Category: Movies

5 stereotypical college students get in a trailer and drive out to the remote outskirts of town to stay in a cabin in the woods for a long weekend, but what starts out as simple fun is more than it seems and the group realizes their lives are in danger. Hmm, so what is it about this tired premise that garners a 92% on Rotten Tomatoes? Well, based on the not-so-spoiler in the trailer and the beginning of the movie, there is even more to this situation than there appears to be. You see, some underground organization is pulling all the strings and watching the horror unfold on a series of hidden cameras.

Essentially what Cabin in the Woods boils down to is a horror comedy that makes fun of horror movies. The problem is, this kind of self-referential humor has already been well overdone at this point. Sure there are a couple of moments that made me chuckle when the group decides that ‘splitting up to cover more ground’ would be a better idea than sticking together but numerous playful zombie movies and Scream sequels have well explained the horror movie laws to us by now: the slutty chick is the first one to die; the alpha male that everybody thinks is best equipped to save everyone isn’t the hero. Trying to make a new movie based on this premise alone will surely fall flat.

Luckily there is more going on here. While the overall plot and eventual conclusion are somewhat predictable, the final act feels very satisfying for audiences familiar with American horror. The carnage and dark comedy slant feel meta enough to be clever and an audience seeking fun should find plenty. All of this makes the first act all the more puzzling. I understand the idea is to convey that this is a classic horror movie and to play out the familiar tropes at the start before digging deeper, but the first act was slow and tedious to watch. I think the acting was alright but the dialog, a usual strength of Joss Whedon’s, felt forced and pointless. The fact that the opening scene of Cabin in the Woods shows there is more going on and continually interjects scenes of the group being watched and controlled makes me feel like the first third of the movie was a missed opportunity.

Where the movie excels, however, are the specific jabs it makes at pop culture. There is a nod to Hellraiser by including a demon with a metal puzzle toy- his name in the credits? Fornicus, Lord of Bondage and Pain. There are a couple references to Japanese horror cinema and if you are not laughing out loud at the last one then you have no sense of humor. But Cabin in the Woods is not just one of those low budget comedies that makes fun of all the currently successful flicks in a specific genre (aka Scary Movie) so it needs to find humor in more original spaces as well.

So should you watch this movie? Yes, if you like fun movies or the horror genre. Is it the movie of the year so far or does it totally blow away the old concept of scary movies? Not really. It’s kind of more of the same. It just makes fun of itself more than average.

I don’t watch a lot of horror movies but a Blockbuster employee told me Insidious was the best movie in the genre that he’s seen in a decade so I decided to pick this one up. Now, I know what your thinking. One, who still actually goes to Blockbuster stores these days? And two, why should I care what some stoner movie nerd thinks makes for good entertainment?

The subject matter of Insidious actually makes for an interesting story. While heavily inspired by classic Lovecraft, without giving anything away, the script delves into familiar territory but also settles on a plot element not normally used as a horror trope. This alone certainly deserves some notice but it is not enough to fulfill a vision. There are a lot of plates to balance when making a motion picture and unfortunately with Insidious the execution is lacking. The acting is unconvincing and the dialog is derivative at times. The visuals of the demons are uninspired and even downright campy. There are definitely some unintentionally laugh-out-loud moments that make this feel like a B movie.

However, and pun intended, there is something much more insidious going on that this film does a great job at- misdirection. The creators are actively aware of a moviegoer’s preconceptions and expectations and stay one step ahead. I like the twist and the meta design of the movie – using the crazy wife or the sick boy as red herrings. The makers of this film go further than merely keeping the audience guessing- they realize that their viewers have a wealth of horror movie knowledge that they will enlist to attempt to predict what happens next. There is a reason this movie borrows heavily from Poltergeist and The Exorcist. The tagline “It’s not the house that’s haunted” seems to give away the mystery while actually leading viewers to the incorrect conclusion.  The interesting twist ending is more complicated than it initially appears- the camera work subtly hints that something else is happening to keep the audience off guard. Even the box art leads the mind astray. Now *this* is managing the meta of a movie.

It’s not a great movie but remains worth watching. Some scenes can be cheesy but still scary. And the script has flaws but redeems itself in interesting ways. I can see why someone who watches a lot of movies would like this one, so in the end maybe the Blockbuster employee didn’t steer me wrong.

