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Anton Sirius at TIFF: BITCH SLAP, THE ROAD, ANTICHRIST, DOGTOOTH!!
Merrick here...
Here's Anton Sirius from TIFF, just like the headline says...
The Road (2009, directed by John Hillcoat)
When Walk the Line played here oh those handful of years ago, I recall describing it as a "well-intentioned failure". It's a movie that means well, but makes just one or two mistakes that in my arrogant opinion sink it.
The Road is the polar opposite of a well-intentional failure. It's a misguided success. Everything about the film is just about perfect: the look, the direction, the performances. And it doesn't make a lick of difference, because even as perfect as it is, it just doesn't work.
Let's start from the top, although if you've read the book you don't need a plot recap. The Earth has suffered some sort of apocalypse. Fire has swept the globe, and civilization has collapsed as all the animals and crops have died, making food incredibly scarce and driving survivors to madness and cannibalism. A man and his son travel down the road, aiming south for the coast as the temperature drops due to ash choking out the sun. They have little keeping them going other than pure stubborn survival instinct on the part of the father, and their love for each other.
Sounds pretty bleak, right? Well, it is, and that's the problem. Post-apocalyptic stories require one crucial element: hope and the possibility of rebirth. In the Road Warrior, hope comes in the form of the precious petrol, and the tales of a distant refuge. In Children of Men, hope comes literally in the form of rebirth, and a baby born after decades of despair and infertility.
But in The Road, there is no hope. No possibility of a solution to the planet's death spasms. No city rising from the ruins. No green shoots poking through the snow and ash. There is only the monotony of day after hungry day, and the reality of two people watching each others' lives tick away.
Don't get me wrong, it seems like great material to work with. Viggo Mortensen is predictably unpredictable and brilliant as the father desperately trying to live just because it's all he knows to do. The son (relative newcomer Kodi Smit-McPhee) is excellent as a child who internalizes his father's lessons even as his father's actions drift further away from the moral compass he's trying to instill. Various famous faces pop up in supporting roles and do great work, particularly Charlize Theron as their long-lost wife and mother. And John Hillcoat creates a stunning believable dead world in which those actors can do their thing.
But it all seems so futile. Theron's despair, shown in flashback, seems like the only sane reaction to the insane situation they find themselves in. Viggo keeps himself and his son going out of pure inertia, not out of any sense that there's a better world on the horizon. The movie feels like we're just marking time, because that's what Viggo is doing, just marking time. It's all there in his eyes, the hopelessness and desperation. And while it's a great bit of acting, it also makes it that much harder to invest anything in the story. Does it really matter whether they end up dead of starvation, or disease, or in someone's belly, or by their own hand?
Which I guess is the point. If you think it does matter, you're probably going to respond to this movie much more strongly than I did.
Right at the very end, a tiny sliver of hope gets tossed our way. Father and son find a small beetle, alive, and watch it fly up into the sky. But for me it wasn't enough, and came too late. The effects, the acting, they'd all done their job too well.
This was a dead world, not one waiting for rebirth. There's no future here.
***********************************************
Bitch Slap (2009, directed by Rick Jacobson)
Reviews of movies like this are basically pointless, but what the hell.
A mostly successful attempt to drag Russ Meyer-style exploitation films into the 21st century, Bitch Slap is a blast for anyone who likes boobies... err, I mean anyone who likes to see hot women blow shit up and beat the crap out of each other.
The plot is a ridiculous mishmash of elements from every other movie you've ever seen in your entire life with the possible exception of Last Year in Marienbad. Three hot women (the mysterious Hel, the ditzy stripper Trixie, and the loose cannon Camero) have kidnapped local underworld scumfuck Gage and dragged him out to the desert to try and beat the location of his legendary stash of diamonds out of him. As the mayhem (and lesbian sex) escalates a series of flashbacks start falling like dominoes, explaining how each of the ladies got there. And looming over it all is the sinister figure of Pinky, Gage's Keyser Soze-like boss who seems to be one step ahead of them at every turn.
I have to admit I was a little worried when the film started. The script has trouble deciding whether it's going to play things as campy tongue in cheek or go balls to the wall, and while America Olivo is ridiculously, hilariously over-the-top as Camero the other girls have it pulled in a little more, which is a bit jarring.
Then, around about the time Camero kills Gage and Deputy Fuchs shows up, the switch gets thrown all the way into balls to the wall territory, and the movie takes off on a jolt of adrenaline and lust that it rides straight through to the end.
Look, Bitch Slap isn't going to win any awards. It isn't going to revolutionize anything. Hell, the green screen effects in the flashbacks are so deliberately phony-looking they at times seem like the biggest budget David Hasselhoff video ever.
But in terms of providing an audience with big stupid sexy fun, Bitch Slap is miles better than most of Hollywood's recent attempts at big stupid sexy fun. And that's really all that matters.
