Riget (1994)

The Kingdom is the most technologically advanced hospital in Denmark, a gleaming bastion of medical science. A rash of uncanny occurrences, however, begins to weaken the staff's faith in science--a phantom ambulance pulls in every night, but disappears; voices echo in the elevator shaft; and a pregnant doctor's fetus seems to be developing much faster than is natural. At the goading of a spiritualist patient, some employees work to let supernatural forces rest. (Imdb rating 8.6)

I'll let you in on a secret; most of the time, I know before I watch something whether it will fit this blog or not. When the movie's title is something like Vampire Whores from Outer Space, you can't help it. But while I'd heard rumblings about Lars von Trier's Riget (The Kingdom), I had no idea about how gloriously scary and insane it would turn out to be.

Mr von Triers is known for being very 'artsy', hell, he's one of the founders of what is possibly the world's most pretentious film movements in Dogme 95. Riget, having been developed before Dogme 95, shows early signs of future techniques, such as the complete lack of artificial film lighting, shooting completely on location, and handheld camera work. While the resulting images are grainy and under developed, the swooping camera movements, strange angles and frankly bizarre editing at times creates a genuine air of atmosphere.

I hope there are no ghosts up there.....

The show also manages to straddle a delicate line between scenes of humour and scares very well, never sinking too deeply into either, but there are still plenty of both. It's also quite graphic for a tv show (maybe the Danish have less problems with violent/sexual material on tv?), and while the special effects are nothing special, let me just tell you to be prepared for the last five seconds of the last episode. It takes me a lot to yell out 'what the fuck!' when I'm sitting by myself watching something, but I did here....

I honestly can't wait to watch Riget II, and have a feeling it will be as good as the first. I heartily recommend Riget, if you can handle the somewhat slowish beginning of the first episode:

Things I learnt:

• Dishwashers with Down Syndrome have amazing spirit sensing/future reading abilities.
• Kids steal crappy tire hubcaps with you don't take them with you.
• Smoking is fine in Danish hospitals.

The Bunker of the Last Gunshots (1981)

A group of soldiers are locked inside a concrete bunker and we see how they deal with the ensuing madness that follows from being locked there for an unspecified amount of time. (Imdb rating 6.1)

The Bunker of the Last Gunshots is not a short film that gives answers. While I was smart enough to figure out the general plot (that's a first for me) of this experimental steampunk French movie, there isn't much help, with a lack of any dialogue whatsoever. But really, the gaps don't need to be filled in.

I would hazard a guess that this movie is a microcosm of how humanity can deal with stress wrongly; as when a seemingly important counter starts to slowly reverse back down to 000000, the men start to kill each other with wild abandon. Before the countdown, they looked bored shitless, with one chap even collecting particularly good specimens from his nose and placing them in containers. Another guy electrocutes beetles. Another guy apparently uses masking tape and garbage bags to wrap up corpses.

Don't judge me!

The bunker society seems based around the two arch-principles of baldness and Nazism though, and after the discovery is made, it's open season for gunshots and strange tortures, like shooting electromagnetic waves into ears and what disgustingly looks like death by force feeding. The ending is great as well, as it shows the futility of all the abhorrent behaviour throughout the movie.

I was really impressed by this. It was strange, it was experimental, but it wasn't pretentious or unnecessarily confusing. The Bunker of the Last Gunshots stands on it's own.

Things I learnt:

• Going outside on a completely dead Earth/some other random planet requires you to dress as a sand person from Star Wars.
• You can feed severed hands in jars as you would a fish.
• In the future, everyone will be bald!

Ubu Roi (1965)

An evil giant man is persuaded by his nagging wife to usurp the King of Poland, and he is successful, until his extremely harsh new laws and the return of the former King's youngest son lead to a fight for the crown. (Imdb rating N/A)

Right off the bat, you need to know this is a French made-for-TV movie by Jean-Christophe Averty, based on Alfred Jarry's play Ubu Roi, a play so scandalous, that it's first performance in 1896 was stopped after the first word was uttered, because the crowd rioted.

