:: fucking NEWS bitches ::


RADICALS, PORNSTARS, & PUNK FILMMAKERS INFILTRATE BORDERS BOOKS
The Alt-Film Fest launches this Friday November 16th with an "Alternative Filmmaking Panel" at the Borders Books in Westwood (Los Angeles).

Keynote Speaker: Robert Greenwald ("Iraq For Sale: The War Profiteers," "WalMart: The High Cost of Low Price," "Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism")
Panelists:
Curt Johnson ("Your Mommy Kills Animals")
Joanna Angel ("Re-Penetrator," "XXXorcist")
Matt Pizzolo ("Threat")
James Spooner ("Afro-punk")
Esther Bell ("Exist")

Finally all you UCLA poseurs can learn about the rough & tumble world of guerrilla filmmaking by people who challenge the President (Greenwald), glorify class war (Pizzolo), have beef with elderly ex-Playmates (Johnson), and fuck for a living (Angel). All we have to say is... way to go, Borders, we never knew ya had it in ya! Fuck Barnes & Noble!


TORONTO FILM FESTIVAL COVERAGE

No More Documentaries, Pt 1
No More Documentaries, Pt 2

No More Documentaries, Pt 1
The Toronto International Film Festival has some great films, some good films, and some not so good films... but, beyond all that, I'll always remember this event as the one that finally gave Documentary Film the deathblow kick in the balls. Not that there aren't great docs here, there are... but I really feel for the first time that there's no distinction whatsoever between documentary and narrative film--in terms of content or form. Here at the festival, narrative features have appropriated documentary style & format (and even footage), while documentaries have starred A-List celebrity actors (everyone from George Clooney to The Rock) and have invariably included the filmmakers themselves in the meta-documentary style popularized by Nick Broomfield and, to a lesser extent, Michael Moore (though Moore doesn't actually film himself filming). Here are some quick thoughts and notes on a few of the documentary-esque films I've seen so far:

- DARFUR NOW (starring Don Cheadle, George Clooney, and a bunch of Sudanese refugees): This one's a documentary... starring Don Cheadle and George Clooney. Ok fine, it's documenting something they actually did--but they're still actors and when they talk they're fucking acting whether it's scripted or not. When Luis Moreno-Ocampo talks about the war crimes in his homeland of Argentina and contrasts them to his criminal case against members of the Sudanese government, when Adam Sterling talks about his Sudanese divestment project, when Pablo Recalde talks about the dire situations under which he delivers UN Food donations... it's riveting. And certainly the stories from the refugees are at once heartbreaking and inspiring. But, and maybe I'm just a cynical fuck, listening to Cheadle and Clooney (the latter of whom does remain fairly tight-lipped) wax political is a bit numbing. The fact that they meet with heads of state in China is so utterly ridiculous... I understand the need to "spread the word" about Darfur, but don't most people know there's a lot of fucked up shit going on around the world that they'd love to stop if they had the ability? I know what you're thinking: "no, they don't really know..." but I disagree. I think most people are paying a bit closer attention these days than one would ordinarily assume. Most people are bummed when they hear about Darfur and feel guilty that they're not helping. When he was feeling guilty and powerless, Sterling came up with a harebrained scheme to get a bill passed that would deprive the Sudanese government of some US money. That's pretty rad. Cheadle and Clooney, on the other hand, spread the word... and gladhand with politicians. Yawn. There are numerous documentaries out there covering Darfur in one way or another... what does this one offer that makes it different? Starpower. [note: despite my belly-aching, it's a good doc and should definitely be viewed by all you knuckleheads who don't know what's goin' on in the world.]

