Right off the bat, I?m going to disappoint anyone who was hoping to hear what I thought of Stealth in this week?s column.
It looks like they combined the worst elements of 2001: A Space Odyssey and Top Gun, although to be honest, I haven?t bothered to go and see it yet.
I firmly believe that big explosions are not reason enough to see a movie. If that?s all I want, $20 worth of gasoline, a book of matches, and an open field will do just fine.
If I?m wrong and it turns out that Jamie Foxx wins another Oscar for his performance in Stealth, I will apologize and never write about movies ever again.
Anyway, while we?re waiting for the Oscar nominations to see if I still have a career in writing, let?s talk about something else.
Specifically, lets talk about the most disgusting, twisted, depraved movies of recent memory. The movies I?m referring to are ones that are so vile, they made even me cringe.
In the past year, only two movies have managed to make it into this category, and as such, I think they each deserve a moment of our time.
(They also deserve some recognition because they were two of my favourite films of the past year, and I?ll let you decide what that says about me.)
First of all, we have Team America: World Police.
This is the latest offering from Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the guys behind South Park. Their stated purpose in making Team America was to make a Jerry Bruckheimer movie entirely with marionettes. (Bruckheimer was the producer of The Rock, Armageddon, and Bad Boys, among dozens of other action classics.)
Parker and Stone go beyond this, making the largest marionette movie ever, and also making one of the most biting pieces of social satire in recent memory.
However, they also include a marionette sex scene, and if actual actors had performed that scene, it would easily garner an X rating.
Team America is out on DVD, and if you can stand some truly degenerate humour, as well as political satire and all around South Park style jokes, I urge you to check it out.
The second movie that managed to disgust me in the past year was Sin City.
Based on three comic books by Frank Miller, this is the first comic book adaptation I?ve really loved since Batman Forever.
Its use of colour, and its unbelievable devotion to the comic books it?s adapted from make it an unbelievable masterpiece.
If you want to try, you can literally take the comic book and use it as an editing guide for the movie; where the panels change, the shots change; and dialogue is virtually identical.
However, the comic books are for the most introverted, twisted individuals, and when that?s transferred to the big screen, it can be a bit much to take.
There are two decapitations (and actually carrying around of severed heads,) two castrations, and more prostitutes and strippers than I can count.
Sin City comes out on DVD on August 16th, and if you haven?t seen it yet, this is a must see.
Now, I didn?t bring up these disgusting movies for no reason at all. There?s another one that show?s promise of being added to the list.
The Aristocrats, a documentary about one of the dirtiest jokes ever told promises to be the sort of movie that you probably shouldn?t watch right after eating.
The joke, which can be told in anywhere from two minutes to two hours, dates back over a century, and is told by a hundred different comedians including George Carlin, Drew Carey, Whoopi Goldberg, Chris Rock, Bob Saget, Robin Williams, and many more.
I haven?t seen it yet, but The Aristocrats opened in New York and L.A. this weekend, and I?ve been ravenously consuming the press it?s already received.
AMC has announced that will not screen The Aristocrats in any of its theatres ? presumably because it?s just too vulgar.
Many reviewers have sung its praises, although it has its share or haters too.
For now, it?s only screening in L.A. and New York, but like a dirty joke, it starts spreading out across North America over the next few weeks.
TMZ is reporting that there was physical contact between Charlie Sheen and wife Brooke Mueller, but the investigation continues about who was the initial aggressor. According to TMZ, Mueller placed a 911 call Friday morning saying that Sheen had assaulted her. When police arrived, Sheen claimed that his wife started the altercation, and he was just trying to defend himself.
This past week on Penn and teller’s show, “Penn and Teller: Bullsh*t” they tackled the topic of video games, and namely video game violence. Now, I’ve dabbled in my own research dissecting violence in video games and their effect on the youth from a strictly ethical point of view (no psychology or any other brain rape involved) and it all came down to a small number of children not being able to tell the difference between real life and fantasy… Either that or negligent parents who provide their kids with M rated games at the age of 10 (more on this later).