************************************************
Antichrist (2009, directed by Lars von Trier)
Most modern horror films aren't really about horror at all. Horror literally derives from the Latin word 'horror', which means "shaking and trembling", but horror films by and large aren't interested in leaving you shaking and trembling even after you leave the theater; they're interested in making you scream and jump while you're in the theater. They're focused on the thrill ride, the instantaneous terror of the physical now as opposed to the lingering dread of the existential future.
There are exceptions, of course. Wise's The Haunting is for me the classic example of a true horror film, a movie that forces you to fear what might be coming as opposed to what is actually happening. Blair Witch Project, for all its faults, managed to create the same effect in me because I saw it under absolutely ideal conditions. And the French, Goddess bless their twisted hearts, have been cranking out true horror films almost annually recently (I'm thinking here of A l'Interieur and Martyrs, and very much not Haute Tension or Calvaire).
I suspect von Trier briefly considered both options, then laughed and decided to do what he always does, namely subvert and pervert every convention he can get his hands on in service to his awesomely deranged muse.
Antichrist begins with a sequence of heartbreaking beauty and tragedy, as a man (Willem Dafoe) and a woman (Charlotte Gainsbourg) obliviously make passionate love while their young son accidentally falls to his death. The woman's grief is shattering and bottomless; the man, a professional therapist, can't stand the thought of losing his wife as well as his son and throws aside his objectivity to try and treat her.
Madness ensues, and as the dead fox tells Dafoe later on, chaos reigns.
von Trier is almost too skilled for his own good sometimes. It does a filmmaker no good to subvert a convention if you work it in so seamlessly that no one notices the convention is there, but that's almost what happens. For instance: the film's second half is set in an isolated cabin in the woods, and a major plot point hinges on a book of occult scribblings found hidden in the attic, and yet while what von Trier is working with there is obvious in retrospect during the flow of the film itself there are no winks and nods in those references, only the sense of a trap sprung, and of inevitable doom grinding inexorably forward.
Dafoe and Gainsbourg are both beyond magnificent. It's easy to forget sometimes, what with his gleeful genre work in movies like Spider-Man and even this year's Daybreakers, that Dafoe is a goddamned incredible actor when he gets material that challenges and pushes him. He's incredible here, subtle and caring and self-aware enough to realize he's in way over his head even as his arrogance drives him to keep moving forward and to keep trying to save his wife. Great as he is though, Gainsbourg is that much greater. To say her performance is merely brave is to belittle it. She's a force of nature, abandoning herself to a role that requires her to find the darkest part of not just herself but of all humanity. von Trier is an old hand at putting his lead actresses through hell to get what he wants out of them, but there were times in Antichrist when I got the impression that even he was caught off-guard by the fury of what he'd awoken in Gainsbourg. This is normally the part of the review where I'd talk about her Oscar chances, but she has none. Her performance is too raw, too unspeakable and too dangerous to ever get the Academy's seal of approval. I hope she wears the inevitable snub like a badge of honor, because that's exactly what it will be.
What lies at the heart of Antichrist though (and for me the thing more shocking that even the grand guignol of the final act) is not the contempt for the human species I've come to expect from Lars, but rather love for it. This is a film about the corrosive, destructive power of guilt, and how evil is just despair externalized. This isn't a movie condemning the human race, it's one freakishly trying to save it from itself. It's also, perhaps, von Trier's most feminist film (if such a thing is even possible), an elegy for all the women through all the centuries who fell victim to the forces of fear and ignorance. Given the circumstances under which he wrote and conceived the film (von Trier came up with Antichrist after a divorce and a depression) that's both remarkable and understandable.
A word about that final act: it's abominable, in the best possible way. If you've already heard what happens you still know nothing, because the why is far more important than the mere what. And if you haven't heard, well, like I said it's abominable in the best possible way. Shaking and trembling afterwards are the least of your worries.
Visually beautiful beyond even the compositional abilities of a Kubrick or Lynch, and as emotionally and psychically devastating as anything he's ever done before, Antichrist is von Trier's most vulnerable work, and his most haunting. Don't call it a horror film though. Antichrist is something else entirely, and something very much more powerful.
************************************************
Dogtooth (2009, directed by Giorgos Lanthimos)
Such a great premise, wasted. Ah well.
A couple, living in an estate/compound completely cut off from the outside world, have raised their three children to near adulthood in complete isolation. They've taught them the wrong words for things (if the movie becomes a hit back in its native Greece I fully expect the phrase "Lick my keyboard" to become big) and constructed an elaborate mythology about the outside world, the world father bravely heads out into every morning to go to work despite its killer house cats and other dangers.
At the factory where father works, he's begun bribing a female security guard to come back to the house with him periodically in order to, umm, service his son. This causes problems, as Christine would much prefer to have her keyboard licked by the eldest daughter, so she begins bribing eldest daughter to service her. Eldest daughter then begins bribing younger daughter likewise, although she's unclear on which parts of her are supposed to be licked, and the parents' twisted version of paradise is threatened.
