Wednesday, August 20, 2014

The Cemetery



IMDb
  • Deep in the Pennsylvania hills, a cemetery for those who died during exorcism remains a dark secret for the church. In 1671, hundreds of men, women, and children suffered in bloody, torturous rituals at the hands of priests unable to contain the evil of the possessed. Were these possessions real, or is the story a hoax to cover up the sins of the deranged priests thirsty for human blood? Bill and his team of cynical paranormal investigators plan to find out the truth. As the producer and host of the reality TV show "Ghost Seekers," Bill and his crew have seen it all: abandoned prisons, haunted houses, and decrepit mental hospitals. Night after night of boring trips to empty run down buildings has left them sure that the dead stay dead and that ghosts are the furthest thing from being real. Their lack of faith will soon be repaid in blood. Armed with the church's historical record, they set out into the wilderness to uncover this series of forgotten atrocities. The demons of the past are invited to return and the gory details of old sins are revealed as the possessed begin hunting the living. Alternately gut-punching hilarious and brutally violent, The Cemetery takes the best elements of the old-school slasher film and pushes them to the edge.
    Written by Adversary Films


Full Movie on PutLocker

Saturday, August 16, 2014

Hercules





RogerEbert
In Greek mythology, Heracles was the product of Zeus getting his Mt. Olympus freak on with a mortal woman. Heracles was named to honor his philandering daddy’s angry wife, Hera, but her vengeance had dire consequences for the future hero. Hera drove him insane, at which point Heracles murdered his wife and children. After regaining his sanity and realizing the horrible nature of his crime, Heracles accepts as penance the famous labors most of us know about from high school English class. These included defeating the Nemean Lion, the hydra and the Erymanthian boar.
This was the legend I expected from Brett Ratner’s “Hercules.” Instead, I and the 12 other people who showed up for last night’s screening were treated to yet another comic book adaptation by studios desperate to hang on to its stereotypical core market of men in states of arrested development. I know nothing about the Radical Comics series upon which this is based, but I sincerely hope it is not the half-assed, warmed over “300” rip-off its cinematic counterpart is. Watching “Hercules,” you can feel your intelligence being insulted in almost every frame.
Shorn of the graphic violence and blatant homoeroticism that made “300” gore-soaked camp, the PG-13 rated “Hercules” is left with poorly rendered CGI battles and a fear of any semblance of darkness. There’s also the potentially interesting idea of how one man’s legend can shape the minds and actions of many, but “Hercules” is afraid of that too. For all its violence, “Hercules” coddles you, protecting you from any kind of complex or sad emotion the material might inspire. It’s so afraid of upsetting you that it can’t even give its most interesting character the noble death it so beautifully sets up for him. Even the character is pissed off about this.
Ratner dispatches with the labors in the pre-credits sequence of the film, turning them into a story told by Hercules’ nephew Iolaus (Reece Ritchie). Iolaus is being held hostage by a band of pirates who suspend him over a long, jagged spear of rock aimed at his nether regions. “Hercules” posits that the legends of its titular hero have the power of scaring men into submission, but these pirates temporarily prove the exception. “That’s bulls—t,” one of the pirates exclaims after hearing of the Nemean lion.
Of course, Hercules (Dwayne Johnson) makes his entrance wrapped in the lion’s hide. Ratner shoots this as if Johnson were on the runway of a fashion show at Ernest Hemingway’s house. Clad in fur and covered in smoke, Hercules announces his new role as mercenary for anyone willing to pay his price. He is joined by a crew of people including Amphiaraus the Oracle (Ian McShane) and an Amazonian archer (Ingrid Bolsø Berdal) who should have “Katniss Everdeen” tattooed across her beautiful forehead.
After dispatching the pirates and saving his nephew from a stalagmite-like enema, Hercules’ next job for hire is at the behest of Lord Cotys (John Hurt, putting a much hammier spin on his "Snowpiercer" character). Cotys wants to stop the terrible reign of Rhesus (Tobias Santelmann), a leader who supposedly possesses otherworldly powers of persuasion and an animal-like appearance that, in a case of missed opportunity, is not that of a monkey. Hercules complains that Cotys’ army is far too untalented to face Rhesus, but a payment worth twice Hercules’ weight in gold changes Hercules’ mind. Cue numerous scenes of The Rock as Hercules as General Patton, speechifying and pacing before leading his hapless motley  crew of an army into war.
Mythological heroes have undergone numerous changes throughout history, so there’s barely a shred of justification in complaining about how far away a story strays from its most well-known incarnation. However, I must grasp that shred to illustrate my point about how depressingly infantile “Hercules” is. Out of nowhere, Ratner and his editors suddenly insert bloody images of children and women being murdered. This flashback is so poorly edited that it’s never clear what’s happening, though it ends with a direct rip-off of Kubrick’s "The Shining."
Since “Hercules” had strayed so far from the legend, I was surprised the film would include Hera’s horrific revenge on Hercules’ family. These images torture Hercules whenever they appear, threatening to give the character some complexity. To Johnson’s credit, he attempts to play these moments in agonized fashion—he believes he has murdered his family. It’s all for naught: Screenwriters Ryan Condal and Evan Spiliotopoulos work out an absurd loophole of absolution, pinning the murders on a three-headed dog instead of Hercules. The three-headed dog also turns out to be a hallucination; it’s actually three separate dogs. Responding to this development, the guy behind me at the theater let out a fierce snore. I envied him.
Like Arnold Schwarzenegger before him, Dwayne Johnson was born to play Hercules. Like Ah-nuld, he’s muscular and not without an onscreen chemistry that’s at times perfectly mythological. And Johnson is a welcome change from the Nordic ideal mythical movies usually employ. It’s too bad that Hercules comes off as a supporting character in his own story. The armies do most of the fighting, and when there’s quiet, Johnson has to share the screen with his team. The movie is stolen by McShane’s oracle, who is the recipient of the aforementioned noble near-death scene, and Tydeus (Aksel Hennie), a warrior so scarred by violence that he is more animal than human. Tydeus’ backstory, which “Hercules” only hints at, is far more interesting than anything we’re following in the present.
The CGI is absolute garbage, and Dante Spinotti’s cinematography is depicted as a muddy mess through the 3D glasses. Yet, there’s one moment that not only proves how little the filmmakers gave a damn but also saves this film from the no-star review it truly deserves. One of the villains is hit by the gigantic head of a statue of Hera that crumbles when Hercules pulls it down. The camera gives us a great look at the impact which, had physics been consulted, would have resulted in a juicy, delicious splatter. Instead, the villain not only remains intact after impact, he also rides the head off a cliff into oblivion. I laughed so hard I woke up the guy behind me. He was not happy.
Full Movie on Xmovie8

