Inception (semi-reviewed on my Tumblr over a year ago)

You’re asking me for Inception. I hope you do understand the gravity of that request.

The idea of dreams in movies is a concept that we’ve seen done before. In the Nightmare on Elm Street movies we see the fear that comes in our dreams (nightmares) when we sleep, and how vulnerable our mind, imagination, can make us. The foreign film, The Science of Sleep, shows us what it’s like in a dreamer’s mind when he falls in love and wants to show the girl his dream world, while seeing things in reality as they would in his dream. There are more movies and episodes of t.v shows where everything is revealed to be a dream, but nothing has quite been done like Inception. The writers of Inception have taken the idea of dreams to a whole new level. A place where you aren’t just vulnerable from a horror movie icon, but from thieves who can find and steal your secrets and most intimate thoughts, if they wanted to. Then there’s the idea that if you go so far in a dream (or dream within a dream) that you can become lost forever in the dreamer’s mind if you were to die in it.

After only the midnight release of Inception, the movie has already made it to the #83 spot on IMDB’s top 250 list, and with good reason. Everything about this movie was incredible. The effects, cinematography, directing, score, and of course the acting. Even the actors who weren’t in much of the movie, Michael Caine and Cillian Murphy, deliver excellent performances, but then again I wouldn’t expect less from either one.

I’m not sure if I can say just who was my favorite actor in the film, since everyone did such an amazing job, but I can easily identify my favorite scene. This would be the scene with Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s character Arthur in the hotel. He’s in the dream within the first dream, while the others, aside from Yusuf (Dileep Rao), who is still in the first initial dream, are in the new dream of Robert Fischer Jr (Cillian Murphy). As the effects of the first dream start to move effect the world of the dream that Arthur is still in, the physics of the world start to change in the form of there being no gravity. The fight between Arthur and the ‘security’ in Fischer’s mind has easily made one of my favorite fight scenes in any movie. Yes, you know that it’s a scene filled with special effects, but even so it seems so real while also giving off that feeling that you are within a dream

4 out of 5 Stars

dying from Dead Undead: Vampires vs Zombies

Okay, I really need to stop trusting Phase 4 Films to provide me with some sort of entertainment. This is the film company of false advertising, they give you a synopsis of one movie and then give you something different on screen. From the same production company that brought you Wreckage, the film in my last review, comes The Dead Undead: Vampires vs Zombies. Now going into this film I wasn't expecting anything of high quality, but the RedBox synopsis seemed interesting enough

 A camping trip becomes a nightmare when the solitude of a peaceful mountain is shattered by the onslaught of a ravenous zombie horde. Fleeing to what appears to be a deserted town, the group discovers a secret Vampire community and fears that all hope is lost. But the vampires take the defenseless humans under their wing and an all-out war between vampires and zombies begins.

and the trailer for it looked like it could be good to watch for a good laugh. Just like with Wreckage so much of this synopsis is wrong and at no point did I laugh, except for out of sheer confusion.

Unlike with some of my other reviews, I'm not recapping much of what happened because honestly I don't remember most of what happened. This is how bad this movie was. I was so confused by what was going on that I couldn't really follow what was happening. What I do know is that there was no camping trip. They did not flee to a deserted town (they stopped at a motel) and they did not discover a secret vampire community. No, a group of people with guns jumped out of a van and started shooting things up, even killing some of the characters that have been set up to be the main characters of the film. We find out from the shoot-em-up squad that the things that have suddenly come out of nowhere and attacked them are Zombie Vampires. A. That makes no fucking sense and B. Isn't this supposed to be about Vampires VS Zombies...VS!

One of the guys, that has gotten blood on him/bitten by the Zombie Vampires, has a flashback of him and the only woman on their team fighting back as Vikings or something. It really doesn't matter because everyone looked like they'd gone to Target to get some costumes for their Viking Cosplay. You find out that they were enemies and then a cloaked figure, that I call the 'Magic Druid' comes and offers them something/a way to survive if they agree to team up. They agree and then we go to present day and a minute later both are dead.

