Captain America

Everybody has their "sad movie." For some, it's Old Yeller, for others its Titanic. For me personally, I'd go with What Dreams May Come. Having actually read the book and gotten all choked up from that, I can say without a doubt that it is one of the saddest (but coolest, visually) movies you can watch. Unfortunately, Captain America: The First Avenger also made me sad. But not the same way. Captain American held such promise...only to deliver a turd of a film.

Skip to review, my darlin'.

In the present day, an arctic expedition comes upon a large find. Among the frozen ruins, a red, white, and blue object lies frozen in the ice.

In March, 1942, Johann Schmidt (played by The Matrix's Agent Smith, which if my German serves me correctly is roughly what the last name Schmidt translates to) is in Norway hunting a mysterious object of power. He breaks into a church and, destroying a fake cube found inside a tomb, discovers the hidden location of the Cosmic Cube (although I'm not sure the object is ever referred to as the Cosmic Cube, the object in the comics was so named, so that's what I'm callin' it). He leaves the building in disarray with his new prize in tow.

In New York, Steve Rogers, a meek little man with a big heart and more courage than he knows what to do with is rejected again from joining the fighting in World War II. Later, while watching a newsreel in a movie theater, Rogers calls out another patron who derides the war footage in favor of cartoons. Being a bit outmatched, Rogers and the patron find themselves in the alley behind the theater with Steve getting the crap beat out of him. But, he refuses to back down, even though at an obvious disadvantage. As his assailant is about to lay into him again, he's stopped by Steve's friend James "Bucky" Barnes. Bucky admonishes Steve for fighting when he should run, but still admires his tenacity. Bucky invites Steve to the World's Fair Expo with a date in hand to take his mind off the war. At the expo, a levitating (for a few seconds at least) car is demoed by Howard Stark (father of Iron Man Tony Stark). While the crowed enjoys the show, Steve sneaks off again to enlist. A doctor overhears Steve explaining to Bucky why he wants to enlist. This doctor enters the room to speak with Steve and make sure his convictions are sound. Convinced of Steve's intentions, Dr. Erskine accepts Steve into the army.

Accepted into a recruiting program for the development of a "super-solider," Steve finds himself greatly out of his league. Undaunted, Steve pushes on, going through all the training exercises and working through his own shortcomings (and those forced upon him by his fellow recruits). In a display of brains over brawn, Steve and the rest of the recruits are running when their drill sergeant stops by a flag pole which marks the halfway point of the run and, after proclaiming that no one has been able to bring down the attached flag in his time as drill sergeant, offers a ride back in a jeep to any man who can bring down said flag. As the men scramble over each other attempting to climb the pole and get the flag, they find it impossible and the drill sergeant tells them to fall back in line. Steve, who'd been lagging behind the pack, walks over to the flagpole, removes the retaining bolt, and collects the flag from the now fallen flagpole. He hands it to the drill sergeant and takes his seat in the back of the jeep.

Still unconvinced, and leaning toward a more fit candidate, the colonel in charge of the super-solider program, played by Tommy Lee Jones, performs one last test, throwing a grenade into the group of soldiers as they're doing calisthenics. Seeing the "live" grenade, the men scatter, but Steve jumps on it in an attempt to blunt any explosion. But no explosion comes. The grenade was a dud, and Colonel Phillips allows Steve to be the first subject of the super-soldier program. The night before his treatment, Dr. Erskine meets Steve in the barracks to tell him about the procedure he will undergo, explaining that it had been performed once before, but the formula had not been perfected and, while it produced a superior soldier, it had disastrous side effects. The formula, Erskine explains, takes the nature of the subject an enhances it. It makes a good man better, and a bad man worse. In this case, the bad man who was the first subject was Johann Schmidt.

Meanwhile in Germany, Schmidt and his lackey Dr. Zola have found a way to harness the power of the Cosmic Cube to power their weapons of war. Schmidt also learns that Erskine is about to reproduce the super-solider procedure that gave him super strength, and sends an assassin to stop the doctor. In America, Steve undergoes the super-soldier procedure, and after a few tense moments where it looks like the procedure might have to be aborted, the treatment is completed and Steve emerges much taller and stronger. The assassin, who had managed to get into the viewing gallery of the experiment, kills Dr. Erskine and escapes with a sample of the super-soldier serum. Rogers gives chase, finding he now is far faster and has a much higher stamina than before. Steve eventually chases down the assassin as he's escaping in a submersible. The assassin break off a cyanide-filled tooth, bites down, and dies before he can be interrogated. When Steve gets back to the lab where the experiment took place, Col. Phillips assigns Steve to a lab at Alamogordo for further study. With Erskine dead, Steve is the last source of the super-soldier serum. Nonplussed, Steve is approached by New York's Senator Brandt and offered the opportunity to serve his country in a more active role.

Steve is provided a script, a costume, a shield, and a line of chorus girls. As "Captain America," Steve becomes the face of the war effort. He travels the country encouraging the purchase of war bonds and punching out a mock Hitler in front of a gaggle of dancing gals. After several stops, Steve finds himself in Italy on the frontlines. Steve finds himself playing a truncated show for a group of soldiers who, being the remnants of several decimated battalions, are less than interested in hearing about the efforts back home and more interested in the dancing girls. Steve learns that his old friend Bucky is not only in country, but has been captured and possibly killed in a nearby fight with Schmidt's forces. Refusing to believe that his friend has been killed, Steve takes his new skills and, after being dropped from an airplane flown by Howard Stark, infiltrates Schmidt's facility. Confronting the forces of Hydra, Schmidt's personal attack force with whom he plans to take over the world (even overthrowing Hitler), Steve rescues Bucky, along with a slew of other captured soldiers who would have been put to work in the dangerous task of building Hydra's terrible weapons. Sensing his facility lost, Schmidt initiates a self destruct. As the facility starts to go, Steve and Schmidt come face to face, and Schmidt reveals that as part of the transformation process, his face was transformed into his namesake, "Red Skull." Schmidt and Dr. Zola escape, and Steve, Bucky, and the others attempt to flee the Hydra facility.

Back at basecamp, Col. Phillips has gotten word that Steve rushed off into battle. Assuming Rogers to be dead, he is preparing the note home declaring such when Steve and the rest of the freed soldiers arrive at camp. With the news of the destruction of Schmidt's facility, Steve is given the opportunity to recruit a team of special operatives that he, as "Captain America" will lead around the world to destroy additional Hydra installations before they can become a threat to the rest of the world. Steve is set up with better equipment by Howard Stark, including the famous circular shield made of vibranium (an ultra-rare metal that only exists on Earth, as Stark informs Steve, in that shield). His crew includes a bunch of soldiers taken from comic's Nick Fury and His Howling Commandos, a World War II era comic (in what has become a Marvel movie staple of throwing random characters into another super hero's movie). Together, they take down several more Hydra installations.

Finding an opportunity to capture Dr. Zola, Steve, Bucky, and one of the other men zipline aboard the train Zola is riding. In attempting to capture him, Bucky is blown off the train to his death. Zola is captured and turned over to Col. Phillips. After explaining the situation over a nice steak dinner, Phillips convices Zola to give him the location of the Red Skull's final base of operations.

» How does it end? «

Once they break in, Captain America and the rest of his crew find that the Skull has built a large triangular airship to transport his bombs to various American cities. After sneaking aboard as the Skull is taking off, Steve proceeds to take out the rest of the Skull's crew and thwart his attempts to launch his weapons at the US. Making his way to the bridge of the ship, Cap confronts the Skull. After a spectacular fight, the Cosmic Cube's storage container is damaged. The Skull removes the Cube and, holding it in his hands, is overcome by its power and disintegrated (hold on a fuckin' sec. So not even a real good vs. evil fight here, just the Skull doing something dumb and getting disintegrated. WTF?). The Cube itself falls to the deck of the ship and after eating through each successive layer of decking, drops into the ocean below. Steve, convinced that there's no safe way to land the aircraft, pilots it into an ice shelf to keep the weapons it carries from ever reaching their intended destination. Stark eventually find and retrieves the Cube, but is unable to locate Steve or the aircraft.