The first word was "Merde", translated as "shit". I can't imagine how a crowd back then would have felt, if they ever got past the first word, at what quite possibly could be the lewdest, most lowbrow plays ever conceived. The amount of swearing in this puts Eddie Murphy to shame, and I have the feeling most of it wasn't properly translated to English either.

The main character Pere Ubu is just a vile human being, he's extremely fat, obnoxiously loud and egotistical, and acts like every petulant child you've ever wanted to punch. His wife is barely any better, and they spend the entire movie arguing or manipulating each other. The whole movie plays out like a pastiche of Shakespearean themes and plotlines, with bits stolen from other plays here or there. It's very predictable, but not moreso than most other movies.

I think some classical film students just had a heart attack.

The style is the main talking point here; I can almost guarantee you will never see another film that looks even remotely like this. The Forbidden Zone has some vague similarities, such as the black and white colours and mix of animation and live action, but that's it. Trying to adopt a more theatre based approach to film making, Ubu Roi dispels any types of camera panning, zooms and even moving the camera at all. At any one time, there could be three, four, six different mini-scenes onscreen, all interacting with each other in bizarre ways. Characters will pass things to each other, and the item will change size depending on where the camera is. It's visually disorientating, and cool as hell.

Ubu Roi has a unique way of word building, and by that I mean it barely exists. Half of the time, it's just characters over a black background. When there are props, they are flimsy at best, such as the cardboard horses, which look like something a five year old would strap into and race around in. Occasionally, there will be a solid setting, made from what looks like white tape. You are really forced to use your imagination, much like you would in a play.

Unfortunately, Ubu Roi does retain other play features; monologues. As a side effect of the visuals, none of the characters ever shut up, as they need to be constantly explaining what is going on action-wise so you don't get completely lost. This works well most of the time, but can start to grate. The ending is very flat as well, but I can't fault that, it's like that in the original play on purpose, to be as different to the usual 'classic' play endings as possible. Still, this is a crazy movie, and if you can get your hands on it somehow, it's well worth a watch.

Things I learnt:

• 'Disembrained' and 'Hornigobolets' are real words.
• 'By my green candle!' is a common saying?
• You can kill people by them being turned into paper cutouts of themselves, then just ripping them up.
• Or you can just threat to sharpen your teeth in their calves.

The Cabinet of Dr Calligari (1920)

A man named Francis relates a story about his best friend Alan and his fiancée Jane. Alan takes him to a fair where they meet Dr. Caligari, who exhibits a somnambulist, Cesare, that can predict the future. When Alan asks how long he has to live, Cesare says he has until dawn. The prophecy comes to pass, as Alan is murdered, and Cesare is a prime suspect. (Imdb rating 8.0)

Ok, ok, I may be just a little out of my depth here. Having seen a grand total of two silent films before The Cabinet of Dr Caligari doesn't exactly make me such an expert of the nuances of 1910's/20's film. But Cabinet is weird, and I know weird movies.

Just to get it out of the way for all of the younger folks that didn't grow up with silent films (aka everyone), yes, there are substantial differences between films now and then. Obviously, there is zero sound outside of the musical score, characters don't say a whole lot, and when they do and it is important, there are title cards of what was said. There are other interesting techniques as well, such as different screen tints for different times of the day/lighting, and the always hilarious overacting, because actors felt that their lack of words was hampering them in telling the story. Just think Calculon from Futurama.

But that shouldn't disguise just how groundbreaking Cabinet was. I mean, it was probably the first film to ever have a flashback framing device, and most likely the first proper horror movie. Still, what makes Cabinet so strange is that the movie sets themselves. I can't say I've seen anything like it before. The whole set is made of paper and cardboard, but seems to have a life of its own, to be able to leer over characters, and it creates a sense of unease throughout the film. Buildings that go at 45° angles, trees that lean in, it's like space itself is warped and distorted.

