Interestingly enough, for this month, I decided not only to cover forgotten teen horror films, but land on films that I also haven't seen yet. So every review will be after me seeing it for the first time. We start things of with 1998's 'The Faculty', featuring a whole bunch of faces you may very well recognize as much bigger faces today. We sort of hit the ground running here when a murder happens at the school after some of the teachers head home for the day. The next day, we meet all of our main players and their respective personalities. Casey (Elijah Wood), the token geek, and Delilah (Jordana Brewster), the popular, snobby hottie both work for the school newspaper. Delilah's boyfriend, Stan (Shawn Hatosy) is the jock who wants to pursue academics and is told he's only good at football. Zeke (Josh Hartnett) is the rebellious kid with a brain who specializes in the creation and selling of drugs. Finally, we have new transfer student, Marybeth (Laura Harris), trying to befriend outcast and token goth, Stokely (Clea DuVall). While all of the characters sort of follow their own story along the way, the whole reason we're here is actually Casey, aka "Sir Not Appearing on Any Movie Posters". Casey ends up finding what seems to be a new species of aquatic bug. This combines with the increasingly strange behaviour of the staff, and soon enough, the main group suspects that aliens have taken over the school in 'Body Snatchers' fashion. I have to admit that I didn't think this was really that bad. It seemed self-aware enough, seemingly taking cues from 'Scream' here and there (describing their situation as a sort of movie). And it's really just an updated version of 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers' much like 'Independence Day' was an updated 'War of the Worlds'. In its own way, it's actually kinda fun, and not entirely typical. Although don't get the wrong idea, some of those horror tropes are still here. Beyond some of our main group of kids, there are some pretty easily recognizable faces among the faculty, including Famke Janssen, Salma Hayek, Robert Patrick, Piper Laurie, Christopher McDonald and even Jon Stewart to name a few. It's a pretty solid cast, and, at least for me, I found it interesting that some of these younger actors were being taught by a few somewhat bigger names. I enjoyed this title for what it was. It's by no means perfect. There's a lot of silly stuff going on here, and the CG is really kinda brutal (bearing in mind that it's 1998 CG). But in a way, I found it all to be part of the fun of the film. Maybe it's because it's my first time watching it, and it's so dated that it's actually just a good time now. It's an R-rated horror, but mostly due to F-shots. The overall horror and gore in this is a cross between 'The Thing' and some Disney TV movie. Things can happen pretty nastily, but the horror scenes feel kinda few and far between. Most of the dread comes from the suspense in not knowing who you can trust. So this one, for me, wasn't entirely as dumb as I figured it might turn out to be. If nothing else, I was entertained by it, so the film did it's job. It's pretty ridiculous, but as I said, seemingly pretty self-aware. It borrows largely between 'Body Snatchers' (which is referenced quite a bit) and 'The Thing', but if you're a Robert Rodriguez fan, it's a decent enough movie to add to your watch list, in case you missed it. 3/5
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So, just to start this review off on a confession, I have no idea what in the hell happened in this movie. It was too damned smart and big-worded for me that the whole time I felt like a 10-year-old kid being told how quantum physics works while describing complex mathematical equations. In other words, this made me feel like an idiot, but I'll see what I CAN derive from it and try to give it a fair review. We meet a team of scientists who are working on something complex and they accidentally discover what they believe to be time travel. One of them tests out the theory, going back six hours, and it turns into a paradoxical movie about the effects of time travel, but admittedly done in relatively original ways. The thing is, this is to time travel movies what something like 'Act of Valor' is to military movies. It feels incredibly realistic, but to a fault, where it becomes hard to follow. Joe Popcorn may not quite understand all of the terminology or necessarily even what's going on at certain points. 