Here’s an under the radar movie from 2010 that I had heard some good things about but took a while to get to in my queue. Splice sounds more or less like typical horror movie fare when you look at the bulletpoints- mutant creature, immoral scientists, experiments gone wrong. However the direction the narrative moves in ends up taking unexpected, interesting, and uncomfortable turns.

The key element that sets Splice apart is the relationship the characters have with the ‘monster’. Without spoiling too much, instead of taking the easy route and having this nameless creature killing indiscriminately to show off gore, this story is a slower paced exploration into the ramifications of creating Frankenstein. Not to get too deep here- Splice has its fair share of uninspired moments and pseudo-science gibberish- but the psychology of treating an abomination as a pet and more does leave a lasting impression on the viewer.

Unfortunately, the last ten minutes of the movie carelessly forgets the subtlety that has been built up and takes a dump all over everything. If you haven’t seen this movie, I’d recommend you stop reading now and go watch it. The next paragraph spoils the ending.

Up until the end, the sequence of events was novel and unpredictable- I always had the feeling that I knew what was coming but I kept being surprised. Somehow the creature had been menacing without killing. Then the last ten minutes happened, where EVERYTHING I knew was going to happen happened, where the creature turned into a faceless monster that a hundred other movies did this year, where the internal conflict changed to an action oriented one, and even the yawn-inducing twist ending was obvious. In short, if the movie had simply ended with the creature dying, leaving the viewer to reflect on the experience, it would have been a much better overall experience.

It’s really too bad that Splice gave the audience what they expected at the end, because its strength until then was doing just the opposite.

I haven’t really seen any movies lately that I consider a must see but I did rent In Bruges on dvd and thought it was pretty interesting. It has a bit of a normal action movie premise but with more original characters and a sequence of events, with just a touch of that European Guy Ritchie flavor to have style but not enough to be annoying. The writer and Director, Martin McDonagh, has parts England and Ireland in him and that seems to carry through to this film (which strangely enough takes place in Belgium). By all accounts he is an up and coming director so it might be worth checking out his first feature film.

Iron Man 2 is about as good as the first. Maybe better in some ways- the villain isn’t as cheesy and there are two of them, it has more and funnier jokes, we get War Machine, and it explores the political ramifications of an actual Iron Man suit existing. It also has many of the same faults- namely cookie cutter character development and surprisingly limited and impotent action scenes.

So while I completely hated the first movie why is it that I think the sequel is up to the standard of ‘ok’? Well, it all has to do with where both movies start to fall apart. The original had a solid and exciting opening but then abused the timeline and common logic so much that anything after the first 30 minutes ended up being complete garbage. The sequel has many story problems as well but at least it waits until the climax to start self destructing. Historically it is usually the ending of movies, when things need to be wrapped up, that bad writing rears its ugly head and takes a fat dump on the audience.

So on to some spoilers (and some nitpicking). In the sequel, the villain Whiplash is contracted to build competing Iron Man suits by Hammer, Tony Stark’s business rival. Instead of building suits he builds unmanned drones which gets Hammer understandably upset. Predictably, Whiplash takes control of the drones and the War Machine suit and attacks Iron Man. Scarlett Johansson, whoever she is supposed to be, busts into the computer lab and frees War Machine from the villain’s control leaving both good guys to defeat him. End of story.

But there are so many problems with this scenario that make it feel generic and toothless:

1. Why does Whiplash create drones instead of military armored suits like he is contracted to do? He can take control of War Machine with someone inside it – certainly he could do the same with other soldiers and keep Hammer from getting upset with him for building the wrong thing. It would also make Iron Man’s job a lot more difficult if he had to fend off attacks from innocent people without killing them. The obvious reason for this change is so we could get a lot of CG explosions everywhere.
2. When Scarlett Johansson breaks into the computer and reboots the War Machine suit, why not also disarm all of the drones? The obvious reason for this change is so we could get a lot of CG explosions everywhere.
3. Seriously, 10 second warnings on bombs? How successful would the Taliban be if they used timers? After a year where The Hurt Locker won Best Picture, can’t the movie industry grow up already and realize that people don’t put bright red blinking lights with warning countdowns on bombs? It sort of defeats the purpose.

Once again, the writers are treating us like complete morons. How else can they allow such glaring oversights? It’s like they bought some B-Roll for the plot.

We got that B Roll

Believe me, I work in an entertainment studio. I know how these things work. When you don’t have a smart visionary spearheading the direction you end up with something very vanilla. This write by committee approach results in the very safe, paint by number storyline. And in generic plots like this one it is more important to have iconic moments than to make sense.

