NINE DEAD (a review)

NINE DEAD (a review)

A horror movie starring Melissa Joan Hart. That's right...Sabrina the Teenage Witch has gone bloody!

The story: nine people are kidnapped and put into a room where they have to figure out why they are there or every ten minutes one of them will be killed. If they figure it out, the killer will let them go and confess. If they don't they will all die.

Was it good? First, I recognised the voice of the killer right away. It's John Terry. Yes, Jack's father (LOST reference) is a killer! (Which makes more sense then the ending of Lost.) So at least there was somethign entertaining about it. The problem is all this crap we've seen before -- strangers trying to piece something together, each with their own baggage...it's like a cross between SAW and 10 ANGRY MEN. And there's nothing more to grab onto...no BIG IDEA. The guy's motivation is revenge, and even the twist that he's not the guy they first suspect isn't a big deal. The ending some might see as a twist, but it wasn't a big deal because I didn't really care.

I don't know...it wasn't horrible, but it was completely forgetable which in a lot of ways is worse.

*** NOT RECOMMENDED ***

Recommended instead: why not start with the classic 10 ANGRY MEN, or for more of a thriller/detective try AND THEN THERE WERE NONE. FRAILTY has some cooler stuff going on (and Bill Paxon!) and of course the classic ANGEL HEART.

PARASOMNIA (a review)

PARASOMNIA (a review)

By the director of HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL...is that supposed to be a good thing or a bad thing? But it does have Jeffrey Combs, most famous for his roles in the cult classics RE-ANIMATOR and FROM BEYOND, so I gave it a look.

The story? While visiting a friend in drug rehab, a guy wanders into the psych ward where he meets a girl who sleeps most of the time (parasomnia). He falls in love with her and decides to kidnap her. She has never been in a car or seen ice cream (although she can talk). Unfortunately, one of the other people in the psych ward was a serial killer who had great powers of hypnotism and who visits her in her dreams and takes over her body, causing the girl to kill a bunch of people. Now the guy is on the run and the girl's body is recovered by the cops and put back into the psych ward. The guy goes to break her out, but instead the serial killer escapes and takes the girl. The serial killer then takes control of a detective (over the phone) who brings the guy to the serial killer. The killer has to not just kill the boy, but to erase him from the girl's mind so she will fall in love with him. But instead they are able to defeat the killer and blah blah blah

So was it good?

Well, from the description you can guess that the movie is a bit of a mess. The first half feels more like a comedy with the guy falling in love with sleeping girl and then her being scared of driving and fascinated by ice cream. It isn't until the middle of the film that things get going when the serial killer takes over and she starts to kill people -- a lot of people -- but it's still kind of funny with the guy trying to cover up. Now maybe it's me, but if the girl I loved started killing people (she attacks him too) I would probably find another girl.

Still, there is some cool stuff in here. The dream sequences were well done -- visually cool and strange. And at the end in the killer's lair there's more weird cool stuff. Some of the other stuff is cool -- the killer hypnotizing or invading dreams could be okay but all together with the girl waking up and all...it's all kind of a mess.

I will give them some credit...it's a fun kind of mess. Maybe if they had centered the movie more, made it more focused on the killer reaching out to get ahold of other people to get out...I don't know. There's some cool stuff here and some fun stuff and it would have been great if they could have pulled it all together a bit more.

*** NOT RECOMMENDED (but kind of a fun mess) ***

CYRUS: MIND OF A SERIAL KILLER (a review)

CYRUS: MIND OF A SERIAL KILLER (a review)

A cool little flick starring Brain Kruse (Charmed), Danielle Haris (from the Halloween movies) and Lance Henriksen (from Alien).

The story: a tv reporter interviews a man who says he knows about a local serial killer, leading her deeper into the mystery.

Was it good?

Yeah. It was pretty good. The story is solid. It's a nice little twist having the story of the killer told from someone who knows the killer instead of just following the killer himself that gives the movie a good, creepy feel and a very grounded feel too. Second, they got some good actors. Danielle Harris and Brian Kruse, are solid enough...certainly better than most low budget movies get. Then there's Lance Hendriksen who plays the friend of serial killer who tells all about him. Hendriksen is fantastic -- creepy and fascinating, strange and grounded. He makes this little film pop.

Now this still isn't a great film. The story is good but predictable and the ending is fine, but there never is that amazing moment and the film never really does anything to break new ground. Still, it is heaps better than most of the movies out there. Definitely worht watching for horror movie fans.

*** RECOMMEND for horror movie fans ***

HOW TO BE A SERIAL KILLER (a review)

HOW TO BE A SERIAL KILLER (a review)

A dark comedy about a serial killer training a man to be a serial killer. In an interesting twist, one of the actors from the tv show CRIMINAL MINDS (where he plays an FBI profiler) plays the young protege serial killer.

The story: Mike (Dameon Clarke) sees a young store clerk (Matthew Gray Gubler from CRIMINAL MINDS) getting abused by a customer and convines the clerks that what he needs to unleash his frustration is to become a serial killer. He begins teaching him what he needs to do to avoid detection and find people, but things take a bad turn when Mike's girlfriend finds his serial killer stash and he has to kill her, then the neighbors and then go on the run from the cops.

Was it good?

Eh. It wasn't bad but it never really got to the point of being funny. It all felt comedy-lite. For a comedy whose idea should be provokative it felt extremely tame, especially when you compare it to other serial killer-centric stories like HANNIBAL or DEXTER or even the classic 80's film HEATHERS. In fact there is a very similar movie called MAN BITES DOG about a film crew making a documentary following a serial killer which is much more outrageous and funnier.

*** NEUTRAL (not bad but not good enough to recommend) ***

Recommend instead: MAN BITES DOG or HEATHERS. Both grat, twisted dark comedies.

THE LOSERS (movie) (a review)

THE LOSERS (movie) (a review)

*** It sucked ****

The story: military group is betrayed and then try to get back at the man who betrayed them. And there's a thing with a girl who double crosses them, kind of but not really, and then one of their own does betray them, but they come through in the end.

Was it good?

No. It's one of those cool-guys-running-around movies that Guy Rithie makes. It's like a James Bond film without any invention or ideas or anything else worth noting. It has guns and explosions and little one liners and is as much dumb noise as they could put on the screen.

** AVOID ***

MAMMOTH (a review)

MAMMOTH (a review)

A made-for-Scy-Fy channel movie. It's as dumb as all the other made for Scy-Fy movies, but with a lot more weird that actually made it almost wacky-silly-fun.

The story: an alien thing crashes into a museum and takes over the body of a frozen mammoth and begins attacking the town. The museum curator and his angry-at-dad-for-never-being-there daughter and his B-mive/conspiracy theroy dad have to help the government bring down the mammoth and stop the alien (i.e. save the world).

Was it good?

Seriously? Does it sound like it could actually be good? Now it does have Summer Glau (age 28, trying unconvincingly to play a 16 year old).

(my pic from her appearance at Wizard World, Los Angeles 2008)

And as fans of FIREFLY/SERENITY and TERMINATOR: SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES know the Gluaster is easy on the eyes. But the movie itself...well, it's a strange, wacky kind of movie that it strange and silly and stupid. At times, it's stupid fun. At times it's just stupid. I guess the easiest comparison is to one of the greatest of all silly/stupid monster movies -- TREMORS and MAMMOTH is no TREMORS.

Still, you could do worse and the SFX are better than norm. Probably the weirdest thing is that after an initial set-up where the mammoth is possessed and on the lose, they move to the story of the dad and his daughter (it's her 16th birthday and he missed it) for over twenty minutes without dealing with the mammoth at all. Suddenly a giant mammoth/alien on the loose isn't important. Weird.

