Scruffy's Art and Music Blog

The Woman in Black by James Watkins who did Speak No Evil and is doing the DC Clayface movie. This stars Daniel Radcliffe who was coming off his run of playing Harry Potter for 10 years and this was first movie outside the character. The movie is based the 1983 Gothic horror novel The Woman in Black by English author Susan Hill. We have widower Husband Arthur Kipps who is lawyer and is sent to village to handle legal documents to an estate that has hidden secret.

The opening of this movie reminded me of Dracula story but we don't have vampires but a ghost. Like many ghost movies we have a mystery that told. This classic haunted mansion feel with much of the movie having Arthur isolated alone in the mansion with jump scares left and right. The village seems to be cursed with children who are taking their own lives. You are left throughout the movie wondering why this Woman in Black is haunting the village and then has a very bittersweet ending.

The movie was pretty successful with budget of 20 mil and grossing 120 mil worldwide which lead to a sequel but that got terrible reviews so I skipped it. Overall its pretty good Ghost Movie with plenty of jump scares, creepy dolls, dead kids, and dark mansion.

There movie from 1989 but I have not seen that version.

The score is by Marco Beltrami who did Scream and 3:10 To Yuma.

Men in Black 3 by Barry Sonnenfeld which was his last movie he directed and Last movie for Will and Tommy. This last installment brings on Jemaine Clement and Josh Brolin as a young Agent K. An evil Alien named Boris escapes prison and vows revenge on Agent K who took his arm and will go back into time to erase him in the future. Agent J must go back in time to stop Boris and save his Partner.

I did not see this in when it came out at the time because I was living in Fresno for about a year. I did check it out later on blu ray and really enjoyed this movie more than part 2. The reviews very mixed but the plot and villain are much better and has very emotional ending which was very unexpected. Also Josh Brolin as Tommy Lee Jones's agent K is spot on impression.

The movie did not have song by Will Smith but instead they went with artist Pitbull , that samples Mickey & Sylvia song "Love Is Strange, which funny enough I first heard in the movie Dogma which had Linda Fiorentino.

Men in Black 2 by Barry Sonnenfeld who did the Adams Family movies returns with Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith. We have new additions to the cast with Lara Flynn Boyle and Rosario Dawson which was my introduction to her as actor and Johnny Knoxville from Jackass fame who before Jackass was a struggle actor. We have Serleena who after the light of Zartha and is causing havoc to get it. Agent J needs help stopping her so he must Pull in his old partner to stop her.

This came out in the summer 2002 and I had just graduated High school and saw it opening weekend. This is not as good as the first movie and did help that they just wrote out Linda Fiorentino character who made an agent at end of first movie. Rumor is that Tommy Lee and Linda did not get along which was the reason she was removed. The movie spends too much time trying to get agent K's memory back and erasing character arc's. Also it repeated many gag's from the first movie.

They also had Will Smith Put out song but it wa not as good as first song.

Also Danny Elfman returns with Men in Black theme

Since I brought up MIB 1 before lets take quick look at other men in Black. The Blues Brothers by John Landis who did American Werewolf in London which came out the next year in 81. This stars Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi and Carrie Fisher. Two are reunited after one was is in prison. They were raised in a catholic orphanage and visit the nun who raised them and discover that the orphanage would be shut down if they don't come up with $5000 dollars. Jake and Elwood Blues are on mission from god to save the orphanage.

I am not big musical guy but this was a movie my father would watch all the time and I grew up loving. The movie is packed with cameo's with many famous musicians like Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, James Brown and Cab Calloway. I love the dead pan humor of Blues brothers who are unfazed by the chaos around them. Also we have Nazi's getting clowned on as they should. The musical numbers are all great and I think my favorite is them singing the RawHide theme.

There a few more cameos with John Candy, and 2 directors. The movie opens with Frank Oz who is a prison guard who gives Jake his stuff back and near the end we have Steven Spielberg who worked with both Aykroyd and Belushi in his failed comedy 1941.

They don't have traditional score but use the Peter Gunn theme which was a tv show and was in game I played as kid called Spy Hunter.

Gonna be long night.

Reminder of how important it is to vote.

California passed law to ban drinking and driving this is the result from voters.

elections today. gonna be very stressful.