7 Films For You
Film 301
"The Last Days of Disco"
starring: Chloe Sevigny, Kate Beckinsale, Chris Eigeman, Mackenizie Astin, Matt Keeslar, Robert Sean Leonard, Jennifer Beals, Matt Ross, Tara Subkoff, Burr Steers
written and directed by: Whit Stillman
This is a film that came out in 1998 and is about the end of an era/decade (the Disco Age) and it's also already part of the Criterion Collection. It's the third in a series of sociological romances from writer/director Whit Stillman, and after watching it, I really want to see the other two ("Metropolitan" and "Barcelona." Stillman is an excellent writer because his characters recite perfectly crafted dialogue with each other. He gives them good backgrounds: they all went to good schools, they have good jobs, they think they're smarter than they might actually be, and ultimately they all want to belong to clubs that would be happy to accept them (the complete opposite philosophy of Groucho Marx!). It takes place during the very early 1980s in Manhattan and plays out the end of the disco era almost perfectly thanks to the characters paralleling lives with the take down of one of the disco clubs that they all frequent. The core group of friends and associates all meet up to dance their nights and cares away. They are aware of social status, during the '80s, the same way the male group of friends from "American Psycho" was aware of it by way of business cards and reservations at high-class restaurants. There is no Patrick Bateman here, though.
The two main characters are Alice (Chloe Sevigny, in one of her best performances) and her best friend Charlotte (Kate Beckinsale, who has never really lived up to her potential as an actress thanks in large part to her recurring roles in "Underworld" which she is most remembered for). Alice has values. She is smart and down-to-earth, as well as just a nice person. Charlotte is the girlfriend who thinks she knows everything, especially what's right for herself and her best friend, Alice, whom she is constantly giving welcomed and unwelcomed advice to. She has goals, albeit shallow ones: to meet the right guys, to be popular, to do exactly what she imagines a person in her position should do, maybe not the right things). There's also a cast of secondary male characters who move the film along with a subplot that involves a young D.A. trying to make a name for himself, the disco club owner who is also trafficking drugs and laundering money.
Ultimately, "The Last Days of Disco" is about characters that believed a certain time period was the best period in their lives because it captured their youth. It allowed them to be young, to drink, to dance, to love, and to learn some important life lessons. And like real life, it's the music of that specific time period that will always awaken those memories and emotions. I feel the same way about the 1990s and that music.
Whit Stillman does for the Disco Era with this film, what F. Scott Fitzgerald did for the Jazz Age with his novels.
This is a masterpiece thanks to the two girls at its center, even though the rest of the plot is bare minimum cliche of drugs and money.
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Film 302
"Midnight Cowboy"
starring: Jon Voight, Dustin Hoffman
directed by: John Schlesinger
I wanted to really enjoy "Midnight Cowboy" because it's seen as a classic in film and it won the Best Picture Oscar so long ago. It's not a timeless piece of cinema, because it is so focused on the time period and place setting (New York City, in the late 60s), which we know do not necessarily hold up to today. Although, the central themes of self-discovery, living out one's dreams, friendship and long-lasting bonds/relationships, as well as the undertone of homosexuality (which was seen as very taboo at the time, and along with the nudity and violence in the film, earned the film an original X rating) can definitely live up to today's standards.
In case you've never seen it (like myself, until now), it's sort of a love story involving two drifters who find each other in New York. Joe Buck (played superbly by Jon Voight) is a recent Texas-transplant who has hopes of finding an older woman to be his lover whom he can also live off of by providing for her sexually (kind of in the same vein as a gigolo, but it's never really implied). He's quite naive to the big-city life and he doesn't really understand why no one has bought into his good looks and charm, upon his first arrival. And then there's Ratso Rizzo (played perfectly by Dustin Hoffman, perhaps one of the best actors to see a fruitful career through many decades), who is a street-savvy drifter who takes Joe Buck under his wing, so-to-speak.
I have to mention here that there's a scene in the film that has been replicated in other movies, but most recently in one of my favorite new TV shows, "Girls." Ratso bangs on a taxi that almost hits the two men as they cross the street and says, "I'm walking here!" There's a quite similar scene in the first season of "Girls" which I've been rewatching in anticipation of the new season, and I think it stood out for me, because I'd recently watched "Midnight Cowboy."
