Chloe

I have been eagerly waiting for sometime to see Atom Egoyan direct another film that even compares to the psycho-sexual electricity of his brilliant work Exotica. That being said, I never thought his next best film would be a highly unconventional lipstick lesbian affair between a voluptuous eighteen year old Aryan girl and a middle-aged red-headed housewife. The sexual romance occurs unconsciously (or at least for the older gal) when a wife disillusion-ally suspects her husband of banging his young college students. I guess the wife has reason to suspect when her husband seems more interested in instant-messaging his female students online than engaging in coitus with a woman he used to passionately pound three times a day. To make the film extra-sexually-subversive, Atom Egoyan made sure to have the wife's son have some high quality hard-on time with the woman of his Mother's subconscious dreams. Like Exotica before it, Chloe is a brilliantly crafted and lavishly paced film that engages the viewer in intercourse during the film's beginning and explodes with a pleasantly fulfilling climax at the end.


With most of the beautiful lipstick lesbians I have met in my life, I have noticed a couple things. For one, the lipstick lesbian is not a sexually inverted bulldyke with too much testosterone who wishes to be male, but usually wallows in the wonderful world of female beauty. Secondly, the lipstick-lebso seems to have not been born with a love of female-on-female cunnilingus but instead developed her fetishistic vice through the lack of development of a mother-daughter relationship as a child just as Chloe hints at throughout Chloe. The married Mother Catherine becomes the perfect motherly replacement for Chloe, a woman that in age could be her own mother. When Chloe attempts to give Catherine her own Mother's hairpin, she is symbolically asking the older woman to replace her own Mother, even if it is in the form of a behind the curtains night of engaging in each others meat curtains.


Wife and Mother Catherine's Lesbian inclinations seem to be the result of her loss of sexual passion for husband and her overall lack of sexual potency as a Mother. She gets aroused at the idea of the young Chloe passionately fondling her husband, for it makes her feel like she did when she was young. Also, being a gynecologist and a sage of the Vagina, Chloe must have been tempted to go down South more than once during her life. Unfortunately for Chloe it seems that Catherine just wanted a taste of the blond beastess. Catherine's eighteen year old son offered Chloe some masturbatory fun but the boy toy could never replace a Mother figure. I think Atom Egoyan should be noted as the director of the truly best family affair for Chloe's passionate nuclear family scare is certainly cinematically quite rare.


Chloe is a brave film and Atom Egoyan is no doubt a brave auteur. Apparently, Chloe was a film that either the critics loved or hated. I certainly do not see feminists, bulldyke lesbians, or any other type of prudish wanna-be-men/men-haters enjoying the film. I have seen more than my fair share of Lesbian-themed films and Chloe is the only one to successfully combine eroticism, sexually-paced storytelling, and passionate-acting for a believable mädis-tale that one will think about long after the experience is over. Isn't that what good sex is about?

-Ty E

Xtro 3: Watch the Skies

The original Xtro was such a splendid surprise with its dazzling mixture of science-horror and somber surrealism. Setting my eyes of Harry Bromley Davenport who directed all three entries in the Xtro trilogy as well as the low-budget low-quality Mockingbird Don't Sing, I scoped out a comment he made about the quality of his films. Turns out the third film in the series was always his favorite and with this recommendation alone, I set out to find and view these post cursors and delve into what genius the man behind Xtro must offer. Fast-forward to present time; I learned something today. I discovered that the fabled "accidental" director is not just a myth but a frightening reality far more terrifying than any film about vengeful aliens or marines without proper haircuts. Xtro must have been a fluke because I refuse to believe the talented man who combined screaming synth with inner-clown persona's created this godawful abomination that insults the quality of Brain Damage films.


The plot centers around a marine lieutenant who gets assigned a mission with a team of rambunctious misfits. Their task? Simple reconnaissance and a bit of demolition..., or so they thought. As soon as they unearth a strange alien artifact the mishaps begin to occur. Each one with special effects worse than the last. Only in one scene does the second sequel barely resemble the original. A silhouette inked in darkness twitches to extraterrestrial life as a spurting white fire sprays out behind this figure. It shames me to appreciate something about this film and it certainly does not excuse any of this garbage but it's endearing to see that Davenport might still have what it takes to make a great science-fiction film. Let's hope he does justice with his newest Xtro film. Back on topic, these marines discover a classic "it came from the top" government cover-up cliche that should be known as a classic mistake and not some propelling force for a story. After they find a hermit living on the island who survived all the bloodshed that happened so 50 (40) years before, they attempt to get information of what really went on previously.


This is where I note the misuse of the deus ex machina. Yet another film technique ruined in the hands of Harry Bromley Davenport. This primitive survivor with his pepper-gray wig and contrived eccentricity proves this character is nothing more than an Encino Man facsimile whose only use in the film is to lead the crew to some old Super8 films which document the convenient story behind the antagonist alien's rage. In faux-Roswell fashion, we watch an autopsy scene with no scientific clout as the other caged alien wails on behind his bars. After the female alien is butchered and has its baby removed and put in a surgical dish, the male alien bends the bars and uses his psychokinetic ability to kill everyone off screen with a tempestuous regurgitating power. So not only is Davenport inspired by braindead classics like Encino Man but it also appears that he's seen Orca. It's too obvious for it to be just a dupe on his part. Borrowing or being inspired isn't necessarily a negative thing but when you borrow shamelessly from classics and manage to make a film utterly prosaic. Well, . . . I just don't know how to respond other than to eject the disc and stare at the static until my eyes become overwhelmed.


