Anatomie de L’enfer (Anatomy of Hell)

In the toilets of a gay club an unnamed woman (Amira Casar) attempts to slit her wrists, but is stopped by an unnamed gay man (Rocco Siffredi). Later that night they strike a deal – she will pay him to examined her in the most intimate ways possible and report to her on his impressions of her as a woman – a task she believes no woman or straight man is capable of. Their nights together unravel in a graphic analysis of sexuality, as they test and explore each other in increasingly gruesome ways.

Catherine Breillat’s film, based on her own novel ‘pornocratie’ is nothing if not challenging, from her depictions of real sex to the more challenging physical and emotional moments. Unfortunately, while it asks interesting moral questions, the film runs like one of her own essays: clinical, unfeasibly wordy, and at times clumsy in its execution.

The performances are decent, despite the dialogue the actors are working with. Whilst the man’s ruminations on the fragility of women are apt, there’s an unrealistic articulacy there. The fact is, nobody actually talks like these characters and, despite their nudity, it ruins the intimacy Breillat is trying to create. There’s earnestness in their faces, but the drivel they speak is without real-life anchor and deflates the apparent realism. And for all her attempts to break the mould, her characters – the slut queen and the woman-hating queer – are stereotypical at best.

As far as the graphic sex and nudity the film is so recognised for, it’s often disappointing. For every lovingly crafted shot, there’s some so laughable I don’t know who Breillat was trying to fool. With geysers of menstrual blood and the ability to prop up a garden hoe, the Amazing Performing Vagina on screen is hardly one women are going to be able to compare with their own, and men will either run screaming or look disconcertedly between their girlfriends thighs for the monster that apparently lies within.

For all it shortcomings, though, Anatomy of Hell is an interesting experiment in human sexuality. Don’t watch it if you find any sort of romanticisim – indeed pleasure – in sex, but if you can watch this objectively and without feeling squeamish, there are elements of insight to be drawn from this generally disappointing film.

Pineapple Express

Stoners have always been great movie fodder. From Cheech and Chong to Harold and Kumar there’s generally something funny to be found in the pot-smoking antics of a couple of guys who probably have more fun and excitement stoned than anyone in real life does, as they watch stoner movies, smoke up and wear an arse-groove into the seat of their favourite couch.

Directed by David Gordon Green, Pineapple Express again brings together the loosely termed ‘guys’ from Knocked Up and Superbad, this time including Judd Apatow as producer, Bill Hader, Seth Rogen (who wrote the script with pal Evan Goldberg) and James Franco.

Rogen, best known for knocking up Katherine Heigl and then not slapping her around like she deserved, plays Dale, a stoner who’s pretty happy with his lazy life, easy job, and highschool-aged girlfriend (Amber Heard). His new dealer, Saul (James Franco), is hooking him up with the good stuff, including a very new, rare strain named pineapple express. So rare, in fact, that when Dale accidentally witnesses a mob hit, drops the joint and runs, the bad guys can trace it directly back to him.

The most refreshing part about the film, as with most of the gang’s work, is the realism. Instead of doing the stupid things people usually do in this kind of caper, the characters actually think about what they’re doing, all the while stoned and terrified. Getting rid of mobile phones, not using credit cards, sleeping in the woods, and telling your girlfriend’s parents the truth are all things unexplored in this sort of film, when it’s what most of us would probably do if the bad girls were on our trail. There’s no eternal stamina and everlasting bullets here, and the film is all the funnier for it, playing real situations for genuine laughs.

The bad guys are just as funny. Gary Cole as the drug king is underplayed but indispensable when on-screen. Hitmen Budlofsky and Matheson (Kevin Corrigan and Craig Morrison) are evil mirror-images of our heroes, and are well drawn and entertaining, though bad-girl cop Rosie Perez feels like a bit of an afterthought.

