A huge college party quickly turns violent and confusing as a strange phenomenon is causing people to be duplicated, but it’s more confusing than that – the first time the doubles appeared was inside the house, disappear and then reappear again outside, all while the original people are slightly ahead in terms of time. As time progresses, the doubles are slowly catching up to the original group. This must sound strange, and believe me it is. I really wish I could expound on that further, but I can’t, which is fine, because the movie should do that for me…but it couldn’t explain anything either.
A very interesting premise, but set against a lame backdrop. There isn’t anything new or refreshing when it comes to a college party, since we’ve seen these types of things dozens of times before. Besides, nothing could ever top Can’t Hardly Wait or American Pie 1 or 2 in terms of house parties.
Time travelling movies are really hard to ever “grasp”, both as the filmmaker and the viewer. There will always be paradoxes, and since this could never actually happen, we accept these leaps in logic. This film is essentially the time travel version of Chronicle, and by that I mean the budget is minuscule, and the cast is unknown, yet turns out great and is a staple in their given genres.
While there isn’t really much to give commentary on, this is a more than capable entry into the ever confusing time travel genre. It could be considered a pro or a con by not ever giving any insight to what is happening, and in this case I’d say it was a definite pro.
+1 is worth checking out, if you’re the slightest fan of time travel I’d say it’s a safe bet you’ll be into this.
Things are looking pretty grim for Rick in the opening pages of 114. His attack plan has backfired, Andrea is supposedly dead, and Negan has his choice out of the group as to who he wants to join her. Let’s make this clear before I move on – I’m in the “Rick Sucks” camp right now. His methodical bullshit hasn’t worked in ages. There comes a point where you just want the dude to man-up, stop worrying about whatever the fuck Carl is doing every second of the day, and blast Negan in the face. Rick does nothing but watch his long-time friends get killed over and over. It’s true, Negan makes The Governor look like a grade school bully, but Rick seems to be rolling out the red carpet every time he wants his ass kicked.
Anyway, enter Jesus. Once again, the long-haired badass sneaks in to save the day in glorious fashion. And not only does he save everybody’s life from a ditch, he kicks the ever-living shit out of Negan and treats Lucille like the little bitch she is. This was supposed to be Rick’s play. Well, fuck Rick. Team Jesus!
Michonne knows what I’m talking about. Her arc continues to sway further away from Rick in this issue. After the dust settles she wants answers about their supposed leader’s stupidity and doesn’t hide her disappointment. So let’s look at the population of Camp Rick Sucks. There’s me, Michonne, probably Carl, and this guy I work with you don’t know. It’s growing every day.
Jesus isn’t the only one that had to save Rick’s dumb ass either. Ezekiel finally shows up to the party with a bunch of crazy dudes and a tiger. Another glorious entrance and ass-whooping ensue. One thing about Ezekiel to keep your eye on. He REALLY likes Rick’s neighbourhood. When this war is all over, expect him to want to be paid in real estate. And tiger food.
Back to Jesus. His pep-talk to Rick seriously made me cringe. I honestly don’t agree with anything he’s saying at this point. Rick has been the cause of way more harm to most of these people than an inspiration. Jesus just saved his ass. Jesus knows where the factory is. Jesus rides horses. Jesus has two hands and no kids. Jesus!
As for Negan, this marks the first time we’ve seen him knocked back on his heels. He was bitch-slapped by his own precious bat and taken hostage right in the middle of swinging his dick and talking massive amounts of shit. He’s pissed off. This war has seemed to take forever to get to and something tells me it’s going to take just as long to fight. Next issue will hopefully get the ball rolling for once and for all, as long as Carl gets all his homework done and Rick doesn’t mistakenly feed too many of his men to the tiger while crying like a bitch.
If you are unfamiliar with Shane Carruth, consider yourself rewarded by stumbling across this gem of a film, if you can even call it that…and I mean that in the best way possible. Written, directed, scored and produced by Shane himself, his genius ploughs through the screen and directly into your eyes and ears.
The score begins immediately, accompanying the film perfectly, and is almost continuously in the background throughout the film. I will really try and not include spoilers here, as this is a really convoluted story, almost to a fault, but that’s the beauty, it leaves you wanting a second viewing.
