Drive

Drive (2011)

Runtime: 100 minutes

Directed by: Nicolas Winding Refn

Starring: Ryan Gosling, Cary Mulligan, Bryan Cranston, Ron Perlman, Albert Brooks

From: FilmDistrict

Here’s a movie I’ve been hearing a lot about this month. After some people saw it, they lost their minds and unleashed some rather strong statements about how great the movie was, calling it a classic and that sort of thing. Always a skeptic, I wasn’t sure what to think. I know that I enjoyed the 80’s motif the movie had and what I heard of the soundtrack was awesome, as it was 80’s synth pop and that’s always a good thing.

Last night I finally went and saw the movie to see if the hype was warranted. Before I get to the film itself, I have to mention that I thought I would get to see it with no problem as I went to the local Cineplex which is usually not a busy place; some other people were at the screening also and as it’s Florida, a few of those people were Troglodytes and just acted stupid. I swear that my opinion on the movie was not colored by my less than ideal experience while watching said movie.

To try and be brief, this is about a stunt car driver named Driver (Gosling) who also does some side jobs which could be called less than ethical, although he also works for a mechanic pal (Cranston) He meets up with a neighbor (Mulligan) and her young son. Her jailbird husband (Oscar Issac; for some reason his name is Standard; was he named after Standard Oil?) comes back from prison. He quickly gets himself into trouble so Driver tries to help him out to be nice to his new lady pal and her son. The fit hits the shan, and… but I don’t want to give too much else away, except that some unsavory characters are seen (Perlman and Brooks, both delivering memorable performances).

One thing I can say right away is that everyone there to see the film-me included-were quite surprised at just how violent this was. There are some REALLY graphic moments. From what I could tell, the rest of the crowd did not seem to care for how the movie turned out. Me, I had a more positive view on it although I didn’t find it to be a classic or the best movie of the year or anything of that sort.

What I did like were the performances in general. This is the first movie I’ve seen Gosling in and I was really impressed. He wore an awesome silver scorpion jacket. The story was always interesting throughout. The 80’s synth music (actually modern songs with that particular sound) was tremendous and was an asset to the film. However…

This was artsy-fartsy at times; you know, long takes, silence, and that sort of thing. At times, even I was wondering why it was taking so long to get to the point. Even I was turned off by how graphic some of the scenes were. But it has to be made clear that this is one downbeat and dour tale. I don’t have a problem with that necessarily; it’s just that you should be prepared that this is the sort of story that isn’t cheery and happy. For you Christina Hendricks fans, her role in the movie isn’t as large as her che… er, I mean as large as has been advertised.

I also had some issues with how the last 15 minutes or so turned off; I can’t really explain it without giving away big spoilers; I just thought it wasn’t as good as what preceded it. You should also note that the movie doesn’t have as many car chases as you’d think given the subject matter; it’s a shame, given that what chases you do see are well-done.

So, this isn’t something I disliked by any means. I’m sure this will end up on the list of the 10 best movies I’ve seen this year (if only because I haven’t seen as many movies as others) but this definitely isn’t the best movie I’ve seen all year, like a lot of people are thinking.

I’ll be back Sunday evening with a new review.

Friday the 13th Part III

Friday the 13th Part III (or 3-D) (1982)

Runtime: 95 minutes

Directed by: Steve Miner

Starring: Dana Kimmell, Paul Kratka, Tracie Savage, Larry Zerner, Richard Brooker

From: Paramount

I decided to keep it simple last night by watching once again the 3-D version of this film. A few years ago it was finally released in that format, and even though you have to watch it with the old-school red and blue lens and it likely will screw up your vision for a few minutes afterwards, if you watch the DVD version upconverted on a Blu-Ray player, it’s not so bad; on a regular DVD player, it’s not so good but upconverted, it’s not that bad, although it is inconsistent. I hear the Blu-Ray version isn’t much better in terms of image.

