Paranormal Entity (2009)

Have you heard about this picture? It was all the rage back during Halloween 2009. We got ghosts and shit caught on tape. Also, it's a "found footage" type picture so we know that most of the people in this thing end up either missing, dead or possibly both. I believe this picture has already been assigned the "masterpiece" label. And, to think it only cost 11 thousand dollars. This thing, in rough cut form (could it get any rougher?), scared Steven Spielberg shitless. He thought the tape he took home to watch was actually haunted. Can you believe that shit? Anyway, he embraced it, recommended it to some producers, and the rest, as they say, is....oh, wait....this isn't that movie? Shit, I was pretty sure it was...Oh, that thing was Paranormal Activity? This is the one inspired by the 1982 Sydney J. Furie picture about the ghost that rapes Barabara Hershey? Yeah, I remember that thing. That was a pretty good movie what with invisible hands squeezing Hershey's breasts, etc. Good effects work.

Well, I have to confess that I watched Paranormal Activity a while back. Maybe even reviewed the sucker. I think I liked it. This thing is similar only the "entity" takes his crush on the female character a bit further in that he actually sexually assaults her. The lesson I learned here is that entities rape, activities don't rape. Also, Paranormal Entity was directed by The Asylum who is known for producing "mock-busters" (thanks wikipedia). A "mock-buster" is an homage (insta-ripoff?) to mega hollywood blockbusters. For instance, he did Snakes on a Train which is funny since I thought Snakes on a Plane tanked at the box office. Also, he did Transmorphers, The Terminators, Street Racer, Cloverville, that megashark versus giant squid movie, etc. The Asylum (I assume he was a wrestler or something) has a pretty solid track record. What's interesting about Paranormal Entity, however, is that he's paying "loving" "homage" to a movie that cost peanuts to begin with. Usually, he takes on shit that cost millions of dollars and so his works tend to suffer in comparison. Here, he's probably got a budget that exceeds that of the original. This shit's impossible to fuck up is the point I'm making.

By god, The Asylum has almost done it. I'm not gonna say Entity is better than Activity. I will say that it doesn't embarrass itself. Both pictures have amateur actors and I'd actually argue that the ones in Entity acquit themselves a little better. They're a little more likable. We got three main characters in Entity. A mother who likes her drink. A daughter who looks to be in her twenties and is always walking around in a bra and panties. And a son who also appears to be in his twenties and is constantly filming his sister in her bra and panties. Also, there's some sort of entity, but we never see it. Also, some kind of parapsychologist shows up at the end for about a minute. The premise goes as follows: Entity inhabits house, fucks with the sister, knocks shit over, tracks ash on the ceiling, etc. There's some hinting of assaults of a sexual nature against the sister (and later, a little more than "hinting"). A doctor tells them to document the shit. The son sets up cameras all over the house and also walks around with one. During the day scenes we got some bickering and then the night scenes (with everyone asleep except for the entity and the cameras) involve shit falling off walls, doors slamming, tvs turning themselves on, possible entity rape, etc.

I must be pretty fucking easy cause I didn't hate this thing. It was like watching a solid episode of "Ghost Hunters" only if one of the ghost hunters got assaulted. Sexually. The effects aren't quite as grandiose as they were in Paranormal Activity. We got no scene where a demon tracks three toed footprints in the bedroom and no Ouija boards catch on fire. All the cool shit happens off camera. There's even a mention of the girl getting dragged out of bed but that took place off camera and in a hotel (another difference between this picture and Activity is that they actually tried to leave). There is a scene where the son (I don't remember any of their names, sorry. I think there was a subtitle to the movie that gives the family name....the something something murder tapes....wait, just scrolled to the top. "The Finley Murder Tapes". There you go)....anyway, there's a scene where the son finds footprints on the ceiling. Holy shit, this entity walks on the fucking ceiling. Another difference between entities and activities is that entities walk on the fucking ceiling. He inspects the shit the entity tracks in though and discovers it's ash. Uh oh...he goes downstairs and finds the urn that contained his fathers ashes smashed to the ground. Oh yeah, the father died in an accident about a year before. The story goes the mother tried to communicate with the father and instead invited in an evil presence, an entity.

Anyway, that's one way of looking at it but I think the picture actually hints at something far more sinister. Like, this family seems pretty messed up. The mother's a drunk. The daughter sleeps in a barren room, with dark walls, and a solitary crucifix hanging over her bed. She's overly morose. I don't know, the picture of the dad by the urn was a little creepy is all I'm saying. I'm not calling paranormal social services to come take him away from his daughter, not yet anyway. Why do we automatically have to go blaming some kind of evil demon? Too much finger pointing in the direction of where we think evil demons are standing. Shouldn't ghost dad, at least, be a suspect?

