All of these films received a perfect 5/5 rating from me, so I’m not going to rank them. They have withstood multiple viewings and I love each and every one like a sibling.

LET SLEEPING CORPSES LIE 1974
Directed by Jorge Grau
Radiation emitted from farm equipment meant to eliminate insects brings the dead back to life. Thanks to a minor accident, a man and woman become travelling companions. Not only do the couple have to contend with the living dead, but they also have a relentless cop on their trail that believes the two are on a killing spree. The zombies in this early entry are visually, the least grotesque of the list. However, they pile on the gore when the zombies are chowing down, which was particularily nasty for the time. A strong story with interesting plot twists and two likeable leads, played by Ray Lovelock and Cristina Galbó, who do an excellent job. The film looks great and the final showdown in the Manchester Morgue is a memorable affair that left me feeling all warm and fuzzy inside.

RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD 1985
Directed by Dan O’Bannon
Two inept employees of a medical supply warehouse accidently release a gas that brings the dead to life. Suddenly medical experiments are reanimating. Sliced half dogs start barking, butterflies pinned to boards start fluttering, and a really gory dead guy needs to be put down. After eliminating their gory new friend they need to find a way to discard his twitching parts. Fortunately a funeral home with a crematorium is right around the corner. They make up a crazy story about rabid weasels, so their neighbour helps them out. This of course releases more of the gas into the air and a group of friends partying in a graveyard are the first to be attacked. This film just kills me. Not only does it make me laugh…hard, it is also very gory. The zombies makeup is awesome. The zombies can actually speak and think. At one point a zombie gets on the police radio and asks the station to send more cops. Another zombie manages to rig up a device to break down a metal door. James Karen and Thom Mathews who play the bumbling employees are hilarious. There is no down time in this film. It is one crazy scene after another. Loads of zombies, copious gore, fun characters, humour and it still manages to deliver some pretty damn intense scenes. The ending is pure horror gold!

DAWN OF THE DEAD 1978
Directed by George A. Romero
Romero’s second film in the “Dead” series follows four survivors who whole up in an abandoned mall. They make a decent go of it for a while by arming themselves, killing the zombies inside
and locking the place down. But tensions begin to build among the group. So when a bike gang invades their safehaven, they are forced to fight for their lives against both the bikers and the undead. Horrifying, intense, gory as hell and occasionally amusing, ‘Dawn of the Dead’ was one of the first zombie films for me, and it quite literally changed my life. My movie life anyway. From that day forward, I had to see every single zombie film ever made. It also upped the ante on my gore expectations for every other horror film thereafter. Once again, Romero creates an intelligent and entertaining horror film that has become an endearing classic. Thank you very much Mr. Romero.

CEMETERY MAN 1994
Directed by Michele Soavi
The film is about cemetery caretaker Francesco Dellamorte. When the dead begin rising after being buried for seven days it’s just business as usual for Dellamorte. His job is making sure the dead get buried after all. It’s about the dead and the living, and loneliness and love. Oh, and it has zombies, decapitated heads, nudity and gore! You could call this one the thinking man’s (or womans!) zombie film. It manages to happily marry an artistic approach with solid dialog and acting, with outrageous over-the-top gory situations. It’s all served up with a hearty helping of black humour. Rupert Everett who plays Dellamorte is just excellent. Cemetery Man sports one of the most fantastic endings I have ever seen.

NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD 1968
Directed by George A. Romero
After her brother is attacked, Barbara makes a run for it, and eventually comes to an isolated house where she seeks shelter. Barbara meets Ben who decides the best course of action is to fortify their shelter. After several hours they discover there is a small group of five survivors holed up in the basement. With plenty working against them they attempt to construct the best plan of action. ‘Night of the Living Dead is indeed the granddaddy of zombie films. Obviously it is not as graphic as Romero’s more recent work but for the time it was pretty risky. The reanimated freshly dead look relatively normal but dazed. Those who were bitten are in various stages of decay and are considerably gorier. The zombies are shown gnawing away on organs and body parts, ripping and tearing away at the human flesh. The effects makeup and action scenes really are outstanding. The feeling of hopelessness is overwhelming and Romero does not reward with a happy ending. It is bleak, cynical and horrifying. Concentrating on the human reaction to the zombie outbreak instead of the creatures themselves allowed Romero to make some interesting and thought-provoking commentary. It is the manner in which he handles his subject that results in a truly eerie and memorable experience. A classic in every sense of the word. You can read my full review of Night of The Living Dead by clicking here.

PLANET TERROR 2007
Directed by Robert Rodriguez
Lt. Muldoon is making a business transaction on behalf of the military for a biochemical weapon known as “Project Terror”. During the transaction the scientist who created it intentionally releases it into the air. Meanwhile elsewhere in rural Texas an unhappy and abused wife/nurse is arranging to leave her doctor husband. In another part of town Cherry Darling, who has just quit her job, stops at the Bone Shack for something to eat when she runs in to ex boyfriend El Wray. Eventually the various survivors come together, and the ragtag group work together to fight for their lives and save the world. I love everything about this film, but Cherry’s machine gun leg is the coolest fucking thing on the planet! Great cast, tons of energy, action-packed with kickass effects. This film rocks!

ZOMBI 2 1979
Directed by Lucio Fulci
A boat arrives in New York with a zombie on board but no passengers. The boat belongs to Anne’s father and she wants answers. She hooks up with a journalist and the two investigate her fathers disappearance. They travel to an island where they meet Dr Menard, and they soon find out that a plague has taken over that is bringing the dead back to life and hungry for human flesh. Maggots and worms is what makes Fulci’s Zombie films extra special. Well maggots and worms and deliciously disgusting makeup. Fulci zombies are gross with a capital “G”! If you enjoy Fulci, then you gotta love the gore. Entrails, eye-gouging and the infamous ‘zombie bites shark’ under water sequence.

SHAUN OF THE DEAD 2004
Directed by Edgar Wright
Shaun is dumped by girlfriend Liz and vows to get his shit together to win her back. The plan is put on the backburner however, due to a recent infestation of zombies. Shaun, along with best pal and roommate Ed, bravely go about saving friends and family and head to the safest place they know…their favorite pub, The Winchester. Shaun of the dead manages to be both hilarious and intense. The scene with Shaun and his mum almost brought a wee tear to my eye. An excellent cast with perfect chemistry that create characters you actually care about. Did I mention zombies? There are a shitload of zombies!

