Movie Appraisal: The Ward (2010)

This was John Carpenter's comeback film, the movie that might have been able to bring him out of the cellar of not so great movies he had been in through most of the Nineties and early 2000s. I have to say that I was expecting something really bad. I had heard from critics and movie fans alike that this was a bad movie, unfit for the eyes, terrible beyond comprehension, a movie with an odor so bad that it would make every other John Carpenter film bad by comparison.

And... I don't see it. The movie is by no means brilliant. It has a pretty standard premise and the twist is also pretty standard in these kinds of movies. I could compare it to Shutter Island, Identity, Session 9, and High Tension, although I think this movie is a lot better than those. Yeah, I just said that. Let that sink in. If you think I'm dumb you should just stop reading this review now. If you're intrigued then let me carry on. Shutter Island was a critical success, but I absolutely couldn't stand it; while this movie feels like a horror movie, and it acts like one too. Is it great? Does it live up to older John Carpenter films? No, not really. It's good, but I can't say it's better than my favorites of The Thing, Prince of Darkness, Into the Mouth of Madness, and others of the Eighties. That being said, it's still a pretty good horror film, full of twists and turns and some surprisingly good acting performances. Jared Harris and Amber Heard especially shine in their roles, but I have to give a nod to Dan Anderson who played Roy, the chief orderly. His performance was really the breakout one for me.

This is a pretty standard horror film though, and I can't beat around the bush about that at all. I mean, it doesn't do anything that another horror film couldn't, but does have a pretty good director behind it for whatever that's worth. The cinematography was fine, if a little brightly lit at times, and the horror was pretty decent, actually causing me to get into the movie quite a bit. Some parts of the movie were absolutely ridiculous, certainly ridiculous enough that I rolled my eyes a bit, but there was never a moment that I hated the movie or wanted to stop watching it, which is much more than I thought I'd say. I found it entertaining and with enough scares to win me over despite my own apprehensions. I can think of a ton of movies that are worse and a ton that are better, but mediocre is a much better movie than I thought I'd get so I'm happy in general. It is a pretty middling film, but it works and is competent. It never offended me or my intelligence, its pace was good, the acting was perfectly fine, and the scenery was fun to watch. I like how the story is built up, and although the twist is pretty apparent it's still kind of surprising when it happens, I suppose.

I liked this film, but I also tend to like movies like this. I liked Identity quite a bit, although Shutter Island and High Tension were not my thing at all, but these kinds of movies are fun to watch and guess at, and I found myself having fun throughout the movie and liking the little scares. I can't really talk too much about the story because it is just so standard and there are long stretched of time when nothing really happens beyond tension buildup. I like that, but I can imagine a lot of people won't at all. It's not a film for a person who's looking for horrific imagery and shocking awful horror. It's really a film for a person who likes a good psychological horror film and who likes looking for symbolism and such. Not that it does a great job at it, but again... it's pretty okay.

It is a pretty mediocre film though, and I think that's just what I'm going to keep saying about it. You'll just find me typing MEDIOCRE FILM MEDIOCRE FILM over and over a thousand times. I can't see myself watching it again. It's nowhere near good enough for me to care about another viewing. I enjoyed it once, and now I'm done with it. I'll probably forget about it pretty quickly, but I enjoyed it while watching it. Honestly though, this is a movie I could easily tell people to pass right by. It's okay, but not great, and it's not terrible enough to make fun of. It has some fairly dry bits to it as well as cinematography that doesn't quite sync up with the horror that the movie seems to be trying to go for. But I like it anyway, finding it more fun and enjoyable than not. I can't say I regret watching it. John Carpenter, one of my favorite directors, does a pretty good job coming back to helming a movie. My only hope is that he won't play it as safe for his next one.

I have to say that the soundtrack is absolutely banging. By the way. I mean, it's absolutely fantastic, easily the best part of the movie. It makes you feel much more into the movie and gets your blood pumping. Both are good things. I was expecting such a kicking score, but it was really cool.