So, I didn't hate this picture but it's not perfect either. Too many scenes are direct lifts from Paranormal Activity. Besides the raping, and the hinting at a history of child abuse, there's nothing original here. Barely a reason for it to exist. We got the scene where the bed sheets miraculously lift off a sleeping woman. We got a scene where a seemingly possessed woman gets up and walks around and even calls for someone (in this case, her brother). It's all done pretty well but still feels a little "been there, done that". There's a great (and scary) scene towards the end involving the mother which I won't spoil here. The ending feels too abrupt but somehow, maybe that's fitting. The psychic guy stops by, tells them everything's gonna be alright and then suddenly the footage jumps ahead to a (SPOILER!!!!!!) closeup of the psychic dead on the floor, the son passed out apparently, and the daughter screaming as she's being assaulted in the bedroom, a "what the fuck just happened" scene if there ever was one. So, I got to hand it to The Asylum for this one. He is getting better. I'd like to see him tackle even more small, intimate, projects in the future. How about The Asylum's A Serious Guy? Maybe The Asylum's A Single Guy? Or, how about The Asylum's Up In The Sky? I don't know, I'm not very good at coming up with movie ideas.

The House of the Devil (2009)

The House of the Devil is a brilliant and loving recreation of classic 70s and 80s horror movies covering shit like Suspiria, Rosemary's Baby, some slasher shit, maybe The Beyond, various other stuff, etc. What Ti West (the writer, director, and editor) has done is beyond extraordinary. He's created an authentic period piece (down to hair styles, clothing, cars, news reports, phones) and also filmed the thing using the techniques of the period (including the fantastic opening credits) on what must have been a pea sized budget. What we have here is a picture evoking, not only the best American horror films of that era, but also the strongest of the Italian giallos (from masters such as Argento, Fulci, Bava, etc). This movie puts modern shit to shame by ditching the irony, focusing on the atmospherics, giving the audience a nice slow burn that they all so clearly.....ah hell, I can't do it. What Ti West did was basically remake all the boring parts from those movies we love. Let's face it, the majority of those pictures (I still love them) have long stretches of tedium. The House of the Devil is a glorious recreation of that tedium.

The picture gets off to a good start by introducing us to the lovely Samantha Hughes (Jocelin Donahue), a sophomore at a small town college looking to improve her living situation (dorm mate snores and has sex lots). She meets up with landlady Dee Wallace (whose only reason for being in the picture is to remind us how in love with the genre this film really is) who agrees to give her the apartment if she can come up with three hundred bucks up front. Sam's only got $84 in her bank account which might be a problem. She has until monday. Luckily, she notices flyers strewn around campus looking for a babysitter. She calls the number. The calmly disheveled voice on the other end of the phone tells her to meet him at student services. He doesn't show up. That's that I guess. Also, she used a pay phone if you weren't sure this was taking place during another time.

Anyway, guy calls her back. He's in a bind. His other sitter bailed. Would she be willing to come out tonight? Job pays $100. She gets her friend with the Farrah Fawcett hair to drive out with her. They drive and drive and drive. Through woods, etc. Also, there's a full lunar eclipse that night. Eventually, they arrive at the house (of the devil) and are greeted by Tom Noonan (the voice on the other end of the phone) and his cane. Nobody does quiet, nice and psychotic quite like Noonan. Noonan explains the job. It's not really a kid, it's his mother. Sam says "time to leave". Noonan eventually agrees to give her $400 if she'll stay (Sam's demand). That'll take care of the apartment and maybe score her some coke! Her friend doesn't like it, wants her to leave, and then leaves by herself with a promise to return at midnight to pick Sam up. While pulling out of the driveway she stops to light a smoke but can't find her lighter and the car lighter is taking too long. Luckily, a svelte looking Kevin Smith shows up with a zippo. SPOILER: Then he blows off her face with a revolver.

Ok, so now I'm fully on board even if the spoiled effect (referenced above) did look a little too good for the time period. Noonan introduces Sam to his wife who was in Eating Raoul (which I still haven't seen despite referencing it in two reviews; this and Chopping Mall). They seem nice enough. There's a number for a pizza place on the fridge. I know this because Noonan says it four times. Finally, Noonan and his wife head out. The old lady is apparently upstairs but Sam doesn't have to do anything. Just hang around until they get back. Let the excitement begin.

I waited and waited and waited. We got scenes of Sam walking around the house. She racks up a pool game. She sits down. She tries calling her friend. She hits a few keys on the piano. She orders a pizza. She watches the local news. She listens to her walkmen (which, I'm not sure, but this might be an anachronism.....probably not). She dances. She calls her friend again. This shit goes on forever. I closed my eyes a couple times. I can take slow movies if there's a point. Here, I couldn't figure out what that point was. If this were a war movie we could attribute it to the horrors of waiting for the actual battle to start. Here, there is no sense of dread. I mean, I know right away that Noonan and his wife and Kevin Smith are up to no good. I was also pretty sure that nothing would happen during any of these carefree moments since the director was doing nothing to prepare us for that shit. Sure, there's the third phone call to her friend who pulls the old "hello...haha you dumbass, you thought it was me" trick on her answering machine (and who the hell had answering machines back then anyway?). Ok, the answering machine thing and the walkmen thing are what amounts to insignificant nitpicks. Bottom line, for a good 30 minutes or so I was bored.

