The Hall of Infamy

Anyone know where I can find the Still Life?

I tried looking yesterday and I couldn't find any free links. It's on Amazon Prime for $3 though.

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I literally CANNOT pay for movies right now.

Organ, 1996

"F*cking butterflies"

A police officer named Numata and his partner Tosaka infiltrate an organ harvesting operation run by a twisted brother/sister pair, and immediately blow their cover. Numata is injected with something strange by the sister, while Tosaka is abducted by the brother. Thrown off of the force, Numata is determined to find his lost partner.

As advertised, this film is indeed full of fluids.

While the movie does cross a certain threshold of grossness (Watch while eating lunch? No. Watch while repairing shattered ceramic toilet lid? Yes.), what makes it more than deserving of its place in this Hall of Infamy is its inability to do anything amazing with all of that goo and gore.

Am I about to go on record and say that this move could have used more fluids? Yes, yes I am.

I think I understand why this film was picked. There is a kind of sublime horror to be found in a well-crafted narrative, and there is an equally powerful horror to be found in the right kind of giddy incoherence. This movie splits the difference, ending up as an unpleasant muddle that doesn't satisfy on either front.

There are frustrating hints of what could have been. The premise alone is certainly weird enough, and the idea of Tosaka being slowly tortured and mutilated in the brother, Saeki's, back room is awful. There are also neat glimpses of weirdness, such as a sequence where Saeki, having just murdered a female student, has a vision of a large cocoon on his ceiling opening to reveal a mutant woman.

But every time the film threatens to get really interesting, it's like the brakes get tapped. The woman emerges from the cocoon hanging upside-down and I was like "That was dooooooope", and then she pulls a long caterpillar from her stomach and I was like "Yessssssss" . . . and then she spends like two minutes rubbing the caterpillar on her body, just in case we didn't pick up on the subtle nuances of the sequence.

The gore is similar. It just never ramps up. The effects aren't bad at all. But it's all on the same level for the whole film. These sort of pudding-textured patches on peoples' bodies that ooze a bit. I kept waiting for something really gnarly and it never delivers.

Kei Fujiwara, who co-starred in Tetsuo: The Iron Man wrote, directed, and starred in this film (playing the murderous sister). I probably enjoyed reading about the making of the film more than actually watching it. Fujiwara put together a theater group who raised the money for the film themselves and also did all of the technical aspects. Scenes were almost all done as single takes.

Weirdly, for how outlandish the film seems to want to be, there's a lot of content that feels almost cliche: the disgraced police officer, the siblings with emotional damage from an abusive mother, the grown Saeki as a teacher who preys on his attractive female students.

Being kind of boring is always a crime for a film, but being boring while putting unpleasant content like sexual assault or child abuse on screen is even worse. It generates negative vibes and then doesn't do anything with that energy.

Ultimately, this film made me think a bit of Matango only . . . goopier and 25 minutes longer, and without the corniness that makes Matango viable so-bad-it's-good entertainment.

As much as I'm bagging on the film, there was enough potential in certain moments that I'd be willing to watch more from Fujiwara.



Infamy: 1/2

I just looked at all of my free links for The Still Life but I couldn't find it. A couple of options:

1) torrents (I don't use those myself but it might be found that way)
2) somebody who has the video file could email it to you. They might have to compress the video file size down.

I'm not downloading anything. Is it possible to upload the movie on a website than I can specify and then I can send the link to anyone who needs it?

Or the video owner could put it on YT. It's obviously a very rare movie with a low-profile cast. By the time any copyright owners (if ever) ask them to take it down, we'll have already seen the movie, and all that will happen is a request to take it down and that's it. They could even try Dailymotion, Vimeo or ok.ru.

I don't have the video file for The Still Life, maybe someone else does?

I hope so, because I joined the games here because up until now they've been free, and my financial situation is so rough that I can't even afford to spend three dollars on a movie that has a 99% chance of me never watching it again.

I totally understand and I'm in the same situation too. I wish I could've helped you find it.

My excuse is being a cheap part-time Dunkin' drink maker. I don't mind revealing that. At least I get free lunches. You probably have it better than me, though.

Just a brief update: Takoma messaged me privately and said she'll change out her nomination of The Still Life to something which is easier to track down. She said she might need a couple days to do it. Since nobody has reviewed it yet, I'm fine with that, so don't watch her nomination right now and I'll let you all know what she changes her nomination to once I receive it.

American Gladiators existed in a time when reality television was a novelty, and I remember the Australian version - where competitors were up against a group of semi-professional athletes in various invented games of endurance and strength. It got old fast, much like most of reality television does, but seems to get superseded by various game shows that try and push things a little further. I never end up watching these shows - I've got so many things I want to do with my time, and it bores me. Sometimes I end up in cars where everyone wants to talk about the latest reality TV game show, and I just want to die at moments like those. But American Flatulators is a lot worse than any of that stuff - by an order of magnitude.

