Day 304: Double Feature - Hocus Pocus (1993) and The Frighteners (1996)

Hocus Pocus.  PG, 1 hr. 35 min.  Directed by: Kenny Ortega.  Release Date: July 16, 1993.  DVD Release Date: April 22, 2003.

Happy Halloween!  Traditionally, I don’t go out tonight.  I find all the insanity that comes with Halloween to be a bit too much and my usual routine is to watch whatever scary movies I can find that are new and that I haven’t seen.  Trick ‘R Treat broke that pattern a year or two ago and made me realize that there are plenty of Halloween-themed movies that are not scary per se, but that are very much worth watching.  Hocus Pocus is an older movie that just happens to fit that bill.

For whatever reason, this movie has always appealed to me, from the first moment I saw its trailer in the theaters.  I love this movie, despite its faults (and there are a lot of them).  For about a year, this was the movie that I pushed on my friends in high school.  Some of them were dragged to see this in theaters for one of my five screenings of Hocus Pocus, and I probably should apologize to them for it, but I’m not going to.  Others were forced to watch when I got this on video; so frequently that I'm amazed I had any friends by my Senior year.

So why do I love this movie when it clearly shouldn’t be high on my list?  That’s a good question and I’m not totally sure that I can answer the it.  I find the story line enchanting in a fairy tale way, and I do love a good fairy tale.  I like the childlike simplicity that Disney brings to the table with this film, not that I’d expect any less from Disney, and I like that the setting and the story are meshed in such a way that they build upon each other.  The final product is one of those movies that just makes me feel good.  It’s a bit funny, a bit spooky (if you’re a kid), a bit silly, and bit musical thanks to Ms. Midler.

There are times, well, this year, there have been many times when all I've needed is simple entertainment.  I'm not really looking for well-defined characters, a great plot, and a film fantastique.  I just want to sit back and enjoy what I'm watching, even if it's one of those movies that I have to watch with the curtains drawn so that the neighbors were sure I was watching those other kinds of movies.  Actually, this is one of my favorite Disney live action movies, although granted, there aren't a whole lot to choose from that are actually worth watching... at least not until you start exploring the Disney-owned imprint production companies like Dimension.

I'm rambling a little, because I'm crazy tired thanks to a nightmare that woke me at about 4, and gave me a headstart on my movie watching for the day.   Hocus Pocus was able to help me shake off the cobwebs and start my day about two hours earlier than usual.  WOOT!

The Frighteners.  R, 1 hr. 49 min.  Directed by: Peter Jackson.  Release Date: July 19, 1996.  DVD Release Date: August 18, 1998.

I owned this a million years ago, back when my movie collection was all on VHS.  I'm not sure why I never upgraded this, because it is something I'd like to have in the current incarnation of my collection.  This appeared in my latest shipment from Netflix, and I realized that I hadn't seen this in years, probably since about 1998 or 1999, when I watched it with my friend Anna and her then-boyfriend, now husband, Jordy.  Until I stayed with them a few summers ago, I'd forgotten about the evening entirely.  But, that night came up in the conversation briefly and revitalized my interest in this movie.

Let's talk about Michael J. Fox.  Have we ever seen him in a performance where he wasn't totally entertaining?  I'm not talking about whether or not he was releasing quality pictures... because most of his career was based on movies that had mass appeal.  I've never heard anyone say that they absolutely hated him in Back to the Future, or Teen Wolf, or even The Hard Way.  Even when his movies are terrible, he brings a certain... guileless charm to the table that is hard to find and easily appreciated.  Now that he's in either retirement or semi-retirement while he deals with his illness, I find myself missing his occasional appearance on the big screen.  While it's true that there's a lot about Frank Bannister that reminds me of Marty McFly and Nick Lang, it's not a close enough match to either that I spend the movie frowning at the similarities.  A limited range is fine if you do it really, really well.  Some of today's young actors should take notes.

Michael J. Fox isn't alone in a good performance in The Frighteners.  The cast manages to appear both funny and creepy; in the cases of Jake Busey and Dee Wallace, sometimes both in the same scene.  Part of this success is the screenplay, which is written well enough to make for a completely unbelievable "I see dead people" story line to come alive and to be rational enough for the audience to suspend disbelief.  

There's little reason not to see this movie.  It's funny, a bit campy, and packs what was then a special effects wallop.  The movie pokes a little bit of fun at The X-Files, as well, so X-Philes be warned.  I'm not entirely sure why this is rated R, unless it's for violence.  I would have guessed PG or PG-13, but then, my radar for these kinds of things can be a little off.  I guess if you're going to invite the kids to watch, just be cautious. 

Day 303: Double Feature - Rear Window (1954) and I Wake Up Screaming (1941)

Rear Window.  PG, 1 hr. 52 min.  Directed by: Alfred Hitchcock.  Release Date: September 1, 1954.  DVD Release Date: March 6, 2001.

One of my many memories of my grandfather is watching Alfred Hitchcock Presents with him.  He loved Hitchcock movies, and for all the right reasons.  He appreciated the subtleties and nuances that you don't tend to find in other thrillers, he loved the cast, and he generally loved the mood of Hitchcock's work.  It's because of him that I love Hitchcock's films today.  At this point in my life, I've seen something like half to two-thirds of the Master's works that were made before 1970, and Rear Window, the first of his movies to cross my path, is still my favorite.  It's still one of his most perfect works, and when I put it in my DVD player today, I wondered, not for the first time, how well this would adapt to the stage, because in some ways, it feels like a play that's been adapted to film.

The first thing that caught my attention this time around is how the social reaction to J.B. "Jeff" Jefferies' snooping is so different back then than it would be today.  Everyone in Jeff's life chastises him for peeping on his neighbors, first because he had nothing to do but stare out his window into theirs, and then when he used binoculars or a zoom lens to get a better view.  Less than 40 years later, peeping on your neighbors in New York City had become so commonplace that no one batted an eyelash when Sliver appeared on the scene and had was using a telescope not to gaze at the stars, but at her neighbors doing scandalous things.  

It's the cast and their portrayal of some wonderful characters that really pulls this ahead of Hitchcock's other works, even though in many cases, these are actors who worked in Hitchcock's thrillers time and time again.  Jimmy Stewart made a career out of Hitchcock movies, and was generally the star in the best of them.  His frank and earnest portrayal of a man who is bored and cranky, suffering from cabin fever in the wake of a broken leg is so dead on that you don't doubt for a minute that this is a story that has evolved naturally, rather than one that survives on contrivance and plot device.  Grace Kelly's portrayal of Lisa Fremont is fairly close to the perfect woman:  beautiful, smart, sophisticated, generous, a little sexy, and brave near to the point of stupidity.  That last is a flaw, but every perfect thing needs something to mar the perfection, doesn't it?  And Lisa's running off where angels would fear to tread is certainly a flaw.

The bit players in this movie are a bit weak.  Those actors who have a lot of silent performance but only one or two lines tended to be outstanding in their pantomime, but terrible in the execution of their lines.  Like Lisa Fremont, Rear Window needed a little flaw in order to make it absolutely perfect without being intimidating.  There are worse ways to go.

Rear Window has spawned a number of copycats over the years, including a remake in (I think) the late 90s.  I'd argue that Sliver is very, very similar, only sexing up the story a lot and modernizing the technology that you can use to spy on people.  Most recently, Disturbia was made as a way of introducing the younger generation to classic thriller principles, which I think it did beautifully.  If you've seen any of these and liked them, I'd suggest you hit up on the inspiration, as well.

