The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel houses the newest thing to be outsourced to India; senior citizens. The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is an uplifting, heartfelt film with an intrinsic warmth that can only come from emotional sincerity.

Muriel Donnelly (Maggie Smith) thought her worst nightmare is a dark skinned doctor, but in order to get a new hip, she opted to have her medical care outsourced to India. She decided to stay at the The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel for the Elderly and Beautiful, a small family owned hotel run by the young, and ambitious, yet underachieving Sonny Kapoor (Dev Patel). Dutiful parents Douglas Ainslie (Bill Nighy) and his wife Jean (Penelope Wilton) come to the hotel after an act of parental sacrifice makes old age very difficult. Judge Graham Dashwood (Tom Wilkinson) stays at the hotel while takes care of unresolved business from his childhood. Evelyn Gleenslade (Judi Dench) has lived a life sheltered from adventure and joy and decides to embark on an her life’s adventure starting in India.

Put most succinctly, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is a film about love and all its accoutrement – especially regret. All incarnations of love are shown: parental, romantic, friendly, and societal. The richness, warmth, depth, scars, flaws and sacrifices of love are shamelessly laid out for the audience’s examination. It is displayed with all the insight, judgment, and wisdom of a person with a lifetime of experience benefiting and being stung by love.

Even though there are no giant curve balls that smack the audience in the face (flame throwing grannies), the stories are no less compelling. It is exactly because they could be any one of us or any of our grandparents that it impossible for an audience member not to see themselves in the characters. They are all deeply flawed, but no less endearing. Their excuses, duty, loyalty, love, status, and ease are ones we might all use to justify the decisions we make to make small compromises in our life. They show the path of those small bumps in a different direction.

While the story of some of the characters is easy to predict, it is no less enjoyable to watch those characters develop predictably. There are a few characters though, especially Graham and Evelyn, who take journeys of love that challenge younger audience members to examine their choices, and whose stories are not easy to foretell.

The cast of seasoned actors matches the delicate writing, each giving their characters a subtle layered quality. It is pretty hard to go wrong with a cast whose cumulative years in the business may reach quadruple digits. I was most taken by Wilkinson, who used Graham to simultaneously rip apart my heart and sew it back together.

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is a gift to the heart, because it examines love without mania, without cliché Hollywood mechanics, without syrup, and without losing sight of how love should feel.

The Avengers: Could Give an Infant a Mustache

When an immature demi-god has a megalomaniacal temper tantrum, it is up to the Avengers to save the world. With more fights and explosions than plot, The Avengers has enough testosterone to give a newborn girl a mustache the likes of which would make Tom Selleck weep with envy.

In a cosmic act of a cataclysmically immature sibling-rivalry, Thor’s little brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston) comes to earth to have an emotional meltdown and punish the people of earth for it. After initial interventions fail, the government begrudgingly has to employ a semi-functional rag-tag bunch of misfit heroes to save the world and even gives them the snazzy name, The Avengers. The styling sassery of Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), the stedfast handsomeness of Captain America (Chris Evans), unpredictable green menace Hulk (Bruce Banner), god-like hammer-swinger Thor (Chris Hemsworth), beautiful emotional manipulator Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), and her butt (Tushie Johansson).

Do not bother seeing The Avengers with an expectation to understand the plot or much of the dialogue unless you are willing to put in more than ten hours of homework. The Avengers requires the viewer have watched all the previous Marvel Universe films that feature the main characters, Iron Man, Hulk, Thor, and Captain America, since 1998: Iron Man, Iron Man 2, The Incredible Hulk, Thor, and Captain America: The First Avenger. The premise of the movie makes absolutely no sense having not seen Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger because the impetus and cause of peril are explained in those movies and not explained at all in The Avengers. The Avengers exploits relationships and characters from the other movies and does not explain them. They give only the most brief and implied explanations of the characters. There are constant references to characters or events that are not in this film, inside jokes, and dialogue Easter eggs that require having seen the previous movies. If you have not seen all of the previous movies past the end of the credits, you may be completely lost and not know some of some of the characters at all. As a consequence they demand the audience be able to identify all the characters, even the ones with the least amount of screen time and that appear only after the credits, relationships between characters, and have a strong memory of the plots of six flicks. With a grand total of 601 minutes, that’s over ten hours, of movie to watch before seeing The Avengers that is a huge expectation to place on a person just to see a movie.

Of course, even if you have done your homework there should be a very low plot expectation, because there is not much plot to The Avengers. Plot to the The Avengers as plot is to pornographic movies; words strung together to make the audience feel a bit better about themselves for watching a visualization of a carnal desire and enjoying it. You know, sort of like saying, “I read Playboy for the articles.”

