• The Wicker Tree Review
     
     http://bartybooks.com/the-wicker-tree-review.htm
  • Man on a Ledge Review
     
     http://bartybooks.com/man-on-a-ledge-review.htm
  • One for the Money Review
     
     http://bartybooks.com/one-for-the-money-review.htm
  • The Grey Review
     
     http://bartybooks.com/the-grey-review.htm
  • The Front Line Review
     
     http://bartybooks.com/the-front-line-review.htm
  • Miss Bala Review
     
     http://bartybooks.com/miss-bala-review.htm
  • The Flowers of War Review
     
     http://bartybooks.com/the-flowers-of-war-review.htm

The Devil Inside Review

The movie is only about an hour and 15 minutes. Nothing after the credits and the credits are the slowest scrolling credits I’ve ever seen in my life. My assumption is that it scrolled so slowly because there weren’t a lot of people who worked on the film (since the cast was small and budget was low) and they didn’t want the run time to be so short as to devalue the movie and discourage people from paying to see it; thinking they wouldn’t get much bang for the buck. I guess they had to do something to extend it and this is what they chose.

It’s filmed in a found footage/documentary style that works for the movie. It doesn’t use too many cheap or jump scares. The only bad acting belonged to the chick who played Isabella Rossi. The most important character in the entire movie is actually the person filming everything named Michael and he gets the least amount of face time and dialogue. None of the footage would even exist if he wasn’t filming. Therefore, without him, no movie. He does express that during an MTV’s Real World type confessional. There actually is a story here. It’s not just a bunch of things happening on screen with no rhyme or reason. The story itself is very good. I like it. It’s not necessarily original but the way the movie ends, if there is a sequel, it would have to be filmed in a more traditional movie-making style. That means no found footage. I just gave something away if you’re paying attention.

There are intentional holes left in the movie that can only be answered with a sequel. Like Maria Rossi’s possession. Why was she chosen to be possessed, why did the demon who possessed her make her do what she did, and which demon possessed her? I think exorcism as a whole could be explored more since part of the theme of this movie is the law surrounding the act of exorcism and how it needs to change. Another theme is distinguishing between mental illness and possession; a separation of science and religion. I liked what they were doing here by exploring other aspects of an overused genre but all the questions weren’t answered. That’s not a bad thing. A different twist is similar to what was done in the movie Fallen and that concept was explained during the movie.

If you’re gonna see this, and I’d give this a thumbs up to see it, then go when there’s gonna be less people in the auditorium or see it at a reputable theater and that’s what I recommend for every movie anyway. This movie ain’t worth full price. Catch a matinée or half price or something. Dollar movie works too. It’s worth seeing in theaters.

This movie didn’t back down on violence. Just when I thought they weren’t gonna show certain things, they showed it and I appreciated that. No watering down here although I believe some brief nudity in one scene would have added to the realism. This also reminds me of REC but this isn’t anywhere near as good as that. REC, when watched under the right conditions, will stay with you for a while. It burns an image into your head that doesn’t go away and that’s what a good horror movie is supposed to do: make you look over your shoulder and around corners and through shower curtains and keeps you awake at night. REC does just that and gives a compelling story. This also has a good story that I’d really like to see continued if it makes enough money because, similar to REC, it appears there’s something bigger going on and this first installment only scratches the surface. It teases more and I believe it can deliver with a second movie.

The way the movie ends, there was a collective sigh of disappointment. It leaves you wanting more and since that’s what made people disappointed, I’d say it did its job. It also makes you wonder because there is something that happens in that last scene and you don’t know who the survivor is. That’s all I’ll say about that. The last scene was unique and a bit funny given the circumstances, I’ll give it that much. It was original. If that last survivor is who it should be, then we have a sequel if they ever make it and I’d love to see it at an equal or better level of quality. No complaints about the special effects which weren’t that many to begin with. I give this 7 out of 10 stars. Not a bad movie. Worth seeing. Not too scary but I’m sure some people will be affected by certain scenes because it doesn’t use too many tricks to get the job done. It has a very creepy scene that affects you as if you were watching the movie Session 9. It’s short but effective and that describes the entire movie. Just make sure to watch this with the right people in the right environment.


Fast Tube by Casper

Posted in: Horror, Thriller.
Tagged: · ·

The Thing Movies Review

What really made John Carpenter’s The Thing so magical was not its sci- fi elements, its alien movie aspects or even, I daresay, its splendid 1980s animatronic gore. It was the psychological tension! The issue of trust was a horrifying prospect: Who can you trust? Are you who you say you are? How can I tell what you say is the truth? At any moment, someone could be an alien waiting for the opportune moment to burst out and consume the vulnerable person. As a prequel to John Carpenter’s work, The Thing (2011) taps respectfully into this raw suspense from the start, but towards the end loses its direction and falls victim to the Hollywood clichés of a typical alien monster film.

The Thing prequel (for simplicity I’ll call the 1982 film “John Carpenter’s”) covers what happened in the Norwegian base. Kate Lloyd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) is recruited cautiously by Dr. Sander Halvorson (Ulrich Thomsen) to aid in an Antarctic dig of a great scientific discovery: an alien specimen found frozen in the ice near its ship. With the help of Norwegian scientists, they recover the body to the safety of the base, but soon learn that it is still alive… and has the ability to assume the shape of that which it kills.

