good movies

So, a really quick list of some stuff to check out:

Super

Defendor

Special

These first three are all about "everyman" superhero types, regular people who "become" superheroes.

"Super" features Rainn Wilson (Dwight from "The Office") as a married man wronged by his wife's drug dealer, with whom she runs away.  The story takes a decidedly dark turn when Wilson's character decides to fight crime in all it's forms with a pipe wrench and a twisted sense of right and wrong.  Also starring is Ellen Page, who has probably the funniest scene in the movie, the most awkward scene in the movie, and meets a grisly end.  Highly recommended.  Favorite quote: "SHUTUP CRIME!"

"Defendor" is a different type of superhero movie, which touches more on mental illness than any type of comic book superhero stuff.  Woody Harrelson stars as Arthur Poppington, a construction worker by day and vigilante by night.  His arsenal is that of a 10 year old boy and includes marbles, bees, and a WWI trench club.  He is on a mission to find "Captain Industry", the individual who he believes is responsible for his mother's death.  The story makes you initially laugh at Harrelson's character for how woefully unprepared he is to actually fight any real criminal, however as the film progresses you sympathize more and more for the man-child who's only real talent is sticking to his principles and attempting to avenge the death of his mother.  Very good film, sad at the end, also highly recommended.

"Special" is a superhero movie dealing primarily with mental illness.  A medical study leaves one of it's participants believing he has super powers like the ability to fly, read minds, and run through walls (when in fact he is definitely not flying, and is running into rather than through walls).  The film follows him as he attempts to fight crime, and as the pharmaceutical company who created the drug attempts to catch him so that he doesn't create bad publicity for them.  It's an interesting film, although I didn't like it as much as the two prior.  Something about it's sort of meandering feel and the fact that you're watching somebody who is honestly just delusional is almost like watching a mentally disturbed homeless person (which the main character ends up looking like eventually) sort of crash around and battle invisible monsters is kind of depressing. 

The Bridge

The Bridge is an exceptional documentary about the people who chose to end their life by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.  The film makers set up cameras and monitored the bridge for a year in 2005 to 2006 I believe and captured 24 suicides on film.  Just the footage itself is shocking, and fairly disturbing, but the interviews with family and friends of the people who jumped add a completely different dimension.  After viewing the movie you get the impression that if you put enough people next to a really tall thing that's easy to jump off of then a certain percent of those people are just gonna jump.  Very strange to see people calmly talking on a cell phone, then hang up, climb over the guard railing and just lean forward and let go.  Definitely check it out if you can find it. 

Fritz the Cat


Fritz the Cat is a 1972 R-rated animated film by Ralph Bakshi.  It's lewd, there's lots of drug use, and it just feels very 70s in a funky sort of way.  I won't describe the story because it's very trippy and bounces around a lot, but the animation is unforgettable and some of the characters are characters that could never be portrayed the same way again (think of creating an animated movie today and making all the black characters crows, or all the cops pigs).  All in all Fritz the Cat is just plain fun to watch, and as long as you're not a "square", you'll enjoy it.

Das all for now, catch you cats on the flip side. 

#1: Begotten (1990)

Begotten is by far the sickest, and weirdest movie I have ever seen.  No other movie even comes close.  The movie has no dialogue, save the chirping of crickets, and various grunting noises.  Begotten features a guy who looks much like Leatherface from the Texas Chainsaw Massacre (who is supposed to represent Jesus Christ) giving birth for 2 hours.  At one point, Jesus gets raped with a shovel for about 15 minutes.  Clearly this is not an easy movie to get through.  If you are looking for the all time, unbeatable, sickest, weirdest, most difficult to watch movie, Begotten is for you.

#2: Tetsuo The Iron Man (1989)