Anyhow, this is a movie I’ve always enjoyed despite itself. It’s a typical Jason movie, meaning bad acting, goofy moments, implausible things, and yet at least in this case it was a fun time. If only I could see this one day on the big screen… as for the plot, it doesn’t really matter. A bunch of young people, including a girl with baggage (Kimmell), a Latina lady, a chubby nerd (Zerner), a blatant ripoff of Tommy Chong, and more end up at a rural house on Crystal Lake. Jason acquires his hockey mask and raises hell, unleashing bloody kills that use the 3-D format rather well. The movie is technically poor but in this case it don’t matter.

From the tremendously goofy and yet great theme song to the movie (an extended version can be found on YouTube) to the near-constant reminders that the film is indeed in 3-D-quite often, there are gags where stuff is hurled towards the screen-I can’t help but enjoy this. I mean, there is a trio of bikers who you see for a short amount of time, and they appear to be there only to kill time, but again I can’t hate. If only all of the movies in the series could have been like this, and if only the poor-quality movie from ’09 could have been like this too.

There are also usually some nice kills to see, which is good. I wish that the original X-rated print would have been saved for future generations like us to view, but lack of foresight ruins a lot of things, including that. But anyhow, you can go look and laugh at the fact that there’s a Wiki for this series, and you can check out the page for this movie, if you wish.

I’ll be back Wednesday night.

High Tension

High Tension (Haute Tension) (2003)

Runtime: 91 minutes

Directed by: Alexandre Aja

Starring: Cecile De France, Maiwenn Le Besco, Philippe Nahon, Franck Khalfoun

From: Europa

Oh, this movie… for a long time I’ve heard about it and how it had an ending that turned people off as it was rather stupid and unnecessary. Me, I say that there are actually two twists that are likely to get people up in arms. I’ll tell you what the second twist is in a moment.

This French movie is about a pair of young ladies, Alexia (Maiwenn) and Marie (De France) who travel to the rural farm home of Marie’s family, in order to study for the weekend while experiencing peace and quiet. However, you soon see a big scary killer invade the house, and cause a lot of havoc (although some of it is REALLY preposterous to the point that it turned me off to the movie right there) and he ends up taking Marie. Alexia has to try and save her friend… and I’ll leave it right there.

I’ll give away the second twist right now, as it’s better off if you stop the movie 30 seconds before it actually ends. The final scene seems to imply that it was all a dream! What a giant middle finger to the audience that was so not needed I can only speculate as to why that was done.

I won’t give away what the first twist was; it takes place about 75 minutes in and it really changes things. I thought that the idea was actually interesting and if it would have been done well, it’d be a quality twist and it would have been something great and different for the horror scene. However, unlike many people (at least from what I’ve seen) I thought that the movie before that twist 75 minutes in, aside from some good moments and a few tense scenes, wasn’t all that great. There was the really preposterous stuff which just insulted my intelligence, and the fact that I didn’t really like any of the characters-even Alexia and Marie-is definitely a problem.

A shame, as the main idea was pretty cool and if done better I could have gotten behind some of the hype I’ve read about this throughout the years. Alas, I thought it did not come together and I really wish there wouldn’t have been so many dumb moments, especially if you think about the twist and how it makes what you saw the preceding 75 minutes rather impossible at times. As for the gore, it definitely delivers if you love seeing blood and guts on the screen. It’s just that at times I thought it was too much, that it was being done as a sick joke. I mean, it ended up getting rather ridiculous.

I’ll be back Saturday afternoon with another review.

[Rec] 2

[Rec] 2 (2009)

Runtime: 85 minutes

Directed by: Jaume Balaguero, Paco Plaza

Starring: Jonathan Mellor, Oscar Sanchez Zafra, Ariel Casas, Pablo Rosso

From: Filmax

Here’s the sequel to the popular Spanish “found footage” movie [Rec], which I watched and reviewed last year, and which spawned an American remake, Quarantine, which is almost identical. Now, Quarantine 2 is completely different from this movie, funnily enough.

To bring things up to speed, this movie starts 15 minutes after the first one ends; as a refresher, the first film was about a film crew from a news station that followed around the local fire department. They get called into an apartment complex and it turns out that there was a sickness there and the government sealed them in due to what the sickness was, which would cause people to become blood-crazed lunatics. Here, a SWAT team and a guy who calls himself a doctor go into the apartment complex to see what’s going on there and if there are any survivors.

