Fritzland

This is my second attempt at a Cracked.com photoplasty competition. This time around called for rejected themeparks/rides. My mind immediately went in this direction. Enjoy.

UNSW Animation

This is my first ever animation, so be nice. It was an assignment for a graphic design class, so be nice.

The Hangover Part II Review

I don't consider myself to be a mathematician. A stoned, limb-less camel would put my adding and subtracting skills to shame. But if you have no problem with extending me the courtesy just this one time, allow me to sum up Todd Phillips' second foray into the Hangover universe with the following equation:

'The Hangover' + New Setting = 'The Hangover Part II'

If anyone has seen this film (which by now I'm sure is most of you) you'll know that this is not at all an exaggeration. I would even go as far as to call 'The Hangover Part II' a remake of its predecessor. If you look at it in this light, 'THP2' could be considered one of the most creative ideas to hit the cinema world in the last 50 years. This remake stars all the original actors playing all the same characters, was directed and written by the same person and has been released a mere two years after the first movie. This is just something that has never been attempted before. Kubrick-esque, one might say.

Even with this astonishingly brilliant idea, amazingly, Phillips just doesn't manage to pull it off. How earth-shatteringly disappointing. If I was Phillips, I would have taken the 'Fast and Furious' route and simply called the film 'The Hangover'. It might have been a little confusing initially, but people would still have mindlessly dumped hundreds of millions of dollars into these rich, white businessmen's prick-filled pockets. Even if they called it "Don't Watch This Piece of Shit You Fucking Ignorant and Predictable Sheep (who also have rabies and the sheep-version of Syphilis)" we still would have turned out in droves to see it. 

This is you.

All your favourite characters have returned, playing your favourite characters from the first movie. We have Bradley Cooper, who reprises his role as as the cool, level-headed Phil; again serving no purpose other than to look pretty and drive the narrative forward. Then we have Ed Helms' Stu; the neurotic, whining whinger who yet again (oh no!) has had something unfortunate happen to his face. The final member of The Wolfpack is Zach Galifianakis' Alan, which of the three mentioned here is the character who has changed the most, but not necessarily for the better. Whereas in the first movie Alan was a slow but likable beacon of hilarity and well timed one-liners, here he is nothing but a reprehensible, annoying, and tragic figure who is (by default) responsible for a couple of the film's biggest "laughs" only because the rest of the material is so face-palmingly dry. 

 
Sure, it's all set in Thailand this time (whoop-de-doo), but the paint-by-numbers formula remains the same. Instead of the baby, we have the monkey. Instead of roof-bound friend Doug (who reappears in a few brief, unfunny scenes), we have the missing 16 year old step-brother of Stu. Sure, Ken Jeong's Mr. Chow has some chuckle-worthy moments, but there's only so much of his schtick that one can take. The film even has the balls to end in the EXACT same way, with the main characters sitting by the pool looking through the photos on a camera before cutting to a musical montage of those photos during the credits. It all just feels very, very tired and if I'm honest: insulting. The one new character who seemed promising, played by veteran character-actor Paul Giamatti, is painfully underused and too quickly forgotten. None of this was helped by the film's 110 minute running time... which honestly felt a lot fucking longer.

About this long.

Trust me, I understand the hypocrisy of this review. Here I am calling everyone who paid to see this film sheep, when I too paid to see it. I'll say it now: "I am a sheep". But that doesn't mean I'm proud of it, nor do I want anything like this to happen again in the future. The truth is, the only reason Hollywood keeps churning out this repetitious, unoriginal bullshit is because we keep on paying to see it, and in greater and greater numbers. In our uncertain economic times, every now and then people just want a tiny skerrick of familiarity. Something that they know. Something that doesn't challenge them... because they are sick of being challenged in their real life.
 

I am hesitant to call this film the 'death' of modern cinema, but it is most certainly an improperly attended and gangrenous amputation of it. Don't worry, I won't put up a picture of that.

Ooops.