The Dead Zone

We've yet to see M Butterfly, but this one here just has to be Cronenberg's worst. Now you all know that if there's one thing we love it's fawning over Big Davey Crones, so of course you've gotta understand that our hands are really tied here. We can't do anything but jam our fingers in our ears and look the other way with this flick. See, we're throwing all rationality out the window and refusing to believe that The Dead Zone's faults 'n failures belong to Canada's gloppiest Cartesian auteur. Now who's to blame you ask? Why, Stephen King of course. Sure, his book might be good. He may have an interesting premise about soothseeing and political intrigue, but, c'mon Stevie, you know we don't want to see anything on the big screen that's even inspired by you unless it's got some flying Coke cans in the treatment!

The Cinema suggests that if you're wanting something Croney or Kingy you direct your attention over to The Brood or Pet Sematary. Maybe even try Firestarter or that Anthony Michael Hall show on for size. But whatever ya do, just remember that no matter how intrigued ya are by Chris Walken's signature mugshots or how badly you wanna see Tom Skerritt in a policeman's uniform for the hundreth time, The Dead Zone is hardly acceptable even when ya've stumbled home from an all-night bender.

Heartworn Highways

For a bunch of drunks they sure play some good tunes.

M*A*S*H

A Dad Movie if we ever saw one. We can just hear Pops and his buddies quotin' Sutherland's lines and talking about that really stupid football game that sucks all the energy outta the end of this flick. There's the old man laughing 'bout Elliott Gould hitting the links and that part where the whole army doc camp listens in on Bobby Duvall's late-night romp in the sack. Ha! How great. Can't ya just hear your old man too?

The weird thing is, and the thing we couldn't stop thinking about while watching this, was how when we say this is a "Dad Movie" we're picturing Dad as we knew him: a middle-aged dude with a mustache and kids. We're thinking of Little League Dad and waiting for the PGA tournament to end so he can clip the hedges Dad. But when M*A*S*H hit the big screen, Dad was just a young man who still couldn't buy his own twelver of Olympia. So when we imagine him and his other mortgage-havin' pals recountin' these scenes at the Fourth of July barbecue it's really like the Cinema jawin' on and on about Fight Club or the time we saw that Enemy of the State/Faculty double feature. Isn't that weird? Dad was a dumb kid just like us, and here we are watching all these Dad Movies thinking it was Adult Dad who liked all this stuff instead of Wild and Crazy Dad out on a double date. In fact, maybe Young Dad didn't even like these here '70s movies anyway. Maybe he just liked the '70s.

The Savages

Aren't you excited to take care of your parents? Before you know it they're gonna lose all control of their faculties and functions and you'll have to make all these great decisions about who's gonna take care of 'em and how you're gonna pay for it. Sure, it's a tough thing to think about at this stage of the game, so why not channel that energy into fostering good relationships with your own children? Don't wait, act now!

Visitor Q

What was the fucking point? We don't claim to understand any of Miike's films, but at least Gozu felt like it meant something. It's possible Visitor Q really is a disturbingly absurdist representation of Freudian familiar dynamics, but we think it's more likely a litany of sexual perversions. Necrophilia, rape, incest...yep, all here, right alongside lactation, poop, and mom abuse. The thing that troubles us most of all is our compulsion to watch Zebraman, Ichi the Killer, and all three Dead or Alives!

1408

We liked the false ending, but the real ending totally let us down. At least it wasn't a giant spider or a space alien or something.

My Kid Could Paint That

Everything you've ever thought about "art" is in this movie. Not bad!

McCabe & Mrs Miller

You know, we'd probably be pretty down with Leonard Cohen.

Tsotsi

Remember that scene in Get on the Bus where the Muslim guy confesses how he smoked them fools back when he was gangbangin' and then cop sitting next to him says, "Yeah, that's nice you turned your life around and straightened up, but once we get back to L.A. I'm booking you into county"? Remember that? How you felt like the cop was being a dick, but also how there's no fucking statute of limitations on murder and how you wouldn't want a killer to skate no matter how much he'd reformed? The final scene in Tsotsi is kinda like that. The kid's a cold-blooded murdering thief, but, yeeaaaah, he did shape up a little bit when he had to take care of that baby. You know, the baby who's mother got shot just so Tsotsi could steal her car!

Whole

What is this, Psych 101? We thought a movie about amputee fetishism would be icky and mean, but "Body Dysmorphic Disorder"??? Booooo-riiiing.

Cruising

Billy Friedkin -- jack of all trades, master of one. Is this guy really any good? We've sat through a whole bunch of his not-so-classics and we're convinced the stories behind the stories are better than the stories themselves. Hmmm. Well, regardless of all o' that the Fried at least knows how ta bring the big time adrenaline scene. To Live and Die in LA had that wrong way highway chase, The Hunted had that beyond bloody knife fight and Cruising has Bruno Kirby lookalikes fisting each other. Ha! Billy's best gimmick yet!

Paper Moon

Part Kramer Vs Kramer and part Catch Me If You Can -- inoffensive, fun, and a good story played well, but if it wasn't a part of an Easy Riders, Raging Bulls milieu we'd probably just think it cutesy cornball schmaltz. The father-daughter team of Ryan and Tatum O'Neal have understandably great chemistry together, the hundred and twenty minute runtime is perfectly shot thirties Americana, but, really, it's a movie about a little girl and a heartless grifter who learn a little bit about life but a lot about how to love one other. Come on.

Honeydripper

You know, seeing a real movie is fucking great. Say it with us now, "a real movie" -- one that's not about focus groups and bullshit soundtracks and explosions and blockbuster actors. One that's not making anyone money or launching a career or about to fall prey to a studio's desperate Oscar campaign. One where every character has depth and pain and sadness and hope and a goddamn history so heart-wrenchingly real and true you catch yourself smiling as the tissue soaks up your tears. One where each and every second builds on each and every other one that came before it. One that could've only come from the master, John Sayles.

City of Men

Standard issue no-daddies/gang warfare flick a la Baby Boy or any number of the post Boyz in the Hood outpouring, only City of Men mixes it up by sharing the Sex in the City movie's modus operandi.

Now we know what Deutsch meant when he went off on how "foreign" doesn't mean a better "film."

Five Easy Pieces

Made us think about our dads. Then about ourselves. Hey, was that Toni Basil?

We Jam Econo -- The Story of the Minutemen

We watched this again just to see if it'd convince us to buy Double Nickels on the Dime. We still don't have it, we've still only heard "History Lesson Part II," and we think it's gonna stay that way.

Not that we think the Minutemen weren't the the real deal. It's not that they're lame-ass or pretentious. Not that Watt isn't doing exactly what YOU wanna be doing right this very moment. In fact it's far from it. We just think we finally figured out that the music wouldn't mean anything to us. Yeah, we'd appreciate it. We'd dig a song or two on the iShuffle, but if we were without it...well, we'd be just as well off.

Remember when we watched that Tad movie awhile back? The whole time we could see ourselves at a club just rocking the fuck out to that shit. The music had all of those qualities that make us want to spend our Friday night talking about rawk music instead of doing anything else. But as we sat there watching fat guys in flannel, we knew something just wasn't there, and that we'd never ever have a drunken spiel-session about 8 Way Santa. We'd never like Tad as much as we would have in 1990. And y'know, we'll never get into the Jesus Lizard or the Birthday Party or the Cows or any other one of these bands that were brimming with dangerous, challenging, and goddamn exciting rock music because everything they did is two decades old.

The Minutemen are right alongside 'em.

We're not going to stop romanticizing these guys. We're not gonna stop reading Watt's hootpage. We're not gonna quit copping a bastardized Pedro 'tude. But we know that when the day finally comes that we cash in our record store punch card for SST028, it'll be an acquisition we'll listen to once and only so we can get some more cred on the Electrical Audio forum.

Butthole Surfers -- Blind Eye Sees All

Live Buttholes from '85. We like their early '90s "rock" output more than their rambling shambling peeing in a whiffle ball bat Touch and Go catalogue, but we wanted a taste of that acid-drenched '80s live show and this is the only thing available. Cool to have something, but this one's kind of a letdown since it's all tribal bash-bash drumming and guitar noise and none of the strobe lights and penis surgery footage that put these guys on the map. The seizure inducing stuff and smoke machines are what did it, right? No one really liked the vibrato arpeggios did they?


Hmm. Well, it's still pretty neat to see a group of complete lunatics make such a racket for such a sizable crowd. Coolest part for us was how Paul Leary comes off like the band's big swinging dick; up on stage with short hair and slacks he takes on a whole slew of lead vocals where he just screams his fucking head off, all the while playing nothing but great, frantic, feedback-laden guitar solos. Sure, he hasn't fully realized his sustained, delay pedaled genius this early in his career, but it's pretty easy to see that he (and, heck, everyone) was committed to creating some of the strangest music you'd ever heard. "Frontman" Gibby Haynes is a hollering, saxaphoning lunatic, a guy that's either on his way to pathetic drug-damaged paranoia or is a free-form avant garde genius. And the rest of the guys? Solid basslines and mirror imaged drumkits lay down churning, pounding repetition. And then some guy plays a tuba. All of this concert footage really shows off the band's damaged frenzy, but knowing the full-on media assault they were known to put on just a year or two later you leave feeling kinda cheated.

And speaking of cheated, did you know that in '99 the band pissed off every single cool person by suing their former indie record label? Now they're trying out some reunion gigs, but will anyone even want to go? If they come to our neck of the woods, we'll think about it.

Death Bed -- The Bed That Eats

So the guy who made this thing claimed he forgot all about it until he read some dude's fawning message board post twenty-some years later. We find that pretty hard to believe. Death Bed, however, is equally as hard to believe and way way stupider! It's about -- and are you ready for this? -- a bed that eats! Just like it says in the title. Weird thing is, this bed doesn't really eat, it just kinda dissolves people in this Piss Christ solution. Oooh, except in that one scene where it sends a sheet across the room to reel in a helpless victim.

We know that sounds so cool you've already added it to your NetFlix queue, but Death Bed is really fucking weird and cheap, and it's totally fucking worthless -- we shouldn't've spent our time on it and we know we'll be talkin' about it for the rest of our natural lives. The sad part about this one is really that it coulda been so much more. A bed that eats! Come on, how great! Why didn't they set it in an fleabag motel instead of an abandoned farmhouse? Why did they spend all that time telling us the bed was a lovesick demon who lived in a tree and then became the wind and then turned into a four-poster Victorian canopy? And did we mention there's a nineteenth-century ghost who communicates with the bed in a corny Bri'ish accent? Yeah, he lives behind the painting.

Interesting, right? No.

Repo Man

Repo Man's soundtrack changed our lives. Repo Man the movie satiates our 80's fetishism to a T. Dig the American made autos and Harry Dean Stanton, the punk rawk cameos and sleazy surf music. Emilio!

loudQUIETloud -- A Film About The Pixies

loudQUIETloud shows us one thing and one thing only: the Pixies had no business reuniting whatsoever. We think Frank Black and company are a sonic equivalent of junior high -- simplistic and pretentious and full of an exuberance that's equal parts annoying and naive. Ugh. We don't get it. "Crackity Jones"? A superhero named Tony? Give us a break. Now we know a little something about revisionist nostalgia, but there's certain bands we think have no business being the Don't Look Back honorees they are today. This distaste may have you wondering why we wanted to sit through this in the first place, and while, yeah, we think "Debaser"'s pretty cool, we honestly think we wanted to add more fuel to our "Pixies suck!" diatribe. And we think loudQUIETloud came through in that regard. It's not so much that we hate these guys or think they're incompetent, but there's no reason for anyone to get excited about watching this. You like the Pixies? Great. Here's ninety minutes of them not interacting with each other at all! Look at shirtless Frank Black give a phone interview. Here's the Deal sisters sitting on their Winnebago. Here's Joey Santiago on his iMac. No two people in this movie have anything in common at all. We think a better movie would have just been about drummer David Lovering whose Nye-informed magician schedule was put on hold so he could embark on this lucrative reunion tour.

Miami Blues

Like a James Ellroy book filmed by the Coens, only much worse and horribly pointless. We liked watching Fred Ward chew the scenery and Alec Baldwin play a violent, incompetent, DeNiro aping villain, but the updated film noir vibe fizzled out after the first reel and by the final twenty we felt like we'd really been cheated into sitting through something that shoulda been left on the shelf.

Mad Max

Back when we were nine our camp counselor told us once we were older we'd think Mad Max was the best of the trilogy.

We still think the The Road Warrior's better.

Basket Case

We saw this in high school and thought it was stupid because we were idiots. We also saw a shitty video transfer. But now we're super sophisticated and we have a bright 'n shiny new and improved print. "So what's all that mean?" you ask. Why...

Basket Case is the greatest movie ever!

Well, at least really darn good. So good we're putting it right at the top of the Cinema's chart. In league with Dead-Alive and Street Trash and, we dunno, King of the Kickboxers or something. Basket Case is top notch drive-in, made at a time when shootin' on film and peddlin' to sleazy theaters was on its way out and VHS and scrambled pay cable was bursting through the door. Director Big Frank Henenlotter really knows his shit and it shows. A crazy story, some late nights, and a few outlandishly bloody deaths are all anyone (errr...we) needs to have a great time and that's exactly what this flick delivers. We're so smitten we think we're finally gonna watch the two Case sequels. They were made ten years later to cash in on a decade of video store hype wethinks, but we don't mind one bit. Can you say "exploitation?"

Hey, and here's an interesting side note: the day before we watched this we finished a book on a boy's medical penis mishap. And then we read Paul Auster's book on coincidental anecdotes. How about that? A botched surgery tome followed by film of Siamese twins? That's a coin-ki-dink all by itself!

The Running Man

The best Arnold films don't always translate into the best ArnoCorps songs. The Running Man is such signature Cinema that it'd be a nearly impossible task for any song to measure up. "Running Man" has some nice guitar interaction and follows a similar narrative arc as "The Terminator" inasmuch as the focus relies solely on Ben Richards' plight and attitude rather than attempting to capture each and every plot details. Lyrically, it sticks straight to the facts -- Richards' set up for a slaughter of the innocents, the Running Man's premise and relation to an oppressive, exploitative "is it media or is it government?" controlled society -- and it is for this that we can appreciate the song. "Running Man"'s downfall, however, is that in spite of its sing-along chorus, it never reaches the anthemic nature of an "Last Action Hero" or the crushing aggression of a "Predator." It is for this that it will be forever be a lower-tier 'Corps product.

We're also bummed that a great line like "now...Plain Zero" didn't make the final cut.

The Mist

Wow, what a shitty movie. The only part we liked was when Thomas Jane is so hopeless about man's survival that he shoots and kills his own five year old son only to witness the military's containment of the bloodthirsty alien hordes minutes later. Wah wah. Too bad, huh? We know that's the end of the movie, but what the fuck? You don't want to see this.

We also liked that part where the cocooned MP falls to the ground and hundreds of baby spider monsters burst out of his chest cavity. But the rest of this movie was so lame that we had to amuse ourselves with the fact that Jane's character's surname is Drayton (like Flavor Flav) and the film's co-star is William Sadler (surname of The Bomb Squad's Eric "Vietnam").

Lars and the Real Girl

The Highland Cinema vastly preferred Love Object, a film that, in spite of its late night cable salaciousness, portrayed the creepiness of Real Doll-dom with far more accuracy. Lars is bleeding heart specialty theatre fare -- a This American Life tale of despair and misguided coping wherein a human simulacrum is anthropomorphized by an entire town in an attempt to soothe an ailing native son. Lars and the Real Girl isn't all bad -- yes, it's slow and unconvincing (evidenced by the calculated wardrobe design for leadin' man Ryan Gosling), but the film's closing third is surprisingly full of an honest and affecting poignancy. Even for us.

Is It Really So Strange?

Is It Really So Strange? introduces itself as a look into Morrissey and The Smiths' Latino fanbase, but it really amounts to a simple interview hodgepodge about everything involved in Moz hero-worship. This isn't entirely bad (such idolatry is what brought us to Manchester's finest in the first place), but the film feels incomplete and unfocused -- its monotone narration, lifeless static shots and editing, and queer-centered kino eye make it the most "San Francisco" doc we've shown. Watching this, The Highland Cinema felt like we were both UCB lecture hall and KQED-informed East Bay sublet.

But to get back on track, Is It Really So Strange? has at least one surprisingly effective moment early on as director William E Jones reaches for his introductory thesis. His ten minute Burns-esque photograph montage of the real HelL-A, the one of polluted sprawl, third generation immigrants, and plain old regular folks is the most honest depiction of California livin' we think we could ever see. It's too bad Jones doesn't delve deeper into this idea of working class suburbs and Taquerias as hotbeds of "Suedehead" worship. While nearly all of his interview subjects are of non-Caucasian descent, the interviews themselves are little more than a litany of fanboy recollections involving KROQ's Smiths airplay, Tower Records Morrissey spottings, and pompadour upkeep. The love both for and of Steven Patrick Morrissey is made rather apparent (as is Morrissey's perfectly calculated iconic persona), but there's no story here. And half of these guys get the song titles wrong. Some fans -- sheesh!

Born Into Brothels

I thought I was being an overly cynical jerk when I thought this was an oversimplified PSA for the National Endowment for the Arts, that it was just a way for privileged New Yorkers to pat themselves on the back for exposing themselves to the squalor of this world and taking comfort in the almighty healing powers of artistic expression. But then I talked to some people who had reactions even more negative than mine and I realized I was giving this film the benefit of all doubts.

Born into Brothels shows the world how children sired by Calcutta junkies and prostitutes are really just regular kids who have, gosh, immense creative talent! Look at all those fantastic photos they took with simple point and shoots! They are geniuses they are! And here we thought they were a pox on humanity. Whatever. I don't honestly believe these kids are trash, but the idea that meaningful salvation can come from a camera lens is a notion of Western bleeding hearts. There's one boy in here who's a real artist, but the rest of them are kids plain and simple, and no matter how fucking horrible it sounds their destiny is joining their mommies in the red light district and hoping for a too-soon chancre-ridden death. Too bad.

I'm well aware how much the filmmakers cared about these children and the work that they went through hounding boarding schools and shipping in photo supplies, but much of the film felt like an exercise in cause celebre, like a Save the Music campaign gone NPR. I don't believe the kids really took those pictures anyway -- they set the shots up, sure, but prints like that can't come without contrast filters and ritzy Leibovitz labs.

Yeah. You know, I am an asshole.

The Smiths -- Under Review

VH1 style biopic that sticks mostly to the band's A to B to C historical/recording progression instead of tabloid tales of infighting and pomposity (the internet-capable Cinema thinks we prefer the latter). We've secretly liked Morrissey and Marr (eh, and probably Rouke and the other chap too) for a coupla years now, but it's only been in recent times that we've decided shit yeah we really really like these guys -- something that strikes us as pretty funny since we were a bunch of years out of high school before we heard that first Manchester-bred note. Your enjoyment is based on your tolerance for fawning talking heads and, of course, for the almighty Moz croon. And as much as we like this band even we had a tough time stomaching all the praise heaped on these cats, especially considering how at least half the catalog is awfully boring.

Hostel: Part II

More like Hostel II: Electric Booga-ewwwww. The Cinema actually liked this one a little more than the original, probably 'cause we had no expectations other than it'd be really bad. Once we got into it, though, we noticed ourselves taking perverse pleasure in how it was increasingly cementing a new horror movie franchise, a "Hostel" trademark style of film that would give us an endless number of similar but different stories. Hostel II never felt like an in and of itself movie or one that could stand on its own as a veritable classic, but it succeeded in opening up many a possibility of future story arcs. Much of the plot focus had shifted to the sadist clients and their eBay style bidding wars, but we saw even extra potential in the in the know townsfolk out to warn the Daddy's-money spendin' tourists. Sure, both the gang of street kids and the Satanic ritual killing of Heather Mats were over the top updates on conventional gimmicks instead of genuine terror, but we thought the end result was a Saturday Night at the Movies story of grisly revenge that had us wanting more of those cliches and conventions we horror fans hold so dear.

Tad -- Busted Circuits and Ringing Ears

Sure it's just another self-serving musical "documentary," but given our predilection for heavy duty rawk n roll and the '80s indie scene, Busted Circuits was a home fuckin' run. We're convinced Tad would be the Greatest Band of All Time had we been temporally fortunate enough to see 'em live and in the flesh, but now that we're somewhere twelve to twenty-two years after the fact we'll NEVER get into Tad at all. Not that we won't drop a "bad-ass!" when we hear that "Wood Goblins" riffin' or see them onstage Jazzmaster headbangs, but there's something missing for the Cinema, something we can only put our finger on as a Here and Now component. Tad is still cool, clever, and Grunge, and we wholeheartedly commend their legacy, shoulda-been legendariness, and "duuuuude" enabling heaviosity, but without the prospect of performance and products we have to put 'em next to David Yow and company in the Almost Hall of Fame.

Hostel

Remember when we drove down to Arroyo Grande to see this opening night and it was sold out so we went to that bar in Pismo Beach instead and our friend tried to hook us up with that middle aged lady while a bar band played Ozzy covers? And then how we called up our bros later that week and they'd all caught Hostel without us? We weren't that heartbroken 'cause we were still looking forward to all the other sleazy horror flicks coming down the pike, but we're sure we'd have loooooved this Eli Roth torturefest oodles more had we caught it in its first run.

Watching Hostel the other day, the Highland Cinema was struck by how...well...just plain not good it was. We know we're tough to please (and tough to gah-ross out), but we expected so much more from this thing, 'specially considering its legendary hype. We were actually let down by the lack of torture (confined to the second half!) and to the not so squirmishness of the much-lauded blowtorch/tin-snips/buckets of pus eyeball scene. Funny enough the stuff that impressed us most was the wince-worthy Achilles heel slicin' and the super street cred Miike cameo. Hostel's notoriety is still well-deserved, even in the middle of this Saw world it helped spawn and the Last House world it helped resurrect; just that something this repulsive got a major studio release is a thing for the record books. And speaking of repulsive, the thing that bothered us the most? The film's overt Maxim-linity wherein pompous, unsophisticated, arrestedly developed college fucks drink and screw their way through Europa. What a bunch of douchebags.

Teeth

Ouch! Gave me the not so willies.

Fuzz -- The Sound That Changed the World

Billed as a history of the fuzz sound, but really just interviews with the creme de la creme of boutique pedal execs. What a bunch of nerds. Interesting how half of 'em are striving for a decades-passed Platonic ideal while the other half are busy inducing migraines. "Meh," we said as we collectively shrugged our shoulders. Totally not worth your time no matter how much you shred. Check out the ZVex demos instead.

Cemetery Man

We've been into horror flix for a good while now, but it wasn't until we made some super great friends at our super shitty job that we became the Highland Cinema you know and adore today. It wasn't that long ago (only a coupla years) when all our screenings were John Sayles and Woody Allen. It wasn't that long ago when we thought of our "Splatto Jacko" worship and MonsterVision pantomiming were little more than relics of our teenage past. But before we knew it we found ourselves with brand new compadres making the trek for every new blood encrusted zombie-fest we could get our hands on. Pretty soon the Fangoria convention was a necessity. Pretty soon Riki-Oh was on perpetual repeat. Before long we decided most of them other movies were fucking boring; the only thing worthwhile in this life was the brutal depiction of the epic Hobbesian struggle.

