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Popular Irony

The Blog to rule all Blogs!!  Rescued from the wreckage of the utterly abandoned PopularIrony.com, wiped down, imported and born anew!  Same old filth, new coat of shit!

Posts in "Movies"
A One Legged Vagrants Guide to the Movies

Hi again there, internet people!  Frisky Pete here with all new reviews for the newest big movies at the theaters!  It has been a long time sence I have been able to write things about the movies, and that is because I have been in rehab for snorting the powder that builds up on car batteries.  But I am really better now, and I am back on the booze insted.

The transformers and godzilla one

I saw three movies this month, and I want to tell you about the one that I thought was real, real good.  There was a very loud movie that was called Specific Rim, and it was about the time in the early ‘60s when godzillas got into fights with transformers.  Most was dark an there were babies that were crying because of the loudness.  I liked the theater though, I think they play pornos here because it always smells like public toilets.  I had a relapse that day and had to lay down in the aisle from the battery powder, so I missed the ending, but I thought it was a good movie to see.  The overlying commentary of human perseverance seemed forced throughout, and a thin reasoning for overblown cinematic action that leaves most moviegoers dizzied, save the desensitized adolescent mind.

Two guns movie (left one is fake I think)

After that one I slept next to a mailbox, then went on the mexican bus (the dangerous one) and went to the moviehouse that they built to replace the hotel that burned down.  I decided to see the movie called 2 Guns.  It was a remake of the lethal weapon movies without Danny Glover and Braveheart in it because they got too old.  I missed the first ten minutes because the people in line were too cheap to buy my pencils, so I had to steal a ticket from a guy in a wheelchair.  I didn’t feel bad because he had both of his legs, even though they didn’t work.  I thought the movie was a big lie.  There were WAY more than 2 guns in it, I would say like at least a hundred.  2 Guns is a shining example of how casting can make or break a film, where the winding plotline and exaggerated shootouts would blend in to a cinematic landscape rife with likeminded titles.  But the charisma of two of actings finest specimens makes the routine quite special, and takes no small benefit from actors that are equally at home in drama as they are in action.

This thing with knives and ninjas

And then last friday I fell down and landed on a fork in an alley, so I had to go to the free clinic.  They gave me a pretty good pain killer for the stitches, so I decided not to waste it and go to see another movie.  The place next to billboard that has a picture of a fat guy holding donuts on it was showing The Wolverine, and I knew it would be about a guy with claws cutting up people.  I even got in free because I was showing everybody my stitches and they didn’t like me scaring them away.  And can you imagine something better than a guy with knife hands murdering superheroes?  How about a guy with knife hands killing ninjas!  The only thing I would say was bad was that for as many knives as this movie has there is very little disemboweling and choking on blood and vomit.  I saw Gutter Greg get stabbed about a month ago and he couldn’t stop throwing up blood until he died.  It is refreshing to see a film recognize it’s niche and stick to it, and also see it helmed by an actor that is now comfortable in this well-worn skin.  Jackman satisfies in this solo outing that shows Worlverine is not just a member of the X-Men franchise, he is the main show.

Well, that is pretty much all I can write about movies right now, since the library is going to close soon and I still need to take a shower in the sink.  I have to hop up like seven stairs to get to the nice bathroom, too, since I don’t feel like bathing in the bathroom with the glory hole in stall number three.  And if you know the library I am talking about, don’t go to the glory hole on tuesdays.  I have seen the tuesday guy bite them sometimes.  Weirdo.

Films For Fiends- Guinea Pig: The Devil's Experiment

Welcome one and all to another installment of Films For Fiends, where I, Hamtackle, review the most foul, violent, and disturbing films of all time. Tonight I bring you Guinea Pig: The Devil's Experiment by Satoru Ogura. This is a somewhat legendary film that was released in 1985, and it was rumored to be a re-enactment of a snuff film that was sent to the director. He apparently watched it before sending it to the Tokyo police, but it dominated his thoughts until he reproduced it for our viewing pleasure. It consists of very little plot and a whole lot of brutal torture, and gave rise to the term "gorno". So let's see if it's worth a violence boner.

The film is only 43 minutes long, and centers around a group of three guys who decide to carry out a horrible experiment. They will capture a random woman and torture her until she decides to accept death, then send the results to the police. Charming, I know. It is all shot very amateurish to add to it's authenticity, and begins with a clean-cut lady tied to a chair being slapped repeatedly by her captors. They dip their hands in water and coat them in salt for further brutal effect, and beat her mercilessly with a coin-filled sock. The only saving grace to the disturbing scene is that it is clearly fake, and the woman takes the beating like a champ.

I imagine this might be where most real women would check out in real life, but this tough gal endures a three man texas-style boot party followed by a thorough pinching administered by pliers without appearing very impressed. The thugs take her toughness as a challenge, but again fail to break her when they inexplicably decide to spin her in an office chair to the point of unconsciousness, then force feed her liquor. Not much of a torture if you ask me. I did this same thing to myself two weeks ago.