My opinion on the movie… well, I got done watching it about 10 before midnight, and since then I’ve been on a messageboard bitching about it, so that says a lot right there.

Now, I should have enjoyed this movie being like Aliens to the original’s Alien. Unfortunately, I didn’t. One thing is that as the movie expands on what you found out in the first, I wished that I knew less. The creatures ended up being changed and for the worse, I say. It’s so bad it almost ruins me watching the first movie as I now know more about those creatures and what they’re all about.

Then, there’s the bitching… throughout the movie you get a LOT of bitching, arguing, crying, moaning, whining, and so forth. I mean, sure you get that in the first, but it pales in comparison to what you get here. After awhile, it just becomes tiresome. Even the SWAT team isn’t as awesome as you’d expect. To steal a quote I saw online, all of them act like Hudson in Aliens. One of him is great, but all of them? No, doesn’t work.

Unfortunately, I have to give out a spoiler here but it’s important. The four SWAT guys and the doctor aren’t the only characters you see throughout. About 40 minutes in you’re introduced to some other characters in what seems like a sidetrack that is uncomfortably shoehorned in. Those characters made the regular ones seem levelheaded and sedated in comparison, as they *really* up the ante on arguing, bitching, crying, moaning, and all that. I loathed those characters and really wish they wouldn’t have been shoehorned in.

Things pick up but then the ending, and the preceding 10 or so minutes… it’s just stupid and doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Once the movie ended, I almost wanted to throw my remote at the TV in frustration. What a disappointment this turned out to be. From the plot description, it could have been awesome; aside from some moments that I DID think were well-done, it otherwise was a real letdown.

I’ll be back Thursday night (or maybe Friday morning) with a new review.

Wattstax

Wattstax (1973)

Runtime: 98 minutes

Directed by: Mel Stuart

Starring: This is a documentary, so you’ll see many performances from people on the Stax label, but there’s also soliloquies from Richard Pryor

From: Wolper Productions

Here’s a documentary I first saw on PBS a few years ago (with the cursing bleeped out) and I later tracked down on DVD. It’s not only a documentary-something I’m inclined to like-but it also features great music. It’s about the title event, held in 1972 in the huge Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum; it was presented by the Memphis-based record company Stax Records to note the anniversary of the Watts riots of ’65.

Besides all the songs you hear from the likes of Isaac Hayes, Rufus Thomas, The Staple Singers, The Bar-Kays, Luther Ingram, and others, there’s also soliloquies you get to hear from Richard Pryor where he humorously talks about a variety of things, AND you also hear various people in the area talk about the Watts riots and whether or not things were changed for the African-American or not. It’s all very interesting and you can be any race, creed or color and enjoy the discussion, laugh at what Pryor says (oh, and Isaac the Bartender from The Love Boat also appears, and a dancer you briefly get to see is Rerun from What’s Happening!!) and enjoy quality songs back when R&B music was actually good rather than the lameness most of it is now.

You also get to hear a short speech from Jesse Jackson. No matter what you think of him and his ideological beliefs, you have to laugh at the afro he sports! At least that made me laugh.

If you enjoy any of the things I mentioned above, then you should track this down. The DVD is pretty cool too, with some nice bonus stuff.

I’ll be back tomorrow night something with something new.

A Quick Bit Of Randomness

Due in part to my schedule the past few days and also due in part to me being dead tired the past few days, I’ll do one of these now and tomorrow night will be a review. It’s just that I realized after the fact there are some things to say about the recent movies I saw.

Re, Apollo 18, the movie is starting to become worse to me in the days after I saw it when I heard and read more reviews of it; yet, it also became better after I realized something that I haven’t heard anyone say yet. I know I’m going to spoil the movie, but eh, oh well, I doubt that anyone cares by this point… what causes the problems on the moon is an arachnid-like creature that hatches from certain rocks. It wasn’t until a few days later that I realized this, but I swear they ripped off that idea from an awful movie that was on Mystery Science Theater 3000! I’m referring to The Giant Spider Invasion, a terrible film about spiders from space who hatch from what looks like rocks. The fact that this movie ripped out such an idea from a movie like this… that is pretty amazing. As for the MST3K episode, it’s tremendous as they just tear apart all the trashy redneck characters you see in the movie, and as someone from Illinois, I have to laugh at the anti-Wisconsin jokes.

