The Girl Week Blogathon: Poetry

Kingdom of the Spiders

Dick Tracy

Black Nativity

Son of God

This isn't technically a Christmas movie, but it is about the guy they named the holiday after, so here we go...

Last Ounce of Courage

I guess it's 'bout time I start reviewing some Christmas flicks around here. Let's do this...

300: Rise of an Empire

The Counselor

Under the Skin

Edge of Tomorrow

NOOOOvember: Godzilla

Originally posted 11/28/14 on Silver Screen Serenade - NOOOOvember: Dell on Movies.

Oldboy (2013)

Oldboy (2003)

The Raid 2

Ain't Them Bodies Saints

Directed by David Lowery.

2013. Rated R, 96 minutes.

Cast:

Rooney Mara

Casey Affleck

Ben Foster

Nate Parker

Rami Malek

Keith Carradine

Charles Baker

Will Beinbrink

Annalee Jefferies

Ruth (Mara) and Bob (Affleck) are a modern day Bonnie and Clyde. They find themselves trapped in a house with one other guy who won't make it past this scene and engaged in a shootout with the law. Before going out in a hail of bullets, they decide to surrender. Since, Ruth is pregnant with their child, they agree that Bob will take all the blame. He goes off to jail and she starts living clean so she can raise their daughter. Fast-forward five years. Ruth and the child, now a little over four, have settled into a nice, quiet life. Every now and again, Bob's arresting officer Patrick (Foster) comes around to check on her. He seems to have taken a shine to her, but doesn't push the issue. The entire world is flipped upside down when news hits that Bob has escaped from prison. Thanks to the million and one love letters he wrote while incarcerated, there's no doubt in anyone's mind that he's going to try and reunite his family. The manhunt to keep that from happening ensues.

After opening with a burst of action, the movie settles into a languid pace. The idea is for us to see the growth in the relationship between Ruth and Patrick while reminding us she still loves Bob, thus creating an emotional dilemma. Unfortunately, the movie has serious problems on both fronts of its effort. On one hand, Patrick never really gets around to admitting the feelings that are apparent to us. He just keeps popping up on Ruth's doorstep and says very little. I get he's trying to maintain at least a modicum of professionalism, but at some point just doing his job feels like stalking. On the other hand, while Bob has very good reason for wanting to get back to Ruth, he's never presented as anything other than a bad guy. He feels like someone obsessed rather than thinking rationally. So now the poor girl has two stalkers, one with a badge, one without.

To combat these problems, the movie is atmospheric and its leading lady is incessantly contemplative. Everything is said in a somber tone, often while melancholy music scores the scene. Ain't Them Bodies Saints wants to be a deep, lyrical movie. It's got the lyrical part down pat, thanks to that marvelous pacing. It's slow, but as I hope I implied earlier, that's on purpose. We're not rushed from one thing to the next, but ushered there in a smooth, fluid manner. this is the biggest thing the movie has going for it.

If I'm being fair, then I'll have to give kudos to the cast, as well. Both Affleck and Foster play their roles well. Affleck, one of the more underrated actors, conveys his character's feelings without a showy moment. Foster gets a couple of those and brings his usual wide-eyed intensity. However, that might be part of the reason we're never as sympathetic toward Patrick as we should be. In the lead, Mara does what she can to save the material. Sadly, she has the same problem everyone else has. The material isn't that good. It's certainly not anywhere near as compelling as it thinks it is. Instead, it just barrels toward a conclusion that feels inevitable as soon as we understand what each our three main players want.

Nebraska

Directed by Alexander Payne.

2013. Rated R, 114 minutes.

Cast:

Bruce Dern

June Squibb

Will Forte

Stacy Keach

Bob Odenkirk

Mary Louise Wilson

Rance Howard

Devin Ratray

Tim Driscoll

Missy Doty

If you were certain that you'd won a million dollars and only had to get to a particular place to collect, wouldn't you go? That's the position Woody (Dern) finds himself in. He has to get to Lincoln, Nebraska to claim his prize. He's going to do it even if he has to walk from his home in Billings, Montana, over seven hundred miles away. However, chances are overwhelming that there is no million dollar prize waiting for him. Like many of us, he's received one of those sweepstakes in the mail that says "You have won $1,000,000 if..." and then gives some impossible condition to meet. The whole thing is just a tactic to entice you into buying magazine subscriptions. Unlike most of us, he takes off walking in the general direction of Lincoln. Since he's done this before, the local police just pick him up and call a member of his family to come to get him. In this case, it's his son David (Forte). Against the rest of the family's wishes, since the old man just won't shut up about it nor stop trying to get there, David decides to load his old man up in the car and drive to Lincoln, himself. A rather interesting road trip ensues.

