The Crazies

To say that 'The Crazies' is an appropriate title for this film is the understatement of the year. I definitely believe the government researches things the public knows nothing about, I don't know that I believe they'd be so careless as to let a giant plane carrying biological weapons aimed to destabilize a population crash into rural America, but what's that saying again? Shit happens.

The Gist Of The Movie:
The film centers around David (Timothy Oliphant) who is the sheriff of Ogden Marsh, a small farming community in Iowa where the locals all start to mentally deteriorate into homicidal maniacs. This is all caused by a plane whose contents made it into the area's supply of drinking water when it crashed into the marsh. The contents of the plane just so happened to be an experimental biological weapon manufactured by the United States government. When the government shows up and starts quarantining people the sheriff's pregnant wife, Judy (Radha Mitchell), is separated into the infected group. He, of course, goes back to rescue her and they try to make it out of town alive in what I'm guessing is a reinvention of the 1973 George Romero film of the same name.

What I Think:
Okay, so if The Happening got together with Outbreak and had a baby, this is sort of it. There are a lot of scary aspects to what it would be like to be in this situation, including a really effective use of biohazard suits, because there's something alien about brightly colored plastic uni-suits with matching goggle/gas mask facial accessories. There's also the terrifying knowledge that if there are people in biohazard suits, you should probably be in one too, but seeing as you're not, you might just be shit out of luck. There's also the feeling that you can't trust the person standing next to you and they can't trust you. Is your husband going to turn on you? Are you going to turn on your sister? I mean, even if you're not infected you might just go insane from the undeniable stress of the whole experience. And I guess I should explain what I mean by 'infected', because it is some kind of manufactured disease affecting these people. The medical science is never really explained fully, but my best guess is it's some sort of gradual breakdown of tissues, starting in the brain and working it's way through the body until you have glazed over eyes, spider veins, and you're bleeding from multiple orifices. So the crazies are a little reminiscent of zombies, especially in the aspect that they're super disconnected from their humanity, but they're a lot smarter and they don't want to eat you, they just want to kill you for the sake of killing you. In fact, you could say it's their life's ambition. Another difference between a crazy and a zombie is that eventually a crazy deteriorates to the point where they die, and a zombie has already been through that ordeal.

So you'd think that all this was what horrified me? Well it did, but the scene that made me most uneasy during this film was the Joyride-ish wheat harvester scene. A woman sees something is going on in the barn (we're already aware that her husband is bonkers at this point) so she goes out to check on things. Well the spinny part on the front of the harvester is whirring right along and the headlights are on so you can't see into the cab (channeling Joyride) and she just stands right in front of it. I was so anxious that she was about to be harvested I was ready to start yelling at her.

So in the end, folks, I would say this is a solid horror film with a pretty original story line. It plays on your distrust of other people, even those closest to you. It breaks down your hope that these people have any chance of survival. It relies more on silence and effective cinematography than loud noises and shadows flashing across the screen to scare you. It certainly has a few gory scenes, but mostly lets you fill in the blanks yourself. The only complaint I have is that David definitely has blood to blood contact with an infected person and apparently a bottle of hydrogen peroxide is enough to keep him sane, but other than that I'd say it's definitely worth a watch for anyone that's a fan of the horror genre, especially one who isn't always into buckets of blood.

The Haunting In Connecticut

I really like paranormal stuff and one day there was a documentary on television about the true events this movie is based on. Well the movie was really nothing like the true events, but what can you expect? I guess it needed to be Hollywood-ified. Putting the facts aside, this was a pretty decent movie.

The Gist Of The Movie:
Matt Campbell (Kyle Gallner) is recieving cancer treatment at a hospital that is not in close proximity to his home. So his mother Sara (Virginia Madsen) decides it would be a good idea to relocate to a new house closer to the hospital in Connecticut, to which her husband agrees although he can only be there on weekends as his job requires him to be at their other home during the week. The family, which consists of Sara, Matt, his younger brother, and two cousins, moves into the new house and strange things start happening immediately to Matt. He has grim hallucinations which he originally believes are side effects of an experimental new treatment he's signed up for at the hospital, but soon realizes are somthing a little different. He's also plagued by visions of a boy named Jonah that clearly mean something, we just don't know what yet. As the strange events become more frequent and various strange objects are discovered, Matt and his older cousin Wendy (Amanda Crew) try to unearth the truth about their new home.