So the sequel is more interesting because of specific events and a longer period of plausibility. Watch it and have fun- just don’t dig into the script too deeply. Otherwise you might get so enraged that you feel compelled to start a blog just to bitch about it.

I just watched this quality documentary about the hunting of dolphins in a Japanese town. The original Flipper trainer became an anti-dolphinarium activist and is trying his best to make sure dolphins have the same international protections as whales and don’t get hunted. A team of environmentalists gets high tech in a real life special ops mission that proves to be interesting viewing.

The Good:

The Cove doesn’t use a lot of the cheap documentary tricks that usually make me hate the form of film. They don’t play horrible music and show people in unflattering slow motion clips if they want you to dislike them. Sure, it is a documentary, and sure, they are trying to push their beliefs on you. While they don’t go out of their way to show the Japanese side of the story I think they do a good job of not being overly unfair like most documentaries. And there does appear to some shadiness with the town of Taiji.

The Bad:

Sure, dolphins are cool and all and I don’t believe they should be killed but it is really hard to be too judgmental over what another country chooses for food. Yes, a lot of dolphins are dying and yes, there is a lot of blood in the water. I am sure there is a lot of blood at cow and pig slaughterhouses as well. If you look around the world you will find a lot that disgusts the average Westerner. Cats and dogs are eaten in China. Monkey brains are a delicacy in Indonesia and China. Horses are eaten in parts of Europe. And China. Actually, in case you didn’t know, Chinese people eat pretty much anything. So when it comes to whale and dolphin hunting it’s just really hard to hate on the Japanese unless you are a vegetarian and believe that no animals should be eaten at all.

All said and done, The Cove is a well made film with good pacing and direction. At only 90 minutes it is very easy to watch and you will no doubt learn at least a few interesting things from it. Check it out.

This movie is a remake of the 1941 classic by Universal Pictures. The Talbots, Lawrence and his father John, the gypsy involvement on the edge of town, and the ultimate ending are all taken from the original. There are some familiar crutches like the opening poem and the walking stick although these are given less significance in the sequel. The creators decided to shake things up by switching who the bad guy is, possibly in an attempt to surprise viewers familiar with the 1941 version. Unfortunately the result is an obvious plot twist and ends up much worse than no twist at all. Ironically, the movie is more predictable this way.

For a movie like The Wolfman to be successful it is important that the right atmosphere is created. It is vital that the setting and curse play into our romantic horror tendencies and remains a constant. Instead we are treated to an inconsistent mismash of genre archetypes that ends up feeling like an 80s movie. The gore in the movie is quick and thoughtless and deemed more important than any subtext of fear that having a beast closeby would arouse. There are too many cheap scare tactics, or what I like to call, “Oh, it’s just the cat!” Making the audience jump as a werewolf unexpectedly leaps on screen, then the realization that it was an imagination, then immediately after a werewolf leaps on screen AGAIN, then the realization that THAT was just an imagination – does not good cinema make. With a Victorian setting, mention of Jack the Ripper, and asylum subplots, much more could have been done to make this a truly horrifying experience.

Front and foremost among the reasons this is a bad movie is a wellworn rule:

Werewolf Rule #1: Wolfman can never be cool.

Werewolves can be cool. Lycanthropy is fascinating. The key word here is ‘man’. I have yet to see a rendition of a man with a human face but slight wolf features not look campy. And that’s because Wolfman can never be cool. In fact, if I may, I would like to take the liberty to modernize the wording of the rule.

Modern Werewolf Rule #1: Wolfman is ghey.

Look at the 1941 wolfman next to the 2010 version. If you can tell me with a serious face that the 2nd looks 70 years cooler then you are a good liar.

If The Wolfman was meant to be an old timey remake with a bit of the old Hollywood flair snuck into the horror performances then that would be commendable. While there were times that the wolfman reminded me of his cheesy predecessor, the creators never really went all out with the old fashioned campiness. The entire mess just didn’t fit together.

It seems like the movie production went through its fair share of drama. The release date was delayed a couple of times. The original director quit over creative differences (ie. he realized the movie sucked). A small turn of good fortune occurred when Danny Elfman left the movie since his music is so formulaic these days, but then the other musician leaves and Danny Elfman comes back. Sounds like the production couldn’t catch a break. Still, all these obstacles may be a reason for the bad end result but not an excuse.

