13. Leaving Las Vegas (1995)

Hello hello Hello...

Sorry about the lack of movie posts... I have no excuses! Good thing I don't need them because this is not school. If this was school I couldn't say "DILDO" like I did right there for no reason without some kind of awkward repercussions.

That's why I don't go to school... because I want to say "dildo" whenever I please.

If that makes you uncomfortable... fuckin go to school or shit.

Leaving Las Vegas is my favorite movie. I do not say this jokingly, or in a "yeah yeah it's my favorite" type of way. It really is my favorite movie. Ever. Of all time.

It's about a man (Nic Cage) who goes to Las Vegas to drink himself to death.

For me, this movie goes into several categories that other's don't ::

First :: It goes into the "If - It - Comes - On - I - Have - to - Watch - It - In - Its - Entirety - No - Matter - Who's - Dying/GivingBirth - Around - Me" category. There are others in this category -- just ask the dying -- but there aren't many.

Second :: The world stops turning when Leaving Las Vegas comes on. All other things become meaningless, like a previous life thought of in the midst of an acid trip -- there is only the present.

Third :: When the movie comes on, I always make it a point to be drinking hard liquor, without a mixer or chaser or any of that other "pussy-shit."

Fourth :: This movie is an event to me. A few months ago, I was at a loss for what myself and a friend should do while drinking our 40 ounces of malt liquor. As we sat in the car, drinking them, I realized Leaving Las Vegas was coming on television within the hour.

We drank through the movie in silence... with every scene becoming more and more inebriated... sinking deeper and deeper into the sad beauty of a man determined to die from the very substance that was so making us warm and delighted and dark and distant.

We took one smoke break, and had little to say... (40 ounce containers of malt liquor usually give me a lot to say, but) Nic Cage said it for me. Something along the lines of "damn, I like drinking..."

At one point his character says he forgets why he's drinking but knows he must continue. THIS is balls. This is a man with will power, with grace, with dignity.

His wife and child leave him, his work fires him. He cannot function in a normal society. So instead of getting help, instead of adjusting himself to society -- conforming to some place in which he is not welcome or wanted -- he makes his own rules. He burns most of his possessions and with a smile on his face, a bottle in his hand (and a shopping cart full in the car,) he drives to Vegas with the goal of dying... of drinking himself to death.

And it gets interesting where he meets a hooker named Sera... his "angel."

Obviously they fall in love. But, strong of a man as he is, he tells her his one rule :: "You can never tell me to stop drinking."

The pace of the movie is beautiful, the acting and characters perfectly caressed into something greater than a film, but an idea of life. Death and life are whatever we want them to be. If we want to die, we can. We can indulge to the fullest, as long as we know the consequences. And, maybe, if we welcome those consequences with open arms, we are doing the right thing for ourselves. Maybe we have to do it too much, take it too far, maybe even 'til death.

If Nic's character in this movie isn't "punk," I don't know what is.

There are basically two characters in the movie, which makes it even more amazing than it is so well acted through and through.

The soundtrack is incredible. And I don't usually say so about movies with saxophones and jazzy horns going in only a few parts.

It's also hilarious, as most good, horribly sad, depressing movies about drinking are.

"We do not kick the bar, we lean into the bar."

I also love this movie because fuck symbolism. Fuck analyzing what it all means. It all means nothing cause it's drunk and it wants to die. And it makes a rule and follows it and all you do is watch that rule be carried out -- What an amazing expedition to undertake as a film maker :: No real plot twists, no special effects or action sequences... only a simple idea... one that could have ended up as a stupid, horribly acted piece of trash.

Nicolas Cage is truly one-of-a-kind in this movie. This is the Cage we used to know. The Face-Off Cage. Drunk Cage... (he does play a great drinking man.)

And you'll notice in even his current films about the end of the world and such (why's he doin all these stupid ones lately?) he always seems to have a bit of a problem with the dranky danky. And always likes the hard stuff over beer.

You cant go wrong with this one. Take a seat, pour yourself a glass of bourbon (but have the bottle close by) and sink deeep into your seat. Time to watch a genius play a punk in one of my favorite films of all time.

relax,

Alec

Just watching the trailer gives me the tingles...

12. The Running Man (1987)

a poem.

arnold schwarzenegger...

yes he was the terminator

and now, the gods require, that he's the governator.

cause in all of his many films

he never, not once, says "cya later"...

but always he'll "be back."

and although we know it's best

terminator sits with the rest...

cause im prepared to take a stand

to vote for running man

as the best arnold movie ever

not depending on the weather

nor daytime/nighttime treasures.

the setting is a game

it's a show, in a future american flame

like a soaring, falling paper plane

where the convicts, seen as lame,

fight the "good-guys" to the death

in a game called running man.

and although he was convicted

he was wrongly - (feds hand picked 'em)

he must fight the fight,

that no one's ever won... but he just might.

it's the future and the tv's

are as big as yoda's "maybes"

which are huge

(cause he never guesses)

he wears spandex through the cold

and the battle scenes are bold

no one has ever won the game

the running man...

but he swears to take a stand,

find the rebels,

start a band,

and he'll never die before the score is settled.

watch this movie

it will be groovy

then hock a loogie

touch a boobie

and move on.

the end

::

basically, it's the future, and there's a very popular game show called the running man where convicts are brutally killed by all sorts of different "hero" type characters on national television.

it's my favorite arnold schwarzenegger flick... only a possible second to...

the terminator

kindergarten cop

eraser

commando

terminator 2

end of days

the 6th day

yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah.

love,

Alec

you WILL enjoy this:

11. Batman Returns (1992)

Batman in 1989 was way different than the current Christian Bale interpretation. Jack Nicholson's Joker was way different than dead Heath Ledger's. But it was 1989... Prince wrote/produced/performed/etc. an additional soundtrack to the movie (much like Jay-Z did with American Gangster) including the hit song "Batdance." It was simply a different time. Batman was a decent movie, and still much better than George Clooney's late-90s version (when asked if Clooney had ever played a gay or closeted role, he responded "yes, Batman.")

