The Fourth Kind (2009)

Rated PG-13

98mins

Seen (where else?) The Rave November 7, 2009- 7:40pm showing

*possible friggin spoiler only because I feel a rant coming on*

The Fourth Kind, directed by a nobody, based on facts of REAL case studies in Nome, Alaska.

Tsk. Tsk. Fourth Kind movie makers, you almost had me at FACT. Why? Because when an Oklahoma girl hears FACT she thinks it’s true. AND SURELY, surely you are not riding the coat tails of……Blair Witch, Paranormal Activity, District 9.

Oh but I gest….yes you did…yes you are. Now, I feel like I got ROBBED. Actual case studies, actual audio, actual BS. I JUMPED dangit!

I was totally buying it, up until the interview. That lady was way to creepy to be for real, plus the lighting and all that crap making her look even more disturbed.

Okay, you ALMOST pulled it off. I’m sure you’ll make lots of money.

I really did dig the white owl. THAT was crazy cool and I never really noticed how they looked like Aliens. Rock on!

So if you are a total sucker, go ahead make your day, you will regret it.

Thumbs up to creepiness if you buy it or believe it.

And PLEASE can I see a normal movie????????

Paranormal Activity (2007)

Rated R – 86mins

Seen OCT 17,  2009- The Rave- 930pm showing

*warning spoiler alert*maybe?

First, let me just say- when I was thirteen – I LOVED horror movies. All kinds, any kind – the creepier, the better. Now, I’m OLD. I hate scary movies.  I hate scary movies featuring DEMONS even worse.

End rant.

Paranormal Activity, is a movie (somewhat modeled after Blair Witch) filmed by the subjects themselves, using a HD camera. The muse is that the Police found the tapes. Okay, so we know that is a bunch of horse crap, since Blair Witch was a bunch of horse crap. Got it.

For the sake of it, I tried to pretend I didn’t know and really try to imagine I was watching these tapes found by the Police. I tried to imagine being that scared and being tormented by a ghost. However, frequently I would notice “the acting” and think – yeesh, they’d be more scared that that. Actors, GAH.

Still, it was creepy, then it got even creepier. Turns out the haunting is not some mad ghost (get out of my house!) but a DEMON that’s been haunting the girl since she was eight. A friggin DEMON. Ahhhhh!

I used to have nightmares of Demons as a child. I started having them after I watched some movie with my mom that had a woman giving birth to little demons. They dressed them up and put them in little preschool cloaks. All these  little kids running around on the playground were really demons. Ahhh!

But back to Paranormal…The creepiest stuff happens at night. Her being possessed and standing by the bed for hours weirded me out the most, especially the swaying. I swear when I close my eyes I wonder if someone is standing over me watching me sleep. Ugh!

Then the loud thumping sounds on the walls. Lights turning on and off. TV coming on. Doors moving on their own. I have had REAL ghost experiences, this stuff  can really happen and has to me! Ahhhhh!

I won’t even go to the ending. THAT was the craziest part. I don’t care how much “acting” was involved, when you make the body move like the flying thing in The Grudge I got some serious issues with that (shudder).

This movie scared the crud out of me. I haven’t slept well since. I’m afraid to get up and wee at night.

Whoever thought of this, is one SICK-O!

If you like to get the willies. Go see it!

Surrogates (2009)

*spoiler alert*

Seen Oct. 3, 2009 815p showing at the RAVE.

PG-13

104mins

Surrogates, staring Bruce Willis, is a sci-fi action thriller set in the future –waaaaay future (I  hope). I found this movie extremely interesting.  It sort of combines, virtual reality with robots, making robots of yourself controlled by you via a virtual computer link (a bit like Gamer’s Society game).

Except what happens, is EVERYONE begins using a robot. It’s safer. You can be prettier with a perfect body. You can be whoever you want to be. You can really see how this would be appealing in the real world. Danger free. Live with no consequences. 

