0 stars

Australia

dir: Baz Luhrmann
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Pundits, wags and wits were saying that this here flick Australia was going to be Baz Luhrmann’s, and Australia’s, blockbuster answer to Titanic.

In a way they were right, in that Australia is a disaster, a tragedy and a testament to man’s arrogance and eternal hubris.

To say that this film is awful doesn’t really capture what is achieved in the opening half hour or so of this flick. I’m not sure if the film embarrasses me more simply by dint of my being Australian, or because I feel deep shame that people overseas watched this flick thinking it had something to do with Australia the country, as opposed to Australia, the Baz Luhrmann opium-suffused candy-coloured, brain dead fantasy.

That every living Australian actor is in this flick would seem to be a good thing, and doubtless it was for their bank balances. I do so enjoy it when the locals get paid work. It keeps them off the streets and lets them pay back the people they owe money to, if only for a while. But to say that they actually get to earn their tax-payer funded salaries would be stretching the truth even more than this travesty stretches the truth regarding our fair country’s history over the last century or so.

Rating: 
0 stars

Saw IV

dir: Darren Lynn Bousman
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This movie is fucking awful. I can’t sugarcoat it, I don’t have some other witty or vaguely amusing way to intro this review or to prepare the prospective viewer. This flick is terrible from beginning to end. But don’t think for a second that it’s consistently terrible, or that it maintains a steady tone of terribleness throughout. It starts off bad and keeps getting increasingly shittier and more nonsensical as it wears you down and just makes you want to die.

If you were ever a fan of these movies, you’re going to doubt your own judgement after watching this piece of abject shite. You are, or at least should be, wondering just how dumb you might be for ever having defended them to anyone.

Oh my good gods does it stink. It is horribly directed, the editing is irritating and confusing, the acting is shitty, the dialogue and script are atrocious and it just looks and plays out like something cobbled together from the collected deleted scenes from the other three movies in the Saw franchise.

Rating: 
0 stars

Next

dir: Lee Tamahori
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Are you fucking kidding me?

This flick is terrible by any of the standards you care to think of to apply. Except maybe that someone didn’t leave the lens cap on the camera. Maybe that’s the only bit they got right.

Everything else is, not to exaggerate too much, so fucking awful that it renders the film a crime against humanity. I’m amazed the film prints didn’t fall apart on the subatomic level and cause black hole singularities from the weight of their crapulousness. Destroying projectors, creating gaping holes of nothingness in the fabric of space/time, drawing in and disintegrating countless foolish movie patrons.

And to add insult to injury, it’s awful even by the standards of most Nicolas Cage films. Now, don’t get me wrong, Cage has starred in some movies that haven’t sucked completely and utterly. But he has starred in many that have sucked more than the infinite gravity of the aforementioned theoretical black holes. Such monumental powers of sucking necessarily make me wary whenever his name and creepy hairpieces appear onscreen.

Rating: 
0 stars

My Super Ex-Girlfriend

dir: Ivan Reitman
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It is indicative of how much of an optimist (read: lunatic) I really am that I thought this flick could be any good. What the hell was I thinking?

My Super Ex-Girlfriend is crap even compared to other mindless romantic comedies, ignoring the fact that it’s supposed to be a rom-com with the added spice of a superhero storyline. Absolutely woeful. Terrible script, awful performances and an idiotic plot that made me crave one day being deaf and blind so that I never have to see anything like this again.

Just terrible. And goddamn is it tremendously dumb. It could have been marginally entertaining had it just been less aggressively crap, or had any of the lines worked, or had it actually been funny. Some of these actors have done reasonable work in the past, but lumped in together here they bring out the mediocrity in each other so that the film sinks into a fetid swamp of crapulousness.

Rating: 
0 stars

House of 1000 Corpses

dir: Rob Zombie
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There was 1 retroactive laugh that I got out of this movie. At
its beginning, the onscreen credits read 'Written and Directed
by Rob Zombie'. That anyone claims credit for pretending to
write and direct this film is staggering, absolutely staggering.

Look, I knew going in that it wasn't going to be masterpiece
theatre. I mean it's called House of 1000 Corpses, for Christ's
sake. But people joke about how when something cinematic is so
crap that it's Z grade. This is one of the first pure examples
I think I've ever come across.

This is a work of such unremitting stupidity that I find it
amazing that it ever got released. What confuses me the most
is why they would release it in cinemas now in Australia. Not only that,
but they had 'special preview screenings', of which I was 'lucky'
enough to score a free ticket to. Although now I consider it
having been less of a prize and more of a punishment for some
sins best left forgotten.

Rating: 
0 stars

Love Actually

dir: Richard Curtis
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This is a singular work of staggering banality. Now, that’s an achievement and a half. From the makers of such romantic classics as Four Weddings and a Funeral and Notting Hill to make a film that eclipses those in terms of superficiality and mawkish sentimentality takes a phenomenal amount of skill, money and enough ham to cover the Tower of London three times over in order to achieve their goals. And goddamn them, they get there in the end.

I hate to say it, but this 2 hour commercial for whatever the hell it is that director Richard Curtis is ineptly selling made me want to destroy Christmas forever. If anything, despite the clear intention set out in the movie’s title to be a concentrated explosion of goodwill and love towards all men and women, this film, I believe, has decreased the amount of love that was previously available in the world. If you are a person for whom there is no more love, for whatever you thought was the reason you could get no love in your life, this crappy flick is responsible.

Rating: 
0 stars

Forsaken: Desert Vampires

Forsaken

you bunch of fucking hacks

dir: J.S. Cardone

2001

I watched the first session with about three other people in the audience. I'm amazed they stayed until the end. I'm amazed I stayed until the end.

The actual cinema (no. 4 Hoyts) I watched it in has a grand tradition, a legacy to live up to. Nearly ten years ago I had the good fortune to be horribly drunk on a Sunday night, and the female friend in my company was even more drunk than I. As she was an esteemed employee of the Hoyts Corporation, we were lucky enough to just be able to walk into any of the films showing, whenever we wanted to. This particular night we staggered into a "special" screening, an advance screening for an upcoming release that was expected to do big business.

The audience was packed, we tried to quietly make our may to the only available seats, but had as much luck as a sumo wrestler wearing nylon. It was about half way through the film, but considering our blood alcohol levels, it didn't matter.

We settled in our seats, dazzled by the bright lights and the big people on the screen, watched fifteen minutes, laughed uproariously at its high crappiness, loudly screamed "This is shit!" and staggered out again. That film was called Garbo, one of the worst Australian films (if that isn't a tautology) of all time. We found out later that the special screening included members of the cast and crew, and their families.

So, this particular theatre has a history of showing quality films. I was ready for anything. But this time I didn't have the luxury of being drunk to dull the pain.

This is easily one of the dumbest vampire films ever made. Trust me on this, I pride myself on my knowledge and my watching of as many vampire films as inhumanly possible. This is of the most worthless, certainly. This isn't one of those "it's so bad, it's good, in a campy sort of way" type of deals, it doesn't have at least a sufficiency of breasts, gore, fucking and fighting to make up for the lack of plot. It just sucked.

Rating: 
0 stars