20131120: Mystery Review--Unknown

Unknown

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. American live action feature length film, 2006, NR, 85 minutes, crime, drama, mystery.  Spoken word is English.
2. IMDB: 6.4/10.0 from 21,625 audience ratings. Estimated budget: 3.7 million USD.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 38% on the meter; 38% liked it from 16,662 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 3.4/5.0 from 256,792 audience ratings.
5. Directed by: Simon Brand.
6. Starring: Jim Caviezel as Jean Jacket, Greg Kinnear as Broken Nose, Joe Pantoliano as Bound Man, Bridgett Moynihan as Eliza Coles, Barry Pepper as Rancher Shirt, Jeremy Sisto as Handcuffed Man, Peter Stormare as Snakeskin Boots, Jeff Daniel Phillips as Iron Cross.


2. Setup and Plot
1. Jean Jacket wakes up in a closed room where the one exit is locked by passcode.  Other prisoners are present, and most seem worse for the wear.  Jean Jacket pounds on the door and raises a holler or ten, but gets no attention.  He takes a phone call, and takes notes, but seems not to know what it was about.


2. Broken Nose, Bound Man, Handcuffed Man, and Rancher Shirt wake up soon there after, and the four of them try to figure out who they are and why they are together.


3. Elsewhere, Eliza cooperates with law enforcement to get her husband back.


4. Snakeskin Boots intercepts the hostage money and eludes the police; he calls the trapped men and tells them he will meet with them before sundown.  Bound Man finds a gun, but Jean Jacket takes it away from him.  They discover instructions about the toxic gas stored in canister around the rooms.  It can cause temporary memory loss in small doses.  Broken Nose begins to remember a bit later; he was one of the abductees.  He talks to Rancher Shirt, the other abductee.  Rancher Shirt tries to get the gun from Jean Jacket, but fails.


5. Broken Nose frees Bound Man, and the anger rises and partial memories surface.  Jean Jacket gives Handcuffed Man some water, but cannot get the handcuffs off.


6. The last two kidnappers are coming with the money.  Two cops are tailing them with mixed success.  Erin is in despair about losing her husband.  The men in the room with memory loss are cooperating to find a way out before the kidnappers come.


7. How does this pan out?  Be prepared for twists and turns as the memories surface.


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Five men with temporary memory loss guess their roles in a kidnapping.
2. Four stars of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 8/10 No problems.


2. Sound: 9/10 Well done.


3. Acting: 7/10  Jim Caviezel, Bridget Moynihan, Peter Stormare, and Joe Pantoliano were excellent.  On the other hand, Greg Kinnear was unconvincing as usual; with every line he speaks, I look for an indication that it's a joke or a bluff.  I only believe his insincerity.  Jeremy Sisto disappoints as always. 


4. Screenplay: 9/10 Kept me guessing to the end.

20131119: Fantasy Review--Last Keepers

The Last Keepers

1. Production Fundamentals; reception
1. American live action feature length film, 2013, PG13, 85 minutes, fantasy. Spoken word is English.
2. IMDB: 4.4/10.0 from 302 user ratings. 
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 'No reviews yet...' and 67% liked it from 18 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 3.6/5.0 from 17,132 audience ratings.
5. Directed by Maggie Greenwald; screenplay by Peter Hutchings.
6. Starring: Aiden Quinn as John, Virginia Madsen as Abigail Carver, Zosia Mamet as Rhea Carver, Olympia Dukakis as Rosmarie Carver, Sam Underwood as Oliver Sands, Nat Wolff as Simon.


2. Setup, Plot
1. Rosmarie is the mother of Abigail who is the mother of Rhea.  Rhea is 16 and is having an awkward time at school.  She collects plastic wrappers and makes clothes out of them, which draws some negative humour toward her.


2. The negative stereotypes of high school students are out in force.  One of the boys writes a poem (for class) that was about her, and his liking of her.  That, of course, rates a fair amount of derision.


3. John runs an art gallery and studio combination.  Rhea likes to stop by and work there.


4. Oliver edges into being her boyfriend.  Rhea starts to show her talents, first with the elements, then with healing.


5. After a Halloween party, everything seems to be going well, but then someone kills the pet goats, burns an effigy on the grounds of the home, and writes 'Witch' on the car wind screen.  Oliver admits that he told someone that Rhea was a witch.  Oh, sad.


6. Rhea changes her clothes to conform with high school life, and tells her family that she's going to leave them at some point.  She starts hanging out with a different crowd.


7. How will this turn out?  Will the prophecy ever show up?


3. Conclusions
1. Yikes.  Zosia Mamet (daughter of David) is 27, looks older, perhaps 35, and has no business playing a 16-year-old.
2. One line summary: Talented cast wasted in a vanity film.
3. Three stars of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 10/10 Lovely shots of autumn countrysides. Interiors are fine.


2. Sound: 9/10 Well done; the incidental music is often atmospheric or creepy.


3. Acting: 6/10 I liked the performances of Olympia Dukakis, Virginia Madsen, Aiden Quinn, and Sam Underwood to a lesser extent.  Zosia Mamet was just bad at acting, and the age discrepancy was impossible to overlook.


4. Screenplay: 5/10 The story is not bad, but too much screen time and too many lines are devoted to Zosia Mamet's bad delivery.  The build-up for the prophecy was rather weak.


5. Special Effects: 8/10 Almost seamless.

20131119: Horror Review--House of Bodies

House of Bodies

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. American live action feature length film 2013, NR, 78 minutes, horror. Spoken word is English.
2. IMDB: 5.5/10.0 from 304 audience ratings.
3. Rotten Tomatoes:  'No reviews yet...' and 'No scores yet.'
4. Netflix: 3.1/5.0 from 78,849 audience ratings.
5. Directed by: Alex Merkin.  Screenplay by Eddie Harris.
6. Starring: Terrence Howard as Starks, Queen Latifa as Nicole, Peter Fonda as Henry Lee Bishop, George Katt as Raylan Miller/Radar, Elizabeth Brissenden as Tracey, Alexz Johnson as Kelli, Juliana Harkavy as Tisha, Karlee Eldridge as Ambra, Francisco A. Pino as Darryl.


2. Setup and Plot
1. Henry Lee Bishop is on death row for a series of grisly murders.  Years later, he's still in jail, solitary mostly, and similar murders happen.  Detective Starks investigates, including going to the prison to talk to Bishop eyeball to eyeball.


2. A bunch of young idiots run a simulated-sex-and-murder-reenacted-over-Internet sort of business.  They strive for realism.  They fake each other out.  It seems the director intends that we don't know what is real or not with this group.


3. A deaf, speechless young man plays video games and visits gory websites.  One of these is 'House of Bodies' which supposedly was inspired by Henry Lee Bishop's place of residence.  This is the website of the idiots mentioned above.  In each room the young women re-enact murders committed there.  Our young man reads all this on the site.  That's the site's marketing ploy.


4. That's what the detectives are not seeing: the website seems to have generated at least one copycat killer. 


5. Tracey runs the house and the site.  Kelli is the new recruit who is a bit gun shy.  Tisha is more accustomed to the work.  Sadey left the job before she was murdered.


6. The deaf boy logs into the site, and Tracey assigns him to Kelli to talk to.  They get to know each other a bit.  Sadly, the killer comes in, then starts taking out the staff.


7. So, who gets out of this alive?


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Murder mystery meets murder reenactment website; worth seeing Terrence Howard and Peter Fonda.
2. Four stars of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 9/10 Usually excellent.


