Rabbit Proof Fence: The Hitler Chronicles

Hello all!

Riddick-ulous here, writing from the public computer desk in the Somerset College staff room. I've just had the opportunity to watch the film Rabbit Proof Fence - we were showing it to our grade 10 English class in preparation for their next unit of work - and I quite enjoyed it. However, as with most films, there were a few aspects I wanted to bring attention to. So, strap yourselves in and enjoy the ride!



What you see above is what would be perceived as a largely inspirational and wholly tragic image. Rabbit Proof Fence is a true story based on the recollections of one Molly Craig, a young Aboriginal girl and one of "The Stolen Generation". The story follows Molly and her younger sister and cousin as they are taken from their family by the Chief Protector of Aborigines - a title I think this man made up to distract himself from the obvious lack of self confidence lurking within - thrown on a truck and carted off to what can only be called a concentration camp; only with less gas chambers and more throat-stuffing religion.

The trio are forced to dress in white and sleep on an old fold-out military stretcher in a room already brimming with other stolen children and a solitary tin bucket for a toilet. It would be matched only by the Japanese P.O.W. camps run during World War II if it weren't for the Fascist nuns and grinding church sessions. Molly eventually makes the decision that she would rather walk 1500 kilometres than sit through another of "Mr. Devil's" sermons (what the children call the Chief Protector of Aborigines). So, off they trek, into the heart of the Australian desert to find their way home. I'll leave the plot there partly because I hate spoiling movies for people but also because I'm just lazy.

Instead, I'll bring the focus down to the real issue I wanted to focus on in this review and one which I have hinted at a few times already. This is primarily "Mr. Devil's" extreme likeness to a certain dictator. If you haven't guessed it already then I recommend you stop trying to join in on discussions you don't understand. Regardless, I will tell you. I refer, of course, to the friend to the world, Adolf Hitler. It's phenomenal how similar these two men are and I don't just mean physically. I would imagine if "Mr. Devil" had as much determination as Hitler and just a little more political pull, he would have gone as far as to kill off all of the "half-castes" rather than just kidnap and imprison them. So, here's the first example...



Above, we see Mr. Hitler - I've decided this is what I'm going to call him from now on - presenting photographs of what later generations of Aborigines can look like if their heritage is diluted by years of interracial marriages; a process he refers to as "Breeding Out". This is certainly a less extreme version of what Adolf himself accomplished during the Second World War but this doesn't necessarily make it any different. As I've mentioned, this was the first time I had seen this film and Mr. Hitler really is one of those people you just wish would stop being stupid and maybe do something with his life that doesn't involved decimating our native culture. Decades later, of course, both John Howard and Kevin Rudd have felt it necessary to issue an apology to Aborigines everywhere as if it would fix anything their predecessors deemed as reasonable action.

From a realistic point of view however, this seems oddly similar to curb stomping your own brother in front of your entire family and years later giving his grandchildren cookies and milk as compensation - the phrase "Don't say you're sorry, just don't do it..." comes to mind. It is quite a meaningless venture; opting to apologise to a group of people generations away from those who suffered the atrocities, especially when you didn't actually do anything to them in the first place. I know the apology was supposed to be directed at their ancestors on behalf of our own but I don't think it was anything more than another way to gain good publicity from the Australian masses. I'm not saying Aborigines don't deserve some kind of compensation but to me, "sorry" just doesn't cut it.


(And in the background here, we see Herr Himmler... and... his "SS" pooch.)

And of course a photograph of Adolf for comparison...


(Don't you just want to ruffle his hair and call him adorable names?)

Okay, so I cut and pasted the moustache in but if Mr. Hitler could grow a moustache, I'd have money on it coming out like that. What really shocked me was not finding out when this film was set until the very end. Here I was, spending the entire movie thinking it was after World War II and that Mr. Hitler was inspired by the legend himself; I was oh so wrong! It seems Adolf took a leaf from the Chief's book and decided a high-cut hair style, square moustache and Fascist regime would suit as both a solid career and fashion choice. Here's another photograph just for your amusement...


("Look out Mein Herr! Zer iz a member of ze inferior race behind you! He's coming to destroy our illusions of grandeur!")

