LKMYNTS... Bang Bang, You're Dead.

For this Little Known Movies You Need To See, I'll be discussing Bang Bang, You're Dead. I’ve been waiting for the right moment to discuss this movie, and I think the moment has come. This movie is, by far, one of the most important pieces of film ever made. And I don’t mean that it’s just an excellent movie, but this movie is truly important. As a future high school teacher, I plan on showing this movie to every student I possibly can (and anybody who sees this movie would tell you likewise). Now that I’ve built it up, I can go on to the actual movie.

Bang Bang, You’re Dead tells us the story of Trevor (Ben Foster, in what is by far his best performance), who was a good, normal student until he began being bullied by other students. He then became worse and worse until he finally snapped and threatened to blow up the football team. The bomb was non-functional (there was no explosive), but was otherwise perfectly made. He was suspended from school. The school put in place a Zero Tolerance policy, along with an expensive metal detector, and then let Trevor come back the next year (though with heavy surveillance, frisking, and anger management sessions). He also decides to use a video camera to film his everyday life at both home and school and record his own thoughts. Meanwhile, the drama teacher, Mr. Duncan (Tom Cavanaugh), prints out a play called Bang Bang, You’re Dead (which, by the way, is a real play), which is about a school shooting, and proceeds to cast Trevor as the lead role of the shooter. This causes a lot of controversy, but Mr. Duncan refuses to stop production.

There are a lot of other subplots, such as a love interest/friendship and hanging out with these loners who call themselves ‘Trogs’ (they’re basically the epitome of what you’d actually expect school shooters to be like). But everything is woven together in the overall plot of Trevor’s journey of being understood.

There are two scenes that always stick out the most to me, which are also two scenes that made me cry. One is a scene when the police take one of his videos that he shot and plays it in front of parents/faculty/police/etc. Just seeing everything through Trevor’s eyes and how everything is working against him, and against other people, as well… just seeing what would drive a person to do something so drastic… it’s heart-wrenching. And the saddest part is that it is all completely true. The other scene is the movie’s ending, which I won’t spoil.

(Randomly: I actually put/edited together a few clips from the movie (mostly using bits from the video diary scene) to use for a presentation on Zero Tolerance. The clip was only about 5 minutes long, but by the time it was over, I had the entire class, including the teacher, in tears).

This is a powerfully written and powerfully filmed movie that, unfortunately, almost nobody has ever even heard of. And it’s also very hard to find, because production of the DVD was stopped a few years back, so you can really only find it on places like Amazon (that’s where I got mine). I can’t recommend this movie to enough people, really. I can’t even rate this movie, because I would give it a score higher than I have. That’s how great/important this movie is.

UNTRACEABLE.

Before seeing this movie, I read a good way to describe it… and after seeing it, it still holds true: This movie is basically like mixing Saw with CSI. Jennifer Marsh (Diane Lane) and Griffin Dowd (Colin Hanks) work for the FBI’s cyber crime division. One day Marsh gets a tip for a website called killwithme.com. All that’s there is a live stream of a kitten trapped in a glue-trap for rats. Soon after the kitten dies and the website gains a bit of notoriety, the cat is replaced with a man who is hooked up with this blood thinner stuff, basically turning him into a super-hemophiliac. The catch is that the more people who visit the site, the more of that blood thinner goes into his body. But when the guy dies and is replaced by another, they realize that this killer is just going to keep going, and the site is going to get more visits, and people are going to die faster and faster.

I was actually pleasantly surprised with this movie, though I’m not sure if that’s because I went in with low expectations. Usually movies like this lately haven’t been too excellent, and they’re made even worse by a cheesy and predictable twist ending. As I’ve mentioned before, twists can either make or break a movie, and most of the time they break it. And I’ll be honest: I thought I had the movie figured out from the trailer alone, because every thriller these days has a twist ending. Except this one. Yes, I admit that I was wrong in this case. This movie did not have some wacky, predictable twist ending. You actually start seeing the killer’s face about halfway into the movie. But that didn’t make the movie bad, oh no. It was almost a bit refreshing.

And the movie was pretty suspenseful, too. It wasn’t the most edge-of-your-seat thriller ever, and it starts off a bit slow, but it does keep your attention. There is some gore, and the movie is actually pretty hardcore in some instances. The ways people died did remind me somewhat of how they might in a Saw movie; they are inventive and brutal. Also, like Saw, their deaths don’t come directly from the bad guy himself. Though, unlike Saw movies (except Saw 3), there’s no way for them to get out of their situation alive without outside help.