2. Sound: 8/10 Usually quite good, but Terrence Howard was badly miked.  AM radio in the desert sounds better.  The incidental music was good for creepiness.


3. Acting: 8/10 Worth seeing for the interactions between Terrence Howard and Peter Fonda.


4. Screenplay: 8/10 Much better than I expected.  Plot progresses well, and the detective solves a mystery.

20131118: Bollywood Review---Monsoon Wedding

Monsoon Wedding

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. Indian live action feature length film, 2001, rated R, 114 minutes, drama, romance.
2. IMDB: 7.2/10.0 from 16,441 audience ratings. Spoken word is Hindi with some English; subtitles in English. Estimated budget, 7 million INR.
3. Rotten Tomatoes:  95% on the meter; 84% liked it from 27,112 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 3.6/5.0 from 738,445 audience ratings.
5. Directed by: Mira Nair.
6. Starring: Naseerruddin Shah as Lalit Verma, Lillete Dubey as Pimmi Verma, Shefali Shetty as Ria Verma, Tillotama Shome as Alice, Vasundhara Das as Aditi Verma, Vijay Raaz as P.K. Dubey, Parvan Drbas as Hemant Rai, Roshan Seth as Mohan Rai, Ishaan Nair as Varun Verma, Kemaya Kidwai as Aliya Verma, Rajat Kapoor as Tej Puri.


2. Setup and Plot
1. Families meet in Delhi for an arranged marriage between Aditi Verma (daughter of Lalit and Pimmi Verma) and Hemant Rai.


2. PK Dubey is the lower class, foul-mouthed, wedding arranger who is interested in the maid, Alice. Lalit is having money trouble; this translates to slow payments to PK.


3. Ria Verma is the unmarried cousin of Aditi, who was abused by Tej Puri when she was younger.


4. Aditi decides to visit her old flame one last time.  That does not work out well, and reminds one of the phrase, 'get a room.'  The police were quite amused.  Aditi tells Hemant about this.  Oh, what a mistake.  He tells her that they will just fit in Houston, Texas, where he currently works.  He is not amused.  He decides to go through with it, and I did not see any particular believable justification for that change of heart.


5. At that point in the movie, I was ready to quit.  Slow, boring, not engaging, no sympathetic characters, except perhaps Lalit and PK.  Then it gets worse; the child molestation issue was not handled well.


6. Happy ending, I guess.  Things turned out well for PK.


3. Conclusions
1. Not as good as Nair's 1997 film, Kama Sutra: a Tale of Love.
2. One line summary: Overrated, laborious.
3. Three stars of five.  That's too high, but I liked the performances listed below.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 7/10 Variable.


2. Sound: 8/10 Good most of the time.


3. Acting: 6/10 Cheers to Naseerruddin Shah (Lalit), Tillotama Shome (Alice), Vijay Raaz (PK).  Thumbs down otherwise, particularly for the actors who played the bride and groom.


4. Screenplay: 6/10 Neither engaging nor believable.  The story is rather good, so I would blame the direction, plus poor choices for many of the acting roles.

20131118: Bollywood Review--Chennai Express

Chennai Express

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. Indian live action feature length film, 2013, NR, 140 minutes, action, comedy.
2. IMDB: 6.1/10.0 from 15,987 audience ratings.  Spoken language is Hindi and Tamil and a little English; subtitles in English.  Aspect 2.35.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 57% on the meter; 53% liked it from 1,985 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 3.6/5.0 from 31,406 audience ratings.
5. Directed by: Rohit Shetty.
6. Starring: Deepika Padukone as Meenamma Lochini Azhagusundaram, Shah Rukh Khan as Rahul, Satyaraj as Durgeshwara Azhagusundaram, Nikitin Dheer as Tangaballi.


2. Setup and Plot
1. At 40 years of age, Rahul is looking to strike out on his own after his grandfather dies on his 100th birthday.


2. He promises his grandmother that he will take half his grandfather's ashes to the holy water of Rameshwaram for dispersal.  He concocts a scheme with his friends to disperse the ashes, then to rendezvous in Goa for a vacation.


3. This starts out fairly well, but he nearly leaves the ashes on the Chennai express.  He recovers them, but in the process unwittingly helps Meenamma get on the train, but also her four would be kidnappers.  He and Meenamma try a few ploys to contact his friends and foil the kidnappers.  All this goes awry.  As it turns out, the kidnappers were representatives of her father Durgeshwara.  Meenamma tells Durgeshwara that Rahul is her love interest.  He attempts to escape the situation.  Then Meenamma's other suitor shows up, and he intends some sort of duel to the death.  This has to be sorted out.  Misadventures, car chases, lost at sea, misunderstandings, you name it.  The matter of the two suitors still has to be sorted out, after all the filler.


4. Repeat to use up the 140 minutes


5. Does this get better?


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Occasionally funny; great scenery.
2. Three stars of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 10/10 Nicely shot and edited; great-looking scenery, costumes, sets.


2. Sound: 10/10 No problems.  Could have used a few more musical numbers to shore up the lack of plot.  I liked the numbers that were there.


3. Acting: 5/10 I liked the performance of Deepika Padukone, who seems to be on her way up.  Shah Rukh Khan clearly has talent, but he seems a bit old for this, and he seems to be covering old ground.


4. Screenplay: 5/10 About 40 minutes of ideas done in 140.

20131117: Thriller Review--Boarding Gate

Boarding Gate

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. French live action feature length film, 2006, rated R, 106 minutes, thriller; aspect 2.35.
2. IMDB: 5.1/10.0 from 2,550 audience ratings.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 30% on the meter; 19% liked it from 2,329 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 2.4/5.0 from 104,861 audience ratings.
5. Written and directed by: Olivier Assayas.
6. Starring: Asia Argento as Sandra, Michael Madsen as Miles Rennberg, Karl Ng as Lester Wang, Kelly Lin as Sue Wang, Kim Gordon as Kay, Alex Descas as Andrew.


2. Setup and Plot
1. Sandra and Miles have a long talk about their long, slow dissolve into a permanent breakup.  She goes off to work with Sue and Lester Wang.  She kills Miles for Lester Wang. Then she's off to yet another gig in Hong Kong under a new identification.


2. Her friend Lisa goes to Hong Kong as well, but separately.  Sandra finally gets to the appointed place, and finds Lisa murdered.  Whom to trust? She kills two would-be assassins, then goes on the run.


3. Sandra talks to Sue, who is also in Hong Kong.  Sue says Sandra can meet Lester but Sandra meets Sue instead.  They talk about Lester, and his cheating on Sue.  They talk as well about Sue's expertise with Beijing versus Lester's being limited to Europe and Hong Kong.


4. By this time, there is a warrant for Sandra's arrest for her murder of the two assassins she killed.  She has no ID that will allow her to fly or register at a hotel.  Plus, Sue drugged her.  Ah, jealousy.


5. She awakes in a dwelling that one of Lester's friends owns. She gives Sandra passport, tickets, and money for a trip to Shanghai, where a job awaits her.  Lester is not happy with Sue.  Sandra sees Lester meet with Andrei, Miles' long time partner.  So, she killed Miles for Andrei.  Nice.  What will she do with this knowledge?  Smells like a sequel, but I do not see one in IMDB.


