Friday, October 29, 2010

Zombie Strippers (Unrated Special Edition)

Zombie Strippers (I can't believe I'm even typing the words) is proof that no matter how much you may like zombies or how sick you may feel (crashed out on the couch with your viewing standards automatically lowered) there are still some movies you'll just never make it through without retching....

I normally love Robert Englund and admit he seems to be having an almost charming kind of fun playing a slimey propietor of an illegally run nudie bar, but somehow...it didn't work for me and I found myself ditching it halfway through...

now whether because of the low-budget zombies, the stiltled dialogue or the unease I felt watching strange women (both living and dead) take their clothes off I couldn't say for sure. There was something (at least to me) very disturbing and gratuituous about the zombie women in this flick.

I can hardly get mad at the movie, though, or accuse it of false advertising. I was just hoping for a little more zombie and a lot less stripper.

...
I couldn't have said it better than this review did;

Amazon.com

Get yourself a snappy title and a couple of marquee names (however disreputable) and you might just snag your no-budget movie a national release--as Zombie Strippers colorfully proves. The names in question belong to porn star Jenna Jameson and Freddie Krueger himself, Robert Englund, both of whom look quite comfortable in this sleazy milieu. As the title suggests (well, "suggests" might be a mild word), there has been an outbreak of the undead in a strip club, with strippers actually improving their onstage antics after they've become zombies. (Given the number of implants on display, it's a wonder the zombies didn't keel over from silicone poisoning.) Englund is the proprietor of the place, Jameson is a star dancer, and a couple of actresses in the "nice girl" roles don't have to take their tops off, although almost everybody else does. Writer-director Jay Lee fills the movie with political gags and a bunch of philosophy references (Jameson reads Nietzsche, the locale is Sartre, Nebraska), all of which play like a lame attempt to distinguish his movie as something other than a puerile horror-comedy. Only thing is, when you try to disguise the fact that you've made a puerile horror-comedy, it kind of takes the oomph out of both the horror and the comedy. The political jibes are about as feeble as those in Southland Tales, but at least Zombie Strippers is shorter. Shot on video, it looks atrocious, but perhaps that doesn't matter very much. --Robert Horton
I can't decide if it's a sign of stupidity or yearning that so many people are actually considering the possibility that the mystery woman (or man in drag, as some have suggested) in the now-infamous 'Charlie Chaplin time travel video' may be from the future talking on a cellphone in 1928.

You might already have seen the video or heard all the jokes about cell phone reception and funky man shoes, but seriously...while I most definitely don't think it's time travel I do find the clip pretty creepy.

...was it doctored before it was added to the extras on Chaplin's The Circus?...is it just a hearing aid (well, then, why is she so clearly talking into the device and using the hand gestures and body language of someone on a mobile?)...is the man ahead of her (see video) her husband with whom she's just had an argument and she's still talking to him as he walks fast and far away?

There are so many plausible theories but what truly is hard to explain is the eerie way she appears to be looking straight into the camera while still talking to someone else...the whole thing is bizarre, but definitely has a rational explanation....has to have a rational explanation. I'm a huge sci-fi/time travel fan myself, but just think someone from the future (assuming t.t. were possible!!) would have better things to do than show  up at a movie premiere...

Besides he/she would be violating the "stay low key" and "you can't take modern things back in time with you" rules that run rampant through much of sci-fi!:)

The Circus (2 Disc Special Edition)

Sunday, October 24, 2010

Legion
Unlike A Perfect Getaway (Theatrical/Unrated Director's Cut) (which totally took my surprise with its semi-awesomeness), Legion landed in my lap last night with a big bad boring thud. A film with seemingly illustrious plans of Biblical proportions, the flick instead reminded me of nothing more than a zombie film (and a bad one at that!) hiding in disguise.

For goodness sakes the CW show Supernatural handled this very same theme during the fifth season with much better and far more provocative results. The best  (and most silly!) thing about Legion is (as with a lot of films, lately) already available in the trailer...yeah, I'm talking about that sweet-looking elderly woman who does the Spiderman walk across the ceiling of a run-down diner.

Other than that, I can't really find anything remarkable about the film, though Paul Bettany (as the angel Michael) is as good as always with his acting. Someone, however, needs to tell Kevin Durand (as "Gabriel") that whispering morosely throughout a film doesn't translate into an Academy Award.

Saturday, October 23, 2010

A Perfect Getaway (Theatrical/Unrated Director's Cut)

....so surprised at how much I liked "A Perfect Getaway"...of course, I had low expectations and it was very late at night when I saw it, but still...if you're looking for a pretty good thriller (with lots of gorgeous scenery and some great action scenes) you could do a whole lot worse!:) I would love to tell you more about it, but the things that I really liked (or found a bit "off the map" and less conventional than other thrillers) would give some of it away.

Friday, October 22, 2010

Saw VI (Widescreen Unrated Edition)
Against my better judgment I watched Saw VI today and while I certainly see the sense in the writers using the health insurance industry as fair game for the wrath of Jigsaw I still find the franchise's internal sense of moral philosophy very troubling and (with the sixth installment) very ironic...if Jigsaw (played by Tobin Bell) wants to judge the employer (and his employees) of a major health insurance company so savagely for making harsh decisions regarding people's health and whether their cases are worthy or not, isn't he sort of a hyprocrite?

Jigsaw's kind of the same way in dispensing his lethal medicine...setting up elaborate and unbelievably disgusting and gory ways for people (he thinks deserve to) die. He has, in previous installments and in this one, also passed judgment calls on people who abuse their bodies and their health (i.e. people who do drugs or smoke). While I think the original Saw (nasty and gratuituous death scenes aside!) had potential to be food for thought and a great conversation starter, I find the rest to just be one exercise after another in "how far can we go?"