KABOOM (2010) ROB

I've been on a big Gregg Araki kick lately. The first thing I saw by him was the fantastic Mysterious Skin and though I had no idea what other works the director had done back when I saw it but it doesn't really matter because NOTHING he has done is anything like Mysterious Skin, a serious contemplative indie with heart. Fast forward 3 years and Araki pretty much shits out the borderline mainstream stoner comedy, Smiley Face, which was god damn awful and I actually turned off mid way through (which I never do). It had no trademark Araki style or common plot points that all of his previous films contained (I don't remember one homosexual moment in Smiley Face).

Now fast forward another 3 years to KABOOM, where Araki is back to his same ol' tricks and all that he does best. This guy bleeds the 90's like no other director still working today and to me that's a good thing, a nostalgic thing. I grew up in the 90's watching all the greats like Can't Hardly Wait and Clueless and more recently visited his "Doom Trilogy" with The Living End, The Doom Generation and Nowhere. Hell, even Smiley Face felt like a 90's movie, still sucked ass. though.

Kaboom starts with our main character Smith describing a strange reoccurring dream he's been having which starts out the strange, off kilter vibe that seethes under skin of an otherwise run of the mill teen sex comedy. The characters are introduced very similarly to previously mentioned 90's films with an ADD style pace not wasting anytime in introducing as many characters possible within the first 20 minutes and while this sounds like a brain buster it's nothing overtly complex. Smith is a bi-sexual, he doesn't believe in putting a title on his sexuality, but when it comes down to it that is essentially what he is, which introduces some fun plot points. Oh yeah, there's also another plot about a group of cultists in animal masks that appear randomly throughout pushing along the sci-fi part of the story.

If you haven't realized, there is a lot going on in this film. It's not overtly complex, in fact you don't need too much a brain at all to enjoy this and that's not necessarily always a bad thing. To me, KABOOM came off as a mix between Araki's Doom Trilogy and some of the modern television shows dealing with supernatural plot points. In fact, throughout its running time, I felt like in a world where Araki were invited to make television show he could have made a full season out of what they explore here. The movie tries to cover a lot of ground and it's done well, but given more time and a less frenetic pace it could have been a lot more fun and not seem so rushed. In the end, when all the ends are tied together, it just seems rushed, when it could have been an hour long series finale gut punch tying together all the mystery of the previous hypothetical episodes.

Regardless of the what if's, I really enjoyed KABOOM. It isn't my favorite Araki, not even close, but it is great to see a director doing what he knows and enjoys with all the sex filled, violent and funny antics of attractive straight and gay youth (not fully differentiating the two in classic Araki style) and it's fun. Entertainment is the bottom line when I see a film and I was entertained the entire time.

3.5/5

I would have loved to see some of the weaker plots thin out and the better ones beefed up/further explained. Oh yeah! It was great to see Araki mainstay James Duval with a seemingly small part, I don't know why he doesn't get more work..

HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN (2010) ROB

I love when a movie I'm looking forward to actually lives up to the hype. I love when a movie I'm looking forward to is so obscure, so ridiculous that it's impossible not to catch wind and be picked up into the mainstream. Hobo With a Shotgun has done both of these things, surpassing my expectations and being seen by some friends that I would have never expected it'd find it's way to and it makes complete sense..

We start with an obvious, albeit awesome homage to the exploitation films of the 70's and 80's in the form of a title sequence where we meet our hobo (Rutger Hauer) as he rides in on a train to "Scum Town"(formerly Hope Town, but crossed out with spray paint and modified) and stares into the sky. The score immediately reminded me of the old 70's Japanese action flicks ie Lady Snowblood and Shogun Assassin and it sets the mood perfectly. Anyway, Hobo makes his way into Scum Town and is immediately met with images of prostitution, violence and enough bizarre debauchery to make a Detroit ghost shudder in his sheets. Through a series of fucked occurrences and a barrage of strange character introductions hobo makes friends with a kindly prostitute and comes to the decision that he's going to clean up the town and wipe the scum off the streets with a pump-action shotgun.

So, yeah, the plot has been done before and it's nothing near complex, but what it lacks in complexity it makes up for in heart and a very ambitious set of characters. Through the course of the running time I couldn't help but think this would have been an awesome comic book; The characters are animated and bat shit crazy, good or bad, and it screams all the characteristics of a great, dark adult comic. There is a pair of "bad guys" in the film that goes by the name The Plague, they're armored in strange metal suits and they call what looks like an abandoned, modified mental hospital home. I'd have to say they were my favorite part of the hour and a half running time, when they come on screen they emanate this 80's vibe that I haven't seen captured in any modern film since that decade, they're just so fucking cool.

