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I was just curious, Gunslinger, did you see the show onstage?
The Gunslinger 45: Top 12 Movies I Like, You will Probably Hate
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I like sick stuff so I liked Pink Flamingos, and I enjoyed the hell out of Tusk.
Another fun list Gunner!
Another fun list Gunner!
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Can't believe I still haven't seen Pink Flamingos. I have had interest in Tusk ever since I learned you were a fan.
Can't believe I still haven't seen Pink Flamingos. I have had interest in Tusk ever since I learned you were a fan.
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As such the action is actually fun and thrilling because I actually give a damn about the people in the movie. I don’t give two sh*ts about LeQuiff and Megan Fox in the Transformers movie, so why the hell would the action scenes matter? I gave a damn about Smith and Lawrence.
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Seeing Pink Flamingos and Tusk back-to-back made me realise that they are at once extremely similar and extremely different. However, while I reckon Pink Flamingos more than earns its status as a shock-horror cult classic, Tusk...does not. The difference, I reckon, is a matter of principle and their origins. Pink Flamingos is an outwardly gross movie that still felt nasty and shocking when I revisited it last year, but what really made it work is that it felt like there was a point to the shocks. Given its origins in the counterculture of early-1970s Baltimore, this actually gives off the impression that the film was a portrait of one very weird side of America that actually needed to be seen. Also, I think it does a better job of pulling off the evil-vs-evil conflict than similar films like, say, The Devils Rejects. The writing is weirdly clever and idiosyncratic, whether it's in the phrasing of certain lines or the strange class commentary that was going on in comparing Babs' white-trash family against the Marbles' bourgeois depravity. I'm hard-pressed to call it a favourite, but when I think about it I think of a quote from Videodrome that describes the power of the eponymous broadcast - "it has a philosophy."
Tusk, on the other hand...as I noted in my less-than-flattering review, Red State is the film that comes across as Smith's true passion project (as evidenced by how it took years to get made and how drastically left-field it is compared to just about everything else in his filmography) and its relative success is what emboldened him to veer into making more horrors. I do reckon the fact that he launched a Twitter poll asking fans if he should actually go ahead with actually making Tusk contradicts the idea that it's a straight-up passion project. The question then becomes what the point of the whole thing ends up being. The comparison to Human Centipede is apt because the basic narrative beats end up being identical, so it can only claim so much in terms of originality and weirdness (but then again, this is the guy who is working on a film that is explicitly described as a Jaws knock-off so I can't say I'm too surprised). Meanwhile, the ways in which it tries to make things a comedy are extremely limited, whether by making Justin Long an annoying dick who thinks he's funny (presumably Smith attempting self-deprecation) or having Johnny Depp show up and indulge all his worst acting stereotypes in a way that only serves to make the already-thin movie seem even more flimsy. There's no "philosophy" to this movie - if anything, the subtext of the movie actually reveals it the sheer pointlessness of it all. Tusk is about a podcast host who decides to exploit a silly ad for the easy amusement of his small but devoted fanbase and ends up paying for it dearly. Meanwhile, Smith pulls the same thing and...gets to make Yoga Hosers? I guess it's not that different.
But whatever, if I made a list like this then Batman and Robin would be on it. I guess we're all full of it.
Tusk, on the other hand...as I noted in my less-than-flattering review, Red State is the film that comes across as Smith's true passion project (as evidenced by how it took years to get made and how drastically left-field it is compared to just about everything else in his filmography) and its relative success is what emboldened him to veer into making more horrors. I do reckon the fact that he launched a Twitter poll asking fans if he should actually go ahead with actually making Tusk contradicts the idea that it's a straight-up passion project. The question then becomes what the point of the whole thing ends up being. The comparison to Human Centipede is apt because the basic narrative beats end up being identical, so it can only claim so much in terms of originality and weirdness (but then again, this is the guy who is working on a film that is explicitly described as a Jaws knock-off so I can't say I'm too surprised). Meanwhile, the ways in which it tries to make things a comedy are extremely limited, whether by making Justin Long an annoying dick who thinks he's funny (presumably Smith attempting self-deprecation) or having Johnny Depp show up and indulge all his worst acting stereotypes in a way that only serves to make the already-thin movie seem even more flimsy. There's no "philosophy" to this movie - if anything, the subtext of the movie actually reveals it the sheer pointlessness of it all. Tusk is about a podcast host who decides to exploit a silly ad for the easy amusement of his small but devoted fanbase and ends up paying for it dearly. Meanwhile, Smith pulls the same thing and...gets to make Yoga Hosers? I guess it's not that different.
But whatever, if I made a list like this then Batman and Robin would be on it. I guess we're all full of it.
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Iro's Top 100 Movies v3.0
I really just want you all angry and confused the whole time.
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Rock of Ages is so much fun. A bunch of actors that I love embarrassing themselves accompanied by cheesy rock tunes, I love it. Everytime Giamatti sings in that I can't help but laugh. Tusk, again, is a movie I like watching on occasion just because of the shock value, the premise, and backstory that's impossible to not be intrigued by. Glad to see I'm not the only one. I liked browsing your list, nice job. 
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