I think I first heard of Nekromantik in the '90s, mentioned in whispers in the same breath as Salo or any number of other rare and forbidden films. I didn't think much about the film again until I heard director Jörg Buttgereit was doing some sort of effects for Skinny Puppy's live reunion at a festival two decades ago. I was left to wonder what he really had to contribute and what he was really capable of in the first place. I was more interested in watching documentaries about the West German underground scene from the '80s instead of this, but figured it might behoove me to actually see the movie before hearing others talk about or with Buttgereit. It probably wasn't worth the trouble.

Many go to great lengths to try to paint this film as satirical and transgressive art, making a social commentary about German society, but that seems like a combination of self-delusion and working backwards from the answer to find the problem. Nekromantik feels neither transgressive or as shocking as those that banned it or spoke about it in hushed whispers ever implied. It's a tawdry, weak, poorly-made, badly-edited student film writ large. One of the main reasons I watched the movie was because I needed to go to bed, so looked at the shortest films I had available to watch. At a paltry hour and a quarter, you can barely even call Nekromantik a movie. And, yet, every one of those 75 minutes felt like three. I could have watched Branaugh's Hamlet or Wyatt Earp or the entire fucking MCU catalog gladly in what felt like less time, but watching this "film" was an absolute chore. By the end of the movie, the beginning felt so distant and disconnected that I felt like I had watched it on a different day. How could the sub-Manos opening driving scene and absurd crime scene cleanup have taken place in the same timeline as the endless scenes of nothing, birds flying, people sitting, terrible movies-within-movies, dream sequences, the camera never cutting for 30 seconds after any reasonable editor would have moved on?

I'm sure there's cretins out there whose gorehound nostalgia or devil's advocate art pretensions will fight for the honor of this shitty, lame, boring little movie. I'm sure there are plenty of those who are still raising their skirts and jumping onto chairs as the mention of this horrifying ordeal. This is a world where people find Megan Is Missing to be life-altering and compelling, after all. There are plenty of dull, fragile white-bread individuals whose psyche can't stand up to the very notion of necrophilia, much less any attempted visualization of it. There's plenty of people freaking out about the actual footage of the killing, skinning, and dressing of a rabbit in this film. (Don't ever think about where you food comes from, you first world pussies.) Meanwhile, there's probably many that give this movie credence exactly because it causes those reactions. It is unworthy of them all.

It is ugly. It is boring. It is exceptionally poorly-written, badly-filmed, mindlessly-edited, and painful to watch for all the same reasons that someone's unabbreviated vacation footage is. You have to be unbelievably dim or relentlessly censorious to have a reaction for this sub-movie. There are homemade movies filmed on VHS with no lighting, bad sound, and no professional (or amateur) actors floating around on Amazon right now that you should be more entertained by. And if you really need to see a movie that deals specifically with necrophilia in a more mature, less incompetent way, watch Deadgirl or something. Just don't bother adding to the legend of this waste of everyone's time.

I can't begin to imagine how many times and in how many versions I've watched "Hamlet" performed. I was probably shown the Mel Gibson version in school. Eventually, I saw Branaugh's Hamlet in the theater and have watched it probably a dozen time since, along with a variety of other versions of the play. Depending on how abridged the play may be, it can range any amount of time upwards of five hours. Last night, I got through a more modern "adaptation" in a mere hour and a half.

Hamlet Goes Business is a 1987 black & white Finnish adaptation of the play, like a dull noir film filtered through David Lynch, but without any charm. I've seen it referred to as "surreal" or a "black comedy". I don't think either is accurate. You really have to question the Finnish sense of humor if anything in the film was supposed to come across as humorous. The lead was apparently best known for years of sketch comedy work, but he was completely devoid of personality in this particular movie. I'm not sure if something is lost in translation, but there's absolutely nothing interesting about the film.

Most of it is a somewhat faithful adaptation of the play, severely excising details and moving it to the '80s. Hamlet comes from a rich dynasty of sawmill owners and everything in the film revolves around the business. His father's business associate Klaus is the poisoner who marries his mother. Polonius is a company manager whose conniving daughter Ophilia denies sex to Hamlet in hopes of forcing him into marriage. Most of the movie is a tedious, slightly skewed retelling of the play while supposedly young men that look like they're in their forties deal with their parents and elders who appear to be in their fifties. Everyone is ugly. Everything is dull. Nothing is meaningful.