I don't know what else to say about this film. It's got A LOT going on and I haven't even began to touch all the bases. It does have some pacing issues that to be honest added to the vibe of an exploitation film (There is always that slow, recuperating point where they try to add a heart and some exposition to the main character), but it just didn't really work for me. Director Jason Eisener directed, edited and took part in the writing of this film and it carries a style unmatched by even Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino's Grindhouse features, but I think he could have trimmed this down with the more frenetic style of editing that we see only in small moments throughout the film, but that is my only problem with the film.

Hobo With a Shotgun is an over the top gory homage to trash film. It's beautiful and charming in it's own weird little way and with only one minor complaint it will have a place in my collection as soon as it's released on DVD.

4.5/5

Please expand on THE PLAGUE......

We Are What We Are (2010) ROB

The hype is what got me stoked on this one. Every horror movie website I read was raving about it when it was running the festival circuit and finally it hit VOD. I put it off for awhile, waiting for the right time to watch a coming of age cannibal family drama. Oh, does that sound weird? fuckin aye..

A creepy old dirty dude is wandering aimlessly down the sidewalk of a strip mall, he stops at a display window of two mannequins in bikinis and gawks halfway like he's never seen such a thing and halfway like a weird pervert who can just see this sort of thing, touch the glass and whambamthankyama'am. He continues on his path and before you know it he's on the ground dying, dying, dead. Give the custodians and coroner a couple minutes and this sidewalk is back into shape for the regular, well off bunch to grace it with their feet.

Enter family: two young men, a young woman and their mother getting ready for the days work and wondering where the hell their absent father is. I'm guessing if you know how to read then you can guess who creepy old dude was and through a series of strange communication the daughter finds out about the fathers demise. They panic, not unlike a regular family with the recent news of their passed father/husband, but also very differently; They question and try to promote a new head of the house before the day is even over. See, there's something that needs to be taken care of within the next day and while the father always took care of it before, a new member of the family must step up to the plate and assume responsibility and care and provide in the strangest way for the family. Saying much more might spoil the fun of this insanely delightful piece of Spanish film.

Their really isn't much bad I can say about this film, it's terrificly paced and keeps you invested and interested in the characters throughout its running time and delivers a couple twists and gut punches that make you smile and make you cringe. I won't say it's scary, kinda creepy. It's gritty in a realistic 'holy shit, this probably happens' kind of way.

One one of the covers or one sheets for this I saw a quote that said something like "A cannibal gore-fest", which is a hugely inaccurate way of selling this (though I'm sure it'll bring in some unlikely fans) because I don't exactly remember much, if any, gore. Sure, there is violence and blood aplenty but this is no gore fest. It's exactly what I explained it as, a coming of age cannibalistic family drama, and if that sounds like something you're into and you enjoy all the fixins that accompany a great film like an amazing score, great acting, direction and an original story.. Well, fork over the $7 and get this while it's still on VOD and not waiting in DVD purgatory waiting to be seen by the blockbuster folk.

I was WOW'd come end..

5/5

Wake Wood (2011) ROB

The most common comparison I've seen while anticipating this films release has been Pet Semetary and while that's not way off base I think this bad boy is in a different league.

We start on Alice's birthday, her parents are showering her with gifts and confetti before she walks to school. Somewhere along the way the little girl decides it's a good idea to give a rather savage looking dog in a cage a piece of lunch meat from her sandwich. She opens the cage and it leads to one of the more gnarly on-screen child deaths in recent memory.

Enter grieving couple driving down a foggy, very Irish countryside road to their new town of residence, Wake Wood, where Louise is the new town pharmacist and Patrick is the new veterinarian. Right off you get the vibe that things are not right. There is some freaky shit going on with the residents that I won't really explain because it's most fun to go into this film without a complete knowledge of what it's all about. I think it kinda sucks I went in knowing what I knew and hell, I guess I kind of spoiled it for you too in a way. But hey, this is a creepy, well filmed chiller that isn't short on the gore (not in a cheesy, slasher way) and despite it's similarities to earlier mentioned film, is very original and it did freak me the fuck out at some points..

No complaints, this delivered everything I ask of a horror film. It lacks all that I despise from the modern day bullshit we're churning out. Thanks Ireland.

5/5

The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia (2009) THUGGY

Most people that know me have heard at one time or another that my dream in life is to strike it big, buy a tricked out double wide with all the fixings, and move into a trailer park somewhere. I’m not sure how or when I began having this urge, but I assume it has something to do with my early childhood. Though I have never officially lived in a trailer park, my family did have an eight acre ranch in Albuquerque, NM that I spent a goodish amount of years at when I was a young whipper-snapper. This property looked like a mix between a junkyard, and a machine-part graveyard. Rusted out hulls of old cars and various unidentified metal was stacked haphazardly everywhere. So nowadays whenever I see places like that it gives me that familiar nostalgic kick in the cod-piece. For example, I am a big fan of “American Pickers” for such reasons. Uncle Douvee’s house from Van Damme’s “Hard Target” and "Old Lady" Hackmore’s place from “Earnest: Scared Stupid” also come to mind. Bottom line is that I want a lot of scary looking junk lying around, and I want the “Man” to stay off’d mah property!!!