Then the pizza guy arrives and it's the same guy that blew off Sam's friend's face only Sam doesn't know that. We do, but I'm not sure I gave a shit at this point. I liked Sam and all. I mean, she's cute but I certainly didn't love her. She got herself into this shitstorm and then had the gall to press Noonan for an extra 100 bucks. So, she eats the pizza but it tastes funny. Then she passes out for some reason and when she comes to she is bound to a pentagram on the floor in the basement or something. We got Noonan, his wife, Smith, and some old witch (I'm guessing mom) doing satanic rituals on Sam. Whoa...I felt like we just showed Sam watching the news for 30 minutes and now we have pentagrams being painted on her belly and blood being funneled down her throat through a goats head and all this has taken like 30 seconds. The pacing could use some work is what I'm getting at.

So, I admired the intent more than the finished product. Also, what's with the modern sound effects (which evoked Saw for me) every time we see a quick flash of the devil, or that witch, or whomever? That shit took me out of it a bit. There's enough here to like that I'll definitely pay attention to West in the future, maybe check out Cabin Fever 2? The ending could have possibly set up a sequel but I kinda hope the guy moves on to something different. Maybe he had too much on his plate for this one? Some tighter editing for the middle parts and maybe a little looser editing for the climax and he might have had himself a moderately effective little chiller. Instead it's just a somewhat masturbatory homage which is sorely lacking tits and ass. I can understand the lack of bush (who has time to wait for an actress to grow that shit out) but no tits? No ass? What is this?? The fucking 90s!?

Orphan (2009)

If you've ever considered adoption as an option then this is probably not the picture for you. If you're a woman who had to carry a dead baby in your womb for a few weeks before expelling the fetus and also you had a problem with alcohol and maybe a husband who strayed once or twice in the past then this is definitely not the movie for you. Orphan will probably do for adopting nine year old Russian children what Jaws did for going in the water or what Alien did for breaking off return voyages to earth in order to investigate derelict space crafts. This is a surprisingly good movie.

Vera Farmiga (The Departed) stars as Kate Coleman, a woman in a so-so marriage to Peter Sarsgaard and also with two children, Max (a near-deaf mute girl) and Daniel. Kate and her husband don't seem very happy, especially with the whole carrying a dead baby to term thing, so it seems like the appropriate thing would be to take the love they were gonna give the dead baby and give it to some other child in need of love, perhaps an orphan or something. So, without further adieu, they hit up the local orphanage (run by nun CCH Pounder) and, after a brief bit of window shopping, decide on the seemingly brilliant, wise beyond her years, incredible painter, able to play Tchaikovsky and so on, 9 year old Russian girl with the odd, out dated manner of dressing, bow ties in her hair, incredible grasp of english, etc. I know what they were probably thinking. This girl may be weird but if she keeps developing at this rate she'll probably be worth millions. We're gonna be fucking rich, etc. Unfortunately, they're not aware of the spoiler that I'm not gonna spoil. Fuck, they ain't gonna get rich off this "little" brat at all. Unless by "get rich" I mean get dead, which I don't.

Also, I love the adoption process in this movie. Most places, it probably takes months (or longer). Here, you get your pick of the litter, sign a few papers, and after a few weeks of waiting get to bring the little shit home. I mean, I don't even remember a scene where CCH said anything about background checks they need to run on the Colemans (alcoholism, infidelity, etc might be issues). Also, what about a background check on this little girl? This little girl that is supposedly from Russia, where her last family was burned down with a house (an unsolved case of arson). There are questions that need some answerin is all I'm saying. Also, her name is Esther which is a pretty odd name for a nine year old girl even if she is from "Russia". And, what's with me putting quotes around various words that describe Esther. Could it be she's not whatever or whomever she claims to be (also claimed on her "official" papers)?

So, anyway, Esther comes home and needs to be integrated into the family. Max immediately falls in love with her but I think it's just because Esther learned sign language in about three days. Sarsgaard's father character adores her but I think it's because she tells him everything he wants to hear except for towards the end when she starts telling him things that no father wants to hear his daugther tell him. Daniel is immediately jealous which eventually turns into suspicious, but he's got his reasons. Things seem to go well until Esther goes to school and is made fun of for the way she talks, dresses, walks, etc. It doesn't pay to be different if you're a "little" girl is one of the morals of this story. Also, don't make fun of "little" girls because they might push you off a slide or maybe threaten you with castration, etc.