I Wake Up Screaming.  Unrated, 1 hr. 22 min.  Directed by: H. Bruce Humberstone.  Release Date: November 14, 1941.  DVD Release Date: June 6, 2006. 

I don’t have much of an affinity for film noir, only because I haven’t had much exposure to it and it’s mostly been my understanding that people who dig noir dig it because someone else introduced them to this quirky genre.  Not many lovers of it fall in to it.  So I was a little surprised by the dichotomy built in to the film’s story line, which begins with the murder of a beautiful, but not-so-well liked, model with hopes to be a star and ends with a much brighter note.  

It wasn’t just that though.  Someone made it a point to play an instrumental version of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” fairly frequently, which always gives me a sort of idyllic feeling, and might still have that reaction even if it hadn’t been part of The Wizard of Oz’s soundtrack.  There was also the idea that the “beautiful people” were capable of getting mixed up in under the right circumstances, which made for a really nice premise.  What I’m not sure about was how successful a mystery I Wake Up Screaming really was.  Everything seems to roll together fairly quickly, which is fine, and I have to say that I think the initial phases of the mystery, the build-up and the actual death, are very well done.

It’s the solving of the mystery that bothered me a bit.  Things were happening that didn’t make sense to me in the greater scheme of the story, but I can’t go in to details without there being a spoiler.  I suspect what I would have preferred was more back story initially rather than dealing with it in a Memento sort of way.  It wasn’t bad, I’m just not sure that what we saw were entirely reasonable given the circumstances.  I even had to go back a few chapters several times to make sure I was interpreting the story correctly.

This is a rare thing for me, but I also feel like this is a movie that could benefit from a remake.  The days when we had actors of the quality of Betty Grable, Carole Landis, and Victor Mature on the shelf are more or less over, but I thought this could do with some more graphic treatment of the murder and investigation.  I’m not looking for a scene where the killer hacks up a victim, but I would have liked a bit more CSI­-ish investigation.  

I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a mystery film handled quite like this before.  It was an interesting change and is certainly worth watching for the fan of noir or a fan of mystery films. 

Day 302: Double Feature - In Time (2011) and The Fly (1986)

In Time.  PG-13, 1 hr. 49 min. Directed by: Andrew Niccol.   Release Date: October 28, 2011.

I really liked this movie, but I had to watch it twice to be sure.  Conceptually, I thought this was fantastic, although I'm not sure that I'd actually want to play in a world where longevity was traded like currency.  As a person who watches a lot of sci fi, it's been a long time since I've seen alternate world sci fi done this well, like the last time just might have been The Matrix.  When I stood back for a moment, just after the second viewing, I decided that Alicia Silverstone would have said that this was a total Monet.  From a distance, everything kind of worked, and it was a fun movie to watch, albeit a bit predictable.  When you got up an inspected the details, they were kind of a mess.

So here's the rub:  I had two problems with the characters.  The first is that I didn't like or empathize with any of them with the arguable exception of Alex Pettyfer's character.  I don't even know most of their names, which is unusual for me.   I didn't like Pettyfer's murderous time gangster bit, but I got him.  Of all the people in this film, he was the one I understood the best.  More strangely is that Pettyfer is just one of up to three antagonists, depending on how you talk about the characters.  The second problem I had was more of a casting issue than anything else.  Most of the women looked similar to me.  Big, vibrant eyes rimmed with more eyeliner than most folks would consider appropriate; pale skin, hair cut around the face simply, in that frame kind of deal.  Rich or poor, there was a strong resemblance between the cast members that I'm not sure was intention.  It also wasn't until I spotted her name on the poster just above these words that I realized Amanda Seyfried is the female lead. 

I was left with a few generally unanswered questions about how this world works.  It was enough to make me look forward to a sequel, although the ending to this movie doesn't necessarily point me in that direction.  I was left wondering if there was a way to "inherit" time left on the "clock" of someone who dies in an accident.  They actually asked my question about whether it was possible to die in ways other than getting timed out.  I wondered why more people weren't suiciding, considering the VAST percentage of the population who was literally living day to day, with the odds stacked against their survival, why weren't more people just living it up for awhile and then quietly dying?

Despite all this, I really dug In Time.  I suspect in the fullness of time that it will find its way in to my DVD collection.  It hasn't made me rethink my irrational hatred for Justin Timberlake yet, but each movie that he's in that I like pushes me closer to making that decision.

The Fly.  R, 1 hr. 36 min.  Directed by: David Cronenberg.  Release Date: August 15, 1986.  DVD Release Date: September 5, 2000. 

Since I've spent the last several months watching David Cronenberg movies, both as a prelude to and as aftermath from my first appearance on the LAMBcast, I've developed a certain feel for his movies.  I suspect there will only rarely come a time when I don't recognize his work when I'm exposed to it.  The Fly, in many ways, represents... a step back from his usual combination on story quirks:  disgust/disfigurement, sexuality (particularly some 'deviant' pursuit therein), and violence, but not because of these things' absence.  It's a step back because none of these three themes are as blatant as they are in other Cronenberg movies.  

I've had Cronenberg movies make my gorge rise.  I've been... startled by the graphic use of sexuality or violence in his films.  The Fly was sort of the diet Coke of these things.  It was one calorie worth of disgust, another of sex, and a third calorie of violence.  All were used sparingly, and most were used (in Cronenberg's traditional methodology) to distinguish the otherness of Seth Brundle after he tests his teleporter device by putting himself in it.  

The Fly has an interesting story that feels, at least partially, like it's based on good science, the crux of any science fiction tale.  It has two major hurdles (for me) in the form of its stars:  Geena Davis and Jeff Goldblum.  I only rarely like Davis:  Thelma and Louise, A League of Their Own, and Beetlejuice are about it.  I've never liked Goldblum, even when I like the movie, such as Independence Day.  Together, they've created an abomination before film, by which I mean Earth Girls Are Easy.  So, when I saw them together in this, it was a major problem.  The good news was that I liked Geena Davis, but still didn't like Jeff Goldblum.  I didn't like their relationship, which doesn't feel as if it evolves naturally within the confines of the story.

This is an interesting, slightly fun movie, with a lengthy gross-out near the end.  The characters are a bit dated now.  John Getz' in particular reminds of "80's Guy" from Futurama, but other than that, I have few complaints. 

Day 301: Double Feature - Hostel (2006) and Naked Lunch

Neither of these movies is scary in the traditional sense, or at least, I didn't think so.  Although if you look on Wikipedia, the point of horror is to go far beyond fear, which was what I thought.  Horror can include a repulsion or disgust reaction, and both of these movies disgusted me in ways I didn't think possible.


Hostel.  R, 1 hr. 35 min.  Directed by: Eli Roth.  Release Date: January 6, 2006. DVD Release Date: April 18, 2006.

In 2006, I saw this in theaters with my friends Jimmie, whom I sometimes refer to as Puto, and Ryan, whom I never gave a nickname.  I as unsettled as I watched this.  Not because I worry that some of this might actually have happened.  I figure with more than six billion of us on the planet we can lose a few of the slow stupid ones... it would be a better world if natural selection still applied to humanity.  I was disturbed by the graphic nature of this movie, even though occasionally something terrible would happen and my rational brain would kick in with thoughts like, "never eat 1000 island dressing again."  When the movie was over, I rose on shaking knees and unsteady feet.  When I got home, I threw up.  Like Exorcist throwing up.  I got it contained just in time.  Again, it wasn't fear, it was stress.  I'm also a little worried that I can't provide you with anything that's even marginally objective, which I do attempt in every entry.  Some of my work has to be subjective, but I'm afraid this might be entirely subjective because of my distaste for the subject matter.

