The Wolfman Review

When my friend asked if I wanted to see The Wolfman last night my initial reaction was to tell him no, but I haven’t been to the movies in a while and figured why not? That and I was secretly hoping that he’d change his mind once we got to the theatre and want to see Shutter Island instead. Alas, it didn’t happen and I ended up watching Benicio Del Toro run around screaming in a torn shirt for an hour and a half. Don’t get me wrong I like werewolves. I think they’re cool monsters, but lately no one has gotten them right and The Wolfman is another one of those films.

My hopes weren’t high going in, and unfortunately the film did little to nothing at all to help me see the good side of it. Sure there were some cool special effect scenes, but does this make me actually like the movie as a whole? Will I one day think back, "The Wolfman was good because it had that one scene where that thing happened and that guy was like..." probably not. I did like the fact that it was set in the past and I can only imagine how much worse the film would have been if were set in the present, but that’s about it. Not even the acting held my attention. The actors themselves (especially Anthony Hopkins) seemed to be about as interested in the film as I was. I tried to like The Wolfman. I really did, but it just kind of sat there like I did waiting for it to end.

Overall rating: Wait for the DVD if you really want to see it.

**Cracked.com has an article about why no one gives a shit about werewolves and it’s true.

Our 10 Favorite Films of 2009

Below you'll find 10 of our favorite films from last year. We're not saying they're the best, we're just saying these are the ones we really liked/loved. Opinions differ and to say something is "the best" is ultimately left up to one's own interpretation. It's not a science and there are too many movie critics who think their view of film is and should be the final word. Fuck that and them. Anyway, here are 10 films that really moved us, got us thinking, and made us wish that more films were made with this level of quality. (Note: some of the bigger name movies you'll know, but the lesser known titles have their trailers included.)

From Troy:

1. Inglorious Basterds / Writer: Quentin Tarentino / Director: Quentin Tarentino
2. Antichrist / Writer: Lars Von Trier / Director: Lars Von Trier

3. District 9 / Writer: Neill Blomkamp / Director: Neill Blomkamp
4. Up In The Air / Writer: Jason Reitman / Director: Jason Reitman
5. The White Ribbon / Writer: Michael Haneke / Director: Michael Haneke

6. Bruno / Writer: Sacha Baron Cohen / Director: Larry Charles
7. Star Trek / Writers: Robert Orci, Alex Kurtzman / Director: J.J. Abrams
8. Avatar / Writer: James Cameron/ Director: James Cameron
9. Moon / Writers: Duncan Jones, Nathan Parker / Director: Duncan Jones

10. Drag Me To Hell / Writer: Sam Raimi, Ivan Raimi / Director: Sam Raimi

(Have not seen, but wanted to see... Crazy Heart, In The Loop, A Serious Man, Hurt Locker, The Road.)

From Dan:

1. Star Trek
2. The Hangover
3. Moon
4. Funny People
5. The Brothers Bloom

6. Anvil: The Story of Anvil

7. District 9
8. Drag Me To Hell
9. Up
10. Surveillance

The White Ribbon Review

Once in a while a film maker will come along and break the mold. Michael Haneke does just that. I really appreciate people who are trying to do something different. Not just different for the hell of it but trying to really say something with their films.

The White Ribbon is the newest film from Writer/Director Michael Haneke and it won the Palm d'Or at Cannes this year. I can see why it won. It's extremely well written, acted and directed. The cinematography was FUCKING BRILLIANT. The film is shot in black and white but it doesn't look like your grandpa's black and white movies. I would say the best thing to compare to is a really artistic black and white photo. The lighting is insane.

The film is VERY slow and runs about two and a half hours. It's all in german and you have to read a hell of a lot. There is NO music track. In that sense it's like a dogme film but only in that sense.

The film takes place in a small Austrian village pre WWII.
There is narration throughout and it's obvious Haneke wants you to feel like you are watching the happenings of this small village instead of feeling like you are a part of it. The film deals with quite a few issues but its main focus is on how someone could become something so evil as a Nazi. Basically the film is about the birth of fascism. But the message is just as relevant today.

Due to it's very slow pacing it lost a point for me but i will still give this movie an 8 out of 10. RECOMMEND!



And here is the rest of it.

It's Complicated Review

Nancy Meyers is just better than most of her romantic comedy writer counterparts. She's a step above the rest and it shows in "It's Complicated." That's not to say that i loved the film or anything but the romantic comedy genre has become a dull and frankly boring genre with a bunch of mediocre to bad writers in it. It seems to me that if you are a shitty hollywood writer, you will either write a horror movie or a romantic comedy. I happen to love the horror genre but i hate about 80 percent of horror films. It's just unfortunate that all the best writers tend to stay away from horror and it's pretty much the same way with romantic comedies.