The others find shelter in a building and two humans that are left find out the the 'shoot-em-up' gang are really vampires, but they're good vampires. Okay, so there are just vampires, but the movie isn't supposed to be Vampires vs Zombie Vampires. We then see flashbacks of Vietnam and the Old West, the 'Magic Druid' showing up in both. Yes, I understand that it's probably the same vampire, but I like calling it the 'Magic Druid.' More people die, leaving just the vampire leader and a female human, who he bites so he can have strength, and therefor turns her...I think. Reinforcement vampires come in and save the day and then there's talk about finding the second half of a parchment for something and...yeah I don't even know.

If the plot had followed the synopsis that was written then it might have been good, but what I saw and you're reading about above was just....crap...a fucking steaming pile of crap in the shape of a DVD. I kept getting lost as to what was going on, the 'main' characters really aren't the main characters because all but one of them dies within the first 15 minutes of the film. The first flashback just comes out of nowhere and left me going 'what the fuck is going on?' The only reason I remotely knew what was going on with the other flashbacks was because of the first one, but still they weren't needed. There was no character development, I didn't even know anyone's name, and therefor I didn't give a shit when someone died. This movie had no redeeming qualities and doesn't deserve to exist. Someone needs to keep Phase 4 Films from producing anything else.

0 out of 5 stars.

leave the Wreckage behind

Going through a list of movies on RedBox is like playing a game of russian roulette, sometimes you're safe and other times you get a bullet through the head. A bullet through the head would probably be better than the crap that I just witnessed for the past hour and twenty-six minutes.

According to RedBox the synopsis of the movie is as follows

When their car breaks down, a group of teenagers head to a nearby junkyard to salvage car parts. Little do they know that an insane serial killer has escaped from prison and is lurking in the area. As the teens are stalked and hunted down one by one, what was an innocent trip turns into a bloody all out struggle for survival.

99% of this synopsis was wrong and honestly the script was so convoluted that I'm not entirely sure what was happening. The film starts out with two young boys, Wesley and Ricky, sitting on the couch watching tv. Their mom's boyfriend or pimp, still not sure, comes in and is a royal douchebag. The younger of the two boys, Ricky, shoots him and the older brother tries to get him to put the gun down, but the little boy fires again and shoots the mom. Flash forward to some odd number of years later and we find that a convict has escaped from prison and some lady has broken down on the side of the road. A guy goes to help her and like an idiot she goes back to his car, where he tells her that the sound a woman makes while having an orgasm is the same she makes when getting stabbed. She gets out, he chases her, he winds up dead.

We then have, what feels like, 2 hours worth of credits. I swear they were going to start putting the production's catering company up soon. Finally, after the credits we're introduced to what is supposed to be the 'teenagers' who are obviously in their mid-20s because one of them was a former soldier. The four (the former soldier/mechanic, his girlfriend *fiancee* that he's just proposed to, his best friend, Rick, one of two character's whose names I actually remembered, his best friend's pregnant girlfriend) are all going on trip somewhere, where I don't remember. Anyway, they decide to be idiots and drag race some rich kid, who obviously has the better car, and the car breaks down. Rich kid drives off, leaving them to have to walk the four miles to the nearest place for help. My first question is 'Why does no one have a phone?' It wasn't even like they tried and had no signal or the battery died. No, they never even got one out.

They walk and wind up at a junkyard at night when the friend starts playing target practice at some cars, when one of the bullets ricochets and hits the fiancee. The main guy/former soldier tells the others to stay with her while he goes to get help. He comes back later with an old sheriff, two deputies (one of which later goes to get back up), a paramedic and doctor in tow only to find out that the others are gone. There's some arguing back and forth before they split up to go look. The paramedic finds the pregnant girl dead and hanging by her feet high above the ground. While still trying to find the others they come across the relative of the junkyard's owner who makes Gomer Pyle look like Albert Einstein. Soon the killer strikes again, killing the deputy by stabbing him in the back and then hanging him. The others get to him before he's dead, but they aren't able to get him down before then. The doctor then attempts CPR in a way that makes me question the credentials of the medical school that allowed her to graduate, but of course it's too late and he's dead. The paramedic girl has gone missing, being found when the crusher is turned on. The old angry sheriff and the main guy manage to save her, but when they're walking back a hanging van falls on her.

