The Crow

The darkest film in recent memory, The Crow, despite it's stylish appearances, is actually not an indie film. It's also probably one of the most black metal movies in existence, complete with tight leather, corpse face paint, ceremonial knives, gothic churches, angst, a fucklot of rain and a fucklot of night (all it needs is some Burzum). While it does come off as a somber and grim film, it manages to stay from bleakness and depression and doesn't leave the viewer unhappy.

The story goes that on October 30th (that's right, another Halloween film) some gang members are running about Detroit committing random crimes, as is the tradition of the annual Devil's Night. They break in upon a random, unsuspecting couple, who as fate would have it were to be married the next day, and brutally murder both of them. Skip ahead a year, and the murdered man, Eric Draven is awakened from his eternal slumber by a crow that alights upon his headstone. One of the interesting things that happens here is that Eric comes back delirious and totally confused and he stumbles after the crow through some rainy alleyways before he manages to make it back to his destroyed apartment where he recalls the events that led to his death. He cuts his hands on some glass only to watch as they immediately heal before his eyes in a Wolverine inspired way. He then dons his freakish face paint and sets out to find his killers.

If one were to take V for Vendetta and replace V with Rorschach from Watchmen and then set it in Sin City, the result would be The Crow. It's a surprisingly captivating supernatural action/thriller and feels completely fresh and unique. The main character, Eric, is such an interesting protagonist in that he is a good guy who follows a definite moral code, showing itself at several pivotal moments, but he's also fairly insane, acting out erratically and killing his victims in creative and resourceful ways. Not only can he heal himself, but he's an incredible fighter and he also can telepathically see through the eyes of the crow that guides him.

With a plot that sounds like an exploitation, drive-in gorefest, it doesn't come off as one in the least. It may actually suffer from the opposite problem, as it's just a bit too preachy with the philosophic aspect and may overstep its bounds just a bit as it gets into some quotes about love that just seem a bit out of place, not to mention the aforementioned angst. However, I've seen far, far worse offenders of that particular sin, so it's forgivable. Another somewhat weak point in this film is one of the main characters, a young girl named Sarah, who was cared for by Eric and his fiancé, doesn't particularly interest me. She has an important role and provides morality checks for Eric, but overall she's a fairly uninspiring addition to the film.

While also sporting some pretty awesome acrobatic action sequences that refrain from the cliche Matrix-esque over-the-top stuff. One scene in particular involves a lightning quick shootout in a huge meeting room that seems to belong in a big budget action film, followed shortly thereafter by a rooftop sword fight that's equally impressive.

It's an altogether unique and melancholy film that has amassed a minor cult following since its release. Rightfully so, as this one is worth the watch.

8.25/10 - Unique and worth it.

The Wolverine

I didn't have great expectations for The Wolverine. I kind of lost faith in the superhero franchises because every Marvel film that came out was a disappointment to me and after The Avengers, I decided to stop caring. This film takes the gruff mutant, Wolverine into the ninja-ridden land of Japan. I suppose that's not too bad a concept and, being that Japan is far away from the US, it works to separate Wolverine from the X-Men and give him his own movie.

The film starts right off with a middle finger and gives the audience some Inception bullshit as Logan wakes up from a nightmare in which he is present in Nagasaki during the nuclear bombing raid. He sits up in a bedroom with Jean Grey, the woman he himself murdered and is still madly in love with. Soon thereafter he wakes up again, this time for real to his humble abode (aka, makeshift cot) out in the middle of the Yukon wilderness.

Logan has gone full Into the Wild on everyone. He's dropped off the grid and grown a very rugged looking beard. Due to that, there are no appearances of any of the other X-Men at all. Instead what we get is a bunch of cliche martial-artists and ninjas.

The best way I can sum this movie up is, a ninja/samurai film with Wolverine. I felt like the only reason Wolverine was even in it was because the movie is called Wolverine. Seriously, you could probably go through the script of this movie, change Wolverine into any old guy and it would work perfectly.
The plot is a complicated, convoluted mess that's difficult to follow on a first viewing. There's no strong antagonist villain, the bad guys keep getting killed only to be replaced a few minutes later by some other bad guy. It makes me wonder why they even included characters like the evil lizard-mutant lady at all; the only things she really does in the film involve spitting acid on people, shedding her skin or dying.

Aside from all of that, I will grant that the film had some good action. There's a fight on top of a high-speed bullet train which was one of the highlights. Normally in train fights, the opponents stand and face each other as the wind and occasional overhanging object nonchalantly whizzes past them but in The Wolverine, the train goes so fucking fast that Logan and the henchmen he's battling can't even stand and the whole time they're just grabbing on for dear life. It's a great scene. I also liked one particular scene where Logan goes one on one with a samurai. It ends with the predictable, "What are you?" "...I'm the Wolverine." bit of dialogue, but it works.
All in all, I'm not really sure why this film was even made. I can't imagine that it's making all kinds of money and for the story aspect, it doesn't really change anything. Wolverine is still a depressed loner with post-traumatic-stress and the only difference made at the end of the film is that he suddenly decides to lets go of Jean Grey and move on. Big whoop. I don't really think we needed an entire two-hour sci-fi- ninja jamboree to get that plot point solved and how that resolution came out of that mess, I have no idea. It seems all too obvious that this film exists for no other reason than for just some action.

