DRAWN AND QUARTERED

ALMA (2008)

Directed by: Rodrigo Blaas
Written by: Rodrigo Blaas

A little girl sees herself in a toy shop. How did that doll get there? And why can’t she get to it? And…why is it there in the first place? A pretty dark little short that never wears out its welcome. Nothing new, really, but still pretty good.

THE BLACK DOG’S PROGRESS (2009)

Directed by: Stephen Irwin
Written by: Stephen Irwin

I had no clue what was going on with this short until well into it’s 3 minute run. Finally I saw a spotlight on the bits we were supposed to be paying attention to. A little dog is born, given to a little boy and dies all in the space of a bunch of flip books that repeat. The problem, kinda, is that they’re all onscreen at the same time. It helps to add to the tension and dread, but it’s also pretty confusing. And it’s dark as hell. Not for the faint of heart.

CABARET KADNE (2009)

Directed by: Marc Riba/Anna Solanas
Written by: Marc Riba/Anna Solanas

I’m still not sure how I felt about this film. It’s about a cabaret where the performers are towards the end of their lives. A little sad and pathetic until the final reveal. Then it just becomes sad. Not bad.

CONSOUL (2009)

Directed by: Lasse Gjertsen
Written by: Lasse Gjertsen

Ever feel like you’re in a Nintendo game? Like, the classic system? Well, Lasse Gjertsen decided to show us what it would be like to live in an old school game…and it’s pretty hilarious. Maybe a little bit overlong at 12 minutes, but still kinda awesome.

CONTROLMASTER (2009)

Directed by: Run Wrake
Written by: Run Wrake

A woman has a powerful device that makes her grow to enormous sizes to defeat monsters. But when an evil doctor gets a hold of it and turns her into a dog, how will the town survive? Pretty good visuals (all taken from comic books).

GIT GOB (2009)

Directed by: Philip Eddols
Written by: Philip Eddols

The two stupidest people in the world find a hole in the ground…or is it a hat? Two minutes of stupidity that’s pretty funny.

I AM SO PROUD OF YOU (2009)

Directed by: Don Hertzfeldt
Written by: Don Hartzfeldt

Don Hertzfeldt’s second part of Everything Will Be OK is just as good. Gotta love this guy. 22 minutes and it never lets up with the funny. Little Don is pretty pathetic, but his life and the lives of his ancestors are hilarious.

KABOOM (2005)

Directed by: PES
Written by: PES

One minute of explosions animated with ordinary objects. Nothing to it, but it’s at least kind of interesting and very short.

LILI (2008)

Directed by: Riho Unt
Written by: Riho Unt

A soldier dies and a girl cries…and rats have a party. Why were the rats German? I dunno, but it was a pretty interesting short.

LUNEVILLE (2009)

Directed by: Sebastien Petit
Written by: Sebastien Petit

My least favorite of the shorts because it was too long for its own good. It almost a remake of Melies’ A Trip To The Moon, but it’s not as interesting. If it had been made in 1902, it probably would have been better.

MELTDOWN (2009)

Directed by: David Green
Written by: David Green

David Cross voices a sandwich who is trying to save the other residents of the fridge from certain freezer burn. Funny stuff with some great voice acting.

PIGEON IMPOSSIBLE (2009)

Directed by: Lucas Martell
Written by: Lucas Martell
Based on play by: Johann Wolfgang Goethe

A secret agent is trying to transport a special weapon, but a pigeon keeps hindering him. This hometown crew tries hard to do a Pixar-like short and doesn’t quite make it, but it’s a pretty damn good try.

THE TERRIBLE THING OF ALPHA-9! (2009)

Directed by: Jake Armstrong
Written by: Jake Armstrong

A really funny short about a monster on an alien planet that has killed everyone who has tried to to fight it. But is it as vicious as everyone thinks it is?

VAMPIRE GIRL VS. FRANKENSTEIN GIRL

**** (4/5)

Directed by: Yoshihiro Nishimura/Naoyuki Tomomatsu
Written by: Naoyuki Tomomatsu
Based on manga by: Shungiku Uchida

Director Yoshi Nishimura (Tokyo Gore Police) is back with another Troma style gore-fest. This time, though, he seems to have a bit more of a story this time.

Two high school girls are vying for the attention of one boy. One girl, Monami, is a vampire. The other, Keiko, has an evil scientist for a father. Monami makes Mizushima into half a vampire. Will he choose her? Hopefully he doesn’t choose Keiko, ‘cause she’s pretty much a complete bitch.

Lots and lots of blood and lots of social commentary in the background. I think Nishimura and his co-director, Naoyuki Tomomatsu, have obviously watched Citizen Toxie over and over again.

More fun than a box of organs. I kinda loved it. I don’t think it’s quite as good as Machine Girl, but still great.

ANTICHRIST

*½ (1.5/5)

Directed by: Lars von Trier
Written by: Lars von Trier

Lars Von Trier is a great filmmaker. Unfortunately, he’s prone to bouts of pretension. This film is one of the latter, I’m afraid.

Willem Defoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg are a couple who have lost a child and there’s no getting around the fact that it’s their fault. The first scene is of them having some pretty hardcore sex while the kid decides to take a dive out the window…complete with opera music and full penetration shot.

The rest of the film is Willem trying to psychoanalyze his wife’s grief pattern. He takes her out of therapy and takes her off of the medication they gave her. Instead, he takes her to their cabin in the woods (which she says that she is more afraid of than almost anything else) and gives her therapy…which includes copious amounts of unerotic sex.

And then things get REALLY dark. We’re talkin’ “genital trauma” dark.

A lot of people have been talking about the Jungian ramifications of the film, and that may be true. But that doesn’t make it a good film. It makes it a truly obscure film that only psychology majors will fully understand. I, on the other hand, was left with a feeling of, “Wuh?!?!”

I really felt like Von Trier was trying to give me a lesson in how evil a couple can be to each other, but I’ve seen War Of The Roses. It was actually enjoyable. This, on the other hand, was pretty boring with the occasional pretty/disturbing shot. Unless you just want to see a shot of Willem Defoe’s ass going up and down against a tree with lots of arms reaching out of it, you will probably want to avoid this one.

VIRTUAL DATING (2009)

Directed by: Katia Olivier
Written by: Katia Olivier

I’m not entirely sure why this was attached to K-20, but it was. So, there you are.

A young lady goes to a sex shop for just the right sex toy. She’s a little embarrassed to be there…ok, a LOT embarrassed. She finally finds one. It’s a robot lover. And maybe it’s the answer to her wishes.

The short starts off pretty funny. (“If you wish me to touch your hand, Press 1. If you wish me to touch your cheek, Press 2.”) Eventually, though, things get pretty dark and you start to wonder if you wandered into the wrong short. If it had ended darkly, I think people would have thrown things at the screen. As it was, it was kind of cool even with all of the changes in mood.

K-20: THE FIEND WITH 20 FACES (2009)

**** (4/5)

Directed by: Shimako Sato
Written by: Shimako Sato
Based on book by: So Kitamura

I know it’s probably not cool to like cheesy superhero movies anymore, but I don’t really care. K-20 is a superhero origin story that I can get behind.

Heikichi Endo (Takeshi Kaneshiro) is a lowly circus performer in a world where WWII never happened. The rich are very rich and the poor are VERY poor. There is no changing occupation and no falling in love. It’s just not allowed.

Oh, and all of the signs are in Germen for some reason. That’s never really explained.

When a stranger comes to hire Heikichi to take some pictures of a wedding, his life changes forever. He is mistaken for the super-thief, K-20. Now, to clear his name, he has to become a thief himself.

Yeah, it’s been done before, but a lot has been done before. This is a really fun combination of Batman and Darkman that deserves an audience on all sides of the Pacific. It has maybe a few too many scenes in it (some reiterate what we’ve already heard), but it didn’t break the pace too badly.

My only real complaint is the very last scene. It’s a bit TOO close to cheese. But, whatever. The movie was a LOT of fun. Check it out. I can’t wait for K-20 2…or would it be K-21?

CROPSEY

**** (4/5)

Directed by: Barbara Brancaccio/Joshua Zeman
Written by: Joshua Zeman

From the late 60s until the mid-80s, about half a dozen kids were kidnapped from Staten Island. The body of one was found, the others have never been seen again. Was it the work of Cropsey, the urban legend monster who lurks in the shadows of Staten Island? Or was it a former employee of the local abandoned mental hospital?

Directors Barbara Brancaccio and Joshua Zeman grew up on Staten Island and remember hearing the legend of Cropsey. When they started putting things together, though, they realized that Cropsey was real. That’s what spurred this though provoking and frightening documentary. A scarier movie I probably won’t see at Fantastic Fest this year.

The only problem I have with it is that I’m pretty sure some of it was done purely for effect. Why on EARTH would these people go into an abandoned mental hospital where they think children had been taken to be murdered AT FUCKING NIGHT?!?! No way in hell would you catch me there at night. It would probably be hard enough to get me there in the daytime, but night is an absolute no-go.

Otherwise, a very good doc that stayed with me all day long.

YATTERMAN (2009)

***** (5/5)

Directed by: Takashi Miike
Written by: Masashi Sogo
Based on tv series created by: Tatsuo Yoshida

Takashi Miike is not known for making children’s movies. In fact, he’s not known for making films that any child should ever see, no matter how well adjusted. Can you imagine what a kid would think about darts being shot out of a stripper’s vagina? Or a woman lactating all over her family?

But Miike has to do something different with almost every one of the 7 movies he makes ever year, so he decided to go for a kiddie movie…kinda.

Yatterman was an anime series made in the 70s that was, apparently, very popular in Japan. So much so that Miike wanted to remake it in his own weird way.

The story centers on Gan (Sho Sakurai) and Ai (Saki Fukuda), two superheroes who are constantly battling the Doronbo gang, led by Doronjo (Kyoko Fukada). They are after the pieces of a skull sculpture that will lead to some sort of power when it is put together.

Yatterman #1 and #2 (as Gan and Ai are known when they are in their superhero mode) have help on their missions from their mechanical friends, Yatterwoof (a giant dog shaped robot who gets destroyed every chance he gets) and Botty (a tiny robot that runs on AAA batteries).

This is just about as silly as it gets. The Yattermen are completely insane and do little dances all the time. But the movie calls attention to their weirdness. In fact, the girl who comes to them for help at one point looks at the camera and says, “They’re crazy!”

Basically, this is a live action anime. There’s no way around that. Miike didn’t change anything just because it would look silly in live action. It’s all here. And all of that makes for a very strange, but pretty fun couple of hours. If you’re up for that sort of thing, check it out. If not, then stay far, far away.

Another word of warning: The Japanese apparently have a really warped view of what a kid’s movie is. There’s some pretty crazy shit going on in this movie that is probably not so much what you want your kids to see. The least of which is a guy “accidentally” grabbing some boobs. Whatever. That’s a judgment call. I think it’s probably alright, but some parents would run screaming.

The one that really got me was the scene with two robots fucking. Uh…yeah. And one of them says “I’m coming!” Uh…double yeah. What the fuck?! I know the Japanese have a pretty weird relationship with sex (tentacle porn, anyone?), but seriously? Get the kids started early, huh?

One side note: the movie was about half an hour late because they had just gotten the HD video of it in not long before it was supposed to play. They popped it in and realized that there were no subtitles. They tried to get a translator who was at the festival to come in and translate the whole film live. Screw that!

Just to show how resourceful these guys are, they ended up finding a DVD copy of the movie, shrinking the size of the video projection and playing just the bottom section of the DVD under the video image so that we could have subtitles. It made for a pretty fucking surreal experience, but it worked surprisingly well! Good on you, Alamo staff!

SURVIVAL OF THE DEAD

***½ (3.5/5)

Directed by: George A Romero
Written by: George A Romero

As we all know, George A Romero is a god among men. He basically created the modern horror film with Night Of The Living Dead and just made it better with Dawn Of The Dead.

A couple of years ago, he created a new world for his zombies with Diary Of The Dead. Now he’s taking one of the minor characters from that film (the military guy who robs the filmmakers) and follows him for the rest of his journey through The Dead.

What we end up with is not quite as good as Diary, but it’s better than Land Of The Dead. It’s more jokey than the other films, but is still definitely a Romero zombie film.

James O’Flynn (Julian Richings) and Seamus Muldoon (Richard Fitzpatrick) have been feuding all their lives. Their little island off the coast of Delaware has been stuck in the middle of that feud since it started. Now there are zombies around and things have only gotten worse. James realizes that the zombies need to be put down, but Seamus thinks that they can be rehabilitated. He wants to keep them with him.

