Broken

So when you're in a bad mood, what cheers you up? A disgusting, disturbing bloody movie? That's definitely what cheers me up.

My friend and I spent about an hour looking through a video rental place for that perfect "pick me up" movie. After discovering that they didn't have any of the movies we originally wanted (Inside, Martyrs, Frontiers) we found Broken. I'm the one that convinced her to rent it because it was a Dimension Extreme film, which means it has to be good, right? RIGHT?

Wrong.

I think this was one of the slowest horror movies I have ever seen. The movie is about this man who kidnaps women, puts them through a self-survival test, and if they pass he makes them his personal slave. The man lives in the middle of the woods in a tent and seems to be a naturalist. He kills his own meat, grows his own garden...etc. The women serve the purpose of doing these things for him.

I think this movie was put into the Dimension Extreme family because the few gory scenes in the movie were REALLY gory. To the point where I had to watch through my fingertips. But other than the maximum eight gory scenes, this movie was a bore. I had never even heard of it before I saw it in the video store even though it came out in 2006...But now I know why. This movie was much better left unwatched.

James and the Giant Peach

I remember watching this movie religiously as a child. The centipede was always my favourite which is weird because every time I see a centipede I shriek and go bananas.

Directed by Henry Selick, I consider this movie one of my great childhood classics. Watching it over again and remembering all the songs and just how horrible James' aunts were was hilarious. Isn't it amazing what we can think of when we just use our imaginations?

The biggest kick I got out of re-watching this movie was when the centipede goes under the frozen water to try and move the boat which has gotten stuck in the ice. When he's down there he finds an abandoned pirate ship. He walks into the ship, yells "Skellington!" and who do we see, but a character from one of Selick's other childhood classics.

This movie, along with The Nightmare Before Christmas as well Coraline, is often confused as being a Tim Burton movie. It's true that Tim Burton had a hand in producing both Nightmare and James, but they are not, in fact, directed by him. I think this may put Selick ahead of Burton in my all-time favourite directors category. Especially after Sweeney Todd and Alice in Wonderland...

We'll never tell the kids...

...Cinderella died

Happy un-valentine's

For next year...

Alice in Wonderland (the original)

A few nights ago, my room mate and I watched the original Disney version of Alice in Wonderland. I haven't seen it since I was in first year university so I had forgotten some of the best parts of the movie.

After watching the original though, I think I have figured out why I didn't enjoy the Tim Burton version of the movie as much as I had originally enjoyed the cartoon classic. Tim Burton formed his movie to be a sequel to the Disney version. The Tim Burton version takes place when Alice is in her 20s and she is facing a difficult decision on whether or not to become engaged to a man she does not truly love. To escape tis reality she dives into a rabbit hole and rediscovers Wonderland.

But it's not the same as when she visited the first time. The first time she was there all of the characters seemed so light-hearted and content with their Wonderland world. The second time she goes, however, there is a dark undertone which follows Alice as she re-encounters character after character. This could be because when Alice visits the first time she is six years old and does not have much to be sad or worried about in her real life. What does a six year old have to worry about other than behaving herself and trying to do her best in school? When she visits as a twenty year old, her vision of the world has obviously become more clouded through her maturity; she is being pressured into being married without loving her fiancée, she has surely seen the darker parts of the world including poverty and war, and she has surely by the age of twenty made friends and lost them for whatever reason. Since Wonderland exists in Alice's head, it is no wonder that the happy-go-lucky place she once knew has know become dark and almost ominous.

Another thing that I didn't really realize until I watched the original was that this sequel was not a musical. I had not forgotten that Disney made a musical but I had just put it out of my mind. I guess this sort of adds to the happy and bubbly place that Alice originally encounters when she is six. Without the musical aspect, it definitely adds gloom to Alice's new idea of Wonderland.

United States of Tara

A few months ago my sister discovered this tv show on my mom's Rogers on Demand called United States of Tara. She tried to convince me to watch it telling me it was about a woman with multiple-personality disorder. But that's all she told me. So I didn't believe her that it was a great show.

But then I was at my mom's house with a bunch of free time on my hands so I decided to give it a shot. I'm super glad I did too! Not only does Tara have multiple personalities, but she has a husband, two kids and a sister who are all main characters in the show. And ALL of them are equally as hilarious as Tara.

The show was created by Diablo Cody who also wrote Juno and Jennifer's Body. I didn't know this until I started watching the show and saw it in the opening credits, but that just makes me love it even more. It's such a great show.

If you've never sen it, check it out. I'm sure it will completely suck you in like it has done to me.

Click here to see one of Tara's hilarious alter-egos.

Frontier(s)

I heard about Frontier(s) a long time ago but never really understood what it was about. From the preview I could tell that there were many riots and I assumed it was about something political.

I haven't been able to find this movie to rent anywhere. My friend and I tried to find it in the video store the other day so I looked it up online today. I now know why video stores don't carry it!

And I was right about the political background...kind of. The beginning of the movie starts with five "friends" who are up to no good. They have a bag of cash and are trying to escape the city, we assume for political reasons since there is a seemingly unwanted election happening at the time. One of them is shot and dies in a hospital. The rest try to get to a hostel. Two make it there before the other two and chaos ensues.

You never really find out what the five of them were up to when they were in the city but you know it's illegal since they are trying to escape with a huge bag of money. The rest of the movie doesn't really have much to do with politics at all.

This movie is kind of like Texas Chainsaw Massacre meets Hostel. TCM because they encounter a family of crazed lunatics, Hostel because they are kidnapped from a hostel in a different country and the family uses the hostel to lure people in. The movie has nothing to do with either of these other movies though. It's something totally fresh, which is great because it's really difficult to find a slasher movie that isn't like all other slasher flicks.

If you don't mind subtitles, you should for sure watch it.

Oh you Frenchies and your horror....

Watch the trailer!