And artwork of Hugh Jackman screaming in the presence of samurai swords.

Most of the actual story development takes place after the credits where they always stick that apparently mandatory hook for the next film, during which Logan runs into a fully powered Magneto and a totally not dead Professor X at a crowded airport and they say some bullshit about how they need him or something, I can't remember. If the X-Men are getting back together, why didn't they just save Logan's "character-arc" for that movie and kill two birds with one stone?
My point is, sure it's an alright flick for what it is but, much like the rest of the plethora of superhero films surging out of Hollywood these days, it left something to be desired and, in this case, felt like a waste of time.

4/10 - Nice action, weak story.

Shark Week: Sharknado

It's real, motherfuckers.

It was only just last month that, for the price of a total loss of all credibility once and for all, Syfy bequeathed unto the world the masterpiece that is Sharknado. Sharknado is the Citizen Kane of bad movies. This made-for-TV film effectively preys on one of our deepest held fears and loathings: a shark tornado. Inclement weather that is so intense, that it cannot be scientifically explained beyond simply, "global warming". This gargantuan whirlwind of pure terror sucks up millions of sharks of all varieties and sends them careening across civilized land for miles, raining snarling, toothy death upon the hapless humanoids who are unfortunate enough to be standing anywhere within a ten mile radius of it. Indoors, on hilltops, in helicopters; there's nowhere that is safe from the horror.

Rumor has it the government is starting a new project for weaponizing Sharknados.

This is not some highly elaborate phantasm of your convoluted subconsciousness, this is Sharknado and it aired on public television Thursday, June 11th, 2013, where it quickly became the second most tweeted televised event in all of Twitter history (i.e. about seven years). The movie is pretty much as straight-forward as it appears. A giant tornado sucks up a bunch of pissed-off, blood-thirsty sharks and all hell breaks loose in the city of Los Angeles. Now, so far on The Aculeus's Shark Week, we've seen sand sharks, snow sharks, Supershark and even a goddamn Sharktopus but good God of all that is holy, Sharknado might just take the all-encompassing, bat-shit madness cake. You haven't lived until you've seen mediocre actors, armed to the teeth with shotguns, chainsaws, bombs and boobs, vying for their very lives against hordes of flying, flesh-hungry fish.

But it really is one of those movies that needs to be seen to be believed. I could talk about every individual scene from sharks swallowing a helicopter co-pilot, to needlessly bitchy ex-wives and their douchebag boyfriends, to setting a pool on fire, to bombing a hurricane in order to stop it, this movie really has it all. The acting as I mentioned above, is definitely sub-par but is actually better than what you'd expect for this kind of movie. Yeah, sure, you can nitpick the nearly emotionless screams and such but it wasn't so bad that it seriously detracted from the rest of the movie and it's certainly better than most of the other films we've seen so far.

What was much worse than the acting, was the writing itself. There's a scene where an attractive female character tells a 'heart-wrenching' story about how she got her scars (she changes the story every time... sound familiar?) which involves a boating trip gone wrong. But this ain't no Robert Shaw in Jaws and she concludes her tale with a line that goes something like, "That's why I hate sharks so much." I'm not sure if it's necessary to throw in some heated emotions towards sharks because what it comes down to is that this movie is comprised mostly of cutting back and forth between stock footage of sharks swimming in the ocean and horrendously CG'd sharks falling from the sky. Oh, and speaking of the CG...

It's so fucking hilariously bad that it's not even worth commenting on. Would you just look at that shot with all of the sharks falling from the sky? That pretty much sums up the entire movie. As I mentioned above, this movie was so fucking popular that it was generating 5,000 tweets per minute at it's peak and had well over 300,000 tweets total and had participation from several celebrities.

As you read this, Syfy is already well underway in their talks about a sequel, which I couldn't be more excited for because out of all of the movies I can think of, all of those unjustly, unresolved plots out there, Sharknado is absolutely the number one in deserving of a followup. What could be next? Is Crocosaurus going to get in on the action? Perhaps the survivors of LA will know that the only way to stop the shark menace is to summon Cthulhu? Maybe this time it will be a super tornado that threatens, not just the west coast but the whole world and humanity as we know it! Whatever the plot could possibly be, I have no idea how they plan to top the original masterpiece.

Sharknado is essentially the newest The Room. So while some people may question the science, or the morals of sensationalizing on a highly sensitive topic such as murderous flying shark-storms, I will sit tight for Sharknado 2 because seeing a grown man dive, chainsaw first into the belly of a shark only one time is simply not enough of an adrenaline rush for me.

This gif sums up the daily struggles of the working-class American.

Shark Week: Sand Sharks

Sand Sharks is pretty much what you get when you combine Super Shark with Snow Shark. Basically take Super Shark and stick it in the ground. I can start by saying, it's certainly better than both of those movies.

