Suicide Room (2011)

This is a rather strange request of a review that I recently received. This would not be the first foreign film I’ve reviewed, in fact my first review is of a foreign film called the Boss of It All. This film Suicide Room, aka Sala samobójców, is in great contrast from my experience from The Boss of it All.

The subject matter is fairly obvious from the title alone, and as slow as the pacing in this film is, it definitely took a rather mature look into suicide. Though the whole internet immersion aspect is more modern. Likewise, I somewhat expected this film to take a similar approach to other films where so much as a mention of a book suddenly means that the rest of the movie is centered on that book or taking quotes from that book. However, the mention of Hamlet served more of background to sell the point that the main character Dominik is from a prestigious family who expects nothing by brilliance from Dominik. At first, I was wondering what the film summary meant by “After suffering extreme humiliation at school”, because I could not see anything that would suggest that in the beginning. In all fairness, I have seen few films that would actually work up to the humiliation. Why do foreign films seem to get that it helps more to actually get to know the character before a said event which changes them better than American films? Though, most foreign films would probably never make it to American audiences without having proven themselves first.

So what’s this “extreme humiliation”? Gay shaming. That pretty much captures the whole issue. Okay, not really, but Gay shaming seems to be such a common theme of kids who are bullied in American films. Plus, call me an ignorant American all you want, but you just don’t expect so much of this from France. Especially given they’re considered one of the most LGBT friendly countries. My sources will be listed below, and yes, I took a lot at wikipedia first. Though, this McDonalds commercial might suggest that there’s still quite some room for confusion. I have a link below, yet I’m not so sold on how “real” it really is. Since there’s another version with a very similar tone, yet ends off with a line like “come as you are”. I’ll have that one linked with my other resources.

French McDonald’s Commercial

So most times than not, the gay shaming in most films are usually centered on superficial traits that really don’t have anything to do with any form of sexuality at all. Strangely enough, this one takes a similar approach to KickAss where the basis of the assumption is more about an interaction forced onto the character or at least believed to be. In KissAss’s case it was the apposed mugging that involved the removal of his clothing, and in Dominik’s case it involved a strange judo position that just involved questionable frontal grinding until Dominik had been brought to cum. Then the same kid who brought him to cum in the judo practice commence to cyberbully him. If you’re thinking to yourself, why is the kid who’s harassing him so immune to it, but Dominik is the center of a shit storm of targeted messages. So, excuse me if I’m not completely sold on the character Dominik despite his clearly confusing display with kissing a statue is gay. Though I don’t know that the film ever intended to say that anyways. Especially considering that the ending hows that he clearly has at least romantic attraction toward a female character. What, did the film just want to play that just didn’t meet the right one card? Or is it that the character jumped to it as a release of tension from who he use to call friends insisting that he is. Sure he kissed a guy in order to see two girls kiss, while drinking with that said group of friends.

I’m not even going to be the one to say that if this was a movie clearly intended for gays, or focused on a gay character it’s clearly not for me. The demographics of those who reported being gay or lesbian might be only 1.6 % within the United States, they do deserve a media that actually tries to reach out to them. It’s pretty much expected of me to say that I’m not interested in seeing a movie that’s focused on a gay couple. Hell, most of the time, I don’t even care for films featuring hetero- sexual romances. (I’m sure that I could get to that at some other time.)  I don’t really think that this population is necessarily under-represented right now, but I really don’t think they could do with continual complaining about whenever their sexuality happens to be represented in a film. Though, either Dominik is actually unaddressed as falling into a different category in terms of spectrums or so forth, the character is genuinely confused himself and frustrated to the point of acting out, or this is clearly one of those “meet the right one” stories.

But what about the actual “suicide room”? Well, I would say that it’s an interesting concept, but it’s really not. If anything, it serves more as an interpretive internet interaction with new found friends who are set to kill themselves for the injustices within their lives. The concept of the Suicide Room makes about as much sense as the chat room. It visualizes for use in a game like atmosphere. Apparently this game like atmosphere is actually expected to be much like an actual online video game, but I don’t even know if there is a signal one out there that allows nearly as many functions as this game allows, much less absolutely free to play. Though, the world works like I said as a plot point in looking at the feelings of Dominik as he’s trying to make sense of the crashing down world around himself struggling to find purpose in so much as the smallest things and investing all of that into online friend who support him in a time of psychological torment. Outside, Dominik is clearly acting out toward parents who are only expect results out of him despite his mental and physiological well-being, and partly so that they could use him to maintain status. Though it’s clear that his friends intend to only manipulate him to their own end, but by doing so, have been forced to face their actions in driving him to commit suicide himself.