I settled for promising myself that I'd never watch this movie again.  I broke that promise because it fit so well with my definition of the  horror/thriller genre that I've been watching this month.  When I mentioned in my discussion of Nosferatu that I thought some of these entries would be controversial, this was really what I was thinking about.  Well, this and the fact that I couldn't miss What's Your Number earlier this month.  I was on the edge of my seat finding out the answer to that question, let me tell you.

I think this has some really nice bones for a decent suspense or horror film.  It's basically The Greatest Game told from the point of view of the victims... which isn't a terrible re-imagining of the concept.  It would make for a great sequel to the novel that inspired all this crap if the writer's still alive, which I doubt.  The setting is completely eerie, the stuff Balkan war and vampire movies have been made of for, well, ever.  They provide enough gore to keep folks' bloodlust satisfied, and I'm fairly sure that's the only reason this was marketed more as a horror film and less as a suspense-thriller.
 

The cast is adequate to the job, although if I never saw any of them but maybe Jay Hernandez again, I wouldn't lose much sleep over it.  But, to be fair, none of them are exactly working with complicated characters, so they could have replaced these guys with homeless people and gotten much the same results.  

So this time around, I didn't get knock-kneed, I didn't get sick, and I wasn't all that in to the story.  I won't be watching this a third time.  I suspect this would appeal to teenagers wanting to expand their horror horizons to something a little more horrific, but most other folks can skip this.

Naked Lunch.  R, 1 hr. 57 min.  Directed by: David Cronenberg.  Release Date: December 27, 1991.  DVD Release Date: November 11, 2003.

I actually watched this for the first time a long time, back in August when I was preparing for my debut on the LAMBcast.  We were discussing the films of David Cronenberg, which was a bit of a problem for me because I can name maybe 5 directors, and I’d be lucky to place them to the movies that they actually made.  The good news was, after confirming his filmography with Wikipedia, that I’d already seen a large number of his films:  The Brood, Crash (the one about people getting off on car accidents), Eastern Promises, A History of Violence, eXistenZ, The Fly, and The Dead Zone, so I thought maybe I'd have something to contribute.

Based on what I read about Cronenberg, I expected to have a pretty visceral reaction to this movie.  He’s pioneered the concept of “body” horror, which is heavy on gross-outs and unnerving situations.  When I started up Naked Lunch, that’s exactly what I got.  I’m… a little insect-ophobic, so seeing all those roaches and the kind of up close and personal experience with them wasn’t what I was prepared for.  I was eating lunch at the time as well… and needless to say my lunch hit the trash can pretty quickly after that.

Basically, Naked Lunch was NOT what I was expecting.  This was a very sci-fi oriented movie in that alternate universe sort of way.  It looked like our world, but in many key ways it wasn’t, and that was quickly obvious.  I thought that the characters were fascinating, even though most of them were played in a Ben Stein-ish fashion that shouldn’t have drudged up even the slightest interest.  The dialogue was razor sharp and actually required I pay attention, which doesn’t happen so often.  I’m also going to say that this isn’t going to be everyone’s cup of tea.  It’s successful because it’s pretty much designed to be off-putting, and it succeeds there.  I thought the cast was awesome and the story was well-written enough that it could live on the edge between reality and hallucination and not be completely impossible to understand.  

A few years ago, I took a class called Gender and Communication, in which the class explored the different ways men and women pass messages along.  One of the units was called something like “Negative Perversion” and we basically discussed how common a trick it is in literary circles to include homosexual or cross-gendered aspects to characters or events intended to inspire a negative reaction in the audience.  It’s especially common in cartoons (check out Jafar’s eye shadow and effeminate gestures if you don’t believe me).  So imagine my complete and utter shock (even back then, I’d thought it was kind of horse shit) when our hero goes to the drug trafficking capital of the world and everyone is suddenly interested in and endorsing man-on-man action.  I’m going to have to write that professor an apology note.  Or not.  She still gave me an A.

So I guess I can respect the work technically, but this isn’t something I’m going to be rushing out to watch again anytime soon.  If you have a sensitive stomach, take a pass, or at least don’t watch this anywhere near a meal time.  If you don’t like bugs… well, you’re probably going to be really creeped out by this. 

Day 300: Double Feature - Copycat (1995) and American Psycho (2000)

Copycat.  R, 2 hr.  Directed by: Jon Amiel.  Release Date: October 27, 1995.  DVD Release Date: April 28, 1998.

This was a BIG milestone for my little project.  300 of the 365 days of this year are done.  When I did the scheduling for October, waaay back in March or April, I realized that I needed to find something that not only paid a little tribute to the fact that today represented my 300th day of movie watching this year (for the project), but that fit within the constraints I had place on the mini-project to happen throughout the month of October.  Basically, I was desperate to find two horror or suspense-thrillers that were good.  Not just good.  Great.

I struggled a lot, and I had a few things scheduled in this slot over the intervening months before the change in plans from having new releases happen on the weekends to happening on Tuesdays made me revisit this months schedule and do some significant rearrangement of the titles.  Finally, I hit upon Copycat, a movie which had escape my notice originally until I saw a fellow movie blogger reference it in passing.  I remembered it being a favorite once upon a time, and so I replaced it with some lame horror film that I ended up putting in some other month.

The strength in Copycat is in its cast.  Strong performers abound in this movie, even in the supporting role, and most give their very best effort.  Harry Connick, Jr., playing a man intent on stalking and murdering Sigourney Weaver's character, is so effective that he leaves me chilled in every scene he's in.  To break into uncharacteristic slang:  that dude is wack, yo.  He was creepy and visibly insane... although I do feel like that about Harry Connick, Jr. even in Will & Grace, so that might not be saying much.


The story is strong, but I always get the impression that someone tried too hard to water it down enough that it couldn't be considered horror.  These guys weren't looking to do a slasher pic, for sure, but they might have recreated something along the lines of Silence of the Lambs.  I've probably mentioned in the past that I have this gobstopping, train wreck-like fascination with all things serial killer, so I got swept into the story line almost as soon as we learn there is indeed a serial killer at work.  I even like the twist that this guy's modus operandi isn't the same each time, and that he switches his whos-who of killer repertoire each time he kills.  Adds a little to the spook factor, I think, since the MO tends to allow law enforcement to find and catch these guys.


If I have a problem with the movie, it's the time lapse between the initial scenes with Harry Connick, Jr. and Sigourney Weaver and the "13 months later" follow up.  It feels too much like no time has passed... I get that they were running out of time, but I would have happily swapped both Holly Hunter's and Dermott Mulroney's interaction with her ex and the big station scenes in favor of the evolution of Weaver's character from a strong woman to a house-bound, fragile thing.

American Psycho.  R, 1 hr. 44 min.  Directed by: Mary Harron.  Release Date: April 14, 2000.  DVD Release Date: September 5, 2000.

American Psycho was the first time I noticed Christian Bale in anything.  I know that he had a career before this movie, but for the life of me, I don't know what it entailed prior to the release of this adaptation of the novel by Bret Easton Ellis.  The release of the novel caused quite a commotion in its time for its violent imagery and sexual content, both of which return in a muted form in the film.  Also like the book, the film's narrative seems to follow the internal conflict within the leading character by using emotional peaks and lows:  in one moment, we'll see the lead character discuss the strengths of the "latest" Huey Lewis & The News release and in the next, murder most foul will be afoot.

