The All Hallows Eve List of Movies

I thought that since Halloween is just around the corner, I would write a list of some of the movies that may give you the frights for this October 31st.  But instead of just making a list, I realize that some people want their horror movies differently; some want gore, some want suspense, and some want the “jump out of your seat factor”.  In order to get a good preview of each of these movies, I have hyperlinked the trailer for each film onto its respective name in the article. Well, Ne’er you worry my loyal viewers, because I shall provide all with movies that they can enjoy for this October the 31st.

The Gore Lover:
While partially a person after my own heart, the gore lover is probably looking for a film with a lot of limbs being separated from bodies, and lucky for them, there are a few series that do just this! If you feel like delving further back 8 years or so, I think that the first three Saw movies offer up quite hefty levels of Gore while not getting too ridiculous (after about Saw 3, the traps just start getting dumb, and you can see that the directors are just trying to make the traps completely over the top).  Also, Eli Roth directed two films named Hostel and Hostel 2 that have become known as “gore-fests”, and luckily unlike Saw, Hostel knew when to stop.  Although I haven’t seen it, a more recent example of a gore-movie would be something along the lines of The Human Centipede: First Sequence. Although this movie is far from great, it will fulfill that strange line of grossness that Gore lovers usually tend to have.

The Suspense Lover:
If you as a viewer are more partial to story in your films (because let’s be honest here, Gore Films have about 3 plots that they mainly follow that usually run along the lines of “Girl(s) are in big city, drive out to country to go to party, car breaks down, must take refuge in foreign house but the owner of the house turns out TO BE CRAZY, then the rest of the movie is the girl(s) trying to escape”), then you may want a film that has more suspense.  A horror blog would not be complete if you didn’t mention the King of Suspense, Alfred Hitchcock.  If you are a suspense fan, you can pretty much watch any of his movies and I can guarantee you that you wont be disappointed.  A movie that I have personally enjoyed that is very suspenseful of his is Psycho, and the sheer amount of suspense that Hitchcock creates in that movie is absolutely incredible.  Another by Hitchcock that has just as many suspenseful moments in it but manifests itself in a different way is North By Northwest, and although the name may not instantly ring bells for some, many would be able to recognize its iconic helicopter scene.

The Indie Horror Lover:
So you may like movies, but want to indulge in lesser known fare. Well you, my friends, no longer need to worry, because I have just the movies for you! While some could argue that the film Teeth could fit under the Gore category, it seems to have that indie sense about the way that it handles the horror that it brings.  It delves off the traditional horror plot, and talks about an incredibly dark idea that no movie had or has since even gotten close to mentioning. In fact, just thinking about the elements it mentions are enough to send a chill up my spine.  But moving on, many of you may remember indie starlet Ellen Page from her breakout role in 2007’s Juno or more recently the box office smash hitInception.  But one of her most impressive roles came 2 years before Juno, in the form of a movie entitled Hard Candy.  Much like Teeth, Hard Candy focuses on a very dark theme, and plays out in the way that indie fans will enjoy.

And there you go! Hopefully my list of some of my favorite Halloween titles has been informative, and that you have a ghoulishly fantastic October 31st.

American Psycho Review

Hello All!

I am back from an extended break to do what I enjoy the most, which is write about movies! Now since I haven’t had much time on my hands to go out and go to the theater (although I have been dying to see The Social Network), many of the films I have been watching have come courtesy of downloading online or my roommates Netflix.

Now American Psycho is in a different mold of many of the other movies in the fact that it stars a fairly unknown Christian Bale in what some could call his breakout role.  Bale plays a troubled (to put it lightly) businessman that is just skating through the life of an executive at a company, yet Bale hides the fact that in his spare time, he likes to murder people.  You know, some people like to hang out with friends, or ride bikes, but Patrick Bateman likes to kill.  Now one thing that is very impressive about this movie I thought was the use of contrasting colors. Even from the title screen, we are treated with a white background, with what looks like blood drops, slowly, but meaningfully, drip-dropping down.

