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I watch some 400 to 500 movies a year. I consume movies, with a strong focus on foreign fares (mostly Asian) and off-beat oddities. I built this site to keep track of my DVD collection, write reviews, maintain a blog where i write weekly about the US Box office numbers and various movie-related news, keep track of every movie i watch, collect DVD covers and set-up virtual shelves and so on. RatingMovies.ComŽ was born and grew from there.
I made all those sophisticated tools available to anybody so you can do all of this too. This is a site for film and DVD enthusiasts (i.e. freaks) where you can build your own communities, with your very own movie and dvd lists, reviews, blogs and RSS feed, mailing lists, a home page like this one, and even keep track of movies your friends borrowed from you.
Someone once said they there are lies, damn lies, and statistics. I built many tools for this site to track which films i watch, and ratings and reviews. In retrospect, i wish i had done an even more thorough job at adding even more statistics, such as for example, the ability to track each separate viewings of films, and maybe comments for each viewing etc. Right now, the site only tracks the first time and most recent times a film is watched. As soon as i have some time, i hope i can add this feature. We'll see.
In any case, this blog entry came out of a realization when i was checking out the list of the movies i have watched the most. That list is informative in and of itself, but it got me thinking because in there, i really saw three types of movies.
First, there are movies that i watched many times over a very long period of time (they are older movies of course, for example West Side Story (1961)), or movies that i simply saw many times in the theaters (for example E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982) which i remember seeing at least 6 or 7 times when it came out) or on TV (for example Pere Noel Est Une Ordure, Le (1982) which is an annual fixture on French TV).
Second, there are movies which i get to see a lot because my kids love them and watch them a lot. I do let my kids watch movies that other parents i know wouldn't let their kids watch, but we always watch them together. Such films include the Star Wars films from Star Wars 1, Episode 4, A New Hope (1977) to Star Wars 6, Episode 3, Revenge Of The Sith (2005), so it's normal that they figure in my top 100 most watched films too.
Third, there are movies that i seem to be in the mood for again and again, and feel like i could watch randomly pretty much any day, anytime. Such a film is Game, The (1997) which i have had an urgent need to watch again for a few days. No idea or reason why. I just felt strongly like it. and it was thoroughly enjoyable, and i thoroughly loved it as if i had watched it for the first time.
And it made me wonder. There are films one can rationalize to be their favorite movies. But there are movies that you know aren't the best movies ever, yet these are the movies you tend to enjoy the most over the years, sometimes surprisingly so, the types of movies you derive a lot of enjoyment from over and over again. It's funny that there is some overlap, but those two parallel lists are generally not the same. For me, it tends to run based on Directors. I don't know why, it just does. So, on a regular basis, here are the movies i like to watch over and over again.
I love David Fincher. He has a great sense of the macabre, fate, and twistful stories. All of that, along with great technical skills, makes him one of my favorite directors. Films such as Se7en (1995), Game, The (1997), Fight Club (1999) or Panic Room (2002) continue to be an endless source of entertainment for me. My list made me discovered that i have watched regularly Seven and Panic Room, but that i have seriously neglected Fight Club and The Game which i haven't watched once since i started this site 6 years ago now. Shameful! I have some catching up to do.
I also love Paul Verhoeven. His sense of perversion, provocation, and his ability to package it all in a shiny box is unparalleled . His movies both entertain me to no end, and continue to fascinate me with their undertexts that are surprisingly deep under all this gloss. He has been called a fascist (which, given his background, i have never understood), a mysoginist (which, since Camille Paglia extolled the feminist virtues of the Femme Fatale personae in Basic Instinct 1 (1992) , and his recent amazing film Black Book (2006) kind of contradict), and an apologetic merchant of violence (which i can understand). Of all his films, Robocop 1 (1987), Total Recall (1990) andStarship Troopers 1 (1997) remain pure popcorn with brains fun, and i think i have watched each of those at least once a year for the past 4 or 5 years. Then there are Flesh+Blood (1985), which i first discovered as a 15 year-old in Paris when it came out in the theaters, and Black Book (2006), which is too recent to have a high view count, but i have a feeling it will get there. and finally, there is Basic Instinct 1 (1992) which is undeniably one of my favorite movies, and yet, my list once again shows me it's one of those movies i have neglected to watch since i started this site. Gotta fix this.