Meanwhile, Crockett (Alan Van Sprang) and his crew are trying to find a safe place. They pick up a kid (Devon Bostick) who heard about the island. Let’s head there!

Things just go downhill from there.

Like I said, not the greatest movie, but it is fun and it’s a freakin’ Romero zombie movie. What’s not to like?! The zombies are still being used as a catalyst for showing us human behavior, and that’s what these movies are for. The humans are worse than the zombies.

George did an intro before the movie and said that he has two more zombie movies planned for this world, following two more characters from Diary. I’m for that, even if they’re not as good as the originals. They’re still better than most zombie flicks out there.

RAYMOND (2007)

Directed by: Jules Janaud/Fabrice Le Nezet/François Roisin
Written by: Jules Janaud/Fabrice Le Nezet/François Roisin

A pretty short short about a guy who really wants to go deep-sea-diving. A group of scientists have to find out if he has enough stamina for it, though. They put him through a LOT of tests, sometimes along with other people.

Very funny stuff and pretty hard to tell that it’s mostly CGI. The tests they put him through would be enough to kill a crash test dummy. I especially love the foozeball bit.

DEVIL’S CHAIR

***½ (3.5/5)

Directed by: Adam Mason
Written by: Adam Mason/Simon Boyes

Nick (Jason Statham lookalike Andrew Howard) is accused of killing his girlfriend after she winds up dead at an abandoned asylum. He told everyone that it was a horrible looking chair in one of the rooms. She sat in it (while he was giving her a pretty damn good time) and it suddenly came to life, clamping her in and shooting spikes into her arms, legs and neck. She died not long after that.

Of course, no one believed him, so off he goes to another asylum.

Fast forward a couple of years. He is now being let out because he’s never shown any violent tendencies since the day of the fateful event. But a psychologist (David Gant) wants to write a book about the events. He and some of his students take a trip with Nick back to the asylum. When they find the chair, they also find out a little bit about its secret.

Blood is lost and now Nick may be their only hope for survival.

Pretty good movie that kind of plays with and makes fun of a lot of conventions of this sort of movie. The good doctor goes WAY over the top at some point becoming a very stereotypical “DON’T DO IT, NICK! YOU DON’T KNOW THE POWER OF THAT CHAIR!!” type character. Nick even makes fun of the audience calling us all “torture porn loving fuck-faces,” or something along those lines.

It may not have been great, but it was definitely entertaining and kept me guessing for a little while. And it had some pretty awesome creature effects.

Lots and lots of blood, too. So, if you’re not into that, stay the fuck away. Not as bad as Inside…but close.

ANGE

Directed by: Nikolas List
Written by: Nikolas List

A short film from Belgium (directed by Nikolas List) about a doll-maker who meets a girl who was born without a spine. Love–and a big surprise–ensues.

This goes in a completely different direction than you originally think that it will. The doll-maker seems so sweet!

Liked it a lot. Pretty creepy stuff. It has just about everything that really creeps people out: doll eyes, carnies, circular saws…no clowns, though. Oh well.

THE BEAUTIFUL BEAST (2006)

**½ (2.5/5)

Directed by: Karim Hussain
Written by: Karim Hussain
Based on book by: Marie-Claire Blais

I’m still not really sure how I feel about this movie. It’s about a really fucked up family that seems to get off on being awful to each other.

The mother (Carole Laura) is a rich and vain bitch whose only really good attribute is her hotness. (Towards the middle even that gets screwed up when she starts to look like an Alan Parsons album cover.) And she seems to have a pretty unnatural relationship with her son (Marc-Andre Grondin). He is a good-looking social outcast. He acts like a six year old. He has a pretty pure heart, but only loves his family and his horse. The daughter (Caroline Dhavernas from “Wonderfalls”) really only wants attention from her mother. Unfortunately, she’s constantly being told, “You really look ugly when you smile like that.” (She’s not, by the way. I’ve always thought Caroline was pretty cute.)

Things eventually come to a head and the family explodes.

Not even thinking about all of the missed opportunities for boob shots (all we get is a lot of man ass) and the crazy-ass birth scene, this movie was just kind of…meh. I really wanted to like it a lot. But it was so slowly paced and these people were so horrible to each other that it was very hard to like.

There’s style to spare here and a lot of really interesting ideas. And it’s even worth seeing for those reasons. But don’t expect anything earth shattering.

And, despite the picture of the dude with a horse’s head all over the program and poster, don’t expect this movie to be THAT weird. Really, it’s only the characters that are weird. The horse-head dude is a vision that Caroline sees occasionally. No Lynch-ian fantasies going on here.

THE ORPHANAGE (2007)

***½ (3.5/5)

Directed by: Juan Antonio Bayona
Written by: Sergio G. Sánchez

Today’s secret screening was of a movie that I had never heard of. Everybody was talking about it before hand saying that this HAD to be the movie we were seeing. All I could say was, “Ok. Whatever. What the fuck is it?”

This is (as far as I know) the first movie that Guillermo Del Toro has “presented.” With that stamp of approval on a Spanish ghost story, how could I go wrong?

Well, this was certainly not the best movie I saw at the Festival.

It’s about a family who move into the orphanage where the mother grew up. The little boy, Simon (Roger Princep), starts seeing ghosts, saying that they’re his new friends.

When he goes missing, things get very strange and frightening.

Like Guillermo’s ghost stories, this isn’t just a horror movie. Yes, there are ghostly aspects, but really it’s a movie about a mother’s love for her son. Laura will go to pretty amazing lengths to find Simon. Even when her husband gives up, she keeps going. She hires a medium (in the creepiest scene in the movie), gives up on the cops and…well, you’ll see.

Unfortunately, I was smarter than every single character in the film. This isn’t always a problem in horror movies. I mean, if every character in a horror movie knew that you should run outside instead of up the stairs, there would be no horror movies.

But, in this case, the characters are supposed to be pretty smart people.

Example: Simon shows his mom a game that he plays with the ghosts. It involves them taking your “treasure” away from you. Then you have to go find it with treasure hunt type clues. When he goes missing and she suspects a ghost of kidnapping him, my first thought was, “Play the game.”

It takes her nearly a year to come to this conclusion. By that time, I knew exactly how the movie was going to end. There were no more surprises.

Yes, the ghosts were kind of creepy. Yes, the movie was a pretty effective ghost story. Yes, it conveyed the aspect of a mother’s love very well.

No, I didn’t really care about any of the characters because they were all just a bit too stupid.

I was very impressed with the writer and director (Sergio G. Sanchez and Juan Antonio Bayona). For a first film, they really seemed to have a pretty good grasp on the genre and love the hell out of it.

Too bad their characters weren’t smarter. It could have been a lot more interesting if they had been.

(To be fair, this script is about 10 years old. Sergio kept seeing movies come out that were pretty close to it and had to re-write it many times.)

THE FAERIES OF BLACKHEATH WOODS (2006)

Directed by: Ciaran Foy
Written by: Ciaran Foy

Are faeries always good? Well, not exactly. A little girl finds out the true nature of faeries in this short.

I pretty much called the ending about half way through, but it was still a fun short.

DEATH NOTE/DEATH NOTE: THE LAST NAME (2006)

****½ (4.5/5)

Directed by: Shusuke Kaneko
Written by: Tetsuya Oishi
Based on manga by: Tsugumi Ohba/Takeshi Obata

I’m just going to treat this like it’s one four and a half hour movie. The second one picks up right where the first one leaves off.

When I heard that this movie was the biggest hit Japan had seen in years, I suddenly became very wary of it. After all, Pulse was huge over there…and it sucked. A lot. The Grudge was also pretty huge. And it sucked. A lot.

Luckily, they get things right every once in a while.

Light (Tatsuya Fujiwara from Battle Royale) is just a normal college student trying to become a lawyer. One night, he starts to realize just how much the legal system DOESN’T do. They let far too many criminals slip through their fingers.

Enter the Death Note. Light soon finds out that if you write a name in the book, that person dies within a minute. Finally, he has a way to punish the wicked.

He meets the previous owner of the book, a god of death named Ryuck. Only he can see him because he touched the book.

There are a lot of rules that go with the book (and sometimes the movies make the rules up as they go along), but basically it all boils down to killing people without actually being there.

Soon, so many people are dying that the cops get involved. Light’s dad is put on the case and he goes to a mysterious character named L for help. (And, no, L is not Light. There’s no mystery there.)

These were definitely my favorite movies of the day. They weren’t horror at all. More like a really cool fantasy (sort of) cat and mouse game where the cat and mouse aren’t always on opposite sides.

I can totally see why these movies took Japan by storm. They’re fun, very intelligent and have all kinds of twists and turns that don’t betray the rest of the movie. (No Haute Tension here.) They also are a pretty good anti-death penalty statement.

I really loved these movies. I hear that they’re already available on DVD over here. At some point (if I ever get my hands on a dollar again), I might have to pick them up.

They’re planning more sequels, but these are pretty self-contained. There’s definitely an ending. There’s a little bit of a hook that leaves it open (and gods of death exist all over, so there could be no end to the books), but they don’t need to do a sequel.

I guess, though, if director Shusuke Kaneko is involved, I’m all for it.

Now I kind of want to read the manga.

**** (4/5)

Directed by: Rob Zombie
Written by: Rob Zombie
Based on 1978 screenplay by: John Carpenter/Debra Hill

We don’t always need remakes. But sometimes they’re ok.

First, let’s hit some previews.

FEAST OF LOVE–Not the horror film it sounds like. It’s actually a romantic comedy kind of like Love, Actually. Which means that I’ll probably like it. Morgan Freeman, Jane Alexander, Selma Blair, Greg Kinnear, Radha Mitchell, Alexa Davalos (the hottie from Chronicles Of Riddick) and a whole bunch of other people. I’m a sap. I’m there.

THE MIST–I read this Stephen King story years ago and I don’t remember all the God stuff in it. I need to read it again. Frank Darabont gets to do another story that King said he would never sell. I guess technology finally caught up with it. Hopefully, it’s good. Loved Shawshank, liked Green Mile.

By the way, this also stars Miss Davalos. Its a feast of Alexa, I guess. Thomas Jane, Marcia Gay Harden and Tobey Jones also star.

30 DAYS OF NIGHT–I’m all for this one. Based on a graphic novel about vampires in the Arctic where day never comes. I have no problem with Josh Hartnett or Ben Foster, so I’m ok with them being in it. (Even if the only character I’ve really seen Ben in recently was a complete waste of space, I hear he’s a good actor. He was great as Eli in “Freaks And Geeks,” though!) Looks like an awesome movie…and there will be blood. Oh, yes. There will be blood.

And apparently there’s another Horror Fest going on with “8 Movies 2 Die 4.” I hear the movies last year were, for the most part, pretty good. Maybe I’ll actually check them out this year. The ad for this year’s, though, is lamer than lame. The huge chick in heels and a nightie stalking through the city to a billboard for the festival. Yeah, she’s hot. Nice to look at. But, MAN, is it dumb.

Ok, on with Michael Myers.

Back in 1978, no one had really seen a slasher movie before. Sure, Psycho is kind of considered the first American slasher movie…but that was totally different. That was the puritanical 60s. (Although, Hitch tried his best to make them NOT so puritanical. There was a nipple in one shot. THE HORROR!!)

John Carpenter brought in a whole new era to horror, for better or worse. Halloween is STILL the best of the genre, even after all of the imitators have tried to capitalize on it. (The original Nightmare On Elm Street was a little bit better than Halloween…but Nightmare is barely a slasher movie. It’s more supernatural than that.)

At this point, the slasher genre is pretty much over. There are still some holdouts: A few Friday The 13ths come out occasionally. Hatchet tries its best to bring it back. (And it really does its best. I really liked that movie a lot.) But there’s not a lot that you can really do with the genre anymore to surprise people. Especially after movies like Scream and Scary Movie have skewered them so much already.

So, of course, Hollywood thinks that it’s time to jump start slashers. And Rob Zombie is more than up for the task.

Now, here’s a little bit of trivia that you might not realize about the original Halloween: IT’S NOT THAT FUCKING GORY!!! There’s a bit of blood. There are quite a few boobs (mostly PJ Soles, bless her good genes). There’s a lot of suspense and violence. And there is LOTS of screaming. But there’s no real gore. A lot of it happens off screen or without blood.

