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I don’t know how I feel about Gaspar Noé. He has a lot of skill, some pretty interesting ideas, great technique – and completely over-the-top shock-value that kinda makes you shake your head and think about how you could have totally gotten the point without all of the CGI-penises, 20-minute rape scenes and extreme violence. But then he wouldn’t be Gaspar Noé. He’d be somebody who wasn’t as seemingly arrogant and filthy who doesn’t make such memorable films.

Enter the Void (2009; written by Lucile Hadzihalilovic and Gaspar Noé; directed by Gaspar Noé) is probably one of the most visually striking films I have every seen. The opening credits were an attack and absolutely sets the tone. After they finished, there was applause. You can view them here. (I’m pretty sure, though, that the version of the credits I saw in the cinema was LFO’s music.)

The first act of the film takes place in real-time and had me pretty riveted, including the really long drug-trip that could have lasted anywhere from 5 to 15 minutes. You’re inside this guy’s head as he takes drugs and trips out… you hear his thoughts, and see through his eyes. It’s quite some time before he looks into the mirror and you actually get a look at who you are.

The film seems to keep going on and on. You’re Oscar’s soul/spirit, and he’s either floating above Tokyo or you’re seeing everything (mainly memories) from behind his head. Somewhere in his past is an extremely loud and sudden car crash which is showed over and over again. It made me jump every time and I started to hate it.

It was a pretty exhausting experience, watching this film. Technically and visually it was stunning, but it was a total assault to the senses. As things were winding down (and I mean a wind-down of about 30 minutes), a bunch of us in the audience started to laugh. You really need to see it to understand what I’m getting at here.

My friend John was with me and he couldn’t take the attack on his body from the sights and sounds, so he went to go take a break and hyperventilate in the restroom. Then he entered the theatre and another car crash happened, and he was like “Ok, I’m out!”. Apparently he almost left me there, but decided against it, so I didn’t have to get myself home in the rain in the middle of the night. Thanks for the ride, John!

I’d like to preface the following comments with the justification of why I saw this movie. I like to watch movies that are really popular, even when I know they’re going to suck. This is because even though I am a fan of good movies, I try to be aware of and on top of what the majority of people are watching and what’s going on in the general market.

I saw the first Twilight film with a good friend who loved the books. We watched with a third friend and, you know, that movie wasn’t so bad. Then we decided that the three of us should watch all of the Twilight films together, so we saw New Moon and it was pretty bad. This one, though I had slightly higher hopes for, because I figured that they wouldn’t allow the movies in this undeservedly huge franchise to get worse. I also think I enjoyed 30 Days Of Night and thought that maybe this film would have a darker feel to it and perhaps even a workable script or even some decent performances.

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (based on the book by Stephenie Meyer; screenplay by Melissa Rosenberg; directed by David Slade) is a terrible movie. The dialogue is painful and slow and boring. The scary bad guys are not scary at all, especially the Volturi, who, headed by an extremely not-scary Dakota Fanning, look like a bunch of pathetic goth kids who got lost in a forest. The music isn’t bad (Howard Shore has proven himself many times) but the themes felt very inappropriate for this type of film. The story wasn’t very interesting. Taylor Lautner as Jacob seems to have just realized that he’s in movies, acting, and has decided that he needs to act now, and does so very intentionally (read: badly). The love scenes were long and tedious and not even remotely bearable.

I can go on, but I won’t. My biggest issues with these Twilight films are that, sure, the source material is pretty terribly written, but there are hundreds (if not thousands) of incredible writers out there who will work for cheap and could write an amazing adaptation. There are directors out there who actually care about good storytelling who will create films that aren’t embarrassing. But most of all, I’m actually offended that studios put so much money into, and then make so much money on, films that are clearly not good. I have no problem with blockbusters or cultural phenomenons; sometimes they’re not that good, but at least you can see that they tried. Eclipse feels like they were like, “We’re going to make hundreds of millions of dollars from this regardless of how good it is, so let’s make it suck.” THAT is what I disliked the most about this film.

I’ll still finish watching the series, though.