What I Think:
This movie proposes the idea that while most of us will die relatively suddenly, somebody with a terminal illness such as cancer deals much more closely with death on a daily basis. So when they come into a 'haunted' location they'd be much more likely to experience something paranormal than you or I would. I'm not sure that this is true, but it's certainly an interesting idea and adds a little spice to the oatmeal that would have been just another ghost movie otherwise. Being that this is classified a horror film, there are a lot of things trying to scare you. Reflections of people who aren't there, terrifying ghosts with eerie eyes popping up at random, and Matt's relatively gruesome hallucinations are all added for the shock value but they sort of happen too often and you start to expect them, especially if it's dark or if someone is alone. I guess that's supposed to make you feel like, whether you can see it or not, there's always something in this house, it is haunted after all. As far as the story line goes, it's a pretty good one. Something happened in the house, it involved Jonah, and now his unrested spirit is trying to communicate with Matt. Pretty basic as far as ghost movies, but with a few twists and a little bit more detail than that.

I know a lot of people were disappointed with this movie, but I personally liked it a fair bit. Sure, it probably won't go down as a horror classic but I'd watch it again any time.

My Soul To Take

The first thing I ever saw pertaining to this film was a big cardboard display at the movie theatre and a teaser trailer for it that same day, a long time before it came out. I remember thinking it looked awesome. So when the previews started playing on television I wanted to go see it, but never did. So I waited for it to come out and got in on Netflix. It was all right, but I'm sort of glad I didn't go see it in theatres (although who knows, the whole theatre experience can make a movie a lot better).

The Gist Of The Movie:
The film begins with a pregnant woman watching a news story about the ongoing case of the Riverton Ripper, a local serial killer, whose knife has been caught on camera. Her husband, who is in the basement making a rocking horse for their unborn child, finds aforementioned knife under his work bench and starts hearing voices telling him to call Dr. Blake. Then another voice tells him if he calls Dr. Blake, he'll kill his family. It's clear by this point that he has multiple personality disorder and Dr. Blake is his therapist. Some crazy shit happens, the family dies. Fast forward sixteen years. There are kids in the woods celebrating 'Ripper Day' when seven children were born on the exact night of the opening scene. It's said that the kids mirror the personalities of Abel Plankoff, the Ripper, and he wants to come back and take revenge on them. The main character, Bug (Max Theiriot), is one of these seven kids. The kids get picked off one by one until it comes down to Bug and the Ripper as the only ones left, there's a valiant struggle, one of them wins, the film is over.

What I Think:
Honestly, I psyched myself up for this one and I was a little bit dissappointed. I really like the story line of this film, and the Ripper was actually pretty terrifying to look at (at least, I certainly wouldn't want to meet him in a dark alley), but the shocking twists were a little forced. Nothing led up to them, no one was trying to figure out who the Ripper was, you just get slapped in the face with an answer you didn't know you were supposed to be asking for. Also, the scary parts where the kids get killed were not all that scary and weren't spaced out enough in my opinion. One minute there's seven kids, the next minute, there's three. They also make a point of putting in love interests that never go anywhere. I understand that the traditional horror movie where the victims band together to try and solve the mystery before it's too late has been done a thousand times, but this is such an original story line I think it could've worked really well and maybe I wouldn't feel so cheated. I think this movie had a lot of potential to be really good, but fell a little short. Wes Craven has definitely made better movies in his day.

So even though I didn't hate it, I'm not recommending anyone run out and see it. But like I said, maybe if you watched it in the dark by yourself it'd be better.

The Messenger

I had never heard of this film until it popped up in my Netflix suggestions, but based on the description (and a small crush on Ben Foster) I decided it seemed entirely worth watching. Now, everyone's seen movies where a soldier or police officer or firefghter dies and two ominous men in uniform show up on their family's doorstep to relay the bad news. This is the movie about those two men.

The Gist Of The Movie:
Ben Foster plays Sgt. Will Montgomery, an injured war hero with three months left to serve, who is assigned to be a Casualty Notification Officer. The officer training him in his new duties is Captain Tony Stone (Woody Harrelson) who has been doing this job for a long enough time to have it down to a science. The two men form a friendship as they carry out their duties and discuss their different views on life and military service. After notifying one woman of her husband's death Montgomery can't seem to forget her and begins a tentative relationship with her, which Stone strongly advises him against. Much emotional turmoil ensues.

