Failure is an Option, Apparently
"The Good Doctor"
starring: Orlando Bloom, Riley Keough, Taraji P. Henson, Rob Morrow, Michael Pena, Troy Garity, Molly Price, Wade Williams, Sorel Carradine, Gary Carlos Cervantes, Monique Gabriela Curnen, Jean St. James
directed by: Lance Daly
written by: John Enblom
Orlando Bloom is probably used to playing likable heroes in films thanks to the franchise films "Pirates of the Caribbean" and "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy. Here, he goes against typecast as an English doctor planting new roots in Southern California as a doctor, hoping to earn respect in a profession where generally people develop untouchable egos and fight the good fight against diseases and such, all while taking the oath to do whatever possible to save a life. The title "The Good Doctor" is rather ironic here, because Bloom's character, Martin Blake, is anything but a "good" doctor when he starts to develop bizarre feelings for a young female patient, Diane played Riley Keough (of the Presley lineage, looking good), who is suffering from a kidney infection that Dr. Blake is hell-bent on curing, even when Diane is released from the hospital as she seems to be getting better. But, Blake develops an attachment to her and he does not want to let her go, not that easily. So, he makes her sick again. Diane is the Lolita in Martin's life, and even sickly, Riley Keough gives it her all exposing her guileless blue eyes, pouty lips and flirtatious mouth begging to be kissed- even though she's a teenage patient and it's all wrong. Martin is drawn into her, although nothing happens or is implied to have occurred between them. It's the psychological implications that the film is about. Moral corruption and/or bankruptcy.
The film explores the rabbit hole of malpractice and malfeasance that Martin Blake finds himself within, especially when Diane dies and her leather-bound diary/journal is discovered by an insolent orderly (Pena) who begins to blackmail him for prescription drugs in order for him to stay silent about it all. The film gets darker and darker as Martin Blake struggles to cover his tracks.
Sardonically, but hardly surprisingly in John Enbom’s facilely ironic script, the further Blake slides down the slippery slope of malpractice, the more warmly he finds himself accepted into a health care fraternity that previously viewed him askance. His cover-ups read as dedication, his rationalizations as profundity, while he fortuitously profits from others’ mistakes. His casually idealistic mentor (Rob Morrow); cynical roommate (Troy Garity); forceful nurse Theresa (Taraji P. Henson), the former bane of his existence; even a probing police inspector (J.K. Simmons) prove blind to his peculiarly British brand of dreamy ruthlessness.
It's an interesting film if you don't mind feeling pissed off by the end.
............................................................................
"The Dinner"
starring: Alessandro Gassman, Giovanna Mezzogiorno, Luigi Lo Cascio, Barbora Bobulova, Rosabell Laurenti Sellers, Jacopo Olmo Antinori, Lidia Vitale
written and directed by: Ivano De Matteo and Valentina Ferlan
There is nothing implicitly wrong about this Italian film, it just happens to be crunched in the middle of quite a few bombs that I watched. This is not a failure, by any means. This Italian film is actually quite intriguing as it tackles some heavy subject matter. To begin, the Latin phrase "in vino veritas" is translated to " in wine there is truth" which is very fitting for this story, as it revolves around a pair of brothers, both married, both with a teenage kid. They married siblings meet for dinner once a week at a fancy restaurant to stay in touch and up to date on all their affairs.
The film is loosely based on a Herman Koch novel of the same name and after viewing the film, I definitely want to check out the book. It's sort of a modern-era Cain and Abel (from the Bible) allegory.
Massimo and his younger brother Paolo (played by Alessandro Gassman and Luigi Lo Cascio, respectively) have a long-held history of rivalry and resentment. Nevertheless, Paolo and his wife Clara (Giovanna Mezzogiorno) meet Massimo and his wife Sofia (Barbora Bobulova) once a week for dinner at a fancy restaurant in the city. Clara doesn’t care much for the chatty and bubbly Sofia, but the pair continue to see each other, if only as a courtesy to their teenage children, who go to the same school and share a close relationship.