Another Saw parallel could be the social commentary, and the fact that the ‘killer’ does have a message and reasoning for doing what he does. The movie really showcases how American society (and it makes sure to point out to you that it is purely American society) is drawn to violence and the ‘car wreck scenario’ (you see it’s horrible, but can’t help but watch), as well as how people will do anything for a bit of fame and fortune. It’s pretty in-your-face, especially when they show the comments being posted on the website from the people watching.

The characters were good, although I only felt attached to Marsh and Griffin, and you do care if they die or not. The acting was pretty average, of course. It’s just a common thriller, so we aren’t expecting Oscar-worthy performances. But they kept you in the movie and nothing really detracted.

I suppose the only real downer was that, although it lacked the twist ending, it basically followed the detective thriller formula… you know such-and-such and this-and-that are going to happen sometime in the movie, and they do. And there were way too many Chekhov’s Gun’s that pointed to things that would happen later. But I still liked the ending, as it re-enforced the social commentary one last time. It’s a nice little thriller, and it’s slightly better than average. I give it A Keanu ‘Whoa’.

CLOVERFIELD.

Cloverfield… It’s Godzilla meets Lonelygirl15… or The Blair Witch Project… whichever you prefer. The difference is that it is infinitely better than all of those.

Cloverfield is about this dude, Rob, who gets this Vice President job position in Japan, so his friends and his brother, Jason, throw him this going away party. Jason is supposed to film everybody in the party and have them say their goodbyes and congrats and such to the camera (like at a wedding), but passes it off to Rob’s best friend, Hud. Well, Rob and Beth, his long-time friend, hooked up about a month prior but he never followed up due to his leaving, which causes a bunch of drama. On top of that, a giant monster decides now would be a good time to attack New York and destroy everything. Damn monster! So anyway, a small group of the party-goers run around while Hud films everything (“I think people should know how it all went down”).

I’ll stop it there, because any more would spoil it. There is a plot (or mission, really), and it isn’t just them running around freaking out. The characters are fully developed and you really care for each one of them (though some more than others). You don’t want anything to happen to them. It’s not like other horror movies where the movie focuses on the gimmick instead of the characters. No, this is a monster movie where the characters are the forefront and the monster is just kinda there messing everything else up. And yes, you do get to see the monster from numerous angles and quite a few times, though you get some really nice close-ups near the end.

As for the characters, Rob is obviously meant to be the main character or whatnot… but I think that title should go to Hud. You only see him maybe like… 5 times the entire movie, as he’s behind the camera the whole time, but you always know he’s there and he has great personality. The whole movie is literally in his hands. And I don’t know about anybody else, but even though you barely even see the guy, he was the character I became most attached to.

But what’s a monster movie without suspense or action? This movie has both, and loads of it. This movie is so incredibly suspenseful and engaging that after the monster attack began (it takes about 20 minutes or so, as the beginning is all character development), I never even looked at my watch once. One of my favorite scenes probably would have to be the subway tunnel scene.

And the monster itself? Well, it looks awesome, to put it simply. It’s creepy and random looking. And the CGI in this movie couldn’t be better. The monster and its little mini-creature things are very realistic (I’m sure the shadows help, too). And some of the sets and stuff looked awesome, too, like the leaning building they have to cross into.

I just really don’t want to stop talking about this movie. I think it’s easily one of the best of 2008 thus far (granted, it’s only January, but still. It will probably stay on the list for a long time). The only downside might be that there’s no real closure. You really aren’t sure what happens to those left or anything. But part of me wants to say that that almost makes it even more intriguing.

Cloverfield gets a Royale with Cheese.

(P.S. I kinda feel bad for the director, because J.J. Abrams is getting all the credit, and almost nobody has mentioned the poor director).

THE BUCKET LIST.

So my sister took me to go see The Bucket List with her. This will probably be a fairly short review. The premise of the movie is that these two guys, Edward (Jack Nicholson) and Carter (Morgan Freeman) are dying of cancer and get stuck in a hospital room together. Edward owns the hospital and, therefore, has lots of money. When both men hear they have a year at most to live, they start to give up. But then Edward hears of this ‘Bucket List’ (things to do before you ‘kick the bucket’) thing from Carter and decides to do it. So they write down a bunch of stuff to do and go do it, even against Carter’s wife’s feelings.