The characters take advantage of any excuse to fight with each other and even fight when there is no excuse. They fight bad guys, they fight good guys, they fight each other. The only thing that happens more often is smashing things. You are thinking of one character – you are wrong. They all smash things. That building - SMASH IT. Mad at it – SMASH IT. Love it – SMASH IT. That car – SMASH IT! That tree – SMASH IT! THAT OTHER HERO – SMASH HIM! THE AIR – SMAAAAAAAASH IIIIIT!

The Avengers and Loki do not blow things up as often as they smash things or fight with each other, but there is no shortage of segments of explosive extravagance, especially toward the end of the movie.

There are some exciting transportation devices at the end of the movie that are both gorgeous and frightening but worth seeing.

The Avengers is a smashplosionfest sure to raise the testosterone and lower the estrogen of any one in its direct effect cone. I would not be surprised if there is a The Avengers babyboom nine months from its theatrical and DVD releases.

The Raven - As Sharp and Deep as a Sock Full of Soup

Edgar Allan Poe’s final week on earth is a mystery, even to this day. The Raven is a cinematic midrash of Poe’s last week alive. The sparkle of gorgeous costumes, the shine of lovely cinematography, and luminance of a strong supporting cast cannot escape the black hole that is John Cusack as Poe, the vacuum that is James McTeigue’s direction, and the suck that is Poe’s dialogue.

The much loved poet, but much loathed man Edgar Allan Poe (John Cusack) returned to Baltimore to win the hand of his love Emily Hamilton (Alice Eve). While he is in Baltimore, a killer uses his stories as a blueprint for killing and to get Poe’s attention. Poe’s personal connection to the killings goes far beyond that of inspiration to the killer.

There is something special about a movie that can transport you back in time and The Raven certainly does that. The sets scream late 1800’s America with hints of opulence and gobs of unfairness. The costumes are equally transportative. The costumes are like time machines for the audience wrapped around the actors.

The supporting cast saved The Raven from full cosmic collapse. Even though their dialogue was often unnatural and unconvincing, they delivered them with conviction. Kevin McNally is especially rewarding as Maddux, the editor of The Baltimore Patriot and verbal abuse victim of Poe. Luke Evans gave Detective Fields a professional passion that gave some depth and urgency to the movie. It was not their fault that writers Ben Livingston and Hannah Shakespeare provided them with a script that even the most obtuse person would realize is incredibly awkward and unnatural.

Livingston and Shakespeare wrote Poe like a thirteen year old stoner attempting to be sardonic but incapable because they lack the intelligence, depth, insight, or experience to take apart the self esteem of anyone without a suicide plan. As a result, Poe is constantly coming across as a dullard trying to come across like a literary genius, not a literary genius speaking down to lesser minds. I am certain Livingston and Shakespeare were trying to make Poe a total douche bag, but they don’t have the vinegar to fill the bag.

John Cusack does not give the character any sting or sour either. Endearing douche-baggery is a challenge for any actor to pull off successfully and Cusack fails at both. Cusack’s performance was as sharp and deep as a sock full of soup. He cannot muster the insecurity that makes sarcasm necessary, the malice to make it effective, or the impatience that comes with genius. Instead of embodying what they writers attempted to convey, he perfectly embodied and exaggerated what the writers actually created; a junior high schooler’s characterization of a meanie-pants.

James McTeigue should have worked with Cusack, Livingston and Shakespeare on giving the main character some depth. He was too busy ordering eyeball, teeth, and earring shots from the camera operators to bother improving Poe. Alice Eve’s eyes, the actor who plays the killer’s teeth and eyes all deserve their own credits. There must be fifteen minutes of slobbery teeth, and gushy eyeballs on screen.

About five minutes into the film, the man sitting next to me fell asleep and started snoring. We rode the elevator out of the theater together and he offered that he enjoyed the movie. Had sleep been part of my The Raven experience, I may have enjoyed it as well.

A pretty costume coating cannot change an overwhelming truth; The Raven is a masterful manifestation of mediocrity.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid - A Perfect Dump and Run Movie

Sixth grader Greg Heffley learns important lessons about friendship, being a good friend and identity in Diary of a Wimpy Kid. A light-hearted, middle-school buddy movie, Diary of a Wimpy Kid is a perfect dump and run movie.

Entering middle school wasn’t as easy as Greg Heffley (Zachary Gordon) anticipated. Some of the kids are way bigger than him. The same things that are cool in elementary school become a badge of shame in middle school. Greg does everything he can to fit in and be a school favorite. He wants to change everything, including his best friend Rowley Jefferson (Robert Capron). The harder he tries to fit in, the worse the consequences to his image.