Anyway, the best thing about this film is clearly the performances of Voight and Hoffman as they fully commit to the roles. They are out to prove themselves to an audience of movie-goers that perhaps saw them as one-hit wonders, but whom they certainly proved wrong. Their characters are absolutely true, for the time period that they are in. They live in their own worlds, trapped in the bigger fishbowl/world of New York City, which has a tendency to swallow drifters whole and spit them out. Joe Buck and Ratso refuse to be swallowed, chewed up, and spit out, though. They see bigger things for themselves. They see themselves living it up in Florida eventually. How they get there, though, is what they spend their time trying to figure out. Joe Buck sees himself as a hustler, but he comes to the realization that he's actually quite expendable and a disposable commodity in the big city. Ratso is a survivor. I don't know how, and I don't think I'll ever be able to understand because I've never had to live like him (or Joe Buck). So, I cannot empathize with these two guys, but I can be compassion to their journey.
I did like the film, but I thought it was a bit too long and drawn out for the story that is being told. Maybe I would have liked it a lot more if I'd been able to see it in the '70s, having just come out of the '60s the film is portraying. It's still a worthwhile film, thanks to Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman.
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Film 303
"Jolene"
starring: Jessica Chastain, Frances Fisher, Dermot Mulroney, Theresa Russell, Denise Richards, Chazz Palminteri, Rupert Friend, Michael Vartan
directed by: Dan Ireland
"Jolene" is an independent film from 2008 that introduces us to the wonderful Jessica Chastain. With the film, she shows the potential she eventually lives up to with her later film roles (re: "The Help" and "Zero Dark Thirty" and "The Tree of Life" as well as the most recent horror film "Mama").
It's an episodic odyssey that follows the title character, Jolene, from her teenage years through significant events that lead up to her adulthood- the same way that "Forrest Gump" tells the story of a simple-minded man (Tom Hanks in the role of his career, in my opinion). Both films use voice-over to help narrate the story, but with "Jolene" it seems rather unnecessary, because each episode tells her story well enough, that we don't necessarily need to hear her internal dialogue.
Jolene is an orphaned teenage girl who embarks on a cross-country quest for love and happiness through relationships with a variety of men (all equally bad for her, which she can never seem to grasp) instead of embarking on a self-discovery journey of who she is and why she is the way she is. Jolene is clearly a woman running away from herself and she gets involved with these men as a way of escaping herself, too. She takes on a variety of roles, for these men, whom she just wants to love her. Along her way she becomes: a rural ingenue, an institutionalized faux-lesbian, roadside prostitute, wild child, stripper, gangster's moll, career woman, and abused high-society wife. At her core, Jolene is a lost child looking to gain the affection of anyone and everyone she meets, and never really grasps that she is ultimately the root cause of all her troubles. She is mentally incapable of assessing a person, situation, and/or consequence of her actions, which makes her just as simpleminded as the aforementioned character, Forrest Gump. The trouble is, Forrest Gump was sort of mental challenged and faced his adversities head-on, without making excuses, and in effect ended up living quite a fulfilling life, but at the end of her journey, Jolene hasn't really done much of anything with her life, except waste it on trying to find love.
Thankfully, Jessica Chastain delivers a great performance where she fully embodies the character of Jolene, and at some points her acting really takes charge and makes you forget that the film is mediocre at best.
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Film 304
"Don't Be Afraid of the Dark"
starring: Guy Pearce, Katie Holmes, Bailee Madison
written and produced by: Guillermo del Toro
This scary movie might have been good for one simple reason: it came from the mind of Guillermo del Toro (the same man behind a couple of mind-bending minds including "Pan's Labyrinth"). It's certainly subpar thanks to the acting of Pearce and Holmes and their utter lack of chemistry or believability.
Where del Toro's films are successful in their allegorical storytelling, "Don't Be Afraid of the Dark" fails and comes off as more of a half-assed film. You cannot help but think about how lazy the filmmakers were in their approach to making this film. I think its failure rests solely on the shoulders of the director, Troy Nixey.