'Primer' is LOADED with dialogue that is jam packed with science terminology to such an extent that I couldn't tell if these dudes were real-life scientists, or they were just saying words because they sounded intelligent. It's all so incredibly confusing, and I mean, call me an idiot, but I couldn't follow it for shit. Hell, here's the Wiki write-up about it. It'll be able to either explain it better, or confuse you further, but this movie is so far over my head, it's up there with the next flight to Florida. I can't be incredibly harsh on it, however, as it's just an innocent independent film, clearly out there to be a smart time travel movie. The good news is that (for now) it can be found in it's entirety for free on YouTube, so access to it is easy. Just be prepared to pay close attention to it, because it totally lost me in certain areas just 'cause I looked out my window for two seconds or something. Where the film hurts itself is, again, in the complicated dialogue. It's doing a fine enough job at making time travel look like it could go down realistically. But the problem is, it's boring as hell. It's essentially all talking and trying to figure stuff out while the only thing I'm stuck trying to figure out is how in the hell these guys memorized their lines of dialogue. It's not something I'd just recommend to people, even as a unique time travel movie. But if you are curious to see something more cerebral in time travel and don't mind the watching-paint-dry dialogue, head on over to YouTube and look it up. It does boast a 75% on Rotten Tomatoes, so I do end up in the minority here, but I just found it to be a solid hour and a half of my brain turning into a rock. 2/5 This is just one of those films that's enjoyable for it's overall execution. While it's nothing particularly epic in scale, it's a great little geek culture flick , having to do with time travel, and thus referencing quite a few time travel movies, and oh yes, some easter eggs as well. In fact, in one way, this review has an easter egg to it. Not hard to find if you know where to look. Anyway, we're introduced to Ray (Chris O'Dowd), who has just lost his job, hosting a theme park attraction dressed as some kinda space guy, relatively resembling a captain from 'Star Trek'. Down on his luck, he meets up with his friends, Pete (Dean Lennox Kelly) and Toby (Marc Wootton) for a drink at the local pub. There, Ray meets an American girl named Cassie (Anna Faris) who claims to be a time traveler who travels through points in time, repairing "time leaks". While the story starts off unbelievable, things start to unfold in strange, scary, funny and interesting ways, affecting the trio of drinking buddies. Again, this isn't one of those big titles, but it's actually a lot of fun, and well written enough to the point where the script tightens up the time travel aspect within it. For example, in one time, we may see a setting and see, let's say, a glass tip over. Later on, you find out why that glass may have tipped over, due to timelines crossing. Think 'Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkabahn' time travel rules. On top of everything, the film has a great sense of humor to it, as the British have a great tendency to write. This one comes from Jamie Mathieson, who wrote mainly for television, contributing to things like 'Doctor Who' and 'Being Human'. Well, this title represents his writing debut. The director is Gareth Carrivick, know, again, mainly for TV, but with titles more like 'The Vicar of Dibley' and 'Beautiful People'. Sadly, he passed in 2010, making this his final contribution. Definitely not a bad note to go out on. So check this one out if you consider yourself in with geek culture, and like a good British comedy. You'll be checking out a bit of the lesser known British talent out there (I'm mostly talking to North America here), and if nothing else, it's just a fun time for a good laugh. 4/5 Well, the Oscars have come and gone, and the awards have been given out, and it's only a matter of time before Facebook and Twitter explode with what's unfair about what, but I'm choosing to take a bit more of a positive spin on things here. For the next four weeks, my 'Under the Radar' reviews will be based on movies that passed a lot of audiences by, featuring all four of the "Best Actors" who won this year, starting with Supporting Actor, Sam Rockwell. Here we have 'Moon', starring Rockwell and almost no one else. The film takes place in the near future where the moon has been discovered to be a cost-effective renewable source of energy. Sam Bell (Rockwell) spends three years on the moon, alone, with fairly moderate communication with Earth, taking care of the equipment that allows the moon's energy to flow to Earth. However, nearing the end of his three-year stint, he discovers an unsettling truth about both the operation and himself. For those who may not be into such things, fair warning that this is very much a bottle movie. Sam's accompanied by his faithful computer, GERTY (Kevin Spacey), but little else. Of course, this is what makes the movie so captivating. You totally get the sense of desperate loneliness this guy is facing. But nothing illustrates this more than Rockwell's incredible performance. I haven't seen the guy in a lot, but anything I have seen that he's in seems to make him deserving of some kind of award. 