Where the movie fails the novel is the ending, where we begin to see that the narrative we've been given isn't quite what it might appear to be.  There's a single scene that suggests this in the film version:  Bateman's entering the apartment of someone he had murdered which he'd been using to stash bodies and finding no bodes.  Signs of painting had happened and no signs of his own work.  The book has several more examples that make you wonder if even Bateman's rampage are machinations of his own mind, and the movie would have been better for it.  The recurring theme of mistaken identity that was present in the movie was supposed to help that along, but without the end details, it mostly makes you think the characters are stupid, or so self-involved they only barely notice the other people in their lives.

But, Christian Bale was outstanding as Patrick Bateman.  He didn't help the monologues about Bateman's day-to-day activities be more interesting, because really, who cares about what the man uses to wash his face, but in those moments when Bateman's mask of sanity begins to crack, few actors could have pulled it off like he did.  I have to admit, there's something about Bale's role here that reminds me of his portrayal of Bruce Wayne, and I can't put my finger on what exactly it is.  It might just be the suits and the appearance of wealth.  It might be that I happen to think that Bruce Wayne is completely nuts.

This movie (and the book) could have been absolutely terrifying, because it's kind of everyone's worst nightmare.  No one wants to think that a serial killer could be like Patrick Bateman.  But the horror of the movie was stunted slightly by the editing (most of Bateman's worst actions are left for the pages of the book) and moreso by the monologue scenes.  There's no rhyme or reason to them.  Sometimes it's a discussion of Bateman's feelings about his friends and colleagues, sometimes it's a lecture about a grooming product, and sometimes we're treated to intelligent discussion about artists of the day. 

It's a bit of an odd romp, but it's also a pretty slick drama.  If you haven't seen it and are in the market for something different, I'd check this out.  If you like this, there are two more Brett Easton Ellis novel adaptations to check out:  The Informers and The Rules of Attraction, both of which borrow some of the characters from this film.

Day 299: Double Feature - Strangers on a Train (1951) and Choose (2011)

Strangers on a Train.  PG, 1 hr. 41 min. Directed by: Alfred Hitchcock.  Release Date: July 3, 1951.  DVD Release Date: August 27, 1997.

Once I started thinking about this movie, it seemed to me that there were a few serious differences between Strangers and the other Hitchcock movies I’ve seen to date.  Now, I haven’t seen all of the Master’s work, although that is a project I’ve been working on for a few years now, but I’ve seen enough to spot some trends.  Hitchcock seems to prefer what I’m going to call intimate settings, scenes rarely include more than a handful or two of people in order to make them work and relatively few are in open spaces.  You rarely see the camera pan over anything more massive than a portion of a neighborhood.  Only a year ago, I might have suggested that it was a rarity for Hitchcock movies to have an outdoors scene, although now I’d say it’s rare to have an outdoors scene with something as innocuous as a tennis game.  Strangers seems to disregard all of his usual patterns.  There are several scenes including large numbers of people, and there are several efforts at panning across a crowded event or place.  You also see that tennis game, and a fairgrounds, although the story turns the fairgrounds into something a little less pleasant before the scene is over.  

Something else I recognized immediately was the story.  Unfortunately, I saw this first rehashed as Throw Momma From The Train, so I had some ideas about where the movie was heading and what I was going to see.  I’ve also heard this story referenced in television shows periodically over the years, I just didn’t know where the idea of murder-switching had come from.  I suspect it wasn’t an original thought even here, but I bet this was the first time that someone had filmed it.  

What interested me most was my take on things that might have taken as relatively normal events back in the day, just the way that things have changed between 1951 and today.  In the opening scene, the leading man is approached by another man who starts offering to buy him drinks and lunch, “back in his carriage.”  I might have taken that as a guy on the prowl, and even watching the scene, I caught myself looking around to see if someone else was seeing what I was seeing (and no one else was in the room).  Considering the leading man’s reaction, that was not intentional… and maybe I’m just paranoid or suffering from a dirty mind (or both).  I did a double take during the tennis scene when both players came on to the court wearing blazers.  I’m blaming my surprise on Andre Agassi’s fashion sense and its impact on tennis.  Finally, there’s a scene wherein the antagonist is playing a game with two older women where they’re discussing how best to murder someone.  I was in stitches because the whole idea felt incongruous.  Who would do that?

But, at the end of the day, what we have here is a VERY well-written story about improbable circumstances and psychopathology.  No one ever says the word “sociopath,” but he has lots of the symptoms:  fiscal and personal irresponsibility, cruelty, rejection of authority, lack of regard for life, and on and on.  There were no behavioralists, no forensic psychologists (except for my armchair efforts), no CSI team, but this would have been slick for the day.  It would be interesting to see a re-imagining of this tale with that science included. 

Choose.  R, 1 hr. 40 min.   Release Date: March 18, 2011.  DVD Release Date: January 17, 2011.

I expected this to be your run of the mill slasher flick:  spates of blood, maybe some exposed guts, and dark screens broken only by a flashing blade.  Well, there's some of that.  But, there is what I think is a pretty extraordinary opening sequence, which is ruined by some criminally bad acting.  It leads in to a movie that I think is a little stunning conceptually.

Let's look at that concept from a horror perspective.  Are crazed killers a bit scary?  If you checked 'yes' then we can proceed.  Add to it a killer that gives you a choice:  death results only if you fail to make a choice.  He takes one of your two most prized personal attributes.  Each assault is tailored for the person being attacked.  Each choice is horrible and neither will be a choice you're comfortable making.  The attack scenes are drawn out and elaborate, but no so much so that they lose their effectiveness. 

From that single concept this movie gets run to ground like a wounded buffalo in a hunt.  It's overly burdened with a TON of back story, most of which wasn't something I was able to track.   There's suicide, and a troubled boy, and connections to various and sundry victims of this serial... attacker.  It should be noted that it takes our killer a generous portion of the movie in order to actually kill someone, which I guess isn't too different from how long it took Jack the Ripper to actually, well, rip.  The dialogue is kind of simple, filled with obvious puns and little imagination.  The cast is rough, to be generous, and occasionally it seems like even they're a bit confused as to what's going on.  There are no names I knew involved in this project (notice that even Flixster was unable to provide me with information on the director of this, who shows a little promise), but I recognized the father/sheriff in the piece.  He wasn't terrible, but mediocrity doesn't shine in a morass of suck, so I'm throwing him to the wolves along with the rest.  

Worse than all this is the ending, which, while graphic in its violence, manages to be both confusing and unsatisfying.  I can't explain without spoiling what passes for "everything."  But there's a bit of a twist, and they didn't do enough of the work to establish how the twist could be part of the movie's fact.  Or if they did, it was so quick I missed it.

Day 298: The Three Musketeers (2011) and eXistenZ (1999)

So work got away with me again, although those who checked this site this afternoon noticed that I had prepared to watch two movies at the theaters tonight.  I only got to one, and I'd forgotten that I'd pre-planned my post so that I could just fill in the text when I got home.  That explains the fun empty post that I've had online for the last five hours or so.

PG-13, 1 hr. 42 min.  Directed by: Paul W.S. Anderson.  Release Date: October 21, 2011.

At some point, I have to blame The Matrix for stuff like this.  Because really, what we have is one of (in my humble opinion) the best and most realistic adventure novels ever written, and I mean frigging EVER.  Any time period, any country, and language, and suddenly you have everyone acting like they're ninjas.  

Where do I give this movie positive credit?  I liked how they portrayed the Countess de Winter, sort of, although I think Milla Jovovich wasn't even CLOSE to being right for the role.  I guess it could have been worse, and they could have cast Sarah Michelle Gellar or Eliza Dushku.  That would have been much, much worse.  I even liked the addition of Da Vinci's war machine, although the thought that we seem to be expected to believe that no one would come up with an obvious countermeasure... and that they'd have been able to come up with THAT much lighter than air gas is laughable.  The action sequences, while out of place in this quiet, but well-loved piece of French literature, were very decent and obviously inspired by Neo. 