American Flatulators is a parody of American Gladiators, and it thinks flatulence is so funny that 54 straight minutes of it was a good idea for a comedy. It digs into old, asinine material, such as calling characters "Ben Dover", and doesn't care that such lack of invention shows it up for it's dearth of creativity. The entire runtime is completely unfunny, and as such is gut-wrenchingly boring, insulting, clueless and creating it was such a pointless endeavour that I'd hope it's directors - Barry and Elizabeth Hirschberg - have met with some kind of misfortune to at least pay them back for the gumption they had thinking people would be entertained by this. People who have less of a sense of humour than the average person on the street should not be in the entertainment business.

The film follows the Gladiators format, but instead of skills of strength and endurance the contestants are tested by how expert they are at breaking wind. The Gladiators have names such as Fluff, Ripper, SBD and Gaseous Clay - the contestants go by Dumper Pile, Tex "Air Biscuit" Fritter, Felicia Fullercheeks and Bernie "the Eggman" Blattbaum. This is basic grade school nonsense - and I'd like to make it clear that I love toilet humour that's done well. I'm not offended by the off-colour aspect of this - I'm offended by the lack of originality and humour. There are too many puns, and most of them are completely imbecilic. Flatulence noise is just played over and over and over again for the entire runtime, the creators thinking it would always translate into much laughter for the audience. Children would be too erudite to be amused by this. It's an affront to comedy. Everyone with a sense of humour should probably be outraged.

When the film gets to a commercial break, and we're confronted with the Sphincter Singers farting various tunes I did smile - but not for the reasons this film would have wanted me to. I was smiling now at how ridiculously stupid this entire endeavour was. How lacking in comedic sense, any feeling of what is funny and what's not. There were many more inane puns, and contests dreamed up by dim-witted, senseless halfwits. This is what the Hirschbergs think of the American public - and all proud Americans should eject them from the country and send them into exile - they're not worthy of living in a society that they treat in this manner. The performers themselves were embarrassing - but what else could they be? They all exist on the fringe of the business - even Dave Goldstein (who played Ben Dover) - he claims to be a recognizable face despite hardly ever working in the near 30 years since this was made. (He seems to do mediocre to poor stand up comedy these days.)

I hated this. It has no appeal to any group of people. It lacks an even basic understanding of what is funny. If breaking wind ever is funny, it's when it happens in a serious situation and is embarrassing. Going on a game show and farting non-stop while people called 'Ben Dover' whoop and holler is not even slightly amusing. It's sickening. Bad puns aren't funny. Calling songs "Achy Breaky Fart", "You've Lost that Gaseous Feeling" and "Fart Break Hotel" isn't funny. I'm not sure where this aired, or if it even did, but it couldn't have seriously sustained anyone's attention if, in fact, it found an outlet. People watch American Flatulators just to try and gauge how misguided and empty-headed it is. People watch it when trying to gauge the worst of the worst. It's worse than accidentally and audibly passing gas at a funeral.

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My guess is that while watching American Gladiators one evening, someone started making fake farting sounds whenever a contestant moved or was struck by something, and everyone else in the room laughed. Alcohol and/or other substances may or may not have been involved. The film makers then assumed that what's amusing as a one-off 60 second gag would be absolutely hilarious if they made it feature length.

They were clearly wrong.

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On the subject of Going Overboard, I found another Valerie Breiman movie on YT, Bikini Squad. It's about a lady who;s hired to direct new episodes for a Baywatch knockoff. It's pretty lame, but seeing the main character's face as she's being hired is SO funny because that's how I feel watching the movie, so I'm gonna finish this before checking out Going Overboard.

I watched Going Overboard (1989). The first feature directed by Valerie Breiman, this was Adam Sandler's first feature film. This is like a bad student film. Sandler tells the audience at the start of the film it was made with no budget. I didn't mind Sandler talking directly to the audience. The problem is that the film isn't very funny or enjoyable. There were one or two slightly amusing moments, but the film drags on and feels longer than it is. The dialogue is pretty bad and the performances are poor. It's not good, but it is somewhat tolerable. I have seen worse, although this is definitely Sandler's worst film. I do think Sandler has the capability of being a good actor and he has demonstrated that in some of his other films, but here he doesn't show much talent or ability.

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Here is Takoma's new nomination:


Krampus: The Christmas Devil (2013)

For a split second I thought that was just a terrible poster for the 2015 Krampus film, which is a pretty great movie and I would've been shocked to see it nominated.

This one looks incredibly low budget. Should be interesting.

Christmas satan. Excellent choice.

Haven't seen the 2015 Krampus yet, and I also have like zero interest in seeing it, I must admit.