And how about Ridley Scott? He is probably the most visually esthetic and dynamic director who has ever lived. I have watched Black Hawk Down (2001) and Kingdom Of Heaven (2005) once a year for the past 3 years, and now that Blade Runner (1982) is finally available as it should be on DVD, i will add that both the original and final cut versions of the movie to my yearly program. I also love Legend (1985) and Alien 1 (1979)but i haven't re-watched either since they came out on DVD for some reason.
So there it goes... A quick run down through my list, and trying to sort out those movies that i have watched the most over the years... I need to find a way to capture this information better so i could run those lists more often. Maybe a future feature for the site.
2008.10.05 - 500 Movies watched so far this year
You may laugh, but one of the mysteries of my life is how i manage to watch so many movies and yet do all the things i do. Movies is not my business, and so like anyone else, i have a family, 2 kids, and a more-than-full-time job. Yet, this year has been quite incredible. Today, i watched the 500th movie for this year. As you can see on my personal corner, since 2002 when this site first went live and i started to track my movie watching habit (at that level, habit sounds like an addiction doesn't it?), 2008 looks to be a record year, beating out 2006 which was the first time i watched more than 500 movies in one calendar year. At this pace, i may be able to break the 600 mark for this year.
Granted, this year saw a few differences too. First, i have watched fewer TV series on DVD. It may not sound like a big deal, but i do count a whole season as "one film", so even if i watched 24 45mn-long episodes of some series (let's say, Desperate Housewives), it still counts as one viewing on this site. So, just for numbers, in 2006, i watched 31 series on DVD, while in 2007, i watched 22, and so far this year, i watched 22. Also, the TV series for the 2007-2008 season have been much shorter due to the strikes, and i have also watched more Cable series, which are always shorter too.
The second thing is that i have also watched a significantly larger amount of bad films. I have been even more adventurous than usual in watching strange foreign fares and low budget horror films, and although i did discover a few films i would have never known about otherwise, i also caught many lemons. As a result, i have been much less reluctant than in the past to fast forward through a boring or bad film. Some evenings, using the NetFlix OnDemand service, i may have actually watched 3 or 4 movies back to back but only spent a couple of hours as i fast forwarded through most of them. That also inflates the count somewhat.
But still, it's undeniable that this year is a record year no matter how you slice it. It should be trivial for me to watch another 100 movies at least by the end of the year (i have almost 3 months left), and hopefully, i'll find a few gems and write about them.
I recently wrote a review about Meet The Spartans (2008) and how terrible and completely irredeemable that film was. All i wanted was mindless jokes that are actually funny to relax after a long day of work. Instead, i was treated to pretentious, repetitive botched and boring jokes. Frankly, after that experience, and the terrible reviews Love Guru, The (2008) received, i was probably silly to get this on my Netflix queue and expect anything.
Well, what a pleasant surprise. Maybe it's the very-low expectations, but i actually enjoyed this film a lot. It was funny, and certainly clicked on several fronts with me. The film was a major bomb at the US box office, and i think i know why... It's all about Canadian humor, Hokey humor, and Indian humor. It so happens that my wife is Canadian, from Toronto, loves Hokey and the Toronto Leafs, and that i have many friends from India and work closely with lots of folks from India too :) Combine all this, and i am a pretty atypical movie goer, but also, seemingly, the perfect target for this film.
