06.13.08
Posted in thriller, horror, reviews at 8:36 am by FilmFemme
When I saw the trailer (btw, don’t click past the trailer on the official site, because there are spoilers galore) for The Strangers (which, if I recall correctly, was played before Baby Mama for some reason) it was seriously one of the scariest trailers I have ever seen. I was so scared, that my moviegoing companion actually said “I…I can’t tell if you’re kidding…” But I wasn’t kidding. So, needless to say, I was completely psyched to see it! Ah!
It wasn’t flawless and it didn’t reinvent the genre, but The Strangers was solidly scary with above average art direction and surprisingly beautiful cinematography. As the debut feature for writer/director Bryan Bertino (who, by the way, is decidedly sexy himself) it’s really impressive.
One of the awesome things that Bertino does is nearly make you forget you’re about to see a horror movie for the first 20-25 minutes. Instead, Kristen (Liv Tyler) and James (Scott Speedman) are returning to the family summer home after a wedding at which they had somewhat of a falling out. But in the throes of their conflict, they are interrupted by a loud knock. The movie then proceeds to be wholly creepy, with 3 masked strangers (ooh! like the title!) appearing at the house to stalk, scare and torture the couple for the next hour. This hour includes at least 3 really good, well-placed shock moments that made me literally jump out of my seat and either gasp or yell. And I definitely wasn’t the only one in the theatre that was freaked out.
Of course, the movie did suffer from some stereotypical horror movie pitfalls (e.g., me wanting to scream “TURN AROUND!!” or “WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU GOING INTO THE GARAGE??!??”), a few of which were pretty distracting and unrealistic, even in light of the crisis Kristen and James were facing. But between the OMG moments and the dark, neutral, contrastingly pretty cinematography (and pretty Liv Tyler and her disgustingly pretty hair), I had a really good time at The Strangers and hope that Bryan “sexy” Bertino gets to direct something else.
A footnote: supposedly the movie was based on “true events,” and all internet sources (OK, just Wikipedia) point to the Keddie Cabin murders, but this could have just been added by someone who wanted publicity for their Keddie Cabin documentary. I dunno, but that’s a scary story too, so check out the site if you’re morbid like me.
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01.28.08
Posted in best of, thriller, drama, reviews at 1:23 pm by FilmFemme
Name a great Woody Allen crime/punishment/guilt/searching for God thriller:
Crimes and Misdemeanors
Name a Woody Allen crime/punishment/guilt/searching for God thriller that would barely be worth $6.50 somewhere in Iowa, much less $14 at the Arclight in Hollywood:
Cassandra’s Dream
Which is more fun to watch, Colin Farrell as the bright spot in Cassandra’s Dream or Colin Farrell fucking a model on that sex tape?
Trick question! They are both fun to watch in their own way.
Name a woman who is hot and great to see starring in a Woody Allen movie because she’s very womanly (see: a plenty, curves) but still portrayed as “the hot girl” but is not really much of an actress:
Hayley Atwell (you get partial credit for Scarlett Johansson, but the ‘great to see starring in a Woody Allen movie’ part of the question would be wrong wrong wrong.)
Who likes the poster anyway and is going to keep going to see Woody Allen movies as long as they don’t star ScarJo or someone else that I find patently offensive because she loves Annie Hall and Manhattan more than every other movie combined?
It’s me. The sad answer for that one is ME.
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01.27.08
Posted in thriller, drama, reviews at 12:43 pm by FilmFemme
A word of advice for any dude who is thinking about watching Hard Candy, do yourself a favor and don’t eat beforehand.
In Hard Candy, this photographer, Jeff (hot hot in glasses Patrick Wilson) chats up a 14 year old girl Hayley (everyone’s favorite impregnanted precocious teen, Ellen Page at her pixiest) online. They meet for coffee, she convinces him to take her back to his house where she proceeds to drug and fuck with him for the majority of the movie. She does some seriously depraved shit.
