My blog strand of collating six of the best of something or other continues with a breeze through a series of disgusting, vile and horrific movies that it’s best not to watch while eating.
**CONTAINS SPOILERS & DISGUSTING IMAGES**
BRAINDEAD (1992)
Peter Jackson’s monstrous rom-zom-gore-fest is an utter joy from start to finish. A rabid monkey bite sets in motion a series of flesh-eating zombie attacks as carnage ensues with lawnmowers, death, intestines, blood and dog-eating mothers in 1950s New Zealand.
EVIL DEAD (1981)
Sam Raimi’s debut feature is a low-budget horror treat. But be warned as Ash Williams (Bruce Campbell) battles his friends and girlfriend — who all become demons — the bloodletting, decapitations and violent deaths are enough to put you off your pudding.
THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE (2010)
We all like to connect with people socially but this film takes the cake. Watch and learn as an insane German scientist stitches two American tourists and a random Japanese bloke together. Both grim and hilarious at the same time and gives a whole new meaning to the phrase, “Eat shit and die!”
ICHI THE KILLER (2001)
The site of a man cutting off his own tongue is enough to have you reaching for the remote; as Takashi Miike’s off-the-wall-manga-gangster-mash-up really tests the boundaries of taste. My favourite image is a sliced face slamming and sliding down the wall following one particularly offensive fight scene.
RATS (2016)
Morgan Spurlock’s brutal documentary takes us on a whistle-stop tour of the globe visiting New York, Reading, Rajasthan, Cambodia and so on. Amidst the rat-catching, baiting and butchering we are also witness to scientific examination of rats. Most disgustingly the eating of rodents in Vietnam is considered a delicacy. Gross!
TRAINSPOTTING (1996)
While Irvine Welsh’s classic novel was a dark, violent, black-humoured yet grim portrayal of heroin addiction in Edinburgh; Danny Boyle’s adaptation entertainingly presents it as a fast-paced-rock-and-rolling-drug-lifestyle-sketch-show! Nevertheless, with scenes that involve: the dirtiest toilet in Scotland; Tommy’s toxoplasmosis squat death; and Spud’s shit being flung across the breakfast table, make this one to avoid while tucking into a Friday night curry with your partner.
I love watching TV shows and films. Mainly to fill a void in my soul, or put it another way, stop me drinking myself to death. Oh, also because I just enjoy escaping reality by watching stuff on a screen.
I have split my September Screenwash reviews into television and movies, because I watched so much damned stuff last month. Here are the TV shows I watched with marks out of eleven.
**THERE MAY BE SPOILERS AHEAD**
ASH V. THE EVIL DEAD (2015) – SEASON 1 – STARZ/VIRGIN
This 30-years-later-sequel to the original Sam Raimi Evil Dead trilogy featuring Bruce Campbell is a gory, cheesy and bloody delight. It brings back one of the most iconic-blue-shirted-wise-cracking-big-chinned-chain-sawing-action-horror-dudes ever in Ash Williams.
Having accidentally conjured up the Deadites from the Necronomicon – Book of the Dead, Ash heads cross country battling demons and ghouls with his trusty chainsaw and boomstick. He finds new friends and enemies along the way and Campbell is on wonderful form as the sexist, ageing demon-killer.
Plot wise the story is flimsy and generic, yet the bloody and bone-crunching gore is brilliant and Bruce Campbell is hilarious as usual. Ignore the evil and abominable reimagining from 2013 and get on board this silly and superb horror nostalgia trip with Ash Williams and co. (Mark: 9 out of 11)
BLACK MIRROR – WHITE CHRISTMAS (2014) – NETFLIX
Charlie Brooker is pretty much a genius in my eyes and as well as being a bastard-funny TV critic, he is also a formidable storyteller. The Black Mirror stories echo the short-sharp-shocking plots of Rod Sterling’s The Twilight Zone and Roald Dahl’s Tales of the Unexpected; yet with a very contemporary and technological twist. Season 3 Black Mirror is imminent on Netflix yet this Chrimbo special provided some darkly imaginative tales for the season.