The story focuses on Sally, a little girl sent to live with her father (Pearce) and his young, new wife (Holmes) in their Rhode Island fixer-up mansion-type home. Kim (Holmes) is trying too hard to be liked by the depressed Sally, who doesn't want a replacement mom, as much as she wants to be understood and not cast aside by all the adults in her life. When Sally reveals that there are creatures tormenting her, Kim (Holmes) gives her step-daughter a Polaroid camera in order to gather some photographic evidence, because let's face it, adults just don't believe children when it comes to things of this nature (because it seems childishly naive and make-believe). The catch being- these creatures are scared of the light and back off when the camera's light flashes on them.
Even with the beady-eyed, sharp-toothed homunculi that live in the mansion's basement and are there to fulfill their appetite for teeth and bones of young children, the film fails to be anything more than just a conventional horror film that leans more on its artsy, moodiness than anything between the lines of the script, which really could've told a better story.
The beady-eyed, sharp-toothed creatures that lurk in the dark and apparently fed off of fear that the dark induces in children are CGI-ed and look like that fit snugly into the imagination of del Toro. But unfortunately even they can't save a film that was doomed from the prologue. Why is it doomed to fail? Other then Katie Holmes' lack of acting abilities, in general, it comes off as the kind of film that was made with money and people that never really believed in it.
I didn't like this film and I want to believe that del Toro really wants to take his name off the film, too.
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Film 305
"Noble Things"
starring: Dominique Swain, Brett Moses, Ryan Hurst, Michael Parks
written and directed by: Dan McMellen and Brett Moses
This might actually be one of the worst films (for many reasons) that I've seen in a long time, outside of this movie project and including the project. There's just nothing redeeming about it at all.
It's a thin story of "love" and loyalty (to family/friends) and secrets (family). It takes place in Texas and lives up to all the stereotypes one might have of southern Texas people. Jimmy Wayne Collins (Moses) is a next-big thing country music star who has left home in the pursuit of stardom. He's come back after 4 years away from his family and its secrets only to return, less than welcomed by anyone in his hometown. His brother is in jail, thanks to a fate-filled night four years ago (which the filmmakers have decided to heavily focus on and play it out like an outtake from "The Outsiders" mashed up with "Footloose") where there was a brawl and someone died.
After four years away from home, Collins returns to take care of his terminally ill father (who also happened to be the small-town's sheriff) and face the demons and secrets that he tried hard to leave behind. Of course, nothing goes as he planned or even thought, but that might be solely because this country dude is quite dimwitted.
The acting is absolutely abysmal and the awful writing doesn't help.
Avoid this film at all costs.
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Film 306
"Cafe"
starring: Jennifer Love Hewitt, Daniel Eric Gold, Michaela McManus, Madeline Carroll, Alexa Vega, Jamie Kennedy
written and directed by: Marc Erlbaum
I wanted to like this film for its interesting approach to storytelling and its ingenuity. It starts off being a rather fresh film, but unfortunately it lacks something (sometimes the acting, sometimes the writing) to really let it be what it showed potential for in the beginning. Writer/director Erlbaum even shows potential in being a protege of Richard Linklater, in terms of filming and moving a story along within one confined area, driven solely by the dialogue.
"What if the world you lived in weren't real?"
That's the tagline to this film. And the entire film, from the beginning shot on the cafe (which will be the sole location of the entire story) from the outside where customers are rushed out and police officers are present to the very end of the film (which uses the same shot from the beginning) to all the in between character interactions and dialogue, is an allegorical narrative of a basic philosophy discussion question.
Alexa Vega acts as the go between for the two worlds. She apparently is "real" as she has discussions with an overweight, computer nerd guy who is sitting in the cafe. Her character has apparently created this real life simulation. All the people coming and going in the cafe are her creations. She is controlling everything that happens. Knowing that all of this is unreal, that all the characters are a creation, takes away from any chance you have as the viewer of connecting and having any semblance of reality and emotions for the cafe characters. But, being that I have a love for philosophy, I completely appreciate what Erlbaum was going for, and I did enjoy it, to a degree. Sure, at some points, it comes off as a rather self-absorbed, pretentious piece of low-budget art school filmmaking that definitely could have passed as an extension of a "Dawson's Creek" episode. But, I also really liked "Dawson's Creek!"