As for Fright Night, on a messageboard I read discussion that the original and the remake actually has homosexual subtext to it with the vampires representing homosexuality, and people “converting” has a whole different meaning to it. That’s rather interesting and if I see the remake again and when I see the original, I’ll try to view it in that way. Of course it’s interesting that the original had at least two people in the cast who happened to be gay, and at least one other who has had rumors about his true sexuality.

In terms of Giallo, there is one scene I should mention just for it being gross. The killer views photos of the woman he just brutally attacked, and from his arm motions and sounds, you can tell that he’s “pleasuring himself” to those images. Not something I needed to think about, so of course I mentioned it here.

I’ll be back tomorrow night, this time with a review.

Fright Night (The Remake)

Fright Night (2011)

74% on Rotten Tomatoes (out of 143 reviews)

Runtime: 106 minutes

Directed by: Craig Gillespie

Starring: Anton Yelchin, Colin Farrell, David Tennant, Imogen Poots, Christopher Mintz-Plasse

From: Dreamworks

Here is a movie I finally went to see; I listened to a podcast where I heard some strong arguments about the movie, ranging from “meh” to “hatred”, which is similar to what I’ve heard from both critics and movie-goers, although oddly enough the majority of the former actually liked this. I decided to watch this last night as I could offer up a different perspective as someone who hasn’t seen the 80’s Fright Night films (but I will eventually; I have both on VHS tape) and thus that won’t color my opinion on this movie just being another damn remake that really didn’t need to take place.

Overall… this movie wasn’t God-awful as I heard but it wasn’t all that good either. In Las Vegas, a former geek Charley (Yelchin) who now hangs out with “the cool kids” (including a guy who I noted looked a lot like James Franco; turns out, that was James’ younger brother) and ignores his old pal (McLovin’) and his claims that he somehow found a vampire named Jerry (Farrell); how he discovered that Jerry was a vampire wasn’t explained. A lot of things weren’t explained during the movie; there were many plotholes and you have to accept things such as no one caring about a structure exploding in fire or chaos at a casino. He, his prospective girlfriend (Poots), and his mom (Toni Collette) end up getting involved, and Charley ends up going to the Criss Angel-ripoff known as Peter Vincent (Tennant) as he’s also an expert in vampire lore. Will those two guys get together to battle Jerry the vampire? Will there be many goofy coincidences and chance meet-ups? What do you think?

This movie isn’t awful. After all, there are some exciting moments, and some humorous ones too; there is even an interesting idea or two. There just isn’t enough of that to balance out all of the dumb moments, aggravating and douche-y characters (most of the main ones you get to see), the giant logic gaps, and the griping that the characters unleash on each other. So, that’s why I say this movie isn’t that great, unless you want to see Lisa Loeb play McLovin’s mom in one brief scene. By the way, I got to see this in 2D, so seeing the obvious 3D stuff that way just made things silly.

I’ll be back Monday night.

Giallo

Giallo (2009)

Runtime: 92 minutes

Directed by: Dario Argento

Starring: Adrien Brody, Emmanuelle Seigner, Elsa Pataky, Robert Miano

From: Hannibal Pictures

My apologies for getting this up late but I happened to watch a movie on pay cable TV (yeah, I still somehow am able to get Showtime and The Movie Channel channels for free, but shhhh; the cable company doesn't need to know about the mistake) which was discussed about on a messageboard so I took the bullet and watched it in order to talk about it there... and here.

First off, I haven't really seen any movies in the giallo style period, so I can't tell you with any certainty if it even lives up to its name or not. The only movie I've seen from the legendary and influential Argento I've seen before is Suspiria, which I mainly enjoyed despite its nonsensical story because of its great visuals and usage of color; oh, and the Goblin score too. He has a lot of fans in the horror community, which makes it all the sadder that he keeps on making films but pretty much all of his recent output is pitiful and awful compared to his best in the 70's and 80's.