One of my favorite ideas that was placed in the movie was the fact that we as the viewers could hear almost all of Bateman, whether he was speaking or whether it was in thought.  We could see what he held dear, what his mind focused on, and most importantly, we could get a personal connection with this man that really no other character could achieve.  This is an interesting technique used by relatively unknown director Mary Harron, and I am under the impression that almost no one besides Christian Bale would have been able to pull of Bateman’s character in this way.  Now whether or not you hate Christian Bale because of his attitude, you have to applaud the man for being one of, if not the most hard working actors of the past decade.  The sheer effort that he will put in in order to learn and succeed to the greatest degree at his parts is almost inhuman (look at the transition of him in The Machinist to his next movie, Batman Begins).  But the thing that I absolutely love the most about the way Bale portrays Bateman is the way that he delivers the lines so fluidly, so darkly comical, that its almost not as though you are watching a man acting as another man, but watching this fanatical, psychotic man go absolutely crazy.

There are two main scenes where Bale absolutely shines, and if you are on the fence about this movie, I would recommend that you seen these two scenes, and if you really enjoy them, then I can safely assure that you will enjoy the rest of this unusually dark comedy.  Without ruining too much, one involves two men at Bateman’s apartment with Huey Lewis and the News, and the other involves Bateman, two “female companions”, and a lot of Bateman looking at himself in the mirror.

Its really hard to describe exactly what American Psycho is completely.  One of its greatest strengths is that it rides the line of a “dark comedy” absolutely perfectly, because there are scenes that are incredibly dark, and the viewer can tell that something is going to happen that is going to be very bad, but the way that Bateman (which the more and more I type I realize looks more and more like Batman) delivers speech and dialogue leading up to these atrocious acts is no different from how he talks to his friends or co-workers.  Because of how hard it is to completely describe, giving a recommendation to it is also tough.  Personally, I think that it is an incredible movie, and the way that Harron directs and Bale acts are amazing, but the subjects that it brings up definitely warrant the dark portion of dark comedy, and it definitely lives up to its R-rating. Should you watch it? I personally think you should try it out, if only for the fact that you can see Christian Bale’s masterful performance as the haunting Patrick Bateman.

American Psycho: 5 out of 5

Changes to the site

Welcome back,

I am finally back from a long hiatus that lasted a couple months, but now that I am back at school, hopefully I will be able to get back into the writing thing.  One thing right off the bat that I am going to change is that I have decided to make this site solely about movies, and now television.  As fun as it was to write about video games and other things of that nature, I find myself hard pressed to decide what exact video game stuff I should balance with the movie stuff.

One of my major changes is that I am going to try and focus more on television, and what shows I have been watching and recommending to my friends.  The first reason that I want to do this is because there really is a vast amount of shows out there, and although I will end up covering some of the main-stream shows, I also want to cover some of the shows that people Should be watching, but just haven’t heard of.  The second reason that I want to cover TV shows is because I am back and college and have to take a bus to see movies, I don’t know how often I will be able to make it out, let alone review.  That being said, I will still Definitely give my impressions of the movies that are out, coming out, or in discussion, that catch my eye.

Also, before I start in on my TV article, I just wanted to thank all of you guys for continuously reading and letting this blog work.  Getting feedback and such is so incredibly helpful, and if after reading this blog, you decide that you would want to try and start up one yourself, I would be honored to help in any way that I can.

Well, after that little aside, I will get back to writin about some good old fashioned tube entertainment

NWSG (I’ve decided this will be my new tag)

Scarface Review

Now I know that I haven’t written a review in a while and that is due to a number of factors, the main ones being that I have a class that I am taking at the community college that takes up a large chunk of my time, the fact that I am a poor college student in an area where it costs nearly an arm and a leg to go to the movies, and possibly the biggest, the fact that the movies that have been out as of recently have been  complete and uder shit.  Now those of you who just got of the the 7 o clock showing of Charlie Mc Cloud or have been watching the trailer for the new F-film Vampire’s Suck can go ahead and say that I am wrong, but for the most part, there are a few big summer movies, and the Huge blockbuster has already landed upon us in the form of Inception, so many of the movies that I have been watching are in the form of DVD (and in one case VHS) form.

