Watched a bunch of movies this weekend. Figured I'd share.
The Descendants - As is the case with most movies expected to rake in Oscars, this movie was ok, but I can't quite understand the magnitude of hype it received. It was a good movie. I suspect that if George Clooney wasn't the lead, it would have been viewed as the 6 it was, instead of the 9 or 10 that SAG seems to think it is.
The Rum Diary - From one movie that kind of over-represented the white people in a tropical island US state, to one that even more so over-represented the white people in a tropical island US territory. It was pretty awesome though. All the elements you'd expect from a Hunter S. Thompson story are there. A metafiction "Gonzo" story about a newspaper journalist's crazy adventures that involves heavy boozing and at least one scene involving LSD. Having been to San Juan several times and marrying into a family originally from there, it was pretty cool to see it represented the way it was in this movie. Small things like every night scene featuring the coquís chirping, made it seem authentic. I definitely recommend this one.
The Woman - This movie is apparently a sequel to a movie called Offspring, about a feral forrest-dwelling cannibal tribe getting loose into suburbia. From what I can tell, it's completely unnecessary to see that film to watch this one. All you need to know, as it explains at the beginning of this film, is that one woman from that tribe remains, living alone in the woods. Without giving too much away, the plot centers around a suburban Stepford-esque family somewhere in the south. One day, the patriarch is hunting in the woods when he decides to capture this woman, and chain her up in the cellar to attempt to "civilize" her. The WTF's slowly snowball until the final act, where they spin out of control. This is a weird one, but I liked it a lot.
The Human Centipede II - The original Human Centipede, much like The Woman, was shocking and strange, but still a surprisingly good movie. You're probably thinking, how in the fuck could a movie with that ludicrous premise be even semi-decent. Well, that's kind of why I guess I was surprisingly pleased. I guess I didn't expect much from it, and it turned out to be as well executed, and as tastefully done (no pun intended), as could have possibly been the case for a movie like that. The Internet was abuzz from horror fans about how let down they were by this. People wanted to compare it to A Serbian Film. They wanted to be shocked and disgusted. They felt like a film with this premise fell short of so many opportunities to be truly disgusting. Well, it appears as though the director took this criticism and said "You think you wanted that movie, you sick fucks? Fine, here's that movie then." Shot entirely in black and white, and with very limited dialogue, this movie is about a demented and slightly retarded parking lot attendant, who apparently was sexually and mentally abused by his parents. His mother, still living with him, abuses him daily. This psychopath is obsessed with the Human Centipede movie. To the point he keeps a book with the "medical" drawings, pictures of the cast presumably printed off of IMDB, scenes from the film, etc. And he watches it on repeat on the job in his parking lot attendant's booth. In one scene, he masturbates to it using sand paper. Just because. It's that kind of movie. Apparently, this guy wants to realize the goal that the antagonist from the first film set, which was to build a much larger Human Centipede, consisting of 12 people instead of three. He preys upon victims in his parking lot, stitching them together. He tries to get the actors from the original to be a part of the chain, convincing one (the "back end" from the original movie) by telling their agents that he was conducting an audition for a Quentin Tarantino film. Everything that was left to the imagination in the first one, was cheaply and explicitly done in this one. For example, it quite graphically shows him cutting out the ligaments in the victims' knees. There's a lot more blood involved. The shit-in-mouth scenes are more grotesque. In an "artistic touch", the only color in the film is applied to the shit that sprays out of the ass of the back end of the centipede in one scene. How avant guarde! Also at one point, he wraps barbed wire around his dick and rapes the back end of the centipede. Just because. It's that kind of movie. If there is any artistic value whatsoever to this movie, it could be that it is a big "fuck you" to fans of the original, especially those that said they wanted it to be sicker and more over-the-top. The main antagonist is the personification of those sick fucks. And the film itself is what they claimed they wanted. I may be giving him too much credit though. Maybe it just sucked.
The Other F Word - Probably not a lot of people here were into the whole 90's skate punk thing, with bands like NOFX, Rancid, and Pennywise like I was. If you were, don't miss this movie. It's about the dichotomy of being this out of control anarchist screaming "fuck authority", on stage in your day job, and then trying to raise a family at home. It's kind of a coming-of-age type of story about how these eternal children kind of have to grow up to raise their own kids. The film heavily centers around the band Pennywise, especially singer Jim Lindberg. It chronicles their last tour, and shows that he misses his family, and ultimately (spoiler) quits the band mid-tour. I didn't know until I saw it in this movie that they had broken up. Apparently, the reason for Pennywise serving as the centerpiece is because the whole concept was based on a book Lindberg had written called "Punk Rock Dad". However, it also prominently features Lars Frederiksen from Rancid, Mark Hoppus from Blink-182, Fat Mike from NOFX, Flea from Red Hot Chili Peppers, Art Alexakis from Everclear, Joe Escalante from The Vandals, Tony Adolescent from The Adolescents, Brett Gurewitz from Bad Religion, Duane Peters from U.S. Bombs, Ron Reyes from Black Flag, pro skater Tony Hawk, amongst many other punk icons. I can see how if you were never into these kinds of bands, this would be of no interest to you, but if you were, definitely watch this one.
Lenny Bruce - Swear To Tell The Truth - This last one wasn't a new release, and I really don't have much commentary for it. I didn't know much about Lenny Bruce, considering he died 16 years before I was born. That motherfucker was cool, though. I suspected he might have been, considering all I really knew about him prior to watching this is that George Carlin, Richard Pryor, and several other "envelope pushers" all cite him as their inspiration, and he is often referred to as the first public "bad boy". The film shows how by a certain point in his career, after he had reached a certain level of infamy, he was arrested after virtually every one of his shows, because as one interviewee put it "If he went to a town and they didn't arrest him, it perceived as something wrong with that town." It's almost surreal to see someone say the things he was saying on film in the 1950s, considering that it's miles away from Ward Cleaver, and everything else I've ever seen from that era.
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