The story is pretty simple: Guru Pitka (Mike Myers) is the second best Guru in the world, after Deepak Chopra. He harbors an inferiority complex and when a new assignment presents itself, along with it a chance to be on Oprah's TV show, he jumps. The assignment? Darren Roanoke (Romany Malco) is the top Toronto Leaf player, but his wife is cheating on him with Quebeqoi star player Jacques "Le Coq" Grande (Justin Timberlake in a very funny performance). More than the cheating, Jacques also has quite a reputation with the ladies. Let's say that his nickname "Le Coq" (which means "rooster" in French but sports a double-entendre in English) is well warranted.
This is a typical Myers film, with the type of humor that you have seen many times in his other films such as the Austin Powers series. Yes, there are bits you have seen before, and a lot of the humor is really low-brow. But the film is very well done otherwise, and i found myself laughing most of the time through the film. Of course, if you don't know much about Canada, the Toronto Leafs, Quebeq, and India, most of the secondary humor will fly by you, and that's a shame because that's where i found the "better" parts of the movie were.
Of course, this is not a great movie, and don't get me wrong here. It's a funny comedy that has no pretention here, and it works because of that. The performances are all good for a film of that kind, and the overall production quality is very nice. I particularly liked the Bollywood-style numbers that came just at the right time. This was simple fun, perfect to cap a crazy week at work and in the world.
I read a quick synopsis of this movie and added it to my Netflix queue. I figured this may be interesting in spite of generally mediocre reviews all around. After all, the subject matter in and of itself was sure to turn off most people, so maybe the film was just too tough for people to take? In the end, this is a botched movie with a clear lineage from far better efforts that no amount of gloss was able to save.
Ted (Milo Ventimiglia, from Heroes) is a top student in Pathology entering a prestigious university to do his residency. However, as soon as the first day of class, he becomes the target of a group of doctors who think very highly of themselves and immediately see Ted as a threat. At first combative and provoking Ted at every chance they get, they slowly warm up to him, won over by his impeccable skills and smarts. But under the care-free demure of the group lies a horrible secret. They engage in a game where they each take turn in killing people and letting the rest of the group figure out how the murder was committed. The quest for the perfect murder is what ultimately drives this clique, along with drug abuse, sexual depravity, and the "funny" games they play with the corpses entrusted to them. Ted is initialy seduced by this nihilistic attitude, lured in by the sexy Juliette (Lauren Lee Smith), but the game quickly reaches a point of no return.
All the while i was watching this movie, i couldn't help but think of three other movies that were all far superior in pretty much al respects. First, it's hard not to think about Anatomy (2000), the German gorefest about medical students gone mad. Except, that film was far more entertaining, and edgy and suspenseful, with a far better and more believable premise, and more believable characters. Then, i was thinking about Vital (2004) which i consider a modern masterpiece. Ted dissecting his own girlfriend to figure out how she died was a direct insult to the subtle and beautiful imageries and character psychology in Shinya Tsukamoto's film. Finally, the general theme of the movie and its nihilistic approach, even all of its autopsy scenes and how they were filmed and lit, was a direct reference to Aftermath (1994), a very strong unapologetically nihilistic philosophical view of the body after death. Except, once again, that film had a point that it drove through so effectively while Pathology felt exploitative and empty and thin without much redeeming values through and through. Even worse, it was just plain boring.
From a technical point of view, the film was actually well done, with an attractive score, clean cinematography, and a good detailed attention to the art direction, including very convincing gory scenes. Although, once again, if you have seen Aftermath (1994), there is nothing new here in terms of autopsy effects. What is most damaging though is simply the writing. This could have been interesting as a premise, but the movie sensationalizes too much its characters and the gore we see on screen. It makes you feel like you just had a Big Mac: you feel full right away, but after 10mn, you feel hungry again. In the end, the characters are too over the top, unintentionally, and behave in ways that made no sense to me. In particular, Ted's descent into hell felt all too simple and unforced, something that damages his character and the dramatic potential he may have had on the story. Performance wise too, the bad guys are such caricatures. Finally, even the sex scenes, a strong R in the US, but probably barely a PG-13 in most countries in Europe, are boring and uninspired, not even feeling creepy when they should.
