Shinya Tsukamoto is one of those Japanese directors that has a reputation steeped in the bizarre, with films like Tetsuo: Iron Man under his belt. "A Snake of June" is Tsukamoto's forray into the erotic thriller.

To sum it up, without giving too much away, the movie revolves around Rinko, a woman who works as a bored and frustrated telephone cousellor. She becomes blackmailed by a former caller. She 'helped him into wanting to live' and now he is going to 'help' her to release her inhibitions and become 'the person she really is'. The blackmailer has pictures of her masturbating and in exchange for the negatives forces her to do various kinky acts. Her older husband takes a chauvanistic approach when Rinko needs to go through an operation, totally changing our view of his character. Meanwhile the blackmailer starts to form an unlikely bond with her.

This movie is beautiful in its perversion. You truley care for the characters, and for a Tsukamoto film, the characters have great depth. Some of the acts the blackmailer has Rinko go through are already powerfully erotic, but with the classic way Tsukaoto shoots a scene, mixed iwth the music and the films black and white with blue toned colors really brings it up a notch.

Fans of Japanese cinema and sadomasachisitc imagery will love this movie.

Rating: 9/10

(more coming later, been keeping up on watching movies, just not reviewing them)

There is a beautiful simplicity in watching an artist talk about his works. When the works are as complex and layered as Alex Grey's, it adds a level of insightfulness and genious.

"Alex Grey: The Chapel of Sacred Mirrors: the Movie" follows Grey through his gallery that houses his Sacred Mirrors paintings. For those that don't know, Grey gained attention by doing most of Tool's album covers.

The paintings are layered and very intricate, with tons of hidden images and double meanings, and Grey walks us through each painting, some telling us about the painting, some telling us how they came to be.

The film itself is very beautiful and calming. Grey's voice is very soothing, and blended with an ethereal soundtrack and his mental landscapes, it really adds another touch to this DVD.

There's not a lot to say about this movie, though. If you appriciate surreal art and New Age ideas, this is something you need to grab a hold of. If you are a fan of Tool, it actually adds insight to some of thier choices for imagery.

Overall, I loved it. Watching Grey walk you through his best work, still obviously passionate about each piece, was more than enough to keep my attention for 80 minutes.

Rating: 7.25/10

"In a musical, nothing dreadful ever happens."

That line pretty much sumarizes Lars Von Trier's "Dancer in the Dark".

Bjork is amazing in the role of Selma, an Eastern European woman who's eyesight is slowly worsening, leaving her in a dark, bleak world. She's pretty much eeked through life with luck and kindness. Her mind works similar to a child's. She does have a young son, who has the same affliection with his eyes, and Selma is doing everything she can to save money to get him an operation to save his sight. Her trust in people runs a little too deep, adn those around her start to betray her. One betrayal ends in death, and Selma goes through a court trial and jail.

What makes this tragic tale work is how Selma retreats to a side of her mind that is obsessed with musicals, and the movie goes from bleak and tragic to a fun musical production, like when she listens to the machinery and the entire factory she works in breaks into a dance number.

The cast is spectacular. Bjork is perfect in her odd, out of touch with the world role. The movie also includes Catherine Deneuve, David Morse, Peter Stormare (of VW commercial fame) and a cameo by Udo Kier. Everyone plays their roles perfectly, and some are shown a duality between their roles in the real world, and their roles in Selma's musical ladden mind.

The writing in this movie is spectacular. Some of the quotes just role off the tongues of the characters and stay with you. This movie is not a nice story. It's dark, bleak and very sad. But the character of Selma's ability to use everyday sounds to find music to better her thoughts is so well done.

I've never seen a movie like this one, and doubt I ever will. This movie is art, and works best that way.

Rating: 9.5

001. Mysterious Skin (9.5)
002. Children of Men (9)
003. Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters (9)
004. Hell House (9)
005. Planet Terror (8.75)
006. Smokin' Aces
007. Going to Pieces: The Rise and Fall of the Slasher Film (8.5)
008. Art School Confidential (8.5)
009. The Hamiltons
010. Masters of Horror: Pro-Life (8.25)
011. Death Proof (8)
012. Serenity (8)
013. Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter (7.75)
014. Wicked Little Things
015. Curse of the Golden Flower (5.75)
016. The Gravedancers (5.5)
017. Dark Ride
018. Disaster!: The Movie (5)
019. Reincarnation (2)
020. The Great American Snuff Film (2)
021. Penny Dreadful (1)

Sometimes, independent films have their obvious flaws, but a story that's so engrossing that you overlook them. That's the appeal of The Butcher Bros. directorial debut, "The Hamiltons".

