Paranormal Activity

" Don't See It Alone"

That's good advice tagline, that's why we keep you there. I've seen a lot of horror movies, and I usually think very little of them. Most horror movies are intensely gross, but also stupid and not frightening. Saws one through eight million only scare me because someone actually continues to give some director money to make these fucking things.

This movie is, suffice it to say, different. Shot on an 11 million dollar budget in the directors own house, Paranormal Activity uses a 'found footage' style to draw you in, trap you in this house, and scare the ever living shit out of you. I think the style in which the movie is shot is really what does it. There are no special effects that look 'special', no cinematic angles, there is music after a fashion, a sort of "DOOOOM" sound effect, but they effectively blend it so you can't be sure that's what it is. The movie's close up, hand camera style creates a kind of claustrophobia, as does the situation. Through the events that happen, it becomes increasingly clear that there is no escape, for the viewers, and certainly not for the characters. The only thing that sort of bugged me is the stubborn refusal of the guy to admit that the situation is beyond his control. I suppose that might be how someone would react if they didn't believe in the paranormal. I don't want to give anything specific about this movie away, but suffice it to say the instant ouija board bursts into flames while I'm not home, my ass is calling in every psychic, priest, and paranormal expert on the fucking planet, and I'm moving into the biggest church i can find, and filling it with those individuals, and devoting my life to prayer.

I can't say much more without giving anything away, but I think I've told you what you need to know. This movie is hell of scary, you should see it if you like that sort of thing, and Katie Featherston is probably gonna have a rough time finding dates from now on.

Now where was I? Oh right. Our father, who art in heaven...

Surrogates

"How do you save humanity when the only thing that's real is you?"

I'm sure the above is a problem that Bruce Willis has been grappling with for a long time. Despite this hardship, he still seems to be saving humanity just fine. I decided that after The Fifth Element we deserved a look at what Mr. Willis has been doing lately. Evidently pretty much the same thing he was doing back then.

Based on a graphic novel of the same name, surrogates is a story about a world in the near future where everyone lives their lives vicariously through robots that are essentially idealized versions of themselves. Bruce Willis is a cop who is beginning to have doubts about the goodness of the surrogate lifestyle that the world has adopted, and then shit hits the fan.

Visually I was pretty impressed by this movie. They managed to convincingly CG a bunch of individuals to look both super perfect in their surrogate bodies, and alternatively made a bunch of movie stars look absolutely horrible in their 'human' bodies. Aside from that this is a movie that manages to not be TOO obvious, and packs in plenty of Bruce Willis kicking ass and also getting the shit beat out of him, in classic Die Hard fashion.

My biggest problem with this movie isn't actually the movie itself. I have a serious issue with the fucking trailer. I won't link it, but if you watch it and then see the movie you might note something. The end of the trailer uses footage that is essentially the entire climax of the movie. Now you might not remember it, and sure it doesn't necessarily ruin the movie, but still, this movie has plenty of action in it, what possesses you to reveal the very end of a movie?

But that isn't what's most important. The movie is presented stylishly, and presents and engaging plot that actually twists a fair bit. And we still got to enjoy Mr. Willis doing what he does best.

Be Awesome.

Fifth Element

"There is no future without it."

Let's get rid of that nightmare exploration in boredom and replace it with something a little classier. This movie has everything you could possibly want. Chris Tucker as a fruity pop star, Bruce Willis as a ex-military cab driver who kills people, and Gary Oldman as an evil rich guy. Also its in the future. Mostly in space and full of alieenns! Dancing, singing, Opera performing aliens. This is also a very special movie, a science fiction movie with Milla Jovovich in it that doesn't suck! Back then Ultraviolet was just a distant nightmare. Let's talk about why this is a great movie!

First off, this movie is unapologetically weird. There is a battle sequence played against a rock opera sung by a blue alien. Bruce Willis refers to himself as a 'meat popsicle' at one point, which I'm still not really clear on the meaning of. I mean, what the hell is that? xD There is some evil force trying to destroy the whole world, and it makes people drip octopus ink out of their foreheads! I don't honestly get everything that happens in this movie but the point is clear. Milla Jovovich is evidentally the '5th element' that has the power to save the whoooole universe, but to be a real girl she needs love. The kind of love that only Bruce Willis can give.