Things quickly deteriorate within the household. Sides are taken. Max and the Sarsgaard character (I think his name was John) initially side with Esther while in the other corner we got Kate and Daniel. Kate's corner isn't very strong though since she's got the whole alcoholism thing in her past which threatens to crop up especially after bottles start appearing even though she didn't drink from them. And then Daniel gets trapped in a burning tree house and ends up falling out in an effort to save himself. Now, I'm not gonna say Esther is to blame but it doesn't look good when we see her douse the thing in lighter fluid and then light the match. Also, the scene where she murders CCH Pounder who shows up with some information that might lead to Esther being taken away. Also the scene where she tells Daniel after he witnesses some of her shenanigans "If you tell anyone what you saw I'll cut off your hairless little prick before you know what it's for". Now, I gotta be honest. These aren't the type of things you'd expect to hear coming out of the mouth of a "nine year old" girl. Just seems strange is all. She's either older beyond her years or maybe she forged that birth certificate. Nah, can't be. She looks nine to me.

The picture relies a little too much on jump scares at first but then it settles in nicely as Esther plays Kate and John against each other which ends with John threatening to leave Kate unless she quits drinking. Even the shitty therapist Kate is seeing doesn't believe her when Kate says "her child" is evil personified. "Just look at her" the therapist says, "Does she look evil to you?" I don't know. I think...yes, she kinda does. I have to say that Farmiga is terrific in this role. We got her back story involving the failed pregnancy and the alcoholism which led to one child almost falling through some ice and dying (which leads me to believe there might be some foreshadowing involved here). We got her strained relationship with Sarsgaard who has that whole minimalist, always calm, style of acting down to a science. We got them having weird, inappropriate (considering the kids upstairs), sex in the kitchen. We got the relationship between her and her mother in law which seems a bit tense to say the least. But we also got a mother who will do anything to save the lives of her kids. It doesn't take long before she realizes Esther ain't one of her kids so if she needs to ---spoiler --- die, then fuck it. The bitch dies. Not that Kate flat out murders the "little" (hint: quotes are not used in reference to size) shit or anything.

Isabelle Furhman as Esther is sort of a revelation who may never find work outside of this type again. She needs to disappear for a while and come back to acting, ideally, after having her name legally changed. She's creepy as hell. Yeah, she looks evil but unlike that Omen remake kid she does more than just look the part. She embodies it. The climax involves her doing things no child actor should ever be asked to do. Is it exploitative? I think, probably, yes it is. Is it effective? Absolutely. The twist, which I have in no way hinted at above, might seem ridiculous at first. But it worked for me. I heard about it when this thing came out and then I completely forgot about it until it was revealed. If you don't see the movie and just have it spoiled for you, you probably won't want to see the movie anymore. There are a couple murders in the picture that are shockingly brutal (and realistic) when you consider that the perpetrator is only "nine" fucking years old. This is a good one, probably underrated. It's more consistently entertaining than The Other with an almost as horrific ending. I was surprised.

The Other (1972)

The Other is a slooooooow burn. Some might say it simmers. Others might say the cook forgot to switch on the burner during parts. Let's be frank here. It gets a little tedious at times. I dozed off about forty minutes in. This has nothing to do with the lack of on screen kills or nudity. The picture just tends to meander. Yet, it does eventually manage to ignite. This thing ends in an eruption of (possible spoiler) Kentucky fried baby, extra spicy.*

The Other is the story of the Perry family. A typical family living on a farm in 1930s Connecticut. The opening of the film introduces us to eleven year old twin boys, Niles and Holland Perry. Holland gets the two involved in various forms of mischief involving rats, pitchforks, pushing mother down the stairs, spoiling magic shows for everyone, babynapping, etc. Also, Holland's dead, killed about a year before, a result of falling into a well (while about to drop a kitty down the well) . Whether or not he's a ghost, a figment of Nile's imagination, or in possession of Niles is left fairly ambiguous. Sort of. Also living on the farm are their immigrant grandmother (Uta Hagen), their shell shocked mother, an immigrant farmhand, their uncle, a young John Ritter and his wife, and a cousin (same age as Niles - also a reputed snitch).

Interestingly, the director (Robert Mulligan - To Kill a Mockingbird) never shows Niles and Holland, despite being played by real twins (Chris and Martin Udvarnovsky), in the same shot. This plays up the ambiguity as to whether or not Holland is a physical entity, a ghost, or inside Nile's head. Like I said earlier, the movie meanders, goes off on weird little tangents. Like the part where Nile's grandmother teaches him how to see the world through the eyes of a bird, predating The Beastmaster by a good ten years. The bird soars through the sky and catches a glimpse of a pitchfork left in a pile of hay that Nile's young tattle tale cousin is about to jump into. What's one more funeral for the Perry family?

