Red Hill

Red Hill

Red Hill is a decent twist on the revenge movie genre.  If I can call that an entire genre, yeah, I guess you can.  I won't give a lot of the plot away but you don't really understand the revenge seeking character's motivation until the end of the movie.  I think that was kind of a mistake because after an hour of spree murders I was pretty confused and wasn't sure if I wanted to finish the movie.  I also couldn't tell if the movie was set now or in the seventies or if it was just back country Australia.  I guess it doesn't really matter.
This movie had some horror elements to it as well mostly slasher film similarities.  Initially it would seem that the burn scarred aboriginal killing machine had no supernatural powers but he seems completely indestructible.  At one point someone empties a hand gun at him to no avail.  I didn't get that.  Another time he is in a horrific car accident and emerges without a scratch.  It was more frustrating in this case because I was supposed to buy everything else in the movie at face value.
Ryan Kwanten, who plays Jason Stackhouse on True Blood, is the young cop who has just moved to town and took no part in the initial incident that has the killer so up in arms.  He is spared a number of times and ultimately gets to the bottom of the story.  I thought he was pretty good.  I thought I might not be able to separate him from his more famous character but it wasn't an issue.  I guess the accent helped.  I have to give this a so so rating with my hand dipping to either side.  Which is better than me giving the movie a faux jerk off motion with my hand.  But not as good as a legit thumbs up.  It just isn't as good as the last Australian revenge movie I watched, The Horseman.  What is it with Aussie's and crime movies these days?  I suppose it's better than those ridiculous comedies I was suckered into watching in the early 2000's.

Monsters

Monsters

I saw this movie during the day at the Loft.  I can't remember the last time I did that.  Maybe never, I'm not sure.  Because of that I was hoping I'd get to see it in the big theater but, alas, I did not.  It would have made the experience a little more enjoyable because Monster is, at times, a beautiful movie.
Unfortunately the camera work doesn't balance out the stilted acting performances by the leads.  There is something really uneven and unnatural about the male lead.  It doesn't help that the actor's name is Scoot McNairy.  Seriously, is that from a Pynchon novel?  What a stupid name.  I would've been more forgiving if this had been his first film, which I thought it was the whole time I was watching Monsters, but he has over forty credits on IMDb.com.  Whitney Able was more believable in the female lead but still seemed really awkward.
Gareth Edwards could've overcome their performances fairly easily by just giving us less of them.  I found I didn't need any back story on them at all.  If it had been filmed with a more documentary style with the camera working just as a sort of eavesdropper following them on their trip back to the US I would have really  loved this movie.  I didn't need to know that Sam didn't want to go home to her fiance or what she was doing in Mexico.  I didn't need to know that Kaulder had an illegitimate kid that doesn't know he's actually his dad.  What do I care?  It would've been enough for them to be two people trying to get home.  It's the film's great flaw.  Edwards does a great job with the camera, capturing some of the really amazing sections of Mexico.  He imbues much of the film with a real Mexican vibe and feel.
Apparently this film was made for 15,000 dollars.  I'm pretty amazed by that.  The monsters look pretty good too.  Edwards does a good job showing them to us in glimpses and sideways angles.  They actually are scarier when we don't get to see the entire creature.  Though in the pay off scene at the end of the movie the creatures still look good when we get a full view of them.
As with every monster movie I'm left with a lot of scientific questions.  These creatures are huge, 100 meters tall they tell us, what are they eating?  Blue whales are like thirty meters long and I'm pretty sure are the biggest animals that ever existed.  Those things eat like 7000 pounds of krill a day.  I suppose you could argue that, since they are alien life forms, that our sun's radiation does something to them to make them that big.  I'm also not sure why they are so aggressive.  They seem to like to pick up cars and throw them around. If they were eating the passengers it would make sense but they just sort of randomly kill people and leave them there to rot.
Obviously there are comparisons to be made to another recent alien invasion movie, District 9.  I have to say that the movies have a radically different feel and have different intentions.  I still think District 9, despite some of the issues I had with it, is an amazing feat of film making.  I don't think Monsters is quite on that level.  District 9 had a solid cast with many believable performances.  The only actors I bought in Monsters were the Mexicans helping them get home, whom I assume were not actors at all.  District 9 looked like it cost 100 million dollars to make while only costing thirty.  Monsters looked like a movie that should've cost a million to make.  Edwards did an amazing job with his budget.  I'd almost be willing to watch a making of featurette on a dvd but I'm just not that kind of person.  I'm impressed by Gareth Edwards and Monsters and look forward to what he might do next.

