Thursday, January 17, 2013

We are the Sprocket Holes vol. 203

micro-reviews;




ALPS: 9/10
Yorgos Lanthimos follow-up to the demented Dogtooth doesn’t quite match the weirdness of its predecessor, but it’s a memorable, original film that tackles the subject of addiction in a way that’s fresh and unburdened with brick-in-the-nose obviousness or sadness-porn manipulations.


COMPLIANCE: 10/10
LOL I TROLL YOU LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL: the Movie.  Dramatization of the prank call that descended into a Pavlovian BDSM meltdown. Just when you think it’s gonna go all Phone Booth stupid, with someone swooping in to save the day… you get a mouthful of cock and a fat bitch on the kind of pathetic power trip only running a fast food joint can grant you telling you to “stop talking.” Some of us love authority to the point of naively sadistic dementia, and this film brilliantly illustrates that.


COSMOPOLIS: 8/10
Nice to see Cronenberg getting weird again. I like the novel, but not that much (as Blake Butler says; “Don DeLio is Chuck Palahniuck with a dictionary”), but the film was a cool little piece of anti-entertainment  that looked pretty and sounded like a play written by fever dreams and cock gagging. Or something.


JACK AND DIANE: 4/10
Pluh. This could’ve been so cool… an indie horror film about lesbian teenagers with Quay Brothers animated sequences and the ever-present threat of a burn-victim werewolf eating your guts in the middle of the night. What starts out as All Over Me meets Ginger Snaps just turns into a tedious mumblecore romance where the horror element gets reduced to told-symbolism rather than a real threat, taking a back seat to the short-sighted naval gazing of self-involved idiots. Fuck this bullshit. And Ketchup on sushi? Bitch you gross.


KILLER JOE: 9/10
William Friedkin re-teams with BUG writer Tracey Letts for this southern fried date rape of a film. Greasy comedy of murder perversions. Letts writes the best third acts ever.


SILENT NIGHT: 6.5/10
Not a bad remake, but not particularly memorable either. dug the look of Santa. Some decent acting, good cinematography, pretty mean spirited…just feels like it ended before it began. still pretty gruesome. Nice little nods here and there to the original films (GARBAGE DAY), but lacked the strong characters of the first film. No Mother Superior, No Peace.  


SLEEP TIGHT: 10/10
Cannot recommend this enough. Jaume Balaguero (REC 1&2, some brilliant short films) crafts a merrily misanthropic thriller that serves as a metaphor for people who go out of their way to make life as miserable as possible. Life breaks you, and then you lament its passing. We’re fucking pathetic. Existence is bondage.

No comments: