What I'm Watching: Random Movie Time!

Happy November!  Unlike previous years, I am NOT taking November off for Nanowrimo, for various reasons, one of which is to focus on this site.  Part of which means I have lots of time to watch bad movies, and then write about them.

First up, confession time.  I...I had never seen the 1980s version of The Thing.  At least, not until publishing my review of the 1950s version, and then I watched Carpenter's, before going to see the newest iteration that very weekend.  I basically watched all three takes in a single week.  I could seriously write an entire post on just these movies alone.  Rather than do that, I'll skip over Carpenter's and just state what everyone else already knew.  HOLYcrap that was amazing.  I have a new movie in my top ten.  Amazingly done, with great pacing, tension, and effects.  I have nothing to add to all the other praise to the movie.

Ahh, but that brings us to 2011.  I am gonna say...I liked The Third Thing.  Is it as good as the one from 30 years ago?  Hahahaha...no.  Not even close.  But did anyone think it would be going in?  I don't think so.  I certainly didn't.  And maybe that's why I was pleasently surprised.  The acting was good, it took what we knew before, was true to the spirit of the 1980s version, and gave every single nod to set up that movie that I wanted to see.  It was a pretty perfect prequel.  But it was never going to be good as the original, as I am going to call the 1980s version.  My two biggest complaints is that it just did not have that 1980s feel to it.  The first one did, simply by the merit of being made then, and limited to what we had.  This movie never quite felt like it was made back then, and the verisimilitude of the universe never quite clicked.  Also, it relied a bit too much on well-lit CGI.  The setting just didn't have that claustrophobic feeling to it being so well lit, and the effects were less real.  Which isn't to say they weren't good, I actually liked them, I just got too good of a look at them.  Still, a very well done prequel, and delivered pretty much what I wanted, and avoided a lot of my concerns.

On the opposite side of the spectrum was Babylon A.D.  What a major turd of a movie that was.  Drawn out, boring, and with a dippy, convoluted plot that was so up its own ass, its breath smelled of colon.  I can't even summarise the plot very well, beyond a total bad-ass being randomly picked to safeguard a genetically created messiah, and wackiness ensues.  I seriously don't have a good thing to say about the movie.  About all I can muster is that it was pretty, but not in any sort of interesting way, or grungy Blade Runner type future.  The acting was blah, just...it takes a lot for a movie to annoy me, and this movie did the trick.  I would rather watch most any movie reviewed on this site before seeing this one ever again.

A slight improvement was The Strangers, which I finally got around to seeing.  The basic idea here was a couple in a summer home, in the middle of the woods, getting terrorised by the titular strangers.  It's a very basic idea, and done well enough, but it's also a very quiet movie, and maybe too basic.  And don't get me wrong, there is plenty of screaming, it's just very light on dialogue.  Which can work, and does ok here.  Liv Tyler and her character's husband do a good job, and I *really* like that we NEVER see the faces of the strangers.  That is so simple, and so perfect.  I applaud that whole-heartedly.  I liked this movie, but it's no great shakes.  Maybe because after it was done, I looked around and realised I was inside a quiet, dark house, in the middle of the woods.  At night.  It was great at getting across that, "this could happen to you!" feeling.  But it's almost too simple of a story.  Couple shows up, get terrorised, end of movie.  I do like their coda of "Why are you doing this to us??" "Because you were here" ethos.  That is...just SO SO terrifying, even if it's not as good as some other ideas along the same lines.  Mostly good, if straightforward to a fault.  Worth a look.

Speaking of dark houses, we know I love quirky little movies.  And that's exactly what Dark House is.  A Walt Disney like showman, for the haunted house set, buys a murder house and turns it into his latest attraction.  He hires an acting class to staff the place, not realising one of them is a survivor of the massacre, and that's when the evil ghosts come to life and start offing people.  How could I not watch this?  It was SO cheesy, but in all the right ways.  And a fave of mine, Jeffrey Combs, puts in an amazingly over the top performance as Walston Ray.  And even before he said his name, I had immediately thought he felt exactly like Ray Walston's character from Popcorn, so that helped my love of this movie.  If this came out just ten years ago, it would SO be reviewed fully on this site.  I am still tempted!  My biggest complaint here is the ending.  Ugh.  Some horror movies just don't know when enough is enough.  It is a crazy ending that the two Ripper movies I reviewed would be proud of.  Oh yes, that kind of ending.  I was so with the movie until those last few moments, and then I wanted to fling my remote at the tv.

Finally, I naturally saw Paranormal Activity 3, replacing my yearly viewing of the Saw movies in theatres, I guess.  I was getting a little dubious that they could keep this up, but PA3 proved me wrong.  I was a little suspicious of how good the supposedly VHS recorded video looked, and the 16:9 from the same.  I would love loved to see it looking crappier, and with some bad hacking of 4:3 footage to fit a widescreen format, just to totally sell the look, but those are minor complaints.  This was a good chapter in the series, but far from necessary.  We knew most of these events already, and this only fills in the details, much like The Thing 2011, but not quite as sucessfully.  But wow, the girls were amazing little actresses, the scares were great, and they found new and inventive ways to get the cameras involved in the movies.  The scares in PA3 were much more plentiful, much more in your face and prominent, and spread more throughout the movie.  The ending fizzled a little bit for me, but it's not a deal breaker.  I went in with some concerns, and came out wanting a PA4.  But we can't keep going back.  Let's get back to the present, and the fate of Katie and friends.

I actually have plenty more to say, but will save that for a later post, since this is already wicked long.  See you in a week for our full classic review!

J

What I'm Watching: Fall Season Spectacularrrr.

Ahh, autumn.  The leaves are turning, the weather is getting chilly, kids are planning how to scare people for candy, and new tv shows start.  And there are quite a few genre shows this year that are worth talking about.  Or are they?

First up is an odd pairing.  Heck, even being a pairing just makes it all the more odd.  Sarah Michelle Gellar is back on tv with a new show on the network that made her a household name, with Ringer.  She plays dual roles of sisters that could not be more different.  One is a successful socialite with a husband, charity work, and a life.  The other is a stripper, an addict, and on the run from the wrong side of the law, and the right side, as they want her to testify against a mob boss.  She runs straight to her twin sister for help, whio then promptly ends up dead.  Seeing the perfect place to hide and the perfect life, Brigid takes the place of her sister.  And that's when trouble starts.  This has some clear soapy bits to it, but the over the topness of it all, and the whodunnit nature also gives it a little bit of a giallo bent, but only barely.  Ringer is ok, to be blunt.  It is way over the top in the way you would expect any good soap to be and the plot often makes little to no real sense or logic, but the cast is pretty decent.  It's a pleasure to watch any of these actors, but the actual writing leaves a little something to be desired.  It could get better, but overall it is way more soap opera than engaging mystery.  Worth checking out if you're a fan of SMG, but missable for the cheese.

And not to be outdone by one twin swapping story, ABC Family has joined the fray with one of their own, the Lying Game.  This one does not have the same strength of cast as Ringer, nor is the writing as sharp.  Yeah, and I was pretty harsh on the writing of Ringer.  Most of the cast is unknowns, or might as well be.  Only Adrian Pasdar has any real name recognition, although Helen Slater is in there too.  Even then, they've got a lot to carry.  The story is about two high school age twins whom have only recently discovered each other after being seperated since birth.  They're looking for their mother, and trying to figure out why they were given up.  Sutton, the rich bitch of the pair, goes off to find their mother, and makes Emma take over her life to cover for her.  Just why this elaborate ruse is necessary is not made quite clear for some time.  And that is a problem.  The mystery is a little too mysterious, even to the audience, and the show tries to make the mystery of who their mother is and why she's missing, into the biggest mystery of the universe, to the point of some super conspiracy, stolen property, frame jobs, and more.  The show does finally get around to elaborating on just why this all is, but it's not fast in coming, and rather than deal with the actual mystery at the core of the show, it would rather blather on about teenage angst and relationships that have almost little to no actual bearing on the plot.  So much filler.  There's something here, but overall, Ringer is the better of the two twins.

Something completely different is Scifi Channel's Paranormal Witness.  The channel has become quite well known for its ghost hunting series, but this time, it's different.  It's stories of the supernatural, from ghosts, to aliens, and hauntings, and bifgoots.  They are supposedly true stories by real people, and dramatised on the show to show the audience what happened.  It's Unsolved Mysteries for ghosts.  The format is decent enough, and the stories have been intriguing, and even downright spooky at times.  But at the same time, it is very easy for a sceptic to poke holes in the stories.  I can't figure out every single detail (Aside from just saying "Everyone on this show is lying!  LYING!!") but enough can be explained away with rational explanations and critical thinking.  Others might have better luck with the details.  But even besides that, the stories are decent enough.  I take it as listening to ghost stories around a campfire.  You know they're likely not true, but they can be engaging enough.  If you like some good spooky stories, it's worth a look.

Something more normal is the new CBS show, Person of Interest, starring Jim Caviezel, and Michael Emerson.  In a nutshell, the show is Batman without the capes.  It's not a perfect comparrison, but I think it works.  JC plays Reese, a former special forces operative who has fallen on hard times, and gets recruited by Finch, a man who designed the super duper version of Carnivore.  It watches people and faces, using the network of cameras now around NYC in the wake of 9/11.  It sorts through all that data and reports on imminent threats to the population.  But the government was only interested in major threats to large numbers, not the little people in ones or twos that the system also recognised as being in danger.  Finch was unable to take that burden quietly, so recieves a list of social security numbers that the Machine has flagged as in danger, and uses his resources and Reese's skills to stop bad things happening to good people, that the government considers to be 'unimportant'.  The premise is solid, unique, and has just enough room to do a usual procedural type show but where the crimes are stopped before they're committed, but also you can see the larger plot lurking in the background, and how things could get much more intense and 'mythology arcish' in the near future once they've set things up.  Amazing actors with some decent action, and solid writing.  Currently my pick for show of the year.

