tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36665325983508545362024-03-14T08:07:44.029-07:00Movies & TV SeriesStreaming And Watch Online. Sign up For Free and Downloadnotyourordinarynerdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17130736757414090873noreply@blogger.comBlogger266125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3666532598350854536.post-32701342806294756582021-10-11T11:19:00.000-07:002021-10-15T02:49:26.571-07:00Free Guy<p><i>Spoiler-free!</i></p><p>What do you get when you remake <i>The Truman Show</i> but update it for modern day by adding elements of <i>Ready Player One</i>, and a bit of the <i>Groundhog Day</i> concept, and make Ryan Reynolds the lead?</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhZ2Dcl7T8QtuSBjPA1jilGKeb3-3HwipxnTAyl25bH0w3WGcf_COej8o31dGcX7ndQ75mWqHuVI_O7m0tBkJhaJwcP9xewuQpRirJ9Ie0kQ_eRmBWQugZM-NJpHrYOAhWnuwWM1LGw_8A_dbHaNRwh0l6xrMyUzIG5nGsP9NRhrkH4xoat86wmBybBjA=s2048" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1365" data-original-width="2048" height="285" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhZ2Dcl7T8QtuSBjPA1jilGKeb3-3HwipxnTAyl25bH0w3WGcf_COej8o31dGcX7ndQ75mWqHuVI_O7m0tBkJhaJwcP9xewuQpRirJ9Ie0kQ_eRmBWQugZM-NJpHrYOAhWnuwWM1LGw_8A_dbHaNRwh0l6xrMyUzIG5nGsP9NRhrkH4xoat86wmBybBjA=w429-h285" width="429" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">You get a summer movie that actually feels like a summer movie.</td></tr></tbody></table><p>Here's a shocker: this movie isn't two hours of<i> </i>Reynolds running around in a videogame world making quippy jokes. There's like, a story. And stakes. Remember those? There are characters who have goals, and an antagonist who's in their way. And they're the good guys because their goals are moral, and the antagonist is the bad guy because his goals are immoral, and the story is written so that we'll root for the good guys and have a satisfying sense of resolution if they succeed.</p><p>"No duh, Sarah, that's how movies work." Yep. It's weird. I wish I could say I wasn't starstruck by a mere coherent plotline, but here we are. And I know it's not only me. "It's deeper than I expected" is a popular comment on this film. Why? Because it has real-world characters too, with visible character arcs? Because there's an NPC in a videogame who gains self-awareness and freewill and that makes us consider what human value he has? Not exactly mind-blowing stuff here. And yet, it is. Because movies have been without basic things like moral standards, thought, or storytelling coherence for so long that we forgot how essential they are. There's a romantic subplot that's resolved for more reason than "the movie is ending now," and it felt earth-shatteringly original. </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhN0hsfMDFrG5TP-tDcothfygK4AKXPatFl-drjSSy8PcK0C6A-oOZ--p8VqnuerulSm_LDYsEQeC2HUdW2rAP45FBYsnROe2tE5ivpJS2qUTxU8x_8NBCHGlLyRmFHyMaiN120QROElYMf0UJM4r-sYT64uet63E76UHd6v6DJqYO2Nms4nsxOkOONZw=s1920" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="226" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhN0hsfMDFrG5TP-tDcothfygK4AKXPatFl-drjSSy8PcK0C6A-oOZ--p8VqnuerulSm_LDYsEQeC2HUdW2rAP45FBYsnROe2tE5ivpJS2qUTxU8x_8NBCHGlLyRmFHyMaiN120QROElYMf0UJM4r-sYT64uet63E76UHd6v6DJqYO2Nms4nsxOkOONZw=w400-h226" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Shawn Levy understands how to assemble a competent film. "Earth-shattering," he is not. Something else is up here.</td></tr></tbody></table><p>While I appreciate that this movie returns to a certain filmmaking standard, that's not to say that it's automatically great. The spell only lasted during the runtime, and now I'm left to mull over how exceptionally sad it is that so little could feel like so much. Because sure, the movie feeds us what I've been craving, but in bites, not meal-sized portions. To say <i>Free Guy</i> puts in more effort than recent action-comedy flicks isn't saying anything, really. They have funny guy Ryan Reynolds at their disposal, and they let him do his thing. But too much so. More often it's more like they <i>leave</i> him—to ad-lib quips on top of normal scenes, instead of writing set-up and pay-off jokes for him to elevate. Most of the comedic scenes are not only unnecessary but totally humorless. (Hello Channing Tatum.)</p><p>They let Taika Waititi have fun too, and I liked hating the character. But did they think we wouldn't notice he was the bad guy unless they had him spell it out for us? "I love money, I want more money, I don't care about anything but money." We get it. A little subtlety wouldn't kill you, and would ring truer, even for an over-the-top character. And of course, they can't help but wedge in some political talking points, some that clash with the actual intent of the movie. I'd have cut 10-20 minutes from the runtime, mostly in cameos and people watching events from the real world. That got in the way. There are also three separate sequences that feel like the "final battle." One was expensive, one "funny," and one had narrative relevance. Guess which one I'd keep?</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjJ4_xMz0FaBJ9jgZ7acA4eD0zY30IUKAX7MbeBpmyG6OSuAM2FyxOvfrZFtxtSR9gt7TvzBD6caO-fU3y2pnduJaaWQlIR7QUomQTFJ3VJJ_HJEihuvUdM5cIEQbTfHLPuGto-2jGLUEXxYWfx-e0MhAbMSR9LWbK3N3NcNT2VFMVR4MFiWKN7t22qSw=s1600" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="281" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjJ4_xMz0FaBJ9jgZ7acA4eD0zY30IUKAX7MbeBpmyG6OSuAM2FyxOvfrZFtxtSR9gt7TvzBD6caO-fU3y2pnduJaaWQlIR7QUomQTFJ3VJJ_HJEihuvUdM5cIEQbTfHLPuGto-2jGLUEXxYWfx-e0MhAbMSR9LWbK3N3NcNT2VFMVR4MFiWKN7t22qSw=w422-h281" width="422" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Even in action movies the last thing I care about is the action...</td></tr></tbody></table><p>My favorite aspect was the real-people characters played by Jodie Comer and Joe Keery. They own the heart of the film, baby-sized as it is. Keery's relevance to the plot was especially a nice surprise. I was fully expecting him to be a side character meant for more jokes only. In fact, I wish there had been more real-life all around. Comer's character is even more essential on paper but doesn't feel it because we see her mostly in the game, where she lacks her real-world personality. We thought that Reynolds' star-power, the humor, and high concept actiony videogame fun was the point, but it's not, not really. It's dressing. <i>Free Guy</i> remembers that better than most, but not quite well enough.</p>notyourordinarynerdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17130736757414090873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3666532598350854536.post-40734981321215012392021-10-07T12:17:00.000-07:002021-10-15T02:49:26.713-07:00Escape Room: Tournament Of Champions (2021)<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;">OCTOBER 5, 2021</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">GENRE: <a href="http://horror-movie-a-day.blogspot.com/search/label/Survival" target="_blank">SURVIVAL</a>, <a href="http://horror-movie-a-day.blogspot.com/search/label/Thriller" target="_blank">THRILLER</a><br>SOURCE: <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09BMBF5ZW/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B09BMBF5ZW&linkCode=as2&tag=homoada-20&linkId=31db423b35bc8606d8776c739037b8c4" target="_blank">BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION)</a></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> Something seemed "off" when I saw <i><b>Escape Room: Tournament Of Champions</b></i> in theaters over the summer, primarily that it didn't really open up any more about the world of Minos than was seemingly promised by the (overlong) conclusion of the first film. Not that I expected a full rundown, since it seemed Sony would love to have a new genre franchise and thus would need to space out such reveals to keep the story going, but it often felt more designed for people who hadn't even seen the first one, with a lengthy recap at the top (not just a repeat of the final scene like <i>Friday the 13th Parts 2</i> and 3, it's a full 90 second TV style refresher, missing only the announcer saying "Previously, on <i>Escape Room</i>!") and what amounts to a status quo reset, as if a third film could double as part 2 for anyone who skipped this one.</p><span id="fullpost"><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> So I wasn't entirely surprised when Sony announced that the blu-ray would have an extended opening and ending, totaling 25 minutes of new footage. However it only ended up eight minutes longer than the theatrical version, so some stuff (and at least two characters!) do not appear in the longer version. This review will assume you have seen or at least have read a thorough synopsis of the theatrical version, so if that's not you, I'll just say that a. both versions are on the disc if you want to compare and b. the new cut is improved, though the film as a whole isn't as interesting/exciting as the original, due to both the usual sequel hurdles and an utterly baffling plot setup that goes far beyond my limits of acceptance for movie logic.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> And alas, that doesn't change at all in this version: our "champions" are still coincidentally trapped on a public subway car that is disconnected and sent off track into a Minos labyrinth. That would have been fine if it was another group of random people, but the fact that they're all selected to have been there (they've all beaten Minos before) is just ridiculous even by these movies' standards. We see how returning heroes Zoey and Ben are lured there by a pickpocket, but what about the other four? Also, what if someone else was in that car? It was just a normally operating subway during a busy New York day - it's not only silly that these six champions were the only ones on it, but it's also kind of a missed opportunity. It would have been great to have five experts and one rando who had no idea what an escape room even was, let alone how to solve this one's much more difficult puzzles. Not only would it have been fun from a narrative standpoint, but it'd also allow them to meet us halfway with the giant leap of logic we're asked to take. Also, not for nothing, but wouldn't this have been a good idea for <i>Escape Room 6</i>, an <i>Avengers</i>-style meetup of all the previous films' survivors? The other four people are just random to us (and to Ben and Zoey), so their "champion" status ultimately doesn't mean anything. Zoey's still the one solving everything.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> The rooms are pretty good; nothing as eye popping as the first one's upside down room, but the electrified subway car has a pretty good puzzle at its core (pulling the stop handles that correspond to each letter of the alphabet to solve a game of Hangman) and the laser-trapped bank vault are exciting and benefit from being the first two, when you're unsure who will die first. It's kind of a tradition to quickly kill off excess survivors in a sequel (think <i>Dream Master</i> wiping out Joey and Kincaid in the first reel, and then again in <i>Dream Child</i> with Dan), so Ben making an early exit wouldn't be a big shock, adding immensely to the suspense. Sometimes they rely a bit too much on the characters just simply knowing things off the top of their head (like what kind of plastic wouldn't melt with acid), but they are each great little setpieces and thankfully none feel like rehashes of the first film's games.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> That said it just feels too similar as a whole to the first movie, which is where the lack of "inside Minos" stuff hurts a bit. Even the first film had more, technically, with the betting board and what not, backroom glimpses we don't get at all in the theatrical version and only get briefly in the alternate version. (Again, I am assuming you've seen the theatrical if you've read this far, so turn back now if you don't want any of it spoiled!) In the extended version, the film opens completely differently (except for the recap), showing three new characters, an unhappy couple and their daughter, with the mom (Tanya van Graan from <i>The Empty Man</i>, completely uncredited) seemingly wanting a divorce from the husband, who appears to be designing Minos escape rooms and is neglecting her and the daughter as a result. Mom is then trapped in one in her own home (a sauna puzzle that cooks her when she fails to solve it), and then we flash forward to the present day with Ben and Zoey planning their New York trip.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> But in place of Zoey's psychiatrist scenes (the shrink doesn't appear in this new version), we get the grown up daughter, now played by the Orphan herself, Isabelle Fuhrman. Now she's seemingly trapped by her father and having to design games, and if you've seen the movie already and thinking "Wait, isn't that what Deborah Ann Woll's character was doing?" you are correct, and then you'll be sad to know that Woll doesn't appear either (despite still being credited). Fuhrman more or less fills that same narrative spot - meeting up with Zoey and asking for her help to design puzzles so that they can both be set free (with Ben once again trapped alone, albeit in a different one - he's in a sauna kind of like the mom instead of the flooded room), which I guess means if this is the canon version of the story going forward (if there is a 3rd film), Woll's Amanda is still dead. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> It's an interesting choice to look back at; at some point they decided to omit Fuhrman and her family, and all the new wrinkles that came with their characters' reveals (the ending has a little twist to it I won't spoil here), and instead bring back a "dead" character for a movie that seems more designed for people who hadn't seen the first one anyway? Naturally, none of the disc's three brief bonus features shed any light on this decision, so we may never know why they decided to toss over a quarter of the film in favor of something less interesting, not to mention adding a pretty dumb epilogue (the plane scene, with Zoey hearing her psychiatrist's ringtone, was also added later and thus not in this extended version). They took a B grade movie and turned it into a C+, for... reasons?</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> At any rate, again, both versions are on the disc, so you can decide which one you prefer. I think the extended one is better, but that also leaves me in the undesirable position of saying "they weakened this movie by adding Deborah Ann Woll," i.e. someone who should be in every movie as far as I'm concerned. The aforementioned featurettes are all fluffy nonsense that you can live without, and if you've already seen the movie the new stuff doesn't drastically change the overall "eh, it's fine" feeling of it as a whole, so a rental to check out the long cut will probably suffice. If you haven't seen it yet, watch the extended one, then watch the theatrical and tell me which you prefer - I'm curious if I'm alone in thinking they should have gone with the one with Fuhrman all along. It definitely dips into more horror territory (in fact I could almost stretch this into another sub-genre! Hint hint!), so there's something that should appeal to anyone reading this.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> What say you?</p><p><iframe width="400" height="225" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/KlfUbZJVInA" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe><iframe style="width:120px;height:240px;" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&OneJS=1&Operation=GetAdHtml&MarketPlace=US&source=ac&ref=qf_sp_asin_til&ad_type=product_link&tracking_id=homoada-20&marketplace=amazon&region=US&placement=B09BMBF5ZW&asins=B09BMBF5ZW&linkId=f0ca8f869fd4f8bdefc8791708656e28&show_border=true&link_opens_in_new_window=true&price_color=ffffff&title_color=ffffff&bg_color=000000"> </iframe><script type="text/javascript">var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); </script><script type="text/javascript">try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-12436276-1"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {}</script><a href="https://twitter.com/share" class="twitter-share-button" data-hashtags="horror">Tweet</a><script>!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');</script></p><script data-ad-client="ca-pub-3302834381937327" async src="https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script></span>notyourordinarynerdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17130736757414090873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3666532598350854536.post-53133841803394615612021-10-05T15:03:00.000-07:002021-10-15T02:49:26.782-07:00Night of the Animated Dead (2021)<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;">OCTOBER 4, 2021</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">GENRE: <a href="http://horror-movie-a-day.blogspot.com/search/label/Animated" target="_blank">ANIMATED</a>, <a href="http://horror-movie-a-day.blogspot.com/search/label/Zombie" target="_blank">ZOMBIE</a><br>SOURCE: <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09D5QLBHR/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B09D5QLBHR&linkCode=as2&tag=homoada-20&linkId=e9c38351ae131473798d032689d479ed" target="_blank">BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION)</a></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <i>Warner Bros. Home Entertainment provided me with a free copy of the DVD I reviewed in this Blog Post. The opinions I share are my own.</i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> Several million years ago, I spent a week of HMAD reviews on <i>Night of the Living Dead</i> and its many incarnations (the 30th anniversary, the Savini remake, etc.), and while it wasn't the "best" the most interesting was <i>NOTLD Re-Animated</i>, which took the audio from the film but replaced all the imagery with a variety of animated scenes: traditional animation, stop motion, 8-bit video game style, etc. It wasn't the greatest thing in the world by any means, but it was interesting to see how the film could be reinterpreted; even with the same dialogue and music we've heard a million times, scenes would have a different tone just from the aesthetic. It's a strong contrast to <i><b>Night of the Animated Dead</b></i>, which is basically a shot for shot remake (the script is about 95% identical, more on that soon) but with one animation style throughout, so after five minutes (if that) you'll know whether or not you're going to like it.</p><span id="fullpost"><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> ...I did not like it.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> The credits list a lot of animators, so I'll refrain from critiquing that aspect of it - I didn't particularly care for the style, but others may find it great, and that is the hallmark of animation. There are people who absolutely love pixel-art type animation; I find it to be an eyesore. There's no right or wrong, so beyond saying it wasn't for me, there's no real point in going on and on about that aspect of it. You can watch the trailer and decide for yourself if it's something you'd enjoy. That said, there are some inventive gore gags that are the invention of this film (obviously not something that could have been done in the 1968 original); I particularly liked what actually kills Tom when the truck explodes.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> I WILL, however, take the creative team to task, because there are two unforgivable things about it that would leave me cold on the film whether it was stick figures or the greatest 3D animation ever produced by mankind. The first is that this is literally just the same script from the original live action film; they snip some dialogue here and there or speed up some of the action (much less boarding up of windows, for example), but apart from the film's final minute every line of dialogue, every action, every character motivation, etc are all taken word for word from John Russo and George Romero's script. On the making of (the disc's lone extra), the director says "Once we had the script locked down..." (prefacing how they approached the animation) and I had to wonder what exactly he had to "lock down" beyond taking a sharpie and crossing out a few things here and there, generously assuming they made those snips that early in the process and not when editing the animated picture together.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> And yes, this means it's not even modernized, which seems to be the only reason to remake a movie like this in the first place (besides money, of course). As hard as it may be to swallow, we're actually further away from the "modern" version Savini made than he was when updating Romero (it's been 31 years since that one; Savini's was only 22 years after the original), so there's obviously lots of new things they bring to the table even if it was in live action, even more when given the freedom of animation (as they intermittently prove with the gore gags, which obviously don't have the same kind of impact in cel-based animation as they would on actual actors). When Barb and Johnny pull up to the cemetery and the radio broadcast once again crackles back to life, I was kind of aghast - what purpose does it have to stay in 1968, when new technology could open up possibilities of how they get their information (or misinformation; think of how an actual zombie outbreak would be handled on twitter!).</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> That leads me to the other red flag: Romero, Russo, etc are not credited anywhere on the film, not even with a token special thanks. The credits skip over a screenplay credit of any sort, just the director and a bunch of producers, so we can assume that not only is the Romero estate not being paid for the very ideas they are recreating (seriously, the characters even all wear the same clothes), but they don't even acknowledge the creators with the bare minimum. It's an incredibly gross realization, and honestly if the credits were at the top of the film I wouldn't have even bothered to watch the rest of it. It's only after an hour of their weird recreation that the viewer can discover (through very slow credits that bring the film up to a still laughable 70 minutes) no one involved bothered to credit the people who created the story in the first place. It's one thing when you're making a sequel and forget to credit the people who made the original when you might be bringing back one or two of their characters, it's another thing entirely to take their dialogue and actions verbatim and not even give them a "thank you" (the making of even has clips of the original, but still no one utters Romero's name).</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> So who, exactly, is this for? I mean, any horror fan knows that <i>NOTLD</i>'s public domain status means anyone can make a buck off of it, but the other remakes - even the 3D one with Sid Haig - all put their own spin on the narrative, something that does not occur here. There are exactly two creative moves of note here: one is actually showing Ben's flashback to the diner and truck explosion instead of just hearing him tell the story, and the other is at the very end we listen to the posse make idle chit chat about the houses in the area ("That house has three chimneys!") instead of the still photographs that ended the original film. But those are hardly substantial enough to believe anyone would go to the trouble of remaking the entire film to "fix" two minor issues some people may have when watching it, and since the animation style isn't exactly revolutionary or unique, I have to assume that despite the lengthy animator credits, this was very cheap to make and was easy to profit from once they had distribution, and that was the extent of their creative ambition. Cool.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> At least they put some effort into hiring a recognizable voice cast. The generally likable/leading man type Josh Duhamel is a left-field choice for the awful Mr Cooper, but he puts in a good performance, as does Dulé Hill as Ben. The women are all wasted though; Katie Isabelle would have been great for Barbara if they were going for the asskicker version seen in Savini's version (which impressively started off identical but then switched gears for a very different third act), but as anyone knows she doesn't exactly say much once she's at the house (here I will mock the animation to say they seemingly loved her turning boderline comatose, allowing them to "animate" entire shots where she doesn't move at all), and Nancy Travis as Mrs. Cooper sees some of the character's already limited amount of dialogue excised, making me wonder why they bothered hiring a name for her at all. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> But, shocking as it may seem, a few good vocal performances and some amusing gore gags are not enough to recommend a movie that tells the exact same story we've seen before before slapping you in the face by not even crediting the people who actually wrote it. If you absolutely love the animation style (sadly nothing like the one on the cover, which seems like false advertising when it comes to animation; it'd be like if Disney showcased 3D models of their characters on the Blu-ray reissues of their cel-based classics) then I guess it can provide 60 minutes of background viewing amusement, but even then I'm sure any reasonable viewer would constantly wonder why it is they were half-watching the story like this when even a colorized version of the original on 1.5x speed would be a better and more respectful use of their time.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> What say you?</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> P.S. Since WB does not release unrated movies, there's an MPAA R rating at the top, rare for a DTV release. Since the language says "Under 17 requires accompanying parent or guardian" I had a mental image of a 15 year old trying to watch this by themselves only to be stopped by a door to door carder. *KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK* "Open up! Movie police - where are your parents?!?" It was more amusing than the film, that's for sure. </p><p><iframe width="400" height="225" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/KP_Az90Uiks" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe><iframe style="width:120px;height:240px;" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&OneJS=1&Operation=GetAdHtml&MarketPlace=US&source=ac&ref=qf_sp_asin_til&ad_type=product_link&tracking_id=homoada-20&marketplace=amazon&region=US&placement=B09D5QLBHR&asins=B09D5QLBHR&linkId=c44a31194c825c695281fe93523e20ea&show_border=true&link_opens_in_new_window=true&price_color=ffffff&title_color=ffffff&bg_color=000000"> </iframe><script type="text/javascript">var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); </script><script type="text/javascript">try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-12436276-1"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {}</script><a href="https://twitter.com/share" class="twitter-share-button" data-hashtags="horror">Tweet</a><script>!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');</script></p><script data-ad-client="ca-pub-3302834381937327" async src="https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script></span>notyourordinarynerdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17130736757414090873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3666532598350854536.post-52519541279355444972021-10-05T10:41:00.000-07:002021-10-15T02:49:26.848-07:00Halloween Kills (2020- oops, 2021)<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;">OCTOBER 21, 2021</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">GENRE: <a href="http://horror-movie-a-day.blogspot.com/search/label/Slasher" target="_blank">SLASHER</a><br>SOURCE: <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09CVN1NCZ/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B09CVN1NCZ&linkCode=as2&tag=homoada-20&linkId=f40e1f6812f3433898b9df7721bd34f0" target="_blank">THEATRICAL (FESTIVAL SCREENING)</a></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> One of the more annoying things about the press cycle for <i>Halloween (2018)</i> was seeing it referred to as a "remake" of the 1978 film, a baffling mistake even if you hadn't seen the film (did they think Jamie Lee Curtis was being de-aged 40 years to play a babysitter?). But ironically, <i><b>Halloween Kills</b></i> ends up being a spiritual redo of the 1981 <i>Halloween II</i>; not only does it pick up immediately after the 2018 film, covering the same night, but it also has Laurie (Curtis) confined to a hospital bed for the bulk of the runtime, recovering from the previous film's injuries. It's also a more successful "later that same night" continuation, as David Gordon Green is much better at aping David Gordon Green than Rick Rosenthal was at aping John Carpenter - you can watch these two back to back without any of the whiplash that accompanies 1978 to 1981.