3096 Days (2013) @ 3096 Tage

How much weight did Antonia Campbell-Hughes lose to play a paedophile's muse? Apparently he kept her malnourished so she'd look more like daddy's little girl.

The real Natascha Maria Kampusch

At a glance:

3096 Days (2013) by Sherry Hormann (Desert Flower, 2009) is based on the 2010 autobiography of Natascha Maria Kampusch, the Austrian woman known for her abduction at the age of 10 back in 1998. Kampusch was held in a secret cellar by her kidnapper Wolfgang Přiklopil for more than eight years, until she escaped in 2006. The lass has gotten worldwide attention since and she's some kinda celebrity activist now, takin pics with Sri Lankan kids and whatnot.

Bad news on the doorstep:

Since the movie is based on her account of the harrowin events, we get a decent technical runaround e.g. the renovated dungeon and other physical details of the incarceration. However, while Antonia Campbell-Hughes really gives her all as Natascha and Thure Lindhardt makes a memorable villain, the little emotions are absent in this screenplay and her terrible ordeal -- one that you would expect to be riddled with desperation, reflection and total anguish -- seems as if it wasn't even a true story. Guess what? Maybe it isn't. There are plenty of documented instances where Miss Kampusch was caught lyin about the details and you can read online the many competin theories as to what really happened durin those 3096 days. See, some people think she's not so much a victim as she makes herself out to be. Apparently, she even cried when told about the fate of her abductor. All the speculation is infinitely more fascinatin than the movie proper, so do give it a Google. Read the IMDb boards, if you like. It would surely go some way towards explainin why these characters seem so one-dimensional. There simply isn't enough goin on here to convince the viewer than Natascha was bein held against her will.

"Fuck. I'm gonna miss prom night."

Perennial wonderment:

Maybe if the renowned German filmmaker and director Bernd Eichinger didn't die with his unfinished script, we'd have a better movie. After all, he did option her book and wanted Kate Winslet for Natascha, you know? Couldn't been like The Reader (2008), maybe. Anyway, this movie is apparently also based on his unfinished script.

Thirtysomething Antonia Campbell-Hughes playing a thirteen-year-old girl?
It would've been illegal to cast someone true-to-age, perhaps.

Home but never alone.

Reminds me of:

A bit of Trade (2007) and The Reader (2008) but those were well above average movies. This one's more like The Seasoning House (2012) if you're talkin about how hollow it feels.

I can't remember if I cried:

The sight of Antonia Campbell-Hughes in all her frail nakedness invites disgust and some sympathy but it's hard to invest in her character because we don't get to see what makes her tick. Some sequences in this drama approach art but somethin just ain't right with the whole setup. By the way, extended scenes of the girl in the nude do serve as one of the few ways by which we can feel some force of realism behind the turns of events, so you're pretty much completely shortchanged if you're watchin anythin less than the 1hr50min cut.

Most memorable line:

None. However I would like to mention that the dubbed British English dialogue is rather strange and off-puttin. Did they manage to go as far as they wanted to with this production idea? One reviewer I read remarked that you get Irish and Danish actors, playin Austrian people who talk with German accents.

Some of them want to use you.
Some of them want to be of use.

Amacam joker, berapa bintang lu mau kasi?

A follow-up movie oughtta be interestin. One that disputes her version of events. It would've been a more meaningful endeavour that would've been taken seriously if little Amelia Pidgeon played the girl throughout the whole show, without an older actress supplantin her. Meanwhile, we can all watch Michael (2011) or go kidnap our own pre-pubescent chick to see for ourselves if it really is this easy to keep a girl in your cellar for 3096 days and take her out shoppin once in a while.★★
Bonus material:

So this is what Miss Kampusch does with her time these days.

I Spit On Your Grave 2 (2013)

Jemma Dallender in a spot of rape & revenge for I Spit On Your Grave.

At a glance:

"I shit on your grave!! I do!!"

Director Steven R. Monroe follows up on his R & R hit (rape and revenge) I Spit On Your Grave (2010) with the inevitable I Spit On Your Grave 2 (2013) -- this time with a slightly prettier lead in Kristin Kreuk lookalike Londoner Jemma Dallender (a bit like Hanna Mangan Lawrence too, innit?) and with better, more memorable villains, although they are typically East European again, as Hollywood's preferred criminal profilin will have it. The beloved critic Roger Ebert, who famously rubbished the 1978 original and its 2010 remake, is probably turnin in his grave right know, knowin that this franchise has managed to outlive him. For what it's worth, the product is a more polished, technically accomplished concept sequel with improved realistic torture for you gore hounds out there. This reboot features Katie, a wannabe model who gets more than she bargained for, after agreein to a free photo shoot with some dodgy blokes. Highlights include an extended rape scene on the floor and several good kills involvin a shitty toilet bowl (literally), a cement mixer and an electric prod, not to mention an excellent nipple removal scene reminiscent of Grotesque (2009), plus the best, most graphic castration scene I've ever seen on film.

