10 Things I Hate About You

David Krumholtz dresses up as his favourite food.

I could totally cop out and make this a list, and if I were any less of a consummate professional I probably would have. But I take my job seriously - or as seriously as one can take a make believe job where I don't get paid, or recognition, or anything really. So it's very much like being a stay at home mum. I think I'm doing something people will be proud of, but the truth is no one gives a fuck, and also you're getting fat, Janet.

But that's probably enough about my pretend black wife (who is black not because I'm suddenly not a racist, but because in this delusion she is actually made of delicious chocolate), and time to talk about the movie.

10 Things I Hate About You was one of those late nineties teenage movies about how hard high school is and "Oh my god did you see what Suzie wore to prom?!", and all that bullshit and we try to pretend that we aren't actually watching 30 year olds act like privileged cunts for an hour and a half. By the way - you teens of the late 90s - how hard did high school seem now? Pretty fucking breezy, am I right? Jesus Christ, what a waste of time. I didn't learn a goddamn thing, didn't have to wash my clothes or pack my own lunch. It was magical. And the best thing was that ALL THE GIRLS WERE HIGH SCHOOL GIRLS. If I went back there and talked to those girls today I'd be asked to leave and the police would have me on some kind of paedophile watch list. I know this because I'm now on the Sex Offender Registry - and am legally required to inform you of that fact, and also that I'm available to do kid's birthday parties.

So, this is a movie about a moderately young Joseph-Gordon Levitt, a very bone-able Julia Stiles, a very 'holy shit it's Alex Mack' Larissa Oleynik and a very alive Heath Ledger. There are actually a heap of people in this movie that you'll think "Hey, it's X from Y! Ouch, didn't time treat you badly, David Krumholtz." But this isn't a movie about how David Krumholtz came to look like a badly stitched together bag of carrion, and more a movie about Shakespeare.

For those of you who never passed 10th grade English, The Taming of the Shrew was one of Shakespeare's lesser known works, but probably just as shit. I don't know, I failed English. But nonetheless, this movie borrows it's plot heavily from that play - and by borrow heavily I mean blatantly plagiarise.  There is a beautiful, blossoming, ripening, soft, moist, oh-god-I'd-eat-things-out-of-her young girl - Bianca (Oleynik) - and she wants to date this little Guido kind of runny-wank-stain with his slicked hair and his tanned chest and cabriolet - you know, the kind of guy that will realise he's gay in about 12 years and just power-bottom his way to AIDS within a single trip to Europe. But, there's a problem; her dad's an absolute mental cunt. Why you ask. What does he do? He decides to impose a rule where she can date... when her nazi-lesbo sister does. Ha, genius. The problem is that Cameron (Gordon-Levitt) wants to get her sticky, so he comes up with the brilliant idea to get Patrick (Ledger) to start wooing the older sister (Stiles).

Now, to his credit, Ledger is pretty good at this. In between ciggies he finds time to do a song and dance routine in-front of half the school, go to a 'female bar' to see her favourite band play, and also some other stuff I can't remember because I don't care. So Kat begins to fall for Patrick, who is secretly falling for her back - even though she looks like the kind of girl who listens to shitty girl rock groups no one has heard of, and eats vegan and smells of old piss. She's pretty much a hipster precursor. So now Cameron is free to move in and take Bianca out on a date for some roofie-coladas.

Of course - being a 90s teen movie - something goes wrong, and Kat finds out that Patrick was being payed to diddle her and she gets all mad and feminist and refuses to shave her armpits or some shit, and then Heath Ledger gets really upset and ODs on prescription meds. Kat doesn't attend his funeral, and feels guilty about it for the rest of her sad, lonely, cat-filled days.

Actually, no. She reads aloud a poem to her class she titles "10 things I hate about you", which is a thinly veiled jab at Patrick that pretty much says "I hate you, you mistreat me, but you're also, like, totes hot and all ripped and you still make my fanny tingle. But I hate you. But I love you too, because I'm a hormonal teenager with absolutely no understanding of the world", and then cries and runs off. Then Patrick says he's sorry, and that he bought her a guitar and she forgives him and Cameron wins Bianca's affection and it's all very wonderful. But I bet it only lasted like one semester, and then Patrick looked at another girl 'inappropriately' or Cameron 'forgot our anniversary' or some bullshit, and it all ended in tears and awful teenage poetry and a lot of listening to Linkin Park albums, because teenagers are shit people and I cannot stress that enough.

There's a lot of other little subplots going on throughout the movie, and a heap of characters to hate or throw stuff at your TV hoping to maim, but that's the gist of it. It's not a bad movie, but it's not exactly a classic either, It's fun to re-watch every 10 years or so, like every terrible 90s teen drama - which is more than I can say for the rest of the writers works. She's the Man was just Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. What, stealing one of his works wasn't enough? What else have you got on your resume? Legally Blonde screen adaptation? The House Bunny? Fuck you Karen McCullah-Lutz, and your ability to make money stealing from a dead Englishman.

Son of the Mask

See you in your dreams, kids.

Somebody stop me. No, genuinely. Please.

Halloween is upon us, and much like a certain two letter brand candy coated chocolate I'm very much in demand. Well, that and I also simply melt in a child's mouth. But sexual deviancies aside, I thought it a fitting occasion to review the most awful, horrifying and downright most disturbing movie I have ever seen. Welcome to Son of the Mask; a movie so unfit for human viewing it's a mystery how it ever got made in the first place.

