A candy-colored cowboy cult confection. Yes. That really does work.

I did something last night that I never thought I would do. I drank beer. Ok, I knew I would do that, and that's not all that noteworthy. The location was. I drank beer in a museum! I went to the Detroit Film Theater at the Detroit Institute of Arts to see a movie. And I had a beer. Samuel Adams Winter Lager. It's good stuff. If you're a fan of beers, check it out.

Like I said, I was at the DFT. To see a movie. And not just any movie, one of them classy flicks. Tears of the Black Tiger. A movie from Thailand that I've been wanting to see since...well, since I first heard of it in December. Basically, it was the DFT's description that sold me on seeing it...

After dazzling audiences at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival, this demented, surrealistic, fever-dream of a movie, which is perhaps best described as a candy-colored cowboy cult confection from Thailand, was passed from distributor to distributor in America. They all loved it, but had no idea how to even describe it, let alone market it. Understandable, since it’s not every day that audiences get to revel in a lush, wildly melodramatic Thai western about betrayal and forbidden love, in which cowboys brandish not only six-shooters, but also bazookas. Suggesting a mix of Sergio Leone, John Woo, Douglas Sirk, and George Romero—all under the influence—the one undeniable fact about this insanely entertaining, violently rollicking yarn is that it is quite literally like nothing you have ever seen, or even imagined, before.

And, you know what? They weren't far off. Though, I describe it this way: Imagine if Tarantino made Romeo & Juliet with cowboys. Also, imagine that he shot it in technicolor. That, I think sums it up.

The story itself is about two people in love. However, one is a peasant, the other is a rich girl. It's kind of like Billy Joel's Uptown Girl. Except more Thai and less Brooklyn-y.

This is a pretty typical shot. Look at the color. Look at the framing. The composition of the shot itself is just beautiful.

Dum and Rumpoey met as children. Dum was the son of a farmer who worked for Rumpoey's father. Due to their social status, Rumpoey starts off by being kind of mean and bossy to Dum by bossing him around and breaking his flute. However, when Dum gets beat with oars to protect her, and then gets savagely beaten by his father for the whole ordeal, she falls in love with him (isn't that always how it goes?) and replaces his broken flute with an engraved harmonica. She, however moves away.

Years later, Dum goes to college where he once again runs into Rumpoey. Once again he must defend her honor and once again gets punished for it. This time, he gets expelled. Rumpoey feels terrible, and fulfills a childhood promise to take him to the ocean. After this, Dum returns home to find his father murdered, so Dum goes seeking revenge and joins the circus. I mean a group of bandits run by Fai.

It's here that Dum meets Mahesuan, another bandit. And while Dum is out banditing it up, Rumpoey is getting engaged, to her dismay, to a young police officer. Dum has to then fight off the police officer and Mahesuan to protect Rumpoey.

Real people, fake set.

It's not, however, the story that sets this movie apart. Don't get me wrong, the story is fantastic and lots of fun, but it's the style that the film has that makes it so unique. Just the use of over saturated colors and painted backdrops. Everything looks so bright, even Dum's black shirts. Everything just pops off the screen.

I made a Tarantino comparison earlier. And I don't think I was mistaken. The movie is a bit violent. And bloody. There are guns and cowboys and knives and grenades and midgets and bazookas. People die. But, even death has style in this movie.

And the music! The music is very 50's western movie. Like Hollywood western. That kind of style. It's great and feels funny. Maybe less 50's western, and more 50's romantic comedy. But, the music is almost out of place, but perfect at the same time.

It really was like nothing I had seen before. To call it surreal is an understatement. It would be like calling the Eiffel Tower tall. Or calling the Sahara dry. Or calling Godzilla a lizard. Yes, it describes it, but it gives you no sense of tall, dry, lizard-y or surreal it really is.

A trailer. To give you some idea.

I can only recommend that you see this. If the opportunity should arise, just do it. Just, if nothing else, to do something...no, to SEE something like nothing else. This might be the easiest 8 bullets ricocheting intentionally off of household items to shoot a dude in the head out of 10 that I've ever given.

FGFC: War is hell. Is that supposed to be what this is?

You know, I really love doing these Final Girl Film Club reviews. Do you know why? It means I end up watching something I wouldn't normally go out of my way to see. Usually, something I've never even heard of, like Deathwatch. Which just happens to be this month's movie.

It's World War I, the oft ignored older brother of World War II, that serves as the backdrop. A group of English soldiers comes under attack by German troops. In the aftermath of the battle, they find themselves wandering through the fog, where they stumble upon a German trench. The trench is manned by a couple of Germans who seem much more frightened of what's in the trench than the English soldiers.