Are those houses or the ends of ships?

While I wouldn't go as far to say that Cabinet was scary, there were moments when I watched intently, such as the first appearance of 'the Somnambulist'. The story was engaging, the run time was brisk (a notorious problem for silent films I find is that they are way too long) and the ending was really good, and could be considered another first as well.

Overall, this is the perfect movie to start with for your first silent. It will keep you long enough to finish anyways.

Things I learnt:

• There was film studio pressure even in 1920.
• Tim Burton has pretty much stolen everything from this movie for all of his.

The Gingerdead Man (2005)

An evil yet adorable Gingerbread man comes to life with the soul of a convicted killer - this real life cookie monster wreaks havoc on the girl who sent the killer to the electric chair. (Imdb rating 3.3)

Gary Busey is a living, walking collection of crazy. Over the last twenty years, I think he's personally gone out his way to attach his name to every single piece of released lunacy he possibly could. Even on the rare occasion he's not a complete fruitcake on screen (Predator 2?), you can see something lurking below the enormous teeth and messy white hair, a sense of some shoddy wiring and screws loose in that brain of his. Here, he's the titular character, a killer gingerbread man. He's so unglued normally that when we see him at the start of the movie, the fact that he needed no changes from his everyday appearance to look like a serial killer and he says "something in here smells feminine!" doesn't make me bat an eyelid.

And who comes up with the concept of a killer gingerbread man? That's hands down one of the dumbest villain ideas I've ever heard of. After coming to life, the Gingerdead Man (it repulses me to even say that) seems more intent on arguing with rats and delivering half-baked puns (ha!) then killing people. Even when he does decide to attack, he'd much rather booby trap building exits and run you over with your own car.

But the puns, by God, they are awful. The villain spouts them constantly after dispatching victims, but the other characters are worse. One character calls him the "Killsberry Doughboy", then suggests they take him on Letterman because "how much dough can you make from a talking cookie?" He then laughs at his joke, as every single person watching this movie groans in disgust.

That 'joke' did flip my insanity rating closer to the sacred level of 'Gary Busey'.

Even moving away from the killer cookie concept (hard, I know), the rest of the movie is just as terrible. We get random gun violence against banners, plastic revolvers that can shoot twenty bullets before reloading and the world's most tame catfight ever. It was like watching two blind guys grope each other in slow motion. The composer even feels the need to occasionally let us know that a pun was had by putting in a "BM CHK!"-esque musical cue afterwards. What was just said means two things at once, which is funny, I get it.

I've blasted this movie pretty much this whole review, but it was amusing and made me laugh at times. It's also ridiculously short, clocking in at 60 minutes (with 10 minutes of credits!). It's a piece of lightweight fluff, something that is designed to draw you in based on the inane title/Busey combo, make a few doughy puns, and leave. It can't rightly judge it too harshly based on that.

Things I learnt:

• There's a beauty contest called "Ms Pretty Face of Waco".
• Visions of killer gingerbread men are a common occurrence when drunk.
• Bakeries and chain restaurants are in direct competition with each other.
  

Chinese Torture Chamber Story (1994)

A woman is accused of the murder of her husband. In order to extract a confession the court subjects her to a series of violent methods of torture. Most of the story is told in flash backs, recounting how the story leads to the ultimate gory death of her poor husband. (Imdb rating 6.2)

The Chinese/Cantonese produced a lot of insane shit in the 90's. The pseudo-genre "Cat III", named after a rating for films in Hong Kong, was in full swing, and the focus was on creating gory, disturbing and erotic stories, and unleashing them on the public.

