A Year of Movies #8: Paranormal Activity

This movie has all the makings of this decade's Blair Witch Project. It was made on the cheap ($15,000), shot by the actors themselves,it had a great marketing push behind it, and it's a really decent scary movie when you get down to it.

The movie follows a couple who are being haunted by what they think of as a ghost. Pretty soon they realize that it is a demon...something much more sinister. They carry a camera around during the day and then set it on a tripod at night to see what happens while they sleep.

Without giving anything away, you can guess that the presence of the "entity" gets dramatically stronger as the movie progresses. What is really amazing is to watch this movie and try to figure out how they shot some of the scenes. Most of the movie is shot in long takes where the camera never cuts angles. Events that occur are seen from one point-of-view as the camera doesn't move while things are "happening".

That is the biggest deviation between this movie and the Blair Witch Project. The technology is better than it was in the late 1990's so the filmmakers can do some pretty crazy stuff.

I can't say anymore without really blowing it so I am going to stop now. If you like good scary movies then check this movie out. It is pretty creepy, and will stay with you for days after you watch it.

A Year of Movies #7: The Box

Shhh! Can you hear that? That is the death rattle of director Richard Kelly's filmmaking career. Poor thing. It started off promisingly, but after Donnie Darko it just went down the toilet.

I should say that Kelly's third film The Box is not nearly as bad as his second film Southland Tales. That movie was complete garbage. The best line in that movie was by The Rock and it was equal parts bad, terrible, and absurdly awesome "I'm a pimp...And pimps don't die." Tell that to Gary Oldman's in True Romance.

The Box, Kelly's third film, is based on a Richard Matheson short story so you expect it to be somewhat interesting. Matheson being the predecessor to Stephen King. The movie itself starts off as a pretty normal film that takes place in the mid 1970's. James Marsden and Cameron Diaz are a married couple that are having some money troubles and they are hiding it from their kid. Marsden works for NASA and is expecting to be promoted soon and that will free them from financial difficulty forever.

Well, as you can assume, Marsden doesn't get the job. The family sinks deeper into debt. Then a strange man with half of his lower jaw missing knocks on the door and offers them a way out. This is where the movie gets interesting. The man presents the couple with a wooden box and a red button. He tells them that they have 24 hours to decide whether to press the button or not. If they do they will get $1 million, but someone they don't know will die.

So it's a test. Can you live with knowledge that you caused someone's death if you get $1 million for it? The family in this movie decide they can and push the button. (This really isn't a spoiler because if they didn't push the button the movie would only be 30 minutes long so the only logical thing to do to progress the story is to push it and see what happens.) Then the movie takes a weird turn. We start to learn more about how Mr. No Jaw and Marsden's character are linked and how this whole "project" of offering the box is tied to a much larger experiment.

The problem is that by the end of the movie the several story lines have mixed and jumbled to the point that it is somewhat confusing as to what exactly is going on. You get closure to the story of Marsden and Diaz, but by the end of the movie they aren't really even minor characters in this messed up Sci-Fi morality play. Sadly, by the end I didn't care what happened to them.

A Year of Movies #6: Law Abiding Citizen (A Fistful of Poo)

Well like The Final Destination there isn't much to say about this movie. It follows Gerard Butler who for reasons we learn later witnesses his family murdered in front of him. We also follow Jamie Foxx who is a rising star in the D.A.'s office and when the trial of the two men who murdered Butler's family comes across Foxx's desk he does what every attorney does... he makes a deal with one to convict the other.

This clearly won't sit well with Butler as he wants to see both men go to jail for their crimes. It doesn't help that Foxx makes a deal with the guy that committed the actual murders, while the man convicted was just a "lookout".

Fast forward 10 years and Foxx is now the D.A. and Butler is now ready to see his master plan come to fruition. I won't tell you what he does, but if you've seen the trailer you know that it involves a lot of killing and blowing up of things.

Overall this movie was competently directed, but that is about all I can say. I didn't go into this thinking I was watching something spectacular, I just like to watch every movie I can. For me it's the experience of watching movies. It also helps to see movies that don't work to learn what does work.

This movie was a typical hollywood affair. Foxx and Butler clearly did it for a paycheck although the difference between them is that Foxx has actually made a movie that was worth watching more than once, Butler hasn't. He's actually not a bad actor, he just chooses movie roles that utilize his brawn over all else and that subsequently keeps him one step ahead of the WWC wrestler John Cena in the action movie genre.

Noir Film Schedule for March

Since I am getting a late start on this we are going to make things a little more laid back this month. This will help you guys get into the feel of watching a movie each week, and help me get into the groove of posting and keeping tabs on this stuff.

That said, here is the schedule for this month's marathon:

March 7: Sunset Blvd.
March 14: Double Indemnity
March 21: Strangers on a Train
March 28: Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

You may notice that these movies are more along the lines of Noir than they are detective stories. That is because I decided that there was enough great material to make an extended detective marathon that will come out in the summer. All of the movies that I have listed are readily available at any Blockbuster worth it's salt, or Netflix if you are one of those cool people who have an account.

If there are any questions just post a comment and I will get to them quickly.

And the first movie marathon is........

Noir Stories!

Thanks to those who voted. I will post the schedule for the movies by tonight so that we can get these underway.