3 Short Paragraphs: Jane Eyre

2011, Cary Fukunaga (new director that did 2009's Sin Nombre) -- cinema

I admit, I have a weakness for the Bronte/Austen stories commonly considered period chick-flicks. Marmy knows them like the back of her hand so she helps me keep up with the often complex plots while I spend as much time watching the costuming and setting. This is the third version of Jane Eyre I have seen, the previous two being the 1997 A&E version and the 1996 Zeffirelli one. I have probably seen bits of the 1983 Timothy Dalton version as well. I will also admit that I never understood the "romance" of a plain woman falling for a domineering angry man. Sounds more like the makings of a made-for-tv american south crime drama to me.

But this one is grand in a way I didn't find the others. Jane is played by Mia Wasikowska (Alice in Wonderland) and Mr. Rochester by Michael Fassbender (X-Men: First Class), and both lend some weight I hadn't seen before. The way Fukunaga laid out a scene also helped, as the bleakness and structure of the landscape really drew me in. It was in that landscape that let me believe the isolated love that grows between the two, two people who need the other even if culture and circumstance really don't like the idea.

I was also glad the "horror" aspect was played down. I am sure that in a world of Poe, the scary elements of the crazy lady in the attic could be seen as gothic horror. But here we see it depicted in the tragedy of a man overwhelmed by the weight of mental illness and obligation. We also see the battle of obligation vs. the self-serving nature of wealth. I have no idea how authentic this is to the book but it rang more true than previous versions did, for me.

3 Short Paragraphs: Mega Shark vs Crocosaurus

2010, Christopher Ray (honestly, do we care who directs these direct-to-video or direct-to-SyFy crap fests?) -- download

And then there is bad-B or C- or F or whatever the bottom of the scale is for bad movies. At least this one is done in the attempted feel of doing a bad movie for the sake of a bad movie, ala MegaShark vs Giant Octopus. But can I actually state out loud that some people do terrible movies on-purpose but still do them badly? This whole sub-genre discussion of being a bad movie but maybe "getting it" that the movie is terrible confounds me in the way that Uwe Boll still continues to make money. Do I love it, do I hate it, do I love to hate it?

This movie pales next to the terrible movie from which it may be considered a sequel. The first had bad special effects, terrible acting, incredibly cheap sets and an 80s pop singer (Debra Gibson) as scientist. This one has even worse special effects, terrible acting, a 90s TV star (Jaleel White aka Steve Urkel) and so much re-used footage the entire movie may have actually been about 20 minutes. But it lacks the glee the other had. You aren't giggling at how bad it is but sighing and rolling your eyes.

While I enjoyed its emergence, I hope the Z-grade creature feature mini-genre fades away. Bad movies going straight to DVD/OnDemand/NetFlix/NextParadigm are something that will always be with us but it's a waste of energy and money doing a bad attempt at a bad movie. And we will probably run out of washed up ex-stars; hell, even C Thomas Howell has successfully come back with a career.

3 Short Paragraphs: Drive Angry

2011, Patrick Lussier (actually the guy who did Dracula 2000) -- download

This movie, another in the long line of B- movies being made to pay off Nic's tax debt, was just made to have pithy quips made about it. It has the plot of a bad rip-off of Ghost Rider, Nic's usual over the top acting and the feel of a grindhouse flick. But by the gawds, I loved it.

No, it's not good good. It's schlocky B good, in the way that it was made with a love for the grindhouse genre without going the way of the tongue in cheek homage. It has violence and fan-service and gore and wild stunts that would have 17 year old boys yelling out loud in the theatre. But it had some stylish aspects that made me smile with glee.

William Fichtner as The Accountant, no not The Devil but big D's accountant, is played perfectly. The character is not done with campy evil but with an amoral (as in morality is not part of his makeup) sense of responsibility. Cage's Milton (really, will any B movie fans catch the reference?) escaped from Hell and while it may have been for admirable reasons, he still did what he should not have been able to do. And surprisingly, Billy Burke's evil devil worshiping Jonah King is just a bystander in the connection between The Accountant and Milton when he probably feels he is the true focus. The idea that Big D would actually not care much for baby murderers, considering he was setup to punish them, is another thoughtful aspect that made me smile.

Don't You Forget About Me/Weird Science

2009, Matt Austin/1984, John Hughes - netflix

The more time marches on, the more lionized the teen comedies/dramas of John Hughes become. If there's a singularly defining genre of film that epitomizes the '80's it's the teen flick, and if there's a single creator that epitomizes the genre, it's John Hughes (the debate as to which actor/actress epitomizes the genre is up for debate... I've narrowed to Molly Ringwald, John Cusack or Patrick Dempsey). But Hughes' work at the time met with much criticism and after 1991's lambasted Curly Sue, Hughes effectively retired, vacating Hollywood, only to offer an occasional script for primarily kiddie flicks.

The documentary Don't You Forget About Me serves as a love letter to Hughes, a retrospective on his teen genre works, full of talking heads of his film's stars, famous fans and film critics doling out their perceptions of the man they knew, either directly or through his work, all little glimmers of insight into who he was. Outside of the talking heads, there's interviews with "modern" teens discussing how Hughes films hold up compared to films of today, as well the main thread is story of the documentary's creators, four Canadian kids who are in search of the reclusive Hughes, in hopes of getting some form of interview with him at best, and just a statement from him at worst.