I was never an eleven year old boy but I can see how Diary of a Wimpy Kid touches on issues boys have during the change from a kid to a teen and what it means. A kid of either gender faces many issues as they experience changes in their body, and social lives. How do I become a successful teen? Why is my body doing that thing? How can I be stronger? Are my friends holding me back socially? Is loyalty more important than popularity?

Diary of a Wimpy Kid is an utterly sterile look at this change. There are no controversial moments, nothing that a PTA mother might find too mature for their child. Even the most uptight ninny of a mother should have no concern. The most deviant part of the movie is a scene where Greg is trying to avoid his brother but really has to pee, so he has to hold it for an extended period. The horror. Diary of a Wimpy Kid is an innocent examination of the age and sense of self felt by tweenie aged children.

Controversy and conflict are how more in-depth moral issues are examined on film, so adults may find the glossiness of Diary of a Wimpy Kid like wading through an intellectual kiddie pool. Then again, like kiddie pools, Diary of a Wimpy Kid isn’t for adults.

It is the non-odious script that makes it a perfect movie to not see with your tweenie child. Feel free to send your child into the theater with no fear of nightmares, offensive language or sexual content. If you time it right, you can see a rated R movie with your spouse, your kid can see the young buddy film Diary of a Wimpy Kid (without his stupid parents) and everyone can have a pleasant, age-appropriate time.

Just this once, you don’t have to feel guilty about dumping your kid and running off to do something grown up.

Twilight: New Moon - Yeah, like, whatever

Twilight: New Moon is a 14 year old girl’s dream movie. It reminded me of the romances I had as a teenager – a wreck.


Something happened before Twilight: New Moon began, what that was, the audience doesn’t know. It’s obvious there is a romance between Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) and Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) and they really love each other. Oh yeah, and Edward is a vampire but we never actually see him chew on anyone so we know that because…they told us so. All of the sudden, Edward leaves Bella unprotected from Victoria (Rachelle Lefevre) but it’s not clear why. The whole Cullen family is there, but I don’t know why they matter. Then Edward get sad. There is Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner) who Bella leads on for most of the movie. He has a dark secret. Then Bella, Jacob and Edward do some stuff and get ready for the next movie. Uhm, that’s like…pretty much it.

Now before you ask me, “Didn’t you see the original?”, no I didn’t and that shouldn’t matter. I have a ten buck rule. If I have to pay ten bucks, it better be worth ten bucks. If I have to pay to rent the movie before, and then pay to see the movie, it’s not worth it. Each movie, even a sequel, has to have a beginning, middle, and an end. Twilight is one hundred percent middle. It’s insulting to the audience that they can’t be bothered to put together an entire movie.

The one plus side is there is a pack of half naked hunky-boys that run around the forest. Unfortunately for me, they are playing teenaged kids, so it’s hard to think of them of as sexy little beef cakes without feeling dirty.

What they do put together is a slapdash bit of soap opera drama. There is no real drama, no real romance, no tension, no real danger, not much of anything. The only thing is has in spades is intense eye contact.

They stare at each other from afar. They stare at each other up close. Their eyes dart back and forth. Their eyes melt. They go cold. They open wide. They close. In extreme cases, they turn away. I’m going to watch the out-takes on the DVD because I will bet dollars to doughnuts there are moments where the actors couldn’t hold it together when they were close and staring at each other and started to break up laughing. It will probably be the most entertaining part of the DVD.

There’s just nothing to Twilight: New Moon. There’s no plot and horrible acting. There is certainly nothing worth watching.

Who is the newest writer for Skeptical Inquirer? I AM!

Over the past few weeks I've been talking with Skeptical Inquirer Magazine about writing reviews for skeptics on their website. I'm elated to say the kinks have been worked out and it's official; I'm their voice in the dark (theater). This is a fantastic opportunity for me to write for people like me and I couldn't be more excited that it is with SI. It's more than a little embarassing how much I've been dancing around my house, the store, in bed, at the DMV, and in my car.

This is a huge opportunity for me, no only because this jumps me from strictly online reviews to potentially print but it also puts my foot in the door to write about things that really matter to me in the future. I am by far the most average person at the magazine, which is mostly written by phd's, professors, and well respected scientists, etc. It essentially spring boards me into a new league of both writers and skeptics. It is an amazing jump in status, credibility and opportunity. I'm psyched.