One of these movies that I have been dying to see for a while that’s reputation precedes itself as one of the greatest cult classics of all time is the Al Pacino epic Scarface. Now although I have been pressured to see it for a large portion of my natural born life, it always seemed to just be one of those “Oh, i’ll see it sometime” movies, partly because I already knew the ending before watching it.

A main part of the movie that I really liked was the fact that the whole movie showed the way that greed can truly get to you.  At the beginning, Tony Montana has nothing, and the viewer can see him change as the wealth comes towards him.  During the scene where Tony Montana is in the bathtub in his mansion that he had fought so hard to get, his friend Manny sums up what has happened to Montana very well.  He pretty much calls Tony out, saying that he isn’t hungry anymore.  The hunger that he had in the beginning; that hunger that fueled him to get higher had disappeared because he had already achieved everything.  Greed had consumed his whole being, which, if you look around America, is happening to all of us.  From young ages, we are trained that we always want the biggest house, the best job, and this movie showed what happened to a person who really did achieve all that and more.  Because of his greed, he kills everyone around him or destroys relationships so much as to turn his previous friends into enemies.  He has this enormous wealth, this extreme greed, but it changed him from the person he was into the very type of person he hated.

This film is in many ways the epitome of cult classics.  Within any group of friends, there Will be that one who swears by scarface and says that it is the best movie ever. In my opinion, I think that scarface is a good film that shows a good message of what can happen when greed takes over your life.  Is it one of the best? That is hard to say, because having seen it much later than I had seen my current favorite film The Godfather, its hard to make a side by side comparison, but if you have time, I would definitely recommend that you check this movie out, you won’t regret it.

Scarface: 5 out of 5

One of the most visually stunning directors to make games!

Now if you have seen a somewhat large amount of movies, the name Guillermo Del Toro may ring a bell for you. If it doesn’t, chances are that you are familiar with his work, directing such visually stunning movies as both Hellboys and one of my all-time favorites Pan’s Labyrinth.  Now after he finished the second Hellboy, sources said that he was going to start working on a remake of The Hobbit, the predecessor of the Lord of the Rings trilogy (The Hobbit chronicles the story of Bilbo Baggins, who in the first Lord of the Rings is a very old man).

Well about a couple months ago, we found out that Del Toro had been scrapped from The Hobbit, and that he would be moving on to “other ventures”.  This article on kotaku pretty much cements the fact that Del Toro will now be working on games, and I couldn’t be more excited!  Being able to interact and experience through the worlds that he could make is going to be a thrilling experience, because if there is any director that I would trust to make an engrossing game captured in a stunning would, it would be Del Toro.

For those looking to see the original article posted on Kotaku, the link is below, and I will update with as much info as I can when I find out about it.

Original link:

http://kotaku.com/5599221/guillermo-del-toro-going-to-do-video-games

Superhero fans unite!

Over at a website that I go to, screened.com, they have a trailer up for the new Thor movie.  Now its a full 6 minute long trailer, and it seems to hype the movie quite well, so if you are into that kind of film, I would definitely go check it out (it was the trailer shown at this years comi-con which happened last weekend) because I don’t know how much longer it will be there.

Inception Review

I’ve been meaning to write a review for this film for a while, but everytime that I try to start, it’s almost as if I can’t even find the words to describe it.  In case you haven’t heard of this movie, Inception is the Christopher Nolan summer blockbuster that many probably know from the trailer that “doesn’t really say what the story is about but makes you want to see it even more anyways.”  It stars some pretty big names in the lead roles that you have probably seen in other movies, and even the lesser known actors seem to play their roles very well, just like all of the other Christopher Nolan directed movies, which include The Dark Knight and the cult classic Memento. In order to properly review this movie without giving away too much as to ruin it for those of you who havent seen it yet, I want to quickly touch on the main actors and actresses that made this movie the caliber that it is.