I've heard more than one person describe the film as a feature-length version of Steve Martin's 'mambo dogface to the banana patch' routine, and sadly that's not far from the truth. There are some funny bits (I particularly liked the idea of passing planes occasionally falling into the garden as toys for the kids, or the pool randomly spawning fish which the father then goes after with snorkel and spear gun) but when the film tries to be shocking it falls completely flat. If you don't figure out that there's going to be incest somewhere along the way after watching the first five minutes of this movie, you probably shouldn't be watching anything more narratively difficult than Transformers.
The big problem though is that the universe just doesn't make a lot of sense. The movie is apparently set in the real world, which begs the question of how the parents have gotten away with it for so long. These are smart, curious kids, and it's simply not plausible that one of them wouldn't have started sneaking outside the gates before this, even if just to the other side of the road.
There's a good movie in this premise somewhere. Dogtooth, however, isn't it.
****************************************************
When Walk the Line played here oh those handful of years ago, I recall describing it as a "well-intentioned failure". It's a movie that means well, but makes just one or two mistakes that in my arrogant opinion sink it.
The Road is the polar opposite of a well-intentional failure. It's a misguided success. Everything about the film is just about perfect: the look, the direction, the performances. And it doesn't make a lick of difference, because even as perfect as it is, it just doesn't work.
Let's start from the top, although if you've read the book you don't need a plot recap. The Earth has suffered some sort of apocalypse. Fire has swept the globe, and civilization has collapsed as all the animals and crops have died, making food incredibly scarce and driving survivors to madness and cannibalism. A man and his son travel down the road, aiming south for the coast as the temperature drops due to ash choking out the sun. They have little keeping them going other than pure stubborn survival instinct on the part of the father, and their love for each other.
Sounds pretty bleak, right? Well, it is, and that's the problem. Post-apocalyptic stories require one crucial element: hope and the possibility of rebirth. In the Road Warrior, hope comes in the form of the precious petrol, and the tales of a distant refuge. In Children of Men, hope comes literally in the form of rebirth, and a baby born after decades of despair and infertility.
But in The Road, there is no hope. No possibility of a solution to the planet's death spasms. No city rising from the ruins. No green shoots poking through the snow and ash. There is only the monotony of day after hungry day, and the reality of two people watching each others' lives tick away.
Don't get me wrong, it seems like great material to work with. Viggo Mortensen is predictably unpredictable and brilliant as the father desperately trying to live just because it's all he knows to do. The son (relative newcomer Kodi Smit-McPhee) is excellent as a child who internalizes his father's lessons even as his father's actions drift further away from the moral compass he's trying to instill. Various famous faces pop up in supporting roles and do great work, particularly Charlize Theron as their long-lost wife and mother. And John Hillcoat creates a stunning believable dead world in which those actors can do their thing.
But it all seems so futile. Theron's despair, shown in flashback, seems like the only sane reaction to the insane situation they find themselves in. Viggo keeps himself and his son going out of pure inertia, not out of any sense that there's a better world on the horizon. The movie feels like we're just marking time, because that's what Viggo is doing, just marking time. It's all there in his eyes, the hopelessness and desperation. And while it's a great bit of acting, it also makes it that much harder to invest anything in the story. Does it really matter whether they end up dead of starvation, or disease, or in someone's belly, or by their own hand?
Which I guess is the point. If you think it does matter, you're probably going to respond to this movie much more strongly than I did.
Right at the very end, a tiny sliver of hope gets tossed our way. Father and son find a small beetle, alive, and watch it fly up into the sky. But for me it wasn't enough, and came too late. The effects, the acting, they'd all done their job too well.
This was a dead world, not one waiting for rebirth. There's no future here.
***********************************************
Bitch Slap (2009, directed by Rick Jacobson)
Reviews of movies like this are basically pointless, but what the hell.
A mostly successful attempt to drag Russ Meyer-style exploitation films into the 21st century, Bitch Slap is a blast for anyone who likes boobies... err, I mean anyone who likes to see hot women blow shit up and beat the crap out of each other.
The plot is a ridiculous mishmash of elements from every other movie you've ever seen in your entire life with the possible exception of Last Year in Marienbad. Three hot women (the mysterious Hel, the ditzy stripper Trixie, and the loose cannon Camero) have kidnapped local underworld scumfuck Gage and dragged him out to the desert to try and beat the location of his legendary stash of diamonds out of him. As the mayhem (and lesbian sex) escalates a series of flashbacks start falling like dominoes, explaining how each of the ladies got there. And looming over it all is the sinister figure of Pinky, Gage's Keyser Soze-like boss who seems to be one step ahead of them at every turn.
I have to admit I was a little worried when the film started. The script has trouble deciding whether it's going to play things as campy tongue in cheek or go balls to the wall, and while America Olivo is ridiculously, hilariously over-the-top as Camero the other girls have it pulled in a little more, which is a bit jarring.