I constantly awaited some major revelation for why the film existed. The changes were vaguely odd but completely unfunny in every way. I assume humor was their intention, but who can be sure? The sawmills and shipyard will be sold to some would-be Fortinbras who will, in exchange, give them a rubber duck manufacturing business. Is that supposed to be comedy? I didn't even realize it was considered a comedy until reading about it later. I could perhaps see some very slim '80s social satire, particularly regarding class structure, but the whole thing is very thin.

In a very weird departure, the ending is totally rewritten. Ultimately, Hamlet kills Polonius' son and Klaus, framing them for killing each other. He walks away, scot-free, to run the business. He calls in his butler/chauffeur to unburden himself about the events of the movie, admitting that he's the one who killed his father, not Klaus. He's going one step farther than Klaus, selling everything to a competitor and walking away with the money. His butler, working for the union to prevent the loss of the shipyard, poisons Hamlet and leaves with the cook to start a new life. So that was certainly... something.

This was really just a waste of time. The director has nothing but contempt for the source material, only reading it a few days before writing the script and starting filming. The only people that seem to like it are moronic, navel-gazing dickheads that think the movie is "funny" or transgressive because it bastardizes Shakespeare . It's a dire indictment of the Finns, at very least. But this is definitely a litmus test as to how much of a snobby, garbage, cinephile shitheel you are.

It probably changes my opinions about this film substantially that I've read the novel "The Outfit", as well as close to a dozen of (Donald E. Westlake as) Richard Stark's other Parker novels. Most people may be familiar with Parker through a few of the other adaptations of Richard Stark's novels. "The Hunter" was adapted into 1967's Point Blank (with Lee Marvin) and 1999's Payback (with Mel Gibson). The Gibson film is the most accurate story-wise, at least in Brian Helgeland's director's cut of the film that was eventually released. Though it's a very modern adaptation, the 2013 Parker at least gets credit for being the only Parker film to not change Parker's name. Also, it does a good job of capturing the feel of the Parker novels, often revolving around Parker committing a well-planned crime of some kind, getting double-crossed, and then seeking revenge to retrieve what he's owed.

The Outfit takes an end-run around Parker entirely to reuse many of the scenes and setpieces from the novel without actually using the character at all. Those of you who've seen any of the other films may remember the lead as a tough, stoic professional, whose only interest is in the job, followed by placid semi-retirement until the money runs out. He does not suffer people who don't pull their weight, he avoids violence when it's unnecessary but will apply it absolutely when called for, and doesn't let women or personal relationships distract him from his work. He's an anti-James Bond.

The lead in The Outfit is Robert Duvall as Earl Macklin. Eschewing Parker's personal financial war on The Outfit (that those of you who have seen Payback should remember) until he receives what he's owed (the money Mal Resnick stole from their score to buy his way into the organization), Macklin leaves prison only to find his brother has been murdered by hitmen. He's picked up from prison by his young girlfriend, Bett Harrow, who takes him to a motel on his way to his brother's house. She breaks down and admits there that she was tortured by an Outfit mobster and gave up Macklin and his brother. A hitman is on his way to the motel to end his life as well. He gets the drop on the hired gun and finds out that the bank he and his crew robbed several years before was a front for the Outfit. Therefore, they all have to be made an example of. Macklin decides to exact his revenge by robbing Outfit targets until they pay him a quarter million dollars for his trouble.

While the monetary exchange as a matter of closure rings true to Parker as a character, not much else does. Macklin was a family man with a wife and kids who don't speak to him anymore. Parker wouldn't be hanging around a young, unstable floozy like Bett. Duvall's Macklin isn't stern or self-assured enough to be Parker. Parker is cold confidence. Macklin is often easy-going and convivial. Statham and Gibson at least managed to get to the heart of the character, a man that is all serious business. The notion of shoving a side-story with the girlfriend was exceptionally irritating to me, as well as just generally detracting from the flow of the movie.