So is it 'THE RIDE' as the cover art suggests? Maybe not for everyone, but I find it has just the right mix of sort of goofy sci fi tropes, gunfights, explosions, and boobs. Also it introduces us to the marvel of future identification known only as: Multipass.

Valkyrie

This looks... maybe ok?

"Many saw evil. They dared to stop it."

Looks like it could be fun right? That's actually sort of inaccurate. It's more like "Many saw evil. They sort of dared to try and stop it, but failed miserably because they were all such fuck ups."

I didn't exactly expect great things from this movie, but I did sort of expect some amount of entertainment. I mean this is a movie you could pitch by saying "Tom Cruise is a nazi with an eyepatch, trying to blow up Hitler." That should at the very least be the funniest movie ever. Instead I think despite the hundreds of movies I've seen, this may very well have been the most boring movie I have ever watched in my entire life. Absolutely nothing ever happens in this movie. A cast of nazis who are all inexplicably British actors spend the whole movie dicking around and talking about whether or not they will really TRY to kill Hitler. Then at the end, they go off half cocked, fail and die. At the end we're supposed to be like "oh man, not ALL Nazis were bad guys! They tried but died, oh how brave!" All I thought was "man I'm glad they died. Dumbasses." I was sort of expecting an at least decent movie, what with Bryan Singer behind the helm, but evidently if the movie doesn't involve mutants he just doesn't know what to do with himself anymore.

Do you remember seeing the commercial for this movie? You remember there were people running around, explosions STUFF THAT HAPPENED? Yeah well that's actually all of this movie you need to see, because they used up the only two minutes of action in this whole movie in that trailer. The rest is guys standing around, talking about mostly NOTHING. Take a good look at the poster I for the movie. See how it says 'from the directors of The Usual Suspects and X-Men.'? Those are some good movies that you could watch, instead of this piece of crap. Next post I will alleviate the pain of Valkyrie with the best cure for sadness...

Bruce Willis.

 

Resident FUCKING Evil

I'm going to try and stay calm. Try.

"A secret experiment. A deadly virus. A fatal mistake."

Yeah, that's the God's honest truth man. Let me clear those things the FUCK up.

"George Romero writes a script to Resident Evil. Paul W.S. Anderson writes one too. They scrap Romero's script and go with the much more idiotic one."

So let's talk about that. We can assume, from the title, that Resident Evil is a movie based on a long lived, and relatively acclaimed game series of the same name, which basically started the survival horror genre of video games. Sounds ok so far. Video game movies aren't exactly known for being... less than the worst crap ever, but still, we can be hopeful. Then, something that is similar to God reaching down and slapping Hitler in the face happened. Capcom and Sony Greenlit a Resident Evil movie with GEORGE FUCKING ROMERO writing the script. For those of you just joining us on the planet earth, George Romero is the man responsible for Night of the Living Dead, and the subsequent movies. That's right, the guy who gave us the modern zombie movie, and also the premise around which THE ORIGINAL RESIDENT EVIL GAME WAS BASED. This could still go bad if the script didn't really follow the game. I mean, Romero is known for his movies having strong social commentary in the undertones, maybe he'd go overboard with that? No kid, he wrote a script based around the Arklay Mansion incident, which was the basis of the first game. It included Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine as the main characters (same as the game) and such characters as Barry Burton, Ada Wong, Rebecca Chambers and Albert Wesker (All of whom were present during these events in the game). This sounds great from where I'm sitting. But no. That movie never did, and never will happen. Why? According to the Capcom producer, "Romero's script wasn't good. So Romero was fired".