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Female agent of crime bosses services her adrenaline addiction while being dogged by treachery.
2. Two stars of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 6/10 A bit blurry and soft in focus for perhaps 80% of the film.  The camera work was jumpy for far too many minutes.


2. Sound: 4/10 Better than the video.  However, sound also transmits information; well, sometimes it does.  The Netflix version had unacceptable problems.  There were dozens of lines in French, with no translation in the subtitles.  This was not good.  There were five times as many lines in Chinese, also with no English in the subtitles. That was even worse.


3. Acting: 6/10 I liked the performances of Kelly Lin and Michael Madsen, but Asia Argento was more bizarre than interesting.


4. Screenplay: 4/10 This is a nice 10 minute short done in 106 minutes.  The conversations between Miles and Sandra went on forever.  Thirty plus minutes of those conversations could have been cut.  The conversations between Sandra and Sue go on forever.

20131117: Horror Review---Compulsion

Compulsion

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. Canadian live action feature length film, 2013, NR, 88 minutes, horror.
2. IMDB: 4.0/10.0 from 999 audience ratings.  Spoken word is English. Estimated budget 4 million USD.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 'No Score Yet...' and 17% like it from 266 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 2.8/5.0 from 11,200 audience ratings.
5. Directed by: Egidio Coccimiglio.
6. Starring: Heather Graham as Amy, Carrie-Ann Moss as Saffron, Kevin Dillon as Fred, Joe Montegna as Detective Reynolds.


2. Setup and Plot
1. Amy and Saffron live near one another.  If the blinds are open, they can see into each other's apartments.  As the picture starts, Detective Reynolds is looking into Saffron's disappearance.


2. Through flashbacks, Reynolds learns that Amy and Saffron knew each other somewhat well.  Amy is an aspiring TV cook, while Saffron is an actress and a commentator for women's magazines.  The rise and fall of the romance between Amy and Fred is detailed.  After that fails, Amy tries to get closer to Saffron.


3. As Amy's obsession with getting a cooking show continues to fail, Saffron's acting career keeps gliding downward.  After her breakup with Fred is well on its way, Amy continues to try to get closer to Saffron, who remains standoffish at first.


4. Amy insists on Saffron's trying her dishes, but Saffron is a bulimic who smokes.  More than once she barfs up what Amy has more or less force-fed her.  Amy loves Saffron's old movies, as does Amy's mother.  Saffron slowly warms to Amy. 


5. We have a flash back to Saffron being casting-couch raped as a child star when the director who did it wants her to audition for a new role.  So, that opportunity was another dead end.


6. Amy and Saffron get to know each other after that; how well does that turn out?


3. Conclusions
1. Canadian remake of the Korean film 301/302 from 1995, where 301 and 302 are apartment numbers.
2. One line summary: Two compulsive women have an affair that ends badly.
3. 6/10


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 10/10 Simply gorgeous.


2. Sound: 10/10


3. Acting: 8/10 The two leads were fine, as were Joe Montegna and Kevin Dillon.


4. Screenplay: 5/10 The content misses the mark in a lot of ways.  Amy's cooking obsession is over-abundantly clear, and loses some focus because of that.  Saffron's trying to hold onto her place as a young star is rather sad.  She does not make the adjustment to mature roles, which is unfortunate since studios show interest in her for middle-aged roles.  Intellectually, anyway, it's clear what either of them should do, but they don't do it. This backdrop dulled my interest in the lesbian affair and in the missing persons investigation.  The screenplay was by far the worst part of the film.  There is too much repetition, and it is too slow going forward.

20131117: Horror Review--The Theatre Bizarre

 The Theatre Bizarre

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. American/French/Canadian live action feature length film, 2011, NR, 113 minutes, horror, anthology.
2. IMDB: 4.9/10.0 from 1,923 audience ratings.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 43% on the meter; 37% liked it from 940 audience ratings.
4. Netflix:  3.0/5.0 from 88,374 audience ratings.
5. Directed by: Douglas Buck.
6. Starring: Udo Kier as Peg Poett, Virginia Newcomb as Enola Penny. 
7. For more credits see imdb full cast and crew ; it's a long set of lists.


2. Setup and Plot
1. This is an anthology.


2. Theatre Guignol: the overarching segment.  A young obsessed sleepless woman goes across the street in the dead of night and goes into a theatre lightly populated with life sized puppets.  The puppets introduce her to the following six stories.


3. The Mother Of Toads: Set in Mirepoix which is near the Pyrenees in southern France.  A young couple takes pictures of wood carvings of pagan gods.  The woman wants a pair of earrings, which depict an image from HP Lovecraft's works.  The vendor claims to have a true copy of the Necronomicon at another site.  They drive there; Katrina goes to a nearby spa while Martin talks to the vendor, samples the local (drugged) wine, and leafs through the book.  Katrina's return is not a happy one.  The next day, Martin has a glimpse of what he spent the night with.  He goes looking for Katrina.


4. I Love You: Set in Berlin, Germany.  Axel wakes up with a bloody cut on his hand.  He has no idea why.  Mo shows up to get a few things before she leaves him.  They talk; she's a multiple betrayer, he's a controlling idiot, she's too young for him. Did I forget lying witch?  It does not end well.


5. Wet Dreams: Donnie accidentally slugs Carla when he wakes up from a nightmare.  Dr. Maurey asks him about the nightmare of a beautiful girl who coaxes him to bed, only to emasculate him with her 'Lovecraftian' vagina.  The Dr. tells him a strategy for interrupting the nightmares, so Donnie tries it.  It fails; instead, he dreams of the other times he's hit Carla, and of her suicide attempt.  The doctor's wife Maxine and Donnie did some things together; the doctor and Carla settle scores.


6. The Accident: Mother talks about death with her young Daughter: growing old, being in accidents, Old Yeller.  Sad tale, nicely done.


7. Vision Stains: Junkie girl shoots up in an alley.  The writer uses a surgical procedure to steal the dying visions of the junkies she murders.  In this short, she first murders the junkie girl, and writes up her experiences.  Then she murders an old homeless woman.  The writer despises men, and kills women only, because the women have suffered more and better, somehow.  Right, sure, whatever your excuses are for serial murder.  The writer gets quite a surprise when she injects fluid from the belly of a pregnant woman.


8. Sweets: Estelle and Greg are a couple drowning in sweet food.  Estelle created the circumstances in which they find themselves; now she rejects it.  Greg's hopelessly in love, and cries a lot while trying to bargain his way out of this trap.  Estelle and a new friend Antonia go to an exclusive food club and talk about moderation.  The club kills Greg, guts him to general applause, then eats various parts of him raw.


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Five of the six shorts were good in this horror anthology.
2. Four stars of five.  I was tempted by 5/5, but 'Vision Stains' was just so bad in so many ways.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 10/10 Excellent.


2. Sound: 9/10 Fine.


3. Acting: 8/10 Enjoyable, by and large.  I liked Udo Keir in particular.  The Mother and Daughter actors in 'The Accident' were wonderful.


4. Screenplay: 9/10 Well-made horror anthology.

20131116: Action Review--Assault on Wall Street

Assault on Wall Street

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. Canadian live action feature length film, 2013, rated R, 99 minutes, action, drama, thriller.
2. IMDB: 6.0/10.0 from 8,535 audience ratings.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 25% on the meter; 44% liked it from 1,072 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 3.8/5.0 from 202,346 audience ratings.
5. Written and directed by: Uwe Boll.
6. Starring: Dominic Purcell as Jim Baxford, Erin Karpluk as Rosie Baxford, Edward Furlong as Sean, John Heard as Jeremy Stancroft, Keith David as Freddy, Michael Pare as Frank, Lochlyn Munro as Robert Canworth, Eric Roberts as Lawyer Patterson.


