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Brian-of-Stewart
Reviews
The Great Wall (2016)
Zhang Yimou's latter day masterpiece
I'm not going to spend time in this review talking about what everyone else has already devoted ample time to; the special effects, the Matt Damon, the whitewashing or the creature feature. To me, this is a Zhang Yimou film through and through. Since his earliest films Judou, Raise the Red Lantern, and later Hero, Yimou's lens has always been fascinated by the mechanics of how things function (imperial society, bureaucracy, the army) which this film delivers again and again and again. The real star here is the mechanics of how the Nameless Order, The Wall and the beasts known as Tao Tei function. Not a single detail goes unnoticed. Striking flints are found in giant stone wheel wells on the arms of archers, Tao Tei return to collect their dead upon retreat, the wall itself hides a manpower machine of turning wheels, hidden weapons, and multiple stories of infrastructure. It's a beautiful reality based fantasy that takes things to ridiculous extremes. There is nothing that elicits more pure joy than the primary color coded army; among their ranks a squad of hot lady dragoons who bungee jump from a perch upon high into the fray brandishing Final Fantasy length lances. What the filmmakers have conjured here is pure myth but grounded just enough in the real history of the world with a deliciously Chinese backstory and more than its fair share of spectacle that borders on steampunk.
The Heart, She Holler (2011)
You'll Need A Fire Bath to Feel Clean After
The stuff you'll see in this 15 minute show will tear open a part of your psyche that was used in primordial times to defend against the creeping darkness of nonexistence. It's not for the faint at heart or the strong at heart but for the cowardly pond scum that need the answers to the great mysteries of the universe but are afraid to raise their hands in class for fear of losing them to ceiling fans. It's terrible. It's wonderful. It's full of groaning puns, devilish wordplay and scene after scene of Lynch/Cronenberg body horror and mysticism but like scribbled in an eight grader's notebook and set on fire in a trashcan filled with Sloppy Joe leavings. . . It's a grotesque gargoyle baby. It's also funny, and unwatchable. What I'm trying to say is PFFR. You should already know if this is worth watching from the title alone.