Moving on to psychological torture, the men play computerized static to her through headphones for twenty hours until she screams like a banshee then appears to go comatose. But still she persists. It is at this point that they ratchet up the violence, tearing out patches of her hair and peeling away her fingernails. For me it would be at this point that I request a bullet, but not her. I am starting to like this lady.

Now the men liberally apply scalding cooking oil to her tender bits, starting with the inside flesh of her arms, to sizzling effect. Cue the maggots. The foul worms are applied to her burns and go to town on the necrotic flesh, although the girl seems too out of it to properly digest the horror of the situation. Strangely, the captors then decide to giggle like retards while they throw rotting meat at their prisoner. Entertaining? Yes. Torture? No.

But then the trio begins to truly test her bounds. They cut her hands with a scalpel and batter them with a hammer in what is actually a pretty convincing special effect, and then shove a needle through the side of her head and out her retina. Talk about escalating the situation. The film ends rather abruptly with a shot of the dead woman suspended in some kind of net.

So overall, how was it? I spent most of this film wondering what all the fuss was about. The majority of the torture is rather mundane and not particularly disturbing, but the ambiance and tone of it is quite menacing and downright mean. But the gouging of the eye was definitely cringe-worthy, even for someone as desensitized as myself. Overall I felt like I was cheated out of the gruesome promises the film made on the internet, probably mostly due to the acting of the victim. I am a big fan of japanese gore films, and they are generally much more inventive and unconventional than american slasher flicks, but the stoic submissiveness of the japanese woman lends itself better to pornography than torture, I guess. At least it avoids the transparently dishonest attempt at redeeming morality that tarnishes films like Cannibal Holocaust, although it is more likely to lull a gore-hound to sleep than inspire frantic masturbation. But I understand there are like six other brutal short films in the Guinea Pig franchise, so perhaps they will still live up to my expectations, assuming I can track them down. Until then, my blood lust will be left wanting.

Films For Fiends: Cannibal Holocaust

Cannibal Holocaust is an italian horror film directed by Ruggero Deodato that was the center of much controversy when it was released in 1980 due to it's horrifically graphic portrayal of tribal violence and sexual torture. This is one of the first films to use the "found footage" concept to add realism, and is clearly had influence on later work like The Blair Witch Project. Apparently many thought the effects to be so realistic that they believed the film to be an actual documentary, which makes no sense as it is full of shitty acting and is clearly fictional. But this did not quell the controversy, and the film was widely banned amidst rumors that some of the actors were actually murdered on film to add to it's authenticity, and the film's producer was arrested on obscenity charges.

The plot centers around a group of American filmmakers that descend into the jungles of the amazon in search of indigenous tribal people that have been segregated from modern society. They predictably don't return, and an adventurous anthropologist takes up the task of hunting them down to determine their fate. Aided by a group of paramilitary guerrillas, the doctor is led into the heart of the jungle where he witnesses savage acts being performed by the cannibals.

They first discover a female being raped with huge wooden dildo before having her vagina packed with mud and bludgeoned to death. The jungle guides explain this is "an adultery punishment ritual", which seems pretty unlikely. Another dead giveaway to the fictional nature of this film is the absence of armpit hair and the well-manicured pubic hair of the "native" women, but then again morons never let logic get in the way of a good urban legend.

As the group encounters the tribal population they dazzle them with such modern technology as switchblade knives, guns, and music from a cassette player, and are pressured to join them in feasting on the liver of a long decomposed human corpse. They are able to get in the good graces of the natives and manage to recover the film record of the lost documentarians and return to modern society where they review the footage.

The lost footage shows routine horseplay as well as a gruesome scene of the group dismembering and eating a giant live turtle. As with all of these shock horror movies from the '70s and '80s the killing of live animals (including a later scene of a monkey being decapitated) is always the most disturbing aspect of the gore, and could never be done today without widespread outrage.

Things turn south for the group after their guide is bitten by a poisonous snake, prompting the group to hastily amputate his leg, killing him. When the group first encounters the tribal people, they shoot one of them in an attempt to slow him down and follow him to the larger population, setting off a chain of events that seals their fates. The dark side of the documentarians is revealed, and they strangely decide to kill as many of the natives as possible by lighting their huts on fire. Why they do this is never quite explained, and makes no sense since they continue filming it and apparently still plan on releasing this film on their return.

The doctor that retrieved the film becomes distraught when watching it, and becomes reluctant to release the footage publicly due to the atrocities being committed, and worries that the natives will be judged harshly for their cannibalism despite being provoked to violence by the ignorant outsiders. In an effort to convince his employers to never release the film, he shows them the worst footage in which the group captures and takes turn raping a young tribal girl, then impaling her on a huge wooden pole. In another ridiculous moment, the group pretends the woman was killed by her fellow tribespeople despite having just filmed themselves raping her.