1992's Batman Returns was better than the first... Tim Burton's directing again and here we've got Danny DeVito (known from the hit television series "It'S AlWaYS SuNNEE iN PhILAdELPhIA," which, by the way, I think blows...) playing the orphan Oswald Chesterfield Cobblepot (the Penguin,) and Michelle Pfeiffer as a bat-shit insane milk-chugging latex-stitching Batman-humping version of Catwoman that beats the christ out of Halle Barry's take (note :: i did not see Catwoman in theaters. I DID, however, buy the DVD for $2.99 and I couldn't get through the first 10 minutes of it. It's bad. Really bad.)

Unfortunately, Michael Keaton plays Batman again. He was good in Beetlejuice, but as Bruce Wayne he's kind of a silly motherfucker. Not that Bruce Wayne isn't a silly motherfucker -- I mean, the whole concept of "The Bat-Man" is really fucking silly... but somehow in the comics (where Batman was intended to live, folks) he comes off as a real serious motherfucker who seriously fights serious bad guys and the serious problems Gotham City faces... it's a haven for crime, poverty, and overall economic-meltdown-steampunk SHITE. Nobody's ever really happy in Gotham until maybe the end of the movie or maybe a huge ritzy gala up until the point where a villian barges in to make a political statement (which only becomes a political statement... really they're just tripping balls)... it's not like Superman's Metropolis and it's really not like Spidey's Forest Hills, NYC. It's just a crappy overgrown, dense-as-fuck, absurd, definitely-east-coast, dark, dirty, disturbing place. Why don't they ever show the suburbs of Gotham? Where's Gotham's New Jersey? It seems like once you enter Gotham, you never leave... and you have to deal with really insane people dressed up as penguins, cats, clowns, etc. with mechanical midget voodoo skeletons on motorcycles and robotic-equipped sewer penguins, whom the city considers "common" criminals. Tim Burton does a great job at creating this fictional world... this is not a headtrick like the Matrix... Your savior is really just a dude dressed in a bat suit. Suspend all belief and just enjoy the action and the campy dialogue and the goddamn beautiful scenery. Did I mention it was Christmas? DID I MENTION CHRISTOPHER WALKEN IS IN THIS ONE? You can't really argue with that...

Also, I owned this video game, and it was really hard ::

That's some poor-boy's Gameboy shit right there. I don't even know if Gameboy was out in 1992... thanks to the internets, I could find that out right now if I decide to give a shit... Anybody else remember those Tiger games? They had one for everything. No? Ok.

I eventually got a Gameboy and eventually Christopher Nolan took over (/restarted) the Batman film series and then Heath Ledger died and maybe there'll be another one and who knows, nobody reads the comics anymore anyway. If anybody wants to talk comic books or trade paperbacks, don't be scared. Transmetropolitan is the best "book" I've read in a long time and it just so happens to have REALLY COOL PICTURES TOO. Jamesey Mamesey can offer you good suggestion on which Batman titles to pick up... I, myself, would recommend Frank Miller's the Dark Knight Returns. It's so fucking good.

Oh, and here's the real trailer for the movie... check it out. It really doesn't even look that dated so long as you aren't watching it on VHS n whatnot... ::

10. The Matrix Trilogy (1999, 2003, 2003)

i was sitting with my friend mamesey jay ("mamesey jay, he's the one for you and me... mamesey jay, we could grow a mamesey tree...", as the song goes) watching the 2nd movie in the Matrix series (entitled Matrix: Reloaded, obviously an ode to the amount of guns used in the trilogy, regardless of almost every character's ability to avoid bullets without even the smallest amount of mental strain, or possibly a reference to neo's much improved sperm count) when i realized that, even though i had seen the film at least twice before, i had no idea what was going on. no clue. i mean, cmon, im not a n00b... i knew whether they were in the matrix or not (you can tell cause of their clothes!!! matrix = cool clothes!!) but i didnt know who some of the characters were, or really how they were involved at all with the one they call "the one". ("dude, which one? dude, the oonneee."

so mamesey and i broke it down old school and watched the whole trilogy again. and, i think, figured it all out.

neo is jesus christ.

morpheus is john the baptist.

james and i are never going to college cause it would make us too sad.

at least 2 of the characters in Reloaded are what we in this world know as "vampires". they are "notoriously hard to kill". i missed this the first 2 times round. all that action involving Trinity and her tight leather batgirl getup must have distracted me. although, the word "vampire" is never said, so it is kindof hard to catch. it's in the subtits, i mean text.

2 other characters are what we in this world know as "ghosts". they... do what ghosts do and can turn all see-through-like and go through walls and such. they also have dred-locks, as do most ghosts that i've seen lately. then again, you never know when you've been hanging with mamesey jay, in jamaica (where i assume everyone has dred-locks and is very into bobsledding and fat white men.)*

*this is a reference to Cool Runnings. if you haven't seen Cool Runnings please get a refund for the life you have. try one that envolves watching Cool Runnings at least once a year. try visiting your local bestbuy. try a yard sale. try wall-mart for fucks sake. (fuck it! try old country buffet!) may the lord have mercy on your soul.

both the ghosts and vampires mentioned above are programs, not humans. these programs are referred to as exiles, because they are no longer useful in the machine world, or in the matrix. they have no purpose and therefore must hide and be independently good or bad, their own decision. cool idea.

'nother cool idea :: i slap around many movies because, although the action heroes may look cool in their black, leather, tight gear, what they are often wearing is impractical, in any version of a real world, to a very high degree (although arnold shwartzennegar is never really guilty of this due to his way of looking austrian and sexy in cargo pants/shorts... something about grenades and testes and man-shit). examples may include tomb raider... and a lot of action movies that i cannot think of currently. the Matrix is not guilty of this. within the matrix itself, neo and his friends are not dependant on the physical, but their mental prowess and ability to fight and function. they can wear sunglasses inside, in dark places because they don't really need to see with their eyes at all. it is all in their heads. i like it. an excuse to look too damn good. morpheus likes reptile skins, neo's more of a western-take-on-an-eastern-idea type guy.

and dont we all loooovvee the idea of "residual self image"... the way your brain imagines you to look, subconsciously ofcourse, depicted in the matrix. what does my brain think is the ultimate cool for me? awesome idea. "spandex... it's a privilege, not a right."

