"I love the smell of napalm in the morning" - Apocalypse Now
"What is your major malfunction, numbnuts?" - Full Metal Jacket
"I was planning to hit the Pentagon next week" - TRON
"As long as there's, you know, sex and drugs, I can do without the rock and roll." - Spinal Tap
"What kind of man are you? I bring up comics and you're talking chicks and romance?" - Mallrats
"You know... the Nazis had pieces of flair. They made the Jews wear them" - Office Space
"Know your dope fiend! Your life may depend on it! You will not be able to see his eyes because of Tea-Shades, but his knuckles will be white from inner-tension and his pants will be crusted with semen from constantly jacking off when he can't find a rape victim. He will stagger and babble when questioned. He will not respect your badge. The Dope Fiend fears nothing. He will attack, for no reason, with every weapon at his command - including yours. BEWARE. Any officer apprehending a suspected marijuana addict should use all necessary force immediately. One stitch in time (on him) will usually save nine on you." - Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Jimmy Weasel - Sunday, February 27, 2005
De Niro. He scares the jesus out of me more than Walken and Lugosi combined into one jesus-scaring zombie hybrid. On the surface, he's this cuddly bear of an old man. Underneath that surface, once you peel back his wrinkly skin, you'll find a den of malevolent, potential negative energy. He practically seethes throughout the entire film with anxious fear for his motherless child. It's the kind of fear that spreads through the audience like ebola through a crowded ward of hapless convulsives.
That aside, it's not De Niro that's the scariest in this film. It's the little girl. Or rather, the little girl under the influence of her imaginary friend. She has the 'vacant stare' dialled. And it gets progressively worse throughout the entire film. Dakota Fanning gets more sullen and weird as time progresses until it is realised that "imaginary" and "friend" are completely dependant upon frames of reference.
Read the rest of Hide & Seek review
Jimmy Weasel - Thursday, November 11, 2004
"Bad Santa" is correct. This is the worst Santa fathomable. Belligerent. Grouchy. Drunk. It's pretty much what a rollicking Christmas comedy needs—and I daresay that the coming slew of Christmas cinema will be nowhere as obscene as this.
Obscenity aside, there are a great many laughs to be had from a great many things. For example, the weird relationships that exist between each of the characters. Each of these relationships is well played upon for a more complete comedic experience.
Read the rest of Bad Santa - George St Cinemas 10 November 2004 review
Ethan Switch - Thursday, October 21, 2004
Time on the dashboard reads 05:55, the printed email confirmation for the Evil Meets Evil night notes a 6:15pm start. With a heavy downpour in peak hour traffic there is no way the trip will take a mere twenty minutes. Things were readied by all accounts at 1733 but as Norrin chose to take a shower at that precise moment—despite being awake for twenty-five hours straight—hopes for making early, gone.
Chugging along in pre-form grid-lock on the way to Fox Studios in Moore Park, the muffler strums the head prepping it for an aneurysm. Along with the prospect of not knowing why a preview screening for "a special viewing of Killzone never before seen footage and a preview of Resident Evil: Apocalypse" takes place so early in the evening thoughts immediately turn to curbing other thoughts that would leave the hands bloody and the clothes momentarily stained with guilt.
Read the rest of Resident Evil 2: Apocalypse; Evil Meets Evil aborted review
Ethan Switch - Thursday, October 7, 2004
Just out of the carpeted area near the box office of the George street cinema complex is a man holding a sign desperate to sell a preview pass for the night’s feature, Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid (a sequel of sorts to the Jennifer Lopez and Jon Voight monster movie, Anaconda). At an unabashed $15 not a single person paid a second look and nobody from the front of house staff bothered to usher his sneaker wearing feet from the area. Factor in the dress of the man resembling that of an unkempt homeless guy, the cardboard notice inked with as much stain, and a diseased look. Maybe they weren’t getting near for another reason.
Empty seats in a red sea of wariness filled cinema nine showing up the poor attendance of a free preview screening. Behind, two couples with mouths squeaky and in front, a woman writing a review in the dark with her two cracked up friends. To think again, most of the section toward the back were either on crack, freshly toasted or wanted to star in their own kind of Mystery Science Theatre 3000.
Read the rest of Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid review
Jimmy Weasel - Sunday, September 5, 2004
Scary film? Only if you're scared by films. Or by malevolent ideas. The Village is another film by the guy that sent shivers up my spine in that part of Signs when that creepy alien sillhouette appears on the barn. I found The Village to be completely engrossing and well, creepy. Impossible (for me) to predict where the story was headed - and rather annoying to anyone nearby to hear predictions.
It's a tale of a village surrounded by forest harbouring creatures that are unable to be spoken of/about. They disapprove of certain colours and of people of the aforementioned village venturing too far into the surrounding forests. So the people go about their business, (which is uncertain - I think it's primarily milking cows or frollicking) and hope the creatures go about their business (mainly of growling and looking scary) without too much interaction.