Warm-hearted Paolo is a pediatric surgeon whose latest patient is a boy shot during a road rage incident. Coincidently, his brother is the hotshot attorney representing the defendant, driving a bigger wedge between them. The impenetrable Massimo, cool and collected, stands by the law. At first, the film takes the viewpoint of Paolo and Clara and their affluent, yet cozy home life, which lies in stark contrast to the other couple’s minimalist, office-like penthouse. It’s Massimo’s daughter Benedetta (Rosabell Laurenti Sellers) who introduces Paolo and his family, seemingly dismissing her own in favor of having dinner at her uncle’s house. There, she and cousin Michele (Jacopo Olmo Antinori) entertain themselves watching cartoonish-violent videos online.
After the video of a brutal beating that leaves a homeless woman in a coma makes headlines, Clara is disturbed by the thought that the assailants might be her troubled son and niece. This is where the story begins to unravel and the true stories of these two families, subverting stereotypes about good and evil, right and wrong, morality and justice. The clues that this sibling rivalry may largely be one-sided out of jealousy become apparent when each family must face moral obligations concerning their offspring.
What plays out is fantastic as one brother struggles with knowing the truth and wanting/needing to do the right thing, and the other brother, who will seemingly do whatever it takes for his daughter. I won't give any of the ending away, but needless to say, it leaves you scratching your head, wondering, "What just happened?"
This is a great foreign film. Worth it.
............................................................................
"Return to Sender"
starring: Rosamund Pike, Nick Nolte, Shiloh Fernandez, Camryn Manheim, Alexi Wasser, Rumer Willis, Illeana Douglas, Stephen Louis Grush, Donna Duplantier, Scout Taylor-Compton, Ryan Phillippe
directed by: Fourad Mikati
written by: Patricia Beauchamp and Joe Gossett
To say this is a disaster from start to finish might actually be putting it mildly, as this film seems to be trying to capture the rising star for Rosamund Pike (thanks to her starring role in "Gone Girl"). She's supposed to be playing a similar character, I think, except that this character is the victim of rape (not an abusive husband and banal marriage). It's a strong-female vengeance film. The problem is this film is so slow to build up to anything and just has no substance.
Miranda (Pike) is raped by William (Fernandez) early in the film and then spends the rest of the film slowly plotting her revenge against him. There really isn't any indication from the filmmakers though that this is actually happening, since we cannot get in the head of Miranda. We can all safely assume that the victim of a rape would not end up falling in love with the perp, though. But, in film, you should not have to make those assumptions.
The basic framework is mere routine; Miranda has no specificity beyond the kind of hollow detail you'd find on her résumé, and Mikati casts a flimsy pallor over the character's psychological torment as she methodically seduces William into believing she's interested in starting over and, you know, forgetting about the whole rape business.
There's no sense of its premise as either a metaphorical stance on female agency or even as a seedy embrace of its lascivious elements, which wouldn't have been the worst direction considering the film's hard turn into straight-up exploitation terrain once Miranda gets her man on the slab.
But, that's also where the film stalls out and fails. There's no true exploitation, like in better seen vengeance films that preceded this one. There's hardly any blood or straight up anger from Miranda. Rosamund Pike plays her character as if she were sedated, not necessarily traumatized.
The hour-plus that follows flounders between banal representations of PTSD, as when Miranda can no longer hold her hands steady enough to frost a cake, and a grosser dollop of clinical misogyny that understands Miranda's pain only as a means to falsely empower her through reciprocal violence and torment. Were the film truly interested in the idea that Miranda could not only forgive her rapist, but choose to attempt a meaningful relationship with him, Return to Sender would take its characters seriously and into a more honest, difficult direction, rather than bandying them about as foreplay before the presumed bloodbath.
I could not get into this film at all, and it's just barely an hour and a half.
..........................................................................