Steve awakens in a military hospital with the radio blaring a local baseball game. A nurse comes in to check on Steve and informs him that he's back home. Recognizing the radio broadcast (what with having actually attended the game, making the broadcast a fake), Steve asks where he's really at and proceeds to break out of the holding area; the hospital is just a set. He eventually finds himself in modern day Times Square. Just then a squad of cars surround him and out steps Nick Fury (played by Samuel L. "Muthafuckin'" Jackson) who explains that Cap's been asleep in suspended animation for almost 70 years.

Spoiler spoiled:
Captain America: The First Avenger held such promise. Being a big fan of the other Marvel films and, while never collecting Captain America comics, having read Cap's origin story in elementary school (in some giant white books that I wish I could find again, along with the Hulk, the Fantastic Four, and Spider-Man), I was thrilled to see a modern movie being made. Although there already exists a Captain America film, made in 1990, I've never seen it, and most of the reviews indicate it's terrible. Though I understand there is a quite bitchin' Cap Motorbike in the film...not that it really helps the film at all. But anyway, so Captain Fuckin' America, the original badass: a wimpy loser who, through the miracle of mad science, becomes a superman and uses his powers for good against first the Axis Powers with his trusty sidekick, and later, after being frozen in time, against more modern enemies. Really, how could you go wrong? I dunno, but someone found a way, and they filmed it, polished that turd up nice and shiny, and called it Captain America: The First Avenger.

First the good: it's an OK movie story-wise. You meet Steve Rogers, see his struggle to serve his country, and finally ascend to Captain America. There's a somewhat unnecessary lull in the middle as Cap is reduced to a status symbol, but the we're thrown back into the fight against Hydra and The Red Skull. Chris Evans is a pretty good Cap, although it's going to make things a bit rough when Cap encounters the Fantastic Four and he's forced to Jean-Claude Van Damme himself. There's a few good cameos, include Tommy Lee Jones and Stanley Tucci. And Hugo Weaving does an OK Red Skull. That about covers the good.

Now the bad: Everything else. The film follows Cap's origin in the comics for a bit, and then goes off on a tangent by making Cap sell war bonds; stealing characters from The Howling Commandos, and apparently the original Union Jack; and throwing in a goddamned shit love story that serves little purpose. The relegation of Cap to a prop for selling war bonds was not needed. Who in their right mind goes "Hey, we just juiced the shit out of this guy, made him fuckin' Superman minus the tights. Let's add the tights and have him hock shit instead of kickin some Nazi ass." No, shouldn't have happened. Even though the government is dumb, I don't think they'd be all for tossing Cap aside, especially not in his own damn movie. The Howling Commandos were somewhat OK, because they were from WWII, chances are no one would recognize them, and they give Cap a strike team. Not that he fuckin' needs one, but there's gotta be someone to blame if shit goes wrong, right? But the topping on the shit cake is the love story. What the hell. There's no need for it, at all, hence why I left all mention of it out of the summary. And it doesn't even develop all that well, because ultimately Cap has to get frozen in time, so either he wakes up and she's an old bag, or she's dead.  Plus, being super powered, he'd probably break her if they did it. So once again we have a movie that isn't helped by some forced romantic involvement.

Next up, holy shit, the CGI in this film. So some movies are aided immensely by slick CGI. Some movies, like 300 or Sin City revolve almost entirely around CGI scenes, so they take the time to keep it looking good. Captain America said fuck that noise, and built a movie around CGI scenes without giving two shits how good they looked. There are a handful of times where Chris Evans' head on the little Steve's body just looks ridiculous. I'm not sure if there was a better way to handle it, but think Marlon Wayans in LiTTLEMAN, but much sloppier. And the scenes of all CGI were just terrible. Cap stuck out like a sore thumb, the action looked hokey, and I don't know if they were trying to go for some kind of comic book-esqe feel, but they failed miserable at whatever they were trying to do. It was fuckin awful.

Finally some nitpicky comic book things:

• Bucky was Cap's sidekick, not some kind of older brother figure. And in the comics, Cap and Bucky are attempting to defuse a runaway rocket when it explodes, killing Bucky (I know, no one is ever dead in comics) and throwing Cap into the freezing ocean where he's recovered from suspended animation, not this bullshit train death bit. 
• The Cosmic Cube has nothing to do with Odin or Norse mythology whatsoever, even though the movie presents it as such (again, just calling it a tesseract, not the Cosmic Cube, but it's almost the same damn thing). 
• Cap was a bad ass from the get go. Just because the guy that gave him the serum got killed doesn't mean he was shipped off to be a lab rat. The guys in charge recognized a Grade A ass kicker and put him to work kickin ass, not dancin around kissing hands and shaking babies...or vice-versa...

So, to sum it up, what we have here is not the movie Captain America: The Last Avenger could have been. We don't have the great film that takes the Star-Spangled Avenger and raises him up to meteoric heights. No. What we have here is some shit thrown together and called a movie, just so it wouldn't seem weird when Cap shows up in The Avengers. That's it. The references to Norse mythology, the lack of any real strong plot development, the being found by SHIELD instead of the Avengers themselves, it was all a fuckin' lead up to the goddamnned Avengers movie. Hopefully The Avengers is so awesome, it overshadows how shitty this movie ended up being.

Ron Perlman's a stickler for stickin' to the comics (see Hellboy), so he feels what I'm saying. However, he does recognize that it's still Captain Fuckin' America, so he's a little lenient. 

Why, Cap? You coulda been so much better (at least 4 Perlys, maybe even better). Damn you, Hollywood money grab.

From My Playlist
	Artist:	Spandau Ballet
	Song:	Gold
	Album:	Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Vol. 2: Wave 103

Little Monsters

So I know you may find this hard to believe, but I used to be a kid. And during that tumultuous time of my life, I was privileged to see a (to me) fantastic bit of filmography known simply as Little Monsters. It had everything you could hope for: a big name star, hilarious hijinks, scary monsters, and a plot that really spoke to me: escaping into a world of freedom from the tyranny of parents. Little Monsters was awesome. And then, I made the mistake of watching it again as an adult. Seriously, what the hell was wrong with us kids.

Skip to the review!

Brian (played by Fred Savage, child star extraordinaire) and his family have recently moved to a new town. As with any move to a new town, Brian is less than thrilled. Shortly after moving in, Brian gets up in the middle of the night to catch a late night talk show featuring a sexy lady in a bikini. Shortly after crafting his peanut butter and onion sandwich (seriously, wtf), a startled cry from his younger brother Eric (played by Fred Savage's actual younger brother Ben, who's primary TV show managed to run for a season longer than Fred's) wakes up Brian's parents (Played by Daniel Stern, the voice from The Wonder Years and co-star in a myriad of films, and some nice lady who's not been in anything else worth noting). His wild claims of a monster under his bed are met with the same lack of belief as most real parents.

The next morning, Brian is busted thanks to his fonky sandwich being found by his parents. Upon opening one of the cupboards, his dad is splashed by a cupful of melted ice cream that had been left overnight. Irritated, he changes his clothes and ends up running over Brian's bike while backing out of the driveway. After being grounded into the next millennium, Brian takes out his frustrations on Eric, blaming him for the pranks that got Brian in trouble. But his brother insists that the cause was, in fact, the monster under his bed. In retaliation, Brian chucks his brother's sack lunch out the window, beaning Ronnie, the school bully, who catches up with Brian later to thank him properly.

