The story revolves around a young guy, hard up for cash. He opens a package intended for someone else and follows the instructions inside. Unfortunately this results in him being forced to participate in a variation of Russian Roulette.

It’s a small movie, simply done that belies the incredible tension contained in some of the scenes. Recommended.

Regardez fixement l’ampoule!!!

"Olympic athletes, K-1 fighters and pro-wrestlers from around the world compete to conquer the ultimate obstacle course – Ninja Warrior. Since 1997, over 1,400 people have attempted Stage One, less than 200 have made it through. Only one has completed all four stages. Tune in to see what it takes to conquer… Ninja Warrior!"

The basic premise is 100 competitors compete on each show. There are four rounds. Each round has it’s own obstacle course and if you finish you get through to the next round.  The obstacles are related to what a ninja might face and they are crazy. Only 11 people made it through round 1 on the show I caught.

Competitors make impossible leaps off of spring boards to catch on to chains or metal rings. If you miss you land in the drink. It’s sort of like MMX but for real athletes.

The toughest obstacle was probably in stage 3. It’s a thin ledge about 2 inches wide which you must cling to using your finger tips, sort of doing a chin up with your palms facing outward. You then have to work your way along this thing, about 12 feet. The ledge is stepped in the middle so you have to move UPWARDS to the next ledge about 2 feet. Then on a bit, then back down. It’s nuts and only I think 3 dudes finished.

Add to this that it’s Japanese with hilariously bad english subtitles, I wish there was more stuff like this on TV.

So what do you do with a tube? Crawl through it of course.

So my cousins and I went through this tube a few times.  It was so tight that you had to stretch both arms above your head and squirm through. Now I can’t recall specifically but I believe at one point I got marginally stuck. To the point where my cousin had to grab my hands from over my head and pull me along a few inches.

I wasn’t stuck for long but for the few seconds in that tube I felt true, raw, visceral, explosive panic.

This weekend I watched the movie "The Descent" [LINK]. *** Read on, there are NO SPOILERS ***

Initially I was a bit put-off by the box and thought maybe I shouldn’t rent this movie. It looks a bit over-the-top violent. I was happily surprised and came out thinking this is one of the better movies I’ve seen in a while.

The movie plot is basically a group of friends (all women) go pot-holing and get more than they bargained for. Although the box depicts the main protagonist emerging from a pool of blood, the actual movie shows a lot more restraint with the red-stuff.

The first half of the movie sets the stage with some minor plot development and the group heading off into the hole. Invariably they run up against some nasties whilst in the hole. I won’t spoil it.

However, there is one scene in particular that brought me all the way back to the tube on the farm. The girls (for whatever reason) crawl through an impossibly long and narrow crawl space. One of the girls gets stuck and begins to panic. The very thought of this makes me cringe even now. Then things get rapidly worse. I think this is the best part of the entire movie.

If I have an achilles heel, I would say being stuck in a small tunnel is it. I’ve never been spelunking and I can categorically say I never will.

*** SPOILERS ***

The movie opens with a brutal car crash in which Ryan Gosling’s character is not hurt at all. This is your first clue that something is awry. If you’re like me you’ll have read the box the movie came in. The box says something to the effect of “you cannot stay in the world between life and death” so it’s a fairly small leap to assume that’s where the movie takes place. From here on out you’re in a dream world. Most people don’t get this until the end of the movie or until they watch it a second time.

The movie does have nice scene transitions, just like a dream. Characters walk from location to location as if they were teleported or were walking from a movie set to a movie set. This is just the director showing off and at the same time telling the viewer that this is a dream or taking place in the dream world between life and death. In other words, Ryan’s dying from the car crash, and this is what’s going through his mind right before he dies. There’s a lot of this but it’s all fairly obvious stuff and gets old after a while.

Some examples:
* Twins and triplets in the college lecture hall. Twins and triplets in a dream suggest duality.
* Bob Hoskins says “The buddists had it right, the world is an illusion”.
* Characters walk behind pillars and change direction
* Characters get confused for one another
* Characters change appearance.
* Sees his dead parents.
* Ewan falls down stairs (dream reference), then the previous scene (hamlet) is repeated
* Places morph into one another
* Giant seal (manatee?) in the aquarium, seals in dreams refer to playfullness and creativity?
* Naomi’s character helps Ewan in the dream world, just as she’s doing in the physical world.
* Ewan’s pants are too short. This I don’t know, probably something they threw in for ha-hahs.
* Raining – “dark clouds and a heavy downpour indicate feelings of isolation and helplessness”.
* Riding a train – indicates a shared experience.

The rest of the movie wanders on with nothing happening really. You might think stuff is happening based on the way the scenes are cut together but nope, there’s nothing happening.

Finally the movie ends with the predicted ending that everything you’ve just seen has taken place in the mind of the dying Ryan Gosling on the Brooklyn bridge. Again, it’s not a true logical movie in the sense of Primer. It’s just an artsy non-conclusive open to interpretation type thing that doesn’t tie up all the loose ends but leads you to suspect you missed something. You really didn’t. Thumbs down.

This movie could’ve been better though. If maybe they put Ryan’s character bare-foot denoting death?

Folks laud over The Guitar Grimoire series and they are an excellent and complete resource but for my purposes they’re just too much.

The latest DVDs I’ve watched are The Godfather II which in my opinion is better than the first one. It also features Joe Spinell as Willy Cicci. You’d never believe how few degrees of separation I wound up from him.

Near Dark- an excellent 80s vampire flick with Lance Henrikson and a few other folks from Aliens like Bill Paxton and Jenette Goldstein. This movie is like the anti-”Lost Boys” of it’s day.

Finally, I was reading CPU Magazine and on the back cover they have a full page ad for the new Zalman 9500 CPU Cooler. This thing is awesome looking. There’s something about heatsinks that warms the blood (mixing metaphors?). When will the first heatsink museum be launched? I’ll be looking forward to seeing the price of this thing.