Caught [REC] last night. This is the best horror movie I've seen in years. There's not an ounce of originality in it, but it's so close to perfect in its execution. Many of the themes and scenes in [REC] can be linked straight back to other movies in the genre. It's like a mashup of horror movies, and it just works.

It's basically a first person cabin fever zombie flick, so it obviously reminded me of Dawn of the Dead and The Blairwitch Project. But unlike Dawn of the Dead, you aren't trying to keep the zombies from getting in. They're all already inside and you can't get out. And unlike Blairwitch, shit actually goes down. A lot. It has this very cool combination of things that go bump in the night and in your face zombie action. Zombie movies never seem to be able to maintain any level of suspense, but this one really does. The quarantine aspect of the movie is always teasing you with an explanation as to why this shit is going down; quite unlike Romere. Why are people turning into zombies? I'm George Romero, that's why, bitch!

The Spanish honey in the leading role is also good. She plays the journalist that does anything to get the story. But when the shit gets real, she turns into a normal, compassionate person. I unfortunately saw the dubbed version, so a lot of it was just pure shit. You can tell Americans worked on the dubs. Not because most of the characters had American accents, but because of the incredibly racist accents the Chinese family were given. The little girl had the Sadako type creepiness from Ringu.

The last 15 minutes of this film are fantastic. I thought this movie was going to end like every other movie of its kind, i.e. without giving an explanation for the mayhem that took place. I always find this move lazy and unsatisfying. But [REC] really does a pretty darn good job doing this. Granted the explanation doesn't make sense when you think about it, but the ending is so frightening that I would have bought just about any explanation. It's a pretty neat ending. All of a sudden you have a lot of Catholic imagery and this reminded me of The Exorcist and The Omen and those movies. At the same time its giving you some shtick about isolating enzymes and what not. The two concepts just don't make sense together, but it still somehow works. They even find a tape recorder with info on demonic possession ala Evil Dead. It has the best bits of a lot of great movies and yet doesn't come off as contrived. I really loved this one. I'll definitely catch it again in Spanish.

I'm off to watch Cobra (1986) now.

Oh yeah, the original Spanish version would be a lot more authentic. All the nuances - like the Chinese tenants fumbling with the language and whatnot - would still be intact, for one thing. Plus, people going apeshit in a foreign language tends to feel more chaotic to my ears. Heh, the lead is also a real-life TV presenter, that might have made it feel even more authentic for Spanish viewers.

Saw the most recent episode of The Simpsons and was reminded yet again why this is my favourite TV show of all time. I wish I could strap that asshole Seth Gordon down Ludovico Technique style and tell him, "Look, you fucking hack. THIS is how you handle references. It should be something that even people who haven't spent their entire lives poring over the minutiae of Hollywood gossip columns and learning by heart the Star Wars scripts should be able to find amusing." And then kill him because he doesn't have the intelligence necessary to learn. The episode (s21 e15) is pretty fun overall but what raises it to levels of sheer genius is a couple of montages - one when Bart is getting CPR from a chick he has a crush on and the second, among the most gobsmackingly brilliant things I've ever seen, Koyaani-scratchy. Now I have only heard of and not seen Koyaanisqatsi, but this was so fucking godly i nearly pissed myself laughing.

Saw a couple of movies over the weekend. First up was All the Boys Love Mandy Lane about Mandy Lane, a virginal super hot high school girl that all the boys want. So high school graduation or some shit like that and Mandy goes off to a cabin in the woods with a bunch of her classmates and lo and behold her friends start to die one by one. Not a lot of gore, pretty predictable and the high school kids all look well over 21. Might have worked with actual 16 year olds instead.

Then saw Shutter Island which was decent but somehow left me feeling like it could have been much better. Di Caprio didn't work at all in the lead role and I couldn't take him seriously. It was cool to see Kingsley and Max Von Sydow share the screen but just an okay movie.

What is Max Von Sydow playing? A prehistoric fossil? That guy was middle-aged in the 60's or something.