I am A Ghost



FourStar Bizaro
by Ronny Carlsson
I've been watching several ghost movies lately, gone back to a few old and great ones (such as "The Changeling") and checked out a few I hadn't seen before. Ghost stories have always managed to creep me out the most, outside of things based on reality (since that's more plausible). Growing up I always got the chills imagining stuff like a white shape wandering down the halls. Everyone has probably experienced something strange in their lives. While most will try to find logical reason, I have always been open to it. Or rather, I find things I can't explain to be interesting, albeit a bit scary. But let's face it, the best ghost stories have been told. We've had some alright ones - I'll even admit that "Insidious" had potential, but REALLY went down hill fast. The best one in recent memory is "Lake Mungo" (some people will hate me for bringing it up again, but I don't care). But what do all of these have in common? They are horror stories, focusing on people being scared of ghosts. What I have for review today is the opposite of this, and quite frankly I think it's one of the best ghost stories I have ever seen.
The plot is extremely simple to explain: the title says it all. "I Am a Ghost" is about a ghost, trapped in the house she once lived in. She repeats every day in similar fashion. But there is someone on the other side ("our side") trying to help guide her out of there. This is an easy thing to grasp, and in some ways you might think of "The Others", but they couldn't be more different!
First of all, this is a drama. It's an extremely emotional and invested look into how it could be for a ghost. They might be victims and not out to scare us. Maybe they're as scared as we are! Our lead, Emily, is a very nice young girl. We quickly fall for her because of her innocence, and the longer we follow her the more curious we are about what happened to her when she was alive. And how will she be able to leave the afterlife? I think a movie like this saves itself by working with repetitions. Being a ghost movie, we expect repetitions so it never comes off as annoying. Rather we are trying to puzzle things together for every repeat and see how things slowly change. The most interesting scenes here are actually dialogue-driven, and that speaks highly of how well-written the movie is.
H.P. Mendoza has, overall, managed to craft an experience that I believe in. If there are ghosts, then I think this is how it is. I find it to be nearly spotless in terms of style, writing, directing, acting, the story and how it all unfolds slowly. It helps us identify with a ghost, not only through the character but in every detail. This is one of those cases where you get a sense that everything has been puzzled together perfectly during production. Even the cinematography helps us accept that we're in the afterlife - exactly how it does that I don't know, but it's a very slick movie. At times it's as if the camera was floating. Not to mention the movie is filtered to feel like an old photograph. Anna Ishida is great as Emily, and obviously the movie would've fallen flat if the lead actress couldn't play the part. There is so much about Anna Ishida that makes her perfect for the part, but I think the main reason I could accept her in the part was because of her innocent, confused eyes. The house itself has an old, charming look - and is very much a creepy place for a ghost story (even though it's not specifically creepy).
While I write this, I feel angry because I can't capture how fantastic the movie is in my own writing. "I Am a Ghost" grabbed me from the beginning, and there wasn't a second that I wasn't in awe. This is not a gory, violent, eccentric or even that experimental movie, but a perfectly executed drama about a ghost. It's the perfect ghost story because it takes time to solve the puzzle, and brings up so many points about ghosts that I've always wondered about. Most importantly: if ghosts exist, what is it like to be one? It's not going for chills, scares or even survival (which I suppose is the primal goal for every horror movie). Because it ignores all of that, we get time to invest ourselves to solve the puzzle of how to get Emily out of there, and for once we sit down and THINK. There is only one little thing that I can class as negative, and that was an effect towards the end. By then we're very into it, so at first you'll feel like you've came out of it again. But don't worry, this is where it shows an element of horror and soon you'll be as invested as you were the minute before.
I love "I Am a Ghost", and if there is ONE ghost story to watch this year (in many years, really), then this is it. You can ignore every "Paranormal Activity" movie completely, because this has them beat before the title page appears. Whatever happens in H.P. Mendoza's career from now on, he will always be the man behind "I Am a Ghost" and I hope he takes pride in that fact. "I Am a Ghost" is an incredible experience, a clever twist on ghost stories, and most of all a very sad drama that you will find yourself invested deeply in.

