We all know Kevin Smith likes to look himself up on the internet. His geek-critics then come in for some stick in his movies. Here's a quote that Kevin should be able to understand: "Zack and Miri Make a Porno is f****** lowest denominator sh*te. It's predictable, poorly plotted, badly scripted, and features several painfully life-changing shots of Jason Mewes' ass, cock and balls. Please cut off my penis, boil my balls, and saute the whole thing before force-feeding it to me with a nice glass of jizz-shake and a handful of salty nuts rather than make me watch this complete waste of life minutes again."
Okay, that’s an over-exaggeration but it gives you an idea of where this film is coming from. It’s made for a very specific audience, and it’s certainly not in the same mould as the director’s more restrained effort “Jersey Girl”. Here Zack and Miri are two friends who live together in an apartment that has just had its power and water cut off because they failed to pay the bills. Meeting a couple of gay porn actors (as you do) at a just-so-convenient high school shindig (one of which is Justin Long in a brilliant cameo), the two happen upon the idea of shagging each other on camera to make money.
Ultimately, the film is about two close friends the audience know are made for each other but who have failed to cotton on to the idea themselves. It’s obvious from the get-go so the story relies on its characters and the comedy to keep you from twenty winks. And at times the film is funny – in a crude, nonsensical way. But you can’t really like these characters too much because they are so dumb. They are broke yet spend money on an overtly elaborate porn film with sets, costumes, and lighting. With perennial dick-stroker Zack (Seth Rogan), whose knowledge of current sex industry trends includes the purchase of the ‘Fleshlight’ for added self-gratification, you’d think they’d realise that expensive set-dressed cinematic sex is soooo-1970s. For two completely broke individuals wanting to make porn in the 21st century things couldn’t be easier or cheaper. In fact, they wouldn’t even need a camera. They could simply record a few minutes of reality-porn on a camera-phone! They even miss a trick with Miri’s granny-pants video receiving 200,000 hits less than an hour after going online. Stick some google ads on there and they’ll have no trouble paying next month’s rent bill.
“Zack and Miri Make a Porno” is crude, predictable, and made for a very distinct audience. Unlike Smith’s View Askew universe, these characters don’t have the vitality of his earlier work, and the film suffers for it.
Strange Conversation says: 3/10
Friday 22 January 2010
Thursday 5 November 2009
Top 10 Science-Fiction Horror Films
What are your favorite science-fiction horror movies? Do you love/hate the genre? Do you think David Cronenberg is the best sci-fi horror film director? Is Alien really the best sci-fi horror? Find out HERE - comment, discuss, create your own top 5, 10 or 20 and post it on www.top10films.co.uk
Thursday 22 October 2009
Top10Films.co.uk
I'm currently working on my new website www.Top10Films.co.uk which can be accessed HERE. I am currently wokring on building the site but there's new stuff appearing everyday. Any suggestions would be welcome.
Monday 2 March 2009
Cronenberg is like fine wine: he gets better with age
Eastern Promises (David Cronenberg, UK/Canada, 2007)
Dir. David Cronenberg; starring Naomi Watts, Viggo Mortensen
David Cronenberg is like fine wine: he gets better with age. His early genius saw his anger and obsession portrayed in his body images and visual dysfunctions of human life. His films (which became known as the sub-genre Body Horror) had at their core sexual frustration and experimentation, a bleak but open look on the future of life as we know it, and the type of edgy, youthful angst and creative freedom only available to young, up-start directors untainted by the Hollywood machine.
Indeed, Cronenberg throughout his career, would steer clear of Hollywood intervention - both financially and geographically. His films have remained low-budget and financed by independent production companies. And he's shot many of them away from the allures of Los Angeles: predominantly staying in his homeland Canada or more recently shooting in England.
His early work was graphic and affecting. Many remember the exploding head in Scanners, the worm-like rape in the bath tub in Shivers, or James Woods pulling a gun out of his stomach in Videodrome. Cronenberg films were unique: they simultaneously examined our worst fears and our most rampant desires. He gave the horror film world depth largely unseen before, while developing a niche for his own whim to discover over the following years.
But, like most youthful endeavours, Cronenberg was still learning to hone his craft in films like Shivers, Rabid, and Scanners. Videodrome was littered with great moments, while The Brood showed the director had style to go with his ideas. It wasn't until 1986's The Fly, starring Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis, that he hit the mainstream. The Fly, which married Cronenberg's inherent fascination with the disfigurement of the human body and a bigger budget and recognised actors, put the director firmly in the minds of not only horror aficionados but movie-lovers of all kinds.