Brooker presents a triptych of stories including: a Dating Coach (John Hamm) guiding – via contact-lens-style-Go-Pro – a naïve lad on a sexual conquest; a spoilt and demanding rich bitch (Oona Chaplin) who buys the ability to digitally clone herself so she can be her own personal ‘slave’; and a story of a doomed relationship between Rafe Spall and Janet Montgomery where an app allows a human to physically BLOCK them in reality. Safe to say all the narratives criss-cross to fiendish effect as cyber-technology is presented as initially a positive thing but ultimately something horrific which undermines humanity and hinders emotions and physical contact. Brooker is of the view that the future isn’t orange but very black indeed. (Mark: 9 out of 11)
FARGO (2015) – SEASON 2 – NETFLIX
Was Season 2 Fargo any good? It sure was – darn tooting! For me this was almost perfect television viewing. It had a great story, memorable characters, and brilliant dialogue and is filtered, like the first season, through the twisted eccentricities, imagery, sounds, music and narrative style of the Coen brothers. Having said that, the writer and showrunner Noah Hawley has taken the Coen’s football and sprinted away with it and almost transcended the primary source material.
Season 2’s plots – and there’s some serpentine shit going down – are set in Fargo and surrounding counties, mid 1979. We focus on country gangsters the Gerhardts and the attempted takeover by some Kansas City “business” people who think they can run the hicks out of town. In amongst the bloody hits, kidnapping and badassery we have Patrick Wilson and Ted Danson as the good cops who, having seen the horrors of war overseas, just want an easy life. Thrown into the mix by the dark lords of fate are self-improver Kirsten Dunst (amazing) and simple butcher Jess Plemons who get out of their depth very quickly.
Overall, the drama, humour and suspense are incredible as is the cast, notably: eloquent hitman Bokeem Woodbine and brutal rural gangsters Jean Smart and Jeffrey Donovan. Philosophically and thematically the writing is very strong too with an existential bent which makes the whole show gold-plated genre TV of the highest quality. (Mark: 10 out of 11)
THE KILLING (2007) – SEASON 1 – NETFLIX
I recall when this first hit the TV screens the Guardianistas shitting bricks over how good this Danish cop-procedural-politico drama was. The moody atmosphere, murky lighting and winter jumpers were all the rage with the lentil-eaters; as were the performances of Sofie Grabol, Soren Malling and the formidable Lars Mikkelsen. In the cold light of day and almost ten years later there is still much to like about this Scandi-genre-cop-thriller. Over twenty gruelling episodes we find ourselves amidst the investigation of the vicious murder of a young woman called Nanna Larsen. Simultaneously a mayoral election is taking place in Copenhagen and the two events become fatefully entwined.
Ultimately, it is pretty generic stuff with the device of “red herring” suspects and characters revealing information later than they could of being over-used. Also, it could’ve have been wrapped up WAY before the twenty episode run, yet, it was gripping throughout with some terrific suspense. I especially liked Grabol’s intuitive cop who could see past the surface and into the psychology of a situation or person. Her obsessional cop was flawed but brilliant at her job even though her family life was threatening to implode. Also, exceptional is Lars Mikkelsen as mayor candidate Troels Hartmann, a man trying to do the right thing, yet with ghosts of the past haunting him. The best scenes were with the Larsen family whose lives were about-faced by the death of their daughter. Their grief brought a real depth to proceedings with many heart-breaking and emotive moments surrounding their ordeal. Perhaps over-hyped on first release, this remains a tremendous cop drama with loads of twists to keep you hooked. (Mark: 8.5 out of 11)
ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK (2014) – SEASON 2 – NETFLIX
What started, in Season 1, as an ensemble prison drama with the focus mainly on spoilt-brattish-over-grown-Prom-Queen, Piper Chapman (Taylor Schilling), has developed quite brilliantly, by Season 2, into a sexy-black-comedy-drama of the highest quality. Piper is of course still there driving me mad with her bouts of narcissistic wants but this time she’s toughened up and is now bouncing off the inmates, walls and screws with a bit more spunk and verve. However, the power of this narrative is now driven by the ensemble characters – both inmates and guards – who all get a chance to shine in a collection of stories, flashbacks and vignettes which the writers weld together expertly over thirteen brilliant episodes.