Remember 1994? That was a good time, right? Everyone was listing to Oasis and playing their brand new PlayStation. Princess Diana and Kurt Cobain were still alive, and everyone was talking about the funniest movie they'd ever seen - The Mask.

Well, they were wrong then, and they're still wrong now. The Mask was shit. It was Jim Carrey being regular old dickhead Jim Carrey, except this time he looked like the Hulk's younger brother with Down's Syndrome and a hyperactivity disorder. I think this was the start of my burning desire to sedate Jim Carrey until his heart stops, and I can beat his smug looking corpse with a meat tenderiser until there is bone fragments in his dying bowel movement. What's that Jim? You're banging a playboy model? Shame she's crazier than a bag of Vietnam vets. Hey Jenny, maybe vaccines gave your son autism, or maybe it's because you let him wear ugg boots and crocs in public. Maybe it was the way you went through dicks and blow in the 90's like Ebola through an African child. I'm half surprised that, unlike that African child, your orifices don't just randomly start leaking blood and other viscous bodily fluids - some of which might even be yours.

But that's neither here nor there. The point is that The Mask was somehow a massive box-office hit and so they decided to strike while the iron's hot and pump out a sequel... eleven years later... with none of the original cast... and make it about a baby.

I'll be honest, I fear this movie. I fear it like Tony Abbott fears Elton John's Yacht parties.

The film opens with Loki (played by the sexually ambiguous Alan Cumming, not the sexually ambiguous Tom Hiddleston) attempting to steal the mask from the Edge City museum, only to find that it's actually a fake. Then he pulls Ben Stein's face off. Like, off. No shit. What the fuck, movie? We then see the real mask wash ashore of the river in the not-so-nearby Fringe City, where it is retrieved by a dog and bought home to the stars of this film - Jamie Kennedy (as Tim) and that lesbian from Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place (as Tonya). So Tim is going to his boss' Halloween party but his costume got ruined, so he decides to take the mask his dog found and wear that. Can you guess what happens next? That's right, a completely unnecessary, overacted, obnoxious and overly long song and dance number where Tim (looking like a caricature of Conan O'Brien wearing an avocado face mask) proceeds to butcher Frankie Valli's "I Love You Baby" in 5 different, but no less terrible, musical styles. After the party Mask Tim decides to go home and plow his ridiculously hot wife and BOOM! Baby time.

Nine months later and the little bundle of shit is born and wouldn't you know it, he has 'mask powers', which appear to be predominantly inflating your own head and pulling weapons out of your arse. So then the baby tries to get Tim send to a mental hospital, and then tries to kill the dog, and then saves his dad from Loki who is trying to kill him and steal the mask and the baby. If any of that confused you, don't worry. The story is really not an important part of this movie.

The CGI is bad. I mean, super bad. For 2005 it looks unimaginably dumb. Remember when the unfinished copy of X-Men Origins leaked and it was hilarious because half the effects were unfinished and it looked like someone had spliced in a bunch of polaroids of Lego as a stop motion effect? Well, that was better than this fucking movie's CGI. And it's all utterly terrifying. Why does the baby inflate its own head like a balloon? Why does Mask Tim wear red lipstick? What the fuck does Loki turn into near the end? Some sort of paedophile's Swiss army knife/totem pole? What the fuck movie? Just, what the fuck? 1982's The Thing wasn't this nightmare inducing.

And now on to Jamie Kennedy. He is, as  always, about as funny as a room full of terminally ill children. Actually, considerably less so because I never once laughed at Jamie Kennedy when I thought about him. Here is a list of things funnier than Jamie Kennedy:

Literally anything.

That's kind of cheating, so I'll do another one:

Cross-eyed breast implants? Funnier.

Poverty? Funnier.

Crippling student debt? Funnier.

3rd world living conditions? Way funnier.

The holocaust? Yep, funnier.

The backfire from offensive drawings of the Prophet Muhammad? About as funny.

Anyway, the movie sucks, its horrifying imagery will mentally scar you for life, and your children are better of watching a snuff film in the long run. At least that would be a nice little segue into having a talk about why grandma doesn't come over for Christmas anymore.

Happy Halloween, kiddies. If you come trick or treating at my house this year and you can guess my costume then you'll get all the candy you can eat.

Hint: This year I'm Roman Polanksi.

$5 a Day

Time.

Larry King has a cameo as Sharon Stone's stunt double.

Time is a menstruating woman - it cannot be stopped or reasoned with. All you can do is try to stay out of its way as it slowly devours the joy and life from your withering husk, and hope that it doesn't leave too much blood on the carpet.

This is to say that time is cruel. Just look what it did to Sharon Stone. Remember when everyone would watch Basic Instinct for that one shot of her fajita, even though it looked like a photo of Robin Williams getting open heart surgery? Now it probably looks like that Tauntaun scene in Empire Strikes Back. You know the one I'm talking about.

Anyway, Basic Instinct was a shit movie. It's basically a sixty-something minutes of B grade erotic thriller book-ending the world's shortest and least exciting porno. Sharon Stone's vagina is looking worse for wear these days. Ever see the movie 127 Hours with James Franco? Believe it or not but that movie was filmed entirely on location inside Sharon Stone's massive gaper. Franco was quoted as saying "Had I actually been stuck inside (Sharon's) vagina, I would have chewed through my own arm in 127 seconds, let alone hours."

