Monsters film review

Since Netflix sorts everything by genre I decided to look through the Horror/Thriller section. I decided to watch Monsters because I had heard good things about it.
The movie starts off as one of those hand held camera movies, which I wasn’t crazy about. The camera belongs to someone on a military truck and is cut off when an explosion blows the truck (and camera) up. After that the movie switches between regular filming.
The remainder of the film follows two American’s trying to get back into America to escape an Alien invasion that have taken over most of Mexico. The Aliens reproduce in the trees so the large forest provides the perfect place for them. The main character Andrew is sent to pick up Samantha, the daughter of a wealthy businessman because she is engaged to be married. Even though he is just a photographer he agrees to bring her back. Unfortuantly, the two of them miss the last boat out of Mexico. The two decide to go through the forest with a small group of guides to try and cross into the U.S. by foot. After having several near death encounters with the aliens the two finally make it to the boarder, only to realize that it’s been destroyed and the aliens have moved into the United State. Once in the U.S. they take refuge in a gas station convenient store. By this time a love interest has sparked between the two so they’re sort of forgetting about the whole alien invasion causing them to walk right in between two very large aliens mating. They finally find a phone and call 911 who say they’re sending a military truck. Right afterwards Samantha tells Andrew she doesn’t want to go home to her fiancé and they finally share an over dramatic kiss. Shortly afterwards the army picks them up and the screen fades.
Now I was very disappointed with the ending because I thought they had left me hanging for a sequel. Turns out the opening scene on the military truck is really them with the soldiers that picked them up and that they die along with the rest of the soldiers. So basically the whole movie is just how they came to be with the soldiers and die. If you like being confused and a bit disappointed I would definitely recommend this movie.

What makes a good horror story?

http://www.fictionfactor.com/guests/scary.html

So I'm starting my senior project and my genre it horror so just for fun I typed "what makes a good horror story" into google, and I found this link pretty helpful (and true according to the things I've read).

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

I just finished reading Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and I wanted to conclude that this book was extremely hectic. It was confusing at first because it switched narrator to narrator. It jumped to letters from Oskar Schell's grandma written to him to his grandfather writing letters to Oskar's dad who died in the World Trade Center. The book revolves around Oskar, a nine year old boy, trying to find what relevance a key has to do with his father. He gets closer and closer to finding out and once he does, he finds that the key had absolutely no relevance. He meets his grandfather for the first time since he was born because his grandfather becomes present in their lives. The book talks about the horrid events in Dresden and the lack of love the grandmother felt when she was married. It talks about the different lives of the different characters, especially the protagonist and how he came to be.

I personally did not enjoy the book in the beginning because I was confused as to what was going on. The author has a very different style of writing and sometimes it feels like his writing is all over the place but he explained a lot dramatic events pretty well. I started enjoying it later on because I started understanding what the letters in between were and what the author was trying to explain. All in all, it was an original story about 9/11 which I thought was very different from a lot of the other stories. It did not only talk about one event but how the character dealt with death and fear of losing someone and it talked about other events in history as well.

When A Stranger Calls: Film Review

When A Stranger Calls was a scary movie. This movie is about a babysitter. After she put the children to sleep, she got random, anonymous phone calls through out the night. The phone would ring and the person on the other end would say nothing except “Have you checked the children?”. She didn’t think much of the calls at first but she started to get nervous once they continuously came. When she finally checked on them, she found them murdered in the bed room with blood everywhere. The man that kept called murdered the children and haunted her from then on.

I think this film scared me mainly because I babysit a lot. For a while after I saw this movie I was scared to babysit alone. I was scared the events in the movie were actually going to happen to me. If a horror film scares you and stays with you for days after you see it, I think that’s how you know the film did its job.

The scariest part of this movie, along with the majority of the horror movies I’ve seen, was the music. The music was so powerful and aggressive it gave me chills. Before something scary was going to happen the music would intensify and get my heart racing. It would also build slowly making me even more frightened. I would recommend this movie if anyone is looking to get scared, but it wouldn’t be the best idea to watch it if you have to babysit soon after.

Carrie Film Review

I re-watched Carrie as my other horror film. Carrie is a film adaptation of another Stephen King book of the same name. Although I have never read the book, I really love the movie.

