Reviews

Generally speaking, I like dark stuff. Even in comedies. There's something mean spirited about this one. Thomas is a nice guy who gets taken advantage of. Dion the cook is one of the people, and his father is just unreasonably nasty. Dion is in trouble with the local gangster, and so violence is perpetrated on him, and by him. I suppose it's the sex I found most troubling. Dion has sex with everything that moves. Thomas is fond of the manager that they hire, and she is fond of him. That doesn't matter to Dion. At one point Dion is confronted by her for his deceptions, and he just bends her over table and starts ramming. In all likelihood Dion also had sex with Thomas's wife.

Most of the time Stephen King doesn't seem to know how to end his books. It's as if he writes and writes and then gets tired of it. I think the novellas and short stories often make better movies. I was surprised how well the book ended, and so I was disappointed with the movie. I am not a purist. I prefer the movie of The Shining by Kubrick to the book, and they are very different animals.

The nice thing about the ending in the book is that things were open-ended. There's a balance between the stupidity of the people (the ignorant and the willful ignorant) and the stupidity of our government scientists who have created the mess in the first place.

What the screenwriters did was to show the government fighting back and winning the war on terror. Who is punished in the end? Those stupid people who weren't patient for the government to save us. Subtext, anyone?

I think I would have had a much different view on this film if I hadn't seen Borat. Borat uses the same type of humour, but in his case the people aren't in on the joke. That's a kind of humour that I laugh at, but it makes me very uncomfortable.

It was the juxtaposition between knowing that this is a movie, and that Borat used real people that didn't make this as uncomfortable about it. What really makes it uncomfortable is the fact that I have spassed myself.

I don't have much of a defense of my behaviour other than I didn't plan to do it. I was bored, sitting with a hospital administrator and so I started rocking in my chair. This was misinterpreted, and I went along with it. It was a bit of a thrill ride, because I didn't know where it was going.

I was scared witless and laughing at the scene at the bar with the bikers. I saw him getting beat up or worse, and I felt bad for what I had done. Not bad enough to say that I would never do it again. Because I approached is as an experiment, and it was very interesting to see how people treat you.

I think that if you make the decision to go down that road you have to accept the consequences. Getting beat up. Having people slap you. I think what Borat pointed out is that we have some fairly condescending notion about people from other countries.

Some of the reviewers were happy when Karen returned to her home, spassed and then got slapped in the face. I thought it was the perfect conclusion to the film. It's easy to spass when there isn't much to risk.

I think it was important to know the various reasons that the people had for what they were doing. So when Karen thanks everyone, she doesn't thank Stoffer, because she knew that his motives were suspect. He has a bit of the Borat cruelty in him.

So she picks the kindest of the group to go with her. So she can see what a miserable place she left. And she can watch the self-destruction. Because Karen wants to make a statement about the group and what they did, and that it meant something to her.

As far as the nudity is concerned, I saw the uncut version, and of course it's much ado about nothing. The nudity is not sexy. These people are taking their ideas to their logical conclusion. The whole idea behind being a spass is that you don't understand convention.

Convention tells Karen she has to stay in that creepy house with all those people and their expectations. I think we'd all like to be free from that type of oppression. People grieve in different ways, and it didn't look like there was much understanding.

Ultimately, I didn't like Borat, but I really did like this film. I think the filmmaker took on some challenging themes, and did an excellent job with them. Much credit has to go to the excellent acting job of all involved.

What a load of crap. This thing is so unimaginative you have to start with the premise that it was probably based on real experiences, but tweaked to fulfill the writer's fantasy.

The beginning is all real. The girl breaks up with him, and goes off and dates other guys. He wants to make her seem spectacular to boost his self image so the other guys have to be movie stars, and she is not only a model, but an actress as well.

In real life he's angry and raging at her, and calling her every name in the book. In the movie he sits like a hurt flower with a sensitive tear going down his face. He is the perfect man. How could she? He goes off to take care of his grandmother, and there's an attractive mother daughter across the street. This is believable. You can see how he probably got invited over for dinner once in real life, and had a couple of chats outside walking the dog.

But in the movie, these are not just chats. These are amazing discussions which change their lives forever. They talk of his love for his ex, and how he wrote letters. But not just letters. These were the most amazing love letters ever written. They talk of a passion beyond belief.

I don't believe that the guy in real life was 26. He was probably 46, which makes him even creepier. He probably wants to date the high school daughter, but the Mom and Dad would have sniffed him out immediately and not let him around her.

The end of the story in reality is that he probably put his grandmother in a nursing home, and left. But that's not a very good ending to a story. He needs to jazz it up.

He decides to make himself 20 years younger and attractive, and he's got to figure out a way to make the high schooler fall in love with him. So he decides that the mother would want her daughter to ask him out. He realized that even a 26 year old man would still be a little creepy, so he has the daughter be reluctant.

She is only reluctant because she has not realized how amazing he is. He is the solver of problems. He takes a punch and does not fight back. But he is much wiser than she, and he will find her true love.

In the bathroom.

Because when you're looking for the age-appropriate young man to win the fair maiden's heart, you always start in the bathroom. With a guy who's stinking up the place. That's how love works.

And you have to kiss the Mom, because that will make her feel attractive, because her husband is cheating on her. He is Superman with a giant heart. And the high schooler does fall in love with him, because he's dreamy. And she has to kiss him, because he's too pure of intention.

In the end he has solved all the problems. He found the boy for the girl. He gave the mom reason to live. He brought the mom and daughter together. And lucky for him, the grandma conveniently dies. All tied up in a nice wrapper.

So now our 46 year old loser boy is back in LA, and he spins the story with him as the savior of these women. He sits in a diner saying, "How do I end this stupid thing?" The waitress brings the check, and he has an amazing creative thought.

I'll end it with the hero in a diner. Instead of the chain smoking crone I have here, I'll make her a very attractive waitress. She will read my amazing story of how amazing I am, and pure of heart, and we will roll credits.

Real life is no substitute for the male fantasy.

** Contains Spoilers *** I hesitated giving this movie a 1 out of 10, because I felt like there was some thought put into it. Unfortunately, it was mostly a very dishonest, exploitative movie.

Watching the beginning of the film, I really enjoyed the fact that he used actors who were the right age, and the atmosphere was captured very accurately. Then he started with the tracking shots. Up and down the hallways, back and forth. He's setting up a hypnotic maze for his killers to stroll down.

My wife didn't know what the movie was about at all, but she had to reach for the Netflix summary to keep going. He repeats scenes over and over. He moves back and forth in time, but with no real rhyme or reason. Then he starts to throw in a little homosexuality. 'Can you tell just by looking at someone?' So deep you needed a shovel. He even decides to have the killers kiss in the shower.

So many difficult scenes to sit through, but you knew what was coming. He decides to introduce the killers. Just when you thought it was going to be interesting he throws in he Beethoven and Hitler scene. I was thinking Clockwork Orange.

The problem is that he wants it both ways. He's determined to be semi-documentary and non-exploitative and sensitive, and yet he pushes all the buttons. The movie turns into the very exploitation he was trying to avoid. A video game rampage of gratuitous violence. You knew he had to find the pretty couple at the end.

I blame the French. The French are always laughing at us, giving our crappy films awards, because they think we're stupid. They think they're so superior! How else do you account for the Golden Palm? When they give an award to an American film, it's something like this or the equally dreadful Wild at Heart. But when they award their own films, it's usually something good. These crappy films just confirm their stereotypes about life in America. Makes me mad!