The Show Must Go On!
I know, I know, I know, just leave me the hell alone you invisible people! Telling me to do more review's, I'm workin' on it I'm workin' on it!
Yeesh.
I promise that my reviews for Ghost Rider, Smokin Aces and Norbit will be up within the next week or so. [Yes I saw Norbit, no I wasn't disappointed... that much] I've been practically living at the movies these past couple weeks, the man friend and I haven't had much to do lately, so we've been seeing a LOT of movies.
Which is cool with me.
For Now, here's a picture of my hero.
-Jess
The Decent
In this past month I've been in movie heaven with my recent membership to netflix, I'm beginning to add every damn movie I have ever wanted to see in my entire life; needless to say, my family's starting to realize they need to start putting their movies in it, or they'll be watching things like Hard Candy and Carrie for the rest of our netflix careers.
And knowing them, they would blow a blood vessel with all the good entertainment they'd be ingesting.
But anyway, I was able to get 2005's The Decent, and let me tell you, I am SOOO glad I did. I'm not going to do a full review simply because most of the people who read this have seen this movie and have been telling me for two years now to get off my lazy ass and get it; I should have listened.
5 friends every year go out and do some type of extreme sport, this year it's spelunking, oh you know, cave diving, the normal kind of stuff friends do. The year before they went white water rafting, that year the main character Sarah [played BEAUTIFULLY by Shauna MacDonald] got in to a horrible car accident because her husband was preoccupied with something, he and their young daughter Jessica [the second horror movie I saw within the past two months with a young girl whose stole my name] died.
Of course you find out later on in the movie, though they never say it out right, her husband was primarily preoccupied with Sarah's extreme friend Juno and Sarah's best friend Beth, knows. Oh she knows and she's all up in Juno's face once the bat people come to eat them.
All right let's get back to the spelunking, so they decide to go caves they all think are level 2's, you know baby caves. But what they don't know is that crazy extreme Juno has found some caves that no one has EVER been in. That is until Sarah gets stuck and the cave almost falls in on her and then the truth comes out as do the claws.
And then the bat people come out and try to kill them, and then Juno kills Beth and Sarah almost gets killed a million times and and and!!! AHHHH!!!
That's all I'm going to say, because that's how it is.
It's gets a 9.5/10.
Only a .5 minus for the bat creatures, look up Bat boy the musical and you'll see why.
-Jess
Now I thought I was going to see a movie that would get me out of this funk.
And boy was I wrong.
The Messenger's is a PG-13 Pang Brothers production. That's right, the Pang brothers, you know Danny and Oxide, the twins? Aww come on Gin Gwai?! Chow lok yuen?!
Of course you don't know them, their English film work isn't exactly known, because there really isn't any. If you haven't heard of them, don't feel too bad, their Chinese horror film guru's and that's what counts.
Right?
Wrong, this movie was almost as bad as mushu beef without the beef, I mean it tried hard to be scary, but American youth needs more than what they could give; It just wasn't enough.
The movie starts out in black and white, a family is being chased in their home by something you don't see, they're being terrorized by this thing, thrown around the house, and in the end all are dead, you don't see it, but the implication is there, you get it.
The next thing you see after the credits is a nice looking family driving through the country with a trailer, looking like all nice looking families do. The trailer isn't the best looking thing on the planet, so these guy's can't exactly be the richest people, right? There is obviously some tension between the family, especially between the mother and the daughter and herein lies the plot of the movie... seriously.
Let me lay it out for you; The Solomon Family moves to old abandoned farm in North Dakota to plant sunflower seeds because it's their only chance left...[BECAUSE]... Somewhere along the lines their teenage daughter Jess messed up, and got her license suspended...[BECAUSE]... She was drinking and had to pick up her little brother from somewhere and got in to a car accident, where little Ben got very hurt and he hasn't talked since...[IN TURN]... They spend their life savings on Ben's hospital bills, a whole two years worth. Immediately after getting there you know the place is haunted, the crazy crows all over the place, the withering siding, the ghost pictures on the windows, the locked doors to the cellar, which is obviously the bad place. You know the usual.Then the crazy shit starts happening, Ben starts chasing things in the night giggling, Jess finds a weird watch in the cellar, crows attack Daddy Roy, Something tries to drag Jess down to the cellar, then the house starts shaking and shit starts breaking and we're all scared and clichéd out! All the while this is happening, the sunflowers are growing, Jess is meeting a nice boy named Bobby, a wanderer named John in working on the farm and living in the help quarters. He's gotta be important somewhere, other than he's got a shot gun and scares off crows.
But of course no one believes the untrustworthy teenage girl, no they're aren't ghosts in the house, no one's trying to kill you. But you're wrong! There is a creepy little dead boy, like in The Grudge and every other Japanese horror movie ever, and he's trying to lead the creepy little alive boy in to the cellar...TO HIS DEATH!! Do you see what I'm saying now?
Anyway back to the plot! The plot yes, where did I put the plot *shuffles through some papers* well it's a little mixed up, but it has something to do with revenge.