On the other end of the spectrum is A Gifted Man, about a dickish surgeon played by Patrick Wilson, who is visited by the ghost of his dead ex-wife, to try and make him softer.  Picture House with less interesting doctors, less interesting writing, and increased moralising and preaching about how good we should all be to each other.  Meh.  Another good cast, but the writing is just so blah, and the plot is not that great.  I passed after a single episode.  If he was visited by more ghosts, instead of just the one, who may or may not be real (The latter making you root for a crazy person...ok.) then it might be something, but there's just nowhere for this show to go, other than making the jerk more fluffy and nice.

And somewhere in between the best and the worst, is certainly Terra Nova.  After we've ruined the planet, we discover a rift in time and space, that enables us to travel back in time 85 million years to try and get things right.  Or possibly to just fuck over the planet a second time.  The concept is great, and there's some good actors, but don't come here looking for good science fiction.  The rift is very convenient, the time travel hurts, and the story is more about the factions of humanity and OMG dinosaurs! than any real science.  If things aren't solved by technobabble, then things are solved by convenient deus ex machinas, like in the third episode when a memory wiping disease is cured simply because there's a root that someone conveniently had that just so happened to stop him from losing his memories.  Handy.  But the show is ok, and has moments, so it isn't a total waste.  And the cast that's good is Very Good Indeed, so I keep watching for now.  It has potential, but so far they're squandering it.  Fingers crossed that they sort out what's wrong quickly.

And that wraps up my look at the new shows that caught my interest.  Did I forget one that you like?  Or hate?  Or did I just forget one, because I have a terrible memory?  That last one is very likely.  If I remember someone I forgot in this post, I'll get around to it when I post about Once Upon a Time and other stuff later, since that hasn't premiered yet.  And sadly, as much as I really want to see Grimm, I just can't, as it is up against too many other shows.  Sadness.  I'll try my best to watch it someday, but for now it remains a mystery.

J

What I'm Watching: Late September, 2011

Hello once again!  The summer time is drawing to a close, fall is creeping in, the leaves are changing, the temperature is dropping, and the harvest comes for us all.  And if you think that sounds ominous, just wait 'til October, my friends...

Just a really short WIW post this time around, since most everything was covered in the first half of the month, and I've mostly just been watching Fringe DVDs, and waiting for the new fall season to start.  I'll get to that later.

Also on the DVD front is the ever-present MST3K.  Got the new set, all the Gamera movies they mocked.  That was a really fun ride, and I love making it a theme like that.  I'd love to see more sets like that, although I am not sure what they'd do.  Very classic MST3K though, and some of their better early episodes, as the show was beginning to hit its stride.

Over the summer, I did stumble across one cool show a little late in the game, but I caught up quickly thanks to reruns, and it was a nice little guilty pleasure over the warm months.  That show was Cinemax's Femme Fatales.  I love me some anthology shows.  Twilight Zone, Outer Limits, Tales from the Crypt...all some of my fave stuff from the past.  FF is very much in the same vein, although probably closest to Crypt, since it has a host, although Tanit Phoenix is Lilith is much easier on the eyes than the Cryptkeeper.  But then again, so is a pile of roadkill.  Anyways, the show is about various noirish style stories about women gone bad, or just taking things into their own hands.  There is a big revenge theme running through things, and being on Cinemax, you can assume the adult nature of the show, and that is very present.  But the show is very well written, the twists are actually very clever most of the time, and the show does not take itself TOO seriously, which is always a plus.  The thing that sets this show apart from other anthologies is that all the stories happen in the same town, and in the same time period, more or less, and they are slowly building a mythology in the background.  These stories are all interconnected in small ways, and even Lilith becomes part of the story.  It seemed like just a little easter egg each episode, but by the time the first season ends, you realise there is a much bigger plan in place, and Lilith has a much more active role.  I highly recommend the series if you enjoy well told stories, don't mind a little sex, and want to see men getting what's coming to them.  I loved having this show to watch over the summer, and hate that it took me so long to bring it up.

Finally, I escaped briefly to the theatres and saw Apollo 18, the latest in the recent glut of found footage movies.  I'm a little in between on the movie.  I thought the story was solid and well told, but I don't think it was a good found footage movie.  There's a huge problem with who found said footage and put it together for us, but I can almost let that slide, even if it is a bit of a bug in my brain.  But the biggest thing about these movies is the sense of reality.  You need that sense to really buy into things, and this movie just did not hit that out of the park for me.  Not once did I believe these people were real.  Not once did this feel like it was really the 70s.  The claustrophobia you would expect from being in a space capsule on the moon never quite comes through, and that could have been the highlight of this movie.  But the acting isn't half bad, which is good, since there really are only three people in the entire movie.  The creatures are creative, and the idea is good.  I just think it would have been a better regular movie, rather than trying to force it into a found footage style.  Not bad, but needed some work.  Which is a shame.  I mostly enjoyed it, but the bad things just did more harm.  Sigh.

And that is it for now.  Swing by in a few days for our next full review, and WIW will be back in October with our breakdown of the new fall shows!

J

What I'm Watching: September, 2011

Helloooo horrorheads!  It's been an...interesting day.  Had some weird issues that threatened to interfere with Trisk, but everything worked out instamagically and seems to be ok.  Fingers crossed.  Nothing *major* but it could've been.

But enough of that boring stuff, I've got a huge pile of stuff to talk about since I've been lazy about it all, so let's get to it.

First off, I posted to my LiveJournal my reviews for Captain America and Cowboys & Aliens.  Check those out too!

I caught on the Scifi Channel a pretty cheesy movie called Ghost Voyage.  I sat down to watch it because the plot sounded moderately interesting, had an ok cast, and reminded me a LOT of a play I was in back in high school.  I don't know if I'm just good at these things, the plot was obvious, or being in that play helped telegraph the ending a mile away, but the Big Twist was pretty damned obvious.  But there's only so many outcomes you can get from a plot that has seven or so people waking up on a ship with no clue how they got there.  This was...ok.  Based on what you typically find on Scifi, it was watchable.  It was entertaining enough.  Antonio Sabato Jr...when did he become such a terrible actor?  Or was he just off his game here?  If this comes up on a channel surf, there are worse things you can watch for sure, but it's not an immediate running away either.  This definitely qualifies is the random crap I watched award for the month.

On a more deliberate note, I bought the DVD for the movie so many people are buzzing about, Troll Hunter.  Or Trollhunter.  I'm not sure which way that should go.  But whichever it is, this is one of my fave 'found footage' movies.  It's not quite as solid as Paranormal Activity, but it's probably a lot more fun.  The movie is about a group of college students who stumble upon the actual existence of trolls in Norway when they find the eponymous Trollhunter, and follow him around to get the real story.  it's very well done, very well thought out, and uses a ton of troll lore to weave a nice modern tale that really works.  The effects are good, although the trolls look a bit silly at times.  But that's by design and how they wanted them to look, like they're straight out of old images we're familiar with, or at least I am, and natives are I'm sure.  The familiarity works, but the look feels wonky at the same time.  But it's pretty much their intention, so that's ok.  My biggest complaint is the same with many found footage movies.  The movie just STOPS.  There's no real resolution.  The video tape runs out, the batteries go dead, the people with the camera die...they all kinda end that way, don't they?  That's where PA succeeds, it actually feels like a whole story.  But still, the journey of Troll Hunter is good, and the joy of spending so much time seeing unfamiliar and beautiful lands of Norway was a treat in and of itself.  I do note that I watched the English dubbed version, and that took a little away from the movie for me, things were just a little off.  I have my reasons, and now that I'm familiar with the movie, I am definitely giving it another look with Norwegian and subtitles, because the movie was decent enough to warrant that.

Next up is a new movie from a master of the classics, John Carpenter.  He has so many cult hits under his belt, but a few clunkers as well.  So, where does The Ward fall in?  I lean more towards cult, but not so much a hit, or a classic.  But it's not a clunker at all.  It tells the story of a young woman committed to an asylum after burning down a farm, in the 1960s.  Once there, she discovers things are most strange indeed, and when people start to go missing, she's torn between figuring things out and escaping before she's next.  The resolution to the mystery is pretty damned satisfying, in my opinion.  It's an underused idea, well executed, and holds up to a repeat viewing or two.  Again, the cast is pretty good, and keeps you intrigued.  There's a few flaws, some logic trip ups, and some poor acting in some cases, but for the most part, I was very surprised by how much I enjoyed this one.  It flitted in and out of theatres, and went almost completely unnoticed by everyone.  But it is definitely worth seeing.  My biggest complaint is, once again!  The ending.  Those things trip up SO many filmmakers, and they pushed things just that one tiny scene too far, which is a shame.  Still, 99% of a good movie is better than most.

Much in the vein of Kick-Ass and Defendor comes Super!  Another movie where a regular guy decides to take matters into his own hands, dress up in bright colours, and get his face punched in before he fights crime successfully.  And this one is just WEIRD.  It gets uncomfortable at times, and not quite in good ways.  I coulda done without the tentacle porn on the tv, and the uncomfortable seduction and forcing of herself onto the hero by Ellen Page's character.  But there's still some good bits here, and it's fun most of the time.  I still prefer the other two movies more than this one, and Rainn Wilson is a lot of fun as Frank, and Kevin Bacon is AWESOME as the villain of the piece, but give me Defendor any day.  That one wins the gold, Kick-Ass takes the silver, and Super wins the bronze, which is still something to be proud of.  This movie might grow on me over time.

