Handful of Hallowe'en Horror

Handful of Hallowe'en Horror

Fun:
Tucker and  Dale vs. Evil
Frat kids travel to West Virginia only to meet crazy hillbillies. OR, perfectly harmless country folk are harassed by suicidal college kids. Only you can decide the truth. I wanted to catch this at SXSW but missed it.

Fun:
Dead Snow
Norway. Dead. Nazi. Zombies. Snow. Lots and lots of snow.
This horror film follows some typical genre tropes, in fact reveling in some of them, but some of the scenes are very fun and impressive, especially all that costume and makeup in the snow. I can't imagine how long it took to  do some of those scenes. May have to see the how did they do that behind the scenes at some point.

Blue:
Melancholia
Earth. Sister Planet. Armageddon.
Lars von Trier delivers an utter embrace of despair starting an impressive Kirsten Dunst who takes home an acting award from Cannes after the director is excommunicated due to his big mouth.. It is unfortunate that some of the bet ten minutes of cinema I have seen in a long time are split by 2 hours of rather pedestrian cinema. Watch back to back with the Tree of Life for true trip.

 Gets under my skin:
The Skin I live In
Almovodar directs a horror/thriller that is unfortunately weak. This thing is full of poor decisions. Revenge? Sadism? Infatuation? Megalomaniacal?  A lot of it makes little sense. The great thing is it stars one of the most beautiful actresses in a long time in Elena Anaya. Unfortunately....

Oldie but goodie:
Bruce Campbell vs. Army of Darkness 
Some additional scenes that were cut from the US distribution and great commentary from Rami and Campbell. And hey, that Henry the Red guy kicks ass.

The Tagline For Thirst

States that this film is "A Mad Love Story".



That it is indeed.

From Chan-wook Park, the director of Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance, Oldboy, and Lady Vengeance, this film plays with expectations and morally ambiguous characters just as the director's previous films have.

I am not sure the whole works: romance, vampirism, horror, a greater sense of the violation/worship of the body than just about anything Cronenberg ever imagined, murder, guilt, and especially religion.

Plus there are definitely some uneven performances from the actors, especially the female lead, Kim Ok-vin playing Tae-ju, who seems to swing wildly, perhaps intentionally so, from innocence to non-innocence.

And some questionable cinematography and a very video feel to the whole that did not seem to match the exquisite framing of the previous films.

But I still felt extremely engrossed in the film even when laughing/crying at the boundaries being pushed both in terms of genre and taste.

Would I recommend it?

Yes!

With a warning: be prepared!

IMDB.

Forget Second Life

Moltov Alva is so last year (Cinemassively).

Welcome to Peopleburg.

The brilliant minds who brought us "You Suck At Photoshop" have just taken the piss out of virtual worlds, gaming, Second Life, game development, and hippies with their new series Sn4tchbuckl3r's Second Chance (Episode #1 at My Damn Channel).

Plus, as the link above shows, they like setting up some interesting websites.

(see YSAP mentioned previously here).

Time has an article on the creators (wow, that was quick).

Dubya And The Monkey

Dubya and the Monkey by grouchobeer will either make you laugh, cry, or become very angry (maybe all three), depending on where you fall along the political spectrum. Two episodes so far, In The Line Of Fire, and Fantastic Innerspace Voyage.

Just political satire, or crossing the line?