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The Simpson's Movie (2007) --> Although it seems a bit late for a feature film on America's longest running comedy cartoon (it has been on for 18 years), the creators of Bart, Homer and the rest of the animated cast have successfully recaptured the satire of the show missing for the last six or seven seasons. The animation looks great blown up on a theatre screen and the humour is belly achingly funny. The Spider-pig spot was great but did we really have to see Bart's penis? Come on! Worth the money for admittance, The Simpson's Movie might give fans a reason to return to the weekly television program again.


Full Spectrum Staff

Batoru rowaiaru [Battle Royale] (2000) --> I wonder what William Golding (author of Lord of the Flies) would think of this Kinji Fukasaku's film starring Japanese icon Takashi Kitano and a large cast of teens. Would he appreciate the discarding of most of the plot points that build up to murder in his novel and have all his characters just go at it right from the start. Instead of being shipwrecked the kids (40 ninth graders of both sexes) are kidnapped (well, more like tricked into thinking they are going on an innocent class trip) and forced into a fight for their lives.

Sick of putting up with disrespectful and disruptive students who refuse to listen in class and debase themselves with sex, alcohol and drugs, their professor (Kitano) decides to teach them all the ultimate lesson. Placing traps and stores of weapons around an island they now inhabit, Kitano informs the group they must kill each other until only one survives. If they refuse they will all be killed immediately. If the game doesn't have a winner at the end of the three days the remaining student left alive will be killed also.

Fukasaku's screenplay, taken from the novel by Koushun Takami, must have resonance with every teacher of public schools around the world as its sentiment is representational although extremely exaggerated. The film, if taken seriously, is a chilling reaction to modern teen behaviour (as the teachers are worse than those they punish making their authority illegitimate). But if viewed under the context it is given, as entertainment, it becomes a fun and satirical look at what would be the results if every frustrated teacher's evil imagination is let to run amok through the student population.


Scott D. Brown

Body Double (1984) --> Although Brian De Palma's Scarface is considered his best film by most critics, we'd like to throw our hat in for this more erotically tinged bastardization of Hitchcock's classic Rear Window. Starring Politically Incorrect host Craig Wasson as a struggling actor set up to be a witness to a murder by a clever killer doubling as a Native American, Body Double makes for easy return viewing. We also see Melanie Griffin, in her first major role, as an adult film star and plays the role magnificently. The Frankie Goes to Hollywood song "Relax" is featured in a scene of debauchery in the form of a music video that satisfies every 80s MuchMusic/MTV watcher who wanted to see what would've happened if the music stations weren't restricted in their content.


Scott D. Brown

Fight Club (1999) --> David Fincher adapts to film the highly successful Chuck Palahniuk novel (with screenplay writer Jim Uhls's help) to create one of the greatest films in Hollywood history. Starring Ed Norton and Brad Pitt, with a scene stealing performance by musician Meatloaf, Fight Club is a violently beautiful and extremely dark film that journey's into the mind of one seriously fucked up individual.

Tyler Durden, the person in question, leads a group of outcasts into an underground world where people beat on each other just to release the aggression built up from a world that has somehow labeled them unfit for participation. The fights aren't for money or fame. The malaise is accentuated by Fincher's penchant for dark and claustrophobic film making.

Even if you include Norton's mastery of the acting craft or Pitts character, Fight Club is brilliant more for its direction and climatic surprise ending. David Fincher becomes one of Hollywood's great directors for this film if you remember he also put out Se7en.


Full Spectrum Staff

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