In The Reel World

I’ve been waiting to see Cloverfield since it’s teaser trailer last year.  SO, I HAD to go to the midnight showing to see it the MINUTE it was watchable!

WATCH THIS MOVIE!

The film was fan-freakin-tastic!  It was amazing.  Brilliant.  Add all the good words about it you can, it was all of them!

The acting was great!  I wasn’t sure what to expect with all relative unknowns in the lead parts (to make it more realiztic), but everyone did a fantastic job.

The monster was, in my opinion, one of the coolest looking monsters EVER in a film!

The visual effects were mindblowing.  I was a little weery of the handheld concept.  I was expecting Blair Witch crap!  But after seeing Cloverfield, I can honestly say that the movie would NOT have worked had it been filmed in the typical hollywood fashion.

This movie is INTENSE!  Ok, so the first 20 minutes are kind of slow as it’s a going away party for the main character… but I think it ads some decent character development in a short period of time.  Then the monster strikes!  From there to the credits, you will be on the edge of your seat and in several scenes praying to God you don’t poop your pants!

And here’s a helpful hint: Make sure that in the last clip of the movie (the last 10 seconds or so) that you pay attention to the ENTIRE FRAME… if you don’t, you will miss a vital detail!

WATCH THIS MOVIE!

I’ve been told by many people lately about how good “Almost Famous” is.  PLUS, one of the lead actors (Patrick Fugit) is an actor I want to approach about being in “Aisle Seats”.   So naturally, I had to watch this film.

The acting was amazing in this!  So was the story.  It all seemed so real.  It was beautiful, exciting, and dreadful all at the same time.  I felt as excited (and worried) for William Miller as he must have felt for himself.

I really don’t have anything bad to say about this film.  It was very good.  It wasn’t great.  But it was VERY good.

“Fallen Angels” is the most recent film from Monroe resident Jeff Thomas.  It was released with Warner Brothers.

Since I’ll be meeting with Jeff this week, I figured the LEAST I could do is watch this movie (I saw his first film “13 Seconds“… NOT a fan of that film).

The first thing to notice about this movie is it’s cast!  There are toms of horror movie icons.  It was a varitable easter egg hunt, noticing all these b-list stars in everything from lead roles to small cameos.

Then there’s the story.  I’m honestly on the fence on if I liked it or not.  On the one hand, it was a fairly original story of demons and their killings, and I was interested in the fact that the primary character had seen something similar once before that helped to shape who he is in the film… but there were still flaws… the fact that CSI team is SO interested in the skeletons of murders from hundreds of years ago didn’t sit right with me.  Sure, they ended up finding out about the recent murders thanks to the old ones… but this connection (while vital to the story) seemed like it had a forced beginning.  I mean, who’s going to make the almost instant connection between skeletons found in a sub-basement from several hundred years ago, and a couple of teens who got murdered last night?   Also, the VERY end of the movie felt a little too corny to me.

The photography of the film is beautiful, and the demons all looked great (especially TNA wrestler and former playboy model Kristy Hemme….*drools*).  I wasn’t a fan of the editing, though.  The hyper-speed flashes of red with the current image was not only distracting but I felt it was a useless tool entirely (yes, I get it that it was cut like that to increse the intensity… but it failed to do so).

I really am not sure if I liked this movie or not.  Obviously, I should say I loved it since I’ll be having a sit-down with it’s creator… but I’d only be lying.  It wasn’t great… but it wasn’t horrible either.  And it was WAY better than his first feature “13 Seconds”.

Since I watched Daredevil, I had to watch his counterpart, Elektra in her on film “Elektra“.

Big mistake!

There is really no reason to watch this film other than to say “I watched Daredevil AND Elektra”.Ok, so there were a few good points: Jennifer Garner is a goddess (as usual), there was some good special effects (the character Tattoo, mainly), and some decent fast paced fighting scenes.

But then you get to the actual story itself… and there’s where it’s naptime!

The story is boring, and you really don’t care about any of the key players.  On top of that, it has such incredibly slow pacing… I watched this with my dad, and he left the room after about 40 minutes.  I watched only because I have a track record of NEVER turning off or leaving a movie no matter how uninterested I am.  But I wanted to.

But on the plus side, I watched Daredevil AND Elektra!  *lowers head in shame*

Even when a superhero movie is done bad, I usually like it just because it’s a superhero film.  I’ve heard bad things about “Daredevil“, but had to watch it anyway!

Personally, I didn’t think it was all that bad!  The acting was good all around, the storyline was decent (the origin section of the movie was better than the primary story, though), it had some good fight scenes (albeit, they looked a little TOO choreographed).

My only problems with it were 1) the fight scenes, again, looked a little TOO choreographed.  None of them had that really raw feeling like a good fight should… they were a little too crouching tiger for my taste.  2) They made Kingpin BLACK?!  Ok, don’t think me a racist at all… it’s just that in the comics, Kingpin is an enormous white man who  while he looks like a fat bald guy is infact over 350 pounds of solid muscle!

All-in-all, I thought it was a pretty good movie, and a really good superhero movie.

Kevin Smith film again.  “Chasing Amy”

This movie was GREAT!  The acting was awesome, the story was great, it looked good even!  And it was shot with only $250,000!  The writing was amazing on this film!  Not only is this the best Smith film I’ve seen, but it’s just an all around damn fine film no matter WHO did it!

I saw Kevin Smiths’ “Mallrats“.

He got a LOT of slack for this film, and I can’t figure out why.  It came out right after Clerks.  People thought Clerks was great and that Mallrats was crap…. I think it’s the other way around.  Clerks was not very good at all, but Mallrats was damn good!  It was very funny!

Sure, it didn’t have much to it, but it was funny as hell, which I think was the point.

I LOVED the first National Treasure.  It was fun, fast paced and exciting.  The twists and turns made Davinci Code (the book, not the movie) seem not so thought out.

It was much better than this sequal, National Treasure: Book of Secrets.

I know it was the highest grossing film this holiday season.  But you know what?  It wasn’t nearly as good and exciting as the first.  Some of the clues were obvious, twists expected, and AGAIN with the…. oh, wait, sorry… that happens at the end.  Don’t want to spoil it.

Anyway, the first one was great, this one was just ok.

I Am Legend was actually really good.  I’ve heard a lot of bad reviews about it, but I don’t think they were all that warrented.

Were there flaws with this film?  Of course.  Did it stay true to Richard Matheson’s book?  Honestly, I don’t know!  I’ve been trying to get my hands on the book for TWO YEARS… all the Monroe County Library System seems to have is the graphic novel adaptation.

Will Smith shines as an actor… and he has to really since for 90% of the film, he’s the only actor (Besides the dog of course).

HO…LY…CRAP!  Juno was FANTASTIC!

It’s an independant film that did GREAT on the festival circuit and is doing pretty darn good in it’s theatrical release.  It’s about a girl (Juno) who gets pregnant from a nerdy guy and tries to find a couple to adopt the child once it’s born.

It’s actually a comedy… well… a drama.. ok, it’s a dramedy!  There, happy?

The comedy part is easily on par with Superbad.  The drama is pretty powerful too.

This movie is a must see, and you’d better believe it’ll be part of my top 5 of 2007 list tomorrow!