Dread Central
Starring Anna Ishida, Jeannine Barroga, Rick Burkhardt
Directed by H.P. Mendoza

It's hard for filmmakers to legitimately scare people. It's easy to make them laugh or cry, but to scare them, that's an entirely different ball of wax. And I'm not talking about the cheap scare…where someone or something comes launching into the scene accompanied by a huge crash of orchestra music or a booming sound effect. That's not scaring someone; that's giving them a minor coronary. To truly scare the audience, you have to unsettle them, make them uncomfortable, and it's one of the most difficult things to do. With I Am a Ghost, writer/director H.P. Mendoza manages to pull this off.
Mendoza sets a creepy tone as we meet Emily. We discover that she is a ghost, living an existence that constantly repeats itself as she's an unsettled spirit trapped in a loop. Also, she has no idea that she's dead. The film revolves around her frequent communications with Sylvia, a medium from the world of the living who comes to Emily as a voice she hears in her bedroom, trying to guide her out of the house she's living in and help her cross over to the other side. It's very similar to the theory behind Beetlejuice without the comedic element or Winona Ryder performing Jump in the Line.
I Am a Ghost begins as a series of scenes of Emily going about her normal routine, unaware that she's a spirit. It isn't until the voice of the medium initially comes through that we understand exactly what we are dealing with. The film does begin quite slowly, taking a long time with many repetitive scenes to illustrate to the viewer exactly what is happening. This makes the movie drag a bit, but viewers will eventually be rewarded for plowing through the repetitive early scenes as we begin to learn more and more about Emily, who doesn't seem to be remembering the events of her life (and death) quite accurately.
Watching I Am a Ghost is like watching a time-lapse video of a flower opening. The true story behind the film slowly, slowly reveals itself as the movie moves on. The medium helps Emily uncover the truth about herself, which is the only way she'll be able to loosen herself from her ghostly shackles and cross over into the next plane of existence. But it isn't going to be easy because there is something wicked waiting for Emily. It's a perfect example of "this is going to get worse before it gets better."
Aside from the medium, whom we never see, and another character that appears briefly at the end of the film, Anna Ishida as Emily is the only person in the film. She is able to carry the entire picture in much the same way as Ryan Reynolds did in Buried. Certainly no easy task, but the character of Emily is intriguing enough to keep the viewer interested.
Which brings us to the scare. Honestly, the entire film is constructed to launch the huge payoff in the finale, which is well worth the wait. Without revealing the surprise at the end, let me just say the last couple of minutes of this film gave me the same uncomfortable pit in my stomach I had while watching the final scene of [REC] for the first time. That's pretty high praise. There is some incredible sound effects work that really puts the final few minutes of the film over the top and gives it that absolutely unsettling effect. There are some visual effects in the film as well; they are minimal but quite effective when used.
I Am a Ghost deserves a viewing. It's a ghost story in its essence, but there are certainly aspects of a mystery in there and, of course, the true horror of the finale. The choppy, repetitiveness of the beginning of the film, although necessary to tell the story, does drag the viewing experience down, which is unfortunate, because when this movie gets going, it's very intriguing…and it ends with a bang!



Full Movie PutLocker

Monday, August 11, 2014

OF Scilence



PutLocker
Short Review: You can judge it for being slowly paced, but it's one of the few Micro-Budget films actually shot on FILM. You have to give it to these guys for creating an original movie, I can't say that I've seen anything like this before.
Of Silence
Rotten Tomatoes

Movie Info

An ailing former scuba diver, who faces extremely tough times, begins experiencing otherworldly incidents.
Full Movie on PutLocker