About an hour into this thing, after I woke up, the grandmother takes Niles aside and is like "look you little brat, your brother's dead, died last year, fell in a well. Stop acting like he's still around, start acting like a normal fucking child, etc. Look, don't believe me" - yanks him to the cemetery - "here's his god damned grave stone" - huge reveal, stunned musical notes - "see, it says 'Holland fucking Perry'! Get over it, sheesh!" Ok, I may have paraphrased a bit there, but you get the idea. Niles seems to go along with grandma until late that very night when she comes down the stairs to find him still talking to Holland. She just sits down and shakes her head. Seriously though, it's all Grandma's fault. She's an enabler. She went along with this innocent "game" after the funeral. Should have put an end to things then, didn't expect things to go quite this far. We got one dead cousin, one dead neighbor, a snatched - possibly murdered - baby, spoiled magic tricks, one paraplegic mother, and lots more general mayhem-ic shit.

The relationship between Niles and his grandmother is actually pretty sweet. It has to be considering the state his mother's been in since the death of Holland, and, before that, her husband/their father. She doesn't leave her bed, barely eats, never speaks or engages in any type of motherly behavior. Then "Holland" pushes her down some stairs rendering her completely immobile. So yeah, grandma's got her hands full. Niles clearly has issues. Like, why is he carrying around a small case containing a ring that was supposed to have been buried with Holland? Also, what's with the wrapped up - spoiler - severed finger in the same case?

Of all the killer kid movies I've seen, I can say that this is better than something like Devil Times Five. It's no masterpiece and has difficulty sustaining itself for its full run time. Still, I gotta be honest. I sorta appreciated the meandering. The picture doesn't rely on cheap scares, quick editing, blood, gore, tits, etc. We got a general creepiness that slowly evolves into a terrific, and horrifying, conclusion. The finale is almost enhanced by the meandering, as long as you're awake for it.

*note: baby not fried

The Top Ten Films of 2009!

When I originally set out to do this list (some time ago) I thought I'd have trouble coming up with ten films I really liked. While perusing the list of films released in 2009 I started to realize how great the year had actually been. How in hell was I going to keep this thing limited to just ten pictures? Consider some of the pictures that just missed the cut: Coraline, Watchmen, Knowing, Star Trek, Up, Avatar, etc. Shit man, I could probably do a list of twenty and not be stretching things too badly at the end. Anyway, enough with the bullshit. I'm gonna just give you the list. Short and sweet. Feel free to post porn links in the comments.

10. My Bloody Valentine 3D

Do I really think this is one of the top ten pictures of 2009? No fucking chance. But this is Moving Picture Trash after all so it makes the list. This thing's got it all. Tits, gore, Tom Atkins, 3D, and that iconic gas mask. It's not even better than the original but I'm still putting it on the list. Hell, I can barely remember the plot. There's a mine, a masked killer, a teen party, and a bit of a mystery as to the killer's identity. The scene that sold me was the one at the hotel where some naked broad runs from the killer for an extended amount of time. Jiggling in 3D. Yeah, it's probably a piece of shit. Yet, here it is.

9. World's Greatest Dad

Holy fucking shit, this picture pretty much came out of no where to hit me right where it counts. Bobcat Goldthwait , yes that Bobcat Goldthwait, directs Robin Williams in what has to be his best performance in years. Williams is Lance Clayton, an unpopular and soon to be downsized high school poetry teacher. Clayton's directionless son (a hilarious Daryl Sabara) attends the same school. His son's one passion in life is internet porn. Really fucking filthy internet porn. One night, Clayton comes home and finds his son in his room, blankly staring at some filthy shit on his computer, with a belt tied around his neck. Dead. Auto erotically asphyxiated. Clayton covers it up and writes a suicide note which makes its way into the school paper and before long his dead son has become a national folk hero. A fucking tragic figure whose depth goes beyond simply labeling all music "gay". Clayton's lie escalates to the point that the entire school becomes Bruce Hornsby fans. And Clayton gets the girl he pines for (from behind), while becoming the school's most popular teacher. Not since Election has a movie deconstructed the shittery that is High School and made me laugh so hard while doing it.

8. Where The Wild Things Are

I've already reviewed this picture here so I'll keep this to a minimum. It's been a while since I've seen it but I still think about it from time to time and can't wait to watch it again. The picture made me a little melancholy in that it made me wish I was a kid again. Yeah, it's a picture about growing up but it's also about just enjoying the ride to adulthood. Sure, there might be some hardships and pain along the way, but there's also lots of building things and then destroying them. That's fun too. And a great soundtrack by Karen O.

7. Moon

It's been a long time since I've seen this one (early summer 2009 I believe). Hence, the problem with these lists, especially considering I haven't written up everything I've seen. I do love intelligent sci-fi. I love character based sci-fi. Basically, we got Sam Rockwell starring as Sam Bell, an employee of lunar industries, working on the moon, mining for helium. His job is to maintain the equipment. His sole companion is a robot named GERTY (terrific voice work by Kevin Spacey). Sam is nearing the end of his three year contract, at which point he will return to Earth, making way for his replacement. Towards the end, Sam starts to lose it, hallucinates, and crashes his moon rover, later waking up in the infirmary. How did he get back? Something seems wrong. Things begin to spiral out of control, he starts to question his mission. GERTY tries to remain helpful. To reveal anything further about the story would be to massively spoil it. This is quiet, introspective (but not boring) sci-fi at its best. The director, Duncan Jones (son of David Bowie) is on my radar.