Oh, and it's also amusing to me that this movie caused conflict when-as I understand it-the movie producers did not give Brody as much money as he was promised so he sued and blocked the movie from being released here until he got his cash. Not a great sign for the quality of the movie; I've known this story for awhile so I was expecting a bad movie when I finally watched this... and I wasn't proven wrong.

I've also heard that the awful I Know Who Killed Me-which I unfortunately HAVE seen and one of these days I'll review here-could be considered part of the genre too. I say it's a crap film that really rips off Argento and his usage of color and leave it at that.

While Giallo wasn't terrible like I Know Who Killed Me, it's just not a good film. As I've heard other reviewers say as I'm looking for other opinions now, it's just flat-out boring for much of its run time, and you'll forget much of what you have seen minutes after you're done watching the movie. It's just a bunch of stuff happening, mostly listlessly. The plot as it is: in Turin Italy, a serial killer kidnaps a hot model (Pataky) and her sister (Seigner) is directed to a police investigator on the hunt for him (Brody).

There are some interesting ideas, as to why Brody's detective character is so good at tracking serial killer types, but otherwise... blah. That detail and many others aren't really explained or explored as well as they should have been. There's not much in the way of scares or thrills, and while there's some decent blood and gore, there's not a whole lot of it; hell, there's not even much in the way of kills.

There are definitely some goofy moments; even then, though, not even to want to watch the movie to laugh at it. Everything about the serial killer is pretty silly. He's also played by Brody and he wears goofy makeup which made me think either Rocky Dennis or Marv in Sin City. He has what you could call yellow skin, I suppose. It's caused by jaundice. He also speaks with a bizarre accent which can't be native to any ethnicity of people on the planet.

Now, this is what you'd call a spoiler; it's so silly it has to be mentioned. The reason why he has jaundice? His mom was a drug user who shot up while pregnant with him, then he was left at an orphanage*. Both the mom and the son have... Hepatitis C! That's right, a serial killer with Hepatitis C. He kidnaps pretty foreign chicks, "makes them ugly", then kills them. It's all blah and there's no reason for anyone to see it, even to chuckle at the dumb moments. You see Brody smoke a lot (because it's a modern European film, I guess) and it's deathly dull. If you're an Argento fan I'm sure you'd be the most disappointed. Stick to his famous films or track down the most famous of the giallo movies, which is advice I should follow myself.

* There's a brief flashback that nearly had me dying from laugher. You saw the serial killer as a young boy, being teased for having jaundice. For some reason, they really wanted to stress that he was yellow, so he was practically glowing neon yellow like the sun! No exaggeration.

I'll be back Thursday night with what will likely be another review of a horror film, even if this Giallo movie wasn't really even giallo as I understand it or much in the way of horror either.

So...

After some thought, I realized that posting any sort of review today wouldn't be the best idea, given what today is. Plus, I wasn't able to watch anything and I'm dead tired now so I didn't want to watch anything after the night football game finished and then I'd post a real late review. Instead, I'll mention that I'll finally do a new review on Tuesday night and then I'll try to be more frequent with them for the rest of the month.

Since I'm typing I should at least mention the funny story of how a generic horror movie with the generic title of Creature somehow got a 1,500 screen release and given that the advertising budget was approximately 2 or 3 bucks it shouldn't be a shocked that it totally bombed at the box office, not even finishing in the top 25 and the numbers were so bad, an approximate average of SIX people paid for a ticket to watch it at each screening; six per screening, that's a total disaster.

Then again maybe I should cry instead of laugh... as I read somewhere a few days ago, this low-budget movie that apparently is God-awful too got released on 1,500 screens and yet quality genre films like Attack The Block, Let The Right One In and 13 Assassins would probably perform illicit sex acts with a bum in an alley to have gotten that sort of release when they were out in movie theatres! Typical Hollywood/movie-making system. At least I was able to see all three of them the proper way, but Creature sounds like such a waste I doubt I'll ever see it out of the sake of being curious.