- BATTLE IN SEATTLE (starring Charlize Theron, Woody Harrelson, Andre 3000, Michelle Rodriguez, Ray Liotta, and a bunch of Young Hollywood actors dressed up like activists): This one's a narrative feature... sort of. Stuart Townsend's vanity project about the WTO Protests in Seattle did its activist homework, not only do I recognize protest footage from "This Is What Democracy Looks Like" and "Breaking The Spell" among others (I hope they got some $$ rather than promises of "spreading the word"), but I also recognized actual scene compositions lifted from existing activist documentary footage. Y'know that story about Steven Spielberg watching WWII footage over and over again to recreate it in "Saving Private Ryan?" Well it appears that Townsend did the same thing here... except the footage he's recreating is from 8 years ago and freely available in far superior films than this one here. Why the fuck do we need him recreating it? So he can intercut Charlize Theron stumbling pregnant through the police riot? So Woody Harrelson can bite his lip? The movie is fairly interesting and enjoyable if you remove the TV-movie melodrama of the Harrelson-Theron storyline and the TNBC cartoonishness of the activists as they banter behind the scenes of the street protests. But if you remove those two elements, then you have (a) existing documentary footage, and (b) recreations of existing documentary footage. So it's sort of a cool movie is you remove everything Townsend did. The movie is so cheesy-Hollywood in its construction that it makes you wonder why it was produced independently. It doesn't take any risks creatively or narratively, it's star-studded to a fault, and it's hokey as fuck. I know this movie isn't for a prick like me who will never assign any level of credibility to it, but I didn't watch it wanting it to be a movie for me. I wanted it to be as cheesy as it is, but in a "Pump Up The Volume" kind of way where at least a 15 year old could enjoy it and be inspired to learn more. But it fails on that level as well because it's utterly boring, melodramatic, inauthentic, and bloated with self-indulgence. Despite the fact that it claims "although these are true events, these are fictitious characters" (or something to that effect), the only fictionalized aspect of the characters is that Townsend airbrushed over real activists and turned them into sycophantic Hollywood starlets pretending to be activist-chic. "Battle In Seattle" appropriates footage, content, commentary and character in an effort to turn true events into cinematic mythology, but it fails simply because these events lack any power when they are driven by larger-than-life caricatures. Case in point: despite the protestations Townsend would likely claim, Michelle Rodriguez is obviously playing Warcry... and if you've seen any of the authentic documentaries on this subject, you'll realize just how truly ridiculous that is. [note: in solidarity with my belly-aching here, I'll confirm that I do indeed think this movie sucks ass. In the interests of full-disclosure, though, I must admit my opinion might be skewed by this-circa 2000]

I'm running off to see Nick Broomfield's latest, but will follow up shortly with more on this topic... including notes on "George Romero's Diary of the Dead," "Operation Filmmaker," "Persepolis," "White Lies Black Sheep," "Nothing Is Private," and more. -ZOLO

No More Documentaries, Pt 2
Jesus fucking Nick Broomfield! I just walked into his movie expecting a documentary. Yeah yeah, I know he's done shitty narrative features in the past... but there's so many Iraq documentaries that you'd assume "Battle For Haditha" was his take on the Iraq doc. Well, I knew something was up when the movie started and you didn't see Broomfield awkwardly ambling about in front of the camera, calling up his financier for extra money, etc. And all of a sudden there's these humvees rippin' it up in the desert and the camera angles are just way too crazy for a doc. And I don't know what shit Broomfield usually shoots on, but this was some glossy HiDef or maybe 35 I was looking at. So I was thoroughly confused until a pair of Iraqis entered an al Qaeda camp to pick up an IED, and I finally knew for sure that I was watching a straightup narrative based on true events. Ok, yes, I'm fucking retarded, but this is another example of the blurring of narrative & documentary here. The flick is pretty good, but I'll discuss that in my upcoming piece about how surprised I am that so many of these films are guilty pleasures for your inner warhawk (just don't tell anybody, cuz they'll never admit it).

Now back to the business at hand...

GEORGE ROMERO'S DIARY OF THE DEAD crystallizes the shift into docunarrative largely in format--although Romero is only becoming more on-the-nose in his social critiques as he gets older, so it might actually be the first Age-Of-Terror / Age-Of-Natural-Disasters-cum-Government-Ineptitude documentary that features zombies alongside Hurricane Katrina victims.
Here, Romero channels a zombie shootemup through a prism of the blogosphere, YouTube, and a McLuhan-by-way-of-Natural-Born-Killers "camera operator as spectator in his own life" ideology. It would be too post-Blair-Witch, too post-first-person-shooter-game if not for the fact that the acting is so surprisingly strong and the directing so effective.
It's a mockumentary that plays like a movie, and it's certainly the most self-assured POV film I've ever seen. It'll have the kids howling in the theaters because it works quite well as a horror film, and the dramatic use of actual news footage from recent disasters leaves an unsettling pit in your stomach.
The trouble for the viewer is that the redundancy of disaster news footage in a zombie film is so unsettling precisely because the underlying dread that makes us enjoy zombie films is desublimated during the experience of watching it... so, rather than feel the catharsis of the survivalist, we realize how fucking pointless it is to watch a fucking zombie movie these days. Horror directors love to trot out the fact that horror box office booms during periods of instability (somehow this makes them socially relevant rather than emotional privateers), and it's probably true. The basic theory is that, on some level, you feel you're learning how to survive. Obviously that's irrational, but maybe valid on some primal level. Romero doesn't give you that luxury in "Diary Of The Dead." He constantly reminds you that leaving the theater is no escape from the terror he's depicting... and based on its nihilistic ending, I'd say the pit left in your stomach as you leave the theater was his intention all along. What a dick.

BRETT RATNER IS DOING A REMAKE OF "TRIUMPH OF THE WILL"
Even though she killed a little kid who ran into the street after a soccer ball, we still like her more than that Ratner dude.
According to Variety, Brett Ratner is following up the wildly successful Rush Hour 3 with a remake of the slapstick comedy "Triumph Of The Will," by former SNLer Leni Riefenstahl.