The main character, named Cobb, is played by an ever-impressive Leonardo DiCaprio. He does a very emotionally fitting job of playing a main character who, for all intensive purposes, has more problems going on than all of the rest of the cast put together.  DiCaprio does an impressive job of capturing the character of one who is so close to falling into a sense of insanity, yet holding onto a single sliver of his past that keeps him alive and sane.

Cobb’s partner in crime is named Arthur, and is played by the Very underrated Joseph Gordon-Levitt.  Really every movie that I have seen that he has been in has been a fantastic one, and he compliments DiCaprio well, with both of their characters sharing that sauve “we-know-what-we-are-doing” vibe that leads the viewer to believe that they have been doing this for a while.  Arthurs character doesn’t really delve any deeper than skin deep, which I thought was ok considering the amount of “past” that Cobb has.

The third of the “main” characters is played by one of my favorite actresses of the past decade, Ellen Page. She plays the “architect” (which I won’t go into anymore so that it doesn’t ruin anything) that is introduced to Cobb by a cameoed Michael Caine.  After they have met, Cobb has to do the traditional “see if she lives up to her expectations”, but luckily this part doesn’t take too long, and within moments, they are back to doing “the regular routine”.

Other parts played by Ken Watanabe and Cillian Murphy bolster the “stardom” of the movie, and ultimately the quality of the plot.  One of the things that I really enjoyed about this film is the fact that whether or not you watch the trailer, you don’t really know what is going on, and in fact if you do watch the trailer, you may be more confused as to what would happen with the movie as opposed to if you just watched the movie without the trailer.  While the trailer is confusing, the story does make sense over time, I think for me, it was about 15 minutes in that I put all of the pieces together, and once that happens, the movie takes off.  It blends a sci-fi vibe with realistic settings, and there are a few scenes that are very action packed.  This movie will have you talking with your friends after, comparing opinions on what happened, which I personally love when going to the movies.

Up until the last minute, I can assure you that you will be on the edge of your seat if you go see Inception.  With an all-star cast, a plot that will keep you guessing, and an ending that can only be described as marvelous, this is the summer movie that we as fans have been waiting for, and I am here to tell you that it doesn’t disappoint.

Inception:

5 out of 5

Revolver Review

Ok, so although my review is a couple days late (I was going to write it before my trip to Canada, but I ended up getting caught up and busy and was not able to put it up until now,) I fully intend on bringing you the review…NOW!!!

Any Guy Ritchie film has a few things going for it from the get-go: All have stars that you have probably seen before; all have an Extremely “British” feel; and a personal opinion is that all should be watched when you are completely cognizant of your surroundings (a.k.a. not tired, intoxicated, in other words operating on a “clean” mind), yet every time I seemed to have watched one of Mr. Richies films, that last part has always evaded me.  Even though I try to soak it all in, watching his movies, which are already somewhat muddled, while tired is quite a Herculean task.

Out of all that I have seen though by Mr. Richie, I would have to say that Revolver sticks up there as one of my favorites.  Maybe it was Andre 3000, maybe it was the well done leads by Jason Statham and Ray Liota, but Revolver goes past other Richie classics (Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch) as my favorite piece of work that he has done.  I thought that Andre 3000 and “that guy from the Sopranos” (Vincent Pastore) played the role of Jake Green’s (Statham) allies very well, and Liota delivers a certainly memorable performance as the films villain Dorothy Macha.  All of the other parts for the most part are quite minor, as a large part of the dialogue is an internal monologue of Greens head as he tries to figure out the situation that he has found himself entwined in. While the film does wear itself thin at points (much like many of Ritchie’s pieces), the parts that are played are very consistent, and Statham plays the “Ritchie Role” as I like to call it, very well because, well, he Is very British.  The monologue idea seemed to work Quite well in my mind because there is really no better way to convey a sense of “what just happened” more than putting the viewer in the mind of the person whom that event just happened to.

