there's much more. Basically, this feature exposes Monsanto to be a bunch of lying cunts. The M.O. of this doco is a bit suss...Using Google searches as a linking device for each thread. Memo to producers: hit counts are essentially meaningless.	2007 DVD
10/9/2008 sunday	The Secret History of 9/11 An old documentary now, repeated by SBS. It basically proffers the 'gross incompetency' and 'comedy of errors' explanation for the 9/11 'failures'. This is the angle a lot of friends adopt to magically explain away the 100s of inconsistencies, including violations of the laws of physics, and a building certified by engineering codes that suffers total collapse when it...catches fire. Interesting. And yet when viewed uncritically in this documentary, the incompetency shtick is quite convincing. I once believed it.	TV
7/9/2008 sunday	Fool Me Twice A local documentary with ultra-bad production values that covers two topics: the controversy in East Timor concerning what the Australian government did or did not know, and peculiarities with the Bali bombings, e.g. concrete blown completely off its reinforced steel, the crater under one of the cars, incinerated bodies via heat flash, etc. Food for thought that needs more rigorous treatment.	DVD
	Zeitgeist All right, I've finally seen one of the key conspiracy theory documentaries of recent years. It covers the intriguing idea that Jesus Christ is nothing more than a sun god, 9/11 inside job evidence (nothing new here, but it presents a compact summary of the main points), and the central banking scam, which has now become very topical. All up an interesting chunk of counter knowledge, even if the JHC segment was difficult to swallow.	2006 DVD
6/8/2008 saturday	9/11 Ripple Effect Dave Von Kleist's follow up to In Plane Site continues to focus on two dubious aspects of 9/11, the Pod and the flashes supposedly captured as the planes hit each WTC tower. Apart from those points, the remainder of the documentary covers the same ground as In Plane Site and other suchlike titles. I saw Ripple Effect during a well-attended public screening held at the State Library on Swanston Street.	DVD
1/8/2008 monday	The Falling Man Running for an hour plus, The Falling Man was intriguing, yet padded with too many poignant asides. Who is the Falling Man? He's one of the many people who jumped from the burning World Trade Towers on 9/11. A photographer snapped one shot of The Falling Man in a serene, head-down position. This documentary follows the photographer's attempts to positively identify the poor victim, who probably worked in the top-floor restaurant.	2006 DVD
18/8/2008 monday	Crash + More James Spader, this time in David Cronenberg's knockout adaptation of JG Ballard's cult novel Crash, which I read a long time ago now. What the movie lacks in terms of capturing Ballard's lyrical prose poetry, it gains from Cronenberg's highly tuned instincts for psychosexual theatre. Young Ballard in the movie (Spader) undergoes a transformation as complete as Seth Brundle in The Fly, Max Renn in Videodrome, or 'Joey' in A History of Violence.	1997 DVD
	sex, lies, and videotape + This early Steven Soderbergh art house success holds up well. I'm not even sure I actually saw the whole film the first time. Perhaps it was a TV broadcast? Anyway, fans of sex, lies, and videotape – with James Spader in top form – can now grab the anamorphic DVD cheap.	1991 DVD
17/8/2008 sunday	The Dark Knight If I have to tell Village to focus their projectors again, I'm going to demand a part-time salary. So, here it is, the much vaunted Batman sequel. Christopher Nolan (Memento, Batman Begins, The Prestige) was involved once more, ensuring continuity of style and tone if nothing else. This time out, the supernatural elements and spectacle are mostly ejected in favour of realism. And it works pretty well. The obvious difference is Maggie Gyllenhaal stepping in for Katie Holmes as Rachel Dawes. On the plus side there's Heath Legder's great performance as The Joker. I haven't really got much to add that others haven't said already, except it's probably not as good as the hype suggests, being that it lacks moments of true frission. Christian Bale as Batman also lacks charisma, but it is gutsy superhero fare all the same.	2008 cinema
	The Strangers Scary in places, though lacking substance overall, The Strangers updates the home invasion template and stars Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman. A young couple are under siege by three sub-rural crazies wearing bogeyman masks in the dead of night. For the most part, this horror fan enjoyed the standard thriller trappings offered up by writer/director Bryan Bertino. Two aspects that dragged it down were (a) the now hopelessly clichéd accidental killing of the friend-or-saviour gimick, and (b) the bullshit surprise ending. Otherwise the tone and ruthlessness of The Strangers, who're ultimately portrayed as nothing more than bogans with rather bad manners, are commendably sustained. Here's hoping that Bertino's next feature Alone has more originality.	2008 cinema
16/8/2008 saturday	The Killer + I finally picked up the Hong Kong Legends UK disc to fill a long-standing gap in my collection. Arguably the apex of the whole 'heroic bloodshed' genre of HK action films, it's easy to dismiss The Killer after so many viewings and seeing its influences in so many subsequent movies. You can include titles such as Smokin' Aces and Shoot'em Up as recent examples. Furthermore, having seen A Better Tomorrow and A Better Tomorrow II, The Killer seems less miraculous and more of a natural progression for Johnny Woo. I also think Hard Boiled is a better movie. The HK Legends DVD comes with 45 mins of interviews and a cracking-good audio commentary by author Bey Logan.	1989 DVD
	Bully + It was a natural segue from Kids to this modern classic (says me). It still holds up as an indictment of youth culture and parental cluelessness.	1999 DVD
	Kids + I bought and watched the new local DVD, which is currently going cheap in shops. It features a crisp anamorphic transfer, but no extras.	1995 DVD
13/8/2008 wednesday	Inland Empire All right, then. Here's the David Lynch film that sorts out the stalwart devotees from the chaff. Shot digitally, pieced together with fragments of footage, and running to three hours – even longer in Poland – I wonder what the French cinephiles thought of Inland Empire? One thing to be said is that Lynch has now made the same movie at least three or four times. Inland Empire is probably his most anti-narrative, anti-entertainment entry so far. You don't even get to enjoy real cinematography, or even faux film stock a'la David Fincher's terrific Zodiac. Instead, Lynch emphasizes the worst aspects of digital video to reflect his lead character's corrupted psyche, so you get close-ups typical of bad XXX hardcore, deliberately burned-out images, poorly focused shots, hand-held wobbles, and desaturated colours. This whole mess has been highly praised by some. I put it into the avant-garde, experimental bucket, along with noise 'music', performance art, and abstract painting: it's the audio-visual equivalent of coleslaw. But you still have to admire Lynch for going against fashion and sticking it to his audience.	2006 DVD
2/8/2008 saturday	Mother of Tears / La Terza madre Now that Dario Argento has stopped making Art Films, and merely churns out movies like every other chump for hire, one's expectations of his patchy horror output have gone south. So it was pleasantly surprising to discover that Mother of Tears, the anticipated conclusion to the Three Mothers triptych begun with Suspiria (1977) and Inferno (1980), is an entertaining piece of supernatural hokum with some gory highlights. Asia Argento stars as the daughter of a witchfinder who sets in motion the coming of the eponymous Third Mother in modern day Rome. Ummm...emo witches, anyone? Partially funded by film commission lira, Mother of Tears exhibits some of the old Argento magic: OTT violent deaths, Hitchcockian intrigue, shock effects, a dubious mythology, a threatened young heroine trying to solve a mystery, and a rousing music score by Claudio Simonetti of Goblin fame. It should receive a local release classified R 18+.	2007 DVD
19/7/2008 saturday	Africa Addio / Africa: Blood and Guts Known locally on VHS rental as Africa: Blood and Guts, this extended version sporting its Italian moniker contains an additional 45 minutes of footage. Most of the material edited out covers various instances of racial villification, genocides and civil war. However, I didn't really see anything that was overly shocking – there's much worse on the Internet these days, if you can find it. The only on-screen deaths shown were summary executions of two rebel fighters.	DVD
