TURO PAJALA (1955-2007) - ARIEL

Irmeli Katariina Pihlaja: [Taisto and Irmeli have just been on their first date] What shall we do now?

Taisto Olavi Kasurinen: Let's get married and have a child.

Irmeli Katariina Pihlaja: I already have a child.

Taisto Olavi Kasurinen: That's good. We'll spare some time.

Irmeli Katariina Pihlaja: Are you always so self-confident?

Taisto Olavi Kasurinen: This is the first time.

JUAN PABLO REBELLA - 1974-2006

MATTI PELLONPÄÄ

SHADOWS IN PARADISE - I'm Nikander...

I don't want anything from anybody. I'm Nikander, ex-butcher, now a garbage man. Bad teeth and stomach, liver barely hanging on, which is more than I can say for my head. No use asking what I want. 

HEADHUNTERS - Hilarious Norwegian Gruesome Action

DOG DAYS - Austrian Nasty

After watching Dog Days a couple of things are clear; Austria is comprised of millions of the ugliest people in the world, and oh yeah, and they are all a bunch of pervs and weirdos.

KILL LIST - Smash That Head Like a Watermelon

Weird, bizarre, funny and horrifying. Kill List also has the best 'hammer smashing' scene in the history of cinema.

DREAM HOME - Sick, Sick Tale of Real Estate

SHUT UP LITTLE MAN!

BOBBY FISCHER AGAINST THE WORLD

Not that I can relate to people this brilliant...but...fucking awesome... Smart guy, weirdo, hero, anti-semitic jew, Fischer was truly one of a kind.

TAKE SHELTER - Crazy Eyes

Michael Shannon has a face like he's about to poop gods...

SUBMARINE - Awww, that was sweet...

I am a total sucker for this kind of well-done bullshit...

HAROLD & MAUDE - Movie Poster

A few years ago I stumbled upon a framed copy of this poster at a thrift store. I paid $5 for it. It was in pretty good shape. I loved it for its great design as well as because it is for one of my favorite movies.

One day I got back from work and my girlfriend had thrashed it. She hated it, almost as much as I hate the music of Spandau Ballet.

At first I thought the quote at the bottom right was by Charles Chaplin.

THE LAST CIRCUS - Movie Poster

Caught The Last Circus (Balada Triste de Trompeta) on Netflix streaming this lazy christmas afternoon. I had seen the trailer online and was looking forward to it. Didn't have anything precise in mind, but being somewhat familiar with the work of Alex de la Iglesia I was expecting some kind of excess.

One thing is for sure, there is no way I could have prepared for the type of overload that this over the top movie delivers.

After seeing La Comunidad a few years back I thought the Spanish auteur had matured a bit but The Last Circus shows that this guy is sicker than ever. Gratuitous violent, glossy gore and a plot that makes almost no sense come together for a movie that at times reminds of Jodorowsky's Santa Sangre and at others reminds of just a B movie that looks pretty fucking neat.

AMER - Best Movie Poster I've Seen in a While

RED STATE - The Best Work of Kevin Smith and That's Not Saying Much

Just watched this movie a couple of nights ago, I enjoyed it. It helps that I had no expectations.

I had no expectations pretty much because I think that along with M Night Shyamalan, Smith is one of the most overrated directors ever. But this direct to video so-called horror movie came preceded of decent press so I was excited.

One thing to note is that the poster on the left is pretty cool. Inverted crosses and all, I could hardly qualify Red State as a horror movie. Maybe 'religious drama' or something along those lines would be more accurate.

Anyway, religious fanatics always make for pretty entertaining 'entertainment' and one thing to note is that the actors that play the fanatics in this movie get it right. Not to get too much into name dropping and such, but it was good to see a trimmed John Goodman doing his best and then the old lady from The Fighter actually making us hate her almost immediately. Those two are the best, and then of course the dude that does the voice of the stupidest guy in King of the Hill, he was pretty cool, plus he dies a quick blood splattering death, so he gets points for that.

BAJO LA PIEL - Watch It If You Find It

In this day and age, where almost every movie ever made is available for free download online, it is still impossible to find a link to this old Peruvian film, let alone a good quality hard copy.

I watched it for the first time a few years ago, after I found an old taped straight form the TV VHS copy at a small video store in Queens, NY. The movie is excellent, especially if what you dig are good thrillers. And I could notice all this, despite the fact that the image quality and even the audio where so shitty, there were entire segments where I could barely make out the actor's faces or hear exactly what they were saying.

The movie involves a small town cop who falls for a Spanish archeologist who likes to get fucked a bit too freely. The cop grows jealous and shit starts flying. Bajo La Piel is the  type of movie that Hitchcock would have made, had he been born in Peru. Bajo la Piel is also the type of movie that fucking Facets should have in its catalogue, but that tragically, it hasn't.