"Big Sky"
starring: Bella Thorne, Kyra Sedgwick, Frank Grillo, Aaron Tvelit, Francois Arnauld, Jodi Lyn Thomas, Beth Bailey
written by: Evan M. Weiner
directed by: Jorge Michel Grau
I wanted to like this one. I really did. But, unfortunately, it doesn't really have much depth to it, especially for what the director is trying to accomplish.
We were presented with an agoraphobic teenage girl who is being transported to a sanitarium in a van, with her mother and other teenagers of equal and lesser value, when suddenly their van is attacked by a brotherly criminal duo, Jesse and Pru, who shoot up the van and kill everyone in the van except the agoraphobic girl (Thorne) who is locked inside a box in the van, and her mother (who is shot but not fatally wounded). With each female's survival, it becomes quite clear this is a story about the mother-daughter relationship as well as predictably presenting the teenage girl, Hazel (Thorne) as the eventual hero (trust me, I'm not giving anything away by saying that). The film is an artsy take on the meditative vision-quest drama where the main character needs to overcome her deepest fear in order to come out the hero, while also reconnecting with her emotionally absent mother, Dee (Sedgwick).
The film fails to set up any sort of understanding of these following questions, which makes you wonder why the hell you should be invested in Hazel's journey. The questions: why Jesse and Pru are targeting sanitarium-bound vans in the first place, how Hazel became agoraphobic, and so on.
Like Hazel, Pru is another mentally unstable character who needs pills to function; his relationship with his father-like brother is so obviously meant to contrast with the more fraught relationship between Hazel and Dee that none of these characters ever come off as anything more than thematic signposts. Big Sky becomes even more risible in its second half as Hazel encounters both a mocking mirage that resembles her dead sister—who, one easily guesses despite the film's attempt to fashion a mystery out of it, drowned in part as a result of Hazel being unable to save her—and a nutcase, Clete (François Arnaud), who's so obviously crazy from the outset.
Ultimately, there's perhaps too much presented here, which goes unexplored any further than the surface. I think they should have stuck with Hazel and it would have made for a decent film.
.................................................................................
"Locked In"
starring: Ben Barnes, Sarah Roemer, Eliza Dushku
written by: Ronnie Christensen
directed by: Suri Krishnamma
Here's the premise to this bizarre film:
On the way home from picking up a Christmas tree, Josh (Ben Barnes), Emma (Sarah Roemer), and Brooke (Abby and Helen Steinman) crash in one of the city's traffic tunnels. All three members of the family survive, but Brooke is afflicted by something the doctors call "locked in" syndrome, which is different from a coma in that the person is able to think and feel, just not respond to outside stimuli. The doctor explains that this causes the mind to deteriorate quickly, thanks to the resulting sense of isolation. Josh and Emma are devastated, but Josh begins experiencing signs that something stranger is happening. Brooke calls him on the phone, an impossible thing. He and Emma find a drawing in one of her old books of the crash. Something strange about the left tail light keeps nagging at him. Could it have something to do with Renee (Eliza Dushku), the woman Josh cheated on Emma with, nearly destroying their marriage? More importantly, can he figure it out in time to save Brooke's sanity?
The cast does their best acting of material that is far from interesting, other than in a surreal kind of way. I think I wanted something more out of this, but let's be honest, it has a bunch of B and C list actors (a poor man's Blake Lively as the estranged girlfriend, is the least of the issues). It is fun to watch Eliza Dushku play characters like this temptress, though.
...............................................................................
"Beneath the Darkness"
starring: Dennis Quaid, Aimee Teegarden, Tony Oller, Stephen Lunsford, Devon Werkheiser, Brett Cullen, Dahlia Waingort
written by: Bruce Wilkinson
directed by: Martin Guigui
I think the problem with this film was that it was trying way too hard, especially at making Dennis Quaid an unlikable and evil villain. His character's craziness reminds me of Kevin Costner's turn at playing a villain in "Mr. Brooks" from a decade or so ago. Quaid plays this madman, Vaughn Ely, a mortician, with an assortment of outrageous tics and quirks. And props to Quaid for trying hard, but the rest of the film cannot be carried by his acting.