Not really, but... I mean... probably, you know? I wouldn't blame him if he had. I'd rather get polio than see her naked.

I should probably talk about the actual movie I'm reviewing now. It's fucking garbage. The whole premise is a middle aged man going on a road trip with his father in a salmon pink PT Cruiser with Sweet'n Low brand sweetener decals. They don't even have a mixed tape for the drive, amateurs. It stars Christopher Walken, the brother from Face/Off, Dean Cain and Sharon Stone - looking like she's spent the last 15 years preparing for the role of Skeletor in a Guillermo del Toro remake of Masters of the Universe.

$5 a Day is a movie about being stuck somewhere you don't want to be, and they capture that sensation pretty well. I immediately didn't want to be there watching it. The story goes that Walken (Nat), an old conman, tells his son (Ritchie) that he's sick and dying, and that he needs him to drive his old arse to New Mexico for a cure. They manage to eat along the way by using fake IDs to get free birthday meals at IHOPs. They end up in New Mexico to collect money from an old business partner of Nat's, and Ritchie ends up finding out that not only is Nat not sick, he isn't even his real dad - which makes all those bath-times a little suspicious. Ritchie runs off with the money but does some soul searching and goes back to Nat, who then decides to collapse and get actually sick. Then Ritchie and his ex-girlfriend sneak Nat out of hospital so he can go skinny dipping, and then die. Awesome job, guys. A very unsatisfying end to a very unfulfilling movie about people I genuinely don't care about. Who wrote this thing? A husband and wife couple that have written nothing but subpar TV movies since 1994. Seems about right.

If you were to offer me the choice of watching this movie again or being injected with all the vaccines, then austism me up, Scotty, because it's a far less cruel fate than 98 minutes of this testament to mundanity.

Christopher Walken hams his performance up big time - even by Christopher Walken standards - and looks like he was dressed entirely by thrift store donations from the 1970's. And then his hair... Is it even real? It looks like a helmet in the shape of a wig designed by the architect who did Pangu Plaza. And... is he paying those hairdressers in Phone cards and coupons? Yes. Yes he is. Somehow I get the idea that he does this in real life too, because he seems genuinely bat-shit crazy. And don't even get me started again on Sharon Stone. She's the third least convincing woman in the Hollywood, behind Madonna and Bruce Jenner.

All in all, an utter waste of an hour and forty minutes that could have been better spent volunteering or spending time with the underprivileged (read: anyone who isn't a white male).

Theodore Rex

One of these is an old, irrelevant relic. The other is a dinosaur.

I've plumbed a lot of depths, both personally and sexually, but this is far and away... just another one of them.
I really need a better hobby.

The Buddy Cop film. It's a formula we all know and love; a tried and true plot that has given us some great and memorable moments and some of Hollywood's most well known tropes. Dating as far back as 1949 with Kurosawa's Stray Dog, and brought to the western public with films like 1967's In the Heat of the Night, this genre has given us some of our favourite films; Beverly Hills Cop, Seven, Point Break and Die Hard with a Vengeance just to name a select few. It has, however, also given us a lot of shit ones too, such as Rush Hour, Marked for Death and The Glimmer Man... really anything with Steven Sea gal in it is probably on this end of the spectrum. I could spend a whole review just listing shitty buddy cop films. And probably will, some day. But for now, let's get a move on.

Whether bad or good it's been a popular road for many writers, actors and directors to take to stardom. We've seen so many wacky combinations matched up together that very little now would probably surprise us. We've seen old career cop teamed with street-wise rookie. We've seen by-the-book cop partnered with a hot-headed stud. Cop and ex-con. White cop and black cop. Cop and child who wants to be a cop. Cop and actor. Cop and dog. Cop and other more different cop. Cop and that cop's mum. We've seen it all, literally too many to name. We've just written 'cop' on the whiteboard and filled a hat with other nouns and are now just connecting these two - seemingly unrelated - dots. Cop and a banana. Cop and an old newspaper. Cop and car... oh wait, we've done that.

My point is that by now we're just throwing shit at the wall and seeing what sticks. It's not about the story anymore, just how different can we make our two protagonists. There was a time when two white, middle-aged cops with slightly differing ideals was enough for us. Then we needed something a bit more shocking to lure us to the cinemas. Cue the addition of a black guy. Gadzooks, the zaniness of it all. I mean, a black man working with the police? What will they think of next? I'll tell you what. It was dogs; because the stakes always needed to be higher, the zaniness more zany - reaching Billy Zane levels of zaniness - which is, as a connoisseur will tell you, the most zany.

So, what is more shocking than a cop with a car, or a dog, or a car-dog, or a dog with bees in its mouth so when it barks it shoots bees at you? Apparently it's dinosaurs. Ha, the shit you could get away with in the 90's. And because that wasn't enough to sell the movie by itself, we get a black cop with the dinosaur. And it's a black woman cop. And she's some kind of cyborg. And it's Whoopi Goldberg.

Fuck.

So, I've gone on for a bit about the history of buddy cop films, so let's get down to this one. It's terrible. Review over. Pinch it off, wipe and get back to work.

If only it were that simple.