The last thing I have to say is about the great way they established the mental hospital. I have been doing research on old mental hospitals and treatments for a while now, and they actually did a pretty good job at being fairly accurate. I was both surprised and impressed by that. The DID was a little less than stellar though simply because DID that strong actually rarely happens... hell, it's even heavily debated whether it even could happen. So, there's that in the reality department. But I still liked the film well enough, and if it sounds interesting, take the chance in watching it.

You might be surprised.

Hell, I was.

Movie Appraisal: Psych: 9 (2010)

I'm pretty sure this is supposed to be a psychological horror movie. But it's just so blatant in the way it's trying to be psychological. It hits you over the head again-and-again as if to say, "Hey buddy, I am a Psychological Horror movie that is trying to be like other, better, psychological horror movies, and I want to be crazy and scary and..." And then it just keeps going on and on about nothing for some time, all the while you've stopped listening because you already know what the movie is going to say. It's insanely predicable from beginning to end, so much so that I have to believe that it was the intent of the filmmakers to make it that predictable, despite it taking all tension and horror out of the movie.

While the directing is decent, and some of the acting (especially from Michael Biehn and Cary Elwes) is arguably very good, the movie suffers from an insufferable main character who nobody in their right mind (literally) could ever relate to in the slightest way. This character ruins a great deal of the movie for me simply because she offers nothing to the narrative despite basically being the lynchpin of the narrative. Her entire character exists to redirect any and all suspicion from her character, but it is so badly done that very early on in the movie its apparent that she's the killer, she's making up people in her head, and she's pretty crazy in the head. I certainly sympathize with her plight, but I find that the writing of the character was... not great... not even a little bit great. If you're going to make a movie like this, don't make it predictable. Don't make it so that the main character is definitely the bad guy and it's apparent that the main character is the bad guy early on in the movie. Don't give me fake tension that somebody else close to her is the bad guy when it's apparent that she's the bad guy. Don't show me her doing crazy things like writing "Give me my baby." on a wall a hundred times and tell me that she's perfectly normal and not murdering women.

I know the movie kind of sort of leaves it a tiny bit up to your interpretation, but that's stupid, and anybody who believes that it wasn't her doing all of those awful things actually must be as crazy as she is. I simply found this movie annoying in a great deal of ways. Despite the decent directing, decent acting, and decent imagery, the movie never hits me as anything but bad. It's never scary. NEVER SCARY. There's never any tension, be it plot tension, character tension, or any other kind of tension. NEVER TENSE. There's no way to relate to the character we spend most of the film following around. MAIN CHARACTER DOESN'T WORK. And the backstory is presented in such a hamfisted and awkward way that I didn't care. Of course she's nuts. Of course she was raped as a child. Of course she was a patient at the same hospital she's doing records for. It was all so predictable and all so convenient. And of course she has selective amnesia. I mean, this is every cliche in the book of writing. It's ridiculous. I mean it. I can literally do nothing but make fun of the writing of this movie because it is simply so bad.

Psych: 9 could have been handled better in so many ways that it's actually upsetting that they mishandled it so badly. It could have been a story of a woman coming to terms with an old psychosis, but no, they had to add in that she was murdering women, imagining people, overtly going insane, and basically being a clear candidate for being locked away forever. The fact that Michael Biehn's detective character basically gives up on the case and never pursues her is literally baffling with just how crazy she is coming off. And at the end of the movie she gets her damn baby because that's how crappily written plots work out. The ending was just so standard and off-putting and boring. Hell, most of the film could be described like that but most standard psychological horror movies have some subtlety and are usually not overtly apparent in their plots points.

I watched this whole movie, but I didn't necessarily enjoy it. With all the good psychological horror templates to take from, they came up with this nonsense? And I can't blame the actors. They did a good job with what was there, and the director was very competent and although the movie is never scary, it does have some creepy vibes. It's the writing that really gets me down on this film.

Anyway, this is a psychological horror film to avoid. Also, what is it with the "9" at the end of titles, these days? You have this movie,  Session 9, District 9, 9, and on and on. I have no idea why the 9 had to be in any of those titles really, and it's alarming how prevalent the number 9 has become in movies. I'm definitely overreacting, but it was one of the first thoughts I had while watching the movie.