Produced in 2006, three years before Hughes passed away, the film's narrow focus solely on Hughes teen genre work doesn't give much in the way of insight into the man, his youth or what drove him to hollywood, what came before or what came after. The film shies away from discussing his biggest successes (Home Alone, National Lampoon's Vacation) and barely touches on his failures, noting only that even his now legendary teen films weren't all so widely welcomed by critics at the time (highlighting a Gene Siskel review panning Ferris Beuller's Day Off). The tone of the film is meant to be uplifting, but invariably the lack of details the creators or their talking heads have on the man, the true lack of insight they provide, makes it frustrating viewing.

The final act of the film, where the quartet of filmmakers find Hughes house through Scooby Doo-style detective work, and plan their approach on his house is exciting but also quite uncomfortable. As uneasy, thoughtful and patently Canadian as they are with the thought of invading Hughes' space, they still approach, and the mystery of will they or won't they get their big finish is a taut one, but ultimately they are unrewarded, as is the audience. There's no big finish, which is probably the one thing that could have redeemed the film. The Hughes of this film is presented as an enigma, by and large, and I'm not sure that's the case. Perhaps a more recognized filmmaker, or a studio putting some money behind a documentary could pull off a more complete picture of the man, rather than a soft-focussed, gushing, yet ultimately unsatisfying and uninformative tribute.

What the documentary does effectively, however, is inspire the viewer to approach Hughes' works again, or at least the works they're unfamiliar with... well, that and a google search of John Hughes just to find out something more about the man... checking out his wiki and IMDB pages provides in quick doeses surprisingly more information than the documentary feature.

My first trajectory of approach was to see what was available streaming on Netflix Canada. Weird Science was the first to pop up that I hadn't seen (at first mistaking Real Genius for it). Cuing it up, I got roughly 15 minutes in before I had seen enough and new exactly where it was heading. The teen nerd fantasy is a well explored concept by now in popular culture, but I'm sure it was just as patronizing in 1985.

What's most surprising about Weird Science is how awful it is, as science fiction, as comedy, as a teen flick, it's patronizing and ridiculous. That it occurred as the middle film of Hughes' teen movie oeuvre is equally surprising. That two ostracized teenage boys manage to somehow create a whole woman through their computer (and a lightning strike) is far fetched, but not the key problem with the film's conceit. The elaborate but transparently ludicrous "hacking" sequence leading to the creation of "Lisa" is overlong and, at times, annoying. That this is quickly followed up with the abusive older brother (Bill Paxton no less) and white kids in a jazz bar (see also Adventures In Babysitting) cliches had me cringing, and it doesn't get any better for the hour that follows.

The basic conceit of the film, about an older woman taking two awkward, fully inexperienced teenaged boys and transforming them into semi-confident, semi-inexperienced teenaged boys is mirrored in the plot of Y Tu Mama Tambien some years later, but stripped of everything ridiculous and turned into an evocative drama about growing up, which is what Hughes films are generally known for.

Weird Science is, I'll bluntly reiterate, terrible, and, if it were at all possible, should be excised from Hughes' catalog (then again, much of Hughes' output in the 90's, primarily kiddie focused screenplays do not reflect well upon him eithere...Dennis the Menace?). It certainly shouldn't be brought up in the same breath as Ferris Beuller or Some Kind of Wonderful. It's flagrant nerd wish fulfillment, lacking almost any spark of the natural teen Hughes would become known for.

3 Short Paragraphs: Black Death

2010, Christopher Smith (a british director of B horror movies you see sitting on the shelf) -- download

Yes, as a D&D player I tend to rent/download/go see most movies that have swords in them be they with sandals, sorcerers or crusaders. Those not made by the SyFy Channel tend to be a bit better and those of European creation creep even higher up. And you would think that adding Sean Bean to the mix would raise it even further? Nah, you just know he's going to die a horrible death.

This one is the dark ages and probably rode on the coat tails of Season of the Witch, hoping to cash in on DVD rentals the way all those similar plot, kind of similar named, straight to DVD movies do. So it's about men with swords who work for the Church and hunt down witch type folks who are accused of bringing the plague. This time our ensemble band of witch-hunters who travel with quite the impressive piece of witch torturing machinery, is heading out to find a village that is said to have avoided all plague. No disease. So it must be witch craft.

We find that the village, through a liberal dose of clean living, isolation and herbal medicines have managed to avoid catching or transmitting the disease. Oh, and they are also led by an evil witch. She's an evil witch that has the good intentions of the village in mind but she's evil none the less. Take my word for it, no misunderstood Wicca here. And she kills Sean Bean horribly.

3 Short Paragraphs: Source Code

2011, Duncan Jones (he really doesn't look like a zowie bowie) -- cinema/download

I love time travel flicks. I am up on many of the current genre themes of time travel and "get" most of the theoretical science behind them. They still often make my head go ow-ow-ow. I do like multiple time streams better than the "step on a butterfly" concept as it allows you to ignore what could possibly go wrong. P.S. Doesn't it actually take some effort to step on a butterfly? They usually fly away, right?

Now, this is tres spoilerish but I noticed something in this viewing that may have altered the entire movie for me, as in, it made it not a time travel movie. Dr. Rutledge (Jeffrey Wright) has already said that the source-code is not time travel, more "time re-assignment." In other words, he's not affecting the time stream / period, more his perception of it. Its essentially a massive simulation of the events based on the living last 8 minutes they have access to. No travelling at all, just an alternate view into the past.