Where did they go wrong?  Well, with a Paul W.S. Anderson movie, you generally have a lot of room to make that decision.  Let's see, the whole bit about Louis XIII and Lord Buckingham having this sort of metrosexual tension between (which bordered more than once on the homosexual) was funny for about the first thirty seconds, and then when it looked like Versailles had been turned in to Versace's latest lineups, I lost interest pretty quick.  Technology appeared in this movie that wouldn't truly see the light of day for CENTURIES, and again, it was cute, but not that cute.  The dialogue was terrible, the delivery was even worse, and I think Milla was stroking out because of all hairspray used to put her weave together.  The ending and subsequent sequel foretelling was so bad I don't even want to think about it.  Just wait for The Four Musketeers, coming out in the 7 weeks it'll take ole Anderson to crank it out.

But, this wasn't a terrible way to spend a couple hours, although I was admittedly distracted by my first viewing in a "Fork & Screen" theater, which offers a full menu, bar, and seats so wide even my shoulders fit in the confines.  The constant waitstaff could have made me think this wasn't so terrible.  But I liked the pretty explosions, Orlando Bloom getting his hair messed up, and the swordplay.

If I was a betting man, there'd probably be a picture of Bender on this poster, but alas, there's no time for that this evening.

R, 1 hr. 37 min.  Directed by: David Cronenberg.  Release Date: April 23, 1999.  Release Date: October 19, 1999.

I watched this in preparation for my first participation in the LAMBcast:  Episode 85 – David Cronenberg’s films.  Like most of Cronenberg’s works, I found myself loving the concept:  in this movie, in a near-future alternate Earth, a video game maker and a PR assistant get sucked in to a world not entirely under their control by playing a video game that communicates directly with their central nervous system.  

Now that I’ve seen a few of Cronenberg’s movies, I’ve started to pick up on certain things.  Many of his works involve a blurring of the line that separates reality and fantasy.  Dialogue continually discusses the “realistic” nature to the fantasy world, and reality is occasionally intruded upon by things that should belong to the fantasy world.  Much of his work also plays with the disgust response in the average person, and all of it seems to deal with one or more issues surrounding human sexuality.  There are a LOT of references to “bodily penetration,” particularly how Jude Law doesn’t like being penetrated (/snicker), and when discussing accessing Jennifer Jason Leigh’s port, Law says with a smirk, “should I do you?”  It doesn’t take a genius to figure it out, although it took the scene where you get a close up on Leigh’s port, and you have just enough time to think, “hey, that looks a bit like—“ when Jude Law sticks his tongue in to it.  The technology all seems to look like Japanese-made sex toys, and there are no occasions when the act of “porting” isn’t at least vaguely sexual.  There’s very little in the game world that isn’t tinged with disgust, although it wasn’t as harsh as the disgust factor in Naked Lunch.

Another thing I’ve come to think of as a pre-2000 Cronenberg thing is stiff and strangely awkward performances.  Both Leigh and Law move through their parts as if they’re trying to cover up an erection with a binder.   The characters are odd by my standards, and most of the gender rules I walked in to their partnership expecting never happened.  Leigh’s character is sexually aggressive, the obvious leader and mentor, brave, opinionated, and independent.  Her “office attire” leans toward the vampish:  sheer blouses, half shirts, lots of skin, and tight slacks or skirts.  Law is dependent on Leigh’s character, is emotional and cowardly, and dresses like someone bought him cybermonk wear at the local Fuzzy and Warm Emporium.  Even when he’s engaged in something sexual, he’s completely desexualized.

My reaction is the normal one for a pre-2000 Cronenberg.  Interest.  Conceptually, this is a great movie, and I think the story runs very well, but I would have liked a bit more grounding in the reality of their world before we go leaping in to eXistenZ.  Inception fans will probably like the various worlds and how they intertwine.  I didn’t love Inception, but I did like this, probably because it wasn’t broadcasting the flipping end result to us throughout the movie.  Certainly, if you’re looking for something that’s both fun and thought-provoking, this is an excellent way to go.

I do have two complaints.  The first is that the battle sequences in the final scenes are the absolute suck; even by late 90s standards, those were some pretty pathetic pyrotechnics.  The second is the obvious dialogue regarding the crossing from reality into the fantasy of the game.  “Are we still in the game?” is a common line in various guises, and I think this script was better than that.

Day 297: Double Feature - The Third Man (1949) and Dial M For Murder (1954)

The Third Man.  Unrated, 1 hr. 44 min.  Directed by: Carol Reed.  Release Date: September 3, 1949.  DVD Release Date: November 30, 1999. 

This was the LAMB Movie of the Month a few months ago, and I wasn't able to get to it when I could have gotten some link love from seeing it, but this has been on my list of movies to see for a while now.  It's certainly the kind of classic I'd enjoy, seeing as how I absolutely LOVE those classic era mysteries and suspense thrillers.  

I started the movie with a question.  Was control of Vienna divided like that?  I knew Berlin was, but I didn't know that there were other cities in eastern Europe that were similarly carved up by the Allies.  That kept my mind working for a few minutes, and so much so that I kind of missed the first fifteen minutes or so of the movie and I had to skip back and watch them again.  Later, I was kind of struck by the similarities in the telling of this story and the story that I've been told by more than one "grassy knoll" conspiracy enthusiast. 

I loved how Holly Martin's investigation into the death of his friend almost feels like a descent in to madness.  There were several times in the film, as major events were revealed, that I was left to wonder if what I was seeing was supposed to be a figment of Holly's imagination, or a drunken hallucination.  It kept me guessing, although admittedly, one of the things I guessed turned out to be the correct answer to this mystery.  

While I was largely unfamiliar with the cast, I thought the assembled men and women were fantastic, making their characters seemingly come alive, which helps in a movie like this where the time in which their story is being told may not correlate very well to your own experience.  I also liked the setting, the Viennese streams managed to be attractive, but grainy and gritty enough to serve well for the sort of thing going on behind the scenes.

If I have a complaint here, it's that there's a TON of German dialogue, but no subtitles.  Granted, I could follow along without them, but it required more effort than I would like.

Dial M For Murder.  PG, 2 hr. 3 min.  Directed by: Alfred Hitchcock.  Release Date: May 29, 1954.  DVD Release Date: September 7, 2004.

This isn't my favorite Hitchcock, largely because I think it's kind of light on suspense and a bit... sunny, but it's a great mystery movie.  It also reminds me, for some terrible and unknowable reason, of an episode of Murder She Wrote.  Not any specific episode, but whenever I watch this I inevitably think of that show.   I suspect that the arranged murder thing was a recurring theme on the show, that I recall being a family favorite on Sunday evenings when I was a kid.  The tone of the film is a bit at odds with the subject matter, but it DOES provide me with the opportunity to use the word cuckold, so I'm going to use it now.  It makes me laugh just saying it.

I dig the story: wherein a man plots the death of his wife because she's having an affair, but it seems like a lot of events just HAPPEN despite the odds.  This is one of those plans with a lot of inherent risk, and none of them happened in ways that are explained very well, unless we accept the presence of a whole lot of luck for the local constabulary. I'd say this isn't the most tightly written mystery ever put to celluloid, but it's certainly entertaining to watch.  

The cast is very good, although I'm not sure that Grace Kelly's accent is constantly British.  These guys bring a decent amount of life to the table, which is likely the catalyst that takes this from what might have been mediocre into a classic.  I would have liked for the conspiracy taking place here to have happened behind the scenes, but I'm guessing Fredereick Knot's mystery was written in a similar style, so I'll forgive the Master for decreasing the actual suspense that could have been present.

