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Reviews
'night, Mother (1986)
Excellent dialogue but very sad
A harrowing tale, Jessie Cates is an epileptic who is unable to drive or hold down a job and has decided that there is no reason to go on living anymore. She is quite serious in her intent but tells her mother that she is planning to kill herself before the night is over with. She then goes through the motions of labeling all of her belongings so that they may go to the appropriate person after she is gone.
During this time Jessie gets things in order for her mother while her mother tries to convince her not to kill herself. This movie hits home with anyone who has ever seriously considered killing themselves or the people they leave behind. Excellent acting throughout as one would expect from these actors. At times the movie was humorous, emotional and very thought provoking.
I swear I never cry about films but the ending just gripped me in a way only one movie has ever before, Grave of the Fireflies. The ending was so nerve wracking and tense, it will leave you thinking about the film for awhile after you see the film. This is a great film for anyone who is thinking about committing suicide as it gets you to thinking about the people and devastation you leave behind.
The Divide (2011)
Don't expect straight answers
*******SPOILERS*******
The movie starts off interestingly enough, a nuclear bomb explodes and everyone is rushing to get out of an apartment building. A group of people manage to take shelter in the basement of the apartment building owned by the apartment manager. However once they are down there everyone starts to bicker about ridiculous crap, such as getting angry that there are only baked beans to eat while they are down there. I think the last thing that would be on your mind in that situation is the type of cuisine that is available.
Then it gets more interesting when the film takes a sci-fi turn and a bunch of heavily suited men armed with guns enter the basement and take a young girl and whoops everyone else's ass. The apartment manager manages to kill one of them. Later, one of the men in the group puts on the suit of the dead guy to go outside and try to retrieve the young girl and find help. Once outside he is in a sealed plastic tunnel that leads to a laboratory/clean room of sorts. There we see people displayed in chambers, I can only guess were fallout victims. We never find out what they were doing with these people or why these men in the radiation suits were there in the first place. We are supposed to believe despite the heavy rubble of the building, these men managed to create a perfect clean room environment in the hallway without making any noise and with no problem.
They get sealed in and everything goes downhill from there. Everyone spirals into some sort of madness which results in rapes, medium torture and beating the hell out of each other. Magically while they are down there for several weeks (we never really know how long) whatever food they have seems to last endlessly. There is absolutely no character development so you don't really care what happens to these people in the end. The movie does not end on a positive note.
This is far away from being torture porn so many people are mentioning, but if you can't stomach rape and some torture scenes this movie probably isn't for you. The acting was not bad. Don't expect 12 Monkeys or 28 Days later type of quality here. If your thing is apocalyptic movies and you have to watch all of them then this is up your alley. Somewhat watchable but it just didn't do it for me.
À l'intérieur (2007)
This film could have seen better days
Sarah has an accident with her husband in which he is killed, but she and her unborn child are survived. Fast forward until the night before Christmas where Sarah is anticipating giving birth to her child the next day. There is a knock on the door, it is a woman who feigns car trouble and asks to use the phone. Sarah smartly refuses and tells her to knock on another door for help. After a bit of this, the woman reveals she knows that Sarah's husband is dead and is thus all alone.
What ensues afterward is a lot of gore, blood, and violence. The violent femme will stop at nothing to procure Sarah's baby and murders anyone who comes in her way.
I can appreciate a good gory film like most people but there were some scenes like a lot of viewers are saying that just do not make sense, even for a film. The murderess takes down all of the policemen? They all run in without calling for backup? The pregnant protagonist lays down on the bed after several people have been murdered including her parents, and she knows this woman wants her baby instead of trying to get the hell out of the house? and what the hell was up with that zombie scene? I love zombie films but this was no zombie film, so fitting something so out of place in a film that had nothing to do with the undead rising was completely comical. Maybe I am operating under some complete opposite universe, but I just did not get it.
I thought that the gore scenes were well done, save for the spray can scene which was pretty fake looking. The cutting to the shots of the baby in the stomach became irritating because at times it served no purpose. It would have been fine because there were times where it genuinely served an effect but this was limited in number. All together a straight forward film, it makes no apologies and does not try to be something that it is not.
Entre nos (2009)
Reminded me of my own family
Entre nos does several things well; it plays on our emotions and sympathy, introduces us to different cultural dynamics, offers us humor and leads to an ending that leaves us satisfied. We are introduced to Mariana (Paola Mendoza) and her two children Gabriel (Sebastian Villada Lopez), 10, and Andrea (Laura Montana Cortez), 6,who have emigrated from Columbia to be with their father and husband Antonio in New York City.
In an underhanded move Antonio tells Mariana that he has to go to Miami to work for awhile and he will return when he is done. That is not the case as Mariana soon learns that he has left her with no intentions of ever coming back or seeing her and the children again. A prickling horror overcomes her as she realizes she has no money, no job, does not speak English, has two children to care for, and is in a foreign country that she has only been in for two weeks with no one to turn to.
