Paranormal Activity: A Late Review (Minor Spoilers)

This just came to Korea.  The low budget movie with basically 4 characters is about a couple named Katie and Micah who live together in San Diego. Micah buys a camera and starts recording their daily lives. He does this because Katie claims she hears weird noises at night.

This story is brilliantly paced, with a few false scares, and odd occurrences that at first could be explained simply. (Houses often make weird sounds at night that people think are ghosts) It then builds and builds into more intense and unexplainable phenomenon.

We also get moments to know the characters. The film opens with Katie asking Micah how much the camera was, wishing he hadn’t bought it. He of course jokes about having sex on camera, to which she doesn’t oblige.

A psychic is brought in early on, through whom we get some exposition that Katie’s had these experiences since she was 8. Also during her childhood her home was destroyed by an unexplained fire. The psychic notes that there is not a ghost in the house, but in fact a demon. Demon’s aren’t his field of expertise, but he refers them to someone more qualified. The way the plot works out this person never comes into the picture. (The only other character is a friend of Katie’s.)

Further research by Micah reveals a girl in the 1960s who had similar experiences ending in her death. (A sort of nod to the Exorcist) I wanted more from this point and from the angle about the Demon expert.

I didn’t like Micah. He’s naturally curious about what’s happening, but once he knows it’s really something supernatural, that truly is scaring the woman he loves, he’s still like “Oh cool.” I know horror movies need people to act dumb, but that took me out of the picture a bit. Later he buys a Quija board against Katie’s wishes, and it has an upside down star on it. As far as I know they don’t have those, and it was hard to believe she didn’t throw it out immediately. There’s conflict over using the camera use but it gets repetitive and derails. (Also just leaving the house won’t work because it’s suggested this thing just follows her.)

Still it’s a really scary movie, the kind that needs to be seen in the theater. Korean audiences are really fun to watch these with too.  The beginning scared me more, as once Micah started annoying me it hurt the more intense parts, but they were still good. It’s one of the scariest things I saw in the theater. We get visual scares of things moving, unexplainable shadows moving by, as well as auditory frights that get picked up on Micah’s computer equipment.

(Also they go for the “This really happened” angle, but the first credits have show the part about “The events in this film are fictitious,” etc.)

The story of how this movie was made is interesting too. The studio bought it with the intention of remaking it on a bigger budget. Once it was tested on audiences though, it was released as is. This kind of movie would have been hindered by a big budget. They probably would have added more CGI, where you actually see the demon and it wouldn’t have worked as well. Nothing scares us like our imagination. Movies like this and the Blair Witch Project come along once and a while to remind us that good horror, and good movies in general, can be made on  shoe string budget. 9.5 out of 10.

The Road

The Road is an adaptation of the 2006 Pulitzer prize winning novel by Cormac McCarthy.  It is about a (unamed) father and son’s journey through America in a post apocalyptic world. Some unexplained disaster has devastated the planet, killing animal and wildlife, and mos people. Through the whole movie the sun is clouded by a thick layer of ash, leaving a dark gray dreary world below.

The father and son journey south and hope to get to the coast, which they think is safe for some reason. There are no other major characters, just people they have brief encounters with along the way. They must protect themselves from bandits and cannibals, as anarchy rules what’s left of humanity. Along the while the father reads stories to his son and teaches him morality, and the importance of being “the good guys.”

The disaster is never explained, but we know the son was born after it took place. We learn the fate of the mother in a series of flashbacks. As the story progresses the son has small clashes with the father over his need to socialize with other children, and his father’s distrust of all they run into. There’s also light religious themes, and the question of suicide as a viable option in a post apocalyptic world.

It’s one of those movies without a real plot, it’s just a bunch of stuff that happens. The world this movie creates is made very well and the acting is good. The father is not a tough action hero like Mad Max, he’s just a man scared for himself and his son. One scene early on was real scary, but if it was more sharp in it’s beginning, it could have been super super scary. The only minor gripe is the characters don’t change much from the beginning to the end of the story, they don’t really have an arc, but the seed was there for one. Still it’s a pretty satisfying film experience.  9/10

Saw VI

These movies usually come to Korea in December, strangely enough. The bloody Christmas tradition was broken last month, as the latest entry just came to Korea now.

Anyway this one storywise had potential to start off fresh and be a good entry point for new fans. The last few sequels were so intertwined they were almost the same movie. If I remember right, IV took place in the middle of III, and V was immediately after. Consequently I actually forgot which number Saw this was going into the theater.

This entry mostly starts off fresh, but still has some flashback sequences tying into other events. This was slightly necessary I suppose but could have been trimmed down a bit.