6. Observe & Report

This might be the most polarizing picture on this list. People I've talked to seem to either love it or hate it. Seth Rogen, as Ronnie Barnhardt has never been better (or creepier). Somehow, we still kinda root for the guy. Rogen plays a mall security guard desperate to be a police officer. So desperate, that he vows to solve the case of the parking lot flasher (yeah, we see some junk). Ray Liotta plays the actual cop assigned to the case. Anna Farris (hilarious) is the flashee. The movie is dark (probably too dark for some) and frequently funny. What lands it on this list are the performances and the underlying sweetness which, while struggling to surface, never gets in the way of the laughter. Danny McBride, per usual, steals his scene. The ending involves Ronnie's best Travis Bickle impersonation that works because it's in his character. This isn't Paul Blart. It's fucked up. If you liked The Foot Fist Way or East Bound and Down, also by director Jody Hill, you'll appreciate this.

5. A Serious Man

I'm not even sure where to begin with this one. I should probably watch it again, but fuck it. I'm putting it on this list. Late 60s. Minnessota. Jewish community. Rabbis. Dybbuks. Bar Mitzvah's. Jefferson Airplane's "somebody to love". Extreme weather. Shit man, only the Coen Brothers could make this work. I think they did. Michael Stuhlbarg (who?) gives one of the years top performances as Larry Gopnik, a math teacher and all around nice guy, that bad things seem to keep happening to. I guess he's Job (I've heard of the story, never read it). His wife is divorcing him for his best friend, his son is an F troop junkie and pot addict, his brother Arthur has been sleeping on the couch for a while, one of his students attempts to bribe him for a good grade, someone is sending anonymous letters to his school's faculty in an attempt to prevent him from getting tenure. And these are the least of his problems. He sees a couple rabbis (who progressively become funnier and weirder) but they just tell him seemingly unrelated stories. The third rabbi (The man behind the desk - a Coen staple) is too important (and old) to even see him. Things seem to get better and then there's a phone call and what's with that funnel cloud. I don't know, this is just one of those movies I guess. Would make a good double with Barton Fink. Lots of Yiddish in this one that flew over my head but never stopped me from being compelled. It's also very funny. And, oh boy, what an ending.

4. Inglorious Basterds

Quentin Tarantino's version of a World War II movie isn't even a World War II movie. Really. It's a remake (in name only, except for the spelling of Bastards) of a 1970s exploitation-y war picture. Hell, this picture isn't even about the Basterds. They're a part of it sure. Basically, they're a squad of allies sent behind enemy lines to kill nazis. Utimately, it's a revenge picture broken up into four chapters. Like most Tarantino pictures the influences are all over the map. We got spaghetti westerns, men on a mission pictures (The Dirty Dozen), De Palma pictures, lots of weird musical choices that work, perfectly (David Bowie's Cat People song....what the fuck?), and some great star making performances (Christopher Waltz as Hans Landa is almost certainly going to be the best supporting actor winner this year). The first time I saw it I was put off by the juvenile ending (Tarantino remaking the end of the war). The second viewing I practically embraced the choice. It's a movie for people who love movies. Just like all his pictures.

3. District 9

District 9 is almost perfect. At times evoking Cronenberg's The Fly, Verhoeven when he's at the top of his game, modern docu-style war films, etc. It's violent, moving, funny. What happens when an alien race that resemble fish men ("Prawns") break down over Johannesburg, South Africa? They're offered "assistance", which is to say placed in camps and forced to endure a slum life. Sharlto Copley, as Wikus Van de Merwe, is a revealation in his first acting role. His character starts off as a boobish bureaucrat (kinda remiscent of David Brent), placed in charge of relocating the aliens from district 9 (a concentration camp) to district 10 (a concentration camp further away from the city). Things don't go as planned, there's some brutality, aliens and humans die, and Wikus is infected with some sort of alien goop. Wikus, who in an earlier scene callously destroys alien eggs, comes to empathize with the oppressed. Perfection is lost (only a little) in the heavy handed message. Still, one of the best pictures of the year.

2. Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans

Werner Herzog. Vintage Nicholas Cage. "Remake" of Abel Ferrara's own Bad Lieutenant. Val Kilmer. Iguanas. Will the baby alligator seek vengeance for it's road kill momma? Dancing spirits. Smart. Hilarious. Eminently re-watchable. Cage asking a young clubber "did your parents molest you?" Iguanas. "There ain't no iguana".