I hope you read some of my reviews or even subscribe to the magazine.

http://www.csicop.org/publications

A Christmas Carol - More Like a Christmas Crisis

Animated and in 3D, Charles Dickens’ beloved holiday story, A Christmas Carol, spills onto screens again. A garish demonstration of the capabilities of the new 3D technology, the story only pops out when it possesses an opportunity to show off the technology.

Scrooge (Jim Carrey) is a miserly old man who holds tight each penny in his pocket. After his business partner, Marley (Gary Oldman) dies, Scrooge loses all perspective, turning even surlier than he was before. Devoid of all Christmas spirit, Scrooge tries to drain the spirit out of everyone around him. The spirits of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come (All voiced and drawn to look like Jim Carrey) warn him about the consequences of inhospitality and holding on to his money too tightly.

Robert Zemeckis should hold his head in shame for such a disgusting display of technology driven plot. He both “wrote” and “directed” this version of “A Christmas Carol.” A responsible director-writer would make Marley, the Spirits and Scrooge feel like they within hands reach by re-arranging the 3D to places in the plot that are enhanced by the extra dimension. Instead, he created a masturbatory mess.

The plot is carved back to the bare minimum and stripped of all opportunity to connect with the audience emotionally. In fact, Zemeckis relies heavily on that fact that A Christmas Carol is so ubiquitous that he commits the sin of Cliff’s Notes. Taken on its face, having no prior knowledge of A Christmas Carol, a viewer would see it as shallow and infuriating. The plot is replaced with scenes meant to show off the remarkable 3D technology. 3D Scenes drone on twice as long as the plot they are supposed to enhance. The floor drops away, fingers are pointed at the audience, and characters are dangled from different angles. In fact, no opportunity to sacrifice the plot for the technology was missed.

Even still, the 3D is so good, it might have been fun to watch this tech demo if the voice acting was varied, interesting and sincere. It wasn’t. Jim Carrey plays Scrooge in all five stages of his life, as well as the Ghost of Christmas Past, Present and Future and he does it terribly. Scrooge lacks any depth, has no resonance, all changes seen seem forced and shallow. The Ghost of Christmas Past can only be appreciated by a herpetologist or a speech pathologist and I am neither of those. The Ghost of Christmas Present’s insipid laughter made me consider leaving the theater, but that would mean abandoning my mother-in-law in her seat, and even I’m not that mean. The only saving grace in Carrey’s performance is that the Ghost of Christmas Future barely talks.

Radio Disney brought teams of children to see A Christmas Carol at the press screening I attended. There were scenes that frightened the tiny so badly that they began to cry, scream and cuddle up in the arms of their mothers. There were times during A Christmas Carol I considered jumping into my mother-in-law’s lap and cry like a baby.

This may go down as a rumble worthy topic at family holiday parties because my hubby’s-mummy liked A Christmas Carol. I suggest instead of wasting money seeing such a despicable waste of a classic story, spend the same money seeing the play at a local theater.

Love Happens - Unfortunately

Even motivational speakers can be stricken with bouts of insecurity and Burke is no different. Love Happens’ flat main characters are almost saved by complex and well portrayed secondary characters who steal the scenes whenever they are on screen.

After the death of his wife, Burke (Aaron Eckhart) shares his grief with other people who have lost their loved ones by creating a self help program called A-Okay! While traveling to Seattle for a conference, he meets the beautiful and interesting florist Eloise (Jennifer Aniston) and is instantly struck by her. It isn’t until she sees his interaction with the conference goers that she becomes interested in return. One of the conference goers, Walter (John Carroll Lynch), is drowning in the depths of his grief. Neither Walter nor Burke will admit the extent of the help that they need.

The writing in Love Happens left me feeling jerked about without regard for brain injury that might occur. One minute Burke and Eloise are engaged in a tedious banter of blossoming romance that could make even the most determined insomniac nod off and make the rest of us grind our teeth. Just a second later, there is a poignant interaction between Walter and Burk that reduces the audience to tears. Then, out of nowhere, comes a scene with Burke’s agent, Lane Fucking Marshall (Dan Fogler), that made me want to poke myself in the eye with a coffee stirrer.

In fact, if Love Happens had been exclusively about the emotional struggle that Burke suffered after his wife’s death and the relief he finds from his clients, it might have been a powerful and moving story with lasting impact. Writers Brandon Camp and Mike Thompson couldn’t leave well enough alone and slapped in an unnatural, ineffective, emotionless, pseudo-love-story that turned me off to everything else.