Today’s audiences just aren’t up for that sort of thing. That’s why remakes of basically bloodless movies (like The Haunting or Texas Chainsaw Massacre–seriously! Watch it again!) are full of blood and special effects.

Now, I have no problem with gore. I’m a gore-hound, actually. I like the Hostel movies. I think they’re quite good, actually. And I can totally stomach them. (Although, Weiner Dogs upside-down boobs were a bit much to handle.) But it almost pains me to watch a perfectly good movie that used suspense to create horror be remade into a blood bath with no suspense.

Rob Zombie seems to know that this drives the old fans away. House Of 1000 Corpses had some genuinely tense scenes. It wasn’t a particularly good movie (although I liked it more than most people did), but it did hold my attention for its whole run. I still haven’t seen The Devil’s Rejects, but that actually got some really good reviews. (Why haven’t I watched it? Not a clue. I’m an idiot.)

So, how does he do with remaking Halloween?

Not bad, actually. He, for the most part, sticks to the story of the original. Michael Myers (pro-wrestler, Tayler Mane–but first played by 10 year-old Daeg Faerch) kills his entire family except for his mom and baby sister, whom he loves unconditionally. (His step-dad is played to the hilt by William Forsythe. I’ve never seen him be so fucking creepy.) Dr. Samuel Loomis (Malcolm McDowell) is brought in to try to figure out why he would do such a horrible thing. Soon enough, he realizes that Michael is just evil. There’s no other explanation for it.

Flash forward 15 years. Michael breaks out of the asylum to go after his little sister, who is now Laurie Strode (Scout Tayler-Compton who, by the way, is set to star in ANOTHER re-make, April Fool’s Day). Does he want to kill her? Or is there something else going on in his evil little mind? (This fact wasn’t brought to light until Halloween 2, but it’s become such a part of the lore of the series that some people forget that. It’s kind of like the fact that Jason Voorhees didn’t really kill anyone until the second Friday The 13th.)

Eventually, Dr. Loomis finds out about Michael’s escape and goes after him in a very slow cat and mouse game. He has to have a few random scenes of buying guns and such before he can actually chase after Michael.

Of course, Laurie has two friends who are more sexually exploratory than she is. Lynda (Kristina Klebe) and Annie (Danielle Harris, who was Halloweens 4 & 5) are her best friends and are trying to get her to babysit for them so they can run off and have sex with their boyfriends…or whatever dick is closest.

That’s when all hell breaks loose…of course.

Now, one thing that can really derail a movie like this is too much information. We don’t really need to know where Michael came from. The beginning of the original was perfect. We see flashes of the murder of his older sister. Then we see the little boy with the knife and the clown costume. And that’s it. Cut to 15 years later. And that’s one reason why Michael Myers is so scary. We don’t know anything about his family life. He seems to have come from a typical suburban family. Everything was fine. Yeah, his sister was supposedly a slut, but really she was just having sex with her boyfriend instead of taking Michael out trick-or-treating. That was her crime. Everything was normal.

Zombie gives us the whole story. Michael’s family was terrible. His mom (Sheri Moon Zombie) was a stripper. His step-dad was pure evil and apparently wanted to fuck his step-daughter. His older sister was a little bitch and actually quite the slut. The only relief Michael had was the fact that his mom was nice to him and his baby sister hadn’t grown up enough to treat him like shit.

Oh, yeah. And he was a KISS fan. Not so sure I like that particular inference. I’m not a KISS fan, myself. I don’t like them much at all. But I don’t like the fact that an evil serial killer in a movie is a fan. That just feeds the fire on that particular issue. Why not make him a Michael Bolton fan? That would be MUCH better. I would want him to die then.

(By the way, you can tell that the kid never did any of the “kill” scenes. The bodies were never shown in the same shot with the kid and he never brought down a weapon on anyone within the frame. They did a pretty good job of keeping this kid out of psychological harm’s way. The kid is good, too. He goes from a nice, sympathetic kid to crazy scary in a heartbeat.)

When Michael grows up, things don’t get much better for him. He’s in the asylum basically alone. When he escapes, we know that he’s pure evil because he kills the only “friend” he has in the joint (Danny Trejo, making his regular cameo).

Maybe it was a bit too much information. Maybe Michael Myers SHOULD be a mystery. What’s weird is that it really didn’t bother me. I mean, Rob Zombie really spelled everything out for us. But it didn’t hurt the fact that Michael is a killing machine. We sympathize with him as a kid…not so much as an adult. There’s a tinge of pain for his pain…but not enough to make us want him to win. Laurie is definitely the hero here. Michael is an asshole, no matter how much we know about his childhood.

Zombie knows from suspense, too. I’m pretty immune to horror type suspense these days, but there were scenes that almost surprised me. It was a good change from the typical “horror” fare lately. He’s definitely a big fan of the original and uses a lot of the same tricks as Carpenter did (hanging a body by stabbing it against a wall, the gravestone at the head of one of the bodies…) and, like Carpenter, he uses suspense as a tool for the horror instead of the other way around.

But there is plenty of blood this time. No one is left alone here. There’s blood all over the fuckin’ place. It’s no Hostel II, but it’s gore-filled. No doubt about it. And there are boobs aplenty, too. Everyone who should show them, shows them. (And you know that some girls just SHOULD show them.) So no one walks away disappointed on those fronts. (Pun intended.)

Overall, it wasn’t a bad movie. Not great, but certainly worth checking out if you’re a fan of the original or horror films in general. He didn’t ruin the memory of the original any more than any of the sequels did.

Watch for a few horror stalwarts in small roles: Brad Dourif, Udo Kier, Clint Howard, Dee Wallace, Sid Haig…and Mickey Dolenz? That’s right. There’s a fuckin’ Monkee in here! He plays a guard…I think. I forgot to look for him, but I saw his name in the credits. Guess I have to see it again at some point.

When we got there around 7:45, we were told that we had to go through the hospital and the “lobotomy room.” Now, I don’t know if that’s actually what the second room was for originally, but just having someone call it that was creepy as hell. All of the lights were off (of course, no electricity) and we were walking through these dark, empty rooms by the light of a few flashing yellow lights set up by the theatre staff and my weak little keychain light. Most of the rooms were open so we could explore on our own, but I really didn’t want to do too much exploring. I just wanted to take a cursory look and get the fuck out. Lots of weird things going on in those halls many years ago. Who knows what’s left behind?

So we made it through that and went on to the outdoor screen and settled in for a long winter’s viewing. Luckily it wasn’t too cold. That came later, and even then it never got unbearable. Gotta love Central Texas falls.

SESSION 9 (2001)

**** (4/5)

Directed by: Brad Anderson
Written by: Brad Anderson/Stephen Gevedon

The first movie of the night I had already seen and didn’t care too much for it on first viewing. Not bad, but I thought the location, the tapes one of the characters was listening to and the documentary on the DVD were creepier than anything else going on in the story. But I knew it would play well to this crowd at this location.

And I was right. I loved this movie this time around.

Session 9 is the story of asbestos and what it can do to you. Or, moreover, what taking asbestos out of a creepy old abandoned mental institution can do to you.

Gordon (Peter Mullan–a bit player in Braveheart and a small timer from Trainspotting) is desperate for a job. He runs an asbestos removal company and has fallen on hard times. He’s got a new baby and is obviously having some problems at home. So it’s time to pull out a miracle. He and his crew, Phil (David Caruso in one of his best roles), Hank (Josh Lucas from American Psycho, A Beautiful Mind and Sweet Home Alabama), Mike (Stephen Gevedon) and Jeff (Brendan Sexton III from Welcome To The Dollhouse, Desert Blue and Boys Don’t Cry), have a job that should take them at least 2-3 weeks. In order to get the job Gordon promises a week. Personally, I think it looks more like 6 months, but I don’t know dick about asbestos removal.

So the boys get down to the job. Unfortunately there’s all kinds of tension between all of them. Jeff is Gordon’s mullet-headed American nephew who doesn’t really know his ass from his foot and he’s got nichtophobia. He can’t function at all in the dark. Hank stole Phil’s girlfriend from him and neither of them can let it go. And then there’s Mike. He’s just kind of biding his time working with these guys. He’s actually a pretty brilliant guy, but he had no interest in the bar exams when he took them, so he failed them. Now he’s reconsidering, but he needs money…so here he is.

But when Mike finds a box of tapes recorded during doctors’ sessions with Mary Hobbes, things start changing for everybody. Mary was an inmate of the hospital when it closed (and was a big reason for a lot of these institutions’ closures). She was involved in a law suit against her parents for ritualistic abuse and rape that was all found in sessions like the ones on tape. Was it true? Or was she just making it up? Did she even know?

And when one of the guys goes missing, things really heat up.

My feelings on this movie still hold true, but on viewing it again I’ve decided that I actually really do like the story. The place itself (it actually was filmed in the Danvers Sate Hospital) is the creepiest aspect of the whole movie. Even on film you can feel the horrors of what went on there before it was closed. It’s just an old building, but there’s something there. On the DVD there’s a documentary about the making of the film and it has some of the history of the building. The actors all felt the tension of working there. Caruso actually said that, while filming on the roof, for a fraction of a split second he thought, “Jump.” Not because he felt like committing suicide. It wasn’t a depression that washed over him. It was more curiosity. What would it feel like to fly? He also said that he saw things go by the window during filming.

And then there’s the tapes. Oh, the tapes. Mary Hobbes’ psychiatric tapes are just frightening. She has four different personalities (the fourth doesn’t come out until session 9, but you know it’s there from the get go) and they all sound like different voices. And whoever made the tapes put little imperfections in the recordings as if moisture had gotten to one part of each tape. And that really makes all the difference. Without those imperfections it would have just been weird. With them it’s downright scary.

Pretty much everything is in place in this movie. Yeah, Caruso is a little over the top at times, but it works for his character. Everyone does a fine job and the tension is built up gradually and deliberately by director/writer Brad Anderson (Happy Accidents and Next Stop, Wonderland). Maybe it was the atmosphere of the mini-festival, but I liked this movie a LOT better the second time around.

After Session 9, my buddy and I decided to do a little exploring of the grounds. We walked around the track where they walked the inmates around in circles to turn them into butter. Then we found the cemetery. I can’t describe to you what it feels like to go into a cemetery on the grounds of an old asylum. Just knowing that the people underneath me probably never found peace in life made me feel a little freaked out to be walking over them. I mean, what really makes me more sane than these folks were? Is the real asylum outside of this building? (A question that Douglas Adams posed to us in the Hitchhiker’s Trilogy pretty overtly.)

But no time for that. Time to get back to the movies.

DR. TARR’S TORTURE DUNGEON (aka, The Mansion Of Madness, aka Dr. Goudron’s System, 1973)

** (2/5)

Directed by: Juan López Moctezuma
Written by: Juan López Moctezuma/Carlos Illescas/Gabriel Weiss
Based on book by: Edgar Allan Poe

Tim League, owner of the Alamo, promised us that this was a great Eurotrash asylum flick. That it would really blow our minds. That we would never forget the experience of Dr. Tarr’s Torture Dungeon.

Well, he was right, but not really in a good way.

This is, of course, based on the famous Edgar Allen Poe story The System Of Dr. Tarr And Professor Fether. Now, anyone who has read Poe knows that he never really wrote a bad story. He was one of the masters of horror literature and probably the first to actually be considered literature in the horror genre. That he died in a gutter just adds to his macabre reputation. You just have to love the guy!

This story is basically an “inmates run the asylum” story. Dr. Maillard (Claudio Brook, later from License To Kill and Cronos) has invited Gaston LeBlanc (Arthur Hansel from Mary, Mary, Bloody Mary) to write a story in his paper about his asylum. But things start to go awry for the “good doctor” when he introduces Gaston to Eugenie (Ellen Sherman). Doubts start to creep in. Is this the real Dr. Maillard? Is Eugenie really an inmate? What about those weird Napoleonic guards outside? Are they really guards? And should they be allowed to have guns?

So, you see, there really are no questions in this movie? We know from the beginning exactly what happened even if we have never read a word of Poe. (I haven’t read this particular story, but I’m pretty sure that Poe didn’t envision weird priest dudes with spirals on their tunics…although it makes an interesting Halloween costume. No one would guess it.)

I know we can’t grade these kinds of movies on the same curve as a real movie. (The acting is always stiff, the direction is always bizarre and the story is always nearly non-existent.) But we should at least be able to grade it. This one almost seemed like it was trying too hard to be weird. Not to mention just kinda boring. There’s only so much crazy that you can take before you finally tune it all out.

