DOA: Dead or Alive

If the pen is the writer's sword, then this movie was written with a rusty meat cleaver.

Very early on, I thought: Wow! There's a lot of CG in this movie. The problem is, they look like the kind of CG that will make you think: "Wow! There's a lot of CG in this movie". And that's not a good thing.

But the reason the audience came to see this movie is not the writing or the CG. The reason they are here is for the fight scenes. Well... at least that's the reason they gave their wives/girlfriends. We know why they're really here. Still, the fight scenes are actually very good.

I would recommend to all fans of the game to rent the DVD (when it comes out), wait for the wife/girlfriend to go shopping, then watch it with the Japanese audio track. "But I don't understand Japanese", you say? That's the point, not understanding the dialogue will improve the experience, trust me. You don't want to mute the whole movie because you still want the sound effects. One day, distributors of movies like this will understand their audience and provide a "no dialogue" audio track on the DVD. Just think how much fun you could have inserting your own dialogue. But until then, we'll just have to use undecipherable languages instead.

Fantastic Four: The Rise of the Silver Surfer

What have the Fantastic Four been up to since we've last seen them?

Mr. Fantastic

Reed Richards has been stretching his acting skills by starring in a Broadway production of "Flubber: The Musical". After opening night, the critics noted that he had gained some weight. Ever the perfectionist, he fixed that in time for the next performance.

The Invisible Woman

We haven't seen much of Susan lately. Unlike her fiancé she struggles to find a field that fits her particular talents. She's been offered some TV roles, but the screen tests have shown that her particular demographic would prefer that she didn't turn invisible.

After that, she spent a month with Tibetan Monks, they were helping her find herself. When the casting call for this movie came in, she is rumored to have snuck out and the monks are presumably still looking for her.

The Human Torch

The hot-blooded Johnny has always had a flameboyant lifestyle. But is he showing signs of settling down? He had a steamy relationship with a marine biologist last month, but it fizzled out quickly after he boiled the fish in her aquarium.

Thing

Despite giving a solid performance as the star of "Rocky 7: It's Clubberin' Time", the movie was a financial failure. Ben is under pressure to make his next venture a smashing blockbuster success.

Cthulhu

Dave and I were wondering what the title of this movie meant. Turns out it's the name of a demonic creature prevalent in some H.P. Lovecraft stories. He's apparently very scary, but I have trouble believing that. I mean... how scared would you be if a demonic creature announced: "I am Cute Lulu !!!". He'd have to kill me to stop me from laughing.

But this movie is only indirectly related to Lulu. It's a common story I've seen in several movies lately. A man who's been living in a city for a while is, for some reason or another, traveling to a small town. Once there, he discovers that the whole town has been possessed by a demonic cult performing human sacrifice.

Makes me nervous to go home.

Alien Autopsy

The real story of the fake remake of a real autopsy of a fake alien. It's all true. Really! Why won't anyone believe a couple of guys who made tons of money by lying?

And that's it for the SIFF this year. 25 movies in 3 weeks, not bad.

Trail of the Screaming Forehead

Hilarious. An adept homage to inept filmmaking.

The Pervert's Guide to Cinema

Some shrink spews out psycho-babble at a prestigious rate. Unless you have a Ph.D in psychology, you're likely to find it hard to follow.

Poltergay

A house is haunted by the ghosts of gay disco dancers. Finally, a movie that strives to promote understanding and tolerance toward disco dancers.

The Banquet

Not actually about food, as it turns out.

I decided that I would watch this Chinese movie without reading the subtitles. I picked my favourite seat of the Neptune theater, center section of the balcony, right under the projector. This way I was assured that several tall people would sit in front of me, thereby blocking my view of the subtitles, removing even the temptation of reading them.

I will, therefore, describe to you the movie, purely based on the visuals.

The Chinese chapter of the Marcel Marceau impersonator club were rehearsing their upcoming Cirque du Soleil performance at the foot of a totally "rad" skateboarding ramp in the middle of the woods. Suddenly, an army of Samurais wearing black cloaks and cast iron furnace doors as masks, float through the trees and attack them. Yeah... it's going to be that kind of movie.

Alright, I know we're in China and therefore the sword-wielding Chinese guys are not actually called "Samurais", but calling them "sword-wielding Chinese guys" all over the place is a bit tedious. So I'm gonna stick with "Samurais".

To everyone's surprise, the mime's ability to stand very still offers very little protection against Samurai swords. But one guy did figured out it wasn't working, he figured he had a better chance of survival by moving... evading... even running, if need be. It's going pretty well for a while there, but it's all for not, as he gets his head chopped off. One other guy survived the attack by using the even more time-honoured technique of "hiding". That guy turns out to be our hero. Hey... everyone else is dead, we'll have to take what we can get.

In the next scene we have a group of black cloaked Samurais fighting another group of black cloaked Samurais. Don't they know the visiting team is supposed to wear white? The black team wins, no surprise there.

Meanwhile, at the imperial palace, the Emperor is giving the Empress a Swedish massage (yes, that's an euphemism). I know he's the Emperor because he wears the silliest hat of them all. And I know that she's the Empress because... well... that better be his wife.

Then our hero visits the Empress, they have a heated argument with lots of yelling about... something. What is the fight about? How would I know? I'm not a mind reader. But at one point, our hero makes a classic mistake. He gives the angry woman a sword. Bad idea. They fight a bit more, but then he says something and they hug. I'm assuming he said something like "I'm sorry honey, you're right and I'm wrong".