It wasn’t just a failure of writing; Aaron Eckhart and Jennifer Aniston lack the chemistry necessary to make the struggle between the two believable or even palatable. Individually they don’t reach an emotional tentacle out to the audience whenever a secondary character isn’t on screen.

By far the best performance in Love Happens is John Carroll Lynch as the devastated father who lost his son and everything else. He reached into my chest and stole my breath and at times I thought my heart actually tore in two. His story felt so real it was almost tangible and his tears made my shirt wet.

Those moments of deep emotion and undeniably monotonous scenes are sandwiched between endless, unabashed, unashamed brand placement. Eloise obviously works in a florist shop, not because it’s relevant to the story, but because it is a great way to get a huge floral network’s brand in front of the right audience at least ten times during the movie. Burke stays at a nice hotel, not because it’s the best hotel in town, but because we can see their brand all over every wall, in every conference room and in every hallway, even though it adds nothing to the story.

I’d rather watch a ten minute short movie about Burke, Walter and their struggle through grief than a two hour movie that is 90% filler, flowers, marketing and cuddles. On the plus side, your vocabulary will come out bigger than when it went in, if you ignore my warnings and go to this movie anyways.

Thirst (Bakjwi) Review - Seat Squirming Sensational

When the Catholic Church in Korea tries to cure a disease, the treatment has unexpected consequences: vampires – of a sort. Unconventional, uncomfortable, shocking, hysterical, and fantastically entertaining, Thirst (Bakjwi) made me squirm with stomach-turning delight.

Unsatisfied with his life, Father Sang-hyeon (Kang-ho Song) agrees to volunteer for a life-threatening medical experiment. The experiment goes as planned but the treatments have a serious side effect for Father Sang-hyeon; it turns him into a vampire with thirsts for more than just blood. The Father does his best to feed his hunger ethically, but eventually, he abandons ethics and begins to make more and more morally ambiguous decisions, the worst of which surrounds his childhood crush, the beautiful, Cinderella-esque, Tae-ju (Ok-vin Kim). Tae-joo has lived with her drunken, slightly masochistic mother-in-law Lady Ra (Hae-sook Kim) and her sniveling, snotty, sickly son Kang-woo (Ha-kyun Shin) since she was a girl.

Thirst does start off slowly and dares the audience to believe that this will be a run of the mill, mystical Catholic-Church-creates-vampires movie. Slowly, the director, actors and writers walk the audience down a seemingly safe path of overplayed mediocrity. It isn’t until I walk directly into their trap that I realized I’d been duped. Not only is Thirst the most original vampire movie I’ve ever seen, it manages to do so while still covering necessary vampire themes and disarms the audience by making their seat feel like it shifted underneath them.

Director and writer Chan-wook Park and writer Seo-Gyeong Jeong never miss an opportunity make the audience squirm in their seats. There are graphic, yet ill at ease sex scenes that barely register as sexual at all. The relationship between several of the characters left me wondering if the lot of them had been dropped on their head as babies. By far, the most discomfort I felt was when I was laughing at things that in real life are not supposed to be funny.

Chan-wook Park and Seo-Gyeong Jeong turn scene after scene from tragic to tickling. Anyone who isn’t a sociopath will laugh, feel guilty about laughing, the laugh some more. Most specifically, any scene with blood was at the same time horrifying and hysterical. Where the vampire is in relation to the blood-letter takes the edge off the fact that the vampire is sucking vital blood from the person’s body.

As soon as the laughter has ceased though, serious topics slip in. Questions of killing, domestic violence, sexual abuse, faith, or a lack thereof, and unexpected changes in the personality of characters seep in through the skin like a salamander breathes. Due to the unconventional story-telling, it’s nearly impossible for an audience member to defend themselves from the revolting myriad of incoming emotions.

My usually stoaic husband wiggled as much as I did, often covering his mouth because he was utterly floored by some of the kill scenes in Thirst and he wasn’t alone. Most of the audience was clinging to their partner, shifting in their seat, giggling, breathing heavy and holding their hands up to their eyes with their fingers spread. “Eeew” and “ha-ha” could be heard at the same time by viewers unable to control their reactions.

There is a strange attention to how Thirst looks by the director. He doesn’t shy away from strange camera angles, movements or settings. Innocent props become sinister. There is a simple change of scenery late in the movie that changes the entire mood and symbolizes a change in the direction of the characters.

During some parts in the beginning, the acting by Kang-ho Song and Ok-vin Kim leave much to be desired. I don’t know if the director wanted them to be horrible on purpose to take the audience off their guard, but it really just came across as ridiculous, kludgy and strange. If you hang in there, I promise, the movie picks up and will shake the senses of even the most reserved.