"The Hamiltons", so far, is the best offering from the After Dark Horror Festival. It's about a basic suburban family being raised by the oldest brother after the mother's death. To the outside world, everything seems pretty normal, the oldest gay brother, the womanizng brother, the gothic sister and the youngest quiet-reserved emo kid. But, a quick inspection in their basement shows this family is anything but normal. They have a torture area where they kill and drain their victims of their blood. The youngest, Francis, is not quite into this whole idea, but is taught it's "necisarry". There's also thie issue of something they keep in a cage in the torture area.

The story, though, isn't really a scary story and the film isn't that bloody. It's more about the family dynamic. The family is constantly moving around the country, and the youngest is really effected by this, but unable to really talk to anyone and falls into videotaping everything. The story revolves a lot around his plight. Even though the actors in this film weren't big names (except for Brittany Daniels being taken out rather quickly in the begining) the performances were solid. And there was a resembelance between the family, which made it believable.

The film was shot in digital video, which was a little low budget. Some of it was through the camera of Francis (the youngest) and it made some of the Blair Witch Project shots seem steady. But if that's the major thing I can find wrong here, that's a good thing.

If you wanna see a great, original family drama with a dark edge to it, this is a great film to check out.

Rating: 8.25/10

Finally, a glimmer of hope from the After Dark Horror Film Festival. Not saying "Wicked Little Things" was a great film, but better than the offerings I've seen so far.

The jist: a mother and her two daughters are mourning the passing of their father. He had recently inherited the deed to a house in the middle of the woods that they plan to move into. When heading there, they are warned by the town's general store clerk (that I think they were trying to portray as "a little slow") that the woods are haunted, don't go out at night. The ghosts are the spirits of children mine workers that were killed in a accident many years before. The youngest daughter, Emma (played by Chloe Moretz of The Amityville Horror) starts telling her mom about what seems to be an imaginary friend, and the middle daughter, Sara (Scout Taylor-Compton from the upcoming Rob Zombie remake of Halloween) starts seeing the ghosts of the children terrorizing the town.

There's other sub plots involving land barons and that "crazy old hermit that lives in the woods that means well" character so often seen. The film is kind of predictable, but maintains a spooky atmosphere and some pretty nice death scenes. I think the biggest highlight of the film, though, was how well the three actresses worked as a family. The bond was believable, which helped sell the film.

Basically, this movie was a classic ghost story tale, creepy house, spooky kids, blood and gore and the ususal cast of characters. But the film was fun, and that helped any of it along. It knew it was being cliche, and played perfectly into those cliches. The plot twists were predicatble, but weren't completely unbelievable. And the acting wasn't horrible.

This movie gave me hope to the remaining AFter Dark films I have sitting here, and is basically just a fun little spooky tale.

Rating: 6.75

So, I've almost finished the movies in last year's Afterdark Film Festival, having just watched "Dark Ride".

"Dark Ride" is, to not really beat around a bush, every single slasher cliche you can fit into an hour and a half. A group of teens (with Jamie Lynn DiScalia of the Sopranos) are on a trip. They stop at a gas station and find a flyer for a reopening attraction called Dark Ride and decide to break into it and spend the night there. On the way, they pick up a hitch hiker (suprise) and onto the spook house. Little do they know, within the bowels of the Dark Ride lives a recently escaped, massively sized insane asylum inmate that has a horribly disfigured face and wears a spooky mask. Kids go into ride, killer lives in ride, kid gets killed. Horrible plot twist at the end, roll credits.

Yeah, it's exactly by the book like that. No real suprises, the plot twist is pretty predictable, but the body count and death scenes help make up for what the film lacks, kind of. That, and an old cliche comes back and graces us with it's presence, the teen sex/boobies scene (yeah, she dies).

So, yeah, as of yet, no real winners in the AFterdark Film Fest, and I only have three movies left. Anymore, it's less of a want to see them, and more of a endurance test.

Rating: 5.2/10

Today's film, "Smokin' Aces".

