Death at a Funeral

Chris Rock's face when someone tried to explain comedy to him.

There are movies that blend the macabre with slapstick very well. Most of these are British, who seem to have a certain affinity with the lighter side of death. Greats such as Monty Python, Rowan Atkinson and Matt Berry have made us laugh with their own patented brand of gallows humour that we seem to find curiously appealing. One in particular I’d like to talk about today is ‘Death at a Funeral’.

No. Nope.

Not that one.

The other one.

Yes, that one.

Whoever said “sarcasm is the lowest form of humour” has never heard of the Wayans brothers. But, as bad as they are (and they are very, very bad) at least their ideas were original; at some point in the past. I mean sure, they’ve flogged more dead horses than a kleptomaniac at a glue factory, but at least they’ve never done anything so blatantly lazy. And shit. Unless you count ‘White Chicks’ – which I classify as a movie the same way I classify taco bell as food. Or edible.

But enough about the unrelated, very related brothers. This review is about the 2010 version of Death at a Funeral. A shitty ‘remake’ that came out only 3 years after the original. This is a movie aimed at people without a formal education. Or an education at all from the look of it.  It holds none of the quirky charm of that the original has in lump sum. It’s about as enjoyable as pissing sawdust.

This is really less of a black comedy and more of a black comedy. And in this example I use the word ‘comedy’ in the broadest possible sense of the word. They didn’t just steal the general idea of the film; they used EVERYTHING, even the unfunny bit about the rash and the wrong body in the coffin gag. Not only is it entirely not funny, it’s not even a rip off. It’s an absolute copy and paste, with the words “shit” and “damn” thrown in sporadically. There is – and bear in mind this is an estimation – 1000% more black jokes. This is not a film for white people.

I’m not even sure it’s a film for black people.

At least things like Next Friday and The Nutty Professor were accessible to a wider audience.

The story is one we’ve already seen done better, so I won’t bother with the details. Let’s just say that these guys missed the point, on every front. You couldn’t miss more points if you were pining over a long lost bed of nails. Martin Lawrence just does his usual ‘yell a lot’ routine, only to be outshined by Tracy Morgan. James Marsden’s an idiot. Luke Wilson is as unlikable as ever. Chris Rock was only just bearable and Danny Glover is, according to general consensus, getting too old for this shit. And shit, they ever got the same dwarf. I suppose there’s probably a shortage of work in Hollywood for the vertically challenged.

Midgets are hilarious.

And, oh Keith David, is there nothing that you won’t do for a paycheque? You’re like the black William Shatner.

I believe remakes can be good, if still not better than the original. This is usually because the original was a classic that had passed into obscurity or cult-hood. Then a new director with a different vision can come along and interpret it for a new generation. Look at Dawn of the Dead. Nothing will ever replace George A. Romero’s masterpiece, but the new one has its own place in my heart as a fucking awesome film.

But for this movie they didn’t even wait until the DVD’s had cooled in their spindle to pump out a poorly thought out, poorly executed and generally poorly accepted ‘black person edition’. 3 years is hardly anything for a remake. That’s like buying a colouring book only to find all the pictures already coloured in. Then finding, in childish scribble, the name George Bush Jnr. scrawled on the inside page.

Now, I may be white, but I find this a little bit racist. It’s basically telling anyone darker than my morning coffee that the British version isn’t for them. So they had to dumb it down for them, and give it an ‘urban’ feel that they could comprehend. Maybe I’m reading into it too much, but that’s just my opinion. I mean, what’s next? Black Pride and Prejudice? “Shit, Charles. Dem bitches be straight up trippin’, yo.” I’m thinking Mike Epps as Mr Darcy here.

This ‘film’ is a testament to what you can do with blatant plagiarism and a complete lack of understanding of British comedy. The original was great. This one is just... well... shit. It’s about as much fun as passing a kidney stone. If the humour wasn't so very unfunny you could be forgiven for thinking that you were actally watching the original, but some bastard had turned the contrast on your TV way down. I'm almost surprised the tagline wasn't something atrocious like "You can't spell Funeral without Fun", which would be lost on its intended audience that just can't spell funeral. It adds nothing new, and instead spends an hour and twenty eight minutes tarnishing its predecessor. It should be taken out the back and shot. With exploding knives shaped like small sharks.

Don’t just take my word for it. Take everyone’s word for it. Except Roger Ebert, who seems to have given it 3.5 out of 4 stars, despite all rational logic. But then he also said it was “the best comedy since The Hangover”. So fuck him, and his wrong opinions. That’s why God gave you cancer, Ebert. You twat.

Abraham Lincoln would be turning over in his grave.

Myth

Nigga please, this is genuine shag pile.

I thought I’d mix it up a little bit for this review, so instead of going out to find the shittiest movies ever to come straight to DVD I decided to find one so shit that it would have to climb half a  dozen rungs to even be a straight to VHS release. Where can I find videos so awful that no one would ever want to see them? Youtube. That’s right, the bowels of the internet. A rank cesspit of idiotic white girls dancing to hip-hop and crazy religious nut-bags who think they can prove the existence of a god with peanut butter. What better place to spend a quiet afternoon? A Turkish prison, perhaps.

Don't get this confused with The Myth with Jackie Chan, and don’t ask me how I managed to find this video. The memories are still too raw and painful. Let’s say that I was fated to find this... thing. Like a scarcely polished turd sitting amidst slightly better polished turds in some crazy guys basement I found it, and I dared to press ‘play’. This is, without a shadow of a doubt, THE worst thing I have ever forced myself to sit through. And I watched all of ‘Coyote Ugly’.

The legend, or myth if you will, that revolves around this film is one of mystery, hope and destiny. The tales go that in the far off land of someplacia there was a young man attending a Sci-Fi convention where nerds and virgins came to dress in op-shop rejects and eat marshmallows. It was there that he was approached by a strange man with hair like spun gold. This strange man gave the young adventurer a device known only as a compact disc. Little did he know that this humble disc contained the greatest piece of refried shit our world, nay, any world, had ever seen.

