I’d heard that this movie was really intense and horrifying, so I figured it was my kind of thing. Unfortunately I wasn’t that impressed by it. It is indeed terribly gory, really a vile movie, but it’s actually so explicit that for me it finally lost it’s impact and was, well, kind of boring.

The idea is promising: Two young American dudes (who are total jerks) go backpacking in Europe and end up in this hostel where some really bad stuff happens. There’s some pretty obvious political irony to it that’s kind of amusing. With the United States being so unpopular in much of the world right now, it’s kind of like every American’s worst nightmare of visiting Europe – ending up in a torture chamber and being tormented by vicious Euro-sadists.

But as a horror movie, I couldn’t recommend this one. It’s of the “more is more” camp of horror movies. Nothing’s left to the imagination and finally it becomes kind of numbing and not much fun and never particularly scary, just gross.

The “making of” feature on the DVD wasn’t too good either. It didn’t look like the cast and crew were having a very good time on it, just another miserable film shoot with long days and little sleep.

I missed this movie when it first came out in 2000 but recently caught the DVD. It’s totally harrowing, about four characters in Brooklyn suffering horribly from various addictions. The whole movie is permeated with images of drugs, loneliness and despair. It’s the kind of movie where at the end you’re sitting there silently thinking, “I don’t feel so good…”

There’s some funny comments on the IMDB message boards, especially the ones about “movies that make you feel like crap.” It is a real downer, but I think it’s brilliant and an important movie about the suffering of life and the ways that so many of us try to avoid it. The DVD has an interview with the author Hubert Selby Jr., who wrote the novel it’s based on, and it’s very enlightening.

I was recovering from the dentist, so last night I saw this hilarious documentary called The Yes Men about these guys who go around to conferences and give television interviews impersonating members of the World Trade Organization, representing the WTO’s agenda in the worst possible light. They give long speeches, complete with PowerPoint presentations, proposing all sorts of ridiculous and horrifying solutions to world problems (such as feeding the Third World with burgers made from recycled human waste, or suggesting that slavery should have been allowed to run it’s natural course), and the amazing thing is that they get away with it. No one throws them out or even questions their credentials, except for when they speak before a college class.

I found it totally hilarious, and I was wincing with discomfort watching them pull off these stunts. I love troublemakers like these guys. Great stuff.

The Yes Men Website

Somehow I missed this wonderful French movie when it came out in ’97 – about a seven year old boy who’s certain that he’s a girl – but I finally saw it on DVD. It’s wonderful and very sad, and the young actor who plays young Ludovic is amazing. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but it so perfectly captures the innocence of childhood and the awfulness of it for someone who is different. It really shows the way that social expectations and rules suffocate us, how we get slapped around when we step out of the bounds of what’s expected for us.

I don’t think anyone with any kind of gender difference – or anyone who was ever a child, for that matter – could see this movie and not identify with Ludovic. The movie has a happy ending, which I thought seemed maybe a little forced and which surprised me a little since French movies are often so tragic. But it is a wonderful and beautiful movie and definitely worth seeing.

Here are a few links on it, including an interesting one asking why this movie got an “R” rating?

http://www.whyismavieenroseratedr.com/

Ma Vie En Rose – Sony Pictures Classics

Ma Vie En Rose – IMDB

I was feeling a little under the weather tonight, so I spent the evening watching the 2003 remake of that holiday classic, “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.” It’s really a vile and sadistic movie, but if you like the horror genre, it’s actually quite good in a “guilty pleasures” sort of way. It has really great cinematography and sets and atmosphere. Years ago I briefly worked on a few low-budget movies, so when I see something like that I always think of all the people in the art department who must have worked fourteen-hour days making rotting jawbones and crucified dolls, and all the poor people splashing buckets of fake blood around. There was also dripping water everyone. It must have been a grind putting it all together. But if you like that sort of thing it’s worth checking out. Good acting too.

I checked out the movie “SAW” tonight and have to say it was really good. I won’t give anything away but as a horror movie it has all kinds of great twists and turns, a terrific ending, and some really sick stuff along the way. These two guys are chained by their ankles in a nasty bathroom somewhere and they have a hacksaw that’s useless on the chains, but could be used to chop off a limb and escape. Hmm, what to do? There are also a few moments with a mother and daughter tied up and cleave gagged – The bondage isn’t that great but the movie itself is very very good and really creepy. Kind of reminded me of “Seven.”

Apparently it was made by two really young dudes who wanted to make a low-budget movie and started out with the inexpensive idea of two guys trapped in a room. On the ‘making of’ reel, the director looked like he was about 24 years old – pretty damn impressive. “SAW” Website

I saw this French horror movie the other night that DK highly recommended. It was called High Tension and is about two pretty French girls who go out to one girl’s parents’ country house and get into a lot of trouble when a psycho killer visits. There’s some nice bondage in it with one of the girls getting chained up and gagged with what looks like a big piece of rubber tubing. And she stays bound and gagged for much of the movie.

The movie’s violent and bloody as hell, so it’s not for the squeamish. But it’s a good stylish horror movie and, hey, a girl gets tied up! There’s also some scenes where we hear her screaming off camera that are very effective.