Hostage
Directed by Florent Siri
By Travis Mackenzie Hoover

Fans of the ill-advised are warned that this is the first big guilty pleasure of the year. Bruce Willis stars as a troubled ex-hostage negotiator who’s been hiding as the chief of a small-town police department. Everything he’s been avoiding comes back to haunt him when a trio of young thugs bungle a car theft and take its owner and his family hostage. Turns out the father (Kevin Pollak) is a mob accountant in possession of an incriminating disc and the criminals in question would really like it back; thus they kidnap Willis’s family and send him in to negotiate its retrieval.

Like every other Hollywood thriller, Hostage is often ludicrous and riddled with inconsistencies, but it compensates with an insane earnestness and a willingness to go over the top. Director Florent Siri isn’t satisfied to just tell the story: he has to pitch it at the top of his lungs with a maximum of hysteria and as much blood, snot, drool and tears flying as humanly possible. He’s alive to the cruel irony of having to use one set of hostages to release another, and he’s sensitive to the fact that the things that most heroes walk away from would traumatise actual human beings. I know I was traumatised by his efforts, failing as I do to remember the last time I saw Bruce Willis crying inconsolably in a movie, or a "happy" ending as comfortless as any this side of Douglas Sirk.

Hostage is so outrageously nasty (and so courageously downbeat) that you practically need a filter just to watch it, and while it isn’t great art it sure is disturbingly effective. (Alliance Atlantis)

Nobody Knows - Dir. by Kore-eda Hirokazu
The supremely gentle director of After Life returns with another quiet triumph. Based loosely on a 1988 incident where a young girl died after being abandoned by her parents, it begins with an irresponsible mother named Keiko and her children from several fathers. She hides them in her apartment, refuses to enrol all but one in school and then disappears "to work in Osaka," leaving 12-year-old Akira to act as a surrogate parent. The children maintain at first, spending Keiko’s money when she sends it, but soon the money stops and Akira is left to deal with the matter of finding food and water after the utilities are shut off. ...Read More
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The Music Box
The term "videogame music" is often intended as an insult, deriding electronic beatscapes as rudimentary by comparing them to the 8-bit by necessity, bleep-based soundtracks of early Atari and Nintendo games. (See: Castles, Crystal) That Super Mario's theme music remains embedded in the frontal lobes of anyone under the age of 40 proves the critical weakness of the diss ― but it's also hopelessly archaic considering how much videogame music has evolved over the years.... Read More
Etaoin Shrdlu - Mating Calls
Explosive and precise, Etaoin Shrdlu knowingly wink at the perception that their post-hardcore math rock musical approach might be a throwback while simultaneously contributing something vibrant to punk rock with Mating Calls. Featuring members of significant bands like Blake, I Can Put my Ar... Full Review
Bayonetta [PS3 / Xbox 360]
"I've got a fever and the only cure is dead angels."
-Bayonetta

Ever since the Christmastime gaming deluge ended, I've been killing a lot of angels. Though God's messengers have been bad guys in other pop-cultural products ― His Dark Materials book trilogy, the pas... Full Review
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