Movie Goer Actor Hall of Fame: Warren Oates

Warren Oates is a titan of my film and acting aesthetic.  He could do virtually anything and I would watch him, glued to the television.  I'd watch him make a turkey sandwich for half an hour.  I only own one actor's biography and it's his.  Warren Oates is a legend.  He is the quintessential 70's actor.  From the Wild Bunch to Two Lane Blacktop, Warren Oates could do no wrong.  Even his supremely campy turn with Peter Fonda in Race with the Devil is solid gold.  Most people have probably only seen him in Stripes or the Wild Bunch but he was so much more.  He was an excellent Dillinger.  He was in that Twilight Zone where the army guy sees weird light over the faces of men that are about to die.  He was in a fucking Lost in Space.  And he was in the best movie ever made, Badlands.  My favorite role of his though is probably Cockfighter.  He doesn't speak for almost the entire movie and you barely notice.  It's an amazing film, directed by Monte Hellman, based on a Charles Willeford novel.  He is just so stunning and captivating in the role, all without diaglogue.  If you can't recall if you've seen a movie with him in it or can't remember his performance I urge you to check it out.  Watch one of his movies and just watch him.  You'll know what I'm talking about.  Welcome to the Hall of Fame, Warren Oates.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1

I had a lot of trouble with the last Harry Potter movie.  I thought it was just outright bad.  The six book is one that gets lost in the shuffle a little bit even though it's the book where Dumbledore dies at the end. (Spoiler Alert!)  I thought the movie was really clumsy and boring.  So while I'm always ready to watch a new Harry Potter movie, I wasn't as excited as I could have been for this one.
Perhaps that's why I enjoyed it so much.  The first half of The Deathly Hallows book contains some of JK Rowlings best writing.  I didn't remember a whole lot of the plot details while watching the movie but I do remember thinking that she had started to be able to really capture the nuance and relationship dynamic of the three lead characters.  The director, David Yates, handles this part of the book really well I think and the actors are definitely up to the challenge.  I couldn't decide which of the three was the better actor, I think they all have the opportunity to do some really fine work.  Perhaps Daniel Radcliffe is at a slight disadvantage but it looks like he is picking roles in direct contrast to these in order to shake our idea of him as Harry Potter.  Emma Watson will probably have the easiest time of it.  Rupert Grint might be screwed, though I think in some ways he has been the better actor throughout this series of films.
This film marks the first time that you can really feel the weight that is placed on Harry and his friends to succeed.  The stakes finally feel legit enough to actually be scared for the characters.  In previous films, the atmosphere as been a little too light hearted I think.  The initial books were more light hearted as well, perhaps because all three were under the protective eye of Dumbledore and therefore there was an element of safety to them.  But in this film you can grasp the enormity of what Harry, Hermoine and Ron have to do to defeat Voldemort.
I suppose a lot of people might take issue with this film as it may seem a little boring and full of exposition.  But what do they want?  From reading other reviews online it seems like critics forget this is only half a story and it is supposed to make you immediately want to see the next movie.  That's how Lauren and I felt immediately after seeing it.  I consider it one of the most successful entires into the series.

Trailers for Movies that Look Good

Source Code

White Material

Brighton Rock

What the Fuck?: Yogi Bear in 3D

Yogi Bear in 3D

What the fuck?  Lauren and I saw the preview for this abomination before Harry Potter the other night.  We were aghast.  Well, I was anyway.  But not at the trailer necessarily, at the general laughter that spread across the theater as the trailer concluded.  C'mon people, stop encouraging this shit.  I thought we learned our lesson with Garfield.  Or Garfield 2 even.  Jesus F. Christ.

Unstoppable

Unstoppable

Sean and I saw Unstoppable last week.  As you might have already gathered, it's an out of control train movie.  It follows this formula:  (cliche + cliche + cliche + cliche)Denzel Washington = Bad but somehow watchable film. Denzel just makes people enjoy things.  He has an easy laugh and a big head and people just trust him.  I suppose that's why, as of this posting, Unstoppable has an 85 percent tomato rating.
Anyway, I won't bore you with any details from the movie, my favorite parts had nothing to do with any of the characters or the plot and only one of them happened on screen.  The latter being, I'm assuming, a chance shot of a beaver scampering across the train tracks as the renegade train barrels toward the audience.  He is just there, sort of cavorting across the screen.  I'm hoping it was kismet.  If Ridley Scott added him (or her) with CGI or something he's a total prick.  It is a really coincidental Freudian pair of images.  The beaver hurrying to get out of the way of the massive oncoming train.  I mean he might as well have inserted a cartoon of a giant penis chasing a little vagina across the screen.  I'm probably the only one who noticed it though.
 My other favorite thing that happened was during the previews.  Sean and I almost always try to sit in the front row on either hand side of the theater.  It's just a good seat, no one sits in front of you and you can put your feet up on the rail.  This time there was an older woman in a wheel chair sitting directly below us in the handicap seats with a friend.  Seemed normal enough.  After the first trailer, which was the bad ass new trailer for True Grit,  she turned to her companion and loudly stated, "I don't think so."  As if her husband of forty years had just asked her for anal sex.  I'm serious, it was dripping with vitriol.  Sean and I both convulsed in a fit of the silent laughter reserved for the special occasions of someone else's public shortcoming.  I can't remember what the next trailer was but was also something I was anticipating seeing and it was met with the same supreme distaste, "I don't think so."  Two more trailers were shown though and neither meet such a harsh response.  After each one Sean and I looked at each other and wondered silently what her criteria might be for enjoying film.  After the movie I heard her say to her companion, "That was great."  I was left puzzled by a person who thinks the new True Grit looks like something she couldn't scrape off her shoe fast enough and subsequently thinks Unstoppable was "great."  But that's one of the reasons I love going to the movies.