I have been spending my time writing lesson plans for student teaching, so I haven't had much time to sit down and write reviews but I thought I should at least throw something up so here are a few movies I've seen over the past week or so (and a score to wet your appetite). In no particular order...
Wind Chill (2007; Gregory Jacobs)
Horror
Score: 4/5
I Sell the Dead (2008; Glenn McQuaid)
Horror/Comedy
Score: 4/5
Antichrist (2009; Lars Von Trier)
Drama/Horror
Score: 4.5/5
Take Care of My Cat (2001; Jeong Jae-eun)
Drama
Score: 3/5
Let the Right One In (2008; Tomas Alfredson)
Horror/Drama
Score: 4/5
Trick 'R Treat (2008; Michael Dougherty)
Horror
Score: 4.5/5
EDIT: I have decided to make this an actual column for me to post films I have been watching but haven't had time to review, so expect a lot more of these from time to time.
Monday, October 19, 2009
Friday, September 25, 2009
They Live (1988; John Carpenter)
When I am asked to sum up my opinion of cinema from the 1980's I always use the same two word answer. While it is a very biased answer, many people still agree with me that it seems to fit the mood of the genres it touched. Those words?
John Carpenter
A drifter finds his way into work and a temporary home while, well, drifting. While there he notices some mysterious activity that leads him into a whole new world of truth.
They Live continues a tradition that many other horror directors started years before. The political commentary in it is so obvious, yet unlike Romero, it never feels too forced or pushed down our throats. It very much feels natural with the flow of the rest of the film and our attention never waivers from the action at hand.
They Live also marks the end of Carpenter's fantastic eighties career and in a way feels like an appropriate summary of his previous works before falling into his downhill slide in the nineties (with the exception of In the Mouth of Madness). However, after all of this introduction, where does it leave the film itself?
The character Carpenter places before us are absurd. We focus around a drifter whom we know nothing about who is thrust into a terrifying situation and instead of panicking he pulls out some guns and some cheesy one-liners. He meets friends by beating them or holding guns to them. The point I am trying to make here is that this film is awesome. This movie continues the enjoyment we all had when we first watched Escape From New York years earlier.
If you have never seen Escape From New York, then there really is no way to convince you that the description above is more than just ridiculous garbage. I am not a proponent of saying that trash cinema is actually high quality in disguise, but with Carpenter's works it really is. Everything was sculpted to their degrees on purpose. It is obvious with pieces such as The Thing and Halloween that Carpenter is no stranger to serious cinema and this idea helps solidify that he wanted these movies to look this way for a reason.
They reflect the absurdity of the political ideas that the films are commenting on. The genius behind such a tool is that not only does it further drive the commentary home, it also gives what would have been a more "normal" piece a life of its own.
I suppose I should briefly touch on the more concrete elements. The camera is well instrumented here and the black & white actually adds to the feeling that we are trying to be controlled as if our artistic minds are being suppressed by the lack of color. The score is typical of eighties Carpenter with very simple melodies being effectively used. The drawbacks are that while it is an undeniably strong film, you can't help but feel some of his spark fade on all aspects of the piece. It is like asking a landscape artist to do a portrait. The portrait will look good, yes, but it will still lack some of the genius that pushes his landscapes past the point of good.
They Live continues a tradition that many other horror directors started years before. The political commentary in it is so obvious, yet unlike Romero, it never feels too forced or pushed down our throats. It very much feels natural with the flow of the rest of the film and our attention never waivers from the action at hand.
They Live also marks the end of Carpenter's fantastic eighties career and in a way feels like an appropriate summary of his previous works before falling into his downhill slide in the nineties (with the exception of In the Mouth of Madness). However, after all of this introduction, where does it leave the film itself?
The character Carpenter places before us are absurd. We focus around a drifter whom we know nothing about who is thrust into a terrifying situation and instead of panicking he pulls out some guns and some cheesy one-liners. He meets friends by beating them or holding guns to them. The point I am trying to make here is that this film is awesome. This movie continues the enjoyment we all had when we first watched Escape From New York years earlier.