</p><span id="fullpost"><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> It also revives <i>H2</i>'s "angry Haddonfield residents" idea, confined to a single scene (one of my favorites in that film, incidentally) where townsfolk are shown rioting outside the Myers house with the cops trying (barely) to calm them down. However, here it's expanded into what is essentially the B plot of the film; if you recall in <i>H40</i>, Michael Myers wasn't the only one who escaped from the prison bus, and one of those patients (specifically, the guy with the umbrella from that film's opening scene) is still on the loose but also kind of terrified, because after a chance encounter with Tommy Doyle (Anthony Michael Hall*) outside a bar, half the town is now convinced he is Myers, chasing him around while chanting "EVIL DIES TONIGHT!" Eventually they get completely out of control, as mobs tend to do, and you get the idea Michael could just take the rest of the night off and the body count might still rise. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> It's a solid concept, and helps ward off the film's inherent rehash quality caused by its "same night and Laurie is in bed" setup that we've seen before (for all its callbacks, <i>H40</i> never felt like a redo of any other entry). However, the actor playing the innocent patient is a bizarre choice for someone to be mistaken for Michael Myers, as he's shaped more like Danny DeVito, and mistaken BY PEOPLE WHO HAVE SEEN MICHAEL (i.e. Tommy) to be the tall, lanky man of their nightmares. The whole "pegging the wrong guy" thing has been a big problem because of social media over the past few years, and it's a missed opportunity that they didn't utilize that sort of thing to tell this story instead of relying on a previous victim's eyewitness "it's him!" account that makes little sense given their history. By the time Laurie finally sees this poor sod and tells the rampaging mob that it's not him, it's too late - they're all riled up and ignore her. And yeah, that's the inevitable conclusion for this plotline, but it would have worked so much better if it wasn't built on such a shoddy foundation.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> As for the actual Shape, he's having the time of his life! This may have the highest body count of any film in the series; I didn't stop and count, but the previous record holder is 20 (a tie between <i>H5</i> and Zombie's first one**) and thanks to two massacre scenes, along with the standard standalone victims in between, it has to go beyond that. One of them is the one in all the trailers, with Myers taking on the firemen who were actually trying to rescue the big dummy, and from there he kills his way through the town on a path back to his home (so no, he doesn't go to the hospital this time, the other big switch from <i>Halloween II</i>). Some of his victims include minor characters from the last film, so a fresh rewatch might be in order if you don't think you'll recognize every bit actor from the now three year old movie (even if this came out on time I doubt anyone but the hardest hardcore fans would realize that a pair of characters here are ones we've met before). Not that it matters much as far as understanding the movie, but it's kind of an amusing irony; in this revival that removes Michael's personal mission against Laurie, he ends up inadvertently finishing the job with everyone else that ever came within spitting distance of him.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> Oh yeah, Laurie. She's livelier here than the last time she went to Haddonfield Memorial (maybe if Jimmy actually brought her that Coke she woulda been a little more animated?), and given her injuries in the last film it makes more sense that she's out of commission for a while, so long story short I don't mind that she's not up and about - it'd be pretty silly (even for this franchise) to have her back prowling the streets looking for her not-brother so soon after taking that beating. And she ends up sharing a room with someone else who survives an attack (no spoilers), giving both characters some rather sweet character development time - plus one of the few deep-cut Halloween nerd references that actually worked for me. It was kind of surreal to have Curtis show up to intro the film, bursting with her usual candid energy (translation: lots of F bombs) only to watch her mostly lie in a bed for two hours, but whatever faults the movie may have, her somewhat limited screentime and confined performance was not one of them. And for all the people who missed the fact that Michael coming to her house in the last one was NOT his goal, this movie reaffirms it, with Laurie hearing it herself that he never intended to go after her again. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> But yeah, those aforementioned faults? It's gonna be a polarizing film, for sure. The "EVIL DIES TONIGHT!" stuff paves the way for some truly terrible dialogue, as does the return of some of the original characters. Pretty much everyone who survived the first movie is back in some form or other, and while it's lovely to see Sheriff Brackett again (and yes, played by Charles Cyphers), his role comes off as fan service more than an organic addition to the story - by the time he's repeating "Everyone's entitled to one good scare," you might find yourself regretting ever wanting them to bring the character back in the first place. As for the others: Lonnie (the great Robert Longstreet from <i>Midnight Mass</i> and <i>Hill House</i>) is probably the best revival, as Cameron's dad/Tommy's former bully, now pals with him, Lindsey (Kyle Richards, who is actually pretty great), and Nurse Chambers (Nancy Stephens), forming a group of "survivors" who get together every Halloween to toast their escape from the boogeyman.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> In theory it's not a bad idea, but the mix of returning actors and people taking over from others stunts the "reunion" aspect of it all (particularly for Hall, as he's now the third person to play Tommy Doyle in the main franchise), and like the not-Myers guy they chase around, it's kind of built on a giant leap of logic. I'm just trying to imagine the scenario in which Chambers (who, in this version of the timeline, never did anything else beyond drive Loomis to Smith's Grove and get her car stolen) found herself palling around with two kids to form this little group. It's a minor ripple of the same problem that kind of plagued the 2018 film: it erased the series' entire history, but also kind of relied on it to explain why anyone today acted the way they did. Yes, assuming she didn't die in <i>H20</i>, I'd expect the woman who took care of Loomis and comforted Laurie in <i>H2</i> would find herself keeping in touch with these people she actually encountered, but none of that happened, now. Might as well invite the guy from the hardware store to join them. As with Brackett, it's a "nice to see them again" kind of thing, sure, but their reasons for being there are flimsy at best, and also retroactively mess up the previous film - if they're all still so haunted by Myers, and have kept in touch with Laurie, why is it they're only finding out about his escape/return now? News of his escape hit the news that morning. Seems to be a "sidequel" kind of approach would have been better to bring them back to the story, showing what they were up to during the day and how they processed the possibility of facing their monster again.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> Their return also means a lot of clunky dialogue to remind the audience who they are, which poses an interesting scenario - seems to me that people watching will either know exactly who Lonnie Elam is without needing the reminder, or won't care anyway, as it ultimately means very little in a movie with something like 40 characters. There's Laurie and her family, a couple who join Lindsey and Chambers' posse, the firemen, the couple who owns the Myers house (the best of the lot, I should add), the cowboy Sheriff, Cameron, Brackett, another couple who lives near Laurie (guess what happens to them), and - oh yeah - a handful of other characters who appear in the lengthy flashback to 1978 showing how Michael got captured in the first place (a scene more or less meant for the 2018 one but never shot). So with all that going on, does it really matter than Lonnie was the bully kid who Loomis scared away from the Myers house? Nope, but we get a dialogue exchange reminding us!</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> More on the flashback stuff - you can skip this paragraph if you've avoided the trailers - it works pretty well; even the Loomis standin looks pretty great (they still can't quite nail the voice though). And it helps to establish once and for all that even <i>Halloween II</i> was wiped out in this timeline (ironically not helped by a shot of the film appearing when they feel the need to explain who Brackett is), so I really wish they had found the place for it in the last one as originally intended. The problem with it is that most of it appears early on, adding to the strange editing choice that keeps Laurie from appearing for like twenty minutes, as we get the flashback AND another scene that shows us where Cameron was and how he gets reintroduced to the story before finally catching up with our hero. I think if they found a way to sprinkle the flashback stuff throughout the film (it largely focuses on a character who is around in the present day, so a <i>Lost</i>-style series of quicker flashbacks could have worked) it would have all landed better. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> To sum up the last few paragraphs: the movie has a pretty rough first half hour, as it's trying to marry the need to set up all of the new ideas (the Myers house, particularly Judith's bedroom window, ends up being a "thing" throughout the movie) plus the "immediate continuation" approach, and it's not particularly successful. You might feel frustrated just waiting for Laurie AND Michael to reappear and start doing their thing. The sheer amount of kills and scenery changes keeps it going once all that stuff is out of the way, but it's one of those things where it might be difficult to get a general audience - i.e. the people that turned the last film into the most successful entry of the franchise - to go along with these relatively ambitious ideas before they get to the stuff they came for.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> Unless they came for suspense, as there isn't a lot of it. Kills? Sure, but very little of the build up the best entries offered *before* the finishing blow(s). Weirdly, all of the best moments for that sort of thing occur in the Myers house (take THAT, <i>Halloween Resurrection</i>!); the flashback, the current day owners, and a few of our heroes all take turns creeping around the place looking for its former resident, and those scenes have lots of the slowly building dread that I tend to prefer over yet another hacked up victim. But otherwise, he's just more like a force of nature, barely even pausing between kills at times. I don't particularly like the brother angle, but one thing it offered was a more restrained Shape when he was out and about Haddonfield; one of my favorite scenes in <i>Halloween II</i> is where he is just making his way through the town square, ignoring all of the people around him that didn't interest him. This version of the character would kill them all without any resistance, and maybe that sounds appealing to you, but to me it just gets almost tiresome. I'd rather get five great chase scenes that end in deaths than twenty kills without much of a setup.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> Also (another paragraph to skip, though the spoilers are vague) the ending is pretty grim, not to mention rushed. Michael successfully takes on a mob in a way that seems absurd even for this series (it's like a Jackie Chan fight scene where everyone waits their turn to get kicked, or in this case killed) and then seemingly teleports to kill a major character elsewhere, all in the span of like 45 seconds or so. And then it cuts to credits, a cliffhanger of sorts because we all know <i>Halloween Ends</i> is coming next year. So it's a movie that starts wonky and ends abruptly - that's a lot to ask out of an audience who might be hesitant about going to the theater (or signing up for yet another streaming service). I'm sure when <i>Ends</i> is out it'll play better (kind of like how <i>Saw V</i> is fine when you're marathoning), but for now I suspect there will be a lot of frustrated viewers, and they also have to really bring their A game in that one to make up for the seeming loss of _____ in the proceedings, as they were a welcome addition and will be missed (then again, it IS a slasher series and thus I know the body count has to be higher than the number of survivors). </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> That said, there is still a lot to like here, and I ended up putting it somewhere in the middle of my ranking***. It actually started reminding me of the underrated <i>Halloween 5</i> in many ways; it's taking some big swings, and while not all of them work, I have to respect the attempt, even moreso with this than <i>H5</i>. We're talking about what is essentially "Halloween 12" (yep, with <i>Ends</i> it'll surpass the <i>Friday the 13th</i> series in total entries for the first time), so they almost have to take risks just to keep it from feeling like a rerun. One thing they've definitely fixed from the 2018 one is the number of off-screen kills, something that was noticeably prevalent there but barely occurs here - almost every death is shown (and pretty graphic, there's a splattered head that even made ME wince). If you're the sort of fan who equates a body count with quality then you're gonna love the flick for sure. And Carpenter's score is another winner, once again reviving the themes and bringing new stuff to the table.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> It also has some legitimately sad moments, something that a slasher often doesn't have time for. Remember Oscar the incel from the last one (and his gruesome spiked fence death)? His mom shows up at the hospital and sees his corpse, and it's a pretty devastating moment, as is the one where Allyson realizes that her father is dead. In fact all of the character work is pretty on point (clunky introductory dialogue aside), as even the most anonymous victims (like Laurie's neighbors) have some personality that you can't always expect out of a slasher sequel. I wish cowboy Sheriff had more to do (especially with Brackett around; what a contrast! No one will care to bring this guy back in forty years), but thankfully cases like his are the exception instead of the rule.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> Long story short, it's got all the pieces there, they just don't always fit together as well as I hoped. I've rewatched the 2018 one a bunch, but I feel this one won't get grabbed off the shelf as often, at least until I can follow it up with <i>Ends</i> and see the whole story. Overall I like it, but at the same time it's just kind of jumbled, a "for die-hard fans only" kind of affair that asks more of its audience than the last one did, and I don't watch these movies to furrow my brow and wonder why they were doing something the way they were doing it. I think if I was 12 when I saw this I'd love it and grow up defending it, but now, with limited time for watching stuff at all let alone rewatching it, I can't help but feel slightly disappointed that this one doesn't have the same pull that the last one did.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> What say you?</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> * With the film debuting on Peacock and thus will be easier to manipulate the footage, I expect - no, DEMAND - someone deepfake Paul Rudd into a few of Hall's scenes ASAP.<br> ** Actually, <i>Halloween III</i> has 21! But that's not Myers, so it gets asteriskized!<br> *** 1, 3/4, 2018, 2, Kills, 5, RZH2 (d-cut) Curse/H20, RZH1, Resurrection</p><p><iframe width="400" height="225" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/hL6R3HmQfPc" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe><iframe style="width:120px;height:240px;" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&OneJS=1&Operation=GetAdHtml&MarketPlace=US&source=ac&ref=qf_sp_asin_til&ad_type=product_link&tracking_id=homoada-20&marketplace=amazon&region=US&placement=B09CVN1NCZ&asins=B09CVN1NCZ&linkId=e4e3891a21e5f3f35dab42082701049c&show_border=true&link_opens_in_new_window=true&price_color=ffffff&title_color=ffffff&bg_color=000000"> </iframe><script type="text/javascript">var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); </script><script type="text/javascript">try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-12436276-1"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {}</script><a href="https://twitter.com/share" class="twitter-share-button" data-hashtags="horror">Tweet</a><script>!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');</script></p><script data-ad-client="ca-pub-3302834381937327" async src="https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script></span>notyourordinarynerdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17130736757414090873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3666532598350854536.post-14235043827821748442021-10-01T10:47:00.000-07:002021-10-15T02:49:26.911-07:00Blu-Ray Review: Alone In The Dark (1982)<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;">SEPTEMBER 30, 2021</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">GENRE: <a href="http://horror-movie-a-day.blogspot.com/search/label/Slasher" target="_blank">SLASHER</a>, <a href="http://horror-movie-a-day.blogspot.com/search/label/Thriller" target="_blank">THRILLER</a><br>SOURCE: <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07GPXPSLL/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B07GPXPSLL&linkCode=as2&tag=homoada-20&linkId=a57560e1168724d03cb7a3bc50c7816b" target="_blank">BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION)</a></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> Scream Factory has been putting out Warner/New Line titles for over three years now, so I was starting to lose hope that they'd add <i><b>Alone in the Dark</b></i> to their library, as it seemed like a tailor-made option for the outfit. Unlike some of their WB releases (like <i>Trick r' Treat</i>, which already had a packed Blu-ray just a few years prior), <i>Alone</i> had never been released on Blu-ray, and was also the sort of under the radar title that could benefit from the exposure. A "get", if you will. But better late than never, as they say, and it's well timed to come out around the "spooky season" where its thrills will go over well with folks who have yet to bless their lives with this underloved gem.</p><span id="fullpost"><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> The only flaw the movie has is its title; I suspect I'll spend the rest of my life feeling I need to clarify I do not mean the Uwe Boll film (for a total flop, it sure has left a permanent imprint on people's memories). Otherwise, it's a rock solid home invasion/slasher hybrid that focuses on its characters (most of them adults) and even finds some measure of sympathy for its quartet of killers. The plot is, on its surface, generic "escaped mental patient" kind of stuff, but there's so much more going on, not the least of which is that the main "villain", played by Jack Palance, is (spoiler for 40 year old movie ahead) allowed to walk away at the end, backing down from his previous intent to murder his new doctor. The ultimate point of the movie is that the people on the outside are no more dangerous or "crazy" than the ones who have been locked up, and thus Palance's Frank is apologetic when he realizes his whole "revenge" plan was based on a misconception (he thought his new doctor killed his old one, and learns he was wrong). You get the idea that if they had their proof their old doc was alive, they wouldn't have bothered to escape at all.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> That said his partners are more bloodthirsty; Martin Landau's Byron is pretty chilling (it's he who eggs on the mailman attack, wanting the man's hat) and Erland van Lidth as "Fatty" fulfills the "hulking brute" quota, getting most of the kills himself. The fourth one is "The Bleeder", who hides his face and ultimately parts with the group after murdering someone during the riot that ensues from the blackout that allowed their escape in the first place. Watching as an adult I feel dumb for not catching the payoff for this character (who has a nosebleed when he kills someone, and yes, the similar tic in <i>Valentine</i> was an acknowledged homage), because I remember kid me being stunned, but it's still a pretty good little twist, presented with the same sort of misdirection that allowed <i>My Bloody Valentine</i>'s surprise reveal to work as well as it did.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> The highlight of the film is Donald Pleasence as Dr. Bain, who runs the facility and is unquestionably nuttier than any of the patients within it. This was one of the first non-Loomis performances I saw of the actor when I was a kid, cementing him as someone I loved to watch, and I was sad to learn on one of the bonus features that he didn't have a good experience making it and didn't think much of the film as a whole. Apparently the production was not pleasant; Palance could be a pain in the A, there were some very cold night shoots (one actor's fake blood froze on him), and director Jack Sholder was not only making his first feature, but was dealing with some uncooperative crew (including the DP and the FX guy, two very key roles on a horror film like this). </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> With that in mind it's not much of a surprise that the only actor they could rope in for an interview was Carol Levy, who plays ill-fated babysitter "Bunky", and in fact that was a pull from the mid-00's DVD, as is the commentary with Sholder and an interview with the Sic F*cks. The new features are a lengthy interview with Sholder where he tells a lot of the same stories he did on his older commentary, a tour of the shooting locations (the punk club is now a Wendy's!), and yet another interview with the Sic F*cks, both of which run longer than their appearance in the film (they mention/gripe about a deleted scene that saw them arrested during the riot, but it hasn't been reinstated). Granted the trio of veteran actors (as well as van Lidth) are all deceased, but the actors who made up the hero Potter family are all still around and some still working (the mom was in a few episodes of the buzzy <i>Mare of Easttown</i>), so it's a shame none of them are on board to offer their thoughts on what will likely be the last home video release of this film. I like Sholder's work, but the man himself is kind of prickly (and obnoxiously dismissive of the slasher genre), so hearing someone's own take on their experiences would have been nice, if only to balance out Sholder's snottiness. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> The other new extra is a historian commentary, which curiously combines one guy from the Hysteria Lives podcast (there's typically three) and Amanda Reyes, who usually tackles made for TV horror (she literally wrote the book on it, in fact). It turns out to be a good idea though; as I've said before the HL commentaries can be very same-y as they often just rattle off every other slasher movie they can think of whenever something similar happens, but with just one of them that stuff is kept to a minimum. Reyes, meanwhile, brings in lots of historical context not just about the genre, but mental health practices of the era and what may have influenced Sholder's script. So it can sometimes feel like two tracks jammed together (she'll give a history lesson about a psychiatrist who may have inspired Pleasence's character, and then he'll be like "the stab through the bed idea was also in <i>Friday the 13th</i>" or something, but hey: best of both worlds? </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> At any rate, the movie itself is the main draw of course, and the transfer is terrific (perhaps a bit too good, as you can occasionally get a half-decent look at the Bleeder's face where it was previously either cropped out or too dark to see anything). Even if it was just the movie, it would be a reason to celebrate; there are horror fans who buy everything Scream Factory puts out even if it's a blind buy, which means it's a good chance this movie is about to finally be discovered by folks who will love it as much as I do. AND they'll finally know what that weird movie Jennifer sees on TV before settling on Dick Cavett in <i>Dream Warriors</i>!</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> What say you? </p><p><iframe width="400" height="225" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/b4VtV83RKh4" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe><iframe style="width:120px;height:240px;" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&OneJS=1&Operation=GetAdHtml&MarketPlace=US&source=ac&ref=qf_sp_asin_til&ad_type=product_link&tracking_id=homoada-20&marketplace=amazon&region=US&placement=B07GPXPSLL&asins=B07GPXPSLL&linkId=87e4dffd1484451c9e03281559d1bdcc&show_border=true&link_opens_in_new_window=true&price_color=ffffff&title_color=ffffff&bg_color=000000"> </iframe><script type="text/javascript">var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); </script><script type="text/javascript">try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-12436276-1"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {}</script><a href="https://twitter.com/share" class="twitter-share-button" data-hashtags="horror">Tweet</a><script>!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');</script></p><script data-ad-client="ca-pub-3302834381937327" async src="https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script></span>notyourordinarynerdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17130736757414090873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3666532598350854536.post-23711895261728043372021-10-01T02:39:00.006-07:002021-10-01T02:39:51.054-07:00「WATCH」 Girls Sex Tricks (2014) – Full Movie Online<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPM0adYQ3Q5xQIdiB2dSeiDNu_4g18nxkC6avj5lCKtfIXCHr2iKrgbJFFRIMB2-AutTqD1yIIP9EoeBoCbH5OV4fK_PMKXVi0Qv8Bged1E15PhHutDP2Z3tLIaIrlwUyZacDoZ3IxE5l0/s640/1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="640" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPM0adYQ3Q5xQIdiB2dSeiDNu_4g18nxkC6avj5lCKtfIXCHr2iKrgbJFFRIMB2-AutTqD1yIIP9EoeBoCbH5OV4fK_PMKXVi0Qv8Bged1E15PhHutDP2Z3tLIaIrlwUyZacDoZ3IxE5l0/w640-h360/1.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://moviesboards.live/en/movie/453831/girls-sex-tricks" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="291" data-original-width="1244" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBdPfsom7cqaeQapkss47AQQV1YlQyrVCAS_JTQ4C-hgEj5fiuOS-nQh0ZbeR48XLlA8YKf3kF8t7Vp37dCdh6MU-V74GGiq4dckAuCYePIMpzue2nzVs5eIQX_EGJULv8Kb2wHlc9GksJ/w640-h150/baseimage.png" width="640" /></a></div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Girls Sex Tricks (2014) Full Movie Streaming And Watch Online. Where Can I Download Girls Sex Tricks (2014) for Free</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Visit The Website : <a href="https://moviesboards.live/en/movie/453831/girls-sex-tricks">https://moviesboards.live/en/movie/453831/girls-sex-tricks</a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Girls Sex Tricks reveals various ways of linking carried out by a group of friends: Sara will teach us the trick of the "museum guide", Peter and Monica, a current couple, will surprise us with the technique of "the fan" and the incredible "five in one", Angie, a she-wolf in sheep's clothing, will reveal her method in "7 minutes" and John, the sweet and handsome of the group, will put into practice the technique of "the chameleon".</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Genre: Romance</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Stars: Julia de Lucia, Carol Ferrer, Marta La Croft, Ana Marco, Carol Vega, Christopher Mulai</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Crew: Lara Tinelli (Director)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Runtime: 1:47:31 minutes</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Quality: HD</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Girls Sex Tricks (2014), also called movie, motion picture or moving picture, is a visual art-form used to simulate experiences that communicate ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmosphere through the use of moving images. These images are generally accompanied by sound, and more rarely, other sensory stimulations. The word "cinema", short for cinematography, is often used to refer to filmmaking and the film industry, and to the art form that is the result of it.