2. Setup and Plot
1. Jim and Rosie are in a good place financially in 2008, except that Rosie has been quite ill.  The medical prognosis is good, but a lot of money will be needed to continue her treatments to a successful conclusion, like 50 to 70 thousand USD the first year.  Fortunately, Jim has had a lot of well paying work available.  Unfortunately, the economy is about to face a huge crisis of confidence, with bad impact on Jim's investments and on the possibility of Rosie's recovery.


2. Jim's retirement funds start falling total paper value.  Ouch; Jim and Rosie need to cash this in.  His broker Robert won't talk to him at first.  Jim and Sean's police friends, Freddy and Frank, are having similar problems with their retirement funds.  Robert tries to cushion the shock from some of Jim's investments being de-listed; others were toxic real estate investments.  The legal investigations have already started.  The only way to get any money back is through class action lawsuits, which could take years.  Just to add to everything else, the bank calls; their mortgage is in trouble.  When the four friends meet the next day, Jim tells them that he now owes 60 thousand on the toxic mortgage 'investment.'  Freddy's down 18 thousand which will knock out college plans, and so on.


3. This all keeps getting worse; the vengeance part of the movie is underpinned with these everyday, yet undeniably horrible stories.  Jim cannot re-finance since he cannot prove that he does not need it.  (Net worth down strongly, Rosie's been out of work for a year.) The squeeze continues.  The group that thinks he owes them 60 thousand asks for the 60 thousand now, and they will cut off the demand for interest payments.  The banks looks at all of Jim's situation and decides to foreclose.  At work, his boss tells him that an employee in financial trouble cannot be trusted to protect money.


4. So, the house, the job, the investments all are gone.  Bills are up.  Jim's in real trouble.  Rosie cannot take the stress.  Jim has to deal with her passing and her funeral.  A little over half way into the film, Jim has nothing to lose, and plenty to be angry about.


5. Jim gets served his eviction papers, so he did not get legal protection ahead of time.  He's already started his campaign of revenge, but this steps things up.  He's got 48 hours until the sheriff comes to oust him.


6. He moves into a small hotel.  He makes maps.  He gets guns and ammo.  He makes surveillance runs.  He practices shooting.  He starts taking out people who were directly responsible (at least in his mind) for Rosie's death and his financial ruin.


7. He meets his friends again for lunch.  That's a bit difficult.


8. He prepares for another target: Robert, the man who sold him all the bad investments and toxic securities backed by bad real estate loans.  After accomplishing that, Jim takes out quite a few more mid-level workers in the financial district who worked in the same building.


9. Will Jim get out alive?


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: If you are still angry at Wall Street, watch this film.
2. Four stars of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 7/10 A bit too much hand-held badness and soft focus.


2. Sound: 10/10 No problems.


3. Acting: 8/10 Kudos to Michael Pare, Keith David, John Heard, Eric Roberts, Edward Furlong, Erin Karpluk, and even Lochlyn Munro.  The only performance I did not care for was Dominic Purcell's, but he has done worse.


4. Screenplay: 8/10 This is a tough story, but it's logically put together, except perhaps for the ending.

20131116: Comedy Review--InAPPropriate Comedy

InAPPropriate Comedy

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. American live action feature length film, 2013, rated R, 83 minutes, comedy.
2. IMDB: 2.8/10.0 from 1,344 audience ratings.
3. Rotten Tomatoes:  0% on the meter (impressive); 31% liked it from 2,472 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 2.3/5.0 from 6,038 audience ratings.
5. Directed by: Vince Offer.
6. Starring: Rob Schneider as J.D./Psychologist, Michelle Rodriguez as Harriet, Adrien Brody as Flirty Harry, Lindsay Lohan as Marilyn, Ari Shaffir as The Amazing Racist.


2. Setup and Plot
1. The arc connecting these segments is of an entitled jerk invoking apps on a tablet. Each app takes us to a segment, which is actually a collection of vignettes.  The various segments are visited briefly, then returned to repeatedly.


2. Above the Grate: Lindsey Lohan dressed as Marilyn Monroe for the draft up the skirt scene from The Seven Year Itch. This was the only more or less OK segment.  Watching the paparazzi getting blown away was a nice touch.


3. Flirty Harry.  Adrien Brody as a foul-mouthed detective, Dirty Harry style, who is also gay, and makes plentiful direct references to performance of sex acts.  The grossness of this segment comes more from people eating with their mouths open all the while spewing food on each other and on the ground.


4. Blackass: This goes on and on, in various pieces.  Some are about blacks having embarrassing or extremely painful experiences.  Others were about blacks feeling entitled to terrorize white people.  The vignette about the three black babysitters terrorizing the young white mother was particularly not funny.  The segment about a huge black man terrorizing white yuppies was just as repellent.  Nothing about this collection was funny.  'The hookup' was the worst.  The black man at an abortion clinic pulls out a coat hanger, and wants 100 USD to do a substitute abortion.  Amazing.  Amazingly bad, that is.


5. The Amazing Racist.  A Jewish racist (who acts in the film like he's a white Christian) shows all sorts of anti-PC behaviour and language, and gets all sorts of direct payback for it.  He's anti-black, anti-Mexican, anti-Asian, anti-Jewish, anti-you-name-it.  None of this is funny, and the amount of payback he gets never seems to be enough. 'Free one-way boat rides' were for blacks to be taken back to Africa was long and utterly disgusting.  As always, no laughs despite a barrage of cliches.


6. The Porno Review: JD and Harriet act as movie reviewers for pornographic films.  The first film that they review is a particularly bad fake Asian film.  There is no nudity, much less sex.  Again, there are no funny moments.  The second film, 'Sperm Lake' was no better.  Its subject was  about kidnapping, terrorizing an individual, and gang rape.  That is, men raping a single man.


7. Psychology World: Rob Schneider's other role is as a shrink who listens to a closet nymphomaniac.  He finds her boring, and takes her prescription medicine to alleviate his boredom, much to his subsequent bad health reaction.


8. TYNS (Things You Will Never See): are indeed things you will never see.  I never laughed, either.


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary:  Lots of cliches and stereotypes, but no laughs; skip this one.
2. One star of five


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 8/10 OK.


2. Sound: 9/10 OK.


3. Acting: 5/10 The actors followed the screenplay, as far as I could see, but there were no outstanding performances.


4. Screenplay: 0/10 Failed as a comedy.  Failed as a satire.  It was not funny.  It was not enlightening.

20131115: Comedy Review--Stag

Stag

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. Canadian live action feature length film, 2013, NR, 83 minutes, comedy.
2. IMDB: 4.0/10.0 from 168 user ratings.
3. Rotten Tomatoes:  'No Score Yet...' and 25% from 21 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 3.0/5.0 from 9,441 audience ratings.
5. Written and directed by: Brett Heard.
6. Starring: Donald Faison as Ken, Eva Amurri as Veronica, Jon Dorre as Luke, Pat Thornton as Carl, Brendon Gail as Rory, Jefferson Brown as Henry McCarthy, Mayko Nguyen as Caroline, Jon Dore as Luke, Leah Renee as Candy/Margaret, Tony Nappo as Paul.