What I Think:
The acting in this movie is superb. Ben Foster looks genuinely upset when he sees people crying, while Woody Harrelson seems like he doesn't care at all. Even the smallest roles of parents who are notified of the deaths of their children or people learning of the death of their spouse was completely engrossing. At no point in the film did I laugh at fake crying (although I did laugh at fake puking because the man's name, ironically, was Ralph) because at no point in the film did it feel fake. The audience is just another CNO, knocking on the door of someone who has no idea what's coming, and getting a one minute glimpse into the lives of people they don't know. The question the film raised in my mind is: do you want to know them? You want them to be okay, I mean, it's only human to empathize with them and to want to help. On the other hand, that's not the job, and it would only make things harder. I guess your best bet in that line of work would be to shut out their pain and concentrate on the task at hand, getting through your little speech and ignoring whatever reaction you receive. That's clearly what Captain Stone has learned to do, but we the audience are more like Ben Foster, we're new to this and can't help being sympathetic toward the families. Furthermore, we feel the same ethical conflict as Foster when he begins a relationship with the widow. Is this wrong? Is he taking advantage of her grief or does he understand better than anyone else possibly could? It just sort of gives you this awkward, uneasy feeling when the two of them are together.

The movie (while it probably sounds it) isn't entirely depressing, there is a lighter side in the friendship that develops between Foster and Harrelson. There's humor where there can be, but you definitely won't find yourself calling this one a comedy. But if you're into movies that are emotionally driven and nothing explodes, this could be one for you.

A Clockwork Orange

Unless you've been living under a rock since this movie came out in 1971, you've probably heard about A Clockwork Orange. In addition to Irreversible, this film was on the list of the 15 Most Disturbing Films Ever Made, which didn't surprise me as that's the reason it's so talked about. Well folks, I finally got around to watching it sometime last week.

The Gist Of The Movie:
Malcolm McDowell plays the role of deranged teenager Alexander DeLarge, the leader of a group of boys who get their kicks by going to a nightclub where they drink milk laced with different drugs, and proceeding into the night to commit acts of "ultra-violence". This includes beating innocent strangers, getting into fights with other deranged teenagers, and raping women (makes you long for the days when the worst thing kids did was trespass on your lawn, damn hooligans). Well one fine evening while he's out with his boys, one of their victims is smart enough to call the police before they get into her house. Unfortunately, Alex accidentally kills her (with a giant sculpture of a penis, I might add) and is apprehended by the authorities while his friends escape. He is sent to prison and spends two years there before hearing of an experimental program in which you can be a free man in two weeks if you successfully complete the treatment. He is taken to a mental hospital and finds that the process is something like torture. He is given drugs that make him feel ill while he is forced to watch violent films, thus associating violence with something unpleasant. He completes the program and, as promised, is released as a free man where he finds the world is not as kind a place as he remembers, and all his past transgressions come back to haunt him. Eventually he attempts suicide and it is blamed on the terrible treatment he underwent in the mental institution, so the effects are reversed and politicians, friends, and family come running back to him eager to make up for his suffering. It ends with him imagining himself raping his nurse, and declaring that he feels much better.

What I Think:
This movie is weird, and I know that's not news to anyone who knows anyone who's ever seen this film, but that's because it's the simple truth, when it comes right down to it this movie is really freaking bizarre. Oh right, and Malcolm McDowell plays an excellant creep. The whole point of the film is to give you absolutely no basis on which to judge any of the characters. Do you feel bad that Alex undergoes such horrible treatment, or is it what he deserves? After all, we can assume he's been raping and abusing innocent citizens for most of his adult life (you have to think of all the nights that took place before the movie even began) but does that mean he should be victimized in return? And what about the psychologists giving the treatment, shouldn't they be called out on this? Aren't there laws against cruel and unusual punishment? We also see that Alex's former friends become officers of the law, most likely abusing their power to continue their criminal wrongdoings, which strikes a nerve with anyone who's ever gotten pulled over by some jerk in a uniform. Even when his parents cry over his hospital bed, I was silently cursing at them because they're the ones who let him get away with all these shenanigans in the first place, replaced him with some random while he was gone, and wouldn't let him come home when he was back. Maybe a good time-out could have whipped this boy into shape in his younger years, but I guess hindsight is always 20/20. Honestly, by the end of the film you don't like any of the characters except the ones who didn't spend more than thirty seconds on the screen and you have doubts about them too. And the final scene where you realize that he's reverted to being the same wretched human being he was in the beginning makes you especially angry, because now everyone loves him for it. Nothing has changed, nothing is any better than it was, and you almost feel like you just wasted two hours of your life watching this movie.