Bad news on the doorstep:

We gotta nip it in the bud, I say.

I think it's a story of two halves, in more than one sense. The rape bit is nasty, steady stuff. However the revenge bit, which I believe to be central to makin these kind of movies work, is only partially present. Jemma Dallender actually commands a stronger screen presence than her predecessors Camille Keaton and Sarah Butler but the narrative robs us of any sort of meaningful reflection on the part of the aggrieved character that would have made retribution sweeter. The downtime I'm talkin about involves only a subway pigeon roast and a few half-arsed conversations with a sympathetic priest in a church. Notwithstandin some logistical concerns that plague the story and requires frequent suspensions of disbelief, Katie's unlikely escape and rebirth as the hellbent avenger is hard to relate to because she goes from desperate, helpless victim to a calculated, punchline-hurlin badass too quickly. She seems to have forgotten about the anguish that drove her so far in the first place, while we have been invested to see her keep it, especially for the decisive moments in which she is to exact her revenge. Huntin down her captors become an exercise in car-crash curiosity and the payoff we ask for is reduced to a series of shock violence and human depravity.

Jemma Dallender is a little tied up at the moment.

"Nice shoes. Wanna fuck?"

Perennial wonderment:

How should we do I Spit On Your Grave 3 ? I say, have a male lead this time, a pizza guy maybe, who gets raped and tortured by some old maids. Any better ideas? Drop me a line below.

Reminds me of:

I Spit on Your Grave / Day Of The Woman (1978) and Thriller - A Cruel Picture (1974). It's rare but I do find that this movie has actually provided a reasonably more entertainin modern times reupdate on those rape and revenge movies, although it broke no new ground.
I can't remember if I cried:
The nipple removal scene!

"Hmm... I wonder what this does..."

Most memorable line:

None.

Amacam joker, berapa bintang lu mau kasi?

Starburst Magazine's Paul Risker framed it well: "For all the controversy of Straw Dogs' notorious rape scene, the film remains a reflection of the ideologies of its director Sam Peckinpah. It explores the individual’s relationship to violence and the necessity of violence for survival. Whilst this reflection is embedded in the film’s subtext, I Spit on Your Grave 2 asks you to attempt to find a reason to celebrate it by projecting meaning and metaphor onto it where none exists." The movie could have been 15-20 minutes shorter, to achieve what it did. By the way, I saw a 107-minute version, so don't get shortchanged because I read that there are some festival cuts around.★★1/2
Bonus material:
I have loads of photos for you below but I don't suggest you click through unless you don't intend to watch the movie. Enjoy!

Joe Absolom gives it up for the best castration scene in cinema history.

Rape For Profit (2012)

Rape For Profit: Women and children are helpless victims and it's all men's fault.

At a glance:

Narrow and naive, to say the least.

Backed by executive producer Jada Pinkett Smith and her NGO Don't Sell Bodies, Eric Esau and Jason Pamer's Rape For Profit (2012) is a Mew Films documentary the Huffington Post apparently calls "disturbing and provocative", though of course the writer behind this randy movie review blog will dismiss as little more than a narrow and naive worldview of the world's oldest profession, based on a few prostitutes in downtown Seattle, or to use a more sympathetic term as advocated by the film's extremely one-sided take on the trade, "prostituted women". Culled from hundreds of hours of ridealong footage with Sea-Tac street crimes unit and the Seattle high-risk victims unit, this 86-minute film purports to take the audience undercover for an up-close look at the true nature of the sex trade. Hmm... surely a movie review on a documentary that is against the objectification of women does not belong on a blog that verily celebrates it such as mine?

Bad news on the doorstep:

Hmm... I wish I had a therapist who looks like this.