12/7/2008 thursday	Hancock An interesting spin on the superhero theme has drunk immortal John Hancock (Will Smith) fighting crime in LA but also producing collateral damage to public property. After saving a publicist from certain death at a level crossing, the two work on improving Hancock's public image and general misbehaviour. Like a redux of badass Spidey from Spider-man III, Hancock is mildly entertaining as he takes swigs from whiskey bottles in-flight and reacts to snotty little kids. And then there's the unlikely story twist...Hmmm. It's worth seeing if nothing else is playing. Also beware that the shaky-cam quotient is low-medium, resulting in slight nausea for this viewer. DVD should be safe.	2008 cinema
10/7/2008 thursday	The Love Guru I was right. The best bits were in the trailer. The actual movie is a pile of crap that barely made 3.5 on the IMDB rating. I got a few giggles out of it – Mike Myers goes for broke, but it's a definitely a case of quantity over quality. Toilet humour, puns, double-entendres, and visual gags are fired at the audience like bullets. And Sir Ben Kingsley spends the whole movie cross-eyed in a piss-take of his Ghandi role. I suppose there were enough inspired moments to maintain interest, such as the Bollywood parody, various running gags that send up the self-help industry, the Guru's roadie, and funny book titles that progressively get worse until, finally, everybody in my 7:45pm session reacted to them with dead silence. Enjoy the trailer. Avoid the film.	2008 cinema
9/7/2008 wednesday	Ghost in the Shell II: Innocence Quite a progression from the disappointing original movie. While the characters are still cell animated, most of the moving backgrounds are done with computer graphics. This lends Ghost in the Shell II a dreamy and surreal Final Fantasy look. Like a lot of manga, this one gets away from itself with existentialism, high brow philosophy, and direct quotes from Descartes through to Confucius. There's also visual references and plot devices from other SF movies, with Blade Runner being the most obvious influence. But if you can swallow all that, Ghost in the Shell II provides a lush future noir tale about pleasure robots (gynoids) that have been killing their owners, together with some droll humour. The investigation leads the detectives down a cybernetic rabbit hole that at times interferes with reality itself. Philip K. Dick, anyone? Yeah, recommended.	2004 DVD
6/7/2008 sunday	Blood Diamond Wow, against expectations, here's one action adventure movie that ticks all the boxes. Blood Diamond explores the diamond smuggling trade out of Sierra Leone circa 1999. Leonardo DiCaprio stars as a white African diamond smuggler who gets wind of a huge rough diamond discovered by a local fishermen. However, getting the treasure out of the country proves to be rather complicated and positively dangerous. Director Edward Zwick delivers great story telling, affecting performances, tense action sequences, an appealing love interest (Jennifer Connelly), realistic violence, thematic potency, and emotional poignancy. Blood Diamond is one of the best studio pictures I've seen in a loooong time. There's two DVDs out locally, one with Zwick's excellent commentary, and an SE with bonus features loaded onto a second disc.	2006 DVD
	Raiders of the Lost Ark + Awww, the poor Nazis dudes all got fried. Well, I bought this title for dad, but wanted to see how it held up in its original aspect ratio more ten years since I last watched it in on TV. Obviously, compared to the latest chintzy sequel about crystal skulls and CGI, Raiders of the Lost Ark kicks arse. Even though audiences always thought of it as over the top, the main thing that struck me this time around was how restrained and controlled it actually is. Good fun. Bonus trivia: the special effects guy (Chris Walas) who made the Nazi's face melt went on to create the creature effects for The Fly, and to direct the dire sequel, The Fly II.	1981 DVD
3/7/2008 thursday	Frontier(s) / Frontière(s) More gutsy French horror. Sadly, this outing is more derivative of several well-known genre titles, both classics and newer releases. Those that come to mind include The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (family of redneck killers), Hostel (torture and casual executions), and even The Descent (the crawlspace sequence). The pace never lets up and if anything, it's a little too hyperactive, especially during the opening reel. Having to read subtitles during action scenes didn't help matters either, one supposes. The gore and violence was strong enough to garner a US NC-17 rating. In 'Straya it might get a hard MA 15+ or possibly an R 18+. It's not as extreme or nihilistic as Inside though, which I assume will receive an R 18+ without equivocation from our OFLC board members. Frontier(s) directory Xavier Gens went on to make the bloody crime thriller Hitman, now uncut on DVD.	2007 DVD
1/7/2008 tuesday	Inside / À l'intérieur With Haute Tension, the soon to be viewed Frontier(s), and now Inside, there seems to be a new French New Wave. Except that this is a new wave of blood. Inside is a claustrophobic intruder flick with a simple plot that produces a devastating array of carnage. The brutal special effects are well handled and done without computer assistance, from what I could tell, all of which earns Inside the honorable label of "chunkblower". One complaint is the extreme low lighting levels featured in most scenes – a tad irritating. Woe to anyone who (a) doesn't have their TV black levels set properly, (b) watches this movie on an el cheapo LCD panel, or (c) owns one of the faulty Sony Bravias, heh heh. All up, Inside is a treat for jaded gorehounds which bodes well for Frenchy horror. Imagine what these filmmakers could do in France with a decent budget. Shit, this film even makes me think of Haute Tension in better terms. Fingers crossed for a preview screening at this year's MIFF or MUFF.	2007 DVD
28/6/2008 saturday	Gigi Winner of nine Academy Awards in 1832 or whatever year it came out, Gigi is a frothy comedy about absurdly rich high society types that wrung more than a few chuckles from this viewer. Kudos to Channel 9 for showing Gigi in its original 2.35:1 aspect ratio for its free to air broadcast – a very welcome trend for a commecial network (SBS has been doing it for years). And yes, the film looked sumptuous.	TV
26/6/2008 thursday	The Incredible Hulk It was fantastic. The trailer for the new Mike Myers comedy, that is. You see, Mike Myers plays an Indian trantric seducer of women who goes to America (of course) and mixes things up with his mystical ways. I couldn't help laughing all the way through this preview, much to the bemusement of Code Monkey, not to mention the rolly polly boy sitting on my right all by his lonesome. He never stopped munching snacks and siphoning Fanta from his jumbo sized cup during the whole feature. But back to Mike Myers and The Love Guru. It looks completely, utterly ridiculous, and as I mused presciently to CM, the best bits were probably in the trailer. BTW it's got Jessica Alba and Jessica Simpson in it. Naturally there was the requisite shot of a disheveled Jessie Alba rising from the Love Guru's bedsheets with an awestruck expression on her face. Is the Love Guru a distant relative of Austin Powers? I'm sure they're debating this possibility right now at Ain't It Cool. Plus there's the scene of the Love Guru holding Mini-Me and pretending to give an Academy Award speech ("Wow, they are heavy"). Ben Kingsley, looking embarrassed, also stars as the Master Love Guru. Sorry gov'nr, that should be Sir Ben Kingsley. I've definitely got to catch it theatrically (alone I suppose, unless my 'Super-size Me' friend is there) and report back. An amazing coincidence: the film opens in Australia on July 10th, my birthday. At least I now know that the Grand Occasion falls on a Thursday without needing to consult a calendar, heh heh. If that's not a good omen, I dunno what is.	2008 cinema