VI is the first one to try specific social commentary, first on the housing crisis (giving loans to people that couldn’t afford them, which is what really started the downturn) then more so on the healthcare issue. The main victim (Could he be called protagonist? I dunno) runs a health care company that denies customer claims to save dough. Perfect villain for our times. However he seems so much more deserving of punishment than Jigsaw’s other victims hence the suspense wasn’t as strong. The subplot involving the police investigation added a decently tense moment.

While not scary like previous entries it is pretty interesting. Like most of the series I was interested to see what happens next/how it played out. Like the first few there’s a few nice twists at the end, not mind blowing but pretty good.

The ending can almost end the series, of course I said that three movies ago. of course a Saw VII is planned. However, VI had the lowest box office return of the series, so it’s been said that VII might really be the last one. We’ll see this Halloween, or at least you will.

Sherlock Holmes

First of all let me say I don’t know how this is doing state-side but in Korea it’s selling out left and right. The last two nights I tried to see it but all shows were sold out.

This version of Holmes is billed an action hero, but it doesn’t take away from his sleuthing. In fact, his deductive abilities help him in combat, as we see from the first scene. Also, in the novels Holmes did know martial arts and how to box, and Watson had a military background, so the action isn’t really a stretch.

Anyway the story is about a Satanic cult and the apparently supernaturally powered leader. The regular cast of Holmes is present, Watson, Irene Adler, Inspector Lestrade, Mary Morstan and you know who. Mmmmmmmm. Downey plays Holmes brilliantly as a complete eccentric, brilliant yet socially aloof, who needs Watson to keep in check. Today’s audiences might even interpret him as being autistic. In between cases Holmes is completely bored and out of his mind. His place is a mess, as is his personal hygiene, and he’s always doing goofy experiments. He and Jude Law’s Watson are a great onscreen duo. The world of Victorian London is also designed very well.

Looking back there were suspenseful situations but they didn’t feel as tense as they should. I liked the villain but maybe he should have been scarier. Also, in this day and age a movie like this is undoubtley made with “franchise” and sequels in mind. Hence the end scene is purposely made wide open for a sequel. However, to set that up you know who is shoe-horned in too tight. Once you find out what’s “really” going on at the very very end, it seems too not make sense, or at least be a bit of a stretch. Thanks to that I liked it a lot less than I otherwise would have. 8.5/10.

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, in short, is about an immortal story teller who is in a contest with the devil. Set in modern London the Dr., his daughter Valentina, along with Anton and a dwarf named Percy travel around in a giant horse drawn carrriage. In Carnie like fashion they stop here and there setting up the carriage as a stage, enticing the public to enter a magical world. When patrons pass through this mirror, they enter the world of the imagination, full of bizzare sets typical of other films directed by Terry Gilliam. Along the way they find a near dead amnesiac who joins the troup. (Played by Heath Ledger.)

There’s a lot going on in this movie with all the different characters but I don’t want to spoil it. You can’t always guess what will happen which is good. I like these kinds of movies because they’re so different and such. This movie has it’s own mythology to it, but there’s some minor points that weren’t clear to me. Near the end, when I found out what the heart of the movie really is, I looked back and thought some things could have been played up better. A weird movie is good, but this one had potential to pull on the heart strings more.

In short it’s a good unique movie, not the best, but more ambitious than most. Another good entry in the fantasy genre for 2009. 8/10

Avatar (Minor Spoilers)

For whatever reason I didn’t pay attention to the Avatar hype, but I went to see it for my birthday. I didn’t realize this was Cameron’s first film since Titanic. (Not counting documentaries)

Anyway the plot is basically Dances with Wolves or Last Samauri, where a white guy goes to an indigenous culture, (This time on a far away planet) falls for the hot native chic, and fights back against his own culture. However here it’s done well enough to seem fresh.

Cameron doesn’t forget that he’s made a sci-fi film, so it’s not just guns and visuals, as a lesser movie would be. There are some neat concepts like floating islands, and animals that the native creatures can communicate with by the two joining hair. Also all life on the planet has a kind of network intelligence, linking everything to each other in one big brain.

Of course James Cameron also doesn’t forget that he’s making a James Cameron film, so we get big action, especially at the end. Big fun glorious action.

It’s called Avatar because humans are able to make bodies of the native creatures that can be controlled by humans while sleeping inside a machine. When they go to sleep in the creature body, their human body wakes up. (The human bodies can also be awoken at the push of a button.) The lead character is a paralyzed marine who is thrilled to be able to walk again in his Avatar body. (The creatures are blue and about 10ft tall by the way) His mission is to investigate the ways of the native people so that the military can wipe them out and take their resources. (Including some rock thingy that’s worth money) He has absolutely no qualms about his mission, but then of course all of a sudden falls in love with the native chic, and after some jungle booty has a change of heart. This is the heart of the movie, and also it’s weakest point. This so needed to be developed more and it would have made everything so so much stronger.