I personally didn’t care for his film, but it’s far from a horrible film. I appreciate the effort involved in presenting a character driven to escapism of the internet due to the feeling of reality turning against him. Not much of this relates to me. Honestly, I’m finding the one lesson that I can learn from this is that putting a review off for two days of a movie that I really don’t care to watch again is not such a great idea when topped with consuming much of other media content and drinking Double English Ale. If there’s one thing to be taken from this. I’m not drinking Double English Ale or any variant of which ever again in my life. As promised, I have the links just below.

Wikipedia LGBT rights in France

Most gay friendly countries

McDonald’s “come as you are” Commercial

Wikipedia orientation demographics

 

Highlander The Source (2007)

The final of a long lived collection of movies and tv series starting in the late 80’s. The Highlander The Source the music video, I mean, The Highlander The Source the early 2000s superhero movie. Wait a minute, that’s not quite right either. However, watching the movie for myself made that too difficult to tell. I honestly thought that I would have far better to say about a movie that I personally enjoyed for so for the sake that it was laughable. Though at that time I was a young teen.

There’s so much wrong with this movie for the sake that none of the characters are actually developed any further than generalizations, the locations despite apparently being in possibly the modern world if not an apocalyptic setting of that said world is never revealed, wholes segments of the movie would break off into a music video that I’m surprised to not see anyone with a mic, the villain is an example of why Voldo from Soul Calibur will never get a movie about him, The Highlander is most definitely not the Highlander, and the basis of the movie hardly matches up with the rest of the series or even tries or leads toward the resolution in a respect full manner.

More about the villain, think about any character that likes to take anything you say sexually or otherwise perverse. Maybe you just have a friend who’s like that. In that case I am personally sorry for you. I remember laughing at the Guardian because of how strange the very way he talks sounded and the silly over the top gesture, but I begin to remember that that’s just how being a teenage is like. You find just about anything about sex humorous than it just starts to feel overused I guess. Now you can get on me about watching a rated R film at too young of an age for it, but I think a movie that would clearly serve teens yet is rated R is more of a let down. Though I have it on good authority that I would not be the only teen who just shrug at an R rating like it’s nothing. Plus we all know it’s only rated R so that the protagonist could have his mandatory sex scene with his new female companion. Something that I’m sure we would sorely miss if they happen to make one movie that goes without.There is an interesting twist with the Guardian that I will go into later.

First off, I know this is the 2000s, but not every male protagonist needs to be rocking the buzz cut. Could you image if Thor suddenly decided he needed a really short hair cut. Plus, if this is a matter of the protagonist modernizing with the civilization, then why wouldn’t he have done before? Likewise, his character changes severely from any of the Highlander movies for this. Where MacLeod had been caring and often sentimental toward his lost loved ones. Though the fact that talking about his long dead wife somehow lead to a sex scene in the first movie, I could be wrong about that.

The story insists that it’s about life rather than death, which is kind of a major contrast toward the past Highlander films where each resolution involved him breaking away from a peaceful life into a violent resolution of a problem. Though not once until the end does this plot device come up without sounding like his ex-wife is dissing him for not being able to reproduce. Oh, did I forget to mention that. Yeah, this time his past wife is still alive enough to have that she broke up with him because the strange downfall that Immortals are sterile. Though she’s somehow the way toward the path.