There is a key point where Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaal) is begging Goodwin (Vera Farmiga) to let him go back into the source-code one more time so he can save the people on the train. She knows it doesn't work that way but also knows that this can be his only reward for a job well done -- he's going to be reset for the next event. At that exact point, Stevens goes from sitting on the floor of the "pod" to back in the harness. Poof. That is the point of shift. That scene is the magical infinite second in a dying man's brain. His own mind builds a reality where he changes time, saves the girl and lives happily ever after. Then, how does Goodwin get the text message? She doesn't; it's just the Happily Ever After Simulation (his last thoughts enhanced by the source-code) showing us what his perfect reality is. Sean Fentress really died and there is no conversation about the moral ambiguities of hijacking his life, after saving it. Stevens is switched off. Its kind of depressing, not Happily Ever After at all.

Bonus Paragraph: Bleah, I think I will go back in my own source-code and just see this as a time-travel movie.

3 Short Paragraphs: Knight and Day

2010, James Mangold (mixed bag director of Kate & Leopold, Walk the Line and 3:10 to Yuma) -- download

Yes, I downloaded this along with the previous title, Killers. They were running in the theatre at the same time so I was under the impression that they were both about assassins trying to give up the life for the love of a beautiful blonde. And that they were both light hearted rom-coms. I was only partially right about it with this one. He is not an assassin, per se, but more of a multi-talented government agent that happens to include killing in that list. And he doesn't want to leave the business because he meets a Beauty but actually just wants to complete his mission. But yes, the Beauty is really really uncomfortable with his killing everyone around them. But he cannot help it, they are Bad Guys.

Its still a rom-com, to a degree, but its more a spy-action flick, as Tom Cruise does really well. Its so much a bigger movie than the other, visiting so many locales and locations that its mucho eye-candy. Its not in suburbia, thankgawdz. This movie wanted to be James Bond light where the settings are larger than life and the action is over the top. It was also a bit darker, with the Beauty showing a true discomfort in the number of deaths that are happening around her. Until she understands the Killer now Knight's place in the plot, where she then joins in on the caper.

Once it was established we didn't have any moral ambiguities about the killing in the movie, the body count could rise without worry. Blowed up, shot, kicked, cracked and crushed -- Killer...er Knight Cruise really does impress us with how capable this guy is, but without the grim attitude of his other popular government agent. But I tossed in my own worries for the mooks. I know mooks are supposed to be killed but what if they are just being drawn into the fight due to betrayal? Its not their fault they think the Killer is a villain when he is, in fact, the Knight. But they die in droves. And I feel sorry for them. Someone has to.

3 Short Paragraphs: Killers

2010, Robert Luketic (heh. even the poster for his other Heigl flick looks the same) -- download

I am mixed up in how I feel about light hearted movies about assassins. I loved the epitome of the mini-genre, Grosse Pointe Blank, but in general the topic makes me uncomfortable. How can you be light-hearted about someone who kills for money? And how the fuck can it be a rom-com? The only Hollywood trope seems to be having the killer suffer from burnout and then fall in love. Only love can rescue you from the difficult life of killing people.

Like many movies, this one has three acts. Act One, Killer meets Beautiful Blonde. Act Two, Killer and Blonde get married and Live in Suburbia. Act Three; Suburbia tries to Kill Them. This movie gets around the whole messy part where our Killer might do something messy like "his job" and moves him to suburbia almost immediately. And he makes a killing in the construction business (hyuk hyuk) only to be discovered and attacked by a near-endless stream of not-neighbors trying to kill him. So, it's OK if he kills them in tons of creative, entertaining ways -- they were trying to kill him first. It doesn't matter if these were his neighbors and friends and coworkers for the better part of a year. Groan.

Black Comedies do it best when they handle this subject because we will giggle with guilt at the predicaments our Killer is mixed up in. But I guess today's audience wants to just ignore morality of the situation and just be entertained by beautiful people killing not so beautiful people... and one very beautiful Katheryn Winnick. The Beauty (Heigl not Winnick, in case I lost you there) is supposed to represent our conflicted nature in watching the movie but considering her arguments are more about how the whole Killer thing is inconvenient, I am just not won over.

3 paragraphs on: This Film Is Not Yet Rated

2006, Kirby Dick

There are a lot bigger problems in the world than the fact that there's a shadowy organization with dubious ethics that controls the ratings system of films distributed in America. But then, once you realize that this seemingly minor problem actually escalates sharply into a damaging impact on society at-large and suddenly this seemingly frivolous documentary gains real weight.

The fact of the matter is, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) is the sole ratings board for the American film industry and it is financed by the major studios that present their films to it. The major studios are owned by larger conglomerates that have, within their holdings, the majority of network, cable and satellite television channels, magazines, newspapers and other media, which means that in this media oligopoly the MPAA rating is essential in order to advertise. This means a director or production company is forced to submit their film to the (rather arbitrary and unregulated) review process or else try and find alternate channels to distribute and promote their movie. Beyond that injustice, the film identifies how the MPAA, contrary to most other ratings boards around the world, are far more lenient on violence than sex (further how straight sex is more forgiven than gay sex) thrusts a dangerous message upon the youth of the country, a war-not-love message, if you will. Coupled with how the American military industrial complex (of which the aforementioned conglomerates often have a hand in) has some incredible sway on the content of the films that are made portraying it, there's more than one agenda at play.