21/6/2008 saturday	The Deer Hunter + Hmmm. I had forgotten about the horrible moment that happens right at the end of this somewhat notorious Viet Nam movie – you think everything will be OK, but instead you're ambushed by a cruel twist. The scene nearly made me run out of the room, screaming and vomiting. It's when Meryl Streep sings at the dinner table. Raw, terrifying, and gruesome: that's 1970s filmmaking for ya. Seeing The Deer Hunter again, I was struck by how clumsy some parts of the film are. Even at three hours, it's obvious that key bridging scenes are missing. The whole Viet Nam sequence doesn't flow properly, and what's up with the stock footage? The Deer Hunter is still worth owning for a number of classic moments and casting choices, and it was nice to experience the original aspect ratio for the first time. Now, the various DVDs around are compared here. If you have the old Aussie disc, it should be more than adequate until you upgrade to HD.	1978 DVD
15/6/2008 sunday	Faceless + A perverted favourite of local gorehounds when it was released here uncut on VHS, Jess Franco's Faceless boasts much better production values than many of his previous features combined. What was lost in the bargain was the peculiar Jess Franco ineptitude that connoisseurs of his work relish. My own favourite is the entirely ridiculous Female Vampire. Flashes of his wooden directing 'style' appear momentarily in Faceless, for example when the camera pans leeringly over women's bodies, but it's standard 1980s Eurohorror mode for most of the running time – that's good enough for a lot of fans. This one included. One day I might even catch the hardcore sex version of Faceless that is rumoured to exist.	1988 DVD
	Barb Wire Dolls Today, while waiting for How Much is Your Dead Body Worth? at 8:30pm on SBS, I thought it was high time to indulge in a Jess Franco double-bill, starting with this WIP (women in prison) opus. Containing much intentional sleaze even more unintentional humour, Barb Wire Dolls doesn't quite reach the standard of Ilsa the Wicked Warden aka Greta the Mad Butcher. That said, it is fairly entertaining, with its unconvincing torture scenes, horny inmates, and hornier Nazi wardens. There's also the requisite bad dubbing, which extends beyond awful lip syncing to include the worst footstep Foley work I've ever heard. And how could I forget to mention the Caucasian guard who's been dubbed to sound like a blaxploitation character? It's all very pants-wetting stuff.	DVD
9/6/2008 monday	The Thing + One of the best horror films ever made, John Carpenter's remake of The Thing (1951) is claustrophobic, suspenseful, terrifying, disturbing, bizarre and gory. I still only have the non-anamorphic US DVD purchased about ten years ago, but it will suffice until I upgrade to (uncompressed 4K) high definition. Also watched the 83 minute making-of documentary again.	1982 DVD
8/6/2008 sunday	Blade Runner: The Final Cut + I can't believe it's been six months since I caught the 4K digital projection at The Astor here in Melbourne. After seeing the DVD tonight, the extra footage, restored violence, and digital tweaks now feel perfectly integrated into the film. For me, this is the only legitimate version of Blade Runner. The temptation to watch the Dangerous Days documentary again came and went. It might have been a long weekend, but even a videophile has to draw the line somewhere.	1982 DVD uncensored
	Hot Fuzz + I bought an ex-rental DVD cheap – no problems with skipping, despite minor scratches. They are fine if they're not deep. What DVD players and any optical media player can't handle are marks that stop the laser reading the data. Light scratches in the plastic are still transparent and should pose no problems. Should. Anyway, it's nice to own Hot Fuzz despite my reservations about the film. Shaun of the Dead was just a difficult act to follow.	2007 DVD
7/6/2008 saturday	Shaolin Soccer I thought Stephen Chow's Kung Fu Hustle would be a new favourite. Since buying it, however, I have only watched it once, and even then I nodded off at some point and missed a reel or so. So it was with only mild anticipation that I scheduled a viewing of Chow's berserk earlier outing Shaolin Soccer on SBS. It started out OK, then became less coherent and more over the top. The actual supernatural soccer action kicked off way down in the third act. Yawn. One has to commend Stephen Chow for his flair and enthusiasm. Just be warned that he's an acquired taste. Incidentally, SBS must have chosen this title to coincide with Euro 08 and the women's World Cup competitions.	TV
	Dr Strangelove + Another classic must-see film broadcast by ABC2. I sent a few SMS texts to friends flagging this event, only to realise I got the time and channel wrong, heh heh. Sorry to those of you who don't have digital set top boxes yet. P.S. It's about time you upgraded, anyhow!	1965 TV
4/6/2008 wednesday	Michael Clayton True, there's no aliens, zombies, freako mutants, or psycho killers in Michael Clayton, but it's an okay movie just the same. Of course, it does have The Cloooneeey, who is always interesting and watchable, even in average gigs. So yeah, he ditched the young model with the big breasts who convinced herself that he was going to marry her. Sorry honey, hate to tell you this, but it was just sex. Hey, look on the bright side: the paparazzi will now stop their constant harrasment and you can go back to being a nobody. Sorted. Right, back to the critique. Like a cross between The Insider and Erin Brokovich, Michael Clayton is a taught legal thriller that cloaks a simple plot with non-linear story telling. The whole tale is revealed in fragments, and it takes the first act to join the dots, but from that point to the final scenes, you will be riveted. The film scored 9/10 and even 10/10 from some critics, with no less than seven Oscar nominations. Hmmm, I dunno...a giant spider or some undead cheerleaders may have pushed it's Toxic Sinema rating higher. Nevermind. At least The Clooney's hair scored a solid 10/10. RIP Sydney Pollack.	2008 DVD
1/6/2008 sunday	Apocalypse Now Redux + This bookend to what many describe as the greatest decade of cinema still holds up quite well. Since I'm staying out in the suburbs for another six or more months, it's a good chance to play classic films that have superb audio soundtracks cranked up loud – the way they were meant to be heard. Just make sure to set aside 3.5 hours for this extended version of Apocalypse Now. Which reminds me, where is Heart of Darkness on DVD?	1979 DVD
31/5/2008 saturday	Taxi Driver + Boasting a crisp and colourful transfer, the ABC broadcast of Taxi Driver had bits censored from the hotel massacre sequence, for instance the knife going into the guy's hand. Still, the novelty of seeing this on television made it worth while. I just replayed the climax from the uncut DVD afterwards.	1974 TV censored
29/5/2008 thursday	The Toxic Avenger + Well, ya know what? Fuck Spielberg and his ETs. Here is the first and the best Troma film as an antidote. How can you not respect a movie that was taken off the shelves of Aussie video rental shops to erase the shot of a kid getting his head run over by a car? Sniff in that wonderful "Aroma of Troma". Luckily the DVD is uncut. There are too many delights in The Toxic Avenger to list in a pissant little capsule review. Let's just say it still makes me laugh, which probably explains why I'm not married. Am I allowed to speculate that any woman who doesn't like this film isn't worthy of Yours Truly? Me thinks the case can be made!	1986 DVD
27/5/2008 tuesday	Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull Sporting the silliest title of the franchise (that probably took 20 uncredited screenwriters to pen), Indiana Jones IV was viewed by the Toxic Waste film critics panel at The Jam Factory. True, the panel was sober, but it had low expectations anyway. The story is set in the 1950s, so you get: Russians as baddies, maximum communist paranoia, atomic age iconography, brawls with rockers vs jocks, shady government agents, and UFO mythology. Don't worry, because there's plenty of school teaching, tomb raiding, vine swinging, waterfall jumping, trap evading, attacking natives, killer ants, killer drysand (?), improbable stunts, cartographic montages, crystal skull volleyball, and mystical Mayan malarkey to be enjoyed by fans of the series. It's the kind of stew that Steve Spielberg stirs with gusto. Unfortunately, in the first and second acts, an embalmed Harrison Ford delivers his corny lines with all the enthusiasm of a terminal cancer patient calling out bingo numbers. Catey Blanchett is OK as the Russian dominatrix, and Shia L. acquits himself as the young sidekick, but everyone else is disposable. The CGI effects really take their toll on the thrill factor, and Spielberg's continuing boner for hairless, androgynous aliens is starting to get creepy. Meh.	2008 cinema