Everything about this film is well crafted. The jokes fly thick and fast without being intrusive, melding easily into the already charming script. Rogen is at his best, and James Franco is a welcome surprise, with a winning comedic turn after more restrained roles of the Spiderman ilk. Supporting characters like dealer Red (Danny McBride) and girlfriend Angie are never wasted, and provide some of the best moments. Aesthetically, it’s gorgeous, and flows perfectly, the story always the focus among the whizbang special effects. It’s finally a dope movie with some balls, treating weed and its consequences as a valid subject instead of the mythical fantasy drug most movies make it out to be.

While not as funny or groundbreaking as 40 Year Old Virgin or Superbad, Pineapple Express shows the requisite realism and class comedy we’ve come to expect from the Apatow crew. Totally unmissable.

Steel Trap

I’ve said before how much I like horror games. To see people get hacked to bits, all in the name of a treasure hunt, a moral test, or a game of chance. Even if it’s a bit shaky, story wise, there’s always the promise of a good bit of grue, some bodily fluids, or something being punctured.

So in this mind I viewed Steel Trap, the latest offering from Dimension Extreme and director Luis Cámara.

Steel Trap is a case of good idea, bad execution. The story – a bunch of media-industry party goers get an intriguing invite to a private function and are viciously picked off during what they think is a treasure hunt – had a lot of potential for honest, messed-up fun. It’s too bad no-one involved could pull a single shred of talent out of their arseholes.

Instead, the movie consists of awful actors walking around dark corridors spouting ‘witty’ dialogue which, due to appalling sound design, sounds like it’s spoken underwater through a broken radio. Then there’s some blood. Then more walking and talking, before they make some monumentally stupid and unrealistic decisions, wow at the mysteries revealed, get picked off, and discover the unnecessary and terribly executed twist.

As far as horror goes, it’s totally missing in action. Aside from some nice mutilation near the beginning, there’s next to no gore. And while that can be used to create tension, Psycho this ain’t. Instead, it comes off as a weak slasher flick that just happens to be set in an abandoned building, where the ‘game’ aspect consists of a few badly inserted nursery rhymes and some carnival music which, considering they were all going to get uninspiredly slaughtered anyway, is totally redundant.

That said, it’s not totally unenjoyable. There are laughs galore as we watch badly drawn stereotypes say things that no-one would actually say, with less sincerity than a complimentary prostitute. The special effects are laughably bad, the direction is uninspired and lazy, and everything about it reeks of ineptitude. Especially the characters, who are so dumb they deserve to die for being completely useless in a crisis.

So, as a comedy, it’s actually not bad.

Meet The Spartans

After Epic Movie, I really wasn’t expecting much from Meet The Spartans. Surely a hideous, badly-made, laughter-devoid film such as Epic Movie couldn’t spawn a sequel remotely amusing or competent?

My expectations were pretty much correct.

Admittedly, Meet The Spartans isn’t as unfunny as it’s painfully retarded older brother. Not that I’m calling it amusing, by any means, but less reliance on copying other people’s work and replacing the word ‘Narnia’ with ‘Kazakhstan’ has to be a good thing. This travesty of a ‘comedy’ actually contains some jokes, if you define joke as putting a garbage disposal button on 300’s pit of death and kicking people into it for over five minutes. Hyuck hyuck.

As far as performance goes, it’s a case of down on their luck actors capitalising on their glory days. Kevin Sorbo’s turn as the Captain will make any Hercules fan weep inside, and the constant drawing of attention to his mythic past is like salt in a pustule-ridden wound. Carmen Electra plays a whore-queen, Ken Davitian (Borat) again gets naked as Xerxes. The supporting cast are obviously related to people who know the casting agents, because they're the parasites on the back of this dying vermin of a film, especially the girl that 'plays' Paris Hilton. It’s as no-brainer as the target audience. The only genuinely good work is Sean Maguire as Leonidas, who could have been destined for bigger and better things before this travesty was added to his resume.