So alas we hit the resolution or at least the final portion of the film. In everyone movie past, “There can be only one.” has become a very popular phrase first express by a sociopathic immortal set on killing other Immortals so to absorb their life force without much explanation why. Personally my first thought would be that this is merely the ravings of a homicidal maniac justifying his killing sprees with a nonsensical slogan, however movies following up to that have insisted that, although varying as to what being only one actually means, “there can be only one” is commonly accepted by Immortals. This film attaches a whole different meaning to that than you must kill everyone else onto meaning to be the one to enter the source of the immortality to begin with and somehow become mortal by doing so. This begs so many questions when the Immortal somehow become more mortal and weak as they approach the source of their Immortality, yet regain it when within close proximity of that same source, then to lose all of it by entering the source depending on who it accepts. Now the Guardian is actually the last one who actually became the last remaining Immortal who manage to kill the Guardian. The twist is that killing is not the solution. How the hell do we get to that when every other time killing had been the solution when the protagonist’s hand has been forced. Plus there’s nothing to point at this version of Highlander would feel so merciful, and is just the “want nothing to do with it, yet goes along with it anyways” trope. Ultimately, nobody forced his hand to truly choose. I really feel like this movie could have sparred us the exposition dump at the end of this movie by make the character choices actually make sense in relation to this resolution.

Why am I in such a bad movie mood lately? I honestly hoped for the best of this film and yet it sucked. I’m not satisfied with solely say that this movie did poorly by not delivering so well on what could actually make this an interesting movie. I say that the reviser is the culprit here. Yeah, I could blame the writer, but this is clearly a first edit of an idea that only needed a good looking over to improve the quality greatly. I somehow doubt that the writer never thought to bring this movie script up to someone to look over thinking that this would be the best script ever. Though, I could be wrong and the writer acted overly protective against any form of criticism. However, I feel that whoever had been asked to revise felt too scared of hurting the writer’s feelings about saying anything negative about the script and just gave the thumbs up insisting that there’s nothing wrong with it. I see this done with Creative Writing majors as well. A little word of advise to take from this. Go to some one who will actually criticize you and give constructive pointers. If all they say is that it’s all shit or have absolutely no interest in what you are writing than you have the wrong kind of reviser. Likewise wrong if the reviser only ever gives you thumbs up on everything you write. I know it can be hard to find someone who actually breaks out the red/blue ink, but damnit, it needs to be done, and this film is the pinnacle of that need.

X-Files Season 3 Episodes 9-12

Nesei: This episode started out with the most fake shooting that I’ve ever seen. Give it some time, I’ll probably see more. But apparently it’s good enough for Mulder to buy by some film company called Rat Tail Productions. If you’re talking about secret military footage that’s supposed to be real, a name like Rat Tail really isn’t the best way to go. Well, seeing how the producer was found dead leading to a foot race through a neighborhood. I would say Mulder might have been onto something. Though, I also think that Mulder was a little quick to draw his gun. Guess what, the Asian man doesn’t speak English so well. Fortunately for the guy, he has Japanese diplomatic immunity. However, his suitcase doesn’t seem to be protected from Mulder’s snooping finding satellite images of American ships. Mulder’s personal think tank gets another crack at it. I also feel that I must note that they’re very sparing with subtitles. At first, when Scully found a group of women that stated that she was “One of us” that were fellow abductees, I thought that this was going to be one of those dual plot stories. I hate it when they do that, usually because it may develop the characters in a way that a normal plot line might not, it also steals away from the main plot focus for the video. I was happy to see that the two were connected as the episode turns into a hunt for human-alien hybrid. I rank this episode 3.5 out of 5.

731: Welcome to the Han Disease Research facility, I guess. Why would a bunch of American troops invade on a bunch of sick people? Am I looking at ghouls and Martians? ET exterminations, I guess. Now, we are finally back to the train. When will we get to how the two are even related? Well that one will take a while. However, the chip found in Scully’s neck receives some answers more or less. It uploads information in a way, everything that goes on in Scully’s head so long as it stayed in place is going to somewhere to be read. Hopefully it’s not for a YouTube twitch channel. Now that would be embarrassing. Once Scully uncovers what I was left to believe were ghouls, the truth is that they are actually a leprosy colony. Meanwhile on the train, Mulder manages to convince a small family that a slit throat is somehow motion sickness. I still wonder how that worked, or even if that did work. It’s even funnier to see that the guy going around slitting throats with a wire cord happens to be an NSA agent. Apparently the scientist has been exposing people to “terrible things”. That’s an exact quote. That’s the disease that Scully is told that a pile of a bunch of dead baldies suffer from and what the scientist from the train has been exposing people to. I think X Files must have hit a tough budget seeing how the explosive device the NSA agent warned Mulder about looks like fluorescent lighting. I rank this episode 4 out of 5.

