Spiderhead (2022) - Movie Review

Fresh off the smash success of Top Gun: Maverick, a rousing display of American pop cinema that felt like a return to normalcy after the last couple years’ worth of COVID calamity, Joseph Kosinski’s other film from 2022… kinda feels like a rebuttal to his own work.

13th (2016) - Movie Review

In 1864-1865, U.S. president Abraham Lincoln put forward the 13^th Amendment to the Constitution, one which would abolish slavery of black people in the United States. The Amendment reads as follows: Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

With this, Lincoln became known as the Great Emancipator and the issue of black slavery was over… or so we’d very much like to think. Something that has rung true about politics since its very inception is that laws are like any other weapon: If they can’t be broken, they can just as easily be turned on the people who make them. Unfortunately, the 13^th Amendment is much the same and, before too long, it would end up being used to bring back the very institution it was created to stop. Time to get good and fucking depressed.

Where To Invade Next (2016) - Movie Review

Bowling For Columbine was one of the first films I can remember watching and it was on heavy rotation in my DVD player when I was growing up. It is also the only Michael Moore film to date that I have seen in full. When dealing with any politically-charged filmmaker, especially one as divisive as Michael Moore, experience is probably helpful. Then again, experience is something in pretty short supply around these parts, so why start now? However, seeing as how it is election season both here in Australia and over in the U.S. and we’re being bombarded by vox pops and spin doctors every other minute of the day, I feel a certain need to soap box that would probably do me good to let out. As a result, I am now breaking my usual rule of abstaining from politics as best as I can on this blog and willingly walking into the hellfire by looking at a very politically-charged film. At least I can get it out of my system and go back to not knowing thing one about my country’s politicians; we’re all screwed regardless of who wins anyway.

The Human Centipede III: Final Sequence (2015) - Movie Review

This review is something of a milestone for me, as this is where I officially come full circle. After all, the original Human Centipede was the first film I ever reviewed in any semi-semi-formal capacity. However, over the years, I’ve come to the realisation that my initial hatred for the thing was most likely a result of the reputation it had received. As such, I’ll set the record straight right now.

While I still maintain that the characters in the film were often thicker than a second coat of paint, Dr. Heiter’s performance along with the overall concept were enough to at least make it watchable. Then came the sequel, and it is here that I fear I will lose every one of my readers: The Human Centipede II, despite being a film that I predicted would happen when I first reviewed, is one of the best sequels ever made. Seriously, it does everything that a sequel should do right, with Tom Six looking back on the original idea and basically riffing on his own writing to create what I genuinely consider to be a great film… provided that your stomach can handle the gore, that is.

With this patently absurd opinion of the rest of the series, and my knowledge that Rotten Tomatoes can be incredibly misleading when it comes to what is better than what (Hypocrisy ho!), I’m looking at today’s film with probably the most optimism of any film I’ll look at this year. I think I broke at some point during The Green Inferno, but let’s see if this new perspective does me any favours anyway.