The two lead teenagers in the film, Travis and Abby (Oller and Teegarden), are the sole survivors who set out to solve what they think is a hauntingly supernatural mystery and end up getting caught in Vaughn's craziness as he was apparently keeping his dead wife in their house, having never accepted her death. I have to admit that Aimee Teegarden is what drew me to the film, because I loved watching her explore growing up as the daughter of a high school football coach on "Friday Night Lights." She does a pretty good job here, but is definitely not ready to carry a film.
The pervading sense of loss and its accompanying guilt is underscored by an early classroom sequence in which the teacher strives, with some success, to underscore the self-inflicted madness inherent to Poe's “The Tell-Tale Heart.” Travis, it turns out, earlier lost his sister to mysterious circumstances, which only reinforces his mounting belief that Ely's up to no good. Travis is correct – the movie shows us as much in its opening moments – but when it comes to creepy old buildings, overly attentive owners, and prying outsiders,Beneath the Darkness has nada on Don Coscarelli's epic Phantasm saga or, for that matter, Norman Bates’ clear-eyed if psychotic shenanigans. It's strictly a guilty pleasure.
..............................................................................
"After"
starring: Steven Strait, Karolina Wydra, Madison Lintz, Sandra Ellis Lafferty, Ric Reitz
written and directed by: Ryan Smith
This is quite an intriguing film, considering most of the dialogue and action happens between just the two main characters, Freddy and Ana (Strait and Wydra, respectively). It's a bit of a supernatural thriller complete with a CGI monster reeking havoc in their small town.
The film begins with Freddy and Ana striking up an awkward conversation on a bus. Each is headed home from a trip and neither knows each other—though it turns out that they are neighbors. Soon, unexpectedly, the bus has an accident. When the pair awaken, they find that they are the only two people in their home town. Eventually, after wandering about, they find two exceptionally strange things, including a fog-like darkness that's creeping closer and closer around the town. plus they occasionally see people who can't seem to see or hear them. These people, it turns out, are from their memories -- family and friends from long ago -- some of whom are dead. This is pretty awful but things get worse. First, the pair hear a recorded conversation when they enter the hospital and it appears that these people they hear are planning on taking someone off life support—and that someone is Ana!! Second, it only gets worse because there is a monster in the darkness—and soon it comes into the town looking for the pair!
I think what really helped this film succeed as much as it did is simply because of the two lead actors, since they are seemingly unknown. They do a great job, separately and together, which is important because they are battling the aftermath of the accident and this dark-fog/monster as a pair. This is enjoyable in the same vein as J.J. Abrams' "Super 8" was entertaining (even if this film reveals the monster a bit earlier).
....................................................................................
"Visions"
starring: Isla Fisher, Anson Mount, Gillian Jacobs, Joanna Cassidy, Eva Longoria, Jim Parsons, Michael Villar, Bryce Johnson
written by: L.D. Goffigan and Lucas Sussman
directed by: Kevin Greutert
Isla Fisher is the cute girl. There's no denying that. There's no way around that (unfortunately, for her). She is not a scream queen. She was definitely miscast in this film. And then, there's Gillian Jacobs- best known for her excellent role in the TV show "Community." Jacobs is not an evil bitch. Another miscast.
Isla Fisher plays Eveleigh, a woman that was involved in a car accident that claimed the life of her unborn child. She and her husband are trying to get past that tragedy, so they decide to move to the country and open a winery. The twist is that Eveleigh is pregnant, again. She decides to take a bunch of yoga classes, where she quickly befriends another woman (Jacobs), whom she confides in, especially when she begins to see weird, bizarre, bloody visions all around the house. She thoroughly believes she is not crazy and she wants to solve this mystery and find out why exactly she's being haunted.
This is not a bad film. It's, at best, a mediocre film with a decent cast just in the wrong film. It's a supernatural film that is meant to be scary, but all the scares are rather predictable and not that scary.
