Film is Pwn

Starring: Denzel Washington, Eva Mendes, Sanaa Lathan, Dean Cain
Directed By: Carl Franklin

Most movies take place in three acts which blend seamlessly to create the narrative story arc.  Out of Time is no different, except that the difference between the first act and the second act is staggering. (more…)

I realize that I am one of the few humans capable of feeling disappointment when a film turns out not to be terrible.  In this regard, Whiteout has disappointed me terribly.

Just out on DVD, Whiteout was a relatively big-budget thriller starring Kate Beckinsale.  It appeared in theaters for approximately 17 minutes, barely long enough for it to be panned by critics and irritate the two guys who wanted to see.  One of those men was me, the other happened to be the mother of the film’s director. (more…)

Starring: Steve Zahn, Milla Jovovich, Timothy Olyphant, Kiele Sanchez
Directed By: David Twohy

A Perfect Getaway is the kind of thriller where you just know there is going to be a twist ending.  The way my mind works, when I suspect a shocking twist is afoot, I can guess what it is going to be 94.7% of the time.  When you’re playing the “who’s the killer” game, generally it is as simple as  picking the individual the movie wants you to suspect the least.  For an example of how this ending can make you so mad you’ll want to find the screenwriter and sternly wag your finger in his direction, see my review of Halle Berry/Bruce Willis’ cinematic abomination Perfect Stranger.

I ended up liking A Perfect Getaway more than enough to recommend it as a “renter,” so I’m going to be rather vague and unspecific so as not to spoil aforementioned twist. Although if you are unable to guess the twist based off the following description and my assurance that there is a twist, I will be forced to ban you from this site forever. Be warned, be warners: (more…)

2009’s big budget/big screen Sherlock Holmes movie was preceded by a subpar trailer and a thorough lack of buzz as far as I could detect, and I am an expert buzz detector.  Maybe the lowered expectations helped elevate the experience, but I thoroughly enjoyed director Guy Ritchie’s adaptation of Holmes.  (more…)

Office politics, temporary employees, ambitious corporate ladder climbers, sucking up to the boss, and murder most foul.  It’s a world I know too well, but as they say on Sesame Street: One of these is not the same; one of these is not like the other.  Yes, that’s right, what is “sucking up to the boss” doing on that list?  Everyone knows that’s unethical and off limits!

The 1993 movie The Temp features all those characteristics above plus 2,518% more sexiness than I’ve seen working in the corporate world in nine plus years crammed into an hour and a half.

Lara Flynn Boyle stars as the titular temp, Kris, who fills the spot as the secretary for yuppie cookie company executive Peter (Timothy Hutton).  Kris is one of those women who only work in fantasy, Hollywood offices where temporary employees are promoted to vice president in a week and Smurfs ride magic unicorns in the hallways.  In my list of objections, the part where Kris starts killing people to advance her career is relatively low.  On a completely unrelated note, I managed to get promoted to the department I’m currently in when the guy holding the position mysteriously disappeared with only a hand-written resignation note left in his wake, but no one ever heard from or saw him again.   Let us move on quickly and without further comment, shallst we? (more…)

There has been a LOT of buzz surrounding this film, and virtually all of has been word of mouth and through the internet a la The Blair Witch Project.  And there are valid comparisons. Both were shot on a shoestring as DIY amateur “reality” video and featured first time directors and unknown actors. They both used extremely creative marketing tools as well. (Thanks to all those that “Demanded the film come to Charlotte). But where The Blair Witch Project never reveals visually the terror that is stalking the people, Paranormal Activity reveals the faintest glimpse, and it makes it much more terrifying.

The basic premise here is a young engaged couple living in a house in San Diego named Katie and Micah. There have been subtle, but strange happenings in the house. so Micah buys a high end video camera which he sets up in the couple’s bedroom at night to record what happens when they are asleep.  When the video is replayed, you see the hour, minute and second timer in the bottom of the screen. At first, you see video speed up to fast forward through the mundane parts and then the timer slows to real time.  You learn very quickly that something is going to happen. As each night is shown, the tension grows thicker and a knot begins to form in your stomach. At first it only captures harmless occurrences like lights coming on by themselves and strange noises. But as the days and weeks progress, the occurrences become bigger and more terrifying and this is only intensified by the bickering of the couple during the day about what to do about it.  First time director Oren Peli does a wonderfully masterful job at building the tension to the point that even noises in the theater make the audience jump.

Very rarely does a film live up to the hype that surrounds it, and for horror it never happens. Until now. There were mainly young people in the theater, late teens and early 20s and I was afraid I would have to contend with chatter through the whole thing. But once it started, you could have heard a pin drop. I think that says more about the film than anything I could.

The last time I bought a ticket to catch a film in the theater was over a month earlier and it was disastrous, no less than Gerard Butler’s lunch-displacing, sickening actioner Gamer.  (By saying “bought a ticket” I exclude the great experience had at the Charlotte Film Festival, wherein my cohorts and I got in free with our press passes, hee hee).

