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Highway 61 wrote:

kaujot wrote:I can't think of a film where a character's father was a magazine editor off the top of my head.

All I can think of is My Dinner With Andre since long-time New Yorker editor William Shawn is Wallace Shawn's father. But then I just can't imagine someone harboring such distaste for Wallace Shawn.

We have a winner. I couldn't believe that either. Shawn is just too likable. How about a professional review of Tokyo! to take ones mind off that quandary.

The three parts; INTERIOR DESIGN, MERDE and SHAKING TOKYO scratched the surface of interesting, but nothing more. Firstly, I can’t stand subtitles (as some of you may know from my other reviews), but again, not because I’m a dick, rather because it’s both hard to read and watch the film at the same time and ESPECIALLY because we lose so much in the translation. Bearing THAT in mind, everything about these stories made no damn sense. The plots were all over the place, the characters may as well been from Jupiter as the way they reacted to everything was completely alien, and the endings were laughably outlandish.

Now for what it was, the acting wasn’t too bad (though emotions are sometimes hard to gauge through subtitles). The score was nerve wracking, and so out of place I just shook my head at times. Now as far as the stories go, I’ve seen my fair share of “out there” FROM DUSK TILL DAWN twists, but having a chick turn into a chair, a crazy bum from the sewers with his own dialect consisting of slaps to the face, kicks and teeth tapping, and a recluse obsessing over a chick with tattooed buttons on her body that actually make her do stuff when pushed, were three punch lines I just didn’t get.

A "professional" review?

Professional or not. I'm sold. This goes to 1, "with a bullet".

Michael Kerpan wrote:A "professional" review?

Professional means they get paid.

Somebody pays this person? I guess that's the kind of review you get when the global economy collapses.

This review is actually really funny, but since we don't have a thread for good reviews or a one for Transformers 2, I didn't know where else to post it. (The image of what goes on inside Michael Bay's brain is hilarious.)

That reminds me to mention thecinemasnob's reviews on YouTube - they're not bad in themselves but they're for some of the most 'rediculous' films ever made, films that should help to recalibrate anyone's idea of what constitutes a terrible film (plus a review of Salo ). The reviews often feature swearing but then some of the films would seems to call for a vitrolic response as a defence mechanism against their awfulness! It's fun to be given a glimpse at some of these films without having to seek them out for myself!

His most recent video was for Bruno Mattei's Terminator 2 (which actually turns out to be a rip-off of Aliens!), and what can anyone say about Pierre Kirby week except to point towards the video of Thunder of the Giant Serpent, what seems to be a Japanese monster movie re-edited by a Hong Kong producer with new footage haphazardly edited in of a seemingly Australian chap fighting people!

Maybe we should set up a good review, terrible movie thread.
Also....Repulsion

Boring with a capital B. A coma patient could've played the lead role. Deneuve's character has the personality of a fencepost. Nothing happens, and you fall asleep. FAIL. Thank goodness this was on the "free spot" on my cable service. If I had paid for this, I'd get my money back. Unisom is much cheaper.

Edit: This is too funny not to share.

An intersting story which has these principal drawbacks: it is in black and white; focus and sound are not the best; it is chronologically splinterd - offering segments of his life; there are no segments showing him actually painting the icons, althoug after the credits, some of his surviving icons are shown. A complete biography, from childhood through his old age, would have made a great film

Horrible. horrible waste. horrible waste of time. i hated it with every fiber of my being. I thought I loved the Marquis de Sade but seeing it in foreign film was just too much.

The last sentence makes it.

it is chronologically splinterd - offering segments of his life

Amazing. What did he want, an 80 year long film?

Someone who hated Birdsong stumbled across the Netflix place-holder:

MD 854762 wrote:What is this spose to be this looks like a thing that was in my toilet please correct me. Never mind its forien forgive me.

