violent porn

the texas chainsaw massacre: the beginning, is the prequel to the texas chainsaw massacre starring jessica biel, which was a remake of the original 1974 texas chainsaw massacre, which spawned three sequals, which starred the likes of denis hopper, matthew mcconaughey and renee zellweger. kind of confusing, but all you really need to know is that movie after movie, a horde of happless teenagers wander like lemmings into the home of a family of deranged killers.

this new one, the prequel, however, probably stands to be the most graphic and violently gory version of the series. the basic premise, as if there needs to be a set up, is that two brothers are about to go to vietnam, one for the first time, the other going for a second tour of duty. Their girlfriends are accompanying them to the military base that they need to be at. at first there is a bit of a debate between the two brothers, because the younger one is thinking of dodging the draft and bailing to mexico with his girlfriend, while the other one is only going again to protect his brother while they are in the war. if this were a david o. russel (three kings) film, you'd get an interesting debate. but it's not; it's a texas chainsaw massacre film, one produced by michael bay. so any such noble debate is tossed away pretty quickly, and the gore begins.

now i'll be the first to admit that i don't mind violence, and done well, it can be kind of fun to watch onscreen. however, there is a line between that and violence for violence sake, which is what you have here. i guess the real difference is that the violence isn't done to further the plot or character development necessarily, or even done in an inventive way, but it is just there and that's about it. it's just cruel.

i'm always surprised at how the motion picture association of america can let a movie like this pass with a hard 'r' rating, while a movie like the center of the world gets an nc-17 rating. nc-17 basically replaced the old 'x' rating, and is the kiss of death for movies, because most theaters will not carry a movie with this rating.

the center of the world was a movie about a computer wiz and a stripper. he offers the stripper $10,000 to spend three nights with him in vegas, and she accepts with conditions: four hours per night of erotic play, and no penetration. yes, it had sex in it, but we're not talking about hardcore porn here. the center of the world was an intelligently written film that tried to answer an interesting question: what is the center of the world? to the computer wiz, in today's modern world, the center of the world was the computer. to the stripper, it was the human heart.

[SPOILER*** now, the following description will probably ruin some plot points of the texas chainsaw massacre, so don't read any further if you don't want the movie ruined for you; and by ruined, i mean having the deaths telegraphed for you.]

in the texas chainsaw massacre: the beginning, you have the following: limbs and whole bodies get chopped to bits with a chainsaw, a man is mercilessly beaten with a malot, a girl's throat is slit open after her teeth had been removed, a guy's arms are skinned and his face is peeled off... so that's okay. but a guy with a stripper isn't. (to be fair, what earned the center of the world an nc-17 rating was a certain lollipop scene, but really, compared to a person's face being peeled off, that's a little tame.)

obviously, we have to call a spade a spade, because the texas chainsaw massacre is a horror movie. people expect death and mayhem, and hey, i appreciate death and mayhem as much as the next guy. before i went to see the movie, i knew exactly what kind of film it was and what i would be seeing. honestly, that's part of why i went. i had a choice tonight, to see this or to see scorsese's the departed, but i didn't want to do any thinking, and i sort of wanted to just sit there and let things just play out onscreen. the funny thing is, i think i ended up thinking a lot more due to this movie. because you really can't compare a movie like this with a movie like the center of the world. but i just do it here because it strikes me as a little odd that sex is more feared than violence to some people, especially the mpaa. and i guess america's fear of sexuality is nothing new, even though it is sold and marketed in vast quantities to boys and girls in the media and on television. it's as if there is this mixed message, that it's okay to be sexy, it's okay to be a tease, but the actual sex part isn't.

oh, as for whether i enjoyed the movie? i don't know if you can ever really enjoy a movie like this. was i satisfied? as in, did i get my ten dollars worth? i guess i did, because it satisfied the basic requirement that i had going into the movie, that it not be as bad as the jessica biel remake. i know that's pretty low for expectations, but it's a texas chainsaw massacre movie. we're not talking about shakespeare here. even when we are talking about shakespeare, we don't necessarily get shakespeare, if you know what i mean. it was bloody, it was disgusting, but overall, the movie was a bit boring. i guess it just goes to show you just how many of these movies i've seen, and how desensitized i am by now. now that reality is actually kind of scary.