One thing I couldn’t tune out, though, was the fucking music. It was grating and terrible. One character is supposed to be comic relief (he wasn’t) and was tied up and hopping around screaming for help through a gag. The xylophone and the flute are two instruments that should NEVER be allowed to play together. It made the whole thing sound like a really bad cartoon. I wanted to stick the flute down its player’s throat and beat the xylophone player with his own mallets.

But there were some good points. Claudio Brook puts in a GREAT and over the top performance as the crazy doctor who has devised his own system (credited to the mysterious Dr. Tarr and Prof. Fether…probably figments of his own imagination) to get the “crazy” out of people. Some of his lines are so badly psychotic that you just have to love the character. And his sudden bursts of laughter at inopportune moments make for some very strange viewing. (“Let’s hope it’s not Mr. Chicken. Bwaa!!! Ha-ha-ha!!!” End laughing….now!)

Lots of nudity, too. Director Juan López Moctezuma (also Mary, Mary, Bloody Mary…and not many others) must have liked his female nudity (Who doesn’t?) because he put it in at every turn. Even when it had no purpose at all. Although he does have a scene with grapes that predates American Beauty’s rose petal scene by about 30 years.

And then there’s the chicken dance. Oh my. This nearly made the whole 88 minute movie worth sitting through. As a friend of mine at the show said, Andrew Lloyd Webber ripped THEM off, he just did it with cats instead of chickens.

But women dressed as chickens doing surreal West Side Story impressions aside, this movie is nearly worthless unless you’re a Eurotrash completist. No one really liked it except for Tim League. I guess I’m glad I saw it because it’s pretty rare, but I won’t search for it again.

Time for some more exploring. My buddy and I decided to run to the car to get some blankets because it was starting to get a little chilly and we were sick of sitting in lawn chairs. The problem was that, because of the detour through the hospital, we didn’t really know how far away our car was. Luckily it wasn’t too far, but it was a little weird walking through the grounds pretty much alone. There were a few people here and there, but we were basically all alone.

At one point we found a building with an open door. (Actually, most of the buildings were open…hmmm.) He went in with me shining the light around the mostly empty room from the doorway. (Yeah, I’m a pussy. What can I say.) When we heard a noise just on the other side of the wall, he walked quickly out trying to save his cool exterior. Not so sure he succeeded, though. Time to get back to the movies.

TWITCH OF THE DEATH NERVE (1971)

**½ (2.5/5)

Directed by: Mario Bava
Written by: Mario Bava/Filippo Ottoni/Dardano Sacchetti/Giuseppe Zaccariello/Franco Barberi

Mario Bava was one of the giants of Italian horror. Every horror film geek knows his name and his reputation. With movies like Black Sunday and Black Sabbath he defined what it meant to be a horror director. By 1971 he was ready for something new, so he invented the slasher movie.

But he didn’t do what everyone after him did. There is no one killer. The killer is everybody. There’s no one who is innocent. No one. I think every character in this movie kills someone.

The story is, well, um…it’s got something to do with a couple trying to get insurance money out of the woman’s mother…or aunt…or something who was just brutally murdered, but the cops think it was suicide. In order to get the money, certain people have to die. Why? I guess because they know too much, but it doesn’t seem like they know much at all, actually.

So lots of people die in really cool ways. But does that make a good movie? Unfortunately, no. This flick was slow, slow, slow. There were some good bursts of murder (a lot of which were copied for Friday The 13th about a decade later), but everything moved so slowly that I kind of lost interest after a while.

Some of that may have had to do with the fact that, not only was it my third movie of the night and I had been up since 5am (had to work on Sat., dammit), but I was also laying down on one of the blankets we went to get. Probably a mistake.

So, no, I didn’t really like this Bava film, which ended up being a sequel to Wes Craven’s first film Last House On The Left, even though it came out a year earlier…and it has not one thing to do with the Craven film. Not a sausage.

And I had such high hopes for this one. It’s got one of the greatest titles in the history of horror film. And it was our first “mystery film” of the night. It didn’t bode well for our mystery premiere later that night.

Not much exploring done for the rest of the night. Just a lot of announcements to “Get the fuck off the water tower!” and to stop vandalizing the school. Tim probably won’t ever have this event out there again. Too bad. It’s a perfect place for it.

ALONE IN THE DARK (1982)

***½ (3.5/5)

Directed by: Jack Sholder
Written by: Jack Sholder/Robert Shaye/Michael Harrpster

In the early 80s there were many, many slasher movies running around. For a young producer it was a quick and easy way to make money. And, after making a couple of flicks that really didn’t make any money (Stunts with Robert Forster and John Waters’ Polyester), Robert Shaye decided to try his luck. With these three movies Shaye would lay down the foundation of his little production company, New Line Cinema. Later he would, of course, be the producer of the Nightmare On Elm Street series and, unbelievably, The Lord Of The Rings!

But enough about him. Let’s talk about the movie.

When Dr. Dan Potter (Dwight Schultz, Lt. Barclay in Star Trek: The Next Generation) is moved to a new asylum where his mentor, Dr. Leo Bain (Donald Pleasence who couldn’t get away from playing obsessed psychiatrists at this point in his career), he has no idea what a horrific experience he is about to give his family. He is put in charge of the third floor where they keep the four most dangerous men in the hospital, Col. Frank Hawkes (Jack Palance), Byron “Preacher” Sutcliff (Martin Landau), Ronald “Fatty” Elster (Erland van Lidth from The Running Man and Stir Crazy) and Skaggs aka “The Bleeder” (he never shows his face).

The problem with Dr. Potter’s therapy sessions with these guys is that they loved their old doctor. In fact, Hawkes gets them all to believe that this new guy killed their old doctor in order to take his place. So revenge must be theirs. And, since Dr. Bain doesn’t believe in bars, all it takes is a power outage to set these dangerous men free. (The windows and doors have sensors on them that make steel walls come down if anyone gets too close to windows and doors.) The whole city goes out for a couple of days and the inmates go on a rampage in order to get vengeance for their favorite doctor’s death.

The rest of the movie is like a sick cross between Straw Dogs and The Dream Team. Dr. Potter, a normally mild mannered man, must become a killer in order to protect his family. But, ya know? I liked it. It was fast paced, interesting and always pretty thrilling. Yeah, it’s a pretty typical horror flick where the insane guys are the bad guys, and it’s pretty sad to see Martin Landau in a movie like this (and when, exactly, did the new family friend get arrested?), but it’s a lot of fun and not a movie that you ever hear about anymore.

And Jack Palance is always great to watch, especially when he’s fighting some inner turmoil. (Heh heh.)

And now for the big premiere. We knew we were going to see a movie that wouldn’t be released until next year, but no one had any clue what it was. Luckily, it was a great way to end the mini-festival.

CABIN FEVER (2002)

***½ (3.5/5)

Directed by: Eli Roth
Written by: Eli Roth/Randy Pearlstein

When five friends decide to take a vacation in a cabin in the woods, horror strikes. Yes. You read that right. Five kids are in danger when they stay in the woods. Who’da thunk it?!

But this time it’s not a mysterious killer on the loose. It’s a disease and human nature that do these kids in. Paul (Rider Strong from Boy Meets World) is the moral center of the group. He’s a nice guy who all the girls see as a brother, including childhood friend, Kelly (Jordan Ladd from Never Been Kissed and The Specials) who he, of course, has the hots for. Jeff (Joey Kern from Super Troopers) is almost the exact opposite of Paul. He’s not a complete dick, but he seems to be in it all for himself. He and his girlfriend, Marcy (Cerina Vincent from Not Another Teen Movie…and the Yellow Galaxy Ranger–bet there are a lot of kids looking forward to seeing her naked, and they will here) don’t seem to want to do anything but have sex. Go figure. And then there’s Bert (James DeBello from Detroit Rock City and 100 Girls). Bert’s just a jock moron who doesn’t want to do anything but shoot squirrels because they’re gay.

It’s all fun and sex for these kids until a weird hermit with some kind of skin disease shows up on their doorstep and starts trying to get them to help him. The kids decide that they can’t bring the guy in the cabin, but they’ll try to get help. Unfortunately, the hermit gets in their truck and tries to drive away, exploding blood from his mouth before he is able to get very far. The kids get him out of the truck and accidentally set him on fire sending him into the woods. Now they have to deal with the fact that maybe they caught the disease.

As things (including their bodies) degenerate, they start to show their true colors and none of them really like the others much.

And, of course, there’s the locals who are all a bunch of Deliverance rejects who don’t understand human compassion or the fact that the kids didn’t bring this contagious menace with them.

This was a really clever little horror flick with some great humor A LOT of gore effects. The disease is based on the same flesh-eating virus that one of the sound mixer (John Neff) contracted once. He says that the make-up was pretty much dead on.

Writer/director Eli Roth shopped this flick around for about seven years trying to make sure that it was an Evil Dead type horror movie where it was the kids themselves who were the “evil.” (There are even “Shemps” credited at the end in homage to Sam Raimi.) He kept getting turned down because there was no killer! That’s what’s so cool about the movie!! The kids turn into monsters and do whatever they need to just to survive themselves. After he made it all of the same folks who turned him down to begin with were clamoring to see it at festivals. Bob and Harvey Weinstein actually posed as him and his producers in order to get a copy of it so they could see it. Assholes.

Roth, who helped out with some Broadway plays, was able to get Angelo Badalamenti (Broadway and Hollywood score writer) to do his score for free! That’s how much faith people had in him after a while.

Lucky for us he was able to get this movie made. It’s a great flick. Anyone who likes those late 70s/early 80s gore flicks will LOVE this one. There’s murder, twisted reasoning, leg-shaving scenes, a fingering, sex, nudity and, of course, lots and lots of gore.

Cabin Fever was the best way to end this festival. Can’t wait to see what’s on the slate for next year. And, as we walked away in the day time, the sun brought a new perspective to the asylum, as it always does. Gone were all of the dark corners and recesses of the site. Now it looked exactly like what it was: an old school that was abandoned a few years ago. Probably a reform school or something (with a cemetery?), without all of the creepy parts. It was still weird, but not as chill inducing. Funny how the light can bring clarity.

(Anybody know anything about this place? It’s a right turn away from the Texas Dept. of Corrections just outside of town on Rt. 969. I looked up Texas State School on the net and got nothin’. I’d love to know what’s up with this place and how the hell Tim got permission to do this.)

But I didn’t get a ticket to the 4th Annual Butt-Numb-A-Thon. (24 hours of pure movie pleasure!!) Oh well. I may have one with some friends all on my own on the same day. So n’yah!

This was the first year that I got in and I think it had to be his best one. There wasn’t a single horrible movie (although one came close, but it was still fun to watch until the end) and a couple of HUGE special guests.

As my friends and I descended on the Alamo there was much conjecture about who was going to be there and what movies we were going to see. We knew that Return Of The King was going to play because Harry has always had those and he said on his site that he was going to watch it like he always does: with a bunch of his friends. But maybe Kill Bill, Vol. 2? Maybe Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind? Perhaps even that cinematic epic Cheaper By The Dozen? (Someone on his site kidded about that. I would have been pissed.)

But no one knew what was coming. None of us could know.

We got started about an hour late. Harry tried to get us settled, but we were all too excited. We knew that the conclusion to the greatest fantasy epic was coming at the close of the party (it’s NOT a festival!! Some of these movies have to play Cannes.) and we couldn’t wait. But there were plenty of other surprises that we really wanted to know about, too.

HAUNTED GOLD (1932)

*** (3/5)

Directed by: Mack V. Wright
Written by: Adele S. Buffington

Harry started us off with the only horror movie that John Wayne ever made.

Ok. Horror may be kind of a strong word. More horrific. It was 1932 and this wasn’t exactly the Duke that we all know and deify. In fact, his horse was named Duke. John was just a skinny kid (24 at the time) who was in a bunch of B-movies. This was his 35th movie (according to IMDb) and still no one knew his name.

Haunted Gold is about a young man who is called to the town he grew up in because of a mine that his father owned with a long dead partner. The partner’s daughter, Janet (Sheila Terry from…um…it doesn’t really matter), doesn’t know why she was called here because her dad lost his half of the mine in a bet…or something like that.

