this week and the last i've been going through a bit of a slasher-flick-athon ... of sorts

First i watched Saw I through to V.  The main context here is very similar to the film se7en.  the "killer", an embittered cancer patient, doesn't directly kills his victims.  he instead puts them in situations (read torture traps) which will result in their gruesome death, unless they pass his test ie show they value and appreciate their life enough that they are willing to play the game to survive.  what that involves varies from self-inflicted mutilation, disfiguring, severing of limbs, crushing of bones etc to finding ways to kill others and such.

to cut a long story short, the dogmatic/didactic aspects of the series get very tiring quite fast but it's enjoyable to watch for some of the death traps as those can be quite creative.  i watched them all in quick succession so it's a bit of a muddled mess but i think the better ones were II and III.  part V was so bad that i may not have watched it until the end and it left me not wanting to watch VI.

Then i moved on to Hostel I and II created by Eli Roth.  These movies are supposed to be a satire of the phenomenon of american college kids "doing" europe seeking sex and drugs and cheap thrills.  after watching them though my opinion is that, the "satire" is just an excuse for making two voyeuristic soft-porn movies with some medieval torture in for good measure.  Right quick just in case anyone is interested (and has not seen them) the premise is the following.  there is this hostel in slovakia in some forsaken medieval village outside bratislava which traps backpackers (with the help of former soviet sexy she-devil succubi temptresses) and they auction them online for the highest bidder to get to have their way with them in a dungeon with all kinds of implements of torture and then kill them in any way they choose.  pretty wild ha?  yeah the films are even touted by tarantino himself.  truth is, they're shite.

Tonight i watched the australian "wolf-creek", about a road trip of two british girls and an australian city boy in the australian outback ... which turns into a nightmare thanks to some "local hospitality"  This was easily the best of the lot.  Actually it's not even fair to compare it to the other trash as this is actually a well made film which leaves a real impression.  The movie is supposedly based on actual events, but i'm never sure what that means, ie i don't know if it's a true story or whether the premise somewhat resembles something that happened.  at the start of it though there is also a pretty shocking statistic; 30 000 people are reported missing every year in australia and 10% of those are never seen again.  that is very scary in and of itself. 

so the movie starts off pretty slowly.  shows the three friends partying, drinking, smoking pot etc slowly getting ready for their big trip to see the meteor crater at wolf creek.  before they arrive there they stop to fill up their tank at an ill-fated service station where they are spotted and targeted by their tormentor to be.  things start going awry when they try to leave wolf creek as their car breaks down.  they then get picked up by a local hunter crocodile dundee type who offers to take them with him and fix their car and since their mother never told them to beware the kindness of strangers, they accept his proposition and their nightmare starts that evening after they get taken back to his.

very good movie as it is actually quite believable although i'm sure many people have said/will say that this is just to give a bad image to australian desert people the way people said "deliverance" was made to give appalachian mountain people a bad image.

another great thing about wolf creek is the soundtrack.  there are some very beautifully sad orchestral passages which are very affecting.

i may watch more slasher-flicks in the following days as i'm not sure i am done with my spree so i will post here about it in case anybody has any interest

I have been wanting to write a review of Revenge of the Sith for some time now, but I could not be arsed until now. 

Vader (our Vader, the hairy Miami one, not the one that looks like a duck with severe Asthma) might tell you that the Revenge of the Sith is a good maybe even great movie. Ain't it cute, BUT IT'S WRONG!

I will tell you guys why the movie is utter shite in the following ways. First I will critique the story and the characters, then I will critique the "acting" if you can call it that and finally the action. Let's get started

Story and characters

The story is about Anakin's decent into darkness. Here we will learn why he became Darth Vader. Anakin's motivation is to protect his wife Padme. Anakin has visions of her dying during child birth. So it would make sense for him to try to protect her. But how does the desire to protect you wife suddenly turn you into a kid murdering monster? Why would Anakin want to rule the universe together with Padme? That would not lead to her being safe? I mean you would just put a huge target over her head. The switch from trying to protect his wife to suddenly wanting to rule the universe is a illogical one. It does not make sense at all. Which is especially bad when the whole point of the movie is to show how Anakin turned into Darth Vader.

Acting 

Anakin is played by the Hayden Christensen, but to be brutally honest, he might as well be plated by a sock puppet. Anakin is supposed to be this tormented soul, but Hayden makes it look like a unemotional robot on crack. An actor must be believable, I must believe the guy, with Hayden I believe he had taken one too many sleep pills and is just reading a fucking Autocue. 

Action

When it comes to hard Science Fiction even the original trilogy (episode 4, 5 and 6) were light on content. But that did not matter much, the action scenes, the excitement was here. The prequels lacked that, you have these big scenes where lots of stuff happen, but it is so impersonal. The original trilogy you had these scenes that followed a rebel pilot in a dog fight. You had him dodging, shooting, crying for help and dying. In the prequels you have one giant group attacking another giant group, then one gains the upper hand, then another get reinforcements and wins. Meh.

I did not find excitement in the action scenes in the Revenge of the Sith either

So in conclusion this movie sets out to show how Anakin transforms into Darth Vader. It fails hard because of bad acting and bad script. 

1/5 stars.

Foolz said:

Boo-urns indeed.

Crazy putting revenge of the sith about a new hope, though!

I love A New Hope but I wasn't around when it was released so that magic people had of watching it for the first time, I don't have. It's an excellent adventure movie but it's missing the meat of the story. It wasn't until Empire where the Star Wars universe really starts to get fleshed out and the overall story comes into view. It's an excellent movie but it's a bit too simple for my tastes.

Dvader said:

Did you see it yet, I want to use gifs.

Yes, I even posted a gif. Iga hasn't seen it apparenlty, though.

Maybe you cosmopolitan folks can help me out.

I was watching the Final Four live and in between ads and time-outs I came across this german language film that was shot extremely well on SBS.  It was fairly modern, very flashy, would make a great game or manga.  It was about a German TV executive who was very successful at making reality shows of the basest kind.  

He was very, very addicted to cocaine as well.  There is an amazing scene where he drives a Porsche at high speed through a city, almost killing himself.  Meanwhile, this sexy broad who lives in the forest decides she is going to kill him for the good of culture.  She deliberately crashes into his car, sending both of them to hospital for many months.  As soon as he is able to walk, he goes to her room and tells her, "You cannot hate me more than I hate myself".

After recovering, he decides not to make reality shows any more and instead tries his hand at making serious current affairs shows addressing major issues that he feels society should be addressing.  He then realizes that the ratings system is fixed, and there is a conspiracy to dumb down TV -- an opiate of the masses type thing.  Together with the young lady, and soon the help of a conspiracy theorist security guard they begin to invesitgate the ratings system...

And that's when I fell asleep on the couch.

Anyone know what this is?  It was really well done.