Movie Appraisal: Butterfly Dreaming (2008)

"Ordinary representation of stable thoughts"

So, first of all, I couldn't even find the picture of my DVD box cover art anywhere online. I wanted to include the specific art for my version of the film, but I must own the only copy of it or something. Very weird. Anyway, getting that odd bit of trivia out of the way, let's get this movie started.  I'm hoping for a trippy and creepy movie with some psychological twists. But let's see...

Butterfly Dreaming  is directed, written, and produced by Rufus Williams, who only has one other credit to his name as far as I can tell. I kept thinking that this movie has another name somewhere along the line, that the version I have is named Butterfly Dreaming, but the "real name" of the movie was Man Who Falls Down Stairs  Amusingly or Chickens: You Can't Keep 'Em Caged. But no, this is the only title of the movie I can find.

I'm being a bit silly with my last sentence, but I'm having a very hard time finding anything out about this movie. I've seen two reviews online. One is glowing. The other is extremely negative. And nothing else at all. This is weird. Reviews of movies exist everywhere. And this being an American movie, I would have thought somebody who reviews indie horror films would have scooped this up and talked about it, especially owing to how readily available I thought it was.

My inability to find all that much about the movie really makes me that much more interested in the film itself. Why is nobody talking about it? I found it easily (and cheaply) enough. Why does it have fewer reviews than tiny budgeted obscure Japanese horror movies that nobody but like five people in the US has even heard of? I don't have answers, but my questions will linger.

I brought up the DVD box art before because my specific copy of the movie says on the cover: "For fans of Memento and Mulholland Dr." These two movies are extremely different types of films with only pieces of the filming style being even somewhat similar. Memento (which is an okay, but extremely over-hyped noir-ish thriller movie) and Mulholland Drive (which is nothing like Memento with more of a psychological mystery feel, with it being David Lynch and everything) are weird movies to have people be huge fans of. This whole thing intrigues me though. How does a movie hit a middle ground between those two very different films?

We'll see if it does, I suppose.

The movie starts off with some mediocre music over an interesting credit sequence. Not a terrible start. And then the movie itself hits. My first thought is, "Was this actually made in 2008? It looks like an early 1990s film." I'm not sure if this is a good or bad start. And this will be a theme going forward.

The movie stars Andrew Bowen as Rob Pollack. He is our main character whether we like him or not. I'm still unsure of what to think about his performance. It lies somewhere between extremely subtle and over the top. But the character of Rob is a good one. While not a character one can relate to, the performance is extremely genuine. I'm just unsure if that is a good thing or a bad thing.

The movie skips around a greta deal of the time. We skip from one time period to another with no real moment in between. Flashbacks happen throughout scenes. And some scenes go right from reality to dreams or vice versa. By the end of the film reality and fiction have blended together to the point that there is no longer a dividing line anymore. I have no idea what ended up true and what ended up completely made up dream reality.

My personal interpretation is one that requires the end of the movie to explain. So, if you don't want spoilers, don't read on.

I think that the whole movie was an amalgamation dream after Rob got into a car crash. I think the passenger was obscured and never truly shown at the end of the movie because the movie itself wanted to be vague about just how much of the movie did or did not happen. I found the move somewhat clever, and I hope I'm not just missing something obvious in the meanwhile, reading deeply into pieces of the film that just aren't there.

Officer Lowry appearing multiple times in the film before he is "formally" introduced in the ending, kind of helps me with my interpretation, but that's about it. If I'm reading the movie correctly, it would be similar to Stay and Jacob's Ladder, but is probably most similar to something somewhere between Memento and Mulholland Drive-





-well, fuck-

Rufus Williams pulled it off, didn't he? This movie is the perfect weird blend of those movies. It never gets as noir-y as Memento, nor as logical. And it certainly never gets as weird and depressing as Mulholland Drive. But it does a good job at walking a tight middle road between the two. I'm impressed for the most part. I was not expecting that.

Anyway, the movie is about a man (Rob) whose wife has just died in a car accident. He is deeply in debt, cheating on his wife, and is losing track of reality with some severe memory issues. The whole movie kind of plays out as a psychological way of interpreting his life and his relationship with his wife. He has deep-seeded guilt that has left him both emotionally stunted and absolutely paranoid for no reason.