thought: why arent there any fat people who have come out of the matrix? is it because they dont pick the fat ones cause they hate the fat? what if "the one" was fat? would they be like "fuck it, fuck zion, he's fat"? or does the body in the pod in the real world not get fat when that same fat person in the matrix gets fat off the fatty-foods (potato chips, etc.)? but why are they all so phat? like phat farm? where they grow ghetto people from nutrient rich soil since the late 20's, all natural organic, ghetto people, fat free, always phat, hold the jelly, take a number and pass it on, play by the rules, be independent, be true, be yourself, be me, phat farm, all natural, herb enriched, fertilizer free, free trade ghetto people, straight from the back yard, fenced-in till ripened perfectly and bagged in easy-store freshbags resealable even though you'll eat all them phat people real fattin' fast cause your fat and dont ever need to reseal anything, you know what they say, once ya' fat ya' cant get fatter, once ya' pop you start eatin more...

what, really, is the difference between phat and fat? and fad? for that matter.

does any idea how long the 3 movies take place over? could be days...a few months... im not sure.

yes, i may have a fat-complex (known in the underground phat-zone [which lies deep under the phat farm fields, fresh pickin] as a "cimema-plex") (hope you caught that.) but fuck it! butt-fuck it! ima get phat and fat and warm. feed me chicken, i'll watch dem matrixes many times over, looking endlessly to identify with one fat person that is not in the matrix itself, but the real world. fuckin hollywood, godamn fat-jealous. "the larger the waist-band, the deeper the quicksand." - from Spinal Tap

anyway, just though i should note i "revisited the matrix" (you'll get that one if your hardxxxcore matrixxx style like neo and shit) and found it is pretty awesome if you actually follow it. otherwise it's just a bunch of awesome action and cinematography (which is cool too... if YOU'RE GAY...)

my son is gay, gay! (if you don't understand this reference, please search youtube for "my son is gay". or go back to the asterisk. if you (still) havent seen Cool Runnings OR this video i'm going to have my little brother beat the shit out of you. he goes to COLLEGE outside of CHICAGO and is built like AN ATHIEST VIN DIESEL. (also watch out he may fuck your ugly sister somewhere where i can hear it. kill me.)

thanks for playing

fat ALEC (falic)

The Book of Terror

"The essential beauty of the emotion of fear is the way that it can reduce the self to a single sensation that is at once formless and personal. We speak of being frightened out of our minds, and it is an apt metaphor. Out of our minds and into our bodies. In the adrenalin rush that comes with terror, every cell iin the body recalls its ancient duty to freeze, flight, or run. In the real world, in the presence of physical danger, fear make sensatualists out of us all and turns the entire self into a pillar of attention. Once we have killed the saber toothed tiger, or escaped from the embrace of the boa constrictor, the memory of that sensational moment, framed now by the relief of our escape, can seem beautiful. That terrifying beauty is what draws us to the literature of fear whose pages we are reconnected, time after time, to the electric charge of instinctual life. People in terror tales still face primordial dangers. Disregarding the advice of Satchel Paige, they look back to discover that something is gaining on them.”

- Preface, The Book of Terror, anthology.

9. The Legend of Hell House (1973)

Scary movies!!! The classic formula that's been done and re-done several hundred times. You'd think we'd all be entirely desensitized by the numerous failures... most horrors now-a-days borderline on hilarity without meaning to. But somehow, sometimes, films are made that truly terrify us. They frighten grown men. They cause an easy dreamer to have nightmares for nights on end. They're rare, but they exist. Ah-ha! And I found one: The Legend Of Hell House.

Trust my judgment or not, I'm sure everyone will put this movie as one of their top ten... might be a stretch but at LEAST they'll say it was "fucking great, man" and I mean.. at the least. Even though it's filled with the clichés and typical "meant-to-scare" situations, it has a hell of a twist and features many experiences with the paranormal that we all would prefer to think of as impossible but are displayed all too realistically here.

We all can imagine the classic blueprint for the haunted house :: beginning with the creaky front gate, it's a haunting dilapidated structure that casts a shadow over the overgrown landscape. Inside, it's a musky high-ceilinged mansion with cobwebs coating the chandelier and that mysterious covered furniture. But with The Legend of Hell House it is more than just a scary façade -- true forms of evil saturate every inch of the house. It is un-dead.

Let's note here that this movie didn't exactly have a huge budget. The special effects are limited, the cast is of no more than ten (including an animal...) but great things are possible, even with limited resources, when you have the right idea.

"What did he do to make this house so evil, Mr. Fischer?"
"Drug addiction, alcoholism, sadism, bestiality, mutilation, murder, vampirism, necrophilia, cannibalism, not to mention a gamut of sexual goodies... Shall I go on?"

Mr. Fischer, a timid physical medium that in some lights resembles the serious side of Jim Carrey, is referring to Mr. Belasco, who is of course the perverse original owner of the "Mount Everest of haunted houses" and he proves himself to be the epitome of all things twisted. You do not want him in your bedroom. Let's just put it this way :: a rich scientist wants to understand the bizarre force that the house exerts and so he sends some five specialists/guests to the hostile home -- one of which is an almost mad scientist that rejects all possibilities of the house being haunted by an actual personality... instead he thinks it's a case of bad energy. The fact that the snooty scientist attempts to textbook something so evil is almost humorous. Everyone but he can see that it is something much larger than them all and it's quicker, smarter, and most importantly it's aware of them. It's shapeless, faceless, damned to hell, and wants to fuck their day up. They can't even see it, they can't even fight it. It can be everywhere at once... truly inescapable. Victims must be had... it is, after all, a horror film.

These "experts" come armed with some fancy gadgets that might have been advanced for 1973 but to us they look like bulky, metallic, ancient toasters and washing machines.

In the midst of slamming doors, floating household objects, and a literal cat fight, we see the potential for this film to be just like the rest. But the film exceeds expectations in unexpected areas. It follows the guidelines for an average scary movie but takes the risks and dives necessary to make it one of the best.

What is going on? --- something frighteningly unseen, unknown, and ages old. It manages to electrify each and every single one of its visitors with physical phenomena like an uncontrollable seizure or, it could bring on a psychotic frenzy of nymphomania. It turns on the darkest parts of minds, turning its victims on to the evil. By paying them all visits it goes to every length to turn all of the guests against themselves, or each other.