The most humble moments come when Mariana takes to making empanadas to try to sell on the streets which is a complete failure. They are eventually thrown on the streets and Mariana, Gabi and Andrea have to come to terms with the very basics of survival. They find a surprising source of income: the city's recycling can program and soon take to combing through trash cans to make ends meet. Gabi takes it upon himself to become a man at age 10 by working the streets collecting cans when his mother cannot.
It is a film that will leave you thinking about it for awhile after you have viewed it and may change your ideas about the homeless and immigrants. The scene where Mariana is sitting on a park bench in the dark surrounded by her sleeping children will pull at mother's heartstrings and any viewer as you share in the despair of the situation. This movie tells a remarkable tale of a family clawing towards the American dream.
It was the ending that really got to me when the epilogue revealed that this was a true story and the actress that plays Mariana is actually the daughter in real life who directed and wrote this film for her mother. In my opinion this was the ultimate way to honor her mother and she did a great job of capturing the pain, secrets, and heartbreaking moments as well as the inspirational hope that you will leave with from this film.
You will also get very hungry for empanadas!!!
Shutter (2004)
Genuinely Creepy
This film does not reinvent the wheel, but if you are a film buff you know this does not necessarily need to happen in order to deliver an effective film. While Shutter uses some techniques we have often seen in other horror films (such as jump scenes etc) directors Pisanthanakun and Wongpoom manage to do it well enough to deliver some creepy scenes that will leave you glancing around your house after the film is over.
The film starts out like a Thai version of I Know What You Did Last Summer with the films progressing to something more sinister. A young photographer named Thun and his girlfriend Jane run over a woman in the street but keep going. After that, Jane and Thun discover sinister images in the photographs that they take. They begin to investigate the phenomena of spirit photography only to discover that they are not alone when they think they are.
This film is in subtitles but if you can get past that you will be discovering an excellent foreign horror film.
Motel Hell (1980)
Easily a cult classic
If you haven't seen Motel Hell, now is your time to see it. This is a horror/parody/black comedy film that is well done. Farmer Vincent is actually a well likable guy considering what he uses as an additive in his famous smoked meats. His meats are like no other you have ever tasted. Set in a small town Vincent (Rory Calhoun) and his sister Ida (Nancy Parsons)share a grotesque secret: They are cannibals and the purveyors of human flesh in the guise of farm raised and smoked pork. Some never forget scenes are the "garden" where Vincent and Ida "plant" the humans they have captured, severing their vocal cords to keep them from screaming and the road scene where girls are captured using fake cows in the road.
There are some genuinely creepy scenes in this film that will leave you thinking about it after the film is over. The movie centers around a young female Terry whom Vincent had caught in the guise of rescuing her and her boyfriend. After smoking her boyfriend, Terry and Vincent fall in love much to the abhorrence of Ida. Vincent tries to keep Terry from finding out the family secret but that proves to be too much resulting in an unforgettable ending. This movie might even make you hungry! Watch for the swingers scene, it's hilarious.
Little Miss Sunshine (2006)
Family Takes Unconventional Road Trip to Discovery
In Little Miss Sunshine, then ten year old Abigail Breslin plays seven year old Olive Hoover in the 2006 film. In Little Miss Sunshine, the Hoover family typically define dysfunctional; a father (played by Greg Kinnear) who has become so absorbed in his own motivational program that he no longer can tell when his business life ends and when his family life begins, a heroin snorting grandfather (played by Alan Arkin), a brother who refuses to speak until he reaches his goal of becoming an air pilot (played by Paul Dano), an uncle(played by Steve Carell) who tries to fight his inner demons by attempting suicide, and a loving mother caught in the middle of all of this (played by Toni Collette). Olive is a cute seven year old with her sights set on becoming the newest Little Miss Sunshine so much, that she mimics pageant winners on television. Complications dictate that the family has to make the trip from Albuquerque, NM together in their nearly run-down, yellow VW bus to Redondo Beach, CA where the pageant is to be held. Drama, tragedy and comedy accompany their trip, leading them on the path to each of their own self discovery.
The Box (2009)
I as well as many others have wasted 2 hours of my life
It pains me to write that much about this movie considering this is also going to be wasting more of my time. However, I feel it is my duty to warn others from experiencing a night of dread caused by this movie. Drawn out for way too long and even when you take into consideration the explanations of the movie, it is still horribly boring and awful. Even the special effects in this movie were lame and looked like something out of one of those cheap sci-fi movies on the Syfy network. This movie is much like the box that was opened and discovered to be completely empty inside. Save your time and watch some other movie, the fact that this is directed by Richard Kelly does not save it.
Albert Fish: In Sin He Found Salvation (2007)
Don't bother
Ridiculously slow and corny as hell. I like serial killer documentaries but this was too awful to ever watch again let alone recommend. Reenactments of things that DID NOT need reenactment, and I'm not talking about anything gory just stupid stuff like him painting a wall with fake blood. It added nothing to the story and didn't even happen they just did props like that to be ridiculous in the film. I hated the narrators voice in which they tried to make the guy sound like he was from Jersey. The only thing remotely interesting was when they were showing a man cut up some obvious raw beef to try to make it look like it was a human. Well at least I got a good laugh out of it.