King of the Ants

[So I'm going to try turning this thing "Netflix-friendly". That is, I'm going to start linking movies to their respective Netflix pages. I'm not really sure why--I think it's because it's something I would like, so maybe there's one other person out there that'll appreciate it. I've been on the Netflix for maybe close to a year now. It changed my life. I love it. Give me a free account.]



Still deciding about this one, but I figured I'd dive into it. I posted the picture to the book this movie is based on--because the cover of the DVD is pretty misleading. Makes it look like some stupid zombie movie or something. Ahem. Although, in fact, it is directed by Stuart Gordon of Re-Animator fame. I know that's not neccessarily a good thing--but in this case it is.

Now I haven't read the book--though looking in to it makes me interested in the author Charlie Higson's other work. The whole thing starts off pretty poorly, we're pretty much immediately tossed into a pretty standard loner getting mixed up with bad guys story. The bad guys even being George Wendt (bought the rights to the book many years ago) and Daniel Baldwin (the poor man's Baldwin even!), but they actually do a pretty decent job in their roles. The main guy, Sean, is played by a guy who's mainly only done tv show appearances--and this is what causes some problems. Its a very tough role to sell. His character is a pretty unlikable guy and the first 10 minutes or so are pretty rough because as we're supposed to be getting into the movie we find ourselves stuck with this dumb guy and a rather badly executed story.

But after our anti-hero kills the guy from Office Space the unexpected twists start showing up and a wholly original story appears. As does Kahri Wuhrer's breastses (some geeks out there interested in that). But I digress... There is a fair amount of violence in what ends up to being an intersting origin story for a twisted and slightly disturbed new hero. The actor playing our hero, Chris McKenna doesn't end up leaving too bad an impression. He's appearing in Art School Confidential next, based on Daniel Clowes' comic book, which I'm highly anticipating, so I'm still hoping he'll get better as he goes along. I recommend putting it on your queue especially if you liked the Miike movies and we're disapointed by some of Gordon's last few. But you don't have to rush it to the top.

3 out of 5 severed George Wendt heads approve.

I have to go back to watching Versus now. So far I've been a bit disapointed with it, but the pot's definately helping.

Double Feature of the Week

I'm just feeling a bit like digging into the ol' Netflix bag, and all this talk about zombies and horror movies got me thinking that I might have overlooked a few good ones. These two movies were a double feature I had one night--hadn't seen either of these and thought both of them were damn fine werewolf movies. These would be Ginger Snaps and Dog Soldiers.



Good examples of how to keep a struggling genre alive and interesting. Both have there own fairly unique variations on the theme. But neither knock down the reigning champ of werewolf movies -- An American Werewolf in London. Oh, the days when Landis had style. This movie still holds the best werewolf transformation sequence ever. And the Nazi Werewolf nightmare scene is still genuinely scary. But An American Werewolf in London is, in my mind, in the category of the comedy/horror that I was talking about previously. Ginger Snaps and Dog Soldiers are more in the melodramatic serious horror vein. Like the difference between Evil Dead and Evil Dead 2. Different sides of the same coin.

Anyway, both Ginger Snaps and Dog Soldiers have their own decent attempts at the werewolf transformation sequence. Ginger Snaps definitely wins in this comparison. The Ginger in the title is the older of two gothy Canadian sisters who enjoy Harold style hobbies like photographing each other in various stages of death and making fun of and getting into fights with the square popular kids of the school. Well, one night, one of them, Ginger, gets bit. In some ways it's a bit like Spiderman. Instead of the Male Spider Puberty Metaphor they have the Female Werewolf Puberty Metaphor--and it works pretty well but with much more violent and gorier and Canadian results. The two sisters do a better than expected job of creating a believable relationship, which is good because that's the main crux of the movie.

Dog Soldiers is one of the better products of England's long lasting boner for Tarantino. But it's better than anything Guy Ritchie's crapped out, and really is more of standard action movie than a werewolf movie--a point the director and cast love to repeat in the featurette extra. Basically (after a pretty funny intro that's really a gratuitous wink-wink nod-nod to the conventions of the genre) a small platoon of British soldiers go on an exercise in the woods of Scotland and get attacked by what just happen to be werewolves only to be rescued by a local resident who takes them to a house were they can do a last stand at. Great "this can't be happening" moments and the cover artwork really doesn't do justice to one of the best werewolf representations on film. Maninsuit werewolves all the way--no cgi or robots going on--and done very well-quite creepy in some moments.

I recommend Dog Soldiers a bit more in terms of entertainment value. Ginger has more weight to it (as well as two sequels now--both are a bit of a ways down on the queue so no comment on them as of yet) and is a more solid story, but the blender action of combining werewolves with army guys with Reservoir Dogs and then adding a bit of Night of the Living Dead and just a dash of Dead Alive--well, shit, even I'm surprised they managed to pull it off, but damn it all it's a good ride.

