Paranormal Activity 3

I don't want to jinx myself into suddenly having nightmares and being scared by Paranormal Activity 3, but after seeing it yesterday the movie is just an afterthought. The first Paranormal Activity left me with minor insomnia for weeks and the second was definitely up there on the fear factor charts, but the third prequel did not measure up. I wrote a full review of Paranormal Activity 3 today for "my" paper, the Oakdale-Lake Elmo Review, and I will post it here later this week. At a glance: while I'm impressed with the franchise overall, the third installment was a big disappointment.
I didn't divulge too many details in my newspaper review, and won't here either, but I do have a few things to further point out about the plot.
First of all, while it's been a trend in the Paranormal Activity series to slowly build up to the scary scenes, it took way too long here. And I would say a majority of the moments that did make me cringe or feel like I needed to close my eyes were duplicates or very similar to scenes from the original two.
Finally, considering the warning in one television commercial that the final 15 minutes of the movie would "mess you up for life," the conclusion was pretty ho-hum.
The end is where the plot takes a twist I did not like and goes too deep to explain the demonic force that has been the center of the Paranormal Activity story since its original release in 2007.
In my review today, I recommended for people who have seen Paranormal Activity and Paranormal Activity 2 to see No. 3 and then leave it at that. I saw it because I was curious where the film's plot would go and how scary it would be and I got my answer. Maybe there will be redemption in Paranormal Activity 4, but I think I've had enough.
There are a couple scary movies coming out this year that could restore my faith in the horror genre. I am too chicken to see The Devil Inside after the trailer came on in the theater yesterday, but I might give The Awakening a try. It seems in the same vein as The Orphanage (which I highly recommend) and McNutty from The Wire is one of the stars, so how bad could it be?

hitRECord

"Love is such a far reaching concept." (Joseph Gordon-Levitt)
When I first came across the website for Joseph Gordon-Levitt's collaborative production company, hitRECord, I knew two things: I want to blog about this and I want to blog about this with the secret hope "Regular Joe" sees it, wants to meet me, and we fall madly in love and get married.
So far, a total of ONE person found my blog by typing Joseph Gordon-Levitt into Google, so maybe it was him and we're destined to be together. OK, reality check, someone also came across my blog by searching "baby shower braces," so I am not going to rely on the use of the Internet to be connected to JGL, or any other romantic interest for that matter.
But I will use the Internet to explore the depths of hitRECord, which is a collaborative production company where artists of all sorts can contribute their work, either individually or as an addition to someone else's, and maybe get paid for it. According to "Regular Joe," when a piece of work submitted to the site makes money, the proceeds are split between the company and the artist 50/50.
When I have the moola to do so, I definitely plan on contributing by (until I maybe work up the courage to write something on the site) buying the first book/DVD/CD of work produced by the hitRECord folks entitled RECollection, volume 1.
Putting aside the huge crush I have on JGL, I really respect the film choices he makes and that respect grew tenfold after learning about his "by the people, for the people," production company.
There are endless works of photography, film, music, poetry and stories to browse through on the site and the hitRECord crew also does live shows. I really, really, really, hope they come to the Twin Cities someday, but in the meantime I'll be lost in my forever favorite website. And now I'm sharing it with you, go there!

Drive

I just saw Drive, and I'm kind of at a loss for (pink) words. This is rare for me since I usually have an easier time writing about a movie than talking about it, but I'll do my best.

Obviously I loved this movie, I knew that would be the case before I even watched it, now I just need to figure out what to say to give it justice. 

I'll start with one other obvious point, Ryan Gosling and the story he told in talk show interviews about how the film came to be were a big draw for me to see Drive. He said he was driving with the film's eventual director Nicolas Winding Refn and an REO Speedwagon song came on that prompted their decision to make a movie about a guy who drives around and listens to music.

The result: a story about a stunt/getaway driver who is as much of a bad guy as he is a hero. Throw in some 80s-sounding music, romance, mobsters and a lot of intense violence and you get Drive.

Gosling plays the aforementioned stunt/getaway driver who gets too involved in one of his jobs and has to protect himself and love interest, Irene (played by Carey Mulligan). Gosling's character is billed as Driver and, as far as I could tell, never says his real name. It is a subtle, but significant, detail that adds to the mystery about who his character really is.

After he gets involved in a driving job that doesn't go as he planned, Driver goes on a path to do anything he can to right the wrongs and especially protect Irene and her son.

I don't like violence, mainly because it turns me into the dork in the theater with her hands over her face, but it didn't turn me off from Drive. With this film, Gosling added mysterious bad ass to the list of roles he plays perfectly. Albert Brooks is getting rave reviews for his screen time and Bryan Cranston has a strong supporting part as Driver's boss/friend.

I hope everyone (just not the kiddies) sees Drive. I think it's a film that on the surface may look like something it's not (as in just another action flick), but if you're on the edge of deciding whether to see it, please give it a chance.

Moneyball and ...

Heyo to all my loyal readers (if you're out there) I feel that I've been neglecting my blog lately and now have two movies to dish about.