The film opens with kids witnessing a man placing a plastic bag filled with paper into a dumpster, shortly after; this same man is seen harvesting what looks to be maggots out of plant soil. Once this is done, these maggot type things are placed inside of pill capsules.
This man, who is referred to in the credits as “The Thief”, is seen following our lead character, Kris. As she is seen entering what is possibly a restroom, the scene immediately following shows The Thief dragging an unconscious Kris out of a back door into the rain. As the disturbing scene continues, The Thief places a CPR mask onto her face, but before doing so, fills the mask with water and a maggot, pumping the fluid violently into her mouth. As she wakes, she gets up in confusion and stumbles away, but turns back and is for some reason drawn to The Thief.
Sure, that sounds interesting enough, but this is merely the beginning of an experience that will leave you longing for more. The dialogue in the first half of the film is very minimal; the scenes rely on visuals rather than the characters speaking.
As Kris awakes from the dilemma involving The Thief, she notices that her skin is literally crawling, with what looks like worms just under the surface of her skin. After attempting to cut them out with a knife, we see her walking aimlessly up to a man, in the middle of a field, who is recording nature sounds near his RV.
This man owns a pig farm, and while extracting this very long parasite from her body, he transplants it into a live pig, which is then tagged with “Kris”, and put into a pen with other pigs, which all have tags on their ears.
The next morning she wakes up in her car, along the freeway, she has come to find that her house looks as if someone has gone through every drawer, looking for something valuable. Later, she finds that her bank account is depleted.
Enter Shane Carruth’s character – Jeff, meeting Kris on the train for the first time. Their initial interaction is as if they look familiar to one another, and Jeff is immediately drawn towards her. Their strange interactions continue for an unknown matter of days, but they both immediately divulge personal information as a way to “save time”, not really explaining the urgency to get to know one another, we’re merely watching as a relationship builds between two strangers.
As their relationship becomes stronger, Jeff begins to share life experiences, which Kris states are her own memories, and finds that there is no possible way they can both share such similar things within their lives.
Days pass, and Kris sees that Jeff has similar markings on his body that were made on her own body when she visited the man who removed the parasitic entity from her body.
That’s where I end this review; the film really needs to be seen by anyone who enjoys science fiction. Shane Carruth is a unique director and editor, as this is filled with smash cuts, quick editing, and voice-over mixing with scenes where the characters are speaking with each other.
This is easily one of my top 5 of 2013 so far, something about this will really stick with you. At least, it did with me.
Ermahgerd. 2 Guns totally had me geeking out. I can’t think of a buddy cop film that I’ve enjoyed this much since the Lethal Weapon series and the original 48 Hours. Script and direction matter in a flick like this, but ultimately it comes down to the chemistry between the leads, and Washington and Wahlberg are one hell of a power couple. If they did not have a blast working together on this then they both deserve Oscars. It appears they’re having the time of their life working together, and we’re lucky enough to go along for the ride.
Before actioners like this turned into bloated star fests with little heart (I’m looking at you Con Air), we got movies like this all the time. And 2 Guns stands right up there with the best of the snarky action spectaculars of the 80’s. It moves, gives us some great villains, and has too much damn fun for us to worry about plot holes. Now it doesn’t quite reach legendary status, thanks to a pretty thin story and the fact that the middle drags just a bit. But that doesn’t mean this isn’t about as much fun as you’re going to have at the movies this summer. Since I don’t have a lifeless black heart, I loved Pacific Rim, but this might have been even more enjoyable.
If you’ve seen the trailers you know what’s going on here. A DEA agent and a Special Forces soldier rob a bank to take down a Mexican drug lord. Turns out the money is part of a CIA slush fund, however, and pretty soon they have a little bit of everyone gunning for them. Adding to the fun is that while they discover the other one is legit early on, they do not know for sure if they can trust each other. These are men who are comfortable working in the shadows, though, and they can deal with liking someone who may be a bad guy, and are fully ready to cut ties when the time comes.
The key to the film is the outstanding work Washington and Walhberg do together, but it doesn’t hurt having a supporting cast this strong. Paula Patton gets a slightly meatier role than her usual leggy hot chick assignment, and James Marsden delivers as always playing a weaselly Navy supervisor. But the standouts are Edward James Olmos as a cartel head, and Bill Paxton who seems to have created a smarter, more competent Chet from Weird Science. Everybody settles into their roles like a favorite pair of jeans, and it is that comfortable authenticity that makes this compulsively watchable even as bothersome details like logic and common sense fly out the window.
