Sunday, February 28, 2010

Last night. A good mix of two mocumentaries and Zombieland since my friend had yet to see it.

Started off with "Big Man Japan," which follow a guy who's the last in a line of men with the ability to become giant and fight off the giant monsters that seem to attack Japan on a weekly basis.



The problem is that it's a realistic portrayal of this type of thing, so most of Japan hates the guy. To get big requires a tremendous amount of electricity applied to the nipples, which pisses off the eco hippies, and the fights tend to destroy a quite a bit of infrastructure, pissing everyone else off. His wife has long since divorced him, and rocks are thrown through his windows with such regularity that he doesn't even flinch at them anymore. His grandpa, "The Fourth," is remembered as the last Big that People liked, but he's now senile and living in a retirement home, although he does manage to zap himself at one point and stumbles around Tokyo doing things only a 90 ft. tall senile old man would do, adding yet more humor to the film.

The movie is entirely in Japanese, so you do need to do some reading, but the translations are all pretty good. The last 15 minutes of the movie however break the entire premise of documentary and turn into a pure satire of Japanese Giant Monster movies, quite humorous in it's own right, and reminding us westerners that Japanese culture is weird to say the least.

I'm tempted to track down and buy a copy.

Following this was "Behind the Mask: the Rise of Leslie Vernon," another mocumentary, this time involving a group of graduate journalism students following Leslie Vernon, an up and coming serial killer in the lines of Jason, Freddie, and Michael Meyers. Vernon is played by Nathan Baesel, and his performance comes off as a muted Jim Carrie, which in this case is a good thing. Likable and a little off, and definitely dedicated to his work. Very much one of my favorite Kids in the Hall sketch as a full length film. The trailer doesn't quite do it justice, but here it is anyway.


Again, the last 15 minutes or so break out of the documentary premise, but in this case it's fitting. The grad students have come to realize that he is in fact going to kill the bunch of teenagers in the old farmhouse, and decide to through the monkey wrench into the plans. Of course this is Vernon's plan all along, and if you've watched any number of bad horror movies (easily my favorite genre) you see it coming from about halfway through the film, earlier if you read the back of the box.

Overall, the new-ish take on the genre, and the quality of the film overall, have definitely shoved this one into an all time favorite slot. If you like horror movies, give this one a swing. (Unless you're apposed to boobies. There is one showing, and the reasoning is quite hilarious, and face it, random boobies are a staple of slasher flicks.)

Of course that was all followed up with Zombieland, the odd man out in the unintentional mocumentary themed night. That one was recent and mainstream enough that I won't go much into it, other than it's a pretty good zombie movie, but they're mostly idiots for using primarily shotguns. Shotguns aren't really good for zombies.