This is great! A photographer who is willing to be photographed in the same poses as his models.

“First, I really thought that the shots would be funny. Second, it was about the only truly creative idea I had ever had. Third, what better way to blunt the criticism that most nude art degrades women?”

If nothing else, the shots certainly are funny!

Pete Meyers discusses the hassle of complicated modern cameras and posits that film IS, in fact, easier and more convenient.

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I don’t bother covering up for spoilers, so if you haven’t seen The Devil’s Rejects and you plan to see it, do yourself a favor and stop reading this right now. I mean it. Furthermore, it seems Rob Zombie could take a shit, package it up in shrinkwrap and sell it, and millions of teenagers with black eyeliner and combat boots would fork over huge money… and if you’re one of those Rob Zombie-worshiping goth kids, you should probably find something else to read, because Rob Zombie is not a god and I’m not going to suck his ass.

Speaking of sucking ass, that’s exactly what this movie did. It sucked ass. Let me reiterate that point one more time for the search engines to really get the point: Rob Zombie’s new movie, The Devil’s Rejects, sucked more ass than R. Kelly in a room full of teenaged girls.

It’s a shame, because The House of 1000 Corpses was brilliant and innovative. In spite of Zombie’s obvious lack of polish as a film maker, his debut film was exciting, fast-paced, riveting, and original. The follow up, however, was slow, contrived, and formulaic.

William Forsythe plays the role of Sheriff Wydel, and that name should sound familiar. You see, Sheriff Wydel is the cop who was killed in H1kC. This Sheriff Wydel is the dead Sheriff Wydel’s brother. Confused yet? Wydel wants to avenge his brother, and his brother even returns as a ghost to drive this point home for those who missed it in the 100 or so lines of redundant dialogue.

Sheriff Wydel and his “posse” come to the House of 1000 Corpses to exorcise the demons who live there. Tiny stays away. Rufus dies. Grandpa never appears in this film and nobody mentions him. Mother Firefly is arrested. Otis and Baby make it out alive and go on the run with Captain Spaulding. The three are dubbed “The Devil’s Rejects”.

These rejects don’t get very far, though. After an interesting but drawn out story at a motel, the three head to a whorehouse run by Spaulding’s brother Charlie. Charlie rolls over on them and Wydel captures the gang and takes them back to their House where he plans to torture and execute them. They are brutally tortured, but Tiny shows up (as the entire audience expected) at the last minute to save them. Then they get into the car to go make a new home but a fleet of sheriff’s deputies cut them off along the highway and the gang is all gunned down. The end.

That probably doesn’t sound like much of a story to you, and trust me it doesn’t look like much of a story on screen, either. That’s all the meat in the whole story. The rest is rather graphic violence, excessive arguing, choppy camera work, and a brief appearance by Diamond Dallas Page. I missed the flow of H1kC. Notably missing this time were the vignettes between scenes, where we learned how the killers’ minds worked.

Once scene near the end of H1kC silenced the film and simply played an old song while brutal action sequences played out in slow motion. It was very powerful. In Rejects, the film was silenced in this manner a handful of times — too many — and only at the end was it used in such a grave situation… but Free Bird just doesn’t have the same impact that I Remember You had the first time around.

Sid Haig is eminently likeable, but I missed the clown makeup: Captain Spaulding was to House what Darth Vader was to Star Wars and without the clown makeup he’s just another character in the story. Bill Moseley could have been replaced by Billy Bob Thornton and you’d have never known the difference. Sheri Moon Zombie IS Baby, and she owns that character. The real gem, however, was William Forsythe. Nevermind that it was a lousy role. Nevermind that Rob Zombie needed to leave a lot more of it on the cutting room floor. Nevermind that stuff, Forsythe was as powerful in this role as anyone could have possibly been. He wasn’t the just the best actor in this film, he was the best actor in spite of this film.

It’s obvious that he wanted to make a more serious movie this time around, what with the lack of artsy cut-scenes and cheap camera tricks. This time he actually rented a decent hydraulic crane for some impressive overhead sweeps and pans. The cameras spent lots of quality time in dramatic close-ups on the actors. The sets were bigger and cleaner. Oh, and did I mention the movie sucked?

I’m left to believe that Zombie envisions himself becoming a famous filmmaker one day, and thus made a conscious effort to suckify this movie and kill off the Rejects to guarantee that he’d never be stuck in a career of making sequels to this story… and that he wanted to show more legitimate directing talent in the process. If that’s the case, he succeeded, because at anything else this movie was a complete failure and to say anything else would be turning a blind eye to the fimmaking failures of a popular rock-n-roll musician.

…and having digital cameras would have definitely saved the world’s coolest parents from their legal entanglements.

Sometimes all you need is the right subject. With a little attention to composition, no special photographic skill was necessary to take a few great photos of my vacation.