This is a popcorn flick through and through and a damn good one at that. I’m not sure that a sequel makes much sense for these characters, but I sure as hell want to see Denzel and Marky Mark pair up again, and soon.
An international crew of astronauts undertakes a privately funded mission to search for life on Jupiter’s fourth largest moon.
There are not many films in the science fiction genre which mix fact, and an interesting story to accompany those facts, Eurpoa Report is a prime example of this.
A private organization is sending man further into space than has ever been attempted, their target – Europa, one of the 66 moons of Jupiter. This moon is thought to have a subterranean ocean, below the thick surface of ice. Three years after the initial discovery, the 3.2 billion dollar venture is finally under-way.
The mission – land on Europa’s frozen surface, collect surface data, and subterranean data, if possible. If only things were that easy.
This is not your traditional “found footage” film, with every scene causing nausea and running the risk of having a seizure. Instead, various cameras are positioned throughout the cockpit, living quarters, landing module, and on each space suit, which is transmitting audio/video 24/7. In doing this, the question of “why are they still filming?” is negated completely.
With beautiful CGI, mixed with real launch footage, the idea of this mission actually happening is believable. On top of that, the facts intertwined with the story really help the movie move along. While not everything here is fact, the realism portrayed here will make you wonder if and when this type of mission will actually happen.
As communications are lost before the crew reaches their destination, this leads to a stunningly well done space-walk, which is ill-fated towards one of the crew.
Emotions being to run high as the crew finally arrive at the surface of Europa, which is a barren, frozen landscape that is portrayed hauntingly beautiful with the brightness of the sun, and the darkness of the shadows.
As things being to take a turn for the worst, it is unfortunate that you do not feel closely related to these characters, with an already minimal cast, and the time spent in such close quarters, you would think that the relationships would be stronger, or at least more prevalent. While some performances are stronger than others, the only person with some sort of back story is the first one to die.
This is not a violent film, nor is it packed with action, but the suspense more than makes up for this, with truly believable actions taken by the crew when things start to go wrong, which really goes to show that a smart science fiction movie can be made while in the found footage genre.
While the concept is good, the special effects are what really make this film shine, careful attention was taken with each exterior shot, along with a very believable anti-gravity environment.
Why something like this doesn’t have a major release is a real shame; with beautiful visuals, a primarily strong cast, and a captivating story, there is no reason, while movies with less get the wide release treatment.
Hope you’re up for another bitch-fest because Law and Moreno are at odds again over THE CONJURING. Drunken slap-fighting ensues. The boys also take a look at ONLY GOD FORGIVES, MUD, and TURBO after listening to a pile-up of Google voice translations that have to be heard to be believed. Keep calling. Stay tuned this week for the TV Round-Up and maybe another Commentary if we can get off our asses.
Well you gotta give director Nicolas Winding Refn credit. He clearly doesn’t give a fuck what you think about him. After dropping one of the most unexpected surprises of the last few years with the fantastic DRIVE, he comes out of far left field with his new film ONLY GOD FORGIVES. The broad strokes of it set Ryan Gosling as a drug dealer using a Muay Thai gym as a front, onto a collision course with an uncompromising police captain. But don’t get hung up on the plot, because Refn doesn’t. This film has been dividing audiences since it premiered at Cannes, and for good reason. It eschews traditional narrative devices, and is far more interested in images than meaning. This is less a story than it is an elegiac meditation often punctuated by brutal, graphic violence. How you feel about that is going to be the biggest factor in your reaction to the film.
I have to admit I spent the rest of the night thinking about OGF after I saw it. I did not fully understand all of it, and tussled quite a bit with the question of was there a deeper meaning behind it all. Of course, any film that has you breaking it down for hours afterwards has done something right. And this is very successful in many ways. The cinematography is stunning, with bold reds and blues playing with shadows constantly to create the hellish netherworld that these characters inhabit.
