Paranormal Activity 2

The Hollywood cash grab annoys me. It is the reason the Saw movies keep getting produced, or why there are so many sequels, remakes, spin offs and other vanity projects. Paranormal Activity was the biggest surprise of last year and it possibly may have been the biggest surprise in movie history. If that sounds like hyperbole, go run a check on how much it cost to make and how much it ended up raking in. The movie just kept gaining attention and gaining a fan base and when it went to a wide release, the movie just exploded. Naturally, Hollywood wanted to cash in and got a sequel into production as soon as possible. The director of the original stayed on as a producer only and the franchise was handed to the director of Door in the Floor, which was not a horror movie. My interest in Paranormal Activity 2 (PA2) was minimal, but I found myself there at a midnight screening nonetheless.

After coming home to a house that looks like it got broken into, the family of Kristi, Dan, Ali, Hunter, Martine(the housekeeper) and Abby(The German Shepard) decide to install surveillance cameras. Strange spooky stuff starts going on and Kristi gets a bit rattled. Doors slowly open, gusts of wind where there is not wind, doors slamming shut, pots and pans rattling and other sorts of shenanigans start to spook out Ali as well. martine believes the house is cursed with demons but Dan does not believe her and fires her. There is something in the house though, something that drags Hunter(a newborn) out of his crib and down the stairs. Something causes the Ouija board to spell out Hunter's name. Clearly something is wrong. Kristi has a chat with her sister, Katie(From Paranormal Activity)about the freaky things and the sisters both remember things from their youth like this, but Katie reminds Kristi that whatever it is feeds off of attention and it needs your fear to thrive. Kristi and her family then try to ignore it until it goes away.

The thing that made Paranormal Activity such a fun movie going experience was the tension it built. There are people out there who complain about the lack of pay off and there is something legitimate in that complaint, but no one could complain about the slow building tension brought more dramatic by the slow bass sound every time it was about to get ugly. In PA2 the tension is just a bit lackluster, but the pay off, oh the sweet scary pay off is too delicious. I should say pay offs because this movie delivers nice big juicy jumps over and over again. Your eyes still dart all over the screen looking for the faintest of movements of anything. The movie is made creepier by adding a baby to the mix and for making the baby the prime target for the demon. There are pay offs in broad daylight (my favorite one) and there are a variety of pay offs in the final 15 minutes that more than make up for the lack of tension built.

The film takes place roughly 2 months before the first film. yes, this is prequel and we also get a bit of mythology built into PA2. I liked it. I liked that the writers appeared to be doing more than just grabbing cash, they were building a franchise to grab cash. I do typically love franchises if they have interesting mythologies and this one does. Even though the budget was massively larger in this movie, the movie does not feel any bigger and that is a plus when it comes to these Cinema Verite style movies. There is certainly going to be a third movie and most likely a 4th and 5th to follow if they keep making the kind of money the first one made and this one is currently making. Horror movies are cheap to produce and the return on the investment can be astronomical and so far, this budding franchise is absolutely worth it. The hype is delivered on and a great time is had!

PA2 works in a different way than PA, but like the original the acting is pretty bad and there are times when you wonder why they keep running around with a camera, but on the flip side, the hand held camera idea makes the basement scene so damn freaky that most people were watching it crouched down trying to find relief before we even saw or heard what we were scared of. If the movie fails to built tension throughout, it gets it right in the basement. If you enjoyed PA there is a great chance you will also enjoy PA2, but if you thought PA was ridiculous, this movie will not change your mind. They created this film with the audience in mind and kudos to them for understanding their fans.

Final Grade: B

it's Kind of a Funny Story

it has always been my belief that stand up comics can make great dramatic actors if they are given the chance to play characters that tap into the stand up comedians inherent issues, because all comics have issues. Zach Galifinakis is what one might call an "it" guy in comedy right now. he has tremendous heat from The Hangover, he has great on-line buzz with his weirdly perfect mock talk show Between two Ferns and Due Date is one of the most buzzworthy movies of the upcoming fall. He has comedy in his clutches, so what better way to try and expand than a comedy with some serious tints to it. And what better way to make that happen than playing a man in a psych ward of a hospital. It honestly felt like the best possible career move for a guy with as unlikely a career as Mr. Galifinakis.