Isla Fisher is very likable in just about everything she does, and here is no different. Unfortunately, it's not the kind of film it's trying to be.
starring: Orlando Bloom, Riley Keough, Taraji P. Henson, Rob Morrow, Michael Pena, Troy Garity, Molly Price, Wade Williams, Sorel Carradine, Gary Carlos Cervantes, Monique Gabriela Curnen, Jean St. James
directed by: Lance Daly
written by: John Enblom
Orlando Bloom is probably used to playing likable heroes in films thanks to the franchise films "Pirates of the Caribbean" and "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy. Here, he goes against typecast as an English doctor planting new roots in Southern California as a doctor, hoping to earn respect in a profession where generally people develop untouchable egos and fight the good fight against diseases and such, all while taking the oath to do whatever possible to save a life. The title "The Good Doctor" is rather ironic here, because Bloom's character, Martin Blake, is anything but a "good" doctor when he starts to develop bizarre feelings for a young female patient, Diane played Riley Keough (of the Presley lineage, looking good), who is suffering from a kidney infection that Dr. Blake is hell-bent on curing, even when Diane is released from the hospital as she seems to be getting better. But, Blake develops an attachment to her and he does not want to let her go, not that easily. So, he makes her sick again. Diane is the Lolita in Martin's life, and even sickly, Riley Keough gives it her all exposing her guileless blue eyes, pouty lips and flirtatious mouth begging to be kissed- even though she's a teenage patient and it's all wrong. Martin is drawn into her, although nothing happens or is implied to have occurred between them. It's the psychological implications that the film is about. Moral corruption and/or bankruptcy.
The film explores the rabbit hole of malpractice and malfeasance that Martin Blake finds himself within, especially when Diane dies and her leather-bound diary/journal is discovered by an insolent orderly (Pena) who begins to blackmail him for prescription drugs in order for him to stay silent about it all. The film gets darker and darker as Martin Blake struggles to cover his tracks.
Sardonically, but hardly surprisingly in John Enbom’s facilely ironic script, the further Blake slides down the slippery slope of malpractice, the more warmly he finds himself accepted into a health care fraternity that previously viewed him askance. His cover-ups read as dedication, his rationalizations as profundity, while he fortuitously profits from others’ mistakes. His casually idealistic mentor (Rob Morrow); cynical roommate (Troy Garity); forceful nurse Theresa (Taraji P. Henson), the former bane of his existence; even a probing police inspector (J.K. Simmons) prove blind to his peculiarly British brand of dreamy ruthlessness.
It's an interesting film if you don't mind feeling pissed off by the end.
............................................................................
"The Dinner"
starring: Alessandro Gassman, Giovanna Mezzogiorno, Luigi Lo Cascio, Barbora Bobulova, Rosabell Laurenti Sellers, Jacopo Olmo Antinori, Lidia Vitale
written and directed by: Ivano De Matteo and Valentina Ferlan
There is nothing implicitly wrong about this Italian film, it just happens to be crunched in the middle of quite a few bombs that I watched. This is not a failure, by any means. This Italian film is actually quite intriguing as it tackles some heavy subject matter. To begin, the Latin phrase "in vino veritas" is translated to " in wine there is truth" which is very fitting for this story, as it revolves around a pair of brothers, both married, both with a teenage kid. They married siblings meet for dinner once a week at a fancy restaurant to stay in touch and up to date on all their affairs.
The film is loosely based on a Herman Koch novel of the same name and after viewing the film, I definitely want to check out the book. It's sort of a modern-era Cain and Abel (from the Bible) allegory.
Massimo and his younger brother Paolo (played by Alessandro Gassman and Luigi Lo Cascio, respectively) have a long-held history of rivalry and resentment. Nevertheless, Paolo and his wife Clara (Giovanna Mezzogiorno) meet Massimo and his wife Sofia (Barbora Bobulova) once a week for dinner at a fancy restaurant in the city. Clara doesn’t care much for the chatty and bubbly Sofia, but the pair continue to see each other, if only as a courtesy to their teenage children, who go to the same school and share a close relationship.
