Film Filter: Off- The Perfect Getaway

Film Filter: Off- This movie really wasn't as wretched as I had anticipated.  Not that that makes it a terribly good film, but certainly not awful.

Pros- It was nice to see a role reversal in both Steve Zahn and Mila Jovovich.  Zahn is stereotypically cast as a quirky, idiotic sidekick, and in this film he portrays a nerdy, accomplished intellect.  Jovovich is often cast as the bad-ass, fighter chick, and is instead cast as a sensitive, idealist.  Interesting roles, and they both carried them out well.  The movie also did a very good job of giving the viewer options as to who the killers were.  If two couples were featured on the island, it's pretty clear who the suspects are, but three couples makes it more interesting.  There is also a twist toward the end that I completely didn't see coming that made the movie more interesting, in that it explored more dimensions of all the main characters' acting abilities. 

Cons- So once we realize who the killing couple is, there is an incessantly looooong flashback depicting how the killers went about their psychopathic routine.  I won't say it wasn't interesting, and I daresay that there were some parts that were referenced to earlier in the film that made more sense after the flashback, but it was still really long (in movie-time, that is).  Although the movie does have that spicy twist at the end, it doesn't really make up for the slow pacing throughout.  Same scenery, same characters, same plot, same expectations, etc.  Once the plot turned in a new direction, albeit an interesting one, it was almost too late to save the film from its neutrality.

Wrap up- I wasn't sure if I wanted to give away the ending, as doing so would have given me the opportunity tha give a much more thorough review.  I figured I wouldn't though, because despite this movie not being that great, it's worth seeing if you've got nothing better to do.

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Film Filter: Off - The Final Destination

Film Filter: Off- I'm sure you can adequately guess that this film follows the same plot sequence as its three predecessors.  I'm not quite sure why this one was even made in the first place, as no real new information is introduced that is of any importance.  Oh wait, it's coming back to me...it was in 3-D.

Pros:  Not a whole lot.  I didn't view it in 3-D, but that's about the only thing that would have saved this film.  In all honesty, they did some things right that I have to give them credit for.  Before anyone was killed off in the film, they laid out so many possibilities for death that it was tough to decipher which cause would be the actual one.  It was also interesting that they showed most death scenes in an x-ray shot fashion.  It spiced things up a bit, however not quite enough to redeem the movie into any type of positive category.


Cons:  It was a 3-D movie folks, so it's no surprise that a lot of the death scenes accentuate the gimmicky quality of the 3-D industry.  No shame there but like I said, it's about the only thing the movie has going for it.  Also, there are waaaaay too many similar looking brunettes in this film!  I'm not a hair color segregist (is that a real word?) but could they have inserted some more diversely hair-colored folk?  Nothing against brunettes, but when they're all introduced at once with not very much background knowledge presented, my feeble brain starts to mix them all up.  One of the other negative things about this film, and all of these films really, is the lack of common sense in the group of main characters.  So this young man realizes he can see a death before it's about to happen, and instead of saying "Dude, let's get the #$!% out of here and I'll explain later!" he calmly points out who's going to die and in what order.  Brilliant.  Just the type of guy I'd like to keep around.

Wrap up- This is a good date movie if you go to see it in 3-D.  Then, on the way home, you can chat each other up about how much it sucked.  That way, no matter how bad the date is, you'll at least have one thing in common- disliking this film.  I guess I'm being really harsh, but if you're going to make a movie in 3-D, at least make it so that those of us who can't view it in that manner aren't jeopardized from getting any entertainment value out of it.  Also, I hate to break it to you but apparently this is NOT the final destination after all.  Guess we should have thought that one through a little better before we titled it, eh?  We must all wait on the edge of our seats until the highly anticipated Final Destination 5 hits theaters.  It looks more promising than this one, at least.

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Film Filter: Off - Priest

Film Filter: Off-  I went in to this movie not really knowing a whole lot about it, which I think is a pretty solid approach.  No expectations going into a film usually leaves a greater chance for me to be into the movie, and this one was no exception.