It should be noted that I do enjoy a good 70s crime drama: I'm fond of Matthau in Charley Varrick or The Taking Of Pelham One Two Three or The Laughing Policeman or Hopscotch; I've been through any number of films like The Long Goodbye, Chinatown, The French Connection, and any number of other crime movies of the period; I've even got Night Moves and The Friends Of Eddie Coyle also lined up to watch soon. So, I've experienced quite a few of varying levels of quality and interest. While The Outfit is dead-standard for the writing and plot, despite Stark's groundwork, the movie itself should be noted for its bland ugliness. It's just a step above an episode of "Columbo". And even that may be giving it too much credit, as I'm sure there are plenty of episodes of "Columbo" with much more inventive uses of the camera, managing to make things look less shitty and bland. It's surprisingly artless for a period that making an art out of this kind of film. The writer/director would go on to make Rolling Thunder, Out For Justice, and Brainscan, so I'm guessing he wasn't hiding an abundance of unused talent somewhere.

The acting, for what it's worth, is mostly fine. Joe Don Baker shows off why he used to actually get cast in films as Macklin's sidekick (something Parker definitely wouldn't have had). The rest of the cast is mostly filled with lesser-name character actors as the mafiosos and screen beauties of the '40s and '50s as the female characters. The one stand-out is Karen Black, a name that used to carry some weight but has mostly been forgotten. From the example set here, it's for good fucking reason. Her character was irksome, to say the least, and her portrayal did nothing to lessen that. I can't imagine a single upside to her performance. One of the only good moments featuring her - which was much more Parker than Macklin - was when, after wanting to go home to her family and breaking down into hysterics, throws Macklin's gun (which he is cleaning) into a motel room wall, he calms her down by slapping the shit out of her, repeatedly. When she eventually dies, Macklin doesn't really show any emotion and the story moves on, so I'm not sure why she even existed through most of the script. She could have died back at the motel when the assassin came for Macklin. She served no purpose except to get in the way of plot.

Ultimately, it was a movie. It filled time, but didn't do anything exceptional. It also did nothing to translate Richard Stark's work to a wider audience. Maybe someone will someday give Parker the "Justified" treatment that Elmore Leonard's Raylan Givens received. Because Earl Macklin is no Parker. And this is no The Outfit.

My next choice to watch with my five-year-old was Kubo And The Two Strings, largely because of the impressive stop-motion model work done in the film. They're not really making movies like this anymore and it seemed thematically more interesting than your average kid's film.

Not that I'm a "kid's film" kind of person. Very much the opposite. I don't do Pixar movies or rush out to see the latest Disney garbage like all the 30-something toddlers running around today, buying Funko Pops and going to Disney multiple times per year even though they don't have children. I largely don't allow my child to even watch Disney's shitty, mindless pabulum, filled with bad lessons and terrible role models. I work hard enough to disabuse her of the notion of princesses being something anyone would want to be without shoveling that garbage into her brain.

So this was a nice, straightforward change of pace from the average children's film. It's not hellbent to shave all the sharp edges off of reality or eliminate anything that could be theoretically scary to your overly-sheltered garbage-ass spawn. It's perfectly happy to start with dark tones and feature violence, scars, children in genuine peril, caretakers that are often gruff and unfriendly, and creatures more in line with The Nightmare Before Christmas than Cars or Angry Birds. More importantly, unlike most content for children, it doesn't treat them like babies and talk down to them. The constant condescension from children's media has lead to generations of exceptionally stupid people, too mentally fragile to manage their lives. Nothing leads to a brighter, more stable child than talking to them like tiny adults, who might be able to handle any concept you want to talk about as long as you explain it in a way they can understand without dumbing it down.

All that said, the movie isn't too complicated. It takes Asian mythology, throws in some sword fights, magical musicianship, and some good voice work from Charlize Theron and Matthew McConaughey. (This may actually be the most likable I've ever found McConaughey in any role.) It's pretty, it's adventurous, and children seem to like it. It avoids being full of itself or aiming for being too high-minded in an attempt to chase an adult audience. If anything, my only complaints is the movie's pseudo-spiritual bullshit, but it's hard to make an Asian mythological film without some spiritual bullshit in there. The marvel of stop-motion figures mixed with some digital effects will be lost on a lot of people, but it's worth the price of admission to see it handled so smoothly, with an art style you won't see in another film.

