THE TWILIGHT SAGA: ECLIPSE - Review By Greg Klymkiw - There's so little to bother discussing about this dreadful pile of crap and third in the interminable series, that we're forced to discuss the hunky, mouth-watering pecs and abs of Taylor Lautner and how awful the cinemas are which were first launched with the theatrical release of this "film".

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (2010) dir. David Slade
Starring: Kristin Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner, Bryce Dallas Howard

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Wading through this vat of raw sewage, I came to the conclusion that only one of two types of people in this world might enjoy watching it - those who have a good time nailing their titties or testes to the floor and/or completely brain dead vegetables.

There is, however, a third.

I wandered into the living room this weekend to find my sharp, quick-witted daughter watching this movie on Blu-Ray. "Why do you keep watching these Twilight movies over and over again?" I asked. She put the picture on pause. The horrifying image of Taylor Lautner's pectorals greeted me. She looked at me with that typical teenage expression which says, "Why do you think I'm watching this?" She then assured me that the next movie she'd be watching was Pitch Perfect 2. "And don't worry, Dad" she added. "I'll still watch a depressing Italian Neo-Realist movie with you tonight."

Relief.

In any event, I'm compelled to discuss The Twilight Saga: Eclipse because of this event, but I find I have little to say and much bile to expel.

Replete with endless, dull, poorly written conversations punctuated occasionally with uninspired, sloppily directed bursts of violence, I can only shake my head in disgust at how low our civilization is sinking. Call me a curmudgeon, assume I am pathetically uncool, accuse me of sounding like my father - I don't particularly care. Today's youth - those who actually think this crap is good - are pathetic, pure and simple.

When I was a lad, my idea of a vampire movie included great actors like Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee squaring off as vampire hunter and vampire respectively against the backdrop of garish colour schemes. heaving bosoms and atmosphere thicker than Shelley Winters's waistline in the original Poseidon Adventure.

The first instalment of Twilight at least had the virtue of a relatively well-directed and watchable opening 40-or-so minutes. The second helping was a complete mess. Now, due to millions of boneheads watching the previous entries, Hollywood has foisted upon us a third portion of this interminable "saga". I use the word "saga" loosely, if at all, only because the filmmakers have chosen, somewhat erroneously to include it in the title and thus, label it as such.

A saga in the traditional sense would normally have something resembling epic qualities, which this film and its predecessors are sorely lacking. In fact, much of the world created by the movie feels - in spite of being set against the great outdoors backdrop of Washington State - strangely claustrophobic. The soap-operatic ruminations of the three central characters belong on weekday afternoon television, not a big screen.

This is not to say that melodrama is out of place in vampire and werewolf tales, as it is indeed the backbone of such genre items. That said, there's good melodrama and bad melodrama. The legendary Dan Curtis delivered a consistently creepy and sexy horror soap opera on his daily television serial Dark Shadows in the 60s and wowed us with an astounding big-screen version in the 70s called House of Dark Shadows.

Alas, these first three Twilight pictures (a godawful money-grab-of-a-two-parter followed) are rooted in revisionism of the clunkiest kind and are so gently precious and tame that they not only drag the whole genre down, but, as stated earlier, reflect the pathetic state of today's youth for buying into such pap.

Again, we who are possessed of brain cels must suffer through the triangle established in the second instalment New Moon involving Bella (Kristen Stewart), the mixed-up mortal with a desire to become a vampire and her romantic obsessions with the pale, thin bloodsucker Edward (Robert Pattinson) and the buff werewolf Jacob (Taylor Lautner). The details beyond this are meaningless save for the physical attributes of the film's third wheel in the menage of monster-lovin'.

Lautner's pectorals and abs of steel are genuinely impressive and might have even rivalled the milky cleavage content of Hammer Horror pictures if everything else in the movie was as awe-inspiring as his shirtless glory. It's not. In fact, the shirtless man-boy Lautner-pectoral-porn on display is as wasted as John Travolta wearing those delicious form-fitting shorts in the ill-fated Moment By Moment where we were forced to succumb to the vomit-inducing sight of him having to swap saliva with Lily Tomlin.

This episode of Twilight is especially disturbing since it is helmed by a solid director. David Slade, who delivered the tense, creepy Hard Candy and the genuinely malevolent 30 Days of Night, one of the scariest vampire pictures in years, seems largely absent here. The dialogue scenes are covered like a standard dramatic television series, the action sequences are poorly shot and choppily edited and the whole enterprise is so bereft of suspense and style, that one assumes Slade did a paint-by-numbers job in order to secure himself bankability by handing over an unexceptional platter of mediocrity to satiate the boneheads who moronically continue to make this franchise a hit. Either that, or the studio interference was just so ludicrous, that he settled for cashing his cheques and punching the time clock.

About the only thing worth discussing is that I first saw the picture five-years-ago in one of the then-new theatres in Canada that the Cineplex chain branded and expanded (with a healthy price-grab from consumers) as "UltraAVX" - a supposedly new and exciting approach to motion picture exhibition. I'll agree that the digital image is unbeatable - utterly pristine and crystal clear. The sound is also successfully "immersive" as described - in fact, it's so effective that at times, the bass seems to almost make you jiggle in your seat not unlike that of the 70s oddball exhibition feature called "Sensurround ".

The three other major attributes of UltraAVX are less impressive. The wall to wall screen is as advertised, but the top and bottom of the frame's not masked properly. It's a little more than annoying as it takes one out of the supposedly immersive quality of the image. The bigger, supposedly more comfortable rocker chairs in these cinemas are, in fact, extremely uncomfortable - one sinks into them too deeply and the rocking-effect pulls you back too far.

In fact, for all the hype about this new seating, leg-room is still an issue in UltraAVX cinemas. Ironically, when they first burst upon the scene, ushers annoyingly paraded back and forth telling people to take their feet off the chairs in front of them. Now they annoying saunter in every half hour or so with the lowly heads ever-so low and go down to the front of the cinema to flick on a flashlight and annoying scribble something on a sheet of paper affixed to the wall before departing in the manner they arrived.

Finally, the reserved seating feature is just a major pain (and price-grab). If you're stuck anywhere near boneheads blabbing or eating with their mouths open (the latter an especially common and disgusting habit in movie theatres these days) then moving to a different seat becomes problematic. Luckily, I prefer the front row (which is always empty) and I just sit there instead of listening to people eat popcorn and nacho chips more grotesquely than pigs at a trough.

Then again, maybe movies like the Twilight series are perfect for UltraAVX since the cinemas purport to bring back the magic showmanship of movie-going, but are designed to appeal to undiscriminating, mindless, swill-lapping hogs.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: * One-Star

All the Twilight movies, including this one, are available on various and endless special Blu-Ray and DVD editions from that entity of quality, E-One Entertainment.