If you have never seen Escape From New York, then there really is no way to convince you that the description above is more than just ridiculous garbage. I am not a proponent of saying that trash cinema is actually high quality in disguise, but with Carpenter's works it really is. Everything was sculpted to their degrees on purpose. It is obvious with pieces such as The Thing and Halloween that Carpenter is no stranger to serious cinema and this idea helps solidify that he wanted these movies to look this way for a reason.
They reflect the absurdity of the political ideas that the films are commenting on. The genius behind such a tool is that not only does it further drive the commentary home, it also gives what would have been a more "normal" piece a life of its own.
I suppose I should briefly touch on the more concrete elements. The camera is well instrumented here and the black & white actually adds to the feeling that we are trying to be controlled as if our artistic minds are being suppressed by the lack of color. The score is typical of eighties Carpenter with very simple melodies being effectively used. The drawbacks are that while it is an undeniably strong film, you can't help but feel some of his spark fade on all aspects of the piece. It is like asking a landscape artist to do a portrait. The portrait will look good, yes, but it will still lack some of the genius that pushes his landscapes past the point of good.
Score: 4.5/5
Notes: Obey this review. Consume Carpenter's products.
Notes: Obey this review. Consume Carpenter's products.
Paranormal Activity (2007; Oren Peli)
I learned one thing from my years as a movie fanatic, and that is that crowds are terrible. I usually skip out on most theatre screenings simply because the crowds can completely break the atmosphere of a movie if they are bad enough. So when I go to see the screening of this film in a packed theatre of 750 people and it still manages to scare me... well... we must have something going for us.
Young couple X and Y (easier than typing in names) move into a house and Y (the woman, clever huh?) starts hearing noises during the night. She then goes on to tell X she has had previous experiences with hauntings and they should get help from experts.
We all know here how much I love mockumentaries, so when I caught wind of this a few months back I couldn't resist getting sucked in. As more and more reviews popped up saying that this is the scariest film they've seen in years my interest had no where to go but up. Lucky for me, one of the screenings just so happened to be close by so my friends and I packed up and shipped off (not that we really packed anything, it was only an hour drive, but whatever).
The problem with many modern day horror films is they try too hard to focus on flat out thrills and jumps and lose out on atmosphere. That or they are just terrible at all of it, but just roll with me for this. The situation is that more often than not, it is easier to craft some cheap thrills that can win over most common movie goers than it is to craft an atmosphere so dense that the ceiling might as well be two feet off the ground. This is where I find the greatest strength of mockumentary film making. When you design your piece into a form of first person perspective and amateur film making, you no longer have to carefully craft tense scores to match your inspired landscapes. The power of the first person perspective is its ability to push atmosphere through its own momentum.
This is of course assuming you can keep us wrapped into the films reality which can be the toughest part. Mockumentary film making is so barren of components relative to traditional film making that a lot more stress is put on what is there. The acting has to be top grade or else their characters fail to reflect what most of us would do. The lighting has to be perfect, neither showing us too much nor too little. The use of extravagancies such as CGI has to be justified to such an intense degree as its presence can abruptly rip you right out of an otherwise perfectly constructed piece.
After all of that, where does it leave our main topic, Paranormal Activity? If there was ever another mockumentary to continue Blair Witch Project's thrown (and to a lesser degree, Noroi's thrown) it would be this one. Many of the strengths that made Blair Witch so successful are what push Paranormal Activity forward. The day/night sequences that appeared in Blair Witch show up much stronger in Paranormal Activity. They train your body to react to the time of day without having to really lift a finger. It came to the point where the audience I was with started screaming as soon as realized a night sequence was beginning.
To make even more connections, the use of CGI in Paranormal Activity was almost non-existent. The concept was to use simple tricks to propel what would otherwise be a normal ghost story to scarily realistic proportions. The characters, while not perfect, still thrust the story forward with enough charisma to keep us interested.
While films like Cloverfield have shown us once again the unlimited possibilities we have access to using the mockumentary style, it is films like Paranormal Activity with their seemingly average subject matter that truly frighten us. This portrayal of events could have easily been anyone. It could have been you. That, my friends, is scary.
Young couple X and Y (easier than typing in names) move into a house and Y (the woman, clever huh?) starts hearing noises during the night. She then goes on to tell X she has had previous experiences with hauntings and they should get help from experts.