DEAD ALIVE (aka Braindead) 1992
Directed by Peter Jackson
This is Dead Alive’s second appearance on a Dungeon list. It held the number one spot in my “Five Films that Feature Bad Ass Mom’s“. An overbearing mother is bit by a rare Sumatran Rat Monkey while spying on her son and his date at the zoo. She rapidly becomes ill and dies. Unfortunately, she comes back as a zombie. If he thought mom was demanding before, he hasn’t seen anything yet! She starts chomping on people like crazy and soon her son has a gaggle of zombies to contend with. Trying to balance a new relationship while attending to the undead proves to be a challenge. When a creepy uncle shows up for mom’s funeral things spiral out of control. I haven’t a clue how many times I’ve watched this film over the years! The effects in this film are outrageous and bloody amazing. It is insanely gory! Among its numerous memorable scenes are zombies fornicating and giving birth to a little zombie baby. It wins hands down as the best use of a lawnmower in a horror film!

EVIL DEAD/EVIL DEAD 2/ARMY OF DARKNESS 1981/1987/1992
Directed by Sam Raimi
The series starts with five friends who go to stay in a cabin in the woods. They innocently play a tape they find that happens to be translated passages from the Necronomicon or “Book of The Dead”. Evil most foul is unleashed on their asses. I didn’t want any sequels on the list and I already have one director with two films (Romero, of course!) so I’m packaging these ones together. All 3 of these films are fun as hell! The effects are great, it is high energy, fast paced and hilarious! And of course there is Ash, the handsome smart-ass S-Mart employee played by Bruce Campbell. Campbell can definitely take at least some of the credit for the success of this triology. I could quote more lines from these three films than the other seven combined. I believe this is the first and only time that I have seen a woman raped by a tree.

Wow that was a quick week since my last post. I’m genuinely shocked over that!

Well it’s probably all the work I’ve been (kinda) doing. I’ve been hard at work with my CV for applying with Accenture UK as my Industrial Placement for the coming year. I write this with some Accenture mints to my left, a print out of the slides used from one of their presentation, and a mousemat in my drawer (because my laser mouse doesn’t like mats). Yeah I really want this placement.

Watched ‘Planet Terror’ last night, which I have been meaning to do for some time, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Like sin city, and anything that remotely has any connection to Tarintino, it is freakishly freaky. Which is all the better I say…. And that reminds me to get ahold of Inglorious Bastards.

Also, Rose McGowan looks really good in Planet Terror, much more  than in Death Proof; blond hair is no no.

I’m not going to blog much more than that, I am a busy guy at the moment.

Tim & Eric Awesome Show Great Job! Season 2 (Adult Swim/ Madman) is so cheesy, so wrong and so damn surreal in it’s stupidity and wrongness that watching it you begin to question your own sanity. It’s like time stretches out, consumes you and when it spits you out you can no longer trust your senses. Yes that’s right it’s TV LSD. It’s outsider comedy, filled with freaks and weirdos doing weird freaky things that are absolutely nonsensical. But it’s genius nonsense. It’s the kind of work that David Lynch would be doing now if he went for Cheetos and Baconaise instead of transcendental meditation. They’re obsessed with dodgy videotape and crappy visual effects. It’s like public access TV set in a psychiatric hospital letting the inmates do what they want. Both John C Reilly (Magnolia) and Jeff Goldblum appear regularly, even Dave Navarro pops up – but he doesn’t appear to have been let in on the joke.

Bryan Singer’s (X-Men/ The Usual Suspects) little seen debut feature Public Access (Dark Horse/ DV1) is the bastard child of his oeuvre. It’s incredibly stylish, visually assured and the acting in particular is creepy and engaging. Yet there’s a NQR quality that makes it compelling. It’s so open ended, like they trashed half the script, not bothering to connect the logic or expand upon the motivations underlying the characters behaviors. In Hollywood land where everything is over explained as if we’re skittish 9 year olds with learning difficulties, this is refreshing. The key is the manipulations of the impossibly smooth Wiley, who enters a small town and immediately books time on the local cable station. His show stirs up underlying tensions and pits townsfolk against each other in this Blue Velvetesque descent into what lies behind the white picket fences.

Polyester (Reel) is John Waters doing John Waters doing Joseph Sirk, a knowingly hysterical melodramatic soap opera brimming with wrongness and stupidity. All the senses are heightened. Some shouldn’t be, like the screen gimmick Odourama, in which the audience was to scratch and sniff a card everytime the corresponding number appeared on screen. Unfortunately the card doesn’t appear with this DVD, so you can’t enjoy the aromas of fart or dog doodoo in your lounge-room. Waters, who had only recently graduated from making people eat dog feces on camera, supplies many putrid oddly chace moments of outlandish debauchery. He’s obsessed with 50’s suburbia and where Sirk attempted to mine the subversion beneath the perfect veneer, Waters puts the subversion front and centre. Life is terrible for modern transvestite housewife Divine. Her husband is rooting around with his mousy looking secretary, her possibly brain damaged daughter (she never stops dancing) has been knocked up by the local hoodlum, and her glue sniffing son’s foot fetish has him wanted by the police. No wonder she’s an alcoholic. However when she meets the chiseled Todd Tomorrow and embarks on a tempestuous affair things are looking up, yet you know in Waters hands it can’t be that simple. There’s a great directors commentary too.

All you need to do is look at the cover of the Machine Girl (Eastern Eye), to find out everything you need to know – a young hottie in a Sailor Moon outfit splattered with blood who’s left arm is a gattling gun. Replacing body parts with weapons is almost a genre to itself these days, what with Rose McGowan’s machine gun leg in Planet Terror, though the Japanese have been doing it best since Tetsuo. The Machine Girl is another in a long line of shamelessly over the top, impossibly gory, ultra violent and very funny films the Japanese have been churning out recently. We’ve got metal bras that double as drills, amputations, geysers of blood, a touch of necrophilia, and ninja yakuza’s, in what is ultimately a revenge flick, that’s totally outlandish, shocking and proudly gratuitous.

The Savage Innocents (Umbrella) features some of the greatest laughter you will ever see/ hear in a film. Of course laughter is sex in this 1959 foray into the world of the Eskimo from Nicholas Ray (Rebel Without a Cause). Whilst Anthony Quinn plays the lead character Inuk and the mix between location and studio footage is a little obvious, this film is a real gem, highlighting the culture clash between the encroaching West and the Eskimos in a sensitive, compelling and slightly kitsch manner.

Cuando Fortuna gira su ruleta es imposible escapar de sus designios por mucho empeño que uno ponga. Y es que sólo así se explica que el destino haya querido colocar al ‘macarra’ Quentin Jerome Tarantino en lo más alto de Hollywood con un cine abiertamente violento y rompedor.

Su primera señal divina llegó con la elección de su nombre de pila, fruto de la devoción que sus padres sentían por uno de los personajes de la serie ambientada en el oeste La ley del revólver. Dos años más tarde aterrizaría en el multicultural South Bay (Los Ángeles) donde recibiría numerosas influencias culturales entre las que no podía faltar el cine, convirtiéndose así en su gran devoción. Es por ello que su primer trabajo no fue otro que el de empleado de un videoclub, Video Archives, el cual transformó a su gusto para hacer de el su propia universidad. Tras numerosos intentos frustrados consiguió que una productora le abalase para rodar, en tan solo un mes, la premiada Reservoir Dogs que le daría cobertura para continuar su carrera.