Eric challenges Brian to sleep in Eric's room and prove whether there is or isn't a monster. Brian accepts. The first night, after playing a prank on Eric and his friend, Brian returns to find Eric's room trashed. Believing Eric's claims, Brian offers to spend another night in his room. This time, though, he's made some radical modifications to the bed. Laying out a trail of Doritos, Brian soon dozes off. He's awakened by the crunching sound of some tasty tasty Doritos. Springing his bed mods, the legs of the bed swing out, dropping the bed flat against the floor and trapping the monster in Eric's room. The monster begins freaking out and, as the sun comes up, explains to Brian as he's melting into a pile of clothes that if he's not back under the bed soon, he'll die. Brian takes pity on the monster and slides his now empty suit of clothes back under the bed.

The next night, the monster returns for a proper introduction. Maurice (played by Howie Mandel of Bobby's World fame...Bobby's World...) is a monster who lives in a fantastical world under the everyone's beds. As a reward for managing to trap him, Maurice offers to take Brian down to see what true freedom looks like. Brian finds a world of monsters who are completely free from nearly all responsibility. There are no parents to get on your nerves, all kinds of junk food to eat, video games you can play to your heart's delight, and complete and utter freedom to be a kid...well an asshole kid, but a kid nonetheless.

Over the next few nights, Maurice and Brian spend their nights together making mischief, travelling around to other kids' rooms to make a mess around the house, break expensive things, and do mean things to household pets. They pay a visit to Ronnie and replace his lunch with a less than tasty alternative: a cat food sandwich in place of tuna fish, and (with Maurice's assistance) a bottle of monster pee in place of apple juice. Later, they visit Kiersten, a girl who Brian likes and who apparently also likes Brian. Though Brian refuses to do anything bad to Kiersten, Maurice transforms his hand into a dog and proceeds to destroy her science project, earning her a zero (I guess the teacher was a stickler for documentation). This causes a bit of a falling out between Brian and Maurice, just when Brian and Maurice were beginning to feel they had found a unique friend in each other. Accepting Maurice's apology, Brian returns to the monster world where Maurice takes him to the room of a baby. After a lot of pressure from Maurice to scare the child, Brian escapes, but finds that he is beginning to suffer the same ill effects as Maurice when exposed to light.

In the meantime, in a somewhat unrelated side plot, Brian's parents separate because their marriage struggles have reached a tipping point. Ultimately, this has the effect of pushing Brian to bond more with Maurice.

Spoiler here [skip it!]:
With Brian having escaped the monster world, Maurice is confronted by Snik, the overgrown lackey of Boy, the head monster in charge. Because Maurice has failed to turn Brian into a permanent monster, Snik beats Maurice and decides to take care of the matter himself. Brian spends the next day sawing the legs off all the beds in the house, preventing any monsters from coming up from under them. But Snik finds another route via the hide-a-bed in the couch. Snik kidnaps Eric and, after enlisting the help of Eric's friend Todd and Kiersten, Brian returns to the monster world with friends and an arsenal of light-based weaponry and armor in tow. The trio confronts Boy, who offers to let Eric go in exchange for Brian staying and becoming a monster and Boy's protegé. After unleashing light-based hell, their weapons are destroyed, they are captured, and the three kids are dropped into a locked room full of toys along with Maurice. After using a couple pencils and a battery to generate enough light to turn Maurice into a pile of clothes and slide him under the door, they make their escape.

After enlisting the aid of Ronnie and a super flashlight weapon, the kids return to deal with Boy. Using their new weapon, they destroy Boy and Snik, but Snik manages to pull himself back together and prevent the kids from leaving. Just when it seems all hope is lost, Maurice appears with a flamethrower and puts an end to Snik. Just as the kids reach Eric's bed, the sun comes up and they appear to be trapped in the monster world, which would ultimately mean that they themselves become monsters. They quickly come to the realization that just because the sun is up at Brian and Eric's house doesn't mean that the sun is up everywhere. Making a mad dash across time zones, they finally arrive under the bed of a hobo on a beach in Malibu. Saying their hearfelt goodbyes, Maurice and Brian share a final touching moment where Maurice gives Brian his leather jacket to remember him by (because he'll obviously never see him again, what with...well...no reason, I guess, since it's not like the monster world stopped existing when they left). After Brian calls his mom via pay phone to tell her and his father where they're at, the kids take in the beautiful view of the Pacific Ocean while the most unlikely credits song ever plays, The Talking Heads' "Road to Nowhere."

Spoiler off:
Sometimes it's ultimately better to just remember how good you thought a movie was instead of watching it again and coming to the sad realization that the kid version of yourself was an idiot. How did you not notice the glaring holes. I mean come on, who really eats peanut butter and onion sandwiches? That's just crazy talk. But seriously, a battery and 2 pencils that can be used to arc electricity between to create as much light as a flashlight? Or the logical issue introduced by a monster who can't suffer bright light carrying a flamethrower.

Also, how did I miss that this movie has a ridiculous amount of cursing for a kids movie. And not just that, but the context of the cursing. Sure, I'd probably heard the words before, but good grief, the handful of "shit"s was unexpected. That was odd to watch and not remember, but the most surprising vulgarity came in a scene where Maurice pulls down Brian's pants in front of a girl monster, whose only comment is "Nice ass." Don't get me wrong, it was still amusing as most uses of the cursed words are, just a bit unexpected.

Overall, the movie actually stood up pretty well. The effects were a little hokey, but it was the late eighties. It would probably be weird if they weren't a bit hokey. The inclusion of "Road To Nowhere" is notable for the simple fact that it seems to be the only well-known song in the short list of songs that make up the soundtrack (and because it's one of the best damned Talking Heads songs ever!) For the most part, the monsters weren't nightmare inducing, MGMT's "Kids" quality monsters, they were mostly kids in weird clothes and makeup, so it's still watchable for smaller kids. And I suppose in the grand scheme of things, some of the slightly more adult humor was geared towards older kids and parents who might have been dragged to the movie by their younger siblings or children. While I don't think the 3 year old will be watching it, it might be watchable in a couple of years. Of course, I can't see him giving two shits about a movie that's almost as old as his parents. But who knows, everything old is new again eventually, right? Hell, they might even remake the damn thing in the next few years...stupid Hollywood...

Ron Perlman starred as the Beast in the TV series "Beauty and the Beast," so he knows a thing or two about monsters. And he approves, plus a little extra.

I swear if there's a remake, somebody's gettin' kicked in the nards. Just like the kind Wolfman's got.

From My Playlist
	Artist:	Mumford & Sons
	Song:	Little Lion Man
	Album:	Sigh No More

The Dark Side Of The Moon

Ooh, scary. Look at that box art. And that's just on VHS (kids, ask your parents). Imagine how much scarier it is transferred into higher quality DVD. Oh shit, if it's on Blu-Ray, you've just crapped your pants with fear thinking about it. Or not, since it wasn't really that scary. Or good. But don't let me spoil it for you (I suggest you do let me spoil it for you to save you the hour and a half of wasted life.) Also, in case you were wondering, no, there is absolutely no Pink Floyd to be found anywhere in this movie. A shame really, would have at least made it more...no, it still would have been terrible. Sorry, Floyd.

Skip to the review!

If you're not on the edge of your seat after reading this introductory crawl, you may want to check your pulse to make sure the terror hasn't already killed you:

The year, 2022.
The maintenance ship SPACECORE 1 is on a routine "refab" mission.
The refabs are fixers.
Their purpose is to repair nuclear-armed satellites orbiting high above the earth.
Due to the atomic capabilities of these satellites, refabbing is considered dangerous...


Very dangerous.

