Marfa Girl (2012)

Larry Clark continues with his oppressed-Mexican-skater motif after a seven year dry spell with "Marfa Girl", a follow-up to his 2005 film, "Wassup Rockers". It's tells a pretty similar story, which I must say, didn't really 'grab' me that much this time around. I guess I'm more fond of Clark's earlier, more 'daring' brand of film-making which he seems to be steadily gravitating away from with these last few releases that seem a lot more sappy and repetitive. Not to say "Marfa Girl" is shit, but it's definitely one of his slowest movies.

It's a slice-of-life portrait of life on the American-Mexican border for one particular Tex-Mex teenager who encounters unusual situations and characters throughout his rural-based day-to-day life - most notably a sadistic boarder patrol officer with a deep-seated proclivity for sadomasochism. He also hangs out with a group of indignant Mexican low-lives in an electro-punk band - one of whom is a young mother who is desperate to fuck a 16-year old on his birthday and eager to becoming a stripper. There's also a pregnant teacher who enjoys paddling inattentive students after class, as well as a rampant gutter-slut, out-of-towner artist who is DTF no matter fucking WHAT. Things come to a head when the artist eventually joins a drug-fueled group sex session with three of the local border patrolmen - including the white, masochistic officer who has a complete mental breakdown, resulting in a bit of violent turn of events...

While it's on par with his previous feature, "Wassup Rockers", in terms of it being a discernible departure from the more 'taboo' sustained flicks Clark is generally known for, like "Kids", "Bully" and "Ken Park", "Marfa Girl" splits the difference a bit, in comparison with "Rockers", as far as more contestable content goes. It features a bit more sex, nudity, violence, a shot of a hard dick, implied rape and the sexual abuse of a child, though it still remains considerably subdued in comparison to the aforementioned films. Clark is obviously into portraying his Mexican subjects in a more respectable light then he has been known to do with the obnoxious, degenerate wiggers of his past adolescent 'explorations', typically leaving them to fill the spot of the racist villain. This influence of cultural animosity lends a more stilted kind of cinematic basis of the poor discriminated immigrants and the caucasian 'bad guys' in almost a caricaturized simplification. Clark's agenda is getting tiring as far as I'm concerned and I hope to see him return to his more candid roots.

Like I said, "Marfa Girl" was a little thematically redundant after "Wassup Rockers" and, while it wasn't as 'light' as that film, it's a pretty unremarkable furtherance in depletion of Clark's controversial 'edge' that once was. Hopefully he gets back on track with a more abrasive effort in the future, as I will continue to see what he has to offer out of admiration of his cutting-edge potentiality.

The Green Inferno (2013)

Despite his status as an implicit 'one-trick-pony', relying predominantly on the pandering of low rent, fanboy-run social media-based horror "news" outlets who have continually publicized his plethora of ill-fated projects over the better part of a decade, Eli Roth actually managed to complete something and get it released. And, I'll be damned, I was actually somewhat interested in this latest work as it was a departure from the infantile, jump-scare laden, supernatural toilet waste that passes as 'horror' these days, as far as more 'mainstream' releases go. The idea of a NEW tribal cannibal flick hitting the big screen was inherently appealing to me, regardless of the smug douche hackster gracing the director's chair...

A wanna-be activist chick joins up with some environmentalists who travel to the amazon to ambush a crew of corporate loggers with a live-streaming cyber protest. Shit doesn't totally go according to plan (or does it?), yet they still manage to avoid getting their heads blown off by the militia. Their victory celebration onboard their little plane is cut short by a crash that kills about half of them, leaving the rest to be kidnapped by a tribe of people-eating savages who mistake the do-gooders for the "evil" tree choppers. From there, you pretty much just watch the remaining captives get killed and eaten.

So, once you make it through the slow start, involving inane college kid babble and the botched protest, things actually start looking promising. The petrified group of Americans being herded into the tribal village made for a pretty strong and dire looking scene and the first guy to be gruesomely dismembered alive (after having his eyes and tongue yanked from his head and devoured...) was a delectably brutal bit of carnage, courtesy of some convincing and bloody practical FX work. Then, unfortunately, it's pretty much downhill from there with the remainder of the human livestock sitting in their bamboo cell and hatching their hair brained escape attempts in between idiotic scenes that only a frat boy-minded tard like Eli Roth would think fits into this type of movie. Shit like: a guy jerking off amidst bloodshed in order to "keep his mind clear", a chick with cartoonishly explosive diarrhea and getting the tribe high by jamming a bag of weed down the throat of a soon-to-be cooked corpse.

