Los Bastardos (2008)

Jesus Moises Rodriguez in a spot of sexual servitude for White America.

All in a day's work.

At a glance:

Variety's eloquent Todd McCarthy has called this is a "nihilistic high-art film marked by fashionable static takes, banal minimalist dialogue, glacial pacing and ultra-violence", consistin of "long stretches of dreary quotidian activity shrouded in dread due to something very bad you know is coming, all in the interests of presenting a rigorously reductive slice of earthly hell." So perish all thoughts of this bein an artsier A Better Life (2011). Mexican helmer Amat Escalante sees fit to put us through 98 minutes of said elements, a slow and curious examination into the taken-for-granted comforts of American life. We have hard hombre Jesus (Jesus Moises Rodriguez) and the younger, angrier Fausto (Rubén Sosa) waitin by the road to be picked up for illegal day labour by shortchangin gringos. Up until this point, you'd think this was an immigrant documentary. Then it turns into an R-rated home invasion thriller, involvin a single mother (Nina Zavarin) and her son (Trevor Glen Campbell). It has been described as a movie that builds up to just one moment of very realistic violence.

Bad news on the doorstep:

I'm actually doin my best to make it palatable. The Bastards squeezes into the narrow space that separates pretentious narcissism and high art, always leavin us to wonder just what the intentions of the filmmakers are. Just because a movie is very slow, it doesn't make it deep or meaningful. A decision is required on your part if you succeed in lastin it.

Perennial wonderment:

Why does someone in a position of power choose to engage in a spot of sexual servitude? Is this depravity a critique on middle-class American consumerism, as I read? It's disenchanted sex any road. The two lead antagonists are non-pros as well. Wish I could figure it out. There's somethin quite sad to it.

Reminds me of:

Baise-Moi (2000) and Funny Games (1997).

Amacam joker, berapa bintang lu mau kasi?

Like a fable, but a narrative only for the patient. Don't be fooled by the crime drama packagin from the DVD cover. Somethin very primal about these characters compliments the minimalist technique we see in Michael Haneke and Lars von Trier movies. White America's worst stereotypes about Hispanics fulfilled. Unsettlin, to say the least - but with a stab at redemption near the end.★★1/2
Bonus material:

Construction work. Cunninglingus. Reheatable TV dinners. Skinny-dipping. 
Los Bastardos has it all.

Stuck (2007)

Mena Suvari plays a hard-partying nurse who hits a bum note.

At a glance:

If you have an academic interest in the oeuvre of Stuart Gordon, the man behind movies like Re-Animator (1985), Honey, I Shrunk The Kids (1989), Edmond (2005) and King Of The Ants (2003), then Stuck (2007) should strike some accord with you. It has that kind of otherworldly grim humour to it, despite bein a dramatisation of the 2001 true story of Chante Jawan Mallard, the convicted Texan black woman who had hit a white bum on the road and left him lodged at the windscreen, as she drove home, parked the car in her garage and proceeded to have sex with her boyfriend, as if nothin had happened. Reportedly the grisly truth only came to light four months later when she bragged about havin "hit this white man" at a party. That's when the long arm of the law started to catch up with her sorry arse. Many reviews of this film have pointed out that Mena Suvari's character is much more intelligent than the real person and you tend to agree. The absence of malice doesn't make somethin any less a crime and this flick discusses the culpability of any well-meanin person who finds himself quickly losin control when put in a sticky situation.

Mena Suvari in an unhelpful, protracted sex scene.

Bad news on the doorstep:

This isn't your high-octane action-thriller, if you thought it was. Stephen Rea gives a constrained performance as the poor victim of a hit-and-run and it's easy to root for him amidst the spirallin injustice. Mena Suvari turns in a suitable white trash portrayal with her ghetto braids but shouldn't have agreed to a protracted sex scene that didn't help the story, although pervs like me have waited for this since she last did the nasty with Kevin Spacey in American Beauty (1999). The biggest culprit here is Russell Hornsby, whose take on a scaredy-cat drug dealer is overacted and takes some some tension away.