It's safe to assume you've crapped yourself, though most likely from how horrible the intro is.  So the movie begins in the far flung future of 2022 (which for a movie made in 1990, is really kind of aiming short). The crew of Spacecore 1 is on approach to the dark side of the moon (which I guess is technically high above Earth) where a satellite has wandered off armed with a couple of nuclear missiles. Apparently in the not-to-distant future, things on Earth have become so bad, we're all just waiting to be nuked from space by a bumbling crew of washing machine repairmen. But I digress.

With the classic Star Wars fly-in-over-the-camera shot, we're introduced to the futuristic Spacecore 1. With a crew consisting of five guys, 1 gal, and a sexy female robot/main computer/unnecessary actress in skintight spandex. Wait, "unnecessary" may not be the word. Our fearless pilots Flynn and Giles begin to have problems with various ships systems as they approach the dark side of the moon where the satellite is hanging out. Lesli, the aforementioned spandex-clad computer avatar can find nothing wrong with the ship. With the ship's systems failing, the crew finds themselves in a life threatening situation. With little communication to Earth, limited resources. and only one sexy female to share among them, things start to get tense.

Jennings, a gopher/general purpose crewman who has helpfully configured one of the satellites to send out a distress signal, is the first to make a pass at Alex (oddly, all the guys seem to go by their last names, but Alex goes by her first). The main engineer Paxton (played by the same actor who played Tyrell in Blade Runner, complete with giant 80's glasses) goes next, waiting until Alex has prepared some tea for the crew, warming it with a small blowtorch in the cold confines of the failing ship. Inadvertently, she's put cream into Dreyfuss' tea, which he is deathly (as in instant heart failure, not just some itchy hives deathly) allergic to. Being the ship's doctor, he's probably not the best guy to poison before the real fun begins.

While waiting for help, an old NASA space shuttle appears out the window, seemingly adrift in space on the far side of the moon. Confused by the fact that NASA is now defunct, the crew makes a desperate attempt to salvage either fuel or oxygen from the shuttle. Spacecore 1 manages to dock with the NASA shuttle, regardless of the fact that the ships are ridiculously different, which turns out to be the Discovery 18. Investigating historical records, it's found that Discovery 18 splashed down in the Bermuda Triangle in 1992. It was lost in the Triangle, with only one crewman accounted for. Flynn and Giles decide to head over to the Discovery, donning spacesuits that, even though NASA is no more, look a lot like NASA spacesuits. They head over to the shuttle and are able to patch it into their ship and provide much needed oxygen.

On board the shuttle, they find one of the unaccounted-for crewmen dead, but still in pretty good shape for being 30 years dead. He's had the skin cut off of his stomach in the shape of a perfect triangle. Flynn and Giles take him back to the Spacecore 1 for examination. Dreyfuss is baffled by the condition of the corpse and the perfection with which the triangle cut has been made. While the rest of the crew is off doing other important things, Alex is left alone with the corpse. Suddenly, the dead man comes back to life. After a wicked kidney punch and some boasting in a scary monster voice, the dead man forces Alex's face into the cut in his stomach. Giles, who's been with Lesli investigating the history of the shuttle, watches all this unfold on the closed circuit cameras. Raising an alarm, everyone heads back to the medical bay to find the dead man still quite dead and Alex on the floor unconscious.

While Alex is strapped to an examination table, Flynn decides to go back to the shuttle to see about salvaging some electronics to possibly repair parts of his damaged ship. While exploring this NASA shuttle that seems to have serveral levels (the part is on Level 3), Flynn ends up in a room full of saltwater. While communicating with Giles, Flynn sees something, but is quickly cut off. Giles decides he and Dreyfuss should go investigate while Paxton and Jennings remain on board with Alex and Lesli. As they're wandering the ship, Giles walks through a doorway and is cut off from Dreyfuss. Giles hears shots being fired, and finds Dreyfuss freaking out in another area. Looking around, they find the room filled with saltwater Flynn mentioned. Inside, they find Flynn hanging from a giant hook in the ceiling. When his body falls from the hook, they find the now dead Flynn has the same triangle cut out of his stomach that the dead crewman had.

Back on the ship, a shadowy figure pays a visit to a now conscious Alex. Being as seductive as she can for  a low budget horror flick, she convinces the shadowy figure to have his way with her. Moments before anything good can happen, Alex goes into the same scary monster voice mode as the dead man and pushes the shadowy figure's face into her stomach.

When Giles and Dreyfuss get back to the ship, they find Jennings and Paxton outside the med bay where Alex is now dead with the same triangle cut in her stomach. With Jennings and Paxton the only ones on the ship, Giles and Dreyfuss are rightfully suspicious. The suggestion is made to take everyone to the bridge and figure out what the hell is going on. En route, Jennings and Paxton overpower the other two and take their weapons. Paxton interrogates Giles about what happened on the other ship, and disliking his answers, threatens to kill Giles. Jennings encourages Paxton to kill Giles, but Paxton ultimately refuses to do so.

Giles returns to speak with Lesli about the history of the Bermuda Triangle. Making an offhand comment, Lesli informs Giles that were the Spacecore 1 to be lost in the Triangle, they would be the 666th vessel to be lost. Acting on a hunch, Giles asks Lesli to display the latitude and longitude coordinates of the three points of the Bermuda Triangle. Contained within each point of the triangle's coordinates is the number 6, making 666. He then finds that the ships current location is between the Bermuda Triangle on Earth and a triangular section of the moon called Centrus-B40. It's then that Giles realizes who may be behind all these mysterious deaths: The Devil.

Giles decides their last chance at getting home is if he gets to the other ship, gets the part Flynn originally went after, and gets the ship back up and going. As an insurance policy, he tells Jennings and the remaining crew that if he's not back in 30 minutes, they can undock the Discovery and use the nearby satellite to destroy the shuttle. Luckily, the control board has a giant red button marked "Launch," so we don't have to worry about anyone finding or pushing the wrong button. The crew synchronize their watches for a 30 minute countdown and Giles hauls ass to the Discovery. He returns to the saltwater room and is attacked by a giant dryer hose that rises up out of the water. He retrieves the part and, while making no attempt whatsoever to keep it from getting wet, makes a mad dash back to the Spacecore 1. Jennings gets antsy, having decided that Giles is behind all the murders, and when the 30 minutes counts down, begins the sequence of events to destroy the Discovery. Giles manages to escape the ship just in time, but is caught in the airlock tunnel as the shuttle separates from Spacecore 1. Luckily, he's not flash frozen or suffocated by being exposed to the void of space. In the now windtunnel of an airlock, Giles continues to shout commands to Dreyfuss to get the airlock door open. Dreyfuss is able to open the door and after a brief struggle with the  air escaping, he pulls Giles aboard.

Heading back into the ship, Paxton confronts Jennings and we see that it was Paxton who visited Alex and got the nasty face munch. Paxton, now infested with Satan, gloats about stopping Giles. Jennings ultimately ends up shooting Paxton. Moments later the satellite launches one of its nuclear missiles at the Discovery and the shuttle is destroyed.

Giles and Dreyfuss head off in search of Jennings and Paxton. They come across Paxton with the triangle cut in his stomach and Jennings nowhere in sight. They assume the Beast has moved on to Jennings, but it turns out Paxton was just playing possum. Paxton goes to Lesli, prompting quite possibly the greatest random quote from a film ever. With the camera as Paxton's point of view, Lesli "activates" and says simply, in her terrible robot voice, "Get away from me you motherfucker."

Giles and Dreyfuss stock up on ammo. They go to install the part they recovered from the shuttle only to find the existing parts destroyed beyond repair. Disheartened, they go hunting for Jennings. Dreyfuss stumbles into a triangle shaped shaft of light, recognizes a shadow, and cowers in fear. Giles finds Jennings and a struggle ensues. Just as Jennings is about to kill Giles, Dreyfuss saves the day and shoots Jennings.