Then, around about the time Camero kills Gage and Deputy Fuchs shows up, the switch gets thrown all the way into balls to the wall territory, and the movie takes off on a jolt of adrenaline and lust that it rides straight through to the end.
Look, Bitch Slap isn't going to win any awards. It isn't going to revolutionize anything. Hell, the green screen effects in the flashbacks are so deliberately phony-looking they at times seem like the biggest budget David Hasselhoff video ever.
But in terms of providing an audience with big stupid sexy fun, Bitch Slap is miles better than most of Hollywood's recent attempts at big stupid sexy fun. And that's really all that matters.
************************************************
Antichrist (2009, directed by Lars von Trier)
Most modern horror films aren't really about horror at all. Horror literally derives from the Latin word 'horror', which means "shaking and trembling", but horror films by and large aren't interested in leaving you shaking and trembling even after you leave the theater; they're interested in making you scream and jump while you're in the theater. They're focused on the thrill ride, the instantaneous terror of the physical now as opposed to the lingering dread of the existential future.
There are exceptions, of course. Wise's The Haunting is for me the classic example of a true horror film, a movie that forces you to fear what might be coming as opposed to what is actually happening. Blair Witch Project, for all its faults, managed to create the same effect in me because I saw it under absolutely ideal conditions. And the French, Goddess bless their twisted hearts, have been cranking out true horror films almost annually recently (I'm thinking here of A l'Interieur and Martyrs, and very much not Haute Tension or Calvaire).
I suspect von Trier briefly considered both options, then laughed and decided to do what he always does, namely subvert and pervert every convention he can get his hands on in service to his awesomely deranged muse.
Antichrist begins with a sequence of heartbreaking beauty and tragedy, as a man (Willem Dafoe) and a woman (Charlotte Gainsbourg) obliviously make passionate love while their young son accidentally falls to his death. The woman's grief is shattering and bottomless; the man, a professional therapist, can't stand the thought of losing his wife as well as his son and throws aside his objectivity to try and treat her.
Madness ensues, and as the dead fox tells Dafoe later on, chaos reigns.
von Trier is almost too skilled for his own good sometimes. It does a filmmaker no good to subvert a convention if you work it in so seamlessly that no one notices the convention is there, but that's almost what happens. For instance: the film's second half is set in an isolated cabin in the woods, and a major plot point hinges on a book of occult scribblings found hidden in the attic, and yet while what von Trier is working with there is obvious in retrospect during the flow of the film itself there are no winks and nods in those references, only the sense of a trap sprung, and of inevitable doom grinding inexorably forward.
Dafoe and Gainsbourg are both beyond magnificent. It's easy to forget sometimes, what with his gleeful genre work in movies like Spider-Man and even this year's Daybreakers, that Dafoe is a goddamned incredible actor when he gets material that challenges and pushes him. He's incredible here, subtle and caring and self-aware enough to realize he's in way over his head even as his arrogance drives him to keep moving forward and to keep trying to save his wife. Great as he is though, Gainsbourg is that much greater. To say her performance is merely brave is to belittle it. She's a force of nature, abandoning herself to a role that requires her to find the darkest part of not just herself but of all humanity. von Trier is an old hand at putting his lead actresses through hell to get what he wants out of them, but there were times in Antichrist when I got the impression that even he was caught off-guard by the fury of what he'd awoken in Gainsbourg. This is normally the part of the review where I'd talk about her Oscar chances, but she has none. Her performance is too raw, too unspeakable and too dangerous to ever get the Academy's seal of approval. I hope she wears the inevitable snub like a badge of honor, because that's exactly what it will be.
What lies at the heart of Antichrist though (and for me the thing more shocking that even the grand guignol of the final act) is not the contempt for the human species I've come to expect from Lars, but rather love for it. This is a film about the corrosive, destructive power of guilt, and how evil is just despair externalized. This isn't a movie condemning the human race, it's one freakishly trying to save it from itself. It's also, perhaps, von Trier's most feminist film (if such a thing is even possible), an elegy for all the women through all the centuries who fell victim to the forces of fear and ignorance. Given the circumstances under which he wrote and conceived the film (von Trier came up with Antichrist after a divorce and a depression) that's both remarkable and understandable.
A word about that final act: it's abominable, in the best possible way. If you've already heard what happens you still know nothing, because the why is far more important than the mere what. And if you haven't heard, well, like I said it's abominable in the best possible way. Shaking and trembling afterwards are the least of your worries.
Visually beautiful beyond even the compositional abilities of a Kubrick or Lynch, and as emotionally and psychically devastating as anything he's ever done before, Antichrist is von Trier's most vulnerable work, and his most haunting. Don't call it a horror film though. Antichrist is something else entirely, and something very much more powerful.
************************************************
Dogtooth (2009, directed by Giorgos Lanthimos)
Such a great premise, wasted. Ah well.
