Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Last Days Here Review





It makes sense for me to review this film now just because the DVD came out a few weeks ago and I just happened to see it.  I am not going to lie and say this is an amazing film- it is not.   It’s a documentary about the lead singer of the 70’s doom metal band Pentagram Bobby Liebling who spent years smoking crack in his parents basement.  He- I don’t know- Pentagram is a really good band but I am not crazy about this Liebling guy.  He’s really not especially insightful or interesting.  He’s a weirdo, and not really in a positive way.  He gets sober by the end of the film.   The film is similar in tone to the documentary about Arthur Kane of the New York Dolls except Arthur Kane had vanished from music and become a very serious Mormon, which is a lot more sympathetic.  Bobby is pretty annoying, he vanished from music to smoke crack in his parent's basement.  But who is really annoying is his wife.  He marries one of his young fans in the film.  This is an ugly crackhead who lives with his mom. First of all, she becomes romantically involved with a particularly ugly crackhead because he was in some band in the 70’s, which reminds me a lot of the woman who said she wouldn’t date me because I wasn’t a skinhead in high school.    Secondly, if you watch the film, the strong argument could be made that she was more of a hindrance to Bobby’s recovery than a help.  The documentary doesn’t even play that much Pentagram in it. 

Friday, August 3, 2012

More Whacky Snuff Flick Fun with Faces of Death 3!


Nothing spells class quite like the Faces of Death movies from the 80’s.  The original I know was at least banned in a number of different countries.  These “documentaries” have no plots and contain mostly fake footage of grizzly deaths of both humans and animals.  They’re ridiculous- people were fooled by them, amazingly.  It’s funny; Charlie Sheen took the second of the Guinea Pig videos seriously enough to contact the F.B.I about it, thinking he was looking at real extreme Asian torture and snuff flick footage, even though the video was very much a fake snuff flick.  Faces of Death 3 is a hilarious fake at points.  It does include what looks like real footage of a rabbit slaughterhouse.   The third one is the one where they show a secret political execution in El Salvador without explaining why their cameras would be allowed into a secret political execution.  3 is also the one where the skydiver crashes into water full of alligators that eat him.   We are talking serious gritty realism here!  The film as with it’s to preceding films is narrated by actor Michael Carr as Doctor Frances b. Gross (get it? He B. Gross!).  Apparently, the fourth films has a different narrator, but I have yet to be quite bored enough to watch Faces of Death 4.  Apparently, the 5th Faces of Death film is all footage from the previous four films.  I find these films to be hilarious though devoid of any substance whatsoever.   Seriously, I cracked up when the guy skydives into the water filled with alligators.   If you’re a man looking to really charm the ladies, I’ll tell you what you do.  Early on in conversation, as early on as you can bring it up, mention being a huge fan of the Faces of Death films, in particular Faces of Death 3. Well, who can blame the ladies?  Doctor Frances B. Gross looks so sexy in his glasses, goatee, and timely late 70’s to mid-80’s suits.  You strat wearing that same suit, glasses, goatee and start narrating about the guy who skydived into the water filled with alligators, the tail is going to come crawling, I promise!