Corn
Director: Dave Silver
Released: 2004
My Analysis: Not good at all.
This one is really pretty bad. Not unwatchable, though - it has pretty good acting (stars Jena Malone) and actually isn't half bad for a good stretch right there at the beginning. But it's all for naught - the film suffers an irreversible collapse about an hour in.
This film is eco-horror. I'm a little skeptical, but eco-horror has a long tradition. Godzilla was eco-horror. So was The Blob. Hell, you could argue that Poltergeist was eco-horror. There's a lot you can do with the genera. This film, though, doesn't actually do any of it.
The basic premise of the film is that genetically modified corn has gene swapped with a common weed which is then eaten by sheep. The sheep become violent - bity and aggressive. There's some potential there - we saw a preview for Black Sheep, and it looks pretty good. So the film could have run with the dangerous sheep thing. But it doesn't.
Apparently the director decided they could do better than scary angry carnivorous sheep with nasty sharp teeth. Even more scary, they must have thought, would be lambs that - if you ate them - might tend to increase the risk of certain birth defects.
I, personally, find the threat of a possibly tainted food supply slightly less immediate and visceral than the potential to be eaten alive by mutant sheep, but I'm prepared to play along. Unfortunately, what little tension might exists is undermined by the fact that the entire threat - the connection between the GM corn and the weed, the connection between the weed and the sheep behavior, and the connection between the sheep and the birth defects (all 3 cases) - is based entirely on the gut feelings of the main character.
Interwoven with this mostly incoherent and unconvincing eco-horror plot is a subtle but no less incoherent, unconvincing narrative about the main character's relationship with her step father. It's deeply weird. Up until the last 15 minutes of the film or so I thought there was going to be some surprise ending where we discover that the character's fixation on sheep and GM corn was a symptom of some sinister and mysterious condition caused by some awful repressed memory involving her dead mother. Or something.
So, no - don't watch this film. Not worth your time.
Btw - at some point I'll post things at aren't movie reviews. I swear.
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Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
The Grand Panjandrum
Trolling about this afternoon I encountered the term panjandrum. Perplex, I took to googling. I encountered this wikipedia article, but it didn't sound quite right. On further investigation, I found this lovely block of text:
Fascinating, I say. Apparently (click through on the 2nd link) it was extemporaneously composed as a part of a memory challenge - it was supposed to be read once and then repeated verbatim. Unfortunately, the other party to the challenge found the text so idiotic he refused to repeat it.
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So she went into the garden to cut a cabbage-leaf to make an apple-pie; and at the same time a great she-bear, coming up the street, pops its head into the shop. “What! No soap?” So he died, and she very imprudently married the barber; and there were present the Picninnies, and the Joblillies, and the Garyulies, and the grand Panjandrum himself, with the little round button at top, and they all fell to playing the game of catch as catch can till the gunpowder ran out at the heels of their boots.
Fascinating, I say. Apparently (click through on the 2nd link) it was extemporaneously composed as a part of a memory challenge - it was supposed to be read once and then repeated verbatim. Unfortunately, the other party to the challenge found the text so idiotic he refused to repeat it.
Read more!
Movie Review: The Hamiltons
The Hamiltons
Director: Mitchell Altieri & Phil Flores
Released: 2006
My Analysis: Really fantastic.
This film is going to be difficult to talk about without spoiling it to some extent. I'd rather not spoil it, because it is one of the best horror films I've seen in quite some time. Certainly one of the best 5 or so I've watched in the last year. So - maybe you shouldn't read this. Maybe you should go watch the film.
The Hamiltons has a distinctly indie-film tone to it - very coming-of-age family movie. Maybe something like Little Miss Sunshine or something. This tone is jarringly incongruous since the opening credits play over a scene of a girl hog tied in a basement somewhere.
Francis Hamilton, the main character, is a troubled teenager. His parents died some time ago and he's been living with his older siblings ever since. They had to sell the family farm and they've moved six times in the last year.
The bit about moving six times in the last year is just sorta slipped in there. There's no explanation given, except that one of the brothers (Wendel) recently spent some time in jail for "biting some guy's ear off."
The coming-of-age tone is sustained throughout the film, but you quickly realize that something strange is going on. Wendel attacks a couple of road tripping young ladies and ties them up in the basement. Frances and then the oldest brother David both see this and don't react much at all. In fact, David seems pretty pleased about it.
