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jimmy-256
Reviews
Week end (1967)
Actual animals killed
Warning: animal abuse, actual animal killed. Godard slaughters a pig on camera. Godard slaughters a duck on camera. If this sort of French snuff gets you hot & horny, then by all means enjoy the flick. However, if you give half a damn about animals, you might want to avoid this film. It's your choice, but whatever you do, don't be one of those hypocrites who says, "Oh I love animals, but it's totally cool if we abuse them in horrific ways for the sake of entertainment." If you're the latter, please stick your head in a toilet and flush.
Other directors who kill animals because they're too cheap to use special effects or props: Tarkovsky, Bergman, Francis Ford Coppola, Sergio Leone, Ki-duk Kim... just check out the IMDb keyword actual-animal-killed for a list of films to either avoid or grease up your pole to, depending on what floats your boat.
Andrey Rublyov (1966)
Eye candy for animal abusers
Warning: animal abuse, actual animal killed. Tarkovsky lights a cow on fire. Tarkovsky sets a bunch of dogs on each other. Tarkovsky throws a horse down a flight of stairs, breaking its legs before killing the horse on camera. There's also a disturbing scene with a young child. If this sort of Russian snuff gets you hot & horny then by all means enjoy the flick. If, on the other hand, you give half a damn about innocent creatures, you might want to avoid this movie. Whatever you choose, don't be one of those hypocrites who says "Oh I love animals, but it's OK to abuse them in horrific ways for the sake of art. So excuse me whilst I watch another Bergman film where he hangs a dog by the neck." *golf clap*
Oldeuboi (2003)
More fun watching sticking your head in a toilet to watch the brown submarines
I watched this movie because I needed to get my mind off my painful hemorrhoids. Sure enough, I forgot about my roids because I was too busy trying to put my eyeballs back in their sockets after gouging them out with a Big Gulp straw. That's how bad this movie is. I am not kidding. I looked around the theater (after managing to pop my peepers back in) and saw that no less than 64 people were also struggling with their gouged eyeballs. The other 12 had hung themselves with twizzlers. One kid seemed to be enjoying the movie, but he also seemed to be enjoying his booger collection, so maybe the question you must ask yourselves before paying to see this movie is, do you enjoy booger collections? Well, do you? Oh there is another reason to like this movie. If you enjoy watching animals get killed (in real life), then this is the movie for you. But since those kinds of people also enjoy booger collections, I guess the point is redundant.
The Wackness (2008)
You will have more fun sticking your head in a toilet and watching the brown submarines
I watched this movie because I needed to get my mind off my painful hemorrhoids. Sure enough, I forgot about my roids because I was too busy trying to put my eyeballs back in their sockets after gouging them out with a Big Gulp straw. That's how bad this movie is. I am not kidding. I looked around the theater (after managing to pop my peepers back in) and saw that no less than 64 people were also struggling with their gouged eyeballs. The other 12 had hung themselves with twizzlers. One kid seemed to be enjoying the movie, but he also seemed to be enjoying his booger collection, so maybe the question you must ask yourselves before paying to see this movie is, do you enjoy booger collections? Well, do you?
Diva (1981)
Bad 80s flick that takes itself too seriously
The 80s was mostly an embarrassment. Parachute pants, big hair bands, Reaganomics and, last but not least, bad movies that took themselves too seriously.
Here we have an excellent example. DIVA has the worst plot ever conceived, as another reviewer has already summarized in 3 words: GET THE TAPE. It's the precursor to the 90s bad plot of GET THE DISK. What's next for the new millennium? GET THE MP3 DOWNLOAD? As you can expect of any movie with so dumb a plot, it's riddled with loopholes, inconsistencies and bad acting. But that's not its fatal flaw. Its fatal flaw is that it pretends to be a colossal work of art. Yes, you'll get tons of long, meaningless scenes of blue-lit rooms where people sit on the floor and pause for 10 seconds between each line as if they're pondering the universe while the camera hangs in fawning obeisance. We get ridiculously contrived montages of two people sitting with their backs to each other in silence while a brooding piano plays the same 3 chords over & over (ah, but isn't that the recipe for "art"?). And worst of all, we get the most horrendous acting, notably from a girl who wishes she could be as sexually charged as Brigitte Bardot but tries so hard to show it that she comes across looking as clumsy as a high school slut.
Loopholes, inconsistencies and miscellaneous stupidities:
(1) Professional recording equipment that seems to operate without any power and can be smuggled under a jacket. This is 1981, people. Equipment of that calibre weighed a ton and took hours to set up.