They capture the trench to find that there are more dead people here than your average cemetery. As they get to the work of making the trench smaller and easier to defend, one of the soldiers is attacked by a mud man. The mud man then gets killed by Andy Serkis, who seems to really enjoy it. Serkis really is not a nice guy.

The attack prompts the soldiers to round up all the bodies and put them into one central area of the trench, which I'm sure makes for a wonderful smell. Yuck. After this, people start dying. The bullet chewing guy has to sop jerkin off to investigate a noise, and he gets killed by barbed wire scarecrows in the basement. Then, the guy who liked his hair gets shot by the captain. The scotsman gets shot by the cuckoo nutso bible guy. The wounded soldier gets mercy killed by Shakespeare after the rats eat his legs. Bible guy kills the doctor and Shakespeare kills bible guy. Anyone else was killed, with apparent glee, by Serkis. In the end, only Shakespeare and the German prisoner are still alive.


This gets us to the end. Which means, if you haven't seen it, and would not like me to ruin the ending for you, turn back now.

Last chance.

I'm going for it.

Fuck it. Things happen throughout the movie that really don't make much sense. This appears to be by design. No attempt is ever made to explain why the soldiers are turning on each other. Is it the horrors of war? Is it the gas that's making them battier than a belfry? Or, is it something more? Did they die in the opening battle and pass into limbo/purgatory? Maybe it's Shakespeare's personal hallucination. He could have been injured in the battle and is in a coma somewhere, dreaming. That could explain why you hear artillery fire without seeing the damage it causes.

Personally, I think that they died in the battle and wandered through the fog and into the trench for some form of judgment. This would make the German St Peter I suppose. Or, someone like that. The trench would be the way that the troop must atone for their sins. Everyone but Shakespeare would be judged to be unworthy, while Shakespeare passes into Heaven. And then,

Shakespeare: I saved you. I tried to help you.
German: You did, Charlie. Only you tried to save me

After Shakespeare is released to pass over, another troop stumbles onto the trench following the EXACT same sequence of events as the first. Perhaps this means that by failing the test, the rest of the troop is doomed to repeat it. Either as their Hell, or perhaps just until they get it right.

Despite the confusion it left me with (or perhaps because of it) I think I liked this movie. There were a lot of parts that left me with a distinct "what the fuck" kind of feeling (and not the good one). The more I think about it though, the more I like it. While I don't think it was perfect by any stretch, and I'm not sure I would ever tell someone "oh my god, you have to see this" it was definitely worth watching. 7 dead bodies with your boot in their stomach out of 10.

Some lessons can't be taught. They must be lived to be understood.

I'm in a hotel room in Mt Pleasant, MI. It's a classy hotel, not one of those hotels with the hourly rates. You know, for the power naps. That's what they're for, right? I mean, I know in Japan they have hotels like that for the businessmen. And they're really classy joints. I figure hours are just more run down because we had the idea so long ago.

Back in the day, before I was in the hotel, I watched a movie. This movie was something of a sequel. Or a spin off. Or yet another comic book movie. That movie was Elektra.

Elektra picks up the story of Elektra, oddly enough, after her death at the hands of Bullseye in Daredevil. Elektra is alive again, but not a zombie. She was brought back by a mystic blind man played by Chancellor Velorum. She has not, however, come back as the champion of justice that her friend Matt Murdock is. No, she's an assassin. Someone who kills other people for money. Lots and lots of money. And she's good at it. Really good. Like creepy good.

But, this is more of a hooker with a heart of gold story...except Elektra isn't a hooker. She's a well trained killer. And when she's sent to kill a guy and his daughter, she heps protect them instead.

See, the kid is some sort of...I don't know. She's special. Not short bus special. Not special the way your mom lies to you and tells you you're special. No, she's special as in the child fighting prodigy kind of way. She's "the treasure." Which is nothing like "the prize." No immortals are fighting over her while decapitating each other. No, these are ninjas. And demons apparently. Demon ninjas...the worst kind.

You know, the realtor didn't say anything about red leather clad ninja when I bought the house.

Elektra has to then fight the weirdos who are trying to kill the kid. And that's the movie. I'm really kind of hoping they make a sequel to this. And a sequel to Daredevil. They could team up again...and call it Daredevil 2: Elektra Boogaloo.