Those visuals are supported with a two-fold audio approach. We get a soundtrack from Cliff Martinez who does not in anyway repeat his synthpop work on DRIVE. Given the meager dialogue throughout the film, it is Martinez’s work that actually carries a great deal of the narrative weight, and does so impressively. We also get long periods of silence. These are all the more stunning because of the ever present music. When that drops the lack of sound takes on an aggressive quality that fits in with the fetishized violence of the world Refn creates. There is a lot of hard vengeance and bloody retribution being visited upon people who almost universally deserve it.
That brings us to the cast, which is to a person so perfectly cast it is difficult to imagine anyone else could have played these roles. There are many standouts, and as good as Gosling is, he is little more than an anchor here. The film really belongs to Kristen Scott Thomas as Crystal, a mom from hell who makes Joan Crawford look like Mrs. Weasley, and Vithaya Pansringarm as Police Chief Chang, who is without a doubt the most intimidating small man I’ve seen in a film since Begbie in TRAINSPOTTING. These two opposing forces represent the pursuit of personal vs. universal justice in the film and both actors create a character that promises to be remembered as a classic.
So now we arrive at the big question. Is it a great, or even good film? I’m not sure I can answer that question fully. It is a compelling film, and I was completely swept up in its vibe. Much like a Mallick film this is much more interested in the setting than the content. And the setting is gorgeous. But it’s impossible to ignore the fact that OGF suffers from an at times lazy narrative. It’s not too hard to figure out the core idea that is going on, but there are far too many loose threads that exist for no apparent reason. Now it’s not the pretentious mishmash that some are claiming, but the dense imagery at play also falls short of creating the masterpiece that proponents are pushing to call it. Too bad really, because this feels like that passionate first draft of an auteur in the fever grip of inspiration, yet it lacks the editorial eye to smooth out the rough edges of a meager narrative that could have supported one of the most impressive films in recent memory.
Instead we get a masterclass in how to enrapture an audience with your images, with a minor in why those images left without a purpose will leave your audience slightly adrift. I’ve seen plenty of fans of the film already start to offer detailed explanations of what all is going on, and that’s a fine exercise. But at the end of the day I didn’t see anything that convinced me many of the events at play were any less random than they seemed on the surface.
Ultimately I’d rather see a bold and unapologetic personal work like this than most summer blockbusters, because what this has in spades that they lack is a point of view. It wants to say something, and while not altogether successful, it’s impossible to pull your eyes away.
Let me be perfectly honest right from the start. I fucking hate TWILIGHT. Now that’s not exactly an opinion that is going to risk my standing amongst my peers, but it’s important to put out there because all the things it does horribly wrong, GINGER SNAPS gets right. You see, I’m not against playing young love and angst against horror tropes. Hell the confusion and hormonal imbalances of adolescence are a perfect staging ground for the concepts explored in horror. It’s a swirling miasma of rage, lust, pain, joy and fear. A book and film series like TWILIGHT takes a desperate time in any young person’s life and teaches them to look outside themselves for salvation. Bad dialogue, crappy CGI, and poor pacing aside, it’s really the idea that any young woman should be looking elsewhere for validation that I find damaging and ridiculous.
Not GINGER SNAPS, though. This is horror for people who get that kids aren’t adults, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t going through very adult emotions as they grow. We get not one, but two strong female leads in Brigitte (Emily Perkins) and Ginger (Katharine Isabelle). Sisters who we are introduced to through the student film they are making for school. A graphic depiction of each of them meeting untimely demises in creative and brutal ways. As you can guess they are outcasts, basically relying on each other and no one else. Their predilection for gruesome death projects also gives nice cover in some messy situations that arise later.
As you might guess, things start to change for the worse after Ginger is attacked by a werewolf. The closeness of this insulated twosome is sorely tested as Ginger deals both with getting her period for the first time, and the murderous urges that her slow transformation instills. Brigitte loves and wants to protect her sister, but Ginger doesn’t necessarily mind the changes. For the first time these two face a serious rift in their relationship which is potentially more damaging than the lycanthropic shenanigans at play.
One of the great things about GINGER SNAPS is how it captures adolescence through the lens of someone who remembers what it was like to be there. Werewolves aside, this is a fantastic coming of age story. And exploring the metaphor of Ginger’s change, while she is also dealing with The Change is a nice touch. It’s not a perfect fit meshing menstruation with lycanthropy, but it works a lot better than you might think.
