What a week it has been, America! Half of you have spent the entire week yelling at each other about who to vote for and what would be good for your country.
You know what would be good for America? You getting a job!
This 2007 Frank Darabont adaptation of a Stephen King tragedy dares to ask what might feel like too relevant a question in these chaotic times: If you've only got a short time left anyway, do you stay indoors to get carved up by a bunch of religious whackos, or do you take your chances outside where it's very likely you will get eaten by gigantic, trans-dimensional, Lovecraftian bug-monsters designed by legendary horror illustrator Bernie Wrightson?
As amazing as the creatures look, the story focuses more on the human drama that might occur if a bunch of people are trapped inside a grocery store as a dense fog swallows a small New England town. They soon learn that the fog is just swimming with terrible monsters that will rip people to shreds or even use their bodies as nests in which to lay thousands of eggs. David Drayton (Thomas Jane) is one of the cooler heads who try to find a rational solution to the problem while the town Bible-thumper Mrs. Carmody (Marcia Gay Harden) whips the other yokels into a bloodthirsty frenzy.
Congratulations, America! You have survived until the final day of the RNC (The Reptilian National Convention). Once you've read about the movie I've picked out for the week, people will have moved on from plagiarism and its accusers and have started gearing up for the next great outrage, which will undoubtedly occur at next week's DNC (The Other Reptilian National Convention).
I honestly don't know which I find more hilarious -- the unmitigated gall with which these alien slimeballs convince you that they are representative of your species (you have to consider on par with dolphins a pretty honorable distinction) or the repetitive-to-exhaustion way you keep believing them.
One bunch of assholes says the only way to create jobs is to tax the rich. The other assholes say the only way to keep jobs is not taxing the rich, plus hunting homosexuals for sport is a good way to build a strong, healthy bond with your son. Jobs. Jobs. Jobs. Blah. Blah. Blah. Do you need a job? Click here.
America's volume has been up so loud this year that I need a two-hour break from hearing the English language.
A simple, two-sentence plot summary will not do this film justice, but here goes, anyway:
A yakuza named Minami (Hideki Sone) is charged with putting his deranged brother Ozaki (Sho Aikawa) out to pasture when the latter's psychotic outburst makes their boss uncomfortable. Complications arise when Ozaki's body goes missing before Minami can dispose of it.
Sounds pretty cool, right? On those two sentences alone, you can tell it's going to be at least as good as Things To Do in Denver When You're Dead or In Bruges. Who knows? In the hands of a Quentin Tarantino or a Guy Ritchie you might have yourself a Trans-Atlantic cult hit.
But Tarantino and Ritchie had their hands in the completely wrong hemisphere. This surreal and horrific 2003 mystery was directed by Takashi Miike, also known for Audition, Ichi the Killer, and As the Gods Will. Miike doesn't make movies that will fit easily into a TV Guide description of what happens.
For example, expecting a conventionally gritty, Western crime-drama, you might not be ready to see Ozaki swing a pomeranian around by its leash before smashing it against a diner window. You might not know what to make of it when Minami calls his boss to tell him Ozaki's body has disappeared and the boss conducts the entire conversation whilst having sex with a woman, a gilded ladle hanging out of his ass. "This is certainly uncharaceteristic of the genre!" you may exclaim, when you learn that the staff at the hotel Minami stays at in the busted, hick town of Nagoya is so dedicated to service that its aging proprietress tries to seduce Minami by demonstrating that her large breasts still lactate on his first night. She just wants her guests to be happy.
Later in the movie some weird stuff happens.
Gozu is so strange it must be a work of genius. It streams on Amazon Prime.
...and now a special message from The Devil Himself.
I've said it before: Hell is supposed to be crowded, but when its overcrowding causes me personal inconvenience, I have to clean house. 2016 has been a banner year for Death, but all the excess souls I'm receiving are in the way. For example, just this afternoon Alan Rickman kept following me around studying me as if he's got a big role coming up. Two days ago Kimbo Slice and Schneider the handyman from One Day at a Time chewed through my Internet cable and just to post this blog I've had to borrow Purgatory's unsecured Wi-Fi. I don't want those jerks over there knowing which Web sites I visit. It's time to thin the horde.