I liked "Something's gotta give" and i had high hopes for this one. While it's not as good as "something's gotta give" it is a good premise with some good writing and fantastic acting. Meryl Streep shows that you can take a decent script and make it fantastic at some points. Alec Baldwin was also very good. Of course you know everything that going to happen before it even does but you don't see a romantic comedy to be surprised do you?

I would have to say i laughed twice during the movie at most. The humor is definitely geared towards women and particularly woman over the age of 40. You can see why i didn't laugh much. But it's a good date movie and it's better than most of the garbage that's in this genre so i would recommend on that level. If you want to see a date movie then check it out.

5 out 10.

In Case You Missed It: 2009 Movie Review

2009 proved to be a great year for indie/foreign films despite them being outnumbered by the massive amount of typical Hollywood B.S. So, in case you missed them, here are 10 films that fell under the radar this year. Check them out if you're tired of the predictable big studio movie.

THE THAW (USA/CANADA): A really smart horror film (for once!) that has a deep hidden message and special effects that look awesome.


NOT QUITE HOLLYWOOD: THE WILD, UNTOLD STROY OF OZPLOITATION! (AUSTRAILIA): An awesome documentary about the B-Movie explosion, or Ozploitation, from Austrailia in the 70's and 80's. After watching this I now want to see every Ozploitation film ever made. (Tarantino is featured and offers some great insight on this genre of cinema)


SUNSHINE CLEANING: A quirky and poignant film about a woman trying to improve her life and make sense of it all.


RUDO Y CURSI (MEXICO): The story of two brothers trying to get out of their small town and make it big in the sport & entertainment businesses. A hilarious film that teams up Diego Luna & Gael Garcia Bernal once again (both from Y Tu Mama Tambien).


TRICK R' TREAT: After a few years of being held back this movie was finally released to the public in 2009 on DVD. There's nothing spectacular about the movie (except for a few cool death scenes). It's just a fun horror movie to watch.


IS THERE ANYBODY THERE? (UK): An odd little boy makes friends with a cranky old man and along the way they learn what life means to each other. A bit sad, but it has a good dose humor thrown in.


I SELL THE DEAD: A fun film that has vampires, zombies, and aliens (what more do you want?). It does a good job of mixing humor and horror.


LAST CHANCE HARVEY: A predictable film about two older people falling in love, but there is something charming about it that makes it work for me.


THE GREAT BUCK HOWARD: A down on his luck young man takes a job as a failing magican's assistant. The plot is somewhat foreseeable, but still well written. The cast is superb and helps you become entranced in the movie.


SIN NOMBRE (MEXICO/USA): The story of two kids on the run and what they find in the end. The cinematography is stunning and the film showcases some really intense and beautiful scenes.

Up in the air Review

Just got back from seeing "Up in the Air" with Irena. Been waiting for this one because i read a ton of positive reviews and a great article on it in "Creative Screenwriting Magazine." Also i thought this might end up being on of the nominees for best picture and it's a personal goal of mine to see every nominee.

Jason Reitman is a director that i will probably follow for his entire career. After his first two movies his career could have gone either one of two ways. He could have used the success of Juno to catapult his career into big budget, big box office film making. I know he was offered some of those jobs because he said on Howard Stern he was offered to direct "Justice League." Which will be the next huge budge super hero movie. Thankfully he turned it down and made this one. He said he had a specific goal for his career and wanted to make movies that meant something and had integrity to them. Well he now has a fan. While i of course can enjoy the big budget Hollywood movie just like the next guy, the movies that stick with me are the ones that usually have a real meaning to them.

Up in the air is about a lonely guy (played by George Clooney) who works for a company that fires people. He goes from city to city giving people the bad news. It's a timely premise and one that resonates with a lot of people I'm sure. There is a love story sub plot, (played by the beautiful Vera Farmiga) along with a third character sub plot played by Anna Kendrick who gives a surprising performance.

I'm not going to give away any real spoilers because i want the plot twists to be a surprise but i will say that this movie is all about being real. It's not your typical Hollywood love story or comedy or drama for that matter. It's really an Adult Dramedy. It's one of the rare films that isn't geared towards teenagers. I find that refreshing and i wish more movies were like that.

If you want something a little different than the norm but not a complete art house film than i highly recommend this one.

9 out of 10.

Tommygunthebaby presents... "I ALREADY KNOW" Ep. 1

FOR SOME REASON IT'S CUT OFF SO JUST CLICK ON THE VIDEO AND IT WILL OPEN IN YOUTUBE.

Avatar Review

Irena and I went to see an Imax 3d showing of this about 35 minutes away. We got there early but there was no where to sit. So we got a refund and it was all for not. Later we decided that the "Imax" that they are calling Imax is fake BS anyway so we should just see it in Digital 3d at a closer theater.

Let me start by saying i like James Cameron's work quite a bit as Terminator and Dark angel are awesome, of course. If i can sum this movie up in one sentence it would be...

"A visual masterpiece of epic proportions."

