Dorkgasm Gonzo Is God

This week's releases include The Kite Runner, Wriscutters: A Love Story, The Mist, and Shrooms

Wristcutters: A Love Story
And then he fucks her real nice. The kind of fuck that’s all about making her feel better.

            Okay I have to admit the name is a turn off. Why the hell would any body pick up this movie unless you are totally emo and looking for a how-to guide for the next step in your life? Well, I am sorry to disappoint but Wristcutters is not an instructional video for the socially impaired, but rather a deterrent from offing yourself. It is a touching and often funny love story. We are introduced to the main character as he cleans his frighteningly dirty room from the point of uninhabitable to OCD clean. We then watch as Zia (Patrick Fuggit, Almost Famous) slits his wrists and collapses on the floor. Setting the mood for the rest of the movie, as Zia lies bleeding on the bathroom floor, the camera zooms in on one loose dust bunny floating in the corner mocking him. Damn. We watch as Zia moves through the after life, a sort of purgatory for suicides, and finds friends, enemies and love. Along the way, we meet Eugene (Shea Whegman), the lead singer of a band reminiscent of Gogol Bordello, and Mikal (Shannyn Sossamon, A Knight’s Tale), a woman who swears she didn’t commit suicide. Based on the short story “Kneller’s Happy Campers A.K.A. Pizzeria Kamikaze” by Etgar Keret, Wristcutters also has appearances by Tom Waits, Jake Busey and John Hawkes. The movie is an enlightening and lighthearted spin on the afterlife of suicide meshed with a quirky and sincere love story. Certainly my favorite film this week if not all month. Click here for the full review.

Shrooms
Prepare to get wasted.

            Take a group of twenty-somethings to Northern Ireland, let them pick a couple mushrooms, trip a little, add a homicidal maniac and you have Shrooms. After taking a dangerous Death Shroom, Tara (Lindsey Haun, Village of the Damned) begins to see premonitions of her friends being killed one-by-one by the fabled “Dark Knight” that haunts the woods where they are camping. Generally, an average horror film with an array of spook scares, you will probably guess who the killer is by the middle of the film. However, don’t let that stop you. Shrooms is good for a rainy night when you’re in the mood to be scared and grossed out. Plenty of hacking, killing and talking cows. Yes, fucking talking cows.

            After years of living in California, Amir (Khalid Abdalla, United 93) must return to his native Kabul to help his childhood friend Hassan by rescuing his son, Sohrab, from an orphanage. Though a family friend, Amir discovers that Hassan is actually his half brother and therefore Sohrab is his nephew. When the supervisor at the orphanage tells Amir that the Taliban has taken Sohrab, he must hunt down his childhood nemesis to get him back. Relevant and poignant, The Kite Runner is a moving story of hope in a time of hate and a reassurance, feeble as it may seem, that some day things will be better. Yes, the movie is mostly subtitled but I don’t want to hear anyone bitching that the movie was bad because you just can’t handle the subtitles. The film originally made headlines for being banned in the country it is about because of the negative image it portrays of the Taliban regime.

Also Out this Week:
April Fool’s Day (Remake with Taylor Cole)
Fingerprints (Leah Pipes)
The Mist (Thomas Jane, Click here for full review)
Lost Highway (Dir. David Lynch)