Xtro 3 is a unsubstantial failure on all sides; this is a two-sided coin of cantankerous and belligerent film making. How someone can direct the cast which would obviously lead to disastrous results and a lack of artistic integrity is beyond me. For someone who created one of the most daring and essential science-fiction films to suddenly become a bottom feeder is truly a waste of youthful prowess. This film is not only anti-climatic but it renders itself as the best in the series which gives me absolutely no hope for the future of the Xtro saga. Xtro 3: Watch the Skies is pedestrian at best and my last wish before I wash my eyes out with whiskey is to be able to omit this travesty out of my head completely.

-mAQ

A Serbian Film

Ah, A Serbian Film. What could I possibly say that many of the sickened festival attendees haven't? Even the news of a disgusted film distributor leaving the theater only to stumble and fall breaking his nose scrapes the controversy of the film. Strangely, I'm not here to talk about the controversy because frankly, I don't care what others think about this film. This Serbian film is something that isn't an argument of taste or ethics. What you see is what you get and in this case, close your eyes, swallow, and accept your gift of pure and unadulterated venomous misogyny wrapped in a crunchy shell coated with a (so called) political allegory. A friend of mine coolheadedly recommended me to view this maelstrom of cruelty with no previous knowledge of the events or mishaps that may occur within. Much to my chagrin, A Serbian Film not only impacted me into a state of realized delirium but shook me to my core as I sought out to insure the stability of my future nuclear family.


Even for the jaded business-casual wreck, this film should offer something contemptuous to feed upon your psyche. To redefine the plot within a spoiler-free confine, A Serbian Film offers up a family's story on a burner of esoteric deception. Milosh is a hardly working retired porn star who is struggling to support his beautiful wife and cheerful son, who is experiencing a sexual awakening in part of his dad’s films, and is bleeding out his revenue on silly things like singing lessons. Scared of his family’s future, he agrees to film a final piece out of retirement, one that is wholly unknown filmed by a mysterious man named Vukmir. As the “official” synopsis would treat it, the director’s intention might not be as peachy and straightforward as the art would have it. As far as Milosh’s odyssey of sexual humiliation is shown in graphic detail of ambiguity, I too have been in a situation entirely interesting and chilling to the bone, but not so much as depraved as this experiment in film-making. Some time ago on a forum, a beautiful woman began speaking to me in philosophical tongue. She had been new to the forums and keenly dismissing most of the horny teenagers making passes. As she private messaged me and our conversations raged on for days, she inferred me to a organization (cult?) known as Yellow-1. After much searching the Internet and not coming up with nothing, I linked my friend to the website and he returned with an IP. Tracing that and the location, we discovered that this organization was apart of Neurocam, which is known secretly as a strange affiliation that plays cryptic games of delivering and receiving anonymous packages. Almost like a real life courier game that is bizarre and unknown to most.


After inquiring on their own personal web-board, I was plummeted with woefully profound messages asking me to question my own goals and needs, that brand of horseshit. After acquiring an application to join Yellow-1 in my mailbox, I dropped the topic with chills down my spine and moved on. Much of what I experienced cannot be transferred into mere words as it would rain down skepticism and diatribe on my end. We all fear something and it's always lurking. This story of mine is very congruent to Milosh's feelings as well, without the sodomy of the peculiar. What I ravished in was the descent into madness that this male, like many males with their formidable lust and power, have fallen victim to. A Serbian Film isn't the kind of film an overweight loser from Pittsburgh can make. While this film has a body count, it doesn't act as an exclusive accessory. Take the cult "classic" August Underground for example. With a mere mention it sparks a communion of underground horror fans chanting about "severed penises" and "cut-off nipples." While these facets do occur within Fred Vogel's creation, you must understand that these scenes make the film and the hype. When you mention this pseudo-snuff trilogy, you don't say to yourself "Oh, that's that movie with the climatic character-intrusive depth and ravaging climax?" Those compliments are reserved for an endeavor worthy of the title "art." Taking what I know and what you don't, it would seem that the only fitting label for A Serbian Film is high-velocity punishment. Vukmir would have been so proud of what his creators have created for this is what art is - Consequential.


What Irreversible is largely know for is its brutal rape/fire extinguisher scene and the music. Thomas Bangalter (half of Daft Punk) created for Noé was a collection of the finest and grittiest electronic music ranging from the glitch-pop repetition that is Spinal Scratch then onto the bass-thumping dominance of Outrun. Surely the composer of the eclectic soundtrack of A Serbian Film took notice to this soundtrack, at least enough to incorporate grinding low frequencies in order to churn intestines. For all you noise fans as well, there are better sequences of clenched-teeth dispositions of transgressive savagery marked to the sweet sound of what could be Aphex Twin with unleaded gasoline and vinegar destroying its engine. For what it's worth, Vukmir rants and raves mid film about the languorous state of his mother country; art, film, life. The ravings of a cinema obsessed lunatic have never been detached so clearly from a perspective planted in reality to a character created and given life from a sheet of paper. While he screams about the fragility of being a victim and how victims sell, he reassures Milosh that he is the only one in the picture that isn't a victim. I believe after viewing all what this film has to offer, that his assertion is intelligently correct because whether we like or not, we all fall victim to the seething nihilism that A Serbian Film has to offer.