Its hard to say whether or not I would recommend this movie, because Ritchie has a style that is very off-kilter from many other directors. The style and humor that he goes for may deter many people from watching, but I would suggest that you do try to get your way through this movie, because the jokes are more mainstream than in other Ritchie productions, and the twist at the end is something that a viewer would never really expect unless looking for it directly.

If you happen to like Revolver though after watching it, or are enthused to watch it after reading this review and enjoy it, I would highly recommend that you watch his other movies, mainly the two previously mentioned, Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch, and if you really enjoy those two, you could even delve deeper into Ritchies catalogue (the only other film of his that I have seen is Rock n’ Rolla which I can’t have an opinion on because I was VERY tired and was falling asleep throughout the movie).  I have done some delving with the Coen Brothers filmography (I still need to see The Hudsucker Proxy), and I can say that it is a very rewarding thing to see how the directing has changed throughout the films that they have made.

In summation, Revolver is definitely a movie that I would recommend you see. A Classic? Maybe Not, but a movie that you can watch and get some laughs with some close friends? Definitely. While the movie (and most of Ritchie’s works) appeal mostly to those of us with the XY chromosome, laughs can also be had by the ladies, which makes this a very solid Comedy/Drama/Action film.

Revolver: 4 out of 5

Evolution 2010

Now although most of the time when I am involved with videogames it is watching, when I do play some, my favorite type is the fighting game genre, and a game that I have been getting into recently is called Super Street Fighter IV (my review for this game will go like this: If you want to put in time to get good, I believe that SSFIV is one of if not the best fighting games out on the market today).  Since I just started getting into this community, I have started to learn the in’s and out’s; who my favorite live streams are, who the best players are, and when the biggest tournaments are held.

One of the biggest fighting game tournaments in the world took place this weekend, Evolution 2010 (think the superbowl, stanley cup, or NBA finals of fighting game tournaments) in Las Vegas.  Now while I was gone for a large portion of the live stream of the event, tonight was the grand finals for SSFIV, and I was at home with no plans in site!  And while the winner of the multi-thousand person tournament was no real surprise, watching these tournaments and assimilating into a culture was a Very rewarding experience.

If there was one event that could sum up the “shock factor” of this years EVO, it would no doubt be that the top 8 was absent of what many call the best player in the United States, one Justin Wong.  In fact, rewind time to a week ago, and almost any avid fan would have predicted the final to be Justin Wong vs. Daigo Umehara (Daigo widely considered the best player in Japan, and some may say the world, and who in fact did win the tournament).  Instead, Wong was knocked out early by a fairly unknown player, to the chagrin of many American fans who believe the only way to defeat Daigo is through “our prodigal son” Justin Wong.  What is even more interesting is that Wong and Umehara have a severe dislike for each other, which strangely creates a Rocky Balboa-Ivan Drago type of relationship that fans hungry for action just seem to eat up.

The announcing throughout the whole weekend I thought was actually pretty decent.  There were two main announcers sat through Friday and Saturdays events, which included all the other fighting games and SSFIV pre-lims.  The other games that were shown at the show were:

-Tatsunoko vs. Capcom (a cross-up game that had Capcom and Tatsunko (a japanese roster) bashing it out),

-Melty Blood (an extremely Japanese, lesser-known fighter for the PS2),

-Tekken 6 (probably the second most “well-known” at the tournament),

-Marvel vs. Capcom 2 (another cross-up, this time with Marvel superheroes fighting capcoms roster of fighters), and

-Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix (a downloadable mouthful that was one of the predecessors to SSFIV)