Warm-hearted Paolo is a pediatric surgeon whose latest patient is a boy shot during a road rage incident. Coincidently, his brother is the hotshot attorney representing the defendant, driving a bigger wedge between them. The impenetrable Massimo, cool and collected, stands by the law. At first, the film takes the viewpoint of Paolo and Clara and their affluent, yet cozy home life, which lies in stark contrast to the other couple’s minimalist, office-like penthouse. It’s Massimo’s daughter Benedetta (Rosabell Laurenti Sellers) who introduces Paolo and his family, seemingly dismissing her own in favor of having dinner at her uncle’s house. There, she and cousin Michele (Jacopo Olmo Antinori) entertain themselves watching cartoonish-violent videos online.
After the video of a brutal beating that leaves a homeless woman in a coma makes headlines, Clara is disturbed by the thought that the assailants might be her troubled son and niece. This is where the story begins to unravel and the true stories of these two families, subverting stereotypes about good and evil, right and wrong, morality and justice. The clues that this sibling rivalry may largely be one-sided out of jealousy become apparent when each family must face moral obligations concerning their offspring.
What plays out is fantastic as one brother struggles with knowing the truth and wanting/needing to do the right thing, and the other brother, who will seemingly do whatever it takes for his daughter. I won't give any of the ending away, but needless to say, it leaves you scratching your head, wondering, "What just happened?"
This is a great foreign film. Worth it.
............................................................................
"Return to Sender"
starring: Rosamund Pike, Nick Nolte, Shiloh Fernandez, Camryn Manheim, Alexi Wasser, Rumer Willis, Illeana Douglas, Stephen Louis Grush, Donna Duplantier, Scout Taylor-Compton, Ryan Phillippe
directed by: Fourad Mikati
written by: Patricia Beauchamp and Joe Gossett
To say this is a disaster from start to finish might actually be putting it mildly, as this film seems to be trying to capture the rising star for Rosamund Pike (thanks to her starring role in "Gone Girl"). She's supposed to be playing a similar character, I think, except that this character is the victim of rape (not an abusive husband and banal marriage). It's a strong-female vengeance film. The problem is this film is so slow to build up to anything and just has no substance.
Miranda (Pike) is raped by William (Fernandez) early in the film and then spends the rest of the film slowly plotting her revenge against him. There really isn't any indication from the filmmakers though that this is actually happening, since we cannot get in the head of Miranda. We can all safely assume that the victim of a rape would not end up falling in love with the perp, though. But, in film, you should not have to make those assumptions.
The basic framework is mere routine; Miranda has no specificity beyond the kind of hollow detail you'd find on her résumé, and Mikati casts a flimsy pallor over the character's psychological torment as she methodically seduces William into believing she's interested in starting over and, you know, forgetting about the whole rape business.
There's no sense of its premise as either a metaphorical stance on female agency or even as a seedy embrace of its lascivious elements, which wouldn't have been the worst direction considering the film's hard turn into straight-up exploitation terrain once Miranda gets her man on the slab.
But, that's also where the film stalls out and fails. There's no true exploitation, like in better seen vengeance films that preceded this one. There's hardly any blood or straight up anger from Miranda. Rosamund Pike plays her character as if she were sedated, not necessarily traumatized.
The hour-plus that follows flounders between banal representations of PTSD, as when Miranda can no longer hold her hands steady enough to frost a cake, and a grosser dollop of clinical misogyny that understands Miranda's pain only as a means to falsely empower her through reciprocal violence and torment. Were the film truly interested in the idea that Miranda could not only forgive her rapist, but choose to attempt a meaningful relationship with him, Return to Sender would take its characters seriously and into a more honest, difficult direction, rather than bandying them about as foreplay before the presumed bloodbath.
I could not get into this film at all, and it's just barely an hour and a half.
..........................................................................
