David Lynch Music Video Contest!

Wow! This is the coolest thing I've seen in my life!

One of my honest to God heroes is holding a contest to write/direct/produce his music videos!

I didn't even know he was making a record!

I just peed my pants!

You can find the details on the contest here!

Now I have to come up with an idea!

You can tell I'm excited because I've ended every single sentence with an exclamation point!!!

Nowhere Boy - Sam Taylor-Wood (2009)

John Lennon wasn’t just one of the most influential musicians of the last 50 years. He wrote words that became synonymous with peace.

His childhood was lonely, so how could a film about his life be so excruciatingly tedious to sit through?

Boring sad childhood.
Boring young lust.

Aaron Johnson, who plays Lennon, sleepwalks through the entire film and he looks like he’s just about as bored as all of us are.

Boring, boring, contrived conflicted repeated in somewhat different settings.

“We’re horrible authority figures.”

“Well, I’m a young, rebellious whippersnapper, so watch it.”

Kirsten Scott Thomas plays John Lennon’s aunt, who raised the lad. His mother doesn’t live far, and John goes over to visit a lot.

Of course, there’s a whole lot of angst going on. Mostly about "Why, oh why did mummy give me up?"

SPOILER: It’s because Lennon’s aunt convinced Social Services that she should have custody because she was a single mother and loose women make bad mothers.
END SPOILER

Lennon’s step-common-law-father is played by David Morrissey. I wondered to myself why they bothered casting someone like David Morrissey in such a throwaway, routine, stock role.

Then, I wondered why they were making this movie in the first place.

“Nowhere Boy” drags on for 45 minutes or so with no mercy killing in sight until finally John’s aunt buys him a guitar.

Never mind that it’s completely out of character for her.

Just thank God for the sake of the movie that she did so we can listen to the Quarrymen, Lennon’s pre-Beatles band, for a bit.


Along the way, on the music front, John meets a very young Paul McCartney, played by Thomas Sangster, best known for his stellar performance as the voice of “Ferb” from Disney’s animated series “Phineas and Ferb.”


Sadly, the music doesn’t last long and we’re back to the sad but monotonous life of the lad who would one day be John Lennon but for now, is just some kid living an angst-ridden life.

The rest of the movie follows the pattern of the first act.

More boring angst, followed by boring tragedy and then, young John is off to start a new band the screenwriters don’t mention the name of.

I assume they thought they were being clever.

If you're really bent on watching something about John Lennon or his music or anything related to the Beatles, watch "Hard Day's Night," "Yellow Submarine" or even Iain Softley's "Backbeat."

Better yet, just go and listen to "Imagine" or "Double Fantasy."

Or watch an episode of "Phineas and Ferb." It doesn't have anything to do with John Lennon, but it's not nearly the waste of your time "Nowhere Boy" is.

Machete – Robert Rodriguez (2010)

First, to be polite, there are spoilers.

Second, also to be polite, this is the ultimate exploitation movie, so if you're going to keep reading this review, you're going to hear about violence. Lots of great, fun violence.

Unrealistic and cartoonish violence and fun are the point here. But it’s a point of etiquette, so fair warning. Spoilers.

I don’t think I was even two minutes into this movie before I had a blood-lusting, impossibly wide grin across my face.

Danny Trejo’s bad ass was out of that car, hacking away at bad guys, bodyguards, bystanders, doesn’t matter, with his gigantic knife in no time flat.

Then he picks up a severed hand with a gun still in it and starts blasting.

I know I’m going to enjoy myself.

And sure enough, in the next ninety seconds, we’re treated to four beheadings in one swoop and some unbelievably unnecessary nudity.

Of course, he finds an unbelievably hot girl in a room laying naked on a bed.

I guess he just figures he’ll rescue her, so he takes her along.

Then, she gets all seductive and before you know it, she has his knife.

She stabs him and he falls to the ground and she stands over him, unnecessarily naked.

Then, she pulls a cell phone out of her twat.

Yep, you heard me right. A cell phone out of her twat.

It's not that seeing a girl pull a cell phone out of her twat is such a treat as it's the principle that the movie is just that wonderfully and giddily ridiculous.

Hell, I loved “Planet Terror,” as much as anyone else, but this is exploitation done good and proper.

The hero and the villain are set up before the credits roll.

Steven Seagal is a relentless drug lord who kills poor Machete’s wife and daughter, torches a building and leaves our wounded, helpless hero to die in the flames.

But, like all dumb movie villains, he doesn’t stick around to make sure his nemesis is dead, so…roll the opening credits and yippee! We’re off!

We take a trip to the U.S. Mexico border where Robert De Niro in a cowboy hat is riding in the back of a pickup truck, shooting Mexicans crossing the border. And he’s a Texas Senator!

Holy Christ, now we’re going into unnecessary lefty overblown, not believable, political preachy-land! I’m in heaven!

The plot is more or less incidental. Machete finds himself the fall guy of a plot to frame a nameless illegal for the attempted assassination of the good Senator to garner sympathy votes.

But when you double-cross Machete, you pay the price. And the mayhem continues.

Rodriguez knows how to use foreshadowing, too. He’ll set you up and let you know a treat is coming.

At one point, Machete’s in the hospital and the bad guys are coming for him.

He picks something up and the doctor just looks at him and says, “Be careful with that. It’s a skull scraper. We use it to scoop the bones clean. Uh, and those cut through flesh just like butter.”
Then Machete tears the ribbon off a nurse’s gown and gets ready.