And in the theatres, I caught up with Guillermo Del Toro's latest, Don't Be Afraid of the Dark, the story (And remake of an old tv movie) about a girl who moves into a big, spooky house with her father, and discover the existence of tiny little terrors that don't like the light, and want the girl.  It was nice to see Katie Holmes showing up in a movie again, as the girl's 'stepmother' figure, and making her sympathetic.  This movie was pretty decent, but not great.  There are larger gaps in logic than in even other movies I've already talked about in this post, and the girl's acting isn't great.  It has some freaky moments, but never quite gets *scary*.  Part of that is because they show the creatures a little bit TOO much.  We get too many looks at them, too close, and too often.  And since they're tiny little gremlins, they're almost silly to look at too closely.  And it doesn't help that Del Toro likes a lot of whimsy in his creepy horror, and it's a little too harmful to the atmosphere here.  I'd almost say the recent Doctor Who I watched captured the feeling this movie wanted better, that feeling of being trapped in a large house with creepy creatures chasing endlessly after you...yeah, Who wins this round.  But this still was not a BAD movie.  I enjoyed it.  It just never quite lived up to its own hype, or what it even thought it wanted to be.  But Del Toro still knows his stuff, and this is a very well made movie, even if the tone was a bit disjointed.  I'd still say catch it on DVD, if not the theatre.

And since this is getting long, I am going to save my television thoughts for a later post, and lump those in with stuff about the new season about to kick off next week.  Lots of genre stuff this year!

J

What I'm Watching: August, 2011

Happy August, horrorheads!  Sorry I got lazy at the end there, and decided to stock up comments on assorted stuff for one big post.  So let us get to it, shall we?

Something I came across in the Very Odd Department of the tv was this odd little movie called Trail of the Screaming Brain.  The guys behind this have done a number of movies in the style of old, cheesy movies from the 1950s and 1960s.  Now, why would this have caught my eye?  In this movie, some scientists are looking to enhance brain power by enlarging the true source of all thought...the forehead.  And at the same time, alien foreheads are coming to Earth and possessing people.  Yes, this movie is EXACTLY as goofy as it sounds.  The writing and performances are straight out of scifi B-movies, with stilted repetative dialogue, the effects are deliberately awful, and it was all done in good fun.  I loved it, but at the same time, it made me twitchy.  There's something fun about embracing those old tropes, heck it's the whole reason I'm here right?  But at the same time, to deliberately make something awful is...odd.  They struck that balance between tongue in cheek and awful very well though, and if you have nostalgia for these sorts of movies, this is worth the look.  If we can bring back exploitation movies, why not scifi b-movies?

And that brings us right to Hobo With a Shotgun, doesn't it?  Unlike movies like Drive Angry and Machete that are doing modern day homages to the exploitation genre, this movie is one.  In every way.  I'm not sure how much it works, but I mostly enjoyed it.  In the exploitation resurgence, I'd still put Drive Angry ahead of it, since there's some things about Hobo that don't quite gel together.  But hey, it's Rutger Hauer hamming it up and killing things in insanely gory ways.  It is gloriously and unapologetically over the top.  It's a movie that I'm sure will grow on me over time.

Speaking of flawed movies, there's Dylan Dog...  Based on a foreign comic I didn't even know existed until I'd already ordered the DVD, Dylan Dog is the story of the eponymous investigator of the weird, who works as a mediator between all the tribes of monsters existing in New Orleans.  He's human, an impartial judge to solve their quarrels, but he had a falling out and retired from that position.  But the supernatural never lets you go, and Dylan gets dragged back into the world of darkness.  Brandon Routh is great as a noir hero, and the story isn't bad, but there's nothing too special here.  Low budget fun, and I can see why people wouldn't like it, but it's decent enough to kill 90 minutes and not regret it.  Definitely worth checking out.  It's perfectly average, and raised above that by Routh's deadpan, and some other creativeness and acting.  Peter Stormare!  How can you go wrong there?  But I say go seek out the movie Cemetary Man which is based off the same world.

A movie I don't know WHAT to say about, is Rubber.  If you've not heard of it, the movie is about a sentient tire that goes on a killing spree after discovering a tire fire.  ...And that's a sentence I never thought I'd type.  It's seriously 90 minutes of a tire going around telekinetically blowing up heads.  And breaking the fourth wall at every opportunity.  It breaks the fourth wall, and the rules of cinema left and right.  It's almost an arty horror movie.  I *think* I like it?  It's fun, but so weird, I just keep going, "Whaa?" every time I think about it.  And I can't make a single complaint about it, because the movie opens with a monologue about how every movie has an element of "No reason".  So if I want to know why the hell something happened...well, the movie already told me.  No reason.  Do not expect sense out of Rubber.  And yet, yeah, it was fun.  There's an audience watching the movie in the movie that provides some weirdness and commentary, and the opening reel of Robert (that's the tire's name) coming to life and stumbling through childhood like a baby growing up is actually really well done.

I think I'll wrap up with a movie I don't think ANYone has heard of, Control.  I stumbled across this around the same time I found last month's Portal.  It's the story about a criminal, played by Ray Liotta, who goes through the trope of behaviour modification.  He's believed killed by lethal injection, and then subjected to drugs and tests by the Green Goblin...er, Willem Dafoe.  Eventually, he's considered altered and normal enough to re-enter society, cleaned up, and sent on his way to gauge the success of the project.  You can probably figure out some of the tropes they stumble through, but it's well done, with a solid cast.  Things go wrong when he does get recognised for who he is while trying to make amends for past actions.  The movie is a good look at how much control a person has over their life and behaviour, and has a surprising and very effective twist at the end that ties right back to the nature of the movie.  I was pleasently surprised to have stumbled across this and was thoroughly engaged the entire time.  I definitely recommend seeing it if its on cable some night, or you see it for rent.  Or that newfangled thingie, Netflix.

Until the next review in a week or so, keep thirteening.  And keep an eye out for my thoughts on Captain America and Cowboys & Aliens.  I reviewed Oblivion, I *have* to see C&A, the good version!

J

What I'm Watching: July, 2011

Hello, horrorheads!

Before diving in, if you want to pick my brain on Transformers 3, swing over to my LiveJournal where I go pretty in depth with it, and no need to repeat myself.

With that out of the way, I came across an odd little movie on the pay stations a few weeks back, and checked out this thing called Portal.  No, not THAT Portal.  Sadly.  This Portal was about a pair of guys whose car gets stuck in the thickest fog bank this side of London's East End.  They spend the night at the lone hotel they find, and then things get weird.  As the plot unfolds, they discover they're stuck in a time loop, and there's satanists behind it all.  This was a really clever idea, done well enough, and made good use of 'bottle' storytelling, and the dense fog really helped sell the closed in idea, and minimal sets.  It doesn't quite execute as well as it would have liked, but since it was literally something I discovered at 3am on a Saturday, I can't complain.  As is usual, the ending falls apart and doesn't really resolve anything, but yeah, acted well enough, and had an intriguing enough plot that it was legitimately interesting.  If you find it at some 3am, check it out.

The summer tv season has begun, and one of the first new shows to come out was Falling Skies.  In short, this is a post-invasion show, and we're following the resistance movement in Massachusetts.  The first episode wasn't bad, but didn't blow me away, but I am becoming more intrigued by why the aliens are here, what they want, and what they're doing.  I love that we are not seeing all CGI, and we get some practical aliens.  And hooray for them being REALLY alien.  I'm tired of humanoid aliens.  My biggest complaint is I want to see more of how we got here than just "the aliens invaded, and technology stopped working".  There's a story in there, in and of itself.  I get wanting to not go that route, since this is the story of the resistance, the fight back, and not the invasion, but I would like some details sprinkled in here and there.  It gets better each week, and the introduction of their Lokean archetype definitely brought a new level to the show.  You need that element of chaos.

And if you're like me and disappointed in Teen Wolf, you can get your animalistic funtime on in another show, The Nine Lives of Chloe King.  I'll admit it, I am kinda loving this show.  It's about a teenaged girl who wishes for some excitement for her birthday, something different, and boy, does the karma fairy grant her wish hard.  She discovers that not only is she a long lost member of a supernatural race of feline-like people called the Mai, but she is their prophesied unifier, who will live nine lives.  The show is very Buffy in tone, with those high school tropes and allegory, but not quite as much quirky writing or cleverness.  But not everyone is a Joss Whedon, so I don't hold that against the show.  But yeah, this is a really solid show that fills that Buffy void very well.  I hope the show finds a way to develop a little more beyond just having Mai versus a group of humans called the Order, but the high school drama gives it some variety.  Much better than Teen Wolf, much better acting, much better writing.

Finally, back to the movies, or DVD, I caught Adjustment Bureau at long last.  And...I loved this movie.  I love when science fiction poses questions, looks at the human condition, and plays with concepts that are just the other side of known reality.  And it's not REALLY science fiction, since there's no technology doing anything, but that's the closest place it falls into.  I love questioning fate, free will, choice, and how we all fit into the big plan.  This movie was fun, with an amazing cast, and a unique idea, or an old one told in a new way.  I highly recommend it if you like classic Twilight Zone or Outer Limits, because this falls very well into that wheelhouse.  It's much more like those stories than the modern Will Smith attempt at making I, Robot an action movie.

That's it for now, back to the big time reviews!  See you in a few days.

J

What I'm Watching: Late June, 2011

Hello, horrorheads!  Happy summer!  Anyone up for a trip to camp?  How's Crystal Lake this time of year?

Anywho, before diving into what images flicker in front of my eyes, I did want to direct everyone's attention to the Movie Cover Gallery which has a minor, but significant change.  I split out movies for 2009-2010, and a seperate page for 2011 as I mentioned earlier.  But as I kept looking at the pages, something felt wrong, and it felt strange to visit the 2009-2010 movies first.  So, I flopped the pages around, and when you visit the MCG now, the first movies that come up are the current year's fare, and the pre-2011 movies are now archied to a seperate page.  Chronological made sense, but moving the older movies to a seperate page made just that hair more sense to me.  Your mileage may vary, but it's not difficult to find any movie on those two pages.