Well, anyway - long story short. They're vampires. It isn't quite clear exactly how things went for them when their parents were around, but apparently their parents had a pretty fancy scheme for dealing with the whole vampire thing without having to constantly sneak out of town and go into hiding. Since their parents died the siblings haven't been able to keep it together. They wind up killing transients, random folks, and eventually people in their neighborhood. At some point they have to leave town, change their name, and relocate.
Frances is horrified by all this. He considers exposing his sibling to the police but can't quite bring himself to betray his family. Until, of course, the blood hunger whatsit come on him, as apparently is common with late teenage vampires. After his first feeding, he is at peace with himself and his family.
The effect is one of deep, deep alienation. Frances asserts that he and his siblings are sick, diseased. While he does come to terms with this, the cost is cutting himself (and his family) off from the rest of humanity. I'm real found of alienation films, and this one take the genre to a whole new level.
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Director: Mitchell Altieri & Phil Flores
Released: 2006
My Analysis: Really fantastic.
This film is going to be difficult to talk about without spoiling it to some extent. I'd rather not spoil it, because it is one of the best horror films I've seen in quite some time. Certainly one of the best 5 or so I've watched in the last year. So - maybe you shouldn't read this. Maybe you should go watch the film.
The Hamiltons has a distinctly indie-film tone to it - very coming-of-age family movie. Maybe something like Little Miss Sunshine or something. This tone is jarringly incongruous since the opening credits play over a scene of a girl hog tied in a basement somewhere.
Francis Hamilton, the main character, is a troubled teenager. His parents died some time ago and he's been living with his older siblings ever since. They had to sell the family farm and they've moved six times in the last year.
The bit about moving six times in the last year is just sorta slipped in there. There's no explanation given, except that one of the brothers (Wendel) recently spent some time in jail for "biting some guy's ear off."
The coming-of-age tone is sustained throughout the film, but you quickly realize that something strange is going on. Wendel attacks a couple of road tripping young ladies and ties them up in the basement. Frances and then the oldest brother David both see this and don't react much at all. In fact, David seems pretty pleased about it.
Well, anyway - long story short. They're vampires. It isn't quite clear exactly how things went for them when their parents were around, but apparently their parents had a pretty fancy scheme for dealing with the whole vampire thing without having to constantly sneak out of town and go into hiding. Since their parents died the siblings haven't been able to keep it together. They wind up killing transients, random folks, and eventually people in their neighborhood. At some point they have to leave town, change their name, and relocate.
Frances is horrified by all this. He considers exposing his sibling to the police but can't quite bring himself to betray his family. Until, of course, the blood hunger whatsit come on him, as apparently is common with late teenage vampires. After his first feeding, he is at peace with himself and his family.
The effect is one of deep, deep alienation. Frances asserts that he and his siblings are sick, diseased. While he does come to terms with this, the cost is cutting himself (and his family) off from the rest of humanity. I'm real found of alienation films, and this one take the genre to a whole new level.
Read more!
Monday, May 19, 2008
Movie Review: The Machinist
The Machinist
Director: Brad Anderson
Release: 2004
My Analysis: A snappy thriller with a clever twist.
Hmm ... I don't want to get too bogged down in details here. There's this machinist, see - actually, it looks like he isn't a machinist so much as a blue collar guy with a job in manufacturing. Some sort of operator, I'd guess. I mean to say, it doesn't look like he works in a machine shop per se. Nor is he a mechanic. I can see why you'd think he was a machinist, but really ...
Right, that's exactly the kind of detail I'm trying to avoid. The guy's name is Trevor Reznick, and he isn't doing well at all. He's obscenely skinny. He's an insomniac. Apparently he used to go good-timing around with the fellas from work, but he doesn't go anymore. All of this started about a year ago ...
That's really all you need to know - something awful, clearly, happened to poor Trevor about a year ago and he hasn't had it all together since. Since he isn't aware of what, exactly, is causing his insomnia, etc we can assume he's blocking it out. From there, the film pretty much writes itself, with only a little help from our friend Mr. Freud.
Anyway, a pretty decent film. Not 'scary' really, but not bad either. If some one asks me "So, what worth-while films have you watched recently?", I might mention this one. Really.
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Director: Brad Anderson
Release: 2004
My Analysis: A snappy thriller with a clever twist.