Elektra, especially compared to to Daredevil, is a pretty good movie. It was much more serious than Daredevil, which worked. The story was slightly incoherent, it was in desperate need of a bit more exposition. A little more backstory. It always just felt like you should KNOW who these people are and what their purpose is.

The action was good. There was some pretty sweet fights. And Jennifer Garner certainly looked good. The bad ninja demons, again, could have been explained a bit better. I'm not saying that they all needed their own spinoffs and backstories, but maybe give them a slight origin or something, rather than just put them in and say "here they are." Maybe, too, a bit more on what "the treasure" is, and what it means to be it.

It was a good movie though. Definitely worth a watch. 7 warrior beads from Indonesia that centuries ago, you had to be the best fighter in your village to earn but YOU bought on eBay out of 10.

Go tell the Spartans, passerby, that here, by Spartan law, we lie

I actually went to the theater to see a movie! I know, I say that every time I do this, don't I? It's getting repetitive, isn't it? Shit. Well, I don't know how else to start this off. I guess I'm sort of a one trick pony in that regard. You know what? Fuck it. I just won't say anything.

Nothing.

Not one word.

...

...

Okay! You win! I'll tell you about it. I went to see Zack Snyder's adaptation of Frank Miller's graphic novel 300. It's the story of the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 BC, when 300 Spartan soldiers faced off against the might of King Xerxes's Persian army. An army that numbered close to one million.

The story itself is told from the perspective of a Spartan soldier, his name was not Faramir, it was just the same actor. His Spartan name was Dilios which sounds like a white guy trying to speak in some sort of misappropriated urban slang. Dilios was at the battle. He saw everything first hand. And it is through his remaining eye that everything is explained.

Spartans are trained for battle from birth. It's what they do. They are not blacksmiths. They are not farmers. They do not sell slurpees at the 7-11. They fight. Everything in their culture is about the glory of battle. They are led by King Leonidas. It was Leonidas who toldthe emissary of Xerces that the Spartans would not sumbit to the Persians. It was Leonidas who killed the emissary instead of letting him inform Xerxes.

Leonidas was bound by law to visit an Oracle to seek favor in battle, and when it was not given, it was Leonidas who decided to take 300 men and fight the Persians anyways, in violation of Spartan law. He claims that the 300 men are his personal bodyguards and he's just going out for a walk. And boy do the politicians look stupid when they realize what's really going on...and that's when Balki shows up with a plan...wait, no. That was a rerun of Perfect Strangers. Sorry about that. I got confused. Man, wasn't that show hilarious though! Don't be ridiculous! Ha! Classic, man. Classic.

The Spartans head for the Hot Gates. A narrow pass where numbers won't matter. A place where 300 men could stand up to an army a million soldiers strong. They set up camp and soon begin it's defense.

They fight. It's a brutal and violent battle, even by brutal and violent battle standards. It makes Braveheart look like a Merchant Ivory movie. Actually, that should have been the tagline for the movie. Can you see that on the posters?

Hey! Where are you guys going?

The Spartans manage to defeat the first wave of fighting, and then the second. It's at this point that Xerxes meets with Leonidas to salute his valor and offer him various rewards for his surrender. Xerxes offers him rule of all of Greece, power, money, a brand new convertible and whatever is behind door number 3, all he has to do is kneel.

Dammit! This is SO going in my livejournal!

I think it goes without saying that Leonidas won't kneel. As a result, Xerxes sends in his special forces, The Immortals. The Spartans want to know if it's true, or just a clever nickname. Well, thanks to the gates...The Immortals don't fare any better.

Look at me! I'm tough! Grr!

The battles continue until the inevitable final showdown between the Spartans and Xerxes. One last battle with the odds completely against the Spartans. Surround by the Persian armies on all sides and no help coming.

300 is, from a technical standpoint, a pretty amazing thing. Shot almost entirely on blue screen, it feels like a comic book jumping off of the page. Snyder makes great use of varying the speed of motion during the battles to really complete the effect. Everything comes to a standstill on screen just for a split second to frame it in your mind.

Admittedly, 300 is not 100% historically accurate. It's a movie. It's not supposed to be 100% historically accurate. It's supposed to be more entertaining than real history. It's Frank Miller's version of history. More than that, it's Dilios' version. The story is told from his perspective. He's retelling it. He's trying to embolden the allied Greek troops before the Battle or Plataea.

