PONTYPOOL (2008)

[Update 02/21/2021: need to redo this entire review and fix the screenshots.]

PONTYPOOL is a piece of vomit. The movie starts with this dork arriving at his job as the morning DJ off in Bumfuck, Egypt (small town in Canada). So he goes On Air and it's absolute torture. There's no way in the world that anybody would ever listen to this guy and not kill themselves. Here's just a sample:

Mrs. French's cat is missing. The signs are posted all over town. "Have you seen Honey?" We've all seen the posters, but nobody has seen Honey the cat. Nobody. Until last Thursday morning, when Miss Colette Piscine swerved her car to miss Honey the cat as she drove across a bridge. Well this bridge, now slightly damaged, is a bit of a local treasure and even has its own fancy name; Pont de Flaque. Now Collette, that sounds like Culotte. That's Panty in French. And Piscine means Pool. Panty pool. Flaque also means pool in French, so Colete Piscine, in French Panty Pool, drives over the Pont de Flaque, the Pont de Pool if you will, to avoid hitting Mrs. French's cat that has been missing in Pontypool. Pontypool. Pontypool. Panty pool. Pont de Flaque. What does it mean? Well, Norman Mailer, he had an interesting theory that he used to explain the strange coincidences in the aftermath of the JFK assassination. In the wake of huge events, after them and before them, physical details they spasm for a moment; they sort of unlock and when they come back into focus they suddenly coincide in a weird way. Street names and birth dates and middle names, all kind of superfluous things appear related to each other. It's a ripple effect. So, what does it mean? Well... it means something's going to happen. Something big. But then, something's always about to happen.

Wow. Wasn't that was exiting!? No bullshit, this idiot rambles on like this like 40 minutes. It's Hell on Earth. Finally, he gets some wacky phone calls that have weird zombie outbreak sounding stuff going on, but they're stupid. Eventually, the dork figures out that the zombie virus is carried by the English language...really? So now that he's figured out what causes it, he spends the next 15 minutes scribbling notes back and forth to his producer and talking in broken French. It's horrible.

Skip it and just watch the original DAWN OF THE DEAD again instead. Even if you've already seen DOTD 25 times, the 26th time will be better than the 1st of PONTYPOOL.

THE GOOD, THE BAD, THE WEIRD (2008)

Set back in 1930's China the story is about a treasure map. The Weird dude steals it during a train robbery. So now the Bad guy and his gang are chasing him, but there's also a Good guy who's a bounty hunter and he's chasing both. But that's not all because you also have the Japanese Army and a bunch of other secondary gangs showing up and blasting the shit out of everything.

Tons shooting, massive body count, catchy music, excellent cinematography, outstanding direction by Kim Jee-woon and the three leads are all really good.  My only complaint is it's probably 20 minutes too long.

KEN PARK (2002)

[Update 10/09/17: This review is shit. I'll redo it when I find the time.]

Following in the footsteps of the excellent KIDS and his masterpiece BULLY, KEN PARK is more stories of fucked up teenage life as told by Larry Clark. I liked the movie a lot, but I really disliked the fact that there was nothing really connecting the stories and carrying it all along. In BULLY you had the common thread of everybody wanting to kill Bobby, but here it's just a bunch of random stories. They're all compelling and I was riveted to the screen, but I never felt any emotional connection to anyone. It almost felt like scenes from an unfinished movie.

For those keeping score: You have Ken who got his girlfriend pregnant and kills himself at a skate park...that's not a spoiler since it's the opening scene.

Tate who's an asshole and isn't nice to his beautiful three-legged dog. He's also an asshole to his grandparents and likes to choke himself while jerking off to women's tennis.

Peaches who is pretty and has a religious lunatic for a father.

Shawn who's the personal oral sex toy for his girlfriend's mother. She's married to the tall, Nazi guard from "Oz".

And finally, Claude who's dad is a unemployed drunk asshole who doesn't care for the fact that his son seems to do absolutely nothing but skateboard and smoked out. The dad also has a drunken desire to suck his son's dick.

It's all pretty much your standard Larry Clark subject matter, but that's not a complaint since I love Larry Clark. I just wish it all had an actual story. Definitely worth watching unless you're upset by a shitload of male nudity.

JENNIFER'S BODY (2009)

[Update 11/23/2022: Need rewatch this film and redo this review completely.]

As somebody with a weakness for high school horror movies I kinda enjoyed this film. The vibe was fresh and likable, but I was really disappointed that the violence is non-existent. Outside of a few cuss words, there's nothing that hasn't already been done better on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer". No guts getting ripped out, no pregnant woman getting stabbed through the stomach with a forklift, no orgies ending in a massive axe massacre, no sex demons with dicks for fingers swallowing peoples souls then pissing the souls out through their dickfingers. Heck. I would figure the whole point in making a movie would to be to go balls out and be as violent as possible. But I guess filmmakers were more interested in making a quick buck instead of going out on a limb and maybe creating something unique and great. But at least give us some tits goddamn it!!!

That said I still enjoyed it, mainly because I really liked the idea of a small mountain town with a hot high school girl as a demon. There's so many cool ways the story could go. I just love thinking about it. It could be like a mixture of "Twin Peaks" with "Buffy the Vampire Slayer". How badass would that be?! What if the human chick remained friends with the demon chick? That would be cool and you could take that in all kinds of directions.

Anyway, it's worth a rent, but don't expect anything imaginative or amazing just a mildly entertaining, non-threatening, time killer.

T-MEN (1947)

"Did you ever spend 10 nights in a Turkish bath looking for a man?"

People often never ask me "What film would be a good starting point if I wanted to learn about film noir?", but if they did, I would point them towards 1947's T-MEN.  It's a great film that kinda creeps up on you at just how good it is.

The film is presented in a semi-documentary style complete with a narrator.  The story is about a counterfeiting gang based in Los Angeles.  The Treasury Department has been after them for awhile, but the only clue they have is there's a connection with a gang in Detroit.  They send in two undercover T-men to infiltrate the gang.  

A lot of noirs have all kinds of crazy twists, double-crosses and sometimes even triple-crosses that are sometime hard to follow.  T-MEN has none of that.  It's very straightforward and a lot of fun to watch over and over.  Strong direction by Anthony Mann, amazing cinematography by John Alton, great acting, fast pace, impressive cast.  T-MEN is just a solid movie that should be in every classic movie lovers film collection.  Highly recommended.