But onto the watching part of this post.  First up was something that slipped my mind last time, the new Teen Wolf show.  Forgetting it did give me a chance to watch a few more episodes, and I wish I had tonight's newest episode to watch as well, but I guess that will have to wait.  Still, a few episodes in and I am formulating an opinion.  And that opinion is a resounding Meh!  They took everything you knew and loved about the classic movie and tossed it right out the window.  I'm surprised there's even a werewolf in this movie.  The humour is gone, the family curse is gone.  About the only things that DO remain are a wolf who is a teen.  It is so dark, so brooding, and just so, so meh!  I have no other word for it.  The characters are whiny, and making the show like every other werewolf story, where a guy gets bit and has to deal, makes it JUST ANOTHER WEREWOLF STORY.  There is nothing special here.  SO disappointing.  It's ok, but so nothing special.  And it's barely ok.  Maybe I just don't get the show, but it's just so bland and unoriginal.  I have hope that it's just growing pains, and they find their voice, but those hopes are low.

Speaking of werewolves, I also watched the big screen horrory reimagining of Red Riding Hood.  And even if I didn't know this was from the director of the first Twilight film?  I'd be able to tell.  It has that same clean, sterile style, and the haaaair.  Where did people in medieval times find so much product to slick their hair up into points like that?  The world looks very fake, very set-like, and way too storybook.  Which almost works for the story, considering the subject matter, but it pushes things a little too far, and almost feels like a play.  Look of the movie aside...this isn't bad.  The story is solid, well thought out, has some interesting twists, and makes sense.  The acting is solid, and Gary Oldman, as always, is a blast.  There's problems to be sure, but the movie doesn't deserve the bashing it got, I think.  It's fun, and an interesting take on the story everyone knows.  I did hate how they brought in the, "My, what big ____ you have" stuff.  That was WAY too forced, and I don't think we really needed it, other than to say, "See!  See!  RED RIDING HOOD!  In case you missed the title!  And the red hood!"  But that aside, it's worth seeing if you've got some time to kill and it comes on tv.  Not bad at all.

Another side thing that's what I'm watching, but not exactly that big of a thing, is MST3K.  I've mentioned, probably ad nauseum, that Mystery Science Theater 3000 is one of the grandfathers of Trisk, and a few weeks ago I was growing nostalgic, missing those Saturday or Sunday mornings where I'd curl up in my chair and watch the newest episode, and it hit me; duh, I have 20 volumes of DVDs.  I can recreate my weekly MST3K fix easily.  And so I did.  A month ago, I grabbed MST3K volume 1, and started from the start of that set, moving forward one episode a week, just like I originally saw a few years of the show.  Granted, this is far from all the episodes, and in no particular order, but order is unimportant.  Doing the show in order WOULD be fun to do someday, though.  As I'm watching, I'm also posting my thoughts on the episodes each week to my LiveJournal.  If you're so inclined, you can follow those posts right over here which links to the MST3K tag for my LJ, so all those specific posts will appear there.  I don't guarantee every episode I watch being talked about, but if I have something to say, I will.  Nothing major, nothing revelatory, but it might be of interest to some people.

And that's enough for now.  See you in a week for a new full review!

J

What I'm Watching: June, 2011

NOT THOR!

Ungh.  I can't see 3D movies, so was waiting for 2D showings that never came.  This has made for a not happy Jason.  I may have excessively grumpy reviews in the future.

Been a light DVD month, but there's a few sitting around here.

Vanishing on 7th Street...oh, you tried so hard.  Shadows, moving, human shadows, freak me the hell out.  One of the few things that will turn me into a whimpering girl.  The trailer really caught my eye, and the movie had a few GREAT moments.  It is really more of a character piece, and it does some good work with those characters.  Unfortunately, there is some very dodgy plotting.  Characters act strangely, things happen for no reason...heck, the entire movie happens for no given reason.  I can live with unexplained things attacking, but this movie gives you NOTHING to hang onto.  Why people were disappearing into the darkness, what the darkness was...I can go without knowing all the answers there.  But once those things start doing things, having plots, and taking specific actions for some reasons, you need to elaborate and give us SOME insight.  And the ending is just a big ball of "What??"  This could've been a great movie, but it is at least kinda watchable, but it's hard to recommend it on a few good scares.

Another very panned movie of recent months is I Am Number Four.  Another movie well-deserving of poor reviews.  The worst thing a movie can be is bland.  You can be good, and hey, you're set.  You can be bad, but be entertaining at least.  As this site shows.  But if you're just there?  That is entertainment death.  There's nothing to talk about.  And Number Four?  Is just kinda there.  It's not good, it's not bad.  I can live with cliche writing.  Almost everything is a cliche in some way, but if you do something interesting with the cliches, you can rise above them.  See Star Wars for example.  Yeah, you heard me.  I just said Star Wars is full of cliches.  But so is Number Four, and the quality gulf is vast.  It's not helped by some very bland performances.  The lead, in particular.  I wonder if his blandness is because he's trying to force his native accent into an American one, and he's so focused on that he loses all emotion.  He talks about the deaths of his people, his friends, and mentor, in the most boring, matter of fact way.  He may as well have been talking about the weather.  Nice.  The story isn't awful, but this presentation of it is just so monotone.  The one bright spot is Teresa Palmer.  When she arrives in the last third of the movie, things actually happen, dangit.  She enfuses the movie with a whole new level of life.  I don't know if it's just her, or the fact that she brings action sequences on her heels, but either way, that last third of the movie actually starts getting good.  But it doesn't make up for the bulk of the movie.  I'd still watch it before Vanishing though.

Just as cliche, but so much better, is the Roommate.  Or as I call it, the CW goes to College with a Single White Female and has a Fatal Attraction.  I enjoyed this.  It's not great.  It's just as cliche as that description makes it sound.  But we haven't had this sort of movie, in college, for awhile, so I don't mind a new entry in this field.  The cast is decent, and the acting isn't bad.  Leighton Meester layers her crazy character so she's not all nutty all the time, and you almost feel for her at times, which is always tough to pull off.  Not perfect, but a good 90 minutes to kill.  But if you're tired of the whole sort of story of a girl trying to take another's life, or be her only friend, you could pass this one by without much trouble.  It is far from the strongest entry in the field.

And finally, my pick of this post, Drive Angry.  Oh ho, this movie is kinda awesome.  If this had come out in the 80s, and it damn well is written like it could've, it would be reviewed on this site.  And we'd probably give it at least a four out of five.  Nic Cage is a bit, well, Nic Cage, but that works for the role of escaped from Hell bad ass Milton.  Amber Heard is a force to be reckoned with in this movie.  She is, holy crap.  I don't know what reserves of acting she's pulling on for her rage, but DAMN does she kick ass, and you believe she will rip your head off, spit down your throat, and then use your head for a soccer ball.  Just for looking at her funny.  William Fichtner as the Accountant, the man sent from hell to reclaim Cage, is just as good.  He steals this movie.  He's always been a treat to see on tv and movies, but here, he's a pure joy.  This is a modern day exploitation flick, and every bit as bad and good and fun as you would hope that would be.  The only downside is that you can tell this movie was done in 3D.  The 'at the screen' gimmicks sometimes get to be a bit obviously much, but they're still fun and fit well with the spirit of this movie, so whatever.  If you love the movies on this site, the less painful ones at least, you need to see this movie.

And that's it for new stuff.  I've got some classic crap to review!

Oh, and if you want to know what I thought of X-Men: First Class, swing over to my LJ and read my breakdown of that.  Short version: Freakin' awesome.

J

What I'm Watching: Early May, 2011

Before diving into the few things I've watched lately, I came across a serious bit of WTF news that made my jaw clang off my desk.  Which is especially impressive, since the desk is wooden.

Remember that movie I *just* reviewed?  The Killer Eye?  Full Moon has lost their nut and decided it would be a brilliant idea, 12 years later, to make a sequel.  Yes, a sequel.  Killer Eye 2.  Whafuh?  Seriously??  I still can't believe it.  And the timing of it is what really blows my mind.  JUST as I've reviewed it, they announce the sequel.

Here's the rough plotline from Charles Band himself: "Our killer horny eyeball is back as a replica size hypnotic monster that terrorizes 5 hot chicks as they set up a Halloween haunt in an old mansion!"

Oh, Charles.  What is it with you and killer puppets/replicas?  It was cute with the first half dozen Puppet Masters, and Dolls, and Dollman, and Demonic Toys, and Blood Dolls, and...   You get the point.

This idea hurts my soul.

And speaking of Rolfe...holy crap!  The man himself replied to my reviews of Killer Eye and TNOT!  I nearly spat out my morning coffee when I saw those replies.  I've long looked forward to and dreaded someone I poke fun at coming across my reviews of their work, since this is the internet and it was inevitable.  But much like how he hoped people would get his intentions with TNOT, I hoped whoever it was that finds Trisk would understand my intentions of mocking with love, and it's clear to me that Rolfe does get that.  Of course he would.

Less soul-hurtingly, I've been watching the 1996 NBC scifi conspiracy series, Dark Skies.  I passed on this in its initial run, for whatever reason.  I can't remember now.  But man, this was some good stuff.  It's rough, it's mid 90s, it's mid 90s CGI.  But the writing is pretty solid.  I love weaving in and out of real history and UFO lore.  It's a fascinating build up of fact, and real mystery to weave together a truly interesting alternate take on what's really gone on.  It is truly a shame the show never made it any further.  If only the Scifi Channel was airing it instead, it might have lasted a few more years.  The storytelling can get a bit goofy 'monster of the week' in their attempts to give the protagonists something to do, but when it's dealing with history and such, it's pretty darned good.  If this show was made today, in a post-Lost world, it surely would have been written differently, and would have been all the stronger for it, I think.  A true shame.