The first thing many of us will notice is director Alexander Payne's decision to use black and white instead of color. I'm not sure if he ever addressed this publicly, but I have some theories on why he did this. All of them revolve around our protagonist. First, black and white conjures ideas of a simpler time. It makes the town and the world he lives in feels smaller. In that smaller world, that Woody inhabits alone, it's entirely possible to walk as far as necessary to collect his money. It is also a representation of how he sees things at this point in his life: all black and white. There are only two possibilities: getting to Lincoln and not getting to Lincoln. Needless to say, he finds the latter unacceptable. Finally, this style of shooting is an extension of Woody, himself. The man is simply not as lucid as he once was. He continues to function, but not with his faculties fully intact. The lack of color is symbolic of this. Personifying all of this is Bruce Dern. His brilliant portrayal conveys everything that I've said. Amazingly, he manages to avoid becoming a caricature. It would've been easy to give us a performance that drills one aspect of Woody repeatedly into our head. Instead, Dern gives us a fully formed man, albeit one who has a bit less of a grip on reality that he once did.

While Dern is indeed great here, the real shining star for me is June Squibb as his wife Kate. The black and white photography effectively represents her, too. More accurately, it reps her nostalgia for the good ol' days. She spends most of the movie reminiscing about the past. During these times, she provides the film with most of its humor and emotion. Whenever she appears, the movie is injected with a vibrancy lacking in the depiction of the relationship between Woody and son. It's a magnificent performance in what's meant to be a thankless role. After all, she's the one constantly wanting to tell Woody 'no.' Woody's even formulated her into a villain, in his mind. Also adding some life to the proceedings. Also adding some life to the proceedings are some low-brow laughs we get courtesy of Cole (Ratray) and Bart (Driscoll), the couple's nephews. Nothing they do is terribly consequential, but they are fun. Later on, Stacy Keach has a nice turn as Woody's old business partner.

The black and white photography, the various people we meet, and the stubbornness of the old man are all just part of the journey we take with Woody. For some, the knock may be that it's a journey with a pre-ordained conclusion. In most movies, that would be a serious detriment. Here, we realize early on that the real point is seeing how everyone involved deals with what any rational person knows is coming. Believe me, there are a number of irrational folks besides our hero to add some drama. All of those ingredients combine to make Nebraska a fun watch that becomes tinged with sadness when we think of what the rest of Woody's life holds.

Scanners

Directed by David Cronenberg. 

1981. Rated R, 103 minutes.

Cast:

Stephen Lack

Jennifer O'Neill

Michael Ironside

Patrick McGoohan

Lawrence Dane

Robert Silverman

Louis Del Grande

There are two hundred something known scanners in the world. They have telepathic ability up to and including the ability to take control of the bodily functions of others. They can make people drive into buildings, turn a gun on themselves, change a person's heart rate, even make someone's head explode. That last thing is depicted in glorious fashion during the movie's most famous scene. Normally, a scanner can't stand to be in the same room with another without some bad things happening. However, Darryl Revok (Ironside), a very powerful scanner is organizing them into a cohesive unit so they can take over the world. Dr. Ruth (McGoohan) is part of a government organization out to stop them. They have one scanner left working for them, Cameron Vale (Lack). Dr. Ruth sends Vale to infiltrate Revok's organization and bring him down.

Scanners succeeds when the titular characters are allowed to do their thing. Witnessing their capabilities is a dread inducing experience. Like the normal humans in the movie, we understand that having these people become dominant members of society means being at the mercy of their every whim even that means one wants to kill you without ever laying a hand on you. This is why the head exploding scene is so effective. It gives us a very clear explanation of the power of a scanner. The stakes are instantly raised to very high levels. It helps that the visuals showing this are simply priceless. It's by far the best effect used in the movie.