Friday, August 8, 2014

Biker Zombies From Detroit




cdUniverse


Biker Zombies review Product Description

Biker Zombies movie was released Feb 19, 2013 by the R Squared Films Inc. studio. The streets of Detroit are overrun with crime, and the police are powerless to stop it. Biker Zombies movie Just when they thought that things couldn't get any worse, an ancient evil creates an army of zombie warriors to roam the Earth. Biker Zombies video When a small band of these undead minions form a motorcycle gang and head straight for Detroit, the authorities don't know what sort of bloody terror they are in for!
REVIEW:
It’s an exciting prospect, to view a film from your neck of the woods when your particular neck isn’t a common stomping ground for motion pictures.  Thumbing its nose contrarily at its own title, “‘Biker Zombies From Detroit” (“BZFD” until the final paragraph) is set in the suburb of Grosse Pointe, yet shot in every surrounding city that isn’t Grosse Pointe.  I live just up the street from where some of this was filmed.  That merits note to your average country bumpkin, which I am at heart.
Fret not, friends.  I refuse to bring an overly favorable comportment to a viewing merely because the movie is locally produced.  After all, with a title like this current offering, one finds it tough to even pretend to foster expectations going in, which “BZFD” definitely has in its favor.  Created on a budget approximating the change I lost to my sofa cushions last night when I passed out whilst watching “The Adventures of Ford Fairlane,” this is one poor example of proper film making.  Amateurish in nearly every respect.  However, the same can easily be said for “Ford Fairlane,” and yet it still called out to me like a siren from my Netflix queue.
Though an insane amount of time is spent upon characters and dialogue more apropos of an “After School Special” from the days of yore, “BZFD” does tend to think a bit more outside the box than the standard zombie flick. The opening credits, a slow and lusty crawl about a chromed-out tankslapper (for those of you not hip to the lingo, I have no clue what that means either), try to be so simultaneously artful and foreboding, you’ll want to enjoy it.  Unfortunately, that two minutes stretches out into a small eternity at around the twelve-second mark.  We are then introduced to the true villain of the piece, a disembodied and profane voice that has returned to “The D” to assemble an army of zombies and carry out its maniacal plot to transform the city into a living Hell.  I wonder if anyone in Detroit would even notice?
The Angry Voice Over (I didn’t catch the actual credit, nor do I wish to) employs his minions in a fashion that reminded me so much of corny 80′s sci-fi thrillers (“Galaxy of Terror” and “Lifeforce” being two of my faves), it all started to grown on me once again.  The vengeful spirit wisely chooses the most deplorable human beings it can find, then sneaks up on them and zaps them with a poorly animated but colorful energy ball oddly reminiscent of the female alien banging Steve Guttenberg in “Cocoon.”  It begins by transforming a rapist in an alley after he overtakes an innocent bar patron.  At one point later on, it possesses a martial arts expert and assassin to fulfill its horde.  Shrewd move, Angry Voice Over.
New kid in town Ken (Tyrus Woodson) befriends cutie Courtney (Jillian Buckshaw) immediately upon moving to Gross Pointe from Hell, Michigan.  (oh yes, it exists)  This runs him afoul of local bikers, one of whom (Joshua Allan) struck out with Courtney on a prior date in which he brandished the most brilliantly inept come-on line in film history, after unzipping his fly once she refuses to kiss him: ”You think this hog is gonna’ smoke itself?”  It’s great stuff at times.  I don’t believe this is entirely in ways intended upon by the film makers, but great stuff nonetheless.
The zombies seem bent on brutal and murderous anarchy, as opposed to eating brains and the usual undead tomfoolery.  They thrill kill mostly, collecting heads of their victims in service to their dark lord.  I think.  The purpose of the decapitated noggins is never fully explained.  When Ken, after escaping the spiteful ruffians on a motorcycle chase that barely rises above a reasonable speed, runs into the evil gang, it is assumed that he is another victim.  Or, we assume that’s what is assumed, since not even the local police officers (Dave Cunningham, Gabrielle Gamache) pay any mind to the murders going on around them.  They’re more concerned with the intentions of Courtney’s suitors than actual law enforcement.  Meanwhile, biker zombies run amok, slaughtering at will.
The effects, both in the make-up and practical death departments, are impressive considering the budget restrictions.  The murder and mayhem scenes are more effective than they deserve to be, in the smattering of instances when they actually occur.  Director Todd Brunswick and writer John Kerfoot deserve their props for keeping the entire ordeal from the precarious brink of utter rubbish, though just barely.  Brunswick continued on after the 2001 release of “BZFD” to write and direct within the low-budget genre (remaining predominately in Michigan), and Kerfoot also wrote and directed for a few more years before disappearing off the face of IMDb.  Though spectacularly flawed in their fledgling outing, there does show a glimmer of promise beneath the flapping jaws and numbing inaction.
The story of Ken and Courtney finally melds with that of the possessed gang about thirty minutes after you’ve relinquished all hope of it, and delves into slightly disturbed territory as it hastily wraps up.  The ending comes so abruptly and with so little regard for anything thematically proceeding or even the tiniest semblance of closure, it’s nearly inspired.  A complete mess, without doubt, but it brings fitting conclusion to the forgettable 80 minutes.
Perhaps I am feeling a bit biased toward Michigan-produced indies, even those as low-grade as ”Biker Zombies From Detroit.”  It’s attempt at being both a cool biker flick and a cool zombie flick backfires on both counts, coming up rather dull in both categories.  Still, there’s something to be said for failed panache.  As awful as this one is when you get right down to it, I kind of liked the cut of this flick’s jib.
GRADE: C-

Full Movie on PutLocker



Gun Woman



Rotten Tomatoes

Movie Info

A brilliant doctor on a quest for revenge buys a young woman and trains her to be the ultimate assassin, implanting gun parts in her body that she must later assemble and 