That does not tell the whole story though as i wouldn't put the Masterpiece term on this film, but it is a visual masterpiece. I'm going to highly suggest seeing this movie but only in at least 3d. I think this would a bit dull otherwise because of the predictable plot line and weak dialogue. This is a MUST SEE IN THE THEATER! Don't wait for the DVD.

I really loved the time he spent as an Avatar in the character development phase of the film. I wish there was more of that. The film was almost 3 hours long but another half hour in that world would be have been great for me. Once it got to the standard 3rd act i didn't enjoy it as much but the first half was quite fantastic. This is one of those movies where if you didn't like it you could pick it apart but if you enjoyed it you can forgive some of the errors in the writing. Needless to say i did enjoy so i won't pick it apart but i will be honest and tell you a few things i didn't like about it...

While i don't have a problem with this per se, i do have to make an observation. It was like James Cameron sat down and watched The Matrix and said to himself... "How can i rewrite this story?" It is pretty much a copy of the matrix story line. So while of course i love the MAtrix story line i am protective of it at the same time. If you are going to rip it off make sure it's good!

The plot was SUPER predictable and especially the ending. If you are looking for great plot twists you won't find them here. The dialogue was kind of weak but i felt the dialogue in The Titanic was a bit weak also so it's either me or dialogue is not James Cameron's strong suit.

The ending came to the same ending you have seen in a MILLION other films and I would imagine the average movie watcher is satisfied with this. I understand that this ending will make more money than any other ending so i can just accept it for what it is.

Recently i have been obsessed with watching Lars Von Trier movies and i feel like watching his movies opens up your eyes a bit. It's like a turning point in your movie watching life. Before Von Trier and afterward. I am saying this to tell you this is pretty much the exact opposite of a Von Trier film. Predictable story, weak dialogue, mega special effects, happy ending. But sometimes it's fun to just to watch something really cool looking and with a nice love story. This movie does has a nice love story sub plot.

Overall i did like it and i recommend seeing it but ONLY IN 3D.

Dogville Review

You think you like movies? REEEEAAAAAALLLLY? Well if you don't like this then you really don't like movies. You may like corporate bullshit but a real fan of film would love this. This was on Tarantino's favorites of the last 20 years. He said it's arguably the best script ever written. I don't disagree. It's also my favorite Von Trier movie. All love all his movies but this is tops for me. BRILLIANT.

The Best Films Of The DECADE (MUST WATCH)

Yeah! Let's Copy Each Other!

So Hollywood is not only prone to copying itself when it comes to a good movie plot, but also in how it advertises itself. The videos below showcase how the studios are really just repeating themselves over and over again - and not only through their story lines, but also through their posters. (Note: The music for the videos is really weak so you may want to view them while muted.)

The Box - 2 Reviews, 1 Movie

Over the weekend, Troy and I went and saw Richard Kelly’s The Box serparately and thought it would be interesting to post both of our reviews so that you could see how one person can interpert something entirely different from another. Below is his review which is then followed up by my own. Read them over and let us know what you think.

From Troy:
(MAJOR FUCKING SPOILERS!!!)

It's been well documented that Donnie Darko is one of my favorite films (click here for proof). Richard Kelley will always have a special place in my cold heart because of that movie. In my mind, if he never made a good movie again I really wouldn't care, but I REALLY want him to keep making good movies because I love high concept ideas and he is all about that shit.

We all know Southland Tales was a complete debacle and while it was a great idea conceptually, he really went nuts with that one. Let's just say i didn't like it and move on.

When I heard about "The Box" I was immediately interested because it was his movie and I knew it would be high concept and I also knew it probably wouldn't be as crazy as Southland Tales - I imagine he is under some pressure from Hollywood now to make a profitable film again. Also, I knew the original story is based off of an older short story that was later turned into a Twilight Zone episode. But Richard Kelley wouldn't just go with that and he sure as hell didn't. He really made it his own movie.

Basically, the movie is about a couple who receives a box with a button in it. They are told by a strange man with half a face that if they push it they will receive $1 million, but that at the same time someone they don't know will die. Of course they push it. They have to or there wouldn't be a movie to watch. But it's not exactly "them" who push it. It's more the wife (Cameron Diaz) who pushes it while her husband just sits by and doesn't stop her. (Sound familiar? Well it will by the end of this review.)

I am going to skip to the end because it's WAY too involved to write the whole story out. In a nutshell, it's about a dude who is being controlled by aliens to test the human race and they way they do the tests is through this box. What really happens is if you push it someone does die but you will also be the next to die because whoever pushes the button next is killing you. Oh and one more thing, by pushing the button eventually your child will become blind and deaf. The person who didn't push the button will then have to make a choice about either having to leave you alive and deal with the deaf and blind child or kill you and the child is fine again.

One of the things I always love about his movies are the hidden meanings. He loves to write stuff that's more than the obvious. Here is why I LIKED the movie.... It's a very interesting and brilliant way to write the story of mankind. The question is, are humans good or evil? For some reason all throughout history we always choose evil and the box is no exception. Everyone seems to push the damn button. Now are you ready to get really deep?