Chinese Torture Chamber Story is one such... story. You know you are in for a rough ride when the opening five minutes are just people getting tortured in excruciating ways, like getting your penis chopped off (obvious) and getting an axe wound on top of your head and having boiling milk poured in it (not so obvious). The start and end of the movie are littered with broken fingers, ripped out nails, lashings and the like. It's not too shocking for a jaded viewer though.

But then around the middle of the film, the main female character has to marry a man with a huge penis. And I mean huge, we see him roll up his pant legs to urinate! Then characters see a couple flying through the forest having a heated sword fight. Suddenly, their clothes fly off and they are having sex in mid air, each trying to 'win' by pleasuring the other one more. Then the main bad guy takes a potion to make him invisible so he can rape the married girl, and just as he is about to 'enter' her, her husband slips his head in the way and gets a mouthful of semen for his trouble. So basically, it gets hilarious for the middle of the movie.

My mustache and I will win this flying orgasming contest!

The story itself isn't bad, the pacing of the movie is just unique. Harsh at the start, laughs in the middle, and harsh at the end. I enjoyed this movie. It may be a little heavy going for newbies to exploitation films, but it mixes funny and violent well. It does make me question once again just how crazy the Asian film makers are, no other countries in the world produce more completely random movies then China/HK/Japan. And I love them for it.

Things I learnt:

• Little Cabbage is the best name ever.
• "My little dickie" should never be a nickname for your male lover.
  
• Breast can be made larger by heating up herbs in a bowl and placing them over the breast. The larger the bowl, the larger the breasts.
• Back in the ol' days, blow up dolls were made from canvas and straw.
• Appealing to a higher court in China means rolling on a bed of nails naked.
  

Super Hell (2004)

The Devil has been kicked out of Hell and roams the Earth, causing everyone to go crazy! (Imdb rating N/A)

I'm a sad individual. Knowing just how bad movies from the Mortuary Madness boxset are, I stupidly delved once more into the abyss of shoddy amateur horror movies that are contained therein.

At least Super Hell was somewhat entertaining, the first half hour especially. And it had someone in it I've heard of! And it's sadly Robert Z'Dar, owner of the world's largest jaw, and mostly known for being a silent masked killer in Maniac Cop. He is amusing though, he randomly plays the piano a lot (and well at that), and gives terribly spoken monologues to an entirely invisible crowd (having a random guy off screen yell out 'Yeah' every thirty seconds and canned applause isn't fooling me, sorry).

Clap along with me, children, don't be scared!

As I expected, there is lots of goofy shit happening, lots of badly costumed characters running around acting like retards, guys having hot sex with hockey arcade machines, Italians/Samoans tellingsexual stories with f-bombs (there is *a lot* of swearing in this movie), children getting slapped, aliens and coffins made of cardboard boxes, killer clowns, zombies air guitaring, devils chasing and scaring ducks (twice!), and a hilarious cross-dresser trying to imitate a girl's voice, but sounding more like the Pimply Teenager from The Simpsons.

Of course the acting, camera work, special effects, editing and everything else is deplorable to the extreme. I must give a special mention to the sound, which it goes without saying is a fuzzy, soupy mess, but I confused as to who in their right mind would put a pig squeal metal band in their movie? I've watched quite a few Z-Grade movies now, and I think I have my two first axioms of a truly bad movie, which are:

• An excruciatingly bad band gets either a lot of screen time, or does a majority of the soundtrack, or both.
• The editor or another integral crew member either only has one name, or an obviously fake name, or both. (In this case, Scardavis?)

I'm also considering the whole "Magicians randomly inserted to do magic tricks for no reason, other then it's cool/wastes time", but I've only seen that a couple of times, so I'll wait before it'll be etched in stone.

I guess my main gripe with Super Hell is that there is so much completely useless things crammed into this movie, that by the half way mark, nothing this movie can throw at you will be at all shocking or unexpected. A demon struggles to do a shit in a toilet? Meh. A guy in a chicken suit is killed? Oh well. A women births a live iguana, before a guy machete's it? Fine. A nude overweight goth chick masturbates herself with a knife while one of the original police officers from Plan 9 From Outer Space looks on in utter enjoyment? Whatever.