We all want control over the way that we feel. You lose though -- you have no control what so ever. The shadowy unknowns come out -- the ones that have the power to entice, expose, defile, and kill you. It's like the house is teasing everyone with this "I can see you but you cant see me" type of (t/h)aunting. The whole purpose for them being there is to "figure it out" but truly, there isn't anything to figure out. It's just evil. Simple. It wants you scared... fucking mentally insane... it doesn't care who you are or what you want, it's an entirely separate force and will invade every sense, sensibility, and ounce of self-control you have. You have no chance. That is real terror. And that's what people get off on. This movie was filmed, scored, and written so well that we fear Mr. Bolasco coming to fuck with our own minds. It will, too. It'll get in a car, drive on over, and wreck havoc in your house and in your mind. The House on Haunted Hill, both the early and 1999 versions (along with other movies in the vein of haunted houses,) create prisons for its characters... they are all tortured by the trickery and evil of the environment. But with this film, it's not all about the characters, or all about the scary shit that happens to them. What matters is how it amazes you with its gigantic questions and horrors, takes you through the experience step by step. It brings out your own fears, your own basic instinct to escape, and then you are not laughing at the suckers stuck inside of the Hell House -- you empathize, sympathize, fear, and sweat for them.

All of the personal tensions amongst the strangers come from inconsistencies that science and spirituality constantly grapple over.

The force makes special friends with the mental medium -- a bright-eyed, naïve young girl who's also the best in her field. She's so average looking that she's beautiful... no one in the movies looks like that any more, sad fact. The house focuses the most energy on this girl. She becomes so involved with it that she sometimes seems to be on its side. Sometimes it seems like she's being played with, flirtatiously, almost like a game of chasing tail. Ms. Tanner has the most personal relationship with the spirit, and Ms. Tanner's whom it tourtures the most. Eventually, the force really gets into her. It not only possesses her, but begins to exist inside of her... eek, yes... inside of her. It comes to her at night. It comes to her more than once and attempts to frighten her, dominate her, and create in her mind a prison much more confined than the physical walls of the house.

It demands you sacrifice yourself to it. Give yourself to it and be damned to hell just like the tormented spirit that haunts the place. No amount of money could ever make me enter the Bolasco house.

In honor of the "day of the dead," Halloween, fright nights, October, and every farm ground that opens its doors to flocks of teenagers to enjoy their freak fest haunted house/hayride, I suggest everyone rent it, get comfortable in the safety of their potentially possessed homes, and get ready for the "fear from within..." because this thing will get in your mind.

Good luck.
k.

8. Magical Mystery Tour (1967)

This is not a good movie. This is not a good film. This is not even a half-way decent attempt at creating moving images in any way. This is a one-hour made-for-TV flick that the Beatles made as an obligation to their fans to make up for their ceased touring. The result is a train wreck that they were obligated to their fans to apologize for making in the first place. It was all Paul's idea (and the cheeky bastard has the stones to deny it too...)

Really this movie is a love story. That is, if you were to try and derive any kind of conceivable "plot" from it. The lucky couple is the Auntie of Mr. Richard Starkey (played by Ringo... using his real name...) and Mr. Buster Bloodvessel (played by Ivor Cutler.) Auntie Jessie is fat. Really fat. And Buster is insane. Out of his gourd. Completely... Maybe. He's taken the tour more than once and each time he believes himself to be working for the tour company. The tour hostess and tour conductor let him believe this.

Ringo's in a pinstripe suit. He looks dapper as hell. He and his Auntie bicker the entire time they're on the bus together and the only reason this works is because obviously Ringo didn't want to be doing this film at all. It's almost as if he's bickering with Paul the whole time, but Paul is a fat old lady (well done, Starr.) This is kind of like how John is sleeping for much of the beginning of the movie and George sits silently looking completely uninterested. In the opening "performance," George doesn't even play the guitar lines right. He ain't tryin'. John and George appear to have come on the bus together while Paul came with a really plain looking English girl who he doesn't give enough attention to because he's too busy looking at the camera trying to be cute. He's an asshole.

There are, however, a few redeeming parts to the film. The part where they're all wizards in space is not one of them. In one dream sequence, John plays an absolutely demented waiter/servant dressed as a tripped out bell-boy with slicked back hair and a pencil thin mustache... The entire scene he's literally shoveling pounds and pounds of spaghetti from underneath a table onto the fat Aunt Jessie's dinner plate while an elderly man looks on and hands the camera napkins and bites into REALLY LOUDLY CRUNCHING lettuce. John continues to pile the spaghetti even after Aunt Jessie gets up to leave. This scene is really, really pointless and bothersome, but at least it's humorously demented. It's a nice contrast to Paul's bit, where he's walking around cliffs and mountains and fields of France looking longingly into the camera like we're supposed to give a shit.

Another good scene is in a strip joint :: The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band ("Urban Spaceman" anyone?) imitating some kind of Elvis on acid singing a song called "Death Cab For Cutie"... (now you know where that really uninspiring unoriginal boring miserable band's name came from. "Congrats.")

But really, these two scenes aren't enough to save the film. The rest of the movie is a bus full of people literally on a tour where each stop is a fucked up acid trip one of the Beatles thought up. Somehow the Beatles dressed up as wizards are affecting the trip, and for some reason they decided to make a fat lady and an old crazy man falling somewhat-in-love the only real piece of plot you can find during the whole hour you're watching.

It is short though. And it is the Beatles. And maybe I would have thought it was much better if I were on the right combination of drugs. Or if I were one of the Beatles in 1967. Or maybe just if I were Paul McCartney... but I wouldn't wish that upon anybody.

This is the third film of the five the Beatles made... I'm gonna try to get around to doing all of them, but it just so happened I watched this one last night and I'm bored enough at work to ramble about it for a minute on the internets. With all this Beatles Rock Band bullshit hype going around (this is what... the fourth Beatles revival since they broke up?) I just want to set the record straight on some of their lesser known works (at least to people in my generation) before everyone goes around thinking "John Lennon" is simply a video game character akin to Crash Bandicoot or Sonic the Hedgehog. Paul would be Princess Peach.