Apollo 18

Apollo 18 (2011)

18% on Rotten Tomatoes (out of 44 reviews)

Runtime: 88 minutes

Directed by: Gonzalo Lopez-Gallego

Starring: Warren Christie, Lloyd Owen, Ryan Robbins

From: Dimension Films

Here is a movie that sounded interesting to me, as while it’s yet another found footage it at least had an interesting and fresh angle in that it’s alleged footage from a covered-up Apollo mission that was said to never happen but the story of the movie was that it was a secret mission which was covered up by the government. This had its release changed from spring this year all the way to spring next year, then they changed their mind and moved it to Labor Day weekend. I wasn’t sure if that was a good sign or not. I heard a toxic review from a website that I trust, but a reviewer on the site that I don’t trust, so I wasn’t sure what to expect; that’s why I took a chance this afternoon and went out and saw it.

Without giving too much away-such as who or what was causing all the mysterious stuff you saw in the trailers/TV ads-I’ll say that this movie says it was footage taken from the government and uploaded to what is a viral website for this movie that shows there was an Apollo 18 and why it was kept secret from the public. A trio of astronauts are shot up into space to go to the moon, with the usual setup of two of them walking on it and a third staying up in orbit around the moon. Soon after they get there, they discover mysterious stuff going on; what could it be? The answer… but again, I won’t spoil it for anyone.

Who or what it turns out is behind all the shenanigans on the moon is what I’d call goofy. Then again, the whole plot can raise a lot of logical questions if you think about it a little; what those questions are… they’re spoilers so I can’t even elaborate on that but it makes you wonder why those previous astronauts on the moon like Neil Armstrong or Buzz Aldrin did not come across it before. Yet, despite that sort of thing, I still thought the movie was entertaining-enough. A lot of the footage did look like it came from the era of late 1974, when they said the mission happened. The acting was fine and I wasn’t annoyed by any of the three astronauts, which is a plus. There was enough creepiness and jump scares-but not too much of them-to entertain me. Plus, at times the movie has a mean streak; in this case that worked instead of being a turn-off for being too mean and nasty.

So, judging by popular opinion I may be in the minority but maybe the low expectations I had due to the negative reviews helped me think this was entertaining, if not a masterpiece by any means. If you can turn your brain off it’s fun. I certainly did not think it was awful as many reviewers loudly proclaimed. Having a found footage movie with typical movie credits at the end was a little silly, but alas…

I’ll be back Sunday night with a new review.

Scarface

Scarface (1983)

Runtime: 170 minutes

Directed by: Brian De Palma

Starring: Al Pacino, Steven Bauer, Michelle Pfeiffer, Robert Loggia

From: Universal

Here’s one of the most famous movies of the 80’s, which I finally got to see on the big screen last night due to a one night only thing across the country from Fathom Events. I first saw this movie on VHS tape; I only saw the first part of it freshman year of college 10 years ago. I saw it in full that summer, and I became one of the many people who enjoy the film.

Sure, it’s filled with many excesses (just like the 80’s) and it is rather long, but I always found it to be entertaining despite the main figure being an anti-hero at best.I won’t get into the plot of the movie as you all know by now the rise and downfall of Tony Montana (Pacino delivering a bravura performance) so I’ll instead say that I am glad I got to see it in a movie theatre-this was done as the movie is coming out on Blu-Ray this upcoming Tuesday-and instead of watching it in the Orlando-area, I drove down to Lakeland to watch it at the Cobb Theatres Lakeside 18 for the first time; it was a pretty nice place and I wouldn’t mind going there again in the future. Even better was that the crowd wasn’t as “rough” as I expected and they didn’t act as stupid as I had feared either.

The movie looked and sounded great on the big screen. It sure as heck beat the VHS I watched back in the day. I was able to enjoy the scenic South Florida location (the South Beach of then was pretty poor compared to what it is now) and the quality 80’s-riffic score by Giorgio Moroder too.

As it was the first time in a long while I saw the movie in full, I was able to fully appreciate it; it’s just an entertaining and engrossing story and the performances are nice too, so no wonder it’s become so beloved, even if undesirable types tend to enjoy it (gangbangers and thugs and whatnot) and they seem to only pay attention to Tony Montana’s rise to the top and ignore his downfall. People should also follow the advice of not getting high off of your own supply. I enjoy the movie due to how entertaining it is and not because it has elements that appeal to the ruffians and cads of the world.

I’ll be back Tuesday night, as I don’t want to do any work on this on Monday.