Spoiler time (it's as good a place as any) [Or skip it]:
The ship finally beings to shut down. Giles contacts Lesli for a status report. A quick cut to Lesli reveals the sexy robot is now a headless sexy robot. Somehow Lesli manages to respond anyway and with an unknown reason for the ship stopping. Dreyfuss is upbeat at the dire sounding news. Back in the mess hall, Dreyfuss and Giles take a moment to relax and have a drink. Dreyfuss proceeds to add cream to his tea, which tips Giles off to what he suspected: Dreyfuss is Dreyfuss no more. Dreyfuss expresses regret at their lack of chance for rescue. Giles tells Dreyfuss about Jennings having set up one of the satellites to send a distress signal and heads back to the control room.

Dreyfuss enters the control room to confront Giles. Giles is just finishing up reprogramming the nuclear missile satellite. Satan-fuss proceeds to explain to Giles that he is taking souls of those who have lost all hope to regain his lost power and assault Heaven once more. He explains that the Bermuda Triangle was just a happy coincidence and convenient for his purposes. All it takes, really, is for someone to question their faith and they've lost their soul to the Devil. Giles tells off Dreyfuss to keep him distracted. The final nuke swivels into place and launches at the Spacecore 1. The ship is destroyed.

The movie ends with a panning shot of Centrus-B40, showing hundreds of lost ships and planes that disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle. Suddenly, a distress call is heard from the Tiberius, which has lost control and is drifting towards Centrus.

All done:
Sometimes you hear the concept of a movie, and you're like "Man, that sounds cool as hell, I'd like to see that." And then you see it and the first thing you really want to do is find the nearest film director and kick him so hard in the nuts he can never have children so none of them ever gets the idea in their head to make a film like this. The Dark Side of the Moon sounds like it could have been good, if it wasn't a horrible direct to video letdown. I know the indie movie scene has come a long way since the early 90's, but good lord.

One of the major problems here involves the suspension of disbelief. A lot of films rely on this. No, there's not really a giant monster destroying a major city. No, you can't get exposed to high doses of radiation and gain super powers (unless uncontrollable tumors is considered a super power). And no, the dorky best friend will never ever ever have the popular girl realize they're meant to be together and ditch the jerky quarterback asshole. It will NEVER happen, so just stop hoping.

Here, you're asked to forget that these things can't happen. But then the movie makes multiple references to random shit that either never existed or is just some random statistic that was made up to suit the needs of the film, but would be quickly verifiable (though since this was made in the 1990s, I guess they didn't have quite so much Internet. AOL probably wouldn't have known its ass from a hole in the ground since they certainly don't today). Far from the 666 vessels lost in the Triangle, there are only a couple dozen. So unless somebody ratcheted up the disappearance rate, the number should be nowhere near that high. Since there are no real exact vertices for the Triangle, using the commonly accepted points we get roughly 32°18'N 64°47'W for the capital of Bermuda, 18°27'N 66°04'W for San Juan, Puerto Rico, and 25°47'N 80°13'W for Miami. While there are 3 6's, the movie portrays the coordinates as having a single 6 from each point. I suppose one could massage the points a bit to find a nearby point with a 6. There's no way the characters would have been able to survive prolonged exposure to the vacuum of space, or an electronic part from 1992 would be of any use covered in saltwater. Really, you're just asking for nerdy know-it-alls to question your methods and "facts"...

Sadly, the "fact" I was most interested in looking up was Centrus-B40, the location on the back side of the moon where the Bermuda Triangle dumps its loot. Except it doesn't appear to exist. I will admit, it's a bit rough finding maps of the far side of the moon, but I'd think it'd be there somewhere if it was real. Thanks for dashing my hopes.

The acting wasn't very good, especially given the class of actors in the film. While not A or B grade stars, they weren't total nobodies. The pace is ok, but who cares when the movie is bad. There aren't any really scary parts, though they try to use a lot of shadows and dark places to elicit terror. The inclusion of Lesli was just outright stupid. She's the ship's computer system, but she has a body. No big deal, except she never leaves the chair she's sitting in. What's the point of having a robot body (dressed in skintight spandex, I must note again) if you're just going to use it to keep a chair from running off. It's not like anybody really gets a chance to hook it up with her. And really, I cannot overemphasize how terribly cheezy the "Get away from me you motherfucker" line is. The resolution isn't really all that much of a resolution, but at least all your questions get answered, unlike some films...

So really, you're better off avoiding this one. There are hundreds of better ways to spend an hour and a half. If you don't believe me, trust the Perl.

At least if there had been some Pink Floyd, I could have pretended I was just having a bad trip.

From My Playlist
	Artist:	Wallpaper
	Song:	Fucking Best Song Everrr
	Album:	#Stupidfacedd

YellowBrickRoad

A quick explanation as to why there are 2 posts today: because the previous post for A Serbian Film comes with a well deserved disclaimer not to read it, I felt that it would be dumb to post it and leave people with good sense (since so many people read this site...NOT) nothing to really read but a bunch of disclaimers. So here's a safe movie so you have some reason to be here.

Arg. After watching all 100 minutes of this film, that's all I can really come up with to describe how I feel. YellowBrickRoad (yeah, it's all one word and it's a Wizard of Oz reference) is a pretty OK movie until towards the end of the film. Apparently an indie film made for about a half a million dollars, the movie doesn't show its low budget at all (even the handful of CGI moments are pretty good), but does suffer from something that seems to happen a lot in these indie films: shitty ending. I mean, look at the box art. That shit looks scary, doesn't it. It's a bit betraying as you'll see, but at least the movie's kind of scary, so it's not a total bullshit cover.

Skip to the review!

The film begins with an ominous recap of the event leading up to the film:

One morning in 1940, the entire populate of Friar, NH, walked north up an unmarked trail into the wilderness. 

Some were later found frozen to death. Others were mysteriously slaughtered. Most, however, were never found. 

Among the classified records is this audio recording of a lone survivor, conducted at the outset of the investiagtion.

That's some spooky shit, isn't it. The audio recording of the lone survivor gives little hint as to what happened, other than he walked from town down a trail on which he left all the others. At the conclusion of the interview, the survivor covers his ears with his hands and asks the others in the room if they hear the sound. Then the movie begins in earnest.

Teddy Barnes has a perhaps unhealthy interest in the events in Friar, and seeks out the classified records of what happened. Expecting the runaround, he is instead given all the classified documents, along with an apology from a mysterious clerk. Having finally retrieved the documents he so wanted, he returns home. During a mini celebration with his wife Melissa and close friend Walter regarding teaching assignments, Teddy reveals that he has the materials he needs to embark on a journey into the woods north of Friar to discover what happened to all those townfolk nearly 70 years prior and write a book detailing what they find.

Teddy's crew gathers at a diner to get acquainted and set out on their journey. Teddy and his wife explain their book plans. Walter, a psychology teacher, intends to monitor the crew members for any changes. Erin and Daryl (who are actually brother and sister in real life) play a brother and sister team of cartographers interested in mapping the parts north of Friar that have been, up to this point, uncharted. Jill, Teddy's intern, is along with a GPS and as extra storage space. Cy is a forest ranger who's been assigned to Teddy's crew to make sure they stay safe in the woods. Oh, and a nice ass canopied ARGO 4 wheeler. Once everybody's introduced themselves, it's time to set off.

The initial coordinates of the trailhead (where the trail starts for those not familiar with the term and unable to discern meaning by dissecting a word into its component parts) are The Rialto, a movie theater in Friar, leading everyone to question the functionality of Jill's GPS unit. Inside, the crew finds just an ordinary cinema with a dick ticket booth guy and a mysterious looking concession clerk. While everyone leaves in frustration, Teddy follows the concession clerk into the empty theater. Here the clerk, named Liv, tells Teddy that not only does she want to get out of her humdrum life at the theater, but she knows where the real trailhead is and wants to join the crew on their trek down the 'Road.

