tawdry_hepburn

When you were a kid did you ever have crazy, bizarre nightmares filled with images right of Salvador Dali's psycho-analysis sessions? Well, if you didn't, now you can pretend you did thanks to Xavier Renegade Angel.

Xavier Renegade Angel is an intensely surreal (even by Adult Swim standards) show from Wonder Showzen creators, PFFR. It's about a freakish man beast who is covered in fur, has 6 nipples, backwards knees, a third eye where his penis should be, a snake for a hand, an eagles beak, and Heterochromia, who wanders America trying to find spiritual fulfillment and the identity of the man who killed his parents. Unfortunately for Xavier and everyone with whom he comes into contact, he has no spiritual insight whatsoever, and remains totally oblivious to the fact that he was the one who killed his parents, even though their ghosts tell him so repeatedly. He most often ruins the lives of those he is trying to help while failing to grasp even the most basic truths about the world around him. At the end of each episode Xavier knows even less about the world than he did at the beginning.

I could write 1000 words on how Xavier employs Brechtian narrative elements and uses alienation to allow the viewer to perceive reality with disinterested contemplation. Or how it acts as a reader for the work of Jean Baudrillard. Or how it brilliantly remixes elements of Foucault, Judith Butler, Hegel, Marx, Kant, Nietzsche, Douglas Adams, Vonnegut, Gogol, Voltaire, Ginsberg, Beckett, T.S. Eliot, E. E. Cummings, and David Foster Wallace with an art style that is heavily influenced by the proto-Dada work of the Die Bruke and Blue Rider movements of the Weimar Republic. But it's one of those things where if you don't already know, I probably couldn't tell you.

Xavier is not a show for everyone, or even most anyone. It is vile, obnoxious, mean-spirited, confusing, and really ugly to look at thanks to CGI graphics made by a company that usually does economy class video game cut scenes. However, if you can see beyond the aggressively alienating exterior of the show you will discover a razor sharp Juvenilian satire of American Bourgeois values that makes salient points about the hypocrisy of mainstream and subculture ranging from hippies and environmentalists to neo-cons and fundamentalists.

The wonderful thing about Xavier is how high brow/low brow it is. The program goes well out of its way to ask complex, soul searching questions about the nature of reality and humanity's inability to perceive truth, but then asks these questions using the most base and puerile dick and fart jokes imaginable. During the best episodes of season 2 there are some 40 jokes a minute thanks to its triple and quadruple-entendre dialogue. And though the creators designed the show to look as unappealing as possible, underneath the hideous character design there is actually some really inventive and boundary pushing use of the camera going on.

Upon a first viewing, most will notice the sparse, clipped dialogue featuring words seemingly arbitrarily echoing into infinity, but after seeing a few episodes it becomes clear that this is a stylistic choice. Every time the vocals abruptly cut it signals the viewer to some type of wordplay within the sentence. Clips and phrases like "Take that! Taste the pain!" repeat in all 20 episodes in different contexts, sometimes dropped in in the middle of other words. It's really mind-bending stuff. Meanwhile, the echoing effect is most often used to recall a reference to a previous episode or else to highlight a piece of new age jargon that the show is mocking.

At first glance Xavier seems like a show with less plot than Family Guy, every two minutes or so there is a bizarre plot twist that seems to come from nowhere and lead nowhere. One of the best episodes begins with Xavier trying to sell road kill to a restaurant and ends with a prostitute aura (who provides aural sex to the point of soul-jaculation) causing the end of the world with a spiritually transmitted disease. Along the way the episode also touches on huffing glue (as well as snorting tacs and shooting staples), bestiality, cannibalism, and camels that open up to reveal machine guns. It's pretty abstract and incredibly weird, but upon second and third repeat each episode begins to come together. Instead of seeming random, the show's intricacies come into view, with each successive turn clearly foreshadowed and generally motivated by larger thematic elements. The show employs nonstandard narrative structure and deeply couched post-modern plotting that can be difficult to decipher, but is very rewarding if you're willing to put in the effort.

Basically, if you love An Andalusian Dog, Beyond Good and Evil and Freddy Got Fingered all in equal measure, then Xavier Renegade Angel is for you.

"Saw" was never a franchise that was designed to last. The first film made a point of killing off every main character save one who was already dying of an inoperable brain tumor. But, when a movie grosses 100 times its budget filmmakers tend to find untapped wells of ingenuity.

"Saw VI" tells a story that is almost certainly incomprehensible to those who have not seen the previous five films. The entire plot hinges on the reveal of an element first introduced in "Saw III" and details the rise of a character who made his debut as a glorified extra. The entire twist ending is predicated upon one's memory of a secondary character who is never even on screen during this feature except during a brief flashback. It's some straight up "Star Trek" level minutia.

Because of this, a plot summary is useless. You either know what to expect, in which case it is best to see the movie completely cold, or you've already determined that you don't care. Suffice it to say, John "Jigsaw" Kramer and Amanda Young are still dead, (as they have been since part three) and Agent Hoffman is still on the loose, trying to teach more people to appreciate life. Then things get complicated.

"Saw" has always worked under a strange moral code, espousing a bizarre brand of carpe diem philosophy spoken by serial killer who seems to think that he is saving people by throwing them in pits of used needles or forcing them to cut off their feet. This philosophy has long been an albatross for the series because Jigsaw's ideas are, to put it bluntly, completely idiotic. The result of these tests would likely be a crippling case of post-traumatic stress disorder, not a moment of truth.