For starters, the dialogue in this movie is actually pretty well written,with little exception. Unlike Snow Shark, the characters interact in a seemingly non-forced way and, unlike Super Shark, most of the science bits didn't come off as if they were just making up words (It's called Wumbology and I still can't believe you haven't heard of it). Yeah, this movie tries to dazzle and baffle as well. They try their darndest to make the audience understand how the sharks can move and survive in the sand and whatever but it still feels sort of out of place considering how stupid the concept is and there's no mention at all about where the sharks came from or why they've never been seen before. But at the very least, they did try to make some sense of it and they pulled it off better than they did in Super Shark.

What this movie does have that the others do not is enough shark/sand related puns to make your head explode.

"I would've never guessed she was such a shark."

"This spring break is really going to bite."

"Better watch out she might come biting for your job."

"I'm going to see what I can dig up."

"I'm still the big fish in this pond."

And on and on and on. If you're still not convinced, one of the main characters name is Sandy Powers. Durr..

That Sandy Powers by the way is played by Brooke Hogan who has starred in other fondly remembered classics such as Two-Headed Sharks and Avalanche Sharks. But speaking of the acting, it's actually pretty good in this movie and by "pretty good" please understand that I'm grading this on the shark-movie scale. The characters are actually defined from each other and it's certainly a hell of a lot better than Snow Sharks and a bit better than Super Shark as well. The only character I could say is actually memorable was Corin Nemec as Jimmy Green. If you look up that name on IMDb, you may recognize him as that guy that you're totally going to beat the shit out of because he tried to hit on your girlfriend at a club. His character is such a cliche douchebag that it hurts just looking at him but it's actually pretty funny and he plays the jerkoff well.

But we don't watch a shark movie for the writing or the acting, oh no, we watch a shark movie for the mother-fucking sharks.

You don't get a really clear look at them at any point, whereas in Super Shark we get plenty of time to check the bastard out, but the screen time is innumerably longer than Snow Shark so it's not that bad. Despite looking more like enlarged catfish than sharks, the special effects are passable mainly because at this point I'm so desensitized to horrendously rendered fish that it doesn't faze me anymore. Sharks change sizes, they jump out of magical sand puffballs, severed heads are obviously placed in digitally, yeah, yeah. Obviously no one would say they're good but they're not completely laughable.

What I think is weird is that this movie actually bears a striking resemblance to Jaws. I wrote down a few of the similarities.

1. Movie takes place on an island.
2. Shark goes around picking off random people.
3. Town meeting is held, everyone argues about what to do about the shark.
4. Sheriff is the only one who thinks there's a shark.
5. Wants to close beaches.
6. Mayor wants beaches to stay open.
7. Annual party that keeps the town's economy alive is starting soon.
8. Meeting is interrupted by Robert Shaw lookalike who says he'll kill the shark if the reward is greatly increased.
9. Sheriff calls in a shark expert.
10. Everyone goes out to kill the shark.
11. One guy comes back with a dead shark that's hung by it's tail over a pier.
12. Dead shark is examined by the shark expert.
13. Dead shark is not the shark that's been killing people.
14. Big party happens anyway.
15. Shit goes down at the big party.
16. Shark is killed via explosion.

Seriously, even the poster is the same.

And if that wasn't enough, the tagline is "JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT YOU WERE SAFE OUT OF THE WATER..." Now, most of this obviously could be chalked up simply to references and nods to the original masterpiece, but it goes too far and it's sort of a lack of originality if you ask me.

Another pretty strange thing I noticed about this movie, one of the scenes where a shark is blown up, they use a sound effect from the 2001 Halo: Combat Evolved video game. It's the plasma grenade sound and I would recognize it anywhere. I've heard movies egregiously rip sound effects from different sources but that was probably one of the strangest ones that I've caught.

Another thing, that big party I was mentioning above? According to the film, there were thousands of people showing up, but they couldn't get enough extras for that and it's obvious that there's only about a hundred or so people.

Possibly less.

Well that's Sand Sharks. Better than both Super Shark and Snow Shark but still a campy flick that's entertainment factor is inversely proportional to your intelligence.

Shark Week: Snow Shark

We're really digging into the bottom of the barrel with this one. Snow Shark is as lame as they come and is a B-movie in every sense of the word. If you thought that Super Shark was trash, oh boy, Snow Shark makes it look like a Hollywood Blockbuster.

The basic concept of Snow Shark is that, for whatever inexplicable reason, there is a shark swimming around through the snow and terrorizing the citizens of an otherwise small, quiet town. Whereas in Super Shark I complained about the over-exposition and talking way too much about science things that don't really matter, here it doesn't even try. It's just a fucking shark in the fucking snow and you have to fucking deal with it. Makes me wonder, where does the shark go when the snow melts? Is it limited to just swimming in snow? It's not like the snow in the movie was ten feet deep, it was barely above the actors ankles most of the time so the shark must've been burrowing underground. The only explanation they ever give is, "It must be ancient". Not trying to be hypocritical here, but this sort of thing deserves a little more backstory then "It's ancient". How did the bastard get so far inland? The setting is obviously nowhere near any oceans. Who gives a shit? It's a damn shark movie.

