Machine Gore Police Girl... Tokyo

Saw a couple of films lately. Including The Wrestler. But I'll blog about that one later.

I'm blogging about Machine Girl and Tokyo Gore Police. They are both super bloody flicks from Japan. Shot on the cheap.

Machine Girl is about a schoolgirl whose brother is murdered and has her hand chopped off by a family of Yakuza Ninjas. Said hand had been covered in tempura and deep fried earlier.

Tokyo Gore Police is about a Tokyo Police Woman (in the future, the police force have been privatized) whose father was killed in front of her and is now killing Engineers. Not people who build bridges, mind, but crazy killers who have some sort of key shaped tumor within them that lets them replace lost limbs with weapons.

Both contain some fairly inventive violence and countless geysers of blood. And I am glad that I watched them both, but Machine wipes the floor with Gore.

It is a question of approach. An approach best reflected in their leads. Machine Girl's girl is cute and energetic. Gore's police woman barley has one facial expression. And it is not an appealing expression.

The problem with these films is that I want to talk about the best gags. The bits of violence that elicits laughs. The insane quirks of the scripts. But I don't want to ruin the films.

I'll give one example from each. As a little taste of each movie. In Machine Girl, the Machine Girl attaches a machine gun to her arm stump and shoots a guy in the face so much that his face falls to bits, leaving his skull and a geyser of blood. In Tokyo Gore Police, there is a girl with an eyeball in her mouth, a girl with stitches where her nipples should be and a girl with her eyes on stalks and a shell on her back doing a sexy dance.

So yeah: go rent Machine Girl. The violence is more enjoyable, the girl is cuter, and there are more panty shots.

I'm classy.

Modern Horror

Kinda sucks.

In America.

But other places seem to be doing okay.

I say this because I saw The Unborn and Let The Right One In recently.

The Unborn is not good. The trailer was good. Made me want to see the movie. But stuff that looked freaky and scary in the trailer looked pretty damn fake in the actual movie. And the story was nowhere near good. And I don't think anyone involved knew how to end the movie. The answer is obvious: it never should have started.

But the lead actress displayed some epic camel toe. So there is that.

I'm not exactly sure if Let the Right One In is a horror film. It has horrific elements in it. One of the leads is a vampire after all. But it is mainly a story about a boy and a girl not quite old enough to fall in love.

It's very cute, but not in an obvious, Disney sort of way. The film hits all the notes you would expect it to but you don't always expect it to hit them.

The gore is almost always unexpected even though you know it is coming.

It is just a really well put together film. With great performances. And memorable scenes. Like the one of the most violent feel good ending I have seen in a while.

Really?

My iPod doesn't always like to play in the car. Such was the case today.

Which is me trying to explain why I was listening to local Regina radio today. And not the community station, neither. I was listening to the Zed. Z99.

*shudder*

I was lucky enough to catch the tail end of the Saskatchewan Top 20.

I weep for my past, present and future.

How the fuck does Nickelback stay at the top of any list for 8 weeks in a row? They are so unremarkable, you can't even remark about how remarkably unremarkable they are.

And Saskatchewan loves the fuck out of them.

Steve Martin

I saw a trailer for Pink Panther 2 in front of Yes Man. (Yes Man? An average comedy. Funny bits. Sappy bits. Zooey Desanchel is frickin adorable and awesome.)

I love Steve Martin. My sense of humour owes so much to him. My dad watched Martin, Monty Python, the Pink Panther movies and SNL with me when I was very young.

Thanks dad.

Seriously.

But manoman do his latest movies make me sad.

Especially since I just finished his book about his stand up days. Born Standing Up is a great read for Steve Martin fans. I can't say how it would play to non fans. But it is well written, funny and informative. It captures the spirit of a few different decades and how they affected Steve and his approach to his material.

And it details how it was a combination of luck, hard work and interesting connections that got him to the top of the heap.

It stops when his stand up career does, so it mentions not at all his sad, sad later days. I think that would be just as interesting.

But way more depressing.

Mini Me

And now I update you on the subject about which you have all been wondering about. I lost 0.8 kilos over the holiday season.

I don't know how the fuck I manged that either.

Yay me.

Role Models

Let us talk a bit about Role Models. It is a film I saw about a month ago. I haven't seen a film in a theatre for a month. That sucks. I am earning money, and that is nice, but I miss my weekly movie fix.

But Role Models was a good movie, all that aside. It played to the strengths of all its leads. Paul Rudd is basically what all males my age want to be. I know I sure as hell wouldn't mind being him. He is funny and handsome and can play mean or wry or sweet or whatever the hell. But he is especially good at being a sarcastic bastard.

Stifler has his best Stifler role since Stifler.

The little black kid is cute and foul mouthed, which is my favourite kind of kid. I found him a bit annoying at first, but he grew on me. I bonded with him over our shared love of boobies.

And McLovin showed that he he was more than just McLovin. He is the anti-McLovin in this one.

And even though the film laughs at LARPing, it also gives it a fair bit of respect.

It made me want to hit my friends with foam swords. More than usual.

Laughs were had, lessons were learned, I can't figure out how to end this thing.

Merry New Year's Mass

Now that it is the new year, and the first Monday of aforementioned year (the new one), I figured I should give this blogging stuff another shot.

By the time I actually become a regular blogger, the blogosphere will be old and abandoned. Much like I will be.

I already feel old. My back started hurting on Christmas day, and it hasn't gone away yet. It is better than it was, but still not all that great. So I haven't been doing my daily out workings.

I am afraid of my weight.

It was a delicious season of yumminess.

So that is that.