Now we go back to another scene of two teams of black guys facing off on a bridge. One of them makes a short speech directed at the other team. After which, that team takes off their armor and commit harakiri (again, I know they're Chinese, but I don't know the Chinese word for "suicide"). What the *bleep* did he say? I'm starting to regret this "no subtitles" idea. It sounds like whatever he said would be something useful to memorize for the next time I disagree with someone.

Back at the palace, there's a lot of people talking to other people. Lots of intense looks. Then somebody laughs at the Emperor. Ooops. He's taken out, tortured, killed, then everyone plays a game of polo. Everything is fine again, so our hero stages a play with his well-trained pet ninja. It's very touching, apparently, because he gets a standing ovation from the Emperor. Then the Empress comes over to talk to him but she's interrupted by the Empress. Huh? What? There's two of them? Where did that one come from? Oh well... they talk for a while, then they all go visit the Empress? What the...? How many Empress clones do they have?

Our hero is apparently being escorted through the Canadian Northwest Territories when his escorts decide to kill him. But in an amazing stroke of coincidence, they decide to kill him at the exact spot where our hero's friends just happen to be hiding in snow covered holes in the ground. Either that's incredible luck, or our hero has friends buried in the ground every ten feet of the entire country.

After a lot more talking, the Banquet starts. Finally! I was wondering when the food was gonna get here. Surprisingly, their Chinese food doesn't come in little white cardboard boxes. Everybody eats, then the Empress tries to poison the Emperor, but one of the other Empresses's's' ends up drinking the poison and die. Then the Emperor commits suicide by drinking the poison. Then some guy tries to kill our hero (again) but gets killed by the Empress. But our hero was poisoned by cutting himself with a poisoned blade and he dies. Then the Empress is murdered.

Geee... everybody dies at the end of the final act. That reminds me of something... something I read (yes, read)... let me consult my extensive library of books... (30 seconds later)... there it is! Hamlet!

It all makes sense now! Our hero guy was Hamlet. The Emperor was his uncle. The Empress was his mother... ewww... weren't they kissing in that earlier scene? One of the other Empress was Ophelia... etc... etc...

Still, Shakespeare is much better in it's original Klingon.

In the last 11 days, I've seen 19 movies (14 at the SIFF, 2 non-SIFF, and 3 DVDs). Even for me, that's a little much. So the reports will be short:

Mr. Brooks - I feel sorry for Kevin Costner. Try as he might, he simply can't seem to make another blockbuster movie.

La Vie Promise - If you're going to walk half-way across France, on the run for killing your pimp, then don't do it in high heels, take a minute and put on some sensible shoes.

La Vie en Rose - My grandmother used to sing Edith Piaf songs all day long while working in the kitchen (feeding 16 kids will keep you busy), but even she probably never knew the details of Edith's life. Judging by the average age of the audience, this movie mostly appeals to existing fans of Piaf.

Rocket Science - This movie teaches kids that if they work on their problems (in this case, stuttering) by challenging themselves (by joining the debate team) and then, when obstacles are in their way (being kicked off the debate team), think of an out-of-the-box solution (enter the state finals as an home-schooled team), then they too can get disqualified and end up working at a dry cleaners. Not the most inspiring of endings.

Sleuth - Now that United 93 has finally dropped off the IMDB top 250 list, I can now resume my quest of seeing the whole list. To get through the last few movies, I had to visit Scarecrow Videos where I could find some of the hard-to-find titles. So after giving a 200$ deposit, I was able to watch Sleuth. I don't want to give away any spoilers here, especially since a remake is eminent, so I'll just say that it was well worth it.

Tell No One - An innocent man is accused of murdering his wife. He struggles to put together the puzzle pieces of evidence while evading the police. This is the kind of situation where the hero would save himself a lot of grief if he just got everyone he knows into a room and ask them to reveal to him every little secret they've been hiding from him, no matter how unrelated they may seem. Instead, he spends weeks running around from person to person to get one little piece of information at a time. Granted, it makes for a better movie, but it's a risky way getting to the truth.

I Have Never Forgotten You - A documentary about Simon Wiesenthal, a man who dedicated his life to tracking down Nazi war criminals. Makes one's life feel very insignificant.

Outsourced - My report on this movie is going to be very funny and insightful, but unfortunately, Krishna, the Indian guy I hired to write it for me, hasn't e-mailed it to me yet.

Blaa-aa-aa-ck Sheep

Before this, the last movie I saw that featured sheep farmers was "Brokeback Mountain". Now this one is about zombie sheep. Frankly, I'm not entirely sure which one I found more disturbing. I have recurring nightmares about both.

While "Brokeback Mountain" had grammar-bending dialogue like "I wish I knew how to quit you", this one has funnier dialogue:

            (Trapped in a room, Henry starts to hyperventilate)
(Girl)                Are you all right?
(Henry)            Not really, I have a condition.
(Girl)                What kind of condition?
(Henry)            My therapist calls it probataphobia.
(Girl)                What does that mean?
            (A sheep bursts its head through the door and bites someone)
(Henry)             The unfounded and illogical fear that one day, THIS WOULD HAPPEN!!!

This is yet another SIFF movie in the burgeoning zombie-comedy genre. Not quite as funny as "Fido", but more in the traditional style of zombie movies. That means it can get a little gross if you're not used to it.

Note: No sheep were harmed during the making of this film. Several humans were killed and maimed, but the sheep are fine.