Shameless Self Expression

Jason Bateman, Jason Sudeikis and Charlie Day star as three fed-up buddies drinking at a bar and swapping bad work stories. They don’t necessarily hate their jobs, they just hate their horrible bosses. Hey, that sounds like it could be a movie title! Anyway, after a little too much drinking, one of them suggests the idea of killing their bosses. The other two find the idea amusing, but he’s not joking. Before long they have attracted the counsel of a former felon known as Motherfucker Jones (Jamie Foxx, who once won an Oscar!), who, inspired by “Strangers on a Train” comes up with the idea of the three guys each killing the other person’s boss so that nothing gets traced back to the person who works for said boss. Needless to say, with these three amateurs, things don’t go according to plan. Kevin Spacey is Bateman’s boss, a mean-spirited bully who manipulates Bateman and callously cheats him out of a promotion. Jennifer Aniston is Day’s boss, a horny dentist who apparently doesn’t kn…

Stu (Ed Helms) is about to marry Lauren (Jamie Chung) at a resort in Thailand, and despite protesting that he does not want a bachelor party, Phil (Bradley Cooper) manages to talk him around to having a quiet beer. Unfortunately, Doug (Justin Bartha) insists on his idiot brother-in-law Alan (Zach Galifianakis) being invited to the wedding, despite the calamity he caused last time at Doug’s own wedding. Also with the guys is Lauren’s overachieving teenage brother Teddy (Mason Lee). Anyway, next thing you know, the guys are waking up the next morning in a strange place with Stu’s face adorned with an eerily familiar tattoo, Alan has his head shaved, Teddy has gone missing, and absolutely no idea where the hell they are (seemingly the seediest part of seedy Bangkok) or what the hell happened to put them there. Doug is safe, this time, having stayed at the resort. Oh, and one of Teddy’s fingers is found. So now the gang have to find Teddy and get to the wedding in time. Yeah, that’s going…

Steve McQueen stars as the real-life tracker and interpreter, who was instrumental in capturing the infamous Geronimo. The film charts his last stages of life where he is recruited as a ‘stock detective’ to take on cattle rustlers on behalf of the Stockman’s Association, particularly the folksy John Coble (Richard Farnsworth). Unfortunately, after a while, news of Horn’s violent methods become far too widely known for the association (particularly Billy Green Bush’s politically ambitious Marshall) to tolerate and something must be done, although the honest Coble will have nothing to do with this talk. The Marshall arranges for Horn to be arrested for the murder of a young boy, including getting a contrived and drunken ‘confession’ to the crime from Horn. Linda Evans is a local schoolmarm Horn strikes up a relationship with, Slim Pickens is the local sheriff somewhat reticent but duty-bound to arrest Horn, Roy Jenson plays a foul-mouthed homesteader, Geoffrey Lewis is a smarmy prosecut…

Eiko Matsuda (who seemed to have a sad time of it after this film) stars as a former hooker turned hotel maid in 1930s Tokyo who engages in an intense affair with married hotel owner Tatsuya Fuji. The relationship becomes increasingly obsessive (and Matsuda becomes increasingly jealous and demanding) and fetishistic, as they both explore sexual boundaries.


Banned for 20 years in Australia, this 1976 film from Japanese writer-director Nagisa Oshima (who went on to make “Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence” with David Bowie and Jack Thompson) has me completely perplexed. Now that I’ve finally gotten around to seeing it, I’m still genuinely unsure of what I actually watched (On cable, if you can believe it. God bless Foxtel and World Movies Channel!). It wasn’t at all what I was expecting, but more importantly, I don’t know quite how to take it. Is it a porno? Softcore? An exploitation movie? Any kind of movie at all? And why are there so many cocks in this film? It should really be called “9 …