Aside from all this unfunny and out-of-place bullshit, the death scenes following the initial dismemberment are quite weak and ineffective. One of them kills herself in the cage. One demise is entirely off-screen and another involves lousy looking CGI bullet ants. That, on top of Roth's insufferable writing and one of the shittiest 'payoffs' I can recall in quite some time, "The Green Inferno" disintegrates quickly into a  tragically unremarkable and all-too 'traditional' looking horror flick, encompassing a cast of genre stereotypes. I guess I was hoping for a few less punches pulled in the long-run. Granted, it was a safe bet that animal killing and rape-sprees weren't going to 'fly' as far as a studio film in this day n' age goes, but there was ample opportunity for some dick chopping that never played out! And the topic of female genital mutilation is prevalent, but still never comes to fruition... Again, it all comes down to that one stand-out death scene.

On the flip side, is it better than all the other "Poltergeist/Paranormal Activity" shit coming out? Absolutely. Without a doubt. Hell, it's way better than the "Hostel" movies by a long shot and props go out to Roth for at least attempting something like this and pushing as hard as he did to get it released in theaters so I can't bitch too much. I only wish it was more worth the effort and the wait. It's worth checking out for those who appreciate the top dogs of the 'cannibal exploitation' subgenre, such as "Cannibal Ferox", "Man from Deep River" and, of course, "Cannibal Holocaust". It's nowhere near as raw and visceral as those, but when is the last time you saw a NEW jungle cannibal flick?

On a side note of bonus douchebaggery, Roth decided to include the Twitter handles of the main cast and select crew members along with their credit at the end. Good idea since the popularity of social media sites has never been known to dwindle and accounts are never suspended or deactivated. Way to incorporate that timelessness into your movie, asshole. Twitter will surely remain eternally relevant.

Dead in France (2012)

"Dead in France" is a pretty entertaining, dry-humored, Tarantino-esque 'noir' flick.

A seasoned hitman with a 'neat-freak' quirk hires a cleaning lady to tidy up his mansion as he goes out on his last job before retirement. While he's gone, she invites over her imbecile, mohawk-sporting boyfriend and the two fuck all over the house and go rummaging around. For some reason, they try renting out the house to some couples whom they just end up tying up and sticking in the shed. While this is going on, a thief tries to make off with 2 million pounds out of the hitman's car and another hitman (woman) - a savage lesbian, to be exact - has a score to settle with the main hitman and is hunting him down. All of these separate characters and their own personal vendetta's or acts of ignorance all end up clashing by the film's climax...

I enjoyed this one quite a bit. Though it was far from a GREAT film, it had a subtle and dark enough approach to the humor element (the standout "funny" scene, to me, being the accidental shooting of a cat which made me chuckle) and a nice spread of goofy characters. A few scenes came along that didn't seem all that necessary, which is probably my main gripe with the film, but overall I'd recommend checking out this amusing piece of UK 'black comedy'.

Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father (2008)

For quite a while I've been hearing about this one. Usually from people who are rattling off some of their favorite documentaries - it typically ranks high amongst people's preferences - so I figured I should give it a chance. Luckily, I managed to avoid having the big "reveal" spoiled for me so I think I was able to get the full effect of what "Dear Zachary" was trying to elicit in its rollercoaster of misfortune, although I don't think I was 'rocked' to my core as most were. It IS a very tragic case and I found it very frustrating how a judicial system could fail a family so profoundly.

The less you say about this film, the better, so I'll keep it short. What basically happened was a 28-year old doctor (and the spitting image of Jack Black...) hooked up with some 40-year old whackjob cougar bitch who ended up killing him in a jealous rage after he broke it off with her. During the court proceedings, it turns out she is pregnant with his kid so, while the murdered man's parents are fighting for custody of the baby, an old friend of the dead man sets out to make this doc in order to pay tribute and also show the child what kinda guy his father was...