Kirby Dick's documentary attempts to pull back the curtain on the MPAA, exposing the identities of various film reviewers, the biases that they have, the influence that comes from above them, and the self-serving attitude of the organization that isn't as altruistic as they would appear to be. Dick relays the tactics of this rather unseemly and unjust institution in both an informative and entertaining manner, with a healthy sense of humour, animated sidebars, and some clever editing of scandalous scenes (most sex-related). In the film's masterstroke, Dick hires a private investigator to find out as much dirt on the organization as possible, notably the people behind the scenes who review the films, and later the people who serve on the appeals board. The investigative process is actually quite thrilling, and turns the documentary into a quasi-genre picture. In the final act, Dick submits a cut of the film to the MPAA for review documenting the process and its bizarre rules of conduct and order. Entertaining and Infuriating.

The documentary is

3 Short Paragraphs: I Am Number Four

2011, DJ Caruso (mostly a TV guy but he did do The Salton Sea, which was great!) -- download

Not sure why I downloaded this one. Maybe it was my interest to see what else in the teen genre fiction scene was like -- like Hunger Games, hate Twilight. Maybe it was because it was about pretty teenagers with super powers. Maybe I was interested in a CGI night. Came at it with little expectations and got a little more than I asked for.

For one, I got Timothy Olyphant as the mentor/soldier/protector of our titular (heh, tit) alien Prince John. He carries the weight well and lends some credibility to this whining refugee from a War in Space. Too bad he has to fill in the Sacrifice Trope so soon though, thus allowing the "hero" to understand his place in things. Secondly, we get Kevin Durand as the alien badguy. Weird alien badguys that do a bad job of disguising themselves as Keanu-Neo style aliens out to kill sequentially numbered targets. Yeah, as long as you were long down in the number list you could probably just hide on earth for quite a few leisurely years. You don't have to join the battle like the sexy Number Six does. We don't ever know what happens to Number Five. Oh yeah, he's just biding his time.

These kind of scifi movies don't really pay attention to the science part of the genre. Lil doggies can transmogrify into giant bear-ankylosaurus and back again without the worries of mass. Like X-Men, aliens can transmit energy without an ample source -- oh they get tired but just a little. Still, they are a fun romp blowing things up real good.

3 Short Paragraphs: Red Riding Hood

2011, Catherine Hardwicke (this is why I hate the hollywood demolition of good directors; she starts with Thirteen and Lords of Dogtown and now did Twilight and this pile of wolf poo?) -- download

Oooops, I let the big bad wolf out of the bag. Yeah, it sucked. Or bit, if I am to get my metaphors straight.

So, stylistically Twilight wasn't too bad. The story sucks but that's not her fault. Sparkly vampires are not her fault. But this one.... this one's on her. Well, maybe. Again, this one stylistically is pretty nice. The fabricated village in the imaginary forest of some eastern European country is imaginatively designed. The fairy tale atmosphere is both fantastical and eerie at the same time, even if they forget to explain the sword length thorns growing on all the trees. I would like to see the production behind-the-scenes.

But that doesn't make up for bad acting, terrible plot, an inserted 21st century bumping-n-grinding rave and a very muddled love story. Gah, I find myself dancing from stinky scene to stinky scene but not really able to nail down anything i liked about it. OK, how about how I found myself being distracting from actually watching it by identifying the various actors from the Brotherhood of Canadian SciFi actors? Daniel Jackson? Colonel Tigh? Some guy from Smallville? Hardball from BSG ? Granny Goodness? If Gary Oldman's witch-hunter had Robert Carlyse cast instead, it would have been perfect. And thusly, I found myself thinking f it had been an hour episode from one of the series to which they contribute, it may have been forgiven. But not this.

3 paragraphs (are almost 3 too many) on Crank 2

2010, Neveldine/Taylor - Netflix

Although I've never seen them or heard them speak, judging their films I imagine the Crank film series directors to be hyperactive 15-year-old boys, constantly sucking back Mountain Dew for a perpetual sugar high, sitting around writing their screenplay by imagining the most fucked-up (to a 15-year-old), coolest (to a 15-year-old), provocative (to a 15-year-old) scenarios they can come up with and then somehow working them all together into, well, not so much a story, but a partly cohesive sequence of events. Every single frame of Crank 2 (and if I recall correctly - which I don't because I've repressed that horrible experience like it was some form of abuse perpetrated upon me - the first Crank) is meant to be "provocative" or "rad" or "fucked up". Every. Single. Scene. And they are... to a 15-year-old.

From that first paragraph you can likely intone that I hate, hate, hated the first Crank film. So why, oh, why would I watch the second? After listening to the fantastic podcasting team from "How Did This Get Made" discuss the film it wasn't so much that I had to see it, but rather that I would challenge myself to see it. And boy, it was a challenge. I wasn't offended by the content of the film, nor by all the immature titillation, the juvenile gross-out humour, the excessive violence... what offended me was the films insistence that this was all somehow entertaining. Crank 2 is a tedious comedy pretending to be an action film, but it's humour levels reside around the "Not Another Teen Movie" range, which is pretty much the bottom of the barrel. There's no craft to it, though Jason Statham is, I have to admit, incredibly game, and incredibly giving, as is Amy Smart, both delivering their lines in a subdued manner amidst every other actor hamming it up to the ultimate excess. If these kinds of over-the-top action-comedies are to work, the actors need to ground their roles to juxtapose with the visual mayhem.

