Escape from L.A. (1996)

Director: John Carpenter
Stars: Kurt Russell, Steve Buscemi


Review:

John Carpenter is one of my favourate director. He works with low budget and made the film work with atomsphere. Some of his works are really good, like the Original Halloween (1978) and the Thing (1982) which is my most favourate Horror movie of all time. Some of them are bad, but doesnt mean they are not enjoyable. They are cheap and stupid but fun to watch in a strange way I myself could not fully explain.

Escape from L.A. is one of the bad ones. The plot is pretty much the same as Escape from New York: some shit happened, L.A. is seperated from the continent by a flood and used as a place for exiling criminals and everyone who "unfit to live in a new America". The criminals seduced the president's daughter and ordered her to stole some weapons apparently, and Snake Plissken (Kurt Russell) went in to L.A. to retrieve the weapon and kill the girl.

There are so many stupid scenes in this film, but all in a playful fun way. You can feel that John Carpenter is having fun with it, and aware just how stupid it is. In a scene, Snake was surrounded by a bunch of villains with guns, and he propose that he played a game of "Bangkok Rules", that they all draws when a can he threw up hits the ground, and the quickest survives. This happened also in Hitman (2007). But in Hitman, the hero and the villains played along the rules, but in this, Snake guned them all down before the can hits the ground. This is like asking just how many more dumb could movie villains get?

Dumbass.

I was told that Snake is a bad-ass, but just how many times could he fails? He was captured and tricked so many times, despite the fact it always come back. But he even fell for the "look over there" gag in this movie. 

Dumbass.

Also stupid scenes include Snake playing basketball and surfing to chase a car. But it doesnt make you angry since you feel that the director is fully aware and having fun with it, and you laughs along. The special effects are bad, that I agree. I rather it use animatronics and minitures, but they goes for many modern movies nowadays.

Put yourself in a right mood for a movie that just for fun, and this is not such a bad movie, but this is coming from a mouth of a guy that even enjoy Vampires (1998) and Ghosts of Mars (2001). If you enjoy cheap movies like me, give it a watch.

High Plains Drifter (1973)

Director: Clint Eastwood
Stars: Clint Eastwood


Review:
This maybe one of the first movies that Clint Eastwood directs, who turned into a great director nowadays. But I am always a fan of spaghetti westerns and Clint Eastwood as "The man with no name" who we know and love.

It starts like a conventional western, with a mixture of plot from High Noon (1952), The Magnificent Seven (1970), and a little bit of Il Mercenario (1968). A town had some enemies that has just been released from jail, and planned to get revenge on the town folks. They hired a stranger that just stopped by to handle the bad guys, and promised the stranger everything he wanted in town with no charge, and he wanted a bit too far. As the film progresses, we understands the townfolks had themselves a little secret, and the strangers might not be dropping by afterall.

It really shows that the style and direction is different between american westerns and spaghetti westerns. Though I like spaghetti westerns more, this one gives something different in visual and feel. An anti-hero he might be in "The Dollars Trilogy", Eastwood in more evil and sinister in the film, and adds to the coolness of this character. It is no doubt that the main character of the video game "Blood", my favourate game of all time, was inspired from this movie.

In comparision, I still prefer the Dollars Trilogy, for the drama, score, and uplifting feeling. But this one is just awesome in its own right.

Shelter (2010)

Director: Måns Mårlind, Björn Stein
Stars: Julianne Moore


Review:


There is not much to say about this film actually. The plot is derivative and predictable, with some silly moments. The first hour of the film is filled with nothing to interest you except for cheap scares and false climax, and even those you can tell from a minute before happening.


A psychiatric doctor tells his daught Cara (Moore) who is also a psychiatric doctor  about his patient that is having multiple personality disorder. But why is this case out of other cases of multiple personality disorder is so interesting I do not know. Maybe a shrink and figure it out but the audience probably is not. The patient, calls himself David, was a cripple. But when he changes to another personality called Adam, he can walk but have colour blind. So the theory is Adam is the host and David is imaginery. "Why didnt you let me interview Adam first?" "That wouldnt be so interesting." The father replied.


Later Cara found out the real David was murdered, and took the patient to the site where the murder happened, and he switched to another personality and gives Cara a cheap scare. "Why didnt you told me about another personality!?" "Because you didnt asked! Because you only want to prove me wrong!" The father replied. 


When Cara watched the security camera recording over the patient, some dark shadow seems to lurk around and get sucked into the patient. Cara asked his brother "Did you see that?" His brother replied, "Nah, you know father." It really makes me laugh that apparently their father had a reputation being a prankster.


When it progresses it does savage a little bit but still very predictable. So things are real, the patient is not just a psycho, but we have heard that tale many times before. Towards the end the film basically turns into a slasher film with a non-iconic villian.

Julianne Moore's role reminded me of her performance in Red Dragon, which is terribly boring. But she seems to be able to give more, and was impressive being the eccentric sexual artist in The Big Lebowski. I guess just dont do anymore investigator role.

Tokyo Gore Police (2008)

Director: Yoshihiro Nishimura
Stars: Eihi Shiina


Review:
Is this a comedy?

There are movies that contain so much gore, but are making fun of it and obviously are comedies, like Braindead. Some movies wanted to scare you, but fail in every level that make you laugh uncontrollably, like (M. Night Shyamalan)  Signs. But how about this one? Is the director aware how hilarious this is? I am not sure.

The movie simply tells you all the facts in the beginning: tokyo police force is privatized; there are some human-transformed monsters who kill polices, called "engineers"; their wounds turns into weapons, and can only be killed by destroying a certain key-shaped tumour in their body; the main protagonist Ruka is a engineer hunter. During the movie we know that Ruka's father was murdered during a protest against the privatization of the police force, and Ruku was raised by the privatized police force. Spoiler alert! Guess whose behind the assassination.

It seems there is a theme going on, that tries to question infinite punishment on criminals...but wait, what am I talking about? How do you take something seriously when you see a man's head got chopped off in half, and his eyeballs became a gun barrel that shots flesh. It may be powerful but how does this guy sees and aims? Ruku chops off the arms of a guy that molested her on the railway, and he sprays blood as if it was snowing while Ruku put off an umbrella and walked away. It was brutal but I wanted to laugh at how that man became a snowing machine just to make a scene.

I can shot bullets from my eyes but I cant see shit.

The part that is most hilarious to me is when her father is murdered. Her father was in the demostration again police privatization, and when he was giving a salute to Ruka, a guy stood up besides him, and shot him in the head. Was the assassin crouching all the time to wait for the chance? Didnt all other people see a weird guy crouching besides him? Besides, this guy is a professional assassin that can shot the target in Tokyo tower from Fuji Mountain. Shouldn't he be standing a little bit further?

Dont mind me crouching with a gun. It's nothing at all.

But it kept showing satiric advertisement like it meant to express something about the Japanese society, like a Wrist cutter adv aimed for schoolgirls; a suicide prevention ad saying "Seppuku (Disembowelment by yourself) is suicide". But I lost track on all the gore and funny scenes such as this:

Ahhhhh....I'm dying.....

In the same breath as Braindead or Riki-Oh, this maybe considered as the gorest movie ever made. In a normal star rating ratio I would give 1.5 out of 5 probably, but as a cult movie, I give a 3.