Actually, I've made this movie sound really good, I want to watch it again, or at least, sigh, it's sequel.

Things I learnt:

• Dead devil clowns awake when you put on a red nose and squeeze it.
• "There is a Super Hell? What, Hollywood?"
• Giant African drums are an integral part of a pig squeal band.
• Negative shots are a good way of hiding awful special effects.
• Having a title card saying "Censored due to extreme graphic content" rather then showing a killing is both amusing and infuriating.
  

Vase de Noces (1974)

A mad farmer falls in love with his pig and has mutant piglets with it. When the "piglets" prefer their mother over him, he hangs them all and the sow kills herself. Then he does the same (Imdb rating 5.5)

That's the entire movie, that's it. And it is just as screwed up as it sounds, if not moreso. I mean, the English title for Vase de Noces is.... the Pig Fucking Movie. It's something that could only be made in Europe (or Japan).

I will have to clarify a few things about Vase de Noces; it most definitely resides under the bold heading of 'arthouse'. It's shot in black and white, has zero lines of dialogue, and contains a very loose storyline. I highly doubt it was made for the express purpose of entertainment, and as such, I can't really yell at it too much.

There are many other positives I can attribute to Vase de Noces, such as the expert cinematography, shot selection and the like. The naturalistic sound effects needed to be good, and are, lots of interesting animal calls and squealching noises, whilst the soundtrack is a mix of choral, almost dystopian sounding synths and weird avent-garde keyboarding which work well with the film. The director Theirry Zeno was obviously well skilled in the art of film making. The lead and only actor wasn't bad either.

But I'm skipping around the facts; Vase de Noces is deathly boring for someone with a low attention span like myself. I'll respect it, but I sure as hell am not going to like it. And then there is the pig-loving...

It's gonna be literally squealing like a pig, as it were.

The sex scenes are grossly overstated in the title, as there is only one or maybe two scenes of man-pig love, and they are mainly thrusting from behind, so you can't see anything. And he's in love with the pig, so I guess that makes it more appropriate? It'd be less concerned with the sex, and more concerned with the live pig births, the hanging of the piglets from trees, the beheading of chickens, turkeys having sex, and the man fingering and eating his own shit. It's all fantastic stuff, really...

I can't really say much more, if you are an intellectual who stares at paintings for hours whilst stroking your beard and drinking plum-based alcoholic drinks, you'd probably enjoy this piece of cinema more then I did. I'm just a guy who reviews shitty movies.

(It's interesting to note that this film is banned in my hometown after police raided a film festival showing of it in 1975. I guess I can be expecting the same any minute.)

Things I learnt:

• Wheel n' Stick and kites are hours of amusement for mentally challenged individuals.
• Don't waste chicken heads; put them in a jar with leaves and store them in a weird menagerie.
• You can train a pig to go to the toilet the same time as you.
  

Attack Girls Swim Team vs the Unliving Dead (2007)

The story revolves around a virus of sorts that is turning all the non-swimmers at the school into zombies. Some talkative, some not. Throw in a mysterious new girl and a back-story with her and some mad doctor. (Imdb rating 4.4)

Japan has come out with the the most bat-shit insane movies of the last 20 years. And it's my duty to pick the best sounding ones, and Attack Girls Swim Team vs the Unliving Dead fits the bill.

I'd first like to mention that this movie is two thirds main storyline, one third random sex scenes that show off the sizable.. talents of main character Aka. As since it is Japan, that means a lot of panty shots, shower scenes, lesbian lovers that have known each other a few hours, and of course, female masturbation brought about helplessly by a guy in a red suit playing a flute. I still don't know what that last one means.

You may ask why I referred to the softcore porn scenes before the rest of the movie? Because the rest of the movie honestly feels slightly tacked on, just to get Aka naked. I mean, she shoots some kind of laser out of her vagina!