So the movie begins with a black and white sequence where a dinosaur is being chased by the winner of the 1978 Lance Henriksen look-alike contest, who unleashes a butterfly which lands on the dinosaur and explodes. Really. Like I would waste my time making that up. Then we find out it was all just a dream and all originality flies out of the window along with my hope and my will to live.

After that it's pretty much all downhill. The story revolves around a scientist who is building a cryogenic arc to save endangered species and revive extinct ones, but is actually trying to cause another ice age to destroy mankind. The dynamic duo of Whoopi and Co. take down this evil plan and save the day, because originality is a dangerous concept in Hollywood. Everything else is just tired jokes, dated references and filler. Honestly the best part of this movie was watching the puppet's wonky eyes attempt to focus on the actor talking to it. It was like watching Michael J Fox try to sit for a still life painting class.

This was undoubtedly one of the shittiest, most poorly written, badly acted and all together most lazily done movies I have ever watched. I'd rather order a salad at a steak house than watch it again. I'd rather go to church.

I'd rather get bitten by a mosquito while at a support meeting for people with AIDS.

Grease

I call this hairstyle 'Bea Arthur's pubes'.

I hate this movie, I really do.

It's not just the singing, or the dancing, or the thinly veiled racism either. It's that everyone seems to suck on its arse and praise it for being some sort of masterpiece of cinema when all it did was help launch John Travolta's career, as well as help bring musicals into the age of colour television. Neither, I think we can agree, are good things.

They love it because it came out in 1978, which was, I can only imagine, the prime of their youth. You know what else came out in 1978? Kevin Federline, the Jonestown massacre and the Star Wars Christmas special.

Check and mate, nostalgia.

So the movie opens with a horrible beach montage in which Danny (Travolts) changes costume about five times, just so you know he put in the hours to get some poon. No privilege here, he worked for that gash-dive, and by gods is he going to take it. Then it's all sad because they have to leave the beach and go their separate ways. Danny back to Rydell High in Whitesberg, California while Sandy must return home to Sydney, Australia because her visa has expired of something. I wasn't really paying attention at this point.

But - surprise, surprise - they end up both going to the same high school (which is surprisingly devoid of any ethnic people), because of course they do. Now we find out Danny is really a 'tough guy' greaser and Sandy is just a massive, abstinent prude. And they definitely need to tell their friends what they did over the summer break. This brings us to our first song of the movie 'Summer Nights', one of the dumbest, most misguided and naive songs of the movie. It consists of Danny signing about how macho he was to impress Sandy, while Sandy sings about how much of a little bitch Danny really was - with all his being nice, beachside tomfoolery and just general faggy behaviour right up inside that friendzone.

So they sing about splashing in the water, whether or not he has a vehicle and did she give hand jobs or whatnot. “Tell me more, tell me more. Did she put up a fight?” Jesus fucking Christ Kenickie. Do you just casually work rape into all your conversations? I mean, I know it's 1978, but still. Damn. We are like 15 minutes in and already he drops a bomb like aggravated sexual assault into the mix like he was asking if Danny got chocolate or vanilla ice cream. Keep an eye on this guy, ladies. He's a real go-getter.

Then the girls have a slumber party, no one gets their baps out to compare cup sizes or anything, it's all super lame. Then there are two more songs which just plain suck the hairs out of a nut-sack and then Kenickie gets a piece of shit car - presumably to make getting to, and fleeing from the scene of a rape easier. Which is exactly what he does with Rizzo, who seems like she's seen more pricks than a pub dartboard.

Then greased lightning occurs, which is what I call the turds I do after a quarter pounder meal. This isn't really relevant information, but then neither was that scene with a car you never see again, and sparkly jumpsuits on men clearly in their early thirties.

A lot of pointless shit seems to spread out from that scene, right up to the end of the movie that didn't seem to come soon enough. There is a dance contest, some man-bums are seen, there is a part at a drive in where a wiener gets stuffed into a bun that doesn't belong to Rizzo and everyone watching is like "wow, there's a first". Then Danny tries to sexually assault Sandy, and she runs away. Then he sings about it, and it's all fine because singing a 'sorry I tried to rape you' number makes the crime go away.

Oh, then Kenickie pussies out and Danny wins a race against some guy that looks like he had a chemical fire on his face, and then someone tried to put it out with a golf cleat - but, like, really badly.

This brings us to the finale, which is two songs back to back at a school carnival where the teachers are taking more creampies than even Rizzo could. Sandy shows up looking like Frank N. Furter's cheapest groupie while Danny looks like that jock from the Archie comics solely to impress Sandy, and then they sing about getting seizures or something. I can't really be certain because I was eating the carpet by this stage, and that isn't a euphemism. It's not like Rizzo was around anyway. Speaking of Rizzo, is it just me or does she look like Elizabeth Taylor with an afro? I guess it's all that 'product' in her hair.

Anyway, the gang sing about how they're always going to be friends and see each other (you know, that lie you write in everyone's yearbook at graduation and then never fulfil because you realise that you hated them any way and that everyone you went to high school with was a cunt to one degree or another) and then Danny and Sandy fly away in a car. Fly away. In a car.

What?

I'm going to choose to believe that Danny didn't win that drag race. In actuality he crashed the car, sustained severe head injuries, and that the last 20 minutes of the movie is just the vivid imaginings of a chemical-fuelled brain death as he slowly bleeds out in a crumpled 1948 Ford De Luxe. This explains why the last part doesn't make sense, and why Sandy is suddenly a hardcore greaser chick, and why Rizzo isn't getting ram-trained by the entire football team. Because everything in this final, confused delusion is perfect, and right in Danny's quickly dying mind, and you realise that he hasn't learnt any lessons at all from his experiences, and that he will die just as ignorant as he lived.