Hmm ... I don't want to get too bogged down in details here. There's this machinist, see - actually, it looks like he isn't a machinist so much as a blue collar guy with a job in manufacturing. Some sort of operator, I'd guess. I mean to say, it doesn't look like he works in a machine shop per se. Nor is he a mechanic. I can see why you'd think he was a machinist, but really ...
Right, that's exactly the kind of detail I'm trying to avoid. The guy's name is Trevor Reznick, and he isn't doing well at all. He's obscenely skinny. He's an insomniac. Apparently he used to go good-timing around with the fellas from work, but he doesn't go anymore. All of this started about a year ago ...
That's really all you need to know - something awful, clearly, happened to poor Trevor about a year ago and he hasn't had it all together since. Since he isn't aware of what, exactly, is causing his insomnia, etc we can assume he's blocking it out. From there, the film pretty much writes itself, with only a little help from our friend Mr. Freud.
Anyway, a pretty decent film. Not 'scary' really, but not bad either. If some one asks me "So, what worth-while films have you watched recently?", I might mention this one. Really.
Read more!
Movie Review: Unrest
Unrest
Director: Jason Todd Ipson
Released: 2007
My analysis: Not good at all.
A first year medical student has a profound reaction to the cadaver she is assigned to in Gross Anatomy. The exact nature of this reaction is never revealed - she doesn't have visions or enter an altered state of consciousness or experience physical symptoms. From the available evidence, it would seem that she's just really creeped out.
Anyway, she get really creeped out. She consults with some (unidentified) school official who encourages her to share her concerns about the creepy corpse with her anatomy professor, who justifiably laughs in her face. There is a string of murders. The anatomy professor cuts his own leg off with a reciprocating saw, and the med student heroically incinerates the scary cadaver.
The plot is generally incoherent. The tone of the movie has far too much in common with med school sitcoms like Grays Anatomy. The director seemed to imagine that his audience would be scared by the mere existence of anatomy classes.
An odd addition: through the film, the characters make clear that they imagine having ones body donated to science is one of the worst things that could possibly happen to anybody. All the cadavers that end up being dissected in anatomy classes belong to junkies, homeless people, missing persons, or folks who don't have any living family. Otherwise, they'd never have been donated. This belief isn't important to the plot, but it appears to be shared by every character with lines.
In short - not exactly unwatchable, but not at all pleasant.
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Director: Jason Todd Ipson
Released: 2007
My analysis: Not good at all.
A first year medical student has a profound reaction to the cadaver she is assigned to in Gross Anatomy. The exact nature of this reaction is never revealed - she doesn't have visions or enter an altered state of consciousness or experience physical symptoms. From the available evidence, it would seem that she's just really creeped out.
Anyway, she get really creeped out. She consults with some (unidentified) school official who encourages her to share her concerns about the creepy corpse with her anatomy professor, who justifiably laughs in her face. There is a string of murders. The anatomy professor cuts his own leg off with a reciprocating saw, and the med student heroically incinerates the scary cadaver.
The plot is generally incoherent. The tone of the movie has far too much in common with med school sitcoms like Grays Anatomy. The director seemed to imagine that his audience would be scared by the mere existence of anatomy classes.
An odd addition: through the film, the characters make clear that they imagine having ones body donated to science is one of the worst things that could possibly happen to anybody. All the cadavers that end up being dissected in anatomy classes belong to junkies, homeless people, missing persons, or folks who don't have any living family. Otherwise, they'd never have been donated. This belief isn't important to the plot, but it appears to be shared by every character with lines.
In short - not exactly unwatchable, but not at all pleasant.
Read more!
Thursday, May 15, 2008
TO DO: Duct tape wallet
My wallet if falling apart. It's a fairly nice leather wallet that I got from Emily Tipton. It has a smiley face sticker on the inside flap - that's one of the things I've always liked about it.
It's fallen apart on me before. The seams have come loose, but I've been able to sew them back together with a sturdy needle and a spool of fishing line. Not this time, though - the leather is worn through. There'll be no sewing or stitching or patching. It's time for a new wallet.
So - duct tape wallet. It's time.
(oh yeah - hi, yifot. Log in, start a blog, and let me know about it.)
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It's fallen apart on me before. The seams have come loose, but I've been able to sew them back together with a sturdy needle and a spool of fishing line. Not this time, though - the leather is worn through. There'll be no sewing or stitching or patching. It's time for a new wallet.
So - duct tape wallet. It's time.
(oh yeah - hi, yifot. Log in, start a blog, and let me know about it.)
Read more!
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