I have never had so much fun being revolted. Every time I think of the movie, I shift in my seat and think ICK with a smile on my face right before I get the chill up my spine. This subtitled Korean gem, Thirst, will satisfy those who love a good story and those who love good horror. Spine crawling, seat jerking and satisfying, Thirst is a must see! If your local small run theater is not showing this, call them and demand they do!

Harry Potter and the Half Assed Film

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince is the sixth movie in Harry Potter film series. Too dependent on previous films or expecting the audience to have read the books, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince fails to develop into a complete movie.

Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) is whisked away by his professor and fellow wizard Dumbledore (Michael Gambon )to meet with Horace Slughorn (Jim Broadbent) to encourage him to return to his professorship at Hogwarts School. Harry and Dumbledore continue to attempt to find a way to defeat Lord Voldemort and prevent him from returning to the living world. Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint) and Hermione Granger (Emma Watson) dance around their feelings for each other and engage in typical teenage romance melodrama. Draco Malfoy (Tom Felton) sneaks around, waving his wand at bookcases in dark storage rooms, spiraling down an emotional whirlpool.

As an added bonus for the audience, the director and writers have left bonus loose ends for the audience to enjoy. The extraneous footage includes destroying mystical stuff, a girl who has a crush on Harry, some broom related sporting events, potions, and curses. The cinematic loose ends fray long enough to braid and be sold as rope to climbers heading off for K2.

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince reminds me of leftover casserole. Leftover casserole is made by taking the remnants of a week’s worth of food, layering it in a casserole dish and hoping it tastes good enough that your family won’t run out on you. If you sprinkle it with parmesan cheese, it can look delicious, but it almost always tastes like week old, reheated donkey-butt stew. Director David Yates and writer Steve Kloves take a bit of left over the Sorcerer’s Stone, covers it in Order of the Phoenix, slathers on Chamber of Secrets, dumps in Goblet of Fire and sprinkles Prisoner of Azkaban, bakes it with parmesan on top (the special effects) and thinks we will eat it.

It shows a total lack of cinematic integrity to assign the audience required reading or mandatory viewing in order to understand anything that is taking place on screen. It is perfectly rational to expect a first time Harry Potter viewer won’t get every mention but they shouldn’t be completely lost. It is not too much to ask for a bit of recap, artfully worked into the story so new viewers can understand what is going on. It irritates me to no end that David Yates, and the production staff think we should pay full price for a half a movie. In one of the more “intense” scenes in Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, Dumbledore says, “Once again I must ask too much of you, Harry” but I think it’s the writer and director who have asked too much of the audience by hiding the casserole behind a smoke screen - literally.

Smoke comes out of the water, goes into the water, is outdoors, is indoors, and seems to follow Harry and his compadres, regardless of their travels. Harry would be the alpha caveman of any cave based solely on his ability to attract fire to himself. Based solely on the beauty of the smoke, Harry Potter is a stunning movie.

All of the effects in Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince shimmer almost brightly enough to make one blind to the disparities in the plot. Well lit sets are set against green-screen created backgrounds that seem to flow naturally into each other. While some of the scenes don’t work as well as others, they all work well enough to suspend disbelief and make wizardry riveting.

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince has no beginning, nor an end; it is only a middle. With nothing to tell the audience what has happened up until now and an unraveling carpet for an ending, it fails to offer the audience a reason to sit through the film. It should be renamed to Harry Potter and a Half.

Bug - One of the scariest movies I have ever seen

Bug is a surprisingly fantastic thriller that left me guessing the truth until the end and is one of the scariest movies I have ever seen.  When a lonely bartender meets a war veteran, their lives intertwine and create a terrifying gradation.

(This movie is extremely hard to describe without giving away the ending, so I suggest watching a trailer after reading my meager attempts at a plot explanation.  The visuals in this movie are just as important as the plot points.)  Slightly self destructive and lonely Agnes (Ashley Judd) is a bartender at a local lesbian bar.  She lives in a tiny room in a rundown motel.  One night her friend R.C., (Lynn Collins) brings by Peter (Michael Shannon) for an evening of partying.  Agnes allows Peter to spend the night and their relationship blossoms.  Agnes and Peter start finding bugs all over their room and eventually begin to put the pieces together of where the bugs came from.  The audience and the characters spend the majority of the movie questioning their own sanity.

