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Uwe Boll exploits Occupy anger in Assault on Wall Street!


I’ll have to break my unofficial ban on giving Uwe Boll attention to talk about his new movie. Because even though the recent financial apocalypse has a large deal to do with the banks doing whatever they can to make buckets of money while the world burns around them, there has been very little repercussions against said bankers (or banksters!) Not only that, but the media rarely even gives lip service to what a lot of the incredibly rich did, partially because the incredibly rich hold a lot of sway in said media companies. So when the whole Occupy movement first sprung up it was an amazing thing, an actual grassroots movement not astroturfed by millionaires on FoxNews. Of course, it was disorganized and quickly fizzled out due to the lack of organization and focus (part of the problem was they did want there to be any leaders of the movement, which meant everyone tried to pull Occupy to whatever cause they cared about most!)

Even the recent election had a whole rich vs. poor mentality, particularly when Mitt Romney was recorded saying that 47% of the country just lived off the government and thought they were entitled to things like food. The best result ever was when Mitt Romney finished with 47% of the popular vote. But that rich vs. poor divide has not gone away, and the gap between the wealthy 1% and the rest of America continues to grow. Billionaires are now funding SuperPACs and blasting the airwaves with ads for politicians they are literally buying, and the next election will only get worse. There is room for another round of protests and movements, and one will probably happen some day.

But until then, we go as we always do, to the world of cinema, where directors are waiting in the wings to exploit the latest news and trends for their own films. And German filmmaker Uwe Boll is not one to shy away from making a film about controversial subjects. Thus we get Assault on Wall Street, a film featuring a guy in a knockoff Anonymous mask gunning down offices full of bankers and sniping the rich.

A security guard for an armored truck, Jim (Dominic Purcell) is a blue-collar New Yorker who works hard to earn a living. His wages support himself and his wife Rosie (Erin Karpluk), who is on the upswing recovering from a near-fatal illness. Yet things start to fall apart after Rosie’s health insurance stops covering her treatment and Jim’s life savings are lost via a disastrous investment his stockbroker had advised him to make. As a row of professional and personal dominoes falls, Jim is confronted by the realization that, after being abused and exploited by financial institutions for far too long, he has only one choice: to strike back. From the mind of notorious German writer/director Uwe Boll (House of the Dead), Assault on Wall Street is excoriating look at the American financial system that is sure to stir up plenty of Occupy-esque sentiment.

Assault on Wall Street

Cloud Atlas gets a long confusing brilliant trailer


Buh? That’s what I say when a film needs an almost 6 minute long trailer to vaguely explain what the frak is going on with Cloud Atlas. There is high concept, and then there’s Lindsay Lohan concept. Still, it looks like it could be brilliant. I’ll go on record now and say Cloud Atlas will be a masterpiece. Because it will…or it will be the most ridiculous film of all time. But probably a masterpiece. Based on a 2004 book by David Mitchell I’m now adding to my reading queue, Cloud Atlas took three directors to make it to the big screen – Tom Tykwer and the Wachowski siblings, and the three also did the screenplay.

The cast of awesome actors includes Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Hugo Weaving, Jim Sturgess, Keith David, Jim Broadbent, Zhou Xun, Bae Doona, Hugh Grant, and Susan Sarandon. Many look to be playing multiple roles spread out over different time periods, each person’s past and future affecting their other lives.

Trailer via
Pic via EW
Cloud Atlas

They Live

They Live (Review)

They Live


1988

Starring

Roddy Piper as Nada
Keith David as Frank
Meg Foster as Holly Thompson
Directed by John Carpenter

A classic tough guy film from John Carpenter, complete with some of the coolest lines (often repeated and ripped off) ever to grace the silver screen. A very thinly disguised commentary on classism in America, luckily for us it’s buried beneath alien invaders and action sequences. I’ll incorporate the messages from the film into the summary, to better the flow of the text. If “Republicans from Space” is too hot for you to handle politically, then this probably isn’t your movie, go pick up a John Wayne movie. Rowdy Roddy Piper is perfect for the tough guy role, and Keith David makes any movie ten times cooler, except maybe the Riddick movies which fail for other reasons.