*** CAN'T QUITE RECOMMEND (but it's silly and harmless) ***

WHITE OUT (a reivew)

WHITE OUT (a reivew)

A movie starring Kate Beckinsale (one of the most beautiful women in the world imho), based on an accliamed graphic novel that went on to do what most movies based on graphic novels do: get panned by critics and underperform at the box office. How bad did it get panned? It was called the 8th worst movie of 2009 and got a 7% score at Rotten Tomatoes and is the 100th worst reviewed movie at Rotten Tomatoes.

The story? Carrie Stetko (Kate Beckinsale) is a US Marshal at a science base in Antarctica who is just days away from leaving the frozen continent for the mainland. This is the last chance to get out before the base goes in lockdown for the entire winter, something hastened by a giant winter storm that is appraoching. Then she gets word of a dead body found on the ice. This leads to the investigation where Carries tries to find the murderer who has to be one of the people on the base. In addition there is a UN security agent who appears that she doesn't trust and a man in black who is running around killing people. And this giant storm that will shut her in for the entire winter.

Was it really as bad at the Rotten Tomatoes rating makes it sound?

No, it isn't that bad at all. The problem isn't really that it's bad, but it's just very generic. While the idea of the antarctic setting is pretty cool, they don't really get much use from it. You are definitely better off watching MARCH OF THE PENGUINS instead. And the detective story isn't anything special. Dead body, question someone, he gets killed and then question, kill, question, kill. Carrie also has a backstory which is pretty dumb and doesn't add anything. The action scenes -- aren't great either (which I blame on the editor more than the director).

If it had had even one great moment I would probably recommend it, but as it is it isn't bad but just kind of blah.

*** MEDIOCRE AND BLAND ****

UNTHINKABLE (a review)

UNTHINKABLE (a review)

This is a new movie with Samuel Jackson and Carrie Anne Moss (from THE MATRIX).

The story: an American terrorist has planted three nuclear bombs in three different cities and it is up to an interrogator, "H" (Samuel Jackson) and FBI agent Brody (Moss) to question him and make him give up where the bombs are. But there isn't time to do it nicely -- $$$ will have to torture him, which goes in face of everything &&& believes in, which makes it a tricky game of cat and mouse as the bomb-man has planned for what they are going to do.

Was it good?

Um...sort of. I mean, Samuel Jackson is almost always interesting. In this movie he plays a torturer, really, and seeing him fly in the face of everything decent is pretty bad a**. As a thriller is was pretty lacking in thrills. Almost the entire movie takes place in the interrogation area as "H" and Brody try their methods of getting information, while also clashing with each other. There is one sequence where Brody leaves to disactivate a bomb, but that's about it. And since none of their lives are in danger, and in fact the danger feels so impersonal, there just isn't much tension to it. Also, while the interrogation does ramp up and the character argue about what is okay and what isn't, they never get deeper beneath the surface, so after a while it's just the next iteration.

Still, watching Jackson is just plain cool. But I would recommend it more as a drama. If you want a thriller, find something with mroe thrills.

*** SLIGHT RECOMMEND (as a drama) ***

Unanswered LOST question

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

LOST: CENCORED

Here is clips from LOST with added cencorship. LOL!



PS -- I thought the ending to LOST sucked, but then I've been down on the last three seasons. I would do a post, but honestly wtfc.

Dr Horrible syndrome

The dating problems of Dr Horrible...

http://theslapandthetickle.wordpress.com/2010/05/21/the-dr-horrible-syndrome-horribly-nice-guys/

BIG BAD WOLF (a review)

BIG BAD WOLF (a review)

Yes, I like monster movies and it can be tough to find a decent one. Mybe because of the success fo TWILIGHT finally people are chugging out monster movies again. Here's film from 2006, before the TW-craze started and it's actually a pretty fun little flick with a bit of werewolf and a bit of Little Red Riding Hood.

The story? A kid steals the keys to his father-in-laws cabin so he and his frat brothers (who actually look down on the kid) can go party. Except once they are there and having fun they are attacked and four of the six are killed by a werewolf. The boy and his girl-friend (who is not his girlfriend) survive. They lie to the police (who wouldn't believe them). Then they begin to suspect that the boy's father in law is the werewolf. A friend of the boy's father agrees. He also thinks the father-in-law killed his father. They try to get DNA to test, but once they get confirmation the friend is killed and the boy and his girl-friend head back to the cabin where they, with a group of teen reporters, will confront the father-in-law/werewolf one final time.

Okay, so this was a fun little monster movie. I say monster movie and not horror movie because there wasn't really anything scary in it. The open segment where the boy goes to the cabin with the frat guys and is attacked is predictable, but done with a light, fun touch that you want in these kinds of movies. The second act -- where they try to find out if the father-in-law is the werewolf has some good stuff too. They find nice little twists that make it all fun. For instance, they send the DNA off and get the results, but the father-in-law steals form the delivery man, so now they have to steal the results back from him. It's a nice little twist that makes that section fun.

This movie has an usual problem for the low budget movie -- they try to do too much. There are a lot of elements to the movie, fom the boy and the girl-friend, to the relationship with the father-in-law, to the teen reporters, to the revelation that the father-in-law killed the boy's father...and while I can see why they had each element, they don't really come together as a whole so the movie feels scattered and schizophrenic, with the first and third acts feeling totally different than the second. It's not a big deal if you just want a bit of a fun movie, but it definitely makes it feel more like schlock instead of being a genuinely good little film.

But it was fun.

*** RECOMMEND (as a monster movie) ***

MANEATER (2009) (a reivew)

MANEATER (2009) (a reivew)

Holy crap this movie stars Superman! No, that not guy. And no, not that other guy. Or any of those other ones. This movie stars Dean Cain, from the tv show LOIS AND CLARK.

The story: a small town shariff is dealing with his teenage daughter, worried that she is getting into patrying and boys. At the same time, there are a string of murders in town, at first blamed on a bear, but when his daughter's best friend goes missing from her second story bedroom they know a killer is in town. The sheriff begins to suspect that a supernaturla creature -- a shape-shifter, like a Wendigo -- is responsible and worse yet, combined with nightmares he has been having, that he himself might be responsible for the murders.

So was it good?

Good might be a stretch, but it was okay. It was almost a fun B-movie -- it had a decent monster, some fun teenagers and I like Dean Cain as an actor -- but there are some things holding it back. First, the script. The main throughline of the story is about the investigation into these murders, but it is about as lame of an investigation as you can get. Second, while there are some interesting things thrown into the movie, most are never really exploited -- whether it's the relationship between the father and daughter (she's rebeling, he's afraid of her leaving him like her mother left) or the relationship among the teens (which is pretty generic and screams "chum") or the idea that the sheriff might be the killer himself (he had dreams, so he must be the killer) or the fact that the daughter becomes suspicious of her own father...all these things are thrown in there but never really devloped or explored with any depth. There is never that cool beat to them; there's never that surprise moment. The third thing is that the movie seems to take itself pretty seriously and could definitely find the fun a little more. Even witht he horny teens partying, it's still a pretty stiff movie. A lot of that is because of Cain, who spends the whole movie in serious mode -- I mean, I don't think he cracks a smile the entire time!

There are other problems -- they do the whole "night is really dark" so half the time you can't see what the hell is going on. Yes, night is dark but you are making a movie...cheat! LOST has scenes at night, but they light it enough that you can see what the hell is going on! This also has a problem that we almost never see the monster. I guess that's supoosed to make it scarier (use your imagination...) but in reality after a while you assume it's just this puppet and it makes it look like a joke. They needed just a couple well lit scenes to really show the monster, then let it slink back into the shadows. Instead, we get puppet theater until close to the end. But maybe that was more a problem with the budget than with the filmmakers.