Carrie is about a teenager named Carrie who is really sheltered and raised under the guidance of her religious fanatic mother. Carrie has supernatural powers that are tapped in to when she gets mad. She is tortured by her classmates due to her lack of social ability and even her own mother believes she is the devil.

At Carrie's high school prom, a group of kids decides to pull a prank on her. Her date for the prom is one of the "popular" boys in her class. They decided to make the two of them prom king and queen and when they get up on stage to accept their titles, red paint is dropped on her from the ceiling. Carrie's supernatural powers kick in killing everyone there except for one classmate, Sue, who is left to live with the guilt of knowing that everyone she loved was killed because of her.

When Carrie returns home after the prom rampage, her mother is there waiting to perform a sacrifice on her in order to get rid of the devil inside of her. Carrie narrowly escapes but she then kills her mother in order to save herself. Carrie does die in a fire caused by all of the candles lit around her house as part of her mother's sacrifice.

One of the scariest parts of the movie, I read, is coincidentally not part of the book. It is the scene at the end where Sue goes to pay respects to Carrie at her house after it has burned down, and as she kneels down at her grave, Carrie reaches up from the ground and grabs her arm, waking Sue up from her dream.

Lord Of War

The movie i have recently watched on Netflix is "Lord Of War." It is a political Action/war film released in 2005. This film describes how war actually becomes a war. Nicolas Cage stars as the Protagonist; Yuri Orlov, the gun runner. He is an American Gun Runner of a Ukrainian Origin. The movie starts off with him standing in the middle of a sea of spend shell castings. He states that with over 550 million firearms in worldwide circulations, there is about 1 fire arm for ever 12 people, now his question is . . . how to arm the other 11. The movie is based off of a real even that happened from the 1980's to the 21st century. The gun running business has ever so demanded more guns to be sent to over sea country to fuel war. Through out the movie the protagonist travels threw several different places and sells his arms to the fighting Nation. He gets his guns from the break down of the former Soviet Union. Yuri Orlov had to live several different lives and still come back to his family after selling guns that kill. The accuracy of this movie is close to it as it can get. Yuri Orlov is a fictional name composed of 2 names of real gun runners the movie is based on. Yuri Orlov had a partner to sell his arms, his brother Vitaly. The plot is on the illegal arms market and the wars that his arms were used in. During the invation, he sold his weapons to the Taliban that were being helped by the united states. Iraq wars, Cold War and the small proxy wars are where guns were bought by this man who is fictional. The production of this movie actually used real ak-47's. The production team bought 3000 real ak-47 rifles because they were cheaper then prop guns. Also in the scene where Yuri Orlov is in the car driving past the Russian Tanks, those were bought by the production team and then sold after the movie to Libya. Food for thought.

The Da Vinci Code

Over the weekend I watched The Da Vinci Code. This movie is based off of the famous best seller by James Brown, and is part of a trilogy (The Da Vinci Code, Angels and Demons, and The Lost Symbol). Although this movie was out before the movie Angels and Demons, the book Angels and Demons came before The Da Vinci Code. Because of the connection, many parallels can be drawn between the two plotlines. Some of the parallels that I saw were how a woman was the sidekick in movies, secret society or brotherhood, clues with sculptures, and etc. This movie was almost exactly the same as Angels and Demons, only it has nothing to do with the Church.

The movie begins with the Harvard professor, Robert Langdon, receiving a request to help solve the mystery behind the recent death of the art curator of the Louvre. Upon accepting this request, he learns of the involvement of the Priory of Sion and their secret. The Priory of Sion is an ancient brotherhood created for the purpose of protecting the Holy Grail. With this secret hidden within the works of the renowned Leonardo Da Vinci Langdon goes all over Paris finding hints in art, history, and religion.

Some of the mystery tropes that I saw in this movie were the friend did it, hidden in plain sight, confesses in confidence, and saying too much. There’s always that evil character that think they are so smart, that their plan will work out and no one will ever find out but the good guys always win because when the good guys are capture, the evil character will expose all that they have done.