The alien dude is being controlled by Martians (or something like that) who are the true creators of mankind (see the X-Files). This is not a new theory and is more believable than some dude sitting around bored thinking shit up for six days and then gets tired and takes a break on the seventh. Anyway, in the Bible it says that man is created in God's image and so who is God exactly? If God is mankind’s creator than in this story the aliens are mankind’s true God and have the power to erase us from existence. So instead of just doing it they are performing tests to see if humans are worthy of existence. Every living creature serves a purpose to benefit the earth except for humans. We just destroy things over time and over populate until we get to the point where we will have to look for another planet to live on eventually. The aliens can see this and thus are giving us a chance to at least prove that we are not totally evil by using the box experiment. Of course we keep pushing the fucking button and because of that are eventually doomed.

But where have we seen this before? The Bible. Yes, this is Richard Kelley's way of telling the story of Adam and Eve (aka mankind) in his own clever and more creative way. You see just like the book of Genesis, God creates a tree with tempting fruit and tells them if you eat from this tree you die, but will then gain knowledge. Just as in this story, God (the aliens) tell the couple if you push this button someone will die (also because of that you will too), but you will then receive a lot of money. And just as it was written in Genesis, the woman is the one to do the evil deed and the man sits by and doesn't stop her. And just like in Genesis, God (the aliens) place a burden on both of them. In the bible it's child birth and hard work in the fields and in this story it's the death of the wife (mother) and the husband having to live his life without his wife and the knowledge that he murdered her and who will later probably will be subject to different tests himself in the future. (They eluded to that in the film as well)

So what's the moral of the story here? Humans are assholes and don't truly deserve to live on Earth. I like that moral and that's one of the main reasons why I liked the film. Now here are some things I didn't like about it... The characters seemed a bit empty and I didn't care about them all that much. Kelly's dialogue writing was not nearly as sharp and witty as it was in Donnie Darko and it seemed like he was trying to make it that way. Also, the film looked like it was shot on video and then had a blurred effect put on it. Dan said it was shot on film but I still don't know. It really looks like video to me and video can be a hit or miss. If it was shot on video it was a miss for me. If it wasn't then I really didn't like the way the effect looked then.

Lastly, there was a scene toward the end when two characters who were barely in the film explained the whole movie and it was obvious that scene was in there just for that. Now, that's not new but it's kind of a cheap way of story telling and it was a bit disappointing. I understand that the movie is crazy complicated, so i forgive it for that part.

Overall, I wanted to love it but ended up liking it instead. Just glad I liked it WAY more than Southland Tales!



From Dan:

First off, let me start off by saying that Donnie Darko is an excellent film that should have gotten more attention than it did/has. Secondly, Southland Tales sucks! There, that was just to show you I’m not biased when it comes to Richard Kelly films. Although, I have to admit that I did have high hopes in seeing The Box. Thankfully, my expectations were met.

The Box is one of those films that you will have to go back and watch again. The plot gets a little complicated, but not the point where you have no idea as to what’s going on. I’ve described it to friends as being a sci-fi thriller, but it’s more than that. At times the film adds some intense drama and horror to its mix - and for this I applaud Mr. Kelly.

Like D.Darko, Kelly gives us a tale set in the not so distant past that revolves around government conspiracies, science fiction, murder, powerful scenes of panic, and weird ass special effects. All in all, these factors combined make for a winning movie. The thing that I really like about The Box is that is set in the 70’s. It would have been so easy to set the film in the present... or God forbid the future, but it just wouldn’t have worked. I actually feel that Kelly is in his element when he makes movies set in the past - Darko in the 80’s & now The Box in the 70’s. He gets these timelines because he’s lived them and, from what I’ve seen, really focuses on details to make his versions of the past believable (maybe this is why Southland Tales - being set in the future - didn’t do it for me). Not once while watching this movie did I have that moment where you see today’s influences/styles on what is suppossed to be a story set in the past. Visually the movie looks great and I disagree with Troy. The blurriness of the film works - regardless of it being shot on video or not. The look just adds to it being a story set in the 1970’s. It also helped with blending the special effects a bit more. I hate it when the cgi is so obvious - Kelly did a good job of avoiding this.

I also disagree with Troy about the characters. I cared more about the characters in this film then I have in Kelly’s previous films. Don’t get me wrong D.Darko is an awesome character, but I didn’t care all that much if he died or not. For some reason the two leads (the parents) of The Box got to me and this really surprised me more so because the two actors portraying the mom & dad really have annoyed me in their previous films. Cameron Diaz & James Marsden are the two actors that normally I just can’t stand, but surprisingly they’re good in this! Way to go Richard! They actually came off believable as desperate parents and there was just something about them that I wanted to see them succeed in the end. However, as good as their characters were I still can’t get behind their reasoning for pushing the box’s button. Troy already explained what happens - push the button get at $1 million then a stranger dies. To me they weren’t poor enough to justify killing someone for the million. Sure they had some minor set backs in their careers, but it wasn’t anything so drastic that they HAD to kill to get money. I mean the dad (Marsden) works for NASA - are you telling me NASA doesn’t pay good money?!