But now dey’s spooks around. And dey’s spookin’ the walkin’ talkin’ stereotype that’s-a hangin’ out wit Mistra Wayne. Blue Washington plays Clarence Washington Brown, one of the worst portrayals of a black man I have ever seen. (Then again, I haven’t seen just a whole lot of movies with this sort of thing in it.) He is overly scared of everything and just doesn’t know what to do without his massa. (I seriously believe that ol’ Clarence was the inspiration for Scooby-Doo.) Oh, he doesn’t call him that, but he may as well. I guess back in ’32 he gave a lot of laughter to the audience, but these days, well…it was nervous and guilty laughter. It was more funny because people actually put this sort of thing on film than because it was actually funny. At one point, Wayne is getting put up for the night in the local hotel. He points at Clarence and says, “Well, what about…?” Everyone booed. Clarence had to either sleep in the old abandoned house across the street or, as Wayne said, “You could wait outside.”

Booooo.

Speaking of Scooby-Doo, the plot was a direct ancestor of our favorite scaredy dog. (Watch out for spoilers, but I doubt you’re going to be looking for this flick.) The ghost ended up being Janet’s supposedly dead dad who was just trying to scare people away from the mine. But he was a good guy. And if it hadn’t been for that meddling Duke…

But the movie was fun in a rather cheesy way. And Duke, the horse, did some things that no horse could ever do (“Go back and get the boys, Duke!” “Throw the lever, Duke!”) and Wayne threw some girly-punches. Fun was had by all.

After that Harry told us about his experiences with serials. He wasn’t able to get his favorite one (I forget the name, but I’m sure it’s great.), but was able to get:

THE RETURN OF CAPTAIN MARVEL (1941)

**** (4/5)

Directed by: John English/William Witney
Written by: Ronald Davidson/Norman S. Hall/Arch Heath/Joseph F. Poland/Sol Shor
Based on characters created by: Bill Parker/C.C. Beck

Many consider this the greatest serial ever made. It concerns a boy, Billy (Frank Coghlan, Jr.) who is transformed into Captain Marvel (Tom Tyler from Stagecoach) by a wizard named Shazam. Every time he says “Shazam!” Billy suddenly develops pubes and becomes a middle-aged man with the strength of ten men. And he can fly. And he has all kinds of other super powers. Kinda like Superman, actually. That’s mainly because it was supposed to be Superman, but DC wouldn’t let Republic do it.

The show was gearing up to be good and everybody was into it, but the film stopped about 20-25 minutes into it. Just when Captain Marvel got ahold of a machine gun!

But all was forgiven when the New Line Cinemas title screen came up. The crowd went insane. We all knew it was:

THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RETURN OF THE KING (2003)

***** (5/5)

Directed by: Peter Jackson
Written by: Peter Jackson/Fran Walsh/Philippa Boyens
Based on book by: JRR Tolkien

Harry knew he had to surprise us with it somehow, so he showed it to us early.

How do I review a movie like this? Seriously. It’s the culmination of everything that we’ve been seeing and dreaming of for the past three or four years. Ever since I heard that Peter Jackson was doing these films and I read the books I’ve been wondering how he was going to pull off some of these scenes. I’ve been waiting to see what the fires of Mount Doom look like and the Battle of Minas-Tirith and the Halls of Gondor and, and, and….

Well, this is how: he makes the absolute perfect ending to the greatest fantasy trilogy of all time. As great as everyone thought the Fellowship and Two Towers were, this one is twice as good. By about half way through there wasn’t a dry eye in the house. The film would get quiet for a second and you could hear little nerdling sniffles all through the theatre. For three and a half hours we were right there with Aragorn and Frodo and all the rest. When Legolas said to Gimli, “How about dying with a friend?” and Gimli said, “I could do that.” we knew that things could be over for one of them. And we were afraid for them.

If this movie doesn’t absolutely sweep at Oscar time I am actually giving up on Oscar. No, really. This time I mean it. Come on, guys. SHUT UP!!

I can’t say enough good words about this movie. Everyone in it was awesome. The battles are fucking amazing. (You haven’t lived until you’ve seen walls of men and orcs hit each other at top speed. And they’re incredibly violent, too. I’m surprised it got a PG-13 rating.) And if you loved Legolas in the last two movies thinking he was the coolest character, you’ll want to suck his dick after this one. He does some pretty amazing shit here.

I don’t want to say too much about it because I wouldn’t dare ruin it for anyone. But it is the best movie I’ve seen in a long, long time. There really hasn’t been a better film this year. I’m happy to have seen this (happy isn’t even nearly the right word for it), but I’m sad that it’s over. There’s nothing else to wait for until New Line gets the rights to The Hobbit and offers it to Peter. So far, that hasn’t happened, but it could. Who knows? Peter and Ian McKellen have both said that they’re game.

I cannot wait to see what Peter does with King Kong.

After the movie was over you could tell that Harry was just filled with every emotion. He told us all to be patient and sit down because he had some very small guests coming out. My first thought was, “If he got all four of the Hobbits here I’m going to freakin’ explode.” He told us that we were going to watch The General as a thank you to the guests for making these movies. We all laughed at Harry for starting to cry while he said that. But a laughter of comrades. We all had the same feelings he did.

That’s when he brought Peter out.

Holy shit. Peter Jackson was there along with his writers Fran Walsh (Peter’s wife) and Philippa Boyens (a big fan of the books and the mouthpiece of the writing team). I had heard rumors that Peter and Elijah Wood were going to be there. I just knew that there was no way that Peter would be there because he’s too busy with the extended version of this film and getting ready for King Kong. But he wanted to be here in Austin so bad that he skipped out on a Q&A in LA that New Line really wanted him to do (they forbade him to come to Austin, pretty much) and hopped a flight as quickly as he could. He lied to his production company for us! I love him!! He was off to Berlin soon after The General, but he was a very cool guy.

Elijah wasn’t there.

After that big surprise and amazing piece of film there was no way that Harry could top himself. He had shot his wad (as I’m sure many members of the audience did during the movie and Q&A). But it was no longer about topping ROTK. It was just about having fun.

THE GENERAL (1926)

***** (5/5)

Directed by: Clyde Bruckman/Buster Keaton
Written by: Clyde Bruckman/Buster Keaton/Al Boasberg/Charles Henry Smith/Paul Girard Smith
Based on books by: William Pittenger

I’m sure most of us have seen The General. Hell, it’s required viewing at UT and most film-ophiles check it out just because it’s got such a great reputation as one of the greatest silent films. But it’s one of Peter’s favorite movies and it IS a great film, so that was where we went next.

For those of you who haven’t seen it, it’s about Johnnie Gray (Buster Keaton, one of the greatest silent comedians of all time and Jackie Chan’s main influence), a lowly train engineer in the Deep South during the Civil War. Johnnie’s girl, Annabelle Lee (Marion Mack), really wants him to enlist and fight off the Yankee menace. Unfortunately, the top brass figure he’s more useful as an engineer than a soldier, so the won’t take him. For some reason they wouldn’t tell him why. I guess there would have been no movie if they had. He goes home, dejected, but not before Annabelle’s brother and father tell him that her “good for nothin’” suitor didn’t even get in line to enlist. She tells him that he can’t talk to her anymore until he’s in a uniform.

Bitch.

A year later his beloved engine, The General, gets kidnapped by the North. This is where the movie truly begins. It’s non-stop sight gags that even a verbal comedy lover would love. They’re all classics, from the soaking of Annabelle to Johnnie using one railroad tie to get another one off of the tracks. There’s no calculating how much influence this movie had on comedy and film in general. Watching it today it’s hard to tell just how revolutionary it was at the time, but it’s still funny as hell and should be seen by anyone who likes to laugh even a little bit.

Was Buster better than Charlie as Peter says? I don’t know. I love both of them equally. They really are completely different kinds of comedy. As someone once said (I wish I could remember who), Buster is comedy of the mind, Charlie is comedy of the heart.

The new score by Guy Forsythe and his band was great. Very down-home country and lots of cool sound effects.

The only bad thing about this film is that it really glorifies the South. They are the heroes of the movie and Johnnie is a die-hard Dixie Man. There’s no mention of the reasons for the war at all, but I do seriously wonder if Spike Lee likes this movie. (Although I think it’s supposed to be a direct spoof of The Birth Of A Nation, so maybe that helps.)

From there we moved on to another country. There was a lot of that this year. Of the 11 movies we saw, 4 were subtitled and one other one was from another country. It’s apparently some kind of record. And most of the subtitled ones were between about 2am and 6am. Bastards.

OLDBOY (2003)

****½ (4.5/5)

Directed by: Chan-wook Park
Written by: Jo-yun Hwang/Chun-hyeong Lim/Garon Tsuchiya
Based on manga by: Nobuaki Minegishi

Chan-Wook Park is apparently building up quite a cult following lately. His last film, Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance, got a lot of applause this year and, when Harry said that he liked Oldboy better, everyone seemed shocked.

I’ve never heard of the guy or his other two movies. (The other one is Joint Security Area.) But I liked this one quite a bit.

Oh Dae-Su (Min-Sik Choi from Shiri-you may have seen that one on the shelves of video stores lately) has been imprisoned for the last 15 years. Funny thing is, he has no clue why or by whom. He was pulled into this hotel room and left there being fed and drugged occasionally. Now that he has escaped, he has vowed to find out the whos and the whys.

Along the way he meets Mido (Hye-Jeong Kang), a beautiful young sushi chef, and falls in love with her. He also finds out that the person who imprisoned him is still trying to torture him.

The story takes some very weird turns and has a pretty sickening twist ending, which makes me think that the boys at Miramax (or whoever it is who is buying the rights to this one–by the way, boys, this review was posted AFTER Dec. 8th, no matter what date it says on top.) are going to screw it all up when they do their remake. I haven’t seen a lot of Korean films (Tell Me Something and Lies are about it for me), but none of them would be made in America. The Koreans aren’t afraid of any subject and they show it all. Gotta love that.

This is a very good film with lots of darkness and, of course, violence. It’s the first film of the day that is just rife with violence and the second where someone’s hand/finger gets taken off. But I think it’s the tooth-pulling scene that gets everyone.

This is about the time that we saw a couple of new trailers.

HELLBOY TRAILER

I’ve been waiting for this one ever since I saw Blade II and Guillermo del Toro and Ron Perlman were talking about it so much. I don’t know anything about the comic, but I want to see this movie.

The preview, though, almost seems to leave something to be desired. Yeah, it’s cool to finally see it on the big screen, but everything looks VERY cartoony. Hellboy looks like a kid with sawed off horns. (A very tall and big kid to be sure, but still a kid.) I guess it’s just not as dark as I would have hoped.

But Selma Blair looks great.

SKY CAPTAIN AND THE WORLD OF TOMORROW

Not so sure about this one, either. It’s about a reporter (Gwyneth Paltrow) in 1939 NYC. She and a couple of pilots (Jude Law and Angelina Jolie…waaaaaiiiiiit a minute…did they let women become pilots back then?) are the only ones who can save the scientists of the world and, in fact, the world. There are robots with lasers and big flying machines and stuff being destroyed.

What I like:

It looks like a movie made in the 30s about the World Of Tomorrow. That’s pretty damn cool. It’s very comic booky (but it works in this one) and even the trailer is done in a comic book style.

What I don’t like:

The whole movie was done on green screen. That means that it may very well suck because it’s sometimes hard to act with just a screen behind you. AND that also means that they’re going to pay more attention to special effects and background than story.

I’m afraid.

More violence? More subtitles? Ok. Here we go!

WASP’S NEST (NID DE GUEPES, AKA THE NEST, 2002)

***½ (3.5/5)

Directed by: Florent Emilio Siri
Written by: Florent Emilio Siri/Jean-François Tarnowski

Who remembers Assault On Precinct 13? Ok, who remembers The Nebraskan? Yeah. Not as many. I had never heard of it until Harry told us that it was the actual basis for Precinct 13.

Why am I talking about these movies? Because Wasp’s Nest (The Nest according to IMDb) is a direct remake of AOP13. (I’m sure Tarantino would LOVE this movie.) A group of cops are in charge of getting an evil killer/rapist/Albanian revolutionary to a maximum-security prison. A group of robbers are robbing a warehouse. Somehow the two get stuck in the same warehouse while a bunch of faceless (literally-they all have gas masks with night vision goggles covering their faces) Albanian mafia troops besiege them, picking them off one by one.