Zombie Love

But you know, if zombies do come a knockin'--don't call them "zombies", because that's just crazy talk. Shaun of the Dead makes this very important point after our two heroes bash their first zombie brains. This is of course a reference to the fact that no movie containing zombies actually refers to the walking dead as zombies--so in a way this movie is quite ground-breaking. It is also the most fun you'll have at your local cinema right now.

Making a funny horror movie has become something of a challenge ever since Scream came out. That movie in a single stroke took the horror movie genre back to it's pretty looking teens getting cut up style of the 80's and it got stuck with that for a good many years until recently--thanks to zombies. Shaun of the Dead does, on a much bigger budget, what Evil Dead 2, Re-Animator, and Fright Night did in the late 80s. Which is to stay true to it's genre and at the same time inject it with new life and making it exciting again. Right now I can't think of a movie recently that ballanced the humor and horror so well that you actually root for the good guys and not the zombies or the inbred hillbilly monsters or whatever. Cabin Fever made a pretty good attempt at it, and I did give that one a good review, but it can't hold a candle to the joys of Shaun of the Dead.

To the Winchester!

4 out of 5

Oh, also, two things... The guys who made this are behind a tv show called Spaced. If you are able to get Trio you can watch this show and you are a lucky bastard that I am quite jealous of. For some reason the dip-shit money grubbing bitches at Comcast won't offer the channel EVEN THOUGH IT IS AMOUNG THE CHANNELS LISTED AS AVAILABLE. So be on the lookout for Spaced.

Secondly, (HOT TIP!) this is quite intriguing: CLICK ON ME. If the movie is as good as the ad campaign I'll be a happy zombie lover. It comes courtesy of people from Alabama--zombies and the deep south... heavenly.

Okay, I know I said "two things" but I just remembered this;

I'm not much for novelty books but the excerpts from the book on the website (click the pic) are pretty funny and there's a good amount available there. Plus, the Max Brooks who authored the thing is actually Mel Brooks' son--so there's some street cred for you. Check it out--but you might want to adjust the volume--the zombie music gets a bit irritating.

That's all the zombie news I have. Except for the fact that Romero's Land of the Dead starts filming next month -- which is the best zombie news of all, innit?

[adult swim]

Ever since the heyday of Space Ghost and Cowboy Bebop I've been a bit in love with Adult Swim -- back when it was just late night Cartoon Network, and Home Movies was on UPN with Paula Poundstone. It was on one night of the week (Sunday), then repeated on a second night (Wednesday), then on two nights with action/anime on Sat and comedy on Sun, then everyday after 11. Now it's back to being a mixed bag, which I like most, and, anyway, what i'm trying to say is: it's even better than ever. This is because now there is The Venture Brothers.




I highly recommend this show. James Urbaniak, an actor from a few of Hal Hartley's movies plays the questionable Prof. Venture and best of all, Patrick Warburton (Puddy from Seinfeld/Tick tv show) plays the family bodyguard so very hilariioiusly deadpan in his very special experienced voice-over guy way. A bit of a twisted show but compared to Aqua Teen or Sealab or Brak it's pretty straight foward. I like it, and so should you, no really, I insist...

Lost / Veronica Mars / The Farina Force

Fuck [television sucking away more brain cells]... Wednesday night is becoming something of an ass grove night. This Veronica Mars is looking pretty good -- it's like Hammet High. I think the name Mars along with the Neptune, California is a bit much but the show is sly, deceptively intelligent (Veronica could be the best new character out there) and I like the guy from Just Shoot Me as the dad -- I always thought he could be good in something without the cringing sit-com broadness (that includes Galaxy Quest) and I think he's got a good chance to prove himself with this role. Its also good to see UPNs looser restrictions put to good effect besides racy "urban" shows. But this is also the channel that dropped the ball on Sofia Coppola's show Platinum unforgivingly quick which still boggles me.-- even though I wasn't that big a fan. But how could I be, they showed like three episodes and all at fucked up times too if I remember correctly. Oh, the show's going to be on Tuesdays... that's the UPN I'm talking about.

Anyway, I'm a huge Alias fan so I was already excited about Lost. Not disapointed either. It's obviously the best thing on right now. Only complaint is that they didn't give it a two hour opener.

And Farina on Law and Order? C'mon, that was obvious the moment I heard about it. It's the best marriage since wine and cheese, choclate and peanut butter, doctor and pepper, etc. I don't think there's any beating Law and Order, in all it's varous forms, as the safest bet you can get for zoning out on the couch. It's turning into MASH too -- with cable you can jump channels all day and watch nothing besides it.

I'm a huge Farina fan though too, so again, this is biased. I think Crime Story is the best cop show that's ever been on television. I mean, the guy WAS a cop. I have to go put Midnight Run on my queue...