See it, hear it, laugh at it, learn from it and then you never have to see it again. But you can't go through your whole life ignoring it. It is the Beatles after all... and in case you haven't figured it out yourself yet, they wrote a lot of the rules for this whole music tip. Check it out.

-Conor

7. Pitch Black (2000)

Pitch Black is Vin Diesel's earliest big movie that I can remember. It came to us in the year 2000 (and can we take a minute to note how strange that is? "what year?" "the year 2000"...) after we didn't die from some Y2k disaster, no computers exploded and the power didn't even go out. We were desperate -- looking for an apocalypse wherever it may lie. And so, in our time of need, we got Vin Diesel. And ain't he a cutey-pie.

I remember watching this years ago and noting I had never seen Vin Diesel before. He was a new shape to me, a new Arnold Shwartzeneggar (geuzundheit!) for a younger, less Austrian generation. We craved American muscle, not the body-builder-from-Europe stereotype which had become the standard for action movie progress. And I don't just mean Arnold. There's also Jean Claude Vandammnm (from great films such as Bloodsport and Universal Soldier.)

And you could compare Vin Diesel in Pitch Black to Arnold in Terminator for days and days (if you had enough cookies and milk to go 'round.) The muscles, the man-of-few-words, the subtle humor in the way they see the world, the robotic-ness, the all-powerfulness, the pragmatism of each character. Terminator made Arnold big and I'd argue this film made Vin Diesel big, at least in that underground sense... (your sister never saw Pitch Black, but that hefty cousin of yours from the boonies definitely has a signed poster.)

Aside: my right nipple, in all seriousness, really itches right now. Does anyone know what that means? Am I lactating? I hope so... I love milk and I'm thirsty. I also enjoy the idea of being able to give milk to others, wherever I may be. Thirsty? Suck my nipple. No, the right one.

Lets break it down.

It is the undefined future. A space ship carrying a motley crew of people crashes on a foreign, alien planet, with seemingly no way to get home. Vin Diesel was a convict being transported on this flight, but after ship crashes the others realize they may need this insane, buff, balding-in-a-young-way man to get them home safely. But how do they trust a man who's been in prison most of his life? I mean... how do you trust a man that buff? Motherfucker could break you in half...

The planet is a wasteland. It seems the human life that was there before has all been exterminated by... something. Buildings are boarded up, no bodies are even found.

It is always light on this planet. Very sunny, indeed. But the crew (of about 15 survivors) notices a model of the planets, found in one of these creepily empty buildings, which indicates a total eclipse occurs every 22 years for 1 full day. That day happens to be tomorrow for the unlucky survivors. Hoorah for us!

So it's going to be dark for one hellish day. What could happen? Oh no! Anything but giant bats that are afraid of light coming out of the ground and looking to eat for the first time in 22 years! Anything but that! How will we see at all? We are running out of flash-lights!

We won't see, but Vin Diesel will see better than ever! During his time in jail (which we can assume was quite a long bout of making people his bitches,) Vin Diesel had his eyes surgically adjusted to be able to see in the pitch dark... (apparently in these futuristic jails, you are locked up without light for years at a time, which doesn't explain his decent full-body tan, but maybe they have tanning salons in the jails... I mean if you have surgery...) So Vin Diesel, the mysterious convict no one knows about, is their only hope.

If you didn't know already, Pitch Black is the last movie in a series called The Chronicles of Riddick. They made at least one of these movies but they really aren't very good, sort of like Terminator 3... (Terminator 2 is the shit.) It's just not serious or believable enough. Chronicles is too much focused on Diesel's character, Riddick. Pitch Black is so great because the focus is on all of the surviving crew, and how each handles this hopeless situation :: the European guy drinks and talks about Paris, the religious man has his faith, Vin Diesel is buff. And that's what's great about Vin not yet being famous. We like him so much because he is not the focus.

But not all of the characters are all that like-able. Each has good and bad sides which constantly surprise the viewer. No boxes, no cells. We outta jail and into Hell.

And, obviously, the whole film could be seen as a dark, convincing, unpredictable metaphor for... whatever; walking through the dark valley with your worst enemy, who you need to survive... etc. but, to be honest, there are some movies I really hate putting metaphor onto, and this is one of them. Its a great action, horror, sci-fi flick starring a star who isn't yet a star... so they don't slut him around all cocky-like. You learn to love him, you aren't supposed to love him.

Similar movies include The Terminator, Road Warrior, Mission to Mars...

I love movies where people come across remains of civilization with no explanation of why they left or where they went. Horror = mystery with aliens/monsters.

Since Pitch Black, I feel Vin Diesel has been typecast a bit and only plays the caricature of a character that was the incredible Riddick in this film. This was his best. He's funny and almost soft-spokenly wise. He's honest. He's cute. Gotta love him. I love it when the good guy's the bad guy, when everyone is good and bad.

Lately I've been thinking "comedy" movies are some of the least funny movies around. It's movies that are so serious from the get-go that have the most opportunity to be funny; that nervous laughter, that giggle in the horror of it all.

So enjoy... it's definitely a wild ride on some crazy-ripped shoulders.

Alec of the GAS STATION writers' club.

6. The Rules of Attraction (2002)

If college was this bad, in this way, I just might revisit collegeboard.com and give the whole thing another go.

Sorry about the several day hiatus. Long story short, I blacked out, took a piss in the middle of a living room, got my head shaved while crying like a toddler on my knees on a bathroom floor, and now I'm back in the comfort of Yardley, alternating between chips (cheddar sun chips to be exact) and cookies (the kind the grocery store makes and sells in those see-through plastic containers -- so irresistible, so exciting, because they are slightly different every time, like mom's meatloaf... how does she do that?)

But I'm back. Parked on the couch, my head's cold, and I'm watching Erin Brokovich, starring Julia Roberts, for the kabillionth time. She's gorgeous, yet older than young, and taking on the man himself, using whatever means she has. Erin Brokovich is the Norma Ray of our generation. Hot, working, uneducated chick with children and a busy life takes on the muilti-million dollar company who has ruined the lives of all her friends.

