myDylarama

Piranha 3D

Kwet — 2010-09-11T13:51:16Z

Réalisé par Alexandre Aja, avec Elisabeth Shue, Steven R Mc Queen, Jerry O'Connell, etc.

Si vous êtes passés à Paris cet été, vous n'avez pas pu rater cette affiche : Une pin up blonde se prélassant sur un matelas gonflable, le reste de l'affiche s'enfonçant dans les fonds marins, laissant apparaître les silhouettes menaçantes de poissons préhistoriques... Et cette promesse alléchante : « Sea, Sex and Blood »... Tout ça fleure bon « les Dents de la mer » !

Et en effet, tous les ingrédients sont bien présents, et en quantité même !
Pour résumer, au bord du Lac Victoria en plein spring break (congés des étudiants américains qui semblent en profiter pour pratiquer tous les vices d'un seul coup), une secousse sismique libère un essaim de piranhas préhistoriques qui va petit à petit semer la terreurs parmi les étudiants, les vacanciers et pendant un concours de t-shirt mouillés ou le tournage d'un film porno...
Ce dernier est l'argument (l'excuse ?) pour de multiples plans de seins à l'air, de filles dénudées et de blagues salaces, dont les participants les plus vicieux et enjoués finissent impitoyablement déchiquetés, grignotés et éparpillés en mer. On notera au passage que ceux qui ont su garder leur innocence (virginité ?) et les représentants de la loi ont tout de même plus de chances de survivre...

Le réalisateur Alexandre Aja, petit frenchie de génie (cocorico !) déjà auteur des excellents remakes « la Colline a des yeux » et « Mirrors », ou des films « Haute Tension » et « Furia », nous offre un « Piranha 3D » très bien réalisé, et dont le casting réussit même dans les rôles secondaires (Christopher Llyod en professeur spécialisé dans les poissons, deux apparitions seulement, mais absolument génial). Tout le film est un pastiche 3D des films d'horreur de série B, dont on retrouve tous les clichés tant au niveau des personnages (coup de coeur pour le réalisateur de porno totalement cintré joué par un Jerry O'Connell que j'aimerais bien voir plus souvent tellement il est drôle) que des scènes classiques, le concours de t-shirt mouillés qui finit en festin pour (vraiment) vilains poissons en étant le parfait exemple ! L'utilisation de la 3D (dont je ne suis pas fan en général, n'en voyant pas l'intérêt pour la plupart des films) est ici au service de cet humour potache, les amateurs d'humour noir étant eux servis par les situations (oui oui moi ça me fait rire les gens qui font de beaux plongeons bien esthétiques et qui ressortent de l'eau sans leurs jambes).

Concernant les piranhas en eux-même, ils ont de belles gueules de tueurs, sont furtifs et vicieux comme on les aime, bref, rien à dire à part qu'ils sont eux aussi pleins d'humour...

En conclusion un très bon film de vacances, un hommage réussi et des litres de faux sang bien vermillon qui vous font passer un bon moment !

Dir : Alexandre Aja, 2010

Illustration : Aggressive Blue And Purple Piranha Fish With Sharp Teeth
by Paulo Resende

Gegege no Kitaro

Kwet — 2010-08-26T09:22:11Z

Adaptation cinématographique du manga éponyme de 1965 par Mizuki Shigeru, le film Gegege no Kitaro raconte l'histoire d'un jeune mi-humain/mi-yokai (monstres issus de la culture traditionnelle japonaise) qui se bat pour que les deux peuples puissent vivre en harmonie l'un à côté de l'autre. Dans cette noble quête il est accompagné de son père, ressuscité sous la forme d'un œil sur pieds accro aux bains de saké chaud, Neko Musume la femme chat et Nezumi Otoko alias Ratman…

Le folklore japonais est plein de monstres tous plus étranges et totalement loufoques à nos yeux d'occidentaux… Une ombrelle cyclope, des hommes rats/tortues/chats/chiens, des ogres chevelus et des sorcières des sables, etc. Associez ça à un genre dont les Japonais raffolent, la reprise « live » de mangas, qui nous prouve bien souvent que les effets spéciaux pas chers ne sont pas forcément les plus convaincants (voir Sailormoon Live Action pour les plus courageux ou même juste si vous aimez les chats en peluche qui parlent), et vous obtenez un film (et sa suite) totalement délirant ! Le héros Kitaro a l'air d'un garçon presque normal, si ce n'est qu‘il lui manque un œil, caché sous une chevelure grise qui sert soit d'antenne, soit d'arme de jet et qu'il porte tout le temps une veste fabriquée avec les cheveux de ses ancêtres qui peut s'avérer assez agressive envers ses ennemis…