Of course, it’s not all hand wringing. There’s plenty of the red, wet stuff getting slung around. The film isn’t balls to the wall horror, and it doesn’t need to be. It ably creates stakes that leave you cringing at key moments. The only downside for me is that the lower budget seams show in the full transformation design. It broke me out a bit the first time I saw it, but isn’t so bad that it’ll bother you if you go in prepared.
This is a flick that has gained a decent bit of traction amongst the genre community, but really deserves a wider following. It is so much more than just a horror pic.
I’d have to say if you haven’t seen it you’re probably a: pussy/dick/BOOB/asshole.
Don Draper (Jon Hamm) is a giant dick, and the people around him are finally starting to notice. Many of the attributes Draper displays on a weekly basis during any random season of Mad Men are the the very same that have come back to bite him in the ass as we head into the final season. The drinking, the womanizing, and the lack of ever really doing anything while at work are the things we, the viewer, had become so accustomed to that they went from running jokes to somber reality in the span of five seasons. All of these add up to bottom out Draper by this year’s season finale. I was totally expecting him to be diagnosed with lung cancer too before the credits rolled. Let’s take a look at where Don’s at:
Daughter hates him because she caught him screwing the neighbor.
Wife hates him because he made her quit her job for nothing.
Drinking is out of control. Spends night in slammer for punching a preacher.
Laid off from work because he screwed them with Hershey’s.
Peggy hates him because he’s a major cock-block.
Wanted to move to L.A. but can’t because Ted is too horny.
Lost a mistress, had to bang ex-wife.
By the time Don visits his childhood whorehouse in the final scene of the season we’re left to wonder exactly why he’s there. Has he come full circle? Is he starting over from square one? Is he going to buy the house and pimp out his daughter? All legitimate questions. I doubt even the writers know what the answers are at this point. As next season is the last, I kind of expect Don to turn things around and land on his feet. Or get lung cancer and die.
You’d think there wouldn’t be any time left for other characters with all of Don’s drama but I can happily report that everybody has their share of kicks to the face. Pete (Vincent Kartheiser), easily the most despised character at one time, has become nothing more than a door mat. He loses his wife, loses his mistress, loses his big account, loses his mother (that might be a good thing), and gains a rival. It’s not fun to hate this dude any more. Peggy (Elisabeth Moss), while left in a pant-suit of hope at season’s end, takes a step back from her “woman on the rise” role and gets her heart broken for her trouble. The high hopes of her departure from the firm last year were all but lost in this season as she was simply thrust back into her old job and uncharacteristically lost her career focus.
I really find it odd that giving Joan (Christina Hendricks) a more defined and prominent role in the company has left her character kind of scattered and meaningless. The woman that once held this company together is now simply getting in the way. As are a lot of the supporting cast. The creative team is good for a laugh per episode, Bert (Robert Morse) shows up once in a while to vote on something, Betty (January Jones) calls Don every so often to talk shit and have a cigarette (and bang him on field trips), and Roger (John Slattery) still stops in for a drink and stalks Joan but has kind of shyed away from his scene-stealing shenanigans. The only real part-timer to get a spotlight this season is Sally (Kiernan Shipka). Busting her father with his pants down is the season’s greatest moment and her antics at school seem to be more entertaining than the advertising world at this point. She still gets under my skin though.
The highlight for this season for me was the arrival of Ted (Kevin Rahm). Having one of Don’s rivals right across the hall from him brought a dynamic that Pete, Roger, or Lane (Jared Harris) could never achieve fully. Serious conflict. I loved whenever Ted would lose his shit because Don missed a meeting, or Don was drunk, or Don spewed garbage at a client, or Don went on a six-hour lunch. All these things that nobody had the balls to call Don out on before were suddenly relevant in the world’s most casual workplace. Not that Ted was perfect. mind you, which made him even more endearing. His obsession over Peggy was painful to watch by the end, as was his getting saved by the one man to which he was trying to be better than. Ted could be a hard-ass one second and a pushover then next but everything he added to this show was sorely missing, even if we didn’t know it.
The season as a whole started out drab for me, as Mad Men usually does, but after the arrival of some big clients, some quirky characters, and the fact that Don was exposed for almost all of his demons, I found myself completely engaged by the end. As Med Men usually does.