Filmathon 2011

But Ellie and I went on an Eye's Wide Shut kind of adventure... well in spirit.

I probably wasn't gonna blog anyway.

In this zombie movie you have a group of people that have decided to hold up in a mall... it's a pretty good idea, the doors lock, there is food and supplies, and it's large enough that as long as you stay towards the center of the mall you shouldn't alert any of the undead. They end up making friends with a guy across the street at the gun store but he doesn't have any food so they try to save him and get to the docks where one of the group has a boat, because zombies can't swim.

This film is good for what it is. In my opinion what makes or breaks a zombie movie is how well the characters interact with one another. This film has a pretty good mix of characters with different personalities and different backgrounds which is good, it creates an interesting story.

This film is pretty good and there is a pretty funny scene where two of the characters have a romantic moment over talking about chainsawing zombies.

So, Ellie normally does post on WWII films but she hasn't posted in a long time and well, just because she post about WWII movies more does not mean that I don't like them. I find WWII and all things concerning it as interesting as the next person if not more so... well anyways on with the blog!

Downfall or Der Untergang is a film about the personal life of Adolf Hitler and those close to him near the end of World War Two. The film starts with him choosing his last secretary, Traudl Junge, all the way to after Hitler dies from his own hand and what is left of the Nazis must find a way to stop the fighting and save what is left of their people. Before Hitler's death you see many of those close to him start disobeying him in order to save themselves but you also have those like Gobbels who took their vows to die with Hitler a bit more seriously.

The film's portrayal of Adolf Hitler is very interesting. In this film, more than any other I have seen, Hitler is human, he is a real person. Don't worry the film doesn't romanticize Hitler's acts or try to make him look like some kindly old man. What the film does is give an accurate description of who Adolf Hitler was. You see him at moments of strength and moments of weakness. You see him trying to hide his Parkinson from the people who looked up to him. By the end of it he is just the shell of a man.

This film is amazing, there is simply no other way to put it. Quite possibly one of the most moving WWII films out there. The acting was great, the actor who played the part of Adolf spent a lot of time studying Hitler's unusual accent (Hitler wasn't German, he came from northern Austria), as well as studying Parkinson's disease. Along with the acting, the film was beautifully shot and directed and the score really fit well. Honestly I have nothing bad to say about this film.

I find it really interesting that this is a German film, or at least to my understanding it is a German film. As many people know, Germany doesn't always allow anything to do with Nazis, such as in the film Inglorious Bastards all of the swastikas were edited out for the German version.

I dunno, either way this film is great and also, if you've ever seen any of those youtube videos titled something like "Hitler gets banned from World of Warcraft" they used a clip from this film.

-Sean

Hitler Loses His minecraft saves:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8mEaIFuq3s&list=FLzLeju5L6IlS9rOz1JtKAHQ&index=11&feature=plpp_video

Hitler finds out about Ned Stark in "Game of Thrones":

So tonight I watched the older, animated, Lord of the Rings. Unlike the more recent version, this was made as  a two movie set where books one and part of two were in the first movie and the second part of book two and book three were on a different movie... if that makes sense, it is very late. So yeah I'm sure you know the general story of Lord of the Rings at least so I don't really need to explain what happened in this version.

This version was made in 1978 and is oddly animated. I don't really know how to explain the animation other that by saying that I can't explain it. It is really odd.

This version focus is more on different points in the books that the Peter Jackson ones don't. One case is that they include the part where Saruman the White changes himself to Saruman of Many Colors. So yeah, it was kinda' odd.

So I'm still watching these Hannibal movies. This one takes place ten years after Silence of the Lambs and agent Starling is still on the case. Dr. Lecter has moved to Italy where he is a curator at a museum's library.While in other films Lecter was helping the police find serial killers, in this film the police were looking for him.

This film was very well acted and Anthony Hopkins never really fails but there was something off about this film that makes it sub-par compared to the two previous films. Hannibal's character didn't have the same deep personal connection with the other lead character like in the other films.

Hannibal as a film is much more graphic than than the others. I don't want to spoil anything but he feeds a man his own brain... yeah it was gross... but kinda awesome.

So.... I really like Hannibal Lecter as a character and well... I think I might watch all of the movies (although I'm not sure about Hannibal Rising as it doesn't have Anthony Hopkins).

So this film takes place soon after Red Dragon and Hannibal Lecter is helping another police officer find another killer. The police officer is rookie Clarice and she is tracking down Buffalo Bill. Buffalo Bill has been going around the country kidnapping young women who are on the larger side and is skinning them.

Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster really did a great job in this film. Hopkins has a real intensity about him in some of the scenes.

Really this was a great film with awesome characters and an awesome story.