Creativity is a divine force in the directorial business. You can take any idea and shift it towards either a gifted individual or an inexperienced twit and the result would always show of quality or deterrence. Had any other director taken this film, I'd imagine the end result to pop up of Cinemageddon with observations of its Z-grade no holds barred trash aesthetics. Gladly, I gloat the artistic exhibitionism of this fine barrel ride into a disparage of sadism and Twin Peaks infused scenes of degrading fellatio and cock prosthetics. What really drags me to me senses is the display of disheveled and abused women, crawling towards another cock to suck, another man to please. In this account of what 8mm could have been like had Joel Schumacher been on more coke, the folds of misogyny are ironed out into something so irrevocably clear and direct. The several disenfranchised women throughout A Serbian Film are real women - bitchy, painted, and repulsive in their impulses. For better or worse, A Serbian Film is a real organic piece of hatred with a genre dividing atmosphere for better placement. This is the definition of love it/hate it and I can only give this my highest recommendation. This being the film containing the ending that nearly got me in a car accident on recollection and which killed my sobriety as I wanted, no, needed to consume copious amounts of rum just to get the images out of my head.

-mAQ

The Village

Recently I decided to watch M. Night Shyamalan's The Village just for the hell it. Or maybe it was because I wanted to see the would-be cool hip-hop Hebrew Adrian Brody play a retard among pleasant Aryan kinfolk. Maybe it was also because I also wanted to further my respect for Shyamalan being one of the most shameless cinema plagiarists out there, showing his unrelenting knack for reproducing worn out shock endings and highly predictable climaxes. Another reason was probably due to a silly article I read calling Indian-American M. Night Shyamalan the "last white nationalist" filmmaker, a statement that shows the utter desperation of white nationalist types attempting to reveal any type of "pro-white" sentiment in pop culture. After all, Shyamalan has a fairly brown complexion.


M. Night Shyamalan had the luxury of growing up in one of the most white states in the country; Pennsylvania. It is no doubt a given that Mr. Shyamalan encountered some Amish and Mennonites folk whilst growing up but he also probably encountered the human zoo desperation of Philadelphia, one of America's various third world refugee disaster sites. Despite his own third world ancestry, M. Night Shyamalan seems most cinematically concerned with the dispossessed majority aka America's white population. Unlike most of the cynical artless filth that comes out of Hollywood, M. Night Shyamalan seems to respect white American traditionalism even if he acknowledges it as a rusting antique hardly capable of refurbishing itself. In The Village, M. Night Shyamalan looks into a vacuum of the old white world, although the world really is not old but a creation of a group of elders who decide having a contrived atavistic re-awakening is the best way to go about rejecting the urban degeneracy of parasitical postmodernism located in the city.


Although most whites do not know it, the third world has been awaiting for the collapse of the Occidental world for sometime. The historical masterpieces The Rising Tide of Color by Lothrop Stoddard and Hour of Decision by Oswald Spengler reveal how even the most backwards gutter-dwellers of the world's numerous ghettos have long realized that the white man is losing his power. In fact, this has been going on for over a century (or more like a couple) now, for that is exactly why the former slave has lost respect for his master. After all, the former slave had more respect for his master when he was a slave, not now where the former master is a slave morality-filled coward who goes out of his way to seek atonement from the formerly dominated. What could be more pathetic? Of course, The Village does not deal with white slave-owner types, but instead the more respectable attributes of traditional white culture. The tight-knit community in The Village is morally sound, hardworking, honest, god fearing (or monster fearing), and friendly amongst one another. There is even room for the town retard (played by Adrian Brody) to be justly treated (and not as someone that should be babied like in modern American victim "culture"). After all, welfare is a Nordic invention that has no doubt been exploited by America's finest conspiring types. When retard-Brody falls to his death whilst pretending to be a monster (he never needed the mask with that beak on his face), the town uses the death of the intellectually challenged man as something positive, a young man martyred to the evil monsters of the woods. Like the renegade Jew Jesus Christ, it does not matter whether the man was a sinful saint or a dandy delinquent, what matter is that his death symbolizes something more powerful and higher than themselves, something that can make others feel more humble.


Like in all the other M. Night Shyamalan films I have seen (and I can't say I care to see all of them), the white family/families finally come to terms with their hardship and go on. Maybe this is M. Night Shyamalan's hope for America's future, for the immigrants from India generally seem to realize that they can do quite well in white America, unlike many of the other third world diaspora groups who are simply destroying it/feeding off it's fruits. With the intellectual bankruptcy of modern American academia it is no surprise that another Indian S. T. Joshi has taken over the work of two of America's last great writers: H.L Mencken and H.P. Lovecraft. Surely, the average white American is unfamiliar with the work of these two great literary sages, but at least someone has enough respect for them to keep their legacies going. M. Night Shyyamalan, for better or for worse, is one of the few American filmmakers whose films uphold any type of traditional values. I might not think much of The Village or any of his other films, but I can respect he has given the general public a voice of reason, something that seems to be on it's way out in the West. One thing I do like about M. Night Shyamalan is his Hitchcockian cameos, for he surely is an outsider looking in.