Stephen Rea

Perennial wonderment:

You might remember this already bein referenced in a Law And Order episode on TV. Bollywood had an authorised remake too: Accident On Hill Road (2009) with Celina Jaitley and Farooque Shaikh. Everyone wants a piece, eh?

Most memorable line:

"Is he dead?"

"Why are you doing this to me?"

Amacam joker, berapa bintang lu mau kasi?
This is a nice surprise, especially if you fancy the B-movie tone. Situational morality at work, no need for forceful self-reflection. Compellin character arcs. Variety's Joe Leydon called it "a sardonically edgy pic". By the way, the real life perp will be eligible for parole in 2027. But you don't need to wait for her to get the DVD now.★★★
Bonus material:

Chante Mallard: 50 years in the pen

The Inheritors (1998) @ Die Siebtelbauern

Sophie Rois and Simon Schwarz get fresh in a pig-pen for The One-Seventh Farmers.

At a glance:

"Hooray! We now own the shit we work on!"

Die Siebtelbauern (literally: The One-Seventh Farmers) is a most unusual film and I don't mean unusual like Being John Malkovich (1999) or Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975). Directed by Stefan Ruzowitzky (the Anatomie movies) and set in early 20th century rural Austria, it tells the story of how seven very poor farmhands work and toil on a miserable valley farm daily until one fine day their landlord is murdered and their lives are changed forever. The dead proprietor was heirless and surprisingly left a will which detailed pronounced insults to all his constantly mistreated workers, yet bequeathed them the said property! The other villagers and land owners are shocked and angry while the lucky seven tries to make sense of their newfound status. Instead of sellin it, they voted to keep the land and work on it themselves. This bold decision disrupts the rigid social order of the village and many people are unhappy. However, as events unfold it becomes apparent that there is more than meets the eye and a dark family secret could hold the key in settlin all affairs. Sounds like an entertainin story, no?

Simon Schwarz

Bad news on the doorstep:

I saw this many years ago but I remember bein disappointed. For that premise, it could have been a grippin drama but it was rather borin and confusin instead. Not sure what the director wanted the audience to derive from the story. It was too subtle to suggest there is a political message underpinnin it and yet too elaborate for one to think that there isn't. However, I enjoyed the Alpine backdrop very much and the scenes of mud-wrestlin in a pig pen or reapin crops from the field added a necessarily authentic rural feel to the movie.

"Nobody can beat me up anymore, right?"

Amacam joker, berapa bintang lu mau kasi?

The actors did alright by most standards and I particularly liked all the scenes at the dinin table where they discuss what to do next. Enjoyed this film in patches but not too impressed by it generally. With some nudity and sex, it's rated R in the States, whereas in the UK, the DVD release is rated 15. It runs 95 minutes and the disc contains a short cast filmography. Apparently this DVD is now out of print in the UK. Anybody wants to make me an offer for my copy? Actually I might give this a rewatch tonight since I was quite young when I first saw it.★★1/2

Gabriel (2007)

Kat Giovenalli & Denai Gracie in Gabriel (2007)

At a glance:

When I read about Andy Whitfield's death last year, I remembered this little film. I remember that it was barely mid-January in 2008 and I was watchin this at Cathay Cineleisure in Malaysia (now branded e@Curve) with a friend, and we both thought this was already a serious contender for Worst Movie Of The Year. So incomprehensibly ridiculous was this production, it was destined to be consigned to the 4-in-1 DVD bargain basement from the off, havin never made the cinemas anywhere other than in its native Australia, although now the prints have 'fallen' to some of us, if you'd pardon the pun. What’s so bad about the movie? Surely, it has its savin graces? It has a tagline that reads “Far From Grace” and a plotline that chronicles the Fall From Grace. Sadly, that’s just a whole lot of grace for a graceless movie.

