This Must Be the Place

Think of a Wes Anderson movie, quirky, funny, weird with genuine pathos and a character depth which is touching and familiar. They usually feature a major actor looking a bit bedraggled and depressed and they are usually Bill Murray.

Now, the main problem with The Must Be The Place is that its not a Wes Anderson movie but its trying reeeeeally, reeeeally hard to be one.

Its not that TMBTP is bad, its just that you feel like its trying to be quirky and weird but ends up being a bit stupid and opens itself up for much scoffing and a lot of what-the-fucks. Penn is fine as the washed-up glam rocker who is living an easy but a completely unfulfilling life. So when his father dies, he travels to his funeral and end up trying to track down a Nazi war criminal whom terrorized his father during the War.

The adventure that then ensues contains bizarre characters, situations and conversations that I honestly wish had more depth, humor or were even vaguely interesting.

Thing is, I wanted to like it, its got little moments and Penn is generally great but its faux-deep conversations("sometimes life doesn't give you all that life can't give"). Just because you make no sense, doesn't mean what you're saying is profound. At all.

Project X

AAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaarrrrrrgggggghhhhhhhh!!!!

Ahem, OK so a couple of high-schoolers decide to throw the ultimate make or break party while one of the guy's parents is away. Its all shot in mockumentary style and is pretty much based on this guy...



...an Australian teenager who threw a massive house party which resulted in huge amount of damage and mayhem.

So first of all, this movie is incredibly awful. The least, you'd think, with a story like that you could probably thrown something fun if completely stupid together ala Old School. Or even something serviceable despite its leery, obnoxious characters ala The Hangover...

WRONG!

Project X is like looking through the window at a house party you will never be allowed into. There are several montages of people drinking, dancing, taking off their clothes, jumping around, having a fuck-load better time than you're having!

The characters are all absolute pricks, the women are basically there to take their tops off and be pretty much abused by anyone with a cock.

The arrogance of this monstrosity could only be put on paper by a teenager and that teenager is a dick. Look at the ending, particularly that of the relationship between our hero and his love interest, how that is resolved is mind-boggling. No adult could have finished the last line of that and thought 'yes, people will buy that, I'm a comic genius'. The film is like a 15yr old boy's dream, where nothing has real consequence, girls are dumb and easily manipulated and everything is funny even when it really, really isn't. In fact I would've been won over if the film had ended up being just a wet dream of some obnoxious adolescent and he had to just clean himself up and go to school, where none of this had actually happened. At least then that would fucking explain how this movie actually fucking happened!?!

There is a lot more I could shite on about Project X and its appalling nature but the one big problem for X, one which one could've saved all of this hate and bile I'm spewing, is that there are no jokes. Nothing. Not a single funny thing happens. Sure there are things I assumed the writers intended on being funny i.e angry midget, swearing, calling people 'faggot' constantly, women taking off their tops and guys talking about how they are going to 'fuck that' then indeed fucking that. I just couldn't find the jokes, for the most part the party just happens until its not happening.

A complete waste of my fucking time and my time is NOT important!

Rammstein - 27/02/2012

Good lord! Industrial metalists, bondage enthusiasts and all-round German mental-bags Rammstein were in town tonight!

They spent about two hours setting off fireworks, flamethrowers, explosives, flares and giant robotic cocks to a pretty full O2 and boy was it some show!

Rammstein are a band that are frequently and easily mocked, even inviting some of with their bizarre music videos and silly songs (Amerika & Du Hast, though great fun, are guilty). But man oh man do they put on a helluva stage show.

Fireworks shots out of every side of the stage, flames bursts out of the stage floor and the ceiling, willed on by the absolutely insane front man Till Lindemann, whose booming vocals got the crowd kicking and punching their way through classics such as 'Ich Will', 'Sonne' and my personal favourite 'Engel'.

Beside all the big bright shiny fireworks, Rammstein's usually dose of bondage and sado-masochism shone through like a leathery beacon of light for all those (and their were a few) whom had shown up in bondage gear. At one point they were walked across a platform on hands and knees, with leashes on and whipped by the drummer as they made their way to a smaller stage on the middle of the crowd. Bizarre but kinda hilarious stuff, thankfully Rammstein rarely take themselves too seriously and Till proceeded to shower the audience with, what I presume was water emanating from a small penis-like attachment to the front of his pants.