Everything about this movie is insulting to anyone possessing a complete brain cell. Let’s face it, calling the Spartans from 300 gay wasn’t particularly insightful in the first place, so making an entire movie about the observation only serves to heighten the blatantly offensive stupidity possessed by most of the people who shelled out their $13. Not to mention the recurring song-and-dance scenes passed down from Epic Movie which are interminable, unfunny, and stretch out the running time to the required and excruciating 80 minutes. The sets look cheap, the costumes presumably fell off the back of the Salvo’s truck, and any attempts at special effects were probably knocked up by directors/writers/arseholes Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer during a drunken night in front of MSPaint. Not to mention the constant product placement.

In essence, Meet the Spartans is a bad movie, by no-talent ass-clowns, for people who think fart jokes are highbrow. Enjoy.

Battlefield Earth

What with the amount of money innocent celebrities seem to be sinking into the very legitimate religion of scientology, you have to wonder where that money ends up. Surely they’re not sending it to the alien souls they’re carting about, at least John Travolta isn’t. No, he’s sinking it into spreading the world of L Ron Hubbard. Or, more specifically, making god-awful flicks based on novels by his dead, insane saviour.

Often considered the worst film ever, it’s pretty difficult to find someone who’s actually watched this thing, aside from Tom Cruise, his brainwashed sex-bitch, and their mentally scarred, sub-primate offspring. But I’ve seen it, and I’m here to spread a little gospel of my own:

Watching Battlefield Earth is like being clit-deep in rancid shit.

This is just the first half of what was meant to be a two-parter, based on Hubbard’s sci-fi book. In the flick, Travolta is Terl, a corrupt security chief from the evil profit-obsessed planet Psychlo (I’m not making this up), whose people have enslaved the human race and given them radiation poisoning. A couple of bands of free human tribes are hanging about, wearing loincloths and discovering putt-putt courses, when one of them (Barry Pepper) is taken by the evil Psychlonians and Travolta decides to ‘educate’ him, not realising Pepper’s character Jonnie “Greener” Goodboy Tyler (still not making this up) is plotting to lead a human uprising against him.

I don’t even know what the worst part is. Travolta’s acting, which ranges between an American accent, an English accent, and grunting Psychlo gibberish; the direction by Roger Christian, whose skills basically encompass the ability to put every moment without speech into slow motion (without which it would have been mercifully shorter), as well as tilting his camera on an angle for the whole film; the hideous, self-congratulatory, stupidity-inducing dialogue; the special effects, which have a lovely blurred photoshop look, or that Travolta gives good enough head that Forest Whitaker agreed to co-star.

There is nothing right about this film. Almost everyone with the slightest bit of intelligence looks like they know the ship is going down, except of course for Travolta, whose yellow contacts don’t do much to hide the religious glaze in his eyes. And if this embarrassment wasn’t enough, we have to watch it with the camera on a perpetual angle. Word to the director – this does not create a sense of transition, unease, and chaos. It makes you look like a self-important arsehole. Just like everyone else who actually believed in this movie.

This isn’t one of those movies that works if you’re drunk. It’s not so bad it’s good. It’s not even so bad it’s laughable. Battlefield Earth is a soul-crushing, interminable experience with no entertainment value whatsoever unless you like looking at Travolta’s leather-clad cock. And I don’t mean that figuratively.

The X-Files: I Want To Believe

The X-Files franchise, to me, is a bit like the Simpsons franchise. The finest examples of their respective genres, both series continued long after the shark had been well and truly jumped, leaving the new generation with a sour taste in their jaded Jackass-loving mouths, while the dedicated faithful proclaimed their worth.

Had the mildly sufficient The Simpsons Movie come out 5 years earlier, it would have been the second coming, the pinnacle of all that is awesome about TV on the big screen. But it didn’t, and it wasn’t. And the same can be said of The X-Files: I Want To Believe.

It’s basically an extra long episode from the good-but-not-totally-awesome years of The X-Files’s nine season run. There’s no aliens and no government conspiracy, but there is a gay, commie, mad scientist with a Frankenstein complex, which is almost as good. Mulder and Scully are dragged back from retirement after an agent disappears, and have to solve the case of the missing organs, all while dealing with Mulder’s usual sister issues and a dying kid Scully refuses to euthanase.

