Movies...

Today's post will be mostly about movies. I've watched quite a few movies lately, more than I've had time to really talk about. The goal of this post is to alleviate some of the extra thoughts in my head regarding these. It doesn't help that it's currently -8° outside with a wind chill in negative double digits. Again I wonder why I live in Minnesota, but that's neither here nor there. The other issue that's plaguing me is that I've been having some terrible back spasms that just won't quit, and this means that I'm stuck in an upright sitting position to prevent the pain. Again, this is not important, so we'll get on with the movies...

You Move You Die

I figured that I would start with the movie I watched most recently.

You Move You Die is an extremely difficult movie to give an opinion about. YMYD is a unique movie, it was written, produced, directed, shot, edited and finished entirely in New Zealand. It's a low budget movie that does a reasonably good job hiding it. Looking at the iMDB page, you get a sense of the mixed reactions people had for this film.

I personally thought it was pretty brilliant. It was shot in a short time span (only 5 days) with a very minimal budget. The entire movie is done with a steady cam with long, continuous, takes that last up to 9 minutes each. There are some obvious editing gimmicks being exploited throughout the movie, while some of them are a bit campy, I don't think they detracted too much. The script has some weak points, which comes from the long scenes requiring a lot of 'banter,' but these are the exception. The plot is reasonable, although not exactly a brand new idea, I felt it was pretty well executed. I know they were fishing for a twist for the ending, and it came off pretty well over all.

Overall, I have to say I was pleasantly surprised watching this film. I wouldn't call it the greatest film ever made, but all things considered, and I really mean considered, it was a good movie. I'd recommend giving it a watch.

Rambo 4

Rambo. Wow. This was, far and away, the goriest film I've seen in a while. It was also one of the stupidest movies also. Of course, it is the long overdue fourth installment of a series of bad movies.

I have to admit, though, that I do appreciate the fact that Stallone actually wanted to show some of the 'realities' of war. the fact you actually see women and children being massacred by soldiers as they invade a small village is compelling (and revolting).

Stallone still can't act, and unfortunately, that means the Casting Director has the most difficult job in the entire film: trying to find people to actually make him look good. I have to applaud the Casting Director, because it did manage to find a group of people that couldn't act any better than Stallone.

Overall, though, this is decent enough installment, and if you're looking for a pointless hour and a half filled with zero story and lots of bullets, this certainly is a way to do it. If you're looking for a well written story with brilliant acting and camera work, what would you even consider Rambo?

Untraceable

Untraceable was doomed from the beginning. I understand the appeal in trying to write a movie like this. It sounds so good when you're in the meetings, wracking your brains over what might be a good idea, something fresh, something different. The problem is, you can't write a movie like this because it is about something impossible.

Here's an article that might illuminate what I mean. This /. contributor might not cover all the loopholes and implausibilities, but he does hit one nail right on the head:

screenwriters can't win with these movies, because they'll get grief for getting too much stuff wrong, but if they explain things correctly, it breaks the reality when we can feel the writers telegraphing their knowledge to the geeks in the audience

Truth be told, I happy to see that they didn't go too overboard with this movie in the tech aspect.

My frustration with this movie came more from the fact that it was yet another movie that tried too hard to drive the 'thriller' aspect down our throats. They tried, and they failed. I give them credit for trying to do something different, and I give them credit for the fact that they still had a reasonable message about people watching death and such. However, they still didn't write a very good movie overall. I know that generally killer's in these types of movies are always clearly going overboard. But this character's methods and motives move into the realm of laugh ability, and in the end when they try to string the whole thing together, I couldn't help but laugh out loud at the stupidity.

Overall, I have to say that it wasn't a terrible movie, but it was pretty bad. I just don't recommend seeing this one, though.

That's it for now...

but I'll be back later. I may be reviewing some really old flicks soon since I seem to be on an 80's / 90's movie kick.