Tag: film

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Kieron's Review - Paranormal Activity 2 (2010)

Paranormal Activity 2 As an expert on the horror genre… no. As a horror film enthusiast...not quite. As a horror film fan…yes that’ll do. I recently went on a rarity these days. I went to the cinema to watch Paranormal Activity 2 and was bitterly, bitterly under-whelmed. Maybe it’s because I, like many others have been exposed to the high levels of violence, gore and unusual events of recent times and therefore acquired somewhat of a shock immunity and increased resistance to film like this. Or maybe, it was mainly because the film wasn’t very good. There were some good points of the film although the swimming pool cleaner wasn’t quite enough to deter me from the shamble’s that made up the rest of this jump-out-of-your-seat thriller/horror. A few of the jump moments did catch me out rather well, especially during the end however I felt that the overly loud thudding sound effects coupled with the under climatic results from the mysterious events were an all too familiar trait of an unconvincing scary movie. For example, yes, having the pan drop from its hanger in the middle of the night at first caught out most in the cinema when it first happened, but then it was followed up every five minutes or so with something else dropping, with the occasional door opening on its own for no reason flung into the mix. Before long I was finding it an effort to actually hype myself up to become scared, shocked or even intrigued. Thankfully there were a couple of spots that got me, though not so much the timing element than the action that took place such as the when a possessed Katie lunged towards Daniel in a crazed vampire-ish fashion. In all I’d class PA2 as not being a terrible film of its genre and perhaps even an acceptable form of what it was, when you think of other examples of shock horror. I’d be surprised if on first watching this you don’t get caught off guard at least once, however most of the jump scenes are weak and easily predictable, the characters although I felt seemed realistic as a family being filmed, were dull and even annoying at times and as a film… well, it seemed much more like a low budget ghost hunting documentary although its arguable that the director may have intended on it looking somewhat similar to that. Film- 6/10 Scare Factor- 7/10

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Green Zone (2010)

Ok, hang on for this... The Pentagon has a lied about WMDs and a lone soldier and an irish/american accented CIA operative (Brendan Gleeson) take on the entire US Military Machine to find out how and why - with the help of Damon's trusty arab sidekick (Khalid Abdalla - United 93) that follows him everywhere in a Toyota Corolla. Somewhere in hollywood there's probably a shareholder for the Green Zone movie, pointing at The Hurt Locker and saying "We should make it like that!" But alas, this person will not be heard in the hollywood machine. Green Zone is good. Unfortunately it's only good. It could have been great - especially if some had not hired the hyperactive camera operator from Cloverfield to hold the camera. A basic tenet of filmmaking for the big should be 'don't wave the camera around so much that it makes people vomit in the cinema'. Hey - it works great on 24 - but that's small screen. Damon is up against Greg Kinnear, who seems to have translated his part as "Evil Captain Amazing" from Mystery Men. It's not much of a match and the end is as predictable as "and then we'll have a chase with guns and helicopters and a big finish" - did I mention it was produced by Tim "Smoking Aces" Bevan? Apart from that, Matt Damon is on form, as is his cast, despite a spoon fed story and politically / racially questionable story mechanics. Let me just validate that - Damon meets a voluntary informant called... called... Freddy. Apologies, I can't remember his real name as he only mentions it once in the film then tells Damon to call him Freddy. This is presumably to help the audience relate to Freddy as being a 'good guy' with a western name and not a 'bad guy' because they all have difficult arabic names. Yes, as you may have guessed from that last criticism, this film a one-sided glorification of a made-up internal resistance against the US Administration about finding WMD's. We are expected to believe that the CIA were also hoodwinked into believing the WMD story - as if they didn't know there weren't any - and then... no. I'll stop there. The story is stupid, to put it mildly, and full of gaping holes. But despite story issues, director Paul Greengrass has done a fabulous job, visually. Once we look over the completely pants story and two-dimensional writing, we find an audio visual treat that barrels along at a great pace. The action is fantastic and war film and gaming fans will recognise and love legitimate military manoeuvres and operations. This film has a target audience. It serves that audience well. You may be that audience. If you are then.. I.. will.. type.. slowly.. for.. you.. Sorry, couldn't resist. Ok, bottom line: Green Zone is good. Worth watching in the cinema. Buy popcorn and enjoy. Don't think any further, it will hurt. 7/10

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Academy Award winners list

A few weeks ago, I posted my 'picks' for the Academy Award Nominees. Let's see how the Nominees(and myself) did. Let's get straight into this. So it'll go like this: Award: Winner My Pick: *Film* Best Picture: The Hurt Locker (Katheryn Bigelow, Mark Boal, Nicolas Chartier and Greg Shapiro) My pick: Avatar Actor in a Leading Role: Jeff Bridges (Crazy Heart) My pick: George Clooney (Up in the Air) Actor in a Supporting Role: Christoph Waltz (Inglorious Basterds) My pick: Christoph Waltz (Inglorious Basterds) Actress in a Leading Role: Sandra Bullock (The Blind Side) My pick: Gabourey Sidibe (Precious) Actress in a Supporting Role: Mo-Nique (Precious) My pick: Anna Kendrick (Up in the Air) Animated Feature Film: Up (Pete Docter) My pick: Up Art Direction: Avatar (James Cameron) My pick: Avatar Cinematography: Avatar (James Cameron) My pick: Avatar Directing: The Hurt Locker (Kathryn Bigelow) My pick: Up in the Air Film Editing: The Hurt Locker (Bob Murawski and Chris Innis) My pick: Inglorious Basterds Foreign Language film: The Secret in Their Eyes (El Secreto de Sus Ojos) - Argentina, Directed by Juan Jose Campanella My pick: Un Prophète (A Prophet) Makeup: Star Trek (Barney Burman, Mindy Hall and Joel Harlow) My pick: Star Trek Music (Original Score): Up (Michael Giacchino) My pick: Avatar Music (Original Song): Crazy Heart - "The Weary Kind (Theme from Crazy Heart)" Music and Lyric by Ryan Bingham and T Bone Burnett My pick: Down in New Orleans Sound Editing: The Hurt Locker (Paul N.J. Ottosson and Ray Beckett) My pick: Up Sound Mixing: The Hurt Locker (Paul N.J. Ottosson) My pick: Star Trek Visual Effects: Avatar (Joe Letteri, Stephen Rosenbaum, Richard Baneham and Andrew R. Jones) My pick: Avatar Writing (Adapted Screenplay): Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push', by Sapphire (Screenplay by Geoffrey Fletcher) My pick: Up in the Air Writing (Original Screenplay): The Hurt Locker (Mark Boal) My pick: Up So there we have it. Movieville.org's first Academy Award picks. So it wasn't THAT bad, I got 6 correct of the 19 listed. Ahem. never mind, to be completely honest though, some of them I felt I should change after I wrote the post, but it wouldn't have seemed fair. Not so bad. To see the rest of the winners I haven't listed here, clicky. The Hurt Locker deservedly took away the Best Picture award, although Avatar had its 'prime rib' moments, there were too many elements that were stacked against Cameron & Avatar. Like his past with Bigelow. Zing. Seriously though, whether any of the films won or not, each film has the power to capture an individual's attention, and these awards are merely an ego booster. I kid. Until next time, Kazed