Month: March 2013

When I turned 21, I was in a bowling alley.

Fun story right? Well, that is true. I don’t actually drink, but I definitely took the opportunity to buy a beer from the place for one of my friends. Needless to say, the events of my 21st were pretty dang calm. I realize that most people actually do have a wild night, which probably involves someone blacking out. So if anything, 21 and Over is probably going to be accurate to real life!

If anything, this picture can make a powerful inspirational message background.

Jeff Chang (Justin Chon) is turning 21 today, yeahhhh! But he hasn’t celebrated, because his dad (François Chau) has gotten him an interview with a prestigious med school the next morning at 8am sharp. He couldn’t party even if he wants to. But surprise! His best friends from high school have arrived to make his night special.

Miller (Miles Teller) is all about the partying, and the slacker of the group. Casey (Skylar Astin) is going to Stanford and forgot how to let his wild side out. Guess what issues might get solved in the span of the night?

Casey runs into Nicole (Sarah Wright), who demands he show his wild side. Miller turns to the brains as he tries to get his friend home safely, while running from cheer yeller Randy (Jonathan Keltz). Jeff has to basically stay passed out or super drunk, definitely not prepped for the med school interview he might not actually want to do. But each friend might have some secrets they have been hiding, that theaten to ruin this friendship that, lets face it, wasn’t really too strong to begin with.

Oh, and we have Russell Hodgkinson playing a drunken homeless Chief guy.

Oh shit, this is already a thing now? I don’t think I like it.

Hey, I recognize everyone here from other sources! Skylar Astin was of course the best character from Pitch Perfect. Miles Teller was the best character from the Footloose remake. Justin Chon was not the best character from Twilight, because he was basically even more of a background character than Anna Kendrick.

I like that 21 and Over tried to be deeper than the trailers let on. Each character had at least one problem or issue they were keeping a secret, and Miller/Casey were finding out a lot more about Jeff Chang’s college life than they would have liked. The movie had a good chance to say something about specific issues that are definitely apparent in colleges and certain cultures, but really, they swept them all under the rug by the end.

All the build up, and then plot resolutions were solved pretty dang easily. I was very disappointed in this, especially due to one problem hinted at the whole movie being solved with a line or two as well.

Hey, if my comedies want to go deep, I say go deep, just don’t pussy out by the end. In other news, I did laugh at this, and laugh more than once. It just can’t get a great rating due to some choices it made in the movie. If it had gone just straight party comedy, I would have given it a 3. If it did a better job of adding depth and dealing with the problems the characters had, a 3 as well (but potentially 4). However, since it let weak writing take over, and kind of resolve everything nicely, it just pitters in the average category.

2 out of 4.

“Oh no, not another exorcism movie!”

“Oh no, not another hand held movie!”

Are those complaints out of the way? Good. Time to ignore them for The Last Exorcism.

“Hey look, a priest and a girl. This is like all the othe-” “WE KNOW!”

Cotton (Patrick Fabian) is not your average evangelical preacher. He likes to have fun! He can get a congregation going lickity split, and praise Jesus like its his job. Because it is his job. His dad was a preacher, and he has been doing sermons since he was young. Heck, it is all he knows how to do. But he might be undergoing a crisis of faith. He doesn’t like doing it anymore, he doesn’t believe. He has been faking the exorcism thing for years; he isn’t a bad person, he is just giving a service that people request. But after the birth of his son, and some issues there, he now feels bad taking advantage of people.

Thus we have this movie. He is going to do one more exorcism, with a film crew, to help prove how phony it all is. Silly Cotton, you are about to get fucked.

But when he gets to New Orleans, home of a pretty intense blend of spirituality and culture, he finds out he needs to read his own fine print. Nell (Ashley Bell) is apparently possessed, but he hates exorcising children. Thinks it is a kind of abuse. But the father (Louis Hertham) insists. Strange family. After the wife died, started to home school his daughter, eventually keeping her locked up the whole time, but not his son of course (Caleb Landry Jones).