But even then, I'm not sure Crank 2 would succeed. It's as juvenile a fantasy as they come, edited as if the film itself had ADD, joined by a pulsating thrash soundtrack that combines metal, freeform jazz and dj elements, none of it effectively. It's quite possibly, next to the first Crank film, one of the worst a-list features I've ever seen, and yet I did watch the whole thing, almost like I had to see what they did next, all the while I could feel brain cells decaying as a result. It's not art, and it's really not entertaining, it's got no style, it's got precious little in the way of characterization or story to speak of... it's just a blitzkrieg of images and ideas loosely threaded together, so I guess in that respect it is indeed something. But I liken Crank 2 to the drawings produced by some askew teenagers, doodling vicious landscapes of skulls, body parts, breasts and bullets all over the backs of their binders and the insides of their textbooks, a seemingly endless morass of grim images tempered by the cartoonish presentation and a lack of any real style or skill from their creators. It would be impressive if it weren't so awful.

3 paragraphs on The Anderson Tapes

1971, Sidney Lumet -- Netflix

(spoilers ahead)

The general rhythm of a heist movie is such: getting the band together; plotting out and planning for the heist; enacting the plan; overcoming the obstacles; getting away with it (if it's a lighthearted heist romp) or things going completely sour (if it's more of a heist drama). The odd thing about the Anderson Tapes is it's in the lighthearted vein, but it ends the tragic way. In a genre that's continued to play into its tropes, it's interesting to find a film from 1971 that so casually and unceremoniously played with the convention.

Sean Connery is Duke Anderson, the Anderson in question, a recent ex-con freed after a 10 year conviction for robbery, who wastes no time getting right back into the swing of things upon release. His old girlfriend Ingrid has spent the intervening years with a series of sugar daddies who take care of her, including buying her a swanky New York apartment overlooking Central Park. Anderson has it in mind to rob all the other well-to-do tenants in one shot and starts getting a gang together. The "tapes" in question refer to all the different monitoring equipment that various law enforcement agencies (the BNDD (the old FDA), FBI, IRS and a private investigator) have tracking not Anderson himself but the people he's associating with. There's a heavy emphasis on "big brother" which is rather foretelling in a film from '71, and it provides the film a modern relevance. I'm unsure if, given the time period, the film was concerned with how invasive monitoring technology can be on our lives, or some sort of polemic on how the good guys are watching, or if there was some larger commentary on the way increasingly prevalent communications technology impacted then-modern life.

Lumet splices into scenes of Anderson with his gang or his girl with shots of cameras, monitors, tape reels, microphones and scenes with the people operating them or reporting to their higher ups, providing a background group of stories more or less irrelevant to the rest of the plot, but otherwise building the environment Lument wants. Unfortunately these shots or scenes are punctuated by a grating, invasive score from Quincey Jones, who was, I believe in an attempt to mirror the film, using advanced-for-the-time electronic sound generating equipment in his music. The script unsuccessfully alternates between bouncy and heavy, and neither the score nor editing help distinguish the two. All the cast for that matter equally seem to have trouble negotiating that line, though Connery is given a couple of great speeches inciting anarchy which he delivers as if hes a classic bullshitter bu unconvinced himself. It's an interesting timepiece that has themes that have aged far better than could be expected, but what didn't work for it in 1971 doesn't work any better 40 years later.

3 paragraphs on Eyes of Laura Mars

1978, Irvin Kirshner -- Netflix

At one point I was a massive John Carpenter fan (still like the guy and much of his work but I don't see all of his work with such rose-colored glasses anymore) but I knew there were a few gaps in my Carpenter-ouvre viewing. I had heard of this TV movie he'd written starring a prominent '70's actress, with a title that had something to do with vision. Once I became aware of Eyes of Laura Mars, starring Faye Dunaway, I was convinced that was it. About 10 minutes into the film, with some not-at-all disguised nudity in pictures in the background and casual swearing in the dialogue, as well as Irvin Kirshner (he of Empire Strikes Back infamy) attached as director (Kirshner slumming it for TV? Couldn't be) I became confused. To the Wikipedia machine. Oh... the John Carpenter written-AND-directed-for-TV film was "Someone is Watching Me" starring Lauren Hutten. You can see how I made that mistake can't you?

(definite spoilers below)

Anyway, Eyes of Laura Mars finds Dunaway as the titular character, a preeminent photographer, successful in both the fashion and artistic communities, with a penchant for staging provocative set pieces involving nudity and death... you know, as a reflection of our yadda yadda blah blah blah. But at the height of her success Laura's models, associates and friends start getting murdered, and somehow Laura is witnessing the murders telepathically. She confides in Lieutenant John Neville (a shockingly young Tommy Lee Jones) her visions, and he shows her some photos of old murder cases which resemble some of her photographs. Is she just psychically connected to death or is she connected to a single murderer? As more of her acquaintances and friends are killed, and her life is threatened more than once, her and Neville fall in love. Despite any palpable chemistry between them, each proclaims an uncontrollable attraction to the other, which basically telegraphs the end of the film, where it's reveal that the murderer is... John Neville.

