John Carpenter's Halloween

John Carpenter's Halloween is one of, if not THE, most famous horror movies of all time.

I have to admit, it is an interesting watch. The music is iconic and scary, the actor who plays "The Shape" is excellent ;), and it's a pretty good movie.

It's a perfect movie for Halloween, I wonder why?

Devil

I'm not really the religious type. I go to church because my parents usually take me along. Granted, I never told them that I really don't care for religion but then again, religion is a touchy subject. Anyway, what's interesting about the concept of the devil in a movie is that I don't really have to take the story seriously to enjoy the movie.

In movies, and pop culture in general, Satan is usually characterized as the all powerful master of evil, and in movies, that basically means he's Freddy Kruger on a wider playing field, where as Freddy only attacks in dreams while Lucifer can attack ANYWHERE. Even inside an elevator.

And that's where Devil takes place. Five people are stuck inside an elevator in "inspection mode" and one of the surveillance guys suspects that one of them may be Damian's Father. Predictably, the passengers are all a bunch of sinners and periodically the lights go off so that der Teufel can pick them off one by one.

One thing I like about the movie is that they don't give us the characters names right away. While the elevator thing is going on, a detective is lead to the building investigating a suicide, and then he stumbles onto this story. They try to figure out how to get the passengers out and they find files of all of the passengers and their back stories. So basically, the investigators are the "exposition brigade".

There are some gripes. Apparently, Beelzebub likes his toast butter side down. Also, the writers seemed to have forgotten that the movie they were making is just a simple movie where the devil kills people and tried to make it preachy.

That doesn't really work when He Who Has Way Too Many Names is choosing the hands on approach instead of being subtle like he usually is (or would be).

All aside, it's no Exorcist, but I enjoyed it.

Tom and Jerry The Movie

We all know who Tom and Jerry are. We know that they really don't talk much. But in this movie, they talk. Oh no?

It seems that this movie is the definition of "love it or hate it". Some love it for the nostalgia, while others hate it for "ruining" Tom and Jerry. As for me?

Well, while a more interesting movie could've been made, the one given to us is a cheesy musical with cheesy songs, cheesy characters, and cheesy voices. I don't really mind having Tom and Jerry talk (in fact, Tom actually talked on occasion in the shorts). The voice actors are annoying but tolerable (though, I could say MUCH less for their singing). There is really only one pretty good song in the whole movie, which turns out to be the Award Bait Song. Go figure. The animation is nice and colorful and the story, which is mainly use to give Tom and Jerry a REASON to talk, is about as cheesy as that of an archetypal stage musical.

It's not as bad as a lot of people say, but it's not all that great either.

The Social Network

If you don't know, "The Social Network" is a dramatization of the creation Facebook. Jesse Eisenberg ("Zombieland") plays the co-founder Mark Zuckerberg. The story is told in flashbacks while Mark is dealing with two lawsuits against him.

The movie is really good, which is sort of a "duh" statement considering the fact that this is David Fincher ("Fight Club") and Aaron Sorkin ("American President") we're talking about. It's interesting to note that Brenda Song of Disney's "Suite Life" fame is in this film. It's nice to see Disney or Nick actors trying to break their mold. I know a bad performance when I see one, but I don't know an amazing performance when I see one, which basically means all the actors and actresses did a good job. Justin Timberlake is charismatic, Jesse Eisenberg plays Mark as a perfectly flawed human being, and Armie Hammer does a damn good just as the Winklevoss twins.

It's an excellent movie.

Spontaneous Combustion

To be honest, the only reason why I know this movie existed was because of Cinemassacre's Monster Madness.

Brad Dourif plays a seemingly normal who's parents took part in nuclear experiments during the cold war. Minutes after his birth, his parents both have a simultaneous, spontaneous combustion. Over 30 years later, he discovers that whenever he get angry, people around him burst into flames.

This is an interesting one. For some reason, there aren't that many movies about spontaneous human combustion, so it's nice to see one, especially when it's directed by Tobe Hooper ("Poltergeist", "Texas Chainsaw Massacre") and has a crazy-awesome performance by Brad Dourif (Child's Play).

I like it.

Legend of the Guardians

Last week, I went to see Legend of the Guardians, a movie based off of a book series spanning 15 books. Yes, FIFTEEN.

The movie is about an owl named Soren(not Sauron) who, along with his brother Kludd, have been captured and taken to a place where the bad owls either A) hire and train young owls to become soldiers under Metal Beak, or B) hypnotize young owls into "picking" for a strange McGuffinesque substance. Soren escapes and seeks out the legendary Guardians of Ga'hoole for help while his brother turns to the dark side.

I've never read any of the books, so why did I see it? Because of the trailer of course.



Epic. One of the many examples/arguments that trailers are art.

So how's the movie?

Well, while the animation is striking, the voice acting is excellent, and they got Zack Snyder ("300","Watchmen") to direct, the film is good but not great. I don't really know what makes a quality film so I basically go by the experience, and the experience ranges from above lackluster to "yeah, it's pretty good". What I mean is, while there are a lot of good things about it, (like the idea of a fantasy story with owls, Zack Snyder's trademark "slo-mo" tactics, getting Owl City, haha funny, to write an original song, etc.) it didn't really blow me away.

As a film, I'd say it's pretty well done, but as an experience, I'd stick with "How to Train Your Dragon".