I know this film got panned by a lot of critics, but I really enjoy this film. The plot is kind of convoluted and kind of wraps up in itself, which is really the only problem I have with it. Buddy "Aces" Isreal (Jeremy Piven) is a famed Vegas magician with massive crime ties. The major crime boss has put a million dollar bounty on his heart, and every freaked out hit man is on their way to nab him. While this is going on, the FBI (mainly shown with their agents played by Ray Liotta and Ryan Reynolds) are trying to work a deal with him to give him security if he turns on the mafia. There's more twists and turns, but that basically sums it up.

Three things make this film work so well. The first, and most subtle, is the soundtrack, assembled by Clint Mansell, who normally does any Darren Aranofsky film. Very good for the mood setting. Second is the action sequences. Nicely shot, tons of bullets, great times. But what makes it work most is the characters. Piven is awesome as a mob snitch, the cameo by Ben and Casey Affleck work as a bondsman and a ex cop, Jason Bateman is awesome as a sketched out attorney, and the true show stealers are the Tremor Brothers, a trio of Neo Nazi redneacked Australian brothers straight from the pages of Mad Max.

Yes, the movie has a lot of unnesicarry twists and turns, yes it gets to be a bit much sometimes, yes it's pretty unbelievable, but it's fun. The dark comedy, the action, I actually enjoyed the story, all well done. I can see what some people didn't like about it, but I thought it was awesome, so bah!

Rating: 8.5/10

Up front, if you've never seen an episode of [Adult Swim]'s "Aqua Teen Hunger Force", this movie is not for you. This movie is for the fans of the show. It kind of drops you in the middle of the mayhem pretty quickly. That being said...

I absoulutely LOVED "Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters"! I had some reservations, seeing as they've taken a 15 minute cartoon and turned it into a full length motion picture, but this worked so well. The plot basically summed up in a nutshell: a carton of fries, a shake and a wad of meat put togehter an exercise machine that tries to take over the world, and in the proces of stopping it, find out where they came from. Kind of.

Many things the fans have wanted to know get sort of answered, like their origins. We finally see the square off between the trio and the mysterious Dr. Weird (used in quick clips at the begining of the television show). We see many of our favorite villians back in all of their glory. And Rush's Neil Pert voicing himself as he plays drums inside of a space ship that looks like a giant watermelon. Yeah, you read that right.

This movie is great for the theaters. Everyone in there is there for the same reason, and the reactions of the crowd add to the film. I saw it on a late Tuesday night, and the theater was pretty full, and everyone was having an awesome time. Respectful crowd, but not afraid to let the laughs out.

Bottom line, if you like the show, go. You will be hooked in with the intro concession stand animation. If you've never seen the show, I wouldn't recomend you go, a lot of the humor will get lost on you.

Rating: 9/10

What is with the current obsession with making up serial killers to base your horror film "based on the true crimes of...", but thie amazing invention of the internet finds nothing on it? You'd think the film makers would at least put up a wiki article on it.

Let me explain. Today I watched "The Great American Snuff Film". The film is based on the serial killer William Allen Grone, who was convicted of 13 felony counts in 1998 and executed in 2001. When the cops raided his home, they found a journal and a snuff film, that somehow the film makers get a hold of and show a part of at the end of the film. This movie is how that film came to be, based on the entries in his journal.

Or so they say.

The only things that come back from a web search of William Allen Grone are reviews of this film. That's it. go ahead, take a minute, check for yourself. See? Not even a reference to the book that the movie is supposedly based on. Oh, and, after the credits roll, there is the classic "The characters and events potrayed in this film are fictional" tag. That tag doesn't have to be on films based on real life events. So, this would mean the "shocking, real life" snuff film footage at the end would be fake as well.

But, enough debunking the publicity stunt, let's get on with reviewing the film. Although, it would be safe to say, if you need to do something like this to generate hype, then odds are the movie is bad. And, that thought process would be true as well. The story is kind of interesting, told through the thoughts of the killer. The story is marred with amazingly laughable acting. The only people in this film that act with any sense of believability are the two girl victims, which are basically screaming, crying and mumbling through a taped mouth. The two male leads, though, are amazingly bad. The soundtrack is a very generic electronic industrial kind of thing to try to add to the suspense. It only added to the suck.

Oh, and the shocking, real life footage. Completely dull and very fake. Anti-climactic is an understatement.

If you can find any proof that "William Allen Grone" exists, it may change my mind, but until then...

Rating: 2/10