-Ty E

The Watcher

I remember as a young teenager always wanting to see The Watcher. Not for James Spader who I've only recently noticed or Marisa Tomei who redefines the need for a mature and elder sexual appetite but for Keanu Reeves, who I have loved as an A-list Hollywood actor since the release of cybergem Johnny Mnemonic. Following the release of this film, I never payed attention to its video release date and never pursued viewing it until finding a copy at our local thrift store. With top billing of James "Sexrat" Spader as a homicide detective suffering from the removed effects of trepanation and Keanu Reeves as a maniacal and loony serial killer, I felt that The Watcher had nowhere to go but up. Upon viewing I wasn't quite as right as I would have liked to be. What I received in return for a stifling price of .33 cents was one of the earlier seditious gay serial killer films.


As with most games of cat-and-mouse projected in almost every James Patterson "Alex Cross" novel or thriller period, this story involves a serial killer tormenting a subject of a previous crime. With malice and curious man-love as his initiative, Reeves follows the relocation of Joel Campbell (Spader) from Los Angeles to Chicago as he waits timelessly to rekindle his own twisted brand of anonymous, ambiguous homosexuality. After a painful opening showcasing the track that single-handedly killed the 90s, Rob Zombie's Dragula, we are tethered down and forced to watch Keanu Reeves dance around waving his(!) handgun in a shamanistic manner. Not to mention that Keanu Reeves isn't dancing to the song accordingly or the lack of music in the foreground thanks to the third wall set up by this archaic time capsule of dated editing but had they picked any other track over Dragula, the film would have been a lot better off as it brings to mind heavy doses of The Matrix and every Playstation game worthy of nostalgic memories.



The dosage of disturbing affection that was meant to ripple the waves uncorks itself near the three-quarter marker of the film. The scene's composites clue you in on this with the addition of Campbell's psychiatrist as more of a bargaining chip than a pretty supporting actress with no climaxual involvement. Once he breaks into her office searching for the recorded sessions with Campbell and escapes with his masturbatory evidence, he scrutinizes the audio in a jarring fashion while he rewinds and repeats the line of "Do you need him?" The instances of subliminal faggotry only become more intense and frequent. During the showdown in a waterfront building, The Watcher suddenly switched to the thematic innocence much alike that of The Voice of the Night penned by Dean Koontz. As Campbell and Griffin both standoff over the life of an unnecessary female element to their ragtag boy element consisting of vengeance and chase scenes, it was hard not to imagine little Colin and Roy's scuffle over poor Heather at the finale of the very same mentioned book. After all, Griffin would never let a "bitch" ruined the love he has worked so hard for, all those pretty women near or far. The opposition would never have a chance to escalate of Griffin silenced them; after dancing in front of them and embarrassing himself of course.


Throughout his victims, Griffin shows so much compassion towards them before the deed that it becomes an endearing practice, murder, that is. His slayings seems to be so intimate and personable yet disastrous as well. As I expected, Keanu Reeves made for a solid nemesis for the protagonist but I wouldn't codify him as simple as a villain. You see, Griffin's intentions are nothing more than illicit feelings for Campbell but Griffin's demeanor is largely cheerful and curious so it detracts from the actual suspense. Most of the suspense and thrills are actually on fault in part to the chase sequences, only certain ones though. The car chase scene proved to be expertly shot save for the clandestine gas station explosion. As much as the camera weaved through traffic, it couldn't sustain after Griffin lobbed the zippo lighter to ignite the building, killing 3 police officers only to make his getaway in a flaming car.


The Watcher is a self-cynical 90s thriller which spiraled the expectations pretty low for my fluctuating standards. Be that as it may, it proved to be a rather entertaining ride through the eyes of a cloak-and-dagger serial killer and James Spader whining while abusing barbiturates. Even though the effects and editing are isolated in a time of awkward practices in action/thrillers, I find that I'm able to resist slapping judgment on this film on account of its terrible grainy-viewcam that we utilize for Griffin's stalking vision or the abundant negative exposure flashes to insinuate foreboding extermination. Not to be mistaken as a film about the streets, The Watcher is about the possible dangers of homosexuality and a testament to the madness that festers within the eyes of the rich boy hustler that Reeves' has portrayed in several roles spanning his career.

-mAQ

Neighbor

Such a sweet and welcoming face; beauty of that sexual caliber could be no more devious than any of the other bitches of the world, as Gualtiero Jacopetti should have titled La donna nel mondo (Women of the World). Continuing forward with the guise of a flawless clothed body, indie horror welcomes a new gore starlet with America Olivo. She teems with slutty class and a giggle that will melt your heart - and she's a serial killer. And so the ball has been dropped and no heads are turning. I wonder why that is? Oh, it's because this isn't new and worst off, it isn't good. Neighbor aka Robert A. Masciantonio's Neighbor is an awful film and a prime offender of gore-for-the-sake-of-gore. Switch sights to disappointment because this is solid proof that eye candy only goes as far as unstimulated entertainment; eye candy and moving pictures should never be mixed. Just look at the prime examples of D.O.A. - Dead or Alive, Bandidas, Tomb Raider, Onechanbara, Attack Girls' Swim Team vs. Undead, or many of the other countless titles with the mirrored modus operandi. Any film that occupies matter over mind has a general success rate of single digits and proves to be as intimidating and infuriating as the prices they charge for cinema feces.