The main fault with the flick is writers Frank Spotnitz and (X-Files creator and director) Chris Carter don’t seem to know their audience. They want to explain everything to the newbies, while at the same time shoving things in that only the most obsessed fans will get. It’s both dumbed-down and elitist at the same time, and that – along with generally uninspired direction - makes much of its execution awkward, leading to dubious critiques of Dubya, a lot of flowery emotional scenes that make no sense, and too much time spent on a subplot about Scully’s dying patient.

That said, I Want To Believe is not a bad film. David Duchovny plays Mulder perfectly, and Gillian Anderson's sceptical Scully is still a good foil for his obsessions, even if it feels like they’ve moved on too much to truly reinhabit their roles. Billy Connolly is a revelation as psychic paedo-priest Father Joe, who steals most of his scenes. Amanda Peet and Xzibit are serviceable agents, but don’t add much to the proceedings. The action scenes are engaging, the gore is PG-plentiful, and Skinner shows up at the end to be his bald, bad-ass self.

It can’t compare with 1998’s Fight The Future, but doesn’t really try to. It’s like catching up with an old friend. Simply a nice coda to a series that ended so abruptly and confusingly, and will surely make die-hard fans rest a little easier at night.

The Ruins

I've come to expect very little from horror movies. While there is the occasional tense flick, with believable characters and genuinely affecting gore, most films aren’t Hostel or The Mist. No, in recent times I’ve satisfied myself with random carnage and screaming stereotypes and, while that’s fun, it’s heartening to see a film with a bit of effort gone into it.

Based on the book by Scott Smith (who also wrote the similarly tense A Simple Plan), The Ruins follows the story of two teenage couples and German acquaintance Mathias who leave their hotel and head into the Mexican wilderness to check out an archaeological dig where Mathias brother is stationed. When they get there, of course, there’s no-one to be found, the Mayans don’t seem too happy about intruders near their pyramid, and the weird vines covering the pyramid are starting to move.

Trapped on the top of the pyramid, things quickly escalate as the kids realise the severity of their situation, and it’s a testament to the writers that the plot relies heavily on the characters. The actors are recognisable, if not exactly star power (Jena Malone, Shawn Ashmore and Joe Anderson are the only ones with obvious credits), but it works to their advantage. Even with minimal character development, each is created as an individual, rather than the usual knife-fodder populating most horror flicks. Most of the tension rests on the heads of their actions and reactions and, while there is horrible stuff going on around them, that’s where the focus stays.

The direction is fantastic. Most of the action takes place on a square of rock about the size of a garden shed, but Carter Smith handles the claustrophobia perfectly. The brief scenes involving the kids inside the pyramid are dark and nerve-racking, and the outside scenes are equally scary. I never thought I’d be scared so much by a plant (take THAT, the Happening). It’s been a long time since I’ve been strung so tight, and while the gore was gross, it was occasional and necessary enough to remain effective. Smith’s direction was refreshing to say the least.

There aren’t many downsides to this film. It’s not going to change the world or be the big summer hit, but it’s a near perfect example of the best kind of horror filmmaking. I'm certainly glad I saw the unrated version, if only for an especially brutal ending not present in the theatrical release. Still, it's definitely a flick worth seeing when it finally gets to Australia in August.

Red Room

Games have been all the rage lately. From forced-participation events like Saw and Battle Royale, to voluntary stunts in the vein of 13: Game Of Death, there’s an intrinsic joy in seeing how far people will push themselves to survive or to fill up their bank accounts.

In Daisuke Yamanouchi’s video nasty Red Room, the game is The King Game. Four cards are drawn, a king and three numbered cards, and dealt to the four players. The ‘King’ then issues a challenge to two of the numbered players. If the players cannot or will not complete the challenge, they are disqualified. The last man standing is awarded 10 million yen.

