A creative departure from the typical vampire movie!

When it comes to vampire movies, most people think of Twilight and the series of movies that are sure to follow, but to mix it up a little last night, I rented a theatrical release from a couple years ago – 30 Days of Night. Yes, I saw the movie a while back, but for some reason I was compelled to watch it again.

Set in the northern-most reaches of Alaska where inhabitants go weeks on end with no darkness and conversely weeks on end with no daylight, 30 Days of Night is by no means your conventional vampire movie. With a cast including Josh Hartnett and Melissa George, it also strays from the typical B-movies that take no name actors and thrust them into impossible and often inescapably gory situations. Instead, the movie is an adaptation of a graphic novel of the same name and is surprisingly well-written and creative.

True, it’s the classic good guys versus evil Vampire scenario, but the landscape and inhabitants of the small town really add to this story which is as much about survival and relationships as it is about the undead. If you like a scare and don’t mind stretching the imagination a little, check this one out.

Too many gimmicks and not enough substance in Quarantine!

Now and again we like to get some cheap thrills from a movie. These may be at our expense, or more importantly, not at the studio’s, i.e., through cheap production. Nothing was more evident of this than The Blair Witch Project, which had the right gimmick and enough suckers to buy the story line. That being said, it was scary and in the end, that’s all that matters.

Not unlike The Blair Witch Project or even Cloverfield, Quarantine is a movie that asks the viewer to watch through the lens of one of the characters and tries to show the plot unfold through real time drama. I recall when watching this, my wife asked me if it was “Cloverfield Jr.,” most likely due to the lesser known actors and lack of special effects.

Being the movie fan that I am, I hardly noticed many of the aforementioned gimmicks or even similarities to pervious movies. The issue I did have was the character build-up. I mean Jay Hernandez is awesome as an actor in anything he does and I loved that he was in this, but we didn’t need about 30 minutes to introduce us to the fire station crew. Why? Only two of them matter a few minutes later, and then shortly after that, one.

My point is that this movie has suspense, drama, horror, twists, and some shocking revelations, but they take too long to get to. Too much of the plot is predictable and this leads us to an ending that is reminiscent of The Descent. I suspect they went that route
‘cause there was no where else to go.

Cloverfield - Not a new idea, but masterfully done!

When Cloverfield came out on video last year, I was excited to see it. This J.J. Abrams monster-thriller had been hyped up a great deal and the reviews were pretty good for what is a essentially a horror flick. Admittedly, it actually took me a couple nights to watch it and it’s quite short. It’s not because I didn’t like it, but rather, I think it was because I had a lot going on. Anyway, the point is that I didn’t really get a chance to take it all in.

So when last weekend, Julie and I decided to stay home and rent a movie, decided that I wanted to see it again. Julie had mentioned an interest in seeing the movie after I had rented and so it was an easy choice.

For those that don’t know, the movie is basically filmed entirely from the point of view of a guy with a video camera. And while the person shooting the film changes from the beginning, there are no multiple camera angles or neat camera tricks. What we see happen in the movie we see through the eyes of one of the characters. This isn’t the first time this type of filming has been done, but I think that it was one of the more effective portrayals because throughout the drama, action, and horror of the events, we get a fairly intimate picture of how a group of friends in New York, cope with what has been thrust into their lives on a single night.

And like any review of sorts that I do, I won’t go into the plot or give away any details, but I can say that the movie is both shocking and even rewarding. Rewarding in the sense that the whole story is told and no loose ends are left untied. The shocking part… well, you’ll have to watch it.

It's more than an Oscar show, but like, a whole day!

Let’s be frank, I’ve been sitting here for the past 5 hours watching Oscar related television and I’m about to pull my hair out. Am I the one that wanted to watch all the red carpet show? No, that would be my wife. Are there other televisions in the house I could have used? Yes, but then again, I could have done something else all together and yet I didn’t.

If you go back to an earlier post, I think I may have mentioned my thoughts on all the garbage that goes with award shows. The “red carpet” is the epitome of this. I mean who the hell really cares what the stars are wearing and how they feel about the awards? Okay, I understand that millions and millions of people care, but it’s so damned boring. That being said, watching all of this invested me in this year’s awards show. I mean I can’t just not watch even that my wife has gone to bed. So I sit here so I can basically see who wins the award for the one category that I’m really interested in. Wonder how many guys sit in my shoes right about now?