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">The moving images of a film are created by photographing actual scenes with a motion-picture camera, by photographing drawings or miniature models using traditional animation techniques, by means of CGI and computer animation, or by a combination of some or all of these techniques, and other visual effects.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Traditionally, films were recorded onto celluloid film stock through a photochemical process and then shown through a movie projector onto a large screen. Contemporary films are often fully digital through the entire process of production, distribution, and exhibition, while films recorded in a photochemical form traditionally included an analogous optical soundtrack (a graphic recording of the spoken words, music and other sounds that accompany the images which runs along a portion of the film exclusively reserved for it, and is not projected).</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Films are cultural artifacts created by specific cultures. They reflect those cultures, and, in turn, affect them. Film is considered to be an important art form, a source of popular entertainment, and a powerful medium for educating—or indoctrinating—citizens. The visual basis of film gives it a universal power of communication. Some films have become popular worldwide attractions through the use of dubbing or subtitles to translate the dialog into other languages.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">The individual images that make up a film are called frames. In the projection of traditional celluloid films, a rotating shutter causes intervals of darkness as each frame, in turn, is moved into position to be projected, but the viewer does not notice the interruptions because of an effect known as persistence of vision, whereby the eye retains a visual image for a fraction of a second after its source disappears. The perception of motion is partly due to a psychological effect called the phi phenomenon.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">The name "film" originates from the fact that photographic film (also called film stock) has historically been the medium for recording and displaying motion pictures. Many other terms exist for an individual motion-picture, including picture, picture show, moving picture, photoplay, and flick. The most common term in the United States is movie, while in Europe film is preferred. Common terms for the field in general include the big screen, the silver screen, the movies, and cinema; the last of these is commonly used, as an overarching term, in scholarly texts and critical essays. In early years, the word sheet was sometimes used instead of screen.</div></div><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /> <p></p>notyourordinarynerdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17130736757414090873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3666532598350854536.post-92033641518050398422021-09-30T16:44:00.000-07:002021-10-15T02:49:26.975-07:00Fantastic Fest: Day 4<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;">SEPTEMBER 26, 2021</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">GENRE: <a href="http://horror-movie-a-day.blogspot.com/search/label/Comedic" target="_blank">COMEDIC</a>, <a href="http://horror-movie-a-day.blogspot.com/search/label/Survival" target="_blank">SURVIVAL</a><br>SOURCE: <a href="https://fantasticfest.com/" target="_blank">FANTASTIC FEST!</a></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> Sunday was my last day at the festival, alas; my budget and my lingering covid fears only covered up to four days (three nights' hotel stay) in Texas before racing home. Unfortunately, it was also kind of a low-interest day of programming as well; I ended up skipping one block entirely because there was simply nothing playing that interested me (in hindsight, I should have used the time to see Shang-Chi, finally, but I forgot it was an option). On the flipside, the light schedule meant I could have a lengthy brunch with some pals I barely saw during my stay (in fact, two of them I *only* saw because I attended this off-site revelry), so that was nice. I had a terrible iced chai and some delicious avocado toast, so it evens out.</p><span id="fullpost"><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> Anyway:</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <b>Movie #9: THE TRIP</b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> Tommy Wirkola is a polarizing filmmaker among my peers; I distinctly remember being told by nearly everyone I knew not to bother with <i>Dead Snow</i>, only to find myself enjoying it quite a bit (and the second one, while not as good, had an epic climax set to "Total Eclipse of the Heart", so I was obviously in the weeds for it). His newest one is the first I've seen from him with no supernatural elements whatsoever - <i>The Trip </i>is a violent black comedy/survival thriller about an unhappy couple who go off to the family cabin to try to find their spark, but it turns out both plan to murder the other one while they're there and make it look like an accident. Alas, a trio of escaped prisoners put a cork in those plans, forcing the couple to work together if they are going to survive long enough to kill each other later.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> So it's basically <i>The Ref</i> meets <i>Funny Games</i> or <i>Desperate Hours </i>or whatever; i.e. home invasion films where the villains aren't just out to quickly murder the inhabitants and move on. It runs too damn long (just under two hours!) but Wirkola keeps the energy up for most of the runtime, utilizing flashbacks on occasion (to show how certain characters ended up there after making surprise appearances) and putting his quintet of actors (including Noomi Rapace as the wife, a rare comic turn for the actress) through the wringer. Very little of it is extreme, but there is SO MUCH bodily harm in this film, as everyone (good or bad) is constantly whacking other characters with hard objects, or they're simply slipping in all the rapidly pooling blood. If he had pared it down a bit (the climax goes on forever; if you've seen it, it really didn't need the additional boat sequence) it'd be a minor classic, but as it stands it's a pretty amusing modern day War of the Roses, where both parties are kind of awful and yet you find yourself rooting for them anyway. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <b>Movie (?) #10: FANTASTIC FEUD</b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> OK, yeah, this isn't a movie. But you do need a ticket to attend, and it is in a theater, so I'll count it, damn you! </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> So for the uninitiated, Fantastic Fest usually has a lot of wacky events alongside the movies, but this year due to covid and what not they had to get rid of most of them. The Feud was one of the few exceptions; it's basically a chaotic mix of standard movie trivia and Family Feud, where the two teams try to guess the most popular answers from previously held surveys in order to score the most points and gain control of the board for a bit. If neither team knows an answer, it's turned over to the crowd, with whoever has the right answer being allowed to award the points to the team of their choosing (so yes, it's technically possible for a team to win the game without ever actually answering a question correctly). The teams are given buckets of beer, and the crowd is obviously allowed their own beverages (full service is kept active as it would be for a movie screening), so by the end of the night it's usually pretty loud and hilarious. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> Anyway, I try to attend whenever I go to the festival, though sometimes there's a can't miss movie playing at the same time and I have to miss it. This year's timeslot competition was <i>VHS 94</i>, which I do want to see, but is playing here in LA as well so I figured I could catch it then. Plus, I didn't want to miss my chance to actually be on one of the teams, an offer I was given by one of the organizers like a year ago and wasn't sure if he would remember.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> Well... he did! I was IN! </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> My teammates were Owen Egerton (who made the enjoyable <i>Blood Fest</i>), Heather Wixson (my fellow horror writer and author!), and Danishka Esterhazy, who directed the upcoming <i>Slumber Party Massacre</i> remake. Since that film was one of the ones that made me decide to attend the festival after all (I was on the fence for obvious reasons) only to discover it would only be playing after I left, I figure this was a nice consolation prize to get to answer trivia questions alongside her for two drunken hours (though I must admit I think Owen and I were the only ones partaking of the free beer we were provided).</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> I won't drag things out: we won! Handily, in fact. The aforementioned survey portion was a big help, as we took control more often than not (I even correctly guessed the top answer for "Worst <i>Die Hard</i> Ripoff", which is of course <i>A Good Day To Die Hard</i>) and added an excess of points to our total - the final score had us actually doubling the other team's score, which is, in hindsight, insane. Also, I broke a chair racing up to the podium to buzz in for a <i>Mist</i> question, so that was fun. Since we won it ultimately didn't matter, but I'm still sore for missing a <i>Hellraiser</i> question during a "Movie Math" category (where the sequel subtitle was subbed in for numbers, i.e. <i>Bloodline</i> = "4") where I miscalculated and got <i>Hellbound</i> ("2") instead of <i>Hell on Earth</i> ("3"). Stupid BC!</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> Anyway, it was a blast, and a fine way to finish off my FF'21 journey. After the Feud I went outside and saw my good friend/sometime boss Phil Nobile leaving, and he offered me a ride back to his AirBnB that I would have been stupid to pass up, since that's where I was stashing my suitcase (as I already checked out of my hotel, as I've learned in years' past it makes no sense to keep a room for the final night when I always stay out late at the festival and then leave early in the morning; I'd never use it!). We chatted for a bit while waiting for a Lyft to take me to the airport, where I slept in one of their uncomfortable chairs for a little bit before getting on the plane back to LA. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> Here's hoping all this idiocy is behind us by the time it rolls around again. I don't know if I can ever attend annually again until my son is capable of taking care of himself (this is only the second time I've been since he was born), but I definitely don't want to put up with the hassle and cost of travel for another stripped down one like this. I enjoyed the movies I saw and loved seeing friends when I did, but I was also kind of lonely more often than not. The spaced out/assigned seating meant I didn't actually get to watch a single movie WITH any of my friends who were there, and the lack of events (karaoke in particular) made it feel less like a festival and more like me just going to the movies a lot over the course of four days, many of which I could have watched at home via screener (not that I feel that the theatrical experience is equal to my home setup, but again - I was watching them alone! At least at home I could have invited someone over). They did the best they could with the circumstances, and if I lived next door I'd certainly be there for the next one, but I have to choose my battles when it comes to these sort of things, and I think for as long as covid continues to wreak havoc on everyone's fun, I will choose the "stay home and grumble about a few tweets and photos of people having fun" option. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> What say you?</p><p><script type="text/javascript">var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); </script><script type="text/javascript">try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-12436276-1"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {}</script><a href="https://twitter.com/share" class="twitter-share-button" data-hashtags="horror">Tweet</a><script>!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');</script></p><script data-ad-client="ca-pub-3302834381937327" async src="https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script></span>notyourordinarynerdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17130736757414090873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3666532598350854536.post-4204138616552769602021-09-30T14:44:00.000-07:002021-10-15T02:49:27.046-07:00The Forever Purge (2021)<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;">SEPTEMBER 29, 2021</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">GENRE: <a href="http://horror-movie-a-day.blogspot.com/search/label/Survival" target="_blank">SURVIVAL</a><br>SOURCE: <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0985KV9YX/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B0985KV9YX&linkCode=as2&tag=homoada-20&linkId=17bdef9d94d64e8514dbcce2bfd6825d" target="_blank">BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION)</a></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> The trailer for <i><b>The Forever Purge</b></i> suggested it was finally going to get out of the creative rut the series was in, by both taking things out of inner cities for once (into the Texas/Mexico border area, specifically, though it was filmed in California) and also setting the action in the daytime. And by tackling immigration issues as opposed to a more general form of racism that dictates the Purgers' actions in the last couple films, this seemed primed to be a shot in the arm for the franchise going forward, the way pitting Jigsaw against the healthcare system in <i>Saw VI</i> bought that franchise some goodwill (if not a return to box office glory).</p><span id="fullpost"><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> Alas, most of the film's highlights ended up being... well, what we saw in the trailer. What it DIDN'T show much of is the same old crap that makes up too-long chunks of it; I almost had to laugh when, despite the above changes, a major turning point in the film occurs... at night, in a grimy alleyway. In other words, writer James DeMonaco (who has written all of them, plus the TV series) may have been inspired by current events for this particular entry, but apparently couldn't help himself from reverting to status quo, all but sinking the fresh ideas in the process as it becomes yet another standard <i>Purge</i> movie. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> In turn this will end up being another standard <i>Purge</i> *review* from me, as I plead for literally anyone else on the planet (including my own 7 year old child) to write one of these, so that we can get different perspectives on the matter. Not for nothing, but Mr. DeMonaco is one (1) person - a white man from Brooklyn to be exact - and thus has one (1) perspective on race issues in America: his own. I don't wish to belittle his talent (he co-wrote <i>The Negotiator</i>, a movie I quite like), but merely wish to stress that these films are beoming increasingly political and have introduced so many great characters and ideas (this one also works in the theft of the land from the Native Americans), and thus in turn should turn screenwriting duties over to more of them, with DeMonaco stepping into a more godfather-y kind of role going forward. He's at least trusting directorial duties to others (Everardo Gout this time), but there's only so much they can do to mix things up when the script is still coming from the same sole brain.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> Worse, it's not a particularly good script even by this series' standards, with a lot of the drama resolved by not one but two instances where our protagonists are split up by circumstances and just so happen to find each other again in a chaotic unfamiliar city. Our leads are a married couple named Juan and Adela, border crossers who have found employment (Adela in a restaurant, Juan on a horse ranch) and spend Purge night locked in a safehouse with others like them, waiting out the night and listening to the chaos outside. However, as the title suggests, the end of the 12 hour purge means nothing to the "Forever Purgers", who continue doing the same sort of thing (read: targeting POC) when the sun comes up. And so now, for irony's sake, they need to cross the border *to* Mexico for their own safety. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> They're joined by some white folks, of course, led by Josh Lucas as Juan's boss from the ranch (run by Will Patton, whose limited appearance was given away on the trailer). Lucas' Dylan is ever so slightly bigoted; you almost get the sense they had a focus group to determine how condescending and prickish he could be before an audience just decides he's a total jerk that should die. Naturally, this single day's experience will get him to reconsider 40+ years of his attitude; I assume it's supposed to be a real powerful moment at the end when he says "Gracias" to Juan, but it's just corny as all hell and unearned to boot - Dylan's actions throughout the film are to benefit his (pregnant) wife, there's never a real bonding moment between the two men where it's clear one is helping the other because it's the right thing to do. It's just convenient to have two guns firing at skull masked purgers instead of one, is all.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> (Without getting into spoilers, I'll also note that the body count among primary characters is far too low this time around; there are only two deaths of note and the other characters barely acknowledge it. Doesn't help the whole "this is more dangerous than ever!" approach when it allows the highest number of survivors.)</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> The script also denies itself a strong villain; early on we meet Kirk, another ranch hand (the only white one, I believe) who takes the rancher family hostage, ranting about how they're part of the problem since they hire immigrants. But when Juan mounts a rescue on his employer and his family, Kirk is killed off, and it's another half hour before another alpha villain comes along, this one a traditional redneck-y type with zero flavor whatsoever. And even he is sidelined after his introduction until the finale, so when it comes time to face off against our heroes, it's really no more engaging than it's been for any of the anonymous ones they've fought along the way. And don't hold out hope for the guy on the poster (and subsequent Blu-ray package), as he doesn't appear at all.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> Ultimately, all the best things about it are too fleeting to make much of a difference. I was happy to see <i>Resolution</i>'s Zahn McClarnon show up as a heroic character, since he usually plays bad guys (he's menacing af in <i>Doctor Sleep</i>), but his role amounts to only a few minutes of screentime. And there are some pointed lines of dialogue here and there - I particularly liked referring to the Americans escaping to the Mexico border as "Dreamers" - but when your best lines are delivered by offscreen newscasters in voiceover, something is definitely "off" about the proceedings. Even the Newton Brothers score, as good as you'd expect from the dependably great composers, can barely be heard in all the other noise (between this and <i>Midnight Mass</i> they've basically taken over my eardrums this week - not a complaint!). As for the action, it's fine; the trailer highlights the sort of <i>Mad Max</i>-y elements it takes on at times, but there isn't much more to them beyond what the spots already showed, and otherwise it's just the same old gunfights with digital blood spraying around whenever another anonymous character is dispatched by our suddenly marksman heroes.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> This is the first time I've gotten a Blu-ray of a Purge movie (I should note this is my second viewing; I did see it at the drive-in over the summer* but never got around to reviewing) so I don't know if this is the usual, but for what it's worth there isn't much in the way of bonus features. There's a deleted scene in which the ranch hands trade stereotype jokes at each others' expense (good natured ball bustin'), which perhaps should have been left in to illustrate that Kirk shared some kind of friendship with the others. There's a brief look at the costume designs, which is a good idea considering the look of the random Purgers shows more spark with each new entry than anyone else on the creative side of things. And there's also a pretty fluffy "making of" that essentially doubles as a behind the scenes trailer, with everyone (NOT DeMonaco, pointedly, or Lucas for that matter) saying how this one is the most challenging and thought provoking one yet, trying to sell us on the movie we presumably already saw. And that's basically it; it was only last week that I was impressed by F9's bonus material package (also via Universal), so I know they're still capable of making worthwhile special editions, but this ain't one. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> Frank Grillo says he is coming back for a new <i>Purge</i> (it'd be his third), which is fine since his two are the best ones, though I can't say I'm super excited about it if it's once again going to have the same writer (not to mention that Grillo seemed like he was playing two entirely different characters in his entries). What the series really needs is outside the box thinking, letting a film stand out from the others. It's crazy that Don Mancini can manage to create unique flavors for each of the <i>Chucky</i> movies when it's just about a killer doll (i.e. a seemingly limited concept) but DeMonaco can't shake the sameyness from a franchise with so much potential. Changing the location is a good start, but based on the evidence here, it isn't enough of a mixup to restore the franchise's fascinating potential. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> What say you?</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> *Right near some of the shooting locations, as it turns out! Shot in Ontario, which is where I usually get Wendy's before going to the drive-in itself one suburb over (Montclair). Gonna kinda miss that place now that theaters are open and I am both vaccinated and weary enough to just roll the dice on those instead of driving an hour away to see things like this. </p><p><iframe width="400" height="225" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xOrXpK-rUaI" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe><iframe style="width:120px;height:240px;" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&OneJS=1&Operation=GetAdHtml&MarketPlace=US&source=ac&ref=qf_sp_asin_til&ad_type=product_link&tracking_id=homoada-20&marketplace=amazon&region=US&placement=B0985KV9YX&asins=B0985KV9YX&linkId=bcda34e78d4eb0b96e058775efbb9502&show_border=true&link_opens_in_new_window=true&price_color=ffffff&title_color=ffffff&bg_color=000000"> </iframe><script type="text/javascript">var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); </script><script type="text/javascript">try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-12436276-1"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {}</script><a href="https://twitter.com/share" class="twitter-share-button" data-hashtags="horror">Tweet</a><script>!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');</script></p><script data-ad-client="ca-pub-3302834381937327" async src="https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script></span>notyourordinarynerdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17130736757414090873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3666532598350854536.post-30748061921872828632021-09-29T11:30:00.000-07:002021-10-15T02:49:27.114-07:00Fantastic Fest: Day 3<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;">SEPTEMBER 25, 2021</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">GENRE: <a href="http://horror-movie-a-day.blogspot.com/search/label/Documentary" target="_blank">DOCUMENTARY</a>, <a href="http://horror-movie-a-day.blogspot.com/search/label/Psychological" target="_blank">PSYCHOLOGICAL</a>, <a href="http://horror-movie-a-day.blogspot.com/search/label/Thriller">THRILLER</a><br>SOURCE: <a href="https://fantasticfest.com/" target="_blank">FANTASTIC FEST!</a></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> Day 3 was the "busiest" on my schedule; it was three movies like the day before, but one was twice as long as the average movie and another was a late-starting world premiere, which meant it would undoubtedly start later than scheduled, but also wouldn't be something I could easily rewatch (via screener link or the like) if I were to pull a Collins and doze off. Luckily I stayed awake (and this would be true for all the features I saw at the fest - a first!), so it seems this new approach of going back to my room and relaxing whenever possible (since there was little to nothing else going on, and a staggered schedule which meant even seeing friends in between movies was a crapshoot) instead of standing around drinking and singing karaoke or whatever was a wise one! </p><span id="fullpost"><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <b>Movie #6: WOODLANDS DARK AND DAYS BEWITCHED</b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> Full disclosure: I did the end titles for this documentary on the history of folk horror films, so I didn't rate it on Letterboxd and won't be saying much here, because that feels icky to me. That said, I found it to be an incredibly informative doc about a somewhat off the radar sub-genre; indeed, I don't even have a "folk horror" tag on the site (I usually just lump them in with "Supernatural" and/or "Cult"). Not only did I learn some history (always a plus), I walked away with a nice handful of new (well, technically old!) titles to check out, a few of which will be on Severin's upcoming boxed set centered on the doc, which will be available on its own as well for those who don't want to splurge for 20+ movies at once.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <b>Movie #7: MASKING THRESHOLD</b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> I'll have a full review up on WhatToWatch soon (unlike BMD, they have to go through a longer process from the time I submit something to when it actually goes live), so I won't ramble too much here except to say I kind of loved it, but know perfectly well it'll be a very polarizing film. Shot almost entirely in macro closeups with narration from someone who we never really see (someone said it was like a 90 minute unboxing video, which from an aesthetic POV is pretty accurate), the film tells the story of a man who is driven insane by an extreme case of tinnitus he has tasked himself with curing on his own after the doctors proved to be no help. Unfortunately his experiments are increasingly uncouth; he starts off with determining the aural qualities of everyday objects and ultimately - through his own actions - discovers that his affliction can react to the "sound" of something's (or, indeed, someONE's) life ending. A fascinating experimental film that was my favorite surprise discovery of the fest. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <b>Movie #8: THE BLACK PHONE</b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> One great thing about a festival is that every now and then you can find yourself seeing the world premiere of a fairly major film before there's even been a trailer to spoil its surprises. All I knew about Black Phone is that it reunited the core creative team of Sinister: producer Jason Blum, the writing pair of C. Robert Cargill and Scott Derrickson (based on a Joe Hill story), with the latter directing, and even star Ethan Hawke. As a huge fan of <i>Sinister</i>, I would have been there on day one when the movie opens in January, but it would have been after seeing a trailer or two and, most likely, even gotten a few cheers/jeers worming themselves into my brain and messing with my expectations. Instead I got to see it without even knowing the plot, let alone how well it was or wasn't received by my peers.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> And yay, it was good! Not quite on the level of <i>Sinister</i>, but then again that film (concerning murderous kids) is more in my wheelhouse than this one, which is a period piece (1978 to be exact) about a local boogeyman named The Grabber (Hawke) who has already taken a few kids in the area and has now set his sights on our young hero Finney (Mason Thames), with The Grabber dumping him in a basement with only a mattress and the eponymous phone to keep him company until the villain does whatever he plans to do (since the movie is entirely from Finney or his sister's POV, we naturally don't know what The Grabber is actually doing until we see it happen to Finney). The Grabber insists the phone is broken, but it starts to ring... and that's where the fun begins.