MR. NOBODY - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Something execrable to blame the French for

Mr. Nobody (2010)
dir. Jaco Van Dormael
Starring: Jared Leto, Diane Kruger, Linh Dan Pham and Sarah Polley

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Oh joy! Just what the world needed! More whimsy in the cinema!

For this, I blame the French.

Though the director of this godawful pastiche of science fiction, magic realism and whimsy Jaco Van Dormael is a Belgian filmmaker, let us not forget that Belgium itself borders on France and half its population, the Walloons, speak French.

As much as I'd prefer to blame the movie on the Walloons, the fact remains that this Belgian-French-German-Canadian patchwork quilt co-production has a much greater French pedigree than mere Walloonery will allow. So again, let's do the math by examining the French content of the co-production entities: half of Belgium speaks French, Belgium borders France, Germany was obsessed with occupying France and one of Canada's official languages is French.

The sum of the above is clear. We can blame the French with no guilt whatsoever.

In fact, by the end of Mr. Nobody, I was reminded of the lyrics penned by Mel Brooks and sung by the inimitable Dom De Luise in Blazing Saddles:

Throw out your hands/Stick out your tush/Hands on your hips/Give 'em a push/You'll be surprised/You're doing the French Mistake/Voila!

Yes, Voila! A French Mistake, indeed!

When this film was first released theatrically, we were inflicted, around the same time with the release of Jeunet's execrable (and French, 'natch) vat of whimsy Micmacs. Mr. Nobody, a dreadfully pretentious movie that purports to be about something, is finally so confusing and tedious, that it's ultimately not about much of anything at all. And unlike Micmacs, which at least tried (pathetically) to be funny, Mr. Nobody is mind-numbingly humourless.

That said, what might have perked things up in Mr. Nobody could have been a few digitally-rendered appearances from the late, great Chief Dan George as Old Lodge Skins from Arthur Penn's film adaptation of Little Big Man. Given the film's reliance on endless, trippy digital effects, this is not such an odd expectation, especially since our title character Mr. Nobody appears in the opening with Jared Leto (the go-to guy when Jake Gyllenhaal isn't available and, of course in Jake's case, vice-versa) in full old-man makeup, not unlike Dustin Hoffman's Jack Crabb. Being interviewed by a dweeby journalist, not unlike the one played by William Hickey in Penn's seminal 70s western, Mr. Nobody, it seems, is the oldest man alive in a dystopian future.

And boy, does he have a whopper to tell, not unlike Jack Crabb in Little Big Man.

Hell, why didn't Jaco Van Dormael go for a digital merging of Chief Dan George, Dustin Hoffman and Jared Leto in these sequences? It might have made the whole affair palatable. (Well, not really, but it would have been good for a few laughs.)

In reality, it seems Mr. Nobody is a man living in a world where everyone has become immortal except for him and he's part of some odd reality-TV death-watch because he has not succumbed to the stem-cell thing-a-muh-bobby that keeps everyone else in the film alive. He eventually begins to tell his story to the reporter and what we get is a story that gives us several versions of his life, most notably three different relationships with three women he loved, or could have loved, or should have loved (Kruger, Pham and Polley).

Or, uh, something like that. Who the fuck knows?

In his dotage and on the verge of death, he contemplates whether he made the right decisions in his life. The tale is told in triplicate and appears to be rooted in two significant moments from his childhood. This is, however, one of the film's many problems. We're shown how his life could have been when he's forced to choose between living with his mother and father when they decide to separate. We see his life with Mom and then with Dad. But as well, the other significant fork-in-the-road moment occurs when he spies three different little girls - all of whom become his wife in the different imaginings of where his life does indeed go.

Well, which is it? The first or the second? Why both? Well, because the director wanted it this way, that's why. He assumed, no doubt, that it would give him more options to deliver a "mind-blowing" series of stories.

Not content with this incongruity, Van Dormael presents the entire thing in a hodge-podge whilst tossing out teasing references to the "butterfly effect" and "quantum theory". Flash forwards, flash backs - here, there and everywhere - are all presented to be significant with a capital "S".

I was reminded, somewhat, of Kurt Vonnegut's great book (and George Roy Hill's terrific film adaptation of it) "Slaughterhouse Five" where we bounce between past, present and future. It made sense there because the central character Vonnegut creates is "unstuck in time" - a joyous and painful predicament since the character must, for an eternity, experience his birth, life and death. This fractured, intricately-etched approach to presenting the narrative was rooted strongly in the science-fiction "logic" of the piece, whereas a similar approach in Mr. Nobody is there, simply because Van Dormael wants it to be there. Even worse is that the fragmented nature of the movie seems to pull a Christopher ("One Idea") Nolan Memento reverse order to the events.

I think.

Whatever, this movie is dreadful enough without conjuring up memories of Nolan's pretentious 2000 pretence-o-rama neo-noir twaddle.

One of the more idiotic touches in Mr. Nobody is the name chosen for Mr. Nobody in his younger years which is... okay, now wait for it...Nemo.

I mean, Good God! NEMO!!!??? Is writer-director Jaco Van Dormael on crack? Does he really expect us all to "ooohhh" and "aaaahhh" over the apparent genius and GREAT SIGNIFICANCE of naming the younger version of Mr. Nobody with a word meaning "no man" or, if you will, "no one" in Latin. This reference also conjures up that of Captain Nemo in Jules Verne's "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea", but I suspect Von Dormael was more inspired by the dark fairytale qualities of the brilliant turn of the century comic strip "Little Nemo in Slumberland". If only Mr. Nobody proved to be as significant and original as that work.

It's not.

Mr. Nobody is one of those boneheaded exercises that pretends to be more intelligent than it is. Von Dormael, no doubt, believes in his "genius" and so do the audiences that smugly believe they're watching great art. They can be dazzled by the striking visuals and non-linear quality in order to feel good that what they're indulging in is not a machine-tooled Hollywood blockbuster from Michael Bay.

Van Dormael has created the greatest aesthetic crime - far greater than anything Michael Bay has foisted upon us - he's machine-tooled an art film for dummies.

There's not much to recommend here. However, poor Leto does what he can with the ludicrous role foisted upon him and the movie does feature a great performance from Sarah Polley as one of Nemo's wives. Playing a bi-polar housewife, Polley takes the kind of chances and delivers the kind of performance that proves once again why she's one of the world's great actresses. She's raw and real, unlike the rest of Van Dormael's candy-floss "complexity". But seeing as Polley also appears in Vincenzo Natali's terrific 2009 Splice, you're better off seeing that. You get a great Sarah Polley performance in a movie that respects its audience and manages to serve up something that's as entertaining as it is intelligent.

