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3 Extremes
2004. Rated R, 126 minutes.
Note: 3 Extremes is made up of 3 short movies by 3 different directors which I will review separately. This is different than Snoop Dogg's Hood of Horrors which I reviewed as one movie because these are not only by different directors but don't claim in any way to be connected with the others. In SD's HOH the shorts were all by the same director & connected to the story of Snoop's character who played host. Finally, I cheated a bit and actually watched the full-length feature for Dumplings (included on a separate disc) so that will get the full review while the others get shorter reviews.
Dumplings
Directed by Fruit Chan. Starring Bai Ling, Miriam Yeung, Tony Leung.
Plot: After 15 years of marriage, Mrs. Lei (Yeung) has lost her husband's attention to younger women. In hopes of regaining it she seeks out Aunt Mei (Ling) who makes youth-restoring dumplings. Of course, these dumplings have a rather peculiar ingredient.
The Good: Since we can figure out fairly early what this strange ingredient is & its made explicitly clear just in case you weren't sure (but I'm not telling), the whole thing just has an overwhelmingly morbid feel. That feeling just intensifies, & will turn to pure disgust in some, as the type of this ingredient is escalated, for lack of a better word. What keeps you watching is seeing Mrs. Lei deal with her feelings on the matter & set or reset her priorities. What keeps you intrigued is wondering how well this stuff is going to work, what are the consequences & will it even be enough to get what she so desires. Nicely juxtaposed with all of this is how flippantly Aunt Mei handles things. In fact, the performances of the two female leads really make this movie tick. Overall, it’s just a well-done metaphor for how far some people will go in pursuit of achieving or regaining physical beauty.
The Bad: Mr. Lei (Leung) can stand to be fleshed out a bit more. As it stands, he's just a stereotypical rich guy who's only motivation is chasing young chicks with no discretion. It serves to make him sort of the villain of the film but it also makes you wonder why the Mrs. would go through so much trouble trying to keep him. It can at times get a little slow. Those looking for chase & torture scenes need to look elsewhere. Still, the pace may be a function of it being stretched from a short into a full-length feature.
The Ugly: The most potent stuff. Ewww.
Recommendation: This is the type of movie for people who want to watch something that's just way out there. The genius of it is it has one foot planted enough in reality to make it seem plausible. Not plausible to the point you think what Mrs. Lei is doing could work but to the point you could see someone believing it would work & being disillusioned enough to give it a shot. That adds to the overall creepiness & makes it the type of film that I could see as a cult favorite.
What the Internet says: 6.9/10 on imdb.com
SCORE: 7.5/10
Cut
Directed by Chan-Wook Park. Starring Byung-hun Lee, Won-hie Lim, Hye-jeong Kang.
A big-time movie director (Lee) comes home from a long day at work to what he thinks is an empty house. However, an intruder (Lim) surprises him & knocks him out cold. When he comes to he has his hands cuffed & is tethered to the wall by a bungee cord. Across the room his wife (Kang), a professional pianist, is elaborately restrained to her seat with her mouth gagged & fingers superglued to the keys of a piano. The intruder then begins to give the director ultimatums with the hacking off of his wife's fingers one at a time serving as the consequences for not making the desired decision. The story takes place almost entirely in one room (except for a few minutes). Even though its very brightly lit & glossy looking the setting & subtle camera work still gives it a claustrophobic feel. The tale contains enough of the director's trademark unsettling twists to keep you somewhat guessing but mostly disturbing you. For those unaware of those twists, Park also directed the Trilogy of Vengeance: Oldboy, Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance & Lady Vengeance. See those for a lesson in twists that screw with your head (I'm talking to YOU M. Night I'masham). Back to this movie, its a wild watch thats at times funny, at times seems reflective (I'm sure the director in the film represents in some measure the director of the film) and all the time twisted. SCORE: 8/10
Box
Directed by Takashi Miike. Starring Kyoko Hasegawa, Yuu Suzuki, Atsuro Watabe.
