The Lair (2007)

See my post from earlier today about how I was accused of controlling the Netflix queue (he who can remember the password does have the power). That's how we ended up seeing The Lair.

At an exclusive sex club called The Lair, vampires lure gay men with a promise of pleasure, only to kill them with blood-sucking pain. When bodies start piling up, a reporter threatens to uncover the secret, dismaying the club's lusty head vampire. Developed as a spinoff of the sexy supernatural series "Dante's Cove," this erotic episodic drama features Peter Stickles as the feisty vampire leader and David Moretti as a handsome journalist.

Wow, was this bad. It was amazingly horrible. I didn't know it was a TV series that aired on here! last year. One example? The "handsome journalist" has a boyfriend attacked by the "feisty vampire leader." The boyfriend is in the hospital. According to the doctor, he has lost a huge amount of blood and is barely clinging to life. Da Man then says, "Then why isn't he hooked up to a single machine or monitor?" Most of the actors are former or current porn stars. All sex acts are, of course, simulated since this is a TV show, even if on cable. Of course, that's no excuse for them to be so boring and fake looking. Except they then match the dialogue.

It was so bad, we had to watch all three episodes to prove it couldn't get better, and we ordered disc two. Each episode is only twenty-something minutes long, and the entire series consists of six total episodes. I gave it one star, but only because zero was not an option. I'll be back to say if the final three episodes are any better.

Edited on July 13: Yeah, disc two was just as bad. Rumors are they are planning a second season. Why?

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)

After reading about this in David Sheff's Beautiful Boy, I thought this might make a good choice for my pain seminar next year, so I moved Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind up the queue.

This offbeat romantic comedy (which won an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay) stars Jim Carrey as Joel, who opts for a procedure in which memories of his girlfriend, Clementine (Kate Winslet), are erased after he learns she's already had the surgery done. But as his doctor begins to wipe out traces of Clementine, Joel decides he doesn't want to lose what's left of their relationship, so he squirrels away the memories somewhere else in his brain.

I just might end up including it in the course, though I have to say that it was not as comedic as I expected. I was kinda down at the end of this. It was very interesting in regards to what we can do about pain and its effects on our lives. It really gets you thinking about whether or not you would erase certain people from your life. It is visually fascinating, too. Kate Winslet is amazing, as always. And I am not a Jim Carrey fan, but this proves that he can act, that he can give a role what it deserves without being a cornball all the time (take notes, Will Ferrel). I gave it four out of five stars because it didn't blow me away like I expected, and there were several moments when it felt like something was about to happen when nothing happened. But it's really good and just might appear on my syllabus in the fall.

Diary of the Dead (2007)

Diary of the Dead is probably the first zombie movie we've seen since I started this blog.

While filming a low-budget horror film, Jason (Joshua Close) and his film school friends hear news reports of zombie sightings. As the living dead close in on the film crew, Jason seizes the opportunity to add real blood and guts to his movie. Meanwhile the American government promises to stop the violent uprising, but the relentless zombies gain an advantage by wiping out all forms of communication with the outside world.

Yes, you can put this in the category of Cloverfield and Blair Witch as having the movie within a movie. I like those kinds of movie a lot. But why did this movie only get a limited release? We'd heard about it and knew when it opened in NYC, but it never got here. It's written and directed by George A. Romero, the father of the zombie movie! And there is going to be a sequel. So why the lack of attention?

This was a really good movie, five out of five stars. It had the typical attacks of zombie movies with a cool plot between them to get people back and forth. There were some leaps in logic that there just are in zombie movies, but this was a good one. I'm sorry it's not getting the attention it deserves.

Torque (2004)

I have been accused of controlling what Netflix movies we watch on weekends. That's how we ended up with Torque.

Longtime biker Cary Ford (Martin Henderson) is framed for murder by rival Henry (Matt Schulze), the leader of a biker gang called the Hellions. Unfortunately, the stiff happens to be the brother of Trey Wallace (Ice Cube), the leader of the Machine, the most notorious and feared biker gang in the country. Torque does for motorcycles what The Fast and the Furious does for muscle cars. Prepare to burn rubber!

I'm a fan of the Fast and Furious movies; I don't know why. This so clearly wants to ride on that trend. It wasn't bad, as movies like this go. I was a bit confused at the beginning because I couldn't tell what the exact relationships were between the three biker gangs. They all had a history or working together and fighting each other, and it took a bit for me to get it. Not bad action, though. Some cool riding sequences. Two of the five stars.