The Abyss

One more and I'm caught up, gangstas.

Let's take it down a notch and set this up John style. A submarine cuts through the water, it's sonar haunted by a blip moving faster than any known animal or vessel. The crew is silent, their captain panicked, the claustrophobia sneaking in, then without warning a substance moves through the ship and causes it to crash nose first into a rock face. Cut to a rag-tag group of oil drillers (is there any other kind?)  Using high-tech equipment in support of the world's first underwater oil-rig. James Cameron, the man behind The Terminator and Titanic wrote AND directed this film. So you know its going to be good from the get go. Ed Harris stars as the foreman and main protagonist and Michael Biehn as the Navy Seal captain who develops High Pressure Nervous Syndrome early on when he and team borrow Harris's rig and men in order to retrieve the fallen sub.

Its really bright for an abyss.

As you might of guessed there is something in the deep bowls of the sea. They call them NTI or Non-Terrestrial Intelligence and they're pretty fantastical looking. This movie was fairly well received by the public however some 'professional critics' had a lot of criticism, I however fully recommend this movie for the sci-fi fan. A warning however, this is a long movie. The special edition I watched was 171 minutes long. So if you have a lot of time and patience I recommend the Abyss.

I don't know if my first reaction would be to touch it, but I most certainly was moved by the NTI's beauty and their involvement in the finale is the sort of judgment you would expect from a highly advanced race of sparkly sea dwellers. So go stare into the Abyss, and it'll stare back at you.

Sorry this review was short, this movie can sell itself as a classic. But I always like to throw in my two-cents.

Zack and Miri Make a Porno

This entire article is bias and should be taken with a grain of salt, because in truth I am a die-hard Kevin Smith fanboy. I always have been since I saw Clerks. The man is my kind of people: comic book writer, story teller, movie director, movie enthusiast. So I went in to this knowing, full well, that I would not only be entertained but that I would write a very praising blog about it. This has been your disclaimer.

Zack and Miri begins with two people, I'll let you guess their names, that work dead-end jobs, have a crappy house, trouble paying bills, and spend a lot of their time wasting money on Amazon and playing Hockey. These people have known each other for a long time, since High School I believe, and so their friendship is the sort of platonic relationship that begins a lot of Smith's movies and makes the romance that develops oddly sweet.

                                                      "Fun, for the whole Family."

After a miserable High School reunion the apartment's electricity is turned off. Inspired by both the cultural mainstreaming of porn and the successful viral video that a coffee shop patron shot of Miri in a state of undress in her quote un-quote Granny Panties, Zack convinces Miri to film a pornographic movie together to make money. Now I'm not going to lie, this is a dirty movie. The jokes are crude, the concept is perverse, but its an R rated movie, its for Grown-ups.  In fact, there was a little bit of a scandal surrounding the film in which they had to fight for an R rating when the MPAA tried to give it a NC-17. Smith appealed the rating, hoping for an "R" rating, and the film was viewed by the MPAA again. In an interview with MTV.com, Seth Rogen said, "It's a really filthy movie. I hear they are having some problems getting an R rating from an NC-17 rating, which is never good." He continued, complaining that "They fight against sex stuff. Isn't that weird? It's really crazy to me that Hostel is fine, with people gouging their eyes out and shit like that... But you can't show two people having sex — that's too much"

I couldn't agree more. I understand they want to keep kids from seeing this move, but kids shouldn't be seeing R rated movies in the first place. I know kids who've seen Hostel, all of the Hostel's, and their parents don't bate an eyelash at some guy getting his parts clipped off with a pair of scissors. But LORDY LORD when a movie about two people telling dirty jokes and fall in love comes around...You know, this blog is about movies so I'll divert. But for the record Movin' Pictures does not endorse the idiotic blind-side censorship in this Country. 

It got a little weird there. I'm sorry. I uh, da-la-da-da-da-da-da-la-da-da. Anyway its a great movie, if you're a fan of Smith of even comedy movies in general. It is raunchy in dialogue and their are sex scenes (but they're so comical and ridiculous you'll be laughing the whole time). So, see Zack and Miri Make a Porno its Smith's funniest.

