fucked up film: benny's video (1992)

"Every film is manipulative, raping the viewer. So the question is: Why do I rape the viewer? I try to rape him into being reflective, and into being intellectually independent and seeing his role in the game of manipulation." - michael haneke (2009)

michael haneke is without a doubt the MASTER of fucked up films. from funny games to hidden, each film will always stay with you for days after viewing. or maybe even years.

benny's video is about a kid named benny played by arno frisch (he was also in funny games which would be like, 5 years later after this movie) who spends his days sitting in his room, watching rented out vhs tapes along with his home made films. the first homemade video that's shown in the beginning is of a pig getting killed with a slaughter gun.

one day benny sees a girl who's standing outside the video store, gazing at the television from the window. he takes her back to his house and shows her some videos. he shows her the pig slaughter video and takes out the gun that was used during it. he holds the gun against the chest and dares the girl to pull it. he then holds it against her chest and calls him a coward. he then fires the gun and she falls. in the video monitor, we can see her crawling away from benny and while she's completely out of frame, benny runs to his desk to get more bullets to shoot her a second time as she is screaming frantically. he tries telling her to stop screaming and runs back to the desk to reload and shoots her again.

the rest of the film shows benny who seems completely sane about killing this girl. he ends up showing his parents the video and his parents try to figure out what to do with benny and the girl. to me this was more fucked up than the actual killing is the fact that his parents try to cover the incident by getting benny to stay with his mom in egypt for a few days while the dad tries to get rid of the girl by cutting her up into pieces and destroying all of the evidence.

there's a twist at the end of the movie but i won't reveal that. a lot of this movie has to do with how people can be influenced by violent films or basically anything we see from the news to what we read in the newspaper. personally i somewhat agree to this but just because you watch a lot of fucked up things, doesn't mean you're going to end up killing someone. it's kinda like the argument of violent video games as well.

this is probably the most interesting movie i've seen in a long time. i really love everything michael haneke has done. if you don't feel like sleeping tonight, you should definitely watch this movie.

FUCKED UP RATING: 8 OUT OF 10
OVERALL: 8.5 OUT OF 10

the passion of darkly noon (1995)

the passion of darkly noon is about a guy named darkly noon played by brendan fraser (don't laugh) who is found wandering in the forest and is saved by a guy named jude. jude drives him to his friend callie who takes on the offer to let him stay at her place. as darkly recovers the next day, callie begins to question where he came from. darkly explains that his parents were in a christian cult and the whole town turned against his family and his parents were killed. throughout the movie, darkly becomes increasingly attracted to callie but she is dating a mute boyfriend named clay played by viggo mortensen. darkly cannot stand to watch clay and callie getting sexed up all the time and it pisses off darkly so much that he ends up going nuts at the end. there's way more to the story but it's really fucking good. brendan fraser performance is really great and i think he gets a bad rep for all of the mediocre movies he's done. i was this close of labeling this as a fucked up film because someone said this movie was pretty erotic. callie's character sort of had this softcore vibe to her that you see in darkly's perspective. plus there was one scene where darkly jerks off to her so no fucked up label on this one.

6.5 OUT OF 10

clean, shaven (1993)

clean, shaven is about a schizophrenic man named peter (played by peter greene) who is trying to find his daughter after he is released from a mental institution. he's also being followed by a detective who thinks he killed some girl. this is probably one of the most unforgettable films i've ever watched. peter green's performance is outstanding and i wish he would've done more drama films like this. he's also a major babe..

if you're very sensitive to self-mutilation (yes. there's a few graphic scenes) you may want to stay away from this. BUT, you will be missing out on a great movie.

8.5 OUT OF 10

the basketball diaries (1995)

the basketball diaries tells the true story about jim carroll, who was on a basketball team at a private catholic school. jim enjoys jacking off on rooftops and doing drugs with his friends. he snorts coke before practice and gets down with girls. at first you think, damn jim, you're a pretty cool but he starts doing heroin. *sad face* don't worry, this film has a great ending. possibly one of the best stories about drug addiction. it features a young leonardo dicaprio AND MARKY MARK!!!

7 OUT OF 10

leon: the professional (1994)

pretty good movie. i liked it all the way up till they started playing a sting song at the credits. anyway, the story is about a professional assassin named leon who takes girl care of a young girl named mathilda played by natalie portman. her parents and her siblings were killed by corrupt dea agents. she becomes very close to leon. to the point where its kind of uncomfortable. like to catch a predator uncomfortable. let me make this clear, they don't do anything sexual. they're just very close...but there is still a sense of sexual tension. besides that, i enjoyed it a lot.