The Writings of James Ellroy

I probably got into James Ellroy the same way a good number of people did -- enjoyed LA Confidential (the movie) and/or his appearances on Conan O'Brien. So about 4 or 5 years ago I picked up what was then the previous year's Time Magazine book of the year, American Tabloid.

At first it was a bit intimidating. It was a hefty book even in paperback and it has a good number of characters being thrown at you to try and keep track of. But it reads easy with blunt testosterone fueled sentences, and moves along at a great pace as it covers five years of events leading up to the murder of JFK--putting a date and time stamp at the begining of each chapter. We follow three guys, who may be the the only three fictional characters in the book, as they work their way between Hoover and the FBI, the mob, Cuban militants, the KKK, and the Kennedys themselves. The book is about 600 pages long and stops exactly at the moment of JFKs assassination, but I honestly didn't want it to end.

It really was like reading a history book of all the awful truths of our country that you kind of knew were true and finally got to find out about in all it's perverse detail. You definately get the feeling that Ellroy lives for this kind of dirt and that love makes all his bleak portraits seem that much more fun to uncover. Oh, and the best part is, it doesn't end.

The Cold Six-Thousand picks up the story later that very same day and takes you yet another 5 years down the line to the events of 1968. We follow the two guys who managed to survive American Tabloid and a new guy as they try to not get killed in their chosen professions. We're still trying to keep the forces of Hoover appeased as well as Howard Hughes this time around. We also get a peculiar view of war in the form of an operation to ship heroin in to the US from Vietnam so the undesirables of Las Vegas stay subdued. And, of course, sit sideline as RFK and MLK are thrown towards their fates. It's not quite as exhilarating as Tabloid but as I believe it is supposed to be the middle of a trilogy it serves it's role damn well and it's characters are still captivating despite it's Vegas-centric surroundings not quite as intersting as the early 60's JFK plottings.

These books (especially Tabloid) are right up there, top-shelf with the best books I've read. And I highly recommend picking them up and being ahead of the game when the thrid comes out--hopefully not too far from now. Also check out The Black Dahlia (currently being made into a movie by Brian DePalma) and White Jazz (which at one point was being made with john Cusack and Nick Nolte, but fell apart) which make up the rest of his LA trilogy with LA Confidential. All enjoyable, but if I had to rank them in order of how you should pick them up, or greatness, would be as such: Tabloid, Dahlia, Confidential, Jazz, Cold Six. There you have it.

Sky Cap'n and the Brewing Eye-Patch Fetish

So during a break from the downpour on Saturday, Admin and I went to see Sky Cap'n. If it was playing 10 minutes sooner or later we probably would have called it off but as we walked in it was starting in less than ten minutes so I dropped the always fucked up price of $10.25. Being the first weekend, the people were packed in. So, as seems to be the case with every movie I see with Admin we dropped ourselves in the second row.

The movie starts right out with a black and white slanted art deco style opening credits -- much like Rocketeer did over a decade ago if I'm not mistaken. Though that opening probably wasn't b&w... Anyway, I mention it because both movies are similar in spirit but very different in the way they go after it. Rocketeer tried to take the old sci-fi serials and, while keeping it in the same era, tried to put itself in a reality-based world. They attempted to explain how the back-pack rocket worked and how this device could have been invented and could have propelled a farm boy to defeat some Nazis in a zeppelin.

Zeppelins are popular in Sky Cap'n's world as well. But this world has absolutely nothing to do with reality -- with ray guns, giant robots with wiggly arms (my favourite), airplanes that turn into submarines, etc. It's pretty rare to see when you think about it. There hasn't been a decent sci-fi movie that's taken place in an alternate reality in a while. Well, maybe the Harry Potter movies, but I feel like giving this one a distinction of being an original story--as the Rocketter was. This isn't a comic book adaptation or a series of teenager books. It's a couple of guys with computers and George Lucas sized visions and an encyclopedia of 40s and 50s sci-fi movies. Really, I think it was when the hover craft ship zoomed away from the island with the giant jub-jub lizard looking on that sealed the deal for me as a movie I'd recommend.

Admin left a bit disappointed and mentioned the acting as something he couldn't get around. I know what he means -- and I also realize the acting was all very specific to try and recreate the style of the old Buck Rogers, but I also believe that obscure references shouldn't have to be known to enjoy a movie. But it didn't bother me that much. I'm impressed that the actors come away looking as good as they do after a few weeks of emoting on a blue set. But as much as I respect Jude Law's skills -- his Sky Captain is no Indiana Jones. But, that said, if I were a 9 year old kid, I'd most likely get a huge kick out of this movie. If you've lost complete touch with that part of you -- iwell then, this movie doesn't interest you at all in the first place, does it?