Stressed out from a life that is far more complicated than it should be for a teenager, Craig(Keir Gilchrist) starts to have suicidal dreams. What is more is he wants to kill himself. He chickens out and rides his bike to the hospital instead. He thinks he can just be given a quick pill or something and be on his way, but he talks himself into getting committed to the psych ward. Craig is not sure how he is going to last five days in the hospital because he needs to get to school, but he is told he has to be there a minimum of 5 days. His family is as supportive as possible and he finds support from the outside in the form of his best friend's girlfriend. But, mostly he has to just live with the people in the hospital. He meets a damaged, but adorable girl, Noelle(Emma Roberts) and a few other eccentric patients, but he forges his closest bond with Bobby(Galifinakis). Bobby is a very depressed man who sees no real way out for himself, but in their talks, he helps shape Craig and helps Craig to try and work through his issues. The main issues for Craig are feelings of not being good enough. He is constantly stressed about school because his father puts pressure on him and Craig never relaxes. He believes he is a loser. Through art, music and just learning to relax, the psych ward helps Craig to realize what is and what is not important.

Told with a nice blend of sweetness, humor and a certain level of crazy, It's kind of a Funny Story is a nice movie with a more interesting movie somewhere inside of it. As far as psych ward movies go, it is by far the most tame and far too calm to elicit any hardcore reaction, but it is a genuinely sweet, moving picture with depth of character and it has some great laughs and the message is wonderful. I think I just hoped it would get just a bit darker, or delve just a bit deeper into the twisted side of the characters. it comes off as just a bit too safe, like it was trying hard to not offend any one's sensibilities. I do not inherently think a PG-13 movie has to be safe (See The Social Network), but this one is hindered by the rating, or it hindered itself to get the rating.

That being said, Galifinakis is remarkable. He is hilarious, twisted, and unafraid to let himself "go there." Bobby tries so hard to come off as a guy okay with his crazy, but the more we learn and the longer we see Bobby on the screen, the more we realize, this is a deeply tortured man. His breakdown is beautifully raw and Galifinakis goes all in. His chemistry with Gilchrist works throughout the whole picture and you really believe Bobby wants to help someone else because he believes he is beyond the ability to help himself. For his part, Gilchrist plays the tortured teenager pretty well. I wish he had a bit more chemistry with Zoe Kravitz who played the seriously sexy girlfriend of the best friend, but he and Emma Roberts are totally charming together in some tortured way. Roberts is probably a star in the making and she is very winning as Noelle. We never do find out what she is so tortured over, but it kind of makes their relationship feel more real, more tangible.

The film utilizes a few nice tricks, such as animation and dream sequences, most of which are pretty effective. In the scene where Craig has to sing lead during music time, the entire scene becomes a wonderfully charming and funny rock show with Craig singing. The song choice, Queen and David Bowie's "Under Pressure" is what you would call "too on the nose" but it is done in such a fun way it avoids being an eye roll moment. During art time, Craig creates these complex and gorgeous brain maps. It relaxes him completely and they show the art being drawn as animation and it is effective as it gives us an idea of how Craig sees the world. He narrates sections of the movie and at times flashes back at moments that led him to this very moment. These sort of narrative tricks, or gimmicks can be obnoxious, but in this film they mostly work. A few of the flashbacks did nothing for me and honestly, anytime the film jumped to his out of the psych ward friends, I lost all interest.

Even though It's Kind of a Funny Story is too safe to be totally effective, it is definitely worth viewing. Galifinakis is the most unlikely Hollywood star, but he is making all of the right moves and in this movie he exudes a sort of Robin Williams in The Fisher King persona. He does not have to completely lose his Galifinakisness, but he stretches himself and makes the movie more than it would have been, I think. The overly tame, or white-washing of the psych ward in undoubtedly rub people the wrong way, as it did me, but there is enough in the cast to make the movie good.