Cemetery Man is truly outstanding all by itself, but we loved it even more than you ever could just for reminding us of our own genesis.

Dave Attell -- Captain Miserable

Dave Attell's the best goddamn comedian of my cognizant life. Really, who else'll do a bit on couch fucking or drop a punchline about a crime-solving vagina? We like Captain Miserable less than Skanks for the Memories, but both are soooo much better than anything you're laughing at it's not even funny.

Sgt Kabukiman, NYPD

Classic Troma, they say. We liked this one okay we guess, but we really expected more badass and a lot less slapstick. Rick Gianasi gives great performance as a NY cop possessed by the kabuki spirit and we especially dug that Toxic Avenger inspired hero montage where he turned them crooks into California rolls.

The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things

Yep, nothing like a mother's love.

Get On the Bus

Okay, I take it back. Spike Lee did a few good movies. Kinda cool how the Million Men marched on my actual birthday and then Get On the Bus came out exactly one year later, again on my actual birthday. You may fondly remember how a bunch of us drove to that discount theater in town on opening night just to watch this movie before it left the cinema a week later. Maybe it's the ten years of nostalgia talking but we here still think The Bus is some quality storytelling with fantastic characters and top-notch actin'. Recommended for your weekend afternoon!

Sex -- The Annabel Chong Story

It surprised EVERYONE when I told them Sex -- The Annabel Chong Story was the most disturbing thing I'd ever seen.

But they haven't seen it.

See, most people think porno is pizza deliveries and mustaches, wah-wah guitars and zebra prints. They're wrong.

Annabel Chong made a name for herself by trying to fuck 300 men on camera in a single day. Her freak show adult cinema feat put her in television interviews the world 'round where she sat, a fidgeting speed casualty, peppering her ex post facto feminist theory rationalizations with nervous tics and uncomfortable laughs. Sex tells you the whole story behind the World's Biggest Gang Bang, how Chong didn't get any of the money promised her (a cool ten grand), how 10 hours of unshorn fingernails made her call it quits at 250, and how once the vid hit the shelves a Florida stripper set a new record and relegated Chong to the forgotten annals of extreme pornography.

What makes Sex more difficult than the rest of the depraved garbage we've shown at the Cinema is that this whole thing is real. Honest to God, one hundred percent live and in the flesh. Chong's interviews show her as a delusional, damaged, emotional wreck whose own college-informed interpretation of her career as a living exercise in gender role reversal is both pathetic and unconvincing. Equally unsettling is the film's footage of adult industry mavens, sleazebags of the highest sort only out to push the human body's limits while ignoring all notions of dignity and respect. Hey, they chose to do this, right? Jesus, gimme a break. This is bad stuff, people. There isn't enough therapy in the world to correct wrongs like this.

Wait, you still want to see this? Go ahead. Stomach this primer and be one your way. Godspeed.

Bamboozled

Spike Lee did one good movie. This isn't it.

I saw this right when I turned 20 and it made me feel so enlightened the way it had me thinking everything I'd ever enjoyed did nothing but perpetuate hateful stereotypes. The older I got and less undergraduate I became, the more I thought a second time around Bamboozled viewin' would annoy the living bejesus out of me. And sure, Spike approaches Mencia-like territory the way he dumbs down and then ad nauseumly reiterates the cultural commentary, but I was quite impressed that I didn't want to throw things at the tv like I thought I would. That the offensively simplistic satire is the point doesn't necessarily make it digestible or effective, but the whole thing was strikingly less painful than the me of 2007/nascent '08 expected it to be. Thankfully there's some real power toward the film's end and a couple of great performances by Cinema fave Tommy Davidson and co-leading man Savion Glover.

Helvetica

Helvetica doesn't fuck around. Capitalist, socialist, ironic, sophisticated, straight, round, cosmopolitan, Continental...you name it and it's right there. Just try and find me something that's that built to last. Go ahead, punk, try it.

And take those fucking serifs with you.