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Washington Post's Hornaday Blasts "Stuck" And "Mother Of Tears"

Ann Hornaday, staff writer for the Washington Post, lambasted Dario Argento’s Mother of Tears: The Third Mother and Sturart Gordon’s Stuck saying that she “didn’t get” either one and further calling the movies “sheer torture” to watch.

Of Mother of Tears (the third in a series by Argento) she said “I don’t get why, in Mother of Tears, I’m supposed to find some kind of taboo thrill in watching a young woman being strangled by her own intestine. I don’t get that Argento can write some of the most wooden dialogue and elicit some of the most risible performances to be seen in a movie (think The Da Vinci Code with an even more cockamamie mythology), but still get credit as some kind of auteur because of the ingenious weapon he creates to impale two eyeballs at once.” “To the inevitable defense that Argento’s work is simply camp, I would say that anything this aggressively hateful forfeits the right to be called camp. As Susan Sontag rightly observed, even camp at its most outlandish reveals some truth about the human condition.”

Of Stuck Hornaday said “Compared to the myriad perversions on display in Mother of Tears (culminating in the film’s star, Argento’s daughter Asia, almost drowning in a sea of sewage and cadavers — grazie, papa!), the degradations of the flesh in Stuck look almost endearingly modest.” “Although Gordon clearly has something to say about poverty, class mobility and throwaway lives, whatever substance might have oozed through Stuck is quickly stanched, to let flow the blood, gore and attempts at erotic humor (a catfight between Suvari and a naked rival played for laughs).”

In closing Hornaday said “There are things to value in Stuck, including the lead and supporting performances, and Gordon’s taut thriller-like pacing. But, like Mother of Tears, I don’t get it. I don’t get what fascinates Gordon and Argento — both men in their 60s — about thinking up new ways to inflict pain. I don’t get what’s “ingeniously nasty” about watching people suffer and die. I don’t get the “gonzo artistry” of murdering a woman by way of a symbolic rape with a sword. I don’t get why that’s entertaining, edifying, endorsed by the cinematic canon or even remotely okay.”

Stuck, rated R opened Friday May 30 and Mother of Tears, unrated opened Friday June 6.

Source:
WashingtonPost.com

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Comcast To Offer 100 Mbps By 2010

The Associated Press reports that by early 2010 Comcast plans to offer most of it’s consumers 100mbps internet service. Thats fast enough to be able to download a high-definition movie in minutes.

 Comcast senior vice president of investor relations Marlene Dooner said at the Merrill Lynch U.S. Media Conference in London that the company will be deploying a technology capable of delivering up to 100 megabits of data or more per second in 20 percent of its markets by the end of 2008. Dooner said the speed was “very competitive” with Verizon’s fiber-optic Internet service which currently offers 30mbps uploads and downloads and which has about 1.8 million subscribers.

Comcast, nation’s second-largest Internet service provider and biggest cable TV operator, has been one of the most aggressive providers in deploying a wideband technology called Docsis 3.0. As competition has increased, the company’s “triple-play” package of video, Internet and phone service is no longer exclusive because phone and satellite TV companies are now offering similar packages and services. Comcast responded by offer more cost-conscious consumers economy plans and packages that bundle two services instead of three.

Comcast expects to move the majority of its analog television channels to digital in most markets by early 2010. The company had set a goal of reclaiming analog bandwidth in 20 percent of its markets this year.

Comcast’s ad revenue in 2007 topped $1.5 billion and shares of Comcast rose 9 cents to close at $22.72 Thursday.

Sources:
Verizon.com
Comcast.com
The Associated Press