Babylon A.D., Zack and Miri Make a Porno, Eye in the Sky, Throwdown, Real Fiction, & Otto; or, Up with Dead People

Babylon A.D. is a really interesting idea, although a little Children of Men, but with Vin Diesel instead of Clive Owen. Oh, and a talented director and good script is also lacking. This does have Michelle Yeoh in it. Unfortunately that is about the only thing this has going for it.

Zack and Miri Make a Porno proves that a film marketed as a comedy can be known for two things: comedy that isn't funny at all and impressive lightsaber dildos. Sadly, other things I can remember: Katie Morgan's horrible fake tits, gay people being "funny" due to talking about sucking cock, and... um, the hockey team is named the Zombies? I've now seen Jason Mewes's dick? Ugh. Just a worthless film.

Eye in the Sky was produced by Johnny To, but it is less like his straight up action films than more about the mentorship between a sargeant and his newest student in a police surveillance unit. It's actually pretty enjoyable, even if it does have the not as good Tony Leung. It was fun to see Simon Yam be the good guy, though. Not an amazing film, but not bad.

Throwdown was actually directed by Johnny To, but it wasn't actually any good. Overacting and a nonsensical plot.

Real Fiction is Kim Ki-duk just messing with you. Shot in basically real-time (there are a few cuts that I think slightly elide time), it's about a guy who basically goes around and kills everyone who upset him. Kim really is just a jerk, and he uses the girl who follows the lead around to implicate the audience in the crimes themselves, at least, until he literally beats you over the head with a rock near the end. I'm not sure exactly what the ending scene really meant, if it was just to try to release some of the immense amounts of tension created in the film, or if it's some weird alternate version of the main character.

Ping Pong Playa seems to think it's funny to replace various cursing with the sound of a ping pong ball or a basketball. It's also a typical sports comedy with an added bit of cultural comedy. Actually, replace comedy with "comedy". It's not particularly funny. Sigh. It's really hard to trust reviews I half remember from two or three years ago. Sigh.

Otto; or, Up with Dead People allows me to say something I never thought I'd ever say: "I have now seen a zombie gay traumatically inseminating another gay zombie." If that's the sort of thing you want to say, have I got a movie for you! Bruce LaBruce made a zombie film. He's apparently a controversial gay Canadian artiste who makes films in Germany. Maybe he's found that Germany is more accepting of this? I'm not sure how anyone can really be accepting of a film that says that gays are zombies and that they are mostly interested in turning people into zombie gays. The only, and I literally mean only, thing that was remotely interesting in the film was that one character was basically a silent film star within the overall film, and so she spoke with intertitles, and when on screen with other people was in black and white with film grain. I guess if I wanted to see naked gay dudes having sex, that would have been interesting as well, but I was well on my way to falling asleep by the time the orgy started.