Friday, November 05, 2010

FILLMORE DISCOS 56

Noroi The Curse (*****)
as a big fan of the fake documentary shaky-cam horror genre, I'm not sure how I missed this; anyway, this Japanese film from 2005 is for me the best one yet - its two hour duration, so well paced, enacted, edited, and crafted, absolutely flies by as it hurtles towards the shocking climax of the final scenes

American: The Bill Hicks Story (**)
the worst thing about death is how all the parasites come out to feed on the sorry corpse: here we have Bill Hicks' parents, to help shore up their comfort in retirement, attempting a deeply hypocritical sanitised rehistoricisation of his brilliant but tragically short-lived career; a bunch of useless stand-up Houston and LA comics shamelessly revelling in the opportunity for some reflected glory; and documentary filmmakers far more focused on self-congratulation for their ludicrous annoying graphic flourishes than in keeping the viewer informed as to who's talking about what and when

Saw: The Final Chapter (*****)
a poor and pointless implementation of 3D, a couple of scenes that I sense have been gratuitously tacked on, and subpar casting for the new roles, are all irrelevant flaws; this latest edition is packed with tons of wonderfully gory new content with a subtle undercurrent of eroticism to the proceedings; there is also what amounts to a cameo role by the incredibly hot Tobin Bell, devastating in its impact, along with an even more badass than usual Betsy Russell, who is equally sexy; if only art installations were as good as the traps in Saw

The Loved Ones (**)
Robin McLeavy as the psycho-girl who doesn't take kindly to rejection by men is the best thing about this derivative Aussie horror, a film which starts promisingly before getting bogged down in a stupid chase narrative with utterly predictable results

Inception (*)
something for the big-budget special FX action-film popcorn brigaders to feel like they're intelligent - have you ever felt condescended by a dreadful script full of stoopid explanation and re-explanation?

FILLMORE DISCOS 55
FILLMORE DISCOS 54 - '70s RARITIES 5
FILLMORE DISCOS 53

2 comments:

Sypha said...

Ha, my younger brothers all adore "Inception," claiming it's one of the greatest films ever... but they seem to think that Nolan is some kind of "genius."

I've never heard Tobin Bell described as "incredibly hot" before but I can see it... I kind of lost track of the Saw series after the fourth one, one of these days I'll have to go back and check out the ones I missed.

William Bennett said...

an all-night Sawathon awaits you, Sypha, I'm envious...