And finally, Scream 4.  It has been AGES since I've watched any of the original trilogy, but the latest installment *felt* like it sat well in the Scream universe.  I especially liked one character calling Sydney the angel of death.  That's a terribly accurate description of her, with everything that's happened, and one of those knowing nods that works for the movie.  Honestly though, I'm still not entirely sure how I feel about the movie.  I loved the opening, there were some good moments, the writing wasn't bad, and the acting was pretty solid almost across the board, especially for a horror movie.  But where the movie fails was in part it's reason for being; the metatextual commentary.  Several reviewers commented that the movie gets a little up its own metatextual butt, and that's not too far off.  In some ways it's too meta, and not meta enough, somehow at the same time.  It had a few good comments on the recent state of horror, which has changed a LOT in the last ten years, but it didn't do much more than say, "I don't like torture porn" without adding anything to that discussion, or doing anything with that.  But then it goes all out to subvert the various rules and tropes of the genre from the last 30 years, but the problem there is, EVERYTHING is a cliche.  You do this, that's a cliche, you do the opposite, well...THAT has become a cliche too!  They kept saying everything was the rules of the genre to the point where such statements become meaningless to the point of annoyance.  It's a joke that would've worked a few times, but they hammered it home a few too many times.

Overall, it wasn't a bad story, but they got a bit too in love with themselves and trying to be clever, that they missed the mark more than hit it.  But a strong cast with a fun story make up for a lot of that.  It's enjoyable, but becomes frustrating at times.  I'm also not sure how I feel about the ending, and that's the most important part of this movie.  I think the twist works, and is actually pretty clever to go the route they did, I just think the motivation is a bit over the top.  That said, it's a meta moment that almost works, and is a good turn on the previous movies being inspired by horror movies of the time, and this time having the killer being inspired by the original Scream.  That makes a lot of sense, and is a good way for this to have gone.  But I never liked the whole, "We kill people because horror movies are kewl" motivation from the first movie, and this pays more than a fair share of homage to that.

If you're a fan of the originals, you might just enjoy this if you go in with an open mind and don't take it too seriously.  Lord knows I've seen worse movies than this.

That's it for now, keep an eye out for the next review, something with a little less Rolfe, thankfully!

J

What I'm Watching: April, 2011

Hello, horrorheads!

First up, before I get into my rambling thoughts, my scanner seems to have passed away.  This has a minor effect on the website, as each review contains cover images from the DVDs that I scan in myself, as a bit of odd proof that I actually own these things.  This is never anything I've pointed out, but it's there.  I'm shopping around for a replacement, so it's a minor thing, and I'll get by no problem, but there might be a slight difference that gets noticed.  Or maybe not.

I've been watching the classic V tv series from the 1980s.  I saw a number of these back when they originally aired (Sigh I'm old), but mostly remember them from the Scifi Channel reairing them in the 1990s.  I finally grabbed the DVDs and have gotten around to watching them.  What with alien lizards, killing people, and a few scares, it's an appropriate thing to mention.  Also, cheese.  There is a lot of nostalgia for V, and much of that is due to the original miniseries, which is a brilliant bit of allegory.  But once it became a weekly series, the quality took a dive.  Not many alien effects, most of the spaceships are reused footage from the miniseries, the cast is pared down almost weekly as money dries up, and the writing is simplistic and corny, if not downright silly.  The reboot of the show in recent years is getting a lot of deserved flak, but...the other original series?  Not that great either.  It's still campy fun, and does have some brilliant moments, and familiar characters, but it's wince worthy too.  And it gets worse with each episode, I think.

It is no secret I love Doctor Who.  I reference it in almost every damned review, in some way.  Often, more than once.  So yeah, the new series kicked off just before I'm writing these words, and I loooved the newest episode.  That's all I'm saying.  It was surprising, terrifying, and all those things you expect from Who.  I also picked up the American-made FOX tv movie from 1996.  Eric Roberts as an over the top, super campy bad guy.  He needs to appear in more movies I review.  He's a godsend to Trisk.  So goofy, I love his performances.

On the movies I missed front, there's the much-maligned Skyline.  Aliens come to Earth, and people get sucked into the sky and their ships.  A lot of the dislike this movie got is well deserved.  The movie has nothing that stand out about it, but it's not THAT bad either.  But it's not bad enough to come around to good again.  The performances are fine, the effects are surprisingly good, but the plot is slow, plodding, and takes too long for anything of substance to happen.  You never quite get a feel for the characters, with all the time they spend with them, which is a shame.  So much time, and I couldn't care less about these people.  Making most of them be stereotypical LA asshats doesn't help.  The plot is also a little too murky.  It clears up on repeated viewings, and with some commentary, but I don't think the movie itself quite explained itself well enough.  I'd check this out if it comes up on tv, since it's an OK movie and not as bad as many say but...it is still kinda bad.

Also, finally saw Black Swan, which may be the most critically and commercially acclaimed movie I've seen and owned.  Why is this here?  It is just barely horror.  This is the most horror movie that will win an Oscar, I think.  It has definite elements of horror to the story, wrapped up in a serious drama.  It's more the latter than the former, and is actually very well done.  Darren Aaronofsky is a brilliant director, very visual, and this is such a well made movie in almost every way.  It's just barely not something I would normally watch, but has those minor bits that DO interest me, and brought me into a movie that I mostly enjoyed.  A definite must see.

And finally, a movie I bet none of you have heard about, which is nothing new for Trisk; Dead Awake.  This is about a man who's struggling through life after his parents died, obsessed with death and who killed them, and unable to move forward.  The trailer made the movie look a lot more supernatural than it was, and while there were some elements of that in the final product, the movie was not what I thought it would be.  It's not a bad movie, and has some good things to say about life and loss, and that state of suspension some of us can fall into after losing someone, and is actually quite good for a small, personal film like this.  Just not what I was expecting.  Once I got past that, I came around to liking it.  Nothing great, but a good watch.  It's a very personal story, good character bits, and well written.  Just the kind of small, independent movie with just the right amount of the darkness to keep things interesting.  You never quite know how much of that stuff the movie is dealing with, 'til the very end.

So, that's the long write ups here.  If you want to see what I thought about some other recent releases, swing by my Livejournal, and read my in-depth reviews of Source Code and Insidious.  I won't repeat myself here, and let you read those wordy reviews over there.  They really are entire posts unto themselves.  In short, they're both great movies I loved watching.  Pick through my reasons why at your leisure.

See you in a few days for the next Trisking review!

J

What I'm Watching: March, 2011

Hello, horrorheads!

I've noticed a weird jump in activity the last few days, and I'll be darned if I can figure out why!  But any of you out there reading these words, speak up!  Leave a comment!  Let us know how you found this site!  Let's chat.

Been pretty quiet for movies lately, but there's a few scattered things I've been piling up and watching in my spare time.

Finally grabbed and watched the complete set of the NBC series, Surface.  I tried watching it when it was first on, but it never really grabbed me.  Watching the whole thing now, I think I can see why.  It's a decent show, but a little too family friendly for me.  Many people compared it to classic Spielberg, and I can definitely see that comparrison now.  Which isn't a bad thing!  I love Spielberg!  It's just this show was pretty cutesy half the time.  But mostly worth watching if you get the chance.  The acting is good, and the story is a bit wandering though.  Shame there's no real conclusion, but the ride was ok.

Also took in the recently released MST3K volume 20 DVDs.  Shout! Factory once again puts out another solid set.  I've got nothing more to add to what I've already said about MST3K, just giving them another *ahem* shout-out.

I finally saw My Soul to Take, one of many movies I avoided in the theatres because it was in 3-D.  This movie was pretty much stomped all over by reviewers, that I saw.  Even the horror-friendly ones.  But you know what?  I liked it.  I thought the story was solid, with just enough twists and red herrings, and a lot of people slam it for no real setup, but I've watched the movie a few times, and they do mostly play fair with the mystery.  It has it's cheese, and while Wes Craven used to be quite adept at tapping into that high school voice, I think it's clear he's grown out of touch and doesn't quite know how kids today act and sound.  Even so, that's not terrible.  Watching this so close to Ripper, the styles of storytelling are so similar in their ideas, but vastly different in execution.  Soul succeeds on every level Ripper fails at.  Craven has done better, but it was an entertaining 90 minutes or so.

And last, and definitely least, is Birdemic. *shudder*  Birdemic.  A pox upon my soul.  I can't say enough bad things about this movie.  I can usually find something good to say, but this one, wow.  I am at a loss.  This is a brand new movie, and it makes me want to break my own rule about no movies after 2000.  It is THAT bad.  It needs to have the full Trisking, I think.  The movie is astoundingly awful.  Let me know what you guys think in the comments.  If I get enough response, I will rewatch and dissect the hell out of this turdemic.  For you, the readers.

That's all that's been keeping me busy lately.  Now, to get back to the next Rippertastic movie.  And you thought the first one was bad?

J

What I'm Watching: Early February, 2011

Hey, horrorheads!

Taking a break from plotting the first half of adventures for Triskaidekafiles in 2011, rebuilding my computer, and assorted stuff to catch up with all of y'all out there.  Let's take a look at the pile of DVDs that have passed my eyeballs in the last few weeks, shall we?

At least this month is all horror, all the time.  I grabbed a random DVD when I saw it coming out, called Chain Letter.  At first I hoped, I prayed, it was an adaptation of the Christopher Pike novel of the same name.  Yeah, no.  It's not.  Bad things happening to people who don't forward chain letters is nothing new, but an adaptation of that teen horror classic would have been better than this.  Which isn't to say there isn't fun to be had here.  They take the old tropes of that type of story and drag it kicking and screaminto into the 21st century, using text messages and e-mails.  The cast includes genre faves Brad Dourif and Ketih David, and they definitely bring their A games, but the rest of the cast is weird and wooden.  The deaths though, are amazing.  Holy crap, the blood is great in this.  The plot starts out mostly ok and set up well enough, but the whole mystery is very poorly done, and completely falls apart in the half-assed way they try to explain what's going on.  There's no emotional hook to what is going on, and since the mystery is never really delved into, the revelations are ultimately meaningless and confusing.  The ending manages to redeem some of the movie by being a little clever, but nowhere near enough to save this film.  A good bloodfest that just went horribly awry, which is a shame.  It's like a rough draft of a story that needed a few more revisions.  I enjoyed the campy fun, but it could have been much better.  This so would be a full reviewed movie if it had come out 15 years ago.