"Big Sky"
starring: Bella Thorne, Kyra Sedgwick, Frank Grillo, Aaron Tvelit, Francois Arnauld, Jodi Lyn Thomas, Beth Bailey
written by: Evan M. Weiner
directed by: Jorge Michel Grau
I wanted to like this one. I really did. But, unfortunately, it doesn't really have much depth to it, especially for what the director is trying to accomplish.
We were presented with an agoraphobic teenage girl who is being transported to a sanitarium in a van, with her mother and other teenagers of equal and lesser value, when suddenly their van is attacked by a brotherly criminal duo, Jesse and Pru, who shoot up the van and kill everyone in the van except the agoraphobic girl (Thorne) who is locked inside a box in the van, and her mother (who is shot but not fatally wounded). With each female's survival, it becomes quite clear this is a story about the mother-daughter relationship as well as predictably presenting the teenage girl, Hazel (Thorne) as the eventual hero (trust me, I'm not giving anything away by saying that). The film is an artsy take on the meditative vision-quest drama where the main character needs to overcome her deepest fear in order to come out the hero, while also reconnecting with her emotionally absent mother, Dee (Sedgwick).
The film fails to set up any sort of understanding of these following questions, which makes you wonder why the hell you should be invested in Hazel's journey. The questions: why Jesse and Pru are targeting sanitarium-bound vans in the first place, how Hazel became agoraphobic, and so on.
Like Hazel, Pru is another mentally unstable character who needs pills to function; his relationship with his father-like brother is so obviously meant to contrast with the more fraught relationship between Hazel and Dee that none of these characters ever come off as anything more than thematic signposts. Big Sky becomes even more risible in its second half as Hazel encounters both a mocking mirage that resembles her dead sister—who, one easily guesses despite the film's attempt to fashion a mystery out of it, drowned in part as a result of Hazel being unable to save her—and a nutcase, Clete (François Arnaud), who's so obviously crazy from the outset.
Ultimately, there's perhaps too much presented here, which goes unexplored any further than the surface. I think they should have stuck with Hazel and it would have made for a decent film.
.................................................................................
"Locked In"
starring: Ben Barnes, Sarah Roemer, Eliza Dushku
written by: Ronnie Christensen
directed by: Suri Krishnamma
Here's the premise to this bizarre film:
On the way home from picking up a Christmas tree, Josh (Ben Barnes), Emma (Sarah Roemer), and Brooke (Abby and Helen Steinman) crash in one of the city's traffic tunnels. All three members of the family survive, but Brooke is afflicted by something the doctors call "locked in" syndrome, which is different from a coma in that the person is able to think and feel, just not respond to outside stimuli. The doctor explains that this causes the mind to deteriorate quickly, thanks to the resulting sense of isolation. Josh and Emma are devastated, but Josh begins experiencing signs that something stranger is happening. Brooke calls him on the phone, an impossible thing. He and Emma find a drawing in one of her old books of the crash. Something strange about the left tail light keeps nagging at him. Could it have something to do with Renee (Eliza Dushku), the woman Josh cheated on Emma with, nearly destroying their marriage? More importantly, can he figure it out in time to save Brooke's sanity?
The cast does their best acting of material that is far from interesting, other than in a surreal kind of way. I think I wanted something more out of this, but let's be honest, it has a bunch of B and C list actors (a poor man's Blake Lively as the estranged girlfriend, is the least of the issues). It is fun to watch Eliza Dushku play characters like this temptress, though.
...............................................................................
"Beneath the Darkness"
starring: Dennis Quaid, Aimee Teegarden, Tony Oller, Stephen Lunsford, Devon Werkheiser, Brett Cullen, Dahlia Waingort
written by: Bruce Wilkinson
directed by: Martin Guigui
I think the problem with this film was that it was trying way too hard, especially at making Dennis Quaid an unlikable and evil villain. His character's craziness reminds me of Kevin Costner's turn at playing a villain in "Mr. Brooks" from a decade or so ago. Quaid plays this madman, Vaughn Ely, a mortician, with an assortment of outrageous tics and quirks. And props to Quaid for trying hard, but the rest of the film cannot be carried by his acting.