Durante su estancia en Video Archives, Tarantino visionó miles de cintas de kung fu, western, gore y, cómo no, serie B. Todas ellas fueron la base de su concepto como director, primando el espectáculo y la diversión antes que las formas o el mensaje social. Su búsqueda se centra en conseguir que el espectador nunca se sienta cómodo, obligarle a pensar, a sufrir con escenas grotescas o asfixiantes y hacerle reír a carcajadas. Para ello se basa en un uso del tiempo alterado, la presencia de ultraviolencia, en marcas de la casa como su fetichismo por los pies, su propia participación en el reparto, bandas sonoras inolvidables o planos con actores en constante movimiento. Y es en esto último donde reside su magia ya que sus cintas no destacan por grandes historias, sino por los mejores personajes. El mayor ejemplo de ello es su ópera prima: la historia de un atraco en el que en ningún momento conocemos el robo, el botín o el nombre real de los protagonistas sino que sólo presenciamos el conjunto de traiciones y artimañas que se traen entre ellos.

Todos estos recursos son herencia de las ‘b movies’ de los 70 y 80 en las que las condiciones primarias de rodaje y el tono desenfadado dieron origen a verdaderas obras de arte. Es por ello que su aportación al sector es continua tanto en la producción como realización de cintas del género, así como sus constantes guiños. Su gran homenaje es la película Grindhouse que cuenta con una primera parte basada en el mundo zombie y una segunda como recordatorio de los numerosos asesinos en serie del cine, además de varios ‘fake-trailers’ entre los que destacan Machete y Werewolf Women of the SS que sí que tendrán sus propios largometrajes. En cuanto a la producción, A Band Apart dedica gran parte de su trabajo a cintas de bajo presupuesto como la reciente Hell Ride.

Con cada chorro descontrolado de sangre o comentario subido de tono Quentin Tarantino manda un mensaje de agradecimiento al género que más alegrías y diversión le ha proporcionado. Por ello, cada vez que esto ocurre, el mundo de la serie B se arrodilla ante Fortuna y le pide que, por favor, no mueva su ruleta ni un ápice de donde está.

Morri,

Death Proof é dirigido por Quentin Tarantino e faz parte de Grindhouse. O filme é muito bom; e essa cena, nem se fala! A atriz é Vanessa Ferlito da série CSI: NY.

There’s a crazy little place that I know
Where the drinks are hotter than the chili sauce
And the boss is a cat named Joe

tchau.

Zwei Filme, deren Veröffentlichung zwar schon 2 Jahre zurückliegt, aber die dennoch wert sind hier einmal vorgestellt zu werden.

Beide sind Teil des Grindhouse Double Features, dass von den beiden Regiesseuren Quentin Tarantino und Robert Rodriguez realisiert wurde.

Der erste Film ist Death Proof – Die Autos! Die Car Chase-Szenen! Stuntman Mike!

Einer der besten, wenn nicht der Beste, Actionfilm der je gedreht wurde.
Quentin Tarantino achtete penibel darauf dass jede Szene realistisch(klingt im Bezug auf einen Actionfilm aberwitzig, aber in diesem Fall stimmt es wirklich) ist und weigerte sich Computereffekte zu benutzen.

Kurt Russel als Stuntman Mike ist sowiso eine Traumbesetzung.

Der zweite ist Planet Terror von Robert Rodriguez.

Normalerweise bin ich kein wirklicher Fan von Zombiefilmen, aber dieser tritt Ärsche.

Viel gibts eigentlich nicht zu sagen was der Trailer nicht verraten würde, aber allein schon wegen Rose McGowans MG-Beimprotese ist der Film sein Geld wert.

Des weiteren sind auch die Fake Trailer, die auf der DVD zu finden sind absolut sehenswert:

Have Fun!

Hard Revenge Milly (dir: Takanori Tsujimoto, 2009)

Como cada año solemos asistir a las maratones de Midnight X-Treme, son noches duras, intensas, sangrientas y que a veces, nos traen algunas gratas sorpresas. La noche del viernes 09/10 tuvimos varias pelis que nos sorprendieron, y Hard Revenge Milly fue una de ellas!

Hard Revenge Milly (dir: Takanori Tsujimoto, título en japonés: Hâdo ribenji, Mirî 2008) es el realizador de este mediomretraje de aproximadamente 45 minutos de duración, junto con la secuela titulada: Hard Revenge Milly Bloody Battle, que también os reseñaremos, puesto que en la Midnight X-Treme vimos las 2 pelis en la misma sesión.

La trama comienza en Yokohama en una sociedad post-apocalíptica y típicamente cyberpunk que tanto nos gusta de los proyectos japoneses. Una sociedad donde impera la ley del más fuerte, sin ningún tipo de moral ni escrúpulos, y donde la violencia y el crimen son el pan de cada día.

Milly is Miki Mizuno

Milly (Miki Mizuno) es una mujer de armas tomar, nunca mejor dicho, y que quiere volver a empuñar su katana bien afilada, y a por munición de escopeta. Por este motivo, acude a un maestro de armas llamado Jubei para que vuelva a afilar esta preciada arma, que precisamente, el maestro conoce de sobras pues años atrás fue su forjador. Y para qué narices Milly necesita afilar su katana ¿? Muy simple, para cumplir con su venganza!

Años atrás, una pandilla de criminales, los llamados Jack Brothers se estuvieron cebando de lo lindo con la familia de Milly. Marido apaleado y asesinado, bebé brutalmente apalizado y quemado, y ella violada y acuchillada… Qué más se puede pedir ¿?

La peli no nos cuenta como logró volver sana y salva, pero lo que sí sabemos es que Milly tiene implantes mecánicos por todo el cuerpo, sobre todo, en la pierna que actúa a modo de escopeta y en el pecho. La escopeta nos trasladó a la mente otras pelis como Planet Terror (2007), The Machine Girl (2008), y por que no, Tetsuo II: Body Hammer (1992), entre otras…

Milly en plena acción!

Una vez Milly tenga las pilas puestas, perdón, debí decir, la munición a punto, se dirige a cargarse la banda de los Jack Brothers. Cargándose a uno de los hermanos pequeños, utiliza su muerte como señuelo para el resto de la banda, que evidentemente, acudirán raudos y veloces a la afrenta a la que han sido sometidos.

Milly deberá enfrentarse a Jack (Mitsuki Koga), líder de la banda criminal y máximo responsable de las torturas y vejaciones que sufrió Milly y su familia. Será Milly capaz de derrotar a Jack, siendo este un guerrero igual de feroz y expeditivo que Milly ¿? Le valdrán los implantes a Milly para derrotar a Jack ¿? Será capaz la poderosa katana de destruir a Jack ¿?

Lo averiguaremos en una lucha de titanes sin igual!

Empaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaalamiento!

Hard Revenge Milly es un buen splatter cargados de sangre, mucha sangre, muchos chorros de sangre, sangre a cascoporro, para que me entendáis, llegando incluso a presenciar en alguna escena, que los chorros sale de múltiples sitios de la pantalla! Eso sí que es un corte, y lo demás son tonterías! Pero Hard Revenge Milly también incluye mucha violencia, incluso explícita, no perderse la muerte del hermano de Jack y su posterior empalamiento o las torturas al bebé… Seguro que estas Navidades se pone de moda el Nenuco Torturado!

Pero por encima de todos estos elementos está Milly, la verdadera protagonista del film, una chica dura como el acero, y que tiene ocultos secretos… Quizás nos recuerde mucho a Kill Bill (trajes de cuero, katanas, violencia, sangre,…); en fin, todos esos elementos que estamos buscando.

No obstante, Tsujimoto sabe contar con el equipo técnico adecuado y por ese motivo, cuenta con Yoshihiro Nishimura, para hacer los increíbles Efectos Especiales, puesto que este hombre también es el responsable de los FX’s de Tokyo Gore Police (director), Machine Girl, Hard Revenge Milly Bloody Battle, Robo-geisha o Vampire Girl vs Frankenstein Girl (director), entre otros…

Como veis, Hard Revenge Milly será un espectáculo visual, y aunque nos presente una historia un tanto trillada, es capaz de enganchar al espectador, gracias a un eficaz desarrollo de la acción y de los elementos que todos queríamos ver, violencia y sangre.

I am going to heading out to see “Zombieland” in very short order but thinking about the film has also got me thinking about my favorite zombie films. I’ve seen a good amount of zombie films, including Romero’s works, some cult classics like Peter Jackson’s “Dead Alive” and some not-so-classic films like “Gangs of the Dead”, but I am not exactly a connoisseur of the genre. I have yet to see Lucio Fulci’s classic “Zombie”, any of the “Return of the Living Dead” films, or “Night of the Creeps” and there are tons of others that I probably do not even know about.

With all that said, take my list with a grain of salt and let me know some of your favorite zombie flicks.

10. Pet Cemetery
9. Fido
8. Resident Evil
7. Quarantine
6. Planet Terror
5. 28 Days Later
4. Night of the Living Dead
3. Dawn of the Dead
2. Shaun of the Dead
1. Dawn of the Dead (2004)

We’ve seen a small resurgence of lightgun shooters coming out in the home rather than just in the arcades. In the past, the genre that got its start with classics like Duck Hunt and Operation Wolf has always had mixed success in the home for two reasons. The first is that these games are designed around and require various extra pieces of plastic to get the most out of them, most gamers will shy away from playing a game that requires them to choose and purchase one of a variety of add-ons (that are often as expensive as buying a second game).

The second is more cultural, you don’t directly control your character’s movement in these games. Everything is on rails, pre-set, and inflexible. In an industry where the past decade was dominated by games built around huge worlds the player could freely explore and conflicts with multiple solutions, games where you glide around blasting everything that moves have of course fallen out of favor with both critics and audiences.

With the release of the Nintendo Wii, however, this has changed. Since the “gun” is already present via the Wii’s unique motion sensing controller, developers are now able to more easily bring their arcade games home, as well as develop original games since there’s only one controller to take into account, and no additional accessories need be taken into account (though firearm-like “shells” have been released to use with the Wii remote, none are required for any of its lightgun games).

This has caused an interesting shift. Originally, these were the games you played if you wanted to turn off your brain. Now, to combat public conception of the primitive (or pure, if you want) nature of the genre, recent releases have almost as much plot as they do action, with a tremendous focus on making you feel like you’re part of the action and dealing with other character rather than just gliding through a shooting gallery.

As this generation of consoles kicked off with Perfect Dark Zero on the XBox 360, a game notable for its nearly incoherent plot and constrictive level design, the big budget action games have been gradually forgoing story more and more in exchange for a focused experience where one travels from setpiece to setpiece with just a few sub-Arnold caliber one-liners to keep things coherent. Even shooter franchises known for their elaborate backstory such as the Halo series or Gears of War present next to no information about their respective settings in the games themselves, focusing entirely on action.

Are lightgun games still primitive by comparison? The genre is now built around atmosphere and immersion, while the big budget stuff continues to shave away at depth to the point where each title has a single thing that makes it stand out, be it Gears of Wars’ cover system or Halo’s regenerating shields.

The three most recent of these games on the Wii are House of the Dead: Overkill, Dead Space: Extraction and the upcoming Resident Evil: Darkside Chronicles. Interestingly the latter two were made because the developers wanted to tell a story first and foremost. Questionable story quality aside (all three involve megalomaniacs unleashing hordes of undead creatures that must be dealt with by the player and a companion), it’s a striking change in how we perceive game design that what was previously considered the most brain dead and base type of video game is now the one developers turn to when they want to build on a setting or developer their popular characters more. All three games take place prior to “current” events in their respective franchises, and all three feature almost as much banter as they do bullets.

All three games also introduce their own systems of tracking the player’s skill, upgrading one’s weapons and other things to keep the player coming back. All this while still maintaining the core gameplay of the genre, right down to each being gratuitously ripped off from an exploitative subgenre of cinema (be it House of the Dead invoking Euro-trash zombie flicks or Dead Space invoking, uh, Dead Space).

Dance of the Dead (2007)

A scene of great dark and gory humor

Dance of the Dead is a horror teen comedy, I guess. It’s created by people I’ve never heard of and stars people I’ve never heard of. That’s alright though because it turns out to be an inventive, carefree, and surprisingly enjoyable little movie. I laughed consistently at the dialogue and the action throughout Dance of the Dead, as it reminded me of fun horror/comedies like Re-Animator and Evil Dead II. More specifically it reminded me of Dan O’Bannon’s tongue-in-cheek semi-cult classic The Return of the Living Dead, a film that only idiots think is to be taken seriously but it still has enough flashes of B-movie flavor that you’re not sure whether to laugh because it’s good at being funny or whether it’s just funny because it is so bad. Dance of the Dead is an up-to-date tribute in some ways to films like The Return of the Living Dead which by itself makes it worthwhile, but there are many elements that also make Dance of the Dead original. That is actually saying something believe it or not, because there have been countless failures among similar films but this one captures the right tone.

A scene from Dance of the Dead

The reason the tone works is actually pretty simple, director Gregg Bishop has the ability to create a decent teen comedy. He does so by the starting the film with very entertaining characters and the actors do a fantastic job in making us like their funny and sometimes stereotypical personalities that become unique and even funnier given the circumstances. So we get introduced to a group of humorous characters (my favorites being Kyle and Coach Keel) who are not going to the prom. Then these characters become the protagonists as Bishop throws a zombie apocalypse into their setting. Now, overly violent slapstick humor ala Planet Terror meets The Three Stooges is my kind of comedy, so if it’s not your thing you won’t like this, but I doubt you will have even heard of this movie to begin with if you don’t appreciate that sort of thing. So we get an American Pie blue print setting that eventually gets invaded by zombies. Another reviewer effectively compared it to a John Hughes zombie film in his title, which is actually right on point.