Bad news on the doorstep:

Erika Heynatz as Lilith

For starters, the texture in Gabriel is pretty grainy for a surrealist movie. It has some embarrassingly basic special effects – those that you’d come to associate with evening reruns of  Ultraman when you were a kid. Aside from that, it has some of the most absurd dialogue in a movie in recent times. Throw that in with a non-engagin, in-universe plot about purgatory, fallen angels and immortality; and you have your turkey. It cooks up a lot of hocus-pocus about Arcs (or Archangels), these high-rankin angels from God, for those of you who read the bible. The titular angel, one of seven in traditional Christianity (and one of four in Islam, I read), is here bastardised by writer-director Shane Abbess as a fornicatin, self-righteous, tattooed Australian, with a propensity to heal people à la Kwai Chang Caine in TV's Kung Fu: The Legend Continues. It’s not that we’re not open to alternative takes. It’s just that the story is plain uninterestin. The conversations between the angels are more NYPD Blue meets He-Man, with no respectable hint of any supernatural awe-inspirin echoes, while the action sequences are inferior to even that of any scene out of that PC game Diablo.

Perennial wonderment:

In at least one interview reported online, the director has been quoted to say that the film was made without any promised pay for its actors. Talk about a risk-free, cheap movie. Despite the unfavourable reviews, there were plans for Gabriel to be a trilogy and the Gabriel Trilogy Facebook page was set up but who knows what is to become of that since star Andy Whitfield has passed.

I can't remember if I cried:

There is also a bizarre, stylised sex scene that will take you back to when Alan Rickman last zipped open his pants as Metatron in Dogma (1999) to proclaim that angels have no genitalia and are anatomically impaired as a Ken doll. Talk about gettin to know someone biblically!

Amacam joker, berapa bintang lu mau kasi?

When I first saw it, I wrote that Gabriel was a disastrous effort that disappoints in all aspects of basic filmmakin and that it will find fans only among the sleepless goth teens of today. I've seen a lot of worse films since and don't begrudge it that much now.
The day the music died:

R.I.P. Andy Whitfield
(1971-2011)

The Watcher In The Woods (1980)

"She had to. She had to push you down to get you loose from the branch.
She saved your life."

At a glance:

What an age it was when Disney made horror movies to spook kids out. John Hough's Watcher In The Woods, a troubled adaptation of what I understand to be a very dark 1976 novel by Florence Engel Randall, went down the annals of cinema history for bein pulled from theatres after its initial release in 1980, for havin a CGI endin that was "laughed off the screen" in the words of the director himself. It was re-released in 1981 after bein re-edited with a revised endin. Many remember this movie from their childhood but me, so I thought I'd give it a go, since I've just been just catchin up on older horror movies like The Sentinel (1977) and Ghost Story (1981). Story? It's about sisters Jan (Lynn-Holly Johnson) and Ellie (Kyle Richards) who move into a manor owned by Mrs. Aylwood (Bette Davis) and get haunted by Karen, a girl who disappeared inside a chapel near the village 30 years ago.

Bad news on the doorstep:

Lynn-Holly Johnson ruined it.

There's a good account on Wikipedia where you can read all about the muddled state of affairs regardin its 1980 release but that doesn't tell you how very poor the actin was indeed. Save for Bette Davis, everyone's performance, especially lead girl Lynn-Holly Johnson, was so ham-fisted to the point of destroyin all tension and mystique, never mind the debate about which endin was used in what version. Many people recall this movie from their childhood and single it out as bein a truly traumatic memory, so I guess that's just a pocket of culture I missed out on. I remember not sleepin well for years after watchin Stephen King's It (1990) so that's probably my replacement.

Perennial wonderment:

If they could do it back then, why not now? The movie in most dire need of an endin rewrite and re-release would be The Devil Inside (2012), no doubt. Still very bitter over that one!

Amacam joker, berapa bintang lu mau kasi?

Apparently it would've been Disney's first ever PG-rated flick but due to the delays and reshoots, The Black Hole (1979) took that honour instead. Anyway, the out-of-print 2002 Anchor Bay DVD release used to go for US $200 and that's the one with the most features, so unless you're willin to spend, you'll most likely get yourself the cheaper 2004 Disney release. The Watcher In The Woods (1980) has some academic importance but nothin compellin here for the horror movie fan. Jog on. ★★

Dead Hooker In A Trunk (2009)

"Boo."

