Shabondama Elegy
aka Tokyo Elegy
dir. Ian Kerkhof
1999

Thy rod and thy staff will bumfuck me. Thy will be done, thy kingdom come in my ass, forever and ever. Anus.

The above pseudo-biblical quote from one of the many graphic (but censored)* sex scenes in Shabondama Elegy pretty much sums up this masturbatory exercise in art-house experimental film.

The film is marginally poetic and sometimes clever as South African director Ian Kerkhof mixes sex and violence to explore what happens when a Dutch criminal (legitimate actor Thom Hoffman) meets a Japanese pornstar (real-life bukkake babe Mai Hoshino). Kerkhof then adds lube and bullets into the mix and the result is not at all surprising:

• pornstar + lube = semen
• criminal + bullets = blood
• semen + blood = sticky mess of red & white bodily fluids

The film opens with a figurative blood bath as the tragic hero murders two Japanese police officers, and predictably (as if ripped from the pages of a textbook about experimental filmmaking) one of the final images of the film combines fluids with the colors red and white to depict the heroine washingly herself clean (both inside and out) of her slain lover in, quite literally, a blood bath:

Clever, and yet amateurishly cliched.

* NOTE: I'm not sure if the version I saw was censored to meet strict Japanese porn laws or domestic art-house policies, but I doubt seeing an uncensored version (if it even exists) would improve my reaction to this film. The director intentionally superimposed enough other images, like the floating head seen above, that the blotches over genitals hardly corrupted his artistic vision.

Chicken Little
dir. Mark Dindal
2005

[watched a free sneak with Sam and Matt Flynn at the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood]

Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story!
2005

You know what really grinds my gears? Being disappointed by something that I've been waiting for a long time... something that should be really freakin' sweet, but instead is really fucking lame.

The newest season of Family Guy has been awesome. Sure, each episode is just a series of raunchy jokes and random culture references strung along a ludicrous plotline, but they're 22 minutes of rapidfire gags that make me laugh so hard that I shoot milk out of my nose.

Sadly, the direct-to-video Family Guy movie, Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story!, just lacks the breakneck pacing of the TV show to carry a full 90 minutes. Timing is everything, especially in comedy and in animation, and while the comedy is raunchier and the animation has slightly better production values, the timing of both are way off.

And the plot is just plain lame. It might've worked as a single TV episode, but it seems like Seth MacFarlane and his crew stretched one episode plot into three, and then slapped them together into a feature-length movie just so they could say "FUCK" with the being . I for one am a huge fan of profanity. I fucking love cussing. But hearing the Family Guy characters say "FUCK," especially Stewie, just doesn't seem justified in the context of the movie. One of the most groundbreaking aspects of the TV series is how blatantly they dance around the censors, but when they are uncensored, it just doesn't feel right.

Maybe I'm being too hard on the FG movie. Maybe my expectations were just too high. Maybe I'll enjoy it more when the DVD officially comes out in September, which I'll still prolly buy despite my disappointment.

Napoleon Dynamite
dir. Jared Hess
2004

Sam, Nate and I were at Paco's Tacos the other night and a guy in line with us was wearing a "Vote for Pedro" shirt. Nate was busting up, but I was like, "Huh? I don't get it. I thought Villaraigosa's first name was 'Antonio'..."

Sam and I were probably the only two people left in the Western World (other than Wen) who hadn't seen Napoleon Dynamite, so Nate lent us the DVD. Now that I've seen it, I have to admit that I am very disappointed, which probably puts me among a handful of people in the Western World who didn't think the movie was "freakin' sweet".

There are a few laugh-out-loud moments, but the laughs come way late in the movie and they don't really last. My major criticism is that the film just tries too hard to pretend like it isn't really trying hard at all.

While I understand the comparisons many fans have drawn between Napoleon Dynamite and the films of directors like Todd Solondz and Wes Anderson, I can't help but think that director Jared Hess was trying really hard to imitate Solondz and Anderson *. I would agree that Napoleon Dynamite has a similar whimsical freeform narrative style and recognizably quirky misfit characters, but I think the film lacks any of the heart and originality that Solondz and Anderson instill into their masterpieces. The tiny shred of a plot in Napoleon Dynamite is horribly clichéd and the characters are ridiculously cartoonish, especially the title character.

I'm not even sure the film is all that quotable either, and yet, it seems everyone nowadays is spewing out Napoleon Dynamite quotes.

Freakin' idiots.

-----
* Despite my disappointment with Jared Hess' feature debut, he shows promise as a director. I just hope that the runaway success of this cheap rip-off doesn't go to his head and prevent him from maturing beyond a mere wannabe.

I dunno, maybe I'm being too harsh. Maybe the film was overhyped and built up too much for me before I finally saw it. Maybe I would've loved it had I seen it before everyone else did. Then again, maybe it really does suck.

Where's the Party Yaar?
aka Dude Where's the Party
dir. Benny Mathews

Lame lame lame...

This movie is a formulaic romantic comedy with Indian leads. I watched it with Sam and the rest of the Progressive Reform Organization (formerly A Little to the Left) cuz it stars Sunil Malhotra, one of our members.

Sunil is great in it, despite a weak script and cheesy performances from the rest of the cast, including Kal Penn from Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle.

Onion AV review:
http://www.theonionavclub.com/review.php?review_id=6776

Yellow Flower
dir. Ji-Sang Lee
2002

Abstract film in two parts. I watched this Korean film because it featured Jung Suh from The Isle and because of the controversy surrounding it. Apparently the film was finished in 1998, but wasn't released to the public until 2002 because the Korean ratings board insisted it was too obscene for general viewing. I don't think it's very obscene. Actually, it's quite dull.

Pistol Opera
2001
dir. Seijun Suzuki

Pseudo-sequel to Branded To Kill (1967) that came out almost 35 years later (much much to late). I liked Branded To Kill's incoherent sex & violence, but Pistol Opera just didn't do it for me... too much incoherence, and not enough sex & violence.

Makiko Esumi is super hot in Pistol Opera, but she's much better in Maborosi (one of my favorite Japanese films).

Midnight Eye review: http://www.midnighteye.com/reviews/pistoper.shtml

McDull - Prince De La Bun
2004
dir. Toe Yuen

I was quite disappointed by this sequel to My Life as McDull (2001), esp because I really enjoyed the first film.

(watched with Régis Camargo)