At 8:29 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 27, I will personally unleash legions of the undead on Louisville, KY. At Eastern Parkway and Bardstown Road, I will bang the gong, signalling the Derby City Roller Girls, in full corpse-ified regalia, to lead the procession of thousands of bloodthirsty ghouls toward Highland Ave. I might bring my Segway.
Speaking of segues, this week's Thursday Thriller is Blade II.
If you need a refresher, Blade (Wesley Snipes) was born half-vampire because his mother was bitten while she was pregnant. She died and he grew up with a fanatical hatred of vampires. Blade is based on the Marvel Comics character that first appeared in Tomb of Dracula in 1973.
Because of his human side, Blade has less problems with the sun than his paler vampire counterparts. They call him The Day Walker. Kris Kristofferson plays Whistler, a sort of Q to Blade's James Bond, supplying him with cool gadgets to arm him in the fight against vampires. Whistler keeps Blade's car running and his guns full of silver bullets. He also shows Blade how to control his thirst for blood.
In this 2002 Guillermo del Toro sequel, Blade rescues his old friend from the vampires and brings him back to the base where Scud (Norman Reedus) has been filling in. Pretty soon, there's a security breach -- two messengers from the Vampire Nation have come to offer Blade a truce because they need his help to destroy the reapers, which are super vampires with mouths like Georgia O'Keeffe paintings.
Their vertical smiles are almost enough to put anyone off vagina -- which might explain why this is one of the most sexless vampire movies you will ever see. It's more about kung fu and exploding skeletons than overflowing corsets and close-contact neck sucking. At one point Whistler suggests Blade is getting too lovey-dovey with the vampire Nyssa (Leonor Varela), and it's important that he does because you would have no idea otherwise.
All in all, Blade II is a gory, action thriller with lots of badass special effects and fight sequences. It is so full of twists and double crosses the viewer is never sure who to trust or if it actually makes any sense, but so what if it doesn't? Norman Reedus blows up!
Have you ever watched a movie where at the end you said, "Well, they killed the monster. What a bunch of assholes"?
It's not uncommon to empathize with the denizens of horror cinema. For a lot of folks, it's easy to feel for Frankenstein's monster -- outcast, unloved, unable to express himself except through fits of violent rage. What about the Wolf Man, cursed with an irrepressible dark side that must be kept secret or destroyed, and hair that's always matted in blood?
If you've ever found yourself rooting for the monster, maybe even wanting to be the monster, I have two suggestions for you.
First, maybe you ought to consider acting work at a haunted house during Halloween. If it pays anything at all, it won't be much, but it's a lot of fun. If it sounds even remotely interesting to you, now is the time to start looking. Those of you who live in the Greater Louisville Metro Area might want to pop over to http://jobfair.louisvillehalloween.com/ and sign up for the all-haunts job fair on Aug. 6. Who knows? You might even end up working for me.
Second, you should watch this movie I'm going to tell you about.
This 1990 film was written and directed by Clive Barker, who has created such other dark fantasies as Hellraiser and Candyman. Craig Sheffer plays a leather-jacketed, cool guy called Boone, Anne Bobby plays his sweetheart, and David Cronenberg plays his creepily emotionally-blank psychotherapist.
But the real stars of the movie are the monsters, each character a unique, detailed and memorable design. The movie is not as scary as it is a festival of eye candy, especially during the explosive third-act, an all-out war in the graveyard between the monsters and the townies.
While you get your fix of blood and explosions, you may find Nightbreed is as much for the mind as the eyes. While looking for a scare, you're likely to wind up asking, what is scary? Is scary a bunch of gnarly ass-looking monsters who live in a secret city under the cemetery, or is it the psychotherapist who feeds his patient hallucinogens so he can frame him for serial murder? Maybe what's really scary is that so many of you humans are so eager to rain death and hatred on those who are different, and all you need is the words of a passionate madman to motivate you.
