Movie Review 3.June

Well, this week we have hit extremes of both types. Not only do we have a new top ranking for a movie, but we also have the lowest ranking movie for your reviewing pleasure. It will be hard to match that combo again.
However, what I do need is some more movies for my list, because it has grown short. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated, either here or on my Facebook.

This weeks mocies

Title: Conversations With God
Staring: Henry Czerny, Vilma Silva, T. Bruce Page, Ingrid Boulting
Rating: 4 Chats with a Deity
Review: This is completely a left-of-field movie for me. Normally, I avoid religious ideals and discussions because of the number of times I crash headlong with them, and the number of things they try to push on people is simply frustrating. But I saw an ad for it in the previews of ‘Shortbus’ and I thought it actually looked interesting, so I decided to bite the bullet and go with it. The other innormality about this film is that it is beyond rare for me to hire off the Drama shelf. Kudos for the change.
The movie is based on a real story, and a sad story at that, although the movie plot gets very mixed with the then and now. What I find more amusing is that there is a connection between God and the beliefs around what is called ‘White Lighting.’ But without getting too much into religious ideals, it presents God with an explanation. I have to say that from what I recall in the bible and my teachings from Church, this is the God I was brought up to believe in. Not a parent who punishes, not a disiplinary, but a being who creates connections of love and happiness which includes our intuition.
My one point deduction comes from just how slow the plot drags at the beginning. I had a hard time working out what point he was at in his life, what he was aiming for or what he was doing at specific points. The fact that the hired DVD disc was scratched to buggery didn’t help matters either.
What I am enjoying about this film is that. there is no preasure religiously, there is a lot of remorse for the main character, and there is a lot of wondering about how A gets to B. I am not sure if I will put it on my shelf, because it is not totally my type of film. But with such a high rating, you can bet with a lot of certainty that I will watch it again.

Tirle: Silent Hill
Staring: Radha Mitchell, Laurie Holden, Jodelle Ferland, Sean Bean
Rating: 4.5 Fires of Appocolypse
Review: Wow! JesusChrist with Cheese! This is a MOVIE! From start to finish, this movie has you going. It becomes a chase through the otherworlds and plains to rescue a little girl.
I took a point off because, when push came to shove, the movie turned into a bit of radical religous movie. But it was put back because there was a good moral in the fight, and it is an old one that doesn’t really apply in these times and beliefs, but the message is that good is not good when the faith is blind. The good is really evil and evil is just doing it’s best to bring things to a close. Who do you choose, the devil that will kill you or the devil that will free you with a price? What did the heroes choose? Not telling.
I did have to take a half point off, because as you follow the movie, you realise that there is a lot of time going by, and Rose’s (Radha Mitchell) mobile doesn’t run out of battery. And Rose is well dressed to go into combat (not with weapons, but her dress sense) right down to combat boots. This was also a contributor to the -.5.
When the movie came to one of its darkest points, I couldn’t help by laugh maniaclly, insanely, and with much glee as all hell broke loose in the big climax.
The movie is based on the video game series first released some 10 years ago. While the movie follows it’s own code for the most part, it still ahs a good plot, and does give you the feeling of being alone. But as the movie moves forward, you will see that things keep changing, literally. There are two worlds in all. One is the world that is the limbo of Silent Hill (location) that is straight after its historic fire. The other seems to be the town straight after the fire mixed with hell on earth. Whichever is more fun for you, go for it.
This movie, not only being top of the film list so far, is definately finding its way onto my shelf before the year is out. I prefer my horrors either psychological or survival. Hack and slash is reserved for video games in my books, but this is a horror movie I will very much enjoy again and again.

Title: Sleepwalkers
Staring: Brian Krause, Alice Krige, Madchen Amick
Rating: 4 Cats
Review: I’ve been a bit of a fan of Brian Krause because of his role in Charmed, but this puts him in a whole new light. Not only do I get to hear him say ‘Fuck’ but he is the villain, not the passafist goodie-two-shoes. This certainly gives Brian extra credit into my books, because it shows he can act a various range of characters, from good to bad to plainly fucked up. And if you are asking which one he is in this film, he is playing a completely fucked up character.
The film is one of the few (if not only) stories of Stephen King’s that did not previously appear in print, and it passes into the paranormal, which I believe (but cannot confirm) is a bit of a sidestep for him. But unlike a lot of movies of the same sort, there is a lot of places where explanation come into play. The beings known as ‘Sleepwalkers’ are humanoid cats that feed on female virgins to keep them alive. Moving all over America, they lure in young girls to suck the life out of. Their trade mark is a rose behind the left ear.
What gives this movie its bizare twist is that the two Sleepwalkers who are the villains are Mother and Son who are also lovers. Twisted, perhaps, but if you believe Jerry Springer, probably not as uncommon as you think. But this story is the same as a lot of vampire movies in that the enemies are somewhat incapable of being stopped by standard human killing methods. So what do they fear? Cats! They have a high alergic reaction to cats and being bitten, scratched or touched by one has the same effect as a holy item to a vampire.
The movie follows their path in Texas where they target a girl, but she fights back the best a terrified young girl can. With lucky twists here and there, she manages to turn the whole local police force onto them. That does bugger all, but it is still a good cattle for the slaughter.
I took a point off because, despite the age of the movie, the difference between the human form and the cat-like or zombie form is still quite noticable. If you took the film and reshot it with different actors and added todays editing abilities, it would look a lot more believable. I know that is no-ones fault, but it wasn’t convincing. But the story was good and you get a good explanation of things, or you can at least think about where the idea came from. Going on the shelf? Most definately!