There's a minute or two of a shootout between the dumbass, main guy, and the killer who's wearing a welder's mask. They come across the friend who looks to be pretty beat up and get him sent off with the doctor. A man then appears carrying the fiancee, saying he had found her walking and that she needed to get to a hospital. The main guy and sheriff are of course wary of him, but they all pile in the cop car to head into town. There's a radio call that goes out again about the escaped killer from the beginning of the film, a man named Wesley that had been in prison for killing two people. The new guy stabs the sheriff in the leg and makes a run for it. Main guy chases after him and stabs him in the stomach. While he's dying the main guy asks him why he killed his friends to which he replies that he had never killed anyone.

We flash to the hospital where main guy and Rick are walking and talking, and main guy tells him about how he believed the last thing that the guy said. The girlfriend has a dream in which she sees Rick accidentally shoot his pregnant girlfriend after the main guy had gone off for help. After they visit her and the main guy goes out, Rick tries to kill her by suffocating her with the pillow, but main guy comes back in, having realized that Rick said something earlier that he shouldn't have known about one of the kills, and saves the fiancee. When he asks him why he did it, he pretty much gives a 'why not?' answer...in fact I think those might have been the exact words. The main guy knocks him out and the next scene we see is Rick in a padded room reading a letter about the death of his brother. We flash back to the opening scene with the two boys, but go further this time to see that the older brother had taken the blame for the shooting.

Does any of this sound like the synopsis that was provided? NO! First off they weren't teenagers. Second, there was no serial killer, the person who had escaped from prison/the person you are supposed to believe is the killer had only killed two people. Third, the 'teenagers' are not hunted down, in fact the only one that dies is the pregnant chick and we don't even see it. Then there's the whole scene at the beginning with the girl and the almost rapist, what was the point?

The one redeeming thing this movie had is that the acting from the main guy (Mike Irwin, who played the coma boyfriend on Everwood)and Rick (Aaron Paul, Jesse from Breaking Bad) wasn't actually half bad and they tried their best with the script that was provided them. The other actors are way too over dramatic and when the van is dropped on the paramedic she begins to fall to the ground before it even comes close to hitting her. The dialogue was at times so horrendous that not even Morgan Freeman and Tom Hanks could make it sound good. The kills aren't interesting and for a 'horror' film there just aren't enough, given that the cast suddenly grew from 4 to 6 plus the missing people and then later the convict. There should have been more than 3 kills, not including the kill of the escape convict, and we didn't even see one of the kills.

What more can I say about this movie, except for if you ever find it put it on the ground and drive over it...several times and when you think you've destroyed it as best you can...go over it one more time.

1 out of 5 stars

no need to avenge The Avengers

Last night, or rather extremely early this morning The Avengers was released in theatres across the United States in midnight premieres. This movie is probably the most anticipated film of this year, more than Spiderman, the Hunger Games, and in, at least my opinion, the Dark Knight Rises. With all that hype and build up with the wrong script and direction this film could have been a really big hit or a really big miss. Luckily for fans it was the former. 

the Avengers stand to protect Manhattan

Jeremy Renner as Clint Barton aka Hawkeye

For the most part we've seen the actors in their roles because of the former films that were released, and we know that they have been successful casting choices. The two new cast members brought in were Jeremy Renner as Clint Barton (Hawkeye) and Mark Ruffalo taking over the role of Bruce Banner (the Hulk). I love Mark Ruffalo, but I was a little wary going in with him, mainly because I am such a huge Edward Norton fan, but out of all the recent Bruce's (Eric Bana, Edward Norton, Mark Ruffalo) Mark was by far my favorite and I believed him the most as Bruce. (I am still holding out for a movie starring both Edward Norton and Robert Downey Jr.) Renner didn't have as big of a part as most of the other members of the Avengers, but he does well with what he's given and he's as bad ass as they come. I want to take special notice of Clark Gregg who plays Agent Phil Coulson, he was a minor secondary character, but man does he deliver in a big way. 

The movie is packed with action, some drama, and perfectly timed comedy, especially the quips delivered by Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), and even the Hulk and Thor have some witty moments. With Joss Whedon at the helm, I wouldn't have expected anything less. Because the movie has barely been released, I am refraining from posting any spoilers here, and will leave with this...You Need To See This Movie. No Questions. No Ifs, Ands, or Buts. 