Yet I've always felt, aside from the brilliant Dead Ringers (arguably his best film) in 1988, he hasn't always found a way for his characters to fully blossom amongst his more prevalent themes and symbolism. This was down to an inability to coax the best performances out of his actors, but this was more easily rectified when he began employing more experienced performers. It was a problem with his early films and has affected later films too. However, recently, with Spider, A History of Violence and Eastern... [READ FULL REVIEW HERE]
Dir. David Cronenberg; starring Naomi Watts, Viggo Mortensen
David Cronenberg is like fine wine: he gets better with age. His early genius saw his anger and obsession portrayed in his body images and visual dysfunctions of human life. His films (which became known as the sub-genre Body Horror) had at their core sexual frustration and experimentation, a bleak but open look on the future of life as we know it, and the type of edgy, youthful angst and creative freedom only available to young, up-start directors untainted by the Hollywood machine.
Indeed, Cronenberg throughout his career, would steer clear of Hollywood intervention - both financially and geographically. His films have remained low-budget and financed by independent production companies. And he's shot many of them away from the allures of Los Angeles: predominantly staying in his homeland Canada or more recently shooting in England.
His early work was graphic and affecting. Many remember the exploding head in Scanners, the worm-like rape in the bath tub in Shivers, or James Woods pulling a gun out of his stomach in Videodrome. Cronenberg films were unique: they simultaneously examined our worst fears and our most rampant desires. He gave the horror film world depth largely unseen before, while developing a niche for his own whim to discover over the following years.
But, like most youthful endeavours, Cronenberg was still learning to hone his craft in films like Shivers, Rabid, and Scanners. Videodrome was littered with great moments, while The Brood showed the director had style to go with his ideas. It wasn't until 1986's The Fly, starring Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis, that he hit the mainstream. The Fly, which married Cronenberg's inherent fascination with the disfigurement of the human body and a bigger budget and recognised actors, put the director firmly in the minds of not only horror aficionados but movie-lovers of all kinds.
Yet I've always felt, aside from the brilliant Dead Ringers (arguably his best film) in 1988, he hasn't always found a way for his characters to fully blossom amongst his more prevalent themes and symbolism. This was down to an inability to coax the best performances out of his actors, but this was more easily rectified when he began employing more experienced performers. It was a problem with his early films and has affected later films too. However, recently, with Spider, A History of Violence and Eastern... [READ FULL REVIEW HERE]
Saturday 28 February 2009
Halloween 1978 v Halloween 2007: No Contest!
Aside from the great gulf in quality between John Carpenter's classic 1978 slasher and Rob Zombie's post-Scream back story-cum-remake, the new film couldn't be more different from the original.
The original Halloween was a benchmark in horror. It set new standards that would become convention in movies that followed like Friday The 13th and A Nightmare On Elm Street. Heavily influenced by Bob Clark's Black Christmas, Halloween became the trend-setter of slasher movie lore. Essentially, to remake Halloween - a classic film loved by so many - was an impossible task. It's like trying to remake Citizen Kane or The Godfather: you'd be fighting a losing battle.
Halloween circa 2007 is more a quick-fix marketing ploy, intended to hit a ready-made audience than an artistic cinematic endeavour. Employing the limited talents of Rob Zombie - the pin-up of MTV generation trash - to not only write but direct the new film, indicated the studio (read: the Weinsteins') weren't interested in remaking quality just inventing box office profit.
I suppose you can give the movie's producers credit for providing viewers with something new. Every remake, after all, has to add something to up the ante (that's why I've always ignored Gus Van Sant's shot-for-shot remake of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho). Halloween 07 adds back story to Michael Myers. Unfortunately, back story to one of the genre's most iconic and frightening monsters is the worst thing you could have done for the series. Would The Exorcist be more interesting, indeed more effective, if we knew the entire history of the demonic presence possessing Regan? Of course, not.