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> The nature of the calls is something folks can discover on their own when the movie opens (or, likely, from the trailer) so I won't spoil it for now. I'll just say that Thames handles the material quite well, though he kind of gets the movie stolen away from him by Madeleine McGraw as his younger sister Gwen, who is quick to protect him from bullies (both of them suffer from an abusive father, so taking punches is sadly something they're accustomed to) and swears like she's been possessed like so many other little girls of '70s cinema. As for Hawke, his face is almost always obscured by a mask (designed by Tom Savini!) so it's mostly his voice informing the audience of who it is, but he is unnerving af - the man should play more villains.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> The period detail is also terrific, largely depicted through the wardrobe and set dressing (dig that shag carpeting!) as opposed to obnoxious references and a greatest hits soundtrack. I like a lot of Blumhouse films, but production value isn't always one of their strong suits as they tend to take place in modern (read: bland) suburban homes, but here there are several exteriors and not once was I zapped out of the illusion (kudos to their location scouts for finding a North Carolina suburb that hasn't "enhanced" itself all that much for the past 40+ years). That aesthetic and the kid-heavy plot had me thinking that this would be a beloved fave for fans from my generation, had it actually been made in 1978 and allowed us to grow up with it. It's rated R, but mostly for language (The Grabber's more overt crimes are largely offscreen, thankfully), and Thames' appearance had me thinking of young Mike from the first Phantasm, another movie seemingly designed for young boys to transition into more adult horror and/or give them one last terrifying nightmare before they grow out of the adolescent idea that the movie monsters might be under their bed. Instead, it'll just be a great option to show our own curious kids. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> What say you?</p><p><script type="text/javascript">var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); </script><script type="text/javascript">try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-12436276-1"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {}</script><a href="https://twitter.com/share" class="twitter-share-button" data-hashtags="horror">Tweet</a><script>!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');</script></p><script data-ad-client="ca-pub-3302834381937327" async src="https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script></span>notyourordinarynerdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17130736757414090873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3666532598350854536.post-60493758779143523142021-09-28T11:54:00.000-07:002021-10-15T02:49:27.179-07:00Fantastic Fest: Day 2<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;">SEPTEMBER 24, 2021</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">GENRE: <a href="http://horror-movie-a-day.blogspot.com/search/label/Killer%20Kid" target="_blank">KILLER KID</a>, <a href="http://horror-movie-a-day.blogspot.com/search/label/Possession">POSSESSION</a>, <a href="http://horror-movie-a-day.blogspot.com/search/label/Zombie" target="_blank">ZOMBIE</a><br>SOURCE: <a href="https://fantasticfest.com/">FANTASTIC FEST!</a></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> This was the first year I was able to attend the opening night of the festival, so it was nice to not have to rush for once. In years' past, when I'd always be arriving on day 2, I'd sometimes have to go from the airport straight to the theater (dumping luggage into a generous pal's car) before I miss any more of it, but this time around it was kind of lovely to head into Friday with a piece already written. But as others WERE arriving on this day, today felt a little more like a typical day at the fest, albeit still with more empty seats than I'm used to seeing and much less revelry/chaos in the surrounding area. </p><span id="fullpost"><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> Anyway:</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <b>MOVIE #3: THE INNOCENTS</b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> An evil child movie out of Norway, <a href="https://www.whattowatch.com/reviews/fantastic-fest-review-the-innocents" target="_blank">I reviewed this one properly for WhatToWatch</a> if you want to head there and read my full thoughts. For those who don't want to click over, I'll sum up by saying it was very good (if a touch long) and featured terrific child performances, which is the sort of thing that can sink this type of film, so: well done, casting folks!</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <b>MOVIE #4: AGNES</b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <a href="https://www.whattowatch.com/reviews/fantastic-fest-2021-review-agnes" target="_blank">I reviewed this one too</a>, but I realized later I should have added that the very thing that turned me off might be what makes others most excited about the film. I forget that due to my relatively late arrival to the <i>Exorcist</i> table, I tend to enjoy demonic possession movies more than my peers, who are often scarred by adolescent <i>Exorcist</i> viewings and walk out of similar films feeling like they were complete crap, unable to even come close to matching Blatty/Friedkin's power. So by abandoning the exorcism angle halfway through, such folks might be relieved by Agnes' switcheroo. Alas, ultimately this was a "not for me" after an engaging first forty minutes.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> MOVIE #5: BLACK FRIDAY</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> I had a ticket to see <i>Let The Wrong One In</i> at this time, and it turned out to be an apt title, as I myself let the wrong *theater* in to my schedule - the film was playing a half hour away at a different Alamo Drafthouse (normally the fest is entirely set at the South Lamar location, but thanks to covid nonsense this year forced them to spread it out across three venues). Since I had no car and didn't want to rely on Lyft or friends to get me elsewhere (and then back), I opted to just flat out ignore the non-Lamar entries on the schedule, but somehow I got mixed up with this thankfully one exception. Luckily, there were seats available for <i>Black Friday</i>, which I wanted to see anyway, so it all worked out in the end.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> Alas, the movie itself is kind of disappointing; on paper it sounded like it was delivered straight out of my subconscious: the employees of a toy store (including Devon Sawa and Bruce Campbell) have to take on a zombie outbreak on Black Friday, a ridiculous "event" I happily partake in every year. And it was filmed in Boston for good measure, so this had the potential to be one of my favorite movies of the festival and perhaps something I eagerly revisit every holiday season. But unfortunately, it seems they had to pare down a more ambitious script (financing horror comedies is never going to be easy, so I can't hold it against them), and what was left simply never found a proper groove. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> It's not a total waste of time; the zombie makeup work by Robert Kurtzman is solid and the supporting cast is pretty good (Michael Jai White is a highlight), and Sawa is in fine form, but there's just no real ENERGY to the proceedings. Every time it seems like the movie is going to ramp up and kick into higher gear, things slow down again - there's an awful lot of chatter in between action scenes. And while I've never worshiped the man like some of my peers, even Bruce Campbell's most loyal fans should be able to admit that he's kind of on autopilot here, playing a role that doesn't cater to any of his strengths as an actor. Not that I want him tossing out one-liners (honestly, that'd be worse) but the role seems written for someone more nebbish (I kept thinking Mark Proksch would have been a good fit), and rather than dive into the challenge he opted to just kind of become anonymous. And since he likely didn't come cheap, I couldn't help but think that the movie might have been better if they put his salary toward other things.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> It also might have helped if the store wasn't so generic (and the Boston setting has no bearing on anything, I don't think they even specifically say it's there and there's only like two exterior shots anyway). I'm sorry, but what exactly were the shoppers so excited about to line up at midnight to obtain? The things we see on the shelves are like, nutcrackers and bouncy balls and things of that nature. The lone licensed product I noticed (besides Wise potato chips, an east coast brand) was an Xbox One (yes, the older model), which wasn't even much a doorbuster option even when it was new, let alone now when it's a generation old. Plus, they shoo pretty much all the shoppers out of the store almost instantly, so there isn't even much in the way of zombie fodder, which had me thinking that they should have just leaned into it - what happens when a crappy store is open on Black Friday and no one shows up? Then they could have a built in excuse for the minimal zombie action AND avoided the impossible to buy premise of dozens of deal hungry customers lining up to buy jump ropes. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> (That they do almost nothing with the "Black Friday shoppers are zombies anyway" kind of joke is another disappointment, but luckily we have that one 1978 zombie movie to cover that idea to a degree.)</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> Again, it's not a complete misfire - there are some good gags and performances in there, and the finale involves something I was certainly not expecting, but it ultimately felt like a movie almost specifically designed for streaming audiences, in that you're fine to look at your phone for most of it, looking up only when something exciting happens, and then tweet that it's "fun!" before forgetting everything about it. For folks who seemingly prefer that their movies not demand too much of their attention, they will love it, I guess.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> What say you?</p><p><script type="text/javascript">var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); </script><script type="text/javascript">try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-12436276-1"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {}</script><a href="https://twitter.com/share" class="twitter-share-button" data-hashtags="horror">Tweet</a><script>!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');</script></p><script data-ad-client="ca-pub-3302834381937327" async src="https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script></span>notyourordinarynerdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17130736757414090873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3666532598350854536.post-27539726357499692472021-09-26T17:37:00.000-07:002021-10-15T02:49:27.256-07:00A Quiet Place Part II<p><i>Some spoilers, for this and </i>A Quiet Place<i>.</i></p><p>If you call it a "Part 2" it's easier to make people swallow that it's not just another unnecessary sequel. Heck, even I got drawn in, and I despise the idea of sequels as a rule. What got me interested though, was adding Cillian Murphy to the cast to fill the hole John Krasinski's character leaves. Krasinski is still directing though, and this time he's also writing the whole thing. For the first movie he bought and tweaked an original script, and now he's trying his hand at expanding the story alone.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQ8oQEE7eZoC9cxe726dj3soj7p9RVsqqLpdwmEjkkInoN-TxrR0Y_rLlXNEBJzhtZPo2Uek_4bkqvYzgsdpK32BoPZWsm9iLDbYUuOPp0AnqSU7wMv33wxfj-LJe7wl5joKT9CA1YtrLV/s1200/AQuietPlacePartII1.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="602" data-original-width="1200" height="258" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQ8oQEE7eZoC9cxe726dj3soj7p9RVsqqLpdwmEjkkInoN-TxrR0Y_rLlXNEBJzhtZPo2Uek_4bkqvYzgsdpK32BoPZWsm9iLDbYUuOPp0AnqSU7wMv33wxfj-LJe7wl5joKT9CA1YtrLV/w513-h258/AQuietPlacePartII1.jpg" width="513" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">It's debatable whether the story wants expanding in the first place, let alone if the continuation settled on is any good.</td></tr></tbody></table><p>We pick up exactly where we left off (after a flashback prologue). Emily Blunt and children leave their farmhouse to find one of their neighbors whose fire they would see from their water tower. This is Emmett (Cillian Murphy), but he's not as interested in playing father figure and man-of-the-house as the Abbott family wishes. He's already lost his family and is now a Joel from <i>The Last of Us</i>, lone wolf type character. However, Regan (Millicent Simmonds) has her hearing aid device that incapacitates the aliens and when she finds a radio station that is still broadcasting, she's determined to use it to help other survivors fight back. When she leaves alone, Emmett finds himself going after her, and then along with her, despite his protests.</p><p>The story splits then into two plotlines. The one with Regan and Emmett is interesting; straightforward in its goal, with ample opportunities for exploration. The one with Evelyn (Emily Blunt), Marcus (Noah Jupe) and the baby, however, is small potatoes, with no goal at all other than to survive when the aliens inevitably find them (after a year and a half they're <i>still</i> terrible at living quietly.) It tries to give Marcus an opportunity to become a man, but must make him even more of a frightened useless child first to make the change clear. It smacks of fishing for story filler rather than letting the story push along at a natural pace. Because both plotlines were focused on equally despite unequal value, neither was developed fully.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8otPsvySFvRJ_N4xq4tDkVj_uGsniRMsZjBlb7wespfIU2JCaLmLBrhRTmrQmCZydmhjm3k0KL6xES40gKthfcubx9yDe2j3y_SogWrj_RIbdbT3ZFYuEUQFooXrJwL4mNWDHosJjtlxC/s1620/AQuietPlacePartII3.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="848" data-original-width="1620" height="231" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8otPsvySFvRJ_N4xq4tDkVj_uGsniRMsZjBlb7wespfIU2JCaLmLBrhRTmrQmCZydmhjm3k0KL6xES40gKthfcubx9yDe2j3y_SogWrj_RIbdbT3ZFYuEUQFooXrJwL4mNWDHosJjtlxC/w441-h231/AQuietPlacePartII3.jpg" width="441" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Abandoning Emily Blunt's plotline altogether would've been a crazy, bold, and I think rewarding, move.</td></tr></tbody></table><p>The Emmett-Regan plotline could have been a movie all in itself, but it had corners cut to make room for the pointless other plotline. Everything happens too fast for them, and comes too easily. The two have a lot of potential together, and I liked their chemistry, but they slip too quickly into a father-daughter dynamic, especially after Regan's rough relationship with Lee, turned to deep loyalty. She initially rejects even the idea of Emmett becoming even a temporary protector. Then warms to him after one incident. They also have a language barrier, in that he cannot sign. This is got over easily and is never an issue in high-stakes situations. Then an evil tribe of cannibals is set up as a non-alien threat, but only amounts to one scene once they show up. </p><p>It's rush, rush, rush, and then it's over and I can list on one hand the important things that were accomplished. I don't even need all five fingers! If it needed to end at that point to allow <i>Part III</i> all the plot it needs to wrap things up, then why not let this story sit back more and develop relationships? Why not explore the themes of family further, instead of leaving themes out altogether? Did Krasinski not realize those were the things that made the first one good? Or is he simply incapable of creating on that level? He is a good director, but he needs a good script with clear purpose, else his movies lack direction, and those satisfying moments of resolution that made <i>A Quiet Place</i> stand out.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5N525C-UALADvXLPMI5p3qwq3GDDf6Le7Pp44NnJSx9pFMA5NPru755VxPysH1TBpeoMIbmIserGFDQuviHAnlr8ru0DCpoTGrwlBRQ1Db1tf7rchZ_tcrWvAgRXAzVtvROEBKS-46oXc/s2048/AQuietPlacePartII2.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1365" data-original-width="2048" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5N525C-UALADvXLPMI5p3qwq3GDDf6Le7Pp44NnJSx9pFMA5NPru755VxPysH1TBpeoMIbmIserGFDQuviHAnlr8ru0DCpoTGrwlBRQ1Db1tf7rchZ_tcrWvAgRXAzVtvROEBKS-46oXc/w400-h266/AQuietPlacePartII2.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"More of the same," but only superficially, isn't really more of the same, is it?</td></tr></tbody></table><p>I feel like <i>A Quiet Place Part II</i>'s only purpose was to set up the pieces for <i>A Quiet Place Part III</i>, so I guess I'll hang on and see how the payoff goes. Despite the definite downgrade in writing, this movie maintains its winning premise, with the same intense alien thriller feel to it, and tentatively expands the lore on its featured creatures. The mortal flaw is simply that it's lazier; messy next to the lovingly crafted original. Even with nothing to do Emily Blunt is good. Millicent Simmonds steps up her game to great results, and Cillian Murphy is a vital addition that makes the whole endeavor better than it has a right to be. If nothing else, I'll watch <i>Part III</i> to see more of him. </p>notyourordinarynerdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17130736757414090873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3666532598350854536.post-3518212153269740212021-09-24T19:56:00.003-07:002021-09-24T19:56:33.090-07:00「WATCH」 XConfessions 27 (2021) – Full Movie Online<p style="text-align: left;"></p><p style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyN5Y3VKa5TYN4VA4g8vns93k5KB6SXeTaXVklOvk4wSXT3qBgl8FK9IKsoXzPwDxjTsRMZUqIHAHCnqlyUPBT_y4uUFp7fto_dkFbKvtDB2g4w18kvJORAm3sVIAFKgOFmKvet6UZ72aL/s2048/1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1333" data-original-width="2048" height="416" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyN5Y3VKa5TYN4VA4g8vns93k5KB6SXeTaXVklOvk4wSXT3qBgl8FK9IKsoXzPwDxjTsRMZUqIHAHCnqlyUPBT_y4uUFp7fto_dkFbKvtDB2g4w18kvJORAm3sVIAFKgOFmKvet6UZ72aL/w640-h416/1.jpg" width="640" /></a></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://moviesboards.live/en/datamovie/842144/xconfessions-27" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="291" data-original-width="1244" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPAmFw_DOT-ooQxiR0ovN-WIFDRcgzLDJO0wVoMu672J9xKDJ_nCYvzGdgb4GOxpaxvxD17bPUkGiT06YldmIJLQqmHPCKVfDQuLSpYJ5xUXxEFPdHZpXhBx7HqkwVz1wh_WN5ShaFbMJJ/w640-h150/baseimage.png" width="640" /></a></div><p></p><div style="text-align: left;">XConfessions 27 (2021) Full Movie Streaming And Watch Online. Where Can I Download XConfessions 27 (2021) for Free</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />Visit The Website : <a href="https://moviesboards.live/en/datamovie/842144/xconfessions-27">https://moviesboards.live/en/datamovie/842144/xconfessions-27</a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />XConfessions Volume 27 is here with six new sexual encounters that depict desire in new and unique ways. As always each and every movie from the XConfessions series is adapted from one of your anonymous sexual fantasies. Included: The Saree Shop, Girl Gang, The Nude Muse, Rico Rico, The Set Up, Dubbing.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />Genre: Drama<br />Stars: María Riot, Kali Sudhra, Bunnie Bennett, Catalina d'Aragó, Tommy Cabrio, Sheila Ortega<br />Crew: Erika Lust (Director), Erika Lust (Executive Producer), Erika Lust (Writer), Pablo Dobner (Executive Producer), Cristina Pastrana (Graphic Designer), Aleix Rodón (Director)<br />Country: Spain<br />Language: English<br />Studio: Erika Lust Films<br />Runtime: 122 minutes<br />Quality: HD<br />Released: Jun 17, 2021</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />XConfessions 27 (2021), also called movie, motion picture or moving picture, is a visual art-form used to simulate experiences that communicate ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmosphere through the use of moving images. These images are generally accompanied by sound, and more rarely, other sensory stimulations. The word "cinema", short for cinematography, is often used to refer to filmmaking and the film industry, and to the art form that is the result of it.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />The moving images of a film are created by photographing actual scenes with a motion-picture camera, by photographing drawings or miniature models using traditional animation techniques, by means of CGI and computer animation, or by a combination of some or all of these techniques, and other visual effects.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />Traditionally, films were recorded onto celluloid film stock through a photochemical process and then shown through a movie projector onto a large screen. Contemporary films are often fully digital through the entire process of production, distribution, and exhibition, while films recorded in a photochemical form traditionally included an analogous optical soundtrack (a graphic recording of the spoken words, music and other sounds that accompany the images which runs along a portion of the film exclusively reserved for it, and is not projected).</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />Films are cultural artifacts created by specific cultures. They reflect those cultures, and, in turn, affect them. Film is considered to be an important art form, a source of popular entertainment, and a powerful medium for educating—or indoctrinating—citizens. The visual basis of film gives it a universal power of communication. Some films have become popular worldwide attractions through the use of dubbing or subtitles to translate the dialog into other languages.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />The individual images that make up a film are called frames. In the projection of traditional celluloid films, a rotating shutter causes intervals of darkness as each frame, in turn, is moved into position to be projected, but the viewer does not notice the interruptions because of an effect known as persistence of vision, whereby the eye retains a visual image for a fraction of a second after its source disappears. The perception of motion is partly due to a psychological effect called the phi phenomenon.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />The name "film" originates from the fact that photographic film (also called film stock) has historically been the medium for recording and displaying motion pictures. Many other terms exist for an individual motion-picture, including picture, picture show, moving picture, photoplay, and flick. The most common term in the United States is movie, while in Europe film is preferred. Common terms for the field in general include the big screen, the silver screen, the movies, and cinema; the last of these is commonly used, as an overarching term, in scholarly texts and critical essays. In early years, the word sheet was sometimes used instead of screen.</div>notyourordinarynerdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17130736757414090873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3666532598350854536.post-60482798753739476922021-09-24T08:56:00.000-07:002021-10-15T02:49:27.321-07:00Fantastic Fest: Day 1<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;">SEPTEMBER 23, 2021</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">GENRE: <a href="http://horror-movie-a-day.blogspot.com/search/label/Slasher">SLASHER</a>, <a href="http://horror-movie-a-day.blogspot.com/search/label/Weird" target="_blank">WEIRD</a><br>SOURCE: FANTASTIC FEST!</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> One thing I truly miss about Birth.Movies.Death (RIP) was that it gave me a consistent outlet for writing about non horror things whenever I was inspired to do so. Now that it's gone and I have to scramble for freelance work elsewhere (and worse, actually pitch the piece/myself to get it approved, something I never had to bother with at BMD) I can find myself with something to say and nowhere to say it. And yes, I have HMAD to do whatever the hell I want, but I'd prefer to keep it "clean". </p><span id="fullpost"><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> But given the genre-adjacent spirit of pretty much everything playing at Fantastic Fest (which I'm attending in person for the first time in five years), I figured I'd "dirty" up the joint a bit and give mini reviews to the stuff I saw that don't have a place to review in full elsewhere. Not only will it make the publicity people happy (extra coverage for them!) but it'll keep me from the increasing problem of seeing a festival movie, not putting my thoughts down in full, and then literally forgetting if I liked it or not when it comes along later.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> So without further ado...</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <b>Movie #1: TITANE</b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> Julia Ducournau's <i>Raw</i> was my favorite movie of the last Fantastic Fest I attended, so it was some nice serendipity to finally make my return and see her equally long-awaited followup right off the bat. The film won the Palme d'or at Cannes a few months ago, which I found fitting personally as my introduction to this prestigious award was when <i>Pulp Fiction</i> won it over 25 years ago (Jesus Christ...), and like that film <i>Titane</i> is a triumph in surprising storytelling. Our protagonist, Alexia, suffers a bad car accident as a child and gets a plate in her head (the title is French for "titanium" and - after hearing multiple variations - is pronounced "tee-TAHN"), but rather than fear cars she comes out of it... well, loving them. Like, really loving them.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> She has sex with cars is what I'm saying.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> But she has a more traditional movie character vice: she's something of a serial killer, murdering a guy who hits on her (yayyy!) and then a love interest (aw) and the rest of the people at the girl's house, and finally her own parents for good measure. And if you think I've just spoiled the entire movie, relax - that's just the first half hour, and I haven't even mentioned the top billed actor. That's why I compare to <i>Pulp Fiction</i>; when the girlfriend character is introduced (via the most hilariously gnarly "meet cute" I've ever seen, I think) it seems like she could be the film's co-lead, a calming presence for our psychotic lead that can maybe have her find her own peace... only for the poor girl to be dispatched just as suddenly as the would-be rapist. Instead, Alexia goes on the run and does what any woman would: cuts her hair short, tapes down her breasts, and batters her own nose (anyone who delighted at Emma Roberts' self-attack in <i>Scream 4</i> - try this on for size) so that she looks like a young boy. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> Specifically, a boy who went missing a decade earlier and whose father, Vincent, is still trying to find him. Believing that she is indeed him, Vincent takes "Adrien" (yes, the names were both used in Raw) home and tries to get him to readjust, as well as giving him a job with him at the fire department. With barely any spoken dialogue to establish this, it's pretty clear the man has been desperate to fill the hole his son left; one of the younger guys at the fire department has obviously been something of a replacement (and now himself replaced by "Adrien", whose story he doesn't believe), and as Alexia's ruse becomes easier to see through, Vincent just ignores the signs out of desperation, as if he knows damn well it's not his son but as long as he doesn't say it out loud he can keep on believing it. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> In short (I won't reveal any more of the film's narrative; indeed I left out one of its primary plot points), what seemed like a mix between <i>Crash</i> (Cronenberg), <i>American Psycho</i>, and that documentary <i>The Imposter </i>ends up also tugging at the heartstrings as well, the final ingredient for the most deliriously entertaining cinematic stew I've seen in quite some time. As she did on Raw, Ducournau displays a knack for implementing pitch black or offbeat humor where you least expect it (wait til you see why "Macarena" makes an appearance) as well as getting fearless performances from her actors. It will be a divisive film for sure (one friend admitted to shutting off his screener), but for those of you who don't mind going for a ride that has no interest in standard movie conventions, I suspect you'll be just as enraptured as I was.