Still, I was surprised by how much I liked it. I would give it a stronger recommendation but for the script problems and the fact that there's a show like SUPERNATURAL that covers a lot of this stuff and does it better.

** SLIGHT RECOMMEND (as an almost fun monster movie) ***

MALICE IN WONDERLAND (a review)

MALICE IN WONDERLAND (a review)

Starring Maggie Grace ("Lost," TAKEN) this is a retelling of Alice in Wonderland set in a strange version of the nightlife of modern day London. At least I hope it's supposed to be strange...

The story: a girl is hit by a cab and the cabbie, trying to avoid responsibility, ends up driving her around town. The girl is trying to remember who she is. In fact, she is the duaghter of a billionaire who had set a $10 million reward for her return. The cabbie then brings her to a mob boss as a birthday present so he can collect the reward. But by then she remembers -- she was running away because her father wanted to marry a man she didn't love and now she has to escape again, to save herself from the original accident, and to find someone else.

So was it good?

Not really. And by "not really" I don't mean that it's good but not really good, I mean that it just isn't good. Which isn't to say that it's awful, but there's a lot wrong with it. For the first half of the movie, Alice is wondering around without a memory so everything feels very directionless. I guess if you want to experience being lost and/or high and wondering around the London nightlife this movie might replicate that, but, um, why the hell would you want that? (And to be honest the second half of KIDS did that with Chloe Sevigny's character and did it in less time and better with a bigger impact). You do meet all these Alice in Wonderland inspired characters, but a lot of it feels forced. It's only at the end as we realize a few key things -- that the cabbie hit Alice intentionally and that Alice was running away from her father -- that things come into focus. And the ending is nice. Alice regains her memory and reunites with someone and it's a touching scene. Not that movies have that touching scene to them and it made me willing to forgive a lot...but it still wasn't enough to recommend a movie that feels pointless for 80 of 95 minutes.

There are a few other things that take away from it. First is the dutch angles. Now dutch angles are when the camera is tiled sideays a bit. They are used to help disorient the viewer and used occasionally for emphasis and be a great filmmaking tool. But this movie uses them all the time. In fact, it would be easier to count the number of times the camera is NOT at a weird tilt (my guess: seven). By the end of the first act, it made the whole thing feel ridiculous and when you have a movie with the strangeness of this movie, I'm not sure you want people thinking that the film is a joke.

The other problem is the story idea that Alice is running away from an arranged marriage, which is exactly what Tim Burton did in his version of Alice in Wonderland. So even that element, added from the original story, felt derivative.

*** AVOID ***

Recommend instead: I'd recommend the Scy-Fy mini-series version of Alice in Wonderland (reviewed earlier). Although that version also has it's problems, it's a little smarter and a much more interesting take.

NEOWOLF (a review)

NEOWOLF (a review)

A low budget movie about a rock band that are also werewolves.

The story: a college girl's ex- comes back after auditioning for a rock band and making the band, but deciding he wants to be with her instead. Then a new rock band comes to town and the guy gets drawn into them, except they are a band of werewolves. The girlfriend becomes suspicious and tries to save him and her best friend who also gets drawn into the group.

Was it good?

No. First it was directed by Alan Smythie...not a good sign. (Actually it was directed by Yvan Gauthier, but Alan Smythie is the name that is used when a director wants to take his name off a movie...and if Yvan Gauthier didn't want his name on it...) Plus it's just weird movie. I mean, the idea is almost identicle to JENNIFER'S BODY (I don't know which came first) and then the whole thing about werewolf musicians...is it because they are big Buffy fans (Oz and the girl werewolf were both musicians) or do they just figure that werewolfs are about primal/sexual energy so making them musicians makes sense? I don't know but it's a weird choice because it makes it so Buffy/Jennifer's Body.

Then the fact that they just didn't do anything with it. There aren't any cool things to talk about. JENNIFER'S BODY at least had a cool angle to the friendship and made an interesting parallel between the girl's sexual expereinces as normal vs possessed. And for a movie about werewolves and rock musicians -- which you would think would be the uber combination of sex and wild passion -- it was incredibly tame. There are a couple sex scenes, but they are basically done in that back-to-the-camera lame way a network tv show would do it. There are scenes that wouldn't make it on network, but still this felt more like a lame Scy-Fy movie than anything that the filmmakers were trying to make actually be good.

I could go on about all the problems -- from the directing to the cinematography to even the editing (which is really bad since the director had worked as an editor before!), but what's the point?

*** AVOID ***

MEADOWOODS (a review)

MEADOWOODS (a review)

A low budget camcorder-pov movie. If you hate that style (like BLAIR WITCH PROJECT or CLOVERFIELD) then avoid.

The story: three bored high school kids decide to murder a random female student to "shake things up," but when one of them begins to feel for the girl the group turns on itself and everything goes wrong.

Was is good? Almost. The story is simple enough and the camcorder-pov kind of works, giving it a bit of a verite it probably wouldn't have had. And it is the verite that helps the story because what is most chilling is the matter of factness of how these three kids set out to murder someone. There isn't they overhype sex/cool thing that BULLY had. This is much more low key and much more effective for it. Still, because of the filming style and the largely improv nature of the movie (at least I assume it's improv -- heaven help us it that was a written script!) there are lags and parts where it's more annoying than chilling. However, it's at the midpoint that things get interesting. They decide they want to interview the girl before killing her to find out what she is scared of so they can try to really freak her out. However, the boy interviewing her conncepts with her. The movie intercuts between the interview and the three of them planning the murder, but now we see the one conspirator having second thoughts. This make what would have been a much too straight forward movie come close to being possibly the next BLAIR WITCH PROJECT.

However, it's in the third act that the movie falters. Movies like this need to build to a great ending. BLAIR WITCH PROJECT had a fantastic ending. PARANORMAL ACTIVITY had a great ending. This ending just doesn't work. If I were the filmmakers I'd pull a PARANORMAL ACTIVITY and come up with a few different endings and reshoot until they got one that really, really worked. With a great ending this could be a successful movie. Without it, it's not.

*** ALMOST RECOMMEND (for fans of BLAIR WITCH PROJECT and PARANORMAL ACTIVITY) ***

THE NEW DAUGHTER (a review)

THE NEW DAUGHTER (a review)

This is a new Kevin Cosner movie. That might sound like a big deal new, especially after SWING VOTE and MR BROOKS, but for me he's still an interesting filmmaker and when he picks projects that aren't so completely obviously idiotic, then they are worth at least watching. However, this is one you can skip.

** AVOID ***

The story: John James, recently divorced (played by Kevin Cosner) moves his two children to a small house in the country. The house is near a large burial mound. The oldest daughter (played by Ivana Baquero from PAN'S LABRYNTH) begins acting strangely -- going out at night and dressing sexy and getting into fights and holding a small straw doll. Then the kids babysitter disappears. James, hearing a legend about "Mound Walkers" who would mate with young girls, tries to bulldoze the mound, but they uncover the body of the babysitter. That night the Mound Walkers take his daughter to the mound and James has to race back and save her.

So is it good?

No.
*** SPOILERS *** I'm not even sure my synopsis made sense and I'm leaving out a ton of stuff that would confuse things even more. Basically the first half of the movie plays out like it's a supernatural mystery with the daughter being possessed or something. She starts acting differently, she starts dressing differently, she becomes violent. But then it isn't anything supernatural -- it's just these creatures that look like leftovers from THE DESCENT. There's so much stuff in here that just doesn't make sense. I could go on and on -- when James is driving back with the police they are attacked...why? Why hasn't anyone else in town heard of these creatures or known about them? There's a whole town full of young girls? Why was the girl acting possessed and dressing differently? Now maybe I'm missing something -- maybe these "Mound Walkers" are a common mythology thing and I've just never heard of them and if you know about them then you know all their powers and the lore and all this makes sense. But if you don't - then the movie is mess. There's no build up, there's no pay off, nothing makes sense.