6.5 OUT OF 10

welcome to the dollhouse (1995)

i hated middle school. i remember passing time was 3 minutes long and i was always late to class. i got mediocre grades and the teachers were a bunch of twats. anyway, i could kinda relate to this film. its about a girl named dawn weiner who is in seventh grade. kids at school call her dog face or weiner dog and everyone treats her like shit. her parents don't really like her a whole lot plus her sister is a little bitch and her older brother is nerd with a shit band. she develops a crush on the most popular guy in high school who sings and plays guitar for her brothers band. the ending was kinda lame but it was a good film. its from the same director who did happiness which is in my top 20

7 OUT OF 10

fucked up film: the idiots (1998)

the idiots is a danish film about a group of intelligent people living in a house pretending to be mentally challenged. they go out in public and mess with "normal" people to get a reaction out of them and take advantage of certain situations like making money off of ugly christmas decorations. there is a shit load of nudity in this film and there is even a gang bang scene that is unsimulated. as fucked up as this movie sounds, it was really good. you have to be a bit of an ass to be offended by their actions so i wouldn't recommend it to anyone who doesn't have a sense of humor (ie. people who watch fox news)

FUCKED UP RATING: 9 OUT OF 10
OVERALL: 8.5 OUT OF 10

leaving las vegas (1996)

leaving las vegas is a depressing movie about a man whose alcoholism costs him his job, family, and friends . thriving for sex and drinking, he ventures out to las vegas to drink himself to death. he meets a prostitute named sarah who gives him a blowjob. they relate well to their problems in life so they become good friends until SPOILER ALERT he dies. its a bit slow at parts but the acting is very well done. it seems like everyone who pretends to be drunk in a movie does a shit job but nicolas cage pulled it off well. this movie is definitely not for the faint of heart but i'd recommend it to anyone who is willing to watch someones life on the verge of collapse.

6 OUT OF 10

fucked up film: naked lunch (1991)

naked lunch is about a guy who gets addicted of this substance that he uses to kill bugs. he accidentally kills his wife and gets involved in some secret government shit with giant bugs in africa. its not so much of a disturbing movie. its just weird as fuck. there is a scene where a typewriter turns into a bug and gets really horny. avant garde bullshit yeah?

FUCKED UP RATING: 6 OUT OF 10
OVERALL: 6 OUT OF 10

little odessa (1994)

this boring movie is about a jewish family. the jewish dad is a douche, the jewish teen thinks he's a badass, jewish mom has cancer, jewish teen's brother is in the mafia. the brother is a bit of a douche too. i feel really lazy describing the plot of the film but this movie was so boring i don't want to elaborate on it.

4 OUT OF 10

wild at heart (1990)

wild at heart is a film about two lovers, sailor (nicolas cage) and lula (laura dern). after getting out of prison for manslaughter, sailor ignores his parole and travels to california with lula. lula has a crazy fucking mom that hires a detective and a hitman to track down her daughter and sailor. the rest of the film shows the couple dancing to metal, having sex about every 20 minutes, smoking tons of cigarettes, and meeting weird fuckers. this is the second david lynch film i've seen and i really enjoyed it.

8 OUT OF 10

fucked up film: crash (1996)

first off, this is not the academy award winning crash. this is david cronenberg softcore porn crash. now i'm usually not the kind of person who whines about how some movies have no plots cause i like gummo but this movie was really a waste of time unless you're really into car accidents and sex. the "plot" of this film is james (played by james spader) gets into a car accident and becomes obsessed with this underground culture of sex crazed car crashers. its fucking weird. there is this guy he meets who looks like bonehead from oasis. all he really wants to do is get into a huge crash and die. i guess the movie was trying to show the emptiness of how these idiots feel about risking their lives but is it a necessary movie to watch? not really.

FUCKED UP RATING: 8 OUT OF 10
OVERALL: 4.5 OUT OF 10

my best fiend (1999)

my best fiend is a werner herzog documentary about his friendship with the late great klaus kinski. as a teenager, klaus shared an apartment with werner and in a matter of 2 days he tore up every piece of furniture. he was a self taught actor and a fucking mad man. i loved every minute of this film. klaus was an extraordinary human being. crazy how the two of them only made 5 films together. i highly recommend everyone to check out this documentary.