1. The Hurt Locker

I like Kathryn Bigelow. Always have. But there's no way anyone could have predicted she was capable of this. Point Break is good. Near Dark is good. Hell, I'm a fan of Blue Steel. Missed K-19. The Hurt Locker is one of the best war movies I've seen in a very long time. Expertly filmed action scenes filled with unbearable amounts of tension. A brilliant opening scene that immediately lets us know what the stakes are. We basically have a bomb squad locating and disabling IEDs (improvised explosive devices) in Iraq. While protecting themselves from an enemy that could be hiding anywhere, always watching. Jeremy Renner is Staff Sergeant William James, the replacement Sergeant for Bravo companies bomb squad (previous Sergeant killed). I knew Renner would become a star after seeing him in 28 Weeks Later. I guess this is his coming out party. James is an interesting character; brash, compassionate, cocky, humble. The story is simple. The politics on the back burner. Here's a refreshing twist on a war film; Yeah, war is hell but how about we focus on the job at hand and try to get the hell out of there? Exciting and heart breaking. A thinking/feeling person's action/war film.

Honorable Mentions:

Outlander
Coraline
Watchmen
Knowing
Star Trek
Up
Land of the Lost
Avatar
The Road
Fantastic Mr. Fox

Eyes of a Stranger (1981)

So, I realize I've been MIA for a while. Nothing serious. I didn't die or anything like that. I didn't stop watching shit. All that happened was I got a little burned out from working two jobs, one of which is in retail. Put the retail together with the holiday season and you can maybe imagine not having the energy to write after getting home around midnight (with an early wake up looming the next morning). I'm gonna try to be better about this kind of shit in the new year. I've already scaled back my hours a bit at the second job. Of course, that means less money to buy booze but I guess I'll have to make do. I also realize that I've got no top ten list for 2009. I'll try to get something done by the end of the January. Gotta be honest, not sure if I saw ten movies from 2009 that I loved enough to fill up a list. Not sure I saw enough movies I hated to fill up a list either. Oh well, I'll try to get something but I gotta be honest again: I'm not a big fan of compiling lists.

Anyway, 2010 is off to a good start. I watched this little picture from the early 80s with a very (too?) young Jennifer Jason Leigh called Eyes of a Stranger. Tom Savini did the effects but I have a feeling most of the gory shit was cut out. The guy that directed that Nazi zombie movie, Shock Waves, directed this as well. Basically, what we got here is Rear Window by way of The Miracle Worker. Jason Leigh is the Helen Keller part, rendered deaf, blind, and mute by a childhood trauma (involved abduction and other unsavory details). She now lives in a luxurious apartment building with her newswoman sister, Jane Harris (Lauren Tewes), in Miami. Meanwhile, there's some psychopath going around the city prank calling women, fondling their breasts, and then murdering them. Thankfully, Leigh is sheltered from this kind of stuff since she can't read the paper, listen to the radio, or watch her sister deliver the news reports.

Turns out, their apartment tower has a twin. What are the chances the killer lives directly across from their balcony? In a city of millions, I would figure not very good but since this is a movie I'd say the odds are more likely 1:1. The picture does a poor job of concealing the killer's identity. I mean, it could only be that creepy businessman who comes home late one night, parks in the garage (while Jane watches), has blood on his shirt, and disposes of some suspicious garments in the trash. Jane is already paranoid as indicated by the scene(s) where she interrupts her news casting partner to reiterate that women should report anything they see that appears out of the ordinary (1981 predates 9/11/01 so this is some eery shit).

Jane figures out which apartment the guy lives in (via some Nancy Drew-ish type bullshit) and then begins an investigation of her own. At one point, she even steals his key from the super, snoops around his place, etc only to have the creep come home mid-snoop, leading to a daring escape by swinging down to the balcony below. The suspense from this picture is generated not by the killer's identity, but, I guess, by who will live and who will get their head hacked off and shoved in a fish bowl. I can deal with this type of suspense.

John Disanti plays the killer as sort of a blank. He's good. We know the guy wears suits but we don't know what he does for a living (besides raping and murdering). We know he's got resources which allow him to get ladies phone numbers and also know when they are home or at work alone. His abilities frequently border on the supernatural such as the time he calls the secretary that's working late at her desk. She flees to the elevator and he calls her there. Then she flees to the her car in the underground garage and I'm pretty sure he's gonna be waiting for her in the back seat. See, here's what doesn't make sense about this scene. It becomes established that the secretary heard music on the other end of the phone. Jane discovers that this music came from the cuckoo clock in the killer's apartment. Now, how in hell did the killer get from his apartment (where presumably he called from) to the parking garage - miles away- in a matter of seconds? Wait, am I actually dissecting Eyes of a Stranger? Moving on.

There are a couple effective scare scenes. One involves a stripper, as these type of scenes usually do. Our killer (who, by the way, sorta looks like Raymond Burr) follows a stripper home from her club (plenty of boobies there). She gets home, takes a shower. We expect a slow Hitchcockian build up to her death. Not really. Immediately after starting her shower, she turns around (more boobies) and sees the killer with his face planted on the shower door. It's jarringly unexpected, which is why it works so well. The other scene involves Jennifer Jason Leigh being home alone only to have the killer break in, strangle her seeing eye dog, and then fuck with her. His fucking with her involves rearranging things around the apartment. At first, it's kinda silly but quickly progresses to disturbing. Of course, he wildly underestimates Jason Leigh's character. Yes, we see her breasts. I'm still not sure if she's of appropriate age. I guess I could look it up but I don't really want to know the answer.