Tetsuo the Iron Man ranks high on my personal list of SUPER FUCKING WEIRD.  This hallucinatory film centers on a man who somehow becomes infected with a disease/virus/weird shit which slowly turns him more and more metal.  It is unclear whether he intentionally gave himself this condition (there are scenes of A man inserting what looks like hribar into his leg, but, at least to me, it does not really verify that this is Tetsuo) or whether it was caused by him being hit by a car.  Our titular character is waiting for the subway sometime after the incident with the car and sitting on a bench with a woman.  There is a strange square shape in his cheek, and he notices that her handbag has some weird tentacle things coming out of it.  Eventually he stands up and runs away, all the while with the woman chasing after him.  She chases him for quite some time in a very weird, punk rock sort of high speed montage that makes the viewer feel like they're on speed or some shit.  As he is running away, he starts his transformation.  Later in the film, Tetsuo is with who I believe is the same woman who was chasing him, and is probably 90% metal.  She wants to get busy, but he's ashamed because he's a metal freak.  He hides in a room and she pounds on the door and demands to let her see him, saying that she doesn't mind weird shit.  He opens the door, walks into the hall, and the viewer is shown one of the most bizarre, disturbing, memorable and potentially shocking scenes ever put to film.  Tetsuo towers over the woman on the floor, almost in a fighting stance, screaming/crying while what used to be his dick (which has now become a gigantic spinning drill with a GWAR sort of a look to it) spins and spins as he cries and the woman screams in terror.  After this memorable scene there's...stuff...I don't want to ruin it for anyone who's going to see it.  Suffice it to say, Tetsuo the Iron Man just gets stranger from there, finishing in the most awesome ending to a movie that I personally have seen, and I say this due to the movie's ability to absolutely embrace the character of Tetsuo, or rather what he becomes at the end of the film.

#3: Caligula

This movie is all the more horrific because all the events which we witness are true.  Gaius Caligula Caesar was well known to the authors of antiquity as the mad emperor of Rome, to quote GWAR, "Whose purges consumed thousands on his blazing altar of syphilis."  We can start off by saying that this movie is a porn.  The very first scene of the movie features Caligula's uncle Tiberius having a great big syphilitic orgy with a bunch of midgets, freaks, and deformities of nature.  Once Caligula takes over, things only get worse.  He appoints his horse as counsel of Rome.  He leads out his legions to an invasion of Briton, but then has them attack a field of papyrus cane instead.  But the worst part is saved for a Roman general named Proculus, and his wife Livia.  Loudly saying, "In the name of the Senate, and the People of Rome, I Caligula Caesar command it", he slaps a lump of lard on the ass of Proculus and FISTS THE SHIT OUT OF HIM, leaving him prostrated and bleeding.  Leaning over the body of his defiled wife, Caligula then goes on to say, "You can see how I have exhausted myself to make your wedding holy."  There is not much else you can say about Caligula, except "Let's see if Proculus can brighten our day!"

#4: El Topo (1970)

This movie, made by Alejandro Jodorowsky, features a black clad, bearded gunslinger named El Topo (which is Spanish for 'The Mole') riding around on a horse with his little naked son in search of the four gunslingers of magic, who live at the 4 corners of the desert.  The movie has very little dialogue and is made up of very haunting, disturbing and surreal images.  What really got me about this movie was the sounds coming out of my speakers.  The high pitched mechanical squealings and the sound of a screaming rodent caused my pet boxer to run out of the other room to check out our speakers.  She was really stressed out.  I would say the movie has an epic feel to it, although the agenda of El Topo remains totally unclear.  There are no words of explanation to suggest why El Topo is riding around with his little naked son killing people, but there are plenty of dead rotting bodies laying all over the desert, which look like they stink.  The end.

#5: August Underground's Mordem

This movie is the ultimate in gore, and only its lack of surrealism and straightforward progression keeps it from being placed higher on the list.  The uploader claimed it to be an actual snuff film, and I had to look it up after I saw it.  The effects are that realistic.  I was nearly convinced.  This is 2 hours of guaranteed wincing, even for those viewers with a stomach strong enough to get past the first 10 minutes.  You'll never forget it.

#7: Guinea Pig II: Flowers of Flesh and Blood (1989)

This movie is the strangest and goriest of a 6 part movie series called "Guinea Pig".  The rest of them are pretty mundane, but this one is really "out there".  It starts off with a guy with blacked out teeth and a samurai helmet kidnapping with the use of chloroform some random Japanese girl.  He ties this girl up to a bed and starts talking about how the highest form of human beauty is really to be found not merely on the skin but on the innards and viscera of the human being.  He refers to this as the making of bright red blossoms and then saws off her arm.  Then he saws off her leg.  Then he saws off her lips.  The whole time, he is making these fucked up speeches about flowers, and at the end of the movie he shows you the remains of past victims who are maggot and worm covered, and just generally really disgusting.  The director of the movie, Kazuhito Kuramoto, was actually investigated by Japanese police for making a snuff film.  He had to prove that all of his effects were faked by recreating them on the spot.  The dialog and explanations are the 2 main factors keeping this film from ranking higher than 7 on this list.