Revelations: Yep, this is yet another religious themed episode. I don’t know what it is about the writers of X Files, but they seem to always make the worst episodes when it comes to religion. We start off with a display in a church where a man proceeds to bleed through his hands right in front of a live audience. Are they going to just watch him bleed himself like that? This is right in a church too. I wouldn’t think church regulars to not think to say anything about that. Well, the display seems to take some unwanted attention by a man who steam strangles him… Yeah. I don’t know if that’s just a natural think that happens when he touches people or something since that’s never explored. As the episode goes on, that sudden bleeding syndrome seems to spread to a child in a grade using division. I think that’s third grade when they teach that. I don’t remember, it’s been far too long. Somehow, the father knows of the killings in relation to Armageddon. He’s a medium I guess. They have those in the Bible as well as four head angels and sentient rotating wheels. Serious look it up. No worries as a bald man with a face that’s not winning any beauty pageants anything soon takes the kid under his custody. I took one look at the guy and figured to myself that I feel like they used Jargas before, but I cannot remember from where. I also don’t think they used him as the same character either. I cannot possibly overstate how bad the blinding backlight is in a lot of the segments. Mostly the film is of an old man chasing a kid around. That’s really about it. I also cannot help but to address how it seems that Scully protects faith, but Mulder nays it every time. Why is the guy that constantly places his faith in the existence of ETs downing faith relations every time? Is it just so that Scully can see how it feels when she tells him that he cannot be right? Now for the most obnoxious part of the episode. The objective for the old guy is to kill the kid. No specific time and no specific way, so why wait. The old man captured him and waited to kill him telling him about how he’s going to do it. Is this just hubris? This is a shit episode. I don’t know where X Files gets off and doing poorly to portray religion and religious themes altogether, but more importantly, why do they keep trying? Do they actually want to do it, or is this just a way to please a specific sponsor or Christian group. I rank this episode 0.25 out of 5.

War Of The Coprophages: Cockroaches. That’s what this episode is about. Ok, killer cockroaches. It starts out with an exterminator giving a client quite a show with holding one up to give a detailed description on the whole species. I’m still stuck on why someone would hold one up like that. Don’t those thing walk on feces and stuff. I don’t discount that someone might do something like that seeing how I’ve seen my father transfer his beta into a new tank with his bare hands. I’m going to go ahead and say it. This one is pretty much a joke episode. It’s a good joke episode, but the fact that it’s so funny to watch is where most of the enjoyment comes from this episode. You know it’s bad when an exterminator is killed by the cockroaches that the client paid you to kill. That’s embarrassing. Turns out, the whole town has been undergoing mortal cockroach attacks. After finding that one of the cockroaches seems to have a metal shell, Mulder practices his favorite pastime, trespassing, where he might have met his match in the ufology department.  Even to the point that he flat out tells Scully “not now” when she tried calling. I probably forgot to mention, more most of Mulder’s investigation, Scully has been calling him non-stop. I starts to make one wonder how Mulder could keep it going. They really play the couple thing little too much in this episode. It is a relief when Scully finally decided that she wanted to go see the whole thing for herself. Bambi, the cockroach expert that caught Mulder’s attention, reveals that the bugs might be bionic sending Mulder to yet another expert. The other expert is rather interest. It seems that his expertise is in robotics with an interest in cockroaches. Normally I wouldn’t think that biology would intrigue many engineers, except bio-engineers of course. The townspeople turn into an absolute mess over the killer roaches as not enough “DIE BUG DIE”s could be sold off the shelfs. Some of them get really bad. You know it’s really bad when someone asks “How am I sure that you aren’t one of them?” I don’t blame Mulder for giving the guy a funny look for that question. In the end, Mulder loses his Bambi to the robotics professor. I rank this episode 4.75 out of 5.