*** AVOID ***

To watch instead: THE DESCENT -- another creature movie but much, much etter done. Four adventuring women reunite after a year apart following a tragic accident that killed one woman's husband and son, and go spelunking, but a cave-in traps them so they have to push further into the cave where they meet a strange, vicious subterranean creature... Good stuff!

BLACK CRESCENT MOON (aka bgFATLdy) (a review)

BLACK CRESCENT MOON (aka bgFATLdy) (a review)

Um...okay. This I guess is supposed to be one of those quickly little indy films, but it isnt that quirky or that interesting. It certainly ain't FARGO (although the dvd cover I saw tried to compare it to Fargo). But it has a pretty good cast -- Meredith Monroe (Dawson's Creek, Criminal Minds), Melora Walters (Big Love), DW Moffett (Friday Night Lights), Gil Bellows (Ally McBeal), William Atherton (Die Hard, Real Genius, Ghostbusters and more), Charles Napier and more. Now sure, none of them are big name actors but all are very steady working Hollywood actors. So how did the movie get all of them for this quirky indy film? I wish I knew.

The story: a man is found dead in a local diner with his stomach full of rat poison. The local shariff investigates and everyone in that small town had a connection to the victim and has something to hide.

So how was it?

Um...not good. The dvd cover compares it to FARGO, but it's not anywhere near that league. I'd try to give a better description, but this movie just didn't grab my attention. Where FARGO was quirky and interesting, this was just people standing around yapping. There was nothing really funny or interesting, either in the characters or the plot. And there are a lot of character -- the shariff is investigating, there's the murdered man, there's a couple women who are involved, there's another big guy who is brought in to "clean things up" and all of them are part of a plot or scheme with boxes and Mexico...probably drugs, right?...but there's almost never any motivation or anything to make the characters stand out. It's a lot of indirect talk to sustain the mystery of something that wasn't that interesting.

*** AVOID ***

PREY (2007) (a review)

PREY (2007) (a review)

A bad, bad movie with a cool concept. Really bad. In fact I'm debating recutting the movie and changing the dialog and renaming it as "Prey, Pray, Pway" and releasing it as a comedy because this movie is really, really close to being hilarious.

The story: a newly married woman takes her husband's two child from his last marriage on an African safari, but after an accident find themselves being hunted by a pack of lions.

So how was it?

Bad. Really, really bad. And what makes it so much worse is that there seems to be a lot going for it. It's a great little concept -- a safari gone bad, a family hunted by lions. Awesome. And they got a could good actors with Peter Weller (go Robocop!) and Bridgit Moynahan. The story starts out okay: the couple on happy vacation, but the eldest girl is still angry about her parent's divorce and takes it out on her father's new wife. The husband has to work the next day, so the new wife and daughter and son go one a day safari, made incredibly uncomfortable by the daughter's constant barbs at the new wife. Now, that angry daughter angle isn't great but it isn't horrible. It isn't great because it's predicable and doesn't have anything in it we haven't seen, but it does the job of adding an element to the movie and making the characters something less than stick figures. Where the movie fails -- and badly at that, I might add -- is once the concept really kicks in on the safari. Now, how good this movie is will be all about how convincing the lion-stalking works is. In JAWS, the shark scenes are fantastic and the movie is awesome. In PREY the lion attacks are laughable. They are done in ways that are so cheesy and sophomoric that it's hard to believe that it wasn't made as a comedy. First there's the "lion vision." It's this cheesey pseudo-night vision so that we can feel what it's like to be the lion. Wow. Or maybe it's this cheap attempt to add some tension since the scenes where you actually see the lions are mainly lame. Then there's the fact that the characters are so stupid that they can't open a car door. Seriously. There are at least four scene where people are being chased by lions and the people in the car can't get the door open. Seriously. FOUR. Now maybe I'd let it slide once -- hey, a lion is attacking so there is a certain about of stress -- but FOUR? And each time it just feels more and more stupid -- and by stupid I mean both the movie and the characters. I mean, isn't the whole "can't open the door" the most overused cliche in thriller/horror movies? So wouldn't you want to AVOID it? Certainly, you wouldn't want to use it FOUR TIMES. Unless of course you are making a comedy because by the fourth time I was howling with laughter at this thing. And there's so much more -- the lame lion attacks, the cliche of the father going to a hunter who doesn't want to help him but does, and the fact that once the attack happens every character acts as stupidly as humanly possible. For instance, their guide is killed when they stop the car so the young son can go to the bathroom. Fine. And of course he took the keys with him because...well, I don't know why. Then they are trapped in the car and it literally a full day before they try to get the keys from the dead guide. Seriously? It takes them a full day? Once they survive that first lion attack by hiding in the car, wouldn't the first plan be to get the keys? And then when they do get the keys (but just barely because of course the lions have been lying in wait for them) the woman's instinct is to just keep driving as fast as possible even though they are off road and she has no idea where they are going until she wreaks the car. Wow. Some filmmakers just love those cliches. They just love making their characters act as stupidly as possible.

Even the angle of the daughter and new mom really doesn't pan out to anything. Because in a movie like this you wouldn't expect follow-thru on anything.

Seriously, this is one of the lamest movies-with-Hollywood-actors I've ever seen.

*** AVOID (unless you want to watch it as a comedy) ****

HUMAN CENTIPEDE (FIRST SEQUENCE) (a review)

HUMAN CENTIPEDE (FIRST SEQUENCE) (a review)

I'm not sure what the first sequence part of the title refers to because it's hard to imagine a sequel to this horror movie. And I do mean horror movie. Most horror movies are more like action movies with zombies or they are just slasher movies where the kids are obnoxious and you are almost rooting for the villian. There are very few movies that actually come up with an idea that can get under the skin of the viewer, that have something in them that it truly disturbing. This is one of those movies.

The story: two American girls in Germany drive off to a party but get lost/a flat tire and head out in search of help, but instead find a sadistic surgeon with a project: to surgically (and permanently) attach several people together to form a human centipede.

So how was it? Disturbing as hell. I have to admit, hearing the concept didn't sound so horrible. Hey, people all tied together -- what's the big deal? It could even be kind of funny. WRONG. This isn't CHUCKY or RE-ANIMATOR. There is something of the sight of those three people attached to each other that was very disturbing to me. A lot of that comes from the fact that they took a more realistic route. The people aren't made to look like some giant insect, but are three human beings sewn together. Then it's the details -- the way the feet are attached to hands, the way the doctor tries to make them learn to move together, the fact that the two back people have their mouths attached to the anus of the person in front of them, so to feed...(shudder). Like I said this was disturbing, mainly because they took a very realistic route for it. It's like the writer/director had really sat around wondering what it would be like to sew three human beings together.

And even plot-wise the movie takes a more realistic approach. There is no big Hollywood final confrontation, no happy endings and the ending in fact is probably one of the most disturbing they could have come up with.

Yikes. Still, it's rare that I see a movie that can actually disturb me, so as a horror movie it did what it needed to do.

*** RECOMMEND but only for fans of intense, disturbing horror movies ****

THE FINAL (a review)

This is one of the 8 Movies To Die For from Afterdark Horrorfest 4. To be honest I didn't know that before I watched it or I probably would have passed on it. Every one of the Horrorfest movies I've seen has been horrible. Still this movie had an intriguing premise so I gave it a try and I'm glad I did. If you're looking for a little horror movie to give a try, this is the best I've seen in a while.

The story: a group of pick-on high school teens drug and chain the cool/abusive kids during a party and force them into a series of sadistic games to show teach them about the pain they have been inflicting on others for the last four years.

