Movie Review: The Act of Killing - Director's Cut (Blu-ray, Drafthouse Films)

Documentaries have always been a huge part of my movie watching life. The format can unfortunately suffer depending on the filmmaker putting together the documentary, and most importantly, its subject (or subjects).  Drafthouse Films has shown a knack for grabbing some very eclectic titles for both theatrical and the DVD and Blu-ray market with titles like the ridiculous but awesome Miami Connection, the acclaimed drama Bullhead and the upcoming remastering of the cult classic MS. 45. The titles have been solid overall but really can't touch the power of the documentary The Act of Killing from director Josh Oppeneheimer and its producer, the great Werner Herzog (Grizzly Man). Now available in a director's cut (along with the theatrical cut) The Act of Killing is a documentary that takes things to a new level that some may not be prepared for.

Oppenheimer follows the life of former executioners in what is easily one of the most corrupt, dangerous, third-world country in the world, Indonesia. His main focus is on Anwar Congo, a man who boasts of killing possibly a 1000 people for being communist. Around the mid -1960's Indonesia switched from a peaceful democratic country to the violent shit-hole it is today. During this time, Congo and others were paid to kill the "communists", many of them being Chinese because, well, they may have disagreed with how things were being handled. It's absolutely fascinating (albeit disturbing) the way these men executed many of these more than likely innocent folk were brutal and for many unimaginable. People were beaten to death with bricks and thrown in rivers, strangled, run over by cars, stabbed and decapitated. Congo and his fellow executioners preferred to do it fast, although they did their fare share of torture.

Movie Review: Ms .45 (1981)

When Jeff Dolniak asked for my email address, I expected to be spammed and harassed with ads for constipation meds, erectile dysfunction, and furry enthusiasts. To my complete surprise, I was presented with a link to the remastered 1981 revenge film, Ms .45.

Ms .45 stars Zoe Tamerlis as Thana, a mute girl working as a seamstress in New York. She’s a rather shy and reserved young lady and while her coworkers/friends go off for a drink after work, she heads home via the grocery store. She’s jumped by a masked man hiding in an alley. At gunpoint he rapes her over some garbage cans then runs away. Thana stumbles home in a stupor only to discover another man has broken into her apartment. Robber turns rapist and she is violated AGAIN. How much bad luck can one poor girl have? Damn.

Movie Review: Wrong (2012, Realitism/Drafthouse Films)

...in the short time that I have been scribbling complementary and critical cinematic verbiage for this most embraceably eclectic webpage (...oh yes, a motley crew, are we...), I have gleefully perused through a rather respectable gamut of cult movies...a whole spectrum of relishably lurid schlock, escapist genre classics, arousingly sizzling erotica, easily-digestible commercial oddies, and all point in-between, around the sides, over the top, as well as the slimy, abysmally darkened dreck, underneath (...what was it that Maxwell Smart once offered in response, on more than one occasion?? "...AND loving it!!", I believe it was...). In the midst of having viewed & viewed & viewed, and thusly offered commentary to such viewings, this...well, this viewer has since instigated in the back of his mind, a gage...a measuring device, not so very much unlike that of a meter, measuring a level of intensity, from left to right...an intensity, which reflects how much my face contorts and assumes a live version of the cartoonish Cinema Head Cheese logo, which you readers have come to know and recognize. Least to say, given the wide range of film-fantasique, which this viewer has been privy of, the needle on said gage has seen flutter well across the range of the scale...with the odd, occasional times, when the needle slams resoundly to the right, and this viewer's facial visage takes on the euphorically sado-masochistic and tortured look of this webpage's namesake logo. And it is those rare times when one finds that oh-so numbingly rancid, tantilizingly tasteless and wincingly brain-twisting vintage of Thunderbird...that rare, opportune piece of flickage, which makes one stare hypnotically googly-eyed at the end of the movie...at the screen...through the screen...while the final credits roll, and then, moments later, after the screen has faded to black, makes one shakes one's head back & forth crazily back to reality, blubbering spittle all around, like a Whammo Water Wiggle, and half-laughing/half-screaming madly, in the process...

Movie Review: Klown (2010)

Directed by Mikkel Norgaard

Starring Frank Hvam, Casper Christensen and Marcuz Jess Peterson

Run Time: 89 minutes

Danish Language- English Subtitles

Frank is, what on the surface appears to be one of the worlds greatest fuck-ups. In order to prove his fatherhood potential to his pregnant girlfriend who has just dumped him, and in an act of desperation, he “kidnaps” her 12 year old nephew Bo, and takes him along on his best friend Casper’s weekend canoe trip of debauchery, which they have dubbed their “Tour de Pussy”. The wife and girlfriend of the two are under the impression this is merely a boys weekend in the country and have no idea the canoe trip has a scheduled stop at a music festival and a brothel.

Movie Review: The FP (2011, Blu-ray)

Directed by Brandon & Jason Trost

Starring Jason Trost, Lee Valmassy and Art Hsu

For far too long gamers have been shown no love or respect in the movies. Well, those days are now over thanks to the cold-blooded awesomeness of the Trost brothers and Image Entertainment’s new movie, The FP. A movie so bad that it is actually border-line genius.

In a dystopian future, a never-ending turf war rages. Two rival gangs feud for control of rural wasteland Frazier Park (The FP) in the deadly arena of competitive dance-fight video game “Beat-Beat Revelation.” After hometown hero BTRO is slain on the dance platform by thug leader L Dubba E (Lee Valmassy), His protege younger brother JTRO (Jason Trost) goes into isolation, chopping down trees in the mountains with a troupe of lumberjacks, vowing never to dance again. One year later The FP is in ruins, as the rival gang has not only taken control of the town but of its most precious resource, the liquor store, and is replacing the towns alcoholic life's-blood with meth and a wicked little pill known as Black Cock. Now JTRO must find the courage to return and restore order (as well as the liquor supply) in a ruthless battle for revenge that can only leave one man dancing.