"Saw VI" works hard to solve this problem. For the first time in series history Jigsaw is shown to be maybe the slightest bit mentally unsound. This is a small but important step as the series makes infinitely more sense and is far more chilling if Jigsaw is taken as a David Berkowitz type instead of some sort of blood and guts Buddha. Simultaneous to this, the filmmakers have finally created a cast of victims who might well deserve their fate. Thinking back, it's actually quite surprising that it took five sequels to get to a trap where loan sharks are forced to contend with Shylock's infamous demand of "A pound of Flesh".

While many have anticipated a jump to the supernatural for several entries, few if any guessed that Saw would ever become a political story. You see, "Saw VI" is just as much about the current healthcare reform debate as it is about soap opera plot twists. In one scene Jigsaw literally says the words "Medical decisions should be made by Doctors and patients" before going on to equate HMO's with murderous thugs. And while the political polemic elements are perhaps a bit overcooked, they do imply a level of effort on the part of the filmmakers that goes beyond the call of duty. The social consciousness of Jason Voorhees' sixth outing began and ended with a happy face symbol made of blood.

Longtime series editor Kevin Greutert moves to the director's chair for this entry and his experience with the franchise shines through. He has clearly been planning for this opportunity for quite some time, and he makes the most of it, combining the indie grunge of the original with the flashy scene transitions of the sequels all while expanding the color palette, steadying the ADHD afflicted cinematography and toning down the ultra-violence.. This is almost certainly the best looking part six the horror genre has ever seen. Keeping pace with the direction is a slick, fast, and occasionally inventive screenplay by Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton, who handedly outdo their work on the previous two films.

Everything that was wrong with the five previous films is still wrong here. The sets still look like those of a movie made for about a million dollars, the actors are mostly second rate and the logic is tenuous within a real world scenario. The dialogue is occasionally as cringe inducing as the gory set pieces and the script makes excessive use of expository tape recordings in place of legitimate character development. And yet, I had a damn good time.

This film is easily the best since part two, and somehow actually made me want to see part seven. For those already invested in the series "Saw VI" is a Halloween treat. It's smarter than the previous three and it features some of the series most interesting traps. It even gives you a little something to talk about after the credits roll. Most will hate it sight unseen, but those who show up to watch, "Saw VI" is better than it has any right to be.

Conning Linguists: The Brothers Bloom In a summer full of dumber than dumb spectacle, and subtext free action porn "The Brothers Bloom" is a breath of fresh air.

With wit, warmth, and beautiful settings galore the film creates a delightfully wacky alternate world full of whimsy, romance, and adventure.

At the beginning of the film we meet two orphaned brothers, Stephen Bloom (Mark Ruffalo) and Bloom Bloom (Adrien Brody). From the age of 10, the brothers are con-artists, always spinning yarns and creating characters, inventing new and increasingly elaborate ways of separating their mark from his money while also giving him exactly what he wants in life. Everything changes when Bloom decides to get out of the game and Stephen lures him in for one last swindle—a beautiful and quirky millionaire (Rachel Weisz) who yearns for a taste of adventure.

The Brothers Bloom is the second feature from writer/director Rian Johnson. He previously took the indie world by storm with his award winning debut, "Brick". As with "Brick" Johnson again takes elements of several fallow genres and remixes them into something that feels both new and old all at once. The result is nothing short of magical. The characters pop off the screen and the dialogue and images loop back in on themselves making winking references that are sure to inspire fits of giggles from anyone who stayed awake during AP Lit. But, even if you don't recognize the title as a Dostoevsky reference, the film is sure to entertain.

At the center of it all is Brody who is tasked with playing the straight man during the film's increasingly convoluted comic twists and turns. Perpetually at his side is Ruffalo, who has great fun playing the off the wall, yet always-sincere idea man who writes his schemes the way Russians write novels. The chemistry between the duo is infectious. It's like the two have known each other for their entire lives. They could not look less similar, and yet one never questions their bond.

Weisz is absolutely electric as the object of Brody's affections and the subject of Ruffalo's confidence game. She plays the kind of bubbly, strange woman that really only exists in movies but imbues her with a quiet sadness that grounds the entire picture and ensures that the more surreal elements never take too much of a hold on the film.

Though there is only one large-scale explosion, "The Brothers Bloom" demands the big screen treatment. It was filmed all over Europe and South America and the locations are used to great effect. These aren't sound stages, and it really makes a difference. Every shot is impeccably framed, it's as if Hal Ashby shot "The Sting".

The film is not for all tastes. It requires attention from the viewer, and plays at a leisurely pace compared to many films currently in theaters, and some of the more action oriented beats don't quite gel with the rest of the film, but for those who can appreciate a story that gives itself room to breath, and for those willing to forgive the overly long third act, there is plenty to love.

Most of the movies coming out over the next few months are simply product, attractive, eye catching, and ultimately little more than 90 minute advertisements for the sequel. Not so with "The Brothers Bloom." If you've got a girlfriend and you owe her a decent date movie you can't do much better than this. If you have a boyfriend and you don't want to make him suffer through "Ghosts of Girlfriends Past" this is a great choice. If you've already seen all the action spectaculars, here's something else to see. Or, you know, if you just like good movies