Another Netflix review of the company posted as a review of a movie (in this case, Bangkok Dangerous):

LB 274712 wrote:I have always been satisfied with "THIS COMPANY" until I received this movie. The copy of this movie is obviously a knock off. The picture is not clear, the actors' heads are cut off in half the movie, and the video is not centered correctly. I realize I am not a Hollywood editor, but you cannot tell me this is the FINAL cut of the movie. It looks as though "THIS COMPANY WHICH I CANNOT NAME" may be trying to scam its customers. I am very disappointed in this company after viewing this poor excuse for a video rental that I am PAYING for! I know you will not post this to other customers, but i am strongly considering canceling my subscription. I will also be sure to inform my friends and family NOT to sign up for "THIS COMPANY IN QUESTION I AM NOT ALLOWED TO NAME" unless this problem is resolved in some way. I DO NOT want another copy of this video. If I do not receive a response to this post, I will know that this company does not care about its customers and that my accusations are true and this company is a scam by renting knock-off movies and making a profit. I hope you take this as an opportunity instead of ignoring it. A very Dissatisfied customer, Lauren Boyle

Rublev was alive for Eighty years?

Wikipedia says 60 or 70. The point remains the same.

I find the complaint all the funnier because it is Rublev though. A 3 1/2 hour film is too splintered.

A complete biography, from childhood through his old age, would have made a great film

Rublev, The Toddler years.

What a jackass!

The ever reliable Daily Mail splutters over Antichrist, and spoils the film again on behalf of its readers (without having seen it themselves, which is quite a feat!)

Some choice quotes:

I haven't seen it myself, nor shall I - and I speak as a broad-minded arts critic, strongly libertarian in tendency.

Now the anonymous moral guardians of the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC), in their infinite wisdom, have passed this foul film for general consumption.

Another bizarre but typical judgment from this panel of experts whose names we don't even know (and so we don't even know if they are parents). We do know that its president, Sir Quentin Thomas, gets £28,000 for 25 days' work a year. Nice job if you can get it.

Damn you childless BBFC! *shakes fist*

Following that is a quote so perfect for the Daily Mail that it is hard to believe that it wasn't created by committee - the terrorist threat to our values, the encroaching threat of the EU and to cap it all those decadent Danes wasting your money!:

It doesn't shock or surprise me in the slightest that Europe now produces such pieces of sick, pretentious trash, fully confirming our jihadist enemies' view of us as a society in the last stages of corruption and decay.

It doesn't surprise me that Antichrist was heavily subsidised by the Danish Film Institute to the tune of 1.5 million euros.
I tried to find out more from the Institute, but to my small surprise they disdained to reply. But you can be sure that they in turn are funded by the EU and so by my taxes - and yours.

And the coup de grace:

If I were to see Antichrist, I don't believe for a moment that it would incite me into copycat violent behaviour or make me a danger to others. But it would poison my mind and imagination, with explicit, ferocious scenes of sexual violence that would stay with me for ever.

Isn't that good enough reason to ban it, or at least demand extensive cuts? But have we - that is to say, the hesitant, fumbling, comfortably cushioned, value-free Leftish elite who now govern us - got the guts? I doubt it.

When will people realise that just because they don't like a film, it doesn't mean that they have the right to ban it for others?

Just to clarify, the writer didn't see the movie?

Nope, but that seems to be the in thing nowadays (and follows in the 'admirable' tradition of Mary Whitehouse).

Plus this isn't even an article by Chris "Ban this Sick Car Crash Sex Film" Tookey yet - his verdict is still to come!

I'm not sure that guy knows what being a libertarian entails. Shouldn't a libertarian be opposed to censorship? Particularly government ordered censorship?

Oh and reviewing films you haven't seen is usually problematic.

Nothing compared to the Tookey's wackiness, but remember those wendy and Lucy and Tokyo! reviews I posted? Apparently they're written by the same guy. The reviewer of Watchmen and Wet Hot American Summer here to be exact.
It gets worse.

I'm not sure the makers of Antichrist are going to be too worried though. 'Depraved", "Sick"
'Shocking" all those kind of recommendations are going to make people flock to it. Though
I suppose the drawback is the wrong audience for the movie. I sat in a full house
watching Crash after a wave of Tookey blitherings and you could just tell they were
completely non-plussed by its austerity.
As for spoilers I notice the poster for Antichrist
has in big letters 'Warning, contains scenes of genital mutilation'.

