The Apparition

written and directed by Todd Lincoln (2012)

Horror films have a fairly low threshold to reach in terms of being entertaining.  All they need a premise that puts people in danger and this premise doesn't even have to make much sense as long as the characters are threatened somehow. This flick has that basic apparatus in place and provides serviceable scares, but it's not great by any means.  Spoilers follow...

It starts off with grainy 70's film stock of a seance, then whoosh,  you're in modern times watching some college kids, while they set up an experiment recreating the seance of the 70's.  The leader of the ill advised paranormal ghost hunt is Patrick, played by Tom Felton, aka Draco Malfoy, so you know he's not going to be able to handle what happens eh?  Anyhow, they're trying to contact the same 70's seance entity to PROVE that ghosts are really real.  He's a super spooky looking dude who isn't give a backstory, so I don't even remember his name.   I dunno why they'd want to contact such an evil looking bastard.  I know you can't judge a book by it's cover, but c'mon dude looks straight up EVIL.  Of course, it goes off the rails wrong, and one of them, not Draco, gets sucked into blackness.

Next you're getting acquainted with a couple in some desert city, Arizona or Nevada, maybe it's California, but it doesn't really matter where.  All that matters it's a big ole suburb that Kelly and Ben have just moved into, and it's basically full of empty houses - they have ONE neighbour.  Aside from the product placement purpose of the Costco shopping scenes,  why are all these shots of the Kristen Stewartish girl, (Ashley Greene), and her boyfriend, (Sebastian Stan), doing their just moved in, need to do some nesting chores, taking up so much screen time?  In a good film, stuff like this is character development.  Scenes that show them doing everyday people things, establish the protagonists and clue you into caring about them.  This is an important step, because you need to care about the film folk, otherwise seeing them getting threatened isn't nearly as spooky.  Make connection with audience.  Check...barely.  Now on to the spooks!

The progression of the haunting was slooow and the entity has random abilities.  First it's moving stuff around, opening doors and then it manifests as mold.  Ooooo gross! Mold!  That stuff really is deadly, ya know.  Also the entity manages to kill the neighbour's  dog.  The dog just keels over so it wasn't gross, just sad.  I thought it was mean to kill off a dog, but I guess it made the ghostie seem more threatening.

Actually the worst part of the movie is that the boyfriend Ben KNOWS something bad is happening, but he hides this from his girlfriend.  I was confused actually, because I didn't realize that the boyfriend was the camera guy from the experiment.  I thought it just switched to a random couple with no connection to the opening scenes, because you NEVER saw the boyfriend/camera man's face in the video footage of the seance recreation experiment.

Kinda cheap, but horror is rife with the cheap tricks.  Whatever works eh?  In any case, Ben is a shitty fucking boyfriend.  He saw that girl get sucked into blackness, and you know what?  That was his girlfriend!  OMG what a douchey guy.  He eventually gets found out and tries to explain his douchey behaviour, saying he thought if she didn't know about the experiment, she'd be safe.  Whatever guy, and what a load of paternalistic crap too.

Actually none of the haunting stuff makes any sense, nor the ghostbustery stuff that is supposed to create the monster, or let the entity come through or whatever the bullshit story was.  There was no logic to it.  I think it was likely written backwards -  dude thought of some spooky scenes he could shoot and strung them together with the story attached awkwardly with lots of metaphorical duct tape.

The movie is gonna appeal to teenagers and they probably won't even mind that it's a dumb flick that makes no sense, because they likely haven't experienced many good horror films.  Unfortunately this one does nothing to change that situation either.

Headhunters

directed by Morten Tyldum (2011)

My first impression with this film was geez, this is ripe for a remake with Tom Cruise as the greedy art thief.

My second impression?  I didn't think much of the set up.  It's got a corporate headhunter, (Aksel Hennie), who steals and sells art work, because he's got to keep up with the beyond his means lavish lifestyle his blonde trophy wife is accustomed to.  He's a pragmatic, amoral, sort,  and his art thieving is not much different from his day job where he looks for executives to poach, usually stealing them out from under the employ of one corporation for another.  The relative poverty driving the artwork snatch and sell sidejob, is not a situation most people can relate to; "Oh no I can't afford the payments on my luxury mansion or luxury car!"  Actually a whole lot of people can relate to not being able to afford the lifestyle they have,  it's just that the lifestyle he felt he needed to maintain was a bit much.

As the plot unspooled I was feeling all sneery about seeing another story about rich white people, and thinking, "fuck these greedy resource pigs and their stupid money problems!",  because greed and lavish lifestyles like you see at the upper echelons of society, rather than impressing me, more tends to disgust me. Excessively excessive is just plain fucked up.  The other day a friend was telling me about a guy who renovated his G5 jet so all the surfaces were gold plated or marble.  He spent x amount of dollars, untold millions, I guess, and for what?  So his JET was shiny?

Jesus.  Of course it's Donald Trump's jet.

The movie got better though.  It's got good heists with twisty drama, and what I appreciated most, aside from the great cinematography, was the moral thread running through it. The protagonist is interesting too.  He's vulnerable; his narration reveals his weaknesses,  and that's what got me to liking him.  The movie had been hyped to me though, so it took me awhile before my expectations wound down and I got into it for what it was - a well shot action/crime story with some characters growing.   Near to the beginning,  I turned to my guy and said, I don't LIKE anybody in this film.  They're all selfish fucks.  Pretty standard character types for noir type works, but this one also has some redemptive realistic qualities in the characters, except when it comes to the antagonist, (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau).  He was a little too much of a phony baloney, comic book, super soldier, spy guy, human monster, stereotype for my taste.  Still, all criticism aside, it was a good ride, and I liked how it ended.