Or as the YouTube user SatansGloryHole puts it; “I received a copy of this at a film convention from a strange man with long hair. A few days later I popped it in the DVD player and low and behold the worst movie I had ever seen... A horrible tale of Dragons and Faggotry. I think the world needs to see this and use it as a template of what to avoid when making a film.”

I kind of like that for a tagline to this movie. “A horrible tale of Dragons and Faggotry”. It pretty much sums it up in one sentence, if you could somehow manage to also include the word shitfuck thirty seven times. It’s a movie made by kids with Asperger’s. For kids with Asperger’s. Except that, unlike Rain Man, these kids don’t appear to be good at anything useful. It makes me want to wash down a bottle of Valium with cheap scotch, take a red pen and grade children’s homework – by drawing cocks all over it.

And now for what I will laughingly refer to as our story. The premise for this atrocity is mostly explained in generic on screen text and bored voiceovers to still images ruined by shitty filters. It’s about a Kingdom called... Mythendel... Really? Mythendel? Exactly how little effort did they put into this, guys? Can you round up from zero? Anyway, the throne falls to some arsehole ginger with obnoxious sideburns who decides he doesn’t really like his neighbours and wants to use Dragoon knights to beat them into submission. The dragoons are controlled by a fat wizard named Morok who I swear to god has a learning disability. He agrees to help the king out of fealty or general ignorance or whatnot, even though he is “the oldest and wisest” of the Relmen, the race of wizards that came from the heavens. That’s about all I could really dredge out of this cesspit.


The ‘production value’ (I use the term really loosely) is pretty much what these kids could find in their piggybanks. The costumes consist of tablecloths and shagpile carpet vests over... T-shirts and jeans? Fuck guys. At least try to look authentic. I highly doubt denim was a medieval fabric, let alone printed T’s. And your big brother’s football pads don’t count as armour, especially when it’s blue with lightning bolts painted on it.

Oh dear god, these guys are all fat virgins in terrible vests role playing out their gay fantasies of not living in mum’s garage. You can almost tell that their mum probably came on set with some juice and orange slices for lunch, and immediately felt a deep, suffocating shame.

In no specific order, I’m going to give points as to why this movie is bad. I should remind you that so far I have only managed to sit through 3 of 8 parts. So, let’s see why it sucks dog cocks:

• Cast consists entirely of spastic kids with speech impediments.
• Terrible wardrobe.
• Worse acting.
• Ridiculous plot.
• Horrid writing.
• Cliché as fuck.
• Mega, mega gay.
• The actors all seem to be reading their lines off the walls.
• They call dragon people Dragoon Knights
• The special effects (and I use the term ‘special’ here with every intended meaning) look as if they have been done in MSPaint

So we finally get to the end of the first part and we get more text stating that after 5 years of war Kane (the dragoon general) begins to question the wisdom of their King’s decision to kill everything around them, for, and I quote, “they are not fighting just soldiers or kings. They are slaying farmers and peasants.” Oh, so after 5 years of killing innocent poor people you then decide, “Hey, maybe this isn’t right. I should look into that.” It took you five fucking years to piece that together? Then we see some more bad teenage moustaches, bad accents and someone calls someone else and arsehole.

Oh dear Christ, this thing goes for 98 minutes. Time I will never get back. I feel dumber for having watched it; and you should all feel bad for making me sit through it. It’s just 98 minutes of pissing on JRR Tolkien’s grave, followed by a short session of defecating into Gary Gygax’s coffin.

Ok, so after having watched as much as I can physically handle, I have come to the conclusion that it’s actually subtle genius at work. So subtle in fact that is doesn’t actually exist. Human language, in all its splendour and intricacies, does not yet poses the words needed to describe how abhorrent this collection of broken scenes and disjointed dialogue is. It’s not unlike the macabre curiosity you get while approaching a car accident, only then to notice that the car belongs to your daughter, and that she is now a thin coat of lacquer on the footpath. I would rather eat warm seafood from a cheap hookers snatch than sit through another minute of this Mexican soap-opera style crap.

I did not believe one word or one emotion coming from a characters stunned and camera shy face. There is no empathy or connection to any of the characters. It’s as if they asked Tommy Wiseau to write and direct it, but he was utterly plastered off Domestos and Skittles at the time. It is hands down the worst cacophony of sub-mediocre acting and un-special effects that has ever been put to film. It makes Jackass 2 look like Citizen Kane. Costumes, scripts, lighting; they got none of it right. If this was a project for film school then you fucking failed.

To call the acting wooden would be an insult to even the most piss-weak sapling. The only character that isn’t inane or laughable (to the extent of the rest, at least) is the evil King, who’s red shaggy vest makes it look as if he skinned - and is wearing - Elmo. Also, he’s evil, and a bit of a dick. But because he is the only semi realistic character, you find yourself being drawn to him like a moth to a tea-light candle in an otherwise black night. What this is then is a bunch of sweaty neck-beards with learning disabilities acting out their perverted fantasies while dressed in Mardi Gras rejects and with obviously false authentic British accents. It’s actually sort of depressing.

Don’t watch it. Don’t even do it for a laugh. Like herpes, this shit will haunt you forever. Take this as a public service announcement. I have passed waste through my body that is more worthy of your attention. Seriously, one time one kind of looked like Conan O’Brien, if you squinted pretty hard.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go eat cookies and cry in the shower.

McHale's Navy

Tom Arnold - in what should really be standard naval dress uniform.

List your top 5 things that you want to see in a movie. Go on, I’ll wait.

Ok, if you listed puppies, friendship, cute dresses, Jennifer Aniston and that poof from The Notebook, then you’re clearly either a girl or Julian Clary, because that shit sucks my balls. However, if you answered with Tom Arnold, Bruce Campbell, Tim Curry, war boats and movies from 1997, then you answered correctly, and have probably already seen the movie I’m about to talk about. Because you’re probably a pretty cool guy, like Tom Selleck. Only without the short shorts.

Is it just me, or does the thought of Magnum P.I’s crotch give everyone nightmares? It looks as if someone has tried, unsuccessfully, to tie down a bale of steel wool with a couple of tea-towels tied together. It’s just a bulging mass of black, wiry despair.

Wow, we are getting really off track here.