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <b>Movie #2: THERE'S SOMETHING INSIDE YOUR HOUSE</b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> This one is definitely a traditional horror movie, so I COULD write a whole review but I just don't have too much to say. It's pretty good though, and has a great hook for a slasher mask: the killer wears 3D printed masks of his victims (said killer complaining about how hard it is to make the masks during the climax is a line/delivery on par with Stu's "My mom and dad are gonna be SO MAD AT MEEEE!"). Not only is it a creepy visual, but it actually ties into the theme, of people running away from themselves (our heroine is new to town after fleeing her old town thanks to being involved in a tragedy) as it operates as something of a widespread I Know What You Did Last Summer. The victims all have dirty secrets (hazing beatings, an anonymous racist podcast, etc) that establishes pretty early that this isn't revenge for any particular crime but someone with an axe to grind against the town's residents as a whole (which, along with the corn-filled Nebraska setting, made me think of the recent Clown in a Cornfield novel, which I recommend!).</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> Unfortunately even with this seeming surplus of potential villains, anyone with a GED in Slasher School will probably be able to figure out who the culprit is pretty early on, which dampened the fun a touch for me. But what it lacks in proper whodunit mastery it excels in making characters to care about who also seem real and - bless - genuine friends! There's like one little spat at around the hour point but otherwise our group of heroes (intentionally filling in stereotypes: a jock, a stoner, etc) spend all their time together in harmony - they literally put their heads together and look up at the stars at one point. It's also impressively inclusive but without making a big deal out of it, which (as I've said before) is the best way to go about it, by just doing it as if it didn't need to be spelled out or addressed from a soapbox - because isn't! </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> It's coming soon from Netflix, which is a shame as it means a sizable chunk of its audience will be watching it with one eye on their phone (though maybe it'll make the reveal more surprising?), but for those who fawned all over <i>Fear Street 1994</i> earlier this summer, I hope you give it a proper viewing. For my money, it's doing a lot of the same things, but doing them better.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> What say you?</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> P.S. My laptop - which I am using for the first time in over two years - is a piece of shit. The spacebar doesn't work well and it has a habit of shifting the cursor to some random spot, so I start typing my next word in the middle of an earlier, unrelated sentence, screwing up my train of thought to try to fix it. Needless to say there might be some weird typos in here that I missed, and I simply don't have the patience to try to format it (italics and such), so for that I apologize. I'll clean it up when I get back home. </p><p><script type="text/javascript">var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); </script><script type="text/javascript">try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-12436276-1"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {}</script><a href="https://twitter.com/share" class="twitter-share-button" data-hashtags="horror">Tweet</a><script>!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');</script></p><script data-ad-client="ca-pub-3302834381937327" async src="https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script></span>notyourordinarynerdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17130736757414090873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3666532598350854536.post-7373271927444084462021-09-08T11:37:00.000-07:002021-10-15T02:49:27.383-07:00No One Heard the Scream (1973)<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;">SEPTEMBER 7, 2021</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">GENRE: <a href="http://horror-movie-a-day.blogspot.com/search/label/Thriller" target="_blank">THRILLER</a><br>SOURCE: <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B095X1CP7T/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B095X1CP7T&linkCode=as2&tag=homoada-20&linkId=e7ef8698b1dafd20bd8bbc4ea2c6e208" target="_blank">BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION)</a></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> The back of Severin's Blu-ray release of <i><b>No One Heard the Scream</b></i> (Spanish: <i>Nadie oyó gritar</i>) refers to it as a Spanish giallo, but I feel this is misleading and almost doing it a disservice. Not that I blame the company; it's a hard movie to sum up with a genre label. It certainly starts like a giallo, with our beautiful heroine seeing someone disposing a body and becoming the killer's target, but then it keeps surprising until the very end, going from kidnapping thriller to road movie to something approaching one of those kind of sad romantic dramas about two broken people coming together - I was not expecting to think about <i>As Good As It Gets</i>, but bless this odd little delight of a film, I did.</p><span id="fullpost"><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> Not that I'd mind if it was just a standard giallo; it's been a minute since I've watched one and thus I'm due for a fix. I try to space out my viewings of such fare since they tend to run together in my mind, so letting them seep in my brain a little before taking in another seems a good way to keep them straight. But once it became clear that this wasn't going to have a huge body count, I allowed myself to enjoy what it actually was, with the added bonus of knowing I could go find a more traditional one today without overload. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> And I shouldn't be surprised, since the film comes from Eloy de la Iglesia, who also directed <i>Cannibal Man</i> (itself recently reissued on Blu-ray from Severin), another film that sounds like one kind of thing on paper but ends up being more interesting/unique than a quickie description would let on. Again, things start off pretty standard here, with Elisa (Carmen Sevilla) seeing Miguel (Vicente Parra, the "Cannibal Man" himself) trying to dump a body in their apartment building, prompting the man to chase her back to her apartment and threaten her. But things swerve pretty quickly; instead of killing her to ensure her silence, he demands she help him dispose the body elsewhere, making her an accomplice that would be in just as much trouble. No, it's not particularly logical, but it's a "good enough" excuse for the two of them to pair off instead of chasing each other for 90 minutes.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> No kidnapping/body in the car type scenario is complete without nosy police, and de la Iglesia offers an all timer incarnation of the scene, as they drive past a major bus accident and the cops force them to take a few of the injured to the hospital (it's a small village and they don't have enough ambulances to do it). So they need Miguel to put his suitcase in the trunk instead of the backseat so the injured can sit there, but naturally the trunk is where the body is - it's a terrific little nailbiter, one of those fun ones where you're not sure if you want the cops to find the body or not as we've already started sympathizing with the guy in a way.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> See, it turns out his wife was a horrible nag and (by 1970s euro thriller standards, I stress) "had it coming", something Elisa seems to understand if not totally agree with. Partly because she too is seeing how empty her life has become, as she is seemingly... well, not quite a prostitute, but makes her living by occasionally spending weekends with wealthy men. In fact she was supposed to be with one such "lover" at the time she encountered Miguel, but changed her mind and broke off the arrangement with the man, having tired of the lack of passion and genuine concern - she wants a real man! Can it be... this dude who slapped her around a bit and made her help him clean his wife's blood off the elevator? Stranger things have happened in these movies!</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> Things get a little more tense due to the arrival of one of her younger lovers later, and the end provides a legitimately good twist that will make the movie interesting to see on a second view now that we have a key bit of information about one of our two leads, but the movie is ultimately a two hander about these two lonely/broken people getting their groove back, so to speak. I'm sure it'd fall victim to "Film Twitter" types who have gotten it in their head that filmmakers always defend and support the actions of their main characters, but for those of us who aren't near-sighted morons it's a pretty compelling take on this sort of fare, as your always torn between wanting them to find their peace but also, you know, not get away with seemingly unjustified murder (the fact that we don't actually see it helps). </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> Apart from noting how lovely the score is (from Fernando García Morcillo, another <i>Cannibal Man</i> returnee; you can listen to the opening credits theme yourself below since I couldn't find a trailer), there's not much else I can say - it's a movie that lives on its performances and how the plot zigs when you expect it to zag, so going on any more would rob you of its pleasures. Again, it may not satisfy you if you want a black gloved killer offing the cast, but if you just want, you know, a GOOD MOVIE, then you should give it a look, especially if you're familiar with <i>Cannibal Man</i> and thus are already accustomed to (and appreciative of) de la Iglesia's seeming disinterest in status quo.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> What say you?</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> P.S. The movie is in Spanish with English subs, but they are specifically *subtitles*, not closed captions, and there are occasional lines in English when she goes to London to see her lover. Just an FYI if you, like me, have to often watch with low volume and count on captions!</p><p><iframe width="400" height="225" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Fng2eBcISKc" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe><iframe style="width:120px;height:240px;" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&OneJS=1&Operation=GetAdHtml&MarketPlace=US&source=ac&ref=qf_sp_asin_til&ad_type=product_link&tracking_id=homoada-20&marketplace=amazon&region=US&placement=B095X1CP7T&asins=B095X1CP7T&linkId=4c7c92e6a11ceb9fc3f78508de008449&show_border=true&link_opens_in_new_window=true&price_color=ffffff&title_color=ffffff&bg_color=000000"> </iframe><script type="text/javascript">var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); </script><script type="text/javascript">try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-12436276-1"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {}</script><a href="https://twitter.com/share" class="twitter-share-button" data-hashtags="horror">Tweet</a><script>!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');</script></p><script data-ad-client="ca-pub-3302834381937327" async src="https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script></span>notyourordinarynerdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17130736757414090873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3666532598350854536.post-78552140772483508862021-09-07T16:38:00.000-07:002021-10-15T02:49:27.448-07:00Chaos Walking<p><i>Spoiler-free!</i></p><p>After two years on the shelf, Tom Holland and Daisy Ridley's team up to adapt yet another dystopian YA novel has seen the light of day. It's about a planet that makes men's thoughts appear as visible and audible fogs of color around their heads, called The Noise. And what happens when the first girl (Ridley) in Todd's (Holland) lifetime shows up, throwing their futuristic wild west town into, uh, chaos.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaRnGVeWQ0EZ8YsNCJmews3-JM4VmhH6HTG739siphfj4AIbg0iuW2qvdrQaKhTSykiV6n0ILlK3jxDokWgaKb165_m1yDVBdozaLyUac0zqD-uSgzZfu7SAavfuC93XYXe5-RWRnWD7IN/s1281/ChaosWalking2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="784" data-original-width="1281" height="279" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaRnGVeWQ0EZ8YsNCJmews3-JM4VmhH6HTG739siphfj4AIbg0iuW2qvdrQaKhTSykiV6n0ILlK3jxDokWgaKb165_m1yDVBdozaLyUac0zqD-uSgzZfu7SAavfuC93XYXe5-RWRnWD7IN/w455-h279/ChaosWalking2.jpg" width="455" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Actually, "Chaos Walking" is a pretty good description of the film itself. </td></tr></tbody></table><p>The YA dystopia phase was deftly put into its grave by the last effort of the Maze Runner series, <i>The Death Cure</i>, limping across the finish line before the race, as it were, was shut down for good. This film's producers, and director Doug Liman, though, didn't get the memo. Although to be fair they started shooting before <i>The Death Cure</i> was released. And it was probably wise of them to shelve it for a while, so people could forget how tired they were of the genre. Now, it feels like a throwback. Remember when Tom Holland was on top of the world? Remember when people thought Daisy Ridley might actually have a career? Remember when making a movie based on a series of books meant that sequels might get made? </p><p>On one hand I feel like <i>Chaos Walking</i> would have been better off rotting on the shelf. On the other, I've always enjoyed these types of films, no matter how bad they get, and I was tickled by this flick every bit as much as I was annoyed. And boy, was I annoyed! You might be able to imagine how grating it'd be to constantly see and hear every thought of every person around you; if you watch this movie, you don't have to imagine anymore! I can't think of a better way to portray this gimmick myself, but I certainly wouldn't have tried to adapt it if this was my best solution. It's distracting. It's cluttering. It's rarely interesting, or useful. It just makes the thing a mess. I imagine it worked easily on page. I wish it had been considered more carefully in the planning stages of this film.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinYIkCHDKwebxcMn3p8izcoG6OjJgnMHecL_zKlhA1Jz9WVYSTUZFVsWsw5RTD0ZzNKHCqtxB4LVEwJlxn0E_-u8pkachzdztDEJm9qE2kV-itTPpgtZrFpJ43Dgbr8BdFiPYg7k9sID1N/s1422/ChaosWalking3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1422" height="261" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinYIkCHDKwebxcMn3p8izcoG6OjJgnMHecL_zKlhA1Jz9WVYSTUZFVsWsw5RTD0ZzNKHCqtxB4LVEwJlxn0E_-u8pkachzdztDEJm9qE2kV-itTPpgtZrFpJ43Dgbr8BdFiPYg7k9sID1N/w464-h261/ChaosWalking3.jpg" width="464" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I feel like the story could have worked without it except for one big detail, but it is the main memorable aspect at the same time. Mostly it gets in the way. </td></tr></tbody></table><p>Besides that, the script reads a lot like you'd expect from a film banking on the success of the Maze Runner series. It's clearly a gutted version of its book counterpart, breezing over explanations and leaving confusion in its wake. All while never allowing scenes to breathe, settle, or be toned into something rich. It's action scenes and exposition scenes layered together. The action holds the most interest as they have a similar kinetic energy to <i>The Maze Runner</i>, and the world they take place in allows for a few creative set pieces. (I'm always on board for on-the-run adventures!) Often the exposition holds back too much, rendering itself unnecessary. Characters are cardboard-level quality, painted colorfully as a distraction. You can tell many of them served a purpose in the book—who can tell what that may have been from this.</p><p>It's the cast that does most of the leg work in selling the story. Tom Holland's try-hard attitude is admirable, but sheer willpower cannot make him become the character, Todd; he's always just Tom Holland, playing some kid in a movie. The action is his greater strength, and he sells that even harder. Daisy Ridley has literally nothing to work with in terms of character, but I don't imagine she'd have given it much more than a pretty face in an ugly wig making big eyes at everything anyway. <i>Star Wars</i> is over, and so is she. The supporting cast is a skilled bunch and though they don't try particularly hard, they bring out memorability in their characters. Mads Mikkelsen, Cynthia Erivo... Nick Jonas (Haha just kidding!) and particularly David Oyelowo, who's a wonderfully intimidating character that ends in underwhelming disappointment.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjicrVj6c4DY5DMk7GqEzCP-h6J3edTLZO9a2rvT2arfkHWYotC0YGnazcOgEYIUgsfmqCxQuQ4O4bR2mYre9QYU9gr3Cyc9fpUiUCq3CC_FD4wozpPjxXlvXr5EJToFPULGr75ckRi4ni/s800/ChaosWalking1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="533" data-original-width="800" height="313" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjicrVj6c4DY5DMk7GqEzCP-h6J3edTLZO9a2rvT2arfkHWYotC0YGnazcOgEYIUgsfmqCxQuQ4O4bR2mYre9QYU9gr3Cyc9fpUiUCq3CC_FD4wozpPjxXlvXr5EJToFPULGr75ckRi4ni/w471-h313/ChaosWalking1.jpg" width="471" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Clearly Tom's trying to prove himself as Nathan Drake here, but what's Daisy gunning for? Leeloo in some secret lumberjack remake of <i>The Fifth Element</i>?</td></tr></tbody></table><p>And speaking of disappointment, that's what I was expecting from this movie, and little more. But the thing about disappointment is, you can't be disappointed unless there are hopes of good to be let down. <i>Chaos Walking</i> provides both the hope, and the potential, and then the disappointment in turn. I could easily dismiss it as a too-little-to-late addition to a dead genre and leave it at that, but the fact is I genuinely liked some of the bones beneath the chaos. And while that's a solid positive, it's sadly a positive that only results in deeper disappointment.</p>notyourordinarynerdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17130736757414090873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3666532598350854536.post-78685780944877222432021-09-07T12:20:00.000-07:002021-10-15T02:49:27.515-07:00Blu-ray Review: The Brotherhood of Satan (1971)<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;">SEPTEMBER 5, 2021</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">GENRE: <a href="http://horror-movie-a-day.blogspot.com/search/label/Cult" target="_blank">CULT</a><br>SOURCE: <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B096CXLRYL/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B096CXLRYL&linkCode=as2&tag=homoada-20&linkId=6f15e5bf5d80f0517f0adbc0c4f80e8a" target="_blank">BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION)</a></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> My memory is getting better! Well, maybe not. See, when I requested a review copy of <i><b>The Brotherhood of Satan</b></i> from Arrow, it was because I was sure I hadn't seen it and it sounded up my alley. But when I popped the disc in, something about the first scene triggered deja vu, so I did what I should have done in the first place and checked to see if I had indeed seen it, discovering that I had <a href="http://horror-movie-a-day.blogspot.com/2013/11/the-brotherhood-of-satan-1971.html" target="_blank">and wrote a review</a>, not even eight years ago (it was actually a post-daily selection! You'd think I'd be able to remember those better!). Want a kicker? Not only did the scene not turn out to be the one from the movie I was thinking of (turned out to be the opening of <i>Hell High</i>, where the girl accidentally kills a pair of teen lovers), but nothing else in the movie really rang a bell.</p><span id="fullpost"><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> On the plus side, that's great, because it was like seeing it for the first time, and it's like, really good. Better than my original review lets on, in fact! It's the kind of '70s horror I really love, where on the surface it seems like any other B movie that probably played second at the drive-ins (indeed, per the IMDb, it played with <i>THX-1138</i>), but has that little extra pep in its step that gives it more personality and helps it stick with you. I originally noted director Bernard McEveety's "matter of fact" approach to his job, but failed to note one of its key examples (minor spoiler for 50 year old movie ahead), that the movie's villain is identified relatively early but then returns to act as an ally to our heroes, without the sort of squinty faced/raised eyebrow/dun dun DUNNNNN kind of music that usually accompany such things. If you missed the in between scene where he was clearly established as the villain, there is nothing to point to his true nature in the later scene, which is kind of chilling in a way.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> Also, I want to point this scene out for another reason. If you've seen the movie, it's the one where the priest, the doctor, the dad, the sheriff, and the deputy are all in the sheriff's house trying to figure out what to do next. McEveety lets most of the five-ish minute scene play out in a master, with lots of cross talk and all five men in the frame doing something. It was probably a time/money saving measure, but the actors had to all be in sync with their blocking and dialogue to make sure it didn't turn chaotic, something that couldn't happen if the director just stuck a camera in the corner and called "action" on five amateur performers. It's legitimately impressive filmmaking from a technical/logistics point of view, something you don't often find in these sort of things (indeed, as I noted before, the plot setup is very much like that of Manos, a film without one impressive technical aspect). </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> It also doesn't spell out what is happening right away, and even though it came before things like <i>Texas Chain Saw Massacre</i>, will "mislead" a new audience a few times before it shows its full hand. Things start off with a family driving through the southwest and seeing the aftermath of a grisly accident, only to be accosted by locals when they try to report it. So it seems like a "run afoul of a creepy town" movie, but later we learn what's got the townsfolk riled up, and realize that they're actually innocent. And due to the likely impossibility of the FX it would need to pull off, it's not until we've seen a few deaths that it becomes clear that (spoiler again) it's the toys doing it. Later developments almost give it an <i>Under the Dome</i> type feel, so I can't help but wonder if Stephen King is a fan (or at least saw it and subconsciously got inspired by it).</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> If he was, I wish he was on the disc, because they seemingly had trouble locating anyone of note to contribute an interview or a commentary. There is an interview with two of the kids, but as it's been fifty years and they were, you know, children, you'd be a fool to think their memories are either that strong or plentiful - they seem to remember having fun and getting to eat as much cake as they wanted during the filming of the party scene, and one of them remembers playing spin the bottle with the others, but the other one doesn't. I guess I can appreciate that it's a fairly brief interview instead of a commentary?</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> There IS a commentary by Kim Newman and Sean Hogan though, and it is as entertaining as the film. They're fans but do not consider it an unassailable masterpiece, so the track is mostly them kind of giggling at some of its wackier elements (like the cult leader's robe) while pointing out how it fits into the larger cult/devil movie canon, particularly the pre-Exorcist ones that weren't so beholden to more traditional religious iconography (indeed, the priest here is ultimately kind of useless). And there's even more of that history to glean from the video essay by David Flint, as well as the included booklet which devotes one of its two essays to the sub-genre (pre and post-<i>Exorcist</i>). The other is about producer/writer/co-star L.Q. Jones, a Peckinpah regular who apparently also wrote a tie-in novel for this film! Adding it to my wishlist ASAP.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> I often wonder how I'd feel about this or that movie from HMAD past that I can now no longer remember much about (even some of the ones in my book, now written six years ago about movies I watched as many years ago then, trigger "Wait, what was that one about?" kind of reactions). How many other gems like this are out there, forgotten and/or written off in my head as decent timekillers at best? I am cursed with generally seeing little reason to revisit a non-favorite film unless I plan to write about it (my stance is that it's time being taken away from watching something new), which means if I remembered seeing <i>Brotherhood</i> I probably would have shrugged off this Arrow release with a "Seen it, eh, nothing special" kind of reaction. My tastes change, my mood may differ... there's any number of reasons that I could be much more endeared with something that was essentially site filler when I take another look at it a decade (give or take) down the road. At any rate, while I usually curse my poor memory, this is one time that it worked in my favor.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> What say you?</p><p><iframe width="400" height="225" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/k8YpRNi6pR8" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe><iframe style="width:120px;height:240px;" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&OneJS=1&Operation=GetAdHtml&MarketPlace=US&source=ac&ref=qf_sp_asin_til&ad_type=product_link&tracking_id=homoada-20&marketplace=amazon&region=US&placement=B096CXLRYL&asins=B096CXLRYL&linkId=c43186cb7719115bfb40a6f56e902500&show_border=true&link_opens_in_new_window=true&price_color=ffffff&title_color=ffffff&bg_color=000000"> </iframe><script type="text/javascript">var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); </script><script type="text/javascript">try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-12436276-1"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {}</script><a href="https://twitter.com/share" class="twitter-share-button" data-hashtags="horror">Tweet</a><script>!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');</script></p><script data-ad-client="ca-pub-3302834381937327" async src="https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script></span>notyourordinarynerdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17130736757414090873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3666532598350854536.post-34372406270452899672021-09-01T10:51:00.000-07:002021-10-15T02:49:27.585-07:00Candyman (2021)<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;">AUGUST 27, 2021</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">GENRE: <a href="http://horror-movie-a-day.blogspot.com/search/label/Supernatural">SUPERNATURAL</a><br>SOURCE: <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09D91YPYX/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B09D91YPYX&linkCode=as2&tag=homoada-20&linkId=bfb22061f81a4fe987d2e943422cb829" target="_blank">THEATRICAL (REGULAR SCREENING)</a></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> In a perfect world, Nia DaCosta and Jordan Peele would have been the ones to have the genius idea to change Candyman to a vengeful murdered slave (for non readers, Bernard Rose's film is basically pretty faithful to Barker's story "The Forbidden", but in there Candyman was a white guy and there was next to nothing about race involved or even implied), in a new adaptation/remake where this new approach allowed it to exist on its own without the legacy of the older film being a factor. Instead, they're making a sequel, also named <i>Candyman</i> (I guess this is how followups are gonna be titled now? Thanks a lot, <i>Halloween</i>), adding their different perspective on Black issues after much of the character's history has already been explored. And when it works, it works incredibly well - but the keyword there is "when". </p><span id="fullpost"><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> One of my key issues requires me to note something that is apparently a bit of a spoiler with regards to its main character of Anthony (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II), so be warned. If you're still here, and you're someone who has seen the 1992 <i>Candyman</i> a few times or even once recently, recently, you might recognize that name, Anthony, because that's the name of the baby who Candyman kidnapped and was rescued by Helen Lyle in the film's climax. And anyone with more than a passing familiarity with the film will likely remember hearing the child's mother, played by Vanessa Williams, screaming it over and over again. Thanks to this film having opening credits with Williams' name right there, and Anthony repeatedly dodging calls from his mother, it shouldn't take more than a handful of brain cells to make the connection: Yahya's character is indeed that grown up baby, and Williams is back as his mom.