The Happening (M. Night Shyamalan, 2008)

This is laughable, simply and plain idiotic. Movies about nature turning against the mankind are usually pretty cool, especially because you don't really expect to see another Birds. But this one is ridiculous, it's kind of drama that wants to be horrifying but it just turns into moronic family-shit mess with "environmental" message. Of course. And yes, love also conquers everything.

Basically everything is horrible, most of all (entire!) cast and the music. Whenever it gets into soft mood, some idiotic sentimental scene follows. It's kind of pattern and it's good because you can prepare yourself to start laughing.

I give this crap rating of 2 although it hardly deserves even 1. But I'm adding additional point because at least director was smart enough to got rid of John Leguizamo in the first half. Really felt bad for the guy, he's even worse than Mark Wahlberg.

2/10

Fix (Doug Freel, 2011)

I was never a die hard Ministry fan although they were always around. Saw them live on few occasions over the years and they had disappointed every single time - always using so many samples and effects resulting gigs to feel phoney and band just using playback instead of actually playing their fucking instruments. So I didn't expect nothing special when I went to check them out few weeks ago and was pleasantly surprised because they were really good! Intense, loud and focused with crowd going crazy for the whole time of 2+ hours set ending with some oldies-goldies hits from Psalm 69 record.

Few days after the gig I came across this documentary posted on one of my favorite blogs and it was too big of coincidence to ignore it. Seemed I just had to see it. And besides that I've heard some positive opinions about it when it was shown at the best film festival in the world.

And it's not bad at all. Very watchable and I'm sure that fans would enjoy it a lot. There's lots of music and behind the scenes footage from the 92 tour accompanied with bunch of interviews. Doug Freel really made more than just a decent effort of portraying band on the road but after halfway through you realize that you are watching just another tour film of just another rock band. Especially once you get over the initial shock of seeing Jourgensen shooting up heroin in front of the camera...

Total winner and show stealer is David Yow and I'm giving this flick at least one extra point because of him! We all know he's really crazy - especially comparing to Jourgensen who's ¨just" a junkie - and here he is at his best. His anecdotes are simply hilarious (stuff with him and Gibby Haynes selling their asses), shots of Al shooting drugs are nothing compared to Yow going crazy on the stage (and stage diving) in total nude. Brilliant and funny as hell: Oh yeah - and Buzz is also cool, no surprise there of course.

8/10

Attack of the 50 Foot Woman (Nathan Juran, 1958)

Probably the most ridiculed classical sci-fi after Ed Wood's Plan 9 but I simply love it.

Seems like the whole budget went for design of the poster which had since become a synonym for exploitation movies art. All they have left to work with were 3 sets: Ms Archer's "mansion", hotel bar and a desert. And since you can't do much with these they decided to blend sci-fi and film-noir and melodrama into this weird classics.

And yet another remarkable evidence how to make something out of nothing if you try hard enough and you are at least modestly talented and you don't give a shit about what other people think about you and you are lucky enough to find collaborators with a similar frame of mind.

9/10

The Crazies (Breck Eisner, 2010)

I'm into Crossed comics lately and decided to check out this one not expecting much to be honest. Or better say - expecting just another of Romero's rip-offs that even he himself has started doing anyways...

But it is surprisingly good. We are not in the near "when there's no room in hell the dead will walk the earth" future but in the present time. And instead of zombies we have crazies which are locals in a small town who became infected by some government fucked up chemical poison. They are called crazies for obvious reasons (although they are not as insane as crossed ones) but mayhem really starts when army arrives into this town and starts "cleansing" it. In the middle of all this is local sheriff (of course), his pregnant wife (at least there's no small kid) and his friend/deputy.

Sounds like a pretty much standard setup, but it manages to raise above average. Total winner is the scene with farmer impaling tied-up women in the hospital with pitchfork (also good poster btw). It's truly unsettling and horrifying to watch and I'm surprised movie got just a R15 rating. Another good scene is fight between two crazies and our hero in his house. Trick with killing someone with a knife drilled through the hand is not a new one but it's really effective here.

Story is also pretty cool and fast moving. It doesn't waste much time with introductions and family shit and so on. Bad things start happening pretty fast and after that our group is constantly on the run, getting (and loosing) some members along the way. For the first half of the flick it bothered me that they don't have some plan, but I soon realized that's the whole point of it.

Good mixture of horror, action and suspense with even some darkly comical elements thrown in. And one last spoiler - it does end up with a big bang! So I'm awarding it with an extra point that it probably doesn't really deserve.

8/10