PWNED

HELL TO THE YES. Via ONTD.

What I reckon: Zombieland

As mentioned previously, I’m rather over zombie films, and when I first saw the trailer for ‘Zombieland’ I was underwhelmed. Great, I thought, a ‘Shaun of the Dead’ inflected buddy comedy with zombies and Woody Harrelson. Whatever. The only reason I showed up on cheap Tuesday to see it was an absolutely glowing review from my Internet girlcrushes, Popcorn Mafia. They loved it, I love them, I was in the mood to check my brain in the door. I had few expectations. And it totally blew my mind.

The premise is simple: it’s America, post-zombie apocalypse. The film opens with a hypochondriac college student, played by Jesse Eisenberg, who I only imagine is reiterating his uptight college student role from ‘Adventureland,’ outlining his rules for surviving a zombie apocalypse. Like many of the film’s moves – Woody Harrelson’s redneck Tallahassee, the eventual gathering of a group of ragtag survivors, the much-vaunted celebrity cameo – in lesser hands it all could have gone wrong, but overall it’s hilariously pitch-perfect. Not to mention that it has the best opening titles since ‘The Watchmen,’ after the jump.

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Like a sparkly Face Punch to the face

For those who haven’t been there, Melbourne Central is a sprawling, disorganised shopping mall perched above a train station. There’s a Hoyts in the upper rafters with various bars scattered about to catch the punters as they wait for their films to start.  We’d planned to get a drink or four before ‘New Moon,’ figuring we would need one to survive either the throng of teenage girls or, worse, what might be a depressingly small crowd of adults like us who should know better. I spied a cluster of beribboned topknots and footless tights at the top of the escalator on the way in, so it quickly becomes apparent that we’d have to deal with the former.  We discovered an Ed Hardy bowling alley tucked next to the fake Irish pub perched on the top floor of a shopping mall. We ordered gin and tonics and talk about crabcore, settling in for a long night
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So I saw ‘Paranormal Activity’

It was the first film of the Hello Darkness film festival. The screening was totally sold out, so we had to sit near the front. When the Hello Darkness ID flashed on screen I, in typically tactful fashion, snorted ‘worst curated film festival EVER.’ At which point the people sitting in front of us stood up, went to the podium and introduced themselves as curators of the festival.

It was rude and I immediately regretted it. Still, I stand by my opinion. I’m grateful they brought out ‘Paranormal Activity’ before the general release, but as a horror festival it’s a totally wasted opportunity. When I came across Hello Darkness in the MIFF newsletter I was thrilled and immediately looked up the program, only to find that the only new films they were showing were a remake (‘Last House on the Left’ – really?) and a sequel (‘Descent 2′ – really?). I adored ‘High Tension,’ ‘Sheitan’ looks promising, I’ve never heard of ‘Dead Man’s Shoes,’ but ‘Let The Right One In’? Really? Really? You have the screen at ACMI, you set yourself the task of putting together a horror film festival, and you screen the Bill Henson version of ‘Twilight’ that, oh yeah, had a general release last year? This is not to say it’s not a worthy film, but the program could have been so, so much better.

My biggest problem with the festival is that, at a time when horror largely consists of remakes and sequels, they had an opportunity to showcase some of the amazing independent, original horror films doing the festival circuit. I have no idea what it takes to put on a festival, or what they were trying to achieve, and I’m totally projecting my own desires to see interesting, original horror in Australian cinemas, but I’m almost bitterly disappointed that the curators chose to give screen time to a remake and sequel. ‘Paranormal Activity’ was a late addition, and, again, while I was glad to see it, it’s got a huge amount of buzz behind it and it’ll get a general release anyway. Original horror needs support, and I’m sad that Hello Darkness didn’t provide it.

So it’s been a while

Truth is I’m not really sure what this blog is doing yet, and it’s much easier to write about food than it is to write about, uhm, whatever I’m starting to do here.

In the meantime, here’s a man with a puppy in his pocket.