The Rules of Attraction is what I would categorize as a "teen movie." I love teen movies. (Breakfast Club, 16 Candles, Say Anything... the list could go on forever and ever, thank God.) You know a movie is a teen movie when you would feel uncomfortable watching it around your own parents, or you grandmother -- in this case because the movie resembles your life a little bit too much. Or at least mine, or at least what I wish my life was, was I to be a bit less caring, or a bit more caring. (The last time I put this movie on in front of my parents I said "I love this movie" and within 10 minutes the movie showed flirting gay men jumping on a bed, cocaine use -- nosebleeds included -- naked titties, and James Vaderbeek fucking a gorgeous girl as he trips on mushrooms. Talk about great timing.)

But that's why this movie is so good. It's the type of movie you would watch when you were 12 years old at 11:45 pm on a school night with that great feeling that you were not supposed to see this. That feeling alone makes a Playboy magazine seem like sand in your crotch on a Monday. The movie reminds me of that show that used to be on MTV called Undressed, a show about very good-looking college teens having sex but never showing any actual sex... What could turn on a 12 year old more? Remember how there's nothing scarier than a monster you never see? Well there's nothing more sexually pleasing than sex involving the best looking teens in our world that you aren't aloud to see. Except this movie shows it all -- every drug, every condom, every secret. We are the generation that must see. (Thank god for CGI special effects! Some of the tittes in this film are too nice to be real!!)

The Rules of Attraction is the ultimate stylized teen movie. The way it's filmed and the way it all unfolds is amazing. You are immersed in a world of drugs, sex and style in a college setting like never before. College is depicted as both a place I'd love to be and a place I never ever want to see again. It's very real, though. It's very unreal, though.

It follows James Vanderbeek (Dawson's Creek) -- an angry, shroom-eating, laughingly suicidal college student who starts really not giving a fuck about anything. I dont think there is one scene in this movie where anyone is in class. But that's what's great. This movie is everything about college that is idealized and perfect and beautiful and wrong and isolated, but that doesn't necessarily mean it shines a happy light on the whole ordeal -- in fact, quite the contrary.

It's as if the movie decided to show us what we all thought of when we pictured that perfect college life-style, but then turned it around on us to show us how truly horrible that perfect image could be.

The women in this movie are gorgeous and slutty, the drugs grow on trees, the parties are epic, the confusion is massive. The men have incredible abs and expensive clothing. You can smell their expensive, to-each-his-own cologne. It does a great job of showing the viewer how small you feel in college; how alone, how angry , how depressed... and yet you still want nothing more than to have that one great connection with that one girl you've been seeing around lately, where you talk about how much it all just sucks, or ignore how much it all sucks for the first time ever. You want to kill yourself in this world, so you try to, you fail, and yet its funny... even though you really wanted to die. You couldn't even succeed at suicide in this world. You crave attention and even that won't give you any. You are invisible. Nothing matters. It's all just meant to look right, to satisfy our every vain and child-like desire.

Every scene taps into ideas that are key to properly satirizing the college life-style :: a women waits for her lover to come back from his semester abroad, and when he gets back he has no idea who she is, and the part which sums up his time in Europe is one of my favorite parts of the film; "I came on her tits even though I was wearing a condom..."

The plot is about a love-triangle. Everyone thinks someone else is in love with them and the confusion will not end well :: During one scene in which a girl commits suicide, my father stood up, anounced he'd "seen enough" and went to up to bed... I continued watching for the 6 kabillionth time. The film, like many great ones of our recent/short time, shows everything. Every detail :: from slitting of the wrists with a razor-blade to the very faces the kids make as they orgasm while tripping on mushrooms. It's a bold movie visually. You will want to watch it in HD, with the lights off, without any old people around.

And it's a hilarious one, especially with the innocent James Vanderbeek of Dawson's Creek (a show in which saying the word "shit" is like butt-fucking a nun during church on easter sunday, launching semen across several pews, nailing a crying old widow in the head...) who does nothing but drugs, make drug deals, have sex, and generally try to satisfy every one of his hedonistic desires before each day is out. It's a great contrast to Dawson and he pulls it off with flying colors. (And thank GOD he changes his hair cut as well.)

Visually stimulating, never boring, hilarious, and stylized to a point of beauty, The Rules of Attraction is a must see for those of our prescription drug, close to suicide, attention loving, attention deficit, bored, lonely, beautiful, stylish generation of "kids for kollege!" with a kapital K.

Leave your parents at home.

Bring out your presciption drugs and combat boots.

love,

ALEC "blacks-out-and-pisses-wherever" Gaybin

5. The Brave Little Toaster (1987)

I am not the kids' cartoon movie watching type (although I did recently revisit the Nightmare Before Christmas and was mildly excited for around a half-hour, when I realized it was Tuesday and I had forgotten to record the previous day's new episode of House. I panicked, calmed down, and went to sleep) but I did recently re-watch all of The Brave Little Toaster, and I must say, what seems only to be an innocent children's movie is... a lot to swallow. I feel as if I learned about homosexuality, alcoholism and the Holocaust, all from this movie -- maybe this explains both my low grades in Health class and my inability to become a serious Jew.

But I guess even as a little kid I knew how serious it was. I remember being horrified of a specific scene where an angry air-conditioner gets louder and louder, enraged by something (maybe the whole being immobile and stuck is a wall for eternity thing gets to ya.) But I also remember watching the movie repeatedly anyway, and almost being too scared to skip the scene -- as if it would know I'd avoided it and come back at me with twice the rage. I had to get through it each time. The Brave Little Toaster may have been the first movie I, in some way, enjoyed being scared of. Maybe even the first thing. And I don't mean "enjoyed" in the way that I enjoy a roller-coaster these days, where I am all-at-once frightened and elated, and then satisfied afterward, but in the way that I was just so thankful when the horrifying air-conditioner scene was over. The scene was meant to be scary, the air conditioner was meant to be scary... and I was scared. Doesn't happen quite like that anymore.. (although I did watch Eraserhead, a '79 Lynch film, and it was horrifying. Several other people I talked to agreed we were, as good of a film as it was, simply glad when it was over... it is an accurate depiction of a nightmare.)