I think in the remake, they'll do it from the perspective of the bad guy and have him triumph, because greed is still good in the eyes of the majority of the haves making media in America.

Coriolanus

directed by Ralph Fiennes (2011)

I didn't even know there was a play called Coriolanus.  Shakespeare no less.  It set me up the bomb, thinking dayum, why ain't this ever been made into a movie?  Is it Shakespeare's shittiest work or what?  What's the story mang?

Well, I dunno why this isn't more popular, probably because it's too bloodthirsty.  Joe was hating on it, feeling bored and eye rolly of it.  We got into a heated discussion about how believable or translatable it is to modern times.

It's done up with modern trappings. No Togas, or laurel wreaths.  Instead of Roman garb,  soldier/general Coriolanus wears a conventional uniform, a dressier one when he's getting his accolades with the politicians and in green battle fatigues when he's in the field killing the enemy like the super soldier he is.

That's another aspect that bugged Joe.  The whole idea of a super soldier.

I felt like it was condemning of a militaristic ideology, while he more felt it promoted and glorified one, because it neglected to include other more important factors like who controls the military.  Rogue generals are fewer and farther between in the modern era.  I still feel it was more a story of the individual - another thing that bugged him.  The emphasis on individual actions.

But the personal is political.  Coriolanus's mom, (Vanessa Redgrave), bred herself a super soldier, and he bred himself a son who was gonna be a super soldier too.  The context of the conflict was less important than the essential nature of the conflict, that of one nation or state, subjugating another.  And what does a warrior culture do but justify the need for a warrior class by making sure that war continues.  Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.  This cynical tale shines a light some on the machinations behind the scenes that makes sure the ballet of blood and bullets is a neverending story, and that might be disheartening, but it's honest.  It's human weakness and moral flaws that exacerbate conflict.

I like watching Shakespeare. I like how I have to pay attention to what's going on and try figure out what was said.  I spend much of the time watching in a state of huh?  Whatssat?  Ohhhh ok,  and I don't get that much from most any other kind of flick.  Most flicks are OBVIOUS.   Everything is telegraphed and that can be BORING.  Shakespeare makes you work a bit for your entertainment.

It's got some damn fine scenes of the sexy mens too.  Probably the most war mongery homoerotic flick I've seen since 300, and that starred Gerard Butler too.  Though there might be others that are more sexier, just that I ain't seen them.  I'm not often watching war oriented flicks generally, but I hear they're popular with the macho set.  I'm thinking this might fly with all the dudes what like FPS war games since the action scenes are modern warfare.  Could be a cross promotional venture -   Coriolanus coming soon to a console system near you!!

hand to hand combats - boss fight

The Darkest Hour of The Sitter in The Adventures of Tin Tin

3 movies tonight, and saved the best for last, so I'll lead with it here.

The Adventures of Tintin is probably my favourite 3D movie going experience of the year. Yeah, I'm gonna stand by that. Tintin is tops in my book. It was a fulfilling film, way better than Hugo at the 3D, but not because the technique was better, because Scorcese really dazzled at that. Tintin succeeded more because the story was so much better at non-stop adventure. It starts off with an amazing 3D title sequence done in old school animation, but really popping with the 3D, sorta like the titles of Casino Royale, then it movies on to the I dunno what to call it? Almost realistic human type animation? I think it's mocap stuff, but the people are all squat with massive hands, so the proportions aren't real, but everything looks kinda real. Video game real would be the closest analogy. It looks odd but good.

Anyhow, you don't have to be a fan of the original Hergé comics to enjoy this, though if you are you'll like picking up on the cover scenes and it's kinda awesome seeing cherished childhood icons brought to life. I never realised what a good egg Tintin was or that he was a teen, nor that Haddock was an alcoholic, though The Thompson Twins are as bumbling as I recall. If you like the Indiana Jones flicks, this comes really close to the spirit of those. I'm looking forward to the sequels and I'm sure there will be more. The main villain looks like Spielberg, so I figure the bad guy will look like Peter Jackson in the next.

The Darkest Hour was pretty okay 3D action. It maintained tension well for the most part. I was scared of the aliens and even though the deaths are telegraphed, I was surprised by one. Too much stupid girl needing to be rescued scenes, but the very cool Russian landscapes redeemed the story lacks. It's a fun movie, and I bet it'll be even more fun as a video game.

The Sitter, well I liked it better when it was Adventures in Babysitting. 

The only thing it really had going for it is Jonah Hill with his charismatic shtick. There were other funny performances but the movie is pretty fucking bad. I liked some parts of it, Sam Rockwell was good as the crazy drug dealer but the ethnic stereotypes were pretty wack, especially the way the adopted El Salvadoran kid was portrayed as a firebombing antisocial thug, but you know in spite of its flaws, I did enjoy it. It wasn't very long and it was often offensive, but it had a good heart.

Also, the trailer for The Hobbit looks amazing. I like that story better than Lord of the Rings, so I know I'll be anticipating that one. The 3D Star Wars? I think I'll pass.

BTW, I am so sick of movies about the 1%. SPOILERS!!!!

Jonah Hill's character easily scores $3 grand snatching envelopes at a super swanky bot mitzvah and then robs his dad's jewelry store? The Darkest Hour has Emile Hirsch and his jetting to Moscow to broker a deal for his 4squareish dating app, and Tintin has old Captain Haddock getting back his mansion and gearing up to recover his family legacy of a cargo hold of gold? Geez!! As Jonah Hill says to the kid in The Sitter, you ain't got problems, nope you've got money and I don't buy that mo' money, mo' problems bull, well it's prolly true, but hell I think most people wouldn't mind changing up their lack of money woes for mo' money woes.