Ratner says he will wear the Wolverine costume every day on set and intends to cast "it-girl" Rosa Parks as Adolf and screen siren Monica Bellucci as Goebbels.

Ratner told Variety "ever since I watched Monica Bellucci get raped over and over again in Irreversible, I've wanted to work with her. Some people know I was originally slated to direct A Mighty Heart, and I had cast Monica to play the Pakistani militant that cut off Daniel Pearl's head. Unfortunately the studio wanted Al Pacino for the role and I left the project due to creative differences."

"YOUNG HOLLYWOOD" GETS MORE GUEST STARS THAN YOU CAN SHAKE A FLACCID PENIS AT
Originally, the headline was "more guest stars than you can shake a boner at" but we decided a flaccid penis is funnier than a boner. You be the judge.

We hear from our favorite art-porn visionary Carlos Batts that his upcoming movie "Young Hollywood" has more special guests than Paris Hilton's magina. Word is Glenn Danzig makes a brief appearance in a scene where Mandy Morbid tries to be his new "music video girl," and even infamous illustrators Coop and AXIS join the party alongside anilingus all-stars Kimberly Kane and Ashley Blue.

Grow out your facial hair, pull on your army surplus hat, and turn on Indie 103... it's porn for hipsters! Peep the trailer here.

COURTNEY SOLOMON = JA RULE
Captivity opened to $1.4 mill. WAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

Here's Talibano's review of Captivity:
Elisha Cuthbert plays Jennifer Tree, a supermodel whose mascara smears when she cries. One day she's drinking lemonade on the A train in East New York and when the train comes to a sudden stop she accidentally spills her drink on a homeless dude. Having spilled her drink, Cuthbert starts crying because she's so thirsty... and those tears smear her mascara. Meanwhile, the homeless dude isn't homeless at all... he's an undercover cop staking out the A train to catch a serial rapist. It turns out the undercover cop (Daniel Gillies) is an Iraq war vet who went back on the job too soon... none of his superiors realize that, while he was a POW in Iraq, the Republican Guard brainwashed him into thinking all blondes with smeared mascara are part of the Great Satan. So he goes totally Manchurian when he sees Cuthbert's poop-stained eyes and bitchslaps her. He drags her unconscious ass into the train-conductor's little room. It's the future, so there's no conductor, just a robot that looks like the little robot buddy from the first Nintendo system. Gillies ties Cuthbert up and reprograms the robot to call Cuthbert "stupid cunt" everytime the train stops. Then he leaves to go fight crime and for the next 90 minutes we watch Cuthbert cry while the robot calls her a
We don't quite know what this means, but apparently Britney's vagina wears shades and makes bad movies...
stupid cunt over and over and over again. It's clearly a critique of Imperialist America in the Age of Terror. I give it 5 out of 4 stars.

 Now, what is wrong with America that a fine film like this made only $1.4 million in its opening weekend?? Clearly Antonioni and Bergman didn't die of natural causes, they committed suicide when they lost faith in the filmgoing audience after they saw the box office totals on Captivity. For shame!

One last thought... just because Courtney Solomon is Ja Rule, that doesn't make Eli Roth into 50 Cent. We here at UnitShifter think Eli Roth is pretty much the Ashanti to Solomon's Ja Rule. Murda!!!

FUCKING HOSTEL
(or Eli Roth Killed Dimebag Darrel & All I Got Was This Shitty Movie)
(or Why The Fuck Can't They Just Call This Piece Of Shit HOSTEL 2 And Stop Wasting My Time??)
Lionsgate deserves kudos for its release of HOSTEL PART II--no, not because the film is good or shocking or important... rather because the Lionsgate marketing department managed to turn HOSTEL PART II into some sort of battle royale between critics, social pundits, and fangeeks. Bravo, assclowns.

For years to come, HOSTEL PART II will be referenced as the point where horror crossed the line into "torture pornography." And it's sad. It's sad because I love torture and I love pornography... and this bloated, self-indulgent hunk o' crap ain't either. HOSTEL PART II isn't a bad movie because Eli goes too far. It's not a bad movie because his vision is so uncompromising. It's a bad movie because (a) it doesn't go far enough, (b) it's totally compromised--in fact, Eli gleefully meows on the MPAA's behalf at every opportunity, (c) it's just a bad movie, and worst of all (d) it's boring. BORING! The cardinal sin of a horror movie.