2. Setup and Plot
1. Ken has quite a tradition of pranking his friends savagely at their stag parties.  Now that Ken is getting married to Caroline, he's justly apprehensive about payback time.


2. Ken recounts some of the episodes, and Caroline starts to wonder about him.


3. Ken's friends are loading up on their own angst and anger (much due to Ken) before the party.


4. The setup for the stag party has many threads.  Carl, the enormous screw-up, is to help protect Ken, but Carl has locked himself into an elevator prop.  Luke is asked to pickup the stripper from work, but he's recognized by an old friend, and has to lie his way through it. Henry gets kicked out (that afternoon) of his own place by his girlfriend, who has already picked out someone else.  So Henry is in a really good mood.


5. The stag party gets going slowly.  Luke and Candy talk while they wait.  Carl and the woman trapped with him talk while they wait.  Paul and Henry talk as they wait. There is just one whole lot of talk while they wait.


6. Boredom factor is high.  If I wanted long periods of irrelevant and not funny conversations, I would have sprung for a ticket to a third tier amateur theatre.


7. Ah, the stripper is just a fake, a blogger profiling them for their descent from manhood into drone-hood, or 'manopause'.  Nice.  Fits the rest of the film.  Like everything else here, the film is flaccid and ineffective.  The payback is an evening's boredom.  Even the stripper's ever-so-short performance is turned into cold oatmeal.  The only person who makes any traction is Carl, the most singularly useless character in the film.


8. Will anything come out of this stag party?


3. Conclusions
1. I would not recommend this film to any one for any reason.
2. One line summary: Ineffective people talk about boring things.
3. Two stars of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 7/10


2. Sound: 7/10


3. Acting: 4/10 Hm, hire actors next time, and a better screenwriter.


4. Screenplay: 4/10 Written by someone who hates viewers.

20131114: Horror Review--Zombie Massacre

Apocalypse Z (Zombie Massacre)

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. Italian live action feature length film, 2013, NR, 90 minutes, action, horror.
2. IMDB: 2.2/10.0 from 805 audience ratings.  Estimated budget, 1 million USD.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 'No reviews yet,' and 0% wanted to see it from 27 user ratings.
4. Netflix:  2.5/5.0 from 10,127 audience ratings.
5. Written and directed by: Luca Boni and Marco Ristori.
6. Starring: Christian Boeving as Jack Stone, Mike Mitchell as John 'Mad Dog' McKellen, Tara Cardinal as Eden Shizuka.


2. Setup and Plot
1. The US military tried to make a super soldier.  (The film lost one star of five, there.) As a side effect, a bad strain of communicable toxin was released near a town in Eastern Europe, Romania specifically.  (Spare me.)


2. A small group of rejects are sent in to clean up the mess.  They soon see that they are considered expendable.  They encounter the daughter of the biologist who created the mess in the first place.


3. Can the US military be thwarted and the world saved?


3. Conclusions
1. Re-release of Zombie Massacre (2010) after the huge success of Brad Pitt's tremendously better zombie picture, World War Z.
2. One line summary: Repackaged zombie schlock; almost any zombie film is better.
3. One star of five.  The bad cliche density is high.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 8/10 OK, mostly.  At the end, the worst fake breasts I've seen in a zombie film.


2. Sound: 6/10 If one is going to dub certain actors, at least hire a good voice actor, and give them reasonable lines.


3. Acting: 1/10 Some human beings showed up, hit their marks, and read their lines, so I guess there was some acting.  Accents are all over the map.  Some actors are dubbed, badly.  The samurai lady looks like she's never picked up a sword. The sniper is using a single-shot bolt action rifle from mid-20th century, and using it badly compared to the legend of his accomplishments.


4. Screenplay: 1/10 Terrible dialog, not much of a story.  Absurd origin tale of the outbreak. Cliche ridden.

20131114: Movie Review--Dredd

Dredd

1. Production Fundamentals; reception
1. British live action feature length film, 2012, rated R, 95 minutes, action.
2. IMDB: 7.0/10.0 from 131,861  audience ratings.  Estimated budget, 50 million USD.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 78% on the meter; 72% liked it from 144,432 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 3.8/5.0 stars, based on 1,258,038 audience ratings.
5. Directed by Pete Travis; screenplay by John Wagner.
6. Starring: Karl Urban as Judge Dredd, Rachel Wood as Control Operator 1, Olivia Thirlby as Cassandra Anderson, Lena Headey as Ma Ma, Langley Kirkwood as Judge Lex.


2. Setup, Plot
1. Judge Dredd is forced to take the mutant psychic Cassandra Anderson under his wing.


2. Dredd and Anderson go after the drug kingpin Ma Ma.


3. There was resistance.


4. Later on, four other judges betray Dredd and Anderson for money.


5. Can Dredd and Anderson prevail, even using every single talent they have as a team?


3. Conclusions
1. Stallone's 1995 effort, Judge Dredd,  was not as pretty; the CGI effects were much better in this one.  The story in Judge Dredd was much more interesting, and there was actual acting in the 1995 version.  


2. In 1995, we had neither the TSA, nor the current search and seizure rights of police, nor Guantanamo-style imprisonment under the Patriot Act, nor the widespread depredations of the NSA, nor the denial of Miranda rights, nor the sheep mentality of surrender-anything-to-make-us-safe, nor the over-arching bureaucracy and arrogance of Homeland Security.  We had those by 2012, when this picture was released.  This hideous film glorifying a fascist police state was well-received; critically, that is.  Go figure.


3. One line summary: Celebrates a fascist police state, and to a lesser extent, drug use.
4. Two stars of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 8/10 Some of this is spectacular.  The camera work is excellent early on, as is the matching of CGI to real world photography.  The steam punk sets were not as good.


2. Sound: 10/10 Fine.


3. Acting: 0/10 This is a cartoon set to live action format.  What acting?  I usually like Karl Urban's performances, but I could not tell that he was even in this film.  This is the first film I saw where Lena Heady acted.  I had no awareness that an actress was involved in the Ma Ma character; a block of wood might have done a better job. In subsequent films, I have seen Heady do fine work.  Again, what acting?


4. Screenplay: 4/10 Even more stupid than the first film.  In case of a nuclear war, the first area in the USA to be turned into radioactive slag is the mega city that stretches from DC to Boston.  This inverts it, which makes no sense: only the eastern mega city survived.  Unfortunately, the whole plot depends on this.  Further, no one grows food, anywhere, and yet there is enormous wealth and huge numbers of people.  This cannot happen.  There is no place to mine metal and materials for concrete, yet there are all these huge buildings (to house 800 million people) made of metal and concrete.  This is impossible.  The story, given these mortal wounds in logic, moves along fine, as any simple-minded cartoon will.


5. Special Effects: 8/10 Mostly impressive.

20131114: Horror Review--Victim

Victim

1. Production Fundamentals; reception
1. American live action feature length film, 2010, NR, 74 minutes, horror, aspect 1.78.
2. IMDB: 6.0/10.0 from 3,799 audience ratings.  Estimated budget, 5 million USD.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 'No score yet...' and 71% liked it from 404 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 3.0/5.0 from 140,638 audience ratings.
5. Directed by Matt Eskandari and Michael A. Pierce; screenplay by Michael Hultquist.
6. Starring: Stephen Weigand as Young Man, Bob Bancroft as Dr. Rudolph Volk, Brendan Kelly as Mr. George, Jennifer Howie as Rachel Volk, Stacy Haiduk as Det. Janet Corwin.