Pros- Apparently this film is based off of a graphic novel, which is not a new trend in the land of cinemas these days.  My main concern is that graphic novels of notoriety like Superman, Spiderman and Batman are fairly well known throughout the masses, which allows the directors to sort of jump right in to the plot, as they have the luxury of knowing most of their audience is aware of what's going on.  With Priest, however, I'm not sure there was as large a following of the graphic novel and to be honest, I didn't even know it existed.  That being said, I think they did a fantastic job of keeping the audience up to speed without "story telling" to us and making us feel like imbeciles.  They introduced a little of the plot in an overly grotesque graphic novel-like intro, which I found to be very successful.  They also did a nice job of intermittently answering our questions along the way without taking away from the action in the story.
  Next was the fact that the film was in 3-D.  I will have to honestly tell you that I would have enjoyed the movie just about the same if it weren't in 3-D, which you should be ecstatic about.  It was not a gimmicky 3-D ploy, but an enhancement of the scenery and the setting.  Most of the time, I didn't even realize it was in 3-D, other than the ashes in the city seemed to float around in the theater.  Once you got used to it, much like Avatar, you forgot about it and just enjoyed the movie.
  The use of vampires in both movies and literature often varies, but many concepts also stay the same.  For example, many people have recently portrayed vampires as sensual, un-dead human beings, with an unearthly sense of beauty and mystique about them. (i.e. Twilight, Interview with the Vampire, Queen of the Damned, Brahm Stoker's Dracula, etc.)  Priest took the idea of the vampire and took it a direction not yet seen on film.  I won't go into explicit detail for fear of ruining the aesthetics for you if you see the film, but let's just say THESE vampires won't be seductively luring me into a garden with their sensual voices so they can suck my blood.  They also toyed with the concept of infection, and flipped in my mind everything I knew about vampires.  I kind of got irritated with it initially, and then I realized vampires weren't real and that it wasn't their fault that everyone and their brother adopted the same idea of them as sensual, human-like creatures.
   Lastly I am going to say the way that Cathedral City looks is SWEET.  They did a great job with all of the landscaping and settings; whether or not they were CG became irrelevant because they looked awesome.  Also, the score that went alongside the movie was very well done, too.  I don't often listen to the music accompanying a movie as succinctly as I should, but this soundtrack stuck out to me as wildly appropriate, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Cons-  Biggest con- one super cheesy line, emitted by who I affectionately refer to as Cowboy.  His character, in general, left much to be desired.  He was kind of awkward, and mildly dumb to boot.  Not that Lucy should be ungrateful to him for trying to save her, but God help her if she gets into trouble again and Cowboy is her only hope.


Wrap-up- Very good movie!  I highly recommend it, even if you can't view it in 3-D.  You're not missing much, and that's not a slam, it's just the truth.

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Film Filter: Off - White Noise 2: The Light

Film Filter: Off-  So if you're like me, you hear the title of this film and think..."okay, the first one wasn't GREAT, so this is going to be worse."  I still don't really know what made me watch it (oh yeah, Katee Sackhoff!)  but I am so glad I did because I was pleasantly surprised.

Pros- You figured out my first incentive...Katee.  It's not that I have a woman-crush on her, but she was the lead female actress in Battlestar Galactica, so I think she is uber talented and haven't seen her in anything except BSG.  You see the intrigue?  Next interesting concept is that Nathan Fillion was the male lead opposite her in the film.  Guess what he stars in?  Firefly, which I admit I have never seen, but it's another sci-fi series, so I would probably enjoy it.
   ANYWAY, I started to watch the film, and was instantly hooked.  It started out with the text on the screen describing statistics on near-death experiences and then cut away intermittently to horrific and ghastly images...it was brilliant!  You don't want to look because the images are scary, but you have to because the information is crucial.  Well played.  Like Insidious, this movie had very unexpected and crazy-scary pop-up moments.  They were well-executed, and not overdone, so bonus points for that.  I also really enjoyed the plot of this movie as it ties in a lot of spirituality and other worldly concepts to the story.  I also liked that it initially portrayed positives and negatives of Abe's condition after his failed suicide.  He was able to see when people were about to die, and thus was able to save their life.  The film, however, did not neglect to show the downside of having supernatural powers, hence the creepy, mutant-faced spirits that often haunt him throughout the film.
   Lastly and most importantly, as this is my first review to noticeably embrace this concept, was the symbolism included in the cinematography.