I saw Moneyball a couple weeks ago and after a discussion with my co-viewers (my mom and sister) have had many thoughts about the movie swirling around in my brain.

While Moneyball was an enjoyable film (other than the extremely annoying woman in the audience with the extremely annoying laugh and her use of it at extremely unnecessary moments), I still felt something was missing from the story.
What I do know is that Brad Pitt plays Oakland A's manager Billy Beane, known for his unconventional method to form a winning baseball team with players that don't require a big salary.
Moneyball is not supposed to be a strictly sports movie, like Major League, but more of a drama and for that reason I don't feel the writers went deep enough.
It's based on a true story and a book so they clearly had enough material to access, but I left the theater only understanding what Billy Beane did in his career as manager but not who he is as a person and how that influenced his choices.
I am not really sure what caused the movie to fall short of its potential, especially with the library of other work by the screenwriters and the fact that the author of the Billy Beane book had his hands in the project too. For me, writers Steve Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin took Moneyball and placed it below the caliber of films they could, and have, put together. I wasn't nearly as disappointed in Moneyball, again because it was overall an enjoyable movie, than in Social Network so maybe Zaillian had more writing influence than Sorkin.
My last complaint, whether this is because of the writing mishaps in bringing the true story to the big screen or the actors themselves, I don't feel Brad Pitt and Phillip Seymour Hoffman are in roles that fit their skill.
Basically, something was missing there too. While they, and Jonah Hill, had chemistry on screen I felt the cast just didn't match this movie.
I've recommended this movie to friends and coworkers, even if they were planning on seeing it anyway, because I think my reaction to Moneyball could be simply a matter of opinion. My mom and sister and I overall happened to agree about the "missing" story, but critics and box office reports show Moneyball is resonating with viewers.

If anything, I think that's because Moneyball will appeal to different demographics rather than a target audiences of  rom-coms or horror movies. Men and women, baseball fans or not, will probably take something away from Moneyball. If you do and happen to read this, let me know what you think.

Since I have no appropriate transition to insert here, I am just going to go ahead and talk about the other movie I finished recently, Jake Gyllenhaal's Source Code.

Can Gyllenhaal save the day by reliving eight minutes on a Chicago train with a bomb on it over and over again? I really have no idea. Source Code is a very entertaining movie and it's a good thing because when it came down to the nitty gritty details in the plot, I was a bit lost at times. That's not to say I am too focused on explosions and eye candy (Gyllenhaal) to pay attention; the plot is just a little confusing and Source Code would probably take another screening to catch all the details I missed the first time around. So ladies (who may like the ending more) and gentlemen, check out Source Code and I hope to be back soon when I finally get to see Drive.

Contagion

Definition of contagion:
a. A contagious disease
b. The transmission of a disease by direct or indirect contact
c. A disease-producing agent (as a virus)
d. A people-centered, realistic movie about all of the above

The fact that Contagion, in part, takes place in Minneapolis doesn't help in remembering that it's just a movie about a worldwide disease outbreak, not the actual thing.
I (surprisingly) wasn't as paranoid about germs after seeing the movie as some audiences I've heard about, but the simple series of events Soderbergh chose to lead to the death of millions and millions of people certainly put the effect of a pandemic in perspective.
Contagion starts in with Gwyneth Paltrow's character, Beth, traveling from Hong Kong to Minneapolis and subsequently becoming sick with a deadly virus that quickly infects more and more people. Her husband Mitch, played by Matt Damon, is immune, leaving him to show the human side of what the disease outbreak causes in society while the world around him resorts to violence and stealing. As more people begin to get sick and die across the world, Soderbergh breaks apart the crisis from the standpoint of Homeland Security, the Minnesota Department of Health, Centers for Disease Control, World Health Organization, as well as the media.The film is shown as a race against time while researchers try to create a vaccine to fight the virus as well as find its source.
For me, a film like this could easily turn into one big scare tactic with over the top results, but Sodebergh effectively kept the topic and his cast on a short leash. Simply, and it's not a bad thing, what's scary about Contagion is how believable it is. At no point in the film is there a worldwide war zone, zombies, aliens or some freak accident that caused the virus to spread. There is certainly violence as a result of the disease when people are fighting to survive, but, sadly, in the events that take place it's all human nature that can't be controlled.
I'd say all of the acting performances in Contagion are level with each other, but that's a good thing.
All the characters are fighting for something in their own sector of society and I don't think the actors were meant to shine over each other, but focus on telling a story as if it were actually happening to them.
Of course I have a bias toward Matt Damon on any day and I think he fit the role of Mitch well. For the most interesting character, I'd pick Jude Law's blogging journalist who interjects himself into the disease crisis to experience it first hand.
If Contagion fell short anywhere, the plot surrounding Marion Cotillard's character (a doctor with the World Health Organization) wasn't tied in to all the other events as much as it should have been. It made sense, but fell away from the story at times, then reappeared.
Overall, Contagion comes off as original in the "disease outbreak" genre and I appreciate that Soderbergh and his cast kept the story, despite its many complicated elements, human.