Anyway, this minor point aside, The Box is a great film that, like Troy, I liked and didn't loved like Donnie Darko. The Box is completely different from anything else you’ll see in theaters now, visually it looks awesome, and has now officially made me afraid of ever going to a public library again. The film is definitely worth seeing.

Paranormal Activity Review

Well i guess it was just a matter of time for this one. I mean, it's supposed to be the scariest movie ever right? I am just looking for the scariest movie and never find it. I had mild hopes for this one because of the reviews.

Let me start by saying its a brilliant film. It's brilliant because it only costs 15,000 dollars to make and it's going to make hundreds of millions. It's also brilliant because it gets such a strong reaction out of people for almost no money. Saying that, i wasn't very scared. That may have more to do with me than anything but it has WAY to much hype. It was my favorite horror movie of this year until i just saw Saw VI which was a better film. Now before this movie i can't even remember a good horror film i saw this year so it doesn't have much competition. I guess drag me to hell came out this year. That was a lot of fun but really campy. This was more serious and while i liked what they did for the money i didn't love the movie. I don't want to give to much away but some of it was just ridiculous and not in a good way. The BEST parts were when she would stand over the bed. That was pretty creepy and good writing.

Overall, i did enjoy myself so i will give it a 6 out of 10. As far as what they were able to accomplish though it gets a 10 out of 10. I am sure we will see a bunch of these microbudget movies coming out and the rest will probably be terrible.

Antichrist Review

Here is my review...

Holy Shit!

Now if you have seen it here is a cool analysis of the film. THe thing i love about this film is everyone seems to have their own opinions on what the film is actually about. This woman makes some good points. ONLY READ IF YOU HAVE SEEN IT OR DONT CARE ABOUT SPOILERS!!!!

Lars von Trier is a tantalising film-director who provokes his audiences sometimes to the point of humiliation. He is also a master of visual theology. His Antichrist is the antithesis of Mel Gibson's tawdry and emotive The Passion of the Christ, offering as it does an exploration of the violent underbelly of the Christian story of sin and redemption. If Antichrist offers us any glimpse into the tortured psyche of its director, then it is a psyche sculpted around a visceral Catholicism of a much darker and more existentially credible kind than Gibson's lurid fantasies of crucifixion. A number of critics at the Cannes film festival derided von Trier for his dedication of Antichrist to Andrei Tarkovsky, and in doing so missed their affinity: for like the great Russian director, von Trier has a capacity to use the moving image as a celluloid icon through which to offer us glimpses into the depths of the Christian unconscious with its metaphysical terrors and yearnings.



In von Trier's Breaking the Waves, the female character Bess (Emily Watson) is a Christ-like figure, a disturbing representation of mysticism and madness who sacrifices her life to redeem the man she loves. It is a harrowing and controversial film, not least for the questions it raises about the extent to which Bess's prostitution and murder reinforce violent sexual stereotypes about female sexuality and martyrdom. Antichrist pushes these questions even further by asking us to contemplate what it would mean to portray woman not as a Christ figure but as Eve, who in the Christian theological tradition has been represented as the personification of evil and bringer of death to the world.

Tina Beattie is professor of Catholic studies at Roehampton University, England. Among her books are God's Mother, Eve's Advocate (Allen & Unwin, 2002), New Catholic Feminism: Theology and Theory (Routledge 2005), and The New Atheists: The War on Religion and the Twilight of Reason (Darton, Longman & Todd, 2007). Her website is here In the 2nd century, Tertullian wrote of women: "You are the devil's gateway: you are the unsealer of that (forbidden) tree: you are the first deserter of the divine law: you are she who persuaded him whom the devil was not valiant enough to attack. You destroyed so easily God's image, man. On account of your desert - that is, death - even the Son of God had to die." Von Trier takes his audience into the malevolent brew of these masculine beliefs and the havoc they wreak in women's lives.

The elusive source

Antichrist is an allegory of the Genesis myth which exposes the psychological terrors of Christian beliefs about the origins of sin. It draws its imagery not only from modern horror films but also from the teeming fears of medieval imaginations with their pervasive sense of evil and the power of Satan. The Antichrist of the film's title is everywhere and nowhere - a viscous and elusive presence that seeps through nature, including human nature, and infects it with futility, death and decay. The Antichrist is perhaps also the God-man himself, alluded to in the figure of the husband, whose misogynistic cult has sacrificed generations of women through persecution, burning and torture, while implanting in women themselves a deeply rooted sense of guilt and self-loathing.