Day 296: Double Feature - Last Song (2010) and Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991)

Neither of these is a horror film, but together they represent two of the most terrifying performances ever.  Miley Cyrus' abject failure in her breakaway film role (by which I mean her first role not involving Hannah Montana) was epic in its scope and frightening in that we know she's only going to have more roles.  Kevin Costner's portrayal as the American-accented Robin Hood has been lampooned and maligned for close to twenty years.  Combined they are the stuff of nightmares.

Last Song.  PG, 1 hr. 47 min.  Directed by: Julie Anne Robinson.  Release Date: March 31, 2010.  DVD Release Date: August 17, 2010.

I’ve said for several years now that Miley Cyrus was going to peak at sixteen… or fifteen, whatever birthday it was for her where she bought out Disneyland for her personal entourage for a single day.  If she thought The Last Song was going to be her breakaway vehicle from Disney’s monopolizing grasp, I’m thinking that she was dead wrong.   A breakaway character wouldn’t have sucked this bad, nor had members of the audience wanting to slit their wrists in an effort to dodge out on all the stupid teen angst flowing from the screen and dialogue at every turn.  A breakaway character wouldn’t be played by an actress with limited range and even more limited appeal.  You have to wonder what will happen to her when the Hannah Montana crowd is too old to care anymore.  Even the music managed to feel vaguely whiny, usually pulling down what was otherwise supposed to be.

This is supposed to be a romantic comedy, and it feels like someone attempted to make that happen, but they couldn’t quite get away from the mopey, maudlin, and vaguely insane for long enough to really pull of that romance, or even a coming-of-age attempt, which would have been really nice in this movie.  At the very least, it would have been a nice break from the gray cloud of depression that seemed to hang over this movie like the crowd at a Depeche Mode concert.  It’s also bad juju when the lead role is in the middle of a temper tantrum and you’re laughing because it’s done so badly.  It’s worse juju when it happens more than once.

Fetid and bloated as this romantic corpse was, there were a few things I liked.  Liam Hemsworth, who is apparently the younger, scrawnier brother to Chris “Thor” Hemsworth, wasn’t terrible.  I wouldn’t mind seeing him again, but I can’t imagine what in.  He managed to carry his co-star through most of their scenes and generated nearly all of the chemistry in their relationship… of which there was little.  Greg Kinnear was awesome, but was in the desperate position of trying to be the only thing with something like an adult sense of humor in the whole film.  Kinnear gets an A for effort, but couldn’t save this from its abject F overall.  I thought Bobby Coleman, playing little brother to Cyrus, wasn’t good, but like Kinnear, he couldn’t escape the suck-based gravity well that was Cyrus’ event horizon.

I’m guessing that unless you’re a teenaged girl with decided emo tendencies, you’ll probably want this movie and most of the people involved, to die a horrible death.  After 107 minutes of Cyrus’ whiny voice, on-screen moping, and some of the most clichéd moments ever clustered together in a vain attempt at romance, I figure most of the damage has been done.

Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.  PG-13, 2 hr. 30 min.  Directed by: Kevin Reynolds.  Release Date: June 14, 1991.  DVD Release Date: September 30, 1997.

When you can make a Bryan Adams song go supernova platinum and stay in the Top 100 charts forever and a day, you know you have a movie that’s hit the pulse of what the American audience is thinking.  Prince of Thieves managed to pull off just that, what would generally be thought of as the impossible, since it had been like a decade since the last time that Canada’s second most annoying import had enjoyed a hit in the US.  When this came in the mail today, it had been… easily 10 years since I’d seen the movie last, but it was like no time had passed.  My reaction today was identical to my reaction the last time I watched it, back when this had been a part of my VHS collection.  I’m not sure why this never made the transition to DVD, but after watching it today, I’m putting it on my “to buy” short list.

This movie isn’t without its problems, chief among them the case of Costner’s missing accent, but it’s still a great bit of fun.  2.5 hours is a long time to be involved in any movie, but I didn’t notice the length until the very end.  I’ve always thought the whole interruption of the marriage scene was too long.  

What keeps the run time from being a problem is the cast.  I’m not even going to pretend that Kevin Costner was more than adequate, but aside from him, look at the cast.  Morgan Freeman, as is to be expected, was awesome, and a decade ago he way still spry enough to pull off the action sequences without looking like his arthritis was either acting up or thinking about it.  Christian Slater was actually enjoyable, and this is my favorite part of his, probably because it’s relatively small.  Finally, Alan Rickman.  The man is a positive genius for making a bad guy look not only bad, but like he’s struggling to maintain from entertaining a killing spree at every moment.  It’s a wonder to see, and I wish there were more actors who could play a villain as well as he could.

Prince of Thieves had some issues balancing its substance and style, and they might have leaned a bit too far over to the style column.  However, those choices led to some pretty awesome camera work, including the now-infamous fire arrow scene, which still looks cool.  This could have been better if they’d added more special effects, but they’d have to walk a fine line.

Day 295: It's THE THING-A-THON!

 So, I'll be doing today a little different, and largely because I'm in a hurry.  But, I'm doing something that I SWORE vehemently, and at length, to anyone who would listen, that I'd compare a movie and its remake, but hey, what the hell.  I'm going to break my own rules.  But, I'm going to focus on four areas:  Cast of Characters, Story, Technical, and Strength of Purpose.  To avoid confusing the crap out of myself, I'll refer to these guys by year (2011 and 1982).

Cast of Characters:  1982 had something unusual going for it's cast and crew:  I actually knew about half of them by name, and recognized the rest from such 80s icons as Punky Brewster and I think Murder She Wrote.  It also had Kurt Russell, before he entirely lost his mind.   2011 had... Mary Elizabeth Winstead, and that's about it.  There are some folks who might be willing to trade in prominent breasts for talent, but unfortunately for those folks, I don't generally count myself among their ranks.

                                     Winner:  1982

Story:  They're pretty much identical, with 2011 making several obvious reference points to the original picture.  The fact that 2011 failed to take in to account the glaring problem with the story (that being that the ridiculously trite appearance of flamethrowers in an Antarctic station).  I saw this is a problem since I'm pretty sure that those particular weapons have been banned by all signatory nations to the Geneva Conventions.  I could be making that up, though.  There's only so much room in this here gray matter, and I'm pretty sure it's SRO in there now.

                                       Winner:  Tie.

Technical:  This is what really separates the men from the boys.  What '82 lacks in cinematography (most of the movie looks like an 11 year old is filming with a camcorder), it makes up for in its monster effects, which are bloody amazing even when compared to 2011.  I'm not sure how, but the 2011 seemed to pay homage to the original effects, and came up a bit short, even though they should have been able to beat the pants off these guys in a taste test.  I'm also not sure why 2011 decided that when it was time for the THING to rip its way through a human host and make a crazy spider thing, that the THING needed a very obvious human penis (talk about THAT Demented Podcast!) flapping around on the dorsal side. Also, if you watch the computer when Winstead is scanning the dead beast in the early part of the film, the computer lists the animal specimen as Ursus spec.  Meaning bear.  What we had on the table was CLEARLY feline.  Meaning cat.  Epic science fail.

                                                                                                  Winner:  1982

Strength of Purpose:  Let's face it, neither one of these is going to attribute to a lack of sleep tonight.  2011 brought out a bunch of those slasher-inspired jump-scares, which I found completely lacking in the 1982 version.  But, I found myself distracted by 2011's special effects and horrific acting, so it wasn't as scary as it probably could have been.  1982 was oftentimes more tense, although part of that was because characters seemed to come in and out of the story's focus, and just when you'd completely forgotten about them, they'd reappear and start some shenanigans.  Now that I think about it, it reminds me of my last family reunion.