The emotionally-stunted comment comes from the death of the chicken. He never truly grieves for his wife. There are no tears shed, no true sadness over the death of someone he promised to love. Instead everything about his wife Katrina is shown and interpreted through his guilty conscience. He doesn't want Katrina's things moved (as shown with her toothbrush). He wants to blame himself for her death (even though he was nowhere close to her when she died). His debt and cheating cost them their relationship, but it also seems to have cost him his own mind.

Most of the movie is just that, collections of scenes that don't always make sense together (especially in the beginning of the movie) that all add up to a single revelation that we never really see as a viewing audience. Now, I like movies like this, but I can definitely understand when somebody doesn't. It makes the whole movie into this weird otherworldly story, which, in the end, may have very little to do with anything.

So, that's about it with the plot. The only other thing that I enjoyed was the main character of Rob starts running down a variety of stairs towards the end of the movie, Eventually he falls down one of these stairs. The main character running and falling down stairs may be the best part of this movie. It's just humorous in a very stupid way. Even though him falling down is supposed to be handled seriously, it just looks so silly. But that's just my opinion. I'm probably being mean.

Dr. Timothy Baldrica played by James McDaniel is a highlight of the movie. The rest of the actors vary only a small amount in how well they act in any given scene. I suppose you can say that I wasn't impressed with the rest of the actors at all. But none of them were terrible either. James McDaniel did a good job at both being very slightly antagonistic while being amusing and a bit of a straight man all at the same time. It was pretty good in general.

Okay, I think the last thing I have to mention is that this movie, at times, feels very similar to Secret Window, the Johnny Depp movie based on a Stephen King novella. I think it's mostly Lowry that gives me that impression. His odd words and personality, as well as the main character focusing his annoyance at this character kind of hits the same beats as Secret Window. But maybe I'm the crazy one here.

I wouldn't call this a horror movie per se. It's more psychological with some heavy mystery vibes thrown into the mix. But it does have a few somewhat unsettling moments, mostly involving Rob staring. Would I recommend it? Eh. It's better than its budget and resources should have allowed it to be. It can be compared to gaints while not being a giant at all itself. That's not a terrible thing.

It's a movie that plays around its limited budget in clever ways. Even the acting, which isn't always great, works well for the film's dreamlike quality at times. Hell, I liked it all right. While not a perfect movie, what with the hilarity of Andrew Bowen running down stairs like a madman, cinematography that looks like it happened twenty-five years ago, and odd acting from some of the actors, it still is pretty solid. I would say I recommend it with a caveat. If you do not like some of the movies I've mentioned earlier in this review, you should probably stay far away from this one. Other than that, try it out. It's a decent indie film that plays with reality in an interesting way.

Movie Appraisal: Paprika (パプリカ) (2006)

I saw Paprika recently and wanted to give out a review of it.


And then things got weird.


So, this movie... this movie... I really liked it a ton, entirely reminiscent of Inception (although obviously this movie was made first and Inception certainly seems as if it took elements from this movie as well) and some of Miyazaki's films too. I don't know a lot of anime films, so I would not call myself any sort of expert on these things. Hell, animated films in general are really not my thing... although that hasn't stopped my girlfriend from going and making me watch cutesy animated movies rather than the horror I so want to watch.


*sigh* All of that being said, and as much as I complain, this is a really incredibly complex and interesting movie. It's also really strange. It took me so long to understand even what was going on. The film moved so much faster than my brain could process. At ninety minutes it's not a very long film either, but it has a ton of information to give it.


The plot of the film is eerily reminiscent of Inception. There are dream terrorists and a device (called a DC Mini) used to get inside other people's dreams. It's all about dreams, folks! And it works well. I have to say that certain characters worked really well with my personal favorite being the obese Doctor Kōsaku Tokita, the inventor of the device and, strangely, the male love interest. I have to say that I loved how that was handled. It was cute and worked well. Paprika herself is so incredibly confusing, some kind of alter ego of the female lead character Doctor Atsuko Chiba. There's also a detective who seems to have the strangest dream of all and a few other characters besides. All in all the cast is well put together, each character different, distinct, and well-handled from beginning to end.