Underworld Rise of the Lycans

I'm not the guy who sits there going, 'this blows' and proceeds to watch it. I'm the guy who starts to watch a movie he doesn't like, finishes, but finds a more productive task to take up his time like Michael Biehn in the Abyss, just cut lines in my arm to realize the stress of what I'm seeing. This movie was hard to watch for several reasons and I'll be fair about them.

Let's start with the plot, because I can forgive a movie if the story is cool. It's not. Its maddening, its like someone took: "That Medieval Movie" mad-lib and filled in the blanks with Werewolves and Vampires. I like werewolves, they're my favorite monster, but when they're just retarded gibbering poorly CG dog people I'm going to look away. The plot follows a lycan, who is special because the Vampire Lord doesn't kill him at birth, because he too is retarded, that is enslaved like his fellows. He is a blacksmith, so they give the most dangerous and intelligent of the lycans access to the weaponry of the Kingdom. He's also really good with them. Anyway on the DL he's having weird cliff sex with the Vampire Lord's daughter, because he's trying to get back at daddy or she's in love with him, I couldn't tell. She just made weird husky faces and killed things. As you could guess the lycan's rise up! Rise up from the shackles of slavery and fight the vampires. And a lot of people know my tolerance level for vampires.

Blade exampling that there can be only one Day Walker. And he has guns/swords.

So what else is wrong with the movie, you might be asking yourself. I'll tell you, reader. The fight scenes. I know, I know you might be saying, "Well, Mr. Big Shot I have a blog with like three posts, how can a fight scene be done wrongly? Just have people punch each other." I would say to you the, reader, compare this:

                            

To this:

                          

 I'll give you a hint: THE FIRST ONE HAS NO WEREWOLVES! Listen, I know it might cost money to make a costume or one of those crappy CG werewolves to have fight a vampire but you know what, I don't care, you made thousands of those other guys CG werewolves why not the most important one? He fights this dude with swords, in a weakened state of just being a dude. That's just a dude fighting with a vampire. If he doesn't take pride in what he is, if he doesn't change, if he doesn't throw that Vampire Lord's head through a wall with a fist full of claws, you're going to lose me. Because, in truth, Kingdom of Heaven had better sword fights in a Medieval movie, I didn't rent this to see poorly done fights, I didn't rent it to see terrible CG blurs crash into dudes wearing battle armor they bought from Hot Topic. Maybe I'm being to harsh, but you know I'm giving all these movies a fair chance to be entertaining which is their purpose. 

Underworld Rise of the Lycans does disappoint. So, I leave you with this image and one piece of advise: Go watch Blade II, its the better vampire movie.

  

 "WHAT? WERE YOU EXPECTING ME TO SPARKLE?"

Being John Malkovich

I got to tell ya, well hold on. First of all I made note of a ‘theme week’ last week or two weeks or whatever ago. That fell through; there are still a ton of movies I want to see before I start limiting my selections. This is after-all, my blog. So where was I? Oh yeah, so I got to tell you this movie blew my miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiind. KA-BLAM! 

 Check it out: Craig, a puppeteer, takes a filing job in a low-ceiling office in Manhattan. Although married to the slightly askew Lotte, he hits on a colleague, the sexually frank Maxine. She's bored but snaps awake when he finds a portal leading inside John Malkovich: for 15 minutes you see, hear, and feel whatever Malkovich is doing, then you fall out by the New Jersey Turnpike. Maxine starts selling trips for $200; also, she's more interested in Lotte than in Craig, but only when Lotte is inside Malkovich. Malkovich finds out what's going on and tries to stop it, but Craig sees the portal as his road to Maxine and to success as a puppeteer. 

 

Yeah, me too.

That’s as much of the plot as I could fit into a paragraph form. The movie is from writer Charlie Kaufman (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Synecdoche, New York—THOSE type of movies) and director Spike Jonze (He’s that guy doing Where the Wild Things Are). It’s filled with laughs if you’re into dark humor and bizarre plots. One of those movies that will punch you in the brain than spit in your eye than give you big hugs…than head-butt you.

 

Downsizing.

 

The Mist

It definately feels like all I've been doing is watching scary movies. I feel this way...because its true. Those just happen to be the movies I picked up from the library and coming soon to the blog I'll be introducing theme weeks. But more on that later, I've got a flick to talk about. Its called the Mist and if you haven't seen it boy oh boy you're missing out, my friend.