The new Halloween neglects to acknowledge what made the original so effective. This is, without doubt, the film's cardinal sin. What made Michael Myers such a frightening character was the lack of reason in his monstrous actions: the idea that terror can come from anywhere - indeed, from the secure, middle-class family home. Zombie's back story makes a mockery of the working class, depicting Myers as a product of a broken family home: his anger built on years of abuse and neglect from his father. But the frightening aspect of the original Michael Myers is the sense that his killing is based on uncontrollable evil that even he has no power over. The new Michael Myers is just a deeply trouble psychopath with a brutal distaste for the family that failed him.
The new film differs from the original completely in the first half. We see Michael Myers in a difficult...[Read full article HERE]
CLICK HERE to Read my full review of Rob Zombie's Halloween remake
The original Halloween was a benchmark in horror. It set new standards that would become convention in movies that followed like Friday The 13th and A Nightmare On Elm Street. Heavily influenced by Bob Clark's Black Christmas, Halloween became the trend-setter of slasher movie lore. Essentially, to remake Halloween - a classic film loved by so many - was an impossible task. It's like trying to remake Citizen Kane or The Godfather: you'd be fighting a losing battle.
Halloween circa 2007 is more a quick-fix marketing ploy, intended to hit a ready-made audience than an artistic cinematic endeavour. Employing the limited talents of Rob Zombie - the pin-up of MTV generation trash - to not only write but direct the new film, indicated the studio (read: the Weinsteins') weren't interested in remaking quality just inventing box office profit.
I suppose you can give the movie's producers credit for providing viewers with something new. Every remake, after all, has to add something to up the ante (that's why I've always ignored Gus Van Sant's shot-for-shot remake of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho). Halloween 07 adds back story to Michael Myers. Unfortunately, back story to one of the genre's most iconic and frightening monsters is the worst thing you could have done for the series. Would The Exorcist be more interesting, indeed more effective, if we knew the entire history of the demonic presence possessing Regan? Of course, not.
The new Halloween neglects to acknowledge what made the original so effective. This is, without doubt, the film's cardinal sin. What made Michael Myers such a frightening character was the lack of reason in his monstrous actions: the idea that terror can come from anywhere - indeed, from the secure, middle-class family home. Zombie's back story makes a mockery of the working class, depicting Myers as a product of a broken family home: his anger built on years of abuse and neglect from his father. But the frightening aspect of the original Michael Myers is the sense that his killing is based on uncontrollable evil that even he has no power over. The new Michael Myers is just a deeply trouble psychopath with a brutal distaste for the family that failed him.
The new film differs from the original completely in the first half. We see Michael Myers in a difficult...[Read full article HERE]
CLICK HERE to Read my full review of Rob Zombie's Halloween remake
Rob Zombie's new Halloween is terrifying for all the wrong reasons
If there's one thing you learn from watching Rob Zombie movies apart from what your insides look like, it's: don't watch Rob Zombie movies. Zombie is the picture postcard of MTV-generation trash that has spilled into the cinematic mainstream. His films are eye-candy to the uninitiated (or should that be uneducated), appealing largely, and unfortunately, to the mass teen market bred on quick-fixes, episodic action-orientated TV shows, and, seemingly, naked girls.
It's a shame Zombie should turn his creative-eye to the Halloween franchise. It would appear that, even though the series hardly requires any more instalments, Hollywood (more precisely, the Weinsteins) is happy to tread well-worn ground in the hope of appealing to a ready-made audience. The series as a whole had already lost much of the shine made by John Carpenter. His Halloween film from 1978 was not only one of the greatest horror movies ever made, but a defining moment in horror movie lore. Some of the sequels were also entertaining in their own right, especially Jamie Lee Curtis' return to scream-queen action in Halloween H20, but as more and more movies came out, Michael Myers became just another hokey anti-hero in the mould of Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees.
Why make another is a question for the marketers. Since there seemed little more to add to the continuing story, somewhere along the line Zombie must have had the thought: remake the classic original. What he didn't take into consideration was: remaking a film known and loved by so many is almost impossible. He also forgot to remember (probably on purpose) he didn't have the writing or directing talent to make it work.