The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia is a movie that I skipped over for months before this recent watch. Because I don’t have a new-fangled flat screen HDM whatever the fuck T.V. it’s next to impossible to read the new Netflix formats screen text. So I rather innocently assumed the movie was about some West Virginian prison and their Aryan Nation population and subsequently blew it off… Jokes on me.

The Dub and Dub Dubs of Dub V is actually about a legendary Boone County family that gained prominence in the mid-1980’s because of D. Ray White, the family patriarchs unbelievable talent in Appalachian “Mountain Dancing”. For those of you who don’t know what Mountain Dancing is (Don’t worry, I had to look it up myself) It is a sort of mix between clogging and tap-dancing that has been popular in Appalachia and other southern nations since this countries inception.

In the early eighties The Smithsonian Institute bankrolled a PBS documentary titled “Talking Feet: Buck, Flatfoot, and Tap in which D. Ray White was featured prominently, touted as the best Mountain Dancer in the United States. Unfortunately D. Ray was killed in a shootout before the movie was completed… He was fifty-eight years old… Amazing… This man was a G.

In 1991 PBS did a follow up documentary called “The Dancing Outlaw” on D. Ray’s son Jesco White who assumed the mantle of “Best Mountain Dancer in America”, instantly launching the White family into the type of fame only two PBS documentaries can provide. Hahaha.

“The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia” a Dickhouse production (Jackass) opens with various Boone County officials commenting on the families’ colorful and notorious nature. We are then introduced to Mimi White the self-proclaimed “Biggest and Baddest” of the White family, followed by Bertie Mae White(D.Ray’s Wife)”The Miracle Woman” because she raised thirty some-odd kids, Susan Rae White A.K.A. “Kirk”, then on to Sue Bob White, Bo White and so forth. Hank Williams III a close family friend comments on their legendary family throughout and provides much of the films soundtrack. Apparently The White family has been the subject of countless famous country and bluegrass songs and it is made quite obvious in the film. I loved this movie; I put it on around 3:00am and had Too Much Fun watching it. The family is outrageous, they smoke “the pot” around children of any age, and they snort prescription pills wherever they please like it’s going out of style. Cousins steal husbands and tear up each other’s houses; nephew’s shooting uncles, women talking about chopping people up and throwing them down mine shafts, and the flare with which they do all this is literally incredible. The Taco Bell scene needs to be seen to be believed and “The Boone County Mating Call” is priceless.

In all honesty, these people seem dysfunctional to “normal” folk, but in my humble opinion I feel like they might just be more sane then the majority of American families with all their resentment, deceit, and depreciation of self-worth. This family is going to hell as they themselves say, but they’re going to have a fuck-all of a time on the way there…

Clydesdale Scale: 2 Star…. I fucking loved this movie!!!

Rhipt Fuel: Afgoo Purps

Rhipt Viewing Rating: 1/5

RUBBER (2010) ROB

How the fuck can I begin to explain a film like Rubber? For anyone who doesn't know, Rubber is the story of an inanimate tire who has been abandoned in the desert in shit knows where for.. No reason. After a pretty fucking brilliant monologue explaining that this film is a tribute to no reason, we follow Robert as he rolls through the desert experimenting with his power of psychokinesis to explode heads.

And why else would a tire explode heads? No fucking reason..

The best way I could explain a film like this is "an adult Disney film." It just makes sense, from the score (extremely well done by Gaspard Auge and Mr. Ozio) to the fact that it has some weird, feel good attitude. Try not to smile as you witness this tire clumsily make his way through town and develop a strange interest in a beautiful European woman and blow up whoever's head he deems necessary.

It's a beautiful film that never slumps to a dull moment, constantly giving you the elbow in the ribs saying, "Get it? Get it?" which sounds ridiculous but it never stoops to the level you think it might and maintains a certain integrity throughout.

I feel awful, I'm going to bed. Rubber is on VOD and makes a limited theatrical run on April 1st, it's really just something you need to see to believe.

