January 15, 2011

• Yo, Man! Cent a Peed.

  Yes, the title is inspired by Mad Gabs.

  I finally watched the movie “The Human Centipede,” which is by far the most senseless action I have ever committed in my life. For those of you not familiar with the movie, it is about a lunatic surgeon in Germany who captures three people, then operates so that the captives are connected in an ass-to-mouth row, thus making a human centipede. A repugnant movie that has become a cult hit. To give you a box office figure, the opening weekend of the movie it only made $12,424. Out of the 280 million people in America, only around 1200 people actually paid to see the movie.

  Whenever I’m subjected to a bad, stupid, or tasteless movie, book, or piece of art, I remember that art is subjective and that there are two important parts of art:

  1. Whether the viewer likes the art or at least thinks it is important. 
  2. Unrelated to the first, is the simple fact that an artist is out there creating. 

  As my friend Chris is quick to point out “A lot of people look at a piece of art in a museum and say ‘I could have done this myself at home.’ But they didn’t.” Even when I see a piece of art I don’t care for, I appreciate the fact that artists are out there working, unless it is anything Michelle Citron worked on (a woman with a complete disdain for any art that isn’t her own).

  There is an abundance of vulgar art in the world on any subject you wish (violence, sex, racism, Santa, rainbows), but “The Human Centipede” is the only movie I’ve ever seen and without hesitation known that there is nothing redeeming about it in any regard at any level. It isn’t the most graphically grotesque movie I’ve ever seen; it is just by far the stupidest and most tasteless.

  Five minutes in to the movie I thought “Has there ever been a smart, good looking, non-vulnerable, female American tourist in a movie?” Thirty minutes in I thought “Anything else in the world would be a better and more pleasurable use of time right now. Life is limited, and I’ve destroyed 30 minutes of it watching this movie. Goodbye, movie. Hello, XKCD Volume: 0.” And I stopped watching.

  I hate not finishing a movie, because it plagues my consciousness like a tell-tale heart. Over the next few days I finished the movie ten minutes at a time (ten minutes being the maximum amount of life I could bear to waste in any one sitting for this movie). When I finished the movie, I sighed in relief as my brain released the tell-tale heart of the movie. Then I realized that I’d disappointed Carl Sagan, which made me sad.

  The thing I disliked most about the movie:

  The director of the movie attempted to make the film medically accurate (which it is far from), but he didn’t take any time to make the movie’s setup believable — not even 5 seconds. See, it opens with two American girls getting directions to a German night club. Then they attempted to drive there. After they drive someone stupid distance out of the city in the rain and down a dark, secluded, forest road, they realize they’re lost and not anywhere near the nightclub. Most people would have noticed this once they left the city. Maybe the best German nightclubs are located out in the middle of the Dark Chocolate Forest? But I’ve been to several German nightclubs and none ever required driving in to a forest.

  Here is a travel tip: If you’re driving to a destination and find yourself on a creepy road in the middle of a forest and you’re not on a geocaching trip, then you missed your exit.

  Next the girls decide to get out of the car and trek through the forest in their high heels. Really? Now that is genuine stupidity. I’m a fan of girls in high heels and miniskirts, but no girl is stupid enough to do that. Apparently that is the most plausible setup the director and writers could think of, and as viewers we should all feel personally insulted. I’d give the movie more slack if they’d gone with anything more plausible, such as

  • While hiking through the forest, the girls get lost.
  • The girls, not trying to find a nightclub, simply get lost while driving to a nearby village.
  • After getting high while watching Avatar, the girls went in search of the real Na’vi.

  So aside from the critically poor taste of the director and the horrific idea of the script aside, I dislike the movie most of all because it makes the viewer feel insulted.

  • 7:03 pm
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