Shit, grease is fucking heavy, yo.

So, let's wrap up with some lessons we learned from this film:

• Rape is OK, as long as you apologise to no one in particular through song.
• You can never have enough grease in your hair.
• Guardian angels are sarcastic and cruel, and by all accounts lecherous.
• Sex with Rizzo must be like opening a window and trying to fuck the breeze.
• Marty is clearly the hottest, being both the sexiest and the dumbest (a winning combination).
• Danny dies at the end of the movie.
• Eugene went on to make millions, and then never took Sonny's calls to borrow some money.
• Sonny, homeless and drug-addled, kills himself years later. No one attends his funeral.

In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale

Jason Statham: regretting his decision to be in this movie
far too late to do anything about it.

I've gone on (and on, and on) in the past about my thoughts on crazed German director Uwe Boll and his videogame-to-film adaptations, but apparently that wasn't enough for some people, on account of me being bet five whole dollars that I couldn't sit through the runny poo that is his 2007 epic masterpiece; In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale.

First off, to really understand the film as a failure, you need to understand the source material, and why it sucked anyway.

Dungeon siege was a shit game. Don't argue with me on this, it's true, and you know it. Those rose-coloured glasses are making you see a polished turd in place of the unpolished, corn-encrusted bowl-hog that is really is. An unmemorable hack and slash role playing game with nods towards earlier games like Ultima or Diablo, the story revolves around a farmer (you) who's community is attacked by creatures called 'the Krug', which makes them sound like the bad guys in a children's book, and he must then travel to the Castle Ehb to attempt to stop the evil that is growing there.

Oh, and there is a dragon... named Scorch. Yeah, it's fucked, I know.

My point is that the source material was awful to begin with, and then we layer on the Uwe Boll factor - which is known to add like 140% more suck to pretty much anything he touches (except Postal) and you get this rancid, hot-sick-on-the-sidewalk piece of film.

So, the plot is pretty much as I described above, which means Boll probably didn't bother with a script, so I'll go on about the cast instead. Now, if you've seen any of his films, you'll know he has a tendency to use the same actors, over and over again like he owes them money or something, but this time around we get a surprisingly large and well known cast. Which is a bad thing. Jason Statham plays the protagonist farmer from the game, so Uwe wisely chose to name his character Farmer, just in case anyone forgot who he was meant to be.

This was clearly a 'contract-bind with the studio' kind of deal with Statham, or at least that is what I'm choosing to believe.

We also have an incredible list of actors who were also clearly out of work at the time, or just in desperate need of a renovation or something. Absolute hottie Leelee Sobieski plays Muriella (who is some kind of witch or some shit, I don't know I wasn't really paying attention), Ron Perlman plays a rancher who finds the young Farmer alone wandering a battlefield and takes him under his wing, John Rhys-Davies plays Merick who is the King's Magus (and a clear knock-off of Merlin), Burt Reynolds is the King, and Matthew "I can't believe no one has tried to murder you yet" Lillard is the King's Nephew - Duke Fallow. This all seems like an excessive amount of useless family tree-ing so far, I could have made this work with one actor, a green screen, some blu-tak and half a packet of pipe-cleaners.

'Ok, ok, that cast is a pretty sad state of affairs' I hear you all say, somehow, through time and the internet, 'but surely the villain is a good pick, right? Predictably wrong. Ray Liotta plays Gallian, the evil wizard Farmer must confront. Ray fucking Liotta. Jesus man, have some self respect. I mean, you were in Goodfellas for Christ's sake. What kind of bet did you lose to end up in here? Because I would stop gambling if I were you.

The soundtrack is also a mystery to me. How the fuck did Uwe convince Blind Guardian to record the main theme of this lumpy fart of a movie? Come on guys, you're better than this. I know you are.

All of this accumulates into what is essentially a shitty movie that unbelievably has not one, but two sequels. Who the hell watched this and thought "You know what? I need more". No one, ever, that's who. The performances are wooden, the dialogue is cringingly bad and the production value is non-existent. It was nominated for a total of 5 Razzie Awards, including Worst Picture, Worst Screenplay (for not having one, I imagine), Worst Supporting Actor (Burt Reynolds), Worst Supporting Actress (Leelee "So-hot-I-would-eat-a-foot-of-her-shit" Sobieski) and Worst Director - which Uwe Boll won. Congratulations.

Understandably the movie was a box-office bomb, costing $60 million to make, and grossing just $10.3 million world-wide.

Now I see why Uwe Boll didn't need a script. He already had one... written years in advance... by Peter Jackson...  called The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.

If you were considering watching this movie then I cannot strongly recommend against it enough. I would rather buy meat from a haemophilic butcher with HIV and a strong degree of clumsiness with a filleting knife. I would rather watch my own grandson's first steps be into traffic. I would also make a joke about my mother here, but she's getting old now, and I want our last memories to be happy ones - so it will be easier to convince her to give me power of attorney.

All in all, an unpleasant experience - not unlike haemorrhoids.

As always, please don't beat me up Mr. Boll.