-Sean!

P.S.

As the title suggest this film is a remake of the Spanish horror film [Rec]. For the most part Quarantine is a shot-for-shot remake of the original.

A television reporter played by Jennifer Carpenter (Deb in Dexter) is shadowing two firefighters. All is fun and games until they get a call. People have heard screaming from a woman in an apartment and her door is locked so no one can get in. The tv people ride along and go to the apartment building with the firemen. Once they get into the building things take a bad turn, the police are already there and are working on getting into the elderly woman's apartment. Once they are in the old woman runs at one of police officers and he is forced to shoot her. From there more strange happenings occur and it ends with people getting picked off until it is Jennifer Carpenter and the cameraman, and then just her.

This movie was filmed from the point of view of the camera that was being operated. This style of filming has its pros and cons. While it is used to help put the viewer more into the movie, the shakiness of it can often mess with people's stomachs.

As far as horror movies go, I like the [Rec] series and this film does a pretty good job of holding up to the original. There are a few differences but you can blame most of those differences on the filmmakers having to "Americanize" the film for its target audience. So the firemen hit on the television hostess a bit more, they kick it up a notch when it comes to the violent and gore, and you actually see the cameraman's face.

Another difference where you really see how this film was made for American audiences is when the Jennifer's character and the cameraman are in the attic and find some odd things such as relics and newspaper clippings. In the Spanish version all of the relics and articles dealt with a Christian group, in this remake they changed it from Christian to a more occult looking group.

This biggest change would be Jennifer Carpenter's character. In the original the tv hostess was portrayed as being more of the "feels fear on the inside" people and while at first that may make her seem brave it really makes you feel scared when you see her break down at the end. Jennifer Carpenter took this a little bit differently and hit hysterical pretty early on.

All in all I like [Rec] more but that's probably more set up for a series while Quarantine has more of a stand alone movie feel.

Taking place directly before Silence of the Lambs, Red Dragon is about another case that Hannibal "The Cannibal" Lecter helped the FBI with. Edward Norton plays an ex-detective that has picked up his badge again to help the boys in blue with a rather troublesome killer. Norton's character had known Dr. Lecter before he was imprisoned, in fact, it was Norton's character who put him away. He must track down a killer that likes to go after whole families and is very good at making sure everything goes just right.

Most people have seen Silence of the Lambs, it's a huge hit even today. This film is from the same series and if you ask me, it's just as good. The casting was great as well as the acting. Anthony Hopkins and Edward Norton as two of the main casts worked out amazingly.

Like I said if you liked the other film you'll like Red Dragon. It has all the suspense and thrills and it's another chance to see Dr. Lecter who is one of my favorite fictional serial killers.

It's October and I've been meaning to watch more horror films. The problem is that, whenever I look at them they just don't interest me. But a horror film made by Kevin Smith sounded pretty odd.

This film is about a family out in the woods that run their own church. Their pastor, who they call Grandfather, is a fire and brimstone preacher who has convinced them to take violent action. They catch people they consider "adulterers" and kill them. They take hostage three high school guys who were looking for a call girl and torture them. The government is informed and send out a special task force led by John Goodman. 

Interestingly enough the film still stays mostly serious throughout only having one or two witty remarks.  Everything Kevin Smith has done has had an element of comedy but he completely changed gears for this film.

This film has a very slow building suspense. There are no real jump scares just a lot of tension building. This is different from most horror films today  but they can still be pretty scary.

Okay so surprisingly this movie had nothing to do with chocolate.... I was very disappointed.

-Sean

Okay Just kidding.

So the Three Musketeers, not about chocolate and they use swords more than muskets... also there are four of them.

The cardinal along with a former love of Athos (a musketeer) plans on sparking a war between France and Britain. He does so by having the rather athletic woman steal a valuable necklace from the queen to make it look like the duke of Buckingham is sleeping with Queen Ann. The cardinal tells the king about the possible affair and says the only way to know for sure is to throw a ball and request the queen wears the necklace. The musketeers have five days to get the necklace back or it will be an all out war.

I'm not going to lie, I did not care for this movie. I like the musketeer story but this movie was... amateur-ish. Don't get me wrong the movie does have it's moments and it gets better as it goes along but in the end there are just so many over done lines and just unoriginal writing I can't stand it.

I will give the film this, the casting wasn't bad and they did keep period accuracy in some parts namely, the king is very fashion forward and wears high heeled shoes. A little known fact about high heels is that they were originally designed for men, so the fashion minded king would undoubtedly have a pair of two.

The lines are cliche, the lead actor is a bit obnoxious but some of the sword fighting was really neat.