I actually quite like Chris Tookey, and even when he does talk rubbish you feel that he at least has some sense of humour and humility about it. And while it's hard to defend some of his borderline-racist/homophobic comments, his incessant attacks on the BBFC (which are never as histrionic as that Hart buffoon quoted above) are not outright ridiculous. We could all agree that there are some things that perhaps shouldn't be allowed into cinemas - for instance, a film which glorified child abuse and deliberately exhorted its viewers to practise it, or material likely to foster racial hatred; in short, material which would 'corrupt' the minds of the audience - and you don't have to be 'the mad mullah of the Mail' (as Tookey has been dubbed) to feel uneasy about some of the sadistic violence being doled out as entertainment these days. I came out of the first Saw movie with a very bitter taste in my mouth; it does bother me that a film like that, which effectively asks us to derive pleasure from watching people suffer, ends up being so phenomenally popular and influential.

It's worth mentioning that Tookey gave the recent endurance-horror hit Eden Lake 10/10. It's not the violence itself he objects to, but the nature and intent thereof. Plus he knows his films, and generally has quite good taste (full marks for Love Actually notwithstanding). I don't share the man's values, and he can be a little nuts sometimes, but it seems to me he's one of the better critics around at the moment.

Whole lot better than Philip French, anyway. If you want rediculous, take a look at some of his staggeringly useless non-reviews.

We could all agree that there are some things that perhaps shouldn't be allowed into cinemas - for instance, a film which glorified child abuse and deliberately exhorted its viewers to practise it, or material likely to foster racial hatred; in short, material which would 'corrupt' the minds of the audience

Well, I can only vouch for the fact that there a number of things I wouldn't cross the street to see - even with free admission. The SAW films are a prime example, as I was aware from publicity descriptions just what they are about.
But I can't advocate censorship no matter the subject matter. Anyone whose mind is going to be "corrupted" by a film - no matter how well made - extolling child abuse or racial hatred is likely already pretty well inclined toward those attitudes to begin with.
I didn't become a Nazi after watching TRIUMPH OF THE WILL, a member of the Klu Klux Klan after watching BIRTH OF A NATION or a pederast after watching LOLITA ...

colinr0380 wrote:

But it would poison my mind and imagination

I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that the mind of person that gets paid to do a bit of rabble rousing is already pretty poisoned.

A minority opinion it may be, but Saw is just Grand Guignol - gory but never really as bad as its detractors (or publicity materials) would have you believe. Often dumb and sloppily made and it collapsed under the weight of its flashbacks, flashforwards, parallel action and alternate timelines a couple of films ago, but it still can be fun just to see (like the 80s slasher films) just how long they can keep their stream of consciousness plotting expanding, while finding more ways to twist the relatively simplistic 'person strapped into a horrible, maiming device' set pieces into more bizarre situations (for instance the most gory set piece of Saw III was brain surgery being performed on the bad guy).

I'm not surprised that Tookey would love Eden Lake on the other hand - it's part of the 'killer youth' subgenre that plays into every Daily Mail headline about out of control teens terrorising Middle Englanders (while their useless parents could care less about what they're up to at night) that you could wish for. But I wouldn't want it banned just because I consider it morally reprehensible or that some idiot would use it as justification for their real world views.

colinr0380 wrote:I'm not surprised that Tookey would love Eden Lake on the other hand - it's part of the 'killer youth' subgenre that plays into every Daily Mail headline about out of control teens terrorising Middle Englanders (while their useless parents could care less about what they're up to at night) that you could wish for.

Yes, I hadn't looked at it like that (haven't seen the film, actually), but you're right that Tookey's liking it is not so surprising...

From Tookey's review of Antichrist: 'In its defence, Antichrist turns out to be not the picture that I have seen vilified in the press, sometimes by writers who lack any context of recent cinema with which to compare it, and in at least one case by someone who hadn’t even taken the elementary step of seeing it.'

Otherwise it's more or less as expected, with condemnations of the BBFC, a brief mention of Crash, and a helpful roll-call of other, more gruesome, films which have been granted and '18' certificate. Also, I notice his website has now been given the (presumably Google-friendly) title, 'MOVIE - FILM - REVIEW'. Talk about dumbing down.