^^ prehistoric psychiatrist.

saw this horror-suspense flick Triangle. A bunch of people with their own problems go on a cruise and needless to say their boats gets wrecked apart in a storm. They are rescued by a huge ship passing by only to find it empty and no one controlling it. Telling you what happens will be spoiling the fun but it gets really weird and interesting. It would have been easy for its premise to get "repetitive" but the film does manage to go beyond that and keep you hooked. Worth a watch.

Richard Scheib gave that movie a good review as well.

I saw Kondura, which was a little heavy-handed but still pretty effective horror meets social from Shyam Benegal with a rightfully OTT performance from Anant Nag.

TinTin:Explorers on the Moon

Read Patrick Süskind's Perfume: The Story of a Murderer. Set in 18th century France, this story follows the fortunes of Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, a bastard born with preternatural olfactory senses and his quest to make the perfect perfume.

It opens with a tour of the smells of Paris and stays engaging to its disturbing end. While the movie was a gloriously shot piece of shit, it inspired one of my favourite Air songs- Redhead Girl. Strongly recommended aural accompaniment to this lovely sensual work.

Finished Tim Powers' Declare a while back. This is one awesome book about a British operation in the Middle East set between World War II and the 1960s. Awesome book with everything from British spies to Russian and French spies, real life traitors to the crown, djinns, magic, the cold war and just about anything you can think of. Sort of like Ludlum or Forsyth writing fantasy fiction in a cold war setting.

Just started on Jim Thomson's The Getaway which Pekinpah made into a movie with Steve McQueen. Typical hard boiled fare from Thomson about a hardened criminal who's just got out of prison and robbed a bank and is on the run while being chased by his partner who he tried to kill. Only need The Grifters now to finish my Thomson collection.

Currently plowing my way through:
1) Tank Girl: Created by current Gorillaz artist Jamie Hewlett and Alan Martin, this comic centers around a bald better than Sapna Bhavnani-esque (read: in your face attitude, but with more elegance, wit, intelligence, and looks) chick who drives a tank, which is also her home. Set in Aussie-land, there's accidental adventures, kangaroos, koalas, falling magicians, farting presidents, breaking the fourth wall jokes, and some of the cheekiest humour i've read in a long time. Well worth it.
2) Santosh Desai - Mother Pious Lady: City City Bang Bang in a book. Starts of well, then ceases to amuse, entertain, or make you go, "hmmm... insightful" after the second chapter. I'm still halfway through, let's see what's left.

Started watching the Triangle and fear I have already 'cracked' the film - a film about a bunch of shipwrecked yachters who suddenly come across this gigantic but deserted ocean liner. Will go back home and see if my hypothesis is right. Here's my hypothesis: Sabman, tell me if i am on the right path if you see this before i get back home.

Finished Jim Thomson's The Getaway. It's like Thompson takes the best of Hammet and Chandler, adds a cold violent streak, people with no morals at all or a warped code of honour and lets the story rip with some of the most engaging action sequences ever and the violence is gritty and remorseless. Desperate people and desperate lives seems to be something Thompson really understood or at least portrayed really well. The story is as simple as it gets really. Just out of prison, dashing criminal and anti hero Doc Coyle teams up with another hardened criminal and his recent criminal wife to rob a bank. The heist goes off smoothly but double crosses and triple crosses and a sense of betrayal at the turn of every page not to mention the bloody and graphic violence makes this one hell of a read. Damn good fun. If any of you good people find his The Grifters, please shout out.

HathyaSaiBaba wrote:
Started watching the Triangle and fear I have already 'cracked' the film - a film about a bunch of shipwrecked yachters who suddenly come across this gigantic but deserted ocean liner. Will go back home and see if my hypothesis is right. Here's my hypothesis: Sabman, tell me if i am on the right path if you see this before i get back home.

Warning: Spoiler!

the boat is named after Sisyphus. who cheats death. and is so forced to undergo a series of repetitive activities one of the characters explains this and then says now can we get a move on and find someone so this signals that they somehow slipped through a crack in the world during the storm. and so are going to be involved in some sisyphian endeavour for the rest of the duration of the film
which will probably end where it started so this is my prediction and i am going to be rather sad if it plays out thuslike

And you shall be sad.