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Friday 11 March 2011

Guilty Pleasure No. 2: The Pit (1981)

Let me just start with the tag line: Jamie wouldn't kill anyone...unless Teddy told him to!

A weirdly wonderful and funny horror movie that is simply unpredictable. Jamie Benjamin, played by Sammy Snyders (yes that is his real name) is an autistic child who is bullied by the local community and his classmates. Whilst taking a stroll one day he comes across a pit in the forest that is filled with carnivorous creatures that feast on human flesh... Revenge ensues.

Jamie with his blonde bowl hair-cut and turtle neck sweaters stares at boobs all day and has conversations with his demonic teddy at night. The teddy does talk back. He loves boobs so much he stages an elaborate plan to get topless photos of the school librarian. When he brings back his stash of naughties teddy exclaims "I'm gonna look at these a lot" in an extremely sincere and disturbing way. Everytime Jamie talks there is "atmospheric" music piped in to accompany the close up shots of his bulging eyes - to suggest how evil he really is.

He wreaks revenge on the community that bully him by feeding them to some monsters he found in a pit. The movie is basically death scenes, boobs, bullying and Jamie staring insanely and running about in a strop if anything upsets him. A few deaths are accompanied by jolly, uplifting marching band music in a montage scene where an old lady in a wheelchair and an aspiring football player come to their grisly ends; Jamie is having the time of his life.



With DVD chapter titles such as, Disturbing Bathtime, Handicapped Accessible and Half-naked lunch there really is no level of depravity the film-makers do not touch upon. There is no give in this relentless tale of voyeuristic perversion.

I love this film for its extreme close-up nipple shots, bad acting, bad editing, red-eyed monsters and depravity. It makes me laugh like no comedy ever could. Nothing compares to it.

Saturday 5 March 2011

Guilty Pleasure No. 1: DUETS

If you LOVE Karaoke, keep reading. Duets combines two of my favourite things; Karaoke and a road trip. This is the film where I fell in love with Paul Giamatti as a man who gets sick of the American dream, flips out, takes a road trip away from his family and sings some karaoke. Giamatti knows how to do breakdown and I love a "man on the edge" performance. Watch as he duets here with Andre Braugher:


As his road trip nears the end and his wife finally tracks him down in a karaoke bar to persuade him to come home he very sincerely says: "I can't go back to who I was. I'm different now. I sing." BRILLIANT! As cheesy as the whole thing is I found it poignant and a tear or two may have been shed.
His performance is stand out in the film and I have followed his career religiously ever since.

There are two other duet performances in this film. Huey Lewis plays Gwyneth Paltrow's estranged father and they bond over, you guessed it, Karaoke. As much as I usually hate Paltrow's whiny little guts she is a pretty decent singer and I may have even liked her for the duration of this film. Lewis is just an awesome singer - this we all know.



The third duet relationship is between the wonderful Maria Bello and Scott Speedman who strike up an uneasy romance on the road. It is probably the weakest of the three storylines but Bello belts out her take on the Eurythmics Sweet Dreams and her damaged character is endearing.

This is my guilty pleasure for all the feel good Karaoke moments, the building road trip relationships and Paul Giamatti. Not sure why the haven't released it on blu-ray yet...

Friday 4 March 2011

What I've been up to...

So, I haven't posted for a while but that doesn't mean I haven't still been busy writing. The lovely Purl About Town has suggested my blog worthy of the Liebster award which has given me a kick up the ass to update it. I will explain more about the award in my next post, but you can read all about it on Purl About Town's crafty blog here.

I have been busy reviewing films and have been posting them on the wonderful Cinetalk website. I got the opportunity to interview the acclaimed Russian Director Andrei Konchalovsky who with films like Runaway Train and Tango & Cash under his belt had a great sense of humour about the whole Hollywood Industry but took his work very seriously. I made some people angry by writing this scathing review. I indulged in some literary adaptation by watching Never Let Me Go which is one of my favourite books. I went to see  Paul with my husband Paul (and Brett). I was disappointed by the new Ivan Reitman flick, No Strings Attached and overwhelmed by the greatness of some melodramatic Japanese cinema in Confessions.

And finally, I went to see Rango, which is out in the UK today. You can read my review here.

Over the next few weeks I will be updating my blog religiously with my choice of Guilty Pleasures - both film and books. Hopefully see you soon.