Many creative differences were over the look of the wolfman. The decision to not use very much CGI was an interesting one. It’s hard to knock the idea (and ideal) on face value. On one hand I enjoy the opportunity of having something with a real physical presence and a good actor underneath but often the result is just a guy in a halloween mask turning to the camera and growling. It feels too cheesy. The obvious solution is to lean more wolflike. Take a look at this early marketing image of the wolfman in one of his other incarnations. That guy looks badass. Unfortuntely, this is NOT in the movie.

The transformation is exactly what we’ve seen in older movies. There is nothing interesting about close up quick shots of hands and feet changing into a wolf these days. Camera cuts were methods used to get around the limited technology of yesteryear but there’s no reason for that trickery today. We deserve to see a man change to wolf in fullscreen. If you’ve seen An American Werewolf in London then nothing about this transformation scene will be fresh.

The one interesting addition to The Wolfman is the idea that Lawrence Talbot might be insane. Is he a lunatic who murders indiscriminately because he thinks he is a wolf? Is lycanthropy a mental illness that can be treated in an asylum? Does the death of his mother torture him enough that he breaks away from his humanity? All of these are great questions that the movie doesn’t delve into deep enough. Instead of focusing parts of the story on these elements we are treated to a couple stock memory flashbacks and an asylum montage. I feel this, above all, is the film’s most egregious wasted potential.

Instead, the biggest question we are left with is why? Why do none of the characters do anything in between full moons? Why does Lawrence Talbot get blamed for the murders when they started before he was in town and in fact he gets attacked along with others at one point? Why make this movie? Its style feels dated and borrows from many sources, the visual effects are subpar, and the scares are no more sophisticated than what you get in your average haunted house. As a remake it offers nothing new, and then there’s just no point anymore.

Wolfman Film History

The Werewolf – 1913 silent short, the first ever film about a werewolf, albeit untraditional. The daughter of a Navajo witch transforms to a wolf to attack invading white settlers. It is interesting to note that the modern Twilight werewolves are Native Americans.

The Wolf Man – 1924 silent film, about a man who would drink too much alcohol and go into a blind rage for the night. No surprise this was during the beginning of Prohibition. He thought he was responsible for gruesome murders but it turns out he wasn’t. Not an animal in any literal means.

Werewolf in London – 1935 film, first classic werewolf movie, where a man is bitten by a werewolf and tries to cure his lycanthropy whilst being a danger to those he loves. The makeup is very toned down and the more humanlike appearance was the first concept of a wolf man. It works better in this film because the afflicted could almost still pass for human.

The Wolf Man – 1941, the popularized wolfman movie introducing silver bullets as a vulnerability. A sequel soon after created the explicit notion of the full moon being the trigger. Full blown cheese.

An American Werewolf in London – 1981 horror/ comedy inspired by the original. Unlike its predecessors, went with a more traditional lycanthropy form and turned the afflicted into mostly a wolf. The transformation and makeup was so good at the time that the Oscars added an Outstanding Achievement in Makeup category for this movie.

Lots of factors can contribute to making a movie bad so in turn there are many different levels and types of ‘bad’. Public Enemies isn’t a horrible movie by most standards, even mine. The subject matter is compelling enough, Johnny Depp gives a good performance, true stories always pique interest, and Michael Mann is a great director. Where this film fails is in the Hollywood Treatment that is aggravatingly common in the industry.

Really, do you have to have a love story be the central motivation for John Dillinger’s last year of life? Because that’s what it was. The guy went crazy robbing banks for a year and hiding out until he was caught and killed. He wasn’t looking for one last score. And he certainly wasn’t madly in love with ‘Blackbird’. Try to sell me true love when the dude doesn’t ultimately get caught with a prostitute who was a regular of his. Maybe I might buy it then.

Not enough sensationalism for you? How about Hollywood’s need to find meaning in death? Watch any true story about somebody famous who died, and I mean any one you want, and the character in question will always have an introspective moment before they go. Dillinger’s bank heist friend in the movie had a heartfelt realization when he tells John that he doesn’t think he’s gonna make it much longer. Of course he dies in the shootout that follows. And Dillinger himself had a zen epiphany watching his last movie. Now, I knew John Dillinger was going to die but I hadn’t read up on the facts of his life and I didn’t know exactly how, and these moments of the film actually ruined the story for me. It telegraphed what was going to happen before it happened so badly that it made the experience less interesting.