Here it is!

The rest of the movie is fine, just a overly gory pseudo-zombie movie (that's a good thing). The swim team themselves bar Aka prove themselves useless at fighting, and that only fuels the carnage of later on in the movie. There's some stupid storyline about testing new killer viruses on the school kids and teachers and Aka being a former 'Water Terrorist' (?), but they are lackluster, and are mainly there so Aka can do pushups in a bra. It is short in runtime, which is always a plus in a gore movie.

A few other points need to be addressed. This is clearly a product of both low budget and the MTV Generation, with the soundtrack an awful mix modern hardcore and cheesy video game music, to go with the choppy fast editing. I swear in one shot, they showed someone surprised with a zoomed close up in slow motion four times in a row! Film student in me, I know, but still.

And I can't say I've seen a worse translation job done on any other movie I've ever seen. It's like the guys Nintendo hired to translate games in the 80's are back.

A Winner Is You!

Overall, a goofy diversion that won't win any prizes, but is still watchable. Just mind the constant nudity.

Things I learnt:

• When you see a new girl standing in front of a pool with clothes on, push her in first, ask questions later.
• It'll be a great day when Japanese people master the use of l's in "I rike you".
• Sometimes it's better just to hire a carnival guy who can juggle and breathe fire, and work it into the script somehow.
• Low blows don't work when the recipient has a killer virus.
  

Forbidden Zone (1982)

A mysterious door in the basement of the Hercules house leads to the Sixth Dimension by way of a gigantic set of intestine. When Frenchy slips through the door, King Fausto falls in love with her. The jealous Queen Doris takes Frenchy prisoner, and it is up to the Hercules family and friend Squeezit Henderson to rescue her. (Imdb rating 6.9)

I can already say, without any hesitation, that Forbidden Zone is the most bizarrely surreal movie you will ever see. I don't think it's entirely possible to accurately describe exactly what is going on.

Midget kings? Sixty year old schoolboys with Brooklyn accents and helicopter hats? Jewish wrestling grandpas with long beards and a lust for dry humping fat chicks eating bananas? Male transsexuals with Mickey Mouse Ears playing some weird board instrument? His/her brother, with his constant chicken arm flapping and bird noises getting liqueur poured on his face by his mother? I mean, what the hell is going on below?

Uh?

It sounds weird, but even though I've seen Forbidden Zone a few times, I actually felt body-stoned watching it. I couldn't move. It's phenomenology in action; a movie physically affecting me in a tangible way. There is just so much going on at any one time, the short run time of around 72 minutes testament to that.

But is it actually any good?

The good news is, if you can stand weird randomness, and even better, revel in it, you will like Forbidden Zone. Bad news is, even if you like this type of thing, there is no guarantee you'll be able to stand it. Through trial and error, watching with different people, I can see the love towards this movie varies greatly. I love it, others don't; it's one of the more polarising films around.

I've neglected to mention so far that Forbidden Zone is also a musical. And the music is very, very good. Does the name Danny Elfman ring a bell? Yes, the composer of the Simpsons theme and all the faux-goth Richard Burton movie soundtracks. He, along with brother and director Richard Elfman formed New Wave act Oingo Boingo, and they together scored this movie, an eccentric mix of vaudeville, keyboards, blues and jazz.

Fine, this movie is not for everyone, but if you love it for it's awful slapstick, brilliant score, over the top acting and copious nudity like I do, you'll understand the fuss. Still, I never want to be confronted by something as terrifying as...

Definitely staying quiet now

Things I learnt:

• Never go into a giant mouth in your basement.
• Dancing around boxing scat singers will get you arrested by a frog.
• Princesses are nude constantly.
• The Devil will give you what you want for a pretty girl and your detached head.

