Cache

Cache (2005): Just when I thought it was safe to try another French movie; along came this Cannes winner and I gave it a try. This is another movie the mainstream critics went all gushy over and I’m sorry to say it is what I call a typical French film, that is, no beginning, no end, but a painfully long middle. It seems someone is taping a couple’s house and mailing them the tapes along with child like drawn pictures of a bloody boy that apparently has some relation to the husband. The police fail to take great interest in the case since no one has been injured. The movie is filled with mundane dialogue, lengthy viewing of the tapes which are very boring, and a lot of wandering around. Their son goes missing and the father thinks he’s been kidnapped and attacks the grown son of an Algerian couple that used to work for his parents. His own son has only stayed overnight with some friends but the father is now convinced the tapes are the work of this mystery French/Algerian man who he apparently had done some harm to when they both were children. His son is also convinced his mother is having an affair. Now it started to look a little interesting at this point but the mystery man invites the husband to his apartment and then kills himself by cutting his throat with a straight razor. Why? Don’t ask me. The wife’s affair thing goes dormant and then the dead man’s son confronts the husband with illogical questions and then goes away and the movie ends. What?? You never find out why the man killed himself, or why the boy suddenly thinks his mother is having an affair or what exactly was going on with several other characters in the flick.

The movie is supposed to be about the effects of guilt and the burden it can be but you could have fooled me. In addition, it moves at a coma inducing pace, especially while watching the couple watching the tapes on which there isn’t much to watch. The director commented that he has nothing but contempt for people wanting an ending to their movies and he sure showed it in this flick. Pass on this one unless you like all French movies. The movie was rated R for: the best throat slitting scene ever seen, mind numbing dialogue, lack of tape editing, excessive coffee drinking, massive wandering around, and especially for the rooster with its head cut off flopping all over the courtyard.

Lucky Number Slevin

Lucky Number Slevin (2006): Savaged by many mainstream critics, I found this noir/mystery/comedy/whodunit/who-is-it/why-is-it; movie quite enjoyable. With an excellent cast including Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, Ben Kingsley, Josh Hartnett, Lucy Liu, and Stanley Tucci; the movie lays out all the needed clues right at the beginning. If you look you will see them but you will probably not notice that you are supposed to be paying attention to this movie until too late. What I liked about this movie was that even though the events depicted are highly unlikely to have ever transpired, it stays true to its internal logic. Everything you are told during the movie has a logical (well, a bit logical) reason for occurring. I was always thinking “….hey, he wouldn’t do that…” and then by the end of the movie, you see you were wrong because you had missed a clue or just didn’t see the plot twist coming. It mashes horse racing, mob bosses, hit men, cute coroners, ugly bookies, and multiple Kansas City shuffles into an enjoyable 109 minutes. If you don’t like to think too hard, this is not the movie for you but if you like to cogitate a bit about your theatrics, try renting this one and you may be a lucky slevin too. Besides, how can you not like a move with characters named, Mr. Goodcat, Elvis, and Slo? The movie is rated R for: pulpy bodies, pulpy bleeding noses, murderous bookies, dead bookies, a dead Yidzak, Israeli commandos, a lethal rabbi, a talky Liu, excessive duct taping, and for the massive damage to wall board occurring in one scene.

Demonic

Demonic (2005): These days, it seems movies are getting hard pressed to come up with new horrors to explore and expose. This one is about a bunch of wacked out, homicidal wood nymphs that puts a whole new meaning to the term nymphomaniac. Apparently, in the English woods, there are a bunch of naked women running around with bad teeth. I’ve heard socialized dentistry is a bit slow to repair dental problems but these gals have a real terminal overbite and a taste for flesh to boot. Their purpose in life seems to be to walk up to you, give you a good gander at their charms, then a sloppy kiss or two and then bite you into multiple pieces for easy consumption. Knowing this at the start of the movie, one is not surprised when a bunch of English youths head out for a little camping in those very same woods. They run over a woman who is wandering in a daze on the country road. She was the woman apparently surrounded by the nymphs in the opening scene and somehow miraculously escaped to appear briefly in a second scene. Now if these naked gals are so deadly, how did she last in the woods for so long? Naturally, the van won’t start and the rest of the nymph-o-food must spend the night in the woods. They find a mailbox and assume a farmhouse must be nearby. Two go off in search of the house and the rest stay with the van and are soon nymph-o-snacks. The guy and gal find the farmhouse inhabited by a Midwestern farmer (played by horror master Tom Savini). Don’t ask how this American guy wound up on a farm in (Midwestern?) England. This type of movie’s logic threads usually unravel quickly. The farmer has seen the beauties and lived but has clearly gone bonkers and is now catching people to use as bait so they don’t come after him. After several attempts to feed the youthful pair to the hungry ladies, they get away and off old Tom. They get caught again and surrounded, and well, let’s just say, one survives, more or less. One other thing, these gals were all pretty thin looking, not an ounce of extra fat, and they sure ate a lot during the movie, so how come they stayed so thin, a big plot logic hole if you ask me. There are just too many other holes in this one to give it a positive rating. The movie is rated R for: a whole herd of nekkid women wondering the woodlands, stretching entrails, stretching credulity, van apparently rented from ‘Little Miss Sunshine’, excessive wandering, and especially for the last surviving male who falls into a hole filled with a half dozen hungry naked wood nymphs.

The Big Empty

The Big Empty (2003) Would you deliver a blue suitcase to a small town in the desert for $25,000? Sure you would and the hero of this flick, an out of work underachieving actor, takes the bait that sets this rather quirky movie on its way. Set in Baker, CA. a real truck stop town filled with eccentrics, his simple job quickly goes off the deep end and soon the movie appears to be escaping reality’s hold. By the end of the movie, reality has taken a real beating. The big empty is the desert and a lot more appears to be going on out there than at first peep. Our hero finds out the neighbor who got him into this gig has been killed and his head is missing. Someone has just given him a blue bowling bag and told him not to open it under any circumstances. Does the bag contain a 3 holed bowling ball or a head with two eyes and a mouth? The FBI is also looking for him as well as a possible serial killer trucker cowboy. And that’s the type of quirky situations that our hero is constantly facing in Baker. The color blue plays an important role in the movie so keep a blue eye out for blue things. Populated with some well known actors such as Daryl Hannah, Kelsey Grammer, and Sean Bean, it has enough humor to provide a pleasant afternoon viewing. The movie is rated PG-13 for: multiple blue bags, multiple blue eyes, excessive blue balls, unexplained bowling shoes, multiple weird people, and especially for the guy with the alien claw hand that looks and tastes like a chicken foot.