Then there were the Dreads, the humans,who chose to actually LIVE their life with no surrogates. The humans hated the robots. They had a separate area designated robot free. A ghetto area (sound like District 9?). Their leader HATED the robots and spoke out against them like a southern Baptist preacher.

The perfect, no consequence, world was shattered by the death of a surrogate AND it’s operator by a device designed to liquify the brain. Yeah. Yuk. Trouble in paradise. The victim was the maker of the surrogates son. Whoa.

Bruce Willis takes on the case with his direct awesomeness. Lots of actions. His robot is caught in no-mans land. Turns out, he has to use his real body. After the major adjustment of that, (I can imagine it would be),  he does start getting to the bottom of it.

But hold on here…..not just the murder case but the human side. He realizes all he, and all the other, operators are missing out on. His quest becomes a pursuit of freedom and re-connection to the humans behind the robots.

I think that is the hook that got me. The humanness. They failed. They let robots take over, to be safe, and comfortable and perfect. They lost their hearts. They lost their own will.

The flip side? The humans? They lost their compassion. They forgot there were real people behind the robots. They were hardened to the truth. The truth was their leader WAS a robot. Wow.

In the end, Bruce saves the day. He solves the murder. Saves humankind. Great ending.

If you think about it, this could be today minus the robots. Aren’t we sometimes mislead? Isn’t there truth, right in front of us we miss? Do we always know what’s behind what we see?

I love this movie. I love when a movie makes me think about-What if?  Because you know what?  You never know.

Push

Blu ray DVD watched Saturday night September 19.

111 mins. Rated PG-13

This film only had one recognizable name. Dakota Fanning.  I love Dakota Fanning, she is great actress. I usually try to see movies that she is in. I am so happy that her career has continued on as she matures. I foresee her career not stalling at any point in time (at least I hope).

Regardless, of not knowing the other actors, It was still a good movie. The action scenes were awesome.  The story line fairly easy to follow. I wasn’t quite sure if the government was in control of it all, why they let anyone out, FREE to roam around with the special powers? But I guess there wouldn’t have been a movie if they were all locked up.

I certainly didn’t like it as much as Jumper but it wasn’t a total waste of time.

I say it’s a good one to rent if you like Heros types of shows.

Gamer

Seen Saturday September 12, 2009- 730pm showing.

Cinemark Mansfield, Tx

RATED R- Just a friendly note, I DON’T recommend taking your 15yr old daughter and her boyfriend to this movie. Yah, not a good idea, It wasn’t rated R just for violence.

There is a reason why this review is delayed. I honestly wasn’t that impressed. I might have been if the ending had been better. I just think it fell flat. So, let me give you the good stuff. The battle scenes with heads blowing up (if you like that stuff) really cool! Gerard Butler; a mighty fine man.

The bad guy was really creepy and geeky. I thought it fit with the movie real well.  Seems like his “tech support” would have been bigger and badder or at least have done something at the end?

I don’t know if I fully “got” this movie. Maybe, I missed something? The game itself was awesome. I loved the 17yr old kid that was the operator of Gerard’s slayer. The fat guy playing the Society girl was just gross!  But sadly? He represented the most relative part of the film. HE is exactly what would happen if a game such as Society existed and the woman (a down and out) would be EXACTLY who would have to take part to survive. Our world would spiral to very quickly or at least to me, seems like the bad would outweigh the good of such an invention.

So, yeah, the movie kinda depressed me and made me uncomfortable. Allowed me to consider some scary possibilities in this world.

The ending, I just want to ask the producers, “WHAT HAPPENED?” , but whatever. If you really want to see it, wait until it’s released on DVD at the Redbox for a dollar.

Finger Lickin’ Fifteen

Finished Aug. 26

Written by-Janet Evanovich

If you are not a fan/reader of the  the Stephanie Plum series you are truly
missing out.  Go out and buy the first  One for the Money, then read all fifteen. You will NOT be disappointed.