P.S. This just goes to show what I am willing to subject myself to for $5.

Gremlins 2: The New Batch

Your standard Sizzler dessert bar sanitation level.

Did you ever have one of those movies that you absolutely loved as a kid? You know the kind of quirky but funny film that made you feel a deep sense of acceptance that your dad just wouldn’t give you?

Then when you grow up, you tell your partner about it and how good it was and what it meant to you, and then they want to watch it with you but it turns out it was actually awful and those rose-tinted nostalgia glasses begin to crack in their frames, like your feelings of self worth?

Neither have I, because the movies I loved as a kid are still fucking excellent today.

Case in point, Gremlins 2 – The New Batch.

Gremlins was a cult hit. It was funny, dark and mysterious, and a little bit sadistic. It was everything you wanted in a Christmas movie; i.e. Corey Feldman. Then along comes Gremlins two, so nonchalantly-avoiding-pigeon-holes that it just seemed an entirely different, unrelated movie (you know, except for the gremlins and what not). Sure, it was still dark, and terribly funny, and with a tinge of that mystery to boot; but this movie took itself about as seriously as I take child support. It’s a god damn riot.

 Now I know what you’re going to say next. “Without Corey Feldman, how can you – the ravishingly handsome lord of sex that you are – possibly endorse this film?” And that’s a hard question to avoid, on account of having just been asked it. But let me answer your question with a question. “Do you need Corey Feldman when you have Christopher Lee?” The answer to that is, of course, yes. Even a movie with Corey Feldman needs more Corey Feldman. But if you can let that simple oversight go then you’ll absolutely fall in love with this movie. Seriously though, Christopher Lee.

If you ever get a chance to look at the cast from the two Gremlins movies I think you'd be honestly surprised at how many stars have had a cameo in this sadly short lived franchise. Jonathan Banks and Dean Norris of Breaking Bad fame, John Astin, Henry Gibson, Robert Prosky and Peter 'fucking Optimus Prime' Cullen.

So the plot is fairly predictable; Billy is now older and working for a company called Clamp Industries in a self-running building in New York City called Clamp Tower. Gizmo escapes after Mr. Wing dies and ends up in Clamp tower were he gets wet and makes more Mogwai, who then both get wet and eat after midnight, which is a classic mistake for exotic pet owners. These ruffian-type Mogwai then become gremlins and proceed to fuck with anything they can get their slimy, green hands on.

Seeing as the whole film takes place inside one building, you’d be forgiven for thinking that it’s probably a bit dull and predictable, but I can assure you that you’re an idiot, and probably anti-Semitic. This building is home to a scientific research lab, a TV station, shops, restaurants, a cinema and a toy store to name just a few. It’s basically where I want to live.

The main characters from the first film return with the same actors, which was a thing back then; unlike today where the main character becomes Jeremy Renner halfway through the series. So we get to see Billy, Kate (Phoebe Cates, who gave me so many confusing boners as a kid, and who I would still marry right now), Murray and Sheila Futterman, and of course Gizmo. We are also given the new character of Daniel Clamp who, along with his contagious sense of optimism, has some of the funniest lines in the movie.

There is absolutely no regard to the fourth wall in this film. At one point the gremlins get into the projection booth at a theatre and actually stop the movie as you're watching it, instead making amusing shadow puppets on the screen before being threatened by Hulk Hogan who rips his singlet in half in the middle of the cinema aisle. And you're like "what the fuck just happened?" but the movies already back on so you just have deal with it. And then they bust in on the set of Leonard Maltin's movie reviews, while he's critiquing the first Gremlins movie, and proceed to ruin his fucking day.

It's more tongue in cheek than even the most chromosome encumbered child. I have not seen another movie quite so ridiculous while still being good, clean, family friendly fun. You'll enjoy it. You're kids will enjoy it. Even your mum will enjoy it, and not just because I've heard she's very open minded.

Trust me on this.

The Love Guru

Myers' masterful display of subtle humour.

My god, is this movie good or what? I didn't think he'd be able to outdo himself after the instant and in-no-way-will-this-ever-get-old classics of Austin Powers and The Cat in The Hat, but somehow he did. Welcome to The Love Guru.

You know what's never not funny? Racist impressions. And this movie has the best. You know what's also never not funny? Jokes about midgets. We've got 'em, and I can assure you they aren't in short supply. And just in case some of Myer's jokes go above your head, he continuously turns and winks to the camera with a 'ting' sound effect just to subtly let you know that now is an appropriate time to chuckle haughtily and with much mirth, for a joke has just been told.

Here is a list of the things you can expect to enjoy in what is nothing short of a masterpiece:

•          Slapstick humour
•          Funny references
•          Topical jokes circa 2008
•          Slapping with sticks in a humorous fashion
•          Dick jokes
•          Justin Timberlake with a porn moustache
•          Inappropriate cultural references
•          Culturally insensitive implications
•         Impromptu song and dance numbers
•         Amusing anecdotes
•          Humorous sticks and the slapping thereof
•          Racist stereotypes

Mike Myers never gets old. He's like Ben Stiller but with cleverer jokes and funny insights. I hope they end up making a sequel to this. It's WAY better than Wayne's World or So I Married an Axe Murderer, which were stupid and in no way funny.