25/5/2008 sunday	Final Destination II + Repeat viewings are taking the shine of this one. Hence it works best with the element of surprise. Without that, the elaborate set-ups become a bit tedious to sit through as the world outside the darkened lounge room passes the dedicated gorehound by. But I still maintain this is superior horror fare, especially considering it's (a) from a major studio and (b) it is a sequel.	2002 DVD
18/5/2008 sunday	Night Watch The Russian supernatural opus from a few years back. It even has a sequel out, called Day Watch, with a third entry in the trilogy (based three novels) on the way. Well, that's the background, but is it any good? In my opinion, it's a bit of a fucken mess. The director is yet another graduate from the academy of rock video production, so expect every trick photographic process to appear throughout the running time. Most work on a wow level. The problem here is the same that affects many promising Japanese manga films: the story telling and/or narrative construction and/or basic premise sucks. Let's hope part II, now on DVD, shows more restraint.	2004 DVD
17/5/2008 saturday	Night Shift + Review pending.	1982 DVD
	Ed TV + Review pending.	1999 DVD
	The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation Review pending.	1994 DVD
16/5/2008 friday	Next Door An enjoyable psychosexual drama from our Scandinavian friends in Norway. A gaunt young bloke is seemingly seduced by two seemingly slutty women living down the hallway from his apartment. And yet, for some reason, the girls keep their front door barricaded with a heavy wardrobe. The yellow walls outside are a sign that madness and death stalk these corridors. It's great to see SBS screening these macabre little European horror films. The other week Michael Hanke's disturbing S&M treatise The Piano Teacher gave local night owls a terminal dose of the creeps. I was one of them. Keep your eyes glued to the TV guide in case there are more continental shockers coming up.	TV
11/5/2008 sunday	Iron Man The latest Marvel comics movie adaptation delivers a gritty story – this could be the most violent Marvel movie of them all. Robert Downey Jr stars as a brilliant weapons designer who is captured by Arab extremists (who else) in the Middle East. The experience results in a change of direction: a metal combat suit powered by a new type of energy. Unfortunately, corporate piranha Jeff Bridges has plans of his own. Gweneth Paltrow also stars as Ironman's ditzy love interest. Obviously the first in a trilogy, Ironman takes a while to get going. The main action occurs in the third act, although there are a few explosive set-pieces earlier. Downey Jr suits the role of a boozer and womaniser turned reluctant super hero and nice guy. I guess being a super hero is the in-thing for A-listers to add to their résumés these days. Though solid enough, Ironman won't support repeat viewings, so it's best seen in the cinema.	2008 cinema
	In Plane Site: Director's Cut + I bought the Australian DVD to see if this 9/11 doco still held up, and it does. Channel 10 actually broadcast this documentary twice about three years ago – I caught the second screening at 10:45pm one evening. Someone at Ten was deliberately trying to get the message out in one of the very few (only?) examples in the world of the mainstream media daring to broach this subject. While the segment about the pod and WTC 'flash' are dubious, the coverage of the Pentagon and New York incidents are quite solid and still convincing. 9/11 completists should definitely own this DVD. The disc runs for 72 minutes, it's not anamorphic, and there are no extras.	2004 DVD
10/5/2008 saturday	Cat People + To be honest, this talky fright 'classic' is a bit of a yawn-fest. Not enough happens, but well done to ABC 2 for continuing their mini-festival of SF/horror genre flicks. I ought to watch the 1982 remake again for comparison.	1943 TV
6/5/2008 tuesday	Taxi to the Dark Side + Review pending.	2007 TV
	Torso Review pending.	1972 DVD
3/5/2008 saturday	Flushed Away Repeat viewing.	2006 DVD
7/4/2008 monday	Vanishing Point Yet another early 1970s film, and that's not such a bad thing either, if you're a fan of this decade. A workmate told me how Death Proof was in part a homage to Vanishing Point, which I knew absolutely nothing about. Anyway he lent me the DVD yesterday and the viewing experience was surreal and exhilarating. How many more gems like this from the 70s have I missed? At its core, the movie is an extended car chase across three states, with brief flashbacks to the hero's past as a daredevil – or adrenaline junkie in modern parlance – and skeletons in the closet. But there's much more to it than that. Throughout Vanishing Point, many familiar elements recycled in everything from Mad Max to the Need for Speed computer game are apparent. The US DVD comes with two versions...might as well see the longer UK edition featuring a cozy scene with Charlotte Rampling.	1972 DVD
5/4/2008 saturday	Silent Running + Quite a departure for Aunt's usual Saturday night TV syllabus. Silent Running, the early 1970s science fiction yarn about environmental conservation and hippy madness, was presented in a fine anamorphic transfer, framed at 1.78:1. I think the local DVD still has a mediocre letterboxed transfer. Anyway, seen today, Douglas Trumbull's social SF movie exhibits too much naïvety and unconvincing special effects – ironic given that Trumbull also worked on 2001 (1968), Close Encounters (1977), and Blade Runner (1982). The kitsch elements and Bruce Dern's performance as the stallwart astro-greenie make Silent Running worth seeing once. Just be ready to mute the audio when those awful 'summer of love' tunes come on.	1972 TV
	Frightmare + Pete Walker fans rejoice! Chuck away those ex-rental VHS tapes, because the first of the Brit's macabre syllabus has arrived on local DVD with a sharp anamorphic PAL transfer. There's a few film artefacts here and there, and the audio suffers brittle distortion, but this is the best Frightmare will look until it's restored (if ever) in HD 1080p. The movie holds up bloody well, too. I had very little recollection of it despite owning a copy of the ex-rental tape (he announces proudly), so it was like seeing this demented tale of an old woman and her power drill for the first time. This punter is now looking forward to adding House of Whipcord, The Confessional Murders, Schizo and others to the Toxic Waste DVD coffers. Note that the Pete Walker Collection UK boxed set includes five titles, all featuring audio commentaries by Walker and others.	1974 DVD
2/4/2008 tuesday	Cutting Class File under: late 1980s high school stalk-n-slash fright flick. Brad Pitt has third billing in the credits as the pretty boy basketball jock. Although he doesn't die violently like Paris Hilton did in House of Wax, Brad still gets a fair amount of abuse. The art teacher dismisses him with, "Shouldn't you be bouncing a ball somewhere?" He's also denied sex by cheerleader girlfriend Jill Schoelen (The Stepfather) who always has to study, spits the dummy in front of a basketball scholarship judge, gets chastised by dad, suffers detention, and is beaten up by the killer. Poor Brad, I felt sorry for him. Bahahahahaha! Even worse, he gets his head stuck in a vice while petite girlfriend Jill dispatches said killer with a claw hammer to the head and a circular saw spinal tap. Objectively, Cutting Class (geddit?) is quite lousy, but it's 80s vintage and formula approach imbue it with ample entertainment value. It also has a sleazy edge (upskirt shots of Jill, a leering janitor, one pair of breasts, Roddy McDowell as a pervy headmaster, cheerleading sans nickers), and the DVD I watched is Lionsgate's unrated US release. With such minimal gore on offer, the cut version must have been a TV assembly. All up, good Tuesday night viewing. I'm not sure yet if the Aussie M 15+ VHS rental and DVD are the cut version. The UK DVD is longer than the US unrated edition. WTF?	1989 DVD censored