During the space journey one of the characters who wakes up in the space pod is Sigourney Weaver. This of course immediately reminds us of Aliens, which Cameron directed. However her character thematically is more linked to another Weaver movie, Gorilla’s in the Mist. Her character has studied the native tribe, speaks their language, and wrote a book about them.

One nit-picky thing is some of the alien wildlife looks too computer generated. It looks like it came right out of a video game, which kills some of the early suspense. One of the things I liked about District 9 is the aliens looked very natural, you forgot you were looking at computer graphics then.

Another thing is it’s briefly mentioned at the very end that Earth apparently is in ruins or too polluted or something, hence the journey to a new planet. This should have been touched on more and earlier. It would have been much more challenging to the viewer if what the humans were looking for on the planet was something they NEEDED to survive, rather than just some stupid rock they could rich off of. Instead the plot is just white people are assholes and want to take everything.

There’s obvious parallels to Native Americans and/or any other indigenous people that suffered under imperialism. Also included are comments about pre-preemptive strikes, terrorism and security, reflecting the modern political climate. Some of the early imagery of jungle recon reminded me of Vietnam.

One different thing about this kind of plot is it the conflict between the two races seemed to have a definite end. However, Cameron said he’d make two more sequels if this were succesful, and it’s already made big money.

It’s so very extremely rare to have a movie live up to it’s hype. Avatar does. A lesser director would have made it another forgettable action romp disguised as a science fiction movie. Cameron gave this one some heart, but it could have used a bit more. 8/10.

Between this and District 9, it’s been a good year for science fiction movies. Too bad Transformers 2 had to come out in the same year.

Another Wrestling Death,

It may be morbid to acknoweldge but a wrestler death is  a regular part of our news cycle now. We almost expect it. Test died earlier this year at 33, and yesterday Umaga died at 36. Details here

http://sports.yahoo.com/mma/news?slug=ys-wrestlerdeath120509&prov=yhoo&type=lgns

In the last few years a statistic floated around that 100 wrestlers died in the past decade that were under 50, and around 60-70 of them were under 40.  I’m almost 33, so Test was about my age, and Umaga was almost my age when he died.

To anyone my age reading this, this includes many wrestling stars we grew up with as a kid. Junkyard dog, Rick Rude, Big Bossman, Big John Studd, Miss Elizabeth, Earthquake, Bam Bam Bigelow, Dino Bravo, Sensational Sherri, Davey Boy Smith, Crush, Hercules, Road Warrior Hawk, Mr Perfect, Yokuzuna, Saphire, Texas Tornado, and on and on.

I couldn’t find a solid list with all the deaths AND when they happened AND how old they were, but decent one I found is here.

http://www.pwwew.net/people/dead.htm

I can’t help but wonder is it wrong to just not like wrestling anymore? That might be unfair but you don’t see as many fatalities in football, any fightning sport, or racing.

The only comparable thing the comes to mind is rock n roll deaths. Many young rock stars died from accidents, murder, and drug related deaths. That list would include Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, John Bonham, Bon Scott, John Lennon, Randy Rhoads, Cliff Burton, Eric Carr, Kurt Kobain, Michael Jakson, and many more. (If you’re curious, look here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_deaths_in_rock_and_roll)

Even still, I don’t think you have so many young rock n roll deaths in such a short period of time.

What is it about wrestling that has lost so many young active people this past 10-12 years? Drugs, steriods, the grueling touring schedule? Bret Hart said he would have liked to have been home just one Christmas for his kids. If a wrestling event ever comes near my home on Christmas day, I will not go. Sometimes I’m not sure if I’d go period.

What do you think?

The Time Traveller’s Wife

The premise is interesting. Henry, a man with a genetic disorder randomely travels through time for brief periods, before returning to his present. Naturally this complicates relationships which is what the story is about.

Henry has no control over his time traveling. Usually he’s only gone for a few minutes, but when he arrives he’s naked, as clothes don’t travel through time. Hence he always has to run and find clothes, getting into precarious situations along the way. Since the trips are so brief why couldn’t he have just stayed put a few times? (Also this could have fed the vanishing Hitchhiker urban legend but never did)

When he meets his wife Clare for the first time (for him) she’s already totally in love with him, as an older version of him visited her as a child many times in the past. It’s interesting but not executed well, and comes off as awkward and even laughable, as she pretty much throws herself at him. Never mind the awful subtext you can read into a naked man in the woods talking to a pre-teen girl.

Anyway they marry and have struggles with their relationship, bearing children, and hints of an impending death. One funny part is when he disappears on his wedding day, and an older Henry ends up going through the ceremony.