Dance of the Dead has a deep cast of hilarious and memorable characters.

I’m giving this a high rating but I normally struggle in giving movies like this too high a rating. Usually silly movies like this can take decades to ease into being truly appreciated but I’m willing to bet that in ten or twenty years folks will look back fondly on Dance of the Dead as a horror comedy cult-classic. Time will tell of course, but I’m willing to make that prediction and give this movie a strong recommendation to those who enjoy similar fare.

My rating is 4 out of 5 stars.

♫ : Rose McGowan

Two Against The World

Vagt irriterande alltså. Frågade kassörskan ifall de har Dawn of the Dead inne. “Jodå, den finns under Rysare!” ..30 min senare… “Nej men oj, det är visst VHS, my bad…” – En halvtimma fo’ nothin! Gav hyllorna fingret i tyst protest och valde på måfå ut 3 andra filmer att hyra.

Planet Terror, Diary of the Dead och The Amityville Horror.

Planet Terror och Diary of the Dead har jag sett. Planet Terror är inte jättebra men rätt rolig, Diary of the Dead är filmad med handkamera och på så sätt lite frustrerande men annars en rätt schysst film. Amityville Horror har jag inte sett men hört talas om så jag tänkte mest att det var dags och så hade jag en film till att välja iom 3 filmer 3 dygn 60 kr grejen de kört med i eviga tider.

Sitter och kollar på Simpsons samtidigt som jag flippar runt på Internet och väntar på att klockan ska bli efter nio nångång när Robin hämtat nå papper av hans farsa och vi ska kolla på filmerna. Lär ju börja med Amityville eftersom jag inte sett den.

P.s. Är det fredag imorgon?! Var tog veckan vägen?

EDIT: HAHAHAHA URSÄKTA BOOBSHOTEN! Herregud, jag såg inte hur det såg ut förrän jag vinklade skärmen rätt… So much för att ha laptopen på magen… Känner mig smutsig

Hace poco volví a ver una película que inicialmente, con mi particular visión crítica, despreciaba.

Ahora la adoro. De hecho me ha abierto los ojos a las demás películas de temática zombie.

Planet Terror

La película en cuestión es “Planet Terror” de Robert Rodriguez. Una obra maestra en lo que al mundo zombie se refiere, además de un guiño sublime y un espectacular homenaje a las películas “Grindhouse“, con las que empezó el señor Rodriguez.

Hay mucha gente que la crítica porque no entiende ese homenaje, que viene demostrado con lo absurdo de las situaciones, humor muuuuy negro, cuasi podrido (no he podido evitarlo XD), tias muy buenas, mucha sangre. Pero muuuucha (“La Pasión de Cristo” al lado, nada).

Hay que saber a que vas.

Como los que no entienden por que me gustan los largometrajes de Van-Damme o Steven Seagal, obras maestras de película de sobremesa o de madrugada del Sábado.

Por increíble que parezca (y me centro en el tema) se puede sacar moraleja de esta película.

Hay varios momentos en los que la Stripper protagonista (Rose McGowan) habla de sus “talentos inútiles” y más cuando se queda sin pierna.

Talento Inútil nº66

Tantas cosas aprendidas, que luego resultan inútiles…… Pues bien, en el film acaba por utilizar todos sus talentos inútiles para sobrevivir y salvar a la humanidad (o lo que quede de ella).

Lo que se debe sacar en claro de todo esto es simple y llanamente que cualquier cosa que aprendamos o descubramos no debemos despreciarla por parecer useless, quizá en futuro próximo no nos sirva, pero hay que tener por seguro que al final nos servirá, aunque solo sea para hacer reír a un niño, para que un amigo sonría, para conseguir el teléfono de esa chica o para conseguir el puesto de director general.

No se debe menospreciar nunca el saber (sea cual sea y sin importar de donde venga). Deberíamos ser como esponjas ávidas de conociemiento.

Finalizar con una recopilación de Talentos Inútiles. Atención. En parte Spoiler de la película.

Saludos Gorgonitas

¿Quién dice yo? La mayoría de estos posters se encuentran en excelentes condiciones, la mayoría son de revistas (o creo que todas) las más antiguas son las de Top Disney (que son de doble vista como el de batman/Leo), hay de Club Nintendo, Conozca Más, Cine Premiére, la difunta EGM y los del Grand Theft auto vienen en la edición especial del juego. Hay algunos que están apartados y otros que esperan tener dueño. ¿Qué, alguien preguntó cuanto? Son gratis, nada más hay que ver si siguen en mi casa o ya los regale. Por cierto, datos algo tenebrosos para mi:

Encontré en mi cuarto 471 revistas. De las cuales destaco las siguientes:

Revista       # de revistas

Atomix                  70

Club nintendo     42

EGM                        72

Cine premiere    49

Conozca Más       47

Spiderman           48

Los posters de Egm, son de tamaño doble carta, los demás son más grandes. El de ironman es solo para presumir, ese ya está en mi pared. El de Wolverine…está en veremos…Saludos.

I waited 2 years to see Grindhouse.  While I’m confident of my trendsetting abilities, & cite my pioneering the Rocky Horror Picture Show cult as evidence, I’m often tardy to the fan party.  It’s not always that I’m late in discovery; I sometimes need to mull it over for a while.  Like a couple of years.  In this case, it was a little of both.

I’d wanted to see it in the theatre, but never made it.  It was a while before I’d see it in its entirety on TV, although I did see the last half hour of Death Proof  late one night.  (There are 2 separate movies in Grindhouse — Planet Terror & Death Proof.  They were both released separately under their own titles & together under the Grindhousetitle.)   Even that much was intriguing & when I finally saw the combined efforts of Quentin Tarantino & Robert Rodriguez, they put their hooks in me & reeled me in like a big tuna before I even realized it. 

It’s not surprising that it would make my list of favorite films.  Being raised by a man, I grew up on war & horror movies, with the occasional Western thrown in.  Nothing makes me happier than to see things being blown up or heads being lopped off, although as I’ve gotten older, I do tend to like a little plot.  I didn’t know the term “grindhouse” back then, but I’d spent many a night at the drive-in, watching the B-picture exploitation films.  Later, I’d spend nearly the same amount of time in the Times Square movie houses, feasting on all-you-could-watch horror schlock.  Some were cult classics, like the original The Hills Have Eyes or Last House on the Left.  Even an A-list offering like The Exorcist was included once in a while, but most were low-budget trash, designed for shock value, the ones that would go straight to DVD today.  My friends & I would brave the sticky floor (please let it be soda!) & the noisy crowds who continuously came & went all day/evening long.  Sometimes the comments were funny (“Look out behind you, b*tch!” being a classic), but the stream of people getting up to go to the bathroom, get something to eat, leave, or come in, was somewhat distracting.  It was still one of the cheapest forms of entertainment, since for $2.50 you could watch anywhere from 3 to 5 films.  The experience could even broaden your cultural horizons, as some of the films were from overseas, usually Italy.  Badly dubbed, but still a foreign film!

