Movie to See #1: Aaah! Zombies!
This movie is, in a word:
cute. The best thing about this movie is the unique way it splits the perspective
of our zombie main characters and the rest of the world: old horror movie/
Night of the
Living Dead style world, in black and white, to show what the world is seeing;
and then full color for what our intrepid crew is seeing. It definitely
gives it that 'the world is in the eye of the beholder' kind of feel to it; our
reality may be different from everyone else's at times, but we won't be able to
tell the difference.
The story itself is actually kind of original. It is, literally, a love
story told from the point of view of zombies
about zombies that fall in
love. It's a funny idea, even though I truthfully didn't quite see how it
was going to work when I sat down to watch it. It works! As with
most Indie comedies, this one is usually amusing, although some of the gags are
a bit of a stretch, and nothing makes you split your sides due to comic genius.
This is a unique little film, and for that, I encourage you to see it. I
like to see creativity in movies, and this one is a good example of what
creative people can do without studio interference. Good work, and worth a
watch.
Movie to See #2: Revolver
In a lot of ways, this is
Reservoir Dogs meets
Ocean's Eleven --
that is, we get a really twisted crime story where you have to unravel what is
going on through subtle clues in the dialogue. Now, this isn't exactly
Tarantino level dialogue, but at least it is laced with more than the occasional
zingers that Richie throws into his scripts. That having been said, I
think the movie probably delves too
much into psyche of our hero. Sometimes we don't know if what is happening is in
his head or if it is actually happening. Now typically this happens during
our hero's 'manic' moments of high stress, but it can be a little distracting.
This isn't a story about someone going insane or being drugged, or being fooled
by some other-worldly entity. Thus, the madness element doesn't really fit
the plot as a legitimate device.
But even taking that shortcoming into consideration, this movie begs us to
question whether anyone on the screen is as smart
as they think they are and just who, exactly (if not everyone) is being played.
I always find that kind of mystery kind of fun, as long as it is carried out
well. This movie does that.
Movie to Skip #1: Ripper: Letter From Hell
The plot of this movie is... simple? A murderer, possessed by the spirit
of Jack the Ripper - or perhaps
actually Jack (we never really know for
sure), terrorizes a group of students studying serial murderers... as all good
psychology classes should, of course. Putting aside the mediocre acting
and pathetic budget (both of which leave an indelible mark on the film), there
is one major flaw in this movie: it relies entirely on the
classic
deus ex machina resolution. That is, we don't know how this
movie will resolve, until it happens, because we don't have all the pieces in
place to solve the mystery until the finale actually happens. We literally only
see the key... special abilities (I think I can say that) of one of the
characters in the story in the
very last scene of the movie. These
abilities were not present (or even hinted at) the entire way through, so there
is just no way we could have known that THAT is how this movie would resolve -
despite the fact that one of the people that gets knocked off in the last 15
minutes apparently figured it out (although there is no way that could have
happened). While that plot device can sometimes work in specially crafted
circumstances, there is NO WAY you can accuse the writers of this movie as
trying to be that creative. This movie was resolved at the last second due
entirely to poor storytelling. It's like they started filming, realized
they were about an hour and a half in, that they only had about 6 minutes of
actual film left, and said, "Oh crap. Here, now you can do THIS, and that
outta wrap things up pretty nicely." Either that, or they were so honked
off that everyone could guess their original twenty attempts at an ending within
the first 20 minutes of the movie that they felt they had to come up with a
"trick" to keep people guessing. However the genius creative team came up
with it, it still sucked. Not a great movie.
Movie to Skip #2: Ripper 2: Letter From Within
The one thing you can say about this movie is that it is better than the last one
-- but that's probably the
best thing you can say about it. Funnily
enough,
Inception has nothing on this stinker for being difficult to
determine
which reality your living in. This movie supposedly
occurs (we think) at an Eastern European facility where experimental dream
therapy is treating the criminally insane (the criminal from the first movie...
who may or may not be Jack the Ripper). But thinking back to
Inception,
even if you buy into the theory that
Inception could happen, the technology in
the DiCaprio film is much better explained (spoiler: it isn't explained at all
in
Inception) and is much more believable.
Ripper's
technology, on the other hand is just too far-fetched and unexplained to have
any hint of believability. Do I think the idea of networking brains
together is cool? Sure, but I'm going to need see a little more than
fishing line and a roll of duct tape in the dusty basement of an old castle to
believe you're actually doing it... and it would be nice if the patients were
actually connected to one another or to a common machine, or
something.
This bizarre, apparently wireless, technology that works by syringe and wishful
thinking makes the whole thing look kind of lame and the results fairly predictable...
if the plot, acting and only slightly larger budget than the first one didn't
put all of the other nails in the coffin before you even sat down to think about
how everything was supposed to be occurring. And oh yeah, just when you
thought the dorks who wrote this movie gave up on lame trick endings, you're
going to get one in this one too. They do leave
deus ex machina in
the briefcase, but the ending DOES have the effect of nullifying practically
everything you just sat through, which frankly makes the entire movie feel like
a waste of time. And that's probably the safest conclusion to gather from
the entire
Ripper franchise (please, God, leave it off at a two film
franchise).
