Stupid Movie Poster of the Day: Jack and Jill

Somewhere in Hollywood, there’s a movie agent telling a young actor why he won’t get representation, or a screenwriter that her script isn’t good enough…while this poster adorns the wall.

Isn’t it ironic, don’t you think?

WTF of the Day: Catimus Prime!!!

He keeps the world safe...with his fuzziness.

The Shallow Man DVD Review: After.Life

“After.Life” almost plays like a twisted, bizarre Grimm Brothers fairytale set in the modern world. The film details an odd, moody mortician named Eliot (coldly played by Liam Neeson). Eliot can seemingly converse with the dead, and coax them into accepting the their own tragic fates. His latest subject is Anna Taylor (Christina Ricci), who’s just died in a brutal car accident following a heated argument with her longtime boyfriend Paul (Justin Long) at dinner.

At first, she’s completely unconvinced she’s actually even died. After all, she can talk, walk and think—not exactly the usual traits of a decaying dead person. She pleads with Eliot, thinking she’s somehow been kidnapped rather than killed. She even makes a few attempts to escape. But slowly she comes to realize she’s died…or has she?

“After.Life” plays around with this mysterious notion, toying with the audience, and our two leads. Anna never really seems sure that she’s dead, nor does her boyfriend. But is it just grief tugging at their hearts? For Anna, there’s grief that she never really lived in the first place. For Paul, there’s grief that he never really loved Anna. And in the middle is Eliot, a man so cold, so coarse, he might as well be a twisted serial killer. He has all the makings of one.

Director and co-writer Agnieszka Wojtowicz-Vosloo seems quite comfortable not answering that question during the film’s overlong 103-minute running time. She enjoys creating the film’s haunting, gothic atmosphere and playing around with the idea of what the afterlife may really be.

But, quite sadly, the film doesn’t really add up, particularly during its disappointing final act, which bypasses some creative metaphors to deliver a cheap twist. The middle act drags on and on as Anna makes multiple attempts to escape and Paul drags himself deeper into his own despair, losing aspects of his character as well. While it’s clear Vosloo is attempting to shape a moral around her fairytale-like narrative, getting to that moral can sometimes be a chore.

Thankfully, the film is lifted by the absolutely stellar cast. Ricci, who spends a surprisingly significant amount of time either completely nude or scantily clad, is clearly in her element as Anna, a woman torn between life and death. She doesn’t really come to terms with her death. Rather, she’s almost seduced by the idea of having no life at all. Watching her succumb to death’s whimsy is oddly fascinating and bizarrely erotic.

Neeson’s cold Eliot is equally compelling. He reeks of cynicism and anger, but plays the role like a bottled-up mental patient—concise and calculated, waiting to strike. And it works fairly well. 

Justin Long carries the film’s biggest emotional weight. Whether he’s grieving over his girlfriend’s untimely passing or pondering his own fate, Long manages to capture the emotional essence of the film.

Despite the meandering pace, and lack of fearsome thrills, “After.Life” is a chilling fairytale that grabs you and takes you on a strangely hypnotic ride.



Grade ★ ★★ out of 5 stars

 
Distributed by C-Interactive Digital Entertainment

 
Available at all Astrovision and Astroplus branches nationwide

Be Still My Beating Heart (Sarcasm): Kirsten Dunst Naked

Snaggle-toothed actress Kirsten Dunst goes topless in Lars Von Trier’s new film “Melancholia.” The movie doesn’t come out until November, but some brave soul already screencapped her nude scene.

Granted, you probably dry heaved a little when you saw “Kirsten Dunst” and “topless” in the same sentence but, trust me, once you cover Kirsten’s face with your hand, she looks really good kinda ok.

Chris Brown Is One Suave Douchebag

Floor humping and knee sucking is the new Moonwalking as Chris Brown demonstrates during his performance in Detroit. 