All in all, this is a movie that borrows too much from too many classic horror films of the past 15 years while not adding anything new or interesting. It's a rehashed remixed remake that doesn't hold the road. The gore-hounds may enjoy some of its effects, but without a strong uncomfortable narrative like in Aftermath, they feel gratuitous and empty even if they can feel strong initially: let's just show someone crack open a rib cage, and let's show some pubic hair and some boobs. It's boring if it can't make a deeper point, and this film simply lacks the brains, or philosophy, to make any impact beyond its visual shocks which any self-respecting horror fan won't even bat an eyelash at given the strong prior history in the genre. You are better off watching the three movies i mentioned above than spending 90mn of your life on this one.
If i told you that one of the best movies of this decade is an Erotic Tibetan one, you'd probably look at me with incredulity. Yet, there you have it, Samsara (2001) is a gorgeous metaphysical epic with soft yet strong sexuality, all against the backdrop of the Himalayas and a society so distant from our own.
Tashi (Shawn Ku) is a young Tibetan Buddhist monk who just completed his final training stage, having stayed in some cave for a whole month in solitude and medication. But, after he comes back to his monastery, he find himself full of impure thoughts and decides to leave the monastery and try to put his earthly desires behind him before returning. He settles into a village and meets with the most beautiful maiden of them all, Pema (Christy Chung). It's physical attraction and love at first sight, and marriage quick ensues. But life in the village is not simple, and conflicts with nearby villagers, a man who owns the trade through the valley, and other men who also lust after Pema, all make Tashi's life a lot more complicated to deal with. But it's Tashi's own unchecked desires that undo his life at the village.
The movie is a wonderful mix of Buddhist philosophy intermixed with earthly temptations, carnal love subdtly disguised as passionate love, and a final ode to the nature of man and woman. As Pema closes the movie, she reflects on the fact that it is in the nature of Man to leave everything behind for supposedly higher purposes, but that woman however is incapable of leaving her family, and as such is the foundation for life. The parallel between Siddhartha (who renounced his wife and family to reach enlightment and become Buddha himself) and the wife he abandonned are clear. Is it cowardice or Tashi's final realisation that any earthly feelings are doomed to fail that make him leave his wife and kids to return to the monastery? The movie ends with a Buddhist riddle: how do you prevent a drop of water from drying up?
It's an epic story of love, the search for inner-peace, and strong Buddhist philosophy that doesn't shy away from exposing some of its own contradictions. It also sports very strong sensuality and eroticism, but with a subdued Asian touch that will surprise most people. But the movie is also a detailed look at life in the Himalayas that should satisfy anyone intersted is some cultural displacement. Filmed on real locations, the movie exhudes gorgeousness and the grand scale of the mountains as the everyday backdrop for the people living there. The movie is gorgeous through and through, with beautiful mountain scapes, beautifully detailed and colorful costumes and sets. The music is sweaping, and the performances are all very convincing. The fact that many non-actors were used certainly helped give the film a more authentic feel. But special mention must be given to the two main characters, and especially the superb Christy Chung who is at the same time beautiful, sweet, and very tantalizing.
This is a movie that will transport you to a whole different universe, a lifestyle that you have probably never experienced before, and showing strong erotic material like you probably have never seen before. It's all laced up with deep philosophy, great characters and story. This movie is a feast for the eyes as much as it is a feast for the mind and the senses.
This is European exploitation at its best. It's powerful, weird, thought provoking, creepy, and elaborate, even if it is trashy in terms of its exploitative sexuality and violence. But if you go into this thinking this is yet another male fantasy of brutality against women, think again and stay until the end as it's definitely that, but a lot more, and then something else entirely.
Dr Slayer (Philippe Leroy) is a twisted individual, obsessed with torturing physically and psychologically his female victims, persuaded that women will take over the world and render men redundant unless something is done to curb their emancipation. He is the ultimate sadist, serial killer and intellectual pervert, taking immense pleasure in his victims' displeasures. That's until he meets Maria (Dagmar Lassander) who manages to take him for a ride by playing his own game until he is forced to show all his cards. Who will win this stylized battle of the sexes?