It’s been done many times, but never quite as confusedly. It took me a long time to figure out that the people shooting at the cops weren’t part of the thieves’ group and that the cops weren’t shooting at the thieves. When I finally understood what was going on I realized that the action was great. Yeah, the characters are pretty stock (although they’re cool, too) and the story is simplistic (once you figure it out), but it’s action packed and very violent. Director Florent Emilio Siri is next doing the Bruce Willis action flick, Hostage, and the new Splinter Cell video game. I can see Hollywood loving this guy. I hope Hostage has a better story.

Now let’s move on to a REAL horror movie.

GINGER SNAPS: UNLEASHED (2004)

***½ (3.5/5)

Directed by: Brett Sullivan
Written by: Megan Martin
Based on characters created by: Karen Walton

Yes, it’s time now to revisit Ginger’s little sister, Brigette (Emily Perkins). You remember them from the original Ginger Snaps back in 2000, right? Well, as we all know Ginger (Katherine Isabelle) and Brigette, erm, parted ways…of sorts. But not before B injected herself with some of Ginger’s tainted blood and started to become a werewolf herself. (All of this is sort of explained along the way in this new movie.) Now, with daily injections of wolfsbane, she is able to keep her inner beast under control to a degree. But that doesn’t mean that she’s cured. She still feels the hunger at times and it keeps getting stronger. It’s not helped any when she gets thrown into a rehab center for girls because someone thinks she’s hooked on heroin.

She meets a strange and unlikely ally in Ghost (Tatiana Maslany), a young girl who is in the center to take care of her grandmother, a burn victim who doesn’t seem too happy about Ghost being around. There’s also Tyler (Eric Johnson-not the guitarist), a nurse who trades drugs for sex.

The movie is sufficiently creepy in all the right places and kind of keeps the mood of dark comedy and horror that the first film had. The last half reminded me a bit of Alien because they were stuck in the basement of the center and then in Ghost’s grandma’s house running from a mostly unseen evil.

I also really like where they’ve taken Brigette. She’s not just another goth kid who has something actually wrong with her. Like Sarah Connor in the second Terminator film, she’s highly disturbed by what she’s becoming. She’s all alone in the world and knows it. There’s no going back to what she once was even if she does manage to find a cure, which she doesn’t have much hope of doing.

What I wasn’t all that happy with was the ending. It seemed like they just wanted to tack on a twist ending that would creep us out even more than just another werewolf. And, I guess it is creepy, but it almost seems out of nowhere.

It’s by no means as good as the first one, but I still thought it was better than a lot of the crap that has been called horror lately.

It’s coming out on DVD pretty soon and the prequel should be out soon after that. Too bad the first one didn’t get a theatrical release, because they both look great on the big screen and are much scarier in a dark room with a bunch of other horror fans.

How ’bout some more horror? This time with subtitles!

HIGH TENSION (aka SWITCHBLADE ROMANCE, HAUTE TENSION) (2003)

***½ (3.5/5)

Directed by: Alexandre Aja
Written by: Alexandre Aja/Grégory Levasseur

France has started making horror movies. Well, I guess they always have, but I’ve never seen one that I can remember. Most of what we get over here are the really pretentious French films that end in the death of a child or the diseasing of an entire city. You know: their comedies.

This one, however, is a pretty tense little slasher flick with a twist ending that nearly negates early scenes in the movie.

Ok, it completely negates them. But I didn’t really care. It was a fun ride.

Marie (Cecile de France) and Alex (Maiwenn le Besco…credited as just Maiwenn) are best friends in college. They’re going to Alex’s house for the summer (I think) and Marie couldn’t be happier. We kind of get the feeling that Marie may be a bit happier than Alex really wants her to be.

The first night, though, something horrible happens. An old man comes in a kills everyone in the family except for Alex. Marie sees what’s going on and hides, trying occasionally to save Alex to no avail. The man carries her off in his truck to some horrible destiny. Luckily Marie manages to get in the truck.

That’s the whole story until the twist at the end. Not much there, but it’s enough to show us some really cool gore effects and some horrible, horrible deaths. Director Alexandre Aja has a future in horror films, but he needs to work on plugging up those plot holes.

Now, on to a horror of a different kind.

TEENAGE MOTHER (1967)

[Rating:.5/5]

Directed by: Jerry Gross
Written by: Jerry Gross/Nicholas Demetroules

Jerry Gross made a lot of exploitation flicks in the 60s. Strangely, a lot of them were hits. His biggest deal was actually releasing Sweet Sweetback’s Baaadaaaassss Song. (Talk about exploitation. That one is blaxsploitation AND child porn!)

This is one of the more disturbing of Gross’ films. It’s about a young Swedish woman (with a slightly British accent) who is hired by a small-town high school to start teaching sex-ed. Of course, all of the parents are against it, but the kids love to laugh about it. As soon as the kids become more sexually active, the parents blame it on the teacher, not the hormones. (Apparently they were never teenagers themselves.)

There’s a lot of stuff that happens involving the bad kid, Fred Willard (yes, he’s in it…ask him about it the next time you see him) and the golden couple. But none of that really matters. By the end of it there were only about five minutes that anyone actually remembered.

The hot new teacher is talking to the school board and some parents (which consists of about five people) while they are attacking her. They scream about the books and films that she “makes” the kids read and watch. (It’s all actually voluntary.)

It’s all well and good until they decide to “take a look at that film.”

Oh my God, it’s probably the most horrible birth I have ever seen. It’s an actual birth, but it’s an actual birth circa 1968 when they used forceps and “blades” and salad spoons. There’s fucking blood everywhere and the baby looks dead. There’s no way that can be good. Afterwards I said, “It’s vagina, but it’s ALL WRONG!!” The screams were amazing. People were hiding their heads, but they couldn’t hide forever. We were all stuck watching this train wreck.

Then the movie returned to its normal badness, but by then no one was able to tell anymore. At least the torture had stopped. It was over.

What exactly did Gross (good name) hope to achieve with this movie? Yeah, it had hot babes in it and the tagline was “She was a motorcycle mama!” (No motorcycles, by the way.) But did he expect kids to go see it after their friends told them that there was a real birth in it?! I would have avoided that like a bad date with Estelle Getty! I mean, we all wanted to see pussy, BUT NOT BEING FORCED OPEN BY FORCEPS!!! NOT WITH A GIANT HEAD COMING OUT OF IT!!! NOT BEING CUT OPEN!!! After this we had breakfast.

Bastards.

After breakfast it was time for more horror. This time from New Zealand.

Yay!

UNDEAD (2003)

*** (3/5)

Directed by: Michael Spierig/Peter Spierig
Written by: Michael Spierig/Peter Spierig

What happens when you cross Peter Jackson’s early zombie flicks with…um…well…I dunno what else. This seems to be a direct homage to the master himself.

Rene (Felicity Mason) is the Fish Queen of her hometown. She won a beauty contest that she didn’t even want to enter and royally pissed off the reigning queen.

But none of that really matter since meteors are hitting the town and turning the townsfolk into brain-hungry zombies. The only person who seems to know what the fuck is going on is Marion (Mungo McKay), a farmboy with some pretty tricky gun stylin’s and a kick-ass multi-shotgun.

There are other survivors of the shower/feeding frenzy (my favorite is the cop who spews stuff like, “When I was a kid, we fuckin’ respected our parents, we didn’t fuckin’ eat ‘em!” and “I’ll fuckin’ finish you off faster than a fuckin’ birthday cake at a fat chick’s fuckin’ birthday party!”) but none of that matters. What matters is that this is one fun zombie flick with some great gore and pretty good special effects for a couple of guys sitting home alone with their computers. The Spierig boys (Peter and Michael) obviously know what they’re doing and they love it.

My main problem with the movie is the ending. It made NO sense at all. It was another twist ending that came out of nowhere and then they twisted it two more times. Didn’t work for me at all.

But the ride to that was a lot of fun. If you’re a fan of the genre, definitely seek it out. It’s at least as fun as Bubba Ho-Tep.

And last, but not least:

THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST (2004)

**½ (2.5/5)

Directed by: Mel Gibson
Written by: Benedict Fitzgerald/Mel Gibson
Based on book by: A committee of Christians

Harry said that every year there’s a movie that he goes for that he knows he won’t get. This year it was this one. And, obviously, he got it. And that’s not all he got, but I’ll get to that later.

This is Mel Gibson’s dream project. The man is a very devout Catholic and has been trying to make this movie for a long time. Ever since he was a little boy he thought that it was a strange thing that ALL movies about Jesus were in English. It just didn’t work for him.

So, now that he has pretty unlimited clout in Hollywood, he has made the definitive Jesus movie. It is quite possibly the most realistic depiction of the days leading up to the crucifixion that has ever been put on film. And, in fact, the entire day of the crucifixion is amazing. The bearing of the cross, the nailing to the cross and finally the actual slow and torturous death. It was gory, bloody, disturbing and awe-inspiring.

What I didn’t think was so good was everything leading up to that. The characters didn’t seem to be very different and I couldn’t tell them apart even if they were. Everyone had big, bushy beards and even Jim Caviezel (who is the only known face besides Monica Bellucci who played Mary Magdalane) didn’t look like himself, so I was never sure if I was right that he was playing Jesus. It turns out that they put a very small prosthetic on his nose so that he didn’t look so pretty. But every time I figured that I had the right guy, it ended up being Jesus who betrayed himself. And that certainly doesn’t work right.

Maybe if I hadn’t been so damn tired I would have understood it a bit better. Maybe if I knew the story better. But, since I got most of my Bible knowledge from Jesus Christ Superstar, I’m a little lacking in that department.

This was a good film with great acting all around and when it’s actually projected on film it will look beautiful. (We saw a very rough cut with a few scenes and all of the special effects left to be added in.) But character development was a real problem for me. I’ll check it out again when it comes out for real, though. Hopefully it’ll be better.

Now for the controversy. Will it start a whole anti-Semitic movement in the Catholic church again? Well, I certainly hope not, but here’s the deal: the film does depict the Jews in a pretty disturbing light. They are portrayed as pretty blood-thirsty. They wanted this Jesus guy dead with a capital D. The Romans were actually starting to falter, but the Jews spurred them on.

But what can be done about that? That’s the way it’s portrayed in the Bible as far as I know. At that time and place in history that’s what happened. It’s not like we can change the Jews into a more hate-friendly group like Nazis or Arabs.

Kidding.

Bushes…how ’bout that? The Bushes killed Jesus.

I think that what we need to do is take a step back and say, “Ok, that’s the way that group of Jews was at that time. Of course they are no longer like that.” If people can’t do that then they shouldn’t be allowed to see ANY movie. Hell, they probably shouldn’t even be allowed to read the Bible because they won’t be able to tell that these stories are parables and probably didn’t actually happen.

Oh. Wait…That’s what most religion is based on: these stories being absolute T-R-U-T-H.

Since I don’t know very much about the Bible specifically I called a buddy of mine who knows it pretty well. According to him, this whole controversy of whether or not the Jews are horrible people because they “killed Jesus” should be null and void. Jesus’ death was prophesied to the Jews, so they knew that they were going to have a hand in it. AND, if they had not had that hand in it, there would be no Christianity! Jesus had to die in this specific way. In a way all Christians should be grateful to the Jews because they made Jesus the martyr that he was. They enabled the Christians to live with sin and still get into Heaven.

Besides, if they hadn’t done it (or even existed) someone else would have done it.

So, those are my thoughts on that whole stupid argument. What were Mel’s thoughts? He said that what he believes is not necessarily in this film. The film is completely separate from his religious agenda, so he only put what he saw in the Bible and many other scholarly tomes.

Yes, that’s right. Mel Gibson was at Harry’s birthday party.

Holy shit. I saw Mad Max. Riggs. William Wallace! Fuckin’ awesome! I’m still excited about him and Peter.

Anyway, Mel talked to us for about an hour about the film and where he’s going next. (He actually wouldn’t say what it was, but he “really wished that he could.” He said it was something really cool. Hopefully it’s not something like Waterworld or The Postman.) He will probably be directing again before he acts. Whatever he does, I can’t wait to see what it is.

So, thus endeth my first BNAT. I had a LOT of fun and I hope it happens again next year. It probably won’t be nearly as fun because Harry is starting to produce his film and doesn’t have time to program a party like this. But it’ll still be 24 hours of movies and I’m sure there will be something to crow about.

Until next time, fearless readers, keep watchin’ the movies.

If you hear weird noises around your house, call the cops. That’s all I’m saying. After this movie, if you hear noises outside, call the cops NOW!!!

Lucas (Michael Cohen) and Clementine (Olivia Bonamy) are a young couple who just bought a real fixer-upper just outside of a small French town. It’s really buried out there in the woods. So no one can hear them scream.