When speaking of visuals, I have to mention that the movie leaves a lot to be desired. After the aforementioned head explosion, most of the "fx" consists of people contorting their faces and maybe their bodies into supposedly pained expressions as the camera studies them. While it sounds okay in theory, it's funny in execution. I was reminded of the movie Breakin' where we get lots of shots of extreme close-ups of some dancer's face as it twists into some strange visage. I crack while watching that. I don't quite go that far, here, but it's enough to take me out of the movie. Not until very late in the game do we get some more real deal scanner stuff. During this scene, the faces fit because the fx aid in what the scene is trying to accomplish.

With all of that said, the most striking visual of them all might be Jennifer O'Neill as Kim Obrist, a scanner who joins forces with our hero. However, the movie fails her as a character. She seems to lack any substantive purpose other than including a female in the proceedings. The problem is that she feels far too unexplored. We get why she wants to help Vale, but that's about all we get about her. Things happen later that suggest she could be far more entertaining and far more important to the outcome. Unfortunately, it's arranged so that she sits out the climactic scene. We're left with Cameron Vale. The issue there is that Stephen Lack just doesn't deliver a compelling performance, at all. We know he's on the right side of things, but he is so lacking in charisma, we don't necessarily feel the compulsion to root for him. It is also detrimental to his cause that the first big moment they have together, it's obvious they should have and could have acted before everyone else in the room was killed. Yes, they're the good guys, but they have a hard time endearing themselves to us. On the flipside of things, as Darryl Revok, Michael Ironside is solidly creepy, but disappears from the movie for long stretches at a time.

The movie also suffers from not quite knowing what it wants to be. Some movies manage to weave multiple genres together to create a thrilling narrative. This one does it backwards. It takes what could be a thrilling narrative and breaks it into separate genres. Scanners starts off like a horror flick. Like I said earlier, the very existence of such people is enough to rattle our cages. However, it shortly abandons the effort to get under our skin to mimic a spy thriller. Sadly, this isn't all that thrilling. It's actually rather generic excepting the use of scanning in a few instances where guns would otherwise be used. We even get into computer hacking that doesn't make a lick of sense. I get that this was made in 1981 and society was not as technologically advanced as it is now. Still, the way one particular is interacted with is explained in such a nonsensical manner that even then, someone involved should have realized this was too big a pile of bs to fly. Of course, this leads us to the finale. For that, we make a jarring switch back to horror. Then we get another inexplicable moment to finish things off. Nothing that happens to this point even remotely suggests that what takes place is a possibility. It goes far beyond what either the explicit or implied capabilities of a scanner are. After the computer deal, it was just another instance where I was taken completely out of the world of the filim and rolled my eyes. Ultimately, this sank the movie for me. I understand that Cronenberg is a master of horror and that this movie has a sizable cult following and spawned some sequels. I, myself, am a huge fan of Videodrome. On this outing, he made too many curious choices that didn't quite work for me. Scanners, themselves, are an interesting concept, to be sure. Unfortunately, this is one of those cases where the idea is far better than the execution of it.

MY SCORE: 5.5/10

Oculus

Directed by Mike Flanagan.

2014. Rated R 103 minutes.

Cast:

Karen Gillan

Brenton Thwaites

Rory Cochrane

Katee Sackoff

Annalise Basso

Garrett Ryan

James Lafferty

Miguel Sandoval

Kate Siegel

We meet Tim (Thwaites) as he is turning 18 and about to be released from a mental institution after six years. What put him there in the first place was that he shot and killed his father after his father had tortured and murdered his mother. Allegedly. His sister Kaylie (Gillan) doesn't remember it that way. She thinks the real culprit is the mirror that hung in her parents' bedroom. Yes, the mirror. According to her, it is pure evil, has been around for centuries, and has left a trail of dead bodies in its wake. She believes the mirror was not simply present for these deaths, but actively caused them through psychological manipulation. Years of therapy has helped Tim realize this just isn't the case. Undeterred, Kaylie returns to the house where it all went down with her brother in tow. She arms herself with a bunch of cameras, a small dog, some houseplants, instructions for her boyfriend to call and check on her every hour, on the hour, and a nasty looking anchor attached to a kill switch. With all of this in place, Kaylie sets out to prove her brother and the rest of the world wrong. While this is going on, we also get to see the events surrounding the death of their mother as they unfold.