A group of Norwegian students are following around a man they believe to be a bear poacher. After following around they learn that this man is a troll hunter, no he doesn't hunt 14 year old boys on the internet. Well the group keeps filming as they learn about a great troll outbreak.

This movie was pretty neat. It's shot all documentary style and that's cool. I really like how they kept the whole thing about trolls turning to stone in the sunshine. the film is in Norwegin and that's cool, the only real downside is that there is a guy who sounds like a character from Animal Crossing.

This is a biographical movie of Harvey Milk, a gay rights activist and California's first openly gay elected official, from hi 40th birthday until his death. I say that he is a gay rights activist and  California's first openly gay elected official but he was so much more than that. Harvey Milk was able to band together the gays of LA and use their numbers to boycott non gay-friendly establishments. He used his influence to gain an in on politics and through his connections and good ideas he won the election.

This movie was very interesting film. Sean Penn did a great job playing Harvey Milk and James Franco being there just makes everything more fun.

This film tells the story of a poor town in Texas that has nothing left to be proud of except their high school football team. The star of this team is Boobie Miles who receives a career ending injury the very first game of the season. The team decides that even without their star they can be state champions and they do their best to get over such a tragic lost for the town.

This film is a lot different from your normal sports movie. First off, they dealt a lot more with drama between characters, while everyone on the team does some what fill a stereotype the characters felt more real than most characters in films like this. Another thing that was different was that the filmmakers decided to go with a documentary style of cinematography. There is some shaky cam stuff and zooming in on people's faces and things like that. The documentary style and the acting helped make the characters feel more like real people.

Along with all the stuff I mentioned I really liked the music in this film. The score was done by a post rock band based out of Texas called Explosions in the Sky and well they're pretty awesome.

There is a lot of drama on this all African-American college campus. You have two feuding groups, the "upper class" type Gammas and the Gamma Rays their female supporters, and then there are the "low class" guys. The Gammas are your basic hollywood frat, just a bunch of dudes who are power crazy and think they are better than everyone else, the other guys say that they are all for political activism but that doesn't seem to be the case. Either way, these guys are caught up in mutual hate for one another and Half-Pint is in the middle of it all. Half-Pint is pledging Gamma but he is also the cousin of the leader of the activist group. throughout the film Half-pint must decided who's side he's on and if the side he has chosen is the right one.

So sorry about that very long synopsis... my thoughts weren't very well put together and they got away from me.

The film was pretty good, not as good as I hoped but it was still worth watching. Spike Lee is a household name and with good reason. If you liked Spike Lee's other joints you should like this one too.

This is Kevin Smith's take on a romantic comedy which means that it is a romantic comedy with more penis jokes... well that's an understatement, the movie is actually pretty good.

In the film you have two guys who make a comic called "The Adventures of Blunt man and Chronic". While at a local convention the guy who draws the comic, Holden, meets Alyssa a fellow comic book artist. Holden falls for her but there is one problem, Alyssa is a lesbian. He befriends her and they become extremely close. One night Holden confesses his love to Alyssa and well... it's stressful. After some talking Alyssa admits that she loves him too and they try the going out thing. This puts stress on the relationship Holden has with his comic book buddy, Banksy, and in the end everything falls apart.

I gave it some crap at first but this movie is actually really good. It is a male perspective that romantic comedy that you don't often see. So if you're tired of the average rom com but you really want to watch something funny that has a love story than check it out.

In the 1960s a politician looking to be re-elected decides to integrate the all white CIA in order to increase his standing with the black community. This is all a sham seeing as the the people in charge eliminate the candidates for the smallest reason. All the candidates fail except for Freeman. Freeman graduates from the academy and is put to work filing but, you don't hear him complaining. After a few years he resigns saying he's going into inner city social work. This is mostly true, what he is doing is bringing together the black community in a Black Panthers sort of way and teaching them what he learned in the CIA. From here they plan to disrupt the status quo and fight for equality for all races.

I found this film to be very interesting. The character Freeman is a true hero, he really does no wrong. For example he propositions a prostitute and when he gets to the room with her he goes on about how she looks like this great African queen he saw in a book, spoilers -  she shows up later in the film dressed in an outfit inspired by her culture and says that she has quit turning tricks.

So this post is already pretty long so I'll just tell you to go watch the movie. It's really neat and well yeah.

I'm going to be honest with you, I don't really know what this film is about or anything about the characters... but I did watch it. You see this movie is very much an art house film. It takes a look at the lives of the people in a impoverished black community. When I say that the film is a look into their lives I mean that it includes the boring parts of life too.

This film is something you have to be prepared for. It has some very long takes and a lot of just watching people stand around. This all has a deeper meaning of course but if you're looking to be simply entertained this might not be the best film to choose.