                                                                                                    Winner:  1982


So, if you are a master of basic counting, you'll realize that I prefer the 1982 version to the 2011, but it's a near thing.  Both would have Amy Wong gracing their posters if I wasn't being lazy today, and I may rectify that at some point in the future and make one of my photoshopped DOUBLE FEATURE images. 

Day 294: Double Feature - Identity (2003) and Impostor (2001)

Identity.  R, 1 hr. 30 min.  Directed by: James Mangold.  Release Date: April 25, 2003.  DVD Release Date: September 6, 2005. 

If you thought this might be inspired by And Then There Were None, you aren't alone.  It has a similar premise:  folks find themselves in an isolated place, not trapped, but required to stay where they are because of a violent storm.  Agatha Christie wasn't above using the cliche of a stormy night in her work, but she was subtle in its use.  Identity is not.  When the action starts to heat up, and the travelers begin to die, one by one, you could be forgiven to expect certain things to come to pass.  As a big fan of And Then There Were None, the film and novel versions, I expected a few things.  I expected that the clerk was going to be involved, probably tangentially, and I expected that the killer was going to be the least obvious of the travelers.  I expected that we'd watch the cast at each other's throats from the moment the first one falls until the killer was identified.  That would be the Christie way, after all.

There are a lot of relatively big names involved in this project, but most of them seem to be fully involved in their own thoughts, which are namely how much money they made and how much longer before they get knifed in a dark, kind of skeezy motel room.  John Cusack, does an admirable job with his role, but he's one of the few that doesn't seem to have some written-in (or suggested) character flaw that would keep him from otherwise being a waste of skin in the trouble these folks have all found themselves in.  Amanda Peet is enjoyable, but I suspect that her tough-as-nails exterior was all that was required to keep her in the game. 

For about an hour, this movie meanders back and forth, with random personalities murdered in various ways.  As the numbers dwindle, the travelers get more frantic, and truthfully, I got less involved.  In And Then There Were None, the tie between the various characters is that each has killed another and gotten away with it.  In Identity, they all have the same birthday.  It was so stupid, I checked out.

When the twist arrives, I have to admit that I was surprised.  It wasn't totally what I expected, but it wasn't until I watched this today, that I backed up the DVD to determine if the solution to the mystery told by the story was probable.  It was, but only barely, and it still didn't save my interest in what happened.  

These guys get an A for effort, but the delivery of the material was strangely off.  The twist is technically well done, but there weren't nearly enough clues to make it fun to try and figure out.

Impostor.  PG-13, 1 hr. 35 min.  Directed by: Gary Fleder.  Release Date: December 4, 2001.   DVD Release Date: July 9, 2002. 

I realized a bit too late that I’d seen this already, a long time ago, although I couldn’t remember all the details.  I remembered the basic story line, especially since now, as way back when, I liked the whole concept of the long-standing war between humans and the people of Alpha Centauri.  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I think that should we ever find ourselves face-to-face with an intelligent non-human life form, war is inevitable.  Most of us believe we’re the only ones out there, as if we’re the end all, be all of what could be done.  If this is the best nature or the man upstairs could do, I’d sure hate to see the average, or god forbid, the worst.

So, this isn’t terrible for a B-grade science fiction “thriller”… well, it’s not very well written and is pretty highly dependent on its action sequences to charge the film with not only suspense, but actual interest.  Madeleine Stowe manages to keep most of her clothes on, most of the time, which is record-breaking for her as far as I know.  

But, this movie has a large multitude of conceptual errors, things that prohibit the story’s ebb and flow.  If electromagnetic shields are erected around the cities, and nowhere else, how do people eat, since our food isn’t grown in cities?  Couldn’t it make sense for the Centauri people to arrange a situation wherein the guy responsible for their potential extinction gets discredited before he can finish his work?  How does Spencer Olham, aka Gary Sinise, manage to survive all this sudden activity?  He was described as something like “a civvie waiting for a heart attack,” but he manages to fight his way through more than one whole posse of federal agents and street thugs?  They also mention at least once that Olham doesn’t have any military training.

This won’t go down as one of history’s great films.  It won’t go down as one of the worst, either.  The premise is really strong, which helps keep its obvious deficiencies from being so… obvious.  As one of the few movies ever where Madeline Stowe keeps her clothes on, it's fairly middle of the pack for her.  Gary Sinise is pretty decent in this role, although we’ve all seen him better.  I liked Tony Shalhoub in this, and I only wish he had a bigger part.

What we finally come down to is a movie that’s fairly middle of the pack in every way: entertainment value, creativity, believability, and technical merit.  There are a few cool, small-scale special effects that are very reminiscent of Minority Report, and now that I’ve said that I’m wondering if this movie was inspired by Minority Report, as so many of the details are similar, even though the big pictures aren’t.  If you’re very in to sci-fi and you have a couple hours to kill, there are worse ways to go.

Day 293: Double Feature - Resident Evil Afterlife (2010) and Dawn of the Dead (1968)

Resident Evil - Afterlife.  R, 1 hr. 30 min.  Directed by: Paul W.S. Anderson.  Release Date: September 10, 2010.  DVD Release Date: December 28, 2010.

Before I get too deep in to this, I should broach some topics up front.  (1) I have never, ever, played any game in the Resident Evil series.  Not once.  I have watched someone play a version once, back in like 2000 or 2001.  It looked boring.  I have only seen the first Resident Evil movie.  It was boring and a bit confusing.  (2) I am not a huge fan of zombies or Milla Jovovovovich.  (3) I believe that if your film is trying to capture life in the wake of a zombie apocalypse and it isn't Zombieland, Shaun of the Dead, Boy Eats Girl, or a CDC educational film about how to survive such a catastrophe, you should at least have one scare.

So in response to that, I'll start with the problem caused by my lack of familiarity with the series.  Very rarely did I understand what was going on.  Especially in the first few scenes where there are, like, a LEGION of Jovovovovichi running around and killing everything that twitches.  This isn't a good standalone product, and to keep truly up to date, you need to be more familiar with the series than I am.  Do I think this is an okay portrayal of the world post-Zombiepocalypse?  Yeah, it's as good as anything else I've seen.  Story-wise, the only major problem with the movie is that there was more action in the first ten minutes than in the rest of the movie combined.  I'm trying to think of a polite metaphor that's still uncomplimentary, and I just can't.  So... it's like when something happens REALLY, REALLY quickly when it shouldn't.  Wait, it's like being at a fireworks show and starting with the grand finale.  Think about it.

Other than Alice, I've never seen Ms. Jovovich play a role where I didn't think she was terribad.  This one works for her, but I can't tell you why.  It's possible that Alice just fits in to her limited acting range better or that Alice is closer to her true personality.  Either way, she's pretty awesome in this role.  Strangely enough, Ali Larter was also not terrible... and I'm not sure I've ever said those words before.  Stranger than fiction, Ali Larter's like a fine wine.  She's getting better with age.  Not in terms of her acting abilities, but she keeps getting hotter.

They did attempt a scare, with some big old dude with an even bigger axe-hammer thing.  I'm not sure why that one guy was different from the average zombie, but he was, and he managed to be nerve-wracking, but less than frightening.  But, I would have preferred that they were successful.

Oh, why do the zombies do the same face-split stuff that the new vampire strain from Blade 2 does?  Any thoughts?

