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I Know Who Killed Me: Special Edition
R4 - Australia - Warner Home Video Review written by and copyright: Stevie McCleary & Noor Razzak (7th November 2008). |
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The Film
 I know who killed me... it was this film. Lindsey Lohan has not been without her fair share of controversy. In fact, I have no idea what the opposite of ‘controversy’ is but I’m fairly certain that Lohan is as unaware as me, and will continue to stay far away from it as possible. Cocaine binges, affairs with boyish girls, dramatic weight loss, Marilyn Monroe inspired nudity…ironically all with far less impact on her career than the change of hair colour from bright sassy redhead to coked up hooker blonde... Hollywood. Fickle beast. But they so do love their success stories. Maybe Lindsey will get one of those someday. In the meantime, here is a film made at the zenith of her downward spiral (pretty sure that makes no sense….but hey, welcome to the film) and boy, what an un-attractive mess this is. To say I hated this movie is akin to saying that I think the director of this film is a total waste of oxygen and processed meat. This, of course, is totally accurate; I hated this movie. It offends me. It does this somewhat difficult task (and I’ve reviewed "Lady in the Water" (2006)) by simply being impossible to enjoy at any stage of its production. It took me a week and a half to complete my first viewing, as I simply could not force myself to watch more than twenty minutes in one sitting. There are Taliban extremists who would die to get their hands on torture technique such as this wretched excuse for entertainment. Step One to making a terrible film: pretend to have a motif. Pick a colour, any colour, and light everything using that filter. Oh, and make sure the props department has a lot of it on standby, so we can insert it into every scene. Right-o, we appear to have chosen…blue. Blue gloves, gags, lights, awards, liquids, clothes, roses…even the boyfriend character has blue balls (figuratively speaking). Oh and sometimes remind the audience that some other colour, such as red, can be used as well. Just a couple times. To be ‘artistic’. At least there’s one accidental impact of the colour usage…blue is associated with sadness. And sadness is something this film is all too familiar with. So what do you do after you’ve lit the movie like a cheap softcore porn film? Step Two: make sure everyone looks as bad as possible. Again, I’ve seen most of these actors in other things…they’ve never looked this bad. Perhaps the movie slowly rotted their insides until their outer features resembled an old apple crumble. Perhaps incompetent people were hired to do all the crew work. We’ll never know. Speaking of segues regarding people looking ugly, this film featured LiLo at her absolute worst. In her younger years (not "The Parent Trap" (1998), ew, but more so "Mean Girls" (2004)) people were quite interested in seeing the freckled one all nudie-like. Hey, the internet is a scary place. Anyhoo, when she finally chooses a role as a stripper, what do we get? We get an anorexic and coked out of her tree ‘actor’ that defies your penis to twitch. Did she learn how to pole dance from other strippers? Yes. Does she do a good job? That depends. It sure is skanky and disgusting, watching her grind against a pole in a murky room…so… yes? If looking diseased and undesirable was her goal, then congratulations. Gold star. Of course….she finally plays a stripper…who never gets naked. Why, naturally, the only redeeming quality left in a terrible quality thriller is the chance to see breasts. Even if they are breast of dubious distinction. But this too is denied us. Maybe it’s a good thing but it defies on storyline logic. Annnnnd that leads to… Step Three: make no sense. This film; makes none. It tries to weave a tale of intrigue and suspicion. What it actually does is loosely pick up some ‘shocking’ images and themes, walks around with them for awhile, and then spits them in your eye. When the film was over I both didn’t really understand a) what the heck just happened, and b) whether I was supposed to be laughing quite so hard at what it intended for me to believe had happened with the characters. Do you want the plot? LiLo is Aubrey Fleming, a stupid girl who can’t act. Sorry, that’s still LiLo…Aubrey is just a girl who waffles on from scene to scene about something or other, as teenage girls often do. Then she gets kidnapped by some psycho. She turns up a while later, missing some body parts (and you do have to sit through a lot of pointless gore…I love my horror but this was both tedious and superfluous) and believing that she is an entirely different person than Aubrey…she thinks she is Dakota Moss, a stripper. But wait…she can’t really be a different person, can she? Oh, the intrigue. I’m pretty sure my heart is actively trying to slow down in an attempt to arrest, numbing the aggravation from having watched this ‘drama’ unfold. I actually thought raspy voiced redhead was passable in "Mean Girls"…here, she phones it in from Indonesia, and sleepwalks through this in a drugged haze…what a total embarrassment for all people concerned. But, in case you’re keeping notes, "Lady in the Water" – still worse. But not by much. If you watch this film you will be denied the ability to un-watch it. Do not watch.
Video
Presented in the film's original theatrical ratio of 2.35:1 this transfer is anamorphic and aside from a few issues is a fairly decent image. The main problem that I had with the image is that I felt it was too dark, although the film's color palette leans towards the darker colors and use of deep blues I felt that detail was lost and the overall image was flat as a result in those dimly lit scenes. There was some noise amid those blacks as well causing the black levels to seem crushed rather than deep or bold as they should be. The good news is that the image is clean and there was edge-enhancement and as an added bonus Icon didn't crop the image as they have been known to do with other films that have a ratio of 2.35:1, it should also be noted that the case lists the ratio as being 2.40:1 but it's actually 2.35:1.
Audio
Two audio tracks are included in English, one in Dolby Digital 5.1 and the other in Dolby Digital 2.0 surround. For the purposes of this review I chose to view the film with its 5.1 track. The audio is pretty good although could use a bit more depth considering the film takes place in fairy scummy locations (like a strip club) and could have used a bit more ambience to immerse the viewer in the world of these characters. The dialogue is clear and distortion free, music comes across well and for the most part its a suitable track. Optional subtitles are included in English only.
Extras
Warner Brothers and Icon have included only a few extras on this disc which includes an alternate opening, an alternate ending, some bloopers and an extended scene. Below is a closer look at these supplements. Alternate opening runs for 1 minute 22 seconds, well they really outdid themselves here. Instead of LiLo skanking up a pole there’s just a few shots of different sections of water. No, seriously. No connection to anything, other than to the film’s ability to create boredom. Alternate ending runs for 1 minute 3 seconds, It’s one long shot of Lohan typing on her laptop. That’s it. Wow, really? I assume it’s meant to symbolise… … …I got nothing. Bloopers runs for 2 minutes 48 seconds, why does a self-important thriller need a blooper reel? Rhetorical. It doesn’t. Comparatively speaking, the screw-ups are only slightly worse than the actual takes they chose. But not by much. Extended strip dance runs for 6 minutes 9 seconds, a high piece of art may be to follow here; Different music than used in the theatrical version to start off with…lots of blue light and Lohan sliding down a pole. She assumes the doggie position early. Interesting gambit, let’s see how this pans out. And she’s humping the ground now. Also, different shots appear to have different underwear. Shoddy wardrobe work there. She begins to ride the pole again like a bronco and then circles it ‘like’ a wobbly crack addict. Lots of spinning and a few close-up buttock shots. And yet the extras look bored. Not surprising, I’m just noting it. Her repertoire is exhausted and she returns to the doggy position. Appears to want to crawl backwards over and over but the pole keeps getting in the way. She entices a customer by opening her legs and bums a smoke off of him. He finds this sexy and licks the cigarette suggestively when it is returned to him. Most disturbing thing I’ve seen all day. Next follows a customer with one eye (‘LOL’) and he is treated to a full leg split. I believe I saw a few freckles that have surely been conquered by many a climber. One more butt shot for the road and the pole gets attention again too. It seems disinterested, much like LiLo and my junk.... I want my six minutes back.
Overall
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