Vous l'aurez compris, le film ne brille pas par la qualité de ses décors ou de ses effets spéciaux, mais le mélange entre images de synthèse, marionnettes et acteurs réels est assez réussi, et l'histoire liant les problèmes du monde humain (dettes, suicide, injustice policière, etc) avec ceux du monde fantasmagorique (orbe mystérieuse, guerre entre les dieux renards, devoir se cacher aux yeux des humains, etc) est plus construite qu'il n'y paraît au premier abord, certainement car elle est soutenue par la mythologie créée par le manga depuis les années 60 d'une part, et par tous les scénarios différents qui ont pu être inventés sur cette base à travers les adaptations en dessins animés et séries live d'autre part. Je vous laisse le plaisir ou la surprise de juger du style de jeu des acteurs japonais… aux exigences légèrement différentes de celles des acteurs occidentaux…

Au final un film de monstres étranges, délirants et improbables, adaptés aux petits (tout finit bien, à part une légère peine de cœur) ainsi qu'aux grands, surtout ceux qui sont fans de japanimation et de culture japonaise.

Dir : Hiroshi Shidara, 1968

L'Attaque de la Moussaka géante

Kwet — 2010-08-24T07:13:34Z

L'objet de la rubrique « Cheezy Monsters » ne pouvait passer à côté de cet ovni (c'est le cas de le dire).

Lors d'un diner en plein air, un petit garçon se débarrasse de son assiette de moussaka, plat traditionnel grec à base d'aubergines et de béchamel, et le jette dans le pré voisin. Au même moment, un groupe de bimbos blondes extraterrestres en plein tourisme spatial échouent dans une manœuvre de téléportation… Et suite à la réaction aquadynamique entre le flux transporteur et la béchamel (???), l'une d'elle se retrouve coincée dans la part de moussaka, qui se met à grandir, et grandir… Et à tout détruire sur son passage à coup de jets de sauce mortels ! Qui pourra sauver la Grèce de son plat préféré ? Réponse : Un groupe de scientifiques gays en blouses roses, un journaliste prêt à tout pour un article et une transsexuelle digne de « Pink Flamingo » de John Waters.

Le fait le plus délirant de ce film est peut-être qu'il a été tourné en 1999 (sorti en France en 2001 !). Il se veut être un hommage aux films de série Z et aux films de John Waters, à travers moult références, et c'est aussi désormais une œuvre phare du mouvement « camp », culture gay de l'exagération et du pastiche.
En lui même le film n'est pas un chef d'œuvre du cinéma ni même des séries Z (dans le genre on préfèrera les films des années 50, le Blob ou L'attaque des tomates tueuses), il manque clairement de rythme à certains moments, mais il a le mérite d'avoir inventé l'un des monstres les plus drôles du cinéma à mon sens, et les effets spéciaux dignes d'un budget équivalent au prix d'un sandwich grec font toujours passer de bons moments… Ed Wood aurait littéralement bavé devant la soucoupe volante et la moussaka qui avance à la vitesse d'une mouche paralytique qui arrive tout de même à engloutir les passants effarés fait un effet bœuf !

Au final ce film pourrait être culte juste grâce à son titre, ou même juste grâce à une bonne recette de cuisine géante et destructrice, mais tout ce qui l'entoure est tout aussi délirant et mérite clairement le coup d'œil. À voir donc, mais sans comparaison avec ses grands frères des années 50 !

Dir : Panos H Koutras, 1999

Shark Attack 3 Megalodon

Kelu13 — 2010-08-19T12:42:03Z

We are nearing the end of the lazy summer season and its heat wave and procrastination before the drudgery of September kicks in is at an all time high, so the more mind-numbing the film the better to ease the pressure. It's the perfect moment to catch up on all those so-bad-they're-good cinema classics, from the more obscure to the increasingly popular thanks to the main actor's ever growing fame like Shark Attack 3 : Megalodon. It was in that spirit that I sat down yesterday night and watched it. I had heard so much about it that I assumed viewing it would be a massive anticlimax and I never thought I could be anymore surprised!

Let us start with the lead characters: dashing hero Ben (John Barrowman -how did he end up there?- smiling so intensely I'm surprised his face hadn't cracked by the sorry end, although he is dashing, you have to give him that) tries at pain to extract human expression from companion and frigid scientist Jenny, who, even as she screams, looks inanely bored. Add to that a pair of evil businessmen, a retired NAVY officer, and the obligatory friends-of-the-heroes-first-ones-to-be-eaten and you have your cheerful crowd chasing around a big shark and his mum, of varying sizes depending on the sequel, making up the basic storyline.