30/3/2008 sunday	Saw IV This is the first Saw movie I avoided seeing at the cinema because I thought it would probably be a censored version. Ostensibly uncensored, but tagged "extended", Saw IV sticks to the tried 'n' tested formula, therefore it should be commended for that reason alone. The downside is that it's the least engaging entry – emotionally and intellectually – of the whole franchise. Gore and bloodshed is plentiful, even though it pulls its punches too often. At least it kicks off with a meaty autopsy scene which kinda reduces the deceased John Cramer to messy jigsaw parts. Also messy are the traps. They include a scalping machine, a dismembering apparatus, a two-victim winch, and other surprises. What gets annoying this time out are the dozens of recorded tapes, neatly typed messages, slogans written in blood, mocking photographs, and constant flashbacks – it all became a tad fucking repetitive. Actually, the whole film is a one loooong flashback. Meh.	2007 DVD uncensored
21/3/2008 friday	From Dusk Till Dawn + There's a good film in here trying to escape. Sadly it falls off the rails in the second half, with too many silly elements and dopey special effects. Yeah, I know it's meant to be a 'fun' horror comedy in the Peter Jackson vein, but to me it's a wasted opportunity, especially in light of Planet Terror. Plus it's still censored. Then again, this is an essential item in the collection for a handful of classic scenes, with George Clooney holding it all together. The making-of documentary Full Tilt Boogie is currently going cheap on Aussie DVD. For some inexplicable reason, I've yet to see From Dusk Till Dawn II despite seeing (and enjoying) part III.	1996 DVD censored
17/3/2008 monday Grindhouse Double	Planet Terror Fuck yeah, this is more like it. Though totally derivative, Planet Terror wears its exploitation stripes with pride, while also going further than most grindhouse examples of yore. Basically a zombie film (agent: green toxic gas; culprit: the military; effects: corrupted flesh, loss of coordination, hunger for humans; transmissible by: slime contact, bites; kill methods: headshot or bodily destruction) Planet Terror has fun with the premise, and yet it manages to feature a large number of unique characters drawn vividly with minimal dialogue and minimal screen time (I liked the pathology geek). There's lots of explosions, plenty of action, slow beats that are interesting not boring, funny one-liners, cool inventive gimmicks like McGowan's prosthetic machine gun leg and the missing reel, extreme gore, 80s 'Casiotone' music cues, appealing leads, comic book violence, Tom Savini, Fergie, Michael Biehn, Josh Brolin, Jeff Fahey and others in supporting roles, a sleazy edge, bloody gunshot squibs, a collection of scrotums, vehicles running down zombies, and frequent splatter effects. I'm not sure how much rewatch potential Planet Terror has, but one thing is true: it delivers more than its trailer promised, whereas Death Proof delivered less. Now that Rodriguez is on fire again making films for adults, I wanna see Machete or a violent Joe R. Lansdale adaptation. Savage Season or Hot Chili as a movie would be awesome.	2007 DVD extended
	Death Proof It's bad, it's awful, it's dull. It's pretentious for no reason, which goes against the whole 'grindhouse' attitude. I have a theory about why the "5th Movie by Quentin Tarantino" turned out to be crappola. Quentin realised Rodriguez' script for his gore flick Terror Planet was way better than Death Proof could ever be, so he channelled more of Miramax's Grindhouse budget toward Terror Planet at the expense of his own obvious dud, Death Proof (which was shot after Terror Planet, by the way). Explaining what's wrong with Death Proof needs a full-length review. To sum up: too much pointless dialogue, patently try-hard dialogue, a plot as thin as Gladwrap, large chasms of time between (x2) action scenes, non-existent motivation for Stuntman Mike's psychopathic behaviour, a shit ending, loose plot threads, deadend character arcs, poor casting of stuntwoman Zoe Bell and Eli Roth, technological anachronisms (iPods, mobile phones, ATMs), sudden villain incompetence (SVI as defined by Mondo Gore), etc. I understood that QT was taking a stab at those 1980s stalk-and-slash pictures, but the retro film stock and show-offy hipness all jarred. Kurt Russell could have been good in his role if he had better material to work with. There's a grisly midpoint moment to anticipate (with bonus Michael Parks recap), and the last reel features some superb stunt work that should jolt you out of your loungeroom stupor. Suck proof? Hardly.	2007 DVD extended
16/3/2008 sunday	The Rules of Attraction Fiction adaptation #3. In my opinion, The Rules of Attraction was a tedious book about college life by Bret Easton Ellis of American Psycho fame. With Roger "stuck in QT's shadow" Avery helming the movie adaptation, I thought he'd be able to set off some fireworks with the material, and he does. Unfortunately, the plodding nature of the source results in a dull movie that can only boast a handful of highlights, and those are mainly technical. The drug taking, promiscuous sex, and other unruly behaviour on campus is no longer shocking, titillating or funny these days, and you sense that Avery knew this and tried his best to make it fresh and interesting. A few of the devices – split screen, reversed footage, non-linear narrative – do grab your attention, but nothing changes the fact that the movie arrived 20 years too late. The performances are okay, though lacking the necessary grit. For all its subversive content, The Rules of Attraction somehow plays too clean and too straight, like an R-rated Dawson's Creek. The local DVD, which I bought new for $8.00 and is labeled "uncut version", comes with three commentary tracks.	2002 DVD
15/3/2008 saturday	Last Exit to Brooklyn + Fiction adaptation #2. Chuck away your VHS and DVD copies. The latest DVD release from Hopscotch contains a solid video transfer, a making-of documentary, and a feature length documentary on the late Hubert "Cubby" Selby, Jr. Based on the controversial 1964 cult novel, Last Exit to Brooklyn tells the story of several low-life characters living in a Brooklyn neighbourhood. Having never read the book, I can only assume it's probably more graphic than the film, which is still hard-hitting enough to receive an R 18+ classification for "high level violence, high level sex scenes, course language". My main beef with an otherwise excellent movie is that the 100 minute running time means that the narrative feels compressed. Two and a half hours would have given more time to develop the story more. As with Selby's Requiem for a Dream, Last Exit to Brooklyn remains one of the better literary adaptations of recent times.	DVD
	A Clockwork Orange + Fiction adaptation #1. I watched the remastered DVD, which finally has an anamorphic transfer. The Warner two-disc set also has making-of documentaries about A Clockwork Orange, a feature length documentary about Malcolm McDowell, and a commentary track with the now aging actor, who is very chatty about the production and his part in it. And the movie itself still holds up. "Viddy well, little brother, viddy well!"	1971 DVD
11/3/2008 tuesday	Rambo "Fuck the world" – John Rambo. Sly Stallone is back as the laconic soldier of misfortune. Since Rambo III, he's been collecting cobras for tourist trap operators in the Thai jungle, just near the Burmese border. For kicks, Rambo offers his consulting services to the impoverished Burmese rebels, who're fighting a hopeless war against mad military types. Toss in kidnapped christians, a sexy choir girl who plucks John's heart strings (which we know are made of catgut), impolite battle-hardened mercenaries, hungry pigs, high caliber ordinance, and all hell breaks loose. For an action movie, the screen violence and carnage is at the upper end of Chas Balun's 'Gore-Score' rating: throat rip, stabbings, people burned alive or cut down by bullets, amputations, exploding heads and bodies, rotting corpses, etc. Even a nominal disembowelling. Much of it is obviously CGI assisted, so don't listen to keyboard jockeys who claim Rambo is a return to old school SFX. That's bullshit. The footage also suffers from the inevitable hyper-editing. But the sheer cumulative intensity of the key attack scenes, especially the finale, make up for any grumblings about technique. In terms of theme and character development, Rambo boils it down to seven mumbled words: "Live for nothing, or die for something." Like Christian Bale in The Machinist, Sly (pushing 60) deserves a special Oscar for Best Creature Effects Without Make-Up. Yeah, definitely a popcorn movie, but it's not as bad as mainstream critics say. I suppose the R 18+ was awarded for the rapey material, and I suspect it was censored prior to release. "When pushed, killing's as easy as breathing" – John Rambo.	2007 cinema censored?