Final Grade: C+

Red

Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich and Helen Mirren in the same movie lends itself to a lot of jokes about retirement homes, or at the very least bad old person jokes. The fact of the matter is, all four of these actors have a lot left in the tank, and honestly, Malkovich seems to just be having more fun as he gets older. While, I am not familiar with the source material, it is tailor made for Bruce Willis. If ever there was an old man who we had to believe could still beat people up while keeping his wits about him, it is Willis. If you want an all out action dude, go to Stallone, but if you need an old dude to kick ass, crack wise and be smart, Bruce Willis is your man. You need Freeman because he does the wily veteran thing so well and since every movie needs eye candy, we have Helen Mirren, sexy sexy Helen Mirren.

Frank Moses(Willis) has a secret. He is getting his social security checks, but he is ripping them up so he can call the office and tell the lady he is not getting them. He does this because he has a crush on the call operator, Sarah Ross(Mary Louise Parker) and he does not know how else to talk to her. Now that is not really his big secret, his big secret is that he used to be an American spy and now someone is coming after him with murderous intent. In order to find out how, Moses enlists the help of his old friends, Joe(Freeman), Marvin(Malkovich) and Victoria(Mirren). Joe is good with plans, Marvin has information and Victoria is a weapons goddess. Moses is not sure what is happening, but soon he is put in touch with the notes of a recently killed reporter and learns that in the 1980s the vice president went crazy with killing in the army and Moses and his crew may have been privy to that information. However, these old timers also have a ruthless Secret Service agent on their tail. William Cooper(the wonderful Karl Urban) is smart, savvy and brutal, but he also has ethics and to him, Moses is the man behind a bunch of serious crimes.

This year has seen more than its fair share of action comedies and a majority of them have failed more than they have succeeded. Red succeeds more than it fails, but not by the best of margins. The pacing is totally wonky, the constant freeze frames that are "wink wink, nudge nudge" moments of "HEY THIS IS A COMIC BOOK MOVIE" but it is also so much fun and the action is very much top notch. Willis and Co are clearly having a blast as the old people still shooting guns, punching people out and running from the bad guys. Malkovich has perfected this crazy guy routine that Christopher Walken used to have on lock, Willis looks more invested in a movie than he has in years, Freeman cannot wipe the giant smile off of his face and no one has ever looked like they were having more fun shooting a Gatling Gun than Helen Mirren. Mary Louise Parker is merely along for the ride but even she is having a blast playing this girl who is in for the ride of her life and finds herself very turned on by a guy in action.

the script has some nice jokes and a few great gags, but I think, on the page it probably is a bit lackluster. It is one of those movies fully brought out by the cast and because they have all bought into the movie, the movie gets a nice boost. Red starts strong, and finishes incredibly strong, but it lags big time in the middle. I think the film was hoping introducing the crazy Malkovich character half way through would allow them to slow the movie down without losing the punch, but it nearly derails the movie, not because Malkovich does not work, but because they put it all on him and do not keep the forward momentum going. As the group tries to figure out the plot, the movie lingers in this limbo between action and comedy, but neither gets much to do. I did enjoy the little action sequence at the airport, including the absolutely ridiculous climax to that scene, but other than that, the movie loses its way.

Luckily Red gets back on track and in a major way. The climatic action sequence is absolutely phenomenal. It gives us wonderful stunts, seriously awesome gun play, a little emotion, sexy Helen Mirren and then, while the twist is not much of a twist, it gives us a satisfying conclusion. It is a well paced, well thought out and excellently executed conclusion to an up and down film. It is such a good action sequence that it pushed the movie into that realm of succeeding more than failing. Red does not set the genre on fire, nor will I really remember much of it in a few months, but it was an entertaining distraction and it is fun to watch a group of people having such a good damn time at work.