In Zombie's remake, we begin by witnessing the would-be killer in childhood, living with his abusive father. Myers is an understandably troubled child, locking himself in the bathroom where he dissects the family pet. He's also getting into trouble at school, and, unfortunately for one school bully, beats him dead with a tree branch. After killing his father and sister, he's... [Read Full REVIEW HERE]
It's a shame Zombie should turn his creative-eye to the Halloween franchise. It would appear that, even though the series hardly requires any more instalments, Hollywood (more precisely, the Weinsteins) is happy to tread well-worn ground in the hope of appealing to a ready-made audience. The series as a whole had already lost much of the shine made by John Carpenter. His Halloween film from 1978 was not only one of the greatest horror movies ever made, but a defining moment in horror movie lore. Some of the sequels were also entertaining in their own right, especially Jamie Lee Curtis' return to scream-queen action in Halloween H20, but as more and more movies came out, Michael Myers became just another hokey anti-hero in the mould of Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees.
Why make another is a question for the marketers. Since there seemed little more to add to the continuing story, somewhere along the line Zombie must have had the thought: remake the classic original. What he didn't take into consideration was: remaking a film known and loved by so many is almost impossible. He also forgot to remember (probably on purpose) he didn't have the writing or directing talent to make it work.
In Zombie's remake, we begin by witnessing the would-be killer in childhood, living with his abusive father. Myers is an understandably troubled child, locking himself in the bathroom where he dissects the family pet. He's also getting into trouble at school, and, unfortunately for one school bully, beats him dead with a tree branch. After killing his father and sister, he's... [Read Full REVIEW HERE]
Wednesday 25 February 2009
Ridley Scott's Alien changed the face of science-fiction forever
My introduction to Ridley Scott's space opus came sometime after being bowled over by James Cameron's sequel. I guess it must have been around 1990, before David Fincher released the third instalment of the Alien saga. My ignorance of Scott's sci-fi horror had to do with the fact I wasn't born when it was first released in 1979, and partly because my mother had withheld the video from her impressionable son's eyes; possibly fearing permanent psychological damage. This fear didn't last long, since my determination to witness the Alien's first cinematic adventure far outweighed her parental guidance. Coupled with the fact Alien was one of my Mum's favourite movies, it wasn't long before I was another devoted fan of Alien, Ripley, and the space-horror franchise. And, for the sake of not undermining my mother, I can safely say there was no psychological damage causedat least, that's what my shrink tells me.
My first impression of Alien was one that appears the going trend. Quite honestly, it was one of the most frightening experiences of my movie watching life. Director Ridley Scott concocts a claustrophobic, uncompromising cinematic experience that bottles up all that is good about the haunted house movie and delivers it with teeth sharp enough to cut through the screen and take your arms and legs off. From the minute the opening credit sequence starts (bringing you out of your home comforts - that include a reassuring open fire and a locked door - into the unending expanse of outer space), the hieroglyphic letters appearing slowly and methodically onscreen offering no sense of hope, you're left exposed, alone, vulnerable.
Alien was developed in the mid-1970s, the brainchild of film school graduate Dan O'Bannon. O'Bannon had worked with John Carpenter on what would become simultaneously the most successful student film and the worst professional film ever released theatrically - Dark Star. The film, a precursor to O'Bannon's Alien, saw a group of astronauts bidding to stay alive aboard a spacecraft housing a rather nasty but ultimately timid looking alien creature. After O'Bannon left film school and saw his next project fall flat on its face, he turned to friend and producer Ronald Shusett for help. Together, they fleshed out O'Bannon's concept and started shopping it [full review HERE]
My first impression of Alien was one that appears the going trend. Quite honestly, it was one of the most frightening experiences of my movie watching life. Director Ridley Scott concocts a claustrophobic, uncompromising cinematic experience that bottles up all that is good about the haunted house movie and delivers it with teeth sharp enough to cut through the screen and take your arms and legs off. From the minute the opening credit sequence starts (bringing you out of your home comforts - that include a reassuring open fire and a locked door - into the unending expanse of outer space), the hieroglyphic letters appearing slowly and methodically onscreen offering no sense of hope, you're left exposed, alone, vulnerable.
Alien was developed in the mid-1970s, the brainchild of film school graduate Dan O'Bannon. O'Bannon had worked with John Carpenter on what would become simultaneously the most successful student film and the worst professional film ever released theatrically - Dark Star. The film, a precursor to O'Bannon's Alien, saw a group of astronauts bidding to stay alive aboard a spacecraft housing a rather nasty but ultimately timid looking alien creature. After O'Bannon left film school and saw his next project fall flat on its face, he turned to friend and producer Ronald Shusett for help. Together, they fleshed out O'Bannon's concept and started shopping it [full review HERE]
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