The Miracle Fighters (1982)

Former Royal Guardsman Kao was forced to be on the run when his superior couldn't tolerate him being a Manchu marrying a Han woman. A young prince was inadvertently killed when he kidnapped the boy to aid in his escape. 14 years later, Kao now a drunkard ridden with guilt, has been living with a young orphan by the name of Shu Geng. Before long, the old nemesis of Kao, the powerful Socerer Bat, found his whereabouts and killed him. Harboring evil ambitions, Sorcerer Bat forces Shu Geng to impersonate the belated prince, with the intention that one day he can ruled alongside the would-be king. (Imdb rating 7.2)

I'm as shocked as you are, an actual reasonable movie on this blog. But my thoughts on The Miracle Fighters are confused.

On one hand, it's a typical Yuen Clan martial arts movie. For those of you not in the know, Yuen Clan films are completely ridiculous. People flying around, fighting in what almost seems to be perpetual fast motion. There's also a lot of completely random insanity, music controlled frogs, rat-faced drunkards, men driving around little shoes, that type of thing. They also include a lot of toilet humour and slapstick. Anything that can happen usually will. In essence, their movies are extremely entertaining, and several are in my favourite martial arts movies.

And this certainly continues in The Miracle Fighters. There's a weird character that lives in a huge vase, his/her arms, legs and head popping out at certain times to fight other characters by rolling or other innovative maneuvers. There are pictures that drink wine and shoot out a torrent of water. Flying cooked chickens attack people. People pump themselves up (literally). People use a huge novelty sized axe to chop off their legs to fight better. And I have to mention, the fight scenes can't be described as anything other then crazy, in the best way possible.

Vase-Man will cut you with his paper sword

Unfortunately, this is part of the biggest flaw of The Miracle Fighters; there just isn't enough fighting spread throughout the entire movie. Before the end fight, there is maybe at most five minutes of actual fighting. The comedic hi-jinks stuff is funny, but after a while, you just want to see the awesome fights, not see two old people argue over whether the other person stepped on their side. The other Yuen Clan movies are more well paced then this, and it's a mark against it.

I'd almost throw it off as an average martial arts movie, if it weren't for the last 20 minutes. They almost saved the movie, in a way. Starting with the new challenge of reaching the end of the trials, versing many others, the main character has to get a key out of boiled oil, walk on a paper bridge over thousands of venomous snakes and fight a ten foot tall stickman made from pieces of wood, all whilst battling his main nemesis. Incredible is the only word for these scenes.

But really, in the end, while The Miracle Fighters is definitely worth a view, it pales in comparison to Shaolin Drunkard and other Yuen Clan movies. It's a bit too slow, and while it's epic last few minutes redeem it somewhat, there's wire fighters better out there.

Things I learnt:

• Everything that comes out of your body will be subtitled as 'shit'.
• You can massage the boobs on the head of a man to get sparks shot out of his mouth.
• Using a talking fish is a terrible way to retrieve a key from hot oil.
  

Freddy Got Fingered (2001)

Gordon, 28, an aspiring animator, leaves his home in Oregon to sell his ideas to Hollywood. After being told, correctly, that they are quite possibly the most stupid ideas ever and that he needs to spend time rethinking them, he moves back home. But his father, never a kind man, escalates his mean treatment of his rather unconventional son. (Imdb rating 4.0)

I don't know of any movie from a major Hollywood studio that got panned more when it came out then Freddy Got Fingered. And I can see why. It literally makes zero sense. Sure, it has a plot, but it is so fucking dumb, much like everything else about this movie.

And you know what? I actually liked it. It goes straight for shock-laughs in such a way that even the American Pie series would call it a day. There is no subtlety here. Tom Green jumps on a conveyor belt and slaps old ladies in the face with pepporoni yelling "Ding dong! I'm a sexy boy!" He jacks off an elephant, covering his dad in semen. He puts a suit on backwards, shouting "I'm the backwards man, the backwards man, I can run back as fast as you can." He sticks his arms into a pregnant women, delivers the baby, then bites off the umbilical cord. And of course there is a scene of how he gets creative...