"According to Henry Dreyfus, it is popularly felt that red, the color of blood and fire, represents life and vitality." http://www.three-musketeers.net/mike/colors.html

   I already had a good idea what the color red symbolized, but I researched it a little further to get more specifics.  There were a few shots in the movie that not only included the color red, but innately focused on it.  A dark colored scene with a red neon light flashing in the background, a scene at night with a dark building and a red jeep pulling up.  Even without the use of red, there was a tiny instance in a scene where a neon light in the shape of a cross is hidden in the background.  I have to say, I was pretty impressed that I even noticed these things, since I have a tendency to be aloof at times, but I really appreciated and valued the director's attention to detail.  The only reason I even thought to take notice is that it is also done in the movie "The Sixth Sense", but it's still a very clever concept.  Kudos!

Cons- This, for once, is the short list- hooray!  First of all, it is not news to you that I really like Katee Sackhoff...but her hair in this movie is all kinds of wrong.  It looks cute, but she's got these goofy, overly bright extensions in a variety of colors.  When mixed with her platinum blonde hair, it looks like she let a first grade art class go to town with colored markers in her hair- not super flattering.
   The next thing that was odd to me was the manner in which one of the characters' lives is saved.  This girl turns around and accidentally spills this man's coffee all over him when she bumps into him.  He starts getting so pissed that he makes lewd comments to her, insinuates she's a hooker, and slaps her ass as she turns around.  I mean, really, that's like the bare minimum wrath someone should incur for doing such a blasphemous, horrendous deed.  I'd have made her lick it up off the ground and then kicked her.  Seriously?  I thought the guy was a weeeeeeee bit extreme, but it's a movie, so I guess that has to happen every once and again.
   Also slightly irksome was the ending's pace.  Maybe I'm just slow on the uptake, but a lot of things happened in such a short period of time that I couldn't really keep them straight.  I like that the ending didn't go exactly where you thoguht it would, but I had a hard time following it in ways.  Could just be me, though.
  And last but not least was my least favorite part...I literally scoffed out loud.  Katee's character is widowed from a man who was a music teacher- kick ass job.  Anyway, she is describing him and his work to Abe and says "Yeah, I loved his approach with kids.  He didn't bother with any of that Do-Re-Mi crap."  GASP!  For those of you who know me, you can imagine my disapproval.  Also, they showed his students singing a benefit in his honor, and let me tell you- kids that age DON'T collectively sing that well.  Unless they're British.

Wrap-up- Great movie!  I was so pleasantly surprised by it, and am glad I watched it.  One of my favorite parts of having this blog is that I now watch horror movies whether I think they will suck or not, which gives me the opportunity to be pleasantly surprised every once in awhile by a diamond in the rough like this one.

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Film Filter: Off - Case 39

Film Filter: Off- I have to say that this movie was pretty decent. It could be that I went into the film with zero expectations, as I had never heard of it, but I'd like to think that it was a pretty good film regardless.

Pros- I'm not going to say it was good or bad, but INTERESTING that Bradley Cooper played a serious role. Okay, it was kind of bad, but I appreciate that he did it.  He is sort of type-cast by his good looking, nonchalant, douche-baggy, funny guy roles, which he can do well with. In this film he plays a serious counselor working with children, with no douche-baggery as part of the role. Again, not bad, but weird as hell. Lest we not mention that if my counselor looked like THAT I would have...well, never mind. (insert blushing emoticon)
   I will also say that the plot was pretty unique. While possessed persons/children is a popular concept, this one is executed well and has a few twists along the way. I also thought that they cast Lily very well. She was able to portray all aspects of the personality cleanly, and believably. It was also interesting that Lily was kept around longer in the story than we would expect...I don't necessarily think it was the BEST plot direction, as it verged on dragging out the story, but it was unexpected for sure.