A couple, living in an estate/compound completely cut off from the outside world, have raised their three children to near adulthood in complete isolation. They've taught them the wrong words for things (if the movie becomes a hit back in its native Greece I fully expect the phrase "Lick my keyboard" to become big) and constructed an elaborate mythology about the outside world, the world father bravely heads out into every morning to go to work despite its killer house cats and other dangers.
At the factory where father works, he's begun bribing a female security guard to come back to the house with him periodically in order to, umm, service his son. This causes problems, as Christine would much prefer to have her keyboard licked by the eldest daughter, so she begins bribing eldest daughter to service her. Eldest daughter then begins bribing younger daughter likewise, although she's unclear on which parts of her are supposed to be licked, and the parents' twisted version of paradise is threatened.
I've heard more than one person describe the film as a feature-length version of Steve Martin's 'mambo dogface to the banana patch' routine, and sadly that's not far from the truth. There are some funny bits (I particularly liked the idea of passing planes occasionally falling into the garden as toys for the kids, or the pool randomly spawning fish which the father then goes after with snorkel and spear gun) but when the film tries to be shocking it falls completely flat. If you don't figure out that there's going to be incest somewhere along the way after watching the first five minutes of this movie, you probably shouldn't be watching anything more narratively difficult than Transformers.
The big problem though is that the universe just doesn't make a lot of sense. The movie is apparently set in the real world, which begs the question of how the parents have gotten away with it for so long. These are smart, curious kids, and it's simply not plausible that one of them wouldn't have started sneaking outside the gates before this, even if just to the other side of the road.
There's a good movie in this premise somewhere. Dogtooth, however, isn't it.
****************************************************
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and I've only seen the trailer for Black Dynamite, then it should be good fun. AND I want to see Black Dynamite NOW.
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Couldn't we have gotten a spoiler warning on this? He kind of spoils the ending of The Road a little bit.
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Anti vegetarian movie.
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WALK THE LINE is a Great film. Also, anyone going into THE ROAD expecting to see something like THE ROAD WARRIOR or CHILDREN OF MEN will obviously be disappointed. It's not that kind of movie. The ill-considered suggestion that the story of THE ROAD is "futile", hopeless and without any real point, couldn't be more off the mark. These characters are fighting for more than just their survival. There is a kind of existential defiance, in the face of these post-apocalyptic elements, to preserve something from the lost world - yes, hope, but also kindness and love and human dignity. These are MAGNIFICENT themes.But the reviewer is entitled to his opinion. I don't find that opinion "arrogant", as he suggests. I just think its wrong.
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A misguided success would be a movie that succeeds DESPITE a poor look, direction, performances, etc. What you're describing sounds more like a well-crafted failure.
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How come you are not advertizing on this site? That movie sounds awesome!
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How is that some underground horro movie? Martyrs on the other hand will fuck you up.
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...about the Road. Why does everything apocalyptic have to give you a sense of hope to be good? Maybe I missed something here because I'm trying to avoid spoilers. The future is bleak. Get used to it. Everything will go to shit. You can recycle. You can ride a bike everywhere you go. You can use the sun to power your cars. It doesn't matter. The sun is dying, and so are we. Get used to it.
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Sep 15, 2009 1:08:11 PM CDT
Calvaire was the example for NOT good French horror
by yeah i wrote that
The way he worded it was pretty easy to miss that if you're just skimming. But he's saying Haute Tension and Calvaire were NOT examples of the horror he was referring to coming out of the French scene.
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What the fuck. No big robots. I'm out.
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...to me a story like THE ROAD is a metaphor for life (at it's bleakest, but still...) If you don't believe in an angelic hereafter then we are ultimately all just biding our time until death...the only question is when. So what is the value of virtues like courage and altruism, compassion and self sacrifice? Everyone's time is short, it's how you choose to live, even in the face of despair that counts. Hell, even a silly movie like 300 explored a similar theme. Are you going to die like a man?...or live like an animal to buy yourself a little more precious time?...
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Sep 15, 2009 1:47:13 PM CDT
Yeah, good question! Why isn't there more BITCH SLAP around here
by thunderpeel2001
Sounds like good fun!
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So when he surprises you, you're not surprised?
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I find your thoughts on THE ROAD (and on 300) fascinating and perfectly valid. Cheers.
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This movie is absolutely dreadful. The film just doesn't work on...Even on a "let's bring back the films of Russ Meyer" level. It's not fun and ultimately frustrating being the film is one big tease. Yeah the girls are hot and there's tons of cleavage (nothing more) but what's the point?
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Antichrist is a PIECE OF SHIT. Writing in the Kanye blog style there, because this: "Visually beautiful beyond even the compositional abilities of a Kubrick or Lynch," made me really angry.
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asshole
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Flickapoo one's view of 'life' is greatly changed when you have children. Whether an 'angelic hereafter' exists doesn't really matter because a 'biological hereafter' certainly does, and raising the next generation and making the world a better place for them is an ingrained motivator like no other.