The film starts with a well-developed rhythm and easygoing conversations between the varied cast of characters that will comprise the entire story. We get a decent look into who each character is and will be throughout. There's the rather emo-driven coffeeshop boy, Daniel Eric Gold's character, who is pinning after Jennifer Love Hewitt's sassy, more-punk coffeeshop girl (who is dating a much less desirable, bad-ass guy). Todd (Gold) is a musician. Claire (Hewitt) is reckless abandonment, a potential Manic Pixie Dream Girl, if the story had solely focused on them. She could clearly have a one-dimensional purpose, but Erlbaum avoids that by making her disappear from the film at about the halfway point.
Erlbaum wrote the coffeshop owner/boss as a God-like man, who actually remains unknown to the workers (who are apparently only Todd and Claire), who sits in the cafe possessing as a writer, journaling the goings-on of his coffeeshop while trying to maintain a less-than obvious presence.
But, Elly (Madeline Carroll) fulfills the God-like role much better and easier given that she plays the programmer of the invented world all these cafe people are living in. She is making things happen. They are all Avatar's in her simulation. She opens up to the one guy focused on his computer, apparently only when she wants to speak with him.
Jamie Kennedy's drug dealer character is apparently one of the central characters in this Avatar world, though, because it is his multiple actions and interactions that drive the story to reach its eventual climax. Unfortunately, Kennedy is not really a good actor, so his character comes off really dry.
When it starts, "Cafe" shows it has potential and seems thoughtful and intriguing, but unfortunately, Erlbaum decides to live in the cafe for longer than one day, and by the second day, he seems to be clinging to straws and recycling dialogue that would have had more of an impact if the film's story was centered around one day in the life of a cafe and its customers/workers. I'm thinking of how powerful Linklater's "Before Sunrise/Sunset/Midnight" trilogy has always been because of this fact.
Nice try, Erlbaum. Too bad, he also seemed to have the same bad luck with his next film- the Ryan Reynold's one-location-based film "Buried."
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Film 307
"Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn"
starring: Bruce Campbell, Sarah Berry, Dan Hicks, Kassie Wesley Depaiva
written and directed by: Sam Raimi
This is a great sequel to an already great horror-comedy movie, where it's actually not necessarily continuing the previous films story, but rather retelling the old story in a new way, 6 years later, when special effects were still not fancy or savvy. It's aptly titled "Evil Dead 2" because it is just that, Evil Dead, again. It's the kind of horror movie that is smart enough to know that it is perhaps not going to be the scariest horror film anyone sees, but damn it, it can certainly be the funniest and most satirical horror film anyone will see.
The plot: Visitors to a cottage in the Michigan woods discover a rare copy of the Book of the Dead and accidentally invoke evil spirits. The spirits run amok, disemboweling and vivisecting their victims. The hero battles manfully with the dread supernatural forces, but he is no match for the unspeakably vile creatures in the basement, in the woods and behind every door.
Sam Raimi uses the capabilities of the 1980s special effects departments as best as he can, with wall-to-tall and almost minute-to-minute special effects. It's so ridiculous at some points, with the gallons of fake blood spewed and the dead masks/make-up/body suits are so ridiculously fake that it is hilarious instead of scary. I loved it, from the first minute to the last minute, but I also appreciated it. Heads spin and roll. Hands take on a life of their own, even after Campell's Ash cuts it off. Blood sprays. Guts spill. Slime spews everywhere. Ash, the main character/hero (whom himself cannot escape the fate of becoming possessed) even attaches a chainsaw to his bloodied stump in order to replace his severed hand. (Robert Rodriguez pays homage to this antic in "Planet Terror" with Rose McGowan's character/heroine attaching a machine gun to the stump of her leg).
"Evil Dead 2" is a purely fun movie for three specific reasons:
1) the violence and gore are so extreme at times that it's not necessarily disgusting (like some horror films today, which go for pure shock value, nowadays... re: "Saw" franchise), but rather more surrealistic
2) the timing of the writing and dialogue makes it come off more as a comedy, and goes for laughs
3) the low-budget approach is way more lovable and enjoyable than some high-tech films of today, which actually focus too much on the best technology presentation and forget that if there's no story, then who cares
Sam Raimi got it right with his "Evil Dead" trilogy. If only his younger self could have told his older self, perhaps "The Great and Powerful Oz" could've been better.
This is one of my favorite films during my movie blog project because it allowed me to just have some fun.
