This week watched Ang Lee's "emo" adaptation of HULK. After 7 years of gestation we decided to take a crack at it.
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Cinemasochists presents.. Episode 23; King Kong Lives!
LISTEN TO EPISODE 23 KING KONG LIVES HERE
(SPOILER) - King Kong does NOT live.
This is one of the most nonsensical, ridiculous ones we've seen yet. Listen to the delirium set in after we watch over four hours of sub-par Kong. This is part 2 of our Dino DeLaurentiis "Kong" Double Feature. Enjoy!
Cinemasochists review of SPLICE
By: Eric Palmer
We'll often times ignore a critic's advice and check out a film for ourselves. We think that maybe they've missed something or they're pretentious. Films like "Fight Club," "Big Lebowski" and "Moulin Rouge!" were condemned by many critics but have found late life praise for their originality. SPLICE is not one of those instances. This film is crap.
Let's start with the plot, which already throws a red flag. This is the type of film that could have gone one of two ways- a creepy thriller about the moral complexities of genetic engineering, or a SyFy original about a killer amphibious humanoid on the loose.
SPLICE goes the latter route. Only its not campy and entertaining in the way an Android Apocalypse or Mansquito could possibly be. It thinks its raising Important Issues. Yes, it's one of THOSE films.
SPLICE tells the story of two hotshot biochemists who ignore pleas from their lab and secretly go through with splicing animal and human DNA. They hope the resulting creature's genetic makeup might yield new medicines (and shoot them to science stardom in the process). Of course, things don't go exactly as they hope.
The tense and dark first half gives nods to tone, pace and even some imagery of Ridley Scott's Alien or a Cronenberg film. I couldn't wait to see the hideous mutant, soon to evolve, that you KNOW would want to get its comeuppance. With a director like Scott or Cronenberg at the helm, the film would have surely continued the sense of menace this provocative premise promised.
Instead, writer-director Vincenzo Natali gives us an. . . . ACTOR. The LAST thing we want. The creature evolves into a bald, dancing teenage mutant with CGI chicken legs and a stinging tail named Dren. We're meant to sympathize with and yearn for an ACTOR portraying the creature's development of FEELINGS. . . . and raging hormones. Dren throws teenage temper tantrums (and not in a cool, destructive movie monster way) and, of course, yearns to. . . . love. Give me a break. (This includes SEXUAL feelings, by the way, in the film's TWO (!!) ridiculous Jump the Shark moments)
The only serviceable performance comes from Sarah Polley, who juggles a range of emotion that her troubled character goes through. But by the time her character is raped in the climax by the creature (Don't ask.), you wonder how she ever got involved? Adrien Brody plays a weak and pitiful character which makes you unable to care about a single person in the film. The actors playing Dren are so frustratingly awful that it makes me type hard as I write this sentence. Their acting range is so limited, all we really get are the facial expressions of a confused toddler. When we finally get to the unsatisfying rampage climax, you're done waiting for it to deliver, and of course, it doesn't.
Whatever you do, avoid this stinker at all costs. This isn't "Batman Forever," a bad film that's entertaining nonetheless. This is "Batman and Robin," a complete waste of time. But at least you are spared the Creature's First Dance Sequence (in 360 degree POV slow motion, of course) on that one.
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Episode 22: King Kong (1976) or; King Dong
CINEMASOCHISTS PRESENT... EPISODE 22 - KING KONG
(1976)
For the next 2 episodes we will pay tribute to the late, great Dino De Laurentiis by tearing into his two KING KONG films. First up, his expensive 1976 sexercised remake of KING KONG starring Jessica Lange, Jeff Bridges and Charles flippin' Grodin! We discuss sex, savagery and the seventies all rolled into one hairy episode! Enjoy and stay tuned next week for KING KONG LIVES!
imdb: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074751/
purchase on amazon: http://www.amazon.com/King-Kong-VHS-Jeff-Bridges/dp/6300216845
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
DY-NO-MITE!
When I was in my early teens, I had a very steady diet of blaxploitation films. It wasn't so much a diet as it was a 2 year binge. Needless to say, my brain was filled with crackheads, gunfights, afros and cheap, but sincere filmmaking. I would go to the video store after school every day and find any movie with a title that started with "Black". Being a horror fan, I gravitated to "Blacula" or "Blackenstein" but after awhile I found "Black Godfather" and "Fass Black" (the cover art for the latter had literally NOTHING to do with the film... God bless XENON VIDEO).
But the one title that made the biggest impact on me over the years and one I can still watch is Rudy Ray Moore's "Dolemite". It was essentially a parody of "Superfly", "Shaft" et al. What made it work for me was not just the humor, but the fact that it was so cheap and amateurish that by the time the movie ended it was parody of itself.
The difference between "Dolemite" and the 2009 film "Black Dynamite" is that "Dolemite" was not too aware of it's so bad it's good quality. "Black Dynamite" is VERRRRRY aware of it, almost to a fault.
Michael Jai White (Spawn) plays "Black Dynamite" and amalgam of every blaxploitation hero. With a handlebar 'stache, leather jacket and nun chucks in his backpocket, B.D. wants to rid the city of drug dealers who are selling "this new smack" to children, especially children in orphanages (he was once an orphan) as well as find the man who killed his brother.
With help from Corn Bread (Tommy Davidson) Bullhorn (Byron Minns) and his all girl army of kung-fu killers (...Dolemite, anyone?) B.D. cleans up the city only to find out that it goes much higher than local drug dealers...Much higher. You can say the "honky house" may have something to do with it...
"Black Dynamite" is hilarious. It takes EVERY blaxploitation cliche and hits you on the head with it like the back of a 9mm, but in an endearing way. They LOVED making this film and it shows. I honestly was not expecting it to go as far as it did, in terms of homage. It was stylized to such a point, that by the end of it I was little tired. Needless to say, the out of focus shots, the use of stock footage and the exposed boom mic brought me back to my said pre teens years and made me feel good.
Director Scott Sanders got it all right. In fact, it may be the perfect parody film. My only issue is that he knew it all too well. It was almost a meta comedy because like Dolemite, the movie started to parody itself. So you could say it was a parody of a parody of a parody....
This doesn't mean you shouldn't see this (it's on NETFLIX stream), in fact, you should see it now! It's a great party film and it's even more rich if you're a follower of blaxploitation and grindhouse 70's action schlock....Oh yeah, Arsenio Hall is a drug dealing pimp...
Can you dig it?
score:
-1 of of -10
redeemable?
You're damn right. I laughed from front to (almost) back!
-Sean-
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
What're You Gonna Do With Those Pies, Boys???
We've been asked by our loyal listeners where they could get their masochistic hands on the Cinemasochists theme song, so I figured I would oblige.
Thanks for listening! Look out for episode 22 up next week!
love,
Cinemasochists
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Episode 21: Twilight!
After a month long hiatus we're back! To celebrate Halloween we decided to watch the scariest vampire film of 'em all....TWILIGHT. Listen in and see what we thought...I bet you can probably guess even without listening what we thought of it.......HAPPY HALLOWEEN!
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