This movie was okay, I liked it better because there weren’t as many deaths compared to Angels and Demons but then again all those deaths was what kept me at the edge of my couch waiting for the next big thing to happen.

No Strings Attached (movie review)

I watched No Strings Attached with Natalie Portman and Ashton Kutcher and it introduced the dramatic events and emotions that come with friends with benefits. I thought it with into the category of Romantic Drama. The movie is about two young characters named Adam and Emma who're both emotionally confused and figuring out what they want from life. Adam's father is dating his ex-girlfriend and Emma does not like relationships because she is afraid to be hurt. These characters try to be friends with benefits but one falls for the other and there's a lot of tension and drama in their relationship and where it's going. There are questions raised and concerns about whether they can manage to have more than what they have.

Emma wants to keep their relationship strictly physical but Adam ends up wanting much more than that which Emma cannot give because she is confused and doesn't know what she wants. Adam gets his heart broken and decides he does not want to see Emma anymore because he's going to want more than just a physical relationship. He wants to put forth his emotions and make an effort to have an actual relationship with her. Emma agrees that they should not see each other but later on regrets the decision once she sees that Adam has "moved on." Adam tries to make Emma jealous and it becomes even more dramatic because it's more than just sexual tension.

I liked the movie a lot because it shows how dramatic "friends with benefits" can get and how emotions clash. The movie was pretty predictable though because in a dramatic romance movie, the couple almost, always ends up together...I suppose it's one of the rules of a romantic drama movie. But I liked it and the story made sense because a lot of this happens in real life and there are so many young people dealing with this kind of drama and tension. It was quite interesting.

Angels and Demons

I watched Angels and Demons and although it wasn’t in the top 100 mystery movies like Inception, it was a really cool movie. I haven’t read the book before this movie so I’m not exactly sure how it compares with the movie but people have said that they left out some important parts that told about the past. This movie started out with a lot of priests breaking the pope’s personalized ring and stamp, because the pope just passed away. They can’t allow those items to get in the hands of other people who might do something in the name of the pope.

The movie takes place in Vatican City, Italy so when the pope passed away; it was a major event that almost everyone grieved about. The next four cardinals in line for the pope position were very important and the mystery begins when a mysterious person sends an Illuminati symbol and the police have to ask help from Harvard professor, Robert Langdon. The Illuminati was a secret society of scientists that opposed the religious society a lot because they started killing scientists for what they thought was going against religion. So the four cardinals are captured and killed every hour before the final light that will wipe out Vatican City. Langdon follows all these signs for the four elements and he’s able to save the last cardinal while almost able to have saved two more. The murderer planned to kill the four cardinals with the four elements (water, fire, air, earth) and he would brand them with the Illuminati element symbol too. The light that he said would wipe out Vatican City was an vial of antimatter that he stole from the laboratory right as scientists have just successfully proved it. There’s a mix of science inventions with religious stories which goes with the whole Illuminati versus Church thing.

There were a lot of the mystery tropes in this movie such as the obvious murderer and mastermind behind all this (I wouldn’t say, just if you want to watch it to find out), evidence scavenger hunt, hidden in plain sight, serial killing specific targets, and more. I liked this movie a lot although there were some times that I was scared because of how they portrayed the deaths.

Film Review: The Orphan

Although I thought The Orphan wasn’t a particularly good movie, I was definitely scared and entertained by it. This was the first rated R film I ever saw in theaters and I remember covering my eyes, closing my ears and screaming at some scenes in the film.

The suspense in this movie was overwhelming and frightening. The music was dramatic and made every scene even more suspenseful. I knew that something bad was going to happen as soon as I heard the slow, quiet music start. There were a lot of teaser scenes in this movie. The suspenseful music would play as a door opened, or a mirror closed but nothing would be behind it. The fake out suspense scenes made me more scared because I didn’t know whether something scary was actually going to happen or if it was just a trick.

Along with being suspenseful, this movie was also gory. The orphan child killed her first victim by bashing their head with a hammer. She injured her second victim by pushing them off a jungle gym which caused them to snap their leg in half. She killed another character in the movie by stabbing them. There was a lot of blood. Gory scenes don’t scare me as much as psychologically thrilling scenes do. The blood and murder grosses me out more than it frightens me.