Rammstein are such a spectacle, you may not like the music but I assure you the stage show is epic, yeah its just crashes and bangs and colourful lights but its very brilliantly put together crashes and bangs and colourful lights. Well worth the ridiculous price for a ticket.


Oh and it ended with a giant motorised cock which was driven from one side of the stage to the other shooting out white jizzy foam. Well I never...

Chaos Theory

I have thought of a couple of different ways to express my true feelings on this bland, patronizing, nonsense. I was thinking of a series of photos showing how I drifted off into a coma while its putrid dialogue droned on in the background. I actually thought maybe I should record something so I could properly express my disgust that Ryan Reynolds even considered this emotionally vacant, offensively unfunny film.

Instead I will just say....THIS.IS.THE.WORST.FILM.I'VE.EVER.SEEN

And I've seen this....




...and enjoyed it...

Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance

Nicolas Cage is brilliant.

Brilliant enough to make me any old shit. Justice? Seen it. Knowing? Seen it. Yes, even the original Ghost Rider. So of course I had to see the sequel. It didn't hurt that involved are Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor whom were behind Crank and a number of films I really wanted to like more than I actually did such as Pathology and Gamer.

Unfortunately Spirit of Vengeance feels a lot more restrained than the lunacy that the Neveldine/Taylor team usually means. The backers obviously needed this to be a 12a (it being a comic and such) and the lads were obviously holding something back and it really really shows.

But fuck it, this is about The Cage and frankly, he delivered a big barrel of this...



Honestly Cage is everything brilliant about this film. Really and truly it is so much fun to watch someone just not give a fuck anymore and just go for it.

The rest of the movie is fine, silly action, bizarre cameos and fun one-liners. The pace is quick enough to not get bored during the talkie bits. But honestly I wish this was at least a 15s, feels like it has been sanitized. Still good bombastic fun. Nic Cage is the fucking balls too.


P.S If anyone is in any doubt that Cage is the goddamn best thing ever, please type 'Nic Cage losing his shit' into youtube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xP1-oquwoL8

He is the best.

Rubber

Rubber tire goes on a killer spree using its telekinetic powers to make peoples head explode.

....


Sounds awesome. The only problem is things aren't that simple. Instead Rubber is an art-house movie with a b-movie gimmick. The movie it reminds me the most of is Alex Cox's Repo Man. Both are set in rural, barren landscape. Both are full of interesting ideas that make little sense but are so odd you can kinda go along with them. The only problem is Repo Man is a helluva lot more likable than Rubber is. Rubber is OK and many of its bizarre ideas can be taken as silly fun but there is something very smug about the whole thing. Why cant a movie just be about a killer tire? Why do I have to have Stephen Spinella (whom I do really like in this) explaining how the movie is about nothing. I get that, but it feels like the filmmakers are constantly saying 'Hey hey! Look how smart and irreverent we are!'.

I don't want to make out that Rubber is bad. Its not. I can actually be a lot of fun and the effects are really cool and some of it is really funny but there is a smart-arsey about it that makes it not as much of a hoot as it should be.

Dracula: The Un-Dead

I've met Dacre Stoker. He's a likeable character, but 'The Un-dead' is absolute bilge. It's a mess of different ideas that don't really amount to anything. Let's jam Jack the Ripper, let's bolt Star Wars in here, can we fit the Titanic in? Yes, I think we can fit the Titanic in.

'Dracula: The Un-Dead's plot is similar to 'Shadow of a Vampire', which is ironic because 'Shadow of a Vampire' is about the making of a movie that stole its plot from the original 'Dracula'. There's a big spoiler coming up after this sentence, though it's such an obvious twist you'd have to have a skullful of styrofoam popcorn not to see it. 'Shadow of a Vampire' is about the making of a movie about a vampire played by an actor who may or may not be an actual vampire. 'The Un-dead' is about the making of a play based on Dracula starring an actor who may or may not actually be Dracula.

Shadow of a Vampire is good because its ideas actually lead somewhere. It uses its film within a film device to talk about the relationship people have with film, on and off camera.

'The Un-dead' is bad because its ideas lead to nothingtown, population: you, frustrated reader. Its play-within-a-book device is just another tacked on, gimmicky sleight of hand designed to baffle your senses into believing there's an actual novel in your hands instead of wallet-lightening waste of your brain. Still in doubt? Here's a sample sentence: "She tried to escape her misty rapist."

Read Anno Dracula instead. Your brain will thank you for it.

- Anthony Conroy