Æon Flux [2005]
Director: Karyn Kusama
Actor: Charlize Theron, Jonny Lee Miller, Pete Postlethwaite, Marton Csokas
Charlise Theron is teh secks, right? We don’t have to get into that, even with her little Oscar stint Monster, right? Good. She’s hawt. Her hairdresser for this movie deserves an Oscar. The movie is pretty true to the animated series. Other than that it’s an absolute pile of stylised wank. Carry on.
The Aristocrats [2005]
Director: Paul Provenza
(Starring, among many others, Kevin Pollak, George Carlin, Hank Azaria, Paul Reiser, Bob Saget, etc. The list goes on and on.)
The Aristocrats is a documentary about a legendary joke, supposedly first done at private parties hosted by Chevy Chase, which soon became known among the comedy elite as a comedian’s joke. It was the filthiest, vilest, crudest, darkest and most shocking thing the comedian could come up with, poured into the mold of a set formula.
A man, his wife, his two children betsy and jimmy, age 11 and 9, their dog rover and his 89-year-old mother-in-law walk into the office of a talent agent. The man introduces everyone and tells the agent that he has an act – a family act – that he would like the agent to represent. The agent says, no, I’m sorry, I don’t do family acts, you’ll have to find someone else to represent you. No, says the man, you really have to see this, it’s really one of a kind, and I would really appreciate it if we could give you a demonstration of our act. If then you decide you don’t want to represent us, then that will be final, but please give us a chance. Alright, says the agent, show me your act.
Insert horrible shocking stuff that the family proceeds to do to one another, including, but not limited to, beastiality, incest and mutilation.
After the preformance, the agent’s mouth drops down to his desk, and bewildered he asks the man; What do you call your act? The man snaps his fingers bon vivantly and says; “The Aristocrats!”
***
What can I say…it’s something else. The joke is simple, and when told by a thousand comedians, some of whom you know and love from sweet-as-honey sitcoms like Full House, others you’ve seen do shocking things as well, it’s surprising how long it takes for it to get old. Every comedian does it in a different way, has a different twist, adds a different sick element to it, resulting in much hilarity on my part. This documentary is definitely not for everyone, but I thought it was incredible. :)
Saw 2 [2005]
Director: Darren Lynn Bousman
Actor: Tobin Bell, Donnie Wahlberg, Shawnee Smith
Saw 2, for those of you who have seen and liked Saw, you will certainly like Saw 2, since it’s more of the same. Sure, the originality is gone, but they have nicely continued the story of the first film. The film is extremely gritty and gory, so that should appeal to all the Seven/Saw/Silence of the Lambs lovers. The acting is solid, the action and Jigsaw traps are pretty clever, though entirely predictable. In fact, that would be my only major problem with this film; it’s incredibly predictable. Unless you’re really not paying attention, you should have it figured out about halfway through the film, if not before.
Revolver [2005]
Director: Guy Ritchie
Actor: Jason Statham, Ray Liotta, Vincent Pastore, André Benjamin
Writer: Guy Ritchie
I couldn’t bring myself to write a review, so I’m giving you one from iMDB that I completely agreed with:
| Quote: |
| Okay. Who was it? Who gave Revolver 10 out of 10? Are you tripping of your head on Ecstasy pipes? There were so many of you. Did you do it for a dare? Is this some kind of cult? Or did Guy Richie himself sign up 788 times under different names?
Before I say anything else, I’ll say this. Just because you don’t understand a film doesn’t mean that it’s not great. Maybe you’ve had a bad day at work, or you sat down to watch a film after you had a row with your wife and then weren’t in the mood. Maybe there’s a more fundamental stumbling block- like you just don’t have the mental capacity or a highly enough developed philosophical sense to engage with it. BUT. And this is a very, very big but. The XXL elephant-sized mega-but to end all buts. PLEASE don’t confuse incoherence for complexity, and please don’t confuse this two hour non-squirter for an interesting film. Really. You may think you are pretty smart. You may even think of yourself as somewhat of a romantic figure: an independent thinker championing a masterpiece against a chorus of sheep-like naysayers. Please don’t. You’re embarrassing yourself. Revolver’s a waste of everyone’s time. If you thought about if for a few minutes, you’d recognise it too. It was a waste of the cast, a waste of the crew, a waste of the caterers, and definitely a waste of the precious minutes (you can’t get them back you know) of anyone unlucky enough to sit through this unutterable, wretched mess. “No – wait,” comes a voice in the darkness. “You just don’t understand. Its NON-LINEAR. That means the story doesn’t go in a STRAIGHT LINE. This is actually the COMPLEX and SUBTLE work of an AUTEUR. It addresses difficult EXISTENTIAL questions. And anyway – they slated FIGHT CLUB when it first came out – didn’t you hear? -Because they couldn’t deal with the COMPLEXITY. They’re eating humble pie now. Bet you hate Lynch films too, doncha?” Hate to disappoint you, but I am quite a big Lynch fan. I rather like Memento, so a narrative told in an unconventional fashion doesn’t necessarily fill me with fear. And although I’ve only studied it briefly a few years ago, philosophy interests me greatly. I don’t dislike Revolver for these reasons. I dislike it because it purports to be about weighty, big-brained topics but deals with them in such an insultingly superficial way as to be laughable. I’m not much of a chess player, but Richie’s idea of how chess works seems to be that of a precocious four year old. I dislike it because the characters, without exception, totally alienated me. “Aha!” cries the Richie apologist. “Guy is cleverly tipping his hat to Brecht!” Just maybe you’re right. I think its more likely that he just can’t write a decent script for toffee. Comparing Revolver with Fight Club is actually really instructive. Fight Club has acid-tongued, nihilistic dialogue that makes you laugh. Revolver has stale fortune cookie reject one-liners that make your ears bleed. Fight Club has a great twist that makes you reassess everything that has happened. Revolver has, as far as I can tell, several incomprehensible twists that offer no satisfaction because… well, they don’t make sense. If you keep pulling the rug out from under people, they eventually kick you out of their house. And then they lock all the doors and windows. And they never let you back in. Ever. Guy Richie seems to assume that being philosophical entails repeating a mantra of little buzz-phrases. Mostly they are spoken, but often they flash up on the screen with attributions. It’s almost pathological. But what makes this film particularly notable is the way in which something so incomprehensible can be married so neatly with all tired gangster clichés in the world. Ultimately its so inconsequential. You don’t care about anything. You don’t understand anything. You go home. Actually, there was a bit I really liked: the uptight assassin who has a crisis of confidence. He’s great. But I can’t recommend you see the film just to see him. He’s only in it for a few minutes. Please believe me. It’s horrible. |
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang [2005]
Director: Shane Black
Actor: Robert Downey Jr., Val Kilmer, Michelle Monaghan
This was a really, really funny movie. It’s a cross between L.A. Confidential and Get Shorty. It’s awesome.
Harry Lockhart (Downey) is a crook who, while running from the cops, lands in an audition for a film-part, he’s so emotional because of his crook-partner got shot, that he aced the audition and is immediately flown to Hollywood in order to start preparing for a role. His tutor is celebrity PI Perry “Gay Perry” Van Shrike, who is an technical advisor on many movie sets. Together with Gay Perry and his highschool sweetheart Harmony Faith Lane (Monaghan) (a porn name if ever I heard one), Harry gets involved in a big kidnap/murder plot that seems straight out of a trash detective novel!
Great film. Very funny. I laughed. Loudly.