Yeah, okay. So I didn’t quite manage my goal of plugging the most glaring holes in my coverage of the last decade before the new one began. No matter. I can always take the pedant’s way out by claiming that the absence of a Year Zero in the Gregorian Calendar makes 2010 technically the last year of the aughts rather than the onset of the teens, right?
Pan’s Labyrinth (2006), in which you’d retreat into a private fantasy world, too, if this were your childhood…
The Ruins (2008), in which the irritating stick-in-the-mud is right, as always…
Saw (2004), which is basically a full-contact version of those extra-credit logic puzzles you always got wrong in school…
and…
Silent Hill (2006), in which the underground coal fire that’s been raging for 30 years is honestly the least of the town’s problems.
#1 by Blake on January 10, 2010 - 2:22 pm
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When you said that the offerings in this update would be obvious, I thought you meant “Grindhouse” and “Snakes on a Plane.” Silly me. 🙂
#2 by El Santo on January 10, 2010 - 2:44 pm
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I wanted to do Grindhouse, but I won’t settle for a version that doesn’t have the fake trailers. That means I’m at the mercy of the cable schedule, which has not been cooperating of late. I did give some thought to reviewing Snakes on a Plane as well, but the simple fact is that there were way too many movies that I wanted so see competing with it.
#3 by JessicaR on January 10, 2010 - 9:13 pm
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I *hated* those logic puzzles you got at the end of a test. I actually would have rather had to saw my arm or foot off for extra credit as it would have left me with more dignity than being proved a dunce once again. And magnificent review of Pan’s Labyrinth.
#4 by Christian Brimo on January 10, 2010 - 10:53 pm
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i think i enjoyed Hellboy more then Pan’s Labyrinth…
#5 by jason farrell on January 11, 2010 - 8:59 am
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I thought one of the many great subtexts to PAN’S LABYRINTH was that Ofelia really was a fantasy/SF dork-in-training, so that all of us watching (I trust) immediately found grins on our faces despite ourselves. My bond with the character was pretty much immediate and much deeper than I am used to cinematically these days. And you can easily read her stepfather’s complete lack of understanding and eventual awfulness as the Genre Dork trying to navigate the normal, workaday world. His finding the mandrake root looked a lot like the reaction of a disapproving parent when they find a comic book collection. And the Capitan’s continual blindness to the faery-wonder around him sure reflects some people’s empty glances when they see someone reading a Philip Jose Farmer paperback during break.
Not that I’d know…
#6 by Thomas. on January 11, 2010 - 9:14 am
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It seems more probable that both the situation in the film and the one that you describe just two different reflections of a single set of interpersonal dynamics which is fairly common in a wide range of social and cultural settings. The film does like to deal in archetypes, after all.
#7 by PB210 on January 11, 2010 - 7:48 pm
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Interesting note about how the Jigsaw murderer would have to have molded himself into quite the polymath to do what he accomplishes.
Usually, such polymath characters have an explanation of training since childhood (e.g. Nick Carter, Doc Savage) or early in life. One thing that occurred to me about the Phantom of the Opera that separates him from many black and white Universal horror characters has to do with his not having paranormal abilities. The Phantom of the Opera trained himself of sought out learning in Persia and elsewhere to accomplish his skills. A similar situation presents itself with Doctor Fu Manchu and the Lone Wolf (Michael Lanyard). Does anyone know if anyone ever dealt into the training of Doctor Jack Quartz, Arsene Lupin, Zenith the Albino, or Fantomas?
#8 by Blake on January 13, 2010 - 6:51 am
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When my brother-in-law and his girlfriend finished watching Pan’s Labyrinth (I drifted in and out of it), we told the ending to my wife and mother-in-law, who commented on how depressing it was. My bro-in-law’s response was to quote the Bible, saying “My kingdom is not of this world.”
#9 by Ciaran on January 13, 2010 - 11:41 am
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I like the Saw review – I’m assuming you haven’t seen the rest of the series, which makes quite a few of your comments fairly telling. Suffice to say, my opinion is that the second one is an excellent movie (and I’d love to see your take on it), and after that the series spirals into utter mediocrity.
#10 by El Santo on January 13, 2010 - 12:01 pm
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“I’m assuming you haven’t seen the rest of the series, which makes quite a few of your comments fairly telling.”
You assume correctly, although that will be changing sooner rather than later. The drummer in my band (who lent me his box set of what had been the complete run of the series at the time when it was issued) tells me there’s a fair amount of retroactive plothole-patching in the sequels.
#11 by MatthewF on January 14, 2010 - 11:58 am
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The Saw sequels consist almost entirely of retro-fitting plot onto previous movies. In fact the story almost entirely stops moving forward after Saw iii and just spends it’s time dotting i’s and crossing t’s.
#12 by The Mud Puppy on January 14, 2010 - 2:16 pm
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Personally, I hated almost every change made in adapting The Ruins to a film, but I especially hated the changing of the characters’ personalities and the order of their deaths. In the novel it plays against Hollywood conventions quite intentionally, while the film follows them slavishly.
Making it Matthias who breaks his back instead of one of the Greeks, to me, made that particularly plot thread a lot less horrifying. Part of what was so effective about it in the book was that he had no way of agreeing to the amputation or even understanding what was about to happen.
And then there’s switching the gender of the character who gets their body infected with the vines. Making it one of the girls instead of one of the guys makes it somehow skeevy in a way quite different from what the filmmakers intended.
Lastly, while I see your point about the vines, I personally preferred the sadistic and intelligent vines of the book. I could see how they might come across as silly on film, but I found them sufficiently creepy in the book.
#13 by The Beerman on January 14, 2010 - 2:55 pm
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Ah, yeah … Saw. I remember hearing awful things about it, but when I finally sat down and watched it I found a fairly silly but serviceable thriller — until the last, what? 30 to 45 seconds that resulted in a broken DVD player remote after it was chucked at the TV with a hearty cry of “Oh Bullsh*t!”
Not one of my brightest moments. But as far as surprise denouements of the last decade go, only Haute Tension rivals it in the implausibility/stupidity factor.
#14 by The Rev. D.D. on January 15, 2010 - 7:29 am
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It’s ok, man. I had a similar reaction, although I didn’t smash anything.
I think it was just the straw that broke the camel’s back. I kept swallowing everything the movie asked me to with a smile and a resigned, “All right, I’ll buy your ridiculous premise,” and letting my right brain enjoy the death traps and what-not. The movie even surprised a “HOLY SH*T!!” out of me with the “toilet lid” scene, and left me cringing with the doctor’s actions…and then asked me to swallow one more giant implausability. I hadn’t been that mad at a movie ending since A Nightmare on Elm Street.
Nowadays, I find myself feeling like eventually I’ll watch the rest of them, but for a while that denouement left such a bad taste in my mouth that I would see the ads for the latest installment and think, “Screw you and your franchise!”
#15 by maggiesmith on September 23, 2023 - 10:58 am
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My problem with Pan’s Labyrinth is that the magical world is horrific rather than enticing. The reaction of any normal person to the sight of the faun would be to scream and run away. Sergei Lopez also played the title character in With A Friend Like Harry.