10/3/2008 monday	Saving Private Ryan + If I'm going to move into an apartment this year, I suppose it's a good idea to play back some choice surround sound titles nice and loud. Saving Private Ryan has one of the best movie soundtracks ever recorded, with a damn good film behind it. This viewing complemented the excellent documentary series The War, now showing on the ABC.	1997 DVD
9/3/2008 sunday	Commando: Director's Cut + Uncut at last! Uncut at last! Uncut at last! Uncut at last! Uncut at last! Uncut at last! Uncut at last! Uncut at last! Uncut at last! Uncut at last! Uncut at last! Uncut at last! Uncut at last! Uncut at last! Uncut at last! Uncut at last! Note that the Definitive Edition release has two discs. Disc 1 is the censored theatrical version. Disc 2 is the unrated director's cut. None of the Region 4 packaging states this. The DC has also got the Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack, rather than the old Pro-Logic mix. The extra violence is brief and mostly concerns the infamous garden shed scene. There's also some extra dialogue included. For this viewing, Commando wasn't as funny or kitsch as I remembered it being. It probably needs to be seen with a rowdy group of friends. Beer and pizza optional.	1985 DVD uncensored
5/3/2008 wednesday	The Mist Frank Darabont is the man. His Stephen King adaptations to date are all winners: The Woman in the Room (short), The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, and now The Mist, which is based on the novella first published in Kirby McCauley's Dark Forces and later reprinted in King's excellent Skeleton Crew collection. Now, let's say this up front loud and clear: The Mist is a real fucken monster movie. People die horribly. Good people, bad people, dumb people, all sorts. The suspense and scares are reasonable, but this is – like the original story – a horror film first and foremost. So there's gore and blood, but not overly much to spoil mainstream tastes...again, in keeping with the source material. What also comes through in spades here are the characters. This is where much of the tension comes from. As for the 'extended' ending, it contains a dark, ironic twist that you should enjoy, heh heh. Consequently, the film makes explicit a potential outcome the novella only hints at. What else? Beware of some dodgy looking CGI, but apart from those bits, the movie is technically superb (and while watching it, I finally worked out why CGI on projected film can look bad). Strangely, Darabont prefers The Mist to be seen in black and white, an option he's providing on DVD. Since the colour print I saw lacked for nothing, I can't see the point of paying homage to 1950s big-bug creature features. Tonight, me and a handful of punters saw what was probably the last session for The Mist in Melbourne at Hoyts Chadstone, so for fuck's sake catch this on DVD.	2007 cinema
4/3/2008 tuesday	There Will Be Blood "I'm...finished." Muuuwahahahaha! Here it is, the new Paul Thomas Anderson, and the first film of his I've seen theatrically since Magnolia. So, there's no PTA regulars here, not even a miscast Adam Bloody Sandler. Just Daniel Day Lewis chewing scenery as Californian oil baron Daniel Plainview, surely the most reprehensible and non-cuddly movie protagonist since Bazza Lyndon. The critics were cautious and reserved with their praise for There Will Be Blood, therefore I knew something held it back. It wasn't the mean spirited behaviour of Daniel Plainview. After all, No Country for Old Men featured more bloodthirsty killing than the last Saw sequel. Rather, the story spirals in on its bitter, demented little self with ever smaller turns until it inevitably snuffs out all together. However, as a portrait of early 20th Century corporate greed in a perfectly realised historical milieu (turn of the century), it's totally recommended. There's also plenty of visual metaphors and juicy thematic undercurrents (just like the oil itself) to savour if that's your thing. But a new classic it ain't.	2007 cinema
2/3/2008 sunday Spaghetti Horror Feast Final Day	The Church / La Chiesa + Review pending.	1989 DVD
	Massacre in Dinosaur Valley Review pending.	1985 DVD
	Hell of the Living Dead / Night of the Zombies / Virus + Review pending.	1980 DVD
	New York Ripper + Review pending.	1982 DVD
	Contamination + Review pending.	1980 DVD
24/2/2008 sunday Spaghetti Horror Feast Day 6	Cannibal Apocalypse / Apocalypse Domani + Review pending.	1980 DVD
	Phantom of the Opera Review pending.	1998 DVD
	Opera / Terror at the Opera + Because I'm lazy, here is Hank Hankerson's review of the Aussie pan-and-scan VHS rental from his zine Mondo Gore (issue #20, Sept 1989). "Australia is on a roll, an uncut Day of the Dead (finally) followed by an uncut Opera. Despite it having the cut version's title this has it all, it is either the 3 week totally uncut Italian version or the 1 minute trimmed subsequent version. Either way it kicks, this is Argento at his best. The story is somewhat simplistic in Argento terms. Four great moments of mayhem, including an inside the throat shot, a great peephole/bullet scene and some bird/eyeball interactions. I'm sure I missed some subtleties of the opera music selections, but it didn't detract from my enjoyment. The use of Metallic music to emphasize the violence works well. Similar in tone and visuals to Phenomena / Creepers only better. The only drawback is the failure to letterbox the film, especially in the peephole scene. More proof that Italians rule."	1988 DVD
13/2/2008 wednesday Spaghetti Horror Feast Day 5	Stage Fright / Aquarius + This repeat viewing was a tad underwhelming. By this point, with the exception of Dario Argento's Opera (1988), the giallo had well and truly died in the arse. Fans will nevertheless find entertainment value in Michele Soavi's who-dun-it in a theatre setting. More gore would have kept this viewer hooked.	1987 DVD
	Tenebrae / Unsane + Repeat viewing.	1982 DVD
12/2/2008 tuesday Spaghetti Horror Feast Day 4	Inferno + Repeat viewing.	1980 DVD
	Suspiria + Another verifiable masterpiece by Dario Argento. This effort cemented his position on top of the totem pole of horror royalty, even though the storyline is considerably weaker than the one in Deep Red. Suspiria resembles Rosemary's Baby, substituting witches for satanists. Goblin once again deliver the goods musically, although their contributions here are perhaps overused, a flaw that becomes apparent after repeated viewings. These are minor quibbles, however. All up, Suspiria has many memorable set pieces, quirky characters, clunky dubbed dialogue, and lush cinematography. It deserves its status as the greatest Italian horror film ever made. Seeing it again on DVD reminds me of how uninspired most contemporary horror films are. Rather than appear in front of the camera, Daria Nicolodi co-wrote the screenplay with Dario. By this stage, the pair were doing the horizontal salsa, resulting in two offspring, with Asia Argento (The Stendhal Syndrome, Trauma, xXx, Land of the Dead, The Scarlet Diva) being the most rabidly showbiz of the two daughters.	1977 DVD
10/2/2008 sunday Spaghetti Horror Feast Day 3	Deep Red / Profondo Rosso + Arguably the apex of the giallo genre, Dario Argento's Deep Red mounts a phantasmagorical assault on your senses. There's psychic powers, bloody murder set pieces, incredible camerawork, a delirious music score by renowned Italian prog-rockers Goblin, Daria Nicolodi as a nosy reporter having a bad hair day, David Hemmings as the nervous foreigner in Italy who becomes obsessed with solving the murders, black gloves, explicit clues including a shot of the murder's face early on, a twisted plot centred on childhood trauma, and the now characteristic double-ending. This longer Italian version is recommended because it contains additional flirtatious comedy between Nicolodi and Hemmings.	1975 DVD
	Manhattan Baby / The Possessed + More Fulci fun. The budget of $1,000,000 got cut back to a mere $300,000. That's OK because Mr. Fulci's inventive moviecraft pulls this one to the finish line. Eventually. As inept and ridiculous as this is, I find this meagre level of Italian horror filmmaking very entertaining. That's not to say Manhattan Baby isn't slow and dull; trust me, you'll need to guzzle three cans of Redbull per reel to keep your eyelids from slamming shut. As for the movie, which I vaguely remember from a local VHS rental viewing under the title The Possessed (aka Eye of the Evil Dead), it concerns some Egyptian curse that torments a nuclear family via a mystical pendant handed out by hags with white contact lenses on their eyes. Given the time it was made, this malarkey was obviously inspired by Poltergiest, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and any number of lesser 70s and 80s supernatural fare. Standout scenes include one gory bit in which an historian's face is pecked full of bloody holes by his reanimated stuffed birds. Another dude is impaled on steel spikes inside a boobytrapped pharoh's tomb – not much blood here, though. One special feature of Manhattan Baby is Giovanni Frezza, aka 'Bob' from House by the Cemetery, as the spiritually harrased kid. There's also plenty of wooden acting and duelling eyeball zooms. Ahhh, such priceless garbage. Yet more proof that I lead an utterly pointless existence.	1982 DVD
