Worse Than the Black Death

NOTE: Sarcasm reads very poorly in the written form, and you will shortly see - or rather, NOT shortly see; this post is a behemoth - that sarcasm plays a large role in said post. Basically, anything that is POSITIVE concerning this film is Oceanic Trench-deep sarcastic. Carry on.

I. *beep* _LOATHE_ this self-congratulating, pompous junk - and it suffers hugely from perhaps the very WORST quality a film can possess: it's way, WAY too "clever" for its *own DAMN GOOD*. (And i use the term "clever"... just, remarkably loosely.) !Spoilers! _every member_ of the young, vacationing family is slain by the two unprovoked, philosophy-spewing douchebag "villains" of the piece... though the two reprehensible jackasses are the protagonists of tonight's entertainment! Dressed for Golf (how ironic! Also, just *THINK:* one of them uses a _GOLF CLUB_ to beat on Dad; what breathtaking duality at play here), the two over-written f--ks even destroy the awful cute family Doggy. When the pooch's corpse lifelessly tumbles out of the back of the Family Car, one of the sadistic heros of our story gives the camera a ####-eating grin. It's a real delight, this picture.

...and so, after the preliminary Golf club beating, the movie settles in for the remainder: the completely unprovoked humiliation, torture and destruction of that annoyingly bright, happy, and loving family. No, _OBVIOUSLY_ the very young child is not spared anything. Its rare enough to see a film so unrelentingly grim in it's slaughter of what appears, from our vantage point, to be a totally innocent, Hollywood-handsome family, but Michael Haneke, the Austrian writer/director of this fantastic entertainment actually DOES despise someone even more than the wealthy, above-average in intelligence and looks young folks who make up his very unlucky trio of corpses-to-be... and that, of course, is the people that come to see his films. Hell, that's the whole point of his movie - the viewer's supposed to sit there and witness the horrific, noisy slaughter, all the while waiting for that expected happy ending that will never, ever come. And i'm not kidding; *that's* this film's Big Message. Haneke wants you to know that the random cruelty portrayed here is going down because YOU WANT IT to go down. I mean, you bought that ticket, right?? i mean, you're sitting there - you paid to watch violence unfold, and so violence unfolds (never mind that his big statement on the American lust for theatrical violence was sought after by a remarkably small number of paying customers).

We paid to see a movie advertised as a picture FEATURING violence towards a band of innocent, we got a movie ABOUT cruelty, malice and torture... nothing more. nothing. Haneke seems to find us mouth-breathing Apes completely abhorrent; i mean, we bought a ticket for his sick ride! it's marketing made no secret of the movie's horrifying nature, at least in part - the film's poster is simply an uncomfortably close shot of Naomi Watt's tear-streaked face; clearly she's in an agonizing situation here. So it's US who are TRULY responsible for everything on display - we're just as guilty as those actually perpetrating each act of depravity and torture (and there are a *LOT* of such acts in the pretty unbearable two hour running time.)

....You wanna know _HOW_ i figured out this film's message? It's intent of purpose?? No, i didn't just straight up solve it using my astronomically high I.Q, nor did i study every review, essay, and academic study of the film. No - I was able to break down Haneke's complex, inspired symbolism and metaphors because the F--KING CHARACTERS SIMPLY TURN TO THE CAMERA AND TELL US ALL ABOUT IT THEMSELVES. i mean... *That's* the kind of divinely inspired artistic triumph we're blessed with. What a *brilliantly,* unique conceit - what a _terribly_ clever person this Michael Haneken must be!! I mean... herr Director must be some sort of polymath genius to come up with something so awesomely smart and unique - it's even more brilliant than him remaking his own damn movie TEN YEARS after the fact - shot for unbearably annoying shot. Only ACTORS and LANGUAGE change.

But it was SO worth it... i mean, did it EVER blow the barn doors down! i believe it managed a -75% profit for the studio, so, i mean, OBVIOUSLY it was not a fat, odorous waste of everyone's time and money. What a fine, prudent expenditure of talent - i'm guessing they used a real cinematographer (despite the ugliness of you're looking at, it LOOKS just fine) and editor (you can, in fact, understand the order in which the chain of events takes place.) That such a brutally gloomy, un-believably self-fellating flop was made TWICE - (this is in fact a re-make of a film called... "Funny Games" by Austrian director... Michael Haneke, from 1997. That such vast amounts of money (not compared to other films, of course, but for a regular guy? $14 million sounds awful big.), so much hard work and resources... put forth towards these awful films, while literally _every_ project by Terry Gilliam, a _genuinely_ visionary director, is either put on hold for lack of funds, reduced to but a fraction of Gilliam's original vision for lack of funds, and just generally bent over the barrel for lack of funds is NOT DEPRESSING AT ALL! (btw, Naomi Watts? The talented actress? She gets to cry, scream, and beg for her and her movie-family's life for just about the entirety of this film - often in various forms of undress. Well, she CO-PRODUCED this sack-a crap - truly, she must be a glutton for punishment.)

...And that's "Funny Games". As a film fan, i DO have to admire this film's... out-and-out insanity. it's certainly not a familiar take on a VERY familiar plot; but f--k the cursed thing, nonetheless. f--k it for it's black heart and all, but the smarminess, too cool for school attitude, plus the lessons it actually seems to believe it's imparting on us poor, unwashed saps is INFINITELY harder to take. i need a shower.