2. Setup, Plot
1. The opening, thankfully short, is in hand-held camera land.  Quite a few useful facts here are covered up by the bad camera work...to get the viewer to watch the ending, of course.


2. I was sorely tempted to abandon the film during the opening sequence.  It was neither of artistic value nor informative.  Was I glad that I watched the rest?  No.


3. We switch to 1.78 aspect ratio and professional work with modern cameras.


4. The second opening, also incredibly short, is about a club scene where the entitled squander money on alcohol and other drugs.  The 'Young Man' from the club scene is held up as the title character.  I am quite willing to see the entitled crushed into hamburger.


5. In the third tableau, we're in a very dirty, grim, combination prison and experimentation and torture lab. The lab is located in the basement of a large real property worth somewhere in the millions USD for the gated house and grounds.


6. The Young Man almost escapes, and sends a 911 call.  He is recaptured fairly quickly, so the 911 response is only a uniform visit some days later.  Meanwhile, the Victim receives more attention, that is, beatings, having his fingerprints burned off, sonic attack, and so on.  The uniforms kick the case up to a Detective Janet Corwin.  Dr. Volk defuses her questions with reasonable lies.


7. Thirty minutes into the film, Young Man cannot remember his own name.  How nice.


8. A bit later, Dr. Volk has him wearing a dress, painting is fingernails, and getting his body hair removed.  Dr. Volk moves on to full castration and a sex change operation.  Young Man is no longer that, and his downward trajectory into unhappiness continues.


9. Detective Corwin does some more work on Rachel Volk, Dr. Volk's daughter.  She found out Rachel was reportedly murdered.  She goes to Volk's house, discovers Young Man, then is killed by George.  They bury the body, then send a fake text to cover the trail temporarily.


10. Then the breast implants are executed, plus healing, plus lessons on grooming and deportment.


11. Time marches on.  Detective Corwin is missed, but not found.  The faux Rachel is healed up, and into the role.  After a refined dinner party, things go badly.  That is, back to the hand-held nonsense at the start.  The faux Rachel is to recreate with George the bad happenings that went down in the opening sequence, which was a snuff film with Rachel as the star.


12. How does it turn out the second time?  Do we finally find out what happened the first time, that was hidden (intentionally) the first time?  Did Dr Volk get what he wanted?


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary:  Five million USD should buy real actors and a real script; not here.
2. Two stars of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 4/10 Useless hand-held nonsense detracts from the majority of the film.


2. Sound: 4/10 Useless hand-held nonsense detracts from the majority of the film.


3. Acting: 4/10 Stephen Weigand's first film; unfortunately, not his last. The rest of the performances were between ho-hum and so-what.


4. Screenplay: 4/10 There was a bit of story in the middle that I thought was serviceable.  However, the ending was unsatisfying, since nothing that was hoped to be achieved was achieved.  Looking at the overarching structure, though, that was impossible from the get go.  The means used made the desired end unattainable.

20131114: Horror Review--Darkroom

Darkroom

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. American live action feature length film, 2013, rated R, 80 minutes, horror
2. IMDB: 5.0/10.0 from 84 user ratings.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: No entries whatsoever.
4. Netflix: 2.7/5.0 from 18,990 audience ratings.
5. Directed by: Britt Napier.  Screenplay by: Michaelbrent Collings.
6. Starring: Kaylee DeFer as Michelle, Elisabeth Röhm as Rachel, Christian Campbell as Larry, Tobias Segal as Daniel, Britne Oldford as Jean.


2. Setup and Plot
1. Michelle was in an accident.  This damages all her attempts at drug rehabilitation.  To get out of the program, she needs to get Rachel's approval.  She's lost her school aid due to the court orders, and her job prospects are dim.  Rachel gives her an assignment, which is at a huge, for-sale house doing modelling.  Amazing.  Why would anyone give so much help to this loser-with-repellant-attitude?   She's not attractive, she has a bad smoker's rasp, and various wounds on her body.  Model?  Seriously?


2. Rachel tries to get her to own up to her part in the driving accident in a group therapy session.  This is more or less at the heart of the film.  Michelle does not want to accept responsibility.  She was driving, the three people with her were killed, but somehow it was not her fault.


3. So many flashbacks, so many irritations.  This story is short, and should be told linearly.


4. At the photo shoot, she gets a costume for the gig, and directions to the first filming location.  But no one is there.


5. By this time, I'm rooting for Michelle to get a one-way ticket out of the movie.  She adds little, but is repellant and irritating.


6. At one point, her captors put some food under the door of her holding cell.  Rather than eating for strength, the pouting idiot throws the food against the door.  This harms her foes not one bit, but does mess up her already nasty cell.  Hours later, a slight lesson is learned, and she cooperates a bit for food.


7. Of course, cooperation does not do her any good in the end.  Her captors are siblings whose obsessions make them play out the nightmares of their youth with their abusive mother. Michelle is only a side prop.


8. Will she get out alive?  Let's hope not.  The thought of a sequel is scarier than the entire movie.


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Manipulative script and horrid acting define this weak slasher film.
2. Final Rating: 1/10  The one was for the lettering in the final credits, and the incidental music in the final credits.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 8/10 Not too bad; some weak light and soft focus, though.


2. Sound: 2/10 Had to listen to Michelle's terrible voice. Incidental music was not a plus during the movie itself.


3. Acting: 1/10 I like Elisabeth Röhm, and was sorry to see her in this mess.  Even so, this was not one of her better performances.  Kaylee DeFer, on the other hand, was simply terrible.  Christian Campbell was wretched.  Tobias Segal was worthless.


4. Screenplay: 1/10 Why do I have to listen to this ugly woman's ugly voice?  A woman with neutral looks and a routine sort of voice (just about anyone) would have drawn more sympathy, which would have given the film more depth.  But no, this harsh, useless, foul-mouthed, unrepentant, murdering scumbag is what everyone has to experience.  So the conclusion I get from this dubious casting is that the director wanted the audience to hate the protagonist from the get-go, and greet whatever is done to her with glee.  The backstory of the siblings was convenient as well.  So, let the slashing begin.  The ending was incredibly weak.

20131113: Fantasy Review--The Host

The Host

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. American live action feature length film, 2013, rated PG-13, 125 minutes.
2. IMDB: 5.7/10.0 from 51,567 audience ratings.  Estimated budget: 40 million USD.
3. Rotten Tomatoes:  8% on the meter; 50% from 47,544 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 3.6/5.0 from 118,587 audience ratings.
5. Directed by: Andrew Niccol.
6. Starring:  Saoirse Ronan as Melanie Stryder/Wanda, Diane Krueger as The Seeker/Lacey, William Hurt as Jeb, Frances Fisher as Maggie, Rachel Roberts as Soul Fleur, Shyaam Karra as Soul Anshu.


2. Setup and Plot
1. In the opening narration, William Hurt's voice tells us about a planet inhabited by benevolent beings who get along with one another and treat the planet itself decently.  Fine.  These beings are no longer human.  Human beings have had their personalities obliterated by mental parasites.


2. No story there, so we have a few human beings who resist. The movie is about these few: their struggles, their romances, their subjugation and destruction by the invading parasites.  'We tried to help you, and this is how you thank me?'