The  homage that is Grindhouse captures the genre perfectly, from the zombies in Planet Terror to the car crashes in Death Proof.  Last week, one of the Encore channels had it on continuous play all weekend — either one or the other, or both together — I watched it every time, enjoying it more with each viewing.  Both scripts are far superior to the old films, & the acting & special effects of higher calibre.  And while parts of the soundtrack deliberately recall the wobbly accompaniment of the past, most of it trumps the real grindhouse background music by a mile.  “Hold Tight!” by Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich — & almost Pete — “Chick Habit” by April March & “Down In Mexico” by The Coasters from Death Proof are awesome — Warren’s jukebox is impressive!  Ok, Grindhouse is better than the old movies were overall, the grainy quality done on purpose, but it still brings back memories of popcorn (or egg rolls if we’re at the drive-in), & mesmerizes me, so I’m drawn to concentrate on the TV screen alone, rather than along with the computer or a book simultaneously, remembering the days when I absorbed only one form of media at a time.

The fake trailers for more grindhouse films that don’t exist are hysterical!  The B-picture experience wouldn’t be complete without 47 trailers for attractions that are “coming soon.”  Word has it that QT will actually be making one of them, Machete, although my favorite was Don’t, where the announcer warned the audience not to see the movie alone, or do just about anything else.

Purchasing my own copy turned out to be a test of stamina.  It was one of those things that, when you’re in the middle of it, you’re sorry you started.  I don’t know about yours, but my local Borders likes to change it up — in other words, just when you’ve finally memorized where everything is in the store, they move it around — so much fun!  They recently did this, squishing all the DVDs into less space & fewer categories.  Although it didn’t do well at the box office (it was just misunderstood…sniff….), I thought Grindhouse would be easy to find.  Barring that, I was willing to settle for Death Proof, since I love me some Stuntman Mike.   (I’m not sure what this says about me.  I’m hoping that I don’t have some weird proclivities I don’t know about.)  Au contraire! 

The film categories seem to be up for interpretation — one man’s horror is another man’s action flick or maybe drama — so I checked them all.  Horror, no; action, no; drama, nada.  I even checked the comedy section — a broad interpretation, true, but anything is possible.  Still nothing.  I mosied over to the entertainment books, right next to the DVDs, thinking maybe I could at least find something to read on the film.  Here’s where I made my fatal mistake. 

“Can I help you?” a little-old-lady employee asked me.  I’m thinking that she’s not the type to have watched this movie, but you never know, so I said yes.  I explained which films I was looking for & she headed for the computer (Great, I thought, I could have done that — & was actually planning on it when I was done looking at the books).  It started turning into a fiasco when she looked them up under books (“Um…no, I’m looking for a DVD.”) & then put “Dust Proof” in the search engine (“While I wish my house were dust proof, that’s not the name of the film.”).  But wait, they have it!  And it’s under……cult classics, the missing genre.  She lead me back to where I started in the first place, both of us complaining about the rearrangement.  She agreed with me that there used to be an entire bookcase of cult films, but now it’s gone.  (Thanks for the confirmation!)  Then she told me to look under drama & horror….sigh…..  By this time, there’s lots of shouting across the room & several other employees got involved, none of them knowing what happened with the cult section either. 

Now my friend, Cathy, has arrived back from whatever area she was lost in.  It’s obvious I haven’t found what I was looking for & I brought her up to speed on what happened.  She says they can order it.  (That’s ok, really, I’m sorry I started looking for it in the first place & I can get it from Amazon if I need to.  I just want to get out of this store now.)  But then — miracle of miracles — Cathy, who claims to need glasses, looks down & sees…….

…..one teeny, tiny shelf labeled…..Cult Classics…..& there it is, Death Proof, two copies.  I nearly bought them both, I was so grateful.

Of course this isn’t the end.  There’s Grindhouse & Planet Terror to still be acquired.  And the soundtracks.  But this time I think I’ll steer clear of Borders.  As Stuntman Mike can probably tell you, the thrill of the hunt isn’t a bad thing, & sometimes you just don’t need any help.

El verano no ha sido precisamente para tirar cohetes, salvo por la brillantísima excepción de Up… pero lo de este fin de semana es sencillamente indescriptible. Hacía mucho tiempo que la remesa no apestaba de tal manera. “Esto” es lo que tienen la desfachatez de arrojarnos:

-Mapa de los sonidos de Tokio: Isabel Coixet, emperatriz del gafapastismo español, se cree Sofía Coppola y nos vende “su” Tokio con la chica japonesa de Babel (Rinko Kikuchi) y el insufrible Sergi López en una historia rocambolesca de una pescadora que mata por encargo que, la verdad, no se cree ni ella.

-Año Uno: una chorrada como un piano a mayor gloria del cansino Jack Black, al que secunda Michael Cera (el sosito de Supersalidos y Juno; el chaval básicamente sólo sabe poner cara de acabar de echarse la siesta) en una mezcolanza imposible de épocas de la Antigüedad, culturas, países… todo ello supuestamente gracioso.

-Expediente 39: Renée Zellweger es otra que cree que va a relanzar su carrera protagonizando una de terror con crío diabólico. Pobrecita…

-Una mamá en apuros: ¿Uma Thurman arrastrándose por las pantallas con otro sub-producto, ahora “cómico”, por segunda semana consecutiva? ¡Dios, que alguien pare esto!

-American Playboy: Ashton Kutcher se parodia a sí mismo yendo de jovencito (no tanto) que engatusa a maduritas; no, no sale Demi Moore, no es un reallity sobre su vida.

-Shorts: Robert Rodríguez sigue jugando a hacer películas para sus cinco hijos (dice que uno de ellos tuvo la idea) y consigue lo que se merece, un castañazo en toda regla; 6 millones en USA el fin de semana de su estreno = este señor se empieza a cavar su propia tumba. Que siga así, encadenando fracasos (antes, Planet Terror).

In a recent review of Quentin Tarantino’s different-film-from-how-it-was-marketed opus, Inglourious Basterds, film critic and friend of SCFOM Jonathan Kiefer writes, “When last we met in this space to discuss Quentin Tarantino, I claimed he was ruining American movies. Now I must acknowledge his progress. Now he’s on to European movies.”

I’ll take it a step further and suggest that he’s ruining movies. Period. His latest piece of fluff (dressed up as Important Movie), the aforementioned Inglourious Basterds, is sadly a box office champ, proving New York Times critic A.O. Scott’s theory that Americans have all the film sense of children (he also posits that we’re being treated as children, which, depending on your point of view, is accurate, cynical, or what we deserve).