[Dont go Daddy Roy!]
I won't go in to anymore details about the ending because I explain it not so subtly when I talk about the acting and the details of why I hated the movie next, but let's just say, the ghost's get what they want and the house is all better now.
Dhurrr....
Now why I hated the movie... :D
Let's just say these people looked like they were looking for work. Dylan McDermott, you know from The Practice, yea he plays the daddy Roy. Penelope Ann Miller is the mommy Denise, Evan and Theodore Turner play the creepy little mute boy Ben and Kristen Stewart plays the angry teenage daughter Jess; who inevitably is the lead character of the movie.
What's that, you've never heard of any of these people either? Wow, this movie is chock full of unknown shit huh?
The acting in this movie is like watching paint dry, everyone seems to take their time working up to whatever point they are trying to make, weather it be "I'm uncomfortable to" a blank stare in to the abyss. The interaction between family members is like cardboard, they have to act dysfunctional while hiding the dys part, needless to say, they didn't pull it off it was all "Dys" without the functional. I will say this though, I thought John Corbett as the "crazy wandering guy with the shotgun who used to live in the house and killed his family there that's why all the ghosts are here but you don't find out until the last 10 minutes of the movie, and is now working for Daddy Roy" guy named John, was great. Of course he also looked like a child molester, and that's just the type of guy I go for.
Ewwww....
There was also a lot of unexplained things, which is the way horror movies are suppose to work, you're suppose to figure these things out on your own. But this movie doesn't let you, see it let's you forget about something, then throws it back in hoping you don't notice... but you do, you can't help but notice. You're left sitting there saying "What? Where the fuck did that come from? Why is he? BLARGH!"
The movie works in one way and that it surprises you with sound, not imagery, the imagery is dark and shadowy, not something we haven't seen before. But the music and sound effect in the movie were spectacular, it had you shaking in your booties before the scary part even started, which wasn't scary so of course now you're sad.
Other than that, if you're in for a scary movie in this genre, go pick up the ring, or The Blaire Witch project.
I give it a 3 dead crows out of 10.
-Jess
Random
Well I've been doing nothing but watching movies since Saturday, and as the title explains, with no consistency. Here's just a sneak peek of what I've been watching:
How more random can you get? Throw in a couple romantic comedies and a family friendly movie, and you'll understand how my week of movies have been. Now I thought I had seen all of the Halloween movies, but I found that I had missed Halloween 5. I mean SERIOUSLY how in the hell could I miss one out of how many now, a million? But I can see why I missed it, it wasn't exactly the best of the best if you know what I'm saying.
Great, he's alive dhurr, but this time boys and girls they're ready *obvious eye roll* They'll never be ready for Michael freaking Myers, don't they get that yet?! From 1978-1989 the acting in the Halloween movies hasn't changed, and that's why we love them so. Michael is still lurching, and the women are still screaming and crying, I mean what else can we ask for?
This time Michael is after his 9 year old niece that he wasn't able to kill before. And she for some damn reason, she is able to see when he is going to kill next, is it because she touched him in the fourth movie, is it because they are somehow linked mentally, is it because she's nine years old?! Who knows?!
And who cares, I mean really, these movies aren't made to make us think, they're made to scare the shit out of us. Now I can't say that Mr. Crazy Pants-Mc-Myers has ever been scary to me, and I'm not afraid he's going to lurch out of my closet and stab me with a staple remover. I was afraid of Tony Moran from the first two Halloween movies, when I saw them as a little girl, but this dude Don Shanks, is too skinny and that's all I have to say about that.
All in all the movie was captivating, it grabbed my attention enough to keep me through the commercials on the television. The only problem I had is the big guy tearing up, that got a big "WTF?!" from me. Stop psycho analyzing Mike Myers! *fake crying*
This movie gets no rating from me, because it's unnecessary, just see it will you? Because if you don't, you're gonna miss it just like I did, ha-ha.
Other than that, I haven't seen too many new release movies, well other than *sigh* Happily N'Ever After. Another god damn family movie, I think I said this before, I need to get friends with better movie tastes. You see I'm one of those people that hate to go to the movies alone, but when I go, I usually take my boyfriend who likes to watch things like... Night at the Museum and this god awful movie.
Ok it wasn't that bad, but it wasn't that good either. I guess that's what I ask for when I go to see a Shrek spin off, I mean it had my hero Patrick Warburton in it, but it also stared Sarah Michelle Geller and Freddy, that's right Freddy-motha fucking-Prinze Jr. Plus a thousand more voices that get one or two lines that are almost forgettable.
I'm tired of these movies, I'm SERIOUSLY tired of these god damn movies. The voice acting in this movie was like nails on a chalk board, other than well Patrick and Sarah, oh and Andy Dick, everyone else was useless. Hey Dreamworks! Stop killing me here! Keep to Shrek, it's what you're good at.
I won't even get in to the plot, you can figure it out for yourself, it's called Happily N'Ever After guy's, I know you're smarter than the material your handling.
I give Happily N'Ever After a 4/10, three and a half for Patrick.
-Jess