The best kind of genre filmmaking can be summed up in one word: Badass. The kind of films that render you unable to hold back cheers and clenched fists and smiles as all the black-hearted badness and revenge and violence unfolds. Films like Rolling Thunder or the more recent Blue Ruin or Big Bad Wolves touch on that primal need to see a wrong righted in the most morally corrupt of ways with few winners and a lot of death. So it is with great joy that I report that Kurando Mitsutake’s Gun Woman fits into that description like a well-worn baseball cap. It flows beautifully, it challenges and it disgusts in all the right kind of ways. It is a blast. It is mean and it is unrelenting and man, it is a cool-as-hell film.
The story focuses on Mayumi (Asami – Dead Sushi), a former junkie bought by Mastermind (the great Kairi Narita) to be trained as an assassin for his own ends. Mastermind was once a brilliant doctor but when his elderly mob boss patient Hamazaki dies, the bosses son (played with slinking gross glee by Noraki R. Kamata) exacts revenge on the doctor by raping and murdering his wife. Thus, Mastermind is born and the only thing he cares about is ending the life of the man who took his life away from him. The moral compass is all over the board here because, while Hamazaki’s son is a real piece of work, Mastermind’s enslavement of Mayumi for this task isn’t exactly warm and cuddly either.
The process of training her is a grueling one and I found myself wincing more than once watching her work through the process. Mastermind is not kind and reminds her regularly that failure will mean her death and, at times, that if she doesn’t complete the training he’ll ‘just go buy another girl’ – again, the morality of it all is just all over the place.
As we learn more about Hamazaki’s son, however, the moral majority pendulum swings back to Mastermind’s side. It turns out that he (the batshit crazy son) is part of a secret ‘club’ of folks that enjoy violating and eating recently dead women. The cut away (no pun intended) shows the process, the security and the blind, naked insanity that makes this super-rich but utterly screwed up man’s motor run. Sufficed to say, it lays out the challenge of trying to get to him but also frames him as a next-level terrible piece of crap human. We slowly let our serious misgivings about Mastermind fade out and be replaced with disgust towards the mobster’s son. Not an easy trick, that.
But then no sooner than we are getting settled into that uncomfortable new reality than the process of getting a weapon into the compound where all the badness takes place is laid out. Hey! The film isn’t called ‘Gun Woman’ for nothing and we see, in very stark and brutal detail, how the firearm will be smuggled into the building by Mayumi courtesy of some creative surgery and cosmetic covering up once she is smuggled in. This is part of the trick, she must complete the task before a certain amount of time or she’ll die of blood loss before a rescue team can retrieve her and give her a transfusion. Gun parts surgically inserted in her body which must be removed by her – yessir.
So this is our setup – former junkie with nothing to lose, wronged man obsessively mapping out a revenge plan through her that does steal away the last shreds of his humanity he has left and a target and a group of people who are so beyond wrong it is amazing. This is jet-black genre ass-kicking and we haven’t even gotten to the facility yet for the big final act!
It must be said that part of the mechanism for telling the story is two hired assassins (Americans) talking about the legend of this hit on a road trip in the Nevada desert. This setup immediately suggests that one or both of them have some more direct connections to this ‘gun woman’ legend and does take a little bit of tension out of their parts of the film.
That aside, the second half of the film (once Mastermind’s plan is in motion) is perfectly balanced, crazy, bloody and totally satisfying. You want her to succeed and earn her freedom. You want that nut to meet his end and in some small way, you want Mastermind to enjoy some piece.
How this all plays out I certainly won’t give away here but if anyone doubts Asami’s ability to act or commit to a role, or, the production team’s commitment to see this insane setup through, you’re definitely proven wrong. The film pushes all your expectations from the first half and forces you to endure it all with bated breath and nary a hint of how it will all play out. I love the level of confidence director Kurando Mitsutake shows in keeping the lead up to the finale tough to predict. Anyone could die. Evil could survive. This isn’t a situation where a director must scramble and re-frame the moral narrative and what the conclusion means on the fly. This is a situation where a director knows the tools he has are strong and stays the course to a much more satisfying final act.
Special mention must also be made to the incredible, synth heavy, 80s influenced soundtrack that brings enough familiarity to be cool and enjoyable but is unique enough to stand on its own. It is a driving, urgent style that works its way into the DNA of the film and could not be removed no matter what. The music is a character in and of itself and just adds color and texture in the best kind of way.
Gun Woman is, without a doubt, an excellent genre film steeped in the bloody revenge film history of the 70s and 80s without just being a copy. It is strong and simple and totally its own animal.
It is just badass.
Full Movie on PutLocker