If a scenario like THE ROAD existed then bringing a child into that world of cannibal rapists would be cruel indeed. I think that's the reviewers point. -
"right at the end of the movie, Darth Vader tells Luke that he is his father" etc...
Wasn't it great back in the days when movies weren't ruined by assholes on internet movie review sites? -
Sep 15, 2009 2:37:41 PM CDT
So the only fault in the Road...is it's own source material?
by thewaqman
Because I loved the bleak nature of the novel and I would be pissed iff the studio tampered with it and created a hopeful film.
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Joh Doe, 'challenging' films like ANTICHRIST often get obscenely high review scores because critics are freaked out by them. They don't have the point of comparison to rate them against and so they rate them higher than they would normally. However once the controversy has settled and regular movie goers have had a chance to see them then often the mystique of these films fade and they are swiftly forgotten.
Saying that ANTICHRIST is beyond the compositional abilities of Kubrick and Lynch smacks of just that. -
...I have a two year old, and I accept your point. In the story the Father already has The Boy...he doesn't have a choice...he's trying to teach the boy to be a man in a world where being a decent human might be impossible or irrelevant. I agree that it's a tough theme...but ultimately a fascinating...
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...it's interesting. I was pretty comfortable with the idea of death and eventually not existing anymore...until my daughter was born. The idea of her not existing...even it it's 100 years from now and I'm long, long gone...that's tough to swallow. I'm still not completely over it...
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SUCKS ASS! Seriously I don't get why people are so fucking in love with this film. The title alone is misleading. Sure Dafoe is good in the film but seriously this is not a good horror film by any stretch of the imagination. He started to lose me when he said his version of horror is the original Haunting and the french torture films. But I was just pissed with the comparison to Kubrick or Lynch. Neither would have made a film this bad. Adn saying Von Trier is better should be a punishable crime somewhere.
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Take out the talking fox, the dick inserts, tone down the hissy fits, and come up with a real horror element (witches, a possession maybe?), and it could've been good. Unfortunately it's shit.
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Von Trier's Antichrist was merely a shocking film due to the penetration etc. Lynch is far above this.
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Sep 15, 2009 3:34:33 PM CDT
Man, the Road must be terrible if he loved Antichrist
by domi'sinnerchild
I figured both would appeal to the same audience that dig the depressing artsy takes on what you figure is a popcorn movie situation. Antichrist had TALKING ANIMALS. Maybe he would have liked the Road better if the beetle said "It's going to be... alright" at the end or something.
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It is no wonder Hollywood keeps churning out formula crap all the time.
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I'm more excited for its sequel. The Book Of Eli!
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Flickapoo, i'm in a similar situation myself. Maybe that's why part of me doesn't want to see films like THE ROAD or ANTICHRIST... in the simple words of Sam Gamgee I want to believe that there's still some good in this world.
There's enough real horror on the news and in the papers. -
completely agree with what others have said about antichrist. talk about hitting the nail over the head with this movie. it makes the happening look like a work of genius. and the 'abominable' elements you refer to are ridiculous. the film's poster featuring the couple having sex says everything you need to know - an attempt to be subtle by banging pots and pans. i spent the majority of the film having no feeling whatsoever about these characters, the story or anything.
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Anybody here gonna review "House of Devil" any time soon? I kinda wanna see it based solely on the poster art! Somebody has managed to revive a lost art with those beauties.
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Personally, I'm sick of humanity always coming out on top. I find that when I'm watching some post-apocalyptic piece of shit, and I know there will be a happy ending because Roland Emmerich (or some variation thereof) is directing, I can't get into it. Where's the drama if everyone is going to live happily ever after? I would like to see a film with the balls to have our parasitic species wiped out completely; or at least have NO hope in salvation. Contrived happy endings are the lowest form of artistic integrity.
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These are movies people. If you have a kid, does that mean you automatically start listening to schmaltzy, September 11th hallowing, god-awful country music? I dont have a kid, granted, but I can't see it changing my tastes in anything filmically, musically, whatever.
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One should have had the balls you speak of.
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As Flickapoo and LoneGun have pointed out, the central question of The Road is: What is the best way to live in a doomed world? It's the same question that animates Norse mythology, hence, its emphasis on unwavering courage and clannish values.
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Completely unnecessary and unwarranted... what the f*ck???
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...I have always admired the ballsy, cold eyed Norse world view. My comparative mythology is a little rusty...I wonder if their idea that the gods will ultimately lose and the world will fall back into chaos is unique?...It certainly seems rare in myth...and interestingly prescient...Of course for them the idea was to be remembered...to check out with such style as to be remembered in song. THE ROAD doesn't even offer that solace...
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...reading that since the universe is expanding it will eventually not contain enough energy and light to sustain life. He had previously cherished a vague STAR TREKian notion that at least theoretically humans could move on to other planets and galaxies once ours was exhausted...the reality that not just humanity but all life are ultimately doomed sent him into an existential depression...and eventually let to the script for SUNSHINE...