Let Me In (2010) THUGGY

Alright, before I get into this review I’d like to take the time to express to our readers that I am an AVID horror fan. A regular freak since childhood for all things terrifying and macabre, so when I hear classic horror (albeit a very recent classic) is being remade I usually find myself in fits of rage, cursing these Hollywood whores for their feeble-minded and cow-hearted outlook on profit vs. concept. Sadly this is not a new trend, as there have been around five-hundred and twenty-one movie remakes since films inception in the 1880’s. Now this is not to say that I abhor remakes… Hell, I spent most of my younger years thinking Bob DeNiro was the one and only incarnation of Max Cady in the ’91 version of Cape Fear, I just feel classics are made by risk and innovation… Bottom line is I came to this film assuming it would drown inside the massive size 15’s of “Let the Right One In” the 2008 Swedish masterpiece based on the book by John Ajvide Lindqvist…. Now get ready purists…. It did not.

For all of you film fans out there who haven’t seen “Let the Right One In” tsk tsk… The premise of “Let Me In” is this. Young Owen, a lonely and bullied middle school kid who is being raised by his mother due to an impending divorce finds himself the unwitting neighbor of Abby, a barefooted vampire child and her nameless father figure who’ve just moved in next door. Owen, left to his own devices due to his mother’s increasing despair and alcoholism spends most of his time after school in his apartment complex’s courtyard eating candy and stabbing trees, envisioning revenge upon his schoolyard bullies. It’s during one of these nightly forays that he first meets his new neighbor. Their interactions are at first cold but curious as she tells Owen she “Can’t be his friend”, but it is a small courtyard and they inevitably become strange allies, each looking out for one another in their own ways.

The film then cuts back and forth between Owen and Abby’s respective home lives. Owens being the solemn existence of an only child, constantly harried at school by a bully whom in my humble opinion is a bit over the top. Abby’s of course being the curse of having to spend her days in deep slumber locked in a darkened bathroom while her “father” makes his nighttime runs into town to abduct and drain locals of their life-blood. The “father” who we can only assume has been doing this type of work for god knows how long, coupled with his charges budding interest in Owen becomes sloppy, forcing Abby to hunt for herself leading to a string of very public murders and attacks which garner the attention of “The Policeman”.

As I’ve said, I began this film with apprehension and bias being a huge supporter of the original film, but was pleasantly surprised by the film being set in the early eighties during the dead of winter Los Alamos, New Mexico. I myself spent a portion of my childhood in Albuquerque and know firsthand the remoteness you feel there. Director Matt Reeves (Cloverfield) does a fantastic job keeping his camera still and creating a somber atmosphere to spin the tail of these two tragic characters, isolated in their own ways from everyone but each other. The shots are dry and desaturated, giving the film a cold feel that compliments not only the time of year, but also alludes to the fact that our Abby is very much; undead. I have to tip the old hat to Chloe Moretz who plays Abby, for her perfect portrayal of sorrow. She does not have a back story, she does not explain why she drinks blood, save for that she will die if she doesn’t. I was surprised to find out that she also played Hit-Girl in last year’s Kick-Ass, I didn’t make the connection at first because the two characters are polar opposites, and of course she isn’t wearing a mask the entire movie. Depicting Owen is Kodi Smit-McPhee (The Road), a great choice for the character in my mind because he sort of has the same look as Kåre Hedebrant who played Oskar in “Let The Right One In”, McPhee also nails his part adding to the sadness of the film. Abby’s “Father” is portrayed by Richard Jenkins, who has enjoyed a fairly full career appearing in movies like The Witches of Eastwick, Something About Mary, Me Myself & Irene, Step Brothers etc... The twist is that he is usually plays authority figures, professors, judges, and law enforcement types, so to see him placing jars of acid in his ruck-sack before going out to stab people in throat is oddly fantastic. Rounding out the main cast is none other than Elias Koteas who first won my heart decades ago with his portrayal of Casey Jones in the Original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, that and his part as Azazel in Denzel Washington’s “Fallen” solidified him in my mind as a bad ass. In this film he plays the straight man, a strictly by the book cop who obviously believes in his work, and is good at it.

The soundtrack is “rad” if you will, featuring classic 80’s hits from David Bowie, Culture Club, Blue Oyster Cult and others. Even now, a good two weeks after watching the movie (procrastinator deluxe) the thought of Blue Oyster’s “Burnin For You” playing in the background during one of “Fathers” truly terrifying abductions brings tears of joy to my eyes. There is CGI in the film which I could have done without, but Abby’s kills are fucking brutal, exactly what I would imagine a Vampire attack would play out like in real life, none of that soupy seduction stuff. Multiply all this with Reagan America’s “Satanic Panic”, then add it with being in a language I can understand (that’s not to say that I don’t watch foreign film, it’s just the subtle nuances that come with that subconscious “non-think” of the native tongue put me in a slightly closer place than the original), and you have a piece of American Horror that one can be proud of…

On the Clydesdale Scale I give this movie a 2 star

Please giant horses take your time in tearing my face off so I can finish this film!

Rhipt Fuel: Grandpappy Purps

Rhipt viewing rating: 2.5/5