5 out of 5 Stars

spend a night with The Innkeepers

Last night I spent the night watching a low budget horror film, The Innkeepers. Now, when I say low budget this isn't a knock to  the film, it just wasn't a major release with very many effects. The thing is, though, that effects weren't really needed for it. The film is about an old inn that is on it's last weekend before closing down forever. The inn is rumored to be haunted by a woman named Madeline O'Malley, that one of the innkeepers, Luke (Pat Healy), has said he has come in contact with. The other inkeeper, Claire (Sara Paxton) decides to do some paranormal investigating herself and come in contact with a spirit as well. She believes that this is the spirit of Madeline, and after some more contact, some through an old actress turned 'healer', Lee (Kelly McGillis) she's warned to stay away from the basement. Of course in pure horror fashion she goes down anyways, and things can only freak her out even more.

Pat Healy and Sara Paxton as Luke and Claire hang out
at the front desk.

Going into the film I was pretty skeptical, the last thing I'd seen Sara Paxton in had been Shark Night and that was pretty bad. However, with The Innkeepers I was pleasantly surprised. There are really only a handful of people in the film and Sara is in a large majority of it, she's even the only character that has scenes by herself. The dialogue is probably the best part of the film, it actually sounds like two people having conversations in real life, which is a relief from all the hokey dialogue that seems to be plaguing horror films nowadays. My favorite part of the dialogue was the fact that there were several, clever and witty lines.

The one thing I didn't entirely like was the lack of action in the film until the very end. Sure, the build up was good, but for a movie that's 101 minutes long, I would have expected them to spread it out a little more instead of saving it for the last 5 or 10 minutes. When the film ends, it also ends rather abruptly and questions are left unanswered. Despite this, I still found the movie to be enjoyable, if only for the interaction between Claire and Luke, which includes a scene where the two have been drinking and Luke starts that 'awkward speech about how he likes her.' That speech we've all either heard, given, or both.

3 out of 5 stars

I'd Rather be in Real Detention

This past Friday night I had the opportunity to go with a friend of mine to see a movie called Detention. The movie had little to know publicity and the only reason I knew about it was because Josh Hutcherson was one of the actors in it. I happened to see a trailer of it on YouTube and it looked...interesting enough, so I  decided to give it a chance.

According to IMDB the plot of Detention is

As a killer named Cinderhella stalks the student body at the high school in Grizzly Lake, a group of co-eds band together to survive while they're all serving detention.

And if this were the case, I'd probably have enjoyed the film a bit more than I did. It starts off as a horror film, but then from there it just becomes completely random, so much that  I'm not sure the writer's knew where they were going with this movie. It's like they were attempting to make a parody of every teen film that's ever come out, while throwing in some random science fiction, time travel, and horror. Yes, all of that in one film. Because of this I'm not exactly sure what genre this movie falls under, perhaps I should just invent the WTF genre.

The deal with parodies are that they are supposed to make you laugh, even if it's just stupid comedy, such as Scary Movie/Not Another Teen Movie/etc...franchise, or even ones like the Scream movies that are actual slasher films, but still poke fun at the genre. With Detention though, the jokes never really landed, at least not with me. If anything it was like someone found a 14 year old's Tumblr or Facebook page and started going through their posts and comments. Every other line was about how 'awesome' the 90s was or some reference to the entertainment during the decade. This reminded me of seeing posts from the Tumblr of someone born between 1997 and 1999, claiming to be a 90s kid. (No, you were barely a live in the decade, you might have been born in the 90s, but you're not a 90s kid.) If this had only been here and there it would have been fine, but like I said it was just about every other line. There was also an obsession with Patrick Swayze by Josh Hutcherson's character, Clapton Davis.

Detention stars Josh Hutcherson and Dane Cook

Josh's character actually had one of the only jokes that made me laugh a little. It had to do with his looking to Swayze and Roadhouse for help in fighting another character. One of the things he writes down is a red shirt. Later on there's a scene at a party where the other guy is wanting to fight, and Clapton doesn't want to. However he looks down and low and behold he's wearing a red shirt, this moment gets a quiet "Damn red shirt" from Clapton, talking to himself.