	Don't Torture a Duckling + The nights of terror bolognese binging continue. After the accomplished intensity of Shock, this early flick by Lucio Fulci feels like a letdown. The story, nominally a sordid giallo tale with the obligatory animal reference in the title, has boys turning up murdered in a picturesque rural community, done in at the hands of an unseen killer. There's the inevitable red herrings and twist-ending, but Fulci manages to maintain interest levels with mesmerising shots of an elevated highway, casual female nudity, strange interludes, and gratuitous violence in two scenes: one woman gets a severe beating (shades of the opening scene from The Beyond) and the demise of the killer who, as I probably stated in the previous capsule review of Don't Torture a Duckling, gets chucked off a cliff and has his/her dial gouged to pieces on the rocks in slow motion. Now that Lizard in a Woman's Skin has been released on DVD properly, I'm very keen to see it.	1972 DVD
3/2/2008 sunday Spaghetti Horror Feast Day 2	Shock / Beyond the Door II + The last film by the late and great Mario Bava is a slow but gruelling exercise in psychological suspense and terror. It stars Italian scream queen pin-up Daria Nicolodi (ex-partner of Dario Argento) as the neurotic mum whose son channels the spirit of her dead husband. What really happened when he committed suicide? Watch this gothic Edgar Allen Poesque chiller to find out. Bava really knew how to photograph women – Nicolodi never looked more ravishing than she did in Shock. He also knew how to engineer neat film special effects on a shoe string budget. Some of the scares still get me. The alternative title refers to an earlier film by Bava called Beyond the Door aka Lisa and the Devil, starring Telle Savalas. Modern maestros of the macabre like Takashi Miike seem to have been inspired, in part anyway, by Bava, and Shock in particular, which also predates Tobe Hooper's Poltergeist.	1977 DVD
	Dellamorte Dellamore / Of Death and Love + Don't ever use the dreary US title Cemetery Man. Michele Soavi, the director of this lauded zombie film with a difference, as well as The Sect, The Church and Stage Fright, had acting stints in Dèmoni and Lucio Fulci's City of the Living Dead, to name two examples. He's better off behind the camera, given his wooden performances in said titles. Dellamorte Dellamore is one of the most beautifully shot and lusciously visual horror movies ever made. I have the excellent Italian anamorphic release from Medusa, but I believe there are now several classy DVDs on the market place. I won't sum up the plot, because I can't. Just be warned that there is a degree of slapstick comedy and bizarre, unexplained phenomenon mixed in with the light gore and eye popping nudity, which can all become a bit exhausting if you're not in the mood. Best to wait for the right time and take it all in. Astute commentators have written about references to Citizen Kane and other movies buried (or not so hidden) in the narrative. Soavi was hailed as a master of horror after Dellamorte Dellamore was released, then promptly moved on to other genres.	1994 DVD
	Demons / Dèmoni + Lamberto Bava again with his most successful 1980s horror film, an amalgamation of Evil Dead and a number of cheescore horror titles from the early 1980s. The lurid story shows what happens when a cinema full of patrons turn into demons one by one. This results in numerous gore highlights and icky demon make-up. The acting is dubbed Italian cringe at its best, with Bobby Rhodes as a pimp talking like a blaxploitation hero, and one bimbo in the movie-within-the-movie saying lines such as "Nostrodamus? Sounds like a rock group to me" with a straight face. Demons was a fixture in the golden age of R 18+ VHS rentals. Familiarity has dulled its edge a bit – definitely a choice for nostalgia viewing or to show friends what tacky 80s horror was all about. Also remember to turn up the volume for the pulsing rock score by Claudio Simonetti from Goblin. Now, I guess I should see the two sequels at some stage, huh.	1985 DVD
	Macabre / Macabro + The directorial debut by Mario Bava's spawn, Lamberto Bava, was inspired by a US newspaper story about a woman who kept the head of her lover in a freezer after a freak car accident decapitated him. Thus Macabre continues the necromantic themes of Beyond the Darkness, transplanting them into a New Orleans setting (via the suburbs of Roma). Bava handles this tabloid material with restraint and seriousness, that is until the histrionics and queerly Italian approach to depicting grotesque situations begin to dominate the narrative. An odd, though memorable, entry in the latter Euroshock cycle, and a definite collectible.	1980 DVD
2/2/2008 saturday Spaghetti Horror Feast Day 1	Beyond the Darkness / Buio Omega Not really expecting much, I was blown away by this sicko classic from Joe D'Amato (Aristide Masseccesi to his mum), the "master of sleaze" as the cover of my Dutch import DVD proclaims. For once, that's not just hyperbole. The story, such as it is, concerns an irritable young taxidermist called Frank whose girlfriend Anna dies in hospital. Inevitably, he steals Anna's still-warm corpse from the cemetery to embalm her (cue infamous naked corpse gut removal scene with bonus heart lovebite), then keeps her snug in bed. Yes, Frank has 'issues'. Spoiling his post-mortem romance is the sexually frustrated female housemate, who seems to be a relative of some sort. Frank tells her off with memorable dialogue such as, "Get out of here you old slut". But she's not all that bad to have around, because one time she helped Frank to dismember a hitchhiker he picked up (cue infamous naked corpse acid bath scene with bonus melted head bobbing up out of the foam). I won't spoil the other surprises, suffice to say that Beyond the Darkness aka Blue Holocaust aka Buio Omega is a bona fide cracker. (Sorry, but part of being Eurocult royalty is having 30 alternative fucken titles for any given movie.) Oh yeah, Goblin did the music score.	1979 DVD
	Zombie III Oh, those crazy Italians. Here's the first movie in my Italian horror festival. The idea was to play some sentimental favourites, dust off purchases I'd made years ago, and watch titles I have but a foggy recollection of seeing. Zombie III falls into the last splattergory. Nominally a sequel to Zombie Flesh Eaters, the once great Lucio Fulci was stuck in the Philippines with a crappy script, 99.9% humidity, and an unspecified illness. And holy cow Batman, does it show. It's got overacting, non-existent lipsync, a guilty army general saying lines like "That's ridiculous...pure science fiction", an eco-conscious DJ (tenuous link to Zombie Flesh Eaters), a flesh melting virus called "Death One" that gives its victims the worst cases of acne you've ever seen, a cast who gets beaten up doing their own stunt work, sloppy cinematography, video inserts of salvaged gore scenes, a flying zombie head, the obligatory helicopters and horny soldiers, and on it goes. In retrospect, it's actually got tons of cool stuff going for it. Sitting through it is another story. Of course, pathetic specimen that I am, Zombie IV and Zombie V must now be procured to complete the set.	1988 DVD
31/1/2008 thursday	Smokin' Aces + About 10 mins of story telling and 20 seconds of violence is missing from Smokin' Aces. I don't care how many times the director says in public that he's happy with the final product. Ten minutes and twenty fucking seconds is my conservative guesstimate. And so, here we have the DVD, which is identical to the theatrical version I saw a few short months ago. That is very sad...one can only assume the writer/director of the excellent Narc is already busy working on his next projects. Another comment concerns the song 'Ace of Spades' by Motorhead. Shoot 'Em Up also featured this track. Hello to Bob Shay and Newline. The IMDB message board topics say it all: "#1 Worst Movie of 2007", "End Doesn't Make Sense (Spoiler)", "Hollis on the roof??", "Horrible piece of *beep*", "Alicia looked good...just a little bit chubby."	2006 DVD
30/1/2008 wednesday	Shoot 'Em Up "Guns don't kill people, but they sure help" – Paul Giamatti. Coming home from work at 8:30pm midweek...what's better than a dose of mindless ultra-violence? Well, the lurrrve of a good woman and a bottle of hot sake, perhaps. Sadly I had to settle for a video store rental, namely this somewhat over-hyped entry in the cool gunplay genre. Yes, the writer/director is a big fan of John Woo, which means you can't take anything here seriously. Over the top is the order of the day. Some positives include Clive Owen, Monica Bellucci, and Paul Giamatti in the lead roles, a welcome subculture vibe, a huge body count, and lots of bloodshed. But too much of it consisted of bad guys getting hit and doing the 9mm Tango, or just falling down. The gory stuff only made an appearance during the final shoot-out in the fast food restaurant. That's the flick I wanted to see. Too little too late, and other review clichés. There are worse ways to spend 83 minutes, I suppose. G'day to the teenager who petitioned the Aussie censors to reduce the R 18+ to an MA 15+ so he could see it at the cinema.	2007 DVD
27/1/2008 sunday	Fargo + Was curious to see how it held up to No Country for Old Men. It does so very well. If there is a longer version of the newer movie that fixes the jumpy nature of some of the narrative leaps, it might equal Fargo, which is perfect as it is, right down to the fake "This is a true story" title card that kicks off the film.	1995 DVD