The ending of this movie was shocking. I thought it was well done in how the secret of the villain was revealed. Unfortunately I knew what was wrong with the orphan child before I saw the movie so the ending wasn’t super shocking but had I not known, I would have never seen it coming.

Overall, I think the film was successful in frightening an audience. I was definitely scared and the people in the theater were scared also. I could tell by their shrieks and screams. I would recommend this movie to anyone looking to be entertained and I think it’d be best to watch with some friends. Having company while watching a horror film always makes it more fun to watch.

misery movie review

The movie I saw was misery and was made based on the book misery by Stephen King. The movie did a good job on making a movie that was based on the book. There were a few differences though. In the book, Annie had used a axe and chopped off Paul's leg in order to stop him from escaping her house. In the movie, Annie uses a sledgehammer and hits breaks Paul's ankle. In the book, Annie also gets her finger chopped off while in the movie, there wasn't anything about it. Also in the book, there was a officer who got killed by Annie after he went to Annie's house and asked if he knew where Paul was. I did not see an officer go to Annie's house and get killed before two other officers came and rescued Paul. The movie was good and had a many similarities with the book. There were just a few differences and the book had more violence and bloody scenes that were described than the movie. The book had more details and you were able to picture the vivid images while the movie has more generalized and did not have the details that were put into the book. Even though you read the book and then went to see the movie, there are definitely somethings that you don't really expect and the movie and as well as the book also builds a lot of suspense in order to make it scary and exciting.

Avatar: Film Review

Avatar, the 2009 film directed and created by the director of the famous film Titanic, James Cameron. Avatar was suppose to be film right after the Titanic, but was delayed because of the technology that was needed to create the film Cameron wanted.

The story begins in 2154, on Pandora, where a rich mineral is located and is wanted by the RDA. Pandora is much like earth but the atmosphere air kills humans. It inhabited blue skin creatures who are called Navi. Jake Sully, a former marine and disable was sent as a replacement for his twin brother's avatar. He was promised by the RDA that if he helped them gain info about the Navi and be able to convince the Navi to leave Pandora that they would help him walk again. However, he changed his mind when he falls in love with a Navi named Neytiri...

The relationship Jake and Neytiri at first was like child and mother. Neytiri was teaching Jake how to be one of them, teaching him how to speak their language and hunt and tame animals. As soon as Jake was welcomed as one of the members of the Navi tribe, Jake and Neytiri had fallen in love with each other. After that, there was conflict between the Jake and Neytiri's fiance and also her parents. To make things worse, Neytiri and the Navis find out about Jake's original mission there and feels betrayed. Jake redeems himself by helping them fight the RDA.

The story Avatar is much like the story between Pocahontas and John Smith, but also different. It shows the bonding of two people and willing to sacrifice for one another. Jake sacrificed his life to save Pandora from the RDA and almost lost his life in the end. The part, I liked the most is when Neytiri saves Jake when he was disconnected from his avatar and she holds him in his human form.

Black Christmas

So my brother, who generally gets a kick out of cheesy low budget horror movies, recommended I watch Black Christmas. At first I thought it was the 2007 version that looked extra lame and I had no interest in seeing but when I looked it up I realized it was the one made in 1974 and figured I’d give it a try.
The movie follows a sorority house on Christmas eve/Christmas, and a series of murders that happen afterwards. It starts off with a typical Christmas Eve party, which is where you find out that the girls are receiving inappropriate phone calls. After one extra long sketchy call a fight breaks out between two girls and one of them storms off to her room and is murdered shortly after. The rest of the movie is the sorority sisters (and their families) trying to find their “missing” roommate, who is the first one to be killed. I don’t want to give away too much but lets just say they wrap up the movie with “the calls are coming from inside the house” which was a very cheesy touch.
The movie is shot from two points of view. One being the same way most movies are filmed and the other is from the killer’s point of view, and in my opinion the parts of the movie that are actually scary are when it’s from his point of view opposed to the regular shots.
As a whole I found it extremely campy. It’s a typical stalker/murder movie full of girls wandering around the house alone or going to explore the creepy attic.
One thing I did enjoy was that one of the main sorority girls is pregnant and plans to get an abortion but her boyfriend is strongly against it and starts acting out, which leads you to believe he is the one going around killing all of the girls in the house. They did a really nice job in the end filming because it keeps switching between the first person view of the boyfriend and the killer so you can’t tell who is doing what but other than that the movie is pretty much a two hour bore. You never actually see the killer, which was nice cause usually it’s some stupid looking guy who probably couldn’t murder anyone if he tried and it was refreshing that he didn’t have some convoluted reason for murdering these girls, he was just crazy.
Would I watch it again? Probably not. Would I recommend it to someone? Probably not, unless you were just looking for a laugh.