Unlike most "feminist movies in a misogynistic sexploitation cloth" (the nerve rattling Audition (1999) comes to mind), this is not a case where the female protagonist takes matters in her own hands and unleashes some typically harsh male violence onto her captor. Instead, it's more subtle than that, and Maria uses her wits and sensitivity to play the psychological game to the end. This film being in effect a study of control, of male obsession about virility and loss of power in the wake of the rise of feminism, the turning point occurs when Maria attempts a suicide, which surprisingly elicits horror in Dr Slayer's mind. Digging deeper, it's clear that this represents nothing more than a turn in his quest to control and dominate Maria, and having her terminate her life on her own terms if absolutely unbearable to him.
After this, the film takes on a completely different perspective all the way to the end. And what an end! It's not fireworks or anything flashy, but it certainly took me by surprise in terms of how the characters evolved and what their true motivations are. I don't want to spoil the multiple twists that conclude the film but it's clear that things are not as they seem and that amore sophisticated form of entrapment is at play. This is ultimately what differentiates the good exploitation flicks from the bad. In the middle of all the trash, there is a genuine plan to tell a story, and love of the characters and whatever they go through.
I miss those types of movies so much. The combination of strong and unbridled imageries, frank depiction of sex and violence, in a world where political correctness and the fear of offending someone is completely absent, along with a true psychological exploration of character and motivation and a message underlying the work, is something that we don't see much anymore. This frankness in art-making delivers something that can be unique, very raw for sure, but very true too.
From a technical point of view, the movie certainly shows its age and its low budget, and the low-quality of the DVD doesn't help. But you do get a lot for the money and you can clearly see how innovative this film was, and still is. The cinematography and art direction are very strong and creative, from Dr. Slayer's modern-abstract-art-deco dungeon and Maria's various outfits, to his boat-car and medieval castle. The 60's style soundtrack is also very strong and very lively with cool songs, and musical moments that are very meaningful for the movie. The finale on a tune that would have felt comfortably in any Sergio Leone western was memorable. Finally, the two actors are really good. Dagmar Lassander delivers the performance of her life that is hard to believe given the rest of her work: a euro sex goddess, she has been in many bad sexploitation movies from the 60's and 70's, and you may remember her from the decent New Black Emanuelle (1976). As Dr.Slayer, Philippe Leroy is also wonderfully creepy, as insane and deviant as he is weak and naive. This performance was critical in making you believe in the story and how his character turns.
Overall, this is a classic sexploitation film with surprising depth. It's focus on control, male domination and female rebellion gives it layers upon layers of things to reflect on, even if it is delivered in a package that although very beautiful thanks to top cinematography and art direction, is also raw in its portrayal of violence and sexuality, and spares no sensibility. It does so with a healthy dose of voyeurism (thus the exploitation label), but with a genuine attention to its characters and what goes on in their minds. This is exploitation at its best.
I must admit i have a penchant for the macabre, extreme macabre. I take everything with a grain of salt of course (it's only a movie after all), and always look underneath the primary shock to see if anything interesting is lurking. I often find something interesting in these types of movies. Being a pretty vanilla guy, i am fascinated by perversion in its most philosophical way because i often feel so far removed from it. Does that make sense? When a subversive film stops being exploitative and reaches poetic heights, albeit sick, i can't be happier.
I have heard of Nacho Cerda for some time already and knew of this movie, but it's only been recently released on DVD in February 2007. I ordered it right away but it took me a while to watch it because due to its very graphic nature, i didn't want to play it when the kids were around. Be forewarned that if you give this film a try (it's available at Netflix along with another fantastic short film called Genesis (1998) from the same director which i also reviewed here), you are in for some of the most disturbing images you have ever seen. This is perhaps one of the most beautiful graphically charged film i have ever seen, this one perfect gem of aesthetics, extreme perversion and dramatic philosophy. You can count it in the same club as Texas Chainsaw Massacre 1, The (1974), Scarlet Letter, The (2004), Irreversible (2002) or Rampo Noir (2005), to name a few. This film is viciously merciless.