We all know here how much I love mockumentaries, so when I caught wind of this a few months back I couldn't resist getting sucked in. As more and more reviews popped up saying that this is the scariest film they've seen in years my interest had no where to go but up. Lucky for me, one of the screenings just so happened to be close by so my friends and I packed up and shipped off (not that we really packed anything, it was only an hour drive, but whatever).
The problem with many modern day horror films is they try too hard to focus on flat out thrills and jumps and lose out on atmosphere. That or they are just terrible at all of it, but just roll with me for this. The situation is that more often than not, it is easier to craft some cheap thrills that can win over most common movie goers than it is to craft an atmosphere so dense that the ceiling might as well be two feet off the ground. This is where I find the greatest strength of mockumentary film making. When you design your piece into a form of first person perspective and amateur film making, you no longer have to carefully craft tense scores to match your inspired landscapes. The power of the first person perspective is its ability to push atmosphere through its own momentum.
This is of course assuming you can keep us wrapped into the films reality which can be the toughest part. Mockumentary film making is so barren of components relative to traditional film making that a lot more stress is put on what is there. The acting has to be top grade or else their characters fail to reflect what most of us would do. The lighting has to be perfect, neither showing us too much nor too little. The use of extravagancies such as CGI has to be justified to such an intense degree as its presence can abruptly rip you right out of an otherwise perfectly constructed piece.
After all of that, where does it leave our main topic, Paranormal Activity? If there was ever another mockumentary to continue Blair Witch Project's thrown (and to a lesser degree, Noroi's thrown) it would be this one. Many of the strengths that made Blair Witch so successful are what push Paranormal Activity forward. The day/night sequences that appeared in Blair Witch show up much stronger in Paranormal Activity. They train your body to react to the time of day without having to really lift a finger. It came to the point where the audience I was with started screaming as soon as realized a night sequence was beginning.
To make even more connections, the use of CGI in Paranormal Activity was almost non-existent. The concept was to use simple tricks to propel what would otherwise be a normal ghost story to scarily realistic proportions. The characters, while not perfect, still thrust the story forward with enough charisma to keep us interested.
While films like Cloverfield have shown us once again the unlimited possibilities we have access to using the mockumentary style, it is films like Paranormal Activity with their seemingly average subject matter that truly frighten us. This portrayal of events could have easily been anyone. It could have been you. That, my friends, is scary.
Score: 4.5/5
Notes: I know the still I used wasn't in the screening, which is exactly why I used it. It doesn't spoil anything and makes a clear statement at what you can expect.
Sunday, August 23, 2009
The Uninvited (2009; Charles & Thomas Guard)
This is a touchy subject for me. Like so many others, I am sick of this remake trend. The idea that foreign films are not enough to stand on their own and need "translation" into our culture is quite sickening to me. However, I simply decided to ignore the bulk of this trend and try to ride it out. Needless to say, the J-horror remake fad is dying slowly but surely (making way for slasher remakes...) and then this monstrosity pops up. As seen on the front of this blog, one of the films in my top ten is the deeply profound "A Tale of Two Sisters". Kim Ji-woon is an unstoppable force in the world of cinema today, and his works should not be touched. The labyrinthine structure of "A Tale of Two Sisters" mandates the viewer to watch its intricicies over and over to fully establish its beauty and awe-inspiring construction. So when it comes to the remake, well, comparisons must be made to establish the complete lack of necessity of it all. This will, in turn, lead to many aspects of the films being exposed, and while I will never divulge anything gigantic, I will be forced to dissect and compare specific scenes. So if you have never laid your eyes upon Ji-woon's masterpiece, I recommend you stop here and just know this; Never fuck with the Kim.
Some girl (now named American) is traumatized by her mothers death and is temporarily sent to an institution to recover. After some time, American is sent home to reunite with her father and sister (now named Bullshit) only to discover that her father's girlfriend has moved in. There is something off and neither American nor Bullshit like her. The veins go much deeper, but that is enough for now. Now to compare!