Eli Roth is the Stone Temple Pilots of horror. "What the fuck does that mean," you ask? Back in the 90s before HOSTEL fans were born, there was this shitty band called Stone Temple Pilots and they got famous by having no identity... instead, every song sounded like a song by another more popular band. There was the Nirvana-esque song, the Pearl Jam-esque song, the Smashing Pumpkins-esque song, etc ad nauseam. Well, that's Eli Roth in a nutshell. CABIN FEVER is Eli channeling EVIL DEAD and a host of other campy-horror derivations. HOSTEL is Eli channeling AUDITION / ICHI THE KILLER-style Asian Extreme horror and all its many derivations. Strangely, HOSTEL PART II is like a mix of Hammer horror and Eurosleaze, but watered down with a weaker narrative than Hammer and less shock value than Eurosleaze. It's less Takashi Miike and more of a neutered Jean Rollin. There's even a few chicks-with-scythes scenes dropped in to squeal out the obvious derivation (read: plagiarism) from FASCINATION.

It's fine if Eli wants to channel Eurosleaze in his new movie, but why do it as a sequel that's barely the same genre as its predecessor? Maybe part of the reason is that Eli plays in the Asia-Extreme/Eurosleaze sandboxes, but his true passion is monkeying Sam Raimi... and the thematic differences between HOSTEL 1 & 2 make sense if you assume the autard is attempting to simulate EVIL DEAD 1 & 2. What does all this mean? Not much, unless you're a dorky cine-ass like myself... in which case, BRING ME THE HEAD OF SCOTT WEILAND.

But I digress...

The point is I must warn you, dear reader, do not be fooled by the carefully orchestrated controversy. I know our readers, like me, salivate at the thought of a groundbreakingly over-the-top extreme-horror that would drive every PTA member in the country to get their guns. This ain't it. There is less gore than the original, less torture, less nudity, less story, less suspense, less of everything. It's not HOSTEL PART II, it's HOSTEL LITE. I could ramble on about the story (or lack thereof) and all the other things about this movie that lack merit, but there's one simple thing to never ever forget: HOSTEL PART II is boring. Nuff said.

ADAM & EVE GOES BATTSY
CARLOS BATTS, photographer of the hot & infamous, struck a deal with Valley-dwellers Adam & Eve Pictures for the release of his art-porn VOLUPTUOUS LIFE, starring the ridiculously sexy APRIL FLORES. We saw a preview and it's pretty fucking amazing, it's gorgeous enough that you could hang it on the wall in an art gallery (and within ten minutes it'd be surrounded by dudes in berets with their hands down their pants). If this is porn, then Talibano's been right all along and Michelangelo's David is porn too. Which means Black Inches wasn't Ryan-O's first gay porn modeling job after all! What a fucking liar. (Come on, you totally recognized David's ballsac was modeled after Ryan-O's bag o' goodies, don't front).

PARIS HILTON, PRISONBOUND
Oh sure, everybody's talking about Talibano's ex-lay Ms. Hilton now... you can't turn on the TV, open a newspaper, or rim your granny without having to hear more about the celebutante outlaw. Yawn. All we have to say is Talibano is doing the Lord's work with his cursed cock... everyone who falls for his sexy ways and ingests the flesh gets shipped off to jail sooner or later. Paris... Lil Kim... Martha Stewart... Tom Sizemore. Beware, Eli Roth, you could be next.

MOVIES NOT TO SEE THIS SUMMER
- SPIDERMAN 3: This is called "everybody came back for the paycheck"-style filmmaking.

- 28 WEEKS LATER: This thing gave me tourrettes. It's like a music video but without the slutty, drug-addled, 13 year old girl singing off-key. The best part of the movie is when Begby gouges his wife's eyes out, but that made no sense whatsoever. Awesome.

- HOSTEL PART II: Not to be confused with HOT SHOTS PART DEUX (that one was actually kinda scary). We liked this better when it was called FASCINATION, who'd'a thunk a fuckin French dude could make a ballsier movie than the so-called Splat Pack Kid. Who the hell came up with "Splat Pack" anyway? That reeks of nicknaming yourself.

MOVIES WORTH SEEING THIS SUMMER
- GRINDHOUSE: Dude. For real. Dude. Even Eli Roth comes out smelling like a rose in this thing, THANKSGIVING is sooooo analingus.

- HALLOWEEN: It'll probably suck, but whatever. Ya gotta go.

- CAPTIVITY: This will definitely suck, but you have to go because of the fucking ridiculous "beef" between Eli Roth and Courtney Solomon... somehow they *both* wind up looking like Ja Rule.
hahahahahaha

WE KNOW WHY YOU'RE GAY
We've discovered why every dude in our generation is gay.

Fucking He-Man & The Masters Of The Universe.

That shit makes Brokeback Mountain look like Legend Of The Overfiend (whatever that means).

Seriously though, if you grew up watching He-Man, you're definitely gay by now.

VOMITING FOR FUN & PROFIT
Tom Araya said in an interview "God doesn't hate anybody... it was just a cool title."
Uch.
Betty wants to know if laser-removal gets rid of Slayer scarification.
It's a sad day south of heaven...