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> But for some puzzling reason, the movie treats this like a reveal with only about 25 minutes left in its runtime (during the one scene with Williams, making her up front credit practically something of a spoiler itself). Until then, even with Helen Lyle (represented by photos of Virginia Madsen) being established, it mostly acts more like a remake - complete with a different identity for "The Candyman", the urban legend about a guy who gave out candy to kids but was hunted down by the cops when a piece showed up with a razor blade in it. This idea was alluded to in the original, but everything we are seeing about it conflicts with what we learned in the 1992 movie, making it feel like a total do-over, and in turn the sequel reveal practically comes off as a cheat. As a result, dealing with everything about this character (named Sherman Fields) AND the one we're familiar with (Daniel Robitaille is brought up, though the other reveals from <i>Farewell to the Flesh</i> are ignored - the new team just liked the name I guess), plus the resolution of THIS story all happens in a third act whirlwhind, making it feel like the movie is on fast forward after what was a well structured first hour or so.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> Well, mostly well structured. There are a couple of scenes - in particular an attack on a group of high school girls - that don't trigger any alarms at the time, but then the movie reaches its conclusion and you realize that it had no payoff or connection to anything. Did that sequence get butts in seats, since it was heavily featured in the trailer? Most likely, but considering the movie's weighty themes (Black Lives Matter key among them, as both the Fields character and one of our heroes are the victims of racist cops) such exploitation is somewhat ill-fitting. Even if there WAS some kind of payoff it'd feel disconnected (we only briefly met one girl prior, and in a different context; I saw someone noting they didn't even realize it was the same girl), but given how suspicion for the murders eventually lands on Anthony and there are witnesses to his whereabouts at the time, the event is never mentioned again, as if to avoid gummying up the works. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> But that could have been great to explore! The cops wouldn't have given a shit if Anthony was on live TV at the time if they wanted him to be their killer just to have a convenient story (a Black man killing five white girls), and it's a shame that they opt to use the sequence for little more than "let's get another kill in here" purposes, as if this was indeed the generic slasher some (including 12 year old me) expected from the original film. I don't want to use the term "window dressing", but something in that ballpark is how some of the film's scenes end up feeling, as it has to function as both "Candyman 4" but also continue the tradition of past Monkeypaw films (<i>Get Out</i> and <i>Us</i>, but also <i>BlacKkKlansman</i>). Those films were free of franchise constraints, something I feel occasionally holds this one back in ways, as DaCosta never fully marries the two. When it's a racially-charged horror movie about how we create boogeymen to forgive ourselves for looking the other way at injustices, it's terrific, but it has to keep going back to being a <i>Candyman</i> movie, seemingly begrudgingly. It's a weird comparison, but I kept thinking of <i>Alien: Covenant</i>, and how Ridley Scott was clearly more interested in the new story of David and Walter, but had to keep tossing in xenomorph scenes to satisfy audiences (or worried producers) and muddying up the waters.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> That said, being the fourth entry can help you appreciate that it's the first one to offer anything but a dull white woman as its protagonist (Madsen's performance was fine, she just had to play a stock character). DaCosta wisely opts to split lead character duties between Anthony and his girlfriend Brianna (the always delightful Teyonah Parris, who stole <i>WandaVision</i> away from her MCU legacy co-stars); the former is an artist struggling with a bit of a block, with the Candyman story unleashing his imagination and having him look around the old Cabini Green grounds, while the latter is an art gallery director on the rise. As Anthony becomes obsessed with the Candyman story (he even digs up the unfinished research of Helen Lyle, though in keeping with waiting forever to reveal his past, he somehow doesn't ever see his own mother's name in the news clippings or online articles about the woman who is famous for having "kidnapped" him) Brianna discovers her career upswing is perhaps not due to her own talents but her connection to tabloid fodder, leaving her to question if her relationship with Anthony is a liability or a benefit. And eventually Anthony is kind of sidelined; he is stung by a bee and the pus/raw skin from the bite starts spreading across his body, which along with his increasingly fractured mental state allows Brianna to take center stage as she tries to figure out what is wrong with him and if his stories of the Candyman are true after all.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> So basically it feels like a <i>Fly</i> kind of movie, where Anthony is turning into *a* Candyman and Brianna is torn between being frightened by him and wanting to help him. The idea of someone gradually turning into the familiar Candyman figure is an intriguing one, to the extent that I wish it really was just a remake so they could go full force with it instead of coming up with the idea and then reverse engineering how it plays out in order to tie everything back to the original mythos. With Tony Todd as the only Candyman in the previous films (and with him being long dead by the time we met him), the idea of someone being transitioned into the guy we recognize from our Movie Maniacs action figures is something that obviously wouldn't have worked before, so we can't say it's "breaking the rules" (and we did kind of see how Helen became something along those lines), but there's only so far they can go with it when they've established that it's the same canon. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> Where it truly shines is in the little moments that speak to the Black experience, something white guys like me can't ever fully understand but can at least appreciate when seeing them happen to the protagonist we're otherwise identifying with. There's a great little moment where Anthony flinches from a cop car despite not doing anything wrong, and an old timer who runs the local laundromat offers the movie's most stinging points about police and the general idea of why we have "boogeymen" characters. It's got occasional bits of humor, mostly courtesy of Brianna (a simple "nope" when confronted with possibly entering a dark basement is an all timer delivery) and her brother Troy, who acts as a voice of reason throughout. He's also the one to introduce the Candyman story in the first place, and if you're familiar enough with the original to remember exactly what Helen did and didn't do, hearing the urban legend about her is not just amusing in its own right, but also offers us a rare occasion where the time passing between entries can be helpful. It's been nearly 30 years since the original film's events, so you quickly get the idea of how a true story can evolve into nonsensical fiction over time as the legend is told and retold by people who weren't there or (certainly in Troy's case) even alive at the time. It's possible someone sitting there who hasn't seen the original film since opening night in 1992 can accept this version (in which Helen runs into the fire with the baby) as what they saw back then, because who can remember details after 30 years?</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> Those folks will also likely be surprised at Anthony's past, making them (or newcomers entirely) perhaps the ideal audience for the film. Hardcore fans of the series (if any exist for the other sequels) will likely be disappointed by the lack of Tony Todd's presence, but that wasn't a dealbreaker for me - the Sherman Fields character was creepy enough in his own right, as was Anthony's surprise entry into body horror territory. However, the attempt at bridging a sequel and a remake didn't fully work for me; I was too far ahead of the characters to be satisfied with how it worked as, essentially, <i>Candyman 4</i>, but it's those elements were also keeping the movie from fully coming to life as the standalone thing it occasionally seemed to desperately want to be. And by trying to work in so many ideas (police brutality, the effects of gentrification, how people deal with childhood trauma, etc) in a film that has to both function as a reintroduction AND a followup to a classic horror film, it comes off as a bit too crammed and rushed, as if they planned a six episode miniseries and had to turn it into a 90 minute movie instead. It gives you a lot to chew on for sure, but I think I would have walked out more satisfied if DaCosta and crew picked one or two of those ideas and really ran with it/them, instead of overloading with everything and robbing of it of some of its impact as a result. I've been trying to make this review sound less negative (I gave it 3 stars, which by my ratings "code" means it's an enjoyable/average movie), but I just can't get around the fact that a pretty good movie will always seem like a disappointment when it flirts with greatness. I'll probably like it more a second time around when I know it's got some nagging problems - at least it's short enough for a revisit to be more likely. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> What say you?</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> P.S. I hope Clive Barker has a sense of humor about how he is represented in the film; there's a douchey sex predator named Clive and a villain character is seen reading <i>Weave World</i>. Yeesh!</p><p><iframe width="400" height="225" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/tlwzuZ9kOQU" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe><iframe style="width:120px;height:240px;" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&OneJS=1&Operation=GetAdHtml&MarketPlace=US&source=ac&ref=qf_sp_asin_til&ad_type=product_link&tracking_id=homoada-20&marketplace=amazon&region=US&placement=B09D91YPYX&asins=B09D91YPYX&linkId=b988fd2a7e63c7ebc9164c689cb13f8c&show_border=true&link_opens_in_new_window=true&price_color=ffffff&title_color=ffffff&bg_color=000000"> </iframe><script type="text/javascript">var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); </script><script type="text/javascript">try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-12436276-1"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {}</script><a href="https://twitter.com/share" class="twitter-share-button" data-hashtags="horror">Tweet</a><script>!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');</script></p><script data-ad-client="ca-pub-3302834381937327" async src="https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script></span>notyourordinarynerdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17130736757414090873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3666532598350854536.post-49310771565135034122021-08-27T09:24:00.000-07:002021-10-15T02:49:27.652-07:00From The Pile: Fangs Of The Living Dead (1969)<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;">AUGUST 25, 2021</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">GENRE: <a href="http://horror-movie-a-day.blogspot.com/search/label/Vampire" target="_blank">VAMPIRE</a><br>SOURCE: <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0785VM91V/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B0785VM91V&linkCode=as2&tag=homoada-20&linkId=95744828cf95e887e868c55529e80a6a" target="_blank">BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION)</a></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> The title seemed familiar, so I checked twice to make sure I hadn't already seen/reviewed <i><b>Fangs of the Living Dead</b></i> (aka <i>Malenka</i>) on the site before I opened the still wrapped disc from the endless "Pile" (now an overfilled box) with the intent of watching it, reviewing it, and - unless it was great - sending it to the *other* box, the one full of discs that are waiting to be traded in on a literal rainy day*. "I don't want to have <a href="http://horror-movie-a-day.blogspot.com/search?q=killer+nun" target="_blank">another <i>Killer Nun</i> situation on my hands</a>," I thought, before starting the film and discovering that it actually starred the Nun herself, Anita Ekberg. I found that pretty amusing.</p><span id="fullpost"><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> Most things are more amusing than the film, as it turns out, as it's pretty much a total snooze. It was the first horror film for Amando de Ossorio, who found success a few years later with the <i>Tombs of the Blind Dead</i> films but hadn't quite found his groove yet (some would argue he never did; his name is certainly not one that inspires me to watch his entire filmography), though he's not entirely to blame for the film's lapses. Apparently no one could decide whether to make a fully serious horror movie or a lighthearted one with comedy akin to the recent (and successful) <i>Fearless Vampire Killers</i>, but even if they did settle that before shooting began, de Ossorio is no Polanski, so I don't think that switcheroo was the only reason the movie doesn't really work.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> It's also far too chaste compared to what else we had at the time; it's nearly bloodless, the women don't show off a lot of skin (forget about actual nudity), and the ending can't even bring itself to kill off the hero's horny pal - a character who seemingly only exists to be pointy teeth fodder. Nothing wrong with dialing things back and aiming for a more atmospheric and suspenseful take on the subject matter (which is more or less just <i>Dracula</i>), but de Ossorio isn't exactly delivering on those fronts either, so it's just kind of sitting there like a wet fart for large chunks of its runtime. The only time it really comes to life is in the last half hour, when the town's doctor (Carlos Casaravilla) takes a more active role in the proceedings as a sort of Van Helsing type, but one who has looked the other way on the vampire villain's evil deeds. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> As for the villains, well... their whole story doesn't make any sense really, as part of the plot reveal (spoiler for 50+ year old movie ahead) is that they're not actually vampires, though the main one's demise is straight up vampire stuff. So were they lying about lying about being vampires? And why wait until the end of the movie to tell us this when nothing much has happened? Do it earlier and then spring something more interesting on us for the finale instead of an endless scene of the guy's body turning into a husk after being staked. To be fair though, there's another ending where that doesn't happen, and it's presented on the disc as a bonus feature, but it's in the original Spanish language so his not-dying monologue is a mystery to my ears. That ending also gives everyone a happy ending, except for perhaps the hero's buddy, who is now a vampire himself (huh?) and sends us off while comically chasing after a frightened woman. Hilarious! </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> Honestly the highlight of the disc is the commentary by Troy Howarth, who thankfully doesn't think too much of the movie himself and spares us 90 minutes of defending it. Instead he runs through the filmographies and careers of its players as you'd expect, but also gives some interesting historical background on Spain at the time, operating under Generalissimo Francisco Franco (at that time, *not* dead), as this was one of the first horror films produced by the country. He also notes a few interesting tidbits, such as the fact that a character's name of Vladis was NOT a little nod to Vlad the Impaler, as I assumed while watching, as the connection between Vlad and Dracula was not introduced until a few years later. That sort of stuff is why I always listen to the historian tracks even if I don't like the movie; might as well learn something rather than write the whole thing off as a loss.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> But hey, sometimes the discs from the pile end up being worth keeping, which doesn't help me in my never-ending attempt to pare the collection down. I have no desire to keep this one, so thanks for kind of sucking, movie! That's a quarter inch of horizontal space I don't have to find on the permanent shelf!</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> What say you?</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> *I started taking walks on my lunch break in an attempt to shed a few pandemic pounds, so that eats up the time I have to go across town and give the box to some weird dude at a CD/movie store and come up with some random amount of cash to give me for it. But if it rains? I will stay dry, and RAKE IN THAT TRADE-IN CASH! </p><p><iframe width="400" height="225" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/UPZOwWXzGNY" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe><iframe style="width:120px;height:240px;" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&OneJS=1&Operation=GetAdHtml&MarketPlace=US&source=ac&ref=qf_sp_asin_til&ad_type=product_link&tracking_id=homoada-20&marketplace=amazon&region=US&placement=B0785VM91V&asins=B0785VM91V&linkId=012baf7ded34595f47cab61bb2075552&show_border=true&link_opens_in_new_window=true&price_color=ffffff&title_color=ffffff&bg_color=000000"> </iframe><script type="text/javascript">var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); </script><script type="text/javascript">try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-12436276-1"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {}</script><a href="https://twitter.com/share" class="twitter-share-button" data-hashtags="horror">Tweet</a><script>!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');</script></p><script data-ad-client="ca-pub-3302834381937327" async src="https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script></span>notyourordinarynerdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17130736757414090873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3666532598350854536.post-46020543516036510452021-08-25T10:39:00.000-07:002021-10-15T02:49:27.716-07:00The Night House (2020)<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;">AUGUST 20, 2021</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">GENRE: <a href="http://horror-movie-a-day.blogspot.com/search/label/Ghost" target="_blank">GHOST</a><br><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09C13HVPX/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B09C13HVPX&linkCode=as2&tag=homoada-20&linkId=7ff50a428cf6536f51e3e8646325a45c" target="_blank">SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REGULAR SCREENING)</a></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> There is a moment in <b><i>The Night House</i></b> that shook me to my core, but it wasn't a particularly scary moment. No, it's a bit where Beth (Rebecca Hall) is having a dream that her dead husband is texting her, and when she looks at the message, we can see that there are other, older ones (from when he was presumably alive), unlike most movies where a new text is the only time this person apparently ever texted their loved one. Then, they double down on the surprises - when she wakes up and checks to see if the text was real, her phone is plugged in! Movie characters are always just leaving their phone right there next to them, unplugged, because these people never have to worry about a dead battery I guess. But Beth does!</p><span id="fullpost"><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> Granted this is just me clapping for a weird pet peeve, but it does tie into one of the things that makes the movie work as well as it does: it feels very natural and our protagonist is relatable, allowing the ghost-y stuff to really get under your skin. Having just lost her husband to suicide, Beth's grief is manifesting in many ways: she drinks, she watches their home videos, she packs up his toiletries to toss them, and she ultimately starts going through his personal things trying to find answers for why he suddenly took his own life. And (thanks in part to Hall's terrific performance) we understand perfectly that, even though we never met her prior to this tragedy, this is all unusual behavior for her, and also that he was her "rock" despite never having seen them together. It's a balancing act that the script and director David Bruckner (and again, Hall) walk expertly. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> It's also surprisingly funny at times. There's another great scene where Beth (a teacher) is confronted by a parent of a student who got a C in class, and while she's trying to be delicate at first and chalk her recent absence (in the mom's eyes, the reason for the lower grade) to "a personal matter", the mom keeps harping on it, so Beth just trys the blunt approach and tells her, mid-sentence, that he blew his brains out. Dark as it is, the woman's stunned reaction is a hilarious bit of comedy, and there are other moments like it throughout the film, even as Beth's grief enters the anger portion and she confronts one of the women she finds photos of in her husband's phone.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> I can't get too much into that because spoilers, but I will say that part of the mystery involves these women, all of whom somewhat resemble Beth and may be connected to a mirrored version of their house that he has built across the lake from theirs. His suicide note was a cryptic message about Beth being safe now, and we learn that she once died for a few minutes after an accident before being revived, and if you think all of these things might be connected, you'd be correct, though exactly what is something Bruckner and co. thankfully do not feel the need to spell out with dialogue, trusting the audience to piece it together on their own. It's not a puzzler by any means; it was just refreshingly free of hand holding. With Hall being in just about every frame of the film (I think the final scene is the only time we ever see anything from anyone else's perspective) and often alone except for the possible ghost, it would mean a lot of talking to herself to convey exposition in a more traditional (read: dumbed down) manner, and I was pleasantly surprised to see they trusted their audience enough to not do that.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> It's also light on traditional scares, something that will likely annoy any younger audiences who were hooked in by the trailer (which shows almost all of them), as they probably won't be able to connect to the drama either (though maybe they will in Covid times? Possible they've lost someone close recently). At times you feel the creative team would rather just focus on Hall working through it than deal with the haunting element, which is fine by me since I don't really get scared anyway, but I feel I should say it as a bit of a warning for anyone who might be heading out for some good ol fashioned "let's go scream together with a big crowd" horror movie viewing. Not only will the crowd be small and muted, but blah blah blah Delta, etc (you've heard it all by now), so if you want to wait for home, I would only sigh with how it relates to the theatrical success of a solid, ORIGINAL horror movie. As a human, and movie fan in general, I'll admit this one might actually work better at home anyway, even without the health risks being a factor.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> I know this is a relatively short review for me, but that's part of what makes the movie work: its simplicity. Yes, Beth finds out things about her husband that ultimately has her looking at weird old books and even taking a mini road trip for info, but it never gets bogged down in this stuff; her working through it is the driving force, and unless you want multiple paragraphs about praising Hall's performance, there isn't much to write about without diluting the experience (I can also vouch for the score by Lovett, quite good!). If you were a fan of (HMAD book recommendations*!) <i>Absentia, The Eclipse</i> and/or <i>The Presence</i>, I think you'll enjoy this, and if you found them "boring" or whatever, then there isn't going to be much here to change your mind, though I still encourage you to see for yourself when you feel comfortable doing so. At the very least, it might give jealous spouses a reason to not be so quick to fear the worst when they see their partner looking at other men/women!</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> What say you?</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> *I was gonna just write a note here but made it a whole ass post instead of burying it in a review for a movie apparently few have seen. <a href="http://horror-movie-a-day.blogspot.com/2021/08/hmad-has-gone-global.html" target="_blank">Click here for something cool re: my book</a>! </p><p><iframe width="400" height="225" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/2Tshycci2ZA" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe><iframe style="width:120px;height:240px;" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&OneJS=1&Operation=GetAdHtml&MarketPlace=US&source=ac&ref=qf_sp_asin_til&ad_type=product_link&tracking_id=homoada-20&marketplace=amazon&region=US&placement=B09C13HVPX&asins=B09C13HVPX&linkId=a2fccaa044a86f4e83207edf78a83c87&show_border=true&link_opens_in_new_window=true&price_color=ffffff&title_color=ffffff&bg_color=000000"> </iframe><script type="text/javascript">var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); </script><script type="text/javascript">try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-12436276-1"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {}</script><a href="https://twitter.com/share" class="twitter-share-button" data-hashtags="horror">Tweet</a><script>!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');</script></p><script data-ad-client="ca-pub-3302834381937327" async src="https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script></span>notyourordinarynerdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17130736757414090873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3666532598350854536.post-72576329163595248092021-08-18T14:47:00.000-07:002021-10-15T02:49:27.781-07:00Skinned Deep (2004)<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;">AUGUST 17, 2021</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">GENRE: <a href="http://horror-movie-a-day.blogspot.com/search/label/Breakdown" target="_blank">BREAKDOWN</a>, <a href="http://horror-movie-a-day.blogspot.com/search/label/Survival" target="_blank">SURVIVAL</a><br>SOURCE: <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B092CR874N/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B092CR874N&linkCode=as2&tag=homoada-20&linkId=624f72d13243282f8a48f69474573fcd" target="_blank">BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION)</a></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> Gun to my head I would have guessed that <i><b>Skinned Deep</b></i> was an early '90s movie more or less produced for the VHS market, something that would have gotten coverage in <i>Fangoria</i> during those pre-<i>Scream</i> years where big screen horror was so intermittent that the mag had to noticeably step up its coverage of smaller films (the '80s rarely afforded them the opportunity). But nope, it was actually released in 2004 (by <i>Fangoria</i>, natch) and started shooting in 2000, long after the heyday of both the film's subject matter (<i>Texas Chainsaw</i>-esque demented backwoods killers) and the home video market it was chasing. DVD had taken over by then, as had the video chains over the mom and pop types, leaving these sort of things in the dust as Blockbuster would rather stock another copy of The Ring than devote shelf space to more than one copy of something like this.