Just don’t press the freakin’ button! “The Box”

It’s not often that you come across a movie that has a scene which, for all intents and purposes, says “begin tripping now,” but Richard Kelly’s The Box has just a scene. So, gentle reader, be advised that when James Marsden stands in what appears to be the Induction Room at the Richmond Public Library (apparently it has such a thing), and must choose which floating column of water to step into—it’s time to have your ecstacy tabs handy. Who would have thought we’d arrive at this place in a movie based on a Richard Matheson short story. Well, anyone who’s seen a Richard Kelly movie I guess.

Halloween Movie Roundup!

Happy Halloween everyone! As you probably know, this is the holiday when the barriers between the living and the dead are the most permeable, and supernatural creatures wander the earth. They’ll probably want to watch movies, so you’re gonna want to have some decent horror movies onhand. I mean, if you were a ghoul come over to this side of the veil, would you want to watch The Ugly Truth? I thought not. So here is a quick roundup of great scary movies to watch on Halloween. Many of these are movies that even scared me—and I have a protective layer of cynicism towards most horror films that keeps me insulated from their effects. Okay, so let’s get to it: Gunmonkey’s Best Movies for Halloween!

Gunmonkey Exclusive: “Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans”

Holy crap! I’m going to be reviewing a film before many of the major media outlets! How did I fall ass-backwards into this? I’m now amongst the media elite! When do I get to suck Rose McGowan’s toes (as all professional movie critics do, I understand). Well, until that call, let’s take a look at Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, a film which proves that if you put someone batshit crazy behind the camera, he can actually make Nicolas Cage look…well, normal is probably the wrong word. Bordering on normal. In the same neighborhood as normal. On the same continent, anyway.

Dispatch from the Bangkok International Film Festival: “Antichrist”

Okay, so first up here in my BIFF reviews is Lars von Trier’s Antichrist, a film which left audiences bitterly divided when it premiered at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year. It’s almost inevitable that LVT is going to evoke strong reactions, since he’s a professional bomb-thrower, and, hey, let’s face it: when you have a fox turn to the camera and solemnly intone “Chaos reins,” there’s a good chance you’re going to lose a big chunk of your audience. And when one of your characters performs a self-clitorectomy with a pair of scissors, you’re probably going to lose the rest.

More Capsule Reviews!

Okay, a couple movies fell through the cracks while covering G.I. Joe and doing Michael Mann week. Fear not, gentle reader, for I wish to rectify that situation right now. So, there were three notable films I missed. Two horror movies and one sci-fi drama. Two of them suck, one isn’t so bad. They are Clive Barker’s Book of Blood, Solstice, and Timecrimes. Heard of any of them? No? Well, don’t get to worked up about it.

Meet the newer, more soulful Buffy: “Blood: the Last Vampire”

Blood: The Last Vampire gives you what the title promises. There is blood. There is a vampire. Possibly the last one. And there is martial arts and demons and swords and wire-fu. Vampire-hunting has been done to death in recent years. Beginning with the awesome Buffy TV series and moving on to the increasingly turgid Blade movies, and then those interminable Underworld movies. Add to that the various and sundry Buffy knockoffs and vampire hunting is about as novel in TV and movies as tracking down serial killers. So you’d be forgiven for being skeptical going into B:tLV. I certainly was. But the movie still manages to charm. Yes, there are big-teethed demons, and flappy-winged monsters, and The Big Bad Parent Monster. There is wire-fu, and katana swordplay, and numerous, numerous dismemberings. There’s really nothing here you haven’t seen before, and yet it still feels different enough to be a lot of fun.

Gunmonkey Presents: Capsule Reviews (and Reader Contest)

You might think that the toughest thing about writing these reviews is coming up with new ways of saying “it sucked.” Not so. I just think of the cinematic injustice done to me and let the venom flow. Next think you know I’m typing something like, “If Hitler barfed, it’d be this movie.” See how easy that is? (I was thinking of The Horsemen just then). No, oftentimes the toughest thing is coming up with 700-1000 words to say about a film. Many of the movies that don’t get reviewed here get skipped because there’s simply not that much to say about them. Some merit a half-review—hence the twofers—but many are just too unremarkable, even in their badness, to warrant writing up a review. So, to that end, we have the first Gunmonkey Capsule Reviews for the ADD-Afflicted!!! Yeah, I’m already working on a new name for them—preferably something with a cool acronym. Anyway, without further ado…

At Long Last, the Wait is Over! “Aztec Rex”

I couldn’t download it. Amazon.com didn’t sell it. The manufacturer discontinued DVDs of it. And when I bought it off eBay, the seller sent the wrong DVD. I had almost all but given up my search for a copy of Aztec Rex, when a bootleg DVD stand on Sukhumvit and Soi 5 (sandwiched between a stand that sold carved, teakwood dildos and a pick-up truck that had been converted into a mobile bar) brought my quest for this Holy Grail of bad movies to an end. So was it worth it? Holy freaking crap, yes it was!!! This movie is sheer, sublime badness! It’s like the crème brulee of bad movies! Watching this movie is like slipping into a warm, bath or silk sheets. Had this film been around thirty or forty years ago, it–not Ice Station Zebra—would be the movie Howard Hughes played on a continuous loop. At least, I would if I were him.

The Dingo Ate My Movie! “Australia”

Baz Luhrman’s film Australia tells a story stretched over an epic canvas; a story in which love and upbringing clash with the brutal elements of an untamed continent. A story in which basic human decency must strive, like a green sprout in the desert against base human cruelty and institutional racism. A story in which men and women struggle against themselves and the poisonous legacies of the past to move forward even as they stare into the face of imminent destruction and World War. It is a story of a country, a continent, and perhaps the very nature of the human soul viewed through the eternal innocence of a child’s eyes.

Bwahahahahahahahahahaha! Sorry…I just wanted to see if I could type that with a straight face. No, but really, Australia is just a batshit-crazy movie that really, really wants to seem important and grand and…holy crap, but this movie is hard to review. It’s like deconstructing the logical improbabilities of an acid trip or a Bugs Bunny cartoon. Sweet Lord, but it’s a great bad movie. So much badness it took the entire Outback to contain it.

Steven Seagal vs. the Vampire/Zombie Monsters: “Against the Dark” (For Kassandra)

Among Kassandra the Work Wife’s more disturbing idiosyncrasies—even above her pathological fear of the Internet and bone-deep hatred of Billie Piper (“I just want to bust my knuckles on her teeth…I dunno why.”)—is her fervent, almost religious, belief in the perfection of Steven Seagal. I learned about this when we were still sharing an office in D.C. She made me take the desk by the door, so she could use me as a human shield in the event of a siege situation, but I was used to talking to her over my shoulder. For the first six months we worked together, she didn’t let me face her directly (“You have to earn it, noob!”)