I just can't seem to get past the fact that this guy was essentially a less successful version of Hitler. If the real Chief Protector of Aborigines looked like this then maybe it actually was Hitler in his earlier years. Maybe he wasn't quite ready to take on the entire Hebrew race so he started small... with the entire race of Indigenous Australians. I see this happening in much the same way I could see Arnold Schwarzenegger lifting toy trucks as a child and perching Raggedy-Anne dolls on his tiny biceps.

It's all a preamble as far as I'm concerned.

Yours sincerely,

Riddick-ulous.

Starship Troopers Franchise

Greetings all!

Today, a good friend of mine suggested I post this review I wrote a while ago and I agreed that it was a good idea. So here it is, enjoy!

For those of you out there in internet land who are die hard Starship Troopers fans; regardless of how many of you there are, I suggest you stop reading this review right…now. I say this because I can guarantee that my next few comments will surely offend; but first, a brief history lesson.

The Starship Troopers franchise began as a sci-fi novel written by former Navy Officer, Robert A. Heinlein. The book was first published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction in the later months of 1959 and was soon after published as a hard cover novel the same year. The book is written in the first person narrative and follows the life and military career of Juan Rico, the blond-haired, blue-eyed (Hitler Youth anyone?) protagonist we know from the first and third films as Johnnie Rico. We are taken on an interstellar journey throughout mankind’s struggle against a species of large alien arachnoids known to most as “the Bugs”. With extreme overtones of what could only be called political and social abuse and violence being the solution to most if not all of life’s problems, the novel sparked much controversy among critics and readers alike. As of late last year, the franchise has warranted three films (only one of which I think actually deserves to be called a film), a CGI television series and two video games, both decent in their own right.

I recently re-watched the first Starship Troopers film directed by Paul Verhoeven and I must say it’s still as good as when I first saw the slightly boy band-ish Casper Van Dien jumping around in tight fitting pants and body armour that looks like it couldn’t stop a French fry. This movie begins by hitting viewers with a barrage of overzealous recruitment advertisements, shortly after which we are introduced to the dashing young college student, ‘Johnnie’ Rico, his somewhat frigid tease of a girlfriend, Carmen Ibanez, and his best friend and resident smart-arse respectively; ‘Dizzy’ Flores and Carl Jenkins. It’s always up for debate but from my perspective, each of the characters brought something useful and interesting to the table; however Carmen rather got on my nerves. What really annoyed me about this character was she was so smug about having Rico wrapped around her ring finger (Gumby himself would suffer serious spinal re-adjustments had he been in Johnnie’s place), that she barely showed even fake remorse for not returning his “I love you” as she was about to leave to join the Terran fleet. You see what you do to us, ladies? It’s always so push and pull with you lot. Although I can’t deny that women in cinema have had their fair share of being messed around. All the same, this particular big-lipped excuse for a woman is rather cruel in the way she treats our poor pretty boy protagonist

Can I just add as a side note; Denise Richards genuinely freaks me out. It’s like someone was working on a pair of teleportation pods and when testing it with a fish, Denise Richards accidentally got into the same pod as the fish and when they came out of the other pod, the two had switched lips. So remember this dear readers, somewhere out there is a trout with woman’s lips.

Anyway, getting back on topic; the other nerve-poking thing about the entire first half of the movie was Rico’s outright refusal to believe that his long time friend and admirer, Dizzy, was a much better option for him than the aforementioned ‘Fish-lips’. Not only was she beautiful, she was also tough, intelligent, and completely stark raving mad about ‘Johnnie’. On a more chauvinistic note she was even willing to put out for him. Surely this isn’t as important as her other qualities but at the same time it’s ridiculously annoying to get jerked around by the girl you think you love and one hell of a relief to finally get a girl who knows what she wants.

So by now, ‘Johnnie’ and ‘Dizzy’ have signed up for the Mobile Infantry, Carl has gone off to become an officer for the Earth’s psychic division and old ‘Fish-lips’ has gone off to become some form of metal space-birdie and eventually cheat on and leave ‘Johnnie’ Rico only to see her new ‘fly-boy’ boyfriend get his brains sucked out by a giant grub made almost entirely of stolen grey matter (And yes, I genuinely hate that girl). Despite my issues with Denise Richards’ existence, I would definitely rate this movie highly for not only its surprisingly decent acting but also incredible special effects for it’s time. Even the plot was much stronger than the franchise’s later instalments. But hey, I’m not here to review the good film of the three. I’m here to review the one that was quite horrible but strangely enough the nearest adaptation of the novel in terms of political and social themes. As I am quite conscious of length with all of my writing I will keep this next plot synopsis as short as possible. Mainly because I don’t remember much about the second film but also because I don’t particularly want to.