</p><span id="fullpost"><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> No, this was clearly just a labor of love from writer/director Gabe Bartalos, making his debut as a director after years of makeup and FX work. His resume dates back to the mid '80s, and I swear I've seen him on at least a dozen DVD/Blu bonus features over the years thanks to his work on Frank Henenlotter films and Charles Band productions. Needless to say I was curious what kind of film he'd make on his own, and I was happy to discover it wasn't just a bland slasher that gave him an excuse to show off his FX skills every ten minutes, but instead offered a singular vision of a filmmaker who cared about every frame in the film, regardless of whether or not it had anything that would excite gorehounds.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> The basic story is nothing new; a family of four is traveling, their car gets a flat, and the nearest place for help is run by murderous weirdos. But there's something "off" about the proceedings that should tell even the most jaded viewer (including me, at first) that this isn't going to be a run of the mill affair. The actors (heroes and villains alike) are all very bizarre and exaggerated, as if they stepped out of a David Lynch music video, and when the killing starts, Bartalos saves the most gruesome death for the young boy of the family, i.e. something most wouldn't dare to do at all. After everyone else in the family is dispatched, the focus falls squarely on the teen daughter, who catches the fancy of Brian aka Brain, so named because... well, he has a giant brain on his head.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> Yes, this enters into sci-fi territory, as our villains have seemingly been created by, er, The Creator, a mysterious puppet master we meet later. Brain/Brian is seemingly sympathetic and longs to run naked through Times Square (a vision we see for real; Bartalos obviously didn't have permits and just shot the sequence guerilla style - the actor was subsequently arrested, but they got the shot!). His "brothers" are the more murdery ones, one is called Plates after the sharpened dinnerware he uses as weapons, and the other is the Surgeon General, the machine-mouthed guy on the cover. A few actors played him based on availability and what not (it was a long production, as noted) but Plates is played by Warwick Davis (Bartalos did his makeup for all of the <i>Leprechauns</i>), painted to look like an albino and dropping off kilter line readings into most of his scenes.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> Heroine Tina runs afoul of them and other baddies over the course of the film's (slightly overlong) 97 minutes, but they take out others on occasion, like a group of elderly bikers who seek revenge after one of their number is killed trying to help the girl. Bartalos is seemingly well aware that this sort of movie can feel "samey" to the astute horror fans who will undoubtedly make up the majority of his audience (there is zero attempt at making this thing mainstream friendly, I assure you), so he keeps things forever lively by keeping Tina on the run, allowing the production designer enough of a showcase for an entire demo reel. When Tina ends up in a room that is covered ceiling to floor in newspaper, you truly get the sense of how much work went into the movie to keep it engaging. He could have thrown the girl in a typical bland basement room with a few pipes in the background, but instead you get this strange, claustrophobic visual that had to have taken dozens of man hours to put together. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> It's that attention to detail that makes the film stand out where it could have been another 90 minute chase flick. Again, yeah, it could have been tightened in spots, and you need to forgive some wonky ADR and the like, but there is almost never a moment in the film where you can't pause it and say "Look at how much work they put into creating this scene", between the complicated makeup (Brain's took four hours to apply, and he's in it quite a bit), crazy set designs, and yes, the gore, which is mostly practical but Bartalos also knew better than to institute a ban on CGI. Any good FX artist knows that utilizing the best of both worlds is the way to get the most ideal results, and so some sneaks in here and there, and only a fool would complain about it.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> Severin's blu has two featurettes, one a vintage piece from (I assume) the first DVD release back then, and a new retrospective where Bartalos and a few others answer fan questions. There's also a commentary track with pretty much the same people as the later retrospective, which is kind of annoyingly out of sync with the movie so there are times where Bartalos is saying "OK this shot coming up right..... HERE was (tech talk)" but from context we can tell he is referring to something we saw 15 seconds earlier. But otherwise it's chockfull of production info and anecdotes, with occasional ball-busting and self deprecation, i.e. an ideal track for both fans of the film and also for detractors who assume things like this can just be slapped together in a weekend. Even if you're not down with all of the movie's choices, no one can deny that it is the result of a hard working filmmaker that wanted to put his own spin on classic horror movie material, one who made sure to put every dollar of his (not large!) budget on the screen instead of blowing half of it on a pointless cameo by someone who didn't happen to have a horror convention on his schedule that weekend. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> It's sad though, because I kept having the "They don't make em like this anymore" thought for a movie that was only a couple years old when I started doing Horror Movie A Day. I mean yeah it's depressing to think I'm that much older, but in general the idea of anyone doing this sort of thing (on film no less, though there are a handful of well-matched digital shots) is practically unthinkable nowadays. Indie horror exists of course, but the things that find distribution are mostly A24 lite affairs, with gonzo stuff like this being "underground" fare that probably costs less than I spend on electricity every year. It's rare I come across anything that the filmmaker spent years of their life tinkering with to get just the way they liked it, shooting when they could instead of shitting it out over a week and trying to salvage something from what they shot (on their iPhone). Oh, and doing it before he could ask people on the internet to pay for it, reducing their own interest in making sure it got done right. I'm sure those sort of productions still exist, but they don't come across my desk as much as I'd like. Hopefully that'll change.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> What say you?</p><p><iframe width="400" height="225" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/GR4OWXtOxHQ" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe><iframe style="width:120px;height:240px;" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&OneJS=1&Operation=GetAdHtml&MarketPlace=US&source=ac&ref=qf_sp_asin_til&ad_type=product_link&tracking_id=homoada-20&marketplace=amazon&region=US&placement=B092CR874N&asins=B092CR874N&linkId=4e28683a880a3598c1f0b590abf8bc8e&show_border=true&link_opens_in_new_window=true&price_color=ffffff&title_color=ffffff&bg_color=000000"> </iframe><script type="text/javascript">var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); </script><script type="text/javascript">try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-12436276-1"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {}</script><a href="https://twitter.com/share" class="twitter-share-button" data-hashtags="horror">Tweet</a><script>!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');</script></p><script data-ad-client="ca-pub-3302834381937327" async src="https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script></span>notyourordinarynerdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17130736757414090873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3666532598350854536.post-15289911465217046422021-08-16T10:03:00.000-07:002021-10-15T02:49:27.860-07:00Don't Breathe 2 (2021)<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;">AUGUST 13, 2021</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">GENRE: <a href="http://horror-movie-a-day.blogspot.com/search/label/Survival">SURVIVAL</a>, <a href="http://horror-movie-a-day.blogspot.com/search/label/Thriller" target="_blank">THRILLER</a><br>SOURCE: <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09BY81S9R/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B09BY81S9R&linkCode=as2&tag=homoada-20&linkId=1e5feb5b502f1c978c370338b0c16d27" target="_blank">THEATRICAL (REGULAR SCREENING)</a></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> The existence of <i><b>Don't Breathe 2</b></i> is an odd one for many reasons, chiefly that it doesn't even bother to go with the thin premise established at the end of the first one, in which the Blind Man would follow Jane Levy and her sister to California to finish the job. Perhaps Levy couldn't be coaxed to return, or they realized they couldn't fake Los Angeles in Serbia, but either way they opted to do something else. But that they bothered at all is another puzzler; it's been five years, which is an eternity for a budding genre franchise, and before you say "it was delayed because of covid" - nope! They actually shot it last year; it's one of the very few movies to come out in 2021 that wasn't bounced around the schedule. </p><span id="fullpost"><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> That said the action skips ahead eight years, so if Levy ever wanted to come back after all, they could go the prequel/midquel route and slot it in that sizable period. This film is pretty standalone; Stephen Lang's Blind Man mentions having lost a daughter but otherwise there's no real connection to the first film even as far as the first film's character goes, let alone its events. As long as you know he's a blind guy who isn't all that great of a human being (i.e. something you can glean from the trailer) you have all the context you need. In fact I actually wondered if they were attempting to retcon some of his lesser qualities or hope that we simply forgot them, but he actually refers to himself as a rapist at one point, which surprised me. He's wisened up from the original! (Where he specifically said he was NOT a rapist as he merely wanted to artificially inseminate someone - the ickiest gray area of all time?)</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> Anyway, the plot this time is that eight years ago he stumbled on a house fire (burning down from a meth lab explosion) and found a little girl who survived when her family presumably did not. So he takes her under his wing (kidnapping, essentially) and teaches her how to fight, read in Braille, etc. But he also won't let her out of the house much, or play with other kids, or anything like that, so naturally now that she's 12ish she's starting to question her world and how lonely it is. One day she attracts the attention of some lowlifes who may or may not be kidnapping people to take their organs, and so Lang has to spring back into action to protect her. But... does he?</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> SPOILERS AHEAD!</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> The wrinkle here is that the head lowlife, Raylan (Brendan Sexton III from <i>Session 9</i>), claims to be her actual father, having NOT died in the fire as we've assumed. The mystery of whether he is lying or not is part of the suspense, and I won't spoil that much here, only to note that the script's attempts at curveballs and misdirection never really pan out. Ultimately, everything happens pretty much exactly how you will probably expect it to, which is kind of a weird thing to be saying about an R rated thriller that dared to make the murderous villain from the first film into an antihero. Rather than lean into the fact that he's bad, they simply make the other people worse (and have him save a dog for good measure), which I found to be kind of a cop out. And it doesn't help that the characterization for the quintet of villains is pretty underwhelming; for this sort of "vigilante gets revenge against scummy dudes" kind of thing it's easy to think about <i>The Crow</i>, and how that film gave each of those guys some color and scene-stealing antics, but you get next to none of that sort of thing here. Two of them are actually brothers and we don't even learn this information until one of them is dead, nor did I manage to catch most of their names. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> They also could have really surprised us and just killed The Blind Man off halfway through or something, letting the little girl (Madelyn Grace) to save herself using the survival skills he taught her. Sometimes they come into play, such as the film's highlight sequence (an early long shot in which she evades her would-be captors throughout the house), but for the most part she's gotta wait for Lang to come along and spring her loose from whatever predicament she's currently in. But given her age, we know she's gonna be just fine (same as with the original; we knew Levy would survive because she had to save her little sister from their over-the-top awful home life), so there really isn't much suspense to the proceedings once we know the truth of her parentage. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> I was also curious why the script (again by Fede Alvarez and Rodo Sayagues, with the latter taking over the director's chair this time) waited so long to move the action from Lang's house to a decaying hotel where the bad guys have set up shop. The trailer made it look like it was an even split, but honestly I think there's only about 25 minutes left of the movie by the time Lang makes his way there. The new locale, and Lang's unfamiliarity with it, could have given the movie more room to play, but with so much of it at his house, it comes off as a retread for far too long, another crippling blow for a suspense film of this type. Apart from the aforementioned long shot sequence, and another bit where Grace has to choose between electrocution, drowning, or capture, there's precious little nailbiter kind of stuff here, which was the original's calling card.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> That said it's an easy enough way to burn off 95 minutes (nothing worth risking a theater for though, if you're Delta-phobic or what not). Lang, pushing 70, gives a great physical performance, producer Sam Raimi gets some of his splatter in there (not as much as there seemingly should be though, considering how despicable the villains are), and it thankfully avoids any of the ickiness that dampened the fun of the original (as much as I laughed at the pubic hair sight gag there). I honestly think it'll play better to people who haven't seen the original, but if you were a die hard fan of that one I'm sure you won't mind watching Lang do his thing for another round. Still, if they make a third, I hope they think outside the box a bit; I noted in my review for the original that I would probably never bother watching it again because the suspense factor would be gone, but at times here I felt I was doing just that.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> What say you? </p><p><iframe width="400" height="225" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/gRbG2tjHYCA" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe><iframe style="width:120px;height:240px;" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&OneJS=1&Operation=GetAdHtml&MarketPlace=US&source=ac&ref=qf_sp_asin_til&ad_type=product_link&tracking_id=homoada-20&marketplace=amazon&region=US&placement=B09BY81S9R&asins=B09BY81S9R&linkId=f518a7ff6501b374dda41b7a5d2217bf&show_border=true&link_opens_in_new_window=true&price_color=ffffff&title_color=ffffff&bg_color=000000"> </iframe><script type="text/javascript">var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); </script><script type="text/javascript">try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-12436276-1"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {}</script><a href="https://twitter.com/share" class="twitter-share-button" data-hashtags="horror">Tweet</a><script>!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');</script></p><script data-ad-client="ca-pub-3302834381937327" async src="https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script></span>notyourordinarynerdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17130736757414090873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3666532598350854536.post-89353114229709564952021-07-30T14:37:00.000-07:002021-10-15T02:49:27.924-07:00Old (2021)<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;">JULY 24, 2021</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">GENRE: <a href="http://horror-movie-a-day.blogspot.com/search/label/Supernatural" target="_blank">SUPERNATURAL</a><br>SOURCE: <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00WHUNNG4/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B00WHUNNG4&linkCode=as2&tag=homoada-20&linkId=0fca425a4d1da007607e1c216d7f2a54" target="_blank">THEATRICAL (REGULAR SCREENING)</a></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> In retrospect, a string of box office duds may have been the best thing to happen to M. Night Shyamalan. After a couple misfires in a row (regardless of how you or I felt about them; in fact I'm quite fond of <i>After Earth</i>), the filmmaker either found himself unable to get big budgets or simply chose not to pursue them anymore. Either way he went off and made <i>The Visit</i>, which was a big hit (and proved, again, that filmmakers who knew how to make real movies were also better equipped to make found footage ones) and started a healthy relationship with Blumhouse and, by extension, Universal Pictures. Both outfits are known for letting filmmakers do what they want as long as the budgets are kept in check, a godsend for someone like Shyamalan who, as <i><b>Old</b></i> repeatedly proves, has idiosyncratic tendencies that either balance out or simply exacerbate certain weaknesses in his screenplays. </p><span id="fullpost"><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> Luckily for me, I'm usually on board with such quirks, and was not surprised to discover how much I enjoyed the film, same as I have pretty much everything he's made thus far. I didn't see <i>Last Airbender</i> or his first two, pre-<i>Sixth Sense</i> films, but of his filmography otherwise, I'd slot <i>Lady in the Water</i> as the only one I didn't enjoy on some level; even <i>The Happening</i> (a close second last in that ranking) has plenty of ironic entertainment value ("Cough syrup") and a fairly solid first half. Like Stephen King, the filmmaker tends to whiff some of the early promise on a misguided ending, but while I wouldn't consider <i>Old</i>'s denouement a home run, it's thankfully free of the collapses that made <i>Glass</i> and <i>The Village</i> harder to watch a second time when their solid setups ended up having lousy outcomes.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> (SPOILERS ARE AHEAD THROUGHOUT THE REVIEW! Consider this an all purpose warning!)</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> It's possible that having pre-existing material to draw from helped him a little this time around; I've long said that he could benefit from a writing partner that could reign in some (emphasis on some) of his harder-to-swallow tendencies and refine his ideas into something a little less clunky. Here he is adapting a French graphic novel called <i>Sandcastle</i>, and while I haven't read it myself, some internet sleuthing has led me to discover that the basic plot is the same but he added his own ideas, including the ending. But even though he's being "unfaithful" to the text, I think that having it to fall back on and give him a loose road map of how to proceed with the story kept things working more or less smoothly.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> By now you've all probably heard the elevator pitch: some people find a beach that ages them rapidly (someone does the math in the movie, and I think they come up with every half hour being about one year in real time) and also can't seem to escape. This gives the film a depressing ticking clock; they're not trying to stop a bomb or anything like that, they're simply trying to come up with a plan to escape while also gradually realizing that their time on this earth is being whittled away and thus maybe it's better to just make the most of what time they have left. Shyamalan isn't shy (sorry) about hitting us over the head with the basic idea of not wishing your life away; in the opening scene the mom (Vicky Krieps) scolds one child for wanting the ride to the resort to go faster ("Just appreciate what you see around you right now!") while also daydreaming of when her daughter will be older and have an even more beautiful singing voice than she does now. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> I of course am guilty of the latter; I frequently bemoan my son being too young to enjoy this or that movie, needing assistance with things that require me to get off my lazy ass, etc.* But I also get sad when it's clear he's gotten *too old* for certain things; I packed up some of his <i>Mickey Mouse Clubhouse</i> DVDs the other day and nearly started crying, thinking of all the times he would excitedly dance to the theme song (and encourage me to dance along with him), an activity he's long since outgrown and will be one of many I'll wish to enjoy just one more time when I blink a few more times and watch him go off to college. That whole "live in the present" thing is so hard to keep in mind, so a movie (a horror/thriller no less) revolving around that concept of our time always being taken away from us is very appealing to me, the kind of thing that will allow me to forgive some blemishes.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> I say this because, you know, it's an M. Night Shyamalan movie. By now you should know that will mean some strange performances from dependable actors (Ken Leung in particular seemed kind of bewildered at times), kooky dialogue, a distracting cameo by the man himself (luckily it comes pretty early - he's the guy who drives them to the beach), and - yes - a twist that you either have to roll with or let it kill the whole experience. Interestingly, this time around the twist itself is perfectly fine, in fact it's one of his better ones in many ways - but he adds another wrinkle to it that I found unnecessary. I'll have to spoil it to make any sense, so once again I'm going to warn you off, but I will confine it to the next paragraph, so just skip that one if you're here for minor spoilers but don't want the reveal given away.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> For those still here, I kind of loved the surprise twist that the people who died on Old Island were in fact specifically targeted to go there due to their various illnesses, as there is a team of scientists and doctors using the island's mysterious aging properties to find cures for all of the world's diseases. It's a trial and error process, but it apparently works - we learn at the end that one of the victims' deaths proved to be the final key in creating a cure for epilepsy. Had the movie ended there, with the knowledge that these people weren't dying in vain, it would be fine, but Shyamalan opts to have it both ways, and let two survivors spill the island's secrets to the police, shutting down their operation. Sure, what they're doing has some serious moral issues, but I think the film would have been even more successful if the filmmaker let us debate about that for ourselves on the way out of the theater, instead of using his lead character to remove any such ambiguity when he "heroically" shuts it all down and prevents cancer or (since it was shot only a year ago) covid from being cured. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> But again, these kinds of slip ups aren't rare in his filmography, so you should be prepared for something like that anyway. However, you might be more surprised by how gnarly the film gets at times, with the rapid aging element being used for less obvious highlights as our group of twelve characters spend their awful day at the beach. For example, wounds tend to heal quicker than they should, which means a few basic "someone gets cut and the wound instantly turns to a scar" kind of things, but also broken bones healing quickly despite being in the wrong place, or a surgery to remove a tumor being thwarted by the skin closing itself back up as they reach in to extract it. Shyamalan's films always kind of tiptoe around being full blown horror films, and while this is no exception, I feel it's the first one that enters EC Comics territory when it comes to some of its effects.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> Ultimately, in its own strange way, it functions just fine as a simple "Don't wish your life away, appreciate your life and that of your loved ones" message movie. There are some genuinely sad moments in the film, stemming from both the adults finding themselves facing their twilight "years" by nightfall, and from the children who had their entire adolescence stolen from them. When two adult actors decide to make a sandcastle, out of context it seems silly, but in the film's reality, it's a pair of 6 and 10 year old children whose minds haven't developed enough to fully process what has happened to them over the past day. Yes, there are some inconsistencies with the aging (there are four versions of the son, one of whom is played by Hereditary's Alex Wolff, but only three versions of his sister), but again, there's a "just go with it" quality to Shyamalan's output that any moviegoer should be accustomed to after a dozen films. If you're the type to laugh off his work, this one certainly won't change your mind, but for those who have stuck around for the long haul, I hope you'll agree that this is one of his better films, and admirably more personal despite the concept.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> What say you?</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> *I SHIT YOU NOT he interrupted me as I was writing this very sentiment to help him put a game in the Xbox. Basically I want him to age to the point of being able to figure that out for himself but NOT get too old to want to play said game(s) with me.</p><p><iframe width="400" height="225" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/A4U2pMRV9_k" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe><iframe style="width:120px;height:240px;" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&OneJS=1&Operation=GetAdHtml&MarketPlace=US&source=ac&ref=qf_sp_asin_til&ad_type=product_link&tracking_id=homoada-20&marketplace=amazon&region=US&placement=B00WHUNNG4&asins=B00WHUNNG4&linkId=0672b39c63efaa8ea59702c084f7b633&show_border=true&link_opens_in_new_window=true&price_color=ffffff&title_color=ffffff&bg_color=000000"> </iframe><script type="text/javascript">var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); </script><script type="text/javascript">try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-12436276-1"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {}</script><a href="https://twitter.com/share" class="twitter-share-button" data-hashtags="horror">Tweet</a><script>!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');</script></p><script data-ad-client="ca-pub-3302834381937327" async src="https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script></span>notyourordinarynerdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17130736757414090873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3666532598350854536.post-8776316085125037122021-07-21T10:35:00.000-07:002021-10-15T02:49:27.989-07:00Fear Street (Trilogy) (2021)<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;">JULY 2-16, 2021</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">GENRE: <a href="http://horror-movie-a-day.blogspot.com/search/label/Slasher" target="_blank">SLASHER</a>, <a href="http://horror-movie-a-day.blogspot.com/search/label/Supernatural">SUPERNATURAL</a><br>SOURCE: <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1250076935/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1250076935&linkCode=as2&tag=homoada-20&linkId=8fba5caff14a01effe2af2695519c8b1" target="_blank">STREAMING (NETFLIX)</a></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> Even if I hated every minute of the three <i><b>Fear Street</b></i> films, I'd at least give Netflix credit for a. attempting something new (for the completely uninitiated, that would be a trilogy of interconnected films released over a three week period) and b. not dumping all three films at once. Some of their binge-loving client base may have scoffed at the notion of having to wait an entire week to see the next chapter (I'd love to see these self-entitled babies deal with watching the first two seasons of <i>Lost</i> in the manner we had to put up with), however I feel it was not only hopefully something they'll consider more often, but also motivated viewers like me to keep coming back.