Movie Appraisal: A Tale of Two Sisters (장화, 홍련) (2003)

I like how there are times when the poster tells you just about everything you need to know about a movie. Well, this poster certainly does, and that's kind of fantastic.

A Tale of Two Sisters is a Korean psychological horror film (eventually remade into an American horror film called The Uninvited) which tells a modern version of an old folktale called "Janghwa Hongryeon jeon." Honestly though, this movie is a pretty loose adaptation of that story and knowing it won't actually spoil the ending to this movie.

Anyway, as a psychological horror film, I really have to judge this film on everything it offers. I thought it had some great elements in it. The acting was superb. I mean that. Watching the main two females act against one another is a joy to behold even if it is in a language I don't understand. You can feel the tension, the hatred, and the struggle between the two women. You can also tell that all is not right.

The mood of the film struggles between serious, somber, and incredibly realistic at times. You never really know what kind of story the movie is trying to tell, be it a ghost story, a psychological story, or a story of an evil stepmother. That makes it very difficult to interpret this film and even more difficult to look at it with a discerning eye. The movie does offer some pretty heavy psychological horror elements to it and does deserve the title, for whatever that's worth. It is a very good psychological horror movie and is often incredibly effective even if it is somewhat predictable at times.

The scares are not amazing, and I say that after watching it alone in the middle of the night as I usually do with these kinds of films. It had a few decent scares, but nothing that I really fell in love with and wanted to scream bloody murder about. It was a tense film more than anything else, one that feels as if something is very wrong, but you just can't place your finger on it.

I believe that this film has at least... oh, let's say three twists to it, and they vary in how well they're all pulled off. I easily called two of them fairly early on from the way that the film was shot and handled more than anything else. It seemed pretty obvious what was going on if you're paying any kind of attention. I also had no idea what the movie was about or what to expect going into it, so being able to find a predictability to the horror and the story was somewhat disappointing, but I do see a lot of these movies and there are only so many twists a psychological horror movie can pull.

The movie is pretty effective overall though and does happen to have a better story and much better acting than most other horror movies out there. The cinematography is quite well done too, often focusing on nearly silent scenes and characters, making that tension really fly off the charts at times. There are even a few very interesting one scene or even one shot scares that really add to the undeniable creepy elements of the movie. There's one scene that involves Eun-joo (played by Yeom Jeong-ah) checking under the kitchen sink only to find a girl behind her as she moves her head. She never sees this girl though since the camera and Eun-joo pan the other way, the girl is gone. It's a quick element and one that has very little to do with the plot, but it works very well in the movie.

The music, when it shows up, is also very good. It doesn't really fit with the horror movie setting at times, but works in its own twisted and special way. I really liked it and thought that both the music and the long periods of silence (without any musical score at all) really added to the aesthetic of the movie overall.

So, I've talked about a lot of great elements of A Tale of Two Sisters, but did I like it? Yeah. I enjoyed it certainly, but not really as a horror film. To me it wasn't scary. It was way too predictable with the scares easy to see long before they happened. There were some decent horrific scenes, but they fell a little flat for me even thought they were decent. Most of the tension comes from the lead actresses, and although they are often very good at what they do, they are simply not scary at all to me. Again, I've never been scared of skinny, decent-looking women, and I don't think I ever will be. All of that being said, the stepmother of the film is pretty decent at being the antagonist here... well, kind of...

I don't want to spoil anything, so I'm keeping pretty quiet on the plot, but I think the director did a great job at keeping everything both consistent and malleable. There are multiple interpretations to the movie and its ending, and because of that I have a hard time classifying this movie into a specific genre. One thing that I will admit is that I grew lost int he movie's almost labyrinthine ending, to the point where I was pretty sure I had no idea what was going on anymore. I still had a decent handle on it, but I did have to reassure myself as to what the hell was going on. I found it not only very confusing, but also a bit too much information all at once at the very end.

