Change Your Image
johnsonwill
Reviews
All This Mayhem (2014)
Tony Hawk... What a douche... Tas Pappas invented the 900!
This is one of the best documentaries I have ever seen. I skated in my late teens through to Uni that led to a pretty wild inter-rail trip at only 17 around Europe and of course via Amsterdam to skate and watch the pros. Had a photo with pro Eric Koston on the train to Berlin from Amsterdam.
I was not familiar with the Pappas bros but I am familiar with some of the other characters in this doc: Tony Hawk and Danny Way - my respect for those guys has completely left the building. I also won't touch another Tony Hawk skateboarding video game.
Although the Pappas brothers are completely mental, incredibly stupid at times (pissed myself at Tas's attempt to smuggle in cocaine) and had massive egos. I couldn't help but laugh and relate to some of the scenes (not the drug smuggling though!) I also missed my times skating and still ponder on buying a new deck but realise that being a 35 year old guy, it just wouldn't be cool anymore.
It was so interesting to see the 'dark underbelly' of professional skateboarding and I can completely see how these guys lost it. They were in the start of what has become incredibly commercial now (check out how commercial it is now, see the Street League competitions sponsored by Monster drinks.) Pappas bros had sponsorship money thrown at them, got to travel and compete, were partying constantly and most likely had skating chicks on their arms constantly. Of course they were going to go off the rails especially when they didn't really have a good mentor in the skateboarding industry or in their family. They were two Bogan brothers from Melbourne who were incredibly talented at everything they did. They made it in professional skateboarding, even in the commercial & corrupt X Games. I wish they had got into a team with more rounded skaters at that time, that might have grounded them. But there are so many skaters who lost it or are nuts. Check out what happened when some jocks offended pro Mike Valley: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5TTMvY01Is - that was definitely a bad idea.
Absolutely moving I laughed, I swore, I was gutted & I almost cried. It is completely tragic but don't want to let you know everything. Shines a light on drugs and mental illness. I am glad I saw this without knowing the end. Love skating until I die.
Blair Witch (2016)
Blair Witch Psychosis
OK I would love to get other people's take on this movie. I found it really disturbing and the last 20 minutes terrifying. But also frustrating because there are still so many questions.
It feels like the curse only takes hold when they spend the night in the woods. When they do, they literally enter a hellish parallel universe where they are all going to die alone. I wonder whether in the last scene, is it possible to survive the curse, and in a way I think it would have been a much better ending if the girl was left standing in the corner knowing that if she turned around and sees the witch she is dead. She saw the guy get tricked so why did she turn round too? I also found it annoying that there was a white light being shone into the attic, as if there was a UFO outside. The amount of freaky twigs was borderline comical but I did like the one with the girl's purple hair on it, which when broken caused her to literally snap in half. That was very cool. I loved the parasite the girl got when crossing the river but it didn't match 'the curse only takes affect when you spend the night in the woods' motive. I need to re-watch it because I want to see if I can work more out from the film. Ideally on DVD so I can freeze it when you see the witch, which I saw twice in the film. They could have done more with the drones too.
I also missed the beginning of the movie because I was late so I would like to watch that as the director used the start of The Shining as inspiration, which is also my favourite horror movie!