 

What? Never seen a kite before?

Based on the novella by Stephen King, writer-director Frank Darabont creates a world so close to reality I bought into every minute of it. After a thunderstorm knocks out the power in a small New England town, David Drayton (Thomas Jane) and his son leave his wife at home and venture to the Supermarket to pick up supplies. The movie wastes no time introducing the Mist itself as it rolls over the mountain range and spills across the lake behind the Drayton home. Its ominous, but nature, and the characters can only shrug at its mystery...for now.

In true Stephen King fashion the mystery raises the tension from the get-go, as a panicked resident comes fleeing into the Supermarket claiming that "There is something in the Mist." But it isn't the H.P Lovecraft inspired terror that truly challenges the characters, its their own fear and inability to cope with things they cannot understand. The screeching banshee Mrs. Carmody spews her perversion of the Bible, always stirring the pot and driving me nuts the entire film. She is played by Marcia Gay Harden who is either extremely annoying in reality or just a damn good actress. If you've seen Mystic River, you know its the latter.

 

Let me tell you, this foo' had it comin'. 

This film will shock you, make you squeeze with tension, and so forth. If you're into that kind of thing, can't go wrong with the Mist. Definitely a movie that deals with what fear can really do to civilization. It may not be the ultimate discussion on the human condition but its a great monster flick. Tentacles, bugs, mist, bugs, dinosaurs, mist, Thomas Jane, crazy religious women. Great stuff. Oh there is a wild ending, too. Wild like googly eyes on a dire bear. See the Mist, and tune in next week for my Re-Do theme week.

The Unborn

                                              Round 1: FIGHT!

It's a winter morning, the whiteness spread out to amplify the solitude of the landscape. A young woman (Odette Yustman) jogs carelessly, lost in her music, across a bridge. She pauses when she comes face to face with a child's blue glove. That's the beginning of The Unborn a film directed and written by David S. Goyer of Dark Knight fame. I have to say, going in I wasn't sure what to expect, it did seem like a typical horror-flick in the get-go and if you went into it with a scoff I suspect that's what you'd see.

In any case the story begins with Casey (Yutsman) first coming into contact with the film's antagonist the dybbuk, a spirit that escaped from Gehenna (Hebrew term for Hell). It has taken the form a small child, his skin pale with predominate black veins, and his eyes a striking blue. As the first act plays out, Casey is in disbelief and quite confused by these confounding dreams and visions she is plagued by large ants that crawl across her notebooks in school and pop out of her eggs. Her friends, obviously, are in disbelief.  This leads to an investigation that leads her to realize she was, at one point, a twin, her brother-to-be died in the womb.

She meets an old Jewish woman who sends her to a rabbi, a rabbi like no other rabbi. A rabbi named Sendack played by the awesome Gary Sirius-Gordon-Ivan-Zorg-Smith-Vicious Oldman (as I like to call him), who at first is skeptical--until his own encounter. He than spearheads the exorcism that will be the film's climax. I won't spoil much more than that, as far as the story goes.

                                 Not Pictured: Two girls, one cup.

All in all I actually really enjoyed the movie. Its scares were terrifying both mentally and visually. The idea of birth being used as a vessel for evil is interesting and the strength of the heroes in such a dire circumstance is admirable (with some cool choice moments that called for a Hell yeah). Definitely a better horror movie in terms of story which deals with Jewish mythology, a dope subject unto itself, and visually the film is top notch coming off very dim with that eternal absence of light that afflicts all horror films.

If you enjoy horror flicks and Gary Oldman this film should entertain. Its story is filled with twists and turns, evil and madness. There are choice characters while some are lacking and the film avoids the gory bloodbath flicks of today for a more demonic and supernatural visual terror. I hope this was informative and enlightening, and as I go along I promise the blogs will improve. With that, check out The Unborn, and don't slip on the after-birth.

Disclaimer

I thought for my first movie I should start with a bit of a disclaimer: this blog isn’t intended to review movies in the sense of a grade. There will be no stars, numbers, percentages, and tomatoes, anything of that nature. Instead I’ll just talk about the observations I made during the film and over all how I felt about it as opposed to setting in stone a final judgment.