Cons- Maybe I'm just a tramp of horror flicks, but I saw a lot of the twists and surprises coming. Nowadays, it is quite challenging to make a good thriller or scary movie that's NOT predictable in some fashion, so I guess I can give them props for trying.
   One of the things I came out of this film confused about, though, was the way they wanted Lily to be portrayed. As I said, the young actress does a remarkable job, but her character- to me- is inconsistent. So she's a demon. She's not a little girl possessed by a demon, she straight up IS a demon. She starts by finding a vulnerable person (Zellweger) to latch on to, and then kills everyone around them by accessing their deepest fears and killing them via their greatest nightmare. She does this because she "wants to be loved" and have a family. A family that she can manipulate because if they don't obey her every wish, someone they love will die. So, she's a demon who likes to murder and terrorize, but she "just wants to be loved" and keeps Zellweger around to make her feel like a real child in a stable family.
   Okay...choose your personality already! I can see this perspective if they were showing the inner turmoil of a young girl, unwillingly possessed by an unearthly force, but it has already been established in the story that she is who she is, and she has no problems with that. Perhaps her intent in vocalizing her desires to be "normal" and "loved" are just meant to be conniving and contradictory, which would make sense if that was how they were directed, but it's hard to tell.
   Lastly, I'm going to again bring up my distaste for movies that don't adequately tie up loose ends. Zellweger's mother gets brought up several times in the story, and there is even a vivid flashback at the end involving her. We don't, however, get enough information about her and what happened to successfully understand what's going on in the flashback and why her mother's personality is so strange. It gets touched upon, but again, not enough for my liking.

Wrap-up- Overall, this is a good movie. There aren't any wow factors, or noticeable things that make it stand out from the thriller crowd, but it's pretty good.

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Film Filter: Off - Splice

Film Filter: Off – Well, I have to say that the plot and even the beginning of this film are pretty intriguing.  Geneticists splicing the genes of several animals and combining them together for medical purposes sounds like an ideal background for a crazy, mutated, evil monster to be created.  So, bonus points for creativity.

Pros- Well, this list is about as short as it can get, I’m afraid.  Other than the unique story line and pseudo-interesting beginning, this movie really blows.  One of the few pros found in this film was that the genetic scientists all sported Bieber hair and bedazzled their lab coats with bad-ass patches.  We have to assume that this movie was developed by someone who was probably ridiculed in high-school for being a nerd, because I don’t know too many other personalities that would try so hard to get geneticists to look like rock-stars.  Eh, it’s their fantasy world, so whatever.  The second positive note derived from the movie is only appreciated if it’s viewed in a specific manner: wide screen.  Why, might you ask?  Well, wide screen TV +Adrien Brody = a somewhat proportionate nose.

Cons- I really cannot conceive of a way to relay the cons of this movie to you accurately without giving you a short and sweet play-by-play, so SPOILER ALERT!!  

    Alright, here is the rough and dirty version:  Two lead geneticists (who are dating) want to splice human DNA in with animals to help cure diseases.  Boss says no.  Girl does it anyway because she’s dumb.  She uses her own DNA.  Monster baby alien thing comes alive and is part human/chicken/rabbit/unicorn/manbearpig and many other animals.  Scientists pity it, take care of it, and give it a queer name- Dren.  Dren grows up as a girl, learns quickly, watches the two scientists boink, and then has a crush on Brody’s character.  Meanwhile they discover that when their female hybrid animals mate, they become male and start to kill each other.  So Brody, being the genius that he is, boinks Dren because he can’t keep it in his pants.  Eventually Dren escapes, becomes a man, and tries to kill everyone with a pretty decent success rate.  I will not mention the horridly disgusting twist at the end that makes you want to vomit- you can feel free to check that out yourself.