A shitload of absurd, fucked up interactions and events occur during the period of time this movie was being shot that paints a solid picture of the effects of loss and the helplessness the court system can so easily and callously administer on regular people. I always knew the Canadian government was based in intrinsic incompetency and assbackward laws and policies (not to say the U.S. is a well-oiled machine, by any fucking means...), but "Dear Zachary" shows just how bureaucratic entities exhibit corruption and complete ineptitude in protecting their citizens. How cries for justice can so plainly fall on deaf ears and actually work in favor of cold-blooded psychopaths. In many ways, "Dear Zachary" is a wake-up call to just how freely this can happen and how your door knob-sucking, ineffectual government is completely capable of turning a blind eye and disregarding the safety of it's people (including children...) until it's too late.

The doc is put together very well in detailing the family's relationship with one another and their reaction to these events. It thoroughly tackles each aspect of the ordeal and draws you in extremely well. It's depressing and exacerbating, but it IS definitely worth checking out.

Where Evil Dwells (1985)

Part of the whole 'Transgressive Cinema movement', "Where Evil Dwells" is the supposed "preview" of an originally 2-hour long super-8 punko-horror flick that was destroyed in a fire. It's hard to say if the full version consisted of a more intelligible narrative or was just an extended variant of what currently exists, but based on this 28-minute piece of nihilistic celluloid, I'd bet on the latter...

A series of destructive and sadistic events are introduced as seemingly random vignettes by a killer ventriloquist's dummy (who sounds like Beavis, of "Beavis and Butthead"...). Such pernicious acts involve smashing up vehicles, dangling a life-size dummy off a bridge to fuck with traffic, participating in satanic rituals and a pretty gruesome head stabbing around a bonfire. It all ends with a bizarre depiction of Hell.

So, yeah, it's alright for what it is. If you dig 'experimental' aberration set to a metal/punk soundtrack then check it out. Frankly, I have to be in the right kind of mood to get at all 'into' this kind 'transgressive' type shit, but "Where Evil Dwells" was one of the better I've seen. Again, I'm not sure what the full cut of this was intended to be, but as is, it works as far as this type of 'underground' anarchist punker-flick goes. Check it out for the face stabbing scene.

The Dirties (2013)

As I've said before, I have a weakness for 'school shooting' movies so I generally try to check out anything along those lines. "The Dirties" kept me genuinely entertained, despite the 'mock-doc' style that I hate and has also already been done with this type of thing with the 2003 movie, "Zero Day". That, along with the dry comedic elements in "The Dirties", it all came together surprisingly well, I'd say.

A pair of teenage outcasts are making a parody-infused film project for one of their classes that involves them heroically murdering certain teachers and student bullies (whom they refer to as "dirties"...) around their school. They're forced to cut out the violence and obscenity which gives one of the boys the idea to switch the film over from a humorous action/'crime thriller' piece to a documentary of an actual school shooting, perpetrated by non other than them. As the mastermind behind the plan strategizes for the big massacre, the other kid can't seem to take the project seriously and a rift in their friendship deepens when he ditches out on the plan for the hot, popular girl...

Strong points of the film include the performances of the two leads, which are actually very believable considering an aptitude of 'quirkiness' - although it never goes too over-the-top with it. The pacing is spot-on and the faux-doc method - while pointless, as usual - never really gets in the way, as I far as I'm concerned. The outcome is satisfying while not playing out as the all encompassing bloodbath you may expect. Don't expect anything along the lines of Gus Van Sant's "Elephant", as far as containing a cold, protracted campus genocide, but it's not without an enjoyable payoff. I also liked the less-than-subtle correlation between high school bullies and future authoritarians by having one of the lead teenage aggressors wearing a black T-shirt with big white letters reading "POLICE" in several scenes.

"The Dirties" is another astringent and brazen statement on adolescent bullying that, like William Hellfire and Joey Smack's 1999 post-Columbine (by just a few months...) massacre film, "Duck! The Carbine High Massacre", peppers humor into it's apropos message as a more inflammatory means of shedding light on the repercussions of ongoing schoolyard torture.