Monday
What did I watch last night (and this weekend)?
Uwe Bolle's ALONE IN THE DARK, a buttload of THE SIMPSONS, and CUT-THROATS NINE. (oh yeah and THE INCREDIBLES)
AITD has an atrocious reputation and as such, I felt it was required viewing (anything to make myself seem smart). Unfortunately it wasn't anywhere near as awful as I'd been led to believe. It really seems more like a movie that was screwed around with so badly in post that it lost touch with itself and the release date kinda crept up on everyone. It's chief failure is that it treats the audience like a bunch of numbskulls. There is a text crawl at the beginning longer than the entire first STAR WARS trilogy combined. It must go on for 5 minutes, AND is accompanied by a voiceover (in case us idiots can't read). The problem is that the text includes nothing that is not revealed in the first act of the film! Adding to the film's problems is the equally redundant voiceover by Christian Slater, "explaining" what's occurring before our very eyes ... Sheesh. But other than this, the movie is just a sort of b-grade monster flick with a lot of CGI creatures and gunfire (always nice). There are a handful of grisly deaths that are most impressive and the cast is inoffensive (except for Tara Reid who is just awful in everything I've ever see her in). Hell, I even LIKE Steven Dorff! Anyways, not recommended, unless other choices are completely absent. Sorry guys, better luck next time.
CUT-THROATS NINE, "the most violent Euro Western ever made," was surprisingly good. My man Paul said it left him "unimpressed," but after watching it last night I suspect he viewed it under the same conditions I did years ago: with one eye open and expecting a Die Hard-like pace. Fast-moving this flick is not. However, thematically its most excellent. Its about this chaingang being escorted by a vengeful lawman (or something; he has a gun) over mountains after their wagon crashes. He is convinced that one of these cons killed his wife in years past. Soon they all realize that their chains are made of gold and the scheming and cast-diminishment begins. There is something so sublime about a bunch of convicts suddenly becoming almost romantically attached to their shackles. Also the movie is not short on violent, grisly images. Apparently these shackles have no keys (its never addressed) so whenever somebody dies, its out-with-the-machete time, and off-with-the-foot time as well. This thing is gorier than a Fulci zombie flick, chock ablock with stabbings, burnings, torture, rape, dismemberment, etc. Narratively it is also most surprising. The lawman (and his daughter) have the tables turned on them about halfway through, and are taken captive by the convicts during a snowstorm. Chained up in an old cabin, the lawman has to watch as his daughter is raped by the whole gang (!). You're sort of sitting there stunned, waiting for his escape and eventual revenge against these scumbags. Then they set the place on fire and leave him in it, and you're like, "Man, get out of those chains, escape, do something," then suddenly we jump cut and see his BURNED-UP, EYE-DRIPPING CHARRED CORPSE in the fire! Holy shit!!! The "hero" just got killed right in the middle of the movie. Which left me wondering who the hell I was going to identify with for the rest of the movie. The daughter? Kind of in shock and ineffective. The convicts? The hell with them --- they're rapists! There's really only one candidate, a con who was knocked out when he tried to prevent the others from committing the rape. By default, he is our "good guy," or at the very least, our "best" guy. The major problem to anyone paying attention to the plot is that logic just does not hold up from this point forward. As long as there was a guy holding a gun on the cons and driving them forward, there was reason to stay alive and together. But now, without any law, or mutual need or respect, when the opportunity presents itself, there just really isn't any reason for any con NOT to kill one of the others. They all hate each other, and the fewer survivors of the trek there are, the more gold there is. And its not like they are shouldering some common burden like the Ark of the Covenant or anything. Yet at one point, our guy surreptitiously strangles the man in front of him, and when the murder is discovered, the main bad guy says, "You're worth more to me alive." But --- why? A) this guy wants to kill you, B) you'll move faster with fewer guys on the chain, C) you don't have to share the girl as much, and D) you'll get more gold at the end of the day. JUST SHOOT HIM! And yet, he does not. So gradually the daughter falls in love with the least-offensive con. Blah blah blah. They manage to separate their chains by laying on railroad tracks. For some reason they stick together (except for one guy, who wanders off in the woods and is driven mad by the spectre of the dead lawman). Eventually everything comes to a head and during a fight, the Less-offensive criminal is stabbed in the back, at which time it is simultaneously revealed that he is the murderer of the lawman's wife!!!! Except in the flashback, he doesn't just stab the woman, he shockingly DISEMBOWELS her. My Lord! Then he kinda dies, but is cradled in the arms of the girl, who apparently has no idea that he GUTTED HER MOM. Bizarre! Finally, she and the two remaining convicts are shacked up in a cabin, and she finds some dynamite, and quietly lights a stick of it, and then calmy sits down with her beau as she and the others are blown to smithereens and the movie ends. Wow!!! I can't think of a more nihilistic movie. So, hooray for CUT-THROATS NINE. (Good luck finding it, ha ha.)
Later, we will discuss the Case of the Ghost at His Own Birthday Party, and the Wireburger Surprise.