The only thing powerful about this documentary is how the supercharged cops shame and shout at pimps, not to mention how the filmmakers see fit to drive around ambushin customers in some sort of vigilante effort to administer guilt, to the extent of causin an accident. You see the pigs in made-for-camera Batman-type roles, brandishin their brand of law with healthy doses of morality lectures. Even more gung-ho are the filmmakers, who directly confront the johns and ask them how they could do it to their wives, why porn ain't enough and why they had to come out and act on it, with no intention of procurin a meaningful answer. Far from bein an insightful tell-all exposé, this is the moral catharsis of several well-intentioned individuals and their respective organisations whose hearts are no doubt in the right places, however the total demonisation of the johns and the total vindication of the girls reflect a painfully mainstream point of view. Footage of interviews with mayors, councillors, district attorneys and even industry experts who all endorse the same position seal this for me as a missed opportunity. If you truly believe people who say "very few women end up around the world in what we call prostitution without a history of prior sexual harm" and that porn is a dress rehearsal for men who look for hookers, then go ahead and watch it.

Kiddie porn?

Perennial wonderment:

Did you know that whores ask would-be customers to whip their dicks out so that they can filter out cops? Just about the only genuinely interestin thing I learned from this movie. Oh wait, I also learned that cops surf backpage.com and escort sites lookin for a lack of hip and waist development in under-aged girls that are advertised as barely legal. Haha!

Reminds me of:

All those we've lost along the way.

I can't remember if I cried:

Rape victim with a pretty sad general history of abuse.

Some of the horror stories shared by the victims are truly heartbreakin but the filmmakers' forceful handlin of the pimps and also the whores are so laughably didactic and deluded that I find the effort almost difficult to believe as an unstaged documentary. Among the include "Don't say sorry to me, say sorry to her", "Do you think she wanted to grow up to be in some alley to suck dick?" "You are happier here now! This is much better for you!" and "You're precious, you're a princess and you have value and worth and I'm sorry you didn't grow up hearing that." Bah.

Johns can't seem to spell right, can they?

Amacam joker, berapa bintang lu mau kasi?

The mention of Green River killer Gary Ridgway (a necrophiliac with a penchant for whores) and various other unhelpful content serve only to cloud the issue further, though I'm glad that cop did manage to get the 24-hour drop-in help centre open after so many years of tryin. Check out the official website and Facebook fan page for more info. However, if I were you, check out American Courtesans (2013), Whores' Glory (2011) or even I Am A Sex Addict (2005) for a less naive viewpoint, if not a more entertainin and fascinatin one.★★
Bonus material:

"It has been said that prostitution and rape are two sides of the same coin."

I saw this witty review on IMDb written by an American user called timlin-4. My sentiments on this film seem closest to this fella, so I'll publish it below verbatim, since I cannot better it.

Lovelace (2013)

Peter Sarsgaard tickles Amanda Seyfried's tonsils in Lovelace (2013).

At a glance:

The real Linda Lovelace.

How far does a girl have to go to untangle her tingle, asks the poster for Deep Throat (1972), the purported most profitable indie flick of all time at some $600m (not accordin to the mob who funded it), out of which tragic starlet Linda Lovelace received none of the US$1250 owed to her. I wish I were livin in those pre-Internet days to experience fuck flicks at standalone cinema wankathons, at least once in my life. If I did, I wish I got to know Linda Susan Boreman, the unassumin Florida schoolgirl turned world famous porn star, often credited as bringing adult entertainment into the forefront of mainstream attention. This very sympathetic and one-sided Andy Bellin / W. Merritt Johnson treatment is a biopic based on Eric Danville's 2001 book The Complete Linda Lovelace, focusin on how the lass escapes her religious mother (Sharon Stone) to meet and marry the charismatic hustler Chuck Traynor (Peter Sarsgaard) who would end up bein her papa pimp and punisher. Who would've thought that Linda's impressive capacity for fellatio would send her up the dizzyin heights of international superstardom and then down so far to the lowest levels of human depravity? Lovelace (2013) is a movie I was excited to read about and I wanted to like.

Bad news on the doorstep:

Juno Temple would've been my top choice for Linda.