The film opens with a prologue of exquisite pathos, filmed in black and white and played in slow motion to ethereal music (the Lascio Chi'o Pianga aria from Handel's Rinaldo - "Let me weep over my cruel fate, and that I long for freedom"). As the nameless protagonists (superbly played by Charlotte Gainsbourg and William Dafoe) make love, their toddler climbs out of his cot and down the stairs, briefly witnessing his parents' entwined bodies before falling to his death in the snow outside. Thus von Trier begins his exploration of the shadow side - the feminine side - of the Christian story of salvation, focusing on the Mary/Eve figure whose child must die to bring redemption to man; but at what cost to her? Also by Tina Beattie in openDemocracy:

"Pope Benedict XVI and Islam: beyond words" (17 September 2006)

"Veiling the issues: a distractive debate" (24 October 2006)

"Religion in Britain in the Blair era" (10 January 2007)

"Religion's cutting edge: lessons from Africa" (14 February 2007)

"The end of postmodernism: the ‘new atheists' and democracy" (20 December 2007)

"Rowan Williams and sharia law" (12 February 2007)

"The dark (k)night of a postmodern world" (21 August 2008)

"Along the precipice: visions of atheism in London" (6 November 2008)

"Banksy in Bristol" (24 June

Von Trier's woman is Madonna and whore, a tender and grieving pietà and a voracious and deadly seductress. In flashbacks we see how, the summer before her child's death, she had taken him to a cabin in a remote forest known as "Eden" to work on her doctoral thesis. Her topic was gynocide - a term coined by feminists to refer to the persecution and killing of women, particularly in the Christian tradition. As she studied she became convinced that the knowledge she sought was a lie, and that women really are guilty of the evil of which they have been accused. And so this young mother becomes von Trier's Eve, seeker of forbidden knowledge, bringer of death, bearer of the guilt of the human race, cause of the death of the Son of Man.

The husband is a therapist who decides to take control of his wife's rehabilitation, offering himself as her confessor and saviour as she plunges into the depths of inconsolable grief and madness over the death of her child. When she admits to him that she is terrified of the forest, he insists they go back there so that she can confront and rationalise her fears. Thus this human pair - Adam and Eve, everyman and everywoman - cross over a bridge which symbolises the boundary between culture and nature, reason and chaos, sanity and madness: the bridge into hell. The narrative of the film disintegrates as von Trier takes his archetypal western man of reason through the nightmares of his most repressed and irrational fears - the swamp of violent female sexuality and the savagery of nature.

There are several scenes where the husband tries to analyse his wife's fear of the forest. She tells him that her greatest fear is not the forest but something else. He draws a triangle and writes "Eden (garden)" near the top, leaving a question-mark in the top position as he tries to find a word for the real source of her fear. At one point, she tells him that nature is "Satan's Church', and he puts Satan in the top position. Then, as he discovers the depths of her sense of personal evil and blame, he puts the word "me" - her ultimate fear is herself - only to cross it out again. I was reminded of Paul Ricoeur's study of Genesis, in which he ponders on the pre-existence of evil in the Garden of Eden, suggesting that we find ourselves in a world in which evil precedes us as an unnameable mystery. The symbols of the fall pervade this film, but the serpent never appears. Whatever the source of evil, it has already done its work before we enter this poisoned Eden.



The gynocidal story

Lars von Trier made Antichrist during a time of deep depression, and his antipathy to therapists is well known. Yet his target here is not just the therapy industry, but the controlling power of the rational masculine mind which refuses to acknowledge the mystery of good and evil, the primal chaos of nature, and those aspects of human experience which are beyond language and the control of reason. If it is a condemnation of modern psychotherapy, the film is also an oblique homage to Sigmund Freud who dared to venture into the forest of our darkest and most haunted dreams.

A recurring motif is the three beggars who symbolise grief, pain and despair and who provide the chapter titles for the film which, like Breaking the Waves, has its narrative interrupted by title pages: Grief, Pain (Chaos Reigns), Despair (Gynocide) and The Three Beggars. It might be pushing the symbolism too far to suggest that these allude to the beggars in Russian folklore who, like Christ, offer wisdom and compassion through suffering - it is hard to find any redemptive message in von Trier's portrayal of suffering here. The epilogue has a repeat of the Handel aria but it offers a kitsch fantasy of redemption. The man - saviour turned murderer - is wounded but alive in an Eden apparently restored to its original goodness, while the women whose dismembered bodies have recently littered the forest floor rise up in a general resurrection. But it is an ironic and mocking ending.

Whatever the meaning of redemption, the mystery of evil remains, and von Trier seems to imply that no resurrection or return to Eden can erase the gynocidal story which precipitates the biblical drama. As the closing credits rolled, I for one was left wondering whether those women were supposed to represent the redeemed at the heavenly banquet, or a hoard of vengeful harpies about to set upon the solitary man.