A novelist (Hasegawa) has recurring nightmares of being buried alive. That simple premise has been done before but this takes things in a whole new direction. Its a winding road that deals extensively with sibling rivalry & touches on insanity, hints at pedophilia & dwells on a plain old guilty conscious. It moves at a methodic pace perfectly complemented by Hasegawa's somber performance. Among the three it seems the least suited to be stretched into a full-length feature but for a short it works well and has an Edgar Allan Poe feel to it. However, since its not nearly as violent or manic in nature like Cut or Miike's most famous work, the live-action anime Ichi the Killer, its strangeness is more likely to turn people off. For those that stick with it we get the sort of delightfully weird ending that we would watch such a movie for. SCORE: 7.5/10
Overall View: Though 3 Extremes is billed as a set of horror-flicks they are really not in the American sense of the term. There are no moments inserted purely to make you jump, no unkillable boogey-man & no over-sexed teens to kill off. These movies are more along the lines of bazaar excursions that just freak you out. They're meant to make you feel uneasy & question yourself for liking. Cut is the most entertaining & even most plausible in the sense that Stephen King's Misery is plausible which makes it the best by a small margin. The others, particularly Box are a little more artsy & therefore not quite as accessible but are both very good. Bring your reading glasses: Dumplings is in Chinese, Cut in Korean & Box in Japanese.
The Opposite View: Kevin Crust, Los Angeles Times
What the Internet Says: 7.2/10 on imdb.com, 85% on rottentomatoes.com, 66/100 on metacritic.com
SCORE: 7.5/10
Last edited by dell71; 10-31-2009, 01:19 AM.Comment
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Yes, I know Halloween was officially yesterday. However, life intervened and over the last week or so I haven't had time to post a couple more horror flick reviews like I wanted (though I did get in a decent amount). So here's a few more DTM's (dead teenager movies) to complete the killing season.
Prom Night
1980. Rated R, 94 minutes.
Director: Paul Lynch.
Starring Jamie Lee Curtis, Leslie Nielsen, Antoinette Bower, Casey Stevens.
A little girl is accidentally killed during a particularly vicious game of hide & seek. Six years later, on their prom night, the kids responsible begin dying one by one during the big event. This is Jamie Lee Curtis during her "scream queen" days and has grown into one of the more beloved slasher flicks ever made. Even though it only runs a little longer than 90 minutes, it takes a while to get going after that outstanding opening. However, it finishes with a bang and is all sorts of fun towards the end. Even though our killer has a bad case of occasional teleportation ability, who it is and why is well executed. Oh, and it gets extra points for the full-blown disco routine plopped into the middle of the movie when Jamie Lee and her boyfriend want to show his ex-girlfriend, of plunging neckline and ample cleavage, "what we can do". John Travolta, eat your heart out.
Real Movie Score: 5.5/10
Slasher Movie Score: 8/10
Prom Night
2008. Rated PG-13, 88 minutes.
Director: Nelson McCormick.
Starring Brittany Snow, Idris Elba, Dana Davis, Johnathon Schaech.
Several years earlier, Donna's (Snow) entire family was murdered by a high school teacher (Schaech) who became obsessed with her. Now, on her prom night he has escaped from prison and shows up as an uninvited guest to the big event. This is a remake of the 1980 movie starring Jamie Lee Curtis. Sort of. The acting is actually pretty good for the genre by the pre-requisitely gorgeous cast. The movie as a whole is a shiny, good looking affair. It's actually too shiny. Slasher flicks should resemble the dingy things with frayed edges that hide deep within your dresser drawers. This movie has the pristine look of, well, a prom dress. Still, it manages to build a decent amount of tension through a number of false scares. However, this can't overcome the hack job of a script that renders this nothing more than a paint-by-numbers dead teenager movie. That wouldn't be so bad but by making it PG-13, the blood and guts people watch these movies for are almost completely absent.
Real Movie Score: 3.5/10
Slasher Movie Score: 5.5/10Last edited by dell71; 11-01-2009, 12:07 PM.Comment
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Slumber Party Massacre III
1990. Rated R, 87 minutes.
Director: Sally Mattison.
