Piranha 3d - FISH AND TITS

I always thought that if 3d had any future whatsoever it would be in the veiny, stretchy, fourth-wall-defying world of porn. Piranha does its best to gnaw the peripherals off this notion with such clumsy 3d that the veritable boobalanche that rolls over the viewer will just leave you with squinty-eyed nipple-fatigue. Is it just me? I can barely remember Kelly Brook's prolonged nudey submarine lesbecian frolicing. But it definitely happened. Yes. So....plot, there's some kind of random underwater seismic activity and a plural of prehistoric bastardfish are released into an american lake-resort teeming with horny teenaged fish food and some past-it Proper Actors.

Lots of screaming, wince-inducing but hilarious fish-related injuries and gore....the 3d is employed poorly and purely for novelty "check out the floaty severed penis" type shots...still, quite enjoyed it overall. It marks a semi-return to form for director Alexandre Aja after the badly fumbled Mirrors, but it's not in the same league as his excellent and f**ked up The Hills Have Eyes remake and the even more f**ked up Haute Tension.

If you love carnivorous fish and women whose clothes keep falling off, and who doesnt, then you could do a lot worse, but I'd wait till it's on dvd ...just so you can express your appreciation of Kelly Brook's tits performance in that special way.

By the way that pic above? Doesn't happen in the movie. Weird.

THE EXPENDABLES - Grumpy old men

Age....it gets to us all. Look at Reaper...once possessed of Samson-like flowing locks of curled knicker-dampening masculinity...now his head a fallow field of wispiness and lost dreams, punctuated by the occasional boil. Watching The Expendables is an uneasy experience for those of us of the VHS generation...once strapping young bucks eagerly scanning the shelves of the local "video store" for the latest "18" rated Arnie/Stallone/Van Damme...now in decline, flab-fringed baggy-eyed kidults watching pirated hd screeners on our vast plasma screens while frantically ramming a kamagra down our urethra as our leatherfaced f**k buddy screams racist abuse at our malfunctional ugly genitals. I don't want to speculate about his genitals, but Sly looks quite frighteningly muscular for a 64 year old man, god knows what unholy cocktail of steroids and surgery is responsible but Arnie, a mere 63, looks quite frail in comparison when he wanders on for his 30 seconds or so of glory. I have to admit I was quite impressed with Stallone's Rambo reboot, just for its sheer blood-drenched audacity, so was quite looking forward to this much-hyped testosterone bath.

In truth, this fan-ad made the Expendables look like a lot more fun than it actually is....it's very 80's and refreshingly not trying to be any way self-referencial but its also very stupid and doesnt make the most of the gathered titans of mancinema. For a start, Arnie and Bruce Willis are in it for a matter of seconds. Glorified cameos. There's still plenty of macho to go around mind.... Let's just list the cast or I'll sure I'll forget someone. The cast IS the film here, the story is a load of bollix.

Stallone: The leader of The Expendables, and the moral core of this group of withered mercs. Shoots people.

Statham: uses his full range of facial expressions (1) and dramatic range (whispery staring hard man all the way to shouty stabby hard man) as Stallone's knife-happy cohort and bromantic interest. Most of the movie is Sly and Statham, the latter probably gets the best action sequences.

Dolph Lundgren: Has been languishing in direct-to-dvd limbo for decades now...malevolent golem-like bruiser here.

Jet Li: Still can't speak english properly. Seems to be here for comic relief, as he's quite small. And everyone else is massive, innit.

Some Wrestler guys: Don't know who they are. One of them has a massive automated shotgun which is quite impressive.

Mickey Rourke: The Expendables Armourer. Stays at home, delivers some raspy monologues and has a knife-related rivalry with Statham.

Arnie: As mentioned, shows up, delivers about 4 lines of dialogue, then wanders off.

Bruce Willis: Shows up for one scene, gives Stallone his mission, then disappears. Could have used more of Bruce, he's probably got more screen presence than any two or three Expendables combined.

There's bone-crunching hand-to-hand action, some iffy cg blood, a high body count and a pretty anticlimatic final battle. It's only really a minor skirmish, just another day in the office for the lads. The end would hint this is an attempt to get a new franchise off the ground, but while it's mildly entertaining watching these lumbering man-mountains assert their flagging virility it's not vintage stuff or even particularly memorable. Or maybe that's just the alzheimer's kicking in.

EVEN WORSE THAN USUAL

Just a quickie today luv, now get your knickers off.

2001 MANIACS - FIELD OF SCREAMS
Awful, awful, shot-on-video sequel to a not very good remake of a terrible 60's thing. Acting that isnt even inert enough to be called wooden, its actively irritating. A gang of useless cannon fodder shooting a ropey reality show run into the southern cannibal/maniac/ghost people. I think its supposed to be a comedy, and there's nothing worse than an attempted horror comedy with no laughs, no budget and strangely almost no proper gore. It actually looks like it was shot in less time than it takes to watch, which probably violates some obscure scientific principal. There are some women with their tops off and some half-hearted lesbecian action but if you are that desperate for nudey action just go here and type "lesbian boob woman". Aggh...just did that, hope you like em with some meat on their bones man.