After starting with a bang, literally, Oculus just kind of moseys along for a while as Tim and Kaylie take turns spewing reams of psychobabble that passes for exposition. Basically, Kaylie says "Mirror, bad! Mirror really bad! Look at dead people!" Tim responds with "is not," and they do it all over again after a flashback to what happened six years prior. As an audience, we're taken right to the brink of losing interest. Suddenly, a funny thing occurs. Both stories, the one in the past and the one in the present pick up and things start happening. Our interest is piqued and we find ourselves engaged in what's going on with these people. It helps that the tension is considerably ratcheted up as Kaylie continues to tempt fate on end of the spectrum and the situation between her parents begins rapidly deteriorating.

The story of the parents, has a classic haunted house...er...haunted mirror feel. In fact, it seems to take a lot of its cues from The Amityville Horror. Then again, what ghost story doesn't? Of course, there is a twist thrown in which I won't reveal. The present story is the more original of the two. Sure, there's the mirror, but there is also sibling rivalry taken to absurdist extremes. There are also questions of mental health as well as wondering aloud where we can and cannot assign blame. On the surface, this manifests itself in some nice moments where our heroes, and us by extension, have to guess whether or not what they are seeing is really there.

Overall, Oculus is a solid movie, one that starts slowly and manages to increase the tension as it goes. In this regard, it's a nicely done horror flick that relies much more on psychology than on buckets of blood. This is a nice change of pace for American horror, so long emphasizing body count over the intrinsically disturbing. On the other hand, it's just a mirror. Not only that, but for all the research Kaylie put into this thing she couldn't come up with one possible source of its power or one other person to corroborate her theory. Thankfully, this plays into the mystery of whether or not she and/or Tim are insane. However, it also makes it tough to get worked up over a malevolent mirror, no matter how many tragedies are attributed to it. It's also problematic that we can sniff out the ending in advance. The clues are too massive for us to ignore. I won't give it away, here, but our destination becomes apparent too soon. Therefore, while we enjoy what we see, we can't help but feel like it should have been better.

Argento's Dracula

Directed by Dario Argento.

2012. Not Rated, 110 minutes.

Cast:

Thomas Kretschmann

Miriam Giovanelli

Rutger Hauer

Asia Argento

Marta Gastini

Unax Ugalde

Giovanni Franzoni

Even when you think you know what you're getting yourself into, it still might be hard to believe when you're actually there. Argento's Dracula is one such place. I mean, the cover of the DVD drips with ooey-gooey cheese. It's animated and shows a guy I presume to be the titular Dracula in the upper left hand corner. Next to him is a larger picture of a female vampire with a lower-than-low cut top. The words beneath her are from some critic proclaiming this to be a throwback to the vampire flicks made by Hammer Films, complete with "heaving bosoms." I paraphrased most of it, but put quotation marks around the phrase "heaving bosoms" because I definitely remember seeing "heaving bosoms." Perhaps it's sad that I couldn't directly quote all of it, but clearly remember "heaving bosoms." In fact, I'm pretty certain I can remember every bosom I've ever seen heave. By this point, I'm just appeasing my own juvenile sense of humor by harping on this. Can you blame me? How often does a guy reviewing allegedly legitimate movies get to talk about heaving bosoms? Too often, apparently, so I'll stop.

And I should. Because the fact of the matter is...sigh. Let's stop for a moment. Occasionally, I have to chastise myself. I started a sentence with 'and,' then followed that by starting the next one with 'because.' Every professor who had a hand in getting me through to an English degree is collectively groaning as you read this. Or, not. They probably have no knowledge of this blog, let alone pay attention to it. Whatever. You're here about a movie, right?

To pick up where I left off, there was something else on the cover letting me know I was in for a cheesetastic experience. In fact, this was the thing that really inspired me to check out Argento's Dracula. This thing is actually a man. He's not just any man, but one who has come to symbolize B-movie madness. Of course, I'm talking about the one and only hobo with a shotgun, Rutger Hauer. Perfect. Play.

The movie is a loose adaptation of Bram Stoker's classic tale. By loose, I mean very loose. It uses the same main characters, presumaby, the same time period, and the same basic idea. Jonathan Harker (Ugalde) is hired by the mysterious Count Dracula (Kretschmann) and travels to stay at the Count's castle. What exactly he's hired for is never made clear, unless I just missed it. That's entirely possible since I was distracted by the rather early appearance of a heaving bosom. To be honest, this bosom doesn't actually heave. It's completely free of any of the constraints that might make heaving possible. Sorry. It's to the point where I can't help myself. Shortly, Tania (Giovanelli), owner of said bosom, is taking the walk of shame through the woods after a tryst with a dude in a barn when a gigantic owl swoops down on her and reveals itself to be Dracula. Yup, an owl. Chomp, chomp, suck, suck, lady vampire. Her job for the rest of the movie is to try to seduce Harker every time she sees him only to be thwarted by the Count himself who has other plans for the dude he hired for reasons undisclosed. Other folks run around trying to figure out what to do about the Count and after about an hour, Rutger Hauer shows up as Van Helsing and takes matters into his own hands.