The plot though... well, it's labyrinthine to say the very least. It involves a malignant dream affecting regular people's dreams. And then it starts getting weird with... uh... eventually dreams and reality merging together. There's a weird piece of the plot involving the chairman of the company who happens to be the root of the malignant dream, but in all honesty I found that piece of the plot so confusing and nonsensical that I just put it up there with the film being anime. Maybe it made sense, but I was paying attention and I have no idea why some godlike root creature has created a malignant dream to take over reality or something. It seemed really contrived in all honesty and a bit of a cop-out. I was reminded incredibly heavily of Princess Mononoke at the final confrontation between the female lead and the Chairman. That's not exactly a compliment coming from me as I did not like the end of Princess Mononoke.


That being said, yes there are some weaker negative aspects of the movie, but they are often overshadowed by the more positive sides of the movie with the characters and the dream elements. I thought those items within the film worked incredibly well. One scene that worked amazingly well was when a character who seemed to be good and then was found out to be working for the Chairman, Doctor Morio Osanai, who basically sexually molests Paprika within the dream world and then tears her away to reveal her alternate persona underneath. There is something incredibly visceral about that scene. It was difficult to watch and incredibly effective at showing the weight of what was happening. Even with the confusing plot, the scene was incredibly well done. Hell, when the detective enters the dream to save Chiba, I was on the edge of my seat, really not knowing what would happen next. I had never expected such dark things to come out of what, in my mind, is essentially a children's movie. (I suppose I didn't quite know that this movie wasn't exactly a children's movie when I saw it. I wasn't expecting the nudity, the blood, and the darkness within.)


In general the movie works quite well as long as the plot isn't looked at too closely. The music and the voice acting is incredible with the music being incredibly strange, and that one song, the song of the malignant dream, being a personal favorite song of mine even compared to other movies. The creepy doll that keeps showing up really adds tension to the movie as well. It keeps reappearing in scenes, eventually becoming a major antagonist on its own.


So, yeah, I liked this movie and I recommend it. It's short and really fun to watch even if the plot is kind of all over the place and half the time I had no idea who the characters were or what their motivations were or anything. I get the feeling that rewatching the movie would allow me to have a deeper understanding of what it is about. And it's a plus that I'm even considering rewatching it.

Movie Appraisal: Ink (2009)

Have you ever wanted to see a truly artistic film, a film that is every facet of beautiful and endearing? Have you ever wanted to fall into the realm of the story of a movie so fully that the movie seems to become real to you?

I know I speak out a ton about some of my favorite movies, and sure, maybe I'm wrong about their quality, but I enjoy them quite a bit, and this movie is in my top movies of all time. It's not because it's psychological horror or because it's Jacob's Ladder, but because this movie stands on its own. It does things I've never seen movies do before. It uses the visual effects to its advantage rather than its disadvantage like most modern movies seem to. I can compare the Star Wars prequel movies here or Transformers, movies that used special effects to look "cool" or whatever the hell they were trying to do. I don't even care because all those movies are terrible.

Ink, on the other hand, is a wonderful case of needing the visual effects for the story to be better. And the story is so absolutely stunning that I don't even have the words for it. I watched the movie for the first time about a year ago and fell in love with every aspect of it. There was not a single line that made me cringe, not a single scene that made me question the motivations of the characters or the people making this film. It comes off as a beautiful story from beginning to end, a fairy tale in some ways, and in others nothing more than a dream, but a dream with so much meaning.

Yes, I tend to like the "It was all just a dream." or "The guy was dead/dying the whole time." kind of plots. And this has elements of that, but it also has, I think, a deeper meaning than most of those types of movies. I think it is in many ways much more metaphorical, and also much more beautiful. It isn't trying to be horrifying, it's trying to tell a story, and for that I have to give it all the recommendation I can possibly give. It feels like a true hero story, from the beginning and the introduction to the characters' struggles and trials, to the middle, the darkest point, where nothing is certain, to the end where everything is resolved and you kind of just want to sit down and cry for a while because of just how sad, bittersweet, and beautiful this movie is.