I think the movie is overall very good. The acting and directing are both very solid. The story is very interesting to say the least. The ending and the revelations will have you guessing and wishing for more. It isn't very scary though, but does work very well as a tense psychological or ghost story. In general it works pretty well, and when I stopped watching it I was pretty content with the time I spent watching it. I will say that I like this movie a bit more as a bit of a ghost story, and if I have a way to choose to interpret it, I would have to say that having be at least partially a ghost story works better for me than having it all be psychological... but that's just me. Others may disagree. That's cool too. Anyway, yeah, it's a really good movie, and I really hope to see more like it soon. 

Movie Appraisal: Marebito (稀人) (Stranger From Afar) (2004)

Well, here is a twisted film. Superbly twisted really. Hell,this is the kind of film that is the definition of twisted. I could compare it to Possession, as it does have some similar elements to that film, but it mostly stands on its own as a macabre and twisted road through madness. I could call it a descent into madness or into hell, or into any dark and terrible place one could think of. It could be a movie about an abyssal road that ends in an eye-openingly horrifying way. Takashi Shimizu, director of The Grudge and Ju-on films directed this film, and did a very competent job, especially because I am not a big fan of The Grudge  and films like it.

This movie is very open to interpretation, almost any kind of interpretation. I could easily call this movie horror, but there are very few horrific bits. I could call it supernatural horror, it definitely has elements of that, but it never really feels supernatural or anything but ordinary. Mostly I think this is a psychological film, one that delves into the mind of a man who wishes that he could see terrifying things, wishes he could experience those things that cannot be experienced, wishes he could experience the same fear that takes the life of some... but instead he falls to he emotionless world.

I think the movie is intelligent and well put together. This is the kind of movie that any interpretation could be correct, and I feel certain that my interpretation probably has elements of both being correct and being way off. It comes down to the interesting story of a man searching for fear, hallucinating or desiring himself to hallucinate so much that he hallucinates in his mind at the very least. He murders, kills, bleeds dry, and emotionally abuses his way to finding the terror he had so longed for. His "daughter," F, is probably the biggest question mark in the movie, and I have to admit that even I have a question in my mind as to whether she was his daughter or a figment of the daughter, a memory, an interpretation, or the physical daughter. I have to wonder whether he had an incestuous relationship with her because all signs point to yes. I also have to wonder if the people he murdered within the movie: his wife, the high school girl... if they really were killed or if that was all in his mind too.

So, there are a lot of variables to look at when interpreting. I do feel pretty confident about how most of the movie probably took place in reality and his own demented mind wanted to see demons or "Deros" ("detrimental robots" from Richard Sharpe Shaver's novel A Warning to Future Man) where there was none. He throws away his Prozac at the beginning of the film. This presumably leads to all of his major problems throughout the film.

So, enough about the plot. The interpretations can go off in different places, and I like to keep an open mind about them. The characters, mostly F (played by Tomomi Miyashita) and Masuoka (played superbly by Shinya Tsukamoto), are acted incredibly with the parts being both believable and sometimes hard to watch. The act of F sucking on her father for his blood is horrifying to say the least... hell, even if he isn't her father it's horrifying. Nutritionally one cannot subsist on blood alone... so I have to wonder what the hell was going on. It wasn't about her not eating... and I think the blood is more metaphoric than real... well, unless he was feeding her blood and that was slowly killing her... which is awful, plainly awful, in its own right. F is incredibly sexualized without even actually being sexual. She's nude in some scenes of this movie, but she's so animalistic, so inhuman, that it's impossible to see her on the same level as another human... and at the same times she is human... it's Masuoka who's treating her like an animal. So, what we see in the movie is what he sees, what his interpretation of the situation is. Anyway, yes, the acting from both is incredible and visceral, hard to watch without denying the fact that it is entirely watchable.