The only thing I'm left wondering is shuld I buy this when the DVD comes out? I mean, I know I'd like to check out an making of type stuff, and commentaries of course, but is it something that I'll really want to watch again. I mean, we just finished a week of my favorite movies. Does this compare? Not really. It was enjoyable and pretty engrossing, but it's kind of like, okay, I've seen it, now what? 7 and a half canopies of arrows raining down on you out of 10.

dreamrot's favorite movies week: the end of the road

I wonder if exfiltrate is really a word...

That was fun. Wasn't that fun?

Those are just SOME of my favorite movies. I think I'll add to the list from time to time. You know, when I'm feeling lazy. Like today. Lazy. See, I was going to do a 7 day week and do 2 more movies, but I go to thinking...I really don't feel like it. I mean, it's already after 7 today, and I have to travel tomorrow. So, the week is over. 5 days is a week, right? It's a work week.

Here are links to the flicks we looked at, and trust me, this is a subject that we'll come back to in the future, I'm sure.

The Fifth Element
Johnny Mnemonic
Shaun of the Dead
Starship Troopers
High Fidelity

And now, I need to get back to Ratchet & Clank.

dreamrot's favorite movies week: day 5: High Fidelity

What came first, the music or the misery? People worry about kids playing with guns, or watching violent videos, that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands, literally thousands of songs about heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery and loss. Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?

And thus begins one of my desert island, all-time, top-five favorite (not to mention most quotable) movies, High Fidelity. It's the story of a record store owner in Chicago who does all the wrong things.

No. Not all the wrong things. He does the right things, just for the wrong reasons. No. That's not it either.

Lets start over. Rob Gordon owns a record store. He has an apartment he can't possibly afford and, up until VERY recently, had a girlfriend. That would be Laura. Laura and Rob have broken up. She's moving out and he's listening to records, mulling the philosophical implications of pop music.

You see, Rob is in a rut. Much like Shaun the other day, Rob has to do something about his life. He feels he's doomed to repeat the same mistakes that he's made since his first "girlfriend" when he was 14. He thinks that there's some big thing he's been doing wrong all this time. So, he goes on a mission to find out what he's been doing wrong. He wants to kind of rehash the past and try to figure out what happened.

I should have gone to the bathroom BEFORE burying myself in records!

Rob has two employees at his record store, Dick and Barry. Dick is sort of...well, Dick. Soft spoken. Quiet. He looks and acts like the type of guy who enjoys the sad bastard music he listens to. Barry on the other hand is very over the top. Spunky, one might even say. Or, like a rambunctious chihuahua.

So, what do you think of the new Corey Hart record?

Hey, I'm not the smartest guy in the world, but I'm certainly not the dumbest. I mean, I've read books like "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" and "Love in the Time of Cholera", and I think I've understood them. They're about girls, right? Just kidding. But I have to say my all-time favorite book is Johnny Cash's autobiography "Cash" by Johnny Cash.

Rob takes on the mission of looking up his top 5 ex-girlfriends to try to figure out what went wrong while also having a one night stand with a local musician and starting his own record label.

Weren't you on the Cosby Show?

In the process, Rob does some of that growing up thing that people seem to like so much. And, in that growing up, he sees how he really feels about Laura. His problem is that it's not new. There's something about a new relationship when you're still figuring each other out, and that's gone. And he's not sure how to handle that. If he stays with Laura, he'll never feel that particular feeling again. And that frightens him.

I can see now I never really committed to Laura. I always had one foot out the door, and that prevented me from doing a lot of things, like thinking about my future and... I guess it made more sense to commit to nothing, keep my options open. And that's suicide. By tiny, tiny increments.

This picture just goes to show how much better Cusack's hair is in comparison to the rest of humanity....and why I'm so jealous of the bastard.

There's so much I love about High Fidelity. To start with, it's the first movie I saw Jack Black in and knew I was seeing Jack Black. He's great in a supporting role like this. I don't think that he's much of a lead, but man can he be hilarious in small doses. I love that Dick is so meek throughout the movie, but is probably the most well adjusted of the three. I love that I relate so well to Rob and can really see a lot of similarities between he and myself. I should also at this point add that I hate that I relate so well to Rob and can really see a lot of similarities between he and myself. Think about it, Rob is really not that great of a guy. He's a bit vain and is a bit of a self absorbed jerk. Don't get me wrong, he does kind of redeem himself, but not really. I mean, he asks Laura to marry him based solely on the fact that he's sick of...well, here:

Rob: I'm tired of the fantasy, because it doesn't really exist. And there are never really any surprises, and it never really...
Laura: Delivers?
Rob: Delivers. And I'm tired of it. And I'm tired of everything else for that matter. But I don't ever seem to get tired of you, so...