So just briefly, the second movie, Starship Troopers 2: Hero of the Federation was really nothing special. I was also slightly disturbed when I saw an actress who had played the captain of a ship in the previous film and who was crushed to death by a giant steel door, now playing a completely different character. Aside from the fact that this film had nothing to do with the story or characters of the first one, it was still bearable to watch. This sequel is set on some barren wasteland of a planet abandoned by the Terran Forces long ago because of a devastating infestation of Bugs. We follow a group of soldiers, pilots and technicians as they attempt to get one of the planet’s research stations up and running in order to find out what really happened at the time of the Bug invasion. The one thing that caught my eye about this film was the introduction of the Mind Control Bugs only ever seen (to the best of my recollection) in the 1999 CGI television series. Anyway, the Arachnid menace attempts to take the base back by first sending wave after wave of Warrior Bugs at the humans. When this fails they resort to ninja-like tactics, sending in the Mind Control Bugs to go to work on their unsuspecting victims. Those who are ‘mind-jacked’ by these nasty little critters turn black at the fingertips and take an extreme liking to sugar cubes and sex. You would think this kind of behavioural alteration would be easily noticeable but maybe this particular party undertakes rituals during which people dip their fingers in dry ice and have sweet, sugary orgies and all of this is seen as common behaviour. More or less all of the characters die save the protagonist and some tough guy who was locked up for killing his entire unit when they were stationed at the research centre before the first Bug attack. Regardless of all his efforts to survive, he ends up sacrificing himself to allow the protagonist time to escape on a drop ship conveniently only spacious enough for one more passenger.

The third instalment in this series, Starship Troopers 3: Marauder is a completely different batch of Bug droppings and I mean this in the most literal way. The film seems in some respects to carry on from the first film. It is something like 15-20 years later and ‘Johnnie’ Rico has now worked his way up to being a General. The movie doesn’t put so much focus into having a solid plot as it does emphasising that the human race is now a bunch of morally retarded, suicidal, serial fascists to say the least. Said ‘lack of plot’ also saves me from ranting on about how predictable yet shockingly unexpected the various plot developments are. All I’ll say is that if you’re merely a casual Starship Troopers fan, then you may want to stay away from this film (unless you like being bible bashed). However, die-hard fans of the series may enjoy it quite a bit considering its similarity to the original novel.

Unfortunately it’s much less provocative than the book, mostly thanks to the obviously minuscule budget and fatal deficiency of support from the film industry and its public. There are some things I would like to make clear regarding a couple of the themes of this film. Point number one; this movie was so sickeningly filled with religious content that the pope himself would sooner slit his wrists and send himself to H.E double hockey sticks than grant it a second viewing. Punto número dos; this movie was so sickeningly filled with extreme American patriotism in a kind of “we’ll hang you on national television if you protest our God-given right to blow shit up” kind of way that Dick Cheney would sooner move to fund Al Qaeda than…never mind.

In summary, let me again mention that the first film still remains at the top of the pile for special effects, acting quality and consistency of plot. I must admit that there were some interesting aspects to the third film such as the introduction of the new breeds of bugs and the use of the hardly-touched-on marauder suits. Unfortunately for this film’s reputation (non-existent though it seemed being a straight-to-DVD release) there were some rather morale-breaking properties within that made me want to track down the people who made it, break into their rooms in the middle of the night and proceed to rape their brains out through their eye sockets with a rusty blade screaming “what the hell were you thinking?” over and over. This film is by far the worst of the three (and that includes the television series which was actually pretty decent) and deserves a one out of five for making me laugh so hard I jarred my knees when I fell to the floor in an uncontrollable seizure.

Yours sincerely,

Riddick-ulous.

The Promotion

Greetings once again!