None of this is to say that I didn't like the movie, because I sort of did, though I went through most of it with a furrowed brow thinking to myself "what am I watching?". The reason I'm okay with this is that I think that it was the intended purpose of the film. You're not supposed to like these people, you're supposed to get a sick satisfaction out of seeing Alex's pain, but feel outraged that he's the only one feeling it when they all so clearly deserve it. Yet in thinking that, you're just like him. To some degree I guess we all are.

The Kite Runner

Chances are you've heard about this movie and how great it is. Maybe you saw it and loved it, or really wanted to see it and never got around to it. I was with that second group until today, and now I'm part of that first group. There might be a third group of people who didn't like it, but I can't see why unless they just didn't get it.

The Gist Of The Movie:
This movie starts with an author getting his first shipment of books. Excitement turns to dismay when he recieves a phone call from an old friend in Pakistan. We are then transported back in time to where the story really begins, when the author, Amir, was a young boy living in Kabul, Afghanistan with his father and their two servants. One of the servants, Hassan, is a boy his own age and his best friend. We see the boys carve their names into a tree, go see their favorite action movie, read their favorite stories, work as a team to win the annual tournament in kite flying, and all the things kids do while they're still just kids. However, when Amir witnesses a terrible act of cruelty committed against Hassan he does nothing to help, and even seems to punish his friend afterward for what he saw. Eventually, Hassan and his father resign as servants to the family and leave, soon after which the Soviets invade Afghanistan forcing Amir and his father out as well. They make their way to California where they start a life, Amir graduates from college, becomes a writer, finds a wife and we're back to the begininning. The story, however, is far from over. The phone call where the movie began is to summon Amir back to Pakistan where he learns what has become of his old friend Hassan and how he can right the wrongs of his childhood.

What I Think:
First let me say that I wish I had a friend like Hassan. At one point in the movie he says to Amir that he would rather eat dirt than lie to his friend. Amir asks "Would you really eat dirt if I told you to?" to which he replies "If you asked, I would. But would you really ask me to do such a thing?". Amir, of course, says no he wouldn't, but the point of the conversation was to show the audience just how far Hassan would go to prove his loyalty to his friend, and the fact is most of us will never really meet someone like that. Amir's father, Baba, is also an admirable character who, though he enjoys a good Scotch, values honesty and integrity almost as much as he values his son. Among these and other wonderful characters, Amir seems perfectly awful. You'll find yourself asking whether he deserves such a good friend, when he's such a terrible friend in return. The answer is probably no, but you must also ask yourself if, at such a young age, you would really have done anything differently? Would you have the courage to stand up and defend someone when you yourself are defenseless? I know all of us would like to say yes to that question, because we all think we could be the hero, but until you're in the situation you can't possibly know. This film portrays a hero of a different kind, it asks "would you have the courage to redeem yourself later in life when it really matters?"

After all, redemption is the heart of this story. The message is that it doesn't matter what you have done in the past, it is never too late to do good now. You can always be a better person than you were yesterday, you just have to make the right decision and be little bit brave.

Zombieland

It's a love story, it's a zombie film, it's hilarious.

The Gist Of The Movie:
Jesse Eisenberg is a survivor of the zombie apocolypse. Nearly everyone is undead, but he has survived by following a long list of rules. He is trying to make it back to Columbus, Ohio to see if his parents have also survived, even though he was never that close to them. On the way he meets up with a wildman who calls himself Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson) and two sisters (Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin) who are heading to an amusement park they loved from childhood. The story follows their shenanigans in Zombieland (which is how they refer to America) and the familial relationship that blossoms between them.