It’s really well directed, really well acted and the definition of provocative. Basically Hayley is convinced that Jeff is a molester and deserves everything she does to him so I kind of sat there (as I know I was supposed to) the whole time thinking “Jesus, does *anyone* deserve this kind of shit?” But it’s the moments of tension and the bright and blurry production design that really stood out to me. When Hayley gives Jeff a semblance of a chance to escape, his panic is so palpable, not only because of Patrick Wilson (can I reiterate how hot he is even as a child molester? Hot!) but also because of the way the camera pans frantically around his ultramodern neatly decorated house with red and yellow contrastingly saturated walls and the hot and cool color filters. I also think it’s a mark of a well-directed movie when you can feel that kind of tension without the benefit of heavyhanded scoring. I totally hate overscoring, but there really isn’t much to be found here, so that’s just great!
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12.28.07
Posted in misogyny, thriller, action, sci fi, reviews at 10:33 am by FilmFemme
I Am Legend.
Will Smith is ripped.
Dogs are awesome.
Chicks suck at surviving the apocalypse.
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12.26.07
Posted in thriller, drama, reviews at 1:26 pm by FilmFemme
I can’t remember seeing a movie that elicited more nervous laughter than No Country for Old Men. I myself was completely terrified of Javier Bardem. (See my upcoming review of Mondays in the Sun if you want to know my more lurid thoughts on him).
Seriously, though. I saw this about a million years ago. So: Do you like the Coen brothers? If yes, you’ll like it. Just go, already. It’s probably been spoiled for you enough.
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11.05.07
Posted in thriller, drama, reviews at 10:50 am by FilmFemme
Derailed features the romantic pairing of quintessential hot British guy Clive Owen with quintessential cute but sexy American girl-next-door Jennifer Aniston. How could they go wrong with that? It’s bound to at least be sexy and fun to watch, right?
WRONG.
I only watched the first 30 minutes or so, but what I gathered was that both Clive and Jen are in unhappy marriages and both have daughters. They meet on a train (title!), try to begin an elicit affair but on their first night together in a seedy Chicago motel, they like get mugged and it’s very violent and then they start getting blackmailed by the guy that robbed them. Clive Owen’s daughter is dying of Type I Diabetes (the bad one!) and Jennifer Aniston’s husband is total dick (I guess?). I turned it off after this. Also, Clive Owen is an advertising executive, because god forbid we have a movie in which the male protagonist has a job that isn’t ad executive or attorney. Whatever.
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10.15.07
Posted in thriller, drama, action, reviews at 1:56 pm by FilmFemme
Here’s my suggestion if you want to see We Own the Night:
Pay for another movie but get there early and watch the first 90 seconds of this one. There’s a hot scene between Eva Mendes & Joaquin Phoenix. (Don’t worry, Eva Mendes doesn’t really talk during this part).
Then go see some other, better movie (Michael Clayton, maybe).
Then get this on DVD in 3 months and watch it where you can make snarky comments without getting dirty looks from people who paid $11 to see this ho-hum crime thriller. And you can watch the first 90 seconds a few times, you know, if you need to…
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10.10.07
Posted in thriller, drama, reviews at 10:45 am by FilmFemme
I had no clue what Michael Clayton was about when I went to see it. I knew it was ’supposed to be good’ and that I would watch George Clooney read the phone book or stare at the camera for minutes at a time and enjoy it.
So, it was good and George Clooney does stare at the camera for minutes at a time and I did enjoy it. Score.
It’s hard to draw comparisons between this movie and others. It definitely has elements of little-guy-lawsuit-against-evil-corporation movies like A Civil Action or The Rainmaker but it’s a lot more than that too. The title would suggest it’s a character study, which it kind of is, too.
I don’t know, I really don’t want to give too much of it away since I really liked it going in with zero prior knowledge.
George Clooney is so hot. I know, that’s like the revelation of the century, but come on. It needs to be said.
He’s a lawyer with a kid and gambling problem who works at a huge law firm that’s defending some chemical company that Tilda Swinton works for. There’s like intrigue and scandal and, I just realized, no real love story. Interesting. It’s good.
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