McHale’s Navy came to my TV on VHS and delighted the hell out of my (admittedly easily entertained) thirteen year old brain. It was funny, and not particularly clever, as well as being relatively well stocked in the explosions department, so it was enjoyed by my whole family too. Looking back now I get a lot more of the jokes than I did when I was younger, so it’s worth a watch even if you are well into your spinster years by now. After all, momma’s gotta watch her stories.

The movie, funnily enough, shares a few key themes with the 1962 television series of the same name. Unfortunately one of those things is Ernest Borgnine. I’m pretty sure this guy is dead and is being cleverly animated by a series of ropes and pulleys, and maybe a couple of pipe-cleaners. Not unlike the actual events that inspired a heart-moving movie called “Weekend at Bernie’s”. Other similarities include the plot and probably the number of DVDs sold.

The story revolves around Quinton McHale, a retired Lieutenant Commander in the US Navy, who spends his retirement brewing beer, distributing contraban and generally being a dick on the small island nation of San Moreno (which appears to be somewhere near Cuba and is not to be mistaken for the actual Republic of San Moreno). Then his quiet world is turned upside down when his old nemesis, Vladikov – the second best terrorist in the world, moves in and begins to take over the island to build a nuclear missile silo. This doesn’t sit well with old McHale, mostly because it’s bad for business, so he puts together his old crew and tries to send Vlad back where he came from.

It has pretty much everything you could ask for in a bad 90’s comedy. There are bar fights in Cuba, motorbikes that pop out of PT boats, pigs that like cable car rides and bad Russian accents aplenty. They even show Tim Curry’s arse, and it has a tattoo on it of Tom Arnold’s face. I’m not even lying about that. It’s a real thing. And Tim Curry’s all pissed about it because he, unlike most of us – I hope - doesn’t seem to think that a tattoo of Tom Arnold’s smiling face on your butt is a cool thing. Hell, it’s was cooler than the Dennis Rodman tattoo I have on my arse. Fuck you Dennis Rodman, and fuck those 2 movies you were in. Double Team was a piece of shit.

Anyway, there is a bit more to this movie. Actually I only really described the first 20 minutes. But I’ll leave the rest for you to discover on your own, so you can feel clever. Lets just say there are quite a fair number of shenanigans, much tom-foolery and the occasional hijinks and leave it at that.

And, in the rather unlikely event that this film needs more selling points, did I mention that his crew contains Bruce Campbell? Yes, The Chin himself. There is also the rainbow tolerance coalition with the token black guy, the asian guy, the dumb white guy and a few hispanics just to balance it out into a consistant shade. Oh, and French Stuart. I don’t get why people put French Stewart in movies. His fucking eyes are shut all the time. How does he see? This guy squints more than a half-baked Chinese man in a ‘stare at the sun’ contest. And that voice, it’s agony. I feel like I should be merciful and just put him down like a sick dog. He sounds like a Jew with a blocked nose, as if you recorded Fran Drescher imitating Gary Coleman.

Speaking of Tom Arnold (oh yeah, did you see that smooth plug?), how drunk did that guy have to be to stick it to Roseanne Barr? Jesus Christ, you’d need to drip-feed me about a gallon of rubbing alcohol to look at that thing. And he married her. The man must have an iron constitution, or maybe she’s just a really beautiful person on the inside. Or maybe he was just drunk a lot. I guess we’ll never know.

Anyway, back to the movie at hand. It’s a great show with some hilarious quotes and amusingly ludicrous situations. You’ll enjoy watching it, and i bet even your kids will. There are even plenty of jokes for young and old, as lame or outright ridiculous as they may be, so it’s worth sitting down with the family to watch. With some popcorn. If you think you can stomach 108 minutes of French Stuart’s nasally blunderings.

Die Hard: With a Vengeance

My darkest sexual desire. It's totally not gay.

I fucking love this movie. I love it like Heath Ledger loves prescription meds. If it asked me to rim-romp it’s stank-tube then I would happily, and hungrily, oblige. Die Hard is a testament to what one man can do with a white singlet, a drinking problem and a penchant for reckless endangerment. It’s a man’s film for men, and maybe lesbians if they like explosions and Bruce Willis (and from some of the dykes I’ve seen, Bruce Willis is an improvement).

For those of you shamefully unfamiliar wih the Die Hard series, let me give you a quick run down.

Die Hard - Bruce Willis has to go to some bullshit Christmas party being hosted by Mr Sulu’s dad because his bitch wife asks him to. Then Professor Snape comes along with a sweet beard and starts killing asian men in their 50’s. Now, this doesn’t sit well with John McClane (Willis) because if anyone kills people, it’s him. So he kills a bunch of people, stops the safe from being cracked, befriends Carl Winslow and throws Alan Rickman off the 32nd floor of Nakatomi Towers. He does all this whilst sick with no shoes and a bad case of jetlag. Impressed yet?

Die Hard 2: Die Harder – Bruce willis teams up with Detective Sipowicz and a half dozen jelly-filled donuts to stop a bunch of ex-military mercenaries from taking over an airport in a hostage situation while his wife’s plane circles overhead, being unable to land. He has 58 minutes to stop their plot before he plane runs out of fuel and crashes. Man, this woman is more trouble than she’s worth. Anyway, the military sends in special forces to deal with the terrorist issue, only to discover that they’re been in cahoots with the mercs the whole time in an elaborate plot to steal a plane and rescue some hispanic drug lord who is also the dictator of the fictional nation of Val Verde. Mi Gusta! So McClane kills a bunch of people and makes Dennis Franz look like a competant security guard. Then he blows up a plane full of bad guys. Still not impressed?

Die Hard 3: Die Harderer – Opening credits roll. A building explodes 10 seconds in. This scene should aptly set the tone for the rest of the movie. So Bruce Willis is “working on a nice, fat suspension” when he gets forcibly reinstated to play an unbelievably sweet game of ‘Simon Says’ with a crazed East German (Jeremy Irons) and Samuel L. Jackson by walking the streets of Harlem with a sandwich board that says “I hate niggers”. Subtlety wasn’t his strong point, I’ll admit. So he teams up with his signature singlet and the amusingly racist Sammy J. to stop a bomb on a train, run over mimes, solve puzzles, cover a fat man in pancake syrup and foil the plans of Simon (who turns out to be Alan Rickmans brother) by shooting a shit load of people and wearing a bloodied singlet. If you’re not impressed by now I’d really look into getting medicated for being super lame.

