YOU'RE NEXT (2011)

You're next...to fall asleep.

If you insist on wasting your time watching this unoriginal clunker do yourself a favor and immediately skip to chapter 4 on the blu-ray. That'll be the 22:50 mark.  The only thing that happens before that point is two dorks in a neighbor's house get killed off-camera and then at the main house some family members gather and talk for nearly 20 minutes about random stuff.  Finally everybody arrives and they sit down for dinner...when an arrow shoots through the window and kills a hipster.  Other arrows follow.  Is it a band of time-traveling Native American Indians on the warpath?  No, just some dorks in dollar store masks that like to tilt their heads when they kill somebody.  The cell phones have been jammed, nobody has a gun, this huge mansion doesn't have a security system and I guess the internet hasn't been invented yet so there's no way to get help.  Logic would tell you to keep together and assess the situation, but no, these champions immediately go into full panic mode and just run all over the place like chickens with their dicks cut off until the weak twist ending that seems to be a requirement in the majority of modern horror films. 

Zero nudity, blood that made me want to go eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich...mmmmm strawberry, zero gore, inept killers, zero scares, dozens of tired horror movie cliches, killer under the bed (twice), HOME ALONE-style booby traps, orange blood, logic out the window, innocent mask head tilt, hipsters, running back into danger, seeing a booby trap and still somehow stepping into it, flashing light, cop shooting the wrong person, annoying music and quite possibly the most unstable camera of all time.  CLOVERFIELD looks like an Ozu movie compared to this seasick turkey.

I'm sure if you look hard enough there's some positives in YOU'RE NEXT, but I still can't see any reason why you should watch it.  My friend who brought this over to watch actually apologized after it was over...and he slept through half of it!

BELLE DE JOUR (1967)

I've never sat down and written out a Top 10 Best Movies list, but if I ever was to I'm pretty sure BELLE DE JOUR would be on that list.

Séverine (Catherine Deneuve) is the bored housewife of a young doctor.  She is unable to be intimate with her husband, whom she loves.  At the same time, she idles her days away dreaming about various sexual fantasies.  Most of them dealing with domination and sadomasochism.  Early on in the film there is a brief shot of an older man feeling up and kissing a terrified little girl.  Could this be Séverine as a child?   Either way, BELLE DE JOUR is a fascinating look at a woman exploring her sexuality, both mentally and physically.

After hearing from a lecherous friend of a friend about a small whorehouse that specializes in more upscale and private adult entertainment, Séverine cannot stop thinking about it and eventually goes to investigate for herself.  She's nervous, but the wise madam senses that Séverine is the type that needs a forceful hand, so she simply leaves her in a room with a regular customer.  Afterwards, Séverine is like a reborn woman.  She is much more cheerful around her husband and the more she explores her sexual desires at the brothel...the happier she is.  Things change, though, when a dangerous new customer falls in love with Séverine.

BELLE DE JOUR is Bunuel's first film in colour and it's a masterpiece.  The story, the camerawork, the surrealist elements, the acting, the fashions...every time I watch this film I'm enraptured and can't take my eyes off the screen.  Every shot is a masterpiece.  It also doesn't hurt that Deneuve was at her absolute most radiant during the late 1960's.

I cannot recommend this film enough.  Required viewing for anybody interested in world cinema.