To help Myers with his job of carrying this movie we get an all star cast including Jessica Simpson, Kanye West, Verne Troyer, Daniel Tosh and Rob Heubel. It's like they collected the funniest people ever and decided to make a movie with them, because that's EXACTLY WHAT THEY DID. They even have John Oliver before he was famous, and his character's name is Dick Pants. Get it? It's a pun, because His name is Dick, but your pants are also where you keep your dick. Genius.

*Wink*

'ting'

I don't know why they put Ben Kinsley in this movie though, he can't act and just isn't funny. And he doesn't even look Indian.

Not only can Myers act, and be a comedic mastermind, he actually co-wrote the screenplay. And they even managed to get the guy who wrote "The Librarian" series to direct it, even though he'd never directed anything commercially before. Another good choice, no doubt by Myers.

If you only see one movie this year, make it count.

Make it The Love Guru.


I should make a point here to say that 'no, I didn't lose a bed, and Mike Myers is a fucking idiot.'
Happy April Fools.

Max

What are you looking at with your one Warglaive? You look
like a woman with one breast. Get a complete set, idiot!

What kind of a movie goes out of its way to make you feel sympathetic for Hitler? Honestly, how did this even get green-lit in a place like Hollywood, Yid capitol of the world? I don’t know the answer to these questions, or very many others if I'm being truthful, but I do know that I am absolutely glad that it did get made, even if this particular movie is a weave of hard questions and bitter pills to swallow. It’s a story of perspectives, a story about looking at things from a different angle, and also quite a lot about Hitler.

Alright, it’s pretty much mostly Hitler.

Christ, I haven’t written the name Hitler this much since that “People I most aspire to be like” paper I did in high-school that got me kicked out of a modern history class that I wasn’t even enrolled in. You know, that and telling the ample bosomed teacher that I “came here for the view, Miss.”

True story.

Well, partly true. And in the interest of maintaining that roguish air of mystery, that makes me so enticing to the lady-types, I will let you decide which part is true.
[Hint: It’s the part about tits… It’s always the part about tits.]

We seem to be getting a little off topic here, and on a subject that - even after 60 odd years - is still a bit of a touchy subject for many people with long memories and sweet tattoos. So, as my work made me attend a sensitivity course, I am adequately trained to handle the subject. So let's get back on topic.

Max is a film about Adolf Hitler (Noah Taylor), young veteran of the Great War and struggling artist who comes home from battle to a country he believes was stabbed in the back by the treasonous bureaucracy and grapples with his attempt to return to a civilian life. Max Rothman (John Cusack), also a veteran and former artist, lost his arm in the war and returns to Germany to instead open an art gallery.

A chance encounter has Adolf approaches Max to try to get his work hung in Max's gallery. Max reviews his work and decides that, while the kid's got mad skillz, he fails to tap into his full potential (something which no one, ever, has wanted from Hitler) to create truly great art. Rothman - a Jew - pities the youth, who had nothing to return home to after the war, and agrees to purchase some of his work on the proviso that he continue to paint and discuss art with him.

Adolf takes refuge of a night in a beer hall where he meets Captain Karl Mayr, a Reichswehr officer (read: Nazi), who encourages him to join his political movement, the German Worker's Party. Adolf, poor and hungry and in need of a new razor, agrees to join after Karl tells him that the party will pay his expenses as well as pay him for any anti-Semitic work he produces. Win-win. After attending a party meeting Adolf sees his future lies in politics, believing that he could bring about a new Germany, free of debt and dishonor, free from the grasp of the elite, free from the humiliation suffered in her defeat and free from artificial colours and flavours.

The end to the movie is very apt, and pretty emotional. But the strange thing is that the whole time I couldn't shake the pity I felt for Hitler. I wanted to give him a bowl of soup and a hot chocolate and a blanket. I wanted to hold him and tell him everything would be alright, as long as your name wasn't Weinstein or Rosenberg or Goldman. It's a jarring realization, but one that sort of opens your mind to different views. Yeah, Hitler was a pretty ruthless dictator, and yes he was a bit of a dick, but he was also just a person, trying to do what he thought was best.

Also, Noah Taylor nails the role, bringing Hitler to life with a strange and driven passion. And as for John Cusack? Well, he's John Cusack. Enough said, watch a fucking movie once in a while, Jesus.

Overall the film is an enriching experience, and one that I would definitely recommend watching. Just maybe don't invite Grandpa Finegold around to watch it with you. It's a different look at history, one that the History channel seems to have a bias against. That's all it ever is. Nazis and Sharks.

Fuck, could you imagine if the Marine Research branch of the Third Reich ever successfully managed to recruit hypnotized sharks into the German navy? The History Channel would have a fucking field day. Nazi Shark Week! Though, to be fair, that would make for some pretty damn good television.

In closing: a good movie, one to make you think and question your perspectives. Maybe go to Germany, maybe see some of the history, some of the culture.

Just don't mention the war.

The Color Purple

Ever see White Chicks? It worked for the Wayans brothers.

The Color Purple

Going in, you're going to see a lot of instances of incorrect spelling. Color is used here instead of it's more correct counterpart because the source material is American, and is therefore inherently wrong anyway. Let's not make an issue of it.

Well, to celebrate Black History Month, I decided to watch and review a black movie. At first I sat down to think about what I should watch. I figured Next Friday probably wouldn't count, and Boyz N The Hood was way out, so I decided pretty much anything with Morgan Freeman was fair game. Then I decided to take my self-imposed job seriously for once and watch The Color Purple.