The Shining Film Review

I watched Stanley Kubrick's film adaptation of Stephen King's book, The Shining. This movie definitely captures (or enhances, in my opinion) the eerie atmosphere that comes along with The Shining. The opening credits are played over a scene of Jack's car going up the mountain with the creepiest music you will ever hear playing in the background. Right away the viewer gets a sense that this movie is going to be really twisted.

The movie starts off with Jack interviewing for the job and we are introduced to a little of the background behind the Torrance family such as Danny's "imaginary friend", Tony, and Jack's drinking problem. We learn about what he did to Danny's arm and why he needs to take the hotel job. While Jack is applying for his job Mr. Ullman tells him the story of what happened at the Overlook Hotel in 1970 and checks to make sure it is okay with Jack. Meanwhile, Tony is telling Danny that he doesn't want to go to the hotel. Tony is our first look at Danny's psychic abilities later called "shining".

Once the family gets settled at the Overlook, the viewer gets a sense of the isolation that they are facing by staying there. Danny continues to get visions having to do with the hotel's past and the evil that lies within his father.

Kubrick's adaptation does a great job of expressing the feeling that the book gave off. There are several changes in the movie, but none that too greatly affect the point of the story. The most notable change is the ending. In the movie, Jack freezes to death in the maze that he was chasing Danny in, but in the book Jack redeems himself by saving Wendy and Danny from the boiler explosion that kills him.

Black Hawk Down

The film was released in 2001. It is based off of a real event like all war movies are. The even was to have UN soldiers keep peace, but the Somalian rebels were terrorizing the UN troops by killing many. This in turn required the US Army to step in. The place is in Somalia, the East coast of Africa. UN and US Army Rangers are placed there to stop conflicts of a high ranking warlord that controls the area. The movie only talks about the event of the 2 - 3 day conflict where the US elite Delta Force were inserted to bring out 2 highly ranked Lieutenants of a renegade warlord. The mission was not successful although they captured the two men. Two night stalkers were shot down by RPGs and one was damaged by small arms fire. The movie brings a sense of history and action all packed down in under two hours. The movie is part first person view and third person narrative. A handful of US soldiers died that day trying to complete the mission. This is not peace keeping.

Dagon Trailer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7QREJdUyf4

Sorry for the bad quality, but this is a trailer for the movie Dagon. It's a mix between Lovecraft's "Dagon" and "The Shadow Over Portsmith"

The Last Song: Trope

Ronnie thought that her father cheated on her mother when it was the other way around.

Dracula

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Dracula

The Last Song: Trailer

The Last Song:

The Last Song by Nicholas Sparks is about Veronica "Ronnie" 's time during the summer she spends with her father, Steve, who she hasn't talk to for three years after her parents divorce. She hates being there and threatens to go back to NYC before the summer ends. Ronnie hangs out with the rebels until she framed for stealing by one of them. Ronnie meets the boy named Will again, who on the first day crashed into her during his volleyball game and spilling her drink on her. She begins to fall in love with him and also strengthens her bond with her father.
Soon, Ronnie finds out her father was diagnosed with cancer before her visit. She immediately feels guilty for avoiding her father for three years when she finds out it wasn't his fault for the divorce with her mother. She tries to spend as much time with father to make up the time for not being there when her father came to visit. Ronnie also finishes her father's unfinished piece of music and plays it for him before he dies. Ronnie and Will also have a fight about Will covering up for the person who set the church on fire.
She reconciles with him after the death of Steve. She finds out that Will is transferring to Columbia to be with her.