   Sooo, what have we learned here?  1) Don’t treat your experiments like your children.  It’s just creepy.  2) Don’t treat your experiment like a cheap hooker, Brody.  It’s just wrong…and creepy at the same time.  3) Don’t be surprised if your confused, sex-crazy genetic experiment wants to kill you and all of your friends after you’re done humiliating it. 

   Okay, in all seriousness, this movie is whacked.  I think the first problem occurs in that they opted to draw on the pity of Dren for the first 80% of the movie instead of taking the easy way out and making her scary and unstable to begin with.  I’m sure this film had some odd expectation of exploring the human psyche and how we need to be sensitive on how we mesh science with morality, but it didn’t succeed.  If that was the point, they should have continued some aspect of the sympathy factor for the remaining 20% of the film.  (Note: the only other time I have successfully seen a character go from cute and pathetic to scary and malevolent in a short period of time was Gremlins, and let’s be honest, you can’t replicate Gremlins.  It’s a classic.)  They instead took the stupid choice and played with the audience’s emotions by turning them from pitiful to disgusted in not enough of a time frame to adjust.  I can (sort of) see why they did what they did, but there is no shame in following a standard plot formula to make a film work.  I’d rather see the same good plot outline with different characters that succeeds in being both scary and a quality film than a story that deviates from that in attempts to stand out, and thus does so in a crap-tastic way.

Wrap up-This movie is really just messed up.  It had potential to be a success, but I think the directors had good raw material and took it in a weird direction which left the audience wondering.  The movie is not poignant, scary, reflective, morality-driven, or thought provoking.  It’s just…weird.

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Film Filter: Off - Devil

 Film Filter: Off - Devil So this is the first film I reviewed that received the highest rating, and a lot of that has to do with my preference.  I have developed a category of film that I have become enthralled with entitled "theological thrillers", of which this film is a part.  I find that movies that have some sort of satanic, apocalyptic, or possessed theme tend to be more successful in frightening me, so pardon me if I may be a little partial toward them.
   Pros:  So when I described this movie to many people who haven't seen it, I heard a lot of "Oh, it's M. Night Shyamalan, so I'm not really interested."  I can't say I completely disagree with this sentiment, but I would like to reassure you that this film does not have an overt Shyamalan stamp on it.  Yes, you can see similarities in style if you look closely enough, but I think most people have a preconcieved notion of what the film will be like because his name is on it.  If the viewer was not aware of Shyamalan as director, I don't think they would be pressed to think it reminded them of his work or that it followed themes and conviluted twists that other movies he has directed contain. 
   That being said, he does an excellent job of setting up the story, from beginning to end.  He also does a great job of not making the few twists that occur in the storyline too far out in left field.  It is a predictable enough film to be able to see where it is headed, but it leaves enough gaps in the story line to leave you wondering.  Those gaps end up being resolved, however, leaving no loose ends hanging.  One of the things that irks me the most in complex horror movies (which is why Insidious did not receive my star rating) is the mentioning of background story information that the viewer is not aware of...that never gets mentioned again.  I tend to be very prone to details, so if I hear even the slightest mention of something not occurring right in front of me, I want to know more about it.  A good story, be it horror or other genre, does not leave loose ends and this film does a good job of fitting all of that goodness into one, tight 80 minute package.  It's about quality, not quantity people.
   I don't really have too many cons for this movie.  Yes, I could nit-pick about the acting ability of some of the characters- and I will say that you need a strong cast if you are working with a small core of main characters stuck in a central location- but it's not really worth it to me.  No one did a poor job, and at the end of the day he cast the film well by using lesser known actors.  Perhaps they didn't portray a character as well as some of Hollywood's more experienced, but because of this they all fell to roughly the same level of ability, allowing them not to become overshadowed by each other.  This story was not made to (at least in the elevator cast) have a distinct hero, villain, or stand-out in any way.  The less attetntion that gets drawn to them, the less apt the audience is to successfully discover the possessed individual.  So, the con ultimately becomes a pro, and the world is right again.
   I would highly recommend this movie if you, like I, enjoy a good theological thriller.

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