It is a horror movie as well despite everything, but I didn't find it that scary. I never find these that scary. I liked some of the cinematography, especially the camera effects as Masuoka looks out upon the real world, how people's faces blur out or a film tear happens in the scenery. I like how the camera Masuoka holds seems to show him a much more realistic life than his own eyes do. There is a terrifying realization there as if the eyes cannot be trusted, only the film, an objective medium, can be trusted. It's a sobering issue, and one that could easily be talked about for a long time. I liked those effects, loved the descent down the stairs and into the "hollow earth" in the beginning of the film. I loved that being mirrored in the ending. I liked the chaining of F, how he finds her and how he eventually comes to the conclusion of chaining her as well. I like how much it feels like she is his prisoner and eventually he is hers. She has done nothing wrong, but he has changed her into a terrible thing, a monster without a name, a human without emotion, a person who is not. The last scene, as he realizes his great sin, the terror in his eyes is palpable and hearkens back to his "spirit guide" and the way he died, the suicide that started off the madness.

The move is very slow paced. Oh boy is it slow. It never moves fast, and it does become a bit of a chore to watch for a while. The beginning and the ending are both very interesting, but the middle bits are less so. This all creates a very unbalanced film, one that almost works against itself at times. Tsukamoto almost seems too good of an actor for the part, never breaking character certainly, but also never really growing as a character. The development is there, but it's incredibly subtle, almost nonexistent. Hell, in some ways Angel Heart has a similar character... similar ending too. I think this movie is handled much better than Angel Heart, but the sentiment remains. I like how F talks near the end of the movie, but her character doesn't truly develop either, more becoming the dominant one because Masuoka has descended into fear and sorrow rather than because she has become stronger. It's weird to say but I truly did find the acting a little too good for the story. I don't think I've ever said that before either. Weird.

The movie is also a bit jumbled. I found it interesting at times, but kind of boring at others. The slow pace didn't really help hold my attention very well. The movie was well done but a little overlong. It had an interesting premise, but simply felt too flat at times to be really amazing. Again, Possession works as a good comparison. There was a movie that had superb acting and a similar premise. It was slow paced as well, but never felt that way. There was always something happening and you could relate to the characters and feel terrified of or for them. Here in Marebito the characters feel too far removed, the subject matter doesn't seem to intersect exactly what happened... and unlike a true allegory, most of the things in Marebito seem too realistic, as if they really happened rather than being an allegory for child abuse or spousal abuse or the underground of Japan, et cetera. So, I guess that's why I would recommend this movie, but with those warnings. I enjoyed it, but found some bits rather lacking and some of it fairly dry. It's a nice film to watch and an intelligent one to boot, but it does have it's problems and seems like it was filmed fairly quickly and the symbolism is rather pushed into the story rather than subtly inserted. The example for this being his wife yelling about the daughter to him. I  kind of rolled my eyes at that part because I figured that was going to be the case but didn't need it blatantly spelled out for me. But that's me. That's not everybody. And it is a good movie all around.

Masuoka wanted to feel the insanity. And this movie certainly brought insanity despite any complaints I have about it.

Movie Appraisal: Pontypool (2008)

Hello listeners. This is Saquarry coming to you from any corner of the earth you're listening from. Today we're going to read an analysis of a very interesting film out of Canada. I guess you could consider this a psychological film, a zombie film, or really anything in between. (There's a lot in between, I know, but bear with me. I haven't been on the radio that long.)

Listeners, there's a something I have to get off my chest about this movie: It's really good. Fascinating really. It's effective- yes, effective- as both a movie and a horror movie, something that I think you'd all agree is pretty difficult to find in this darkened and drastic age of sterile special effects, terribly written screenplays, and critics who think that the only movies that matter are the ones that involve historical figures of one sort or another or A-list actors. Let me tell you listeners that those things have never been true.

You have been lied to your entire life, thinking  big names and Hollywood actors are the only people you should be watching movies from. You've heard that horror movies are scum, drivel, pieces of undercover and disguised excrement on a bleeding sidewalk. And you want to know something: everything about those statements might be incredibly true, but that doesn't mean that a horror movie can't be just as good- nay- better than any other kind of film out there.

I love horror movies. I love the feel of them, the look, the style. Everything about them works so wonderfully. Of course not every horror movie is great, good, or even okay, but Pontypool, well here's a gem if I've ever seen one.