The two lead teenagers in the film, Travis and Abby (Oller and Teegarden), are the sole survivors who set out to solve what they think is a hauntingly supernatural mystery and end up getting caught in Vaughn's craziness as he was apparently keeping his dead wife in their house, having never accepted her death. I have to admit that Aimee Teegarden is what drew me to the film, because I loved watching her explore growing up as the daughter of a high school football coach on "Friday Night Lights." She does a pretty good job here, but is definitely not ready to carry a film.
The pervading sense of loss and its accompanying guilt is underscored by an early classroom sequence in which the teacher strives, with some success, to underscore the self-inflicted madness inherent to Poe's “The Tell-Tale Heart.” Travis, it turns out, earlier lost his sister to mysterious circumstances, which only reinforces his mounting belief that Ely's up to no good. Travis is correct – the movie shows us as much in its opening moments – but when it comes to creepy old buildings, overly attentive owners, and prying outsiders,Beneath the Darkness has nada on Don Coscarelli's epic Phantasm saga or, for that matter, Norman Bates’ clear-eyed if psychotic shenanigans. It's strictly a guilty pleasure.
..............................................................................
"After"
starring: Steven Strait, Karolina Wydra, Madison Lintz, Sandra Ellis Lafferty, Ric Reitz
written and directed by: Ryan Smith
This is quite an intriguing film, considering most of the dialogue and action happens between just the two main characters, Freddy and Ana (Strait and Wydra, respectively). It's a bit of a supernatural thriller complete with a CGI monster reeking havoc in their small town.
The film begins with Freddy and Ana striking up an awkward conversation on a bus. Each is headed home from a trip and neither knows each other—though it turns out that they are neighbors. Soon, unexpectedly, the bus has an accident. When the pair awaken, they find that they are the only two people in their home town. Eventually, after wandering about, they find two exceptionally strange things, including a fog-like darkness that's creeping closer and closer around the town. plus they occasionally see people who can't seem to see or hear them. These people, it turns out, are from their memories -- family and friends from long ago -- some of whom are dead. This is pretty awful but things get worse. First, the pair hear a recorded conversation when they enter the hospital and it appears that these people they hear are planning on taking someone off life support—and that someone is Ana!! Second, it only gets worse because there is a monster in the darkness—and soon it comes into the town looking for the pair!
I think what really helped this film succeed as much as it did is simply because of the two lead actors, since they are seemingly unknown. They do a great job, separately and together, which is important because they are battling the aftermath of the accident and this dark-fog/monster as a pair. This is enjoyable in the same vein as J.J. Abrams' "Super 8" was entertaining (even if this film reveals the monster a bit earlier).
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"Visions"
starring: Isla Fisher, Anson Mount, Gillian Jacobs, Joanna Cassidy, Eva Longoria, Jim Parsons, Michael Villar, Bryce Johnson
written by: L.D. Goffigan and Lucas Sussman
directed by: Kevin Greutert
Isla Fisher is the cute girl. There's no denying that. There's no way around that (unfortunately, for her). She is not a scream queen. She was definitely miscast in this film. And then, there's Gillian Jacobs- best known for her excellent role in the TV show "Community." Jacobs is not an evil bitch. Another miscast.
Isla Fisher plays Eveleigh, a woman that was involved in a car accident that claimed the life of her unborn child. She and her husband are trying to get past that tragedy, so they decide to move to the country and open a winery. The twist is that Eveleigh is pregnant, again. She decides to take a bunch of yoga classes, where she quickly befriends another woman (Jacobs), whom she confides in, especially when she begins to see weird, bizarre, bloody visions all around the house. She thoroughly believes she is not crazy and she wants to solve this mystery and find out why exactly she's being haunted.
This is not a bad film. It's, at best, a mediocre film with a decent cast just in the wrong film. It's a supernatural film that is meant to be scary, but all the scares are rather predictable and not that scary.
Isla Fisher is very likable in just about everything she does, and here is no different. Unfortunately, it's not the kind of film it's trying to be.
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