Viewers of this movie may be disappointed to find that 90% of the shots of the shark look like this:

and that 100% of the kills look something like this:

You get some very, very brief shaky shots of a shark head grabbing people and the rest happens off screen and they just throw blood everywhere. I suppose I could understand not wanting to give a lot of screen time to what is likely one of the more embarrassing-looking movie monsters in existence but you never get a single good look at it, most of the time it's just a dorsal fin and people being dragged off screen.

The acting by the way is an absolute joke and the whole time I was expecting some kind of plot twist where everyone in the town is actually a Terminator which would explain why there is nary an emotion to be found. It doesn't help that they're delivering some of the most awkwardly written dialogue I've ever seen which includes screenwriting gems such as:

"Promise me you'll kill that damn snow shark if it's the last thing you do!"

"Tom, where are you going?"
"I have a shark to kill."

"Mom wouldn't treat me like this if she was still around."

"Well she isn't around is she?"

"I hate you!"

The list goes on. Every character interaction is worthy of a cringe or two and it's laughable when the movie tries to be serious.

It's also got some all-too-obvious horror cliches like no one believing in the Snow Shark at first or going off alone to take a leak at night. There's not a single shark attack scene where you wouldn't know what was coming a mile away.

Ah, the ol' brush-snow-on-top-of-your-legs-and-scatter-some-blood effect never fails to get the Oscar.

But perhaps I'm being too hard on this flick. I guessed about halfway through that it had been an entry in a film festival of some sort gauging that the budget appeared to be about a week's worth of allowance. As it turns out, I was right and this was in fact submitted to several horror-festivals and actually won several of them. So, if you look at it that way, it's not that bad. As far as the entertainment factor goes, it's certainly less boring than Super Shark but there are much better shitty shark movies out there. So, if you want something campy and stupid, this is a good choice.

Shark Week: Super Shark

What do you get when you cross a Great White with Superman? Well obviously, you get Super Shark and as exciting as that cover art up there looks, the movie itself is far less.

For a film titled Super Shark, I expected it to be much dumber than it was, which may sound like a compliment but I assure you, it isn't. I've been watching shitty shark movies all week now. I can buy that sharks are attacking humans for no discernible incentive, sure. Now it's admirable for a film to aspire to be a bit more than that and try to go the extra mile in believability which Super Shark does. The main character, Kat, is a marine biologist who busies herself by antagonizing oil companies, the latest of which has recently and unwittingly awakened the dormant behemoth known as Super Shark which promptly destroyed the oil rig that disturbed it.

Being that the main character is a scientist of sorts, the writers found it necessary to give her all kinds of technical dialogue about chemicals in the water and where the shark could've come from. It's just all kinds of information that's not really needed. We're talking about a huge fucking shark that comes on land and kills beach-babes, this obviously isn't science and the movie embarrasses itself by trying to make sense of it's own mess.

And speaking of things that are unneeded, that's actually what I could say hurt this movie the most. So much of it was completely unneeded. For 40 minutes it takes us through an entire subplot following a pair bimbo lifeguards that argue over who should get to date the hot new guy only to have them both be killed instantly during their first encounter with Super Shark. Another scene includes a really long photo-shoot with two other girls who are even bigger bimbos than the lifeguards. The scene goes on for five straight minutes before Super Shark gets fed up and puts an end to that bullshit.

As you watch this film, you may wonder why no one ever seems to even attempt to run away from the shark. All anyone ever opts to do is stand there and scream about it. Obviously Super Shark is going to get you if you don't move, he's not a fucking T-Rex, he's goddamn Super Shark. One of the photo-shoot girls tries to be brave and fend off the colossal fossil with a nearby beach umbrella instead of being somewhat intelligent and taking her leave. She had plenty of room to run away and it's not like the monster is very fast on land, all it does is kind of drag itself along the beach.

But maybe I'm over-thinking it. I mean, we're talking about a "cost-efficient" shark flick here and I put emphasis on the cheap part. The special effects at times are laughably poor and at other times depressingly poor. That aside, the acting is alright for the most part but some of the throwaway characters are as obnoxious as they are indistinguishable. The cameras also seem to have been bought on a limited allowance. They're obviously not going to be Hollywood blockbuster status machines but it made the whole thing look pretty cheap and several scenes looked more like an impending porno than an impending shark battle.

But the duration of the movie is spent largely talking and trying to figure out if there even is a shark at all, which is stupid because we knew that right from the goddamn title. It tries to 'tide' us over (pun intended) by throwing in the occasional shark attack scene but it's just a tease and made me want to hurry up and get to the real action. The "real action" by the way? It consists of a brief fight between the shark and some retarded camel/tank thing which is pictured above. Speaking of which, check out this conversation between Kat and the some General.

"What is that thing?"
"Special prototype designed to handle the deserts in Afganistan."
"A walking tank?"
"Walking tank for a walking shark."
"That's brilliant."

What the hell sort of logic is that? So, anything that walks should be combatted by your weird walking tank? The shark makes mincemeat out of it and defeats it by tipping it over. Some secret weapon.

And I always love how the solution to a shark menace is to bomb the ever-loving shit out of it. Is that really how the government would react? Just send in the machine guns and bombs!

inb4: Political debate

But anyway, Super Shark, as awesome as the name implies, is actually pretty boring and more or less just a waste of time. It may still be fun to watch with friends but I wouldn't really recommend it.