The film on trial here opens with a beautiful woman listening to music and dancing around a very nice kitchen. She eats a bowl of cereal and presumes her joyous shuffle without an air of menace other than the knowledge of this films primary genre alignment. As she goes upstairs and opens a door, flash to two beyond mutilated bodies tied up in chairs. The woman screams and when the trauma passes, she laughs. Such a tedious opening for a film, and to think Masciantonio actually attempted to "psyche" us out with juvenile playground tactics. Had this been a mind game of a film or implemented in a later stage of story progression, I might had been fooled but we're not in Kindergarten and what I watched was too stupid for words. With the plot in concern, the film adopts a simple tale of a new girl in town who begins a spree of murder that disconnects a tight-knit community of friends. But between you and me, none of this really happens. Almost no mention of her moving into town recently was exchanged between cast, time just churns up into fine dust as the run time is squandered by America Olivo in skimpy clothes torturing dude-bros.


While this rendition of horror might seem appealing, it could only be so to the next Evil Dead memorabilia sporting metal-head who would appreciate something for the effects of violence and brutality towards unsuspecting victims. While I appreciate a nice scene of mayhem and murder as much as the average consumer of oddities, I enjoy it to be wrapped nicely in something called continuity and story archs, not a film centering itself around tits and blood, which we don't get none or much of either. Now to flip planes sharply, America Olivo is a great actress for what she's done. She was beautiful in Bitch Slap however no amount of good looks could have made that film palpable for me and she turns a nice psychotic turn in Neighbor which is presumably a natural talent. Neighbor just isn't equipped with really much of anything other than a circle of guys drinking in a bar planning a party. That's the key set up for the brutal shenanigans to take place, only it never does all in part to "The Girl" kidnapping our lead protagonist and torturing him and his girlfriend to soak up the rest of the time necessary for "feature length." Also, he later presumes he's dreaming during a slow purging from existence in an effort to channel An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge vibes of post-Jacob's Ladder discord.


I find it very discomforting that I can only praise the level of stark violence in Neighbor. I'd really like to be able to proclaim something in this abscessed project to have value or meaning but it's misplaced as a skin flick but doesn't aspire to be anything but cock-teasing on celluloid. You'd think they could fit a nice shower scene in the midst of Neighbor, I mean, with all the scenes of home invasion on display here that equate to little or nothing. Neighbor is a mess of a film; the kind that you are embarrassed to have watched. While some idiots can mistake the context of cruelty and splatter to be "camp", I cannot accept this travesty for something that it isn't - tolerable. While America Olivo is an attractive female who isn't afraid to bare all for us in Playboy, she's just a face - a body composed of tissue, muscle, bone, and fluid who will inevitably perish and rot. She and I will never amount to anything because time destroys all. Neighbor is a pitiful excuse for a horror movie; a two-tone wall of off-whites painted by someone with scarce knowledge of real horror. The revelation that life is precious...and I actually wasted 2 hours of my life on this fetid shit.

-mAQ

Splice

"Species" you might be joking, science fiction film it is, skin-romp hybrid thriller this isn't. Splice comes from the mind of Vincenzo Natali, the minimalist director behind the voracious paranoia of Cube and the ideological wit of Nothing. Splice is his newest foray into films that chronicle the broad aspect of science. Cube didn't so much tackle the theme of science as it was more of an ambiguous and unseen threat whereas Splice hosts Dren who is both worldly and terrifying. Capturing the star power of Adrien Brody as the awkward Clive and Sarah Polley as Elsa, Splice already has two things going for it. Fresh off the high that Predators left me frantically searching for in other studio pictures, it was nice to rewind to him with hair, and emotion. Natali has come along way from his oddball films with singular ideas and it glows transparently as Splice harnesses too many ideas leaving the film with a slight attitude of a bewildered newborn. That is, until the second part of the film.


Starting out, Splice jumps right ship into the fairly mundane zone of the film and normally every motion picture has these, whether they are necessary or not. If judgment came down to brass tacks then I'd choose to be wowed in the end than in the beginning. Being the pessimist that I am, I find more comfort in closings. After the science terminologies are passed around rather fervidly between the married couple, Elsa projects this crazy idea for moving onto the next phase by incorporating human DNA into their "The Mist" inspired flesh beasts with unsurprising results. Viola! The "mistake" is created in an artificial chamber that sports very creative imagery of artificial birthings and goopy sound effects. Once they discover a mutating age ratio amongst the beastchild, the consequential happenstances come out to bite them in the ass. Dren, named after the company for whom they are employed under (N.E.R.D. but backwards), begins to evolve at an incredible rate and becomes increasingly more feminine and borderline aggressive. As far as the tale of Splice goes, lets just say I'm glad this bat-out-of-hell never hits menopause.


Once the fire of passionate yet pretentious storytelling fades, the sinister and wondrous special effects of Splice take heed as the sole proprietor of the audiences attention and will remain so until the controversial copulation scene that had me wincing and feeling like a psychosexual deviant for not turning away. Not only does the CGI of the older Dren look so disgustingly fleshy but her body has been paid strict attention to detail, even so far as down to the terrestrial breasts on her unnatural body. All this was led up to with very critical scenes of masterful suspense and banal foreshadowing which is why Splice hit me as hard as it did, excusing the latter. Had I not cared about this creature or its rotating affection for either Clive or Elsa, I wouldn't have been so damned creeped out by its juvenile affections towards either surrogate. Just watching it spell words with Scrabble letters had me urging to break out of the trance I had been placed in to do something more productive than watching some flustered equality-of-sexes-my-ass motion picture encompassing that awkward "alien" sexuality that the Species series is so known for.