This alone would be enough to condemn Shark Attack 3 – Megalodon to a high place on the scale of mediocrity, but the spectacularly daft lines take it up so many notches it's off the charts. Here are a few tasters: “you're extinct, fucker” says leading female character to baby shark as she shoots it in the head as the lead male character strikes it with a baseball bat (don't try this at home). Here is another wise maxim: “Assholes are never happy” and last but not least the most famous line: “I'm so wired, what do you say I take you home and…” (you'll have to check which DVD you've got, the ending of the sentence is slightly different on the HBO version and on the original but suffice to say it gets a little blue…)

The special effects are at least consistent with the general quality of the script and goofs and factual errors are so numerous they might as well have been intentional. All this contributes to rank Shark Attack 3 : Megalodon as one of the top Z movies. In fact, in part thanks to Barrowman's constant presence on our screens -not that we mind one bit- it has become something of a classic of the genre: if you can watch the entire thing without having your sides splitting from laughter, you're probably as emotionally stunted as that scientist. My advice is this: if you're feeling low and need a good laugh, watch it, it's worth it!

Dir: David Worth, 2002

Clash of the Titans

Kelu13 — 2010-07-20T11:48:59Z

My expectations weren't particularly high when I went to see the Clash of the Titans. And I must say I was looking forward to it, perhaps moved by some masochistic feeling that compels me to go see films that are going to provoke my inner academic (knowing a few things about Greek mythology). And yet I'm always up for a laugh.

The movie in all its blockbuster glory fulfils what it sets out to do: it has drama, romance, fights and big scorpions. My concern is that it promises to tell a story and tells another one, underlying the point that many scriptwriters, unable to come up with new ideas, are happy to plunder the treasures of the ancient myths that almost everybody has heard of but few are familiar with the gory details.

As a person planning more or less to make a livelihood out of classical studies, shouldn't I be delighted to see these ancient stories freed from the dusty libraries where they were held like mystic scripture reserved for an elite cabal of classics students and intellectual spinsters, glad to look upon those less fortunate (?), yet unfamiliar with the Iliad and the Odyssey? Fair enough, it's a film but my question is why do they have to include, say, the actual names and a couple of original storylines and jumble them up in an incoherent story, greatly diminishing the legend's potential appeal to the younger generations.

Let's start with the obvious.

The legend of Perseus is known mostly because of his conception. Zeus visited Danae in the guise of golden rain, provoking outrage and despair from the young virgin's father, Acrisios. In fact, he was aware of a prediction that his grandson would one day kill him. Which he did by accident. The problem is that in Perseus's legend, there is in fact no actual baddie and to make a good blockbuster you need at least one or two of those.

But I wouldn't mind these changes, if the scenario hadn't included some pretty useless incoherencies. The movie is based on the succession of improbable creatures that spring up randomly along the way, catching the elite squad unawares, as it clambers along a landscape that defies even basic geographical understanding.

There is the Kraken, plucked straight from Scandinavian mythology, with no relation whatsoever with ancient Greece, replacing what in the original legend was an aquatic creature Perseus killed with rocks, on his way home, Medusa's head in a bag, a trophy collected after a pointless bet he had made.

There are the Djinns, creatures from the Arabian Nights, (well, vague relations at best, for some reason decidedly alienish and dressed in blue). Once again, I'm still looking for any relation to ancient Greece. There are massive scorpions, emerging from… not sure where exactly; I think the congealed blood of another random character but I think I might have actually dreamt that. Perhaps they were leftover props from the Mummy 2 the studios gave a last moment of glory to before chucking them out.

But I think I laughed most when I first caught sight of Pegasus. It was obvious they couldn't leave a winged horse out of the film, and that's ok, considering he is directly related to the legend of the Medusa. So what was the problem? Maybe that he was born from the blood that ran from the Gorgons' head when it was cut by Perseus and could not exist before her death, ah, just to be pedantic, Perseus wasn't the one to ride him, it was in fact Bellerophon when he went to kill the Chimera. But let's overlook this; a winged horse is always cool.

Then we have the gods. Blatantly restricted in their movements by their Power Rangers suits in a palace copied and pasted from computer game Civilization, the gods even carry light sabres. Fair enough, but about the ‘Greeks' gods? The ones no human actually ever took on?