Janet does it again. She writes an incredibly engaging and funny story using her Stephanie Plum character; Jersey girl from the burbs slash bounty hunter with an attitude.

As always, Stephanie is surrounded by her super hip Grandma Mazur (who is shy a few bricks), her friend, co-worker, and former ho Lula, and her two men, Ranger and Joe. And let’s not forget her nemesis Joyce Barnhardt.

This novel is mainly focused on her working with Ranger at Rangeman. Which is great, he always has the coolest stuff. There is a always a lot of chemistry.

In this adventure, she is helping Ranger solve a mystery and she is also in the middle of Lula witnessing a murder. Then Lula & Grandma decide to make an entry in the barbecue contest and begin cooking concoctions of pork ribs. We also get introduced to the cross dressing Cluck-in-the-bucket Chicken man that Lula meets.

The antics are classic. How she thinks up these things I will never know. All I can say is Janet’s life must be very interesting!

I laughed out loud too many times to count.

So! 

Grab the book.

 Grab a chair.

 Grab a secluded place and get ready to be cheered up to no end.

Inglourious Basterds

Aug. 23rd 710pm showing at the Rave

Directed and written by Quentin Tarantino.

I saw previews for this film and really blew at off as “just another war movie” starring Brad Pitt. It wasn’t until my boyfriend mentioned it was a Quentin Tarantino film that I suddenly got interested.

OH MY! A Quentin film? What was he going to do with this one?

Well, I wasn’t disappointed. It had all the blood, the guts, and the gore. It had the funny sarcastic comedy that only HE could pull off.  It truly is art to create something so disgusting that it’s funny at the same time. And the plot, as always, came together at the end to really hook it all together.

The idea of a rebel war amidst the Germans is, in itself, genius. The characters he pulls together are classic Quentin. Where does he come up with this stuff? I loved the Chapters of each story. I liked how he did close  ups of characters faces because it was a simple widening of the eyes or twitter of an eye brow that MADE the scene and concluded a LOAD of things.  That was very interesting and made me on the edge of my seat just watching for that one give away in their expressions.

My only disappointment was that it didn’t set up a sequel.

My conclusion, if you are a guy or a Quentin fan, you’ll love it!

District 9

Seen Aug 16 935pm showing

I had never heard of District 9 until about 45mins prior to the showing. I watched the trailer on youtube and a 6min  film documentary that the movie was based off of.

Now I could tell right off this is not your typical special effects scifi movie with all the bells and whistles that people would expect. This is a WHAT IF scenario. WHAT IF aliens got stranded here. WHAT IF there was a section just for them. WHAT IF a government agency was in charge. WHAT IF they were mistreated. WHAT IF you could imagine.

The aliens were strange, scary and sad. District 9 itself could have been any ghetto in the world today. The Nigerian gang even more scary and realistic.

This film in a way was what I expected and wasn’t what  I expected. It had The Blair Witch Project feel to it.  Mainly, we were viewing events through a documentary camerman. Some of the movie displayed via  live news footage and surveillence cameras. A lot of the story told via interviewees. I think some movie goers were not impressed with the lack of quality but I thought it added a “real” feel to the feature. A necessary one to put you into the dramatics of the situation. It gave you an in the moment reel which inspired realism.

The human infected weaved a compassionate thread throughout the movie that anyone could relate to. I couldn’t help but think this portion of the movie was similar to The Fly (1986) Jeff Goldblum.

There were some good special effects.  I enjoyed the ending and the possibility of a future sequel.

If you have an open mind and don’t expect 300 cinematography. You will enjoy 112mins of what feels like history in the making.

Funny comment after, my 15yr old daughter asked if that really happened.

Interesting trivia on District 9

Book and Movie reviews here!

Guess what? I actually enjoy a variety of different books and movies and have decided to blog about it. Woo!

From drama to suspense to sci fi.

Stay tuned  for District 9