One night they start to hear strange clicking noises and scratching around their house. Then, whatever it is that is surrounding them gets in the house. That’s when all hell starts to break loose.

Writer/directors David Moreau and Xavier Palud (who are in the process of remaking The Eye) have crafted a VERY intense horror flick with no extra time used on anything unimportant. You get to know the two main characters well enough to understand their plight and then we’re put right into the action. There’s a secret to the movie that I figured out pretty early on, but it didn’t detract from my enjoyment of the movie. Check it out. I’m sure it’ll at least be on video.

I’M A CYBORG, BUT THAT’S OK

Chan Wook-Park is fast becoming everybody’s favorite Asian director these days. After Oldboy, everyone fell in love with the guy. I thought Lady Vengeance was a bit too long and confusing, but other people seemed to love it. And his part of Three…Extremes was fun even if it didn’t make a lot of sense.

So I was very interested to see how this one would do since I was a little hit or miss with him. I knew I was up for liking him, but I had only seen one of his movies that I really loved.

Well, now I know I like him. I’m A Cyborg, But That’s OK is a very strange movie, but I liked it a lot.

It centers around Cha Young-goon (Lim Su-Jeong), a young woman whose grandmother thought she was a mouse and only ate radishes. Now she believes that she’s a cyborg. That would be ok if it weren’t for the fact that she won’t eat because she thinks that it will gum up her inner workings.

Luckily, she has Park Il-sun (hugely successful (in Korea) singer, Rain) to look after her. The two of them are in an asylum together and have to navigate the doctors and the other inmates in order to keep their wits about them.

All of the characters in this movie are awesome. They’re all crazy (really, even the doctors), but endearing. And they make for some very funny background gags. Keep watching while the main characters are talking and you’ll just about always see someone way off somewhere doing something awesome.

It’s a little long at 100 minutes, but that didn’t keep me from loving it. It’s a sweet story of finding love among the insanity of an asylum. And it’s good to see our favorite Vengeance director branch out into weirdo comedy. It ain’t no Oldboy, but I liked it a lot better than Lady Vengeance.

WHAT WOULD JESUS BUY?

When you’re shopping for gifts over the holiday season, do you ever stop to wonder, “Would Jesus want me to buy this?”

Yeah. Me, neither.

How about, “Where did this toy come from? Who made it? Where does the money go when I spend it? Does it go into some corporate asshole’s pocket? Or does it go back into my community?”

Yeah. Me, neither. But I’m more likely to think that one than the first one.

Let me give you a bit of background on me before we go into this review. I almost think it’s important.

I like Christmas shopping. I know I’m one of the few, but I think it’s kind of fun to buy things for people. I also try my best to shop locally all the time. I hate the fact that my town is being overrun by big box stores that take all of the personality out of it.

On the other hand, Best Buy loves the shit out of me. I can’t resist cheap media. So, yes. I shop me some Best Buy.

The whole point of this movie is to make us think about what we’re buying and who we’re buying it from. And the main subject, Reverend Billy, is going to make you think about it whether you like it or not. If you ever run into him and his Church Of Stop Shopping Choir, you will know that you’ve been Billy-ized. And, most likely, he will be arrested and taken away.

Billy is the head of a comedy troupe that decided to take up a serious message. They want us to buy locally and stop being such consumer whores. They do this by singing funny songs about what happens when you buy those Nike shoes that were made by little kids in Sri Lanka whose knees were broken when they tried to unionize. They sing about the evils of Wal-Mart and how they destroy small towns. They sing about how Christmas has lost its meaning and picked up a whole new one: buy buy buy!!!

Director Ron Van Alkemade and his guardian angel, Morgan Spurlock (SuperSize Me) have managed to make an awesome documentary that is about one man, but it’s also about a whole country. It shows us just how much consumerism has taken us over and how commercialization has become our new god.

One guy in the audience felt that it was parodying the problem with Reverend Billy’s out-sized personality. I think that his comedy helped the bitter pill of our problems go down a little easier. Laughter is the best way to get things across and I think that this will help at least a little bit.

Every American should see this movie. It doesn’t just show statistics and say, “This is why we should be this way.” It shows what happens to the little guy when Wal-Mart comes to town. It shows how Best Buy is helping to destroy the true idea of America.

But I will say this: I don’t agree with what he said after the movie about Whole Foods being “not alright.” They do a lot for the communities that they are in. It’s corporate policy to buy locally. They give leftover food to homeless shelters and what they can’t give away they compost. They treat their employees really well. Yes, they are expensive, but that’s because they are charged a lot for their products.

Besides, they’re an Austin-based company, so any money I personally spend there goes back to my community. It’s hard to fault me for shopping there.

Moving on.

THE STOOGES

Iggy Pop has been a staple of punk since his first album with The Stooges back in 1969. Sure, he’s gone a bit disco (“Nightclubbing”) and pop (“Candy”), but he’s always managed to remain interesting.

Now he’s back with his old band for the first time in over 30 years. Their new album, The Weirdness, is pretty good. Sure, it ain’t no Fun House, but it’s fun and rockin’.

When I heard that they were playing SXSW, I knew that I had to check it out.

Stubbs was not nearly as packed as I thought it would be for such a legendary band. I mean, this is Iggy Fuckin’ Pop!! Well, whatever. I was here for them and there were quite a few people there. It’s not like it was empty.

They opened with a song that I didn’t know (sorry, I don’t know their three original albums backwards and forwards), but it was awesome. Then they went into the one that I think all of us were waiting for, “I Wanna Be Your Dog.” I was surprised that it was the second number. I thought for sure that they would wait until near the end.

More classics and then a whole section of new songs that sounded even better on stage than they do on disc. Awesome.

The encore was “No Fun” and Iggy got about half the audience up on stage with him to dance. One guy decided to be just like Iggy. He took his shirt off, pulled his pants FAR too low and started jumping around on stage. Between him and Iggy, there was way too much near dick action up there. Time to pull ‘em up, guys.

Well, whatever. Iggy still has it and so do the Asheton boys. They rocked harder than most of the other kids who were playing the festival. The only problem that I had with the set was that it was WAY too short. 45 minutes? Come on, guys! I know you’ve got more material. And it was only 1:15 when they went offstage!

But it was a great night even if Iggy wasn’t so into cutting himself anymore.

And so ends SXSW 2007, not with a whisper, but with the bangs of three titans (and a replacement). It was a good year even if there wasn’t as much that appealed to me initially. There were a LOT of horror movies (AWESOME!!) that I didn’t get to see (SUCK!!!) and a lot of other good flicks that I did get to see.

See you next year!

THE NEW WORLD—This one, however, I’m going to see with full interest. (Colin Farrell hasn’t pissed me off…yet). This longer preview basically just shows some beautiful shots from the film with little dialogue. But this is a Terrence Malick film. Do we really expect a lot of dialogue to get in the way of beautiful scenery? I’m for it.

Now, back to The Bat.

And all I have to say is to quote a friend of mine who text messaged me right after the first time he saw it: “Oh my God. The Bat is back!”

This time out, though, we get the whole fuckin’ story. Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale, who may just be the best Batman yet) sees his parents die. (Ok, he’s played by Gus Lewis at this point.) He also learns to be afraid (VERY afraid, actually) of bats after falling down a well. We get to know his parents this time out, too. They’re played by Linus Roache and Sara Stewart with full-tilt sweetness and good parenting intact. They are the concerned billionaires who try to help Gotham City back on its feet during the Depression. (No, not The Great one…just a normal Depression. But still with a capital D.) All it really got them, though, was killed.

Bruce travels the world trying to get away from his past. But you can’t, as they say, outrun said past. He meets Ra’s Al Ghul (Ken Watanabe) and his second, Ducard (Liam Neeson). Ducard teaches Bruce how to be a Jedi, er, Samurai/Ninja. He teaches him every lethal and semi-lethal fighting skill on the planet. (We get to see Bruce Wayne sword fight with Qui-Gon! It’s fucking awesome!)

Bruce ends up back in Gotham where he becomes everyone’s favorite Dark Knight. He reunites with his childhood love, Rachel Dawes (Katie Holmes), and finds out just how bad Gotham has become. There are only four people he can truly trust: Rachel; his butler, Alfred (Michael Caine); Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman) who works in the development department of Wayne Enterprises; and Sergeant Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman, who is getting good at playing good guys), the only honest cop in Gotham.

Bruce/Bat finds out that, not only is the whole city run by a gangster named Carmine Falcone (Tom Wilkinson), but the doctor who runs Arkham Asylum, Dr. Jonathan Crane (Cillian Murphy), is more insane than most of the folks he’s put under his own care. He has found a way to make peoples’ worst fears come to life in their own minds. The mask that he wears to keep himself safe from his own experiments looks like a scarecrow, hence his evil persona.

Batman has always been pretty dark. (Well, except for that stupid 60s sitcom crap, but that’s another story all together.) But Batman Begins goes beyond dark. Not only does it take humanity’s main failing, fear, and exploit it to it’s fullest potential, but it turns into a fucking zombie movie towards the end! (It almost makes up for me not seeing Land Of The Dead this weekend.) And, even though the Scarecrow isn’t the main villain (not really), he is a pretty fearsome foe. In normal life the mask looks a little silly. But to his victims it becomes a squirming mass of ugliness and decay that is up there with just about anything Lucio Fulci might have dreamed up back in the 70s. Hell, even Batman looks pretty ugly when they see him.

And speaking of Batman, I just watched The Machinist yesterday. Good GOD it’s good to see Christian Bale back to fighting weight. He was pretty scary in that movie. Here he does an awesome job of being the billionaire playboy by day (with shades of an only slightly less menacing Patrick Bateman) and a dark crime fighter by night. In fact, he does such a great job that it’s easy to forget who he is when he has the mask on. He hides completely behind it…and that’s a good thing.

Everyone else is almost as good. Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman do their usual amazing jobs as two of Bruce’s new father figures. Alfred cares for Bruce as much as his own father did and he lets him know it every chance he gets. (He even gets to kick and ass or two in this one.) Lucius just met Bruce, but he knows that whatever it is he’s doing is good for the city. He does everything he can to help Bruce out with whatever gadgets just happen to be laying around the basement of Wayne Enterprises. (Funny what they have stored down there.) And Jim Gordon (not yet Commissioner Gordon) is willing to do anything for Batman even though he has no clue who the guy really is. All he knows is that his city is broken and the Bat is out to fix it. Gary Oldman has to play Gordon a little bit older than he actually is and he does a great job. He’s a compassionate man who is almost not allowed to do his job.

The weakest link here is, unfortunately, Katie Holmes. She’s not bad by any means. She’s a talented girl. But she just can’t quite hold her own with the rest of this powerhouse cast. Then again, who could? These are all great actors at the top of their games. She’s a pretty good actress who is still climbing her, um, game…or something. I hate metaphors.

Director Christopher Nolan (Memento and Insomnia) and writer David Goyer (the Blade trilogy, Dark City) have done more for Batman than even Tim Burton did back in the late 80s. And keep in mind that I LOVE the two Burton Batman flicks. They’re just the right amount of darkness and over the top action. But Batman Begins has all of that and more.

The only problem that I have with it is the way it sets up the Joker for the next movie. Part of the “fun” of Batman is that he made most of his enemies what they are today. He turned Jack Napier into the Joker. Her turned Harvey Dent into Two-Face. Now, maybe that was just a construction of the movies, but that’s a really cool construction. The Joker is just spontaneously on the loose at the end of this movie. No one knows who he is, but there’s no way that Batman turned him into the Joker because he just got back into town.

But, in a way, he kind of made EVERY criminal in Gotham. See the movie and you’ll understand. It’s just not quite the same as in the other movies.

Go see this movie. Even if you’re not a big fan of the Bat, go see this movie. It’s pretty damn awesome.

And listen for a couple of references to the first Tim Burton flick.

ROCK SCHOOL

We all saw School Of Rock, right? It’s one of the few movies where a popular comedian is put with a bunch of kids and it actually worked. That’s probably because said comedian had a passion for the project that no other person probably would have had.

Well, here’s where it all came from, baby. Paul Green started the School of Rock And Roll in Pennsylvania (I think…I can’t seem to find my Film Festival book that would probably tell me…fuck it) and he is JUST LIKE JACK BLACK! He’s a slightly overweight force of nature who has a HUGE passion for rock and roll and teaching the kids the difference between good rock (Zappa, Zeppelin, Sabbath) and bad rock (Sheryl Crow seems to get the brunt of his bashing). He also tends to launch into profanity laden yelling sprees at the kids. They don’t seem to mind, but I’m sure a lot of the parents probably would. Especially since the kids tend to yell right back at him.