Dawn of the Dead.  R, 2 hr. 6 min.  Directed by: George A. Romero.  Release Date: May 24, 1979.  DVD Release Date: September 7, 2004.

I made a huge mistake.  It's one that's certainly going to color the tone of what is arguably considered  (by folks other than myself) to be one of the best zombie flicks ever made.  At no point did my brain connect Dawn of the Dead with Night of the Living Dead, a movie that I haven't seen yet.  There's a lot of Night that makes up the formation of Dawn, and most of that went right over my head.  Well, the details anyway.  I've seen enough of these now that I can figure out a few things just from it being an entry in the zombiepocalypse (or vampocalypse) subgenre of horror.  (1)  The world is pretty seriously boned due to the rise of the undead.  (2) small bands of mostly unrelated people are roaming the country, trying to survive, (3) some of those people are serious a-holes and likely to be as big a problem, if not a great problem, than the undead and (4) at least half the group we're introduced to will fall.  I also learned something.  I'm going to call it a historical triva.  This movie was filmed in 1979, and of our band of four heroes, only one of them had even HEARD of a mall.  Ten years later, malls would be an American cultural icon.  Go fig. 

Anyway, back to the movie at hand.  In many respects, it feels like this movie is either involved in a self-spoof or isn't taking itself seriously enough.  The dialogue is terrible and the execution of dialogue is worse.  Fight choreography is almost totally absent, and one of the "warriors" in the piece didn't know how to throw a decent punch.  The only had apparently learned martial arts by watching those blaxploitation movies in the 70s.  The blood and gore sequences seemed poorly done, even for the time.  Blood has NEVER been that shade of red.  I suspect there's a reason this was remade or reimagined in the middle of the aughties.  It didn't survive the passing of time very well, which, to be fair, is a problem for MOST of the horror genre.  It took less than five years for Scream to stop scaring anyone and start being campy humor.  I heard one person call that particular movie avante garde.  In reply, I suggested she go look up avante garde and try again.

So... if all this sounds like a good time to you, have at it.  I didn't enjoy it, but I will be open to revisiting the movie AFTER I get around to seeing Night of the Living Dead.  Stupid, gosh!

Day 292: LoveWeddingMarriage (2011) and Table For Three (2009)

Okay, I admit it.  I almost forgot to make this post today.  I certainly had to change my plans for The Thing-A-Thon, which I'm going to push to Saturday, when I might actually feel like going to the movies.  Today has, from the very beginning, been a celebration of fail, so I thought the most horrifying thing I could do was watch a couple of rom-com disasters and throw them at you, my favorite readers.  It's been an adjustment working again, and one of the many things I haven't done yet is put CS5 on my desktop, nor have I created my wireless network, so that my lappy has web access... so nothing pretty today.  Tomorrow, I'll plan better, but for today, it is what it is.

PG-13, 1 hr. 31 min.  Directed by: Dermot Mulroney.  Release Date: June 3, 2011.  DVD Release Date: September 13, 2011.

At some point, I’m fairly sure that the writer of this… travesty must have gotten inside my head.  I say this because this movie does everything in its power to support my own view of marriage; which is, succinctly put, a negative view of the process.  I spent the better part of the movie laughing at that poor, simple Kellan Lutz, with this hair that can withstand gale force winds untouched by, well, anything.  I yelled the word “SUCKA!” more than once.  And this is why:  He gets married, and he and his wife fail to consummate that marriage for several weeks because his normally sane wife has completely lost her mind meddling in her parents’ failing marriage.  When he tries to reach out to her father, he’s rebuked, even though you’d think most women would kill for their husband and their father to think well of each other.  She ignores him and on more than one occasion, nearly kills him because she’s not focused on what’s going on in her own backyard.  She brings strife and misery in to his life, and then jumps up his ass when a big secret of his is revealed.

The movie sums up nicely my fears of marriage:  that it isn’t a partnership, and isn’t about equals.  Men get many things out of a marriage, don’t get me wrong, but they are generally expected to slave their wants and needs to those of their wife.  I’m sure there are exceptions, but frankly, I haven’t seen one yet.  In my largely male office, the phrase “happy wife = happy life” is a regular facet of emails involving our folks who travel.  I don’t think there’s an equivalent involving the husband.  Here’s the thing, I don’t do subservient, at least not well, and not for long.  If I wasn’t already a confirmed bachelor, this movie would have made me one. 

So, even I realize that this picture of marriage is a little unfair.  Many married couples emit this image on a wavelength visible only to dogs and unmarried men on a regular base.  Most emit it frequently enough to make a single guy a little gun shy, but it should take YEARS for a couple to get so comfortable with each other in a marriage that they treat each other as poorly as we see here.  Most people on the outside don’t get to see the good parts.  Academically, I get that.  Realistically, I get that these guys shouldn’t have skipped the honeymoon phase because the wife’s gone on an anti-reality bender.  But, the movie plays on every fear I have of marriage.  I got a little claustrophobic just watching it.  

Add to the crappy story is a whole SLEW of crappy acting.  I mean, I don’t really go in to a Kellan Lutz performance expecting much more than him running around without a shirt, but Jane Seymour doesn’t usually suck.  Neither does James Brolin.  Well, they both did here.  Was this Dermott Mulroney’s directorial debut?  If so, I could be a little kinder than this, but effectively this was a complete disaster, wrapped up in some single guy’s (or bitter divorced guy’s) frightening idea of the average marriage.  Lies, infidelity, and a sexless life, oh my! 

Although I guess, to be fair, I guess I should admit that I thought it was hysterical for Allison Hannigan (Buffy) to be partnered with Alexis Denishoff (Buffy and Angel) as a dysfunctional married couple. 

R, 1 hr. 33 min.  Directed by: Michael Samonek.  Release Date: June 23, 2009.  DVD Release Date: June 23, 2009.

Table For Three is a little bit like the movie’s own poster:  equally divided between two couples.  One couple was quite, newly formed, a bit spastic, and utterly boring.  The other couple is incredibly insane, occasionally obnoxious, and frenzied.  They were by far the more likeable of the two.  When you throw them in together the average is well, just that.  There are a few unusual things to go down during the course of the film, but this is basically your romantic comedy with a twist on the formula.  

I keep watching Brandon Routh movies because I’m stunned that he continues to find work in the aftermath of Superman Returns.  Inevitably, he’s a dull and lifeless performer, capable of what seems to be no more than four facial expressions.  Dialogue rarely gets more than a monotone, and when he is able to emote, it never quite seems to match what’s happening on screen.  So far, this has been his best performance to date, and that’s not saying much.  

For me, Sophie Bush and Jesse Bradford made this movie.  They were hysterical, almost constantly, creating an upbeat counterbalance to the Routh-Jennifer Morrison couple, who seem to have taken the pulse of their relationship from Edward and Bella.  I’ve been seeing a lot of Sophie Bush over the last few years, and this convinces me that I should see more of her.  I’ve been keeping an eye on Jesse Bradford since… Bring It On, and I’m always wondering why we don’t see him in more serious roles.  

Other than the twist on the romantic comedy, this really is just an average entry.  Bush and Bradford can’t make up for the melodrama and lameness that is Routh and Morrison.  I should mention that my problem with the Routh-Morrison couple isn’t just the acting, although I suspect that the acting is a part of the problem.  Even the script seems to create for them this sort of emotional black hole, through which nothing light-hearted or enjoyable can exist or escape.  

Unless you have a burning desire to see one of these people, you can safely pass on this movie.  It wasn’t abysmal, but there are better options out there for (at least) Bush, Routh, and Bradford.  There are even better romantic comedies with a similar quirky feel to them.