Final Grade: C+

Life as We know it

There is no good reason for me wanting to see this movie, but I want to. There was something in the trailer that made me think, maybe, just maybe, this would not be exactly what you think it is going to be. There is something about a movie that has a character pushing a baby down that makes you wonder what else might be in there. I am not opposed to Katherine Heigl or her movies, even if they all look the same and the director, Greg Berlanti, has done some great stuff on television. My biggest concern was that this movie would bring out my desire to be a father. I call it the Definitely, Maybe syndrome. I see a movie where the father child relationship is totally adorable and it fills me with the desire to be a father. it makes me fall in love with the movie for no good reason and leaves me feeling all sentimental and gushy. Who wants that??

Holly(Heigl) and Messer(Josh Duhamel)went on one blind date 5 years ago and it was a disaster. They were so incompatible that they did not even make it to dinner. Holly hoped they would never see each other again, but seeing as they were set up by a couple who happened to be the best friend of both Holly and Messer, that was never going to happen. Holly was the maid of honor and Messer was the best man at this couple's wedding and, yes they turn out to be the God Parents of this couple's baby girl, Sophie. After a car accident claims Sophie's parents, Holly and Messer are left Sophie to raise as their kid. Holly, of course, wants a family at some point, but never imagined it this way and Messer is stuck in frat boy mode, hence going by Messer. The arrangement goes Holly and Messer live in this couple's house and raise Sophie together, but since they hate each other, they maintain their single life, by taking days off and alternating weekends off. This arrangement will only be full time if they can pull it off and get a pass from Child Protective Services which will stop by at, of course, the most inopportune times for check ups.

I am not sure exactly how many of her movies begin with her getting ready for a date, but Katherine Heigl must choose movies based on whether or not the movie begins with her dressing for, or getting ready to go on a first date. Also, she excels in playing women who succeed in business, but are uptight, clumsy and in desperate need of a night of great sex. Duhamel is going to be constantly playing guys who were awesome in college and never want to grow up. So, it makes to put these two actors in this movie where they can play perfectly within their comfort zone and even without the trailer or the poster, or having nay knowledge of what the movie was about, you knew from the first frame these two would eventually sleep together. There movies where everything goes exactly the way you expect/want and it feels comforting. That is the reason romantic comedies are so popular, they deliver on everything you hope it will and you will be left feeling warm and fuzzy in the end. In some ways Life as We know it is exactly that movie, except, I was hoping it would not be. I was hoping the baby pushing scene would be indicative of the whole tone of this movie, not just a funny moment in a muddled mess of cliches.

There are some nice moments in the movie to be sure. I enjoyed a lot of the baby stuff, even if it is not entirely original and I thought that Heigl and Dumahel were great with the baby stuff and their chemistry towards each other was pretty good. Their first kiss is pretty hot for a PG-13 movie and even though it led to exactly what I knew it would, I thought they kept the tension at a reasonable level for a while. There is some great comedy, but it all comes within the first hour or so of the movie as this ridiculous non-couple goes through trying to figure out how to raise a baby. The movie peppers scenes with wacky neighbors, like the gay couple who pretends to like sports, the liar neighbor with the hot wife, the gossipy lady with a ton of kids, those generic types of movie neighbors.

Life as We Know it, I think, does what it set out to do, I just wish it had set out to be a bit more ambitious. I feel like at some point the script had more bite to it. I think somewhere in that film is a stronger, more subversive movie that just got its teeth knocked out by a studio, or a producer or something. I could be wrong, but it feels like something got lost in this movie. There are these great, sort of biting moments that made me perk up, but they were so short lived that the script felt like a cut and paste job from a few different writers. I cannot really back this opinion with too much evidence, it is just a feeling I have from watching so many movies. Somewhere in the world is a script with this title that is better than the one that ended up on the screen.

