Audition

What the HELL!?!?!?!?!?

This is by far the most disturbing movie I've seen to date. If I were to give one piece of advice to people who have not seen this movie and want to, I would suggest that they read very little about it before watching it.

Aoyama, a movie producer, is a widower. When his teenage son tells him that he looks old and should remarry, he seeks the advice of a colleague, Yoshikawa. Yoshikawa suggests holding an audition where Aoyama can have the "pick of the litter", so to speak. The girl he chooses has a colored past, to say the least, and is full of mystery until about 2/3 of the way through the movie. Often dubbed (according to the Bravo channel) as the Japanese mix between "Misery" and "Fatal Attraction", it has so many disturbing scenes that it's difficult to choose which is the most disturbing.

For those who have seen it,
The piano wire part was disgusting, the acupuncture needles were downright frightening, the part where the old man masturbates while she dances is disturbing, but the one part that I actually had to cover my eyes was the regurgitation scene. Ugh.

This is the Halloween movie of the year. Frightmare at its best and guaranteed to stay with you.


"kittykittykittykittykittyyyyy....."

In Her Shoes

*Republished to show all of you goddamned spammers who's boss.*

Curtis Hanson has this new film out about how the most beautiful woman can be self-conscious and how the most self-conscious woman can be beautiful. In Her Shoes is a look into the lives of sisters Maggie and Rose and how their sisterly bond is strong enough to overcome everything.

And everything is what they show you. For crying out loud, the movie is only 2 hours and 10 minutes long, but it feels like 3. Everything in the story is pertinent, but it's pretty drawn out.

That's not to say that it's a bad movie- it's actually pretty good for a chick flick. Chick flick movies today are difficult to make anyway- you have the "best friends chick flick" (such as The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants), the "mother-daughter chick flick" (like Freaky Friday), and the ever popular "flashback chick flick" (like The Devine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood or Fried Green Tomatoes). Overall, Hanson did a pretty good job with the "sister chick flick", showing just how loyal they were to each other even after an act of betrayal drove them apart.

It's worth a watch- even if it's just for the small names that give it a little extra bonus- you'll see Eric Balfour (aka Gabe from Six Feet Under) and Brooke Smith (aka Catherine Martin from The Silence of the Lambs).

Tim Burton's Corpse Bride

The Corpse Bride is Tim Burton's newest foray into stop motion animation and is nothing to write home about. It's really just okay. It ends rather abruptly and doesn't really deliver the way that "Nightmare Before Christmas" does. Nightmare has those great contagious songs which everyone knows and you can watch it over and over and sing along: "What's This?"

Corpse Bride's music was almost a regurgitation of Nightmare's with different lyrics. Although the voices were kinda cute- Tracy Ullman always does a good job, and Helena Bonham Carter, Emily Watson, and Johnny Depp were good- the best by far was Enn Reitel's (in a salute to Peter Lorre) voice as the maggot. However, the script lacked the spice and spark of Nightmare, so the actors didn't have a whole hell of a lot to work with to start.

Even though it was not as great as I had expected it to be, I would still recommend it if for nothing more than to see what movie will probably contend for an animation Oscar. (I'm praying for Were-Rabbit to win, but haven't seen it yet, so the jury's still out on that one.)