Spectacular special effects, entertaining action scenes, and, ok, let's admit it, decent actors for the most part, the film could have been a pretty good one, had the team bothered to equate the various characters with the actual deeds they undertook and not pick other ones at random, as was the case with Perseus or Andromeda. I must say I'm sad for their eight children that according to the movie, will never be born, the hero preferring to shack up with ghost Io, a character from a different myth : an ex lover that had been changed into a cow by Zeus. But, eh, why not.

Lots of “why nots” tend to kill a movie's credibility.

But, if you liked it, rejoice, because a number two is in the making. At least this time, they wont have to pretend to follow an original legend.

Dir: Louis Leterrier, 2010

The Human Centipede

Abla Kandalaft — 2010-07-17T12:02:40Z

A doctor connects three people arse to mouth. A doctor connects three people arse to mouth. If I read that somewhere I think my initial reaction would be to laugh. I watched the film and didn't laugh. One thing's for sure, it's not for the faint-hearted. Technically less torture-heavy than, say, the Saw franchise, I found it more stomach churning. It left me unsure whether I liked it or not. Where to begin?

The premise is straightforward: somewhere in Germany, two hapless American girls and one Japanese guy are kidnapped by a slow-speaking German surgeon who attempts to create a human centipede by interlocking their bodies. I'll come to the intricacies of what that involved later.

First the plot.

After a pretty pointless prologue, the first few sequences and dialogues are more or less copied and pasted from any teen horror you'd care to name. Said two American girls, collegy-types, chat then drive then chat some more and finally break down in the middle of the night, in the middle of the woods, in Europe, with only a creepy, non English-speaker to ask for help. So far, so Hostel.

(I'm assuming whoever's reading this has either seen it or has no intention of ever seeing it, so on with the details). They obviously decide to rummage around and stumble upon a house. A man lets them in, pretends to call for help, drugs them and next thing they know, they're lying strapped to a bed in a makeshift hospital in the man's basement, along with a Japanese man. From then on it's a (sometimes painfully) slow decent into hell as their captor, a doctor apparently experienced at separating conjoined twins, soldiers through with his plans.

Prior to watching the film, a vague idea of what that entailed crossed my mind: one human is kept alive and intact and the limbs of the butchered others are attached to it haphazardly and I was faintly amused, imagining this person running about, inappropriate limbs flailing in all eight different directions.

But I hadn't obviously thought this through, like director Tom Six had; if it is to resemble a centipede then the extra arms and legs have to function and help carry the main body forward. Thus the remaining human components have to be alive. And so arses are attached to mouths so that a sort of common digestive tract is maintained and that's about all the detail I am able to explain, before it gets more technical and frankly disgusting. People on various forums are seriously debating the medical pitfalls, complexities and potential ways to improve this system and make the centipede, what? Foolproof? Anyway, the fill allows for the most surreal of conversations and debates (“the middle girl should grab a blunt instrument and hack the corpses on either side of her”, “he should have gone beyond the kneecaps and broken their hips so the centipede has to crawl on its arms”….).

The main issue to me was: IS IT SUPPOSED TO BE FUNNY?

I have seen it and still can't answer that. First viewing, it isn't funny. Why? The idea is revolting, it is carried through, the actors portray their characters realistically (whatever you may think of their acting abilities) oscillating between agony, mental anguish and total despair, there are no obvious jokes, the ending is horrendous and depressing. And yet…

Thinking about it later (I lacked the stomach to re-watch it): a doctor connects three people arse to mouth. The tag line is “100% Medically Accurate”. It's obviously a big fat joke. Hilarious. The cliché dialogue. Japanese man shouting the most random things. The centipede picking up a newspaper. Whilst watching it, these elements were part and parcel of the grim scenario. Reading up on them in film forums and articles a few hours later; I found myself actually laughing out loud. Picked apart, these moments have the potential to be hilarious. I guess the people who laughed throughout did in the same way they would at some guy tripping up in the street or at the public humiliation of a contestant on a talent show. From a certain angle, hilarious, from another, cringe worthy and painful. Or it's just that the plot involves a doctor connecting three people arse to mouth. You have to laugh.

However, on the whole I personally felt the film was too serious in tone and the performances too toned down for it to be really tongue in cheek. Actually the film certainly puts a new twist in that saying. An extra dose of humour would have been the spoonful of sugar to make the medicine go down, so to speak. That and 45 min taken out would have made it more powerful. The last part drags on for no apparent reason. Overall, the acting was good and believable, maybe except the first couple of scenes but that was due to the clunky dialogue. Mmmh still unsure what to conclude otherwise…

Dir: Tom Six, 2009