Final Grade: C-

Buried

Movies with a specific gimmick intrigue me. I remember watching a movie that was split into four screens and the whole movie was showing the action from four different perspectives the entire time, or the hand-held camera gimmick, or a movie called Look which is shot in all security cameras. There are movies where the whole thing takes place in one room, or one set, or almost all one set. I love Phone Booth for that reason. I am also interested in movies that essentially ask us to watch 1 actor the entire time. Castaway is pretty much just us and Tom Hanks and to a certain extent, I am Legend is just us and Will Smith. It takes a pretty specific kind of actor to hold the screen without anyone else. When I first heard of Buried it was already cast. Ryan Reynolds buried alive in a casket and we see no one else. That was all I needed to be hooked into the idea. I have been a fan of Reynolds since Two Guys a girl and a Pizza Place, and am happy to see his recent success, but also happy he makes interesting project choices to feed his artistic soul along with the commercial projects.

Paul Conroy(Reynolds) wakes up in pitch black, completely unsure of where he is. He cannot move much, but he can get to his pockets and in his pocket is a lighter. He gets the lighter lit and realizes he has been buried alive. A phone rings. He does not get to it in time, but he has a phone and he calls his wife, and gets the machine. Next he tries to remember the special number he was given in case of emergency. The phone rings again and he answers. It is a man who says he wants 5 million dollars or Paul will be killed. Paul gets in touch with the F.B.I and tells him his name and that he is a civilian truck driver in Iraq. His pockets also have a pencil in them to write phone numbers on the inside of his coffin. The kidnapper wants him to make a hostage video with the phone and provides Paul with a script and lights. The man Paul is in contact with at the F.B.I thinks it is a bad idea, but Paul does not want to die and he wants to stall in hopes he will, somehow, he found.

Not only is Buried set in one location, the location is a coffin just a little bit longer, wider and deeper than Ryan Reynolds frame. In order to pull this off and not have it come off as just a gimmick or to even have it be a good movie, everyone involved has to be in top shape. Ridrigo Cortes directs and edits the movie from his own script and in his second feature length film, Cortes proves to be quite a talent. Buried is an intense thrill ride that manages to have twists and turns all without leaving a coffin. His script does a great job of giving the story an arc, but it really boils down to how the movie was made. It was very clever to give the audience different kinds of lights. It added this dimension to the film when we see the coffin lit at different times with a cell phone, the lighter, a flashlight that only occasionally worked and two of those neon green light sticks. Instead of needing to constantly edit and switch angles to keep things fresh, using these different lighting techniques really added that. Of course, the editing and camera angles and zooms in and out are important because, again, we are seeing a movie shot in basically a 7ft x 6ft x 5ft movie set.

Ryan Reynolds does a wonderful job as well. He clearly has no vanity in him as he is not afraid to totally lose his cool and go places that might come off as cheesy or over the top by an actor too afraid to fully commit, but he commits 100% and he rewards the audience with wonderfully claustrophobic performance that is all over the emotional map. He does not get to be too nuanced in the character, but he does get sympathy from the audience and there was never a time where I thought he was not literally trapped in a coffin. The voice acting from the various other people was all top notch as well and it really helped keep the tension moving to have the voices from these unseen people. Many movies would cut away to these other places, but because we only ever saw Reynolds reactions, it made the film seem smaller and that kind of feeling is absolutely necessary for this film to work.

Buried features the most intense scene involving a snake I have seen in a movie and that is saying something. it also left me exhausted, frustrated, tense and outright angry. It goes on longer than I thought it would, but it actually worked. I figured a movie with such a small scope should run about 80 minutes and if you take away the trailers, the movie still ran closer to 95 minutes. 15 minutes may not appear to be much, but trust me, many movies would be better if they shaved 15 minutes off. Yet this movie that should have felt bloated at 95 minutes, actually felt exactly right. Roger Ebert says a good movie can never be too long and a bad movie can never be too short and while I am not sure I agree with him, Buried makes every second of its run time count.