Read the rest of The Village review
Jimmy Weasel - Saturday, July 24, 2004
There are those who say Michael Moore is a bad person. They'll say he's unpatriotic. That he's slovenly and loud. There are also those who say the complete opposite; that he is saintly and wonderful and hang onto every word he says. This film fits into the same category as his previous Bowling for Columbine which brings to the screen things that may not provide comfortable viewing. It's not the kind of film you'd expect a comedian to make. It does point out the connections between the Bush administration, his cronies, Oil, the Bin Laden Family, and Fat Stacks of Cash. I was able to follow things like that because Jello Biafra had introduced me to such ideas in his spoken word tour last November. And the crowd he drew was more than partially full of idiots. There were only one or two such idiots in the cinema who decided to make their feeling more vocal. But I was only paying to see one whiner, and he was on the screen...
The film does progress in an easy to follow manner. And he does illustrate how "the money" filters through from one end to the other, and whose hands it graces on its merry travels. There are sequences of the film that show a whole bunch of Dubya clips in and out of context, so as best to make him look like an idiot. Not a difficult task, really. Out of context or no, the fact remains that George W Bush is, to his frail reeking core, an idiot. He'd still be an idiot if Moore made no films at all. This is beside the point. The point is, after 9-11, there was a lot of covering up and delaying of investigations. This film seeks out the possible reasons behind such things.
Read the rest of Fahrenheit 9/11 - Michael Moore review
Ethan Switch - Wednesday, July 7, 2004
Faces, people, it's all about the faces. Especially that of the main star, Tobey Maguire as Peter Parker/Spider-Man. Fighting off the hidden mask appeal with Alfred Molina as Doctor Octopus, it's a wonder if anyone really cares if a nobody on the street with a menial job garners much in the awe and attention of passers-by helpless and at the saving grace of said web-slinger.
Read the rest of The Amazing Spider-Man aka Spider-Man 2 review
Ethan Switch - Saturday, June 5, 2004
Unseen vomit threw a detour in earlier plans to watch notable athletes and community people running in shorts in a winter evening kept warm by a travelling Olympic flame. Jade managed to find a parking slot on Friday night in Newtown, helped by a disappearing man waving semaphore. For all the drop in temperature it couldn't have been so cold to have frozen off depth perception. The girl who walked straight into a glass door proved otherwise. Meeting up with Atom, a napkin was burnt in a candle setting to make up for missing something set on fire.
Leading ahead of the main, In Too Deep, a short comedy with a familiar looking chubby man. Magnetic to the point of distraction, the humour in the eyes holds the script nicely with a muted final punch. The fact that it started out looking very much like that of a standard commercial was a little perplexing. No signs of branding quelled that thought quick smart. One lingering bleed over into Supersize Me was the actual length of the final credits for the short.
Read the rest of Supersize Me - Dendy Newtown Cinemas review
Jimmy Weasel - Wednesday, April 21, 2004
The hype would have you believe that this film is porn. That it should have been banned. That it should never have been made and its director should have been put in the stocks and rotting vegetation flung at his reeking head for creating such a piece.
But it's not so.
Read the rest of Irreversible review
Belvedere Jehosophat - Saturday, April 10, 2004
I generally have little time for movies based on books (or novellas) by Stephen King – the only decent adaptation of a Stephen King book being The Shining, and, even then, mostly because the prodigiously talented Stanley Kubrick directed it.
However, this movie, unlike, say, Sleepwalkers, was directed well; the suspense was suspenseful, the creepiness creepy, and the violence grisly.
Read the rest of Secret Window review
Jimmy Weasel - Monday, March 22, 2004
I've never knowingly seen a Charlize Theron movie before, and I doubt I'd ever deliberately see a film because of her. In fact, the only person I think would lure me into a darkened cinema would be Johnny Depp. But he didn't get any award from the Academy, so it's time I checked out the winning stable...
The Paris Cinemas (or whatever they're called) are located in the bowels of Fox Studios, and you'll need to flash your pre-purchased movie tickets to use the facilities. But the seats are good. All of them. And the pre-film advertisements are few. Many items falling in their favour.
Read the rest of Monster review
Ethan Switch - Wednesday, February 25, 2004
For those who came in late, Mel Gibson relented and subtitles are found throughout The Passion. Unlike Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon though, Chinese wasn't spoken. Instead, Aramaic and Latin. Presumed languages of the day and while it would have been great to experience an alternate reality borne of the string theories to witness the movie without the subtitles, that's a feat for more travelled Sliders.
Armed with the main gist of The Bible over years of references and sidebars would be enough to weather through the foreign tongues and faces of the men and women who show up during the course of the film. Flashbacks present a rounded way of setting up and showing how these people came to know and walk with Jesus.
Read the rest of The Passion of The Christ review
Ethan Switch - Tuesday, November 11, 2003
Ambling into the emptied theatre sounded almost like walking into the credits of a Farscape feature film. Alas, that is still to be and instead, the final minutes of The Matrix Revolutions of the session prior. Outside keeping focus were a few hidden objects in the displays for Eddie Murphy's The Haunted Mansion. Time was trickling and the people started to fill the seats. First it looked hopeful toward a small gathering of only five, but then a rowdy load of teenagers brought the number up to thirty.
On sight of the final scene of The Matrix Revolutions the back row brought on a wave of applause. This coming from the group who earlier on gave the distinct impression that they were in the wrong place, highly expecting Jackie Chan's The Medallion type action and reaction. The type of talk that swims into itself endlessly carrying on a ripple of sense once but now no longer.
Read the rest of The Matrix Revolutions review
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