There is a fourth film in the series and a soon to be fifth installment, titled Die Harder Still and Die Hardest, respectively. I wish I was serious there, because they actually called them Live Free or Die Hard (and pathetically Die Hard 4.0 in Australia, like it needs a fucking update or something to bugfix out Justin Long, the twat. Grow a proper moustache you hipster cunt.) and A Good Day to Die Hard. Just terrible. The guy who came up with those titles is clearly this generations Hemingway. I’m sorry those sentences dragged on a bit, I just really hate that guy’s face.

Willis and Jackson have an amusing relationship, kind of like cocktail of equal parts mutual hate and respect. It works well in the film and, accompanied by Jackson’s seemingly endless supply of “I don’t need help from whitey” attitude, gives birth to humorous situations like Mrs. Wayans births welfare cheques. I mean kids. This neenish tart duo reminds me a lot of Miami Vice, only without the bad hair and homosexual innuendo. “Blow me.” “I’ll drive this truck up your arse.” On second thought, scratch that.

Bruce Willis is the king. Sure he’s not the biggest, or the strongest, or even the least wig wearing guy in Hollywood. But what he is is the Bruce Willisiest. He has that shit in droves. Bruce Willis sweats machismo and bullets made of pepperoni and chinese porn magazines. Combine that raw arse-kicking power with John McClanes distinct lack of mental maturity and you have about 215 lbs of testosterone and singlet powered justice. This guy kills dozens of people with a surprising amount of casualness.

Jeremy Irons was amazing. His performance is definately a highlight of the movie. He’s criminal sociopathy and witty repartee in a blue tank top. I’m not sure the role would have been as good as it was had another actor stepped in to play Simon.

This isn’t a movie for math teachers or hippies or people who aren’t cool. This is a movie for people who can tell the difference between good moustache and a bad lip rug. It’s a movie about justice. It’s a movie about social equality. It’s a movie about singlets. But mostly it’s a movie about how being a bad-ass get’s you what you want, as long as what you want is to kick a metric ton of arse and look cool doing it. It’s funny, it’s clever and it had a very good story under all the punches and bullets and black jokes.

If you’ve never seen it, then I feel sorry for you because you’re probably a math teacher with an old man moustache. If you have, then watch it again, because you know you want to.
 
I wonder what Bruce Willis uses to get those pesky blood and oil stains out of his whites?

Me? What do I use to keep black stains off my whites? A hose.


Just kidding folks, I only use a hose to keep them off my front lawn.

Highlander

Runner-Up: 1986 Big Head Competition - behind Ted Danson.

1986 was an important year for Gay Rights. New Zealand equalized the age of consent for homosexual relationships. New York City passes its first anti-discrimination bill. C. Everett Koop, Surgeon General of the United States, publishes the first government publications for the public on gay safe sex practices in the battle against AIDS. And one film dares to ask the question, “Are you a faggot, Nash?”

Highlander is arguably the best thing ever made, ever. By anyone. And by arguably I mean definitely. I’d compare it to being in a Tijuana whore-house with US$8 in your pocket. It makes “First Blood” look like “Weekend at Bernie’s”. It makes Kirsten Dunst look like Tommy Lee Jones’ neck. Let’s just say that I like it, and leave it at that.

The story goes that at some point in the 1600’s or something, Connor McLeod (played by Christopher Lambert) is fatally wounded in a battle with some dirt men but, much to everyone’s surprise, he makes a full recovery just in time for dinner. His people claim he is possessed by the devil and he is exiled, to live in some castle with a hot girl with big bosoms. What a rough hand to be dealt. Immortal and living in a castle with some girl you could, in all likelihood, bend over your knee and milk. Rough. Then along comes Ramirez (Sean Connery) to tell him all about how he is an immortal and has a whole stack of awesome super powers (chief among them being unable to die). Ramirez teaches McLeod all he’d need to know in preparation for the Quickening – a time when all immortals will feel a strong pull to a far away land to fight one another, to the last (and a sweet sound track), for the ultimate prize. (Hint: the prize is mortality)

What kind of bullshit prize is that? Mortality. I’ve got it and I don’t even want it. That’s like offering a man with 20-20 vision partial blindness. I’d fight NOT to get the prize. It’s like some crappy ‘participation award’ your kid gets at school because we don’t want them to know they’re really not good at something. “Oh no, that kid has feelings, but can’t run 100 metres to save himself from a sexual predator, whatever shall we do?” Participation award (and probably a stern bumming from said predator).

You have to admire the casting director’s enthusiasm here. You’ve got a Frenchman playing a Scot, a Scotsman playing a Spaniard, Clancy Brown as the villain and the WHOLE GOD DAMN SOUNDTRACK IS QUEEN. Holy shit! I don’t even care if the studio had no idea what ‘a nationality’ was, that shit is a minor detail. Amazingly this is Christopher Lambert’s first major Hollywood role, and he does quite well considering he is cast opposite Sean Connery. This guy’s voice can open more legs than a clearance sale on spreader-bars. It’s like honey poured over Rohypnol.

So if the movie hasn’t yet frazzled your dangly bits, get ready for some face-rocking-off...ing. It’s about burly men who travel around cutting each other’s heads off. That’s it. Oh, and there are Nazi’s. What more could you want? A sweet scene with lightning making cars explodes? That’s thrown in at no extra charge. This single greatest experience you can have without a bucket of grease and a fresh corpse.

What’s that? You’re complaining about spoilers? You haven’t seen the best movie ever made in the 25 fucking years it’s been out? What are you doing with your life? Because you sure as shit ain’t living it. Watch it. Watch it twice. Get it tattooed to your butt. Give small kids real sword and get them to re-enact the movie scene for scene.

On second thought, you probably shouldn’t. At least until you sign a waiver stating it was totally your idea and had nothing to do with my suggesting it. In text. On the internet.