Tonight, I rented and watched The Promotion, starring Seann William Scott and John C. Reilly.
It seems I was mistaken in my judgement of this particular film upon merely reading the blurb on the back of the DVD case. On the front cover, Jeff Craig from Sixty Second Preview even labelled this film as being "Terrifically smart and funny." Take a look...



It's strange because I could have sworn that when something is classified as smart and funny, it makes you laugh. I have to admit, I did not laugh once throughout the entire film. I barely even smiled. This leads me to believe that all if not most one-line reviews located on the covers of DVDs are simply puff pieces written to sell the film. I bet Jeff Craig doesn't even exist but if he does and did indeed write that one-line review, then it would seem he only watched sixty seconds of it as stated in his company's name. Usually I love John C. Reilly's films and Seann William Scott - well, let's just say you can't live with him and you can't kill him. I don't mind his existence but what annoys me is that he had to rely on the stupidity of his character "Stifler" seen in the original series of American Pie films - before they decided to swap out all of the actors for a group of people who no one had ever seen prior - in order to get laughs. In fact, as much as I liked the movie "Dude, Where's My Car?" the first few times, it was the same premise at base value.

You'd think one would realise that after doing so many films in which one played a character who was essentially stupid and getting laughs, that this formula works quite well and that trying anything else, especially an intelligent comedy, would be nothing short of possessing the IQ of one's previous roles. I don't really know why I established Seann as "one" just then, it's not as if anyone reading this is unclear about who I'm referring to. Reilly on the other hand, seems to still be playing the rather less intelligent character, an ironically intelligent move on his part considering that even though he is a smart man, he is also very good at playing stupid but funny characters.

I'd also like to address the line seen underneath the main title on the cover. It clearly states "From the writer of The Pursuit of Happyness". I would just like to say that I actually liked that film and that I believe Will Smith really made that role his own and was just a genuinely brilliant choice to play the character. If I may, I would like to perform a brief exercise for all of those who've seen The Pursuit of Happyness. For those of you who are uninitiated with this film, feel free to skip this section. Okay, are you ready?

I'm going to begin by revealing to you that in the movie The Promotion, Seann William Scott also narrates throughout the film via voice over. Now I want you to close your eyes and try to remember whatever you can of The Pursuit of Happyness. Make sure it's a scene you can remember quite clearly; a scene you can recall some of the lines from. Once you've captured that scene in your mind, take Will Smith out of the picture and replace him with Seann William Scott. Now play the scene over in your head with Seann reciting all of Will's lines. It just doesn't seem right does it?

All in all, I felt that The Promotion had very little substance plot-wise. Although it appeared to be deep, to me it seemed more like a high school student rambling on and on about the same point in an essay so that he could fill up the word limit. I was tempted to stop the film about halfway through but decided to keep watching considering I had paid $4.95 for this movie and was going to stick with it in the hope that some form of climax would reveal itself and the movie would get interesting.

This never happened.

The action in the film remained quite flat and even though some form of conflict did appear, it was never resolved. Rather than trying to solve their problems, pushing through to the end and growing in the process, one protagonist got exactly what he wanted, the other simply went back to where he had come from. It almost felt like watching an episode of South Park that just wasn't funny and consisted of nothing slightly interesting because I was sure that, had there been a sequel to this movie, nothing in the normal world would have really changed and even though *Kenny was killed by a giant fiery boulder in the previous episode, he still would be alive and well in the next.

I'm really not sure what prompted me to rent this movie. I'd not heard anything about it, I'd not seen any trailers, I didn't even know if it had been in cinemas or not. All I know is, prior to tonight, I had rented and watched every other film I found interesting contained within that video store and thus, was given the opportunity to know how a student dubbed team captain feels when he has to choose the uncoordinated kid because he's the only one who hasn't been assigned a team.

I give this film a two out of five for trying - in very much the same way I would give a lower-functioning autistic child a golden star because he spelled his name correctly on his exam paper.

Yours sincerely,

Riddick-ulous.

*I used Kenny being killed in South Park as a perfect example for comparison of a show in which almost nothing ever changes from episode to episode.

Movie Posters: a Retrospective

Greetings readers!
Over the past couple of years, the 'professionals' of the film industry have been struggling to produce original movie ideas. "Oh deary me!" I hear you say. "So tell us, what ever could be their chosen solution to this madness?"
Well, I think you should see this for yourself so I've taken the liberty of posting up some examples.