The film is all about tension, plot, and the characters. It's effective as a horror movie despite having very little gore, blood, or brains spilling out on sidewalks. Most of the tension comes offscreen where you, as listeners, can only hear what's going on, imagining it as it happens rather than being shown all the garbage gore in shocking detail. And by the tone of my voice, I'm sure you can tell that I look down on the idea of showing every detail. The horror sometimes comes from not understanding and from not seeing, and this movie takes that to heart by showing a radio station and very little else. No explanations beyond some very vague hints as to what's going on. No reason to believe that the world hasn't gone to hell.

Now, listeners, I don't feel like I should spoil this movie. It's good enough and straightforward enough that I don't think it deserves that treatment. It's slow-paced, and builds on both the characters and the plot in such a way that you actually feel for them and want them to succeed. The horror comes from the realization of infected words and phrases, especially those that infect some of the words closest to your heart. Can you imagine a world where you can't express a pet name like "honey" or "sweetheart" for your lover, friends, or children? It seems impossible, but simply imagine a world where your own language has been turned against you, that even in the understanding of a word you may get infected by it. It's horrifying in it's own kind of silly way, and I think it's wonderfully executed even if the idea is a little out there.

This is a movie that could really only be Canadian with their dual languages and historic fight over which language should be spoken and et cetera. I even remember going to Canada a few years ago, seeing the signs in both French and English and thinking that was pretty cool, but I digress. It's a serious issue over there, and this movie certainly touches upon it.

Pontypool is an easy movie to make up theories about as well. I mean, the epilogue certainly leaves a few questions. But there are even questions as to how the "virus" started and if it involved anti-English terrorists or was just a naturally occurring thing. Did the two leads, Grant Mazzy (played by Stephen McHattie) and Sydney Briar (played by Lisa Houle) end up in that epilogue? And how would they have done that? I think it has to do with the fact that most seem to point this movie out as being a psychological horror movie. I do see some elements of that, but despite the people infected with the virus not really being zombies, they're basically zombies. So, this movie really seems to be a zombie film more than anything else... until you start thinking about it. The whole idea of changing reality, the way words work, the meaning and understanding of terminology... well, listeners... maybe this movie has a lot more than meets my little discerning eye. I like to think that maybe reality could have been shifted or changed... or maybe the epilogue was nothing more than a spirited and odd death dream. Who can tell? All that really matters is that the movie was tense, well done, and actually horrific while showing very little.

The acting can be hit or miss at times, but is mostly very good. There are really only four actual characters that show up on screen, but many more who call in on the radio and become personalities through that. The filmography and direction can be odd at times as well, but is mostly incredibly solid if a little slow at times. Bruce McDonald, the director, did a great job altogether. I have to say that the way the film was shot and done all around was pretty fantastic. The screenplay and the lines themselves were also very good, and I'll have to mention Tony Burgess as both the screenwriter and the novelist from the novel which this was adapted from Pontypool Changed Everything.

So, speaking a little bit specifically, I did some work for a radio station a few years ago. Technically I can still use their soundproof studio if I ever need to record anything. I found that the radio scenes themselves were fantastic because some of them reminded me of my experiences doing what I did. The joking, the hectic pace, the one person who is often exasperated and tells everyone else to stop goofing off... It all was very true to life and really drew me into the story and its characters. I do wish there had been more though. At an hour-and-a-half running time, I thought it was a little short, possibly missing a bit of character development from the very beginning of the film.

So, loyal listeners out there, I must bit you a very fond farewell. This review has been a blast. Seeing this movie was fulfilling in some ways. I would both recommend the movie and encourage watching it. I enjoyed it, and maybe all you people desperately seeking some great horror will enjoy it too.

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: Black Swan (2010)

So, I went to my annual movie theatre trip tonight and saw Black Swan. It's actually great timing that I saw it when I did because I can compare the movie to Pandorum which I saw earlier today.

