Continuing on in the ‘chav horror’ vein as Eden Lake, this Daily Mail sponsored horror film tells the story of an alcoholic teacher trying to defend his daughter and school from a pack of faceless hoodies. Their motive? One of them got an F in an English essay. Fuck a doodle do.
For some unknown reason, the hoodies are skilful in the art of parkour. If you didn’t know, that’s the pointless sport of jumping invented by people who couldn’t be arsed to learn to skateboard. You’ll have seen it in BBC stings just before another episode of ‘ain’t it bleeding miserable down south’. Your average townie, whilst sinewy, could never perform the acts of athletic dexterity born witness to in this film. They leap from bookcase to ceiling whilst using chocolate milkshakes to write death threats in text talk i.e. U R DEAD. That’s when they’re not raping nubile PE teachers I should add.
None of the characters are particularly likeable. The hero himself is seen slapping his daughter around in the first half hour. Any thrills shown in the last 40 minutes are boiled down to suit the lowest common denominator. Lot’s of ‘OOOOH LOUD NOISE EQUALS SCARY’.
What irks me the most is that over the last ten years the horror genre has become nothing more than an excuse for cheap shocks and lacklustre scripts. Where are the 21st century equivalents of ‘The Thing’, ‘Dawn of the Dead’ or even ‘An American Werewolf in London’? Films like this just batter further nails into coffin after abusing the corpse. Fuck you Eli Roth. I blame you entirely.
The new trailer for James Cameron’s Avatar is out. Here it is in fact:
What to say…
I’ve watched this a few times now and I am completely and totally underwelmed.
Over 10 years of wait and 4 years of pre-production to get this
We’ve been groomed to look forward to Cameron’s ‘vision’* and now it’s here and it looks like a crossover of Ferngully, Aliens and the bad guys from Space Jam.
I admit that the prospect of watching a film in 3D without the aid of glasses is an intriguing one. Something I’m sure the porn industy will be embracing with great effect in years to come.
I just can’t shake that notion that halfway through a screening, a young child will stand up and cry ‘Wait a minute! This is just a sci fi film with an under-nourished plot that happens to have a gimmick… Like Captain E-O!’. Then we’ll all wander out dejected whilst JC laughs and points at us from his space station orbiting Mars.
*Vision… I really fucking hate it when Jim calls any film he does a ‘vision’. Visions are for people like Jesus and Joseph Smith Jnr, not a man who brought us Rambo: First Blood 2. Thank Christ, he never got near Spider-Man.
WARNING: If you haven’t seen Inglourious Basterds yet, please do not read this article. I make no qualms about it, there are spoilers a plenty here. Go look at something for a bit. No really, I’m going to spoil certain scenes for you.
Really go away!
Look behind you! There’s that pen you’ve been looking for for ages! Why don’t you see what else you can find.
There you go…
Have they gone? Okay, let’s continue…
Inglourious Basterds was officially released today and it’s already the cinematic equivalent of marmite. Variety has called the film ‘great fun to watch’, whilst the Guardian was so incensed with the film at Cannes that they paid another journalist to review the film again at its press launch and put choice quotes on the front cover of their 21st Aug issue. To be honest, I had been waiting for the Daily Mail to do this, but I guess at the end of the day it doesn’t hurt to really let your readers know how much you hate a film. Whilst I don’t want to get bogged down in the whole who’s right, who’s wrong debate, I’ll just say this; the Guardian gave the Phantom Menace 5 out of 5.
Anyway, the one thing that has been dissected in both the good reviews and the Guardian’s overkill is the ending to the film. Surely, anyone who has a passing interest in Tarantino will have read his interviews and come to the same conclusion about how the film was going to end before they even saw it. I was with some like minded individuals last week and we all agreed that Hitler was going to buy the farm. Admittedly I didn’t think it was going to be at the hands of Eli ‘Boo hoo! No one went to see Hostel 2’ Roth, but, hey, it’s not my film.
I’ve noted a lot of internet discussion as to whether this was the right thing to do. There are some who argue that this was always going to be the next evolutionary step for American cinema when it comes to falsifying world history. ‘Yeah, man! We captured that damn japanese Enigma code machine thing and thens we went on to shoot the furher in the head. That’s what my daddy told me and that’s what I tells my kids’. There are some who feel that the film served as a form of disrespect to those who fought on both sides in the war.
To me, it seemed perfectly reasonable to fill Hitler full of lead. It just seemed right in a film that had David Bowie on the soundtrack, was narrated by Samuel L Jackson and, most importantly, was called Inglourious Basterds. The very idea that Tarantino was going to miss a chance to take out one of history’s biggest monsters to the music of Ennio Morricone is laughable. I’d be surprised if the first draft of his script didn’t have Brad Pitt building a time machine to go back to Adolf’s childhood and run him over with a motorbike.
In a way, Adolf’s untimely demise at the hands of the Basterds reminded me somewhat of the comic strips that were prevalent in the Dandy and Beano during WWII. Naughty Hitler tries to sneak into the UK, normally to steal food, before having something horrendous happen to him (in one issue, he lost his life in an apple crusher). In a way Tarantino mad ea propaganda film 60 years too late.
Yes, his death didn’t add anything to the film and yes, I admit, it somewhat took away from Melanie Laurent’s plan of revenge which should really have been the main storyline, but I enjoyed the fact that it was a two finger salute to the history. There’s nothing wrong with changing history to suit a film or a book. Fatherland and Watchmen are two books where the author has eschewed history to suit their means and, I’ll be honest with you, as much as I love Watchmen, Nixon still being president in 1985 adds nothing to the story for me. That doesn’t mean Alan Moore shouldn’t have done it.
Following history doesn’t always make a good film. Look at Valkyrie. If it wasn’t’ the acting, Eddie Izzard as a nazi (!), it was the fact that there was next to no tension. We knew Tom wasn’t going to succeed, so what was the point! At least Tarantino attempted to pull the rug from underneath us. I’m sure he was giggling his massive forehead off when he wrote the outcome of Operation Kino.
I look forward to his proposed sequel only to see if Tarantino addresses the ramifications of ending WWII a year early. No war, no Hiroshima… Okay, I’m probably looking into this a bit too deeply, but you understand where the geek in me is coming from.
Of course, waiting for a sequel to a Tarantino film is like waiting for a hyperactive child to finish one of the many tasks they started that day. Maybe he’ll turn his hand to other historical events… Could we see Vinnie Jones as Ghandi! A peacemaker by day, but at night he uses his amassed fortune to put together a crack team of ninjas who ultimately force the British out of India.
As long as we don’t have to see Mike Myers play Austin Powers in a military uniform again. Ugh.