"The Last Days of Disco"
starring: Chloe Sevigny, Kate Beckinsale, Chris Eigeman, Mackenizie Astin, Matt Keeslar, Robert Sean Leonard, Jennifer Beals, Matt Ross, Tara Subkoff, Burr Steers
written and directed by: Whit Stillman
This is a film that came out in 1998 and is about the end of an era/decade (the Disco Age) and it's also already part of the Criterion Collection. It's the third in a series of sociological romances from writer/director Whit Stillman, and after watching it, I really want to see the other two ("Metropolitan" and "Barcelona." Stillman is an excellent writer because his characters recite perfectly crafted dialogue with each other. He gives them good backgrounds: they all went to good schools, they have good jobs, they think they're smarter than they might actually be, and ultimately they all want to belong to clubs that would be happy to accept them (the complete opposite philosophy of Groucho Marx!). It takes place during the very early 1980s in Manhattan and plays out the end of the disco era almost perfectly thanks to the characters paralleling lives with the take down of one of the disco clubs that they all frequent. The core group of friends and associates all meet up to dance their nights and cares away. They are aware of social status, during the '80s, the same way the male group of friends from "American Psycho" was aware of it by way of business cards and reservations at high-class restaurants. There is no Patrick Bateman here, though.
The two main characters are Alice (Chloe Sevigny, in one of her best performances) and her best friend Charlotte (Kate Beckinsale, who has never really lived up to her potential as an actress thanks in large part to her recurring roles in "Underworld" which she is most remembered for). Alice has values. She is smart and down-to-earth, as well as just a nice person. Charlotte is the girlfriend who thinks she knows everything, especially what's right for herself and her best friend, Alice, whom she is constantly giving welcomed and unwelcomed advice to. She has goals, albeit shallow ones: to meet the right guys, to be popular, to do exactly what she imagines a person in her position should do, maybe not the right things). There's also a cast of secondary male characters who move the film along with a subplot that involves a young D.A. trying to make a name for himself, the disco club owner who is also trafficking drugs and laundering money.
Ultimately, "The Last Days of Disco" is about characters that believed a certain time period was the best period in their lives because it captured their youth. It allowed them to be young, to drink, to dance, to love, and to learn some important life lessons. And like real life, it's the music of that specific time period that will always awaken those memories and emotions. I feel the same way about the 1990s and that music.
Whit Stillman does for the Disco Era with this film, what F. Scott Fitzgerald did for the Jazz Age with his novels.
This is a masterpiece thanks to the two girls at its center, even though the rest of the plot is bare minimum cliche of drugs and money.
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Film 302
"Midnight Cowboy"
starring: Jon Voight, Dustin Hoffman
directed by: John Schlesinger
I wanted to really enjoy "Midnight Cowboy" because it's seen as a classic in film and it won the Best Picture Oscar so long ago. It's not a timeless piece of cinema, because it is so focused on the time period and place setting (New York City, in the late 60s), which we know do not necessarily hold up to today. Although, the central themes of self-discovery, living out one's dreams, friendship and long-lasting bonds/relationships, as well as the undertone of homosexuality (which was seen as very taboo at the time, and along with the nudity and violence in the film, earned the film an original X rating) can definitely live up to today's standards.
In case you've never seen it (like myself, until now), it's sort of a love story involving two drifters who find each other in New York. Joe Buck (played superbly by Jon Voight) is a recent Texas-transplant who has hopes of finding an older woman to be his lover whom he can also live off of by providing for her sexually (kind of in the same vein as a gigolo, but it's never really implied). He's quite naive to the big-city life and he doesn't really understand why no one has bought into his good looks and charm, upon his first arrival. And then there's Ratso Rizzo (played perfectly by Dustin Hoffman, perhaps one of the best actors to see a fruitful career through many decades), who is a street-savvy drifter who takes Joe Buck under his wing, so-to-speak.
I have to mention here that there's a scene in the film that has been replicated in other movies, but most recently in one of my favorite new TV shows, "Girls." Ratso bangs on a taxi that almost hits the two men as they cross the street and says, "I'm walking here!" There's a quite similar scene in the first season of "Girls" which I've been rewatching in anticipation of the new season, and I think it stood out for me, because I'd recently watched "Midnight Cowboy."