Director William Friedkin and writer Tracy Letts do a great job of making the characters’ ambiguous emotional status as mesmerizing as a ten car pileup.  You can’t believe what you are seeing, you know you should look away and yet you can’t.   In every scene, the characters’ motivations are clear and yet, the audience has a difficult time understanding the characters completely.  Much of the drama of the movie is wondering if what Agnes and Peter are experiencing is real.  All of the characters have two personality traits that are not only diametrically opposed but mutually exclusive.  It makes these simple people complex and is really freakin’ scary. 

The cast is limited, with only five characters.  Each of the performances is more disturbing and mesmerizing than the next.  William Friedkin should be commended for not only finding such a great cast, but a cast who has such great chemistry together.

Agnes is a complicated character with emotional depth and rich development.  Ashley Judd does a remarkable job of making Agnes pitiful and strong; sane and insane.  Agnes easily, under a lesser actress, could have become a wayward bunglement of emotions.  Judd makes her a perfect mess.  Near the end of the movie I wanted to hug her to comfort her and slap the sense back into here.

Michael Shannon can best be described as innocent and creepy as Peter.   During the entire length of the movie you can tell he isn’t a bad man, but you wonder if he is badly designed.   He is so scary without being malicious that the two sides of your brain have a hard time rectifying the dichotomy; in a good way.

The other three cast members are perfect seasoning for the incredibly delicious dish Judd and Shannon created.    R.C. (Lynn Collins) is softness, wildness and sanity.  Collins’ short performance is incredibly controlled.   Jerry Goss (Harry Connick Jr.) is crazy, abusive and loving, in a demented way.  Connick’s performance is frightening because he only almost loses control.   Dr. Sweet (Brian F. O’Byrne) lends credence to either of the theories of the characters and highlights the mental misfiring of the characters.  O’Byrne made a chill run up my spine because he never, ever, gets rattled. 

My hat goes off to the writer and the director for understanding the speech patterns of people in Oklahoma.  Usually when a movie takes place in a region outside of California the screen writers don’t bother to make the dialogue regionally appropriate.  Letts and Friedkin do not overlook this important detail.

The end of the movie has visually distinctive scenes that create deeply haunting moods.  The use of light is the most unique and imaginative I have seen in years.  The lighting alone is enough to tell us we should be in a state of paralyzing dismay.  Not only does it lend exactly the emotion necessary for the scene, it doubles the effectiveness whenever another character enters the room.

This movie snuck up, lulled me into a false security, kept moving so I never got my footing and then broadsided me with a Mac truck.  I was astonished, bewildered and the more I think about the movie, the more I love it.   Don’t miss this movie if you love to be scared.

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Severance - A Horror Comedy Corporate Holiday

Severance: the movie that tells us what happens when you take the characters from The Office, send them on a team building holiday and throw in some eastern European serial killers.  A little quirky, and even though the humor/horror mix is just a little off, Severance is still a pretty fun movie. 

International contractor, Palisades Defense, sends seven of their employees on a team building excursion in Eastern Europe.  When the road is blocked, on sage advice of the boss, the employees abandon the motor-coach and head down a heavily wooded road to find their luxury lodge.   Little do they know a killer is waiting around the corner, bent on killing each of them.   In proper British style, victims die with a stiff upper lip and killers kill in ridiculous ways.   Don't worry though, not everyone rolls over and accepts their fate.

Severance's biggest problem is that it can't really decide if it is a dark comedy or a horror movie with brief moments of levity.  There are a lot of bloody scenes but I can't think of an explicit death scene.  Just before the death, the camera pulls away and sometimes returns just after the death, so it doesn't feel like a strict horror.   There are a lot of attempts at comedy but only a few will leave you laughing out loud, so it doesn't feel like a sinister comedy.  Director/writer Christopher Smith and writers Toby Stephens and James Moran would have benefited from having an accomplished comedic writer there to touch up the scenes that were attempting humor.

Severance isn't completely void of humor.   There is a scene that will redefine the expression "Heads will roll."  Later in the movie, there is a scene that made me laugh so hard at the misfortunes of the killer.  The end of the movie made me laugh with reckless abandon.  The scene that takes the cake involves a mini-fridge, a shoe and slippery fingers.  I didn't want to laugh, because it was just wrong, but I couldn't help it!  After the movie is over, stick around for the credits; they are brief but the character names of the bad guys are funny enough to make the credits worth watching.

Andy Nyman, who plays Gordon, was my favorite male character.  Gordon is an annoyingly optimistic character, much to the chagrin of the other Palisades employees.  He tries to make every negative a positive.  I wanted to strangle him about three minutes into the movie.  I think he was fantastically written.   I believe that the writers were trying to make him painfully cheery and they accomplished their goal with flying colors. 