Man of Steels



RogerEbert
The title "Man of Steel" tells you what you're in for: a radical break from the past. The absence of the word "Superman" leads us to expect a top-to-bottom re-imagining, and that's what the film delivers, for better and worse. This is a 2013 version of the story: dark, convoluted and violent, chock full of 9/11-styled images of collapsing skyscrapers and dust-choked disaster survivors. It's sincere but not particularly funny or sweet. The hero is a glum hunk, defending a planet so scared of apocalyptic conspiracy that it assumes anyone who presents himself as good guy must have ulterior motives. Steel is what you need to have in your spine if you're going to be super in this world.
Directed by Zack Snyder ("Watchmen," "Sucker Punch") and overseen by Christopher Nolan(the Dark Knight trilogy, "Inception"), "Man of Steel" largely abandons the sunny spirit and kooky humor of the Christopher Reeve-starred films, as well as Bryan Singer's homage to them, 2006's "Superman Returns." It brings the character in line with the recent craze for brutal, morose tales of loners defending a world that doesn't appreciate their sacrifices. This time the big guy's suit isn't Dick Tracy red, blue and yellow; it's a muted ensemble of synthetic chain mail that's described as "battle armor" rather than as a uniform or costume, and Supes wears his underwear on the inside, thank you very much. Scene-for-scene, this is a first-rate example of a Hollywood fantasy released in the early 21st century: a new-car-smell summer blockbuster. It has wobbly handheld camerawork signifying "authenticity," a glum color palette, skyline-shattering super-fights, hardware whose designs crib from "Alien," "Dune", "Independence Day" and Spielberg's "War of the Worlds," and a detailed mythology that can plug into an expansive, Marvel-style "universe." When humor bubbles up, welcome though it is, it feels like a tonal lapse. 
"Man of Steel" also breaks with past "Superman" films in how it tells its story. The script, which is credited to David S. Goyer of the "Blade" films, starts with a prologue on Krypton, envisioned here as a John Carter-style land of towering hyper-structures, "Matrix"-looking hovercraft, and winged beasts. Superman's dad Jor-El (Russell Crowe) and mother Lara (Ayelet Zurer)are fighting two battles at once: to convince the planet's government that its environmental recklessness is causing the planet's core to melt, and to contain a rebellion led by General Zod (Michael Shannon), who's outraged that Jor-El dared to violate Krypton's biological breeding protocol and conceive a son the old-fashioned way. Zod and his followers are exiled to the Phantom Zone in ships that look mortifyingly like the hero's spacecraft in the 1970s porn spoof "Flesh Gordon" (the film's design is a riot of phallic and vaginal imagery, as most post-"Alien" sci-fi films are). Krypton explodes. Kal-El zips off to earth and is raised by Ma and Pa Kent (Diane Lane and Kevin Costner), in idyllic prairie surroundings that call for an Aaron Copland score (though Hans Zimmer does just fine). After the New Testament timespan of 33 years, we pick up Kal-El/Clark's story in time for him to unlock the destiny that his adoptive parents kept secret. Their motives were good: they predicted the hostility he would encounter once he put on his tights — sorry, "armor"! — to fight Zod and prevent Earth from being flattened to make a new Krypton. (Zod's plot to create a resurrected Krypton echoes "Superman Returns," though given that film's poor reception, I'm sure the filmmakers would rather nobody pointed them out.)
As the adult Clark/Superman, Henry Cavill's not bad; in fact he's quite likable, and spectacularly handsome, natch. But there's no Reeve-like radiant comfort in his acting, because the character as imagined here is even more of a blank screen for our projections than most movie superheroes. Like Christopher Nolan's Batman pictures, the Goyer-scripted "Man of Steel" reveals key moments in the hero's development through flashbacks triggered by present-day traumas; a few parts almost seem to be unfolding along simultaneous timelines, the past and the present. This is not just defensible but appropriate, considering that so much of the story is about having to function day-to-day while carrying around the crushing weight of your own past, as well that of an extinct motherworld you never got to know.
The most striking scenes show young Superman struggling to make sense of powers he can't display, for fear of being labeled a freak or a monster. One early sequence shows young Clark zoning out during a school lesson because he's overwhelmed by the data Hoovered into his brain by his super-senses. When he looks at his classmates and teachers, he sees their bones and veins and organs through their skin, and because he hasn't mastered the art of filtering sound, he hears a cacophony of voices in his ears, like the burbling of a crowd at a ball game. There's a touch of "The Incredibles" in the scenes of Jonathan Kent explaining why Clark can't reveal the full extent of his specialness. Costner is superb in these moments, projecting an unforced, Old Movie-style decency that may remind fans of his performance in "Field of Dreams." (It's as if Ray Kinsella, the adult son in "Dreams", has become the father in this one — an icon of kindness, yet sad-eyed and mysterious; "worn down by life," as Ray described his own pop.) When Clark, who's passed the years on a fishing boat while rocking a "Perfect Storm" beard, heads north and gets his own pad, the Fortress of Solitude, he acquires a second father, his biological daddy Jor-El. Supes the elder becomes a present-tense Obi-Wan, advising and arguing with Clark (and later, Zod!).
This is all good stuff — though it was done less ostentatiously in the TV series "Smallville" — but it's all a setup for the film's second half, which juxtaposes Clark's transformation into Superman with Zod's return to earth on a mission of vengeance and world-building.  It's here that the film loses something. It's not that what's onscreen isn't involving: for the most part it's splendidly realized, even though the muted color palette, shaky camerawork and secondhand design concepts won't win prizes for originality. I like how the filmmakers link Superman's embrace of the destiny his adoptive father hoped he'd resist and Zod assuming the mantle of visionary warrior-leader that Jor-El denied him on Krypton. The notion that politics is personal gets a workout. Zod isn't as amusingly effete in "Man of Steel" as he was in "Superman II", but he's not without humor, some of it inadvertent. Shannon, an expert in projecting self-defeating macho rage, makes Zod less of a straightforward evildoer than a tragically misguided antihero. There are times when his rivalry with Clark/Superman recalls the tension between Hawkeye and Magua in Michael Mann's "The Last of the Mohicans," in that the villain is only a villain if you're looking at him through the eyes of the people he's steamrolling. You don't condone Zod's actions, but you understand his motivations. In his twisted way, he's trying to preserve and continue the legacy of a vanished world. Something in Cavill's beefy Boy Scout performance suggests that Superman gets this — that he understands Zod even though he knows he has to destroy him. The hero's struggle not to give into rage and pettiness when facing bullies like Zod—to use his power to heal and save rather than destroy—is explored with more finesse than you might expect.
No, the film's most curious and unfortunate aspect—its Achilles' heel, really—is the way it minimizes or shuts out women. You can see this tendency in the way "Man of Steel" handles Lois Lane (Amy Adams). She's portrayed as a capable reporter, more so than in previous films, but I didn't detect much chemistry between her and Clark, even when you factor in the ungodly pressure they're both under. While Clark is dealing with his demons and the world's, she's uncovering a government conspiracy to hide evidence of a buried Kryptonian spacecraft, then struggling against her Daily Planet editor Perry White (Laurence Fishburne) for the right to publish a story she feels is true but can't prove. There are flirtatious moments between Lois and Clark, but they're few and far between, and I'm not convinced that the apocalyptic events surrounding the couple are the only reason. 
This is a butch Superman film, driven by machismo. Lois is an important character, but only for how she furthers Clark/Superman's attempts to understand himself and claim his destiny. She's less of a fully-realized human being than the kooky narcissist played by Margot Kidder in the Reeve films, or Kate Bosworth's Lois in "Superman Returns," a melancholy figure defined by her ability to move on after the hero's sudden departure from earth. Adams' Lois is tough and smart, but she has no personality, only drive, and she's not as integral to the action as she seems to be on first glance. It's telling that this movie gives equal weight to the story of a distrustful general (Chris Meloni) whose relationship with Superman lets him become the stand-in for a doubting Earth, a role filled by Lois in the 1978 film. Ma Kent is endearing, but she's not as powerful a presence as the doomed Jonathan. The hero's birth mother vanishes after the prologue, her absence explained in a throwaway line that Crowe seems embarrassed to have to deliver. The uncharitable might notice than when a stupid question has to be asked, or a trivial remark made, it's often delivered by one of a handful of women in a room full of burly guys; they may also note that while every significant male figure in "Man of Steel" is given an option to be physically brave under horrible circumstances — even grey-haired Pa Kent and Perry White have their moments — females exist, for the most part, to be saved, or to have things explained to them.
Considering that every previous "Superman" movie put the courtship dance between men and women at the heart of its action — particularly "Superman: the Movie", "Superman II" and "Superman Returns" — the fact that "Man of Steel" has a No Girls Allowed sensibility seems like a deliberate creative choice. It's as if the filmmakers want to reassure young male viewers accustomed to the glib swagger of "Iron Man" and the dire self-pity of Nolan's Batman trilogy that Superman is in the same wheelhouse. (Zod's right-hand woman Fajora-Ul, Antje Traue, is a powerful presence, but she's even more desexualized than Lois; her character's main trait is a pathological hatred of men.)
Again, this is all state-of-the-art, very much in line with the way superhero movies are done now. And yet this aspect of the "modernization" feels retro, because it comes at the expense of an under-acknowledged part of Superman's appeal: virtually alone among big-name superheroes, he's a romantically and sexually mature man who seems to like and be comfortable around women. If you're wondering why I could say so many positive things but and only give the movie three stars, the preceding two paragraphs are your answer. Viewers who predicted that Warner Bros. and DC Comics were trying to turn Superman into The Dark Knight were right, sort of. "Man of Steel" is in many ways an astonishing movie, but it won't do anything to quell complaints that the big-budget superhero genre is basically adolescent, that its creative development has been arrested for decades and might not budge anytime soon. 
Full Movie on PutLocker