The subject matter and its treatment here are arresting. The film opens with two morgue attendants going about their business of dissecting the corpses of two men. One of the man looks like he died in a car accident, and the other looks like he died of a drug overdose. The scene is extremely realistic and graphic, while the two corpses are open, and organs of interest are extracted, including brains. The camera films this almost like a documentary, paying attention to many small details and sparing no sensibility. Genitals are in full view, and various physiological phenomenons such as rigor mortis and its effects on the body are amply detailed. After the two bodies are cleaned up and wrapped up, one of the attendants leaves. The coast now clear, the remaining man brings a fresh corpse, that of a woman this time, and goes on raping and mutilating her in unimaginable ways. This is violent, shocking, and all the more potent with an incredible cinematography and Mozart's Requiem.
The movie features some wonderful classical music, with Mozart's Requiem front and center. The cinematography is amazing with subdued lights and shadows. There aren't any dialog and the power of the film relies of course on its subject matter, and each frame which was carefully composed. Ultimately, the images you see on screen are very raw and if you can stomach them, should bring in you lots of existential questions. The one i asked myself immediately is whether i cared about anything that would happen to my body after i die. I am not a religious man, but i do believe in the soul, and once death occurs, is the human body nothing more than a few pounds of flesh? Obviously, seeing the perversion of the attendant is sickening, but i believe Nacho Cerda, who wrote and directed this film doesn't really care about that side of the story, focusing instead on the simple nature of the human body and what happens to it after it dies. In our society, lots of things that are pretty gruesome happen to many bodies after death. Forget rape and acts of sexual depravation: just a simple autopsy is a very violent thing and the film certainly depicts one in very gory details, including pretty strong sound effects that are guaranteed to make you cringe. The music and the sound in this film are amazing, and so loud volume is warranted. I really wish i had seen this in a theater.
This is a movie that pushes many boundaries in terms of graphically depicting gore. It's all the more impressive since this is a film from 1994. It does its thing with a sense of aesthetics that is rarely seen. It also loads the immediately shocking visuals and subject matter with loads of questions for the viewer. It should make you ask yourself about your own views on the aftermath of death, not what happens to your souls, but what could happen to your body. I personally see the body after death as nothing more than meat (don't miss the last minute of the film to see how far it goes), yet, it is true that if anything i saw tonight ever were to happen to a loved one after they died, i'd be pretty mad. But i probably wouldn't care if it were me. Why is that? This may be a short feature, but it must be some of the most intense 30mn i have seen on film.
> > > > Read my review of Nacho Cerda's other short-film masterpiece Genesis > > > >
For the overwhelming majority of movie lovers, Italian cinema rings with the names of Roberto Rossellini, Vittorio De Sica, Luchino Visconti, Federico Fellini and Michaelangelo Antonioni. Those directors, of international reknown, have fashioned and defined post-WW2 Italian cinema with countless classics. For a few movie lovers though, Italy was equally famous in churning out influencial and classic horror films throughout the 70's and 80's. Dario Argento is by far the best known and respected Italian horror director. He created gorgeously crafted gothic horror classics such as Deep Red, Suspiria, Inferno or Opera, and was instrumental as a producer for the Demons series, and of course, George Romero's forever classic Dawn Of The Dead.
However, not all Italian horror directors of that era were as famous and well respected as Dario. In fact, most were quite infamous. Names such as Umberto Lenzi, Ruggero Deodato, Joe D'Amato, Lamberto Bava, Mario Bava, Lucio Fulci often inspire revulsion and disgust more than anything else. They often made exploitative horror films that mixed in softcore pornagraphy. Those horror films seem to all gravitate around 3 sub-genres: snuff, can