As the set out on their trip, we're given glimpses into how Walter plans to track the mental state of the crew. Each morning they're asked simple questions from their name to their current location, along with other strange requests: speaking gibberish, making a gesture, reciting the alphabet backwards, and doing random multiplication. On their first night, Daryl returns from taking a leak and, after attempting to scare the hell out of the rest of the group, shows off a fedora-looking hat he found in the woods. There seems to be no way to verify that it belong to one of the original 'Road victims, and the hat doesn't look worn enough to have been out in open weather for 70 years. They decide to keep the hat, and Daryl decides the best way to keep it safe is to wear it.

As they're travelling Liv reveals some of the information passed on to her by her grandfather, who was around at the time of the initial trip, but wasn't in town when it occurred. One of the things she notes is that lots of things were left behind, but strangely the occupants took all kinds of formal wear when they left. Walter is skeptical given the discovery of the hat the night before and the sudden convenience of Liv's revelation. When they break for lunch and to give Erin and Daryl a chance to plot some reference points, Jill informs Ted that the GPS is malfunctioning, showing their current location as Guam.

Their journey continues. According to the GPS, they're now 40 miles north of Florence, Italy. The 2nd night, Erin tries to steal the fedora from Daryl after he refuses to take it off the first day. The next day finds them, according to the GPS, just outside of Melbourne, Australia. On this third day of travelling, they finally begin to hear a sound that resolves itself into music from the 40's. They spend that night speculating as to the source of the music. Is it some kind of funneling affect? Some sort of group hallucination? Is it a message from God? Travelling on, they spend the next day and night dealing with the music, amusing themselves to try and distract from its non-stop playing.

On the fifth day, the psych interview with Teddy breaks down as he expresses frustration with the trip. An attempt to do some mapping causes confusion between Erin and Daryl, and another request to take the hat off. Later, Daryl is picking through some berries he's found, when Cy points out that they are the deadly poison nightshade. That night, after a bit of celebrating and too much drinking, Liv awakens Melissa and Teddy to tell them that she lied, that her grandfather never came to Friar, and she is, in fact, from Rhode Island. She just wanted to get out of the rut she was in working at the movie theater.

With the non-stop music beginning to take its toll, the crew moves forward. At the next stop for mapping coordinates, Erin and Daryl head off on the ATV to find a good spot. Tensions between the two of them grow, and after Erin drops the sextant they're using, they reach a breaking point. Erin again demands Daryl take of the hat, and after repeatedly asking, she grabs the hat and dashes off, Daryl right behind her. As they dart off, Walter takes notice, getting up from his resting spot to keep an eye on them. Daryl knocks Erin down and attempts to punch her, but she kicks free and continues running. As Walter watches through binoculars, Daryl again catches up to Erin, knocks her down, and proceeds to rip a chunk of her cheek off. He then takes a large rock and smashes it into Erin's hip repeatedly. As Walter collapses, horrified by what he's seeing, Melissa takes the binoculars and watches Daryl rip Erin's leg from its socket, then clutch it tightly against his chest. Erin dies from her injuries, Daryl darts off into the woods, and Teddy and Cy chase him down. When they finally catch up to him, he's hurt. He gives himself up and is tied up.

That night, while Teddy is watching Daryl, he finds that the notes Daryl's been keeping have gone from coordinates to gibberish. Daryl explains that the coordinates and miles traveled were correct until they started trying to reference points behind them. Whatever was going on, they could keep going forward, but they couldn't go back. Daryl then tells Teddy that the last page of Daryl's notes contains the coordinates necessary to reach the end of the 'Road. After Teddy tears out the coordinates page, the music cuts out, then cuts back in, then cuts out again, progressively getting louder. Ultimately, it grows so loud that the crew is driven to the ground in pain. After frantic searching, they eventually come across a pack of cotton balls that they use to block their ears. As they travel on, being rocked by the deafening noise of the music, they come to a blockage in the 'Road. Approaching the blockage, they find Erin's corpse dressed as a scarecrow, posed in the same position Dorothy encounters the Scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz film. Teddy climbs to the top of the blockage and sees the continuation of the 'Road with an end in sight. While he's atop the pile of sticks, Daryl manages to escape his bonds and drive off on the ATV. Finally reaching the end of their ropes, they decide to head back, but there's no consensus as to which way to go. Teddy wants to continue on; Melissa, Walter and Jill want to head south; Cy and Liv want to head west. After splitting out the gear, Cy and Liv head off, and the rest of the crew settles in for the night. Teddy, resolved to see the 'Road to its end, leaves in the middle of the night. At dawn, finding Teddy gone, the other three begin heading south.

Cy and Liv travel on for a bit, and eventually, Liv comes across a bunch of nightshade berries. Cy tells Liv how he tried them once before, and while it takes a lot to kill you, taking a small amount will get you high. So they both eat some of the berries and start trippin' balls. As they're both coming down, Liv has an epiphany about the true meaning of life and the 'Road. She explains that the 'Road is a last resort of escape for the people in the small town; the 'Road will understand one's desire to escape routine life. And that's what scares her.

Spoiler point, I think [click here to skip] (see, I'm not sure where would actually start spoiling the end of the movie, but since this where the ending gets going, we'll just call this the spoiler point. Though there really isn't much to spoil.):
Walter, Melissa, and Jill have camped for the night. At their wits end, Melissa busts out a bag of candy for each to partake a few pieces. Once everyone falls asleep, Jill gives in and devours the entire bag of candy. The next day she gets the silent treatment from Melissa and Walter, regardless of how much she apologizes. Finally realizing the futility of continuing on, Jill turns and nonchalantly walks off a nearby cliff.

Teddy continues towards the end of the 'Road, his compass spinning out of control.

At Cy and Liv's camp, Cy confesses that he's been contemplating killing Liv. He convinces her to tie him up and kill him by breaking his neck. Liv protests, but Cy tells her to go off and find whatever strength she needs to do the job. When Liv returns, she breaks Cy's neck, killing him.

Melissa awakens to find Walter gone. She goes off to find him and discovers him on a hillside with his wrists slit and a note for her to watch the tape he made. The tape shows Walter killing himself, and him expressing his happiness that Melissa, by watching the tape, will be with him as he dies. She finishes watching the tape. Via walkie-talkie, she sends one last message out to Teddy, wherever he is. Teddy is still pushing himself along to the end of the 'Road. After Melissa's message, she hears Daryl in the cave behind her. Daryl chases her down and slits her throat with a machete. Liv, stumbling through the woods, comes across the ATV and a patch of blood. It seems Daryl may have been thrown from the ATV. Liv tracks down Daryl, and kills him with the knife she took from Cy. Then she wanders off with a handful of nightshade berries to poison herself. While this is going on, Teddy is broadcasting a final message to his wife, saying his goodbyes, wishing her well as he nears the end of the 'Road. Meanwhile, a white gloved hand drags Melissa's dead body away. Taking one last look at the coordinates page, Teddy let's it go and stumbles forward through the brush.

At last he comes upon a building that turns out to be The Rialto, but this time it's the building as it was in the 1940's. Inside he finds a lone usher. Teddy begs the usher to help him and his friends. The usher replies that his friends have been taken care of and arrived at the end of the 'Road, including Melissa. But, as the usher points out, there are so many ends. He encourages Teddy to "enjoy [his] picture show." Teddy settles into a seat in the theatre at the command of the usher looking bewildered and terrified. The film counts down to start, and the theatre is filled with a loud noise. For a brief instant, Teddy is surrounded by the dead from Friar. The film starts with a voice over by Melissa explaining a dream she had earlier in the film. She explains to Teddy that in this dream, even if they made it off the trail, their home would be forever changed. They'd be home, but home is all black grass, a smoke filled sky, and everyone having disappeared. The screen shows what looks like a tree with Melissa's face surrounded by a post-apocalyptic looking wasteland. Teddy screams and the film ends with Melissa stating "This is our home."