First, I'm not a fan of torture films. I don't like the SAW films, don't like HOSTILE. Not for me. What makes this movie work, beyond the concept which I like, is the fact that the filmmakers didn't rush into it. They spend some time with the characters so we get to know them -- the obnoxious, but funny cool kids, the angry and not funny outcasts. We see them at school. We see them planning. We see the party and then we get the reversal. Making this about the kids, rather than just the concept, is what made this film good.

Where the movie faltered is int he second half. You can probably sense what the first half of the movie is like. It's at the second half that one of the captured kids (the "good" one) escapes and the losers/now-torturers begin to turn on themsevles. None of it really adds anything. And the problem is that the second half is where the filmmakers needed to reach deeper into the concept, deeper into the characters to find that next level. Instead, it just kind of goes and goes and goes, so the movie more limps to the end then builds to a satisfying climax.

Still, compared to most of the crap that's out there -- or even to the good-but-empty storytelling of a movie like THE CRAZIES -- this is a movie that's easy to recommend. In fact, it's probably one of the best I've seen since the Japanese film BATTLE ROYALE (which has the wonderfully twisted concept of the goverment dealing with juevenile delinquency by putting them on an island and forcing them to kill each other).

*** RECOMMEND (low budget horror) ***

THE CRAZIES (2010) (a review)

THE CRAZIES (2010) (a review)

This is a remake of a lesser know (aka non-zombie) George Romero movie from 1973.

The story: . The people of Ogden Marsh -- a frienly small town where everyone knows everyone -- are becoming violent. It starts at a high school baseball game when a local man, Rory Hamill, shows up with a shotgun. The shariff (played by Tim Olyphant -- I can't believe that's a real person's name!) tries to talk to him, but the man is unresponsive and finally raises the shotgun, forcing the shariff to shoot him in from of the entire town. And it spreads. Another local man burns his family in their farm house. Then the shariff, investigating a dead soldier that is found, finds a downed plane that is leaking toxins into the water supply, causing everyone to go crazy. The army shows up and starts evacuating the town, testing people first. People with the infection are killed. Others are rounded up. The shariff's wife is marked infected and now he has to save her and go on the run with his wife and a few others, trying to find a way past the army who will kill them if they find them as a precaution while avoiding the infected who will just kill them, even as they wonder if they have become infected themselves.

So was it good?

It was good. Not great, but good. First, it isn't really a horror movie. It's more of an action movie, but with zombies. Horro is creepy; it gets under your skin. Except for the first scene at the baseball field, there isn't that much creepy going on. It's more go-go-go with bursts of small contained action scenes of people vs zombies or people vs army. As a fun action movie it's okay -- it's basically a B-movie made with a decent budget and good actors -- but it's a pretty empty experience. Like all the other remakes I've been seeing, what they basically did was strip away any social commentary, any deeper storytelling, anything that might be really disturbing, and just make it a superficial popcorn flick.

*** SLIGHT RECOMMEND (as a popcorn film) ***

Chuck renewed for season 4

Chuck officially was renewed today. No word on the order -- if it will be a regular full season or just a midseason order to start in Jan like this year. But more Chuck is always good news!

RIP Frank Frazetta

Frank Frazetta was one of the great artists of the second half of the twentieth century. He started work in comic books but found his greatest fame doing covers for paperbacks. His covers for the Conan the Barbarian books are legendary and are credited with taking that fifty year old character and revitilizing him for a brand new generation. His art influenced almost everyone who came after him in the fantasy/science fiction field. In his later years Frazetta suffered a series of strokes that impared his dexterity with his right (painting) hand, so he switched to drawing with his left hand. He was the subject of a wonderful documentary, Frazetta: Painting with Fire, which I recommend for everyone. He died of a stroke on May 10, 2010. He was eighty two.

Goodbye, Frank. You will be missed, and your art will be remembered.

The beginning of Skynet?

Apparently there's a rogue satellite that has begun stealing communications from other satallites and none of the scientists can explain why it's doing that. I don't know...maybe because it's become self aware and is reaching out to others of it's kind in the first steps of computer evolution????

Between this and the recent spate of accelerating natural disasters, I'm not sure which is going to kill us all first -- the Mayan 2012 prediction or the our own now self-aware machines ala Terminator? Either way our future is clear:

We are f*cked.

Here's the original, less insightful-than-me, article -- LINK

--Paul

NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET (2010, remake) (a review)

NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET (2010, the remake) (a review)

It sucks.

Wow, did this movie suck. Save your money, save your firends, and save yourself. Go rent the original, written and directed by Wes Craven, and the third, which was written by Frank Darabont (you know, the guy who did Shawshank Redemption). I wasn't expecting to be so disappointed. The original is so solid that you would have to really, really work to screw it up. And wow did these people work.

The story: a group of kids are having nightmares about a horribly scarred man with razors on one hand. The scarred man appears in their dreams, but can affect them in real life, like when he makes a kid slit his own throat in a diner. Then he slices up a girl while she is next to her boyfriend. The boyfriend is thrown in jail where he too is sliced up. Meanwhile, the two remaining kids, have learned that they all are having the nightmares about the man who is named Freddy. The remaining girl (Nancy) realizes that all of the kids knew each other in kindergarden. She confronts her mother who tells her that Freddy was a gardener at their school and that he hurt the kids, but was later arrested. The remaining boy thinks the nightmares are just repressed memories, but then has a nightmare while at swim practice where he sees what really happened: the parents of the children burned Freddy alive. The boy and girl confront the girl's father saying that he burned a man alive with no evidence and they are going to prove Freddy is innocent. They find Freddy's "secret cave" but realize he is guilty and now they try to pull Freddy out of the dream into reality so they can kill him. Which they do. But at the end, when the girl is talking to her mother, Freddy appears and kills her mother. The end.

WTF was that? If you write it out fast it almost makes sense, but let's stop at a few details. Like the middle, when the kids confront their parent's about killing Freddy and say that he is innocent. WHAT??? This is the guy who has killed three of their friends and now they are on his side??? This is now a pro-Freddy movie? And if Freddy wants them on his side, why is he killing all their friends? For that matter he can talk, why not just ask for help? And why do they think he's innocent? This is the nightmare monster that is stalking them and killing all of their friends -- so the natural thing to assume is that he was probably nice guy and the parent's had it all wrong? Maybe the fact that he's this monster that has killed all the other children is even more reason to think of him as a monster, instead of being his cheering squad?

I could go one, but why bother? This thing is just a massive fail at every moment. It's like they took all the cool things about the original, intentionally cut them out, and stitched back what was left in an aftrnoon, knowing they'd get a crappy director, lame actors and knock this thing out in a day and a half. So those cool dream moments, like when Freddy walked through the metal bars or had those long arms with his razors scraping both sides of the walls? Gone. Those fun long chases through the nightmare worlds? Gone (why chase when you can just pop up and kill people). That great moment at the sleep clinic when Nancy pulls Freddy's hat out of the dream? Gone. The mystery of who he is and the kids? Gone.

I could go on. Basically think of everything cool about the original and it's gone. Now I'm not saying that they shouldn't have changed anything. By all means -- screw around with everything if you want -- but it should be to make it BETTER, not changing things just to change things. The original had a great story core -- the parents killed this child molester and now he is coming back to kill their children. In this version, it's like he wants their help, or they want to help him, and then he wants to kill them, but he says he gets power from their memories so why is he killing them...it's all a mess.

Trust me -- watch the original.

*** AVOID AVOID AVOID ***



(more later)

FLAKES (a review)

FLAKES (a review)

A movie after my own heart -- almost the title sequence is about breakfast cereals, which I love but don't eat anymore since once I start eating them I tend to eat them for all three meals. After four days of only Captain Crunch and Lucky Charms my body starts doing weird things. And by weird I mean disgusting. Apparently once you turn 40 sugary breakfast cereals aren't your friends anymore.