There is a moderate amount of creativity in the kill scenes.   They took all of the instruments of death they could think of, threw out the quiet ones, tossed the ones that wouldn't create a mess, and scrapped the Plain-Janes, and were left with a collection of mercenary style implements of doom!  Sure, there are knives and guns, but the kill scenes that use the classics aren't done in the same-old ways.  There is a scene where hundreds of people are killed and I snickered, rolled my eyes and finally gave into the laughter pushing its way up!

I wish there had been a little bit more attention to the actual deaths of the characters.  As I mentioned above, I can't remember a single scene where you actually see someone die.  I feel a little funny saying this, but it's a horror movie, show us the money.  I can't believe that someone is actually dead unless we see them dead.  In the horror movie rules it goes, 1. Never say "I'll be right back." 2. Never investigate a weird or strange noise, especially alone, and 3. Don't assume they are dead unless you see them dead, and maybe even not then.  How can I believe that the killers actually killed the victim if you aren't following the rules?

As always, I love it when there are bad ass bitches in horror movies that refuse to wait for some man to save them and Severance has its share of whoop-ass women!  Not all the women survive but their attempts at survival are memorable and commendable. 

This movie would benefit from a re-visitation by someone a little more skilled at finding the proper mix of humor and horror.  This may be the only time you hear this from me but I can't wait until an American film maker finds the time to remake this movie.  Even still, Severance is worth seeing, flaws and all.

Shrek the Third

Shrek the Third is the latest in the Shrek series of movies. A cute, fluff, 3D cartoon, Shrek is a good find for five year olds.

When King Harold (John Cleese) of Far Far Away is on his death bed, he asks Shrek (Mike Myers) if he will take over as ruler of Far Far Away. When Shrek wavers, King Harold offers an alternative, Fiona's Cousin Arthur (Justin Timberlake). Shrek, Donkey, (Eddie Murphy) and Puss (Antonio Banderas) head out to find Arthur. Just as he is pulling out of the harbor, Fiona (Cameron Diaz), tells Shrek that she is pregnant. While Shrek is off to find the next king of Far Far Away he attempts to come to terms with the news that he will be a dad. Prince Charming (Rupert Everett) attempts to take over Far Far Away while Shrek is gone. He brings with him all of the fairytale villains.

Shrek the Third is packed with entertaining little scenes. There is an amusing scene where the gingerbread man recounts his life. Pinocchio has a very funny scene where he steals the show. There are also several scenes where the fairy tale princesses refuse to wait for rescue and take it upon themselves. Any scene with the fairytale babies will make you go "Aaaah." The dragon/ donkey children made me smile every time they are on the screen.

There is a character you meet later in the movie who I think steals the show. The character used to teach Arthur but has gone a little crazy. Everything he does is just plain off kilter. I expected him to start singing "What a lovely bunch of coconuts."

The quality of the animation in Shrek the Third is surprisingly inconsistent. The scenery, the lighting and shading is marvelous. There is a scene with a horse that made me want to reach out and stroke its hind. The textures of all of the characters and scenery makes them look rich with depth and beautifully sensory. Dreamworks obviously made the way the characters look a priority. They did not, however, make the way the characters move a priority.

All of the characters that walk upright have a rigid stiffness that makes believing they are real a little challenging at times. The characters move like wooden artists models, unnaturally swinging from the joints in a way that would probably hurt a human being. Their steps are labored, lumbered, and even for Shrek, heavy. If they put half as much effort into the way the characters move as they did the way they look, the movie would have flowed considerably better.

When I saw Shrek the Third, the theater was packed full of children, some too small for elementary school. I was surprised that there was nearly no fussing, crying or screaming through the movie. Most of the children were completely enthralled by the movie.

Shrek the Third attempts several morals of the story. Shrek needs to embrace fatherhood, the women are all about taking care of themselves, there is talk of how one becomes a villain, violence is not the answer, and the moral that runs most through the movie is "you are the only one in your way." I think most of the themes will be easy enough for a child to grasp except Shrek's trek to fatherhood. Being a father should be the last thing on a five year old's mind.

The double edged sword with any movie packed with celebrities is that their celebrity is a distraction. The movie has a smorgasbord of recognizable voices. At times the myriad of familiar voices distracted me while I tried to place where I had heard them before. Especially difficult for me to place was Rupert Everett and as a consequence, every time he was on screen, I was trying to figure out where I had heard the voice before.

There is nothing particularly impressive about Shrek the Third but I didn't find anything monstrously awful either. This movie is definitely not one that parents will enjoy watching over and over again but then again it is a movie for children. As a children's movie, I think it is just fine.

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LaRae Meadows