Anyway, the best thing about this film is clearly the performances of Voight and Hoffman as they fully commit to the roles. They are out to prove themselves to an audience of movie-goers that perhaps saw them as one-hit wonders, but whom they certainly proved wrong. Their characters are absolutely true, for the time period that they are in. They live in their own worlds, trapped in the bigger fishbowl/world of New York City, which has a tendency to swallow drifters whole and spit them out. Joe Buck and Ratso refuse to be swallowed, chewed up, and spit out, though. They see bigger things for themselves. They see themselves living it up in Florida eventually. How they get there, though, is what they spend their time trying to figure out. Joe Buck sees himself as a hustler, but he comes to the realization that he's actually quite expendable and a disposable commodity in the big city. Ratso is a survivor. I don't know how, and I don't think I'll ever be able to understand because I've never had to live like him (or Joe Buck). So, I cannot empathize with these two guys, but I can be compassion to their journey.
I did like the film, but I thought it was a bit too long and drawn out for the story that is being told. Maybe I would have liked it a lot more if I'd been able to see it in the '70s, having just come out of the '60s the film is portraying. It's still a worthwhile film, thanks to Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman.
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Film 303
"Jolene"
starring: Jessica Chastain, Frances Fisher, Dermot Mulroney, Theresa Russell, Denise Richards, Chazz Palminteri, Rupert Friend, Michael Vartan
directed by: Dan Ireland
"Jolene" is an independent film from 2008 that introduces us to the wonderful Jessica Chastain. With the film, she shows the potential she eventually lives up to with her later film roles (re: "The Help" and "Zero Dark Thirty" and "The Tree of Life" as well as the most recent horror film "Mama").
It's an episodic odyssey that follows the title character, Jolene, from her teenage years through significant events that lead up to her adulthood- the same way that "Forrest Gump" tells the story of a simple-minded man (Tom Hanks in the role of his career, in my opinion). Both films use voice-over to help narrate the story, but with "Jolene" it seems rather unnecessary, because each episode tells her story well enough, that we don't necessarily need to hear her internal dialogue.
Jolene is an orphaned teenage girl who embarks on a cross-country quest for love and happiness through relationships with a variety of men (all equally bad for her, which she can never seem to grasp) instead of embarking on a self-discovery journey of who she is and why she is the way she is. Jolene is clearly a woman running away from herself and she gets involved with these men as a way of escaping herself, too. She takes on a variety of roles, for these men, whom she just wants to love her. Along her way she becomes: a rural ingenue, an institutionalized faux-lesbian, roadside prostitute, wild child, stripper, gangster's moll, career woman, and abused high-society wife. At her core, Jolene is a lost child looking to gain the affection of anyone and everyone she meets, and never really grasps that she is ultimately the root cause of all her troubles. She is mentally incapable of assessing a person, situation, and/or consequence of her actions, which makes her just as simpleminded as the aforementioned character, Forrest Gump. The trouble is, Forrest Gump was sort of mental challenged and faced his adversities head-on, without making excuses, and in effect ended up living quite a fulfilling life, but at the end of her journey, Jolene hasn't really done much of anything with her life, except waste it on trying to find love.
Thankfully, Jessica Chastain delivers a great performance where she fully embodies the character of Jolene, and at some points her acting really takes charge and makes you forget that the film is mediocre at best.
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Film 304
"Don't Be Afraid of the Dark"
starring: Guy Pearce, Katie Holmes, Bailee Madison
written and produced by: Guillermo del Toro
This scary movie might have been good for one simple reason: it came from the mind of Guillermo del Toro (the same man behind a couple of mind-bending minds including "Pan's Labyrinth"). It's certainly subpar thanks to the acting of Pearce and Holmes and their utter lack of chemistry or believability.
Where del Toro's films are successful in their allegorical storytelling, "Don't Be Afraid of the Dark" fails and comes off as more of a half-assed film. You cannot help but think about how lazy the filmmakers were in their approach to making this film. I think its failure rests solely on the shoulders of the director, Troy Nixey.