Thursday, August 7, 2014

Not Safe For Work





IMDb

Storyline

The ambitious legal assistant Tom Miller works at the Rosen, Byres and Emmerich Attorneys at Law and secretly dates the gorgeous clerk Anna. His company has presently two major cases: Hartcourt vs. Denning Pharmaceutical, against a powerful corporation, and Gambizzi Case, against a mafia family. On the eve of the judgment of the Hartcourt case, Alan Emmerich releases all the employees early in the afternoon and he also fires Tom for snooping around the Gambizzi case. When Tom is leaving the building with Anna, he sees a man leaving a suitcase on the floor and another man wearing a suit taking the suitcase and going to the 34th floor of the building. Tom decides to follow him and soon he discovers that he man is actually a hit-man. Soon Tom is trapped on the floor with the killer since his access card is deactivated. Who hired the hit-man?Written by Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
synopsis
Captain America's Joe Johnston heads into low-budget territory with this claustrophobic thriller surrounding a young lawyer (Max Minghella) who's life is in jeopardy when he becomes trapped in an office with a killer out to harm his company. Johnston directs from a script by Adam Mason and Simon Boyes. ~ Jeremy Wheeler, Rovi
:Not Secure for Work turns out to become a really taut and nicely executed thriller that is a lot much more like Die Hard than Friday the 13th! The path is very good and also the acting quite believable and I do suggest you see it. I particularly appreciate the rather dark conspiratorial angle about the film and also the ending that is a little reminiscent from the old Warren Beatty film The Parallax View
Full Movie on PutLocker