Anyway, this is a pretty good picture. As far as Rear Window knock offs go I'd say it's about on par with Mimic 3 and Abominable. There's not an original bone in it's body. The cinematography is pedestrian. The performances are mostly solid though, especially John Disanti as the killer and Jason Leigh (in a mostly silent performance). It's probably worth your time. This was Jennifer Jason Leigh's first performance. Also, her breasts.

Altered (2006)

Altered is the long awaited follow up to Eduardo Sanchez and Daniel Myrick's The Blair Witch Project (this time, minus the Daniel Myrick). Well, maybe not so "long awaited" after all, I mean, I never heard of this one until a friend stuck it in my hand last week and told me to watch it. I always wondered what happened to Sanchez and Myrick though. I guess they found out making real movies is tougher than shooting a couple of douche bags lost in the woods and shaking the camera around real fast. I'm mostly kidding. Blair Witch is an effective little chiller but it's not something I would show film school students. Of course, it went on to spawn a series of copycats (Cloverfield, REC, Paranormal Activity, etc) in the so called "found footage" genre, some more successful than others. Hell, it was even accused of being a copycat itself (by that pretty shitty Jersey devil movie that I can't remember the name of). Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is that Altered is actually a real movie. We got real actors, constructed scenes not involving running while the camera shoots the ground, and real (often shitty) special effects. I kinda liked it.

Although, I think I liked the idea of the premise more than the actual execution. What we have here is an alien abduction picture only where the tables have been turned on the alien. Three country bumpkins (in their 20s) venture out into the woods (the scene of their abduction, by evil little green men, when they were teenagers). Their plan: to abduct a little green fucker and then, I guess, torture him. I don't really think they thought this thing through beyond the simple notion of vengeance. See, it turns out that five teens were abducted, but only four returned (our three numb skulls here, and also some survivalist named Wyatt who, coincidentally, doesn't live too far away from the scene of this particular space crime). The fifth guy apparently caught some sort of alien wasting disease and died during experimentation. As luck would have it, aliens are always out and about in these particular woods so catching one proves easy. A bit too easy perhaps. With bound alien in tow, the three friends head for Wyatt's isolated house, where a battle of wits, followed by an actual physical battle, commences.

The picture actually manages to be creepy, at least for the first half. We see the alien in pieces. Forehead here, arm there, claw over there. It spends most of the movie wrapped in cloth, tied to a table, and helmeted. Turns out Wyatt was the only one to have received successful experimentation, which means, I guess, he can read minds and is immune to the wasting disease they spread (through biting or clawing). We've got conflict between the friends (Wyatt wonders what purpose they're serving by bringing the thing here when all it has to do is telepathically communicate with it's friends to find it's location and also did you know that if one alien dies then the aliens will think nothing of curing the earth of humans?). There's also a conflict between the alien (when it wakes up) and the humans which consists mainly of biting and clawing, nail gunning, acts of torture, mind control, taunting, etc. It's an evil little green mother fucker basically.

I appreciated the fact that the alien was just a man in a rubber suit. The thing looked like a cross between Streiber's little gray men and Ripley's toothy Xenomorphs. Unfortunately, towards the end we see way too much of the thing (culminating in a ridiculous scene where it flies through the air at Wyatt - I think I've pretty much established him as the hero). I also had trouble figuring out motives of an alien race that travels billions of light years just to fuck with rednecks. What's with the fucking scene where the thing digs out one redneck's intestines and threatens to yank them all the way out if other rednecks come any closer? There's lots of this type of shit. Thankfully, the gore is effective (if a little bit comical at times). The acting is inconsistent as well. Adam Kauffman (as Wyatt) gives probably the most consistent performance with Brad William Henke (as Duke) fluctuating wildly between a "dag gummit" sheep farmer and a Seth Rogan type stoner. Hell, the best performance may have been James Gammon as the sheriff (it's a small part) who asks for something stronger than beer as his intestines mop the floor.

The conclusion sorta just comes out of nowhere and we're not really set up for it. These aliens have the ability to wipe out humanity with the push of a button but are apparently suseptible to a little C4. Still, nit picks aside I liked the thing. Some scenes actually border of the scary. Similar to Shyamalan's mostly brilliant Signs, it falls apart a little at the end (substitute water for explosives I guess). Like Signs, we see way too much of the creatures at the end. I'm excited to see where Sanchez goes from here. As a director, he's better than Syfy quality. Perhaps something that might hit a theatre or two, like ParaAbnormal or Blair Witch 3? Holy shit, I didn't make those up.