The first half of the story follows how John Carpenter’s film goes down almost exactly. (I won’t say anything about how it fares against 1951 The Thing from Another World… because I haven’t seen it.) After the alien has proved to infect several humans already, extreme paranoia and distrust breaks out among the surviving crew. Kate quickly assumes the Kurt Russell-type leader, herding the survivors into open areas and investigating methods of exposing the monster. Tensions run extremely high, as they did in John Carpenter’s, and at these moments I felt The Thing prequel had a good thing going for it. The suspense was thrilling and engaging, and aliens were bursting out of bodies at wholly unexpected times. The acting was consistently solid; Winstead did her part well, and the use of authentic Scandinavian actors was an added bonus. Within thirty minutes the film had paid enough homage to the original to be a worthy predecessor – more than I expected it to do in the first place — but then it decided to take its own stylistic turn, which most would consider to be fine but Carpenter fans not so much.

First, the age of animatronics is over. It’s realistic to expect the effects in every Hollywood movie these days to rely on CGI, The Thing (2011) being no exception. So while it lacked that creepy gooey tangible feel of John Carpenter’s animatronics, The Thing prequel had plenty of fast- paced alien sequences while still looking fairly good. The monster design stays pretty faithful, including wiry tentacles and frighteningly random mouths. Of course at this point though, these kind of CGI effects are nothing we haven’t seen before; many times it seemed to be a zombie-type monster rather than Carpenter’s amorphous alien, and in that sense was a bit unbelievable.

Second, the movie switched tone halfway from primarily a psychological thriller to an alien, sci-fi flick. Whilst in Carpenter’s film the alien tended only to burst out into its true form necessarily when discovered, in The Thing prequel it is glorified with an ungodly amount of screen time. The film quickly loses its intensity as it dwindles away into an ordinary monster chase around the Norwegian base.

By measures of any typical Hollywood monster horror film, The Thing is still an engaging and impressive ride. But trying to continue in the same spirit as John Carpenter’s, the film fails to sustain the classic psychological suspense it starts out with. 7.5/10

Posted in: Horror, Mystery, Sci-Fi.

Hugo Movies Reviews

Upon seeing the trailer for “Hugo”, I wasn’t overly impressed. The blaring emphasis on 3D made me worried it was more spectacle than substance. Still, it was directed by Martin Scorsese, and had Ben Kingsley in it, so I decided to put aside my fears and go see it anyway.

Am I ever glad I did! This is a sweet and gentle tale, full of unexpected warmth and depth. It is the story of Hugo Cabret, an orphan and keeper of the clocks at a train station in Paris. His only connection to his deceased father is a broken-down automaton the two were repairing before his father’s demise in a fire. When Hugo is caught stealing parts for the automaton by the old owner of a toy shop in the station (Kingsley), his booklet of sketches related to the curious mechanical man is taken from him. Attempting to retrieve it, he meets Isabelle, the goddaughter of the aged man. Together, they begin to unravel the mystery behind Kingsley’s character and help bring his true identity to light. (It shouldn’t be that much of a surprise to anyone with knowledge of early film history that has a chance to look at the cast list here on IMDb. Does the name “Georges Méliès” ring any bells?)

Asa Butterfield does capably in the title role, and Chloe Grace Moretz shines sublimely as the precocious Isabelle. Of course, Ben Kingsley gives a terrific performance, powerful and poignant. He plays a broken man anguished by the shadows of the past.

These three are the central figures of the film, yet the side characters are handled equally well. That really struck me. A lesser filmmaker might have let such characters come off as just caricatures, especially in a children’s film. Scorsese doesn’t allow for that to happen. Richard Griffiths’, Frances de la Tour’s and Christopher Lee’s characters are all skillfully imbued with humanity so that the audience feels for them and seems to get to know them in spite of their short periods on screen. Even Sacha Baron Cohen’s silly Station Inspector is more than a one-dimensional figure. In between his cartoonish antics and chases after Hugo, he is shown to be painfully shy, pining desperately for the affections of an attractive woman who sells flowers. We learn also that he was wounded in World War I, and that it was his days growing up without love in the strict environment of an orphanage that so embittered him towards the world. He is not merely some comic antagonist tossed in for the sake of slapstick. Instead, he is a fascinating and well-developed character in his own right. One feels compassion and pity for him, and hopes he will have the courage to speak up and win the heart of his love, that their quirky relationship will blossom into romance.

In short, this is a simply lovely film. There has been some uproar and befuddlement over the director of such films as “Taxi Driver” and “Goodfellas” making a ‘children’s movie’. I must admit I was a little abashed myself upon first hearing it. But “Hugo” shows that a so-called children’s movie doesn’t have to be inane or infantile. This is an intelligent and wondrous work – never sappy or banal. In part a tribute to the magic of cinema, it reminded me why I love motion pictures so much. With its richness and nuance, “Hugo” should appeal to children and adults alike. I realize that saying sounds a little clichéd, but in this case I have faith in the truth of it.


Fast Tube by Casper

Posted in: Adventure, Drama, Family.
Tagged: · ·


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