How Did This Get Made?

Podcasts are my new obsession. It all started with a friend's recommendation to check out How Did This Get Made? with Paul Scheer. I thought I could handle one and was pleased to discover something else to listen to on the way to and from work, although I will always love The Current.
The premise of HDTGM is simple, it's about bad movies (so bad they're awesome) and people talking about bad movies. Scheer and his costars see a bad movie and then break it apart scene by scene and play clips of the dialogue. There's also a guest star in each episode to add to the regular cast. At the end they involve a listener challenge, asking fans to give their take on the movies or think of alternative titles/endings. I've made it through their renditions of Smurfs, The Green Lantern, The Tourist, Mac and Me and The Back Up Plan so far and I'm hooked. I actually haven't seen any of those movies, but could listen to the HDTGM folks talk about them all day long.
Then there's all the podcasts I found related to this one and all of a sudden my computer is almost out of memory. I have yet to delve into the Nerdist recordings I've heard about with Chris Hardwick, Doug Love Movies, and don't even get me started on the library of Breaking Bad talks I have waiting in my queue.
I feel like I've seriously been living under a rock as far as the podcast world is concerned and with the amount of time I spend in the car in a given week, it's a true shame all that listening time has been wasted.
Luckily I'm driving to see my parents in Wisconsin tomorrow so I've got 4 hours or so each way, with a fun-filled family visit in between, to catch up.
Signing off now ... must ... download ... more .... podcasts.

Weekend picks

Upon checking the film releases this weekend and reviewing my record of must-sees, I could probably spend the next three days camped out at the multi-plex. I don't think the fall movie season has officially started, so I have a lot of work to do if I am going to keep up. Realistically I hope to see at least one of these films this weekend: Our Idiot Brother, 3D Shark Night, Don't Be Afraid Of The Dark, Bellflower or The Whistleblower.
In the meantime I can recommend some options based on what I have seen recently, both in the theater and on DVD.

For starters, thank goodness Crazy, Stupid, Love is still in theaters because everyone needs to see it, plain and simple. If I didn't have other film priorities, I'd probably go to it again, I liked it that much. Ladies drag your dates to this one or gather your pals together, heck see it by yourself, I don't care. I may be a little biased here because I've become obsessed with Mr. Ryan Gosling lately, but this movie deserves a first, and second, and third, look. It's like that popular song on the radio you can't get out of your head -- think anything in the Foster the People catalog.
Gosling and his washboard abs star as Jacob, a womanizer who takes Steve Carell's character Cal Weaver under his wing after going through a divorce with his wife Emily (Julianne Moore). Fortunately for audiences, this movie does not go down the rom-com tubes with its plot and has very smart writing. And the cast is the tops with Marisa Tomei, Emma Stone and Jonah Bobo as a kid I actually liked in a movie. Most of the time his type of character is just plain annoying, but Bobo's performance landed on my good side. As Cal and Emily's son Robbie, Bobo masters the angst of an eighth-grader watching his parents' marriage fall apart without coming off as trying too hard or falling into the cliches associated with such a character.
Steve Carell plays the role like he does in most of his other movies -- almost to the point you think that's how he is in real life. True or not, it makes the character seem real to the audience and the entire cast had strong chemistry on screen.
I am sure it will be a stretch to get any guy to see this movie, but my advice is to give it a try.

If they do, a reward could be a viewing of the oldie but goodie Strange Brew.

My friends and I were lucky enough to see it on the big screen last weekend at the Lake Harriet Music and Movies in the park. Sadly it was the last installment of the event and we only just heard about it that week. But the completely weird, crazy and hilarious Strange Brew delivered a fine end-of-the-summer experience. I'll definitely be back in the audience next summer and hope the event organizers replay some of this year's choices such as Pee Wee's Big Adventure and The Labryinth or something of the like. I am sure I am one of the few people that took this long to be on the Strange Brew bandwagon, so I don't need to bother explaining what it's about. Just pop in the DVD this weekend and open a bottle of beer, it's beauty.

My last selection may be a little obscure but if you like indie films, check out Ceremony on DVD. The 2010 release stars Michael Angarano as Sam Davis, a hopeless romantic who crashes the wedding of a woman he met only met once, played by Uma Thurman.

Ever since I achieved my film fanatic status, a good indie is still my favorite genre. There can be unknown or established actors (obviously The Bride Uma Thurman is not a new face in Hollywood) and I enjoy plots that end with some soul searching by the viewer. In the case of Ceremony, the quirky backdrop of a hippie beach wedding and a remote retro hotel create a unique touch and add to the appeal of the film. Most indies I see provide the opportunity to interject myself into the plot and ask, what would I do?

Would I drag my friend on a road trip to reunite with a lost love or do nothing and risk never knowing what would have happened? Ceremony may not please all audiences, but it took a potentially complex and heavy plot and turned it around to be as happy as it is sad. 

Hope those suggestions provide something for everyone, relax and enjoy the show!