Most of what's going on here can't possibly pass for good film making. However, the only part of this that's problematic is the clunky pacing, particularly during the first half of the movie. There are a few stretches where you might find yourself bored. Everything else that's happening is terrible on a hilarious level. This even includes the one "good" thing going for it, aside from heaving bosoms, that is. I'm talking about the acting. These performers are all in, going for broke. Most of them are over the top in a manner reminiscent of classically trained Shakespearean thespians doing MacBeth in the park like their next meal depends on it. This gives the whole production a little extra pop, adds to the zaniness of it all. And yeah, dammit - did that again, Rutger Hauer goes Rutger Hauer and Dracula has all the classic vampire strengths and weaknesses plus a few more. Owl and stuff. By stuff, I mean giant praying mantis. Boys and girls, we're dealing with a movie so bad it's bosom heavingly awesome.

MY SCORE: -10/10

More horror that's so bad it's awesome...

Animals

The Car

Cat People (1982)

Die Hard Dracula

Fist of the Vampire

Happy Birthday to Me

It's Alive (2008)

Kingdom of the Spiders

Piranha (2010)

Repo! The Genetic Opera

Texas Chainsaw 3D

Trip with the Teacher

A Haunted House

Directed by Michael Tiddes.

2013. Rated R, 86 minutes.

Cast:

Marlon Wayans

Essence Atkins

Nick Swardson

Andrew Daly

Alanna Ubach

Cedric the Entertainer

Marlene Forte

David Koechner

Dave Sheridan

Affion Crockett

J.B. Smoove

Today is a big day. This is when Malcolm's (Wayans) girlfriend Kisha (Atkins) is moving in with him. He has a spacious house with a pool and a jacuzzi and a housekeeper named Rosa (Forte) to help him maintain it all. Of course, the second Kisha gets there, strange things start happening. It soon becomes apparent that there is a ghost in the house. And since this is a found footage movie, every oddity is caught on camera. Just so you don't go thinking this has any chance of being scary I'll let you know that this is a parody of the Paranormal Activity franchise. Therefore, comedy, or something like it, ensues.

The setup is familiar. Things happen, with the most extreme stuff occurring during the wee hours of the night. In the mornings, our loving couple watches the footage to see what went on for themselves. The difference between this and the movies it pokes fun of, plot wise, is that this is really all about sex. Nearly every joke overtly references some form of the act or another. This includes a rather extended scene of a threesome involving Malcolm and a pair of teddy bears. You might laugh yourself silly, become too uncomfortable to laugh, or both. Like much of the movie, it goes out of its way to be crass. A Haunted House also leans toward stereotypes and male homophobia (being completely okay with female homosexuality, naturally). Take it, or leave it.

Now that you know what to expect out of this movie, I can probably stop writing. However, I do want to touch on some of the highlights. For me, the biggest is Marlene Forte as Rosa. She is the one who made me laugh most consistently. She also takes what could be just a sliver of a character and forms a fully realized being. To be perfectly honest, it probably helps that we only get her in small doses. I'm judging by the plethora of supporting players who come to the house at some point. Most are at least a little funny for the first few minutes after they show up, but manage to wear out their welcome. Another positive is that whether you love it or hate it, it's not boring. The run time is thankfully short. On top of that it moves quickly because things are constantly happening that grab our attention.

While I wouldn't call A Haunted House good, I will say it wasn't nearly as painful as it could have been. It's better than another Wayans Brothers horror spoof, the Scary Movie franchise. Unlike those, it doesn't just re-enact random scenes from a bunch of movies appearing schizophrenic and pulling us in way too many directions. A Haunted House uses the template provided by Paranormal Activity, even to the point of imitation, but creates its own self-contained and cohesive narrative. You need not have seen twenty other films to get most of the jokes. Really, you don't even have to have seen Paranormal Activity. It stands up, or falls down depending on your tolerance for humor that might be beyond raunchy, on its own accord.

MY SCORE: 5.5/10