Title: Legend
Staring: Tom Criuse, Mia Sara, Tim Curry
Rating: 2 Prancing Unicorns
Review: Oh for the days when Tom Criuse was not only young and hot but wasn’t a scientologist. Oh well, let’s move on.
This film now has the great title of not only being about as entertaining as a liberal dose of chloroform in a handky applied liberally to the face, but also it is about as easy to understand as chinese algerbra.
Now don’t get me wrong, I like fairy tales and fairy tale settings, but I also like it when enough explanation is given so that I know who is what. But, considering the low score, I’ll give reasons why I added points form the ground up rather than subtract from the top down.
+1 for the imagination that did go into making this a something. Enough imagination to recreate mythical creatures and do a good enough job of hiding the small things that you know mke them what they are. I suppose that when push comes to heave, I guess one can’t expect perfection for the age. At least I wasn’t subtracting points for mermaids with knees.
The other point was added because of the prettiness of the film that is the intro. Petals everywhere and unicorns. Thank God Disney wasn’t at hand otherwise I might have seen it overdone and been sick.
Frankly, this movie didn’t hold my attention. Too many expectations on the audience to keep up and assume, not to mention all the main characters of good should have been dead from frost bite and hypothermia. Don’t invite me to watch this movie, I’m really not interested in going through it again.

Title: Labyrinth
Staring: David Bowie, Jenniffer Connelly
Rating: 3.5 Crystal Orbs
Review: Never before have I seen such a display in a villain. Not a lot of pretense to back up threats, but enough campness to make Dr.Frankenfurter look like Gerard Butler. David Bowie looked like he had been dragged through Dead or Alive’s make-up waggon before he starred in this film, either that or Dead or Alive got dragged through his make-up waggon, whichever came first. But if you want to know just how camp and unthreatening a villain can be, watch this movie. -1
However, I give this movie the 1 back because, despite his massive lack of evil demonstration, David Bowie played a character that denotes the mental standings of a villain. No villain thinks they are a villain, they think from a position of gaining things though a slighty more agressive position and tactic. Bravo for that.
Now, this film has come with a lot of pretense through my life and I was expecting a no holds bard battle to the finish in a puzzle that was literally impossible to escape. Well, I was certainly let down, and wish people hadn’t played it up to be such a big thing. -.5.
There is a lot to be said for Jim Henson’s productions, and how creative they have been. While I was able to read through a number of the puzzles in the movie, having heard them before, I did also enjoy some of the creativenes of the minor characters, such as the faces created by the helping hands. I thought that was rather brilliant.
Another .5 came off because thourgh a lot of the movie, characters did the one thing I cannot stnad when making a film, and that is mumbling. I had to rewind the film several times to gather what people were saying, and I really shouldn’t have to do that.
There was the critical point in the movie where all the characters had their standard abilities/skills used to aid the hero, and it was very well planned, albeit corny to a great extent. However, I didn’t take any points off for that, because it is a Jim Henson film and therefor one shouldn’t expect too much in the way of dramatic battles.
The last -1 came off because of some of the predictability in the film. I could see certain twists and turns coming before they arrived, or managed to guess the outcome before they had been set down. I don’t really like it when I get ahead of the plot.
.5 was returned to the score, making it’s total, because Jenniffer Connelly wore some actually nice clothing. The headdresses and crowns were especially nice, and her character shares a love of fairy tales with me, which is also a major bonus to her. She and I could sit down and discuss the Brothers Grim for hours at a time without getting bored, so points to that.
Would I add this movie to my shelf? Now that I know where the song ‘Dance Magic Dance’ came from, probably not. However, not unlike Tron before it, if you asked me to sit down and watch it, I wouldn’t say no.

Ratings list for the month (*) = will buy for self (?) = Might buy DVD

(*)Silent Hill (4.5)
(*)Sleepwalkers (4)
(?)Conversations With God (4)
Labyrinth (3.5)
Legend (2)