|
|
I've been saving Lo for a rainy day, because it's on my instant queue, and thus loses out on the pressure to watch from the DVD queue-flow. This week though a bit of unexpected shuffling went on and now it's Wednesday and I don't have a CS post ready to go. So, let's get to it. Oh and this is one of those movies I hear good things about which is apparently more plot than visual oriented, so, potential Actually Good Movie Alert folks. So yeah, movie. In the beginning, there was candy. Oh no wait, it's chunks of red-glowing grey rocks forming into the title. Now here's out main character, lighting candles around a summoning circle and picking up a pretty awesome looking Evil Book, because he's about to summon himself up a demon. Apparently not to provide entertainment for a bunch of drunken 80's teens though, which, as you should know by now, is the most common reason for demon summoning rituals. And he just kicked over a candle while going to get a knife to cut his hand with. I like how his ritual book is full of such clear visual instructions by the way. It's like, airline safety instructions sorta stuff. Also, this summoning circle has apparently been drawn on just a featureless black background... and I'm told the camera never leaves this room. So... odds are good the screen shots I have here are going to end up showing you everything there is to see in this movie. It's the sort of thing that'd work just fine as a stage play with nearly no budget.
And now here's our demon, summoned out of the darkness and whatnot. Kind of an interesting look. All washed out colors and shaggy fur and an upside down V of a lack of a nose. His name's Lo, and he... pretty much seems to be a Buffy character actually. When asked by our summoner if he's properly powerful he summons up a little lesser demon, makes his head explode, then turns back and says very conversationally, "Now clean the @#$% from your pants and tell me what you want." Then he tells our summoner that Justin is a stupid name, that summoning a demon to get his girlfriend back, says he's just going to call him Dinner instead and otherwise just totally mouths off to him. "You took her. Well, not you, but, your people." "I knew it! You're racist against demons!" So yeah, dorky summoner is all look, can you just go down to hell, find my girlfriend, and bring her back? And Lo's all... dude, do you have any idea how many people are in hell? That's pretty much not going to happen. Well, I summoned you, so, you still have to do it. So now we're in flashback mode, as he tells Lo about his girlfriend. Flashback mode means Lo projecting a little stage across the room with the flashback playing out on it and pulling out popcorn and heckling it and giving directorial comments to the flashback actors. So, yes. This movie is indeed awesome. It's also SO A FILMED PLAY.
|
Actually, in flashback mode here it's rather literally a filmed play. You can see the extras of the flashback off stage smoking and reading newspapers and such waiting for their next scenes, and there's curtains and spotlights and such. And audience reactions. Oh now here's the girlfriend stealing demon coming to say him. He offers to shake Justin's hand, but he's not a big enough idiot to stick it out of the summoning circle. He's... wow. OK, you have to watch this movie some time. This is really amazing stuff. Let me see if I can pull myself away long enough to put this into words. OK, so, demon stealing girlfriend is BASICALLY Lorne from Angel, the green demonic lounge singer who everyone realizes couldn't possibly be remotely evil so soon after meeting him that they don't even generally have to explain what his deal is to muggles. Except this guy looks more chicken-y. Anyway, he's pretty darn limp wristed and explains how he got this (incredibly goofy looking) medal of excellence for bringing her in, then he summons this Prom looking backup band and sings a long drawn out ballad explaining how Girlfriend is actually a demon, whose known to have some pretty decent mood swings and possibly used to date Lo here even.
... now Justin is freaking out about how his inner monologue is broadcasting out of the cut on his hand while Lo leaves... apparently to go get a cigarette. OK, do you realize what this movie is? This movie is like Joss Whedon (on a day he's really on his A game) and Sam Raimi collaborated on a somewhat artsy stage play, and then made a filmed version of it. It's totally totally awesome. Anyway, now Lo's pulling up the soul's of a couple people Girlfriend apparently killed and dragged down to hell to explain how evil she is and... I know it's not necessarily coming across but every scene in this movie is hilarious. And now they're getting into an argument about how they really should have tried in vitro before summoning a demon to try and get a baby.
|
Anyway, here's another flashback, and.... it really is hilariously obvious from these flashbacks that Girlfriend is a demon. Also a couple extras are totally making out off in the background. Anyway though, yeah, at Christmas he got her a book, and not having anything to return, she gave him hers. This being, you know, the totally awesome fleshy book with the cool twitchy eye on the front. She also tells him never to open it and to burn it at the first available opportunity in very serious and dire tones. This after a discussion about the whole Faust bit and explaining how no really I don't have any first hand knowledge about how bad an idea it is to sell your soul honest!
Now for some more random shenanigans. Here's a waiter coming out of nowhere, offering to make Justin here a drink. Cue totally weird dance number. Because this movie needs PRECIOUS LITTLE EXCUSE TO DO THAT. The little rat-man-demon who was summoned earlier so his head could be exploded is really getting into it too. Aha. Apparently this whole elaborate deal was to create a Potion of Astral Projection so he can go down to hell and get his girlfriend himself, because summoning circle or not, Lo can't get her back. "Just kidding, it WAS poison!" Lorne shows up again. "Dude, I heard you just fell for the ol' 'drink this and you can travel to hell gag! You really should go get your stomach pumped or something." Now, again, my use of quotation marks here are to indicate how these are direct word for word quotes.
By the way, this is one of those situations where this is going to end up being a short because I'm way too into watching the movie. Sorry about that. Anyway, the awesomeness is slowing down a bit for some serious plot time now... after a bit of the main character contemplating whether to cut off his inner monologue spouting hand. And oh hey, I own that blanket. Anyway, here's another staged flashback to the whole girlfriend abduction bit. Which involves some pretty goofy demon fighting. By the way, do you see the ending coming yet? Actually no, you probably don't, because I keep forgetting to mention the foreshadowing bits for it because I'm too busy paying attention. Man, I am just not a good source of information on movies worth watching am I. Let's just say a point was made not long ago about demons being inherently genderless, and lots of talk about Lo having his legs crushed for his role in Girlfriend escaping from hell.
|
So yeah, the main character just gave another dorky love speech and now everyone else who has been in the movie is here just laughing their heads off at what a dorky loser he is. So now he's instead giving a really dorky I'm the one in charge here speech. And yeah, that was not phrase properly dude. Say goodbye to a happy ending. Actually wait, are we ending the movie there? Because that'd be giving the audi- OK yeah, we've got more. So hey! Here's girlfriend! She's all, it's sweet you want to rescue me from hell and all, but, you get that these guys are all totally serious and I really am a totally nasty murderous demon right? And he's all yeah but I'm a dorky loser, so where's the ritual I need to resummon you or whatever? So yeah. Turns out that the power of true love can't rescue girlfriend from hell, so she just kinda gives him a get out of hell free card and crawls away. Because like I said, her legs were crushed for escaping from hell. And like I said, his earlier big shouty demand was phrased wrong. Roughly: Oy! Lo! I want my girlfriend plopped down on the floor here, and then I want you to GTFO! And sorry to drop that on you without explaining most of the lead-up foreshadowing, but hey, I DID give an Actually Good Movie alert.
And seriously, for a second there when it did a big fade to black, I wasn't sure if the credits were just going to start up leaving the audience to have to piece the whole Lo==Girlfriend thing out on their own. And bah! This is the problem with streaming consciousness streams. I can't screen cap. So... no awesome book image for you. All I have to work with is a trailer pretending it's not a comedy. Sorry.