</p><span id="fullpost"><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> Because here's the thing: I barely tolerated the first entry, <b><i>1994</i></b>. After a decent opening (one so beholden to the opening of <i>Scream</i> they might as well have just named the soon-to-be-dead character "Drew" for good measure) we spent the next 15 minutes meeting our characters, and they were pretty much all insufferable to me. The heroine, Deena, was basically introduced yelling at her brother, and then after a quick chat with her besties (a pair of drug dealers), she met up with her recent ex-girlfriend and started screaming at her as well. Then we're given the rundown of a historical feud between the two towns of Shadyside and Sunnyvale, something either the budget didn't allow to depict or the makers simply thought dialogue would suffice; we're supposed to understand one town is rich and prosperous while the other is filled with degenerates and claptrap houses, but this distinction is never fully made clear (it doesn't help that the two town names are so similar that I've seen multiple reviews/tweets mixing them up). We mostly just see a bunch of jocks on both sides fighting, which is something that happens in pretty much every town.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> So, basically, very little is working. Things pick up a bit when the killings start, because at least the characters don't yell at each other as often, but director Leigh Janiak and her writers make the mistake not once but twice of presenting kills nearly back to back only to make us wait again for the next, as opposed to evenly distributing them over the film's dangerously near-fatal runtime of just under two hours. And yes, <i>Scream</i> also has a long time between kills (after Casey and Steve, the next victim is the principal, nearly an hour later), but it also had the attacks on Sidney (house and bathroom) to make up for it, not to mention a more engaging, personal story as opposed to some hazily defined town curse. There's a bread slicer kill that has been championed on Twitter, and rightfully so - but by that point I had already decided this was Not For Me™ and kind of checked out.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> Now, if they dumped all three films at once, I'd likely say "OK, well, I'll get to the others when I'm bored" and - judging from my history with many Netflix shows - probably never do that. But because the next one wasn't around yet, and also because I seemed to be in the minority for <i>1994</i>, a week of social media hype for the first film and what could happen in the second resulted in me getting more and more interested in watching the second installment, <i><b>1978</b></i>. It didn't hurt that this one promised the appearance of Gillian "Britta" Jacobs (as a brunette no less, my Achilles heel!) and a summer camp setting that suggested something more <i>Friday the 13th</i>-y than the debut entry could muster. Also, while its excess didn't bug me as much as some others, the '90s soundtrack in the first movie would obviously not be a *thing* in 1978, so I was a little curious about what sort of classic rock tracks Netflix would license for a movie aimed at kids who probably considered the first film's soundtrack to be "old" (I realize now that my listening to <i>Dark Side of the Moon</i> in high school is, time-wise at least, the same as a kid in high school now listening to Incubus. Christ).</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> In short, while most Netflix dumps mean that after a few days no one remembers them, a week of seeing folks' anticipation for the next one had me thinking maybe I should give it another shot. And thus on the day it was released I found myself watching a sequel to a movie I didn't care for, and - thankfully - finding it to be a better use of my time. It still had an alienating way of introducing our leads (more yelling! With bonus physical assault this time for good measure) and some pacing issues, but Janiak thankfully spaced out her kills (and even offed a few of the kids at the camp! *cue "<i>Nature Trail to Hell</i>"*), kept the licensed soundtrack selections to a minimum, and gave us a little more context for the war between the two towns that made it a little more clear to me. Also, it got around one of the crippling flaws of the first one, which is that its trio of killers would just run right by a potential victim if they didn't have any of the "marked" blood on them, which made it feel more like <i>It Follows</i> than a proper slasher, and also severely impacted the suspense when we knew someone would be safe if they didn't have any blood on their shirt. Remember that scene in <i>Jason Takes Manhattan</i> when he just storms through the subway chasing our idiot leads instead of wiping out all the trapped victims, and how disappointing that was? That's what <i>1994</i> felt like to me during *all* of its stalk scenes.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> No, this guy will go after anyone from Shadyside, which is half the cast. This means we're denied a few things we should have gotten to enjoy, like this or that Sunnyvale jerk getting their due, but at least the potential body count is still high and varied enough to keep things suspenseful. On the other hand, the film revolves around a collossally dumb twist that does not work in the slightest (spoiler ahead, skip the rest of this long paragraph if you want to be "surprised"), which was established in the first film in a very clunky way by introducing Jacobs' character as "C. Berman" as opposed to her full name. The second film focuses on what happened to her and her sister in 1978, with Jacobs telling us her sister died, and then we meet the younger versions: Cindy and Ziggy. So, obviously, Ziggy dies and Jacobs is Cindy, or else she'd be "Z. Berman", right? Well, that's what they want us to think, but there is never even the slightest bit of doubt that Jacobs' character is Ziggy, and Cindy will be the one to die at the end of <i>1978</i>'s story. Near the end, we learn Ziggy's real name is "Christine", to explain the initial, but... why not just omit the word "Ziggy" in the first place? If we only know her in the present as "C", then she could be Christine or Cindy, and we'd still have a mystery, right? But with the clunky "C." nonsense, any halfway intelligent viewer would notice the attempt at subterfuge (ironically, I talked to a few people who were half-watching and never even noticed there was a twist attempt but still had no doubt that Jacobs was playing the grown up Ziggy). Plus, she is telling the story to <i>1994</i>'s survivors, and near the end one of them is like "Wait, YOU'RE Ziggy!" - how the hell was she telling this story about her own tragic past without revealing which person she was in the story? It's just so dumb, and needless.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> This aside, I liked the movie more than the first; still had some issues, but overall I found it more my speed, and didn't even need social media peer pressure to get me interested in the third, even if the trailer suggested it was ditching the slasher stuff entirely in favor of witchcraft. Ironically, despite my preference for body count fare, I think the 3rd one, <i><b>1666</b></i>, was the best of the lot; not only did it have almost NO pop songs (because duh) allowing Marco Beltrami's solid score to shine a little brighter, it also dropped just about every problem I had with the others (wonky pacing, aggravating characters) and finally giving us the story of Sarah Fier, the accused witch who may or may not be the root of all of Shadyside's problems. The cast from the other two all come back as their own ancestors (or just others; Sarah is played by the same actress who plays Deena in the 1994 segments, though they aren't related and the movie even tells us that the real Sarah didn't look like her, but thematically it works) and struggle with the old timey accents, but the entire period detail is unconvincing so it fits in a way; almost like you're watching a '90s kid interpret the events through their own mindset as opposed to one rooted in reality (with the Deena/Sarah casting fitting perfectly in that sense).</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> Fier's story turns out to be more interesting than we'd been led to believe thus far, culminating in a pre-death send off speech that is far and away the highlight of the entire trilogy. And (surprise of sorts coming in) the 1666 part of the tale is only about half of the movie; we then return to 1994 for the finale that ties everything together in an effective way, with the 1994 kids teaming up with Jacobs (1978's survivor) to settle the business that started in 1666, once and for all. Whether it will be enough to win over anyone who flat out hated the first two movies, I don't know, but if you feel the way I did about them I think you'll agree that the way they built on each other almost even retroactively improved the others. I can't say with certainty that I'll ever make time to rewatch <i>1994</i> again, but if I did, I think I'll enjoy it a bit more, if only for the sequels filling in all the town rivalry backstory that was driving so much of the first film, and knowing the characters eventually redeem themselves. Also, I tend to find any movie that suffers from a slow pace is usually easier to watch a second time around, now that you're adequately prepared for its lapses.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> The final shot of <i>1666</i> sets up a sequel, and given the response it seems Netflix would be silly to fail to deliver on that promise, especially given the wealth of RL Stine source material to draw from. Also, I would be remiss not to mention that, as with the recent <i>Freaky</i>, the films do an excellent job at offering representation (both with regards to race and sexuality) without making a big deal about it, which to me is the best way to do it - without making themselves a target for the ignorant, such folks will likely watch without even realizing how natural and easy it can be. So even if the series had to gradually win ME over (to be clear for the skimmers among you, my ranking is <i>1666 > 1978 > 1994</i>), it's great that the younger crowd it's aimed at will likely see someone they can identify with in this kind of film, something my non straight white horror pals of the same age never really got when we were growing up, as both LGBTQ and POC characters were always secondary at best (the Black guy in <i>Friday the 13th Part 2 </i>doesn't even die! He just disappears! And I don't think the series ever had a queer character at all). On that front, the series is a resounding success, so if they can work on their storytelling a bit and how/when to dole out exposition in a way that is engaging instead of obtuse, they'll have something that truly lives up to the films that clearly inspired them. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> What say you?</p><p><iframe width="400" height="225" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/UyUuzCGblqc" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe><iframe style="width:120px;height:240px;" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&OneJS=1&Operation=GetAdHtml&MarketPlace=US&source=ac&ref=qf_sp_asin_til&ad_type=product_link&tracking_id=homoada-20&marketplace=amazon&region=US&placement=1250076935&asins=1250076935&linkId=ce852d753b6c07efe603fe6d8c259f69&show_border=true&link_opens_in_new_window=true&price_color=ffffff&title_color=ffffff&bg_color=000000"> </iframe><script type="text/javascript">var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); </script><script type="text/javascript">try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-12436276-1"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {}</script><a href="https://twitter.com/share" class="twitter-share-button" data-hashtags="horror">Tweet</a><script>!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');</script></p><script data-ad-client="ca-pub-3302834381937327" async src="https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script></span>notyourordinarynerdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17130736757414090873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3666532598350854536.post-15188220159772126232021-07-13T10:12:00.000-07:002021-10-15T02:49:28.057-07:00House of Wax (2005)<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;">JULY 11, 2021</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">GENRE: <a href="http://horror-movie-a-day.blogspot.com/search/label/Breakdown" target="_blank">BREAKDOWN</a>, <a href="http://horror-movie-a-day.blogspot.com/search/label/Slasher" target="_blank">SLASHER</a><br>SOURCE: <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07GNWMZ88/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B07GNWMZ88&linkCode=as2&tag=homoada-20&linkId=a5060a0dba0be39ff37f052cadf478b9" target="_blank">BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION</a>)</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> Even if I disliked 2005's <i><b>House of Wax</b></i>, I'd be forever indebted to its existence, because in the <i>Fangoria</i> writeup on the film around the time of its release, director Jaume Collet-Serra noted that it was actually more of a remake of <i>Tourist Trap</i> than its Vincent Price namesake. Knowing next to nothing about <i>Tourist Trap</i>, I tracked down a copy and quickly fell in love with it; in fact it's one of the very few DVDs in my collection that I've watched more than once or twice, as there's almost always another good excuse to revisit it. But, sort of as a bonus in retrospect, I quite liked <i>House of Wax</i> too, and watching again for the first time in over fifteen years (Jesus...) proved it has held up nicely.</p><span id="fullpost"><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> In fact I'd almost say it was the best Dark Castle movie if not for <i>Orphan</i>, which is, incidentlly, also from Collet-Serra. I credit him with 50% of Wax's succes, if I'm being honest, as the script (by the Hayes brothers) is nothing particularly special on its own. While it admirably moved away from the Price film (naming a character "Vincent" is about the only connection it has beyond the title) and even <i>Tourist Trap (</i>albeit to a lesser extent), it's for the most part a fairly generic slasher on the page. Our characters run through all the cliches: taking a shortcut, having car trouble, poking around creepy places... in some ways it's almost admirable how unambitious it is on that level, as if they knew whatever flourishes they added would be ignored and any such ideas should be saved for another screenplay where inventiveness might be better received (as any <i>Friday the 13th</i> filmmaker can tell you, the more you divert from the formula, the more you risk angering the fanbase). The one thing they do bring to the table is allowing cell phone use and even letting someone be alerted to danger by a phone message, instead of going the usual "no service" route early on like most of these things. So I'll give the writers that much.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> But Collet-Serra is giving 110%, so that you might not even notice how on-rails it can be at times, especially to anyone who had seen the then-recent <i>Texas Chainsaw</i> remake, which it often resembles right down to surprisingly killing the heroine's boyfriend first (a move that might even play better now since said boyfriend is Sam Winchester himself, Jared Padalecki, i.e. a guy you'd think would outlast the three other dudes). Crane shots, diopter shots, long lenses... at a time when TV directors were getting these gigs and giving the movies no personality at all, this newcomer was clearly fired up, doing the sort of work that should make it no surprise he'd be helming big budget Liam Neeson movies in a few years. That he wasn't afraid to hold back on the gore/violence (even against the heroine, who loses a finger and probably wouldn't want to apply lipstick anytime soon after her ordeal) was just icing on the cake; even if shot for PG-13 I suspect his efforts would have been noticed and put him on the list of people to keep an eye on in the future.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> The other half of the movie's strength comes from the production design. By now this was sort of a guarantee with the Dark Castle movies, but they hit their apex here with the titular house, which (unlike the original) was indeed made <i>entirely</i> of wax, allowing the fiery finale to showcase some truly icky visuals even though blood/violence wasn't really a factor by that point. There's something incredibly gross about seeing our heroes endlessly sinking and clawing through the mud-like house as it slowly caves in around them (I think I heard on one of the bonus features that it was peanut butter), and after seeing a million scenes of the angry killer smashing through a door to get at his would-be victims, it's kind of great to watch one casually slice through it and then peel it apart without really breaking a sweat. Even if you hated the rest of the movie, that ten minute climax would be something you'd dig, I think.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> And the wax figures (read: corpses covered in wax) are no slouches either, as Elisha Cuthbert and Chad Michael Murray run across well over a dozen as they make their way through the town and give us closeup looks at many (one of which the camera lingers on for a bit as if setting something up, but turns out was a *payoff* for a deleted prologue showing her demise). As we learn on the behind the scenes, most if not all of them were actually living people wearing wax masks, as opposed to just dressing up mannequins or whatever. While this may have been a needless expenditure (not to mention set the filmmakers up for gaffes when the actors inadvertenly moved a bit), it pays off - we've seen dummies/corpses propped up in any number of movies, but the unspoken fact that they're legitimately alive gives their scenes (particularly the movie theater sequence) an extra dose of atmospheric creepiness.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> As for the cast, they're, you know, doing their job. Even Paris Hilton seems to "understand the assignment" as the kids say today, and I can't tell if it's funny or sad that, despite her notoriety (and the film's "See Paris Die!" ad campaign) she's actually more likeable than anyone in, say, <i>Texas Chainsaw 3D</i> or some of the other films in this vein that came along later. Hell, I'd root for her over most of the people in the two Fear Street movies that have been released thus far, and it ain't out of any particular fondness for the woman - she's just more sympathetic. Her death IS great though, and I'll always wonder if they pumped it up a bit after she was cast. Also, having not seen it since it came to DVD (i.e. long before <i>Friday the 13th 2009</i>), it was funny to see that Chad Michael Murray's role in the film is a lot like the one Padelecki played in <i>F13</i>, as if he took that role if only to make up for being killed off so quickly here. "Now it's my turn!"</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> Scream Factory's blu-ray has a new transfer that looks fine to my eyes (as I've noted in the past, I'm not particularly diligent when it comes to tracking these things; as long as I don't have to adjust my existing settings or say "Hey, this looks like shit", I think it's a good presentation) and carries over all of the bonus features from Warner's own DVD/Blu. They also add four new interviews, including one with Hilton, who is very proud of her work here and speaks highly of the cast, Silver, etc. Unfortunately, as was the case before there's almost nothing from Collet-Serra across the board; he pipes in with a few soundbites on the fluffy making of, but that's about it. I would have loved to have known why they cut the original opening, as not only did it have a great kill but the movie took its time to get to the carnage, so it would have bought it some goodwill for those who were getting impatient. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> Somewhere on those older features Silver notes that the movie will be in theaters on Halloween, but that ended up not being the case as it was moved up to May, and I'd love to know more about that. Not only did that potentially eat into their post production time, but it also may have cost the movie a few million at the box office, as if they waited they would have the star of <i>Supernatural</i> as another marketing hook (the show premiered that September) but also nabbed the people who tend to get more excited about horror movies in October than they do in May. I assume it was because the October schedule ended up being sort of competitive with IP offerings (<i>The Fog, Doom</i>, and <i>Saw II</i>, all with far more built-in awareness than a 50+ year old Vincent Price movie offered), but again, this is the sort of thing the director would probably address if he was on hand to give his thoughts. Oh well. Maybe for the eventual 4K UHD? I'd be down to get it again; that peanut butter wax will look more viscous than ever!</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> What say you?</p><p><iframe width="400" height="225" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-DnFKwVcM10" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe><iframe style="width:120px;height:240px;" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&OneJS=1&Operation=GetAdHtml&MarketPlace=US&source=ac&ref=qf_sp_asin_til&ad_type=product_link&tracking_id=homoada-20&marketplace=amazon&region=US&placement=B07GNWMZ88&asins=B07GNWMZ88&linkId=ad93117ffb198b4c2f2c5eebb9d67810&show_border=true&link_opens_in_new_window=true&price_color=ffffff&title_color=ffffff&bg_color=000000"> </iframe><script type="text/javascript">var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); </script><script type="text/javascript">try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-12436276-1"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {}</script><a href="https://twitter.com/share" class="twitter-share-button" data-hashtags="horror">Tweet</a><script>!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');</script></p><script data-ad-client="ca-pub-3302834381937327" async src="https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script></span>notyourordinarynerdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17130736757414090873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3666532598350854536.post-79937119898973210222021-07-04T11:20:00.000-07:002021-10-15T02:49:28.124-07:00The Tomorrow War<p><i>Spoiler-free!</i></p><p><a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0695435?ref_=tt_cl_t_1" target="_blank">Chris Pratt</a>'s first time producing a film is exactly the sort of movie we'd expect him to produce. It casts him as a nice but slightly malcontented suburban dad, wishing for a little bit more to life in the year 2022. Then people from 2051 show up, saying that they're losing a war with evil aliens in their time, and ask for help fighting them. It's not long before a worldwide draft is instituted... and we all know Pratt eventually gets his chance to "be more" as he wishes.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEBByUdNeaWQQm2mj9D8sKzXtrfanMdSNMCdxn2j37zqccMyeCyEDRE1yUs1o3L60rFXJw_2aj4z5fL0T6aJQqgHrtWxbgOYTTmrPA739UWSS2ePsYXv4X73tTTq_PF50esCaMeEHKg-kN/s2048/TheTomorrowWar1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1278" data-original-width="2048" height="287" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEBByUdNeaWQQm2mj9D8sKzXtrfanMdSNMCdxn2j37zqccMyeCyEDRE1yUs1o3L60rFXJw_2aj4z5fL0T6aJQqgHrtWxbgOYTTmrPA739UWSS2ePsYXv4X73tTTq_PF50esCaMeEHKg-kN/w459-h287/TheTomorrowWar1.jpg" width="459" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Wish granted! You get to risk your life to save humanity itself! Probably more than he had in mind...</td></tr></tbody></table><p>This is a blockbuster flick, no doubt about it, and the movie is proud of that fact. But it's also a time-travel oriented scifi movie, and it takes pains to explain itself on those fronts. It includes neat details in its worldbuilding, like, the people who travel back in time are young (not born yet in 2022) and they only recruit people who die before 2051. Cuz, you know, the space-time continuum. It's explains its time-travel method succinctly, and it's not without holes and paradoxes, but the rules are clear, and that's all we ask for.</p><p>Scientific explanations breezed-through, the movie gets right into the action. It's about sending nearly-untrained civilians into battle with animalistic aliens that shoot spikes out of tentacles (not to mention their sharp teeth) so there's a lot of general mayhem, but fortunately Pratt's character served in the army before, so he takes the lead and is assigned a mission, which leads to more specific encounters catered to the movie's needs of plot-momentum, and memorable action set pieces. None of the action was outstanding, but the aliens were cool and frightening, and the characters fighting them weren't cardboard cutouts, so it did the job being entertaining.</p><p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0RFrfGEdMlyRqHqYP3J4oMrZiwX1RQu1yDIyLv7Wa1V31yBIBSKkEInAMd75wHBUwjZL5MKdsouZDk7HO8sNmjxnlXlSjspD8pzKJhXTbxnv4GMVAOl1SJ21YxoyWE6xe3iPv8W5_P3-O/s2000/TheTomorrowWar2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1333" data-original-width="2000" height="291" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0RFrfGEdMlyRqHqYP3J4oMrZiwX1RQu1yDIyLv7Wa1V31yBIBSKkEInAMd75wHBUwjZL5MKdsouZDk7HO8sNmjxnlXlSjspD8pzKJhXTbxnv4GMVAOl1SJ21YxoyWE6xe3iPv8W5_P3-O/w437-h291/TheTomorrowWar2.jpg" width="437" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Surprise surprise, stakes that are imbedded in the plot are more effective than tacked on ones!</td></tr></tbody></table></p><p>I can take or leave action most of the time. Unless it's Tom Cruise doing impossible feats on screen, it's hard to impress me. But no matter the genre I always go in for characters. And it's been a while since a brazenly extra-buttered-popcorn blockbuster presented characters that I cared two straws about. It helps that Chris Pratt is Chris Pratt. His acting consists mostly of hamming dramatic looks for the camera, but his own genuine personality bleeds through so well that it works anyway. Next to him, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm2088803?ref_=tt_cl_t_2" target="_blank">Yvonne Strahovski</a> and <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0799777?ref_=tt_cl_t_3" target="_blank">J.K. Simmons</a> are good and fantastic actors respectively, and they bring their characters to life as well. Between the three of them (and <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0388064/?ref_=nmbio_bio_nm" target="_blank">Edwin Hodge</a> who was good but needed more screen time) they imbed the action with stakes worth caring about.</p><p>It got to the end, and I really was leaning closer to the screen, wondering what was going to happen. Most of the plot was predictable—I'm proud of myself for calling one slight twist early on—but the way they do the predictable things were always fresh and unexpected. The predictability played into the traditional blockbuster feel. It had a <i>Cowboys and Aliens</i> vibe to me, another movie that knows how outlandish it's being, but still goes in 100% and makes it all work. The three-act structure is clean and by-the-book which I love to see in movies like this, and it doesn't fall apart in the final act. In fact, the final act was my favorite section of the movie altogether.</p><p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqnjCf71nfbCYSMJ33t7GoXj80c8kjTasIE3NRkhpyz4XerDuFj5wQ6wMQHu2ncpqAvOTKZe4MkLSvLiCx9j-hGv6LcWL3xp88VFbIyxLUAjXn-wSVGGDTBbYYRjwIPc2HmvFd02GRVOsm/s1400/TheTomorrowWar3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="933" data-original-width="1400" height="294" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqnjCf71nfbCYSMJ33t7GoXj80c8kjTasIE3NRkhpyz4XerDuFj5wQ6wMQHu2ncpqAvOTKZe4MkLSvLiCx9j-hGv6LcWL3xp88VFbIyxLUAjXn-wSVGGDTBbYYRjwIPc2HmvFd02GRVOsm/w443-h294/TheTomorrowWar3.jpg" width="443" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sad that cliché has become a dirty word. I want to say this movie was cliché and mean it as a recommendation!</td></tr></tbody></table></p><p>Every blockbuster should go out on a bang. Even if it drives home its message with a heavier, less nuanced hand, that's better than having no message, or having a pandering sermon instead of something uplifting. And pulling off a few clichéd maneuvers is infinitely preferable to robotically manufactured originality. This movie goes by an outdated playbook, and I couldn't be happier. There's heart, humor, characters with arcs, a plot that a human person with human feelings made up with their human imagination, and Chris Pratt lends his warm affability to the whole ordeal. A genuine blockbuster in 2021. Time travel is real after all!</p>notyourordinarynerdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17130736757414090873noreply@blogger.com0