Ink reminds me of What Dreams May Come quite a bit, if you've ever seen or hear of that book/movie before. The plot is somewhat similar, but flipped, and the situations are very different, but the stories end up being very similar to one another. And because What Dreams May Come is one of my favorite stories I have to say that it makes Ink that much better.

This is one of the few movies I would say benefits from its characters and story. Most movies have characters that don't matter and a story that barely exists, but this film relies so heavily on those things that it would be nothing at all without it.

I guess I should summarize the story... Anyway, there's a man who's depressed, his daughter who is taken by an ugly, scarred brute, and the being who seem to protect the people of the world. That's about all I can say. I hate giving the story or plot of this movie away. It's better to watch it than have me reveal all of its secrets. The movie is actually free to watch online. I don't think the filmmakers charge anything to watch it, or at least they didn't back when I watched it the first time.

This is truly one of my favorite movies and I think it should be required watching for every single living person. It's simply that good.

One thing I do have to say is that I was checking this film's Wikipedia page, and it told me that this film's genre is science fiction and fantasy. It's not. Wikipedia lies so badly it actually makes me want to rage throw Wikipedia out of a window. This film is very psychological and very dreamlike, but there is absolutely no sci-fi anywhere in this, and the fantasy element is less fantasy and more straight psychological metaphor. I would group this film much closer to the Silent Hill movie, for instance, than to Inception, just because of the metaphorical ideas presented within. I don't think the meaning of the movie is pointedly hard to get or anything, but it seems like a lot of people really don't understand this film when it's actually quite easy to see what it's about if you pay any attention at all. I guess I think that most people don't really get a movie like this because they're too stupid to actually pay attention to anything for a few minutes straight without wanting something to explode or a big famous actor to come on screen or something. Society makes me sick.

This film is such a wonderful experience. It made me, the harsh cynical Saquarry, who hates everybody and everything, really want to give everybody a collective hug and kind of tear up a little and pretend I had something in my eye... because I did have something in my eye, all right? I was totally not crying. My point is that this is a feel-good movie with elements of being bittersweet. It's the movie equivalent of hugging a cute puppy.

Now, go watch this film. No, stop reading this and go watch it. You're wasting your time and mine continuing to read this when you should be watching the film and doing something productive. Fine, I'll stop and you can go and watch it and you can tell me how right I was and I can act smugly superior for a while.

Yeah.

Movie Appraisal: Inception (2010)

Okay, I have to collect my thoughts after watching this film. Wow. Just wow. I'm almost speechless. This film was beautiful and extremely well done. This is the kind of movie that every single movie should be. It was wonderful from beginning to end. It surprised me... no, it stunned me. I was expecting something decent and kind of watchable, something like the other films of Christopher Nolan (the director), like Memento or, God help me, The Prestige, neither of which I liked very much. This film was sublime. It was long, but never felt long. It was beautiful and always felt real even though most of it took place within dreams.

It was an exciting experience from beginning to end. The storytelling was top-notch even if it was predictable. (And it was predictable, incredibly predictable.) That's not necessarily a bad thing though. I thought that the film going the way it did was the only way the film could have possibly worked. Any deviation and the film would have been phenomenal and especially not to me.

I'm not saying this is a perfect film, and sure I can criticize and nitpick some small things. The beginning of the film goes very slowly. Some of the characters feel a little thin and kind of unreal, and the whole science-fiction premise is kind of barely based in real science at all. Despite those tiny... and I do mean tiny... flaws, the film is wonderful. Due to the nature of the film and the interpretations you could come out of the film with, the characterizations could make PERFECT sense, as can the slow start, and even the science-fiction premise.

I like films like this. Actually these are the films I not only like, but really love. They are vague and have a huge amount of interpretations and conclusions. This is why I love Jacob's Ladder and 1408 and speak of how good those films are at every turn. Those films have multiple interpretations. They both have such odd things happening that it's hard to believe they are happening in reality. Inception is exactly the same even if it isn't a horror film. It deals with the same arguments of fantasy versus reality and the real versus the unreal. It doesn't show all its hand, and it proves, in my opinion, that even a popular movie can be intelligent and philosophical, unlike drivel like The Matrix.