Well la dee fucking da. I'm not ruling out that possibility, but if the final movie directed by Anderson is a reflection of what they think is good well maybe Romero's script was the best script ever written. Let's talk about that. Instead of the earlier mentioned script, we get that world viewed through the lens of a TOTAL MORON. There's still a mansion, only it has a ABSURD JOKE CITY UNDERNEATH IT. Ok Resident Evil is replete with shit like that, so we can forgive it. Umbrella still controls this facility. Fair enough. All the original characters are axed.

um... ok.

Instead we have Alice. Milla Jovovich is Alice, a lady who wakes up in said mansion, which is not actually all that big. She has no memory and everything is dreeeaammlike. She accompanies a team of the Umbrella Corporation's Commandos into their compromised facility, along with some other guy who also doesn't remember who he is. The facility is controlled by a evil little girl hologram computer... thing, called Red Queen. You guys following this clever subtext? ALICE IN WONDERLAND IF YOU ARENT GETTING IT. So the team enters, seemingly totally oblivious to what the hell is going on in this place, and they meet some zombies. Like 8 million of them. In the ensuing sequences, some of the dumbest crap happens. These guys suffer from the standard 'no one in a zombie movie ever saw a zombie movie' problem.

"hey Im rough and tumble latina michelle rodriguez. Theres a survivor!"

-obvious zombie-

"Fuck she bit me!"

-surrounded by zombies-

"Im the stupid team captain, AIM FOR THEIR KNEESSS"

I'm not kidding he really gives that suicide order. Way to go champ. Then plot twist WOO Alice and other Amnesia Guy were both working for Umbrella! Only Alice was gonna betray evil Umbrella, and Other Guy was going to kill her. Slowly they remember, and then he tries to screw everyone over. Only he dies cause he's a jerk. Everyone slowly dies over the course of the movie, except for Alice, and cop Matt Anderson, who's looking for his sister in some demented inverse Ada Wong situation. The one guy who almost survives, struggling all the way, BAM killed by a licker right at the end of the movie. Super time guys, glad we were waiting for the end of the movie so he could be killed like a punk. That's how I felt at the end of the movie to be honest. sort of like this:

Ouch.

     Thanks a lot fot the awesome movie guys. I had a great time, and an even better time imagining the great movie that could have not involved half an alice in wonderland allegory, part of a 2001: a Space Odyssey reference, and a lot of supremely dumb plot. A+ assholes.

100 Sad Little Hits

I've been watching my analytics like a hawk, and I see the number of hits has finally stumbled bleary eyed over the 100 mark! Thanks to the people who visit my site! All like, 6 of you xD

Ponyo

"Welcome To A World Where Anything Is Possible"

Fishy Fishy in the sea.

      They aren't kidding either. This is a world where anything can and does happen!  This is the story about a little boy, who meets a little fish, that becomes a little girl, and her dad is Liam Neeson, a magical sea wizard. This boy lives on a terrifying cliff near the ocean, with his mom, who I suspect was actually a street racer. It is very possible she was a character in Initial D that I forgot, I'm not ruling out that possibility. Anyway, this movie focuses mostly on the Sosuke finding Ponyo, and the ensuing adventures they have. This movie is the world viewed through the lens of happy magic, but lets not miss out on how frightening this movie would be otherwise.


     A huge deathstorm strikes around where Sosuke lives, which is incidentally next to the freaking ocean. So that's cool. When I say he lives next to the ocean, I mean on a cliff right next to it. So after the storm calms down a bit, Sosuke's mom decides its cool to leave a strange girl from the ocean and her son, who is about 5, and to rush off into the storm. When Sosuke and Ponyo awake, she is still gone, and the whole of the surrounding land is submerged in water. Water full of terrifying Cambrian aged sea creatures, brought back by the sea wizard who wanted to wipe out mankind (but changed his mind halfway through the movie). Well I guess this is a Miyazaki happy movie, so an ending that turns the planet into waterworld is probably unlikely. 


      Visually this movie is soothing and very pretty. The hand drawn scenes are something you really notice and appreciate over the maybe cleaner, but more... empty looking computer drawn animations. You can expect lots of cute moments and a lot of beautiful art out of this movie, but don't expect profound introspection or anything. Just a movie about a kid who falls in love with a fish girl.

A different fish girl.