Uwe Bolle's ALONE IN THE DARK, a buttload of THE SIMPSONS, and CUT-THROATS NINE. (oh yeah and THE INCREDIBLES)
AITD has an atrocious reputation and as such, I felt it was required viewing (anything to make myself seem smart). Unfortunately it wasn't anywhere near as awful as I'd been led to believe. It really seems more like a movie that was screwed around with so badly in post that it lost touch with itself and the release date kinda crept up on everyone. It's chief failure is that it treats the audience like a bunch of numbskulls. There is a text crawl at the beginning longer than the entire first STAR WARS trilogy combined. It must go on for 5 minutes, AND is accompanied by a voiceover (in case us idiots can't read). The problem is that the text includes nothing that is not revealed in the first act of the film! Adding to the film's problems is the equally redundant voiceover by Christian Slater, "explaining" what's occurring before our very eyes ... Sheesh. But other than this, the movie is just a sort of b-grade monster flick with a lot of CGI creatures and gunfire (always nice). There are a handful of grisly deaths that are most impressive and the cast is inoffensive (except for Tara Reid who is just awful in everything I've ever see her in). Hell, I even LIKE Steven Dorff! Anyways, not recommended, unless other choices are completely absent. Sorry guys, better luck next time.
CUT-THROATS NINE, "the most violent Euro Western ever made," was surprisingly good. My man Paul said it left him "unimpressed," but after watching it last night I suspect he viewed it under the same conditions I did years ago: with one eye open and expecting a Die Hard-like pace. Fast-moving this flick is not. However, thematically its most excellent. Its about this chaingang being escorted by a vengeful lawman (or something; he has a gun) over mountains after their wagon crashes. He is convinced that one of these cons killed his wife in years past. Soon they all realize that their chains are made of gold and the scheming and cast-diminishment begins. There is something so sublime about a bunch of convicts suddenly becoming almost romantically attached to their shackles. Also the movie is not short on violent, grisly images. Apparently these shackles have no keys (its never addressed) so whenever somebody dies, its out-with-the-machete time, and off-with-the-foot time as well. This thing is gorier than a Fulci zombie flick, chock ablock with stabbings, burnings, torture, rape, dismemberment, etc. Narratively it is also most surprising. The lawman (and his daughter) have the tables turned on them about halfway through, and are taken captive by the convicts during a snowstorm. Chained up in an old cabin, the lawman has to watch as his daughter is raped by the whole gang (!). You're sort of sitting there stunned, waiting for his escape and eventual revenge against these scumbags. Then they set the place on fire and leave him in it, and you're like, "Man, get out of those chains, escape, do something," then suddenly we jump cut and see his BURNED-UP, EYE-DRIPPING CHARRED CORPSE in the fire! Holy shit!!! The "hero" just got killed right in the middle of the movie. Which left me wondering who the hell I was going to identify with for the rest of the movie. The daughter? Kind of in shock and ineffective. The convicts? The hell with them --- they're rapists! There's really only one candidate, a con who was knocked out when he tried to prevent the others from committing the rape. By default, he is our "good guy," or at the very least, our "best" guy. The major problem to anyone paying attention to the plot is that logic just does not hold up from this point forward. As long as there was a guy holding a gun on the cons and driving them forward, there was reason to stay alive and together. But now, without any law, or mutual need or respect, when the opportunity presents itself, there just really isn't any reason for any con NOT to kill one of the others. They all hate each other, and the fewer survivors of the trek there are, the more gold there is. And its not like they are shouldering some common burden like the Ark of the Covenant or anything. Yet at one point, our guy surreptitiously strangles the man in front of him, and when the murder is discovered, the main bad guy says, "You're worth more to me alive." But --- why? A) this guy wants to kill you, B) you'll move faster with fewer guys on the chain, C) you don't have to share the girl as much, and D) you'll get more gold at the end of the day. JUST SHOOT HIM! And yet, he does not. So gradually the daughter falls in love with the least-offensive con. Blah blah blah. They manage to separate their chains by laying on railroad tracks. For some reason they stick together (except for one guy, who wanders off in the woods and is driven mad by the spectre of the dead lawman). Eventually everything comes to a head and during a fight, the Less-offensive criminal is stabbed in the back, at which time it is simultaneously revealed that he is the murderer of the lawman's wife!!!! Except in the flashback, he doesn't just stab the woman, he shockingly DISEMBOWELS her. My Lord! Then he kinda dies, but is cradled in the arms of the girl, who apparently has no idea that he GUTTED HER MOM. Bizarre! Finally, she and the two remaining convicts are shacked up in a cabin, and she finds some dynamite, and quietly lights a stick of it, and then calmy sits down with her beau as she and the others are blown to smithereens and the movie ends. Wow!!! I can't think of a more nihilistic movie. So, hooray for CUT-THROATS NINE. (Good luck finding it, ha ha.)
Later, we will discuss the Case of the Ghost at His Own Birthday Party, and the Wireburger Surprise.
posted by figurebuilder at 11:20 AM
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