But, since this isn’t an official school course (strictly after-school with no affiliation with their actual school), there’s not a whole lot a parent could probably do about it.

For those about to rock, this is a great documentary. For the rest of you, get a fuckin’ life. It’s a lot of fun and it’s pretty fucking awesome to see these kids (all between the ages of about 9-17) rocking out to Santana, Sabbath and, especially, Zappa. And, yes, they play Zappa. One of the hardest artists to emulate and they do a pretty amazing job of it.

The star of the show as far as musical ability goes is CJ. He’s 12 years old and is a fucking amazing guitarist. He opens the film with a the “Black Magic Woman” solo and sounds just like Carlos. He does a solo at the end of the film that even has Napoleon Murphy Brock bowing down to him.

But it’s Will who will tug at your heartstrings. He’s 16 and, when you first meet him, you’ll laugh at him. He’s a goofy looking kid who talks about how the school thought he was retarded at first. Then, when he talks about how he’s tried to kill himself numerous times, all laughing will stop. His life was literally saved by rock and roll.

Don Argott has made a film that any student of rock should see. (And I count myself in that category even though I can’t play a damn note on any instrument.) Check it out when it comes out next month.

By the way, why didn’t anyone ask about School Of Rock in the Q&A? Were they afraid? I never speak up at those things, so I have an excuse…sort of.

MAX & GRACE

From one of the most fun films of the festival to one of the worst.

This is the story of two young lovers with nothin’ better to do…than try to kill themselves over and over again. Max (David Krumholtz) has tried many times but, because of his meddling parents (David Paymer and Lorraine Bracco), he just can’t succeed. He gets thrown into a mental institution and meets Grace (Natasha Lyonne). She’s crazier then he is, so she’s stuck on medication all the time and it deadens her to everything except for her teddy bear, which she thinks is her daughter.

Max falls in love. They escape from their caring doctor (Tim Blake Nelson). They go on the run. Grace almost falls in love, but still wants to die. Max comes up with lots of different ideas to make her want to live. (All of them involve characters played by Tim Blake Nelson.)

Not much of any of this is funny. Especially if it doesn’t involve Tim. You never really care about Grace, so you don’t really care if she succeeds in her many attempts to kill herself. She’s just kind of annoying. We all started thinking, “Let her do it! It’ll end the fucking movie!”

Strangely, a lot of the audience were laughing loud and hard at this cheesy little flick. I don’t know if my friends and I were just all in really bad moods or what, but none of us thought it was any good. There were occasional funny parts, but overall it was just plain bad. The acting was way over the top (although I think this was a conscious decision) and the writing was worse. Everyone in the all-star cast should have known better.

ROBERT PLANT AND STRANGE SENSATION

Which, of course, brings me to the best part of the whole fucking day. Seeing the Golden God himself with a great back up band (the first of his that I know of with an actual name) and a group of awesome songs.

The night started with the mediocre rockabilly from hell band, The Legendary Shack Shakers. Lame-o. They did a lot of screaming with a stand-up bass. Who cares?

Then The Soundtrack Of Our Lives took the stage. Sounding like a weird-ass cross between Pink Floyd, Yes and Black Sabbath (with a dash of the serious side of Spinal Tap), they were pretty awesome. I had never heard anything by them before, but I think I’m going to get an album or two now. They’re just weird enough for me to check out.

But nothing could hold a lit doobie to Robert and the boys. They opened with a new arrangement of “No Quarter” that mainly relied on small drums and quiet guitars for it’s melody. It was a strange way to open a show (usually shows open with hard rockers), but it worked extremely well.

Next up was “Heartbreaker.” The whole place was singing along and playing air guitar. Jimmy might not have been on stage with Robert, but it didn’t really seem to matter too much. The new band (which he didn’t introduce! He did do a curtain call type bow with them, though) was pretty amazing and blew through every classic and new song with equal vigor and virtuosity.

Which brings us to the new songs: A-fucking-mazing! Sure, they’re no “That’s The Way” (which they pulled off quite well, also), but they rocked the house and made everyone in the Austin Music Hall want to buy the album tonight. Hell, I want to buy his last one, too, just because he rocks so hard again.

Speaking of which, he did two songs off of that album of covers, Dreamland (“Morning Dew” and “Darkness, Darkness”) and a cover of Tim Hardin’s “If I Were A Carpenter” from 1993’s Fate Of Nations. As always, Mr. Plant is an amazing cover artist. Of course, we knew that because about half of Zep’s early material was basically cover versions of old blues songs. They just didn’t want us to know. (Heh heh.)

He probably performed about half of the new album. Maybe. I don’t know his solo stuff nearly as well as his Zeppelin stuff. So besides the covers, “Long Cool One” from Now And Zen and even “Shining In The Light” from the last Page & Plant album, Walking Into Clarksdale, I think the other non-Zep songs were from the new album. But the meat of the evening was the back catalogue of Zep. “When The Levee Breaks,” “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You,” “Black Dog”…all better than the last.

The show ended with an orgasm-inducing version of “Whole Lotta Love” that went on for about 10 minutes and featured the keyboard player twisting knobs and pushing buttons for about five of those minutes. There wasn’t a person in the room who wasn’t rockin’ out and splooging all over themselves. By the end of it we were all a mess.

So, at the end, the crew handed us all towels and we walked slowly out the door not believing what we had just seen. My friends had never seen Plant before (I saw him back in 1994 with Jimmy, but I think this was actually a better show. How did this happen?!), so it was especially cool for them. But we were all in rock and roll heaven for an hour and a half while Robert and his band of talented young ‘uns got it on in Austin.

THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING–Ok, do I really need to say anything? This is going to rock so much ass that we won’t even know what hit us. Peter Jackson is an awesome director and this is right up his alley. I can’t wait for the Christmas season so that I can go see it again and again.

(Of course, I’ll give the same preview review to Episode II when I finally see it on the big screen. So far I’ve only seen it on my computer and it’s not too impressive. But it’s only a teaser. The movie will be MUCH better than Episode I even if it has a stupid name.)

SIDEWALKS OF NEW YORK–Ok, I’m cheating here. I saw this one on the beginning of Waking Life, but I forgot about it.

First off, I have to say that I really like Edward Burns. I think he’s pretty damn cool whether he directs his films or not. But the last one he directed (No Looking Back) sucked horribly. And it really doesn’t look like this one is going to be a whole lot better. But at least it’s a comedy, which he’s better at. The problem is that this one looks like really bad Woody Allen. All these characters who have links to each other and they all love each other’s partners. And they walk around the titular places of strolling talking and lamenting. I hope I’m wrong, but this looks like just another link in Eddie’s downturn.

A BEAUTIFUL MIND–Yet another thoughtful drama of an inspirational real man from Ron Howard. But Ronnie seems to be really good at things like that, so I have a lot of hope for this one. And Russell Crowe looks like he’s putting in another Oscar worthy performance. Can’t wait! Lots of paranoia and…well…math. But it still looks really good.

ICE AGE–And this is another cheat. I’ve only seen this one on my computer. (I think. I could have already written a preview of it, but I don’t think so.) But it’s so good that I have to say something. This animated feature starring Ray Romano is probably going to be as funny as any old Warner Brothers cartoon is the preview is any indication. Every time I see it (which is quite often by now–I have to watch it occasionally when I have a few minutes at home) I’m nearly tearing up with laughter. Damn near the funniest trailer I’ve ever seen. Can’t wait for the full movie! Check it out if you can. I don’t want to give too much away, but it involves a very cold squirrel and the nut he loves. Awesome!

And now, the review proper.

K-PAX is the planet that Prot (Spacey) claims that he’s from when he’s picked up by NYC cops at a train station. He seemed to just appear there, so maybe…

Mark Powell (Bridges) is the doctor who is put in charge of finding out what’s wrong with this guy who doesn’t seem to respond to any medication. What really confounds Mark is the fact that Prot seems to know things about the area that K-PAX supposedly spins that only three or four astronomers know, even some things that they don’t know. He also has a way with the other patients that Mark can only envy.

Mark, of course, has problems of his own. He’s alienated (pun not intended until I noticed it…then I left it in just to punish you) his family for so long that he doesn’t know how to act around or react to them anymore. He’s on his second wife (the beautiful Mary McCormack from Deep Impact and Private Parts) and his son from his first marriage doesn’t speak to him anymore. (Just once I’d like to see one of these movies where the doctor wasn’t just as fucked up as the patient. Don’t Say A Word did a pretty good job of this, but it’s only the exception that proves the rule.)

First off, this movie was pretty cliched. And I’m not just talking about the “patient heals doctor” storyline. The patients were all clichés from movies I’ve seen before. There’s the Derek Jeter character (no, Derek’s not in the movie, but the guy playing this character looks enough like him that we forget that it’s not him), the woman who won’t leave her room because she’s waiting for someone, the young girl who won’t talk to anyone…the list goes on and on. I guess there are only so many “crazy people” characters out there, so they’re bound to be repeated soon enough. But so often?

The only real twist is the fact that the ending kind of leaves it open for us. It’s totally open to interpretation. (Here’s a spoiler. Just highlight it if you’ve seen it or don’t give a rat’s ass.) Why does there always have to be a traumatic incident in their past? Why can’t he just be from K-PAX and leave it at that? And the incident is totally predictable. Suck!

The great thing about the movie is, of course, the performances of Spacey and Bridges. They’re awesome as always. Unfortunately that doesn’t make the script and story any better.

Ok, so it’s not really a bad movie. It’s pretty enjoyable at times, actually. Prot is pretty funny when he does the “fish out of water” routine, like eating a banana without peeling it and such. But it’s not nearly as good as it could have or should have been. And that’s really too bad. I hope that sometime soon these two guys get together in a really good movie.

Director Iain Softley (who also did one of my favorite movies, Backbeat, the awesome Wings Of The Dove and, well, Hackers) did an alright job with it, too. He knows when to keep it light, but maybe he gets a little bit too heavy of a hand sometimes.

See it at a matinee or wait for video, whichever is cheaper in your area. You won’t miss much by not seeing it on the big screen.

Sissi (Potente) is a nurse in an asylum whose life is so normal as to be boring. She never really gets out of the asylum and is almost as much of a prisoner as the people who are committed there. And she seems perfectly happy with her sad little life.

Until the day she meets Bodo (Benno Furmann). He’s a petty thief who, while running away from a couple of store clerks (I think that’s what they were), causes Sissi to be hit by a truck. His ignorance of the accident turns out to be bliss when he ends up hiding under the same truck Sissi was hit by. He saves her life and she falls in love with this mysterious man who cried while he breathed into her trachea. His pain was so obvious to her that she couldn’t help but want to help him the way he helped her.

After she recovers she goes in search of her savior. What she finds is not exactly to her (or anyone else’s) liking.

Tykwer seems to think that life is ruled by coincidence, fate and pain. Not a single character is unscathed in this film, but it all goes into making them into complete human beings. There are so many shocking scenes where someone just suddenly lashes out at themselves or at others that, after a while, we almost start to expect them. Almost. But he never loses us because it’s all so real.

And this time, like I said before, it’s all pretty conventionally filmed. There’s hardly anything tying it to Run Lola Run. Except for two things: 1) the enigmatic lead actress and 2) a strong desire for the main characters to control their lives. Sissi and Bodo’s lives are so out of control that they think there is no way to reign them in. Little by little they start to realize that they are the masters of their fates. And, while Lola was the ultimate master of her fate and was allowed to try, try again, Sissi and Bodo aren’t given that freedom. They have to work at it even after things happen to put them right back where they started at emotionally.

And I guess that’s the real moral of this story: We all seal our own fates.

And I think that Tom and Franka have done that with this movie. They are now known as a team that can do no wrong. This is a great film that is every bit as good (if not better) as its predecessor in all areas. I don’t know if it’ll be eligible for an Oscar because it came out last year in Germany. But it should be up for at least Best Foreign Film. Maybe even Best Picture since not much over here is this good. Go see it if you get a chance.

One complaint, though. Why is it that Sony Picture Classics felt the need to switch the title around? Maybe because the “Princess” was more recognizable over here? Who knows? Whatever the reason I guess it doesn’t really matter too much, but it’s the principle of the thing.