As much as Clare gushes over Henry, I didn’t have as much of a sense that Henry loved her back. There were some inconsistencies in it’s internal logic and the dialogue told us things that we should have just seen. A friend finds out Henry’s secret, which has no bearing on the plot. Great premise, poor execution. Might be the worst I saw this year, at least the most disappointing. 6/10

2012 Movie Review

Well in about two years it will be time for the world to end again, and Hollywood gave us a preview with the latest film simply called, 2012. It actually begins in 2009, and then goes into the far off future of 2010, showing us some scientific discoveries warning of the coming disaster. In short the biggest solar flare ever is microwaving Earth causing the core to heat up super-fast, which isn’t good apparently. This is discovered by this scientist guy named Adrian who works for the US government.

The Mayan phenomenon (of their calendar ending of 12/21/2012) is mentioned only in passing. A flash animation on the blog of Charlie the conspiracy nut sort of explains some geology theory from 1950 something, that supposedly Einstein agreed with. It’s better explained throughout the film as it’s actually happening. Charlie also mentions that other cultures like the Hopi’s predicted this as well.

While viewing this it seemed unclear if the disasters actually started on 12/21, but I assume it did. Much of the movie took place in the western US where there wouldn’t be snow, but one scene in Washington does have snow.

Anyway the disaster scenes look absolutely fantastic. It’s just beautiful watching the destruction. One laugh out loud moment is a subway car flying out of the ground. There’s lots of close calls and narrow escapes, but if that bothers you what are you doing watching a disaster movie in the first place?

What’s interesting is the sort of conspiracy subplot. The worlds governments knew this was coming years before and secretly made some preparations. Famous art like the Mona Lisa was secretly replaced (and saved) and people were killed who threatened to blow the whistle.  The rich had the option to buy their survival at 1 Billion Euros a head, which I assume is more than USD since it’s emphasized to be Euros a few times.  Anyway this brings up the societal dilemma that realistically everyone couldn’t be saved, so what should be done. Good stuff.

In the midst of all this is our man on the street character Jackson Curtis, a divorced limo driver and small time author. He stumbles onto the secret and saves his two kids, his ex, and her man who’s a boob surgeon. Most of the story centers on them. There’s also a rich Russian dude I really liked.

Danny Glover plays the US President. I like him, but not in this, he’s too sorrowful the whole time, no presence of leadership. Charlie the conspiracy guy is way over the top, but he does his job I guess.  Another laugh out loud  moment is watching an actor play Governor Ah-Nuld. Like many Schwarzenegger flicks, it’s so bad it’s good. The end had that something I can’t place that needed to be more suspenseful.

I wasn’t expecting much from this, considering it came from the people that made Independence Day, which I hated. Not to mention other bores like the American Godzilla, 10,000 BC, and that other much less interesting disaster movie The Day After Tomorrow. Surprisingly this was actually pretty good. I liked the characters and some decent emotion was thrown in. What I hated about movies like ID4 was they were all FX and nothing else.  Here the FX were absolutely amazing, and it worked to tell a decent story.

Between this and Korea’s Haeundae movie, it’s been a good year for disasters.

8/10

Sgt Rock Film, In the FUTURE: You gotta be kidding me.

       I’m not prone to fanboy rage these days, but I gotta call this one.

It’s been announced here http://www.heatvisionblog.com/2009/11/sgt-rock-francis-lawrence-akiva-goldsman-joel-silver.html that a Sgt Rock movie is in the works. Sgt. Rock is a DC comics character who fights Nazi baddies in WWII. He’s one of the great characters of war comics. Sounds like it’d make a good movie right, except it’s going to be set in the future.

           Yeah………………

       Really, I mean why even bother? Why not make a Superman movie where he’s a wizard, or a movie where Batman is a swamp monster. How about a Green Lantern movie starring Jack Black or a Catwoman movie where she gets powers from ancient Egypt… oh right.

           The article further states..

““Inglourious Basterds” notwithstanding, period war movies have not been in vogue in Hollywood for years, unless it was a more serious contemplation of the subject like “Saving Private Ryan.” Also, American jingoism went out of style after 9/11; even this summer’s G.I. Joe movie dropped the toy’s “A Real American Hero” tagline and made the action team internationally focused.

The studio hopes moving the time period to the future solves the dilemma.”

 

                      Whatever. It’s almost scripture now that when a movie respects it’s comic source material it does well. Regarding WWII, Isn’t Marvel making a Captain America movie set in WWII? Besides that we have endless reminders of movies being successful because they’re good, not because they’re trendy.

           So this is what DC entertainment is up too, and to think I got my hopes up. With any luck maybe after a few blunders like this Warner Brothers will just tap out and sell DC to Disney, putting Marvel and DC under the same roof.