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Ladies and gentlemen, do yourself a favor and not go there.
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the film is avant garde. its not meant to be a hollywood film. yes,it can be disturbing. it is very slow and drawn out,but i wouldn't go so far to say it is utter crap,esp. when compared to what most people call horror these days (saw(s)halloween(s)final destination,etc) its a story of tragedy and of a disturbed,fragile mind. if you can't handle nudity,then cover your eyes. I wouldn't go so far to put it up there w/Lynch or Kubrick's work though. namaste
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Europa....Yarg....BREAKING THE WAVES....anybody that can make the chick from the village voice flee a theater in "emotional turmoil" is worth paying attention to...but if you want your fluffy humanity stick stroked better to remain with LOTR and ID4von trier aint on the lynch/kubrick level, but he's damn close. the man can bellow.
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and not in a good way. I'm all for boobs and camp and I loooooove Russ Meyer, but this film was absolute shit. Such a shame, It could have been freakin' amazing...
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So let me get this straight, you are happy to spoil the ending of The Road but not a piece of crap like Antichrist???
Thanks dude..... -
Sep 16, 2009 8:11:44 AM CDT
on ANTI neeeding "Some Witches, A Possession or something...
by birdy birdman
...hilarious but it just because it didn't turn into the film a lot of us were secretly hoping it was shouldn't be a reason to bash it. All that shit would have been cool but this is meant to be (Sigh)...ART. As far as the visual go, those slow moving digital(?) portrait sequences were pretty damn striking... kept me in the film at least.
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i'd like to have been surprised by the ending to "the road" since it departs from the book
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What's with spoiling the end of "The Road" and not having a SINGLE FUCKING SPOILER TAG? Godamnit man, be a fucking professional and put a fucking SPOILER TAG on this story. You asshat. Thanks for ruining the end of the movie.
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Did you get that now that we have mentioned you by name?
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Since he's the one that posted the story? SPOILER TAGS man! Where are they??
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I'm hoping that the beetle scene is not the final scene of the movie, though. Maybe just near the end? If it is the finale, that would be a complete departure from the novel (and damn cheesy, too).
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one crucial element: hope and the possibility of rebirth."
Bullshit. The novel is pretty hopeless, with only a very faint glimmer of human decency at the end. It's dark, and it works.
Anybody here who's seen "Threads"- it's a British post-nuclear-apocalypse film, and talk about a downer of an ending- it's absolutely bleak. There's really no way to sugar-coat global thermonuclear war. It can ruin your whole day, for sure. -
He's (mostly) right. The individual elements are perfect but the film did not get me there.
This is probably a case where the screenplay should have deviated from the novel. And that's not to make a happy ending. I have no issue with the lack of hope for humanity, I love dark movies and endings (see: Se7en). That said the ending to this is actually hopeful in context of the father/son relationship. But yeah, I should have cried, and I really didn't feel squat. I think this is because readers of the book can fill in the character and relationship voids, not having read the book, I can't. All I can do is react to waht's on the screen. Sadly I smell "Atonement" all over again.
As for the comments about the mother you must see that the film is about humanity (well it's about the father and son's relationship, but the setting is the extinction of humanity) and it's at least good about exploring that.
Ultimatley though all the cameo's are distracting as is the product placement.
Visually it's brilliant though. -
Agreed.
I agree of what should be considered horror (something disturbing that stays with you). That's defiantely something this movie did and Martyrs did last year (I think you're on crack about L'Interieur though.. that was splatterhouse, predictable and lazily written.. good tension in the first 20 minutes though).
I also agree about Gainsbourg. She is brilliant. Dafoe is great too but his role doesn't really require him to jump too far out of the box. But I buy him as sincere as the rational thinker, as 'the man'. I, dare I say it, related to him.
Not sure why so many are Anti-Antichrist here. Then again, I found the same thing with critics of Martyrs last year as well. So I would probably have to believe Antichrist is largely misunderstood. I mean why the one scene with the talking fox is a problem for some is beyond my comprehension. The only arguement I could support is that the supernatural elements of the film could be treated as (or indeed were) an afterthought, perhaps to disguise the all too obvious discussion about the nature of man and woman with woman getting the lions share of the negative. But even that is up for discussion. Unfortunately I don't see much discussion, just condemnation. *shrug* your loss.
It's almost like some people don't think they deserve to see a good movie sometimes, so when it seems to good to be true, they shit on it. Maybe 'the man' in Antichrist could help you with that psychological barrier. -
Especially when the write about it in college and then (what a twist) they agree with it. Yippee. That was such a deep insightful movie about the nature of man. Everyone is a better person for seeing Antichrist. Now woman, go get me and the talking fox a sandwich.
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wish I didn't.
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Geez...Lars von Trier: NOT a misogynist, NOT a misanthrope.