The movie was directed by Michael Lehmann, who directed one of my all-time favorite movies, HEATHERS, and features Zooey Deschanel. According to Wiki it was released in December, 2007. It was in the theaters for nine days and made $778. Yes, less than a thousand dollars.

The story: this guy manages a cereal shop (kind of like a coffee shop, only instead of coffee people come in and get bowls of cereal), but really he wants to be a musician but he never gives any time to his music. Then his girlfriend loses her job and offers to take over the store so he can finish his album. He fires her. At the same time a guy who wanted to franchise the store but was turned down opens another cereal store right across the street, so the girlfriend goes to work for him. The stores compete until the original store is out of money and closes. The guy works for the other store, but now his girlfriend fires him. So he hires a lawyer and sues the store and they win and everything works out okay and he makes his album and stuff.

Yikes. To say this movie wanders a bit is being generous. I just it makes sense since it's that whole Gen X get your life together sort of thing, but you'd think that as a movie, even if the main character is a bit unfocused, that the movie itself would be very focused. Again, stories at the most basic are the protagonist wants something and we watch them try to achieve it. It's never clear here what he is trying to achieve. It isn't really about getting money together. It doesn't seem to be the store vs store stuff, since it's not like he really seems invested in the original store -- he doesn't own it and doesn't want to work there forever and I think he leaves it at the end anyway. There isn't really anything to his relationship -- they are on opposite sides of the store vs store, but there's no real tension of will they be together or not and nothing in the story explores their relationship with any depth.

This was a big disappointment. I'm a fan of Zooey Deshcanel and Michael Lehmann's HEATHERS is one of my all time favorites.

** AVOID ***

COLOUR FROM THE DARK (a review)

COLOUR FROM THE DARK (a review)

Based on an HP Lovecraft short story, directed by Ivan Zuccon in Italy, but in English. Stars b-horror movie staple Debbie Rochon and Tiffany Sheppis.

The story: at a small Italian (but English speaking) farm house, a young couple lives with the man's mute sister. The man has an injured leg. Then one night we see weird lights from the well. They drink the water anyway and things start to change. The sister can speak and the man's leg becomes healed. But then the wife starts acting weird (i.e. possessed) and the sister has horrible nightmares. Eventually the wife's possession spreads and all the people become infected with it and the weird light entity uses them up.

Um, okay. The synopsis doesn't sound like much and that might be my fault because I had trouble following this. There were a lot of dream sequences and even out of the dreams lots of weird stuff was going on and in some places I got lost. I'm not sure plot really is what matters most here so much as the creepy atmosphere and character work as things go from good to bad to worse. And for the most part, the directed did a decent job. It's a slower movie film, so there's time to spend on the characters and build the atmosphere. The movie works best when it is creepy, rather than shocking (which it goes for a few times).

What hurt it most was the lack of clarity and the fact that the characters really are passive. In PARANORMAL ACTIVITY the people realize there is a ghost/demon there and they are trying to stop it. Here, well, they don't do much. That and some of my confusion on and the fact that the characters were still pretty two dimensional makes this an okay movie, but not quite a good one.

*** MAYBE WATCH for creepy atmosphere ***

MY NANNY'S SECRET (a review)

MY NANNY'S SECRET (a review)

Was this made for tv or something? Like maybe a Lifetime movie, or an afterschool special? Because I thought it was like a real movie and it's not. It's pretty lame.

The story: Claudia (Haylie Duff) works as a nanny for a wealthy family. Her brother is a screw up alos in trouble with the law whom she constantly has to bail out and she is sick of it. He comes to her needing money. She refuses. Then her employer's house gets robbed and the grandfather of the house is shot and killed. Everything points to an inside job and Claudia realizes that it must be someone close to her. Now she must uncover who the killer is while trying to protect her brother.

So was it good? No. Like I said it was made-for-tv bad. And let's be clear: all the blame goes on the director, Douglas Jackson. who seems to have directed 20 of these made ofr tv movies and I'm guessing is burned out. I mean just nothing works here. Now I don't like to rip on tv directors. It's a tough job -- you have to work fast and be efficient, there isn't usually time for reshoots or rehersing like in features, you often aren't dealing with the top actors, and you don't have the money to do all the clever shots people do in features. But still...when nothing works and the movie doesn't live up to the script you have to blame the director. The script is a decent-bu-tnot-special little thriller. Claudia is caught between the robbery and trying to protect her brother, which throws suspicion on her and get her kicked out of her job/house. Then she suspects the people around her. But there's no tension to any of it. Even the robby didn't have any tension. The shots, the atmosphere, the editing -- it is all as bland as can be and a movie like this lives by tension. AND even on a small budget, tension should be something the director can provide. You don't need fancy lighting or special effects, and here the director just failed.

*** AVOID (keeping flipping that channel) ***

MOTHER'S LITTLE HELPER (a review)

MOTHER'S LITTLE HELPER (a review)

(can't find a poster)

A comedy starring Kyle Gallner (NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 2010, "VERONICA MARS," HAUNTING IN CONNECTICUT, JENNIFER'S BODY) with Jim Belushi, Denise Richards, Rebecca Mader ("LOST"), Kathryn Morris ("Cold Case") and Sarah Hyland ("Modern Family").

The story: a kid about to get kicked out of boarding school due to lack of funds has a one night stand with an older woman and ends up starting a business where he pimps out his high school friends (who can't get laid) to older women to raise money for his tuition. During this he also starts dating a girl his own age and forms a friendship with the pricipal to his school, until everything starts to unravel...

So was it good? No. It's a mess. The problem is that the script is just all over the place. There's the one storyline with the boys and the married women that wants to be a teen sex romp, ala RISKY BUSINESS or AMERICAN PIE. Then there's the other side which plays like a quirky indy movie with the girl-who-is-into-art and the principal who smokes joints and talks "real" and has sections divided into chapters (posed as questions) to make it feel deep or something, ala 500 DAYS OF SUMMER or a 2010 version of THE GRADUATE (although the girl he is into in this movie isn't the daughter of the older woman he screws). And the story flips back and forth between the two styles again and again and again. Yikes. Eventually the movie chooses to go the indy movie route, which is a mistake because nothing about it's indy side really works. It just doesn't seem to have anything to say. There's no focus to it at all. At least the teen sex comedy side had a fun idea -- older woman who are unhappy sexually hooking up with teen guys desperate to get laid.

There is some clever dialog by the supporting characters (the leads spends most of the time doing a Robert Patterson impression with lots of brooding and unkept hair), but with no focus and a very not entertaining second half, this is a pass.

*** AVOID ***

Recommend instead: if you want an indy comedy try 500 DAYS OF SUMMER. If you want a fun teen comedy rewatch RISKY BUSINESS or AMERICAN PIE.

THE PACIFIER (a review)

So this was a surprise hit comedy for Vin Diesel, best know for action movies like PITCH BLACK, FAST AND THE FURIOUS and XXX. It also co-stars Lauren Graham, who was brilliant as the star of a tv series (GILMORE GIRLS) but in movies she is the go-to actress for girlfriend/sidekick (BAD SANTA, EVAN ALMIGHTY, THE PACIFIER)

The story: Shane Wolfe (Diesel) is a Navy SEAL who is assigned to protect the children of the wife of a dead scientist while she and Wolfe's captain go to Zurich to find her husband's secret project called GHOST. While they do that, Wilfe has to deal with the kids and their school and girl scout troops and other domestic stuff. The kids rebel, but eventually they are attacked by spies who are after GHOST. Now the kids and Wolfe bond as he helps them with their lives and they search for GHOST, trying to get it before the spies.