The contestants – a married couple, a highschool senior, and an office worker – are the most interesting part about the film. The three female characters are strong, embittered, and prepared to suffer any degradation, while the male character is submissive and unimaginative, trying to grasp paltry authority through sexual domination. Yet, the characters are all individuals, and all use their wits and bodies in entirely different and equally fascinating ways, their motivations for the money blending with their gameplay tactics to create truly interesting personalities. And as the story leaps back and forth along the timeline, and slaps and humiliation give way to rape and violence, the events are revealed with both impact and subtlety.

But when I say ‘video nasty’, I mean nasty. Yamanouchi’s film looks to be made for about five dollars on a digital camera from a bargain warehouse, though his filming style is dexterous considering the budget. The music sounds like something from softcore porn and, while it adds to the sleaziness of the scenario, it stops disbelief from being suspended. It sounds like Yamanouchi’s cousin is playing a synthesiser in the corner of the set.

That is, in fact, the biggest problem. The perversions on screen are disturbing, but the presence of the crew feels too intrusive. The elephant in the room is the camera, and while the characters are interesting and the displays horrendous, it all feels scripted, leaving you thinking too much about the processes involved than the story itself. Yamanouchi does have a magnificent sense of the line between horror and comedy. Accordingly this plays out more like a very black comedy than a genuine horror, recalling the work of Takashi Miike and Eli Roth.

As far as effects go, there’s some great realism, and a good balance between what is revealed and concealed. Unfortunately, the sound is as unrealistic as the images are convincing. Nobody’s vagina makes that many wet, squishy sounds when you insert a lightbulb into it. Or maybe I just haven’t inserted enough lightbulbs. Likewise, the sound of two Japanese girls kissing shouldn’t be the aural equivalent of silly putty in a vegetable steamer.

All up, Red Room is worth seeing as an experiment in low-budget horror and human depravity. The concept, visuals and direction are fantastic, but the music and sound are intrusive enough to make this not as disconcerting as it should be, and it doesn’t deserve to be nearly so lauded as it is. Still, if you can find it, it’s definitely not an afternoon wasted.

The Happening

So another M Night Shyamalan movie’s out, and accordingly the M Night Haters Club is back in full swing, complaining about how that villain has caused any number of unmentionable sins. Then of course there’s the remaining few who would never say a bad word against the twist-master because he got their wicks lit nine years ago when Bruce Willis turned out to be dead.

I’m not a member of either party. In fact, I’m probably one of the least conventional filmgoers out there, as far as Shyamalan movies go. I thought Unbreakable was a bona fide masterpiece, Lady In The Water captivated me, and The Village was quite scary, thank you very much. The Sixth Sense, on the other hand, was a decent enough novelty that was only creepy when I was twelve. Though it’s easy to be indifferent when “I see dead people” becomes a nationally overused catchphrase.

I love Shyamalan and hate him in equal measures, and his new flick, The Happening, is the best example of exactly why this is so.

The Happening, apart from being the vaguest title in recent times, involves people killing themselves all along the east coast of the US of A. It’s got something to do with the fact that the bees have gone missing, and evil plants might be involved somehow. Yep, after ghosts, monsters, scrunts, aliens, and Samuel L Jackson, the plants are coming for us. M Night doesn’t really tell us why, but let’s just say he’s probably been having dinner with Al Gore on the weekends.

Newlywed teacher Elliot (Mark Wahlberg) and his cheating missus (Zooey Deschanel) are trying to figure out the mystery as to why an airborne neurotoxin is making people suicidal, all the while trying to stay ahead of the infection. There’s a kid (Ashlyn Sanchez) in tow, as is usually the case, and she’s not a bad little actress for someone who barely speaks. It’s too bad the same can’t be said for the rest of the cast.

Shyamalan’s visuals are fantastic. The man knows how to use a camera to create a sense of dread, and the film is most tense when it relies on its visuals. He has the gift of revealing and concealing exactly the right things to show you the beginning of a thought and let your imagination do the work. There’s a little gore, yes, but not enough to be desensitising. Unfortunately, he spends so much time on his pretty pictures that he drops the ball on pretty much everything else.