The Matrix Trilogy (1999,2003)

Yes, this is yet another Mock Review, but honestly, I would hope I still do a good enough job looking over movies without more of an objective means of hunting up pieces of major significant through the films rather than simply trying to rate them on their quality. On that note, I’m squeezing the Matrix Trilogy into one review. Why am I doing this? Is it because I see the trilogy as one big movie? No. Fair from it, despite this, I hope to look at the whole trilogy, but try to go over what insight that I can actually give that you cannot simply pull out of the Nostalgia Critic or Film Theory seeing how both of those fiends have torn at it, and still did excellent jobs while doing so, but clearly Rotten Tomatoes’ 73% rating of The Matrix Reload, well renowned as the most hated by fans,  has shown that I can’t rely so much on other reviewers to cover everything. Though, I still enjoy Film Theory’s concept that Agent Smith is The One, and it would explain the hell out of the trilogy given that they take the time to actually cap that snippet into the series.

The Matrix (1999)

This is the first of the Wachowski brothers’ projects while I could still correctly enough call them the Wachowski brothers. I would have probably covered that the once known as Laurence Wachowski has revealed that she is transgender and goes by the name of Lana Wachowski now. The fact that this movie had been a part of my childhood is probably proof in itself that I am a 90’s baby. When this movie came out into theaters it immediate struck accord with a large enough audience through intense actions scenes a shit ton of kodak camera’s for slow-mo effects and inspired many philosophies discussed within the movie pertaining to the Matrix as a false reality much like Maya is to Hinduism to a certain degree. However, the original alone focused far too much on the messiah imagery and in order to keep those intense actions scenes the lease bit plausible left a bumpy path of plot holes making any hopes of continuing the series while producing continually satisfying films a difficult journey. The basis of this film’s storyline pretty much capstones what everyone will remember from past 90s actions movies being a strange combination of “the new guy” story, and “criminal zero to salvation” story. I’m not going to criticize “the new guy” storyline too much since it typically makes sense to introduce a strangeness of a whole new world or reality being revealed onto us and using the character as an intermediary to better explore this strange new world much like Alice in Wonderland. In fact, that’s best defines this story, Alice in Wonderland. The movie really does little to make this analogy the lease bit obscure, in about the same way as explaining that Neo is the One. The White Rabbit, Mouse, and even the scene with the mirror where Neo wakes up from the Matrix is straight out of Alice in Wonderland. It’s no wonder with the popularity of this film that so many remakes and re-imaging of Alice in Wonderland has followed. However, this goes back to the whole leaving trails of plot holes so that they could shove in just as many intense scene as possible thing. This movie only served to be the most talked about movie of its time. It drops in philosophies without much explanation nor exploration into their inner meanings or how they could possibly become related toward everyday life. Unless the message is that I should go around shooting members of law enforcement convinced that they are somehow entrapping me to their pseudo-reality. I somehow every much doubt that.

Matrix Reloaded (2003)

Oh, the aforementioned over-rated film of the Matrix trilogy that serves as nothing more than a bridge-episode as I’ve mentioned in my SAW III review. First off, the first Matrix had a nice finish to it, and functioned more so as a philosophical introductory course without much exploration to what those philosophies even mean. This movie surprised me that Rotten Tomatoes. NO! That IMDb as well thought this movie was still serviceable at a 7 out of 10 range. Aside from having to endure awkward orgy scenes in a dystopian world that would make you think you’re looking at a 2010s teen fiction movie, This movie only brought the audience nothing more than what the fans have already talked about. First off, after introducing so many philosophies with endless speeches you’d think that there would be more exploration of those philosophies or even where did those beliefs come from and what might they mean to a society constantly under threat of annihilation. Likewise, now that we are finally introduced to the city Zion only mentioned in the first matrix without much more explanation than that’s where Tank and Bozo is from, they might have the movie take place in that city to give more of an idea of what all the resistance is fighting to protect. Rather this film leaving even more plot holes all over the place to make the road even rougher for anyone to fix, breaking off to unnecessary side quests after side quests, turning actions scenes into exports for exposition dumps and inserting little teasers about where the plot would be going for the third movie. I can understand why there might be some significance in asking why programs that are helping the human resistance are helping the human resistance to begin with might make sense at first glance. However, the resistance has been working with these AI’s who have continued helping them for a long time. generations long. You’d think at some point that they would have managed some intel about that already. The worst part about the plots holes they have left is that so many of them are simply and easy to fix that it would take next to no effort at all. Case and point, the scene where Neo exits a door to end up in the Himalayas and never so much as once thinks to turn back. Why? I mean, I guess it would make sense if the machines also managed to block off the way back with some firewall or force-shield, but none of the sort is so much as suggested. Even with that in mind, Seeing how we left off with Neo breaking the Matrix so that he’s as impervious to harm and limitations as superman, this little thing would mean absolutely nothing to him. Then there’s the final problem that this film might not attract past Matrix fans, Neo had to obtain his power and the threats in the past truly meant either his life or death. Now, He’s superman. Nothing means anything to him the moment he’s in the matrix.  I really don’t know how much more I would like to go on about this. This film is well known for the introduction of The Core who takes long winded speaks to a whole new level with SAT words that not even the SAT would expect you to know. For Those of us who could make out what he had been saying, this is a rather intriguing scene, otherwise it’s like you just got dumped into an advanced Philosophies class already 7 chapters into a book. You would have know idea where he had been coming from, nor what he had been hinting at. Though, I personally always wanted to see a parody of this scene that just stuck a giant donut in his place. Would rainbow sprinkles be too much you thing?