'Moon' was a particular performance of his that stood out among the rest to me, and that's even speaking of his roles in movies like 'The Green Mile' and 'Seven Psychopaths'. In all honesty, this was a 2009 performance I felt that was ignored too easily from the Academy and the Globes alike. But at least BAFTA paid attention and gave director Duncan Jones his. Aside from acting and directorial skills, however, this film does a great job at setting up atmosphere, and making the audience empathize with the lead character. GERTY is just as interesting, because one can very easily assume that he's a HAL waiting to happen. What the film does with it, however, is keep you guessing about it all the way through. There are moments you don't trust GERTY with anything, but there are moments you'd put your life in his hands. This is one of those rare cases of "Man vs Himself" that is done in such an interesting way, i can't help but give the film the credit it deserves. Albeit, a little slow at times, if you like a movie that makes you think, this is a pretty great title to check out. 4/5 Believe it or not, the Marvel MCU isn't the first time Marvel tried to corner the market. Back in the late 70s, comic book superheroes were just nudging themselves into our lives. By launching made-for-TV movies such as 'The Incredible Hulk' (which was ultimately successful) and 'The Amazing Spider-Man' (which was not so successful, but still made it somewhere) Marvel had a pretty good thing going at the time in answer to the very successful ongoing DC franchise of 'Batman'. Of course, 'Batman' was always better in comparison, but... Adam West kinda seals the deal on that one. Anyway, one attempt at bringing a property to the small screen included that of 'Dr. Strange'. The film opens up with an evil being of some sorts talking to Morgan Le Fay (Jessica Walter). He tells her that he can't enter the Earthly realm due to a powerful wizard who is holding him at bay. He then gives her instructions to destroy the wizard, and to win over his apprentice to their side within three days time. Morgan possesses a lady by the name of Clea Lake (Anne-Marie Martin), and makes her drop the Sorcerer Supreme, Thomas Lindmer (John Mills) from a bridge. He gets up, brushes himself off, and onlookers are mind-blown that he's miraculously okay. His friend Wong (Clyde Kusatsu) takes care of him afterword, and locates Lake for him. She is being looked after by psychiatrist Dr. Stephen Strange (Peter Hooten) as she now suffers from psychic aftereffects from the possession, and is also haunted by terrible nightmares. Eventually we learn that Dr. Strange has a psychic connection with Lake, and is ultimately considered a prime candidate for Lindmer's successor. He is soon enough charged with the task of protecting Earth from Le Fay, and the evil entity trying to break through to Earth realm. When all said and done, the movie was just a long, boring, and downright confusing waste of time. It ended up failing pretty hard as a pilot at the time. It was somehow a film ahead of it's time that people weren't quite ready for, and yet it's such a boggled mess watching it now, it almost feels like it's more confusing by today's standards. It's nearly impossible to tell what's a dream and what's not, and all in all, it just belongs in a list of bad 'Mystery Science Theater'-worthy films. The really sad thing is you can tell by watching that this was a work the creators took very seriously at the time. But there were things to consider. People could relate to 'The Incredible Hulk' 'cause it was basically about a mild-mannered man who can get away with rage fits and destruction once in a while, but is ultimately good. We could relate. And even taking it a step further with 'Spider-Man'. It's pretty bad to look at now, but... well, I don't need to tell you, it's 'Spider-Man' - one of the most relatable heroes there ever was. 'Dr. Strange' on the other hand is all about otherworldliness and the mystique of the universe and parallel dimensions, so by that respect it could get incredibly confusing. But it's all helmed by a Stephen Strange we can't relate to as well as the portrayal done by Benedict Cumberbatch in the 2016 film. He lost the use of his hands and had to learn that not all his ability lied in what he could do as a surgeon. This Dr. Strange is... pretty much just a psychiatrist. I think they tried to go the "average joe" route with it, but it doesn't work the same way here. The other stories had underlying messages about power, responsibility, control, and doing what's right. 'Strange' was far more about just trying to look cool and had a sort of "destiny" element to it, like a "chosen one". And that's fine, but it's something more of an epic movie or novel plot than a TV series. It was trying to be something new, but in the end, it just didn't pan out. 1/5 |