Also watched Monsters, which is an interesting story, with an interesting reaction from me.  It's the tale of the daughter of a wealthy man trying to get out of Mexico, and one of his employees is there to help get her across the border.  Along the road trip, they fall in love.  Oh, and there's alien creatures that have begun infesting Earth, but the movie wouldn't really be any different if they were there or not.  Replace aliens with rebel soldiers, and the story would be functionally unchanged.  The movie is well known for doing a lot of CG and replacement of elements on a very low budget, in a very guerilla way, and for what the movie did, how it did it, and how well it did it?  On those counts, I love it.  I admire the movie for what it accomplished in visual storytelling and effects, but the story being told around them is so bland, so straightforward, and just left me cold.  You know they're going to fall in love from the moment they meet, and they do.  There's no real obstacle to that growing relationship thrown in their way, so that's pretty uninteresting.  And the aliens are only background details of the world, so there's very little interesting there to the story.  It could just as easily have been people on safari and watching a lion in the distance.  They did some good work with allegory but overall, the story goes from point A to point B in the straightest, least interesting line possible.  I look forward to more from the director, since he did an amazing job MAKING the movie, but yeah...

Next up is the Last Exorcism, another movie in the genre that puts you squarely in the film, making the cameraman a character in the movie.  Unlike Cloverfield or Blair Witch, this isn't found footage so much as a real documentary, and sold that way.  It has a score, it's edited, and it's polished.  I think that made this movie all the better.  The characters are actors, and this mockumentary is well made.  They nailed the feeling of a documentary, and everyone totally sold it.  The acting is spot on perfect, the camera work, everything.  It's the story of Cotton Marcus, a preacher who has grown disillusioned with the church's policy on exorcisms, and begun making a documentary to show what shams they are.  Along the way he encounters a family with a supposedly possessed daughter in the middle of nowhere New Orleans, and he has to determine if she is really possessed, or it's all an act.  The movie brilliantly walks that line between is she or isn't she, and you are kept guessing right up until the very last minute of the film.  So well done.  The ending of the movie has become very divisive.  Love it or hate it.  Me, I love it.  This is one of the best horror films I've seen in awhile, and such a good ride.  Definitely seek this out.

Finally, there's Let Me In, the American remake of a foreign movie based on a book.  I've not seen Let the Right One In, or read the book, so I can't compare and contrast.  I can only speak to what I've seen.  And what I've seen is good.  Very good.  Chloe Moretz is amazing.  She has a long career ahead of her in this business, and is a better actress than a large chunk of the Hollywood population.  Her costars are equally good, and the performances in this movie really make it.  This is a vampire story, a coming of age story, and a love story all at once.  It takes common themes and looks at them in whole new ways, and does it so, so well.  My only complaint is when Chloe vamps out and becomes a bouncy piece of CGI.  The  CG has no weight to it, and she bounces around effortlessly.  It looks so fake and yanks you right out of the movie.  Those moments are so few and far between, that fortunately the rest of the movie being rock solid makes this definitely a great movie.  If they dealt more with that side of things, with more of the goofy bouncy vampire, then this movie would suffer from it.  But no, that isn't what the movie is about.  It needs those moments to get from one story point to another, and then back to amazing acting, storytelling, and cinematography.

A mixed bag, but mostly good.  Chain Letter is good for camp, but don't expect a good movie.  Monsters you should at least check out since a lot of people love the story.  It just wasn't what I wanted.  But Exorcism and Let Me In are great, and must see movies.

See you in the theatre!

J

What I'm Watching: January, 2011

Happy new year, and greetings programs!  Sorry there wasn't an early January posting, but I honestly didn't have much to say.  I was stuck watching the new Doctor Who season, and that was pretty much it, and there was no juicy news to share.  But what that means is I've built up a pile of stuff since then, so this is a biggy.

Starting with the much anticipated Tron: Legacy.  I may well be the last person on the planet to see it, because I literally just got back from the theatre.  I had to wait for the movie to get into a 2D theatre, which is why this movie I've waited two decades for, a sequel to one of my fave guilty pleasures, has not been seen until now.  Sucks.

But I digress.  How was the movie?  For the most part, it was worth the wait.  Even in 2D, it was a visual and auditory feast.  It had a plot, that was maybe a little thin at times, but even then everything just looked and sounded amazing.  I'm not a style over substance kinda person, but you can't comment on those things with this movie.  Sam Flynn was one of the weaker links, as I never quite connected with who he was.  The movie could have used a little more character building on his part.  He still had his moments though.  No surprise that Jeff Bridges was amazing, though.  And his younger self managed to stay out of the uncanny valley, for the most part.  The biggest glitch with Clu was that his head and neck didn't always seem connected.

The first movie seemed to do more with comparrisons to the real world, and I don't think Legacy *quite* pulled that off.  The world didn't seem quite as well thought out to me.  It felt more like an alien world than a computer world, if that makes any sense.  What I really would have liked to have seen was more conflict, and not just in the good versus evil department.  They could have done SO much with fathers and sons, two brothers pairing against each other, the difference of generations both in people and technology, between the open source and closed source movements, religion and tech...so many options.  There were moments of some of those things, but that's all they were.  There was some great stuff between Clu and Kevin Flynn towards the end of the movie that was the closest to that, with a son's rage against a father's broken promises.  I wanted more of that.

But there was a plot in the movie, and one that moved pretty well for a two hour film.  It never quite felt like it dragged.  If anything, it needed to be longer, to give it more meat.  This could have easily been a mindless action movie to cash in on 3D, but they had a story to tell, and they told it.  It just wasn't as much of a story as I was hoping for.  And there is nothing wrong with that.

I've got a stack of DVD movies I've watched lately, so I'm going to breeze through them.

I have now seen the infamous Lindsay Lohan bomb, "I Know Who Killed Me."  And...and, I um, actually liked it?  Don't get me wrong, there is plenty bad here.  The acting is subpar, the story is laughable, but...with the other movies I watch?  It is NOT that bad.  Maybe worse than a lot of other big Hollywood movies, but it was entertaining, and well made.  I was absolutely enthralled with the noirness of it, and the way it was shot.  This movie dripped style, and the director did an amazing job.  But it is what it is, a goofy pulp bit of fluff that is best left forgotten.  But I've seen worse.

A little less horror, although there's a personal level of horror to the story, is Catfish.  This is a documentary of a guy who gets involved with a person online, things start to seem hinky, and his quest to get to the bottom of things.  I was surprised to find out this is a supposedly true story, but just as surprised to find out how interesting it actually was.  The story isn't terribly surprising, but there's a few unforseen twists, and the depth of the lies was truly enthralling.  I was on the edge of my seat watching to see just how deep things got.  The best part for me is that once the truth came out, they did not make it confrontational.  It could just as easily have been a case of, "HOW DARE YOU??" which I am sure many people would have taken, but instead the people involved were understanding and almost caring, even in light of the lies, since we're all a little bit of a lie online, aren't we?  I like what the understanding nature of it says about humanity.

On a bit of theatrical catchup, I saw Machete finally.  Hooboy, this is a tough one.  It is way over the top, and gets very silly.  But then, we knew that, didn't we?  It's a modern day grindhouse film.  And much like Rodriguez's other grindhouser, Planet Terror, he nails the style and energy and fun of it.  This isn't the movie you watch for a serious movie.  It knows what it is, and what it wants to do, and does it.  No questions asked.  Perfectly executed, but problematic if you don't know what you're going to watch.

Continuing the catchup theme, I also got to see Piranha at last.  Another one I had to wait on because of 3D.  And much like Machete, it's not very serious, nor is it trying to be.  In almost any other world, this would have been on the Scifi Channel, but it somehow snuck onto the big screen.  It's a fun, deadly fish filled romp, with everything you would expect from a love letter to 80s horror movies.  Campy, classic fun.  If it had come out 20 years ago, it would get a full review.

Lastly, there's Buried with Ryan Reynolds, and almost only Ryan Reynolds.  It's a very simple story of a man trapped, buried in a coffin, with only a few items, and trying to find the way out.  For a movie that is solely on one character, in a single location, for 90 minutes, it was way more enthralling than you might think.  It dragged a few times, but it works for the confinement and claustrophobia.  You get uncomfortable waiting, and that's how you should feel.  It was a decent watch that kept me totally entertained, and the ending...well, I won't say a word.

Oh, and just one more quick shout out to a little known film that has nothing to do with anything; Gunless.  Yes, it's a western, and has nothing to do with this site, but it is smart, funny, clever, and is more of a deconstruction of the Western genre than anything else.  It's about a wanted man who ends up in the wild west...of Canada.  The Montana Kid then tries his best to get out, but that's easier said than done when he challenges a gunless man to a duel.  Very fun, and just something from the left of nowhere I wanted to shine a light on for interested parties.

Wow, that's a lot of stuff.  Well, I have even more movies to watch, and even more to write up reviews of, so until next week...end of line!

J

What I'm Watching: Christmastime

A bit of a mixed bag this time out, killing time as the next review floats through the interpipes, and catching up on the backlog of DVDs that piled up.  Even though I never feel like I make a dent.

Nic Cage's latest movie, that I never got to see in theatres, was Sorcerer's Apprentice, and you know what?  It's a pretty fun flick.  It's nothing super great, it's not the next great classic.  But it is VERY fun, and the plot holds together very well.  The cast is almost completely well acted, and even Nic Cage who can be uneven does a decent job.  The magic looks good, thanks to a lot of practical effects supporting the visual effects.  The plot is made up of a lot of familiar elements, but they are put together in such a way, that this is almost a unique story.  Yes, it's the classic good versus evil paradigm, but they tackle it in a unique way.  I definitely recommend it for a fun, popcorny movie to watch on a snowy afternoon with cocoa.