Actually, I lie. There are two, even three things that I’m unproductively preoccupied by. The first is the film ‘Bronson,’ the second is two programs I saw on broadcast television. That’s right, honest to goodness broadcast tv, free to air, the kind where a show is on at a certain time and you need to remember that time and flick over to the right channel at that time to watch the show, and the shows that managed to hold my attention enough to keep me through the ads last night were the ridiculous ‘Flash Forward’ and ladycentric hospital procedural ‘Mercy.’ More after the break.

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Mummy, why don’t you have a thing between your legs like daddy?

I know I’ve been carrying on about the genre films lately, but I couldn’t resist posting this teaser from new indie psycho-horror ‘The Uninvited.‘ I love it when films go for straight-up Civilization and its Discontents-style psychodrama, so I think I’ll also be into ‘The Uninvited’ if this clip of an old crone eating a baby in a closet is anything to go by. I also expect to see a white rat, a horse’s penis, and lots and lots of things that could be anuses but aren’t. 

Zombies vs vampires

Even though I dragged my 26 year old, decidedly past it arse to the Melbourne Zombie Shuffle, I honestly think zombies are played out and lazy.  Every now and then, on one of the many, many horror/scifi/genre blogs I read and digest and absorb, a new indie zombie movie will pop up, and not one of them has caught my interest. Until this one.

While I like to think I’ve developed reasonably tough skin in terms of my film viewing, as a rule I can’t handle rapey movies.  The notorious rape scene in ‘Irreversible’ just killed me, and it certainly looks like rape is fairly central in ‘Deadgirl.’ But there’s just something about this re-reading of the zombie trope, whether it’s the citation of other famous raped dead girls, or the promise of penis biting vengeance, or the violence simmering in the teenaged sexual desire and frustration that’s standard grist for the slasher movie mill, but I can’t wait for this.

My relationship to the vampire trope is a bit more complicated. I was raised on Buffy, and Joss Whedon has significantly shaped my media palate. I’ve also developed a kind of restless fixation on the Twilight franchise, the source of which is really between me and my God/therapist, but vampires have real traction for me.  So I would automatically take an interest in ‘Daybreakers’, a film where vampires have won and humans are nothing but a food source.  While ‘Deadgirl’ looks like it’ll have an arty aftertaste, ‘Daybreakers’ could go either way. The premise is brilliant, but that won’t necessarily stop it from devolving into another explosion-driven, dreary action film. Still, I will be there as soon as it opens.

So I saw a movie with some robots in it

I was determined to see it at the Imax, on account of the extra scenes promised by Mr Michael Bay, who, in my imagination now resembles Patton Oswalt’s version of Robert Evans, so I started a lengthy email thread to see who was up for coming. By the time I got enough replies all sessions, seriously, even the 11.30 were sold out, so after another exhausting email exchange it was decided to go to a regular multiplex. We went for dumplings beforehand, and I brought a bottle of rose and everyone else brought beer, and they drank the beer and I was left alone with my bottle of wine.

I do not believe in wasting good food or drink, so I took it with me to the theatre. I drank wine out of the bottle through a straw during ‘Transformers.’  That might explain why I fell asleep during the lengthy scene where, to quote Clem Bastow, ‘the Decepticon that looks like the Large Hadron Collider anally rape[s] a transforming cement mixer truck.’ I couldn’t follow anything that happened, not one thing, from Shia LeBeef looking confused and nebbish, to Megan Fox pouting and sulking, the very embodiment of all Laura Mulvey’s film theory, to the hideous stereotype robots, paralleled only by Jar Jar Binks in their level of racism.

I walked out.

The only good thing about the film was I got to see the ‘District 9′ trailer on the big screen, and, my how I lost my shit for that. Honestly, the best part of the last two films I’ve seen have been seeing trailers that previously only existed on the internet come to life. I squealed like a little girl during the trailer for ‘Drag me to Hell.’

Movies are making me sad.

This review for Transformers, however, is a work of staggering genius, and it does not make me sad.