The first thing shoved into our face is how Americanized this film has become. We start out watching American make out with some guy at a party. Why? In the original folktale and Ji-woon's interpretation, there was never a need for such acts. I guess this is the US way of establashing innocence because she denies the advance to fornicate. That is how we interepret morals in our youth? Disgusting and unwarranted. The strengths of the character should lie within the character herself as this film is very much an understanding of her mind, not how much or how little she loves dick.
This paragraph is simply another example of Americanizing the film and contains spoilers, so skip this if you haven't seen the first one (it is the only one that matters). The development of the "other" sister in this film is quite a dramatic difference. In the original the sister was developed, just like everything else, as a way to cope with the guilt and resentment. The sister represented that which needed protection from the materialized evil that needed to be fended off. All forms of deep symbolism are discarded in the remake, choosing to adapt the more surfaced twist that is seen in umpteen dozen other films that have come out in the past decade.
The visual style of the remake craves desperately to be identical to its parent, but fails in all forms. As seen in the image above, the solemn beauty of the house in the first film is tried at, but simply comes off as background noise. The soundtrack is dull and does nothing but carry us from scene to scene as if they only included it because they knew they had to. The focus on water is present like in the original, and just like the original, it is simply there as an allusion to the original folktale. In that regard, I suppose, it can be considered even.
One thing that bothered me greatly was the change of title. "The Uninvited" seemed like a ridiculous title to me given the original content of the first film. I guess it is supposed to be a reference to the girlfriend who was never wanted in the home. However, most people would assume it to be about the apparations that occur, as if they were unwanted ghosts haunting the innocent people inside. That, of course, wouldn't make any sense, as in the original the apparations are not only wanted, but are needed in order for the center of our film to exist.
As I kept pondering the title, I suppose I came to understand it a little better. As I said before, the remake stripped all forms of depth and tradgedy that were essential to the original's success and beauty and threw them into a hole. I kept wanting to analyze the copied imagery for what it was in the original and tried to apply it to the remake. That was a poor mistake. All the copied scenes were thrown in without second thought by idiots who apparently didn't understand their existence in the first place. The example I will use here is the blood trail.
The blood trail was the essential escalation of her coping after her illusions were threatened when her father confronted her. The trials she was putting her sister through had to become more rigorous as her guilt grew heavier on her conscience. The trail was then later shown to represent the fragments of her different realities colliding as she finally lost herself with the confrontation with the girlfriend at the end. So what does any of this have to do with the remakes blatant copying? Nothing at all, they simply threw it in to create "tension".
The significance of "A Tale of Two Sisters" was built upon the significance of all of its little pieces. Everything that was shown was placed in front of us delibrately. What we get with "The Uninvited", however, is simply another collage of the dozens of other remakes, scare scenes slopped together by a story devoid of soul and meaning. Not only can the film not stand up to it's predecessor, it can't even stand up as its own film. The importance of this review really comes in expressing many of my ideas on "A Tale of Two Sisters" so that my eventual review of it doesn't have to be a book like this review is.
Some girl (now named American) is traumatized by her mothers death and is temporarily sent to an institution to recover. After some time, American is sent home to reunite with her father and sister (now named Bullshit) only to discover that her father's girlfriend has moved in. There is something off and neither American nor Bullshit like her. The veins go much deeper, but that is enough for now. Now to compare!
The first thing shoved into our face is how Americanized this film has become. We start out watching American make out with some guy at a party. Why? In the original folktale and Ji-woon's interpretation, there was never a need for such acts. I guess this is the US way of establashing innocence because she denies the advance to fornicate. That is how we interepret morals in our youth? Disgusting and unwarranted. The strengths of the character should lie within the character herself as this film is very much an understanding of her mind, not how much or how little she loves dick.
This paragraph is simply another example of Americanizing the film and contains spoilers, so skip this if you haven't seen the first one (it is the only one that matters). The development of the "other" sister in this film is quite a dramatic difference. In the original the sister was developed, just like everything else, as a way to cope with the guilt and resentment. The sister represented that which needed protection from the materialized evil that needed to be fended off. All forms of deep symbolism are discarded in the remake, choosing to adapt the more surfaced twist that is seen in umpteen dozen other films that have come out in the past decade.