Matrix Revelations (2003)

The first issue that comes to mind with this movie is that, well the first two issues that comes to mind with this movie are that, this movies is clearly where all the actual effort is placed seeing how both of the sequels have been clearly made far too close toward one another to possess much effort in both of them, and that this film would rely on the audience wanting to watch Matrix Reload to actually get the full picture. There are still other issues with the movie, yet I find the complaints against it clearly visualizing Neo as the messiah as the most absurd. Of course they’re going to go that direction. They have been going that direction with The Matrix and The Matrix Reloaded. Why would anyone think at this point that expect that would somehow change? This movie clearly suffered from the load of plot holes left by its prior brethren, but I think the sudden increase load of character introduced as if we should already know them from the video games made off of the first movie really harmed this movie. Likewise, the sudden introduction of giant military grade weapons where pilots would cruise around in order to shot up at swarms of machines came out of no where. Matrix Reload tried too much to look like the lone sequel that focused far too much on an already explored medium of the series called the matrix than where the hell would this seemingly technologically screwed population could possibly possess these giant machines. You know what, why am I even questioning an obvious marketing ploy for new action figures. First the revenue from movie watchers than the revenue from merchandise.

To wrap this look over of the trilogy up, I still enjoyed myself with the trilogy while I was quite a bit younger. However, with rumors about potential expansions upon The Matrix Trilogy going around, I feel I should reconsider that mark of approval. If they could manage to create enjoyable sequels than I would be fully behind that, yet the fact that there’s a rumored Matrix 4 and 5 being disgusted. I fear that these sequels would not add much more than what the last sequels had to offer. This really didn’t turn out to be such a positive mock review, but I can’t simply give the mark of approval to every film with an idea, I guess.

Neko Rants: Halloween’s Overseige

Neko Rants Poltergeist (2015) Blu-Ray

npp skit – Barney the purple dinosaur

Neko Rants: Ruthless YouTube Ranter

Neko Prompt 001

Half-Life

Without a doubt, this is a long running classic of gaming, and given a lot of popularity by Scott Ross in his long running youtube series Freeman’s Mind. Though I really wouldn’t recommend using the series as a guide or walkthrough.

Before Half-life, I gone ahead and played Half-life 2 and the following episodes of the series first. Why? I was still in High School and playing on an XBOX then XBOX360 on the orange box. Looking back at the predeceeding games weren’t the first thing on my mind, and now I feel happy to say that I played Half-life. My expectations for the game’s environment and focus was well met, and gave not much but some idea why the Gordon Freeman character in Half-life 2 is so idolized. Part of the idolization is from being a highly accommidated scientist, not only surviving the resonance cascade but resolving it, and what I suspect being the perfect lab rat for extreme scientific development.

My main question is, is the game too long? The sudden shift of that almost puzzle solving and master bulgary training suddenly turned into persistant gunfights, and a near impossible boss fight that the game will get you addicted enough to fight through. Some chapter became as short as I-here-at-point-a-and-out. I lost count of the number of chapters, but I know the Half-life 2 saga didn’t have any break a 15 chapter limit. I enjoyed the game more for the puzzle-solving aspects that I felt made it different from yet-another-pray-and-shoot sort of gameplay. Not to forget an almost comical atmosphere provided by how well the game sell such an absurb chain of events.

Posted December 31, 2014.