Shark Week: Jaws

Welcome to motherfucking Shark Week

It's Shark Week and we're kicking it off with a classic but not just any old classic, the classic. Jaws. The film that started it all. Anyone would recognize that famous John Williams "dun-dun... dun-dun" score without a moments hesitation and the movie poster is no less recognizable. Despite that, with all of the knock-offs, sequels and spoofs, it can be pretty easy to forget the simple ingenuity that made the original so thrilling. If you strip it down to it's core, all Jaws really is is a big-budget monster movie, kind of like Alien. A killer shark goes around picking off innocent swimmers and soon there's only three men and a boat that stand in the way of Jaws and the beaches.

I would say that Jaws is a pretty all-around perfect film and actually consider it to be one of my favorite movies of all time. I admit, I was too young to see it in theatres during it's original release but I still saw it at a fairly young age so there's a bit of nostalgia clinging to it for me. Of course, this film doesn't need to bank on nostalgia in order for anyone to realize it's a fantastic milestone of cinema history.

Like I said, the concept is pretty simple. The first act of the film is all just the set up, the shark goes around killing. Contrary to what popular belief may hold, Jaws actually has a fairly low body count (I think it's four), so the film relies mostly on suspense to 'reel' the audience in (pun-intended). Once all that is out of the way, the real movie kicks in when all three of the main protagonists set sail to capture the bastard, dead or alive. The three acting greats are Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw and Richard Dreyfus and I certainly don't need this Jaws movie poster situated on the ceiling above me to remember that. All three are defined and stand-out from each other. One of the best scenes in the movie depicts the three talking about how they got their sea-scars which then shifts into Robert Shaw talking about a horrifying experience he had with a shark back in the navy and then shifts again into all of them singing. It's all in just one scene and it's great acting to say the least.

It's one of those movies where you keep waiting for the monster and then it comes when you least expect it. The tension just builds and builds right up until the very end. I remember that when I first saw the film, I stood up and cheered at the climax. If you haven't seen Jaws yet, I ask you: what are you doing with your life?

Jeepers Creepers

I caught this flick on TV a few days ago. It'd gotten the prime time hotspot known as 4am, so it had to contend with constant erectile dysfunction pill advertisements over it's entire 2 hour slot. I had actually never seen it before even though it came out in 2001, so I decided sit through it.

Much to my surprise, Justin Long, y'know, that dude from Accepted, was the lead role. I actually like Justin Long, I think he's funny and all but to see him in a horror movie was interesting. He played his part well though so, no complaints there.

Besides him, the rest of the cast is pretty weak or otherwise unremarkable. But it's horror so quality acting isn't something anyone would likely bet on, so as long as their above horrible, it's alright.

The movie starts and we have our two characters, Long, whose name is Darry, and his sister, Trish, driving down a road in the middle of fucking nowhere, naturally. Pretty soon, some jerkoff in the sketchiest truck of all time decides he doesn't like them and tries to run the siblings off of the road. Seriously, he does this for no reason whatsoever.

If you can manage to put yourself in that situation, it's a pretty freaky scene. The thought of that happening is a nightmare of it's own.

They let the guy pass them and he drives off. Not too long after they see the same truck parked by an old church where a guy in dark clothing is throwing a bloody body into a big rusty pipe. The guy sees the shit out of them, jumps in his truck, runs them off of the road again and then drives off because apparently that's good enough.

Darry decides that they have to go and check out whatever that dude was up to so they drive on back to the church and start peering down the pipe. He hollers down and all but he can't see anything so he has Trish hold onto his feet as he crawls partway down. It's all fun and games until he sees rats and starts flailing around like an asshole. Naturally, Trish drops him and he falls into the evil lair which is more of a basement, only with stitched-up, dead bodies everywhere.

I'll admit, it's a pretty scary scene because the whole time, you're worried that the bad guy is going to come back and turn intestines into streamers.

Well, Trish and Darry realize they're in danger and flee the scene. They arrive at a diner and receive a phone-call where some woman tells them a bundle of bewildering warnings, including that if they hear the song Jeepers Creepers, bad things are going to happen.

So, the two get a police escort. All of the sudden, Jeepers Creepers comes on the radio.

And this is where the movie starts going downhill.

The creepy guy jumps on top of the cop car and pulls one of them out through the window and decapitates the other with a battle axe.

Where the shit did that come from?

Up until here, the movie had been pretty subtle, relying on suspense and it was working, I was into it. But no, the rest of the movie just gets dumber and dumber, failing to be suspenseful or scary in any way. It's just a cliche monster movie. By the way, the monster looks like he belongs in a fucking X-Men comic.

Anyway, from there on out the monster just chases them around and it gets more and more absurd... and I mean absurd in a bad way.

It turns out that the monster can never die because it eats people's body parts and replaces them with his own, which is an interesting idea but it doesn't really add anything to the movie, it's just a backstory. If you missed that tidbit of information, you'd just see the monster eating people, you wouldn't be confused. Also an interesting plot point that doesn't really matter, the whole Jeepers Creepers song being a bad omen. There's really no reason for it to even be there, it's hardly even used, much less explained.

