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Spread the Ugly Ink Up

By Genevieve Burgess | DVD Releases | November 10, 2009 |

By Genevieve Burgess | DVD Releases | November 10, 2009 |


Ink: Then along came Jamin Winans with his stunning Ink. An urban fairy tale set against a phantasmagoria of nightmares and dreamscapes that offers up a challenge to other independent filmmakers as to the limitless potential of the digicam. The plot is deeply flawed and thoroughly, fucktardedly baffling, but I admire the hell out of how he went about it. It’s visually arresting, mindblowingly original, and completely fucking stupid. All my dislikes are personal preference; I was floored by how Winans shot his film. I didn’t like Ink, but I wish more independent filmmakers would fuck up like this. — Brian Prisco

Spread: Ashton Kutcher does an amazing job because the second he saunters on screen, I want to bash his fucking skull out his fucking sphincter. Here’s all you need to know: his character’s name is Nikki, he’s a gigolo, and he constantly wears skinny tight rolled jeans, thin black suspenders over tight t-shirts or sweaters, a studded ’80s belt, and a thin scarf around his neck. He doesn’t drink, just smokes cigarettes and orders milk because he can. He’s homeless, jobless, carless, and lives like a parasite off of desperate cougars after his supple boy-ass — spending his days lounging poolside while eating take-out. And not just cougars, he leeches all the joy and care out of people who pay attention to him until even they won’t put up with his bullshit. Are there people like that out in LA? You better fucking believe it. Are we just jealous of them? Well, who the fuck wouldn’t want to not have any responsibilities other than occasionally giving a tongue bath to a rejuvenated vagina and/or a mechanically altered cock? They rub their plasticized faces in our faces every day, so do we really want to watch a movie devoted to how tooootallly awesum they are? Fuck and no. — Brian Prisco

The Ugly Truth: To call The Ugly Truth misogynistic is truly an insult to misogyny. Misogyny is the point of The Ugly Truth and to suggest that it’s either sexist, degrading to women, or offensive would be to suggest that the movie is, in some small way, effective. I’m not willing to concede the point. Misogyny suggests a hatred of women; The Ugly Truth doesn’t give women enough respect to hate them. In the Company of Men, now that was a misogynistic movie. Not a moment goes by in that film where you don’t feel an unrelenting hatred for Aaron Eckhart’s character. The only thing you feel for Gerard Butler’s character, Mike, is indifference. He’s written too broadly; he’s a better-looking, crass caricature of Adam Carolla. He’s a human piñata that not even the most ardent feminist could work up a lather to hate. To do so would validate him, and he’s not worth the effort. — Dustin Rowles

Up: Directed by Pete Docter with co-direction from Bob Peterson, Up is the most storybook tale to come from Pixar’s stable in a while, which makes sense: Docter’s previous turn at the helm of a Pixar vehicle was 2001’s Monsters, Inc., which explored the flipside of the mythos of children’s stories. His new film calls back to that in everything from structure to character design, most notably in the form of Carl Fredricksen (Ed Asner), an elderly retiree who is three heads high, meaning his body from the neck down is exactly twice as tall as his head. The world of Up is stretched and squished just enough to give it personality but not so much that the characters cease being people. The film opens with a gut-wrenching prologue of Carl’s life from youth to the present, and it’s a powerful sequence that covers the span of decades with nothing more than carefully selected images, scenes, and music. Docter brings a purity of intent that’s inherent in Pixar films as Carl grows up, gets married, and eventually turns to a life of widowed solitude. It’s a heartbreaking set-up that makes Carl into a solid character in minutes, and the movie becomes his story. — Daniel Carlson

Intern Rusty is a Masters student at the University of Miami. You can learn more about her at Rusty’s Ventures.