I just thank God that they never made any sequels, TV cartoon spin-offs, animes, videogames or comics that would have ruined the greatness of this timeless classic. Nope, none whatsoever. Also, I couldn’t find a place in this review to make fun of Christopher Lambert’s accent. Oh well, next time.

RoboCop

Dead or alive, you're
coming with Robo Ed Harris.

RoboCop - It’s a franchise we all know, even if you've never seen of the films or television series before. It’s a name that's synonymous with 80’s action and super badass law enforcement. Even kids these day (who seem to know nothing about everything, the scum) know who RoboCop is, and if they don’t... well... they bloody well should. He was an icon for good and justice and robot operated judicial systems. As the tagline says; “Part man, part machine, all cop.”

The first film of the series came out in 1987, and was given the (well deserved) R-18+ rating for excessive amounts of awesomeness. This means that, in theory, I should have first seen this movie in the tail end of 2003, but as my parents were horrible at their job of parenting I first watched this testament to film in about 1992, at the well prepared age of 6. Imagine, if you can, me – a tender, innocent boy of just 6 – subjected to the concentrated values of ‘Radical’ that this movie has in voluminous supply... Suffice to say my small, un-descended testicles dropped like a sack of bricks and instantly grew so much hair that they looked like Robin Williams’ knuckles. That was the day, nay – the very moment, I became a man.

But enough about my balls (details of which are available on DVD and Video Cassette for a mere $14.99), and more about cyborgs in a policing capacity.

This movie was, and still is, one of the most violent films I saw in my youth. Even today it still does reasonably well in the unnecessary violence category. Who has ever forgotten that opening scene where Murphy (later RoboCop) is literally blown limb from limb by Red Forman from That 70’s Show? Who wasn’t amazed by the claymation antics of ED-209 spazzing out and falling down the stairs? And why is that white guy named Miguel Ferrer? He’s clearly not Hispanic... I mean, he’s employed and not asleep in a big hat or anything.
What is not to love about this movie? Let’s go down my check-list of things a movie should have: A robot – check. Who fights crime – check. Many explosions – check. A black police chief with a luscious moustache – check mate. Instant classic.

RoboCop... RoboCop... Let’s just break that down into its component words for a minute. ‘Robo’ and ‘Cop’. When you put them together they spell deadly justice and power. Separate, like that, they just seem ridiculous. Can you imagine a studio today green lighting a project called RoboCop? No, they’d be like “Are you retarded? That sounds stupid and a lot like something a seven year old would draw in the back of his maths book. You’re fired. Also, I banged your wife.” A hero with that name these days would just sound like an idiot, but because it is immortalised in our minds as the incredible story that it was, we seem to over look the ridiculousness of it.

The story goes... Wait, why am I attempting to explain the plot to RoboCop? That’s like me trying to explain the plot of the Bible; everyone knows what’s going to happen, and if you don’t then you’re clearly a bad person and you should feel bad about that. Actually, that’s a pretty solid comparison. Murphy, much like the Jesus, died for our sins, and then was resurrected as a super badass bad-guy killing machine. To fight crime. In the not too distant space future. Well, at least one of those two people lived up to my expectations, and his name wasn’t Jesus. If Matthew, Mark, John and... Ringo... had written about Jesus becoming a crime fighting robot, well; let’s just say I would have paid a lot more attention in Sunday school.

RoboCop was a film that became a franchise. It is a timeless and important piece of our history. It is a testament to the ‘power’ craze of the 1980’s. It juts up proud above the ruins of mediocrity like an enormous penis, spurting hot gouts of flaming excellence off into the night. It’s excess in the extreme, and about as ludicrous as Ian McKellen in a clown suit, and I wouldn’t have had it any other way.

Angel Heart

Cajun, anyone? It's Crabs...

The year is 1987.
A time when you didn’t need a license to be a bad-ass. A time when Christian Slater drove a Mustang and not a Prius. A time when Mickey Rourke had regular employment. Life was good.

To celebrate the immeasurable ‘rad-ness’ of the late 80’s I am reviewing a lesser known cult film painfully called “Angel Heart”. Don’t, however, let the name lull you into a false sense of gayness. No, what we have here is a 1950’s film noir detective story delving into the occult world of Louisiana’s Voodoo rites with a good dose of suspense and just a whisper of mind-fuck.

Our main stars, Mickey Rourke and Robert De Niro, were already household names at this point, but Lisa Bonet makes her first silver screen appearance - having taken a break from the masterpiece that was ‘The Cosby Show’ - in role that would later be blamed for her leaving the sitcom. But don’t let the presence of a ‘family-oriented icon’ fill you with doubts. This movie was originally given an X rating, which was later dropped to an R rating after “several seconds of the extended, graphic and blood-drenched sex scene with Rourke” was cut.

The story follows Harry Angel (Rourke), a private detective hired by some Jew lawyer to search for information regarding a missing person. Louis Cyphre (De Niro) is the man behind the lawyer, and while he answers Harry’s questions as to the who and why, his answers are vague and his motives never really made clear. You can do a lot of guessing at this point in the movie, but I think you’ll still be surprised at the ending. Anyway, Rourke sets off to find out what he can about this mysterious man that’s been both dead and alive for the last 12 years.

The acting is great, and – surprising for the content of the movie – believable. It’s a testament to De Niro’s acting abilities that he can make eating an egg look both menacing and intimidating. The man is a genius – except when it comes to choosing between working with Ben Stiller or not working with Ben Stiller. You fucked up there, Bobby. You fucked up big.

Believe it or not, this film is also very educational. I garnered a whole wealth of knowledge from just having watched it once. For example, I learned that apparently it wasn’t ideal to be a coloured person in the 1950’s. Who knew? I also learned that everyone in the southern states practices (the aptly named) black magic, and that you can have a ridiculous name – such as Toots Sweet, Johnny Favourites or Dicky Wells – so long as you’ve played in a jazz band.