My five-year-old decided that we should watch Gretel & Hansel today. I'd probably pointed out that it was a "spooky movie" to her and the rating was only PG-13, so I figured she'd be perfectly fine watching it. Given a lot of the stuff she's watched, I didn't figure it'd be a problem, beyond the fact that it might bore her.

She ended up enjoying it. Fortunately the film isn't overly long, which works to the benefit of both adults and children, though I can't imagine many children watching this film, other than mine.

It's a lush but dark film (tonally as well as visually), giving a more realistic treatment to the Grimm's oeuvre. Gretel is a teenager with a dead father and a mentally unstable mother who, along with her kid brother Hansel, is cast out into the wilderness to fend for herself. Everything is a dark, gritty squalor of indeterminately plague-y time period. Her local job prospects are of the creepy rape-related variety, so - when their mother starts to lose grip - they set off on a journey, first to a local widow's house, where they're accosted by some sort of ghoul man. It's never particularly explained one way or another, but they're saved by a typically Grimm-ian woodsman, who puts an arrow through the pseudo-ghoul's skull, feeds them, and sends them off with directions to reach a group of foresters who will take them in and train them. That's an interesting enough concept on its own, really, but along the journey they're waylaid by hunger. Hansel does a lot of whining and eventually they're forced to sup on mushrooms, which are of course of the hallucinogenic variety. It's at this point that you could create a sense of unreliable narration, as you're dealing with two characters featured tripping their balls off in the woods. The rest could have been played as a "was it real or not?" mind game, but the movie is earnestly allegorical and straightforward in a way that doesn't really fit in with that possibility. So we end up with our children arriving at a lodge in the woods, curious at its delicious scents. Hansel breaks in and finds tables full of food. They're of course greeted by the legendary witch and urged to fatten up with her never-ending supply of delicious victuals.

While by this point the movie is interesting enough, their journey wasn't particularly compelling. There's some interesting storytelling in the village, with their mother, with the woodsman, but the actual traveling leaves a lot to be desired. Fortunately, though it felt like it was heading somewhere tedious, it ended up not being much longer than it had to be, saving us from the film turning into The Nightingale.

But everything after this point departs from the typical legendary aspects of the tale and delves a lot deeper into the metaphors that you get brief glimpses of in the early scenes. Gretel is a teen with responsibility in a world where that carries a great burden. Her brother is more her child than her mother's at this point and there are many allusions to Hansel's interference with Gretel having her own life and own identity, a theme that continues to be delved into heavily, as well as the development of womanhood and finding internal power. This is the section of the movie that I feel like makes it worthwhile. We get to hear from the witch, a much more interesting figure than something out of a fairy tale. I wouldn't say Oz Perkins attempts to make the witch sympathetic, but makes her understandable, even in the end. By the conclusion, I wasn't sure if it'd be more interesting to see Gretel side with the witch or her brother. (I probably prefer the former.)

The fact that the movie works well is due in large part to everyone being fairly perfectly cast. Well, maybe there's one exception, depending on the director's intent as to how we're supposed to feel about the character: Samuel Leakey's performance as Hansel is often truly Jake Lloyd-ian. If we're supposed to find Hansel to be a tremendous annoyance standing in the way of Gretel's personal development and survival, it's pitch-perfect. Otherwise... Now this is pod racing.

Other than Leakey, we have Sophia Lillis performing far beyond her age - probably why she's had so many major roles in the past three years - as Gretel and Alice Krige - who is pretty much always great in everything - as the witch. I could watch scenes of them talking to each other all day. There is only three other speaking roles of note, making it easy to stock such a slimly-cast movie with top-shelf acting talent. In that way, it's very similar to Perkins' The Blackcoat's Daughter. Also, it continues his themes of mental illness, the perils and darkness of life as a teenager, familial loss, demonic entities, and finding good actresses that can believably play teenagers.

The visuals are similar to The Blackcoat's Daughter, but slightly more colorful and less desaturated, even if it's just as dark. The more fantastical elements are exceptionally appealing, showing some real flair for something that probably didn't have much budget. Still it manages to wow with the visual choices made.

For something that's a meditation on puberty, growth, finding yourself, and the very shaky bonds of familial connection, coated in the trappings of a classic fairy tale, it keeps you engaged and invested in the characters and the tale, apparently even if you're a five-year-old.