The film is an Americanization of the Italian gaillo horror/suspense/thriller genre made popular by directors like Dario Argento, Lucio Fulci and Mario Bava. Kirshner and Carpenter do a remarkable job capturing the feel of that style of film (anyone who has compared Carpenter's score for Halloween to that from Argento's Deep Red will know he's quite familiar with the genre), emphasizing the style as much as the story, and sustaining an intensity even in scenes that should not be so intense. It should have been a terrific thriller, and it is, save for the fact that the ending revelation is so mind-bogglingly dumb. Neville's reveal that he has a split personality disorder, the hokey explanation for the origins of it, and the thoroughly overacted confrontation between the two leads basically threw the entire film under a bus, or jabbed an ice pick in its eye, if you will.

3 Short Paragraphs: The Adjustment Bureau

2011, George Nolfi (directorial debut but writer of a few thrillers like Oceans 12 and The Bourne Ultimatum) -- cinema

I like PK Dick material. I like the paranoia and the focus on things being not quite as you expect them to be. TAB is exactly that, by plot and by point, where the world does not go as you expect because it just does but because a group of people influence things to go a certain way, by design. Break the 4th wall, take a peek behind the curtains or get a glimpse at the grand design and you will catch the attention of the Bureau. And if this is the way its been for quite some time then who are you to state it shouldn't be done that way? But isn't that what a protagonist is supposed to do?

David Norris (Matt Damon) wants to be in the US Senate and the Bureau wants him there too. But he meets Elise (Emily Blunt)... by chance. Chance is something the Bureau has trouble wrangling with because sometimes it just happens despite all the controls in those neat little moleskines of theirs. So, even though he is told that he is "destined for greatness" he decides he wants love too. Who doesn't? Or better yet, who shouldn't? So Norris breaks away from fate, knocks the hat off the mad men of the Bureau and chooses to confront the designer of it all.

This is where the movie took a "producers fiddling with the magic" turn for me. It should have gone dark. The fact that there was a plan in place, one set by a mysterious organization that wasn't beyond hurting the actors in the play to make sure it went the way it was supposed to go, tells me that upsetting their plans no matter how noble you appeared, would have dire consequences. But hollywood wants the nice guy to win, get the girl and live happy ever after. Oh yeah, and angels. Never read the original story but somehow I doubt there were angels in dark suits. Well, unless they also wore trench coats and liked U2.

3 paragraphs on Into The Night

1985, John Landis -- Netflix

It's remarkable to me how so many '80's films in the action genre took so little time or effort to create a believable established normal life for their protagonist. At the start of Into the Night we meet Ed Okin (Jeff Goldblum) who has insomnia, hates his mundane job, feels disconnected from his wife (whom he soon discovers is cheating on him), and has a general sense of malaise. This is all rather quickly dispensed and there's never any sense of connection established between Ed and the world he lives in. I get that this is the point, in part, but as a result the audience never connects to Ed. So when Ed is thrust in the middle of a murder/kidnapping gone wrong, and he finds the drop-dead gorgeous Diana (a radiant Michelle Pfeiffer) in the passenger seat of his car, Ed just kind of rolls with it. He asks questions that get him little to no answers, and he never really pushes for any. He's essentially just tagging along for the ride on the Diana crazy train. Ultimately the story wouldn't be all that much different without him.

The stolen jewels caper Diana finds herself in, as well, is ridiculously underdeveloped (or perhaps ridiculously overdeveloped). Diana knows she's in danger, but she's not sure who from. Meanwhile the Iranians who are after her, a bumbling quartet let by John Landis as head stooge, seem to be one step behind her every way, with no real logic as to how they found themselves there. Things only get more convoluted with the introduction of David Bowie as a ruthless assassin working for a Frenchman also after the jewels. Like any odd-man-in caper, Ed is thrust from one dangerous situation to another which he handles with sleepless indifference. But this isn't Insomnia, you rarely get the sense that Ed all that tired, instead he just seems struck with Goldblum-itis.

Landis was trying, and trying hard, to make a big-time romantic-action-comedy romp, full of nudity, violence, and sight gags but the plentiful gaps in logic keep it from succeeding, despite some likeable characters and a few fun set pieces. The film also is too inside-Hollywood at times, an elaborate scene on a film set provides a handful of groan inducing gags, meanwhile, in a fun-but-distracting bit of casting, many of the film's extras are played by Landis' behind the scenes buddies like David Cronenberg, Amy Heckerling, Rick Baker and Jim Henson. Also dragging the film down is a painfully '80's "contemporary" score from B.B. King, one of those atrocious phases where a great musician tries desperately to have is music be relevant to a then-modern audience by including whatever the music trends of the day were. Yet, the film is not unlikeable, it's certainly not unwatchable (Landis was clearly in love with Pfeiffer as there's not a single shot she doesn't look fantastic in), and it's even somewhat entertaining, it's just that it's not very good.

3 paragraphs on Cyrus

2010, Mark and Jay Duplass -- Netflix

Cyrus teeters the line so finely between comedy and drama, that to some it will seem fully one or the other. I see it as a comedy full stop, but I can easily see how someone would find no humour in it at all. Cyrus isn't a dark comedy, in the traditional sense, but it is an emotional comedy, one where the characters leave everything out on the table to be cared for or abused by one another, and there is much caring and much abuse.