Daddy, would like some sausage???

It's actually kind of post-modern as well, when a cartoon production house bigwigs says his drawings aren't bad...but they just don't make sense, they're not funny, and they're stupid, just like this movie. Main character Gordy, while being a piece of shit in every other way, is a romantic, pleading with the girl he is dating not to give him a blowjob until after they go on a romantic date. Oh, and the music is great, anyone who puts the New York Dolls in their soundtrack is alright.

What I've said won't stop 99% of people declaring this movie the worst they have ever seen, and they'd be right. For a mainstream movie, it is truly excruciating. But really, there are a lot worse movies with no redeeming features whatsoever. And I'm still waiting for a real cartoon of...

Hooooooves!

Things I learnt:

• Spinning a newborn not breathing baby like a lasso will revive it.
• People in wheelchairs get off on being kendo sticked in their legs.
• Wind from a helicopter pushes wheelchairs backwards.
• Shaq will appear in anything for money.
  

My Fake War (Book Review)

I thought I'd branch out into a non-movie related area, and talk about books and such. Any book I read that is either strange or sick (not planning on wasting a lot of hours on the awful ones) will hopefully get put here.

Bizarro novels are new, both to me and in general. They only go back as an official genre about ten years, and has been described as "literature's equivalent to the cult section at the video store" and a genre that "strives not only to be strange, but fascinating, thought-provoking, and, above all, fun to read."

Andersen Prunty's My Fake War is my first 'full length' bizarro work. I use quotation marks because the whole thing is fucking 100 pages of huge writing! It took me 45 minutes to read the entire thing. I am a fast reader, but this is ridiculous.

But this length is appropriate; it tells the story in all of it's ample weirdness, bows it's head, then leaves. I warmed to it really quickly. The story, in a non-revealing way, goes along the lines of a middle aged citizen of the United States of Everything, a future state that controls almost every part of Earth, gets drafted into the military, dumped in the middle of a desert with a magical gun that can provide necessities, and has no clue as to what he is meant to do. Strange lizard men, invisible houses/everything and 'thinking traveling robots' show up as well.

As far as I know, bizarro novels are just suppose to mainly be fucking stupid and crazily out there, but this one had a really obvious undertone of American imperialism that was so heavy-handed and blindingly noticable that it came across as funny. As was the rest of the book.

I immediately bought two more bizarro books online, and eagerly await their arrival in two weeks! Hopefully they will be as amusing as My Fake War.

Pumping Iron (1977)

Five-time champion Arnold Schwarzenegger defends his Mr. Olympia title against Serge Nubret and the shy young deaf Lou Ferrigno, whose father is his coach; the ruthless champ psyches out the young lion, along with other bodybuilder's stories. (Imdb rating 7.1)

I felt gay watching this movie. Really gay. Oiled down topless men? Yes. A complete lack of women? Yes. Naked man showering? Yes. Mustaches that John Oates and Tom Selleck would be proud of? Yes.

And then there is Arnold and his weightlifting/ejaculating.

The pump I get from weights is like cumming!

But seriously, this was a very interesting 'documentary'. I only add the quotation marks because apparently Arnold purposely played up his negative aspects to create a villain. It barely fits in this blog, in only because weightlifting is weird in itself, even without the constant pectoral attacks.

But I'm one step closer to watching every Arnie movie in order, which is the main thing. Regardless, it intrigued me slightly into a fringe sport such as body building, which is a win for it.

Things I learnt:

• Arnold is orgasming day and night
• Arnold's haircut is possibly the most stereotypical German/Austrian haircut ever. It's like someone wanted to give him a bowl cut, but his hair was too wavy and the bowl was too small.
• Milk is for babies!
• In Italy, telling someone to go to hell is the same as telling someone to go to California.