The story is basically one of a man, Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio), trying to find a way back to a normal life after finding himself in a bit of a bind. He is a professional dream thief with his partner Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt). They essentially try to steal information from people in their dreams by making a dream world and breaking down a person's mental defenses.

The story unfolds and we find out that Cobb wants to reunite with his children whom he is estranged from for various reasons that I'm not going to spoil. Cobb isn't allowed into the United States for a certain reason and soon after Cobb and Arthur's job fails, the person who they were supposed to steal information from, Mr. Saito (Ken Watanabe), approaches them with a new contract. They accept and the story unfolds from there, bringing other characters into the fold such as Eames (Tom Hardy), Yusef (Dileep Rao), and Ariadne (Ellen Page). (I like how they named her Ariadne since she's "spinning" the web of the dream. Really big pun there, folks.)

The story is labyrinthine and beautiful, a tale being woven together through dreams. As the characters go deeper into the dreams, we, the audience, go deeper as well. We learn the secrets as characters learn the secrets... we feel their pain, know their confusion, fight their fight. It's beautiful and satisfying in every sense of those words. I found myself utterly taken in by the plot, following it as closely as a deer follows headlights. What I'm trying to say is that the story is wonderful and brilliant. It's incredibly hard to find something I dislike here. I love the vagueness of it all. I love how some things don't seem to make a ton of sense. I love how some things aren't explained.

Hell, this movie can make a great comparison piece to Black Swan. This movie succeeded where that one failed. This movie left me wanting so much more whereas Black Swan told me way too much. This movie was visually stunning, but didn't rely on that alone, whereas Black Swan only had visuals to fall back upon because its psychological and plot elements were badly done. The film is so much better than Black Swan that it's hilarious. To me this isn't so much a comparison as it is a slaughter. Inception wins by a landslide.

Another obvious film to compare this to is What Dreams May Come, a beautiful movie that shares some similar elements to this film. I don't even really want to go into it that deeply because both films are so beautiful and stunning that I'd rather not spoil anything about them. If you've seen both films, you already know what my comparisons are, and if you haven't seen both films, then go see them immediately, you stupid fool.

There I go calling my readers "stupid fools". Oh, well... can't do much about it now. It's not like I can just erase it or anything... well, I can, but... then I'd have to move my finger and everything... *sigh*... I simply can't be bothered.

I'm going to gloss over the visual effects here. The movie is beautiful, enough said, but it's not the visuals of this movie that make it beautiful, it's the story, the subtle art of the cinematography, the wonderful editing, the great direction, and the amazing acting. Everything comes together and creates a world and a story that I find hard to look away from. This is a movie I didn't want to end because I wanted to see more. I wanted more to happen... and yet it ended exactly where and how it should and left me smiling.

I do have to mention the acting again. It is superb. Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Leonardo DiCaprio both really did an amazing job, as did Ellen Page. I've never even seen her in anything before, or Joseph Gordon-Levitt for that matter either, and they both do a wonderful job. It was wonderful to see Ellen Page's awe as she descends into the dream for the first time. And watching Joseph Gordon-Levitt was fantastic. He had an interesting character with a unique outlook. He was pretty cool.

Okay, I'm practically gushing over this film... but, to me, it really is that good. I would happily watch this Inception over and over again, like I would do with Jacob's Ladder, 1408, and Stay if I had the time. It's such a beautiful piece, both psychologically and emotionally, as well as visually, and it's kind of inspiring to know that a film like this can go on to not only be made, but to do well in popular opinion. I haven't even touched upon some of my favorite sequences, as the team, gradually decreasing, goes from a dream into a dream within a dream and into a dream within that dream and so on. It works out so well, showing the tension  on every level of the different dreams. Some of the emotional bits towards the end are absolutely fantastic and beautiful (I keep using that word!) and work so well in my opinion. Again, I don't want to spoil anything, but if you have a heart at all you have to empathize with Cobb and maybe even want to cry a little bit... not that I did for I am a man, but it does get kind of sad, you know? And I wouldn't necessarily blame even a manly man for crying a little tear out of his eye a little bit at the ending sequences... Yeah...

Anyway, I'm going to stop gushing. Go and watch this film. It's really good and really fun and pretty darn wonderful. It was a great film experience. It made me happy.