All that Mr. Nobody serves up, is the pathetic work of one pretentious, overrated, talentless hack:

Jaco Van Dormael.

He's the real Mr. Nobody.

THE FILM CORNER'S LOWEST RATING:
THE TURD DISCOVERED BEHIND HARRY'S
CHAR-BROIL & DINING LOUNGE
Click HERE for a full explanation of this woeful rating.

Mr. Nobody is available on Magnolia Home Entertainment Blu-Ray and DVD. And get this, it's available separately as an EXTENDED director's cut for all those who might enjoy some cinematic self-flagellation.

DESPICABLE ME - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Oh Christ! There's a prequel? Really? Ugh!

Look, if it's okay with you, since all these movies are the same, I won't bother reviewing MINIONS, just as I didn't bother reviewing DESPICABLE ME 2. The first film, DESPICABLE ME, is the only one I've seen, so let's talk about why it's mind-numbingly mediocre. It'll be for the same reasons the new pictures are also mind-numbingly mediocre. I don't even need to see them to know that. Because, I, uh, like, uh, saw the first one, eh. It's all anyone really needs in these dark days of dead-head movies for dead-head audiences.

Despicable Me (2010)
dir. Pierre Coffin, Chris Renaud
Starring: Steve Carrell, Jason Segal, Russell Brand, Julie Andrews

Review By Greg Klymkiw

There was a sequel two summers ago, a prequel this summer and yet another sequel two summers from now, but you know what? I'm good. The first film in this franchise (a word I hate) was more than enough for this fella. They can doll these things up all they like, but most contemporary animated films are pretty much interchangeable and in spite of inexplicably over-the-top critical orgasms and astounding boxoffice, most of them, like 2010's Despicable Me fall squarely into the been-there-done-that category.

I can understand why most critics raved about the movie. Most of them aren't what I'd bother to call critics anyway; they're hacks (at worst) and/or glorified studio flacks (at best). What I don't get is the ridiculous number of family audiences filling the theatres for mediocre crap like this. Are these families so desperate for entertainment they can see as families, that they'll succumb to any moderately clever ad campaign to fork over their dough for a familiar, over-hyped picture?

Or are they merely that dull, unimaginative and stupid? I'll keep the correct answer to myself. You can do your own math. (As for the aforementioned shills, it's beyond simple math, it's just one big fat zero to the power of infinity.)

As for the very first Despicable Me, it was really little more than a pallid reversal on Brad Bird's (terrific) The Incredibles. Here, the focus is upon a network of super-villains as opposed to the latter's world of superheroes. One of the big differences between the two, though, is that The Incredibles was made by a director who not only has a great sense of humour and storytelling chops, but a real appreciation for epic sweep and a true geek's affinity for the kind of derring-do that his fellow "losers" in the audience are also imbued with. Bird's film displayed originality, genuine wit and thoroughly pulse-pounding action - action that's rooted in the dramatic beats, but also expertly designed in terms of overall geography and pace.

Despicable Me, on the other hand, is full of stale gags and a ho-hum plot. Most of all, the action sequences are frenetic, chaotic and have absolutely no sense of geography and/or dramatic resonance.

The same can be said for Despicable Me 2 and Minions, neither of which I've seen, because I don't have to. I've seen this one, eh.

The plot of Despicable Me, such as it is, deals with Gru (Steve Carrell), the world's Super-Villain #2 and his desire to unseat the young Super-Villain #1, an upstart by the name of Vector (Jason Segal). With the help of three cute-as-a-button orphans, Gru undertakes to become the most evil, heinous villain in the world. This dastardly curmudgeon is, however, transformed into a much kinder individual thanks to the charms of the orphans and his growing (ugh!) love for them.

And then there are the minions. The less said about them, the better.

So! Sound vaguely familiar? I thought as much. It's a variation on virtually every contemporary animated movie, including Despicable Me 2 and Minions, neither of which I've seen, and have no intention of ever seeing. Nor will I bother seeing Despicable Me 3 in 2017. I don't have to. I've already seen them - way back in 2010. It's called Despicable Me.

With that first film, I found the whole affair so familiar that I genuinely can't remember much more about it than the dull plot recounted above. None of the jokes resonated with me at all; they were strictly dullsville. The opening sight gag involving the theft of the pyramids in Egypt seemed decent enough, but big deal. It was screened in its entirety for months as a trailer, just as every joke in any of the "franchise" have been.

Even though Despicable Me and its ilk are family pictures, would it have been so hard to shoehorn some delightfully, nastily, almost malevolent dark humour instead of the safe corn-pone TV-style knee-slappers? It is, after all, a cartoon and that's the sort of humour both adults and kids love (a la the Bugs Bunny and Roadrunner cartoons from Warners). In the film's favour, we weren't inundated with endlessly annoying contemporary pop-culture references that are supposed to be funny and which, of course, are going to date all the pathetic animated films that do. (Shrek, anyone? I thought not.)

The look of Despicable Me is not without a few shreds of merit, but many of the gadgets and characters - while serviceable for the film's running time - don't last in the memory banks. The vocal performances - while competent - are bereft of the sort of Cliff Edwards brilliance from classic Disney that knocks you on your butt and stays with you forever.

The frenetic pace of Despicable Me and its ilk actually have the effect of bogging the pictures down. The Incredibles, on the other hand, was about thirty minutes longer than this 2010 "original", yet zipped by so effortlessly, that one didn't want it to end. Despicable Me, on the other hand, inspired little more than endless glances at my iPhone.

Other than being insufferably inoffensive and watchable for its 95-minute running time, those are about the only things in its favour. The same can be said for Despicable Me 2 and Minions, neither of which I've seen, and have no intention of ever seeing, because I've seen Despicable Me. You get the drift.

And now, there's a goddamn prequel!!! After a sequel and before another fucking sequel!

I'm still wondering: Where in the name of Christ were all the movie-going morons (and moron film critics) earlier this summer for Brad Bird's gorgeous Tomorrowland? Waiting to see Minions, no doubt.

Besides, there are always solid movies on the big screen that families would be doing themselves and their kids a favour to see instead of crap like the Despicable Me franchise.

I remember the year I took my (then) 9-year-old daughter to see Despicable Me. Yeah, she watched it, but around the same time that year, she also saw the highly imaginative Vincenzo Natali sci-fi horror picture Splice and made me take her to see it several times on a big screen. It thrilled her, entertained her, stayed with her and most importantly, stimulated the sort of mind-expanding discourse that more kids would benefit from.

So why drag kids to the usual derivative fare? This summer we've seen the aforementioned Tomorrowland tank and even Mad Max: Fury Road might have done better business if parents had some guts and took their precious little buggers to see that one. I don't want to believe that these parents and their progeny are as equally unimaginative as the most unimaginative "family" movies, but as one animated picture after another with a similar pedigree continues to rake in big dollars, I can only assume the worst.

So feel free to use this review of a 5-year-old film to suffice for Minions and pretty much any other stupid contemporary animated film. They're all the same. I suppose if you and your spawn continue to suffer through them, then you are too.

The same, that is.

Despicable Me was released 5 years ago. Its prequel Minions is in wide release. I haven't seen it, nor will I, because I know it will be identical to this one.

It's TEA TIME with THOMAS ZACHARY TOLES, The Film Corner's All New Columnist: Draw up thine comfy chairs for some High Tea at Oxford University, as Rhodes Scholar, young Master Thomas Zachary Toles gives BREAKING BAD a jolly good thrashing.

If you require a better view of Thomas and his illustrious credentials, please click on the friendly masthead just above.

Walter White Privilege: Facile Empathy in Breaking Bad

By Film Corner Tea Time Columnist THOMAS ZACHARY TOLES

Given that Better Call Saul, the spin-off of Vince Gilligan’s universally acclaimed Breaking Bad has placed its first record-breaking season six-feet-under (in slavering anticipation of the second season, ordered by AMC before Season One even aired), it’s high time for a critical reexamination of the series that started it all, a show that pretends to test the limits of our empathy while rewarding its viewers for lazily aligning with a singular, dominant perspective.

Let us examine what is broken and bad with Breaking Bad.

"Let's just blow EVERYBODY the fuck away!"

Walter White (Bryan Cranston), an overqualified chemistry teacher with an ego, is driven to meth dealing and murder by the onset of lung cancer. He hopes to earn enough to cover his exorbitant treatment costs and posthumously bequeath a large sum for his family. The apparent premise of the show is: to what extent can this ordinary man justify his increasingly immoral behaviour with ostensibly compassionate motives? How long will the viewer’s allegiance to Walt last before siding with him becomes impossible?

Breaking Bad’s great fault, however, is that it creates a warped world in which there is effectively no human alternative to Walt. He is the cleverest, coolest, most compelling person in the show, unquestionably a better meth cook than any Hispanic cartel member who preceded him. The genius middle-class white man with crazed ambition (the American dream!) is glorified in his corruption while the devastating effects of meth addiction on impoverished communities are only shown once or twice in the entire series. Walter White is “Whiteman,” America’s presiding figure--a superhero of narcissistic greed.

The emotional consequences of Walt’s actions on his family and other major characters are deceptively insubstantial. The wronged family includes his wife Skyler (Anna Gunn), a character so unsympathetic to most fans that desperately cheating on her lying drug-dealer husband was widely deemed unforgivable. Then there are his children: Walt Jr. (RJ MItte), whose primary arc consists of driving lessons and breakfast consumption, and Holly (Elanor Anne Wenrich), a baby forgotten as frequently by the show’s writers as Maggie is by Homer Simpson.

Skyler is a controversial case because, as Erin Gloria Ryan (writer and managing editor of JEZEBEL) argued, fan hatred for her was due to misogyny, despite the show’s loud assertions of her blamelessness. I counter that her blamelessness reflects Gilligan’s inability to imagine a rich inner life for the character. Skyler’s existence separate from Walt’s endeavours, and her pain, become increasingly vague as the show takes Walt’s continuing survival as its central concern. Walt also causes anguish for Jesse (Aaron Paul), his partner-in-crime, but Walt’s final sacrifice for Jesse allows the older man’s manipulations to be overshadowed by the real villains of the show.

Breaking Bad ends by establishing a ludicrous dichotomy between Walt (a human with flaws--like us) and the fantasy of truly evil people (neo-Nazis) who, unlike Walt, don’t have their reasons. Walt confesses his selfishness (self-awareness achieved!) and redeems himself by vanquishing actual, uncomplicated evil and rescuing Jesse.

Walter White and Edward Hyde: Happy Bedfellows!

For the show’s legions of viewers, Walt has been a surrogate Mr. Hyde, allowing us to tacitly revel in his immorality from the safety of our couches. Breaking Bad relies on the seductive illusion that our dark sides can be outsourced to Walt, vicariously embraced, and then neutralized with Walt’s death and his accompanying self-awareness (that we are invited to share).

Gilligan expresses his desire to redeem Walt and provide a satisfying, palatable ending in his comments on a possible alternate ending in which Walt shoots up a jail to free Jesse:

“[W]e kept asking ourselves, ‘Well, how bad is Walt going to be at the end here? Is he going to kill a bunch of upstanding, law-abiding jail guards? What the hell kind of ending is that?’”

Gilligan wants closure and gratification for his audience; he does not want to leave them frustrated or confused. Walt’s redemption purges the viewer’s guilt for fetishizing him, tying up the show’s loose ends on a chilling note of admiration.

Fiction has the power to vividly portray disorder and ambiguity, in ways that may help us reach a wider, more empathetic outlook. Yet Breaking Bad rewards its viewers for lionizing its slick, troubled protagonist, not challenging us to peer at the peripheral figures beyond him.

Countless Americans are indifferent to the commonplace killings of unarmed people of colour by police officers—proclaiming that Mike Brown, Miriam Carey, Eric Garner, and many others just shouldn’t have broken the law. Undoubtedly, many of these same Americans readily accepted Walt’s violent criminality.

Breaking Bad dangerously inhibits empathy for real-life abuses of power because it predominantly asks its viewers to identify with the one character with both authority and explicit motives. Walt is a complex figure surrounded by stereotypes like Tuco’s homicidal cousins, whose non-existent personalities are only justified by their brutish foreignness.

Breaking Bad encourages empathy for yet another white authority figure (who kills, like Darren Wilson or George Zimmerman, when he “fears for his life”), while disregarding the humanity of those less powerful than he.

A narrow vision, indeed.

Breaking Bad is available in Canada by clicking HEREand in the United States of America by clicking HEREand in the Jolly Old United Kingdom by clicking HERE The first 10 episodes of Season One of Better Call Saul premiered on AMC on February 8, 2015.

All photo collages by GJK

SALT - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Ace Aussie Director Delivers YUMMY Action Babe Goods

Salt (2010)
dir. Phillip Noyce
Starring: Angelina Jolie, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Daniel Olbrychski, Liev Schreiber

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Kurt Wimmer's screenplay for Salt is riddled with the sort of Swiss Cheese plot-holes that normally drive me up a wall, but happily, they only rear their ugly head AFTER the movie is over, and by then, it's too late. As it unspools, the movie is one hell of an amusement park ride and on that level, it delivers the goods and then some.

Wimmer, of course, is no stranger to penning screenplays that border on (or even cross over into) the insanely improbable, but deliver the sort of imaginative, kick-ass set pieces that directors endowed with considerable style and/or proficiency just love. This certainly includes Wimmer himself who directed the studio-butchered, but still wildly entertaining Ultraviolet with Milla Jovovich wreaking havoc in mouth-watering painted-on clothing amidst a dystopian sci-fi setting.

Salt director Phillip Noyce clearly had a ball with Wimmer's script. Whilst dopey as all get-out, the screenplay provides enough forward thrust to keep the audience guessing (though one major climactic plot twist can be predicted right from the beginning) and to provide Noyce with the kind of set-pieces he excels at (being, of course, one of the aforementioned filmmakers who can handle this sort of thing with considerable aplomb). It's a superbly crafted, pulse-pounding summer picture - maybe one of the best action pictures in the new millennium. If it weren't so humourless it might well have garnered an even higher star rating from me, but not every genre director can be Brian DePalma.

Noyce, in tandem with ace editor Stuart Baird, has rendered a straight-up, kick-ass action thriller that begins full throttle and escalates from there. In this respect, Salt is near-flawless in what it sets out to do.

Noyce, an Aussie helmer who began with smaller art films in his home country Down Under, has made several first-rate and diverse works in a career spanning over thirty years. The chilling 1989 three-hander scare-fest Dead Calm maintains, 20 years after it was first made, a nail biting creepy crawly quality. Starring a lithe, young Nicole Kidman as the fetching trophy wife of Sam Neill (and how they're terrorized by super-psycho Billy Zane on a luxury yacht in the middle oif the ocean), the picture was not unlike a Polanski-inspired version of Knife in the Water or Cul-De-Sac - but with the sort of crank and testosterone that precious Euro-types can only dream of making.

Add to the Noyce mix three bonafide classics of Australian cinema (Newsfront, Heatwave and Rabbit-Proof Fence), the excellent film adaptation of Graham Greene's The Quiet American and his two tremendous Tom Clancy adaptations of the Jack Ryan entries starring Harrison Ford: A Clear and Present Danger and Patriot Games, and you've got a director perfectly poised to deliver the goods with Salt, a contemporary Cold-War-styled thriller starring Our Lady of the Lips, Angelina Jolie.

Jolie plays the title character, a CIA operative fingered by Russian defector Vassily Orlov (Daniel Olbrychski) as being a Russian spy who will orchestrate an assassination that is going to plunge the planet into an all-out Third World War. Her partner Ted Winter (Liev Schreiber) refuses to believe it's true and locks horns with Peabody (Chiwetel Ejiofor) one of his colleagues who believes unequivocally that it is. Lip Lady busts out of the CIA's clutches to clear her name and the movie never lets up with some gorgeously executed gun battles, hand-to-hand ass-whupping, nail biting suspense and chase scenes of the most hair raising variety.

Is any of this vaguely original?

No.

That said, the picture is such a thrill ride that it hardly matters. In fact, Wimmer's script - while all set-piece and little else - does manage enough of a genuine surprise treat in providing a somewhat ambiguous ending which, while it also keeps things open for a sequel - it does indeed leave us dangling in its final moments (but in a thoroughly satisfying manner).

The action set pieces are remarkably well-directed - each shot and each cut delivering blows and the kind of drive that keeps you on the edge of your seat. Noyce is. thankfully, of the old guard when it comes to orchestrating such carnage. There's relatively little in the way of the de rigeur herky-jerky shooting and cutting so prevalent in modern action pictures (notably in the hands of such hacks pretending to be artists like Christopher Nolan). Most of the coverage is solidly framed with a nice mix of shots that not only deliver the goods, but do so in a way that give you a clear sense of geography. Geography is essential in action sequences. It keeps you with the protagonist rather than being bombarded by noise and sloppy cutting.

The performances are all uniformly fine for a picture like this - especially from Jolie. She's an extremely likeable and stylish heroine who must don many visages to make it through the proceedings intact. The only disappointment in Jolie comes early in the picture when she is in the clutches of some nasty Korean interrogators. She's obviously been physically tortured and is about to receive even more punishment.

What doesn't ring true is that Jolie is trussed up, bleeding, bruised and ludicrously attired in her designer bra and panties. Now, I don't want you to think I'm disappointed because she's not buck naked (well, if truth be told, I am), but that all one can think about during this sequence (especially since it's intimated she's been sexually assaulted) is this: Why would her captors strip her down ONLY to bra and panties. It genuinely makes no sense given the context of the scene and you're pulled out of the action thinking only about the fact that (a) Jolie refused to strip down and (b) that the studio didn't want an R-rating.

But, I digress - lack of Jolie-nudity is a mere quibble, especially since Salt entertains on the highest possible level and offers just what action aficionados demand.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ***½ Three-and-a-half-Stars

Salt is available on Blu-Ray and DVD from Sony Pictures.

THE LAST EXORCISM - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Effective mock-doc with devil worship.

In anticipation of the upcoming 2015 Toronto Hot Docs International Festival of Documentary Cinema, herewith is a review of one of my favourite horror mock-docs.

The Last Exorcism (2010)
dir. Daniel Stamm
Starring: Patrick Fabian, Ashley Bell, Iris Bahr, Louis Herthum, Caleb Landry Jones and Tony Bentley

Review By Greg Klymkiw

I suppose we have to thank The Blair Witch Project for all the mock-doc shaky-cam thrillers of the past 15 years. I don't even like it much. The movie had a vague visceral effectiveness upon a first viewing, but the real test for all these pictures is how they hold up on repeated viewings. Blair Witch doesn't hold up to that kind of scrutiny at all.

Much like other one-trick-pony efforts such as Christopher "One Idea" Nolan's Memento or the reprehensible pile of filth Man Bites Dog, the aforementioned titles live and then die a miserable death because so much of them rest on the shoulders of their gimmick. In fact, a much better film in this genre, might well be the patriarch of them all, Jim McBride's utterly haunting and creepy David Holzman's Diary which, after over forty years still has the power to blow an audience away as it has way more going for it than its conceit (though its central figure is indeed the walking, talking embodiment of conceit).

My personal favourites of the recent forays into this form of telling creepy stories are Bobcat Goldthwait's magnificent Bigfoot chiller Willow Creek and Oren Peli's stunning Paranormal Activity. Both pictures are rooted in humanity against extraordinary backdrops and bear up under repeated scrutiny.

And now we have, from producer Eli (The Bear Jew) Roth, a very effective horror picture directed by Daniel Stamm which, presents its nerve jangling tale of demonic possession with a reasonable degree of intelligence and style. It's also held up nicely to repeated viewings.

The Last Exorcism is an apparent documentary about preacher Cotton Marcus (Patrick Fabian), famous and popular man o' God who began his career (much like the real-life Marjoe Gortner) as a child evangelist and worked his way up to being a lower drawer Jimmy Swaggart. Cotton supplements his earnings as an exorcist, which is where he's really made his mark, but recent events have tested his faith and he invites documentary filmmaker Iris Reisen (Iris Bahr) to enter his life - warts and all.

Cotton receives numerous requests to perform exorcisms, but his belief in their effectiveness has more to do with the healing powers he wields through his performance. He goes so far as to rig the exorcisms with simple, but really compelling special effects. He randomly picks an exorcism request off a pile of letters on his desk and off the crew goes to watch him do his stuff. His hope is to expose himself, to expose all exorcists, to expose his own lack of faith. He doesn't believe in the devil and he doesn't believe the exorcism has any special Heavenly significance. He believes in his skill to heal, but due to some recent tragedies where other holy men have committed exorcisms that have traumatized the "possessed" - so much so that they have actually died - he hopes to expose the absurdity and inherent danger in such practices, especially by those not as skilled as he.

He soon enters the world of the Louisiana backwoods Sweetzer family who have been plagued with livestock mutilations and very odd behaviour from 16-year-old Nell (Ashley Bell). Cotton is convinced the problem is psychological and he exorcises, with the help of his bag of tricks, the demon from the girl's soul.

Sooner than you can say "The power of Christ compels thee!" it becomes obvious that there's more to the girl than meets the eye. She's obviously suffered a severe trauma - possibly sexual abuse or... she really is possessed by a demon.

Horror ensues. And a lot of the horror in the picture is extremely effective - lots of creepy crawly stuff and numerous all-out shit-your-pants pyrotechnics. Most impressively, these are bereft of CGI and delivered by the actors.

Ashley Bell is especially astounding in a performance that is highly physical. The gymnastics of self mutilation are rendered by Ms. Bell and Ms. Bell alone. She's not only brilliant physically, but she plumbs the depths of an incredibly tortured young woman with the sort of skill that signals a great talent to keep an eye on.

Equally impressive in the acting sweepstakes is Patrick Fabian as Cotton. Bringing the right balance of showmanship, charm and sleaziness to the table and as the film progresses, a very strong sense in the character's rekindling of faith, Fabian makes us believe as readily as he makes his "patients" believe. It's to the film's credit that faith still plays an important role in the story. While critical of organized religion, it follows the intricacies of Cotton's own spiritual struggles and ultimately, places stock in this, or if you will, his belief in God.

One of the more astounding elements is that the picture not only features lots of magnificent exorcism, but in what must be a first, we also get some mega-devil-worship dolloped lovingly into the mix. Maybe I'm wrong about this, but I don't recall seeing anything (or at least anything good) where we are plunged into a movie about exorcism that then pulls the delicious, tantalizing card of devil worship.

I love devil worship.

And let me guarantee you, The Last Exorcism features devil worship so profoundly disturbing that it rivals some of my favourite devil worship sequences in such classics of the genre as Hammer's The Devil Rides Out, The Satanic Rites of Dracula, and Race With The Devil.

This is one of those movies where horror aficionados can do the math on all the expertly handled moments of major-league delivery and determine the picture's ultimate worth - especiallywhen the picture is good even beyond the math.

So here's the tally: Mutilation (of animals and humans), provocative sexual overtones, lots of "in-the-name-of-Jesus" prayers and Latin incantation. One can never get enough of that. And last, but not least, one of the most harrowing devil worship sequences replete with a bloody, goo dripping deformed demon baby with blood gushing geyser-like from the nether regions of the woman trussed to the unholy altar of Satan.

Seriously. What's not to like?

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ***½ 3-and-a-half Stars

The Last Exorcism is available on DVD and BluRay via E-One.

RARE EXPORTS: A CHRISTMAS TALE - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Grim Yuletide from Finland

Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale (2010)
dir. Jalmari Helander
Starring: Onni Tommila, Jorma Tommila

Review By Greg Klymkiw

While it is an indisputable truth that Jesus is the reason for the season. the eventual commercialization of Christmas inevitably yielded the fantasy figure of Santa Claus, the jolly, porcine dispenser of toys to children. Living with his equally corpulent wife, Mrs. Claus, a passel of dwarves and a herd of reindeer at the North Pole, Santa purportedly toils away in his workshop for the one day of the year when he can distribute the fruits of his labour into the greedy palms of children the world over.

Is it any wonder we forget that Christmas is to celebrate the birth of Our Lord Baby Jesus H. Christ?

In the movies, however, we have had numerous dramatic renderings of the true spirit of Christmas - tales of redemption and forgiveness like the Alistair Sim version of A Christmas Carol, Frank Capra's immortal It's a Wonderful Life and Phillip Borsos's One Magic Christmas, but fewer and far between are the Christmas movies that address the malevolence of the season celebrating Christ's Birth. There's the brilliant Joan Collins segment in the Amicus production of Tales From the Crypt, the Silent Night Deadly Night franchise and, perhaps greatest of all, that magnificent Canadian movie Black Christmas from Bob (Porky's) Clark.

And now, add Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale to your perennial Baby-Jesus-Worship viewings! This creepy, terrifying, darkly hilarious and dazzlingly directed bauble of Yuletide perversity takes us on a myth-infused journey to the northern border between Finland and Lapland where a crazed archeologist and an evil corporation have discovered and unearthed the resting place of the REAL Santa Claus.

When Santa is finally freed from the purgatorial tomb, he runs amuck and indulges himself in a crazed killing spree - devouring all the local livestock before feeding upon both adults and children who do not subscribe to the basic tenet of Santa's philosophy of: "You better be Good!" A motley crew of local hunters and farmers, having lost their livelihood, embark upon an obsessive hunt for Santa. They capture him alive and hold him ransom to score a huge settlement from the Rare Exports corporation who, in turn, have nefarious plans of their own for world wide consumer domination. How can you go wrong if you control the REAL Santa?

There's always, however, a spanner in the works, and it soon appears that thousands of Claus-ian clones emerge from the icy pit in Lapland and embark upon a desperate hunt for their leader. These vicious creatures are powerful, ravenous and naked.

Yes, naked!

Thousands of old men with white beards traverse across the tundras of Finland with their saggy buttocks and floppy genitalia exposed to the bitter northern winds. For some, this might even be the ultimate wet dream, but I'll try not to think too hard about who they might be.

All cultures, of course, have their own indigenous versions of everyone's favourite gift-giver and this eventually led to the contemporary rendering of the Santa Claus we're all familiar with. Finland, however, absorbed in considerable wintery darkness for much of the year, insanely overflowing with rampant alcoholism and being the birthplace of the brilliant Kaurismäki filmmaking brothers, is one delightfully twisted country. It's no surprise, then, that the Finns' version of jolly old Saint Nick is utterly malevolent. As presented in this bizarre and supremely entertaining movie, Santa is one demonic mo-fo!!!

Directed with panache by the young Finnish director Jalmari Helander (and based on his truly insane short films), Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale is one unique treat. It's a Christmas movie with scares, carnage and loads of laughs. Helander renders spectacular images in scene after scene and his filmmaking vocabulary is sophisticated as all get-out. In fact, some of his shots out-Spielberg Spielberg, and unlike the woeful, tin-eyed J.J. Abrams (he of the loathsome Super-8, the Star Trek reboots, the worst Mission Impossible of all time and now, God forbid, Star Wars), I'd put money on Helander eventually becoming the true heir apparent to the Steven Spielberg torch. Helander's imaginative mise-en-scène is especially brilliant as he stretches a modest budget (using stunning Norwegian locations) and renders a movie with all the glorious production value of a bonafide studio blockbuster. The difference here, is that it's not stupid, but blessed with intelligence and imagination.

While the movie is not suitable for most young children (except mine), it actually makes for superb family viewing if the kiddies are not whining sissy-pants. Anyone expecting a traditional splatter-fest will also be disappointed, but I suspect even they will find merit in the movie. Most of all, Moms, Dads and their brave progeny can all delight in this dazzling Christmas thriller filled with plenty of jolts, laughs, adventure and yes, even a sentimental streak that rivals that of the master of all things darkly wholesome, Steven Spielberg.

You have hereby been warned:

You better watch out,
you better not cry,
you better not pout,
I'm telling you why,
Santa Claus is coming to town,
with razor-sharp big gnarly teeth,
a taste for human flesh,
he knows if you've been bad or good,
and he likes to eat kids fresh.
Hey!

Or in the words of Tiny Tim: "God Bless us, everyone."

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ***½ 3 and-a-half stars

Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale is currently available in a superb Bluray and DVD from the Oscilloscope Pictures (and distributed in Canada via the visionary company VSC). I normally have little use for extra features, but this release is one of the few exceptions. It includes Helander's brilliant shorts and some truly informative and entertaining making-of docs. This is truly worth owning and cherishing - again and again!

HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON - Review By Greg Klymkiw - I refuse to see the sequel. Here's why.

How To Train Your Dragon (2010)
dir. Dean DeBlois and Chris Sanders
Starring: Jay Baruchel, Gerard Butler, America Ferrera, Jonah Hill, Christopher Mintz-Plasse

Review By Greg Klymkiw

There's nothing especially bad about How To Train Your Dragon, but there's also nothing especially good about it. The sequel, imaginatively titled How to Train Your Dragon 2 was such a surprise hit and critics' darling this year that I'm compelled to revisit this one since I pretty much refuse to see the new film.

Each time I see a new animated feature on a big screen these days, the first question that courses through the rivulets of my brain is, "Haven't I seen this somewhere before?" The second is, "Uh, like, why did they make this?" The answer to the former is a quick and resounding "Yes!" The answer to the latter comes when I look away from the screen and/or up from a rousing game of "Bejeweled" on my iPhone and realize I'm sitting amongst several hundred little nippers and their surprisingly engaged parents. It's like what James Earl Jones says in Field of Dreams: "If you build it they will come."

Parents these days seem so starved for family entertainment that the studios just keep piling on one derivative 3-D digital delight after another. It's one of my familiar rants, actually. Why do today's parents keep dragging their kids to see this crap? There are so many other movies they could be taking them to.

When I was a kid, I saw every Disney release, to be sure, but most of them were classics from the Golden Age and re-released every seven or so years to capitalize on new generations of avid viewers. But these weren't the ONLY movies my parents took me to or that, when I hit the age of seven or eight, went to by myself. I saw the original Planet of the Apes and its multitude of sequels between the ages of 7 and 13. I went to all the Sinbad movies. I saw every John Wayne and Clint Eastwood western. Dad took me to see The Wild Bunch when I was 9. I remember making a deal with my Mom that if I had to sit through Mary Poppins, she had to promise to take me to see The Battle of the Bulge. Hell, I remember going to grindhouses as a kid and sitting through Hammer Horror films, motorcycle movies, war pictures and British Carry On sex comedies. And aside from Disney, I really don't remember there being that many animated movies being made, released or re-released. Going to the movies meant going to the movies - ANY MOVIES - so long as it wasn't pornography. (…and even then!)

It's not like there AREN'T movies today that are similar to the abovementioned titles. There's plenty of action, fantasy, comedies and even straight-up drama for families to see. Why then, must audiences keep encouraging the studios to grind out these mostly empty and derivative bowls of treacle?

How To Train Your Dragon, as uninteresting as it is, at least has dragons in it. But, God help me, the story is appallingly familiar. A young Viking lad wants to battle dragons like his Dad. Dad doesn't think his son is ready to do so. Boy Viking makes his mark by downing a dragon but not killing it. Then (barf!) he discovers dragons are nice and he turns his former quarry into a pet. And, guess what? I'm sure this will surprise you. I know it surprised me (though in fairness, my attention drifted between the movie and "Bejeweled", so anything would have surprised me). Viking boy teaches everybody that dragons are not what they seem. Aaawwww, isn't that nice?

And aside from the annoying digital 3-D animation that will never hold a candle to traditional animation and the equally maddening cutesy-pie voice work from an all-star cast, the biggest problem with this picture, and so many others of its ilk, is just how goddamn nice it is. Makes me want to sing "Everything is Beautiful (In Its Own Way)" or worse, "Cumbaya".

Critics who don't know any better (most of them these days) and even audiences, always have this moronic knee-jerk comment about classic Disney - that it's trite and treacly.

Uh, sorry to disillusion, you all - classic Disney often borders on straight-up horror. It's deliciously cruel and perverse. That whale in Pinocchio can still scare the shit out of me. Bambi still kicks me in the stomach when the kiddie deer's Mom is shot. Dumbo separated from his mother, teased mercilessly by everyone and drunkenly facing those "Pink Elephants on Parade" all continue to knock me on my ass and give me the willies. It was even more intense as a kid. And don't even get me started on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs - are we talking unrequited freak love, or what?

And what do we get now? We get mediocrities like How To Train Your Dragon (and now a fucking sequel which I refuse to see), designed to make everyone feel all touchy-feely, but THAT, oh sensitive ones, is more falsely corrupt a message to shovel down our kids' throats. Classic Disney toughened the little buggers up AND entertained them, but all that this contemporary stuff does is teach lessons of conformity and understanding and getting along. And of course, that stuff is important, but it's also important for kids to know that prices are paid dearly on this Earth to even begin the process of understanding and healing, that evil and terror exists, that entertainment (and healing) should not always come easily.

When I think about the best work by Spielberg like E.T. or Joe Dante's deliciously nasty Gremlins movies, I think that THESE are the ultimate family movies. Spielberg rips your heart out and Dante microwaves gremlins until they explode. Now THAT'S entertainment! For the whole family, no less.

Look, at the end of the day, you'll see a lot worse than How To Train Your Dragon, but I'm picking on it precisely because it's so offensively inoffensive and middle of the road. It's hardly illuminating and leaves little room for any real discourse of substance with your child.

"Enough," I say. Enough with the touchy-feelie, already.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ** Two Stars

How To Drain Your Dragon is available on homevideo in a handy Blu-Ray/DVD combo from Dreamworks, but do your kids a favour - rent or buy something like Splice instead.

SHARKTOPUS - Review By Greg Klymkiw - The Crown Jewel of Anchor Bay BLU-RAY "SHARK 4 Movie Collection"

NOTE: The Film Corner's Star Ratings will now appear at the end of the review.

One can never go wrong with any movie featuring a ROGER CORMAN cameo.

One can never go wrong with any movie featuring
TONS OF BABES IN BATHING SUITS!!!

Sharktopus (2010)
Dir. Declan O'Brien
Producers: Roger and Julie Corman
Starring: Eric Roberts, Kerem Bursin, Sara Malakul Lane, Liv Boughn, Hector Jimenez, Blake Lindsey

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Sharktopus is a hoot! As a matter of fact, I haven't enjoyed one of these ludicrous shark pictures so much since I saw Sharknado. The big difference is that this one is actually good. Or rather, well, maybe good isn't quite the word, but this movie delivers everything you'd want from a low-budget creature feature and with a few dollops of "and then some". This, of course, is all due to the powerhouse husband and wife producing team of Roger and Julie Corman who ensure that the film delivers massive-impact carnage, a ludicrous number of babes in swimsuits and the same, crazy sense of looney humour that Corman's stalwart tutelage delivered with such delightful 70s New World horror classics like the Joe-Dante-directed Piranha. Though Sharktopus doesn't quite soar to the heights of Dante's giddy, goofy gobble-em-up, it flies a lot higher than such lumbering big-budget creature-feature affairs like Pacific Rim and Godzilla 2014.

The mad monster of the film's title is exactly what it spells out - a shark with octopus tentacles. This allows the creature to attack its victims "normally" like "Bruce" in Jaws or coil its tentacles round the (mostly) nubile bikini-clad babes then stuff 'em down the deadly sharktopus maw and not unlike the insects in Starship Troopers, the dextrous arms are equipped spear-like tips which impale before devouring. Now before you think we're supposed to buy that a creature like this actually exists, let it be said loud and clear that sharktopus is a mad combination of genetic engineering and computers hard-wired into the brain of this human-engineered freak o' nature. Developed by a private corporation using scads of military moolah, the sharktopus is meant to be a secret weapon to be used in battle - whether against genuine countries Uncle Sam is fighting or worse, Somalian pirates, drug smugglers, various cartels and the like.

Eric Roberts is the head of the firm and his gorgeous daughter Nicole (Sara Malakul Lane) is his right hand. Unbeknownst to her, Dad has secretly rewritten the genetic code so that sharktopus becomes an unstoppable killing machine. Normally, this wouldn't be a problem for the American military, but when the computer in the creature's brain goes awry, it starts to munch anything and everything and the plucky father-daughter are ordered to track the beast down and stop it from decimating innocent people.

Luckily for everyone, sharktopus heads for the Mexican resort of Puerto Vallarta. It's lucky for us because we get nice scenery and endless frames jam-packed with babes in bikinis. It's especially lucky for producer Roger Corman on two counts. First of all, he and his co-producing wife and key crew members get a nice vacation in the famed sunny resort town.

One can never go wrong with 4 BluRays for 1 low price.

Secondly, the film's production costs will be rock bottom because it's, uh, Mexico. This might be the most important reason of all for Corman to shoot in the Land of Tacos, Tamales and Tequila.

The plot, such as it is, thickens once Eric Roberts hires a hunky, cocky shark hunter (Kerem Bursin) who very quickly falls for Roberts's babe-o-licious daughter. There are some subplots, none of which are all that important, but allow many opportunities to parade babes in front of the camera who will also get munched.

The acting ranges from barely competent to well, uh, competent, with the exception of Eric Roberts, Julia Roberts' brother, Emma Roberts' Dad and at one time, a promising and brilliant young actor during the 80s (Star 80, Runaway Train, The Pope of Greenwich Village and Raggedy Man). Roberts manages to register above the thespian Richter Scale by chewing the scenery with aplomb and oozing slime in his smarmy, villainous role.

Declan O'Brien's direction is competent at best, the special effects are so good-God-awful they're funny and the script perfunctorily hits all the checklist items a movie like this needs (mostly, opportunities for babes in bikinis to strut their stuff before being munched).

One can never go wrong with ERIC ROBERTS

Occasionally, the writing delivers individual lines of dialogue and some banter that's genuinely funny.

In the end, Sharktopus has two elements that raise it above its cellar-dweller aspirations. First of all, it features an absolutely hilarious cameo appearance by Corman as a dirty old man following a babe in a bikini on the beach who's scanning the sand with a metal detector. Corman's eyes appear to be on her ass, but just after she discovers a valuable gold doubloon in the sand, she gets dragged into the ocean by the sharktopus. Corman keeps his eyes peeled on the treasure lying in the sand, ignoring her screams for help. He retrieves the doubloon and happily saunters off. Secondly, most of the killings are delightfully hilarious and some of them border on the surreal - especially since we're treated to some ludicrous musical numbers on the stage of a resort and we get to see cheesy costumes and ethnic dancing until the sharktopus lunges itself onto dry land by using its tentacles as legs and starts eating Mexican señoritas in full traditional Mexican garb. And, of course, one of the best killings involves a mega-babe (Corman's own daughter) getting munched during a bungee jump. Seriously, can you think of any movie featuring a walking octopus/shark and a bungee-jump kill?

One can never go wrong with babes being eaten.

I thought not.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: *** Three-Stars

Sharktopus is available on a nice 4-disc/4-movie Blu-Ray set from Anchor Bay Entertainment Canada. It features a super commentary track with Corman (and his lovely wife/co-producer Julie). Both are gracious, erudite, full of terrific anecdotes and solid information about making movies. And keep your eyes peeled. The Film Corner will review all four films in this set. The other three include one more Corman production, DinoShark, as well as Jersey Shore Shark Attack and Bait.

In the meantime, feel free to order this terrific four-disc set (and any of the other wonderful Corman titles) directly from the Amazon links below and in so doing, support the ongoing maintenance of The Film Corner.