The Brave Little Toaster is a cartoon in which each character is a different household item, each, in countless ways, representing a certain type of person, a human characteristic, a disorder, a condition, a personality type, an astrological sign. One's paranoid, another old, another has Attention Deficit Disorder (and yet another is taking the ADD one's pills...), each with his or her own fears, dreams, IQ's and apparent genders -- some of which are unclear. The Brave Little Toaster itself has never really called out a specific sex to me., yet the vacuum is clearly male, and older.

The names of the characters are simply the names of the objects themselves, and they refer to each-other this way. Ingenious, I say. Lamp, Blanket, Toaster, etc. This is not a superficial movie, made by Pixar, about aliens and robots and monsters shaped like boogers who travel through doorways to dreams, which float light-blue in the oceanic heads of boys, all to save the planet from mutant alien/human crossbreeds from the past. This is a movie about a lamp and a toaster.

The film follows Toaster, Blanket, Vacuum and Radio (it's about a group of 5) on their quest to get back to their master, a kid who is in the process of moving to a college dorm as a freshman, whose mother throws out his desk lamp, toaster, etc. thinking he will need new ones for the beginning of his new life at school. What better to make you feel at home in the early days of college than a new desk lamp and vacuum? The gang will not have anything of mom's attempt to trash them and they begin their treacherous journey (at times literally through the woods) to find their master. The amount of metaphor, symbolism and depth that can be extrapolated from this idea alone is enough to write an entire "blog" about... (I dare someone to get on that -- you could call it "the brave little blogger"... although that sounds a bit like the harrowing story of a turd that had a tough few minutes getting all the way to the bottom of the bowl...)

In true cartoon fashion, the master does not know his objects can speak or think... (e.g. Toy Story :: the idea of God not knowing that we even have the capacity to know of his existence, or maybe the realization that we can never truly know God fully because we are not worthy, only humans, striving to reach a power we could never handle if we possessed. Anyone who thinks they have reached God obviously has brought the old guy down a few pegs, or is on meth). These objects are on a quest to once again have a purpose -- to be used by their Master, remaining quiet and still and submissive when doing so, for a theoretical eternity. The lamp wants only to be switched on, and then off, to shine brightly on the master's books as he studies, and to remain steady in the face of gravity and draftiness. The movie could be looked at as the quest to have a sound mind, to be zen, or knowing you are serving a higher purpose -- one that makes you obsolete and silent and yet so useful and vital to the big picture (at least in the master's universe.) And there are no reasons for that definite higher power :: the master (the, ehem... college kid...) being supreme. He simply is. It is known, truth, fact and reality to each character, on an arguably sub-intellectual level. Their souls call out to him and long for his approval. It's about the journey to have a true purpose in which the means is the end. An absolute goal. Enlightenment. Heaven. Take your pick. Pick your take.

And I don't necessarily mean to say that the Master is symbolically "God." In fact, I'd make a case for him not being God at all. The master is a human being. The objects who so crave his company (a bit too much like a drug at times...) are his things. He is the "Master" of his domain. He is his own God, ruling his own world, consisting of a lamp, vacuum and radio... ah, college...

::

Or, it's a cartoon about a lamp and a toaster on a magical adventure.

Either way, it's funny and exciting and almost undeniably deep. Many sequences are surely about death, bravery, money and porn addiction.

Okay, maybe not death...

And if you say you've already seen it, most likely when you were small, watch it again, hopefully this time feeling sightly less horrified by the air-conditioner (or maybe more, depending on drug-intake, mood, sleep patterns and time spent watching Intervention on TV.)

Note :: the whole movie could also be seen as an "allegory of the cave" type deal. Simplified to an extreme, we are the objects, God is the master, and we have no idea that there is a whole world beyond us. We do not have the ability to perceive it... (it's a stretch, but I think worth bringing up. You're fucking stoned anyway.)

Another note :: I think I remembered the existence of this movie around 6 months ago in a subconscious daydream which left me very unsettled. There are some movies we must have watched so many times over and over as small kids that they must be a huge part of who we are, how we see every movie, or how we see... everything. Anything scary to me is that goddamn air conditioner. I also listened to too much Queen as a young chubby boy.

I could go on forever about this one. You get the point.

In the end, God loves bravery, even if you are a motherfucking toaster

Alec GEE of YardLEE

This movie is horrifying ::

4. Red Dawn (1984)

Patrick Swayze stars in this movie. Please take a moment of silence for Patrick wherever you may be.

::

I don't know about you, but Swayze's death had way more of an impact on me than Michael Jackson's, probably because of my intimate relationship with this movie and another great one of his called Ghost, which co=starred Whoopi Goldberg. Plus, Jackson, talented and amazing as he was, had been dying for years. First black, then white, then dead. (Or you at least gotta say he had been looking "kind of pale" lately.) Swayze's character is dead almost all of Ghost. He plays a man trying to communicate with his lover, who is still alive and mourning, with the help of Whoopi Goldberg, who plays a woman with the ability to contact the dead -- or at least fakes it -- until she literally starts seeing and hearing Swayze as if he were alive. He bugs the shit out of her... (white dudes bothering 30+ black women is a common theme of life.) It's a hilarious, touching flick, with an almost 6th Sense feel at times (think 6th Sense plus Sister Act 2.) I saw Ghost for the 2nd time and Swayze passed on about a week later.

Red Dawn takes place in the aftermath of World War III. Yes, Three. Russian Communists (with the help of Cubans) attack the U.S. on our own soil and begin beating us by a landslide.

The film is such a keeper because it takes place on a small scale. This is not Saving Private Ryan. No epic, thousand-soldier battle scenes take place (although there is definitely plenty of guerrilla warfare type action,) and as the movie-watcher you have little idea as to what the rest of the world is up to, only Patrick and his friends as they fight for survival.

The film follows a group of high-schoolers who escape to the mountains (the movie takes place in the grandest wilderness of Colorado) as the Russians conquer more and more of the small town (and surrounding areas) in which the kids used to live. All the male characters in this group had been on their high school football team, called the Wolverines, and so the band of brothers (and two very cute sisters I might add) call themselves the Wolverines. They tag every tank they take out with their "team-name," and put fear into the hearts of the Russian Army, who know the rebellious kids by name.