Starring Brandi Burkett, Hope Marie Carlton, Maria Ford, Brittain Frye.
A group of high school girls have a slumber party at the house of the one who's parents are out of town. A couple of horny guys who know about the affair try to crash the party. Of course guys and gals getting all sorts of dead, mostly at the end of a giant drill bit, ensues. This is just pure trashy fun. The writing is bad, the acting is worse, theres gratuitous nudity, and the our killer's weapon of choice is so undeniably phallic its ridiculous. It's just a blood-splattering good time that's so bad it's awesome.
MY SCORE: -10/10
Yeah, just haven't found parts I & II on video yet. I saw 'em both way way back in the 80s, don't remember nearly enough to review them.Comment
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lol at slasher score. I give Prom Night a 10/10 just cause Brittany Snow was in it.
:kanyeshrug:Comment
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Brittany Snow is niceComment
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^Your sig complements your comment quite nicely...
What's next, Dell?
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This...
Law Abiding Citizen
2009. Rated R, 109 minutes.
Director: F. Gary Gray.
Starring Gerard Butler, Jamie Foxx, Colm Meaney, Viola Davis.
Plot: Clyde Shelton (Butler) is promptly imprisoned after killing one of the men who brutally murdered and raped his wife and daughter. However, it becomes apparent that even from behind bars he's responsible for the ongoing murders of people involved in the case.
The Good: It is a fairly unique cat-and-mouse because the mouse has already been caught yet somehow keeps stealing the cheese. This makes the movie easy to get caught up in as your theories get shot down one by one. Our two leads do a nice job. Butler provides a snarkier version of Jigsaw from Saw mixed with Kevin Spacey's John Doe from Se7en. Jamie Foxx ably morphs Morgan Freeman's and Brad Pitt's characters from the latter into one character. Yes, this movie borrows heavily from both of those but does so in a manner that still allows it to stand on its own. It helps that the twist and ending, while a bit of an eye-roller, are handled well.
The Bad: It's one of those movies where whoever is doing all this killing would either need an army of helpers (like a movie crew, perhaps) or have to be omnipotent. There are other major loopholes as well. For instance, the amount of time it takes to get from one place to another clearly depends on who's doing the travelling and what the plot needs at a given moment. The movie gives some explanations but they don't quite add up. Instead we start to think the killer has some sort of super-power. I suppose that's partly the point but it seems like overkill.
The Ugly: That's what you get for answering your cell phone during a meeting.
Recommendation: This is a fun but silly entry into the thriller/suspense genre. Even as implausibilities mount, you tend to let them slide while watching because it manages to keep you on the edge of your seat. The problem comes after its over and you start to think about it a bit. Scrutiny is not its friend. To quote famed critic Roger Ebert's review of the film, it is "One of those movies you like more at the time than in retrospect."
The Opposite View: Nick Rogers, Suite101.com
What the Internet Says: 7.4/10 on imdb.com (11/3/09), 24% on rottentomatoes.com, 34/100 on metacritic.com
MY SCORE: 6.5/10
PS: Apologies to my wife who loved the movie and peruses my reviews at least enough to see the scores. After it was over she began pleading her case for me to give it a '10'.
Sidenote: Every time I see Gerard Butler I think to myself, 'This can't possibly be the same guy who played King Leonidas in 300, can it?'Comment
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Your Review are CLEAN bro
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Well done as always Dell. Just watched one last night you'd find absolutely hilarious. Was called Lesbian Vampire Killers or some such. The comedy is spot on, and for an intentionally bad horror movie, it succeeded. I wouldn't put it on the level of Santa's Slay, but I did get some rather good laughs out of the movie.
EDIT Interesting new review, you have my curiosity up about the movie as I hadn't heard of it before your mention of it.Last edited by Ralnakor; 11-04-2009, 02:42 PM.Comment
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Please view "The Room" at some point and review it, Dell. It's easily the worst movie ever made.
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The Room is worth the watch. Unintentionally one of the funniest movies of all-time.Comment
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