How else can this story be romanticized? Let’s make John a stand-up guy who never lets his buddies down. And as a contrast let’s toss in Baby Face Nelson and make him a complete dick. Granted, it’s true that Nelson was more reckless. And it’s true that Dillinger had some imaginative moments – he actually did escape from a jail in a sheriff’s car and robbed at least one bank pretending they were scouting locations for a bank robbery scene in a movie. But still, both Nelson and Dillinger were ruthless cop killers.

Pretty Boy Floyd and Baby Face Nelson both actually outlived John Dillinger. What gets me though is how bad they did Baby Face. This was one tough guy in real life. The day he died he was chased by two officers and his car flipped. There was a gun fight and he was hit in the side. Instead of running, Nelson got out of cover and walked straight at the two officers, yelling at them and shooting. He was shot a bit more in the process but killed them both before getting in a car and leaving to die later. Why the movie chose to skip this is obvious – they didn’t want to outshine Dillinger- but doesn’t this type of thing endlessly piss you off when watching “true stories?” What if you watched a movie about Baby Face next and Dillinger was the douchebag? If true stories don’t at least presume credibility then why not instead make a work of fiction? The idea of poaching real people for literary license doesn’t sit right with me.

So in the end, the movie isn’t that bad. It’s a bit entertaining and has some good actors involved. But if you were hoping for greatness or that timeless quality, well folks, it’s not here. This is just another script that was passed back and forth through Hollywood too much until it was regurgitated as every other movie you’ve ever seen.

This movie was horrible and I’ll tell you why. There are some serious spoilers coming up so if you haven’t watched the movie you shouldn’t be reading this.

2 hours and 50 minutes is too long for this garbage. The length alone isn’t what I object to but somebody somewhere should’ve realized this movie wasn’t good enough to justify it.

The dialog was extremely bad. How many, “I guess the comedian didn’t have the last laugh,” jokes am I supposed to sit through?

The whole thing felt so juvenile. These were cheesy super-heroes with cheesy quirks. The author’s idea of a bad childhood is the mother screaming, “I wish I had an abortion!” to her son. It’s obvious the comic books were written with a 13 year old audience in mind. Dr. Manhattan came off as the product of an art student who just learned how to draw the human form and so kept drawing naked men.

Wow, talk about timeline hackjobs. Dr. Manhattan and Silk Spectre go to Mars to have a conversation. In that time, Rorschach and Nite Owl sneak into the bad guy’s office, hack his computer to uncover the plot, get on their ship and fly to Antarctica, infiltrate the fortified base, and confront the enemy. Then Dr. Manhattan and Silk Spectre finish their conversation. What? They’re not seriously going to montage a 5 minute conversation over all those other events and have me not notice it.

Do audiences not realize when this “movie time” phenomena occurs or do they just not care? Seconds after a nuclear bomb goes off, scientists have already determined the apparent cause of the explosions? That would take weeks! Think I’m nitpicking? Well, then exactly 4 minutes later, Russia and the US reach a peace agreement and there is already a press conference on tv about it! Does that sit well with everybody too? At what point should we stop swallowing this poorly thought out narrative?

The evil villain is this crazy egyptian soliloquy machine until, at some point, he turns completely normal and rational without any outside factors. If he wasn’t going to fight at the end then why did he even start fighting to begin with? And he wants to create world peace by triggering multiple nuclear explosions? What kind of plan is that? Believe me, when the world is on the brink of nuclear war the last thing you want to do is blow up cities. Nothing will trigger armageddon faster than that.

Now I’m just droning on. But the sum of all of this is that the movie is tragically disappointing. The underlying premise of famous old-school super heroes living mostly normal lives today is original but almost nothing else in the film is. Let’s face it. The graphic novel was written in 1985 and is outdated. The movie adaptation went for complete reverence of the comic books- while that may appease the grown-up readers it isn’t likely to garner new fans.

I liked this movie. I really did. It was the right combination of entertaining, eye-opening, funny, romantic – all the ingredients to a great stew. And that’s where things should have ended. But Golden Globes and other awards?

Let’s not kid ourselves. Slumdog is a fairy tale movie woven around a ‘Who wants to be a Millionaire?’ theme. It’s not high art. You can’t be pretentious about it if you tried. Let’s not get carried away just because the movie industry wants India to be cool. If I was a conspiracy nut I would say that this is a gateway-Bollywood movie- just a primer to open your mind to the idea because if you went straight to an authentic one your head would spin (I recommend ‘Singh is Kinng’).

But honestly, Slumdog isn’t even as important as that. It’s just a nice feel-good movie with a happy ending. Isn’t that enough these days?