3. It was a point of pride for the 'good' alien parasite murderer that her race had subjugated 12 star systems.  She expected the humans she was with to be happy at the news and share in her pride.  Ah, the unbridled arrogance.


4. Who cares?  Where is the retribution?  The parasites kill 7 billion humans, minus perhaps 7 thousand ('we outnumber them one million to one').  Do any of the parasites die?  Well, yes, some do, but hardly enough to amount to anything.  Do they ever recognize that perhaps they've done something wrong?


5. I chalk this one up as just another 'I hate humanity' film.  Avoid it.  Besides the obscene central subject, it is deadly boring. The romance was right up there with Twilight nonsense.  Dull and unlikely, not engaging from beginning to end.


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Candidate for worst 2013 release, as boring as it is absurdly illogical.
2. One star of five; two black holes for acting and screenplay. This is 1984 made pretty, but also deadly boring.   I was quite gratified to see that it did not do well at the box office. The one star was for the closing credits.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 10/10 Well done, except for the constructed sets: I was reminded of the 1960s version of Star Trek.  The landscape of the American West is well-captured now and then.  At the same time, one sees the surviving humans with late-model Volvo trucks that are squeaky clean and have plenty of petrol to burn.  I don't think so.


2. Sound: 10/10 No problems.


3. Acting: 0/10 What acting?  Actors walk around and we hear the roaring in their heads made supposedly by the human-destroying parasites.  Diane Krueger had a moment: 'this one has difficulty dying.'  Nice.  The performance of Saoirse Ronan was central to this film, and was well beyond bad.  I will avoid seeing anything else she appears in.


4. Screenplay: 0/10 Genocide committed by evolved, caring, PC parasites; they just want to help us by killing all of us.  What we are is bad, and has to be fixed; we, of course, are too stupid to accomplish that.  On another note, the world as depicted is very thinly populated (some suicides along the way?) and immensely wealthy.  This is ridiculous.  No one is shown producing anything, such as food, clothing, electricity, housing.  With no one actually working, how would the vast stretches of current human poverty have been converted to gentrified park lands?   What is shown, endlessly, is the tracking down of humans to be mind-raped by parasites, and the interrogations of newly infected (soon to be dead) humans to give up other human survivors.  This is just the obscenity of 1984 made pretty.

20131112: SciFi Review--Europa Report

Europa Report

1. Production Fundamentals; reception
1. American live action feature length film, 2013, rated PG13, 97 minutes.
2. IMDB: 6.5/10.0 from 17,007 audience ratings.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 79% on the meter; 63% liked it from 9,878 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 3.2/5.0 from 35,773 audience ratings.
5. Directed by Sebastian Cordero; screenplay by Philip Gelatt.
6. Starring: Christian Camargo as Dr. Daniel Luxembourg, Embeth Davidtz as Dr. Samantha Unger, Anamaria Marinca as Rosa Dasque, Michael Nyqvist as Andrei Blok, Daniel Wu as William Xu, Karolina Wydra as Dr. Katya Petrovna, Sharlto Copley as James Corrigan, Dan Fogler as Dr. Sokolov, Isiah Whitlock, Jr as Dr. Tarik Pamuk.


2. Setup, Plot
1. Europa One is a mission to Europa, a satellite of the planet Jupiter.


2. The probe is sent to find life on Europa.  It encounters an EMP, which takes out its communications to Earth.  James dies trying to fix it with Andrei.


3. They go ahead and land on Europa, despite having lost contact with Earth.  Katya dies after finding proof of life; the ice breaks and she falls through it.


4. They try to liftoff to get back to the main vehicle for the trip back.  This fails since their engines have been compromised.  William dies executing a maneuver that saves the remaining three from an even harsher impact.  Rosa, Andrei, and Daniel survive, but are worse for the wear.  They assess, then set about fixing the ship.  Daniel and Andrei prepare to go outside to do repairs; Rosa stayed inside to prepare the engines for takeoff.  Daniel vanishes into the ice.


5. Will they make it in time?


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Bright hopes turn into an heroic one way trip.
2. Four stars of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 8/10 Pretty good, but not top of the line.


2. Sound: 10/10 No problems.


3. Acting: 8/10 Reasonably good.


4. Screenplay: 8/10 Good story, fairly well told.


5. Special Effects: 7/10 Better than many, but low-budget.

20131112: Action Review--Olympus Has Fallen

Olympus Has Fallen

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. American live action feature length film, 2013, rated R, 119 minutes, action, thriller. 
2. IMDB: 6.4/10.0 from 108,643 audience ratings.  Estimated budget, 70 million USD.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 48% on the meter; 69% liked it from 128,060 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 4.2/5.0 from 726,432 audience ratings.
5. Directed by: Antoine Fuqua.
6. Starring: Gerard Butler as Mike Banning, Aaron Eckhart as President Benjamin Asher, Morgan Freeman as Speaker Trumbull, Dylan McDermott as Forbes, Rick Yune as Kang, Angela Basset as Secret Service Director Lynn Jacobs, Ashley Judd as First Lady Margaret Asher, Phil Austin as Vice President Charlie Rodriguez, Finley Jacobsen as Connor, Robert Forster as General Edward Clegg, Melissa Leo as Secretary of Defense Ruth McMillan.


2. Setup and Plot
1. Abbreviations: WH for White House; POTUS for President of the United States; NK for North Korea(ns).


2. Agent Mike Banning is in charge of the Secret Service contingent protecting the POTUS as they head out from Camp David at Christmas time. Disaster strikes on the road, with thick snow coming down.  The lead car is taken out, and the POTUS vehicle falls off a bridge, taking the first lady with it.


3. Eighteen months later, Mike is still not on WH duty; Forbes has moved to civilian life.  Tensions with the North Koreans is high; the POTUS meets with the South Korean PM.


4. A four engine prop plane does some major damage; forces on the ground continue the damage after the plane is down.  Mike takes out a few of the terrorists, but he is enormously outgunned.


5. Meanwhile, in the presidential bunker, the Koreans the POTUS insisted on taking with them kill his guards.  Forbes is working for them.


6. Mike takes out a few more, but watches helplessly as the heavily armed North Koreans massacre the Secret Service agents who are not armored and have only pistols.  The NK take the WH.  Speaker Trumbull takes over as acting president.  Mike makes contact from the Oval Office, which is deserted.  He deletes material from the president's laptop.


7. POTUS orders his military and other leaders (the ones kidnapped with him) to give up their Cerberus codes....that allows any and all nuclear missiles to be disarmed in flight.  There are three codes, and the NK get one early on.  They continue to look for Connor, the president's son.  The NK see Mike on surveillance cameras; Forbes assures them he's no problem, but the NK go looking for him anyway.


8. Mike gets Connor out safely.  He gets some information about the NK terrorist who is in charge.  Then it's cat and mouse with terrorist, who dispatches Forbes to do the job.


9. The terrorist tortures Ruth for her Cerberus code.  Asher orders her to give them her Cerberus code.  That certainly looks like a big mistake.  On the outside, the entry of the second code is noted immediately.  Mike does not know that Forbes is a traitor, but he figures it out soon enough.  They fight it out.


10. The Speaker orders the seals to go in through the WH roof.  This was a dismal failure.


11. There are plenty of surprises left before the sort of Hollywood ending.


3. Conclusions
1. Has some similarities to Die Hard.
2. One line summary: Good action film despite the ridiculous premise.
3. Four stars of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 10/10 Good-looking.


