家族性史

　　美国德州一所高中，以布莱德利（贾斯廷·阿诺德 Justin Arnold 饰）为首的一众男女学生风生水起，横行霸道，经常以欺负人为乐趣。印度裔学生莱比（Vincent Silochan 饰）、瘦小的戴恩（马克·多纳托 Marc Donato 饰）和有些内向自闭的女孩艾米莉（林德赛·西德尔 Lindsay Seidel 饰）等人更是他们优先欺负的对象。学校的状况已然如此，与亲人的关系又分外冷淡和紧张，戴恩他们的生活看不到一点儿希望。　　8个月前，戴恩的叔叔去世，留给他一座偌大的农场作遗产。饱受欺负且试图自杀的他找到和自己同病相怜的几个人，他们决定把学校的小霸王们请到举行派对，在劲歌热舞之中展开准备已久的血腥复仇……

　　时为1982年，一支隶属挪威的三人南极科考队在冰原中行进，意外发现一艘一百万年前的奇怪船只，并且在附近找到了冻于严冰之中的神秘生物。才貌双全的美国古生物学家凯特·洛伊德（玛丽·伊丽莎白·文斯蒂德 Mary Elizabeth Winstead 饰）在桑德尔·哈沃森博士（Ulrich Thomsen 饰）的邀请下，随同一众科研工作者前往南极。经过认真研究，他们发现这是地球上从未有过的生物。正当科学家们为了这个伟大的发现载歌载舞庆祝之时，神秘生物悄悄解冻，继而向人类展开凶残的袭击。经过一番惨烈的搏斗，怪物最终葬身火海。　　但是厄运并未就此结束，经过对怪物细胞的观测，凯特隐隐感到一场灾难正向全人类袭来……

　　天蓬元帅成为猪八戒之前一段秘史，一个所有青少年都经历过的故事，一个合家欢的故事！

　　Set in an underground dungeon inhabited by bundled, ragged human beings, after the nuclear holocaust. The story follows the wanderings of a hero through the situations of survival. People wait for the Ark to arrive and rescue them while their habitat falls apart.　　Delving deep into the dusty and long abandonded vaults of b-cinema in search of lost gems always leaves me with a bittersweet taste. On one hand the discovery of unexpected gems where no one would think them possible is a rewarding experience. On the other hand though it makes one wonder how many of these remarkable low-budget oddities, personal love affairs of directors never quite famous and now all but forgotten, have almost forever slipped from memory?　　n any case what we have here is a little post-apocalyptic gem from Poland that is really better than it has any right to. The dystopian near future of O-BI, O-BA finds a group of survivors of the nuclear war that ravaged the Earth inhabiting an underworld concrete bunker and biding their time as they wait for the mysterious Ark, an air ship of some kind that will come and save them. The Ark proves to be an elaborate hoax, carefully designed to give hope to the malnourished and desperate denizens of the bunker, while in the meantime the dome that separates their miserable existence from the nuclear winter outside is slowly caving in.　　What first striked me about the movie is the design of the bunker and the depiction of the survivors. The survivors are gaunt, filthy and terrible-looking penitents, dressed in rags and aimlessly wandering the neon-lit halls of the bunker like automatons. The bunker is a rundown, seedy place, with bright neon lights peering from all sides like the eyes of malignant beasts.　　On one hand it is a slightly 80's depiction of the dystopian future but the movie never stoops down to MAD MAX cheese. Instead it combines biting political satire with the bleak outlook of a world with no future, black comedy with barbs on apathy, religion and power. The survivors, for example, are fed some kind of flour dropping from a tube that hovers in the air - later on we discover the food supervisor uses books and the Bible itself as filler for this meagre meal. There are many such short symbolic touches, perhaps not life-changing or faith-restoring, yet playful, clever and inspired.　　One thing is for sure; O-BI, O-BA is not your run-of-the-mill sci-fi schlock. It overcomes its modest budget with creativity and has genuine artistic aspirations both from a writing and directing perspective. My opinion is that it should have been filmed in black and white instead of colour though. The director uses atmospheric light and shadow to great effect and it would have registered even better in stark black and white. The blue-green neon on the other hand outstays its welcome after a while. Just a minor gripe in an otherwise solid b-movie with its heart set in all the right places.　　Imagine a less bleak THE ROAD (Cormac McCarthy) being injected with the satire and humour of DR.STRANGELOVE and you're getting there. See it if you can find it.