It's probably the most romantic way anyone ever came out and said "I'm settling for you." And that's just it, Rob makes such horrible choices and decisions, but still manages to come off as charming.

And among everything else, I love Laura's little chuckle at Rob's question of he sanity about the cd release party. Just that smile and chuckle.

This is going to make twice this week that I've done what about to do. Not surprisingly they're both movies who appear to be about one thing (zombies and music respectively) and turn out to be about something entirely different, High Fidelity gets what it deserves, 10 mix tapes full of stuff she'd like, full of stuff that'd make her happy, because, for the first time, you can sorta see how that's done out of 10.

dreamrot's favorite movies week: day 4: Starship Troopers

If ever there was a movie that could be called "my kind of movie" Starship Troopers would fall into that category.

Think about it. It's in outer space. There a giant fuck off monster bugs. It has Johnny Mnemonic's Dina Meyer. Shit gets blown up. And Neil Patrick Harris controls ferrets...with his mind!

Come on you apes. You want to live forever?

It's the story of Johnnie, or Rico as we'll call him. Rico is that good looking athlete from high school who had the All-American smile but was quite possibly dumb as a brick. A retarded brick. Sorry. That wasn't very PC of me. An autistic brick. Whatever.

Rico decides to join the Army along with his lady friend Carmen and chess club champion Carl. Carl gets assigned to Military Intelligence. Carmen is off to become a pilot. Rico is off, however, to catch the short bus to Mobile Infantry.

Would you like to know more?

Rico starts basic with the typical tough as nails drill sergeant. Along for the ride is Flores, who had a huge crush on Rico in high school. There's also your cocky recruit named Ace. Ace is that guy who's not so much sure of himself as he is full of himself.

Meanwhile Carmen is serving under Captain Janeway while learning how to pilot a spaceship. Word on the street is that she's a little "wild on the stick" but that's a much different movie.

Back in basic, Rico is showing everyone what he's got, even making squad command, right up until he gets a guy killed. In return he gets "administrative punishment". In other words the go all sorts of Kunta Kinte on him (though in a reversal of that famous scene, the guy whipping Rico is black). Rico decides that maybe this Army shit ain't for him. When his home is destroyed by an asteroid though, he changes his mind.

Would you like to know more?

Earth and Klendathu are at war now. Rico's platoon is about to be deployed, and he's now on the same ship as Carmen. They're kind of broken up at this point. And, she's kinda with another guy. And Rico and the new guy don't exactly like each other. But does the old guy EVER like the new guy? No.

The troops begin to be deployed at Klendathu while the bugs launch their blue doodies into space to destroy the invading forces. It's an all out assault on the planet. It takes a lot of bullets to kill these things. Apparently, in the future, there is now Raid. There's no bug bombs. None of those little glue traps. You kill bugs with your foot, or advanced military grade weaponry. Those are your options so you better be damn agile if there's a spider on your ceiling.

The first wave of fighting goes pretty poorly for our infantry pals. Lots of casualties, and I'm not just talking about their pride. People get fucked up and killed. Even Rico gets punctured in the attack. Luckily, back on the ship, they're able to put him into a jar of jelly to heal.

Did you see the size of that chicken?

It's off to a new platoon and a new battle. Rico makes corporal until he dies, or the Lieutenant finds someone better. When the Sargent dies, Rico gets promoted again. The next battle results in the death of Diz and the Lieutenant. And another promotion for Rico. They're Rico's Roughnecks now.

The whole movie plays like a propaganda film. It's sort of like Saving Private Ryan meets Saved By The Bell meets Star Wars. If the army made a movie this good about Iraq, even my pacifist ass would consider it. I remember seeing this in the theater and being all excited when I left. It was so much fun. And really, there's two ways to go on it. There's director Paul Verhoeven's stated theme of "War makes fascists of us all," which there may be some truth to. I mean, people get so anti-"enemy" in war time that it can be rather scary. One could also watch this and see something very pro-military. Something that is very gung-ho and just an average action movie.

My take is that it's satire. It's a send up of war movies. It's so blatantly propaganda. That's what makes it fun. That and the bugs are a lot like zombies. I mean they're almost unstoppable. And there's so many of them. They swarm.

What's great, too, is think back to 97, think of the movies that were coming out. CGI was good, but not exactly great. The effects in Starship Troopers still look good. It's one of those flicks like Jurassic Park or Star Wars where the effects will always look great.

Starship Troopers gets 9 citizens with the courage to make the safety of the human race their personal responsibility out of 10.