Another came when they are put in detention, which for a movie called Detention only about 10 minutes are spent in detention. They are going around saying why the others couldn't have been the killer at the party, when they get to this one guy, who happens to be black. They tell him to just fess up because none of them really know him. He responds with "I'm not a killer, I'm just boring." The character was really only in this scene and barely had any lines, but he was my favorite in the entire movie.

Is the movie the greatest thing ever made? Obviously not. Is going to see it better than sitting home alone on a Friday night? Maybe

In all I'd give this movie a 2 out of 5 stars

Blue Like Jazz (not your 'come to Jesus' film)

Ever since seeing the film Blue Like Jazz this past Friday, I’ve been debating with myself whether or not to write a review for the film. After three separate viewings of it in the course of three days, I think it’s time that I do. 

Blue Like Jazz is a film based off the book, of the same title, by Donald Miller, and is about a young man, Don Miller, who after growing up a southern baptist in Texas, moves to Portland to attend Reed College, and while there begins to question the very faith and God that he grew up with. Before the movie’s release I kept seeing articles about whether this was going to be a religious or anti-religious film. What I’m going to tell you is that it is neither. It’s a journey into a young man’s life and the struggle that he has in not only finding God, but even more-so, himself. 

  

While everyone in the movie did a wonderful job, I want to focus on the main character/actor of the film. The film stars Marshall Allman, best known for his roles as LJ Burrows (Prison Break) and Tommy Mickens (True Blood) as Don.
Being one of my favorite actors, I was already excited, but after seeing the movie I don’t think I could even imagine anyone else in this role. His portrayal as Don is one of the most honest performances I’ve seen in a film in a rather long time. In the beginning of the film, Don is, for lack of a better word, awkward, though while still in Texas, and at his church, he doesn’t seem to be really out of place. It isn’t until he first arrives at Reed that this is more evident. With the way that he dresses, acts, and talks, Don is a fish out of water, but there is something awkwardly adorable about it. As the film progresses Don begins to become, in a nutshell, a sarcastic little anti-religious twat, who is always ready with some snarky remark. There were times in the film where Don frustrated me to no end, but despite how cynical he became, Marshall played him with such a boyish charm, that I couldn’t help but develop a love/hate relationship with him. If Marshall doesn’t get some sort of recognition for this role, I will be very surprised.

One of the things I loved most about Blue Like Jazz is just how relatable Don is. Like Don, I grew up going to church in Houston, Texas, and up until college it was all I really knew. I’d never questioned my beliefs, they just were. However, when I went away to college, that all changed. It wasn’t as drastic a change in scenery, geography-wise, but the majority of my friends didn’t have the same beliefs as I did, and I found myself starting to question God and even in a sense abandoning him, and like Don it all started out as an attempt to fit in with those around me. Even if you aren’t going through an existentialist crisis, it’s easy to put yourself in Don’s shoes because we’ve all done things in order to feel accepted by a group of people. Dyed our hair, changed our clothes, started to talk a different way, drank, done drugs, etc… At the end of the film, Don has discovered things about himself, but he is in no way perfect. He still has problems and questions that he’s working through, the same that we all do. 

Another thing that I enjoyed about the film is that while God and religion does take a large part in this film, it isn’t IN YOUR FACE about it. It’s also not cheesy or sappy, like some of the films that have been marketed as ‘Christian’ films seem to be. Nowhere in the film does it tell the audience ‘this is what you need to believe.’ Instead they show you the struggles that Don has with the church and the revelations that HE comes to. At the end of the movie there is a scene between Don and his friend, ‘the Pope’ (played by Justin Welborn), who is an atheist, that involves a rather beautiful speech that Don gives about how he felt about God, and he asks his friend to forgive him. Not once does Don ‘preach the gospel’ to him or give that sort of altar call feeling. However, he simply is vulnerable and honest to him, something that I feel made the scene that much more powerful. 

The honesty of this film has made it the best film that I’ve seen so far this year. It made me laugh, got me frustrated, and all three times I left the movie with a sense of hope and the inability to stop smiling. Blue Like Jazz is a movie that I would recommend for those that are upperclassmen in high school (juniors/seniors) and those that are in college or just out of it. Yes, those that are older than that should see it, but I feel that the ages stated could relate the most to the film. 

p.s. 

it is apparently a lot harder to damage a PT Cruiser than I thought.