8 OUT OF 10

fucked up film: cape fear (1991)

cape fear is about a convicted rapist, max cady (played by robert de niro) who is released from prison from a 14 year sentence. he stalks a lawyer (nick nolte) and his family who defended him in court. everything about this movie is fucking brilliant. the acting, the storyline, the music, the cinematography (if you're into that shit like me) is so good. i normally don't get scared by music but i jumped so many times in the intense scenes. one of the scenes that is so fucked up is when max hits on the lawyer's 15 year old daughter. if you love thrillers, like psychological thrills, you will definitely love this movie.

FUCKED UP RATING: 5 OUT OF 10
OVERALL: 7.5 OUT OF 10

four rooms (1995)

four rooms is an anthology film consisted of four stories by four different directors. its set in a hotel on new years eve and tim roth is the main character as the bell boy. he is fucking hilarious. he's like a modern day jerry lewis. the first three stories are really good but the last one is really dull. surprisingly, quentin tarantino directed the last one. it wasn't even funny. quentin is such a weird actor. he tries so hard to be a bad ass it's embarrassing. overall this film was pretty funny and entertaining. its a hit or a miss film.

6.5 OUT OF 10

reservoir dogs (1992)

reservoir dogs is one of the coolest films i've ever seen. it starts out with a bunch of guys in suits at a restaurant arguing over the song "like a virgin". then they yell at steve buscemi for not giving a tip to the waitress. he says that they don't deserve one or some shit like that. what an ass. sadly there are many people out there who don't tip. the rest of the movie shows the guys after a heist that went wrong. they just panic about who set them up. it is a very interesting film with great acting. SPOILER ALERT i was very upset when tim roth died. he is a cool motherfucker. i'm glad everyone else died. oh and mr. pink stays alive. that was nice.

the picture up from top is a scene when tim roth talks to himself in front of the mirror and says, “don’t pussy out on me now. they don’t know. they don’t know shit. you’re not gonna get hurt. you’re fucking barretta. they believe every fucking word cause you’re super cool.”

8 OUT OF 10

american history x (1998)

whos idea was it to cast edward norton as a tough ass neo nazi? he is so cute and nice it just becomes ridiculously gay when he acts tough. he does a good job, i guess, as a good a job as a nancy like him could do. edward furlong was brilliant though. good movie, too much talk though, and the message was heeped on for half the movie. the prison section was brilliantly done and actually felt like a sabbatical or a flashback rather than just part of the story. stood out on its own and all that. still, nortons a pussy.

7 OUT OF 10

meeting people is easy (1998)

"music to cut your wrists to"

meeting people is easy is a documentary of radiohead on tour during the ok computer era. its bascially a collage of clips of them in a shit load of interviews, promotional footage, shows, songwriting etc. it really shows the tension and the stress of touring and being one of the biggest bands of the 90s. a lot of people say this film is boring cause it doesnt show a lot of live performances mainly just their experiences on tour.

there is a lot of parts where you see how much of a miserable person thom is. he gets yelled at by a bouncer that says "RADIOHEAD. CREEP. DICKHEAD" because thom was trying to get into a party and he wasnt on the guest list. other parts of the movie shows him with disgust talking in interviews and having all the attention of being in a band.

8 OUT OF 10

life is sweet (1991)

life is sweet is a really great film by mike leigh. a while ago i did a review on his film naked which ill probably watch again since i was too daft to understand what was going on.

life is sweet is about a middle class family in north london. the parents are exactly like mine. they laugh at everything and always pull their "i know everything about life and you dont" card. the daughters nicola and natalie are really interesting characters. natalie is a plummer whos a bit of a know it all and is fascinated by america. nicola is an arrogant chain smoker who struggles with bulimia.

there is not much of a plot line like most mike leigh films but every character is so realistic and fascinating. i think the purpose of the film is trying to show how life can be fun and exciting but incredibly hard at times. its up to you to make life worthwhile. (i know that was deep)

8 OUT OF 10

total eclipse (1995)

sucks dick. it just made me hate leonardo dicaprio for being an annoying prick. leonardo dicaprio..get a real fucking name. im not even going to summarize this film. go read it on wikipedia if you want to.

1 OUT OF 10