Overall, the movie was entertaining. It had some pretty funny scenes, and some of the scenes seemed forced. I didn’t really care for Jack Nicholson’s performance in the movie (except maybe near the end). I wanted to feel sorry for the character, but I just couldn’t. On the other hand, I loved Morgan Freeman in this, though I love him in just about anything he does. But I must say that Sean Hayes (Jack from Will & Grace) stole every scene he was in, which was a lot of them.

I can’t really say much else about this movie. It was really funny, it was endearing, and I learned a lot of useless trivia (I’m all for that stuff) from Freeman’s character. I think I’d give this one A Keanu ‘Whoa’.

(P.S. I was also surprised to find out (because I didn’t know beforehand) that this was a Rob Reiner (The Princess Bride, Misery, A Few Good Men, This is Spinal Tap) film. Huh.)

EL ORFANATO/THE ORPHANAGE.

1) It’s in Spanish.
2) It’s short-listed for an Oscar (Best Foreign Film).

Therefore: How the hell did it find its way to my town, much less opening weekend?

El Orfanato, better known as The Orphanage, is a Spanish psychological thriller. The previews make it out to be a horror movie, but it’s not gory (there’s a little blood, but not much), and the whole thing plays more as a thriller/mystery than a horror movie. There are scares, and they are pretty scary, but I don’t think they’re enough to classify it as horror. So anyway, I went to the first showing possible, afraid my theater might change their mind and ship it away again.

The Orphanage is about a woman, Laura, who was raised in an orphanage as a child and decides to move back there with her family to start the place back up again. But her son, Simón, who is also adopted and is HIV positive, makes a few new invisible friends, and soon after a strange social worker shows up to inquire about him, Simón goes missing. Laura starts to experience odd occurances and begins to wonder if the old orphanage is haunted and if the ghosts took her son away.

The movie really plays well going back and forth, making you wonder if there’s something supernatural going on, or if somebody has simply kidnapped her son and is messing with her. There are no cheesy special effects (I actually don’t think there were any special effects), and the movie was still able to be suspenseful and creepy/scary.

The acting, especially by the woman who plays Laura, is excellent. I can see why this movie was given an Oscar-nom. And by the time it’s over, you aren’t asking questions about potential plot holes or anything that didn’t make sense. Everything is explained perfectly, and I left perfectly satisfied. Well, except that there was a baby (complete with like… a freakin crib) in the theater; there were a lot of quiet moments in the movie, and the movie playing in the screen next to this one was insanely loud; and I guess my theater really isn’t used to foreign films, because for the first 5-10 minutes (until somebody told the staff), the projection was too low, so the subtitles were cut in half (luckily I can read words by only seeing the top half of letters).

All in all, it wasn’t as beautiful as Pan’s Labyrinth (though it’s only presented by Guillermo del Toro, not actually made by him… kinda like what Quentin Tarantino likes to do, except this movie was actually good unlike most that Tarantino likes to present *cough*Hostel*cough*), but it was beautiful in its own right. It was a completely different kind of movie. I give it a Royale with Cheese.

(P.S. I really think American directors need to go to foreign countries before making horror/thriller-type movies. These people know what they’re doing. 28 Days Later (Danny Boyle – British… it’s foreign to the US!), 28 Weeks Later (Juan Carlos Fresnadillo – Spanish), Saw (James Wan & Leigh Whannell – Australian), Cube (Vincenzo Natali – French Canadian), and not to mention countless Asian Horror films).

Disappointing Endings... Sunshine.

WARNING: SPOILERS (Obviously).

I had been waiting to see this movie for a long time. 28 Days Later… is one of my favorite horror movies, and I just kept hearing more and more about this film. It didn’t come to theater here, so I had to wait for the DVD, which came out yesterday. I knew about the supposedly awful last part of the movie, and I even readied myself for it. I was prepped and had my expectations set pretty low for the very end. And I was still disappointed.

Sunshine is about a group of astronauts and scientists who go to reignite the sun with a huge bomb after the previous attempt failed and the ship went missing. On their way, they find the previous ship and decide to go off-course in order to see what happened and to get their bomb so they would have two, in case they screwed up the first time. Bad things ensue.