Speaking of psychotic women in film, Splice is one of the more recent contenders. Not only are Elsa's intentions not as they appear, she splits mid-film into a baby crazy bitch whose mind and matter are both disproportionate to what they were at the beginning of Splice. Which is not to say that the ending of Splice came as a surprise, which it did, but could have easily been presumed and predicted well before the finale of this film. Splice is that film that if you venture in with an elitist nit-picking attitude trying to discern true science behind a quasi-creature feature then you'd be sorely mistaken. While not breaking any new ground with the monster mash near the end that invokes memories of Jeepers Creepers 2, however this time with no racial purging, Splice does many things right and these are all brave grounds that Species didn't penetrate. While the seduction was in place, Natasha Henstridge could never compete with Delphine Chanéac's harrowing and childlike sexual demeanor. The problem with Splice isn't so much within the film itself but in the audience. While I admit I wanted to hate this film for its melancholy and disastrous ending, I found this to be the reason why I enjoyed this film so much. It's an affable piece of genetic destruction if I'd ever seen one and it was directed by someone with talent; a fleeting feat indeed. Just don't expect a sing-song ultraviolent masterpiece with this one.

-mAQ

Freddy Got Fingered

Freddy Got Fingered is such a singularly caustic, anarchic pipebomb of surreal tastelessness it is a crying shame many will simply relegate it to the dustbin of recent pop cultural history wherein the rest of Tom Green's career resides. Whatever the merits of Green's love-him-or-hate-him persona, however unavoidable was the refrain of "my bum is on your..." in the summer of '99, whether or not it is fair to blame (or pity) him for the subsequent success of Jackass (which utilized many of the most notable elements of Green's MTV show- parental abuse, skateboarding, and go-for-broke gross-out gags- while in turn dropping the more challenging, surreal aspects in favor of giggly teen boy fauxmoroticism), there is no denying that for a few glorious weeks in 2001, cinema audiences the nation over were treated within minutes of the opening credits of a major studio produced comedy the sight of a man so inspired by a glimpse of an erect equine cock that he stops his car, hops a fence, and jiggles and jerks the massive member with eye-rolling glee. Why does he do this? Why not? Like the early punk anthems that form much of the film's soundtrack, Freddy Got Fingered blasts by on a pure, unadulterated urge to shock with a manic pace that never lets up.


Green directs himself as Gordy, a 28-year old sociopathic manchild who dreams of nothing more than to see his senseless doodles translated into small screen success. Gordy's dad (Rip Torn!) wants nothing more than for Gordy to follow the example of his younger brother Freddy and get a job and move out of the house. In the struggles of wills that ensues we are invited to witness Rip Torn bare his ass while goading Green to fuck him (which manages to somehow be far more horrifying than an earlier scene of Green cutting open and then prancing about in the carcass of a dead deer), the hilarity that ensues when Gordy falsely accuses his dad of molesting said younger brother (hence the title), a cloyingly cute child actor brutalized in increasingly-violent turns of fate, Gordy licking a friend's open leg wound, Gordy delivering a baby against the mother's will (biting the umbilical chord with his teeth and swinging the gore-drenched stillborn around his head to revive it), and a pachyderm sperm-soaked reconciliation between father and son that must rank in Rip Torn's mind as the absolute nadir of a once-promising career.


In Roger Ebert's scathing indictment of a review he rightly recognizes that "the day may come when Freddy Got Fingered is seen as a milestone of neo-surrealism" while going on to add "The day may never come when it is seen as funny." On that count, I would have to disagree- the humor in the film is well-balanced between Green's off-the-cuff weirdo asides, scatological mania, and a more successful go at the politically incorrect humor of, say, a Troma flick. The only reason my laughs were muted throughout was that my jaw was dropping at unprecedented rates, not just in terms of how genuinely disgusting much of the imagery was, but in the utter strangeness of scenes like Gordy rigging a sausage-pulley system to his fingers so he can play off-tune piano, eat breakfast and draw at the same time, or when an attempted blowjob is delayed by the discovery of a piece of umbilical cord duct-taped to his stomach. Werner Herzog fell over himself praising Harmony Korine for the piece of bacon taped above the bathtub in Gummo, but what of the umbilical cord taped to Green's stomach? It's a shame Werner never got a load of this one; not unlike Gummo, this is the work of an artist burning to tell a tale as only he can tell it, a purging of deep-seated weirdness and fantastic imagery that will never be equalled in his oeuvre. Hollywood chewed Green up and spit him out into the made-for-tv children's comedies and reality game show hell we've forged for those who are no longer relevant, but frankly Freddy Got Fingered is as succinct and subversive a statement as the guy will ever make, so fuck it. Why not?


Lastly, one can't review Freddy Got Fingered without mention of Green's love interest Betty (Marisa Coughland), perhaps the most perfect female specimen to ever grace the big-screen: an endlessly supportive, blowjob-obsessed, wheelchair-bound doctor/amateur rocket-scientist who loves nothing more than being beat in her useless legs with a bamboo stick (to orgasm). "But Gord, I don't care about jewels, I just want to suck your cock." Through what mad alchemy did Green arrive at a girl that exemplifies the very ethos of Soiled Sinema?