HESHER - Fuck the World and Fuck This Movie

I know we are supposed to be digging this movie just because it has some metal in it and because the lead character is played by the kid form 3rd Rock From the Sun, but for reals, I could only stand about the first twenty minutes of it, which by all means were actually pretty funny. It was not that the movie took a turn for the worse, but that it actually didn't go anywhere.

There is this kid, right? He gets shit in school, his dad is played by the goofy flabby guy from The Office and he has a beard because I guess when your family dies, you just stop shaving, because that means you don't give a shit. And then there's his grandma, who is this old bitch that really doesn't count and actually only comes into play in the last part of the movie.

Anyway, he misses his mom because she just died in a car accident. Enter Hesher, a long-haired hippy who prefers shitty tattoes and really, truly doesn't give a shit about anything or anyone. Hesher just hangs around, without a shirt and really just speaks non sense for a good while. Not much happens then. Oh yeah, there is Natalie Portman who is all made up to look like a dorky ugly, and actually the kid is in love with her, but inevitably, it is Hesher who ends up putting his pecker up her bird nest...  Anyway, this movie sucks. Fuck it...it sucks almost as much as the Iron Lamb record, which I am listening to right now, and actually, really fucking sucks. 

CELDA 211 - Recommended Viewing

I have thought several times about cancelling Netflix. Especially since they spiked their prices and didn't even bother sending me a notice.  Mostly it's because I don't get to watch too many good movies.

Lately, this Spanish film was able to captivate me. That's kind of a prissy word, ain't it? Anyway, you get the idea. Good plot, good acting. Very tense film. Not a lot of fighting, but enough build up to compensate for the lack of physical violence.

I guess Celda 211 won a few awards in Spain. The eyebrows of Luis Tosar should have gotten their own statue. Motherfucker is hairy. Bald but hairy. Which is like the biggest irony God ever created...if he exists. Otherwise we can just say life sucks...

Anyway, I tend to like movies where the protagonist/good guy dies. And that happens in this one. Not only that, but so does his pregnant girlfriend.  I hope I didn't just ruin the experience for you...

Couldn't Sleep Last Night - DOGTOOTH

Couldn't sleep last night indeed. So I ended up watching the Greek movie Dogtooth. Twice.  It was about 3:30 a.m. when the movie finished and by then I had been shaken so hard I was unable to get any sleep until the following night. 

I am not an Academy Awards historian but I bet this has got to be the most disturbing movie to ever be nominated for a Best Foreign Film Award. Admirable if we consider that the gathering of old farts who pick this and that for this ceremony have us used to Driving Miss Daisy type of fare. A pervert must have squirmed his way through their puritanical ranks.

The word 'weird' does not begin to describe the extremes Dogtooth reaches. And one needs not be shown any grotesque images to realize that Dogtooth is going to be a unique and shocking cinematic experience. As the movie opens, the father is driving a woman to his house to fulfill his son's sexual desire. Once there, communication is minimal and the sex is quite explicit. Judging by the son's expressions we could deduce that pleasure is the last thing he gets from sex. But he is a boy and his father at least understands his urges. The daughters are then left to discover sex on their own and so they do, with each other.

For a good while it is hard to get a grasp of what Dogtooth is all about. The language the protagonists use is rudimentary and the acting is minimal. And when I say minimal I mean there is rarely any acting, as each sentence is delivered with the grace of a sack of flour and the phisicality the actors display is non-existent, maybe because our physical movements are to a degree learned from interaction and these greeks have been deprived of the outside world. Regardless, I guess you have got to have some acting chops if what you are going to do in front of a camera is give somebody a handjob or get your head bashed in with a VHS tape. By the way, both of those scenes are pretty cool.

Once one is in the loop and those distinctive dry notes Dogtooth strikes about every second stop distracting us from what is really happening it is obvious that director Giorgios Lanthimos has created a whole separate world, one in which the patriarch is an absolute dictator and his family has become an aberration, they have been minimized to play peons in this world of his. The world outside does not exist to them. And the promise of escape, says the father, will only come true when their canines (hence Dogtooth) appear.

If you are going to watch Dogtooth I suggest you prepare for incest. Explicit incest. And also prepare for violence. The physical violence this movie shows is hard to watch but is not as intense as the emotional violence this movie unleashes. In the most memorable scene we can observe what to them (the characters have no names) equals a fun night out. 'Out' meaning the living room. 'Fun' meaning the son playing guitar and the daughters dancing like a couple of epileptics whose last bit of memory is a scene of Flashdance. If their parents are in delight of the show, they sure are good at concealing it. As we understand it, this may be fun for them, but for the moviegoer it is pure fucking torture.

Somebody called Dogtooth an 'erotic horror film'. I disagree. The sex shown here is far from erotic. But the horror is all too real.