What I Think:
This movie is funny from start to finish. It's really quirky and you can't help but love the characters. The opening sequence of Jesse Eisenberg explaining how the zombie apocolypse happened and his rules of survival is perfect in the sense that it is an introduction that doesn't just sound like something they had to do so I would understand the movie (as some introductions often do). His character of the kid whose phobias of everything are actually a critical tool of survival is entirely believable, because carelessness kills when there are zombies afoot. But I must say Woody Harrelson is my favorite character as the modern day cowboy that just enjoys kickin' zombie ass in his never ending quest to find a Twinkie (not to mention his fantastic array of original phrases). Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin are great too as sisters who trust each other, and no one else. As the movie progresses you learn who these people were before modern society collapsed and you watch as they band together in the aftermath of it all.

All in all this movie is Shaun of the Dead meets awkward teen romance and is entirely worth watching if you're in the mood for a comedy. I feel like I've never heard too many people talking about it and that's a shame.

Irreversible

I recently found a list entitled "15 of the Most Disturbing Films Ever Made". Now, anyone that knows me, knows that I would read this list and most likely decide to see all of the films on it, and you'd be right.
One such movie on this list was Irreversible, a French film which, ironically, is told in reverse.

The Gist Of The Film:
Monica Belluci stars as Alex, a beautiful woman who is going out for a night on the town with her boyfriend and her ex-boyfriend with whom she maintains a friendly relationship. They go to a party where her current boyfriend acts like an ass, and so she leaves. Outside, unable to hail a taxi, she takes advice from a woman on the street (presumably a prostitute?) who tells her it would be safer to take the underpass (some kind of tunnel system under the streets) and go to the bus station. Monica thanks the friendly prostitute and heads underground, where she encounters a terrifying individual and is subsequently beaten and raped. Meanwhile the two men she was with are exiting the party and see her being taken away in an ambulance. They ask the police what happened, the police tell them, and then they are approached by an alltogether random stranger and his cohort who offer to help them find who did this. They accept and embark on a long night of vengeance-seeking.

What I Think:
Keep in mind that this is told in reverse, so for the first thirty minutes you have no idea what's going on, who these people are, where they are, and why they do anything hat they do. Also, the filmaker thought it'd be a good idea to swirl the camera around really fast to add to your confusion. But as the camera steadies and the story starts to piece together you realize it's something of a study on cause and effect, where you are told the effect first and then are shown how it happened, piece by piece, until you understand how these people's lives are utterly destroyed by one night. At first I did not like this movie, as I was left with no closure. You see, in an American film the two men would go out into the night with their weapons and their righteous fury and exact revenge on anyone that played a part in the terrible tragedy, and then all would be right with the world. However, this film literally ends before the night takes place and you're only left with the terrible knowledge of what comes next for these people, and that none of it is good. You wish you could change it, but you can't, and you see the whole thing, I mean literally see this woman being raped. Sure, you know she's an actress and this isn't really happening, but the director gives you 9 minutes of uncensored rape scene to think about how this DOES really happen to people. When the film was shown for the first time, a majority of the people watching walked out and I'm assuming they were thinking something like "I can't watch this shit" (except in French). After the rape scene, nothing exciting happens. You just get to examine how much this couple loved each other, how much fun the group had earlier in the evening, and just how happy they all were, which makes the film all the more sickening.

So all in all there are no happy endings, because in real life, things like this don't have happy endings. In the movie two of the characters discuss the chinese proverb "when plotting revenge first dig one grave for your enemy, and then one for yourself" and it's the truth. For the first thirty minutes you will be confused, when the film is over you will still be confused, but the more you actively think about what this story was trying to say to you, you'll start to understand and either hate or love this movie.

I think I really liked it, but I'm still not sure, and that is what art is all about.

First Post, Folks

Well. I think the main goal of my Blog (being that I decided to title it 'Addicted To Netflix' and believe me, I'm addicted) will be to review movies that I watch. They might be ones that have been around for a while, they might be new releases. They might be horror, comedy, drama, dramedy, hell they might be foreign, but my diversity in taste is what would make reading my blog interesting to anyone, I suppose. At least, I hope.

Also, I'd love for you guys to tell me what movies you want me to talk about. Maybe something you never saw and you're wondering if you should've. Or maybe something you saw and wish you'd skipped. Maybe you're just looking for something good to watch and a suggestion would be helpful.

Now, which movie should I talk about first....