The visual style of the remake craves desperately to be identical to its parent, but fails in all forms. As seen in the image above, the solemn beauty of the house in the first film is tried at, but simply comes off as background noise. The soundtrack is dull and does nothing but carry us from scene to scene as if they only included it because they knew they had to. The focus on water is present like in the original, and just like the original, it is simply there as an allusion to the original folktale. In that regard, I suppose, it can be considered even.
One thing that bothered me greatly was the change of title. "The Uninvited" seemed like a ridiculous title to me given the original content of the first film. I guess it is supposed to be a reference to the girlfriend who was never wanted in the home. However, most people would assume it to be about the apparations that occur, as if they were unwanted ghosts haunting the innocent people inside. That, of course, wouldn't make any sense, as in the original the apparations are not only wanted, but are needed in order for the center of our film to exist.
As I kept pondering the title, I suppose I came to understand it a little better. As I said before, the remake stripped all forms of depth and tradgedy that were essential to the original's success and beauty and threw them into a hole. I kept wanting to analyze the copied imagery for what it was in the original and tried to apply it to the remake. That was a poor mistake. All the copied scenes were thrown in without second thought by idiots who apparently didn't understand their existence in the first place. The example I will use here is the blood trail.
The blood trail was the essential escalation of her coping after her illusions were threatened when her father confronted her. The trials she was putting her sister through had to become more rigorous as her guilt grew heavier on her conscience. The trail was then later shown to represent the fragments of her different realities colliding as she finally lost herself with the confrontation with the girlfriend at the end. So what does any of this have to do with the remakes blatant copying? Nothing at all, they simply threw it in to create "tension".
The significance of "A Tale of Two Sisters" was built upon the significance of all of its little pieces. Everything that was shown was placed in front of us delibrately. What we get with "The Uninvited", however, is simply another collage of the dozens of other remakes, scare scenes slopped together by a story devoid of soul and meaning. Not only can the film not stand up to it's predecessor, it can't even stand up as its own film. The importance of this review really comes in expressing many of my ideas on "A Tale of Two Sisters" so that my eventual review of it doesn't have to be a book like this review is.
Score: 1/5
Notes: Bells, Pearls, and Insignificance
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Grotesque (2009; Koji Shiraishi)
Way back when I reviewed a movie called Noroi, which was themed similarly to the Blair Witch Project. In said review I also said the director had made other films themed off of the long-black-haired-girl craze in the form of "Ju-rei" and "Kuchisake-onna". Sprinkled onto the end was a little note containing the title and genre of his newest work, Grotesque. It seems it is time to leave the hair behind and go for a modern day torture porn flick. Awesome.
What to put into the summary... well, two people who just started dating get tortured.
You see the thing is, much in the vein of what Eli Roth wanted to do (but US censors didn't want him to do) Shiraishi brings back the certain flavor that torture porn films need. "Grotesque" comes straight to its point at the very beginning and doesn't stay longer than it wants to. The whole genius of this piece comes with the fact that Shiraishi got to make exactly what he had in mind; a brutal and explorative adventure into torture and rape that doesn't bother with the modern nonsense it doesn't require such as character development.
That isn't to say that this movie has no inner themes to it. You might be able to pull out some ideas about love (strangely enough) or something silly like that, but then why are you watching this film of all things? On that note, why was it necessary to include those things at all? I know I said Shiraishi's genius was his ability to do away with unneeded garbage, but that wasn't exactly true. It was just about 95% true, which is a lot closer than most people come.
The problem with Grotesque, however, begins a little past the half way mark. We are shown a very surreal series of scenes that didn't quite fit the relentless butchery that had been thrown into our faces up until that point. While I have mixed emotions about that segment of the film, it is not the only piece that will yank you back into reality. Near the ending the film takes a sudden, unwarrented change in tone that kills some of the final impact of it all. It felt sort of like a cop out when Shiraishi had already taken it so far.
Do these segments ruin the film? Hardly. I give kudos to Shiraishi for his attempt at updating the torture genre. The torture itself, being the main focus in the first place, is very vivid and can easily succeed in making any normal person look away in disgust. It is just a shame that the atmosphere had to be broken in a way that it could not be repaired.
Score: 4/5
Notes: Would you die for someone you love?