The mother of sorrows

So what to make of this? Antichrist has been condemned for being misogynistic and anti-Christian, but I think this is simplistic. Perhaps von Trier is even pointing a finger at those critics who seek to deny the chtonian depths of the human psyche by their moral posturing. The woman in this film is a vengeful and violent force of nature, but the film invites another reading too. She is also the mater dolorosa, the mother of sorrows whose grief is too vast to be contained in a world dominated by the forces of objective and rationalising masculinity. The more the man seeks to control her, the more uncontrollable she becomes, mutating into the woman of Genesis who is condemned to bear her children in pain and longs for the husband who will lord it over her (Genesis 3:16), but whose child will also be the source of their redemption.

There is a scene when the woman describes hearing her son's voice crying in the forest. She goes in search of him but he seems to be nowhere and everywhere. Suddenly, the camera pans up so that we have a God's eye view, and the child's cry becomes the cry of a cosmic Christ, suffering for the sins of the world. This imagery is reinforced by the mother's subsequent discovery of her child, playing in the cabin with a piece of wood in a pose reminiscent of paintings of the young Christ in his father's carpentry workshop, foreshadowing the wood of the cross. Later, the woman will use that same piece of wood in a castrating attack on her husband, in one of the film's most disturbing and explicit scenes of sexual mutilation and abuse.

This Eve is not the passive victim of male control. She seeks vengeance, allowing her terror of abandonment and forsakenness to drive her to extremes of sadistic and masochistic violence as she seeks to entrap the man, so that audiences have been appalled by the brutality of the film. But that may be part of its oblique message. Audiences of horror films have an apparently insatiable appetite for the penetration, mutilation and murder of female bodies. Just like those medieval images of burning and tortured women, the cinema reveals us to be a gynocidal culture, accepting as normal the mutilation and abuse of women by men, but horrified when it is women who become the abusers.

The missing half

Nevertheless, one is left with the uneasy question as to whether von Trier simply adds to the catalogue of gynocidal horrors which he exposes. Ultimately, it is not the woman but the man who survives, as the crucified one becoming the crucifier, and the woman inflicts upon herself the most savage sexual punishment for the evil of which she stands accused in her own eyes.

These ambiguities are part of the film's disturbing potency. Von Trier peels away the veneer of a domesticated, civilised religion and shows us the human condition as it appears in the darker, more pessimistic aspects of the Christian tradition, suggesting a fall into evil which plunges man, woman and nature into a state of savage alienation and violence.

One can of course argue that this is a deeply distorted reading of Christianity, for the woman at the heart of that tradition is Mary, the New Eve, whose divine motherhood symbolises God's peace with creation and the goodness and grace of woman redeemed. Yet as many feminists point out, Mary has occupied a position of unique purity and holiness in the texts and traditions of Catholic Christianity, while all other women have been identified with Eve as a primordial force of nature, chaos and death which must be resisted and controlled by the rational masculine mind. Von Trier might only tell half the story, but it is the half which has too often been allowed to define the whole in the history of western religion and culture.

Among openDemocracy's essays on world cinema:

Rosemary Bechler, "All our (Gothic) yesterdays: the really special relationship" (25 April 2002)

Maryam Maruf, "Spider-man!" (31 October 2002)

Geoff Andrews, "The life and death of Pier Paolo Pasolini" (1 November 2005)

Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney, "Letters to the past: Iwo Jima and Japanese memory" (23 February 2007)

Stephen Howe, "A murderous muse: Idi Amin and The Last King of Scotland" (12 January 2007)

Maggie Gee, "Babel: worlds within worlds" (17 January 2007)

Birgitta Steene, "Ingmar Bergman and Sweden: an epoch's end" (6 August 2007)

Patrice de Beer, "Calle Santa Fé: between Chile and freedom" (16 January 2008)

Grace Davies, "One day of life: a Romanian odyssey" (13 March 2008)

Tarek Osman, "Youssef Chahine, the life-world of film" (29 July 2008)

Trick 'r Treat Review

So Warner Bros. finally released this movie. Looking at the poster above, you can see it was originally scheduled for 2007. The film went through some distribution troubles and got pushed back to October 2008 and then eventually just got canned all together. No reason has been given for why this happened. I even wrote an article over the summer asking what went wrong, but never found a definite answer. Some think that the creative team behind Trick r' Treat got a bad rap with the studio because they're the same team that made Superman Returns and Warner, not wanting to have another box office bomb on their hands, got nervous and just decided to hold onto the film for a while. Which is a shame because Trick 'r Treat is good film. The trailer looked awesome and I was really excited to see the movie. Well, I did see it and... it wasn't what I was expecting (in a good way).

Trick r' Treat is a film made up of 4 different stories that take place on Halloween night. Each story, although completely different from the other, manages to weave its way into the other so that the movie as a whole feels complete. I really liked this about the film and its something we haven't seen in the horror genre for a long time. One of the stories I felt was a little weak, but all in all not that bad. I guess it's hard to make everything fit in when you have so much going on. Visually, Trick r' Treat looks awesome. There's something about it that makes it feel fresh & unique and at the same time very vintage. It does a great job with the gore and effects. Both are pretty decent and there's a lot of each to satisfy your blood thirst. Watch the campfire scene and tell me that doesn't look cool!