John C. Reilley is John, a freelance editor and long-time divorcee who has given up on life. His ex-wife, played by Catherine Keener, is still his best friend, which describes just how sad a state he's in. She forces him out to a house party to hopefully meet someone, which at one time was his element, but now he's just another awkward loser. Yet he does manage to have an impact on Molly (Marisa Tomei), to whom he quickly lays his heart bare, and she embraces it fully, but she's less than forthcoming with him. John, in a fit of curiosity follows Molly home, where he has an encounter with Molly's son, Cyrus (Jonah Hill). Cyrus is obviously intelligent, but reclusive, socially awkward, and makes John feel uneasy. Molly and Cyrus have an uncomfortably close relationship, a she homeschooled him entirely and he attended college through on-line courses. They have their traditions and routines which John sees at best awkward and at worst wholly inappropriate. Soon John begins to suspect Cyrus is trying to interfere in his quickly blossoming relationship with Molly, and he's torn between fuelling his paranoia or giving the 22-year-old kid some leeway.

Hollywood relationship comedies have trained us to expect characters to be stupid, to blow things out of proportion, to see only what the script wants them to see to further the comedic conceit. Instead, Cyrus pulls back at every potential occurrence for misunderstanding and grounds the situation appropriately. While perhaps never achieving the laugh-out-loud hilarity some comedies seek, Cyrus still amuses consistently, all while coming from a very relatable core. When John tells Molly that he hates her son, as a stepfather myself, that's an immensely powerful scene, yet it's also surprisingly funny, and Molly's reaction is completely natural, sensible even. These aren't poorly drawn facsimiles of people, they behave in a way that seems like they've thought through the situations they are in and react and speak accordingly. More than I liked the film, I appreciated it a great deal for how it trusts its audience to connect and relate with its characters as real people.

3 paragraphs on Dinner For Schmucks

2010, Jay Roach -- Netflix

If Dinner For Schmucks was made in the 1970's it would have starred Peter Sellers in the Steve Carrell role (and perhaps Peter Sellers in the role of every schmuck at the party), and whomever the Paul Rudd of the 1970's was in the Paul Rudd role as the likable yet self-centered straight man. It would have been one of Sellers' lesser vehicles, but memorable for a climactic sequence of mayhem... much like The Party. Actually Sellers played the Paul Rudd role in The Party... Point being, it's the epitome of screwball comedy.

The film starts off with a ludicrous conceit - which would befit its origin as a French comedy - in which Rudd, in order to get a promotion, must attend a party with his boss and workplace contemporaries, everyone bringing with him or her an idiot, eccentric or oddball of the foremost order as entertainment. In the typical meet-cute of straight comedies, Rudd meets Carrell by way of running him over, and learns of his hobby, making intricate dioramas using dead (and stuffed) mice. The absurd situation doesn't sit well with Rudd's moral center, but he doesn't see any other options, which leads to contention between him and his girlfriend. Carrell's sudden infliction upon Rudd's life throws everything into increasingly absurd chaos and the odd couple buddy comedy runs through the lengthy middle act.

Of course, Rudd's moral fiber wins out once he begins to understand Carrell's eccentricity, and he sees a true kinship with Carrell just in time for the dinner party that seeks to poke fun at his new friend. The party is a surprisingly brief third act, but stacked with tremendously amusing performances from Carrell, Zach Galifianakis, and Chris O'Dowd as a blind swordsman. The party ends in anarchy, and the film resolves quite sweetly - befitting its origin as a French comedy. It's not a laugh-a-minute comedy, as there are more than a few stretches of pathos and, yes, a montage, and it's neither groundbreaking nor provocative. It is however solidly acted with plenty of charm that carries it almost solidly through it's 20-minutes-too-long 2 hour running time. For better or worse, it's an old-fashioned character-based scripted comedy, the kind that seem to be relegated to either kids movies or foreign films these days.

Fright Night

1985, Tom Holland -- Netflix

I've always mistaken Fright Night for Monster Squad, two classic horror movie homages produced in the 1980s, a time where I really wasn't old enough to watch horror movies (or at least was protected from watching them). Even now I still get them confused, to the point where I started watching Fright Night on Netflix for the first time a few weeks back and was wondering why Shane Black wasn't named as a writer in the opening credits. I know precious little about Monster Squad, and knew even less about Fright Night, except that many of my contemporaries had fond memories of both films, though I hesitate to call either a "cult classic".

Unlike the more garish horror films in the gore-splatter vein of Friday the 13th, Hellraiser and A Nighmare on Elm Street series, Fright Night has stayed pretty far under the radar for an 80's horror film. That it is, in part, a Hammer Horror homage and also somewhat lighthearted probably keep it from staying a relevant part of the discussion of horror films of the era. That, and, well, it's an awkward film.

The story in Fright Night is fundamentally sound: Charlie - a teenage kid who loves watching the weekend horror revue on TV while making out with his girlfriend (but never gets past first base) - believes his neighbour is a vampire and enlists the local horror revue TV host, faded 60's cinematic monster killer Peter Vincent, to help kill him. The first problem with the film, however, is there's no suspense since it is revealed rather quickly that the neighbour is indeed a vampire. Any ambiguity is dispensed with and the Rear Window parallel which plays out less-than-subtly in the opening 15 minutes is forgone.

The second act spins its wheels as it tries to recover from the loss of tension. While Chris Sarandon's smarmy vampire plays with a petrified Charlie like a cat with a mouse, Charlie's friends go to Peter Vincent - who initially rejected Charlie's request for help - in hopes that he can convince Charlie that vampires aren't real. Of course, by the end of the second act, Vincent has proved Charlie correct and is scared out of his mind. Charlie's friends, still skeptical are attacked by the vampire and Charlie must find it within himself to confront him.