The story focuses on Sally, a little girl sent to live with her father (Pearce) and his young, new wife (Holmes) in their Rhode Island fixer-up mansion-type home. Kim (Holmes) is trying too hard to be liked by the depressed Sally, who doesn't want a replacement mom, as much as she wants to be understood and not cast aside by all the adults in her life. When Sally reveals that there are creatures tormenting her, Kim (Holmes) gives her step-daughter a Polaroid camera in order to gather some photographic evidence, because let's face it, adults just don't believe children when it comes to things of this nature (because it seems childishly naive and make-believe). The catch being- these creatures are scared of the light and back off when the camera's light flashes on them.
Even with the beady-eyed, sharp-toothed homunculi that live in the mansion's basement and are there to fulfill their appetite for teeth and bones of young children, the film fails to be anything more than just a conventional horror film that leans more on its artsy, moodiness than anything between the lines of the script, which really could've told a better story.
The beady-eyed, sharp-toothed creatures that lurk in the dark and apparently fed off of fear that the dark induces in children are CGI-ed and look like that fit snugly into the imagination of del Toro. But unfortunately even they can't save a film that was doomed from the prologue. Why is it doomed to fail? Other then Katie Holmes' lack of acting abilities, in general, it comes off as the kind of film that was made with money and people that never really believed in it.
I didn't like this film and I want to believe that del Toro really wants to take his name off the film, too.
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Film 305
"Noble Things"
starring: Dominique Swain, Brett Moses, Ryan Hurst, Michael Parks
written and directed by: Dan McMellen and Brett Moses
This might actually be one of the worst films (for many reasons) that I've seen in a long time, outside of this movie project and including the project. There's just nothing redeeming about it at all.
It's a thin story of "love" and loyalty (to family/friends) and secrets (family). It takes place in Texas and lives up to all the stereotypes one might have of southern Texas people. Jimmy Wayne Collins (Moses) is a next-big thing country music star who has left home in the pursuit of stardom. He's come back after 4 years away from his family and its secrets only to return, less than welcomed by anyone in his hometown. His brother is in jail, thanks to a fate-filled night four years ago (which the filmmakers have decided to heavily focus on and play it out like an outtake from "The Outsiders" mashed up with "Footloose") where there was a brawl and someone died.
After four years away from home, Collins returns to take care of his terminally ill father (who also happened to be the small-town's sheriff) and face the demons and secrets that he tried hard to leave behind. Of course, nothing goes as he planned or even thought, but that might be solely because this country dude is quite dimwitted.
The acting is absolutely abysmal and the awful writing doesn't help.
Avoid this film at all costs.
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Film 306
"Cafe"
starring: Jennifer Love Hewitt, Daniel Eric Gold, Michaela McManus, Madeline Carroll, Alexa Vega, Jamie Kennedy
written and directed by: Marc Erlbaum
I wanted to like this film for its interesting approach to storytelling and its ingenuity. It starts off being a rather fresh film, but unfortunately it lacks something (sometimes the acting, sometimes the writing) to really let it be what it showed potential for in the beginning. Writer/director Erlbaum even shows potential in being a protege of Richard Linklater, in terms of filming and moving a story along within one confined area, driven solely by the dialogue.
"What if the world you lived in weren't real?"
That's the tagline to this film. And the entire film, from the beginning shot on the cafe (which will be the sole location of the entire story) from the outside where customers are rushed out and police officers are present to the very end of the film (which uses the same shot from the beginning) to all the in between character interactions and dialogue, is an allegorical narrative of a basic philosophy discussion question.
Alexa Vega acts as the go between for the two worlds. She apparently is "real" as she has discussions with an overweight, computer nerd guy who is sitting in the cafe. Her character has apparently created this real life simulation. All the people coming and going in the cafe are her creations. She is controlling everything that happens. Knowing that all of this is unreal, that all the characters are a creation, takes away from any chance you have as the viewer of connecting and having any semblance of reality and emotions for the cafe characters. But, being that I have a love for philosophy, I completely appreciate what Erlbaum was going for, and I did enjoy it, to a degree. Sure, at some points, it comes off as a rather self-absorbed, pretentious piece of low-budget art school filmmaking that definitely could have passed as an extension of a "Dawson's Creek" episode. But, I also really liked "Dawson's Creek!"