True Blood fans will enjoy the film because of the somewhat ironic twist that it features with actress Anna Paquin (no, she's not a vampire). I don't know if the director intentionally did this with her character or its just a coincidence, but it's kind of funny what happens with her.

Overall Rating: See it and ask yourself how many other films with great potential get shelved by movie studios just because they think they won't make money from it.

100 worst movies of this decade!

RT worst of the decade!

Movie Remakes: When Is It Too Soon?

The idea of remaking a movie usually doesn't appeal to me. I think if it worked the first time, then why mess with it? That said, there are some really good remakes that come along and manage to outshine the original version. The best example of this is John Carpenter's The Thing. We could also argue over Zack Snyder's Dawn Of The Dead or Cameron Crowe's Vanilla Sky, but we'd be here forever.

Now, before I continue I just want to make it clear that I'm not referring to when studios totally revamp a film or franchise like with the latest Batman, Bond, or Bourne movies - those actually work for me. No, I'm talking about when someone gets it in their head to take something awesome and turn it into a complete disaster. This happens a lot with foreign films (although there are a number of American movies that get terribly remade: The Fog, Charlie & The Chocolate Factory, Carrie, and way too many more to list). Somehow the-movie-powers-that-be feel the need to Americanize everything and end up presenting audiences with the watered versions of some really great films. Watch 1998's Godzilla, The Ring 2, or The Wicker Man for examples and you'll see what I'm talking about.

I'm not completely against remakes. I just feel if your going to do it 1) Get it right & make it something unique and 2) Wait a while before remaking the original. This brings to me to my point for writing this article. I recently found out that 2 movies (both less than 10 yrs. old and reviewed/recommened on this blog) are now being remade. Oldboy and Let The Right One In are both scheduled to be released next year. What the hell? Now, I could comfort you by letting you know that Spielberg is handling Oldboy, but 2 things: 1) He already remade The War Of The Worlds and that was terrible 2) It stars Will Smith (what more needs to be explained about how bad this will be). The director of Cloverfield (a movie I loved) is doing the remake of Let The Right One In. He's a newer director so maybe he can pull it off, but it just feels too soon. I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong and in a 2010 I'll be writing a review on both films and about how good they were. Yeah, maybe.

Just incase your not upset yet at how the studios are messing around with really good films, here's a list of remakes ready to piss all over some of your favorites movies. Enjoy.

2010
The Evil Dead
Logan’s Run
The Host
The Karate Kid (now called the Kung Fu Kid and w/ Jackie Chan)
A Nightmare On Elm Street
The Warriors
The Thing - WTF!!! I just said this was one of the BEST remakes ever! Are they really going to remake a remake? My brains are falling out.


2011
Battle Royale
An American Werewolf in London
It
The Birds - You DON'T mess with Hitchcock!
Escape From New York - Will they please leave John Carpenter films alone?


TBA
Conan The Barbarian
Short Circuit
Dune
Weird Science
Top Gun - ?????????

Final Destination 3D Review

FD3 is pretty much what i expected, a stupid movie with basically no thought or effort behind it. Terrible script, crappy acting but the 3d made it somewhat watchable. If it were not in 3d it would be completely unwatchable. Need i say more? For some reason i don't even like FD movies but yet i have seen them all. Strange!

Inglorious Basterds Review

I am going to make this one short and sweet. This is the best movie of the year and maybe the best movie in the last two years. It's between this and The Wrestler. I need some time to think about which i liked better but Inglorious Bastards was awesome.
Everything was great about it. The writing as SUPERB, the acting the directing, the story line. If you like Pulp fiction you are going to love this. If you don't like Pulp Fiction you will hate this movie. It's pretty much like that with every QT movie. I personally think he is a film genius and this may be his best yet. A must see if you like great film making.

District 9 review

When i saw the trailer for this one i really didn't give a shit about it. Looked like a dumb sci fi movie to me. But a few days ago i was reading some reviews online and on RT and i couldn't believe the great reviews this was getting. So Irena and I went to see it this afternoon and i have to say it really does live up to the hype. It's a Sci fi action movie with a lot of heart and a realistic story line.

This movie was a made on a very small budget of 30 mil which is nothing for this kind of movie. The effects were some of the best i have ever seen. I don't know how they did it but whoever made this quality of work is incredible. I love the fact that there is no known actors in this. Sometimes i grow tired of seeing the same actors in every movie and when you don't know any of the actors it can sometimes be more realistic, as long as the acting is good (which it is.)

The Movie has something for everyone except it's probably not suitable for kids. There is a lot of language and violence but if you don't care about that than by all means take your kids!!! This is one of the best Sci fi films in a long while and we have been in a serious lack of good ones in recent years. I haven't seen Moon yet but i hear thats great also. Recommend this one for sure.