2. Sound: 10/10 No problems.


3. Acting: 9/10 All-star cast who knew how to do their jobs.


4. Screenplay: 4/10 Was there at least one military adviser on this project?  We could not intercept a prop plane over DC?  Really?  They make several incredibly slow passes over DC, and nothing takes them out?  All our rockets are decoyed?  At least a secondary firing caught the slow boat.  Only three fighters are ever sent against this ancient prop plane?  Secret Service agents often got off zero shots before being killed.  After nine eleven, I think 'shoot first, ask questions later' would have been in force, especially against obvious active enemies.

20131111: Horror Review--Scream 3

Scream 3

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. American live action feature length film, 2000, rated R, 116 minutes.  Horror, mystery.
2. IMDB: 5.4/10.0 from 74,844 audience ratings.  Estimated budget: 40 million USD.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 36% on the meter; 45% liked it from 402,067 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 3.2/5.0 from 1,573,091 audience ratings.
5. Directed by: Wes Craven.
6. Starring: Liev Schreiber as Cotton Weary, Neve Campbell as Sidney Prescott, Courteney Cox as Gale Weathers, David Arquette as Dewey Riley, Patrick Dempsey as Detective Mark Kincaid, Lance Henriksen as John Milton, Parker Posey as Stab 3 Gale, Jenny McCarthy as Sarah Darling, Patrick Warburton as Steven Stone, Carrie Fisher as Bianca.


2. Setup and Plot
1. The murders start up again while the third installment of the parallel movies, _Stab 3_, is in production.


2. In the opening sequence, Cotton Weary, now a celebrity, is stuck in traffic when a new serial killer calls him.  He rushes home to try to save his girlfriend.


3. Sidney now goes as Laura, and lives in a gated, supposedly secure compound in the sticks.  She works on the telephone for the California Women's Crisis Counseling hotline.  Gale is now quite a celebrity, and is often on the talk circuit.  Det. Kincaid contacts her about the death of Cotton.


4. Sarah Darling dies on set, as per the _Stab 3_ script.  Well, one version of the Stab 3 script.


5. The studio guard Steven Stone dies while checking Dewey's trailer.  The killer almost gets five of them at once.  Sidney comes out of hiding after the killer calls her at home.


6. So, the hunt is on, and Sidney is fully engaged again.  The sister of Randy Meeks delivers a VHS tape, which Randy uses to deliver (post-mortem, he knew he would be dead) the rules for the third film in a trilogy.  By tracing the film archives with Bianca, they discover Maureen Prescott had a stage name, Rina Reynolds, and worked for John Milton using that name.  Sidney has a weird time visiting the room she grew up in, as reconstructed for Stab 3.  Unfortunately, she shares that with some killer in the usual costume.


7. Dewey, Gale, and Stab 3 Gale discuss the matter with John Milton.


8. The killer must be very good with faking voices.  Dewey, Gale, and Gale 3 get diverted by 'Sidney' telling them to go to the party at John Milton's house.  Gale and Dewey find one of the devices used for voice faking.  They go looking for the others at the party.


9. The ending looked good enough to finish the trilogy, but we'll see.  The illumination of a few issues from the first film was nice.


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: The secrets of Sidney's mother's earlier life come to light.
2. Four stars of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 10/10 No problems.


2. Sound: 10/10 Well done.


3. Acting: 8/10 Better than the last one, Scream 2.  Several of the cameos were quite good.


4. Screenplay: 8/10 Wraps up the trilogy, I hope.

20131111: Horror Review--Scream 2

Scream 2

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. American live action feature length film, 1997, rated R, 120 minutes.  Crime, horror, mystery.
2. IMDB: 6.0/10.0 from 95,628 audience ratings. Estimated budget: 23 million USD.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 82% on the meter; 55% liked it from 409,047 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 3.2/5.0 from 1,906,917 audience ratings.
5. Directed by: Wes Craven.  Written by: Kevin Williamson.
6. Starring: David Arquette as Dewey Riley, Courteney Cox as Gale Weathers, Neve Campbell as Sidney Prescott, Elise Neal as Hallie, Sarah Michelle Gellar as Casey (Cici) Cooper, Laura Metcalfe as Debbie Salt, Jamie Kennedy as Randy Meeks, Heather Graham as Stab Casey, Liev Schreiber as Cotton Weary, Joshua Jackson as Film Class Guy #1, Jamie Kennedy as Randy Meeks, Jerry O'Connell as Derek, Omar Epps as Phil, David Warner as (drama teacher) Gus Gold.


2. Setup and Plot
1. Since the happenings of the previous film, Gale wrote a book, The Woodsboro Murders, which becomes a movie called Stab.


2. We follow a black couple into a showing of the film, which reminds me of showings of Rocky Horror Picture Show that I've experienced.  The audience is largely costumed, the theatre operates some props, and the audience brings some 'required' stuff.  The couple get knifed to death, separately, which establishes the context of the rest of the picture.


3. So, we're in the self-referential environment of Scream, but with the passage of time, and an evolution in the setting.


4. The film class discussion of original movies versus sequels went on too long.  Like Scream, this is just over the top self-regarding nonsense, with too much discussion of particular movies within another movie.


5. Gale arranges a meeting between Cotton and Sidney, without telling Sidney.  Even Cotton thought that was a bit much.  Sidney hits Gale again, during filming.  Dewey is displeased with Gale for her characterization of him in her book as Barney Fife.  Ish.


6. Sidney might pledge at Delta Lambda Zeta, so we have another mini-universe of cliches to exploit.  Cici is at the Omega Beta Zeta house, and becomes the next victim in the cycle.  Back at the mixer, Portia di Rossi's eyebrows were hideous.  The attention quickly shifts from the mixer to Cici's death and the swarming of cops and reporters.


7. The costumed assailant attacks Sidney in the DLZ house after the crowd has left.  Derek gets stabbed, but far from fatally.  The next morning, there is a lot of assessment and not enough facts.  Dewey, the Sheriff, and Gale notice a pattern in the names of the new victims versus the principals in the earlier case.


8. Sidney gets invited by Gus Gold to play Cassandra.  The costumes in the play are more than a bit reminiscent of the murderer's Halloween get up.  Also, they have knives, so this was not such a great idea.


9. Randy gets killed in Gale's van while it's on the quad; Sidney gets a death threat in the library.  Goodness.  Cotton has a talk with Sidney in the school library; she wants to leave, he won't have it; he starts yelling like everything while still in the library.  The cops take him in for an alternate discussion.


10. Dewey and Gale pore over footage from recent crime scenes, looking for the culprit.  That worked out fairly well for the killer.  Dewey has a more than rough spot; the killer rushes off to go after Sidney and Hallie.


11. The picture wraps up hard and fast after that.


3. Conclusions
1. PC hatred from the initial scenes: could have done without that.
2. One line summary: Gale from Scream writes a book that becomes a movie; the well of revenge is not empty yet.
3. Four stars of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 10/10 Good-looking picture.


2. Sound: 10/10 Fine, no problems.


3. Acting: 7/10 Not as good as the original.  Liev Schreiber was an improvement over Matthew Lillard, but he did not make up for the presence of Pinkett-Smith or Jerry O'Connell.  Sarah Michelle Gellar was a plus in her short performance, but Tori Spelling was the gaping black hole of non-acting one expects.


4. Screenplay: 6/10 The endless references to cliches in other films drags this down a bit.  Some of the acting is sufficient to carry the story forward.