Is It True That Tyler Durden Has An Army? AKA Dartflix Edition #15

Every time some nut snaps like the kid that went crazy and killed all of those poor people at Virgina Tech, people immediately look for a scapegoat or something/someone to blame. They try to blame the media, films, books, video games and pop culture in general for everything bad in our society. Let me tell you, chemical imbalances in peoples brains existed WAY before the television, the movie camera, the Atari, and crazy people even predate Johann Gutenburg’s printing press (which was actually an indirect by-product of the Black Plague...I paid attention in school!). Is our society and our culture somewhat toxic? Yes. Is it enough to drive the average person crazy ALONE? No.



The reason why I bring this up is because films like “Old Boy” (pictured above) , “Vengeance Is Mine”, “Battle Royale” and “Ichi The Killer” are being blamed for Choi Seung Hui snapping and killing off random people (how in the hell did his name NOT get added to the database, thereby allowing him to purchase a gun through channel other than the black market?). To that I say “Bullshit!”. If anyone should’ve snapped by now from exposure to films like this it’s ME. I used to watch movies like “A Man Called Horse”, “Billy Jack”, and “The Wild Bunch” with my father back when I was 5. I saw “Scarface” on an old top loading VCR back when I was 9, I was the only kid in my 4th grade class who’d seen “Apocalypse Now” and “Taxi Driver” (and LOVED them). I regularly watch movies by Takashi Miike and Lars Von Trier without batting an eyelash. I’m perfectly fine and well adjusted..now if I were mentally unstable or if a couple of my neurons ever start misfiring y’all would be in for some shit! LOL. My point being is that I’ve seen what happens when a tragedy/disaster happens and the fallout begins to effect the film industry. I used to work as a manager for a Loews theatre after the Columbine shootings happened, a bunch of movies were pushed back (O, Fight Club, etc.) for fear that they would inspire people to do things of that nature in real life. I saw “American Pie” and I never once thought to shove my penis into some baked goods! Only unhinged people would try something crazy or try to take someone’s life. For the most part, they won’t even need a reason or outside motivation (the voices in their heads are enough for them).

I urge all of you to be proactive and fight to stop censorship of our art, films, music and culture. After the Don Imus incident now people want to censor Rap music...where the fuck were y’all 5 years ago? The fallout from 9/11 helped to steer the music industry into this direction as well, don’t forget! I’m off of the soapbox (for now), now onto the movie stuff.

Dart’s Top Fives Trailers Of The Ides Of May (5/1/07-5/15/07):

The Bourne Ultimatum
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0440963/trailers

Mr. Brooks
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0780571/trailers

Rise: Blood Hunter
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0389328/trailers

Day Of The Dead
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0489018/trailers

Rescue Dawn
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0462504/trailers

Dart’s Pick- Indie Film Of The Month Bonus Trailer:

Baby
http://www.babythemovie.com/

Props to the director and writers, Juwan Chung and Felix Chan. Add the creators of the film and the heads at Affiliated Entertainment here on MySpace:

http://www.myspace.com/babythemovie

Also check out this short indie film from the UK called "Cubs". Directed & written by Tom Harper (Special thanks to Chantelle Fiddy @ http://chantellefiddy.blogspot.com/ for posting this film link up on her site first.)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/filmnetwork/A15822317


Movies you should consider seeing available to rent through Netflix:
Infamy
Piece By Piece
Black Snake Moan
Hannibal Rising
Dead Man’s Shoes
Thunderbolt
Suicide Killers
Fight Club
Suicide Club
6ixtynin9
Dirty
The Great Raid
Hard Eight
Def Poetry Slam (series)
The 4400 (series)
Donnie Brasco (Extended Cut)
Vengeance Is Mine (Criterion Edition-Shohei Imamura)
Breaking News (Johnny To)
Fulltime Killer (Johnny To)
Big Bullet (Benny Chan)
Downtown Torpedoes (Teddy Chan)
Narc
Waiting... (Finally coming to cable in June!)
Lord Of War
Phone (Byeong-ki Ahn)
Greg The Bunny (series)
Tricky: A Ruff Guide (videos)
Prince: The Hits Collection (videos)
Bjork: Volumen(videos)
Sympathy For The Underdog
Female Prisoner 701 Scorpion (classic!)
Koma
Spartan (David Mamet)
Ninja Scroll: The Series (anime series)
H (Jong-hyuk Lee)
The Yakuza Papers (series)
Donnie Darko: Director’s Cut (it makes slighty more sense than the original)
I Heart Huckabees
Open Your Eyes (Abre Los Ojos-Alejandro Amenabar’s original is better than Vanilla Sky IMPO)
The Blind Swordsman: Zaitocki (“Beat” Takeshi Kitano)
Sonatine (Beat Takeshi)
Gonin (Beat Takeshi)
Coffee & Cigarettes
Big Brother and The Holding Company with Janis Joplin: 900 Hundred Nights
Jimi Hendrix (sense a pattern here?)
Raising Victor Vargas
Talk To Her (Habla Con Ella-Pedro Almodovar)
A Bullet In The Head (John Woo)
The Legend Of The Wolf (Donnie Yen)
Versus: Director’s Cut (Ryuhei Kitamura)
The Dead Girl
The Kovak Box
The Good German
Venus
Free Zone

Dart’s Picks:
Blood Diamond- This is one powerful movie. It akes us back a couple of years to see war ravaged Sierra Leone and the dirty practices involving the diamond trade. I knew all of this stuff was happening while rappers and celebrities were draped in ice and putting diamonds on everything, but to see a portrayal of it on film is amazing. Djimon Honsou and Leonardo DiCaprio were brilliant.

Casino Royale- Best Bond film EVAR...’Nuff said.

Babel- I can’t believe that this hasn’t come out in Japan until this month! The movie was great, well acted, well written...the score was even bananas! This is the best interweaving storyline film I’ve seen since “Traffic” and “Crash”. If you haven’t seen it yet, stop frontin’ on and rent (or buy) it soon.

Dart’s WTF/Watch This Bullshit At Your Own Risk Award:
Stomp The Yard- If I wanted to see some Black fraternities and sororities step, I’d go to a REAL step show. Hollywood always fucks these types of things up, water them down and then sell them to the public as some half ass version of what it should’ve been. I know they took “You Got Served” and smashed it into “Drumline” to get this crap. If you do watch it, know that it’s a cartoon and in no way representative of real Black Greek life(not that I know..I’m a proud GDI (Goddamned Individual..college term for non-Greeks at HBCU’s)

One.