Well, all of her problems could be psychological. Could be abuse from the dad causing it. Or any number of things that I won’t mention. Who is winning this fight: Jesus, or science? Iris Bahr plays one of the film crew.

The chiropractor might be the real winner here.

Hey hey hey, this movie might not be all too bad. It isn’t just a simple exorcism story. Creepy girl, being creepy, with people dying. No, this plot might have layers. Layers, everyone! I love layers.

The idea that possessions are complicated, and surely there could just be people not all that right in the head.

Well, the ending I hated. Kind of came out of nowhere, didnt make any sense (from out point of view) and had some pretty dumb events going on.

But there are more problems. Documentary style movie is fine. But the fact that the cameraman was a character there that was never actually on camera, or spoke, or anything, is pretty spooky. When crazy shit is happening, he doesn’t scream, but he may run away. I think they forgot that they made him a character and pretended he didn’t exist.

I do think the buildup of this movie was pretty decent. Not a typical horror, having thriller elements throughout just to make seemingly average situations pretty unnerving. But a lame ending, that we now know lead to a sequel? Well, you just went average.

2 out of 4.

Dark Skies might have one of the worst trailers I have ever seen, this year and every year. Besides giving away far too much, it looks like a parody of itself. We have a kid who talks funny doing a growl about a sandman, some events that are set up to show potential child abuse, and the “oh face”. Oh my goodness that oh face. Not to mention the look of shock that follows the “oh face.” It has to be a joke, right?

I mean…right?

He has to be faking this whole thing. Come on guys. Right? Come on! Lacy (Keri Russell) and Daniel (Josh Hamilton) are a married couple on the top of the world! Or the opposite of that. Daniel lost his job (that darn economy and all!), and Lacy isn’t doing that great as a real estate agent. The bills are piling up, and now someone keeps breaking into their house and messing up their kitchen. For example, they are stacking all their boxes in elaborate shapes and taking all the pictures from their frames. Alright, I guess that is kind of weird.

If you saw the trailer, how many children do you think they have? I know I just thought it was one, but there is an older son as well! Jesse (Dakota Goyo) is the kid you just found out about, and Sam (Kadan Rockett) is the little brother growling in the trailer. They, too, are experiencing weird things. Strange dreams/drawlings, having street lights go out on them, or even seizures. This all can’t just be a coincidence!

No coincidience, just aliens fucking with them. That definitely explains it better. Heck, they even found a paranormal expert (J.K. Simmons) who knows all about these aliens, who confirms their suspicions. They found him on the internet too, so he must be legitimate.  But can the family still escape this long abduction/testing plan, or is it too late for any of them?

“Watch out bitch! It’s right behind you! Turn around!” – Me in the theaterWell, the initial thought I had after the fact is that the trailer is a bad representation of the movie. Every single ridiculous scene is way better in the actual movie, meaning the trailer just spliced them badly. For shame trailer, for shame.

Dark Skies takes its time to set up the events, perhaps a bit too slow. The beginning of the movie dragged on at a crawl, and I wanted to leave because of that. The youngest kid actor was bad as well, but I guess because he is a kid that is okay?

Despite this, the film did eventually get better. The aliens showed up on actual camera a lot earlier in the film than I would have guessed. The ending is what really sold the film. Instead of the horror feel, it turned into a last stand type situation as the family prepped for the aliens to come and get their abducting on. The last 10 minutes involved scenes that can only be described as some sort of acid trip, and hey, they were a bit scary as well!

Overall the “horror” of the movie was really light, mostly some jump scares and kids doing weird things. Nothing to write home about. The actual last 30 seconds of the film are a bit disappointing, but I do think overall Dark Skies has something to offer to the film watcher, especially if you look at is as a thriller. You just have to wade through a lot of crap to get there.

2 out of 4.