Another movie I've watched recently, but seen before, is Metropolis.  The original, not the anime version.  The very much original, as the Complete Metropolis was finally released.  It's missing a few pieces of footage still, but this is the most complete version ever, and possibly the most complete we'll ever get.  The new sound is downright amazing, and actually jarring to have a 5.1 orchestral score to an old, silent, black and white film image that is occasionally dug out of a poor archive because that was the best copy available.  The story is much clearer than I remember it being, and more engaging.  It's been a long time since I've seen earlier hacked up versions, but I'm pretty sure this is a better, more coherent film.  You have to judge it on what it is, and the time it came from, but if you can get through that, it's certainly worth a new look.

Say what you will about Metropolis, the plot may be light, the characters not that built up, but it's an early filmic work, from another country so...but even so, you have to respect the film for what they were able to do in 1927, in the way of scale and effects.

My favourite new zombie movie, well new to me, is Dance of the Dead.  It came out in 2006, but I just found out about it and got it around Halloween.  I adore this movie.  It is *almost* the US version of Shaun of the Dead, but not quite as good.  It's a fun teenage high school romp at the prom, with zombies.  How can you go wrong?  The writing is smart, with some nice wit, and very fun.  The gore is great, and the plot hangs together.  My one complaint is, again, comparing it to Shaun.  The movie doesn't quite pull together as many threads, and isn't QUITE as clever as Shaun.  Which is a shame, because there are some great opportunities for them to set things up and pay them off, but they rarely have that payoff.  If they had followed through on some very obvious plot threads, this movie would be a classic.  But for an independent film from newer filmmakers, it's still rock solid.  Like I said, I adore it.

While not really science fiction, fantasy, or horror, I do want to talk about the new BBC show, Sherlock.  Hey, so many of these movies involve mysteries and twists, so there's a slight connection.  And hey, dead bodies and slashers.  This version is taking the basic Conan Doyle characters and dropping them into 2010.  And you know what?  It totally works.  Almost nothing needs to change about the characters, it just needed updating to more common parlance, like Watson's journals becoming a blog.  If you're a fan of classic Holmes, there is a lot to love here.  There's a lot of references, both in the background and right in your face.  The mysteries are very solid, and very engaging.  And the actors playing Sherlock and Watson are amazing.  I thoroughly enjoyed the first series.  My only complaint is that it's too short!  Three episodes of 90 minutes each?  That's just enough to get me interested and frustrated!  The wait for new episodes will be sheer torture.  If you love mysteries, and are wanting for good ones, or just have a soft spot for Sherlock, this is a must watch, plain and simple.

That's plenty to ramble on about this time, gotta get back to work on Trisk's Christmas review!

Happy Holidays, Horrorheads!

J

What I'm Watching: Early December, 2010

Well, the year is almost done, and it's been a decent 2010.  I've not gotten out to as many movies as I've liked, but that's what DVD is for, and that's what a lot of this post is about.  A couple of movies this time around are a bit of the odd, little known, rare side of things.

An odd little movie I grabbed randomly because it sounded fun, was the Australian thriller, Restraint.  Or Ravenswood as it's known in some markets.  It's a very small cast, but the performances are pretty well done across the board.  Most notable in the cast is Stephen Moyer, whom will be familiar to horror fans as Bill Compton on True Blood.  He plays a rich agoraphobe who is trapped inside his own home after some bad events.  One day, his home gets invaded by a pair of criminals on the run from the cops.  To save his life, he offers them large gobs of cash sitting in a trust fund that the female accomplice can get her hands on since she has a striking resemblence to his fiance.  Things go awry from there, as the trio are forced to spend time locked up in the house together, learning about each other.  It is a very good ride, especially for a low budget movie from first time (I think) filmmakers.  The ending leaves a weird taste in my mouth, but it works.  If you're looking for something a little low key with a few thrills and character exploration, this one is worth a rent.

Speaking of movies with decent thrills but weird endings, the other movie to pass my DVD player lately has been Altitude.  That's actually an odd coincidence between two very different movies.

Altitude is the story of a bunch of young students renting a plane to go to their annual Coldplay concert.  The pilot lost her mother in a plane accident when she was young, and the event haunts her.  After takeoff, things go from bad to worse as they get lost in thick, dark clouds, and start to see a creature lurking within them.  What the creature is and where it came from is the driving mystery.  This was a decent little movie, and used the bottle formula of a small cast trapped in a single location as they're slowly wiped out to good effect.  The first third of the movie is spent learning who the characters are and the plane's initial flight before things even go that wrong, so by the time the shit hits the fan, you actually care when tentacles start tearing people apart.  Or root for it, in one case.  But at least you do care about these people, which is always a good sign in a thriller/horror movie.  The ending is VERY strange, and while it wasn't unique, it did come out of nowhere, and was just so out there and a little bit ballsy that it kinda blew my mind.  I think I liked how it all wrapped up, but I'm not sure!  It was just such an out there twist, it sits uneasily with me.  But I've seen worse movies, so I say it's worth a look.  It was also directed by comicbook artist Kaare Andrews, and for a first time director, he does a good job.  Again, for a movie from new creators, and low budget, it's good for what it is.

Two very interesting flicks, that are a bit off the beaten path and might be of interest.  I've still got a lot more backlog to get through, and reviews to work on, so best to get back at it.

J

What I'm Watching: Early Novemner, 2010

Hello, horrorheads!

It is November, and I am neck deep in words while working on NaNoWriMo.  Things are going great word wise.  The story...well, not so much.  I'm sure it's fine for an alpha draft, probably even better than that, but I've hit a rough patch that's making me grumpy.  And for a horror story, I need more horror.

But I digress!  We know I hate everything, and I hate my own stuff the most.  Y'all are here to see what I think about other stuff, not stroke my own ego.  Or punch it in the kidneys in my case.

So, what AM I watching?

Since I'm so busy writing, not a whole lot.  The DVD stacks are getting oppresive in their size.  But I do still sneak in a few things here and there.

A most eagerly awaited movie I was waiting for was Red: Werewolf Hunter, a Scifi Channel movie.  Yes, something I *wanted* to see on Scifi Channel.  This was, surprisingly good!  Felicia Day was as awesome as I expected to be, the acting for most of the main cast was solid enough.  Stephen McHattie was a little scenery chewer as the werewolf leader, but hey, I expect that from my villains.  The effects were cheesey, there wasn't much to the plot that was that special, but when Scifi has such a history of delivering crap, well...this is a cubic zirconia in the crap wishing it was a diamond.

Also on Scifi recently was Sharktopus.  Holy shit this was awesome.  I was keeping a running death toll and by the end of the movie hit a whopping 30+ deaths.  That's over one death every three minutes!  This was a terrible movie in all the right ways.  I mean, it had a shark/octopus hybrid being chased by a very over the top Eric Roberts.  How could this NOT be awesome?

I want DVDs of those two, like right now.

Also of note to the horrory sort of things, is AMC's new series based on the zombie-filled comic book, Walking Dead.  I am completely unfamiliar with the comic so I can't compare the two, but the series?  The series is marvellous.  It is awesome in exactly the opposite ways that Sharktopus wasn't.  Pretty good acting, very tense writing, the makeup effects are good, and it has some great emotion.  I've often said the best horror is the stuff that makes you feel for the characters, and Walking Dead is very much a character drama.  With zombies.

The best part of Walking Dead is that it is entirely unique on television.  Name me one other zombie series on right now.  Or ever.  Supernatural comes close, but that's far more adventury and supernatural horror in general.  It fills a niche I didn't even know I had.  And I am loving it.  Some people have criticized it for saying it's like the first ten minutes of 28 Days Later, which is fine by me since the last half of that movie seriously lost the plot and was pretty terrible.

As a little treat, I got the new MST3K DVD set, which came in a HUGE box to accomodate the newest figurine, Gypsy.  So my bad movie warriors grows, and Servo and Crow are joined by their comrade.  Her base is a giant coil of tubing, so she takes up a ton of space.  I did find a great spot to stick her and watch over me and my sanity though.

And yes, that's this very post I'm working on.  How meta is that?

Coming up on the 15th is this year's Triskaidekafiles Thanksgiving turkey, so keep your eyes peeled.  And after that, I will see you back here in December for bad Christmas movies.

J

What I'm Watching: Late October, 2010

Happy Halloween!

Before I dive into the movies and such I've been watching lately, just some quick notes on what's coming to Trisk in the near future.

For those that have been here for awhile, you will remember the very quiet November from last year, as I partook in the yearly NaNoWriMo writing competition, and this year will be the same.  But with one main difference, there WILL be a review, come hell or high water.  I also plan to still do a Watching post at the very least, so it won't be a total ghost town around here.  Look for our Thanksgiving review on the 15th, to split the month up nicely in half to bide time between now and December.  And there's still one more review going up before then.

After that, Trisk will be diving right into more Christmas movies, and that will take us through 2010.  I've got only a little inkling of 2011 movies to kick off January.  There is a number of films jumping up and down to be reviewed, so they definitely have my attention.

Over the past few weeks, I've watched a number of horror movies; one rather strange, and one pretty straightforward but really good.

The stranger of the two was the rather infamous Human Centipede.  It's the rather simple story of a mad scientist who captures some hapless people stranded on the road, and then does crazy experiments on them, but taken to the Nth degree.  There's nothing that special in the plot, and what really makes the movie stand out is the nature of the experiments.  The crazy Dr. Heiter sews three people together with their mouths connected to the preceeding person's ass and connects their digestive tracts.

Ew, right?

Personaly, I found the Hostel movies far more disturbing, but I can see why this would squick people out.  I still found it to be an interesting study of the few characters in it, and was intrigued to see just how it would turn out.  While I find it hard to recommend something so bizarre and disgusting to many, if you can stomach it and aren't downright turned off by the description alone, I do think it is at least worth seeing, just for the experience of having done so.  I'm not going to get into the medical accuracy, or the movie's claims thereof.  Why start now?  NONE of the movies here are accurate to any sort of reality.  Isn't that half the fun?