How did this hack (and by “this hack,” I mean Tarantino) get to be the original Miss Jesus of cinema? Hard to say. He made one excellent film, which combined all the great elements of a classic genre picture and threw them into a contemporary stew of pop culture references, violence and kitsch. Its non-linear structure was just enough to distract viewers (including me) from the fact that the story wasn’t all that original (a bunch of guys knock over a store, it goes bad, they turn on each other, the end — see Stanley Kubrick’s The Killing for a similar set-up), and that it doesn’t add up to much. But so what? It’s a terrific flick. Its hyperkinetic energy alone is enough to make one look past its flaws. Plus, it has revelatory performances from Harvey Keitel, Steve Buscemi and Michael Madsen, and may be the last movie Chris Penn made before he got behemoth big.

Reservoir Dogs also introduced us to that Tarantino hallmark: his dialogue. And yes, it’s his dialogue. No character speaks in a voice that’s any different from Tarantino’s own, but no one knew that at the time. And it’s even kind of fun: ruminations on Madonna’s “Like a Virgin” and whatever-the-hell-else in the opening diner scene are pithy and cute in their four-letter way. And mercifully short.

So everyone lined up to blow Quentin and he rewarded us with Pulp Fiction, a great-on-first-viewing picture. (Others rewarded us with the wretched True Romance and the so-so Natural Born Killers.) Then you watch Pulp Fiction again and you realize it’s just what it says it is: pulp. It has no value. The dialogue goes stale after a second viewing because it’s all so indistinguishable, the characters are trite and Tarantino’s biggest directorial achievement is to make John Travolta look as if he can’t dance. That, and he brought Travolta back (a dubious blessing) and gave us the ham-fisted Samuel L. Jackson that has become the standard Samuel L. Jackson. Yes: Snakes on a Plane is a direct descendant of Pulp Fiction.

Pulp Fiction’s not as bad as I make it out to be because Tarantino’s follow-up Jackie Brown is worse, unwatchable in all its talky nonsense. How can anyone make Elmore Leonard boring? Tarantino managed. Any clever ADR specialist could replace half the yapping in Jackie Brown with the words “yap yap yap” repeated over and over, and viewers would miss none of the plot. What a stupefyingly boring film, with dialogue that’s not only boring, but meaningless. And how many times do we have to watch someone open a goddamn car trunk from the inside?

Tarantino’s leap to douche-auteur got a tweak after Jackie Brown. As he says in a recent Village Voice interview:

I learned something after I did Jackie Brown—and don’t get me wrong, I love Jackie Brown. But when it was all over—even when I was making it—the fact that it was just a little bit once removed made me a little bit disconnected from it. That’s why I haven’t done another adaptation since then. I want to naturally fall into the next thing that’s going to turn me on.

You read that correctly: I love my own work too much to let another person’s decent source material cloud my vision. Ugh. That’s why we got Kill Bill, a movie so talk-heavy that it had to be split into two films. Sure, the first volume has lots of cool chop-socky violence and blah-be-de-blah snorkle bit (because that’s how much the story and talk matter), but it also has the “I’m telling you this important because if I didn’t you’d know it was horseshit” horseshit that’s become what passes for character development in a Tarantino film.

For example, The Bride (Uma Thurman) is some unknown entity to the audience, so much so that her character’s given name is bleeped out when other characters mention it in the film. That’s what the great screenwriter Tony Gilroy would call hype: calling attention to something that means nothing to throw off the audience from realizing that it means nothing. And really, who gives a shit what The Bride’s real name is? It’s not like the cops are eavesdropping and with that important piece of information they can go arrest Beatrix Kiddo (if only we knew her given name!). Christ. At least the movie has that great song by Tomoyasu Hotei.

The second Kill Bill film is even worse because it’s nothing but talk interspersed with some goofy violence that’s so absurd it doesn’t even thrill on a visceral level. (And Daryl Hannah as a bad-ass? Really?) Do we really care what these people have to say? Or care that Kiddo’s sense of honor has been violated by Bill? And who the hell thought David Carradine was worthy of all this screen time, anyway?

Oh, yes. The Tarantino dialogue. Honestly. It’s wretched. It means nothing. It’s an excuse for Tarantino to listen to his favorite subject — Tarantino — talk. Nearly endlessly. Kill Bill Vol. 2 is 136 minutes long and probably has 115 minutes of yapping, colorless, boring, self-important claptrap masquerading as Something Important. It’s not important. It’s hype. It doesn’t develop character. It doesn’t move the plot forward. It’s expository (which is doubly shitty of QT, because there’s really no story to Kill Bill other than “Woman shot and left for dead goes on a revenge-killing spree against the five people who wronged her,” which could be done in one shitty 90-minute film instead of two shitty 120-minute films). It’s dull. All the characters sound the same. Kind of like the characters in an Aaron Sorkin script sound the same. (There. I said it.) Add Diablo fucking Cody in there, too.

(I realize there are people out there who like that stuff. Stylized dialogue. Colorless characterization. Rote and one-note notions of honor. They should get out more.)

That brings us to Death Proof, the Tarantino half of Grindhouse, the we-have-some-clout-so-let’s-make-the-audience-suffer-but-it’s-all-in-good-fun crapterpiece Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino sort of made together in homage to the double features they grew up on. Guys, there’s a reason those double features don’t exist anymore: The movies sucked. For every Monte Hellman or Herschell Gordon Lewis there are 14 Sean S. Cunninghams.

Death Proof is so awful it’s hard to believe a studio would release it. (The Weinsteins released it, so maybe I shouldn’t call Grindhouse a studio picture. But hey: It’s Tarantino, right?) The movie is technically well made (and therefore subverts its own rules of being a grindhouse pic, but whatevs), but it’s a — shocker — big bore. First, we have to listen to Sydney Tamiia Poitier yap and yap and yap sanctimoniously about a bunch of nothing including Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich and oh, who gives a shit, get to the fucking story. By the way, after listening to her talk and call her friends, more or less, assholes for nearly 30 minutes, her demise isn’t nearly gory enough.

But there’s no story. And yes, that’s kind of the point of Grindhouse. Except that true grindhouse flicks had stories, as dumb as they could be, and some of them were actually fun. (The inconsistent Rodriguez’s Planet Terror is fun, mostly because he’s a hack — a talented hack — doing hack work and having fun with it. Quentin: Don’t take yourself so fucking seriously.)