The film starts with a well-developed rhythm and easygoing conversations between the varied cast of characters that will comprise the entire story. We get a decent look into who each character is and will be throughout. There's the rather emo-driven coffeeshop boy, Daniel Eric Gold's character, who is pinning after Jennifer Love Hewitt's sassy, more-punk coffeeshop girl (who is dating a much less desirable, bad-ass guy). Todd (Gold) is a musician. Claire (Hewitt) is reckless abandonment, a potential Manic Pixie Dream Girl, if the story had solely focused on them. She could clearly have a one-dimensional purpose, but Erlbaum avoids that by making her disappear from the film at about the halfway point.
Erlbaum wrote the coffeshop owner/boss as a God-like man, who actually remains unknown to the workers (who are apparently only Todd and Claire), who sits in the cafe possessing as a writer, journaling the goings-on of his coffeeshop while trying to maintain a less-than obvious presence.
But, Elly (Madeline Carroll) fulfills the God-like role much better and easier given that she plays the programmer of the invented world all these cafe people are living in. She is making things happen. They are all Avatar's in her simulation. She opens up to the one guy focused on his computer, apparently only when she wants to speak with him.
Jamie Kennedy's drug dealer character is apparently one of the central characters in this Avatar world, though, because it is his multiple actions and interactions that drive the story to reach its eventual climax. Unfortunately, Kennedy is not really a good actor, so his character comes off really dry.
When it starts, "Cafe" shows it has potential and seems thoughtful and intriguing, but unfortunately, Erlbaum decides to live in the cafe for longer than one day, and by the second day, he seems to be clinging to straws and recycling dialogue that would have had more of an impact if the film's story was centered around one day in the life of a cafe and its customers/workers. I'm thinking of how powerful Linklater's "Before Sunrise/Sunset/Midnight" trilogy has always been because of this fact.
Nice try, Erlbaum. Too bad, he also seemed to have the same bad luck with his next film- the Ryan Reynold's one-location-based film "Buried."
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Film 307
"Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn"
starring: Bruce Campbell, Sarah Berry, Dan Hicks, Kassie Wesley Depaiva
written and directed by: Sam Raimi
This is a great sequel to an already great horror-comedy movie, where it's actually not necessarily continuing the previous films story, but rather retelling the old story in a new way, 6 years later, when special effects were still not fancy or savvy. It's aptly titled "Evil Dead 2" because it is just that, Evil Dead, again. It's the kind of horror movie that is smart enough to know that it is perhaps not going to be the scariest horror film anyone sees, but damn it, it can certainly be the funniest and most satirical horror film anyone will see.
The plot: Visitors to a cottage in the Michigan woods discover a rare copy of the Book of the Dead and accidentally invoke evil spirits. The spirits run amok, disemboweling and vivisecting their victims. The hero battles manfully with the dread supernatural forces, but he is no match for the unspeakably vile creatures in the basement, in the woods and behind every door.
Sam Raimi uses the capabilities of the 1980s special effects departments as best as he can, with wall-to-tall and almost minute-to-minute special effects. It's so ridiculous at some points, with the gallons of fake blood spewed and the dead masks/make-up/body suits are so ridiculously fake that it is hilarious instead of scary. I loved it, from the first minute to the last minute, but I also appreciated it. Heads spin and roll. Hands take on a life of their own, even after Campell's Ash cuts it off. Blood sprays. Guts spill. Slime spews everywhere. Ash, the main character/hero (whom himself cannot escape the fate of becoming possessed) even attaches a chainsaw to his bloodied stump in order to replace his severed hand. (Robert Rodriguez pays homage to this antic in "Planet Terror" with Rose McGowan's character/heroine attaching a machine gun to the stump of her leg).
"Evil Dead 2" is a purely fun movie for three specific reasons:
1) the violence and gore are so extreme at times that it's not necessarily disgusting (like some horror films today, which go for pure shock value, nowadays... re: "Saw" franchise), but rather more surrealistic
2) the timing of the writing and dialogue makes it come off more as a comedy, and goes for laughs
3) the low-budget approach is way more lovable and enjoyable than some high-tech films of today, which actually focus too much on the best technology presentation and forget that if there's no story, then who cares
Sam Raimi got it right with his "Evil Dead" trilogy. If only his younger self could have told his older self, perhaps "The Great and Powerful Oz" could've been better.
This is one of my favorite films during my movie blog project because it allowed me to just have some fun.
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