Nonetheless, the announcers had Fairly good knowledge of fighting games as a whole, and seemed to commentate as well as any of the stream commentators that for the most part commentate for just one game (while these commentators did multiple).  Once Sunday evening rolled around though, these commentators were nixed in favor of Seth Killian (the community manager at Capcom and whom Seth the character is named after), and Adam Sessler (of G4 fame, who was just there because EVO had a deal with G4, and they had to send someone because in late July, G4 will replay the finals, and they need a spokesperson).  Seth has narrated and watched many of the big matches, so his commentary was pretty on par, but for obvious reasons Sessler was kind of out of it, not really understanding the game too much, which I didn’t have a real big problem with, although most people did.  What I have to say to those people though is that while Sessler may have not been the most knowledgeable, if you watched the stream, you could hear that he was Trying to learn, and he was interested in the match, even though his technical skills and terms may not have been the best.

And after viewing the draft of all of the words I have written thus far, I think that I shall end my post here. To summarize my article in less words, I was very impressed with EVO, and I can’t wait to see what the fighting game community has up its sleeve next.

Enjoy your screen-time, my friends!

Saw VI Review

Let me preface this review by saying that every time I tell people that I watch the Saw movies, they always ask the same question…why?  I hope to answer this question in this review in addition to giving a review of the movie itself.

Saw movies have become a staple in American society, but I always wonder how they have become so.  Every year for the past 7 years, they have released a new Saw movie around Halloween time, but whenever I show excitement, my friends show disgust towards me, asking why and how I could like a movie that, and i’ll be completely honest here, makes its fame off of the incredibly gory and sadistic ways that people are killed.

Just to clear the waters, this fact is not the reason that I enjoy watching these movies, now back to my review!

The reason that I initially got interested in the Saw movies was, just like everyone else, the suspense factor; how these two people trapped in a room could get out, and whether they had the “will to appreciate life”.  But unlike many others who watched the films in this series, my devotion towards figuring out the entangling story lines and pseudo complex characters never wavered.  I knew that although I may have to muscle my way through a gory scene or two, that would be made up by the oddly interesting sense of suspense that the movies gave off.  If I could make it through a few scenes where people get brutally dismembered, I would in turn be rewarded with the end-of-the-movie twist, that Saw movies have always been good at.  I say good in the fact that most of these twists come out of left field, something that the viewer never suspects, but makes them wanting to come back for more.

Just like the others in the series, Saw VI captures this suspense and tension in its traditionally, blood-filled way.  Instead of having the tension of a cop investigating the areas where jigsaw was, this one captured tension by taking the viewers knowledge of who the new Jigsaw Killer was, and placing him right in the area where he can do the most damage, the center of the police agency of this nameless town.  The tension culminates in a scene where the department is unscrambling one of the tapes from jigsaw, as the one who recorded that message stands in the room with the two police chiefs in charge of the jigsaw case.  Lets just say that once they finish decoding the message, and find out who it is, things don’t go too well for the chiefs…

But now that I have given the reasons why I like saw, I have to inform you, my loyal viewers, that from a cinematography point of view, this movie is pretty bad.  Besides Tobin Bell, most of the acting is pretty dry and for a large part of the movie just consists of people screaming as they realize they have woken up in a Jigsaw trap.  For example, Agent Hoffman after the title card is listening to one of the tapes of the “tests” (the one that is shown at the very beginning of the movie), and after they become cognizant, the audio he is listening to is nothing more than two people screaming as they have to “sacrifice” the most amount of flesh.  Unsurprisingly, there are no really big name actors in this film, and as hard as it is to admit it as a Saw fan, I can see why.

My recommendation?  If you haven’t seen the others, start with Saw 1, and see if its the type of movie that you would enjoy.  Around Saw 3 or so, the traps start getting more and more sadistic, so if you can stomach your way through the first 5, and enjoy them, I think that Saw VI is a good rental, but other than that, I would skip this one.

Saw VI: 2 out of 5