At a glance:

Vancouver-set grindhouse fare by Soska twins Jennifer and Sylvia, two Canadian sisters who like violent horror movies. Dead Hooker In A Trunk (2009) tries to be as exploitative as it sounds, the conception of which is said to be inspired by the filmin of microbudget success El Mariachi (1992). In fact, they got Carlos Gallardo to do a cameo and Eli Roth to endorse it. Backed by IFC, the story is merely a premise - a group of people drive around tryin to figure out what to do with a whore that appeared in the trunk of their car.

Bad news on the doorstep:

Sexy Soska twins

Some camerawork choices don't help the story and detracts from the thriller mystery mood. I understand the music is supplied by a number of Vancouver acts. It sounds really good but I'm not sure it always goes. Also, the plot digresses far enough from the corpse that we forget all about it.

Reminds me of:

The girls remind me of Fiona Horsey in Wolfgang Büld exploitation movies. Don't get your hopes up though. There's no nudity here, so that's a big drawback if you were under the impression this was an over-the-top exploitation flick.

I can't remember if I cried:

Some of the pointless, poorly-filmed violence and gore in here are comical.

Amacam joker, berapa bintang lu mau kasi?

Show some love for a debut effort. They have a movie slated for this year - American Mary (2012). I guess things can only get better for Twisted Twins Productions. Check out the Dead Hooker In A Trunk official website for more info.★★
Bonus material:

"There's a dead hooker in the trunk and that is a big fucking deal."

Margaret (2011)

"Because this isn't an opera! And we are not all supporting characters 
to the drama of your amazing life!"

Anna Paquin

At a glance:

If you're wonderin why Anna Paquin and Matt Damon look so young in this movie, look no further than the production dates. Margaret is indeed the troubled project that was filmed way back in pre-True Blood 2005 and went through the post-production hell of havin a director (Kenneth Lonergan, usin most of the cast from his 2000 debut You Can Count On Me) who reportedly couldn't be happy with whatever cut he came up with, thus suspendin release for years and got himself embroiled in multiple lawsuits. I've seen the 150-min studio version and it's rather drainin, to say the least, so God knows what's in the 186-min Blu-Ray extended cut release. On the surface, it's a drama about a disaffected young woman (Anna Paquin) who unintentionally distracted a bus driver (Mark Ruffalo) and contributed towards a fatal traffic accident, thus bein thrown into a frenzied state of self-reflection and bizarre catharsis. After about an hour in though, you get the feelin this is almost a Mike Leigh movie about guilt, atonement and brokenness, not to mention other darker aspects of the human condition, built on the back of post-9/11 anxieties in Manhattan. Movie title is a reference to a poem read out to the main character - Gerard Manley Hopkins's Spring and Fall: To A Young Child.

"We do the American thing. We sue!"

Bad news on the doorstep:

Variety's Justin Chang impressively summarised it as a "time-capsule that arrives bearing all the scars of its difficult gestation... hyperarticulate but rarely eloquent, full of wrenchingly acted scenes that lack credible motivation or devolve into shrill hectoring" and also that it's an "angry, cacophonous storm of a movie, and like the horrific bus accident that sets it in motion, hard to turn away from, though only self-selecting pockets of the arthouse faithful will likely strap themselves in to begin with." I have more sympathy for the movie but it's still a muddled picture that asks too much from an audience. Man must have thought it was a theatre play. Oh, no surprise - I just read that his background is in theatre!

Perennial wonderment:
It's heartenin to see Anna Paquin return to the kind of angst that made her a record-settin young Oscar-winner in The Piano (1993). Since then I've only seen her hammin it up for inconsequential roles like Rogue in the X-Men movies but I do remember her memorably seducin an older man in The Squid And The Whale (2005). She's always playin angry characters, so perhaps there's a range limitation here? I don't watch TV so I don't know about how she is in True Blood. In any case, she's a mum now, so let's hope that will add some depth to her future roles.