Yeah, the story is pretty dopey. It's not horrible, but it one of those cheesey move ideas. It's like they wanted to do KINDERGARDEN COP and just took everything and made it bigger (instead of a cop how about a Navy Seal?) But that's okay. It means that if you hear the idea you probably know if you'll like the movie or not because for what it is it's pretty good. There aren't any great moments, but there are a lot of good moments and no really bad ones (although Diesel's acting and seeing Graham relegated to such a lame role were painful), and there was one nice quiet moment when Diesel realizes what he has missed by not being around a family. If you liked PAUL BLART, MALL COP ten you'll probably like this movie too.

*** RECOMMEND ***

**** RECOMMEND

SPARTACUS: BLOOD AND SAND - season 1 (a review)

SPARTACUS: BLOOD AND SAND - season 1 (a review)

This is a new series on Starz (possibly their first original scripted series). It is basically a tv version of the movie GLADIATOR, only this time it is TV-MA with much more sex and violence.

The story: the Thracians are convinced to stand with Rome against the Getae, but then the Romans screw them by diverting their forces elsewhere. The Thracian convinces his forces to mutiny against Rome, but he is captured, his wife taken into slavery and he is sentenced to die in the gladiator arenas. Except he doesn't die -- he kills four gladiators and his life is spared. Seeing his skill, he is bought by Batiatus and taken to his ludus where Batiatus trains gladiators. Except Batiatus isn't wealthy and has debts. The rest of the series is about the Thracian's (who they call Spartacus even though that's not his name) rise in the arena and Batiatus' attemps to rise socially. Eventually though, the Thracian's wife is killed and he decides to throw off his role as gladiator to avenge her death.

First, yes, there is a lot of sex and violence. The series is TV-MA for good reason. But even beyond that (because I'm all for sex and violence on tv), this is a very good series. The first couple episodes are actually the most awkward, getting the characters to where they need to be -- i.e. the Thracian to the ludus where he begins to rise as a gladiator, and Batiatus and his wife scheming to use him and his success for their own advancement. Once they get rolling there is a lot of good stuff -- intrigue and double dealing with doses of action. In fact, my biggest complaint is that the season was too short AND that the finale is a big action bloodbath which killed off several characters I liked a lot. I felt like there was a lot more story that could have happened in the ludus with those character -- the backstabbing had only just begun! -- and after that finale there just won't be a chance to do that.

So why very good and not great? Hmmm, hard to say. One is that there aren't too many unexpected emotional moments. In terms of the intrigue and action the show works very well, but it doesn't have those little moments of depth that great shows have. And while the intrigue and double dealing is fun, they never seem to get to that other level -- the level where it isn't just fun to watch, but where it says something about us (the way season 3 of Buffy uses the Buffy/Faith storyline to examine choices and good vs evil).

Still, this is an easy recommend. I'd say it's the best new series I've seen since BURN NOTICE.

**** RECOMMEND ****

NOTE: sadly, after the first season was shot, the star of the series, Andy Whitfield, was diagnoses with non-Hodgkin lymphoma, so the seaosn season is delayed while he gets treatment. Luckily, it is early stage (much like the star of DEXTER had) and I hope he will make a fast and complete recovery.

BOOGIE WOOGIE (a review)

Yes, from the poster and the title and the fact is stars Heather Graham I assumed this was somehow related to BOOGIE NIGHTS and Heather Graham's Roller Girl character. And yes, I would watch any movie with more of Roller Girl. Instead, it's a movie about the art world. And it's by another movie by a first time director, Duncan Ward (IMDB actually lists another movie he directed, but it was back in 1989), so that adds a bit of worry to it. But the movie does have a heck of a cast, including Heather Graham, Amanda Seyfried, Stellan Skarsgård, Gillian Anderson, Christopher Lee, and Alan Cumming. So how is it?

The story: an ensemble piece that follows several characters around the London art scene. Most notably are characters trying to buy a rare masteriece (the Boogie Woogie), a galley assistant wants to strike out on her own, a collector and his wife get a divorce as she has an affair with a young artist, and a young girl meets several people on the art scene and realizes that while she is interested in art they are interested in sex.

Ensemble pieces are tough to make work. Ensemble satire is even tougher. It's worse with this movie because I don't know piss about the high end ($20MIL) art scene, so what exactly they are satirizing I have no idea. And since there isn't a clear focus -- either plot-wise or thematically -- the whole thing feels like we are just watching a lot of people wandering around. The most common thread of all the characters is the sale of this rare painting, but even that was pretty empty. If it's a real painting I've never heard of it and it never is really explained why getting it would be so important, other than the idea that it's worth a lot of money. And the others, while their stories have certains arcs the WHY of it all -- why is their story worth telling, what's the impact on me supposed to be -- I have no clue.

I like the actors, but seriously you could have just filmed them eating dinner together, talking about random crap and it probably would have been more entertaining. None of the characters were likable. None of the stories were compelling.

*** PASS ****

(coming soon)

LET THE GAME BEGIN (a review)

LET THE GAME BEGIN (a review)

This movie was written and directed by Amit Gupta, the first movie he has written or directed. It stars Thomas Ian Nicholas (from the original American Pie movies) as Tripp and featuring Michael Madsen, Natasha Henstridge, Stephen Baldwin, Diora Baird, which is about as weird of a grouping as any movie I could imagine. First movies -- especially writer/director first movies -- are always...um...interesting. So let's get to it.

The story: Tripp is an ordinary schmuck of a married man with a good business idea. He partners up with a couple people to try to sell his idea, but he can't get any investors interested. Then, when talking to his friend who knows how to pick up women, Tripp realizes that getting investors is like picking up women and if he learned to pick up women he could apply that to his business and get investors. But when he finally gets investors and builds the business, his marriage falls apart and he has to try more tricks to keep his wife from getting everything.

Yikes. This really is two totally different movies. The first half has a nice premise -- the parallel of getting people to go into business with you (investors), like trying to pick up girls at a bar. And for the most part that plays out okay. A little too predictable and a little too one sided (once he starts learning to pick up girls, we stay on that for a long time, so you don't see the progression of his trying to sell. But then you hit the middle of the film and everything flips around, but in a way that makes no sense. Almost out of the blue Tripp wants to divorce his wife, which is weirder since she just had his child. But then she wants to divorce him first and the rest of the movie is about who is having an affair and child support or custody or something. I don't know. By that point everything was floundering. Movies stay focused by keeping clear two things -- what does the protagonist want and why can't he get it. The first half we know what he wants -- to get investors. In the second half...I don't know. He wants a divorce, but she wants a divorce too so that isn't a problem. He wants to sell the company, but that isn't a problem. He wants partial custody of the child, but there's nothing about what fatherhood means to him. Certainly it didn't mean enough to try to work things out with his ex-. There's something about him or his wife having an affair, but so what? I guess the idea is that if he were having an affair he would lose everything or be denied partial custody of his child, but where the hell is that true? Certainly not in California.

So while there is a decent idea in here, and the first half is okay, the whole thing falls apart after midpoint when the story takes a huge turn and then just wanders in a way that didn't make sense to me at all. If the second half had been cohesive I couldn't at least given it a partial recommend, especially for people that like SWINGERS or WEDDING SINGER (although even the first half isn't really in the same league as them), but with that second half...yikes.

*** PASS ****

Gordon Hayward officially off to the NBA

Gordon Hayward, the best player on the Butler team that made that amazing run to the NCAA Finals has stated he is not returning for his junior year and will stay in the NBA draft. He had previously declared for the draft, but had not signed an agent allowing for the possibility of a return to the team that he led to within one basket of an NCAA title. Now it's official -- he is outta here! That puts a big hurt on Butler's chance to win the NCAA next year (or to be preseason #1, which they would have had a shot at had Hayward returned). It also takes a bit away from the Duke-Butler game set for December of next season. Still, Duke lost three starters, so Butler losing Hayward just makes it fair, right?