There’s a second scene with a bunch of girls talking about nothing, this time in a diner, just like the guys did in Reservoir Dogs (way to reference yourself, dick). After what seems like forever, they kill Kurt Russell (the only good performance in the Tarantino half of Grindhouse). The whole film is stunningly misogynistic, but its defenders think it glorifies women. I have to ask: What pro-chick film makes so many of them such horrible people, only to dispatch them so violently? And what pro-chick film makes the good girls a bunch of vengeance seeking gorehounds? Yeah, yeah, it’s Grindhouse. I missed the point. Fuck me. Even the level-headed and respectable A.O. Scott was sucked in by Death Proof:

I’m hesitant to risk giving away too much, but I will say that Kurt Russell is awfully good, and that I could listen to Sydney Tamiia Poitier and Tracie Thoms, two of the movie’s motor-mouthed heroines, talk through the whole three hours of “Grindhouse,” read the phone book or recite “The Faerie Queene” on tape in my Volvo in the middle of a traffic jam.

I’d rather put out a lit cigarette in my ass than listen to Tracie Thoms do the tough-black-chick routine that she’s reduced to in Death Proof. Honkey, please. Even the car chase is drab. Peter Yates, William Friedkin, George Miller — they all did it better. Much better. Even shithead Michael Bay has done it the fuck better.

That brings me to Inglourious Look-I-Spelled-it-Wrong-on-Purpose!-Basterds, the film that started this whole essay/rant. Having seen it twice (and once for free, thankfully) to make sure I wasn’t crazy for disliking it as much as I did, I admit there are some good things about it. First, Christoph Waltz as the SS Colonel Hans Landa is so good that you forget you’re listening to Tarantino’s tin-ear dialogue and that the Landa character is a caricature, and you feel a little guilty for liking a Nazi so much.

Second, there is no second. Sure, there’s a perverse thrill in watching Eli Roth beat a Nazi officer to death with a baseball bat. And yes, Mélanie Laurent and Diane Kruger are mesmerizing. And much of the dialogue is in French and German, so it’s hard to be distracted by how Tarantino-esque it is (though, as a French speaker, I can tell you the idiosyncrasies of Tarantino’s gobbledegook mercifully don’t really translate). But then there’s Brad Pitt, who’s distractingly bad. Bad accent, bad mugging, and he does that stupid squint he always falls back on, and lolls his tongue about as he’s done in nearly every picture since Thelma & Louise. Is that the point, to make Pitt so terrible? Probably not, since most of the actors are quite good. There’s also his unexplained character motivation (in fairness, does one really need a reason to kill Nazis in WWII?), which Tarantino addresses in that same Village Voice interview:

[I] had a whole history with Pitt’s character, Aldo. Aldo has been fighting racism in the South; he was fighting the Klan before he ever got into World War II. And the fact that Aldo is part Indian is a very important aspect of my whole conception, even of turning the Jews into American Indians fighting the unfightable, losing cause. So that lead guy is legitimately an Indian. Also, the dichotomy of this Southern hillbilly and his verbiage bouncing off them is interesting.

Hey! That’s some great character motivation for Aldo’s actions! Too bad it’s not in the film. It’s hype. And fuck you, hype.

And none of this griping even takes into consideration Colonel Landa’s unmotivated character change at the film’s end, or his reasons for leaving Mélanie Laurent’s character alive while killing the rest of her family. (Actually, her escape lazily sets up the film’s entire plot, because without her, there’s no movie theater in which to kill Hitler at the end of the movie.) And I won’t even get into the whole sequence in which Pitt and a German soldier discuss what constitutes a Mexican stand-off, except to say, “Hey, I know! This time, let’s have a Mexican stand-off in which everyone talks about what makes up a Mexican stand-off! I am so pushing the envelope!” And the other distracting casting: Mike Myers as a Colonel Blimp-like British officer. Barf.

No, the gripe ends here, with Hitler’s untimely death at the hands of Tarantino’s basterds. Yes, they kill Hitler. Which would have been great if he’d died, along with Goebbels, in 1944. But Hitler and Goebbels didn’t die then. And the manner in which they’re killed is childish. It’s the pipe dream of a 10-year-old who wants to rewrite history. It’s so ball-breakingly petulant, stupid and contrived and — let’s see, stupid — that it cheapens an already cheap genre exercise: Spaghetti Western masquerading as WWII flick.

The film’s opening grosses will do nothing to slow down Tarantino’s march to film history. (Neither will the fact that it’s called Inglourious Basterds but isn’t about the basterds, who are barely on screen.) Tarantino will never be the craftsman that Scorsese is — or Bergman was, or Spielberg is, or even, say, Michael Haneke is. And sadly, he doesn’t want to be. He wants the fame and accolades and all that other bullshit (read the Village Voice interview if you don’t believe me) and he has no interest in doing anything that means anything.

Maybe that’s not the point of cinema. Maybe it truly is to escape, and nothing more. Hopefully Tarantino’s audience will realize they’re being played for suckers, wise up and demand he do better, or better yet, desert him.

That likely won’t happen. As long as there’s a fan-boy culture, critics willing to blow him and actors who think he’s just, like, the greatest, we’re stuck with him as he is. He can set up a shot and place a camera well and (mostly) let an actor act well, but the work is just empty. It’s ruining movies.

The upcoming “Machete” film is based on Robert Rodriguez’s faux “Grindhouse” trailer.
Tagline: Yesterday He Was A Decent Man Living A Decent Life. Now He Is A Brutal Savage Who Must Slaughter To Stay Alive.

Plot: The feature version of the trailer finds Machete (Trejo) a renegade former Mexican Federale, roaming the streets of Texas after a shakedown from drug lord Torrez (Seagal). Reluctantly, Machete takes an offer from spin doctor Benz (Jeff Fahey) to assassinate McLaughlin (Robert De Niro) a corrupt Senator. Double crossed and on the run Machete braves the odds with the help of Luz (Rodriguez), a saucy taco slinger, Padre (Marin) his “holy” brother, and April (Lohan) a socialite with a penchant for guns. All while being tracked by Sartana (Alba), a sexy ICE agent with a special interest in the blade slinger.

Expect a 2010 release date

Danny Trejo

Jessica Alba

Cast

Danny Trejo  

Michelle Rodriguez

Michelle Rodriguez  

Jessica Alba

Robert De Niro 

Lindsay Lohan 

Cheech Marin

Steven Seagal

Don Johnson   

Trivia
The film was based on the fake trailer featured before Robert Rodriguez’s double feature for Grindhouse, Planet Terror, which was co-produced by Quentin Tarantino and is also the producer on this film.

Danny Trejo, Jeff Fahey and Cheech Marin who are featured in the fake trailer featured in Grindhouse, reprise their roles for this film as well. Tito Larriva, one of Robert Rodriguez’s closest friends and who’s acted in several films was featured in the trailer but at this point not confirmed to be in this film. Fahey was also featured in Planet Terror which was written, produced and directed by Rodriguez.

Lindsay Lohan

This film marks the second time that Robert De Niro and Quentin Tarantino have worked together. They previously worked together on Jackie Brown, which De Niro was part of the ensemble like this film and Tarantino wrote, directed and produced that film.