Dirty beauties Juno Temple and Chloe Sevigny both have small roles in this and I wish either of them had landed the leadin part instead. Was Amanda Seyfried cast because of her freckles and her 60s style, upside-down heart-shaped tits? I read that Kate Hudson was first choice! What a disaster that would've been. Far more critical than that, of course, is how easily the picture goes down, when contrasted against the cultural significance of its characters. I'm talkin about how it "reduces an immensely disturbing, politically byzantine tale to a series of cartoonish vignettes" and how "this celeb-studded biopic squanders a gutsy performance by Amanda Seyfried while making '70s porn look scarcely more sleazy than a movie-of-the-week melodrama from the period", accordin to Rob Nelson for Variety. Sarsgaard and Adam Brody especially give some layered, highly watchable performances but the way all the characters enter and exit the proceedings, e.g. Playboy legend Hugh Hefner played by James Franco, simply devalues the explosive subject matter. Not only is the camerawork rather static, the characterisation makes caricatures out of everyone and many potentially powerful scenes lose their emotional gravitas, e.g. Dad (Robert Patrick) talkin to his little girl on the phone about how he had to walk out of the cinema, and Linda survivin a beatin in the streets only to be rescued by cops who were more interested in gettin her autograph.

Well, at least the retro typeset and production design was spot on.

James Franco's pipe-wielding Hugh Hefner!

Perennial wonderment:

Will we ever find out how much the movie actually made? Did Hugh Hefner really get a blowjob from Linda and was he really a sympathetic figure who wanted her to be a legitimate movie star? Was Linda actually a pathological liar and used everyone, just as much as they used her? It would've been nice to at least cover the other angle about how she felt the anti-porno movement also manipulated her durin her last days.

Reminds me of:

The wonderfully depressin biopics Auto Focus (2002) about Bob Crane and What's Love Got To Do With It (1993) about Tina Turner - both of which are vastly more resonant and wholly entertainin than this one.

I can't remember if I cried:

When it stopped at 92 minutes. What kind of self-respectin biopic has such a short runtime? No wonder everythin seems rushed!

Most memorable line:

Chuck says: "No, Linda, it's Shakespeare. I told them you do a great English accent, particularly with a cock down your throat."

Innit sad that a movie so big gave so little to Linda?

Amacam joker, berapa bintang lu mau kasi?

Total Film's Kate Sables notes that for a movie obsessed with truth-tellin, Lovelace "ignores the competing accounts of its heroine’s porno past, privileging only her own version". Another online comment dismisses Lovelace as "nothing more than a by-the-numbers, woman empowerment, Lifetime channel Movie Of The Week…with nudity". I do feel it's not very tender and disappointingly mediocre. For a more academic view on the topic, check out the 2005 documentary Inside Deep Throat. By the way, does anyone know what happened to that other Linda Lovelace story that was supposed to be out this year, Inferno: A Linda Lovelace Story (2013), starrin Malin Akerman and Sasha Grey? I read that Lindsay Lohan was supposed to be the lead. Oh well, meanwhile I'll have to check out Paul Schrader's The Canyons to see how LiLo is doin. ★★1/2
The day the music died:

R.I.P. Linda "Lovelace" Boreman (26 Jan 1949 - 22 Apr 2002)
and Charles Everett "Chuck" Traynor (21 Aug 1937 - 22 July 2002)

Bonus material:

Some of them like to use you, some of them like to be of use.

Ashley (2013) @ Sprawl

Nicole Fox and Nicole Buehrer negotiates the awkward morning after in Ashley.

Hey, look! Another nipple poster.

At a glance:

Domenic Migliore's snailwork of a story Ashley (2013) a.k.a. Sprawl is an exercise in teen frustration that renders itself all too well at the hands of the director, Dean Matthew Ronalds. From the attractive poster, I'd thought it might be somethin like Flashdance (1983) meets Lolita (1997), or maybe even Gia (1998) meets Crush (1993). Turns out it's an indie drama scarcely worth watchin even for 22-year-old lead Nicole Fox, the fashion model starlet best known as the winner of Cycle 13 of America's Next Top Model. She plays a sullen 17-year-old student faced with a catalogue of personal problems like self-harm, bullyin, domestic abuse, sexual abuse, buddin homosexuality and a general disenchantment with life. She lives with her alcoholic single mum (Jennifer Taylor), who blames her husband's death on her. Gosh, if she only had AIDS this would be the middle-class suburban white version of Precious (2012), wouldn't it?

Bad news on the doorstep:

"I'm a teenager!"

I think a critical flaw in this effort is the surprisin lack of any moral resolution to the proceedings, but what upsets me the most is that the movie has little, if at all, to say about the human condition. There's plenty of amateurish camerawork to pick on, too. What will probably stop you in your tracks is the overdone soundtrack which is saturated with annoyin teenybopper music, tense piano pieces and even opera tracks -- all of which hardly improve the scenes. Hell, there's no tension to the narrative and sometimes I can't even bloody hear what the characters are sayin!

Perennial wonderment:

Michael Madsen:
Most hardworking cameo actor today.

