"The Human Centipede" Gives New Meaning to "Kiss My Ass"

So, I have to admit, yesterday was the first time I have seen "The Human Centipede." 

The plot: An achieved doctor known for his work in separating siamese twins at birth also is a mad scientist.  He is obsessed with conjoining human beings at the anus and the mouth; thus, making a 'human centipede.'  

One cold and raining night two American tourists in Germany (or at least a German speaking country) are driving their rental car.  They become lost on a dark and desolate road at which point their car gets a flat tire.  Neither one of the two girls know how to fix a flat tire.  They try to call the rental car place in order to have someone pick them up or fix the flat tire; however, there is no cell phone signal.  They begin to walk on the dark and desolate road, but somehow end up in the forest.  

They stumble upon a house, it begins to rain, and they bang on the door until you know who answers: the mad scientist.  He invites them in and offers them water.  They accept.  The mad scientist slips the date rape drug into their waters.  The drink the waters and pass out accordingly.  The mad scientist drags them to his "layer" and ties them to hospital gurneys.   

The mad scientist then obtains one more person, a Japanese fellow, and ties him to a hospital gurney in his "layer" next to the two American tourists.

The mad scientist then performs and operation wherein he sews one of the American girls' face, mouth open, to the anus of the Japanese guy.  The mad scientist, then, sews the other girl's face, mouth open, to the anus of the first American girl; thus, creating an ass-to-mouth 'human centipede.' You can infer the consequences of such a configuration; so, I'll let your imagination do that work.

The rest of the movie is about the doctor trying to condition, like one would do with a dog, the 'human centipede.'  

The Recommendation:

Strange movie to say the least.  I do not recommend it for anybody with a weak stomach or anyone who is not experienced in watching horror movies that push the boundaries of what can be done in the name of entertainment.  There really is not too much overt gore; however, there need not be because our imaginations are able to pick up on the pungent horrificness going on within the film.

I do recommend this movie for the experienced horror movie enthusiast.  This movie is especially suited for those who enjoy watching a film that takes you into the deep recesses of what the human psychology can label as 'enjoyable,' 'entertainment,' or even 'art.'  There is definitely some thoughtful debates about what counts as 'art' to be had after one views this film.  Those folks who are interested in that kind of debate are more likely than not going to appreciate this film rather than your average person who likes the occasional 'scary' flick.

"The Human Centipede" as of 2/6/2016 is available on Netflix.

I plan on watching "The Human Centipede 2" within the next couple of days.  So, stay tuned for a run down on that one, and a comparison to the first.

Let us know what you thought about "The Human Centipede" in the comment section.

Who's Worse: Tony Stark or The Winter Soldier

Who's worse: Tony Stark or The Winter Soldier

Comic book movie fans are more anxious than ever to see the new Captain America Civil War movie after watching the new trailer during the Superbowl. There's been a lot of buzz on the internet about people all of a sudden switching sides from Cap to Iron Man. Is it because we see Stark with a cool new gadget that helps him from being killed by the Winter Soldier? Or is it because we see War Machine is fatally wounded or even dead in his cut scene? What ever the reason we won't find out until movie comes out of course, but I recently came across a comment that said that the Winter Soldier had done more wrong than Tony Stark before he stopped making weapons. Lets look at the good and bad of each character and determine who's worse.

Good: Bucky Barnes (before becoming the Winter Soldier)

- was not a bully, he was best friends and defended Steve Rogers long before he became a super soldier
- was drafted into the Army during WWII and became the rank of Sergeant
- was a POW (prisoner of war)
- became part of the Howling Commando's
- was an amputee (wounded warrior)
- was experimented on, mind controlled, lost all memory of his former life, frozen and had his memory erased after each mission as the Soldier
- saved Captain America from drowning after remembering who he was
- takes the place of Captain America in his absence (in the comics)

Bad: Winter Soldier

- was an assassin who killed anyone from scientist to political figures
- killed Tony Starks' parents (maybe Iron Man finds out about this in the movie and goes after him)
- attempted to kill Nick Fury
- shot twice and attempted to kill Black Widow
- shot Captain America and attempted to kill him
- killed and destroyed numerous Shield agents and equipment

I'm sure there's a lot more good or bad that he had done that's not on my list. Although the Winter Soldier committed the crimes, should he really be held responsible? I know I probably sound like a lawyer, but he was not in his right state of mind. This guy is a hero in my eyes, WWII vet, POW, amputee, all in the name of defending his country. His previous life and the good deeds he has done far outweighs the bad things that he did. He was forced and did not choose to do those bad deeds. Now let's look at Iron Man.

Good: Iron Man (post capture from the Ten Rings)

- undid wrongs against the people who were using his weapons for bad/terrorism
- stopped making weapons for profit (making for self)
- made a eco friendly sustainable energy source
- provided the government with an Iron Man suit (War Machine)
- joined the Avengers and saved New York from aliens and a nuke
- took down Aldrich Killian, Whiplash
- Helped create Vision
- funded the Avengers and built them their buildings, inhanced weapons, and armor

Bad: Tony Stark (pre come to Jesus moment)

- was self centered
- sold weapons for profit and didn't care about the consequences
- was captured and held prisoner to make one his weapons under the order of his business partner  because of the lack of leadership he took in his business
- he rushes into situations without thinking
- he could have prevented Aldrich Killian from being a bad guy if he wasn't drunk and selfish
- he could have easily made Extremis for good use a long time ago (At the end of the third movie he said it was an easy problem to solve)
- responsible for creating Ultron ( although Scarlet Witch pushed him on that direction)

Like I said with the Winter Soldier, I'm sure there last a lot of good and bad that I've missed on the list. My opinion is that Bucky was and has always been a good guy at heart. Whereas Tony chose to be a self centered asshole. Don't get me wrong, I love RDJ and the Iron Man/Tony Stark character. But if you think about it most of the problems that he had faced or even the entirety of Avengers 2 were based on his actions. He has caused so many problems in his life that he wants to try to fix things before they happen. It's a very logical way to think, but I think that we're going to see the results of his actions play out in the new Captain America: Civil War movie. If you didn't know already, I'm team Cap all the way.

Tell me what you think. Are you for team Cap or team Iron Man? Will Tony finally find out that the Winter Soldier killed his parents? Wouldn't it be a great plot twist if Bucky was still under mind control throughout the entire movie and he was the one to kill Captain America?

What The Hell Did I Just Watch? "Stitches" Movie Review

Netflix, you dirty ol' bastard!  Well, I have just been tricked again by Netflix to watch a movie that I have mixed feelings about.  Let me explain.

First, let me just get the plot of this movie called 'Stitches' out into the open so you have an idea from where I am coming.

******Spoiler Altert******

Stitches is, essentially, a movie about a party clown (Stitches), who is killed within the first 10 minutes of movie as a result of receiving a kitchen knife to the face.  The rest of the movie is about Stitches coming back to life, a clown zombie if you will, and exacting his revenge on all those who have wronged him; specifically, the kids who teased him at the birthday party where he died.  

I am going to highlight the plot a bit further now in order to explain my mixed feelings about this film.

The movie begins when Stitches arrives at a kid's birthday party. Stitches, then, attempts to entertain the kids with a variety of clown tricks.  The kids are not thrilled by the clown's antics.  So, they begin to tease the clown and give him a hard time.  Specifically, one kid ties Stitches' shoe strings together (classic prank), while another kid throws a ball at Stitches causing him
to go off-balance and fall directly onto a kitchen knife that was placed, by an adult, in a dishwasher with the blade sticking straight up.

Who puts a kitchen knife in the dishwasher with he blade sticking straight up and then leaves the dishwasher open, especially with kids hyped up on cake running around???

Anyway, as I said before, Stitches falls on the knife and it goes through his left eye and out the top of his skull.  Blood, brains, and gore spray everywhere (I mean everywhere). It's hilarious the amount of blood and brains that spew from this clown's head wound.  But this is only the beginning of the gore that ensues during the rest of the movie.

At this point, Stitches is "dead" and buried in a grave yard.  The kid, who was having the birthday party, goes to the grave yard and witnesses an ancient clown ritual being performed.  Apparently, when clown's receive their official induction into the 'clownship' they are given an egg with their clown faces painted on it.  This egg is symbolic of the eternal life as a clown.  It also is the thing that ends up destroying the zombie version of Stitches at the end of the movie.

We fast forward 6 years later when the kids are adolescences in middle-school.  The former birthday boy has a pretty severe case of PTSD from the incident 6 years before.  He hallucinates frequently of people around him turning into clowns and performing gruesome acts on other people around him.  For example, one hallucination is when he is sitting in a classroom with his classmates, the teacher turns into a murderous clown, walks up to a kid and rips his dick off in the middle of class.  Then, the clown, who now has a kid's dick in his hand, trots around the classroom displaying the dick to everyone.  Oh, and as the viewers to this spectacle, we are graciously awarded the opportunity to watch the clown rip the kid's dick off while the camera is zoomed in on the entire ordeal.  So, not only do we see the dick being ripped off, but we see it up close and personal and there is plenty of flesh ripping imagery to accompany it.

Shortly after that entertaining sequence (can I call it entertaining???), we learn that it is the hallucinating kid's birthday again.  So, the kid wants to have a birthday party.  He invites the entire school over to his house and a ton of people show up.

During the party, Stitches is magically resurrected from the grave and on a mission to kill all of the kids responsible for his death.  The rest of the movie is about Stitches cleverly and creatively killing a bunch of kids.  For example, he kicks a kid's head off, stabs a girl through the eye with an umbrella, uses a ice-cream scooper to scoop a kid's brains out of his head while simultaneously making an ice-cream sunday; only instead of ice-cream, Stitches uses brains, and disembowels a one guy turning the removed bowel in a balloon animal; specifically, a dog.  All of these acts are accompanied by exaggerated gore, blood spewing, raunchy carnage, screaming, and howling cries of pain by Stitches' victims as they are mutilated.

The movie ends with the birthday boy destroying the egg with Stitches' clown face drawn on it.  When the egg is destroyed, Stitches explodes, but get this, he explodes and the resulting carnage is egg yolk.  And once Stitches is dead, everybody lives happily ever after.

Or do they???

Alright, let me return to what I started this post out with; namely, that I have mixed feelings about this movie.  However, I must first make a confession.  While writing this post I realized something -- I love this movie.  The hyperbolic gore, blood, bad acting, and overall raunchiness speaks to me in a way that I want an independent B-horror movie to speak.  I don't expect this kind of movie to have a good plot or character depth.  I watch these movies because I want to be grossed out, but I also want laugh at the grossness.  Let's call Stitches what it is, a low budget gross out film, and, as such, I can assure you that it delivers.

I don't need to bother recommending this movie because if you are a fan of B-horror movies, then you already know what Stitches is all about.  And if you don't like B-horror movies, then there is no need to waste time trying to convince you that you should watch it.  This movie was made for a particular audience and they know who they are.  However, for those of you who are on the fence about it, give it 15 minutes and if after that you don't like it, turn it off because chances are that you won't like the rest.

As of 2/5/2016 'Stitches' is available on Netflix (US).

When Are Sequels And Trilogies Appropriate?

How annoying is it to wait for the third or final installment of a movie and find out that there is going to be a "part 2" you have to wait until the next year to see.  Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.  Let's look at a few examples.

Recently they've done this with The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, and Twilight Breaking Dawn.  Is it necessary for them to do this?  What is the motivation for setting up a scenario wherein there is a part two to a sequel or trilogy?

Money and greed seem to be the first two answers coming to mind, especially with The Hunger Games franchise.  Not knowing anything about the story at the time, I was intrigued to read the books after watching the first movie. The final book was about the same length of the other books but not as good.  As a matter of fact, I felt like the author was rushed to finish the book. For how bad the book was, I couldn't believe that they would make the film adaptation a two-parter.  Part one was especially drawn out; one movie would have been better in this case in stead of two.

With a film series like Harry Potter, I'll have to go with the old saying that the books are better than the movie. That being said, there's so much detail in the books that they don't have time for in the movie unless the movie is over three or four hours long.  I think that the Deathly Hallows having two parts was acceptable because it had a good pace, they were hitting on critical points, and they didn't stray from the story.  The films didn't have everything from the book but it was enough to keep the viewer satisfied.

The new Hobbit movies royally pissed me off.  After reading the book as a kid and watching the cartoon movie adaptation, for them to make three movies out of this book is just ridiculous and greedy.  It was good going back to Middle-Earth and reliving the memories of our favorite characters from Lord Of The Rings, but there were so many parts in these movies that were long, drawn out, and boring. Boring to the point where I fell asleep multiple times during the second and third films. I could understand having two movies, but definitely not three.

Are there anymore movies out there that hve multiple sequels that are not necessary?

Do you think this trend will grow and be part of movies from now on?

Let us know what you think.