Good luck, Gordon Hayward. It was great (and scary) watching you in the tournament (but not against Duke) and I hope you have great success at the next level.

--Paul

CHLOE (a review)

CHLOE (a review)

This is the movie by Canadian director Atom Egoyan, a sexy drama-thriller starring Julianne Moore, Liam Neeson and Amanda Seyfried. It continues Egoyan's dark exploration of sex and obsession from movies like THE SWEET HEREAFTER and the twisted-but-great EXOTICA.

The story: Catherine (Julianne Moore) thinks her husband (Liam Neeson) so she hires an escort (Amanda Seyfried) to test him. The escort tells her that her husband did in fact pick her up. As she tells Catherine each story of what is happening between her and Catherine's husband, the two begin to become closer with Catherine leaning on her as her marriage falls apart. Catherine tries to stop it, but by then the woman has become obessed with her and her family and it is too late to just stop.

It's a neat little thriller idea that doesn't quite play like a thriller. A movie like FATAL ATTRACTION sets up the Glenn Close vs Michael Douglas situation by about 25 minutes in and then we watch the fireworks from there. This movie plays it slow, almost like a seduction itself, focusing as much on the story of Catherine and her husband and their marraige as what is going on with the escort's growing obsession with her and her family.

For the most part, the movie works. It is in turns sexy and disturbing, as a good sexy thriller should be. One problem of it's slower pace is that when things do come to a head at the end it is pretty sudden and doesn't have the fully build. A bigger problem is that it feels more like a light version of the movie that it should be. For a twisted movie about family and seduction, it doesn't nearly push things far enough or get enough out of the what is there. For instance (***SPOILER***), the escort's obsession carries so far that she seduces Catherine's son, but that happens so late and has so little effect on anything. It seems to have no impact between Catherine and her son, which is already strained, and it doesn't really seem to accelerate things between the escort and Catherine is a way that couldn't have been done without it.

Still, there is a lot to like here. It's hard to go wrong with Julianne Moore and Liam Neeson, and the portrayal of the marriage that is having problems and the twisted relationship with the escort are some interesting stuff. It's just a shame Egoyan didn't work harder to push the material and shape it stronger so it could work fully as either a drama or good thriller.

*** RECOMMEND (as a twisted drama/thriller) ***

Dec 4, 2010 -- Duke vs Butler part 2

It's official -- Duke will play Butler in an (almost) rematch of the national championship game from last season on Dec 4, 2010 at Izod Center in East Rutherford, N.J. I say almost because the teams will be different, especially Duke which lost three starters -- Scheyer, Thomas and Zubeck. Butler will also be a different team, especially if Gordon Haywood, who has declared for the draft but not signed with an agent, does go pro. But either way, these teams will be highly ranked and favored to get back to the final four and a December match-up will be AWESOME!!!!

Go DUKE!

2010-2011 -- back to back, baby!

CLASH OF THE TITANS (2010) (a review)...and the original one too!

CLASH OF THE TITANS (2010) (a review)

Wow, they're remaking everything aren't they? Now I remember seeing the original COTT when I was a kid and loving it. It had everything a young 12-or-so year old could want -- action, monsters, mythology, and boobs. It was the perfect film. Then I went back and rewatched it again as an adult. What a mess. It's such a weird, convoluted, mix-match of stories that it barely makes any sense at all, epsecially if you know the original myths and are trying to keep track of what fits and what doesn't. But it did still have some charm. The stop motion animation was both wonderful and cheesy. The monsters were still fun monsters. And while it didn't have any of that annoying glib tongue-in-cheek dialog, it didn't seem to take itself too seriously. It was meant to be fun. (And I mentioned the boobs, right?)

So how was the remake? It sucked.

The story: first we are told about how three gods battled the titans long ago. Hades created the Kraken which defeated the titans, but then Zeus tricked him into ruling the underworld (and water, I think) while Zeus ruled the land to worship him, which would give him power. Hades learned another way to get power -- through human's fearing him. Much, much later, a baby is pulled from the sea (with his dead mother, maybe?) and raised by fisherman. Then while they are fishing they see soldiers destroying a statue to Zeus. Hades comes up and destroys the soldiers and then destroys Perseus' fishing boat, killing his entire family. The soldiers take Perseus back to the king and at a feast the king compares his daughter to the god Andromeda. The gods don't like this and Hades kills all the soldiers, but not Perseus, revealing he is a demi-god. Then Hades says he will destroy the people unless they sacrifice the daughter to the Kraken. We hear Perseus' backstory -- Zeus tricked his mother into sleeping with him as punishment for his father doing something -- and then Perseus agrees to try to stop the Kraken. Hades tries to stop him, but Perseus finds a sword and a winged horse to help him. Eventually he learns he needs the head of medusa as that is the only thing that will kill the Kraken, so he and the soldiers set out to do that before the Kraken arrives and kills the king's daughter. Persues pervails. The Kraken is defeated. Hades is sent back to the underworld. Perseus tells his father he would rather be mortal than a god. Zeus gives the princess to Perseus. The End.

Um, okay...what the hell happened? No, seriously, I just watched the movie and wrote the synopsis and I still don't understand it. Now if you want to turn your brain off completely and listen to music while you just watch the pretty pictures on the screen, then it's something with gods, fighting, Kraken will kill the princess, journey, need to get the head of medusa, kill the Kraken, happy ending. But if you want a STORY, if you want something other than random action and lots of CGI, then what the F*%*$#&$ just happened???? It is so convoluted and backwards and nothing really ties together and it all feels completely random.

Now maybe this is to be expected. (Maybe???) I mean, most of the time when they are doing these remakes they gut the original and totally screw everything up, so if the original movie was a bit of a mess, then the remake is going to ten times as fugly. But it's still disappointing. I mean, doesn't anyone want to tell a STORY anymore?

So what happened in the original?

CLASH OF THE TITANS (1981)

The story (1981): two gods, Zeus and Thetis, have children they love. But Thetis' child is cruel and kills things, including Zeus' winged horses. As punishment Zeus curses him and turns him into a horribly disfigured creature and banishes him. Theits in turn curses the princess so that a suitor has to answer a riddle or be killed. Perseus hears of this curse and one night follows the princess into the swamp where she meets Thetis' disfigured son. Perseus fights him, cutting off his hand. The next day Perseus presents as a suitor and answers the riddle with the hand of Thetis' son (his ring was the answer). Perseus and the princess set to marry. But Thetis's son wants revenge. Thetis cannot punish Perseus, but she can destroy the princess and the city. At the wedding someone compares the princess's beauty to Thetis and in turn Thetis demonds the princess be sacrificed to the Kraken. Now Perseus sets off to find a way to save the princess, which will involved killing medusa and using her head to turn the Kraken to stone...

Now, there are problems with that story -- it's especially convoluted -- but at the heart it is pretty simple and makes sense. Two gods love their sons, but their sons will come in conflict and as one god punishes the others son, the other god will try to punish the first son. Additionally, there is a love triangle among the mortals, with Persus falling for the princess (the ex- of the other son) and then having to take a dangerous journey to save her.

Compare that to he remake where the basic story is...I have no idea. He still sets out to defeat the Kraken, but I'm not even sure why the Kraken is set loose anyway. It has to do with people worshiping or not worshiping or fearing or something? I don't know. at no point did I feel like the story in the remake made sense. And the CGI was crap. Medusa was LAME and the Kraken was so generic it was boring too. I wasn't expecting a masterpiece, but I thought they'd come up with a decent, simple story and then have some fun monsters and cool action. Instead...

It was crap.

*** (the remake) -- AVOID and then AVOID again ****

*** (the orignal 1981 film) -- maybe see if you like mythology and monsters ****