The MacGuffin

Michael Haneke’s Funny Games (1997) is a film about a family enjoying their vacation lake home. They get set up in their home for a short stay and some friends of the neighbor’s come to visit. Things go south quickly.

I would try to explain to you how 3D pornography blurs the line between awesome and horrific, as well as disgusting and hilarious, but I can’t. Suffice it to say, it isn’t arousing. It wasn’t arousing in the ’70s, and watching a movie from the ’70s in the 2010s STILL isn’t arousing. However, watching adult films with 100 other people in a large mainstream theater IS pretty awesome. (This isn’t the first 3D “blue movie” I’ve watched with a large crowd of people, sadly.)

My Afternoons with Margueritte (two Ts) is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a long time and arguably the best French movie I’ve ever seen. I don’t say this lightly, as I’ve watched numerous French films. It’s different than most of the ones I’ve seen, but it is a feel-good movie that I wasn’t expecting at all. The film stars Gérard Depardieu and Gisèle Casadesus, who play 100% believable small-town French folks who stumble upon a passion they both share.

Primeval is a film about a bloodthirsty alligator, based on a supposed true event. The giant alligator is wreaking havoc throughout Africa, and the villagers are getting scared to go in the water, despite it being their life source. Some American journalists are sent over to do a story on it and to capture the alligator, but the beast isn’t having it.

starts with a group of fisherman dumping barrels of what I assume is something toxic into the ocean/bay. The fish are eating this toxic stuff and then a shark swims up and eat the contaminated fish. Flash to an awful montage of CGI sharks eating the fish, then a larger shark eating that shark, and so on (while the opening credits are flashing on the screen). Ridiculous start to the film.

Hobo With a Shotgun is a grindhouse film about a transient man (played by Rutger Hauer) who rolls into a town under the control of Drake—a really bad guy. Rutger blasts his way through the town, despite the townspeople having turned on him. With the help of a lady friend he meets, Rutger dishes out some serious vigilante justice.

Missing Pieces is an independent project shot on an extremely small budget. The creators of this project put a lot of effort into this film, especially in the camerawork, the varied locations, and feel of this film. The film is about a guy going through a tough break-up after he’s had an accident. He tries to get something intangible (advice, emotion, ideas, understanding, vicarious living, etc) from a young couple he’s met. I’m not sure all of this film makes sense to me, as it’s wildly disjunct, but it appears intentional, so I’m assuming the director and writer of the film would call this a success. I’m not really sure it is, since I found it difficult to follow.

The film opens in the rural countryside of England, present day (which appears to be the 8’s, even though the film was shot in 2003). An SUV pulls up to a mansion and out pop four hot blonde women dressed in sheer outfits—guess who? There are bad bad people inside talking about this group of female assassins right as they break into the mansion and apprehend them with all kinds of weird gadgets like James Bond. The ladies are looking for a hard drive with the plan, to erase the whole thing. What they don’t know is that one of the bad guys is from Indiana Jones.

The Seduction of Dr. Fugazzi is a Troma film starring Faye Dunaway. (How did that happen, again? Does Lloyd Kaufman have dirt on poor Faye and blackmailed her into this film?) Mr. Carducci is talking to a shrink about being a pedophile. The shrink is Dr. Fugazzi, and she is helping Carducci get help, since he abducted two young Jewish girls last Halloween. Somehow, he appears to be out and walking around instead of in jail. Fugazzi’s assistant thinks he should be locked up. Consequently, Dr. Fugazzi is basically a dark-skinned Indian dominatrix type of shrink—you don’t run across that everyday. Then again, I haven’t gone to a psychologist, so maybe this is more common than I realize.

A guy with a sweet perm-mullet is a professional street fighter, but is too rough with his lady. His lady talks to her shrink and the shrink convinces the lady she should leave the guy because he’s a total douche. She leaves the guy (who claims he’s “undefeatable”) and the guy goes on a killing rampage—after spray painting two red skunk stripes in his mullet-y hair. He attacks any girl he sees in a flowery dress because his mind tells them it’s his long-lost lady. It’s actually an easy mistake, being that all of them have gi-normous 80s mall-hair and pretty much looked the same back then. He mutilates the ladies, after killing them kung fu style. It’s kind of a bummer for the ladies, frankly. Things get really bad when mullet-psycho-dbag kills and gouges out the eyes of the world karate champ, whom everyone in the world recognizes like he’s a common household name. This is only the tip of the iceberg for things that are simply not believable in this film.