The costumes are well designed and typical of the era, though for some reason Rourke takes to wearing this big plastic nose guard half the movie that makes him look like an ugly Muppet on steroids. It’s not even essential to the plot; it’s purely there to be ridiculous. Also it was considered the norm in the 50’s to don a fedora without having to own a macbook and drink fagaccinos at some ‘underground’ coffee shop at eleven in the fucking morning, you hipster cunts. These guys were wearing it before it was ‘vintage’. Who’s the square now, dipshits? You with your Holgas and your Polaroids. I hope you choke on that pretentious vegan burger. I hate you. I hate you so much.

Off that tangent now...

This film also has one of the best/most fucked up sex scenes I have ever come across in my career as a professional movie watching guy. Let’s just say that when Mickey Rourke fucks no one survives. There is considerable collateral damage. It’s, well, interesting. Like a nature documentary directed by a drunk Quentin Tarantino.

Whoever wrote this script must have been a pretty unhinged individual. The murders in the movie have a... unique... approach. For example, I was quite delighted when I heard a cop answer the question “how did he die?” with the answer “Technically? He asphyxiated on his own genitalia. Un-technically? Somebody cut his dick off, stuffed it in his mouth and choked him to death.”
That’s some pretty brutal shit, and personal. The other mentionable murder is... how do I put this delicately?  Someone made love to a woman. With a pistol. Several times.

At the end of the day what we are left with is a great movie, with an original concept and a gripping story. It’s gloomy, and dark in every sense of the word. There’s suspense, there’s sex and tits and plenty of violence. There’s something for the whole family! Except the kids. Or the wife. Or your parents. Or most of your friends. But definitely you, you sick bastard. This shit’s right up your alley.

If you enjoyed Se7en, American Psycho or The Ninth Gate then you’ll be sure to love this one.

I give it four and a quarter paparazzi beat-downs out of five.

Eight Legged Freaks

David Arquette's giant head does a lot of yelling.

Let me take you back in time for a moment. Back to when Justin Bieber was still pissing his bed sheets and we were all hoping to fall in love with Star Wars: Episode 2. Oh, we were but naive fans. It was a much simpler time. An era of innocence and cinema history. A year that would see the release of such masterpieces as Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers and Spider-man. But standing above the others, a shining beacon of film amongst the common rabble of blockbuster movies was Eight Legged Freaks.

The very title of this movie makes you think. The lack of a hyphen changes its meaning from 'freaks with eight legs' - the spiders - to 'eight freaks with legs'. This seems to imply that people, with the mere existence of their legs, are freaks; that we are born with the ability to walk, we are therein cursed and somehow less as a whole. But we also have people without legs, cripples, amputees, fat people and other lazy degenerates. Are we then to realise that without their legs these people couldn’t possibly be 'freaks'? Is that the moral lesson we are to take away from the seeming punctuation error in the title? That we are all burdened, one way or another, and that our ostracism and discrimination of the disabled actually makes US the freaks?
This is nothing short of pure genius, a hard look at the morals of modern society hidden in what could easily have been overlooked as lazy editing. If there is one thing you can say for this movie about giant spiders starring David Arquette, it's that it is subtle in its approach to sensitive issues, preferring to present the matter and leave it up to us, as the audience, to discuss and change the perceptions of our own society.


The story takes place in a little town called Prosperity, Arizona, and begins with toxic chemicals being dumped into a lake, contaminating the water supply. Talk about an original concept, this certainly isn't cliché or a trope in any way. I also like that they never explain what the chemical is, or what purpose it served previously. Could this innocent-seeming barrel of 'toxic waste' symbolise man's pollution and destruction of natural habitats? A film that makes us ask the big questions could only be the work of genius.

Nope. It's pure shit. 

Strangely no one seems to give a shit about the toxic waste or its immediate effects. It's only through the feeding of 'toxic crickets' to exotic spiders that anyone starts to even notice that it was a problem. The crickets act as some sort of spider steroid, increasing their size to something akin to large farm animals. As is the case with all giant monster movies no one seems to know what is going on until the massive spiders are literally running through the streets. And even then they are all idiots, constantly running into danger rather than away from it, ignoring warnings and generally being dicks. Anyway, the town gets over-run, stupid people die and a bunch of spiders get moderately shotgunned. They then lure the spiders into a local mine that is conveniently full of methane and blow them all up. A truly inspired story.

It's hard to tell if this movie was made to be serious or was more or a tongue-in-cheek homage to 1950's sci0fi films such as 'Them!' and 'Tarantula'. Maybe it's both, a movie inspired by Z-grade horror films and... No... No, it's just shit. They try to spice it up with a few Spiderman gags, but it falls well short of its goal to be enjoyable. Hell, it falls short of being bearable. It's like watching a colostomy bag slowly fill over the course of 99 minutes. The only good part is when we see a towel-clad Scarlett Johansson sprayed with a sticky white substance, but then David Arquette ruins the scene by merely being in it, the cunt. Fuck David Arquette.

It tries to be a black comedy. Well, not really black... more of a grey... no... No. It's really more like a beige comedy, by which I mean it's not at all funny. Fart jokes are funnier than this movie. Fuck, cot death is funnier than this movie. It's unoriginal and uninspiring and cliché to a fault. There is the bumbling side-kick character, the token black guy who makes an oppression joke character, the nerdy kid who's an expert on the subject character. It's terrible.

I would rather be learning than watching this piece of shit. I'd rather eat off the asian menu at a traditional Chinese restaurant. If you own or see a copy of this DVD, no doubt floating like a bloated corpse in a slick-shined puddle of urine, burn it. Burn them all.

If you have a spare 90-odd minutes of time that you're unsure what to do with, and your choice lay between watching Eight Legged Freaks or sewing your own butthole closed, take the latter option. It is considerably less painful.

Thor

That's MY fuckin' hammer...

How do I put this eloquently? My dick just grew sideburns in the shape of lightning bolts. Such was the raw power of Thor.
The film is based on the Marvel comics “The Mighty Thor” (obviously also pulling heavily from Norse mythology) and, as such, is unfortunately tarred with the same brush as other masterful pieces of shit as Hulk, that other Hulk with Edward Norton, any of the X-Men movies after the first, but mostly the Hulk movies. I really can’t stress that enough. Those movies were utter piss.

But I digress.

This movie is awesome. It’s like a potent injection of undiluted chest-hair-machismo right into the dick. This is probably one of the only movies that meets my beard quota of no less than 12 beards per scene.