Not one to dip my toes in the pool but rather one to jump head first into the deep end, my next paying customer excursion to the theaters post-Gamer was for yet another Gerard Butler film, this time a thriller opposite with Jamie Foxx, Law-Abiding Citizen. (more…)

As far as titles go, “The Bone Collector” sounds like it ought to be the tale of a forlorn archaeologist, unable to connect on a personal level with any living person until he meets the girl of his dream who brings him out of his shell and he finds love and discovers there’s more to life than hunting for bones in the desert.  *Sigh*  However, in this case, “The Bone Collector” turns out to be a cookie-cutter, garden-variety, thriller-novel-turned-thrill-free-movie that tries to be Silence of the Lambs but to actually watch soundless lambs is approximately twice as entertaining.

Taking away that rather cryptic summary and just examining the ingredients, there’s a lot going for The Bone Collector to be a good movie.  Of course, filet mignon, chocolate, french toast, and grapes are great, but not necessarily together if you catch my drift.

The Bone Collector has a good director in Phillip Noyce, the man behind the best of the Jack Ryan films and one of the better political thrillers, Clear and Present Danger.  The stars are no less than two of the best actors working, Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie (before she was an A-lister).  And it’s based on a novel – and all novels are inherently good, right?  Still, at best the movie feels like you are witnessing spare parts of better movies and at worst like they were kind of making the story up as they went.  I believe the great Michael J. Nelson once referred to a movie made from leftovers of better flicks as a “movieloaf” – and the Bone Collector is the perfect embodiment of a movieloaf.
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One of the lamest, most frustrating contrivances that filmmakers pull out of their hat is the “It’s just a dream” twist.  It’s a rather cheap gimmick where you can have the villain kill off the hero or the heroes girlfriend and then, suddenly, the hero wakes up! *Phew* It was just a dream.  Any movie that shows you a particular series of events and then has the audacity to tell the audience it did not occur risks riots in the theater.

There is no “dream” sequence in director Bryan Singer’s the Usual Suspects, but, without revealing too much, the movie takes incredible liberties with its narrative.  I’ve seen the movie from beginning to end eight times or more, and it’s a matter of debate and interpretation exactly what happens to who and when.  For a lesser film, this would likely be infuriating.  But the Usual Suspects is so exceptional in conception, acting, and execution, in this case I don’t mind the muddle ambiguity,  In fact, I love it.  (Please, Hollywood, this kind of story telling works much better as the exception and not the rule.  Don’t overdo it.  This means you, M. Night Shyamalan!)
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Scary movies are not my favorite genre.  It’s a matter of personal taste, of course. To me, fear isn’t an emotional response I want to plop down $10 at the theater in order to experience, especially when I can get it for free on the evening news.

I detest torture porn (the Saw franchise, Hostel, etc.) and I have no interest in slasher films (Halloween, Friday the 13th, etc.). The only kind of scary movie I actually get a kick out of is the spooky, Sixth Sensekind of movie, where the violence, if there is any, doesn’t exceed PG-13 caliber, and the terror is all in your mind as you wonder “What’s in the shadows?” (Yes, I know I’m a wuss, it’s something I’ve had to learn to live with ever since the “too scared to go on the Scooby Doo Rollercoaster” incident in my childhood.)
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Blood Work is an interesting, entertaining, and altogether unexceptional outing in the mystery-suspense-thriller genre.  I have a fondness for Blood Work that runs opposite of my antipathy for Independence Day, which I wrote about last year here.  For ID, as we industry insider types refer to Independence Day, the first impression I had walking out of the theater was, “Wow!  That was the best movie I’ve ever seen!  The only thing that could be better than Independence Day might be heaven itself, which I’m sure will have frequent showings of Independence Day!”  Then, as I thought about the story and the amazing plot contrivances, meandering cliches, and other flaws, ID slipped from the “great” to “fun/bad” category pretty quickly, and I’m a little embarrassed to admit that for about 72 hours ID stood as my favorite film ever.  Please do not tell my actual favorite film of all-time, Memento.

But this is the story of the opposite, where I didn’t like a movie at first, but it’s fondness has actually increased over the years until I think it’s pretty good (I said “good,” not “great,” mind you).  I speak of Clint Eastwood’s cinematic “eh, that was okay” flick, Blood Work.
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We’re not just talking the Fog, we’re talking John Carpenter’s The Fog, people!  I assume having the auteur behind the original Halloween is supposed to be some kind of enticement, but it’s unclear why someone would want their name above this movie or attempt to entice someone to see it.  I came to it more or less on accident, as John Carpenter’s the Fog happened to air on HDNet Movies the very same night I was bored and looking to kill an hour and a half.  No matter what else I’ll say about it, the Fog did manage to kill that time, so I guess I do owe Mr. Carpenter some measure of thanks, but not much!

The Fog is a ghost story about lots and lots of mundane yet somehow spooky coincidences, which are only somewhat validated by the fact that there are some undead ghost pirate lepers that kill some local yokels.

The film opens with an actual ghost story where some old dude (John Houseman) straight off of posing for the Old Spice bottle covers, tells a bunch of kids the tale of an old pirate vessel that their town founders destroyed in order to found the very town they are living in.  And soon the entire town is besieged with a fiendish evil of inconceivable proportions as the uncanny, procrastinating pirates use their newfound supernatural prowess to exact extremely tardy reprisals on the inhabitants of the town 100 years after they were wronged.   Ooooooooh!  I will have my revenge on the inhabitants of Antonio Bay, in a century or so, we don’t want to rush anything — ooooooooh!
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