Black Swan is a film that has received critical acclaim. The critics absolutely love it. It has cinematography of an art film, but the genre of a psychological film, and some very good acting performances. What I have to ask is why. Why does this film get such good ratings and Pandorum doesn't? This film was well done, but certainly nowhere close to perfect. Darren Aronofsky is a good filmmaker, but he does seem to have issues with certain things. I can safely say that the man likes making his movies into art, and also that I really don't like the endings of the man's films.

The plot here doesn't really even matter. There's a production of Swan Lake by a ballet company and Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman) is a quiet ballet dancer who really wants the role as the Swan Queen. That's about all you need to know about the plot. We're introduced to a few issues throughout, such as some possible emotional problems Nina might have, as well as the demanding pressures of her part and how she wants herself to be perfect.

The psychological aspects of this film come out as Nina changes from the person she has always been to somebody else. Certain themes pervade the film, such as sexuality and lust, a darker half of oneself, and going mad. The sex theme is probably the most interesting to explore. It seems that Nina's introduction to "exploring" herself releases something inside of her, maybe something that had long been hidden away. She becomes empowered as she finds her lusts, but also self-destructive. This is an almost purely psychological film, showing madness as something that can warp one's own reality. I find the idea fascinating, but the execution seems to be lacking.

The acting was very well done. The cinematography was superb. The dancing was beautiful. Hell, most of the scenes in this film look more beautiful than real life. My problem is that the actual film is all over the place. Hectic would be a good word to describe it. The film doesn't have the focus it should have. It focuses on the plot rather than Nina's psychology, which actually takes away from the message the movie was trying to get across. The psychological elements in this film are where the real interest lies, but they're often not really touched upon, or very vaguely shown. I feel like this kind of film needs to either embrace the psychological elements of the film or scrap them... and I feel this film took a very middle of the road approach, which didn't work out.

I look at how wonderful Pi was. It explored the human psyche and the insanity of the mind, and if this film were more like that this could have been great... but instead this film focused too much on an uninteresting plot and psychological details that either went nowhere or were done badly.

I do have my complaints about this film about what it should have done... as well as what it did wrong, but I did enjoy it, maybe not as much as Pi or even Pandorum, but it was really well done. The shots were beautiful. The actors looked like real people in a real story. I liked it... well, I liked it pretty decently until the ending. I don't know what it is about Aronofsky, but any movie he makes I hate the ending of. The last fifteen or twenty minutes of this film was kind of stupid. I loved the last shot and some shots in between, but I found the whole ending sequence fairly stupid and easily predictable. I'm not going to spoil anything. I'm simply going to say that I didn't like it and do not think it worked at all. At a basic level, with a movie with as much realism as this movie showed, the ending should have been better than what they had come up with.

I did like the different aspects of Nina shown in this film though, as well as the beautiful and creepy shots involving mirrors. I thought those were extremely well done. The whole dual nature really was wonderful to see and easily one of my favorite parts of this film. My favorite part of this movie was honestly some of the shots that felt derivative from other, better films... one in particular that I swear was stolen straight out of David Cronenberg's The Fly. I also liked the creepy little man on the subway. Man, he was awesome... and I also felt he was indicative of Nina's own sharp madness by that point in the movie, brought out by newly found lusts, a darker nature, and her own loss of innocence.

This film could have been so much better. It could have been better than Jacob's Ladder, and yet it fumbled in the end-game. The ending made me cringe when it should have made me cry.

I would rather see Pandorum again over this movie any time... and that's why I feel that the critic rating system fails. Yeah, this was a very well made movie, but at times it didn't quite hit my enjoyment center. It didn't speak to me like Jacob's Ladder did. After seeing this film I told one of my friends that I saw it with, "This movie would have been excellent if it had been more like Jacob's Ladder." and I'm sticking with that thought. if Jacob's Ladder is the pinnacle of psychological films then this film is a nice little peak far under it. It's not that it's bad. It's only that there are many other films, especially psychological films, that are better. Go watch Jacob's Ladder if you want a fantastic psychological film. Go watch this film if you want to see some top-notch cinematography. Again, I'd still watch Pandorum over this movie any time.

Critics are morons.