Monday, August 10, 2009
Make Over
After some consideration, I decided I would revamp my scoring system over the next few days. I wanted a system that could better reflect my opinions in a more precise manner. Plus, when using a scale of ten, it becomes hard to score films between the areas of one and five as once a film because trash, measuring the exact amount of shit it is becomes redundant. However, I always felt that the five scale was just a little too restrictive and it tended to clump my almost tens with my tens.
After giving it some thought, I decided that a minor change to the five scale would solve the issues I have been having. So let me now demonstrate the scale I have in mind.
1: Rubbish; Offal; Garbage. This will, and always has, been the lowest a film could acquire (unless you count zero, but that just feels like you are saying the film doesn't exist).
2: Mostly Rubbish; Bad. These are the films that are bad, but they may have some signs of life in them somewhere.
3: Average; Mediocre; Watchable. These are films that are on the border. They have enough material within them that might warrant a watch depending on your tastes.
4: Good; Worth Time. These are the films you should definitely look into if you have the time. While they struggle with minor points, they are still well constructed and demand your attention.
4.5: Almost Great. These are the films that are so close to being 5's that they deserve their own category separate from the 4's. This category keeps the 4's and 5's from growing to unruly and large. These films, like the 5's, are ones you need to see, but just with a little less urgency.
5: Great; Perfection. Enough said about these. These are the greatest films around. Buy them now.
Also, this list puts a cap on the recommended list, restricting it to only 4.5 and 5. This isn't to say you shouldn't still watch the 4's, but it shrinks the list to those films that need the most attention. Hopefully the transformation will be done within a day or two. Maybe even with a new review... but let's not get too ambitious.
After giving it some thought, I decided that a minor change to the five scale would solve the issues I have been having. So let me now demonstrate the scale I have in mind.
1: Rubbish; Offal; Garbage. This will, and always has, been the lowest a film could acquire (unless you count zero, but that just feels like you are saying the film doesn't exist).
2: Mostly Rubbish; Bad. These are the films that are bad, but they may have some signs of life in them somewhere.
3: Average; Mediocre; Watchable. These are films that are on the border. They have enough material within them that might warrant a watch depending on your tastes.
4: Good; Worth Time. These are the films you should definitely look into if you have the time. While they struggle with minor points, they are still well constructed and demand your attention.
4.5: Almost Great. These are the films that are so close to being 5's that they deserve their own category separate from the 4's. This category keeps the 4's and 5's from growing to unruly and large. These films, like the 5's, are ones you need to see, but just with a little less urgency.
5: Great; Perfection. Enough said about these. These are the greatest films around. Buy them now.
Also, this list puts a cap on the recommended list, restricting it to only 4.5 and 5. This isn't to say you shouldn't still watch the 4's, but it shrinks the list to those films that need the most attention. Hopefully the transformation will be done within a day or two. Maybe even with a new review... but let's not get too ambitious.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
The Master is Back
After four years in exile, my favorite director Toshiaki Toyoda is back. Not only is he back, he is back in a big way announcing that his newest piece is following the trend of Kuchu Keien by pushing his previous trademarks and story arches out the window. Included with the news was this sneak peek...
This film will be a tremendous moment in cinema history for people who have been lucky enough to watch Toyoda's body of work. There is no doubt in my mind that Toyoda will drive home another perfect score with this one, but until then I will copy the plot from Twitch where I first found out about this piece of news. I'll keep this blog updated if any more news is released.
The time is the Middle Ages, when gods and demons reigned over a larger dominion than humans, before humans came to rule over the entire world. Oguri, a renowned masseur, is summoned to the fortress of the ruler of the dark world, a man known simply as the Lord and ailing from a venereal disease. After encouraging Terute—a captive princess from another land—to escape, Oguri is poisoned to death by the Lord before he can make his own getaway.
At a fork in the road between heaven and hell, Oguri is sent back to the land of the living in the form of a Hungry Ghost, in a state of apparent death. Saved by a monk who happened to pass by, he learns of a “spring of rebirth.” Meanwhile, Terute manages to flee from the Lord’s fortress and reunites with the undead Oguri. But the Lord is hot on their heels, hell bent on finding and punishing Terute.
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