Sunday, September 04, 2005

The Wicker Man, Carnivale, Kingdom Hospital

The Wicker Man is the strangest movie I've seen in a while.

I'm not sure half the time whether its supposed to be a murder mystery, a horror movie, a semi-documentary, or a porno. There's gratuitous amounts of nudity in it, far, far more than would be allowed in film today (...weird, that the movie is over 30 years old and has more nudity than movies today). Its not just that its nudity...its that its full frontal female nudity. And I don't think its done for sheer shock and titillation value. its...weird.

There are some GREAT lines, though. I forget most of them at this time, lol, but I think I'll go back and post some of my favourites once the movie's done and I can rewatch parts.

Not a movie I'd buy, but its interesting. Weird, and somewhat disturbing. I'm a bit of a prude, and religions where the phallus is a central symbol just kind of weird me out.

Now, Carnivale, on the other hand, is a whole different ball game. I'm buying this show. its stupid expensive. I mean just ludicriously stupid expensive. But its good. Its damn good. Its got the sort of stories I'm looking to tell with my weird western manga, with a slightly more pacifistic twist. Slightly. And Clancy Brown as the evil preacher. How could you go wrong?

I borrowed Kingdom Hospital from my good friend Steve Illot. Its the American remake by Stephen King of the Danish show, The Kingdom. Now, I'm a big Kingdom fan. It was wonderfully creepy, slightly humorous, and the director made the devil horns sign at the end of every episode. How could you go wrong?

King diverges quite a bit. There was no talking, man-eating anteater in The Kingdom (notably becuase there are no anteaters in Denmark...just like there are no elephants). There was a giant infant who grew into a horribly mutated manhood, though, which King failed to include.

"Damn hick scum!" was an amusing line given by Dr. Stegman, who was an analogue to Dr. Stig Helmer on Kingdom, who got up on top of the hospital every episode to scream "Danish scum!" Similarly, most of Stig's personality was kept, including his hate of Hook (who IIRC was called Wolfe on the original show), the malpractice lawsuit, and everything else.

Its a different show. But its fun. Its well done and kinda classy. Antuibis is the BEST animated animal of all time. Especially his teeth, which each seem to be attached to their own muscle, so they vibrate and writhe. Its nifty!

End movie reviews.

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