Surprisingly, as much as I disliked this movie, I came to find out that it's insanely popular. It garnered largely positive reviews and broke the record for highest grossing Labor-Day weekend films. It now sits at the number 5 spot just behind none other than Jeepers Creepers 2.

So that's Jeepers Creepers. A movie that started off great and then got dumb as shit and kept me up until 6am. It's not scary, it's just cliche. Oh, and don't expect an ending because it doesn't have one.

Run in terror.

4.5/10 - Some redeeming qualities but lame overall.

End of Watch

End of Watch is a movie that came out last year that stars Donnie Darko and Mark Walhberg's sidekick from Shooter who play the characters Taylor and Zavala, respectively. The film is told through the lens of Taylor's camera, who is chronicling a log about his work as a cop in the dangerous ass-end of LA. The entire movie is shot that way, through his cameras, which is interesting and gives the movie a unique flair, but it doesn't really add anything to the film and it could've been traded for the conventional method without any issue.
Being a cop drama, it's pretty gritty and riddled with language (actually it's the seventh most profane movie of all time). I guess the swearing was a bit over-the-top, but the violence is necessary and realistic. It's impressive that this film was even pulled off, given it's budget of a mere $7 million. I've seen movies that are way worse in every way that have several times that budget.

Ahem

None of that distracts from the story, though, which is heavily character driven. Speaking of which the acting is above top-notch; the characters are incredibly believable. You root for them the whole time and really want to see them through to the end. The only downside to that is that they're the only thing keeping the movie going. If it weren't for the protagonists, this would be just your run-of-the-mill cop drama.
It's a tragic and serious movie overall, but it shows that it can also be funny and lighthearted when it needs to be. Some of the transitions between those two moods are jarring but most of the time it works well.
Keeping this review brief, it's a good movie. Well written, well acted and it succeeds in seeming like something that could happen in real life. It also makes good use of Puscifer in it's soundtrack, so bonus points for that. If crime is your thing, this movie is a must.

8.5/10 - Memorable

Hotel for Dogs

It's true that I don't fancy myself a big fan of kids movies. Don't get me wrong, there are family movies I adore. Spirited Away for instance is family movie and that happens to be my favorite movie of all time. I'm always looking forward to the next Pixar, Miyazaki or animated Disney film.

Excluding their God-awful and apparently mandatory direct to DVD sequels of course.

But for some reason, the live action kids movies have never appealed to me. The humor is always obnoxious, the plot is generally close to nil (or flat out absurd) and they're always styled horribly. The last time I remember seeing a live-action family movie I genuinely enjoyed was in 1997 when Good Burger came out because that shit was jokes.

And yes, I'm implying that not everyone who enjoyed this film was on drugs.

But that was 1997 and between then and now are sixteen long years. I had pretty much given up hope on these types of movies. I was quite content to just sticking with the animated ones since those always came off as if someone had actually put some work into them.

But then comes along Hotel for Dogs.

I watched this movie on a really random whim a few days ago. It came out in 2009, had a few advertisements, and made $117,000,000 which is actually pretty darn good for an anonymous little film like this, which was the fifth highest grossing film of the weekend it released.

One might assume from the trailer and title that it's the standard crap that's shit out by family movie writers who can almost literally print money by calling any half-assed attempt at a film Shrek 5.

SOMEBODY ONCE TOLD ME

In Hotel for Dogs, two troublemaking foster siblings, Andi and Bruce are secretly housing a dog named Friday, despite what their foster-father and Phoebe's opinions on pets are (not good). The kids have recently been warned that if they keep up the bullshit (they just got caught ripping off a pawn shop) they'll be separated and sent to different families.

Friday runs off into an abandoned hotel where they find a plethora of other canines chilling all by themselves. Andi and Bruce sneak some food to the strays the following day and soon decide to set up a hotel.

A hotel... for dogs.

The best scene in this movie is definitely when Bruce builds all of the dogs a bunch of crazy contraptions so they can take care of themselves when no one is around. The machines are charming Rube Goldberg-esque devices that generally accomplish simple things, like putting out the food. My favorite of these was the vending machine full of shoes that the dogs could munch on.

Towards the climax of the movie, the Andi, Bruce and their few friends who have joined them are found out and the siblings are separated. It's a pretty sad scene because at that point I was somewhat invested in the characters and wanted them to succeed. Of course I knew in the back of my mind that this is a kids movie, so there's literally no way in hell that it'd have an unhappy ending.

But the ending scenes are the only real thing that bring it down. Like any family movie, it's a very predictable conclusion, with an emotional speech that changes everyone's hearts and all that business, but it does it's job.

Incredibly, there's a video game adaptation of this movie, but I see no conceivable way it couldn't be a complete pile of trash.

I dare you. I fucking dare you.

But anyway, I was actually pretty surprised with this movie. It's not too bad. I may even say that it's pretty good. It held my attention and I enjoyed it. Give it a watch some time.

8/10 - Why the fuck not?

Olympus has Fallen

I've been following the production of this movie for a little while now and I just arrived home after seeing it. It seemed to me like it was going to be a flashy, blockbuster-esque sort of flick where you turn off your brain and enjoy. Surprisingly, the movie wasn't quite what I was expecting.