Are you kidding me? Machete is just grabbing things to do as much damage as possible to people and ripping girls' clothes off for no apparent reason.

Robert, you're not even trying to find an excuse to give us blood and tits, are you?

I love you, man!

Rodriguez just knows how to set up his audience for a good time.

He set us up for something big and he delivered.

And do you think Rodriguez would have the doctor casually talking about how long a person’s intestines were if he didn’t intend to have Machete gut a bad guy and swing out the window from his innards?

No, but he did it because it's just good, clean fun.

The rest of the movie introduces us to side characters, mostly hot Latino chicks.

We know how the rest of the movie is gonna go and we don’t care what the plot is

formulaic. It’s all about the blood, man.

And “Machete” has it in buckets.

And just because I’m lazy, here’s just a random list of things that we are treated to in no particular order.

Tom Savini nailing Cheech to a cross.

Cheesy political statements from Jessica Alba like, “We didn’t cross the border! The border crossed us!”

Machete banging the bad guy’s wife and daughter, (played by Lindsay shut-up-judge-I’ll- snort-whatever-I-want Lohan herself.)

Steven Seagal committing seppuku. (Well, kind of. I don’t want to spoil it. Like I said, story, outcome all that, does not matter.)

Danny Trejo has been relegated to the world of colorful Mexican supporting character for so long that I kind of wondered if he could carry a leading role.

HE CAN. Trejo is rock and roll personified in this movie.

Forget every action hero ever.

From Lee Marvin, all the way up through Clive Owen.

I have never wanted to be anybody like I want to be this fifty-something Mexican.

I hereby declare Danny Trejo to be the baddest mofo on this, or either side, of the border.

Go see this movie.

The Tripper – David Arquette (2007)

WARNING: This review is about an incredibly violent, albeit fun movie. There are also quotes from the very potty-mouthed script. BEWARE!

Okay, an insane mental patient, released during the Regan emptying of mental care facilities just wants to kill hippies.

Unfortunately, there is a love-fest type musical festival (ala Burning Man) near the forest this guy calls home.

So, we have a psycho in a very realistic Regan mask, killing people with an ax, screaming things like “There you go again,” and “Well, Nancy, you know young people today. No respect for anything,”

And carving “Just Say No” into the bodies of the drugged up hippies he’s killed.


Also, the shot of the naked hippie dude hanging upside down with his spine hanging out like a slab of ribs is just a priceless visual.

We also have Pee-Wee as the concert promoter saying things like, “God, I don't give a fuck if you sing motherfucking Kumbaya. Just get the fuck out there. We have a contract by grace of George fuckin' Washington, you motherfucking fucking fucks.”






Then, covered in excrement, he is cut in half with a chainsaw. What fun!

The whole thing culminates with Ronald Regan with an axe just hacking his way through a crowd of hippies in a euphoric kind of blood orgy.

There really is nothing at all to not like about this movie.

Les Chats Persians - Bahman Qobadi (2009)

Qobadi's masterpiece out of Iran doesn't just embody what's great about independent film. It represents everything good in rock and roll.

Hell, I'll go you one better. Les Chats makes a statement about the function of art in general.

That function? Rebellion.

The connection this film makes between political uprising and art isn't a new concept, but Qobadi makes his argument with an eloquent rage I don't think I've ever seen.

Maybe that's because we have the luxury of taking for granted this concept of living in a relatively free country.

The films quieter moments are just as powerful as its raucous, sometimes gleefully angry musical interludes.

One of the most memorable is a scene where one character, mostly obscured by a door, begs for mercy from a harsh judge.

The underground Iranian filmmaker rails against government and religion for just under 2 hours.








It's eerie that the film won the Special Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival just weeks before the now notorious riots following the disputed (stolen) Iranian elections. In retrospect, the film feels prophetical.

Qobadi is filled with fury at how his government treats his people. In an interview, he railed against the treatment of women as 'the voice against God.'

The film, as angry as it will make you does have its share of humor and that is what makes now exhiled Qobadi a gift.

The cinema community embraces him and every one of you should desperately seek this film out.

Stay The Hell Home This Weekend! Boycott Repo!

Hey there, grave-robber. Can't get it up if the girl's breathing?

Miguel Sapochnik, you suck.

Forest Whitaker, I had to watch Ghost Dog to remind myself that I don't hate you, but you're on notice.

Jude Law, not even eXistenZ can save you. You're off my cool list.

Liev Schreiber, RZA and Alice Braga, bad bad bad. (And Ms. Braga, as an enormous fan of City of God and Blindness, it breaks my heart to say that.)

Now, everybody boycott the hell out of this rip-off Repo movie this weekend.

I’m fairly certain this lame-rip-off of a movie will not feature:

a) Anthony Stewart Head sticking his arm up a guy he just gutted and doing a ventriloquism routine with his hollow corpse.

b) A homicidal but irresistibly attractive Skinny Puppy lead singer.

c) Paul Sorvino singing with his best Italian fat guy opera voice.

d) Paris Hilton’s face falling off.

e) The little girl from Spy Kids all grown up and disturbingly hot.

f) The greatest rock and roll movie soundtrack since"Rocky Horror."

So go to your local Best Buy or WalMart or wherever and buy, don't rent from NetFlix, don't download it, but buy a copy of "Repo! The Genetic Opera."

And it's saying something about "Repo Men" when I'm advising you to visit your local WalMart rather than go to the movies, is it not?

"Repo! The Genetic Opera" is the real movie.

You will not be sorry.

Like a mop, or a broom.

No one likes a thankless job.