Season 2 develops further the histories of, among others, love-struck Morello, cancer-sufferer Rosa, Taystee, Black Cindy, Poussey and Sister Ingalls; as well revealing more about crooked Assistant Warden Figeroa, prison Counsellor Sam Healy and ambitious head screw Joe Caputo. Also, entering the prison was a cracking antagonist Vee Parker brilliant portrayed by Lorraine Toussaint and her battle to control rackets in jail saw her on a collision course with ‘Red’ Reznikov (Kate Mulgrew). Overall, there was SO much going on in the show yet it didn’t feel cluttered. The characters were drawn so well, relying on archetypes and human definition rather than soapy stereotypes. I was just going to give it one more season but the drama, dialogue, performance, humour and pathos delivered here made me want to go in for Season 3 and beyond. (Mark: 9.5 out of 11)
**THIS THING CONTAINS CLIPS, SPOILERS AND VAGUELY SATIRICAL SEXIST LANGUAGE**
It’s Valentines soon and being an unoriginal hack I started thinking about my favourite romantic movies. 30 seconds later I got bored so decided to write a different kind of list. So, if you want an alternative to the usual Valentines-clichéd-cosy-rose-petal-drenched-chocolate-card-Love-Actually-rip-off-Day – here you go!
Basically, it’s an excuse to list some great movies with elements of extreme love. And violence. And horror. My kind of cinema.
SIGHTSEERS (2012)
The perfect date movie. I promise. There’s romance, soul-searching and bloody murder. This is one of the best British films released in a long while. I hate it when writers say a movie is “something meets something” but this is like Mike Leigh’s Nuts in May meets Kalifornia, kind of. I hate myself for saying that. Just watch it.
SECRET IN THEIR EYES (2009)
This is one of the best films you haven’t seen. Or maybe you have. It rightly won the Best Foreign Film Oscar in 2010. It has so many great elements: a vicious murder mystery, obsessive pursuit, revenge, political espionage and a painfully touching love story at its’ heart.
AUDITION (1999)
As date-movies go this is a real screamer. What starts as one man’s attempt to find a wife via his own creepy version of the casting couch is turned into a violent proto-feminist-carve-up-par-excellence! I’ve dated a couple of nutters before but not like this. You won’t look at a hessian sack the same way again. Or cheese wire. Or open your eyes ever again after seeing this.
Mixing comedy with coming-of-age movies this is a brilliant little horror film. A girl with Jaws in her vagina starts cutting men’s cocks off! Who said romance was dead eh? She did – that’s who!
IRREVERSIBLE (2002)
Just one of the most brutal and beautiful love stories ever told on film.
MISERY (1990)
I still think that if Annie Wilkes hadn’t been such a violent mentalist her and Paul Sheldon may have had a chance of romance. But she was and love for Kathy Bates and James Caan’s characters was not to be. Shame. Despite the torture they were such a lovely couple.
HAROLD & MAUDE (1971)
A story for outsiders as young man, slightly off-kilter Harold, falls in love with free-spirited octogenarian, Maude. It’s a wonderfully dark comedy full of brilliant scenes especially Harold’s fake “suicide” attempts. But the chemistry between Bud Cort and Ruth Gordon is really touching. Ruth Gordon proved in this and Rosemary’s Baby what a great actor she was.
SNOWTOWN (2011)
Your boyfriend or girlfriend are giving you the hump and you want to pump and dump them. What do you do? Sit them down while you watch this movie while sharpening your carving knife collection. You won’t see them for dust! Jokes aside this Aussie serial-killer movie is one of the darkest films I have seen in a long while. Brutal, grim and worst of all based on a true story.
EVIL DEAD (1981)
You go to a cabin in the woods hoping to get a bit of sugar from your girlfriend and accidentally raise a Canderian demon using the Book Of The Dead. Don’t you just hate it when that happens! I know I do!
LES DIABOLIQUES (1955)
Watch this French film and Psycho in a double bill and you’ll never ever go into the bathroom again. This is an absolute classic and they genuinely do not make them like this anymore. Mainly because it’s in black and white, oh, and it has a story, suspense, plot-twists and doesn’t rely on green-screen-CGI-Superhero-blowing-shit-up!
THE SKIN I LIVE IN (2011)
As retribution goes Antonio Banderas’ vendetta in this takes some beating. It’s a slow burner but the pay off is incredible as Pedro Almodovar movie combines: science-fiction, horror, melodrama, psychological torture etc. to create a date movie you won’t forget. Banderas is a revelation in a role which turns his usual romantic leading man status on its head as he seeks transformative revenge.
The Cinema Fix presents 