Spoiler ended: So really, these movies with decent plots and terrible endings is getting really fuckin' old. I'm not sure who's in charge of this sort of thing, but there probably needs to be a new movie rating classification. Or maybe when the list out the reasons for a rating, they can include "shitty ending." I think it would be kind of refreshing to see a trailer with a rating box that was like "R - graphic violence, language, sexual themes, shitty ending." At least going into it knowing the ending was going to suck, there wouldn't be quite so much let down.

Don't get me wrong, outside of the end, this movie was definitely very good for the budget. You really can't tell that it was only made for $500K. The acting was solid, the movie was quite suspenseful, and everything (except for the ending) was well done. There are a bunch of little nods not only to Wizard of Oz, but older horror movies, little one liners that you have to be paying attention to to pick up. The movie does a great job of drawing you into the mystery. You want to know why this whole town up and wandered off into the  woods. You want to know where the music is coming from. You want to know what is so special about the Yellow Brick Road. What you don't want is a swift kick in the balls. But that's what you get anyway.

Here's my guess about the ending of the movie and what it is supposed to symbolize (so skip the rest of this paragraph if you want to watch the ending/didn't read the spoiler above). What it seems to me the idea of the end was is that the Yellow Brick Road became some kind of allegory for life. There's the start, the end that we all arrive at (though via different means), and the journey in between. The Rialto's usher seemed to be some kind of Grim Reaper/Devil character who ushers those who've died to their final resting place. So regardless of how they got there, these travelers are all dead. But then the question becomes did they die on the trail by some other means? Or did they die as they died and the 'Road had nothing to do with their ending? As far as the music goes, my only guess there is the Rialto usher had a thing for 40's music, or because the characters were so focused on an event that occurred during that time, their paths were being overshadowed by music of the day. These are some of the annoying questions that the ending left hanging. What was the real point of the music? Why did the whole town take the walk? What was the fuckin' point? Did this movie really need to be so long? What are you kids doing on my lawn?

So if you've got a boner for unresolved cliffhangers, or you enjoy a good handjob that ends abruptly about 3 minutes before you're ready to blow, give this movie a shot. As with TiMER, this movie gets a composite score. 2.5 Perlys for the first part of the movie, -1 Perly for the goddamned ending.

Goddamn shitty endings!

From My Playlist
	Artist:	Muse
	Song:	Knights of Cydonia
	Album:	Black Holes and Revelations

A Serbian Film (a.k.a. the most fucked up movie ever) [DO NOT READ THIS POST!]

In case the title didn't tip you off, this movie is fucked up. Not like a little fucked up. A lot fucked up. So, and I type this in all seriousness, it's probably best if you don't read this review. I'm not joking. I've been avoiding writing it because this movie bothers me a bit, which is pretty hard to do. If you read the post about Zombie Nation, this is the film that's worse than that one. So stop reading this review right now. Really. I guarantee you'll be more happy spending an hour staring at the wall than reading this post. There's a saying that's pretty popular these days: "That which has been seen cannot be unseen." If you're even mildly bother by shock movies (Hostel, The Hills Have Eyes, etc.) or stuff like that, really, just stop reading right now. Unless you're just going to ignore the warnings and read it anyway. In that case, feel free to skip to the movie.

If you're still reading, either you can't understand English (in which case why are you looking at this blog?) or you think because you've seen The Human Centipede or the sequel you've seen it all. Cuz that's what I thought. Well, I'd seen several others beyond The Human Centipede, which is actually kind of tame in the grand scheme of movies. There are far worse movies. Irréversible, for instance. There are bloodier movies, though most of the ones I've seen are kind of schlocky. But really, again, I can't emphasize this enough, this movie is fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucked up.

To give you an idea as to how fucked up this movie is, here's the first paragraph from its Wikipedia entry:

It tells the story of a down-on-his-luck porn star who agrees to participate in an "art film", only to discover that he has been drafted into a snuff film with child rape and necrophilic themes.

If that wasn't enough to convince you to a) not ever watch this movie and b) stop reading this review, I'm gonna give you one last chance with a simple 2 word phrase that comes up in this movie to convince you: "newborn porn." No explanation needed. That should be enough to put you off this review something fierce.

Also, it's subtitled. I hope if nothing above has convinced you, maybe the threat of having to read subtitles will do it.

Skip to the review!

Well, if you're here, I haven't been able to convince you not to read this. Hey, it's your funeral pal.

Miloš is a former porn star who now has a wife and six year old son, who in the opening scenes of the film ends up watching one of Miloš' old porn films. Marko is Miloš' brother. He's a dick, a corrupt cop, and has a boner for Miloš' wife. Lejla, a former co-star of Miloš, finds him and talks him into one last porn film which will pay handsomely and basically set up Miloš and his family for life. Vukmir, an art-film maker and independent pornographer will be directing the film and initially tells Miloš he wants him as his star for his porn-superhero ability to get and maintain a raging hard-on with little to no fluffing. Miloš becomes a bit concerned when Vukmir requires that Miloš know nothing of the script or plot, just that he trust Vukmir's instructions. Miloš is also a bit wary of Vukmir's bodyguard and security agents who seem to be around at all times.

After a brief (muthafuckin') montage of Miloš getting himself back into shape and finding his raging-meat-baton center, filming begins. Miloš is taken by Raša, Vukmir's bodyguard who always wears some ridiculously dark sunglasses, to an abandoned orphanage. There, he's given an earpiece through which Vukmir will relay instructions for each scene. Several of the security agents serve as cameramen. Miloš, as he's being led through the orphanage, sees Jeca, a young girl. Jeca's mother is being taken away by guards for being a whore and disgracing her family. Miloš is then led into a darkened room where he receives a beej from a woman dressed as a nurse. As he's receiving his oral loving, a bunch of TV screens flick on and show a video feed of Jeca eating a popsicle. Miloš starts to get weirded out, but is pushed to continue. Soon after, he's taken to a room with Jeca and her whore-mom. The mother is forced to give Miloš more oral while Jeca remains in the room. Becoming angry, Miloš threatens to leave, but is forced to stay and finish the scene. Thus day one is a wrap.

Miloš asks Marko to check into Vukmir and find out what the deal is with this guy. Marko reports back that Vukmir is a psychologist, children's TV producer, and at one point worked with the state's security force. Miloš pays a visit to Vukmir's office, expresses his disapproval for the film so far, and decides that the messed up nature of the movie is not worth the money. Vukmir offers Miloš a drink and tries to explain his artistic style to Miloš. Still unconvinced to stay, he proceeds to show Miloš a short film Vukmir made .

Seriously, last last chance saloon here. If you don't want to be scarred for life, stop reading now...or at least skip the next paragraph, especially if you have kids. To help, I've changed the color to hide the text, so you'll have to highlight it to read it. Trust me, I'm doing you a fuckin' favor.

The short film shows Raša in a wife-beater and underwear enter a room with a very pregnant woman on a table. Raša proceeds to assist the woman in giving birth to a baby girl. After delivering the baby, Raša proceeds to begin to rape the newborn while the mother looks on in approval. This is most definitely the worst scene of any movie I've ever seen. Having kids just makes it that much worse. And because the short film has sound, you hear the newborn's regular baby cries turn into shrieks of pain as Raša begins. Deep down, this scene makes you want to find the guy playing Raša and hurt him just for being in this scene, even if it's not real. Vukmir refers to this as a new genre of film - newborn porn.