26/1/2008 saturday	Cloverfield This monster movie uses the 'found film footage' device employed by the likes of Cannibal Holocaust (1979) and The Blair Witch Project (1999). Here it is digital video of likable young people living in New York who're caught up in the havoc unleashed by a military experiment gone wrong codenamed "cloverfield". Technically Cloverfield is quite accomplished, with good production values and seamless special effects. Unfortunately, all of the camera work is of the handheld HandiCam variety, which means you could develop unpleasant nausea symptoms within 20 to 60 minutes – two punters on my right walked out after the first reel. For the last 45 minutes, Code Monkey and I had to close our eyes or fix them upon objects in the cinema, otherwise we wouldn't have been able to last. Most annoyingly, the camera shake is far worse than it needed to be. Some may also find fault with the way the story spends too much time on human interest dramas. I thought the down-beat ending justified the investment, but ultimately think Cloverfield does nothing that umpteen cheesy Godzilla movies haven't done before with less pretence. And for the second time this week, I watched the Brooklyn Bridge being destroyed. It's getting old. The implied metaphor of a beast created by the military wrecking Manhattan 9/11-style is fun to entertain.	2007 cinema
20/1/2008 sunday	Atonement Based on the novel by respected literary scribbler Ian McKewan. Atonement the movie is an absorbing though weighty story set in 1935 about two youngsters who fall for each other, that is until it all goes wrong – as it always does. The plotting is a bit lopsided, and some of the middle scenes drag. By the end, though, you do come away satisfied. Just be warned that this is not your typical lovey dovey feel-good movie; that alone should be enough of a recommendation.	2007 cinema
	I Am Legend Oh shit, Akiva Goldsmith was involved in writing the screenplay. What we have here is a missed opportunity to film Richard Matheson's great novel properly. The end result is not even on par with the 1970s adaptation The Omega Man starring Charlton Heston. It's more like 28 Days Later, with an idea stolen from Mimic (an attempt to cure a disease backfires) and bits of other genre films tossed into the mix, namely Night of the Living Dead in terms of the house under seige and the basement refuge device, and Day of the Dead with the lab experiments using captured zombie specimens. Other aspects just don't make sense. For instance, if Manhattan was isolated, how did the other immune humans get there? Another contrivance has Neville going nuts and not recognising one of his own traps. Because the infected humans are just rage zombies, the whole vampire society thread from the novel is absent, which means the memorable refrain from the book ("Come out, Neville!") is never heard, nor is the famous last line. Newcomers to the story should enjoy the tense atmosphere generated by the film, and Will Smith does an OK job, even if he's not at all convincing as an army colonel. The rage zombies (people and dogs) are all CGI, naturally. And what about gore? Well it seems you can film a zombie movie without showing much violence. Who'd have thought? But perhaps the biggest kick to the gonads for audience members comes from a bullshit 'God to Me To' element in the third act that leads to a hopeful ending. Ahhh, just fuck off...	2007 cinema
19/1/2008 saturday	Wimbledon The reviews were vicious, but I couldn't understand it. How do you stuff up a basic romantic yarn with A-list and B-list stars? By making it boring and insipid, that's how. Wimbledon was duller than a bad porn movie. Attempts to make the tennis scenes exciting fell flat – the real thing is so much better. Even die-hard chick flick fans (and I might be one) should skip this flop. Further more, Jennifer Connelly was upset that her "cheese eating, scotch drinking" hubby became all buff for the movie. What can one say except the girl has a great attitude. Or maybe that was her subtle way of saying the script stank? Both are true, I suspect.	2005 TV
14/1/2008 sunday	Rosemary's Baby Another Ira Levin adaptation, this time by a far better director in Roman Polanski. Rosemary's Baby is a perfect movie version of a novel; in fact, it is acknowledged as one of the great literary adaptations to cinema ever made. Every shot is perfect, much of the action and dialogue is from the book, the subtle touches are well executed instead of betraying prudishness, and the limited but effective grotesqueries lead to a disturbing and poignant climax. The print used for Warner Brother's DVD could have been better: it looks chalky, and reel change markers are present. There's two decent making-of featurettes, one filmed recently and another from 1966. Lastly, thinking back, I remember putting on this DVD years ago, but suspect I fell asleep during the first 20 minutes, so the failed attempt was probably made during a recovery day. Sorry Roman.	1967 DVD
	The Stepford Wives Based on the Ira Levin (RIP) novel of the same name, The Stepford Wives is one of those adaptations that is strictly a by-the-numbers affair. Nevermind that the similie "like a Stepford Wife" has entered modern parlance. The 1975 film is only notable because of its failings – given the time period, this should have been social nitro-glycerine upon its release. Sadly, screenwriter William Goldman had his script watered down further by D-list UK director Brian Forbes, who misjudged the source material (script and novel) and imposed his own changes, enough it seems to defuse the book's limited frission-laden content. I'm not sure what the remake with Nicole Kidman does with the original source material. I can admit now to being slightly curious about the redux, because this original is a missed opportunity, despite Katharine Ross' huge wet manga eyes dominating the movie. Given what her character knew of the machinations, it's remarkable that she was not able to do more, e.g. clobber Ike (William Prince) upside the head with that fire poker. Pffft. Not knowing the story beforehand would make it more enjoyable, I suppose. The local DVD seems to have been taken from the same grainy source print as the US Anchor Bay DVD, judging by remarks from Heathen.	1975 DVD
7/1/2008 monday	Crimes of the Future Once again shot silently on 35mm, Crimes of the Future picks up where Stereo left off. There's more 'science' commentary that proffers bursts of psychoanalytical word salad about speculative maladays and diseases. This outing is more accessible, thanks to use of Eastman colour stock, and a narrative that accidentally resembles a real story. Many themes Cronenberg elaborated on later in his career can be glimpsed in Crimes of the Future, although I find its hippy overtones and more familiar surroundings less rewarding than the minimalist, abstract (and not to mention boring) quasi-futurism of Stereo. One element to enjoy is the noise soundtrack. Plus I must say that these three Cronenberg curios are presented impeccably in the same two-disc set from Blue Underground. It's not foolish to guess that Crimes of the Future and Stereo have never looked better on home video than they do here. Fast Company comes with another essential Cronenberg audio commentary track.	1971 DVD
	Stereo I'd love to say that these two experimental films – this and Crimes of the Future – by David Cronenberg are unsung masterpieces, but they are not. At 61 minutes, both are rather difficult to stomach. I prefer Stereo because, shot in black and white and lacking any sound effects, it is the more extreme of the two. The stark cinematography and bizarre pantomimes (they don't match the voice-over) slip into the realm of David Lynch's early short films, though with the sterile and detached eye of a brain surgeon armed with a camera and a headful of avant-garde notions. Think Michelangelo Antonioni after suffering a stroke. The brutalist architecture amongst which Stereo was shot, combined with the parapsychological waffle, makes it a memorable enough experience. Just.	1969 DVD
6/1/2008 sunday	Fast Company Ah, the things you find in JB Hi-Fi these days. David Cronenberg made Fast Company after Rabid and before The Brood. It's all about the world of drag racing, the only motor sport (or any sport for that matter) that doesn't bore me to tears. Not knowing what to expect, this ended up being an engaging little picture. Like all of Cronenberg's films, even the arty ones (see above), there is utterly no hint of pretension, just earnest performances and a straight forward style designed to pay tribute to the subject matter without getting too melodramatic.	1979 DVD
	No Country for Old Men I'm sorry – Fargo is still better. Though slightly overrated, the latest Coen Brother's movie is nevertheless rousing entertainment. It is also the most violent and suspenseful mainstream movie to hit cinemas for ages. Having said that, the Coens just stop themselves from being seduced into exploitation territory by shooting a number of the latter death scenes off screen. That annoyed me no end, but it probably gained the film its positive response from critics; a fine line to tread. The ending is also unexpected and disappointing. I'm sure it's pregnant with thematic poignancy, and it's good to be surprised sometimes – I'm all for that. However, in this particular movie, it felt like a total cop-out given what had happened earlier. So with that caveat in mind, git yo' ass down to the nearest multiplex and eyeball this bugger pronto.	2007 cinema
2/1/2008 wednesday	Ferris Bueller's Day Off + To purge the memories of those insipid modern day comedies I suffered through late last year, I picked this classic off the DVD shelf and chuckled more during the first reel than I had during all four previous movies. That says it all. It's interesting that there's also many dark, negative and melancholy aspects to Ferris Bueller's Day Off, so much so that if you added them up, they'd probably outweigh the humour. That is why it works so well: balance.	1986 DVD

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