Now, as a white, cis, middle class male I am the most unqualified person to talk about some of the topics covered in this movie, and that's just too fucking bad, because I'm going to anyway. Don't like it? Close your Macbook, faggot, and order another half-skin, half-soy, guilt free, gluten free, lactose free mocha latte and go back to penning your great American novel about how you stuck it to the man for being such a dick, or whatever the unimportant shit is you're writing. How about you use less cardboard cups and save a fucking rain forest, mate? I tell it like it is, or sometimes lie blatantly about how it is.

I mean usually. I usually lie.

Anyway, as you may notice, it's a fairly odd name for a movie about black poverty in the south. There isn't anything really purple about it, unless you count Whoopee Goldberg's gums.

Damn it. I'm sorry. I promised myself I wouldn't be racist. Let's try that again.

I did once write a letter to Alice Walker asking if she had misspelled "The Colored People", but strangely I never heard back. Maybe she was too embarrassed?

Actually, the title comes from a line in the book and film about appreciating the little things God does every day that you may not notice. "I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it". And they are pretty wise words, at the root. Appreciate the small stuff, the little things we ignore day in, day out, that are still miraculous or wonderful, like babies, multi-core GPUs, or being white.

Fuck. Shit. I walked right into that one. I'm sorry. Really. It won't happen again.

This movie is bad. The kind of bad that makes you regret caring about Black History Month. It's like a poop that you find on the street - so it's not even your poop, just plain old found poop - and then eat, then digest and poop again. The kind of thin, slightly runny poop that you just know you're going to spend eight and a half minutes vainly attempting to clean before you just give up and go to look for a hose. But that's not because I dislike black people, like some kind of racist. No, this movie would still be shitty (as well as culturally insensitive and more than a little historically inaccurate) or possibly even shittier with white people, because you just know that fucking Meryl Streep would be in it, and I'd rather watch Whoopee Goldberg's latest sex tape than watch Meryl Streep feign humility in some self-serving Oscar wank performance, the bitch.

It's not an easy movie watch. It brings a lot of dirty laundry out to air. And it's long too, really long - so I guess it's true what they say about black people. In all seriousness it's over two and a half hours of awful, horrible things, like Danny Glover trying to act. That and a fuck load of white guilt. Watch it if you're going to appear on Oprah, or something... maybe.

That's only sort of racist. I don't think that needs an apology. However, my refusal to apologise for being racist probably deserves an apology. So, you know, sorry black people.

God, like one apology from Kevin Rudd wasn't enough? You and your reparations.

But all joking aside, I'm really not a racist. I have a black friend. Well, he's not white, so that counts, right? And I have an anecdote too: I like my women like I like my coffee - boiled, then filtered to a thin, even consistency that is then easily ingested.

Or was it black? I can never remember.

Fools Rush In

Michael Palin has a cameo demonstrating his hispanic Gumby routine.

If anyone ever asked me, I would deny it with my dying breath, and call you a homo for suggesting it; but secretly, deep down in the dark places of my heart, I actually really like this movie. I need it, I want it. I crave it like Oedipus craves his momma’s saggers.

This is a movie that came out in 1997, at the very height of Matthew Perry fever (a condition that shared very few symptoms with Saturday Night Fever, which I understand was predominantly dancing badly and being greasy). It co-stars Salma Hayek as, wait for it, the fiery Hispanic woman.

This was Matthew Perry in his prime, still charming and handsome and with that new David Schwimmer smell; not the fat, rosy-cheeked Matthew Perry of today who looks like he’s about 3 drinks away from liver failure.

Matthew Perry plays Alex White-man, an accurate enough name, who is a real estate developer who just landed a job in Las Vegas building a new Casino. He meets Isabel Fuentes (Hayek) in the toilet line at a Mexican themed restaurant while waiting to pinch off a burrito or two. How romantic. So they have a one night stand and guess who ends up pregnant? Yep. Matthew Perry. From here on out it’s sort of like Junior, but less shit.

Actually Isabel gets knocked up and Alex decides to throw away the life he knows to marry that mocha goddess and live in Vegas, spending every day drinking, gambling and plowing a set of caramel double D’s. Fuck, what a hard decision that must have been. That’s like a toss-up between a cold, refreshing beer and a slap to the fuzzy beanbag.

Alex’s parents are pretty much racists, Isabel’s family consists entirely of maids and gardeners, and the fish-out-of-water style comedy carries of for what seems far too long. Yes, there are moments where a sensible chuckle is warranted, what with Perry’s foolish antics, but other times the comedy seems a little forced, which makes it about as funny as trying to run a mile with a pocket full of someone else’s piss.

Unusually, for a comedy, there are some pretty racy topics covered in what could easily be mistaken for unsubtle discrimination; such as Mexican/American relations, gaudy hacienda décor and the stupidity of white people. To be honest though most of the time I was just thinking about Salma Hayek’s taco.

All in all, not a bad way to spend 109 minutes, especially if your other options include cleaning or spending time with your family - who carelessly consume the precious seconds of your miserable life like some sort of chrono-vultures as you inevitably trudge towards death; mum. I’m a 29 year old man, I can eat dinner at my desk if I feel like it, you old witch.

Salma, if you're reading this, I have a queen bed, my own room and my mum hardly ever comes in without knocking.

I love you Salma, you sexy puta.