Miloš is horrified and gets the fuck out of Dodge as fast as possible. As he's driving away, he starts to have trouble concentrating and, at an intersection, is approached by a very attractive woman who turns out to be a doctor friend of Vukmir. As she stands next to the car, Miloš begins to grope her like a horny 16 year old getting to 2nd base for the first time.

Miloš wakes up days later looking beat up and with no memory of what happened in the meantime. He returns to the orphanage where he finds a bunch of tapes and camera. He takes each tape and plays it back trying to piece together what happened.

Watching the first tape, Miloš discovers that Vukmir spiked his drink with a drug designed to put Miloš into a highly aggressive, incredibly horny, and highly suggestible state. Under the influence of this drug, Miloš is led into a room with Jeca's mother handcuffed to a bed. Miloš begins to rape the woman, and is instructed to first beat her with his fists while doing so, and then to take a machete and chop her head off, resulting in a rigor mortis state and Miloš committing necrophilia. After Miloš is forcibly separated from the now dead woman, the tape ends.

Putting in the next tape, Miloš is presented with himself passed out on a bed. One of the security guard/cameramen proceed to position the camera to film him sodomizing Miloš while he's passed out.

In the next tape, Miloš sees Lejla question Vukmir's motives and artistic vision. She then attempts to get Vukmir to let Miloš opt out of the film. The next video (or the later part of the same video) shows someone walking into a barren room with a woman chained up. If it wasn't already obvious by the bits on the floor, the cameraman zooms in to show that all the woman's teeth have been removed, presumably without any anesthesia. The woman turns out to be Lejla. The man filming, who is wearing a cloth hood, proceeds to stick his dick down Lejla's throat, while at the same time pinching her nose, ultimately suffocating her.

Miloš eventually finds himself at Jeca's home, still under the effects of the drugs, but they seem to be wearing off a bit. An older woman who appears to be Jeca's grandmother praises Miloš for killing Jeca's mother for dishonoring the family by not only becoming a whore, but by becoming a whore whose husband was a great military hero, making it extra disgraceful. She proceeds to tell Miloš that his final act must be to deflower Jeca, explaining that her father had done the same to her when she was Jeca's age. Despite the fact that Jeca seems OK with this idea, Miloš begins to regain his faculties and escapes.

With the last bits of the drug still in his system, Miloš ends up in an alleyway where, after seeing a scantily dressed young girl walk by, he begins to masturbate because of the drugs effects. A group of men who had also been harassing the young girl take notice and begin to beat the shit out of Miloš. Raša arrives, kills the men, and takes Miloš away to the warehouse where he woke up.

Spoiler Time [click here to skip] (a special note here - as you can already tell, this movie is fucked. The ending is just as fucked. So again, if you have kids, you may want to skip to the wrap up after the next few paragraphs):


Back at the warehouse, Miloš is once again drugged by the doctor, but ends up injecting her with one of her own syringes, which incapacitates her. He is then taken to a large room with a bed in the middle where he is compelled to have anal sex with the smaller of two figures on the bed. Both are covered with the bedsheet.

As he's going to town on his latest victim, the hooded man who suffocated Lejla comes in and begins to have sex with the larger of the two figures next to Miloš. Vukmir, in some kind of filmmaker ecstasy, walks over and pulls the hood off the masked man to reveal Marko, Miloš' brother. Miloš is shocked. Vukmir then throws back the sheet, and Miloš shock turns to horror. The larger of the two figures which Marko is raping is Miloš' wife; the smaller of the two which Miloš is raping is his own drugged son, who is now bleeding. Vukmir is elated in this culmination of his film.

At this point, the doctor from before enters covered in blood and carrying what appears to be a pipe or bed leg. Under the influence of the drugs Miloš injected her with, she used the object as a dildo and did extensive damage to herself. She collapses on the floor and dies. Miloš, finally realizing what has happened, flies into a rage. He attackes Vukmir, smashing his head against the floor. Miloš' wife attacks Marko, crushing his skull with a nearby sculpture. Miloš fights with one of the guards, gets hold of his gun, and kills everyone but Raša. When his sunglasses are knocked off, it's revealed that Raša only has one eye. Miloš proceeds to shove his erection into Raša's empty eye socket, killing him. As Vukmir lay dying, he praises Miloš' work, proclaiming "That's cinema!" Miloš knocks his wife out and takes her and his son back to their home.

Realizing what's happened, Miloš contemplates suicide. But it's obvious his family is destroyed, his son seemingly comatose as they sit around the table deciding what to do. Miloš' wife finally convinces him that they should all commit suicide. So after cleaning up, Miloš and his wife lie in bed with their son between them. Miloš then shoots himself in the chest such that the bullet goes through him, his son, and his wife, killing all three of them.

Sometime later, a man who had earlier been seen leaving Vukmir's home arrives at Miloš' home with a pair of security guards and a camera crew. He instructs one of the men to begin raping the dead bodies, telling him to "start with the little one."

This paragraph is here just to separate the preceeding paragraphs from the follow up stuff. I don't want somebody who had the good sense to skip the spoiler section to accidentally read anything that was typed in that section. Here's a couple extra lines for you too.


Safe place.
OK, so why the fuck did this movie get made? Apparently, the movie is intended to be a parody statement regarding the state of Serbian cinema. The director/writers believed that current cinema is a very politically correct, foreign funded enterprise. They basically feel that current Serbian filmmakers don't care about quality, only about following a rule book of PC'ness that they intended to shatter. Vukmir is intended to represent foreign interest, who are looking to buy feelings in place of being able to have their own. Miloš is intended to be the everyman who is forced to go to extremes to provide for his family, and ultimately taken against his will when he fights against those extremes. They complain that foreign films have to revolve around some true-story victim to get made, thus using the victim's status as a victim to accomplish the task of making a movie. With A Serbian Film, everyone is a victim. Miloš is a victim of his desire to provide for his family, Marko is a victim of his envy of his brother, Vukmir is a victim of his desire to fill his hollow existence with something. Ultimately, everyone is a victim. Especially the viewer.

It's hard to accept that there's any fuckin' justification for this movie to have been made. I guess I can respect a director's decision to make a movie, but goddamn, this movie. There's no way to describe it, really. Even the warnings at the beginning of this post don't seem to do justice to enforce just how much no one should ever watch this movie. The movie has no redeeming value. It doesn't further a cause, it doesn't even tell a really interesting or exciting story. It doesn't teach some valuable life lesson (other than don't do porn, I guess). It doesn't make you cool for having watched it (lord knows I don't feel any cooler after seeing that shit). In the end, it's art for the sake of art. Which isn't always bad. But in this case, it's bad.

According to the Wikiz, the film was screened at several film festivals, which would seem to be a most uncomfortable place to watch a movie of this type. Apparently, they also had some digital transfer issues due to the nature of the film (shockar!). And the movie has been banned in a few countries. It's also a bit surprising to see that it has a 41% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Anyway, I really don't know what more to say about this movie. I guess I ultimately don't know enough about Serbian life and politics to speak to the nature of this movie as a parody. But really, if the movie had some sort of political point to make, I think it will ultimately be lost in the fuckin' harshness of the other parts of the film.

One of the other reviewers noted in the Wikipedia article made a similar statement, so I'm going to reiterate it here. If everything you've read above hasn't dissuaded you from wanting to see this movie, you're confused. You just think you want to see it because someone has told you you shouldn't. It's the same feeling that compelled me to sneak downstairs as a kid and watch Natural Born Killers after my dad told me not to. You really don't want to see this movie. But, if you do ultimately watch it, I hope you've been sufficiently prepared for the mind raping that comes along with it. Remember: that which has been seen cannot be unseen.

No Ron Perlmans this go round. He had enough sense to have nothing to do with this post.

Yeah, no song either. Writing this post has made me remember stuff I don't want to, so I'm not in any kind of mood to find some music to post about.