Enjoy!

Riddick-ulous.

So, let us begin. This is the first example I would like to show you all. Please, examine this first poster carefully.



Notice this; it is seemingly normal for a comedy movie poster. Two well known male actors positioned in the foreground and possessing reasonably happy expressions and two more or less unknown female actors positioned so far back that you could barely recognise them even if they had noticeable careers. Oh I do love the dynamics of the American film industry...

Now take a look at this one...

Oh look! Contrasting photographs! What a surprise! Personally I see this as the black man's response to the aforementioned film, "The Promotion".
The differences are even so spectacular that they circle around and become similarities. Think about it; on the one hand, we have two happy white guys wearing black suits with two white women in the background. On the other; two black men - one rather angry at the other - wearing white suits with no women in the background. Okay, so I don't know what there being no women in the background of this second poster has to do with anything but I'm just going to assume it's yet another way for Western society to continue treading on the dreams of African-Americans.

"No, Mr. black man! You certainly cannot have any of our women gosh darn it! Now please leave my property before you spread your evil, fun loving ways to my white, Anglo-Saxon family!"

Oki-day kiddies! Time for example number two! Take a look...



Once again, we have a perfectly reasonable and rather snazzy idea for a movie poster. It draws you in and makes you want to know what the movie is really about. Besides, cracked glass just looks awesome.

And here's our second contestant...



Okay, so really? Did they run out of ideas that quickly? These films were released in the same fucking year! How unimaginative must the minds of the film industry have to be to go ahead and release two completely different films belonging to two completely different genres with two completely different ratings and land on the exact same idea for a movie cover? It's just fucking uncanny! The actor seen middle-left even looks like Andy Garcia!

All this really does is convince me every director, producer and writer in Hollywood is secretly a pre-pubescent school girl and they all call each other before they go into final production to make sure they've designed the same poster so that they'll look cool when they both get released in the same year and all the other girls will be jealous.

And so we come to our third and final example for this post. This one isn't necessarily a comparison of two movie posters; more just a result of my boredom and something I thought would be funny. Okay, here's the first one...



First, let me just say that this is by far one of the most disgusting things I have ever witnessed. I actually sat and watched a baby monster skull fuck some lesbian or something - I don't know... She had short hair and seemed to be wearing comfortable shoes - and then proceed to empty its baby "baby-gravy" 6 inches deep in her throat. Ladies, if the thought of this does not make you want to take up celibacy, you have issues. But anyway, that's not the focus of this analysis. I'd like to draw significant attention to the power of language. I just think it's amazing how adding a few extra words or even a couple of extra letters to another word can change its meaning completely. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you my take on the sequel to this gruesome horror story...



That's right... I went there.

Just to stray from the beaten path for a moment, I never did understand why you would feel the need to put the same characters on a poster twice. Although I suppose I could just throw this in with my "Western Society is trying to subjugate the black man" theory. After all, it's Greg Kinnear and Radha Mitchell - both white people - and who gets only the single poster appearance? Morgan Freeman, that's who. And shock-horror, he's black!

But more to the point, as seen in the "Feast" poster, the two are almost kissing. Sure, that monster doesn't have lips but should that mean he can't enjoy a good snog now and again. I guess if you were to flip the second poster anti-clockwise, mirror the image and then expand it a bit you would have more or less the same movie poster. Hmmm... Now I'm actually interested to try that. I'll be right back...



Ha! It seems to have worked!
"Look out Radha! It's a ravenous family of Greg Kinnears! They're coming to kill everyone and sexually abuse your mouth!"

I suppose that wouldn't be all that different from what Greg Kinnear usually does to... well... all of his films. It's not that I don't like him. It's just that don't ever want him anywhere near me. There's something naturally sleazy about Mr. Kinnear - like if I was stuck in an elevator with him he would just be throwing me that creepy "I'd like to sex your face" glance every five seconds until I finally asked him if he wanted something then he'd say...

Okay I should probably stifle my next few words. I'm sure you knew where I was about to take it.

And so, dear readers, I hope you enjoyed my first post and I promise you there will be more to come soon!

Yours sincerely,

Riddick-ulous.