At this time the tribe descends on them, killing their cameraman with a spear and cutting off his genitals. For some inexplicable reason the survivors decide to stick around and film as he is dismembered and eaten, and somehow are not discovered just feet away in the bushes. When they try to flee the female is captured and raped (of course the cameraman again decides to remain behind to film it), and they are all beaten to death and eaten. The doctor is successful in convincing his employers to never release the footage, and the film ends with him lamenting "I wonder who the REAL cannibals are..." How poetic.

I must say that this film was comically bad. The producers ignore countless continuity errors, the acting is some of the worst I have ever seen (especially the female documentarian, who seems incapable of delivering her lines without retarded facial contortions), and they try to deny their own blatant racism in the depiction of the natives by revealing at the end that they were provoked to violence by the inhumanity of the western invaders. The real inhumanity displayed here is by the producers themselves, as they kill about a half dozen live animals (a small rodent, a pig, snake, turtle and a monkey) simply for shock value. At least most of the other films I have reviewed were good for a laugh, I spent most of the time while viewing Cannibal Holocaust just waiting for it to be over. It seems like the whole thing was just an excuse to show simulated rape. If that kind of thing is your bag, then go for it. Personally, I deleted this from my hard drive immediately after watching it, not out of shock, but out of disinterest.

Films For Fiends: A Hamtackle Movie Review

As you may already suspect, Terlet is a kind-hearted, gentle and polite person with a humor that ranges from silly irreverence to downright filthy. Hamtackle (myself) share in his uncommon taste in funny, but I also am fueled by a sincere curiosity about all things horrible and taboo. My pursuits have led me to witness countless videos of atrocities, torture, mutilation and death, but only in the name of a good time. So I thought that I might perform a service to those like Terlet that have no stomach for the violent filth I have come to love, and begin a segment of film reviews for the rare cinematic gems that truly shed light on the darkest side of the human condition. In short, I watch them so you don't have to.

For my first review I have chosen the infamous 2002 Gaspar Noé film

Irreversible

, starring Monica Bellucci. I believe it is still available on Netflix, but you may want to check out the review before viewing as it has two scenes that rank among the most disturbing in modern cinema, leading Roger Ebert to call it "

so violent and cruel that most people will find it unwatchable

"

The film is shot out of sequence (think "

Memento

") helping build a sense of disorientation and suspense, and begins with a chaotic sequence of scenes that shows a violent confrontation in a gay sex club where a man is beaten to death with a fire extinguisher. The event is displayed in a very graphic style, pulling no punches as the victim's head is literally crushed to oblivion. We are then introduced to the three main protagonists, Alex (Bellucci), her boyfriend Marcus, and her ex, Pierre. The trio experience the most nightmarish evening imaginable when they attend a party together, and Alex becomes upset with her boyfriend when he gets drunk, and leaves the party abruptly. While walking home through an underground tunnel she is attacked and savagely beaten and raped by a cruel pimp.

Once again the viewer is spared no gory detail, with an unbroken shot of the act for what seemed like ten minutes. He overpowers her and delivers such a brutal beating that it is hard to tell if she will survive, and the scene is perfectly cringe-worthy. I can only imagine the shock and disappointment of some poor lonely soul that searches for Monica Bellucci nudie scenes online and stumbles upon this mess, because it is a surefire limpness-inducer unless you are a truly depraved sort (I plead the fifth regarding my feelings on this). The rape is detailed in an unnecessarily long unbroken shot, but grants this film a solid showing in any serial killer's personal collection.

From there the two men who love her go on a mission of vengeance, employing shady criminals to track down their target in the aforementioned gay sex club, where a frantic Marcus attacks the pimp with reckless abandon only to be overpowered, but later saved by Pierre, who ends up delivering the killing blow. His aggression is so unrestrained that we are left with the impression that he is still very much in love with Alex.

If there can be any criticism of the format it is that the climax is delivered like a gut punch right away, and we work backwards to find out exactly why the headless gentleman was treated with such disregard, which leaves us with a somewhat slow progression to the ending which allows the trio of main characters to fade into a simpler and more innocent time before the horror. And some may take exception to the shaky and disorienting camerawork, which overdoes the jittering wobble particularly early on, but is clearly an artistic choice by the director. Oh yes, and if you are a fucking moron that can't watch movies with subtitles, it is worth noting that this is a foreign film.

Overall I would say this flick does well with the two most infamous scenes, and I respect the director's decision to include a level of detail that makes it inaccessible to any but the most hardened viewers, but it feels a little lopsided since the vast majority of the plotline is filled with much less violent, non-rapey sort of fare. The message of

Irreversible

to the viewer is one of the fragility of our pleasant lives, and how quickly they can intersect with the ever-present dregs of humanity, and how so often we let them drag us into the depths with them.

So if you are the sort that is only interested in the disturbing bits, you will probably have your finger on the fast forward button most of the time, and will ultimately be disappointed in the end. But if you are interested in a dramatic story of vengeance that unfolds in a unique way and aren't entirely turned off by the occasional involuntary anal sex scene with one half of the participants sobbing profusely, then give this one a shot. The rest of you should avoid it altogether.

I already have a doozy of a film lined up for my next review, but you are going to have to wait until next week. Until then... happy viewing, degenerates!