Going into this I knew what to expect. I had no delusions that I was going to see some kind of Kubrick/Coppola cinema art here, but to be honest it surpassed my expectations. Not by much, mind you, but there isn’t a metering system on that particular phrase. My major concern was Chris Hemsworth, but I was pleasantly surprised to find him both amusing and believable (as far as one can believe that a 6’3” Australian ex-soap star with like 4 six packs on his biceps is a mythological God from another plane of existence that just happens to speak English with perfect diction), even when sharing the screen with the one and only Anthony Hopkins.

Now there is a man whose very birthright it was to portray Odin, King of Gods, on film. I have always envisioned Anthony Hopkins as a bearded Adonis wearing a bearskin toga; skin lightly bronzed from the sun and body chiselled like a Greek statue, easily hurling full grown sharks at despondent orphans ‘for funsies’. Then he washes down the taste of victory with an assortment of fine ales administered - from the carved horn of a dragon - by beautiful and scantily clad maidens who all look like Bruce Campbell with long hair.

So the movie...

There was, as much discussed over post-show drinks, far too much “space bullshit” thrown into the mix. I get that Asgard needed to be impressive, but the royal palace looked like nothing so much as the set from the Fifth Element with more braziers and less Bruce Willis. There is also the feeling that it has been a little ‘family friendly-fied’ by the publisher so pull in wider audiences. And this wouldn’t be all that bad if it wasn’t for Thor saying that the Asgardians came to earth on a bridge made of fucking rainbows. Rainbows. Norse Gods walk on bifrost, titanium and other cool sounding elements ending in ‘anium’. They most certainly do not walk on sunshine, no matter what the song may say.

There are some very clever clash-of-culture type parts when Thor is banished to New Mexico, as well as a few cameos (one from Stan Lee, as always) and references to other Marvel universe characters such as Tony Stark and Bruce Banner. It has action, drama, comedy and – to please the less Alpha of its viewers – a hint of romance. It’s clearly not going to win any awards however. It was spectacular, and dripping with manliness, but at the end of the day it’s a superhero film, and they just aren’t that brilliant. Good fun, no thinking.

I wouldn’t really recommend bringing the lady friends along to this one. It’s not that they wouldn’t like it (which they probably won’t), but mostly that they don’t shut up in the cinema. And besides, with the awesome testosterone that this movie is synthesized from she’d probably grow a pair on balls or two before the movie was out.

So basically, if you want to see a bearded man smashing shit with a hammer and massive robots shooting fire out of their eyes then this might be a movie for you.

Aladdin

Achtung, kiddies!

If you can say one thing about Disney it is that they are either mad trolling or flat out racists. Either way they have some serious balls to do what they do. And it’s no different with 1992’s Aladdin, which seemed so innocent in my youth, but I now realise is rife with subtle (and some not so subtle) racism. Hilarious.

Anyway, I sat down to watch this children’s classic with a little device I call my Racist-o-meter (which comes in totally handy at dinner parties with them coloured folk) which is set to play Johnny Cash’s ‘Ship Those Niggers Back’ ironically whenever it detects something racist (which, I’ll admit, was a programming error on my part. Damn thing loops endlessly). From the beginning of the film we get 23.4 seconds before my alarm went off. 23.4 seconds. They couldn’t even hold out until after the opening credits. Well done Disney, a new personal best no doubt. Truly appalling. I could have done it in under 10.

Have you ever listened to those lyrics? “Where they cut off your ear if they don’t like your face. It’s barbaric but hey, it’s home.” Admittedly I was watching the original version, but still, no prizes for compassion are being handed out at Disney headquarters.  I really do like that “but hey,” in there. I just don’t imagine anyone ever using the expression that casually after talking about a place where they fucking maim you because you’re some ugly munt with horse-mouth, Sarah Jessica Parker. I don’t imagine the former people of Pripyat going, “I mean, sure it’s radioactive, but hey, it’s home.”

Moving on.

Watching this again, a realisation has sprung on me. Everyone who we see as a hero in the story has minimal racially identifying features and a totally American accent. Amazingly everyone else, villain, merchant, camels, palm trees, etc has a mono-brow, a beard and an accent that, itself, borders on offensive. Jafar’s accent is a complete fucking mash or bad British and worse Arabic and, most alarmingly, NOT TIM CURRY. And don’t even get me started on Iago. The way they portray Jews as whinging, negative and thrifty people is disgraceful. What the fuck is wrong with Gilbert Gottfried anyhow? Is he an asian-jew hybrid, or is it just always really fucking sunny where he is. He’s got the mad squints on. The cunt. Anyway, Thumbs up Disney, just remarkable work there guys. 

Another thing I picked up on, and this could just be my male (superior) brain kicking in, but did anyone else find there to be slight sexual undertones with the giant tiger’s head who’s open, inviting mouth is a stairway to ‘The Cave of Wonders’? Really? It had to be a giant cat. I’m half surprised there wasn’t a cascading waterfall inside. Mostly it was just empty promises and weird stuff. At least they got that part right, eh fellas? Cha-ching... Vaginas are gross.

I also love the way this movie gives women such strong female characters as Jasmine and... well... I think the rug might be a girl too, maybe? None the less, Disney made sure to show how strong a woman can be by continually having Jasmine storm off in a hissy fit. Very empowering.

I should get the story here at some point. Jafar makes Aladdin enter the Giant innuendo in search for a magic lamp which he accidently ends up rubbing, because maybe he thought rubbing random artefacts was a good idea, and he is quite surprised to find a genie inside. The usual 3 wishes rule applies here and, yadda yadda yadda, you know the drill. He pretends to be a prince to get in on some of that fine ass, but upon learning that he must become the Sultan should the current Sultan fall ill he quickly picks up and gets the fuck out of there, because really, who wants responsibilities. Even though the Sultans job seems to be entirely made up of playing with toy animals and generally acting retarded.

Aladdin changes his mind and takes Jasmine on a magic carpet ride and seems to assume that children would be ignorant of the changes in temperature and air pressure 3000 feet in the air.