Reminds me of:

Why is Mark Ruffalo always playin a reckless killer driver? I'm thinkin Reservation Road (2007). Are there more? Let me know.

Watch out for:

J. Smith-Cameron (Man On A Ledge, 2012) offers a wonderful, layered performance as a detached mother with her own relationship issues while Jean Reno, Matt Damon, Allison Janney and Matthew Broderick play out some half-significant support.

Most memorable line:

No spoilers now.

Amacam joker, berapa bintang lu mau kasi?

Next Projection's Kevin Ketchum went through the DVD specs and ultimately found the extended movie to be a resoundin masterpiece, callin it a "transcendent... once-in-a-generation distillation of an era". That wonderful, huh? My review is based on the 150-min version that I watched and on the strength of that, I'm not about to see the full intended film to find out. ★★1/2

First Snow (2006)

"I saw... no more roads. No more tomorrows. Not much time left. "

At a glance:

Might as well smoke your heart out.

From the trio who wrote the script and screenplay of Children Of Men (2006), we get this very adequate thriller about just how far a man would go to change his fate. Suave salesman Jimmy Starks (Guy Pearce) is stranded in a small New Mexico town, waitin on the car repairman, so he humours himself with the services of bystandin soothsayer Vacaro (J.K. Simmons). Sure enough, the fortune teller's ominous readings start to come true before long and our disbelievin wheeler-dealer starts to panic. Movie title alludes to the time up until which Mr Starks has before he must die.

Bad news on the doorstep:

The reliable lead actor's character arc wins our attention and sympathy but the out-of-place antagonist Vincent (Shea Whigham) is either underwritten or overwritten because we don't really need him for this story. Piper Perabo is pretty pedestrian and she further shortchanges the pervos by not even takin off her bra in a mornin quickie as the girlfriend. Jeez girl, these guys have been waitin since Coyote Ugly (2000).

Perennial wonderment:

Guy Pearce

After decades of providin the star appeal that drives smaller but memorable films, Guy Pearce seems to have renewed his interest in mainstream Hollywood lately by takin on supportin roles in blockbusters e.g. Prometheus (2012) and the in-production Iron Man 3 (2013) . I saw the instantly forgettable Lockout (2012) last month and thought oh no, he's gone back to The Time Machine (2002) again. Perhaps his charmin rascal looks exclude him from classical leadin man opportunities, so he'll forever be remembered for his anti-hero or villainous turns in Memento (2000) and The Count Of Monte Cristo (2002). Someone should try castin him in an out-and-out good guy role and see what happens. By this I mean have him play alongside Brendan Fraser as a sensitive gay comedian.

"Nah, it's probably one of those Autodialers.
Lowest form of organic life, a Telemarketer."

Most memorable line:

“This road you’re on… you put yourself on this road… on this exact night. Who chose this? A man makes his destiny, right? Nothing makes the gods laugh harder."

Amacam joker, berapa bintang lu mau kasi?

I liked it. ★★★

Jiwa Taiko (2012)

Sex with strangers: Nadiya Nisaa and Bront Palarae.

At a glance:

I think we have to get to the bad news in the first paragraph itself. If you too thought Osman Ali's Jiwa Taiko (2012) was gonna right all the wrongs in Anak Halal (2009) and combine with the box office sensibilities of KL Gangster (2011), then we're all the same fools who didn't know that fantastic poster actually reads "Jiwang Taiko" ("sentimental triad boss"). Yes, this is a pretty naive outin from the Nuansa stable that has angered no small number of regular Malay cinemagoers, thanks to a grossly misleadin marketin campaign that sought to mask the melodramatic tripe it really is. We follow convalescent ex-con Remy Ishak and his merry band of welfare home misfits as they do battle against his former crime partner Bront Palarae. Throw in a love rectangle or two (could well be a pentagon or hexagon even), some pseudo-silat elements and there you have it - a badly edited RM 620,000 box office disaster. Maybe some of the psychotropic drugs in the movie could help alleviate the shame of havin been outgrossed by M Subash's farcical horror You Believe In Ghost? (2012). My heart goes out to Osman Ali who seems perpetually uninspired in familiar territory.

