That’s right, it’s the Mad CEHMist here and I’m going to be updating this blog a whole hell of a lot more now. On this blog, Wolverina and I will be talking about anything and everything that interests us, from films to books to really anything else. So be prepared internet!
Love,
TheMadCEHMist
Good evening Internets!
I had an interesting conversation with a friend of mine recently and he brought up an interesting point about the Alien franchise. My friend, whom I will refer to as Batman, made a comment that will forever change my perception of these movies, and will probably make them more horrifying to watch.
Batman claimed that Alien and the creatures haunting the futuristic landscape that they live in is a representation of rape and a man’s fear of being dominated and made weak or helpless to another being.
I find this an incredibly interesting argument and, as strange as it sounds, I believe this theory does have some evidence from the sources to support it.
#1. A lot of the characters are big, tough, army men and women. These, in a man’s eyes, are the ideal. They are tough, strong, can look after themselves, can save other people, and have an arsenal of weaponry at their disposal. However, these aliens are easily able to take these ideals of strength and “manliness” and tear them down, not only killing them but also sometimes impregnating them (without consent I might add) with their alien offspring.
#2. The “face suckers”, Batman claimed resembled the reproductive organs of both male and female humans. The body and mouth of the “face suckers” resemble the female anatomy and the tail that chokes the victims and renders them helpless is quite phallic.
#3. The “face suckers” impregnate its victims, male or female, with its offspring. This is not consensual, violent, and extremely unpleasant and renders those left with the victim confused, awkward, and not really sure what to do to help or remedy the situation. When it comes time for the baby alien to be born, it is extremely painful and awful for the victim, resulting in the end of his or her life (literally).
You could also make an argument that Alien also taps into old white fears of “The Black Beast”. The aliens are huge black inhuman creatures, not resembling humans in the slightest functioning only on the basest survival desires that animals live by. “The Black Beast” was a idea that arose in the post-slavery era South where white men were deathly afraid of freed African American men raping their virtuous white women and killing their former owners. Of course this theory is a bit of a stretch, but interesting none-the-less.
As a theory, I think Batman‘s idea really has something to it. Sexual assault is an absolutely horrifying event that, whether you think it does or not, scares the everlovin’ bejesus out of EVERYONE. Men, women, young, old, black, white, blue, orange, WHATEVER. It’s something that scares everyone on the deepest level, which makes it believable that filmmakers would use aspects of this imagery in a horror movie to scare its audience. It’s subtle, obviously, but it works on the subconscious and makes these alien beasts all the more awful to behold on the big screen. This probably wasn’t the original intention of the filmmakers, but hey it’s our interpretation and whatever makes these movies scarier the better.
Until next time Internets!
TheMadCEHMist feat. Batman.
The most recent addition to our video family, watch theMadCEHMist re-review The Three Musketeers (2011) and point out it’s fatal flaws. Sit back, click play, and enjoy!!!!
The Three Musketeers, one of the most adored stories across the globe and the single most adapted story EVER…I guess it’s only inevitable that something will come along to completely destroy the message of author, Alexandre Dumas. But…AIRSHIPS??? ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME???…
Sorry…I’ll get to that later.
I should begin by saying that the 2011 adaptation of this classic tale should not be called The Three Musketeers. Instead, I suggest it should be called Shit That NEVER Happened. For SEVERAL reasons this movie hurt me to my very core. Not only did this piece of crap completely deviate from the original story, it also completely deviated from fucking reality. From French water ninjas (I’m not kidding) to…FUCKING AIRSHIPS *ahem sorry*, this movie not only disrespects fans of the source material but also anyone even slightly interested in history. Not to mention also fucking around with science and logic…but I digress.
The story begins with Athos (who is introduced to us as a water ninja…no I am not kidding), Porthos and Aramis all in Italy with Milady de Winter trying to steal DaVinci’s plans for flying ships, aka airships aka fucking zeppelins. Milady turns on them, after showing off some impressive spy skills that would have been impossible considering she’s wearing a corset and gives the plans to the Duke of Buckingham who is a villain in this version…and it’s Orlando Bloom (may God ensure he never plays a villain again). Anyway, we meet Dicktagnan…sorry D’Artagnan who is a whiny little shit, (and that’s putting it nicely) who gets shot by Rochefort. I tell ya I could watch that scene over and over. Too bad he survives… Anyway, he provokes the three musketeers, instead of just accidentally pissing them off, and gets them all to fight him, however the Cardinal’s guard shows up and they win and yadda yadda. Constance shows up and D’Artagnan flirts with her cockily to the point that I want him to get shot (again). And let’s just say hijinks ensue.
WAIT! Before I move on: Louis XIII is a prissy fop and a coward, the queen is not having an affair, the plot line about the diamonds turns into a love story which makes it COMPLETELY POINTLESS and the Duke of Buckingham is evil…did I already mention that?
For those of you who know the story, I hope you’re all cringing like I was. I found myself actually yelling at the TV…a lot…I’m glad I didn’t see it in theatres. The only likeable thing about the entire movie is the three musketeers. I will say that the casting job for those three was absolutely perfect. Rochefort was good too, and though I find Christophe Waltz a little bit hammy, it did remind me of the classically hammy acting of Charlton Heston who played the Cardinal in my favourite adaptation of The Three Musketeers, the 1973 version.
That’s where the good things about the movie ends though. Like I said before FUCKING AIRSHIPS. AIRSHIPS DID NOT EXIST. THEY HAVE NO FUCKING POINT IN THE MOVIE EXCEPT TO ADD CGI EFFECTS WHERE YOU OBVIOUSLY DON’T NEED THEM!!!! GAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH.
OH and there’s also the problem with the story becoming a LOVE story between Louis XIII and his wife the queen. THEY ARE MARRIED. NO LOVE STORY IS NEEDED. This brings up another issue…the diamonds. In the original story, for those who don’t know, the problem with the diamonds being stolen is because they were a gift to the queen that she gifted to her lover, the Duke of Buckingham, and the musketeers have to get the diamonds back to save the queen’s reputation and stop the Cardinal from starting a war between France and England. Here? The king gives her the diamonds and asks that she wears them to the ball. They get stolen… and? What’s the point? They try to play it off like “Oh if she doesn’t wear them it means she doesn’t love him”…Ummm people lose things all the time…and if they were stolen, then it’s just a matter of getting them back. Louis XIII can know about them being missing and nothing would be lost, but they keep him in the dark because…it’d break his heart that someone stole them? See? It makes no sense. Nothing is lost by the diamonds getting stolen when you omit the affair between Buckingham and the queen. No drama, no war, NO FUCKING CARING.
And the fact that they turned the complex characters into such shallow, watered down versions of themselves just makes me sad. They write off Buckingham as a villain because it’s his fault in the original story that the diamonds are missing; they write off the complex love/hate relationship between Athos and Milady to an “I love you but I like being bad” story; they makes D’Artagnan a whiny little bitch and an asshole because he’s a teenager (and because he’s Logan “Smarmyface” Lerman). It’s just incredibly disappointing.
AND all of the palace scenes are at the palace of Versailles…Versailles was built by Louis the XIV….LOUIS THE FOURTEENTH, NOT LOUIS THE THIRTEENTH. CAN YOU COUNT YOU BASTARDS? CAN YOU!?!?!?! And you know what bothered me the most about this realization? The 1973 version that I love and that I grew up with suffers the exact same problem. It was also filmed at Versailles….YOU BASTARDS DREW MY ATTENTION TO A FLAW FROM A MOVIE I LIKE TOO!!! YOU JERKS! RRRAAAAAGGGGEEEEE…..sorry…
I will say this, despite the absolute rage I felt watching this movie, and despite the obvious hatred I have for it and the fact that I hope it burns in the deepest levels in Hell, it was fun to watch. Sometimes getting pissed off enough that you have something to rant about is fun, and it was the source of a lot of laughs for me and my friends while we were watching. I gave them endless enjoyment and I was able to get some cathartic release of stress.
SO…after all this, if you’re still reading, I have to say that even though this movie is a pathetic waste of money, it is worth watching at least once if you’re up for some enraging fun. Get some friends together, especially a few who know the original story and know something about history, and settle down for some stupid, braindead fun.
Until next time Internets.
P.S. How the FUCK did they un-impale their airship from the towers of Notre Dame?…
Hello people of the Internets!
Ok, so last night a friend of mine got me to watch this movie called The Condemned. He described it as, “The movie that Gamer should have been”. So together we watched, in his cramped residence room, and I can honestly say that I was pleasantly surprised by this movie.
Produced by the WWE, I went into this movie slightly wary. The last movie I’d seen that had anything to do with the WWE was The Scorpion King, and that was a piece of steaming crap in the desert. However, I didn’t take me long to get fully invested into the characters and the storyline.
Basically, this slimy guy wants to make a TV show about condemned convicts on death row killing each other to win their freedom. Of course, no one would go for it, but he does it anyway over the internet. Making people pay 50 dollars to get on his website, this guy and his team nab ten death-row convicts from across the globe to duke it out for live webcast entertainment. Needless to say, hijinks ensue.
My face throughout this entire movie ranged from:
😐
😦
:O
😯
:S
The range of emotions I went through surprised me. This movie was just so REAL, and it brought up many interesting questions concerning morals and human nature. Hell, it even got a happy ending.
The music melded into the action and events of the movie perfectly…a little too perfectly actually. Unfortunately, the soundtrack wasn’t too memorable, which is too bad, but it did meld into the action well. It did its job, just not spectacularly. Some of the cinematography is a little awkward too. For example, the fight with Conrad and Petr is incredibly shaky and a little hard to watch. It hurts the eyes and makes the fight scene drag out uncomfortably. You’re stuck there wondering who’s winning and who just hit whom (and since the two actors look an awful lot alike, it makes it even harder).
Despite its few flaws, I find the most interesting aspect is that it raises some really interesting questions. Like, at the end when McStarley is killing all the people who helped Mr. Slimy get this thing going on the internet, you find yourself rooting for him. This is interesting because, not only are you rooting for a guy massacring unarmed people, you’re also rooting for the main antagonist, a guy who had Paco’s wife raped and murdered in front of him and the entire world and who mercilessly attempted to kill our protagonist. You want to see him kill these people who thought his brutality was pure entertainment and it feels poetic and fitting that he is in turn killing them. Like the movie, A History of Violence, this movie not only calls attention to human nature in general when it comes to violence, murder, and revenge, it also brings its audience into the mix, showing that you, the audience, are no better than the bastards who endorsed rape and murder amongst the ten convicts.
The Condemned was a GREAT movie, IMHO, and I think that if you have the stomach for some hardcore violence, domestic abuse, rape and philosophical issues you will have a wonderful experience.
Until next time Internet!
Love,
TheMadCEHMist
P.S. This week I will be posting a new video series (a very short one) where my friends and I review some movies together. There’ll be laughs, tears, and angers all up in hurr. Don’t miss out! 😉
Hello Internets! The Mad CEHMist here, and last night I saw a scary movie (my first one on the big screen, I might add) and it was The Conjuring. Claiming to be based on a true story, The Conjuring tells the tale of a team of paranormal investigators sent to help out this family dealing with a very disturbed and violent ghost/demonic entity, and let me say that I was really fucking scared. Like I almost dislocated my boyfriend’s fingers I was squeezing his hand so hard. Part of that is because I’m not much of a horror movie person, the other part (and the main part) was that it was a scary movie.
The music was amazing, it sent chills down my spin and made my heart race every time I heard it. With that music, you just KNEW that shit was gonna go down. The ambiance was also very very good. The creepy trees, the very lonely and empty feeling you always got when they camera went outside, and not to mention that fucking doll. Jesus. That thing looks like the lovechild of Chucky (Child’s Play) and Regan (The Exorcist). The acting was also good, and it even had some comedic relief. The movie even took some nice, meaningful breaks from all the tension and scares, making it more fucking scary when shit came back! Obviously the filmmakers knew exactly what they were doing and it really showed. Several people in the audience were screaming and everyone jumped or whimpered at least a few times (even the tough guys sitting in front of us).
The one problem I had with the movie was that the climax ended kinda cornily. Spoilers here, but when Lorraine was trying to bring the mother back by reminding her of the beach and a heavenly light suddenly pops up on the mother…I’m sorry but that was so LAAAAAAME. Like, really? You have all this other stunning cinematography and you end it all with a fucking spotlight on the mother struggling for her soul? Bad movie. I shun you!
All in all though, and despite that silly spotlight, The Conjuring was a great movie full of great music, great ambiance, great monsters, great acting, a great story, and most importantly great scares. For anyone out there who loves the Horror genre and anyone who might be curious (and brave) enough to try, I say go for it. You won’t be able to sleep soundly for a few weeks because of all the damn nightmare fuel this movie pumps out, but it’s still really worth it!
Until next time!
Bye!
The trailer to our channel, showing who we are and what we plan to do! Wait for the next video as we review our very first book together! Woo hoo!
The Mad Reviews 