Wednesday, August 6, 2014

Eragon




Great Movie Heres A review my mother Would say
IMDb

Don't watch the movie-read the book

4/10
Author: Sven Županić from Croatia
25 December 2006
When I first heard that a movie is going to be made by the book "Eragon" by Christopher Paolini, I must say I was very delighted, and I was even more delighted when I heard that Stefen Fangmeier will be the director. I have read the book, and thaught:"What a great movie this is going to be". Unfortunately, I was wrong. First of all, I would dare to say that half of the events that happened in the book weren't shown in the movie at all(reason: Lord of the Rings has less then 400 pages and the movie lasts around 3 hours; Eragon has around 500 pages and it lasts around hour and a half). As a result, instead of complexed, unpredictable fantasy plot you get simple, one-way heading fairy tale. Characters that play very significent role in book(like Murtagh, Ajihad and Angela) are hardly even mentioned in the movie, so that it becomes centered on pretty much only 3 characters-Eragon, Saphira and Brom. Villains and locations lack imagination, so they look cheap and ordinary. Choice of actors is, in my opinion, good, except Edward Speleers. There are way too much "memorable quotes" in the movie, so that movie becomes kind of too much theatrical.Everybody, from director to actors failed, but still, I personally bealive that the biggest failure is Peter Buchman, screenwriter. Although he had a fantastic material to work on, he managed to ruin it, and make a pathetic screenplay from a fantastic bestseller. Only bright side of the movie is always top-of-the-class John Malkovich(King Galbatorix), pretty solid performance by Jeremy Irons (Brom), but most of all dragon Saphira (voice by Rachel Weisz, whose vocal abilities are on very desirable level)
But heres a Movie Review
When Peter Jackson finally found someone with enough courage to give him money to make Tolkien’s trilogy into movies, he essentially hoisted the entire fantasy film genre bandwagon up, slapped four wheels on it, attached a team of Clydesdales and sent it down the highway at a hundred miles per hour. Ever since then everyone seems to be trying to jump on and ride that fantasy gravy train. Eragon is the latest attempt to hop on board, but it falls off with a thud in the first fifteen minutes of its mediocre life. 

The story seems to have been meant to go something like this: a young, poor farm boy by the name of Eragon (Edward Speleers) comes across a strange blue stone while hunting in the woods. To his amazement the stone hatches and a magical dragon emerges, one of the last of its kind. A roguish old man from the village, Brom (Jeremy Irons), discovers Eragon’s little secret and reveals to him that the boy is the last of a dying breed of warriors known as the Dragon Riders. Eragon’s special bond with the dragon, named Saphira (Rachel Weisz), grants him the ability to use magic, and together the two will be able to defeat the evil King (John Malkovich) and his sorcerer henchman Durza (Robert Carlyle). Along the way he saves a warrior princess named Arya (Sienna Guillory) with the help of a mysterious ally, Murtagh (Garrett Hedlund).

It’s a pleasant enough fantasy tale for younger teen audiences and even if that’s how it was meant to go, that’s not what comes across on the screen. The final product is the story of a young, poor, bizarre combination of Anakin Skywalker, Luke Skywalker and Harry Potter joined up with the female counterpart to Draco from Dragonheart. With the help of an Obi-wan meets Gandalf sort of mentor, he sets out to save the wizarding world and half of Middle Earth by using Elven magic to defeat the equivalent of Voldemort wearing Sauron’s Ring of Power and his right hand sidekick who is the perfect amalgam of Saruman, Wormtongue and a Balrog-riding Darth Maul. Oh, along the way he stops to save the love child of Arwen and Princess Leia with the help of Aragorn crossed with Han Solo. It’s free for all sci-fi/fantasy mad libs, only instead of verbs and adjectives the story substitutes in favorite character archetypes and plot from other films. And then comes the final battle scene. 

With time running out (both for the characters and the movie), all parties find themselves gearing up for some serious combat. As the audience you’re expected to be very concerned for the good guys, but you’ve been offered very little time to actually get to know anyone well enough to care. The heroes in the story are painfully underdeveloped and you don’t even meet the people they’re fighting to defend until the last possible second. It’s a horrific mess, an underwhelming ending to a poorly paced, overwrought movie. 

From what I know of the book it doesn’t sound like the movie does it justice. Rather than letting the story have its own life, director Stefen Fangmeier seems bent on telling it in the light of every other major fantasy movie out there. The problem may lie in the fact that this is Fangmeier’s first time in the director’s seat and he hasn’t had much experience in sculpting a story or directing actors. Prior to this he spent most of his time supervising visual effects work. While that lead toEragon having beautiful visual effects, none of that matters when the story is so mish-mashed and the characters are so one-dimensional that watching them feels like a chore. 

“I suffer without my stone,” says the evil King Galbatorix to Durza at the start of the story, lamenting that his prized dragon egg has been stolen. “End my suffering.” The king’s request quickly became my own. Of course, the book on which the movie is based is the first in a trilogy, and the ending of the film lets you know they have every intention of making the next two films. I sincerely doubts that Eragonwill generate the kind of interest and acclaim (and money) it will need for the further two films to be made. Thank goodness for small favors.
Full Movie on PutLocker