Oh there goes Michael Madsen again, makin yet another five minute cameo in any shoestring indie project that could do with better billings. Didn't I just watch him last night in Nomad (2013) mumblin and barkin at someone as usual? Somewhere in the world, it's payday for Michael Madsen. Here, he collects after tellin Ashley what veal is and then tryin to cop a feel. What a plonker.

Reminds me of:

"This is how I feel about heterosexual sex and polite conversation."

That equally meanderin melodrama About Cherry (2012) starrin Ashley Hinshaw, about how a young girl becomes a porn star. By the way, there's hardly any nudity here, save maybe for an awkward phone sex scene. Oh wait, Nicole Fox does take her bathrobe off somewhere near the end, if you actually get anywhere near that.

Nicole Fox disappears into Ashley.
[Photo credit migliorephoto.com]

I can't remember if I cried:

Once the end credits rolled. Sheesh. Remember, I watch bad movies so you don't have to. If you paid to see this, you'd be mean enough to say it ain't too far off from a voyeur cam, the footage of a girl smokin, cuttin herself, smokin again, playin on her laptop and smokin again.

Amacam joker, berapa bintang lu mau kasi?

So was that endin an attempt at an emotional payoff? If I were payin enough attention, this movie actually has a very dangerous message. Me, I'm off to rewatch The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things (2004) to forget about all this palaver.★1/2
Bonus material:
Here are some production photos and a few movie stills if you insist on watchin it. You could also go check out the official website and the Facebook fan page.

America's Next Top Model Nicole Fox gives two for the cause.

How every successful relationship begins -- online.

Precious: Based On The Novel "Push" By Sapphire (2012)

Not the most motivational of movie stills, I reckon.

At a glance:

I had just seen Gabourey Sidibe's brief role in Seven Psychopaths (2012) and I thought I'd rehash this old review, on account of renewin my seethin dislike for the movie upon the very sight of her. Precious: Based On The Novel 'Push' by Sapphire (2009) is quite a mouthful for a movie title, so it's a small relief that this decorated Oscar fave does have somethin substantial to say. However, like the makers conceded and thanked production ally Oprah Winfrey at the 2009 Awards ("because you touched it, so everyone saw it"), we really have to wonder if this greatly divisive film isn't just another well-marketed product of white guilt internalisation.

Bad news on the doorstep:

Paula Patton lends her well-to-do looks for contrast.

Yes, the artistic merit of this drama does come into question, as the eponymous main character Claireece Precious Jones (Gabourey Sidibe) is an overweight, illiterate, impoverished and abused teenager who just happens to be surrounded by some of the nastiest people and also go through some of the worst experiences one possibly can growing up in black Harlem. It's the kind of character arc that invites empathy at first but then descends into a credibility problem. Not that we're contendin the nature of a grossly underprivileged life in the late 80s, but there is a difference between tellin a story about the black underclass and tellin a story about how the black underclass view themselves. This Lee Daniels picture is a clear case of the latter but instead of offerin any insight into the psyche of any one person who comes from such a background, it is evident by the final reels that Precious is an unreflective sob story that strives for some redeeming value that it cannot attain.

Perennial wonderment:

Mo'Nique, the monster of a mum. Figuratively and physically.

For a movie that has been called "con job of the year" to one that goes to the extent of "demeaning the idea of black American life", emotions run strong, especially since we can't call the filmmakers racist because they're black. Perhaps it's an instance of reverse racism that the horrendous story of Precious becomes such a celebrated film that has picked up close to 100 awards across film festivals and such. In any case, there is no denying that Mo'Nique's performance as an criminally-abusive mother is a powerful turn that deserves every award it gets, includin the most prized one - Best Supporting at the 82nd Academy Awards. The movie as whole features some compelling actin (Gabriel Sidibe, Paula Patton, Sherri Shepherd and even Mariah Carey), and that lends urgency and strength to the proceedings whatever you might feel about the story.

Reminds me of:

Don't know. Can't relate to much in this movie.

I can't remember if I cried:

When I saw the frazzled Mariah Carey role. It's a suitable role for her, admittedly. It's just that this isn't the woman I remember from the Christmas music videos and that depresses me, as if the story isn't movin along bad enough.

Amacam joker, berapa bintang lu mau kasi?

Emotionally manipulative in a way I don't care for. As a movie experience, you will have to watch Precious - but only if you want to discuss it with your friends, and not because you look forward to enjoying it. ★★