I'm staying far away from Europe now.

So I just got back from seeing Hostel, and, well, it's different. I think it's fitting that Takashi Miike has a cameo in the movie, because Hostel owes a lot to Miike's Audition in terms of style and storytelling. Yeah, there's no middle-aged Japanese man looking for a new wife in Hostel, but both films involve someone falling deeper and deeper into a world they eventually regret getting involved with. Though while Audition gives the appearance of a romance movie in its early going, Hostel comes across as a teen sex comedy. Though honestly, until the movie finally hits its groove, the movie's kinda boring. The three lead characters are flat and one-dimensional, existing only to move from one sexual conquest to another. But hey, they can't all be winners.

Once things all go to Hell towards the end of the movie, however, things definitely tend to pick up. While I've seen movies that are far more violent (The Passion of the Christ, for example), Hostel is still most certainly violent and disturbing. There are quite a few moments where I was actually covering my eyes, believe it or not. The performances from the cast are unmemorable, but Eli Roth's outstanding direction and the movie's wild finale make up for it, so I'll give Hostel three and a half stars. Not bad, if you can handle violent movies.

I've also concluded that I've grown numb to on-screen nudity in films. The first half of Hostel has so much nudity that I could have sworn the projectionist had started rolling a porno film instead. After a while, I just wanted to throw up my hands and say, "Okay, I think I've finally seen all the naked women I need to see." Thanks a lot, Eli Roth. Jerk.

In other news, I've finally made some headway in Resident Evil 4. I made it past those Thwompy things, past a pair of 15-foot-tall trolls, past the creepy little midget that turns into a nasty giant tentacle monster, and past two nasty buggers called the Regenerator and the Iron Maiden, but now I'm stuck again. I'm on this bulldozer tearing my way to freedom, but thanks to a ridiculously low amount of decent ammo and a general lack of knowledge in what I'm doing, I keep getting ran over by a giant flaming truck. But I'm gonna figure it out. I always do.

And that, my friends, is all I've got for now.