You wake up.  in a dark room.  you feel around with your left hand on the floor, feels like some gnarly carpet from Lowe's.  you move to your left slightly and hear chains rustling.  a light flickers on, must be motion sensored.  you're in a finished basement.  there's a dartboard.  a shelving unit with old bowling trophies.  a mini-bar.  and a tv that flickers on.  you try and move your arm but you look behind you and you're handcuffed.  to a sex swing.  you see a creepy ass doll on the tv with fucking twizzlers painted on it's cheeks.  it speaks to you.

"Hello, RTW reader, you're here because you like to sensationalize pop culture, you encourage it, you bathe in it, daily, from the Linus doll that used to reside on your toilet seat to the Joker poster in your old room.  Now, you're being punished for those sins- aren't there enough web sites that do this- well, we're going to play a game.  You can either position yourself in the sex chair and sit through all 5 installments of the Saw series of films (only 1 of which is good) or you will face electrocution.  Make your choice!"  TV flickers off----i have but one choice:
"Please!  Electrocute my ass real good!"

(22) Saw is categorized in the horror genre, but this is more like a thriller to me, there's no real horror element to it besides a couple small scares.  I don't need to explain the idea behind this film, it's already been done over and over again and I think since it's had so many sequels, year after year, people, including myself realize how well this movie fucking works.  I mean, jumping right to the end- it's one of the best surprise endings of all time- it really does set this guy up as one of the most clever killers in all of film.  I've always been a fan of movies that are mostly in one location, not sure why but this one has some of those elements, mostly inside the bathroom.  Now, both guys are pricks but it's fun to see Cary Elwes in this role because it's so different for him. Oh, the case of this DVD is quite awesome- it has like a gel pack in the front insert with a saw blade and a splatter of blood that you can move around with your finger.  Pretty unique.

Besides that, the film is semi-gory with some pretty disturbing images surrounding the traps and such but not to the level of the other films where there are just out right gross images for the sake of being gross, ex. sawing into Jigsaw's head for an operation.  The plot is good enough, some of the background characters really aren't fleshed out at all, just kind of cliched characters, such as the unhappy wife, the obsessed detective, and the nursing student who's sleeping with the doctor.  The build to the climax is very well done though and really brings the movie full circle and it's one of those rare movies where you don't expect what happens the way it happens.  This film is a solid B+ and definitley the best of the whole series.  MVP award goes to Tobin Bell, who plays the Jigsaw killer, even though he's not featured that much to actually have been laying down in every scene with the fake blood all over you is a damn miracle; maybe he's just so old he takes long and frequent catnaps during the day anyways.

The making of feature is like 22 minutes and is cool to watch because the filmmakers put so much into this and they keep saying that everything they ever pictured came true and it was amazing.  Everyone wants their dreams to come true so it's neat to see how these guys are reacting to it.  James Wan is the director and Leigh Whanell (Adam in the film) is the screenwriter, both Australian and both with thick accents.  They go through the whole process of their agent trying to find studios to accept the movie and going to Sundance film festival and then they even talk to the producers who first grabbed the film, so it's an interesting process to watch how the whole thing goes.  They show the director a lot and he kind of tries to throw out little things he's learned from his experience, such as you may only get one prop to use, so don't break it and things like that.  Cary Elwes gives a few pointers and he even comes off with that dry sense of humor in real life, like "Dog, you actually are like that in real life?  Wow, that's a first."  I'd give the doc itself a C+.

 Julie Farthwarth.  Ian Restil.  Jim Ghort.  Jukt Micronics.  These are not names you will recognize right away.  Hell, it'd probably take you years without access to Google.com.  But they are quite important in the fabric of the world of journalism and in the next film I'm going to talk about, (23) Shattered Glass.  These are not real people, at least not to you and me.  But to Stephen Glass, graduate from Georgetown Law University, they were part of a wonderful tale that garnered him his biggest success and most tragic downfall.  This film is based off of the life of Stephen Glass who wrote for Washington policy magazine The New Republic, the self proclaimed "in-flight magazine of Air Force One."  He fabricated dozens of articles and became a star reporter for them simply because he figured out the loophole to the fact checking process for articles at the magazine.  The movie has some really brilliant acting, including Hayden Christensen (you know that crybaby Anakin Skywalker from the new Star Wars flicks?) as Glass, a deeply complicated man who strives to be everyone's favorite person.  Glass, desperate for attention, sets up calls from other newspapers to call his office and downplays them, sends away for applications to universities he doesn't have time to attend simply to get sympathy from co-workers and friends.  When chastised or accused, he threatens suicide as easily as someone would tell you to shut up when they're angry.  Then you've got your supporting cast which is also really good, Peter Saarsgard (he did the pirate skit on SNL), Chole Sveginy (she gave the Blowjay on film), Rosario Dawson (damn, i still think about that sex scene in Alexander where she was like a freaking horny jaguar), Hank Azaria (Thank you, come again!) and Steve Zahn ("Hi, I'm Steve Zahn, i'm kind of short and I like to make the funny on film, rarely any good films though)  The movie is great as Glass's story gets more and more holes poked through it and he comes unraveled, nearly aging like the Emperor in Revenge of the Sith.  I'd give the MVP award to Saarsgard though, he has a tough role as the new editor who's left to deal with the fallout from previous editor and hero Michael Kelly (Azaria) and piece together the Glass mystery.  This is a solid B.  No making of features but there's the 60 Minutes interview conducted with the real Stephen Glass and it's pretty interesting- they tried to get the look down because he looks like a creepy peta in real life.  And this prick went on to write a book about exactly what he did as "fiction" and made loads of money.  Is there no justice in this world, to quote Bugs Bunny "what a cruel, cruel world!"

"The Big Bad Bionic Boy's Been Here Baby!"

- Jessie