Full deliriously awkward title: The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans
The very existence of this movie is proof that the universe has a sense of humor. Not quite a remake and not quite a sequel, this re-quel to the 1992 article-deprived original Bad Lieutenant, starring Harvey Keitel as a morally and chemically compromised officer of the law, is batshit insane. Nicolas Cage has never been more Nic or more Cage than he is in this movie. It’s very nearly a cosmic event.
Watchmen oozes cool. The end is so punk rock it makes me want to smash a TV with an actual rock in a show of solidarity. It deconstructs the American hero/superhero and exposes all the gooey messed up insides that compel them. Zack Snyder, auteur behind the extremely watchable 300, doesn’t so much adapt the subversive graphic novel for the screen as directly lift scenes from its pages and bring them crackling to life. The result is a mess but it’s a wonderful mess that I find myself increasingly eager to romp in again and again.
Underneath the “knocked up at 16″ afterschool special premise of Juno was a movie about a girl struggling to define what a family is and whether love really exists. In the same way, Jennifer’s Body has the equally schlocky premise of a demon-possessed, man-eating, cheerleader skank when in actuality it’s more about the phenomenon of “best friends forever” and the sometimes symbiotic, sometimes toxic nature of those relationships. It’s far more interesting than the TV ads and reviews would have you believe.
The boar got fat on the richness of the land,
until his girth was too much for his frame to hold
and he returned drowsily to his mother
with the hope for milk from teats long sucked dry
At his back every minute of every day the shadow of the tiger uncaged.
no longer was he nimble, and he couldn’t turn his head
to see his passing fancies double back upon him
revenge in their heart and daggers in their hands
the tracks that lead him deeper still into the jungle
may have been his own, but still he fret the shadow of the tiger uncaged
“There’s nothing to fear,” He told himself twice over breakfast
“All of this running will only leave me weaker,
for when the real striped menace appears, I should rest.”
but his restlessness was too much a habit,
thinner still his fearful body grew in the shadow of the tiger uncaged
Then one day
the boar
stopped.
Eating.
Drinking.
Running.
He stopped all but the living.
And there before him came a great and powerful Tiger who said,
“Why did you run away from me, pig?”
to which the boar replied,
“Why were you chasing me?”
to which the Tiger replied,
“I wasn’t.”
The pig closed his eyes
and there he lie within the shadow of the tiger uncaged
Happy New Year to all my inu-tachi. The future is what we make of it!
Rob Zombie’s Halloween II is not a great film but it’s an interesting one. Like his first remake of John Carpenter’s original, his sequel stares death in the face with a sick, clinical fascination, only this time death stares the fuck back.
One thing I applaud Zombie for is his willingness to make unpretty scenes. The movie starts with the aftermath of Michael Myer’s legendary killing spree and almost immediately strips the glamour away; the grunt level police officers mumble complaints about having to lug the bodies around and the survivors struggle for a life that may not be worth returning to when they realize just how scarred and crippled they’ve been left by their chance encounter with the devil. Later scenes in the movie reveal a Zombie that wants to know why we find this ugliness entertaining.