Final Grade: B+

Let me In

There is a part of me that thinks I need to create a post of Kyle Movie Rules, and link to it instead of restating certain things for any new potential reader. Let The Right One In, which is the foreign film on which this film is based, is an amazing drama about a young vampire girl. I feel like the movie is looked at as more amazing in this Twilight world because of how unsexy it is made to be. That is not to say the movie is not amazing, but I think it got elevated by being completely different. That being said, a Kyle Movie Rule is that you never base your opinion of a remake on your feeling towards the original. I hope to never once in a review say "The Original was better." It may seem like an impossible task, but I feel it is important not to judge a movie based on the source material. I believe it is a fundamental right of every movie to be viewed without those preconceived notions on what a movie is supposed to be. Matt Reeves, the director of the oft debated (in my social circle) Cloverfield, deserved me coming in fresh and I always want to deliver, so it was with fresh eyes that I viewed Let me In.

Owen(Kodi Smit-Mcphee) is a bullied young man without a great family life (his mother is never shown to us full faced). He loves to eat candy, but is not allowed to and he does not have a single friend. he also has dark dark fantasies of stabbing women to death while wearing a mask and he spies on his neighbors having sex or working out. When he gets new neighbors, he appears immediately intrigued by the young girl Abby(Chloe Moretz). When Owen and Abby meet, Abby tells him straight up that they cannot be friends, but the bond is formed regardless. Abby lives with a man with secrets who kills people and drains their blood. Why does he do that? Well, Abby is a vampire. She is a 12 year old vampire and the man is her...well we do not really know. Abby needs the blood to not look and smell like death. The bond between Owen and Abby grows exponentially quickly and Abby fears it is only a matter of time he find out. When the man has an accident during one of his hopeful kills, the cops start showing up and asking questions and Abby's life starts to unravel and her secret becomes clear to Owen.

This will be the only comparison I make between the original and the remake: Whereas Let the Right one In was a dramatic film with horror aspects, Let me In is a horror film with dramatic aspects. Let me In is a masterful American horror film. It takes the basic premise of Let the Right One In and gives it an American wash set to the tune of horror, or suspense. There is definitely enough gore to please those suffering from a need for bloodlust, but the movie is not drenched in gore. Matt Reeves, who did such a great job building suspense and tension surrounding the monster in Cloverfield, has done it again here. There are entire scenes where the tension builds so insanely that I felt like I was being suffocated. He delivers a whopper of a scene when the caretaker of Abby has his accident and the pay off after the tension is exactly perfect. I am very impressed by Matt Reeves and think he is going to have a lot of great work in the genre of horror for a long time. He understands where the place for gore is and he understands how, at times, what we do not see can be much more scary than what we do see. He plays with light and dark in a wonderfully frightful way.

The film really hinges on the two young performers and how they react to each other and the kids do solid work. I am not sure they had the kind of chemistry I would have liked, but they both sold the film and they were good enough together to buy the premise of the film. Mcphee is a nice young actor, but I am not sure if he can succeed in anything where he is not supposed to be sad. he just has the perfect look for this type of movie, but he does definitely act well enough to gain our sympathy from the beginning of the film and goes through enough of a transition to buy the drastic switch in the character in a particularly brutal moment. Moretz is a young, very gifted actress I hope has a long and healthy career. She fills Abby with such a heartbreaking sadness that I kept wondering what Abby had been through in all of her years as a vampire. I kept waiting for her to want to be staked or set on fire. For an actress who has done a few things where her characters are so full of life, it was quite jarring to see this. She has always played little girls with an edge, but this was just such a difference in tone.

Let me In kept my attention, had me gasping for air and delivered on every moment of tension in an interesting way. I still think maybe the relationship between the two leads could have been stronger and the tempo does get derailed momentarily in the middle, but it never gets too far off track. As far as American horror films go, this one is top notch. I was pleasantly surprised with the film in every way. Matt Reeves has officially put himself on the list of directors whose careers I will be watching closely. he took a risk by adapting such a well received film and by doing it only a few years later, but by changing the tone, he crafted this wonderful film that will hopefully be found by audiences some day.

Final Grade: B+