It was actually quite grounded in reality. I didn't have a hard time suspending my disbelief because I never really had to. The only part that could probably raise speculation is the first action sequence, the siege on the White House, which serves as 'the big action scene.' It's got a bunch of flashy CG, a bunch of explosions and a bunch of death/destruction yadda, yadda. It's a pretty cool scene, but some people will undoubtably berate the film for being unrealistic in the ten minutes or so that it lasts.

Surprisingly, subsequent to that, the rest of the movie's action is quite tame. Gerard Butler goes around stealthily kicking ass with hand-to-hand combat, one terrorist at a time. The movie has itself an R rating, which is deserved. Fortunately, it's not one of those R action movies that throws in senseless violence, language and sex just to attain the rating; the violence in this movie is realistic and necessary. There's a disturbing scene where a woman is executed that effectively captures the grittiness of a terrorist situation and reminds the audience that this ain't no G.I. Joe: Retaliation and we're not fucking around. The film is successful in being suspenseful, rather than relying on cheap special effects, which did happen occasionally but mainly just in that one action scene. Unfortunately, some of it looked pretty bad, specifically the one shot where they throw the flag off of the White House. Y'know, that shot that made all of the posters?

But back to Gerard Butler, who is the main character as well as the co-producer. I'm quite fond of him after seeing his role in Law Abiding Citizen which is one of the best screen performances of the previous decade and in this he gives his usual job which is strong and believable. Needless to say, not even close to being on par with Law Abiding Citizen, but here it's not so much an emotional role as it was before, so it's not a fair comparison. The rest of the cast is strong too. No complaints as far as the casting goes.

The movie succeeded in investing me in the characters. It wasn't long before I genuinely wanted to see the good guys win and the bad guys lose, which is probably the most essential part of any film. If I can't get behind the characters, I'm not going to enjoy the movie, it's as simple as that.

While I'm on the subject, I did like the villains in this movie. They were North Koreans, which intrigued me, personally, because I've been heavily following North Korean politics for a lot of years now and it's a topic that piques my interest. But again, this film's bad guys are fun to hate.

After the disappointment of A Good Day to Die Hard, this movie is a breath of fresh air. Matter of fact, I'd say that this movie is more deserving of a spot in the Die-Hard franchise than it's most recent installment. It's clear throughout the film that it's very inspired, there are several nods to the first Die-Hard in particular that I'm guessing were quite intentional. I half-expected Butler to shout "Yippie ki yay!" in one scene (Spoiler! He didn't!).

So, overall, a good action film that slightly exceeded initial expectations. I enjoyed it. Matter of fact, I'll watch it again when it releases on home video.

8/10 - Above average action flick.

Dead Snow

What makes a good zombie movie? Most of the time, I'll walk away from this type of movie feeling it was a solid meh. A good zombie movie has to either be doing something really unique and different and/or be backed up by and very solid cast. Everyone seems surprised that I don't watch The Walking Dead. Well, that's why, the cast is terrible in that show. Let's be honest, the plot-line of a zombie apocalypse is not very interesting in of itself. It has to focus on the trials the characters have to overcome inside and out. So, where does the movie Dead Snow fit into this? Well, it doesn't. Remember that and/or statement back up there? Well, Dead Snow falls into the former of those two. It's fucking different.

The Norwegian film, Dead Snow, effectively shook up the western audience in 2009 after it's mild success in it's country of origin. I think it goes without saying for any film that depicts half of a severed head on the ground right on the poster, that it's balls to the wall, blood and gory-guts and this movie has no shortage of the good stuff.

No, sir.

This movie is a wet dream of badassery. A bunch of assholes go off into the mountains and Nazi zombies commence fucking their shit up. What else do you need to know and furthermore, how can you go wrong? This movie has it all from hanging off of a cliff by a line of intestines and fist fighting a zombie at the same time, to snowmobiles with mounted machine-guns, to improvisational chainsaw weaponry. It's definitely the sort of movie where you're expected to turn your brain off and just let it happen and people often forget that and critique the shit out of movies like this which is all wrong, it's just a drive in, grindhouse. With that kind of film, there really isn't much that can be said about it without talking about individual moments. It's just a movie about Nazi zombies in the cold, secluded peaks of Norway.

Red shows up nicely on white

So, gather some friends, find this movie, sit back and enjoy. It's one hell of a ride and I'd highly recommend it to any zombie fan.

7.5/10 - Check it out

Double Standards

The perceptions and standards of different forms of media

Can you remember all the way back to two and a half weeks ago when I posted about Mass Effect 2? I had briefly talked about how the sex scenes in that game were considerably less explicit than in the first game. This was because somewhere during the three year interval between the games, the first had come under fire from the media which was claiming that the game should be banned due to it's "graphic depictions of sex, nudity and sodomy." One blogger, Kevin McCullough, said about it,
"Mass Effect can be customized to sodomize whatever, whomever, however, the game player wishes," and "with it's 'over the net' capabilities, virtual orgasmic rape is just the push of a button away."