So they do a lot of other stuff and it all works out for them and they get married. Then they fly off into the night sky on a romantic carpet ride AND ARE EATEN BY A GIANT MOON FACE. The end.

The lesson here kids, if you want to bone some hot slapper, just lie and pretend you’re rich.

Just to get the education board off my our back, let’s have a look at what kids can take away from this experience.

Themes covered in this movie:

·         Slavery

·         Lying

·         Capital Punishment

·         Identity Theft

·         Racial Profiling

·         The incompetence of the Middle East’s system of government

·         A woman’s right to shut the hell up as the men around her make the decisions for her

Themes not covered in this movie:

·         Equality

·         What the hell the SPF on sun-block stands for

·         How friendly and fair a place the Middle East is

·         Sensible Foot-wear

·         Great tourist destinations in Saudi Arabia

One theme best left unexplored is Jafar’s request to marry the 15 year old princess, despite clearly being like forty something himself. That and Jafar abusing his super powers by making puns at people, like some kind of magical paedophile.

I don’t think Disney means any harm from their somewhat stereotypical depictions. They are kind of like your good intentioned grandmother pointing out how ‘well-spoken’ Will Smith is. She means well. She just dates from a different time. Even though this movie was made in the 90’s.

Clearly it’s a generational thing.

Endhiran

I wish I could say this wasn't a scene from a movie about robots.

I am speechless. I... I just don’t... I mean... What the fuck?

2010 was a year for cinema that we will think back on for days to come. Epic tales of love and romance. Comedies that made us forget what it was to be sad. Dramas filled with yearning and tragedy. And then there is this film, Endhiran.

This movie is an orgy of excess. Imagine Terminator 2, Bride and Prejudice, Frankenstein, I am Robot, Bicentennial Man, Blade Runner and The Matrix all mashed up into one huge mess of celluloid and you kind of get the idea of what I just sat through. It was almost too much.

Now, I’m not what you would call an expert on world cinema, especially this new fandangle Bollywood craze that seems to have sprung up over the last few years. I mean, yeah, I’ve seen the occasional scene or two while waiting for my naan bread from Miss India, but that’s probably the extent of my experience. But if any of these other Tamil films comes even close to this one, I’m sure I will be seeing them all very soon.

The story begins with a Professor creating a robot (both are played by Indian personality Rajinikanthin in a dual role) in his lab, which comes to be known as Chitti, which is a pretty shitti name for a robot, but that’s beside the point. The professor apparently spent so long in his lab that he grew a full beard and now his girlfriend (played by the incredibly sexy Aishwarya Rai, who I imagine tastes like Lamb Madras) is angry at him. Surprise, a woman kicking up a piss about something a man did.

Anyway, the robot goes around for the first few hours doing good deeds and generally getting in the way a bit, much to the chagrin of Professor Vaseegaran, who feels that the robot is stealing his spotlight in a big way. When the robot starts hitting on his girlfriend he takes an axe to it and throws it in the trash, only to have it picked up by his rival who turns Chitti into an evil robot hell bent on getting his robo-dick wet. And really, who can blame him? He then makes like a billion clones of himself and a few robot lions for kicks and a song. Then he uses a lightsaber to kill a dozen UNSC Spartans.

The rest of the movie is... well, you really need to see it to believe it. It plays out like the fevered ravings of a mad man. Here are just a few of the things you’ll see while watching this movie:

·         A robot delivering a baby.

·         A robot talking to mosquitoes.

·         A robot fighting a train car full of thugs.

·         A robot rescuing naked people from a fire that later get run over by trucks.

·         A robot doing a robo-dance, robo-kungfu and other robot related things.

·         A hundred robots connecting to build a giant robot.

·         The aforementioned giant robot turning into a giant robot snake, made of robots, that eats cars.

You kind of see where I’m going with this. There is a distinct theme emerging. I don’t know if they wanted us to question the ethics of artificial intelligence with this film, some sort of ‘Do androids dream of electric sheep’ kind of deal, but I find myself unable to. It’s like they tried for a hard hitting morality and fell utterly short.

Also, during this movie the professor grows like 6 beards, and Chitti seems to go through a dozen wigs with one that even has lightning bolt sideburns, so you know he’s bad ass. And every time there is a musical number the people change entire costumes seemingly at whim. What the fuck? And what the hell is with all the song and dance routines anyway? You could be sitting through a completely dramatic scene and the BAM random musical number. It’s like they had a song and dance quota to fill for this movie. It’s not as if it’s a short film either, it is literally three fucking hours long.

The film is pretty heavily reliant on CGI, so you’d think that would be the one this they’d like to get right. Right? Wrong. The special effects and animation are so bad it looks like some teenager on youtube has done them. The animation stands out like your granddads ball sack hanging out of his shorts, staring like dumb kid with autism would. My favourite bits were when they just flat out gave up and started using a guy in a robot suite instead of the CGI robot. I don’t know if they thought they were being clever by cutting a corner and expecting us not to notice, or they simply thought ‘fuck it, it’s not like they’ll be taking us seriously anyhow.’

I will give this movie some big props for having a surprisingly good soundtrack. It’s mostly an Indian spin on Daft Punk with a lot of techno mixes of more traditional songs. I must say it both suited the movie and its mood brilliantly.

Now, you may think I’ve just gone and pointed out the zaniest parts of the movie for a good laugh, but you’d be wrong. What I have done here is just scrape the surface of a vast and deep pool of nonsense and explosions. This film is so long and so overfull with pointless scenes and CGI that I can’t even remember half of the ridiculous shit that went on in it.

This movie is what I imagine Charlie Sheen’s brain to be like on meth and red cordial. It is 177 minutes of everything that was cool in the 1990’s. It’s so far beyond ridiculous we really need to invent a new word to describe it. Bolludacris.

It’s badly done, it’s so far over the top it treats the top like a midgets head, the story is confusing and roughly 50% of the movie is there as filler, but I can’t bring myself to dislike it. It’s an amazing film that took 2 years and $38 million to make, which is like the gross national income of India.

See it if you are naive enough to think your mind and body is prepared for the full might in Indian cinema.

Aishwarya Rai, you so fine, I wanna sex you up like it ain’t no thang.