And that's pretty much my position on this movie. I liked it, it entertained me, but besides the plethora of obscure genre flick references there isn't much beyond CGI appreciation to get the adult in me all that excited. That is, besides Angelina Jolie. I think it has to do with my repeated viewings of the Kill Bill movies, combined with her Pussy Galore outfit -- but really I think I'm developing an eye patch fetish. I'm wondering if it's a niche that's already being serviced...

Rating: 3 out of 5

Takeshi Miike / Ichi the Killer / Audition / Dead or Alive 1 (sort of)

Miike and friend 

About 2 months ago I saw my first Miike film. For those that don't know, Takeshi Miike is a Japanese director who, since directing his own movies about ten years ago has made over 30 movies. Like all the great film directors he's jumped around in generes -- from the ultra violent to musical comedy to (his next film, rumor has it) family adventure. But his bread and butter is in the crazy fucked-up violent genre. In all actuality he's invented his own genre.

The first Miike movie I saw was Ichi the Killer. Good god almighty, this movie bent me over, made me its bitch, and made me wonder how I ever lived without it. It is hands down the most violently bizarre, disturbingly hilarious, mind bendingly fun movie I have ever seen.

Ichi is this mentally unstable guy with a permanent hard-on who has gotten picked on all his life. He lives with these two guys (one of which aparently has the ability to painfully transform himself into a huge strongman twice his normal size--very cool scene) who can get Ichi to kill whomever they want dead by brainwashing him into thinkning that person was one of the bullies from his past. I suppose having a permanent boner will get you going into a frenzy, and that combined with knife size razors popping out of the shoes of your rubber superhero outfit will do some serious damage. And Miike's eye never flinches.

But the real star of this movie is Kakihara. He's the guy who's scarred up face you'll find on most covers/posters of the movie.



Ichi has killed his boss, and it's Kakihara's job to find out who did it (his interogation efforts resulting in one of the more gruesome torture scenes I've ever seen). Although Kakihara loves and misses his boss dearly because without him there's no one around to give him the beatings and punishment he longs for, once he finds out Ichi is the killer he is desperate to track down this guy who seemingly can dish out the brutality that Kakihara's been longing for his whole life.

The R-1 version that's you'll find at your local video store is supposed to be missing some of the more extreme moments of the original Japanese version--but really, it's pretty intense as it is. A great mind-fuck of I movie and I can't recommend it enough to anyone with a taste for a bit of the outlandish. It propells you with into it with utter exuberance from the first frame and all you can do is hold on, cringe and laugh. Right now it has a solid spot on my top 10 action movies.

Immediately after watching Ichi I had to bump up all my Miike movies on my Netflix queue. They couldn't get in the DVD player fast enough. Next up was Audition. A huge change in tone was immediately apparent. This one, for the most part, is much more subtle. It creeps up on you until the last 30 minutes or so when it does a 180 and punches you in the back of the head with one hell of a twisted suprise... Well, it is a Miike movie so it isn't that surprising.

It starts out with a mother dying in the hospital, leaving behind a father and son. We immediately jump foward and the kid is a teenager who's prodding his dad to live a little and maybe get a female companion before he gets too old. The guy agrees, and since he is a movie producer he decides, with the help of his friend, to hold auditions for the role of his wife under the false pretenses of casting a new movie. A good idea for a romantic comedy/drama, eh? That feeling quickly disintegrates into a lovely lingering trip to hell once we start getting the feeling that his choice of a new wife isn't quite Donna Reed.

By the time the credits roll you're left again with some of the most gruesome images and a Japanese female voice teasing "kitit-kitee". A great ride. As far as horror movies go I rank it right up there with the best of them. Very similar to the Exorcist in the way it build the feeling of dread right up to the climax that doesn't fail to deliver.

After those two the first Dead or Alive was abit of a let-down. And it wasn't just because the DVD crapped out on me right before the last chapter. It certainly does have it moments. The prolonged introduction is like the begining of Goodfellas transplated to Japan via Miike and edited by a schitzophrenic. It's a rush...


DOA 1 

I'll comment on this one more later as I think I need to sit down with the complete DOA Trilogy to give it a fair appraisal. It's definately trying to make a Yakuza epic--in the same vein as Leone's western trilogy. Gangs and cops battling it out for supremacy while family and friends get caught up in it for the worse. There's some flashes of Miike having the kind of fun as with Ichi but I suppose the characters don't really allow for as much. Anyway--I'll get back to you on the subject. In the meantime--go get Ichi and Audition and give yourself some bad dreams.


The Cuddly Miike 

The Plan

So, for now, my idea is to just write about the entertainment that crosses my path -- in it's various forms; movies, tv, books, music, puppet shows, slide shows -- as well as; restaraunts, bars, tv diners... anything that can be consumed really. I know, not the most original of ideas, but hey-you have to start somewhere. No? Ok, you might be right. But what the hell...