HEADER
You might be thinking this when you hear the term "Header" but no! If youre some redneck maniac with handy access to some power tools and a grudge you'll have a different definition, namely that of drilling a hole in some poor feckers head and having sex with their brain. That's right...actual brain-f**king. All the criticisms from the movie above, except even worse, with additional cranial rape.Whats the point? Turned it off after about 30 minutes as I felt the filmakers were not only raping my brain, but writing rude messages on its facebook wall and trying to give it a wedgie. Leave my brain alone! I cant believe this is the third movie in as many months I've seen where people are getting killed by penises.

AFTERLIFE
Not be confused with the orrible Aftermath, but also set in a funeral home with all kind of post-mortem machinations. Wednesday Adams has a fight with her wetend of a boyfriend (the guy from Drag me To Hell, looks like a deranged child's drawing of Keanu Reeves) and gets involved in a car accident, wakes up in a funeral home where she finds Liam Neeson telling her that she is in fact dead. Is she dead? Or is it some kind of mental mindgame? She spends large parts of the movie naked, which will have everyone's inner paedo rubbing their grubby palms together as she still looks about 14 and in fact resembles a big nude fetus in a ginger wig and makeup. A million miles from being a classic, but compared to the previous 2 sense offenders it's David f**king Lean. At least it's got things like a proper score, cinematography, direction, editing etc. The end is really going to wind people up as well as its ambiguous to say the least.

Until the Light Takes Us - Stabby metal weirdos and their burny ways

Do you remember Anvil! The Story of Anvil? Well this is nothing like that. It's a way overlong documentary about Norwegian Black Metal...just what we've all been crying out for. Now, metal in general's pretty far down the foodchain when it comes to social credibility - dont get me wrong, quite partial to a shouty blast of Dillenger Escape Plan myself from time to time - but even among the vaguely geeky, soap-dodging echelons of "the scene" the black metallers are like that kid in class who ate worms and smelt like athlete's foot. Just check out an Immortal video on youtube and witness the unholy and hilarious depths which this sub-genre plumbs. The story in UTLTU isnt funny at all though. It concerns a small clique of black metal musicians in Norway in the early 90's and their frankly bizarre descent into church burnings and homicide. Some of the interviews with the guilty parties are quite candid and provide a vaguely interesting insight into what happens when boredom and low self esteem meet bad music and f**ked up nazi/pagan ideology. The documentary is lacking elsewhere though, and would work a hell of a lot better at 50 minutes long without all the hilariously bad performance art rubbish and tuneless fisher-price keyboard soundtrack.

A Serbian Film - It's sodomy o'clock baby

Well...the world cup's over. As the screams and self-flagellation of the english/french/italians fade away, its time to reflect. And... it wasnt very good. But a bad World Cup is like a bad blow job...it's still pretty goddamn good. So ditch your vuvezela, take your penis out of your cat's mouth and read the words. Which I am typing...here.

Oh dear! Well THAT was remarkably unpleasant. I am currently restraining the urge to scrub my monitor and hard drive with bleach...and maybe my eyes and soul as well. Only kidding...it's not that bad. But it's not nice either...basically, you know you are in cinematic freefall when one of the LEAST offensive kills in a movie is someone getting skullf**ked to death via their eye socket (possible opportunity for an ad campaign for specsavers here?) Serbian Film isnt a non-stop bloodbath - there are 4 or 5 scenes that are staggeringly grim - but the overall tone is just bleak, grimy and explicitly sleazy. If youve seen the trailer you know what to expect.

Retired caveman-looking porn star Milosh has two things going for him...(a) a lovely family and (b) a legendary willy. Some sick f**k producer appears out of nowhere and offers him a fortune to de-retire and appear in some conceptual porno epic which needs his supercharged penis. After a few unpleasant early on-set experiences milosh has had enough and walks...needless to say, thats not the end for him, and milosh spends most of the second half of the movie nude and up to his eyeballs in horse viagra killing or f**king pretty much anything the film crew shove in front of him. There are no happy endings here...for anyone. Very harsh...but all executed very well indeed, it's not some amateurish cheapo gore-flick made by and for 14 year old idiots, but it's an actual, serious movie...which just happens to have horrendous scenes of machete sex decapitation, baby rape(!!) and a final coda which is so unbelievably mean-spirited that I actually started laughing in shock.
Not a chance in hell this is going to get through the censors either, so if you're really that curious to see the current holder of extreme cinema's equivalent of the Jules Rimet trophy then you know where to look, you sicko.

PS Ive just realised this is the second movie I've seen in the past month or so involving people being killed by erections (other peoples obviously) I don't know if this is a reflection of a growing cinematic trend or my own viewing habits. Let's just pray Toy Story 3 doesnt go down this particular phallocidal route.