-Jon-Christian

Rampage

I have had many aggressively nihilistic friends over the years, young men who have a hellish fireball of hatred towards modern America and everything that it stands for. Of course, what young white man with a set of testicles and two functional eyes would not be repelled by seeing the land their forefather conquered be turned into a de-industrialized third world that is looted by parasitic diaspora tribes from around the globe. Take that in consideration with all the violent action films Hollywood is pumping out and one won't be surprised to realize there is essentially an underground unorganized army of very pissed off white men. Most of these young men unfortunately use their pent up unharnessed hatred towards their own self-destruction. A friend of mine once blew up a bomb in the parking lot of Wal-Mart only to find himself sharing a jail shower with a group of Negroes. Why couldn't he have been more creative? German Ed Wood Uwe Boll seems to have some hope for these young men in his new action-packed trash masterpiece Rampage, a film that holds no hostages and offers no condolence to America's happy Hollywood-ending loving audiences.


All of Uwe Boll's improperly channeled hatred for America and Hollywood has been finally appropriately expressed in his film Rampage. The victims of Rampage are the American majority philistine population, the majority of people that will watch it, the film letting the audience know that not everything is alright at Starbucks or the hair salon. The lead "anti-hero" Bill is a young psychopath with a grudge against society that won't be vaporized merely by taking a massive bong-toke. It is apparent from the get go that Billy boy has a secondary manifesting character that is begging to be unleashed on the society as the film progresses. By the end of the film, one realizes that Bill is a lone wolf that only sees himself as a fellow comrade. In a society where alienating anyone that does not believe in the fantastic myth of a multicultural Utopia and the fallacy of world peace, deranged individuals like Bill are only growing exponentially everyday. The questions is who is to blame culturally: Eli Wiesel and Oprah Winfrey or David Duke and Minister King Samir Shabazz?


Despite his slight mental instability,Travis Bickle, the Anti-hero of Martin Scorsese's masterpiece The Taxi-Driver, saw some hope for the world. Even saving a young teen prostitute from a weaselly pimp was at least a virtuous deed. Flash forward a couple decades later and most of that urban vigilante hope is now at the level of the bowels of a New York City sewer. Bill of Rampage is not interested in helping anyone, he's just in it for the money. In America, one can make millions by putting a taser to their testicles on TV for the viewing pleasure of America's barbaric programed audiences. If a jackass like Johnny Knoxville can become rich and famous by degrading himself (as well as degrading his audience), why not just take the money and run whilst unloading bullets? Rampage has a very stupid and generic metal soundtrack that accentuates the films overall feeling of unrelenting pathological hatred. The Taxi-Driver had a beautiful Jazz score (and I hate Jazz) that was able to touch more than one nerve. One only has to follow the historical emotional degeneration of film (from The Taxi-Driver to Rampage) to see the overall deluge of American 'kultur.'


Is Rampage a work of anti-social action-packed art or a capitalist German Anti-American's most repulsive cinematic fart? The film is merely what it is at face value, an aggressive emotional response to an uncertain occidental world. I have no doubt in my mind that Rampage will set some idiot off on a killing Rampage and I would not be surprised if that was one of Uwe Boll's intentions with the film. The world is no longer feeling sorry for the United States, a country that prides itself on unwarranted arrogance and hating any place/people that prides itself on it's cultural achievements. I almost fear that Rampage is an expression of more hideous things to come in America, for there is no evidence to the contrary. Since Hollywood is not interested in expressing American truths (but more interested in covering them up), leave it to an honest hack like Uwe Boll to so glaringly reveal them.

-Ty E

Once Upon A Time In America

Hollywood has plenty of dago wop-fest mafia films, but is certainly lacking in regards to the much more powerful and organized Jewish mafia. Leave it to to Spaghetti Western master craftsman Sergio Leone to make the greatest Jewish mafia (and possibly greatest mafia film in general) ever made, Once Upon A Time In America is as classy as gangster films get, quite the accomplishment indeed. Despite taking place mostly in the young ghettos of New York City, most of Once Upon A Time In America was shot in Italy and Spain. Director and co-writer Sergio Leone spent a lot of time and great detail recreating NYC, a version of the city that looks more aesthetically power than the real city itself. Apparently, Leone used paintings from such iconic American artists as Norman Rockwell as a frame of reference when designing the set for Once Upon A Time In America. Maybe researching art history can be of some value after all.


I have never really thought of Robert De Niro as much of an Italian, but as more of a philistine working-class Jew. In Once Upon A Time In America, De Niro does a brilliant job playing the Rapist Jew Noodles. Noodles is a man who seems unable to truly get close with anyone, including his best friend Max and his life-long love interest Deborah. Of course, Noodles cannot be blamed for his criminal behavior and unconventionally smooth antisocial tendencies, for he is a product of a particular time and place. Noodles has turned into a man already in his early childhood/teenage years, killing an older mafia hood named Bugsby and even stabbing a cop, but those are just the consequences when playing rough. After serving time and getting out of jail as an adult, Noodles is even less emotional towards people in his personal life and more importantly whilst committing crucial crimes. Despite his peculiar form of criminal stoicism throughout his whole life, Noodles appropriately comes to terms with his dubious history in an elegant manner at the end of Once Upon A Time In America, making him a rapist and murderer one cannot help but like. Noodles uses words sparingly, but what the few words he does choose to use tell more than the most revealing of biographies.