(2) People acting as if making an illegal recording were like shooting the Pope. Again, folks, illegal tape duplication & exploitation has been around since the Beatles. Record companies and artists learned to deal with it. They certainly wouldn't throw a hissy fit & start crying over a bootlegged tape, like our heroine does in one laughably bad scene.
(3) People drop dead far too quickly. Even if a knife were to pierce a main artery, it takes a human several minutes to bleed to death. But in this weird 80s world, people die like switching off a light. They also fall unconscious from chemical sprays within 0.5 seconds.
(4) Oh, but when our hero is wounded, he somehow manages to run several miles to safety (bleeding all the way) and wait 20 minutes for someone to come rescue him, after which some DIY surgery with a first aid kit in the back of a car seems to restore him to full health. All I can say is "vive le 80s!" *shakes head*
(5) Are the Parisian police IDIOTS? Seriously, are they?
(6 through 999) Too many to list.
You've already wasted enough time reading my review about this awful movie. Don't waste any more. This is really a bad episode of Baywatch but masquerading as "art". And there are no hot chicks (unless you count that stupid Brigitte Bardot wannabe who insists on speaking in a whisper all the time. God I wanted to throttle her.)
El ángel exterminador (1962)
Good idea but not enough to keep it afloat
This film has an interesting premise: a dinner party of rich bourgeoisie find themselves inexplicably unable to leave the house. They slowly devolve into savagery and vulgarity. It's sort of like the Eagles song "Hotel California" except that this film lasts 70 minutes longer than the song. And you can't dance to it.
But the problem is not the slow pace nor is it the lack of plot. The main problem is that Bunuel fails to develop his characters, so we are left with a satire of... nothing! There is really nothing to sink our philosophical teeth into. The resolution is utterly meaningless and random, and it leaves you saying to yourself "I could have thought of a million better ways to end that movie." But as it were, Bunuel chose the most vapid resolution, similar to a cheezy TV scifi drama where the solution is to "switch the polarity from plus to minus!" This film is utterly unfulfilling to anyone who is thirsty for philosophy and depth. Of course the Bunuel fans will retort that Bunuel never claimed to have any meaning to his films. Sadly, I must agree. But what frustrates me most is that he had the perfect opportunity to deliver an insightful commentary on the human condition, but instead he let it degrade into utter schlock.
Bunuel loves to ridicule the rich. That's fine, but maybe he should give us a reason WHY the rich are so ridiculous. It's not enough to make fun of a man just because he wears a tuxedo. Without giving us sufficient insights into the personalities of his characters, that's all Bunuel is doing: making fun of people because of the clothes and jewelry they wear. But I suppose back in that era, it was en vogue to make fun of rich people. Come to think of it, audiences haven't changed much in the last 50 years.
I give this film 4 stars instead of 1 because at least in this film Bunuel doesn't slaughter any animals on camera.
Grizzly Man (2005)
Don't blame Treadwell. Blame Herzog.
This is the kind of film that leaves you shaking your head and your fists at the screen. Most people end up hating Treadwell, or, at the very least, thinking he's a lunatic who deserved to get ripped to bloody ribbons.
I'm afraid these people have been fooled by Herzog's clever brainwashing. Herzog pretends to be a touchy-feely naturalist who respects Treadwell and sobs crocodile tears at his tragic fate. But please, let me spell it out for you: Herzog was NOT trying to glorify Treadwell. He was trying to ridicule him. Furthermore, Herzog is NOT a naturalist as is obvious when he opens his mouth and babbles something about how "the universe is chaos, hostility and murder." What a sourpuss.
To anyone paying attention, it becomes obvious that this "documentary" is actually an opinionated COMMENtary from Herzog's biased perspective. For years, Herzog has been trying to tell audiences that "nature sucks" and that naturalists are wackos who invariably get themselves killed. If you agree with that statement, then you will definitely enjoy hearing it repeated for 2 hours. But if you're more sensible than that, you'll find yourself saying, "Wh-o-o-o-a, what sort of rhetoric is this director trying to shove down my throat?"
If you keep this in mind while you're watching, you suddenly realize how obvious and tactless the film is. Herzog even steps on camera in one scene to try his hand at acting (lol). But he just can't act. He comes across as insincere, laughable and cheezy which is what this film becomes very quickly. Grizzly Man will certainly irritate you. But don't blame Treadwell. Blame Herzog.