SOCKKK!!! KAPOWWW!!! BISHHH!!!
Okay, break for lunch!

Bad news on the doorstep:

Like I said - put simply, nobody is buyin the story. Should've kept its old title - Bara Jiwa.

Perennial wonderment:

Apparently some steamy scenes were snipped, so how does a wide-release poster with Bront Palarae prominently holdin a cigarette get passed? I remember the magazine I was with, we were receivin warnin letters from the Home Ministry over a tiny movie still of Tarantino's Grindhouse (2007) in which someone is holdin a cigarette. Guess they're still makin it up on the go.

Reminds me of:

Anti-AIDS and anti-drugs community service ads from Malaysia's 90s.

Watch out for:

I have some sympathy for Bront Palarae, who relishes these psychotic antagonist roles and acts his heart out here. His take on a skinny, doped-up gangster is done with conviction, even if it's actually nothin we ain't seen 30 years ago in Hong Kong triad movies. I guess we have to really scrape the bottom of the barrel for any positivity in a paper-thin script like this. Special mention here for Nadiyatul Nisaa a.k.a. Nadiya Nisaa who plays problem girl Lara. The poor girl is completely out of her depth, although her beauty mole does exude some dirty girl appeal, sorta like a Malay Blake Lively. I shit you not, this Malaysian Film Festival Pelakon Harapan winner for Cun (2011) would've done better for herself if she turned in a mute performance, instead of shriekin English lines like "I need to think!!!" and bein generally very annoyin at a high-pitch.

"How do you know it was me
who passed the herpes to you?"

Amacam joker, berapa bintang lu mau kasi?

Readin Osman Ali's defence doesn't help. The jury is already out on its Facebook fan page. Both action and romance border on comical farce. Gratuitous huggin and kissin invoke the wrath of more conservative audiences but on merit alone, this is an insult to the rudimentary plebeian tastes of an already undemandin target crowd. What a huge disappointment.★1/2

Bonus material:

A missed opportunity.

The Innkeepers (2011)

"Yoo hoo... Creepy ghosts? Where are you? I don't have all day."

Old-fashioned haunted house. Yeah.

At a glance:

Happy Friday The 13th! Here's an excellent example of an indie horror that knows what it is and sticks to the basics. If you remotely fancied director Ti West's previous throwback treat The House Of The Devil (2009) like I did, this is a resoundin win. We follow the final days of the foreclosin (real) Yankee Pedlar Inn, where bored employees Claire (Sara Paxton, The Last House On The Left, 2009) and Luke (Pat Healy, Rescue Dawn, 2006) leisurely attempt to document the supposed long-runnin paranormal activity that plagues the old buildin. It's a surprisingly tense and effective stop-start haunted house affair made more compellin with the introduction of author-turned-psychic Leanne Rease-Jones (Kelly McGillis) who's in town for a book convention.

Bad news on the doorstep:

Suitably claustrophobic and low-key, some might find this borin and mediocre. Some of the everyday dialogue between the two hotel workers may work against the mood. Check out The Innkeepers IMDb listin and Facebook fan page for more info.

Perennial wonderment:

♪♫ Time changes, changes everything ♪♬

How the hell did Kelly McGillis go from sex siren to this burned out bat? Poor ol' Kelly looks really maternal these days, yet her Top Gun (1986) opposite, Mr Tom Cruise, just appeared as ageless, bronzed sex god Stacee Jaxx in the campy Rock Of Ages (2012). She does a very good job here though.

Reminds me of:

Well, I just watched The Skeptic (2009) and Grave Encounters (2011) last month. Any more haunted house runarounds to recommend, fellas? I'm game for more.

Amacam joker, berapa bintang lu mau kasi?

Great buildup, suspenseful execution and very strong finish. No need for gore or nudity here. Hell, even Roger Ebert liked it. ★★★
Bonus material: