Saturday, January 17, 2009

Capsule Reviews, Including Salo!

Salo: The 120 Days of Sodom

*

Being an adventurous filmgoer interested in extremely controversial films, I was eager to see Salo. I had seen most of the “big names” on the “most disturbing movies of all time” lists, except for this one. Unfortunately, this movie is garbage. It’s poorly written and a complete waste of time. It has zero character development, despite there being about a million characters. It’s way, way, way, way too long and has virtually no story. It’s exhaustingly repetitive. It’s mind-numbingly boring and totally fails to engage the audience. It’s not entertaining in the slightest. It’s a chore to sit through. In fact, I fast-forwarded through much of the second half of the movie, just because so very little was happening.

The film is indeed extremely disgusting and unnecessarily gross: the entire thing is little else than scene after scene of gratuitous rape, child abuse, and people eating copious amounts of shit and urine. Does it deserve the title of “most notorious film of all time?” In my opinion, no. In The Realm of the Senses is far more disturbing (especially in the sexual sense), far more explicit, and also a far superior film. Salo is laughably pretentious (supposedly a “critique of fascism”—gimme a break! How many turds did Mussolini eat?!) and should be avoided at all costs. It’s exactly the kind of steaming pile of shit that the film’s characters are so obsessed with eating.

Note: many of the users on IMDB aren’t impressed with this movie either.

Trip With The Teacher (1975)

**1/2

A bunch of biker dudes harass a school bus full of hot chicks out in the middle of nowhere. Rape and killing ensues. It is what it is: a low-budget exploitation flick. It’s not as good as Malibu High, but may please some fans of the genre.

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