Now, obviously, this is a load of bullshit. After the media had been met with outrage from the fanbase and the devs, they retracted their statements. It turned out (not surprisingly) that not one of these accusers had ever once played the actual game. When they were shown the footage, one of them, an author named Cooper Lawrence, stated that she "has seen episodes of Lost that are most sexually explicit."

So, why the uproar over something that a public channel rated for ages 14 and up could get away with? Mass Effect is rated M for Mature. As the "Mature" part implies, it expects it's audience to actually be mature. But what that rating means, is that the content in the game is not appropriate for gamers under the age of 17. Keep in mind that that rating is equal to the film rating, R. Furthermore, Mass Effect is a video game. The characters, and anything, depicted within the game is digitally rendered, AKA not real people. Now, it's true that animating technology is quite amazing these days. We've come a long way from...

Yeah

But that still doesn't excuse the brazen disparity in treatment between the two mediums. Why does the media hold the video game to a different standard? No one ever had an aneurism over the sex or other such graphic content on TV or in the movies; parents bitch about it every so often, but there's generally not a huge upheaval.

The true issue at work here is simply a double-standard and in this case, it happened because something is defying a preconceived notion which, conscious or not, is deeply-held. Someone got word that Mass Effect had some sexual content and ran with it, probably sensationalizing it somewhat and everyone freaked out.

Trust me, if these games were half as graphic as people claim, they'd be much more successful.

So, where is the conflict here? It comes down to the fact that the older generation, the one making all of these accusations, grew up in a time where their kid's games looked like some obscure little bricks and you had to use your imagination. Games were generally aimed at a young audience and the content of those games reflected that. Over the years, as games became more advanced, they could flesh out and try to reach older generations as well. Nowadays, games have the power to shoot for any audience, there's no taboo on an M rated game, but despite this, the generation that knew the first games still holds that image in their mind. They unconsciously expect games to still be for kids. Therefore, the idea of explicit content seems abhorrant.

It begs the question, if the older generation can't handle some sex, but the younger one can and can just move on with their life, which is the more mature?

Behold, the most explicit frame in the entire trilogy.

This doesn't apply just to the realm of video games, although that is one area where it may be the most prevalent. Another area that a censure is held is anime. It's quite true that these days, anime has much more freedom than it did. There are plenty of no-barred, TV-MA shows that you can find.

Fucking ahem

Of course, it wasn't always this way. Back in the 80's, Dragonball Z had first came to the states. The infamous Canadian crew, Ocean, was responsible for the atrocious original english translation and dub of the show. Considerably less admonished, but still prevalent, is the horrible censorship of it; my personal favorite example is in one of the movies, Bardock's entire squadron was murdered by traitors and all he has to say is, "Those... meatheads!"

The older generation at that point was familiar with children's cartoons. The thought of having an animated show aimed at adults seemed silly. In other places, namely Japan, the medium had already reached an older audience, so shows like Dragonball Z were designed accordingly. If you've ever seen DBZ subbed, then you know that just about every other word is "damn". Regardless, the American culture refused to recognize that and the script was rewritten and scenes were cut to accomodate the young audience.

Now, I'm not condemning children's cartoons. Over time, people were slowly able to adapt to the idea of having a sophisticated and mature anime. It took anime a very long time for it to be taken seriously in the western hemisphere and it still isn't truly respected; most people assume it's all powering up and screaming, ignorant of shows like Eden of the East or Death Note.

On that note, this sort of standard is not simply for violence and sex, it also applies in the plot. Video games are at a point where they're finally starting to be taken seriously. That's why games like Heavy Rain can even be made.

That's a very high-brow and adult game. Games have come very far from charming fantasies like Mario or Zelda. Now, those games are great, no one disputes that. They're kids games but can be enjoyed by any age group. This generation of gaming is significant because it's debatably the first where sophisticated games like Heavy Rain and Mass Effect, that are geared towards a mature adult audience, can also see commercial success.

So, is this standard exclusive to anime and video games? No. It applies to cinema as well only in this case it's in reverse. In the modern day, movies are generally rather grounded in reality. Even the ones that aren't, the science fiction and fantasy, moviegoers have a hard time suspending their disbelief. They'll endlessly nitpick at films that have even trivial "mistakes" such as an unrealistic moment. Movies like Godzilla are unwatchable to a western audience; they just can't let themselves enjoy it. It's great to see that movies today can be as intellectual as they are, but it seems that you can never have both ends of the spectrum.

What could be done to refine the gaming standards? Making more games like Mass Effect and Heavy Rain. Over time, the generations will change, and the ones who are familiar with games such as this, will be used to the idea of a mature game and no one will freak out over trivial things like they did with Mass Effect.

Am I saying that all games should be full of violence and sex? No. Am I saying that all movies should be dumbed down? No. I just hate the idea of any medium being limited due to any sort of established precept. You shouldn't have to be forced to restrain a story based on some set of unwritten parameters. These mediums are often about expression. I'm not begrudging those "rules" because I want to see more graphic alien porn. The bigger picture is about the freedom. Throughout history, things like art and literature have been shunned due to this sort of conduct. It's unfortunate that similar things happen today. It's the kind of thing that can only be changed over time.