The third act plays out better, if fully melodramatic in that '80's way, as things turn continue to turn sour and Charlie's enlisted hero, though less than heroic, musters the courage to join him in his fight. Roddy McDowell's turn as a faded cinematic monster killer is played nicely but his arc is poorly designed, especially the incongruity of him getting fired from his TV gig then appearing on it again at the resolution of the film (it's rather a pointless bit, but apparently necessary for him to be desperate enough to help Charlie out?)

The film uses classic vampire tricks that have pretty much forgotten in these days of the action-and-sex vampires like Buffy, Blade and True Blood. Turning into a bat, the ineffectiveness of crosses by unbelievers, and, as a major plot point, the psychic allure that vampires use to draw the opposite sex to them and control them.

While passably entertaining, it's tone, which wavers between mild spookiness and tongue-in-cheek homage, never solidifies and it never comfortably settles into a proper storytelling rhythm. There's no real scares, certainly not for a modern audience anyway, the character of "Evil Ed" is beyond annoying (his 2 minute "death" sequence is the apex, having that typical 80's "let's linger on the effects because we paid so much for them and boy aren't they impressive" feel, as he transitions from wolf to human form) and I was never actually clear on his relationship with Charlie. Chris Sarandon's vampire is more sleazy than scary, and once I realized that Charlie's girlfriend was Amanda Bearse - the shrewish neighbour on "Married With Children" - I couldn't see her as sexy and vamped-out.

I'm not usually one to encourage or endorse remakes, but there is a core here that could be better explored and exploited by a couple of rewrites and a more assured directorial hand. A remake is ready - starring Colin Farrell in the vampire role and former Doctor Who David Tennent as the Peter Vincent character - so it will be interesting to see whether it can improve upon the original or if it will fall into more modern traps of going too comedic or too dead-teenagery.

3 Grumpy Paragraphs: Thor

2011, Kenneth Branagh (really ken, didn't you learn anything from Frankenstein?!?) -- cinema

I really wanted to like it, really i did !! I wanted to be woo-ed by Asgard, be tossed into a magical-née-science world of gods and monsters. I wanted Ken to inject his Shakespearean background into the Asgardian world with costuming and set dressing and mannerisms. Instead I got, and I should have expected it, plastic-y action figure costumes (you can imagine Micronauts wearing these costumes; where WAS Acroyear??), set dressing out of computer and masserisms better left for Asgard 90210. I also wished I could have seen things better. I have to blame the small theatre screen and crappy projector (or maybe just my bad eye) but even the expected crisp CGI seemed washed out and fuzzy. So no eyecandy love for TBIT.

Midgard. I still don't get the whole rom-com aspect of Dr and the Demi-God. I like a chick-flick more than the next guy but really, was this the place for it? Hit him with a car do me wrong, hit him with a car twice, do you wrong!! If it wasn't for Kat Denning cracking me up, I would have snored through these scenes. And don't get me started on the buddy story.

Don't get me wrong. I wasn't expecting The Dark Knight. But I was at least expecting The Hulk. OK, really I wasn't expecting anything but hoping for a good flashy superhero romp. I don't even feel I got that. I would have just liked more weight to the aspect that these characters were godly, even being so much as the templates for whom the vikings worshiped. I guess I just wanted the story bigger, more impressive. I don't even have the energy to describe how much I liked some performances, like Elba and Stellan Skarsgård.

Bonus paragraph !! I'm Thor, I'm Thor !! You forgot your thaddle thilly.

(now read Graig's take)

3 paragraphs on Bridesmaids

2011, Paul Feig -- cinema

A lot has been made about the fact that Bridesmaids is largely comprised of an all-female cast, that it features - much like its Apatow-produced brethren - a fair amount of improvisation, and that it is, holy crap, funny. Not just funny. Hilarious. That it's co-written and starring Saturday Night Live's Kristen Wiig, whose SNL skits frequently border on the side of grating/annoying, isn't actually all that big of a surprise given her winning cameo/supporting performances in plenty of other Hollywood fare. She's capable of being subdued and relatable - an everywoman, if you will - without annoying voices or tirelessly repetitive gags.

Much has been made of Melissa McCarthy's breakout comedic performance, and she's (no pun intended, honest) larger-than-life to be sure, but Wiig is the actual breakout star, as she proves adept at being both the straight man and gag winner and carrying, rather effortlessly, a 2hr comedy feature. Of course she is surrounded by some great comedic talent, even if some, like Tim Heidecker and Maya Rudolph aren't really given much opportunity to show off. Though the women of the film are the spotlight, professional handsome boy Jon Hamm has a hilarious unbilled performance as Wiig's fuck buddy, and the IT Crowd's Chris O'Dowd has a fantastic role as Wiig's love interest.

The film works in many genres of comedy, from juvenile gross-out humour, to slapstick, romantic comedy, buddy comedy, absurdity, wordplay, sight gags, even a little vaudeville (in Wiig's "walk the line" routine), but all of it is in service of her character's emotional journey as she tries to reclaim her life after a failed business, failed marriage and a friendship that seems like it's slipping away from her. There's a heart at the core of all the hilarity, and there's never a moment where it feels lost. The Apatow-fed revival of the R-rated comedy thanks to 40-Year-Old Virgin has been a solid one, but this ranks easily among the best of this new generation.