If you want to see misogyny, go find a recent Sandra Bullock movie. -
The Road fails because, even though it is a movie about the fall of humanity, it is hopeless and depressing? That might be the stupidest logic to a review I have ever read. and I have read Armond White's reviews.
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I hve to reswpectfully disagree with you about A L'Interieur. I thought it was masterfully directed and acted. I thought the writing good as well, though I understand some have had problems with the behavior of the police. I didn't , but I understand the discussion.
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I agree about bringing a child into such a world, but the mother was pregnant with the him when the apocalypse occurred.
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Still excited to see it, but I am a little hesitant after reading this guy's review. Martyrs being a "true horror film".....give me a fucking break. Maybe for the first 30ish or so minutes. After that its a woman tied and beaten for an hour or so. With all the tension and excitement of waiting in line at the post office.
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I was curious about that one, but haven't heard the plot. If what you're saying is right, it explains the reviewer liking Antichrist. Pretty much all that's going on that last half of the film is two people beating the crap out of each other in kinda stupid ways that even Bruce Campbell couldn't get up from. Movies sound like bookends.
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it turns out Bruce Willis character has been dead all along.
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SPOILERS AHEAD (though the movie's been out about 3 years no). "Inside" was weak and I'll provide examples why (though having only watched it the once and well over a year ago I may mix up some scenes). Okay so you know exactly what's going to happen with those scissors from the moment you first see them. You've got this woman who's scared out of her mind and being stalked but refuses to invite that guy (coworker she's sleeping with) over, so there's the first example of the 1980's slasher type logic. Even worse after psycho chick shows up, she brushes it off with the police. I also do believe there's supposed to be a bit of a crime spree in her neighbourhood as well which is all the more reason not to hang out 12 hours from delivering your child. It's completely obvious she's going to kill her mother coming up the stairs and when you can predict that outcome, the tension is gone. But how is it she can't hear her mother? She's basically up the stairs (which are next to the front door) and the next room in (with holes in the door to boot). Hell I even think she calls out to her. Shit, I can hear my wife drive into my driveway and I live in well built and insulated home. Then there's of course the whole bit with the cops (with the prisoner in the car). There's almost nothing logical or believable in that section. I mean the first guy who finds her struggles with her while the other guy is elsewhere in the house, he dies but somehow that doesn't alert the other guy, who then gets snuck up on and killed. Inside the same house. What the fuck? Then they leave the criminal in the car. Also the big reveal on who the stalker is is pretty easy to figure out from the scene where she's doing her taunting at the window. Then there's some scene with only half-dead people from the police car still in the house.. I remember there being something completely off about the timing and a fuse panel. Like it was taking 3 minutes to get across a room.
Then the little trac(he) scene. In a kitchen with all the tools in it shes uses a knitting needle?
And of course the whole movie begs the question that the victim is 12 hours from delivering the baby, why not just kidnap it the next day?
So yeah I have to respectfully disagree with your disagreement. :)
The whole thing is just preposturous. Really lazy. I have no idea why people fall over themselves for that movie. It must be the gore, which brings me back to my original point.. it's splatterhouse. Not something I define as horror (or at least good horror). That movie didn't leave me with anything but a bad taste in my mouth that I bought into the hype and BOUGHT the movie from Amazon because my local video stores weren't renting it. -
This movie was big, sexy . silly fun and I had a blast watching it but I can see this as being the type of movie that you either love or hate. The movie knows that its being silly so if you're willing to go along for the ride...Come on, 3 hot lesbians, hot lesbian sex scene, fighting, explosions, killer japanese schoolgirl, hilarious end credits and Kevin Sorbo? What's not to like.
Also a quick shout out for another good movie called Defendor starring Woody Harrelson as a real life superhero with no powers. Elias Koteas is in it too. He plays a dirty cop. Great performances by both. Check it out if you can. -
One is a film about the deranged, psychopathic, medieval conceptions of suffering and victimhood and femininity underpinning the "torture-porn" genre, for one, and the entirity of western culture, for another. The other is a film by a deranged, medieval misogynist who believes EVERYTHING the other picture is attempting to refute. I'll say no more re: who is the "Vile" one, but the clue is it's the one who has spent his career gawpin into "the eyes!" of this or the other "saintly" or "Pure" or, in this case, "too fond of fuckin" Victim Soul in a fashion that would have been deemed " a bit fuckin' pathetic, like"in the 15th century. in the 20th/21st, for whatever reason, owin to whatever mania, he's a "feminist". apparently. www.mondoirlando.com - by the by, i don't buy the "torture-porn is misogynist/sadistic/whatever" line pushed by the Good film is this equation. doesn't make it an inch less intelligent and wise re: the argument, though.
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And there's no way you'll entirely believe the truth of that statement until it happens to you.
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Most all AICN reviews contain spoilers, tags or no. You make the choice to read or not. If you choose to read, you know damn well *somethingz in the film will probably be spoiled for you in one way or another. Should Serius have tipped what he did? No. But jeez louise...
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