From the weird to the almost normal, comes Frozen.  I really, really liked this movie!  I am sold on Adam Green's work, and am definitely moving Hatchet up my list of movies I need to see right the hell now.  Some people will sit down and nitpick apart every last second of the movie, trying to come up with things the trio of characters could have done differently once they get stuck on an abandoned skilift one weekend, or plot holes, or the usual.  However, in my opinion, I feel the movie addressed most of the major potential stupid moments very well.  Most ideas people come up with actually wouldn't work as well as you would think upon first thought.

The strength of Frozen is in its characters.  The secret to all good horror movies.  If you care about the people about to die, then you're willing to buy 90% of anything a movie might throw at you.  Since this movie is three people on a chairlift and nothing else for 80 of it's 90 minute runtime, you absolutely need great characters, and Frozen delivers.  Especially with the casting of Emma Bell as Parker.  She is absolutely adorable, and just on sight alone, you want absolutely nothing bad to happen to this girl.

Your desires will be completely denied, as much happens to Parker.

The absolute best scene in the movie is centered around what the movie doesn't show you, as a brutal attack that many movies would go to for the blood and gore, is left completely out of our sight, and we only experience it through the faces and reactions of the other characters.  That was brilliant and sold me on the movie.

Oh, and the writer/director is from my neck of the woods, and includes a lot of references to the New England skiing culture, so I may be grading on a curve just for those things alone.

But seriously, I could go on and on about this movie, and would love to talk more about it with anyone who has seen it.  If you haven't, I definitely recommend that you do.

And the reason I've kept this post on delay for so long, I literally just walked in the door from Paranormal Activity 2.  I talked about the original back in January, and wanted to get around to my thoughts on this as well.

It's not as good as the first movie, I'd say.  Whereas the original knew just when to get to scaring you, I felt the second time around they spent a little too much time with the characters.  It was ok stuff, but just a hair too long, and I started squirming in my seat waiting for things to get going again.

That said, the scares do make up for it, and are pretty good.  Some of them outdo the first movie, some don't.  It was a really good ride though, and a must see for any fan of the original.  A lot of the events were a bit confounding to me with how they lined up with the first, how they could possibly coexist, but that was explained nicely by the end.

I could have easily set fire to the three young women sitting across the aisle from me though.  They would not shut up and kept giggling.  Some of the giggling was warranted, but argh.

My one complaint is barely even a thing.  It has nothing to do with the plot, and it was a joke that got made by the husband.  His wife is in the bath, and he makes a joke about joining her and how he will, "Release the Kraken!"  In a movie set in 2006.  Um...  Gotta love anachronisms.

That's all for now!  Next full review up soon, and I'll see you when the snow flies.

J

What I'm Watching: Early October, 2010

Hellooooo, horrorheads!

We are hard at work here in Trisk Labs working on the next review, but as always, there's other stuff to watch.

A few weeks ago, I went to go see Devil, the new movie from the mind, if not the director's chair, of M. Night Shayamalan.  Why would I do such a thing?  Well, that's simple.  I *like* M. Knight.  He's had a few bombs, and I have yet to see The Happening, but I remember his early works very well.  Unbreakable is one of my favourite movies, period.

Also, the trailers for Devil, and the general plot, actually didn't sound that bad.  They took a locked room mystery and squished it down to the smallest possible space we are all intimately familiar with and have anxiety about, an elevator.  And instead of just one body, and trying to figure out how the killer did it, you had a group of people all being picked off.  We all dread being stuck in a jammed elevator somewhere in a high rise, but what do you do if one of your fellow passengers is a murderer?  That's a great idea.

Oh yeah, and the killer?  Is the devil.  How screwed are you?

So, what did I think of the movie?  I gotta say, I kinda loved it.  Now, remember what website you're on.  I also love all those other movies I review.  They are NOT good movies, and this one was pretty average.  But it's nowhere near as bad as other stuff on this site.  If Devil had been released direct to video back in the 80s, with a smaller budget?  I'd be all over it.  It's corny, but has a decent plot, and actually made me feel a lot like I was watching an old Outer Limits episode, and that's not bad company.  Not one of the better OLs, but a fun ride.  Definitely a must see if you remember the better Shayamalan movies.  But don't expect it to be that good.  A pleasant surprise.

I also just watched the new documentary, Nightmares in Red, White and Blue: The Evolution of the American Horror Movie.  With that as a topic, I kinda had to watch it, didn't I?  It's a pretty solid documentary, but nothing that surprising in their thesis.  It's still a good look at the history of horror in America, though.  I would have liked it to be longer even, since some of their points didn't feel fully fleshed out, but overall it was a well thought out and well made view at the genre.  Lance Henriksen as the narrator was great, and with many of the fathers of horror sharing stories, it was a fun watch.  Check it out if you're a fan, which I assume you are if you're reading this.

That's it for now, time to get back to working on our epic one-year anniversary review!

J

What I'm Watching: Early September, 2010

Hey, gang!

I've been busy the last few days, and wanted to pop in with what's been going on.

But first, I wanted to speak about a movie.

I finally got around to watching Pontypool.  I've been wanting to see this movie for ages, and it finally popped up on the DVR and I had the time to sit back and just enjoy in a nice, dark room.

This movie is so totally up my alley.  Lurking creatures, that trapped feeling, and a great use of language, both in the script and the device of the movie.  That first hour or so was simply amazing.  One of the best hours on film I have seen in a long time.  The character building, the tension, the slowly creeping dread, and all of it happening off screen, as we're stuck inside a small radio studio.  So well done, and I cannot praise it enough.  It even sounded amazing on my sound system.  I seriously just wanted to lean back, close my eyes and just listen.  It almost works as an audio drama, which makes sense for the setting, doesn't it?

But the last 15, 20 minutes or so left me a little baffled.  Things were moving too fast, the language of the movie was getting a bit too confusing, which was deliberate to a point.  Something about that final act just didn't quite click for me.  I don't hate it, I just don't quite GET it, you know?  They lost their focus somewhere along the way.  Which is a shame, since that first hour was SOO good, and have it just fall apart like that.

I would love it if my faithful readers would get a discussion going here about the movie, maybe we can hash it out.  Either here, or I think I'll make a post on the Triskaidekaforum.  This movie could so grow on me, and I definitely want to watch it again, just for that build up, and to pick it apart.  I really want to totally grok this movie, and just love it.  Pontypool is SO close to being a fave.

Aside from movies, I've also been busy with the site.  If you're reading this, then it would be very difficult to miss the changes.  I yanked the login link, since I'm the only one who needs that, and I don't need the link to login.  And since that was gone, it made sense to move the links up to the navigation banner.  I'm also toying with ditching the contact form since no one uses it, and maybe just move it to its own page linked in the banner.

Speaking of the banner, I moved that below the logo.  I've actually moved that back and forth, or up and down as it were.  I like the seperation of it being above the logo, but it also makes sense to have it below as well.  Any preferences?

The biggest change though, is the main page.  I was never comfortable with the Triska- definitions.  It was a cute idea that never quite worked for me, and felt too cold of a welcome to the site.  Now it's more personal, and describes the site better, I think.  I'm sure that page will change frequently as I think of things to say there.  For now, I am much happier with how it looks, and how it reads.

And finally, I finally got off my ass and got the Cover Gallery up to date and fixed, something I was putting off for far too long.

Whew, like I said, I have been rather busy.  On top of all that, there's bad movies to watch, so I better get back to it!

J

What I'm Watching: August, 2010

Hey hey, horrorheads!

Taking a break from the dungeon, and thought I'd rear my head to talk a little about stuff.

Not much on the old viewertube lately, since we're in that lull of movies coming out in theatres for Halloween, and the DVDs coming out from last Halloween, but a few things do still appear.

Like Parasomnia.

I came across this movie out of nowhere while seeing what releases were coming out, and it seemed like an interesting idea that hasn't been done that much, and written and directed by William Malone.  Who?  Well, he's probably best known for the 1990s remake of House on Haunted Hill.  Which has its problems, and boy are there problems, but I kinda like.  So I grabbed it.

But you don't care about that, you want to know if it was any good.

And y'know what?  It was!  Surprisingly enough, with the other credits to Malone's name.  He's not made a lot of good movies.

As before, Parasomnia has problems too.  The story is a little too straightforward, the acting isn't great from time to time, the dialogue is a lot stilted, although in fairness a lot of that is relegated to the very noir detectives, and that's clearly deliberate.

The plot circles around a young man who discovers a girl suffering from a sleep disorder that keeps her asleep most of her life, and is only awake for minutes or hours at a time.  The reverse of most people, to put it another way.  Or the way it feels my days are going lately, to put it a third way.  But I digress...

Their relationship gets complicated when Danny discovers Laura's mind has been tampered with by a sociopathic, murderous, mesmerist who was kept tied up in the padded room next to her place at the psych ward.

There's some amazing bloody parts in this movie, Laura is a thoroughly innocent and charming character whom I quite felt for as she's been so manipulated and has no idea what's real and what's a dream.  A situation that hasn't been helped by Volpe's hypnotic voice.

The thing I loved most about this movie is the cinematography.  The directing is amazing in a lot of scenes, and even the credits are gorgeous.  The plot was lacking, but this was an enthralling movie to just watch.  Forget the story, just get this movie to watch.  The colours, the angles, and editing...Malone may not be a good writer, but man can he direct the crap out of a movie.  For a low-budget independent movie, this rivals the look of many bigger horror flicks.

I've seen better movies.  I can nitpick this thing to pieces.  But the more I watch it, you know what?  The more I kinda love it.  It's pretty solid, and developes the characters well, before the bodies start hitting the floorboards.  And hey, it's got Jeffrey Combs, and he's always fun to watch.  It's not the best movie, but it's the one I was most surprised by how much I enjoy it.

Aside from that, I've also just wrapped up watching the newest MST3K DVD boxed set, as I tend to do every few months.  Another great release from Shout! Factory.  Not much more to say on that.  More of the same, really.

There's a handful of newer horror related films sitting next to me waiting to be watched, so I'll cover those in my next WIW post, most likely.

But before I get to those, there's the next movie to watch for this site, so keep your eyes open, and see you in the theatre!

J