Tuesday, April 13, 2010

FILLMORE DISCOS 44

A Numbers Game (*)
it's got Steven Bauer and some lovely tarty 80s clothes on display, so you want to like it - sadly, and evident in the clunky script and over-eager editing, the film is completely overwhelmed by its indie pretensions

Taxidermia (**)
while Taxidermia, an exploration in bucolic Hungarian insanity, lacks absolutely nothing in artistic originality and ugly raw shock value, it just isn't that much fun

Choke (*)
a smug indie sex comedy whose dishonest humour is so self-conscious you almost sense a studio audience just at the edge of the set consisting of the cast's weekend drinking buddies

Survival Of The Dead (*)
within the subgenres of horror, and in good part thanks to more Romero rubbish like this (and Danny Boyle's execrable efforts), I now rate zombies uncooler than even vampires, certainly well below  aliens, ghosts, oversized reptiles, sharks, cannibals, and clockwork toys

Invisible Target (**)
if you enjoy scenes involving state-of-the-art choreographed glass-smashing, explosions, and bodies (often burning) flying around by every conceivable means, then this is your movie: technically, it's light years ahead of the Hollywood equivalents - unfortunately, it's just as full of the same braindead moralistic legitimising


FILLMORE DISCOS 43 - '70s RARITIES 2
FILLMORE DISCOS 42 - '70s RARITIES 1
FILLMORE DISCOS 41 - GIALLO SPECIAL 3
FILLMORE DISCOS 40 - GIALLO SPECIAL 2

4 comments:

Shonx said...

The book Choke was far better, the humour much darker (the central character having sex with a chain smoker for the spasms she got whilst coughing) and a messianic subtext which if I remember right was completely absent in the film. I had the idea it was a major studio that funded it, so probably thought pulling the religion and adding more dick jokes would pull in bigger audiences.

Mind you, given its subject matter, it seems about as likely to have made it to the screen in its original format as American Psycho.

P.S. Sorry about the misposts, was trying to look for an edit function but then just seemed to repost. Playing havoc with my OCD that's for sure.

William Bennett said...

that's interesting, Shonx, didn't even realise it was based on a book - but that makes sense in retrospect

Shonx said...

It was this one by Chuck Palahniuk, he of Fight Club fame. Has been a while since I read it so not sure whether saying it's better than a mediocre film is much of a recommendation.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Choke-Chuck-Palahniuk/dp/0099422689/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1271359529&sr=1-1

SenzuriChampion said...

Chuck Palahniuk is seriously like the worst author