5 out of 5 stars

Angels Crest (reviewed on my Tumblr back in November)

Sometime ago while looking over Thomas Dekker’s IMDB page I came across a movie titled Angels Crest. The plot seemed interesting and the fact that two of my favorite actors, Thomas Dekker and Jeremy Piven, were in it only made me want to see it even more. After what feels like forever, the film was finally released over I-Tunes and On Demand (it’s still waiting theatrical release) and a few hours ago I found myself clicking on the buy icon on my television and preparing myself to watch.

First off I want to say that I came into this movie with high expectations. The trailers I had seen online were beautiful and tugged at my emotions and let me tell you the movie only did this further. For those of you who don’t know much about Angels Crest, it’s about a young father, Ethan Denton (Thomas Dekker), who suffers the loss of his son after a moment of carelessness and how the action affects him, the boy’s mother and the small town that they live in.

The script was written by Catherine Trieschmann and directed by Gaby Dellal, both of which did great jobs. The script was beautifully written (especially the scenes with Ethan and his best friend, and the ones with Cindy) and some of the best and most powerful moments came when there was no dialogue at all. Two scenes that did this were when Ethan is walking down to the cell and sits there for a few seconds before one of the officers speaks, and later in the film when he walks out of the house, removing his clothes and lays down curled up in the snow. In an overall review of the movie there wasn’t much I didn’t like about it, though I was wondering from time to time why I was watching certain scenes with the people that lived in town, and what significance they actually had to the story. The movie is based on a novel by Leslie Schwartz though, so maybe reading it would help me understand more/clear up some things and why these side stories were there/important.

The supporting cast for the film includes Jeremy Piven, Kate Walsh, Mira Sorvino, Elizabeth McGovern, and Joseph Morgan, who all did amazing jobs bringing their characters to life. As someone who watched Entourage from season one and fell in love with Jeremy Piven’s Ari Gold it was nice to see him in a different kind of role, and even outside of Entourage it’s been rare that he has been in anything dramatic. After seeing this movie though I think that he needs to start doing more. In the film he plays the part of the D.A that’s prosecuting Ethan and had lost his own child prior to the events of the film, something I wish they would have gone further into. He plays that line between the father that understands what Ethan is going through and the D.A that needs to collect information/evidence that could put him away for negligence fairly well.

The contrast between the way that Nate’s mother, Cindy, and father, Ethan, handle his death is executed beautifully by the films two main actors, Lily Collins and Thomas Dekker.

Lily Collins plays Cindy, Nate’s mother who is an alcoholic and blames Ethan for Nate’s death. At the search party the sheriff tells her that if she’s going to be out there she at least needs a coat, but instead of going to get one she goes out and buys beer. Through out the film she slips further and further into her alcoholism, the only way she knows how to cope. Lily does a wonderful job portraying the cold, and at times bitchy attitude that Cindy has towards people, a result of her alcoholism no doubt, but her shining moment comes when she starts to break down in front of her mother. The first time you really see her have an emotion other than anger when it comes to losing Nate. It’s here I first saw her feeling that loss and focusing on that feeling rather than how much she blamed/hated Ethan. I haven’t seen many of her movies (other than Wolverine Origins) but I think I need to search Netflix for more.

Finally I come to Thomas Dekker who plays the part of Ethan Denton. While it was important for the film’s supporting characters and the part of Cindy to be cast well, it would have been for nothing had this part not been cast right, and I’m not sure anyone could have pulled it off any better than Thomas did. From the start I felt myself drawn into the life of his character and his son Nate (Ameko Eks Mass Carroll). The interaction between the two is, in lack of a better word, adorable as well as genuine, especially coming from Thomas who before now had never really worked with a young kid (at least not in anything else I’ve seen him in.) 
Every emotion that Ethan felt, whether it was the desperation to find his son, the anguish when he found him, the guilt he felt, or anything in between I felt like I was connecting with and was experiencing myself (despite never having been in a similar situation before.) I rarely cry in movies, but there were several times I found myself fighting back tears due to this young man’s performance and here he truly proves that he is one of the best young actors of our time. I have been watching Thomas since the Honey I Shrunk the Kids tv series came on, and while I love most of the projects he’s been a part of I have never been more proud to call myself a Thomas Dekker fan

4 out of 5 stars