Visually, this movie was beyond amazing. All of the effects were mesmerizing and top notch. The sun itself was spectacular. The acting was done very well, and overall… it was just a great piece of work. The first hour and 15-20 minutes was a great film. And then the last 20 minutes came.

…What the hell happened? Like 28 Days Later…, the third act of this movie takes a completely different route than you had been expecting. But unlike Days, it really doesn’t work here. Suddenly it goes from an awesome sci-fi movie to a less violent (but less stupid) Jason X. I have no idea what the hell is going on anymore. Suddenly the camera is too shaky to see what’s going on at all, there’s almost no explanation as to what happened, and an extra crispy man that would make a sadistic Colonel Sanders proud starts wreaking havoc on the ship. To me, it felt like The Descent all over again (I swear, I’m the only horror fan on Earth that didn’t like that movie. The first half was great and suspenseful… and then the little blind Gollums show up and it gets crappy).

But then Capa (Cillian Murphy) detaches the bomb, starts banging his head against the ground, and then leaps through space to grab onto it as it launches at the sun. I have no idea why he’s doing this, and then it looks like he’s dead. But oh no, the next thing we know, he’s inside the thing and walking around, and has to fix something or other for the bomb to explode (What, I don’t think we’re ever told).

The last minute of the movie ('8 minutes later') is a good, but it was way too late by that point. The 20 minutes prior to it was just… words cannot describe. If they were adamant to go this route, it would have been better had they just had one of their own crew (the little Asian dude, maybe) get all mental and go crazy like any other paranoia/claustrophobic movie (like Cube). I don’t even really know how to score this movie. The majority would get a great score and the ending would get an awful score, and if I average it together, it would be just that… average. But I don’t think that’s fair to the bulk of the film. So I’ll just leave it open.

(P.S. Was it just me, or did Chris Evans look better/cooler with the long hair and beard?)

UPDATE: I've updated my opinion on this now. The updated opinion can be found here.

Short Review: Hard Candy.

Premise: 14-year-old girl chats with 32-year-old man and meets him in real life. One of them is a predator. It's the girl.

Starring: Ellen Page, Patrick Wilson, Sandra Oh.

My reaction: Uh... Wow...

(Poster: Awesome).

My rating: Royale with Cheese.

JUNO.

What can I say about Juno that hasn’t already been said? It just came to my town, so I’m a bit late on seeing it… so let’s just start at the beginning. Juno is basically like if Knocked Up and Napoleon Dynamite had a love child (no pun intended)—there was even a dude in this one scene that looked and acted like Napoleon Dynamite. So the movie… A quirky girl (Ellen Page) gets pregnant after having boredom sex with her good friend Paulie (Michael Cera). She ends up deciding to go through with the pregnancy, but is going to give it up for adoption instead of keeping it. In making this decision, she and her father (JK Simmons) go and meet the adopting parents (Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner), whom Juno really likes. Life ensues.

First I have to say that Juno was a really funny movie. It had me laughing quite a bit, and I wasn’t exactly expecting that. After the first 15 or 20 minutes, the quirky wordage dies down a bit, making the dialogue a bit easier to follow, but it’s still there (and you get used to it pretty quickly). So yeah, funniness… even the dramatic scenes were funny (most of them, anyway).

The acting was top notch. Ellen Page and Michael Cera were fun to watch on screen, especially Michael Cera. JK Simmons—I love the man in Spider-Man, and I love the man in this. He plays the dad role nicely. Jason Bateman gave me the creeps, but it turns out he was supposed to, so yay for that! The real props have to be given to Jennifer Garner, though. She had a very tender role and acted it beautifully.

I have to say, though, the music felt like a character of the movie, too. I loved the music in this movie, and it drew me in every time a song was played. It just fit so well with the overall quirky (I’m overusing this word) feel of the movie.

And don’t let my overuse of the Q-word affect you. Like Knocked Up, this movie had some pretty dramatic scenes in it, as well. Most of them are toward the end of the movie, though. Anyway, I really didn’t feel anything wrong with the movie. It was fun and endearing.

Juno gets a Royale with Cheese… much like her telephone.

(P.S. The next movie I plan on seeing and discussing is Hard Candy, also starring Ellen Page. It sounds wicked).