The real dirty psychopath Yid of Once Upon A Time In America is mafia mastermind Max. Like many of the top IQ individuals members of his kinfolk, Max suffers from a form megalomaniac madness that helps him to be a real top criminal. Noodles maybe a rapist and killer, but he certainly plays the game of morality more nicely than his bandit buddy Max. By the end of Once Upon A Time In America, it becomes very clear that Max was always a one-man team, just using his partners as temporary tools for personal gains. Unfortunately for Max, he is well aware of his insanity (and well aware of his late Father's) and does not take kindly to Noodles telling him that he is 'crazy.' Crazy is as crazy does, but Max does it fairly successfully, going from a poor Ghetto Jew to one of the richest businessmen/politicians in America. Max is a wonderful symbol for what it truly takes to become success in America, a purist in regards to achieving the much sentimentalized "American dream."


I find most epics to be epically disappointing, films full of aesthetic fireworks yet lacking in solid and rich storytelling. Once Upon A Time In America maybe be the most complete and richly layered story ever told in the form of masterly crafted celluloid. A lot of the great and legendary auteur filmmakers end their careers on a weak note, no longer capable of the same artistic vitality that made them brilliant filmmakers. Sergei Leone is certainly an exception to this unfortunate trend of legendary directors burning out. As a master dictator auteur, Sergei Leone died with his boots on, proving to Hollywood and the world that artistic integrity will always stand the test of time in comparison to mere highly financed technical innovation. After all, who else could have created the brilliant work that is Once Upon A Time In America, one of the most American films ever made directed by a cultural outsider.

-Ty E

Thirst

I've given myself up to Park-Chan Wook and various other Korean masters. After charismatically bringing a manga to life with his mucky revenge thriller Oldboy, he separated himself from the pack by creating not only the greatest adaptation (arguably) of comic-to-cinema but insisted that this entity has an existence past paper thus making Oldboy seem so far apart from the rest of the pile. With his Vengeance trilogy, I have been impressed mostly but I will admit needing to rewatch all three for an overall satisfactory experience but with Thirst, Chan-wook seeks to reset the way the horror and vampire genre are to be digested. Thirst is a brooding vampire noir and I'd like to think the first of its kind. But this slow burning cinematic hemorrhage will inevitably take its toll on your default mood and I assume with this statement that the power of film is capable of moving you to either end of the extremes.


The incredible aspect of Thirst is its multi-format inconsistencies that leap from scene to scene bewildering you with what appears to be embracing every manifestation of these night demons sans the bat metamorphosis. Perceived by me to be an unintentional ode to The Invisible Man, Sang-hyun adorns bandages spanning his entire body for what he doesn't realize to be a deathly allergy to sunlight. From the silent stalking to the coffin sleeping, Thirst spans all incarnations of vampire, save for the glitter variety. The Bandaged Saint's introduction to the screen is what sets this absent priest apart from the other sexually-ravenous Catholic members of the boy-loving kind. After hearing the pleas of a suicidal nurse in the confession stand, Sang-hyeon sighs and suggests to her a diet of sun and anti-depressants and to "forget that bastard who dumped you." Not so much holy as a vulnerable man. Wanting to do some good he volunteers his body as a vessel to play guinea pig to experiment treatment for an incurable disease called the Emmanuel Virus. After dying on the table after an unsuccessful blood transfusion(!), he returns to life softly praying and miraculously healing.


All this leads up to his wild descent into the evil charms of a woman who is just given a tiny bit of power who then executes the lowly priests self-extinction. And thus the true majesty of Thirst is bared to all. In a way it seems despondent towards the cries of gender equality and feminism but as you can so succinctly envision in this tale of fiction coated in non-fiction, things are not always what they appear to be. While the male is really no good but at least strives for less than original sin, it's the female, "Eve", who banishes the immortal Adam to a silent purgatory of relentless emotional abuse. Thirst invokes in me a malicious wrath of hatred towards the promiscuity of women. As far as hypocrisy goes, I've indeed had my fill. The scene with Tae-ju having rough sex with one of Kang-Woo's dinner friends flustered me to no end. One facet of life I cannot indulge into is the whorish behaviors of the female. More recently, I've had to deal with heavy emotional baggage of the same caliber but not quite as fitting. I would strongly recommend you viewing Thirst if you've ever had female problems which applies to most men. Anyone who disagrees with me is a whipped bitch, that's all.


Thirst is composed of select scenes of explosive conflict as the hunger drives and thrives within the unholy only to alternate between takes to a serene and peaceful look into the life of a nocturnal predator. It's not as though these are bad people. It's rather sorrowful to observe this wayward servant of god helplessly try to remain of good intent as he struggles with a condition that his "god" undoubtedly had to create; unless of course he seeks counsel in the open arms of science. Now on to the highlight of the show, sex and blood lust. If Thirst had to be known for one thing, it's the trauma-inducing sex scenes. To watch a vampire unaware of his own strength literally pound a virgin unabashedly while she winces in pain is as awkward as watching those POV porn angles of slapping genitalia.


To its credit, Thirst also is cursed with incredibly realistic sex sequences. This is no escapist view into what sex should be or how it should be. No glamorous makeup, no soft grunts, no magical butterflies in the pit of your stomach. The lavish sequences of lust are raw, crude, and desirable only to those involved which is how sex in cinema should be. When the film finally reaches its forlorn conclusion, silence will swell up in the pit of your stomach which was the case for me and it seems that all of life's problems were solved with the promise of a lovely sacrifice. Far be it from me to exclaim this to be the best vampire film created in a long time but I'd be lying if I didn't admit this is one of the best. It's also rather uncommon for a film to show the truth of the ever-going female decay and how we are powerless against it.

-mAQ