And the Russians fear them indeed, even though they are but 8 to 12 kids hiding in mountains, attacking sporadically with Guerrilla warfare, just trying to survive what is realistically, a post-apocalyptic Colorado. And it especially seems like the end of the world in a place as rural and breath-taking as the one they roam, frighteningly ignorant of what the rest of the world is doing. You know only their story, similar to the way 28 Days Later is constructed... dare I say, realistically. You aren't shown a CIA computer displaying in clip-art who has control of what land -- you don't read a history of why everything happened as you might in a modern day flick.

This theme of modern movies telling us everything about what's going on -- leaving no stone unturned -- keeps coming up in my face. It seems today we feel uncomfortable leaving things up to our lazy imaginations. We have to see it all, know it all and, frankly, be God -- watching the movie from the Moon (where God obviously lives, which explains why he isn't around much, cause he's having too much fun golfing and fucking around with low-gravity, like we have so much fun playing Halo 2 feeling light-as-a-feather as we get fat and play Halo 2.) In Red Dawn, we are not God on the Moon. We are one of the gang. the Wolverines. Ex-football kids taking on the Russian army one tank at a time.

American, high-school age, football players vs. Russian Kommie bastards. How can you lose?

Some movies have a premise so good it seems like Tom Green, Andy Dick and Pauly Shore could all co-star and it would be great regardless (but I assure you Pauly Shore is nowhere to be seen, so go back to your Bio-dome, or better yet, go see In the Army Now if you want some of that dude up in your game.) Waterworld, the Kevin Costner epic about a post-apocalyptic world where there is no more dry land, has this same thing going for it... what a cool idea! I just want to see it, regardless of who wrote the script and who stars.

Disclaimer: I love Waterworld, but seeing as you may not, I promise this movie to be "better" than it.

Swayze and his rebellious buddies are shown several times actually taking a break from Kommie-killing and playing football in beautiful mid-west America. It always adds realism when happy things are shown in movies that could be all one depressing, overcast day. The kids playing football reminds me of the scene in 28 Days Later when they break into a store and go shopping, happily being the last people on Earth. There is something so gut-wrenchingly beautiful about people having fun post-Armageddon. I guess you would really need to let off some steam. You have to play football, End of Days (a great Shwartzeneggar ["Im da pardy poopah"] flick) or not. In fact if the world is ending it may indeed call for a game of tackle football in rural Colorado... without pads, don't tell mom or I'll steal all your friends.

At the end of the world (this isn't technically the end of the world, but it is in a lot of ways, for the Wolverines... families missing, no communication among survivors) everyone becomes a squatter, a punk -- a homeless, penniless soul living day by day and not expecting to live any longer. It is, in a lot of ways, a great dream. All of the sudden you realize how much it all means, fighting with your closest friends against people who killed your family, destroyed your way of life, your freedom and, in this case, your goddamn Ford-driving, Marlboro-smoking, gas eating, incredible America. You depend on each-other, you love each-other, you need each-other. You learn by failing, you adapt because you have to. I think there is a part of us (me, at least) that wants things to be this way; you have to spend your day finding food and water, not figuring out how to best schedule flossing into an already busy day of sucking government dick and generally being a flamer of the modern post-hallucinogenic, prescription drug saturated world. It's the dream of being an animal -- a Wolverine, if you will.

The theme of the small, unlikely gang attacking the powerful, gigantic army, and actually doing some damage (at least morale-wise) is a popular one. In the new Tarantino film Inglorious Basterds (I cannot stress enough how good it was,) a small band of Americans puts fear in the eyes of the Nazis (and Hitler himself.) In this great old, maybe mid-60's, movie I cant for the life of me remember the name of, a group of soldiers all to be either hanged or jailed for life for crimes of war is selected to go on what is basically a suicide mission in WWII. It is always great to see the little guy doing some damage. How bout the Revolutionary War? (which for some reason I still feel great about winning. Probably because the Revolutionary War, in one respect, could be seen as the Colonies going "We hate your accents and are breaking away from you to get rid of them, y'all sound like you got various fruits in your butts, and we really don't get why you spell color with a "u." we also are sick of tea, tea time, and cricket. we're working on a new game which is similar to cricket but, I'm sorry "old chap," has no tea-time scheduled into the game, tea-related rules, references to going off to "University" [translated to American it means something along the lines of our word "college" -- I looked it up,] or involvement with using the word "then" at the end of a sentence, like in the British example sentence "Cup of tea, then?" It makes no sense to end a sentence with "then," and it almost seems passive aggressive to do so.)

But I digest.

The Wolverines could probably live forever, hiding in the mountains of the mid-west, eating off the land, and avoiding Kommies; but the film really gets interesting when they realize it just wouldn't be right to do so forever. They decide they they need to face-the-music* and get back at the force that has ruined their world (their football team before the war was probably amazing, and if the several girls in the gang are any example, the women in this town were mighty fine looking. One of them is played by the mother of Marty in Back to the Future, and she's a total hottie, which must have been confusing for Marty, being her son and all.)

*Sidenote: I have recently taken an interest in the saying "face the music." First, let's use it in a sentence (in American): "I had dreams of being a professional flautist, but I had to face the music." Shouldn't the expression be more of something like "turn off the music"? Why does facing reality, biting the bullet, as they say, have to mean FACING the music? And okay, assuming it does make sense in that respect, why is the music a negative thing that we must face? Bah, goddamn big brother newspeak Kommunist bullshit.

Red Dawn is perfect for the Kommie-hating American, and even more perfect for the Kommie-hating America-loving anarchist.

In short, the way Red Dawn leaves the viewer realistically ignorant of the world state in WWIII, juxtapizzozed (that's gangsta for "compared to when next to each-other") with Patrick Swayze's ability to play a leader, football player and high-school kid, make Red Dawn a classic for anybody with a goddamn soul.

Endnotes:

Similar movies: 28 Days Later, Saving Private Ryan, the Dirty Dozen (referred to above as the movie whose title i cant, for the life of me, think of, props to ma Mom on that,) Inglorious Basterds, and Suburbia

Other Swayze favorites of mine: Ghost (Whoopi!) and Point Break (with Keanu Reeves as a surfer! "dude, brah... that new dude Neo is, like, totally gettin' gnarly height on some waves! it's almost like he can control shit with his miiinnddd."

("Brahhhhh! You're totally the one! Bodacious!")

givin' up,

ALEC of LAND