That fan must feel lucky. Even more so when she didn’t end up at the hospital with a bruised face, swollen lip and stitches.

LSS of the Day: “Smoke” by Ben Folds Five

“Smoke” is one of the cleverest, wisest songs about the slow death of a relationship. Lots of people have assailed the thorny romantic topic of starting all over again, and the conclusion they usually come to is that it’s going to be tough, but both practicable and desirable. The heartbreaking thing about Fold’s song is that it manages to simultaneously convey both the narrator’s desperation and the impossibility of a happy outcome.

In “Smoke,” the central conceit is that the relationship is a book, and so its unhappy recent history, the narrator wants to believe, can be destroyed by burning it page by page, until “all the things we’ve written in it never really happened.”

“Here’s an evening dark with shame,” he sings. “Throw it on the fire!” the backing vocalists tell him. “Here’s the time I took the blame (Throw it on the fire!) Here’s the time we didn’t speak, it seemed, for years and years…”

Wiping the slate clean is the fantasy of anyone who has ever got into a mess with a partner, and the metaphor is witty enough and rich enough to seduce us into thinking,  just for a moment, that in this case it might be possible, but the music here, a mournful waltz, tells a different story.

It doesn’t sound as if the narrator’s lover is terribly convinced either: “You keep saying the past’s not dead,” he tells her, “Well stop and smell the smoke.” But the smoke, of course, contains precisely the opposite meaning: it’s everywhere, choking them.

“You keep saying…we’re smoke,” he concludes sadly, and we can tell that he’s beginning to believe it, finally; the smell of smoke, it turns out, does not symbolize hope but its opposite: the relationship is doomed.

“Smoke” is, I think, lyrically perfect, clever and sad and neat; it’s also one of the very few songs that is thoughtful about the process of love, rather than the object or the subject. And it was a constant companion during the end (the long, drawn-out end) of my last serious relationship, and it made sense then, and it still makes sense now. You can’t ask much more of a song than that.

“Smoke” by Ben Folds Five from the album “Whatever and Ever Amen”

Truthery of the Day: One Was Enough

Epic Photo of the Day: I Have the Furriest Boner Right Now

Hot Sluts of the Day: Frank and Louie, The Two-Faced Pussy You Can Trust…I Think

12-year-olds Frank and Louie (or “Frankenlouie” if your ass is too lazy to pause) were just inducted into the Guinness Book of World Records for being the world’s longest-living Janus cat (that’s fancy talk for two-faced pussy). Most Janus cats barely breathe in a couple of set of breaths before they’re off to heaven to two-face it up with the angels, but Frank and Louie have outlived them all.

Frank and Louie were brought into Tufts Veterinary Clinic 12 years ago and the vets were ready to put two tiny gas masks over their noses, but one of the nurses took them in and they’ve all been together ever since. Frank and Louie share one brain and one esophagus, so Frank gets to do all the eating while Louie sits there and silently judges his headmate for being a fat-faced greedy over-eater. It’s what David Beckham knows as the Posh Treatment. But on the bright side, Louie gets to purr out “Meow missed a spot” while Louie licks their co-op asshole to cleanliness.

Here’s a video from the Worcester Telegram of Frankenlouie’s owner talking about her two-faced gift. This is when the crusty ball of bitterness in my chest felt sorry for Frank and Louie. I mean, having to live with a showoff bitch of a bird who thinks it’s a regular Parrototti. TORTURE!



Think about this shit. Frank and Louie can meow shit to your face and meow shit behind your back at the same time! Not to mention they can double-team side-eye you from both sides. Frank and Louie are my kind of pussy!

Must-Have Item of the Day: Starbucks + Alexander Wang Unisex T-Shirt

Designed by Alexander Wang and available for $85 via Nordstrom, this commemorative Starbucks tee celebrates the coffeehouse chain’s 40th anniversary with a permanent coffee stain that subtly transforms into the Starbucks mermaid logo.