Like I said, the acting is appalling. Marky Mark seems to be channelling a valium-addicted self-help guru, he spends so much of the movie being softly spoken and rational. He’s realistic on the few moments he does freak out, but otherwise he sounds like he’s reading his lines on helium from a teleprompter. Deschanel is slightly better, but is equally wooden, which wouldn’t be so bad except these two have to carry the film, and the dialogue they’re spouting is often clunky and forced. M Night might as well put up a neon sign reading “EXPOSITION” every time they speak, and his usually subtle touches seem forced and obvious here. The only bright spots are John Leguizamo as the kid’s panicked father, and a crazy old lady (Betty Buckley) who briefly takes them in and reminded me far too much of Tim Robbins in War Of The Worlds.

That’s not to say it’s an awful film, but it’s a weak film. M Night’s biggest problem is that he listens to what other people have to say. You like the twist? He’ll make more. Don’t like them anymore? He’ll stop. The last film was too vague? He’ll spell everything out. With this one he’s just confused. There’s a lot of good stuff here, and at only 89 minutes most of the pacing problems are negligible. Apart from parts were people are actually required to act, and the awkward social-environmental commentary, it’s a taut survival thriller with a solid sense of foreboding. Not his best, maybe, but still an enjoyable enough movie experience.

Brisbane Queer Film Festival: Otto, or Up With Dead People

The German’s are known for being a bit weird. There’s their porn of course, their penchant for lederhosen, and their bizarre love of sauerkraut. Not to mention the whole Hitler fiasco (oh those crazy Germans!). They’ve also managed to mix zombie films with queer cinema, a concept even stranger than pickled cabbage.

It sounds potentially inspired, conjuring up images of couture zombies staggering about in pink, a bit of sociopolitical commentary to rival Romero, and some neat jokes about ‘eating manflesh’. This of course would be my perfect gay zombie movie. But Otto, or Up With Dead People is not the perfect gay zombie movie. To put it politely, it’s a pile of pretentious wank.

Bruce LaBruce’s film revolves around Otto (Jey Crisfar), a young man who may or may not be a zombie, may or may not be repressing a traumatic past, and may or may not be gay. Medea (Katharina Klewinghaus) is an insane goth chick who hangs out with her girlfriend Hella Bent and makes avant-garde queer horror films. Hella has a bobcut and is literally spliced in from a silent movie. See Hella and Medea drink tea on the lawn! See them shop for headstones! See them exploit Otto and make him their new star!

I went in with only one agenda: to see some hardcore gay necrophilia. But even though this lifelong dream was realised, and in great style, the sight of a fetid cock thrusting into a slippery stomach cavity was the brief high point of Bruce LaBruce’s woeful piece of cinema. The film isn’t just pretentious, it’s annoying. You think the constant sound of distorted radio feedback (ostensibly representing Otto’s troubled and rotting mind) is aggravating? Try listening to a monotonous gothic freak with a German accent opine about alienation and mindless consumption. Because you’ll hear both. Ad nauseum.

Visually, the film is unimpressive. The greys and reds of your usual gorefest are present, and apart from a recurring motif of Medea preaching in front of a cloud-streaked bluescreen, it doesn’t offer anything memorable. The framing is bland, and the occasional novel shot is shattered by the irritating voiceover, relentless radio distortion, or another tedious shot of Otto looking blank and static. The constant narration only serves to highlight the fact that LaBruce isn’t a good enough writer or director to tell his story with subtle touches, something that might have saved the film. Instead, the commentary is like kids reading subtitles out loud in the seats behind you. Intrusive, and painfully moronic.

To put it nicely, Otto, or Up With Dead People is an experimental horror pornography with a couple of genuinely interesting moments. To put it nastily, I’d need a few more pages. Bad acting, bad writing, bad direction. It’s got the trifecta. The only people who will like this film are more pretentious than the director himself, a man who manages to make a gay zombie orgy into something boring.